Product Description

A Reg Wexford mystery. The Chief Inspector could discover no motive, no reason and no suspect for Mrs Hathall's daughter-in-law's murder - all he had were his own intuitive suspicions. Probably Angela Hathall really had picked up a stranger, and that stranger had killed her. But why the doubt?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53997 in Books
• Published on: 1994-04-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Excerpted from Shake Hands for Ever by Ruth Rendell. Copyright © 1994. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1

The woman standing under the departures board at Victoria station has a flat rectangular body and an iron-hard rectangular face. A hat of fawn-coloured corrugated felt rather like a walnut shell encased her head, her hands were gloved in fawn-coloured cotton, and at her feet was the durable but scarcely used brown leather suitcase she had taken on her honeymoon forty-five years before. Her eyes scanned the scurrying commuters while her mouth grew more and more set, the lips thinning to a hairline crack.

She was waiting for her son. He was one minute late and his unpunctuality had begun to afford her a glowing satisfaction. She was hardly aware of this pleasure and, had she been accused of it, would have denied it, just as she would have denied the delight all failure and backsliding in other people brought her. But it was present as an undefined sense of well-being that was to vanish almost as soon as it had been born and be succeeded on Robert’s sudden hasty arrival by her usual ill-temper. He was so nearly on time as to make remarks on his lateness absurd, so she contented herself with offering her leathery cheek to his lips saying:

There you are then.

'Have you got your ticket?' said Robert Hathall.
She hadn’t. She knew that money had been tight with him for the three years of his second marriage, but that was his fault. Paying her share would only encourage him.
'You’d better go and get them,' she said, 'unless you want us to miss the train', and she held even more tightly her zipped up handbag.

He was a long time about it. She noted that the Eastbourne train, stopping at Toxborough, Myringham and Kingsmarkham, was due to depart at six-twelve, and it was five past now. No fully formed uncompromising thought that it would be nice to miss the train entered her mind, any more than she had consciously told herself it would be nice to find her daughter-in-law in tears, the house filthy and no meal cooked, but once more the seeds of pleasurable resentment began germinating. She had looked forward to this weekend with a deep contentment, certain it would go wrong. Nothing would suit her better than that it should begin to go wrong by their arriving late through no fault of hers, and that their lateness should result in a quarrel between Robert and Angela. But all this smouldered silent and unanalysed under her immediate awareness that Robert was making a mess of things again.

Nevertheless, the caught the train. It was crowded and they both had to stand. Mrs Hathall never complained. She would have fainted before citing her age and her varicose veins as reasons why this or that man should give up his seat to her. Stoicism governed her. Instead, she planted her thick body which, buttoned up in a stiff fawn coat, had the appearance of a wardrobe, in such a way as to prevent the passenger in the window seat from moving his legs or reading his newspaper. She had only one thing to say to Robert and that could keep till there were fewer listeners, and she found it hard to suppose he could have anything to say to her. Hadn’t they, after all, spent every weekday evening together for the past two months? But people, she had noticed with some puzzlement, were prone to chatter when they had nothing to say. Even her own son was guilty of this. She listened grimly while he went on about the beautiful scenery through which they would soon pass, the amenities of Bury Cottage, and how much Angela was looking forward to seeing her. Mrs Hathall permitted herself to a kind of snort at this last, a two-syllabled grunt made somewhere in her glottis that could be roughly interpreted as a laugh. Her lips didn’t move. She was reflecting on the one and only time she had met her daughter-in-law, in that room in Earls Court, when Angela had committed the outrage of referring to Eileen as a greedy bitch. Much would have to be done, many amends would have to be made, before that indiscretion could be forgotten. Mrs Hathall remembered how she had marched straight out of that room and down the stairs, resolving never – never under any circumstances – to see Angela again. It only proved how forbearing she was that she was going to Kingsmarkham now.