Review
Chief Inspector Wexford is Rendell's most enduring and best creation --Daily Telegraph
As usual, Rendell mirrors aspects of the case in the leading characters' personal lives and her cleverly understated writing bathes them and their actions in a glow of reality that sets her writing above that of her many imitators. --Time Out
As always with Ruth Rendell's intricately thought-out novels, nothing is as simple as it seems. --Sunday Express
Superb plotting and psychological insight make this another Rendell gripper --Woman & Home
Utterly absorbing --Sunday Telegraph
As usual, Rendell mirrors aspects of the case in the leading characters' personal lives and her cleverly understated writing bathes them and their actions in a glow of reality that sets her writing above that of her many imitators. --Time Out
As always with Ruth Rendell's intricately thought-out novels, nothing is as simple as it seems. --Sunday Express
Superb plotting and psychological insight make this another Rendell gripper --Woman & Home
Utterly absorbing --Sunday Telegraph
Book Description
The nineteenth in the Chief Inspector Wexford series.
Two teenagers disappear. Their mother believes the worst. But Wexford has faith in his investigative abilities, even when the odds seem stacked against him.
Product Description
'A woman phoned to say she and her husband went to Paris for the weekend, leaving their children with a - well, teen-sitter, I suppose, got back last night to find the lot gone and naturally she assumes they've all drowned.'
There hadn't been anything like this kind of rain in living memory. The River Brede had burst its banks, and not a single house in the valley had escaped flooding. Even where Wexford lived, higher up in Kingsmarkham, the waters had nearly reached the mulberry tree in his once immaculate garden. The Subaqua Task Force could find no trace of Giles and Sophie Dade, let alone the woman who was keeping them company, Joanna Troy. But Mrs Dade was convinced her children were dead.
This was an investigation which would call into question many of Wexford's assumptions about the way people behaved, including his own family . . .
(20021018)About the Author
Ruth Rendell has won many awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for 1976's best crime novel with A Demon in My View; a second Edgar in 1984 from the Mystery Writers of America for the best short story, 'The New Girl Friend'; and a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986. She was also the winner of the 1990 Sunday Times Literary award, as well as the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer. (20021018)
Excerpted from The Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Kingsbrook was not usually visible from his window. Not its course, nor its twisty meanders, nor the willows which made a double fringe along its banks. But he could see it now, or rather see what it had become, a river as wide as the Thames but flat and still, a broad lake that filled its own valley, submerging its water meadows in a smooth silver sheet. Of the few houses that stood in that valley, along a lane which had disappeared leading from a bridge which had disappeared, only their roofs and upper storeys showed above the waters. He thought of his own house, on the other side of that gently rising lake, as yet clear of the floods, only the end of his garden lapped by an encroaching tide.
It was raining. But as he had remarked to Burden some four hours before, rain was no longer news, it was tedious to remark on it. The exciting thing worthy of comment was when it wasn't raining. He picked up the phone and called his wife.
'Much the same as when you went out,' she said. 'The end of the garden's under water but it hasn't reached the mulberry tree. I don't think it's moved. That's what I'm measuring by, the mulberry tree.'
'Good thing we don't breed silkworms,' said Wexford, leaving his wife to decipher this cryptic remark.
There hadn't been anything like it in this part of Sussex in living memory - not, at least, in his memory. In spite of a double wall of sandbags the Kingsbrook had inundated the road at the High Street bridge, flooded the Job Centre and Sainsbury's but miraculously - so far - spared the Olive and Dove Hotel. It was a hilly place and most of the dwellings on higher ground had escaped. Not so the High Street, Glebe Road, Queen and York Streets with their ancient shopfronts and overhanging eaves. Here the water lay a foot, two feet, in places three feet, deep. In St Peter's churchyard the tops of tombstones pierced a grey, rain-punctured lake like rocks showing above the surface of the sea. And still it rained.
According to the Environment Agency, the land in the flood plains of England and Wales was saturated, was waterlogged, so that none of this latest onslaught could drain away. There were houses in Kingsmarkham, and even more in flatter low-lying Pomfret, which had been flooded in October and were flooded again now at the end of November. Newspapers helpfully informed their readers that such 'properties' would be unsaleable, worth nothing. Their owners had left them weeks ago, gone to stay with relatives or in temporarily rented flats. The local authority had used up all the ten thousand sandbags it had ordered, scoffing at the possibility of half of them being used. Now they were all under the waters and more had been sent for but not arrived.
Wexford tried not to think about what would happen if another inch of rain fell before nightfall and the water reached and passed Dora's gauge, the mulberry. On the house side of the tree, from that point, the land sloped very gradually downwards until it came to a low wall, quite useless as a flood defence, that separated lawn from terrace and french windows. He tried not to think about it but still he pictured the water reaching and then pouring over that wall . . . Once more he reached for the phone but this time he only touched the receiver and withdrew his hand as the door opened and Burden came in.
'Still raining,' he said.
Wexford just looked at him, the kind of look you'd give something you'd found at the back of the fridge with a sell-by date of three months before.
'I've just heard a crazy thing, thought it might amuse you. You look as if you need cheering up.' He seated himself on the corner of the desk, a favourite perch. Wexford thought he was thinner than ever and looked rather as if he'd just had a facelift, total body massage and three weeks at a health farm. 'Woman phoned to say she and her husband went to Paris for the weekend, leaving their children with a - well, a teen-sitter, I suppose, got back late last night to find the lot gone and naturally she assumes they've all drowned.'
'That's amusing?'
'It's pretty bizarre, isn't it? The teenagers are fifteen and thirteen, the sitter's in her thirties, they can all swim and the house is miles above the floods.'
'Where is it?'
'Lyndhurst Drive.'
'Not far from me then. But miles above the floods. The water's slowly creeping up my garden.'
Burden put one leg across the other and swung his elegantly shod foot in negligent fashion. 'Cheer up. It's worse in the Brede Valley. Not a single house has escaped.' Wexford had a vision of buildings growing legs and running, pursued by an angry tide. 'Jim Pemberton has gone up there. Lyndhurst Drive, I mean. And he's alerted the Subaqua Task Force.'
'The what?'
'You must have heard of it.' Burden just avoided saying 'even you'. 'It's the joint enterprise of Kingsmarkham Council and the Fire Brigade. Mostly volunteers in wetsuits.'
'If it's amusing,' said Wexford, 'that is to say, if we aren't taking it seriously, why such extreme measures?'
'No harm in being on the safe side,' said Burden comfortably.
'All right, let me get this straight. These children - what are they, by the way? Boy and girl? And what's their name?'
It was raining. But as he had remarked to Burden some four hours before, rain was no longer news, it was tedious to remark on it. The exciting thing worthy of comment was when it wasn't raining. He picked up the phone and called his wife.
'Much the same as when you went out,' she said. 'The end of the garden's under water but it hasn't reached the mulberry tree. I don't think it's moved. That's what I'm measuring by, the mulberry tree.'
'Good thing we don't breed silkworms,' said Wexford, leaving his wife to decipher this cryptic remark.
There hadn't been anything like it in this part of Sussex in living memory - not, at least, in his memory. In spite of a double wall of sandbags the Kingsbrook had inundated the road at the High Street bridge, flooded the Job Centre and Sainsbury's but miraculously - so far - spared the Olive and Dove Hotel. It was a hilly place and most of the dwellings on higher ground had escaped. Not so the High Street, Glebe Road, Queen and York Streets with their ancient shopfronts and overhanging eaves. Here the water lay a foot, two feet, in places three feet, deep. In St Peter's churchyard the tops of tombstones pierced a grey, rain-punctured lake like rocks showing above the surface of the sea. And still it rained.
According to the Environment Agency, the land in the flood plains of England and Wales was saturated, was waterlogged, so that none of this latest onslaught could drain away. There were houses in Kingsmarkham, and even more in flatter low-lying Pomfret, which had been flooded in October and were flooded again now at the end of November. Newspapers helpfully informed their readers that such 'properties' would be unsaleable, worth nothing. Their owners had left them weeks ago, gone to stay with relatives or in temporarily rented flats. The local authority had used up all the ten thousand sandbags it had ordered, scoffing at the possibility of half of them being used. Now they were all under the waters and more had been sent for but not arrived.
Wexford tried not to think about what would happen if another inch of rain fell before nightfall and the water reached and passed Dora's gauge, the mulberry. On the house side of the tree, from that point, the land sloped very gradually downwards until it came to a low wall, quite useless as a flood defence, that separated lawn from terrace and french windows. He tried not to think about it but still he pictured the water reaching and then pouring over that wall . . . Once more he reached for the phone but this time he only touched the receiver and withdrew his hand as the door opened and Burden came in.
'Still raining,' he said.
Wexford just looked at him, the kind of look you'd give something you'd found at the back of the fridge with a sell-by date of three months before.
'I've just heard a crazy thing, thought it might amuse you. You look as if you need cheering up.' He seated himself on the corner of the desk, a favourite perch. Wexford thought he was thinner than ever and looked rather as if he'd just had a facelift, total body massage and three weeks at a health farm. 'Woman phoned to say she and her husband went to Paris for the weekend, leaving their children with a - well, a teen-sitter, I suppose, got back late last night to find the lot gone and naturally she assumes they've all drowned.'
'That's amusing?'
'It's pretty bizarre, isn't it? The teenagers are fifteen and thirteen, the sitter's in her thirties, they can all swim and the house is miles above the floods.'
'Where is it?'
'Lyndhurst Drive.'
'Not far from me then. But miles above the floods. The water's slowly creeping up my garden.'
Burden put one leg across the other and swung his elegantly shod foot in negligent fashion. 'Cheer up. It's worse in the Brede Valley. Not a single house has escaped.' Wexford had a vision of buildings growing legs and running, pursued by an angry tide. 'Jim Pemberton has gone up there. Lyndhurst Drive, I mean. And he's alerted the Subaqua Task Force.'
'The what?'
'You must have heard of it.' Burden just avoided saying 'even you'. 'It's the joint enterprise of Kingsmarkham Council and the Fire Brigade. Mostly volunteers in wetsuits.'
'If it's amusing,' said Wexford, 'that is to say, if we aren't taking it seriously, why such extreme measures?'
'No harm in being on the safe side,' said Burden comfortably.
'All right, let me get this straight. These children - what are they, by the way? Boy and girl? And what's their name?'
