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Informationen zum Autor Ruth Rendell Klappentext The woods outside of Kingsmarkham were lovely! dark! and deep. And they were about to vanish forever when the new highway cut through them. While Chief Inspector Wexford privately despaired about the loss of his hiking grounds! local residents and outsiders were organizing a massive protest. Some of them were desperate enough to kidnap five hostages and threaten to kill them. One hostage was Wexford's wife! Dora. Now! combining high technology with his extraordinary detecting skills! Wexford and his team race to find the kidnappers' whereabouts. Because someone has crossed from political belief to fanaticism! and as the first body is found! good intentions may become Wexford's personal path to hell. He had done all the things one does in these circumstances: phoned hospitals, checked at the police station what road accidents there had been that day--only a car going into the back of another on the old bypass--phoned next door and talked to his neighbor. Mary Pearson hadn't seen Dora since the afternoon of the day before but she had seen a car parked outside that morning. At about ten forty-five, she thought it was. Maybe a few minutes earlier. "That would be for the eleven-oh-three," said Wexford. "She was allowing herself a lot of time." "She always does. Was it a black taxi?" "It was a red car, I don't know the make, I'm afraid I don't know about cars, Reg. I didn't see her get in it." "Did you see the driver?" Mary Pearson hadn't. She sensed at last that something was wrong. "You mean you don't know where she's got to, Reg?" If he admitted it the whole street would be talking within the hour. "She must have told me but it's slipped my mind," he said, and added, "Don't worry," as if she would worry and he wouldn't. Kingsmarkham Cabs used black taxis, so Dora hadn't gone with them. And she couldn't have used Contemporary Cars because they were out of action from about ten-fifteen until just after midday. So much for the caution he'd forgotten to give her, yet for which there had been no need . . . He phoned All the Sixes, Station Taxis, and every local company he could find in the phone book. None of them had picked up Dora that morning. He was beginning to have that feeling of unreality that comes over us when something utterly unexpected and potentially terrible happens. Where was she? Now he wished he had been discreet, had told Sheila some lie as to her mother's whereabouts, for he had to phone her again and say he had no idea what had happened, he had no clue. Holding old-fashioned ideas about postparturient women, he thought shocks would be dangerous, an upset would dry up her milk, fear would delay her recovery. It was too late now. Sheila wailed down the phone at him. "What do you mean, you don't know what's happened, Pop? Where is she? She must have had some ghastly accident!" "That she has not had. She'd be in a hospital and she's not." He could hear Paul saying soothing things. Then the baby began to cry, strong, urgent staccato screams. It can't be true, was what he wanted to say, this can't be happening. We are dreaming the same dream, nightmaring the same nightmare, and we shall wake up soon. But he had to be strong, the paterfamilias, the rock. "Sheila, I am doing everything I can. Your mother is not injured, your mother is not dead. These things I would know. I'll phone you as soon as I know more." He went into the kitchen and poured the soup down the sink. It was nearly half-past eight and dusk, darkness coming. An oval orange moon was climbing up behind the roofs. He asked himself what he would think if this was someone else's wife. The answer was easy: that she'd left him, gone off with another man. Women did it all the time, women of all ages, after m...
