One Across, Two Down (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) - Softcover

Rendell, Ruth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375704949 ISBN 13: 9780375704949

Verlag: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

   
   Two things interest Stanley Manning: crossword puzzles, and the substantial sum his wife Vera stands to inherit when his mother-in-law dies. Otherwise, life at 61 Lanchester Road is a living hell. For Mrs. Kinaway lives with them now—and she will stop at nothing to tear their marriage apart. One afternoon, Stanley sets aside his crossword puzzles and changes all their lives forever... 
    In One Across, Two Down, master crime writer Ruth Rendell describes a man whose strained sanity and stained reputation transform him from a witless loser into a killer afraid of his own shadow.  Mischievously plotted, smart, maddeningly entertaining, One Across, Two Down is a dark delight—classic Rendell.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ruth Rendell is the author of Road Rage, The Keys to the Street, Bloodlines, Simisola, and The Crocodile Bird. She is the winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award. She is also the recipient of three Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America and four Gold Daggers from Great Britain’s Crime Writers Association. In 1997, she was named a life peer in the House of Lords. Ruth Rendell also writes mysteries under the name of Barbara Vine, of which A Dark Adapted Eye is the most famous. She lives in England.

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Two things interest Stanley Manning: crossword puzzles, and the substantial sum his wife Vera stands to inherit when his mother-in-law dies. Otherwise, life at 61 Lanchester Road is a living hell. For she lives with them now--and she will stop at nothing to tear his marriage apart. One afternoon, Stanley lends death a helping hand. But very soon after the deed is done, he finds that his actions may cost him. In One Across, Two Down, master crime writer Ruth Rendell describes a man whose strained sanity and stained reputation transform him from a witless loser into a killer afraid of his own shadow.

Aus dem Klappentext

nterest Stanley Manning: crossword puzzles, and the substantial sum his wife Vera stands to inherit when his mother-in-law dies. Otherwise, life at 61 Lanchester Road is a living hell. For she lives with them now--and she will stop at nothing to tear his marriage apart. One afternoon, Stanley lends death a helping hand. But very soon after the deed is done, he finds that his actions may cost him. In One Across, Two Down, master crime writer Ruth Rendell describes a man whose strained sanity and stained reputation transform him from a witless loser into a killer afraid of his own shadow.

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Blank Puzzle

1

Vera Manning was very tired. She was too tired even to answer her mother back when Maud told her to hurry up with getting the tea.

"There's no need to sulk," said Maud.

"I'm not sulking, Mother. I'm tired."

"Of course you are. That goes without saying. Anyone can see you're worn out with that job of yours. Now if Stanley had the gumption to get himself a good position and brought a decent wage home you wouldn't have to work. I never heard of such a thing, a woman of your age, coming up to the change, on her feet all day in a dry-cleaner's. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if Stanley was a man at all . . ."

"All right Mother," said Vera. "Let's give it a rest, shall we?"

But Maud, who scarcely ever stopped talking when there was anyone to listen to her and who talked to herself when she was alone, got out of her chair and, taking her stick, limped after Vera into the kitchen. Perching herself with some difficulty-she was a large heavily-built woman-on a stool, she surveyed the room with a distaste which was partly sincere and partly assumed for her daughter's benefit. It was clean but shabby, unchanged since the days when people expected to see a ganglion of water pipes protruding all over the walls and a dresser and built-in plaster copper requisite fitments. Presently, when the scornful glance had set the scene for fresh propaganda, Maud drew a deep breath and began again.

"I've scraped and saved all my life just so that there'd be something for you when I'm gone. D'you know what Ethel Carpenter said to me? Maud, she said, why don't you give it to Vee while she's young enough to enjoy it?"

Her back to Maud, Vera was cutting meat pie in slices and shelling hard-boiled eggs. "It's a funny thing, Mother," she said, "the way I'm an old woman one minute and a young one the next, whichever happens to suit your book."

Maud ignored this. "Why don't you give it to Vee now, she said. Oh no, I said. Oh no, it wouldn't be giving it to her, I said, it'd be giving it to that no-good husband of hers. If he got his hands on my money, I said, he'd never do another hand's turn as long as he lived."

"Move over a bit, would you, Mother? I can't get at the kettle."

Shifting an inch or two, Maud patted her thick grey curls with a lady's idle white hand. "No," she said, "while I've got breath in my body my savings are staying where they are, invested in good stock. That way maybe Stanley'll come to his senses. When you have a nervous breakdown, and that's the way you're heading, my girl, maybe he'll pull his socks up and get a job fit for a man, not a teenager. That's the way I see it and that's what I said to Ethel in my last letter."

"Would you like to sit up now, Mother? It's ready."

Vera helped her mother into a chair at the dining room table and hooked her stick over the back of it. Maud tucked a napkin into the neckline of her blue silk dress and helped herself to a plateful of pork pie, eggs, green salad and mashed potato. Before starting on it, she swallowed two white tablets and washed them down with strong sweet tea. Then she lifted her knife and fork with a sigh of sensual pleasure. Maud enjoyed her food. The only time she was silent was when she was eating or asleep. As she was starting on her second piece of pie, the back door slammed and her son-in-law came in.

Stanley Manning nodded to his wife and gave a sort of grunt. His mother-in-law, who had temporarily stopped eating to fix him with a cold condemning eye, he ignored. The first thing he did after throwing his coat over the back of a chair was to turn on the television.

"Had a good day?" said Vera.

"Been up to my eyes in it since nine this morning." Stanley sat down, facing the television, and waited for Vera to pour him a cup of tea. "I'm whacked out, I can tell you. It's no joke being out in the open all day long in weather like this. To tell you the truth, I don't know how long I can keep on with it."

Maud sniffed. "Ethel Carpenter didn't believe me when I told her what you did for a living, if you can call it a living. A petrol pump attendant! She said that's what her landlady's son does in his holidays from college. Eighteen he is, just a student doing it for pin money."

"Ethel Carpenter can keep her nose out of my business, the old bag."

"Don't you use language like that about my friend!"

"Oh, pack it up, do," said Vera. I thought you were going to watch the film."

If Stanley and Maud were in accord over one thing it was their fondness for old films and now, having exchanged venomous glances, they settled down among the tea things to watch Jeanette MacDonald in The Girl of the Golden West. Vera, a little revived with two hot cups of tea, sighed thankfully and began clearing the table. Altercation would break out again, she knew, at eight o'clock when Stanley's favourite quiz programme conflicted with Maud's favourite serial. She dreaded Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Of course it was only natural that Stanley, with his passion for puzzles, should want to watch the quizzes that took place on those nights, and natural too that Maud, in common with five million other middle-aged and elderly women, should long for the next development in the complicated lives of the residents of "Augusta Alley." But why couldn't they come to an amicable arrangement like reasonable people? Because they weren't reasonable people, she thought, as she began the washing up. For her part, she couldn't care less about the television and sometimes she hoped the cathode ray tube would break or a valve go or something. Certainly the way things were, they wouldn't be able to afford to get it seen to.

Jeanette MacDonald was singing "Ave Maria" when she got back into the living room and Maud was accompanying her in a sentimental cracked soprano. Vera prayed for the song to end before Stanley did something violent like bringing Maud's stick down on the table with a thunderous crash, as he had done only the week before. But this time he contented himself with low mutterings and Vera leant her head against a cushion and closed her eyes.

Four years Mother's been here, she thought, four long years of unbroken hell. Why had she been so stupid and so impulsive as to agree to it in the first place? It wasn't as if Maud was ill or even really disabled. She'd made a marvellous recovery from that stroke. There was nothing wrong with her but for a weakness in the left leg and a little quirk to her mouth. She was as capable of looking after herself as any woman of seventy-four. But it was no good harking back now. The thing was done, Maud's house sold and all her furniture, and she and Stanley had got her till the day she died.

Maud's petulant angry wail started her out of her half-doze and made her sit up with a jerk.

"What are you turning over to I.T.V. for? I've been looking forward to my 'Augusta Alley' all day. We don't want that kids' stuff, a lot of schoolkids answering silly questions."

"Who pays the licence, I'd like to know?" said Stanley.

"I pay my share. Every week I turn my pension over to Vee. Ten shillings is the most I ever keep for my bits and pieces."

Stanley made no reply. He moved his chair closer to the set and got out pencil and paper.

"All day long I was looking forward to my serial," said Maud.

"Never mind, Mother," said Vera, trying to infuse a little cheerfulness into her tired voice. "Why don't you watch 'Oak Valley Farm' in the afternoons when we're at work? That's a nice serial, all about country...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0375704949
• ISBN 13: 9780375704949
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar