The Saint Zita Society

OMNIBUSES:
COLLECTED SHORT STORIES

COLLECTED STORIES 2

WEXFORD: AN OMNIBUS

THE SECOND WEXFORD OMNIBUS

THE THIRD WEXFORD OMNIBUS

THE FOURTH WEXFORD OMNIBUS

THE FIFTH WEXFORD OMNIBUS

THREE CASES FOR CHIEF INSPECTOR WEXFORD

THE RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS

THE SECOND RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS

THE THIRD RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS

CHIEF INSPECTOR WEXFORD NOVELS:
FROM DOON WITH DEATH

A NEW LEASE OF DEATH

WOLF TO THE SLAUGHTER

THE BEST MAN TO DIE

A GUILTY THING SURPRISED

NO MORE DYING THEN

MURDER BEING ONCE DONE

SOME LIE AND SOME DIE

SHAKE HANDS FOR EVER

A SLEEPING LIFE

PUT ON BY CUNNING

THE SPEAKER OF MANDARIN

AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS

THE VEILED ONE

KISSING THE GUNNER’S DAUGHTER

SIMISOLA

ROAD RAGE

HARM DONE

THE BABES IN THE WOOD

END IN TEARS

NOT IN THE FLESH

THE MONSTER IN THE BOX

THE VAULT

SHORT STORIES:
THE FALLEN CURTAIN

MEANS OF EVIL

THE FEVER TREE

THE NEW GIRL FRIEND

THE COPPER PEACOCK

BLOOD LINES

PIRANHA TO SCURFY

NOVELLAS:
HEART-STONES

THE THIEF

NON-FICTION:
RUTH RENDELL’S SUFFOLK

RUTH RENDELL’S ANTHOLOGY OF THE MURDEROUS MIND

NOVELS:
TO FEAR A PAINTED DEVIL

VANITY DIES HARD

THE SECRET HOUSE OF DEATH

ONE ACROSS, TWO DOWN

THE FACE OF TRESPASS

A DEMON IN MY VIEW

A JUDGEMENT IN STONE

MAKE DEATH LOVE ME

THE LAKE OF DARKNESS

MASTER OF THE MOOR

THE KILLING DOLL

THE TREE OF HANDS

LIVE FLESH

TALKING TO STRANGE MEN

THE BRIDESMAID

GOING WRONG

THE CROCODILE BIRD

THE KEYS TO THE STREET

A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES

ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME

THE ROTTWEILER

THIRTEEN STEPS DOWN

THE WATER’S LOVELY

PORTOBELLO

TIGERLILY’S ORCHIDS

S
omeone had told Dex that the Queen lived in Victoria. So did he, but she had a palace and he had one room in a street off Warwick Way. Still, he liked the idea that she was his neighbour. He liked quite a lot about the new life he had been living for the past few months. He had this job with Dr Jefferson which meant he could work in a garden three mornings a week and Dr Jefferson had said he would speak to the lady next door about doing a morning for her. While he was drawing his incapacity benefit he had been told he shouldn’t get any wages, but Dr Jefferson never asked and maybe the lady called Mrs Neville-Smith wouldn’t either.

Jimmy, who drove Dr Jefferson to work at the hospital every day, had asked him round to the pub that evening. The pub, which was on the corner of Hexam Place and Sloane Gardens, was called the Dugong, a funny name that Dex had never heard before. There was going to be a meeting there for all the people who worked in Hexam Place. Dex had never been to a meeting of any sort and he didn’t know if he would like it but Jimmy had promised to buy him a Guinness which was his favourite drink. He would have drunk a Guinness every evening with his tea if he could have afforded it. He was halfway along the Pimlico Road when he got out his mobile and looked to see if there was a message or a text from Peach.
There sometimes was and it always made him feel happy. Usually the message called him by his name and said he had been so good that Peach was giving him ten free calls or something like that. There was nothing this time but he knew there would be again or even that Peach might speak to him. Peach was his god. He knew that because when the lady upstairs saw him smiling at his mobile and making a message come back over and over she said, Peach is your god, Dex.

He needed a god to protect him from the evil spirits. It was quite a while since he had seen any of them and he knew this was because Peach was protecting him, just as he knew if there was one near him that he should look out for, Peach would warn him. He trusted Peach as he had never trusted any human being.

He stopped outside the Dugong which he knew well because it was next door to Dr Jefferson’s house. Not joined on to but next door, for Dr Jefferson’s was big and standing alone and with a large garden for him to look after. The pub sign was some kind of big fish with half its body sticking out of blue wavy water. He knew it was a fish because it was in the sea. He pushed the door open and there was Jimmy, waving to him in a friendly way. The other people round the big table all looked at him but he could tell at once that none of them were evil spirits.

‘I
am not a servant.’ Thea helped herself to a handful of mixed nuts. ‘You may be but I’m not.’

‘What are you then?’ said Beacon.

‘I don’t know. I just do little jobs for Damian and Roland. You want to remember I’ve got a degree.’

‘Blessed is she who sitteth not in the seat of the scornful.’ Beacon moved the bowl out of Thea’s reach. ‘If you’re going
to eat from the common nuts you ought not to put your hand in among them when it’s been in your mouth.’

‘Don’t quarrel, children,’ said June. ‘Let’s be nice. If you’re not a servant, Thea, you won’t be eligible to join the Saint Zita Society.’

It was August and the day had been sunny and very warm. The full complement of those who would compose the society couldn’t be there. Rabia, being a Muslim and a nanny, never went out in the evening let alone to a pub; Zinnia, cleaner for the Princess and the Stills and Dr Jefferson, didn’t live in, and Richard was cooking dinner for Lady Studley’s guests while Sondra, his wife, waited at table. Montserrat, the Stills’ au pair, said she might come but she had a mysterious task to perform later, and the newly arrived Dex, gardener to Dr Jefferson, never opened his mouth except to say, ‘Cheers.’ But Henry was still expected, and as June was complaining about the Dugong’s nuts being unsalted and therefore tasteless, he walked in.

With his extreme height and marked resemblance to Michelangelo’s David, in days gone by he would have been footman material. Indeed, it was a matter of fact that in 1882 his great-great-great-grandfather had been footman to a duke. He was the youngest of the group after Montserrat and although he looked like a Hollywood star of the thirties, he was in reality driver and sometime gardener and handyman to Lord Studley, performing the tasks that Richard couldn’t or wouldn’t do. His employer referred to him with a jovial laugh as his ‘general factotum’. He was never called Harry or Hal.

Beacon said it was Jimmy’s round and what was Henry going to have. ‘The house white, please.’

‘That’s not for men. That’s lady juice.’

‘I’m not a man, I’m a boy. And I’m not drinking beer or spirits till next week when I’m twenty-five. Did you see there’s
been another boy stabbed? Down on the Embankment. That makes three this week.’

‘We don’t have to talk about it, Henry,’ said June.

One who plainly didn’t want to talk about it was Dex, who drank the last of his Guinness, got up and left, saying nothing. June watched him go, said, ‘No manners, but what can you expect? Now we have to talk about the society. How do you set up a society, anyway?’

Jimmy said in a heavy ponderous tone, ‘You pick a chairman, only you mustn’t call him a chairman because he may be a lady. You call him a chair.’

‘I’m not calling any bloke a piece of furniture.’ Thea reached for the nuts bowl. ‘Why can’t we make Jimmy the chairperson and June the secretary and the rest of us just members? Then we’re away. This can be the inception meeting of the Saint Zita Society.’