Présentation de l'éditeur The Monster in the Box is the latest addition to Ruth Rendell’s “masterful” (Los Angeles Times) Inspector Wexford series.In this enthralling new book, Rendell, “the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world” (Time), takes Inspector Wexford back to his first murder case—a woman found strangled in her bedroom. Outside the crime scene, Wexford noticed a short, muscular man wearing a scarf and walking a dog. The man gave Wexford an unnerving stare. Without any solid evidence, Wexford began to suspect that this man—Eric Targo—was the killer. Over the years there are more unsolved, apparently motiveless murders in the town of Kingsmarkham. Now, half a lifetime later, Wexford spots Targo back in Kingsmarkham after a long absence. Wexford tells his longtime partner, Mike Burden, about his suspicions, but Burden dismisses them as fantasy. Meanwhile, Burden’s wife, Jenny, has suspicions of her own. She believes that the Rahmans, a highly respectable immigrant family from Pakistan, may be forcing their daughter, Tamima, into an arranged marriage—or worse. Extrait The Monster in the Box 1 HE HAD NEVER told anyone. The strange relationship, if it could be called that, had gone on for years, decades, and he had never breathed a word about it. He had kept silent because he knew no one would believe him. None of it could be proved, not the stalking, not the stares, the conspiratorial smiles, not the killings, not any of the signs Targo had made because he knew that Wexford knew and could do nothing about it. It had gone on for years and then it had stopped. Or seemed to have stopped. Targo was gone. Back to Birmingham yet again or perhaps to Coventry. A long time had passed since he had been seen in Kingsmarkham, and Wexford had thought it was all over. Thought with regret, not relief, because if Targo disappeared—more to the point, if Targo never did it again—what hope had he of bringing the man to justice? Still, he had almost made up his mind he would never see him anymore. He would never again set eyes on that short, muscular figure with the broad shoulders and the thick, sturdy legs, the coarse, fairish hair, blunt features, and bright blue eyes—and the mark that must always be kept covered up. Wexford had only once seen him without the scarf he wore wrapped round his neck, a wool scarf in winter, a cotton or silk one in summer, a scarf that belonged to one of his wives perhaps, no matter so long as it covered that purple-brown birthmark which disfigured his neck, crept up to his cheek, and dribbled down to his chest. He had seen him only once without a scarf, never without a dog. Eric Targo. Older than Wexford by seven or eight years, a much-married man, van driver, property developer, kennels proprietor, animal lover, murderer. It was coincidence or chance—Wexford favoured the latter—that he was thinking about Targo for the first time in weeks, wondering what had happened to him, pondering and dismissing the rumour that he was back living in the area, regretting that he had never proved anything against him, when the man appeared in front of him, a hundred yards ahead. There was no doubt in his mind, even at that distance, even though Targo’s shock of hair was quite white now. He still strutted, straight-backed, the way a short man carries himself, and he still wore a scarf. In his left hand, on the side nearest to Wexford, he carried a laptop computer. Or, to be accurate, a case made to hold a laptop. Wexford was in his car. He pulled to the side of Glebe Road and switched off the engine. Targo had got out of a white van and gone into a house on the same side as Wexford was parked. No dog? Wexford had to decide whether he wanted Targo to see him. Perhaps it hardly mattered. How long was it? Ten years? More? He got out of the car and began to walk in the direction of the house Targo had gone into. It was one of a terrace between a jerry-built block of flats and a row of small shops, an e
