Publisher's Synopsis
In 1976 this acclaimed novel by Ruth Rendell was the winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award.
In a gloomy cellar, the figure of a palely beautiful woman makes no move when the man advances on her from the shadows, puts his hands around her neck and strangles her....
Two men rent flats in the same house, but their paths rarely cross. Arthur Johnson is quiet, 50 and a bachelor. No one knows of the dark lusts that bind Arthur to the pale lady in the cellar, that compel him to kill again and again. Anthony Johnson is a young student studying psychopathic tendencies, going to lectures and writing a thesis. His lover is trying to make up her mind whether she wants to stay with her husband or leave him to be with Anthony....
