by Sarah Dunant
A Christmas card dropped from the envelope onto the snow: a black-and-white ink-drawing of a church with a radiant colored star above it. She picked it up. The Messiah comes to Holloway. When you can’t have sex, there is always religion. Inside, the message was followed by Catherine Baker’s pretty little script:
“We light the candles tonight. The service starts at midnight, and tomorrow we do a family service at ten with a glass of mulled wine at the vicarage afterward. Do come. All spirits welcome. Hope things are better. Call if you need help. Anytime, remember.”
Christmas. The time of goodwill to all men. All except one, that is.
twenty-four
The trouble with visitors is they play havoc with your schedule. Nevertheless it felt invigorating, suddenly having so much to do. She walked through the house seeing it all afresh through Sally’s eyes: the cup stains, the unvacuumed carpets, the neglect, the dirt. It wouldn’t do to give the wrong impression.
It took her the best part of two hours to turn the place around. There was something in the physical effort—the scrubbing, the vacuuming, and the polishing—that made her feel better. The sweat of housework; in a world where everything else was breaking down the pleasure of imposed domestic order seemed all the sweeter.
There was no time to enjoy it, though. Having left Christmas to the last minute, there were a million things that had to be done. With the weather this cruel it would probably be as quick to walk as to take the car, but if she did that she wouldn’t have enough hands to carry it all. She made a list, then divided it into two.
She concentrated on the hardware and electrical stuff first: two sets of Christmas lights, a packet of wood stain, and one of filler. Back home in the cellar, in what had once been Tom’s workshop, she found a couple of hefty screwdrivers and a wrench or two. Not enough to build anything, but sufficient to destroy.
The lock man had been thorough. She could explain away the second lock being open by saying she had mislaid the key, but the extra bolts were well screwed in and she ended up having to gouge a number of ugly crevices in the wood to get them out. She filled the holes as best she could. They looked awful, but presumably the wood stain would help. How long would the filler take to dry? A couple of hours? She had time. She turned her attention to unnailing the cat flap. His window was dark. Just as well. It wouldn’t do for him to arrive too early.
The next trip was more festive. In the market the best trees had already gone, leaving only the oversized or straggly ones tied to the railings. She gave it some thought; it was like picking the runt of the litter, offering it a good home. A dog is forever, but a tree is only for Christmas so make sure it’s a happy one. She went for the tallest one she could carry and bargained the salesman down so she still had enough money for flowers and a holly wreath. “And a very merry Christmas to you, darling,” he said as he pocketed her thirty quid.
She propped the tree against the phone booth while she made the call. Her number rang three times, then the answering machine clicked on. Quietly she replaced the receiver. Better to be safe than sorry.
At home she set up the tree in the living room next to the window, ramming it into a bucket and supporting it with a set of broken bricks. The central heating loosed the sap and the sweet smell of death brought in a memory rush: hothouse family stuff, forced gaiety, and too many glasses of sherry. But this was not an occasion for self-pity. It had been so long since she had dressed a tree she hadn’t been sure of how many decorations to buy, but the lights and the shredded strings of silver looked good, and if you favored the side that was facing the window it would seem generous enough from the street. She fixed the wreath to the front door using the garden twine (nice touch, she thought), then stood back to admire the view. Very festive. Welcoming, even. She checked the garbage. It was still there, the edges of the black bag folded back around it like fat, misshapen petals. He would come, like a bee to the pollen. How could he not? When the rest of the world was curled up in the bosom of their families he would be on the lookout for the lonely ones to pick off. Someone to share the misery. And he already knew how much she cared.
In the kitchen the wood filler was still tacky. She sanded it down as best she could then applied the stain. She thought of taking down the sheet and opening up the kitchen doors to help it dry, another signal of welcome in a frozen world, but timing was everything, and she still had things to do. She started to unplug the computer.
It was just after four when she phoned the police. Her plump young sergeant was out on a call, but she made it sound urgent, giving the desk sergeant enough information to tickle his taste buds and make sure the right person got to hear of it. He took a number and told her that someone would contact her later. They called back in less than fifteen minutes.
As far as she could tell it was not the man she had talked to before, but she doctored her voice anyway, just to be on the safe side. He certainly listened hard enough, though that could have been less because of what she was telling him.
“—and you say there was someone standing at your window?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Not really. I mean, it was dark when I came into the kitchen and as soon as I spotted him I was so scared I turned on the light and he immediately ran away.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He disappeared into the darkness at the end of the garden. The wall isn’t that high and from there, well, from there he could have gone anywhere.”
“But you don’t know where?”
“Well, actually, I did see a couple of lights go on across the way a few moments later, but I can’t tell you exactly which windows. And they might not have been him. I mean, it could have been coincidence.”
He paused and she heard a scraping of paper. “And you live on . . . Dalmead Road, yes?”
“Yes.”
“So what would be the street that backs onto yours?”
“Er . . . gosh . . . I don’t know. Well, wait a minute. . . . I suppose it must be the Crescent. Yes, Montague Crescent.”
“Right. And you say this was when?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“So before the snow?”
“Yes.” No footprints. Well, you can’t have everything.
“And you’ve not reported this till now, is that right?”
“No. I mean, I did tell the other man—the other officer—when I called about the things that I thought had been happening in my kitchen. But I hadn’t seen anyone then and, well, to be honest I don’t think he was all that impressed by what I said.”
“And now you think they’re connected?”
“Yes,” she said quietly but firmly. “Yes, I do.”
“Well, we do get a lot of calls. But I’m certain the officer you spoke to would have treated the matter seriously. I’ll make sure I see his report.”
There was a pause. How tasty did she have to make it before they bit? They weren’t there yet, obviously. I’m getting good at tempting men, she thought. Just flash them a little more flesh. “Er . . . there is one other thing.”
“Yes?”
“I mean, it’s what made me decide to call you. When I woke up this morning I discovered there was a message on my answering machine. I think it’s from him.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, it’s sort of threatening.”
“What does it say?”
“That’s the point. I didn’t really understand it. But it’s something about cutting me up. . . .”
There was a fraction of a pause. “You’ve still got the tape?”
“Oh, yes, yes. It’s still on the machine.”
You could almost see the saliva drooling down his chin. “Okay. We’ll be over to see you within the hour, Miss . . . er . . . Skvorecky. Just sit tight and don’t worry.”
“Thank you, Officer. I’m very grateful.”
With the house ready she started putting herself in order. She s
howered, washed and conditioned her hair, and chose some clean clothes; nothing fancy, but nice, a pair of good trousers and a turtleneck sweater. She played around with a little jewelry, but in the end decided to go plain. She mascaraed her eyes (they looked wider that way) and applied a small amount of lipstick, most of which she sucked off because it looked too bright. She studied the final product in the mirror. The wild woman had reformed, though there were still signs if you knew where to look. The eyes were too glittery, and the hair was a mess, but after so long in solitary it needed more than a comb to set it right. She did the best she could. She tried a little smile. It could have been worse. The woman who grinned back at her from the mirror was attractive enough to be targeted, while plain enough not to have provoked. This must be like dressing for a rape case, she thought—working out whether you were going to be treated like the victim or the accused.
In the kitchen she had just had time to stick the flowers in a vase when the doorbell rang. She gave the place one last look. With the exception of the sheet across the window it looked good. Homey, without being flashy. She shoved one of Tom’s leftover CDs in the machine and turned it on. The first famous bars of a mournful cello concerto seeped into the room. It must have been a substandard performance for Tom to have left it, but, then, a substandard ear like her own wouldn’t be able to tell.
Neither of them remarked on it either. They were probably the same two guys she had seen at his house, but close up she couldn’t be sure. Her powers of observation had been concentrated for too long on one man; all the rest were fading and smudging at the edges. She tried to read their faces. One appeared tough, the other just tired. Too many late nights. The fraud squad must be easier on the sleep patterns. They took it all in, though: the clothes, the music, the flowers, the lack of dust, and the sheet nailed across the kitchen window.
They accepted tea, but she got the impression that was done more because they wanted to watch her than to drink it. As she was doing her domestic stuff one made small talk while the other stood across from him, prodding about with his eyes. With one hand he flicked the curtain aside and looked out, then appeared to spend some time studying the state of the door. As he turned back she spotted, too late, the tube of wood filler still sitting on the shelf above the CDs.
They didn’t get to it for a while, though. They sat with the teacups in front of them, listening while she built up the story for them step by step, fact by fact, using the perfect stack of CDs that had once graced the kitchen table as a model. How innocent that all felt now, not worth getting excited about really. But since that was where it had all started they were keen to get it right.
“So what you were saying is that you thought someone had been in here.”
“Well, that’s what it looked like, yes.”
“But just in here. Not anywhere else?”
“No.” She left a pause. “But, then, if I’m out of the house, or at night, I lock the inner kitchen door, for extra protection. So if someone had got in here, they wouldn’t have been able to get out into the rest of the house. Not without breaking through the lock. And, of course, if I were upstairs I’d hear that.”
“And did you tell the sergeant that?”
“Er . . . to be honest I don’t quite remember. I don’t think our meeting went that well. As I said on the phone, I got the impression he didn’t really believe me.” She smiled. “But, then, I’m not surprised. I don’t think I quite believed myself. After he left and I came down the next morning to find the table laid and cat pellets all over the floor I got so paranoid I even thought it might be some kind of poltergeist. Which is when I went to my local vicar.”
Well, if she didn’t tell them, they might find out some other way.
“The vicar. And what’s her name?” Just for the record, of course.
“Catherine Baker. I have a phone number if you want. She was very nice, but of course she couldn’t help. I mean, she couldn’t explain it any more than I could.”
“But now you think you can explain it better.”
She looked up at them. “Yes,” she said. “I think I can.”
And she took them over to the French windows.
First she told them. Then, when she saw the disbelief on their faces, she showed them, slipping out into the freezing night and getting them to lock the door behind her, while she hooked a coat hanger in and up through the cat flap and fiddled with the lock until, at last, the handle lifted. It was a tricky moment. Not at all the kind of thing she wanted her admirer to see, at least not quite yet. But nobody gets anywhere in this life unless they are willing to take chances. She understood that now.
She opened the door and came in shivering. You could see that while on one level they were impressed, on another they couldn’t get their attention away from the botched wood stains and the tube of filler on the shelf.
“I only worked it out this morning,” she said quickly. “I got so scared when I realized how he’d done it that I put up the sheet and went out and bought some bolts to try and bolt the door and the cat flap up, but I couldn’t get them in properly.” She gave a wry smile. “I’m afraid I made a right mess of it.”
The tired one gave her a sympathetic nod back. Girls who don’t know what to do with boys’ tools. Their world must be full of them. “And you think that’s what he was doing, when you saw him outside?”
“I don’t know. But he did seem to have something in his hand. Although . . .” She hesitated.
“Yes?”
“Although it looked heavier than a piece of wire or pipe. It looked more like . . . well, more like a hammer,” she said, and this time she allowed herself to sound frightened.
The word carried its own impact. They didn’t even bother to look at each other to register it, but, then, unlike all the TV cop partnerships she’d ever seen, they didn’t seem to need to. What would Jake make of their technique? she thought.
“Let’s move on to the tape,” said the tough one very gently. The tired one was wide-awake.
She took them out to the hall and played it to them. She hadn’t heard his voice since last night. She discovered she didn’t need to fake the shiver.
“Hello, I723LPD. Women drivers. They’re all the same. Don’t have a clue about whose right of way it is. Well, I just want you to know that if you ever cut me up again, I’ll do the same back to you. Or is that what you were after? Snowing cats and dogs, wouldn’t you say? Sleep well.”
They stopped it, then played it back again. And again. They seemed to like hearing the sound of his voice, as if it were something they had been waiting for.
“When did you say you got this message?”
“Well, I didn’t hear it until this morning. But it must have come through last night.”
“You were out?”
“Yes, but only briefly. I had finished some work that I urgently needed to get somewhere, so I took the letter to the nearest main post office to catch the early collection. It was in the middle of that blizzard so, of course, I went in the car.”
“And that’s your license number on the tape?”
“Yes, it is.”
“But you don’t remember any incident?”
“No. Nothing at all.” She paused. “But maybe when he heard it was a machine, he needed to be careful what he said.” She gave an apologetic little shrug, as if she had just said something particularly stupid. They didn’t acknowledge it one way or the other.
“Why didn’t you call us this morning, when you first heard this?”
She sighed. “Well, I didn’t know what you’d say. I mean, in one way it doesn’t actually sound that threatening. Not unless you put it with all the other stuff. I dunno . . .” She hesitated. “I suppose there must be dozens of women who live alone and can’t sleep properly at night now for imagining things. I mean, you haven’t caught him yet, have you?”
They didn’t answer. “We’d like to take the tape away, if that’s all right with you.”
She nodded, snappi
ng it out of the machine and handing it to them. There was a small silence. They can’t leave it there, she thought. My God, what would it be like if I really was telling the truth?
“There is something else,” she said quietly.
“What?”
“He rang me again.”
“When?”
“Just before I called you this afternoon. It must have been around three, four o’clock. I don’t remember the exact time. But I was here, so I didn’t get a chance to put it onto the machine.”
“And what did he say?”
She swallowed, the distress now very clear on her face. “Er . . . he said three words, that’s all. Just three words. ‘See you soon.’ ” She paused. “I think he was using a pay phone.”
They exchanged a glance and she was grateful she had been so careful. Even if they could track down the number, a pay phone on Holloway Road would tell them nothing. Someone careful enough not to use his own phone would probably also be careful enough to wear gloves. Though it might still be worth checking. Thank God for the cold. It wasn’t something she would have thought about otherwise.
“Can you get him?” she said.
The tired one frowned, as if he hadn’t quite heard the question. He gave a sigh. “Tell me, Elizabeth, are you going away for Christmas?”
So they were on a first-name basis now. Why not? They were obviously going to get even more intimate. “No. No. I . . . I’ve got nowhere to go. My parents are both dead, and I’ve got this work that has to be finished, so I was going to stay and do that. I mean, that’s why I called you. I suddenly realized what it was going to be like here over the next few days. Most of the street is going away. . . .” She trailed off. There was a pause. “I’ve got friends, though. If you thought I should go to them I could do that.”
At last they exchanged a glance. This time they seemed to be deciding which one should finish the race. The tough one got the job. But, then, don’t they always?