Going Wrong

by Ruth Rendell

  Obviously it had been a mistake to come here. The food was good and there was a big choice, but unfortunately a hundred other people knew it too. Of necessity the tables were close together. They wouldn’t be able to talk intimately. Guy flicked his fingers at a waiter and when the man came over ordered a large gin and tonic. Brandy would have suited him better but he also realized brandy might not be a good idea at this stage.

  With careful thought, he had chosen his theatre tickets for the matinée. The performance began at five-thirty, which meant they could have dinner soon after eight. There was plenty of time for everything—it would all be leisurely and beautiful. If there was any time left this afternoon between leaving here and the theatre, she would surely let him take her shopping. The engagement ring he already had, but perhaps a bracelet? Cartier? Asprey? Or perhaps some earrings. He imagined diamonds close up against her glowing face. When they were no more than children and she had first had her ears pierced, he had dreamed of the day when he could buy her diamond earrings.

  The gin came, it was very welcome, he was thirsty for it. The first sip of the day was always wonderful. It spread peace through his body on long, divergent feelers. He sat back in his seat, looking at the pattern in the weave on her scarf, then at the menu, which was written on the card as well as up in chalk on blackboards. What would she have? She was eating more fish lately, he had been glad to see. She didn’t get enough protein. He adjusted the sling on his arm and in doing so caught sight of his watch. It was nearly a quarter past one.

  That was what came of trusting to the Northern Line instead of taking cabs. It was going to be the Savoy experience all over again, but in less luxurious surroundings. He finished his gin and ordered another. She had been over twenty minutes late, he remembered, for their lunch at the Savoy. It would be just like her to walk here from wherever the nearest Northern Line station was, Leicester Square probably.

  The people at the next table, four of them, were laughing immoderately. It wasn’t coarse laughter or particularly raucous, but it irritated him. His second gin went down very fast. If only you could ask for the bottle in these places and just help yourself as you could at home. He didn’t quite like to ask for the bottle. Danilo and Tanya’s remarks of the previous evening about Alcoholics Anonymous repeated themselves unpleasantly. The time was twenty-five past one. A waiter came up and asked him if he would like to order. Guy said no rather abruptly. More gales of laughter shook the table next to him. They were drinking champagne, evidently celebrating some anniversary. He had begun to feel hungry in the taxi going round Hyde Park Corner but his hunger had left him. In spite of the gin his mouth was dry. He asked for a large glass of white wine.

  At twenty to two he began to feel sick. She was forty minutes late. He couldn’t remember her ever having been more than twenty-two minutes late. She wasn’t coming. He couldn’t delude himself any longer that she was coming. Either something terrible had happened and she had met with an accident or she had been prevented from coming. Some member of that awful family of hers had found out what she planned to do, to spend the day, then the rest of her life, with him, and had stepped in to stop it. For another ten minutes he sat on, staring at the street door. Then he got up.

  He told the imperturbable sullen-faced waiter he didn’t want anything to eat after all, a remark to which the response was a Gallic shrug. He paid for his two gins and his wine. Luckily and for once he had a pocketful of small change. In the first empty phone-box that he found he dialled the Georgiana Street number. It was years since Guy had used a phone-box, they had changed in the interim and he had to read the instructions carefully before getting it to work.

  The ringing began but there was no answer. He dialled again to make sure. Still no answer. He closed his eyes and imagined opening them to see her walking down the street towards the restaurant, running rather because she was in a panic at being late.

  Of course she wasn’t there. He scooped out the money that had come back and dialled Lamb’s Conduit Street. All these numbers were stamped on his memory. He knew them better than his own phone number, bank account number. The bell rang and rang, but no one was answering there either. There was no reply when he dialled the St. Leonard’s Terrace number and none from Portland Road, though that was a long shot, unless one of them had somehow contrived to imprison Leonora in her former home. The last place he tried was the Mandevilles’ house in Sanderstead Lane and he tried in vain.

  They couldn’t all be out. It was plain what was happening. They had ganged up to stand solid against him. They were all refusing to answer their phones. She told them what had happened on Thursday night, told them in all innocence, still believing she could make her own choice as to her future life. Somewhere she had been made a prisoner. No doubt, it was principally her father who had done that, her father who, once his wife had poisoned Leonora’s mind against her lover, had produced a husband for her, a tame lackey, an ugly egghead, and then, to make absolutely sure, with his brother’s help, found him a job up north where his wife would accompany him.

  Only it wasn’t going to happen that way, Guy thought. Where would they keep her? Portland Road or Georgiana Street? He went back to Scarsdale Mews in a cab. Although he had drunk quite a lot and eaten nothing, he felt clear-headed and very calm.

  At home he tried phoning again. Methodically he tried each number Lamb’s Conduit Street, Sanderstead Lane, St. Leonard’s Terrace, Georgiana Street, Portland Road. Again there was no answer from any of them. He imagined all the phones unplugged, or those people—Anthony and Susannah, Tessa and Magnus, Robin and Maeve, Newton himself—sitting there listening implacably to the continuous ringing. The time was two forty-five.

  He tried all the numbers again, to unnerve them, to make them jumpy. Then he went upstairs and took his .22-caliber rifle from its case.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  On the way to Portland Road he tried to find an explanation. At last he thought he could understand. It was the duel he had fought with Newton that was responsible for all this. The last straw, her family would call it. He couldn’t imagine Leonora telling them about it but Newton would have. While Leonora was out taking him to the hospital, Newton would have been on the phone to her father and then her mother with an account of what had happened. He could hear Tessa’s voice: “He’s mad, of course. He’s a violent, dangerous madman. He’ll stop at nothing to get Leonora. The only thing is to keep her away from him until the sixteenth and then you can take her up north and he’ll never see her again.”

  And Anthony Chisholm: “He attacked you with a sword? That’s a bit much, isn’t it? No, I quite agree, it won’t do for Leonora to see him again.”

  And Magnus Mandeville: “Leonora should have gone for the police. Of course you couldn’t have left her alone with him, I quite see that. But you should have made her go. That was assault, you know, it might even be called attempted murder.”

  And Susannah: “Poor Guy, he’s so emotional, so violent. But there’s such a lot of good in him too. He’s really bad for Leonora, the last person for her. If there’s no other way—well, it’s very regrettable, but she’ll have to be kept away from him by force.”

  He double-parked the car, hoping that its being Saturday afternoon would make that all right. The rifle was in the boot in a black leather golf bag. He was already coming to see it as an awkward sort of weapon to carry on a mission of this kind. Leaving it where it was, he went up the steps and rang the bell, which was still marked LINGARD, KIRKLAND, CHISHOLM. No one answered. He wasn’t surprised.

  His arm felt fine if he didn’t move it much, and with automatic transmission there was no need to. He rested it lightly on the wheel. The traffic had thickened up since the morning and it took a long time getting to Camden Town. This time he took the rifle in the golf bag with him. After he had rung the bell and was standing there waiting, he had the sensation of someone looking down on him from above. It was very strong, this sense of being watched. He stepped back, went down a
stair or two and looked up. No one was there and all the windows were closed, though it was a mild afternoon.

  Lamb’s Conduit Street next. That wasn’t so far away. A parking space was empty directly outside the house. Susannah’s window-boxes had just been watered. Water was dripping from them onto the flagstones below. That told him they must be in, someone must be. No one answered the entry-phone. He pressed the bell again and heard footsteps on the stairs. A woman Guy had never seen before opened the door. He didn’t know her but even before she spoke he sensed that she had been expecting him.

  “Laura Stow,” she said. “I’m Susannah’s sister.”

  He could see the likeness. She was a bit older, dressed in jeans and a shirt, a towel twisted turban-wise round her head.

  She had been washing her hair. He hadn’t known Susannah had a sister but he wasn’t surprised. Did they have any friends, these people? Did they know anyone who wasn’t family? Everyone you met at their houses, everyone you were introduced to was a relation.

  He said bluntly, “Guy Cumin.”

  She nodded, looked at the golf bag in his hand. Anyone with a grain of intelligence could see it was a rifle in there or a shotgun.

  “I’m looking for Leonora.” And then, “You do know who I mean?”

  “Yes, of course I do. She isn’t here. No one’s here but me. I’m looking after the house while they’re away.”

  “Away?” he said.

  “On holiday. They’ve gone away on holiday today.” She was patient with him but her eyes went to the golf bag again. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  It was rehearsed. Someone had prepared her for his visit, taught her to say all this. “Are you sure she’s not here? Are you quite sure she’s not upstairs somewhere?”

  For a moment he thought he had frightened her. She had retreated a little. He made his voice gentler, he tried to smile. “Do you think I could come in and—well, look? I’m an old friend of the family.”

  “Look for Leonora? I’ve told you she’s not here. Of course I can’t let you in.”

  “I’m going to marry Leonora,” he said patiently.

  She stared, a nervous smile now trembling on her mouth.

  He shouted in the direction of the stairs, “Leonora! Leo! Are you there? Leonora!”

  She made an incoherent sound and shut the door in his face. Without being able to see, he sensed she was leaning back against the door, gasping.

  He hadn’t really believed Leonora was in there. She would have come down long before. Even he couldn’t believe she was actually imprisoned, tied up, locked in a room. They wouldn’t do that—or would they? He imagined this Laura Stow getting on the phone at once to Anthony and Susannah in their holiday hotel. She would probably phone them all to report his visit. Perhaps she’d make her first call to Robin and Maeve, at whose flat it now seemed Leonora was most likely to be.

  He drove home, left the car in the mews, and went upstairs to replace the rifle in its case. It had been an unwise choice, that cumbersome weapon. The time was five-thirty.

  His hunger had come back. There was never much food in the house, no more usually than the basic materials for breakfast: bread, various cereals, eggs, Dutch cheese, marmalade, orange juice. Having poured himself a vodka and filled the glass with orange juice, he wondered if he knew how to cook an egg but decided against it. He had some bread and Gouda, finished his drink and dialled the St. Leonard’s Terrace number.

  They still weren’t answering. They were still letting the phone ring. Guy cut himself more bread, poured some vodka. He dialled in vain Sanderstead Lane, Georgiana Street, and—out of devilment, as he told himself—Lamb’s Conduit Street. Laura Stow answered. She sounded nervous. He laughed in a sinister way and she slammed the phone down. By now he was feeling enormously better. To say he felt fighting fit, in spite of his arm, wouldn’t be an exaggeration. A challenge had been made to him. It was as if they had thrown down a glove in front of him and dared him to fight them all.

  He was suddenly involved in a savage fairy story or cloak-and-dagger adventure. The beautiful princess had been imprisoned in a tower by her cruel father and stepmother. Marry the ginger dwarf or stay there forever! But her rescuer was coming, in his armour and with his weapons, if not on a white horse, in a golden car.

  He went back upstairs and took out of the wardrobe the new handsome jacket in battleship-grey calfskin he had bought from Beltrami in Florence last May. He changed his shoes for grey leather half-boots. Reluctantly he took off the sling, but he hardly needed it any more. There was no reason why he shouldn’t wear the scarf wound round his neck.

  In the third bedroom, one of the two at the back that looked onto the back of houses in Abingdon Villas, he went to the bureau that stood against the rear wall between the windows. From the top drawer he took the heavy .45 Colt that had been in his possession since he was seventeen but which he had never used.

  Danilo had got that gun for him. It was while he was protecting the shopkeepers of Kensal. He had let it be known discreetly that he would like to possess a real gun instead of the convincing-looking replica he carried about with him. Danilo brought it into the pub in Artesian Road one night, showed it to him in the men’s, and by the time Danilo had pulled the flush, Guy had paid cash for it and the ammunition that came with it. Leonora had seen it and called it a ghastly weapon. He saw what she meant.

  He hadn’t a holster for it. That had seemed unnecessary. He put it on the passenger seat of the Jaguar with his leather jacket on top of it.

  The evening was growing cold. It was already dusk. For the first time for months he was using the car heater. He lit a cigarette. It took no more than ten minutes to reach St. Leonard’s Terrace. Guy couldn’t remember if he had actually ever been in this street before but now he was here he was impressed. Robin was evidently doing better for himself than the rest of that family with their shabby duplexes in Bloomsbury and their suburban villas. The flat was in an elegant but substantial house, its architecture classical, with a noble dark blue front door set under a portico whose domed roof was supported by Corinthian columns. Guy wouldn’t have minded living there himself.

  The framed card above the bell was printed MS. M. KIRKLAND, R. H. CHISHOLM. Verv formal. The flat he thought must be theirs had a huge bow window. He had put on his jacket and stuck the gun in the right-hand pocket, which was luckily large. No one replied on the entry-phone when he rang the bell. Guy tried again and then once more. He was coming down the shallow steps when he saw Robin and Maeve approaching from the end of the street.

  They were arm in arm, closer than that, somehow intertwined, her head turning onto his shoulder, and they were in high spirits, laughing, squeezing each other. But more remarkable to Guy was the way they were dressed. Gone were the jeans and twin sweat-shirts, gone the socks and running shoes. Maeve was in a pale pink silk suit, very low-cut, the neckline plunging in a deep V, the puffed sleeves ballooning from padded shoulders, the skirt very full and very short. It revealed her long legs in white lace stockings from half-way up the thighs. Her shoes were pink and high-heeled and in her left hand she carried a white cart-wheel hat covered in pink roses.

  Robin wore a pale beige suit, probably wild silk. His tie had obviously just been removed. The tail of it, bronze-and-cream-patterned silk, protruded from his jacket pocket. When they saw Guy they stopped, looked at each other, and burst out laughing. More rehearsing had been going on, he thought. They began to walk towards him, smiling broadly.

  Guy said, “Where is she?”

  This had the effect of almost doubling Maeve up. She crowed with laughter, she clutched at Robin, gasping. They were both very much the worse for drink. Robin giggled foolishly.

  “Tell me where she is, please.”

  Guy could feel the gun in his pocket, heavy, cold, weighing down his jacket on the right side. He rested his hand on it through the leather.

  “I know you’ve hidden her. You’ve no business to do that. This is
a free country. You can’t keep people prisoner against their will.”

  They made their way up the steps to the front door. Robin had his key out. They were still laughing. Maeve actually had tears on her face. Guy could see Robin smiling at her indulgently, amused in spite of himself by her amusement, trying in vain to achieve a straight face. He let out a final, apparently irrepressible, burst of shrill laughter, the neigh of a sluttish horse, got his key into the lock, said to Maeve, “Go in, go in, for God’s sake. You’re making me worse. Every time I look at you it starts me off.”

  Guy was very cold. The adventure story he had been living in for the past half-hour began to dissolve, to melt and flow away. They were real people in a real street and this was reality. He would have liked to take out the gun and shoot them both, there on the steps. He would have loved to do that. If he did, he thought, he would never see Leonora again. That stopped him—that and the fact the gun wasn’t loaded.

  “Where is she?” he said again.

  Robin, who had stopped laughing now Maeve was inside the house, said like a little boy, “You’ll have to ask Mummy.”

  “I’ll what?”

  Growing up suddenly, Robin drawled, “That’s what we agreed on. If you turned up, I mean. We decided my mother was the one to tell you. Right?”

  He went into the house and shut the door.

  By the time Guy crossed the river it was dark. He chainsmoked as he drove. A drink was what he would have loved, but the drink must wait. He had his leather jacket on with the .45 Colt in the pocket and Leonora’s scarf wound round his neck. It smelt very slightly of her scent.

  At the northern end of Sanderstead Lane he stopped, parked the car and loaded his gun. The street lamps were alight, smoky yellow globes, some half-burned in the thick dark foliage of the trees with which this long street was lined. The surface of the roadway gleamed. No cars were parked along it. All the houses had garages. No one was about, no dog walkers, no girls walking quickly and fearfully on their way to an evening date. A car passed, then another. The place was silent, still, and colder than inner London.