by Ruth Rendell
She and Barry were spending most of every day together now. He wanted it and not letting him out of her sight except at night made her feel safer, for as the wedding approached she found herself acutely aware of how unlikely it was that someone like her should marry someone like Barry. Barry who was rich and had a house as big as Mrs Pringle’s and a Mercedes-Benz, and she who lived by her wits. It wasn’t like Marion to be nervous and even less like her to be afflicted with low self-esteem, but on the previous evening he had told her his wife (to herself Marion referred to her as his first wife) had had a lot of family money, all of which she had left to him. And this man was marrying her. Nothing could go wrong now, could it?
Fowler professed to be hurt that she hadn’t asked him to the party and now didn’t want him at her wedding. ‘You’ve got to admit I clean up all right,’ he said, though he was dirty again by this time and had put gel he had found in a bin on his nice clean hair. ‘When we were little you promised we’d live together when we were grown up. That was when you had that Wendy house in the garden and you used to ask me to tea. Well, Penguin bars and Lemsip. I sometimes think it was drinking all that Lemsip that started me on those substances.’
‘I haven’t got a Wendy house now.’
‘No, you’ve got a flat,’ said Fowler.
She had to make an excuse to Barry for not coming round to his place on Saturday till midday. She told him she had a fitting for her wedding dress. Men didn’t know about these things. He wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a skirt from Dorothy Perkins and one from Chloé. Still, it might even be Chloé when she’d got that four hundred pounds.
Extremely devious herself, she wondered what was prompting Ismay to come all the way up here for their meeting. Clapham was about as far again in the opposite direction from central London as West End Lane. Could it be a trap? But of what sort? It was possible – remotely possible – that Ismay could have told the police and one of them would be with her, in plain clothes of course, sitting at a nearby table. But if she had done that she would have to be prepared for certain dire consequences. If they failed for some reason to listen to the tape, no one could prevent her coming out with what was on it. And she would, right there in public in Ayesha’s. Even then nothing could be done to her. She’d take the greatest care to check the place over before she entered into any transaction. In fact, this time she might suggest she and Ismay took a walk to some open space, even Hampstead Heath, before the money was handed over. If only all this weren’t happening quite so near to Barry’s house …
While to walk through the streets between the Finchley Road and West End Green and then take Chudleigh Hill was by far the quickest way to get there, Marion dared not pass number fifty-six. If Barry saw her he would want to come with her. Instead, she took Acol Road and ran up West End Lane. She was early. Ayesha’s was a very small café with bead curtains over the doorways and statuettes of many-armed goddesses on the counter, run by a very large and handsome Indian woman in a mauve sari. Not one of the four tables was taken. Marion sat at the one nearest the window where she could keep an eye on the street. Though it was possible Ismay might have taken a bus, the tube was more likely and she would be expected to appear from the direction of West Hampstead station. Within two minutes she did.
Her appearance was less haggard and strained than on previous occasions. Resigned herself to fate, Marion thought rather dramatically. For the first time at any of their encounters she greeted Marion with a ‘hi’. Both of them had realised that they could hardly meet in a café without buying at least a cup of coffee.
‘What would you like?’ Ismay asked.
‘Me? Oh, nothing. You have something.’
Ismay came to join her at the table, carrying a cappuccino. She sat down, said, ‘Once, quite a long time ago, I met your future husband. That was when he was Detective Inspector Fenix. You didn’t tell me he’d been a policeman.’
Marion stared. She said nothing. Ismay took a sip of her coffee. ‘You didn’t know, did you? No, I thought not. All right. I don’t like doing this. It’s blackmail and I think it comes more naturally to you than to me. It disgusts me, frankly, but I must do it. I’m not giving you any more money and if you say to me that you’ll carry out your threat I shall tell Mr Fenix what you’ve been doing. He might think a bit differently about you then, don’t you think?’
‘You can’t do that,’ said Marion.
‘Well, I can and I will if I have to. We could go round there now if you like. Number fifty-six Chudleigh Hill, isn’t it? He’s an honourable man and I don’t think he’d listen to the tape but he wouldn’t marry you either. By the way, can I have the tape, please?’
Marion took it out of her handbag and handed it over. The shock of what Ismay had said, the revelation about Barry and then the threat, had been so great that she doubted if she could stand up. She felt as she imagined a very old woman who has had some sort of seizure must feel, broken, weak, dazed and disorientated. Ismay put the tape into the bag she still carried on her shoulder and drained her coffee.
‘I’m sorry I can’t save that poor man from marrying you,’ she said as she left. ‘He’s a good chap and he deserves better.’
It was a full ten minutes before Marion felt able to get up. She might not have done so even then if four people hadn’t come into Ayesha’s and Ayesha herself begun hovering. Once out in the street, away from the joss stick scents of patchouli and cardamom, strength began to return. She hadn’t got her four hundred pounds but that was not the worst of it. She was the blackmailer blackmailed and it wasn’t over yet, what with her other blackmailer set on getting her flat. But she was still engaged to Barry, she was still getting married on Thursday week.
He was delighted to see her half an hour earlier than the promised time. ‘I thought we might try Afghan today for our lunch. And then I’ll drive us to Hampton Court.’
‘Lovely, darling,’ said Marion. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been a policeman?’
He laughed. ‘How did you know?’
‘A little bird told me. Why didn’t you say?’
‘I did try, kitten. I kept dropping hints. I was going to tell you that time we met Tariq and then at the party I did say I wanted you to meet Superintendent Bailey and ex-Chief Inspector Ambury only, honestly, sweetheart, you didn’t seem interested.’
Ismay had been brave and strong. She had stood up to Marion Melville and said things and made threats of which she would hardly have believed herself capable. Now reaction had set in and careless what any passer-by thought of her, she sat down on a wall and began to cry.
A very pretty young woman crying in the street soon attracts attention, mostly from hopeful men. Two of them asked her what was wrong and one offered to buy her a drink. Realising that she must pull herself together, she got up, rubbed at her eyes with the one tissue she had and began thinking what excuse to make to Andrew for her absence. One great worry at least was over. She had no doubt Marion had passed out of her life for ever. She had handled that. Could she handle those two other great quandaries? One of them she could and must. The time had come to confront Heather and, after thirteen years, ask her for the truth. That which had for so long seemed impossible, insurmountable, she began to see as necessary and essential. Now there was no possibility of anyone else asking her, she must do it.
As for Andrew, if she wasn’t to be ruined and ultimately destroyed, she must refuse to let him divide her from Heather and Pamela, whatever the cost might be. She was in the tube by this time. She leant her head back against the seat and closed her eyes when she thought of what that cost was.
CHAPTER 28
The fact that Marion had found out for herself what his occupation had been convinced Barry she was fascinated by his reminiscences, and reminisce he did. India might be his first love but he ate in Indian restaurants every day, dressed up in Indian clothes whenever he felt like it and was going to India in a week’s time. Ever since his wife’s death there had been n
o one to talk to about the old days in the Force unless a former colleague came round for a drink but now there was Marion, avid and all ears to hear about his cases, his adventures and his triumphs.
She understood this and though she was bored stiff, saw it as a good thing in these last crucial days before she became Mrs Fenix and it was, so to speak, too late to do anything about it. She listened, smiling and admiring, to the case of the Wandsworth Widow, who had done away with three husbands and would have seen off a fourth but for Barrry’s intervention, and the mystery (until Barry solved it) of Bernard the Balham Burglar, who broke into flats and cut off locks of hair from the heads of sleeping women. Daily she expected to hear of the Clapham man found drowned in the bath but he never spoke of that.
Her own past history troubled her sometimes. What would Barry say if he knew of the frozen grouse and partridges, the pots of caviar and the Stilton cheese she had appropriated from Mrs Pringle? Or the silver, glass and jewellery brought home from Avice Conroy’s? Then there was the morphine. Avice hadn’t died – Marion would have worried less about the ornaments if she had – but she had intended her death and that was attempted murder. Not to be forgotten, though she tried, were all those things that were not against the law but of which she knew Barry would deeply disapprove: the lies about her father, her efforts to fix Avice’s will, her keeping the morphine instead of handing it in. For a whole week she had kept and used on trains and buses someone else’s Freedom Pass. It wasn’t that her conscience bothered her, she had once told Fowler that she didn’t know what he meant by the term, but rather that if Barry found out about even one of those things the wedding would be off.
Marion had much the same attitude to her coming nuptials as upper-class Victorian brides-to-be had to theirs. Or so authors tell us. Only let her once be married and then all those offences against the law and morality might come out. In the case of the Victorians, it was usually debts to be settled because once married, the husband would be liable for his wife’s, but there was little else he could do short of leaving her. Barry could leave her of course, Marion thought, but she’d still get half the value of his house and no doubt maintenance. Only let her be married.
During these last days she barely had enough to live on. That four hundred pounds would have made all the difference. It was hardly a question any longer of buying a wedding dress. She scarcely had enough to eat. She told herself she’d starve to death but for dinner out somewhere with Barry most evenings. When they got to whichever oriental restaurant he had picked this time, she had to restrain herself from falling on the food and stuffing it into her mouth with her fingers. The debts for Barry to settle in the sweet by-and-by would be her council tax and the electricity, gas and water bills, none of which she had paid and which were perilously overdue.
The rich never think of these things. It seemed not to occur to Barry that when she lost her job she would also lose her income. He never asked, he never mentioned the subject. Perhaps he thought she had savings or had gone on the benefit and she rather wished she had. It was too late for that now. Of course, she had thought herself assured of an income from Ismay. One evening when she was at fifty-six Chudleigh Hill and Barry was cooking dinner for her – the scent of meat and spices coming from the kitchen made her feel faint with hunger – he asked her what she was going to do about her flat.
‘It won’t be any use to you, kitten, after Thursday. You could let it. You’d better let me have a look at the tenancy agreement if you do. Or sell, of course.’
‘I don’t know, darling. I’m not very good at business matters. You can be sure I’ll consult you before I do anything.’
‘That’s my kitten.’
After they had eaten dhansaak, dahin, rice and pop-padoms (Barry critically, Marion voraciously) they spent the rest of the evening perusing the travel agent’s brochures on Kerala. Pushkar had been given up on grounds of its vegetarianism and a preponderance of camels.
‘The Land of Green Magic,’ said Barry. ‘I can’t tell you how I’m looking forward to showing you India, kitten.’
She knew better than to point out that he could hardly do so since this would be his first visit. Just before ten he said he would drive her home. Although she liked the lift, her terror of finding Fowler on the doorstep outweighed the pleasure. As always lately, she said she could walk or take the tube, and as always, he said he wouldn’t dream of it.
‘You never know what scum is hanging about out there after dark,’ said Barry, the ex-policeman.
It was true. She didn’t. As they went out to get into the car and Barry was saying that Wednesday was the last time they would have to do this, a man of indeterminate age and appalling filth, unshaven, with straggly hair and a grunge-encrusted plastic jacket over ragged jeans, a dirty red scarf wound round his neck, emerged out of the dark between the street lamps. It was Fowler. Marion clutched Barry by the arm, afraid that this time she might really faint.
Fowler looked her in the eye. He held out his hand and addressed Barry. ‘Got the change for a cup of tea, guv?’
She knew then. This was a threat, not the end of the world, not the collapse of her hopes. Her brother was better at blackmail than she was. But she was just as good an actor. She had her bag open. ‘Oh, the poor man,’ she said to Barry. ‘I must give him something.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Barry.
She had little enough. She handed him one of her three last pound coins.
‘Thank you, madam,’ said Fowler. ‘You’re a lady.’ And, giving Barry a nasty look over his shoulder, he went on his way up the hill to West End Green.
‘I hope I’m not unreasonable, darling. Of course I’m not trying to stop you seeing your sister. She is your sister, though I’m naïve enough to marvel at the disparate types found in one family. I simply don’t want to have to go near her or that closet queer she’s married. If they come here perhaps you’ll let me know so that I can make sure I’m out.’
Ismay lifted her eyes to meet his. ‘Does the same go for Pam and Michael?’
‘Come on, Issy. You know I’m not unreasonable. I don’t care for him. I’m not mad about her, come to that. But of course I wouldn’t dream of stopping you going up there to see your mother. You must know family is highly important to me. And you can have them all down here if you like.’ He smiled at her, took her hand. ‘Once a year,’ he said. ‘Anyway, we’re not going to live here for ever, are we? What do you think of the idea of moving out and buying a flat? This place isn’t ideal and it’s a long way out.’
She had lived here all her life but she would move if he wanted to. ‘If it’s what you want. It would be a big step for me.’
‘Mary Queen of Scots is supposed to have said to Bothwell that she’d follow him to the ends of the Earth in her shift. I’m only asking you to go to Chelsea.’
He had booked them into a suite at the Savoy for Tuesday night. It was her birthday, which was perhaps a good enough reason, though he had never done anything like that before. Dress up, he had said. It’s important. That day, first thing in the morning and before he was up, she took the tape out of the bag she had been carrying it in ever since Saturday and tugged it out of the spool inside the cassette. It was very cold outside. She put on her winter coat, took one of the ashtrays he used and a box of matches and went out into the back garden, down to the end, and there under the trees she put the shiny brown length of tape on to the ashtray and set light to it. This was the only way she could think of which would utterly destroy it. The tape smouldered, then flamed, half-melted and turned black. She dropped the remains into the dustbin by the back door and went into the house.
At six that evening she got out of the tube at Charing Cross and bought an evening paper. Immediately she wished she had stuck to that old rule she had made never to look at newspapers. That had been after that photograph of Andrew with Eva was in the Evening Standard. Eva was in this one too, a big picture on the front page and the headline beside it was ‘Man in Court on Ev
a Death Charge’. Ismay stood still up against a shop window, reading the story under it. Not Kevin Preston, not the West End Werewolf, but a completely different man, someone called Kieron Thorpe, aged nineteen, from Harrow. She thought, Heather killed Eva. It’s Heather who should have been in that court, not this nineteen-year-old, this boy. She would have to do something now. She couldn’t let Kieron Thorpe go to prison for fifteen years when he’d done nothing.
But she put the paper into a waste bin. Andrew mustn’t see that face, Eva’s face, now, on this special day. If only she could push away the story and the name as easily from her mind. She walked along the Strand to the Savoy, thinking about it, trying not to but still thinking about it. About a boy of nineteen going to prison for something he didn’t do. What must Heather feel? What must Heather ever feel? She found she didn’t know. She hadn’t the faintest idea of what her sister’s thoughts might be. Except on one subject. She knew Heather loved Edmund but it seemed to Ismay that she knew nothing else about her.
She was shown up to the suite. Andrew was already there and the room was full of red roses. He put his arms round her and kissed her as if he had fallen in love with her anew or it was three years ago when they first met.
‘Would you like to go down for dinner or have it up here?’
‘What would you like?’
‘No. This is your evening and your night. You say.’
She would have liked to dress up and go down for the sake of showing Andrew off as hers but she sensed he would prefer being up here and she said, ‘Here. This room is so lovely. And the view.’
‘Good. I’m glad. There’s something I want to say to you and I’d rather we were alone to say it.’
A hint of alarm, like a cool breath on her skin, touched her. Something about the photograph in the paper? Something worse?