by Ruth Rendell
Downstairs in the basement flat he poured himself a small brandy from the half-bottle Richenda kept for emergencies. A wonderful quick-spreading warmth started in his chest and flowed up to fill his head. That was better. That was both calming and stimulating. What was he going to do? First ask himself what had really happened and what it amounted to. Because of Rose Preston-Jones, that friend of hers, that woman – that savage wild hysterical woman – would know where he lived and no doubt his name. It was too late to stop Rose telling her, it had always been too late. The question was, would either of them tell the police? Who was the more likely? Rose, he thought, Rose who knew him. He must give her some sort of explanation. Finishing the brandy and rinsing his mouth out with Listerine, he went back upstairs and rang Rose’s bell. No answer. He rang again but by then he knew she was out. Could she have gone to the police?
If she had they would come soon. They would search his flat and take away his computer. Wally knew his wisest course would be to dispose of his computer, either smash it to bits with the heavy mallet he had in his toolbox or take it out of here, out of Lichfield House, get on the number 113 bus which went down through St John’s Wood, and drop it into the canal from the bridge in Lisson Grove. He knew the area, he’d once lived in Penfold Street. But to destroy his computer and with it all the pleasure and excitement it contained, to that he couldn’t bring himself. Not yet. There would be time, wouldn’t there? Perhaps he could hide it. His flat had a bathtub in the bathroom but no shower. All the others had showers as well as bathtubs. This was something Wally bitterly resented. It told him the designers or architects or whatever of Lichfield House believed that the caretaker and his wife belonged to a different species from that of the middle-class residents, one whose members needed total immersion to cleanse them of their inherent dirt.
The base of his bath had been concealed by hardboard panels, held in place by screws. A nasty cheap job, Wally had thought and had covered the panels with tasteful black-and-white marble-effect vinyl and the screws with chromium nuts. They would never look there. He removed the nuts and one of the panels. Inside was a space just big enough for the computer. He laid it carefully on the floor and was screwing back the last nut when he heard Richenda’s key in the front door.
‘You’ll never guess who I’ve just seen go into Rose thingy’s flat. Together, I mean. Her and old Potter.’ Gossip always put her into a good mood.
‘So what’s new?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s new. They was kissing. Like young ones.’
Did that mean Rose was too preoccupied to trouble herself with him? Hope struggled up into his throat on an inhaled breath.
First her dad had got out of his car and was talking to Duncan Yeardon. Then he went into Springmead and was inside for a long time, so long that Stuart began to think he wouldn’t come out again. But the car was still there by the time the traffic warden, still writing down numbers in his book at twenty-five past six, went off duty. Stuart stood inside his front window, smoking and drinking his fourth cappuccino of the day. Twenty minutes passed and he was halfway through another cigarette when Marius Potter appeared from the automatic doors. Even Stuart, not the most observant of men, noticed the spring in his step. What’s got into him? he wondered. Must be off to tutor one of those poor kids in horrible Latin verbs or some such rubbish, and he remembered the teacher who had come to him on Wednesday evenings, trying to drill Caesar’s invasion of Britain into him. But no, Marius was back in minutes, carrying what was unmistakably a bottle of champagne, wrapped up in dark blue tissue paper. Hypocrite, thought Stuart, him and that Rose always going on about the evils of alcohol.
At that moment, as the automatic doors opened for Marius, Tigerlily’s dad came out of Springmead with her sister or stepmother. The two of them got into the car and shot off in the direction of the main road. Dusk was coming early because it had been a dull day and lights were already showing in some of the houses when the front door of Springmead opened and Tigerily came out. She paused on the step and looked to her right and her left. Then she came quickly to the gate and crossed the road. Although she must have seen Stuart at his window she gave no sign that she had. He heard the swoosh of the doors, a light footstep in the hallway and then his bell rang.
She slipped inside immediately he had opened it. He would have liked her to be dressed in diaphanous white or ankle-length black but she wore what he liked least – jeans and a loose white shirt. She was still wonderfully beautiful, her almond-shaped black eyes grave and steady, her hair hanging loose and water-straight from a centre parting.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Hi.’
He took her hands, led her into his living room. ‘What’s your name? I call you Tigerlily.’
‘Ti-ka-lee-lee,’ she said, and she smiled. She’s Chinese, he thought. That’s what she is. She peered into his face, touched with a forefinger the scorings on his cheeks Claudia’s nails had made. ‘You cut?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
She smiled a very small smile. Then she astonished him. ‘Ti-ka-lee-lee name go in passport.’
What did she mean? ‘No,’ he said, ‘must have real name for passport.’ Involuntarily, he was speaking pidgin English. ‘Sit down. You like drink?’
She shook her head, refusing seat and drink. ‘You good man,’ she said, a statement, not a question.
He smiled, nodded, because he didn’t know what else to do. He was mystified. If only she would sit down, so that he could. But she stood there, stock-still, her eyes turned to the window. ‘What do you want, Tigerlily?’
‘Ti-ka-lee-lee,’ she said again. ‘Want passport. You get?’
He knew then. It had been going on since he was a child, since before he was born. A friend of a friend of his mother’s had married a man from somewhere in Asia to give him British citizenship. It had been easy then. Would it be as easy now? Somehow he doubted it.
‘You want you and me get married?’
She didn’t understand. She shrugged, held out her hands, palms upward. ‘Passport,’ she said. ‘I make photo.’
If he married her she wouldn’t get a passport at once. He knew that much. His thoughts rushed almost too fast for him. She’d get something called right of residence, wouldn’t she? He could find out, the Internet would tell him. But marry? When the time came where would he find a lovelier wife? Wives, in his experience, were like his mother and Claudia, good-looking, bossy, constantly talking, over-emotional, greedy. Tigerlily was none of these things except the first – and that in abundance. ‘Sit down,’ he said again and this time she did.
She perched on the edge of his sofa, still watching the window, clasping her knees in her slender white hands. Flip-flops were on her feet but her insteps were so arched that she might have been wearing high heels. Women from her part of the world, he thought, made good wives because they liked waiting on men, making themselves beautiful for men. They weren’t always arguing or asking for things. Vaguely he remembered seeing pictures of geishas kneeling at men’s feet, holding up trays of food and drink. Or was that Japanese? But marriage – it was a big step.
He said carefully, ‘I look after you, Tigerlily. You savvy?’ Where had he got that ancient word from? One of his father’s friends maybe or that caretaker? He tried again. ‘I care for you. Understand?’
She was smiling, nodding.
‘We must meet again.’
How to tell her where? Somewhere he had a London A—Z. There weren’t many places it could be and he soon found it in the cupboard part of his bedside cabinet. She looked at the map he showed her – this part of north London – and her face was full of wonder. It took him a few minutes to make her see where Springmead was, where he was and the extension of Kenilworth Avenue with Kenilworth Green and St Ebba’s Church. The church was marked on the map by a cross and when he pointed to that she nodded, managed, ‘Understand.’
‘Today is Friday.’
This was beyond her comprehension. The procedure he had
to go through was like looking for the A—Z but worse. At last he found the calendar of English beauty spots his mother had sent him along with her present at Christmas. How well he remembered the letter that came with it, especially the bit about never seeing him and never being invited to his new home, so she had to send his present. The calendar he had never hung up and he found it at last in a drawer under some shirts he never wore.
He knew at once that she couldn’t read the names of the days. Of course. She couldn’t read – what was it called? – yes, Latin script. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘Friday. Yes?’
‘Friday.’ She made the r into an l as he had heard the Chinese did. ‘Good,’ he said. He counted on his fingers, ‘Saturday, no. Sunday, no. Monday?’
She moved her head slowly from side to side, said, ‘Monday, no,’ and she shuddered. ‘No Tuesday.’
‘Wednesday?’
For the first time a ‘Yes’.
‘Wed-ness-day,’ she said. ‘Good.’
‘Wednesday at Kenilworth Green.’ He said it again, over and over again, and then he showed her the time on his mobile. It said 19.31. ‘Same time?’
Another nod. ‘Same time Wednesday.’
‘Kenilworth Green.’
She got up, looked him in the eyes and made a little formal bow. He was enchanted. ‘Will you give me a kiss, Tigerlily?’ He formed his lips into a kissing shape.
She shook her head violently, turned away her face, and quickly she was gone.
Well, he wouldn’t want a wife who’d kiss a man the first time she met him. A wife? The word made him flinch a bit. He thought of his parents’ reaction if he turned up with a Chinese wife. But he never did turn up, did he? They’d probably never meet his wife, never have to know he’d got one. He went to the window. It was getting dark and Tigerlily’s father had his headlights on as he turned into Kenilworth Avenue. The girl got out of the car first. This one looked years older than Tigerlily. It must be an arranged marriage Tigerlily wanted to escape. He hadn’t known the Chinese were Muslims. No doubt other countries and other religions had arranged marriages. But why did she want a false passport? She must have a passport already but perhaps her father held on to it and wouldn’t let her have it.
Of course there was no way he could get her a passport, he wouldn’t know where to begin, but he could marry her. She would have to get a new passport then, wouldn’t she? He realised she hadn’t told him her name. That must be the first thing to get out of her on Wednesday. And was he saying that once they had met on Kenilworth Green she would never go back to Springmead? Perhaps he was saying that. He must be. That brought him unease and a shiver went through him. He suddenly thought of the responsibility he was taking upon himself, the decisions he would have to make, the cost of it all, for he would have to take her somewhere and not here to this flat. A hotel? And then what? Go to a registrar somewhere and give their names, make a date for the wedding? But to be alone with her in a hotel where there was nothing to fear from her father, to have a safe quiet dinner with her, to drink champagne as those two old people must be doing, to go up to their bedroom together …
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘I never wanted to own a house,’ said Marius. ‘I think that was because I was on my own, but when there are two of you having a home means a lot. The idea of it. And that ought to be in a house, not a flat. Even if it’s a very little house.’
‘It would have to be that, darling, because a mansion is beyond our means.’
‘Would you think of selling both our flats and buying a house?’
‘I’m already thinking of it,’ said Rose. ‘Would you like some pomegranate tea? It’s a beautiful colour, a bright pink, and it’s very sweet but I’m afraid it’s got sugar in it. Do you remember that about the time you and I first met they were saying sugar was poison? Someone called it “white death”.’
Laughing, Marius said, ‘Yes, but no one ever died of eating sugar, did they? I like the taste of sugar much better than aspartame or whatever it’s called. And we shall never get fat, you and I. Do you want to get married, Rose – my darling Rose?’
‘It used to be against my principles and I don’t think they’ve changed. I’m sure it used to be against yours.’
‘Indeed. Still, I think we’d better. When we’ve got our house we shall need to protect the one who survives against inheritance tax.’
‘Oh, Marius, I don’t want to survive you. But then I don’t want to die first and have you be unhappy without me.’
‘It’s a dilemma, isn’t it?’
‘Let the sortes decide, darling.’
‘ “Fair couple,” ’ Marius read, ‘ “linked in happy nuptial league.” ’
‘Well, that’s pretty clear for marriage, isn’t it?
‘I cheated,’ he said. ‘I knew exactly where to find it.’
They had done nothing about Wally Scurlock beyond watching him and twice going up to St Ebba’s churchyard. But on those occasions Wally hadn’t been there and the only odd thing they discovered was that one single grave was well kept when all the rest were derelict and overgrown.
Sophie’s heart gave a little jump and her throat grew dry. The cash machine had told her there were insufficient funds in Olwen’s bank account to meet her request for £50. She had taken it for granted that Olwen had plenty of money, a more or less inexhaustible supply. This was something she assumed in the case of all ‘grown-ups’, for although Sophie was nineteen, the age at which her grandmother had twice given birth, she thought of herself, if not quite as a child, as a teenager without responsibilities or much in the way of resources. She was young, therefore carefree, immortal and free. Or this was how she had thought of herself and of circumstances until this moment.
It was not quite yet the middle of May and although Sophie knew little of financial matters, somehow she had become aware that most salaries, pensions and other sources of income are paid in at the end of the month. Olwen might be, as Noor said, several bean sprouts short of a Chinese takeaway, but she knew how much money she ought to have in the bank. People usually did know that, Sophie thought in an increasing panic.
Empty-handed, she walked away and sat down on the low wall which surrounded the Tesco car park. Her own bank account should be in a healthier state than it had been for a long time. The balance of her grant remained in there plus the money Daddy and Mummy had paid in for her birthday present. As to her steady milking of Olwen’s account, she had given up that rule of taking only £10 for herself each time. First there had been the £40 she owed Noor. Then, because it really was stupid of Olwen to think £10 a time was adequate – these old people were all out of touch when it came to the cost of living – she had taken £20 twice and £30 once. It was only at this point that she realised that the increasing amounts she was helping herself to were responsible for her present predicament.
None of what she had taken remained. She had spent it as she went along; on clothes, on new CDs, on one of those tiny iPods in a beautiful sapphire blue. But she couldn’t go back to Olwen without the vodka and the gin. Miserably, she got up, went back to the cashpoint and drew out £30 from her own bank account.
The children who went to Kenilworth Primary School were out in the playground, running around, shrieking and yelling. The girls shrieked and the boys yelled. That man who was the caretaker for the flats was in the churchyard, doing something to a grave. Sophie thought she would tell Noor and Molly that he was a vampire who dug up bodies and sucked their blood. Noor, who was very superstitious, might believe her. The caretaker wasn’t looking at what he was doing any more but staring at the children. Probably planning on grabbing one of them to suck his blood, thought Sophie, warming to her fantasy.
Olwen let her in about five minutes after Sophie rang her doorbell. These days she moved increasingly slowly, holding on to whatever she could grab, and of that there wasn’t much. Sophie, as requested, brought her a cut white loaf and some sliced salami. Olwen wasn’t hungry, she never was, but she thought he
r new feeling of sickness and savage stomach pains might be due to lack of food.
‘How are you?’ Sophie asked, the enquiry prompted by conscience. ‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Not really,’ said Olwen.
‘Would you like me to make you a sandwich?’
Olwen repeated her usual rejoinder and pushed the door shut almost before Sophie had backed through it.
Replies had come to Stuart’s job applications. All were negative, some polite, some taciturn. A lot of companies simply failed to answer. April had gone by and he was still as far from getting a job as ever and still as far from acquiring money. He sat down at the computer and looked at the blank screen.
The drone of the vacuum cleaner irritated him but, apart from that, he barely noticed that Molly was there. He was preoccupied with plan-making. However he was going to ‘rescue’ Tigerlily, he must have somewhere to take her on Wednesday night. To bring her back here would be impossible. They needed to go somewhere her father and maybe the rest of the family would never think of looking. The kind of hotel he had originally had in mind wouldn’t do. It had to be some middle-grade suburban place. For one thing, he had to consider the cost of it. He couldn’t help thinking how much easier all this would be if Tigerlily was more proficient in English so that he knew specifically what she was afraid of and what she wanted – apart from being with him. Of this last he was pretty sure.
Were there any such hotels up here? Probably, but he didn’t know where. From taxis he had squired Claudia about in, he had noticed a big old hotel in Cricklewood that had once been a pub but very much refurbished, and another newer one in Kilburn on the borders of Maida Vale. He should book a room in one of those. And then he must decide about marrying her. It was a big step but where would he find a sweeter lovelier girl? To do it would be a good deed, for it was surely what she wanted. Stuart admitted to himself that he didn’t know how you went about getting a passport. Of course he had one himself, he was English, so without difficulties in this area. And if a foreign girl married such a one, such a British-born stalwart, would she automatically also become English, a citizen, a subject of the Queen, with a fine dark red British passport? Somehow he didn’t think it was that easy. There was more to it. But she would get right of residence, surely? These were matters he must look up on the Internet. And then, when that was done, find a registry office and a registrar and – well, put their names down. He didn’t actually know her name. When they met on Wednesday at seven thirty on Kenilworth Green he would get her to say her name. That must be his first priority. Once she was married to him they couldn’t forcibly marry her to anyone else. At least he knew that this was true.