by Ruth Rendell
‘All right,’ he said and then, in his ten-year-old way, ‘I could come on Saturday if you really wanted, if I could go at five and get ready.’
The temptation could no longer be resisted. ‘Where are you going, Will?’
‘Me and a young lady are going to the cinema.’
Her astonishment at his refusal of her invitation was as nothing to the shock of this. She tried not to let amazement sound in her voice. ‘That’s nice.’ Would he tell her who it was?
‘She’s Keith’s sister. Her name’s Kim. She came to the place where we were working and she said, “Will you come to the cinema, Will?” and I said, “Yes, please,” because Keith had told me it was a good film about buried treasure.’
It sounded very much as if those two, Keith and this Kim, had cooked it up between them. And why not? There seemed no harm in it. Will was physically a normal young man with a normal young man’s needs. Was he to be deprived for ever of sexual fulfilment and a nice female companion because he had what some doctor had labelled Fragile X Syndrome? She had considered it some years before, but as an intellectual concept rather than a real problem waiting round the corner. If she had given this possible girlfriend actual form it was as a young woman incapacitated as he was, someone met in a day centre. But he no longer attended day centres …
‘I’ll come on Friday,’ he was saying. ‘Can we have spaghetti and chocolate cheesecake?’
‘Of course we can.’
She looked up the film in the Guardian cinema guide. The Treasure of Sixth Avenue must be the one Will meant. The guide gave it three stars and noted that it was classified as suitable for the over-twelves. In a few satirical lines, whoever wrote these capsule pieces said it was more suitable for the under-twelves, being a ridiculous adventure of two men and a girl burying a haul of jewels from Tiffany’s in the backyard of a building in some unspecified American city. It sounded entirely harmless, which was mostly what Becky worried about.
After she had taken Will back to Star Street, said hello to Inez and refused the drink she was offered on the grounds that she was driving, after she had seen Will happily settled with Inez (who had been pressing with her invitation) in front of the television, she departed for home. Becky hoped there weren’t any scenes of violence to upset Will, but as far as she could remember, apart from the inevitable car chase, the series they were watching concentrated more on country life than fast-moving action.
Perhaps this new departure of Will’s, this going out with a girl, would be the best thing for him—and for her. She found herself imagining inviting the two of them to lunch or for the evening. Marriage, eventually, and the girl—Becky hoped very much she was a nice girl—discouraging Will from spending so much time with his aunt. Visits were fine, the bride might say, but not twice weekly, Becky will want a life of her own. She remembered a day some years ago now when Will had asked her if she was married. She had no idea where the idea of marriage came from. She said she wasn’t and then he said, ‘I’d like to marry you.’
It was another heartbeat-missing occasion. She wanted to shut her eyes and groan. ‘I’m your aunt, Will,’ she’d said. ‘You can’t marry your aunt.’
He took no notice of this. ‘Then we could live in the same place. We could get a big house with room for both of us.’
‘It isn’t possible,’ she’d said, though this last part of it was.
She thought he looked sad and that made her wonder if any other man had been sad because she wouldn’t marry him. Not as far as she knew. All this might be mended if this girl was good to him, even loved him. And she, Becky, would be liberated. She relished the idea of Will-free holidays, untrammelled Saturdays, of freedom from guilt, of knowing Will was happy. As it now was, Will had no friends except Monty, who was plainly actuated by a sense of duty, and she was growing older, alone, without a partner. If Will had another woman to love, perhaps she wouldn’t end up like Inez Ferry, reduced to spending her evenings watching television with a tenant.
As soon as Becky had gone, Inez did what she had meant to do before she impulsively asked her and Will in, turned off the scheduled programme and put on a Forsyth video. Will wasn’t like other people, he wouldn’t find doing this odd or sentimental or embarrassing. The story this time had been of Forsyth tracking down the killer of a number of young girls. Not unlike the Rottweiler murders, Inez thought, only in the film you didn’t see the murders or any violence, come to that. Will asked her where it was, was it near here, and seemed in chatty mood, so she put one finger to her lips and said, ‘Ssh, not now, Will. Let’s watch the film.’
Will looked wary but he obeyed. ‘I liked that,’ he said when it was over.
‘I’m glad,’ said Inez. ‘That was my husband playing Chief Inspector Forsyth.’
This was a difficult concept for Will but with an effort which creased his forehead and pursed his lips, he seemed to understand. ‘He was pretending to be that man?’
‘That’s right. His name was Martin Ferry.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He died, Will.’
‘Was he nice?’
‘Very nice. You would have liked him.’
To Inez’s astonishment, Will laid his hand over hers. ‘If you liked him, I’m sorry he died.’
He couldn’t have much important lacking if he could say things like that, Inez thought. Her heart warmed so hugely to him that she would have liked to take him in her arms, but that of course she couldn’t do. He was a young man, not a child. She realised that this was the first time she had ever watched a Forsyth film in the company of someone else. But everything had been all right, she had found it as comforting as ever, and she understood that perhaps there was no one else she knew she could as easily have had with her as Will. Except perhaps a child as quiet and attentive as he.
He looked at her and said, ‘My mother died, but I’ve got Becky. I’d like to live with Becky but her flat isn’t big enough. You haven’t got a Becky.’
‘No. I’ll be all right. Shall we watch the news now? And then I shall send you upstairs.’
The moment she heard the lead item she was sorry she had let him stay. A north London girl had gone missing. She was eighteen, a student, living at home with her parents in Hornsey. They hadn’t seen her since Wednesday evening when she went clubbing with friends. The club was in the Tottenham Court Road and the friends said they had all left at just before two in the morning. Jacky Miller, the missing girl, they had last seen inside the entrance to the club phoning for a taxi on her mobile.
My parents would have gone mad if I’d stayed out till two when I was eighteen, thought Inez. These parents had apparently been frantic, her mother lying awake listening for her to come in, waiting, then getting up and watching the street from the window. It was the thing all frightened mothers did, a quite useless act, which perhaps made things worse. When it got to morning and still no sign of their daughter, they had called the police. No one had seen or heard of Jacky Miller for two nights and two days. The picture of her which appeared was of a rather plump girl with a childish face and very blonde curly hair. She looked innocent, vulnerable and, although this may have been Inez’s imagination, unable to take good care of herself.
‘What’s missing?’ said Will.
She was reluctant to answer him but she had to. ‘A girl went out on Wednesday night and didn’t come home again. She doesn’t live around here.’ This was irrelevant but she thought it might make him feel better. ‘She lives a long way from here.’
‘She’ll come home,’ he said in a reassuring tone. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘All right, I won’t. It’s time you went home too, Will. Would you like something before you go? A hot drink?’
He said very politely, ‘No, thank you, Mrs Ferry.’
Half a mile away, in Dame Shirley Porter House, Zeinab and Algy Munro had also watched the News at Ten. The children had gone to bed and were now asleep. Between their parents, on a black marble and gilt table, was an open b
ox of Belgian chocolates from which they absent-mindedly helped themselves. The room in which they sat, though of the same measurements and proportions and with the same sort of windows as in every other flat in the block, its walls painted the same ‘magnolia’ and its woodwork the same ‘snowflake’ gloss, was far better furnished and appointed. The television, for instance, was the plasma kind that hangs on the wall like a picture. A music centre with man-high speakers filled one corner and a pianola another. From the central light fitment hung a large chandelier composed of at least five hundred prisms. On a workstation between the windows was a desktop computer with maximum-size screen, Internet access and every possible accessory.
‘I reckon that’s another one the Rottweiler’s got,’ said Algy, popping a white chocolate rum truffle into his mouth. ‘Only he’s not left her out in the street for anyone to find. Still, it’s like they say, dead bodies always turn up.’
‘You know something, Alge? Rowley Woodhouse told me there’s something called the National Rottweiler Society and they’re kicking up a stink about people calling the killer a Rottweiler, writing to the papers and whatever. They say it’s got to be stopped on account of it’s not fair, it’s a libel on their dogs because Rottweilers are lovely friendly beasts when they’re treated right.’
Algy didn’t answer. ‘I don’t like you seeing so much of that Rowley Woodhouse, Suzanne. It’s not right, you wearing his ring. It’s time I spoke out.’
Zeinab helped herself to a rose cream with a crystallised rose leaf on top. ‘You’ll have to look at it like work. It’s my work.’ She started laughing. ‘Inez’s is like the day job and going about with Morton and Rowley is sort of overtime. It’s not as if I liked it. About the ring—well, I’ll have to give it back, you know that. I can’t keep on having dinner with old Morton if I’m supposed to be engaged to Rowley.’
‘I don’t like it,’ said Algy. ‘I don’t like any of it.’
‘Yes, you do. You like the electronics and the music centre and the TV, don’t you? You like us all going on holiday to Goa. You like your Armani suit and the kids having a Harry Potter castle and a Barbie and all the video games they want.’
She might have said, you’re never going to give it all to them, not living on the Benefit, you’re not, but she was a nice girl at heart with far tenderer feelings for Algy Munro than she ever had for Morton Phibling and Rowley Woodhouse. ‘You want to know what I got for that diamond spray Morton gave me?’ She told him. His face was a mixture of wonder, concupiscence and bewilderment. ‘That’s going to take us all to the Maldives and Hawaii too if you want, and plenty left over.’
‘Where’s it all going to end, Suzanne?’
‘I’ll tell you. You’ve got to think of it like I’m a model. A model’s finished when she’s twenty-five—well, twenty-eight at most. Not all, I grant you, but the vast majority. You think of me like that, working to make a pile of dosh, and when I start going off that’s the end, curtains. We’ll have enough to buy a detached house in Arkley by then. D’you want a drink? There’s two bottles of champers left.’
‘It worries me,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it and it worries me.’
‘You mean you don’t like being stuck here with the kids and my mum half the time. What you want to do is start thinking of others. Worries! That poor woman whose daughter’s gone missing, that Mrs Miller, now she’s got something to worry about. Put yourself in her shoes and you’ll soon see you’re OK, you’re laughing.’
Zeinab got up, bent over his chair and gave him a kiss. He tried to pull her down on to his knee but she eluded him and went into the kitchen to fetch two Waterford crystal glasses and the Pol Roger.
There had been no further visits from the police, though Inez had half expected them every day. Perhaps they realised that there was no more information to be got out of the occupants of the house in Star Street, in spite of all their talk of wanting to see them again. She sat in the shop, drinking the first cup of tea of the day—the first of the week—and reading her two morning papers. One had a photograph of Jacky Miller, the other of the three friends who had accompanied her to the Tottenham Court Road club. That one had an interview with the man who had answered the phone at the taxi firm Jacky had called at two a.m. on Thursday. Not that it was much of an interview. He could only tell them that he had called one of their cabs on its car phone, the driver had gone to the club but found no Miss Miller, though he had enquired inside and then driven up and down the street looking for her. The paper that didn’t have the taximan interview was linking the missing girl with the two girls murdered by the Rottweiler. Anticipating the worst, one of the three clubbing friends had even told the paper Jacky had been wearing a pair of earrings she had given her for her birthday, silver circles set with brilliants, which she was sure the murderer would have taken from her. There was nothing about the running man. That lead had been abandoned.
Inez sighed and immediately told herself she must stop sighing. It was becoming a habit. When Jeremy Quick put his head round the door and said, ‘Good morning, Inez,’ she offered him a cup of tea and asked him if she sighed too much.
‘Not that I’ve noticed. It’s a miserable world we live in, so I don’t wonder if you do. Belinda sighs a lot. Plenty to sigh about when you come to think of it. She had to go home at nine last night to relieve the next-door neighbour. She has to get the neighbour in to sit with her mother when she goes out with me.’
‘How old is she? The mother, I mean.’
‘Oh, very old, late eighties. There’s nothing wrong with her but she’s very demanding and she won’t be left alone.’
Inez had never met Belinda Gildon, though she’d seen a photograph of her with Jeremy in some Mediterranean holiday resort, and once caught a glimpse of him sitting at a table in one of those summer evening restaurants she walked past. He kept looking at his watch as if he were waiting for someone. Belinda, surely. She had been tempted to go in and say hello, for she had been acutely lonely that night, just go up to his table, be introduced to Belinda when she came and maybe have a quick drink with them. But of course she didn’t, it wasn’t really a serious idea. She used to wonder why they didn’t marry but this was obviously the answer, the answer too to why Jeremy seemed so often on his own.
‘I was just thinking’, she said, ‘how the police said they’d come back but they never did.’
‘We couldn’t tell them any more. Now there’s this girl missing, poor kid. I’ll tell you what I was thinking. There are hundreds of thousands of people go missing every year and they’re never found. Belinda says she wouldn’t be surprised if this chap they call the Rottweiler had killed some of them before he ever moved down here.’
‘If he always takes some ornament or whatever from them, the police would make the connection, wouldn’t they?’
Jeremy said he supposed so, it had crossed his mind, and he must go. Inez poured herself another cup of tea and read the rest of one of the papers, the page of home news, the foreign news and a feature about self-tanning products. At nine she turned the sign on the inside of the glass door to ‘Open’ and lugged the book rack out on to the pavement. She was going back when the side door at the foot of the stairs opened and Ludmila and Freddy Perfect came out, arm in arm. Ludmila was wearing a long brown cotton skirt, a red tunic with gold frogging that looked like part of a hussar’s uniform and high-heeled purple boots, Freddy a suit in dog-tooth check and what Inez was sure was an old Harrovian tie. They waved to Inez but didn’t stop, perhaps because Morton Phibling’s orange Mercedes had just drawn up at the kerb.
‘She isn’t here yet, Mr Phibling.’
‘It’s nearly half past nine!’
‘Yes, I know.’ Inez was tempted to say more about Zeinab’s gross lateness, but maybe that would be spoiling the girl’s chances. Phibling might be a stickler for punctuality, make a fetish of people getting to work on time and be put off. She really didn’t know much about him and never had, in spite of being sure she had known him
before. Now, no doubt, he would go away and return later.
To her surprise he followed her into the shop. ‘I particularly want to see her.’ He produced a jeweller’s box from the pocket of his camel-hair overcoat. ‘What do you think of this? I took her out to dinner on Friday night and she said she’d give serious thought to getting engaged.’
‘Really?’ Inez was almost stunned by the flashing beams from the blue and white stones nestling in blue velvet.
‘A diamond and sapphire parure,’ said Morton Phibling. ‘It cost a packet but I can afford it. She’s worth all the treasures’, he said, slipping into his Arabian mode, ‘of Haroun al Raschid. She should have the Topkapi Palace if I could get my hands on it.’
He sat down in Aunt Violet’s armchair, leaned back and lit a cigar.
‘If you don’t mind, Mr Phibling,’ said Inez. ‘I really can’t allow smoking in here.’
‘Worry you not. I shall go outside and smoke it on the pavement while I await my love.’
Zeinab was even later than usual. Her delay was due to Carmel having a tantrum about going to school and Bryn backing her up by lying on the floor screaming, but this, of course, couldn’t be explained to Inez. ‘My dad beat mum up last night and there was things I had to do for her.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Inez had been going to say she thought Zeinab ought to make excuses on the rare occasions she was on time, not for being late, which was a daily occurrence. But she couldn’t, not in the face of domestic violence. ‘How is your mother?’
‘All over bruises,’ said Zeinab. ‘She said she was going to tell the police but it’s all talk with her, she never does.’
Morton Phibling came back into the shop, his cigar extinguished. ‘My love, my fair one, is looking even more stunning than usual today. The time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’