by Ruth Rendell
‘It’s a temporary thing, Inez. They’re not living together. She’s there to look after him just till he’s better.’
Inez hadn’t heard Becky sound so happy for months
‘He thinks you’re going to marry him on June eighth?’ Algy was aghast. He sat down heavily. ‘And the other one, Rowley whatever, thinks you’re going to marry him on the fifteenth?’
A rumbling sound, rather like a tube train passing subterraneanly beneath one’s feet, came from the depths of one of the armchairs. It was Reem Sharif laughing. After a late babysitting she had stayed the night and was now occupied in wiping breakfast off the faces of Carmel and Bryn.
‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ said Zeinab. ‘I’m not really going to marry them, Alge.’
‘Don’t you see you’re on thin ice? All hell’ll break loose if one of them finds out. It’s time to stop, break it off before it’s too late.’
‘At least I never took up with Orville as well. And not for want of asking.’
Zeinab was looking particularly ravishing this morning in a new black linen miniskirt and, in accordance with the current fashion, a white muslin frilly peasant blouse. An engagement ring was on each hand. ‘You want to look around you, Alge, at what it’s done for us. Digital TV and the kids’ bikes. Them chandeliers. And have you seen our joint account since I sold Morton’s diamond and sapphire job?’
‘I’m too scared to look,’ said Algy. ‘You still haven’t told me what was in that dirty great box as was delivered here yesterday. There was two guys brought it in a great black van with gold all over it.’
‘You could have looked. I don’t have nothing secret from you, you know that.’
‘May as well tell him what it was, Suzanne.’ Reem undid her handiwork by stuffing a chocolate into each child’s mouth and pushing them away. ‘Jealousy is the pits. Put the poor sod out of his misery.’
‘D’you know what I think? I think you ought to marry me. Specially now we’re getting a new place to live. That’d stop you marrying anyone else. Now are you going to tell me what’s in the box?’
‘OK, I don’t mind. It was my wedding dress, so there. The one what I’m wearing when I marry Morton. I mean, I’m supposed to be wearing. My God, look at the time. I should have been at work half an hour ago.’
He didn’t have to wait so long this time. She phoned at three. Nothing she said surprised him, unless it was a certain sophistication about her directions. Unmarked notes, and however he obtained them, directly from his bank or from cash dispensers, the money must come from several different places. When he had accumulated five thousand he was to change half of it, choosing small outlets, the kind that were found at the back of jewellers’ shops around Paddington Station, into euros. The remaining five thousand he must draw, using credit cards, from various London bank branches. If the limit on his cards was inadequate for this—clearly she thought this unlikely—he was to draw a cheque and support it with a card.
‘It’ll take weeks,’ said Jeremy.
‘I’ll give you one week. Wednesday, twenty-nine May. I’ll call you again, this sort of time, make arrangements.’
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘I have to know more, I have to …’
‘Ciao for now,’ she said and put the phone down.
He went out on to the roof garden with a gin and tonic and a bread and cheese sandwich. It was something like thirty-six hours since he had eaten anything. The hyacinths were over, their waxy flowers sticky and their scent the smell of decay. Think, he said to himself, think this through logically. If he didn’t pay up this woman would take the keyring, the lighter and the earrings to the police. The fact that these were truly Jacky Miller’s earrings would be apparent to them since that friend of hers had identified the pair he bought and put in the shop as containing the wrong number of brilliants. How would she say she had got hold of them? Of course, she wouldn’t show them the strongbox. The robbery was known to them—yes, but not that an occupant of the house in Star Street kept the missing keyring, the lighter and the earrings in his kitchen cupboard. Somehow she would have to make the police connect them with him, and that she could only do by telling them the objects had been taken from his flat.
She didn’t have to take them in person, though. She could send them and with an anonymous covering letter. Something like, Found in Jeremy Quick’s flat. Why not ask him where he got them? They might distrust it, even be disgusted, but they couldn’t afford to ignore it. Crippen and co. would come and indeed ask him where he got them. Of course, he would deny all knowledge, he had never seen those things before. But suppose they had his fingerprints on them? He had never wiped them, never considered doing so while he handled them, though he had wiped the earrings he bought before putting them in the shop. If they asked to take his fingerprints he would have to agree.
He also had to face the fact that this girl most likely had no reputation to lose, no record she would want to keep clean. If they charged her with robbery and maybe this boyfriend with her—he didn’t want to think about the boyfriend, another potential blackmailer—if they did that, why would she care? She’d get no more than probation or a few weeks’ community service. He was beginning to see he couldn’t win. Unless …
Later in the afternoon he went downstairs to spy out what money exchange places there were in the area. Up until now, whenever he needed foreign currency, he had bought his dollars or deutschmarks at the airport. Like anyone who always uses a specific agency for his transactions, he had never noticed that there were other options. But now, as he crossed the pavement, he saw that a sign, hanging from chains, outside Mr Khoury’s offered ‘currency exchange at competitive rates’. A thousand times he must have passed that shop and never seen that sign or, if he had, taken in what it meant.
As a kind of rehearsal, he went in, spotted the little window and grille at the back, and stood there looking about him for signs of life. After a moment or two he rang the bell on the counter and Mr Khoury came out from the back. Seeing Jeremy, he went behind the grille and said, ‘How may I help you, sir?’
‘I want to buy a hundred pounds’ worth of US dollars.’
‘Certainly. I will make a computation.’ The jeweller did something to a calculator and named the sum. ‘Taking perhaps a pleasant vacation in Florida?’ Getting no answer, he said, ‘Perhaps you will be so kind, sir, as to tell Mrs Ferry her watch is ready.’
Jeremy very nearly gaped. The man knew he lived next door! Often in the past he had wondered about that illusion some people had that no one in London knows their neighbour’s business. He said brusquely, ‘Well, thanks, but I’ve changed my mind.’
Mr Khoury watched him go with that silent inscrutability that has led to the fallacy that everyone born east of Suez is calm, fatalistic and resigned to qismet.
Still, Jeremy thought, he now knew how it was done. Did that mean he meant to submit to the girl’s demand? Without any specific aim, he began to walk westwards and, taking Norfolk Street, made his way towards the Bayswater Road and Kensington Gardens. He needed fresh air just as he had needed food, and whatever the degree of pollution on the congested streets, the air in the royal parks was always fresh.
Crossing the big thoroughfare, he walked along one of the paths in the direction of Kensington and the Round Pond. It was sunny and quite warm, even hot. Until now he hadn’t noticed. Couples and single people lay everywhere on the grass. In these places there always seem to be more young girls than any other section of the population. Don’t they have jobs or babies or occupations apart from trailing desultorily in here, some linking arms, others walking side by side, chattering? Dozens of them had passed him but not one had aroused in him that fearful and terrifying excitement. He threw himself down on the grass among them, smelling its green warm smell.
CHAPTER 22
She hadn’t consulted James but presented him with a fait accompli.
‘You’ll never regret it,’ he said and she wondered at his insensitivity.
Hadn’t she been at least half regretting ever since? Guilt, which seemed assuaged for ever, had come back and, it seemed, more painfully and urgently than ever. She was back at work but there had been scarcely a moment in her day when Will hadn’t been in her thoughts. Determined not to phone, she had yielded at last and spoken to Kim an hour before James arrived. They were fine, Kim said, they were watching TV. She had decided to take Will out for a meal and he said he’d like that. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, but of course she didn’t really know what there was to worry about.
Looking at herself in the mirror, Becky realised that for the past two or three weeks she had paid very little attention to her appearance. Her hair was rough and shaggy, her face aged by anxiety, and all the drink had brought an increase in her weight. She looked her age and more. A long hot shower, a face mask, shampoo and conditioner, did a lot to help. She sprayed herself all over with Bobbi Brown perfume, rubbed cream into her hands, put on a dress she had never previously worn because when she got it home the neckline seemed too revealing and the colour too bright.
Five minutes before he was due, she made herself a large gin and tonic, plenty of gin and not much else. Necessarily, it had to be swallowed fast. She washed away the evidence with a foul-tasting mouthwash.
James praised her appearance, said how wonderful it was to be alone with her at last, but they had not been in each other’s company for more than half an hour before she began to suspect that he intended to punish her. Somewhere in his head the idea must be circulating that he had suffered and because of her.
They went to a restaurant in Hampstead, a fashionable place much written about by trendy food columnists. Drinks were ordered and when they came they toasted each other.
‘I wonder how many men’, James said reflectively, ‘would put up with what I have these past weeks.’
She felt like saying that he didn’t have to come so often. At the time she had sometimes thought there was something masochistic about him, relentlessly visiting, sulking when there, obsessed with that crossword. Aloud she said, ‘I know how hard it was.’
‘I’m not sure if you do.’ He smiled to take the sting out of his words, covered her hand, which lay on the table, with his. ‘You’re going to have to make it up to me.’
If he meant what she thought he meant (in that male cliché which always made of lovemaking a threat), surely they both took that for granted. Wasn’t it what they had been waiting for, ever since they found Will asleep on the steps? Now was the moment to change the subject. She talked about her pleasure at going back to work, about her first days back, and he listened, making appropriate comments. Things were going to be all right. After all, he was a man, and men, she had often thought, need to be appreciated more than women do.
Impulsively, she said, ‘Thank you for being so supportive, I really am grateful.’
His reply chilled her. ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to say so.’
All that time, weeks, he had sat in the corner in silence for hours, frowning over the paper, speaking to her, on the few occasions when he did, only to nag. She looked at him, into his eyes, and saw a handsome man, none the worse because he was so obviously a product of a lifetime of expensive medical and cosmetic care—perfectly capped teeth, faintly tinted contact lenses, hair cut by an expert, nails attended to by a manicurist. Often, with other women, she had felt plain and ill-groomed beside them, not as well-dressed, not as honed and polished, but never before with a man.
The desire she had known off and on when he came to her flat was still there, but it seemed to be shrinking into the kind she might have for a good-looking young labourer or even an actor on television. No meeting of minds, no dawning reciprocal tenderness. She was thankful she still wanted him.
Several times during dinner he referred back to his sacrifices and her failure, in his eyes, to recognise his selflessness and patience, but he talked of other things too, of his work, his parents and sister, and of his house which, though two years in his possession, he was still furnishing with great care. And by the time they had driven back to Gloucester Avenue, she felt both were in the mood that had been so horribly disrupted by James’s first encounter with Will.
Going to bed with a man for the first time should ideally be natural, a spontaneous consequence of accord, mutual attraction and, sometimes, too much drink. Even this last would have been preferable to a contrived coupling. It must have been rather like this for her grandparents’ generation, bride and groom self-conscious and awkward with each other, on their wedding night. But James wasn’t awkward, and because she had schooled herself not to expect a miracle the first time, her expectations were exceeded and afterwards, briefly, she felt at peace. Unable to sleep, she got up after about an hour and went into the kitchen. There she did what she hadn’t dared do in front of him, when he and she had been decorously drinking Sauvignon, poured herself a large measure of whisky and, for some reason, sighed with relief as the warmth and the thrill of it slid down her throat.
Still, now Will had gone and James was at last her lover, she would gradually wean herself off the drink. There would be no need for that kind of stimulus and support.
Going downstairs just before eight thirty, he had to pass the front doors of Ludmila Gogol’s flat and that of Will Cobbett. Only from two a.m. until about now could no music be heard from the Russian woman’s place. It was, of course, what is called ‘classical’ and therefore, Jeremy had often noticed in other contexts as well as this one, regarded by those forced to listen to it as nowhere near as reprehensible as pop, soul, hip-hop or garage, and by those playing it as irreproachable. He paused for a moment to listen outside the other door, heard a woman’s voice, then Cobbett’s own, and the woman suddenly giggling. So Cobbett had a girlfriend—wonders would never cease. He speculated as to whether Inez knew. As he went on down, he heard from behind him a heavy thumping and a succession of majestic chords, like a thunderstorm breaking out afresh after a peaceful and sunlit lull.
He tapped on the door at the foot of the stairs and, instead of the usual invitation to come in, heard, ‘Who is it?’
For answer he opened the door and went in, forcing himself to smile and look jovial. ‘I’m a bit of a stranger, I know, but these things happen.’ Never apologise, never explain …
He noticed the single teacup and the tea dregs at the bottom of it. ‘I’ve already had mine,’ Inez said, and in a voice that sounded anything but keen, ‘I can make you another if you like.’
‘Please don’t bother,’ he said, but he forced himself to stay and sat down, as he always had, in the grey velvet armchair. ‘Mr Cobbett has a girlfriend, I hear.’
‘So I believe.’
‘One wonders what she thinks of Shostakovich booming through the wall at all hours.’
‘Does one?’ Inez said frostily.
This was much worse than he had expected. Perhaps it was only that she was having an off day. Hardly PMT at her age. The woman-hating remark coming into his mind unbidden reminded him of how he had decided he found no woman likeable … What was it the Italians said? Tutte le donne sono putte eccetto mia madre ch’è una santa. Probably that wasn’t correct but its meaning was clear: all women are whores except my mother who is a saint. ‘Well, I must be on my way,’ he said.
Inez looked up and gave him a small restricted smile.
He walked down towards Paddington Station, hating her. What gave her the right to believe she had him at her beck and call? His next thought was to wonder why he didn’t kill women like her, old, ugly women, no use or ornament to anyone. No, he had to choose the young against whom, as far as he could tell, he had no personal animus. His conscious mind might hate Inez and her like but his unconscious directed his energy against a certain kind of youthful femininitiy. Not only did he lack knowledge of why he did it, he didn’t even know why this one and not another. His thoughts reverted to the fact that he was always behind his victims. It was always the ones in front of him, the
ones whose backs were towards him, that he killed, never those approaching him.
Further than that he was unable to go in his mind, except to understand that this was why he used a garrotte. Like the practitioners of thuggee in India, he had to attack from behind. Beyond that realisation came a curtain, a closed blind that very nearly threatened to obscure what had come before. For the time being he would think of it no more.
There were jewellers down here but only one of them had opened. Bureau de Change, a sandwich board on the pavement announced. He went in, this time bought euros to the value of a thousand pounds, a transaction which left the account very short of funds. The long straight stretch of Sussex Gardens brought him back to the Edgware Road. On the way he thought what a suitable victim for a mugger, and they abounded round here, he would make. All those euros on him and the two hundred in sterling, but he would give any mugger who tried it on a—literal—run for his money. He would enjoy that.
It was supposed to be unwise to use the cash dispensers down here unless you kept your wits about you. Jeremy liked to think he always did that. He inserted his card, keyed in his pin number and asked it for £500, hoping letters wouldn’t come up on the screen to tell him the account couldn’t stand it. Of course, he had far more than that on deposit and in securities but he couldn’t touch them immediately. He would probably have to go and see his bank, have invested money transferred to his current account—and hope they could do it fast. However, the dispenser produced £500 and this he took further down the street to the more respectable end, the bit that came into Marble Arch, and changed it into euros at a place that had no jewellery department but only changed money.
A branch of his own bank was in Baker Street. Somehow the idea of going there and taking funds that earned interest into an account where it would lie unprofitably enraged him more than anything he had done so far. Did these people ever earn anything for themselves? Or did they live entirely by theft and fraud and blackmail? And there were thousands like them. Crime in this city outraged him, the grabbing and destruction of other people’s property, the disregard for rights of ownership, the sheer wanton immorality of it. But he turned into George Street just the same and walked, fulminating, to his bank.