The Saint Zita Society

by Ruth Rendell

  ‘We’ll go for a nice walk,’ she said to Thomas. ‘We’ll go and see my daddy and say hello to Mr Iqbal. Shall we do that?’

  Thomas yelled, ‘Yes, yes, do it now!’ and Rabia, smiling at him, put her finger to her lips.

  The civil partnership ceremony passed off quietly and the small lunch party was a success. At least according to June it was. She watched Damian and Roland leave in an ordinary black cab and come back in the afternoon in Lord Studley’s Beemer, driven by Henry. It was a historic occasion in more ways than one, being the last time Henry for the foreseeable future would ever drive someone else’s car. Huguette was giving him a Prius for a wedding present two days later. Opening the car door for his future mother-in-law, Henry took great pleasure in addressing her as ‘My Lady’, also for the last time. In future, he had decided, it would be ‘Mamma’, as copying Huguette and calling her ‘Mummy’ was a bit OTT.

  Other changes were coming. Adding her legacy to the savings she already had, Zinnia had discovered she now had just enough to satisfy a lifelong ambition, go home to Antigua and open a bar on a fashionable beach. She had a flight booked on Saturday, much to the chagrin of half the residents of Hexam Place who would now be without a cleaner. Jimmy told Dr Jefferson ‘no worries’ (his new phrase) because he would do the cleaning at number 3. He might also become a replacement for Zinnia at number 6, number 7 and number 8. He could do it now he had moved in at number 3 and was, so to speak, on the spot. This was said in the hearing of Dr Jefferson who made no attempt to deny it but only smiled resignedly. Jimmy had forgotten all about the missing knife.

  Montserrat agreed with Ciaran that she had become obsessed with Preston Still. Not obsessed in a sex kind of way, she assured him, she didn’t even like him any more, but desperate to know what had happened between him and the police. Had they told him about her letter? Had he guessed it was from her and had he told them so? What were they going to do to him, if anything? She seldom saw him. Occasionally the Audi drew up outside number 7 and he was seen to run up the steps to the front door. He never spoke to her, never seemed to notice her, though he looked in her direction and the whites of his eyes showed and his face flushed.

  Ciaran wanted her to come and live with him. His flatmate had left and he didn’t miss the rent money.

  ‘Or we could go off somewhere it’s not grey and damp.’

  ‘Spain,’ said Montserrat, Barcelona in mind. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  Thinking about it involved plucking up the nerve to talk to Preston. That would mean going to Medway Manor Court and suppose he refused to let her in? It was the kind of thing that needed to be done on the spur of the moment. See him, go up to him, speak. But she never did see him. If he came to number 7 – she knew from Rabia that he did – it was early in the morning before she was up. How many mornings would she have to be up by seven thirty in order to speak to him?

  She never saw Lucy either. Three women had replaced Zinnia. They were called Merrie Maids and they came every morning, so that took care of Lucy’s breakfasts. Montserrat spent a lot of time with Rabia. Her curiosity was aroused when the children’s nanny asked her, if she was going out that morning, would she post that letter to Lucy? Montserrat thought she might as well give it to her employer but she couldn’t very well say so or ask what the letter was about, and though she looked enquiring Rabia only smiled. Her au pair’s money, for which she now did nothing, continued to come into her bank account.

  But on the evening of the day she was going to post the letter, with the letter actually in her hand, she was climbing the area steps on her way to meet Ciaran, when she met Preston Still stepping out of his car. This was as she had predicted, the spur of the moment, and they were face to face.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Long time no see.’

  In a chilly voice he said, ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Absolutely fine. What are the police going to do to you? If you don’t tell me I’ll go and ask them.’

  If they hadn’t been out in the street and with that weird gardener guy watching their every move, she thought, he would have hit her.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Of course. How many times do I have to point out to you that it was an accident?’

  ‘Let me guess. They went to Gallowmill Hall and searched and didn’t find that roof-rack box because you’d taken it away, dumped it somewhere. Or burned it or chopped it up.’

  ‘I was able to explain everything satisfactorily. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I am in rather a hurry.’ He turned away and bounded up the steps to the front door. Montserrat walked down to the Dugong and sat on one of the seats outside. Preston Still was inside number 7 for no more than five minutes before returning down the steps and getting back into the car.

  It was too cold to stay there any longer, cold and pointless. Montserrat went into the pub and bought herself a glass of red wine for a change. This might be the last time she would ever come in here. It was time for her to go, shake the dust of this place off her feet, to use a phrase much liked by her father. Lucy would have to find another au pair.

  Spring shows its first signs in the middle of February. It was still too early for those tulips and hyacinths Khalid Iqbal had planted for Thea and at number 7 but the snowdrops had come and gone and purple and yellow crocuses were coming out. Those front gardens where a flowering tree or shrub grew in their centre beds had an almond in bud if not yet in flower and a yellow mahonia with sprays of blossom among its prickly leaves. Dex noted all these pretty things with pleasure, a relief from that ugly thing he often observed, the evil spirit. He was preparing to dispose of it when he could. The difficulty was that it was never alone for more than a minute or two and it never walked anywhere.

  Dex was in no doubt at all that it was an evil spirit, though he had come to that conclusion on his own. Peach was silent. He left messages, kind and caring, but he never spoke. Destroying the evil spirit might take a long time, Dex understood that. He would watch and wait.

  Gussie had howled for the Princess for three days, refusing to go out for walks, though June had tried to take him. Then, quite suddenly, his mourning had ceased, he had begun to eat again and had bitten June when she tried to put his coat on. With Thea dead and gone, Henry a married man living in a pretty little house in Chelsea rented for him and Huguette by his father-in-law, Zinnia describing in emails from Antigua the restaurant she had started and herself no longer a servant, June disbanded the Saint Zita Society. It had been good while it lasted, approximately seven months, though she had noticed that while she had always been enthusiastic, the others had mostly not pulled their weight. Now she must be free to concentrate on her project, that of redecorating the whole of number 6 from top to bottom and putting in a new central heating system. Why not, when she had a house of her own at last? Neighbours suggested she should sell it and buy herself a nice little flat with a second bedroom for when a friend came to stay. June shuddered. She had no friend. The nearest to come into that category was Rocksana Castelli and June understood she must be got rid of promptly. It would mean breaking the lease but she had never lacked courage.

  She made her way upstairs, her bones aching again, rehearsing the words she would use to Rocksana, but at the top of the top flight, when she was seriously out of breath, Rad’s former girlfriend emerged from her bedroom. ‘Oh, June, the very person I most want to see. I hope you won’t hate me but I’m leaving. I know I’ve got this lease but will you be an angel and let me go? You see, I’ve met this wonderful man and he wants me to …’

  June didn’t hear the rest. She was marvelling at her luck. Courage wasn’t necessary, maybe never would be again. This afternoon she would devote to finding a builder. But first to attend to Miss Grieves. Learning that it is much easier to be charitable and kind when one is rich, June was finding that ministering to the aged tenant of number 8’s basement was not only satisfying but quite enjoyable. She had even succeeded in eliciting from Miss Grieves what no other resident of Hexam Place had
ever managed to do, finding out her Christian name and calling her by it without arousing the old woman’s rage.

  ‘Good morning, Gertrude.’ No wonder she had kept it dark! ‘I’m popping down to Waitrose in a minute so I want to know what you’d fancy for your dinner.’ The place was filthy and smelt disgusting. ‘Now I think it would be a good idea for me to ask Merrie Maids to pop down here one day this week and give this flat a good tidy-up. What do you think?’ She really must stop speaking of herself and everyone else popping everywhere. ‘Shall we say Wednesday morning?’

  Miss Grieves didn’t argue but said she’d like curry for her dinner.

  ‘Good idea. Maybe I’ll have the same. And I’ll get you one of those bins with a lockable lid to keep the fox off. I’ll pop – I mean, come down with it this afternoon.’

  A sign of the times, Jimmy said it was, when Lord Studley’s new driver turned out to be a woman. Rosamund was her name. Probably she had a surname too but no one knew what it was. Such appendages seemed unnecessary these days, for staff if not for employers. Curtains for her if she was caught calling Lord Studley Cliff. Greatly daring, Jimmy had experimented, when returning from a long session in the Dugong, with addressing Dr Jefferson as ‘Si’ and had received no reprimand. But the paediatrician had been half asleep in front of the television at the time and might not have heard.

  Jimmy had watched with interest June’s ascent to millionaire and house-owner. And what a house! Not a little semi-detached on an arterial road in Acton, conveniently beside a bus stop, which was the best she might have aspired to by her own efforts, but a palace in one of the finest residential districts in the United Kingdom, if not the world. Unfortunately, Si Jefferson (as he now thought of him) was no more than ten years his senior, if that. But he was progressing in his campaign, had graduated from that poky little room in the basement to one of the principal bedrooms on the first floor and convinced Si of his top-class cooking skills. They not only now shared their evening meal but took it together and Jimmy hung in there afterwards, watching TV in the drawing room. He had almost forgotten Thea, recalling her vaguely when he saw a woman with red hair.

  No one attempted to stop her moving out. On a Saturday, the day the first tulips came into bloom in the window boxes Thea had prepared to delight Damian and Roland, Montserrat stuffed her clothes and make-up – she possessed little else – into the boot of the VW and shook the dust, as Beacon and her father put it, of Hexam Place off her feet for ever. Rabia came downstairs to say goodbye to her but, apart from putting a hundred pounds in an envelope under her door, Lucy took no notice of her departure. Montserrat had resigned by leaving a message on Lucy’s voicemail.

  ‘I hope you’ll be very happy,’ Rabia said as if she were getting married.

  ‘Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Rabia laughed. ‘We will take it as said.’

  Montserrat had got no further than the junction with Lower Sloane Street when she remembered she had left her Jo Malone scent and body cream behind in a bathroom drawer. Ciaran had given it to her in the new Red Roses perfume for St Valentine’s Day and would certainly notice if she wasn’t using it. She had just parked the car outside number 7 once more and was on the top step of the area stairs when a familiar voice laughing made her turn her head. Preston and Lucy were coming down the steps from the front door, Preston gripping her hand as if determined not to let her get away. Lucy’s face was set, her mouth tight. She looked thinner than ever.

  Montserrat heard him say, ‘Jogging every morning for me, darling. If that’s how you keep your weight down I must do the same.’

  And Lucy said, ‘That’ll be the day.’

  So they were back together. Montserrat wasn’t altogether surprised. She would never have put up with him for those four years she had planned. Lucy was welcome, though she seemed to be finding it a penance.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was unusual for Dex to question the ways of evil spirits. Their rules were not like those of other people. They ate and drank all right – he was remembering Brad Smith – and went to bed at night and sometimes went out to work but what else they did was a mystery. So seeing the evil spirit who had come to live at number 7 Hexam Place appear regularly, if not quite every day, jogging determinedly up the street and back again after about half an hour, was a puzzle but not one that need be sorted.

  The evil spirit behaved much like a human being. A banker, he must be, thought Dex, who had seen bankers on television. Once, while running, he took a mobile phone out of his pocket and talked on it, talked to Orange or Apple, Dex supposed. Beacon drove him when he came down the steps after his run and his change of clothes and Beacon said his name was Mr Still. Dex knew better. His name was Beelzebub or Moloch.

  There had been no response to Rabia’s letter giving notice. Lucy was well known for not answering letters, for even ignoring their existence. But husband and wife were back together. Beacon had carried Mr Still’s suitcases up to Lucy’s bedroom and from the floor above Rabia had seen Mr Still come out of that bedroom in the morning. The adultery must be in the past and Lucy’s conduct forgiven. But what of her and her future? Perhaps her letter had arrived and been read and shown to Mr Still but no one had remembered to tell her. Her departure date was probably to be the end of March when she would move back with her father until the wedding.

  The wedding. Within the year perhaps she would have a baby. I cannot go through that again, she said aloud in the nursery while Thomas slept. It may not be because Nazir and I had that bad gene, it may be because I alone had it and any child of mine would be sick and die. I can’t go through that again. But what choice do I have? They must have found a new nanny by now to take her place and one day soon that new woman would walk in here and introduce herself. Rabia thought, I must know, I mustn’t let that happen to Thomas without warning, I must get up my courage and go to Lucy and find out

  She no longer took Thomas to that other kind of nursery for his outings. Khalid was there, kind handsome considerate Khalid with whom she must spend the rest of her life. And her father who talked all the time now about the wedding and the Iqbal family. Rabia found herself avoiding him. Instead of going to the nursery she took Thomas in his luxurious pushchair up into Hyde Park or across to Green Park and sometimes to St James’s Park to see the pelicans. One morning when she got back to number 7 she found that Mr Still’s mother had come to stay. Accustomed to mothers and aunties and older people in general being treated with the utmost respect, she was horrified next day to hear Lucy screaming at old Mrs Still. Thomas reacted as he always did when a loud vociferous quarrel took place between the adults in the house, his eyes wide, his lower lip trembling, and after a while of silence, the whimpering would begin and the tears flow down his cheeks.

  It was the sight of him in distress when another quarrel began, this time between husband and wife, which triggered her courage. Mr Still had begun coming home earlier since he was back at number 7 and the two of them were angrier than ever with each other now Mr Still’s mother was in the house. Rabia went down to the drawing room to see Lucy only to be told by old Mrs Still that her daughter-in-law was in no fit state to see anyone. But Mr Still’s mother had plenty to say to Rabia.

  She understood Thomas’s nanny was getting married. This was just as well as she was no longer needed here. ‘My son is thinking of engaging a Norland nanny for Thomas, if you know what that is. My daughter is very keen on the idea and they discussed it over Christmas. She –’ a long gnarled finger was pointed in the direction of the drawing room – ‘objects, of course, but that is neither here nor there while he is back living in this house, as I hope he will be at least until those children are grown up. It will be best for the girls to go away to boarding school. Something will have to be done to improve their manners.’

  ‘When am I to go?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask my son. Lucy, as I understand she lets you call her, can have no say in the matter. It can only
be a matter of weeks.’

  Rabia had to know more than that. She was screwing up her courage to confront Lucy, in her bedroom if necessary, when she came up to the nursery herself, a thin worn woman, looking all of her thirty-seven years and ten more added on.

  ‘I don’t want you to go, darling. Preston was quite pleased when he saw your notice because it means he can get the nanny his horrible sister recommended. He thinks she’d be firmer with Thomas.’ Lucy gave a heavy sigh. ‘If he wasn’t around you could stay for ever. I don’t want you to go. Why did he come back?’

  Rabia was unable to answer that. She went into the girls’ room where Thomas was with them watching the television. ‘Be nice to Mummy,’ she said to him. ‘Sit on Mummy’s lap.’

  And Thomas did. Lucy was so surprised and apparently pleased that she hugged him and kissed his plump pink cheek. Rabia made Lucy and herself a cup of tea and gave Thomas a chocolate biscuit. She could hear Mrs Still senior calling for Lucy in her loud raucous old voice and said as politely as she could, ‘You will have to go. Your mother-in-law wants you.’

  Lucy went, having first kissed Thomas and said once again how happy they could all be if Preston and his mother went away and left her alone with Rabia and the children.

  That the first of these wished-for departures was taking place was witnessed by June, introducing Gussie to his dog walker who had arrived in a black van with a picture of a Great Dane on it. A taxi had drawn up outside number 7 and an old woman in a fur coat come down the steps and started making a scene. June dearly loved a scene and listened enthralled while the old woman berated the taxi driver for being in his own taxi and not Beacon in the Audi. Then Rabia appeared carrying two suitcases, there being, June supposed, no one else to do it. The dog walker went off with Gussie and the taxi with the old woman. June thought how lovely it was to have money and not to have to walk Gussie ever again.