“Ready for take-off?” I said as the lift-doors closed.
“Do they have those oxygen masks which come down from the ceiling?”
“No, we just gasp for air like hard-pressed goldfish.”
“I kind of like the idea of you and me being hard-pressed together, Ms. G.”
“I bet . . . I’ve missed your humour, Tucker.”
“Then I must take care not to get too serious, mustn’t I?”
The lift started to zip skywards. As usual it moaned and hummed as if it were aching to mate with the lift in the nearest shaft.
“Hell, this is sexy!” said Tucker suddenly. “Do you do this every day?”
“Every day. Sometimes several times.”
“How long does it take?”
“Not long enough for what you obviously have in mind. Unless, of course, you favour what Shana at the office calls a quick shag.”
“Forget it,” said Tucker. “I like to take my time.”
The lift began to slow down.
“Tucker,” I said with what I hoped was a clinical interest, “did we actually exchange those last remarks or was I hallucinating?”
“No hallucination, Ms. G. Just sheer nervous tension on your part and sheer yobbish manners on mine. Shall we revert to being Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter?”
“I hardly think we need go that far.”
The lift doors rolled open. I stepped out onto the carpeted concrete floor which lay thirty-five floors above the podium and at once I started to feel queasy. As my hand flew upwards to clasp the little crucifix I realised to my acute dismay that there was no thin chain around my neck.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Tucker, seeing my expression change.
I told him and added, trying not to panic: “I took the thing off this morning in order to wash but I forgot to put it back on again.”
I half-expected him to make a humorous remark but instead he became serious. “Let’s go back to retrieve it,” he said quickly. “Egg Street’s so near—going back’s no big deal.”
But I was already telling myself not to treat the crucifix as a lucky charm. “No, let’s be rational about this,” I insisted. “Let’s keep a sense of proportion. All we need to do is go into the flat, grab the files and get out again. I don’t have to go anywhere near the—” I broke off, trying to distract myself by producing the key-ring. “Tucker,” I heard myself say, “if I open the balcony door in any room, please could you yank me back and ram the door shut again?”
“Your wish is my command, Ms. G. Here, give me those keys before you drop them and I’ll fit the right one in the lock for you.”
I passed over the key-ring. “I suppose you’re not wearing a mini-cross yourself under that T-shirt?”
“I’m sorry to say I’m not.” Unlocking the door he held it open for me so that I could move past him into the flat.
But the files, we discovered, were nowhere to be seen.
VI
As soon as I crossed the threshold I called out Kim’s name in case he had used Mrs. Mayfield’s key after all, but to my enormous relief there was no response. Gingerly I glanced into the master bedroom. Logic told me I would not see Sophie there again, but I feared suffering a flashback which might send me tripping out into a heightened state of consciousness. However, nothing happened and gradually I became aware of the disorder which I had been too frightened to note when the ghost had appeared. Kim’s suits were on the floor again, the bedroom chair was askew and both the bedside lights had been knocked over. Automatically I moved forward to straighten the bedroom chair but wound up much too close to the window.
I fled back into the hall.
This unpleasant excursion to the bedroom was the first reason why it took me longer than it should have done to realise that the files were nowhere to be seen. The second reason was that I then became preoccupied with my balcony phobia and had to open the front door again so that I could make a quick exit if my nerve snapped. Unfortunately the wraparound balcony passed not only two sides of the living-room but all three bedrooms. The kitchen, utility room and two bathrooms on the other side of the central corridor were windowless, but I felt that if madness struck they might not seem far enough from the abyss.
By the time I had left the front door ajar, Tucker had moved down the corridor and was exclaiming at the mess in the living-room. Responding to his reaction also delayed me in my quest for the files, and as my attention was drawn back to the disorder I became aware that the flat had a heavy, oppressive atmosphere; I told myself I was letting my imagination get the better of me, but I soon felt queasier than ever.
“This is truly weird,” said Tucker appalled as I entered the living-room. “The whole flat feels as sick as a dog.”
It occurred to me that this cliché summed up the atmosphere very well. There was even a smell reminiscent of vomit, but I solved that mystery when I moved into the kitchen and rediscovered the pool of milk which I had never wiped from the floor.
Backing away with a shudder I said: “Let’s grab the files and go,” but Tucker had started staring at the view.
“It’s a great sight,” I heard him murmur, “but aren’t you a little cut off from the real world down there on the ground?”
A second later I was not only looking past him at the balcony but picturing the long drop on the other side of the rail.
“Excuse me,” I said and bolted to the kitchen sink, but no retching ensued. I just stood there, trembling like a leaf, until I became aware that Tucker had followed me to the kitchen threshold. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Temporarily incapacitated. Balcony.”
“That sour milk’s enough to make anyone puke—you’ve picked the wrong room to recover in . . . Why the balcony phobia?”
“Mrs. Mayfield said I’d throw myself off it.”
Tucker immediately assumed an expression of amazement and demanded: “Why would you want to do that when there are three lifts outside your front door?” And as I achieved a shaky smile he added encouragingly: “But forget all that—just watch me. I’ve got something to show you that’ll wipe out all thought of balconies in double-quick time . . . Are you watching?”
“Avidly.” By this time he had withdrawn a couple of paces into the dining-area and I had been lured forward to the kitchen threshold.
“Voilà! ” said Tucker, apparently bent on dramatising himself. Shrugging off his leather jacket he slung it over the nearest chair and clenched his fists to harden his muscles. My mouth opened as I reacted to the short sleeves of his T-shirt.
“Your forearms!”
He held them out for my inspection. “Aren’t they magnificent?”
“Wondrous,” I said poker-faced, all nausea forgotten.
“You’re stunned?”
“Overwhelmed.”
Tucker faked narcissistic delight and flexed his muscles again like a bodybuilder. His forearms were in fact exactly the shape and size one would expect to see on a thirty-five-year-old male in good health, but they were sparsely covered with a rust-coloured fleece, and beneath this eye-catching attribute I saw what appeared at first glance to be sunburned flesh. But I was mistaken. It was freckled skin, the kind of skin a certain segment of the population acquires in lieu of suntan. The freckles would fade in winter and flower in summer. Their significance was undeniable.
“So now I know how to classify the colour of your hair!”
“You see?” said Tucker triumphantly. “I always told you I wasn’t a redhead!”
We started to laugh. Eventually I managed to say: “I know how you feel. I’ve always believed I wasn’t a brunette. The only difference between us is that I have to resort to a bottle to sustain my belief and you don’t.”
“As a novelist I pride myself on my imagination! So of course I’ll always see you as a blonde, even if you give up the bottle.”
I laughed again, pushing back my hair in an unexpected moment of self-consciousness. I did not look at him.
“Feeling better?”
“Much.” It was then that I finally remembered what we were supposed to be doing. “But where the hell are those files?”
We stared hard at the wrecked room but nothing resembling a file caught our attention.
“Let’s backtrack to the hall,” said Tucker, “and try to work out what your husband must have done on his arrival home last night.”
Outside the bedroom at the other end of the corridor I reflected: “Kim knew I was out for the evening but as he was back so late he’d assume I’d arrived home before him and he’d start looking for me straight away.”
“Surely he’d be immediately diverted by all the mess?”
“No, he’d already know the flat would be trashed. He’d commissioned Mrs. Mayfield to trash it.”
Tucker said with mild astonishment: “Does Mother Mayfield have an occupation whenever she’s not flitting around like a witch on a broomstick?”
“She’s a psychic healer.”
“No wonder the medics blanch when they hear the words ‘alternative medicine’! ”
“Tucker, I assure you this woman’s no laughing matter! If you’d heard Nicholas reading off the information on his computer—”
“Say no more, I get the picture. Let’s have another shot at visualising what Kim did. He comes into the hall, he calls your name, there’s no reply—”
“—and he goes into the living-room to check the answering machine,” I said, welcoming this known fact with relief.
“Is he still carrying the files?”
“Yes, he’s keen to read them.”
“Okay, he takes the files to the living-room—” Tucker led the way back down the corridor as we retraced Kim’s footsteps “—and he plays back the message on the answerphone—”
“—and he learns where I am. He’s still keen to read the files but he’s even keener to rush off and rescue me, so—”
“—he shoves the files into the first temporary hiding-place he can think of. After all, if you’re going to be returning to the flat together he won’t want them lying around to catch your interest . . . What’s in this room here?”
“My junk. But his junk’s next door. Maybe—”
“No, too obvious.”
“Not necessarily. At this stage he doesn’t know that I know the files exist. So—”
“—let’s check.”
We stared around at Kim’s junk for several seconds but no bilious-yellow file demanded to be noticed.
“I think we’re on the wrong track,” said Tucker at last. “This is a man in a hurry. He’s in the living-room by the telephone and he wants to rush out of the flat—wouldn’t he just ram the files into the nearest available hidey-hole?”
“Yes, but—”
“How tall is he?”
“Just over six feet. Why?”
“If I were Kim Betz, trying to hide files from my wife who’s several inches shorter than I am, I’d stretch up and shove the files on a high shelf so that they’d be out of her sight unless she was standing on a chair. Where are the high shelves you can’t reach?”
“In the kitchen.”
Once more we started to move down the corridor but a second later we stopped dead. Beyond the front door, which I had deliberately left open earlier, one of the lifts was halting in the lobby, and as the passengers emerged I heard a familiar voice exclaim: “Well, look at that! It seems I won’t be needing a locksmith after all—although of course I’ll pay you for your time.”
In horror I whispered: “It’s Kim.”
“Stall him,” muttered Tucker, and vanished towards the kitchen.
My feet carried me down the corridor in the opposite direction. Taut with dread I re-entered the hall just as Kim crossed the threshold with a man who I assumed to be the locksmith.
Behind them was Mrs. Mayfield.
VII
I nearly passed out. My heart was racing and my legs felt weak. It seemed amazing that I should remain conscious.
“Carter!” Kim did not seem particularly surprised to see me. He did not seem particularly upset either. The exclamation was wary but not hostile. “Well, I did wonder if you might be here early,” he said with the kind of charm one uses to gloss over an awkward social situation, “but I thought last night you were too exhausted to be here quite as early as this! May I introduce Tom Callan, who’s Mrs. Mayfield’s local locksmith?”
“You can go now, Tommy,” said Mrs. Mayfield placidly as she glanced into the bedroom and observed the disorder. “I’ll talk to you later . . . Dear oh dearie me! What a nasty feel this flat’s got! Quite uninhabitable I’d say, and fit only for laying out corpses—and talking of corpses, Kate dear, you’re looking peakier than ever, poor little thing, it really is sad to see someone deteriorate so fast, but they can do wonders for people now in mental hospitals, so I hear, for those who survive long enough to get there . . . Ah, here’s the lift, back again! Bye-bye, Tommy! No, don’t close the front door, Jake, just get what you came for and we’ll be off. I don’t believe in hanging around a place like this unless I’m really hard up for entertainment.”
Amidst my horror I was trying to dream up a delaying tactic, but I found all I could do was exclaim feebly to Kim: “How dare you bring that woman here!”
Kim sidestepped my anger by making an irrelevant reply. “She knew a locksmith who wouldn’t keep me waiting for hours.”
“Well, if you were really so keen to get into the flat, why didn’t you just use her copy of your key? I figured you wouldn’t be here early because you wouldn’t want to give away the fact that she had the means to trash the flat last night, but if you’re now too desperate to care—”
“Don’t be silly, dear,” said Mrs. Mayfield, still very placid, “or I’ll think you’ve teetered over the brink into persecution mania. Of course I didn’t wreck your flat and of course I don’t have a copy of his key! Go on, Jake, don’t let her delay you, get what you want and then we’ll—oh, my goodness me, what a lovely young man! Hullo, dear, who are you? No, wait a moment, I know who you are! You’re the temporary personal assistant who’s all too personal and not quite so temporary!”
Kim junked the charm and spun to face me. “What the hell’s he doing here?”
“Helping me uncover your lies!” I shot back but my voice shook.
“Christ, if you two have spent the night here together, I’ll—”
“Calm down, Jake,” said Mrs. Mayfield, taking charge of the situation. “Be sensible, there’s a pet. The way this place is now no one would want to have sex in it unless they were necrophiliacs—or perhaps coprophiliacs . . . What’s that nasty smell?”
I said to Kim: “Get that woman out of here.” I was trying to work out if Tucker had had time to find the files and hide them somewhere else. I had hardly been expecting him to reappear so quickly.
“Pull yourself together!” Kim was still livid with me. “At least Mrs. Mayfield was generous enough to offer me hospitality for the night after you’d kept me out of here!”
I forgot Tucker. I was too busy welcoming the strength generated by a rush of rage. “My God, are you trying to tell me you spent the night under the same roof as this woman? And now you’re accusing me of unacceptable behaviour?”
“Shut up! You damn well gutted me by the way you carried on at that Rectory! Thank God Elizabeth was finally home by the time I got to Fulham—I had to talk to her, I was so bloody upset, but if you think for one moment that she and I—”
“Sour milk,” said Mrs. Mayfield who by this time was well on her way down the corridor to the living-room. “A real smell of decay if ever there was one, almost as bad as dead flowers. Who was it that wrote that beautiful line: ‘Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds’?”
Turning my back on Kim I raced after her into the living-room. “Get out of my flat, you bitch! I won’t have you invading it like this!”
“Oh, don’t be so silly, pet, you’re behaving like a two-year-old. Yes, there it is—sour milk on the kitchen flo
or! Well, there’s only one thing to do, isn’t there?” She emerged from the kitchen and started heading for the balcony door. “This flat needs airing.”
I opened my mouth to yell: “NO!” but nothing happened. I could only back away until I was pressed against the wall. By this time Kim and Tucker were facing each other across one of the upturned armchairs and Mrs. Mayfield was within six feet of the windows.
But Tucker shot in front of her to guard the balcony door. “Hey, wait a minute!” he said to us all in the friendliest of voices. “I think Mrs. Mayfield’s got this right by staying calm, so why don’t we all follow her example, lighten up a bit, maybe even have some coffee? Would you like some coffee, Kim?”
“I’m Mr. Betz to you, sonny!”
Tucker’s mouth hardened but he persisted in pushing the line which would propel me into a windowless room. “Carter, you wouldn’t mind fixing some coffee, would you? But keep the kitchen door shut so we’re not all overpowered by that sour milk!” As he spoke I knew he had realised I could escape from the kitchen into the utility room and from the utility room into the flat’s corridor, a move which would give me a clear run to the front door, but before I could even begin to overcome my panic, Mrs. Mayfield was saying reprovingly to him: “Well, that’s not a very gentlemanly suggestion, dear! Telling a lady to shut herself up in a smelly room? Your mother couldn’t have brought you up properly! No, Kate needs some fresh air—look at her, she’s almost green. Come along, Kate my pet—you just step out onto the balcony with me and I guarantee you’ll be transformed in no time!”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mayfield,” said Tucker courteously as I started to shudder, “but I’ve got no head for heights and right now I can’t take the idea of any outside door in this flat being opened.”
Mrs. Mayfield paused to gaze at him. “What did you say your name was, dear?”
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