by Ruth Rendell
“I suppose so. If you like.”
Passing his bedroom door on the way, he called out to Nicola that he would want her up in Sybil’s flat in a few minutes and would shout for her. It was a hot day, and a thick, humid warmth had risen to the landing. Sweat broke out on his face, on his upper lip, as he climbed the stairs. He had a strong, quite unreasonable feeling of impending doom.
Sybil opened the door before he got there and was standing just inside. She was wearing a pale pink dress with blue and green geometric shapes all over it, which left her arms and shoulders bare.
“It’s very hot up here,” he said when he was in the even more stifling atmosphere of the living room. “Don’t you want to open the windows?”
“I never open windows. It lets insects in.”
By now, he was bathed in sweat. “May I sit down?”
“Be my guest.”
Ridiculous, he thought. I am her guest. He unfolded the sheet of paper on which he had typed the contract and laid it on the round table. She remained standing. “I have the rent contract. Would you like to read it?”
She didn’t sit down, but just glanced at the contract. “I don’t need to read it. I told you I’m living here. Dermot said I should.”
“Yes, perhaps. But you still have to pay me rent.”
She shook her head vigourously. “I don’t pay rent. Why should I? I already said I’m living here.”
The perspiration was dripping down his face like tears. “I don’t think you understand. If you have rooms in someone else’s property, you have to pay for it. You have to pay by the week or month. That’s what this paper is about. I’ll call Nicola in to witness it, if you know what that means, and then you sign and I sign and she sees us do that and she signs. OK?”
“No. It’s not OK. I haven’t got the money. I work in Lidl on the checkout.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but that means you’ll have to go. You can’t stay here without paying rent.”
That awful shaking of the head began again. “I’m staying here like Dermot did. He never paid rent, not a penny, and I’m not either. This is my home now.”
“No, it’s not, Sybil. If you don’t go, I shall have to fetch the police to put you out.”
She took a step towards him and a cunning look spread across her face. Deceit was in it, and a half smile. “I saw you hit Dermot with that bag you carry. It must have had something heavy in it. I was in my bedroom and I saw you from the window. He just lay there. I went to bed. He was still there in the morning. I went out there at five and saw him. You killed him like a killer on TV.”
Carl stared at her.
“I’ll tell the police if you make me leave. I didn’t go to them before as I’ve always wanted somewhere to live that’s not with my parents, but couldn’t afford it. Now I have this place, and I don’t have to pay any rent at all.”
An analogy people made when something bad had happened was to say it was a nightmare. Carl’s bad thing was worse than a nightmare, a conjuring of horror only bearable if he knew he would wake up.
He lacked the strength to speak and she saw this. She was watching him closely, not quite with a smile but with a calm, satisfied look. “I’ll keep it nice. I’ll pay for the electric and the gas, no need to worry about that. And I’ll do the garden for free, it won’t cost you.”
Still Carl couldn’t speak. He got up and walked out, stumbling a little. Nicola was downstairs, doing something in the kitchen, preparing a meal perhaps. The flowers she had bought were in a vase on the living-room windowsill, pink and mauve, stiff-petalled daisies. In films when someone was in a rage or despair or the kind of situation Carl was in now, he—it was always a man—would pick up the vase of flowers and smash it against the wall. Carl stared at the vase, then lay down on the floor and buried his face in his hands. Nicola came in with the strawberries in a bowl and a jug of cream.
“Oh, Carl, sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
He lifted his head, then struggled to his feet. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell her he was a murderer. He couldn’t tell her anything.
28
IT WAS STILL warm outside when Lizzie left the clinic, and people were sitting at the tables outside the café, Gervaise among them. She sat down next to him.
“What would you like? Coffee? Tea?”
“Do you think they have—well, alcohol?”
“In this country,” he said, “I doubt if there’s anywhere they don’t.”
They did. She asked for white wine, not particular about what sort. His having a cup of tea seemed to her a reproach. She would have much preferred him to have wine too.
“You wanted to ask my advice. What about?”
“Well, it happened a week ago but I haven’t said a word to anyone. I nearly told my parents, and then I thought they’d tell the police and the police would ask me questions—the sort of questions I shouldn’t want to answer.”
“What would those sort of questions be, then?”
“Oh, well, never mind. Nothing important. Shall I tell you what happened?”
“That’s the point of all this, isn’t it?”
She began to tell him the story, starting with her meeting the so-called Swithin Campbell and his arrangement to call for her while she was staying in Pinetree Court. She told him she was sure Swithin had thought she was rich and had put Scotty and Redhead up to abducting her. “Didn’t your mother tell you that a man called her to demand a ransom for her daughter?”
“Should she have told me?” Gervaise looked almost amused.
“I thought she might, but they got it wrong. We are both called Elizabeth, you see, and they thought I was the rich one. They took me to various places, handcuffed me and put a gag on my mouth. I don’t know where I was, it was nowhere I knew. They fed me on bread and water like in a prison, they moved me about and took me down to south London. It was while I was there that a beautiful, enormous pigeon flew into the window and smashed a pane, and the horrible men who were holding me ran away and left me. I suppose they believed it was the police breaking in. I got out and got a taxi back to my parents. There, now you know.”
Lizzie took a large and satisfying draught of her wine. The girl who had served them had brought two chocolates on a glass dish to go with their drinks, and she took one. “What do you think I should do?”
“I remember when we were children and your parents lived near Stacey’s parents in Willesden. Do you remember that?”
“Of course I do, but what’s it got to do with anything?”
“You used to come round to Stacey’s to play, and you used to tell the most enormous whoppers. That’s the name they gave to lies in those days. Do you remember that too?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do, Lizzie. I was visiting once and your dad came to fetch you, and I heard him ask Stacey’s mother, like it was a sort of joke, if you’d, I quote, been up to your usual tricks of telling porkies. There are a lot of words in the English language for telling lies.”
“I wasn’t telling lies. Not now. It’s all true.” Lizzie remembered how afraid she’d been.
“Anyone who didn’t know you might believe that tale, especially if you left out the bit about the miraculous bird.” He paused and smiled at her. “Just a piece of advice. After all, that’s what you asked for. Next time you tell that story, leave out the bird.” He went inside to pay the bill.
Lizzie got up and walked in the other direction, up to Maida Vale. She’d never liked that family; it wasn’t just Yvonne Weatherspoon, they were all the same. To be honest with herself, she had only asked Mr. Clever Gervaise for advice because she fancied him.
Well, that was the end of that. If nobody would believe her, she might as well put the whole experience out of her head. It had all been a mistake, not meant for her. She had thought she might warn the other Elizabeth about those two men, but now she didn’t care. Elizabeth Weatherspoon would just have to look out for herself.
Meanw
hile she, Lizzie, had a date that evening with a nice man who’d asked her out when he’d brought his basenji to the clinic. Only for a drink, but perhaps it would lead to greater things. While she waited for the number 98 bus, she thought about which of Stacey’s clothes she should wear for the evening.
TOM WAS ALSO on a bus—the number 18—and also giving some thought to a serious subject. The evening before, he and Dot had been to a birthday party, his sister Wendy’s, and there Wendy’s next-door neighbour had listened with interest to Tom’s account of his bus rides and asked him why he didn’t write a book about them. If Tom had only known, Trevor Vincent made that enquiry of everyone who talked to him at any length about any hobby or pursuit. He did so not because he cared or knew anything about the particular topic, but because he had no other conversation.
“Do you think I could?” Tom had asked.
“Have you got a computer or a tablet or whatever?”
“Of course I have. Shall I give it a go?
“You do that.” Trevor Vincent then moved off to find his wife and go home.
Tom thought little more about the suggestion that evening, but next day the conversation came back to him. Well, why not? Describing today’s adventure might provide the opening of such a book, the incident in Harlesden High Street, for instance, when those Chinese people had refused to get off the bus when told to do so because they had no passes but only offered cash. The driver had tried to turn them off but they had sat in the vacant seats playing some strange musical instruments Tom had never before seen. A huge, burly man (not Chinese) had joined them and also refused to get off the bus when the police came and told them to. Tom had had to get off himself then, sad not to see the outcome. That could all go in his book. He might start it tomorrow.
THE BASENJI MAN, whose name was Adam Yates, took Lizzie to something more like a wine bar than a pub. He seemed quite overcome by Stacey’s beautiful cream-coloured dress and jacket, though Lizzie thought it was a bit over-the-top for the Unicorn Lounge. She was hungry and enthusiastically responded to Adam’s suggestion that they have dinner in the Unicorn’s rather beautiful dining area. Lizzie had a principle that if a restaurant, no matter how grand and expensive, had an illustrated menu—coloured photos of chicken tikka and fish pie—she would refuse to eat there. There was nothing of that sort here. The food was civilised and delicious, the experience quite unlike that dreadful evening with the awful Swithin Campbell and his boring talk. Adam made no suggestion of coming in when he took her home, but kissed her lightly on the cheek and went to catch the 82 bus.
Next morning he phoned. He had tickets for a concert. A famous orchestra from Hungary was playing Mozart and Respighi and would she come with him on Friday? She accepted, already planning to wear the green suit with the pearls. Lizzie had never heard of Respighi, but what was Google for but to help out in situations like this?
TO LIZZIE, DESIGNATED future tasks loomed large. She anticipated little pleasure in completing the task Caroline had set for her: to carry all the items that had once belonged to Dermot to Carl Martin’s house in Falcon Mews. Unless, of course, Carl might invite her in. She was curious to see what his place looked like. He probably wouldn’t even recognise her, it had been so long since they had seen each other in their school days; they both had been close to Stacey. It wasn’t far to the mews that linked Sutherland Avenue to Castellain Road. Dermot was said to have walked it, there and back, every day, but Lizzie didn’t fancy the walk at all.
While Caroline was busy removing a nail from a cocker spaniel’s pad, Darren was out on a call, and Melissa was carrying out a routine examination of Spots the dalmatian, Lizzie had a look inside the storage cupboard, largely to assess the weight of the late Dermot’s property. A pair of sheepskin gloves, a framed photograph of a dark girl with a fat face and heavy shoulders, two broken mobile phones, an ancient Bible, three box files, a hardcover London atlas, two notebooks, and a box of paper fasteners all added up to considerable weight. She decided that she’d postpone the task till the following week.
29
SYBIL’S PARENTS PAID her a visit at the flat in Falcon Mews on a dreary Sunday. It was late morning, and the streets were deserted; those few people who were out carried umbrellas. Rain, torrential rain, had begun at nine and looked as though it would continue. A worse day for rain couldn’t have been thought of, for it was the second and most important day of the local carnival, and the sound of it, though a little subdued, could be heard from Falcon Mews, a throb, a beat, muffled cries and shouts and music.
Carl saw Mr. and Mrs. Soames arrive. He guessed who they were, for who else could they be? Mrs. Soames looked much like her daughter, or her daughter looked much like her. The parents came along the mews under a single, large black umbrella, which they only folded up when Sybil answered the door.
“She’ll want me to meet them,” Carl said to Nicola. “You’ll see. Maybe they’ll have tea first and then she’ll bring them down here and present them to me.”
“Does it matter?”
“Well, insofar as nothing matters anymore, no, it doesn’t.”
“Carl, what’s wrong? Why does nothing matter? If you don’t want Sybil living here, why did you say she could?”
“I can’t answer that, Nic. I will never be able to answer that. I would if I could, but you have to take it from me that it’s impossible. She’s here forever or until she chooses to go.”
Nicola turned away and looked out the window at the ceaseless rain, at Mr. Kaleejah, at his dog trotting along, ignoring the water underfoot and the water descending from the low, grey clouds. “What’s that dog called? Do you know?”
“I don’t know and I don’t give a shit.”
Nicola walked out of the room without a word.
For a while Carl had convinced himself that what he had done was not important. But gradually guilt and shame had arrived, as well as not so much a fear of discovery as a fear of some kind of retribution for his wickedness. He knew now that his action, irrespective of Dermot’s own wrongdoing, would always be with him, day after day, year after year. In the unlikely, indeed impossible, event of his confessing his crime, asking for forgiveness, walking into the police station, and telling whoever was there that he had killed a man, would his fear go away? When his guilt was known, when everyone knew, perhaps he would no longer be haunted by it. But it was with him now and inhabited his body the way his heart did. It slept with him and woke with him, it lived with him like an organ. It would never leave.
He tried to deflect himself from this wretched reverie by thinking of practical things; for instance, getting some sort of job. He should never have set forth in life thinking he could live on his writing. He’d relied on renting out his property for his livelihood, and this was no longer possible. A tenant, and now that tenant’s ghastly successor, had found a way to deprive him of his rent while enjoying all the benefits of a home in one of the best parts of London.
If Dermot knew from beyond the grave what Sybil was doing, would he be proud of her? And what could Carl do now? A philosophy degree was training for nothing. But that was the qualification he had; it must be a start. He could perhaps take a teacher-training course, teach English.
Footsteps sounded heavily on the stairs and Sybil called out, “Hi there, Carl.” She had recently stopped calling him Mr. Martin. Perhaps she thought her new status as a permanent householder made her his equal. “Can I bring my mum and dad in to make your acquaintance?”
He would have liked to tell her to go to hell, never to speak to him again, but he got up and opened the door. One thing particularly struck him about the couple at the foot of the stairs. They were nervous. Of him, or of Sybil?
“These are my mum and dad. They’re called Cliff and Carol. This is Mr. Martin.”
Carol Soames said she was pleased to meet him.
Cliff Soames said nothing for a moment but looked around the room apparently without approval. “You own this place, do you?” He fixed Carl with a s
tare.
“I told you he did, Dad.”
“Let’s hear what he has to say for himself. Belongs to you, does it? A young man like you?”
“Yes.”
“Sybil says your dad left it to you. A whole house to do as you like with. That true?”
Carl hated this man’s attitude. Whatever hold Sybil had over him, he wasn’t obliged to take this. “Yes, I can do with it as I like, and one of the things I’m going to do is turn you out of it. Now. Get out and take your fat wife with you.”
Immediately he said it, Carl regretted that fat. “Go on, leave,” he continued, not touching Cliff but pushing Carol out of the room. “Get out now. I never want to see you here again.”
They hurried out quickly, clearly in shock at Carl’s anger. Sybil stared at him. “Don’t think that bothered me. I don’t care if I never see them again.” She lumbered up the stairs without another word.
Nicola had heard it all, coming silently from the kitchen and standing in the doorway. “You were very rude, but you managed to stop the lecture he was going to give you on capitalism versus anarchy.”
“Maybe.”
“Shall we go out, do something? It’s brightening up. At any rate, the rain’s stopped.”
“All right,” Carl said, still in the same gloomy, downcast tone. “I’ve got no money. Where can you go and what can you do without money?”
“In a week’s time you’ll get the rent.”
As they walked along the mews, Carl began to consider, not for the first time, what he could or should tell Nicola. But as before, he had no answer that was both a reason for no money coming in, such as Sybil’s being unable to afford the rent, and, far more difficult to explain, for his tolerating this void like some sort of rich philanthropist. No one would believe such a tale, and certainly not Nicola, who knew him so well, who knew he disliked Sybil, who knew how totally strapped for cash he was.
He said to her suddenly, “Is there anything I can do to make money quickly? I mean, get a job tomorrow or very soon that would bring me in, say, a hundred and fifty pounds a week?”