by Ruth Rendell
He wouldn’t offer it to her. “I don’t know. Nicola left it there.”
“I’d better go up now. I’ve got my tea to get.”
Not dinner or supper, but tea. Nicola would call him a snob, and maybe he was. He stood up to see her out, then went back into the room and listened. She had come back down the stairs and was just outside the door. He heard a little sound, a click as of glass tapping on a hard surface, then footsteps on the stairs again.
Waiting for the footfalls to fade up the stairs was the longest he had ever waited for anything in his life, yet it could only have endured for a minute at the most. Then he went outside.
The sachets, leaflet, and glass had gone from the table.
32
THAT NIGHT, CARL made himself scrambled egg on one slice of toast and a can of baked beans on the other. Another bottle of wine remained and a small amount in the bottle he and Sybil had been drinking from. He sat there and listened, though for what he didn’t know. A scream? A groan? A stumbling down the stairs? There was silence, a silence that endured for long, slow minutes that seemed like hours. Just before ten, Nicola came home. It occurred to him that he shouldn’t have told Sybil that it was Nicola who had put the sachets and the leaflet in the hallway. But surely Sybil wouldn’t mention this to Nicola. Sybil never spoke to her. Still, it was a small, niggling worry.
Next day, Sybil went to work, and Carl realised that while he’d been tormenting himself the previous evening, speculating about her brewing up that yellow drink and suffering, perhaps on the verge of death, she had been passing a pleasant few hours.
Her morning departure coincided with Nicola’s, and they set off together, sharing an umbrella. They might have been friends, once schoolfellows, chatting away and smiling. Is she telling Nic now? Carl thought. Is she explaining how she took the sachets without permission, just picked them up from the hall table? Why had he been such a fool as to give Sybil that explanation for their presence?
He had still done nothing about a job, so in an effort to put that right and to put Sybil out of his mind, he went into the delicatessen, which was advertising for an assistant. When the manager heard Carl had no training and no experience, he said he was afraid not. Carl went into the hand car wash, which hadn’t advertised, and asked if they wanted anyone. They told him they might in November; men didn’t want to work outside in the winter months, so he could come back then. He had plundered Nicola’s housekeeping tin so had enough for coffee and even for a sparse lunch.
Sybil came home at five, which was early for her. Watching her from the ground-floor window, he seemed to see purpose in her heavy tread, as if, on her journey home, she had decided on some particular step to take. She was lost to his sight as she let herself into the house.
Nothing happened. Carl made himself a cup of tea, which if taken without milk was the cheapest thing he could drink. Why had Sybil come home early? Perhaps she’d said she wasn’t well. A girl behind the checkout at Lidl couldn’t just take a couple of hours off by making an excuse about a delivery or someone’s reading the meter. But it didn’t matter: she was home, and it must be to take the DNP.
It occurred to Carl then how significant DNP had been in his life, first leading to Dermot’s behaviour, his blackmail, and his death; now ridding him, he hoped, of Dermot’s blackmailing girlfriend. He sat downstairs on Dad’s sofa, listening, though for what he didn’t know.
All he heard was his phone ringing. Nicola. “A girl I know at work has two tickets for the cinema. Her friend who was going with her can’t, so she’s offered it to me. It’s for Before I Go to Sleep. I won’t be late.”
He was glad she wouldn’t be there. There might just be silence. On the other hand, there might be shouting or screaming. Sybil might come down complaining of pain or crying. The first symptom would be sweating. Her temperature could go up to thirty-six degrees Celsius. She wouldn’t have taken the stuff upstairs with her if she didn’t mean at least to try it, he thought. And you couldn’t just try DNP; it was all or nothing. He must wait.
Feeling the way he did, tense, slightly sick, screwed up, he couldn’t contemplate eating anything. Drink, yes, a whole bottle of wine was awaiting him. Screw your courage to the sticking place, he thought, and we’ll not fail. That was what Lady Macbeth said to Macbeth, Macbeth, who was going to do murder. Like him. He fetched the wine, opened it, and drank a whole glass straight down.
There was still no sound from upstairs.
LIZZIE WAS SITTING outside a restaurant in Clifton Road, reading the Evening Standard. Its front page featured what it called the Bus Bomb, and her father’s part in it.
Like all the other newspapers of the day, the Standard was also calling him a hero, the brave man who had carried a ticking bomb off the 55 bus to comparative safety. None of the other papers had mentioned ticking, but all had run the photo of the now-famous Thomas Milsom, described (inaccurately) as a press photographer. The “happily married bus rider” and his “beautiful daughter, Elizabeth” lived (again inaccurately) in a “fine detached home” in northwest London. Mr. Milsom, known to his many friends as Tom, would certainly receive an award for bravery, and possibly an OBE from the Queen. On an inside page was another photo of Tom, with Lizzie and Dot this time, and a picture of the roadway where the bomb had gone off and of the injured being taken away on stretchers.
Feeling pleased for her dad, and even more pleased with her own coverage, Lizzie drank her coffee and ate the chocolate biscuit that came with it. She picked up the large plastic carrier containing the late Dermot McKinnon’s property and hoisted its straps onto her shoulder. It was ten to seven. Leaving the Evening Standard on the table, she went inside to pay.
The girl behind the till also had a Standard and did a double take. “That’s you! That’s your dad! You must be so proud of him.”
IT FELT TO Lizzie quite a long walk to Falcon Mews, especially as she was carrying a heavy bag and wearing high heels. Adam phoned when she was in Castellain Road. He’d finished the work he was doing and said he would come and meet her. “Amazing about your dad. It’s been all over the papers. There’s a picture of you, too.”
Lizzie said she’d seen it and told him the number of the mews house where she’d be.
Five minutes later, she was ringing the doorbell.
CARL PUT THE television on and caught the Bus Bomb story. He seemed to remember that man Milsom from years ago; he’d been at school with his daughter, Carl thought. Impossible to concentrate, though. He switched it off and went back to where he had been sitting for the past half hour, almost at the top of the upper flight of stairs, as near as he could to the top flat. He had been rewarded by sounds. Not loud sounds; in fact, sounds that could hardly be identified, grunts really, and sighs, nothing more than that. He noticed that Sybil’s front door was slightly open.
The doorbell’s ringing shocked him; it made him furiously angry. It seldom happened, and when it did, it was like an insult, an intrusion and an assault. Who dared come here, and now? It rang again.
He ran downstairs to answer it. He needed to get rid of whoever it was. He opened the door, flinging it back. “Yes? What is it?”
A girl stood outside, a girl who seemed vaguely familiar. “Hi, Carl, long time no see. I’ve brought some stuff from the pet clinic that belonged to Dermot McKinnon. I believe he lived in the top flat? We didn’t know where else to take it.” She stepped in, swinging a large bag, before he could stop her.
“You can’t go up!” he shouted.
But she was already on the stairs, and he could only have stopped her now by seizing hold of her. A shrill cry came from behind the half-open door on the top floor, followed by a hoarse sobbing.
Lizzie ran up another four or five steps, stopped, and called, “What’s that? What’s going on up there?”
“Not your business,” Carl said, adding absurdly, “You’re trespassing!”
Lizzie dropped the bag and flung open the door. A girl of about her own age was rolling
on the floor, sweating so much that her face and arms looked as if they’d been dipped in water. Vomit splashed the rug and soaked the armchair she had tumbled out of.
A quick memory of how she had failed to do anything when she was herself threatened came back to Lizzie. She hesitated no longer but took her mobile out of her coat pocket and dialled the emergency number. “Ambulance,” she shouted. “Eleven Falcon Mews, West Nine.”
She thought of Carl, how they’d been to school together and that he’d been a friend of Stacey’s. He didn’t seem to recognise her, and she wasn’t going to remind him, especially not now.
He had disappeared downstairs, and a good thing too. She knelt down beside the girl and told her it was all right, help was coming. They’d take her to hospital, St. Mary’s probably.
“What’s your name?”
“Sybil.” It came out as a choked whisper.
“I can hear the ambulance now.”
I’ve learned from what happened with Scotty and Redhead, Lizzie thought. Once I’d have been in a real panic, but not now. I’m stronger now.
“Don’t leave me,” sobbed Sybil.
“I have to let them in, but I’ll be right back.”
Running down the stairs, Lizzie flung open the front door as the ambulance came howling round the mews. A man and a woman jumped out and ran across the cobbles carrying what looked like a stretcher.
“Upstairs!” cried Lizzie.
She went into the living room, where Carl lay facedown on a sofa. In the kitchen she poured a glass of water and drank it down. “What did you do to her, you bastard?” she said as she passed him on her way back. Upstairs, the paramedics had laid Sybil on the stretcher and were covering her with a white blanket.
“You’ll be OK now,” Lizzie said. “You’re safe.”
She went back downstairs, and out the front door. Carl needed to stop her, explain. But Adam was coming along the mews, and when he saw her, he put out his arms. Lizzie went into them and he hugged her tightly.
“Can we get away from here?” she said. “I really don’t want to stay here a moment longer. It brings back too many memories of something bad that happened to me. I’ll explain. It’s time I explained.”
They held hands down Castellain Road. “Oh, dear,” she said after a while, “I haven’t a clue what I did with Dermot’s stuff. I must have dropped it.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t matter at all. It’s just so great to be walking down the street with you.”
33
THE BATTERY OF Carl’s mobile phone appeared to have gone flat. Nicola tried the landline, but no one answered. Leaving a message when all you wanted to say was that you hadn’t liked the film and left early was pointless. The ambulance that passed her bus on the way home she didn’t connect with Falcon Mews. Why should she? By now it was growing dark, but no lights were on in number 11. On the front path someone had dropped a crumpled tissue, and farther along a ballpoint pen. The front door had been left on the latch. Balancing her shopping, she pushed it open, went in, and called, “Carl?”
No answer. He wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen or upstairs, and the front door of Sybil’s flat stood wide-open. Indoors it seemed stuffy and close, oppressive. Feeling deeply uneasy, Nicola put the hallway light on, opened the front door, and stood on the step. Light poured out, filling the little front garden. Mr. Kaleejah and Elinor Jackson from next door came out simultaneously to ask if anything was wrong.
“I see the ambulance,” said Mr. Kaleejah, “and I think someone is taken ill, someone has an accident.”
Elinor’s partner came out to join her. They suggested Nicola come into their house, offered a drink. Had she called the police? Nicola said no to everything, thanks but no. She had to be indoors, she said, in case the phone rang. Mr. Kaleejah’s dog threw back its head and started howling, not a bark but a wolflike howl.
Back inside, Nicola put a light on in the living room and saw something move in a dark corner. She nearly screamed but controlled herself by clasping her hand over her mouth. She sat down on Dad’s sofa, got up again, said, “What are you doing?” and then, when there was no answer, “What’s going on?”
“Why have you come here?”
“Carl? Tell me what’s going on. There was an ambulance. What’s happened?”
He was silent for so long she thought he wasn’t going to speak to her. Then at last he said in a voice she barely recognised, “Sybil. They took her away.”
“What’s happened to her?”
She was looking at a man she wouldn’t have recognised but for his voice. She thought of people she’d read about whose hair turned white overnight from shock. That could happen to Carl; it looked as if it would, though she had never believed it possible.
“You must sit down. And I will tell you. She took poison. Someone came to the house and found her and called an ambulance.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been in her flat. There’s sick all over the place. She nearly died; she probably is dead now.”
“What poison?” said Nicola in a voice that didn’t sound like her own.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
“I am going to look.”
“No, don’t. Don’t. It’s not your business.”
But she was on the stairs. He followed her, clambering up, too weak to do anything but crawl. The big room where Sybil had sweated and struggled stank of vomit. Carl crept across the floor on all fours, making whimpering sounds. Clearly, he thought, the paramedics must have taken away with them the sachets that had contained the DNP.
Nicola covered her nose with a handful of tissues from her bag. “It was that same stuff you sold to Stacey, wasn’t it?”
“She got it herself online,” he muttered.
“No. No, Carl. You gave it to her. I saw it in our bathroom, a powder in sachets it was. I don’t suppose you sold it this time. Let’s go downstairs. I can’t stand this smell.” At the foot, she sat on the bottom stair. “Whatever she held over you, whatever Dermot did, I don’t want to know. I’m frightened of you, Carl.”
He went past her and stood holding on to the table. He noticed how she flinched. “There’s nothing to be frightened of. I’ll tell you everything. I won’t keep anything back.”
“You’ve killed her, haven’t you? I never thought I would say that to anyone. It’s the most terrible thing anyone can say.” Nicola got up and pulled her coat round her as if she were cold. Her face was white and her hands shook. “I can’t stay here with you.”
“Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
He took hold of her by the shoulders and pulled her to him. Any other girl, he thought later, would have kicked out at him, fought him. Nicola let herself go limp in his arms, then gently slipped out of them, putting out her hand to open the front door. He stepped back in a kind of shame.
“Let me go, Carl,” she said in her clear, resounding voice. “Let me go.”
She stepped out into the dark. It had rained since she came back, and the darkness was shiny with yellow light on wet cobbles and silvery slates.
He ran after her, calling to her to come back. But when she turned the corner into Castellain Road, he gave up. Moaning softly, whimpering, he sat down on a front step and put his head in his hands.
34
HE LAY AWAKE for hours, aware that things always appeared so much worse at night. The knowledge that these fears and horrors would surely shrink away in the morning, assuming their natural size, did nothing to calm him. He tossed and turned, thinking of Sybil dead in a mortuary somewhere and, uselessly, pointlessly, of the mess and filth upstairs, the room that smelt so bad that Nicola had had to leave it behind and run away. At about three, before it began to get light, he fell asleep and went on sleeping until sunshine streaming in woke him up.
Only then did the horrid sequence of events come back to him, gradually, one at a time, until he was overwhelmed by fear and a physical pain that squeezed his stomach lik
e a griping indigestion and doubled him up. He was frightened to lie there, twisted up, and forced himself onto the floor, a severely painful cramp in both legs. The sound he heard he couldn’t identify; it seemed to him the strangest sound he had ever heard, until at last he recognised it as the phone, the landline. He let it ring until it seemed to get tired and stopped. The ensuing silence was so beautiful—he told himself it was beautiful—that he thought if losing his hearing would bring this blissful nothingness, he would welcome deafness.
In the sweet quiet he got onto all fours, then hoisted himself to his feet. It took a little while. He made his way slowly into the kitchen. The first thing he saw was the shopping bag Nicola had brought in with her the previous evening. Inside were apples, a cut loaf, sliced cheese, a half litre of milk, two tins of sardines, and six large eggs. He pulled out the crust end of the loaf, laid a slice of cheddar on it, and sat on a stool to eat. He ripped the top off the milk container and took a deep swig, the first milk, he thought, he had drunk since he was a child. It was ten past eleven. Now that he was fully awake, he felt much better and stronger. The woman was dead. She had killed herself just as Stacey had killed herself, from vanity, from a willingness to do anything fast and easy to achieve weight loss, even if that anything was suicidal. Of course she hadn’t known that, the poor foolish creature; she hadn’t been the sort of woman who read labels with cautionary advice.
He knew he must, at any rate superficially, clean up that top flat and went upstairs, carrying a bucket with him. The smell in the room wasn’t nearly as bad as Nicola had said. A slightly sour whiff, that was all. He filled the bucket with hot, soapy water from the kitchen and scraped the vomit off the rugs and cushions before deciding to put the cushions in a plastic bag and then in the rubbish bin by the back gate. The stains left behind on the various textiles he scrubbed with a brush he found under the sink. It wasn’t all that long a job once he got down to it, and by midday the task was completed. Only then, when evidence of what had happened had been removed, did he realise what Sybil’s death meant: the life of the second unwelcome occupant of the top flat at 11 Falcon Mews was over.