by Ruth Rendell
At nine-thirty that night the police phoned. They wanted her to identify the dead man and would send a car to fetch her. Tomorrow morning at nine? Too frightened to protest, she phoned Mrs. Peacock. Could she come in the morning and look after the children while she went out?
“On a Sunday?” said Mrs. Peacock in an icy tone.
“It’s business. Very important business.” Zillah didn’t want to tell her she was off to identify a corpse in a mortuary. “I’ll pay you double.”
“Yes, I’m afraid you’ll have to.”
Eugenie, who had come out from her bedroom in her nightdress and overheard this, said in nearly as cold a voice, “Don’t you ever want to stay at home and look after us?”
The police officer was a woman, plain-clothed. She looked about Zillah’s own age and rather like one of those women detectives in TV dramas, tall, thin, with long blond hair and a classical profile, but her voice was an unpleasant near-cockney, high-pitched and brisk. She sat in the back of the car with Zillah, who had dressed herself soberly for this solemn occasion in a black suit and white blouse. On the way to the mortuary there was no conversation between them.
Zillah had never seen a dead body before. Feeling queasy, she saw that Jerry looked more like a waxwork of himself than a real person no longer alive.
“Is that your former husband, Jeffrey Leach?”
“Yes, that’s Jerry.”
The woman, who was a detective inspector, asked Zillah, in her strident, uncompromising tone as they left the mortuary and walked across a yard to the police station, why she called the dead man that.
“He was usually known as Jerry. Some people called him Jeff and his mother called him Jock. On account of his second name being John, you know.”
The detective inspector looked as if she didn’t know. She took Zillah into an office, functionally furnished, and asked her to sit down on the opposite side of the desk from her own. Her dislike was palpable, seeming to beam out of her in waves. “Did you write this, Mrs. Melcombe-Smith?”
She passed across the desk a sheet of paper with writing on it. If Zillah hadn’t been sitting down, she thought she’d have fainted. It was the letter she’d written to Jerry begging him not to reappear and, above all, not to brand her a bigamist. Her head was swimming too much for her to read it. Had she used the word “bigamist”? Had she? She couldn’t remember. She closed her eyes, opened them again, and made the sort of effort of will she was seldom called upon to attempt. A deep breath, and she managed to read the letter. Dear Jerry, she had written,
I am writing to you to beg you not to come back, to really go away and disappear out of my life. You did write that letter telling me you were dead, and though I didn’t believe that, I thought you meant me to act as if you were. Please do that. Please. I thought you were not fond of the children because you did not want to see them for months and months. If you want to see them sometimes we could arrange that. I could bring them somewhere to you. Jerry, I will do anything if you will only not try to see me or come here and please, please, don’t use that word about me. It frightens me, it really does. You must believe I don’t wish you any harm but rather the reverse. I just want to get on with my life, so please, if you have any pity for me, stay away.
Yours, Z
“Did you write it?” the detective inspector repeated.
“I may have.”
“Well, Mrs. Melcombe-Smith, there aren’t many women with first names that begin with Z, are there? A few Zoes maybe. I can’t say I’ve ever met a Zuleika but I believe there are some about.”
“Bigamist” wasn’t in the letter and nor was “bigamy.” It didn’t exactly reveal anything, it was quite discreet. “I wrote it,” Zillah said.
“To what address? The envelope is not in our possession.”
“I don’t remember. Yes, maybe-it was somewhere in NW6.” She might as well tell her the rest. “He’s been living with a woman called Fiona. She works in a bank.”
“You were very anxious never to see Mr. Leach again. What did you mean, ‘to act as if’ he was dead?”
“I don’t know,” Zillah said in a small voice. “I don’t remember.”
“You write that you were frightened. Had he ever abused you?”
Zillah shook her head. She supposed she must look frightened now. “If you mean did he hit me, no, he never did.”
“What was the word you didn’t like him using? Some insult, was it? Some term of abuse? Bitch or cow, something of that kind?”
“Oh, yes, that was what it was.”
“Which one.”
“He called me a cow.”
“Ah. A frightening word, cow. That will be all for now, Mrs. Melcombe-Smith. We’ll call in the morning and see your husband.”
Much as he disliked Jerry Leach on the few occasions he’d spoken to him, he’d rather fancied him and thought he’d detected an answering gleam in Jerry’s eye, for Jims was one of those gay men who believe that all men are secretly gay at heart. This, then, as he said to himself when Zillah told him, was a turn-up for the books. But he couldn’t see how it would affect him and Zillah, Jerry being a thing of the past in his life and hers. That the dead man had also been the father of Eugenie and Jordan didn’t at the time cross his mind. Family relationships meant very little to him. But when he’d walked into the flat in Abbey Gardens Mansions just after one, he was quite shocked by Zillah’s haggard face and shaking hands.
“The police are coming back tomorrow morning. They want to talk to you.”
“Me? Why me?”
“He wanted to know where I was on Friday afternoon when Jerry was killed. He’ll want to know where you were.”
Michelle identified the photograph in the Sunday paper as that of Jeff Leigh. Hatred, or something approaching it, confers much the same powers of acute observation as love. When she saw that face, younger, the features smudged and cloudy, she nevertheless knew who it belonged to and heard again that voice saying, “Little and Large, Michelle, Little and Large. Stoking the boilers, Michelle?” He was holding a baby in his arms and for some reason that made her shiver.
To tell Fiona? Matthew phoned the police first. He said he thought Jeffrey John Leach, so-called, was really Jeffrey Leigh, the man who’d been the partner of his neighbor. His wife had identified him from a newspaper photograph. Where did he live, they wanted to know. When Matthew said West Hampstead they were interested. They’d come. Would 4 P.M. suit him?
Then Michelle went next door to tell Fiona what they feared, what they more than feared, and that the police were coming.
Chapter 17
JOCK WAS GONE. A couple of days passed before Minty could really believe it. Especially when she’d been out and came back into the house, she was fearful, always afraid he’d be sitting in a chair or waiting for her in the shadows behind the stairs. She dreamed about him. But that wasn’t the same thing as a ghost, just someone who came into your dreams. Sonovia and Laf came into them, and Josephine sometimes, and Mr. Kroot’s sister, and Auntie, always Auntie. The dream Jock, not the ghost Jock, walked into a room where she was and offered her a Polo mint or said “Good-oh” and once even said those words that were halfway between a joke and a tease, about pinch, punch, first of the month. In the dreams, he always wore his black leather jacket.
Auntie’s voice she heard much more often than she once had, but she never saw her. Yesterday she, or her voice, had come in while Minty was in the bath, which was something Jock’s ghost had never done. “It’s a whole two weeks since you put flowers on my grave, Minty,” said Auntie. She kept over by the door, not looking in Minty’s direction, which wouldn’t have been nice. She was just a disembodied voice, without eyes. “It’s not very pleasant being dead but it’s worse if you’re forgotten. How d’you think I feel with my last resting place all bare but for a bunch of dead tulips?”
It was no use answering because they couldn’t hear you. Jock’s ghost had never taken a blind bit of notice of anything she said. But that
afternoon she’d gone into the cemetery where the evergreen leaves seemed fresher now and the new leaves a dazzling green, where the grass was bright and glittering with raindrops from a shower, and taken out the dead flowers, replacing them with pink carnations and gypsophila. The carnations had no scent but, like Josephine said, you couldn’t expect it, not with plants forced up in hothouses. Usually, when she’d visited Auntie’s grave, Minty had knelt down on a clean piece of paper or plastic and said a little prayer to her, but she hadn’t yesterday. Auntie didn’t deserve it, not the way she was going on, she’d have to be content with the flowers.
Sunday was the day Minty did her washing. Her major wash, that is. A certain number of clothes got washed every day. But on Sundays the week’s sheets and towels were done and considering no towel was used more than once and no sheet slept on more than three times, a great quantity mounted up. While the first batch was whirling and bouncing about in the machine, gladdening her heart with the soap bubbles and the clean smell-those moments spent watching the washing were the only time Minty felt really content with life-she went out into the garden to put up the clothesline.
Some of the neighbors left their clotheslines out all the time, in all weather. Minty shuddered when she thought of the black deposits of diesel fumes that must form on them. Her own plastic-covered rope was scrubbed and rinsed and dried each time she took it down. She checked that the posts were firm and attached the clothes line to the bolt on top of the one at the end of the garden, unrolling it carefully as she walked across the paving toward the house.
Next door Mr. Kroot’s sister was pulling out weeds. His garden was overgrown with weeds for months; he never did anything out there, and it was only when his sister came that anyone got rid of the dandelions and stinging nettles and thistles. She wasn’t wearing gloves and her hands were covered with dirt, the fingernails black. Minty shuddered. She went indoors and washed her own hands, as if she’d absorbed some referred dirt from Mr. Kroot’s sister. What was she called? Auntie had known. She’d called her by her name until that day they stopped speaking forever over something to do with the fence. Minty couldn’t remember the name but she remembered the quarrel and it all came back to her, though it was a good fifteen years ago.
It was when Auntie had had a new fence put up between their gardens. Mr. Kroot never said a word about it, but his sister that must once have been a Miss Kroot accused Auntie of stealing six inches of ground from next door. If she didn’t move the fence, the sister said, she’d chop the wire down herself with wire cutters, and Auntie said not to threaten her and if there was any chopping of wire, so much as a single snip, she’d call the police. No one cut anything and the police weren’t called but Auntie and Mr. Kroot’s sister never spoke again, and Minty was told not to speak to her either. Then Sonovia stopped speaking to her out of loyalty.
Minty wished she could remember the sister’s name. Maybe Auntie would tell her next time she started talking. Not that she wanted to know that much, not enough to welcome ghost voices. She took the first batch of washing out of the machine, put the next lot in, and carried the damp towels outside in a large basket she’d lined with a snowy white sheet. Mr. Kroot’s sister was standing up now, staring at her. She was a stocky, stoutish old woman with dyed ginger hair, who wore glasses in violet-colored frames. When she put one earth-covered, black-nailed finger up to her face and scratched her cheek, Minty turned away shuddering.
The morning was bright and sunny but fresh with a sharp wind blowing. A good drying day. She pegged out the towels, using plastic pegs she’d scrubbed and dried along with the clothesline. Mr. Kroot’s sister had gone indoors, leaving weeds lying about all over the path. Minty shook her head at such fecklessness. She too went indoors and started thinking about what to have for lunch. She’d bought a nice piece of ham at Sainsbury’s and she was going to cook it herself. Buying cooked meat, in her opinion, was very risky. You never knew where it had been or the state of the pot it was boiled in. When she’d got the meat on, maybe she’d go up the road and get a Sunday paper now that Laf never brought theirs in to her.
First she went into the front room to look out of the window and see who was about. It was just as well she did, for as she lifted the half-drawn curtain she saw Laf and Sonovia come out of their house, wearing the serious expressions they always did when on their way to church. Sonovia had the blue dress and jacket on with a white hat and Laf a striped suit. Minty waited a bit to let them get out of the way, then she went off in the opposite direction to the paper shop.
It was quite a coincidence, she thought when she looked at the front page of the News of the World, a man murdered in that same cinema where she’d got rid of Jock’s ghost. The paper didn’t say when it was, only that the man was called Jeffrey Leach.
“There are more and more murders about these days,” Auntie’s voice said suddenly. “I don’t know what the world’s coming to. They’re all in gangs, them as get murdered, murdered by other gangs. You go down Harlesden High Street and it’s all gangs when it’s not yardies.”
Minty tried to ignore her. She sat down in the front room to read the paper. When she heard the machine stop she went to the kitchen and took the sheets and pillowcases out. One more sheet and a duvet cover still remained. She put them into the machine and carried the damp washing outside to the clothesline. Mr. Kroot was putting a colander full of potato peelings into his wheelie bin. All unwrapped, they were, just as they came off the potatoes. It made Minty feel quite sick, thinking of that bin having to be wheeled through the house in time for Brent Council’s waste disposal men to come and empty it. She kept her own bin in the front, padlocked to the wall-this was such a rough area, people were even capable of stealing your rubbish-and having scoured it, scattered emerald green disinfectant powder all over the inside.
“The duke of Windsor’s son was murdered,” Auntie said. “Him as should have been Edward the Ninth. Only when it’s someone famous they don’t say ‘murdered,’ they say ‘assassinated.’ It was in France. If he’d been in his rightful place it never would have happened.”
“Who cares?” said Minty, but knowing it was useless. “Go away, can’t you?”
More boiling water needed adding to the ham in the pot. She’d have boiled potatoes with it and frozen peas. Once when Jock was around, he’d got her to buy organic broccoli and when she’d washed it a pale-green caterpillar the same color as the stems had dropped out. Never again. She opened the knife drawer and there on the top was the one she’d used to get rid of Jock’s ghost. She’d boiled it and spoiled the color of the handle in so doing-it must be as clean as a knife could be, but somehow she couldn’t fancy slicing meat with it. She’d never fancy it, no matter how long she kept it. It would have to go. Shame, really, because she thought it was one of a set given to Auntie for her wedding in 1961.
“Nineteen sixty-two,” said Auntie.
John Lewis-that had been Jock’s name. Just like the Oxford Street store. How funny, she’d never thought of it like that before. If he’d lived she’d have been Mrs. Lewis and it would have been on envelopes, Mrs. J. Lewis. But she need not think of it, for he was gone. She put on her rubber gloves, washed the knife again, and dried it, wrapped it up in the sports pages of the paper, the ones she didn’t want to read, and then put it in a plastic carrier bag. Better not leave it in her wheelie bin. If no one could steal the bin they could steal what was inside it and what those gangs wanted was knives.
“That’s what they use,” said Auntie’s voice. “Guns aren’t easy to get hold of, you have to pay a lot of money for a gun, but knives are another thing. They all carry knives. That’s why there are all these murders. Gangs going after gangs. Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me. It was a bomb killed Edward the Ninth, but he was different.”
“Go away,” Minty said, but Auntie went on muttering.
Maybe she should take the knife up to one of the big bins in the street. The one where she’d put her stained clothes would do. S
he was taking the third batch of washing out of the machine when the doorbell rang. Who could that be? Now that Laf didn’t come round with the papers, no one ever called on her unless it was Jehovah’s Witnesses. Auntie had liked the Jehovah’s Witnesses, she’d bought that Watchtower from them and agreed with everything they said, but she drew the line when it came to going about with them, knocking on people’s doors. Minty washed her hands and was drying them when the bell rang again. “All right, I’m coming,” she said, though no one could hear her out there on the step.
It was Laf and Sonovia. Minty stared. She didn’t say anything.
“Don’t shut the door in our faces, Minty love,” said Laf. “We’ve come in a spirit of goodwill and loving your neighbor as yourself, haven’t we, Sonny?”
“Can we come in?”
Minty held the door open wider. Sonovia tripped as she stepped on to the mat, her heels were so high. The blue dress that had hung loose on Minty was still a bit tight across the hips. She and Laf followed Minty into the front room, where it was gloomy as usual, even on a sunny day.
“It’s like this,” Laf began in the tone he used to teenage criminals who had reoffended. It sounded more like sorrow than anger. “Neighbors mustn’t go on not speaking. It’s not right and it’s not Christian. Now Sonn and me have just listened to this sermon all about loving your enemies, especially your neighbors, and we reckoned we’d come in here on the way back in a spirit of humility, didn’t we, Sonn?”
“I’m sure I’m not anybody’s enemy,” said Minty.
“And we’re not. Sonny has got something to say and it’s not easy for her, being somewhat puffed up with pride like the pastor said some folks are, but she’s going to humble herself and say it, aren’t you, Sonn?”