The Saint Zita Society (20 page)

From the start she handled it badly. She had dressed herself up for him in a miniskirt and low-cut top, too-high heels and that dark red lipstick she had thought so flattering. With earrings like chandeliers and a triple string of pearls bought in the Portobello Road, she was dressed for a party not a Sunday night in front of the television. And she was in a nervous state as she waited for him to join her, fidgeting, pacing up and down. He walked in without knocking. But perhaps to knock would have been a sign of formality. She would have liked him to have put his arms round her, called her by some endearment, though she knew better than to expect it.

She opened the bottle of white wine she had forgotten to put in the fridge. ‘Preston,’ she began, ‘I think I must have missed your calls. Actually, I did get a missed call come up on my mobile but I didn’t recognise the number.’

‘It wasn’t me.’ He took a sip of his wine, made a face and pushed it a few inches across the table, sure sign he wanted to drink no more of it.

She tried to gather up her courage. Although she knew she
must always unconsciously have felt this way, she realised she was afraid of him. It took a lot of nerve to say what she had to say. An urge charged through her to take off those stupid pearls but she squashed it. He would only think she was starting to strip.

‘I thought we were having a relationship.’ There, she had said it. ‘I thought you sleeping with me was the start of it.’

He didn’t seem the least embarrassed or indignant or angry or anything at all really. He just looked at her, the pale grey eyes staring. She noticed for the first time that the whites of his eyes showed all the way round the irises. Surely that wasn’t common, she didn’t know anyone else like that.

‘I’m still married,’ he said.

‘You were married when you slept with me. You were married when you asked me to your flat.’

‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he said, watching her drink the warm wine, ‘you and I were associated in a kind of enterprise. You know what I refer to. I was grateful for your help.’

‘Is that all?’

‘What else is there? I don’t need to go into details, we both know what happened. There was an accident. You persuaded me – frankly, against my better judgement – not to call the police. No doubt you meant it for the best. I have my own views on that. Any relationship, as you call it, between us must be over, if it ever began.’

Anger throbbed inside her head. ‘If it wasn’t for me you’d be in prison by now, d’you realise that?’

‘Oh, I doubt it,’ he said. ‘It was an accident. You seemed to forget that.’

Why had he stopped calling her by her first name? The last time they’d met he’d called her Montsy. Somehow she knew he never would again, unless she did something, took positive steps. ‘It’s not too late for me to go to the police now.’

He shook his head, got out of his chair and walked to the window. Once more he looked very big, tall, heavily built, strong. Perhaps it was only in her imagination that he had gone pale. ‘And tell them what? You’re as much involved as I am, remember.’

‘I never touched him. I didn’t push him down the stairs. You want to remember I could turn Queen’s evidence.’ Could she? Did it even exist any more? ‘I could say you forced me, you threatened me. I could make a plea bargain.’ Was there such a thing outside of America or the movies?

‘And just what proof would you have for any of this?’

She had given these details almost no thought but now they came to her as if they had been lying just below the surface of her mind, waiting for use. ‘Suppose I told them to go to Gallowmill Hall and in the luggage room to look for a car-roof case. They’d find Rad Sothern’s DNA all over the inside, hairs and fibres from his clothes.’ What a godsend in situations like this were the detective and mystery dramas on television, teaching one about police procedure and search warrants and forensics. ‘They’d find blood from where he hit his head and maybe dust and whatever from that floor.’

She had drawn him into it against his will. ‘And how would they know the case was yours?’

‘I can prove it. Henry Copley who drives for Lord Studley sold it to me.’

She was sitting on the bed and he came and sat beside her. ‘Look, Montsy, you don’t mean anything of this, you know you don’t. It was a joke, wasn’t it?’

It seemed that the positive steps had paid off yet suddenly she felt near to tears. ‘It wasn’t a joke but it could be one. I don’t want to go to the police. I hate the idea.’ The tears didn’t come. She had stopped them without touching her eyes, stopped them by an effort of will. ‘Take me out to dinner, Preston. Please.
We can talk about all this. We’ve never really talked about it. And then we can come back here afterwards.’

‘All right,’ he said, ‘if that’s what you want.’

S
ince he had put the bolts on the door, Huguette had several times come to his room. It was easy for her, almost as easy as to have him come to her flat, for all she had to do was pick a day when she was visiting her parents, and after saying goodbye to them and leaving the house, slip down the area steps and be admitted by Henry. Then he slid the bolts across.

It gave him a severe shock when he heard footsteps on the tiled passage and saw his door handle turn. Whoever it was (as Huguette put it) went away after trying again.

‘Doesn’t my dad knock on the door? Does he just expect to walk in?’

Henry couldn’t say it wasn’t her father but her mother.

‘If you’d only let me tell him we’re engaged.’

We’re not, thought Henry. ‘It wouldn’t do for him to find you here.’

‘I don’t understand why you can’t have your privacy. It’s medieval just walking in here without knocking, it’s treating you like a slave.’

Henry started laughing. ‘That’s why he won’t let you marry me. Because I’m a slave.’ His mobile was ringing. He reached for it. ‘Very good, My Lord. Ten minutes’ time at the Peers’ Entrance.’

She seemed not to realise that if it was her father on the phone in the House of Lords it couldn’t have been her father outside the door five minutes before.

T
he semi-detached house in Acton owned by Abram Siddiqui, his mortgage now paid off, was to Rabia a far
more comfortable place to be than number 7 Hexam Place. But number 7 contained Thomas and number 15 Grenville Road, Acton, did not. She worried about Thomas while he was away from her and with his mother or his father. There was no doubt Mr Still loved his children but it seemed to Rabia that the only way he knew to show love was by finding spots on their faces.

She would have disliked it if Khalid Iqbal had shown anything approaching love but his behaviour had been exemplary. He had arrived at the precise time he said he would, spoken to her with great politeness and not, of course, attempted to shake hands with her. No man had ever touched her but her father and her late husband. Mr Iqbal accepted a cup of tea and just one of the sugary cakes provided by Rabia’s father, refusing to take a second. Perhaps Abram Siddiqui had told him how much she disliked greed. Mr Iqbal talked very entertainingly about the Christmas-tree trade at the Belgrave Nursery and the new lines they were offering for the first time: pink poinsettias, an innovation, holly wreaths and amaryllis, tall plants with improbably bold and beautiful flowers borne in pairs on a succulent stem.

The conversation turned to the family and an explanation was given, quite lucid and easy to follow, of the ramifications of the Siddiqui–Iqbal–Ali clan and exactly what was the precise relationship between Khalid and Rabia. Not too close, she was glad to note, and as she noted it asked herself what she was thinking of. It could mean nothing to her if he was her third cousin once removed. He rose to go after three-quarters of an hour, made her a little bow and left, saying what a pleasure it had been to meet her away from business matters.

‘I think you liked him, my daughter,’ said her father as they watched Khalid’s tall upright figure pass the window, heading for the bus stop.

‘He’s very nice, Father. I always knew he was very nice.’

‘I have a feeling he would make a good husband. I have a gift for detecting these things, you know.’

‘For some other lucky woman,’ she said, smiling.

As he always did when she had been visiting him at home, her father drove her back to Hexam Place. She went in by way of the basement door and heard Mr Still’s voice coming from Montserrat’s flat but she thought nothing of it. Hers was not a suspicious nature. The children were with Lucy, the girls watching television in the morning room, Thomas lying on the sofa, fretfully half asleep. It was ten o’clock.

It was a good feeling to have four people pleased to see you. Hero and Matilda were tired and bored with their programme. Rabia was someone new to talk to and always interested in their activities. Thomas woke up, jumped off the sofa and ran to her. Lucy was simply relieved.

‘Oh God, you don’t know how pleased I am to see you. It’s been a nightmare. This little demon has been giving me hell.’

‘Never mind,’ said Rabia. ‘We’ll go upstairs now and leave you in peace.’

‘There’s been a man here wanting a job clearing up the garden. Deck or Dex Something. I told him he should ask Mr Still but he didn’t seem to understand Preston isn’t living here.’

Rabia said nothing about hearing Mr Still’s voice downstairs. ‘Yes, I know Dex. Montserrat knows more about him than I do. I’ll ask her, shall I?’

‘Oh, please do, darling. You’re such an angel. What would I do without you? I don’t dare think of it.’

Those were very welcome words. Like a magic spell they banished her fears even though she knew how unreliable Lucy was. ‘I’ll speak to Dex or Montserrat will and give him Mr Still’s address. Would that be the best thing?’

‘Of course it would. Absolutely. And now I’m so exhausted I really must rest.’

Rabia had felt the weight of the cigarette case all afternoon. She put her hand into her pocket, closed her fingers over it and brought it out. She handed it to Lucy, said, ‘This was in the house, at the top of the basement stairs.’

Holding it in a trembling hand, Lucy looked at it. ‘What am I supposed to do with it?’

Rabia didn’t know. She said nothing but left the room with the children while Lucy stared at the initials on the silver.

Next day, chancing to encounter Mr Still when he dropped in for the inevitable papers on his way to work, Rabia mentioned Dex to him. He was in a better mood than usual for that time of the morning and said she could pass on his phone number. By coincidence, Montserrat also told him Dex was looking for work when she met him that evening. This plea went down less well. He snapped at her, said he was sick of that man’s name and wanted to hear no more about it. If this Dex came to Medway Manor Court he intended to tell the porter to say he was unavailable.

D
ex’s reading and writing skills were not of the first order and although he could answer his phone when it rang he didn’t know how to put a name and phone number or address into it for future use. He had managed to write down Preston Still’s address as Meddymankurt but he knew what he meant and found Medway Manor Court without trouble. No one was at home, the porter in the lobby told him in a very lofty and contemptuous way. It was useless to wait. Mr Still would not be available. Nevertheless, Dex sat down on the broad flight of steps that mounted to the double glass doors and resigned himself to a long wait, using the time to
call numbers that might put him through to Peach. He tried one combination of numbers after another in the hope of getting lucky or, really, of Peach deciding that this was the one to answer. The fourth one he tried did so and a voice which must be Peach told him to press 1 if he wanted to speak to an operator, 2 if he had an enquiry, 3 if he wanted to discuss his account or 4 if he knew the extension he required. Dex didn’t know what the last two meant and the second one frightened him, so he pressed 1. The phone rang and rang and he was still listening and hoping it would stop or a voice answer when the porter came out of the front doors and told him to move on, it was useless waiting for Mr Still.

T
he bolts that were bought and screwed in place to set Henry’s mind at rest had failed to do the job. The attempt on his door, though unsuccessful, frightened him just as much – well, almost as much – as if Huguette’s mother had opened it and walked in. Driving Huguette to the Palace of Westminster two days later, he told her he would have to come to her in future. It was the only safe way.

‘If we were married anywhere would be safe.’

‘Your dad’ll never say yes to that.’

‘He doesn’t have to. I’m over sixteen – I’m over eighteen. If you don’t let me ask him – well,
tell
him – he’ll get me married to someone else. D’you know why I’m going in there now? It’s to have a drink with him and the youngest Tory backbencher in the Commons. Filthy rich and needless to say not married.’

‘Why didn’t you say no then?’

Huguette made no direct reply. ‘I want to see if he’s as good-looking as you or if he’s maybe better. D’you know something? You’ve never said you love me, Henry Copley.’

Negotiating the seized-up traffic, the lights and jaywalking pedestrians of Parliament Square, Henry was silent for a moment or two. In the passage that constitutes a police barrier and is known as the security lane, wide enough for one car to get through, when Huguette had shown the woman officer her pass, he said, ‘Of course I love you. You know I do. I’ll come and see you tomorrow afternoon and I’ll show you and you can make me jealous about the backbencher, whatever that may be.’

‘Darling Henry,’ said Huguette, sounding uncannily like her mother, even to a nuance of Oceane’s accent.

B
eacon had several times in the past done little jobs for Mr Still he didn’t like doing himself. Speaking to Zinnia, for instance, when the former cleaning lady left and a replacement was needed. Mrs Still never did anything, that was well known. Beacon had even found Rabia, though it was Mr Still himself who had interviewed her. Now he was asking Beacon about Dex Flitch.

‘He’s mental, sir,’ said Beacon. ‘He stuck a knife in his mother, only luckily for him she didn’t die.’