The Saint Zita Society (25 page)

The bus came and he got on. The evil spirit went upstairs while he went for the seats at the very back. From there he would have a good view. The psychopomp, Peach had called it, the guide who led evil spirits to hell.

W
hen there is a popular sale on in Oxford Street or a new much-hyped store is opening or 23 December comes round, the crowds are not like the crowds in other cities. They are nearer the huge gatherings of people assembled for some religious ceremony or political upheaval. The difference is that they are mostly but not exclusively women and they are constantly on the move. The movement is slow and sporadic, broken by hesitations outside shop windows or pauses at traffic lights, where impatience to get across is intense and risks are taken with life and limb. Regularly, people fall as they try to cross on a green light and are injured, occasionally one will be killed, collapsing under a bus, but mostly the crowd moves on, a sluggish river of women and the rare man, come to help carry the bags. It is never possible to strike out a plan for oneself or take one’s time or even change one’s mind as to direction of route or selection of store. It is wiser to stay away. One joins in where one can, moving along at a pace set hours before, following those ahead and being followed by those behind.

It was so for Dex who managed to come up very close behind the dense mass of black hair and the black coat as the evil spirit left the bus and to follow her as she slipped into the train of shoppers, heading up towards the Circus.
She didn’t look round, no one did, you looked ahead, ever onward, hoping for a gap in which to spot a certain doorway you could plunge for, elbowing and thrusting, scarcely breathing. The evil spirit seemed to have no particular shop in mind, no recognisable door to make for. He fingered the trowel in his pocket, the long trowel with the pointed head, and the sharp pruning knife. Which to choose? Which to use? Perhaps the trowel was not sharp enough while the knife was sharp enough for anything.

Somewhere ahead, maybe in the Circus itself, a band was playing, someone was singing, all of them surrounded by red and yellow streamers and great green and white banners under the silver Christmas lights. Of the people around him and ahead of him, many were on their mobiles, talking and listening, laughing, enjoying themselves. Dex tapped a number into his and this time it rang. The voice that answered was a man’s, a soft voice, not his god’s but like it. It was unusual for this to happen but wonderful when it did. The voice that wasn’t quite Peach said, ‘It’s a wrong number but Merry Christmas just the same.’

Dex said, ‘Thank you. Merry Christmas,’ and as he did so, realising that he had never uttered those two words before to anyone or had them uttered to him.

The music was very loud now, the voice shouting and sobbing. Dex could see only the backs of heads, mainly the black curly head in front of him. He pulled the tool bag up so that he was holding it right up in front of his chest. It kept him from being too close to the evil spirit, from touching it. In his other hand he clutched the knife. No one was looking at him, everyone could only look ahead, shuffling along, moving to the rhythm of the crowd’s footfalls. Dex lifted the knife in his fist and thrust it hard through the black coat, through and through and through. The sound the evil spirit made was drowned by the
drums and the saxophone and a CD all playing at the same time. Dex stood still, let the crowd move past him, clustering now around the falling girl. There was very little blood to be seen, the furry coat must have sucked it up. The evil spirit was now a heap of black fur lying on the ground like a dead bear. Now there began a constant choking screaming from the crowd and a sudden stop to the music. The singing stopped and the band on the dais fell silent. The sound was replaced by everyone talking, shouting, repeating over and over, ‘What’s happened? What’s going on? What is it?’ and then a man’s voice like a bell tolling, ‘Someone’s been killed.’

C
losing Oxford Street on notoriously the busiest shopping day of the year was at first unbelievable to retailers and public. This was
their
day of days, their last-minute day. But they had no choice. Entrances to the stores were closed and though rowdier women from the crowd banged on the doors demanding to be let in, most fell in with the police demands to proceed into side streets, to Tube stations and to bus stops on diversionary routes. The clearing of the shopping centre took a long time.

It was impossible for the police to establish who had been moving along in the vicinity of the dead woman when the stabbing took place. Dex felt the trowel in his pocket, glad he hadn’t used it. He liked his little trowel and had never seen another quite like it. To have used it to destroy an evil spirit might have spoiled it for him, making him not to want to weed and plant with it again. The knife he had wiped on the raincoat of a man he was thrust against in the exodus and then he had slipped it into an open handbag. Whose handbag he didn’t know, just a big red bag belonging to a woman who had left it wide open as she struggled along. A
wrong way to behave, Dex thought, because it encouraged crime, put temptation in the way of bad people who wanted to get money they hadn’t earned.

His success pleased him. The world had been cleaned of another evil creature and he would be rewarded for it. The backstreets of Mayfair were strangely silent and empty. Dex didn’t think why this might be. He heard police-car sirens and the deeper howl of ambulances and supposed there must somewhere have been a serious accident. In Park Lane he got on to a crowded bus and it carried him away towards Victoria.

T
he regional news at noon was almost entirely devoted to the fatal stabbing of a woman in Oxford Street. The Princess watched it with Gussie on her lap and called June when it was too late to see or hear much beyond the police saying it was murder. The woman had not yet been identified. The huge crowds whose preference on this special day was Oxford Street had been dispersed with difficulty. June watched, fascinated to see women young and old herded on to buses and driven into Tube stations. She supposed the murder had been done by one of those gang members, the only difference being that it took place in a Christmas crowd in the West End rather than in Brixton or Peckham.

She gave the Princess her lunch on a tray, a chicken breast with oven-cooked French fries and defrosted peas, and took herself off to the dining room with a sandwich to prepare the agenda for tonight’s meeting of the Saint Zita Society, the last of the old year. Typing with her left hand took a long time. As chair, she intended to be firm with those who wanted to resume discussion of the canine excrement question. That must come to an end this evening and not be raised again. The Saint Zita Society had done its best and had failed, as
must sometimes happen. She would establish with Thea what arrangements she was making for Miss Grieves’s Christmas dinner and, rather more subtly, for serving a suitable meal to herself and the Princess. June had to keep going back over what she had written, correcting the mistakes made by her stumbling left hand.

She added ‘the gardening question’ to her agenda and ‘disposal of Christmas trees’ and then she was done. The little pink lights had to be checked. One of them had burnt down faster than the others. This puzzled June but was hardly important. She replaced it and the one next to it with new candles. The Princess was asleep, the lunch tray still balanced precariously on her lap. June lifted it off, noticed that the brandy bottle had joined the flagon of sparkling water the Princess hadn’t touched, and helped herself to a generous tot.

The lights behind the blinds at the home of Arsad Sohrab and Bibi Lambda had gone out. Henry, sent by Lord Studley to check on all the candles, rang their bell and reminded them of the importance of keeping up the tradition. Arsad said, ‘What importance? You tell me.’ But Henry couldn’t. He lacked his employer’s logical mind and adversarial skills. ‘I don’t know. Just do it,’ he said and passed across the street to where Jimmy had failed to replace the candles at number 3.

‘His Lordship relies on you,’ he said severely. ‘You’ve made a good job of it up to now.’

Jimmy, who was wearing an apron with a grinning cat on it over his jeans, invited him in and gave him a glass of the port which had already been broken into. ‘Have you seen Thea?’

‘Not since this morning. She was on her way to do some last-minute shopping.’

‘It’s not like her not to answer her phone.’

Henry had his own share of what he called ‘woman trouble’.

He raised his eyebrows at the grinning cat, said, ‘You can’t keep her tied to your apron strings for ever, you know,’ and laughed at his own joke.

The Neville-Smiths had returned and placed two candles in handsome brass holders on their windowsill as Henry was passing, Montserrat with Ciaran came up the area steps and the two of them persuaded him to join them for a pre-Christmas drink in the Dugong. Maybe he should stick to tonic water as he had already had the port with Jimmy. He was due at Huguette’s around two. Any more drink was out of the question. He had to drive Lord Studley to a coalition Christmas party at Spencer House at six.

Now all their meetings took place at Huguette’s flat in Chelsea. It was safer than number 11 Hexam Place and as he broke a rule and drove to Carlyle Square in the Beemer he could see no reason why this arrangement should not continue for ever – well, for several pleasant years. The improbable had happened. She had got a job with a PR company much favoured by the Conservative Party. No doubt Daddy had helped, thought Henry.

Her flat was small but luxurious, consisting of a pretty bedroom, a minimalist living room, a lavish bathroom and a kitchen smaller than the larder in her father’s house. Henry had to say no to a share in the bottle of Chablis Huguette opened and they went straight to bed. Thanks probably to his abstemiousness, he enjoyed himself even more than usual and Huguette was rapturous about his performance. If it could always be like this, he wouldn’t resist when she talked about telling her father of their relationship and future marriage. Time flew by as it always did when she was in a sweet and clinging mood and it came as a nasty shock to
catch sight of his watch on the bedside cabinet and see that it was 5.21.

‘My God, I’ve got to go! Your dad’ll kill me.’

Henry was never so carried away as to forget his job and his duty and instead of dropping his clothes on the floor he had draped them carefully over a chair. He was stepping into his underpants when he heard the faint creak of the lift and a high-heeeled footstep in the passage outside. How they both knew who this must be neither could have said but they did. Huguette flung open one of the wardrobe doors and pushed him inside, thrusting his clothes after him. The doorbell didn’t ring. Henry heard the letter-box flap lifted and a familiar voice call, ‘Hi, darling. It’s Mummy.’

It would almost have been better if the caller had been Lord Studley himself. Inside the wardrobe it was stuffy and the scent from Huguette’s clothes almost overpowering. Skirts and trousers and jeans and long scarves and stoles hung down, teasing his face. Henry was afraid to move much in case Oceane heard the noise he made. He was also aware that Huguette had given him his clothes but left his shoes under the chair. The memory came to him of a film he had once seen about the Duke of somewhere or other visiting his girlfriend and having to get into a cupboard just like him because her other lover had arrived and her other lover was the King. Charles the Second, he thought it was, and maybe it was the other way round and the King had to get into the cupboard when the Duke arrived. It wasn’t a very good film.

He listened, hoping that Oceane hadn’t seen his shoes or the Beemer – it was parked some distance up the street – and that she’d say she couldn’t stay long. It seemed she had brought the shoes and handbag which were Huguette’s Christmas present because Mummy and Daddy were off to France the following day. But as for not staying long, she had accepted a cup of tea
and then a gin and tonic and was admiring her present, now apparently on Huguette’s feet, and telling her that the bag came from Chanel. Huguette had also failed to hand Henry his watch but he could guess that it must by now be a quarter to six. He was hastily fumbling his way into his clothes.

Oceane had a clear and penetrating voice. He heard her ask for a second gin and tonic and remark that Huguette’s father would shortly be going to a party. ‘Naturally I was asked and naturally I said no.’

‘If I go and get dressed, do you think we could go to the Ice Bar?’

Oceane laughed. ‘As if it wasn’t cold enough outside!’

With exceptional perceptiveness Henry thought how having qualms about this igloo-like drinking place where everything was composed of ice, showed her age. No young person would ever have made that remark. ‘And then we’ll have dinner at the Ivy. They’ll always give me a table.’

‘I’ll call Henry and he can take us. Daddy can go to his party in a taxi.’ Huguette came into the bedroom, whispered to him, ‘When I’m dressed I’ll take Mummy into the kitchen. You can get out of here, give it two minutes and then ring the doorbell. OK?’

She had saved, if not his life, the best part of it. He heard her placating her father, telling him she’d order him a cab. Her resourcefulness was a surprise to him and he decided that next time she proposed to him he would give in. The arrangement and the several pleasant years would apply just the same when he was a married man.

T
he
Evening Standard
had the story and so did the BBC’s regional news at six thirty. Montserrat hardly ever watched television but she fetched the paper from the corner shop
and walked home looking at the picture which filled the front page of what looked like a million people in Oxford Street, nearly as many police and something lying alone on the pavement. It was too dark to read anything smaller than the headline:
FATAL STABBING OF SHOPPER
.

The dead woman had not yet been identified or if she had the police were not telling. It wouldn’t be anyone Montserrat knew, she was sure of that. Indoors she read an interesting story about someone being killed by her pet cat, an animal of exceptional size and ferocity, and another concerning a model who had broken her leg through wearing shoes with seven-inch heels, and then she got dressed in a frock and filmy stole for her surprise visit to Preston Still, adding as an afterthought the red quilted jacket that was a Christmas present from Ciaran.