Thirteen Steps Down (11 page)

Iceland spar, amethyst quartz, olivine schist, basalt, and lapis lazuli, in

the center of which lay a small round lace matlike a crocheted doily.

Shoshana's chair was of ebony inlaid all along the back and arms with

white and yellow crystals, but the chair provided for the client was the

Windsor type, plain wood, here and there stained with what looked like

blood but was probably tomato ketchup.

"Sit."

Nerissa knew the routine and obeyed. At Madam Shoshana's command

she laid her hands, manicured that morning, the nails lacquered a

slightly paler gold than the skin of her fingers, on the lace mat in the ring

of stones. Shoshana gazed at Nerissa's hands and let her eyes rove in

circles from crystal to crystal, rather like a cat following a moving spot of

light.

"Tell me which of the sacred stones you can feel drawn closer to your

fingers? Which two are gradually drawing toward you?"

It was a source of dismay to Nerissa that she could never feel, and

certainly not see, any of the crystals moving. She was always reproached

for this failure. Madam Shoshana seemed to imply it was due to some

insensitivity on her part or to lack of concentration. Certain she would

once more be found wanting, she said, "I think it's the dark blue one and

the pink one."

"Try again."

"The dark blue one and the green one."

Shoshana shook her head, more in sorrow than in anger. Some of her

clients she had known for years, but she never etreated them with any

more friendship or intimacy than she had done on their first visit. She

looked at Nerissa as if she hadnever seen her before.

"The basalt and the amethyst are in your Ring of Fate today."

Shoshana's voice sounded as if it came from a long wayoff and long in

the past. So might a mummy sound if it could speak. "Both are pushing

hard to break the energy barrier between themselves and your fingers.

You must relax and let them come. Relax now and bid them appraoch

you."

Many times before had Nenssa been through this routine. She tried to

let her hands go limp, but she was very aware of the white owl and the

gray-robed waxwork staring at her, she thought, accusingly. "Come,

come, come," she intoned. It suddenly occurred to her that this was

exactly what an arrogant former boyfriend used to whisper to her while

they were making love, and she bit her lip to stop herself giggling.

"Concentrate," said Shoshana sternly.

Nerissa thought how frightened she would be if she actually saw the

basalt and the amethyst move at her bidding. But only Madam Shoshana

could see that happening. She began to speak.

"Your fateful balance is badly out of truth. The stones speak of

confusion, doubt, and fear. They tell me of a dark man, his name

beginning with a D. He is your fate, for good or ill. His destiny is to live

by water ... You are pushing the stones away--ah, too late. They have

ceased to speak. You see how they shrink as the soul comes out of

them."

The stones looked the same to Nerissa but she knew that was due to

her spiritual blindness. Shoshana had told her so on previous occasions.

She was too worldly, the soothsayer had said, too preoccupied with her

own appearance, with possessions and with artifacts. She wasn't sure

what "artifacts" meant, and although she meant to look the word up she

always forgot.The stuffed birds and the wizard figure were all looking at

her with contempt. Nerissa cast her eyes down, humiliated.

The session was over. Her homework was to pay close attentionto the

man whose name began with a D and to waterwith creatures swimming

in it, though not fish. She stood upand felt in her bag for her wallet.

Madam Shoshana on her feetwas rather different from Madam Shoshana

sitting down. Shebecame more practical and businesslike, less aware of

the souland more of the pocket.

"Forty-five pounds, please, no euros and no credit cards,"she said, as if

the client had never been before.

Nerissa left and walked thoughtfully along Westbourne Grove. When

Madam Shoshana said that the dark man was her fate, her heart had

leapt for she was sure she must mean Darel Jones. But suppose she

hadn't, suppose she had meant Rodney Devereux?

She could have asked but she'd known it would have been useless.

Shoshana would only have said the stones told her no more and implied

that this was Nerissa's fault for obstructing them with her energy. As for

the water, immediately to mind came the Pacific Rim restaurant Rodney

loved and where he was always taking her, though Nerissa didn't like

watching the fish swimming about in the huge mirror-backed tanks and

tenminutes later eating one of them. She couldn't tell why it was different

from just buying fish at Harrods Food Hall and having it later, but

somehow it was.

Still, this must be what Shoshana had meant, speaking of it so soon

after mentioning the man with the initial D. Of courseshe had specifically

said not fish, but there were other things in those tanks, snails with

colored shells and little creeping things and a creature like a water

snake. Last time they'd been there she was afraid Rodney would eat the

snake and that made her queasy. She'd been on the point of saying to

him that she'd never go to Pacific Rim again, but for some reason she

hadn't. Now she'd have to go there. It was her fate.

Christie's first victim, as far as is known, was a young woman of Austrian

origin called Ruth Fuerst. She had been a nurse, but when Christie first

met her in 1943 was working in amunitions factory and as a part-time

prostitute. Whether he first met her while a policeman on the beat or in a

cafe or pub is a matter of doubt, but he claimed that she came to see him

in Rillington Place while Ethel Christie was at work in Osram's factory.

No one involved in the case could say if he ever visited her in the single

room she rented at 41 Oxford Gardens.

Mix looked up from the book, keeping his finger on thepage. What an

amazing thing! Although he had read everybook on Christie he could get

hold of, mainly from hunting through secondhand bookshops, none of

them had stated precisely where Ruth Fuerst had lived. But here it was,

a few houses along the street from the address Danila had given him. If

only it had been the same house, he thought with a stab of regret. If only

she had had the same room! He imagined going back there with her,

maybe screwing her in the very place .. Still, what he'd discovered made

going out with her quite an exciting experience rather than a chore.

He read on. "Christie killed Ruth Fuerst one day in the middle of

August. 'She undressed,' he said, 'and wanted me to have intercourse

with her.' " In his book 10 Rillington Place, which Mix had among the rest

of his library, Ludovic Kennedy,writing that their relationship developed

gradually, suggeststhat it was far more likely she had a straightforward

transactionwith him, prostitute and client, or granted her favors as

hisprice for not reporting her soliciting in his capacity as a

specialconstable.

"During sexual relations, he strangled her with a piece of rope. Then he

wrapped her leopard--skin coat round her"-a fur coat in August!--"took

her into the front room and placed her under the floorboards with the

rest of her clothes.

"That same evening, Ethel, who had been away in Sheffield with her

relations, arrived home with her brother Henry Waddington, who

intended to stay the night. Because they had only one bedroom and that

was occupied by Christie and Mrs.Christie, Henry Waddington slept in

the front room, a few feetaway from the temporarily interred body of Ruth

Fuerst ... "

Mix had to stop there. He was calling for Danila at eight and he meant

to leave early in order to stand outside and contemplate the house where

that first victim had lived. Number41 Oxford Gardens was on the other

side of Ladbroke Grove, rather shabby, much in need of painting and

general refurbishment. No doubt it would now be worth some enormous

sum, incredible to its wartime occupants if any of them were still alive. A

cat, rather like Otto but older and with a gray muzzle, came over the wall

and stopped when it saw Mix staring. Mix shooed it and made a face, but

it was streetwise and experienced. It gave him an inscrutable look and

strolled slowly into a clump of bushes.

Had Reggie ever stood where he was, then making up his mind, gone up

the path and rung the bell? There may have been other occasions when

he came here before that final fatal meeting. Hadn't the author of the

best-known book on Reggie suggested they had known each other for a

long time? Very probably all his relationships with his victims developed

gradually. It stood to reason he must sometimes have gone to their

places. After all, Ethel Christie was usually at home in Rillington Place

and he couldn't always just have met them in cafes and pubs.

Mix was growing more and more convinced that Reggie had visited

Gwendolen at St. Blaise House. When he first began renting the flat, she

had mentioned in passing her mother and father with whom she had

lived in those far-off days and she had also mentioned her mother's

death soon after the war. The father would have been working as a

professor, whatever that meant, certainly that he'd be away from home.

Mix could imagine Gwendolen letting Reggie in, taking him into the

kitchen for a cup of tea--snob that she was--while they talked about the

abortion, her need for it and his ability to perform the operation. Perhaps

she couldn't afford the fee Reggie asked, but Mix couldn't remember

reading anywhere that he evercharged ...

Approaching the house where Danila lived, at two minutes after eight,

he found her waiting for him just inside the frontgate. This didn't please

him, as it was too much of a sign of desperation. He would have

preferred her to keep him waiting,even if it had been half an hour. But

now she was with him, dressed up to the nines as his gran used to say,

in skin-tightleather trousers, a frilled shirt, and a fake leopard-skin

jacket. Just like Ruth Fuerst, he thought, and he wondered if Fuerst had

looked like this, skinny and dark and sharp-featured. He tried to recall if

he'd ever seen photographs of her. They walked up to Ladbroke Grove

and the Kensington Park Hotel.

He loved KPH, not because there was anything special about it but

because all those years ago Reggie had used it. It was historic. They

ought to have a sign up telling the clientele thatit had once been the local

of west London's most infamous killer. But when you had people

ignorant enough to pull down Rillington Place and destroy all signs of

that celebrated site,what could you expect?

"You're very quiet," said Danila, a vodka and blackcurrant in front of

her. "Kayleigh'd want to know if the cat had gotyour tongue."

It was an unpleasant reminder of Otto. "Who's Kayleigh?"

"The girl who does the evening shift at the spa. She's my friend." When

Mix made no reply, she said eagerly--or desperately?--" I had my fortune

told today."

Mix was going to say he'd no time for that and it was a load of rubbish

when he remembered reading how Nerissa patronized faith healers,

fortune-tellers, and had some guru. Besides, he half believed in ghosts

now, didn't he? "I reckon there maybe something in it. There's lots of

things we don't know, aren't there? I mean, some of them'll turn out to

be scientific all along."

"That's exactly what I say. Madam Shoshana at the spa does mine.

She's the boss but she's a soothsayer too, got all sorts of qualifications,

letters after her name and all."

"What did she say?"

"You mustn't laugh. My fate's bound up with a man whose name starts

with a C. And I thought, I wonder if it's achap who does the pedicures at

the spa. He's called Charlie, Charlie Owen."

Mix laughed. "It might be me."

"Your name begins with an M."

"Not my surname."

"Yeah, but that's an S."

"No, it's not. I ought to know. It's C, E, double L, I, N, I."

She stared into his face. "You're kidding."

"D'you want another drink?" he said.

On the way back to Oxford Gardens he bought two bottles ofCalifornia

white, cheap-offer bin ends, in the wine shop. They drank it on her bed

and afterward Mix didn't think he acquitted himself very well. But what

did it matter? They were both drunk and she wasn't the sort of girl for

whom you felt you had to put up a good performance. Outside her door,

the floor and the ceiling rocked like the waves of the sea, rising and

sinking and quivering. Heading for the stairs, clutching the banisters,he

stumbled and nearly came to his knees, his jacket falling forward over

his head. Adjusting it as best he could and starting down, he passed a

man coming up who stood back, unmistakably flinching at a blast from

his breath. Another tenant, his fuddled mind conjectured, Middle

Eastern chap, sallow face, black mustache, they all looked the same. He

didn't look back to see the Middle Eastern chap pick up a small white