Thirteen Steps Down (41 page)

direction of Ladbroke Grove.

"It is he!"

Any student of such matters would have known Abbas was an incomer

to the United Kingdom by the grammatical correctnessof his English.

Kayleigh set him right.

"What's him, Abby?"

"The person who has just passed by, it is he I passed on the stairs

when he has been visiting Miss Kovic."

"You're kidding."

"Oh, no, I kid you not, Kayleigh. He is the boyfriend all search for."

"Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure? 'Cos if you are, you'll have to

tell the police. So are you positive?""

Now you put it like this, no, I am not sure that I could swear in a court,

this is he. I must think. If only it is possible for me to see him close. If I

go after him, if I go now ... "

"No, you don't, Abby. We're going out--remember? And if you get up

close and personal it'll be you they're arresting, not him."

No bus came so Mix walked all the way down Ladbroke Grove and

crossed Holland Park Avenue to make his way up to Nerissa's house. Her

car wasn't on the forecourt. Did that mean she had put it away in the

garage or could she be out? Please don't let her be out, he prayed to a

deity whom he didn't believe in and who he dimly knew wouldn't support

him in escapingretribution but just might help him to become

Nerissa'slover. The deity, or guardian angel, did. As he was walking

upthe

path

of

a

house

next

door

but

two,

rather

ostentatiouslybrandishing the orange folder, the Jaguar swept up the hill

andswung into her driveway. She couldn't have seen him, he

wasconcealed from view by a large bush coveered in red berries. Mix rang

the bell and when it was answered by a woman in large black-rimmed

glasses and a pin-striped suit began earnestly outlining to her his own

assessment of the virtues of Proportional Representation.

As always, Nerissa had scanned the street as she drove up itfor the blue

Honda. Once more it wasn't there. It hadn't beenthere for-well, it must be

two weeks by now. He's given up,she thought, and this, though what she

longed for, would leaveher with no excuse for phoning Darel Jones.

Even though she had had a shower before she went out, she always felt

soiled after she had been in Madam Shoshana's well,"den" was the word

she always used for it. Anyway, she was going out to lunch with the

Vogue woman and she might aswell get ready now. So when Mix rang her

doorbell half anhour later, she was dressed in a pale yellow suit, her hair

up ina chignon, and her legs encased in primrose yellow suede boots.

The woman in the severe suit and the glasses had given Mix a hard

time. She told him she was a Member of Parliament, until recently a

lecturer at the London School of Economics. What she didn't know about

Proportional Representation, and indeed all psephological systems,

plainly wasn't worth knowing, while he knew nothing but what he had

read in a tabloidnewspaper. He left, feeling unfairly punished for simply

trying to find out if people really like voting for an individual insteadof a

political party. The man who answered the door at the nexthouse wasn't

interested and became plainly exasperated when Mix, in rather a

muddled way, tried passing on to him some of the explanations put

forward by the MP. No one was at home next door to Nerissa. He drew a

deep breath, told himself not to be shy, she was just a woman like any

other, and went to the door.

She was aghast to see him but where another woman in herposition

might have slammed the door in his face without waitingto hear what he

had to say, she stood, holding it open. She had been brought up to be

well-mannered.

Mix had rehearsed what he would say. "Well, good morning,Miss Nash.

We're not exactly strangers to each other, arewe? If I remember rightly,

the first time was at my friend Colette'shome."

"We've met before, yes," she said.

She looked so beautiful he could hardly keep the yearning out of his

eyes or the hope from his expression. Like a yellowrose, he thought,

unaccustomed to lyrical comparison, like anAfrican queen. "I don't

expect you knew," he said, using the rehearsed words, "that I do market

research in my leisure time."

"No," she said. "No, I didn't."

"I'd like to talk to you today about elections. I expect you know what

Proportional Representation is, don't you?"

She said nothing, her face puzzled and, in some way he recognized but

couldn't have explained, helpless.

"May I come in?"

It was the last thing she wanted. If he had been a total stranger she

would have been able to refuse him but they had spoken before, three

times before. "I'm going out." She wasn't for an hour. "Just for a minute,

then."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew she shouldn't

have uttered them. She should have been firm, strong, said what she'd

have said and often had, to Jehovah's Witnesses and kitchen equipment

salesmen, thank you very much but she just wasn't interested. Before

she had thought this he was in the house, walking slowly through the

hallway looking admiringly from side to side, nodding and smiling in aI

way that plainly indicated admiration of everything.

She would have kept him in the hall and as near to the frontdoor as

possible but he didn't give her the chance. He was in the living room

before she could attempt to stop him. Today was the day the flowers

came. Lynette had taken them in whileshe was at Madam Shoshana's

and arranged them in the bigcream pottery and etched glass bowls. For a

moment she saw itwith another's eyes, the eyes of someone not used to

opulencegarnished with lilac and lilies and gerberas, and she

understoodwhy he was so impressed.

"This is a very lovely home you have."

"Thank you," she said in rather a small voice.

"May I sit down, Miss Nash? And I have a second request.

“May I call you Nerissa?"

She didn't know how to say no to either. To refuse seemedc hurlish and

somehow setting herself up as superior, and ever since she began to be

known and sought after she had resolved never to think herself better

than anyone else and certainly not to show it. Helplessly, she watched

him settle himself on one of the sofas, open the orange cardboard folder

he was carrying,and look up to give her a hugely wide and toothy grin.

Mix had had plenty of practice, if not quite at this sort of thing, at least

in selling himself and his various products, being pleasant and mildly

flirtatious with women. Any diffidence he might have had in other

circumstances faded when he was talking to a woman and putting across

a point. Besides, the vodkahad begun to do its work before he rang the

MP's bell.

He no longer saw any reason to beat about the bush and he said, "I'm

going to come out with the truth frankly, Nerissa,and tell you I'm not

here to talk about politics or elections or boring stuff like that. I don't

know much about it anyway asyour smartass neighbor was kind enough

to tell me to my face.No, I'm here to see you because what I said when we

met in old Chawcer's house was all true, every single word of it. And I'd

like to tell you again, choose my words a bit more carefully this time, but

do you think you could rustle us up a coffee first, my love?"

Whether it was that "my love" that did it or his calling her great-aunt's

friend "old Chawcer" or just his tone and look, she couldn't have said,

but as for the coffee, she was glad of a chance to get out of the room and

to her mobile. Not that she was going to call Darel jones, much as she

would have loved tosee him. But she knew she couldn't summon him. It

would be unfair on him to fetch him away from work and a nasty

underhandtrick to play on this awful man. All these weeks she had been

longing for the chance to call him, even thinking of encouraging this man

in order to have an excuse, but now shecouldn't do it. It was her father

she was going to phone. She put the coffee and the boiling water in the

cafetiere first. Then she dialed her dad at his office and when he

answered, just said,

"Dad, he's here, in the house, that stalker I told you about."

"Right," he said. "I'll handle it."

Nerissa's agent and, come to that, her mother and father and her

brothers and Rodney Devereux, would all have said if asked that Nerissa

must be quite accustomed to dealing with men making unwelcome

overtures to her, but in fact very few had done so. There was something

about her, something icemaidenish yet warm and innocent, that put off

any man even marginally more sensitive than Mix Cellini. Those whose

approaches were welcome had been few and all of them knew where they

stood before the initial overture was made. Mix, onthe other hand, was

unable to tell the difference between a woman who agreed to give him

coffee and a seat because she loathed the idea of being rude and one who

did so becauseshe shortly hoped to be in bed with him. He took the cup

shehanded him with a slight smile and a sexy look and said, "Come and

sit here by me."

"I'll stay here if you don't mind."

"Well, I do mind, I mind a lot." Mix distorted his face into an ingratiating

smile. "But we'll let it pass for the time being.

Now tell me, where did you get your lovely name, Nerissa? It really is a

most beautiful name and, do you know, I don't think I've ever come

across it before."

"My mum got it out of a Shakespeare pray."

"Really? I see you come from educated people. I reckon these mixed

partnerships are best, don't you? Mixed-up genes and all that. My

grandad was Italian. I don't mind telling you, though I don't tell everyone,

he was an Italian prisoner of war. Romantic, eh?"

She said helplessly, "I don't know."

"Maybe I'd best get down to the nitty-gritty. This is very good coffee, by

the way.Very good. What I'm starting to say is,me and you, I guess we've

a lot in common, same sort of background, same sort of age, both fitness

freaks and both living in good old West Eleven. I don't mind telling you

I've been in love with you for yonks and I flatter myself you don't exactly

dislike me. So what say we put it to the test?"

She was on her feet now, seriously frightened and more so when he too

got up. They stood no more than a yard apart and he took a step toward

her.

"How about a little kiss for starters?"

She was preparing to fight him off, use her boot heels as weapons if

necessary, but as she backed away the doorbell rang. It disconcerted

him. He looked, not bewildered or disappointed, but furiously angry, a

pinpoint of red light in each eye, his upper lip curling back.

"Excuse me," she said, knowing these words were ridiculous in the

circumstances. She almost ran to the door to let her father in.

It wasn't her father. It was Darel Jones.

Chapter 27

"Your father called me."

I'll kill Dad, was her first thought, and then love for her father

overwhelmed her. "He shouldn't have," she said.

"That chap--has he gone?"

"He's still here. He's in there."

Darel walked into the room where Mix, still on his feet, was examining a

glass figurine very like the one he had been forced to use on Danila.

Something else they had in common ...

"Get out," said Darel.

"Pardon me? I don't think we've met. Mix Cellini. I'm a friend of Miss

Nash. In point of fact, we were just arranging how we were going to

spend the evening till we were so rudely interrupted. "

"I said get out. Go. Unless you want me to put you out."

"For Christ's sake!" Mix was mystified. "What have I done, I'd like to

know? Ask her if you don't believe me."

"I really would like you to go," Nerissa said. "Please don't fight over it.

Just go."

"Because you ask me, I will," said Mix. "I know you don't mean it. You

know and I know that I'll be back once your bullyboy is out of the way."

He tried to move with dignity toward the door. But he was learning that

though it is possible for a man with a protruding belly to be many things,

dignified is not one of them. He turned in the door. "I'll never let youg o,"

he said, more because it was the right thing to say than because he

meant it. He opened the front door and closed it behind him.

"Thank you for that," Nerissa said in a weak voice. "Do you think he

meant it, that he'd never let me go?"

"No. He probably thinks I live here, that I'm your significant other or

partner or whatever."

She wanted to say, I wish you were, and, will you be? But she could

only look at him, at his beautifully chiseled Celtic face, the black hair,

the pale skin with the faintest red bloom on the cheeks, at his lean, longfingered hands, at the lengthof him.

"I've got something to say to you, Nerissa. I've been hoping for a chance

to say it for weeks now."

Impossible to resist a rejoinder to that. "You could have called me."

"I know. I wanted to think carefully about what I knew and what I

wanted. I needed to be sure I'd be doing the right thing.