Thirteen Steps Down (42 page)

I'm sure now."

"Sure of what?"

He smiled. "Come here. Sit beside me."

Mix's invitation she had unhesitatingly refused but now the same

request, uttered from the same place on the sofa, had come from Darel,

she accepted it. He turned to face her andtook both her hands in his.

"When we came to live next door Iwas a big teenager and you were a

small one. I thought youbeautiful even then--who wouldn't?--but I did

nothing about it. I soon had a girlfriend, anyway. I was away at

university-I was training for five years, one year in the United States-and

when I came home again, you were a famous model."

"I remember," she said.

"I got it into my head you must be an empty-headed frivolous woman. I

thought all models were. Capricious too and what my mother calls stuckup, and-well, with an I-only-getout-of-bed-for-ten-grand sort of attitude.

Of course I couldn't help being attracted to you, but I got to think that if I

was inyour company the way you were bound to talk and act would just

make me angry. So 1didn't go with my parents when yours asked us next

door for drinks. I knew you'd be there and that stopped me going with

them the day before I oved."

"So what happened?"

"Well, I knew that if I was ever alone with you I'd be boundt o ask you

out, I couldn't help myself. I kept thinking too how my mother once said

your mother told her how messy you were about the house and how

unpunctual and I knew Icouldn't stand that. I've made a plan for my life,

Nerissa, it's all worked out, where I'm going and how I'm going to get

there. Among other things, I want a serious relationship. I'm nearly

thirty-one and I'm looking to a long-term partnership, even marriage."

She nodded, feeling his hands tighten over hers.

"Marriage and kids too. Why not? But I wasn't willing to travel that

road, playing second fiddle to a woman everyone admired and adored. I

didn't want to be with a womn who was careless and--well, profligate and

extravagant. And I can't stand people who are always late. Frankly, I

wasn't prepared tobe 'Mr. Nerissa Nash,' arriving at your sort of party-or

what I thought was your sort of party--an hour late and then have no one

talk to me because you were the cynosure of all eyes."

She didn't know what "cynosure" meant and she wasn't too sure about

"profligate." She listened.

"But that day we encountered each other in St. James's Street," he

went on, "that began to change me. I put you to the test in little ways.

There was that dinner party, for instance.Youwere actually on time. And

look at this place. I don't imagineyou clean it yourself but you certainly

keep it the way the daily has done it. At dinner you talked about politics

and morality and--well, even economics. I thought, I'll leave it awhile. If

she phones me and starts being demanding or pulling her rank, if she

thinks I'm hers for taking whenever she pleases,that'll be it. But you

didn't." He drew her a little toward him. "You passed the test. "With flying

colors. I thought, yes, right, she's fit for what I want, she's really okay. So

how about dinner tonight, Miss Nash?"

Her hands gently withdrawn from his, she moved a fewinches back

along the sofa. Her heart, which normally had theslow steady beat, a

doctor had told her, of an athlete or a wellexercisedyoung woman, now

began to race and pound.

"I don't think so," she said, and her voice, even to herselfsounded

remote. "I didn't know I was taking part in a quiz, acompetition,

whatever. I wouldn't have if I'd known."

"What are you talking about, sweetheart?"

"I'm not your sweetheart and I never will be. I don't do tests to see if I'm

a--a suitable candidate."

"Now, Nerissa, come on.":

"I'm what I am. And whoever does have a what-d'you-call it,permanent

relationship with me, he'll have to take me as I am. Thank you for

coming here and getting rid of that man. I'm grateful but we won't meet

again."

He got up, his face registering a simple lack of comprehension.

"Good-bye, Darel," she said.

As soon as he had gone she picked up the phone, dialed the restaurant

where she was lunching with the Vogue woman and said she'd be half an

hour late. Then she wept for a little. The phone rang while she was

redoing her makeup, repairing the damage tears had done. It was her

father.

"Did he come?"

"Yes, he did. You shouldn't have, Dad. I know you meant well."

"As long as I live I'm going to see my girl gets what she wants if it's in

my power. When are you seeing him again?"

"Never. I'll call you later."

She had one phone call to make before she went out. He picked up the

phone after two rings.

"Rodney, will you take me out tonight? Somewhere awful. I fancy that

Cockatoodle Club in Soho, I've never been there. We'll be late and get

home late and have champagne. No, I know I don't drink but I'll break

my rule tonight. Will you? You're a lamb. See you."

She didn't have to have a partner, she didn't have to marry, she

thought as she got into the taxi. She was young. Why notj ust enjoy

herself? So long as she was nice to people and didn't get above herself or

start thinking her looks were something she'd achieved and ought to be

proud of. First of all, she'd go to her hairdresser and get him to do her

hair in cornrowso r maybe even dreadlocks. She badly needed a gesture

of defiance ...

I can't call my home my own these days, Mix thought, coming downstairs

to pick up what post he had. It was the following day, midway through

the morning, and standing in the hallway, he could hear the voices from

the drawing room of three women. Ma Winthrop, Ma Fordyce, and who

was the third?He listened. Her mother of course, Mrs. Mumbo-jumbo.

What was the point of them coming back here day after day? Until he

realized what he was doing, he felt indignant on old Chawcer's behalf,

not allowed to go away to friends for a few days. What business was it of

theirs? Then he remembered she was dead.

Mrs. Mumbo-jumbo had probably heard all about his stand-off with

bully boy the day before. On the other hand, Nerissa might not have told

her. She migh want to get rid of bullyboy and establish a proper

relationship with him before she said anything to her parents. He'd leave

it a day or two and then he'd go back and hear what had happened after

he'd decided the mature thing to do was leave. There was something

about bully boy that reminded him of Javy, the look of him more than

anything. Javy would be gray by now but before Mix left home he'd had

that olive skin and pink cheeks and a lot of black hair. Women found

him attractive, though Mix could never see why.

He'd been to the Benefit Office and signed on. They gave him some

money and offered a whole lot of jobs he hadn't liked the look of. Time

enough for that in a couple of weeks. Not wanting to encounter any of the

three women, he picked up the Dig-it and the Wall mail-order catalogs

and took them upstairs, though being neither a gardener nor a woman,

they weren't much use to him. Twenty-two stairs to the floor where she'd

slept, seventeen up to where no one slept and no one ever went, thirteen

more to the top. He didn't always count them, not when he was afraid,

but he did now, as if he could make them fourteen.

The thong lying in her lap, Hazel Akwaa was asking her aunt and

Queenie if they had thought of going through Gwendolen's clothes. They

both shook their heads and Oliveshrugged.

"It seems so intrusive, dear," said Queenie, "such an invasionof her

privacy. I mean, how would you like it if you went away and your friends

started rifling through your clothes? You'd feel violated."

"Yes, I would if I'd told them where I was going and left the address of

where I'd be. But if I'd disappeared and was missing I'd be glad. I'd want

to be found."

"On the whole, I think we should," Olive said. They began climbing the

stairs. "I hope someone's feeding that cat."

"Food has been put down for him every day but it's not been touched

since Sunday. He's gone off somewhere."

"It looks as if he went when Gwendolen went," said Queenie.She told

Hazel about the missing sheet.

"Are you quite sure?"

"She has such funny ways. 1 thought she could have just taken off the

top sheet and left the bottom one and the blankets but I looked in the

washing machine and even inside thatawful old copper--you never know

with Gwendolen. She might even have taken it with her."

"What, the cat or the sheet?"

"Well, either. No one, but no one, no matter how eccentric,would take a

soiled bedsheet away somewhere to stay with friends. You'd have to be

seriously mad to do that. And how could she manage a cat?"

By now they were all in Gwendolen's bedroom and Olive had opened the

window because the weather was still fine and the sun shining.

"It doesn't smell very nice," said Hazel.

Her aunt shrugged. "Places don't if you don't clean them."

"Youk now, this carpet is actually blue but it's got such a mat of cat's

hair covering it that it looks gray."

Hazel opened the door of the wardrobe and was met bythe powerful

reek of camphor. Gwendolen's ancient dresses crowded together on

hangers long ago covered in ruched silk and hung with lavender bags.

Shoes were jumbled together underneatht hem, not placed in pairs. Olive

began to count them.

"Seven," she said. "And that's significant. She told me notlong ago she

had seven pairs of shoes."

"She must have bought some more."

"I'm sure she didn't. She would have told me. I'm not saying she made a

special confidante of me, only that Gwen couldn't buy anything, let alone

a big item like that, without moaning about the cost of it to everyone she

spoke to."

"She couldn't have gone awaywithout any shoes," said Hazel.

"Nor without her ruby ring, dear." Queenie had opened the jewel box

and was looking inside. She held up a ring with a redstone. "It was her

mother's and she never went out without it."

Chapter 28

"You are saying I sit at this window all day every day in case this man

comes by? You are not serious, Kaylee."

" Yes,I am, Ab. If it's him and he's taken Danila hostage and got her shut

up somewhere, handcuffed and tied up and all that, you won't be able to

live with yourself if you don't goto the cops. I bet he comes down here a

lot. I bet he lives round here."

"Kaylee," said Abbas in the voice of someone to whom a great revelation

has been vouchsafed on the road to Damascus.

"Oh, Kaylee ... "

"Whatever is it? You've got quite-well, pale, if you see what I mean."

"Kaylee. That night, after I see him on the stairs, I pick up a card from

the floor I see him drop. He is drunk, you understand,and it fall from his

jacket. I bring it here, into my ownflat and ... "

"Where is it now, Ab?"

"Do you think I keep it? A strange man's visiting card?"

"But you read what was on it?"

Abbas sat down and pulled Kayleigh on to his knee. "Sit with me, my

flower, and help me to think. I think hard what was on it."

"Yes, you do that, darling. If you let poor Danila down now,what's our

baby going to think of you.”

Their baby, as yet a very small fetus in its mother's womb,need know

nothing about it, as far as Abbas could see, and would hardly be

concerned with its father's memory processes for another fifteen years, if

then. But he could understand that if it was in his power to help the

police find the author o fDanila's wrongs, whatever they might be,

untimely death possibly, though he wasn't going to say that to Kayleigh,

who was in a fragile condition and might easily be upset, he was bound

to do so. He thought.

"One word I remember from that card," he said. "Not a man's name or

address ... "

"Oh, Abby ... "

"Wait. One word. It is Fiterama. Yes, Fiterama. What it means, I cannot

tell. But this is on the card."

Kayleigh jumped off his lap. She was very excited. "I know what it

means, Ab. It's the name of the firm the man works for as services the

machines at the spa. Madam Shoshana told me. He didn't come back

with the parts so she gave them a ring to slag him off."

The secondhand crime bookstore wanted to charge Mix twentyfive

pounds for a book on Christie, published forty years before.He had just

happened to take it down from the shelf to look at an illustration, when

the shop assistant pounced.

"It's daylight robbery," he said. "I hope you don't find a buyer."

"There's no need to be abusive," said the shop assistant.

Walking home from Shepherd's Bush, Mix told himself he would buy no

more books on Christie, he would read nothing more about Christie, it

was all over. He might even bring the books he had and see if that chap

would buy them. But for Christie, Danila would be alive and he, Mix,

would never havekilled a dead woman. If he were being strictly honest,

he'd say Christie had killed them both himself, bringing his total up to

eight.