Thirteen Steps Down (24 page)

paws came to light in the back of a cupboard full of sprouting potatoes

and onions growing green shoots. He put half into a saucer and left it on

the floor beside a large plasticbag stuffed full of moldy loaf ends and

bread rolls.

It didn't really matter when the doctor came or if he came at all, except

that while he was there Chawcer wouldn't be able to get out of bed and

wander about. The important caller was thewoodworm man. Mix pushed

a chair covered in fraying browncorduroy up close to the front window

where he could sitand keep an eye on the street. He had left his mobile

upstairs. Never mind, he could use her phone if he needed it. ThereOlive

Fordyce found him half an hour later.

"I don't think Gwen's any better. That cough sounds like pleurisy.

Imagine it, in this heat. What are you doing here?"

Mix made no reply. "What's the name of the firm she's got coming to see

to the woodworm?"

"Are you asking me? How should I know? Ask her."

"She's forgotten."

Olive sat down. For a ministering angel with stairs to climb, she was

wearing highly unsuitable shoes, red, pointed, and with two-inch heels.

Even without looking she could feel her ankles swelling. "She wanted me

to go up into that room and see what I thought. She says there's a funny

smell."

If he hadn't been sitting down, Mix thought he would havefallen. His

head swam. He managed to say, "The woodworm people will see to that."

"Well, I must say I don't really want to go up there now. My poor feet

feel bad enough as it is, it's always the same in hotI weather. Gwen really

ought to have a stairlift."

There was no answer to be made to this. She got up, having difficulty in

balancing. "You'll be here to let the doctor in,won't you?"

Mix wanted to shout something rude at her, but he remembered that,

improbable as it was, this woman must be Nerissa's great-aunt. "I

suppose so," he salid.

With scorn, he watched her totter down the street. If these old women

knew what they looked like! It sounded as if neither she nor the other

one would be back today, and that was to his advantage. He'd be in

control of the house, who came and went. The woodworm man wouldn't

force his way in, the doctor wouldn't want to go upstairs and find out

where the smell was coming from. Hold on to that, he told himself, hold

on to that. It's only a matter of waiting.

The call came for Nerissa as she was waiting for the taxi to arrive and

take her to a shoot at the Dorchester. She had almost given up hope of

hearing from him. If a man you've met (or remet) doesn't phone you

within forty-eight hours, the chances are he won't phone at all. But the

invitation he was extending to her was so unlike any she had ever

previously received thatshe wondered for a moment if it was a joke.

"My parents and yours and your brother Andrew and his wife are

coming to dinner on Saturday and I wondered if you'd like to join us."

She couldn't ask him if he was serious. The temptation to say no was

quite strong but warring with it was the lure of just seeing him, being

with him, even if six others were there. She liked his parents and she

and Andrew had always been close, he being three years the elder but

still the nearest to her in age.

"Nerissa?" Darel said.

She spoke haltingly. "Yes, thank you. I'd--I' d love to."

He gave her the address, miles away in Docklands, somewhere near

Old Crane Stairs. Wapping was the station on the East London Line.

"I expect I'll drive," said Nerissa. "Excuse me, I must go, my cab's come."

What was the idea, she thought as she got into her taxi. Was he just

very old-fashioned, or was he afraid of being alone with her? He wasn't

gay, was he? Her heart seemed to beat very slowly but loudly. No, he

couldn't be. Sheila Jones had talked about some girl friend he used to

have. She considered. Perhap she just wanted to test her, see if the way

he'd used to think about her was right or if she really had turned out to

be different, as he'd said.

A client was with Shoshana, so Kayleigh talked to the police,though she

had already told them all she knew. On that Friday Danila had worked at

the spa as usual, Kayleigh herself had spoken to her on the phone at

three-thirty, half an hour before she was due to take over from the

Bosnian girl. She had seen her, exchanged a few words, and Danila had

gone off home to Oxford Gardens. Of the other tenants in the house, one,

a man on the second floor, had seen her come in at four-thirty

orthereabouts. He had been in the hallway, sorting out his letters from

the rest of the post. Danila had said hi to him and goneoff upstairs to her

room on the first floor. Abbas Reza hadn'tseen her, though he believed he

had heard her leave the house at about seven-fifty that evening. If she

had a boyfriend he knew nothing about it and nor did Kayleigh. No one

had seen her since.

If she were dead, the police believed, her body would have been found

by this time. They considered suggestions of a secret lover. But why

should she keep a lover hidden? She had nothing to be ashamed of or

even discreet about. The only clue, and that tenuous, was that the

tenant on the second floor, a man of Chinese origin called Tony Li, had

heard Danila and a man talking to each other outside her room one

eveninga bout three weeks before she disappeared. He hadn't seen

theman, only heard his voice though not the words he spoke.

Waiting with nothing to do, no distractions, nothing to read or listen to or

look at, is the slowest of all time-wasters. After two hours of it, Mix went

upstairs and fetched Crimes of the Forties. Somehow he didn't want to

read anything these days but books about Reggie, not magazines, not

newspapers--definitely not newspapers. Coming back downstairs he

heard old Chawcer coughing her lungs up. Otto was in the hallway,

washing his face after eating the food Mix had put down. He behaved as

ifno one else was there or as if this human male was so insignificant as

not to count and certainly not to be considered as interrupting his

cleaning routine.

There seemed nothing new in the book, nothing he hadn't,come across

before. He knew all about Beresford Brown, an African Caribbean

immigrant and new tenant of 10 RillingtonPlace, taking down a partition

in the kitchen and finding twobodies pushed into an alcove. By then

Reggie was far away, though not far enough to escape eventual arrest. All

this was familiar stuff to Mix, but he read this author's version with

interest just the same, anxious for details of the process of decaying

corpses. It had been December and cold. Fifty years ago,b efore this

global warming, even March would have been freezing, and as for August

... Just his luck that today it was hotter than Spain, according to the

television, as hot as Dubai.

He had read about fifteen pages--there were only twentytwo on Reggiewhen the phone rang. To answer it or not? Might as well. It would be

something to do. A man's voice said,"Is Miss Chawcer there, please?" He

sounded quite elderly.

"She's not available now," Mix said, and then quickly, "You're not the

woodworm people, are you?"

"I'm afraid not. My name is Stephen Reeves, Dr. Reeves."

This wasn't the doctor who was expected later but the man old Chawcer

had been writing all those letters to. Mix said, "Oh, yes?"

"Would you give her a message? Would you say I'd like to drop in and

see her when I'm next in London?"

He gave a phone number, which Mix said he would write down but

didn't. There was no paper or pen at hand. She probably knew the

number anyway, she was bound to. "I'll tell her,"he said.

Back to the book and the waiting. The illustrations horrified him but

they drew his eyes as well. The bodies looked so squalid, like dirty

bundles of rags instead of real dead people. Ethel Christie lay under the

floorboards in front of the fireplace in the front room. Would Danila look

like that when helifted the boards? When someone else lifted them?

Ghosts and those early fears seemed absurd, childish, now that he had

real danger to worry about. The caption under another picture said Ruth

Fuerst's leg bone had been driven into the ground to support a fence

post. Reggie's callousness fascinated him. Not many people, surely,

would have the willpower and the nerveto use a bit of a dead human

being for such a purpose. He would think of that while he was disposing

of Danila's body and it would bring him strength. He would think of

Reggie'scoolness and his nerve.

By now he was beginning to get hungry but he didn't fancy anything

out of old Chawcer's kitchen. He ran up the stairs twoat a time for the

first one and a half flights. After that he was so breathless he had to rest,

he had to sit down on one of the treads. Staggering up the rest, he went

into his flat to hear hisphone ringing and he stood still, wondering

whether to answer it or not. The woodworm people wouldn't phone him

and nor would the doctor. Might as well leave it. He made a couple of

rough sandwiches by laying pre-sliced cheese between piecesof pre-sliced

bread, found a packet of crisps and a muesli bar and went back down to

his post at the window.

The two women arrived at the same time. Mix saw one of them step out

of a car with a "Doctor" label inside its windscreenand the other alight

from a van with a woodgrain pattern allover, Woodrid printed in gold on

its side. For some reason heknew plenty would call sexist, he hadn't

expected either to be awoman. The doctor was the first to reach the

doorstep, a fewpaces ahead of the van driver. She didn't bother much

with Mix and spoke brusquely.

"Where is she?"

"In her bedroom," he said with equal gruffness.

"And where might that be?"

"First floor. First door on the left."

The doctor had gone past him and the woodworm woman,

already had a foot over the threshold.

"We shan't need you after all," Mix said.

" Youwhat?" She was rather pretty, neatly dressed in a brownuniform

with a W on the breast pocket.

"You're not needed. She's ill. Miss Chawcer, I mean. She's ill in bed. She

can't talk to you."

The woman stepped back outside but showed no inclinationto go. "I

could still take a look. That's all I need to do for a start, take a look at the

infestation."

"There isn't an infestation," Mix almost shouted. "I told you, she doesn't

want you. Not today. She's ill. Come back nextweek if you want. "

She was saying she didn't want, not if she was going to be spoken to

like that, when Mix shut the door in her face. Aftert hat he didn't look

out of the window again until he heard the van start up, and when he did

look out it was to see Ma Winthrop staggering up the path with carrier

bags full of shopping.

She could let herself in, he wasn't going to. And if any of that stuff she

was carrying was for old Chawcer's lunch, shecould see to that too. How

Queenie "Winthrop guessed he wasin the drawing room he didn't know,

but she put her head around the door. She seemed unpleasantly

surprised.

"What are you doing there?"

"Letting the doctor in."

"Oh, yes, I saw her car. Isn't she a sweet woman?"

Mix didn't answer. It had suddenly come to him that he had forgotten to

phone the head office. "I'm going up to my own place now," he said. "I fed

the cat."

Would she go into old Chawcer's bedroom while the doctor was there?

Even if she did, even though the woodworm womanhad come and gone, it

was far too risky to attempt takingthe body down all those flights of

stairs. His only chance was in the night. He would have liked to get out

into the garden and look around the place, find the best burial site, see if

there was a shed or some sort of outbuilding in which to lay thebody

while he dug. Because of projecting roofs and bays, itw as impossible to

see more than the end of the garden from his flat.

Phone the head office while they were all in that bedroom, get it over.

Later on he could attempt going outside. The receptionist who answered

didn't wait for him to say who he wanted to speak to.

"Jack wants to talk to you now." Jack was Mr. Fleisch, the

departmental manager. "He really wanted to talk to you like first thing

this morning. I'll put him on."

Mix scarcely had a chance to get a word in edgewise. "Arey ou ill? You

must be seriously sick to miss four home visits,seven urgent phone calls,

and three text messages. Half of west London is out gunning for you. Is it

mental or physical? I'd say mental, wouldn't you? That why sending you

to the medicdoes fuck-all for you. You are up shit creek, my lad."

"What can I say? Maybe it is mental. Maybe it's depression. I'll have to

snap out of it, I know I will."

"Too right. Spot on. Meantime, while you're doing yours napping-out,

Mr. Pearson wants to see you first thing tomorrowmornmg. "

"I'll be there," said Mix.

"You'd better."

Things must be serious if he was summoned to the chief executive's