Thirteen Steps Down (26 page)

be able to get the body into the gardenby way of the kitchen and the two

poky little rooms beyond it.She was in the kitchen, an apron over her red

floral dress, tidyingup and wiping down surfaces.

"Did you remember to feed the cat?" she said.

"I'll do it now."

Ma "Winthrop spoke in the triumphant tone of someone who has

accomplished a challenging task with finesse and expects to be

congratulated. "Don't trouble. I have done it myself," she said and added

"Though I must say he didn't seem hungry."

Mix said nothing. How long was she going to be here? She answered

him, though he hadn't asked. "I shall be at it for another couple of

hours. I've tidied up the boot room and the washhouse and now I've

started o the kitchen. What a gloryhole this place is!"

The word she used for one of those little back rooms made him start.

"Washhouse? Is there one?"

"Out here. Look."

He followed her into a room that was more like a shed with walls of

unplastered brick. A bulging thing like some sort of ancient oven filled

one corner.

"What's that?"

"It's a copper. I don't suppose you've ever seen anything like it before,

have you? My mother had one and did her washing init. Ghastly. Women

used a dolly and a washboard. Frightfully bad for their insides."

Mix registered this as best he could. The words "dolly" and"washboard"

meant nothing but "washhouse" did. Christie had.put each body in the

one at 10 Rillington Place while they awaited burial. He'd do the same

thing here if only that bloody woman would go. He should have had the

sense to get the key back. Yesterday, while she was talking about him

feeding thecat he should have asked for the key. But if she said no?

"I'd better have Miss Chawcer's key off you."

"Oh, why?" she said, returning to the kitchen and vigorouslyspraying

scented blue cleanser all over the sink. "I told Gwendolen I'd hang on to

it. I may need to be in and out. I'll certainly keep it if you don't mind.

Olive and I may decide to spring-clean the whole place as a surprise for

her when she comes back. Poor Gwendolen is no housekeeper, I'm

afraid."

There was no more to be said. He went back to his flat,wondering if

she'd been up on this top floor. If she had she'd have smelled the smell

and wouldn't she have said somethingto him? It was no good sitting

down, trying to watch TV or even read the Christie book. He'd have to do

something, make the preliminary moves. Cautiously, carrying his toolbag

andthe plastic bag, he went out onto the landing and listened. There

was no sound from down there. He opened the door to the bedroom next

door. He'd brought a scarf with him and this he tied round his head,

covering his nose. The smell was still there, though muffled. It worsened

beyond belief when he'd got the floorboards up but he told himself he

had to get on with it, keep on, don't think about it, breathe through your

mouth.

It looked just as it had when he put it in there, small, slight, wrapped in

its shroud of red sheets. In order to lift it out he had to get his head and

face very near it and twice he gagged. But he succeeded in lifting it onto

the floor. If it hadn't changedi n appearance it seemed to have gained in

weight. Lying where it had been, on the dusty joists, was the thong,

scarlet andblack, a frivolous thing of elastic and lace. How had he failed

to notice its absence when he dumped the rest of her clothes? He picked

it up and put it in his pocket. The easiest part was getting her body into

the bag. When it was inside he felt better and once the mouth of the bag

was fastened with a length of wire wound round it, a huge relief came.

Suppose that old woman was waiting outside the door or coming up the

tiledstairs? She wasn't and he managed to drag the bag and body into

his own flat. Once he had it inside he had to go back, replace the

floorboards and check on that smell. If any of it still lingered.

Of course it did. Far less powerful but bad enough. Perhaps it would be

better once he'd got the boards back. He couldn't tell if it was or not but

time would surely fade it. On his way, home he should have picked up

another bottle of gin. Very little of what he'd had was left. Probably just

as well. He drank it, waiting for Queenie "Winthrop to leave.

She finally did at half-past six. From his bedroom window Mix watched

her go. He should have asked when she'd be back again, though asking

might look strange. While he was in thehouse but of course not when he

was out of it, he could bolt the front door top and bottom, and that was

what he'd do while he took the body down. A procrastinator, he would

never normally have said there was no time like the present but he said

it now. First he went down and bolted the front door. That was nearly as

good as having the key back. Going up and downt hese stairs must be

doing him good even if it didn't feel like it. Remembering to take his keys

with him, he pulled the body out of his flat and to the top of the stairs,

kicking the door shut behind him.

If she had been any heavier he doubted that he could have done it. On

the first-floor landing he encountered Otto, mewing at old Chawcer's

bedroom door. Mix didn't know why he opened the door to let him in but

he did. Perhaps it was just fort he sake of having a rest from lugging this

heavy bag down.When he got to the bottom he thought he couldn't take it

anotherstep but he braced himself to drag it along the passage toward

the breakfast room and kitchen. He had almost reached the breakfast

room door when he heard the grating sound of a key turning in the front

door. He froze but his heart raced.The door was bolted, no one could get

in, he didn't haveto worry.

The key turned again, the letterbox flapped open and Olive Fordyce's

voice called out, "Mr. Cellini, Mr. Cellini, are youthere?"

He was almost afraid to breathe. She called him again, then,"Let me in!

What are you doing, bolting the door? Mr. Cellini!"

Hours seemed to pass as she shouted, tried the door again,rang the

bell, flapped the letterbox. It was no more than threeminutes as he

discovered, looking at his watch once he heardher feet clacking down the

path toward the gate. It had frightenedhim too much for him to think of

digging now. He feltweak and almost faint. But he summoned up the

strength todrag the plastic-wrapped bundle through the kitchen into

theplace called the washhouse. The huge old copper dominatedone

comer of the room, an excrescence of bricks and mortarabout four feet

high with a wooden lid at the top. Lifting the lid disclosed an earthen

ware tub, quite dry and evidently unused for years. He lifted the body,

puffing and gasping, and placing his hand on his lower back felt a bulge

in his pocket. It was the thong. Before closing the lid he dropped it

inside. He'd retrieve it later and bury it with the body. No one, certainly

notone of those nosy old women, would have reason to look inside the

copper. Old Chawcer had a usable if antiquated washing machine, an

advance, in spite of its shortcomings, on this antique.

Going into the garden felt restful, almost restorative. The heat of the

day had given place to a mild still evening. The unmowngrass was the

color of blond hair and dry as a hayfield. Inthe garden beyond the rear

wall the Indian man was trying tocut his lawn with an old hand mower

and making little impressionon it. The guinea fowl padded about and

clucked.

There wasn't a bare piece of ground where digging would be easy. Every

inch was overgrown with grass and weeds. Mix had never in his whole

life dug into soil of any kind and this, what he could see of it between

sturdy thrusting thistles and aggressive things he didn't know the name

of, looked as heavy as concrete but a muddy yellow color. Inside the

semiderelict shed he found rusty tools: a spade, a fork, a pick. Tomorrow

he'd do it and that would be the end.

Tell yourself that, he whispered, tell yourself that by the time it's done

all the worry will be over. He went into the houseand drew back the

bolts, top and bottom. Old Chawcer made no noise when she was at

home. Reading is a silent occupation. Yet the house seemed quieter

without her. An oppressive silence filled its spaces. His shoes were dusty

from his explorationof the garden. Unwilling to leave behind any evidence

ofhis visit to a place where he shouldn't have been, he took them off and

carried them up the stairs, thinking of the task awaiting him on the next

day. Perhaps he should.have tried the soil to see how hard it was and

how heavy. But what would be the useof that? He would have to do it,

however difficult the job. Afinal visit should be paid to the bedroom

where she had lain. Itwould cheer him up if the smell was fading ad

everything in there returned to normal.

He reached the top and opened the door. "Whether the smell had gone

he never knew, he was in there too short a time to tell. The ghost stood in

the middle of the room under the gas lamp, gazing down at the

floorboards below which had been Danila's resting place. Mix fled. He

scrabbled at his frontdoor, his hand shaking and rattling the key against

the woodwork. Gibbering sobs rose in his throat. He wanted somewhere

safe to hide and there was nowhere if he couldn't get inside. The key

shook in the lock, stuck, came out. He managed to push it in again and

the door opened. He fell onto the floor and kicked the door shut behind

him, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands drumming on the carpet.

Shoshana had been right. After a moment or two he had recovered

enough to feel for the cross in his pocket, but by then it was too late to

use it.

Chapter 18

"She was only a kid," said Frank McQuaid.

He had heard this phrase many times in detective series on television

and always hoped for the chance to use it. The policeman interviewing

him said, "Yes? And you saw her walking along Oxford Gardens with a

man. Can you describe him?"

''Just ordinary," said Frank who might have been readingf rom a script.

Sitting opposite the detective sergeant in a room behind the bar, he

assumed a grave and thoughtful expression as if millions were watching

him. "Nondescript--know what Imean? Brownish hair, brownish eyes, I

reckon. It was dark."

"It's never dark in London."

Frank considered this statement. It had an originality about it that

made him suspicious. He decided to ignore it. "Middleheight or a bit lessknow what I mean?"

"I suppose you mean a bit below middle height, Mr.McQuaid."

"Thats what I said. She was just a kid." Frank looked mournfully at an

invisible camera. "Came from some foreign place. Albania? Maybe she

was an asylum seeker."

"Yes, thank you, Mr. McQuaid. You've been" the policeman lied, "very

helpful."

* * *

That night there was a storm at sea. That was what it soundedlike, the

waves pounding on the shore. Why the Westwayshould have been so

much louder than usual Mix didn't know. Perhaps the wind was coming

from a different direction. He should have asked that doctor for sleeping

pills. As it was, hehad no sleep until about four when he fell into a

troubled doze. The brightness of the morning did something to reduce his

terror to simple fear when he awoke at eight. His first thought was that

he must move out, get away from this haunted house, his second that

moving was impossible while that body remained downstairs in the

washhouse. What he had seen the evening before so concentrated his

mind that hebarely reacted when he went downstairs and picked up from

the doormat the letter from the blood-testing lab via the company'sdoctor

and saw that his cholesterol level at 8.8 was alarmingly high. So what?

He could get pills for it, statins or something. How would he dare go

upstairs when he came home from work?

Mix knew he couldn't miss any more calls or leave one other message

unanswered. Colette Gilbert-Bamber was lost, but he had no regrets

about her. Reluctant as he was to go near the place, he drove over to

Westbourne Grove and Shoshana's Spa. It was ten o'clock in the

morning.

He rang the bell and an unknown voice answered in an affected drawl of

the kind he called "Sloaney." "Mix Cellini torepair the equipment," he

said.

No reply but the door growled ajar. He walked in, lifted his head and

came face to face with Nerissa descending the stairs. For a moment he

thought he must be hallucinating, he couldn'tbelieve his luck. It was as

if fate was compensating him for his terrible experience of last evening.

He found a voice that cameout rather shrilly.

"Good morning, Miss Nash."

She looked at him without smiling. "Hi," she said and she sounded

frightened.

"Please don't be nervous," he said. "It's just--just that I'm always happy

to see you."

She looked very beautiful--she couldn't help that--in jeans and a cotton

top with a red poncho over it. Halfway down thestairs, she had stopped

and stood there, as if a bit scared to pass him. "Did you follow me here?"