Thirteen Steps Down (8 page)

"That's good. " Nerissa trod warily. "And the son? He's stil lliving at

home?"

"Darel?" her dad said. "Such a nice well-mannered boy. He's still at

home, but Sheila told me he's buying a flat in Docklands. Time to move

on, he says."

Nerissa was unsure whether this was good news for her or bad. While

she was having dinner with her parents, she always hoped Darel Jones

would come to the door to beg a couple of teabags or return a borrowed

book. He never had, though accordingto her mother, they and the

Joneses were always "in and out of each other's houses." She thought of

him next door, watching television with his parents or maybe out

somewhere with another girl. The latter was more likely for a very

handsome and charming young man of twenty-eight. She sighed and

then smiled to stop her parents noticing.

Guilt seldom troubled Gwendolen. To her mind she led, and had always

led, a blameless life of absolute integrity. Entering a tenant's flat in his

absence and exploring it seemed to her a landlord's right and if she

enjoyed it, so much the better. The only drawback was her need to rest

and take deep breaths between flights.

What a lot he drank! An empty gin bottle and one which had contained

vodka and four wine bottles had been put into the recycling box since

she was last up here. It was evident he didn't eat much at home, the

fridge was again nearly empty and smelling of antiseptic. A large leatherbound book lay on the coffee table. Because she could hardly pass a

book without opening it, Gwendolen opened this one. Nothing but

photographs of a black girl in very short skirts or swimming costumes.

Perhaps this was what they meant by pornography; she had never really

known.

A copy of the previous day's Daily Telegraph was beside the book.

Gwendolen rather liked the Telegraph and would have bought it herself if

it hadn't been so ruinously expensive. It puzzled her that Cellini had

bought it. One of those tabloids was surely more his mark, and she

wouldn't have been surprised to learn that he had been given this copy.

Ed had seen an article in it about fitness machines, which especially

singled out Fiterama for mention, and passed it on to Mix.

Just as she couldn't pass a book without opening it, so Gwendolen

found it impossible to see the printed word without reading it. Some of it,

that is. Ignoring the fitness machine article, she read the front page, then

the next page, managing fairly well but wishing she had her magnifying

glass with her. When she reached the births, marriages, and deaths,

she laid the paper down and went to the door to listen. He hardly ever

came back in the middle of the day, but it was as well to be careful. How

tidy everything was! It amused her to think that of the two of them he

with his cleanliness and fussy ways would be called an old woman while

everyone saw her as cultivated and urbane, more like a man really.

She wasn't much interested in marriages and births, she never had

been, but she ran her eye-pushed and strained her eye really-down the

deaths column. People no longer had any stamina and many younger

than herself died every day. Anderson, Arbuthnot, Beresford, Brewster,

Brown, Carstairs--she had once known a Mrs. Carstairs who lived down

the road, but it wasn't her, she was called Diana, not Madeleine. Davis,

Edwards, Egan, Fitch, Graham, Kureishi. There were three Nolans, very

odd that, it wasn't a common name. Palmer, Pritchard, Rawlings, Reeves-Reeves!

How extraordinary and what a coincidence. This was thefirst time she

had looked at the Telegraph for months and what should she find but the

announcement of his wife's death. For it certainly was his wife.

On 15 June, at home, Eileen Margaret, aged 78, beloved wife

of Dr. Stephen Reeves of Woodstock, Oxon. Funeral 21 June

at St. Bede's Church, Woodstock. No flowers. Donations to

cancer research.

This small print was terribly hard to read but there was no doubt about

it. Would he notice if she cut it out of the paper? Possibly, but what

could he do about it if he did? Now to find the scissors. Her own might be

in the bathroom cabinet or the oven--seldom used, it made a useful

cupboard--or somewhere in the bookshelves, but an old woman like him

would keep his in a neatly arranged drawer along with such gadgets as

potatopeelers and bottle openers. He would be sure to have several of

those.

Gwendolen poked about in Mix's kitchen, paying particular attention to

the microwave, whose function was a puzzle to her. Did toast come out of

it or music? It might even be a very small washing machine. She found

the scissors exactly where she thought they would be and cut out the

announcement of his wife's death. Downstairs she would be able to study

it at leisure with the aid of her magnifying glass.

She was only just in time. As she was descending the bottom flight he

let himself in by the front door.

"Good evening, Mr. Cellini."

"Hiya," said Mix, thinking about her getting pregnant and going for help

to Reggie. "How are you doing? All right?"

When he phoned the spa the girl called Danila told him Madam

Shoshana agreed to his servicing the machines. Perhap she would like to

come along some time and bring one of his contracts with him. Mix

concocted on his computer a contract with Mix Maintenance as its

headline--he was ratherproud of that--and printed out two copies.

Instead of being modified by the passage of time, his fear increased as

the days went by. He had never seen the figure on the stairs again,

though he fancied sometimes that he heard noises that shouldn't have

been there, footsteps in the long passage, a curious rustling sound like

someone taking crushed paper out of bags or stuffing it into them, once a

strain of music, though that might have come from the street. By night

he had to screw up his courage in order to let himself in. And those

stairs he had always hated were worse.

Reaching St. Blaise House, he forced himself to put his key into the lock

and enter the hall, the dim light coming on. Try not to think about it, he

told himself as he began to mount, think about Nerissa and about getting

fit, the way she'd like you to be--why not get yourself an exercise bike?

Fiterama will let you have it at cost. Go for walks, lift weights. He was

always telling clients what marvelous physical benefit they'd get from

using the machines. Tell yourself, he thought. And try to be glad about

these stairs. Going up them is good exercise too.

Like a kind of therapy, this worked until he came to the landing below

the tiled flight. Feeble light, filtered through tree branches and foliage

and the grime on the glass, seeped through the Isabella window and

touched him with spots ofcolor as he walked up. It lay on the top floor

like a pattern donein smudged chalks and quite still on this windless

night. Two long black passages stretched away from the landing,

emptyand silent, all the doors closed. He switched on the light once

more, staring fearfully down the left-hand passage as the cat appeared

from out of a door which came open and closed of its own accord. He saw

its green eyes glinting as it walked in unconcerned fashion toward him,

hissed as it passed him and made for the stairs.

Who or what had opened the door? He plunged into his flat, fumbling

for the lightswitch but at last turning it on. The sudden brightness made

him let out his breath in a long, relieved sigh. He'd heard of cats learning

to open doors, though these in the flat had knobs, not handles. It might

be different out there. Going to look was out of the question. The door in

question must have a handle, and Otto, who was clever if evil, had

learned to stand on his hind legs and apply to it the pressure of his clawy

paw. Who had closed it? Doors close of their own accord, he told himself.

It happens all the time.

A cheerful film on television, a not-so-old Hollywood musical, a mug of

hot chocolate with a drop of whiskey in it, and three Maryland cookies

finished the job of reassurance. Still, once he started on his fitness

regimen, all that sort of eating and drinking would have to stop. It was

warm in the flat but not too hot, 27 degrees. That was the kind of

temperature he liked. Warmth, sweet filling food, a thick soft mattress,

lazing around, doing nothing--why were all the nice things bad for you?

The cat and its eyes were banished for the duration of the musical.

Above his head, outside his front door, he could hear no sound, and

when the television was off the silence was disturbed only by the sighing

of traffic on the Westway. He feltbetter. He congratulated himself on hiswhat was the word?-resilience. But in bed, with the bedside lamp off, he

thought ofthe cat and the door again and, although there could be

nothingto see, kept his eyes shut against the darkness.

Chapter 6

The next morning he woke up to awareness that he had been frightened

the night before and for a moment he had to think why. But fear and the

memory of fear began to fade when he saw the sunshine and heard

children playing in the garden next door to the guinea fowl man. Otto

must have opened the door himself and it must have shut behind him of

its own volition. He got up, had a shower and, telling himself it was a

good start to a workout program, set off for a walk. But before starting he

went rather cautiously along the passage toward the door of the room the

cat must have come out of. Sure enough, the doors down here had

handles. He left, unreasonably relieved, more as if he'd just had a

wonderful piece of news instead of only finding out what he already knew

was true.

Now for a walk. Blow the cobwebs away in more senses than one, let

unlight and energy into his life. There was a big Catholic church near the

convent and, about to march on pastit, he stopped for a moment to

watch the people going in to mass. A lot of people, more than he'd have

thought likely. A kind of regret came into his mind and a wistfulness.

Those people wouldn't have his problems, his doubts and fears. They had

their religion, they had something to turn to, something or someone to

bring them comfort. If they saw a ghost or heard footsteps and doors

closing, they'd call out the name of their god or utter the appropriate

curse. In stories, that usually worked. He had had religion when he was

small and his grandmother was alive to take him to church. But that was

long ago and it was all gone now. He'd not thought about it since and

didn't believe in any of it. If he went in there and along with them asked

someone up in the sky for help, he'd feel such a fool, he'd be

embarrassed. Much the same went for asking their vicar--their priest?

Mix couldn't imagine how he'd explain to the man or what the man

would answer. It was beyond him.

On Monday and Tuesday he was busy at work and for once was relieved

he had work to do. There was a new treadmill coming to a ground-floor

flat in Bayswater that he had to set up and demonstrate. Half a dozen

steps on that and he was breathless, in spite of his walks. Then all the

calls for help with brokendown equipment to answer, e-mails,

complaining or demanding. On the second evening he managed a visit to

Shoshana's Spa and Health Club, where he told Danila he was making

a survey and a servicing plan. This was to put her off the scent. Because

he was really looking for Nerissa. He was on the point of asking Danila

about her, which were her days for coming to the club, was she a regular

visitor, that kind of thing, but he decided it would sound funny. It would

sound as if his contracting to look after the club's machines was no more

than a ploy to meet the famous model--as indeed it was. He handed over

acopy of his contract and left.

On Wednesday evening he went to the Coronet cinema with Ed and

Steph and afterward to the Sun in Splendour for a drink. When the men

each had a gin and tonic in front of them and Steph a vodka and

blackcurrant, he asked her what he'dbeen planning, in fact rehearsing,

saying to her all day. The elaborate, hedging-of-bets, covert way of asking

a simple questiongot lost and he came out with a few simple words.

"Do you believe in ghosts, Steph?"

She didn't laugh or scoff. "There's more things in heaven and earth ... "

she began but couldn't remember the rest. "I think, like, if there's been

an awful thing like a murder in aplace, the dead person or the killer-well,

they may come backand revisit the scene of the crime. It's their energy,"

she wenton vaguely, "it kind of hangs around and makes the person well,

materialize."

Just what he thought. He was going to ask her about the mysterious

opening and shutting of that door, but then he rememberedthe cat had

done it. "Would it have to be the scene of the crime? I mean, where

someone died? Could it be a placewhere another crime was committed?"

"She's not an expert, Mix," Ed said. "She's not a medium."

Mix took no notice. "Suppose it was a murderer who'd tried to do