Ruth Rendell - Thirteen Steps Down

"Fine, I think," her mother said. "I haven't seen much of them for a few days. Sheila's got a new job, I do know that--oh, and Bill's got the all-clear from the hospital."

"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 leather-bound 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.