Ruth Rendell - Thirteen Steps Down

"Madam Shoshana wanted me to work late, but I said I couldn't, I was seeing my boyfriend. I never said it was you on account of you having that contract with her. I thought it would look funny."

Mix understood that he could drop her whenever he felt like it. There would be no repercussions. Meanwhile he didn'tmind shagging her, his body and mind, and hers, desirous and relaxed from the sweetish red wine. In some ways, she was a better option than Colette Gilbert-Bamber, who thrashed about, wriggling and biting and shouting instructions. Danila lay passive and yielding, asking nothing, receiving what she ould get and smiling as the long shudder passed through her. For such a bony girl, she felt surprisingly soft, and when he kissed her, as he occasionally did, her thin lips seemed to swell and grow warm.

But it wasn't enough to hold him, as he told himself when he returned to St. Blaise House at midnight, wrapping his darkscarf round his eyes as he climbed the tiled flight blind, in case Reggie's ghost was in the passage. He said nothing about the ghost to Danila, but asked her if she knew Ruth Fuerst had lived just down the road.

"Who?"

It was always a surprise to Mix to discover anyone living in, Notting Hill not knowing about Christie and his murders. Fifty years ago it may have been, but it was still fresh in theminds of intelligent people. What could you expect from a girlas thick as Danila?

"She was the first woman Christie murdered. She lived at number 41." He told her about Reggie as they lay on her bed after sex. Ruth Fuerst, Muriel Eady, very probably Beryl Evans and her daughter Geraldine, several others, and Ethel Christieherself. All of them strangled and buried in the house or the garden. "If I was him and you were one of them," he said. "I'd have screwed you the moment you were dead."

"You're kidding me."

"Oh, no. That's what he did. You can go and see where he lived if you like. It's not far, but it's all changed, not the same."

He didn't offer to show her. "The old woman my flat belongs to, I mean it's her house, she knew him, they were close, he was going to do an abortion on her but she ran away."

"You're giving me the creeps, Mix."

He laughed. "I'm going to open the other bottle. Don't get up."

A quarter of an hour before midnight he put his clothes on, a male Cinderella, preparing to be home at the appointed hour. A real dump, he thought, looking round the room, not particularly dirty, but an untidy mess and not a decent piece of furniture to be seen. The curtains looked as if made from a bedsheet split down the middle. "You can come to my place next time," he said, carefully considering the implications and deciding St.Blaise House was safe and a lot more comfortable. It amused him to think how impressed she would be. "About eight onFriday?"

"Can I really?" She looked at him with shining eyes.

"What a creep, he thought, hasn't got a clue. He didn't really like her. No, that was wrong. He hated her and he realized why. She reminded him of his mother. Here, in her, was thes ame weakness and passivity, the same inadequacy-look at the mess in that room of hers. Like his mother, she wasn't goodlooking or clever or successful at anything, she hadn't a scrap of pride and she let any man screw her who wanted to. The first time he and she went out she'd let him. To be worth having, women should be hard to get. Not that Colette was, but she was a nymphomaniac, all the reps said so. His anger with his mother was transferring itself to Danila. That was the effect she had on a man, he thought. She made him want to strike her just as his mother did.

He was relieved none of Danila's neighbors were about, no sign of the Middle Eastern man, and he had to tell himself not to be so anxious as he emerged into the cold night air, he wasn't Reggie, he wasn't a murderer fearful of being recognized neart he scene of a crime. "What did it matter if anyone saw him? They'd forget in five minutes, anyway. Abstractedly, he fingered the cross in his pocket. These days he found he did this more and more, especially when in contact with the numberthirteen, passing 13 Oxford Gardens, for intance, or attending to the thirteenth treadmill at Shoshana's.

More deserving of his attention, he thought next day, was getting to know Nerissa. So far he was nowhere. His next move might be to put himself on the Shoshana Spa waiting list for membership. It would be a simple matter to get Danila to move him up the list, move him to the top, even perhaps let him in without his going on it at all. Then he'd be able to go there whenever he liked. And it would be good for him. He had to admit that he wasn't getting very far with his walking or cutting down on junk food. Only half an hour ago, on leaving Colette's, he'd bought a Cadbury's fruit and nut bar and a packet of crisps, all of which had mysteriously been consumed while he sat in the car thinking.

He'd ask Danila on Friday. Correction, he'd tell her on Friday, tell her what he wanted and to do it. If he went to the spa every day for a week he'd be bound to see Nerissa, and once he'd seen her… Mix told himself he was confident in his relations with women and he understood that it was because of this confidence that he managed to get the ones he wanted. Mostly. If he were strictly honest with himself, he'd admit that when it came to one he really wanted a lot, he wasn't so successful. "Why was that? He must remember that and once he'd met Nerissa, go slowly, carefully. There was no doubt he wanted her more than he ever had anyone before. For herself, ofcourse, but also for the fame she'd bring him.

All this introspection wearied him and as he drove off to his next call, his mind wandered into a fantasy of escorting Nerissa to some glittering function, say the Bafta Awards ceremonywhere they laid red carpet out on the pavements for the stars towalk on when they stepped out of their cars. She'd be wearing a wonderful see-through dress and her own diamonds andhe'd be in a tuxedo, beautifully fitting his new slim figure. Mixhad never thought much about marriage, beyond knowing hed idn't want it, or not yet, not till he was approaching forty maybe. But now… If he played his cards right, why shouldn't he marry Nerissa? If he was going to get married one day, whowould suit him better than her and suit him now?

A letter was decided upon. Though it was many years since she had written a letter and as long since she had received one, Gwendolen believed she wrote well. Any piece of prose sheproduced would be a joy to read and kindle in the heart of the recipient a sensation of the good days gone by when people could spell, wrote good English without grammatical errors,and knew how to construct a sentence. A missive she had been sent by some company purporting to supply her with gas had contained the sentence, "You will of received our communication."

Of course she had replied in stinging words about the undoubted and rapid failure of any business unwise enough to employ illiterates, but had had no answer.

Now she was writing to Stephen Reeves and finding the task difficult. For the first time in her life she wished she had a television set so that she could have seen his programs about a country doctor. What a surprise it would have been to see his name come up on the screen! If she had known the series wasto be transmitted she could have stood outside the television shop in Westbourne Grove and watched it through the window. As things were, she couldn't write to him as she would have liked to, that she had seen his programs and enjoyed them. " Watching your stories brought to life on the small screen inspired -no, prompted, no, encouraged?- impelled me to write toyou after so many years. Although in some doubt as to the author'sidentity, I acquainted myself with your website which -it wouldmake him see that she had moved with the times if she mentioned the website. Then Gwendolen remembered that ofcourse she hadn't seen the series, she hadn't got television, and she must start again.