Ruth Rendell - Thirteen Steps Down

Perhaps it was because it comforted him. Just knowing that was her place and that she lived in it-with all her servants, no doubt, and maybe a good friend staying-made him feel he had something to look forward to. He could put the disposal oft hat girl behind him and move on. What better place to be in than here, thinking of new ways of getting to meet Nerissa? It was a pretty house with its white paint and blue front door, some kind of red flowering plant climbing across it. Her newspaper still lay on the step with a carton of milk beside it. Any minute now a servant would open the door and take in paperand milk. Nerissa would be still in bed. Alone, he was sure, for although he believed he had read everything written about her,there had been very little about boyfriends and no scandal, no shaming photographs of her behaving vulgarly with some man in a club. She was chaste and cool, he thought, waiting for the right man…

The door opened. It wasn't a servant but she herself. Mix could hardly believe his luck. Some of his adoration of her would have been lost if she had been wearing a dressing gown and slippers but she was in a white tracksuit and white trainers. He thought, what would happen if I went up to her and asked for her autograph? But he didn't want her autograph, he wanted her. She went indoors with the milk and the paper and the door closed.

Satisfied and tranquilized by the sight of her, he drove home, went upstairs and nailed down the floorboards in the roomwhere he had put Danila. He'd have a rest and something to eat and then he'd start painting that wall.

In the head office on Monday morning Ed was waiting for him and Ed was furious. "I've been bombarded with calls from those two clients all weekend, I've been persecuted, thanks to you. One of them says she's buying a new elliptical but she won't get it through us and she'll be going elsewhere for her servicing. "

"I don't know what you're on about, mate," said Mix.

"Don t you,mate, me. You never went near either of them,did you? You couldn't even call them and explain."

Now Mix remembered Ed's Friday night call. It had come just after he had… Don't think of that. "I forgot."

"Is that all you've got to say? You forgot? I was very sick, I'l lhave you know. My temperature was high and my throat was killing me."

"You've recovered very fast," said Mix, unwilling to stand much more of this. "You're looking pretty fit to me."

"Fuck you," said Ed.

He'd get over it. Things never lasted long with Ed, Mix thought. If only he could find out when Nerissa was likely to revisit Madam Shoshana. He was sure that if he met her on the stairs he'd be able to get a date with her. Driving to his firstcall, a workout fanatic who had five machines in her privategym in Hampstead, he began a fantasy of that stairs meeting.

He'd tell her he recognized her at once and now he'd met her he wouldn't go to Madam Shoshana, his fortune and his fate weren't important, but he had something special he wanted to say to her if she'd let him take her to a natural juice bar just a few steps down the street. Of course she would. Women loved that line about something special to tell them and whereas shewouldn't be interested in clubs or pubs, the idea of a natural juice bar would appeal to her. She'd be in her white tracksuit and when they entered the bar all eyes would be on her-and on him. He'd even drink carrot juice to please her. When they were seated he'd tell her he'd worshiped her for years, he'd say she was the most beautiful woman in the world and then he'd…

Mix found himself in Flask Walk almost before he knew it,and the exercise junkie waiting with the front door open. She wasn't much to look at, stringy and with a big nose, but flirtatious and with a lithe and lively air about her, which led him to think that there might be something doing. She stayed, watching and admiring, while he adjusted the belt on the treadmill.

It must be great to be so good with your hands," she gushed.

He stayed much longer than he had expected, missing the call he had promised to make to a woman in Palmers Green, but she was soft, a pushover, she wouldn't complain.

It wasn't until she had posted the letter to Dr. Reeves in Woodstock that a very unpleasant thought came to Gwendolen. Suppose he had truly loved her and then he heard about her visit to Rillington Place. Not when she made that visit, of course, because that had taken place before Christie was even suspected of murdering anyone. Christie wasn't the infamous, appalling creature he had become when his crimes came to light and histrial began, but a nobody, an ordinary little man living in an insalubriousplace. If Stephen Reeves had heard about the visit in those earlier days it would have had no effect on him.

Yet only suppose he had known of the visit at the time because,while making house calls, he had seen her go there. After all, on the very day after she and Bertha had gone to see Christie, she had consulted Dr. Reeves for the first time, and what more likely than that he had recognized her as the woman he had seen in Rillington Place the day before? It would have meant nothing to him then but, at the start of Christie's trial,all of it would have come back to him, and as the vulgar peopleput it, he put two and two together. He had told her in Januarythat he was awfully fond of her, and when Christie's trial began she was certain he had been on the point of proposing to her. Eileen Summers was to be told he no longer cared for her. Gwendolen Chawcer was his true love. But when he read in the newspaper that Christie had lured women to his house by claiming to carry out illegal operations he would naturally have thought Gwendolen had gone there for an abortion. Oh, the horror of it! The shame! Of course, no decent man would want to marry a woman who had had an abortion. And a doctor would be even more set against such a thing.

Gwendolen walked along Cambridge Gardens, thinking of all this and growing more and more dismayed. If only she hadn't posted the letter! She would write another, that was the only thing to do, and she wouldn't wait for a reply. Believing what he did about her, he very likely wouldn't deign to answer her at all. No wonder he hadn't been to her mother's funeral or come back to see her. No wonder he had married Eileen Summers after all. She was brooding along these lines when she came face to face with Olive Fordyce who was walking along with Queenie Winthrop. Queenie had a shopping trolley that she leaned on as if it were a walker, and Olive had Kylie on a lead.

"Goodness, Gwendolen, you were lost in a dream," saidQueenie. "In another world. Who were you thinking about? Your fancy man?" She winked at Olive, who winked back.

It was too near the bone for Gwendolen. "Don't be stupid."

"I hope we can all take a joke," Queenie said ratherdistantly.

Here Olive intervened. "Let's not quarrel. After all, who have we got but each other?"

This went down badly with the other two. "Thank you very much, Olive. I really appreciate that." Queenie drew herself up to her full five feet one. "I have two daughters, in case you've forgotten, and five grandchildren."

"We can't all be so lucky," said Olive peaceably. "Now,Gwen, while I've got the opportunity, I want to ask you a very great favor. It's my niece. May I bring her to see you some time this week because she really is dying to see your house?"

"You say that." Gwendolen spoke grumpily. "But she won't come, she never does. I go to all that trouble and she can't put herself out to come."

"She will this time. I promise. And you needn't bother with cakes. We're both on a diet."

"Really? Well, I suppose she can come. You'll go on and on about it until I say yes."

"Could we say Thursday? I promise I won't bring my little dog. That's a lovely ring you're wearing."