Ruth Rendell - Thirteen Steps Down

"I wear it every day," said Gwendolen distantly. "I never go out without it."

"Yes, I've noticed. Is that a ruby?"

"Of course."

Gwendolen made her way home, cross and dismayed. Nevermind about that silly Olive and the niece, they were just a minor nuisance like a mosquito buzzing round one's bedroom in the night. Nor did Olive's never before noticing the ring matter much. Her only true concern was with Stephen Reeves.The post would have been collected by now and that letterwould be on its way to Woodstock. She must write again and put things straight. All these years he might have been thinking of her as a woman of low morals. He must be made to see her in her true light.

It was to be a long time before the disappearance of Danila Kovic was known to the police. She had been a solitary girl, come to London from Lincoln at Madam Shoshana's command, having no London friends but Mix Cellini. The room in Oxford Gardens had been found for her by a London acquaintance of her mother's. Danila had never met this woman or her husband, never been to her home in Ealing and heard nothing from her. As for her mother, she had come to Grimsby as a refugee from Bosnia, bringing her small daughter with her and, her husband having been killed in the war, had remarried. Danila sometimes said-when she had someone to say it to that her mother was less interested in her than in her present husband and their two sons. Packing her off to London was a way of getting rid of her.

When she had been in London a month her mother died of cancer. Danila went home for the funeral but her stepfather made it plain he didn't want her staying with him. She went back to Notting Hill, virtually alone in the world, nineteen years old, not particularly attractive, without skills and, withone exception, without friends.

By the middle of the week, when she still hadn't come towork, Madam Shoshana washed her hands of her and worried only about finding someone else to do her job. If she thoughtof Danila at all, it was to conclude that she had got fed up withthe job or gone off with some man. In Shana's experience,there was always some man about for a girl to go off with. These days people seemed to wander about the country, and about Europe for that matter, whenever the fancy took them. Danila need not think she was keeping the job open for her.

Kayleigh Rivers hadn't been close to Danila. They had never been to each other's homes, but they had twice been for a meal together and once to the cinema. She was the nearest to a friend Danila had and the only person who knew her to worry about where she might now be.

Behind the counter in her Turkish carpet seller's costume, Shoshana phoned an agency she had used before, the Beauty Placement Centre, and was sent a temp. Just in time, as she had a new client coming to see her when she was wearing her soothsayer's hat.

A spiteful message left on his mobile warned Mix not to bothert o come to Ed and Steph's engagement party. He wouldn't be welcome. The party, said Ed, was for friends and well-wishers, there would be no room at the Sun in Splendour for those who failed to keep their promises.

"What a carry-on over nothing," said Mix aloud in the car.

On that terrible night when the girl had provoked him into beating her to death, when she had asked for it as plainly as if she'd said, "Kill me," there had been moments of thinking his chances of meeting Nerissa forever ruined. But as the dayswent by he began to feel better. He forced himself-he was proud of this-to phone the spa and ask for Danila. The reply he got hugely raised his spirits.

"Shoshana's Spa. Kayleigh speaking."

"Can I speak to Danila?"

"Sorry, Danila's left. She doesn't work here anymore."

It wasn't difficult to interpret that as meaning they thought she'd given up her job. If they were worried, if they thought she might have been abducted or murdered or both, they wouldn't have said she'd left. They'd have said somethingabout her being missing. Maybe, he thought, she'd never bemissed, maybe there was no one to look for her or care what had happened to her. He'd read somewhere that thousands ofpeople disappear every year and are never found.

Almost as an afterthought, he asked to speak to MadamShoshana.

"I'll see if she's free."

She was and he made an appointment. On a Wednesday afternoon, going upstairs, Danila had met Nerissa coming down. Why shouldn't he meet her this Wednesday? Of course, it hadn't been a Wednesday afternoon but a morning on someother weekday when he'd seen her go into the spa. Still, he pinned his faith on her going to Shoshana tomorrow.

If that failed, he'd somehow sabotage her car and then be on hand to repair it for her or at least advise her. It was a bold stroke, but it might really work, and with speed. He'd see her trying to start the car and failing and then he'd go over and very politely offer his services. Mix lost himself in this new fantasy. She'd be so grateful when she heard the engine tum overthat she'd invite him in for a drink. People like her never drank anything but champagne and she'd always have a bottle waiting on ice-but no, he remembered he'd read that she didn't drink at all. But she'd have champagne for visitors. They'd sit and talk and when he'd told her about his long devotion to her and about the scrapbook, she'd ask him if he'd like to come to apremiere with her that evening as her escort.

He had to get to know her first. Was there something he could do to run the battery down without her knowing? He'd find out, ask around, and then he'd do it. All he needed afterthat were jump leads. He pictured her struggling to make theengine fire. She'd look so beautiful, the exertion and the stressbringing a faint flush to her golden skin, her dainty foot wildlypressing, but in vain, on the accelerator, at this point he'd go over to her, say, "Can I help, Miss Nash?"

She'd say, "You know my name!"

The enigmatic smile he'd give would excite her curiosity.

"It's the battery, don't you think?"

It looked like it, he'd say, but luckily he happened to have jump leads with him. Once he'd recharged the battery, sheought to drive the car around a bit to stop it getting flat again. Would she like him to drive it? Of course she could sit besidehim while he drove. Rather than her inviting him in that first time, this was a more realistic scenario. He'd take her down to Wimbledon Common or maybe Richmond Park and she'd beso thrilled by his driving and the masterful manner in which he'd taken over car and her, that she'd say yes immediately when he asked if he could see her again. No, he wouldn't ask if,but when.

He got to Shoshana's Spa half an hour earlier than the appointed time, so he managed to park the car on a meter-he'dfeed that once the traffic warden had gone around he corner-then sat in the driving seat and read another chapter of Christie's Victims. Reggie hadn't seemed to think much about finding girls. If he wanted one girl he got her to come to his house, fixed up that gas arrangement ostensibly to cure her catarrhor abort her, and when she passed out he strangled her. Screwed her first, of course. Mix didn't fancy that part of it, hecouldn't have had sex with a dead girl, but to do that was Reggie's sole motive. And he killed how many? Mix had only got sof ar as the death of Hectorina McClennan and he thought therewere more to come. Not old Chawcer, though, she was the one that got away. For his own part-and he considered this in acool practical way of which he was proud-he probablywouldn't kill anymore. It was a lot of trouble, especially covering one's tracks afterward. Except Javy. Now he'd killed once, the idea of doing it again, and doing it when he really wanted to, seemed less formidable.

He read another couple of pages, saw rather ruefully that there wereonly three more chapters to go, put the marker in his book and, checking on the traffic warden, a further two pounds in the meter, and rang the bell at Shoshana's. She answered in a deep thrilling voice and he could tell she had someonewith her. He heard her say, more briskly, "I'll see you next week." The door slid open when he pushed it. His throat dried and his heart beat faster at the prospect of meeting Nerissa on the stairs, but the woman coming down was middle-aged and overweight. It couldn't be helped, he'd hear his fortune and try to find out the times she came; he'd ask if necessary.