Ruth Rendell - Thirteen Steps Down

He had never been in this huge living room before. Drawing room, she called it. He couldn't understand why unless it was because people used to draw pictures in it before the days of television and radio. The dust and the musty smell made him wrinkle his nose, but as smells went, compared to the stench upstairs it was nothing, nothing. Light shouldn't have been needed at this hour but it was always dusk in this house.The main light switch didn't work. He went about turning on table lamps, the last one on the desk beside several half-finished letters.

Who the hell was she writing to in this crazy way? One started, "Dear Dr. Reeves," another, "My dear Doctor," athird, "Dear Stephen," and the last, "My dear Stephen." A lotof muddled stuff followed, all hard to read in her looped spideryhand, but the finest copperplate would be difficult in this twilight. Then a name caught his eye: Rillington Place. "I know you saw me in Rillington Place one day in the summer avery long time ago. You were driving past, on your way to acall, I expect. On the following day I came to your surgery forthe first time. As I am sure you recall, I and my parents had been patients of Dr. Odess. I found out, when the trial of Christie took place, that he had been that dreadful man's medical attendant. Not that this, of course, had anything to do with our leaving him to come to… "

A few more words were heavily scored through. She hadwritten no more. This proved she had been to Reggie for anabortion, Mix thought. Maybe she was writing to this doctorabout it because he was going to do the job but Reggie wouldbe cheaper. Reggie frightened her, so she found someone else to do the termination and this doctor was offended because he didn't get the money he'd expected. That must be it. He'd taken Chawcer off his list as a result and refused to treat her anymore. Now, after all these years, she was writing to explain.

The room wasn't simply dark as a place is before the lights go on. The lights were on, table lamps with cracked parchment or pleated silk shades, much frayed, but the effect of them was less to illuminate than to make shadows. Not one was in an alcove or beside a wall, so that the corners were in deep darkness. And it was so hot that the sweat began to stream from hisface and trickle down his back. Mix thought it the most dreadful room he had ever been in. With that carved dragon snaking across the top of the vast sofa and that blotchy mirror in a blackand gilt frame, it could be the setting for a horror film. She could make a bit of money like that, tell movie people about it and get a fat fee. They wouldn't have to change a thing.

Switching off the lamps was a creepy task. Darkness yawned behind him and after the last one was off he went to the French window and pulled back the long brown velvet curtains with violent jerks. Dust was shed in great clouds, making him cough. But light came in, plenty of light to dispel the worst of the horror. If downstairs had been nasty, holding God knew what secret things and hidden threats, upstairs loomed forbiddingly, with Reggie perhaps waiting for him and the body invisibly but surely decaying. It was almost as though it had a new life of its own, almost as if it were moving as it changed. Don't think of that, he muttered to himself. Forget what Shoshana said, it was all in your head.

He passed Chawcer's door. There was no sign of the cat and, of course, none of Reggie. As he'd used to do but hadn'tdone for a week now, he closed his eyes when halfway up the tiled flight, opening them at the top and looking down one passage after another cautiously and fearfully. Nothing there, not even Otto. Inside his own living room, sitting in a comfortablechair, a large gin and tonic at his elbow, he told himself allwas well, he was lucky, he'd been reprieved for a while. She'd be too ill to go up there again and he must use that time, perhaps a week, somehow to remove the body from that room.

Was there a way of getting it into the garden? Not if that Fordyce woman was in and out. She might not suspect the truth, she certainly wouldn't, but she'd tell Chawcer she'd seen him out there, digging. And Chawcer herself might see himfrom her window. That bedroom of hers must occupy the same area as the living room, which meant it had windows facingboth back and front. He dared not take the risk.

You'd better eat something, he told himself, but the thought of food made his throat close and rise. He was desperately tired. Once he'd had another gin or a Boot Camp maybe he'd go to bed, even though it was only six, go to bed and tryto sleep. Two messages were on his mobile but he wouldn't bother with them now, he'd do that in the morning. In front ofNerissa's picture he paused and made his obeisances, saying, "I love you. I adore you."

How she'd smile when they were lovers and she saw her photo there and he told her how he'd worshiped it. Comforted,he wandered into the bedroom and at the window looked down into the garden, considering where it would be best to bury Danila's body. If he could get there, if he could gether downstairs and outside. Reggie had done it, and several times, though there was an old man living in the house on the middle floor and the Evanses at the top. The neighbors had seen him digging but thought nothing ofit:, exchanging withhim the wartime catch phrase about Digging for Victory.

There on the left, perhaps where the thick brambles could be held back and spread across the dug earth to conceal what he'd done. Or near the end by the wall, on the far side of which the guinea fowl man lived. But would he get the chance?

On the wall, stretched out to his formidable length, Otto lay luxuriating in the evening sun, his eyes closed but the tip of his tail giving an occasional flick.

Having been in the kitchen, put a blackened kettle on the gas, and cast her eye around the drawing room, Olive was toiling upstairs with tea on a tray toward Gwendolen's bedroom. Whens he had arrived she had rung the bell and that man Cellini had come down, though with an ill grace, and been quite surly with her on the doorstep. Speaking to him on the phone, she had no idea this was the same man who had accosted darling Nerissa out on the pavement. It was quite a shock when he opened the door. Naturally, she wasn't very forthcoming either.

The heat in here was punishing. Like being in India at midsummer,stuck in some backstreet ghetto, dusty and smelling nasty. Somehow she must manage to get windows open. The one in the kitchen refused to budge. When she'd seen to Gwen she must attempt those in the drawing room.

Gwen's door was ajar. Olive was concerned at her appearance,the wasted white face, the weak hands lying limp on thecoverlet. When Gwen spoke in a cracked voice, she had tobreak off and cough breathily.

"You'll have to see the doctor, dear. No doubt about it."

"Yes, I will. I must." More coughing. "Dr. Reeves. Dr. Reeves will come if I send for him, he always does."

"I don't know any Dr. Reeves around here, Gwen. Is he new?"

"Papa said to leave Dr. Odess and try the young doctor andwe have."

Olive thought it best to ask no more questions. Answering made poor Gwen cough so distressingly. "You drink your tea, dear, and I'll find your doctor and phone the practice. I expectt he number is in your phone directory, isn't it?"

She dragged the carpet sweeper downstairs with her. It had been in front of the fireplace so long that dust had settled thickly on its surfaces. A hunt for the telephone directory finally resulted in her finding it on top of an ancient copper in the washhouse. No Reeves in the directory but a Dr. Margaret Smithers. Olive would never have expected Gwen to have a lady doctor but very likely, all the lists being overfull, she hadn't a choice. It was a scandal, and worse, Olive thought, when Dr.Smithers's receptionist said she couldn't come today but would tomorrow when she was making her afternoon calls.