Ruth Rendell - Thirteen Steps Down

Crying was a release, more salutary than attempting to pull herself together, and she was too young to be afraid of lastingmarks to her face. She phoned the beauty salon she used andbooked to have her hair done, a face massage, and a manicure.About to leave the house, she thought of him again and shelooked out of a front window to see if the blue car was parkeddown the hill. She knew the number by heart, had never had towrite it down, but there was no sign of him. Still, she went nervously to her car and remained jumpy and alert until she was in the salon and her hair was being washed. Speculation about him went around and around the inside of her head as warm water splashed on its outside. What did he want of her? That she should go out with him?

She told herself not to be elitist, nearly sure she'd got the difficult word right. Perhaps not to be a snob. God knows, she had no right to be snobbish about anyone, her family wasn't anything much, even though Grandma claimed to be the daughter of a chief. This guy-she realized she didn't know hisname-was probably better educated than she was and had a real job. He hadn't done her any harm, so why was she so afraid of him? A man had once told her she had a true woman's intuitive powers and perhaps she had, for she sensed something ugly about him, something almost evil. This had been particularly apparent when he brought his face close to hers. His eyes had seemed dead and his expression utterly blank, even while he was saying those things about her being beautiful. If onlys he could think of a way to get rid of him, make sure he never came near her again.

Nico was approaching her with his drier and his brush. Shet urned her head and gave him her glorious heart-melting smile.

Mix sat in his flat reading Killer Extraordinary . He quickly came upon an illustration, a full-face photograph, and that reminded him of the ghost. He laid the book down. Before he started reading he had heard the departure of Nerissa-how nice she had been, how gentle and sweet-with Ma Winthrop and that old bitch of a mother. How did a woman like that come tohave such a wonderful daughter? It was unimaginable. The way she'd spoken about him when he went upstairs! Once he and Nerissa were going out together, better than that, once they were married, he'd have his revenge. He' d make his wife forbid her from the house. And their marriage would happen. He was sure of it now. He'd brought his face up to hers near enough to kiss her and she hadn't moved away. She liked being told she was beautiful, of course she did. Tomorrow he'd go upt here on foot and stand outside and wait for her. If only he could sing he'd serenade her.

Mix recognized how much his self-confidence had improved since he had so successfully disposed of that girl's body. It was as if, having done that in the face of such difficulty, he could do anything. Of course he hadn't committed deliberate murder, it wasn't murder or even manslaughter at all but "unlawfulkilling." They called it that when they realized you couldn't help it. But if he had to he'd kill again. It wasn't that much of a big deal. He knew he'd have a really good night's sleep tonight. His worries were over and now, looking back, he wondered why they had seemed so overwhelming. He had surmountedt hem, he had dealt with them and they had dissolved like smoke.

His back was better. Two more ibuprofen and putting his feet up helped enormously. As for the ghost, it never came inhere. If he was careful never to look down those passages or going to that room the chances were he wouldn't see it again. Of course he must move. It was a pity after what he had spent on the flat, he would simply be making a present of a nice little earner to old Chawcer, but there was no help for it. She might not find it so profitable when the next tenant saw things up here he or she didn't expect.

The water diviners, filing down a side street in Kilburn toward a mews under which they were told an ancient stream still flowed, chatted pleasantly to each other on such familiar subjects as astrology, cartomancy, exorcism, numerology, theTarot, ailurophilia, hypnotism, the cult of Ashtaroth, and leprechauns. It was too early to get out their divining rods. Shoshana usually secured for herself a female companion on these walks, a witch or a fortune-teller, but today she walked alone, thinking of the Mix Cellini dilemma. After about ten minutes of this she decided she needed advice and she lingered until the end of the crocodile where the witch caught up with her.

The witch was an old crony and Shoshana, while naming no names, had no hesitation in presenting the problem to her.

"What do you think I should do, Hecate?"

The witch wasn't really called Hecate. The name in which her Catholic parents had had her baptized was Helena. But Hecate had a more magical and sinister sound, and it always impressed her better-educated clients who understood its derivations.

"I could make you up a spell," she said, "at a discount, of course. I've got a new one that gives the object psoriasis."

"That sounds nice but since I've got these two leads sort of ready-made I don't like to waste them. I mean, I don't like to waste both of them."

"I see what you mean," said Hecate. "Look, we'll be over the underground stream in a minute. Why don't you leave it with me and I'll give you my answer by Monday."

"Well, don't be any longer than you can help. I don't want the trail going cold."

"I'll e-mail it by Monday morning without fail," said Hecate.

The flat was bigger than Nerissa had expected and very tidy. Her own house could sometimes look like those interiors picturedi n the magazines she read at the dentist's, but only after Lynette had been there for three or four hours and then not for long. Through the open dining room door she glimpsed a carefully laid table, set with eight places, of course, but withf lowers too and candles. No boyfriend of hers had ever entertainedin his own home in this fashion. They had all been well off, some of them very rich, but when she had gone back with them their houses or flats had been as messy as hers, and though there was an abundance of drink, cigarettes, and other aids to changing consciousness, she had never seen a laid table or even food on a tray. But Darel, she reminded herself sadly, wasn't her boyfriend or likely to be.

He was a gracious host. Nerissa was used to men singling her out and being particularly nice to her, but she had always wondered about this, knowing that if she had been plain and unknown she would have been largely ignored. And the fact that Darel treated her and her mother and his mother and Andrew's wife in exactly the same way, politely and attentively, farf rom irritating her made her feel that this was how things ought to be in society in general. But she did notice that when he was on the other side of the room, replenishing drinks or checking on the dinner it appeared he was cooking himself, he caught her eye rather often and always smiled at her. When she arrived too, although he had paid her no compliments, she wasconscious as he took her coat that the look he gave her was unmistakably admiring of her appearance, her piled-up hair and the sleek red-gold dress she wore. She resolved that tonight she would forget her stringent discipline in the matter of diet and eat everything she was offered. She would do justice to his cooking.

Music was playing, but very softly. It was the classical kind that she always said she didn't understand, but she liked this. Itwas gentle and sweet with no underlying harsh beat. Apartfrom gatherings at her parents' house, this was the first partyshe had ever been to where no one drank too much, no one disappeared into a bedroom with a stranger, the conversation wasn't smart and malicious, and the language never degenerated into obscenity. It should therefore have been dull, but itwasn't. Nor did the subjects discussed center on domesticity and the property market. Her brother and sister-in-law were both lawyers and they talked about cases that had recently come up in court. They moved on to the stock market, which Darel was as happy to talk about as he was about politics.Everyone had varying, but not ill-tempered, views on the Iraq war. Mr. Jones was a head teacher with informed radical opinions on education. If Nerissa missed the gossip, she liked being asked what she thought, and she very much liked not being treated as the empty-headed model with only her looks and her money to recommend her. Just once she felt awkward and that was when Andrew mentioned a case in which he had been prosecuting and the defendant was a fortune-teller. Everyone present, though in a measured and civilized fashion, condemned fortune-telling as rubbish and astrology along with it. Darel was particularly scathing. Nerissa said nothing, unwilling to appear as the only one there who knew the names of the cards in the Tarot and had actually had her future told.