Ruth Rendell - Thirteen Steps Down

Ever since she was fifteen Queenie had believed, and acted according to her belief, that if you want anything out of a man, if you simply want to exist in his presence, you must be extravagantly polite, sweet, winning, and even flirtatious. It hadn't contributed to her comfort, but to the happiness of her marriage it had. "Oh, Mr. Cellini, I'm so sorry to bother you and on a Sunday too, but Miss Chawcer says will you be an angel and give her just five minutes of your time at about six o'clock this evening. If you'd just pop down and have a word with her. I'm sure she won't keep you, so if you could… "

"What's it about?" "

"She didn't say." Queenie flashed him an enormous toothy smile of the kind some man had once told her lit up her whole face, and proceeded to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. "You know what she is, Mr. Cellini," she said, betraying Gwendolen without knowing she was doing so, "awfully fussy about every little thing. Not that you'd think so, would you, from the state of this house?"

"Too right." Mix wanted to get back to the video he'd made.a couple of weeks back of Man U playing some Central European team. "Tell her I'll be there around six. Cheers, then."

When she got back to the drawing room Gwendolen was asleep. She wrote on a scrap of paper. Mr. Cellini will come at six. Love, Queenie.

Up in the top flat the football remained unwatched. Taking the message without much thought; Mix had gone back inside and become an immediate prey to misgivings. She must have found the thong, he thought. Someone had and who morelikely than old Chawcer? He must think up some reason for its being in the copper and the only one he could think of, that he had been doing a girlfriend's washing because her machine had broken down, was obviously not feasible. Who washed in antiquated holeslike that anymore? What was wrong with the launderette? Anyway, it wouldn't account for the fact that he shouldn't have been in her washhouse.

Perhaps he could deny all knowledge of it. That might bebest. Even better, if he could manage it, would be to suggest Ma Fordyce or Ma "Winthrop had something to do with it. Hecould even say he'd seen one of them with the thong in he rhand. Don't worry about it, he said to himself, don't even think about it. Think about something else. Like what? That Frankfrom the Sun in Splendour might be with the police at this moment? That Nerissa was out with another bloke? No, think about the possibility of offering Brian Brunswick two-fifty for the Volvo. Why shouldn't he go back to the house tomorrow and ask Sue Brunswick to come out in the car with him? She didn't have to be a driver, she only had to sit beside him. That would be brilliant. He could drive her down to Holland Parkor, better still, to Richmond and suggest they had lunch in oneof those trendy pubs. She couldn't refuse, not if she wanted to sell her car. Then, afterward, with the old man, this Brian, out of the way,when they got back to her place…

It would probably be a one-off and just as well. Once he'd got inside Nerissa's house and talked to her over coffee he wouldn't need second-rate women like Sue Brunswick or secondhand cars, he'd have the Jaguar and, above all, he'd have Nerissa. By next Sunday his whole circumstances could have changed. He wouldn't even be here in this flat, attractive as itwas, he'd be moving into Campden Hill Square, he wouldn't need a job or a car or care about what a bunch of old women thought of him. There'd be no murderer's ghost in her house. He'd tell her about the thong and they'd have a good laugh over it together, especially the bit about when he'd told old Chawcer the thong belonged to Ma "Winthrop. As if she couldeven begin to get it round her fat arse!

He took three 400 milligram strength ibuprofen, put socks and shoes on and his arms into the cardigan sleeves and went down at ten past six. Gwendolen wasn't lying down, she wasn't even sitting down, but pacing the room because the lodger wasover ten minutes late. When he appeared, she was so angry she couldn't control herself.

"You're late. Doesn't time mean anything to people anymore?"

"What was it you wanted?"

"You'd better sit down," said Gwendolen.

Was it a fact that anger made your blood pressure rise and that you could feel it rise, pounding in your head? Sometimes she thought about her arteries, lined as they must be by now with stuff like the plaque you got on your teeth. Her head swam. She had to sit down, though she would have preferred to stand and tower over him. But she was afraid of falling and thus making herself vulnerable in his presence.

"A very charming neighbor of mine called on me this morning,"she said, taking a deep breath. "These immigrants to ourshores could teach some people around here what good manners are. However, be that as it may, he had something to tell me. Possibly you can guess what it was."

Mix could. Though he had been turning over in his mind possible reasons for old Chawcer wanting to see him, this wasn't one of them. He had no explanation to offer. "With increasing disma, he listened to her long account of Mr. Singh's visit, his misapprehension as to Mix's presence in the garden and her own indignation.

"Now perhaps you'll tell me what you thought you were doing."

"Digging the garden," said Mix. "You can't say it doesn'tneed it."

"That's no business of yours. The garden has nothing to do with you." Gwendolen had decided not to mention the thing. The letter was another matter. "And I've reason to believe you've been tampering with my post."

"That's a lie, for a start."

"Don't speak to me like that, Mr. Cellini. How dare you suggest I might be untruthful? You still haven't given me any reason for digging up my garden, not to mention going into my kitchen and my washhouse."

There had been a teacher like her at his comprehensive school. He even remembered her name: Miss Forester. She'd taught his mum before him and his grandma too, for all he knew. But his generation of kids gave her a hard time and she'd had to leave before she had a nervous breakdown. He'd been one of them but in those days he'd had nothing to lose. This was different. He'd like to have said what he remembered sayingto Miss Forester but somehow the words, "Piss off, you oldcow," died on his lips.

"Either I get a satisfactory explanation of your conduct or I shall serve you notice to quit the premises."

"You can't do that," he said. "It's an unfurnished flat. I've got a protected tenancy."

Gwendolen knew that very well, iniquitous though it was, but she had still tried it on. "What did you bury? Some piece of property of mine, I suppose. A valuable piece of jewelry? Or perhaps the silver? I shall check, have no fear, I shall make an inventory of missing things. Or maybe you murdered someone and buried the body. Is that it?"

The stain on the base of the Psyche notwithstanding, Gwendolen didn't for a moment believe this was what had happened. It was the stuff of fiction and as such something she had readof many times over the years. She said it, not because she gave it credence or even saw it as remotely likely, but to insult him. She even failed to notice that Mix had gone white, his expressionless face no longer blank. But he said nothing, only lowering the eyes that had been fixed on hers.

Triumphantly, she saw that she had utterly vanquished himand now she would finish the job. "Tomorrow morning, with-out fail, I shall inform the police. When you come out of prison I doubt if you will wish to return-here even if that be allowed."

"Have you finished?" Mix asked.

"Almost," said Gwendolen. "I simply repeat that I shall inform the police of your activities tomorrow morning."

When he had gone she had to lie down. Once she heard his door close-he slammed it and the whole house seemed to shake-she hauled herself off the sofa and began to crawlt oward the stairs. Later on, she might lack the strength to managethem as she lacked it now to begin the climb. For about tenminutes she remained sitting on the floor and then she startedto crawl up the stairs on hands and knees. It seemed like hours later that she reached her bedroom and got inside.