Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

“Of course.”

There was a chill in Michelle’s tone and Fiona noticed it. But she smiled uncertainly, told Michelle she was looking remarkably well, and wasn’t she right in thinking she’d lost weight?

“A few pounds,” said Michelle comfortably.

Matthew shut down his computer and poured the wine. He passed Fiona the dish of peanuts and ate two himself. Michelle had sparkling water. She watched in amazement as Matthew poured himself half a glass of wine and sipped it like a person who hadn’t an eating problem, raising his glass to Fiona and saying, “To your future happiness.”

The talk turned to Fiona’s wedding, who’d be invited, what she’d wear, where they’d go for their honeymoon. Michelle noticed she still had no engagement ring and then castigated herself for being a censorious bitch. Maybe engagement rings were no longer fashionable or Fiona just didn’t like them. Fiona began talking about a vegan she knew who was bringing up her children as vegans, which she, Fiona, didn’t think was right. How could she be sure they’d get enough protein? But she’d wondered if Matthew would think the vegan woman suitable to go on his program.

Matthew laughed and said it was early days yet. “I haven’t got a program till I’ve talked to the producer and perhaps not even then.”

“Oh, everyone knows you will have. That first one was so good. Well, I don’t know where Jeff’s got to. Did you hear my phone ringing a minute ago? That may have been him.”

Michelle occasionally heard the ringing of Fiona’s phone through the wall but hadn’t this time. She saw Fiona to the door and kissed her as they said good-bye.

“There you are, darling,” Matthew said. “He’s no more keen on our company than we are on his.”

Because it was past seven when she let herself into her house, Fiona checked her answering machine for messages and then she checked her mobile. Nothing. Jeff might have phoned, of course, and not left a message. That would mean he’d soon be home. She’d very little food in the house and didn’t feel like going out to buy some, so she called a restaurant they both liked at Swiss Cottage and booked a table for dinner at eight-thirty.

“Wake up,” said Eugenie, shaking Zillah. “If you go to bed in the daytime you won’t sleep tonight.”

Zillah opened her eyes sluggishly and sat up with a groan. It was half past five and she’d slept since eleven. For a moment she hardly knew where she was or why she was there. Then she heard Jordan crying. “Where’s Mrs. Peacock?”

“You gave her a key and she let us in. If you hadn’t I expect we’d have been out there on the doormat all night. In the cold. Why don’t you give me a key, Mummy?”

“Because seven-year-olds don’t have keys. And it isn’t cold, it’s probably the hottest day of the year. Where’s Mrs. Peacock?”

“Out there.” Eugenie pointed to the door. “I wouldn’t let her come into your bedroom because you might not have any clothes on.”

Zillah got up and, noticing she was wearing only a bra and panties, put on her dressing gown. Outside the bedroom door, Jordan sat on the floor in tears. She picked him up and he buried his wet face in her neck.

Mrs. Peacock was sitting in the living room, in the window seat with its magnificent view of the sunlit Palace of Westminster, drinking from a large glass of what was evidently cream sherry. “I helped myself,” she said, not at all abashed. “I needed it.”

“Mrs. Peacock took us to McDonald’s and then to a movie,” said Eugenie. “We saw Toy Story 2 . And please don’t say you shouldn’t go to the cinema when the sun’s shining because we did and we loved it, didn’t we, Jordan?”

“I cried.” He dug his fingers into his mother’s neck till she winced.

“I must owe you a lot of money,” Zillah said to Mrs. Peacock.

“Yes, you do, rather. I’ll just have another Bristol Cream and then we’ll tot it up, shall we?”

Zillah paid Mrs. Peacock double her usual rate as well as for the cinema and the lunch. Somewhat unsteady on her feet by this time, she meandered into the lift. Zillah shut the front door. Where was Jims? With Leonardo, no doubt. Or had he gone down to his constituency? Most likely he was in Fredington Crucis and had Leonardo with him. She wondered how on earth she was going to pass the weekend. It was as bad as being in Long Fredington. Because there was no Annie or Lynn here, no Titus and Rosalba, it was worse.

The body of Jeffrey John Leach lay on the floor of the cinema, on the right-hand side between rows M and N, for nearly two hours before it was discovered. No one leaving a cinema looks along an empty row even if the lights are on. The next performance of The House on Haunted Hill was due to begin at six-ten and there would be a final screening, the most popular, at eight forty-five. But the six-ten showing was fairly well attended-or would have been if the two eighteen-year-old girls hadn’t entered row M at a quarter to. They told no one what they saw. They screamed.

Immediately the cinema was cleared and patrons’ ticket money refunded. An ambulance came, but it was too late for that. The police arrived. Jeffrey Leach had taken a little while to die, it came out later at the inquest, as his lifeblood seeped away into the carpet. Police noticed the blood all over one of the seats, as if the perpetrator had wiped the weapon on its upholstery. It was at this point that the whole cinema, not only this particular theater, was closed to the public.

Within an hour they knew that Jeff had died between three and four-thirty. None of the staff remembered who had sat in that row nor any patron leaving early. One said he thought he recalled a man leaving around five and another vaguely remembered a woman slipping out at ten past. Both were unable to describe these people or even make a guess at their ages. The cinema was searched for the weapon, a long, sharp carving knife. When that yielded nothing, the search was extended and Edgware Road closed from Marble Arch to Sussex Gardens, causing the worst traffic jam in central London for ten years.

The body was removed. The bloodstained seat and those on either side of it were also taken away for DNA testing, in case the perpetrator had left behind a hair, a flake of skin, a drop of his or her own blood. The police might have saved themselves the trouble. All the hairs that ever fell from Minty’s head came out when she washed it, as she did once or twice a day, and disappeared down the plughole. Any flakes of skin had been scrubbed off with a nailbrush and a loofah in hot soapy water. She left no more DNA behind her than would a plastic doll fresh from its manufacturer’s. The principle that every murderer leaves something of himself behind at the crime scene and takes some trace of it with him, Minty had disproved.

When it got to nine and Jeff hadn’t come home, Fiona was so worried she went next door. Not because Michelle or Matthew would know any more than she did, not that they could give her any advice she couldn’t give herself, but simply for their company, for the comfort and reassurance they might give her. To have someone else with whom to share her anxiety. Long before, she’d canceled that dinner reservation, made herself tea, and tried unsuccessfully to eat a sandwich.

Afterward, when they were in bed, Matthew and Michelle confessed to each other that they’d both had the same thought: that Jeff had deserted Fiona. Of course, they said not a word of this at the time. When a woman is out of her mind with worry you don’t tell her that maybe the man she met only eight months before and of whose past history she knows nothing has walked out on her. You don’t say he’s obviously a villain and a conman who’s alarmed by the prospect of marriage. You give her a brandy and tell her to wait a little and then you’ll start phoning hospitals.