Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

They never fell. Jims didn’t give them the chance. He remained in the Chamber for twenty minutes, apparently listening but in fact hearing nothing, and then he rose to his feet, looked one by one at such members as were present, then at the Speaker (“We who are about to die salute you!”), and walked toward the door. There he paused and looked back. He would never see this sight again. It was already receding into his past, like the fading memory of a dream.

The central lobby was almost empty. Yesterday he had sent his resignation to the chairman of the parliamentary Conservative party and his relinquishment of the whip to the chief whip. There was nothing to stay for except one small consultation. A member who’d been in here for forty years and who knew all about procedure was expecting him in his office with helpful hints on ceasing to be a member. It couldn’t be done as easily as leaving the party.

“The Chiltern Hundreds,” said Jims.

“Pity about that, old man, but it’s taken. You remember-well, a little contretemps in the matter of the former member for…”

“Oh, yes,” Jims cut in. “Pederasty, wasn’t it?”

“Possibly. I try to put a distance between myself and that kind of thing.”

“There must be other offices of profit under the crown. What about the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports?”

“I’m afraid His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has that.”

“Of course.”

A ledger was consulted. “There’s the stewardship of the Tolpuddle Marshes. It carries a nominal annual stipend of fifty-two pence and acceptance of it would of course disqualify you from membership of the House of Commons.”

“Sounds perfect,” said Jims. “I’ve always wanted to have my say in the fate of the Tolpuddle Marshes. Where exactly are they? Wales, isn’t it?”

“No, actually it’s Dorset.”

The aged member afterward remarked to a crony of his that Melcombe-Smith had laughed so much he was quite concerned, supposing that the shock of the wretched man’s recent experiences was bringing on some kind of breakdown.

Jims wasn’t going to hang around for any scoldings, reproaches, or impertinent inquiries. He walked out into New Palace Yard as Big Ben struck twice for three-thirty, an awesome sound to which, for the first time in years, he gave his full attention. The afternoon was beautiful-sunny and hot. What should he do now?

The child psychiatrist told Zillah he was also a doctor of medicine. She didn’t know why he bothered, she hadn’t brought Jordan all the way to Wimpole Street because he had a sore throat. Jordan hadn’t stopped crying since they got into the taxi. Just before they left he’d been sick. It wasn’t surprising, she thought and told the psychiatrist, that a child who was always crying should also be frequently vomiting. Eugenie, who had to come because there was no one to look after her at home, sat on a chair in the consulting room, wearing the wry and cynical expression of a disillusioned woman six times her age.

When he’d talked to Jordan, or tried to, the psychiatrist said he’d like to give him a perfunctory physical examination. Zillah, who was nothing if not a child of her times and was in a nervous state anyway, immediately envisaged sexual abuse, but she nodded miserably. Jordan was stripped and examined.

It took two minutes for the psychiatrist to sit him up, give him a pat on the shoulder, and covering him with a blanket, say to Zillah, “This child has a hernia. Of course you must have a second opinion but I’d be very surprised if that’s not what’s wrong with him. And another may be forming on the other side.” He gave her what she interpreted as a nasty look. “If he’s been crying and vomiting he’s had it for a long time. Pain doesn’t start until the hernia’s reached a critical stage. It may even be strangulated.”

In newspapers a tremendous story is always followed by a period of anticlimax. The tension cannot be sustained. Some cataclysmic revelation has burst upon the world and there can be follow-ups, but sometimes these are unusable, due to the principal being dead or due to appear in court or missing. But something must be found to fill the gap between the shock and triumph and the next amazing journalistic coup. Natalie had outed Jims and ruptured his discretion, but was chary of writing much more about him while he seemed to be suspected of Jeff Leach’s murder. The time had come to produce a history of Jeff’s life, a catalogue of his women. So far only his wife and the woman he was living with had been publicly named. A stunning move might be to acknowledge that she herself had been among his lovers. She had no inhibitions at all about doing this, and her boyfriend was as hardheaded about things as she. But who else should feature in her story?

She had often thought of “the funny little thing” he had mentioned at lunch the last time they’d met, a woman with a peculiar name. The more Natalie thought about her, the more she remembered. He called her Polo and she lived near Kensal Green Cemetery. It might be a good idea to hunt this woman down. An interview with Fiona Harrington was a must and maybe another with Natalie’s own predecessor. She knew very well that hadn’t been Jeff’s ex-wife but a woman called-she tried for a while to remember her name. It would come back to her. Jeff had talked of her frequently enough, and mostly with bitterness, while he and she were together.

A restaurateur? A doctor? The chief executive of some agency or charity? She’d let her memories of Jeff’s references to this woman and the few sentences he’d spoken about “Polo” lie at the back of her mind. There was no hurry. One day soon she’d delve down into the jumble in there and maybe some interesting things would come to the surface.

HOUSE-TO-HOUSE inquiries were conducted in the neighborhood surrounding the spot where Eileen Dring had died. Officers called at the Wilsons’ but left as soon as they discovered who Laf was. He’d already told them of his trip to the theater on Saturday night with his wife and their friend from next door, had sent in his report by Sunday evening, as soon as he heard about Eileen’s death on the radio. In it he described how he and Sonovia and Minty had seen the old woman alive, well and awake at five minutes to one on Sunday morning. He talked in more detail to the superintendent in charge of the case, but he said nothing about Minty’s curious behavior in the tube on the way home, her hallucinations and talking to herself. After all, as he said to Sonovia later, she was a friend and you didn’t say things about a friend behind her back. You didn’t, for instance, say she’d had too much to drink.

Minty was at work the first time they called. Sonovia had told them over and over that she would be, but they still called. Getting no answer, they went to the next house, and Gertrude Pierce came to the door. As soon as they told her who they were and what they wanted she called her brother. “Dickie, there’s a woman been murdered at the end of the street.”

Mr. Kroot appeared, hobbling on two sticks. His already pale face drained of color. He had to sit down. Gertrude Pierce gave him something to inhale and something else to swallow for his angina and the police officers wondered if he was going to drop dead in front of them. But after a minute or two he rallied. “You want to put that woman next door through the third degree,” he said in his wavering old voice. “She’s a funny one. Her and her auntie, they’ve not spoken a word to me for twenty years.”

“That’s right, Dickie,” said his sister. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d murdered me .”

Jims had taken a taxi up to Park Lane. There he sought out prestigious West End estate agents, handed them the keys to the Abbey Gardens Mansions flat and those to Fredington Crucis House, and requested them to sell both properties. His agent would handle everything. He was going abroad for an indefinite time.