Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

“Where?” said Zillah.

“It’s a place in Essex near Romford. The car was parked by the side of a road in a residential area where there are no parking restrictions. A resident called us to complain about it. He said it was an eyesore.”

Zillah laughed. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Well, Mrs. Melcombe-Smith, we thought you might know how it came to be put there.”

“I don’t know but if you want my opinion, Jerry-I mean, Jeffrey-dumped it there because at last he’d found a woman with a nice car who’d let him have unlimited use of it. For the first time in his life, probably.”

They exchanged glances. “He didn’t have any particular associations with Harold Hill?”

Eugenie had come into the room. “Who’s Harold Hill, Mummy?”

“It’s a place, not a person.” Zillah said to the policeman who’d asked, “He never mentioned it to me. I should think he just used it as a rubbish dump. He was like that.”

“Who was like that?” Eugenie asked after they’d gone and the babysitter had come. “Who used a place as a rubbish dump?”

“Just a man,” said Zillah.

Neither child had once referred to their father after Eugenie first asked and got no reply. Accomplished at putting off unpleasant things until tomorrow or next week, Zillah sometimes wondered if she would ever need to tell them any more. Or did Eugenie already know from the newspapers, from gossip, from words overheard? If she did, had she told Jordan? Zillah certainly wasn’t going to say anything in front of the babysitter, a woman who hadn’t yet got above herself as Mrs. Peacock had. This time, when the doorbell rang, it was Ronnie Grasmere.

“I don’t like him very much,” said Eugenie as Zillah got up to let him in. “You’re not going to marry him as well, are you?”

Minty didn’t think much about the woman who’d called once she was gone. Maybe she’d been from the police and knew Minty went to the cinema a lot. She hadn’t noticed that the woman had gone next door and she went to call on Laf and Sonovia herself to ask about the shower man. Although they’d been out in the garden, having a glass of wine and a late snack, they’d heard the bell. Laf plied her with Chilean chardonnay and Duchy Original ginger biscuits, and seated her in one of their white patio chairs-the fourth one was occupied by Mr. Kroot’s old cat-but she thought they’d given her funny looks. She asked Sonovia about the shower man and Sonovia said he’d promised her to come at the beginning of next week.

“When it’s builders,” said Laf, “the beginning of the week is Thursday morning and the end of the week is next Monday.”

Sonovia laughed but Minty didn’t like it much. Jock had been a builder and Laf ought to have remembered. Still, she told them about her search for his grave. They might have some advice.

“What makes you think he’s in Brompton?” Sonovia asked in the kind of smiley way she talked to her four-year-old granddaughter.

“I had a feeling. Not voices telling me, it wasn’t that. I just knew .”

“But you didn’t know, my deah. You just thought. I don’t trust these feelings. It’s the same with premonitions. Nine times out of ten what you’ve felt isn’t true at all.” Laf gave Sonovia a warning cough but she went on just the same. “You have to find out these things for sure. With certificates and-and things.”

Minty looked helplessly at Laf. “Will you do it for me?”

He sighed but said in a hearty voice, “Of course I will, you leave it to me.”

“What does she mean, not voices telling me?” Sonovia said when Laf had seen Minty out. “She really is going crazy, she’s worse than ever.”

Unhappily, Laf shook his head, then nodded. “It’ll be easy finding out where Jeffrey Leach is buried, it’s done in five minutes, but do I want to, Sonn? I mean, what am I going to tell her? ‘Oh, yes, he’s up in Highgate or whatever but he wasn’t really Jock, he was the one murdered in the cinema and his name was Leach’? As I’ve said, that I won’t do.”

“You’ll just have to pass it off.”

“That’s what you always say but it’s not so easy. She’ll ask me again, won’t she?” And then, he thought, but didn’t say aloud, Am I going to say anything to the DI ? I mean, the guy was stabbed, murdered, and she’d been his girlfriend, she’d been, or thought she’d been, engaged to him. But she’s my neighbor, she’s my friend, I can’t do that to her. She’s not right in the head but as for murder, well, she’d no more do murder than I would. He shivered.

“Not cold, are you?”

“I’m getting that way. And the mosquitoes are coming out.”

Sonovia gathered the sleeping cat up in her arms. “Dear God, I’ve forgotten to tell you. Mr. Kroot’s dead. He passed away this morning. It went straight out of my head. Picking up the cat reminded me.”

“Poor old boy.” Charitable Laf looked doleful. “I dare say he’s better off where he is. Keep Blackie, shall we?”

“I wouldn’t leave him to the tender mercies of Gertrude Pierce.”

When Minty had let herself into it, her own house had a ghostly feel. Perhaps any empty house is like that at dusk, until the lights are on, the curtains are closed, or laughter breaks through. No laughter but such silence, such stillness, such a sense of waiting for things to happen. The house is holding its breath, bracing itself for what will come in.

Instead of switching the hall light on, any light on, Minty walked slowly about, challenging the house to show its ghosts. She was a little afraid to turn round but she did, walking back the way she had come, going round and round. At the foot of the stairs she looked up them, as up a well by night, for there was no light at the top. Out of the deep shade Jock came down. He was just the same ghost as he’d been when she first saw him. It was as if she’d never got rid of him. It only worked for a little while. For three or four months, she thought, as she met his pale, stony eyes.

She closed her own eyes and slowly turned round so that her back was toward him. There was absolute silence. If he touched her, his hand on her neck or his breath cold against her cheek, she thought she would die. Nothing happened and she turned round again, forcing her eyes open as if strength were needed to push the eyelids up. No one was there, he had gone. From outside came the sound of a car moving along the street, its windows open and rock music thudding out. She thought, He comes back because I can’t find his grave, because I can’t put flowers on it like I do on Auntie’s .

“Now listen, Minty,” Laf said when he’d brought round the papers. “I’ve done that bit of detective work you wanted. Your Jock wasn’t buried. He was cremated and his ashes scattered.” Up to a point, this was true. Laf always tried very hard not to tell lies, only straying from the straight and narrow path when the truth was too cruel. For instance, Jeffrey Leach had indeed been cremated but his ashes had been collected from the undertakers by Fiona Harrington, who had told a police officer acquaintance of Laf’s what she intended to do with them. “Somewhere in West Hampstead,” he said, and was disappointed to see Minty’s face fall.

“Where could I put my flowers?”

Laf had a picture of a cellophane-wrapped bunch of chrysanthemums lying isolated and forlorn on the pavement in West End Lane. It would be as if someone had died there. Though he wasn’t usually so cynical on the subject of human nature, he wondered how long it would be before a dozen other similarly wrapped bouquets joined it, the “mourners” having no idea to whom they were paying homage.

“Well, Fortune Green was what she said.”