Питер Ловси - On the Edge

She stared ahead, knowing she was trapped if anyone chose to block her path. It was the recurring nightmare of being chased up a narrow passageway, thinking she could make it to the end and then being met by a leaping tiger. Or, in this case, Gascoigne. But he didn’t appear. She turned right and headed for the swing doors without a glance to either side. People were moving about there and she avoided looking at them. Through the doors and into the corridor.

Walk .

It was longer than she remembered. God, she thought, I hope I picked the right doors. And then, oh, no, what am I going to tell the doorman?

He turned to face her as she burst through the doors. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes.’ She smacked her hand over the label on the packet. ‘I got the things.’

‘You seem to have lost your friend.’

‘Oh, she’s following. Got talking to someone. ‘Bye, then.’

‘Best of luck.’

She’d already had more of that than she was entitled to expect.

Through the rear-view mirror of the Bentley, Rose’s eyes were fixed on the farthest pillar in a row of housefronts at one end of Lowndes Square, the point where she would first catch sight of somebody approaching from the Stationery Office Depot. She had the engine running and her hands gripping the wheel.

Please God let it be Antonia, she thought.

Yet how absurd. She was sitting here waiting for the woman who had tried to chloroform her, who would surely have murdered her, whatever she claimed afterwards. A callous, unpredictable killer for whose arrival Rose was praying fervently. She had no illusions about Antonia. The charm was totally resistible now. Remarks that once seemed witty left her cold, yet she couldn’t ignore the certainty that she herself was destined for the gallows if Antonia was arrested and persuaded to confess. What a mess! She didn’t see any way to untangle herself.

So she waited in the car.

Two more minutes went by. Rose drummed her fingers on the rim of the wheel.

Then Antonia appeared, her fair hair springing against the black velvet collar as she clattered around the corner in her high heels. She flashed a wide smile when their eyes met. Bravado, Rose thought sourly as she leaned across and lifted the lock on the door, but smiled back.

Antonia hauled it open, sank into the seat and swung her legs in.

‘Any joy?’

‘Behind you.’

Antonia turned, looked at the packet of forms on the back seat and whistled. ‘Hell’s bells, Rosie, we only needed one.’

‘It was easier to take the packet.’

‘Five hundred! Gordon Bennett! Are you going into business?’ She started to laugh.

Rose joined in the peal of giggles, a frankly hysterical reaction as they shattered the tension.

‘You don’t do things by halves, ducky!’

Their laughter shrilled at least an octave higher, recalling that hilarious moment — Rose had forgotten the cause of the hilarity — in the Black and White Milk Bar just after they had met in Piccadilly. For a few blissful seconds it blotted out everything that had happened since that afternoon.

Someone had to say something when the laughter died and it was Antonia. ‘Ah well, who knows, the extra ones may come in useful.’

‘What?’ Rose almost swung the car into a taxi she was overtaking.

‘In case the pen slips and I mess it up, darling.’ She gave a chesty laugh. ‘What else?’ This time Rose didn’t join in.

As they approached the traffic lights at the top of Sloane Street, she returned to practicalities and suggested they stopped somewhere in Hyde Park. ‘If we fill the form in right away, we can get to an undertaker’s before they close.’ She got a nod from Antonia so she turned right, through the Albert Gate into South Carriage Drive. ‘How did you cope with Gascoigne?’

‘Told him you’d had trouble with your suspenders.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

‘What’s up? It was the perfect thing to say. He went pink and twitchy at the thought and his eyes glazed over, dirty old sod, so I knew what to talk about — stocking-tops, belts, garters, corsets and quivering thighs, forests of them. And how to hitch up your stocking with a sixpence. Oh, and the shortage of elastic. That really got his smutty little mind going. The steam was coming out of his ears by then. He forgot all about his precious coding system and he didn’t mention you for ten minutes.’

‘How did you get away?’

‘With ease. When I’d run out of things to say about suspenders I passed on the thought that perhaps we ought to find out whether you were all right. We had a look up and down the aisles, by which time I felt sure you must have found the form and cleared off, so I told Gascoigne that you must have got extremely embarrassed and quit the building minus stockings or worse. He had no difficulty visualizing that. I think he found it very believable. We went down to the entrance and the doorman told us you’d left in a hurry. I winked at Gascoigne and followed you.’

Rose stopped the car. The light was already going and they still had to get to an undertaker’s. She fished in her handbag for Barry’s fountain pen while Antonia ripped the brown paper off the packet of disposal forms.

‘Don’t bother, darling. I’d better use mine. I filled in the registration form with it.’ She took it out and unscrewed the top. ‘Can’t be too careful.’

Rose wanted her to concentrate. They couldn’t afford a mistake in the form-filling, but Antonia continued to talk. ‘There’s a dear little undertaker called Hopkinson at the top end of Tottenham Court Road. Much nicer than Greely. We can go straight there and hand him this. Then I’ll get you to come home with me and see if Hector’s any easier to move before they come for him. It would look more natural if he was lying in bed. By now he ought to be more pliable, didn’t he?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘I will need your pen after all. There’s a short bit here that I’m supposed to fill in as myself. Different ink, you see, and bolder handwriting. No flies on me. What was I about to say? Yes, after you’ve helped me upstairs with Hector I suggest we shake hands and go our different ways.’

‘I’m all for that.’

‘Fine, but don’t sound so bloody pleased about it, my flower. I’m not looking for gratitude for what I did, but you don’t have to treat me like a case of measles. Considering the mess your marriage was in when we met, you haven’t come out of it at all badly.’ She returned the pen to Rose. ‘Do you want to check it? The other part has to be filled in by the undertaker.’

‘What?’ Rose felt a tightening in her stomach. ‘What did you say? Let me see.’

‘Part C. Part A is the registrar’s bit authorizing the disposal, which I’ve filled in. Part B is for the informant to complete. That’s me, and I’ve done it. And C is for the undertaker. “Notification of Disposal”. Oh my God!’ She clapped her hand to her mouth.

Rose quietly studied Part C. ‘A person disposing of a body must within ninety-six hours deliver to the registrar this notification as to the date, place and means of the disposal of the body.’ She was churning inside, but she spoke mechanically, chanting out the obvious as if she were playing consequences, except that it felt and sounded like the death sentence. ‘Who does the undertaker notify? The registrar. And the registrar checks it against his records. And if it’s a name that doesn’t appear in his records, he wants to know why. When he doesn’t get a satisfactory answer he asks the police to investigate.’ She paused. ‘You know, Antonia, we’ve had it. This perfect murder is a perfect dud.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Antonia screwed up the paper and drummed her fists against the dashboard. ‘Five hundred sodding forms and we can’t use one of them.’