Chapter 9

It wasn't until the doorbell rang that Mix remembered Danila was coming round. He had forgotten to buy any cheap wine and now he'd have to give her that rather nice Merlot he'd bought for his own private consumption on Sundaynight. Spending the evening at home, as he thought alone, he had been enthralled in Chapter 3 of Christie's Victims, reading of

Muriel Bady, a 31‑ year‑ old woman, living in Putney and employed at the Ultra Radio Works in Park Royal. On leaving the police for no known reason, Christie had also gone to work there. He and she became friends, insofar as Christie was capable of friendship, and on several occasions she and her fiance and Christie with Mrs. Christie all went out together.

Muriel Bady suffered from chronic rhinitis and Christie claimed to be able to cure her with the aid of an inhalation device of his own invention. When his wife had gone away, once more to have a holiday with her brother in Sheffield, he invited Muriel around, gave her a cup of tea and showed her what he said was the device. However, though it contained Friar's Balsam, it also, unbeknown to Muriel, admitted a tube attached at the other end to a gas outlet…

It had been at this point that Mix was summoned to answer the door. Old Chawcer had seen no need for an entry phone or even a separate doorbell for the top flat, so on the rare occasions when someone called on him, he had to go all the way down the fifty‑ two stairs and come all the way up again. Old Chawcer never answered the door unless she was expecting a guest, an even less usual event in the evenings, so he was prettysure she wouldn't let Danila in. For, by the time he had set foot on the top tread of the tiled staircase, he had remembered who this caller must be.

The bell rang twice more before he got there. He needn't have worried about the wine because she had brought two bottleswith her, one of Riesling and one of gin. This ought to have pleased him but it didn't. In his view, women shouldn't contribute to the evening's entertainment, no self‑ respecting woman would, she'd expect the man to pay. Danila's mass ofd ark hair was bigger and wilder than ever‑ ridiculous, he thought, it caused her little pinched face to look tiny. Her next move made matters even worse. Having set the bottles downon the hall table, she threw her arms round Mix's neck and kissed him.

" I'm ever so glad to see you. I've been looking forwardto this. "

He said nothing but led her up the stairs. Outside Miss Chawcer's bedroom sat Otto, engaged in an all‑ over wash.

" Oh, what a sweet kitty! " Danila's shriek made Otto start to his feet and arch his back. " Is she yours? Isn't she a darling! " She made the mistake of putting out a hand toward Otto'shead. He drew back, hissed and lashed at her before running upstairs. " Oh, I frightened her! "

" Come on, " said Mix.

On the landing outside his front door she asked why it was so dark and said the stained glass window gave her the creeps, but his anger was softened to a mild irritation by her admiration of his flat. She walked round his living room, passing the portrait of Nerissa Nash with just a glance at it and then at him, but adoring everything else. Oh, the window blinds! Oh, the cushions, the furniture, the ornaments, the lamp shades! The amazing TN! That lovely gray marble statue of a girl. Who was she?

" Some goddess. Psyche, they called her, when I bought her, " he said. He poured them each a stiff gin with tonic from his fridge and ice from the freezer. He hadn't a lemon. " You like the apartment, then? "

" It's great. What you must think of my grotty place! "

" I've taken a lot of trouble to get it this way. "

" I'm sure. Why d'you read about awful murders when you've got a lovely place like this? " She had picked up his book, left face‑ downwards on the arm of the gray silk sofa. " Yuck, it's horrible. 'She was unconscious and while he strangled her he raped her, ' " she read aloud.

" Give that to me. " Mix snatched the book from her. " Now you've lost my place. "

" I'm sorry. It was just that I… "

" All right, never mind. Bring your drink in the bedroom. "

They would have to go through all that shrieking and gasping stuff all over again when she saw the furniture and the pictures. Might as well get it over with so that they could getdown to what was the reason for her coming at all. He refilledhis glass while she wandered around the bedroom in the samesort of ecstasy as she'd shown in the living room. He sipped his drink. It was that good Bombay gin in the blue bottle she'd brought, he had to grant her that. He strolled back, pretending astonishment to see her dressed as she had been two minutes before.

" I reckoned you'd be starkers by now. "

" Mix. " She came up to him. " Mix, do we always have to start doing it the minute I come? Can't we talk for a bit? "

He was surprised. She was showing initiative for the first time, as if she had some sort of right to an opinion on the order of events. He could see what it was. In her eyes he was her boyfriend now and she was starting to take him for granted. Soon she'd be telling him what to do, not asking him.

" Talk about what? " he said.

" I don't know. Things. You getting the furniture for thisplace, your job, mine, your lovely cat. "

" It's not my fucking cat! " he almost yelled.

" There's no need to shout. "

She took her clothes off but not the way Mix would have preferred, not like a stripper giving a titillating performance. Danila undressed as she would when she was alone, placing her outer garments over the back of a chair, turning her back onhim to take off thong and tights. How he hated tights. And didn't she know wearing a G‑ string with them was a joke? She, left her bra till last, ashamed of her tiny breasts. He thought, I won't see her again, I'll find some other way of getting to know Nerissa.

She went to the bed but he stopped her. " Wait a minute. " He wasn't going to do it on top of his ivory satin quilt; he lifted it off and folded it. " All right, " he said.

The look she gave him was subservient but with something in it too of bewilderment. He took off his shoes and trousers but kept his shirt on and his socks. A man didn't have to stripoff, that was the woman's role. A simmering anger against her, a cold rage he couldn't quite account for, stopped him taking any trouble and what happened could have been called rape, only she didn't resist. He rolled away from her to finish his drink.

Five minutes later she was walking round the flat again. He heard her say, " Why d'you have her up there? "

There was no doubt as to what she meant. But " You mean Nerissa Nash? " he said, to make assurance absolutely sure.

" You fancy her or something? "

Mix got up. Somewhere in him was a prudish streak, legacy perhaps of a childhood among the Seventh Day Adventists. Of course his disapproval rather depended on who it was. Somehow it was all right when it was Colette and it would be more than all right‑ fantastic‑ if it had been Nerissa, but in Danila it seemed to smack of defiance, of taking things and him for granted, and of asserting herself. A woman like her knew very well you don't walk about nude the way she was doing in a man's flat unless you have a good reason to call him yours and have a proprietary interest in his place. He took his dressing gown out of the wardrobe and put it round her.

She received it with an ill grace. Like his mother, she sulked when you told her off. Standing in front of the portrait, she pointed to it, actually placing one finger on the glass. " She's got practically nothing on. I suppose that's all right. "

Careless of the pain his words might cause, he said, " She'sbeautiful. "

Danila said nothing but continued to stare and to keep her finger where she had placed it. Never very tall, she seemed to shrink a little and goose bumps came up on her forearms, uncoveredby the dressing‑ gown sleeves. A great resentment filled him. By her silence and her palpable hurt, she had made him feel awkward.

" D'you want another drink? " he muttered.

" Not just yet. "

He opened the wine bottle. If he kept on at the gin he'd not be able to do it again, and the only point in her being here was to manage it two or three times. With Nerissa, he thought, he'd be inexhaustible. He remembered that there was another point to Danila's visit. He had to ask her about the membershiplist. Tell her, he corrected himself, a brimming glass of wine inhis hand.

" Look, getting to be a member of the spa, I thought… "

Slowly, she turned round and he saw the marks on her face. She took no notice of what he had begun to say. " I've seen her, " she said.

" Seen who? "

" Her. Nerissa Nash. "

This wasn't at all the way he wanted things to go. If he told her what he expected her to do about the list now, at this moment, she'd understand at once he only aimed to join the spa in order to meet Nerissa. His request would have to be postponed again.

He chose his words carefully. " Where did you see her, then? In a photo, you mean. "

" No, for real. She goes to Madam Shoshana for a reading of the stones. "

" With no idea what she was talking about, he said as if he'd be astonished by the answer yes, " She's not a member of the spa, is she? "

" Nerissa? Oh, no. " With that figure, she must go to a gym some where. Somewhere in the West End, I reckon, Mayfair. I'd been to Madam Shoshana for my reading‑ I get a discount‑ and I met her coming up the stairs. A Wednesday it was, sometime in July. Ever so nice she was, said hi and it was a lovely day, made you glad to be alive. "

He was stunned. He couldn't speak. He'd wasted weeks going to that place, messed about uselessly with machines that didn't need attention, used up his evenings with this dog of a woman, spent his hard‑ earned money on her. Her cunningly back‑ combed and tangled hair had done what it always didduring their scuffles, fallen in lank rats' tails. His rage at the shock of discovering Nerissa's true purpose in visiting the spa building had come to boiling point, and it was directed at this girl, this stupid ignorant ugly girl with her rice‑ white skin and her bony chest. Nerissa didn't even belong to Shoshana's Spa. She'd gone there to see a fortune‑ teller and no doubt it was a one‑ off visit.

Quite unaware of his anger, Danila said, " Mind you, close to, she's not the supermodel she is in your pic. Her skin's a bit coarse‑ well, it being so dark, it would be. I reckon whoever took that photo got busy airbrushing… "

He didn't hear the end of the sentence. Hatred filled him, joining his anger. That she dared to criticize the most beautiful woman in the world! The insult grated like something scraping at his brain. He reached for some object, anything, to infuse with his rage. His hand closed round the marble Psyche and once more he seemed to hear Javy accusing him of the attackon Shannon, his mother standing by.

Who was it he was about to destroy with this weapon? Javy? His mother? This cringing girl?

" What are you doing? "

She never spoke again, only screamed and made gurgling sounds as he struck her repeatedly about her head with the Psyche. He'd thought blood flowed gently but hers sprayed at him in scarlet fountains. Her eyes remained fixed on his in horror and amazement. He aimed a final blow at her forehead toclose those staring eyes.

She fell to the floor, sliding down the portrait to collapse on her back. He dropped the Psyche onto the polished boards. It seemed to make an enormous noise as it fell so that he expected crowds alerted by it to come rushing into the room. But there was no one, of course there was no one. Instead absolute quiet, the silence of a vast desert or an empty house by the sea, waves breaking softly on the shore. The Psyche rolled a little, this way and that way, and was still. The only movement was the slow trickling of her blood down the glass.