Chapter 12

It was to be a long time before the disappearance of Danila Kovic was known to the police. She had been a solitary girl, come to London from Lincoln at Madam Shoshana's command, having no London friends but Mix Cellini. The room in Oxford Gardens had been found for her by a London acquaintance of her mother's. Danila had never met this woman or her husband, never been to her home in Ealing and heard nothing from her. As for her mother, she had come to Grimsby as a refugee from Bosnia, bringing her small daughter with her and, her husband having been killed in the war, had remarried. Danila sometimes said‑ when she had someone to say it to that her mother was less interested in her than in her present husband and their two sons. Packing her off to London was a way of getting rid of her.

When she had been in London a month her mother died of cancer. Danila went home for the funeral but her stepfather made it plain he didn't want her staying with him. She went back to Notting Hill, virtually alone in the world, nineteen years old, not particularly attractive, without skills and, withone exception, without friends.

By the middle of the week, when she still hadn't come towork, Madam Shoshana washed her hands of her and worried only about finding someone else to do her job. If she thoughtof Danila at all, it was to conclude that she had got fed up withthe job or gone off with some man. In Shana's experience, there was always some man about for a girl to go off with. These days people seemed to wander about the country, and about Europe for that matter, whenever the fancy took them. Danila need not think she was keeping the job open for her.

Kayleigh Rivers hadn't been close to Danila. They had never been to each other's homes, but they had twice been for a meal together and once to the cinema. She was the nearest to a friend Danila had and the only person who knew her to worry about where she might now be.

Behind the counter in her Turkish carpet seller's costume, Shoshana phoned an agency she had used before, the Beauty Placement Centre, and was sent a temp. Just in time, as she had a new client coming to see her when she was wearing her soothsayer's hat.

A spiteful message left on his mobile warned Mix not to bothert o come to Ed and Steph's engagement party. He wouldn't be welcome. The party, said Ed, was for friends and well‑ wishers, there would be no room at the Sun in Splendour for those who failed to keep their promises.

" What a carry‑ on over nothing, " said Mix aloud in the car.

On that terrible night when the girl had provoked him into beating her to death, when she had asked for it as plainly as if she'd said, " Kill me, " there had been moments of thinking his chances of meeting Nerissa forever ruined. But as the dayswent by he began to feel better. He forced himself‑ he was proud of this‑ to phone the spa and ask for Danila. The reply he got hugely raised his spirits.

" Shoshana's Spa. Kayleigh speaking. "

" Can I speak to Danila? "

" Sorry, Danila's left. She doesn't work here anymore. "

It wasn't difficult to interpret that as meaning they thought she'd given up her job. If they were worried, if they thought she might have been abducted or murdered or both, they wouldn't have said she'd left. They'd have said somethingabout her being missing. Maybe, he thought, she'd never bemissed, maybe there was no one to look for her or care what had happened to her. He'd read somewhere that thousands ofpeople disappear every year and are never found.

Almost as an afterthought, he asked to speak to MadamShoshana.

" I'll see if she's free. "

She was and he made an appointment. On a Wednesday afternoon, going upstairs, Danila had met Nerissa coming down. Why shouldn't he meet her this Wednesday? Of course, it hadn't been a Wednesday afternoon but a morning on someother weekday when he'd seen her go into the spa. Still, he pinned his faith on her going to Shoshana tomorrow.

If that failed, he'd somehow sabotage her car and then be on hand to repair it for her or at least advise her. It was a bold stroke, but it might really work, and with speed. He'd see her trying to start the car and failing and then he'd go over and very politely offer his services. Mix lost himself in this new fantasy. She'd be so grateful when she heard the engine tum overthat she'd invite him in for a drink. People like her never drank anything but champagne and she'd always have a bottle waiting on ice‑ but no, he remembered he'd read that she didn't drink at all. But she'd have champagne for visitors. They'd sit and talk and when he'd told her about his long devotion to her and about the scrapbook, she'd ask him if he'd like to come to apremiere with her that evening as her escort.

He had to get to know her first. Was there something he could do to run the battery down without her knowing? He'd find out, ask around, and then he'd do it. All he needed afterthat were jump leads. He pictured her struggling to make theengine fire. She'd look so beautiful, the exertion and the stressbringing a faint flush to her golden skin, her dainty foot wildlypressing, but in vain, on the accelerator, at this point he'd go over to her, say, " Can I help, Miss Nash? "

She'd say, " You know my name! "

The enigmatic smile he'd give would excite her curiosity.

" It's the battery, don't you think? "

It looked like it, he'd say, but luckily he happened to have jump leads with him. Once he'd recharged the battery, sheought to drive the car around a bit to stop it getting flat again. Would she like him to drive it? Of course she could sit besidehim while he drove. Rather than her inviting him in that first time, this was a more realistic scenario. He'd take her down to Wimbledon Common or maybe Richmond Park and she'd beso thrilled by his driving and the masterful manner in which he'd taken over car and her, that she'd say yes immediately when he asked if he could see her again. No, he wouldn't ask if, but when.

He got to Shoshana's Spa half an hour earlier than the appointed time, so he managed to park the car on a meter‑ he'dfeed that once the traffic warden had gone around he corner‑ then sat in the driving seat and read another chapter of Christie's Victims. Reggie hadn't seemed to think much about finding girls. If he wanted one girl he got her to come to his house, fixed up that gas arrangement ostensibly to cure her catarrhor abort her, and when she passed out he strangled her. Screwed her first, of course. Mix didn't fancy that part of it, hecouldn't have had sex with a dead girl, but to do that was Reggie's sole motive. And he killed how many? Mix had only got sof ar as the death of Hectorina McClennan and he thought therewere more to come. Not old Chawcer, though, she was the one that got away. For his own part‑ and he considered this in acool practical way of which he was proud‑ he probablywouldn't kill anymore. It was a lot of trouble, especially covering one's tracks afterward. Except Javy. Now he'd killed once, the idea of doing it again, and doing it when he really wanted to, seemed less formidable.

He read another couple of pages, saw rather ruefully that there wereonly three more chapters to go, put the marker in his book and, checking on the traffic warden, a further two pounds in the meter, and rang the bell at Shoshana's. She answered in a deep thrilling voice and he could tell she had someonewith her. He heard her say, more briskly, " I'll see you next week. " The door slid open when he pushed it. His throat dried and his heart beat faster at the prospect of meeting Nerissa on the stairs, but the woman coming down was middle‑ aged and overweight. It couldn't be helped, he'd hear his fortune and try to find out the times she came; he'd ask if necessary.

The room where Shoshana sat was like nowhere he had everseen before. It was very hot and, for the time of day, very dark. His sensitive nose smelled tobacco smoke. There seemed tohim something not only eccentric but actively unpleasant inpinning the curtains together with those great clumsy brooches. He tried not to look at the owl and, with an even more deliberateturning aside, at the wizard in gray robes positioned behindShoshana's chair. She herself he had expected to be a glamorous figure, skillfully made‑ up and svelte, as would befit theproprietor of a beauty spa. Little of her was visible but what hecould see was enough: wizened face and sharp black eyes peeringout of stormcloud‑ colored draperies.

" Sit down, " she said. " Will you have the stones or thecards? "

" Pardon? "

" Am I to look into your future by means of gemstones orcards? " She frowned. " I suppose you know what cards are. " She produced a greasy pack from a concealed pocket in hertopmost layer. " These things. Cards. Which is it to be? "

" I don't want my fortune told. I want your advice on ghosts. "

" Fortune first, " she said. " Take a card. "

Uncertain whether he would be allright to dig into the pack, he took the top one. It was the ace of spades. She looked at it and then at him inscrutably. " Take another. "

She had shuffled the first card he took back into the packbut still when he picked one it was the ace of spades. Even in the gloom he could see that her face had fallen. She looked like a woman who has just been told a dreadful piece of news, dismayed but still incredulous.

" What is it? " he said.

" Take another. "

This time it was the queen of hearts. A faint smile touchedher lips. She took the card from him, set the pack facedown onthe table and, taking from a black velvet drawstring bag one piece of colored crystal after another, black, translucent white, purple, pink, green, and dark blue, arranged them in a circle, round a white lace mat.

" Place your hands on the mandala. "

" What's that‑ what you said? "

" Place them inside the ring of stones. That's right. Now tell me which of the sacred stones you can feel drawn closer toyour fingers. There will not be more than two. Which two are drawing gradually toward you? "

Mix could neither feel nor see any movement of the stonesbut he wasn't going to say so. He frowned and said in a very serious voice, " The white one and the green one. "

Shoshana shook her head. She had never been known to tel lclients they were right. In fact, her policy being to undermine them and make them feel ignorant, her popularity rested on the superior wisdom they saw in her, contrasted with their owni nadequacy. " You are wrong, " she said. " The lapis and theamethyst are in your Ring of Fate today. Both are pushing hard but your fingers are putting up a stubborn resistance. You must slacken, cease to fight against them and bid them come. "

The stones failed to move for Mix but he fancied a slightshift in the stance of the gray‑ robed figure behind Shoshana's chair. The hand that held the staff of twisted snakes had seemed infinitesimally to rise. He meant not to speak of it, but he was frightened now and the words came out.

" That thing‑ that man behind you‑ it moved. "

" So you do have something of the inner vision, " said MadamShoshana, adding, " Just a hint of it. The stones have retreated now. Leave them. "

Mix couldn't make out if she meant the wizard figure really had moved, due perhaps to some mechanism inside it, or that he was possessed of the same sort of imagination as hers. Hec lenched his fists to keep his hands from shaking.

" Your fateful balance is badly awry, " she began. " The stones speak of self‑ doubt and suspicion, of fear that some sin will be discovered. Apart from that, they are silent, keeping their own counsel. Now to the cards. There is death in them. " She lifted her head and stared at him enigmatically. " I would avoid telling you if 1 could, but you drew the ace of spades twice, and in theface of that I would fail in my duty if I did not warn you of the danger of death. You also drew the queen of hearts and she, as all must know, means love. I see a beautiful dark woman. Shemay be for you or not for you, that I cannot see, but you will meet her soon. That is all. "

Mix got up. " That'll be forty‑ five pounds, " she said.

" Will you take a check? "

" I suppose so, but no credit cards. "

He had sat down again to write the check and had got as far as the date when the original purpose of his visit came back tohim. " I wanted to ask you about a ghost I may have seen. "

" What d'you mean 'may'? "

" It's a murderer who used to live around where I live. He killed women and buried them in his garden. I've seen someithing‑ I think. I thought I saw his ghost in the house where

" That is where he killed these women? "

" Oh, no. But I reckon he used to go there sometimes. Would he‑ would he come back? "

Madam Shoshana sat quite still, apparently lost in thought. After a full minute, she spoke. " Why not? You had better come and see me again in a week's time. By then 1Ishall have decided what should be done. Remember, this will need the greatest care and spiritual protection. Meanwhile, if you see it again, hold up a cross toward it. There is no need to throw the cross, just hold it up. "

" All right, " said Mix, pleased he had the one Steph had given him. He felt much more secure and doubted that he'd go back.

" That'll be another ten pounds. "

Once he had gone, Shoshana lit a cigarette. Her next appointment wasn't for half an hour. She was used to the gullibility of clients and no longer marveled or even sneered at it, as she had done in her early days. They would believe anything. She was herself a curious mixture of a ribald derision of all things occult and a certain credulousness. That small leaven of faith had to exist for her to follow her chosen path in life. For instance, she had no doubt about the efficacy of water‑ divining and the value of exorcism among other rituals. But she was fully in favor of helping things along with practical aids. For instance, the pack of cards she used consisted entirely of aces of spades and queens of hearts. She had bought it from a jokeshop. The stones had belonged to her grandfather who had collected them on his Oriental travels, and the wizard figure was a reject from a junk shop in the Porto bello Road. She had found it thrown in a skip on top of a nylon tiger skin and a portraitof Edward VII.

But yet… These " but yets" were not insignificant in her interpretation of her vocation. The fortunes she told were based on nothing more than her imagination and her observation of human beings. What the stones did or the cards showed was irrelevant. Her ignorance of crystallomancy was profoundand her knowledge of divination by cards nonexistent. Yet it was strange, it was a little uncanny, how often her predictions came close to the truth. Very likely, that young man would dieo r bring death, or had already brought it, to someone else. As for the beautiful woman, the streets of Notting Hill were full of them, he might bump into one at any time. Another curious thing, though, was when she reached that point in his fortune, Nerissa Nash had come into her mind and given rise to that description, the beauty and the darkness. He had probably never set eyes on the girl, except in pictures. As for the ghost, all that stuff was rubbish, but if it was also a source of money, she saw no reason why she shouldn't get her hands on it.

Writing that second letter to Dr. Reeves was almost insurmountablydifficult. Several times Gwendolen gave up and wandered about the house to stretch her legs and in a vain effort to clear her head. It would be absurd and inviting ridicule to write to a man that he had only dropped her because he thought she had had an abortion. She must attempt circumlocution. She must somehow get around it. Upstairs in her bedroom, gazing unseeing out of the window, she allowed herself to dream of what it would have been like to have shared a bedroom with him, to go to her wardrobe now and in the camphor odor that wafted out when she opened the door, see his suits and summer raincoat hanging close beside her own dresses. Itcould still happen. He was a widower now.

She started up the stairs. All her life, since first she could walk, she had climbed up and down them. The flight going upto the top floor hadn't then been tiled but plain wooden boards covered in drugget. Whatever had happened to drugget? Younever saw it anymore. Papa had had them put down after the woodworm had been found and steps taken to eradicate it. Few builders, including plumbers and electricians, ever came to St. Blaise House. Exterior painting hadn't been done since before the Second World War, no interior painting since eleven or twelve years before that. But Papa had been fanatical about woodworm; worrying about it kept him awake at night.

She could write to Stephen Reeves that she remembered his seeing her in Rillington Place the day before they had met for the first time. Of course she couldn't really remember, she didn't even know for sure if he had seen her. If he hadn'the would think her very foolish, he might even think she hadthat illness‑ what was it called? Alzheimer's‑ yes, Alzheimer's disease.

Otto was sitting, sphinxlike, in the middle of the tiled flight. " What are you doing there? "

She couldn't recall ever having addressed him before. Talking to animals was ridiculous, anyway. Otto got up, arched his back and stretched. He glared at her before leaping down one of the passages and crouching in the shadows at the end. Gwendolen unlocked the door of the flat and went inside. Everything was again depressingly neat. What kind of a fanatic plumped up the sofa cushions before he went out in the morning? The Psyche figurine on the coffee table she thought vulgar, the kind of thing that came from furniture stores that sold cream leather three‑ piece suites and molded Perspex tables. She picked it up, finding it surprisingly heavy.

Its base was felted. It looked as if someone had put it down, surely by mistake, into a pool of coffee. What else could have caused the dark stain that covered half the base, turning the felt from emerald to maroon?

" The multitudinous seas incarnadine, " quoted Gwendolen aloud, " making the green one red. "

She was rather pleased with the aptness of that. Macbeth, ofcourse, had been talking about blood and Cellini's lump of marble had hardly stood in a pool of that. The paucity of the book collection in here made her shake her head. Nothing but works on that man Christie. Which reminded her she had that letter to write.

Still, she must first visit the room next door to this flat and take another look at that floor. Contrary to the way she remembered it, the floorboard wasn't sticking up. Or not much. She must have imagined it, tripped over something else. She stood, staring down at the splintery old boards, and suddenlyshe knew what all the little holes were. They were woodworm. Papa used to say woodworm were as bad as termites, they could destroy a whole house. What was she to do?

Indecisively, she stood in the doorway, thinking once more of her letter. She would make one more attempt at it, perhaps telling him obliquely that no one should believe gossip‑ but surely she hadn't been the subject of gossip? She couldn't tell him not to believe his own eyes. There was a slight smell in the room she was sure hadn't been there when she last came in. She would have noticed it. Not a pleasant smell, far from it. Did woodworm smell? Perhaps. If it got worse, there was no doubt about it, she would have to get a man in, get those people who did something to floors and boards and furniture to banish the things.

When she had written her letter she would look them up in the phone book. There was something called the Yellow Pages, and though she had never opened it since it was left on herd oorstep, she would do so now.