Chapter 15

Having been in the kitchen, put a blackened kettle on the gas, and cast her eye around the drawing room, Olive was toiling upstairs with tea on a tray toward Gwendolen's bedroom. Whens he had arrived she had rung the bell and that man Cellini had come down, though with an ill grace, and been quite surly with her on the doorstep. Speaking to him on the phone, she had no idea this was the same man who had accosted darling Nerissa out on the pavement. It was quite a shock when he opened the door. Naturally, she wasn't very forthcoming either.

The heat in here was punishing. Like being in India at midsummer, stuck in some backstreet ghetto, dusty and smelling nasty. Somehow she must manage to get windows open. The one in the kitchen refused to budge. When she'd seen to Gwen she must attempt those in the drawing room.

Gwen's door was ajar. Olive was concerned at her appearance, the wasted white face, the weak hands lying limp on thecoverlet. When Gwen spoke in a cracked voice, she had tobreak off and cough breathily.

" You'll have to see the doctor, dear. No doubt about it. "

" Yes, I will. I must. " More coughing. " Dr. Reeves. Dr. Reeves will come if I send for him, he always does. "

" I don't know any Dr. Reeves around here, Gwen. Is he new? "

" Papa said to leave Dr. Odess and try the young doctor andwe have. "

Olive thought it best to ask no more questions. Answering made poor Gwen cough so distressingly. " You drink your tea, dear, and I'll find your doctor and phone the practice. I expectt he number is in your phone directory, isn't it? "

She dragged the carpet sweeper downstairs with her. It had been in front of the fireplace so long that dust had settled thickly on its surfaces. A hunt for the telephone directory finally resulted in her finding it on top of an ancient copper in the washhouse. No Reeves in the directory but a Dr. Margaret Smithers. Olive would never have expected Gwen to have a lady doctor but very likely, all the lists being overfull, she hadn't a choice. It was a scandal, and worse, Olive thought, when Dr. Smithers's receptionist said she couldn't come today but would tomorrow when she was making her afternoon calls.

" Make sure she does, " said Olive sharply.

Gwendolen's coughing sounded all the way downstairs. Olive went up again, hanging on to the banister. How much more sensible it would be, at Gwen's age, to live in a flat. " The doctor'sc oming tomorrow. "

" I'll wear my new blue dress. "

" No, you won't, Gwen. You'll stay in bed. I'm going to bring you a jug of water and a glass. You must drink plenty. It's better if you don't eat. I told Queenie you were ill and she'll bei n at midday. Wheres your door key? " Gwendolen didn't answer. She was coughing too much. " Never mind. I'll find it. " She did, after a ten‑ minute hunt.

One of the messages on Mix's mobile was from the departmental manager to tell him a doctor's appointment had been made for him for Wednesday, at 2 P. M. The other, from someone called Kayleigh Rivers, reminded him that he had a contract with the spa and would he come as soon as possible as a stationary bicycle and a cross‑ trainer had both ceased to function.

The spa was the last place he wanted to go near. One of the clients might remember seeing him chatting up Danila. Besides, he had a kind of general undefined aversion to the place. He knew he'd feel bad once he set foot inside. He'd let it go for now and then he'd try to terminate that stupid contract. The doctor he'd have to go to. He was bound to say there was something wrong with him, doctors always did, and this would be to his advantage, a ready‑ made excuse for forgetting calls and neglecting jobs. It wasn't that he wanted to skive off work permanently, it was just that at present he wasn't up to it, what with the body and the smell and women coming and going inthe house at all hours‑ and Nerissa.

He was down the hill from her house now and had beensince nine. It was therapy for the way he was feeling. At eleven, when she still hadn't emerged, he gave up for the day, drove himself to Pembridge Road, and in the secondhand bookshop there, found a new book called Crimes of the Forties he'dnever heard of before. He bought it because it had a chapter on Reggie.

Back once more in Campden Hill Square, he opened thebook to find there was even less about the Rillington Placemurders than he had thought at first. A bit of a waste of money. Still, the photographs were the best he had yet seen. The frontispiece, a large picture of Reggie driven to court, was particularlygood. Mix gazed at the rather well‑ sculpted face, the narrow mouth and large nose, the horn‑ rimmed glasses. What would you do in my position? he asked it. What would you do?

Nerissa saw him from an upstairs window and thought of some action she might take. Phoning the police, for instance. But he wasn't doing any harm. He would get tired of waiting, he must surely have work to do, and she wasn't going out till midday. She would like to have gone for a run first but that was impossible with him there.

Last evening she'd been sure Darel jones would call her. He could easily get her phone number from his mother, who would get it from Nerissa's mother. She had stayed in all evening, waiting for him to phone. Actually sat by the phone incase it rang and she couldn't get to it in time. Like a teenager. Like she was aged fifteen, with her first boyfriend. When it had gone ten she knew it wasn't going to happen. Plenty of men would phone after ten, after eleven come to that, but no tDarel. Somehow she knew that. Disappointed, she had gone to bed early.

Some women wouldn't wait, they'd phone a man themselves. Why couldn't she? She didn't know, something to do with the way Mum had brought her up, no doubt. Tomorrow they were going to start on the shots for that magazine cover, and feature and soon after that the London Fashion Fair began. S he and Naomi and Christy would be on the catwalk for that. These were her last days of freedom but instead of enjoying herself she was standing here at the window, watching a man watching her. The price of fame, her agent had told her, and then told her to tell the police. She flinched from doingt hat. Maybe she'd pluck up her nerve and get into the car, not looking in his direction, go over to her sister‑ in‑ laws, see the baby. Or perhaps she'd wait awhile, give him half an hour. Madam Shoshana first, the stones or the cards and the latest installment of her future foretold. If only that guy would giveup and go.

She had a shower, sprayed herself with Jo Malone's Gardenia, and accidentally dropping the cap of the bottle on the floor, put on combat trousers and a canary yellow sweatshirt. A difficult shade, her mother said, while acknowledging that, with her coloring, she could wear it. Letting fall the tracksuit she'd been wearing, leaving behind her a trail of tissues, cottonwool, and orange sticks, she took another look out of her bedroom window. He was still there. If only this house had another way out, an escape route into a back lane as some Notting Hill houses had. She should have thought of that before she bought it.

If she didn't hurry she'd be late for her appointment. She went downstairs, deciding to risk it, run the gauntlet, whatever that meant, but when she took a final look he was gone. An overwhelming sense of relief flooded her. Perhaps he wouldn'tcome back, perhaps he'd had enough.

All the way to Shoshana's she half expected his car to appear suddenly from a side turning‑ blue, a small Honda, index number starting LCO something‑ but he must have gone. Presumably he did work somewhere. She was ten minutes late, t hanks to him. Mounting the stairs, she suddenly remembered once coming down them and meeting a young girl comingup, a dark, sharp‑ featured girl who reminded her of pictures she had seen of women in that war in Bosnia. Funny I should think of her, she thought. Shoshana had told her (when sheasked) that the girl worked at the spa and her name was‑ was itDanielle?

The room was dark and incense‑ smelling as ever but today Shoshana was in black silk with moons and ringed planets embroidered on the bodice. A veil covered her hair, secured inplace by a kind of tiara.

" I'll have the cards, not the stones, " Nerissa said firmly.

Shoshana disliked being instructed but she liked the money and Nerissa was a good client. " Very well. " Underlying her words was the implication: on your own head be it. " Take a card. "

The first one Nerissa took was the queen of hearts, and the second and the third. " You are promised great good luck in love, " Shoshana said, wondering how she had managed to allow three queens to appear in sequence. The next one had better be the ace of spades. But it wasn't. Nerissa smiledhappily.

" I have never seen such astonishing good fortune, " Shoshana said, hissing and cursing inwardly. She much preferred doom‑ laden forecasts but she could hardly invent a negative future when Nerissa so obviously knew what the queen of hearts signified. " Take a last card. "

It was bound to be the ace this time and it was. Shoshana concealed her pleasure. " A death, of course. " She put her hands into the bag of stones, took out the lapis and the rose quartz and rolled them between her palms. " It's not you or anyone close to you. It's happened already. "

" Maybe it's my great‑ aunt Laetitia. She died last week. "

Shoshana disliked clients coming up with their own interpretations.

" No. I think not. A young person, this is. A girl. Ic an see no more. The words were written but clouds have obscured them. That is all. "

The cards were put away, the stones replaced in their bag. Nerissa hated the way the wizard seemed to move when the candles flickered. The white owl had its amber eyes fixed on her. " Forty‑ five pounds, please, " said Shoshana.

" That girl I met on the stairs once, she looked nice. Danielle, is she called? "

" What about her? "

" I don't know. I just thought of her. "

" She's left, " Shoshana said, opening the door to speed Nerissa on her way.

Two policemen called on Mr. Reza and then at Shoshana's Spa. When they had been told at both places that Danila Kovic had left her work and her rented room without notice, without a word to employer or landlord, they began to take things seriously. Their press release was too late for the Evening Standard but in time for the BBC Early Evening News and the next day's papers, where it nearly, but not quite, took precedence over the " hottest day since records began" story.

Nerissa heard it while baby‑ sitting for her brother but, in the absence of a photograph, failed to identify her as the girls he'd seen on the stairs. Mix also saw the news. He thought he'd been quite worried enough, but now he understood he had been living in a fool's paradise, continuing to believe that Danila's disappearance would never be noticed. He had had another bad day, beginning with his failure to see Nerissa, then a terrible row with Colette Gilbert‑ Bamber, who threatened to report his lapses to the firm if there was ever another. Leaving her house without any lunch or even a glass of wine, he had had to go straight to the doctor.

Ever since he had known the appointment was to be madehe had taken it for granted he was perfectly well, a young, fithealthy man. The doctor disagreed. He insisted on taking ablood sample to be checked for cholesterol. That was on accountof Mix's blood pressure, which ought to have been somethinglike 130 over 40 and instead was an alarming 170 over 60.

" Smoke, do you? "

" No, I don't, " said Mix virtuously.

" Drink? "

" Not much. Maybe four or five units a week. "

That would have been little more than a single bottle of wine. The doctor looked at him suspiciously. Exercise, a fat freediet, tablets were prescribed and no salt.

" Come back and see me in two weeks' time‑ you don't want to be a diabetic by the time you're forty, do you? "

Blood pressure could be raised by anxiety, Mix had read somewhere. Well, he'd had plenty of anxiety recently. The doctor's admonitions had brought on a headache and a queasyfeeling. He'd call head office, tell them he wasn't well and gohome. Maybe he'd got old Chawcer's flu. The sun was dazzlinglybright today, for once lighting up this gloomy house, showing up the dust that lay everywhere and the cobwebs dangling from defunct hanging lamps and bem: imed moldings on the ceilings. Someone had opened the downstairs windows and all the curtains were drawn back. He opened a door he had never touched before and found himself looking into a vast room with a dining table down the middle, twelve chairs arranged around it and oil paintings on the walls of dead deer and rabbits, ugly old women in crinolines and cows in fields.

On the first landing he met a woman he hadn't seen before, and he immediately thought, she must be the one Reggie hadn't managed to destroy, old Chawcer's daughter. But she was too old for that and she introduced herself as Queenie Winthrop, smiling and for some reason fluttering her eyelashes.

" Poor darling Gwendolen is very poorly indeed, Mr. Cellini. She has a temperature of over a hundred degrees. And that doctor won't come until tomorrow afternoon. I call it a. disgrace. "

Mix, who had grown up measuring degrees in Celsius, thought she had made a mistake. " What could you expect at her age? " Shame, " he said.

" A shame is just what it is. These doctors should be ashamed.

Now, if you can just make her a cup of tea in the morning, I or Mrs. Fordyce will be in by eight‑ thirty. We have a key. "

" Me? " said Mix feebly.

" That's right. If you'll be so kind. I don't know who will let that wretched doctor in but one of us will manage it somehow. "

" Well, I can't, " said Mix, escaping upstairs, and for once forgetting to look out for Reggie

He sniffed. It seemed to him that he could smell it out here. That might be in his head too. How did you know which things were real and which your imagination? Still, he wouldn't go in there this evening. He'd think, make a plan. It was just after eight when Ed phoned. Mix wished he hadn't answered it because Ed would only start again on how he'd let him down. But instead he was asking for bygones to be bygones. He shouldn't have blown his top like that. His excuse was that he wasn't really over his flu and still feeling under the weather.

" There's a lot of it about, " Mix said, thinking of oldChawcer.

" Yeah, and it's not only that. Me and Steph are having problems getting a mortgage. "

He went on and on about this flat they were hoping to buy, calculating their joint incomes, Steph's chances of promotion, and what would happen if she fell pregnant.

" You'll have to see she doesn't. " Mix had always found it difficult, practically impossible, to apologize. Admitting he waswrong seemed to him the ultimate humiliation. He couldn'tsay he was sorry but he had to say something. " Feel like going for a drink? " he hazarded. " Maybe tonight? "

" Yeah, well, I can't tonight. Sun in Splendour at eight tomorrow? And a word to the wise, Mix, eh? They're getting very hot under the collar about you at head office. I just thought I'd give you a hint. "

Mix nearly forgot about old Chawcer's tea in the morning. He hardly ever drank the stuff himself, but he kept a packet of teabags next to the coffee jar and when he saw it he remembered. He'd have to take the sugar down too in case she took it.

She didn't. That was the first thing she said to him after he knocked and went in. " You need not have brought that, Mr. Cellini. I don't take sugar. " Nothing about how kind of him. No " Good morning. " Her voice was weak and she kept coughing. As she struggled to sit up he could see great wet patches onher nightdress where she had sweated. " What day is it? "

Impatiently, he told her.

" Then it must be tomorrow that the woodworm people will be here. They're coming to see about the woodworm in the room next to your flat. I can't remember what their name is but it doesn't matter. " Coughing shook her. " Oh, dear, I can hardly speak. One of my friends will let them in. I expect they'll takeup the floorboards, find out what that ghastly smell is… "

Old clothes lay all over the bedroom. Surely she could have cleared up the ashes in the fireplace. She hadn't always been ill. The air felt unbreathable and enormously, palpably, hot. Flies were everywhere, swarming in the dusty shaft of sunlight.

" Shall I open a window? "

She wasn't too ill to round on him. " Please don't unless you want me to freeze to death. Just leave it. " Cough, cough, cough…