Chapter 18

" She was only a kid, " said Frank McQuaid.

He had heard this phrase many times in detective series on television and always hoped for the chance to use it. The policeman interviewing him said, " Yes? And you saw her walking along Oxford Gardens with a man. Can you describe him? "

''Just ordinary, " said Frank who might have been readingf rom a script. Sitting opposite the detective sergeant in a room behind the bar, he assumed a grave and thoughtful expression as if millions were watching him. " Nondescript‑ know what Imean? Brownish hair, brownish eyes, I reckon. It was dark. "

" It's never dark in London. "

Frank considered this statement. It had an originality about it that made him suspicious. He decided to ignore it. " Middleheight or a bit less‑ know what I mean? "

" I suppose you mean a bit below middle height, Mr. McQuaid. "

" Thats what I said. She was just a kid. " Frank looked mournfully at an invisible camera. " Came from some foreign place. Albania? Maybe she was an asylum seeker. "

" Yes, thank you, Mr. McQuaid. You've been" the policeman lied, " very helpful. "

* * *

That night there was a storm at sea. That was what it soundedlike, the waves pounding on the shore. Why the Westwayshould have been so much louder than usual Mix didn't know. Perhaps the wind was coming from a different direction. He should have asked that doctor for sleeping pills. As it was, hehad no sleep until about four when he fell into a troubled doze. The brightness of the morning did something to reduce his terror to simple fear when he awoke at eight. His first thought was that he must move out, get away from this haunted house, his second that moving was impossible while that body remained downstairs in the washhouse. What he had seen the evening before so concentrated his mind that hebarely reacted when he went downstairs and picked up from the doormat the letter from the blood‑ testing lab via the company'sdoctor and saw that his cholesterol level at 8. 8 was alarmingly high. So what? He could get pills for it, statins or something. How would he dare go upstairs when he came home from work?

Mix knew he couldn't miss any more calls or leave one other message unanswered. Colette Gilbert‑ Bamber was lost, but he had no regrets about her. Reluctant as he was to go near the place, he drove over to Westbourne Grove and Shoshana's Spa. It was ten o'clock in the morning.

He rang the bell and an unknown voice answered in an affected drawl of the kind he called " Sloaney. " " Mix Cellini torepair the equipment, " he said.

No reply but the door growled ajar. He walked in, lifted his head and came face to face with Nerissa descending the stairs. For a moment he thought he must be hallucinating, he couldn'tbelieve his luck. It was as if fate was compensating him for his terrible experience of last evening. He found a voice that cameout rather shrilly.

" Good morning, Miss Nash. "

She looked at him without smiling. " Hi, " she said and she sounded frightened.

" Please don't be nervous, " he said. " It's just‑ just that I'm always happy to see you. "

She looked very beautiful‑ she couldn't help that‑ in jeans and a cotton top with a red poncho over it. Halfway down thestairs, she had stopped and stood there, as if a bit scared to pass him. " Did you follow me here? "

" Oh, no, " he said in a tone intended to reassure. " No, no, no. I work here, servicing the equipment. " He walked away from the foot of the stairs and waited by the lift. " Please comedown. I won't harm you. "

That old bitch of a mother of hers and the great‑ aunt toomust have been working on her, turning her against him. He'd like to kill that old Fordyce woman. Nerissa came slowly downthe stairs, hesitated at the foot before saying, " Well, good‑ bye. Please don't… " She had slipped out of the door before ending her sentence.

She was going to say, please don't think me rude, I didn't understand, Mix thought. Or, please don't think I meant you'd harm me. Something like that. She was as nice as she was beautiful, kind and sweet. It would be her nasty old mother who'd taught her to ask him if he was following her, not the kind of thing she'd say naturally. Mothers could be their children's enemies. Look at his own, marrying Javy and, after he'd gone, bringing all those men back when she'd got three growing kids at home, learning her loose behavior. Nerissa's mum ought to be thankful her daughter had someone to adore her and, more than that, respect her in an old‑ fashioned way.

By this time the lift had taken him up to the spa floor. Where Danila had presided the first time he came there stood a woman almost as gorgeous as Nerissa, though an arctic blonde where she was dark, snow‑ white skin, a glacier‑ pale torrentof hair, long fingers tipped in silver. She must be the onewho had answered his ring. " I'll just let Madam Shoshana know you're here, " she said in a debutante's voice.

Mix would very much rather she didn't. The chances weret he crazy old soothsayer wouldn't remember him from the sessioni n that upstairs room, but she might. And if she did, would she think it funny him also being the one she had a service contractwith? Did that matter? Mix would prefer no one to findanything funny about his behavior. He didn't want attentiondrawn to himself. Anyway, she wouldn't come up herself, she'dsend a message by this amazing‑ looking girl. Once more he gazed at her.

In the tones of Eliza Doolittle after her transformation, she said, " Whom do you think you're looking at? "

Mix walked a few paces away. " Which machines want seeing to? "

" Madam will show you. I'm new here. "

Before he could answer, Shoshana came out of the lift, draped in black robes, hung with ropes of jet and looking like a female druid in mourning. Mix knew by her eyes that she recognized him before she spoke and when she did it was in acompletely different voice from the one he had heard predictinghis future, a shrill, sharp north London tone. " You've taken your time about coming. If reading the cards means more toyou than work, you're not going to get very far. The ones you've got to mend are two bikes, four and seven. Right? "

" Right, " said Mix through gritted teeth.

He had to stop his mouth falling open when she said, " You fancied that girl who worked here. The skinny little one that left without a word. Didn't run off with you, did she? "

Mix managed a derisive smile. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever achieved. " What, me? I hardly knew her. "

" That's what you men always say. I don't like men. Now you'd better get on with what you've come about. "

What an old horror! He'd never come across a female of her age quite so horrible. She put Chawcer, Fordyce, and " Winthrop in the shade. He shuddered and turned his attention to the two stationary bicycles. Both needed a new part but different parts in each case. He didn't carry spares with him and, since he wasw orking freelance at Shoshana's, if he was to get them he'dhave to pinch them from the warehouse. Nothing to be done now. He told the icy beauty he'd order the necessary parts andcome back when he'd got them.

" When will that be? "

" A few days? Not more than a week. "

" It had better not be. Madam will do her nut if you keep her waiting any longer. "

He had more calls to make. One was a new customer who had never sent for him before and wanted to order a skier. Shelived in a place called St. Catherine's Mews on the border of Knightsbridge and Chelsea, but though he drove twice up and down Milner Street he couldn't find it. Leave it, he said tohimself, call her and ask her for directions. One of the few men who kept exercise equipment in his home had sent for him to Lady Somerset Road in Kentish Town but when he got there, perilously parked and afraid of being clamped, Mr. Holland‑ Bridgeman wasn't at home. Mix decided to go back briefly to St. Blaise House and check on that copper in the washhouse.

Approaching from Oxford Gardens, he wondered what he'd do if police cars were outside and policemen pacing about and blue and white crime tape stretched across the front garden. Turn around and hide somewhere, he thought, maybe go up north and home but not to his mother, who'd either have some new lover living with her or be back in the bin. His brother? They'd never got on well. Shannon was the only one in the family he'd had any sort of relationship with… St. Blaise Avenue was empty of people, relatively silent, the usual cars parked nose to tail along both sides. One space was left for Mix. He let himself into the house and stood listening, preparedfor Ma Fordyce or Ma " Winthrop to appear from thekitchen regions, waving a duster.

Unconvinced one or other of them wasn't in the house, he walked carefully through the breakfast room to the kitchen, a transformed place since cleaning operations conducted by those two, and in the washhouse. He sniffed, waited, sniffed again. No smell. His wrapping had been effective. Maybe Christie had also dealt with that particular problem in the same way‑ did they have plastic all that time ago? He found himself reluctant to lift the lid off the copper but he did it. There was no point in coming home at all at this hour and not doing that. The well‑ sealed, well‑ wrapped package she and the bag made was just as he had left it and, even with the lid up, he could smell nothing at all.

Then Mix made another discovery. If you didn't know what the package in the copper was you'd think it was just a big plastic sack full of old clothes someone had stuffed in there for aplace to put it. You wouldn't investigate any further. If it didn't smell and looked like the kind of bag people took to a launderette, wasn't it perfectly safe where it was? The situation was quite different for that man Beresford Brown, who began puttingup brackets for a radio, and behind a partition in RillingtonPlace found a woman's naked body. There was no smell because it was midwinter and cold. In his own case there'd be no smell because of the way he'd wrapped it. Why shouldn't itstay where it was? The idea seemed too daring and bold to be feasible, but why not? Wouldn't he worry about it all the time it was there?

Old Chawcer was no careful housewife. You could see thatfrom the way Fordyce and Winthrop had had to work to getthe place straight. She'd never go near that copper, she had awashing machine, and though it was old‑ fashioned it was stillusable. In the unlikely event of her looking inside the copper, all she'd see was old clothes in a plastic bag. So why not leave itthere? Mix closed the lid, wandered slowly back into thekitchen, thinking of this new and simpler plan, and came faceto face with Olive Fordyce. Because of his stealthy entry he hadthe satisfaction of making her jump, as the ghost had madehim, though he had been as alarmed as she and with morecause. She had a small white dog with her, about half the sizeof Otto.

" What are you doing out there? "

" I was in the hallway, " Mix said, " and I heard a noise. "

" What noise? " She was very sharp with him.

" I don't know. That's why I went to see. "

The look she gave him was suspicious and searching.

" Where's the cat? "

" How should I know? I haven't seen him for days. "

The dog began sniffing the hems of his jeans. " He'll runaway if you don't feed him and find someone who will. Don't do that, Kylie, there's a good girl. You'll be pleased, " she said, pausing, " to hear Gwen will be home in a day or two. "

She gave him a broad malicious smile. It was as if she knew what was going on in his head. He held on to the edge of the newly cleaned counter, afraid he might fall. All ideas of leaving the body where it was vanished and to get it out of the house, out of any possible sighting, became imperative.

" Naturally, I've been into the hospital to see her, as I always do every morning, and that's what she told me. The sister confirmed it. Tomorrow, she said. " She picked up the dog and cuddled it like a child with a toy. " If not it'll be the day after. They don't keep patients in like they used to. Well, nothing's like it, used to be, is it? "

He said nothing. He was aware of what she would have expectedhim to say‑ if he were a " nice young man" that is. " It'll be good to have her back, " for instance, or, " She'll be pleased to have her kitchen all neat and tidy. " He couldn't find the words, any words.

" I'm going out again now to do a bit of shopping for her. She'll need a good deal of looking after. " She fluttered her freehand and he saw her nails were orchid pink today, like a young girl, pointed and glossy and sharp. With no inhibitions about looking someone straight in the eye and holding the gaze, she fixed him with a penetrating gaze, at the same time craning her neck forward and holding her head slightly on one side. " You'll have to pull your socks up, make her cups of tea, and fetch her bits and pieces. That won't do you any harm. She won't be able to get about much yet. "

" When are you coming back? " he said.

" What, today? I don't know. When I've done the shopping. Does it bother you? "

" Give me the list and I'll do the shopping, " he said.

It was evidently the best thing he could have said. For the first time since they had encountered each other in the kitchen. doorway, she spoke pleasantly to him. " That's very good ofyou. I won't say no. It'll save my legs. I'll give you some money. "

She began rummaging in her bag, found the list, and handed itto him.

" You can give me the money after I've done it, " he said, mollifying her further.

" It'll have to be a couple of days, then. I'm not coming inagain till then if! can help it. Queenie's taking over, she'll be intomorrow, so I'll pass the key on to her. Now say good‑ bye to Kylie. "

The hell he would. Hadn't he done enough for her, offering to do the shopping? The two afternoon calls he was due to make, the expenses form to fill in, the meeting with Jack Fleisch, the other engineers, and the reps went out of his head. Or, rather, were dismissed as of no importance compared with the urgency of hiding that body, not temporarily, not as an interim move, but forever.

He need not go upstairs, not now, not till later. He'd have a drink in a pub or bar somewhere so that he could face going up there, have the strength to face what might be at the top.

A principle of Shoshana's was: never bother the police unless they bother you. She sat up in the soothsaying room above the spa, a client due in ten minutes, thinking about Danila Kovic, not with any anxiety as to her whereabouts nor fear that she might be dead, not with any sympathy for her friends or relations who could be missing her, not with any regrets that she no longer worked at the spa now that she had beautiful efficient Julia, but entirely from the point of mischief‑ making.

The idea had never crossed her mind that Mix Cellini might have made away with Danila. Why should he? As far as Shoshana knew, the two had been acquainted for perhaps two or three weeks and might never have gone out together. But a deep resentment of Mix was curdling and fermenting and bubbling inside her. The contract he had signed meant nothing to him; once Danila had disappeared he never came near the place. As for repairing equipment, he had told her he'd ordered those parts for the bicycles but she'd be a fool to believe him. He was putting her through the time‑ consuming process of finding new engineers, as if she hadn't had enough difficulties getting a replacement for Danila.

Until that morning, she had believed that her hope of retaliation lay in the number she had noted down when he called her and she found he wasn't on his mobile. She more than suspected that he worked for a company that had a rule forbidding operatives to engage in outside work. A call to a chief executive, or managing director, whatever you liked to call it, might welll ose him his job. This was the revenge she was saving up unless his behavior changed radically. But might not a fitter retribution be to tell the police he was Danila's elusive boyfriend?

She didn't want them coming to the spa. There were things she would prefer them not to see‑ that security arrangements were far from adequate, that there was no fire escape from anyof the upper floors, and no safety measures were in place. But she could go to them. Perhaps there was no great hurry. Do nothing on impulse, was another of her rules. Think it through. She began taking the pieces of quartz and lapis and jade fromtheir velvet bag and examining the cards to make sure they were suitably arranged.

The client, a new one, very young and obviously overawed by the room, its ambience, and by Madam Shoshana herself, tapped on the dor and came in rather fearfully. She crept to the chair that was waiting for her and lifted her eyes to thesoothsayer's half‑ veiled face.

" Place your hands on the mandala within the stones, breathedeeply and I will begin, " said Shoshana in the mystical and occult voice she kept for forecasting the future.

Half a liter of milk, 200 grams of butter, cheese, sliced bread, alamb chop and a chicken breast, frozen peas, a carton of soup, and a great deal more. Mix put it away in the now wholesome and inviting fridge. He had done old Chawcer's shopping mechanically, buying what was on the list but still hardly noticingwhat he bought, losing the supermarket receipt so he had noidea what accounts to render to Ma Fordyce. A couple of gins in KPH had given him courage and a photograph in the Evening Standard of Nerissa modeling an Alexander McQueen gown cheered him up. She'd wear something like that at their wedding and carry a huge bouquet of white orchids.

Ma Fordyce wouldn't come back that afternoon and MaWinthrop wasn't due till some time tomorrow. It was half‑ pasttwo. He mustn't wait till tomorrow, he must get started now. He forced himself to go upstairs, glad of the bright sunlight penetrating the Isabella window. Because a little breeze wasblowing, the colors danced like strobe lights. Nothing there. Everything quiet andstill‑ and unoccupied. He sighed and let himself in. Mix had no shoes suitable for heavy digging but he put on his thick‑ soled trainers and a pair of old jeans. A faint smell still hung about his flat and it was stronger in the roomwhere she had been under the floorboards. That would fade in time. He bolted the front door top and bottom just in case Ma Winthrop decided to look in, and went outside into the garden.

The weather was still what people called glorious. He wouldrather it had been cold and gray, for this warmth and sunshine brought the neighbors out into their gardens. The people who kept theirs perfect were having a drink at a white metal tableunder a striped umbrella. Some of them could easily see whathe was doing from where they sat. He took the spade and fork from the shed and found a place where the soil showing between the sturdy weeds looked softer than the rock‑ hard clayey areas. Digging was unskilled labor, so anyone could do it, he'd probably find it a breeze. But at first the spade simply refused to go in. By making an extreme effort he could just penetratet he top layer of earth down to about two inches. After thatit might as well be rock he was encountering, it was so hard and apparently impenetrable. The pick might be the answer, though he was as wary of using it as he would be of plying a scythe. He fetched it from the shed, noticing with more misgivings that it was corroded, eaten into with rust. A patch of rot showed on its handle.

He tried to swing the pick the way he had seen laborers in the road do it but after three failed attempts was afraid of doing himself an injury. It came as a surprise to him that you had tobe fitter than he was to use an instrument like this. Maybe he had been wrong about the quality of the soil here. He moved farther away from the wall and nearer to the house, taking thepick and fork with him, his shoulders already stiffening. From here he could see over the end wall into the garden beyond where, instead of the guinea fowl, two large Canada geese strutted among the weeds. In deckchairs, a man in a turban and a woman in a sari sat reading, he the evening paper, she a magazine. Though he could see them he couldn't tell if they could see him. Perhaps it wouldn't matter. The deckchairs were the first he had seen since the one his grandma had sat in when he was a small boy. But instead of her and her peculiarities, theybrought to mind Reggie who had furnished his kitchen with such makeshift chairs after selling his furniture.

Once more he began to dig, but this time using the fork. That was better. Its prongs were sharp enough to push through the top layer and gradually he developed a technique of digging the fork in perpendicularly instead of at an angle and this was more effective. He even learned how to thrust his tool in lower down and attack the harder level of ground. He had to. Though despairing of digging down six feet, which he'd heard was the depth a grave should be, he knew he'd have to manage at least four.

After about an hour he rested. The front of his T‑ shirt was wet with sweat. A drink of something was what he needed, even tea, but he was afraid that if he went indoors he might not bring himself to come out again. A rather optimistic idea that perseverance might get his muscles used to the work so that they would stop hurting hadn't been justified. When he straightened up a burning pain ran down his back and his right thigh. His shoulders wanted to tense and bunch themselves around his neck. As he tried circling them in a clockwise and then a counterclockwise direction, turning his head from left to right and left again, he saw Otto watching him from his customary seat on the opposite wall. The cat was as still as a carving in a museum, its round green eyes fixed on him, its face composed into its usual expression of malevolent scorn. The Asian couple had gone indoors, leaving their deckchairs behind.

Mix began digging deeper with the fork but he had startedto understand he would have to use the spade, however difficultthis might be. He went back to where he had left itand, picking it up, saw something he hadn't noticed before, aheap of gray and black speckled feathers. No doubt it was hisimagination that made him see smug satisfaction in the cat'sface when he glanced at him again. Still, look what happenedbefore when he called something his imagination.

Using the spade was heavy work. Each spadeful he dislodged brought sharp needles digging into the small of his back. You've got to, you've got to, you've no choice, he muttered to himself as he kept on. He saw that blisters were coming up on the palms of his hands. Still, he must do at least half an hour more.

The sun still blazed down, though it was nearly six. A sharpcackle which sounded as if uttered in his ear made him jump. He looked up, afraid it was human, and saw the man in the turban throwing handfuls of corn down for the geese. They jostleda nd shoved each other, making their harsh cries. To his surprise, the Asian man waved cheerfully at him, so he had to wave back. He dug for another ten minutes and knew he'd have to give up for the day. Back again in the morning. Notbad, anyway. He must have dug down a foot.

The tools put away, he returned by way of the washhouse where he checked on the copper and its contents. He dragged himself up the stairs, clinging to the banisters, pausing often. Again, he reminded himself, he'd forgotten to feed the cat. Still, it looked as if it ate well enough when left to its own devices. How had Reggie, years older than he was, managed to dig those graves in his garden? From the pictures he'd seen, it looked as neglected and overgrown as this one, the soil as unyielding. Of course, he'd claimed to have a bad back, the reason he'd given at the trial of Timothy Evans for being incapable of moving Beryl Evans's body. Perhaps his gravedigging had done him a permanent injury.

Mix hardly knew how he'd managed to get up the tiledflight. Pain dispelled all thoughts of the ghost. He staggered into his flat, poured himself a stiff gin and tonic and fell down on the sofa. Half an hour later he picked up the remote and put the television on, closing his eyes and falling immediately asleep in spite of the rock music pounding out of the set.

A louder noise woke him. The front doorbell was ringing, and someone was clattering the letterbox and hammering on the front door with their fists. Mix crept to his door and cameout onto the landing at the top of the tiled flight. His firstthought was that it was the police. The Asian man had told them someone was digging a grave in Miss Chawcer's garden and they had come to check. They had targets to meet thesedays and they'd jump at the chance of discovering a crime. Mixc ouldn't see the front garden or the street from his flat. He went down a flight, then another, into old Chawcer's bedroom and looked out of the window.

By now it was getting dark. By the light of street lamps he saw there were no police cars, none of that crime tape he hadso much feared earlier. Abruptly the noise ceased. A beam of light appeared on the path, followed by Queenie Winthrop holding a flashlight in her hand. Mix ducked down as shet urned round and looked up at the windows. Checking up on him, he supposed, making sure he'd done the shopping. Well, she'd have to remain in ignorance. He wasn't unbolting that front door for anyone or anything until he'd completed the burial. He began the weary climb back.

Last night he had seen the ghost up there, in that bedroom, really seen it. There was no longer any question of its existing only in his imagination. Steph and Shoshana were right. It wasn't just that he had been in a bad nervous state, the stresses of the job had got to him, all the pressures of Ed, his worryover and longing for Nerissa, childhood memories. He had really seen the ghost.