Going Wrong

by Ruth Rendell

  A light mist lay over the little garden. The sun’s rays had already begun to pierce it. All summer long the lilies had bloomed on his pond, they were still in bloom now in the autumn. He had a ridiculous absurd desire, immediately suppressed, to go out there and stroke the bronze dolphin’s head. But he opened the French windows and felt the mild breath of the morning.

  His head ached, but normally. Most mornings his head ached. It didn’t amount to the monumental, hammer-ringing, bone-splitting wrenching-apart of brain fibres he called a hangover. Housework wasn’t something he ever did, not even washing a cup, but he knelt down now and began picking up the torn pieces of paper from the floor and carrying them to the kitchen. The kettle boiled, its light went out. He made tea, a tea-bag in each mug, then decided against waking Celeste.

  Silently, so as not to disturb her, he put his clothes on—jeans, a black T-shirt, the most sombre pullover he had, a plain navy thing with a polo neck. It came to him that he dressed like that because this most resembled the garb of an executioner. He put Leonora’s scarf round his neck, took it off again and pushed it into a drawer. In the mirror he saw himself as Anthony and Susannah would see him, approaching them along the beach. He imagined the jacket, the heavy pocket, and he mimed reaching into it for his gun. And then he said to himself, “You’re playing games, stop playing games, you know you’re not going to Lyme, you’re not going anywhere and you’re not going to kill anybody.”

  Last night he had been. Hot with angry pain, he had cared for nothing but his revenge, nothing else mattered. There was no future. A night’s sleep had changed that, Celeste had changed it. He would have gone, he thought, if she hadn’t been there. He would have gone last night. And Anthony and Susannah would be dead by now and he arrested or else dead by his own hand.

  I don’t want to die, he thought, I don’t want to be imprisoned. I want to be free. He was free. By what Leonora had done she had freed him. There would be no more enslavement to the phone, no more Saturday lunches that brought as much suffering as pleasure. The idea was so novel that he sat down to think about it, sat down outside in the pale sunshine on one of the white chairs.

  He wouldn’t stop loving her, he couldn’t. He would always love her. In a cool, sane, very grown-up way he knew he would be in love with her all his life. That was the way it was. It sounded melodramatic, but it was true that he’d met his fate that day in the street when he was there with Danilo and Linus and she had come along, a little girl, and stood there watching them.

  But she was gone now, she was lost to him. He had thrown the ring he bought her into the Thames. She had married someone else, and if they ever met again it would be in the company of others and with all of them there: Tessa and Magnus, Anthony and Susannah, Robin and Maeve, Rachel Lingard and Uncle Michael, maybe Janice and her husband. And he would be there with Celeste.

  Why not Celeste? She had saved him last night. She always saved him. It was true what she had said about the way they were together. They were good together, they had everything in common, they could talk to each other, they could be silent together, there was between them no shame or pretence. She loved him the way no one had ever, all his life long, loved him, and he was fond of her. Even he, tough as he was. street-wise baby grown up, one-time dealer in Class-A drugs, gangster, entrepreneur, and sharp businessman, even he needed to be loved.

  Why don’t we try? he thought. Why don’t I try to make a go of it? What can we lose? He felt an extraordinary hollow lightness at the thought of no more phone calls, no more fantasies, no more sick longings. If he had exacted his revenge he would have lost everything …

  “Oh, Leonora,” he said aloud as he went back into the house. It had been such a long haul, so long for someone of his years, only twenty-nine years old but for fourteen of them in thrall to love. “Oh, Leonora.”

  Passing into the hall, he had a look at the Kandinski. He had never liked it. No matter what people like Tessa Mandeville said, it was hideous. Having it there was all pretence. He would sell it. He took the Colt out of his jacket pocket, sat down on one of the Georges Jacob chairs, and emptied it of its ammunition.

  From upstairs Celeste was calling to him.

  “I’ll bring you your tea,” he said.

  If it were Leonora lying up there, in his bed, his wonderful Chinese William Linnell bed, waking to put up her arms to him … The time for these fantasies was past. He carried the mug of tea upstairs. She said, “Sweet Guy, thank you. Did you sleep well? Do you feel better? Ah, yes, I can see you feel good this morning.”

  He sat on the bed beside her. He held her hand as he might hold the hand of a sick person in a hospital bed. Celeste wasn’t ill, she was young and healthy, glowing with health and vitality. Her dark hair shone like a tiger’s-eye jewel. He thought he would buy her a necklace of tiger’s eye. I will try to love her, he thought, oh, I will try. If willing it will do it, I will do it.

  The doorbell rang.

  He couldn’t help remembering how once, when that had happened, he had been sure it was Leonora. It couldn’t be Leonora now. It couldn’t be any of her family either. He let go of Celeste’s hand, said to Celeste, “We’ll do something nice later. We’ll drive out to the country. We’ll have a nice day.”

  The bell rang again when he was half-way downstairs. Someone was very insistent. He opened the door and saw two men standing there, the older one, a white man in a suit, looking like an accountant. The black man, who was about his own age, wore jeans like his own and a polo-necked sweater also like his own. He looked like an executioner, and there was also something familiar in his face. The man in the suit said, “Mr. Curran? Mr. Guy Curran?”

  Guy nodded.

  “I’m a policeman, we’re policemen. I expect you’d like to see our warrant cards, save you asking. I’m Detective Inspector Shaw of the Serious Crime Squad, and this is Sergeant Pinedo. May we come in, please?”

  It was Linus. He must know Guy, recognize him as his old street companion, but he gave no sign of it, and Guy said nothing, only looked at him. So that was what had happened to Linus, he wasn’t a down-and-out or a drug bandit executed for smuggling, but a policeman. The dark face, fuller now, less handsome, seemed rigid, fanatical. They said a knife edge separated the policeman from the criminal, while the affinity between them was strong. Linus had chosen to hunt rather than be hunted.

  Guy backed a little to let the two men in, and the light from the open door fell on his Colt, which still lay on the little table. Shaw said, “Do you have a firearms certificate for this weapon, Mr. Curran?”

  “Yes, of course.” But he hadn’t and they would ask to see it. “For a rifle, yes,” he said. “For a twenty-two.”

  “This isn’t a rifle,” said Shaw.

  He didn’t touch the gun. He walked down the hall and into the living-room, Linus following him. Linus still walked with that pimp roll, hips stiff, thighs together, shoulders on the move. The thin man in the grey suit sat down on the sofa in Guy’s living-room, having looked neither to the right nor the left, having ignored the Kandinski.

  “What is it you want?”

  “We’re making inquiries into the death of Mrs. Llewellyn-Gerrard.”

  “I don’t know any Mrs. Llewellyn-Gerrard.”

  Guy felt enormous relief. This must be some neighbour. They were inquiring at every house in the mews. It was one of those cases of a woman found stabbed in a bedroom or dead of an overdose. It happened all the time. Shaw was looking narrowly at him.

  “Mrs. Janice Llewellyn-Gerrard,” said Linus. “Of Portland Road, West Eleven.”

  “Janice,” Guy said, all wonder. “Yes. Yes, I suppose I do know her. If it’s who I think it is. But Portland Road? I know some other people in Portland Road.”

  He sounded confused and breathless, he could hear it in his voice. Shaw was looking at him. Linus was looking at him. “She’s dead?” he said, trying to make things better. “What did she die of?”

  “She was murdered.” Linus’s go
ld tooth gleamed.

  He was all innocence. He didn’t understand, he said, “How was she murdered?”

  “It went wrong,” Shaw said. “The man was seen. He’s in custody.” Guy thought he sounded proud of himself. “He’s been in custody since an hour after it happened at eight last evening.”

  “You mean she was mugged?”

  “No, I don’t mean that. He rang the doorbell, but the entry-phone didn’t work, something like that, so she went down. He shot her at point-blank range, through the chest and the head. She died immediately, she can hardly have known what happened to her. But her husband had come down behind her and seen it all. He was able to make an identification.”

  “We’d like you to come with us, Mr. Curran,” said Linus. He had lost the accent, Celeste’s Caribbean. He talked like any policeman on his way to the top. The first black Commissioner, thought Guy. “Down to the station. We’ll do better down there.”

  “Me?” said Guy. “Why me? You’ve got someone for this, you said so. You said you’d got him in custody.”

  “Charlie Ruck, yes. Would you like to see this card we found on Charlie Ruck? It’s got your name and address on it.”

  Guy read the card, though he didn’t need to. He had recognized it. He had given it to Danilo in the Black Spot when arranging for the “wasting” of Rachel Lingard: “Short, round-faced, fat, glasses, dark hair scraped back, about 27 …”

  “I can explain this,” he began, and then he understood that he couldn’t.

  He had forgotten, but now he remembered, that one of them had mentioned how Janice and her husband would be staying in Portland Road. Perhaps it was Leonora who had mentioned it. Always he could remember when Leonora told him something, but he couldn’t now and knowing this, he felt a bitter pang.

  The two policemen were watching him.

  “Come ‘long then, Curran,” Shaw said. The “Mr.” had been dropped. That was the beginning.

  He called out bravely to Celeste, “See you later.”

  “I doubt it,” said Linus.

  They went out into the mews. One of Guy’s neighbours gave them an indifferent glance. Guy got into the car and they took him away.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1990 by Ruth Rendell

  cover design by Jaya Miceli

  ISBN: 978-1-4532-1107-6

  This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media

  180 Varick Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com