Tree of Hands

by Ruth Rendell

  13

  THE PHOTOGRAPHS IN the estate agents’ windows were of all kinds of houses, from listed Grade One Georgian to 1980s studio open-plan. Terence looked at the pictures and the specifications underneath them, noting prices. He hadn’t known quite how costly houses in Hampstead were and his investigation was starting to make him feel slightly, though not disagreeably, sick.

  One more agent in Heath Street remained to be examined. Terence made his way down as far as the corner of Church Row and stood with his face close up to the glass. He didn’t intend to go in. It was better to do these things by phone. It had been an educational morning, but as he walked back up the winding hill, he wondered if he hadn’t undertaken these researches less because they were necessary than to put off still further the first fateful step.

  Nearly a week had passed since he had found the deeds for 5 Spring Close. Since then he had thought of very little else but his plan, and short of Freda coming home suddenly or some agent or soliticor personally knowing John Phipps (or knowing he was dead) or the neighbours getting wise (how could they?), he didn’t see how it could go wrong. But he was scared stiff. What scared him was that it seemed so simple, a real walkover once things got moving, that it couldn’t happen, there must be a flaw somewhere. It couldn’t be that easy to get hold of – what? A hundred thousand pounds? A hundred and fifty?

  Both Jessica and Freda were regular users of Valium. Jessica took one every morning to start the day. Terence had removed a hundred in a container when he left.

  ‘It’s cheaper than drink,’ frugal Freda used to say. She had left him nearly two hundred. He was amply supplied and they didn’t seem to go off, in spite of what doctors and chemists said. He took two with half a glass of water and on second thoughts added some of Freda’s Chivas Regal. It made him shudder, he had never been much of a drinker.

  The estate agent he had chosen answered the phone promptly. He was put on to a Mr Sawyer. Mr Sawyer’s accent was very much like his own, north London born and schooled, overlaid (when the speaker remembered) with some mimicry of television announcers’ diction. Terence had rehearsed his opening line over and over. He had found himself muttering it in his sleep. Now he uttered it aloud into the phone:

  ‘I should like to put my house on the market.’

  The sum Sawyer named as the asking price was a hundred and forty thousand pounds or, in estate agent’s parlance, a hundred and thirty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five.

  ‘When would it be convenient to come and measure up, Mr Phipps?’

  ‘Measure up?’

  ‘We like to take measurements of the rooms for our specifications. And perhaps a photograph. Of course I’m familiar with the property. A very nice property indeed.’

  ‘How about this afternoon?’

  ‘Wonderful. Three? Three-thirty?’

  Three o’clock was fixed. Get it over with, thought Terence. He had never thought much about the neighbours before. When, for instance, he used to bring Freda’s car in at two in the morning, give the accelerator a final flip, get out and bang the door, the neighbours might not have existed for him. He looked out of the middle one of the three narrow windows. A thin worn-looking woman with white hair was planting something, bulbs probably, round the trunk of the catalpa tree which grew in the middle of the courtyard. She looked the nosy kind but there was nothing he could do about her. Suppose she or any of them saw Sawyer taking a photograph? Even if they knew who Sawyer was, they would only think Freda was selling her house. They might not even know she had gone away.

  The only danger would be in someone hearing Sawyer call him Phipps. Terence made up his mind not to let this happen. Now he had taken the first step, he felt less nervous. What had he done, after all? He had committed himself to nothing, he could always withdraw, change his mind. As for being called Phipps, he might easily be a cousin of the late John Howard. A young cousin. John Howard had died at the age of fifty-one, Terence had noted from his death certificate.

  Sawyer turned up on time, in fact two minutes early. Before he could make too much of a song and dance on the doorstep about how lovely and tasteful this little enclave was, Terence got him inside by saying to shut the front door, he thought he had a cold coming.

  ‘The market,’ said Sawyer, on his knees with the tape measure, ‘is, so to speak, moribund.’

  It sounded like a word he had just learned. Terence supposed it meant ‘improving’ or some such thing. The afternoon’s proceedings had an unreal feel to them.

  ‘Townhouses,’ said Sawyer, ‘are by no means easy to sell at this moment in time, but these, of course, are in a class of their own. Describing this as a townhouse at all might give a false impression. Careful handling will be in order. I shall have to put my thinking cap on. May I ask if you’ve found somewhere else?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I mean are you in the process of purchasing a new property?’

  ‘You needn’t worry about that. I’m going abroad. And I want a quick sale. I don’t want to hang about.’

  He asked Sawyer if he’d mind seeing himself out and then he ran upstairs and watched the photograph being taken. As far as he could tell, no one else was watching. Sawyer put his camera away and strolled off under the archway that led into older, cobbled regions of Hampstead.

  Terence didn’t expect any developments for a week or two, but two days later, as he was plucking up courage to go up to Heath Street and see if the photograph was in Steiner & Wildwood’s window and how he felt about that if it was, Sawyer phoned to say a Mr and Mrs Pym would like to see over the house. Would in an hour’s time suit him?

  Freda had done her own housework. She said it gave her something to occupy herself and she didn’t like cleaners in the place. In a way Terence was glad of that. A cleaner would have taken a keen interest in everything he was doing, would have gossiped, might even have written letters to Martinique. But he had also rather taken it for granted that the house was clean and stayed that way by magic. No one had laid a duster on it for nearly a fortnight and it wasn’t looking its best. Still it was too late to worry about that. He took two Valium and was feeling quite serene by the time the Pyms arrived.

  They didn’t stay long. When they found the garden was approximately the same size as the smallest bedroom, they lost interest. But it was a start. Terence got out the vacuum cleaner, found some dusters and cleaned up. He hooked a cobweb off one of the red girders and polished the discus thrower. It was the first time in his life he had attempted house cleaning but he didn’t find it difficult. It would even be a way of making a living if all else failed, he thought.

  The photograph Sawyer had taken wasn’t in Steiner & Wildwood’s window. They must have used it only to stick on the forms with measurements and whatnot that they gave prospective buyers. This comforted him. He would have felt very exposed if that photograph had been there staring at everyone who went past.

  Ever since Freda went away, he had been living a hermit’s existence, so that evening he broke out and went to an old haunt of his, Smithy’s in Maida Vale, where he had sometimes gone with Jessica and where you could drink all night. In Smithy’s he picked up a girl called Teresa and told her his name was John Phipps. She went home with him in a taxi and was deeply impressed by the house. In fact she was overwhelmed and kept on saying he hadn’t seemed that sort of fella. They were still in bed next morning when Sawyer phoned. A Mrs Goldschmidt would like to come and see the house at 2.00 p.m.

  That gave him time to get rid of Teresa. He caught her taking a note of Freda’s phone number from the disc in the middle of the dial, but it didn’t seem important. He swallowed two Valium once she was out of the way and another at one-thirty. Mrs Goldschmidt was late, and by the time the doorbell rang, he had almost given her up. He made himself go slowly to the door, keep her waiting for a change.

  She was an extremely good-looking woman, of the same type as Carol Stratford, but there was as much difference in class and style between her and
Carol as Sawyer had said there was between 5 Spring Close and your average townhouse. She had very short, back-swept blond hair, a pale, gleaming tan and her mouth was like a cross-section of a ripe strawberry. She wore a pale grey suede coat, primrose leather boots and a long primrose scarf. Such as she, Terence thought, were never to be found being assisted out of Daimlers at crematorium steps.

  He had no experience of buying or selling houses but he knew by instinct or telepathy that she would want to buy this one. It wasn’t that she said much as he led her from room to room, she hardly spoke at all, but she took a long time, she was thorough, sometimes she nodded to herself in a satisfied way. It was three-thirty by the time she had finished, the worst time of day to offer anyone a drink and he didn’t feel like making her a cup of tea. Tea-making hardly fitted in with his 5 Spring Close image. In a way it was a pity she so obviously liked the house. It put paid to any ideas he had about using that image to get to know her better.

  She had a monotonous zombie-like voice which Terence found rather attractive. ‘I’d like my husband to see it.’

  ‘Fine. Any time.’

  ‘I’ll fix it through Steiner’s’.

  Terence’s nerves needed calming, in spite of the Valium. He got out the vacuum cleaner and did a bit more to the spaniel-fur carpets so that he wouldn’t have to worry when Goldschmidt came. After that he put in an hour’s practice on John Howard’s signature. His hand was steady, he breathed deeply. He went through the desk again and found two old books of cheque stubs, one with a single unused cheque remaining in it. John Howard had died suddenly of an unforeseen heart attack. Funny to think he couldn’t have had a clue that cheque no. 655399 would never be used or that 655398 (to North Thames Gas for £95.43) would be the last he would ever draw. Six days later he had an appointment at Golders Green . . .

  Such fatalistic musings were not really Terence’s style and he soon dismissed them. Freda’s husband’s bank account had been with Barclay’s in Hampstead High Street which was what he wanted to know. He wanted to know which branch of which bank to avoid.

  Goldschmidt himself came along next day and again on the following day. He was fat and dark and bald with thick-lensed, thick-rimmed glasses. His wife was in a black leather suit with a kind of scarf thing made of mink wound round her.

  ‘It’s my dream house,’ she said in the voice of one coming out of a coma.

  ‘Would you be open to an offer?’

  Terence said what Sawyer had instructed him to say. ‘You’ll have to do anything like that through Steiner & Wildwood.’

  Within the hour Sawyer was on the phone. Terence found himself nearly voiceless, a common enough symptom of nerves with him.

  ‘Still got that cold of yours, Mr Phipps?’

  Terence croaked out some sort of assent.

  ‘Mr Goldschmidt would like to make you an offer of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds.’

  That would have been acceptable. He wouldn’t have argued. It was Sawyer who suggested haggling. Twenty-four hours went by during which Terence was afraid to go out in case Sawyer phoned. Besides he felt continually nauseous and he had an idea that the cold – it had turned bitterly cold – would attack him and make him actually throw up. He was in Freda’s en suite bath when the phone went and he jumped out and rushed for it, not even waiting to grab a towel. The receiver slithered in his wet hand.

  ‘That seems to be a compromise satisfactory to both parties, don’t you think, Mr Phipps?’

  Terence nodded. Realizing Sawyer couldn’t see him, he translated the nod into a staccato fusillade of ‘Yes. Sure. Fine. Right. Yes.’

  It looked as if he had sold, or was well on the way to selling, Freda Phipps’s house for one hundred and thirty-two thousand, nine hundred and fifty pounds.

  14

  IT WAS RAIN falling, though it was cold enough for snow. An icy wind blowing down the side street caught you at the corners. Barry, doing the Saturday shopping, saw Maureen coming down the steps of the public library with a thin flat book under her arm. Maureen had black wellies on and her long mud-coloured mac. She stopped on the steps to put up a big black umbrella that was probably Ivan’s.

  He had wanted to catch her alone. He followed her into the International. She had laid her umbrella and the library book (Advanced DIY for the Home Expert) in her shopping trolley. Her face showed no more reaction at the sight of Barry than it did when confronted by a pyramid of dog food in cans.

  ‘I heard about you helping the police with their inquiries,’ she said, and in the same tone, ‘Pass me one of them packets of Flash. I can’t reach.’

  ‘Have you got time for a coffee, Maureen, or a drink?’

  She scratched the side of her nose. ‘What for?’

  ‘I want to ask you something. I mean I thought if we were sitting down somewhere . . .’

  ‘I’m washing the paint in our lounge. I only came out for a sponge.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Barry.

  They walked side by side towards the check-out. Like a couple with prams going to the baby clinic, thought Barry. He remembered what Carol had said about Maureen not being human. In a way that made it easier to talk to her of things that were only too human. He brought it out quickly.

  ‘Maureen, do you know who Jason’s father is?’

  ‘Is what?’

  He said it again, he explained, and had to stop because the check-out girl could hear. Maureen trudged along the pavement reading the print on the Flash packet. She let him hold the umbrella over both of them. He tried again.

  ‘It made me think, you see. I mean she might still be fond of Jason’s father. She might have a sort of special feeling for him on account of that.’

  Maureen didn’t lift her eyes from the green print. ‘There was a lot of fellas. There was a fella that drove about in a beach buggy and that garage fella three or four doors down from me and there was a black bloke. Me and Ivan were disgusted. There was a fella called something Wand, Terry Wand. Mum used to know his mum down Brownswood Common.’ She looked at Barry for the first time since they had left the shop. Talking about herself aroused a small spark of interest in her. ‘I’ve never been with any fella except Ivan,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t. I don’t see what people want to for. It just goes to show the difference between sisters. Can I have that bag you’ve got your butter in? If this stuff gets wet, it’ll be a right old mess.’

  He left her at the bridge. It struck him that she was very happy. She had got what she wanted. She and Ivan hardly ever spoke to each other. All the time he wasn’t at work or she wasn’t doing things to the house they sat in front of the TV holding hands. They would never have children, split up, move, go away on holiday, make a friend, feel jealousy, suffer. One day they’d wake up and find they were sixty and things were just the same. He could almost envy them.

  Terence Wand’s name had been the only one Maureen could remember. It sounded from what she said as if he and Carol had been friends since childhood. The other men – well, Maureen hadn’t any proof, she and Ivan had just been guessing. No doubt they had been after Carol. Men would always be after Carol. Terence Wand was different – somehow Barry intuited he was Jason’s father. Being a father gave you a sort of dignity, a sort of weight. It made you memorable. It was Jason’s father’s name that Maureen had remembered.

  Carol had started working Saturdays. All across the lunchtime and throughout the evening. She had never done that before, but as soon as she went back, Kostas had asked her if she would work Saturdays and she had agreed. The house smelt of the perfume she had taken to wearing, a musky French cologne Barry knew – because he had priced it in the chemist’s – cost twelve pounds a bottle. It was her money, she worked for it, she had a right to spend it as she liked. Barry wouldn’t even have thought about it if only he could have been sure it was Carol herself who had bought that perfume.

  Unpacking the shopping, putting things in the fridge, he began to think along lines he often did when he was alone
in the house. He would fancy then that Jason was still there, that the events of the past weeks had never happened, and that he would turn round and see him standing in the doorway. The little boy’s face he could easily conjure up, he had no difficulty in remembering what he looked like. Jason had an unusual face, not babyish at all, not in the least like Carol’s. It was a funny thing, an ironical thing, that Carol who had a baby face at twenty-eight had produced a boy who at two had, if not a grown-up’s face, at least a mature one for his age.

  That meant he must look like his father. He bore no resemblance to any Knapwell Barry knew, nor was he like his half-brother and sister. Barry was suddenly absolutely sure he would recognize Jason’s father if he saw him, just from having known Jason. This wouldn’t be a case for blood tests but something you could see at a glance. Barry imagined a tall biggish man, fair haired and sharp featured with white skin that got sunburned red, and eyes darker than Carol’s and with more green in them.

  He wandered into the living room, wondering what he was going to do with himself for the rest of the day. He could go down to Kostas’s himself for the evening of course. An evening spent with Dennis Gordon who had two topics of conversation, money and his own aggressive exploits, wasn’t an attractive prospect. Dennis Gordon treated Barry as if he really believed he was Carol’s lodger or a boy she let stay with her in exchange for doing odd jobs. He was crazy about Carol, you could see that, but he wasn’t jealous of Barry. He didn’t take him seriously enough for that, Barry thought.

  A police car had stopped outside. The Spicers were coming in with two bags of washing from the laundrette just as Leatham got out of the car. Barry closed his eyes momentarily. He realized he need not have wondered about how he was going to pass the rest of the day.