“Sorry,” I said. “Do you live round here?”
“I do now,” he said without explaining where he’d been before. “I have a flat in Wesley Square.”
I knew Wesley Square. The houses were newly built and it had a nice little communal garden.
“Do the trains keep you awake at night?” The railway ran along the back of the square.
“Everything keeps me awake at night.” He did look thoroughly exhausted. Crescent-shaped dark smudges fanned out under his eyes yet, I noticed with a jolt, just as I had when he’d first interrogated me, they were beautiful eyes, soft and expressive.
“Is your washing machine broken?” I asked him.
“I don’t have one. There isn’t room.”
“Well, why don’t you drop it off here and let them do it and pick it up later?”
He pointed to a sign saying BACK IN TWO HOURS. “Just as I told you. The bloody woman’s never here. I can’t come back in two hours.”
I’d have liked to have stayed and help him but I didn’t have time. “Look,” I said, “give me the stuff you haven’t sorted and I’ll take it home and do it for you. You know where I live. You can pick it up from me later.”
“Don’t be daft,” he said. “You’re a writer, not a washerwoman.”
“Why can’t I be both? Multitasker, that’s me. I promise I won’t make a habit out of it but it looks as if you could use some help. I’ve got to meet someone now but I’ll pick up what’s in these machines on my way back and do the rest at home.”
He looked so grateful I felt an enormous sense of benevolence. It wasn’t pure altruism on my part. I had an ulterior motive for doing him a favor. I needed to get back in his good books in case he had second thoughts about charging me with obstruction.
“My wife always did the washing. I don’t know why I always find it such a nightmare, but I do.”
His wife had been dead five years, according to Mary Mehta. Surely he could have mastered the art of laundry by now. “That would be Sadie?” I said innocently.
“How did you know her name?”
“You were talking to her when I came into your office the other day.”
He looked very embarrassed. “I suppose you think I’m going soft in the head.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I do it myself sometimes. It’s comforting, especially when they’re no longer around. I was sorry to hear about that,” I added, hoping I wasn’t overstepping the mark.
“Do you really? Have you lost someone too? Who do you talk to?”
Telling him how I swore out loud at my mother when she was safely in France and couldn’t hear me wouldn’t quite hit the right note so I mumbled something about a childhood dog and said I needed to be off.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked as we walked out of the launderette. “You’ve got enough on your plate what with all those people you’ve got staying with you.”
“Oh, it’s no problem. Call me on your way home,” I said and left him at his car. About five minutes later, as I was wandering up the market, his words sank in. How did he know I had people staying with me? He was watching the house. He had to be. And if he was watching the house, he must have seen Buzz turn up on my doorstep the night before.
I stopped to say hello to Chris at his stall and thank him for the vegetables he had brought around. I didn’t tell him I hadn’t eaten any of them myself.
“You shouldn’t have, Chris. It was an incredibly sweet thing to do.”
A distinctly uncharacteristic flush appeared on his face and he scratched the back of his head, embarrassed.
“It was no biggie, honest. I could deliver veg to you whenever you wanted. Be a pleasure.”
“No, no, I enjoy popping over to the market. I need the exercise.”
“Nah, you don’t. Best body in the market, yours is.”
This was such a ludicrous stretch from the truth, I didn’t really know what to say but it seemed Chris’s cocky self had made a comeback.
“Seriously, I like coming here.”
“Well, maybe I’ll pop round anyhow, take a nice cuppa tea or coffee off you on my delivery rounds.”
I smiled vaguely. The last thing I wanted was Chris knocking on the door when I was in the midst of trying to do some work. It was going to be hard enough as it was what with Tommy, my mother, and Angel taking up residence in the house.
“I hear you were one of the witnesses who saw someone in my alleyway on New Year’s Eve.”
“How’d you know that?”
“The detective who’s investigating the case told me.”
“You friendly with him?” He looked a little wary.
“Well, obviously I’m talking to him. I’m trying to find out what happened, Chris.”
He nodded. “They say it’s murder? That the fire was started deliberately?”
“They do. What made you notice the man you saw in the alley? Was he acting suspiciously?”
“Oh yes, he had a problem walking. You know, gammy leg.” Chris came around his stall and began to walk jerkily down the road in the kind of dot-and-carry fashion people adopt when they favor one leg more than the other.
“That means he had a problem with his leg. It doesn’t necessarily mean he was acting suspiciously. Did you tell Inspector Austin about it?” I wondered why Max hadn’t mentioned it.
“I thought I had. But he was good-looking, this bloke. I confess I was on the lookout for geysers coming in and out of your house because of that man I saw leaving before Christmas.”
“You spying on me, Chris?” I laughed, trying to make light of it.
“What if I am?” He grinned at me. “I’ve had my eye on you ever since we was nippers.”
Had he always been this cheeky? Probably. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he thought seeing Buzz coming out of my house gave him the right to be more familiar with me, as if some kind of barrier had been crossed. Now he had an insight into my private life. I was wondering how to tactfully discourage this when someone touched my arm.
Selma was wearing dark glasses. I kissed her on the cheek in a nervous reflex action. I wasn’t sure we were on kissing terms yet. The way she flinched was not a good sign.
“This is Chris,” I introduced him. “Chris, this is Selma Walker.”
“Oh, I know,” he said. “Fraternity, right? My cousin’s a big fan.” He reached across his stall with a paper bag. “Maybe you could sign this for her.”
Selma looked at him blankly as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said.
“Selma?” I took the bag and held it out to her. “Would you mind signing this for Chris’s cousin?”
“Chris’s cousin?” she repeated.
“Her name’s Monica,” said Chris.
Selma took out a pen. “What’s her name?” she asked Chris.
She looked at me. “Monica,” I said, enunciating every syllable. It seemed rude but there was something wrong with Selma’s hearing in her left ear. I was standing to her right and she could hear me but she couldn’t hear Chris across the stall to her left. She scribbled her name on the bag and dropped it on the stall. She was incredibly jittery.
“Finish your shopping, I’ll go on to the café. See you there.”
As she walked away, Chris suddenly slapped his forehead. “That’s it. That guy I saw coming out of your house before Christmas, it’s him, innit? It was her fella. I make deliveries to her and that housekeeper always takes them in but when she’s not around, he comes to the door. I hardly ever see her, Selma Walker. Who’d have thought?” He jerked his head in the direction Selma had departed. “She’s in a bad way. You see too many of them.”
“Too many of them what?”
“She’s been beaten up.”
“How can you tell?” I was astonished. I hadn’t seen any bruises on her.
“Well, the dark glasses at this time of the morning is always a bit dodgy. The sun’s not shining, is it? Could be a hangover but I’ll bet you a bunch of parsley when she takes them glasses off, you�
��ll see a great big shiner. It’s the deafness that’s the big giveaway.”
I was bewildered.
“Someone’s given her a big walloping on the side of her head, bashed her ear up, poor girl. Most likely it’s singing away inside her head and she can’t hear nothing at all.”
“You know,” I said, more to see what his reaction would be than anything else, “that man you saw at her house, he’s her husband, and they say Astrid McKenzie used to be his girlfriend.”
“Blimey!” said Chris.
“But you didn’t see him at my house on New Year’s Eve?”
Chris stared at me for quite a long time. “Nah,” he said finally, “can’t say I did.”
I paid him quickly and raced around the corner. Selma was sitting at the back of the café nursing a hot chocolate. She still had her dark glasses on.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I caught the last flight down from Manchester last night. Now what will you have? Have a nice big breakfast, go on, eggs and bacon, lots of toast, how about a croissant? And here’s another tape.” She fished it out of her pocket and handed it to me. I was thrown. She was really churning them out and I hadn’t even begun the book. When did she find the time?
“Coffee,” I told the girl. “Thanks. I listened to the other tapes. I was shocked beyond belief.”
“And you didn’t know what to say to me, right?” She patted my hand. “It’s okay. It hits everyone like that, not that I talk to many people about it. My makeup artist knows, obviously. She has to cover up the damage for the camera although he’s pretty careful not to mark my face too much. I told you I was embarrassed by the story I would have to tell you, and now you know why. Domestic violence. It’s no longer a taboo subject to the world at large, you read about it in the press but when it’s on your own doorstep, it’s a different story.”
“It’s just totally outside my experience,” I stumbled.
“Of course it is, you and just about everyone else—at least up front.”
As I babbled away she lifted her glasses away from her face for a fraction of a second. But it was enough; Chris was right. There was a livid gray and yellow circle around her left eye. I couldn’t see the pupil, the swelling was so severe.
“You got the second tape?” she asked me anxiously.
I nodded. I couldn’t tell her about Buzz’s visit and the narrow escape I’d had picking up the package before he saw it.
“Now you understand why Buzz didn’t want me to do a book. I had no idea he was eavesdropping when I talked to your agent that night in the Ivy and when she told me he’d called and had you over for an interview, I thought that would be it. He’d taken control as usual and would nurse the project along for a little while for appearances’ sake and then find a way to kill it. That’s why I had to meet with you personally, to see if you were someone I could trust, someone who would maybe help me make sure this book sees the light of day.”
“Thank God Genevieve’s got some interest in it,” I said. “He really doesn’t have a case for persuading you to drop it. Too many people know about the book now.”
When I heard her next words I went totally cold. “He’ll probably try to make a friend of you now,” she said. “He’ll want to know what I’m putting in the book.”
Of course what she didn’t know was that it had already happened. I had been nothing but foolish putty in his hands. He had seduced me. I had been in thrall to him and maybe if he had had more time to work on me, who knows what I would have told him. But surely, I told myself, surely the minute I heard what he had been doing to Selma I would have clammed up.
“If he asks you what’s on the tapes,” said Selma, gripping my wrist, “say I’ve started at the beginning with my childhood. That’s what I’ve told him. He keeps asking to hear the tapes and when I won’t let him, he hits me. He knows just when to catch me off guard so he can slam his palm into the side of my head before I run away. Once he fractured my cheekbone. All these”—she bared her teeth at me in a grisly smile—“replaced in the last two years. Lord knows what my dentist must think.”
“I’ve only just met you,” I said tentatively. “I don’t have the right to tell you what to do. But surely your friends must try to get you to leave him?”
“I don’t really have any friends over here.” I was devastated by how pathetic she seemed all of a sudden. “I hooked up with him and then we only saw people he knew. I have friends back home but I’m too ashamed to tell them anything. I want them to think everything’s going great over here. I mean, in a way it is. Over here I’m a star whereas over there I was just a daytime soap opera actress. I know it’s all because of the character, because of Sally McEwan, it’s her the fans care about but it still means I can go back to America and tell them I’m a hit.”
“Ashamed?” What she was saying was incomprehensible to me. “Why would you be ashamed? He’s the one who should be disgusted with himself. Hitting you over such a small thing.”
“It’s always a small thing that triggers him. Something you or I might see as small anyway but somehow it’s a huge offense to him. Lee, I called you because I’m getting scared.”
“You’re getting scared,” I said. “Your husband deafens you and virtually blinds you in one eye and you’re getting scared.” I tried not to sound too sarcastic but it was hard.
“I don’t expect you to understand right away,” she said, “but you’re going to have to once you get into doing the book. What you have to accept is that I love Buzz. We go through cycles. Something takes hold of him and he takes it out on me but once he’s hit me he’s always full of remorse. And that’s the best time. He’s so sweet to me then, it’s heavenly.”
“Are you trying to tell me that in order to receive love and affection from your husband you have to let him beat you up first? That’s the sickest thing I’ve ever heard.”
She looked at me with such sadness, I immediately felt awful. I couldn’t think of anything else to do but reach out across the table and take her hand in mine.
“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate this. Of course it sounds totally insane to you. It is totally insane. I never know what it is that will trigger an attack of violence in him. When I came home after Christmas he knocked me down the minute I walked through the front door. Why’d you have to go away and leave me? That’s what he yelled at me but we’d discussed it before I left and he’d said he was fine with my going back to the States for Christmas. He left me lying in the hall and went and made himself a cup of coffee. He called out to me, did I want one? And when I staggered into the kitchen to get it, he knocked me down again.”
“Didn’t you scream for help? Wasn’t anybody there? What about the woman who was staying there? Had she gone? Wasn’t Bianca there?”
“What woman?” She frowned.
“I ran into Bianca on the street and she said there was a young lady staying there. She said she’d made a mess and she had to clean the house before you got back.”
“Well, she must have cleaned it very well because there’s no trace of her now.”
“But don’t you know who it was?”
“Lee, I don’t want to know.” She put her sunglasses back on and turned away from me. “Don’t you see, that’s why I have to write this book. I love him so much I let him get away with anything. I can’t bring myself to leave him but when this book is published, everyone will know and he won’t be able to get away with it anymore.”
I wasn’t listening to her. I was struggling to digest what she’d just implied. Buzz had had a woman there while she’d been away. He’d been cheating on her and it seemed she accepted it.
But I didn’t.
How could I have been such an idiot? How could I have let myself be seduced by a sadistic, two-timing married man?
“It’s just this time there hasn’t been the sweetness afterwards. He’s been beating me every day since I got back. He’s really mad for some reason. Do you know what he does? He gets me down on the ground
and he kicks me. He’s the striker and I’m the football. When they had me go watch Chelsea play for a publicity stunt, I almost screamed every time someone kicked the ball. It’s his favorite thing, get me down on the kitchen floor and kick me—where it won’t show.”
“What about Bianca? Surely she must know. Doesn’t she do anything?”
“Of course she knows but what can she do?”
“Call the police.”
“What can they do? Nothing, unless I press charges, which I will never do. I don’t want to involve Bianca any more than I have to.”
“I saw how devoted she was to you,” I said. No wonder Bianca always looked so grim.
“Oh, she is. She never says a word but from the moment she first saw me hobble into the kitchen black and blue, she began to make an extra fuss of me. It’s embarrassing, sometimes, the way she worships me but it’s a real comfort knowing she’ll be there every day.”
“Why don’t you ask her to live in?”
“She won’t. She has a relative—a sister, I think—who is very sick in some way. She lives with Bianca and Bianca takes care of her. Her need is greater than mine.”
How do you know? I wondered. “How did you find her?”
“Buzz found her actually. He was in the newsagents one day and she’d just put up one of those postcards advertising her cleaning services. She asked him if he needed anyone and it coincided with our cleaner leaving. He hired her without even consulting me.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh Lord, I have to catch my flight back to Manchester. I missed it last night. I’m sorry we had to do this so early but I wanted to give you this tape in person before I left. Could I ask you for a favor? Could I call my driver and reroute him to pick me up from your house? I just don’t want to go back home with Buzz in the mood he’s in.”
“Of course,” I told her.
But the minute we stepped through my front door I regretted it.
My mother was coming down the stairs as we came into the hall. She didn’t see Selma behind me.
“Lee, the house is a disgrace!” I could tell instantly that she was in a state. Her squeaky voice always rose even higher in an attempt to command attention. It was comical and my father had always laughed at her when she was in full flow, which only succeeded in making her even more furious. When I was a child he would wink at me, encouraging me to join him in seeing the funny side of it, but as I grew older I began to understand how it infuriated her, that she couldn’t help her silly voice, and I desisted. I wondered if he still tormented her like this and how enraged she must have become during their marital breakdown.
How to Seduce a Ghost Page 21
