The steps were perfectly audible now. They reached the turn after the first flight and continued upwards to the first floor. They didn’t after all enter Hector’s office. They continued up the next flight.
He was coming up to the bedroom.
She had to overcome the paralysis she felt in her limbs. She couldn’t be found delving into Antonia’s wardrobe. She twisted her head to right and left, looking for somewhere to hide. Common sense told her she’d make a noise disturbing the hangers if she tried climbing in with the clothes. Better, surely, to accept that she’d be found in the room and think up some plausible reason for being there. But she didn’t want to be caught standing on a stool with her arms in the wardrobe. She gripped the front of the shelf with both hands and made a stronger effort to use her legs. She staggered off the stool.
The footsteps reached the top stair and crossed the landing at the moment she pulled the stool away and closed the wardrobe. She backed against the wall, mentally rehearsing. ‘Hello, Hector. I thought I heard you coming up. I happened to be passing so I brought a few groceries in and then I heard this noise upstairs so I came up to investigate. I’d quite forgotten about the cat being in the house. Am I very brave or very silly? Can I get you a cup of tea or anything?’
She heard him enter the bedroom and cross the room. He appeared to go towards one of the beds because there was a chink as if he’d picked up a piece of china or something on the bedside table and put it back. There followed the softer sound of the sheet on the bed being drawn back. Why was he touching the bedclothes? Surely he wasn’t going to bed! Perhaps he had come home feeling ill. In that case, she’d have to wait for him to fall asleep. There was no way out except through the bedroom.
He didn’t climb into the bed. He moved around the side of it and approached the open door of the dressing room.
Rose waited, flat to the wall, biting her underlip. He’d need to come right in to see her.
She saw the reflection first. It appeared in one of the side mirrors of the dressing table. And it wasn’t Hector she saw.
21
It was Vic, Antonia’s lover. Immediately after Rose glimpsed him he turned away without appearing to notice her reflection, deciding, it seemed, that he had no reason to enter the dressing room. She didn’t argue with that. She didn’t move or breathe.
He prowled about the bedroom for a few seconds more. Then she heard him move out and start downstairs as if he was in no sort of hurry.
Her thoughts darted ahead of him. She’d hung her hat and coat on the hook behind the kitchen door. He would know for certain she was somewhere in the house if he looked in there. Never mind the coat; her handbag was on the kitchen table with some of the shopping.
She counted the flights of stairs, waiting for that loose board to shift under his weight and tell her that he was within a few steps of the ground floor. Half a lifetime seemed to pass before the rasp of wood travelled up to her.
She crept out to the corridor to listen over the stairwell. A door was opened down there. She clenched her right hand and put it to her mouth, for he had started talking to someone. The resonance of the voice reached her, but not the words. She strained to listen, and by degrees she decided that it was only one voice. He must have gone into the front drawing room and picked up the telephone, because when the talking stopped she heard the ping of the receiver being replaced.
She backed away from the banisters. She couldn’t stand this much longer. If he came upstairs again she was certain she would scream.
Then she heard the front door being opened and shut.
When she was absolutely certain she was listening to the clatter of his steps in the street she ran back into the dressing room and moved as close to the window as she dared. The figure fast disappearing around the curve of the Crescent was unmistakably Vic.
Rose shook. She’d come all through the war without giving way to nerves. She’d always said in the air raids that it was up to each individual to control herself and stay calm. What a sanctimonious prig she’d been! She’d once watched a woman – a WAAF – run screaming from a shelter before the all-clear. Others had immediately started to cry hysterically. Pandemonium had broken out. The incident had infuriated Rose. She had felt that the woman deserved to be charged with cowardice or indiscipline or whatever King’s Regulations called it. Now she herself knew what fear felt like. The urge to quit the house was overwhelming.
She should have taken a grip on herself and resumed the search she’d started. Instead she went downstairs and collected her things and left.
She walked fast down Portland Place towards Oxford Circus, wanting to shake off the physical and mental tensions. Keep moving, she told herself, and try to make sense of what happened. What was Vic doing there? He must have been in possession of a key to let himself in. His own key? Fat chance! The lover with a latchkey was an arrangement as likely to appeal to Antonia as darning socks.
No, Rose thought, Vic had been given the key for a different purpose – to check what had happened in the house in Antonia’s absence. He had been sent to see if Hector’s corpse was lying there. And he had phoned Antonia to report that it was not.
How foolhardy, how idiotic – to turn to Vic for help and put everything at risk!
Don’t get angry, she told herself. Stay in control. How will Antonia react? She might convince herself that the poison was slow to take effect. She might think it was diluted in the curry and that a second helping will do the trick. She might even guess correctly that he didn’t have any at all. After all the trouble she’s taken over this plan she’ll surely give it another night to work.
Rose carried on past Broadcasting House and All Souls into Upper Regent Street. Her step was still rapid, yet with more purpose in it than panic. She needed no proof of poisoning now, no more convincing that Hector’s life was in her hands. It was almost noon and she had plenty to do.
She made her way across Oxford Circus to the top end of Regent Street. To Liberty’s, to buy a nightdress. Thank God for that insurance money!
At the lingerie counter she asked to see the range. She was in luck. Some nightie and negligée sets in Swiss lawn had just come in. White, black and peach. The white looked marvellous against her skin. She pictured herself in the negligée, at home with Hector, in front of the bedroom fire, sipping champagne from the crystal glasses her glad-eyed Uncle Ben had given her as a wedding present. They’d never been used because Barry said champagne was for launching ocean liners. She would definitely find a shop that sold the stuff. And scent. The funds could run to something more alluring than the eau de Cologne she’d used for years.
‘Will madam be taking the white?’
Madam took the white. And then took a taxi to Selfridges’ to pick up a vintage Pommery. After that to the cosmetics counter for a bottle of Chypre by Coty, some Arden powder, a cherry-coloured lipstick and a bottle of Cutex Cameo nail varnish.
After that it was laughable being driven back to Pimlico to open a tin of Spam for lunch. Rose promised herself that if she handled this evening smartly she wouldn’t be living in her slum of a place much longer. She made a sandwich and some tea and ate standing up, taking drags at a cigarette between bites. Then she applied herself to getting the house into a state fit for a romantic encounter. She whisked round with a duster, throwing things into drawers. Upstairs she changed the sheets and pillowcases and laid the fires. Finally she threw some bath salts in the bath and ran the water. She allowed herself twenty minutes.
22
When she left at half past three she was wearing the dreary green tweed overcoat that she meant to replace at the first opportunity, but under it the snazzy black and white dress she’d made for the Oldfield Gardens party on VE Day. And her new silk undies.
There was a worrying suggestion of fog in the afternoon air. She considered what to do if a real pea-souper came down. Hector might see it as a God-given excuse for her to stay the night in Park Crescent. If so, he was in for a disappointment.
She’d feel like death in that great mausoleum of a bedroom surrounded by Antonia’s things. And she wouldn’t be any happier in a hotel room if he suggested it. That would be ghastly. She couldn’t face it anywhere else but home.
She hailed a taxi in Vauxhall Bridge Road. The driver reckoned that in a couple of hours London would be at a standstill. Rose said she’d known fog to lift in a matter of minutes. He laughed.
‘Lady, I won’t argue with you, but don’t ask me to come and fetch you. You’re my last fare today.’
She didn’t answer. She was thinking ahead. She would persuade Hector to drive her back to Pimlico, whatever the conditions.
She was sure it was no thicker by the time they pulled up outside Antonia’s house. She paid the fare and took the key from her purse. She walked calmly up the steps and let herself in, resolved not to give way to the jitters. She was going to apply herself to the cooking.
She switched on the hall light.
‘There you are, my flower!’
The voice hit her like a snapped violin string. Antonia was standing halfway up the stairs leaning languidly on the banisters as if she had been home all day. She was in a black sweater and slacks, manifestly relishing this moment.
Rose stared, speechless, her brain whirling.
‘I see you left some shopping on the kitchen table, darling. Was that for Hector? I must settle up. I say, you look absolutely shattered. Is anything the matter?’
The words penetrated faintly to Rose’s brain, as if she were buried under rubble. She wasn’t listening anyway. She was thinking about her white nightie from Liberty’s draped across the bed at home. And the champagne waiting in the sideboard.
She made an effort to say something intelligible. ‘When did you get back?’
‘Half an hour ago, no more. A little bird told me it was safe to come back, so I did.’
‘Safe?’
‘Hector.’
‘What about Hector?’
‘Darling, you did brilliantly.’
Her heart thumped. ‘Did what, Antonia?’
‘Rosie, dear, you don’t have to put on an act for me. You know he’s lying dead in the bathroom.’
She felt the blood drain from her face. She would faint any minute. She fought against it, letting her handbag drop and propping herself against the wall. ‘He can’t be. I don’t believe you.’
Antonia was cruelly casual. ‘I suppose something didn’t agree with him. Could it have been your curry by any chance?’
‘He didn’t have any.’
‘What?’
‘I threw it away. We went to Reggiori’s.’
Antonia stared at her for perhaps five seconds. ‘For a quiet one, you’re a fast worker.’
‘Hector insisted on taking me.’ Rose heard her voice thicken with anger. ‘He ate none of that stuff you left in the fridge.’
The green eyes flashed. ‘Why not, for God’s sake? You really thought you had a chance, didn’t you? Who the hell do you think you are, sneaking off to a restaurant with my husband? I gave you instructions. I went to the trouble of writing them down.’
‘I don’t believe he’s dead.’
Antonia made a sound that was something between laughter and scorn. ‘Come up and see, then. We’ve got to move him to the bedroom.’
‘Then you killed him yourself.’
The voice took on a harder note, reinforced by a wagging finger. ‘Watch what you say, darling. We’re in this together. Sisters in crime. Remember? You’d better.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘Try telling that to the police.’
‘You’ve called the police?’
‘Idiot. They’ll be onto us if we don’t do something about the body. It’s got to be carried up to the bedroom to look more natural when the undertaker comes. In case you’ve forgotten, I happen to possess a blank death certificate.’
Rose wetted her lips and tried to summon some inner strength. She didn’t see how it was possible for Hector to be lying dead up there, but she had to find out. She stretched out her hand to the banister rail and started up the stairs. It felt like climbing out of a tar-pit.
‘That’s more like it, chérie.’
Antonia went ahead. She reached the top of the first flight and stepped to the room at the end talking like a ward sister dealing with a student nurse. ‘This is no picnic, I grant you, but it could be worse. We’ll manage easily between us.’
When Rose reached the bathroom, Antonia was already inside, talking. ‘It must have been quick. He couldn’t have suffered much.’
The link in Rose’s mind with hospital was reinforced by a pungent smell she distantly remembered from years ago, when she’d had her tonsils removed. She took a step into the bathroom and looked around the door. There was no corpse in there.
She jerked towards Antonia to protest and several things happened quickly. At the edge of her vision she caught a glimpse of something white flying towards her face. Her neck was seized from behind. She flung up her arm defensively and knocked the white object upwards. It reeked of the smell she’d noticed. She was being chloroformed.
Her neck was clamped in the crook of Antonia’s arm. She was forced to gasp for air just as the pad was thrust towards her face again. This time she couldn’t push it away. She succeeded in deflecting it slightly and turning her face aside. It missed her mouth and nostrils and made stinging contact with her cheek. She dragged it off with both hands and fought for possession of it. She wasn’t as strong as Antonia, but with her two hands she prised some of the fingers away.
Antonia removed the arm that was around Rose’s neck and made a grab for the pad. She wasn’t quick enough. Rose seized it from her and flung it into the bath. Momentarily Rose had the advantage. Antonia had reached out like a tennis player retrieving a serve and she only needed a push to lose her balance.
Rose supplied it.
Antonia crashed between the side of the bath and the wash basin, bringing down a glass shelf. If she was hurt it wasn’t apparent. She recouped immediately.
Rose had turned to escape, but she was grabbed by the ankle and fell on her hands and knees. She was hauled in like a hooked fish. She kicked out with the free leg and caught some part of Antonia, possibly her chest.
There was a yelp of pain.
Rose’s left ankle was given a vicious twist that forced her to roll on her back. At once Antonia hurled herself forward. She was unquestionably the stronger of them. Rose squirmed against the side of the bath to avoid being pinned down. They wrestled head to head. Then her hair was grabbed and her head forced against the floor. Antonia pressed down on her, tugging viciously at her hair while she manoeuvred herself into a sitting position by bringing her knees up to the level of Rose’s shoulders and forcing them down. Her thighs flattened Rose’s breasts.
Rose looked up into the wildcat eyes. She felt a hand at her throat, forcing the collar apart and she believed she was going to be strangled. But the pressure came on the back of her neck. Her pearl necklace bit into her flesh and snapped as Antonia jerked it from her throat, scattering beads across the room.
‘Cheap imitations, ducky.’
The face came closer. The blonde hair brushed Rose’s cheek.
‘What’s that scent you’re wearing? It stinks.’ Antonia slapped her hard across the face.
She stared back and bore the pain in silence. Then she was conscious of a shift in the weight. Antonia was reaching behind her into the bath, groping for the pad of chloroform. Rose sensed an opportunity. Although her head was held and her shoulders were flat to the floor, her hips were still slightly angled against the bath. She flexed, raised her knees and got enough leverage from her feet to buck forward. Some hair was torn from her scalp in the process, but she managed to tip Antonia off completely and drag herself free.
She got off her knees, stepped clear of Antonia’s flailing arms, and rushed out of the bathroom and along the corridor. She’d lost her shoes, which was an advantage in taking
the stairs at speed. Antonia was up and in pursuit, but Rose was quicker. She jumped the last few steps and dashed across the hall to the door and dragged it open. The inrush of foggy air gave her hope. She lurched into the street and ran blindly.
23
A policeman in braces and with his sleeves rolled up opened the door of the room where Rose had been sitting for longer than she could estimate, bent forward with her face in her hands. He stood just inside, taking stock.
‘Ready to talk now?’
She raised her head. She had panicked when they had brought her in and now despair had set in. She felt too exhausted to protest. Her brain rebelled at concocting a story that would satisfy them. She was certain she would get confused and blurt out the whole devastating truth.
‘What time is it?’
‘Just gone six.’
‘Six in the morning?’
‘You are in a state.’
‘I’m thirsty.’
He went out, leaving the door open. Although she wasn’t being kept in a cell, she was resigned to being transferred to one shortly. She had been driven here in a Black Maria with barred windows. This was just a place where they questioned people, somebody’s office, with a desk and several chairs and hooks on the wall for coats. She’d kept hers on. The coke stove in the corner wasn’t giving off much heat.
She had got off to a bad start with the desk sergeant by refusing to answer his questions. It was the first time she’d ever been in a police station. She hadn’t trusted herself to say anything that wouldn’t get her into trouble. Her silence had made the sergeant hostile. She was convinced that whatever she said he would keep her in custody. Up to now they didn’t know anything about her except her name and where they had found her, but they’d break her down. It wouldn’t take much.
A man she hadn’t seen before brought in some tea in a chipped enamel mug. He had his jacket on, with a sergeant’s stripes. He was silver-haired and his smile didn’t sit well with his toothbrush moustache and drooping eyelids. He tried to pitch his voice to sound reasonable. And failed.
Dead Gorgeous Page 14
