by Ruth Rendell
‘It was Mr Quick,’ said Inez distantly. ‘And now if there’s nothing more, Ludmila will be wondering where you are.’
With infinite slowness Freddy shambled to the door he had come in by, pausing on the way to examine an ivory fan, a ship in a bottle, a framed primitive of the Garden of Eden and a brass lion’s head door knocker. Inez carried the book rack outside as a distant clock struck nine. It was cold today and grey, a fine rain spreading a film of damp on concrete surfaces. The white van whose owner boasted of its dirty condition was again outside.
Seeing her on the pavement, Mr Khoury came out of the jeweller’s. He pointed to the van. ‘Back again,’ he said. ‘The police are searching your garden also, I observe. What I ask myself is, how is the murderer getting this body into my backyard? Over the wall maybe, that is two metres high? But first over all the other walls that is two metres high. Or is he carrying it through the shop? Is he saying, “Good afternoon, please excuse me while I carry this corpse through your shop to bury in the back”? Is he maybe asking to borrow a spade? That is what I ask myself.’
‘You should have asked them. Is my earring ready yet?’
‘Ready and waiting for you. Twelve pounds fifty and no credit cards for repairs, please.’
‘I’ll come in later,’ said Inez and went back indoors out of the rain.
She was thinking about Jeremy Quick. A nice man, no trouble, the ideal tenant. If he moved out she would never get anyone half so pleasant to replace him. Of course, she had no real reason to fear his moving. It was just that while he was drinking his tea half an hour before, he had talked about Belinda and more frankly about her mother than he had ever done before. Mrs Gildon had a terminal illness, it appeared, only at her age its progress was much slower than it would have been in a younger person. Even so, the doctors had told Belinda she couldn’t last more than a year. They had said that before and been proved wrong by Mrs Gildon’s basically strong constitution and healthy heart. Jeremy had looked so despondent when he said this that Inez had laid her hand on his arm, a comforting gesture. His rapid recoil surprised her. It was almost as if he thought she was making an advance to him. Her face grew hot. He went on talking as if nothing had happened. The house in which Belinda and her mother lived in Ealing would be hers ‘one day’. When ‘something happened’ to her mother, he said, and he implied—or Inez thought he implied—that in that event he and Belinda would marry. Nothing was mentioned about the Star Street flat but Inez reasoned that if a couple had a three-bedroom house in Ealing (once known as the ‘queen of the suburbs’) at their disposal they were unlikely to prefer a top flat in Paddington.
‘Is Mrs Gildon in a hospital?’ Inez had asked, recovering from her discomfiture.
‘For the present, yes, but that is only temporary.’
‘Yes, I’m sure. Still, it must mean Belinda has a bit more freedom for the time being. Why don’t you bring her in for a drink one evening? Tuesday or Wednesday?’
‘I’d like that. And so will she? Could we say Tuesday?’
So at last she would meet Belinda. They probably drank wine but her spirit stock was getting low. To be on the safe side she’d go up to the corner while she was out collecting her earring and pick up gin and whisky from the wine shop. Her thoughts reverted to that touch on the arm and his flinching away. Was she so repulsive? It was useless to worry about it. He had probably already forgotten the incident. She glanced at the grandfather clock. Twenty-five past nine and not a sign of Zeinab. For the first time Inez saw her as a potential victim of the Rottweiler. There she was, a young girl, who waited for a bus to Hampstead in the gathering dusk of these not-yet-quite-spring evenings, who must brace herself for the tedious journey ahead, catching one bus, changing on to another. Would she accept a lift if offered one? Would she get into a stranger’s car? If her father was as wealthy as she said, possessor of a house on the West Heath and three cars, surely he would have lent her a car for her own use or even bought her one.
Reluctantly, Inez admitted to herself that she didn’t entirely believe in Zeinab’s father’s fabulous riches or the house or the three cars. More likely the family home was part of a modest terrace, there was one car and this draconian patriarch comfortable but not mega-rich. Still, he must be a monster in his way to lay down such harsh rules for his daughter, yet not extending to her a father’s care by, say, meeting her when she had to pass through the Rottweiler’s hunting ground in the dark. Half past nine. Morton Phibling would be along in a minute, paraphrasing the Song of Songs and smoking his cigars.
Instead of Zeinab’s admirer, a woman came in with a child who proved his unruliness by immediately homing in on the most delicate things in the shop, a tray of Georgian liqueur glasses. In the nick of time Inez picked up the tray and put it on top of a bookcase well out of reach. The child began to howl.
‘Oh, shut up,’ said its mother.
‘Can I help you with anything?’ said Inez.
‘I’m looking for something for a birthday present. Maybe jewellery.’
‘We don’t stock much.’ Inez opened a drawer. ‘This is all we have. It’s mostly Victorian, pinchbeck and tiger’s eyes and lockets with locks of hair, that sort of thing.’
The child thrust both hands into the drawer and scattered its contents on the floor. His mother screamed and fell on her knees just as Zeinab came in through the street door. Inez looked pointedly at her watch and Zeinab said, ‘You know I’ve no concept of time.’
A pinchbeck and rose quartz ring was the customer’s choice. She had lifted the child and set him on her hip. Most of the necklaces and bracelets still lay on the floor. After she had gone, Zeinab knelt down to pick them up, her black hair falling forward to envelop her face.
‘On the subject of jewellery,’ said Inez, ‘I’ve never seen you wear any of the things Mr Phibling buys you.
That diamond rose spray, for instance. He can’t be very pleased; he must think you don’t care for them.’
‘Then he’ll have to think, won’t he? If I wore those diamonds, if my dad even knew I had diamonds, he’d kill me.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Inez.
In the house in Abbey Road, Keith and Will were renovating the dining room. All the furniture was stacked in the hall. They had laid a new floor of mahogany woodblock, built display shelves into the two alcoves, and now they were preparing the walls for a coat of eggshell vinyl. Because the owners of the house were out at work and the woman who came in to clean had said she liked a bit of background music, the radio was on, the volume turned quite high so that she could hear it in the kitchen.
Keith would have liked to know how his sister and Will got on together on Saturday evening. He hadn’t seen Kim since and, in any case, he would have hesitated before coming straight out and asking her. Will might say a word, he thought, but Will said nothing. He seemed more preoccupied than usual, in a dream. In spite of the early hour Kim had got home, information imparted on the phone by his mother, perhaps things had progressed further than anticipated. Perhaps even now Will was recalling their encounter with quiet pleasure. Kim had driven the van back yesterday morning and left it outside his place, but she had put the keys through the letter box, she hadn’t come in. If they had got on really well and the back of the van had been the venue for more than a hug and a goodnight kiss, she might look in today, around lunchtime. Once he’d seen them together he’d be able to tell.
He would have been deeply chagrined had he succeeded in reading his assistant’s mind, for Will wasn’t thinking about Kim, he had almost forgotten her existence. Saturday evening was another matter. That was the most important thing that had happened to him for years, perhaps for always. With intense enjoyment he recalled the scene in the film where Russell Crowe, Sandra Bullock and the other man dug the hole and buried the treasure. Their exchange of words was perfectly contained in his memory, as if a device in his brain had accurately recorded them.
‘Did you hear a siren?’
‘In this ci
ty there’s always sirens. Night and day. A siren don’t prove a thing.’
‘Listen, it’s coming nearer.’
‘For God’s sake!’
‘We gotta get outta here. Now. Over the wall, outta here …’
And the man who had uttered the last sentence was shot in the spine and would never walk again—Will had forced himself to keep his eyes open at this point—while Russell Crowe died when he advanced on the policeman with a gun in each hand. Only the girl was left unharmed to say, once she was safe in South America, that the treasure had never been recovered, that it must still be there today …
He could remember it but he would go and see the film again, just to make quite sure. Would Becky come too? He always liked being with Becky, better than with anyone in the world, but nevertheless he admitted to himself that going alone would be best. Tonight maybe, or tomorrow. Recalling most of it so well, he couldn’t really remember what the house looked like where the digging had taken place. Nor had he heard or noticed the house number in Sixth Avenue. As yet, he didn’t even know where Sixth Avenue was, but he’d find out. Once he’d got hold of the treasure all his problems would be past and all Becky’s too. Because he’d sell the jewels and get a lot of money and buy a house big enough for both of them. The only reason he couldn’t live with her was the size of her flat and the fact that there was only one bedroom. He’d buy a big house with lots of bedrooms and plenty of room for both of them.
Kim didn’t come in at lunchtime. Keith was disappointed. He knew for a fact she wasn’t going anywhere this evening. It was the night her friend came round and they did each other’s nails and put on face packs but the friend couldn’t come today, so she’d be free and maybe they’d arranged to go out again. He wished he could ask Will but he couldn’t. The noise from the radio and its steady beat, trolls hammering in the underworld, would have been deafening to the owners of the house in Abbey Road but not to Will, who scarcely heard it. It did nothing to interfere with his musings. Nor did eating the pork luncheon meat sandwiches he had made himself and brought with him, nor did wielding the paint roller as he made a start on the window wall.
How did you buy a house? People did it all the time, he knew that, he saw removal vans parked in this street and in his own, and furniture being loaded on to them. They were moving, that’s what they called it, ‘moving’. But making another house your own that you could move into, getting a key to open its front door, putting your own things inside it, all that was a mystery. Finding out how to do it, the very idea, made his head swim.
‘How do you buy a house?’ It was the first thing he had said to Keith for more than an hour.
‘Pardon?’ shouted Keith above the radio’s racket.
‘How do you buy a house?’
‘What d’you mean, how?’
Explaining something was very difficult for Will. He could only say, ‘How do you?’ and, ‘You’ve got to find it, how do you?’
‘You read the advertisements or go to an estate agent, is that what you mean?’
Will nodded, though he wasn’t much the wiser. Better wait till he had got the treasure and then maybe Becky would do the house buying. He wouldn’t tell her yet, he’d tell her when the treasure was his and he could show it to her. It would be a surprise, the biggest surprise she had ever had.
Inez was watching Forsyth and the Crown Conspiracy when her doorbell rang. At once she stopped the video and switched off the set. It must be one of the tenants at the door, for no one else could get in, but for all that, she looked through the little spyglass at the reassuring sight of Jeremy Quick before opening it.
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, Inez.’
‘Not a bit,’ said Inez, sufficiently pleased to see him to invite him in.
‘Only for a moment, then.’
It must be the first time he had been in her flat. She noticed him looking around the room with discreet appreciation and she couldn’t help contrasting his reaction to what she imagined Freddy’s might have been—‘Lovely place you’ve got here’, wandering about nosily and handling everything, but sitting down when he liked without waiting for her to ask him as Jeremy did. He was always so well-dressed, his shoes polished to the gleam of black basalt. Did he have his hands manicured? It rather looked like it and as if the manicurist had used a white pencil under the nail tips. Inez found she didn’t altogether care for the idea.
‘Can I get you anything? A glass of wine? A soft drink?’
‘Oh, no, thank you. I wouldn’t dream of troubling you. As a matter of fact, that’s why I came. To tell you I really regret this but we won’t be able to come tomorrow. For drinks, you know. Mrs Gildon has taken a turn for the worse and Belinda has had to rush to the hospital.’
‘I am sorry,’ said Inez. ‘Is it serious? Of course it must be at her age.’
‘Well, she is eighty-eight and I’m afraid it’s her heart this time. The cancer progresses very slowly in these old people but if the heart fails—well, I don’t have to give you the prognosis there.’
‘No, indeed. I suppose Belinda will have to stay at the hospital while her mother is so ill?’
‘They have made up a bed for her in a side room. I’ve just come from there now. Took me ages, of course. Buses never run according to the timetable.’
‘You haven’t a car?’
He seemed well-off. She had concluded that, like her, he had a car somewhere on the residents’ parking down the street.
‘Oh, good heavens, no. Odd though it sounds, I can’t actually drive.’ He gave a laugh, which sounded slightly ashamed. ‘Now, as to Mrs Gildon, Belinda says she wouldn’t want her sufferings prolonged and there I quite agree. She has had a good innings and if her life is drawing to a close Belinda will of course be heartbroken but eventually she may see it as being all for the best.’
Inez nodded. She disliked being intrusive but he seemed to want her to take an interest in his and his girlfriend’s doings. ‘I suppose Belinda is young enough to want a life of her own now?’
‘I don’t mind telling you’, said Jeremy confidingly, ‘that she would like the chance to have a child or even children. She is only thirty-six, after all.’
‘Well, as you say, poor Mrs Gildon’s life can’t be much prolonged, I should think.’
‘You know, I will have that drink.’
Inez fetched a bottle of white wine from the fridge and poured two glasses.
‘You’re very kind,’ said Jeremy. ‘Do you mind if I ask you something? Why are you called Inez? You’re not Spanish, are you?’
Inez smiled. ‘My father was in the Spanish Civil War. I don’t say “fought”, but he was in it. He wasn’t married then but my mother said he told her he had a job “on the ground staff”. It does sound a bit strange, I know. There was a girl he liked, maybe more than liked, her name was Inez and she was killed.’
‘Didn’t your mother mind you having her name?’
‘I don’t think so. She liked it too.’ Inez laughed. ‘It’s coming up to ten. Would you mind if I had the news on?’
‘Of course I wouldn’t.’
‘Only I heard they’d found that girl. Jacky Miller, I mean,’
They hadn’t. The girl’s body, discovered under a stack of concrete waste and bricks on a building site in Nottingham, was that of a girl older than Jacky who had died maybe as much as two years before. So far, she was unidentified. As the investigating officer said, addressing a press conference, so many young girls were on the missing list that it was impossible at this stage even to speculate as to who it might be. The police were unable to say how this girl had met her death. Meanwhile, the search for Jacky Miller went on.
‘I’ve never been to Nottingham,’ said Jeremy.
‘One of the films my late husband made was shot there and I went up with him for a couple of weeks. That must have been in—oh, the early nineties, I suppose.’
‘Don’t they have parents, these girls, who worry about where they are?’
; ‘I’m sure they do,’ said Inez. ‘We know that all three girls who died and Jacky Miller have parents who have been nearly mad with anxiety about them. But if a girl disappears and can’t be found, what can they do? Employ private detectives? That’s far too expensive for most people even to consider.’
‘I suppose so. I must go. Thank you so much for the drink and for being so nice about tomorrow.’
Inez went back to her video. But Forsyth and the Crown Conspiracy wasn’t one of her favourites, perhaps because—and she was almost ashamed to confess this to herself—there was more sex in it between Martin and the female guest star than in any other of his films, what looked like actual lovemaking in a bedroom setting. When that part was reached she switched it off and thought of substituting the Nottingham one, Forsyth and the Miracle, but instead of exchanging the tape, she sat in silence, finishing her wine and thinking first about the girl who was still missing and the body which had been found in such squalid and ugly circumstances. How would a parent feel, especially if he or she lived nearby, to learn that their beloved daughter—surely she was beloved—had lain for years, her body mouldering in the wet earth, under a pile of builder’s waste materials to which, no doubt, loads of rubble and bricks were constantly added? In her mind’s eye she saw again the picture on the screen, the pyramid of rubbish that was finally being removed for disposal and from which a fall of bricks like an avalanche had revealed—an outstretched hand.
Inez had never had a child, though she would have liked children, a desire not shared by either of her husbands, and this had somewhat lessened the bitterness of her disappointment. Martin, the one she had really cared about, already had children, by his first marriage, wanted no more but would have been pleased for her if … She sat up suddenly, holding the wineglass. Her mind had gone back to something Jeremy had said. How could Belinda be only thirty-six if her mother was eighty-eight?
Perhaps it was possible for a woman to give birth at fifty-two, in certain rare cases, Guinness Book of Records cases. But such events were very likely myths or distortions. It was possible now with IVF treatment. But in nineteen sixty-six, which must be the year of Belinda’s birth? The answer must be that she was adopted. Of course. Any other explanation would place Jeremy Quick in a rather bad light …
