The Rottweiler (v5)

by Ruth Rendell

It was parked on the corner where the Harrow Road was joined by a residential street. After sitting there a little while Will got down from the cab and, the rain having slackened, wiped the wing mirrors with a cloth. Looking up, his eyes lighted on the plaque on the opposite wall, bearing the name of this side street. Sixth Avenue. He looked away because he must be dreaming but when he raised his eyes again the name was still there, Sixth Avenue, easily recognisable from the printing on the envelope. Sixth Avenue. Not a hanging sign on a lamp post as it had been in the film but attached to the wall and quite high up. They must have moved it since the film was made, that would be the answer.

  Will would have gone across and stared more closely at the sign but for Keith coming back at that moment with his loaf and his tomatoes.

  ‘I was wiping the mirrors.’

  ‘Good lad. The wife’s always saying prices are going through the roof, but you don’t credit it, do you, till you see for yourself.’

  ‘You need to see for yourself,’ said Will, nodding but not thinking about loaves and tomatoes at all.

  Sure he had made a good impression on the police, Jeremy had few qualms that they might come back and search the place. If they did he could, of course, make them get a warrant, but he knew what effect that would have on a man like Crippen or any officer, come to that. The assumption would immediately be made that he had something to hide. As, indeed, he had.

  At least, he should leave the incriminating objects in the drawer no longer. In the living room cupboard he had a strongbox, the kind of thing hotels provide in guests’ bedrooms, very simply operated and functioning on the principle of keying in a four-digit code. He had never yet used it but had already decided that when he did, he would avoid the kind of codes most people favoured, their birth date or an abbreviation of it—so in his case, as Alexander’s birthday was 4 July, the number might appear as 4755. It was too obvious. A policeman, even one with a low IQ, would soon cotton on to it. Would Jeremy have the same birthday as Alexander? Perhaps not. At his house in the Kensington mews he had used his birth year, 1955, as the code in the burglar alarm, but the same had applied there, and he had changed to the date Jeremy had killed Gaynor Ray, his first victim—14 April 2000—1440. Should he use that again? No. They might establish that date, though he couldn’t think how.

  He took the lighter, the fob watch and the earrings out of the drawer in the roof garden table and put them inside the strongbox. It was a while before he closed the lid. Wasn’t it foolhardy to keep them at all? But he had to run some risk, he told himself. He had to get something out of it. To call it ‘some fun’ would be ridiculous and not express what he felt. Since he was stuck with this compulsion, this almost disease, he must introduce into it some element of a game, a puzzle, an enigma. If not, he sometimes thought grimly, he might as well kill himself now. He had contemplated that often enough, in his low moments, thinking that to do so would rid the world and its women of a lethal menace. But Alexander didn’t want to die, not yet, though he often reflected that his death might be the only way out. All he wanted was for Jeremy to die.

  A number for the strongbox, a combination. Not his mother’s birthday, not the number of her house plus her postcode number. He could remember neither his wife’s birthday nor his girlfriend’s. Best would be to find a date that meant something only to him or one he took out of the air. 1986 had been a good year for him, the year he got his degree, moved from Hendon to his first Chelsea address, the King’s Road, got rid of his old Austin and bought his first new car, a blue VW. That had been in March, he could remember it, though not the day. It wasn’t important. Make it the third, that would do. He keyed into the strongbox 3386, then opened his address book at the second page. There he wrote, King, Austin, and what would appear to be a phone number: 0207 636 3386. He added, to make it more convincing, a fictitious e-mail address: kinga@fitzroy.co.uk.

  With the money Alexander had begun to make at that time he could do anything, go anywhere, have almost everything he wanted. And he had. Wonderful holidays abroad, expensive theatre seats, his flats beautifully furnished, his clothes the best, the beginnings of a fine collection of first editions. Then he had projected Jeremy who killed girls. In the midst of contentment and plenty he had begun to kill girls. He had killed five. The enormity of it hit him, as it sometimes did. It was so dangerous, so big, so out of the common run of activities that not so long ago men had been hanged for it. Men and women still were hanged for it, gassed, electrocuted, shot, in the United States. But when he thought of killing those girls, when he considered each individual case, he felt no more of a thrill than he had at the time, before, during or after. It had just been an act Jeremy had to do, and he realised something that had never really occurred to him before, that the feeling he had after it was performed was precisely the same as that which he had experienced after sex: relief. No more than that, simple relief. And all the time he never lost touch with reality so far as to believe that he was really two people, one who killed and one who was innocent. There was only one.

  Finlay Zulueta was ambitious. He had done well in his career so far and aimed to be a detective inspector before he was thirty. Hard work was the answer, Crippen always said, and worrying at every niggling little doubt like a Sealyham with a bone. (Apparently, the inspector’s wife bred Sealyhams, which Zulueta, who hailed from Goa, had learnt were small white terriers.) Zeinab Sharif was a lovely-looking woman, in his opinion, in surely every red-blooded man’s opinion, but nevertheless a liar. More than a purveyor of niggling doubts, an out-and-out liar. Something in her manner had told him so. Why should she lie to the police unless she was up to no good? It was obvious she had also lied to her employer.

  In fact, Zulueta was beginning to think there was something fishy about the whole of that house, Star Antiques included. That fellow Perfect, for instance, always poking his nose in where he wasn’t wanted, the builder’s labourer who pretended to be half-witted, Inez Ferry herself. Zulueta thought it very unlikely she had just come upon the silver cross and keyring in the course of dusting the place. It was more probable that someone had sold them to her and she had been going to sell them on till she got cold feet. And what was a builder’s labourer doing living there? He, and Crippen too and their superiors, were all convinced someone in that house or connected with that shop was in on these murders up to the neck. As for the girl … He would be like the Sealyham and worry at that bone. He would go up to Redington Road and check if she really lived there. Phoning was no good. All he got was that impersonal British Telecom answering service.

  The house was huge, a palace in its own grounds, one of those places that come on the market for five or six million. Zulueta expected something complicated about the gate, that he would have to punch in a code to open it or state his name and business to a disembodied voice, but it opened easily, at a gentle push. There were bars at the downstairs windows but no other security arrangements, no closed-circuit television, no dogs and no notices saying dogs were about. Zulueta, who disliked any dogs larger than Sealyhams, was relieved. He rang the bell at the front door.

  If a uniformed maid had answered he wouldn’t have been surprised but the man who came to the door was plainly the owner. He was very large, tall and stout, with a red face, wearing an open-necked shirt and jeans.

  ‘Mr Sharif?’ said Zulueta, producing his warrant card.

  ‘Do I look like Mr Sharif?’

  Zulueta thought this a racist remark and wondered what he could do about it, if anything. But he was bound to say that with his snub nose, light-blue eyes and the remains of fair hair, this red-faced householder could not reasonably be taken for anyone born east of Athens.

  ‘There is no one in the house called that?’

  Perhaps his putting the enquiry in the form of one expecting the answer no was what slightly softened the man’s manner. ‘Absolutely not. My name is Jennings and apart from me, my wife and son live here. They are called Margaret and Michael Jennings. May I ask what made you
think a Mr Sharif lived here?’

  He could ask but he wouldn’t get much of an answer. ‘Information given us, sir. Obviously false information.’

  ‘Obviously. Good evening.’

  ‘Good evening,’ said Zulueta.

  Crippen was pleased, though remarking that he might as easily have got it off the electoral register.

  ‘I wanted to make assurance doubly sure, guv.’

  ‘Quite right.’

  The two of them went round to Star Street in the morning. It was twenty past nine but Zeinab wasn’t there.

  ‘Not done a bunk, has she?’ Crippen said to Inez.

  ‘This isn’t particularly late for her,’ Inez said patiently. ‘If she’s not here by ten you can start worrying.’

  Inez was alone. Jeremy Quick had come and gone, while Freddy and Ludmila had passed through half an hour before on their way to take the bus to St Paul’s and walk across the newly opened Millennium Bridge to Shakespeare’s Globe. Though both had been in London for years, they still behaved like tourists, anxious not to miss out on any of the capital’s latest attractions.

  Crippen sat down in the grey velvet armchair but Zulueta wandered round the shop, behaving much like Freddy but differing in one respect. He picked up a very ugly Victorian amber and pinchbeck necklace Inez had always disliked and asked her, not for the price but how much she wanted for it. The subtle disparity wasn’t lost on her.

  ‘Forty-eight pounds,’ she said.

  ‘Forty,’ said Zulueta.

  ‘I’m sorry but I’m not in the business of bargaining. That’s the price.’

  Zulueta looked about to argue but at that moment Zeinab arrived. She stopped just inside the door, unable to hide her disquiet at the sight of them. Crippen got up, his eyes fixed incredulously on her earrings.

  ‘Who d’you think you’re looking at?’ said Zeinab in the street-honoured style of the young pub customer spoiling for a fight.

  ‘It’s not “who”, it’s “what”. Where did you get those earrings, Miss Sharif?’

  ‘It’s not your business but my fiancé gave them to me.’

  Which one, Inez wanted to ask, but she said nothing. ‘Those earrings,’ said Zulueta, the amber necklace forgotten, ‘look very much like the pair Jacky Miller was wearing when she went missing.’

  ‘You must be joking. These are real diamonds.’

  ‘Well, Miss Sharif,’ said Crippen, ‘perhaps you’ll be good enough to take them off and let us try them against a photograph we have of the missing pair. And while we’re about it, give some explanation of why you gave us a false home address.’

  Zeinab, for some reason suddenly more cheerful, advanced across the shop, kicked off her shoes and slipped her feet into high-heeled narrow strap sandals. ‘OK, my dad used to live there but he’s moved. Him and my mum live at 22 Minicom House, Lisson Grove now.’ As far as her mother was concerned, this was true. Crippen looked as if about to say her family had come down in the world, hadn’t they, but thought better of it. ‘If you want to know where my earrings came from you can go and ask Mr Khoury next door. That’s where my fiancé bought them.’

  Crippen nodded and the three of them trooped off. It must have been Rowley Woodhouse’s gift, thought Inez. Morton Phibling wouldn’t have considered patronising a jeweller in the relatively humble circumstances of Mr Khoury. While they were away, Keith Beatty’s van drew up outside and Will got out of it. Forgotten something, Inez supposed. He came in by way of the side door as usual and emerged again, carrying a package that might have been his lunch, just as Crippen, Zulueta and Zeinab came out of Khoury’s. Not quite knowing why, Inez opened the street door and stood there. Triumphant now, having obviously succeeded in proving the provenance of the earrings and perhaps their superiority to the missing pair, Zeinab said a gracious, ‘Hi, Will. How are you? I haven’t seen you for ages.’

  Will looked scared. He always did when Zeinab spoke to him. Muttering something, looking over his shoulder, he almost ran round the van to the passenger side. Zulueta stared suspiciously after him and Inez had to admit his behaviour made him look guilty of some misdemeanour—the very last thing to apply to simple, innocent Will. The van moved off.

  To Inez’s relief, even though she had failed to make a sale, instead of returning to the shop, the two police officers went off to their car. Zeinab began laughing as soon as she was inside. She stood in front of ‘her’ mirror repairing her make-up in preparation for the arrival of Morton Phibling.

  CHAPTER 11

  Unused to deviousness, Will disliked the idea of asking Keith to drop him off at Sixth Avenue on their way back from Ladbroke Grove at four fifteen. He couldn’t have said why he wanted to be there in case Keith guessed why, so he might have had to make something up, say something untrue. This was too complicated and difficult, besides being wrong. Will might not have had a first- or even a fourth-class mind, but like a serious child he had a fairly well-developed moral sense. It extended to lying and truth-telling, and to be being polite and kind, but not to speculating about who truly owned the treasure, the people who buried it, or the public, or the jewellers from whom it had been stolen. These questions were far too difficult for him. Besides, although he hadn’t formulated this, treasure truly belonged in the world of fairy tales, where rules about property, not stealing other people’s and not believing finders were keepers no longer applied.

  So he said nothing to Keith except that he’d see him in the morning when they would be starting on a new job. Coming back earlier because he had forgotten his sandwiches, he had had an unpleasant experience seeing those policemen he didn’t like and Zeinab who made him feel shy. But they were all gone now. Unobserved, he went upstairs, made himself a cup of tea and ate a Danish pastry. Now the clocks had changed—Will didn’t know how, backwards or forwards, Inez had altered his two clocks and his watch—it would still be light at seven thirty. Did it have to be dark for what he needed to do? Not really, though it had been dark in the film.

  He decided to have his evening meal before he went out. At about half past five Freddy and Ludmila came back from their day of wandering about the South Bank and put on their CD player for some music. It was nearly always Shostakovich that Ludmila played, though Will didn’t know this. But he knew it made a very loud noise, which he didn’t mind, though he would have preferred a pretty tune or a voice singing. He didn’t hear Jeremy Quick come in, his footfalls were always soft, and anyway quite drowned by the Battle of Leningrad. Will beat up three eggs with a fork and because they didn’t look enough, added a fourth. He made toast and buttered it, opened a packet of crisps and a new bottle of tomato ketchup and sat down to eat. Becky had given him a bakewell tart for dessert, of which he ate two slices with double cream. The light began to fade and shadows crept across his windowsills.

  When he had washed the dishes and left one light on, the way Becky told him to in order to stop burglars coming, Will put on his thick duffel coat and, double-locking the door, went downstairs. He took nothing with him. That would come later. Noticing that black-haired policeman with the funny name sitting in his car at the kerb took him aback. But he remembered how he had seen him and the important one coming out of Mr Khoury’s shop that morning and Will decided Mr Khoury must have had burglars. He was quite proud of himself for thinking that. The one with the funny name was there to see the burglars didn’t come back.

  Will went down Star Street into Norfolk Square and up past Paddington Station into Eastbourne Terrace. He walked over Bishop’s Bridge above the Great Western line, through the underpass and into the Harrow Road. The new buildings of Paddington Basin, half-completed towers, concrete and glass structures, fantastic shapes and curves and arches, all dominating the old canal, lay in glittering darkness below him. Seeing the sign Sixth Avenue gave him as much pleasure as it had the first time, if no surprise. There had been nothing in the film to indicate the number of the house in whose backyard the treasure had been buried but Will thought he would recognise th
e place from its own appearance and its proximity to the car parking place.

  Sixth Avenue was a long street of houses in long terraces. It was in most cases impossible to see what the backs of these houses were like. Still, where a terrace ended and another began the space between the last house in one row and the first in the next afforded him a glimpse of grass, bushes, part of a shed. There had been a shed in the film, perhaps grass and certainly bushes. Some of these end houses had side gates. Will knew that if he went closer he could open these gates and get a sight of backyards, but people lived in the houses—lights were on behind drawn curtains and some on where the curtains were not drawn—and they would take him for a burglar.

  There was no car park. That was something he couldn’t understand. But he knew there were some things in life he couldn’t understand and never would. He needed Becky to explain them to him and he tried to think what Becky might have said about the car park not being there. This tactic was always difficult for him. If he had been able to tell himself what she would have said, he wouldn’t have needed her, and now he needed her very much. All he could do was think of her being with him, explaining things and making everything clear, but still he couldn’t imagine what she might have said.

  Shaking his head in frustration, he walked all the way up to the end, wondering now how to overcome the difficulty of looking into back gardens without the people seeing. He was a little way down the opposite side, coming back, when he came to a house he hadn’t noticed before. It had no lights on. It had no curtains either and looked as if empty of furniture. But what interested Will most, what was most familiar, were the heaps of builder’s materials in the front garden and blocking the side way from which the gate had been removed. Builders were working on this empty house, perhaps making an extension but by now, of course, they had gone home, leaving piles of bricks and heaps of sand and their cement mixer behind.