The Rottweiler (v5)

by Ruth Rendell

  Will had encountered no one in his walk up the street and halfway back. As far as he knew, nobody was about. The man who was following him was too practised at this kind of thing and too careful to allow himself to be seen. But when Will stepped over the sand heap and edged round the mixer he slipped in behind him, crouching down in the deep shadows. The absence of a car park forgotten, Will was too excited by this time to notice anything but the area which lay behind the side way. Hard to tell in the dark, but the cracked concrete, the strips of bare earth sprouting weeds, the dilapidated shed, looked the same. Light was shed from a window next door but it fell on a small lawn and none of it penetrated here. The other side was in darkness but for a faint light, as from a candle burning in an upstairs room.

  Will made his way to the bottom of this ruined garden. He tried the door of the shed but it was locked and there was no key. Spades and shovels lived in sheds and he had hoped to find one. Peering through the broken window-pane, he could see nothing but two plastic sacks filled with something solid and, beside them, what looked like a heap of old clothes. He would come back tomorrow.

  Walking slowly towards the Harrow Road, he began thinking about acquiring something to dig with. Keith had spades but of course they only used them on outside jobs and he couldn’t borrow one because Keith would want to know why. Will hadn’t got a garden and Becky hadn’t got a garden, facts which Keith knew. He would have to buy a spade, Will decided. Tomorrow, after work.

  In Zulueta’s opinion, Will Cobbett’s visit to the house in Sixth Avenue and his efforts to get into the shed in the backyard clinched his guilt. After Will had gone, Zulueta made an attempt on the shed himself but, able as he was at other kinds of police work—shadowing someone, for instance, without being detected—he had never been any good at undoing locks without their keys and he failed again. The window was too small to admit even a thin man’s body. Zulueta, though he had a torch, could see very little. He would dearly have liked to know what was in those sacks and what was under that pile of old and dirty overalls, anoraks and other indefinable garments. Jacky Miller’s body? Other incriminating evidence, such as Jacky’s earrings or some of her clothing? Some other girl the police didn’t even know was missing because she had been alone in the world?

  Certain Will had left Sixth Avenue behind him and was on his way home, Zulueta went to seek his car, which he had left parked in Star Street. He walked through the almost empty streets, the darkness and the unearthly chemical light, down to Paddington Green and under the flyover. Will had disappeared, using perhaps some back way or short cut home. What next, Zulueta wondered.

  He had had his suspicions of Will ever since Gaynor Ray’s silver cross turned up at Star Antiques. It wasn’t only that, but the other man’s furtive manner and not very effective attempts at appearing a simple innocent. Zulueta, who had a psychology degree, could see through that. Then there was the glance he and that Sharif girl had exchanged outside Khoury’s shop that morning, Cobbett looking abashed when Sharif asked him how he was and said she hadn’t seen him for ages. A likely story—she didn’t even sound sincere. They would have to do a better job than that between them to pull the wool over Finlay Zulueta’s eyes.

  So were they somehow in it together? Crippen had been gunning for Sharif on account of that false address business. That afternoon Osnabrook had been round to Minicom House, which was one of those rainbow-coloured blocks of Westminster council housing in Lisson Grove, and found she had been telling the truth about her parents living at number 22. Half the truth, that is. Her mother lived there but when Osnabrook asked about the girl’s father she’d said, ‘He buggered off twenty-five years ago,’ and laughed. But even Crippen would sing to a different tune when he heard about the house in Sixth Avenue and the shed.

  Cobbett and Sharif might be in it together but Cobbett was the mastermind. That they were both exceptionally good-looking helped to clinch their guilt. Zulueta had a theory, developed in an essay he had once composed on psychology and the Hollywood movie, that beautiful people are attracted to one another. There was evidence too that the Rottweiler was in the building trade. Cobbett was in the building trade and no doubt he had been working on that site. That’s what gave him the idea of concealing Jacky Miller’s body there. He had concealed Gaynor Ray’s body under a heap of rubble, so why not this one?

  He was clever. Only a really clever man could assume that air of foolishness and innocence and sustain it. Zulueta wondered where Jacky Miller’s body was now. His mind full of ideas as to where Cobbett might have hidden it, he began walking the long dreary route to where he had left his car.

  It was quite by chance that Jeremy Quick had seen them both. He had got into the habit of taking a walk most evenings. At first, when he had killed Nicole Nimms and knew that having done it a second time he might do it again, he had told himself that he must never go out after dark in case the urge overcame him. This thought was succeeded by another, taking the opposite view. He must not condemn himself to a lifetime’s curfew but instead go out and when temptation came, resist. Next time, in the half-dark, he fought with himself to control the impulse, and he succeeded, but at the cost of trembling and sweating, finally throwing up in the gutter. After that he brought the curfew into operation once again. What put an end to that was his garrotting of Rebecca Milsom in Regent’s Park, and if not in broad daylight, long before it grew dark. He could kill, then, at any time, darkness was not the rule, and once more he began to walk whenever the fancy took him.

  That evening he had made his way towards Paddington Basin and the vast area of new building. Even without the phantasmic Belinda Gildon as his promised bride, he must seriously think of moving this year. It was time. The flats at the Basin coming up for sale sounded pleasant and they would be new. Both his present homes were old and therefore more time-consuming and expensive to clean and maintain.

  Getting into the Basin was, however, impossible. It was still closed off to all but the contractors working on the site. Jeremy was disappointed. Presumably, he would have to make an appointment with an agent who might have access, to view a show flat. Or would it be wiser to move a long way away, perhaps even to South London? From attempting to get through between Paddington Station and Bishop’s Bridge, he came up a side street into the roundabout and almost bumped into that thickie, Will Cobbett.

  He stared at Jeremy as if he had never seen him before and didn’t like what he saw. He looked, for God’s sake, frightened. Amused, Jeremy thought how if he did but know it, he was the wrong sex and the wrong size to be afraid of meeting him on a dark night. Still, being looked at like that wasn’t pleasant for the recipient of that stare and Jeremy felt anger rise in him. He said a sharp, almost admonitory, ‘Good evening.’

  Cobbett didn’t reply. Leaving Jeremy at the bus stop, he began to run, once looking over his shoulder, in the direction of the Edgware Road. Jeremy was furious. The man had treated him as a well-brought up boy of ten might treat a child molester. Slowly he turned away and, determined to continue his walk, made for the underpass. It brought him up at the point where Warwick Avenue meets the Harrow Road. And there, coming towards him, was another Star Street acquaintance, Detective Sergeant Zulueta.

  Each said good evening to the other. If Jeremy had made some excuse for being in this deserted, rather lonely place after dark Zulueta might have had his supicions awakened but Jeremy, dully conventional, said only, ‘A mild night for April.’

  His head full of the mysterious and doubtless criminal activities of Will Cobbett, Zulueta nodded, said he must be getting along. They parted on the corner, Jeremy taking the shortest route straight back to the Edgware Road. He had intended to extend his walk with an exploration of Maida Vale, but he wanted the company of Zulueta no longer than was absolutely necessary. He watched the policeman cross the canal bridge and disappear from sight down Blomfield Road.

  CHAPTER 12

  At no point in his life had Jeremy Quick or his alter ego Alexander Gibbons shop
ped for women’s clothes or jewellery. When he married he had been too poor even to consider buying an engagement ring, even if it had occurred to him, and he had no reason to change his mind while living with his girlfriend. Since then there had been no occasion for going into women’s shops. Now the time had come.

  First of all, he had fully intended to use Jacky Miller’s own earrings in his game, but he found himself, incomprehensibly, unable to do this. Early in the morning, he took them out of the strongbox, along with the keyring and the lighter, and experienced a powerful reluctance to part with them. It was suddenly as if they were of enormous value, the kind of precious jewellery the woman who owned them would have copied in silver and paste actually to wear them. Very probably they were composed of silver plate and brilliants, and worth at most fifteen pounds. Copied, he thought, that was it! He wouldn’t have them copied, he’d buy copies. It would be easy, for they were obviously fashionable, that Zeinab girl had been wearing an almost identical pair, though hers were gold.

  Careful not to keep too many newspaper pieces about the case, he had nevertheless two or three cuttings he felt were essential to him. One of these was an artist’s impression, actual size, of the earrings Jacky had been wearing when she vanished. Jeremy studied this picture. About an inch in diameter they were, silver or something that looked like silver, studded with—how many brilliants? About twenty, it looked like.

  Where should he go to do his shopping? Nowhere in this neighbourhood, certainly. A tease was all very well but that would be pushing things. When it came to buying cheap jewellery, he was out of touch. It was the expensive districts he knew, notably Savile Row and the Burlington Arcade where he bought his own clothes. Knightsbridge wouldn’t do, nor would Bond Street. Eventually, memorising the appearance and dimensions of the earrings, he decided on Kensington High Street. First he dropped in to see Inez. Because it was a sunny morning, promising an unseasonably warm day, he had put on his new dark-grey suit with its discreet, only just visible, blue line, a snowy shirt, fresh from the Star Street laundry, and blue tie with purple chevrons. Alexander dressed far more casually, if in Armani.

  Inez looked at him approvingly. Or so he thought at first, perhaps because he was accustomed to thinking this way about her. For a long time, with a quiet satisfaction but a certain amount of contempt, he had believed she fancied him—some hopes! As if he would give her a second glance. But as she went out to the tiny kitchen area to put the kettle on, he thought again about that look she had given him. It had been there these past few days as had the slightly dry note in her voice and her less than welcoming manner when he made his regular visit for his cup of tea. He could date its beginnings. That look, that tone and that manner had started the day after he had told her of his break-up with Belinda. He must have made his announcement of the split with less than his usual finesse.

  Admitting to this, even silently, was unacceptable, as was all criticism of himself by himself as much as by others. Telling her of his patient wait for Belinda to choose between him and her mother had been done with his usual artistry, perhaps more than usual, for he had made a studied effort to ensure it was perfect. Probably Inez was simply offended because he had twice refused her invitation. How vain she must be to think a man like him would want to waste a whole evening in her company.

  The jaguar was looking at him with its baleful golden eyes. For the first time he noticed its scrubbing-brush whiskers and they made him shiver. She came back with the tea but remained unsmiling. Lately, she had been in the habit of telling him about the latest visit of the police and of the speculations of the people she talked to as to the fate of Jacky Miller. This morning there was none of that. In fact, there was silence until at last, lifting her head from the scrutiny of a ledger, she asked him what plans he had for the Spring Bank Holiday.

  Jeremy had forgotten that this would fall on Monday week, 4 May. He had no plans but as she waited, drinking her tea, for his answer, the idea came to him of visiting his mother. Of the entire population of the United Kingdom, indeed of the world, the one person Alexander Gibbons loved was Dorothy Margaret Gibbons. It would be several weeks now since he had been to see her. Not exactly with a pang of conscience but certainly with surprise, he calculated that he hadn’t been to Oxton, where she lived, since March. ‘I shall go up to see my mother,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes, she lives somewhere in the Midlands, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Market Harborough,’ said Jeremy, which was a lie but not much of one. His mother lived in the adjacent county of Nottinghamshire. Let her think Jeremy Quick’s mother lived somewhere else. She could never find out. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I always go to my sister and her husband that Monday. They’re only in Highgate.’

  Short of enquiring into the holiday plans of Zeinab Sharif, Will Cobbett and his aunt, Ludmila Gogol and Freddy Perfect, Morton Phibling, Rowley Woodhouse and Mr Khoury, there seemed nothing more to be said. Jeremy finished his tea, thanked Inez and set off for Paddington tube station, the Circle Line that would take him to Kensington High Street.

  His first estimate of Inez’s changed feelings towards him had been accurate. Suspect him of being what he actually was she did not. Such a thing was as far from her mind as could be, but she was sure he had been lying to her about Belinda and Belinda’s mother, afraid he must be just as much a fantasist as Zeinab and a good deal worse than Ludmila. It was true that for a while she had entertained the beginnings of romantic feelings for him. She had thought, and still thought, that he had shown her a greater warmth than she had seen him extend to anyone else, and she remembered the interest he had taken in her unusual Christian name. Perhaps she misinterpreted the signs. But simply, in an old-fashioned phrase, she had thought him an honest man and she was disappointed.

  It was not worth regrets and recriminations. She took the cups out into the kitchen and washed them up, carried the book rack and the books out into the street. No fewer than four had sold yesterday—a record? She hoped the police wouldn’t come today, she was tired of them, Zulueta’s cockiness, Crippen’s boorish manner.

  As it happened, no one came, not even Zeinab. Inez saw Freddy in the street, walking along in the company of that friend of his, Anwar something—an inappropriate relationship if ever there was one. She had no doubt at all that it was entirely innocent, Freddy filling the role of father figure to Anwar who seemed to be fifteen or sixteen. How had they met and what had attracted them to each other? Both, of course, belonged to what were clumsily called ‘ethnic minorities’, but that, in an area where people predominated whose origins or their parents’ were in the Asian subcontinent, the Caribbean or the Middle East, was hardly enough to bring them together. Such things were often a mystery.

  Just after ten, when Zeinab still hadn’t appeared, Inez called her mobile number. It was switched off. She waited another few minutes. Then, remembering the address Zeinab had given the police, she looked up the Sharif family in the phone book. A woman answered. Inez rightly took it to be Zeinab’s mother and she asked where her daughter was.

  Reem Sharif was still in bed. ‘They say it’s a virus,’ she said, her mouth full of cream-filled chocolate egg left over from Easter.

  ‘You mean she’s ill and she’s not coming in to work?’

  ‘You got it. I’ll be going round later. That all?’

  ‘Perhaps you could ask her to give Inez a call.’

  ‘Yep. Bye now.’

  What did that mean, ‘I’ll be going round later’? Going round where? Was it possible that in the two days since she had told Crippen her parents lived at Minicom House, Zeinab had moved out and moved in with Rowley Woodhouse or Morton Phibling? Inez was thinking about phoning Morton at his home in Eaton Square, if he wasn’t ex-directory, when he arrived, driven in his Caribbean-lime-coloured Peugeot. In recognition of the fine warm weather—Inez had left the street door wide open—he was wearing a white suit with black linen shirt, open at the neck and showing his chicken gizzard throat.
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  ‘Where is she that my soul loveth?’

  ‘I wish I knew, probably in bed with a virus,’ said Inez, purposely making Zeinab’s circumstances sound like a dirty weekend in Clacton. She wasn’t usually bitchy but events of the morning were fast testing her temper. Still, she drew the line at advising Morton to speak to Mrs Sharif.

  ‘No doubt she will be in touch.’ He added rather mournfully, ‘I was all geared up to take her to Knightsbridge to a fitting for her wedding gown.’

  In my time, thought Inez indignantly, in working hours. ‘Well, that, I’m afraid, will have to be postponed.’ He was looking so downcast that Inez took pity on him. ‘I’m sure her illness is nothing serious,’ she said.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Morton and, probably for the first time in his life, ‘I won’t keep you.’

  As the bright-green car moved away, Will Cobbett, who was perhaps also taking the day off, went past towards the side door carrying what looked like a spade, half wrapped in two plastic bags. Inez heard him go upstairs. It couldn’t have been a spade—what would he want one for? Surely not to attempt digging the iron-hard clay in her own poor apology for a garden. Perhaps Becky had one … As Inez was beginning to wonder what was the point of her just sitting there, a potential customer appeared. The customer didn’t buy anything, but the next one put down a deposit on a grandfather clock and said he would come back for it later with a van.

  Freddy reappeared without Anwar Ghosh. As usual, if he came in at this time, without any preamble or greeting, he launched into a description of his morning’s occupations, from his waking to see the sun streaming into the room and reminding him of happy days in Bridgetown, Barbados, to his glass of fruit crush with Anwar in the Ranoush Juice.

  Then, observing the ‘sold’ label on the grandfather clock and opening its door to examine the works inside, ‘Where’s young Zeinab?’ he said.