The Rottweiler (v5)

by Ruth Rendell

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Anwar was uninterested.

  ‘So what you doing for the weekend?’

  ‘Business as usual,’ said Anwar, and piously, ‘I’ll be going to the temple with my mum and dad, then there’s a family wedding in Neasden. It’s all go.’

  ‘That white van that’s not to be cleaned for scientific purposes—know the one I mean?’

  Anwar, who knew very well, said he hadn’t noticed it. Did Freddy want another mango juice?

  ‘Yes, please. Very refreshing. It’s outside the shop again, that van, and I was thinking—d’you know what I was thinking?’ Anwar shook his head and ordered two more juices. ‘Well, I was thinking, if there was any criminal activity, like a mugging, say, or the nicking of some girl’s mobile, there’d be a witness who’d say they saw this dirty van parked with a notice in the back about not cleaning it and the Bill’d be along before you could say “car wash”.’ Freddy chuckled at his own wit.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Anwar, ‘I don’t know.’ He looked at his Rolex watch. ‘I gotta go. See a man about a van.’

  Freddy laughed. ‘Don’t you want your mango juice?’

  ‘You drink it,’ said Anwar, and Freddy did.

  Anwar made his way back to Star Street where, at a house well-known as a squat since the eighties, he rang the ground-floor bell. Keefer was still in bed, said the slatternly woman who answered the door.

  ‘Lead me to him,’ said Anwar dramatically.

  He pulled Keefer out of his bed, a mattress on the floor among half a dozen other mattresses. ‘Get up, mate,’ he said. ‘A job for you. Take that vehicle of yours to the car wash in Kilburn—no, the one in Hendon’s better, and then get rid of that shit in the rear window. It was only funny for about five minutes.’

  ‘Wash my van?’ said Keefer, as if Anwar had suggested something serious like having a bath or getting gainful employment.

  ‘That’s what I said. You’d better put it through the wash twice and do it now.’

  Anwar pressed a ten-pound note into his hand.

  CHAPTER 16

  Alexander was in Oxford Street, buying presents for his mother, having left Jeremy behind in Star Street. It would be her birthday next week but, in any case, he always bought things for her when he went to see her. The big present was a CD player and fifty new CDs of her favourite kind of music. The player and CDs could be delivered as they were far too heavy for him to carry unless he brought the car to Paddington. Parking outside would be possible on a holiday Monday when restrictions would be lifted but so far he had avoided his car being seen by fellow tenants and he thought it a good idea to keep things that way. The main gift settled, he bought a large box of chocolate truffles, Krug champagne, a green orchid growing in a ceramic pot and a bottle of Bulgari perfume.

  When involved in the business of self-analysis, trying to find out why Jeremy killed girls, it amused him in a dry kind of way that experts would say he was taking vicarious revenge on a mother who had bullied and dominated him. He loved his mother dearly. She was probably the only person he had ever really loved. His parents’ marriage had been happy but neither of them had a strong character. An only child, he had ruled the household from the age of eleven when he won spectacular results in the examination that would admit him, at a very low cost, to a public school. Before that they had loved him unstintingly, afterwards they worshipped him. If they had had a different sort of son his father’s death would have come close to killing his mother, but she had left to her this paragon, this kindly loving genius who took all responsibility out of her hands, who saw to everything and, even when he no longer lived with her, directed her from afar.

  The flaws in his career and lifestyle—she could scarcely admit they were flaws—did nothing to turn his godlike feet to clay. She could find better excuses for him than even he could himself but afterwards she never mentioned the flaws or the excuses. His success at business and particularly in working for himself earned her continued encouragement and praise. With his wife and his girlfriend she hadn’t got on because of course they weren’t good enough for him, and now she never asked when he was going to settle down and get married.

  She longed for his visits and accepted his presents with extravagant delight, telling him in her charming way that really he shouldn’t but it (whatever it was) was so lovely she was glad he had. And she had the gratifying habit, common to few, of continuing to refer to the flowers, the chocolates or the perfume throughout his visit with such comments as, ‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ and ‘What good taste you have to choose those!’ Only twice in all his life had she spoken in a way he disliked and that was when, fondly referring back to his teenage years, she remarked with a tender smile on the brace he had been obliged, rather later than most children, to wear on his teeth. This brought back in a frightening way, a way disproportionate to a simple reminder of what a big percentage of children endured, his shame about it, his hatred of it. Sternly, he had forbidden her ever to mention it again. She had flushed and apologised. Never again was it mentioned between them.

  Sometimes she remarked on what she supposed his lifestyle was, the big spacious office, the secretary, the parties, receptions and theatres, the visits to his tailor, to Ascot and (for some unaccountable reason) the Chelsea Flower Show. It made him smile, though affectionately, when he contrasted imagination with present reality and his walking the streets waiting for a dreadful desire to possess him …

  When he was with her, in her pretty little house in one of those quiet closes on a village perimeter, listening to her gentle prattle about local activities, his mind concentrated more on the girls he had killed and those he would kill than at any other time. Why? His mother so hated the idea of murder that she watched no crime dramas or documentaries on television and wouldn’t have a detective story in the house. And though he would inevitably think about it while sitting with her, he wouldn’t speak of what everyone in the whole country would at least mention this weekend, the disappearance of Jacky Miller and the failure so far to find a trace of her. His mother would go white and start shivering if he so much as uttered the girl’s name. Then why all the time would his brain be seething with the memory of killing her? Why did he kill her and those others? What was in it for him?

  Perhaps because they failed to match up to her standard as women. But she was sixty-eight and all of them were young. And this failure applied to all women, but he felt no compulsion to kill Inez Ferry or the next-door neighbour in the mews he had seen but never spoken to. Once he had asked his mother if, as a small child, he had ever had a nanny or some young girl to look after him while his parents went out.

  ‘Oh, no, darling,’ she had said, shocked. ‘I wouldn’t have left you with anyone else. I couldn’t have trusted anyone. Your father and I never went out together in the evenings until you were sixteen. I sometimes think that’s why I never had another baby. I would have had to go into a hospital, maybe for days, and you would have had a stranger to look after you.’

  Carrying his packages, some of them gift-wrapped in blue and silver, the orchid pot in the crook of his arm, he took the bus back to Kensington High Street and walked southwards. Maybe there had been some young matron caring for the boys at his school? But he had been a day boy—his mother would never have allowed him to board. The young and pretty mother of a friend who, instead of seducing, had scorned him? He had a clear memory of every friend he had ever had—they had been few—and all of them had mothers of an unbelievable hideousness. One, he remembered, waddled splay-footed like a duck, another had a face like Mao Tse-tung. So what had happened to him to leave him with this feverish, all-conquering and passionate need when he saw, after dark or in a lonely place, an appropriate young woman?

  He couldn’t even say what made her appropriate, how it was that he knew when he saw her that this was the next one. They weren’t alike. Gaynor Ray was little and pretty with curly ginger hair, Nicole Nimms was fair and very thin, Rebecca Milsom dark to the point of swarthiness, C
aroline Dansk also dark but facially quite different and much slimmer, and Jacky Miller overweight, her hair the palest blonde, her skin pink with a perpetual flush. All he could do to categorise them was to say that all were young and none was Asian or African. That wasn’t to say a suitable one never would be. He was no racist, he thought rather bitterly, laughing drily at his joke and congratulating himself on retaining his sense of humour.

  He let himself into the house and went straight to the office. He disliked working on Saturdays but there was no help for it if he was to take Monday off. Probably he would sleep here on Sunday night so as to make an early start in the car. But getting down to work was difficult. It always was, anything was but that one thing, when he had been thinking about the girls and especially about their appearance. That must be why his mind filled with them when he was with his mother and had nothing to do. Not why, though, he wanted to kill them in the first place. Not why, when he saw the next one, the one that absolutely had to be, he became in a flash nothing but an adrenalin-charged machine with one sole function. No, not quite a machine, for during it all he was conscious of his own blood coursing in his veins, of the beat in his head and the roar in his ears, of his skin tingling, of saliva dried, of a tightness in his chest and a closing of his throat. His whole body then became light, floating but controlled, like a dancer’s.

  It wasn’t sexual. In sex he had never had feelings of this magnitude. Besides, the way he felt when about to kill was different in kind as well as degree from desire. And doing the deed, he touched only the skin of the neck and, if he must, where the object he was taking was. Only in the case of Jacky Miller’s earrings had he been obliged to touch flesh, for Gaynor Ray’s silver cross hung against the silk of the top she wore. The memory of that, comparable to another man’s feelings on touching rotting offal, would always be with him …

  So why did he kill them? Why did he have to kill them? And why had this compulsion come into being only two years ago? They walked in a procession before his eyes, shadowy shapes but all remembered as if they had been his lovers. There was nothing accusing in their faces, only an impish teasing, as if they had won. In this contest he had failed and they had triumphed because he didn’t know why. In sudden rage he slammed his fist down on the desk, making the laptop jump and the pens rattle in their jar.

  When James arrived Will was watching a British film from the thirties on television. Increasingly nervous about the coming visit, Becky had done her best to make him at least change channels but Will, whatever his shortcomings in other areas, was highly skilled with the remote, and as soon as her eyes were turned away he reverted to his chosen programme. James came with flowers and a bottle of wine, and was introduced, Will getting up and shaking hands like a normal person, but still, of course, not speaking. Becky desperately wanted them to get on. She was proud of Will’s appearance, especially when contrasted with last time, the white shirt she had ironed for him, the blue tie. There was nothing wrong with his looks and now he had had several good meals and nights of sleep, he looked particularly handsome. She was still wondering whether to tell James about the police, their suspicions and Will’s detention—but what other reason could she give for his speechlessness and continuous presence in the flat?

  ‘It’s the rugby in a minute,’ James said. ‘All right if we turn over?’

  Will looked doubtful but nodded, the channel was changed and he made no attempt to change it back. They sat in silence while Becky made tea. She had hoped to talk to James while Will concentrated on his film, she had so much to explain, but she could see that James was endeavouring by this move to create a rapport with her nephew and she was thankful. The tea was drunk and the cakes eaten, at least by Will, and an hour had gone by when James at last came out into the kitchen, took her in his arms and held her close.

  Becky was anxious and extricated herself unwillingly. Suppose Will were to come out and find them embracing—what would he do? Would he mind? He had never seen her in a man’s company until that day he fell asleep on the step.

  In spite of what had happened before, ‘I have to tell you about him,’ she said. ‘I have to tell you about him and me, and why he’s here.’

  ‘You don’t. Not today, anyway. I’m quite happy to accept.’

  ‘I’d rather’, she said, ‘get it over.’

  She started with her sister and Will’s birth but after she got to the accident it all came out, what she called her refusing to face her responsibilities, her guilt, his love for her and the latest sad event in his life.

  ‘But what was he doing in that garden?’

  ‘I don’t know. I expect he knows, he probably has some quite logical explanation—I mean an explanation which would seen logical to someone of his mental age. But whether he has or not hardly matters because he can’t speak.’

  ‘He’s dumb?’

  ‘Oh, no, no. He lost the power of speech while with the police. They terrified him. Horrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ James said very seriously.

  He took her hand, lifted it and held it in both his. That was how Will found them when he came out into the kitchen. The rugby was over and he was looking for company. He found Becky with her back against the counter, James holding her hand up near his face, and the two of them gazing into each other’s eyes. The inarticulate noise he made wasn’t the first sound Becky had heard from him since he came to stay with her, there had been several such grunts, but this was the most expressive. As for the look in his eyes, that she had never seen before and it turned her body cold. Will didn’t look unhappy or bewildered or hurt. He looked angry.

  ‘Let’s all go back in the living room,’ she said heartily. To do what?

  Will settled that. He turned on the television, looking at her and patting the sofa cushion next to the one he sat on. James sat in an armchair at the other side of the room. A cartoon, very brightly coloured, very noisy, exploded from the screen, and animals unknown at any period on this planet, green animals and purple, scaly and horned and winged, fell upon each other in furious combat. Will was smiling. Fabulous beasts fighting never upset him. Perhaps, even to him, they were too unreal. It was curious, Becky thought, noticing how he had turned his back on James and was three-quarters facing her, how she had worried that he would be unacceptable to James but never that James might be uncongenial to him. Despair made her slump into the cushions. James had taken up the newspaper, found a pen on the table and started to do the crossword puzzle.

  Off for their weekend break, Freddy and Ludmila passed through the shop at lunchtime on Saturday, he carrying the two enormous cases she considered indispensable for two nights in an English seaside resort. Ludmila herself carried her hatbox and her dressing case. Over her pale-blue chiffon dress she wore a fur coat, chinchilla and apparently very old, its moth-eaten patches inadequately covered by an orange pashmina. Both of them kissed Inez, something which had never happened before, as if they were going away for ever instead of just for the weekend. Zeinab, entering by the inside door, stared at them and turned her back, pretending to examine the damaged grandfather clock.

  ‘We shall be back before your return on Monday, Inez,’ said Freddy, ‘so you can rely on me to turn off the burglar alarm. Two-six-four-seven’s the number, right?’

  ‘Why don’t you shout it down the street?’ said Zeinab, turning round. ‘Tell all the lowlife around here? Might as well give them the key.’

  ‘All right, Zeinab.’ Inez anticipated another fullblown row before Freddy and Ludmila went off to get their coach from Victoria. ‘But it’s not a good idea to make that number public, Freddy.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, Inez,’ said Freddy virtuously. ‘Come to think of it, I reckon I may be wrong thinking everyone in here is beyond reproach. I’m too trusting, that’s my trouble.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ Zeinab advanced a few steps towards him.

  It was to be a long time before Inez fully realised the truth of his remark. ‘
Please, Zeinab,’ she said and to Ludmila, who had lit a cigarette, ‘Off you go, the pair of you. I don’t know when your bus goes but I’m sure you haven’t time to spare and you’re going to miss it.’

  Freddy opened the door with a flourish and picked up the cases. In the doorway, Ludmila turned round to deliver her parting shot. ‘Pity you’re not coming with us, Miss Sharif. You could bring grandad in his wheelchair.’

  In fact, Zeinab intended to spend Sunday with Rowley Woodhouse and Monday with Morton Phibling. Once she had recovered from Ludmila’s jibe, she told Inez all about it. Rowley had wanted her to come away with him that evening to Paris and Morton had suggested a weekend in Positano.

  ‘I vetoed all that. I know it’s old-fashioned, Inez, but my virginity is precious to me and it’s bloody precious to my dad. They wouldn’t respect me if I gave in to them before the weddings.’

  Digesting this outdated view as best she could, Inez said, ‘But there aren’t going to be any weddings, are there?’

  ‘Absolutely not, but they don’t know that, do they? Rowley and me are going to Brighton for the day and Morton says he’s taking me on the river on a luxury boat he’s hired for lunch and dinner.’

  Inez remembered going on both these excursions in the company of Martin, only it hadn’t been a luxury boat—and none the worse for that. Tonight she’d watch Forsyth and the Scarab, it was one of her favourites. Her sister had all the Forsyth series on video too, she happened to know, but on Monday they would be hidden away. Miriam was too tactful ever to let them come within Inez’s field of vision. She sighed—turned the sigh into a cough—not at the memories, nor even her loss, but at misunderstandings. Even her own sister, kind, delicate-minded, thoughtful, had never understood that she wanted to be reminded, she wanted to see his image, wanted to talk about him, lest she forgot or memories grew dim.