by Ruth Rendell
Back in St Michael’s Street, Flint and Julitta left the opening of the case to Anwar. He lifted the wads of notes out, counting them as he went. Five thousand pounds.
At the bottom of the case lay a sheet of A4 paper with print on it, obviously produced on a computer.
‘You have had £15,000 from me and that is enough,’ Anwar read aloud. ‘If you plan to ask for more, think again. I will not, repeat will not, pay you dirty bloodsucking thieves another penny. Threaten all you want. You have had all my savings and there is no more.’
‘What’s a penny?’ said Julitta.
‘A pence, you stupid cow. One of those little copper things.’
‘Why would we want one of them?’
‘Piss off, can’t you?’ said Anwar. ‘Think again, he says. I’m thinking again and what I’m thinking is he’ll fucking do what we say. Funny thing, but until that silly bitch lost the diamond, I’d almost made up my mind to call a halt.’ He directed a warning snarl at Julitta, who had opened her mouth, presumably to ask him to translate. ‘I shan’t now. We need another five K. He’s fucking asked for it and he’ll get it. Or, rather, we will.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Flint.
CHAPTER 27
Of course she was going to marry him. Inez need have no fears about that. Hadn’t she had her invitation to the wedding? Inez hadn’t and, in any case, had no intention of going.
‘I haven’t seen him in here lately.’
‘He’s up to his eyes in last-minute preparations,’ said Zeinab. ‘What’s happened to the Chelsea china clock?’
‘I sold it. To a man who didn’t haggle, just paid what I asked. At last.’ In spite of feeling better about Zeinab than she had at the Bank Holiday, Inez couldn’t resist a dig. ‘At about a quarter to ten this morning. Before you got in.’
Remarks like that had no effect on Zeinab. ‘Shame he didn’t take that animal as well.’ She stood in front of the mirror she called hers, studying her reflection, beautiful as always but neck, arms and ears jewel-free. The only diamonds she wore were in Morton Phibling’s engagement ring. ‘Shame about that pendant getting nicked,’ she said. ‘I never told him. Best make it a wedding night confession, I reckon.’
‘We never heard another word from the police.’
‘Useless bunch of layabouts, they are,’ said Zeinab. ‘And poor Ludmila lost all them wedding rings. You got a replacement for me? Or you going to take Freddy on again?’
It was unfortunate, in Inez’s opinion, that at the precise moment she spoke those words, the interior door opened and Freddy walked in. ‘I think that’s understood, isn’t it, Inez? Or, to coin a phrase, it goes without saying.’
‘A pity you said it, then,’ Inez said with more acidity than she usually allowed herself. Then, guiltily, she asked Freddy if he and Ludmila had had a nice honeymoon.
‘Blissful,’ said Freddy, seating himself in the grey armchair. ‘Ludo was in cracking form and I must say, Inez, in spite of what you said in your disparaging way, the Isle of Man put me in mind a lot of Barbados.’
That girl and her boyfriend, if there was a boyfriend, wasted very little time. Jeremy wondered if it was his note which had irritated them and spurred them on to further action. Before the phone rang—at eleven p.m., early for them—he had been thinking about his blackmailers or blackmailer. These days he thought of little else, unless it was to view with ever-renewed astonishment his past and the cause of his killing those women. If that girl ever phoned him again, and he was sure she would, he would ask her if there really was a boyfriend, if there were any more of them, or if she truly was alone. That would mean either that she had managed to steal his strongbox without her companions knowing or, more likely, one of the men, of whom there must have been several, would have succeeded in opening it but hadn’t seen the significance of what it contained. She alone had known that—precisely because she was a woman.
Of course she would want him to think others were involved, a boyfriend and maybe two or three more friends. That way he would believe that if he planned to do away with her at the next pick-up, others would still be there to continue extracting money from him or to tell the police what they suspected. But if he came to know she was entirely alone …
He had started on his last-thing-at-night gin and tonic, the first taste of which he found so exhilarating, when the phone rang. Able to think only that it could be Inez or his mother—was he really so lacking in friends?—he lifted the receiver, astounded and immediately furious at the sound of her voice.
‘I told you in my letter,’ he said. ‘I haven’t any more. You’ve had all I’ve got.’ She said nothing. ‘Didn’t you read my letter?’
He thought her tone was stagy, put on for effect, shriller than usual. ‘One of the others read it. There’s a whole bunch of us know about this. Did you think I was alone? You should be so lucky, Alexander, or whatever you call yourself. It don’t matter a fuck’—he winced at the word, he had always hated that sort of language—‘what was in it. We want another five grand.’
‘You won’t get it. It’s not there.’
‘You can flog something, can’t you? Your car, your nice little place in South Ken.’
Anger rose inside him in a tide which broke, spreading heat all over his body. ‘I’m not doing that.’
‘OK. The bank’ll lend it. You know what’ll happen if you don’t. We can write letters too and we’ll just put one in the parcel for the filth. I’ll give you a bell Saturday.’
‘Wait,’ he said sharply. ‘Let me speak to someone else.’
The line was still open but she was silent. He could hear nothing in the background, no movement, no voices. She rang off without another word.
The Saturday call would be for the venue. He felt the last thing he expected, a sense of relief. He had been sure before, meaning he had some doubts, but she had virtually told him: she was alone. He recovered her voice from his memory and heard the falseness: ‘There’s a whole bunch of us know about this.’ Not true. She was either alone, he thought, or the boyfriend had been in on the early stages, but now she was acting on her own. She was greedy. Her greed would be her undoing.
What was he going to do? He didn’t know—yet. Wait for the Saturday call. What a stupid illiterate phrase that was, to give someone a bell. He felt his mouth turn down in haste and he sweetened it with a sip of his gin. For some reason he remembered then how he had quoted to himself a sentence from something or other when he was feeling particularly low: The bright day is done and we are for the dark. The dark had receded again and light come in brightly, of all things at a time when for the third time money was demanded of him, money with menaces. She would never send those earrings to the ‘filth’ as she called them. He would see to that.
That Thursday night Zeinab had promised to have dinner with Morton Phibling who wanted to take her to the Connaught, but when she got back to Dame Shirley Porter House rather earlier than usual, Algy was waiting for her all dressed up in a new suit with a table booked for the two of them at Daphne’s. A surprise dinner, he said. Her mum would babysit. In fact, she was already in the flat, a child on each bolster-sized knee, the three of them intent on a video of The Others, which had just reached the creepiest bit.
‘Why’s Nicole always got the same purple dress on?’ said Zeinab. ‘She’s a big star. Why don’t she have a big glamorous wardrobe?’
‘Don’t ask me.’ Reem stuffed half a Bounty bar into each baby-birdlike open mouth. ‘And shut up. We’re watching.’
Zeinab thought she’d better go with Algy. He’d start being funny with her if she turned him down again, especially if she disappeared on a date with Morton. Somehow, she’d not have a problem with her conscience if she hadn’t lost that pendant but could have sold it and handed over the money to Algy. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll just go and change.’
In the bedroom, getting into a black satin dress, embroidered with beads, that would have been the death of Algy if he had known what Morton pai
d for it, she phoned Morton on her mobile and, thankful he wasn’t answering, left a message to the effect that she was too tired and mysteriously unwell to go out. Then, the film being over, she told Reem that if Morton phoned, to tell him she’d gone to bed and mustn’t be disturbed.
‘Right,’ said Reem. ‘They was ghosts, that’s why.’
‘That’s why what?’
‘Nicole had the one dress on.’
Algy and Zeinab left the flat and took a taxi down to Knightsbridge.
They had a lovely evening and Zeinab admitted to herself that she always had a much better time with Algy than she did with Morton or anyone else, for that matter. It was quite romantic, like before the kids were born. The only odd thing was that Algy seemed all the time to be on the brink of telling her something but he never did, so maybe it was her imagination. Reem was staying the night, which meant they could get back when they liked. Algy took her to a club and then on to another, and it was nearly two before they got home.
Algy got up early just the same. He had to. He woke Reem at seven thirty because he was going to need her help, got the kids up and reminded her she’d promised to take them to school. Zeinab slept on, which suited Algy very well. The removal van came at eight thirty. Algy could afford a proper firm these days. When they moved here he had driven the Wheels van himself, and he and Zeinab had done the loading. Of course, they hadn’t so much stuff then. He told the men to start in the living room and be careful with the digital TV, and when they were busy in there and Reem had gone lumbering off with Carmel and Bryn, he woke Zeinab.
‘What time is it, for God’s sake?’
‘Getting on for nine,’ he said. ‘You’d best get up. We’re moving.’
‘We’re what?’ Zeinab screamed.
‘You heard, Suzanne. Come on, you knew we was going only not just when. Well, it’s today, it’s now.’
She got up, pulled on her new jeans—fashionably faded about the knees, the hems frayed—and a cashmere sweater because it was freezing cold for June. Moving was quite thrilling, really. Men usually gave in at her slightest word, so it was a pleasant novelty to have matters taken out of her hands in this way by masterful Algy, whose high-handed action had been an exciting surprise. It made her want to buy him something nice. Maybe, once she was living in Pimlico, she’d flog her engagement ring, the last jewellery, of everything given her by wealthy admirers, that she still had.
One thing about Freddy, he was always punctual. Rather too early, Inez thought, having barely put the kettle on before he appeared in his cardboard-coloured duster coat.
‘In case you were anxious,’ he said, ‘I’d like you to know I have my wife’s full permission to assist you in the shop.’
‘I’m afraid I took that for granted, Freddy.’ She poured tea into his cup and ladled in the sugar. ‘Ludmila didn’t object last time.’
‘Ah, but now she’s my wife things are different. A wife is in what you might call a sacred position. And, a rather delicate matter, Inez, now I’m here in what you might call an official capacity, not to put too fine a point on it, there’ll be the little matter of my salary.’ Freddy lifted one hand in an admonitory gesture. ‘Not now. After we’ve had our tea will be time enough for negotiations.’
‘In that case,’ said Inez, ‘there will also be the little matter of an increase in rent now you are a married couple living here permanently.’
The argument which ensued ended not very satisfactorily in Inez agreeing not to raise the rent while Freddy worked for her but paying him considerably less than what Zeinab had received. ‘You won’t forget to tell the Benefit office, will you?’
‘Trust me,’ said Freddy with a reassuring smile.
The morning was cold but bright and sunny, which meant nothing. It was always like that first thing and lashing down with rain by lunchtime. But she put the bookcases outside, making a mental resolve to keep an eye on them and the clouds which would gather in an hour or two.
Jeremy Quick hadn’t appeared for tea on his way to work. It was several weeks since he had and at least a week, she was sure, since he had been to work. She had caught glimpses of him and he hadn’t seemed ill, rather the reverse, in fact, scurrying up and down the stairs, marching off down the street towards the Edgware Road, returning half an hour later only to go out again after ten minutes upstairs. She was longing for him to give notice but she felt she had no justification for evicting him. He paid his rent, he wasn’t noisy, he didn’t have late-night parties. No objection to him could be found beyond her growing dislike of him, her distaste for his cold mauvish-coloured eyes and his lying.
Freddy must make rather a good impression on callers at the shop. This was a surprise because she had always considered him a liability, but now, entering from the street herself, she saw him briefly with new eyes and thought he looked quite professional in his working coat, holding a Venetian glass tumbler up to the light. A retired auctioneer, she thought, or some kind of craftsman in need of extra funds. Presently, a woman in a wintry felt hat came in and Inez watched with satisfaction as he sold her a Victorian barometer.
‘Better than those weather forecasters on the telly,’ he was saying as he wrapped her purchase up in brown paper. ‘Nine times out of ten they get it wrong but this little chap can’t fail.’
The next visitor was the kind of person they seldom saw, a man in his thirties, tallish and burly, in a leather jacket and jeans, his rather long ginger hair tied back in a ponytail. Inez was wondering what he was in search of, something flashy maybe, wax fruit under a dome or a painting of a nineteenth-century nude, when, after looking round him in a puzzled way, his eye lighted on the jaguar. ‘That’s a disgrace, that is,’ he said loudly. ‘Worse than a fur coat.’
‘I didn’t shoot it,’ Inez said.
‘It’s a disgrace giving it houseroom. Poor thing. Doesn’t it make you cringe just seeing it there, or are you so insensitive you don’t think?’
Inez stood up. ‘When you’ve finished abusing me, was there something you wanted?’
For some reason her words had a calming effect on him. ‘I’m looking for Ayesha,’ he muttered.
‘There’s no one called Ayesha here,’ Inez said, though already having more than an inkling of his meaning.
‘Lovely-looking dark girl, got long hair. About twenty.’
‘Ah, I think I know who you mean. And may I know who you are?’
‘The name’s Rowley Woodhouse.’
Before she could stop herself Inez had come out with it. ‘You do exist!’
‘Of course I bloody exist. Where’s Ayesha?’
‘She terminated her employment here yesterday.’ Freddy, who had been listening avidly, came up to them, greedy for drama. ‘I’m sure she’ll need today to get prepared in. She’s getting married on Saturday. I was married myself last week, so I know how it feels, none better.’
Rowley Woodhouse was staring at him. Enough of the situation had been deduced by Inez to have steered well clear of that subject but either Freddy was being innocently insensitive or joyfully vindictive. Woodhouse said, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Look, you’ll have to have this out with her yourself,’ Inez was starting to say, and ‘I can’t …’ when she saw Morton Phibling’s yellow BMW draw up at the kerb and the driver get out to open the door for his employer.
Wild thoughts came to her of hiding Woodhouse in the little kitchen or even a cupboard, as if he were a clandestine lover in a French farce, but Morton was already in the shop, another man in search of his fiancée, then asking for her. ‘Where is she that looketh forth in the morning, fair as the moon?’
He must learn all this stuff before he came, Inez thought irrelevantly. She didn’t know what to say, then an idea came to her. ‘Zeinab finished work here yesterday.’
Was it possible Woodhouse would think she had had two Asian girls working for her? ‘I thought you knew.’
Morton, of course, was bound to give the game away. ‘I remember now
. What a fool! I must be losing my marbles forgetting my own wedding day.’
Woodhouse moved towards him. ‘Are you talking about Ayesha?’
‘Zeinab.’
‘One and the same,’ said helpful Freddy.
Woodhouse glanced at him, but spoke to Morton. ‘Let’s get this straight. Are you saying you’re getting married to my fiancée tomorrow?’
‘No, I’m getting married to my fiancée. The most beautiful girl in the world, Zeinab or Ayesha or whatever, it’s all one to me. Today,’ he continued rapturously, ‘she looks like Miss World but tomorrow she’ll be Mrs Phibling.’
Woodhouse hit him, a rather shaky left hook. Inez screamed. She couldn’t help it, the sound involuntarily issuing from her open mouth. Morton staggered but kept on his feet. As Inez shrank away, retreating behind the desk, shouting at Woodhouse that his adversary was an old man, he shouldn’t fight a man twice his age, Morton came at him with both fists. In spite of her distress, Morton’s expertise amazed her. Then, suddenly, she knew who he was. All the time he had been coming into the shop she had wondered where she had seen him before. Years before, maybe thirty-five years, he’d been the world bantam-weight boxing champion. Her first husband had once or twice taken her to fights. He hadn’t been Morton Phibling then but Morty Phillips. No wonder Woodhouse had fallen over.
‘Phone the police,’ she shouted to Freddy.
