by Ruth Rendell
She looked up from her accounts book and said a not very friendly, ‘Oh, hello.’
A grin from that fool in the brown overall. ‘Well, good morning, Mr Quick. You are a stranger. Time was when you were always popping in to see the boss.’
That merited no answer. Jeremy screwed up his nerve. ‘Has anyone been asking for me, by any chance?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Inez said. ‘Surely they would ring your bell, wouldn’t they? Oh, yes, a call came from that policeman—Zulueta, is he called?—wanting to know if you were at home. I said I hadn’t the faintest idea. It didn’t sound important.’
It wouldn’t. He thanked her, still humble, went out through the interior door and upstairs. The next floor throbbed with Rachmaninov. He fancied he could see the doors shaking. Inside his flat the phone was silent, but there was something about it (or about him) which told him it had been ringing and ringing, over and over. Perhaps he should have had an answering service but there had never seemed a need, and what good would it do him now to hear Crippen’s recorded voice?
Out in the roof garden the first flower of the season had opened on his climbing rose. He couldn’t remember its name. Its colour was an indifferent pale-pink but its scent, as promised in the catalogue, was exquisite, like ripe oranges and jasmine with a touch of nutmeg. He brought his face down to the flower, his nose to the heart of it. Yes, it was all they said it would be. It would be the last rose he was ever to smell, the last rose of his summer. Yet the phone was silent, the doorbell was silent. The sole sound was from the music below and that reached him only distantly. Zulueta might just have wanted to ask him if he had seen anything on the previous night, for it was possible the boy had been afraid to identify him, recognising a dangerous man and one not to be treated defiantly. For instance, he might have reasoned, if they couldn’t get enough evidence against him, Jeremy would be at liberty, free to take what revenge he liked on the boy and girl who had shopped him. ‘I am a dangerous man,’ Jeremy said aloud and, using what might be the boy’s own language, ‘no one messes with me.’ But the voice he said it in was weak and small. His true feelings were expressed in what he said under his breath: I’ve had a rotten sort of life.
He went back into the living room, leaving the french windows open, though it was cold and a heavier rain was falling. In the bedroom he took off his wet trousers and jacket, and put on unaccustomed clothes, a sweater and jeans. It was just after midday. Time for a small gin and tonic, a little more gin than usual, one cube of ice and a sliver of lemon. He was slicing the lemon with a sharp knife when the phone began to ring, and if he didn’t cut himself this was because when the sound struck him, his hands froze and the knife hung poised.
To answer or not? If he didn’t answer they would suppose he was still out and try again. Eventually they would phone Inez and she would tell them. It would have been wiser not to have gone into the shop but too late to think of that now. At the ninth ring he lifted the receiver, said a strong, ‘Hello?’
The phone was put down. That told him everything. Now they would come. If they left at once it would take them a matter of minutes, minutes in a single digit. So decide now how to manage this. Decide, decide … Inez was in the shop and so was the fat fool. Pity that Asian girl wasn’t in, had left or was ill or whatever. Only one person remained and she would have to do. He took the gun and went down the top flight of stairs, Rachmaninov growing louder with every step. She had increased the volume, perhaps thinking when she heard his door close that he was going out again. She was in for a rude shock.
He hammered on the door with his fists, knowing she would now suppose he had come down to complain. He knocked again and kicked the bottom of the door. The volume of the music fell to a murmur. Her voice called in the horrible guttural accent she sometimes assumed, ‘What is it?’
‘Open the door, please. It’s Jeremy Quick.’
She opened the door very slowly, as if she was dragging her feet. He got one foot inside before showing her the gun. One hand up to her face, she gasped, then whimpered. She was in a pink dressing gown, a negligee really, all frills and a big bow at the waist. Her greying blonde hair was scooped up untidily on the top of her head and fastened there with a clawed clip such as very young girls wear.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I want you upstairs.’
Ludmila was trembling all over, a withered leaf dangling from a branch, shaken and set vibrating by the wind. In her state and her high-heeled mules, she found it hard to manage the stairs. Jeremy drove her ahead of him. She stumbled and moaned but she made it, falling over his threshold as he unlocked the flat door.
He left her on the floor, went to one of the front windows and looked out. In the distance he could hear a siren, but whether it was from a police car or an ambulance he couldn’t tell. Only the noise the fire engines made was unmistakable, that awful yet strangely musical bray that began their song, followed by warning howls. He listened. The sound of the siren died away. He turned round, once more pointing the gun at Ludmila. She had crawled away, seated herself in a chair. Now she wasn’t obliged to walk and climb stairs, she looked less frightened, more in command of herself.
She said to him, ‘Can I have a cigarette?’
‘All right. This gun is loaded, you’d better understand that. I’ll use it if I have to. My life is of no importance to me and nor is yours.’
He gave her a cigarette and lit it for her with his own seldom-used lighter. If he’d let her light her own, God knew what she might have done, set fire to his carpet, maybe. She inhaled, looked at the lighter, at him, said, ‘That’s that girl’s lighter.’
It wasn’t. He had thrown that one away. ‘What girl?’
‘The one that was strangled in the mews.’
He would have liked to smile but the muscles of his face refused to obey him.
‘You strangled her. You’re the Rottweiler!’
How he had always hated that name. He defended himself, knowing he sounded feeble. ‘I never bit anyone. It’s a foul libel. The newspapers will say anything.’
As he spoke he heard a car, then another, draw up outside. A car door slammed. He froze. He was stuck there, paralysed. Ludmila looked up, the ash falling off her cigarette on to his rug.
The use of his legs returning, he crossed once more to the window. Zulueta’s car was on the other side of the street, on a yellow line. Two men sat in the one behind. The rear offside door opened and Crippen got out, followed by a man he thought might be called Osnabrook. Jeremy threw up the window and the sound of the sash rattling as it rose made Crippen look up.
Their eyes met. ‘We’re coming upstairs, Quick,’ he said. ‘We’ve things to say and I expect you have too.’
Jeremy turned briefly to check on Ludmila, then called down, ‘I’ve nothing to say to you or anyone else. And I’m not called Quick. I am Alexander Gibbons. I’ve got a gun and I’ve got Mrs—er?’
‘Perfect,’ shouted Ludmila loud enough for Crippen to hear.
‘Mrs Perfect up here. You heard her voice. You want to see her?’
He didn’t wait for an answer but pulled Ludmila out of the chair and with the gun in her back, pushed her to the window. Crippen went into the shop and Osnabrook after him. Keeping the gun levelled at Ludmila, Jeremy dragged a chair over to the window and motioned to her, waving the gun, to sit in it where everyone in the street could see her. There were more there to see by now, four uniformed officers having arrived. They too had gone into the shop, from which Freddy Perfect now came running, shouting, ‘Ludo, Ludo!’
Ludmila blew him a kiss. Jeremy didn’t like that. It showed a levity and a sang-froid out of keeping with the seriousness of her predicament. He pushed in front of her, the gun pressed to her neck and called out, ‘You tell her to behave herself. I’ll kill her if I have to. It won’t bother me.’
Once more Ludmila was shaking. He felt the quivering against his hand. ‘Stop that,’ he said to her. ‘Control yourself.’
Crippen an
d Zulueta had both come out into the street, and with them one of the uniformed men. As soon as he spoke, from the other side of the street and using a loud hailer, Jeremy knew what he was. One of those ‘psychological’ policemen, employing what they thought were clever tactics to get a desperate man to give up his defiance.
‘Let Mrs Perfect go, Quick. Keeping her up there and terrorising her is doing you no good. It’s pretty useless in the end, isn’t it? Let her go. Let her come downstairs and we’ll come up and meet her. We won’t attempt to get into your place, that I guarantee.’
‘In that case,’ said Jeremy, ‘how are you going to get me?’
‘When you realise you’re on to a hiding to nothing you’ll see sense. You are, aren’t you? What you’re doing leads nowhere and it’ll just make things worse for you in the end.’
‘The end for me is here, up here in this flat.’
‘Give me the gun, Quick. Empty it and drop it out of the window.’
‘You must be joking,’ said Jeremy, ‘and my name isn’t Quick, it never was.’
The correction was ignored.’Let me see you empty the gun. You’ve done nothing yet, remember. Nothing’s been proved. You’ve not been charged. Mistaken identity cases happen all the time. Drop the gun before you’re tempted to do anything.’
The phone started to ring. That would be them calling from Inez’s phone in the shop. He could reach it from where he stood and with a bit of stretching, still keep the gun pressed into Ludmila’s spine.
‘Hello?’
Not the police. The girl who had blackmailed him said, ‘Up shit creek now, aren’t you?’ and laughed as she rang off.
He slammed the phone down so hard that the whole table shook. Then he edged round Ludmila to look down into Star Street once more. The psychologist was still there, conferring with Crippen. In spite of what they had promised, someone was coming up the stairs. If whoever this was, and there was more than one, tried to tread softly they failed. They hammered on his door.
Jeremy moved a little towards it, the gun on Ludmila. ‘If anyone starts to break this door down, she dies,’ he said, gratified to see Ludmila once more trembling. ‘She’s shaking with fear. That’s your fault, you’ve caused that. I hope you’re proud of yourselves. Who’s terrorising women now?’
He got no reply. He didn’t expect one but the hammering stopped. Insofar as he could be happy about anything, he felt pleased about the toy gun. It was just as good for a gun’s purposes as a real one—with one exception. It couldn’t deal the death blow in the end but, he thought, he hoped, others would do that. The footsteps went back down the stairs.
‘In the state of Utah,’ he said to Ludmila, ‘the death penalty is execution by firing squad. Did you know that?’
‘They never do it,’ she said.
‘They have done it. Last time was in the seventies. They ask for volunteers and they get far more than they can use. Most of them are so useless they couldn’t shoot an elephant five feet away, so they have a couple of trained marksmen among the others. That’s how I’d like to die, by firing squad. How about you?’
‘I don’t want to die. I’ve just got married.’
He laughed. The phone rang again. If he didn’t answer it they would only keep on and on. The gun at her neck, just under her right ear from which dangled an earring like a chandelier. ‘Hello?’
‘This is Detective Inspector Crippen, Quick. Or Gibbons. Whatever.’
Jeremy said nothing.
‘You’re not doing yourself any favours, you know. The gun wasn’t a good idea. Taking Mrs Perfect hostage isn’t a good idea. If you let her go and drop the gun out of the window you’ll be on the right road to getting your case very favourable consideration.’
‘The more you talk like that,’ said Jeremy, ‘the more I feel like killing her. I’ve got the gun right in her ear now. If I press the trigger she’ll die in half a second.’
The phone went down. More conferring, no doubt. He felt Ludmila fidget away from the touch of the gun, turn her face up to look at him.’Why you do this?’ She was beginning to lose her command of English or regain her command of a Slavic accent. ‘Why me? What am I doing you pick on me?’
‘You were there,’ he said simply.
Another car had come. Not a car, a police van. Out of the rear door came four marksmen with rifles. He smiled.
‘I’ll never let her go,’ he shouted out of the window. ‘If you kill me you’ll kill her too, I’ll see to that.’ He wouldn’t but it did no harm to let them think it.
Zulueta had come out into the street. His face was handsomer but otherwise, in Jeremy’s eyes, he looked very much like the boy he had tried to garrotte the night before. They might have been brothers. The boy’s black eyes were staring up at him. ‘We’re not going to do anything yet—er, Gibbons. There’s no hurry for you or us. But there is for Mrs Perfect. She has a heart condition—did you know that?’
Jeremy didn’t and nor did Ludmila. Freddy had made it up. But Ludmila wasn’t going to deny it. She put on a hangdog expression and moaned a little.
‘If she has a heart attack you’ll be in real trouble, Quick. Why not avoid that now? Let her come down now and we’ll meet her halfway up. We have a doctor here. Put her into safe hands, Quick—I mean Gibbons.’
Jeremy shouted, a harsh strangled sound. ‘What do I care for her heart? I won’t care for anything soon.’ Except my mother, he thought. Oh, God, my poor mother! But, ‘I’m committing suicide,’ he said. ‘I’m like a suicide bomber, only you’ll do the killing.’
That fixed them. Zulueta went quickly inside and almost immediately the phone rang. He nearly didn’t answer it. What was the point? Star Street and part of Bridgnorth Street had been cordoned off. The public, who always arrived, someone always found out, were being driven away, back from the cordons, like sheep by two sheepdogs. The four marksmen had taken up their positions. Suppose it was his mother phoning? He could say goodbye … He picked up the receiver.
‘Yes? Hello?’
‘Mr Quick?’
Who on earth was this? He felt Ludmila rigid against the nozzle of the gun. ‘Who is it?’
‘Lara,’ she said, ‘the girl in Selfridges. You were in this morning. You wanted the name of a fragrance. I’ve got it for you. It’s Libido. Would you like me to spell that?’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much. I don’t need you to spell it.’
Libido. The source of lechery, of lust. He had never had much of it himself, but the once. Once he had. He wanted to laugh, finding that out at the end of his life, but he couldn’t. He thanked her again politely, for he was Alexander now, and put the receiver down. Ludmila stiffened, twisted round and seizing his wrist, shouted, ‘That’s not a real gun! If it was metal it’d be colder. That’s plastic, I can feel it’s plastic!’
She was on her feet, surprisingly strong, grabbing him anywhere her hands touched, then scraping her nails down his face. He cried out, not for the scratches or the pain but because if she got away his last hope was gone. He kicked at her shins, still holding on to the gun, slapped her face and seized her under the arms, first from the front, her furious eyes glaring at him as she struggled, then swinging her round with all his strength, held her so close to the window that she nearly toppled out. There came a howl from below. Freddy had come out of the shop and was wringing his hands in despair.
Jeremy had her now as a shield. He held her round the waist. But to be prevented from exposing himself as their target was the last thing he wanted. He could only keep his hold on her with one hand. He raised the other and pointed it at Zulueta who had come out to pull Freddy in. If Ludmila shouted out now that the gun was a fake, all would be over, his hope of death by firing squad over … Suddenly he understood that of course she wouldn’t! She wanted him dead as much as he wanted it and as if she heard his thought, she made a final frantic effort to struggle free.
He slackened his hold on her and she dropped to her knees, rolled away from hi
m across the floor. Libido, he thought, that was its name now, the scent that made a murderer of him against his will and against his nature. My poor mother, he said inside his head, and suddenly smiled as he turned the gun against the marksmen.
They shot him.
CHAPTER 30
Dorothy Gibbons grieved inconsolably for her son. Nothing had been proved against him, he had never come to trial and she continued for the rest of her life to believe him the victim of injustice. The first time she ventured out of her house after the funeral, she met by chance in a local shop a woman from whom she had been estranged for thirty-five years. Neither had changed out of recognition and if Dorothy had some difficulty in identifying Tess Maynard, Tess knew her at once. They resumed their friendship and, Tess also being alone, having recently been divorced from her second husband, they set up house together. The arrangement works very well.
Staying in the Pimlico flat for only six months, Zeinab and Algy put down a substantial deposit on a house in Borehamwood, which they are buying on a mortgage, Algy having got a good job with a company of estate agents. Zeinab is pregnant again. If it is a girl she intends to call the child Inez and if a boy, Morton, for it is to Morton Phibling, as she reminds Algy, that they owe the foundation of their wealth.
Zeinab has given in to pressure from Algy and they were married two weeks ago, the bride wearing the dress which was made for her wedding to Morton. The ceremony was rather a low-key affair but the reception was very grand, taking place in Orville Pereira’s new hotel in north London.
Though furious at the failure of his promised bride to turn up at St Peter’s, Eaton Square, Morton has got over it by now. A lot came out of it, after all, not least his glorious triumph, scarcely equalled in his boxing days, of knocking out and laying low Rowley Woodhouse, a man half his age. His new girlfriend is the same age as Zeinab claimed to be and as fond of diamonds and expensive restaurants, but otherwise quite different, being blonde, winsome and not particularly chaste. Morton is thinking of asking her to get engaged. After some heart-searching, they accepted Algy’s invitation to the wedding, Morton keen to demonstrate his greatness of soul and show off his girlfriend. He had his reward when Algy, in his after-dinner speech, mentioned him as the recipient of the bride’s and groom’s gratitude. Morton was never sure what they were grateful for, but that hardly mattered.
