by Ruth Rendell
He came back and was rewarded with more gin. June eyed the overflowing carrier bags and the boxes from a well-known patisserie. ‘More to come,’ said Joe, tossing down his drink at two gulps. ‘I’ve already got a parking ticket.’
‘Never mind, angel. When you’ve brought all the flowers in we’ll be on our way.’
Banksias and gazanias and multicoloured other varieties. Khalid Iqbal would have known their names and so, probably, would Dex Flitch. June wondered if they had enough vases to accommodate them, so put the food away first.
The duck having been taken home to Dorothee, at three in the afternoon Beacon picked up Mr Still from the office he would not be returning to until 28 December and drove him, not to Medway Manor Court, but to Hexam Place. His wife, Rabia told him, had just left in a hire car for the Cotswolds and her parents. Before that she had sat down in the nursery with Rabia and poured out her heart to this unwilling but acquiescent audience. The girls were watching a DVD and Thomas was asleep.
‘My marriage is over,’ Lucy said. ‘Preston has put this house on the market only no one’s supposed to know yet. It will absolutely destroy me to have to leave it. I can’t live alone with those kids. We shall talk about it over Christmas, of course, but it looks likely that I shall take them to live in my parents’ house. It’s huge and there’s a big flat in it – well, a whole wing really. That’s where we’ll live.’
Rabia said nothing. She tried to smile encouragingly but couldn’t. Her lips were as stiff as if she had had an anaesthetic at the dentist’s.
‘My old nanny’s there. She’s nearly eighty but she adores children and she’ll be a real help to me. I know I couldn’t take you away from London, so that solves that little problem really. Preston will be talking to you about it. You don’t have a contract, do you?’
Rabia didn’t know. She couldn’t remember signing anything and contracts were papers that had to be signed. She was glad that while Lucy was speaking, when she was saying all these things, Thomas was out of sight and asleep.
Lucy’s car had come before much more was said. Rabia carried her cases downstairs for her and Lucy said she was a treasure, not a word Rabia much liked applied to herself.
‘I’m going to hate having to let you go.’
By the time Mr Still arrived the children were all ready and their cases were packed. Mr Still said nothing about contracts or her having to leave, barely spoke to Matilda and Hero and not at all to Thomas. For once he didn’t ask if the spot on Hero’s cheek was chickenpox or why Thomas was so pale. When they were all gone Rabia was alone in the house. Or she thought she was until, while she was standing on the gallery, leaning over the rail, she heard a burst of laughter from Montserrat’s flat. She was still standing there, thinking how she must go back, tidy the nursery and change the sheets on all the beds, when Montserrat appeared on the stairs below, more closely entwined with a young man than perhaps Rabia had ever seen her before. They looked up, laughing, and called ‘Happy Christmas’ to her.
Rabia thought it would somehow be wrong for her to say the same thing back, so she said, ‘Thank you.’
That evening she went to the mosque with her father but sat of course with the women, wearing her long black skirt and a new black coat, her head covered by a hijab with a gold design on it. Her thoughts had been straying in a way they should not have done, to Thomas at his auntie’s in Chelsea, a big house no doubt with everything in it that money could buy. Would she be kind to him and loving? Would she give him the food he liked and praise him when he ate it? Rabia knew she must not keep thinking of him, she must put him out of her mind, prepare herself to forget him, look to the future and new relationships, new commitments.
It was very cold, frost already clouding windscreens, lying on hedges and brickwork. She and Abram Siddiqui walked along in silence for a while until she broke that silence by telling him there was no point in her returning to the empty house in Hexam Place that night and could she stay with him.
‘Of course, my daughter,’ he said. ‘You know I would like you to stay with me always.’
But she waited until they were there, walking along this street in Acton where many of the houses belonged to people like themselves of Pakistani heritage, but a few had Christmas trees in their windows and holly wreaths on their door knockers, before broaching the subject she intended to speak to him about.
‘There is something important I want to say to you, Father.’
He let them in, took her coat from her. ‘Will you make tea for us, Rabia?’
The neat little house was warm. Abram often said, with forgivable pride, that he hoped he could now afford never again while indoors to shiver in the bitter English winter. As if the temperature in the high twenties were not enough on its own he added ten degrees to it by switching on the gas heater whose flames licking artificial coal looked like a real fire. Rabia brought in the tea. She handed him his cup, sat down in a low chair, her black skirts spread to cover her feet in their small black pumps.
‘Father, if you are agreeable and the idea pleases you,’ she said, ‘I would like you to see Mr and Mrs Iqbal and tell them I’ll be willing to marry their son Mr Khalid Iqbal. Will you do that?’
‘My Rabia,’ he said.
If a murder victim is a woman the first suspect the police look at is her husband or fiancé or partner or lover or boyfriend. Newspaper readers and news watchers know this. They wait avidly for an arrest and feel disappointment if this particular man is pronounced cleared, a witness now, not a possible killer. Jimmy knew this but he had never thought much about it. He had never imagined himself in such a man’s position or considered how it must feel for someone who was innocent, and already had his grief to contend with, to be suspected of the very crime which had plunged him into misery. And until the two policemen rang Dr Jefferson’s doorbell on Christmas Eve in the evening such an eventuality never crossed his mind. Everyone knew he had been in love with Thea, had been engaged to her, was soon to marry her, including this Detective Sergeant Freud and Detective Constable Rickards, whose red hair reminded him of Thea’s as it used to be.
They asked him where he had been on the morning of 23 December and he told them he had been here, in this house. No, he hadn’t been out. He had been preparing for Christmas with his fiancée. They wanted to know if anyone could confirm that and he had to say that he had been alone, he had seen various residents of Hexam Place from the windows but he didn’t think they had seen him.
‘What about Rad Sothern?’ said Freud. ‘Did you know him?’
‘I don’t know people like that.’ Jimmy couldn’t understand why they brought him up now. ‘That was months ago.’
‘Just seven weeks, in fact,’ said Rickards.
Most mystifying to them, it seemed, was how and why Jimmy was there in Dr Simon Jefferson’s house at all. All right, Jimmy was his driver and kept an eye on the house while his employer was away, but lived there, had his girlfriend there with him, was cooking Christmas dinner for both of them?
‘Do pretty well for yourself, don’t you?’ Freud was eyeing the bottle of gin on the sideboard, the half-empty bottle of Scotch, the as yet unopened bottles of wine. ‘Drowning your sorrow at Dr Jefferson’s expense, were you?’
That made Jimmy feel like crying but he managed to hold back the tears like a child missing an indulgent parent. He told Freud and Rickards that while in the house on Friday morning he had seen June in her red coat out of the window, walking the dog in its blue coat, Henry at the wheel of the Beemer, Bibi Lambda on her bicycle and Rabia pushing the little Still boy in his buggy. They said they would want to talk to him again.
‘Everything stops for Christmas, doesn’t it?’ Jimmy was trying to be ingratiating.
‘Not in our business,’ said Freud coldly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The previous year Dex had spent Christmas Day in a church hall near Chelsea Creek. The people that came there to have their dinner were looked after by a group of young
girl volunteers who waited on them and served their food. He had been told by the social worker who looked in on him from time to time that it would be the same this year and it was. Not all the people were homeless but some were like him, living in one room on their own, with no wife or children. The men outnumbered the women by three to one. First of all they had a cup of tea, then they watched TV and at 12.30 p.m. Christmas dinner was served at a long table covered in red paper; there was turkey and stuffing and sausages, roast potatoes and cabbage, followed by Christmas pudding and custard. One of the women said the stuffing came out of a packet and the custard out of a tin. Dex didn’t care. It was the best meal he had had all year. A big glass of Guinness would have made it perfect but there wasn’t any, of course there wasn’t. He didn’t really mind.
After dinner he slept a bit in an armchair with wooden arms and a cushion with Mickey Mouse on it because everyone else slept. They woke up for the Queen and then Dex went home. His room was stuffy and smelling of unwashed clothes and mothballs. He switched on the television and sat down in front of it to see a woman talking on a five-minute-long news bulletin about finding his knife in her handbag. Now he rather regretted putting it there. He had done good service with it, making the world a better place. Suppose he had to destroy another evil spirit? Stealing was wrong, he knew that very well, but just for once he might have to break that rule and take a knife from Dr Jefferson’s kitchen if Peach needed him again.
In spite of Thea’s death and the sporadic visits of the police to Hexam Place, the little candles in drawing-room windows contiued to burn. Even Damian and Roland, allowing theirs to go out before they left for Roland’s mother’s on the Friday evening – out of respect for Thea, charitable people said – relit them on their return on Christmas night. Apologising in a perfunctory sort of way, DS Freud and DC Rickards turned up on their doorstep ten minutes later, observed by Montserrat, to make what they called routine inquiries. Montserrat and Ciaran had had their Christmas dinner with Ciaran’s sister and a bunch of friends, eaten little and drunk a great deal, and returning, decided that the run of number 7 should be theirs. The family had gone away and so had Rabia. They slept for a while on the drawing-room sofas and recovering after a restorative concoction prepared by Montserrat of wine, water and soluble aspirins, stationed themselves at the big window to watch the world go by, or such of it as moved about Hexam Place.
Light from street lamps rather than candles glittered on Rickards’s red hair and Freud’s well-polished shoes as they mounted the steps to Damian and Roland’s front door.
‘That’ll piss those two off,’ said Montserrat. ‘They’ve only just got back from their mum’s. Or one of their mums’.’
‘I reckon it’s just a formality and they’ll arrest that driver guy.’
‘It won’t have been Jimmy. I saw Jimmy in Jefferson’s place at the time it was happening.’
‘You did?’ said Ciaran. ‘Wow. You’ll have to tell them.’
‘Yeah, I know. I just thought I’d wait a bit. I’ve got something to tell you, Ciaran. I don’t know what you’ll think.’
They continued to look out of the window for a while, Ciaran’s arm round Montserrat’s shoulders. Miss Grieves came lumbering very slowly up the area steps of number 8, dragging a black plastic bag behind her.
‘The council won’t take that,’ said Montserrat, ‘not on Boxing Day, they won’t. I tell you what, those cops ought to talk to her. She sees everything goes on down here. Hey, look at that.’
What Ciaran was to look at was Henry who had appeared from Lower Sloane Street holding hands with the Honourable Huguette.
‘I don’t believe it. Are they going in to number 11?’
‘I can’t see from here. Who are they anyway?’
‘If I went in for fairy stories I could say the princess and the swineherd but the reality is they’re Lord Studley’s daughter and Lord Studley’s driver. How about that?’
Ciaran said, ‘You said you’d got something to tell me. Like what?’
‘Let’s have another drink first. There’s whisky in that cupboard thing.’
While they were raiding the drinks cabinet, the fox emerged from the Princess’s front garden and set about tearing open Miss Grieves’s rubbish bag. It helped itself to a turkey drumstick. She watched it from the area and, unable to do anything about it, stood at the foot of the steps shouting and shaking her fist. The fox left with its booty the way it had come.
Whereas ‘bun in the oven’, ‘up the duff’ and ‘knocked up’ were expressions Henry was familiar with, the terminology used by Huguette in the text she had sent him the day before yesterday he had never heard before. In family wy! b OK now. xxx H. He had to phone her and ask, to be told she was more than three months pregnant and her father wanted to see him. Henry nearly fainted.
‘No, it’ll be fine. I wouldn’t say he’s like over the moon. But what d’you think he said? “At least he’s a fine specimen of manhood,” he said. “It’ll be a handsome infant.” Couldn’t you just die laughing?’
‘And he’s going to let us get married?’
‘He’s going to make us get married. What d’you think he said? “No daughter of mine is going to be one of those single mothers,” he said. “Remember I’m a Conservative.” ’
So Henry had gone to see Lord Studley at number 11, climbing up the elegant flights of stairs to the office on the second floor. The House was not sitting, nor were ministers required in their departments, so the Beemer would remain clean and shining in its garage. Lord Studley behaved much as his own great-grandfather might have behaved to an unsuitable but successful suitor for his daughter’s hand, delivering first a scolding, following it with a commentary on the few consolations to be had: Henry was young and healthy, had never been married before, was not a stranger to the family and Huguette seemed devoted to him. After that, since there would be no driving that day, sherry was offered and accepted and both agreed that the wedding should take place as soon as possible. There was no sign of Oceane.
The whole story of Rad Sothern and Lucy, Preston Still’s early return to number 7, his assault on Rad and Rad’s fall down the stairs to his death at the bottom, was related to Ciaran. Then Montserrat told him about the box on the roof rack, the drive to Gallowmill Hall and the subsequent disposal of the body.
Ciaran was unfazed. If anything, he was admiring. ‘If you tell them all that, you won’t be able to tell them how you saw Jimmy on Thursday morning.’
‘Why not?’
‘Get real, Montsy. Think about it. They’re not going to believe you, are they? Maybe they’ll believe one but not both. You have to choose what you want them to believe, Jimmy or Rad Sothern.’
‘Don’t you believe me?’
Ciaran was quiet for a minute. ‘OK, yes, I believe you, but you’re my woman. Of course I do.’
‘What shall I do, then?’
‘Obviously you can’t let Jimmy go on trial for murder. You saw him in the doctor’s house while Thea was being murdered in Oxford Street. You did, didn’t you?’
‘You said you believed me, Ciaran. Of course I did.’
‘Then you tell them that and write an anonymous letter to the police about Rad Sothern and your Mr Still and the box and the tyre, et cetera, et cetera. Write to that guy Freud.’
‘Will he like take any notice?’
‘He won’t dare just let it go,’ said Ciaran.
A number of women at the mosque as well as family members took it for granted Rabia had found a second husband through a Muslim marriage agency. She was quick to deny it. Such transactions, though sanctioned in the community, seemed to her improper, even vulgar. These arrangements should be made through parents or, if that were impossible, through uncles and aunties.
Now the deed was done and Khadiya Iqbal was already making wedding plans, Rabia looked forward to her future life as one might to a holiday so remote and exotic as to be beyond imaginings. One day it would happen and be infinitely strange, ev
ery day filled with unfamiliar things and experiences. She would once again have a permanent companion who was not a child, yet someone quite different from herself. Someone she could love? That she would try to do, do her very best, but as she thought this Thomas came into her mind and she pictured her post-Christmas reunion with him, the little boy’s expression puzzled until he saw her across the room and leapt into her arms.
The Still family was to return home on the Tuesday after Christmas while Rabia came back on the Monday afternoon. She knew the house had been empty but, possibly, for Montserrat in the basement flat. She tapped on her door but there was no answer. Upstairs, on the first floor, she looked into the drawing room and got rather a shock. At first she thought the mess must be due to burglars, bottles empty and half empty, glasses and cups and mugs everywhere, the furniture moved around, boxes of DVDs lying open on the floor in front of the television. More likely it was Montserrat and friend or friends celebrating Christmas. Zinnia would be back next day but so would Mr Still and the children. Rabia fetched a tray and began picking up the crockery and the glasses. Father and now Khalid say I’m good, she thought, but I don’t want to be too good, this isn’t my job, and if any of them say how good I am I shall get cross. But they won’t, of course they won’t. It doesn’t matter any more because I shall soon be gone and that will be the end of it.
Thomas did leap into her arms the way she predicted and she felt such a surge of joy that was like excitement, making her breathless, that the tears came into her eyes. She had to fight them back and try to smile.
‘Say sweetheart,’ said Thomas.
The police might have told Jimmy that they weren’t going to arrest him, they weren’t going to charge him, he was off the hook. But they didn’t. They didn’t tell him that Montserrat Tresser of number 7 Hexam Place had seen him through the window at number 3 at the relevant time. They told him nothing. They just didn’t come back. He waited nervously, missing Thea, sometimes speculating as to who could have killed her, sometimes feeling very low. Simon Jefferson, returning from Andorra on the Wednesday after Christmas, was suitably and gratifyingly sympathetic when Jimmy told him about Thea.
