Dark Corners

by Ruth Rendell

  “It seems to be a fine day,” he said aloud. “I shall make myself some lunch—two eggs, I think, and a piece of toast—and then I’ll go out and walk up to my mother’s. I’ll borrow enough money from her to tide me over until I can get a tenant set up in the top flat. It shouldn’t take long.”

  He broke the two eggs into a bowl, beat them with a fork, scrambled the mixture in a saucepan, and made the toast. His lunch was almost eaten when the doorbell rang. It made him jump. He told himself not to be stupid, that there was no need to answer it. But when the bell rang again, he went to the door.

  Sybil’s father stood outside. He was carrying a suitcase. No doubt he had come to tell Carl what he already knew: Sybil was dead.

  “You’d better come in.”

  “I won’t stop. Sybil’s back with us now. The hospital sent her home this morning. I’ve come for her things.”

  Was this how it felt when you knew you were going to faint? Carl clutched hold of the tabletop.

  Cliff Soames came in, slamming the door behind him. “They got most of that stuff out of her. They said she’ll be OK now, but she’ll not be coming back here. Not ever. Her mum’s looking after her, won’t let her out of her sight. She won’t think of leaving us again. I’ll go up and put her things in the case.”

  Carl went into the living room and sat on Dad’s sofa as Cliff Soames’s words sank in. Sybil wasn’t coming back here, Sybil wasn’t dead; they didn’t all die, the people who took DNP, not the ones who were careful. He began to shake, his hands trembling, the muscles in his legs jumping.

  The suitcase Cliff had brought, now full, bumped down the stairs. He left it in the hall, took a step into the room. “Sybil wants to stay alive.” His tone was ominous. “You’ll never set eyes on her again. Does she owe you any rent?”

  Carl didn’t know what to say. The real sum she owed he was afraid to put into words, but the temptation to say something, to name a small figure, was too great to resist.

  “Eighty pounds,” he said, and stupidly, “if you can see your way . . .”

  Cliff Soames pulled a wad of notes out of his pocket, handed them over, and said he’d like a receipt. “The rents you people charge. I’ve read about you in the papers, greedy, grasping buggers. I hope it chokes you.”

  Carl wrote a receipt for eighty pounds and handed it over in silence. When the front door slammed, he watched Cliff stagger down the street with the heavy bag. His first task, he thought, would be to spend some of the money he was still clutching on a couple of bottles of wine, and perhaps a bottle of something stronger.

  IT WAS SATURDAY, it had to be. Carl’s priority was to look at accommodation wanted online and pick one or two people who seemed likely. But there were hundreds—probably thousands—all wanting somewhere to live in central London. Investigating these things brought it home to you how desperate the housing situation was.

  He soon saw that the place he had to offer, a self-contained top floor of a mews house in Maida Vale, was about as desirable as you could get, and the rent he had asked (though scarcely ever succeeded in getting) had been derisory. This would have to be revised. Within ten minutes he had increased it considerably and had arranged for three applicants to come round later: a couple at two, a single man at four, and a woman at six. What to do if he liked the first ones he didn’t yet know. He would give it some thought.

  After a shot of vodka and a glass of pinot grigio, he began looking through his part of the house for Nicola’s property. She must have left a lot of things behind, he thought: clothes, maybe jewellery, though she hadn’t much, makeup and perfume (to which the same applied), books, CDs, and DVDs. But she hadn’t—just a bit of underwear, a grey dress and a red dress for work, and jeans and sweaters or tee-shirts for the weekends. The grey dress was still in the wardrobe and so was a pair of jeans and a blue-and-white-patterned top he had always liked. It gave him a pang to look at it; it was as if she had died.

  The doorbell rang while he was wondering what to do next. It was Mr. and Mrs. Crowhurst, right on time. They looked young, about his own age or younger. The rent he was asking—the new rent—seemed not to put them off. They walked around the rooms, Mrs. Crowhurst sniffing the air in the living room rather suspiciously but making no comment. Could they use the garden? Carl remembered last time and said no, he was afraid not. Mr. Crowhurst said they were called Jason and Chloe but had said they were Mr. and Mrs. because married people sounded more respectable.

  “Aren’t you married, then?”

  “Oh, yes, we’re married all right.” They held out their left hands to show their wedding rings. “We’ll call you and let you know.”

  “I’ve got two more people coming, one at four and one at six, so don’t be too long about it.” Carl had never felt so powerful, monarch of all he surveyed, as Dermot might have said.

  The next possible tenant came at ten past four. He was old enough to be the Crowhursts’ father, tall, grey haired, wearing a suit. His name was Andrew Page, and whether he was married didn’t come into it. He agreed to the rent, didn’t ask about the use of the garden, but said he would like to move in as soon as possible. Something about him reminded Carl of Dermot. He said he had one more applicant to see, and Mr. Page was to call later.

  When the phone rang at five, Carl thought it must be Andrew Page, but a man called Harry said he was a friend of Nicola’s and would like to come round in his jalopy and pick up her stuff. Now, if poss. Carl said the following day would be more convenient, but that didn’t suit Harry.

  “It must be now or never,” said Harry.

  Harry seemed unlike any possible friend of Nicola’s. He wore a paint-stained tracksuit and had a big, bushy beard as well as shoulder-length hair. It was as well, Carl thought, that Nicola wasn’t clothes conscious, for Harry had brought only two large, whitish pillowcases to put everything in. This he accomplished in about five minutes, before hurling the pillowcases into the back of the van and driving off much faster, Carl thought, than anyone had ever before sped along the cobbles. He had tried to persuade Harry to take Nicola’s green goose with him, but Harry had looked at it and shaken his head. So there it sat on the hall table, a silent and reproachful reminder of everything that had happened to Carl during the past few months.

  Immediately after the van departed, a small woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Hamilton drove up in a silver Lexus. Before she had even entered the house she was back in the car and driving away, once Carl had told her no off-street parking was available at 11 Falcon Mews.

  Andrew Page returned in a taxi just before eight. “Turned up like a bad penny,” he said, which was so like Dermot that it made Carl shudder.

  “Changed your mind, have you?” Carl said, almost hoping that he had. But Andrew Page hadn’t. He simply wanted to know that nothing had happened to keep him from the tenancy. Nothing had, Carl said rather reluctantly.

  “I’d like to come back tomorrow with my solicitor to sign the contract. Oh, and pay the deposit. Best to have things all open and aboveboard, don’t you think?”

  Carl had never heard of anyone’s having a solicitor present for such a transaction, but he didn’t know much about letting property. He had certainly made a mess of it last time. It seemed amazing to him too that this man wanted to give him a deposit without even being asked for it. While the taxi waited, they arranged for him to return at 6:00 p.m. the following day with Mr. Lucas Partridge, LLB.

  Throughout the rest of the evening, Carl repeated to himself the two clichés Andrew Page had uttered, Dermot-like. What did it matter? He intended to avoid speaking to him as much as possible during his tenancy. The money was good and would keep on coming—without hindrance, without blackmail.

  “WHAT WOULD YOU do,” said Adam, “if you recognised someone you’d seen doing something weird and you thought he might have committed a crime?” He and Lizzie were walking along the canal towpath between Cunningham Place and Lisson Green. It was a fine, clear evening.

  “What d�
��you mean by weird?”

  “Sit down a minute.”

  They sat on a seat on the bank. “The guy who used to do your job at the pet place—what was he called?”

  “Dermot McKinnon. He was murdered.”

  “I know he was. It happened in a street called Jerome something. Jerome Crescent, I think. They never found who did it.” Adam paused. “At approximately that time, I’m not exactly sure of the date, I was on my way to drinks with a friend at a pub in Camden and was cycling along the path where we are now and under the bridge on Park Road until I was on the edge of the park, and this guy was on the opposite bank with a big backpack. It was getting dark and he didn’t see me.”

  “What guy, Adam?”

  “The man whose house you took McKinnon’s stuff to. He was standing at the door when I met you in the street that day. He’s the man I saw with the backpack. I watched him from the bank through the trees. I know he didn’t see me. I was fascinated. He squatted down, undid the bag, and took a big, heavy thing out of it. Then I saw him throw the bag into the canal, but not the heavy object, which he sort of cradled in his arms. It was all very odd.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I hadn’t given it much thought until recently. At the time, I didn’t know who he was, certainly didn’t know there was any connection between him and the man who was murdered. So it gave me quite a shock to recognise him.”

  “Carl Martin?”

  “Yes. And he and Dermot McKinnon lived in the same house. It’s an odd coincidence, don’t you think?”

  35

  THE DEPOSIT, REFUNDABLE on the termination of the tenancy, was so welcome to Carl, and so unexpected, he could scarcely believe it even when the cheque for two thousand pounds was put into his hand. Mr. Partridge, the solicitor, seemed to find nothing strange in this transaction. That Carl had prepared no contract between landlord and tenant caused some shaking of his head, but no great harm was done as on Page’s instructions he had created one himself. All of it looked favourable to Carl, another cause of wonderment, so that he felt he must be living in a happy dream. He half expected to wake up and find himself back in the real world without money, food, or any sort of security.

  The contract was signed and witnessed. If it was agreeable to Mr. Martin, as his new tenant insisted on calling him, Andrew Page would move in the next day. He would bring some small items of furniture, if that was all right with Mr. Martin. Carl, still dazed from the windfall and promises of further cash, said it was fine. When the two men had gone, he looked hard at the cheque. It really was for two thousand pounds. It was funny that he now had all this money but not a single note or coin and wouldn’t have until he cashed the cheque in the morning.

  He would have liked to celebrate by going to the Summerhouse restaurant nearby, or the newly opened Crocker’s Folly, and treating himself to oysters and steak and a bottle of champagne. Then he remembered his credit card, which hadn’t been used for months—he hadn’t dared to use it; he couldn’t now recall where he had put it. It took him half an hour before he located it in the pocket of a jacket he never wore.

  It was dinnertime, precisely seven thirty. He strolled along Sutherland Avenue and across the Edgware Road into Aberdeen Place. Crocker’s Folly was grand outside, and its greatly refurbished interior pretty and elegant. They had no oysters, but steak and champagne were no problem. It was so long since Carl had drunk champagne that he had forgotten what it tasted like. He wasn’t going to gobble his food, but ate it leisurely, sipping the champagne and savouring the sautéed potatoes. He had moved from this delicious first course on to a confection of three kinds of chocolate and Cornish ice cream before allowing himself to think about his life and what was happening to it.

  Maybe Nicola would come back now that he had a new tenant and money, though money had never attracted her. He could see his friends again, phone them, visit them, and ask them over. He would resume the abandoned novel; he would find that writing afforded him the pleasure it once had, he would find inspiration. His worries were all past and he must take care not to create new ones by getting on overly friendly terms with Andrew Page. Perhaps “Mr. Martin” and “Mr. Page” was the best policy, so there would be no need for invitations to drinks or even cups of tea.

  He had begun the walk back to Falcon Mews when thoughts of Dermot McKinnon came into his mind. Surely now that his new life was taking shape, the memory of Dermot would fade. There could be no pity, no regret. What Carl had done had been close to an accident, in that he had hardly known what was happening until it was all over. In a year’s time, after a year of enjoying the new tenant, with his formal ways and cold correctness, Carl would have ceased altogether to remember Dermot and certainly wouldn’t blame himself in any way for his death.

  “ARE YOU GOING to do anything about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Adam said.

  He and Lizzie were alone in the reception area of the Sutherland Pet Clinic. The clinic was closed, but one patient, a King Charles spaniel, and its owner remained. They were in Caroline’s examination room, where the dog, Louis Quatorze, was receiving immunisation. “I could go to the police, I know that. I would tell them what I’ve told you: that at what I think was roughly the time of the murder, I believe I saw Carl Martin holding the instrument he’d used to kill Dermot McKinnon.”

  “Are you going to go to the police?”

  Adam sighed. “I saw a man drop something into the canal where it goes into Regent’s Park. I didn’t come forward earlier because I didn’t think any more of it till I went to pick you up in Falcon Mews and that same man—no doubt about that—came out of the house onto the front steps. You told me that Dermot McKinnon had also lived there, in the top flat. It doesn’t amount to much, does it?”

  Before Lizzie could reply, Caroline emerged with Louis Quatorze and his owner. Lizzie presented the owner with the bill and patted Louis on the head. She and Adam left at the same time as the dog and his owner, leaving Caroline to lock up.

  “Do you really think he might have killed Dermot?” Lizzie remembered the callous way Carl had behaved when Sybil had been so ill upstairs. But still, could he have committed murder?

  “I don’t know, Lizzie. Let’s go to the Prince Alfred pub and have a drink. It’s too cold to be outside.”

  In the pub, Lizzie sat at one of the little tables and Adam fetched two glasses of white wine. “What I’d like would be to talk to Carl about it,” he said. “Find out how he reacts. I’d like to know his state of mind.”

  “Well, you are training to be a psychologist.”

  Adam laughed. “I’ve got a psychology degree, but that’s about it. You know, I’d just like to see him. I think I’d tell him I don’t intend to go to the police, but when I’ve heard him out—if he consents to speak to me—I’ll tell him he should go to them himself.”

  “What—and confess?”

  “That would be the general idea.”

  “But people don’t do that, Adam. Not voluntarily. And what happens if he gets violent? If you’re right and he did kill Dermot, what’s to stop him killing again?”

  36

  THE PREVIOUS WINTER had not been cold. It had been wet instead, and if you lived near the Thames or in the Somerset Levels, you stood a serious chance of being flooded. This year the warm weather had gone on and on, but as autumn turned into winter, sharp cold began. London was always the mildest part of the United Kingdom, and the cold started in Maida Vale rather later than elsewhere. But by the end of November in Falcon Mews, frost was glittering on the bushes that lined the cobbled street, and silvering the bare branches of the trees.

  In number 11, the central heating, which hadn’t been put to the test the previous year, was soon needed and found wanting. At least in Carl’s opinion. At the top of the house, in the tenant’s domain, there were no complaints, but one evening Carl happened to be in the hall when Andrew Page came in with two large electric heaters he fetched from the back of a taxi.

  “I’m a bi
t of a chilly mortal,” he said by way of explanation. “I’m sure the heating’s adequate.”

  The heaters were taken upstairs, and as always, Andrew Page’s front door was closed silently. Carl’s only way of knowing if his tenant was in was to go out into the street or the back garden and look up to see if a light was on behind the top windows. Even that was hardly a sure guide, as people all too often went out leaving lights on, and Andrew Page might be one of them. But Carl had no desire to know. Everyone had television, so presumably Andrew had. Most had a radio or music player or both, so no doubt he had one of those too. But if he did, no sound was ever heard from the top-floor rooms. No running water, nothing dropped on the floor, no click of a switch, no phone ringing, no computer coming on. Andrew Page seemed to live in utter silence. In that respect, in all respects, he was the ideal tenant. The rent was received without fail in Carl’s bank account on the last day of every month. Carl sometimes thought Andrew Page was too good to be true, but he told himself that he felt that way because until recently the people he had come across had been—not to put too fine a point on it—degenerate bastards.

  All was well in Carl’s life, except for the loss of Nicola. He’d discovered that she no longer lived in Ashmill Street, which meant that she had got herself other accommodation, and he could only find out where this was by calling her office at the Department of Health. In other words by calling her, and he shied away from doing that. He had to face it. If she wanted to see him, to be with him again, she would phone him. He remembered their parting, and that man coming round in his “jalopy” to collect her things. Walking past a mirror, the only one in the house outside the bathroom, he stopped and made himself smile into it. As he feared, his smile had become a facial distortion, like a mask or a gargoyle, with no warmth or friendliness in it.