Thirteen Steps Down

girl. But Darel was wary of the whole celebrity world. He knew of it only from what he read in the newspapers. Since his preferred reading was usually the Financial Times, this wasn't much of a guide, but certain emotive words suggestive of that world aroused his distaste:club, fashion, star, public appearance, designer, and of course 'celebrity' itself were among them. Someone belonging in that so-called elite must be empty-headed, ignorant,tasteless, and shallow. Such people were heading for empty,unhappy lives, failed relationships, dysfunctional families, alienatedchildren, and a desperate unwilliness to grow old.

What a prig you are, he often told himself, always resolving to be less censorious. The fact remained that he had no wish to extend his acquaintance with Nerissa Nash beyond replying 'Good evening' to her 'Hi' and raising his hand in a modifiedwave if he saw her at a distance.

Chapter 9

It wasn't until the doorbell rang that Mix remembered Danila was coming round. He had forgotten to buy any cheap wine and now he'd have to give her that rather nice Merlot he'd bought for his own private consumption on Sundaynight. Spending the evening at home, as he thought alone, he had been enthralled in Chapter 3 of Christie's Victims, reading of

Muriel Bady, a 31-year-old woman, living in Putney and employed at the Ultra Radio Works in Park Royal. On leaving the police for no known reason, Christie had also gone to work there. He and she became friends, insofar as Christie was capable of friendship, and on several occasions she and her fiance and Christie with Mrs. Christie all went out together.

Muriel Bady suffered from chronic rhinitis and Christie claimed to be able to cure her with the aid of an inhalation device of his own invention. When his wife had gone away, once more to have a holiday with her brother in Sheffield, he invited Muriel around, gave her a cup of tea and showed her what he said was the device. However, though it contained Friar's Balsam, it also, unbeknown to Muriel, admitted a tube attached at the other end to a gas outlet…

It had been at this point that Mix was summoned to answer the door. Old Chawcer had seen no need for an entry phone or even a separate doorbell for the top flat, so on the rare occasions when someone called on him, he had to go all the way down the fifty-two stairs and come all the way up again. Old Chawcer never answered the door unless she was expecting a guest, an even less usual event in the evenings, so he was prettysure she wouldn't let Danila in. For, by the time he had set foot on the top tread of the tiled staircase, he had remembered who this caller must be.

The bell rang twice more before he got there. He needn't have worried about the wine because she had brought two bottleswith her, one of Riesling and one of gin. This ought to have pleased him but it didn't. In his view, women shouldn't contribute to the evening's entertainment, no self-respecting woman would, she'd expect the man to pay. Danila's mass ofd ark hair was bigger and wilder than ever-ridiculous, he thought, it caused her little pinched face to look tiny. Her next move made matters even worse. Having set the bottles downon the hall table, she threw her arms round Mix's neck and kissed him.

'I'm ever so glad to see you. I've been looking forwardto this.'

He said nothing but led her up the stairs. Outside Miss Chawcer's bedroom sat Otto, engaged in an all-over wash.

'Oh, what a sweet kitty!' Danila's shriek made Otto start to his feet and arch his back. 'Is she yours? Isn't she a darling!'She made the mistake of putting out a hand toward Otto'shead. He drew back, hissed and lashed at her before running upstairs. 'Oh, I frightened her!'

'Come on,' said Mix.

On the landing outside his front door she asked why it was so dark and said the stained glass window gave her the creeps, but his anger was softened to a mild irritation by her admiration of his flat. She walked round his living room, passing the portrait of Nerissa Nash with just a glance at it and then at him, but adoring everything else. Oh, the window blinds! Oh, the cushions,the furniture, the ornaments, the lamp shades! The amazing TN! That lovely gray marble statue of a girl. Who was she?

'Some goddess. Psyche, they called her, when I bought her,' he said. He poured them each a stiff gin with tonic from his fridge and ice from the freezer. He hadn't a lemon. 'You like the apartment, then?'

'It's great. What you must think of my grotty place!'

'I've taken a lot of trouble to get it this way.'

'I'm sure. Why d'you read about awful murders when you've got a lovely place like this?' She had picked up his book,left face-downwards on the arm of the gray silk sofa. 'Yuck, it's horrible. 'She was unconscious and while he strangled her he raped her,' ' she read aloud.

'Give that to me.' Mix snatched the book from her. 'Now you've lost my place.'

'I'm sorry. It was just that I… '

'All right, never mind. Bring your drink in the bedroom.'

They would have to go through all that shrieking and gasping stuff all over again when she saw the furniture and the pictures. Might as well get it over with so that they could getdown to what was the reason for her coming at all. He refilledhis glass while she wandered around the bedroom in the samesort of ecstasy as she'd shown in the living room. He sipped his drink. It was that good Bombay gin in the blue bottle she'd brought, he had to grant her that. He strolled back, pretending astonishment to see her dressed as she had been two minutes before.

'I reckoned you'd be starkers by now.'

'Mix.' She came up to him. 'Mix, do we always have to start doing it the minute I come? Can't we talk for a bit?'

He was surprised. She was showing initiative for the first time, as if she had some sort of right to an opinion on the order of events. He could see what it was. In her eyes he was her boyfriend now and she was starting to take him for granted. Soon she'd be telling him what to do, not asking him.

'Talk about what?' he said.

'I don't know. Things. You getting the furniture for thisplace, your job, mine, your lovely cat.'

'It's not my fucking cat!' he almost yelled.

'There's no need to shout.'

She took her clothes off but not the way Mix would have preferred, not like a stripper giving a titillating performance. Danila undressed as she would when she was alone, placing her outer garments over the back of a chair, turning her back onhim to take off thong and tights. How he hated tights. And didn't she know wearing a G- string with them was a joke? She, left her bra till last, ashamed of her tiny breasts. He thought, I won't see her again, I'll find some other way of getting to know Nerissa.

She went to the bed but he stopped her. 'Wait a minute.'He wasn't going to do it on top of his ivory satin quilt; he lifted it off and folded it. 'All right,' he said.

The look she gave him was subservient but with something in it too of bewilderment. He took off his shoes and trousers but kept his shirt on and his socks. A man didn't have to stripoff, that was the woman's role. A simmering anger against her, a cold rage he couldn't quite account for, stopped him taking any trouble and what happened could have been called rape, only she didn't resist. He rolled away from her to finish his drink.

Five minutes later she was walking round the flat again. He heard her say, 'Why d'you have her up there?'

There was no doubt as to what she meant. But 'You mean Nerissa Nash?' he said, to make assurance absolutely sure.

'You fancy her or something?'

Mix got up. Somewhere in him was a prudish streak, legacy perhaps of a childhood among the Seventh Day Adventists. Of course his disapproval rather depended on who it was. Somehow it was all right when it was Colette and it would be more than all right-fantastic-if it had been Nerissa, but in Danila it seemed to smack of defiance, of taking things and him for granted, and of asserting herself. A woman like her knew very well you don't walk about nude the way she was doing in a man's flat unless you have a good reason to call him yours and have a proprietary