looking like a female druid in mourning. Mix knew by her eyes that she recognized him before she spoke and when she did it was in acompletely different voice from the one he had heard predictinghis future, a shrill, sharp north London tone. 'You've taken your time about coming. If reading the cards means more toyou than work, you're not going to get very far. The ones you've got to mend are two bikes, four and seven. Right?'
'Right,' said Mix through gritted teeth.
He had to stop his mouth falling open when she said, 'You fancied that girl who worked here. The skinny little one that left without a word. Didn't run off with you, did she?'
Mix managed a derisive smile. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever achieved. 'What, me? I hardly knew her.'
'That's what you men always say. I don't like men. Now you'd better get on with what you've come about.'
What an old horror! He'd never come across a female of her age quite so horrible. She put Chawcer, Fordyce, and 'Winthrop in the shade. He shuddered and turned his attention to the two stationary bicycles. Both needed a new part but different parts in each case. He didn't carry spares with him and, since he wasw orking freelance at Shoshana's, if he was to get them he'dhave to pinch them from the warehouse. Nothing to be done now. He told the icy beauty he'd order the necessary parts andcome back when he'd got them.
'When will that be?'
'A few days? Not more than a week.'
'It had better not be. Madam will do her nut if you keep her waiting any longer.'
He had more calls to make. One was a new customer who had never sent for him before and wanted to order a skier. Shelived in a place called St. Catherine's Mews on the border of Knightsbridge and Chelsea, but though he drove twice up and down Milner Street he couldn't find it. Leave it, he said tohimself, call her and ask her for directions. One of the few men who kept exercise equipment in his home had sent for him to Lady Somerset Road in Kentish Town but when he got there, perilously parked and afraid of being clamped, Mr. Holland-Bridgeman wasn't at home. Mix decided to go back briefly to St. Blaise House and check on that copper in the washhouse.
Approaching from Oxford Gardens, he wondered what he'd do if police cars were outside and policemen pacing about and blue and white crime tape stretched across the front garden. Turn around and hide somewhere, he thought, maybe go up north and home but not to his mother, who'd either have some new lover living with her or be back in the bin. His brother? They'd never got on well. Shannon was the only one in the family he'd had any sort of relationship with… St. Blaise Avenue was empty of people, relatively silent, the usual cars parked nose to tail along both sides. One space was left for Mix. He let himself into the house and stood listening, preparedfor Ma Fordyce or Ma 'Winthrop to appear from thekitchen regions, waving a duster.
Unconvinced one or other of them wasn't in the house, he walked carefully through the breakfast room to the kitchen, a transformed place since cleaning operations conducted by those two, and in the washhouse. He sniffed, waited, sniffed again. No smell. His wrapping had been effective. Maybe Christie had also dealt with that particular problem in the same way-did they have plastic all that time ago? He found himself reluctant to lift the lid off the copper but he did it. There was no point in coming home at all at this hour and not doing that. The well-sealed, well-wrapped package she and the bag made was just as he had left it and, even with the lid up, he could smell nothing at all.
Then Mix made another discovery. If you didn't know what the package in the copper was you'd think it was just a big plastic sack full of old clothes someone had stuffed in there for aplace to put it. You wouldn't investigate any further. If it didn't smell and looked like the kind of bag people took to a launderette, wasn't it perfectly safe where it was? The situation was quite different for that man Beresford Brown, who began puttingup brackets for a radio, and behind a partition in RillingtonPlace found a woman's naked body. There was no smell because it was midwinter and cold. In his own case there'd be no smell because of the way he'd wrapped it. Why shouldn't itstay where it was? The idea seemed too daring and bold to be feasible, but why not? Wouldn't he worry about it all the time it was there?
Old Chawcer was no careful housewife. You could see thatfrom the way Fordyce and Winthrop had had to work to getthe place straight. She'd never go near that copper, she had awashing machine, and though it was old- fashioned it was stillusable. In the unlikely event of her looking inside the copper,all she'd see was old clothes in a plastic bag. So why not leave itthere? Mix closed the lid, wandered slowly back into thekitchen, thinking of this new and simpler plan, and came faceto face with Olive Fordyce. Because of his stealthy entry he hadthe satisfaction of making her jump, as the ghost had madehim, though he had been as alarmed as she and with morecause. She had a small white dog with her, about half the sizeof Otto.
'What are you doing out there?'
'I was in the hallway,' Mix said, 'and I heard a noise.'
'What noise?' She was very sharp with him.
'I don't know. That's why I went to see.'
The look she gave him was suspicious and searching.
'Where's the cat?'
'How should I know? I haven't seen him for days.'
The dog began sniffing the hems of his jeans. 'He'll runaway if you don't feed him and find someone who will. Don't do that, Kylie, there's a good girl. You'll be pleased,' she said, pausing, 'to hear Gwen will be home in a day or two.'
She gave him a broad malicious smile. It was as if she knew what was going on in his head. He held on to the edge of the newly cleaned counter, afraid he might fall. All ideas of leaving the body where it was vanished and to get it out of the house, out of any possible sighting, became imperative.
'Naturally, I've been into the hospital to see her, as I always do every morning, and that's what she told me. The sister confirmed it. Tomorrow, she said.' She picked up the dog and cuddled it like a child with a toy. 'If not it'll be the day after. They don't keep patients in like they used to. Well, nothing's like it, used to be, is it?'
He said nothing. He was aware of what she would have expectedhim to say-if he were a 'nice young man' that is. 'It'll be good to have her back,' for instance, or, 'She'll be pleased to have her kitchen all neat and tidy.' He couldn't find the words, any words.
'I'm going out again now to do a bit of shopping for her. She'll need a good deal of looking after.' She fluttered her freehand and he saw her nails were orchid pink today, like a young girl, pointed and glossy and sharp. With no inhibitions about looking someone straight in the eye and holding the gaze, she fixed him with a penetrating gaze, at the same time craning her neck forward and holding her head slightly on one side. 'You'll have to pull your socks up, make her cups of tea, and fetch her bits and pieces. That won't do you any harm. She won't be able to get about much yet.'
'When are you coming back?' he said.
'What, today? I don't know. When I've done the shopping. Does it bother you?'
'Give me the list and I'll do the shopping,' he said.
It was evidently the best thing he could have said. For the first time since they had encountered each other in the kitchen.doorway, she spoke pleasantly to him. 'That's very good ofyou. I won't say no. It'll save my legs. I'll give you some money.'
She began rummaging in her bag, found the list, and handed itto him.
'You can give me the money after I've done it,' he said, mollifying her further.
'It'll have to be a couple of days, then. I'm not coming inagain till then if! can help it. Queenie's taking over, she'll be intomorrow, so I'll pass the key on to her. Now say good-bye to Kylie.'
The hell he would. Hadn't he done enough for her, offering to do the shopping? The two afternoon calls he was due to make, the expenses form to fill in, the meeting with Jack Fleisch, the other engineers, and the reps went out of his head. Or, rather, were dismissed as of no importance compared with the urgency of hiding that body, not temporarily, not as an interim move, but forever.
He need not go upstairs, not now, not till later. He'd have a drink in a pub or bar somewhere so that he could face going up there, have the strength to face what might be at the top.
A principle of Shoshana's was: never bother the police unless they bother you. She sat up in the soothsaying room above the spa, a client due in ten minutes, thinking about Danila Kovic, not with any anxiety as to her whereabouts nor fear that she might be dead, not with any sympathy for her friends or relations who could be
