I was so preoccupied by how to play the good wife and what expression I should wear, it took me a while to focus on the necklace. It was a heavy pendant of a gold heart, a solid ball of yellow gold with a small sphere of green peridot in the middle, a bulky object that weighed me down, as if I was wearing an anchor. It was an odd piece of jewellery and I was not the sort to favour shapes like hearts or bows. It had scratches. It struck me as something an older woman would admire for being weighty and therefore of quality, though there were of course far more delicate designs that were just as expensive.
He wrapped an arm across me and pulled me backwards into his chest. I could feel the heat of him behind me.
‘You know he has a weakness for whores, don’t you?’ he whispered into my ear.
The hairs on my neck stood up and I prayed he didn’t feel them brush against his lips. ‘What?’ I said. If my reaction was the wrong one, would he smash my head into the mirror?
‘Your Dr Shivershev,’ he said. ‘He collects them – whores, I mean. He gives them money, so they keep coming back, the way whores do.’
‘No, I promise you, I never heard anything of the sort,’ I said. Then I remembered how I had seen Dr Shivershev at Itchy Park, walking among the vagrants.
‘Surgeons’ gossip, most likely. You know there is also a rumour he performs abortions. Not on his own kind, I doubt. Why else would such women come to his office, apart from for the money, of course?’ he said. ‘I can’t imagine they could find him attractive, could they, Susannah?’
‘Oh no, absolutely not.’
He let me go, and I could breathe. He picked up a towel and threw it on the floor, as he had with his bloodied shirt the night of Polly Nichols’ murder. Then he turned me to face him with both hands on my shoulders and I don’t know why but I had thoughts of spitting in his eye.
‘Look, Chapman, I want you to know I do think of you. Always. I love you. I hope you like it.’
‘I adore it.’
19
‘And you say you’ve been suffering from these headaches since your last appointment?’
Dr Shivershev made a long, laborious effort of moving his chair from behind his desk to face mine. He yanked and pulled at the heavy old thing, which squeaked like an old man’s bones and struggled against the pile of the rug. Our knees were nearly touching now, just a sliver of air between us, as good as a steel barricade. He put his cold fingers either side of my jaw and asked me to open and close my mouth like a fish.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘I bit my tongue,’ I said. I hadn’t bitten my tongue. We were like the last two children in a game of musical chairs, waiting for the music to start.
‘Only the last week or so,’ I said.
‘Pardon?’
‘The headaches. You asked how long I’ve had the headaches.’
‘Ah yes, I did. Any blurred vision?’
‘No.’
‘Please, look past here.’ He pointed to the tip of his ear with a tobacco-stained finger.
I became preoccupied by the size of his earlobes. They were huge compared to Thomas’s. My husband’s earlobes were small and attached, neat and purposefully arranged, as if Mrs Wiggs had trimmed, pressed and folded them. Dr Shivershev’s, by comparison, were fat and bulging, like uncooked mussels. What could be guessed about a man’s character from his earlobes? Because these two were as far apart as they could be. More importantly, could a man with fat earlobes be trusted? These were the things I filled my head with to stop the flow of embarrassingly indecent thoughts from intruding as the man’s fingers prodded and poked at my jaw.
At least he didn’t look as tired this time, and he’d shaved more recently. Less drunk, more doctorly, which was reassuring. No spots on his shirt. His office had been cleaned, and there were no piles of books sprouting from the carpet like forest mushrooms. I could see the pattern of the rug, the specimen jars had been dusted, and light bounced off the windows, all of which were now graced with curtains that had been tied back with rigid conformity.
‘My housekeeper found her way in,’ he said.
‘Ah,’ I said. I could only ever think of ‘ah’ or ‘oh’ when Dr Shivershev said anything. He gave so little away. I had the suspicion I bored him with my mundane Chelsea gripes. Perhaps Itchy Park vagrants elicited more enthusiasm. Encephalitis or a suffocating goitre might be enough to register a flicker of a response.
‘Irina moves things. It is not that I have a problem with her cleaning, but she moves things and I cannot find them, so we play this game of cat and mouse, all in sport, of course. I stole her key one day and she responded, rather ingeniously, I thought, by slipping a sheet of paper under my door, pushing out my key with a hatpin and dragging it back under. I had to ask how she did it. She had such a look of triumph on her face when she finally explained.’
‘I met your housekeeper – a very elegant lady.’
‘She is a countess by marriage. Before… Well, before. Romanian. Never play cards with her – absolutely ruthless.’
‘I saw you,’ I blurted out, sounding more than a little like a creep.
‘Oh?’ His turn for the ‘oh’. He picked up some spectacles from his desk and cleaned the lenses with his sleeve. I
