Glass Houses (6 page)

Six

T
he shop bell chimed, and Rupert Fish gripped the handle tightly. He eased the door open slowly and entered on tiptoe, hoping Winston might be too engrossed in whatever to notice that his partner had finally returned to Bloomsbury.

Winston Moody had noticed. Over the tops of rimless halflenses, his watery blue eyes sought out Rupert. Reproach. Yes, Winston invariably attacked passively—silently—at first, and with baleful, “how could you do this to me?” stares.

Rupert salivated. He could taste the satisfaction of squeezing Winston’s fat neck u
n
til those rheumy eyes popped out. But Rupert must continue to wait.

In the fifteen years they had been in business
together running Moody and Fish
Antiques, first in less salubrious quarters in Shepherd’s Bush, and for the past ten years, in London’s exclusive Bloomsbury, Museum Street to be exact, Rupert had learned to dislike Winston more with each day. But Winston had the upper hand and he knew it. He owned the controlling share of the business and had uncomfortable knowledge about Rupert’s humble beginnings—and about a lucrative endeavor that went wrong. By handing over certain papers to the authorities, Winston could send Rupert to jail for a long,
long time. Rupert knew a thing o
r
two about Winston, too—Winston had unusual sexual preferences—but Rupert didn’t have the kind of solid evidence he needed to turn the tables.

Fortunately a tiny, blue-haired woman stood before Winston and gestured extravagantly while she discussed a Michel-Robert Hallet snuff box in a heavy French accent. The box was a valuable gold and enamelled piece and nothing, not even the opportunity to torment Rupert, would divert Winston if he got the whiff of a pending sale.

“Preposterous,” Winston told the woman. “A third? You insult me, madam.”

“I offer you ’alf then,” she said. “We both know this is not one of ’is best pieces. I only consider it at all because I ’ave so many better examples and this is a curiosity.”

Rupert smiled. This could continue for some time, and afterward Winston would need to vent his opinions of
“
bargain-hunting charlatans.” He might even forget to interrogate Rupert at all. “Not bloody likely,” Rupert muttered. Not given the importance of what he’d been supposed to accomplish in Hampstead.

He flexed his hands. The fine tremor that shook him would be obvious to some. Rupert didn’t care. He wanted the FitzDurham woman dead. Dead she wouldn’t be a threat anymore; there wouldn’t be a reason to wonder just what she knew and what she might do with the knowledge.

It wasn’t his fault that another female in an ugly red hat and raincoat had tricked him into thinking she was the one he wanted. Too bad that bleeding heart meddler stopped her from dying. And then he’d had to bide a little time and pay, actually
pay
for the negatives he had in his pocket.

Peace. No Winston. No FitzDurham. Was that so much to ask?

He couldn’t bear to remain where he could see Winston.

Soames would have been ignored all day. Winston hated the ferret, more because he belonged to Rupert than because of a supposed allergy to the animal. Rupert made to pass Win
s
ton, who was sweating and red-faced, and the prospective client, who was not.

“There you are,” Winston said. “Stay put, there’s a good chap. I’m almost finished here.”

The woman’s face was powdered white. Her very dark eyes darted rapidly between Winston and Rupert. “ ’Alf,” she said as if she spied some advantage in Winston’s divided attention. “I will take it with me.”

“Not possible. Forgive me, madam, but we’re closing now.” Winston moved toward the door, bowing his bald head as he went. “Do come back if you decide the piece is worth full price.”

Rather than argue, the Frenchwoman gave a delighted grin and waved as she departed, saying, “You will think about my very good offer, and I will give you another chance. Per’aps.” This was their late-opening night, and darkness had begun to seep into the street. Lights in the shop windows cast a yellow wash over items displayed there and onto the pavement outside. A strolling couple stopped to look at a Chippendale commode which they evidently found amusing.

Winston finished shooting home bolts and came toward Rupert in menacing, head-first mode. “Damn you,” he said succinctly, stretching his receding chin as far forward as that feature allowed. “Explain yourself, man. At once. Where have you been? It’s nine, for God’s sake, and not a word from you since last night.”

“You could always have done the dirty work yourself. The choice was yours.” The choice was always Winston’s, but if Rupert had his way, that was going to change before too long.

“You know, Rupert,” Winston said in the pseudo-pleasant tone that always boded ill, “no matter how long, or how hard I try to help you overcome your lower middle-class background, you defeat me. Breeding will out, isn’t that what they say? I’m not even sure a good school would have made a difference. You are a common man, progeny of a loathsome thief of very little brain.”

This was not the time to get shirty. “Whatever you say,
Winston.” The toad really got his jollies from seeing he’d offended Rupert.

“I say that you have no sense of honor, and a sense of honor is the mark of a gentleman. You are not a gentleman. If you were, you would consider the man who helped you out of the gutter. Where have you been all day?”

“Making sure we’re safe.” Let the bastard toy with that. Winston ran a finger under his starched white collar. He favored tweed lounge suits and suede shoes, and smelled strongly of the cigars he smoked. Never a slim man, with age he had broadened and softened and taken on an ever more doughy appearance. How much pleasure Rupert would have on the day he told the chinless pervert exactly what he thought of him.

“I’m waiting,” Winston said.

“Did you feed Soames?”

A withering stare met Rupert’s question.

“No, I don’t suppose you have.
I
went to Hampstead. Just like you wanted. Found the house. Spoke with the girl.”

“And?” Winston produced a rumpled handkerchief and passed it over his moist brow.

“And we did business.”

“You got the photographs?”

“Er—yes, that’s right.” He’d done bleeding brilliantly considering the circumstances.

“Where are they?”

Rupert patted his jacket.

“Have you looked at them?” Winston sweated more freely. “Can you see anything?”

“I’ve been a bit busy. The girl wasn’t easy to deal with.”

Winston’s eyes rested on Rupert’s jacket. “You couldn’t have been dealing with her from last night until nine this evening.” He’d grown redder and he breathed hard. “Everything depends on this. What’s the matter with you? Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it? You’ve dashed well balled it up, you monume
ntal ass. I warned you that—”

“Better calm down, Winnie, or you’ll pop a vein.” He should
be so lucky, Rupert thought. “She did a bunk afterwards, and I had my hands full making sure I knew where she’d gone. Just in case.” And that hadn’t been easy. Rupert had snoozed in his waiting taxi. If the taxi driver hadn’t been alert, he’d have missed seeing FitzDurham take off in her mangy mini-cab.

“
Just in case what?
”
Winnie asked slowly.

That tore it. He couldn't say he’d decided he ought to know where Miss FitzDurham was just in case she tried to use the actual prints, or make a second set of negatives. And he wasn’t ready to reveal his sickening mistake with the money. He shrugged. “You never know what might come up. We could want to talk to her again.”

“No, we
couldn’t.
The last thing we want is to have any further contact with the woman at all. Where have you really been? Not with Kitty. Please say you haven’t been with Kitty.”

“I haven’t seen my dear wife for days.” He had seen Nonie at her flat in Shepherd’s Bush—warm, welcoming Nonie, who was always ready to help him feel like a man again—had been since Rupert’s own days of living and working in the same area
.
“I don’t even know where Kitty is.” Nonie knew Rupert was unappreciated by some people and spent every minute of their time together appreciating him enough to make up for the rest.

“
Kitty can’t know anything. Understand? If that woman finds out we’re valuable, she’ll find a way to take advantage.”

“She won’t find out we’re vulnerable, Winston.”

“Give me the photographs.”

Shit.
He slid the envelope of negatives from his inside breast pocket and handed it over.

Winston’s hand, the hand that held the envelope, trembled. He backed up to an eighteenth-century chair upholstered in a fine example of Genoa velvet, and sat down with a thump that raised dust. What height Winston had was in his torso. His feet swung clear of the ground. He opened the envelope and stared inside. Rupert sniffed, and laughed, and made for the back room. “Come here.” Winston sounded querulous and unlike himself.

“Just need to see to Soames.”

“
Back—here—
now.
”

Rupert broke into a trot and scooted into the cluttered sanctuary he and Winston shared. Here they were out of sight of customers, while any customers could be viewed through one-way glass. Winston was very fond of one-way glass—he used it elsewhere, too.

“Rupert?” Through the glass, Winston’s frightened expression seemed magnified. “Come here at once or I shall get very angry with you.”

In the end, Winston always became muddled and foolish. Good. The time had come to cause a diversion.

Rupert took Soames from his cage and held the creature’s face close to his own. “Good boy, beautiful boy. You go and say hello to dear Winston.” With that he kissed the ferret’s nose, put him on the floor, and hurriedly returned to the showroom.

“What are these?” Winston held the negatives in one hand.

“
The negatives. I offered her money, and she finally agreed.” He smiled as if proud of the proceedings. “It wasn’t easy, but I pulled it off.”

“And the photographs? She had to have photographs.”

“They wouldn’t have fitted through the letterbox.”

Winston’s eyes grew larger. Light glittered on his little lenses. “What letterbox?”

“The one in her front door. The one she put the negatives through.”

“But—”

“She wouldn’t open the door, Winston, for God’s sake. You can’t blame her. She was on her own and didn’t know me from Adam. So she passed those out to me through the letterbox.”

“And she’s still got photographs?” Winston’s chin made another valiant attempt to jut.
“
Photographs,
Rupert. The photographs that could land us in jail.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s got.”

“That’s not th
e sodding point, you moron. What is the point is that she’s
got
them. What’s to stop her from using them for that magazine?”

“She took the money for them, that’s what And I told her it was a kill fee.”

“Oh, yes, oh, of course. In that case she wouldn’t think of using them elsewhere. I feel better now, Rupert.”

As usual, Winston was blaming him for everything. “Even if she’d given me photographs, how could we know they were the only set?”

“You were supposed to get in there and search.”

“I did.”

“Another balls-up. You didn’t get a thing.”

“I couldn’t find them. Everything looked the same to me. What did you want me to do, take the lot? Take everything?”

“Yes, Rupert, that would have been a good idea. Then we could have been sure.” Winston squirmed and his eyes grew more moist. “Phone’s ringing. Don’t answer.”

Rupert went to the white phone on a tulipwood writing table where sales were conducted and picked up the receiver. “Hello, Rup—”

“Stuff it, Fish.”

Kitty.
Of all the lousy luck. “Can’t talk now.” Oh, no, he certainly couldn’t talk to his nemesis now.

“ ’Course you can. You’re avoiding me.”

“I’m not avoiding you, Kitty. You’re avoiding me. You know where we live, but you don’t choose to go there.”

“I go there.”

Winston had set the envelope aside and was waving his arms and gesturing for Rupert to hang up on Kitty.

“You don’t go there when I’m there.” He loved Kitty in his own way. She was the sexiest woman he’d ever met, and he still didn’t quite believe that she’d ever agreed to become his wife. “I miss you.”

“No!” Winston said, then covered his mouth when he realized he’d spoken aloud. He passed a forefinger across his throat and bounced.

“I need money,” Kitty said.

Rupert pursed his lips.

“I’ve been watching you, Rupert.” Kitty’s full voice took on a singsong note. “Who is she, lovie?”

Now his skin cooled and he avoided even glancing at Winston. Kitty knew about Nonie. “You’ve got it wrong,” he said.