Authors: Ruth Rendell
He was on the point of leaving when he remembered the ring. He still had the engagement ring he had bought for Leonora all those years ago. It was in the safe. He hadn’t used the safe, hadn’t opened it, for four years, there had been no need to do so. The last time was after Con Mulvanney’s visit. He went back upstairs, opened the safe and took out the ring. It was in a small blue leather box and the ring itself, a large square-cut sapphire with “shoulders” of diamonds, sat in a bed of midnight-blue velvet. Guy put ring and box into his pocket.
It was twelve when he left the house, much too soon for an appointment in the West End at one. But he had nothing to do. He had already made a careful tour of the house, checking that everything was as it should be to receive her. He had refilled the ice trays in the fridges in the kitchen and the drawing-room bar, arranged on the coffee-table
The Guardian, The London Review of Books,
and
Cosmopolitan,
which, wonder of wonders, the newsagent had remembered to deliver, and put into the bathroom that would be
her
bathroom the various Paloma Picasso toiletries he had yesterday sent Fatima out to buy. There was nothing left to do, and sitting about reading the paper was intolerable. He had made several attempts to phone Celeste and stop her from coming before he remembered she was out being photographed somewhere. At twelve he left to walk part of the way, stopped to look in an estate agent’s window, and on an impulse went inside.
On their books they had a beautiful house in Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill. The price, they said, ran into seven figures. When they saw he didn’t flinch they told him precisely what the price was. Photographs of interiors were produced: a grand staircase, swan-neck-shaped; a magnificent drawing-room forty feet long; octagonal bathrooms in each of the turrets. Guy made an appointment to view for Monday afternoon. By now it was twenty minutes to one, nice time to get there punctually in a cab.
The traffic was less dense than usual and the taxi put him down outside the Café Fish. It was two minutes to one. She might be there already, it had been known, and those familiar sensations repeated themselves—me little jump his heart gave, his insides tightening, pressure in his head. He paused on the pavement for a moment, gathered himself, went into the restaurant.
It was crowded but she wasn’t there yet. The girl who came to show him to his table told him that. Smoking or nonsmoking? One day he would choose non-smoking to please Leonora but that time hadn’t come yet. He lit a cigarette the moment he was sitting down.
Obviously it had been a mistake to come here. The food was good and there was a big choice, but unfortunately a hundred other people knew it too. Of necessity the tables were close together. They wouldn’t be able to talk intimately. Guy flicked his fingers at a waiter and when the man came over ordered a large gin and tonic. Brandy would have suited him better but he also realized brandy might not be a good idea at this stage.
With careful thought, he had chosen his theatre tickets for the matinée. The performance began at five-thirty, which meant they could have dinner soon after eight. There was plenty of time for everything—it would all be leisurely and beautiful. If there was any time left this afternoon between leaving here and the theatre, she would surely let him take her shopping. The engagement ring he already had, but perhaps a bracelet? Cartier? Asprey? Or perhaps some earrings. He imagined diamonds close up against her glowing face. When they were no more than children and she had first had her ears pierced, he had dreamed of the day when he could buy her diamond earrings.
The gin came, it was very welcome, he was thirsty for it. The first sip of the day was always wonderful. It spread peace through his body on long, divergent feelers. He sat back in his seat, looking at the pattern in the weave on her scarf, then at the menu, which was written on the card as well as up in chalk on blackboards. What would she have? She was eating more fish lately, he had been glad to see. She didn’t get enough protein. He adjusted the sling on his arm and in doing so caught sight of his watch. It was nearly a quarter past one.
That was what came of trusting to the Northern Line instead of taking cabs. It was going to be the Savoy experience all over again, but in less luxurious surroundings. He finished his gin and ordered another. She had been over twenty minutes late, he remembered, for their lunch at the Savoy. It would be just like her to walk here from wherever the nearest Northern Line station was, Leicester Square probably.
The people at the next table, four of them, were laughing immoderately. It wasn’t coarse laughter or particularly raucous, but it irritated him. His second gin went down very fast. If only you could ask for the bottle in these places and just help yourself as you could at home. He didn’t quite like to ask for the bottle. Danilo and Tanya’s remarks of the previous evening about Alcoholics Anonymous repeated themselves unpleasantly. The time was twenty-five past one. A waiter came up and asked him if he would like to order. Guy said no rather abruptly. More gales of laughter shook the table next to him. They were drinking champagne, evidently celebrating some anniversary. He had begun to feel hungry in the taxi going round Hyde Park Corner but his hunger had left him. In spite of the gin his mouth was dry. He asked for a large glass of white wine.
At twenty to two he began to feel sick. She was forty minutes late. He couldn’t remember her ever having been more than twenty-two minutes late. She wasn’t coming. He couldn’t delude himself any longer that she was coming. Either something terrible had happened and she had met with an accident or she had been prevented from coming. Some member of that awful family of hers had found out what she planned to do, to spend the day, then the rest of her life, with him, and had stepped in to stop it. For another ten minutes he sat on, staring at the street door. Then he got up.
He told the imperturbable sullen-faced waiter he didn’t want anything to eat after all, a remark to which the response was a Gallic shrug. He paid for his two gins and his wine. Luckily and for once he had a pocketful of small change. In the first empty phone-box that he found he dialled the Georgiana Street number. It was years since Guy had used a phone-box, they had changed in the interim and he had to read the instructions carefully before getting it to work.
The ringing began but there was no answer. He dialled again to make sure. Still no answer. He closed his eyes and imagined opening them to see her walking down the street towards the restaurant, running rather because she was in a panic at being late.
Of course she wasn’t there. He scooped out the money that had come back and dialled Lamb’s Conduit Street. All these numbers were stamped on his memory. He knew them better than his own phone number, bank account number. The bell rang and rang, but no one was answering there either. There was no reply when he dialled the St. Leonard’s Terrace number and none from Portland Road, though that was a long shot, unless one of them had somehow contrived to imprison Leonora in her former home. The last place he tried was the Mandevilles’ house in Sanderstead Lane and he tried in vain.
They couldn’t
all
be out. It was plain what was happening. They had ganged up to stand solid against him. They were all refusing to answer their phones. She told them what had happened on Thursday night, told them in all innocence, still believing she could make her own choice as to her future life. Somewhere she had been made a prisoner. No doubt, it was principally her father who had done that, her father who, once his wife had poisoned Leonora’s mind against her lover, had produced a husband for her, a tame lackey, an ugly egghead, and then, to make absolutely sure, with his brother’s help, found him a job up north where his wife would accompany him.
Only it wasn’t going to happen that way, Guy thought. Where would they keep her? Portland Road or Georgiana Street? He went back to Scarsdale Mews in a cab. Although he had drunk quite a lot and eaten nothing, he felt clear-headed and very calm.
At home he tried phoning again. Methodically he tried each number Lamb’s Conduit Street, Sanderstead Lane, St. Leonard’s Terrace, Georgiana Street, Portland Road. Again there was no answer from any of them. He imagined all the phones unplugged, or those people—Anthony and Susannah, Tessa and Magnus, Robin and Maeve, Newton himself—sitting there listening implacably to the continuous ringing. The time was two forty-five.
He tried all the numbers again, to unnerve them, to make them jumpy. Then he went upstairs and took his .22-caliber rifle from its case.
O
n the way to Portland Road he tried to find an explanation. At last he thought he could understand. It was the duel he had fought with Newton that was responsible for all this. The last straw, her family would call it. He couldn’t imagine Leonora telling them about it but Newton would have. While Leonora was out taking him to the hospital, Newton would have been on the phone to her father and then her mother with an account of what had happened. He could hear Tessa’s voice: “He’s mad, of course. He’s a violent, dangerous madman. He’ll stop at nothing to get Leonora. The only thing is to keep her away from him until the sixteenth and then you can take her up north and he’ll never see her again.”
And Anthony Chisholm: “He attacked you with a sword? That’s a bit much, isn’t it? No, I quite agree, it won’t do for Leonora to see him again.”
And Magnus Mandeville: “Leonora should have gone for the police. Of course you couldn’t have left her alone with him, I quite see that. But you should have made
her
go. That was assault, you know, it might even be called attempted murder.”
And Susannah: “Poor Guy, he’s so emotional, so
violent.
But there’s such a lot of good in him too. He’s really bad for Leonora, the last person for her. If there’s no other way—well, it’s very regrettable, but she’ll have to be kept away from him by force.”
He double-parked the car, hoping that its being Saturday afternoon would make that all right. The rifle was in the boot in a black leather golf bag. He was already coming to see it as an awkward sort of weapon to carry on a mission of this kind. Leaving it where it was, he went up the steps and rang the bell, which was still marked
LINGARD
,
KIRKLAND
,
CHISHOLM
. No one answered. He wasn’t surprised.
His arm felt fine if he didn’t move it much, and with automatic transmission there was no need to. He rested it lightly on the wheel. The traffic had thickened up since the morning and it took a long time getting to Camden Town. This time he took the rifle in the golf bag with him. After he had rung the bell and was standing there waiting, he had the sensation of someone looking down on him from above. It was very strong, this sense of being watched. He stepped back, went down a stair or two and looked up. No one was there and all the windows were closed, though it was a mild afternoon.
Lamb’s Conduit Street next. That wasn’t so far away. A parking space was empty directly outside the house. Susannah’s window-boxes had just been watered. Water was dripping from them onto the flagstones below. That told him they must be in, someone must be. No one answered the entry-phone. He pressed the bell again and heard footsteps on the stairs. A woman Guy had never seen before opened the door. He didn’t know her but even before she spoke he sensed that she had been expecting him.
“Laura Stow,” she said. “I’m Susannah’s sister.”
He could see the likeness. She was a bit older, dressed in jeans and a shirt, a towel twisted turban-wise round her head.
She had been washing her hair. He hadn’t known Susannah had a sister but he wasn’t surprised. Did they have any
friends,
these people? Did they know anyone who wasn’t family? Everyone you met at their houses, everyone you were introduced to was a relation.
He said bluntly, “Guy Cumin.”
She nodded, looked at the golf bag in his hand. Anyone with a grain of intelligence could see it was a rifle in there or a shotgun.
“I’m looking for Leonora.” And then, “You do know who I mean?”
“Yes, of course I do. She isn’t here. No one’s here but me. I’m looking after the house while they’re away.”
“Away?” he said.
“On holiday. They’ve gone away on holiday today.” She was patient with him but her eyes went to the golf bag again. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
It was rehearsed. Someone had prepared her for his visit, taught her to say all this. “Are you sure she’s not here? Are you quite sure she’s not upstairs somewhere?”
For a moment he thought he had frightened her. She had retreated a little. He made his voice gentler, he tried to smile. “Do you think I could come in and—well, look? I’m an old friend of the family.”
“Look for
Leonora?
I’ve told you she’s not here. Of course I can’t let you in.”
“I’m going to marry Leonora,” he said patiently.
She stared, a nervous smile now trembling on her mouth.
He shouted in the direction of the stairs, “Leonora! Leo! Are you there? Leonora!”
She made an incoherent sound and shut the door in his face. Without being able to see, he sensed she was leaning back against the door, gasping.
He hadn’t really believed Leonora was in there. She would have come down long before. Even he couldn’t believe she was actually imprisoned, tied up, locked in a room. They wouldn’t do that—or would they? He imagined this Laura Stow getting on the phone at once to Anthony and Susannah in their holiday hotel. She would probably phone them all to report his visit. Perhaps she’d make her first call to Robin and Maeve, at whose flat it now seemed Leonora was most likely to be.
He drove home, left the car in the mews, and went upstairs to replace the rifle in its case. It had been an unwise choice, that cumbersome weapon. The time was five-thirty.
His hunger had come back. There was never much food in the house, no more usually than the basic materials for breakfast: bread, various cereals, eggs, Dutch cheese, marmalade, orange juice. Having poured himself a vodka and filled the glass with orange juice, he wondered if he knew how to cook an egg but decided against it. He had some bread and Gouda, finished his drink and dialled the St. Leonard’s Terrace number.