It seemed as if, for a few moments, she had lost consciousness.She doubted if she could stand up. This time it wasn't a fear of dizziness that might cause her to fall but an apparent inability to move her left side. Cramp, of course. She occasionally suffered from cramp and usually in the night. She rubbed her left leg and then her left arm and though she fancied a littlefeeling returned she could only put her foot to the floor by a huge effort. Her arm hung useless. As she thought she must try to get to the light switch and the door, it opened slowly and Otto strolled in. His sleek chocolate form became black in the faint light from those street lamps still in working order, while his eyes glowed the color of the limes for sale in the cornershop. She found herself thinking, incongruously, as she had never thought before, that his eyes were beautiful and that he, young and lithe, was the only perfect thing she ever saw. He took no notice of her but sat down in front of the empty grate and began picking pieces of twig and tiny stones out of his pads with sharp white teeth.
Gwendolen dragged her left leg back onto the bed, tugging it there with her right hand. The effort exhausted her. His manicure complete, Otto leapt gracefully onto the bed and curled up beside her feet.
Chapter 24
From his bedroom window Mix watched Mr. Singh pinning upfairy lights along the fronds of the palm tree. It wasn't Christmas or that festival Indians had about the same time, so whatwas he playing at? Maybe it's just as well we can't have handguns here like they do in the U.S. If I had a gun I'd shoot that guy here and now, Mix thought. Mr. Singh climbed down theladder, went into the house, and switched the lights on, red and blue and yellow and green twinkling in the exotic tree. Then Mrs. Singh came out in a pink sari, and the two of them stoodlooking at the tree, admiring the effect.
Even at this hour, the places where Mix had dug the garden showed up quite clearly from a distance, a small patch of turned earth and a larger one. He should have done his digging under cover of darkness, he knew that now, but that would have meant after midnight. Lights were on in the houses along Mr. Singh's road but on this side he couldn't see the backs ofthe terrace, only their gardens. One of them had outside lights along the wall and among the evergreens. A woman who hadcome out to take in a blanket and a pair of jeans from the washingline he recognized as Sue Brunswick. Thoughts of buying! her husband's car now seemed like a half-forgotten dream, let alone the designs he had had on her. Even Nerissa, whom he often thought of romantically at this time of day like a song at twilight, faded from his mind. Nothing mattered, not jobs or livelihood, not lack of a car, not love, nothong but stopping old Chawcer phoning the police.
Yet ever since he had come upstairs he had been paralyzed with fear. The ibuprofen he had taken, far in excess of the maximum recommended dose, made his head swim and hadn't done much for his backache. He hadn't even been able to pour himself a drink or think about food or sit down, but had stoodhere at the window, holding on to the sill for support and staringout. She would do it, he was sure of that. He hadn't tried to dissuade her because he knew for certain that she'd do it. Sheonly put it off till tomorrow because she belonged to that generation who thought you didn't phone the police or a doctor or go to the shops on a Sunday. His gran was the same. They saw Monday as the day you got down to things, so she'd tell them first thing in the morning.
The twin gleams of Otto's eyes were nowhere to be seen. Mix, who had never given Otto much thought before, now imagined how glorious it must be to be him, fed and housed for free, no job and none needed, insomnia unknown, freedom to wander a rich hunting ground all day and night if he wished. Free of pain, supple and fearless and free to murder anything that got in his way. No sex of course. Otto, he was sure, had been fixed. But sex was a nuisance anyway, and what you'd never had you couldn't miss.
This small distraction from his troubles sent Mix into the living room where he mixed himself a Boot Camp with an extra shot of Cointreau. He should have had the sense to do this a couple of hours ago. Then maybe he wouldn't have felt so bad. The cocktail had its wondrous effect and almost instantly made him feel there was no problem he couldn't solve. Youhad to get things in perspective, you had to know your priorities. His priority, in the here and now, was to stop old Chawcer talking to the police. It was probable, he thought, that she didn't know the effect her words would have on them. He knew. Searching for Danila's body simultaneously with their hunt for her killer, they would immediately be alerted to the chance of discovering both and be around here in ten minutes. She had to be stopped.
He knew how to stop a woman's tongue. He had done itbefore.
How she got out of bed Gwendolen hardly knew. She crawled a few inches across the floor. In Mr. Singh's garden a palm tree had turned into a chandelier of colored lights. She must be imagining it, something had happened to her brain. To reach the door, let alone the stairs, the drawing room, and the silverc abinet, was impossible. She would have liked to phone her doctor or even Queenie or Olive, but she would have had to roll herself down the stairs to do so. But it was Sunday, still Sunday as far as she knew, and angry as she had been with her long-dead mother, Mrs. Chawcer's principle of not making a phone call to anyone but members of one's family on a Sunday- and never, on any day, after nine at night-died very hard. So she crawled back without the strength to wash or what her mother had called "relieve herself," saw that the imaginary tree was still there, still bright with twinkling colored stars, and fellon the bed still fully clothed, though she managed to pull off one shoe and kick off the other.
Lying there on her back, she pulled the quilt over her withher sound right hand. What was wrong with her she guessed,and had done so for the past hour, but only now could she put it into silent words. She had had a stroke.
Mix had come out onto the landing because she made such anoise getting out of bed. What was wrong with her? Perhaps she always made that much noise about going to bed. He wouldn't know. He never remembered noticing her bedtime before.
He asked himself if he'd be able to kill her in cold blood. Danila had been different. Danila had driven him into an uncontrollablerage with her insults and her unprovoked attackon Nerissa. The light on the landing went out and the Isabellal ights had disappeared while the street lamp was out of order. Once I'm alone here, he thought, I'm going to get all the lights in the place changed so that they stay on longer and I'm going to buy normal-size bulbs for them, hundreds or hundred and fifties, not this rubbish. It won't be for long, I'll soon be gone.
He looked across to the thin shaft of light coming from hiss lightly open front door, then, his eyes becoming used to thedark, along the left-hand passage. A figure was walking silently away with his back to Mix, as if he had come out of the neares troom. He turned as he reached the farthest door, saw him and grew still. Mix saw the gleam on the glasses on his beaky nose.Then the ghost lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. He put out his hands in the sort of gesture that indicates doubt or despair,and his lips parted. No sound came from them. Mix shut his eyes and when he opened them the ghost was gone.
The fear he usually felt seemed to have been partly banished by the greater terror of the police. He remained where he was, staring at the place where the ghost had been. The shrug had meant something. The ghost had been trying to tell him something. Perhaps it had been advising him to do what he had almost decided on. He, Reggie, had killed six women and been not much fazed by it. No one knew why he'd killed his own wife, but opinion was that she had found out about his murders and not only refused to protect him but threatened to do just what old Chawcer was doing to him. So was that what his ghost had been saying? Kill her. I never thought twice about it. Kill her and do what I did with Ethel.