Outside the door she heard a footstep above her. Had Cellini come back? She set the pillowcase laundry bag downand listened, hoping that her hearing wasn't going the way ofher sense of smell. Another footfall. Olive's instinct was to flee,to get down those stairs to Queenie as fast as she could. But she stood her ground. Cellini couldn't have come back, not comei nto the house and got up the stairs and into his flat without one of them seeing and hearing him. The police had only been gone ten minutes and Tom less than that. Olive set her foot on the bottom step of the tiled flight and began to climb. It wasthe bravest thing she had ever done.
She would have crawled up the last five stairs if she hadn'tbeen afraid Queenie would come up with the coffee and see her. As it was, she stopped at the top, hung on to the newel postand looked for the source of the sounds. To the right, then tot he left. Olive screamed.
What is it? What's happened?"
She ignored Queenie's voice but she didn't scream again.The sound refused to come. Trembling, she stared at the man with Christie's face. It was quite a lot like the photograph onthe spines of those books. He was coming toward her, holdingout both hands. She would die, she would have a heart attack and die.
"Please, do not fear."
He spoke with a strong foreign accent. Not a bit like Christie would have, thought Olive. She closed her eyes, opened them again and said in a whisper, "Who are you?" She cleared herthroat and her voice came out more loudly and clearly. "Who are you?"
"I am called Omar. Omar Ahmed. I am from Iraq."
"The war's over," said Olive. "Were you in the war?"
He shook his head. She noticed now that his eyes were of a velvety blackness never seen in Anglo-Saxons and his hairblack, though peppered with gray. Don't they all have mustaches?she asked herself, and coincidentally he said, "I shaved my beard so not to look like Middle Eastern man."
"Are you an asylum seeker?"
He nodded, then shook his head. "I like to be when I come, but I do it wrong, I do no register, so now I am illegal immigrant.I want to go home now, now 1 can and will be safe, I goback to Basra."
I don't know about "safe," she thought. "Have you been living here?" She didn't wait for an answer but said, "Come down and have some coffee with my friend and me."
She ignored Queenie's voice but she didn't scream again. The sound refused to come. Trembling, she stared at the man Queenie was shocked when she was first told, and feared he might be dangerous. But she listened to his story. He had come into England clinging on to one of the carriages of the Eurostar, jumping off it at Folkestone. From the first he was certain that everything he was doing was illegal. That was why he had failed to register as an asylum seeker until the time for so doing was up and it was too late. He hitched a lift to London on a lorry from Prague driven by a Czech. These two were almost unable to communicate, the Czech man having no English and of course no Arabic and Omar having no other languages but his own and a certain amount of English.
In London he slept on the street and begged by day. He watched houses, seeking those that were empty or those with just one solitary owner-occupier, preferably someone old oro ut a lot. He found St. Blaise House and Gwendolen and when the weather grew so cold that he thought he must die if he spent another night on the street, he looked for a way in.
Here Queenie asked why he had come, why he hadn't stayed at home. "When he said the name Saddam Hussein and spoke of his wife and children who had disappeared, she nodded, put out her hand to touch his, and asked no more.
"I climb across the roofs," he said. "It was easy.I get through a window and that too is easy."
"When was this?"
"Oh, a long time. February, March, maybe. It was cold."
He had begged by day for money to buy food. Once, in Notting Hill Gate, he saw "the man who live here" and thought it was all up with him but the man had seemed more frightened than he was. He was always afraid of him on the occasions they inevitably met, Omar didn't know why. He would have told him everything and asked for help, only the man was so frightened of him. The only living creature he had ever had much contact with since coming to London from Folkestone was a cat who lived in the house and who took a fancy to him and slept on his bed, probably because of the fish and meat leftovers he gave it. In the cellar he found an old record player and some records. These he had played softly because without music he felt he couldn't exist.
One night, not long ago, he had heard a bumping sound and when he came out had seen the man dragging something wrapped in a sheet up the stairs. If it had been in Basra he would have thought it a dead body but not here, not in England.
Queenie gave a little scream but Olive said, "You must tell the police what you heard and saw. You must tell them when we all go to them and you ask them how you can go home to Iraq." "When Omar looked nervous, she said, "They'll be glad to get you home. Once it's safe they'll help you to get home. I promise." I hope you like it when you get there, she said under her breath.
Chapter 29
The train for Norwich, calling at Witham, Colchester, and Ipswich,was scheduled to depart from platform thirteen. For amoment he thought of giving up the whole trip or leaving thestation and trying to go by coach instead. No, he'd bought his ticket and a terrible price it was. The last time he had traveled by rail he had sat in first class, but things were different now. He had to be careful. It was coming up to lunchtime. He walked down to the buffet car, bought a burger and chips and acan of Coke. Then-thinking, what the hell?-had a miniature of gin to put in his drink.
It was going to be grim at Shannon's. I hate children, he thought, and felt nauseous at the idea of sharing a bedroom with those kids of hers. The younger one, he remembered, had a perpetual cold and was always sniffing. They never washed, either of them, and Shannon was too overworked and too tired to check up on them. Suddenly it came back to him, the day he had tried to kill her. But had he? Had he really? Was that wha the really meant, to beat her to death with that bottle? He hadn't actually touched her, Javy had got there first.
When he came to think of it, all his troubles had started with Javy's flogging him for that. Then his hitting his mother so that he had to leave and fend for himself. That was two things. After that, what? Working for Fiterama in Birmingham had been okay, but he should never have accepted promotion and moved south. He hadn't much cared much about Crippen, but still it was a disappointment to find his house gone, though nothing to the shock of Rillington Place. Moving to Notting Hill was a mistake and doing up that flat another. Self-pity washed over him until he felt a stinging behind his eyes.
His whole life had been dogged by ill-luck. He'd gone to Shoshana's Spa and his fate had made him meet Danila, and she'd incriminated him by forcing him to kill her. The Indian had told Chawcer about seeing him digging the garden, his back was so injured it would never be the same again, and he'dk illed a woman who was already dead. Now he was in a train that left from platform thirteen.
He'd been counting as he reflected on his misfortunes.Thirteen. There were thirteen of them. Not meaning to, he letout a low groan and a young woman sitting opposite him stared.
"Are you all right?"
He nodded, tried and failed to force a smile. Thirteen steps down to where he was now, jobless, his money dwindling, haunted probably for the rest of his life, deserted by his friends. Thirteen steps, like the flight down from his flat to her darkdomain. And what lay in store? Shivering, he poured the gin into his half-empty can of Coke. The girl who had asked if hewas all right was darting anxious looks at him and whispering to the boy with her.
He should have been used to it, but the gin and Coke mixture knocked him out. He felt exhausted. Though the carriagewas full of people, mostly very young people and all of them eating and drinking the sort of food he'd had, dropping greasy wrappings and cans on the floor, he dropped off to sleep. He couldn't keep awake.