"I've been going through a bad patch," Mix said without further explanation.
"What kind of a bad patch?"
"I've not been well. I've been depressed."
"I see. I'll make a booking for you with the company's doctor."
Mix would have liked to refuse this offer but he didn't know how. Matters would only be made worse by his failure to see the doctor, a dour elderly man, unpopular with the staff. Mix went home. It had been a bad day. All the time he was following Nerissa he had been planning what he would say to herwhen, having gained on her according to plan, she turnedaround and saw him. Remind her of last Thursday would be the first thing, then maybe put in a word about how sorry hewas if he'd offended her mother. Would she show him therewere no hard feelings by coming and having a coffee with him? She had been so sweet and gracious that previous time that hethought she would, she couldn't really refuse in the circumstances.And then that man had appeared, a young goodlooking man who appeared to be a friend of hers. Just his luck.
But he wouldn't let it put him off.
A message on his mobile summoned him to call on Colette Gilbert- Bamber the minute he finished work. It wouldn't be for something wrong with the equipment but what Mix called "a bit of the other." He'd still get forty pounds for the call-out… If he was so attractive to Colette, surely he should be to Nerissa? But he wouldn't go. It had been a bad day and he didn't fancy it.
It was oppressively hot again and the house would be hot and stuffy. How it could be so dark when the sun was shining brilliantly he didn't really know. Didn't she ever draw the curtains back? Did she never open a window? He stood for a moment where Nerissa had stood last week and spoken to him so sweetly-and her mother so nastily. But he wouldn't think of that. And he wouldn't hold his arms folded like that across his body so that he could feel the roll of flesh round his waist that sagged over the belt of his trousers. Walk, he said to himself, get into a walking routine tomorrow and do it every day.
The place might have been uninhabited for years, he thought, as he started up the stairs. Would it do any good if he complained to old Chawcer about the lighting system, the way the low wattage lamps went out before he reached the next switch? Probably not. People like her thrived on darkness. It was ridiculous, anyway, having to put lights on in summer in the afternoon.
No cat's eyes glowed from the tiled staircase and, thank God, there was no sign of Reggie. It was all in my mind, he thought, I was right about going through a bad patch, I must have begun to see things that weren't there. Whatever Shoshana said, ghosts were always hallucinations, the result of stress or pressure. The Isabella lights, dull red and green and purple, lay as still as if they were painted on the floor, but bright golden sunshine streamed out of his hallway when he opened the doorto his flat.
Perhaps, before he went in, he ought to go next door to the room where Danila was. He really ought to check on her everyday until-well, until what? He got used to her being there? He'd moved her out and on to somewhere else? Leaving his own door wide open for the sake of the cheerful glow of light, he opened the bedroom door next to it.
The same sunshine was in here, or would have been if the window had ever been cleaned. But he didn't think about that once he had smelled the smell. It forced him to take a step backward. And now he knew what it was. For weeks th eweather had been almost unnaturally hot, yesterday had been unbelievably warm, and this smell was the result. He couldn't understand it; the body was wrapped and nailed down underfloorboards. He braced himself to go in, closed the door behind him, no longer thinking of ghosts. This was real; that had been all in his mind. He had never smelled anything like it and, standing there, taking in a long inhalation, he shuddered. Why had he come in here this afternoon when he already felt so bad?
Would it go away? Eventually, perhaps. He found he had no idea whether decay continued for weeks, months, even years,or if it faded at last. Old Chawcer might come in here at anytime. He couldn't risk it. He'd have to go to work and while he was out of the house he'd never have a quiet moment.
At present there was no point in staying here. After smelling that smell he felt he would never eat again. Those bodies in Reggie's house, especially the two he put in the recess in the kitchen wall, they must have smelled. Perhaps not, for it was December and cold and Reggie had been caught and arrested soon after he put them there. Mix stood at the top of the stairsand listened. Utter silence. He peered down the stairwell and began to move down. He was on the bottom step of the tiled flight when her bedroom door opened and she came out in a red silk dressing-gown and feathered mules. He was about to retreat but she spotted him.
"Is anything the matter, Mr. Cellini?"
"Everything's fine," he said.
She sniffed. "I wish I could say the same. I believe I have the,influenza."
Mix had once before in his whole life heard flu called that. His grandma had had a joke about it: "I opened the windowand in flew Enza."
"Hard luck." If she was ill she wouldn't be able to go intothat room. If only she could be very ill and for a long time! "You ought to be in bed," he said.
"I need the bathroom. May I trouble you to do me a great favor and telephone my friend Mrs. Fordyce-you met heroutside my house last Thursday-and tell her of my-myplight? The number is in the directory by the phone. Fordyce. Can you remember that?"
"I'll try," said Mix, putting a wealth of sarcasm into his tone. It passed unnoticed. He went downstairs, thinking it was typicalof her to get the flu on what was probably the hottest day ofthe year. He could barely see to find the Fordyce woman'snumber. Suppose she recognized his voice from Thursday? Heput on an upper-class intonation. "Miss Chawcer has a virus. She's very unwell. It would be an enormous help if you'd come to see her tomorrow and maybe her doctor would call, if you know who that is."
"That's Mr. Cellini, isn't it? Of course I'll come. First thing in the morning."
In which case, he'd better be out of there before she appeared, but without him she wouldn't be able to get in. Well, old Chawcer would just have to get up and answer the door.He wandered about and saw she'd left the back door unlocked. He locked and bolted it. That would be a fine carry-on, in a rough area like this, any amount of lowlife coming in and helping themselves to whatever they fancied. He was in enough trouble without that.
He had never been in this huge living room before. Drawing room, she called it. He couldn't understand why unless it was because people used to draw pictures in it before the days of television and radio. The dust and the musty smell made him wrinkle his nose, but as smells went, compared to the stench upstairs it was nothing, nothing. Light shouldn't have been needed at this hour but it was always dusk in this house.The main light switch didn't work. He went about turning on table lamps, the last one on the desk beside several half-finished letters.
Who the hell was she writing to in this crazy way? One started, "Dear Dr. Reeves," another, "My dear Doctor," athird, "Dear Stephen," and the last, "My dear Stephen." A lotof muddled stuff followed, all hard to read in her looped spideryhand, but the finest copperplate would be difficult in this twilight. Then a name caught his eye: Rillington Place. "I know you saw me in Rillington Place one day in the summer avery long time ago. You were driving past, on your way to acall, I expect. On the following day I came to your surgery forthe first time. As I am sure you recall, I and my parents had been patients of Dr. Odess. I found out, when the trial of Christie took place, that he had been that dreadful man's medical attendant. Not that this, of course, had anything to do with our leaving him to come to… "