By now he was beginning to get hungry but he didn't fancy anything out of old Chawcer's kitchen. He ran up the stairs twoat a time for the first one and a half flights. After that he was so breathless he had to rest, he had to sit down on one of the treads. Staggering up the rest, he went into his flat to hear hisphone ringing and he stood still, wondering whether to answer it or not. The woodworm people wouldn't phone him and nor would the doctor. Might as well leave it. He made a couple of rough sandwiches by laying pre-sliced cheese between piecesof pre-sliced bread, found a packet of crisps and a muesli bar and went back down to his post at the window.
The two women arrived at the same time. Mix saw one of them step out of a car with a "Doctor" label inside its windscreenand the other alight from a van with a woodgrain pattern allover, Woodrid printed in gold on its side. For some reason heknew plenty would call sexist, he hadn't expected either to be awoman. The doctor was the first to reach the doorstep, a fewpaces ahead of the van driver. She didn't bother much with Mix and spoke brusquely.
"Where is she?"
"In her bedroom," he said with equal gruffness.
"And where might that be?"
"First floor. First door on the left."
The doctor had gone past him and the woodworm woman, already had a foot over the threshold.
"We shan't need you after all," Mix said.
" Youwhat?" She was rather pretty, neatly dressed in a brownuniform with a W on the breast pocket.
"You're not needed. She's ill. Miss Chawcer, I mean. She's ill in bed. She can't talk to you."
The woman stepped back outside but showed no inclinationto go. "I could still take a look. That's all I need to do for a start, take a look at the infestation."
"There isn't an infestation," Mix almost shouted. "I told you, she doesn't want you. Not today. She's ill. Come back nextweek if you want. "
She was saying she didn't want, not if she was going to be spoken to like that, when Mix shut the door in her face. Aftert hat he didn't look out of the window again until he heard the van start up, and when he did look out it was to see Ma Winthrop staggering up the path with carrier bags full of shopping.
She could let herself in, he wasn't going to. And if any of that stuff she was carrying was for old Chawcer's lunch, shecould see to that too. How Queenie "Winthrop guessed he wasin the drawing room he didn't know, but she put her head around the door. She seemed unpleasantly surprised.
"What are you doing there?"
"Letting the doctor in."
"Oh, yes, I saw her car. Isn't she a sweet woman?"
Mix didn't answer. It had suddenly come to him that he had forgotten to phone the head office. "I'm going up to my own place now," he said. "I fed the cat."
Would she go into old Chawcer's bedroom while the doctor was there? Even if she did, even though the woodworm womanhad come and gone, it was far too risky to attempt takingthe body down all those flights of stairs. His only chance was in the night. He would have liked to get out into the garden and look around the place, find the best burial site, see if there was a shed or some sort of outbuilding in which to lay thebody while he dug. Because of projecting roofs and bays, itw as impossible to see more than the end of the garden from his flat.
Phone the head office while they were all in that bedroom, get it over. Later on he could attempt going outside. The receptionist who answered didn't wait for him to say who he wanted to speak to.
"Jack wants to talk to you now." Jack was Mr. Fleisch, the departmental manager. "He really wanted to talk to you like first thing this morning. I'll put him on."
Mix scarcely had a chance to get a word in edgewise. "Arey ou ill? You must be seriously sick to miss four home visits,seven urgent phone calls, and three text messages. Half of west London is out gunning for you. Is it mental or physical? I'd say mental, wouldn't you? That why sending you to the medicdoes fuck-all for you. You are up shit creek, my lad."
"What can I say? Maybe it is mental. Maybe it's depression. I'll have to snap out of it, I know I will."
"Too right. Spot on. Meantime, while you're doing yours napping-out, Mr. Pearson wants to see you first thing tomorrowmornmg. "
"I'll be there," said Mix.
"You'd better."
Things must be serious if he was summoned to the chief executive's presence. A sacking matter, or at best a last-chance matter. To hell with it, he couldn't worry about that now. If he got the body out from under the floor and out into the garden after dark, he would never manage to dig a deep grave and put her in it in a single night. Anyway, he'd be fit for nothing in the morning. He was once more in the room where she lay, nauseous from the strengthening stench but contemplating lifting the floorboard now, when he heard Queenie "Winthrop's loud, fluting voice yelling at him from the first floor.
"Mr. Cellini, Mr. Cellini, are you there? Can you hear me? Can you come down a minute?"
He'd have to or she'd come up. You could smell the smell atthe top of the stairs now. "Okay, I'm coming."
He shut the door and went down the tiled flight and thenext one. Ma "Winthrop looked flushed and excited. "Gwendolen has pneumonia. I can't say I'm surprised. Dr. Smithers is downstairs now, phoning for an ambulance to take her to hospital."
Mix seemed to feel his heart leap in his chest. She was going away! He'd be alone in the house, maybe for a week. He had to ask.
"How long for?"
"Doctor doesn't know. A few days, certainly." She addressed him as if he were fourteen years old. "Now you'll be responsiblefor the place while she's away and we're relying on you. Don't disappoint us."
Chapter 17
Steph came too, of course. She always did. Those two were inseparable at the moment. That would last a couple of years, Mix thought, and after that, especially if there was a baby, Edwould start going out on his own again.
They were already in the Sun in Splendour when he arrived. He had come very close to forgetting their arrangement and it was a quarter to eight, while he was planning what to say and what excuses to make to Mr. Pearson and Ed's name cameinto his calculations, that he remembered. If he failed to turnup, Ed would definitely never speak to him again. Anyway, he wouldn't mind getting out, having some fresh air and talking toreal people instead of those old women.
He ran down the stairs, feeling almost cheerful. The ambulancehad taken her away at three-thirty and Queenie Winthrophad left with it. No need now to try going into thegarden without being detected. No need to move the body yet.He'd lain down on the sofa with his feet up and read a Reggiebook he'd had for a long time and read at least twice before, Death in a Deckchair, coming to the part that at present interested him most, how decay had proceeded in the bodies of those women, Ruth Fuerst, Muriel Eady, Hectorina McClennan,Kathleen Maloney, Rita Nelson, and the murderer's own wife, Ethel.
It wasn't the best of the Reggie books he had read. The firstprize had to go to Killer Extraordinary, but he'd finish this one chapter. Funny, if anyone had told him six months before that he'd find a book, any book, more fascinating than TV or a game online, he'd have laughed at them. He was still thinking about Reggie and the way he hid those bodies, only two of them buried in the ground, a couple of them partially burnt, when he walked into the pub.