On the Edge [= Dead Gorgeous]

29

Just what are you doing with that knife?’

Antonia stood in the doorway, her right hand gripping the door frame.

Rose looked up. She’d taken it from a drawer containing wooden spoons, tin openers, meat skewers and a selection of knives and cleavers. This had been the obvious one to choose, a long bone-handled carver with a blade that may once have been uniformly wide. Years of sharpening had honed it to a point.

‘What I said I would do — cutting up meat for the cat.’

‘It shouldn’t be used for that.’

‘Why not? It’s wonderfully sharp.’

‘It’s the carver.’

‘I’ve finished now.’ Calmly Rose picked up the chopping board and used the knife to push the pieces off into the cat’s dish. ‘That should keep him quiet.’ She took the knife to the sink and ran some water over it. She reached for a teacloth and wiped the blade, taking care not to touch the edge, turning it over appreciatively. ‘An old knife like this is certainly worth looking after.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Rose gave a shrug. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting it’s sharper than anything else you’ve got.’

For a moment Antonia had looked alarmed. Now she seemed to accept that she’d misinterpreted what she’d seen. She put her hand to her hair and twined one blonde strand around her forefinger and twitched her mouth into an odd, speculative smile. ‘There’s a hacksaw in the garage.’

Rose frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘I should have thought it was obvious.’

‘Well, it isn’t to me. What are you suggesting?’

‘He’d be easier to bury in pieces.’

Rose dropped the knife in the drawer and slammed it shut.

Antonia carried on in a persuasive voice as if she were suggesting how to pass a diverting evening. ‘We could wrap the bits in newspaper and bury them in different places.’

‘That’s vile. How could you possible do it?’

‘The two of us, ducky.’

Rose’s stomach heaved. ‘You must be mad even to think of such a horrible thing.’

She got a cold stare. ‘Think of something better, then.’ Getting no answer, Antonia added, ‘Sweetie, we’ve got a dead man to dispose of. You’d better face up to reality.’

The words hit Rose hard. The thought of butchering any human corpse, let alone Hector’s, was too nauseous to contemplate. Yet she was barren of suggestions.

As if to underline the inactivity, Antonia fetched some playing cards from one of the other rooms and started a game of patience on the kitchen table.

‘Understand what I said, Rose? You kept your lily white hands clean when I got rid of Barry, but you’re as tainted as I am because you asked me to do it. I don’t know what goes on inside that mind of yours, but you can’t go on looking the other way. Face it, you’re a killer, just as I am. If you want to go on living, stop playing Snow White and get some blood on your hands.’

The phone rang.

Their eyes met. Antonia stood up. ‘It’ll be Vic.’

‘Don’t answer it.’

‘I can talk to Vic.’

‘You don’t know who it is.’

The bell pealed out its insistent notes.

‘For pity’s sake, it’s only a telephone.’ Antonia ran across the hall.

‘You’re asking for trouble.’

Furious, Rose followed her into the room and stood not a yard away.

‘Yes?... Speaking, yes.’ Antonia switched the receiver to her other ear and turned her back on Rose. Her voice was guarded. This certainly wasn’t Vic. ‘Really? He left here as usual... No, not yet, but that’s nothing unusual. He works all hours, as you know... I see... No, he didn’t — but then I didn’t enquire. I’m his wife, darling, not his nursemaid. Perhaps he spent the day at that exhibition... Closed? I didn’t know that... Well, did he go to Paris, do you think? He had lunch with some Frenchman the other day... God, no, I’d be the last to know... Listen, my dear, it’s not the end of the world. Surely the place can survive for a couple of days without him? I’ll get him to ring you if he gets in touch. There’s nothing more I can do.’ She slammed down the phone. ‘Bloody woman.’

‘His secretary?’

‘Fussing over sweet F.A., as usual. What time is it?’

‘Just gone nine.’

‘A fine time to call me. I’ve got my suspicions about Hector and that girl.’

‘She’s got suspicions of her own by the sound of it.’

‘Piffle. She doesn’t know there’s anything wrong.’

‘That’s beside the point, Antonia. He’s been missed at work already. If you’re going to play the anxious wife you’ll have to call the police damn quick.’

Antonia slid her eyes in the direction of the drawing room where the corpse was lying. ‘How can I?’

Rose had no answer. She’d rejected everything Antonia had suggested.

In her mind’s eye she stood over Hector’s body with a hacksaw, bracing herself to use it. Revolting. Yet it was rapidly coming to that.

No. She’d reached her sticking-point. ‘There must be another way of dealing with this. A better way.’

‘Well?’ Antonia waited with the air of a schoolmistress expecting some glib answer.

Out of sheer desperation Rose talked, casting for ideas as she spoke. ‘We take everything out of his pockets that could be used to identify him.’

‘We’d have to do that whatever happened.’

‘Let me finish. And then we put him in the boot of the car and drive out and... find a bomb site that hasn’t been cleared.’

‘A bomb site — that’s a thought.’

Confidence surged through Rose like a drug. ‘We drop him into a hole and cover it with rubble. The chances are that he’ll never be found. If he is, they’ll think he was looting and had an accident. Or that he was just some tramp using it as a place to sleep.’

Antonia made a fist and feigned a punch. ‘Brilliant, Rosie! Let’s drink to it.’ She fetched two glasses and a bottle of the Burgundy, which she uncorked with one pull of the corkscrew. ‘Just one. Got to stay on our feet.’

They touched glasses. Antonia’s eyes may have caught some reflected light from the cut glass but it seemed to Rose that they shone with something more than relief. There was a gleam of triumph there. Almost of rapture. It was as if she was looking ahead to some sort of happy-ever-after.

Rose brusquely recalled her to the present. ‘Croydon is the place. I come through there when I visit my parents. It’s peppered with bomb sites.’

‘Croydon?’ Antonia spoke the name as if it were Timbuktu. ‘We don’t need to go that far when you’ve got a perfectly good site in Pimlico, darling.’

‘Where?’

‘Christ Almighty, if you don’t know ...’

Rose gazed at her in disbelief. ‘You can’t mean Oldfield Gardens.’

‘You bet I do. It hasn’t been cleared, has it?’

‘I am not going to bury Hector in Oldfield Gardens.’

Antonia rebuked Rose in a good-natured way. ‘Don’t be such a sap. It’s the ideal place. It’s not overlooked.’

‘No. I refuse. It’s much too near. It would be asking for trouble.’

‘That great poster screens it from the road.’

‘We’re taking him to Croydon.’

Antonia conceded tamely. ‘Have it your way if you insist, darling.’

Rose went out to the car. She had remembered the packet of disposal forms on the back seat. She brought them back to the house, gave them to Antonia and told her to make a fire of them. Antonia took them off to the drawing room, joking that if they helped to raise the temperature a few degrees the afternoon hadn’t been a complete waste of time. She was in a better mood now that they’d settled what to do with Hector, and she seemed appreciative of Rose’s more positive role.

Some time towards midnight Antonia came back to the kitchen. She’d changed into a sweater and slacks and she’d brought some down for Rose and dumped them on the table, together with a pair of flat shoes.

‘You can’t climb over bomb sites in heels.’

It was sensible. The things were dark blue in colour, too. Rose changed while Antonia went off to take another look at the body. She could have done with a size smaller in slacks, but the shoes fitted well. She was thankful to get out of her own things for the task ahead. It was like being back in uniform, which had always given her the feeling she was part of something impersonal, at several removes from her real life.