The Saint Zita Society Read online

  ALSO BY RUTH RENDELL

  OMNIBUSES: COLLECTED SHORT STORIES

  COLLECTED STORIES 2

  WEXFORD: AN OMNIBUS

  THE SECOND WEXFORD OMNIBUS

  THE THIRD WEXFORD OMNIBUS

  THE FOURTH WEXFORD OMNIBUS

  THE FIFTH WEXFORD OMNIBUS

  THREE CASES FOR CHIEF INSPECTOR WEXFORD

  THE RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS

  THE SECOND RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS

  THE THIRD RUTH RENDELL OMNIBUS

  CHIEF INSPECTOR WEXFORD NOVELS: FROM DOON WITH DEATH

  A NEW LEASE OF DEATH

  WOLF TO THE SLAUGHTER

  THE BEST MAN TO DIE

  A GUILTY THING SURPRISED

  NO MORE DYING THEN

  MURDER BEING ONCE DONE

  SOME LIE AND SOME DIE

  SHAKE HANDS FOR EVER

  A SLEEPING LIFE

  PUT ON BY CUNNING

  THE SPEAKER OF MANDARIN

  AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS

  THE VEILED ONE

  KISSING THE GUNNER’S DAUGHTER

  SIMISOLA

  ROAD RAGE

  HARM DONE

  THE BABES IN THE WOOD

  END IN TEARS

  NOT IN THE FLESH

  THE MONSTER IN THE BOX

  THE VAULT

  SHORT STORIES: THE FALLEN CURTAIN

  MEANS OF EVIL

  THE FEVER TREE

  THE NEW GIRL FRIEND

  THE COPPER PEACOCK

  BLOOD LINES

  PIRANHA TO SCURFY

  NOVELLAS: HEART-STONES

  THE THIEF

  NON-FICTION: RUTH RENDELL’S SUFFOLK

  RUTH RENDELL’S ANTHOLOGY OF THE MURDEROUS MIND

  NOVELS: TO FEAR A PAINTED DEVIL

  VANITY DIES HARD

  THE SECRET HOUSE OF DEATH

  ONE ACROSS, TWO DOWN

  THE FACE OF TRESPASS

  A DEMON IN MY VIEW

  A JUDGEMENT IN STONE

  MAKE DEATH LOVE ME

  THE LAKE OF DARKNESS

  MASTER OF THE MOOR

  THE KILLING DOLL

  THE TREE OF HANDS

  LIVE FLESH

  TALKING TO STRANGE MEN

  THE BRIDESMAID

  GOING WRONG

  THE CROCODILE BIRD

  THE KEYS TO THE STREET

  A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES

  ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME

  THE ROTTWEILER

  THIRTEEN STEPS DOWN

  THE WATER’S LOVELY

  PORTOBELLO

  TIGERLILY’S ORCHIDS

  Copyright © 2012 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any

  form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored

  in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of

  photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing

  agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Doubleday Canada and colophon are registered trademarks

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Rendell, Ruth, 1930-

  The St. Zita Society / Ruth Rendell.

  eISBN: 978-0-385-67166-8

  I. Title.

  PR6068.E63S23 2012 B23′.914 C2012-902449-X

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover images: (Yellow building) 4 Corners Images, (Fox and CCTV camera) Getty Images

  Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited

  www.randomhouse.ca

  v3.1

  For my cousin Sonia with love

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  CHAPTER ONE

  Someone had told Dex that the Queen lived in Victoria. So did he, but she had a palace and he had one room in a street off Warwick Way. Still, he liked the idea that she was his neighbour. He liked quite a lot about the new life he had been living for the past few months. He had this job with Dr Jefferson which meant he could work in a garden three mornings a week and Dr Jefferson had said he would speak to the lady next door about doing a morning for her. While he was drawing his incapacity benefit he had been told he shouldn’t get any wages, but Dr Jefferson never asked and maybe the lady called Mrs Neville-Smith wouldn’t either.

  Jimmy, who drove Dr Jefferson to work at the hospital every day, had asked him round to the pub that evening. The pub, which was on the corner of Hexam Place and Sloane Gardens, was called the Dugong, a funny name that Dex had never heard before. There was going to be a meeting there for all the people who worked in Hexam Place. Dex had never been to a meeting of any sort and he didn’t know if he would like it but Jimmy had promised to buy him a Guinness which was his favourite drink. He would have drunk a Guinness every evening with his tea if he could have afforded it. He was halfway along the Pimlico Road when he got out his mobile and looked to see if there was a message or a text from Peach. There sometimes was and it always made him feel happy. Usually the message called him by his name and said he had been so good that Peach was giving him ten free calls or something like that. There was nothing this time but he knew there would be again or even that Peach might speak to him. Peach was his god. He knew that because when the lady upstairs saw him smiling at his mobile and making a message come back over and over she said, Peach is your god, Dex.

  He needed a god to protect him from the evil spirits. It was quite a while since he had seen any of them and he knew this was because Peach was protecting him, just as he knew if there was one near him that he should look out for, Peach would warn him. He trusted Peach as he had never trusted any human being.

  He stopped outside the Dugong which he knew well because it was next door to Dr Jefferson’s house. Not joined on to but next door, for Dr Jefferson’s was big and standing alone and with a large garden for him to look after. The pub sign was some kind of big fish with half its body sticking out of blue wavy water. He knew it was a fish because it was in the sea. He pushed the door open and there was Jimmy, waving to him in a friendly way. The other people round the big table all looked at him but he could tell at once that none of them were evil spirits.

  ‘I am not a servant.’ Thea helped herself to a handful of mixed nuts. ‘You may be but I’m not.’

  ‘What are you then?’ said Beacon.

  ‘I don’t know. I just do little jobs for Damian and Roland. You want to remember I�
��ve got a degree.’

  ‘Blessed is she who sitteth not in the seat of the scornful.’ Beacon moved the bowl out of Thea’s reach. ‘If you’re going to eat from the common nuts you ought not to put your hand in among them when it’s been in your mouth.’

  ‘Don’t quarrel, children,’ said June. ‘Let’s be nice. If you’re not a servant, Thea, you won’t be eligible to join the Saint Zita Society.’

  It was August and the day had been sunny and very warm. The full complement of those who would compose the society couldn’t be there. Rabia, being a Muslim and a nanny, never went out in the evening let alone to a pub; Zinnia, cleaner for the Princess and the Stills and Dr Jefferson, didn’t live in, and Richard was cooking dinner for Lady Studley’s guests while Sondra, his wife, waited at table. Montserrat, the Stills’ au pair, said she might come but she had a mysterious task to perform later, and the newly arrived Dex, gardener to Dr Jefferson, never opened his mouth except to say, ‘Cheers.’ But Henry was still expected, and as June was complaining about the Dugong’s nuts being unsalted and therefore tasteless, he walked in.

  With his extreme height and marked resemblance to Michelangelo’s David, in days gone by he would have been footman material. Indeed, it was a matter of fact that in 1882 his great-great-great-grandfather had been footman to a duke. He was the youngest of the group after Montserrat and although he looked like a Hollywood star of the thirties, he was in reality driver and sometime gardener and handyman to Lord Studley, performing the tasks that Richard couldn’t or wouldn’t do. His employer referred to him with a jovial laugh as his ‘general factotum’. He was never called Harry or Hal.

  Beacon said it was Jimmy’s round and what was Henry going to have. ‘The house white, please.’

  ‘That’s not for men. That’s lady juice.’

  ‘I’m not a man, I’m a boy. And I’m not drinking beer or spirits till next week when I’m twenty-five. Did you see there’s been another boy stabbed? Down on the Embankment. That makes three this week.’

  ‘We don’t have to talk about it, Henry,’ said June.

  One who plainly didn’t want to talk about it was Dex, who drank the last of his Guinness, got up and left, saying nothing. June watched him go, said, ‘No manners, but what can you expect? Now we have to talk about the society. How do you set up a society, anyway?’

  Jimmy said in a heavy ponderous tone, ‘You pick a chairman, only you mustn’t call him a chairman because he may be a lady. You call him a chair.’

  ‘I’m not calling any bloke a piece of furniture.’ Thea reached for the nuts bowl. ‘Why can’t we make Jimmy the chairperson and June the secretary and the rest of us just members? Then we’re away. This can be the inception meeting of the Saint Zita Society.’

  Henry was sending a text on his iPhone. ‘Who’s Saint Zita?’

  It was June who had found the title for the society. ‘She’s the patron saint of domestic servants and she gave her food and clothes to the poor. If you see a picture of her she’ll be holding a bag and a bunch of keys.’

  ‘This boy that was stabbed,’ said Henry, ‘his mum was on the TV and she said he was down to get three A levels and he’d do anything for anyone. Everybody loved him.’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘Funny, isn’t it? All these kids that get murdered and whatever, you never hear anyone say they were slimeballs and a menace to the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Well, they wouldn’t when they’d died, would they?’ Henry’s iPhone tinkled to tell him a text had come. It was the one he wanted and he grinned a little at Huguette’s message. ‘What’s the society for, anyway?’

  ‘Solidarity,’ said Jimmy. ‘Supporting each other. And we can have outings and go to shows.’

  ‘We can do that anyway. We don’t have to have a servants’ society to go and see Les Mis.’

  ‘I’m not a servant,’ said Thea.

  ‘Then you can be an honorary member,’ said June. ‘Well, that’s my lot. It’s got quite dark and the Princess will start fretting.’

  Montserrat didn’t come and no one knew what the ‘mysterious task’ was. Jimmy and Thea talked about the society for an hour or so, what was it for and could it restrain employers from keeping their drivers up till all hours and forced to drink Coke while they awaited their employers’ call. Not that he included Dr Jefferson who was an example to the rest of them. Henry wanted to know who that funny little guy with the bushy hair was, Dex or something, he’d never seen him before.

  ‘He does our garden.’ Jimmy had got into the habit of referring to Simon Jefferson’s property as if it belonged equally to the paediatrician and himself. ‘Dr Jefferson took him on out of the kindness of his heart.’ Jimmy finished his lager, said dramatically, ‘He sees evil spirits.’

  ‘He what?’ Henry gaped as Jimmy had intended him to.

  ‘Well, he used to. He tried to kill his mother and they put him inside – well, a place for the criminally insane. There was a psychiatrist saw to him and he was a pal of Dr Jefferson and when the psychiatrist had cured him they let him out because they said he’d never do it again and Dr Jefferson gave him that job with us.’

  Thea looked uneasy. ‘D’you think that’s why he left when he did without saying goodbye? Talking about stabbing was too near home? D’you think that’s what it was?’

  ‘Dr Jefferson says he’s cured,’ said Jimmy. ‘He’ll never do it again. His friend swore blind he wouldn’t.’

  Henry left last because he fancied another glass of lady juice. The others had all gone in the same direction. Their employers’ homes were all in Hexam Place, a street of white-painted stucco or golden brickwork houses known to estate agents as Georgian, though none had been built before 1860. Number 6, on the opposite side to the Dugong, was the property of Her Serene Highness, the Princess Susan Hapsburg, a title incorrect in every respect except her Christian name. The Princess, as she was known to the members of the Saint Zita Society among others, was eighty-two years old and had lived in this house for nearly sixty years, and June, four years younger, had been there with her for the same length of time.

  Steps ran down into the area and June’s door but when she came home after having been out in the evenings she entered by the front door even though this meant climbing up eight stairs instead of walking down twelve. There were evenings when June’s polymyalgia rheumatica made that climbing up a trial but she did it so that passing pedestrians and other residents of Hexam Place might know she was more of a friend to the Princess than a paid employee. Zinnia had bathed Gussie that day and brought in a new kind of air-freshener so that the doggy smell was less pronounced. It was very warm. Mean in most respects, the Princess was lavish with the central heating and kept it on all summer, opening windows when it got too hot.

  June could hear the Princess had Holby City on but she marched in just the same. ‘Now, what can I get you, madam? A nice vodka and tonic or a freshly squeezed orange juice?’

  ‘I don’t want anything, dear. I’ve had my vodka.’ The Princess didn’t turn round. ‘Are you drunk?’ It was a question she always asked when she knew June had been to the pub.

  ‘Of course not, madam.’ It was the answer June always gave.

  ‘Well, don’t talk any more, dear. I want to know if this chap has got psoriasis or a malignant melanoma. You’d better go to bed.’

  It was a command, and friend or no friend, even after sixty years, June knew it was wiser to obey. The young ones in Saint Zita’s might be pals with their employers, Montserrat even called Mrs Still Lucy, but when you were eighty-two and seventy-eight things were different; the rules had not relaxed much since the days when Susan Borrington was running away with that awful Italian boy and she was going with her to his home in Florence. June went off to bed and was falling asleep when the internal phone rang.

  ‘Did you put Gussie to bed, dear?’

  ‘I forgot,’ June murmured, barely conscious.

  ‘Well, do it now, will you?’

  The areas of these houses
were all different, some with cupboards under the stairs, others with cupboards in the wall dividing this area from next door’s, most with plants in pots, tree ferns, choisyas, avocados grown from stones, even a mimosa, the occasional piece of statuary. All had some kind of lighting, usually a wall light, globular or cuboid. Number 7, home of the Stills and next door but three to the Dugong, was one of those with a cupboard in the wall and no pot plants. The hanging bulb over the basement door had not been switched on but enough pale light from a street lamp showed Henry a figure standing just inside the wall cupboard. He stopped and peered over the railings. The figure, a man’s, retreated as far as it could go into the shallow recesses of the cupboard.

  Possibly a burglar. There had been a lot of crime round here recently. Only last week, Montserrat had told him, someone had just walked through the window of number 5, home of the Neville-Smiths, taken the television, a briefcase full of money and the keys to a BMW, and walked out of the front door to drive away in the car. What could you expect if you had no window locks and you had actually left a downstairs window open two inches? This man was obviously up to no good, a phrase Henry had heard his employer use and which he liked. Lord Studley would tell him to call the police on his mobile but he didn’t always do what Lord Studley recommended and was in fact off to do something of which he would have deeply disapproved.

  He was turning away when the basement door opened and Montserrat appeared. She waved to Henry, said hi and beckoned the man out of the cupboard. Must be her boyfriend. He expected them to kiss but they didn’t. The man went inside and the door closed. Fifteen minutes later, having forgotten about the burglar or boyfriend, he was in Chelsea, in the Honourable Huguette Studley’s flat. These days the pattern of Henry’s visits followed the same plan, bed first, then arguing. Henry would have preferred to forgo the arguing and spend twice as long in bed but this was seldom allowed. Huguette (named after her French grandmother) was a very pretty girl of nineteen with a large red mouth and large blue eyes and hair her grandmother would have called frizzy but others recognised as the big curly bush made fashionable by Julia Roberts in Charlie Wilson’s War. The argument was always begun by Huguette.