The secret house of death (Unknown Binding)

The man was heavily built and he drove a big car, a green Ford Zephyr. This was his third visit to the house called Braeside in Orchard Drive, Matchdown Park, and each time he parked his car on the grass patch in the pavement. He was in his early thirties, dark and not bad-looking. He carried a briefcase. He never stayed very long but Louise North who lived at Braeside with her husband Bob was always pleased to see him and admitted him with a smile.

These were facts and by now everyone who lived in the vicinity was aware of them. The Airedale who lived opposite and who belonged to some people called Winter obligingly kept them informed of the big man’s visits. At day-long sentry-go behind his gate, the Airedale barked at strangers, kept silence for residents. He barked furiously now as the man strolled up the North’s path, knocked at the front door, and, thirty seconds later after a whispered word with Louise, disappeared inside. His duty done, the dog nosed out a brown earth-encrusted bone and began to gnaw it. One by one the women his outburst had alerted retreated from their windows and considered what they had seen.

The ground had been prepared, the seed sown. Now all that remained was for these enthusiastic gardeners to raise their crop of gossip and take it to the market over the fences and over the tea-cups.

Of them all only Susan Townsend, who lived next door to Braeside, wanted to be left out of this exchange of merchandise. She sat typing each afternoon in her window and was no more proof than they were against raising her eyes when the dog barked. She wondered about the man’s visits but, unlike her neighbours, she felt no lubricious curiosity. Her own husband had walked out on her just a year ago and the man’s visits to Louise North touched chords of pain she hoped had begun to atrophy. Adultery, which excites and titillates the innocent, had brought her at twenty-six into a dismal abyss of loneliness. Let her neighbours speculate as to why the man came, what Louise wanted, what Bob thought, what would come of it all. From personal experience she knew the answers and all she wanted was to get on with her work, bring up her son and not get herself involved.

***

The man left forty minutes later and the Airedale barked again. He stopped abruptly as his owner approached and, standing on his hind legs – in which position he wriggled like a belly dancer – fawned on the two little boys she had fetched from school.

Susan Townsend went into her kitchen and put the kettle on. The side gate banged.

‘Sorry we’re so late, my dear,’ said Doris Winter, stripping off her gloves and homing on the nearest radiator. ‘But your Paul couldn’t find his cap and we’ve been rooting through about fifty lockers.’

‘Roger Gibbs had thrown it into the junior playground,’ said Susan’s son virtuously. ‘Can I have a biscuit?’

‘You may not. You’ll spoil your tea.’

‘Can Richard stay?’

It is impossible to refuse such a request when the putative guest’s mother is at your elbow. ‘Of course,’ said Susan. ‘Go and wash your hands.’

‘I’m frozen,’ Doris said. ‘Winter by name and Winter by nature, that’s me.’ It was March and mild, but Doris was always cold, always huddled under layers of sweaters and cardigans and scarves. She divested herself gradually of her outer coverings, kicked off her shoes and pressed chilblained feet against the radiator. ‘You don’t know how I envy you your central heating. Which brings me to what I wanted to say. Did you see what I saw? Louise’s boy-friend paying her yet another visit/’

‘You don’t know he’s her boy-friend, Doris.’

‘She says he’s come to sell central heating. I asked her – got the cheek of the devil, haven’t I? – and that’s what she said. But when I mentioned it to Bob you could see he didn’t have the least idea what I meant. “We’re not having central heating,” he said. “I can’t afford it.” There now. What d’you think of that?’

‘It’s their business and they’ll have to sort it out.’

‘Oh, quite. I couldn’t agree more. I’m sure I’m not interested in other people’s sordid private lives. I do wonder what she sees in this man though. It’s not as if he was all that to write home about and Bob’s a real dream. I’ve always thought him by far the most attractive man around here, all that cool fresh charm.’

‘You make him sound like a deodorant,’ said Susan, smiling in spite of herself. ‘Shall we go into the other room?’

Reluctantly, Doris unpeeled herself from the radiator and, carrying shoes, shedding garments in her wake, followed Susan into the living-room. ‘Still, I suppose good looks don’t really count,’ she went on persistently. ‘Human nature’s a funny thing. I know that from my nursing days…’

Sighing inwardly, Susan sat down. Once on to her nursing days and the multifarious facets of human idiosyncrasy to be observed in a hospital ward, Doris was liable to go on for hours. She listened with half an ear to the inevitable spate of anecdote.

‘…And that was just one example. It’s amazing the people who are married to absolutely marvellous-looking other people ad who fall in love with absolute horrors. I suppose they just want a change.’

‘I suppose they do,’ Susan said evenly. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.