Free Thirteen Steps Down by Ruth Rendell Page B

an answer when she asked him to phone Mrs. Fordyce in
    11C. He thought he had seen her go out. Gwendolen was extremely
    annoyed. It was feckless leaving your rubbish in other people's houses
    and then giving no sign of the social solecism you had committed. She
    was tempted to drop the bone in its wrapping into the nearest litter bin
    but a niggling doubt about the validity of doing that stopped her. It might
    amount to stealing.
    After reading, Gwendolen liked shopping best of what she did. Not
    because of what she bought or the layout of the shops or the friendliness
    of staff but solely on the grounds of comparing prices and saving money.
    She was no fool and she knew very well that the amounts she saved on a
    tin of gravy powder here and a piece of Cheddar cheese there would
    never amount to more than, say, twenty pence a day. But she
    acknowledged to herself that it was a game she played and one that
    made trekking all the way over to the Portobello Road market or up to
    Sainsbury's a pleasure rather than a chore. Besides, crossing Ladbroke
    Grove, if she followed a certain route, took her past the house where, all
    those years ago, Dr. Reeves had had his surgery. By now the pain had
    gone from her memories of him and only a rather delightful nostalgia
    remained, that and a new hope, brought about by the announcement in
    the Telegraph.
    Just after the war the Chawcers had thought of going to Dr. Odess. The
    first symptoms of Mrs. Chawcer's illness had showed themselves about
    that time. But Colville Square was rather a long walk away, while Dr.
    Reeves was in Ladbroke Grove and reached by simply taking Cambridge
    Gardens. It wasn't till the trial and all the publicity in the newspapers
    that Gwendolen discovered Dr. Odess had been Christie's doctor and had
    attended him and his wife for years.
    She was tempted to go up to the market this morning. The sun was
    shining and flowers were out everywhere. The council had hung baskets
    of geraniums on all the lampposts. I wonder what that costs, thought
    Gwendolen. Sometimes when she went to the market for her vegetables,
    her cooking apples, and her bananas--the only fruit Gwendolen ever ate
    were bananas and stewed apple--she was able to save a lot and
    sometimes have forty pence more than she expected in her purse at the
    end of the day. She stopped outside the four-story house with basement
    and with steep stairs climbing to the front door, where Stephen Reeves
    had practiced. It was run-down now, its paint peeling, a pane in a front
    bay window broken and patched up with a plastic Tesco bag and tape.
    Inside there had been the waiting room where she had sat and waited
    for prescriptions for her mother. In those days doctors had no lights and
    bells to signify they were ready to receive the next patient, often no
    receptionist or nurse on the premises. Dr. Reeves used to come to the
    waiting room himself, call out the patient's name, and hold the door open
    for him or her to pass through. Gwendolen never minded how long she
    had to wait for the prescription to be handed to her for he would do this
    himself and might come two or three times into the waiting room to
    receive the next patient before he did so. She knew he only did this so
    that he could catch glimpses of her and she have sight of him. He always
    smiled and the smile for her was different from those directed at others,
    warmer, wider, and somehow more conspiratorial.
    It was as if they shared a secret, as indeed they did-their love for each
    other. She hadn't minded having to leave the surgeryon her own. He
    would be at St. Blaise House in a day or two and then they would be
    alone, having tea and talking, talking, talking. To all intents and
    purposes they were alone in the house. Bertha, the last maid, was long
    gone, and by this time domestic workers wanted higher wages than the
    Chawcers could afford. Mrs. Chawcer was asleep, or certainly immobile,
    upstairs. The professor might be home by five but seldom