Dark Corners: A Novel by Ruth Rendell Page A

Mr Kaleejah was taking his dog for its morning walk. It always walked along in a docile way, pausing sometimes to look up at Mr Kaleejah and wag its tail. Carl had never heard it bark.
    ‘He’ll bring his deckchairs through the kitchen to the back door,’ said Carl. ‘Why deckchairs? One for him, and who’s the other for? Perhaps he’s got friends, but I’ve never seen them. The next thing will be he’ll want to take over one of my rooms. He’s got a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom. Maybe he wants another bedroom? He could take over my second bedroom. Why not? I can’t stop him.’
    ‘Yes, you can, Carl. He can tell his story to anyone he likes. How do you know they’ll even care? They’ll probably say, so what? If they’re even interested, they’ll google it and see that what you did wasn’t against the law. Tell him you want the rent and if he says no you’ll evict him. That’s what anyone else would do.’
    She made it sound so simple, Carl thought. He watched Dermot turn the corner into Castellain Road and disappear. He put his head in his hands, a frequent gesture with him these days.
    The day continued fine, becoming sunnier and warmer. ‘Let’s go out for lunch,’ said Nicola in a cheerful tone, though she felt anything but cheerful.
    ‘I can’t afford it.’
    ‘Well, I can. You’ll have to face up to that, Carl. When you do what I suggest, you’ll have some money and you’ll feel much better because things won’t be as bad as you think. Probably they won’t be bad at all. Come on, we’ll go out, and we won’t be here to see Dermot come back.’
    So they went round to the Café Rouge, ate fishcakes and chips and lemon tart and drank a lot of red wine. ‘You’ll think I’m crazy,’ said Carl, ‘but I don’t want to go back there. I can’t bear to be under the same roof as him.’
    ‘I live there too, you know. When you tell him to do his worst, I’ll be with you. We’ll confront him together.’
    The sun was very hot and the house warm and stuffy when they got home. Nicola went upstairs and looked out of the bedroom window. She called Carl. ‘You’re not going to like this, but you’d better see it.’
    No one had attended to the garden since Carl’s father had died; in fact since long before that. Where the lawn had been, the grass had grown tall and turned to hay, and the flower beds were dense with stinging nettles three feet tall. Two deckchairs covered in red-and-blue-striped canvas had been put up among the hay, and in them sat Dermot and a rather large young woman with shaggy dark hair wearing a dirndl skirt and peasant blouse. Carl made a sound like a howl of agony.
    ‘Who’s that woman?’
    ‘His girlfriend, I should think.’
    ‘He hasn’t got a girlfriend.’
    ‘Well, he has now.’
     
    A visit from her parents was not to be welcomed by Lizzie. Usually, that was. Now, however, in possession of Stacey’s beautiful flat, she felt very different. Not just on account of the decor and furnishings, but because quite a lot of exotic drink still remained from Stacey’s store, as well as tins of the sort of biscuits and snacks that went well with drink.
    Tom and Dot had been in the flat no more than ten minutes, had examined the large refrigerator, the freezer and the washing machine and drier as well as the living room and bedroom furnishings and the two flat-screen televisions, when they were plied with dry Oloroso and Tequila Sunrises. Conversation concentrated on Tom’s recovery from his assault on Haverstock Hill. Lizzie, who didn’t take admonition well herself, told him how careful he must be in future, and to be sure to take his mobile with him and phone her or her mother at the least sign of danger. Dot agreed, but added that it was useless to say anything as Tom never did what he was told.
    Advice, in any case, was unnecessary. They both thought privately that Tom had given up his exploration of London on buses. It had, in their opinion,