Surviving

by Allan Massie

  All the time she was speaking Gary kept his eyes fixed on the floor. His silence filled the gaps in Kate’s statement.

  Motor bikes, the neo-Fascist youth at play, screamed down the avenue below. “I guess he was asking for it,” Erik said, “but Jesus …”

  “And no police?” Tom said again. “I’d have thought in the circumstances you describe …”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Kate said, “and I’m not thinking straight, I admit that, but the circumstances, other circumstances … Gary’s record, and Reynard has – had – a high profile in England. Am I mad or what? I mean, even if in the circumstances the court was lenient – well, this is Italy, it might be, but how long would Gary spend in jail before any trial? And I got him into it.”

  “Hardly,” Belinda said, “you speak as if it’s your fault.”

  He didn’t have to use a knife, she thought, he could have grabbed him by the hair and pulled him off. But what was the point – what is ever the point of listing could haves? “He did it for me,” Kate said.

  “So, no police. We’re here to organise a cover-up,” Tom said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t ask you to do that,” Kate said, “but then I don’t know what I can ask. I don’t even know what I want, only what I don’t want.”

  “You’re shivering, darling,” Belinda said, “and no wonder. But Tom’s right. If we’re not calling the police, and I see why not, then we’ve got to … concoct something. Do you know where Reynard was staying and for how long?”

  “The Excelsior. Till tomorrow, I think. He was just here for the weekend. But it’s crazy. How if I, we, just leave Gary out of it, and I say I did it, protecting my … you know what?”

  “That’s crazy, if you like,” Belinda said.

  “I don’t know,” Tom said, “how good the Rome police forensic is, but I would guess good as anyone else’s. And the wound would be wrong and the distribution of the blood, and anyhow where did you get the knife at that moment? Just had it to hand? And the questioning, the examination … chances are you and Gary would both find yourselves under arrest, pending …” He played with the handle of his stick, and traced a circle on the floor. “Seems to me the body must be moved. Without the body here what is there that connects you and Gary with the crime? Would anyone have seen him arrive?”

  “I don’t know. The porter goes off duty when the outside double door is locked. At seven. But the other apartments? I don’t know. He might have met someone. I just buzzed the door for him.”

  “There’s a fair chance he didn’t,” Tom said. He put a match to his cigar which had gone out. “Pasolini,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Pasolini … you remember, Belinda, the notice on Pasquino. A mysterious death, a crime never solved … that’s what we want.”

  “I’m lost,” Erik said.

  “Pier Paolo Pasolini, poet, film director, Marxist, homosexual … his body was discovered on waste ground on the edge of a housing estate just out of the city. He’d been beaten up, run over by a car, I don’t recall exactly. He’d a taste for rough trade and the theory was a pick-up that went wrong. But some – the chap who wrote that pasquinata for instance – think it was political with the security services involved, as accessories anyway. That’s irrelevant. But Pasolini presents us with a model, that’s what I mean.”

  Erik said, “Wow, you just thought this up now?”

  “You forget, I worked in Hollywood for years. Concocting scenarios is my trade.”

  “Reynard wasn’t queer,” Belinda said. “But he was a notorious womaniser, rape not beyond him – sorry, Kate.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “No,” Tom said, “doesn’t matter, though I think you’ll find he was more versatile.”

  For a little nobody said anything. Erik, awkward, filled the silence by pouring more tea. Gary hadn’t touched his mug.

  “You OK, Gary?”

  Kate drank tea, lit a cigarette, hands shaking.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am crazy, must be. I can’t let you all make yourselves accessories. I shouldn’t have called you.”

  Belinda crossed the room to Kate’s chair, perched on the arm, stroked her hair.

  “It’s mad,” she said, “but it might work. It could work. And what’s the alternative? You owe something to Gary and the only way that debt can be paid is by doing as Tom suggests. If we all get in trouble, well so be it. But I think it may work.”

  She thought, this isn’t me, but what else can we do? How right I was to tell Kate she was mad to have Gary here, because if she hadn’t, none of this would have happened; Reynard wouldn’t have come to Rome. But what does any of that matter – she looked at Erik who was gazing at the body, his lips parted – what does it matter since what has happened has happened? Thank God Tom Durward was with us, but … he’s enjoying this, he is …

  “We’ll need a car,” she said.

  “You can’t involve yourself in this, Bel,” Kate said.

  “Oh I think I can, I think I must. Each for each is what we teach, you know.”

  “I could get Stephen’s,” Erik said. “I’ve got the spare set of keys.”

  “Oh no,” Kate said.

  “No,” Belinda said, “that seems to be taking advantage of him.”

  “He doesn’t have to know. I’m allowed to use it. Least I was.”

  “But if something went wrong.”

  “There’s no connection between Stephen and …” Erik pointed to the body.

  “No,” Tom said. “There is in fact a connection. I won’t go into it now, but it’s there.”

  “Steal one,” Erik said.

  “How?”

  “Too risky.”

  “I could do it. My second stepfather was mad on cars, taught me how to hot-rod most any one.”

  “No,” Tom said. “Belinda’s right. Too risky. Hertz is the answer, Hertz and the American Express. I’ll see to it. I’ll take it for a week, and then when the job’s done, drive south and eventually leave it for collection in Naples …”

  “But,” Kate said.

  “It’ll take me a couple of hours maybe. Will you be all right till then? First though I think we should wrap him up. In something you can bear not seeing again, Kate. Sheets? And we’ll need polythene – rubbish sacks’ll do – to line the boot.”

  XXX

  Silence hung over the apartment like the empty Sundays of Belinda’s years as a young woman in London, Sundays when church bells made her feel anxious, afraid of the future, when her life seemed a cheat, drained of pleasure or promise.

  It was Kate who roused them from silence now.

  “If it’s to be done, if this crazy thing is to be done, then let’s get it in motion.”

  She fetched sheets. With help from Erik and Belinda she rolled the body over and wrapped the sheet round it. She got a bucket and swabbed the floor. There was only a little blood, but already a reddish-brown stain appeared through the sheet.

  “You’ll have to sacrifice another, maybe two,” Belinda said. “We don’t seem to be much good at this. Needs practice, I suppose.”

  And all the time they worked to remove evidence of the crime, Gary sat unmoving and – who could tell? – unmoved.

  I didn’t like Reynard, Belinda thought, in the end I didn’t like him at all. I was afraid too. And this is how it ends. She felt Erik slip his hands over her shoulders and rest his face in her hair.

  Kate was sitting by Gary speaking to him. Belinda couldn’t hear what she was saying. Then he got to his feet and left the room. He passed very close to the body rolled up in the sheets, but he didn’t look down at it.

  “I’ve sent him to take a shower,” Kate said. “We’ll have to dispose of the clothes he was wearing. He knows that of course. He’s been here before after all.”

  “Though you wouldn’t think so,” Belinda said. “Is he all right?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
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br />   The doorbell rang.

  “It’s too soon for Tom to be back. Don’t answer it.”

  “It might be him though.”

  The ringing was repeated: three short stabbing rings followed by two long ones. “Oh Christ, it’s Mike,” Kate said. “I know that ring. It’s his special ring.”

  “Then you mustn’t answer.”

  “If I don’t, he’s capable of ringing every bell in the building. He’s done it before. He’ll have to come up. It’s the least of …”

  “Put him off. Say you’re ill. Invent something.”

  “I’ll try. But you know Mike.”

  In a moment, “He’s on his way up, I’m afraid. There was nothing I … it was that or … we’d better get Reynard out of sight.”

  So they hauled the body behind a couch.

  There came a banging at the door and Mike’s voice howling the presence of the ghost of Roger Casement. Kate hurried to admit him. He stumbled into a heavy embrace.

  “A great provoker of lechery,” he shouted, and, freeing himself, bouncing off the doorpost, was in the drawing-room where, now, Belinda and Erik sat on the couch. Mike lurched towards them, fell forward trying to kiss Belinda, landed sprawling on the floor, and gripped Erik’s leg to help him back to his feet.

  “Do sit down, Mike,” Kate said, and guided him with difficulty to a chair that gave no view behind the couch.

  “It’s Belinda,” he said, “Belinda and a puffy boy. Got a drink for me, Kate darling? NO? No drink for Mike? But Mike’s outwitted you. Prepared.” He fished a half-bottle of whisky from his inside breast-pocket, unscrewed it, and swigged. “Be prepared, it’s the Boy Scout’s solemn creed.” He drank again. “And be clean in word and deed.”

  Kate moved to take the bottle from him.

  “No point,” Belinda said, “you might as well let him have it.”

  “Wonderful,” Mike said. “Belinda has my worst interest at heart. Darling girl.”

  Kate sighed.

  “All right,” she said, “I can’t stop you. Go ahead and …” she caught sight of the knife on the floor a few feet away from Mike and, affecting indifference, picked it up. She was standing there with it in her hand when Gary came in, showered, changed into dark-blue shirt and dark suit; he was very pale and clean and looked no more than sixteen.

  “It’s another puffy boy, a puffy killer if I’m not mistaken. And Mike never is. All human life is here. But where’s Reynard, where’s the Fox?”

  “You’ve lost me,” Kate said.

  “Spies everywhere. The Mike Intelligence Service never sleeps. Like the dear old Windmill, we never close.”

  Kate took the knife through to the kitchen and washed it under the tap. Gary followed her.

  “Who is this guy?”

  “Mike? Not to worry.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  He made to take the knife from Kate.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll keep charge of this, if you don’t mind.”

  “How come he knows about Mr Yallett?”

  “I don’t know what he knows.”

  Mike lay back in his chair, the bottle held in both hands between his legs.

  “Hunting the Fox,” he said.

  “What makes you think Reynard’s in Rome?” Belinda said.

  Erik squeezed her hand.

  Mike shifted his gaze to look at her.

  “Like a fuck?”

  “I don’t think so, Mike.”

  “Got your puffy boy, Kate’s got a puffy boy too, poor Mike.”

  He raised the bottle.

  “Staunch strong defender and my oldest friend, Scotch whisky,” he said, and drank. “What’s the Pope’s telephone number? VAT 69. Joke. Soixante-neuf, how d’you like that, puffy boy?”

  Gary said, “Why don’t you shut up and fuck off?”

  There was a burst of music, the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth. Mike fished his mobile from his pocket.

  “Roger,” he said. “No darling it is indeed Mike. Roger’s what you say on these instruments. Didn’t you see the movie? No, no sign yet, the Fox has gone to earth. What’s that? … Of course I will. Trust Mike … Why shouldn’t you? Why shouldn’t you be the last person on earth to do so? … No, I’m not … Never fear. The Hunt continues.”

  He took another drink, put the mobile on the arm of the chair.

  “Clarissa,” he said.

  “Who’s Clarissa, Mike?”

  “Thin girl. Elastic legs. Works for the paper. Got the hots for the Fox. Asked me to hunt him down. All part of the Mike service. We never close, like the dear old Windmill.”

  XXXI

  Tom Durward reversed to park. Turning his head caused his neck to click and he felt a stab of pain just below the shoulder-blade. Eleven o’clock. They would have to wait a while yet. Traffic was still busy, and there were people on foot coming home from restaurants or the cinema.

  Kate met him at the door of the apartment.

  “All right so far,” he said, a stock phrase recalling that New Yorker cartoon of the man falling from the Empire State building and uttering that sentiment as he passed the fourteenth floor.

  She led him into the kitchen.

  “We’ve a complication,” she said. “Mike. You know Mike, don’t you? I couldn’t keep him out. He’s drunk which doesn’t matter, but he’s also looking for Reynard, which does.”

  “How drunk?”

  “Roaring, making no sense. We got Reynard out of sight behind the couch. I don’t understand it. Some girl, a journalist in London, has set him to look for Reynard, I’ve no idea why. She keeps ringing him on his mobile.”

  “Well,” Tom said, “it’s too early to move anyway, too many people about still.”

  “I shouldn’t have got you into this.”

  “Did anyone see him arrive?”

  “I don’t know. They may have heard him shouting. I should think they did.”

  “I don’t suppose it matters,” Tom said.

  Mike, focussing on Tom, held the bottle aloft.

  “In nomine patris filii spiritus sancti, not a drop spilled till it’s ten years old.”

  “How’s it going, Mike?” Tom said.

  “Like a bomb, never going to be sober again, that’s a promise. What have you done with my wife, Durward?”

  “She’s all right.”

  “Sure she is. Mike pays the bills and often the poor guy he have no socks.”

  “Why don’t you shut the fuck up?” Gary said.

  “Puffy boy. That’s what the girls want now, Durward, puffy boys. Find one for Meg, find one for my wife.”

  “Looking for Reynard, I hear, Mike?”

  “We seek him here, we seek him there … is he in heaven, is he in hell?”

  He staggered to his feet, lifted the bottle, drank one, two, three deep swigs, shuddered and collapsed, one hand outstretched still holding the bottle aloft.

  Durward took it from his grasp and set it on the coffee table. There were a couple of inches left in it.

  “That’s that then.”

  The opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth rang out. Belinda reached over and switched the mobile off.

  “With any luck he’ll be out for hours,” she said.

  Erik said, “That bottle makes me nervous. Should I pour it down the sink?”

  “Leave it,” Tom said. “Poor sod’ll need it when he comes to. Kate, are you all right? Is your voice under control?”

  “I think so. Doesn’t it sound it? Why anyway?”

  “Because it might be a good idea if you were to ring Meg, tell her Mike’s here. Make it all sound normal. Say Belinda came round and it was lucky she did because Mike got violent. You’re going to have a black eye in the morning and this’ll account for it.”

  “Did I call Belinda? Why didn’t I call Meg herself?”

  “Because Mike threatened to leave if you did and you couldn’t risk letting him loose in the state he’s in. If we’re lucky he’ll have blacked out. Does he have blackouts?�
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  “He does indeed.”

  “Fine. Besides Meg’s caring for Stephen. You didn’t know that of course, but you do now because Belinda called you earlier to discuss his case. All right?”

  Kate made the call. Meg was grateful, asked if she should come round, was told there was no point, Mike would sleep till morning, and in any case how was Stephen? Sleeping too but sometimes moaning in his sleep. What a pair. Thanks and thanks and thanks, what we women go through.

  They sat, not speaking, listening till there was quiet below, only an occasional car. Erik began to shiver, though the room was warm. Belinda slipped her arm round him.

  “What about rigor?” she said. “I wish I’d read more detective stories.”

  Poor Kate, she thought, but I did warn her. Pointless.

  “I think it’s time,” Tom said.

  He gave Erik his stick and sent him to bring up the lift. Then with Gary’s help, he got Reynard’s body up from behind the couch, and slung it in a fireman’s lift over his shoulder. He told Gary to bring Reynard’s clothes and the polythene bags, and said, “Gary and Erik’ll come with me. We’ll drive south afterwards. It’s best you stay with Kate, Belinda.”

  “You’ll call?”

  “In the morning.”

  Belinda at the lift door held Erik a moment, feeling his shiver again, and kissed him, firmly, on the mouth. Kate stretched out a hand to Gary but stopped short of touching him.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Just do as Tom says.”

  They stood watching the lift doors close and then the empty shaft.

  “I think we’re all mad,” Kate said.

  In the lift Tom was careful to keep away from the walls in case of bloodstains coming through the sheets. He told Erik to fish the keys out of his pocket, and told him the car’s make and registration number.

  “Get the boot open and whistle if the street’s clear.”

  “Boot?” Erik said.

  “The trunk.”

  They waited by the big front door, on the latch, till Erik whistled. Gary took the polythene and lined the boot. Then Tom, with a glance up and down the street, stumbling a little on account of the weight, followed them to the car and with Gary’s help eased the body into the boot. Rigor was just setting in but they were able to bend the knees and force it into the foetal position. They closed the lid and got into the car. Gary sat in the front beside Tom. Erik sat forward on the back seat. He held Tom’s stick upright between his knees and gripped it hard till his knuckles ached. Tom started the engine and headed downhill towards the piazza. A police car roared up the other side of the road.