The Colour of Murder
Page 9
It was at one of the times when I was feeling worried that I found in my pocket a dirty bit of paper with Doctor Bowen Glenister’s name written on it, and an address off the Edgware Road. On the spur of the moment I looked up his telephone number, rang up and made an appointment to see him. It was a woman’s voice that answered.
At lunch time I took a bus down the Edgware Road, turned into a shabby side street and rang the bell of a shabby house. Outside it was a discoloured brass plate with Doctor Glenister’s name on it. A woman wearing a dirty white coat opened the door and showed me into a room with three or four chairs round the wall and a few old magazines on a centre table. After five minutes she took me down a passage furred with dust, the carpet threadbare.
“Sit down, Mr Wilkins.” Doctor Glenister said. “Who sent you to me?” He was a dark man and very hairy. There was blue on his chin, hairs sprouted out of his wide nostrils and his ears and bristled upwards on his head. Patches of black hair lay on his cheekbones.
I sat down. The room was dark, oppressive. Out of the window I could see a yard filled with miscellaneous rubbish, empty petrol cans, bottles of different shapes and sizes, a broken bicycle. Inside a gas-fire hissed although it was a warm day, there were dusty books on shelves and on the mantelpiece behind the doctor were strange things in bottles. I found it difficult to speak. “My uncle,” I said. “His name’s Dan Hunton.”
“Cigarette?” He pushed a packet over to me. I saw his wrist full of black hairs, the cuff unclean. “Hunton. A little man would he be, with a squint?”
“No, he’s tall and thin with a lot of grey hair, holds his head rather to one side.”
“I remember,” he said unconvincingly. “Where would I have met him now?”
“At a little club in Soho, I believe, called the Five O’Clock Shadow.”
“Business does take me there sometimes.” His eyes, small, black and quickly-moving like the eyes of an animal, stared at me. “Why did you want to see me? Is it a girl?”
“No.”
“I’m glad of it. I never do that thing, although I might know a name.” He did not ask a question, yet there was a note of interrogation in his voice.
“It’s nothing to do with a girl,” I said, although that wasn’t strictly true.
He looked upwards at the stained ceiling. I could see the fierce hairs going up his nose. “Then what is it? You don’t want to play a guessing game with me, do you?”
In a faint, stifled voice I said, “I have blackouts.”
“What’s that?”
“Blackouts. Lose my memory, don’t know where I’ve been for a few hours. I wondered if perhaps a course of treatment–” I knew I did not want any kind of treatment from him.
“You’re sure that’s what you want to see me about, blackouts? Married? Don’t answer that, I can tell you are. Drink much?”
“Not really, but drink seems to have more effect on me than it used to have.”
“Releases the emotional pressure. There’s something you want, something you haven’t got. You want me to supply it, right?”
“I don’t know. I thought – I hoped–”
“Sex, isn’t it? The bloody great stumbling block. You’ve got something you don’t want and you want something you can’t get? You’ve come here hoping I can do it for you, give you the things you’re dreaming about. That’s right, isn’t it, eh?” He got up, a stubby man with powerful shoulders, and came round the desk towards me. His hairy hands moved like a crab’s claws, waving.
“No, no.” I rose too, and backed away from him.
“And I can do it, you devil. I can get you what you want, do you hear? It costs money, but you’ve come to the right shop. Headaches, amnesia, lying awake at night, I can cure them all. Only don’t give me all that stuff, don’t try to pull any wool over my eyes, I can’t take it and I won’t have it, understand.” All this Glenister said, and he said much more as he advanced towards me, his hands expanding and contracting. I backed, I gripped the door handle, turned it and ran, ran down the passage, out of the door, along the shabby street until I reached what seemed the sanity and safety of the Edgware Road. I tried to forget what I had seen and heard but the bristling hair and bright small eyes, the crab-like hands and the terrible things he said stayed in my mind.
Chapter Eighteen
May and I went down to Brighton on Saturday the second of June. She made a great to-do, as she always did whenever we went away anywhere, about packing and getting ready, so that you would have thought we were going away for six months instead of a fortnight. However, we finally got there and settled into quite a comfortable room in the Prince Regent.
We got down in time for lunch, and after lunch I asked May if she would like to bathe. It was a fine day, although there was the kind of nip in the air that you get in early June.
She shivered. “Oh no, I couldn’t. It’s too cold.”
“It’s not really cold. Be lovely in the water.”
“Really I couldn’t, John, not on our very first day.”
“What difference does that make?” We were leaning over the promenade railing, watching the people on the beach.
“I don’t know, it just does. I mean, you have to get used to the sea air, don’t you?”
“I don’t see why.” I began to feel annoyed. May was wearing a salmon-pink frock that didn’t suit her at all.
“You go in. Don’t worry about me.”
“It’s no fun going in alone. Is there anything you want to do?”
“I don’t mind, really. What would you like to do?”
“I was asking what you wanted to do.” I kicked my foot hard against the railing. “Surely there must be something.”
“We could go on the pier,” May said hopefully. “Would you like that?”
“I’m asking you. If you want to go on the pier, let’s go.” I began to walk with long strides in the direction of the Palace Pier.
Almost trotting beside me, May said tearfully, “There’s no need to snap my head off, just because I don’t want to go in the water.”
I did not answer. I was wondering whether Sheila and her father had come down yet. If so, they might well go for a walk on the pier. But their hotel was nearer to the West Pier than to the Palace. I turned. “Let’s go on to the West Pier.”
“But why?” May looked at me in astonishment. “You always used to say that the Palace Pier was much better, because it’s larger and has more amusements.”
“The West Pier is more select.” I knew that argument would appeal to May, and in fact she said nothing more. We went on the West Pier, walked up it, sat in the sun watching the concert party for half an hour, walked down the other side of the pier, and went back to tea at the hotel. I did not see Sheila. After tea we walked around the town a little, sat on the promenade, and it was really a matter of waiting for dinner. At half past six we went back to the hotel again. May said she must get ready for dinner, and I said I thought I would take another quick walk.
Out on the front I turned to the right and began to walk along briskly past the Mikado and the Grand Hotel. Where was I going? I swear that I was surprised when I came to Little North Street. The name stopped me, and I looked at the hotel that stood twenty yards along the street. I read the name Langland. Sheila had said her father was on the first floor, and I glanced up at the long windows that afforded a glancing view of the sea. I turned down the street, walked along to the hotel, and pushed open the swing-doors. There was a lounge to the left, but nobody was in it. I moved over to the reception desk and glanced surreptitiously at the Visitors’ book, looking for Sheila’s name.
A slick-haired young man hurried up. “Can I help you?”
“Perhaps you can. Has Miss Morton arrived yet?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure if she’s in.” He looked at the keys on the board. “She’s out, I’m afraid. Would you like to leave a message?”
“No thank you, it doesn’t matter.”
“Shall I tell her you call
ed. It’s Mr–”
“It doesn’t matter at all, thank you very much.” I had to control a slight feeling of panic, as I began to move away.
“No trouble at all, sir. Can I tell her you will call back?”
“Don’t bother.” I was half-way out of the swing-doors by this time. Turning as I went out, I saw his curious stare.
When I got back to the Prince Regent, May and I argued because she said I couldn’t possibly come down to dinner in a sports jacket. I finally gave way and put on a suit. May wore a light-blue frock cut very low in front, which on her somehow seemed immodest, although had Sheila been wearing it I might have thought of it differently. We sat for the most part in silence through our brown soup, boiled chicken and peach melba. Every now and then May made some comment about one of the couples at the other tables or said that the service was slow or that she would have thought they would have put more than one little pat of butter on the table for each of us.
I agreed with everything she said, and thought I was keeping my end up. It came as a surprise when she said, while we were having coffee in the lounge, “What is it, John, what’s the matter?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s no use our coming on holiday if you’re going to be like this. We’d better have stayed at home.” May’s voice was low, for she had a horror of scenes, but I could tell that she was near to tears.
There was an image in my mind, vivid, of my visit to the Langland Hotel. Instead of walking away I stood my ground, chatting easily with the slick-haired young man, asking him to tell Sheila that a very old friend had called. As I turned to leave the swing-doors moved, and who came through them but Sheila herself, flushed and smiling. The flush deepened when she spoke to me. “John,” she said, and came forward with outstretched hands…
“I’m sorry.” My voice seemed to come from far away.
“Something’s wrong. I wish you’d tell me what it is.”
“Nothing at all.” I set my coffee-cup back upon its saucer with a tinkle. “A little tired, that’s all. Must be the sea air. How about going to a cinema? They’ve got that thing you wanted to see on at the Regent, the one with Gregory Peck.”
“That would be lovely.”
We went to the Regent. The only thing I can remember about the Gregory Peck film is that it was set in Burma and there were a lot of air-raids. I sat through it all, with May by my side, thinking about Sheila, and letting my imagination go on from the point where she was so pleased to see me in the hotel to games of tennis, swimming, long walks together into the country.
Like a small mouse May’s hand crept into mine. I drew my hand away.
We walked back to the hotel afterwards without speaking. At the door I said, “You go on. I shall have a turn along the front. I’ve got a headache.”
She left me. I walked along the front almost as far as Black Rock, and then back. The pubs were shut or I would have had a drink. I went into a pin-table saloon and wasted a dozen pennies. When I went up to our room May lay with eyes closed, her long-nosed face as white as marble.
Chapter Nineteen
Sunday was very much like Saturday, with one or two differences. At breakfast I noticed that May was still eating her toast and marmalade in the same way. Later in the morning we bathed, but the water was rather cold and May came out after five minutes. She couldn’t swim, and really didn’t like bathing at all. We went on the Palace Pier instead of the West Pier, and played on a number of the side-shows like the Kentucky Derby, which we both enjoyed. In the afternoon we walked up to Black Rock, and had a round on the eighteen-hole putting course on the way back. There was cold supper because was Sunday, and after it we sat in the hotel lounge and watched television. I didn’t go anywhere near the Langland Hotel.
I don’t want to conceal anything, or to excuse myself. I was behaving badly to May, ruining her holiday, and I knew it. The only thing I can say, and it seems weak and foolish, is that I was in the grip of something stronger than myself, that I did the things I had to do. Yet I always wanted to be a good husband to May, I never wanted to hurt her.
On Monday morning I got up with the firm intention of being nice to May. I knew that she loved shopping in my company, and in the morning I trailed round Brighton with her while she tried on a lot of hats, finally buying a green one that had been reduced to fifteen shillings in a sale. She brightened up a lot, and even agreed to go and have a drink in the Ship. When we got back to the Prince Regent the desk clerk said that a gentleman had called, and had said he would come back later.
“What sort of gentleman? What did he look like?” I was uncomfortably reminded of my own call at the Langland.
“This sort of gentleman,” a voice said, and I turned round.
“Why, Uncle Dan!”
“Uncle Dan it is, come down to see the lovebirds, and welcomed I see with all the enthusiasm a bank clerk gives to a bad fiver.” And it is true that May was looking at Uncle Dan’s black and white check sports jacket rather as though it had a bad smell. Personally I was extremely pleased to see him.
“Uncle Dan, however, is irrepressible. Having come down with the spirit of good fellowship and hospitality in his heart he is determined not to let it be quenched merely because somebody is under the impression that he has crawled out from the woodwork. In short, come out to lunch.”
“But we’ve got lunch here,” May protested.
“That’s right,” I echoed rather weakly. “Have lunch with us.”
“God forbid that your old uncle should be called a sponger. I know a little place just round the corner which serves the most unusual food in Brighton. I suggest that we wend our way thither pronto, pausing on the way only to imbibe a drop of corpse reviver.” He added hurriedly, forestalling the protest that I saw on May’s lips, “I refer of course to sherry, which is the only possible pre-prandial drink for a lady. I happen to know a little bar where–”
I laughed. I found Uncle Dan in this mood quite delightful. “Come on, May.”
May came on, but I could see it was not very willingly. She sat sipping her sherry, almost in silence, while Uncle Dan and I had two or three shots at the Pope’s telephone number. Then the lunch turned out to be in a Chinese restaurant, and she ate almost nothing but rice. I didn’t feel too easy myself about shovelling all that food down on top of whisky, but Uncle Dan was an entertainment in himself. He knew a little Chinese, which he used with the waiters, and he dabbed about with chopsticks while we used a fork and spoon.
“A few lychee,” Uncle Dan said, when we had polished off the last of the pancake rolls and the chicken and pineapple, “a few cumquats, some chow chow? A little ginger? Very good for the digestion, breaks up any amount of wind. Pity politicians don’t use it. No? Just some fragrant tea, then, to waft away all our troubles.”
“I don’t want anything, thank you,” May said. “I have a rather bad headache. I shall go back to the hotel and lie down.”
It damped even Uncle Dan. He said quietly, “I’ll get the bill.”
“Please don’t move, either of you.” May stood hand to forehead, a martyr to sherry and Chinese food. “I know my way back perfectly.”
We argued back and forth a while about that, and at last it was decided that I should go back with May to the hotel and then return for a cup of tea with Uncle Dan.
Almost in silence we walked back to the Prince Regent. Just before we got there I said, “You certainly made a mess of that lunch. You set yourself out to be as sour as possible. Anyone would think Uncle Dan had committed a crime by asking us to lunch.”
“I hate him.” We turned into the hotel lobby. She repeated in a low voice, “I hate him. Why did he have to come down here to spoil our holiday?”
“It’s hardly that much of a holiday to spoil.”
“And whose fault is that?” she asked, still in that low voice. “But I don’t feel well enough to argue, I must lie down. You go back and talk to him.”
“If there’s anything I
can do–”
“There’s nothing anybody can do,” she said, as she turned away and walked towards the stairs. “I mean, I’m just going to lie down.”
There was a glass of brandy waiting for me when I got back to the restaurant. Uncle Dan sat with another cupped in his hands, his long legs stretched out in front of him, a foxy smile on his face. His spate of talk seemed to have spent itself and we sat in silence, sipping our brandy.
“Good stuff this,” he said. “Not many Chinese restaurants where you can get it. Very unusual.”
“Oh. Yes, it’s good.”
He drew from his pocket a carton of small, evil-looking cigars. “Try one of these, something special. No? I will, then.” He set light to the small tube. “Terrible woman, May. Not surprised you want to murder her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I know, I know, McKenna case and all that. But come down to it, it’s yourself you’re really thinking about, and I don’t wonder.”
“Look here, there’s something I must have out with you.” I went to sip my brandy again, found that the glass was empty, and with a token protest from Uncle Dan, ordered another. “That man you put me on to – Doctor Glenister.”
“Glenister?” Uncle Dan put his head on one side and looked foxily at me. “Did I mention his name?”
“You certainly did. Let me tell you, the proper place for that man is in a criminal asylum.”
“Oh, come now, he’s not as bad as that. Matter of fact, I don’t know him well at all. Met him in the Five O’Clock Shadow a couple of times, that’s all. Sorry if he was no help.”