by P. D. James
By Friday morning, frustrated, he knew that he must get closer, must be there early in the morning to watch while the door was unlocked. There was no reason why he shouldn’t; someone had to be the first customer. It would mean that he was noticed; it added to the risk that he would be remembered. But that couldn’t be helped. He would worry about that later when the time came to fabricate an alibi. Now all his thoughts were fixed on getting possession of that bunch of keys.
The timing was tricky. Monty invariably arrived between nine o’clock and nine-five in the morning. The murderess and her daughter left their apartment between nine-fifteen and nine-twenty. Provided Monty were on time and the other two didn’t decide to leave early, he should be all right. But he couldn’t safely loiter in Delaney Street before nine o’clock. Neither the junk shop nor the second-hand bookshop opened much before half past nine, and his presence, unoccupied and aimlessly sauntering in the deserted street, might well be noticed from the window of number 12.
That afternoon he bought a canvas shopping basket from Woolworth’s in Edgware Road and next morning began walking slowly down Mell Street towards the junction of Delaney Street just before nine o’clock. At two minutes past nine Monty appeared, cycling from the direction of Lisson Grove, and turned into Delaney Street. Scase quickened his steps and caught him up just before he dismounted. He said: “Good morning. Are you opening up now?”
“That’s right. Take me about three minutes. You in a hurry?”
“I am rather. I’ll just pop round the corner to the station bookstall for a newspaper and then come back.”
As he spoke, Monty, still with one hand on the bar of his cycle, inserted a Yale key into the lock. Scase kept his eyes fixed on the key ring, memorizing its size, its probable heaviness, the shape and number of the keys. It was a large ring and there hung on it two Yales, a small flat key about the size of a car key, and one heavier, solid Chubb about two inches long.
He bought his paper at Marylebone Station and sat reading it in the waiting room, concealing his face behind it until half past nine. Then, when he could be sure that the murderess and her daughter would have left Delaney Street, he returned to Monty’s stall and bought four oranges, a pound of apples and a bunch of grapes. He could lighten his load by eating them during the day. Then he walked quickly to Woolworth’s and bought a large key ring. It had a tag attached bearing an ornamental initial, but this, without much difficulty, he was able to prise away.
He spent the rest of the morning searching for substitute keys in the junk shops and antique markets of Mell Street and Church Street. His first find was a substitute for the smallest key; this he took from the lock of a battered tea caddy. A Yale was discovered in a tobacco jar containing screws and pipe cleaners. The heavy Chubb proved more elusive and, in the end, he was forced to steal a key similar in weight and size from the top drawer of an old chest which was standing inside one of the shops. It pleased him that his fingers could act with speed and cunning. He found the second Yale in an old tin box of nails, screws, spectacles and broken pieces of electrical equipment stuck under the table outside the junk shop in Delaney Street. By the end of the morning he had succeeded in putting together a key ring which in appearance and weight was as close to Monty’s as he could hope to find.
For the rest of the day he walked again the very streets of his childhood, euphoric, borne on a tide of excitement and terror, half-pleasurable, wholly familiar. The concrete underpass at Edgware Road echoed with the distant thunder of the sea. He had only to close his eyes against the sun to feel again the gritty sand creeping between his toes, and to see once more the brightly patterned shore. The raucous voices of children calling to each other down the side streets jolted his heart with half-forgotten playground menace and the smell of the pavement after a squall of summer rain was the smell of the sea. Now, as then, he knew exactly what he had to do, knew the necessity, the inevitability of the act. Now, as then, he was torn between the longing to get it over and the half-shameful hope that he still might have a choice, that it was within his power to stop now, to decide that the risk was too great. With part of his mind he wished that he had returned to the stall as soon as the key ring was complete, and had tried his luck then, carried forward on a tide of optimism and success. But he knew that it could have been fatal. He had yet to prove that the old skills remained to him.
He spent the whole of Sunday and Monday practising. He locked his room and hung his jacket over the corner of a chair. He hooked the new key ring over the little finger of his left hand and insinuated his hand under the flap of the pocket. With his thumb he gently lifted his own key ring at the same time as he slid the substitute ring from his finger. He performed the procedure over and over again, sometimes using his thumb, sometimes his middle finger, watching for the slightest movement of the jacket pocket, counting out the seconds to time himself. Speed meant safety. When he felt that he was proficient he started again, only this time using the fingers of his right hand. He had to be ambidextrous in skill. He couldn’t be sure until the moment came, until he was close enough to Monty to press his hands against the jacket, which of the pockets would hold the keys. For two days he hardly left his hotel room except to buy sandwiches, hurrying through the hallway, almost oblivious to Violet’s greeting as she recognized his footsteps and her dead eyes searched for him, grudging every moment away from his task. And by Monday evening 18th September he felt that he was ready.
5
The next day he collected together two pairs of underclothes and a couple of shirts and stuffed them into a plastic shopping bag. He went first to the Delaney Street launderette, arriving soon after nine o’clock. Once his washing was swirling in the machine he moved to a chair next to the open door from where he could watch number 12. One possibility worried him, that the murderess and her daughter might choose this morning to visit the launderette themselves. But he told himself that the risk of an encounter was small. If they came out with a bag which might contain clothes, he would simply walk out before they arrived and return later to empty the machine.
But all was well. He saw them emerge as usual by nine-forty-five, carrying nothing but their shoulder bags. He moved away from the window, but they passed on the other side of the street and without glancing his way. One or two pensioners, always the earliest out in the mornings, had made their way to Monty’s door but business was slack, the street had not yet come alive. When the third customer, an elderly woman, had shuffled away with her load of potatoes, he judged that the moment had come. He picked up the empty bag and moved across the road to the stall. His right hand deep in his jacket pocket fingered the dummy set of keys. The metal grew warm and moist under his touch. It irritated him that his hands were sweating with fear until he remembered that the moistness would help, the keys would slip the more easily from his fingers. And at least his hands weren’t trembling. Even at the height of childhood delinquency his hands had never trembled.
Monty, temporarily without a customer, was burnishing Cox’s Orange Pippins on his sleeve and arranging them in a line across the front of the stall. Pretending to be interested in a carton of avocado pears, Scase brushed past him, his left hand briefly pressing against Monty’s right-hand pocket. It felt padded; something was there, a handkerchief perhaps, or a rag. But he could detect nothing hard or metallic. So the keys, if they were on him at all, must be in the other pocket. He retreated from the back of the stall, and asked for four oranges, holding open his bag. Monty picked them out and dropped them in. Then Scase demanded and received four of the Cox’s Orange Pippins. Lastly he asked for two bananas, not too ripe, and pointed to a couple which formed part of a bunch slung from a rail at the back of the stall. It was the most inaccessible bunch, and Monty had to stretch over to reach them, steadying himself by grasping the rail with his left hand. Scase moved close to him, his eyes fixed on the bananas. He hooked his little finger into the bunch of dummy keys, closed his fist round them, then insinuated his hand into Monty’s coa
t pocket and felt with a surge of triumph the hard tangled coldness of the keys. He strengthened his middle finger and lifted the bunch, at the same time gently relinquishing the dummy ring. After the practice of the last few days and with no occluding pocket-flap to hinder him, the ploy was surprisingly easy. He judged that it took less than three seconds. By the time Monty had straightened himself to tear the two selected bananas from the bunch and had tossed them into the pan of his scales, Scase was standing meekly by his side, stretching wide his shopping bag to receive them.
He made himself walk unhurriedly down Delaney Street, but as soon as he turned the corner into Mell Street, his steps quickened. He was lucky, there were two taxis waiting outside Marylebone Station. He took the first to Selfridges and went to the key-cutting counter in the basement. Even at this early hour there were two people before him, but it was only minutes before he was prising the two Yale keys from Monty’s bunch and handing them over. He asked for two copies of each, knowing that sometimes a newly cut Yale would be defective. He left the store by the front entrance and, as he had hoped, had no difficulty in getting a taxi. They were arriving in a steady stream, dropping tourists for their morning shopping. He asked for Marylebone Station and, after paying off the cab, actually walked onto the concourse in case the driver should be watching. Within two minutes he was back in Delaney Street. His plan was to transfer his washing to the drying machine, then to watch the greengrocer’s shop from the window until it seemed a propitious moment to change back the keys. But as he approached the stall his heart sank. Monty was no longer wearing the fawn working coat. The day had become hotter, the stall busier and he was serving now wearing nothing but his blue jeans and a singlet. The coat was nowhere to be seen.
He left Delaney Street and sat on a bench in Marylebone Station waiting for the clock to show five minutes to twelve. Monty invariably went across to the Blind Beggar for his beer just after the hour. The thirty-minute wait seemed interminable. He sat in a fever of anxiety and impatience which drove him every few minutes to pace up and down the concourse. It was unlikely that Monty would want the keys until it was time for him to shut up the shop at night. Even then he wouldn’t need them; the locks were both Yales and all that was necessary was for him to close both the shop and street doors after him. He might not discover that he had a substitute set of keys until he tried to open the street door next morning. But there would be no possible chance of making the substitution after nightfall. It had to be done now.
He walked back to Delaney Street at eight minutes to twelve and pretended to browse in the bookshop. At twelve o’clock Monty called to his neighbour and, a second or two later, appeared from the back of the shop wearing his denim jacket and went across to the Blind Beggar. The old man from the junk shop settled himself on the upturned crate, lifted his face for a moment to the sun, then opened his newspaper. It had to be now. It might be only a couple of minutes, perhaps less, before Monty reappeared with his beer. And the only hope of success lay in boldness. He walked briskly across the road and into the recesses of the shop, so quickly that the old man hardly had time to raise his eyes as he brushed past. All was well. The fawn working coat hung on the nail above two sacks of potatoes piled against the wall. As his fingers met the smooth metal of the keys his heart leaped in triumph.
The old man was standing in the space between the wall and the counter. Before he could speak Scase said: “I’ve left a Marks and Spencer bag somewhere where I’ve been shopping. I’ve only been here, over the road at the bookshop and to the dairy in Mell Street and it isn’t there. I thought Monty might have found it and put it on one side for me.”
The sharp little eyes were suspicious. But Scase hadn’t been anywhere near the cash register. He wasn’t helping himself to anything, hadn’t been in the shop long enough to steal. What, anyway, was there worth stealing at the back of the counter? He said grumpily: “Monty? He’s not Monty. Been dead twenty year, Monty has. That’s George. And he never said nothing to me.”
“It’s not at the back, and there’s nowhere else he would have put it. It looks as if I must have left it in the launderette and someone’s taken it. Thank you.”
He walked briskly away, crossing the road and stepping onto the kerb outside the Blind Beggar as Monty—it was difficult to think of him as George—emerged, carefully carrying a brimming pint in each hand.
The relief, the excitement, the exultation were greater than any he had experienced in childhood after the lesser, more innocent delinquencies. His heart sang a paean of undirected praise. If the keys had been strung on a ring he would have needed to spin them in a flashing arc, to have tossed and caught them like a toy. But none of this triumph showed in his face. As George passed he smiled at him. There must have been something strange about the smile. As he turned into Mell Street his last memory was of George’s astonished face.
6
He had carefully matched the two sets of keys and had strung them on different lengths of string. One set would open the front door, the second the door leading from the hall into the shop. Until he tried them in the lock he couldn’t know which was which. He hoped luck would be with him and that he would get it right first time. The longer he lingered or fumbled at the door, the greater the chance that he would be seen. He watched from his usual vantage point on the wasteland until the murderess and her daughter had left for work, then waited another forty minutes in case they should have forgotten something and return unexpectedly. From the narrow slit in the corrugated iron he had a very restricted view of Delaney Street, but he put his ear against it and listened until he could hear no footfalls. Then he edged his way quickly across the wasteland and slid through the gap in the fence as he had so many times. Delaney Street was deserted. Above the closed shops he could see a row of lit upstairs windows where he could imagine people eating an early supper or settling down to an evening’s television. To his left the launderette shone brightly with light, but he could see only one customer, an elderly woman with a basket on wheels dragging her tangled linen from one of the machines.
He took one set of the keys from his pocket and concealed them in his clenched palm, then he walked quickly but deliberately across the street and inserted the key in the lock. It didn’t turn. His lips moved. Silently he said to himself: gently, gently, gently. He felt for the second string of keys and this time the key turned without difficulty and he stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him.
And then there came a moment of atavistic horror. The house had shuddered at his entrance. He stood transfixed, holding his breath. Then he relaxed. The vibration was only the rumble of a passing tube train, presumably in the tunnel between Marylebone and Edgware Road. The noise receded, and the house settled into calmness. He closed the door and stood motionless, listening to the silence. The hall held the earthy heavy smell of potatoes, with a trace of a lighter, sharper scent, perhaps of apples. At the end of the passage he could see a faint haze where a door with two panels of opaque glass led to a garden or back yard. He switched on his torch and followed the pool of light down the passage. The door was bolted, both at the top and at the bottom. That meant that the yard offered no sanctuary, no place to hide. The murderess and her daughter would almost certainly check those locks before they finally went to bed.
He shone his torch on the stairs and made his way up, testing each stair with his foot before he put his full weight on it. There was a small half landing. He paused, then made his way up the second short flight. Their door was on the left. He shone the torch full on it, and the pool of bright light illumined a security lock.
Disappointment rose in his throat like a hard core of bile which he had to resist the temptation to vomit away. He didn’t beat his hands against the door in frustration, but he rested his head against it for a moment, fighting down nausea. Then came anger and a sense of self-betrayal. How stupid of him not to have known that the door would be locked. But he had thought of the premises as the single house which once they had been,
with one front door, one lock. And this was no Yale lock. Unless he could again steal a set of keys—and how could he?—he could only force his way through this barrier by breaking down the door.
He had intended to explore the flat in detail, to discover where the murderess slept, so that he could go unhesitatingly to her room and make his escape afterwards without blundering through the wrong door. This was now impossible. He had to change his plan. But there were things that he could do, preparations that he could make. He could begin by familiarizing himself with the house. He knew that the women weren’t due back until midnight, but he walked on tiptoe, the torch beam sheltered by his left palm, his ears keen for the slightest sound. Gently and very quietly he pushed open the door to the bathroom, standing to one side as if expecting to find it occupied. The window was wide open at the top, and the air rushed at him, cool and strong as a wind, billowing the curtains. They were drawn back and he dared not switch on his torch, but the garish London sky, streaked with purple and crimson, showed him the outline of the gas boiler, the delicately linked hanging chain with its bulbous handle, the great white bath. There was no cupboard, no curtained recess, nowhere here where he could conceal himself.
He spent the next five minutes mounting and descending the stairs, testing them for creaks. The fifth and ninth were particularly noisy; he would have to remember not to tread on them. Most of the others creaked under his tread but it was possible, by keeping close to the wall, to reduce all but the slightest sound.