Gallows View

by Peter Robinson

  “Come on, Trev,” Hatchley piped up, putting a fatherly hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Before it goes too far. It’ll go easier on you this way.”

  Trevor shook his hand off.

  “I refuse to believe this,” said Sharp. “My son isn’t capable of such actions. He can’t be. I raised him myself after his mother left. Gave him everything he wanted. If he’s done anything wrong—and I don’t think he has—then he was led on. He was led on by that bloody Mick Webster. It’s him you want, not my Trevor.”

  “Shut up, dad!” Trevor snapped. “For God’s sake, shut up!” And he lapsed back into sullen silence.

  Banks got to his feet and smiled down at Trevor, who caught his eye before turning away. Both of them knew, in that split second of eye contact, that Banks had won. He had nowhere near enough evidence yet to make a conviction, but if Mick Webster thought that Trevor had snitched on him . . .

  “Where does he live, this Webster?” Banks asked Graham.

  “On the East Side Estate. That first street, the one that faces The Green.”

  “I know it. Number?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s the fifth house down after the tobacconist’s. I’ve seen him coming and going a few times when I’ve been picking up stock.”

  “Got that?” Banks asked Hatchley, who nodded. “Take Richmond, and hurry up. Bring in Mick Webster.”

  FIFTEEN

  I

  After Alan’s phone call, Sandra packed Brian off to the Lifeboys and Tracy to the Guides. They hadn’t been interested in such organizations back in London, but since they’d started school in Eastvale and discovered that many of the other children were members, they decided it would be a good way to make friends. Tracy was still quite happy with it, but Brian was already chafing at the bit. He complained that he didn’t like drill, and that he liked the leader, who spat as he shouted, even less. Sandra, having been a loner as a child, thought the whole network of Scouts, Cubs, Brownies and the rest rather silly, but she would never say anything about that in front of the children.

  When they had finally gone, she took a deep breath and looked around the living-room, wondering what to do first. Though she managed to be a fairly efficient housewife, she wasn’t an obsessive cleaner. Alan also helped out on the weekends, taking on jobs she didn’t like, such as Hoovering the staircase and cleaning the bathroom.

  It was seven o’clock. She didn’t know when Alan would be back; he’d said he was questioning a suspect. Sandra was trying to decide between doing some dark-room work or settling down with the biography of Alfred Hitchcock she had taken out of Eastvale Library that morning, when there was a knock at the door.

  Puzzled, she went to answer it, expecting perhaps Selena Harcourt wanting to borrow a cup of sugar. But it was Robin Allott from the Camera Club.

  “You told us you were willing to lend out your slide projector, remember?” he said, standing in the doorway.

  “Oh, of course, Robin,” Sandra said. “I’m so sorry, it slipped my mind. I must have looked quite unwelcoming for a moment. Please come in.”

  “I hope I’ve not called at an inconvenient time.”

  “Not at all. I’ve just sent the children off and I was wondering what to do.”

  “Yes, I saw them,” Robin said, smiling. “Lifeboys and Guides. It reminds me of my own childhood.”

  He wiped his feet carefully on the doormat and Sandra hung up his navy-blue raincoat in the hall closet, then directed him into the front room, which he admired politely. He unslung his old, heavy Pentax from his shoulder and put it on the table by the front window.

  “Silly habit,” he said. “But I always carry it with me. Yo u never know.”

  Sandra laughed. “That’s the sign of a true professional. Do sit down, Robin. Can I get you a drink?”

  “Yes, please, if it’s no trouble.”

  “None at all. Gin or scotch? I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got.”

  “Quite all right. Scotch’ll do fine.”

  “Water? Ice?”

  “No, just as it comes, for me, please.”

  Sandra poured his drink, mixed herself a gin and slimline tonic, then sat in the armchair opposite him. He seemed more shy than he usually did in The Mile Post, as if he was embarrassed to be alone with her in the house, so Sandra broke the ice and asked him if he’d done anything interesting over the weekend.

  Robin shook his head. “Not really. I did take a ride to the coast on Sunday, but it clouded over there, so I couldn’t get any good shots.”

  “What about the evenings?” Sandra asked. “Don’t you go to clubs or concerts?”

  “No, I don’t do much of that. Oh, I drop in at the local for the odd jar, but that’s about all.”

  “That’s not much of a social life, is it? What about girlfriends? Surely there must be someone?”

  “Not really,” Robin answered, looking down into his drink. “Since my divorce I’ve been, well, a bit of a hermit, really. It wouldn’t feel right going out with anybody else so soon.”

  “It’s not as if you’re a widower, you know,” Sandra argued. “When you get divorced it’s all right to go out and have fun if you feel like it. Was it mutual?”

  Robin nodded hastily, and Sandra sensed that he felt uncomfortable with the subject. “Anyway,” she said, “you’ll get over it. Don’t worry. I’ll just nip upstairs and fetch the projector.”

  “Would you like me to help?” Robin offered awkwardly. “I mean, it must be heavy.”

  “No, not at all,” Sandra said, waving him back onto the sofa. “They’re all made of light plastic these days.”

  Robin was gazing at the books on the shelves by the fireplace when Sandra came back down with the slide projector.

  “Here it is,” she said. “It’s easy to work. Do you know how?”

  “I’m not sure,” Robin said. “Outside of cameras I’m not very mechanically minded. Look,” he went on, “I’ve got those slides back, the ones I took at the Camera Club. Would you like to see them? You can show me how to set up the machine.”

  “Why not?”

  Sandra set up the projector on the table at the far end of the room and fetched the screen from upstairs. She then drew the curtains and placed it in front of the window. Finally, she showed Robin how to switch on the power and fit the slides he gave her into the circular tray.

  “It’s automatic,” she explained. “Once you’ve got it all set up you just press this button when you want to move on to the next slide. Or this one if you want to go back. And this is how you focus.” She showed him the controls.

  Robin nodded. “Excuse me,” he said. “I think I would like some ice and water with my whisky after all.”

  Sandra moved forward to take his glass.

  “No, it’s all right,” he said. “I can get it myself. You set up the show.” And he went into the kitchen.

  Sandra adjusted the height of the projector and turned off the light. Robin came back with his whisky as the first slide zoomed into focus.

  It really was quite remarkable. The model was sitting with her legs tucked under her, gazing away from the camera. The lines drew the eye right into the composition and Robin had obviously used one of the 81-series filters to bring out the warm flesh tones. What was especially odd about the whole thing was that the model didn’t seem to be posing; she looked as if she were staring into space thinking of a distant memory.

  “It’s excellent,” Sandra remarked over the hum of the projector. “I really didn’t think a modelling session like that would work out well on slides, but it’s really amazing. Beautiful.”

  She heard the ice tinkling in Robin’s glass. “Thank you,” he said in a far-off voice. “Yes, they did work out well. She’s not as beautiful as you, though.”

  Something in the way he said it sent a shiver of fear up Sandra’s spine, and she froze for a moment before turning slowly to look at him. It was too dark to see anything except his silhouette, but in the light that escaped from the edges
of the lens, she could see the sharp blade of one of her kitchen knives glinting.

  Robin was on his feet, quite close to her. She could hear him breathing quickly. She backed away and found herself between the projector and the screen. The projection of the nude model distorted as it wrapped around her figure like an avant-garde dress design, and she froze again as a transformed Robin moved closer.

  II

  Mick gobbled up another mouthful of pills and went over to the window again. It was dark outside and the tall sodium lights glowed an eerie red the way they always did before they turned jaundice yellow.

  Still no sign. Mick started pacing the room again, one batch of amphetamines wearing off and the new ones beginning to take effect. Sweat prickled on his forehead and skull, itching between the spikes of hair. His heart was pounding like a barrage of artillery, but he didn’t feel good. He was worried. Where the hell was Trevor? The bastard was supposed to arrive two hours ago.

  As the lights yellowed like old paper, Mick got more edgy and jittery. The room felt claustrophobic, too small to contain him. His muscles were straining at his clothes and his brain felt like it was pushing at the inner edges of his skull. Something was going on. They were onto him. He looked out of the window again, careful not to be seen this time.

  There was a man in a homburg walking his Jack Russell. He’d been walking that dog for hours up and down the street by the edge of The Green, under the lights, and Mick was sure he kept glancing covertly towards the house. A little further into The Green, where the lights of the posher houses at the other side seemed to twinkle between the leaves and branches that danced in the breeze, a young couple stood under a tree. The girl was leaning against the tree and the boy was talking to her, one arm outstretched, supporting his weight on the trunk above her head. Sure, they looked like lovers, Mick thought. That was the idea. But he wasn’t fooled. He could see the way she kept looking sideways at him when she should have been paying closer attention to her man. He was probably speaking into a walkie-talkie or a microphone hidden in his lapel. They were communicating with the dog-walker. And they weren’t the only ones. Deeper in the trees, what he had thought to be shadows and thick tree trunks turned into people, and if he listened closely enough he could hear them whispering to each other.

  He put his hands over his ears and retreated into the room. He put a loud rock record on the stereo to shut out the noise of the whisperers, but it didn’t work; they were in his head already, and even the music seemed part of a sinister plot. It was meant to put him off-guard, that was it. He snatched at the needle, scratching the record, and returned to the window. Vigilance, that was what was called for.

  Nothing had changed. The man with the dog was walking back down the street. He stopped by a tree, holding the leash loosely and looking up at the sky as the dog cocked its leg. The couple on The Green were pretending to kiss now.

  Perhaps there was time to get away, Mick thought, licking his lips and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He had to get himself ready. They probably didn’t even know he was there yet. To escape, though, meant leaving the window for a few minutes, something he couldn’t bear to do. But he had to. He couldn’t let them catch him unprepared.

  He dashed upstairs to Lenny’s room first and pulled out the heavy gun from under the mattress; then he went into his own messy room and took all his cash out of its hiding place, a hollowed-out book called The Practical Way to Keep Fit. He had almost a hundred pounds. It should be enough.

  Rushing back downstairs, he grabbed his parka from the hook in the hall, shoved the gun and money into its deep pockets and went back to watch from the window. Now he was ready. Now he could take on anybody. The familiar effect of the pills was returning. He felt the weight of the big gun in his pocket and waves of adrenalin surged through his veins, flooding him with a sense of power and well-being. But he had to do something; he had so much energy it was boiling over.

  The man with the dog had gone and the young couple had moved to another tree. They thought they could fool him, but he wasn’t that stupid. The Green was full of young couples now. They leaned against every tree, pretending to be kissing and feeling each other up. Mick felt a jolt of energy in his loins as he watched the erotic tableau of shadows.

  When the police car finally came, he was ready. He saw its headlights approaching slowly, dispersing the watchers on The Green as its beams sought the right house, and he left softly by the back door. He had a plan. There was only one sensible thing he could do, and that was get out of Eastvale, disappear, go down to join Lenny in London for awhile. To get out of Eastvale, he had to cross The Green, then the river, and walk up around the castle to the bus station at the back of the market square. It was no good running east; in that direction there was nothing but fields and the long flat vale; he would be an easy target out in the open there.

  Cautiously, he edged down the back alley to the end of the block, where a narrow snicket separated two terraces. As he crept out into the street again, he was about four houses north of the police. Now all he had to do was disappear quietly into the trees and he was home free.

  He crossed the street without attracting any attention and stood on the verge of The Green. The police were still knocking at his door and trying to peer in through the windows, the fools. A few more paces and he would be among the shadows, the shadows that belonged to him again.

  Suddenly, a voice called out behind him and for a moment he stopped dead in his tracks, feeling the adrenalin prickle inside him.

  “Hey, you!” the voice called again. “Stop where you are! Police!”

  For a second he thought it was all over, that they had him, but then he remembered he had an edge—the gun and the power he felt crackling inside him. The new plan came as a brainstorm, and he laughed out loud at the beauty of it as he ran across The Green with the police close behind, still shouting. He would never make it to the bus station, he knew that now, and even if he did they would be waiting for him, talking to each other on the airwaves. So he had to improvise, try something different.

  The light was on. That was a good sign. Without hesitating, he leaped up the steps three at a time and ran his shoulder into the front door. It didn’t give at once. The police were clearing the trees now, only about seventy-five yards away. Mick took a few paces back and crashed into the door again. This time it splintered open. The woman, alarmed by his first attempt, was peering, frightened, through a door in the hallway. Mick rushed in, grabbed her by her hair and dragged her to the front window. The police were halfway across the street by now. Taking out his gun, Mick smashed the window and held Jenny up by the hair.

  “Stop!” he screamed at them. “Don’t move another inch! I’ve got a gun and I’ve got the woman, and if you don’t do what I say I’ll fucking shoot the bitch.”

  III

  Even Robin’s voice was different. It had lost its timbre of shy cheerfulness and become forced and clipped.

  Sandra edged backwards until she could feel the screen against her back. She was almost perfectly lined up with the projected model, whose image was wrapped around her body, the girl’s face superimposed on her own.

  “Robin,” she said as calmly and quietly as she could manage, “you don’t really want to do this, do you? Don’t let things go too far.”

  “I have to,” Robin said tersely. “It’s already gone beyond.”

  “Beyond what?”

  “Beyond where I thought I could go.”

  “You can still stop it.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you can,” Sandra insisted gently.

  “No! Can’t you see? I have to go further, always further, or it’s no good, there’s no point. When I watched you, Sandra, watched you undressing in your bedroom, it was the best, it was just like . . . I didn’t think I could go any further than that. I didn’t think I could ever go any further. Do you know what I mean? The ultimate.”

  Sandra nodded. The model’s face remained still and deta
ched, fixed on that far-off memory. Sandra felt as if she were tied to the screen by the projection. She wanted to tell Robin to turn it off but she didn’t dare. The way he was talking, he was beyond reason. There was nothing she could do but keep asking him calmly to put the knife down and stop. But she knew he wouldn’t. He’d gone too far now, and he could only go further. He’d made his greatest step and the rest would have to follow.

  He was coming closer, the projected model bending around the knife blade, throwing its shadow onto Sandra’s chest. She was backed up as far against the screen as she could get.

  Robin stopped, still at an angle so as not to block the image projected on her. “Take your clothes off,” he ordered, twitching the knife.

  “No,” Sandra replied. “You can’t mean it. Put the knife away, Robin. It’s not too late.”

  “Take your clothes off,” he repeated. “I do mean it. Do as I say.”

  It was futile to protest any more. Sandra clenched her teeth, holding back the tears, and brought her trembling hands to the buttons on her shirt.

  “Don’t hurry,” Robin said. “Take your time. Do it slow.”

  Each button seemed to take an eternity, but finally the shirt was undone. She dropped it on the floor and waited.

  “Go on,” he said. “The jeans.”

  Sandra was wearing tight Levis. She undid the top button and pulled down the zipper. It wasn’t easy, but she managed to fold them over her hips and get out of each leg while still standing up.

  She stood before Robin in her white bra and panties, shaking all over. The image was still wrapped around her and now it seemed welcome, offering her a little covering, some protection. Robin pulled the slide out of its slot, and the bright, piercing light of the lens pinned Sandra to the screen. She put up a hand to shield her eyes.

  Robin said nothing for a long time. He seemed to be just gazing at her, a slender figure with long, blonde hair and shapely long legs. He was awestruck. She could feel his eyes as they slid over her body, probing every curve, every shadow. She noticed that the hand that held the knife was trembling.