Victims

by Richardson,Robert

  The pub was still crowded when they left and drove back through the darkness to the lay-by. While Giles recovered the sacks, Randall stood by the road, watching for approaching headlights. Twice he called out a warning and hid behind a tree, but each time the cars swept past. It was after midnight when they returned to Cambridge and no one saw them unload the sacks in the walled yard behind Giles’ flat and carry them up the fire escape. Randall immediately turned on the television for the latest news on Ceefax, but the only reference to a murder was a stabbing in Tyneside.

  ‘I’m going out,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Anywhere. For a walk.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’d rather be —’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  Left alone, he might have walked straight into the nearest police station …

  *

  So they ended up on the deserted riverbank, silhouettes amid charcoal trees, talking softly of guilt and justification, of fear and contempt of fear. And Jowett was aware of finding himself in a moral desert, where guilt was so gigantic as to be beyond any redemption. What values of right and wrong he had been taught or had absorbed were now meaningless. He had not confessed — not gone back to that village when Lambert had offered him the opportunity — because he had been incapable of any action. A memory of his heightened nine-year-old imagination conjuring the Devil in the darkened corner of his bedroom, horned and marking him for hell, relentlessly returned, childish superstition more powerful than reason, turning it to insane prophecy. He could no longer think.

  And Lambert, unexpectedly, found himself remembering his grandmother, privileged by wealthy parents and a richer husband, contemptuous of any who dared question the superiority of money and position. A stern, distant, imperious woman, who had paid him no attention until he was old enough to understand what she said and follow her example. Who had brought out leather albums with a proud melancholy and shown him sepia photographs of long-dead Kemp-Howards at Biarritz; standing by Bentley convertibles at Ascot; holding slaughtered grouse on Scottish estates; attended by white-coated stewards on exclusive decks of transatlantic liners. Who had once remarked that laws were passed by people of her class to control the lower orders. She regarded the century in which she had grown old distasteful, and deplored the fact that Harrow had rejected her grandson and he would have no private income.

  ‘Whatever happens, Giles,’ she told him during her final illness, as she confidently prepared to enter the Heaven set aside by a Conservative God for his chosen people, ‘remember that you are a gentleman and that a gentleman’s actions are always correct.’

  His fourteen-year-old instinct to mock such antique attitudes had been silenced by his awe of her, by the fact that he had been conditioned to love a woman who was unlovable … by the fact that she represented money. Now he found his perverted justification in what she had taught him.

  *

  Committed in the dog days of summer when news was slow, the murders remained screamingly prominent as journalists constantly forged new angles to keep the story going. It appeared to Jowett that people talked about nothing else and he felt a permanent, irrational conviction that he bore a visible brand of guilt. He could not confess, but there were times when it would have been almost a relief to be exposed. The situation became surreal when his father asked him to sign a petition drawn up by the Bedford Conservative Association calling for capital punishment to be brought back. As he wrote his name — how could he refuse? — it seemed insane that so immense a lie would not be recognized.

  He escaped in early August to take a vacation job at an international campsite near St Raphael, but even there other students asked him about les tueurs de Tannerslade … Une affaire atroce … et Cambridge, c’est loin du Suffolk? He drank cheap wine until he was sick, and one night a girl fought him off when what she sought as playful love-making with the handsome Englishman became a fury of violent sex. Afterwards, she and the other girls avoided him and told the men to do the same. But their distance meant no more questions and Jowett secretly felt too much an outcast for it to matter. He needed to see Lambert — the only other one who knew the truth — but he was working in a bar somewhere in Spain and had not given an address. Jowett rang him just before the new term began, but he would not talk on the phone and refused a meeting before they returned to Cambridge. When they did meet, Lambert was impatient.

  ‘Loosen up!’ he snapped. ‘It’s nearly three months now. There’s no way they’ll get on to us — unless you screw it up. You’ve seen what the papers have been saying.’

  ‘I don’t read them any more. I can’t … I daren’t.’

  ‘Prat … the latest thing was that they reckon it was a gang from Essex. They let the husband go.’

  ‘What husband?’

  ‘Christ, don’t you know anything? The father of the kids. He was separated from her and they suspected him. Obviously they would. Those reports we read showed that murder’s a family crime. Anyway, he had an alibi, so now they’re concentrating on professionals. They say it didn’t look like an amateur job.’ Lambert sounded satisfied, as if that were a tribute to his abilities. ‘Don’t you worry about it, though?’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Now every day was bad, recollection constantly waiting to ambush Jowett with accusation. Exhaustion would finally bring fretful, thin sleep, then consciousness returned early; not gradually, but with the searing impact of an arc light switched on in the brain …

  You were there, you saw the murders but did nothing to prevent them, you robbed the dead, you haven’t confessed … The police are hunting you … She was such a pretty little girl in that photograph under the headline ‘BUTCHERED IN COLD BLOOD’ … When it comes out, everyone will condemn you … Your mother be despised for breeding you … The police will beat you up and claim you were resisting arrest … and afterwards the prison scum will turn on you — even the worst of them hate child killers — and one night you’ll be alone in your cell and they’ll come in … It won’t be quick; you’ll see the loathing in their faces as you scream …

  But Jowett was long past screaming; waking, he would lie paralysed, with his eyes closed for several minutes, accepting images of renewed torment, then his eyelids would squeeze tighter, as if struggling to block them out. The emotional exertion required to move had become like some disease that froze his muscles in the night, and he had to ease them back agonizingly into endurance of another day.

  He had developed a strict routine from the moment he got up. His radio was tuned to a pop-music channel and concentration on each song, however trite, occupied his mind as he washed and shaved. Preparing the simplest breakfast of cornflakes and tea had become a ceremony requiring meticulous attention to detail. Only eight teabags left, write a reminder to replace; this would taste better with banana, buy some tomorrow; how many added minerals and trace elements can I remember without reading the back of the cereal box again? Time check on the radio. Eight fifty-six. First lecture in an hour, but read those two chapters beforehand. No, don’t think about that … just find the book. Read it aloud, that helps.

  Other students asked if he was all right, even the men, who never noticed such things. He made excuses: been sick a couple of times, should see the college quack; been drinking too much; might be a touch of flu. I’m all right, OK? Butt out. He broke down twice in the first weeks, leaping from his seat and running out of the lecture room when normality became too unbearable. He apologized to each tutor, telling them his mother was seriously ill and he was worried. They were understanding, too much so, insisting that he must go home to be with her, and in his confusion the lie had become more complex. She was in an isolation ward and visitors were not allowed; his father was keeping him informed. Later he said she was recovering in case someone started making inquiries. By that time he was more in control in public; horror waited for him in the night.

  *

  Convinced Jo
wett was too scared to talk, Lambert found it interesting to reflect that he was capable of killing. His ability at self-assessment had always been prejudiced to his own advantage, achievement admired and failure rationalized. Moral questions were irrelevant — remorse would not raise the dead — so what he had done he interpreted positively. He was not ruthless, but determined; not evil, but efficient; when the going got tough, the tough got going. The world was a hard place and rewarded those with no weaknesses.

  His only problem was what the police superintendent leading the murder hunt had said on television immediately after the murders. At first Lambert had listened cynically to assurances that the killers would be caught; more than seventy officers were working on the case, information was pouring in, the standard spiel.

  ‘The murderers will make a mistake eventually, or someone who knows them will start to have suspicions. I realize that whoever you suspect may be a relative, your husband, son or brother, or a close friend. It won’t be easy to come forward, but remember that five innocent people, including two young children, have been brutally killed. I was with Mr Godwin’s son when he identified the bodies. If you had seen that man’s face, you would not be able to stop yourself talking to us.’

  Crap, copper, Lambert thought. Emotional blackmail. You’ve not got a sodding thing to go on, and —

  ‘— I am also appealing to anyone who deals in jewellery or antiques who may be offered some of the stolen property. Under the terms of his insurance policy, Mr Godwin had all his valuables photographed so we have excellent descriptions …’ The screen blinked and a landscape appeared. ‘For example, this is an early painting by John Constable and these Chinese figures are —’

  Lambert’s contempt was replaced by startled alarm. He realized that much of what they had stolen was rare, some of it unique, but now the police were saying they knew exactly what it looked like. So if they tried selling even the smallest item …? Bloody Godwin and his insurance company. Perhaps if he acted quickly, before the police had time to circulate photographs … too risky. Think. Would they really be unable to shift anything from those plastic bags? What about abroad? Vaguely he thought he’d heard that Amsterdam was a good place. But they’d have to get it all through customs … ‘the murderers will make a mistake eventually’. Not this one, PC Plod, even if it means waiting for years. Shit.

  *

  At the beginning of December Lambert was in the college refectory reading Haigh’s The English Reformation Revised over his coffee. He had grown a beard since the murders, so that thick waves of pale hair washed over his ears before mingling with tight, wiry curls coating cheeks and jaw; his wide lips were like slices of peach in a crust of spun blond. A Danish sailor, father of a son born to a nineteenth-century housemaid in Scarborough, had injected Viking blood into his family, and the beard and grim-humoured blue eyes echoed violent invaders. The refectory was almost empty; Christmas vac started in less than a week and many students had already left. Lambert was scribbling notes on his pad when he realized someone had walked over to the table. He looked up and saw Jowett, wrapped in the Army surplus trench coat that had always been too big for him.

  ‘I want to talk,’ he said urgently.

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ Lambert sounded weary. ‘What about now? And keep your voice down.’

  Jowett pulled the tubular steel and cane chair away from the table and sat down. ‘You’ve still got it? The stuff.’

  ‘Of course I have. I told you how long we’ll have to wait before it’s safe to sell it. Bastard. Anyway, I’ve moved it to —’

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ Jowett interrupted. ‘I don’t want to know anything about it. Ever. Got it? I want out.’

  ‘What do you mean, out?’

  Jowett leant forward. ‘Don’t argue with me about this, Giles. I don’t want anything more to do with this. You keep the stuff, but keep me out of it. You can have everything.’

  Lambert looked at him guardedly. Jowett had … not aged, but changed since Tannerslade Farm. He was thinner, ochre skin concave beneath sharp cheekbones, twin hollows emphasized by the nose that formed an almost exact right-angled triangle, like a child’s drawing of a profile. Long, swept-back black hair fell to his collar. Seen walking through Cambridge, he would have been classed as a serious student, committed to some esoteric discipline, an embryo professor devoted to pure knowledge, a male virgin, not a fun person. Yet before the summer he had been loud in the raucous Friday night union bar, a beer and pizzas party animal.

  ‘Everything?’ Lambert repeated. ‘You mean all of it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jowett nodded. ‘The lot … and that’s the end of it. I don’t want to hear from you again. I’m not coming back next term. Don’t try to find me. OK?’

  Lambert closed his textbook. ‘Let’s get this straight … You’re pulling out. Finito?’

  ‘Totally. You won’t hear from me again. I’ll just … forget it. I’ve thought it through. I don’t want to know.’

  ‘And how can I trust you to keep your mouth shut?’

  ‘Come on, I don’t want to go to gaol. I’m never going to talk. I don’t even want to think about it.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Lambert sounded cynical. ‘Until you give the police an anonymous tip-off and I’m in the shit.’

  ‘No!’ Jowett’s deep cinnamon eyes lit with a pleading passion. ‘If I did that you’d tell them about me as well, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘They might not believe me. Come on, Randy. I’m not falling for this crap. You could tell them just before vanishing to Australia.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake! I’m not going to talk … ever!’

  ‘And this is going to make you feel better? You expunge your guilt by not taking the money?’

  ‘I don’t know … perhaps in a way. I’m so fucking screwed up, I’m nearly suicidal. Just believe me … If you don’t, I probably will crack and blurt it out.’ He suddenly became insistent. ‘You’ve got a choice, Giles. Let me handle this my way or I probably will go to the police.’

  Lambert stared at him. ‘You mean that, don’t you?’

  ‘Believe me. I don’t care how you live with this thing, but I’ve got to get right away from it. I don’t want anything more to do with … with that bloody farm and those … Please, Giles! I’m giving you the lot. Live and be happy, you know?’

  Lambert paused while he rolled and lit a cheap cigarette, all he could afford, then blew out the smoke. ‘Giving me your word, are you?’

  ‘If I could find a way to prove it, I would. Look, you’ve got nothing to lose. If I stay like this, I’m a danger to you. I dream about it, I’ve ballsed up my course because of it, I live it! It’s being here, seeing you, remembering. If I go away, I might be OK.’

  ‘What are you going to tell your parents? About quitting university?’

  ‘Anything … It won’t matter. They’re so bloody hung up about being broke, they won’t be interested.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. I’ve been checking out jobs. There’s a company in Bristol looking for insurance salesmen.’

  Lambert grinned sourly. ‘Don’t mention insurance companies. I’d like to piss on the lot of them.’

  ‘It’s just something to get away to … It’s OK, then?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  Jowett shook his head. ‘No. This is it. We agree now or I’ll —’

  ‘Don’t crowd me, Randy,’ Lambert warned.

  ‘I’m not … All right, I am. But that’s it. We just let it go and I’ll … I don’t know. Try to find a way to handle this.’

  ‘I don’t know where you’re coming from here. What we’ve got is worth … a hundred and fifty grand? More? You want to just walk away from that? There’s no problem — apart from the timing thing. But we’ll be able to sell it eventually. Maybe five years, perhaps less. It’s a fucking fortune.’

  ‘That won’t help me.’ Jowett looked down as he began to rotate the tin ashtray on the plastic table t
op. ‘I don’t know if it’s guilt or being shit scared or … You can’t relate this to anything else. I can’t imagine what I’ll be like in a few years’ time. There must be people who’ve done murders and got away with it. Perhaps they find a way of living with it. Perhaps I will — but not if I take any of the money. Somehow I know that … Come on, you can’t force me.’

  Lambert crushed out his cigarette stub as he thought. His greatest concern had been that Jowett’s conscience would one day make him talk — but now he was suggesting that by running away he might be able to keep it under control. Lambert found it incomprehensible, but who needed understanding? Jowett could piss off and enter a monastery for all he cared. Or he could top himself. Or perhaps, one day, Lambert could simply make sure he never talked to anyone. When the going got tough …

  ‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘You’re fucking spineless — you always were — but it’s your choice. But you say one word and I drop you right in it as well. Got it? They’ll keep records at that place we hired the van from, for a start. I’ll tell them it was your idea in the first place; I’ll say you fired the gun. Are you hearing me?’

  ‘You don’t need to say it.’ Jowett stood up. ‘OK … thanks … I’ll … All the best, you know? I hope you … you … shit, I don’t know what to … live with it.’

  Jowett turned and walked away. Hands thrust deep into his pockets, from the back he resembled a hunched and hungry refugee stalking a bleak, hostile world. Lambert watched him push open the plate-glass door of the refectory and cross the frosted paving stones of the quadrangle, before vanishing through the Victorian Gothic arch opposite.

  ‘You’re a loser, Randy,’ he murmured.