Neon Madman

by John Harvey

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was still warm enough for me to drive with the car windows wound down. I drove slowly, partly since I was still expecting a tail and partly because I figured I had a lot to think about. For a time I reckoned it was a dark green Viva, but when that left my route at Victoria nothing else seemed to pick me up. Which meant I could devote all of my energies to thinking.

  By the time I was passing through Trafalgar Square I hadn’t managed one relevant thought. I gave up and pushed the button of the car radio.

  It was some character who thought he was a close relation of Wolfman Jack only he wouldn’t have made fifth cousin twice removed. He shouted and screamed about a lot of stuff in the charts but apart from Gladys Knight and yet another reissue of ‘Leader of the Pack’ not much of it was worth the fuss. Then he got into his oldies bit and let us have Lou Christie’s ‘She Sold Me Magic’.

  I lasted the first sixteen bars then pushed the button hard. The trouble was that she had. Only it didn’t have a maker’s label that warned you about the fact that a certain time everything changed back to normal.

  The horses were white mice; the coach was a pumpkin; the beautiful young girl not only didn’t fit the slipper any more she wasn’t interested in wearing it. As for me I suppose it was the same old story, only worth half a column on page four: Frog Made Prince For A Day.

  All right, it was longer than a day, but maybe that just made the business of finding out it was all over that much harder.

  Jesus Christ! How did I get into this?

  I swerved across all four lanes of traffic in the Tottenham Court Road and cut up a taxi, four yelling Italians in a Mercedes they’d probably bought from peddling ice cream, and a Morris Minor. I felt a little better.

  I managed to stay that way until I got back to my flat. I parked the car and got myself inside. Put some water on to boil and ground some coffee. Then, while the coffee was brewing, I ran myself a bath. I grabbed a pile of newspapers that I’d never had time to read and chucked them on to the bathroom floor where they’d be within reach.

  By now the coffee was ready, so I poured myself out a large mug of the stuff and took that into the bathroom as well. A few minutes later I was sitting with warm water up to my armpits, a folded paper in one hand and the coffee in the other.

  Every man should afford himself a little luxury and this was mine. It was all the luxury I could afford but I’d made sure it wasn’t going to be wasted. I’d taken the phone off the hook.

  Half an hour later I knew all about the effects of the hot early summer. In Leeds and a handful of other cities they were about to ration the use of water; racial outbursts in the streets of Southall and other parts of London had resulted in five stabbings so far, with two dead; the prophets of doom were claiming that we would reap the worst harvest for several generations. It had been hot, all right. Oh yes, and England had got the West Indies out for less than two hundred in their first innings and were all set to knock them for a high score tomorrow.

  I could hardly wait.

  I dropped the papers back and pushed the pile out of the way so that I could get out and get dried. I was feeling much better. Ready for the rest of the coffee, something light to eat like an omelette with a tomato salad, a book to read that wouldn’t keep sending me back to the dictionary every other page and some good music on the stereo.

  I put on a robe and went into the kitchen. Not until the omelette was cooked did I put the phone back in action. He was very considerate; he didn’t ring through until I was on my third mouthful.

  It was Robert Pollard and he was still in central London. He’d gone for a meal with a couple of friends after work and wanted to know if I had anything for him. I thought about stalling him until Monday but reckoned I’d have my hands full with the Murdoch thing. I told him that I had something for him and he said would it be all right if he came over and collected it.

  I said it would be fine and gave him the directions. The omelette was getting cold and slightly solid by the time I got back to it. I finished it and stuck a Stan Getz record on.

  I put my feet up and waited.

  He was quicker than I’d anticipated and he looked as if he’d run all the way instead of driving. Which only showed how out of condition he was. All sorts of condition. I poured him some coffee from a newly brewed pot and sat him down.

  On the table between us there was a large brown envelope. It had his name on it. Inside it were the typed notes of what I’d seen, along with one set of photographs. I wasn’t sure why I was hanging on to the other set, but I was. And I wasn’t about to tell him of their existence.

  He sipped at the coffee as though he didn’t like it but wasn’t impolite enough to say so. Maybe he did like it but had other things on his mind. Like what was waiting for him inside that envelope.

  ‘Is that …’

  ‘Yes.’

  His left hand moved out and touched the brown manilla. Picked it a couple of inches off the surface of the table, then dropped it back down again.

  ‘I … I want to … I mean before I look … was she? … did she?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Pollard. She was and she did.’

  The hand leapt away from the envelope as though it had suddenly given him an electric shock. He tried to put the coffee down before spilling it and didn’t succeed. Brown liquid ran down his fingers and the back of his hand. He looked down at it as though not knowing where it had come from. He wiped at the spilt coffee with a white handkerchief, which he pushed back into his suit pocket.

  Both hands went to his head, pushed up through his thinning hair and then came back down and fidgeted with his tie.

  ‘I don’t … I don’t want …’

  He swivelled round in the chair so that he was hunched forwards with his back to me—and to the envelope. He began to rock backwards and forwards and a faint mewing sound came from his mouth.

  I watched him for a while, then got up and fetched him a glass of brandy. I put it down on the table beside the envelope and then got hold of his shoulders with both hands. This time it worked.

  Gradually he stopped moving, then the little mewing sound stopped too. He sat up and turned his head so that he could look at me. I gave him one of my ready-to-wear line of reassuring smiles.

  Have confidence in Mitchell. Bring him your problems. Is your wife getting it on the side? Call in Mitchell and soon you can have close-up photographs of her on the job. Then you can enjoy the fun yourself.

  Yes, sir, Mitchell is the man for the cuckolded husband to turn to in his hour of need. He’ll dispel your doubts and turn them into sickening reality.

  Pollard’s expression shifted as if he had realised for the first time that I was holding him. I moved my hands away, but without rushing it. I didn’t want to set him off again, but neither did I want him to think that I was making a pass at him.

  We could safely leave the sexual inconsistencies to his wife.

  I got him to drink the brandy, then to pick up the envelope. I thought he was going to take it away without opening it, but no, I wasn’t about to be spared that one.

  I sat tight as he ran his finger under the flap and anticipated getting him some more brandy, at least. He took out the notes first and read them through carefully, slowly, as though reading a dense company report. When he’d got to the end, he turned back to the top sheet and read them all through again. Only then did he take out the photographs. I watched his face over the top of them, waiting for it to crumble, crease.

  It did neither. Nothing happened save that the blood drained out of it and by the time he was on the last print I was looking at the face of someone who might have been dead. In a way I think he was.

  He put them back into the envelope and stood up. It took him a long while and I almost thought he wasn’t going to make it. When he had he put the envelope in his left hand and held out his right.
>
  It took me a second or two to realise what he was doing. He was going to thank me.

  I stood up and shook his hand and listened while he said the words. Then I showed him out of the front door. I could have watched him walk to his car but somehow I didn’t want to.

  I didn’t want to do anything: I went to bed.

  Several hours later I realised that I was awake. I levered myself up with one elbow on the pillow and listened. Something wasn’t right. It bothered me and it took me a long time to realise what it was. Then I did. It was raining.

  The rain was hissing off the concrete path that ran by the flat and singing against the windows. I pushed back the covers and slid myself off the bed. I pulled back the curtains far enough to see through. The rain was heavy and from the look of the ground it had been falling for some time. The air that came through the opening at the top of the window was cooler, fresher than any I had felt or smelt for days.

  Yes, it was good.

  I moved away and let the curtains fall back into place. I thought I’d better take a leak before I went back to bed. But I never made it.

  Something stopped me, turned me round and had me opening the curtains again. I opened the main window and felt the rain on my arms and on my face as I peered out. I didn’t mind and anyway I wanted to be sure.

  I was sure. I shut the window again but it didn’t go away. Parked behind my own car was the Rover that I had seen Robert Pollard in before. From the shape that sat slumped forwards over the wheel, he was still there.

  I got dressed quickly, got hold of a torch and let myself out. The rain still felt good and I knew a lot of people would be glad of it; it was going to make a lot of dying things grow but it wasn’t about to do anything for Robert Pollard. Not anything at all.

  The car door was unlocked and I reached across behind the body and flicked the passenger door open then went round and climbed in. Very carefully, I eased the body backwards on to the leather upholstery. The eyes were still open as though they were looking for something they knew they were never going to find. I couldn’t easily see how he’d done it, so I assumed he’d taken some kind of overdose. I looked for the bottle on the floor but it wasn’t there. I’d forgotten that he was a methodical man; it was back in his jacket pocket.

  Whatever had been in it was all gone. He’d chosen it well. There didn’t appear to have been any other reaction. He hadn’t thrown up or convulsed sufficiently to make a mess of his clothes. To anyone passing he just looked like a drunk who’d taken a nap at the wheel. Which was why nobody had done anything about him. And that’s being charitable.

  On the back seat lay the brown envelope. I picked it up with my handkerchief and let the contents slip out on to my lap. Carefully, I extracted the pictures which showed Murdoch’s face. These I put into my own pocket. The rest I returned to the envelope and it all went back on to the rear seat.

  I looked for a note and couldn’t believe it when I couldn’t find one. A man like Pollard would surely have left everything nice and tidy at the end. But no. There wasn’t any note.

  Maybe he wanted to leave something unpredictable at the end of his predictable life. Maybe writing anything would have meant he would have to blame his wife and he couldn’t face doing that.

  Although he’d done it: and far more powerfully than with words on paper. He left her his own body as a rebuke; the body she had already turned her back on; probably did so night after night after night. Now she could live with it—or try to.

  Notes you can burn or tear up and they’re easy to forget. Bodies you can burn as well, or bury them down underneath the dark earth but it isn’t so easy to forget them. Especially if you were the main cause of their being there.

  I left my prints on the car door but made sure they were off everything else. Then I walked back through the rain and let myself into the flat. I poured myself a drink and then poured a glass of brandy for Pollard. I sat down in the half light of the room and drank them both.

  After that I phoned the police.

  When they came it was in some numbers and quickly. They could have been waiting all night for something like this to happen. The blue lights revolved and revealed the slanting lines of rain and the tyres swished on the roadway.

  I picked out the one in charge as soon as he got out of the back of the leading car. I don’t know if it was the world-weary yet nevertheless brisk manner of his movement or the appearance of his lightish grey raincoat. Whatever it was, he was walking through my door soon enough. The methodical stuff with the body and the car could be left to those who were best suited to it.

  Inspector Jones looked as though he deserved a more interesting name but that wasn’t his fault He gave the immediate impression as he looked around the room that he was a policeman who liked as much personal contact with people as he could get. He would be good at talking, good at finding out what he wanted to know; I didn’t think that there would be many men better at conducting an interrogation. His concern was with the living rather than the dead: so he had left Pollard’s body downstairs in the car and come looking for me.

  Well, he’d found me. I filled him in on who I was and showed him the necessary proof. Then I offered him some coffee and was surprised when he said yes. I offered to lace it with something stronger and he didn’t say anything. I took it that he wasn’t refusing, so I let it have a quick taste of the brandy but I was careful to make sure he could see what I was doing.

  He said thanks and sipped it hastily. He put the cup down at a tilt in the saucer and sat back with his legs crossed and his raincoat draped over the back of the chair. He asked me what I knew about the man in the car and I told him. I told him almost everything: I only omitted Murdoch’s name.

  I wasn’t certain why I was doing that, any more than I had been certain why I’d removed some of the photographs from the envelope. But it seemed the right thing to do. I hoped that I wouldn’t be proved too painfully wrong.

  Jones nodded and listened, saying exactly enough to keep me talking but no more. He wasn’t bothering to take notes. A uniformed constable behind him was doing that. Which meant the inspector could drink his coffee while I was talking.

  When I’d finished he sat forwards and uncrossed his legs. He looked as if he was rather glad something like this had broken. It was a lot more interesting than muggings or break-ins or whatever other minor matters might have come up. It was certainly better than sitting in his office going through the latest crime statistics or pretending to read Home Office reports.

  He was between forty and fifty. He had a head that was rather too small for the shoulders on which it was perched. His hair was cut short and parted on the left with a lot of precision. He hadn’t shaved in more than twenty-four hours.

  I thought that if I had to, I could probably get along with him. I didn’t think I’d ever like him and I guessed that was the way he would prefer it.

  ‘There’s one thing that doesn’t fit,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have had any reason for taking it?’

  ‘No.’

  We both knew we were talking about the non-existent suicide note though neither of us said so.

  ‘And you didn’t see that he was out there until immediately before you phoned?’

  ‘That’s what I said, inspector.’

  He sat back again and crossed his legs. Behind him the constable looked studiously down at his notebook, as though he’d just noticed a full stop out of place.

  ‘People have been known to say things that aren’t exactly true.’

  ‘Sure,’ I agreed, ‘but usually when they’re confused or they’ve got something to cover up. I’m feeling pretty good for this time of the morning and I’m clean all the way through.’

  He gave me a look which suggested he was a long way from agreeing.

  ‘You don’t accept any blame f
or what happened out there, then?’

  I didn’t say anything. He flexed the fingers of his right hand in a gesture that I might have been meant to notice, cracked his knuckles and clenched the fist again.

  ‘Let’s get this straight. The man out there comes to you and you give him a packet of juicy pictures of his wife having it off along with a set of notes that read like a mucky book. He immediately—if you are to be believed—goes out to his car and kills himself. And you say that none of that lies on your doorstep. Well, Mitchell, if you think that then you stink even more than I thought you did!’

  The young copper was writing away furiously. I knew Jones was only trying to rattle me and that I shouldn’t rise to the bait. I knew all right. It didn’t stop me standing up and letting him have a few moments of my mind.

  ‘Look! That guy out there knew what he was doing when he hired me. A man knows when his wife’s been playing around. He simply wanted confirmation. He paid me to get it and that was his choice. I warned him that he might be better off not knowing and he wouldn’t listen. Okay, that was his privilege. When he came round here this evening he knew what he was going to find. He knew what was going to be in that envelope. Not exactly, but he knew the kind of thing he’d find. That was why he got half drunk before he got here and why he had his little bottle of pills with him in his pocket. He knew what he was going to find and he wanted it proved and he must have known what he was going to do about it.’

  Jones jabbed a finger in my direction. It was the most violent thing I had seen him do. So far.

  ‘And you, knowing he’d been drinking and wasn’t feeling exactly great about his wife let him go wandering off into the night without caring twopence about where he was going. That’s fine. What’s known as being compassionate, I think.’

  I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way that finger was pointing accusingly at me and I didn’t like what the man had said. I didn’t like the way the copper with the notebook was looking at me as if I was something that had just crawled out from under a stone. I didn’t like the fact that a client had killed himself outside my flat. I didn’t like anything. Much.