Bottled Spider

by John Gardner

  He was never told what the Mark had done with Manny Spellthorne’s body, but the police came a couple of times asking questions. He didn’t really know Manny Spellthorne, he told them. Saw him sometimes up Berwick Street Market, but never saw him at Lavender’s place. No, never, sir. Didn’t know that Lavender knew him.

  Anyway, the policemen didn’t seem all that bothered really and Lavender told them he hadn’t been to see her for a long time.

  The police said that Manny Spellthorne had enemies.

  You bet he did.

  *

  Suzie’s mother filled up and had to fight back the tears when they met. ‘Mummy, I don’t know what to say. She was the best thing in my life, next to Daddy and you.’ For a time they just clung to one another.

  The Galloping Major came and gave her a hug. ‘Suzie, I am so dreadfully sorry about Charlotte. What can I do to help?’

  ‘Look after Mummy.’

  Looking at her mother, she saw that Charlotte had been so like Helen. The image of Charlotte seemed to emerge and hang in the air between Suzie and her mother. She knew it was only her imagination, and that she was simply seeing her sister’s image in her memory, but it was comforting.

  ‘Susannah, are you sure you’re up to it, going on with the investigation?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Absolutely certain,’ she said. Then, ‘It would be best.’

  ‘Your chief superintendent seems a very good man.’ The Galloping Major had talked with Tommy Livermore for some time. ‘Seems a very good class of man. A well-educated sort of a person.’

  Suzie told him, and he went away muttering, ‘Lord Livermore? The Earl of Kingscote? Well I never. Thought he looked familiar. He’d be the younger brother to the Livermore who served with me and died in Flanders.’

  She could hear Charlotte’s voice singing, ‘Bumpety-bumpety-bumpety-bump, here comes the Galloping Major.’ The old music hall song they used to warble to each other over the telephone.

  Dandy Tom came in from seeing his ‘spear carriers’, with Molly Abelard sticking to him like a leech. Pete and Dave, the forensics boys, hovered in the background. Pete, Dave and Bert, the last being the best scenes-of-crime man they had. The other two, Laura Cotter and Ron Worrall, sat in one of the cars, didn’t want to overcrowd the cottage.

  ‘Peter and David will stay with the local boys. Albert as well. Everyone else back to London.’

  Suzie talked with her mother for a while, after she’d brought down her case, glad they were leaving, didn’t know how she’d have coped with staying in Falcon Cottage. As she’d brought her case down she had seen the copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls that she’d given to Charlotte that morning. It lay on a chair where she had left it. Before she wrapped it up Suzie had leafed through it and noticed one line, a girl in a love scene asking where the noses went, saying she had always wondered where the noses went. I know the feeling, she thought. Then she wondered what had happened to Ned? Brought me home for Christmas dinner and found my sister dead. After that, not a word. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note. Oh, well, easy come. She switched her attention back to her mother.

  Yes of course, she’d be in touch as soon as possible. ‘Of course I’ll be coming for the funeral, Mummy. I’ll come over to see the children now, before we leave.’ Mummy had started to fuss which was a good sign, and Suzie had begun to see a side of the Galloping Major she hadn’t known until now — the concern and care that he could give to her mother when she needed it. Had she been terribly mistaken when she thought he was treating her badly, even brutally? They did seem very close now in this time of family crisis.

  As they prepared to go over to Rose Cottage she cornered the Chief Super.

  ‘What’s the gen, Guv?’

  ‘He hid up in those trees behind the cottage. Peter thinks for quite a long time, but the light’s been bad. Pray it doesn’t rain tonight and wash away any evidence. They’ll have another dig and delve at it tomorrow.’

  Like the one outside Cambridge ... stock still for hours after he’d done it ... could smell the summer dust in the midst of those trees.

  As they walked towards Rose Cottage she asked him if he had seen the children yet.

  ‘Yes. The little girl’s calm enough, but young Ben’s a shade manic. It’s frustrating.’

  ‘What sir?’

  ‘Well, it looks like he probably saw the bastard kill his mother. I can’t ask him any questions, it’s frustrating as hell. If I could he wouldn’t be able to reply, and in any case I’ve had difficulty getting him to even look at me. It’s a bloody awful situation. Poor little chap.’

  It wasn’t unusual. Ben was canny. If he thought you were going to make him work hard at something he didn’t want to do he’d studiously avoid looking at you. Whatever else he was, or was not, Ben wasn’t a complete fool.

  ‘And you think he saw the whole thing?’

  ‘Lucy’s confused but she talks about Ben going into the kitchen while she was playing with Mr Gherkin —’

  ‘He’s the teddy bear I gave to her.’

  ‘“Ben went. I played with Mr Gherkin. Didn’t go see Mummy with Ben, when she shouted. Went later and Mummy on the floor with Ben. Ben pointed at the door outside.” That’s basically what she’s said. Looks to me as though she got into the kitchen after the event, while Ben was there when it happened.’

  ‘So he’s in a state?’

  ‘You might say that. Frenzied would be the word I’d use.’

  In his world of deep silence, Ben swam through the huge peaks and troughs of this strange day. Time was not a concept that Ben could understand, nor could he comprehend his own feelings that always blossomed or exploded in extremes. Ben was either placid and content, overactive and agitated, or angry and eruptive. There were no in betweens.

  Something catastrophic had happened to The One, and this had made him frightened and angry. He would never be able to describe any of those sensations, and he certainly couldn’t begin to describe The One. For The One looked after him: fed him, cleaned him, dressed him, helped him in a thousand different ways, and something had happened to her. He’d seen it happen. The Odd Thing, unlike any he had ever seen, was doing something to The One, and now he was afraid. The One had gone to sleep and he wondered what would happen to him with no One to look after him.

  There had been new things today as well. Pretty. Boxes with new things. New pictures for him to work on with the colour sticks. The pictures had faces. In his fear and anger, Ben tried to alter the faces. Tried to make them like the alarming Odd Thing who had done something terrible to The One.

  He had no way of articulating the fear that filled him now. Oh where was The One? Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh. Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah. Where was The One?

  In his anguish, Ben wept large tears like raindrops sliding down his pink cheeks.

  *

  After Tommy Livermore had given a statement to the journalists and sent them packing, they trooped over to Rose Cottage, eight of them. Suzie remembered looking at it this morning, seeing the scarlet hips among the haws in the hawthorne hedge that divided the two properties. It would look beautiful in the spring, she had thought, the wild roses mingling with the hawthorne. Her mother and the Galloping Major walked ahead with Mummy hanging on to his arm as though she might fall if he didn’t hold her. Suzie walked with Tommy Livermore, Molly Abelard just behind and to their left. Then Pete, Dave and Bert followed up in the rear. The Guv’nor wanted the lads to see the children. Thought it was important.

  Lucy remained passive, just as Tommy Livermore had perceived her earlier in the afternoon. Passive and playing with Mr Gherkin, but not overanxious to talk to people.

  Helen went down on her knees to talk with her. She was very good with small children. ‘Lucy, we’re going to take you in the big car,’ she said. ‘You’re going to stay with Grandma and Granddad in the house in Newbury — with the big garden. Do you remember the house?’

  A silent, preoccupied nod. ‘Can Mr Gherkin come as well?’
She had to repeat it because Ben was making all kinds of loud noises nearby as he raked the crayons over picture after picture: soldiers, men-at-arms, beefeaters, peers of the realm, from that day when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth had been crowned in Westminster Abbey.

  ‘Of course Mr Gherkin can come. And any more of your toys you’d like to bring.’

  ‘Good.’ The child looked up at her, then solemnly turned her eyes on to the Galloping Major. ‘Mr Gherkin isn’t very well.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lucy. What’s wrong?’

  ‘He’s sad.’

  Suzie just about controlled her emotions, glanced at Dandy Tom, then kept looking at him. He had sidled over towards Ben and was now stooping forward absorbed in what the child was doing.

  From the jumbled pile of drawings connected with the coronation in 1937, the child was pulling out picture after picture and placing them directly in front of him, on the floor. Each picture was swiftly chosen, all of them men — soldiers, clergy, peers, royal assistants. When the picture was placed exactly as Ben wanted it he would grab at a crayon, scribbling colour around the figure but not on it. Then he would pause, carefully take a crimson crayon holding it directly above the drawing’s face, his arm in spasm, jerking and swaying, uncontrolled until he brought the tip of the crayon to a point just above the head. Then he slashed downwards carving out a lightning flash line from head to chin. The mark was the same every time no matter if the character was bareheaded or wore a cap, busby, cocked hat or special headdress. The red line divided the face with a small kink close to the nose, and the entire thing seldom deviated from an almost ritualistic enactment. Once the red lightning slash had been made, Ben would carefully toss the card into an untidy pile to his left.

  As he performed, Ben appeared to be totally immersed in what he was doing, repeating the same motions again and again, noisily with wild aggression and the large tears still running from both eyes.

  Helen and the Galloping Major continued to talk quietly to Lucy, but the others now centred all their concentration on Tommy Livermore and Ben, whose actions appeared to be becoming more and more manic and violent.

  In the crowded room, Suzie saw Miss Palmer and Miss Wren, cringing back from the child as though they feared him.

  As they all watched, so Dandy Tom tried to make eye contact with Ben, but the boy wasn’t inclined, wholly engrossed in what he was doing. In the end Tommy Livermore leaned over and picked up three of the colouring cards from the pile that Ben appeared to have placed to one side.

  For a few seconds, the child was distracted by Tommy Livermore taking the cards. He stopped and looked accusingly at Tommy, then away, turning and looking at Suzie.

  For a suspended moment the little boy confused Suzie with his mother. His face lit up and he smiled, putting out his arms in an obvious gesture of need. Suzie went down on her knees and could not stop her own tears. Ben fell sideways, as he often did when he had been engrossed in something on the floor, for altering or rearranging his position was always difficult. He recovered himself, began to crawl in his ungainly, irregular, unbalanced way towards Suzie, eventually flopping down and crowing with delight, the tears and anger forgotten for a few seconds.

  Until Suzie put her arms around him and held him close.

  It must be the smell, she reckoned through the emotional confusion. He knows I’m not Charlotte, because he knew Charlotte so well.

  She was right. No sooner had Ben come close to her than he was sobbing and angry again, squirming and wriggling, pushing her away, then retreating back to the colouring cards.

  For Suzie it was a rejection, a slap in the face, an added trauma. She bent double, like someone prostrating herself in a church or temple. Then all the passion she felt for Charlotte came roaring out of her in great sobs. She covered her face with her hands and, almost unbelievably, it was the Galloping Major who came to her, hugged and soothed her, coaxing her back to normality.

  When she dared look around herself again, Dandy Tom had started to examine the colouring cards, glancing from time to time at the boy. The three he had taken were all soldiers in ceremonial dress, as they would have appeared in the coronation parade: a mounted drummer of the Life Guards; a drum major of the Royal Marines, and a tall Welsh Guardsman leading the exotic beast that was the regiment’s mascot. The background of each was covered in a black, grey or brown vicious crayon scrawl, and all three faces had the thick, crimson line unevenly bisecting the face. Almost making the features separate left from right.

  ‘Trying to tell us something,’ Tommy Livermore scowled. ‘And I feel I should know what he’s saying.’ He bent towards Ben, who, without warning, raised his head, looked the policeman in the face, put his hands above his head, waved them violently and let out a long almost mocking crow.

  ‘Right,’ said Livermore, raising his voice. ‘Right, Ben. I understand and I’ll get him for you. Good boy.’ He gave the child a happy, two-handed thumbs-up sign.

  Outside, as they got themselves into the cars, Dandy Tom asked Suzie if she had any idea of what Ben was trying to tell them, but she shook her head nonplussed. He turned to Molly Abelard, who seemed to be his oracle, but for once she had nothing to suggest except the obvious — he was trying to tell them who had killed his mother.

  Molly sat beside their driver in the front of the Wolseley. Riding shotgun, Suzie thought, as she took her place in the back with the Chief Super. Laura Cotter and Ron Worrall went in the second car.

  Ben’s actions had obviously bitten into Tommy Livermore making him annoyed that he could not untangle what the boy was trying to tell them. ‘It’s almost as if he was turning someone into a monster with two faces,’ he brooded.

  ‘Chief?’ Molly Abelard straightened in her seat. ‘Two-faced, Chief. Two-Faced Golly. When I was at Vine Street, Chief. That lad who sometimes works on Berwick Street Market. A bit simple. Cousin’s a tom somewhere near Rupert Street. Poor bloke’s hideous —’

  ‘Yes, I know him. Wears a surgical mask and a big-brimmed hat so people won’t see his face?’

  ‘Yes, Chief.’

  ‘I know the one you mean. Well, yes. Could be I suppose.’ Not convinced. Vine Street was the station that covered the West End, including Soho and the red light district. Every police patch in any big city has its share of odd characters and there were plenty in London’s West End. They had unkempt women who lived on the street, one in particular, Greasy Joan, who they took in from time to time just to get her clean and deloused; shrewd children, slightly deranged who lived in derelict houses — a problem on the increase since the bombing started; and men like Long John Palmer who wouldn’t hurt a fly, but was an oddity with a misshapen jaw that reached down to his chest. And of course there were people like Stuttering Bob, One-Eye Jacko, Splitty Williams, Nosey, or Two-Faced Golly. These were deformed folk, some of whom were disfigured mentally as well as physically. In their fear of abnormality, people sometimes treated these souls with a lack of respect bordering on cruelty, as they had treated the Elephant Man in the previous century.

  ‘We’ll check him out when we get back up the smoke.’

  Dandy Tom stretched out in his seat and closed his eyes, still puzzled at Ben and what he was trying to tell them. In his head he only vaguely recalled Two-Faced Golly, and then not clearly. ‘God’s comedians,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t make that error: the one I like to call the Quasimodo Syndrome. It’s the biggest cliché in the job, the one that suggests that ugliness and deformity signify evil within. Nothing scientific about that. Beware the bogeyman though. One time in a million it could turn out to be right — the monster within the monster, the so-called exception that proves the rule, though I’ve never really understood that.’ So saying, he closed his eyes and grabbed forty winks.

  *

  They had the Home Guard out as well as the police. Golly plodded through the dark fields and meadows, moving in a great circle, avoiding the centre of Whitchurch and only coming close to habitation on the far side, almost at the h
amlet of Laverstoke.

  He came quite close to the road and could hear talking going on from a good mile away. Closer to the road he saw hooded lights and a big red lantern being waved around to bring the occasional car to a halt. He heard rifle butts on the macadam of the road, and the sounds of authority in the policemen’s voices as they questioned drivers — not that there were many on the roads at this time Christmas night.

  Nearer to the hedgerow he heard them grumbling. ‘Whole family we got this year.’ The crack of metal tips on boot heels hitting the road. ‘Both boys got leave, and Janet came over from Basingstoke with her kids, and she’d had a surprise and all. Her Bill suddenly arrived home on leave. Bloody hell, they’ll be heading back this evening, I reckon because they’ll want a bit of hokey-cokey — “In out, in out, shake it all about.” Eh?’ Quiet, crude laughter.

  ‘Well, she en’t seen ’im since ’e come home after Dunkirk.’

  ‘Poor bugger comes home and her dad’s called out on active duty. We ought to get some extra time off for this.’

  ‘But we won’t, will we? They also bloody serve who only stand and piss, ennit?’

  ‘Ey up, another car.’

  ‘Advance, friend, and be recognized.’

  ‘How d’you know it’s a friend?’

  ‘’Cos that’s Farmer Peter Hawkes’s old car from over near Sutton Scotney. He’ll be bringing his old mother home from his sister’s at Oakley. Ask him if this is strictly farm business?’

  ‘Yes, and ask him how much elderflower wine he’s had with his puddin’.’ More laughter. And as the Home Guard and police are busy dealing with Farmer Peter Hawkes from over near Sutton Scotney, so Golly squeezes through a gap in the hedge almost fifty yards from the roadblock, and is across the road silent as an owl striking a fieldmouse. Then through the hedge on the far side, along the meadow until he’s opposite the cottages. Only then does he break cover and trot up to the porch.