Painting The Darkness - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  Suddenly, his questing hand was seized in a vice-like grip. The sovereign gouged painfully into his fingers as they were squeezed in the stranger’s ferocious hold. ‘Selling information is always a risky business, Thompson. Selling it twice is foolish. Miss Whitaker paid you well to hold your tongue. Didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, dammit, but—’

  ‘I’d like you to come outside with me now. Then we can settle this once and for all.’

  ‘I’d rather not, old man.’

  ‘You’ll do as I say.’

  But Thompson did not have to. The stranger relaxed his grip just enough to allow him an advantage. Denied a right arm to share the load, his left had grown, over the years, abnormally strong. Now, in one wrenching, twisting movement, he had freed himself and pinioned the other man’s forearm to the table. ‘I’m known here, old man. You aren’t. If I say the word, you’ll be leavin’ on a pole. Take me meanin’?’

  The stranger slowly slid his arm clear of the table, then wiped the palm against his coat. He stared at Thompson, but said nothing, just gathered his money, turned on his heel and walked from the pub.

  Pocketing the sovereign still held between his fingers, Thompson picked up his drink and returned to the bar, where he ordered a refill and adjusted his whiskers in the mirror behind the spirit-bottles. ‘Nasty piece o’ work, ’e looked,’ Maisie remarked.

  Thompson grinned and suppressed the elation he felt at worsting his opponent. The encounter had raised in his mind complexities too great for him to comprehend. It was six months or more since that enigmatical slip of a girl had approached him. True, he had let her think she had bought his silence, but it was unreasonable for her to think it could be bought permanently and distinctly unpleasant then to set some gimlet-eyed bruiser on him. Besides, how the deuce had they come to know of his negotiations with Trenchard? It made no sense. He had hoped to make capital out of this lawsuit. Now he thought he had better abandon it. Perhaps six pounds was enough. At least it would keep his landlady at bay. If, that is, she ever saw it. He lit a cigar and plucked the sovereign from his pocket, debating how best to use it. Then he caught Maisie’s eye and ordered another drink. When she handed him the change, he separated a florin from the other coins, signalled her to lean forward and slipped it into her generous cleavage, laughing as he did so. ‘The Davenalls can go hang, Maisie, that’s what I say. What the devil do I care, eh? What the devil?’ But his words were wasted. Above the screeching from Maisie that accompanied her retrieval of the florin, nobody heard him.

  VIII

  I was still on my knees at the foot of the door when I remembered Thompson. How much had been dream and how much reality I could not tell, but his part of it could not be erased. She had bewitched me, by means unknown, not simply to disgrace me in Constance’s eyes, but for some reason involving Thompson. Her repeated question, ‘Where is he?’ held a force and a purpose reaching beyond the confines of my entrapment. I remembered the bitter scarifying sense of betrayal with which my answer had left me and then I knew, with a certainty seared into my mind, that he was in danger, in danger because he knew the truth.

  I scrambled into my clothes with desperate haste. Suddenly, there was no time to be lost. I pulled out my watch: it was nearly eleven o’clock. How long since I had fallen asleep on the chaise-longue? How long since I had slipped unawares into the distorted realm she had shaped for me? Two hours? Or more? I could not be sure. I crossed to the escritoire, opened the right-hand drawer and stared down at the contents: a single-barrelled pistol and a box of ammunition. I kept the gun in the house at my father’s insistence, for protection against burglars. Now, in a sense, the burglars had arrived. I thrust the pistol into one of my pockets, the box of ammunition into another. Then I hurried to the door, opened it and stepped out on to the landing.

  As I padded down the stairs, I could hear voices in the drawing-room, the hushed intense voices of Constance and her sister. There was nothing to be gained, I knew, by telling them I was leaving. They would know soon enough. In the circumstances, the hideous unspeakable circumstances, they might even expect it. I opened the hall cupboard and took out my hat and overcoat, then crept stealthily to the door.

  Outside, the fog had lifted. I stood on the threshold, letting the cold night air goad my senses to life. It was vital I should not think about what had happened, vital I should retain some measure of self-control for a little longer yet. Wait: what was this? Drops of rain against my face. I stretched out my arm and watched as the beads of water gathered in my gloved palm to confirm the fact. It was raining, as it had rained in my dream, as if …

  I turned to close the door behind me and saw, at the end of the hall, the drawing-room door open and Constance look out. She was, I think, too dismayed by what met her eyes to let me see what she felt. I, for my part, was too distracted to express any of the remorse even then ravening within me. I slammed the door and ran headlong down the drive.

  IX

  Emily watched anxiously as Constance returned to the room, her mouth sagging open, her red-rimmed eyes staring, her throat straining to swallow whatever words she might have said.

  ‘What is it, my dear?’

  ‘He’s gone. He just … walked out. Without so much as …’ Then the tears she had so far resisted overwhelmed her and strength deserted her limbs, so that Emily had to help her to a chair and press a handkerchief into her grasp.

  ‘You must tell me what’s happened, Constance. That woman, was she really—?’

  ‘A whore? I think so. I truly think so. Her eyes were so … so hard and bitter. It was almost as if … as if it amused her to be caught out.’

  ‘I … I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nor I. There was no need to do such a thing. I asked him why he had and he simply slammed the door in my face.’

  ‘But … he asked you to come.’

  ‘Yes. He asked me. He wanted me, it seems, to witness this. I thought I knew him, Emily, his vices and his virtues. But this! Never in my wildest imaginings would I have thought … Never.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘I’m sorry you should have had to suffer it with me.’

  ‘I’m only glad to be able to offer what comfort I can.’

  Constance kissed her sister on the forehead. ‘Thank you, Emily, thank you. Such a day – such a night – as this I never thought to see.’ Her voice thickened. ‘When James returned, I believed I was acting for the best. Was it so wrong of me to leave William? Did I drive him to this?’

  ‘No. A thousand times no.’

  ‘Then, what did?’

  ‘Only he can answer that.’

  ‘But he won’t. He won’t so much as speak to me.’ She buried her head in her hands and sobbed convulsively. Emily put her arm round her shoulders and rocked her in a way she had not done since, as a girl of twelve, she had been charged by their mother to do what she could to console her seven-year-old sister for the pain of an emergent tooth.

  They sat thus, with Constance no longer weeping but still cradled in Emily’s arms, for fully five minutes, until there was a tap at the door and Cook bustled in with the coffee she had been bidden to prepare.

  ‘Glad to see that baggage ’as been sent packin’,’ she volunteered as she set down the tray. ‘Reckon she was no better ’n—’

  ‘Thank you, that will be all,’ Constance said with sudden firmness.

  Emitting only a token grunt of resentment, Cook took her leave. But, as Emily could see, her sister’s self-control had not been assumed for the servant’s benefit. When they were once more alone, she wiped away the last of her tears and spoke in determined tones.

  ‘There is nothing I can do for William after this. His behaviour places him beyond my reach and me beyond his.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, Emily, that my husband has betrayed me and can no longer expect me to obey him. He has forfeited my allegiance and surrendered it to another, to a man worthier of it than he can ever be.’

  ‘To James?
’

  ‘Yes. James is prepared to forgo what is rightfully his, to forgo his very identity, because he feels unable to come between me and my husband. But that objection ceases to exist as of this night. Henceforth, I will do everything in my power to assist him.’

  Emily stared at Constance in silent admiration. The details of William’s offence had been withheld from her, though they could not have exceeded those which she had imagined on seeing the woman in question. The incident, in fact, and William’s earlier behaviour in court, were all of a piece in her picture of him as a weak and wilful man quite unworthy to be the husband of her sister. Now Constance, too, appeared to see him in that light and to have decided at last where her loyalty – and her love – truly lay. Naturally, Emily was shocked by the turn of events: naturally, she was dismayed. But, naturally also, she thought of James, noble, handsome, misjudged, maltreated James, left till now to stand alone against the world. And when she did so the new conviction, the rediscovered strength, in her sister’s eyes gave her cause for joyous hope.

  X

  The cab dropped me in Long Acre, and I followed the driver’s directions to the Lamb and Flag. It was the worst of times to arrive: all the taverns and drinking-dens of Covent Garden were discharging their fuddled patrons on to the streets. Beneath lamp-posts, men pursued bar-rail differences in loud slurred voices. In gutters, drunks who had tripped on the pavement’s edge hauled themselves upright, cursing mankind. In dark alleyways, prostitutes struck terms with addled clients.

  In the Lamb and Flag, the landlord and two broken-nosed assistants were persuading their last customers that it was time to leave. Of Thompson there was no sign. Behind the bar, a girl was washing her way through stacks of empty tankards. When I approached, she said, without looking up: ‘We’re closed.’

  ‘I was due to meet somebody here earlier. Perhaps you know him.’

  ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘His name’s Thompson. He’s lost an arm, so—’

  A smile suddenly crossed her face, ‘Oh, Cap’n ’Arvey! ‘Course I knows ’im. ’E is popler t’night.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re the second bloke bin lookin’ for ’im. ’E sent the other one packin’.’

  ‘Thompson has been here, then?’

  ‘Only jus’ left. You must’a precious near passed ’im on the doorstep.’

  ‘Which way did he go?’

  ‘Lives Lambeth way, far as I know. Reckon ’e’ll be makin’ for Waterloo Bridge.’

  I hurried into the street. If the barmaid was right, I might yet overhaul him. But, as soon as I struck out, I realized my difficulty. He might have taken any one of a dozen routes to the bridge. At the very first junction, I came to a halt, undecided which way to turn.

  Then, as I peered down the narrow street to my left, I thought I saw him. A drunkard and his whore were approaching me, clutching each other as they staggered and swayed along the pavement. But surely … yes: beyond them, a one-armed man was flitting silently between the gas-lamps. I was about to shout after him when, suddenly, he vanished. He passed into the shadow between two lamps and did not emerge. Then another figure, whom I had noticed before, did the same. With a jolt of fear, I remembered that I might not be the only one looking for Thompson. I ran towards the space which had consumed them, my footfalls bouncing back at me from the shuttered buildings to right and left.

  It was the entrance to a narrow alley. At its far end, I could see the glass roofs of Covent Garden Market. In the alley itself, empty crates and baskets stood in disordered stacks. And there was Thompson, threading his way along the straggling path between them.

  ‘Thompson!’

  He stopped and turned round. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded.

  ‘It’s me: Trenchard.’ I began to walk towards him.

  He raised his arm in recognition. ‘Thought you weren’t goin’ to show up, old man.’

  I was running headlong then, frantic to prove I had not foreseen what was about to occur. His hand was still raised, his face creased by a frown of puzzlement. He had started to walk back along the alley, he had passed a doorway to his left, he was no more than twenty yards from me.

  It happened so fast I could not even shout a warning. Yet it seemed to happen also with a dreadful dream-like slowness. A man stepped from the shelter of the doorway, little more than a solid shadow in the darkness. In one swooping movement, he swept his left arm across Thompson’s throat and, with his right, struck a blow into his back. I heard a gurgling strangled cry. Thompson’s eyes widened in a sudden awareness of pain. His hand reached up, too late and too feebly, to pull his assailant off. Then his knees buckled and he pitched to the ground.

  I had stopped in my tracks and stood now, looking at Thompson’s attacker, a squat, crouching, muscular figure, his breath clouding in the cold moist air, a knife held before him, glinting in a shaft of lamplight. I had seen his grey pitiless face before and recognized him now beyond question, as he must have recognized me.

  How long we stood there, staring at each other over Thompson’s crumpled body, I cannot say. For me, the instant seemed as measureless as the dream that had gone before it. It only ended when, with one parting rake of his eyes, Quinn turned and retreated into the darkness.

  At that moment, I remembered the gun. I reached into my coat and grasped its butt. Then I remembered also that it was not loaded. Quinn had reached the end of the alley by now. I saw him turn into the square beyond, glance back over his shoulder, then vanish from sight. He was gone – and I was powerless to pursue him.

  Thompson was lying face down, a dark patch of blood seeping through his coat. When I pulled him on to his side, he looked up through bleary flickering eyes and spat some of the cobble-grit from his mouth to speak.

  ‘Why … why d’you send him after me … old man?’

  I stooped closer, to make sure he could hear me. ‘I sent nobody, Thompson. Believe me.’

  His voice was hoarse and faltering, all its cock-of-the-walk vigour drained by a knife in the dark. ‘Makes no difference … who sent him … He’s done for me … Funny, ain’t it?’ He grinned through clenched teeth.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Gerry’s … finished me off … in the end … Him … or his damned secret.’

  I leaned closer still, willing him to live long enough to tell me. ‘What is his secret, Thompson? What is it?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you … like to know?’ He winced, squeezing his eyes shut to ward off the pain. When he opened them again, they were filmier than before, focusing weakly on me and the world they were seeing for the last time.

  ‘Tell me. For God’s sake, tell me.’

  ‘No cause to worry … old man.’ I was losing him now, watching him surrender his grip on life, hearing him bid his adieus in stray mumbled words that had no meaning. ‘Bit of a joke, what? Bit of a bad God-awful joke … Take it … Take it back, Gerry … We all … all make mistakes …’

  ‘Thompson?’

  ‘Go ahead … I’m ready …’

  I heard the last breath gasp out of him and felt his body sag into oblivion. I closed his staring sightless eyes and lowered his head gently to the ground. He was dead and I, in all but name, had killed him. His blood, staining black the rivulets of rainwater that coursed between the cobblestones, reached its jagged fingers through the filth and fruit-mush of the alley to twitch and clutch at the circle of my guilt.

  I stood up. My left hand, with which I had supported his neck, was smeared with blood. Instinctively, I closed my eyes to spare myself the sight of it. But, as I did so, another vision leaped from its hiding-place, another accusation found its voice.

  ‘You may punish me now you’ve told me.’ Her black hair, her pale flesh, her body beneath me on the bed. ‘You may do whatever you wish.’ I beat my hand against the rain-damp brickwork of the alley wall. ‘Whatever you wish.’ But all I wished was what I could not have: a dream retrieved, a betrayal rescinded, a temptation resisted.

&nbs
p; Harvey Thompson lay dead at my feet, murdered to seal for ever his forty-year-old secret. I looked down at him and wept for all the evil I had not intended and might not yet avert. There was nothing I could do for him, even in death. The barmaid would say I had come looking for him; the police would take me for his killer.

  I pulled some sacking from one of the empty baskets nearby and draped it over him, not to conceal his body but to afford him the only kind of comfort I could. Then I walked away and left him to be found by another.

  In the Piazza, the first of the stallholders’ carts was arriving. Within a few hours, the Market would be clogged with people and horses, stacked high with barrowloads of produce. Sooner or later, somebody would venture down the alley and discover what lay beneath the sacking. I hurried to the other side of the square and headed south, towards the home Thompson had never reached, towards the river where Norton’s conspiracy had found its dark beginning, towards whatever way I might yet find to avenge myself and an old soldier whose blood was on my hands.

  Chapter Eleven

  I

  RICHARD DAVENALL SAT where duty required him to be, near the front of the court, as the second day of the Norton versus Davenall hearing opened at Lincoln’s Inn. Nobody could have told from his hunched attentive posture that he was seriously contemplating a course of action which might decide the case more effectively than any legal argument so far presented.

  For Richard Davenall was labouring under a burden which no lawyer can support: a call upon his conscience. He faced a stark choice forced upon him by all the flaws of character and failures of nerve which comprised his life. But in the motionless torment of his face there had been reflected so far only an agony of indecision.

  Small wonder that Richard could not concentrate on the examination by Mr Russell of the plaintiff’s next witness, Dr Duncan Fiveash. The voices of the two men, Fiveash gruff and professional, Russell lilting and interrogative, reached him as if from a great distance. Although he knew the tactical subtleties which lay behind their exchanges, the Doctor’s testimony seemed to him almost insignificant, a mere interlude between the vitality of what had gone before and the decisiveness of what would follow. For nearly an hour, while Fiveash discoursed on the characteristics of syphilis and Russell obliged him, time and again, to confirm Norton’s account, Richard sat in silent witness to a charade: in all he said, Fiveash never once suggested how James Davenall might have contracted the disease, for the simple reason that Russell never once asked him to do so. Richard wondered how much this most eminent of barristers really knew of his client’s case. Was he, perhaps, as much a victim of evasion as its practitioner?