Glancing at his own hands, Horridge couldn’t suppress a shudder. It was only blood, even if diseased; and there wasn’t much of it, luckily. About Craig he felt nothing but relief. Alive, the man had been beneath contempt; dead, he was less than an object. Horridge perched the razor on Craig’s shoulder while he wiped his hands. Then he wrapped the razor in the stained handkerchief and slipped it into his coat pocket.
God, the front door was still open. Anyone might have come in and discovered him. He was sure he was alone in the building; otherwise, surely someone would have wanted to know what was making all the noise. Luck had been on his side, because of the rightness of his purpose, but he mustn’t tempt fate now.
When he reached the porch, he saw that his coat was spattered with blood.
There were surprisingly few stains, under the circumstances; and none was very large. But oh God, how could he conceal them? He couldn’t throw his coat away. All his documents were in the pockets, and he mustn’t risk carrying them openly. Around him the porch grew oppressive.
The solution made him grin widely. As he took off his coat the sleeves pulled themselves inside out, to help him. He buttoned the coat again, tartan side outwards. Looking down at himself, he couldn’t help gasping. Such blood as had seeped through had been absorbed by the tartan; the pattern concealed it. Could anything else have proved so conclusively that he had been meant to kill Craig?
Before he emerged into the porch, he pulled out his notice. Snatching his keys, he closed the front door quietly. As he strolled along Aigburth Drive, feeling invulnerable in his tartan disguise, he tore the notice into tiny pieces and sowed them in the gutter. It amused him to be leaving a trail that nobody could follow. A breeze carried the scraps into the park.
On the first bus he felt the beginnings of panic – the stains weren’t quite the same colour as the tartan – but nobody looked at him twice. He relaxed, smiling secretly. It just showed how blind everyone was. A good job there was someone left who could still see.
Something tapped against his teeth. It was the sweet, almost untouched. He sucked it as though it were a prize. It helped him ignore his faint nausea at the thought of Craig’s blood within his coat.
His throat felt strange. A sensation was mounting there. For an uneasy moment he couldn’t tell what it was. Then he sucked the sweet harder, to keep down his wry mirth. He could feel how spasmodic and uncontrollable it would be. But really, he couldn’t blame himself. Even if he had planned for years he could never have devised a more appropriate death for Craig. Life was fair, after all.
***
Chapter XIII
Just as Cathy reached the landing, the door opened. Light leapt out at her. Her hand jerked; a potato jumped out of her shopping bag and rolled downstairs, loud as a severed head in an absurd horror film. It seemed no louder than her heart, for she’d thought for a moment that it was Mr Craig’s door that had opened.
“ I didn’t mean to startle you,” Fanny said. “I’m sorry.”
“ That’s all right, Fanny. I’m just being stupid.”
“ No, you aren’t. I feel the same way about the house now.”
Then for God’s sake let her keep it to herself. Cathy groped about the dim half-landing for the potato, averting her gaze from the wall at the foot of the stairs. That was stupid too – there was nothing to see. She would be all right so long as she didn’t think about it.
Fanny stood as though awaiting the password for the stairs. Cathy made to hurry by; she didn’t want to talk just now – not about that, anyway. But Fanny said “Do you want a coffee?”
“ I’d better not, thanks. Peter will be home soon.” She couldn’t think of a better excuse.
“ Come in for just a little while. There’s something I’ve got to talk about.”
Cathy sidled towards the top staircase, to make her next refusal easier. Then she saw that Fanny’s wardrobe was open. It looked empty, apart from the flowered overalls Fanny often wore when painting. Clothes gathered in a suitcase on the floor. “You aren’t moving, are you?” Cathy demanded, dismayed.
Fanny stepped back into her room, so that Cathy had to follow her for a reply. “No, but I’ve got to get away for a while. Some friends have invited me.”
“ When are you going?” Cathy was taken aback by her own wistfulness.
“ The day after tomorrow.”
“ But your exhibition won’t be over then, will it?”
“ It’ll have to look after itself. I’ve got to go, Cathy.” She seemed almost to be apologising for leaving her in the house. “I haven’t been able to paint since. I’ll be all right once I’ve been away.” As though to emphasise her own restraint she said “Mr Harty’s moving, you know.”
On Friday night he had been waiting in the hall when Cathy and Peter had come home. He’d seemed almost to blame them and the other tenants for having left him alone in the house to deal with the situation. He had been in his toilet when he’d heard scuffling in the hall and had thought a drunk had got in. When he’d looked out at last he hadn’t recognised the man propped against the dim wall. He’d called the police to tell them that a drunk had passed out. Only when they’d lifted the slumped head -
“ Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee?” Fanny said.
“ No, really. What did you want?” Cathy wished she didn’t sound so irritable.
Fanny glanced at her unfinished painting of people in a gallery. She tidied a dress which lolled from her suitcase, neck gaping. Then she seemed to run out of distractions. “You know that Roy – ” She faltered, perhaps at having to speak his name. “Did you know that someone was trying to drive him out of the house?”
Of course Cathy didn’t – she had hardly known him. “Why should anyone want to do that?” she demanded.
“ You know he was gay.”
“ We assumed so. You don’t mean they wanted him out because of that?”
“ They must have. They called the police and tried to make out he was a criminal.”
“ God, how disgusting. How can people be like that?” She was growing uneasy: who might the culprit be? “But the police didn’t arrest him,” she said and wished that were reassuring.
“ No, but he was upset, you can imagine. I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but – he hired a detective.”
“ Oh.” Cathy wasn’t anxious to help the conversation, which seemed more and more threatening.
“ I met him once. He didn’t look like a detective. Of course that helped him do his job.”
Fanny seemed glad to avoid the point too. “What did he look like?” Cathy said to delay further.
“ Like that,” Fanny said, pointing.
From the foreground of the picture of the gallery – insofar as you could speak of a foreground amid the painting’s jokes about perspective – a man’s face gazed. It looked glowingly scrubbed, like a little boy’s before a party. His vividly blue eyes fastened on his audience, scrutinizing them. His thoughts were unreadable.
“ Why, I know him,” Cathy said. “He comes into the library.”
“ Well, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t,” Fanny said. She sounded nervous.
“ No, of course not. He has a limp, doesn’t he?”
“ He puts it on sometimes as a disguise.” They were drifting away from Fanny’s point. She said abruptly “He was sure it was someone living here who wanted Roy out.”
“ That’s terrible.” Cathy felt less outraged than numbed.
“ I know. But do you think that’s the worst of it?”
“ What do you mean?” Vague panic roughened her voice.
“ Oh, I don’t know, Cathy.” Plainly she did, but had been hoping not to have to be specific. “Suppose whoever wanted to get rid of Roy didn’t stop at calling the police? Suppose they – ”
“ Oh, no. I don’t think so, Fanny.” She interrupted quickly: she didn’t want to hear. “Nobody here could have, not that. It isn’t the same sort of thing, is it? Someone who makes
anonymous phone calls isn’t going to – to act. It must have been two different people.”
Fanny’s look of doubt forced her to continue. “Don’t you think it must have been someone Mr Craig was involved with who – killed him?” Each phrase struggled not to leave her mouth. “It sounded like a crime of passion, don’t you think so? They do things like that sometimes. I suppose having to be secretive puts a strain on them. Sometimes their emotions must be too much for them. It’s a different world.”
“ I hoped you’d say something like that.” Fanny looked ready to smile. “So you don’t think I should tell the police about the detective?”
She’d reached her point at last, though for a moment it seemed that she’d lurched away. “I don’t see why you should,” Cathy said eventually. “Presumably if he knows anything that might help them, he’ll go to them himself.”
“ Of course he will.” Fanny was smiling, and seemed eager to be active. “Well, I mustn’t keep you. Thanks a lot, Cathy. You’ve made me feel a great deal better.”
Cathy couldn’t return the compliment. She climbed the stairs hastily, before the time-switch overtook her. Her steps sounded isolated; the emptiness of Mr Craig’s room seemed to have affected the house. Which room hid his persecutor? Whose face was a mask?
Peter came home shortly after she did; she heard him go into the main room. She turned down the moussaka on the stove, and followed him. He was sprawled on the bed, reading The Savage Sword of Conan. “Oh, hello,” he said as though faintly surprised to see her but hardly caring.
“ Don’t read for a minute. I want to talk to you.”
“ Oh, Christ. Can’t it wait? I won’t have a chance to read this tomorrow if we’re going to see my parents.”
“ Well, they are your parents.” She sat on the bed and captured his irritable hands. “Just listen,” she said, and told him Fanny’s tale.
As soon as she’d finished, he pulled his hands away. Had he been impatient to do so? He didn’t like her to touch him so often now. Had marriage separated Ben and Celia too? “So what do you want me to do about it?” he said to her story.
“ I’m not sure. What do you think we ought to do?”
“ Nothing. Bugger all, that’s what I think. She just wants you to do something so she doesn’t have to. What are you suggesting, we go to the police?”
She hadn’t considered the notion seriously – but perhaps it might be safest, at that. “Well, no chance,” he said. “There’ve been too many fuzz around the house. You start inviting them up here, just watch them sniff out my dope. They’ve got me paranoid enough.”
“ We ought to start looking for a house of our own.”
“ Sometime. No point until I’ve finished University. Listen,” he said, taking her hands, “don’t get paranoid. We’ll be all right here for another year or so. Nothing else is going to happen. It’s a good house.”
So he did know how she felt, and was actually responding. He stroked her hair as she rested her cheek on his chest. She didn’t want to move, for their shared moments were becoming rarer – she wasn’t sure why. Did that happen in all marriages? She’d have to move soon, to tend the moussaka.
“ Hey, listen.” He patted her cheek. “Christ, I’ve just had an idea.”
She sat up eagerly. “You say old Harty’s leaving,” he said. “I’ll bet he was the guy who set the fuzz on Craig.”
She sagged a little; she’d hoped he meant to talk about moving. “Just think about it,” he urged her. “He didn’t seem too upset on Friday night, when you think what he must have seen. I’ll bet he was glad someone got Craig.”
Perhaps he was right, or perhaps the caller had been the other man on the ground floor: he was anonymous enough. Both ideas depressed her. “I’ve got to look after the dinner,” she said, standing up.
“ Smells good.” Had that cost him an effort? He seemed disappointed that his theory hadn’t cheered her up. “Things are going to be all right,” he insisted. “Let’s just stay away from the law, okay? We won’t need them.”
***
Chapter XIV
Today the sun was bright between the tower blocks. Even the blocks looked clean as bone. Glass gleamed like jagged dew among the grass blades. Passing cars exploded silently with light, and touched off explosions in the windows of flats. It was warm enough for Horridge to go out without his coat and buy a new one.
On Saturday morning, when he’d risen from his soundest sleep for years, he’d thought of continuing to wear the reversible, tartan outwards. Craig’s blood would be a secret badge of his achievement. But when he’d slipped his arms into the sleeves, the coat had felt clammy. He’d struggled out of it and had hung it in the wardrobe. To throw it away might have attracted attention.
He went downtown to the Army and Navy Stores, which seemed least expensive. Government surplus raincoats – pale, almost white – were selling cheap. He tried one on, and found that it made him look like a detective in an old film. That amused him: now that he didn’t need to play detective, it was a good disguise.
He bought the coat, then limped in search of newspapers, taking care not to buy more than one at any stall. He wandered amid the crowds for a while, enjoying his disguise, until a twinge of nervousness urged him home. Suppose someone broke into his flat while his documents were in the wardrobe? Besides, he had to find out what lies the newspapers were telling about him today.
He spread the new ones on the table, together with the earlier reports. Today the lies, where there were any reports at all, were lurking inside the papers. On Saturday there had been headlines so large and black they might have been shouting at illiterates, which no doubt they were. NEW RAZOR HORROR. ANOTHER HOMOSEXUAL SLASHING. NEW LIVERPOOL SLASHING HORROR. They sounded like slogans for trashy films.
His anger was mounting. He’d paid good money to read this rubbish about himself – to see his exploit served up as entertainment to the mob. But the reports were worse. Today’s said only that enquiries were proceeding, but the earlier ones had had far too much to say. He scrabbled papers aside, and found the worst:
Police today issued a statement about the murder of Roy Craig, of Aigburth Drive, Liverpool.
It was revealed that Mr Craig was well known in Liverpool’s homosexual community. For this reason
What community? Where was it supposed to be? Lurking in some dark place, afraid to venture out into the light – its members knew that if decent people knew about it, they wouldn’t let it exist for long. Community, indeed! Animals couldn’t form communities!
For this reason, police are considering the theory that his death was a “carbon copy” murder, inspired by the murders of two homosexuals in Liverpool last year.
What were they trying to insinuate? That Horridge couldn’t think for himself? That he was a homosexual? They’d better be careful what they were saying! He hurled the newspaper to the floor, but it floated down lazily, mocking him. He grabbed the day’s Liverpool Daily Post. What had they to say for themselves? Before he could find a report, the editorial caught his eye:
Often, in its demands that crimes should be solved instantly or always prevented, the public seems to forget the difficulties under which our police labour. Undermanned, with a multitude of taxing and often thankless tasks
He restrained his fist before it had crumpled more than a corner of the page. How much had the paper been paid to say that? They were all in it together, insinuating filth about him. He knew what the so-called difficulties of the police were: that they were incompetent, or worse. He’d read enough lying for today. He swept the papers together in a heap. Had some pages sneaked into the wrong papers? It didn’t matter; they were all the same. He was snatching up pages that had escaped the heap, and piling them indiscriminately on top, when he saw the report that he had missed in the latest batch:
Police are still investigating the murder of a Liverpool homosexual on Friday night. Later that night, on Princes Avenue in Liverpool, an unprovoked attack was made on
a coloured man by three youths. He was cut about the face with a razor, and later had to receive seven stitches. This incident occurred about a mile from the scene of the murder.
Horridge stared at the cramped box of print. He felt as though its frame had closed about him. What were they trying to do? “Unprovoked attack” indeed – what had a foreigner been doing out so late, unless he was up to no good? Yet that thought didn’t prevent the report from distressing him. They’d made him sound like a young thug, terrorising people. Was that how his achievement sounded?
His fist thumped the table; the newspapers trembled. No, by God. He was no thug. He was one of the few who still stood up for what was right – and he’d write to them to tell them so. No; letters could be traced. He’d phone them.
Then he grinned. His closed lips tightened over his teeth; his eyes stretched wide. He sat forward, trapping his legs beneath the table. No, he’d do no phoning. That was precisely what they wanted. All their lies and insinuations were meant to make him betray himself. Let them try. He wasn’t Craig, to be distressed so easily.
He dumped the newspapers in the drawer. He didn’t know why he bothered keeping them, except to remind him how sly people were. Well, they could stay shut up in there. They had nothing to tell him. He was turning away when he remembered the editorial.
Gradually his mouth widened into a smile. Of course, he hadn’t been thinking straight. Their confusion had almost infected him. His mounting glee couldn’t be contained by the small room. He must walk, it didn’t matter where.
Mightn’t people notice his new coat and wonder why he had bought it? It didn’t matter. People bought new coats sometimes, even people as badly off as he. Nobody could suspect anything – not when even the police were so mistaken.
He walked, alert with gladness. His relief possessed him; everything looked interesting. His first idea had been right after all: the police were simply incompetent. Each of their theories led them further from him. They would never think to search for someone like him. He was safe.
The Face That Must Die Page 11