‘What’ll it be?’ he said wearily.
‘I’ll have a pint of the Kronenbourg.’
‘It’s off.’
‘The other stuff, then, with the long German name there.’
‘It’s warm.’
‘I don’t care, I’ll have it just the same.’
‘Not if I don’t feel like serving you, you won’t,’ he said in a threatening tone. He picked up a pint glass all the same, but had a good deal of difficulty holding it still under the tap. As it was, he didn’t fill it quite to the top, and when I mentioned this he opened the tap full on with a furious gesture, causing another pint to go roaring down the drain.
‘That’s for the ullage,’ he remarked with mystical satisfaction, and pushed the glass across to me. He added: ‘That’ll be eighty-five pence.’
‘Seems a lot,’ I said, giving him a pound.
‘A lot of what?’ he said, glaring at me. ‘A lot of beer, a lot of money, or a lot of fucking cheek?’
‘A lot of money.’
‘Look, if you don’t like the price,’ he said, ‘why don’t you just drink it up and piss off?’ He flexed his mottled forearms in their shirt-sleeves. ‘You’d be well advised to.’
‘When I’ve asked you some questions maybe I will,’ I said. ‘I’m not knocked out by all the excitement in here, I must say.’
‘Questions?’ the landlord repeated in a tone of disbelief. ‘Questions? In this pub?’
‘That’s right.’
‘The only people who dare ask questions in this pub,’ said the governor, ‘is the law, and even they don’t bother overmuch.’
‘Really?’ I said. I produced my warrant card. ‘Well, funnily enough, fancy that, I am the law.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ he said. He sank his forehead into a wobbling hand. ‘I knew there was something about you. You’re all I need. What is it this time? The punch-up we had in here Saturday night? There was only one geezer got badly cut besides me, and he didn’t want to prosecute.’
‘It’s nothing to do with that. It’s about a man that was found dead last Friday night, and it turns out he used this pub a lot.’
‘That don’t tie me into it!’ shouted the governor, taking a step backwards.
‘I didn’t say it did, I didn’t say it didn’t.’
He screwed his eyes up tight and opened them; they were red and blue, like dartboards. ‘I need another drink,’ he said. ‘How about you?’
I shook my head. ‘This man’s name was Charles Staniland,’ I said, when he came back with it.
He took a long swallow. ‘Gotter show a profit,’ he muttered, ‘got to. Otherwise the brewers, they get uptight. An showing a profit here means I don’t never know the customers by their names. Not down here. You’d be mad to,’ he added with a ghastly smile. ‘Mad!’
I was getting restless with him. ‘You won’t show a profit if you don’t cooperate with me,’ I said, ‘for the simple reason that you won’t be here. One word from me to the boys over at Lewisham and bang goes your licence—we’ll find a way.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ he said. ‘All right. You got his photo?’
I pushed over a shot taken of Staniland dead.
The landlord focused on it unsteadily, taking his time. ‘Yeah,’ he said at last, taking a quaff of vodka, ‘that’s Charlie all right. Made a mess of him, didn’t they? Aven’t seen im in a while, though, must be three or four days.’
‘Of course you haven’t,’ I said. ‘He was in the morgue.’
‘Yeah, well, that accounts for it.’
‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘that’s the sort of date you’re bound to keep. Heavy drinker, was he?’
‘Whew! Heavy? What, him? Not half!’
I was studying some words done in burnt poker-work behind him, above the cash register. I read: ‘We’ll fight em up, we’ll fight em down, We’ll fight for King, and fight for Crown. We’ll stand and fight em till we die—But they’ll NEVER drink Old England dry!’
I felt the landlord was an example of this truth, if of no other. ‘Any idea what he did for a living?’ I asked.
‘Now look,’ said the landlord, ‘if I was silly enough to ask my customers things like that, I’d get some very funny answers, any one of which could put me in hospital for a month.’
‘He have any enemies?’
‘Enemies? In here? Cor, I should think so! Practically everyone in the place hated his guts. Rabbit on? I never heard anyone rabbit like he did. Charlie Staniland? Gor, I’ll say!’
‘Plenty of people rabbit in a pub,’ I said. ‘That’s what they’re for. Why pick on him, do you think?’
‘Well, I don’t do that much thinking,’ said the landlord after some reflection. He turned his back on me to refill his glass. ‘Ah, fuck, there’s no ice again, never mind. No,’ he resumed, ‘thinkin don’t pay in this trade, I don’t find.’
‘But if you did think.’
‘Ah, well, if I did think, then if I did think about it, then I daresay I might think that is face just didn’t bleedin well fit. Not that there was anythin particular about the way he looked—he just looked as if he might’ve bin happier up west somewhere.’
‘Well, that’s where he was found, as a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘only rather far out—Acton way, West Five.’
‘Ad to be found somewhere, I suppose,’ said the landlord. ‘Funny sort of bloke, he was. Funny sort of voice, sort of upper crust, really. Stuck out like a sore thumb at a wedding, a voice like his did. Odd he’s gone, though.’
‘Why odd?’ I said. ‘If nobody liked him?’
‘I don’t rightly know,’ he said. ‘I never thought of it until now, of course. I only ad to bar him the once, and that was because he was that pissed he started to upset the other customers, and in particular a party of gentlemen that wanted to discuss something quietly in the corner there, a private matter.’
‘Anyone hate him enough to kill him?’
‘Oh, come on, now,’ begged the landlord, ‘even you can’t expect me to answer a question like that.’
‘It’s a lucky thing for you you haven’t got orange hairs on your forearms,’ I said, staring at them. ‘Any of your regulars got them? Big? About forty? Sometimes known as the Laughing Cavalier? Fancies himself with the birds?’
‘Not that I know of,’ said the landlord. He tried to answer absentmindedly, but he looked more as if he were about to cry.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘well, we’ll stack that one.’
‘What do you mean, stack?’
‘Put it on one side. I’ve got plenty of time. I can always come back.’
‘Look, let me tell you, Sergeant, we’re law-abiding here. I run a tight house.’
‘I can see it’s tight,’ I said. ‘But the law-abiding bit—that could improve.’
‘I’ll tell you everything I can,’ he said pleadingly. ‘Just give me a chance.’
‘Here you are, then,’ I said, ‘let’s try this one. Who was his friend?’
‘Friend?’
‘Girl-friend. He use to come in with a girl-friend.’
‘Ah, girl-friend!’ he said eagerly, as if immensely relieved. ‘Oh, her. Who was she, you say? Christ, I don’t know. I remember her, though. Dark, thin, buck teeth.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I happen to know from the dead man’s tapes that she was big, nice figure, had long blond hair, and gave him a hard time.’
‘Oh, sorry. Yes, that one. Yes, I get you now.’
‘Do you?’ I said. ‘Lucky for you. Because you could find yourself in a bit of bother if you didn’t look out. I might decide I wanted to wind you right up tight if you misled me, just to see what would happen. And do you know what would happen, fatty? You’d go off pop! Like that.’
‘Okay, okay,’ he said.
‘What was her name, now?’
‘I don’t know. Could it’ve bin Barbara something?’
‘That’s the one,’ I said, ‘that’s the one. And what was her surname again?’
&nb
sp; ‘I’m not sure, I think it was Spark.’
‘I think so too,’ I said. ‘Very good! I’ll buy you a drink if you go on like this. Okay, then. Did she use to frat with anyone in here except Staniland? Any of your customers?’
‘Not to my knowledge,’ said the landlord heavily, pursing his lips. ‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘Look, I’m going to give you an insight into police thinking,’ I said, ‘a sort of treat for your being so good. When someone I’m questioning exaggerates a gesture the way you’ve just done, then I know for a fact he’s lying. So I’ll just remind you of that bit about cooperating with me again, okay?’
‘Look, no one went anywhere near them,’ said the landlord desperately. ‘Honest. No one in here liked either of them, see?’
‘It’s funny, but that doesn’t square with things I know.’
‘What do you know?’
‘Nothing you need to.’ I continued: ‘So you’re sticking to that, are you? That everyone in here just stood off at a distance and went no further than take the mickey out of him. You prepared to swear to that?’
‘Oh, that’s right! You couldn’t single no one out, like. No special person in particular. No, you couldn’t!’
‘Strange,’ I said, ‘strange. Doesn’t sound typical of a villains’ incubator like this at all.’
‘Well, that’s the way it was.’
‘And you’ve no idea why people took the piss out of him. Apart from his accent.’
‘That’s the truth.’
‘And yet some person or maybe more than one hated him so much that they did this to him.’
‘Yeah, it certainly looks nasty.’
‘That’s an understatement. You do fully realize this is a murder I’m investigating?’
‘Certainly I do!’ said the landlord wholeheartedly, ‘an I hope you catch them bastards what did it to him. Poor old Charlie!’
‘We’ll catch them,’ I said.
Behind me the pub was beginning to fill up: men drifted in two, three at a time, truck-drivers mostly, the hole-digging gang from the street.
All at once the landlord jumped. ‘Oh, do leave!’ he urged me in a deafening whisper. ‘If those two over there even suspect I’ve been talking to you, they’ll have my guts for a garter.’
‘All right,’ I said. But I was in no hurry. I finished up my warm beer at my own speed. ‘But I’ll be back, I’m afraid.’
‘When?’
‘You won’t know when. It could be any time.’
‘Look,’ said the landlord, jerking the till open with a backward flap of his hand, ‘I wonder if I could make a contribution to the Police Orphans’ Fund?’
‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘You just send the cheque to the Fund at Scotland Yard. The address is in the book.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ blubbered the landlord. ‘I mean, oh, don’t tie me into it, please.’
‘Fuck off,’ I said.
I watched him crawl off down the bar.
As I left I looked hard at the men who had so agitated the landlord. The first was quite small, but that didn’t make him harmless. He wore custom-built jeans, a red sports shirt, and a fawn cardigan; his gold wristwatch was too big, like his ego. A fat wallet stuck half out of his hip pocket, daring some poor idiot to have a go. He was talking to another man with pro-truding front teeth, wearing a yellow anorak, black jogging pants and sneakers. Neither of them had orange hair, and they weren’t big. But they were villains. I couldn’t remember their names offhand, but they were a team and liked clubs best of all—a nice slab of cash punctual on the thirtieth of the month for protecting a club or else smashing it up. They saw me looking at them; I didn’t care. They were making casually for the bar as I left.
Outside, the first edition of the only remaining evening paper had come out on the streets. I got one. Someone called Lord Boughtham had just been appointed Foreign Secretary and had made a long speech in the Lords that criticized everybody but himself. That was one way of earning sixty thousand a year.
There was nothing about Staniland in the paper. Staniland wasn’t news.
7
I sat in my office at the Factory reading Staniland. It’s called the Factory by the villains because it has a bad reputation for doing suspects over in the interrogation rooms; people who still think our British policemen are wonderful ought to spend a night at the Factory banged up or put under the light by a team of three. We call it the Factory, too: but, if you want to know, it’s the big modern, concrete police station that controls the West End north to Tottenham Court Road, south to Hyde Park Corner, northwest to Marble Arch and east to Trafalgar Square. The building itself is in Poland Street bang opposite Marks & Sparks.
I stopped reading for a moment and started thinking about the cassette that had prompted me to go over to the Agincourt. I had played it over at home several times more. Out in the passage the cleaning lady had her transistor radio on while she slopped the water about; a lot of trendy lefties started protesting about something, and she switched it to another station.
The landlord had been lying—not that that surprised me. He lied because he was frightened; that didn’t surprise me, either. It needed a man with better nerves than his to run that place, also someone who wasn’t a total pisspot. I wondered just how badly Staniland had been beaten up outside behind the gents there—probably much worse than he had let on. The landlord had certainly been threatened and told to button it, very likely by the two villains who had passed me drifting towards him in the bar that morning.
I would have to go back there at some point. I wondered vaguely what I should wear for the encounter, and couldn’t decide between a Chieftain tank and a self-propelled gun.
I put one of Staniland’s tapes on again. He said:
There’s a point where the string of the balloon breaks and it glides upwards to burst at that height where shape is no longer possible for it. Meanwhile, to be an animal that thinks persistently in terms way beyond its lifespan sets us a frightful problem. Every day you amass knowledge in a frantic race against death that death must win. You want to find out everything in the time you have; yet in the end you wonder why you bothered, it’ll all be lost. I keep trying to explain this to anyone who will listen.
There wasn’t any more on that tape, so I went on to the next. They were in a dreadful muddle, gaps, bits erased, some inaudible because used twice. His papers were scribbled over in the margin with footnotes and remarks on the back. He seemed never to have used a typewriter. In some places the handwriting was well-formed and -spaced; in others it was hasty, with tremors, almost illegible.
This piece was a letter. The handwriting was not Staniland’s, but it resembled it; only it was much more careful, stiff. There was no address at the top, and no date. It read:
Dear Charles,
I have been thinking over our telephone conversation the other night, and have regretfully decided that it isn’t the slightest use your coming over here and expecting any sympathy from us now. You chose to go abroad and live there for years at a time, never writing, letting all your contacts drop; and now that life has gone sour on you, you start ringing up or coming over and telling us all your woes. It won’t do, Charles. Betty and I have enough problems of our own. I know you want money, though you don’t say so outright, but I saw it in your eyes last time you were over here and I could hear it in your voice—I’m not your brother for nothing. I’m afraid it’s no good. Even if I gave you money, you would only fritter it away on drink or on one of those awful women that you get so hooked on. No. You’ve simply got to understand that there’s a code in life, and no foolish thirst after knowledge and experience will compensate you for abandoning it. Either you follow the code, or you don’t. And you haven’t. I hate putting this so bluntly, but you leave me no choice.
In great regret, believe me, and of course love, your brother G.
P. S.
You can stay the night, of course, any time; I know Betty will be delighted to
make up the spare bed for you. But that’s all. I’m sorry you’ve come to this pass, old boy, and I honestly wish there were something I could do. But my own business is in difficulties; in fact, at times I hardly know where to turn.
With a brother like that, I thought, no wonder Staniland drank. Rereading the letter, I thought there came across a vague note of envy, as though ‘G’ were attempting to punish Staniland for some experience which the brother, to his vexation, had never had.
I turned the letter over. On the back Staniland had written the single word ‘Crap’.
As I was gathering up his papers to put in my desk before going to lunch, a single sheet of his writing, smaller than the others, fell out on the floor. It read:
I understand everything now, Barbara. It was I who was so stupid; I should never have started to detect lies in people.
Too late I’ve discovered that if you strip people down to the truth, you give them no chance to survive. Lies and evasions are necessary; they give us a chance to dodge.
An advertisement cut out of a highbrow economics review was pinned to the sheet. It was highly unoriginal and showed a man in a business suit, carrying an executive briefcase, apparently about to tread on a wristwatch that lay in the foreground. The blurb read: ‘Man is as beautifully crafted as the best Swiss watches—a Masterpiece that even Time can’t beat!’
Underneath Staniland had written: Balls.
On the sheet behind the advertisement the letter continued:
Every time I write or talk to you, Barbara, it’s like my blood flowing away. My words leave my mouth only for you, like blood leaking out round a dagger. Once I’ve spoken my brain feels grey and feeble. Please come back to me—stay with me. It won’t be a life sentence for you. I feel myself moving towards something final that even the dimmest of us will be able to understand. Oh, Barbara, you are the only—
He Died with His Eyes Open (Factory 1) Page 4