Settling Scores

by Martin Edwards

  A real athlete’s body. The light shining in Gerald’s eyes was something Stella had never seen before. For a few seconds she tried to imagine what it would be like to be the mother of that athlete’s body, to have produced it jointly with Gerald, to have a right, now, to a share in that idiotic pride. At the sight of those heavy, self-indulgent features thus irradiated, Stella felt a great darkness coming around her. It came like a black monstrous wave, engulfing her, leaving her bereft of speech.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for a million pounds!” she heard him saying, from somewhere outside the swirling blackness. “To hear his name called—Simon Graves—my own son! And then the clapping, the cheers! And him only nine! The others are all over ten, darling, all of them! He’s the only nine-year-old who managed to…”

  She preferred his lies, preferred them a thousand times. How could she have guessed that the truth, when she finally heard it from those evasive, prevaricating lips, would hurt as much as this?

  The school gates were propped wide-open and welcoming, and through them, in the blazing sunshine, trooped the mothers and the fathers, the sisters and the girl friends, the aunts and the uncles. With their white sandals, their bright cotton dresses or pale freshly ironed slacks, women just like Stella, in their early thirties. Among so many, who was going to give her a second glance? Unless, of course, she gave herself away somehow—walking too fast, maybe, or letting her eyes flit too anxiously from side to side?

  The fathers were less numerous than their womenfolk, which made Stella’s task that much easier; they stuck out among the bright dresses like the dark stumps of trees. Stella’s eyes darted from one to another of them ceaselessly, for he might be anywhere; and supposing—just supposing—he were to catch sight of her before she’d managed to locate him?

  Not a big risk, really. For she had the advantage that the hunter always has over the prey—she knew what she was looking for, and what she meant to do when she found it; whereas Gerald not only wasn’t on the watch for her, he hadn’t the slightest suspicion she could possibly be here at all. On top of which she had, after a fashion, disguised herself with a pair of large round sunglasses, and a white silk bandanna wound tightly round her black shining hair.

  Across the lawn, up under the avenue of limes, the slow procession wound, chattering, exclaiming, exchanging greetings; some were already fanning themselves against the heat. Slowly likewise, but with her heart hammering, Stella matched her pace with the rest; and it was not until she had settled herself on the grass at the far end of a long line of deck chairs facing the sports field that Stella began to breathe more easily. Hemmed-in by all these chairs, she could scarcely be seen from more than a yard or two away, and yet by craning her neck she could get a good view of the crowd still winding up from the school buildings. Here and there a dark head, taller than the rest, would make her catch her breath; but always, it was a false alarm.

  And now, here was the junior master walking up and down with his loudspeaker, announcing the order of events. Already the crowd was falling into an expectant silence, the thousand voices dying away in wave after wave, fading away like the twitter of birds at twilight.

  And still Gerald hadn’t arrived.

  Had he been lying to her after all? Had his afternoon’s truancy nothing to do with Simon’s Sports Day, in spite of all those passionate declarations of paternal pride? The swine! The double-crossing, treacherous swine! All that emotion wasted—not to mention having let herself in for a long hot afternoon of boredom, all for nothing!

  I’ll teach you, Gerald Graves! I’ll teach you to lie to me, make a fool of me! Thought you’d got away with it, didn’t you?—I’ll show you!

  Already she could feel a line of sweat gathering under the bandanna, along her hairline; she’d never worn such a thing before, and by the Lord, she thought, I never will again! I’ll show him!

  “Under sixteen hurdles…”

  “Quarter mile, under fourteen…”

  The sheer tedium of it was beginning to make Stella feel quite ill; her back ached, her eyes burned, and her brain felt half addled with heat and boredom.

  Long jump. High jump… on and on the thing droned; whistles blew, shouts exploded into the shimmering air and died away again; the clapping and the cheering rose, and fell, and rose again. Cup for this, prize for that. The sun beat down, the voices swelled and receded, and then, just when Stella was on the verge of sleep, she heard it.

  “Simon Graves! Winner of the under-eleven two hundred and fifty yards! Simon Graves!”

  Stella was sitting bolt upright now, peering past the forest of chairs to get a glimpse of the sports field; but before she had time to locate the dark-haired little boy scuttling proudly toward the sidelines, she became aware of a little commotion going on in front of her and a few yards to the right.

  “Simon! Our Simon! He’s done it, Mummy! Daddy said he would! Oh, Simon—Si-i-i-mon!”

  “Hush, darling, hush, Carol, you must sit down.” A plumpish smiling woman was pulling at the sleeve of a wildly gesticulating little girl of about seven, urging her back into her seat. “Hush, Carol darling, not so loud. Simon’ll be embarrassed. Oh, but won’t Daddy be pleased!”

  “Daddy will say,” “Daddy will think”—and where the hell was Daddy, if one might inquire? “Wouldn’t miss it for a million pounds,” he’d said. Someone, somewhere, worth more than a million this bright afternoon?

  Peering between the lines of chairs, Stella could see that the exultant mother and little sister were about to receive their hero. Pounding up the bank he came, wiry and brown and all lit up with triumph, hurling himself on his mother and sister amid a babel of congratulations.

  Past the chairs, past the stirring smiling people, Stella watched, and kept very still. What right had the three of them to such joy, such total undiluted happiness? Didn’t they know that the foundations of it were rotten, that their cosy little family life was based on a rotting, disintegrating substructure of lies and cheating? “Daddy” this and “Daddy” that—it made her feel quite sick to listen to the shrill little voices filled with such baseless adoration.

  Quietly, unobtrusively, Stella got to her feet, and worked her way between the rows of chairs. She reached the little girl just when her mother and brother had turned away for a moment, receiving further congratulations. Quickly Stella dropped on her knees in front of the child, bringing their faces level.

  “Do you know why your Daddy isn’t here?” she said softly. “It’s because he’s spent the afternoon with me! In bed. Do you understand?”

  The blank, almost stupid look on the child’s face maddened her, and the blank look remained on the child’s face. But Stella had the satisfaction, after she had squeezed back past row after row of chairs and had almost escaped from the enclosure, of hearing Carol, at last, burst into loud sobbing.

  It was nearly ten o’clock when, at long last, she heard Gerald’s step on the stairs; and even after all these hours she still could not have said if she had been expecting him to come, or to stay away.

  He’d be angry, of course. But also, surely, relieved? Five years of secrecy was too much; it would be a relief to both of them to have it out in the open.

  “Don’t you agree, darling, that it is high time we had it out in the open?” she was asking, for the fourth or fifth time, of the silent slumped figure in the armchair. She’d been trying ever since his arrival to extract some sort of response from him. She’d tried everything, even congratulating him on his son’s success.

  “Pity you weren’t there to see it,” she’d been unable to resist adding; but even this had provoked from Gerald nothing more than the bald factual statement that he had seen it, thank you, from the Pavilion, where some of the fathers were helping to organise the boys.

  Then more silence. She tried again.

  “I’m sorry, Gerald darling, if Carol—if the little girl—was upset. I didn’t mean to upset her, I just thought that the children should know about us. I don’t believe in
lies and deceit with children. I think they are entitled to the truth. Oh, darling, please don’t look at me like that! It’s been a shock, I know, but I’m sure that when you’ve had time to think about it, you’ll see it’s been for the best. The best for us—and for Wendy too. She can’t have liked all this lying and deception all these years. I’m sure she’d rather know where she stands, and be able to start making sensible plans for the future.

  “I mean, Wendy looks quite a nice sort of person. I don’t think she’ll make any trouble once she understands that we love each other. Oh, darling, what is it? Why don’t you say something? Look, let’s have a drink, and relax, and think what we’re going to do when the unpleasantness is all over. This flat is a bit small for the two of us, but assuming that you’ll be getting half of the value of your house, then between us we could—”

  And now, at last, he did make a move. He rose stiffly, as if he suffered from rheumatism, and went to pour them each a large glass of whisky. He handed her a glass in silence, and then, swallowing his at a gulp, he walked over to the table in the window where Stella’s typewriter stood, open. Laboriously, with one finger, he began to type.

  Stella waited a minute, two minutes, then walked over to look.

  Gerald B. Graves

  27 Firfield Gardens

  Sydenham Way

  The long Manila envelope stared up at her from the typewriter carriage; she watched, stupefied, while he finished the last few letters of the address. Then—

  “Whatever are you doing, darling?” she asked, with an uneasy little laugh. “Are you writing a letter to yourself?”

  And then she saw it, just by his right hand. Her own suicide note of last autumn—“By the time you get this, darling, I shall be dead…”

  “The handwriting will be unquestionably yours,” he observed conversationally, “and the address will have been typed on your typewriter. The post-mark will also be right, as I shall post it myself, on my way out. It should reach me at breakfast time the day after tomorrow, just in time to show to the police. And now, my dear, just one more little job, and we shall be finished.”

  And as he stood up and turned toward her, the light from the lamp fell full onto his face, and she saw the look in his eyes.

  “No! No!” she gasped, took a step backward, and shrank, whimpering, against the wall.

  “I intend it to look like suicide,” he said, as if reassuring her; and as he moved across the carpet toward her, Stella’s last coherent thought was: he will too! He’ll get away with it, he’ll lie his way out of it, just as he’s always lied his way out of everything!

  How accomplished a liar he was, she knew better than anyone, for it was she who had trained him—trained him, like a circus animal, over five long years.

  Edited by

  Martin Edwards

  From picturesque canals and quiet lakes to the swirling currents of the ocean, a world of secrets lies beneath the surface of the water.

  The stories in this collection will dredge up delight in crime fiction fans, as watery graves claim unsuspecting victims on the sands of an estuary and disembodied whispers penetrate the sleeping quarters of a ship’s captain. How might a thief plot their escape from a floating crime scene? And what is to follow when murder victims, lost to the ocean floor, inevitably resurface?

  This British Library anthology collects the best mysteries set on choppy seas, along snaking rivers and even in the supposed safety of a swimming pool, including stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, C. S. Forester, Phyllis Bentley and R. Austin Freeman.

  Edited by

  Martin Edwards

  Forensic dentistry; precise examination of ballistics; an expertise in apiology to identify the exact bee which killed the victim?

  The detective’s role may be simple; solve the case and catch the culprit, but when the crime is fiendishly well-executed the application of the scientific method may be the only answer.

  The detectives in this collection are masters of scientific deduction, employing principles of chemistry, the latest technological innovations and an irresistible logical brilliance in their pursuit of justice. With stories by early masters in the field such as Arthur Conan Doyle and L. T. Meade alongside fine-tuned mysteries from the likes of Edmund Crispin and Dorothy L. Sayers, The Measure of Malice collects tales of rational thinking to prove the power of the brain over villainous deeds.

  Edited by

  Martin Edwards

  A signalman is found dead by a railway tunnel. A man identifies his wife as a victim of murder on the underground. Two passengers mysteriously disappear between stations, leaving behind a dead body.

  Trains have been a favourite setting of many crime writers, providing the mobile equivalent of the “locked-room” scenario. Their enclosed carriages with a limited number of suspects lend themselves to seemingly impossible crimes. In an era of cancellations and delays, alibis reliant upon a timely train service no longer ring true, yet the railway detective has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the twenty-first century.

  Both train buffs and crime fans will delight in this selection of fifteen railway-themed mysteries, featuring some of the most popular authors of their day alongside less familiar names. This is a collection to beguile even the most wearied commuter.

  Also by

  Martin Edwards

  ‘A cabinet of criminal curiosities that novices and aficionados alike can happily search for titles to match their tastes.’

  Times Literary Supplement

  ‘No one could doubt the extent of Edwards’s knowledge.’

  Mail on Sunday

  ·

  This book tells the story of crime fiction published during the first half of the twentieth century. The diversity of this much-loved genre is breath-taking, and so much greater than many critics have suggested. To illustrate this, the leading expert on classic crime discusses one hundred books ranging from The Hound of the Baskervilles to Strangers on a Train which highlight the entertaining plots, the literary achievements, and the social significance of vintage crime fiction.