A La Carte

by Jeffrey Archer

  ‘Frau Engels?’ I said. ‘We were talking about you as a matter of fact.’

  “What did she say?’ asked Sig.

  ‘She said she believed you were both orphans.’

  They laughed. Sig’s is the high, hard laugh, the other is a kind of low giggle, rather sexy: it struck me that neither sounded genuinely amused.

  ‘She’s just a stupid old bag,’ said Sig. ‘She fancies Poney, that’s all.’

  ‘She’d like to eat me,’ said Poney, in a bored sort of way. ‘Hardly the verb I’d have chosen,’ said Sig. They talk in a semi-facetious; slangy, private joke sort of way which is often awkward. I suppose that may be how schoolboys talk, I don’t know.

  ‘Aren’t you orphans then?’ I asked.

  ‘We come from respectable middle-class backgrounds,’ said Sig. ‘We live in Epping, my dear, that respectable middle-class suburb where you may be chopped into little pieces as you lie a-sleeping.’

  ‘We were so frightened we ran away from home,’ said Poney in a baby voice. ‘We were afraid of the nasty man with the chopper. We suck our thumbs you see.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Sig as I slowed down.

  ‘I am going to look at the pictures here,’ I said, turning towards the Accademia. ‘There’s nothing much else to do in the fog is there?’

  ‘Do you know one of these palaces is for sale?’ said Sig,

  ‘I had heard it was.’

  ‘We’re thinking of buying it,’ said Sig casually.

  ‘But you must be millionaires!’

  ‘Oh, we’re all right for money,’ said Sig. ‘Cheery-bye.’ They glided away into the fog.

  I can’t make up my mind whether they are ridiculous or offensive. They would be ridiculous but for something peculiar about their partnership. I don’t know whether it is a homosexual relationship or not: it might be that that makes them seem so close, so set apart from the common run of men.

  October 21st

  I cannot sleep. And the fog is still here.

  Last night two girls appeared for dinner at the pensione. The boys were out, but everyone else was there, that is to say, the elderly Italian couple, the two moderately attractive French sisters and the daughter of one of them, the solitary Italian who looks like some sort of minor businessman, and myself. That, with the boys, is the sum of the guests at the moment. An Italian brother and sister who live next door do the waiting, and Frau Engels herself cooks.

  The girls were nice-looking and well dressed. They spoke with American accents. One was dark and curly- haired, the other wore glasses but had quite good features. They both wore little hats. They immediately drew attention to themselves by being appallingly rude. They complained loudly of the dreary decor before they went in to dinner. At dinner they ordered the waiter about most disagreeably and soon sent for Frau Engels herself in order to complain of the food. It annoyed me intensely to see how she took it from them, padding backwards and forwards with a cringing anxiety to please, quite different from her usual frosty attitude towards her guests.

  I finished my meal as quickly as I could and went upstairs. I had not been there long before I heard someone going into the next room, and the sound of voices and laughter. I decided to go and read downstairs. As I passed the boys’ room the door opened. Frau Engels came out laughing and carrying some clothes. Behind her I caught a glimpse of Sig, still half-dressed, in women’s clothes.

  As soon as I saw it I wondered why I had not realised before that the American girls were in fact Sig and Poney. All the same the transformation had been alarmingly convincing. I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like the way they had abused her and she had cringed. I didn’t like their pleasure in having deceived us all. There was no question of throwing off the disguise and allowing us to share the joke: there they were in the bedroom laughing at us. I don’t like them. I don’t know why I ever thought they were nice boys. I think there is something unpleasant about them.

  October 24th

  Sinus trouble back at its very worst. A constant headache that nothing seems to cure. I don’t know why I don’t leave. My will seems to have been weakened by the lowering insinuations of the soggy fog: why doesn’t it go? I wander and wander, waiting for the fog to clear and the sun to come out. I have nothing in my head, no thought, no will, nothing. Except pain. I wander, and lean over bridges, and watch the slack water. Pain pain go away. Come again another day. Immeasurable pain. Last night my dreaming soul was king again.

  I hate those boys. They shouted again last night, something about the king. I think they have orgies up there night after night. There’s something suspicious about the way they are always so clean. Only guilty people wash as much as they do.

  Also they are morbid. They came in this morning as I was drinking coffee in the dreary little sitting-room, and sat down beside me. They were carrying newspapers.

  ‘Haven’t caught him yet, I see,’ said Sig.

  ‘Caught who?’ I asked.

  ‘This murderer.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Aren’t you interested then?’ asked Poney.

  ‘Not particularly,’ I said,

  ‘Don’t you think there’s something about it though?’ said Poney encouragingly. ‘I mean these people lying there safe in their snug little beds in their snug little house, and suddenly bash, bash, they’re all in pieces?’ He gave his rather charming boyish smile. ‘Not interesting?’

  I smiled feebly, too tired to talk to them.

  Sig laughed his nasty laugh and Poney’s smile widened.

  ‘That’ll teach them, won’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Teach them what?’ I said.

  ‘Teach them who’s master,’ said Poney quietly.

  ‘He who wields the axe,’ said Sig.

  ‘Ah,’ said Poney. ‘He must have been a great man all right, that killer, don’t you think so?’

  ‘No,’ I said flatly.

  “Don’t you like us?’ said Sig suddenly.

  ‘Good Heavens I – I hardly know you,’ I said, embarrassed.

  ‘At first you seemed to like us,’ Sig went on, watching me intently. ‘Now you don’t seem so friendly. Do we offend you?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’

  ‘But there is something about us you find yourself resenting? Have you ever tried hypnosis? For your headaches I mean?’

  ‘How did you know I have headaches?’

  ‘I can see. Have you ever been hypnotised?’ He was staring at me much too hard.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I should think you’d be a bad subject,’ he said, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Sig could do it,’ said Poney confidently.

  ‘I could. But no one else. She’d withstand anyone else. What is it about us that annoys you?’

  ‘I think you’re talking nonsense. I’m not annoyed by you.’

  He was leaning forward again. ‘Is it that you feel the power coming from us?’

  ‘Power?’

  That you feel we’re in some way set apart.’

  ‘You seem to feel that yourselves. I had noticed that.’

  ‘Do you know what sets us apart?’ said Sig very quietly. His gaze had become unbearably intense by now. ‘Do you know what it is? Our virtue.’

  A moment’s peculiar silence. And then they both noticeably relaxed, and laughed briefly, and looked like two prankish schoolboys.

  I can’t make them out.

  October 27th

  A horrible day.

  It started well. The fog had cleared and the sun was shining. Everything seemed to have changed. My headache was no better, but I felt calmer, convalescent almost. I took the vaporetto to San Marco and sat in the Piazza to have some coffee. The place was quite crowded; everyone seemed to have gathered there to see Venice reborn.

  I saw the boys moving in my direction, and sat back behind my paper hoping they would pass: but they had seen me, and paused, though they did not sit down.

  ‘Got them yet?’ Poney as
ked, gesturing slightly towards my paper.

  ‘Got what?’ I said.

  ‘The murderers.’

  I wondered vaguely why he used the plural.

  ‘It doesn’t say so,’ I said. ‘Lovely morning, isn’t it?’

  ‘More like it, isn’t it?’ agreed Poney. ‘We’re off to that crooked old house agent again,’ and they walked off through the tables, neat, spruce, untouchable.

  Then in the evening there was a question of moving some furniture. Frau Engels was making preparations for shutting up her house and wanted, for some reason, to move several pieces of furniture from downstairs up into one of the empty bedrooms. There were several chairs, three Viennese-looking cabinets, and a big mahogany cupboard. She asked the boys to help her. Seriously they removed their well-cut jackets, rolled up the sleeves of their impeccably clean white shirts, and set to work. They lifted the heavy furniture with no difficulty at all; and I saw the muscles in their arms. The two Frenchwomen and the daughter of one of them were coming in at the time, and were much impressed.

  ‘But how is it you do this?’ one of the Frenchwomen asked them. ‘You are weight-lifters?’

  ‘It’s nothing really,’ said Poney.

  ‘It’s a matter of training,’ said Sig, remotely.

  ‘But you do this training for what?’ she asked. “You are athletes?’

  ‘We just keep in training,’ said Sig.

  ‘You never know when it may come in useful,’ said Poney.

  They went on with their work. The Frenchwomen passed them admiringly and went upstairs. The boys began showing off, to each other more than to anyone else.

  Poney flexed his muscles and lifted a small chair, pretending it was a great weight.

  ‘The strong man,’ said Sig. ‘Nothing he can’t do.’

  You’re not bad yourself,’ said Poney. ‘Come on, let’s see those muscles now.’

  Sig lifted one of the little cabinets which really did look heavy. Poney put down his chair and lifted the pair of cabinets. They stood side by side swaying slightly, then gently lowered the weights without faltering in their control.

  ‘Not bad, not bad,’ said Poney again.

  ‘You’re the best,’ said Sig, who was breathing rather heavily. ‘You’re the king of the weight-lifters.’

  ‘You could lift a heavy man.’

  ‘You could hold one down.’

  ‘You know your judo.’

  ‘You could lift a heavy axe.’

  ‘You could have gone into that house in Woodbridge Road. You could have dealt with that fat family.’

  ‘You could have wielded that axe.’

  ‘You could have taken it in turns with me.’

  ‘You could have smothered the parents.’

  ‘You could have despatched the two girls, wham, wham, all gone.’

  ‘You could have swung that axe.’

  ‘You could have swopped their heads …’ Here Poney became lost in his low giggle. Sig joined in. They bent over the furniture, laughing. Then each taking one side of one of the cabinets, they began to carry it towards the stairs.

  ‘Ah, we could have swung it,’ said Sig, calm after his laughter.

  ‘We could have swung it,’ echoed Poney in his deeper voice.

  And suddenly I knew that they had.

  They were murderers.

  With absolute certainty and terror, I knew that they were murderers.

  ‘You are not well?’ Frau Engels was looking at me strangely.

  ‘Oh, yes, I I have a bit of a headache.’ I did not dare to say more because I felt certain that she would think me mad. Besides, she was so strangely fascinated by the boys. Unless she knew already, and this was the secret of their relationship? Or perhaps she merely sensed in them a depth of evil which appealed to some perverted leaning of her own? She offered me aspirin. I refused, but asked if she had any back numbers of English papers. She led me to a cupboard and left me to look for what I wanted.

  I soon found it. I read everything I could see about the Epping murders. A family of four, father, mother, and two daughters had been found dead and mutilated. The crime was described as being of appalling brutality. No one had seen or heard a thing. They had lived in a detached house in its own garden in a high-class suburban street. They had had no enemies. The father had worked in a City office, the two girls had been to a local school, were popular at the tennis club, and looked quite pretty from the photographs. There were interviews with the various young friends – no, Jean and Pam had no special boyfriends, everybody had liked them, Jean was on the committee of the tennis club, Pam was keener on riding, they were the most popular girls in the neighbourhood. The parents went to Church, the mother was a member of the local Women’s Institute. Here was something. And yet I was hardly surprised to read it. ‘Mrs Bray, Chairman of the local branch, said at her home in nearby Forest Avenue, that Mrs Anderson had been a regular attender at W.I. Meetings. “It hardly bears thinking of,” she said.’

  Poney’s name was Bray. I had seen him writing it in the Register when they first arrived.

  Before dinner I found them sitting in the tiny bar next to the dining-room drinking fruit juice (they never touch alcohol). It was an effort to go and sit beside them, but I made it.

  ‘Whereabouts in Epping do you live?’ I began, ordering whisky. ‘I used to know it slightly.’

  ‘Forest Avenue,’ said Poney. ‘We both do.’

  ‘Isn’t that quite near where the murder was?’

  ‘I thought you weren’t interested in the murder,’ said Sig.

  ‘I’m not particularly,’ I said. “But it becomes more interesting if you knew the people.’

  ‘We didn’t,’ said Sig firmly.

  I did not dare to pursue it. Their faces had become closed and uninformative. Poney patted his already immaculately tidy hair and said, ‘I wonder what’s for jolly old dins.’

  ‘How are you getting on with your house-hunting?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ve gone off it,’ said Poney. ‘It seems you can’t rely on the weather here. We’re going to Sardinia in a few days to look around there.’

  ‘Was anything stolen from the house where the murder was?’ I asked before I could stop myself.

  ‘Hey, what’s the …’ began Poney, but Sig interrupted him.

  He said very clearly, ‘Some valuable jewellery I believe.’

  ‘What’s the big interest suddenly?’ said Poney.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Tell me about Sardinia. I believe it’s lovely there.’

  ‘So old Aga Khan says,’ said Poney, stroking his hair again. ‘He’s looking out a decent plot for us.’

  Then the bell went for dinner.

  I don’t know what to do.

  It is late now and I have locked myself into my bedroom. My headache has come back and I cannot sleep. I can just hear their voices next door. They talk so much alone in their room. What do they do in there?

  They have some horrible thing between them, I felt it from the beginning. They are linked by some fantasy they have built up about power and violence, I am sure of it. Perhaps the girls snubbed them at a local dance. One of the girls was called Jean. Didn’t they tell me that was the name of Poney’s little sister, when he was showing me his bruise from a bite? Jean, I’m sure they said Jean. Perhaps they simply chose the Anderson family because they were so obviously harmless. This made it more of a joke, a clever trick. They enjoy fooling people; as they enjoyed letting us all think they were two American girls the other night, to score off the rest of the world, to build up their sense of isolation and superiority. I suppose they are mad, if to live in a world of fantasy is mad; or perhaps Sig is mad and Poney merely bad, and utterly corrupted. Heaven knows what appalling rituals may be going on in the next room even now that shout of ‘The King!’ – what shall I do if I hear it again tonight? But what can I do? Who would believe me? I have no friends in Venice. Frau Engels is useless. What about the other people in the pensione? Those unim
aginative-looking Frenchwomen with the daughter, the bored businessman, the doddering old couple what use would they be? I can’t go to the British Consul unless I can offer something more positive than just my own conviction. In a way the people I know best, though only in the most casual way, are the couple who run the little restaurant round the corner, Mario and his wife. I don’t even particularly like them, but we have talked a certain amount. I think I will try and say something to them tomorrow. In the meantime I can do nothing but sit behind my locked door and listen to the murmurs and occasional bumps from the next room.

  October 29th

  I think I did hear the shout, but it may have been a dream. I took three sleeping pills. It was too many and I have felt terrible all day.

  I lunched at the restaurant. I said to Mario, ‘Do you ever see those two young English boys who are staying at my pensione?’

  ‘Yes, they have been in once or twice,’ he answered in his good English. ‘Architectural students, they told me. They seemed nice boys. I lent them a guide book.’

  ‘They are not architectural students,’ I said.

  He looked surprised.

  ‘They lie to everyone, they live in a complete fantasy,’ I said. ‘Look, if I tell you something, will you take it seriously, will you give me your advice?’

  He said he would, and sat down at my table, looking worried.

  It was difficult to go on.

  ‘I have reason to believe,’ I said. ‘In fact I know, that they have committed a terrible crime.’

  He looked down at the table cloth in silence. I felt I was doing badly.

  ‘I know it sounds absurd,’ I said. ‘But I am quite sure about this. I wouldn’t say so otherwise. You must believe me.’

  But he didn’t. He listened politely as I told him of my suspicions, and then he told me that he thought I was mistaken.

  ‘When the fog comes I sometimes have strange ideas myself. You told me you had been having sinus trouble and bad headaches. You don’t think you could be mistaken about these boys?’

  ‘I know I am not mistaken.’

  But I could see it was no good. All I could do was to make him say that if at any stage I needed help I could come to him.