by Tim Parks
He said goodbye to Kathleen and waited till the foyer was empty. The old receptionist studiously ignored whatever was going on. A hotel receptionist, Daniel thought, does not object when a judge and national celebrity takes a young girl to his room. In the lift, Minnie leaned heavily against him. I need a bed, she whispered. They just knocked me about. It was nothing. The bed wasn’t even a proper double. More a solution for honeymooners, weekends away. The young woman lay down in her coat. Why? he asked. He waited. He was experiencing little rushes of adrenalin, of hyperattention, followed by moments when he might easily have fainted.
She had closed her eyes. The police stopped a lorry loaded with immigrants. They must have known. It’s the second time. My brothers think it’s me told them. They knew about me and you. All this rumour in the papers. They think I’m telling things. So I’m locked in the flat all yesterday. I had the mobile at first. They didn’t know. Then it ran out. In the evening two men came and hit me. They kicked me. I didn’t know them. Ben’s mother wasn’t there. I told them, I hadn’t said anything. Minnie was shaking her head, crying. This afternoon I wake up and they’ve all gone. I had to smash the door.
He covered her up, pulled a chair to sit beside her, smoothed her hair. She looked grey and bloated. At least it’s over, he said. What do you mean? she asked. He hesitated: If they went, if everybody disappeared, it will be because they were afraid of being arrested. Anyway, you can’t go back now. We’ll find somewhere else.
The girl shivered, staring at him. She seemed suspicious. He went to the cupboards and found a spare blanket. I can make a tea, he offered. I can get you a drink from the minibar. He wasn’t sure what to say to her. She said, a tea. Very carefully, he tore open the little Twining’s bags and pulled out the sachets of tea. He plugged in the kettle. I should call the police, he kept thinking. But his aversion to Mattheson was insuperable. He felt embarrassed that the girl should come to him. Mattheson had explicitly said to keep away. I’m too tired to make sensible decisions he thought. In the morning, then. If only he could consult Hilary. Methodically, he wound the strings around the handles of two pink teacups. In the morning he would be able to think. Minnie cupped the tea in her hands. She seemed more comfortable now, her head propped up on the pillow. She asked: You have left your home? Yes. He sat in an uncomfortable armchair at the other side of the bed. There was no room for his feet. Are you happy? No. He twisted sideways, jamming his knees against the bed. She sipped her tea, looked at him. You always said you were just about to stop. Stop what? he asked. She even managed a thin smile. What was the word you used? I don’t know. For what? Fil – Philandering? Yes. You said: This can’t go on! I must stop philandering. Did I? She nodded. He remembered saying the words to Jane.
They sipped their tea. It was past midnight. The room was optimistically decorated in a rose wallpaper with pink curtains and carpet and bedspread. Now with the weak light of just one pink lamp beside the bed, a sort of wounded calm had been established, as of softly dying embers. They sat and sipped. She said: Was it my fault? What? That your wife found out. Are you angry with me? He shook his head. Go to sleep now, he told her. You need to sleep. And so do I. I’ve got a big day tomorrow. You always went home early, she said. I always felt you were in a hurry to get home. His uneasiness increased. Call the police! Then, as she slid down into the bed, she cried out in pain. He hurried round to her side. Are you all right? I was punched, here, it still hurts a bit. Look he said, with the baby and everything, you really must go to hospital and get yourself checked out. I’m going to call a taxi and take you now. No, she said. But . . . Tomorrow, she insisted. Really, I’m all right. I’d know if there was something serious, wouldn’t I?
She lay in the dark now. He went to the bathroom. Undressing quietly, he thought the girl had gone to sleep. He would slip into the sheets and sleep himself. In the end, this wasn’t all bad news. The Kwans would be arrested. The girl will be sorted out elsewhere. The drama is almost over. One way or another I can reconstruct my life, Judge Savage thought. He pulled back the sheets on his side. The girl’s quiet voice asked, Dan, would you mind turning the television on? I can’t sleep. I’ll sleep if you put the television on, just softly.
Sighing, he found the remote. What do you want to watch? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Then she said: Canned laughter puts me to sleep. Daniel zapped past the news, a gunfight. On the fourth or fifth channel there was a crackle of applause and an all black cast on three brightly coloured sofas were jumping up and down despite the takeaway food on their laps, joking and arguing intensely in the accents of the American south. That’s fine she said. She didn’t seem to want to watch.
But Daniel found it difficult not to pay attention. Somebody was complaining that a daughter was out late. I’d give the hussy a good whipping, an elderly woman’s voice announced complacently. Listening, the judge contrived not to touch the girl at his side. Then a precocious little boy was launching into a lecture on the evils of corporal punishment. Came a roar of laughter. We’ll see tomorrow, honey, someone said. We’ll talk to that hussy tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be over he thought. He would deliver his summing up. He could call in sick for a week. He was sick. He would find a flat. Well now I’ll be doggoned! Was it possible people still spoke like that?
Then quite suddenly he was speaking to Mattheson. He was heaved out of sleep by the trilling of the phone. It drew him up like a line tossed into a violent sea, and Mattheson was saying: We got them all, all but the girl and her husband. I’ve got the girl, Daniel said. The television now emitted only an intense blue glow. She’s here with me. Is that so? That’s excellent, Mattheson cried. Excellent news, Dan. The man was calling him Dan again. He shouldn’t do that. Now I think we really can get this story behind us, the policeman was saying. Was it his problem? Judge Savage said: She claims you didn’t come after she had repeatedly told you they were treating her badly. There was a pause. Mattheson spoke in common-sense tones. Dan, we needed just twelve hours. Twelve hours. It would be too complicated to explain. There’s been more than two years’ work gone into this. It was a huge operation. If we’d moved any earlier, we wouldn’t have got the evidence we needed. It’s pointless getting the people without good evidence that will stand up in court. But no harm done, hey, if you’ve got her there now.
Judge Savage turned off the television and lay back in the dark. Occasional headlights crossed the curtains. They must have had an informer to protect, he thought. They were happy to have the Kwans imagine it was Minnie. He sat up in the bed. From the road outside headlights sent pink rectangles stretching and creeping around the wallpaper over prints of English country gardens. It was monumental vanity, Judge Savage thought, on my part, to imagine I was important because I was in the paper for a few days. There was a print of Chatterton House: the view to the lake. One light passed and then another. It had been a terrible error, Daniel told himself, to imagine that Hilary couldn’t leave you, because you were too important a part of her life. Then it occurred to him that Minnie hadn’t woken when Mattheson phoned. She must be in a deep sleep. She had been exhausted. But he too had been exhausted. Alert, he listened for the girl’s breathing. There was the rumble of a truck accelerating. You notice it more at night. The headlights passed over a neat pattern of hedges and flowers. Hatfield House. Sedley was right that Janet Crawley could never have heard somebody say anything above a busy road from ten yards away. He reached out and touched the girl.
THIRTY-THREE
JUDGE SAVAGE HAD arrived at court at nine-thirty. He began his summing up towards four and invited the jury to retire before six. Sedley was shaking his head. Impossible to call, one of the defence counsels muttered to his second. More than eight hours, Judge Savage was thinking to himself, carrying his papers along the corridor, eight incriminating hours in which he had said nothing, done nothing. You look ill, Kathleen Connolly told him that morning. She had been waiting for him by the judges’ entrance. All this is horribly improper. A judge should be quite separa
te from other authorities. How did it go? she made her voice low. All right, he told her. Is she still there? Yes. He said, I’m afraid I should really be making some notes for the summing up. I’m behind. Right. But she hung on a moment at the bottom of the steps. He turned. She was dressed in a sharp black skirt. Her hair was washed. They arrested them all, she told him. It was a big success. So I gather, he said. He didn’t know what to say. All this time I’ve been a pushover for Mattheson, he thought. Perhaps after you’ve finished today, she was saying, we could talk for a moment about what we can do for the girl. I mean, she can’t go home.
Daniel hesitated. This was the moment when he should have spoken. He didn’t. He felt a growing aversion, almost a physical inhibition, to telling anybody anything. No need to clean my room he had told the hotel housekeeping on the phone. It’s in too much of a clutter. I’ve got papers all over the place and they mustn’t be muddled. Do Not Disturb, he hung the notice on the door. And now, nine incriminating hours later, he was sitting in chambers again, at his large desk, with this large and impossible hurdle before him. It is of no interest to me, he thought, what verdict the jury return in the trial of R. v. Sayle and others. He sat down, and it was only after five or ten minutes, sitting motionless behind his desk that he noticed a small white envelope with Hilary’s writing: Dan, we can’t not see each other today. Come over. Judge Savage closed his one good eye.
It’s only our twentieth anniversary! The phone had rung at eight sharp. She knew he was always up before eight. I wanted to apologise, she said. I rather lost it yesterday when the, er, your Korean person turned up. I’m sorry. I could have handled it better. Sarah said you were in difficulty.
Daniel hadn’t known what to say. Looking through the curtains onto a blowy September morning, he had no idea how to proceed. It’s only our twentieth anniversary, Hilary said. She laughed nervously. I know the circumstances could have been more propitious, but I thought I should call anyway. Dan? she asked. Dan, are you there? She’s dead, he said.
Reaching out across the bed after Mattheson’s phone-call his fingers had found her skin cold. There was no tension at all. No hum. He understood at once. I feel numb she had said the previous night in the foyer. I can’t get warm, she had complained in bed. He heaped a second blanket on her. Daniel touched her cold wrist, recoiled and even before he found the light-switch he knew that she was dead. He pulled the lamp off the bedside table, then found the switch to the main light on the wall. The girl’s mouth was open. Her face was grey and empty. The glassy eyes stared at the ceiling where the light hung in a shade of pink glass.
He rushed out of bed, then froze with indecision beside the corpse. He knew at once it was a corpse. Minnie, he said softly. Minnie, he called. Minnie. He put his mouth to her ear and shouted, Minnie! She was quite still. He rushed into the bathroom, filled the tooth-glass, threw it over her face. Someone banged on the wall from behind the bed. For a moment he didn’t understand. The girl hadn’t moved. Then they thumped again. Oh Christ. He pulled an arm out and felt her pulse. He knew there was no pulse. The body was already stiffening. This is like so many dreams, he thought. He knew he wasn’t dreaming. Impulsively he tilted the small head back and put his mouth to hers. He breathed into her. The lips were stiff and rubbery. He breathed hard. There was a smell. You won’t forget the cold touch of those lips, that smell. He took away his mouth and pressed both hands on her chest. There was a faint gurgling. He put his mouth on her mouth and breathed again. But now immediately withdrew. You know she’s dead. The face was yellow grey, the brown eyes glazed. She’s been dead for hours. Again he thought he heard a sound of trickling liquid. He threw back the sheets. She was still in jeans, loose maternity jeans. Between the legs the cloth was sopping. The sheet was black. Frightened, he pulled up her sweater and shirt at the waist. The skin was livid, blotchy. She has been bleeding for hours, he realised. Bleeding inside. She is dead and her child is dead. Elizabeth Whitaker’s child had survived. This baby is dead, he thought. You should have taken her to the hospital. He ran to the phone. He didn’t have the number for the hospital. Call 999. But now he put the phone down. He dialled the three numbers, then quickly put the phone down.
Why didn’t I call 999, or Mattheson, he asked himself, sitting at his desk this evening, turning over his wife’s strange note in his hands. How could his wife invite him after what he had told her in the morning? You what? she demanded. She’s dead. Minnie. She must have had a haemorrhage. When I woke up she was dead. But, is she in your room? Yes, he said. Obviously Hilary hadn’t realised this. Sarah hadn’t told her. There was a pause. Dan, have you called a doctor? There’s nothing a doctor can do, an idiot could see she’s dead.
It was one of those rare occasions when his wife could think of nothing to say. You’ve got to call someone, she told him eventually. Mattheson, she told him. This is the end of me, he was saying. You do understand that. Hilary said nothing. But it’s not that that frightens me, he insisted. He felt it wasn’t. He felt that was an unworthy response. It’s not that, he repeated. What then? she asked. I don’t know. I can’t deal with it. I mean, the talking about it. The going over and over it all. I feel so sad for her. You know my job is stupid, he began to say. I don’t mind losing my job. It’s stupid. It’s the process of losing it. The cameras and the press and the interest. Was it this Martin hadn’t been able to face? Daniel wondered, looking at the dead girl’s face. She had been so pretty. He felt completely responsible, utterly ashamed. I could have done something. I can’t face it, he told his wife. I’d rather die, he insisted. Had Minnie known she was dying? Probably not. She had simply misread the dull pain of internal bleeding. He remembered how her voice had sunk to a whisper. Had she actually said goodnight? She hadn’t. She had passed out. He should have guessed. But he himself had been overwhelmed by tiredness. Not lucid. She died without a sound, transformed into matter.
Dan! Dan! He heard his wife’s voice calling. Are you still there? Dan, say something! Yes, he said. I’m sorry. Listen, Dan, are you listening? Yes. Is she there now? Who? Minnie. Of course she’s here, she . . . Dan, call Mattheson, now, at once! Things can only get worse if you wait. Call him now! Mattheson’s been playing a double game, Judge Savage said. I don’t trust him . . . Dan, call him. You’ve got to call someone. He might be able . . . It was Mattheson leaking those stories to the press. He was . . . Dan, don’t be ridiculous! Hilary’s voice was loud and harsh. Call him! He’s on your side. You’ve got to call the police.
He put the phone down and turned back to the girl. Gently, he pulled the eyelids down. Her face was still wet from the water he had thrown. But more dignified with the eyes closed. Remembering what they had done to his dead father, he went to the curtains, detached a velvet pink sash and tied it round over the top of her head and under the chin to close the mouth. The jaw was stiff and he had to pull hard. The sash was garish round the grey face, but she looked more dignified with eyes closed, with mouth closed. Closed in on oneself, one is more dignified. He saw that.
He went to the bathroom to shower. But no sooner was he in there than he was overcome by anxiety, by a strange longing. He got out and dressed. It was twenty past eight. He hadn’t called Mattheson. There were three or four hand towels. He filled the basin with warm water and went back into the other room. As expected, the mattress had a plastic cover under the sheets. How often did we make love? he wondered, stripping off her clothes. He had never taken her to a hotel. The arms wouldn’t come. At least four times. Maybe more. He took the nail scissors from his washing kit and sawed through the thin sweater. They went to the warehouse with its piles of rugs. The jeans were filthy. In the end that was more fun, less romantic. He wiped her hard with the top sheet, then eased out the under-sheet and wrapped the filthy clothes into them. She was on her side, on the plastic. It was Jane who always complained about the plastic sheets hotels used. With Jane he went to hotels. In the bathroom he dipped a towel in warm water. He wrung it out carefully, then hurried through t
o the bedroom and washed the sweat off her back and the mess from between her legs. He soaked another towel. He wiped her limbs, her small breasts, her belly. The stiffness of the belly was frightening. At least four times, he told himself, in her father’s warehouse, probably a cover for God knows what. At least they won’t be able to say I didn’t wash the girl.
He didn’t call Mattheson. Will the jury be out all day tomorrow? Laura asked, putting her head round the door. For an eternity, he told her. Daniel waited. His desk was stacked with papers accumulating information on people’s crimes and misdemeanours, their alibis and confessions. Footsteps hurried along the corridor. The walls were full of files. And each of five judges’ chambers were similarly crammed with such files and in the basement of the court complex room after room was stacked from ceiling to floor, shelf after shelf after shelf, with the immensely complicated details of crime after crime after crime and all the mad invention and tedious bureaucracy that surrounded every trial in the interminable antagonism of true and false. Surely ninety percent of what had been said in R.v. Sayle wasn’t true. Before being reduced in the end to microfiche. While ninety percent of what was true hadn’t been said, or even imagined perhaps. Minnie was reduced to matter while I slept beside her, Judge Savage thought. But she wouldn’t dissolve. He had washed her, but he couldn’t wash her away. I don’t want to wash her away, he decided. Minnie was a nice girl.
What am I waiting for, he suddenly asked himself. He didn’t know. For someone to advise me, perhaps. For a phone-call, from Kathleen Connolly, a knock on the door. Yes, once again I am waiting for someone who will advise me, as Hilary and Martin always advised me. I am waiting for someone I will be a pushover for, as I was always a pushover for Frank, and for Mattheson. And Christine. Suddenly resolute, he stood up, gathered his things and hurried out.