Death of a Murderer

by Rupert Thomson

  There were people things happened to. Billy knew that because he’d been one of them himself—for a while, anyway. The boy in the swimming-trunks had been another. So, for that matter, had Trevor Lydgate. What was the quality they shared? Were they unlucky, or naive, or were they simply weak? He couldn’t decide. Nowadays, of course, they would be called victims. Not a word you’d ever think of applying to Raymond.

  Halfway through their European holiday, while they were exploring the chilly, urine-scented passageways of the Colosseum, Raymond started telling Billy about the next stop on their itinerary. There were some volcanic lakes to the north of the city, apparently, where Roman emperors used to bathe. He thought these lakes ought to be worth a visit.

  They caught a train to Bracciano, then hitched a ride in a lorry that was loaded with gravel. The man behind the wheel had bloodshot eyes and stubble. As he drove he drank red wine from a huge, clear, pear-shaped bottle. A piece of rolled-up rag served as a cork. He offered Raymond and Billy the bottle, and because it seemed expected they had several large gulps each. The wine was inky and brackish; Billy was sure he could taste the man’s saliva. “Grazie tanto, signore,” Raymond said as he handed the bottle back. “Molto gentile.” The lorry-driver grunted, then spat out of the window.

  They had to walk the last two miles down a white track, and before too long their shoes were pale with dust. “Una strada bianca,” Raymond said, half to himself. Billy wondered where Raymond had learned the language. They didn’t teach Italian at school.

  The sky had clouded over, but it was hot, and the cicadas were so loud that Billy felt as if they were actually inside his head. He hurled a stone at the trees, and the chattering stopped abruptly. Just as he was about to congratulate himself, though, it all started up again, even louder and more grating than before. He glanced at Raymond, but Raymond seemed quite oblivious, his hands in his trouser pockets, his fedora tilted jauntily over one eye. He had picked a purple flower, Billy noticed, and threaded it through his lapel.

  After about an hour, they saw the lake below them, away to their left. From above, it looked circular, and hard as well, somehow. Like a lid. A path curved steeply down through dusty woods. At the top two cars were parked side by side. One had its headlights on, which Billy found slightly sinister.

  Raymond set off down the path, and Billy followed, the trees offering some welcome coolness. Billy paused to remove his shoes and socks. After taking a few steps in bare feet, he called out to Raymond.

  “It’s so soft, like powder. You should try it.”

  Raymond glanced at him over his shoulder, but kept going.

  At the bottom of the hill they came out on to a wide, pale-yellow beach. They appeared to be the only people there. Perhaps the weather was too cloudy for the locals, Billy thought—or perhaps they were all indoors, having siestas. He could see no houses, though, not even one. The place excited him, and he was glad Raymond had suggested it.

  “This is great,” he shouted.

  He rolled up his trousers and walked slowly into the lake. The water seemed sensitive, as if every movement that he made could be felt out in the middle, and on the far shore too. At the same time, it had a stealthy quality, a kind of silkiness. Something to do with volcanic ash, no doubt. Or lava. Hearing a cry, he turned round. Raymond was waving from further along the beach. He was trying to drag a boat down to the water and needed Billy’s help.

  The boat was a miniature catamaran, with two moulded plastic seats and two sets of pedals. Though rusty, it looked as if it might still work. Taking one side each, they pushed it into the lake, then scrambled on board and started pedalling. The sky seemed lower now, and strangely green; the day had darkened. Billy wondered whether there was going to be a storm. What if lightning struck the water? Would they be killed? He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  “It’s hot, isn’t it?” he said.

  Raymond took off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of his seat. “Why don’t you have a dip?”

  Billy eyed the surface of the lake, opaque, impenetrable. They were a long way from the shore. Though he was still sweating, a shiver passed through him. “I don’t really like deep water,” he said. “I never have.”

  “Just lower yourself over the side,” Raymond said, “and then hold on. You’ll be fine.”

  Billy wasn’t sure.

  “It’ll cool you down, won’t it?” Raymond said. “And when you’ve had enough, you can climb back into the boat.”

  Billy nodded slowly. “I suppose so.”

  As he undressed, he was aware of Raymond watching, and he felt embarrassed by his body, so big and white and clumsy. He hurriedly stowed his T-shirt and jeans behind his seat, then, wearing nothing but a pair of Y-fronts, lowered himself backwards into the lake. He gasped with shock and pleasure as the water took hold of him. It was colder out here in the middle, far colder than he’d imagined.

  He gripped the side of the boat with both hands, as Raymond had suggested. It wasn’t easy. The wet plastic was smooth, slippery.

  “It’s fantastic, Raymond,” he said in a voice made thin and breathy by the cold. “You should come in too.”

  “Why don’t you swim?” Raymond said. “That’s what the Roman emperors did.”

  “All right.”

  As soon as Billy let go, Raymond began to pedal away from him.

  “Raymond?” he called out. “What are you doing?” The gap between Billy and the pedalo was widening, and he knew he had no chance of closing it. He’d never been much of a swimmer. “Come back.”

  Raymond was looking at him over his shoulder, but he was still pedalling.

  “Please,” Billy said. “I’m not joking.”

  The water in front of him had a terrible blackness to it, and he couldn’t allow himself to think about what might be under there, or how deep the lake might be. His chest had tightened: he couldn’t breathe properly. He stopped trying to swim, but treading water felt worse. He saw his body dangling, as if from below. It was the point of view of something that lived on the bottom—or something that had died.

  His legs were moving in slow-motion; they were slender, feeble, pale as roots.

  “Raymond! Please!”

  Water poured into his mouth.

  Gradually, the pedalo swung round until Raymond was facing him again, but Raymond’s eyes had no light in them, no feeling. They looked flat, like bits of paper; if you poked one with a finger it would tear, and there’d be nothing behind the hole, just darkness.

  Choking, Billy sank below the surface, then rose again and found some air. Thirty feet away, the boat sat on the lake. It seemed higher than Billy, as if the water had a gradient to it, as if it sloped uphill. The splashing sounds that he was making took place in a vast, bored silence, and would soon be swallowed by it.

  Then, with a certain reluctance, Raymond started pedalling towards him. At last, Billy was able to grab hold of the side and haul himself back into the boat. Wrapping his arms around himself, he hunched over in the seat. Despite the heat, he was shivering.

  “You bastard,” he said in a low voice.

  But Raymond was staring at the trees on the far shore. He appeared not to have heard.

  “Bastard,” Billy said again.

  Raymond reached behind the seat for Billy’s T-shirt. “Here. Put this on.”

  “What did you do that for?” Billy said. “I could have drowned.”

  Raymond smiled. “Let’s go and get something to drink.” He glanced over his shoulder, back towards the beach. “There was a little bar there. Did you see?”

  The moment when Billy could have hit him was already gone. Instead, he lapsed into a sullen silence, hardly bothering to pedal, which meant that Raymond had to do most of the work. After a while, Billy began to feel as if he was the one in the wrong. That was the thing about Raymond. He had this uncanny knack of turning everything on its head. And before Billy knew it, gratitude was lifting through him. He was grateful to have been included in
Raymond’s new initiative, and for the hint of affection that he had detected in Raymond’s voice. Did you see?

  Looking at the shore, he noticed a wooden hut or kiosk set back in the shadow of the trees. Above the open hatch was a faded Campari sign. At the front, on the sand, were several benches and trestle tables, the wood buckled, silver-grey. Once they had hauled the pedalo out of the water, Raymond and Billy walked over to the hut where a man in a soiled white vest sold them two bottles of lemon soda. They both drank thirstily.

  When they turned to go, three other men were standing on the beach, no more than fifteen feet away. They wore shabby, colourless clothing, and their faces were dark from the sun.

  Raymond started speaking in Italian, but one of the men talked over him. He kept his eyes fixed on Raymond, though he seemed to be addressing the men behind him, and his voice sounded dismissive, contemptuous. Every now and then, he would punctuate his speech with abrupt, violent gestures that Billy didn’t understand. Perhaps he and Raymond were trespassing—or perhaps the men owned that little boat…Though the man was still talking, Raymond had moved off along the beach, making for the path that led back up the hill. He kept his head down and walked quickly. Billy took one last look at the three men, then hurried after him.

  Halfway to the path, Billy heard a sound behind him and turned round.

  “Raymond?” he said in a shaky voice.

  The three men had surrounded the man in the dirty vest, and they were punching him. Though it was happening about a hundred yards away, Billy could hear the blows—solid, weighty, dull, like somebody beating a carpet. As he watched, the man in the vest dropped to his knees, but the other men kept hitting him, taking it in turns. It was all amazingly slow and deliberate.

  “Keep going,” Raymond said.

  But Billy was still hesitating. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  Once they had entered the woods, Raymond spoke again. “They thought we were queer.”

  “What?” Billy’s voice was almost shrill. “That’s ridiculous.” They were both panting as they climbed the hill, the sandy soil working against them now. Billy glanced over his shoulder. “Do you think they’ll come after us?”

  Raymond didn’t answer.

  When they reached the top, the cars were still there. The one on the right had its lights on, as before. It was at least two miles to the road, but Billy and Raymond had no choice. They began to walk.

  A white crack showed briefly above the high ground to the south. Lightning. Billy counted the seconds, bracing himself for thunder. None came. But the air seemed to have thickened all around them.

  They had only been on the track for a few minutes when Billy heard the cars. First one engine started, then the other. He sent Raymond a wild look. “It’s them!”

  Raymond didn’t react.

  With a cry, Billy plunged down a bank of stiff yellow grass into the undergrowth. He lay on his stomach and covered his head with his hands. The cars slowed down, as he had known they would. He heard Raymond’s voice, then another voice. A man’s. A door slammed. The cars both revved savagely, and then drove on.

  When the sound of their engines had died away, Billy climbed cautiously back up the grass bank. The track was empty. Raymond had gone.

  Panic and helplessness prevented him from doing anything at all for quite some time. The sky seemed to heap itself on top of him. Sweat stuck his T-shirt to his back. In the end, he realised there was nothing for it but to carry on towards the road. Certainly he wasn’t about to go back to the lake. He would have to hitch a lift into the nearest town and report the incident to the police. It wasn’t going to be easy because he didn’t speak the language. He didn’t know what the Italian for “car” was, for instance. He didn’t even know the word for “man.”

  “Impossible,” he said out loud.

  His voice sounded weak in the harsh landscape.

  As he trudged along, his mind began to fill with all kinds of scenarios. Raymond had been kidnapped—but what for? The men would rob him at the very least. He might be beaten up as well, or even killed.

  Billy imagined Raymond’s gangster hat lying upside-down on a deserted road.

  Though it was starting to get dark by the time he reached the end of the track, it didn’t seem any cooler. He stood still for a moment, trying to remember which way they had come. To his right, on a bend in the road, he saw a cluster of lights. It looked like a restaurant. Perhaps he would find help there.

  When he pushed the door open, he saw Raymond sitting at a table by the wall, eating a pizza. Billy was so astonished that he couldn’t speak.

  Raymond glanced up. “You took your time.” He was chewing with such relish that knots of muscle showed beside his ears. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Yes, but what happened?”

  “I got a lift.” Raymond laughed. “You didn’t think I was going to walk, did you?” He drank from a tall glass, then reached for another slice of pizza.

  “But the men—those men—”

  “What men?”

  “The ones on the beach.”

  It turned out that they hadn’t been involved at all. The cars belonged to a group of young Romans who had been taking drugs in the woods. Raymond had flagged them down and then smoked a joint with them. They had stopped at the restaurant because they were starving.

  “They only left about five minutes ago,” Raymond said. “Jesus, this pizza’s good.”

  Billy shook his head. “I’m such an idiot.”

  Raymond ordered another beer. The waitress had straight black hair and sallow skin, and her lips were a curious deep-purple colour, almost aubergine. There were dark rings under her eyes. Raymond watched her walk back across the restaurant, then he turned to Billy. “She looks like a vampire,” he said, “don’t you think?”

  Still standing outside the hospital mortuary, Billy noticed a movement at the far end of the corridor. Not a drowned boy or a fish, but a figure in dark clothes. This would be one of his colleagues, he thought, coming to relieve him. He checked his watch. Yes, it was nearly four. Another break, and then just a couple of hours to go. He watched as the policeman passed through alternating areas of light and shadow, almost vanishing one moment, only to emerge seconds later, bathed in a glow that was subterranean, oceanic. There was something hypnotic about the man’s calm progress, something almost eternal, and yet Billy felt separate from it, excluded. Like death looking at life.

  Finally the constable stopped in front of him. “Not late, am I?”

  “No, no,” Billy said. “Right on time.”

  29

  On his way to the snack bar, images from that day by the lake in Italy still lingered. He couldn’t remember what had happened after he walked into the roadside pizzeria. Had Raymond spent the night with that waitress? Billy had a vague memory of sleeping in a stuffy back room with all the cleaning equipment, and Raymond not being there, Raymond being somewhere else…

  As Billy passed a toilet, the door opened and Phil Shaw appeared. His face looked chapped and blotchy. Probably he had been dowsing it in cold water, trying to keep himself awake.

  “On your break, Billy?”

  “I’m going to get a cup of soup,” Billy said. “I think I saw some in one of the machines.”

  “Mind if I come with you?”

  “Course not.”

  At that moment, a nurse darted round them and into a nearby ward. On reaching the doorway, which was open, they both paused, curious as to the reason for her haste. Illuminated by a single lamp, an old man was sitting up in bed and vomiting stringy yellow fluid down the front of his pyjamas. “Oh God,” he gasped between oddly effortless bouts of retching. “God, bugger. Fuck.” One of the nurses attending to him held a grey cardboard container below his chin. He vomited again. “Disgusting,” he said. “This is bloody disgusting.” Another nurse arrived with a fresh pair of pyjamas. Phil touched Billy on the shoulder, and the two men moved on.


  They covered fifty yards without speaking, then Phil gave Billy a sideways look. “Still want that soup?”

  30

  Phil was shaking his head. “You know, I never really understood it…”

  Billy smiled. “There’s nothing to understand.”

  “But you seem like such a natural for a sergeant.”

  “I just didn’t want to be one. I still don’t.”

  “What’s wrong with being a sergeant?”

  “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it.” Billy blew on his black coffee to cool it down. He could feel Phil watching him. “Not everyone’s ambitious,” he said. “I like being on the streets, I suppose. Close to the ground. Where things happen.”

  “Even at your age?”

  Phil was mocking him, but he was also making a serious point, which Billy took on board. “Well, we all burn out sooner or later,” he said, “whichever route we take.” He was thinking of Neil, of course. Neil who now lived above a launderette. Neil who claimed that there was nothing quite as soothing as drifting off to sleep to the sound of half a dozen giant tumble dryers.

  “I still don’t understand it,” Phil said.

  “This may disappoint you,” Billy said, “but I’m just keeping my head down, to be honest. It’s only a few years till I get my pension.” He paused. “I’ve put a lot into the job—maybe too much. I need to start thinking about my family.”

  Phil held Billy’s gaze for a moment longer, then nodded slowly and looked down into his coffee.

  It was different for Phil, Billy thought. He’d only done ten years. He still had a taste for the work, and someone in that position would find it hard to imagine what it felt like to be coming out the other side.

  “Do you remember the barbecue we had at your place?” Phil said after a brief silence. “We were out in the garden, and suddenly that old bloke who was riding down the track fell off his bike.”

  “Harry Parsons,” Billy said. “He hit a stone or something.”