Death of a Murderer

by Rupert Thomson

  “What is it?” he said.

  “My father,” she said. “He’s always been afraid of the police.” She paused. “You could do something.”

  “Like what?”

  “You could frighten him, somehow,” she said, her eyes on him now. “Frighten him to death.”

  To frighten someone to death. That was just a figure of speech, wasn’t it? He wanted to laugh, but he could tell that she was serious.

  Two days later, on a foot-beat in the centre of Widnes, he saw Raymond Percival. At first, he thought he must be imagining it. The man standing outside the Landmark had bleached hair, and he was wearing a long black coat, but when his head moved and the club’s security light slanted across his face, there was no mistaking that superior, contemptuous expression. How long had it been? Eleven years? Twelve? And here he was, in Widnes of all places. He had some people with him, older, the women in high heels. As Billy approached, still not certain what to do, Raymond flicked his cigarette into the gutter. He didn’t notice Billy—or if he did, he chose not to register the fact—and Billy kept on walking, his right hand almost brushing the back of Raymond’s coat. He only stopped when he had turned the corner, and then, in the quiet of a dead-end street, he leaned against a wall. He thought of the slogan Raymond had quoted once, and said the words out loud: “Sexton’s have solved the mystery of elegant living.” Then, laughing, he looked up into the murky, grey-orange sky. He hadn’t spoken to Raymond. They hadn’t even exchanged a glance. Simply to have set eyes on him, though, after all these years! For Raymond to appear out of the blue like that at such a crucial time…

  The following week, Billy called Venetia at work and asked where her father lived. She gave him the address.

  “What are you going to do?” she said.

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “Maybe nothing.”

  He had to set her free, but wasn’t sure how far he could go. There were so many factors to take into account. Sometimes he wondered what Raymond would have done in his position—Raymond who was always so confident, even when he was in the wrong…One thought, above all others, was ever present in the back of Billy’s mind: no matter what he did, he would be unlikely to profit from it. In the long run, favours win you nothing but resentment. Gratitude’s a double-edged sword.

  One Saturday night, at about eleven, he let himself out of his flat. He was wearing a bomber jacket and a pair of jeans; the roll-bag in his right hand contained his uniform. It had rained earlier, but the sky was clearing. Clouds moving fast. He walked over to the next street, the bluish-white glow of TVs filling almost every front room. Match of the Day was on. In the gutter near his car was an umbrella blown inside-out, which made him think of the girl he and Neil had found in a club a few weeks back. She’d drunk too much and ended up on the toilet floor with her dress over her face. As he unlocked his car, he could hear people shouting in the distance. Some pub kicking out.

  He drove over the Runcorn–Widnes bridge, its struts criss-crossing above his head. Once on the south side, there was almost no traffic. Sometimes a taxi would cruise past in the fast lane, men full of beer being ferried back to their four-bedroom houses after a day at the football or the races. He slowed for a roundabout, then followed the signs to North Wales. The road was even emptier now. To the west, over the marshy fields, he could see flames burning in the tops of chimneys at the oil refinery. Twenty-five to twelve, and most of the clouds had blown away, though the weather-man was forecasting rain before morning.

  He took a right turn, on to the A540. The smell of silage stole into the car. He was entering the Wirral, where Venetia’s father lived, and a knot formed in his stomach. He switched the radio off; the voices were too warm, too reassuring. What he was about to do lay to one side of all that.

  Beyond Heswall, Billy parked on an unlit lane and walked off into a copse with his bag. When he was hidden from the road, he quickly changed into his uniform. At home, he had removed his silver epaulette numbers and replaced them in a jumbled order, on the off-chance that McGarry made a note of his number and reported him. He doubted that anyone would think of checking officers as far afield as Widnes. Still, it was best to take precautions.

  As he continued towards West Kirby, the houses fell away. At first, the land opened out into a kind of heath or common—a golf course wouldn’t have looked out of place—but then high walls of gorse-studded rock closed in around the car. He turned left at a junction marked by an obelisk, the road doubling back on itself and looping down towards the river. The cul-de-sac where McGarry lived appeared on his right—he had memorised the address—but he drove beyond it, parking in a pub car-park at the bottom of the hill. Since he was in uniform, every action had to be carried out with absolute conviction and authority. He was on duty now. He was the law.

  From the car-park a footpath led back up the hill. Trees dripping and creaking, uneven walls of ivy-covered brick. There were some steps, then the path narrowed. Billy emerged halfway along the cul-de-sac, with McGarry’s house directly in front of him. His footsteps echoed as he crossed the street. To his left, a thin moon tilted above a steep slate roof.

  McGarry’s front door was on the right side of the house and set well back from the pavement. Billy didn’t hesitate. As he started up the path, a high leylandii hedge screened him from the next-door neighbours, but he could still be spotted by the people living opposite. Not that they would be able to describe him. It was dark, and he was more than fifty yards away. Once people noticed a uniform, it tended to blind them to all sorts of other details. A policeman, they would say, and they might have some vague notion of his size or height, but that would be all. In any case, Billy’s aim was not so much to come and go unseen as to conceal his actual identity. If a neighbour saw a policeman arrive, so much the better. It would put McGarry under still more pressure. After all, the police don’t appear in the middle of the night unless it’s serious. Were a neighbour to bring up the subject, casually, in conversation, McGarry would be unlikely to tell the truth. Given what Billy was about to say, he also doubted that McGarry would go to the authorities. If he did, he would only draw attention to the secret he had hidden successfully for so many years. In the end, then, having thought the whole thing through, Billy wasn’t convinced that he would need an alibi at all.

  He rang the bell twice, firmly, and stood back. He glanced at his watch. Twelve twenty-three. Somewhere in the depths of the house he imagined that he heard a click. He was about to ring again when a voice spoke from the other side of the door.

  “Who is it? Who’s there?”

  The Scottish accent was unmistakable. Billy had come to the right house.

  “Open the door,” he said. “This is the police.”

  Not a sound from inside. Had McGarry’s heart lurched at the mention of the word “police”? Was Billy’s strategy already beginning to take effect?

  At last a key turned in the lock, and the door opened, revealing an old man in a dark-red dressing-gown and leather slippers.

  Billy took out his pocketbook and consulted a blank page. “Mr. McGarry?” he said. “Mr. George McGarry?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m a police officer. I need to talk to you—in private.”

  “I was asleep.”

  “I’m afraid this can’t wait.” Billy stepped past him into the hall.

  Once the old man had locked the front door again, he opened a door to his immediate left and switched on the light. Billy followed him into a library. Its many shelves were filled with non-fiction, mostly, and works of reference, but there was also evidence of McGarry’s interests and accomplishments: paintings of racehorses and battleships hung on the walls, and the mantelpiece was crowded with sporting trophies—rowing, tennis, golf—all of which McGarry seemed to have won himself. On the sideboard, flanking a glass case that contained a scale model of an ocean liner, were two photographs in silver frames, one of Venetia, the other of a girl who was fuller in the face, and lighter in colouring. This w
ould be Margaret, the sister. Significantly, both pictures had been taken when the girls were much younger.

  The old man was surveying Billy from a position just inside the door, the whites of his eyes visible below his pupils so that he appeared to be looking into the air above Billy’s head, or at some judgement that might, at that very minute, be hanging over him. Of the energy and charm that Venetia had alluded to, there was no sign, illness and old age having taken their toll. His face was flushed, and the skin around his mouth and eyes was pouchy, loose, discoloured; he looked like what he was, a man in his early seventies with a bad heart. None of this was entirely unexpected. What Billy hadn’t reckoned on—or even considered—was the family resemblance. When Venetia told him how her father had abused her, he had imagined a deviant, a pervert, someone who stood out from the rest of society, but this old man not only resembled any other old man you might see on the street or in a shop, he also resembled his daughter. He looked like Venetia. This bizarre similarity wrongfooted Billy for a moment, and he found himself wondering why Venetia hardly ever mentioned her mother. In that hotel in the North Pennines, she had described her mother as “delicate,” he remembered, and it occurred to him that Mrs. McGarry must already be dead.

  “Well?” the old man said. “What is it?”

  The curt tone, a relic of McGarry’s arrogance, gave Billy his ground back.

  “Some allegations have been made against you,” he said. “Some very serious allegations.”

  “Allegations? What allegations? What are you talking about?”

  The old man turned and lowered himself into a nearby chair. He was avoiding eye contact and using too many words, which Billy interpreted as signs of unease, if not of guilt.

  “Sexual abuse,” Billy said, “of minors.”

  “What? How dare you!”

  “We have it on good authority, Mr. McGarry, that you’ve had sex with underage girls. You’ve been interfering with young girls—”

  “Don’t use those words in my house.” Rising out of his chair, the old man seemed about to launch himself at Billy; white froth had gathered at the corners of his mouth. “This is my house. You’re not using language like that in here.”

  “You never spared a thought for them, did you? You never cared about them. You only ever thought about yourself.”

  As always.

  “Get out of here,” the old man said.

  Billy lowered his voice. “You’re a child-molester, McGarry. You’re a paedophile, a kiddy-fiddler. You’re a nonce.” He could feel all the words lining up now, ready to spill; he was almost smiling at how straightforward it was. “Do you know what happens to people like you in prison? Your life’s a misery from the second you wake up to the second you go to sleep—if you dare to go to sleep, that is. You’ll be praying for sleep, but you won’t want to risk it. Because of what might happen while you’re not looking. Sooner or later, everybody in there will find out what you are. The screws will see to that. Do you know what they do to people like you?”

  “There aren’t any people like me,” the old man shouted hoarsely.

  My God, Billy thought. He must have run through this scene a hundred times, but he had never imagined such defiance. For a moment, the room whirled, a surreal merry-go-round of horses, books, and silver cups. He walked over to the window and parted the curtains. The street was quiet. Hardly any lights on in the houses opposite. Nobody about.

  “This is a nice area,” he said, still looking through the window, “but I’m not sure how much longer you’re going to be able to live here.”

  He had the eerie feeling that the old man might be about to attack him with a blunt object, and he quickly faced back into the room. Though McGarry’s mouth was twitching and the skin under his eyes had turned a mottled whitish-grey, he was motionless, seeming to hang in the middle of the room, as if suspended, and Billy was reminded briefly of the incident in Weston Point, the wild arcs of the walking stick, the bits of glass showering through the air.

  “Everyone’s going to find out what you did,” Billy said, his voice still even, calm, “and when that happens, the past will count for nothing. All this”—and he glanced round at the paintings, the trophies—“all this will turn to shit. You’ll be the scum of the earth from that point on—for ever. Your good name, if you’ve got one, will be dragged through the mud. The newspapers will take care of that.

  “Even if you’re proved innocent—which is a verdict I can’t see myself—they’ll never believe it,” and he angled his head towards the bay window behind him, “not out there. The people out there will make your life hell because, for them, there’s nothing worse than somebody like you.” He paused. “No, not hell,” he said. “Much worse than that.”

  “You can fuck right off.” McGarry spat the words in his direction. “Fuck off out of here.”

  Billy felt an irresistible force propel him across the room until he was so close to the old man that he could smell the wet-hay smell of his breath.

  “I don’t think you’ve been listening to me, McGarry,” Billy said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to have you. You’re going to fucking pay.” And he gave the old man a shove in the chest.

  McGarry toppled backwards into his armchair. “That’s assault,” he said, but his voice had lost all its power.

  “Well,” Billy said, “you should know.”

  He was still standing over the old man, but the old man stared right through him. The dark-red dressing-gown had fallen open, revealing a triangle of thin, translucent skin, the white of the breastbone almost visible beneath.

  “I don’t feel very well,” the old man said.

  Billy left the room. Unlocking the front door, he let himself out. McGarry would never admit his own guilt. He was incapable of that. Still, at least someone had told him the truth…Billy stood under a streetlamp and checked his watch. He had been in the house for just eleven minutes.

  He set off down the hill. The night smelled of the river. Above a cluster of black trees, the moon looked thinner, sharper. Climbing into his car, he fitted the key in the ignition. His actions felt heightened but claustrophobic; if he moved his hand, it seemed to leave staggered versions of itself in the air behind it.

  After Heswall, he saw a farm off to the left. Dark windows, nobody awake. Parking his car, he walked until he found some bags of silage piled in the corner of a field. He began to hit the nearest bag, his fists slamming into the shiny plastic. He carried on punching until his arms felt slow and heavy, then he stood back, panting. There was a breeze now, and it had brought clouds with it. He waited for his breathing to calm down, then returned to his car and drove away.

  When he had left the Wirral, he switched the radio on. News and sport. The weather. He kept thinking he could smell rotten vegetables. At some point, maybe, the bag containing the silage had split. He took his right hand off the wheel and brought it up to his nose. Oh God, that was awful. But he’d had to release some of his frustration. McGarry, though…He still couldn’t believe the fury—the self-righteous fury—of that old man. How dare you. Fuck off out of here. Perhaps the fact that he had woken from a deep sleep had insulated him from the shock he might otherwise have felt at Billy’s appearance on his doorstep—or perhaps the defiance was a symptom of his fear.

  Billy had been shocked by his own behaviour too. The words that had streamed out of him, the quiet, vicious threats. The air of menace. He’d been better at it than he’d imagined he would be, which wasn’t an entirely comfortable thought. In going over certain aspects of the encounter, he had to keep reminding himself that he was the one who was in the right.

  He didn’t speak to Venetia for more than a week. He couldn’t decide how much to tell her, what to say. When he finally called, her voice sounded smaller than usual, and flatter, and he knew right away that something had happened. She had some strange news, she said. Her father had died.

  “What?” he said. “When?”

  “I just heard.”

&n
bsp; She didn’t say when exactly the death had occurred, and he didn’t ask.

  Still holding the phone, he looked out of the window. A woman was wheeling a pushchair down the middle of Frederick Street. Her child was clutching a brightly coloured plastic windmill, and Billy heard the spokes revolving in slow-motion, the sound as weighty and liquid as a helicopter’s rotor blades. He felt as if his head might float backwards into the room, leaving his body where it was.

  “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose it’s what you wanted…”

  Venetia didn’t answer.

  “Isn’t it?” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? Listen, I’m at home. Could you come over?”

  “No. There’s too much going on. The funeral…”

  Frederick Street was deserted now. Turning away from the window, Billy stared out across his living-room. “Do you need anything?”

  “Don’t call me again,” she said.

  They didn’t see each other for several weeks. At work, he seemed to be waiting for something without necessarily knowing what that something was. People kept asking him if he was ill. Once, he went to the pub on Paradise Street with Neil, but Venetia wasn’t there.

  “Remember the last time we came here?” he said.

  Neil nodded. “I only had two pints. I had to leave early.”

  “There was an Indian girl sitting behind you.”

  “Indian girl?” Neil looked blank.

  On the pretence of visiting the Gents, Billy checked the bar on the first floor. It was empty, but he saw that they had bought a new black ball for the pool table. He cupped it for a moment in his hand, then sent it rolling slowly down the table. He watched as it rebounded off the far cushion with a noise that was like a soft full stop.

  Then, one evening, his bell rang, and when he opened the door she was standing on the pavement. He knew that a long time had gone by because he didn’t recognise anything she was wearing. The lemony gleam she used to have had faded: her skin looked dry, and slightly dusty. He asked her in. Upstairs, he offered her a beer—it was all he had—but she shook her head. She’d stopped drinking, she told him.