The Fallen Curtain

by Ruth Rendell

  “Good old dog,” Dick said. He scorned the popular way of calling dogs boy. They weren’t boys. Boys were dirty and smelly and noisy and uncontrolled. “You’re a cracker, you are. You’re a fine old dog.”

  The Chief behaved in a grander manner. Such signs of affection and gratitude would have been inconsistent with his pedigree and his dignified presence. Dick and Monty knew their place and they both stepped aside to allow the Chief to pass majestically through the doorway and resume his position on the settee. Dick pushed Monty’s chair nearer to the radiator. Half past six. He finished his gin.

  “I have to go out now,” he said, “but I’ll be back by ten at the latest, so you get a bit of shut-eye and when I come back we’ll all have a good walk. O.K.?”

  Monty came to the front door with him. He always had and always would, though his hind legs were stiff with rheumatism. We all have to get old, Dick thought; I’ll have to face up to it, I’m going to lose him this year or next…. He knelt down by the door and did what he’d never done to man, woman, or child—performed that disgusting act which sickened him when he saw it done by human beings to human beings. Holding Monty’s head in his hands, he pressed his lips to the wrinkled forehead. Monty wagged his tail and emitted little grunts of happiness. Dick closed the door and got his car out of the garage.

  He drove it two or three hundred yards down the street to the phone box. For business he never used his own phone but one or other of the call boxes between his house and the George Tavern. Five minutes to go and the bell inside it would begin to ring. Unless something went wrong again, of course. Unless, once more, things weren’t working out the way she’d planned them. The stupid—what? Dick hated the habit of using the names of female animals—bitch, cow, mare—as insulting epithets for women. When he wanted to express his loathing for the sex he chose one of the succinct four-letter words or the five-letter one that was the worst he could think of—woman. He used it now, rolling it on his tongue. Stupid, bloody, greedy, God-damned woman!

  When his watch showed nearly a quarter to seven, he went into the box. He only had to wait sixty seconds. The bell began to ring on the dot of a quarter to. Dick lifted the receiver and spoke the password that would tell her it was he and not some interfering busybody answering phones for the hell of it.

  He’d never heard her voice before. It was nervous, upper-class, a thousand miles from any world in which he’d ever moved. “It’s going to be all right tonight,” she said.

  “About time.” All their previous transactions had been arranged through his contact and every plan had come to grief through a hold-up at her end. It was six weeks since he’d had the tip-off and the first instalment. “Let’s have it then.”

  She cleared her throat. “Listen, I don’t want you to know anything about us—who we are, I mean. Agreed?”

  As if he cared who they were or what dirty passions had brought her to this telephone, this conspiracy. But he said contemptuously, “It’ll be in the papers, won’t it?”

  Fear thinned her voice. “You could blackmail me!”

  “And you could blackmail me, come to that. It’s a risk we have to take. Now get on with it, will you?”

  “All right. He’s not been well but he’s better now and he’s started taking his usual walk again. He’ll leave this house at half past eight and walk through the West Heath path towards the Finchley Road. You don’t have to know why or where he’s going. That’s not your business.”

  “I couldn’t care less,” said Dick.

  “It’ll be best for you to wait in one of the lonelier bits of the path, as far from the houses as you can.”

  “You can leave all that to me. I know the area. How’ll I know it’s him?”

  “He’s fifty, well-built, middle height, silver hair, small moustache. He won’t be wearing a hat. He’ll have on a black overcoat with a black fur collar over a grey tweed suit. He ought to get to the middle of the West Heath path by ten to nine.” The voice wavered slightly. “It won’t be too messy, will it? How will you do it?”

  “D’you expect me to tell you that on the phone?”

  “No, perhaps not. You’ve had the first thousand?”

  “For six weeks,” said Dick.

  “I couldn’t help the delay. It wasn’t my fault. You’ll get the rest within a week, in the way you got the first….”

  “Through the usual channel. Is that all? Is that all I have to know?”

  “I think so,” she said. “There’s one other thing—no, it doesn’t matter.” She hesitated. “You won’t fail me, will you? Tonight’s the last chance. If it doesn’t happen tonight, there’s no point in its happening at all. The whole situation changes tomorrow and I shan’t…”

  “Good-bye,” said Dick, slamming down the receiver to cut short the voice that was growing hysterical. He didn’t want to know any of the circumstances or be involved in her sick emotions. Bloody—woman. Not that he had any qualms. He’d have killed a hundred men for what she was paying him to kill one, and he was interested only in the money. What did it matter to him who he was or she was or why she wanted him out of the way? She might be his wife or his mistress. So what? Such relationships were alien to Dick and the thought of what they implied nauseated him, kissing, embracing, the filthy act they did like—no, not like animals; animals were decent, decorous—like people. He spat into the corner of the kiosk and came out into the cold evening air.

  As he drove up towards Hampstead, he thought of the money. It would be just enough to bring his accumulated savings to his target. For years, ever since he’d got Monty from the pet shop, he’d been working to this end. Confidence tricks, a couple of revenge killings, the odd beating up, casing places for robbery, they’d all been lucrative, and by living modestly—the dogs’ food was his biggest expense—he’d got nearly enough to buy the house he’d got his eye on. It was to be in Scotland, on the north-west coast and miles from a village, a granite croft with enough grounds round it for Monty and the Chief to run free all day. He liked to think of the way they’d look when they saw their own bit of moorland, their own rabbits to chase. He’d have sufficient left over to live on without working for the rest of his life, and maybe he’d get more animals, a horse perhaps, a couple of goats. But no more dogs while Monty was alive. That wouldn’t be fair, and it seemed wrong, the height of treachery, to make plans for after Monty was dead….

  What there wouldn’t be anywhere in the vicinity of his house were people. With luck he wouldn’t hear a human voice from one month’s end to another. The human race, its ugly face, would be excluded for ever. In those hills with Monty and Chief he’d forget how for forty years they’d pressed around him with their cruelty and their baseness, his drunken, savage father, his mother who’d cared only for men and having a good time. Then, later, the foster home, the reform school, the factory girls sniggering at his shyness and his pimply face, the employers who wouldn’t take him because he had a record instead of an education. At last he’d have peace.

  So he had to kill a man to get it? It wouldn’t be the first time. He would kill him without passion or interest, as easily as the slaughterer kills the lamb and with as little mercy. A light blow to the head first, just enough to stun him—Dick wasn’t worried about giving pain but about getting blood on his clothes—and then that decisive pressure just here, on the hyoid….

  Fingering his own neck to site the spot, Dick parked the car and went into a pub for another small gin and water and a sandwich. The licensee’s cat came and sat on his knee. Animals were drawn to him as by a magnet. They knew who their friends were. Pity really that the Chief had such a hatred of cats, otherwise he might have thought of adding a couple to his Scottish menagerie. Half past seven. Dick always allowed himself plenty of time to do a job, take it slowly, that was the way. He put the cat gently on the floor.

  By eight he’d driven up through Hampstead village, along Branch Hill by the Whitestone Pond, and parked the car in West Heath Road. A fine starry night, fro
sty too, like that old fool had said it would be. For a few minutes he sat in the car, turning over in his mind whether there was anything at all to connect him with the woman he’d spoken to. No, there was nothing. His contact was as reliable and trustworthy as any human being could be and the method of handing over the money was foolproof. As for associating him with the man he was going to kill—Dick knew well that the only safe murder is the murder of a complete stranger. Fortunately for him and his clients, he was a stranger to the whole world of men.

  Better go up and look at the path now. He put the car in Templewood Avenue as near as he could to the point where the path left it to wind across West Heath. This was to be on the safe side. There weren’t any real risks, but it was always as well to ensure a quick getaway. He strolled into the path. It led between the fences of gardens, a steep lane about five feet wide, with steps here and there where the incline grew too sharp. At the summit was a street lamp and another about fifty yards further on where the path became walled. Between the lights was a broader sandy space, dotted about with trees and shrubs. He’d do it here, Dick decided. He’d stand among the trees until the man appeared from the walled end, wait until he left the first pool of light but hadn’t yet reached the second, and catch him in the darkest part. No roofs were visible, only the backs of vast gardens, jungly and black, and though the stars were bright, the moon was a thin white curve that gave little light.

  Luckily, the bitter cold was keeping most people indoors. As soon as this thought had passed through his mind, he heard footsteps in the distance and his hand tightened on the padded metal bar in his pocket. But not yet, surely? Not at twenty-five past eight? Or had that fool woman made another of her mistakes? No, this was a girl. The click of her heels told him that, and then he saw her emerge into the lamplight. With a kind of sick curiosity he watched her approach, a tall, slim girl yet with those nauseating repulsive bulges under her coat. She walked swiftly and nervously in this lonely place, looking with swift, birdlike glances to the right and the left, her whole body deformed by the tight, stupid clothes she wore and the stiff stance her heels gave her. No animal grace, no assurance. Dick would dearly have loved to give her a scare, jump on her and shake her till her teeth chattered, or chase her down those steps. But the idea of unnecessary contact with human flesh repelled him. Besides, she’d see his face and know him again when they found the body and raised the hue and cry. What would happen to Monty and the Chief if they caught him and put him inside? The thought made him shudder.

  He let the girl pass by and settled down to wait again. A thin wrack of cloud passed across the stars. All to the good if it got a bit darker…. Twenty to nine. He’d have left by now and be coming up to the Whitestone Pond.

  Dick would have liked a cigarette but decided it wasn’t worth the risk. The smell might linger and alert the man. Again he fingered the metal bar and the thin coil of picture cord. In a quarter of an hour, with luck, it would all be over. Then back home to the Chief and Monty for their evening walk, and tomorrow he’d get on to that house agent he’d seen advertising in the Sunday paper. Completely isolated, he’d say. It must be completely isolated and with plenty of land, maybe near the sea. The Chief would enjoy a swim, though he’d probably never had one in his life, spent as it had been in the dirty back streets of a city. But all dogs could swim by the light of nature. Different from human beings, who had to be taught like they had to be taught every damn-fool stupid thing they undertook….

  Footsteps. Yes, it was time. Ten to nine, and evidently he was of a punctual habit. So much the worse for him. Dick kept perfectly still, staring at the dark hole between the walls, until the vague shape of his quarry appeared at the end of the tunnel. As the man came towards the light, he tensed, closing his hand over the bar. Her description had been precise. It was a stoutish figure that the lamplight showed him, its gleam falling on thick silver hair and the glossy black fur of a coat collar. If Dick had ever felt the slightest doubt as to the ethics of what he was about to do, that sight would have dispelled it. Did scum like that ever pause to think of the sufferings of trapped animals, left to die in agony just to have their pelts stuck on some rich bastard’s coat? Dick gathered saliva in his mouth and spat silently but viciously into the undergrowth.

  The man advanced casually and confidently and the dark space received him. Dick stepped out from among the trees, raised his arm and struck. The man gave a grunt, not much louder than a hiccup, and fell heavily. There was no blood, not a spot. Bracing himself to withstand the disgust contact with a warm, heavily fleshed body would bring, Dick thrust his arms under the sagging shoulders and dragged him under the lamp. He was unconscious and would be for five minutes—except that in five minutes or less he’d be dead.

  Dick didn’t waste time examining the face. He had no interest in it. He put his cosh back in his pocket and brought out the cord. A slip knot here, slide it round here, then a quick tightening of pressure on the hyoid…

  A soft sound stayed him, the cord still slack in his hands. It wasn’t a footstep he’d heard but a light padding. He turned sharply. Out of the tunnel, tail erect, nose to ground, came a hound dog, a black and tan and white basset. It was one of the handsomest dogs Dick had ever seen, but he didn’t want to see it now. Christ, he thought, it’d be bound to come up to him. They always did.

  And sure enough the hound hesitated as it left the darkness and entered the patch of light where Dick was. It lifted its head and advanced on him, waving its tail Dick cursed fate, not the dog, and held out his hand.

  “Good dog,” he whispered. “You’re a cracker. You’re a fine dog, you are. But get out of it now, go off home.”

  The hound resisted his hand with an aloof politeness and, by-passing him, thrust its nose against the unconscious man’s face. Dick didn’t like that much. The guy might wake up.

  “Come on now,” he said, laying his hands firmly on the glossy tricolour coat. “This is no place for you. You get on with your hunting or whatever.”

  But the basset wouldn’t go. Its tail trembled and it whined. It looked at Dick and back at the man and began to make those soft hound cries that are halfway between a whimper and a whistle. And then Dick loosened his hold on the thick, warm pelt. A terrible feeling had come over him, dread coupled with nausea. He felt in the pocket of the black fur-collared coat and brought out what he was afraid to find there—a plaited leather dog leash.

  That God-damned woman! Was that what she’d meant about one other thing but it didn’t matter? That this guy would be coming along here because he was taking his dog for a walk? Didn’t matter—Christ! It didn’t matter the poor little devil seeing its owner murdered and then having to make its own way home across one of the busiest main roads out of London. Or maybe she’d thought he’d kill the dog too. The sheer inhumanity of it made his blood boil. He wanted to kick the man’s face as he lay there, but didn’t like to, couldn’t somehow, with the dog looking on.

  He wouldn’t be done, though. His house in Scotland was waiting for him. He owed it to the Chief and Monty to get that house. All that money wasn’t going to be given up just because she’d gone and got things wrong again. There were ways. Like putting the dog on the leash and taking him back across the road by the Whitestone Pond. He’d be safe then. And so by that time, thought Dick, would his owner who was already stirring and moaning. Or he could put him in the car. God knew, he was gentle enough, utterly trusting, not suspecting what Dick had done, was going to do…. And then? Kill the man and take the dead man’s dog home? Be seen with the dog in his car? That was a laugh. Tie him up to a lamppost? He’d never in his life tied up a dog and he wasn’t going to start now.

  A cold despair took hold of him. He bore the dog no malice, felt for him no anger, nothing more than the helpless resignation of a father whose child has come into a room and interrupted his love-making. The child comes first—inevitably.

  Slowly he put away the cord. He lifted the silver head roughly and the man groaned. There h
ad been a hard metal object in the pocket where the leash was, a brandy flask. Dick uncapped it and poured some of the liquid down the man’s throat. The hound watched, thumping its tail.

  “Where—where am I? Wha—what happened?”

  Dick didn’t bother to answer him.

  “I had a—a bang on the head. God, my head’s sore. I was mugged, was I?” He felt in his pocket and scrabbled with a wallet. “Not touched, thank God. I’ll—I’ll try to sit up. God, that’s better. Where’s Bruce? Oh, there he is. Good boy, Bruce. I’m glad he’s all right.”

  “He’s a fine dog,” Dick said remotely, and then, “Come on, you’d better hang on to me. I’ve got a car.”

  “You’re most kind, most kind. What a blessing for me you came along when you did.”

  Dick said nothing. He almost heaved when the man clung to his arm and leant on him. Bruce anchored to his leash, they set off down the steps to the car. It was a relief to be free of that touch, that solid weight that smelt of the sweat of terror. Dick got Bruce on to the back seat and stroked him, murmuring reassuring words.

  The house he was directed to was a big one, almost a mansion on the East Heath. Lights blazed in its windows. Dick hauled the man out and propelled him up to the front door, leaving Bruce to follow. He rang the bell and a uniformed maid answered. Behind her, in the hall, stood a tall young woman in evening dress.

  She spoke the one word “Father!” and her voice was sick with dismay. But it was the same voice. He recognised it just as she recognised his when, turning away from the glimpse of wealth in that hall, he said, “I’ll be off now.”

  Their eyes met. Her face was chalk-white, made distorted and ugly by the destruction of her hopes. She let her father take her arm and then she snapped, “What happened?”

  “I was mugged, dear, but I’m all right now. This gentleman happened to come along at the opportune moment. I haven’t thanked him properly yet.” He put out his hand to Dick. “You must come in. You must let us have your name. No, I insist. You probably saved my life. I could have died of exposure out there.”