by C. J. Driver
“How did you know Caister was a policeman?”
“Christ, Mr. Lawyer, I’m not going into the witness box for you. You’re too persistent.” He hesitated, then went on, “He told us.”
“Caister told you?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You were who?”
“Me, Lester, Shirley and Austell.”
“Where? In the commune?”
“Oh no. I’m not going to tell you that.”
“Why?”
John hooked a foot round one of the girls’ small stools and pulled it near him; he pushed it close to the wall and then sat down carefully on it so that he could lean against the wall. “I hope this thing doesn’t break,” he said conversationally. “If it does, tell the girls I’m sorry.”
“Why?” I said again.
John shook his head at me admonishingly. “No, Tom, no. No ‘where’ and no ‘why’. I’ve switched off. Why don’t you sit down too?” He pushed another of the stools in my direction.
“What are you going to do now?” I asked.
“What do you think I should do?”
“You could try to get out of the country, I suppose.”
“How will I go? Flap my wings and glide across the Atlantic to Cuba or some place? Anyway, I’ll tell you a little secret; the passport is still with the court. Remember I surrendered it? They keep writing to me to come and pick it up, and I keep forgetting. It’s probably safer there than in the commune.”
“You couldn’t go on your passport anyway; they’ll be watching the ports and airfields for you. But I’ve defended a fair number of villains now, and not all of them were convicted, and I may be able to get one of them to buy me a passport.”
John, who had been smiling, now burst out laughing. “Oh, Tom,” he laughed, “you’re so funny; you sound like a pale imitation of a Mafia lawyer.”
“It’s been done before,” I defended my silliness.
“Not for people like me,” John said. “No, I’ll stay here in England; even if I had my passport, I wouldn’t try to get out. I don’t think anything will happen to me anyway.”
“What do you mean? There’s a warrant out for your arrest—on a charge of murder. Of murdering a policeman, what’s more.”
“Is it worse to murder a policeman than anyone else?”
“To the police, yes; and to most judges and juries, yes too.”
“Privilege again,” he said; was he joking or was the bitterness in his voice genuine? “Anyway, I don’t think anything will happen to me. I think I’ll just stay here for a while. With an oil fire and some blankets I could be quite comfortable for a few weeks until the fuss dies down.”
I still did not know if he was being serious or joking. “It’s not going to die down, John,” I said. “And you can’t stay here.”
“Afraid I’ll contaminate your lovely children, are you?” said John; the bitterness was real enough now. The crows stepped closer, guffawing.
“No but you’re not going to stay here.”
“And if I try to, you’ll phone your policeman friend Williams; he’s in charge, isn’t he?” I nodded. “I thought I’d seen him at the raid on the commune. I loathe that man.”
“The feeling is mutual,” I said; it wasn’t true, but I wasn’t going to tell John what Williams had said to me. What had he meant, ‘for his sake, not just your own’? “You could give yourself up,” I said suddenly.
“You mean, go into a police station and say, ‘Here I am, chaps; aren’t I good to do this?’ Or should I walk in carrying my own head on a platter, maybe with a lemon in my mouth? Roast Buckleson à la Pig. No bloody fear. If they want me, they must find me.”
“They will too, sooner than you think …”
“Because you’ll phone your friend Mr. Policeman and tell them where to get me.”
“If necessary, yes.” There was no point in going on pretending to him.
“Well, that’s clear enough, anyway. The revolutionary doesn’t run very deep in you, does it Tom?”
“I’ve never said I’m a revolutionary; I never said I’d back you, especially in bumping off policemen.”
“Why say ‘bumping off’? You make it sound like a low tackle in rugger or something. Say ‘killing’; that’s what you mean, what I did. I … killed … a … policeman. See, it’s easy enough to say when you try.”
“I think you’re mad.” It burst from me like a cry in a dream, unwilled, unmeant.
“It’d make things much easier if I were, wouldn’t it?” He tilted his head on one side. “Presumably some gossip—the noble Dr. Bob Henderson perhaps—has told you about the nervous breakdown I had, when I went into that church and proclaimed to the congregation I was God on his second trip to earth, and that I was going to send the whole lot of them to hell, with particulary vivid instructions on the methods of skewering. I’m not sure which shocked them more, hearing me say I was God or the words ‘cunts’ and ‘arseholes’ in a holy place.” He leaned forward, put his finger-tips together in a parody of an earnest preacher, and said, “Actually, Tom, I am God, you know. I’ll prove it to you. You know I had that pistol; well, the place I got it from—it was an arms depot, by the way—also had some hand grenades.” His voice was still that of an earnest preacher, or a lecturer demonstrating some fine point of logic to a rather stupid audience. “Lester and I took the precaution of taking some of them too, with a few other odds and ends that aren’t of especial importance in the present situation. I have one here with me.” He fumbled in the folds of his blanket; I still half-thought he was joking, but then he held it up, round, black, its knottled skin shining in the steady little light of the candle. Carefully I started to move my hand towards the pocket where I had put John’s pistol. I was frightened, more frightened than I had ever been in my waking life, and yet the fear had the quality of fear in a bad dream, fear you know somehow is unreal however unpleasant it may seem.
“Don’t,” said John sharply. “Even if you could get it out in time, if you could find the safety-catch, and could shoot straight enough to stop me, you wouldn’t have time. This has got a five-second timer on it; I could have the pin out before you reached the pistol. It’d take you a couple of seconds to shoot me, a second to get to the door, a second to open it, and … pow! Tom Grace in little pieces on his front lawn. Nasty little pieces,” he did a mock shudder.
“You are mad,” I said.
“God is mad, then,” he said, still in the mocking tone he had been using for the last … how long? I did not know. It seemed for ever. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “You put your hands above your head, with the palms nice and flat against the wall. Now,” his voice shifted back to the lecturer’s tones, “I’m going to pull the pin out of this grenade, and then count four. Then I’ll drop it nicely on the floor between us, and ‘Bang!’ You’ll be blown to little bits, and I won’t be hurt. God, you see, looks after his own, which is me. And so you’ll know I am God, I’ll put the little bits of you together again immediately afterwards. All right?”
I knew the possibilities: I could go for the grenade and try to get it out of the window. I could go for the door and try to get it open and far enough across the lawn before the hut went up. I could try to go for the pistol and shoot John before he pulled the pin out. But terror held me as still as the sheets hold your legs in a nightmare.
John put his left hand up to the grenade, tugged at it, and something tinkled on the cement floor. “One … and two … and three … and four … and … He dropped it on the floor between us and said in a soft voice, “Bang!” It rolled across the floor towards my feet and stayed there. For terror I could not even bring my hands down from the wall above my head; they could have been nailed there.
“You see,” said John, and then started to giggle, uncontrollably, hysterically. “Oh, Tom, you look so silly, standing there; oh God, it’s so funny.” He half-fell off the stool and started to scramble across the floor on all fours. “Oh God, oh Christ
, oh Jesus, how marvellous.” He grabbed the round black thing from between my feet and held it up so that I could see it. “It’s a bloody black croquet ball, you idiot,” he said in between his giggles and laughter. “I got it from the corner there,” and he gestured to where the mallets stood in the croquet stand. “I took it in case I had to bash someone over the head who tried to come in here—I thought in a small space it would be better than a mallet. And you thought it was a hand grenade. Oh, my God, how marvellous; what bloody wonderful theatre that could make. You looked so silly standing there, sweating, white-faced, staring at a … oh my God … a croquet ball!”
The crows fell about and staggered, clacking and guffawing. Rage replaced terror. My hands were down now, but still I could not move. I was shaking, and the sweat was still on my face and in my eyes.
“You fucking bastard,” I said.
“Ohh, Tom, such strong language—and you a barrister,” he mocked, and then, in a mocking pity, “Poor old Tom. Did I frighten you with my little God-game? Like those poor people in that church, only you were an even better audience than them. Poor Tom. That’s so apt, you know.”
“I’m going to phone the police,” I said.
“No, Tom, not yet please.” He spoke in his old voice; there was no room for mockery or pity in that voice. “You can phone them a little later; I may even ask you to phone them for me. But there are some things I’ve got to tell you first. Important things you’ve got to know about. But can you do one thing for me first?” I was still very angry, but unwillingly I nodded. “I’m tired, I’m thirsty and I’m cold. Alison brought me a thermos of coffee when she brought the food to me, but I finished it hours ago. Can I have some more?” He bent over and picked up a thermos from the floor and handed it to me. “Black, with lots of sugar; and if you can spare it, top it with a stiff shot of brandy or something that’ll keep me going a little longer. Would you mind?”
“Would you like to come up to the house?” I asked; all anger had gone in the quiet request and in my recognition of tiredness, cold and thirst.
“Mn-mn,” he shook his head. “I don’t think that’d be sensible from either point of view. Just coffee, and a bit more talk, and then you can make your phone-call.”
“I do have to phone them; you do understand that, don’t you, John?”
He nodded.
*
Alison was waiting for me, “You’ve been so long, Tom,” she said, coming to me as I came in through the terrace doors. “I was getting worried.”
“It’s all right,” I said, not looking at her.
“You don’t look as if it’s been all right.”
“Alison, I think John’s mad—or having a nervous breakdown or something. His mind’s going all over the place; and he’s got a history of breakdowns.”
“I did think he was very peculiar this afternoon,” she said matter-of-factly as if everyone in her world had breakdowns every week. “But then I thought he was mad when you brought him here with the nice South African girl that week-end. What are you going to do?”
I told her, and now she didn’t seem to mind. She had already made coffee, and sandwiches too. In the kitchen she said, “Have you told him you’re going to phone the police?”
“Yes.”
“What does he say?”
“He’s not being very coherent,” I said; how could I explain the madness of that cold dark hut in this clean bright kitchen? How could I explain my own terror, and the silliness of the terror? “But we’ve got to phone the police; for one thing, I’ve got the pistol he used to kill that policeman with.”
She turned to look at me. “Oh, Tom, how horrible,” she said. “You’ve got it here?”
“In my pocket,” I answered, showing her where its heaviness pulled at my coat.
“You’ll have to give it to the police.”
“Yes,” I said. “And soon. But I think I may get him to give himself up; it may just help a little bit in court, count in his favour I mean.”
I took the coffee and sandwiches in their neat packet of silver foil, kissed her, and went out through the kitchen door. “Be careful, Tom,” she called after me, as if she herself had been careful.
John was gone. The candle had been snuffed out—I could still smell it—and in the light of the torch I could see the blanket folded neatly over one of the girls’ stools and my overcoat laid over it. Quickly I ran back to the path and shone the torch down into the pine trees. “John,” I called out, “John, you fool, come back.” There was no answer, no sound at all except a few quiet night noises in the undergrowth where the hill-side is too steep to clear. “John, you silly bugger,” I shouted louder this time, “come back up here; there’s no point.” Still no answer, no sound. He couldn’t have gone far in that short time. I went a few yards further down to where the path falls away below the bottom lawn and called again. But even if he could hear me, he did not answer.
Then suddenly I thought he might have gone back to the house. Panicking again, I turned and ran hard for the terrace. But he wasn’t there. Nor had he touched the car which still stood outside the garage. Into the house. Alison heard my running and looked out of the kitchen.
“What on earth’s wrong, Tom?” she called.
“John’s gone,” I shouted as I ran up the stairs. The door of the girls’ room was shut; I flung it open and switched on the light. Immediately Sarah sat up in bed, wide awake as if she had not been sleeping at all. Nell did not move.
“Hello, Daddy,” said Sarah. “Why’ve you turned on the light? What’s the time?”
“Time you were asleep, my girl,” said Alison firmly from the door behind me. “Your father just wants to kiss you good-night.”
“I was asleep,” Sarah protested as she lay down again. “Good-night, Daddy.”
“Good-night, my darling,” I said as I kissed her forehead. I bent over the sleeping head of Nell and kissed her damp forehead too. She smiled in her sleep but did not wake.
Room by room I checked the house, shut the windows, locked the doors, closed the heavy shutters over the terrace windows. Alison came behind me, not saying a word until I had finished.
“Where’s he gone?” she asked at last.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you afraid he’ll come back? Is that why you’re locking?” I nodded in answer, not looking at her. “You don’t think he would hurt us, do you?” She was asserting a fact rather than asking a question.
“No,” I said.
“Are you frightened of him?”
“Yes,” I said. “Frightened the whole way through me. Alison, I meant what I said: I think he’s mad. I think he was mad when he killed that policeman, I think he was mad when he came here. He may have been mad the whole time I’ve known him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.” My mind was working again now that he had gone away; I knew exactly what had to be done. “First, I’m going to try to get hold of the policeman in charge of Buckleson’s case; I know him from before. When I know where he is, I’m going to take this gun to him, now—tonight. Then, I want you to phone the Ordens”—they are our nearest neighbours, a hundred yards down the ridge; he is an estate agent, she runs what is called a ‘boutique’ in Wealdridge. I don’t like them but Alison sees them quite a bit—“to tell them I’ve been called away urgently. Don’t tell them what, let them think it’s an application to a judge at home or something. Get them to come over here; you can play cards or something.”
“But they will think I’m being silly phoning now; they know you’re quite often away for nights, and I’m alone then. And they may be out anyway.”
“Then get the Walters; but you must have someone here. And I’ve got to see this Williams man myself, and tonight. Tell the Ordens there’s been someone prowling about; if old Orden thinks it’s someone queer about sex he’ll be here with a cannon and grapeshot in two minutes flat.”
Alison smiled; she knew Orden’s views.
“All right,” she said, “if you think so. I’m sure John wouldn’t hurt us, all the same.”
“I’d be happier.”
“All right. Are you still angry with me for not telling the police?”
“No,” I said. “I think you are the most marvellous woman in the world. And when all this is over, I’m going to take a week’s leave, we’re going to shove the girls off to your parents and I’m going to take you to Majorca or somewhere, and I’m going to spend the whole week making love to you.”
“It’d be nice to have you back,” she said, touching the back of my hand where it rested on her shoulder.
“It’s nearly over,” I said.
I was wrong; it was not over, not for many months more, and when it was over, there was an even longer time when I was not sure I could ever go back fully to Alison, for all her simplicity and certainty. For it was never simply a matter of going back; it was a putting together of things which had never been together before.
*
Williams was waiting for me in his office when I got to London an hour and a half later; I had phoned the Yard and the man on the desk had put me straight through to him. Had I news of Buckleson, he asked. Yes, I answered, but news I was not prepared to communicate on the phone for all its urgency. I was leaving for London that very minute. Would he still be in his office?
Yes, he said; he had told his wife he wouldn’t be home until Buckleson was safely arrested and charged—he had had a stretcher put up in his office in case he could get a couple of hours’ sleep on it. He would tell the deskman to send me straight up when I arrived.
Williams was sitting at his desk in a small partitioned section of a larger office. He stood up when I was shown in, but did not offer to shake hands.
“Mr. Grace,” he said formally. “Please sit down.”
He sat too, looking carefully at me from his dark eyes then suddenly smiling. “If you don’t mind me saying this, Mr. Grace, you look like I feel. Can I order you a cup of coffee?”