Joe glanced at his watch—for the fourth time?
‘If you don’t sleep well,’ said Humpty, ‘you’re—’ Whatever he was after, it was evident from his expression that it was negative. ‘Joe doesn’t sleep well.’
‘Sleep well—neither do I,’ said Kit. ‘You do?’
‘Like the dead,’ replied Humpty.
‘That isn’t well,’ she said, for no particular reason.
‘In your ill-informed opinion.’
‘Humpty—’ said Joe.
Kit laughed, but inside she was thinking, God, this was a big mistake. I should really have stayed at home. I could be at home, doing something worthwhile, like working.
‘Have you eaten recently?’ Joe asked.
Humpty did look starved. He dismissed the question, but it struck Kit that if he had eaten anything much in the past month, it didn’t show.
As he and Joe fell to discussing a person called Buddy, she allowed her mind to uncouple from their exchanges, and lifted her gaze until it snagged on a set of cracks that ran across the ceiling—a vision that occupied her fully until it came to her to ponder, again, the oddities of the Grimwood murder, as she had uncovered them earlier in the day.
She hadn’t got as far as explaining this to Joe, but there were aspects of the case that didn’t make sense. There had been two suspects. The first, never identified, had been a gentleman, Eliza’s last-ever client, whom she had picked up across the Thames at the Strand Theatre, and had slept with hastily, or at any rate semi-clothed, in her back-parlour bedroom the night of her killing. The other had been her cousin, lover and pimp, William Hubbard, who ran the house and had spent that night up in the attics, as was his habit when she had a customer. It had been he who’d found her body when he’d come down before dawn the next morning.
The coroner had taken it that if it had been Eliza’s final client who had killed her, it had to have been over a dispute about money—though why in that case the demented attack on her corpse? And how could this man have melted away again afterwards unnoticed, soaked, as her murderer must have been, in blood? This last question had struck people as so unanswerable that it had caused many to assume that the killer must have been Hubbard, in a jealous rage, not that he was known for them—a reading that appeared to explain why Eliza, who had defence wounds across her hands, hadn’t screamed for her life. There were other people in the house who would have heard her if she had, a maid asleep in the basement kitchen, and a second girl and her client in the room above Eliza’s.
Yet there were reasons against its being Hubbard—Kit took a long draught of her shandy, now nearly finished. The inquest had determined that Eliza’s injuries had been inflicted with a weapon something like a single-bladed Spanish switch knife. There was no blade even remotely similar in the household inventory, these being poor people whose possessions could be entirely listed. Charles Field, investigating, had had the privies, drains and sewers dug out, had pulled up floorboards, ripped out fireplaces and so on. No matching weapon could be found anywhere. If Hubbard had disposed of such a knife secretly, how had he done it? Okay, perhaps he had crept out through the house’s cellars into Belvedere Road, had run down to the Thames and flung the weapon in. But even if so, there were only three water bowls in the house, and none of this water had the least sign of blood in it, and no set of Hubbard’s clothes was missing, so how had he got himself clean again? He had had not a single sign of a struggle on him. How, as her murderer, could he have come out of such a splatterfest unmarked? And one, and two, and three, and four. The case didn’t add up.
Kit toyed with the half-inch that still remained of her sickly drink. She had the embarrassed feeling she’d missed something, though Joe right then looked as though he, too, was having to recall himself to the moment. ‘Humpty certainly shouldn’t be able to sleep well,’ he said. ‘He recently fell in love.’
‘Oh?’ Kit cleared her throat, obscurely upset by this remark. ‘And how did that happen?’
‘For her own reasons,’ Humpty gripped his hands between his thighs, ‘she was changing out of her trousers in the kitchen—it’s open plan, don’t get me wrong; it’s a dive, but it’s open plan, and I walked in just right then and I saw her unzipping her trousers, the low kind so you can see her belly, so that—the moment she did the zip they fell, voomp, but—identically the same moment she was wanting whatever out of the wall cupboard above her head. So she undoes the zip but, identically the same moment she lifts her right leg up behind her bent at the knee and goes up on tip toe on her left foot and reaches up and the trousers catch at the crook of her knees so her legs are stopped in place just exactly like that, stopped completely still, so that she looks like—like a Renaissance painting of a nymph running away. And there’s something, the shape of her, her knickers and the light on her skin and the way her trousers have fallen and are—and the sun, she has this pale hair on her legs so that the sun, when she’s cold and they’re pricking up, she glows. You’d think a skinny girl wouldn’t have much hair like that, but it could be it keeps them warm, like a vole or something, just a light brushing—’
‘Humpty—’ said Joe.
‘—a light brushing of hair.’ Humpty laughed, a big laugh for a small funniness. ‘The thing is,’ he laughed more, for no obvious reason now, wound into himself on the bench, ‘the thing is, she’d had two thoughts at once.’
‘That’s impressive,’ said Kit. His choice of analogy, a Renaissance nymph, had piqued her.
‘Her knickers,’ said Humpty, ‘were ruched.’
‘Humpty—’
He turned jerkily to face his brother. ‘She fucking asked,’ he said.
‘She was being civil.’
‘That’s impressive.’
‘Enough,’ said Joe.
Kit had the dreary feeling that she had misrepresented herself. ‘Please, don’t mind me. I don’t—’ What was she trying to say? What was she saying? ‘—I don’t mind myself.’
Humpty turned back to look at her. In a voice of dangerous friendliness, he said, ‘Everyone has a bird’s-eye view of the stars.’
‘I’ve got to take a leak, then—’ Joe caught Kit’s eye to ask her if she’d be okay. Would she be okay if he left her for a couple of minutes?
She nodded. No problem.
Still, she didn’t much wish to be alone with Humpty, now. Joe was right.
When he had gone, Humpty said, ‘You know who he was meant to dance with at the club—not last week, the first week?’
I see, thought Kit. Despite asking, you already knew how I met him.
And what was the answer to his question? Yes, as Joe had mentioned to her in Pams Cafe—a point she had lost a while ago, that now came back to her—yes, someone had stood him up that first Friday. Someone—Kit felt the elements in her mind mesh and looked cloudlessly at her interlocutor. ‘You,’ she said.
‘Clever girl.’
So, after all, Joe had meant to dance with another boy, his own brother.
‘Why didn’t you show up?’ she asked. ‘Lose your nerve?’
Humpty spoke as though he found this suggestion derisory. ‘I didn’t show up,’ he said, ‘because I’m a bad character.’ He leant forwards. ‘You know why he was after doing it reversed?’
‘He wanted to be carried away—sent,’ she replied. Here, at least, she knew what she was talking about.
‘Wrong,’ said Humpty. ‘What he wanted was—’ but he couldn’t put it into words. He scraped wearily at his temples with the heels of both hands. ‘The thing is, I’m a burden,’ he said. ‘He wants me to go and live in a field. He told me that, before he died, he wanted to try dancing the following part, so I offered him it, which would have been good, except I didn’t make it over there in time. I was meant to do it. But you—you said yes. Because, what wouldn’t you say yes to? You don’t mind yourself, right? You’re not bothered if people respect you or anything.’
‘You think he doesn’t respect me?’ she asked, audible but barely, upset at being spo
ken to like this by someone she didn’t know.
‘How it is,’ said Humpty, ‘he’d have respected you more if you’d’ve said no, but he wanted you to say yes.’
Sarcastically inside her head she thought, oh, so Joe had to make do with getting what he wanted? It felt like a riposte worth delivering out loud, but—she clutched her hands together—she was sure it probably wasn’t.
‘Hey, Kit,’ said Humpty, as Joe came back and hovered, before sitting down again in a provisional-seeming way, ‘can birds sing out of tune, do you think? Meaning, do birds ever think to themselves, I wish the fuck that starling would shut up, it’s tone deaf? And if the answer to that is, “No, a bird can’t sing out of tune”, then is the human ga—’ he’d got the word mangled, ‘—ga-pa—’ he said, ‘ca-pacity, for singing out of tune, a by-product of—’ he paused, ‘su-per-i-or intelligence?’
‘I think we’re off,’ said Joe.
Humpty slewed round to his brother and began to speak urgently. ‘Don’t, okay. I’ve been talking to her. She’s one of those type—she sees a person down—she’s one of that type of girls, she’s just curious, she’s—’
‘Humpty,’ said Joe, ‘she’s sitting right there.’
‘—she—’ Humpty looked back. ‘Oh yes.’ This came out in an easy way: ‘Oh yes,’ he said. Then he shivered. He shivered and rose to his feet. ‘That’s me.’
Joe reached a hand into his pocket.
‘I’m fine,’ said Humpty.
‘You mean it?’
‘I’m fine. Hey, Joe,’ Humpty took a step backwards, ‘guess what? Who just became a fully paid-up member of the Royal Elastic Society?’ He winked at Kit, who didn’t respond.
Joe, too, sat rigid, three twenties in his hand.
As Humpty stared at the money, he changed his mind. ‘Well, okay,’ he said, ‘thanks.’ He came back, reached for the notes, shoved them in his jacket pocket and left.
Joe looked towards Kit, his face unreadable. ‘Right,’ he said.
‘In at the deep end,’ she said.
‘That was nowhere near the deep end,’ said Joe. His shoulders sagged. ‘I’m sorry, all the same. He’s a pest. I shouldn’t have let us stay.’
The word ‘pest’ felt hardly adequate for the situation. ‘Is he, as it were, all right?’ Kit asked.
Joe became markedly edgy. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ he said.
‘No, I was just—’
He shook his head to dismiss the matter. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘if we scram, we can still just about make it.’
‘That’s okay.’ Kit smiled wanly at him. ‘I’m really tired.’
It was both true, and at the same time an excuse. To fortify her resolve, Kit summoned to mind the battered church hall, the twinned bodies, the insidious stench of the place, the hostility she had encountered there, the fraught closeness of it all. I was pissed on, she thought suddenly, and couldn’t bear the idea of more.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Completely,’ she said, though because she was equally sure she had disappointed him, she did then add, ‘We could have another drink if you like’—perpetuating the evening, oh God.
‘What do you fancy?’ he asked. ‘Actually, can we get out of here?’
‘Fine, yes.’ Kit stood up, clasped her coat around her, pushed her hair back.
Joe followed her through to the front of the pub. As they threaded past various tables, he said, ‘So, what are we going to do about this dance I owe you?’
‘This what?’
‘I owe you a dance, right? You made that pretty clear last week. The right way round?’
Kit’s ability to talk temporarily failed her. ‘Did I?’ she stuttered.
‘In the café, afterwards, you said—’
He opened the door of the pub for her and out they went into the bland, early evening. On the pavement she stared at him, mollified and dismayed in equal measure. He had sought her out in order to discharge a debt?
On the other side of town, Intermediate would shortly be beginning. They could have been half way there by now had she played her hand differently. She could have been half way to being held, led, danced to oblivion, the very thing she had wished for. Yet instead, here she was stuck on a pavement feeling complicated. Well, how stupid.
Kit feared that the tenor of her reflections might show, and said, ‘I didn’t think he’d be so—’
‘Humpty?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you think?’
‘I don’t know how to say this. It sounds so prejudiced. I guess I was kind of expecting he’d be an egg.’
Joe wasn’t amused. ‘Can I take you for a meal somewhere, or cook you something?’
She affected to be unable to decide. The truth was, she didn’t want to do either.
‘What do you like to eat?’
Kit couldn’t think of an answer. ‘Anything,’ she said. ‘Pigeons, dandelions.’
‘All right,’ said Joe, ‘how about I make you a pigeon and dandelion risotto?’
As though it was all decided, he began to walk; and so, once again like driftwood, Kit did too. She had had the chance to suggest where they ate, or to bail out of the whole, futile exercise. Now they were going to his place again. She had completely blown it.
The trip to The Forfeit had been a senseless and peculiar experience, but senseless, peculiar and different, so she didn’t really care. Now, though, she had absolutely had enough—more than enough. She was tired. She hadn’t slept well for days. And she had work she needed to catch up on, after all her fooling around with the Eliza Grimwood stuff.
She and Joe wandered along together exchanging the odd remark, twilight glimmering in the air, the pair of them looking, Kit imagined, extraordinarily content. And no, and no, and no, and no—
Up Joe’s shabby staircase, they were just coming level with the door to the middle flat when an elderly gent stepped out onto the landing. He seemed surprised by them, appeared haggard.
‘Are you all right?’ Joe asked.
‘Frank died.’
‘No—Buddy, no.’ Joe lifted a hand in tender salute.
‘Funeral was this morning. St Michael’s.’ Buddy nodded to confirm each of his points. ‘Vicar’s a real stuffed shirt. References to sin, to my mind, not the right thing, Joe. Anyway, coronary. Quick exit. There’s worse ways. Only time I smarten up these days is for a funeral.’
The two of them stood huddled on the landing while Kit remained a step below on the stairs.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Joe, ‘that’s—I know you were close.’
‘There were only about fifteen people,’ said Buddy, ‘and I think someone rather went out into the hedgerows to get them.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Don’t you worry about me,’ said Buddy. ‘I’ve seen it all. You’ve your lady friend here.’
‘We’ll talk tomorrow. You’re okay for supper, right? You have—’
‘Bits and bobs, Joe. I’ve a wodge of Stilton. Don’t you worry. Bit of a shock to the system, that’s all. I’ve known him—’ silently he mouthed the sum he now undertook in his head, ‘—forty-two years. You go on up,’ he said. ‘I’m just taking out my rubbish. Nice to meet you,’ he said to Kit.
‘Yes, I’m so sorry,’ she said.
‘Never you mind.’ Buddy bent behind him to pick up a meagrely filled bin liner, waiting for her to pass so he could carry it down the stairs.
This time, Joe let Kit chop up the vegetables.
‘His flat’s unbelievably worn. He hasn’t done a thing to it in years. The pictures are slipped in their frames, you know?—which is symptomatic of what the whole place is like. Everything’s threadbare and chipped. Humpty and I have offered to help him often enough, but he always refuses. He has a niece in New Zealand. He does have friends. He’s a hotshot at the bowls club on the Marston Ferry Road.’
‘Where does the name “Buddy” come from?’ Kit asked.
‘Brian, but I’
ve never heard anyone call him that.’
‘Brian. Right. So how come this flat’s so slick then?’ she said. ‘I mean, I guess I hear dons grumbling about—they get paid so little, and how it’s such a doss in the States, compared.’
‘The answer is that it isn’t my flat. It’s an investment property of my father’s.’
‘Oh, God, I see.’ While Kit mulled over his reply, Joe melted butter in a pan, which caused her stomach to turn hungrily. So far that day she’d had breakfast, a pint of custard and a few mouthfuls of shandy. At the prospect of a square meal, a meal made by somebody else, she felt almost ill.
‘You’re right. I would never live like this on my own account, even if I could afford to.’ Joe glanced round at Kit, then said, ‘Michaela’s a bit of a one, yes?’
‘She has this boyfriend,’ Kit replied. ‘Everyone in our house pretends he’s imaginary. He’s not, but everyone pretends he is because basically for the past year and a half he’s been in the Amazon rainforest doing analysis of soil samples, and when she shows you a photo you pretend it looks nothing like the last photo of him and so on. It’s just a joke, but the truth is she’s lonely without him. She’s a bit of a good-time girl, and I think she finds it hard that he’s away. She’s very sociable, but she pines, and—’
‘And you’re good friends?’ said Joe.
Kit tried to think. ‘Yes, maybe. Not exactly. When I first met her, before we started sharing, I quite disliked her. But I came to see that this was very much a snap judgement on my part. I mean, I saw that there was more to her, naturally enough. But it turns out—’ she stared at the vivid colours of the vegetables, a red pepper bleeding under her knife, ‘—it turns out that, you know, like constellations of stars holding steady, my snap judgements have definitely lingered. They may only come out when it’s dark, but they’re always there. I mean, I do realise there’s still a lot about her that I don’t—’ Kit broke off to wonder why she was being needlessly ungenerous in this way, and finished her line of thought inside her head: there was still a lot about Michaela she didn’t know. Of course, Kit reflected, there were only so many people you could take on properly in a life, whatever that meant. And as she starkly thought this through, she found she suspected—more than suspected, really—that so far as people she cared about went, she was some way from having reached a human limit.
The Twisted Heart Page 8