The Insect Farm

by Stuart Prebble

  Chapter Eighteen

  At 7.30 I had a last look around the flat to confirm that there was no obvious trace of Harriet’s recent presence, and then went into Roger’s bedroom to wake him. I spent some moments looking at my brother’s face in the semi-darkness. I have to say that he looked entirely at peace, as if there was nothing and no care in the world to disturb his simple existence. There was nothing in it to suggest that he was anything other than the innocent eight-year-old that he in part was; I don’t think he was actually sucking his thumb, but he might as well have been.

  Taking a deep breath, I put my hand on his shoulder and gently shook him.

  “Roger. Roger. It’s time to wake up now and to get your breakfast.”

  I have mentioned before that Roger always woke from his sleep as though he had been studying a scene from The Sleeping Beauty. He opened his eyes and looked around as if curious to know who and what and where he was. I sometimes thought that if he had woken up in the caves of Bora Bora or in a tent in ancient Egypt, he would never react any differently from the way he reacted when he woke in his bedroom in a flat in Clapham. Every day was a new day; every discovery seemed to have no point of reference from the past.

  He looked up at me and smiled. I searched his expression for any signs of concern or trauma from the previous night and found none. Would he ask about Harriet? I wasn’t even sure if he had registered that she was expected to be back yesterday, nor did I yet know why or when he had returned to the flat. It was equally possible that he had witnessed everything and knew more than I did about the violence I had inflicted upon Harriet, or that he had arrived back later, gone directly to his room and seen nothing. I waited and wondered.

  “What’s for breakfast?” he said.

  “I thought that today we might have a thimble of the nectar from the queen of all honey bees, washed down with a mighty bucket full of lark’s vomit,” I said, and instantly Roger dissolved into his familiar fit of giggling, covering his mouth with his hand. I think we each of us loved our routine as much as did the other.

  “I think just the toast and Marmite for me please,” he said, “and then maybe a banana?”

  “All right then,” I said. “Just this once.”

  I brushed away the tear that was forming in the corner of my eye, leaving Roger to get out of bed and to wash and dress as I returned to the kitchen. So much to think about, but probably best to get him off to his day centre before I did so. I had put two slices of bread into the toaster when I heard the telephone ringing.

  My instant thought was that it must be the police. Who else would be calling at this time of the morning? I imagined that a neighbour had heard something alarming and called them; but if so, wouldn’t they more likely be knocking at the door? I tried my best to compose myself before picking up the receiver, but had little faith that I was anything like composed when I spoke. I said our number and waited.

  “Hello, Jonathan?” I did not immediately recognize the voice. “It’s Mr Harries. You know, Terry’s father? I was calling to apologize about last night and to make sure that Roger is OK.”

  I felt a moment of relief that it was not the police, followed immediately by a new wave of concern at what Mr Harries might have to tell me.

  “Oh yes, Mr Harries. Yes, I did wonder what had happened. Roger came in and went straight to bed, so I haven’t had a chance to ask him, but he seems OK this morning. Was everything all right?”

  “Oh, that’s a weight off my mind,” he said, and his voice sounded as though it genuinely was. “Everything was fine and there was no sign of a problem. Roger came home and had his tea with us. Beef burgers; he said they were his favourites.” My mind was a whirl of impatience. “But when it was time to go to bed he started to become a bit agitated. He began talking about his farm and the creatures, and worrying about whether they needed him. I tried to reassure him, and for a little while he calmed down again, but then later he got agitated and said he wanted to come home.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Mr Harries,” I said, “you should have just called me. I would have come to collect him.”

  “Actually, I did call you. About tenish I think it was, but there was no answer. I assumed you were out, which is why I couldn’t bring Roger over right away.”

  “That’s funny. I was here all night,” I said. “I must have fallen asleep and not heard the phone.”

  “Then an hour or so later I could see he wouldn’t settle here. He wasn’t overwrought or anything, but he just kept on repeating that he wanted to come home. So I thought I had better bring him. When we got to the flat I could see the lights were on, and Roger insisted that he should come up alone. He didn’t want me to come in with him for some reason. I told him to come straight back down if you were not there, and I waited downstairs for a while to make sure he didn’t, so I assumed that everything was OK. Was he all right when he got there?”

  “Yes, Mr Harries, he seemed fine,” I said, thinking quickly. “He didn’t say much, just that he was tired and had wanted to come back to sleep in his own bed. To be honest, that’s why I was in two minds about having him come over to you in the first place. He likes his routine. I didn’t want to ask him a lot of questions last night because he seemed so sleepy. Anyway, I am just making his breakfast and he seems fine this morning. Will we see you at the bus?”

  He confirmed that he would be taking Terry to the bus as usual.

  “Just one thing,” I said, trying again to sound as casual as I could. “About what time was it when you dropped Roger off? I was half asleep and didn’t notice the time. I like to make sure he gets a good eight hours a night.”

  “I think it was just a little after eleven,” said Mr Harries. “As I say, we saw the light on so thought it was OK for him to come up on his own. I hope that was OK.”

  I reassured him that it was and we ended the conversation. I breathed again, and then thought how close a call it had been. If Mr Harries had chosen to come up with Roger, as opposed to dropping him home and letting him come up alone, I would by now be in a prison cell. Equally, I had no precise idea of what time it was that Harriet and I had had our fight, but my sense was that it had been earlier. There must at least be a decent chance that Roger had come into the flat, seen and heard nothing, and taken himself straight to bed.

  The toast had popped up and Roger came into the kitchen, fiddling with the top button of his shirt as he approached. It seems to me that someone somewhere decided at some time that people with learning difficulties should have to have their shirts buttoned all the way to the collar, like a subtle sign of incompetence. It had always irritated me and I told Roger not to bother. Nonetheless, he seemed to spend a lot of his time trying to fasten the top button. He sat at the kitchen table and I put down the plate in front of him with his toast and Marmite.

  “There we are, Roger. Pickled hog intestines on rye, just as you ordered. Would you like some crow’s-feet soup on the side?” Roger was a perfect audience as always. I sat down and, once again, made a Herculean effort to sound as casual as I could. “So how was last night? You decided not to stay out after all?”

  Roger shook his head, but looked completely unconcerned. He put a large corner of toast in his mouth and indulged his familiar habit of giving me a panoramic view of it being masticated.

  “Miss Tresize at the day centre said that her son Billy has some spiders in a jam jar that they don’t want. She doesn’t know what sort they are, but she said I could have them if I wanted.”

  “That’s nice, Roger,” I said. “It’ll be interesting to see what kind they are.” I waited while Roger inserted another large section of the toast in his mouth, and gave him a chance to deal with it before trying again. “Was it nice at Terry’s house? What did they give you to eat?”

  “It was OK,” he said. “We had beef burgers. They were horrible.” There was a pause and a gear shift in favour of a subject he found far more absorbing. “I think they might be stag beetles. I don’t think Miss Tresize kno
ws the difference between a spider and a beetle.” Roger giggled and put his index finger to the side of his head, pointing it and screwing it around vigorously. “She’s a bit of a loony.”

  I was waiting for any reference to Harriet, but none came. I considered introducing the subject and then thought better of it. I had no idea what questioning Roger might at some time be subject to, and thought that it would be better if some time passed before anyone asked him to recall anything. At this moment I still had no clear idea what he had seen, if anything, or what knowledge he had of what had happened. My curiosity was immense, but for the time being I knew it had to take second place to my caution.

  Though my head was in complete turmoil and my thoughts were an anarchy of fears, on a practical level everything passed just as it might on an average morning, and twenty minutes later I was walking with Roger down the road to meet the bus. We got there just as it arrived, but there was no sign of Mr Harries or his son Terry. The bus pulled up at the kerb and I said goodbye to Roger and watched him walk down the aisle, scanning all the faces he knew so well, but apparently also looking out for Terry. The driver was about to set off when I saw Mr Harries and Terry approaching from a distance, hurrying along the pavement, and I asked him to wait for a few moments. Roger was on the bus and looking out of the window towards the direction Terry usually came from. Father and son got to the door, and I saw Roger and Terry greet each other with their familiar overwhelming enthusiasm. Mr Harries stood beside me as the bus pulled away.

  “So no sign of any problem with Roger then?”

  “No, none whatsoever. He didn’t mention anything except how much he liked the beef burgers.”

  “Excellent,” he said. “So sorry about that confusion last night. It would have been good if it had worked out. Maybe we should wait and try it again some time? It would be good for everyone if Roger felt a bit more relaxed about breaking his routine.” I thanked him and agreed. Actually, I knew he was right, but my head was crammed full of far more urgent priorities than this one. I went to head off on my way when he spoke again. “When is that lovely wife of yours coming down again? Newcastle, isn’t it? Is that where she’s studying?”

  I was momentarily taken aback. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might know Harriet, or anything about her. Then I remembered that sometimes, when she was on holiday between terms, she took my place and walked with Roger to the bus. Being a more sociable person than me, she had probably chatted to Mr Harries.

  “Actually, I believe she is coming back tomorrow,” I said. “She’s working very hard.”

  “Oh. Well do give her my best regards when you see her,” he said. “She’s a lovely girl she is. Lovely.”

  “I will,” I said, and his description of Harriet as “a lovely girl” sent a distress signal through me. Yes, she was a lovely girl. I couldn’t get away fast enough.

  This was alarming. Already I had been forced into telling a lie when I hadn’t even had a chance to think through my plans or my story. Instinctively I thought I would be bound to have to say that Harriet hadn’t come home last night, but I knew I would need to give some serious thought to the details. There would eventually be a hundred questions, asked by people with far more expertise than old Mr Harries. I would have to consider every angle, every possibility, if I was to stand even the smallest chance of getting away with what had happened.

  Who knew, for example, that Harriet had been due to come back to London last night? I remembered that originally she had been due to come down on Thursday, and her plan to come two days sooner had been agreed at the last minute. Whom had she told? I had no way to know.

  When you think about the possibility of any of this happening now that we are all being watched and traced without being particularly aware or complaining about it, it must be obvious that there would be not the smallest chance of getting away with the deception. Harriet’s journey south by train, and then from King’s Cross to the flat, would be observed and recorded on scores of cameras. Her credit card would be registered at Starbucks or WHSmith or some such place, but back then none of those things was yet part of our lives.

  I considered whether there would be any firm evidence that she had travelled two days earlier than her initial plan. Certainly Harriet was a lovely girl, as Mr Harries had said, and was the kind of person that people tend to notice. But this was the end of the autumn term, and hundreds if not thousands of young women with curly brown hair and long flowing coats would be travelling on the railways to get home for Christmas. I realized that my fate might well now be only a matter of chance. If she had been spotted on her journey by someone she knew, or had struck up a conversation with someone who would remember her later, I would be lost. No place to hide. If not, then possibly my problems were containable.

  In giving consideration to all the practicalities, I am in danger of creating the impression that I was oblivious to the terrible tragedy of Harriet’s death. I most certainly was not. I was traumatized, and as I looked back on it much later, I realized that I was probably in shock and exhibiting the clinical symptoms of being so. I felt disorientated in all of my thinking and in all of my actions, as if suffering from jet lag or sleep deprivation.

  When I returned to the flat after dropping Roger at the bus, I walked up the stairs and found that once again the tears were flowing liberally down my cheeks and splashing onto the collar of my jacket, making dark stains like heavy rain on a summer day. I felt a sudden weakness and thought I might pass out on the stairway. My head was spinning, and then I heard a noise behind the door of the flat below me, and sprinted up the last few stairs to avoid a meeting or any need of explanation.

  I also did not know what, if anything, had been heard by my neighbours, but I knew that I did not yet have my story sufficiently straight to be able to provide answers to any questions. The flat at the bottom of the house had been rented by a Polish couple, with whom I had only a slight acquaintance, but enough to know that they had recently returned to their homeland following a death in the family. I knew none of the details and felt no need to know. On the floor immediately below lived Mrs Chambers, former owner of Olly the cat. As I’ve mentioned before, Mrs Chambers had originally occupied her own floor and ours as well, and when we first moved in she had given me a rundown on some of the best and worst previous occupants of my flat. Several of the stories contained oblique references to strange activities, and I thought her remarks were designed to let me know that not much could go on above Mrs Chambers without her knowing about it.

  If I was asked about any unusual noises, then something like “Sorry, I must have fallen asleep with the TV on” would be about the best I could do. Not very good, and certainly not good enough if faced with tough and searching questions from a tough and searching policeman. On balance I thought it best to say nothing, in the hope that if questions were ever asked, some while would have passed and Mrs Chambers’s memory of anything suspicious might have faded.

  Back and alone in the flat, at last I had the chance to think a little more clearly. I walked from room to room, examining every surface for any sign of Harriet’s recent presence, and all the while thinking. All this was important, and all this was manageable, but what on earth was I going to do with Harriet’s body?

  Even today, so many years after those original events, I am not able or willing to write down here the detail of what happened in those next few hours. If the events surrounding the moments of her death are traumatic for me, at least they were blunted by the effects of shock and alcohol, and the fact that my loss of consciousness had removed from me any clear or detailed memory of the incident itself. I was completely sober during everything that had to be done to dispose of Harriet’s body. All of it was carried out in the light of morning, with no dark places in which to disguise the detail, no way to divert my own imagination from the realities, no intoxicant to dull the sharp edges. The removal of her clothes, the blazing heat from the fire of dry dead leaves, the smell of burning from her Afghan coat. A
nd even today, frequently my sleep is shattered by marauding images of soil being piled onto Harriet’s lovely face, falling into her nostrils and into her mouth, piling into the corners of her now half-open eyes. Oh my Harriet. My beautiful, simple, purest, most loved girl. The single love of my life.

  When all my instincts would be to reach over and remove a speck of dirt that might threaten to go into her eye, here I was piling deep-brown and damp clods of earth onto her beautiful face. When all my motivation would be to keep her soft and tender flesh safe and untouched, here was I taking earthworms by the handful from a tank in Roger’s collection and putting them into the six-foot-long wooden tub which he and I had made months earlier.

  Heaven knows it was all a very long way from the perfect crime. Even then I knew that if I was ever seriously suspected, I would have had no chance whatsoever of getting away with Harriet’s murder. But, difficult and hazardous as it was, the matter of what to do with Harriet’s body was far from being my only or even necessarily my major problem. On that first day I still had to deal with Roger, and with the inevitable enquiries which would ensue as it became clear that Harriet was missing. Very quickly I realized that it should be I who was the first to instigate them.

  It would not be unusual that Harriet and I might not have spoken on the telephone every day. This was Wednesday, and I decided that, as far as the world was concerned, my story was that I was not expecting her until the following day. No need to raise the alarm before then. Of more immediate concern was Roger. All day I was turning over in my mind what he might have seen or heard from the previous evening, and I wondered why he had said nothing about Harriet at breakfast this morning. Not that her name came up in every conversation between us, but if he had witnessed anything at all from last night, then I felt that surely he must at the very least be curious.

  Among the blur of horrors and images from that terrible time, I felt a flicker of recall of Roger’s face, with an expression of apparent alarm. I had no idea whether my impression was of something real or imagined; and if it was real, what had he seen? Was it the argument? Was it the blow I had struck with the bottle? Had he seen the bottle breaking on the back of Harriet’s head and had he watched the blood begin to flow as she fell to the floor? Had he even lost consciousness, as I must have done? And if so, how had he managed to put himself to bed and sleep so soundly?