by Trevor Hoyle
‘Anxious?’ I repeated.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Like you’re getting now.’
I carried on eating the cereal for something to do, though I didn’t really want it. It was horrible and terrifying to know that I had been through a ‘dead’ time when I might have blurted out my entire life-history, revealed the depths of my soul, and yet had no memory of it. Diane Locke knew about Benson and Smith – and what else?
‘Why is Smith following you? What have you done to him?’
‘Nothing.’
‘He must be following you for a reason.’
I put the spoon down. ‘He thinks I murdered his wife.’ I looked into her eyes, waiting for them to flicker and slide away – the usual reaction. They didn’t. Was Diane Locke truly as strong and self-possessed as she seemed, or just naive and foolhardy?
‘Did you murder her?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Then how come he thinks you did?’
‘It was just over a year ago that Susan died – my wife. The strain became too much and I had a nervous breakdown. I went as a voluntary patient into the Oxtoby Clinic near Sandbach.’ She was watching me steadily, unflinchingly. ‘Some of the other patients had more severe psychological problems – neuroses of various kinds, clinical depression, personality disorders – and Smith was one of these. I liked him at first, I could talk to him, and we got on pretty well. We used to play chess together. One night, out of the blue, almost casually, he told me that he had killed his wife. No one else knew, he said – not another living soul – except him and me. Not even the doctors.’ I closed my eyes and drank some coffee. ‘Then, for no apparent reason, he changed. It wasn’t anything dramatic to begin with, he became moody and wouldn’t sit and talk or play chess any more. Then he became very secretive and suspicious. I got the feeling he was watching me all the time. He started slipping notes to me at any time of the day – just walk up and press a crumpled bit of paper into my hand. The first one said ‘Murdering bastard’ and the rest were variations on that, along with threats about what he was going to do to me. I cornered him one day and asked what he meant by all this, and he grinned and said ‘Wait and see.’ The next day I nearly choked on some sharp, hard slivers in my food. They were toenail clippings.’
Diane Locke shuddered. ‘That’s disgusting. But why? What made him do it?’
‘He’d got the notion fixed in his mind – God knows from where – that I was responsible, and nothing would shake it …’
‘For the death of his wife, you mean?’
I nodded. ‘He couldn’t stand it any longer, the pain of it, so he switched his guilt over to me. I was to blame. After that I was scared that he’d find something more lethal than toenail clippings to put in my food. What if he managed to get hold of some tablets and crunched them up and mixed them in the gravy? Or dropped them in my coffee? Or put razor blades in the soap?’
‘What about the doctors? Surely they believed he was threatening you?’
‘They may have done,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure. Doctors believe what they choose to believe – in those circumstances who can blame them. And people like Smith – with certain personality disorders – are always making threats they don’t really mean. It’s part of their illness. Doctors don’t take such threats too seriously.’
‘But the notes,’ Diane Locke frowned. ‘You had proof.’
‘I could have written them myself.’
‘Is that what they said?’
‘Oh no. Dr Morduch and Dr Pitt-Rivers would never come straight out with it. That goes against medical etiquette. They don’t confide in the patient. They don’t tell the patient the truth. It just isn’t done. They listen and nod and look thoughtful and wise and mutter amongst themselves. To tell the truth I don’t know if they believed me or not …’
‘If the doctors didn’t believe Smith was serious, why should you? I mean about wanting to harm you in some way?’ A thin note of doubt had crept into her voice, which made me want to smile.
‘I did know. In fact I was dead certain.’
‘How? Because of the notes?’
‘No, not just the notes.’
Diane Locke waited. She was leaning forward, her forearms resting on the scrubbed wooden table. She didn’t appear to be wearing anything under the robe. I imagined I could feel the heat of her body from where I sat. ‘Well? What do you mean, not just the notes?’
‘I found his diary.’
‘And?’
‘That convinced me he meant to do what he’d said he’d do. It was all there, in detail, exactly how I’d killed his wife and what he planned to do to me. What he’d done, I suppose, was to write down how he’d killed her – if in fact he had – and substitute my name for his.’
‘You don’t think then that he actually did kill her?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps he never had a wife. But in his mind she was real enough, and so was her death, and I was responsible.’ Now I did smile, seeing the cloudy expression in her eyes. ‘You don’t have to take my word for it,’ I said, jerking my head towards the door. ‘Read it for yourself. It’s with the rest of my stuff in the hall.’
‘You stole Smith’s diary?’ Diane Locke said.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I intended showing it to Dr Morduch, but then things started to move too fast for that. Much too fast for my liking anyhow, so I got out.’
‘I see.’ Diane Locke hesitated, as if choosing her words with care. ‘You released yourself.’
‘No, it isn’t that kind of place,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t strapped in a strait-jacket and locked in a padded cell. I was free to move about. I could walk in the grounds. I waited for the right moment and went.’
‘What about your clothes? Personal things?’
‘That would have given the game away. I couldn’t take much, just a few bits and pieces. The overcoat and boots belong to the caretaker. I hadn’t anything of my own suitable for this weather.’
‘So you went,’ Diane Locke said, her eyes wide and grey and serious, taking everything in, ‘you walked out. How do you know Smith followed you?’
‘I waited till after dark but before they locked up for the night. Smith must have been expecting that, waiting and watching me, anticipating what I might do. These people can be very sly and calculating. They’re not dribbling morons. If I could simply walk out of the place, what’s to stop him?’
‘And follow you here, to Cumbria? How would he know where you were heading?’
‘I told him a great deal about myself. I think I once mentioned that I knew somebody in Brickton. If I did, and if he remembered, he’ll know where to find me.’ I drank some coffee, which was lukewarm. I grimaced and put the cup down as the walnut clock started chiming ten mellow notes.
‘I’ll make some more,’ Diane Locke said, getting up. She tucked in her robe and moved to the stove. ‘This man you know in Brickton.’ I shut my eyes and heard the pop of the flame. Did she want me to make love to her? It was more than a year since I had made love to a woman and the signals were confusing me. I clasped my hands together on the table and felt the rough towelling material of her robe against the side of my face. My breath escaped me. There was fumbled movement, as of something coming undone, and I felt the warmth of her breasts on my face as she leaned her weight against me. I turned my unshaven cheek and opened my mouth, curling my tongue around her brown nipple, which grew harder and longer as I teased it. The heavy swelling outer parts of her breasts were cool, the insides hot and damp. Her hands gripped my shoulders through my jacket, using them as leverage to thrust herself forward. She said, ‘Stand up.’ I stood up and she unfastened my belt, her breasts swaying as her hands worked on me. Her robe hung open so that I could see her white rounded belly and the dark brown patch threaded with blonde where her thighs met. She was holding me between the legs, using it to draw me towards her, moving her hand smoothly to and fro. I had to pull her hand away, it was happening too
fast, too fast. I slid my hands inside her robe and down over her buttocks. She put both arms around my neck and clasped my head, pressing her open mouth against mine. I could feel the lower half of her body, naked inside the robe, and the flattened pressure of her breasts even through my jacket and shirt. Struggling for air she broke away, her eyes large and moist. She said, ‘I want everything,’ kneeling down in front of me. I gripped the edge of the table to support myself and closed my eyes, the brilliant rectangle of the window imprinted redly on my retina. Then she rose up, her mouth wet, and ground it roughly, almost furiously against mine. She broke away again and turned her back towards me, leaning over the table with elbows bent among the coffee mugs and empty cereal bowls and crusts of toast, presenting herself, exposed and vulnerable, chanting, ‘Now, I want it now, now,’ the breath sucked in and hissed out through her bared teeth. The clock finished chiming as Diane Locke said, ‘Benson – is that right?’
I opened my eyes and looked at her. She stood leaning one hip against the stove, with her arms folded. There were darkish hollows underneath her eyes which gave the rest of her face a pale, almost translucent look. The thought passed through my mind that she might ask me to stay, and that if she did, what I would say.
‘Yes.’
‘What is he, a friend?’
I shook my head.
‘Not a friend,’ she said. ‘But someone who’ll help you … ?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You don’t sound very sure.’
‘I’m not very sure. About anything.’
The kettle was steaming gently and starting to rattle on the gas-ring. I couldn’t tell her anything about Benson, even if I’d wanted to, only that when I found him I was going to deal with him as he had dealt with me.
‘Where are you going to stay?’ Diane Locke asked.
‘I’ll find a place,’ I said.
‘Do you need money?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t get annoyed. You can pay me back. Think of it as a loan.’
‘I’ll be okay,’ I said. ‘I have a few pounds. Enough,’
‘Suit yourself.’ I thought I’d offended her, but she then said, ‘Take a bath if you like, before you go.’
I said, ‘Diane, don’t you realise the risk you’re taking? A man you don’t know, alone, in your own house, miles from anywhere—’
I stood up quickly, turning my head to listen. I hadn’t heard an engine but I had heard a car door slam. I got to the kitchen door before Diane Locke did and held up my hand. I went through into the hallway and pushed open the door to the living-room. The room was dark, the curtains drawn shut. I stumbled against a cardboard box and kicked over a stack of books, forgetting the room was filled with them. Dust swirled as I twitched the heavy curtain, crouching down to peer through the gap.
A white police car with an orange stripe along its side was parked on the gravel.
4
Anger purifies. A sharp, cold, cleansing blast of wind swept through my head, clearing the deadening chemicals from my bloodstream. Whatever hormone my anger had released was now purging my system, chasing the invaders away.
As I came back into the hallway there were three raps on the doorknocker. I took Diane Locke’s arm and pushed her ahead of me into the kitchen. What a bloody fool I was, sitting there in the warm sunlit kitchen, all cosy and friendly, pouring my heart out while this woman gazed at me with those wide blue-grey oh-so-understanding eyes that had seen pain and been hurt too. She turned to say something and before she could speak I picked up the bread-knife and held its serrated edge against her throat, holding her close to me and feeling her warm body squirm against mine. Thinking she was trying to struggle free I held her tighter, but she was wrenching at her robe, which was gaping open, trying to cover herself.
‘Not a word out of you,’ I panted in her ear. ‘Not a sound.’
We stood pressed together, the knife at her throat, while the walnut clock ticked away peacefully in the old-fashioned kitchen.
The door-knocker sounded again – five times, measured, patient, relentless. After a while there was a mumble of voices and the scuffle of footsteps going away. We waited. Diane Locke breathed against my arm. We went on waiting. I was very calm and intensely aware of the woman pressed against me.
She touched my wrist lightly with her fingertips, making sure the blade wouldn’t slip as her throat worked. ‘I didn’t call them. I could have done it last night while you slept.’ She tilted her head the barest fraction. ‘I think we ought to turn the gas off, don’t you?’
The kettle was rattling on the stove and jetting steam. Before I could make my mind up the hinges of a gate squeaked and footsteps approached the back door. I didn’t know what to do. If I shoved her into the hallway they would still know someone was at home because of the racket the kettle was making. And they’d see it by just glancing in the window. Too late now to turn off the gas – as the knock came on the back door.
Holding my wrist Diane Locke said in one breath, ‘Peter, the door is unlocked, they can walk straight in.’ She reached up with her other hand and calmly took the bread-knife from me.
Another knock, harder, and somebody tried the latch, becoming impatient.
Diane Locke looked into my eyes, grasped hold of my sleeve and pulled me after her into the hallway. She slipped sideways through the narrow space between the stairs and the telephone table and knelt to open a door of tongue-and-groove boards with a slanting top that gave access to a cubby-hole under the staircase. She sidled out, I ducked inside, and heard the little brass bolt slide home.
I held my breath in total darkness and listened.
Deep masculine voices rumbled from the kitchen but I couldn’t make sense of what they were saying. The policemen seemed to be doing most of the talking. I huddled with my knees against my chest, trying not to breathe too deeply because I was afraid I would sneeze: the cubby-hole smelled of mildewed magazines and old dust, of cracked glue in the broken spines of World War I illustrated histories. I held onto my knees, telling myself that I wasn’t going to sneeze, that I wouldn’t sneeze no matter how much dust there was, that the dust wasn’t affecting me at all, that in fact I’d never felt less like sneezing in my life.
The desire became almost unendurable. With my head burrowed in my sleeve and my stomach rigid I listened as the voices swelled louder and the boom of heavy footsteps shook the floor. I waited and prayed for the front door to open but it didn’t; the voices rumbled on.
I could picture the two hulking policemen standing there in the dark cramped hallway, taking up most of the space. It seemed they had all the time in the world to loiter and chat about nothing while I slowly expired of suffocation under the stairs.
One of them must have spotted my stuff next to the umbrella stand and asked about it, because I heard Diane Locke say, ‘Oh that, they’re just some old clothes for the Oxfam shop, when I get round to it.’
He made a terse comment, which I didn’t catch, and Diane Locke gave out a gay peal of laughter, as if it was the wittiest thing she had ever heard in her life.
I didn’t hear any more, my eardrums were getting ready to explode. I wondered if there were cases of people expiring by being denied the supreme luxury of a sneeze, even a tiny infinitesimal one.
Distantly, muffled as by a thick blanket, I heard the whine of an engine in reverse gear, and gave a convulsive shudder and a kind of slobbering wheeze. I was coughing and wiping my eyes when Diane Locke slid back the bolt and let me out.
She said, ‘Do you want that coffee now? Or could you take something stronger?’
I followed her into the kitchen and stood watching her as she made a fresh pot of coffee. She said matter-of-factly, ‘Have you caught a cold?’
‘No, it was the dust.’
‘Sit down. It’s all right, they won’t be back.’ She put the coffee and two clean mugs on the table. ‘That was a bit of bad luck. Apparently the trusty, rusty Datsun is still rotting at the side of the road. The
police came across it this morning and traced the registration to me.’
‘That was all it was?’ I said.
‘They were concerned in case something might have happened to me.’ She glanced up, smiling, from pouring the coffee. ‘But as they could see for themselves, nothing had.’
‘It might have done,’ I said. ‘It almost did. I’m sorry—’
Diane Locke shook her head briskly. ‘I don’t want an apology. You did it because you were frightened and angry. You assumed I’d told the police about you, and in your shoes I’d have thought the same and reacted in the same way, probably.’
‘You could have still given me up,’ I said. ‘You had me locked in a cupboard. Why didn’t you?’
She looked at me with her direct, unflinching gaze. ‘You’re not a criminal, Peter. You’re not a violent man either.’
‘Is that so? Living here you have wide experience of criminals and violent men have you?’
‘My husband was a violent man. I had nine years’ first-hand experience of it, if you want to know.’
My remark had been shown up for the cheap jibe it was. Diane Locke was a remarkable woman; perhaps all women are remarkable. But in one particular instance she was mistaken. I might not be a criminal but I was capable of violence, and I would prove it when I caught up with Benson, the man responsible, directly or indirectly – it didn’t matter to me which – for Susan’s death.
Chapter Three
1
Brickton was sparkling in the sunshine as I came down from the council estate on the hill. The estate had prepared me for the worst. It reminded me of television pictures of Belfast: graffiti, gangs of youths, shuttered shops, broken windows, doors boarded up with plywood, rubbish heaped in corners. Being high up, the estate took the full uninterrupted force of the wind from the sea, blasting through the concrete avenues and buffeting the little privet hedges into withered submission.
It was a town which led nowhere, unless you came to gaze at the endless expanse of sand, at the cold grey Irish Sea, at the vacant horizon. Inland there was great beauty, fields and villages and farms, and further still, mountains and lakes. On the way I had passed through Granthelme, a pleasant and affluent small market town, with a broad graceful river flowing through it, as becoming as any in Sussex or the Cotswolds. But all this might have been a million miles away. When you came past the estate on the hill there was a dislocation in more senses than the geographical, a wrench from the normal that couldn’t be measured in time or distance.