by Trevor Hoyle
The Mercedes was dulled under a fine coating of drizzle. Without giving it a single moment’s thought I reached for the handle of the rear door and pressed the button. The door clicked – in fact pushed itself open under pressure of a hidden spring. On the seat next to an umbrella there was a slim attaché case bound in what looked like crocodile skin: large irregular mottled squares burnished a brilliant blue-black.
I slid the attaché case inside my overcoat and wedged it under my arm. I pushed the door shut and heard it clunk. It was only then that I thought to look round. Nothing moved in the pall of mist that was gradually brightening under the bloodless sun – no faces in the lighted windows above me, smeared with outrage, fists beating the glass, muffled shouts and running feet. No one had seen or heard a thing. It remained that way, dead as the grave, silent as a tomb, as I crossed the street and walked down the hill towards the town.
Chapter Five
1
I pressed the sliding catches with my thumbs and the clasps sprang open. I hadn’t been prepared for that – that it would open at a touch, and for a moment I paused, trying to calm myself. My hands were clammy. I hadn’t stolen anything since I was a kid: it brought back that dreadful excitement, that hollow hammering of the heart, when you’ve slipped the chocolate bar into your pocket while the shopkeeper’s back was turned and you’re drifting ever so casually to the door, step by dragging step, seeming to take an eternity.
I wet my lips and raised the lid.
The case was lined with dark-blue silk, monogrammed in the top right-hand corner in delicate gold thread: ‘N.D.B.’ There were two rows of silk-lined compartments containing several small fat books, edged in gold-leaf. There was also a chequebook in a leather folder, a pocket calculator, and a micro-cassette recorder with spare tapes in two clear plastic cases. One by one I took the contents out and laid them on the bed, like a child on Christmas morning.
Behind one of the books I found a thick brown envelope secured with rubber bands. It had the feel of money. It had the smell of money. Yet I didn’t dare believe it.
I rolled off the rubber bands, tipped the envelope and out it slid in a solid crisp block of £20 notes. I had never held so much money in my hand. They were so new they were difficult to count. When I had stacked them, fifty notes to a pile, five piles lay on the grey wrinkled blanket.
Five thousand pounds in brand-new notes. It was such a neat sum, a perfectly rounded sum, that it bothered me, and I must have sat there for three or four minutes worrying at it like a dog with a bone. Then I put the money back in the envelope and replaced the rubber bands. The freedom it offered me hadn’t quite registered yet.
The fat little books with their gold embossed initials yielded up less than I had hoped. There was a business diary with dates and times of appointments, written in what appeared to be Benson’s own cryptic shorthand: ‘PL Mgr. – Site – 3pm.’ ‘Check Disp. rota – night shift?’ ‘Ring W. re info leak.’ ‘Baths sched.’ and so on.
There were perhaps a dozen references to ‘Baths sched’, which made me wonder about it. What kind of baths was Benson referring to? Swimming baths? Then it occurred to me that this might be council business – something to do with the public swimming pool in Brickton.
I read every entry, for what little sense it made, right up to today’s date – the 19th – in which he had written: ‘Rec. & Ent. Cmtee, 8pm, Crabtree agenda.’ So there was to be a council meeting tonight at eight o’clock. Some meetings, I knew, were open to members of the public. I would ask Mr Patundi where the council met.
A woman’s voice, low, excited, drifted up from below. I went to the door and eased it open. For a minute I thought I’d lost the powers of comprehension, until I realised she was speaking to Mr Patundi in his own tongue. His answer was brief and non-committal, in tones I recognised as those of a husband being badgered by his wife who sensibly takes the line of least resistance.
Until now there had been no sign or indication of a wife, a family. They must live in the warren of rooms in the basement, a separate subterranean existence, engaged in strange domestic rituals they had transposed from Asia to this cold, rainy corner of England. I’d been told, or read somewhere, that Indian men shielded their womenfolk from the temptations and depravities of Western civilisation. I couldn’t conceive of the kind of life Mrs Patundi led, unless it was to pad about in stuffy, overheated rooms, spending hours at the stove sprinkling spices into simmering ochre mixtures, watching video films of technicolour Indian epics from a reclining position.
I shut the door and on the way back my distorted reflection caught my eye, leering at me from the wardrobe mirror. With the money I could do something about my shabbiness. New clothes. A complete change of appearance. Moreover, it was now absolutely vital: too many people had seen me on the premises at B-H Haulage – the mechanic working on the lorry, Mrs Crompton in the office. Even Benson’s own daughter. They would give the police a detailed description. Middle-aged, thickening about the waist, pale, drawn features, short hair greying at the sides. The only immediate change I could think of was to get rid of the grey – dye my hair black or dark brown.
I recalled seeing a barber’s along the street. I would slip out later and buy hair dye. I had a three-day growth of beard which I had intended to shave off, but now I changed my mind.
I smiled to myself. Together we used to laugh, Susan and me, at these little pretensions of vanity; except that this wasn’t vanity, this was self-protective camouflage. Not the same as when she refused to wear glasses and suffered agonies with contact lenses, always losing them, down the bathroom sink, in the washing-up bowl, inevitably when we went away on holiday. I smiled, remembering those happy times, and to my surprise felt moisture trickling down my face. It rather shook me. To feel an emotion other than hatred was to experience once again a lost pleasure, distant as childhood, like remembering those bright summer mornings filled with acres of blue sky and limitless possibilities that had happened in another age to a person different from yourself.
I dried my face. Susan was dead and gone. I couldn’t afford these other redundant emotions.
2
After a while I played the tape in the micro-cassette machine, which was no bigger than an electric shaver, and looked expensive. I listened to it twice. Benson was talking to a man named Russell. At first I assumed that was his surname, until glancing through the business diary I came across an entry which mentioned somebody called Russell Rhodes.
There was something odd about the tape – the actual sound quality – that I couldn’t work out. Behind the conversation I could hear a steady throbbing hum, industrial machinery perhaps, but that wasn’t the odd thing. It was as if something kept scraping across the built-in microphone in a harsh explosion of noise, and the sound level was erratic, the two voices fading away and then becoming loud and clear for no apparent reason.
It wasn’t until I’d listened a second time that I realised what it was.
RHODES: If the contract comes through we might have to come to some new arrangement. That’s fair, isn’t it, in view of the risk?
BENSON: It all depends. (Cough. Throat clearing.) There’s a limit to what the traffic will bear.
RHODES: I don’t think I’m being unreasonable, Neville. I stand to lose everything, and I don’t just mean my job.
BENSON: It has to go through committee first. It has to be approved. (Click of lighter. Indrawn breath.) I know they’re a bunch of old women but they’re not complete fools. Potter in particular. Sums of five and ten grand can’t vanish into thin air. They have to be accounted for on the balance sheet.
RHODES: You told me you could lose them as a consultancy fee. Isn’t that what you said? (Nervously) Look, you’re not supposed to smoke in here. If the smoke detector activates—
BENSON: Calm down, Russell, for God’s sake. You take your job too seriously. If the place goes up it won’t be because some body lit a cigarette. (Silence. Scrape of clothing.)
RHODES: I
don’t see why you can’t arrange something direct. On a personal basis. When the EC coughs up you’re going to be rolling in it.
BENSON: They haven’t coughed up yet.
RHODES: Not yet. But soon.
BENSON: Maybe, Russell. The big maybe. It isn’t in the bag. And in the meantime if I make funds available out of my personal resources, how do I recoup them? I can’t charge myself a consultancy fee. The council treasurer would smell a rat straight away. (Laughs) That would be grist to Potter’s mill. He’d drop on me like a ton of bricks.
RHODES: Is there no way you could get it in cash?
BENSON: It’s in cash now, so where’s the difference? (Heavy sigh.) What’s the point in paying money into the firm’s account only to withdraw it to give to you? I’ve thought this through, Russell, and it’s the only way.
RHODES: There’s nothing on paper to link it to me?
BENSON: Don’t be stupid. With neither of us. No names, no pack drill. Let’s just leave the arrangement as it stands. It’s safer all round. (Silence)
RHODES: I still think I deserve more.
BENSON: Do you now? On top of the five thousand a month? I call that greedy—
RHODES: How much is that sludge disposal contract worth to you? Quarter of a million? I helped arrange that too, you know.
BENSON: I haven’t forgotten.
RHODES: And the provision of free hot water for the swimming baths. You got a bloody good deal it seems to me.
BENSON: (Scrape of clothing.) The hire of tankers and the disposal of waste material is a straightforward business contract, signed and sealed and totally above board. The provision of hot water is a separate issue.
RHODES: Just as long as we don’t land in it.
BENSON: What? Land in what?
RHODES: Hot water.
BENSON: Very good, Russell. I didn’t know you had a sense of humour.
RHODES: (Pause) And as long as nobody realises what it is you’re dumping and where you’re dumping it.
BENSON: That’s an odd tone to use. I don’t think I like it. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out.
RHODES: All right … all right. I’m talking about Holford. What’s he after? What’s he want?
BENSON: Don’t worry about Holford. I’ll see he’s taken care of.
RHODES: What does he know?
BENSON: (Soothing) He doesn’t know anything. Just forget about it, Russell. It’s all arranged. (Chuckle) I have a friend who knows how to deal with that sort of thing. (Scraping sound. A clink of something – glass or metal.)
RHODES: You call that fat junkie a friend? You trust him?
BENSON: He’s handy with a needle.
RHODES: I don’t see the joke, Neville.
BENSON: No? Ah well, never mind. (Laughs and chokes.)
Holford will get the point all right.
RHODES: I’m not going to be involved in this. (Low) I refuse to be involved. This is none of my concern—
BENSON: Squeamish all of a sudden. You take the money and we take the risks.
RHODES: Five grand a month isn’t worth that sort of risk.
BENSON: It had better be or I might start having second thoughts about you.
RHODES: I didn’t mean—
BENSON: I don’t care what you meant. You’ve taken the money. You’re in it. You asked about Holford and I told you. If you don’t want to know in future, don’t ask.
RHODES: And what about the money? Have you got it with you?
BENSON: You’ll get it tomorrow. I’ll call you. (Scrape of clothing.) Time I went. Why not come down to the clubhouse? You could do with some fresh air after this place.
RHODES: I don’t play.
BENSON: For Christ’s sake, do you never relax? (Door opening. Humming noise very loud. Footsteps on metal grating. Sound becomes blurred, voices indistinct.)
RHODES: Will you … that cigarette …
BENSON: Yes, yes … all right. (Scrape of clothing. Humming sound even louder. Footsteps descending metal stairway. Voices barely audible.)
RHODES: Do you … worked here … ford …
BENSON: What? Who?
RHODES: Maintenance worker … Trafford. He found …
BENSON: … haven’t … why did … never … (Footsteps on metal stairway. Voices inaudible. Scrape of clothing. Click. Hiss of silence.)
I pressed the button to stop the tape and pressed it again to eject the tiny cassette. I held the tape between finger and thumb for a moment, and then as I replaced it in the clear plastic case I suddenly knew what was odd about the sound quality, and why. The recording had been made in secret. Benson had concealed the recorder – breast pocket of his jacket perhaps – so that every time he moved his lapel scraped against the microphone. Though Benson was paying money to Russell, apparently he still didn’t trust him. The tape was Benson’s insurance, just in case Russell started to backslide.
And now I had Russell’s money – whoever Russell was. Benson was paying him off – but for what? And how did Benson, who’d never in his life laid eyes on me, know I was here? Had someone told him? I couldn’t think who. Dr Morduch at the clinic might have reported my departure to the police, but why should the police inform Benson? The one person, the only person, who knew for sure I was in this part of the country was Diane Locke. Not counting S –, which I didn’t.
The thought of S – though, wherever he might be, sparked off another. I reached down to my bundle of things lying under the bed and took out the diary. It was cheap and nasty-looking, and I could hardly bear to touch its shiny black plastic cover. Handling it made me feel cold. It was as if, in stealing it and bringing it with me, I had dragged S – and his evil fantasies after me. Why hadn’t I got rid of the hateful thing?
Even more incredibly, I now realised with a shudder, I had left the diary in my bundle, unattended, for anyone to wander in and read. I would had to be more careful.
Leaving the money in its envelope on the bed I put everything back in the attaché case, including S –’s diary, and looked round for somewhere to hide it. The room was bare as a mortuary. I used my weight to test for loose floorboards, then gave it up, knowing it was one of the places I’d have looked within five minutes of entering the room.
I took the attaché case and stepped onto the landing and listened. Slowly I moved towards the back of the house. The light was dim and I had to feel my way. Mr Patundi must have been a favoured customer of the local ironmongers because every door was padlocked. I came to a blank wall, fingers touching cold bare plaster through hanging strips of mildewed wallpaper. I didn’t expect to find another door – there couldn’t be more than four upstairs rooms in a house this size – but in fact there was one, narrower than the rest, and behind it pitch-darkness. I stumbled, cracked my knee, made a racket, and reaching out felt worn wooden stairs rising steeply upwards. I climbed.
In the attic a small dormer window crusted over with grime and cobwebs looked out on a dismal prospect of slate rooftops wreathed in mist – and a long way below, the vacant, dusty shop fronts across the street, their ragged patchwork of fly posters torn into tatters by the wind.
The same wind that was moaning in the hollow brick vault of the chimney, like a trapped spirit.
I looked round at the detritus of previous occupants: an armchair leaking horse-hair, a folding-leaf table branded by tea pots and countless mugs of hot tea, a mattress trussed up like a soggy sausage roll, a chest of drawers kneeling forward with a leg missing, the drawers hanging out as if gasping for air. Broken ornaments, shards of crockery, rusty springs and curled yellowing newspapers were strewn across the pitted floorboards. Mr Patundi must have taken one eye-rolling look and flapped off down the narrow stairs.
I raised the armchair onto its back, pulled the hessian loose from the frame underneath, and wedged the case between the springs, which gave a dull protesting twang. Dust sifted down in the weak light as I scuffed some rubbish around it to cover my tracks. Everything slumbered on in mould and decay.
Back in my room I put on my overcoat and pushed the envelope into the deep inside pocket. I took the envelope out again, counted off three £20 notes, pushed it back down. Suddenly I had a ravenous appetite. I had no idea of the time. The drab daylight gave no clue. First, and more important than food, was my appearance. I needed a suit, shirt, raincoat, shoes, and a change of hair colour. How was it done – did you just wet the hair and comb it in? Perhaps I ought to let the barber do it, except that would mean sitting in the chair and letting him have a good long look at me …
I decided to buy the stuff and do it myself; Mr Patundi wouldn’t begrudge me a kettle of boiling water.
Buttoned up, wearing my hat pulled well down, I stepped into the street. The envelope made a hard, solid bulge against my ribs, as if I were carrying a concealed weapon. I had an exhilarating sense of power. The money, Benson’s money, would allow me to pursue him. His wife and daughter too. And to destroy them all. There was a pleasing symmetry about that, as if the fates, for once, were on my side.
3
Further along the street a light was burning behind the misted-up window. I pushed open the door and stood in the narrow space between a wooden bench and a partition of tongue-and-groove boards with panels of frosted glass upon which a shadow rippled, obscuring the light. An instrument buzzed and stuttered, and a voice called, ‘Won’t be long, squire, take a seat,’ and reflected in a blemished mirror I saw a pale fat neck bent forward, a shirt bulging at the waistband and strained tight over a shoulder like a flabby side of beef.
I now noticed something: that the colour pictures on the glossy yellow walls, torn from magazines, weren’t of hairstyles after all. They were of birds, battleships, flowers, snakes, skulls, naked women, dragons, chains, guitars, concentration camps, sunsets, leaves, Nazi insignia, atomic bombs, circus clowns, panthers. On the shelves were bottles containing a rainbow of brightly coloured liquids.
The instrument rasped, making an angry sound like that of a mechanical hornet battering itself to death against a window pane. The air had a stale, used-up smell, mingled with the acrid taint of burnt rubber. I stood close to the partition and listened as the same voice said, ‘How many drops of blood d’ya want, Gaz? Three, four? Or a bleedin’ bucketful?’