by Trevor Hoyle
‘There’s nowhere to go at this hour, for heaven’s sake. I’ll make up the bed in the spare room. After a good night’s sleep you’ll be able to think straight.’ Diane Locke shook her head, her expression half-smiling, half-rueful. ‘My fault for giving you too much whisky.’
It was true. It was all her fucking fault. I was sick to death of people interfering in my life. They were always telling me what to do. Forcing me to do things. Getting in my way. Why couldn’t they leave me alone?
I could feel the sultry headache I’d had earlier on starting its throbbing drumbeat again. And the nausea too – a sour, burning sensation at the back of my throat, as if I was about to regurgitate some corrosive bodily fluid.
Then it hit me. With an icy shock I thought: I’ve got Trafford’s disease. I’ve been infected – contaminated – by the sludge Benson dumped in the harbour. I’ve been there twice, traipsing ankle-deep through the mud. I had to smile, bitterly, to myself. I thought I had escaped from Benson but the bastard had got me in th end.
I clutched at my scalp – trying to drag out a handful of hair – but my hand came away empty. I wasn’t as far gone as Trafford, apparently. The wasting, flaking, hair-falling-out stage would come later.
‘What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?’
‘I need to … sleep.’
‘Wait here while I get the bed ready, I won’t be a minute.’
When she had gone I sat listening to the wind buffeting the house and pelting the windows with sleet. The branches of the pines clashed in a frenzy. Listening, staring into space, I suddenly discovered that I was looking at the shiny mottled leather of the attaché case, peeping out from the far side of the chair in which Diane Locke had been sitting. It astounded me that she hadn’t bothered to hide it. She must have felt so safely tucked away in this 1930s timewarp that nothing, not even Benson and the dregs of Brickton he had recruited, could possibly harm her.
I remembered the difficulty I had had before in finding a suitable hiding-place for such a bulky object. But the case itself, and most of its contents, weren’t important. The only thing that really mattered was the one tiny cassette tape. I snapped open the catches, took it out, and went over to the corner bookcase next to the fireplace. The shelves were packed tight, and none of the titles were familiar. My eye caught the name of a foreign author, the title of the book in English; I prised it out, slid the tape to the back of the shelf, and replaced the book. I knew I wouldn’t remember the name of the author, but I was confident I could remember the title. Flight to Arras. The ‘flight’ definitely …
There was movement on the stairs. I closed the lid, then stood for a moment staring at it before I finally pressed the catches home. When Diane Locke came in she found me sitting on the settee with a frown on my face.
‘Come on, you’ll feel much better in the morning.’ She helped me up, her manner brisk, a nurse quite certain she knows what’s best for her patient. ‘I’ve even put a hot-water bottle in.’
As I mounted the stairs, hemmed in by the wall of books, I was still perplexed, and a twinge uneasy too, wondering what could have happened to the black shiny-backed book, conspicuous by its absence from the silk-lined compartment.
She’s read it, I thought, and not told me. The sly deceitful calculating bitch has read S –’s diary.
3
Thought you’d got away with it
Didn’t you my friend?
No such luck
Your luck’s run out
And now you have to pay
For what you did
(Murdering bastard!)
Because here I come
Getting nearer every step
Dragging one foot
After the other
Plodding steadily on
Head bent
Eyes screwed tight
Against the icy blast
Face frozen in a mask
Of hate
Trees bend and thrash
In the biting wind
Branches clash and jostle
Pine cones clatter
Like rattlers’ tails
Closer now
Seeing through the trees
The house sharp and black
Against the sky
Like a ship thrusting hard
Into a whirling white storm
And on I come
Nearer now
And ever nearer
Smiling into the teeth
Of the wind
Knowing the end is nigh
For you Holford
(Murdering Bastard!)
And for the bitch in heat
Who helped you
Sheltered and fed you
And fucked you
The two of you will lie
Together one last time
Forever and ever
Amen
Is it my footsteps you hear
Or your plodding heart?
Hard to tell eh?
So hard hard hard
To tell the difference
4
I lay drowsily half-awake in the warm, soft furrow of the bed, not knowing whether I had slept for hours or ten minutes.
Not knowing either what had awakened me. Unless it was the racket the wind was making in the trees, or the brittle staccato peppering of icy rain gusting at the window. Had there been anything else? I seemed to recall the dragging sound of heavy footsteps slowly approaching, though there was nothing now, nothing at all, and in any case I couldn’t possibly have heard them above the noise outside.
Stretching out, my feet encountered the hot-water bottle, like the flaccid, cooling, yet still-warm body of a reptile that had recently died, so I knew I had been asleep for at least half-an-hour. But I couldn’t work out what had disturbed me.
I switched on the bedside lamp with its tiny pink tasselled shade and the unadorned walls of faded blue patterned wallpaper reared up and sprang at me. A pale disc trembled on the ceiling: the light reflected by the small oval mirror, tilted on its axis, between the varnished posts of the dressing-table. Diane Locke hadn’t bothered, or forgotten, to pull the curtains to; the window was a black square dissected by a wooden cross, each separate pane of glass as black and shiny as the cover of the missing diary. Not that it really mattered, I told myself, that she had read it. It didn’t matter at all. Nothing mattered now.
I closed my eyes and immediately the sounds started up again. But I couldn’t decide whether it was the sultry drumbeat inside my head or the slow, steady approach of heavy footsteps. Were they inside or outside? Why could I hear them only when I shut out the light?
The house creaked under the onslaught of the wind howling mournfully in the eaves. Behind the sound, or underneath it, the footsteps approached, steady and measured, in no desperate hurry because their destination was fixed and they would arrive all in good time.
I jerked upright and swung my legs out of bed. It was cold but I didn’t mind the sudden draught of cold air. I welcomed it. It would keep me awake, and alert. I needed the cold, hard immediacy of the moment to stand as a wall between me and the fear of whatever the unnameable thing was that was approaching with patient, unhurried tread.
My eyes were open now – wide open – I made sure of that, and yet the footsteps came on. They were no longer inside but outside my head. I sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the inky-black window directly in front of me. If the window was real, and the cold air circulating round my legs was real, then the footsteps were real. The house creaked again … or perhaps it was the stairs?
With my breath locked tight in my chest I strained to listen.
No, I wasn’t imagining or hallucinating.
I definitely, distinctly heard it.
There it was again. No mistake.
A muffled thudding footfall.
Huddled and shivering, my arms wrapped around my body, I sat on the bed staring into the black window, and heard the stairs creak.
5
Grasping t
he banister
Up we go!
To the door
With the slit of light
Spilling across the landing
Easing my weight down
Very very carefully
On each tread …
But still
The old timber protests
Groans and creaks under my foot
As slowly and surely
I rise step by careful step
With the banister on one side
The piled books on the other
Hemmed in between the banister
And the wall of books
Until at last
I reach the landing
And I can hear
Holford’s heart hammering
Inside the room
Loud enough to shake the house
To pieces
And here I stand
Silent in the darkness
With my frozen smile
Of triumph
Knowing my journey
Is nearly done
Because nothing stands in my way
Nothing in heaven or earth
Can stop me now
Chapter Twelve
1
In the black window I saw the door open, and from the dark landing a tall shadowy figure slowly advanced into the light. I tried to stand up, and turn round, and face it, but I hadn’t the strength. I sat huddled and waiting, staring at the shape reflected in the black window, and then I heard Diane Locke say, ‘Did you hear it too? There’s somebody out there, I’m sure of it.’
Her voice shocked me into convulsive movement. I jerked to my feet like a puppet, and spun round.
‘I’ve been down to check the kitchen window. There’s a faulty catch. But it’s all right, it hasn’t been tampered with.’
I stared at her, saying nothing.
‘Your light was on, so I thought you must have heard it too.’
I shook my head.
‘Probably just the wind, I expect,’ she said.
‘There’s nobody there,’ I said.
Diane Locke looked at me intently as if trying to read the expression in my eyes, or even to understand what was happening inside my head. As if anyone could! She said, ‘Get back into bed before you catch your death.’ And suddenly I realised I was freezing. But instead of getting back into bed I gathered my clothing together and started to get dressed. She watched me get dressed, waiting, it seemed to me, for the right moment to speak. Why was she waiting? What did she have to say to me?
‘There’s nobody outside,’ I heard myself telling her. I bared my teeth in a smile and tapped my head. ‘In here.’
Diane Locke stood in the doorway, motionless, her face pale and taut, as if she has seen a ghost, or even two.
‘I must have been mistaken,’ she said softly.
I couldn’t stop smiling at her, now that I’d started; the smile seemed frozen to my face.
‘We all make mistakes,’ I said.
‘What you mean,’ Diane Locke said, ‘is that I made a mistake about you … isn’t that it?’
Before I could stop her she went out of the room, but was back in less than a minute, carrying something. ‘You know that I took this, don’t you? But you don’t remember what it contains, do you?’
‘Remember?’ I heard myself say.
The diary’s shiny black cover was like the window’s black reflection. But I could never open the shiny black cover; it was too solid and heavy, like a black marble slab covering a tomb. And like a marble slab covering a tomb, something dead lay buried beneath it.
She did something then I least expected: she closed the door. Was it Diane Locke that was trapped, or was it me? It was a clever trick, no doubt, designed to throw me off balance, but it wasn’t going to work. Oh yes, I knew all about her clever tricks. She couldn’t fool me any more.
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ve trusted me up to now. There’s no reason to stop.’
What did she mean? What did she know that I didn’t?
‘You’ve got it wrong.’ I told her. ‘I never trusted you. I’ve never trusted a woman in my life. Never.’
‘You told me about Smith’s diary and what he wrote in it. You remember that? How he planned and schemed to get rid of his wife, and how he finally did it by injecting her. It was all written down in the diary, you said, and also how he planned to get rid of you too because he blamed you for her death. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But look …’ Diane Locke opened the shiny black cover and held up the book to face me. ‘There’s nothing written here.’ She riffled through the pages, which were all blank. ‘Smith never wrote anything down.’
I laughed. ‘Of course he didn’t,’ I said harshly. ‘Do you think he’s a fool? Morduch would have been onto him in a flash if he’d written it all down. I told you he was smart, cunning, devious. Perhaps now you’ll believe me.’
‘I do believe you. I always have.’
What trick was this? God, you couldn’t trust women an inch. Their minds were an impenetrable mystery.
‘Your wife is dead,’ Diane Locke went on. ‘I believe that. But it wasn’t Benson that killed her.’
‘Wasn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘Why did I think it was?’
‘You had to blame someone.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was you that killed her.’
‘Me? I never killed anyone …’
‘Yes,’ Diane Locke said quietly. ‘Your wife was ill. She had suffered for five years from diabetes and she began to get worse – much worse. Her sight began to fail. She made you promise that if she went blind you would find a way to end it for her. And that’s what happened.’
The woman was mad. ‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘I stuck the needle in her arm when she was asleep, then I lay down beside her and we slept side by side, all night long, but she never woke up.’
Diane Locke nodded. ‘That’s probably how it happened. But you’ve got to remember why it happened. Your wife begged you to end it for her – remember that too.’ She took two or three pieces of newspaper from her pocket. ‘You even kept the cuttings from the local paper about the inquest. They were in the diary. Why didn’t you open it and read them?’ She thrust the cuttings, bunched in her fist, at me angrily. ‘You must remember. Try to remember!’
Why was she so angry? Why should she care what happened to me, a complete stranger? I can hear the wind howling in the eaves and start to wonder where I am. The room is cold and bare, with faded floral wallpaper. Is this her house I’m in? I can see the plume of my breath in the air. Who the fuck is she? How did I get here?
Perhaps S – knew the answers, if only I could summon up the nerve to face him. But suppose I could and did – will the horrible voice come back too, harsh and rasping, chafing the soft tissue of my brain? The last thing I want is to harm this woman, though I can’t vouch for S –. Having killed once, S – might have acquired a taste for it. Might actually enjoy it. I can’t be held responsible for his actions …
No, I decided, better not to know the answers. Better to continue living in this grey anonymous world of shadows than to confront the truth; no truth is worth my sanity. I will stay sane if I can avoid the truth, which I suspect is more terrible than my own most terrible imaginings.
‘Do you remember now, how you met Peter Holford in the Clinic?’
What does she want from me, this woman with dark tousled hair streaked with grey, whose grey-blue eyes are burning with an intensity I can almost feel as a physical sensation? Does she realise how close to the wind she’s sailing? Doesn’t she know what pain remembering can bring, what harm it can do?
‘You couldn’t face the truth about your wife, so you swapped places with Peter Holford and took over his life. That’s what Dr Morduch meant when he spoke about your “externality”. Peter Holford’s life became your life, and his wife became yours – except your wife was dead, so P
eter’s wife had to be dead too. And if she was dead, someone must have killed her, or at any rate caused her death, which to you was the same thing. So you had to get even, and you set out to avenge her death by destroying Benson. But all you knew about Benson was that Peter Holford had told you he lived in Brickton. So you left the Clinic and went there to find him.
‘And the guilt you felt about killing your wife followed you,’ Diane Locke added, her eyes burning into mine. ‘Smith pursued you all the way. You even hung onto his empty diary to remind you of your own guilt.’
I was trembling but not from the cold. It was as in a dream, as if my mind and body were separate, that I watched myself move forward to the dresser. A hand reached out and tipped the oval mirror forward. The mottled ceiling disappeared, Diane Locke’s face flashed by, and then (as I anticipated, as I knew he would be) he was there, gazing steadily back at me.
I raised my hand. Smith raised his. On his lips was the same frozen smile that was on mine. I watched him turn away from the mirror (frozen smile on his lips) towards the woman who stands watching him with round dark eyes.
2
You know
Don’t you
What you must do
Yes he knows what he must do.
The woman thinks him innocent and blameless of course. He is far from innocent. He is undeniably guilty. Holford might deny it, but not him. And with Holford gone for good he can admit it. He feels as if a tremendous burden has been lifted from his shoulders: he feels free and strong, with that fool Holford out of the way. As if his vision had been cloudy and now he sees his way clear, hard and sure, sharp, definite.
The relief is sweet, soothing to his mind. He is at peace at last (even the footsteps pounding inside his head have ceased – blessed silence within). It was as if he had been mad and regained his sanity. As if he had awakened from a nightmare.
Thinking this, he smiles his frozen smile at her.
The man in the mirror is smiling too, which means there are three of them in the room, two of them smiling, the other not smiling.
What are you waiting for?
She knows it was you
Shut her mouth
Do it now
Do I have to?