‘It’ll blow over, Sam,’ soothed Ken Heath.
‘Listen,’ Sam said, ‘tell me something. When I come in, was you talkin to Pete about this?’
‘Well, yes, I touched on it, as a matter of fact.’
‘In front of them two lads.’
‘They couldn’t have heard,’ Ken said defensively. ‘They were listening to the telly.’
‘They were listenin to you,’ Sam said. ‘What have you done, boy? That int never goonna blow over now—never.’
‘Shit,’ said Ken to himself, and took to pacing again.
‘I don’t think,’ Sam said, ‘there’s no use in talkin on about it. We better sleep on it, and think over what we’ve said already. You’ve done me a foo good turns, Ken. I shan’t make your affairs more complicated than what they are.’
The fat young man paused in front of him and looked him in the eyes. ‘The good turns haven’t all been on one side,’ he said. ‘Don’t get any wrong ideas, Sam—we’re not parting from you.’
‘Funny,’ Sam said, ‘that telephone’s got a lot to answer for. Remember? I asked you if I could put my own name into the book with that number. On’y time I ever sin my name in print, until the inquests. That crazy fella might have never tracked me down if it hadn’t been for that, and he might have just forgot about me. But that seemed sort of homely, like, and settled, bein in the phone book.’
‘Time I wasn’t here,’ Ken Heath said.
‘Time you wasn’t,’ Sam agreed. ‘Like I said, sleep on it.’
‘And you,’ Ken said. At the door he made a V-sign, then went heavily down the stairs.
Sam stood staring for a moment at the picture of the angling boys, dwarfed and at home in their leafy landscape. He was wondering what had become of them all, the school-pals with whom he had gone fishing.
In the bedroom he still preserved Miss Buxhall’s picture, her tropical fantasy. On the bedside table lay a neat packet of letters from his mother. It was hard to associate her with those foreign-looking stamps. She had lately passed into her seventies, and grown rather querulous, finding fault, in a Christian way, with daughters and grandchildren. The climate did not suit her. She dreamed sometimes of grey rainy days, of snow.
He threw himself down on the smooth counterpane, faultlessly washed and ironed. He lay staring at the spotless ceiling, painted by himself.
Listless Linda De Vere, blondely and anæmically pretty, turned down the sound of the telly so as to hear her definitely blonde friend. Definite was what Donna had always been, crisp and clear-coloured. Often she gave Linda, who was the elder by eight years, the feeling of being a little bossily jollied along and mothered.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘What was that?’
‘I was just thinking,’ Donna said, ‘that it looks bigger, the room looks bigger. Lighter, too, without all old Dick Turpin’s ironmongery.’
‘He flogged it all,’ Linda said. ‘I’ve told you, haven’t I? He was getting the feeling that our friendly neighbourhood bobbies thought he might be kinky about shooting holes in people. Very sarky he was, about how nobody had been shot with a blunderbuss or a rapier or anything else he had. Anyway, he sold the lot, and did well out of it. I think he’s good at selling things, my man.’
‘I reckon,’ said Donna coolly.
‘Except himself,’ said Frank De Vere’s wife, ‘as your tone is telling me. In the days when I went into pubs with him it used to get me down, the feeling of being half of an unloved couple.’
‘Sometimes,’ Donna said, ‘you make him sound pretty unloved by you.’
‘That’s life,’ Linda said. ‘You’ll find out. You fall into a rut—the sort of rut you call a relationship—and the easiest thing, on the whole, seems to be to stay in it.’
‘Or the laziest thing,’ said Donna.
‘Christ,’ Linda said, ‘has he been coaching you in his lines? Give us another one. Tell me you were raised by an army wife, and you can’t stand slatterns.’
‘“Slattern”,’ Donna repeated. ‘The cheeky bugger.’
‘Oh, there’s plenty more like that,’ Linda said. ‘He knows lots of words. Why did he marry me, I wonder. There must have been a female sergeant-major or two in Colchester who’d have had him.’
‘Really?’ said Donna, feigning belief. ‘Is he that way? You know—masterful women in uniform, and all that? Whips and bondage?’
‘No,’ Linda said. ‘No, it’s the other way about. He’d like to be masterful himself, but not in a physical way. A sort of mental bullying, that’s his bag. Hence the great buddyship with Dave Stutton, who’s as bullyable as—’
‘Two short planks,’ Donna suggested.
‘Right on,’ said Linda.
Donna giggled a little, thinking about it. ‘All the same,’ she said, ‘it’s not really fair to him—to Frank—to talk about him like this. I mean, he was really worried about you, in the weeks after the murders. He offered to pay me—to pay me, for God’s sake—to come and sit with you when he was out at night. I mean, he wasn’t just edgy, he was neurotic.’
Linda took up a packet of cigarettes and made a slow business of removing one and lighting it. ‘I suppose,’ she said at last, ‘he didn’t tell you why?’
‘Why?’ Donna repeated. ‘He didn’t need to. There was someone going around blowing people away, that was why.’
‘There was more to it,’ Linda said. ‘He didn’t tell you anything else? About a window, for instance?’
‘No. No windows came into it.’
‘I was almost certain of that,’ Linda said. ‘Well, the reason for all the worry about me was that one morning—the morning after poor old Ena died, but before I knew about it—there was a message written in my lipstick on the inside of that window there. It seemed to be a message from the murderer, saying that he was going to call again.’
‘You’re kidding,’ Donna breathed. ‘Oh my Christ, Linda.’
‘I’m not kidding,’ Linda said. ‘I’ve always suspected that someone else was.’
‘You mean, Frank?’
‘That was what I thought as soon as I saw it. And in spite of all his carrying on later, I never really stopped thinking that. In spite of the fact that in the end he actually said that he wrote it; because he wasn’t even trying to be convincing. You can imagine the scene. I’d gone to bed leaving the back door unlocked—it opens on a blind yard with ten-foot walls, but so did Paul Ramsey’s—and the master of the house comes down in the morning and throws a wobbler. So he grabs a lipstick which is near his razor in the bathroom cupboard, and decides he’ll teach the slattern a lesson she’ll never forget. That’s how I read it, and if I’m unjust to him—well, I always was a mean-minded bitch.’
Donna had been staring at her, blue-eyed. ‘I’m scared for you,’ she said. ‘Whichever way it is, whether it was him or—I’m scared for you, Linda.’
‘Don’t be,’ Linda said. ‘It was a sort of joke. The actual message was jokey. Most of his jokes have a nasty streak. People like that don’t go in for physical violence, they work it out of their systems in words.’
‘Deep,’ said Donna. ‘All the same, I don’t like leaving you. But Sam will be coming for me soon. Shall I send him away again?’
‘Don’t you dare,’ Linda said. ‘Poor old Sam, faithful as—two short planks.’
‘You are rotten.’
‘Look, love, I’ve explained to you that my husband doesn’t shoot people, and why. So we won’t worry about that. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about Sam.’
‘Sam’s very nice,’ Donna said. ‘He’s sweet through and through. And he’s not “poor old Sam”, either. I think he’s younger than you are.’
‘He looks older,’ Linda considered. ‘Than a white man of that age, I mean. They do, don’t they?’
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ said Donna.
‘Why doesn’t he live with you?’
‘He wasn’t invited,’ Donna said. ‘I didn’t think we were ready for that.’
>
‘Such caution,’ Linda said, ‘at your time of life. Oh, tell me, sister-woman, is it true about black men? I long to know.’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue,’ said Donna, shortly.
‘You mean you’ve never—?’
‘No. We’ve never.’
‘You take my breath away,’ Linda said. ‘You must be a throwback. They haven’t made girls like you since Elvis was a boy. Not even a feel of a suspender?’
‘I can’t explain,’ Linda said, ‘but it’s for his sake that I’ve left it like this. And that was him tooting then, wasn’t it? I’d better go now, if there’s no point in staying.’
‘There isn’t,’ Linda said. ‘So you and I are pretty much in the same boat, gal, sex-wise.’
‘True?’ Donna said. ‘Oh, the messes people get themselves into.’
‘Why don’t we run away together?’ suggested Linda. ‘Let’s go into a nunnery. I’m sure Dave Stutton would be happy to take over my household duties.’
‘Lock the back door,’ Donna said. ‘I think I’ll go and do it now, for my own peace of mind.’
‘Piss off, sister,’ said her friend. ‘Don’t keep that nice fella waiting for everything.’
In the warm taxi parked in front of Donna’s little house, Sam said: ‘You’re quiet. Something on your mind?’
‘Yes,’ Donna said. ‘It weighs a ton.’
‘Gonna tell me?’
‘I don’t think I can. No, I definitely can’t. Not yet. It’s just talk. We all saw with Greg Ramsey what careless talk can do.’
‘You’ve heard,’ Sam said, grim-faced, ‘some talk about me?’
‘About you?’ Donna said. ‘No, of course I haven’t. Who would be talking about you?’
‘You mentioned Greg Ramsey.’
‘Oh, that,’ said Donna, uncomfortably.
He laid his arm along the back of the seat and leaned against the door, watching her pale profile looking straight ahead. ‘Tell me about that. Tell me what you thought.’
‘I thought it was horrible,’ she said. ‘And horribly sad.’
‘And him calling me a jungle-bunny and that, and a killer—what did you think of that?’
‘Honestly, Sam,’ Donna said, ‘I didn’t really listen to what he said. It wasn’t his words I noticed, it was everything else about him.’
‘How did you think I coped with it?’ Sam persisted. ‘Did you think I was dignified? Did you think I handled myself like a man?’
‘You were very good,’ Donna said. ‘Very dignified.’
‘You didn’t wonder, did you, if p’rhaps he knoo something about me, something about the murders?’
She jerked her head and stared at him, her lips apart. ‘Sam?’
‘Did you? Did you, Donna?’
‘I’m going indoors,’ she said, groping for the doorhandle. ‘You’re scaring me. If it’s a joke, it’s not like one of yours.’
‘No, no, no,’ he soothed, touching her neck with his fingertips. ‘I’m sorry, little gal, I rushed into that clumsy, like. What I meant was, someone who was there has been talkin about it, and suspectin Greg Ramsey knoo something the coppers don’t know.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Donna, relaxing a little. ‘That bloody Dave. Well, it might have been Frank, but I bet it was Dave—that hairy wally.’
‘I don’t need to repeat my question,’ Sam said. ‘Just for a moment you was terrified. You thought you was sittin in a dark car with a murderer.’
‘Oh, don’t go on, Sam,’ Donna begged. ‘I’m very jittery tonight. Some day I’ll tell you why. Anyway, I want to go to bed, so goodnight.’
But she did not move to kiss him. All the moves had to be his.
‘Can I come in for a while?’ he asked, whispering into her ear.
‘No, Sam,’ she said, a little fretfully. ‘I just want to sleep. Don’t pester, dear boy.’
‘Marry me,’ he whispered.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Still no. I’m not ready.’
‘Live with me, then. Be my live-in lover.’
‘Sam, don’t nag.’
‘Why do we never get anywhere? Why do I never get anywhere? Nothing moves. You string me along.’
‘That’s not fair,’ she said. ‘To put it plainly, for once, I just don’t happen to have fallen in love. I’ve been waiting—for your sake I’ve been waiting—and it hasn’t happened.’
He drew back from her, and slouched behind the wheel again. His voice when he spoke was hard. ‘It wouldn’t have been like this if I’d been white.’
She turned an indignant face on him. ‘You take that back! That’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No—sorry. I spoke out of turn that time.’
‘Oh, Sam,’ she said, softening, ‘I am so fond of you. You were sweet when you used to come into the shop and buy things you didn’t need. What did you do with all that sticky-tape and torch-batteries and stuff? You are a sweet bloke, Sam, I really mean that. And you did get me out of a hole, when you talked Ken Heath into letting me rent the house. I liked you so much, I thought it would go further. But it didn’t.’
‘It’s because I’m black,’ he said. ‘Because that crazy kid came out with what you’re all thinkin, and ole Rastus just stood there and took it. He int a man, ole Rastus, he don’t stand up for himself; he’s just a grinnin, docile animal. Except at the full moon, p’rhaps, and then his primitive jungle nature come out and he go round killin people.’
‘Sam—’ she said.
‘Well, I’m leavin,’ he said. ‘I’m leavin all of you. Ole Rastus done got tired of Tornwich. He’s gwine back home with his pocket full of tin, O doodah day.’
‘Going where?’ she asked.
‘Yas, ma’am, dat am one big question. Ipswich might not be too easy, bein as I’ve got the reputation of bein a triple murderer. Thass a bit too near, Ipswich.’
‘You don’t have to go anywhere,’ she said. ‘You’re just bitter for the moment, but it’ll pass. Not that there aren’t more interesting places in the world than Tornwich. Like the Caribbean.’
‘Shit,’ Sam said, banging with both hands on the steering wheel. ‘Oh holy shit. All you Honkies want to make me believe thass where I come from. Well, I don’t. I int never been there. I don’t believe I should like it. I don’t want to be no foreigner. Why do you stop there, anyway, you Honkies: why don’t you tell me to piss off back to Africa?’
She moved towards him and put out an arm, but he pushed her aside and leaned across to open her door. ‘I don’t want no white trash in my car,’ he said. ‘Rude woman. I done hear about you white ladies, always tryin to get into the brothers’ underpants.’
She got out and slammed the door, but then appeared by his window and knocked on the glass. He wound it down, and glowered up at her.
‘Sam,’ she said.
‘Doodah,’ he said.
‘Shut up, Rastus,’ she said, ‘I want to talk to Sam. Sam, you are a very sweet guy. No woman should be close to you—should be close if she can’t be—what you need. In the end, I didn’t measure up. I wish I could, but that’s the way it is, Sam.’
He went on gazing at her, his face tilted. She bent and kissed his forehead.
‘Hell, I’m going to cry,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think we can be friends, after a while?’
He lifted one hand from the steering wheel, and performed the Suffolk feint of spitting in the palm. He held out his hand without a word, and she clasped it.
‘It’s a deal,’ she said. ‘Well, goodnight, ole buddy.’
He watched her unlock her door, then close it on the light. He started his engine and moved on.
At a pub on the main road he pulled up and got out and rapped on the locked door. Presently the landlord, who was washing glasses, peered out and recognized an old friend. He sold Sam a bottle of whisky.
Harry was trying to mend a lamp which the little dog, tangling itself in the cord, had brought to the floor. Nothing except the bulb had broken, but som
ething had gone wrong with the switch. He had it in his big unhandy fingers, trying to work out how to set the fault right.
Near his chair a fire of driftwood leaped in the grate, and polished brass winked with the flames. The cat and the spaniel, long accustomed to one another, slept side by side on the mat. Close to his hand was a glass of neat whisky. He had been attempting his repairs with a sharp-pointed knife, but put it aside, and sat thinking. Presently he placed in his mind the tool he needed, and got up and climbed the two flights of stairs to Dave’s bedroom.
It was a long time since he had been in that room, and he looked around it approvingly, because it was as shipshape as he liked things to be. Dave’s possessions, which were few, were all stowed away. There was hardly a sign of him in the room, except for a framed photograph of his drowned father.
Harry gave the familiar face a melancholy smile, and then frowned slightly. The thought had occurred to him that it was there precisely so that he would see it, and feel more indulgently towards Dave as a result.
He dropped on to his haunches and peered under the bed. The toolbox was at the back, against the wall, and in front of it was a small package wrapped in newspaper. He fetched that out and left it on the floor while he dragged out the heavy box, which he lifted onto the bed.
While he was rummaging through the tools something sharp gouged his finger. He drew out his hand violently and stepped back, and the box teetered and crashed to the floor.
‘Oh, shit,’ he said, looking at Dave’s parcel in the midst of the scattered tools. Two gashes had appeared. He squatted over it. Underneath the newspaper was plastic. He poked one of the gashes with his finger, then peered in.
He rose and stood in the middle of the floor, staring at nothing. ‘My God,’ he whispered to himself. ‘My God, so that’s it. The little bastard.’
He turned to the smiling face of the fisherman, and gazed at it vaguely.
The banging on the street door two floors below, the yapping of the dog, took a while to register with him. When they did, he gave an urgent glance at the mess on the floor, but decided to do nothing. ‘Let him know I know,’ he muttered, and went out and slammed the door.
The Suburbs of Hell Page 10