‘No. It was just a sham. Just a sham, because that’s what you are, Harry: a pseud. That’s what the LYF was, and that’s what this marriage is going to be, because it isn’t in you to make anything else. You go on about the baby. Well, you ought to be thinking how lucky you are that I’m having it, so that you can go on being a rotten sham.’
Harry said, ‘It isn’t true. That’s a terrible thing to say, Cherry. I know you’re disappointed, but things’ll be all right. If you’d get rid of that baby, I bet that’d make all the difference in the world.’
Cheryl had stopped crying, and was coldly spiteful. She said, ‘I suppose I should never have expected anything from a pseud like you. But let me tell you I’m a normal girl in my feelings, even if I have got this hand, and if you won’t give me what I need I’ll just have to get it somewhere else. I tell you, Harry, when you surrounded yourself with a useless hand, an ugly blotch, false teeth, fits, a club foot…you were just showing the world what you’re like inside. And you can clear out now and go and sleep in the other bedroom.’
Harry sat up in bed.
He said weakly, ‘You aren’t yourself, Cherry. You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘I know what I’m saying. I’ve got the measure of you, you see. Now clear out. Remember what I know about you, and just do as I say from now on. We’ll have a nice cosy pretence, you and me: nobody will know anything about it, and it’ll suit you down to the ground.’
*
So Harry slept in the other bedroom, and began a generally uncomfortable existence. Because of Cheryl’s disability there were many chores about the house which she was unable to undertake, and Harry found them all awaiting him when he came home from work, including many of the tasks involved in preparing meals. At bedtime Cheryl commanded him to help in undressing her, and then dismissed him. He thought ruefully that he had become nothing better than a servant. Instead of wielding power, he was under the thumb of a domineering woman. Cheryl began to go out in the evenings, and returned late to supper, which Harry had made for them both. On the fourth evening she came back drunk and dishevelled. It was almost midnight.
‘What time is this to come home?’ Harry said indignantly. ‘Where d’you think you’ve been? I’ve been waiting supper for you.’
‘Don’ want any supper,’ Cheryl said haughtily. ‘I’ve had supper. I’ve had a few drinks, too. Been to the pub with my boy friend.’
‘Not the Lion?’ Harry said. ‘You been up to your tricks at the Lion? You’ll have everybody talking.’
‘I don’t care,’ Cheryl said. ‘Don’ care one bit. You wanna know what happened afterwards? We went in the park, my feller an’ me, an’ I’ve come three times, so there!’
She went out of the kitchen. Harry rubbed his forehead, hearing her go upstairs, hearing water running in the bathroom; then, some time later, hearing her call to him to help her undress. He ignored her, and the calls ceased. When he went up to bed, he looked into Cheryl’s room. The light was still on, and Cheryl lay half dressed on the bed. Harry went in and covered her, then switched off the light before going to his own room. He opened a drawer, and from it took out the switchblade knife which had belonged to Genius; in the drawer also lay the little statuette which had been uncovered by the metal detector. It all seemed so long ago. But he knew now, finally and with perfect certainty, what it was he had to do. He put back the knife next to the statuette, and closed the drawer, smiling. He might have had rather less cause to smile if he had heard the midnight news on his radio, which gave the bare details of the discovery of four bodies in a Snowdonian bog.
*
Sergeant Waring had heard the news bulletin, though it held no particular significance for him. He stayed on duty until the morning, then went home for a meal and six hours’ sleep. After lunch he spent the afternoon in his greenhouse, clearing out the last of his dahlias and generally tidying up. He had decided many years ago that when he was on night duty, tea should be replaced by breakfast, and at four-thirty his wife gave him a plate of bacon and egg with fried tomatoes. Feeling refreshed and fit, he strolled to the police station, ready for another night of routine duty.
‘’Evening, John,’ he said to the desk sergeant, and walked down the corridor past the C.I.D. office. The door was open, and as he went past, Waring idly heard one of the young detective-constables saying, ‘Funny m.o., that. I mean, two with ball bearings.’
Waring turned into the office and nodded to the two detective-constables who were there.
‘What was that?’ he said.
The first detective-constable held up a report.
‘This,’ he said. ‘We were just talking about this. Couple of days ago some students dug up four bodies over in North Wales. They released the news last night.’
‘I heard it,’ Waring said. ‘But what was that about ball bearings?’
‘That’s the funny thing. One was extensively mutilated, one they think had a fractured skull, and two were killed by a ball bearing.’
‘Let me see that.’
Waring grabbed the report and read it carefully, then handed it back.
‘Dentures and a judo book,’ he said. ‘Damn me. Is the super in yet?’
‘Why, what’s up?’ said the second detective-constable.
‘Ball bearings, by God,’ Waring said. ‘Ball bloody bearings. Sherlock Holmes and Maigret, take a back seat from now on. I am the all-time great.’
‘Whatsit?’
Waring said, ‘A bunch of students doing archaeology up there. And the finger points down here; you’d never credit it. I’ve got to see the super right away.’
*
‘You see, Mrs Corby,’ Harry said. ‘It isn’t the rubber seal round the door of this Colston; the water’s coming out through where these bubbles are.’
The dishwasher churned away busily, a trickle of water dripping from the front on to the kitchen floor.
‘I can see it now,’ the woman said. ‘When I first saw it I thought it was coming out through that rubber.’
‘Yes, but it isn’t,’ Harry said. ‘Those bubbles under the paint: that’s rust. It’s such an early model, it must be one of the first ones made, see? Been a good machine, hasn’t it?’
‘I’ve never had much to grumble about.’
‘Old age is the trouble, Mrs Corby. You’ll have to get another machine; it’s dying of old age, is this one.’
‘I thought for a minute you were referring to me,’ the woman said. ‘Now how about a nice cup of tea before you go?’
Mrs Corby kept him talking, and it was almost seven o’clock when he eventually closed her gate and went to the Kombi. He got into the driving seat and leaned his hands on the wheel, crouched slightly forward over it, then shifting position as the handle of the knife in his inside breast pocket dug into his ribs. He was in a pleasant neighbourhood, in a tree-lined road; detached houses such as the one he had just left were set well back from it.
Privilege, he thought. Them and their dishwashers. I’ll show them. Taking me from my mum and dad and putting me in that place when I was just a kid. Sitting on their benches and being high and mighty with their JPs and their MPs and all their other initials.
He started the Kombi and drove slowly away, composing a symphony in blood. He stopped the vehicle in the car park of a pub called the Torrington Arms, and went into the public bar, where he drank a pint of beer and ate a pork pie and a pickled egg with a packet of crisps. Leaving the Kombi where it was, he walked from the Torrington Arms to the Lion, but he did not go inside: instead, he took up a position on a park bench across the road in the gathering darkness.
The lights of the pub were switched on before the streetlamps; Harry waited. The streetlamps came on, and cars drove past on sidelights or dipped headlights. Harry had almost an hour to wait, but then he saw Cheryl walk to the pub. She stood in a pool of white light outside, indecisively; and a memory, an association, lingered at the edge of Harry’s recall for a moment, then came fully into his
mind: Ray, standing in the orange pool of light after he had left them so casually, waiting to thumb a lift out of their lives.
A sports car swung into the car park of the Lion, and a young man got out. He went straight to Cheryl, put an arm round her shoulders, and they went into the pub together. Harry moved off his bench, stretched, then crossed the road. He visited the outside lavatory behind the car park of the Lion, came out again, and looked at the sports car, an old Triumph Spitfire. Then he slipped across into the park once more. It was a small place, eight or ten acres, enclosed by railings and with a gate at each of four sides. The gates should have been closed half an hour after sunset, but as often as not the aged park-keeper left one open to save himself the tedious trudge round to evict people who would otherwise have been locked inside. Again, the railings had been breached in places, and from the bent or broken rails little tunnels led through thickets of rhododendron to womb-like spaces where children played by day, and lovers by night. Beyond, the park consisted of worn grass patches, flowerbeds and trees: oak and beech and elm. Benches were placed at intervals along the tarmac paths.
A couple followed Harry through the open gate as he sat on his bench; they went past, talking quietly and heading for one of the black masses of dusty rhododendrons. Harry took no notice of them; he hunched sideways on his seat, watching the pub with animal patience. There was no moon, and the radiance of the lights of the town obscured the stars.
Cheryl and the young man came out of the pub. They halted for a moment where the girl had stood before, while the man lighted a cigarette. He was long-haired and bearded, and once more Harry was reminded of Ray. He stared, and the conviction hardened. Somehow Cheryl had found him again. He had not gone out of both their lives, but only out of Harry’s. When they had parted outside the transport café Cheryl had gone after Ray, and had spoken with him. Harry saw it all: they had been exchanging a means of keeping in touch. The duplicity appalled him, and he gave a small whimper; then, as they moved across the road he rose and walked forward over the grass into the darkness, pausing behind the trunk of a large beech tree. He waited. They came into the park and walked along the path. A shadow came behind them, behind and to one side, on the grass and among the trees, until the moving figures were hidden from the road and the traffic on it.
*
The police car stopped discreetly fifty yards from the Lion. A driver and a police inspector sat in front, both in uniform; Waring was in the back, in civilian clothes.
‘If he’s not at home, this is where he’ll be,’ Waring said. ‘Are you sure you want me to go by myself, sir?’
‘Best thing,’ the inspector said. ‘If he’s in there, buy a drink and then come outside for a leak. Blow your nose on the way to the pisshouse, and we’ll be inside when you come back. If he isn’t inside, report back here.’
‘Right, sir,’ Waring said, and left the car, walking to the pub and thinking that it was all very well being Sherlock Holmes and Maigret, but not so great when you had to take on the part of Judas to one of your acquaintances whom you’d been giving champagne.
Waring went into the lounge bar and greeted the landlord, then ordered half a pint of beer. He sipped it, glanced at the clock and at his own watch, noting with approval that the pub clock was five minutes fast, as pub clocks ought to be. Every week he checked the clock, and so far the landlord had earned full marks, and knew that he had earned them, too: Waring saw that the man was watching him. They exchanged a grin.
‘Mr Eckington been in yet?’ Waring asked.
The landlord shook his head.
‘Do you think he’ll be in later, then?’
Dubiously the landlord said. ‘I shouldn’t think so. If he’d been coming he’d have been here by now. Very regular habits, he’s got. At least, he had before he got married to that little tart of his.’
‘Tart?’
‘I tell you, Sergeant, they haven’t been married five minutes and she’s on the batter.’
‘Go on!’ said Waring.
The landlord leaned on the bar and said impressively, ‘I mean to say: the day after the bloody wedding. You see some funny set-ups, and I’m broad-minded, I am. I knew a feller that married a twin. Identical. He was getting worn out, on the nest morning, noon and night, till he found out he was servicing both of these twins.’
‘Yes,’ Waring said, ‘but what about Mrs Eckington?’
‘That’s it: the day after the wedding. In here, looking for a pick-up. She didn’t make one, mind you, not then. It took her a few days. You just can’t tell, can you? Peaches and cream, I thought when I first set eyes on her. She’s got something wrong with one of her hands, but apart from that she’s a doll.’
‘Looking for a pick-up,’ Waring said. ‘Did she make one, then? In the end?’
‘It’s a crying shame,’ the landlord said, nodding in affirmation. ‘A nice steady chap like him, and all!’
‘Have you seen her?’ Waring said in sudden urgency.
‘Every night,’ said the landlord. ‘She hasn’t been gone long, her and her fancy feller. One drink, then straight into the park for a couple of hours’ hard old rogeroo; then back here and half a dozen gins, if last night’s anything to go by. I can’t see that marriage lasting long.’
‘No more can I,’ Waring said. ‘Goodbye for now.’
He turned to go, and the landlord said, ‘You off, then? I’ll tell Mr Eckington you were asking after him.’
Waring said, still moving but glancing over his shoulder, ‘Yeh, do that. If you see him first.’
Back in the police car, Waring said to the inspector, ‘I don’t like the look of this at all, sir. He hasn’t been in the pub, but his missis has, and she’s in the park now with some boy friend. Having intercourse, if my information is correct. Now he’s not at home, and he isn’t in the pub, so where is he? Where would you be, if you were him, sir?’
The inspector said, ‘I’m not him and I don’t want to be him, but I see what you mean, Waring.’ He reached for the mike. ‘I’ll get another car, bring some men in on the other side of this bloody park, and the sooner it’s turned into high-rise flats the better I’ll be pleased. You two get in there and I’ll be right after you.’
*
The two moving figures by now were mere columns of darkness in progress over the grass, having left the paths; now swaying a little apart, now conjoined, they drifted in silence towards a mass of shrubbery, and merged into this dark background. The other shadow halted beneath an elm.
Harry thought, I have trod forth. I have trod forth on the Winnats with the LYF, the white knives of limestone sticking out of the green grass into the sky of forget-me-nots, and I have penetrated the Blue John and the Speedwell and the Treak Cliff Cavern, and Simon said. Cold are the springs. Dark are the waters. And it was good then. I have trod forth under Coniston Old Man with the LYF, singing as the rain rolled over in hanging blinds on the hills and Peter said. Pin him down. Out like a light. No, not there. It was good then. Ray. All changed after Ray. Cheryl said. Perfect stranger showing us meaning life. I trod forth, I showed justice, came down from the mountain.
Ray said the stream was blood.
A police siren blared, increasingly close. Harry registered it: hee-haw, hee-haw, hee-haw, then ignored it. The switchblade clicked out, and picked up a glint from a flickering blue light. Seen from the boat on the water of the Speedwell, deep under the earth, he thought.
Show
meaning
life
justice.
I tread forth.
*
Cheryl was wholly submerged in a warm vortex of sensation, a vortex which also expanded and contracted rhythmically in systole and diastole; she wanted it to go on for ever. She had been lucky in meeting David so soon. Humiliated and inhibited by her experience with Lumpy, awakened by Ray, frustrated again by Harry, she had felt instinctively that the only way of securing the full response of which Ray had shown she was capable was to find a man, quickly, and b
efore the danger of miscarriage compelled her to mute her sex life.
She had given him a glance, their eyes had locked, she had smiled, and that had been sufficient: he had brought his drink over at once. A photographer on a local paper, David had ambitions. One day that Triumph Spitfire would be traded in for a Lamborghini, he said, and fetched her a snowball, taking no notice at all of the landlord’s scowl of disapproval.
‘You remind me of somebody,’ she had said.
‘A friend?’
‘Yes. American, he was.’
‘A very good friend?’ David had asked, and she had nodded in reply. ‘How good?’ He had persisted.
She had looked at him coyly.
‘As good as a friend can be.’
She had looked at the long hair, the beard, the pale aquiline face with frank interest. He wasn’t really like Ray, she had supposed, but there was a hint of resemblance. Enough for her.
‘I’d make a good friend,’ he had said. ‘You want to try me and see?’
They had looked at each other, both rising at the same moment and with the same compulsion. Their hands reached out over the table and the empty glasses, then clasped as they turned and left the pub.
‘We’ll go in the park,’ David had said. ‘Find a quiet place where we can be friends.’
‘Friends,’ Cheryl had said in assent.
And so they had gone to the park and made love. Cheryl had been infatuated at once by David’s expertise and staying power. She had thought of Harry, and wondered whether she could ever make him divorce her, or whether she might divorce him. As they had tidied up making ready to go back to the pub for something to eat, and some more drinks, Cheryl had fastened her handbag with a snap.
‘David.’
‘What is it? Am I your best friend now?’
‘The very best. But, David, you know I’m married?’
‘You’re wearing a wedding ring, love.’
‘For me, that means I’m married.’
‘So what is it? Isn’t your husband friendly?’
She had shaken her head.
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