Time to Kill

by Roger Ormerod

  I found the house. There was absolutely no point in knocking on the front door. It was probably never used, and in any event I’d be ignored. I looked for the nearest entrance to the back alley. It was three houses further along. I stepped into it carefully. Inside it was pitch-black and I had to walk with one hand on the wall, painfully aware that I could not rely on my reactions if I walked into trouble.

  My fingers discovered that I had come out at the end of the tunnel. I turned that corner. There was a narrow walk along the backs, and apparently no lights in any of the houses. I found the third along and turned into the yard. Something ran over my foot.

  In front of me, at the far end of the yard, there was a fine, vertical line of light that’d been allowed to escape into the night. To my right was a bluish glow where the kitchen window would be. I couldn’t decide what caused it. There was a stench of drains and my feet dabbled odiously in unimaginable overflow. I found the kitchen window. The blue glow was from one burner of the gas stove. There were tattered curtains flanking the window. I knocked on the door. Nothing happened. I knocked harder and longer. The door opened. Dimly I could make out a dusky face with a flash of teeth.

  “Margie Dee?” I said.

  “Not here.”

  He shut the door so abruptly that I had no time to get my foot in. I pounded again. There was a long wait and I pounded some more. The door opened. It was the same face. I slid my foot in quickly. He looked weird and unearthly, side-lit by the blue glow.

  “Miss Dee,” I said.

  “Is she staying here?”

  “Ah!” His face lit up. “It is Miss Dee?”

  I said that it was. They always give you the impression they don’t think much of your intelligence.

  “You are seeing her?”

  “Is she staying here or is she not?”

  “Yes, she is here. You go up?”

  I followed him into the kitchen. The gas stove had a vague shadow hovering over it. Dimly I could see a slim youth burning chapatis over the bare flame. The smoke was breath-taking. My guide led me into the living room.

  Whatever had caused the thin line wasn’t on any more. There was nobody in the room. No doubt they had patiently and politely retired to the front room, and my second bout of pounding had been superfluous. It was annoying that I felt embarrassed about it now. There was a huge fire roaring up the chimney from an iron range, and it provided all the light there was. Dimly on the walls, spread on any space available between the ancient prints of Stag At Bay and Bubbles, were gaudy pictures of Pakistani revered rulers.

  My guide, whom I had decided was an old man, took me to a door in the corner.

  “You going up?” he said.

  “How far?”

  “Number three.”

  Then he retired through the curtains to the front room. I stood. It was very quiet. There was a penetrating smell of curry. Faintly from the front room there was the alien chattering of their decision on my visit. I opened the stair door.

  It was a narrow staircase, squeezed between two walls. I tried the light switch but nothing happened, so I felt my way up. On the first landing I paused and flicked my lighter. There were two doors opposite each other and six feet apart. Numbers one and two were just visible, applied freehand with a dripping brush. I mounted on to the next floor. Numbers three and four faced each other. There was a Western on the tele in number four. I knocked on the other one. There was no reply, and no light edging under the door. There was a piece of paper impaled with a drawing pin. It said `Marg Dee,’ the head of the drawing pin covering the ‘ie’. I tried the door. It was open, so I slid inside, closed the door again gently, and thumbed on the light.

  Margie Dee was not going to get back to her mum. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the bed. It was for Margie that Kyle had bought the nylon stockings. He had left them tied round her neck, two toes hanging over one shoulder, two tops over the other. She was quite dead, and had been dead an hour or two, I guessed.

  She had not been wearing her wig, and without it the illusion of being a creamy blonde quite disappeared. Her hair was short and raven black, her skin now a dusty sallow colour in death. She must have been half Pakistani.

  It was a bed-sitter, with a bed, a small table, a tiny electric cooker, and a chair. There was a chest-of-drawers against one wall and a tea chest by the door that she’d used for throwing her rubbish in. It was nearly full and smelt revolting. On the floor there was what had been a fitted carpet somewhere else, its shape still indicating the indentations that had been very snug in another room. She had a khaki blanket nailed over the window.

  I stepped over her. On the chest-of-drawers was balanced the remains of a mirror from a dressing-table. In front of it, another of those polystyrene heads was wearing the blonde wig. I began to open drawers, using my handkerchief.

  The top one held clothes—a tangled mass of unwashed briefs and tights and half a dozen letters. Beneath them there was a British passport. Two years before she had taken a trip to visit her Pakistani father. Her name was Surabhai Marjhiti. Her mother was obviously English. Torn between the two identities she had attempted to live as a Pakistani and put forward the outward appearance of an English girl. It had not worked very well. She had been estranged from her mother, and had stayed only a month in Pakistan. There was a letter from there, posted a month before by surface mail.

  I could find nothing at all to connect her with Geoff.

  I thought I might go down and ask about visitors that evening, but I had the impression that people could slide in and out without much question. They might not even remember me. I hoped not. The only things I had touched with my bare hand had been the light switch and the doorknob. I polished both of them carefully and left, closing the door with my handkerchief. Going down the stairs I did not use the handrail, not because of prints but because it had a clammy feeling of thousands of greasy hands.

  The sitting room was still empty, the fire dying a little. There was nobody in the kitchen. The smoke was still there. I slipped out and made my way into the street. I knew what I should have done; phoned the office. But considering the poor view that Vantage already had of me, I decided to pass it up. She might rest there a number of days before anyone rustled up enough interest to go up and see what had happened to her.

  I drove away. Nobody paid any attention to me except the cat. My side felt as though it was bleeding again. When I got back I found a parking space a bit closer to the Greenhorn. Even the shorter walk was murder.

  It was less crowded. The combo was plugging sad and morose jazz into the nearly solid smoke. Odin and Elsa were deep in a discussion about Ravel’s derivation from jazz, and his influence on it. It was all too deep for me. I sat down and snapped a couple of fingers at the waiter for a double scotch, and told Elsa I thought it was time we left. She looked at my face and agreed it was. We left Odin and went out into the night. I was unable to walk without a limp.

  “Is it bad?” she said.

  I told her it was bad. “Stiffening up.”

  We were in the car and she still hadn’t asked. I eased out from the kerb and got going.

  “He’s quite fascinating, you know.”

  “Who? Odin?” I remembered his fascinating fist in my belly.

  “He used to play with the Liverpool Philharmonic till he met that girl. He’s been tagging after her ever since.”

  Maybe he’d go back there now. I expect they missed him.

  “Did you find her?” she asked at last.

  I thought about my phrasing. “Yes, I found her. She’s dead.”

  She was silent beside me. I glanced sideways and she met my eye. “That poor man.”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t tell him.”

  I hadn’t wanted to be around when he found out. I drove on.

  “Kyle got to her with a pair of stockings,” I said. “He must have heard I’d spoken to her. He strangled her.”

  “Oh dear heaven.”

&n
bsp; “She’d been losing out all her life.”

  “That’s no consolation.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Maybe with Odin she might have started winning a trick or two.

  “I suppose I can’t drive you home?” I asked. It was a pathetic attempt to change the subject. I knew darned well I couldn’t drive her home, otherwise she’d have been left with both cars in Birmingham. But I didn’t want to talk about Miss Marjhiti. I’d got enough anger in me seething without any more.

  My street was quiet. I pulled in behind the Rover.

  “I’ll be down for the funeral.”

  She gave me a sudden startled glance. She had actually not been thinking about Geoff. Yes, she said, she’d see me then. We got out of my car. I hated to see her go.

  “Phone me in the morning, David.”

  “If you like. I’ll do that.”

  I didn’t tell her the night wasn’t finished for me, that I’d be following her in a few minutes, on my way to Kyle’s. Kyle was going to do some talking, if he had to do it with my fist halfway down his throat. But I’d have to do something about my side first. Perhaps load myself with aspirin. It was becoming an effort to stand and talk normally.

  She got in and I slammed the door after her. I stumbled on my way across the street and the five steps up to the front door were like a vertical ladder. Suddenly I was not sure I could make it back to the flat. The last four or five stairs were agony. Lurching across the landing I was glad there was no key to have to turn. It was as much as I could do to lift my hand to the light switch. I stood in the centre of the room with my legs straddled, trying to recognize it. There was something I’d intended to do, but I couldn’t remember it. The bottle of scotch on the table I recognized, and I reached for it. Like one of those nightmares it retreated the more I advanced.

  It retreated and became a faint glowing amber light in the distance, then disappeared into nothingness.

  11

  Somebody was slapping my face. I forced my eyes open because I wanted to know who was pushing me around again. It was Crewse.

  I was sitting on an upright chair by the table. Open on it was a first-aid kit from one of the patrol cars, and a uniformed constable was dabbing at my side with something that stung. My jacket was off and they’d got my shirt pulled out of the waistband. Vantage was standing by the fireplace where I kept my electric fire. He had his black coat and his Anthony Eden on and he was admiring the photos I kept of my brother and his family. As I think I mentioned, there was no clock on the mantel, and never likely to be one.

  “He’s coming round, sir.” Vantage glanced at his watch. “And about time. Are you all right, Mallin?”

  I was a long way from all right. “I’m fine.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I had a talk with Kyle.”

  He looked annoyed. “You’re on suspension. You’ll be advised to keep out of this.”

  I reached for the scotch and my glass. “If there’s anything I want to do right now, it’s keep out of it.”

  “I may be able to help you there,” he said drily.

  I held up the bottle. There was a warm glow spreading down to my toes. “Sorry. Can I offer you a drink?”

  “Not on duty, thank you.”

  Duty? It was well after two. “How come?”

  “We’ve just come from Miss Surabhai Marjhiti.”

  “Have you?” I wasn’t up to it. No clever remark came to me at the moment.

  “You were there?” he asked. “Where’s this?”

  He moved impatiently and delicately selected a cigarette. “A man of your description visited the house. You may be pleased to know you give every appearance of being a suspicious character. The owner of the premises went straight up to her room after you’d gone. He called us.”

  “She’d been dead for hours,” I said. “Quite.”

  “Hours before I got there.”

  “That was the second time. Why did you go back?”

  “What?” I stared at him. He watched me calmly. The constable stood back and told me I could put my shirt on, but it had a huge patch of blood on it. Crewse, no doubt refreshed by his slapping session, was perched with one large cheek on the corner of my table and was making notes.

  I said: “I’ll be needing a new shirt,” and I stood up. The pain nearly bent me double. My head swam.

  “Was there something you’d forgotten?” he asked. “Something vital it must have been, to get you back there.”

  “You’re crazy.” I stood panting, trying to think of some way of proving he was crazy.

  “You’d better sit down. You tell me you’ve been fighting with Kyle, you’ve been round—in your condition—to Miss Marjhiti’s. How long do you think you can go on?”

  I walked away from him into the bedroom, swaying to the movement of the floor. He did not follow me. I unbuttoned the shirt, slid it off, and let it fall to the floor. I was getting through shirts pretty fast. The one I chose had the two top buttons unfastened, but I was unable to lift it over my head. I unfastened all the rest with fingers that had to be given strict instructions, managed to ease my arms into it, and strolled back into the living room as though I’d got full control of all my faculties. When I sat down again I really needed that chair.

  “Give me that again,” I said.

  “We have reason to believe that Miss Marjhiti was the young lady who was seen going up with Forbes to his flat at Queens,” said Vantage.

  “I rather had that idea myself.”

  “And I believe you killed her because you discovered it for yourself.”

  I looked at him disparagingly. “All I had was that she reacted when I mentioned Queens.”

  He appeared to be trying to swallow something bitter. “All you had was that she reacted when you mentioned Queens?”

  “I was unable to question her any more at the time.”

  “But that was enough for you?”

  I glanced at Crewse. He looked sick.

  They had put a plaster on my side and made a pretty good job of it. I was making a much worse job of getting my buttons fastened. I had managed two so far.

  “It was enough for me to want to question her again.”

  He was looking for an ash-tray, delicately poising a half inch of ash on the end of his cigarette.

  “It’ll do on the hearth,” I told him, and he flicked it off with his little finger.

  “Miss Marjhiti usually leaves at seven-thirty or so. As far as we can make out.” He glanced at Crewse, who nodded. “About seven-thirty, say. They’re not the sort of people to worry much about other people’s affairs. Nobody noticed she didn’t go out this evening. As far as we can tell, most of them had been to see a film in their own language at Bilston and didn’t get back till nine. There was only one youth left behind and I’m not sure he’s not mental.”

  I picked him up on it. “What you mean is that anybody could have gone up there. You’re stretching things to make it me.”

  “Motive,” he said. “You seem to believe she was the woman Forbes took to Queens.”

  “You keep saying that. I’ve told you I thought it.”

  “Thought it, or believed it?”

  “Certainly couldn’t believe.”

  “So you’re still not accepting it?” “How can I? I knew Geoff.”

  “That, perhaps, is the trouble.”

  I saw what he was getting at. He’d been asking around.

  “Knowing Geoff is something I’m grateful for.”

  “Ah! You’re a stubborn man. Even now you can say that.”

  I was beginning to realize I was desperately hungry, and I couldn’t afford to go on pouring spirits on to an empty stomach.

  “Yes, I say it.” I hunted for the words. “Geoff was a fine man. He taught me things I’m proud to know. There’s more to honesty than the law, you know. Honesty to yourself, never crawling round a fact when you can stare it face to face, never dodging an issue because it’s unpleasant or inconvenient. Geof
f Forbes was strong and tough and he hurt people. But he looked them in the eye when he did it, and told them what he thought.”

  Vantage smiled sourly. “You’re very vehement. I’m sure he’d be flattered at your support. But by the same reckoning you must admit he’d got his own code of morals. You wouldn’t find it in any book of law, either. I remember, once, he supported a blackmailer. He said that blackmailers simply inflicted the punishment that the law should have claimed. Morals to Forbes were something personal, and that sort of man tends to become self-sufficient. It isn’t far from such an attitude to deciding that you yourself, are above the law.”

  “You’re twisting it.”

  “No. I think you are. You know, yourself, that even while he was in the Force he was tending towards that attitude. Forbes was becoming the arbiter of the law, and anything that displeased him was illegal. At a lecture, he once said that the law creates crime.”

  There was a piece of that fruit cake left in the cupboard. Suddenly there was nothing I wanted more than a piece of fruit cake. I stood up to get it. “What he meant...” The pain cut off my words.

  “What he meant was that if murder for instance—was made legal, there’d be less people breaking the law when they kill somebody.” His face softened fractionally as he thought how naïve that was.

  I got across to the cupboard and nobody put out a hand. I saw that the constable had gone back to his car.

  “You had to understand him,” I said. “He’d got a peculiarly dry sense of humour, and sometimes you couldn’t tell—”

  “Such a man,” cut in Vantage, “would reach the point where he felt himself above the law. Above moral values.”

  “Now we’re coming to it.”

  “To what?”

  There wasn’t enough cake for three. I poured myself a glass of milk and managed to get both of them to the table.

  “You came across the same difficulty as I did,” I told him. “How could a man like Geoff Forbes associate with a woman like Margie Dee?”