The Dwarves of Death

by Jonathan Coe

  But then, hadn’t I decided to give myself up anyway? Wasn’t that why I had come round to Tony’s house in the first place? I’d felt that I needed his help to go through with it at the time, but now, after a few hours’ rest, and after talking to Benjamin, I was stronger, clearer in the head, and I knew that I could do it alone. It would be a shock for Judith, admittedly; but at least her sister would be there (Tina would be worried already, with policemen coming round and asking where I was) and they could be of some comfort to each other until the whole business was cleared up.

  And so I accepted her offer, and together we drove back to the Herbert Estate: Judith doing her best to make conversation, and me just gripping the sides of my seat tighter and tighter, my nervousness increasing steadily until by the time we were within a mile of our destination, I couldn’t stop shaking. I nearly shouted out loud when we turned into the estate and the first thing I saw was a police officer standing on the balcony outside our flat. There were two police cars parked by our staircase as well. Even though I had been expecting it, it was a terrifying sight.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Judith. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Stay here,’ I said, once she’d parked the car. ‘I’ll go and see what the matter is.’

  ‘No, I’m coming with you.’

  We climbed the staircase and were stopped outside my door by a constable.

  ‘Do you live at this flat?’ he asked.

  I nodded, told him my name, and said: ‘Look, I know what you’re thinking, but really I had nothing to do with it. I’m absolutely appalled by what happened and I can explain every – ’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You’re not under any suspicion.’

  ‘I’m not?’

  I couldn’t possibly describe the relief that flooded through me when I heard these words. It was so overwhelming that I barely listened to him as he continued: ‘We just need you to answer a few questions, that’s all. It’s a messy business, this kind of thing, but it happens all the time, and the young lady’s not in any danger any more – ’

  ‘Young lady?’

  He stared at me.

  ‘That’s right. Young lady. You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

  He took me inside, where there were two more police officers going through the contents of Tina’s room. Apparently she had telephoned the ambulance service earlier that afternoon, to tell them that she had taken an overdose.

  Judith took it very well, considering.

  ‘We get dozens of these things,’ said the constable. ‘Literally dozens every week.’ He was making a cup of tea for Judith, who sat, too shocked to move, at the kitchen table. ‘It’s a simple cry for help, really. Pure attention-seeking.’ He gently handed her the mug, and said: ‘Excuse me a moment, will you? Nature calls.’

  Left alone, Judith and I found it hard to speak.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  I carried on saying useless things like that for some time, until she interrupted me. To my surprise, she sounded not grief-stricken but angry.

  ‘How the hell could you let this happen, William? You’re living with the woman, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Living with her? I never even see her.’

  ‘Well weren’t there any signs at all? Have you no idea what’s going on?’

  I was about to make another petulant denial; but I realized, of course, that Judith was right.

  ‘There was this man…’ I started.

  Another policeman came into the kitchen.

  ‘Could I have a word with you, please?’

  We went into the sitting-room and he asked me a string of questions. I told him everything I knew about Pedro, all the fragments of information I had picked up about him, and I explained how Tina had been taking more and more days off work, and how she had looked last Sunday night, the last time I saw her.

  A thought occurred to me.

  ‘She didn’t leave a note, did she?’

  ‘As a matter of fact she did.’

  He handed me a sheet of ruled A4: a fresh sheet, with only one message on it. It said:

  Dear W, Please remember to lock the front door AND BOLT IT when you come in tonight. I bought a nice big loaf today so phase help yourself. I don’t think that white stuff you eat is at all good for you. Can you write me a cheque for the gas as I want to go and pay it on Monday? Love, T.

  I gave it back.

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ he said. ‘There was this message on your answering machine. I don’t suppose it has anything to do with what happened?’

  He pressed the ‘Play’ button and there were the usual bleeps, followed by a woman’s voice.

  ‘Listen, William,’ it said. ‘About last night. I can explain everything.’ A pause. ‘I can explain everything, and get you out of trouble.’ A longer pause. ‘Come and see me at once.’

  It clicked off.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘No,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘That’s a personal thing between me and… another woman.’

  ‘Fine.’

  He told me the name of the hospital and the number of the ward where Tina was being kept, and said that we could visit her immediately if we wanted. I must have thanked him, I suppose, but by this stage, as I showed him and his colleagues out of the flat, I didn’t really know what I was saying. I was too busy wondering about that message. What did it mean?

  And apart from anything else, how had Karla managed to find out my telephone number?

  Coda

  Gasping – but somehow still alive

  this is the fierce last stand of all I am

  MORRISSEY,

  Well I Wonder

  ‘I’m going out,’ I said to Judith.

  ‘You mean you’re not coming with me to see Tina?’

  It would have been pointless trying to explain. If it meant that her opinion of me plummeted even further, it was a problem I’d have to resolve at some other time. I simply left her the keys to the flat and told her to send Tina my love. As she watched me leave, her eyes burned with indignation.

  It was quite dark by now. I ran all the way to London Bridge station, caught a tube to the Angel, and was standing outside the video shop in less than half an hour. Next to this shop, there was an unnumbered door, painted blue. It seemed likely that this would lead to the flats on the first and second floors. There was a man leaning against the door, a short, swarthy-looking man who wore steel-rimmed spectacles and was chewing gum. His hair was dark, tousled and curly. As I approached, he straightened himself, blocked the doorway and stared at me until I felt compelled to say: ‘I’ve come to see Karla.’

  I thought he was never going to answer.

  ‘Name?’ he said at last.

  ‘William.’

  He turned and rang one of the bells. The flats were equipped with an entrocom system, and before long the speaker crackled and Karla’s voice said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘William,’ said the man.

  ‘All right.’

  The door was opened for me, and I climbed four flights of narrow, tatty stairs. They led to a small landing where there were three doors, one of which was ajar. From behind this door, Karla’s voice said: ‘Come in, William.’

  I pushed the door open. It was a gloomy bedsittingroom, practically unfurnished. There was no carpet and there were no decorations on the walls. An armchair took up one corner of the room, next to a washbasin and a mirror. There was a chest of drawers, an iron bed and a little three-legged table. Karla was sitting on the bed.

  ‘I just got your message,’ I said, when it became clear that she wasn’t going to speak to me.

  ‘Good.’

  Her gaze was searching, as if she was trying to deduce some inner secret from my outward behaviour.

  ‘I didn’t realize you had my phone number,’ I faltered, after an even longer pause.

  ‘No.’

  She seemed different, very different, from the wo
man who worked behind the bar at The White Goat. She was morose and aggressive but I got the impression that there was furious activity going on inside her head at that moment. I began to wonder, in fact, whether she wasn’t just as confused as I was.

  ‘Are you going to explain?’ I asked.

  ‘Perhaps you should explain.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, William. You.’

  I shrugged nervously.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Now look, you’re in a hell of a lot of trouble. The police are looking everywhere for you, in case you didn’t know. I told you that I can help you, but I need to know what you’re up to first.’

  ‘I’m not up to anything,’ I protested. ‘I’m a musician, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you on his side?’

  ‘Whose side? What are you talking about?’

  Furious, she got up and advanced towards me. I hadn’t realized how tall she was.

  ‘Look–I know you’ve been following me. You admitted as much yourself that night in the pub. And the same night you tried to scare me by having that record lying on the table. You’ve been working with him, too. I know you have. And then you miraculously turn up in the house, just in time to see this guy – Paisley – get killed. So what’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said: it was almost a whimper. ‘I don’t know.’

  Karla glared at me, then went to the chest of drawers and brought out an envelope from the bottom drawer. She took out a large black and white photograph and held it up in front of my face.

  ‘You recognize this, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. It was the photograph from the record sleeve, showing the figure of a woman looking out over a stretch of river, flanked by the two dwarves.

  ‘And what about this?’

  She showed me a second photograph, and I stared at it in amazement. It was the same scene. But the woman had turned around, and was now clearly recognizable – in spite of her cropped, bleached hair – as a younger version of Karla. And the two little figures, who had taken off their hoods, were not dwarves at all. They were two children: small girls, identical in size and appearance, smiling warmly at the camera.

  ‘This is you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And that was… you – singing on the record?’ I asked, recalling the voice which had screamed its way through those two hideous songs.

  ‘Yes.’

  Karla walked to the mirror and took off her wig of thick, auburn hair. She turned to face me. Her hair was even shorter, now, than in the photograph: a close crew-cut on top, shaved at the sides and back.

  ‘There,’ she said, coming closer. ‘Now do I look more like a killer?’

  I backed away.

  ‘But – you didn’t kill Paisley?’

  ‘That was a mistake. Those fucking idiots: I should had done the whole thing myself. I will do it myself. He’s not going to get away again. Christ, I’ve waited long enough…’

  She sat down on the bed, and fell silent.

  ‘Who’s not going to get away?’ I asked. ‘And who are these children?’ I was so bewildered by now, I couldn’t get the questions out quickly enough. ‘Who did you send to get Paisley? Was it those brothers from Glasgow – the same people you named the band after?’

  Karla didn’t answer: not for a long time. And when she did finally start to explain, her speech was tired and slow.

  ‘There was never any “band” called The Dwarves of Death,’ she said. ‘It was just me and my husband. I did the singing and he played the instruments: it was all put together in the studio. We were broke – as usual – and we thought we’d cash in on the whole punk thing and try to make a bit of extra money. We were living in Glasgow, then, and you wouldn’t believe how poor we were. We did the recordings in the evenings. I was going out to work every day, doing cleaning jobs. He didn’t have a job, he stayed at home looking after the kids.’ She pointed to them in turn. ‘Claire, and Sandra. We had twins.’

  The bed was covered by a single threadbare quilt. From beneath this, she produced a sawn-off, double-barrelled shotgun, and a box of cartridges. She started to load the gun as she talked.

  ‘And then, one day, Sandra disappeared. She ran away from home. And that was when Claire came to me, and told me what their… father… had been doing to them, while I was out all day.’ She gave the word ‘father’ a bitter inflexion, as if it was a bad taste that had to be spat out. ‘I don’t suppose you want me to go into the details, do you? A doctor examined her, anyway, and confirmed her story. But I never saw Sandra again. The police found a body a few weeks later. It might have been hers, I couldn’t tell. As for Claire…’ She got up and went to the window, leaving the gun, now fully loaded, lying on the bed, ‘… she grew up into quite a kid. She’s in this “home” now. This centre. I don’t go and see her. She won’t talk to me.’

  As Karla’s story unfolded, her voice was getting harder and faster.

  ‘Needless to say, when all this came to light, he lost no time in clearing out. He vanished into thin air that night and didn’t leave a trace. I could only think of one way of getting a message to him, and that was why I did that song, “Insomnia". We’d just recorded a new single, you see, but we hadn’t done the B-side yet. So one night I just went into the studio and let all the rage and hatred come out. I knew he’d have to buy the record when he saw it, and I wanted to make sure he knew that I was going to track him down. I put that picture on the sleeve, too. We used to dress the girls up in these little hoods and use them in publicity shots. People started to think they were actually members of the band. I wanted that picture to haunt him. I wanted him to know what it meant: that I was going to find him one day. Find him and kill him.’

  From the little table, she picked up a small, plastic, rectangular object: it was a cassette.

  ‘It took me years to track him down. He’d been in Europe most of the time. I followed a false lead and spent months in Canada and America. Then when I’d found him, it took me another year to raise the money to have him killed the way I wanted him killed. It cost me twenty thousand pounds.’

  Dreading the answer (because I knew it already), I asked: ‘And where did you find him?’

  ‘He was running a studio complex in South London.’

  She threw me the tape. It was a copy of our demo containing ‘Madeline (Stranger in a Foreign Land)’.

  ‘Vincent,’ I said.

  ‘That seems to be what he calls himself these days. He was Duncan when I married him.’

  I looked at the tape and frowned.

  ‘How did you get this?’

  ‘It was in Paisley’s pocket. Luckily they got blood all over his jacket and had to bring it back here: otherwise the police would really have had no trouble finding you. You even took the precaution of giving your phone number.’

  I said nothing, shocked into silence by the thought of all the repercussions, all the ripples set in motion by the recording of this simple song only a week ago.

  ‘I see that he produced it for you,’ said Karla. ‘There’s a bit too much reverb on the vocals for my liking. He always made the same mistake.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why the police haven’t caught up with me,’ I said. ‘Surely they’ve spoken to Chester by now? Hasn’t he told them where I live?’

  Karla laughed.

  ‘Chester? He’s more slippery than you give him credit for. I should imagine that when he got back last night and saw all those policemen, he made a run for it. It’ll be a while before anyone hears from him again.’

  ‘Him and Vincent,’ I said, ‘ – what’s the connection, then?’

  ‘Business, basically.’ Karla produced a pair of heavy black boots from under the bed and started to put them on. ‘A man like Duncan – Vincent – doesn’t make his living from running a rehearsal studio. Most of his money comes from heroin. Chester does odd jobs for him in that line now and again, but he’s small fry by comparison. H
is other big field is property. He’s got his hands on a lot of houses in the Islington area, mainly through crooked contracts. That’s why Paisley and friends were living in one of them.’

  ‘How did you find all this out?’

  ‘It wasn’t easy,’ she said, as she finished tying her laces. ‘I knew a lot of this stuff was based at The White Goat, although Duncan himself was too clever to be seen there. So I had to sweet-talk the manager into giving me a job, and then one of the guys behind the bar got me this flat.’

  Karla filled in the other gaps for me as she got ready to go out. She’d tracked down the two little brothers from Glasgow, who’d been released from prison a couple of years earlier, and offered them five thousand pounds to carry out the killing. They agreed to do it for twenty. She told them what to wear, and even what position they were to take up just before they made their attack. Everything was calculated to recall the promise she had made on that record, and to fill Vincent with as much terror as possible in the few moments before he died. (I remembered, now, the strange way he had reacted to those two children, wearing matching anoraks, who had come into the studio one morning and scared the life out of him.) She knew that The Unfortunates would be out of the house on Saturday night, and she entrusted one of the brothers with the job of contacting Vincent by phone to make sure he would be there. It was only Paisley’s intervention which had made the scheme backfire.

  ‘Were you there last night?’ I asked. ‘Was it you driving the car?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That was the guy you saw downstairs. He’s just someone I hired. He was recommended to me: does a lot of this sort of work, apparently. He’s going to drive us to the studio now.’

  I felt a tremor of apprehension.

  ‘What do you mean, drive us?’

  ‘You don’t think I called you over here just to put your mind at rest, do you?’ said Karla, bundling the shotgun and more cartridges into a black holdall. ‘You’re going to help me.’