by P. D. James
“Who will answer, this man Scully or a secretary?”
“At this hour, he will. He’ll be alone in his office.”
“Let’s hope he is. And don’t try anything. If you do, I’ll shoot you first and then the old witch. And maybe she won’t die quickly. You will, but not her. I might have a little fun with her first, switch on the electric stove, clamp down her hand on the hot plate. Think about that if you’re tempted to be clever.”
She couldn’t believe that, even now, he’d bring himself to do it. He was a killer but not a torturer. But the words, the horror of the picture they evoked, made her shudder. And the threat of death was real enough. He had already killed three men. What had he to lose? He would prefer a live hostage, prefer to let her do the driving, to have an extra pair of hands on the boat. But if he needed to kill, he would, trusting that he could get well on his way before their bodies were found.
He said:
“Right, what’s the number?”
She gave it and watched, heart pounding, while he dialled. The call must have been quickly answered. He didn’t speak but after less than four seconds he held out the receiver and she moved across and took it from his hand. She began speaking loudly and very fast, desperate to drown any questions, any response.
“Alan? It’s Kate. Tonight’s off. Look, I’m tired, I’ve had one hell of a day, and I’m fed up with cooking for you every bloody time we meet. And don’t ring back. Just come tomorrow if you feel like it. Maybe you’ll take me out for a change. And Alan, remember to bring me that book you promised. The Shakespeare Love’s Labour’s Lost, for Christ’s sake. See you tomorrow. And remember the Shakespeare.” She banged down the receiver. She found that she was holding her breath, and let it out gently and silently, afraid that he would notice the release of tension. Had her words sounded even remotely credible? The message seemed to her so obviously false. Could he possibly have been deceived? But after all, he didn’t know Alan, he didn’t know her. That might be typical of the way they spoke to each other. She said:
“That’s OK. He’ll keep away.”
“He’d better.”
He motioned her back to the kitchen and took up his stance beside her grandmother, the gun again to her head.
He said:
“You’ve got wine, I suppose?”
“You should know. You’ve been at the drinks cupboard.”
“So I have. We’ll have the Beaujolais. And we’ll take the whisky and a half-dozen bottles of the claret with us. I’ve a feeling I’m going to need alcohol before I get across the Channel.”
How experienced a sailor was he? she wondered. And what kind of boat was the Mayflower? Stephen Lampart had described it, but she couldn’t now remember. And how could he be sure that the craft would be fuelled and ready for sea, that the tides would be right? Or had he passed beyond the borders of reason, of precarious sanity, into a fantasy in which even the tides would run to his bidding?
He asked:
“Well, aren’t you going to get on with it? We haven’t much time.”
She knew that every action must be slow, deliberate, unfrightening, that any sudden movement might be fatal. She said:
“I’m going to reach up and take a frying pan from that top cupboard. Then I’ll need the minced beef and the liver from the refrigerator and a tube of tomato paste and the herbs from this cupboard on my right. OK?”
“I don’t need a cookery lesson. And remember, no knives.”
As she started her preparations she thought of Alan. What was he doing? What was he thinking? Would he stand still for a moment, consider, come to the conclusion that she was drunk, hysterical or mad, then go back to his books? But he couldn’t! He must know that she was none of these things, that if she did go mad, it wouldn’t be in that way. But it was impossible to picture him actually taking action, ringing the Yard, asking for Commander Dalgliesh. It seemed to her that she was expecting him to act a part as out of character as it would be for her to take over his job, catalogue his library. But surely that reference to Love’s Labour’s Lost had been unmistakable. He must know that she was trying to convey an urgent message, that she was under duress. He couldn’t have forgotten their talk about Shakespeare’s Berowne, the attendant lord. She thought: He reads the newspapers, he must know that these things happen. He can’t not know what sort of world we live in. And she would never normally speak to him in those terms, in that tone of voice. He knew her well enough to be sure of that. Or did he? They had been happily making love for over two years. There wasn’t anything about her body that wasn’t familiar to him, as his was to her. Since when did that mean that two people knew each other?
Standing back against the wall, the gun still pressed to her grandmother’s head, Swayne kept his eyes fixed on her while she took the package of minced steak and the one of liver out of the refrigerator for the frying pan. He said:
“Ever been to California?”
“No.”
“It’s the only place to live. Sun. Ocean. Brightness. People who aren’t grey and frightened and half-dead. You wouldn’t like it. Not your kind of place.”
She asked:
“Why don’t you go back?”
“I can’t afford to.”
“The air fare or the expense of living there?”
“Neither. My stepfather pays me to stay away. I’ll lose my allowance if I go back.”
“Couldn’t you get a job?”
“Ah, but then I might lose something else. There is a little matter of step-papa’s Seurat.”
“That’s a painting, isn’t it? What did you do to it?”
“Clever. How did you know that? The history of art isn’t in the police curriculum, is it?”
“What did you do to it?”
“Stuck a knife through it several times. I wanted to spoil something he cared about. Actually he didn’t much care about it. But he cared about what it cost. Well, it wouldn’t have been much good sticking a knife in Mama, would it?”
“What about your mother?”
“Oh, she keeps in with my stepfather. She more or less has to. He’s the one with the money. Anyway, she’s never much cared for children, not her own, anyway. Barbara’s too beautiful for her. She doesn’t really like her. That’s because she’s afraid my step-papa does, too much.”
“And you?”
“They don’t want to know about me, either of them. They never have. Not this stepfather, nor the one before. But they will. They will.”
She tipped the minced steak from the paper into the frying pan and began moving it around with a spatula. Keeping her voice calm as if this were an ordinary dinner and he an ordinary guest, she said above the hiss of singeing meat:
“This really ought to have onions in it.”
“Forget about the onions. What about your mother?”
“My mother’s dead, and I never knew my father. I’m a bastard.” She thought: I might as well tell him. It could evoke some emotion, curiosity, pity, contempt. No, not pity. But even contempt would be something. Contempt was a human response. If they were to survive, she had to get some relationship established that was other than fear, hatred, conflict. But when he spoke his voice held nothing but an amused tolerance.
“One of those, are you? They’ve all got chips on their shoulders, bastards. I should know. I’ll tell you something about my father. When I was eleven he made me have a blood test. A doctor came and stuck a needle in my arm. I could see my own blood flowing out into the syringe. I was terrified. He did it to try and prove that I wasn’t his son.”
She said, and meant it:
“That was a terrible thing to do to a child.”
“He was a terrible man. But I got my own back. Is that why you’re a policewoman, getting your own back on the rest of us?”
“No, just earning a living.”
“There are other ways. You could have been a decent whore. There aren’t enough of those around.”
“Are those the women you fancy, w
hores?”
“No, what I fancy isn’t so easily come by. Innocence.”
“Like Theresa Nolan?”
“So you know about that? I didn’t kill her. She killed herself.”
“Because you made her abort your child?”
“Well, she could hardly expect to have it, could she? And how are you so sure that it was mine? You never can be sure, any of you. If Berowne didn’t sleep with her, he wanted to. By God, he wanted to. Why else should he have thrown me into that river? I could have done a lot for him, helped him, if he’d let me. He couldn’t be bothered even to talk to me. Who did he think he was? He was going to leave my sister, my sister, for his dreary whore or for his God. Who the hell cares which? He was going to sell his house, make us poor and despised. He humiliated me in front of Diana. Well, he chose the wrong man.”
His voice was still low but it seemed to her that it rang out filling the room, charged with anger and triumph.
She thought: I might as well ask him about it. He’ll want to talk. They always do. She spoke almost casually, squeezing the tomato paste into the pan, reaching up for the jar of mixed herbs.
“You knew that he’d be in that vestry. He wouldn’t have left home without saying where he could be found, not when there was a risk that a dying man would send for him. You told Miss Matlock to lie to us, but she knew where he was and she told you.”
“He gave her a telephone number. I guessed it was the number of the church, but I rang directory enquiries. The number they gave me for St. Matthew’s was the one he’d given Evelyn.”
“How did you get from Campden Hill Square to the church? Cab? Car?”
“By bicycle, his bicycle. I took the key to the garage from Evelyn’s cupboard. Halliwell had left by then, whatever he told the police. His lights were out and the Rover had gone. I didn’t take Barbie’s Golf. Too conspicuous. A bicycle was just as quick, and I could wait in the shadows until the road was clear and pedal quickly away. And I didn’t leave it outside the church where it might have been seen. I asked Paul if I could bring it in, leave it in the passage. It was a fine night, so I didn’t have to worry about muddy tyre marks on the floor. I thought of everything, you see.”
“Not everything. You took away the matches.”
“But I put them back. The matches prove nothing.”
She said:
“And he let you in, you and the bicycle. That’s what I find odd. That he actually let you in.”
“It’s odder than you think. Much odder. I didn’t realize at the time, but I do now. He knew I was coming. He was expecting me.”
She felt a frisson of almost superstitious horror. She wanted to cry out: But he couldn’t have known! It isn’t possible!
She said:
“And Harry Mack. Did you really have to kill Harry?”
“Of course. It was his bad luck that he came blundering in. But he was better dead, poor sod. Don’t worry about Harry. I did him a favour.”
Turning to face him, Kate asked: “And Diana Travers. Did you kill her too?”
He gave a sly smile and seemed to gaze straight through her as if re-living a secret pleasure.
“I didn’t need to. The weeds did it for me. I trod water and watched as she dived in. There was a flash of whiteness cleaving the surface. And then it settled and there was nothing, only that liquid darkness. So I waited, counting the seconds. And then quite close to me, a hand rose out of the water. Just a hand, pale, disembodied. It was uncanny. Like this. See, like this.”
He shot up his left hand, the fingers tautly splayed. She could see the stretched sinews under the milk-white flesh. She didn’t speak. Gently he relaxed his fingers and let his arm fall. He said:
“And then that, too, disappeared. And I waited, still counting the seconds. But there was nothing, not even a ripple.”
“And you swam on, leaving her to drown?”
His eyes focussed on her as if with an effort, and she heard again in his voice the charge of hatred and triumph.
“She laughed at me. No one does that. No one will, ever again.”
“What did you feel like afterwards, knowing what you’d done in that vestry, the butchery, the blood?”
“You need a woman and I had one handy. Not the one I would have chosen, but you have to take what you can get. It was clever too. I knew she’d never break after that.”
“Miss Matlock. You used her in more ways than one.”
“No more than the Berownes did. They think she’s devoted to them. Do you know why? Because they never bother to ask themselves what she really thinks. So efficient, so devoted. Almost one of the family, except, of course, that she isn’t, is she? She never was. She hates them. She doesn’t know it, not really, not yet, but she hates them, and one day she’ll wake up to it. Like me. That dreadful old bitch, Lady Ursula. I’ve seen her trying not to cringe when Evelyn touches her.”
“Evelyn?”
“Mattie. She does have a name of her own, you know. They found a pet name for her as they might for a cat or a dog.”
“If they’ve been overworking her for years, why didn’t she leave?”
“Too scared. She went off her head. Once you’ve had one spell in the funny farm and your dad’s a murderer, people get wary. They’re not sure you’re safe looking after their precious kids or let loose in the kitchen. Oh, the Berownes had her where they wanted her, all right. Why should they think she got a kick out it, fussing over that selfish old woman, washing under her droopy old tits? Christ, I hope I never get old.”
She said:
“You will. Where you’re going, they take good care of you. Healthy diet, daily exercise, locked up safely at night. You’ll grow old, all right.”
He laughed.
“But they won’t kill me, will they? They can’t. And I’ll be out again. Cured. You’ll be surprised how quickly they’ll cure me.”
“Not if you kill a police officer.”
“Let’s hope I don’t have to, then. When is that stuff going to be ready? I want to get on.”
She said:
“Soon. It won’t be long now.”
Already the kitchen was beginning to fill with the savoury smell of the sauce. She reached up for her pasta jar and tipped out a handful of spaghetti, breaking it. The thin cracks sounded unnaturally loud. She thought: If Alan has telephoned the police, they could be outside already, boring through the wall, looking, watching, listening. How would they play it? she wondered. Telephone, and begin the long process of negotiation? Crash in? Probably neither. As long as he was ignorant of their presence, they would watch and listen, knowing that sooner or later he would leave the flat with his hostages. That would give them their best chance to disable him. If they were there. If Alan had acted.
Suddenly he said:
“My God, this place is bloody pathetic. You can’t see it, can you? You think it’s all right. No, you think it’s better than all right. You think it’s really something. You’re proud of it, aren’t you? Dull, orthodox, ghastly, conventional good taste. Six bloody awful mugs hanging on their little hooks. You don’t need any more, do you? Six people are quite enough. No one else can drop in because there isn’t a mug for him. And the same in the cupboard. I’ve had a look. I know. Six of everything. Nothing broken. Nothing chipped. Everything neatly arranged. Six dinner plates, side plates, soup bowls. Christ, I’ve only got to open this cupboard behind me to know what you’re like. Don’t you ever want to stop counting the crockery and start living?”
“If by living you mean mess and violence, no, I don’t. I had enough of that when I was a kid.”
Without moving the gun he reached up his left hand and slipped the catch on the cupboard. Then he took out the dinner plates one by one and placed them on the table. He said:
“They don’t look real, do they? They don’t look as if they’d break.” He took one of the plates and smashed it down against the side of the table. It cracked neatly in two. Then he took the next. She went quietly on with h
er cooking and heard as plate after plate was carefully smashed, the two pieces neatly arranged on the table. The pyramid grew. Each crack was like the small report of a gun. She thought: If the police are actually here, if they’ve got their listening devices on, they’ll pick that up, try to identify it. The thought must have occurred to him. He said:
“Lucky for you the fuzz aren’t outside. They’d wonder what I’m doing. It would be a shame for the old bitch if they broke in. Plates don’t make a mess, but blood and brains, you can’t stack those up neatly on the table.”
He was able to keep the gun steadily pointed at her grandmother’s head and still, one-handed, manage the cupboard door and crack the plates. So he was ambidextrous or as near as made no odds. It was important to remember that, if it came to a fight.
She said:
“How did you do it? How did you manage to surprise him? I mean, you must have burst in on him half-naked, razor in hand.” She had asked the question to propitiate him, flatter him. What she hadn’t expected was his reply. It almost burst out of him, as if they were lovers and he had been longing to confide. He said:
“But you don’t understand! He wanted to die, God rot him, he wanted it! He practically asked for it. He could have tried to stop me, pleaded, argued, put up a fight. He could have begged for mercy. ‘No, please don’t do it. Please!’ That’s all I wanted from him. ‘Please.’ Just that one word. The priest could say it, but not Paul Berowne. He looked at me with such contempt. And then he turned his back. I tell you he turned his back on me! When I came in half-naked, his razor in my hand, we stood and looked at each other. He knew then. Of course he knew. And I wouldn’t have done it, not if he’d spoken to me as if I were even half-human. I spared the boy. I can be merciful. And that boy is sick. If you get out of here alive, do something about it, for Christ’s sake. Or don’t you bloody care?”
The blue eyes were suddenly luminous. She thought: He’s crying. He’s actually crying. And he was crying soundlessly, without a twitch of the face. And now her blood ran cold because she knew that anything was possible. She felt no pity, only a detached curiosity. She hardly dared breathe, terrified that his hand would shake, that the gun pressed again against her grandmother’s head would go off. She could see the old lady’s eyes wide and glazed as if she were already dead, her figure rigid with terror, not daring even to wince at the hurt of the metal hard against the defenceless skull. He took control of himself. With a sound between a sob and a laugh, he said: