I think I would have got away with it if not for the cop on the motor-cycle. I had forgotten him. He must have called at the farms and cottages between Henton and Westbury to ask people to keep an eye open for me and to report at once by telephone. So it may be that the farmer took a last look round when he ought to have gone straight to bed and promptly called the number which the patrolman had left. The police, for once, knew exactly what they were looking for within ten minutes of the theft without any of the usual delays in passing information through local stations.
On the outskirts of Shepton Mallet I passed a police car and in my mirror saw it stop abruptly and begin to turn. I shot into the first side road, which led me through some sort of housing estate into open country, switched out my headlights—adding crime to crime—and tried to throw off the pursuit. Luck for the moment was with me, probably because they thought they knew what my objective was, whereas I was actually twisting at random. When I was lost in a network of lanes and hamlets, I reckoned that I was safe and drove on the parking lights—not that being temporarily safe was going to solve my problem of how to reach London.
Having no map, I only knew that I was within the triangle formed by Glastonbury, Wells and Shepton Mallet. Arriving at a wild-looking lane to the west, I followed it with some vague hope of abandoning my stolen car where it would not be found quickly and of reaching Dunton’s house on foot. But my lane ran down a steep, little valley and came to a dead end at water with no continuation on the opposite bank. I bogged the car trying to turn, and the effort finally exhausted both mind and body. So I waded the water and climbed up a hillock beyond it, toppling over at last in a patch of woodland.
It was day again, with yellow shafts of sunlight occasionally piercing the rain clouds which blew up from the Bristol Channel. I was on top of Warminster Sleight—one of two rounded hills which I had seen too often from the road to mistake. I could see Wells and Glastonbury and the straight line of the Mendips. I could also see that a police car had joined mine down in the bottom of the steep valley. I wished to God that I had been one of the hunters looking down from my knoll upon deer drinking at the edge of the lake, instead of on too civilised meadows inhabited by nuts and policemen and children who rushed home to mother because a poor devil had a hole in his neck.
There was little I could do. Apart from my patch of cover, the slopes were bare. I dithered and my pursuers at the bottom of the valley peacefully smoked. After half an hour there was nothing whatever I could do. A van joined the car, and out hopped a police handler accompanied by a large and eager Alsatian. Ever since Fosworthy’s dog which didn’t exist I had been haunted by the creatures, alive and dead. More to my taste than ever was the sunlit, empty England of the hunters where there weren’t any—or, if there were, their assistance was not considered worth paint and a patch of rock.
In five minutes or less—to judge by the way that damned dog was pulling on his leash—I was going to be caught in the long grind of the Law. Mr Yarrow. Well known in the district. So what the devil is he doing hiding with plenty of money and a cheque book in his pocket? Why run away? Hold him on a charge of stealing a car till he answers! Tactful enquiries might be made of Aviston-Tresco and Jedder. What they would say the Lord only knew. It might be impossible for them to stick to the bargain; or, seeing that my case was already prejudiced, they might take the risk of going straight into action.
And then I saw the only card I could play: to become what that benevolent ass who hadn’t got fourpence thought I was. I ran over an inventory of my clothes. The suit I was wearing had been bought off the peg from a good, plain shop in the City which took cash and did not insist on a customer’s name and address in order to pester him thereafter with sales offers. Everything else was straight commercial stuff sold in hundreds weekly by multiple stores. It would take months of a detective’s time to trace my identity through my clothing; and since I was not—yet—accused of murder, it was unlikely that police would take the trouble.
All that could give away my identity were letters in my pocket and my wallet containing cards and a cheque book. I looked frantically round for a hiding-place as the cop and his dog started up the hill. There was an ash which had been split by lightning, and in the dead half a green woodpecker had been at work. The nesting hole she had started and abandoned was shallow but deep enough for my wallet and papers. On top of them I crammed in handfuls of rotten wood from the little pile at the foot of the tree. Then I ran round in a circle back to the place where I had slept, so that the dog, with luck, would not stop at the tree.
There were only seconds to spare, but at least I was now nobody at all. I had never had any dealings with the police. It was unlikely that I should meet anyone who knew me once I was safely in a cell. The only danger was the magistrate’s court where, shaved and cleaned, I risked recognition.
I broke cover out on to the hillside, assuming that I ought to make the futile gesture of running away. The cops firmly and painlessly detained me and took me down to their car where they put a few preliminary questions. Who was I? I was very sorry, but I didn’t know. What had I done to my neck? I thought it was a car accident, but couldn’t remember. Could I account for my movements? Well, more or less I could. I had been wandering about for some time and sleeping rough, hoping my memory would come back. I deeply regretted stealing a car, but I had been frightened and had found myself suddenly impelled to go somewhere else.
They were of course suspicious of the disappearance of any means of identification. It was obvious that I had either destroyed all papers myself or that I had been the victim of a crime. I had the impression that they were inclined to think I had attempted suicide, made a mess of the job and taken refuge in real or pretended loss of memory. The dog handler returned to the hilltop to see if his officious tyke could detect a spot where I had hidden anything. I thanked God for the woodpecker and her obliging hole eight feet above ground. If I had cut out a piece of turf or hidden my wallet under a stone, there might have been some triumphant tail-wagging.
I was driven down to the police station at Wells and charged with stealing a car, wilful damage and half a dozen driving offences. When they had taken my finger prints—which were merely going to make work for somebody—they locked me up with a cup of tea and a sandwich, and sent for the doctor.
He was just the right chap—a busy and impatient Irishman who had more respect for suffering than I deserved and a lot less for the police than they deserved. He made a very thorough examination of me and of course was interested by the recent scar on my backside. He wanted to know who had stitched it up for me. I pretended that I did not know what scar he was talking about, which may have been overdoing it. When he described it in detail, I put on a show of extreme agitation and said that I believed my wife had stabbed me. I hoped that would tie up with a domestic-trouble-attempted-suicide-lost-memory theory. At any rate it meant more complications and more time for me to play with.
When I had been supplied with a dressing-gown and was lying down, trying not to show the little intelligence I had left, the station sergeant came in and asked if I was fit to be interviewed by the C.I.D.
‘Almighty, man!’ this admirable doctor exclaimed. ‘He’s going straight to hospital. Can’t you see that he’s half starved?’
‘He’d got fifteen pounds in his pocket.’
‘So what? Obviously from his behaviour he didn’t want to be found, and he couldn’t go into a shop.’
‘Any bruise on his head?’
‘No. But it isn’t essential. He’s had a smack on the jaw which knocked out a tooth—quite hard enough to account for concussion and lost memory, though I think all that’s wrong with the boyo is that he just doesn’t want to remember. Besides that, the tissues of the neck need excising and I want an X-ray on the jaw.’
The sergeant asked if Detective-Constable Somebody could at least have a look at me before the ambulance arrived, to which the doctor replied that for all he cared they could take tickets at
the door, but that I was to be out of there in ten minutes.
The C.I.D. man asked me a few formal questions: little more than had already been put to me in the police car. I tried to be helpful and remained deplorably vague. He was very young and out of his depth in a case of lost memory. It is possible that his senior officers were occupied elsewhere. I should have liked to listen to them taking down the Bank Manager’s statement on Jedder’s accident.
‘He couldn’t be this chap Fosworthy, could he,’ the sergeant asked, ‘what his housekeeper is anxious about?’
The young detective constable at least spotted my quickly suppressed interest.
‘Fosworthy,’ he repeated. ‘Are you Fosworthy?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘No.’
The station sergeant trotted out to look up the file, and returned to say that I was not tall enough and my hair was not fair.
Because I did not know who I was, all of them treated me as a sort of non-person, speaking more openly in front of me than, I suppose, they would have done in the presence of a plain car thief. The C.I.D. man collected my coat and trousers for analysis of the blood stains and asked to be supplied as soon as possible with my blood group. It was certainly going to deepen the mystery when they got down to putting that little lot through the test tubes. A geologist could have given them a more revealing report than a pathologist.
‘They’ll be jacking up the insurance premiums round here,’ the doctor said. ‘There’s a farmer been carted off to Taunton General who stepped into a wooden box of .22 cartridges and they blew up under him. Would you believe it? And then look at poor Tom Aviston-Tresco! Climbing over a gate with a pitchfork and slipping!’
‘Come in threes, they do,’ the sergeant replied. ‘We had four last time, not counting motoring offences.’
‘Which last time?’
‘Drunk and disorderly in Gough’s Cave. Turned out he was an epileptic, you remember. Next day, rape. And after two bloody hours in the C.I.D. office she comes out that she wasn’t feeling like it in them clothes which was party. Same afternoon, chap leaves a suicide note in a tea caddy where you wouldn’t think to look for it, and the gaffer says it’s murder. Then half the night we’re up on a case of breaking and entering which was just the next-door neighbour clearing the dear little sparrows’ nests from the gutter which he hadn’t a right to. Coincidence, that’s what it is. Makes you think them bishops on the telly must have got something.’
One tends in trouble to be too self-centred. It was comforting to know that I was not the most exciting and enigmatic incident in weeks, and that Mysteries, as the local paper would call them, were considered routine rather than evidence of a serious crime wave.
I appreciated the sergeant’s point of view. The unlikely does occur in streaks. I remember how in West Africa the shaft broke through a most improbable formation of blue clay which we were all convinced was a diamond pipe; the same evening our foreman was chased into the bush by a leopard-man who turned out to be a hyaena with its head stuck in an empty twelve-pound tin of bully; and two days later a mad Russian walked into camp and got a grub stake out of us with a story of panning five hundred dollars worth of gold in two days—which we just laughed at, though it proved to be very nearly true.
I was taken to hospital, cleaned, shaved and fed. They didn’t go in for psychiatry. I was cheerfully assured that when I was in a presentable physical condition I should have to appear in court and would certainly be remanded for further enquiries. Meanwhile the Taunton specialists would get back my memory for me. I was not to worry.
I did worry. I was dead certain to meet the registrar who knew me very well after that cheerful evening together, and then Dunton would arrive as fast as his car could take him. It sounds irrational, but I dreaded that. It was one thing to tell him my story in secret and appeal to him to help me to disappear, and quite another to be forced into an uncontrollable situation in which the truth would have to come out publicly and he could hardly help at all.
A surgeon operated on my untidy neck and fussed about it, or perhaps about the jaw. I was not told. But I have never been an imaginative person where my own body was concerned—unless apologised to—and both neck and jaw felt comfortable enough to me. The stitches and dressings gave me an excuse for talking as little as possible and muttering when I did. It amused my hearty nurse that I was prepared to eat however much it hurt.
In spite of this comparative luxury, I was desperate. I could not make up my mind what to do. The old problem. Have some guts and come clean, or have some more and get clear. But I could see no hope. The hospital had my money. Some forensic laboratory had my clothes. I possessed nothing in the world but a pair of pyjamas and a dressing-gown—and those belonged to the County. It was enough to make a man feel he had lost his identity even if he hadn’t.
The ward was a small one, with cases—chiefly accidents—which were more painful than serious. We were encouraged to move about and cheer each other up. It was hard not to be friendly, but I thought melancholy would fit my part better. I don’t know if it was clinically correct; there must be cases of lost memory which would dance for joy at having lost it. However, nothing prevented me moving aimlessly about, so I used to stroll up and down the long, shiny passage outside my ward, deep in thought.
The passage ended at a T-junction, the left-hand arm of which led to the operating theatre. I watched the nurses and orderlies wheeling unconscious, healthy-looking patients in, and moribund, bloodless patients out. The orderlies, often hanging about between jobs and ready to talk, accused me of showing a morbid interest. They were anxious to satisfy me that surgery was miraculous. They said I ought to think of the skill—of the craftsman, in fact, rather than of his raw material.
So that was what I did and asked questions, preserving my character of a man who disliked his unknown self and his fellow human beings as well. I wanted to know why the surgeons strolled out of the hospital beaming, whereas the patients—to the eye of a layman—looked only fit for the morgue. Oh, there were showers and a changing-room, I was told, where the great men could freshen themselves up after the heat of the theatre. They needed it. Tomorrow, for example, two of them would be at it for four or five hours.
It was quite mad, impossible to plan properly, but lying awake at night I decided to risk it. After all, if I were caught, it was only one more charge to be added to the others for which the psychiatrists would have to invent motives—or motivations as they prefer to call them.
The operation was booked for 10.30 a.m. I hung about in and out of the lavatories until I was chased back to my ward by an angry assistant matron, but I managed to see the two surgeons come through the glass door at the end of the right-hand arm of the T-junction. One was too tall and the other running to a distinguished middle-age spread. The anaesthetist, however, was not far off my build and wearing a non-committal dark suit.
At eleven I had to be in or on my bed for a visit by the house surgeon and an unwanted cup of tea. After that, nobody would require my presence till lunch at twelve. Bolting my tea, I mooned off down the passage and sat on a window-sill from which I could keep watch—when not staring at nothing with melancholy eyes—on at least three or four doors to the left of the T. As soon as a moment came when nobody was busily dashing out of wards and offices, I padded down the corridor past the double doors of the theatre and jumped through the next door which had to be that of the room I wanted. I was all prepared to burble excuses, but it was empty.
Shirts and suits were hanging neatly on a rail. Shoes and socks were scattered around more untidily. I grabbed a shirt of the right size and had just time to slide into the shower-room as somebody opened the door and looked in. When it shut again, I took the anaesthetist’s suit and dressed in the shower-room. The pockets contained only his small change. Valuables, I think, were left in individual lockers. I did not try the locks, partly because I was racing against time—never did I dress so quickly—partly because I had an old-fashioned inh
ibition against stealing money, whereas sheer desperation permitted me to pinch clothes.
I took off the dressing from my neck and pocketed it. The mirror assured me that most of the wound was safely under the collar and that the stitches which showed above it were hardly visible if I kept my head down. Throwing pyjamas and dressing gown into a laundry basket, I covered them with an overall which was already there. Then I grabbed a fine black hat, the final touch of professional respectability, and opened the door an inch.
I could not see who was or wasn’t in the corridor without sticking my head right out. The place seemed a hive of industry, healing and trolleys. I had gained a lot by talking to idle orderlies but now every one of them would recognise me, besides all the nurses who served my ward. My chances of being able to pass the T-junction and reach the glass door to the open were slim.
With growing panic I waited. It then occurred to me that some other damned doctor might want to change, and I rushed at the first comparatively peaceful moment. My own passage, when I crossed the junction, had half a dozen people in it. I passed the end in two strides holding my splendid hat in front of my face as if I were about to put it on. A door opened and shut behind me. I did not look round. Two sisters were stuck on the threshold of a ward, having a difference of opinion in low, annoyed voices; they were too occupied with each other to give me a glance. A trolley of crockery was pushed at me from a pantry, but again I had time to hide my face from the pusher. I was through the glass door and out into the car park.
I was not going to loiter there and be caught trying door handles; so I walked out of the main gate and kept walking. I looked at the cathedral clock and couldn’t believe it. It was only half past eleven. I had a chance of safety if I could move quickly enough. Money did not bother me. I knew where I could get that—on condition that I was always one jump ahead of the police.
The Courtesy of Death Page 12
