It was time to go, and reluctantly, not wanting the evening to end, we went once more into the cold darkness. I clung to Philip’s arm as the wind leapt on us, buffeting and intrusive as we battled our way along the narrow pavements back towards the seafront. Once, I thought I heard footsteps behind us, but the wind distorted sounds, and when I turned there was no one there.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Philip was asking.
“I want another look at the exhibition. I couldn’t take it all in at once.”
“If it’s as good as that perhaps I should see it myself. How about meeting there about eleven?”
“Fine,” I agreed, glad of the prospect of his company.
“We can have lunch afterwards and then, unfortunately, I must be on my way.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Afraid so. I did say it was only a short break.”
So once again he was going to walk out of my life. Yet what did I expect, a married woman with three children? The Melanie who had loved Philip, I reminded myself, was long gone.
The wind gusted suddenly, throwing a handful of sand into our faces. Philip reached for a handkerchief, but when he withdrew his hand he was holding a buff-coloured envelope. “Damn! It’s the final demand for my gas bill. I meant to buy a stamp for it.”
“I have some in my room,” I said, “and there’s a pillarbox at the gate. I’ll post it for you.”
“Are you sure?” He felt in his pocket again. “I can give you—”
“Twenty-four pence? Don’t be ridiculous. Think what you’ve spent on me today – coffee, lunch, tea and dinner.”
He laughed. “Put like that, we seem to have spent most of our time eating. Well, if you’re sure, thank you. I don’t want them turning the gas off, with cold weather on the way.” He handed me the envelope and I slipped it into my handbag. We had now reached the gate of Bay View, but although we came to a halt, he did not release my hand.
“I wish you were staying at that nice, anonymous hotel,” he said wryly, “instead of a boarding-house where every movement is noted.”
“What if I were?” I asked, my mouth dry.
“I’d suggest a nightcap in your room, and no doubt one thing would lead to another.”
“You’re very sure of yourself,” I said.
“Oh, Mel!” He pulled me suddenly against him, and for long moments we clung together, while the wind tore at our clothes as though trying to separate us.
“Why the hell did I let you go?” he said against my hair.
With an effort I pulled myself free. “Good night, Philip. And – thank you.”
He sighed and, lifting my hand to his lips, kissed the base of each finger in turn. “Till tomorrow morning, then.”
“Eleven o’clock at the gallery,” I confirmed.
“I’ll be there.”
As I walked alone up the path, I knew – and the knowledge filled me with shame – that had I been at that ‘anonymous hotel’, I should happily have spent the night with Philip.
I awoke with a headache, and at first thought the low, persistent humming was in my head. Then I identified it as a lawnmower. At this hour? I thought grumpily. I reached for my dressing gown and went to the window with some half-formed intention of complaining. But my view of the garden was obscured by the fire escape, and while I waited for the perpetrator to come into sight my annoyance evaporated and, abandoning the hope of further sleep, I went for my bath.
“You start work early round here,” I commented to Mrs. Carlisle, when she brought the tea and toast which was all I could face for breakfast.
“The grass, you mean? My son cuts it before he goes to work. I hope he didn’t wake you, but it’s the only chance he gets.”
After breakfast I went to the pillarbox with Philip’s letter. It was still early but, feeling in need of fresh air, I continued walking along the promenade. In the cold light of morning, the memory of my behaviour the previous evening was deeply embarrassing and again I doubted the wisdom of another meeting with Philip. But there would be no chance of amorous dalliance today. We’d look at the exhibition, have lunch, and then he would go.
And I? I’d be guided by the weather, as I’d told him. If it became warm enough to sit on the beach, I’d stay on a few days. The wind had dropped this morning, and the air felt as sluggish as I did.
I walked as far as the boating pool, stood for a while watching small boys sailing their yachts, then made my way slowly back to town. The library clock was striking eleven as I turned the corner by the gallery, but this time Philip was not there. Nor, though I stood waiting with increasing impatience, did he appear.
Perhaps, I thought eventually, he’d meant us to meet inside? I bought a ticket and hurried in, but a quick search proved he wasn’t there either. Disconsolately I began my solo round of the paintings.
But though I was looking at the same pictures as the day before, my reactions were very different. The sizzling colours no longer seemed joyous but discordant, violent even, and the stinging yellows and throbbing reds hurt my eyes. Every few minutes I went back to the door, from which I had a clear view of the steps and the lamp-post outside. But Philip did not appear.
By twelve o’clock I had to accept he wasn’t coming. He could at least have phoned, I thought irritably; the staff would have passed on a message. But as I knew to my cost, Philip had never been considerate. No, something else must have come up and he’d abandoned me without a second thought.
Because it was the only place I knew, I went to the cafe we’d visited the previous day. He’d mentioned lunch, and there was a faint hope he might be there. He was not. I was served a leathery omelette and a tepid cup of coffee. Had the fare been as poor yesterday? I’d been too engrossed in Philip to notice. Well, that was what I got by behaving as though I were eighteen again.
Annoyed, humiliated, and with a by this time blinding headache, I returned to the boarding-house. Mrs. Carlisle was out, but she’d provided me with a front door key. As I went up the stairs I was composing a withering speech to Philip, though I knew I’d never have the chance to deliver it. But the moment I entered my room, it went out of my head.
Someone had been there, I knew it instinctively – someone other than Mrs. Carlisle, who’d made the bed and cleaned the basin. I stood stock still, looking for proof to back up intuition. And found it. One of the dressing-table drawers, which I’d noticed shut crookedly, was not quite straight, though I’d left it so.
Swiftly I checked my belongings, though fortunately I’d nothing of value with me. The intruder, whoever he was, must have reached the same conclusion, for though some items were out of place, nothing seemed to be missing.
I straightened, looking round the outwardly undisturbed room, and with a shiver realised belatedly that no burglar would have left things so tidy. It had been a search rather than a robbery, which I found even more disquieting.
Uneasy and bewildered, I walked to the window and stood staring down at the newly mown lawn. Then something closer at hand caught my eye. On both the windowsill and the top step of the fire escape were several blades of freshly cut grass. Altogether too easy a means of entry.
I began to pack, and by the time Mrs. Carlisle returned, was waiting to pay the bill. I didn’t mention the intruder; there seemed little point.
Well, my bid for independence had not been a success, I reflected in the taxi on the way to the station. Not only had I made a fool of myself over a man I’d not seen for years, but I’d attracted enough attention for someone to think it worth searching my room. In retrospect, the whole venture had been sordid and degrading. I should have stayed meekly at home, as I’d always done before. My only consolation was that I could now put Philip out of my head once and for all.
But in that I was mistaken, as I discovered the next morning when I opened the newspaper.
MURDER AT RE
SORT, I read. Then, with increasing horror:
The body of a man in his late thirties was discovered yesterday morning in the seaside town of Sandham. Death had been caused by a stab wound and probably occurred overnight.
Identification has not yet been established, but a bus ticket from Lee to Sandham dated the previous day was found in his pocket. An incident room has been set up at Sandham Police Station, and police are asking anyone who might have any information to contact them there. The telephone number is—
The print swam before my eyes. Philip was dead. All the time I’d been seething at his non-appearance, he’d been lying murdered. But by whom? The red-haired man who’d watched us in the bar, and probably also through the restaurant window?
Then something occurred to me with the impact of a douche of cold water. The police were appealing for information: suppose someone reported seeing him with me? On the bus back from Lee, for instance – mention of the ticket might jog someone’s memory – in the cafe, the pub or the restaurant? Looking back, we’d hardly kept a low profile.
Should I forestall any informer and go to the police myself? But there was nothing I could tell them – and how would Clive react to my involvement in a murder case? I shivered. Though deeply shocked by Philip’s death, I had no wish to be dragged into its aftermath.
Philip’s death, my brain repeated numbly. Philip, who had been so alive, so vital, was dead. In God’s name, why? I remembered the footsteps I’d heard and our embrace at the gate. The watcher in the shadows would have seen that, and known where to look the next day. But for what?
The envelope. It had to be. Anyone following us would have seen Philip hand it to me. Whatever he’d imagined it contained, it seemed likely Philip had died because of an unpaid gas bill.
Somehow the days crawled past. The murder, which had made the regional news headlines that first evening, was unaccountably dropped from subsequent bulletins, nor could I find any follow-up to the newspaper story. The clamp-down struck me as ominous; such items usually ran for days. Perhaps they’d caught the killer? But if so, why not announce it?
My conscience remained uneasy and I still felt I should contact the police. Yet even if I did, I argued with myself, I had little to report – I’d not even known where Philip was staying. No, I decided finally, I’d made enough mistakes in the last few days. Better to sit tight and volunteer nothing.
Clive arrived home at last, and I was overwhelmingly glad to see him. He looked tired, I thought, the few days apart lending an added perception.
“And how was your trip?” he asked, accepting my fervent kiss with some surprise.
“Not an unqualified success,” I admitted.
“But you saw the exhibition?”
“Oh yes. It was—” How was it? Joyous and exuberant or stridently threatening? Which of my visits was the more discerning? But he wasn’t really listening.
“I gather there was a bit of excitement while you were there,” he said, tossing his briefcase on a chair. “Murder, no less. If I’d known where you were staying, I’d have phoned to check you were all right.”
“You surely didn’t think I was involved?” I hoped he wouldn’t hear the tremor in my voice.
“Hardly. Though oddly enough, I was, in a way.”
I stared at him, a pulse beginning to throb in my temple. “How do you mean?”
“By a freak chance one of our chaps was in the thick of it. It seems the man had been stalking him all week and suddenly sprang out and attacked him. He was lucky – the outcome could have been very different.”
I felt I was floundering in a foggy sea. “One of your chaps?” I repeated blankly. “But – you’re in electronics!”
Clive gave a tired smile. “You’ve never been interested in my work, have you, Melanie? If you had, you’d have realised that electronics covers a multitude of things. Listening devices, for example, and other bugging equipment, the use of which can be quite controversial. Sometimes we do odd jobs for the government and at others we’re caught up in industrial espionage. Every now and then it backfires, which was what happened this time. One of our devices picked up some sensitive material which could net several big fish. Let’s say they weren’t anxious for it to be passed on.”
I gazed at him speechlessly. My conventional, dull-seeming husband had been leading a double life which I’d never even suspected. How could I have lived with him all these years and not known? It wasn’t that he’d deliberately kept it from me, just, as he’d said, that I’d never been interested.
Hot with shame, I remembered all the times he’d come home, full of the day’s events, and started to tell me of something that had happened, only to be interrupted by a request to go and say goodnight to the children, or the announcement that dinner was ready.
Clive had been watching me, reading without difficulty the emotions crossing my face. “Don’t look so stricken, love,” he said gently. “It wasn’t meant as criticism.”
I said shakily, “How could I have been so – so blinkered and self-centred?”
“Well, you were involved with the children, weren’t you? There’s no harm done. I only mentioned it because of the coincidence of your being there and because the chap concerned is calling round any minute to put me in the picture.”
The nightmare, it seemed, was not over. I said with difficulty, “So it was he who killed – that man?”
“In self-defence, yes. I gather he made a grab at the knife, and in the struggle the other man fell on it.”
“Who – who was he, do you know?”
“Not specifically, but his outfit had been under surveillance for some time. They sell information to the highest bidder.”
Making a fast buck when the chance offered. Tearing my mind from Philip, I realised with horror that Clive’s colleague must be the red-haired man I’d cast as villain. He’d seen me with Philip – how would he react if I were introduced as Clive’s wife? The sound of the doorbell cut into my panic.
“That’ll be him now,” Clive said.
“I’ll go upstairs, then, so you can talk.” I started frantically for the door.
“No, stay here,” Clive said over his shoulder. “I’d like you to meet him.”
Heart hammering, I stood immobile in the centre of the room.
Because of that one reckless day with Philip, my marriage, my whole future hung in the balance and there was nothing I could do to salvage it.
There were voices in the hall, and they were coming closer. Like a rabbit caught in car headlights, I fixed my eyes on the door. And as the visitor came into sight, felt myself jerk and sway. For there, regarding me across the room with an expression of disbelief, was Philip.
Dizzily I tried yet again to adjust. Ironic that I’d gone to Sandham to consider the turning point in my life; ever since my return I’d been spinning like a top, unsure from one moment to the next which way I was facing, while Philip, the red-haired stranger, even Clive, shifted and changed places in my perceptions, as though performing the intricate steps of a danse macabre. And yet, I thought, as the faintness passed, the only constant was, and had always been, Clive.
Over Philip’s shoulder, he was saying, “Darling, this is Philip Barr, whom I was telling you about. My wife, Melanie. By an odd coincidence she was in Sandham herself last week.”
Philip’s eyes still held mine, and it wasn’t difficult to read their message. “Really?” he said, and came forward to take my hand. “I’m delighted to meet you, Mrs. Roper. I hope our little melodrama didn’t spoil your holiday.”
I smiled back, sure of myself at last. “Not in the slightest. I knew nothing about it until I got home,” I said.
The Hand That Feeds Me
Michael Z. Lewin
It was one of those sultry summer evenings, warm and humid and hardly any wind. The sun was just going down and I was grazing the alleys downtown
, not doing badly. It never ceases to amaze me the quantity of food that human beings throw away. Especially in warm weather. The only real problem about getting a decent meal is the competition.
When I saw the old man poking in a barrel I said to myself, ‘Here’s trouble.’ I was wrong, but I was right.
The old guy was grazing too and at first he didn’t notice me. But when he did, though I couldn’t make out the words, he was obviously friendly. And then he threw me a piece of meat.
It’s not always smart to take meat from strange men, but this guy seemed genuine enough. I checked the meat out carefully, and then I ate it. It was good. Topped me up nicely.
I stayed with the old guy for a while, and we got along. I’d root a bit, he’d root a bit. And we’d move elsewhere.
Then he settled down to go to sleep. He patted the sacking, inviting me to sleep too, but it was early so I moved on.
* * *
A couple of hours later it was semi-dark, like it gets in the town. I didn’t go back down the old guy’s alley on purpose. Things just worked out that way. There are forces in a town at night. They push you this way, they push you that.
I could tell immediately that something was wrong. I approached cautiously, but nothing happened. Nothing could happen. The old guy was dead.
There was blood on his face. There was blood on his clothes. Someone had given him a terrible beating. Beatings are something I know about.
I licked one of the wounds. The blood was dry on top, but still runny under the crust. The old guy’s body was pretty warm. Whatever had happened wasn’t long over.
Nosing around, I picked up the scents of three different men. They were all fresh, hanging in the tepid air. Three men together, three against one. One old man. That could not be right.
I set out after them.
They had headed away from downtown. Curiously, they had stuck to the alleys, these three men, though they hadn’t stopped at any of the places I would have. The places my dead acquaintance would have.
Vintage Crime Page 18
