The Corpse Wore Red

by Pat Herbert

  Lucy privately thought it was none of her business what she did with her life, and was very upset that she and Robbie had been discussing her behind her back. They probably felt sorry for her. Lucy hated the idea that Robbie pitied her. She would have to leave his employ, that was all there was to it. She couldn’t carry on under the same roof with the man whose bed she shared whenever he snapped his fingers. She had her pride, or what was left of it. She must try and behave with dignity, she told herself, and not let Celia see she was upset.

  “Why don’t you get yourself an outside interest?” said Celia suddenly.

  “Like what?” Lucy was thoroughly riled now.

  “For instance, I’m a prison visitor. I find it fascinating. Maybe you’d like to do something like that? Maybe not prison, what about being a hospital visitor? There are lots of patients who don’t see anyone day in, day out, apart from the medical staff. You’d be a godsend, Lucy dear. You have such a sweet nature.”

  Don’t you ‘Lucy dear’ me, she said under her breath. The woman was insufferable. She had been prepared to like her when she first suggested tea and a chat, but she could see now that all she was doing was making sure she didn’t get in the way of her burgeoning relationship with Robbie. It was plain as a pikestaff now she came to look at it.

  “What do you think?” prompted Celia when she didn’t reply.

  Lucy shrugged. “I’m too busy to go gallivanting around hospitals all day.”

  “But it would give you an outlet,” said Celia undeterred. “I had time on my hands, so I decided to take up prison visiting, just for something to do. And now I love it. I’m particularly involved in helping a man who is to be hanged in a couple of weeks. I’m convinced he’s innocent. It’s heartbreaking, but I know I bring him comfort and that is what he needs. You could do the same for some lonely patient. It doesn’t do to always be thinking of ourselves.”

  Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, Lucy knew Celia was right, but it didn’t stop her from wanting to kick her into the middle of next week.

  7th February 1958: Wandsworth

  “Hello, Robbie,” said Bernard, as his friend sat down at the table opposite him, whisky in hand. The Feathers public house was crowded at one o’clock on that Friday afternoon, where the two men had arranged to meet.

  “Hello, old boy. Can I get you another sherry?”

  “No thanks. This one will do me. I must get back for my dinner soon. You’re late.”

  “Rather a busy round this morning,” said Robbie, swigging his drink. “This cold weather has taken its toll, I don’t mind telling you.”

  “Yes, it’s going on too long, isn’t it? It’s this ice that’s so treacherous. There’s poor old Annie sitting in the parlour all day with her sprained ankle. She’s getting fed up and driving us all mad. Still, she should be fit enough to go home soon.”

  “I thought you liked having her around?”

  “Up to a point. But she can get on your nerves sometimes. Mrs Aitch has fallen out with her because she won’t stop eating. She can’t keep up with her. Cakes, biscuits, sandwiches, non-stop, even though she has three square meals a day, and you know how filling Mrs Aitch’s meals are. I don’t know where she puts it all. I mean, she’s quite plump, but she should be gargantuan.”

  Robbie laughed. But it wasn’t a happy laugh; more a snappy, short bite of a laugh. Bernard could see his friend wasn’t in the sunniest of moods.

  “What’s up? You don’t seem very happy today. In fact, you haven’t been yourself for a while. What’s on your mind?”

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise people had noticed. I’m like a bear with a sore head these days. Need this drink. Patients can get to you. Like Annie. When they’re ill, they moan on and on, as if you can do anything about their aches and pains.”

  Bernard raised his eyebrows. “But surely if you can’t do anything about them, then who can?”

  “We’re not God, are we?” said Robbie. “I’ve only got a basic knowledge of the human body and what ails it. There’s so much I don’t know. I think most of my patients at the moment need psychiatrists, not aspirin.”

  “You are in a funny mood. Is there any other reason for the melancholy?”

  Robbie stood abruptly. “I’ll tell you all. Just let me get another drink first. You sure you don’t want another?”

  “No, thanks. Hurry up, Mrs Aitch will have my dinner on the table.”

  “She rules your life, that woman. Tell me who’s employing who?”

  Bernard raised his hands in mock despair. “I know. But I can’t afford to antagonise her. Her food is too delicious. Besides, she’s got a heart of gold. I wouldn’t be without her, not for anything.”

  “She may be a good cook, but there’s more to life than eating, old boy,” said Robbie gloomily. “And I wouldn’t let her take over my life the way she’s taken over yours. You need to establish some grounds rules, Bernie. You’re too soft.” He went to the bar and got his second whisky.

  “So, Robbie, you say there’s more to life than eating. Such as?” said Bernard, as he sat down again.

  “Wine, women and song, for instance.”

  “And what of those things are you not getting then? What’s happened to the lovely Celia?”

  “Still lovely,” he said, not very convincingly.

  Bernard could see something was wrong. Was he becoming disenchanted with her at long last? “Come on, Robbie, you can tell me. Is there a problem in that quarter?”

  “We get on fine. We go out here and there, restaurants, pictures. But….”

  “But?”

  “We don’t seem to be making progress. We seem to be friends, nothing more. I might as well be her brother, as her boyfriend. I don’t think she wants the same things out of life that I do.”

  “I’m sorry, Robbie. Perhaps you should cut your losses and stick with Lucy. She really loves you, you know. You’re breaking her heart.”

  Robbie looked doleful. “I know, I but I can’t think about her now. I have to know what’s going to happen with Celia, once this Howard Drake business is sorted out.”

  “Howard Drake? How does he affect your relationship with her?”

  “He’s all she ever talks about. She keeps going to see him, and every time she comes back, she tells me the same thing, that he’s innocent. She thinks more about him than she does about me.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. She just doesn’t want to see an innocent man hanged. Is that so unreasonable?”

  “Not in itself, no. But we disagree about it, which doesn’t go down too well, I can tell you. I don’t think he’s innocent. It’s Alice, you see….”

  “Alice? You mean Alice Troy?”

  “Yes. She’s haunting me night and day. I think that’s why I’m so tetchy at the moment, not enough sleep.”

  “So, are you saying Alice has actually told you that Howard killed her and that’s why you know he’s guilty?” Bernard was excited now, all thoughts of Mrs Harper’s fast-cooling meal dismissed for the moment.

  “Well, not exactly.”

  Bernard’s excitement turned to exasperation. “Either she told you or she didn’t. I can’t think of many more scenarios, Robbie. Maybe you should get more sleep.”

  Robbie finished his second whisky and stared into his empty glass. “It’s so difficult to explain. I know you think I’m going mad, but I’m not even sure it’s her, because I don’t see her when she’s there. I feel a presence that’s all and sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of something red. I think it’s her dress.”

  “All right,” said Bernard, “let’s say, for argument’s sake, it is her. I mean it’s unlikely to be anyone else, but how does she or it or whatever communicate with you? I mean, to the point that you’re sure Howard’s guilty?”

  “God knows. I just know, that’s all. Some sort of thought transference, perhaps. All I know is that man is not the blue-eyed boy Celia thinks he is, or his wife, for that matter.”

&nb
sp; “I think you need to come up with something a bit more concrete,” said Bernard, getting up. His watch told him it was twenty minutes to two, and Mrs Harper wouldn’t be speaking to him for the next few days. “I must go, Robbie. You need to find out if you are being haunted by Alice and if so, what she is trying to tell you.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with her. All I want is a good night’s sleep, and I don’t ever want to hear Alice’s or Howard Drake’s names again.”

  Bernard patted him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Robbie, but it looks like you’ve no choice in the matter. Seems your psychic gift is more of a curse than a blessing.”

  “You can say that again. Think I’ll have another whisky. Maybe I’ll come round this evening for a chat?”

  “Do that. It’ll be like old times. You sure you haven’t got a date with Celia?”

  “Hollow laughter. She’s visiting Drake again tonight.”

  ***

  Mrs Harper was, as Bernard had predicted, furious with him. She had lovingly piled his plate high with steaming hot steak and kidney pudding, spring greens and mashed potatoes. That was at one fifteen precisely. That plate of food was nowhere to be seen now.

  “I don’t mind eating it once you’ve warmed it up, Mrs Aitch,” said Bernard meekly, his tummy rumbling. The kitchen was full of the aroma of recently cooked food.

  “Sorry, you’re out of luck. It’s all gone.”

  “All gone?” His heart sank.

  “’Fraid so,” she said with a smirk. “But look on the bright side, we now know that your cat loves steak and kidney pudding.”

  20th October 1957: Stockwell

  Danny Blowers tried the door of the tobacconists. It was firmly locked, but he knew it wasn’t secure enough. He had suggested to his boss that he invest in some shutters, but they were too expensive. Break-ins along the street were becoming more and more frequent, and he was sure it would be the turn of his shop soon. Still, it wasn’t any of his concern. He was just an employee. No skin off his nose if the place got burgled.

  It was seven o’clock in the evening, and he toyed with the idea of stopping off at the Red Stag for a pint before heading home to May. When they moved in together back in August, they had been happy at first, but it wasn’t long before the poky little flat began to get on them down. It was all they could afford while they saved up for something better, and May didn’t seem to mind being there all day when she was between catering assignments. But lately, her mood swings had severely disrupted their relationship. More often than not, she would greet him with a tear-stained face and a haunted look that he couldn’t account for. Even when he took her in his arms and kissed her gently each night, she seemed to freeze and remain stiff in his embrace.

  It wasn’t just her distance and unhappiness that worried him. There was the fact that the flat was always in a mess when he got home each evening. Even though the place was in apple-pie order when he left for work each day, when he got home there were books all over the floor, as well as various ornaments scattered about, some broken, some mercifully still intact. Newspapers were strewn everywhere, all open to the reports on the murder of Alice Troy. Why May kept torturing herself by reading them over and over again, he couldn’t understand, but she wouldn’t let him throw them away. What was more worrying was the way she denied she was responsible for the mess. Who else could it have been? he wondered. She said she never had any visitors now that Alice was dead. All she wanted was him. And, once upon a time, all he had wanted was her.

  As the Red Stag came into view, he determined to walk past it. May needed him. Besides, he had some good news for her. He patted his inside pocket, ensuring that he hadn’t forgotten the evening newspaper. Yes, that would cheer her up, he thought.

  But he didn’t walk past the pub; instead he stopped outside it. There was something very wrong with his girl, and he had to be there for her. And he would be soon. But a cool pint on this unusually warm early autumn evening would be just the thing to set him up for whatever lay in store when he got home. It wouldn’t take him long to down the beer and he would hop on a bus to be back sooner.

  As soon as he entered the friendly pub, he felt more relaxed than he had been for days. Maybe he should make a habit of having a pint in the evenings, he thought. He ordered his beer, and soon got talking to a couple of lads about the coming match that Saturday. Then one of the lads started telling him about the new car he was getting for his birthday, and about the girls he and his mate were going to take out in it.

  Danny loved his motorbike, a sleek, black Harley Davidson given to him on his seventeenth birthday by his dad, much to the consternation of his mum; but he found himself envying the two lads who were soon to be getting about on four wheels. Perhaps May would be happier if he got himself a little car so that he could take her on day trips to the seaside. But she always said she loved the bike, so he could see no point in incurring the expense. One day, when he was rich, he thought, he’d turn up in a Jaguar to take her up West to wine and dine her, and have everybody waiting on them hand and foot.

  He pulled himself back to the present with difficulty, and drained his third pint. The two lads were still discussing the merits of car ownership and how their love lives would take on wonderful new dimensions because of it. Good luck to them, he thought. He gave them a farewell nod, and left the pub.

  He found he was a little light-headed now, and began to regret that third pint. It was nearly half past eight and no doubt May would be even more upset than usual. He stopped at the corner shop that seemed to stay open all hours and asked for the most expensive chocolates they had. With the huge beribboned box tucked under his arm, he made his slightly tottery way home and climbed the steps to the front door.

  He was so fuddled he dropped the key and, bending to pick it up, he dropped the chocolates as well. Retrieving both, he managed to enter the block and find his way up the stairs to the small flat he shared with May. He found he was very nervous now, as he put the key in the lock of his own front door, worried about what he was going to find on the other side of it.

  “Hello, May,” he called as he entered the little hallway. The door to the main living room was shut. He called out again. No answer. He felt suddenly afraid. Opening the door, there she was sitting in the middle of a heap of books, newspapers and objets d’art, just like every night since they had moved in. She looked so pitiful sitting there, and he wished he knew how he could help her become the old May again.

  He walked gingerly through the mess on the floor and bent down to her. “What’s the matter, flower?” he said kindly. “You can’t go on like this, you know.”

  “You’ve been drinking,” stated May, ignoring his sympathetic words. “I won’t have you coming home smelling of booze. I won’t have it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, stroking her hair gently. “It won’t happen again. Look, I brought you some chocolates. You like soft centres, don’t you?”

  She flung the box across the room, spilling most of the contents.

  “Now, now,” he said, starting to feel angry. That box cost him a small fortune, not that he would have begrudged it if it had cheered her up. “Stop it, do you hear? I can’t seem to do anything right, these days. I only stopped off at the pub because I didn’t feel like coming home to this again. Why do you keep trying to wreck the place?”

  “Me? Wreck the place? Why should I do that?” She fired the words at him, her eyes sparkling fiercely with unshed tears.

  “Who else is there?”

  “She did it!” May screamed at him.

  Danny was stunned. “She? Who’s she? The cat’s mother?”

  “Alice – Alice bloody Troy!”

  “Not that again. I’m fair mithered wi’ it. Can’t you get it into your head that Alice is dead? How could it be her doing this?”

  “She’s here, I tell you, with me, all the time. You don’t know, you’re at work all day. You don’t know what it’s like for me, stuck here with that vindictive bitch.�
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  “I think you should see someone, May,” he said, putting his arm around her as she started to sob quietly.

  “What d-do you mean? A shrink?”

  “No, not a shrink. But maybe you need to go to the doctor and get something to relax you a bit.”

  “The only thing that’d relax me these days would be a Micky Finn.” She almost started to laugh. That was better, he thought, that’s the old May. She sometimes came back to him.

  “I think your troubles may be over now,” he said, smiling. He took the folded up newspaper out of his pocket. “They’ve got the man who killed her. Or at least they’ve charged someone.”

  “They have? How d’you know?”

  “It’s in all the evening papers, love. I work in a newsagents, remember? Here, I’ve brought the Evening News home. See, it’s here, on the front page. It’s that man. The one she met at Scarborough and who she said got her pregnant. Makes sense. He was already married and she threatened to upset his comfortable life so he had a good motive to do away with her.”

  May snatched the paper from him and scanned the headlines quickly. She stared at the words, but they seemed to jumble themselves up before her eyes. So they’ve charged him, she thought. Howard Drake. That bloody man. Serve him right. “Thanks for bringing this, Danny,” she said, standing up. “It’s about time they got someone. I was beginning to think they’d never catch him.”

  “There’ll be a trial, and he may get off,” said Danny cautiously. “And, of course, he might not actually have done it.”

  “Who else is there? I can’t think of anyone else who had a motive. They said it wasn’t a burglary or anything like that, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, they ruled that out. Poor Alice didn’t have much worth stealing,” he said.

  May began to clear up the mess on the floor, putting books back on the shelves in any order much to Danny’s annoyance. Why couldn’t she put them back properly? She had no idea what they meant to him, and of what sentimental value they were. He had loved his paternal grandfather, and the books were the only things he had left to remember him by. She had already destroyed the clock, and now she seemed bent on destroying his grandfather’s books too. He could see some of the spines were broken and some pages escaping. He hadn’t read any of them because they were as dry as dust, not a Dick Francis or Agatha Christie among them. But he loved the look and feel of them. He stooped to pick up one of them. Crime and Punishment was the title.