Death of a Commuter

by Bruce, Leo

  “No. Why?”

  “Because I have been in prison. Only six months on a faked-up charge about some cheques. So you may be right. One way or the other. But now it’s going to be the other. I’m going right Up.”

  There was a long pause.

  “D’you know the Great Ring, near here?” Catford asked suddenly.

  Carolus stared at his glass, amazed at the question and wondering what was to come.

  “Heard of it,” he said.

  “That’s a place I like,” he said. “I spend hours up there. I kind of feel at home. In the summer you can see four counties. You can’t understand what I feel when I’m up there. Even at night I know it’s all around me …”

  The lunatic, the lover and the poet, thought Carolus. But George Catford was not mad in any ordinary sense of the word. There was no warmth in him. He confided in Carolus because it pleased him but he had not a thought for Carolus. Beyond his first cautious curiosity he had no interest in him at all.

  “I’ve always believed my chance would come,” he went on relentlessly. “I don’t mean just come without my doing anything to find it. I don’t believe in that You’ve got to be ready for your chance.”

  “Chance of what?”

  “Chance of getting on top. Chance of escaping a bloody life like I’ve had. Look at all the poor fools filling in the football pools and thinking it will come that way. Sitting there waiting for the results and saying ‘someone’s going to have it so it might be me!’ I’m sorry for them. The chances are so big against them that it’s the same as if they didn’t buy a ticket But if you watch, if you’re ready to grab it, it will come all right. You can be sure of that. It has done for me.”

  “Have another drink?” said Carolus hopefully.

  “No, thanks. I don’t drink really. Don’t need to. I can take things as they are. Don’t need drink. A man like me …”

  Carolus had been waiting for those words. ‘A man like me’ —what he meant was that there was no man like him. That he was unique.

  “A man like me knows where he’s going,” went on George Catford. “Always have known. When I was at school I used to look at the other kids, and think you poor little sods, you’re going to spend your whole lives working to feed yourselves, your wives and your children. All right, you can throw in television and a drink now’n again. But what else are they doing? Think I was going to be satisfied with that?”

  Carolus lit a cheroot and watched him.

  “How far have you got?” he asked gently, as though afraid to interrupt the man’s thoughts.

  Catford replied with a horrifying kind of inner exaltation. “How far have I got? I’m there.”

  “Rich?” ventured Carolus.

  “Rich enough to get rich.”

  “I see. Yes, they say the first thousand’s the hardest.”

  “They used to say that. Now it’s the first five thousand. You’ve travelled a lot. Where would you go, if you were me? Money sticks to money. Only I want the right place. Africa? South America?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve no experience of … investment.”

  “I don’t want to invest. I want to speculate. Watch it grow like that beanstalk in the story. It’ll do that for me. I’ve always known it would once I could start it off. You see, my aunt brought me up. Both parents died before I knew them. One bomb got them both. My aunt’s never understood the first thing about me. How could she? How could anyone? A man like me is never understood. But he’s felt. There’ll be a lot of people know about me.”

  Carolus tried to send him in a new direction.

  “Do you ever think of getting married?” he asked.

  For the first time Carolus saw George Catford’s smile and it was not pleasant.

  “Me? Married? Can you imagine it? I could never be tied down like that. If there was polygamy that might be different. I’d never stand married life as you understand it When I’m right where I mean to be it will be time to think about women. I could have had plenty, mind you. There’s one over at Brenstead now …”

  “Brenstead! Do you know Brenstead?” asked Carolus innocently.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “It’s only that I’ve got to go on there when I finish here. What’s it like?”

  “Much the same. I don’t know it well. I know a man there called Scotter. A chemist He was at school with me. But that’s about all.”

  “Scotter,” repeated Carolus. “Seem to know that name.”

  “I daresay. It’s not uncommon.” Catford obviously wanted to get back to his egomaniac monologue.

  “When do you expect to leave Buttsfield?” Carolus asked.

  “Very soon now. There’s just one more formality to go through. It might be tomorrow or the next day. It won’t be much longer. I’ll see to that. Then you won’t see me for dust. Pity you can’t tell me where to go, though.”

  To hell, thought Carolus, to roast along with all the other Nazi-minded swine. For this was the fascist mentality par excellence. What a gauleiter George Catford would have made. What a chief for a death camp. Yet, like all megalomaniacs he had something pitiful about him.

  They went back to Rosehurst and before going up to bed Catford opened the door of his aunt’s little sitting-room.

  “Been a phone call for me this evening?”

  “No, George.”

  So that was how it was to come, thought Carolus. His big chance. A phone call. But Carolus locked the door of his room that night.

  In the morning he went to make certain preparations for eventualities which he now saw as inevitable. A couple of hundred yards away was a vast municipal car park, for the planners of Buttsfield had shown remarkable foresight when they laid out the town in realising that private motor cars would increase to unheard of numbers in the next few years. Remembering Mr. Flood, he expected to find an attendant with a keen eye to the main chance and was pleasantly impressed with Joe Coke, a merry old character in a peaked cap.

  “Is there anything against a car being here all night?” he asked.

  Mr. Coke at once put himself on the side of the revolting angels by talking of ‘They’ the almighty, the unidentifiable to whom most of us refer with distaste several times a day.

  “They don’t like it,” he said, “and sometimes The Law come round taking numbers. But I’ve no objection.”

  Carolus passed a handsome tip.

  “It’s like this,” he said. “I’ve got a Bentley at Thompsett’s Garage and I want to bring it here. I’m staying at Rosehurst and this would be handy.”

  “You’re going to lock it up, I hope?”

  “Yes. For what that’s worth. The point is that I may want it in a hurry.”

  “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have it in a hurry. We’ll pop it in somewhere where no one can get in your way getting out. How would that be?”

  “Admirable. It may stay there one night or perhaps more. I can’t be certain about that.”

  “That’ll be all right, sir. You bring it along. I’ll keep an eye on it in the mornings. I’m off in the afternoons but I come on again at seven till after the Pictures come out You don’t need to worry about it in those times, but I can’t answer for the night. You’ll have to take the chance of anyone driving off in it then.”

  “I understand that. Where would you propose to put it?”

  “What about over in that corner? Backed in, so you could get out at once if you wanted to. That car you see has been left here for a month and they’re deciding what to do with it, so you won’t have to worry about that. I’ll see nothing gets stood in front of it”

  “Very well. I’ll bring it round now.”

  So far as he could tell, Carolus was unobserved as he brought the car and backed it into the place indicated.

  “There we are,” said Mr. Coke, beaming with satisfaction. “Just right, isn’t it? Handy for you to slip out any minute you want.”

  Carolus returned to Rosehurst and about six o’clock that evening found an excuse
to go into Mrs. Hamley’s little sitting-room. She invited him to sit down and did exactly what he hoped and expected her to do—talked about George Catford.

  “I was so pleased to see you two getting on so well I expect it’s those motor-cycles of yours. George never takes much interest in the people we have staying here. But then he’s always been one on his own, as you might say, even when he was a little chap. I used to think that was through him losing his mother and father when he was small but now I don’t know. I think he’d have been the same if they’d have lived. It’s his character.

  “He was always a bit of a handful and it made it difficult for me because my husband never really took to him. We hadn’t a boy of our own and my daughter—that’s her photo there on the bureau—didn’t get on with him too well either. But I felt it my duty after my sister was killed and I must say he’s had everything a son of mine would have had.”

  Except love, Carolus thought, rather bleakly.

  “I won’t say he didn’t appreciate it I suppose he may have in his way, but you could never tell what he was thinking. I tried to believe he was a good boy at heart and stuck up for him with my husband, but many’s the night I’ve not slept for worrying about him. ‘George’. I used to say, ‘you want the earth. Why aren’t you satisfied with what other people have?’ But no. It was always something. Then about three years ago—I don’t know whether I ought to tell you—he Got into Trouble. You can imagine how it upset us, in the papers and everything, and my husband said he’d never have him in the house again, which you can’t blame him for really.

  “When my husband died last year, I had to send for him. I couldn’t bear to think of him not being at the funeral. At first he wouldn’t go at all. Then he said he Wouldn’t Wear Black, until I got him a suit and tie and socks and everything which he said was a waste of money. But he wore it all the same and came to the funeral with the rest of us.”

  “Did he ever wear his mourning clothes again?”

  “It’s funny you should ask that. I was surprised myself. It was a couple of weeks or so ago. He came in very late as he often does and went out early morning. When I went to his room I found he’d put on his Black. He didn’t go to the office that day and came in before tea-time. ‘George!’, I said, ‘whatever are you wearing your Black for?’ ‘Been to a funeral’, he said but he wouldn’t tell me any more about it You see what he is?”

  Carolus nodded.

  “After his uncle died he behaved very quiet for a few days and I hadn’t the heart to let him go anywhere else to live when we had one of the top rooms empty. So he’s been here ever since. He got that job with Willows and Willows but I’m afraid he won’t keep it He talks of going abroad and I suppose that might be the best thing for him.”

  She was interrupted by the sound of the front door.

  “They start coming in now,” she said. “I must go and see about the evening meal.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME MRS. HAMLEY CONFIDED IN CAROLUS about George but it seemed to set a precedent and on the following day she continued as though confident that Carolus shared her anxieties about him. This gave Carolus a sense of rising tension, for George himself had grown taciturn and Carolus knew that he, too, was approaching what he called ‘his big chance’ but for which Carolus would have used another name.

  “He went up to London yesterday,” said Mrs. Hamley in little more than a whisper. “Goodness knows what for. I wish I knew what he was up to. It worries me. I suppose he doesn’t say anything to you?”

  “He didn’t tell me he was going.”

  “No. There you are. He’s got something on his mind. I oughtn’t to say it, Mr. Deene, but there are times when I wonder if he’s quite Right. He’d stop at nothing, I truly believe, if it stood in his way.”

  That evening George looked into his aunt’s sitting-room on his way upstairs and not seeing Carolus asked if there had been a phone call for him.

  “Not while I’ve been here,” said Mrs. Hamley.

  “That’s another thing,” she confided when Catford had gone. “He’s waiting for a phone call from someone.”

  “A girl, perhaps?”

  “No, it’s a man’s voice. It’s come through once or twice and he won’t give his name. There was one rather late on the night before you arrived, as a matter of fact. What do you make of that?”

  “Could be anything, couldn’t it?”

  “But there’s something I don’t like about it, Mr. Deene.”

  There was something Carolus did not like about it, did not like at all. But he said nothing more.

  That evening when he faced George Catford across the table in the dining-room he found him moody and silent.

  “You coming round to the local this evening?” asked Carolus cheerfully.

  “I don’t know. I’m waiting for a call.”

  At nine o’clock it came. Both Carolus and George Catford were in their respective rooms, both in a sense waiting for it. There was only one private telephone at Rosehurst, in Mrs. Hamley’s room, and a money-in-the-slot telephone in the hall. This was evidently on Mrs. Hamley’s for she came to the foot of the attic stairs and called, “George! you’re wanted on the phone. That man who won’t give his name again.”

  It flashed across the mind of Carolus that murderous crime was made more macabre by its association with the commonplace, that good, comfy Mrs. Hamley calling her nephew to receive an ominous call, speaking in her housewifely way as any aunt might speak to any nephew, made the situation infinitely more grim than if it had been announced by some hooded gangster. He waited until Catford had hurried downstairs then prepared quietly to follow him.

  But after a few minutes he heard Catford coming upstairs again and dived quickly back into his room. Catford went into his own room and locked the door. Listening intently, Carolus heard movements and something was dragged across the floor. Probably Catford was packing.

  Carolus waited. If his mind had been less alertly concentrated on the matter in hand he might have smiled to find himself sitting on an uncomfortable chair in a musty boarding house waiting for a monomaniac young man to prepare himself for an escape. He believed with Mrs. Hamley that Catford would stop at nothing that stood in his way and Carolus knew that he was the only man living who could prevent the denouement ahead. Could and must prevent it at whatever cost for it meant nothing less than saving a life. But he could do nothing unless Catford left the house, unless that phone call had represented his ‘great chance’, unless he was going to an appointment.

  So he sat there until he heard Catford’s door quietly opened and the key turned from the outside. When Catford started slowly descending and had reached the landing of the first floor, Carolus opened his own door as silently. The lower staircase was carpeted so he could only guess that Catford had reached the hall, until he heard the door of the cloakroom open and shut. So he was putting on his overalls. At last he came out and this time there was no mistaking the sound of the front door which could not be closed from outside without a slight slamming noise.

  Carolus still moved without unnecessary speed. He went down to the hall and listened for the sound of Catford’s motor-cycle. Yes, he had started it up and gone out of the gate.

  Now Carolus hurried. He was aware of Mrs. Hamley coming into the hall and asking some anxious question—’Where has he gone?’ or something of the sort. He left the house and covered the two hundred yards to the car park in time that would not have disgraced an athlete.

  Then he saw what he had subconsciously feared—someone had backed a car in front of his, its tail lights within a foot or two of his bumper.

  Mr. Coke came across.

  “Now I wonder how he managed to slip in there,” he said amiably. “Must have been when I wasn’t noticing.”

  Carolus, who had tried the doors of the small car and found them locked, did not hesitate for a moment but from the boot of his own car he pulled out a heavy jack and smashed the window of the driver’s
seat.

  “You can’t do that,” said Mr. Coke, too late for truth. “You’ll get me into trouble. Look what you’ve done!”

  Carolus was already leaning through to open the door of the car and release the hand-brake.

  “What’s he going to say when he comes back?” demanded Mr. Coke, who, in spite of himself, was helping to push the car forward.

  “Tell him I’ll pay for the damage,” said Carolus unlocking the door of the Bentley. “Deene. Rosehurst.”

  Mr. Coke was still gaping in wonder as Carolus drove out of the parking place and took the road towards Brenstead. There was only one set of lights to cross and he saw they were green.

  But he realised that he might be too late.

  It was a fast road, but it had been a fast road for George Catford, he reflected, and there was little chance of overtaking him except through an accident or breakdown.

  As he approached the Great Ring Carolus slowed down. The car park was not visible from the road but the narrower way which connected it with the road, two or three hundred yards of tarmac for those who wanted to visit the ancient monument, could be seen from some distance in daylight. Tonight as Carolus approached there was no sign of a light from this road but as he watched, the headlights of a car became visible. Someone was driving down the gentle hill.

  Carolus stopped and turned off his headlights. Then as the car was cautiously coming out on the main road ahead of him he switched them on and identified the car at once. It was Mr. Hopelady’s old Triumph and it gathered speed on the road ahead, making towards Brenstead.

  Carolus did not follow. There was no point in overtaking the car at this point. He turned towards the Great Ring and came up to the car park.

  His headlights showed him in the far corner of the area something which kept him moving in that direction. He stopped, and leaving his headlights on, walked across. Lying beside his motor-cycle which was on its side on the ground was George Catford. He was dead and it did not take Carolus long to find the cause. He had been shot in the back of the head.

  Carolus stood looking down on the man and cycle for several moments. If it was a revolver bullet which had passed through the cranium, entering rather low in the back of the skull and emerging through the forehead, it had been fired at close range, for there were few who could aim a pistol with such accuracy from any distance. While merely guessing about something which experts would be able to decide easily enough, he supposed that Catford had ridden up, seen someone whom he expected to see waiting for him, dismounted and was engaged in pulling his cycle up on to its stand when he was shot from close behind.