by Miles Gibson
You may blame the death of my father or my mother’s madness for the choice of career. You may blame Dorothy’s necrophilia or Blakey’s skill as a conjurer. It is not important. I sold the hotel shortly after Christmas. I was not a rich man as a result but I was determined to indulge my dangerous pursuit without the hindrance of honest employment in an office or a factory. I instructed the bank to provide the hospital with whatever funds they required for my mother’s comfort and then I set out for London and the killing ground.
*
The city overwhelmed me. Here were millions of strangers endlessly jostling through the dirty, deafening streets. Millions of grey strangers with vacant eyes. Every day a few of them would fall, or be pushed, out of trains, under buses, off rooftops, through windows and into the grave. It made no difference. There were so many of them. You could scoop up ten thousand and still make no space on the streets. No matter how you kicked or stamped on this huge ant heap you could never diminish the wriggling black mass of it.
For the first few weeks I could not walk the streets without feeling myself tremble in excitement at the expression on the face of the crowd. It was an expression of misery, as if life were something to be hated, a punishment or a disease. I thought, if these strangers could have life painlessly removed from their veins they would probably stand in line outside the hospitals. I thought, if it were made possible tonight, by some simple magic, for them to die in their sleep, they would go home laughing and scramble into pyjamas. And the magic had arrived among them.
I rented an apartment a few minutes’ walk from Victoria Station. Killers, I knew from my boyhood visits to the cinema, dwelt in basements ugly as caves, full of broken bottles and bundles of damp newspaper. They crouched at smeared windows and stared up at the feet of the people who passed on the street above. If they could not find a basement they might accept an attic with a crumbling fire escape that led nowhere and the blistering glare of neon light through the curtains at night. The rooms I chose for myself were small and exquisitely pretty. The chairs were sweet and plump. The carpets sighed ecstatically when you trod on them. Here I would sit and contemplate murder in comfort.
As soon as I was settled into my rooms I set out to explore the little kingdom of Victoria. I began each morning outside the station with its fine white stone and red brick facade, its countless windows and tall chimneys. I would enter through the grand arch where bare-breasted mermaids smirk down from their perch at the tired and worried office workers crowded blindly beneath them. I would stroll then beneath the enormous glass ceiling and watch the trains leave for Europe and the South. There is a tunnel cut through the station wall beside Platform Three. The tunnel leads into Wilton Road and when I was finished with the station I would leave through this tunnel and turn sharp right, walking towards Hudson’s Depository that stands against the street like a tall wedge of grey cheese. I have always loved the strange flavour of Wilton Road; the Mambo Café and the barber’s shop, Woolworth and the Biograph, the novelty joke shop and the Sultan Massage Parlour. I would turn right into Gillingham Street and then follow the London Transport Garage out towards Warwick Square. Here, behind the station and stretching down to the Thames, are wide streets of mouldering houses and cheap hotels, odd terraces of brick cottages, grubby groceries, empty churches and travel agencies with their windows full of dusty cardboard. It is old and shabby and full of discreet decay. I walked down every street and alley until I knew Victoria like my own hand.
At first, everyone in this great city was a stranger. But, gradually, some of the faces on the streets repeated themselves until I learned to distinguish between the local population and the grey, blank expressions of the office workers and travellers. My neighbours also made themselves known to me.
Johnson Johnson lived directly beneath me and was always snooping outside my door or prowling about on the stairs. He lived with his mother who was small and wrinkled and very fierce. On the rare occasions I saw them together in the street she reminded me of a mad and hairy child being walked by a nurse. She had a face that resembled a diseased cauliflower and favoured white ankle socks and children’s sandals. Johnson Johnson was nearly as ugly as his mother and, in the manner of all ugly men, he was very vain about his appearance. He kept a metal comb in his jacket pocket and could not walk past his reflection without pausing to preen his hair. He first introduced himself by knocking on my door one night and asking me to turn down the sound of my television for the sake of his mother’s health. And, after that, he made regular visits with his little complaints. My drains were blocked. My pipes were banging. My floorboards creaked. My doors were slamming. He was polite but he annoyed me. I imagined the pair of them sitting beneath my floor with their heads cocked, charting my passage from room to room and waiting their chance to lodge a complaint.
Directly above me, in the attic, lived an old man called Tom Larch. He took an immediate dislike to me for reasons I cannot fathom for I was always polite to him whenever our paths crossed. I was anxious, naturally, to avoid making enemies of my neighbours but as soon as I encountered Tom Larch I knew I could not trust him and I was not surprised to learn later that he was an old friend of Johnson Johnson’s mother.
Beneath Johnson Johnson lived an American teacher called Frank, a mild-mannered man with an unusual appetite for women. But it was some time before I made his acquaintance. Beneath Frank, in the basement, lived an old lady with a family of cats. She rarely emerged into the daylight world and Frank tapped on her door once a week to see if she was still alive, although I never saw her in person and she might have been one of Frank’s inventions.
It was in this small and peaceful colony that I sat and dreamed of murder.
Who should I bless with the kiss of death? It was simple. I would choose the most disagreeable face in the crowd. It was to be the swift and silent encounter between the one who could turn life into death and the one who looked as if they might welcome the change. I was impatient to practise my peculiar craft but it was important to find the right customer. It was a considerable challenge because no one looked especially enthusiastic about the prospect of remaining alive; but the moment I walked into the Empire Stores, Edgware Road, I knew my search was ended.
She was a tall, venomous woman with thick, black hair. At a glance she might have been thought a handsome woman but she made every effort to conceal it. She was probably no more than thirty years old, yet she already wore the expression of someone who feels cheated by life. Her eyes were bleary with malice and her mouth was primed to spit and snarl. It was such a vicious expression that her corner of the store was empty. No one dared to trespass in her territory. The Empire Stores sold everything from saucepans to sandals, but they had trouble selling anything within reach of this woman.
I strolled around for a few minutes and bought a cheap plastic raincoat – the kind that folds itself into a purse and tucks into your pocket. It was a translucent, bile green raincoat with a hood for the head. I spent some time pretending to hesitate between the bile green and the liver blue, but all the time I was watching the woman at the counter.
Finally I turned and presented her with the raincoat, fumbling for my wallet and slapping my pockets in an absent manner. I noticed she had a badge pinned to her coat. It read: Doris Forest Happy to Serve You. I smiled. She snarled, took the money and punched the raincoat into a bag. She held up the bag between finger and thumb and waved it at me. The expression on her face suggested she had just been tied to a chair and forced to endure some disgusting depravity at the hands of a madman. It was defiant yet slightly nauseated and her eye glittered with bitterness. I smiled again but she managed to ignore it.
I was reluctant to leave the store. It was almost closing time and the other counter girls were staring anxiously at the clock. If I was careful, I decided, I could follow Doris home. So I walked across the street and stood at a bus stop. It was the perfect hiding place. I had a good view of the Empire Stores and was soon rewarded by the sight of Dori
s Forest Happy to Serve You marching across the street towards me. She did not even look in my direction but immediately bullied her way to the front of the queue and stood stamping her feet impatiently. She had attractive legs with long, narrow ankles. She wore a demure cotton dress and had wrapped a jacket around her shoulders against the cool of the evening.
A convoy of buses roared into the kerb and there was a brisk scramble to board them. Doris was so quick that I almost lost her but I somehow managed to squeeze aboard and wedge myself in a seat. I could see Doris sitting at the front of the bus. She was glaring aimlessly at the other passengers. I was convinced that when she turned to leave she would recognise me, but there was nothing I could do to conceal myself. Indeed, when she left the bus in Kilburn High Street she brushed so close against me that I smelt her perfume. Yet she did not offer me a glance. She jumped from the bus and was already away down the street before my own feet had touched the ground.
It was getting dark. She hurried down a narrow street of dirty houses, turned sharply and disappeared through some broken railings. I strolled towards the spot where she’d gone to earth and glimpsed a flight of concrete stairs leading down from the street to a basement door. I did not hesitate. I am an artist. I walked to the corner before I turned and walked back along the street. As I passed the house again I glanced through the railings and into the basement. Doris Forest stood at the window, pulling the curtains against intruders. I felt rather pleased with myself. I had chosen a partner for my little dance of death. Her name was Doris Forest and she lived at the bottom of a house of rented rooms.
A casual exploration of the neighbourhood revealed a street that ran directly behind Doris Forest Street. An old warehouse stood in this street and, behind the warehouse, an overgrown yard glimpsed through a collapsed brick wall. It was black in the yard but a patch of bramble seemed to glow with a muddy yellow light. When I reached the light I found myself staring again into Doris Forest’s basement! She had not bothered to close the curtains on this side of the house, believing herself to be hidden beneath the wall in the yard.
The rest of the building was in darkness and the undergrowth sheltered me from the eyes of prying neighbours. So I sat down among the brambles and watched the basement for nearly an hour. She seemed to use the back room as a kitchen and bathroom. The walls were a nasty shade of apricot and the floor was bare. There was a sink and a draining-board beneath the window and beyond a table and chair. A lamp with a pleated paper shade sat on the table. A threadbare dressing-gown slumped in the chair. Doris Forest moved back and forth, took off her shoes and yawned, washed her face and smoked a cigarette, wrapped herself in her dressing-gown and brewed a pot of tea. Then the light went out and there was nothing left but the faint blue blur of a television from another room.
I watched Doris Forest in her gloomy basement kitchen at regular intervals for a fortnight before I made it the scene of my crime. While I sat in the brambles I tried to imagine what might happen to Doris if I saved her from murder. What other death would take my place if I turned and tiptoed home, denying her my magic touch? She would not be granted eternal life. I would hardly be saving her from the grave. Tomorrow she might poke her finger in the toaster and explode in flames. Drown in the bath. Fall down the stairs. She might suffer pneumonia or suffocate on fish bones. She might even take her own life, cut her wrists, choke on aspirin, plug the keyhole and turn on the gas.
Death is bewildering in its variety. And while I tried to estimate the chances of Doris surviving into ripe old age, the act of murder grew confused in my mind with the act of love. Every night, under cover of darkness, lovers perform a ritual murder. When a man and a woman roll naked together, what is their struggle but a pantomime of violence? And their moans of pleasure, what are they but whispered words of abuse? And that brief moment of capitulation, what is that but a fleeting glimpse of death? Smothered in each other’s arms they fight to suck the breath from each other and threaten themselves with ecstasy. But they are content merely to rehearse this supreme act of lust. And I would, most certainly, send Doris Forest to paradise. Exactly. We would share the most intimate moment of her life and, when she fainted into my arms, it would be the ultimate surrender.
The moment arrived when I could no longer resist knocking on her door and introducing myself. Doris Forest had an appointment to keep with death and everything had been planned to the smallest detail.
The morning of the murder I couldn’t eat anything but oranges and biscuits. I drank a lot of milk and sat in the bath. The thought of the coming night aroused in me a trembling love-sickness, fermented from a blend of pleasure and fear. I became as superstitious as a child, reading signs into the most trivial events, counting biscuit crumbs in my saucer, casting my fortune in the shadow of clouds against the wall of my room. There was magic in everything I saw and touched. In the afternoon I tried to sleep but my dreams were disturbed by an incubus who danced obscenely at the foot of my bed and I woke up shouting for Wendy Figg. It was not until the light faded at the window that I was able to take control of myself and concentrate all my nervous excitement into making the final preparations.
A little after seven o’clock I packed a Harrods shopping bag with a pair of kitchen rubber gloves, the bile green plastic raincoat and two lightweight butcher’s knives. At seven-thirty I caught the bus from Victoria Station into Kilburn. I was wearing an old suit and a brand new pair of very cheap shoes. I had washed my hair and shaved.
Anything might have stopped me making that journey. The doubtful look of a stranger passing in the crowd, a shower of rain, the sight of the police on the street, anything might have saved me from murder. I would have turned around, gone home and taken up a career in the hotel business. But nothing happened and I reached the basement.
Under the shadow of the basement steps I dressed myself in the raincoat and rubber gloves. It was late in the game but even now, I told myself, if something went wrong I could retreat safely. If a stranger answered the door, or Doris was entertaining a lover, I would act simple and ask directions. Where is Paddington Cemetery? Where is the nearest police station? Anything. Easy. No harm done. I picked up my shopping bag and folded it carefully under my arm. I clenched my teeth. I rang the bell.
Nothing happened for a few moments and then I heard Doris barking at me through the door. I didn’t understand a word of it. I said nothing. She rattled some chains and the door flew open. There was a rush of stale air, hot gravy, carpets and cheap perfume.
“You’re early,” Doris barked without looking at me. She was trying to hide behind the door and only her arm was visible, waving at me impatiently. The arm was naked and waving me forward so I stepped inside and closed the door.
Doris was standing in a narrow corridor. Her hair was wet and combed flat against her skull. Her face looked pale and damp. She was wearing nothing but a crumpled cotton sweater and a pair of slippers. The slippers were made from cardboard and nylon fur. She had pressed her spine against the wall and was bent forward slightly, clutching the hem of the sweater in a fist between her legs. The legs were the colour of porridge.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.
“Doris?” I enquired softly.
I stepped forward and she began to slide sideways along the wall, standing on tiptoe, her fists pressed deeper into her groin.
“What do you want?” she hissed.
“I’ve come for you, Doris,” I said gently and smiled.
She fled to the nearest door and walked backwards into the bedroom.
“Get out!” she yelled. “What do you want?”
“I want to put you out of your misery, Doris.”
The raincoat made crackling noises when I moved and my fingers were already hot and wet inside the rubber gloves.
“What misery? Who are you?” she demanded.
“Sit down,” I said. She sat down in a big armchair beneath the window. She placed one foot upon the other and pressed her knees shut. It was then she became
my victim. There was no reason why she should obey me. She could have ignored the instruction and fought her way into the street. She could have screamed and shouted for help. She could have simply started to laugh. But she sat down. And her obedience gave me her surrender.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said cheerfully and sat down myself on the edge of her bed.
She looked at me carefully for the first time. She surveyed the bile green coat and the lurid orange gloves. Then, to my dismay, I saw her expression gradually change from morbid fear to smothered anger. She obviously thought I was mad. She was going to humour me, calm me down, turn me around and smack my head with a frying pan. You could see it begin to smoulder in her eyes. She was already plotting murder.
“I’m not afraid,” she said, “But tell me why you’re here.”
I didn’t reply. I was looking around the room. It was much more comfortable than I had imagined and, despite all the clothes scattered across the floor and the general disorder of the bed, it was clean and friendly.
“I was in the shower,” Doris said cautiously, “Can I go and get dressed? I’m cold.” She nodded towards the wardrobe and forced a smile.
I shook my head. She probably kept her frying pan in the wardrobe.
“I won’t hurt you,” she whispered. It was such a curious remark that I couldn’t find a reply. There was a weird silence while I rummaged in the shopping bag for a knife. I pulled the blade from its sheath and stared at it. I didn’t know where to begin.
There was a flurry of cushions and Doris had leapt from the chair and was running blindly towards the door. I was quick. I stood up and ran forward, the knife in my hand, my shoulder already against the door. But Doris did not stop running. She ran, she ran to embrace the knife, threw her arms around my neck and hung there breathless and surprised.
When she pulled away from me the raincoat made little kissing sounds where it clung to her skin. She stepped back, twisted on her heel and walked to the chair. She sat down again and looked at me. The knife was buried in her ribs. She stared down at the knife and smiled. She shook her head and smiled.
