The Sandman

by Miles Gibson

  I spent some time selecting my knives and dusting my old rubber gloves. I loaded the Polaroid with a fresh pack of film. I felt happy and excited again. My hands trembled as I packed my bag. It was marvellous. At dusk I took a warm bath, dressed carefully and prepared myself for the pleasures of the night. I combed my hair in the wrong direction and sprayed it with Funcolor silver. The spray filled my scalp with something that looked like aluminium talcum powder, a dull metal colour that flashed like silver whenever I moved my head to the light. When I fitted the spectacles onto my nose even I had difficulty recognising myself in the mirror.

  At ten-thirty precisely I locked my apartment, tiptoed down the stairs and strolled with a smile into Wilton Road. I turned into a doorway beside a Turkish restaurant, walked up a narrow, unlit flight of stairs and knocked on a heavy door. There was music coming faintly from the Turkish restaurant and a faraway smell of hot, spicy food.

  A woman answered the door. She looked plump, pampered and gave off a heavy scent of flowers. She was wearing a black satin dress, high-heeled mules and an absurd wig of thick treacle curls that fell, in glittering cascades, to her elbows. Beneath the wig her face seemed very small and flat. She had the eyes of a goldfish and a slightly crooked mouth. Her eyebrows were no more than tiny black brushstrokes and her lips a mere splash from a scarlet pen.

  She beckoned me silently into the room and carefully closed the door.

  “What shall I call you?” she asked as she turned to inspect me.

  “My name is William,” I said.

  “That’s nice. I’ll call you Billy.”

  I felt awkward standing there in the middle of the room clutching my leather bag in my hands. She seemed to sense my embarrassment and smiled.

  “Don’t look so scared, Billy. I’m not going to eat you,” she chirruped. She seemed to think this was a huge joke and began to laugh. I couldn’t understand it. She just stood there and laughed. When she saw that I was not amused she tried to compose herself. She lit a cigarette, gave it several brief tugs and snorted smoke through her nose. Her hands were fat, the fingernails square and painted red.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Billy, and take off your coat?”

  “Thank you,” I said. I took off my coat and folded it over the bed. I sat down and glanced at a door behind me. I couldn’t work out where the door might lead, other rooms perhaps, a fire escape or the restaurant kitchens. I bobbed my head, hoping to squint through the keyhole but the spectacles distorted my view.

  “That’s my own private room, Billy,” she said, “Would you like a drink?”

  “Is it empty?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course it’s empty. This is the room where I entertain. Don’t worry, Billy, we’re quite alone. Be brave and have a drink.”

  “Yes,” I said, “Thank you.”

  “Scotch?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  She turned to pour me a drink from a cabinet beside the bed.

  “I haven’t seen you before,” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Is this your first time?”

  I nodded my head.

  “That’s nice,” she said. “Well, don’t look so unhappy. You’ll be fine. I’ve got clients who’ve been coming here for years and years. You’d be surprised. They’re just like old friends. They look after me and I take care of them. You understand?”

  I nodded and sipped at the Scotch. She sat down on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs. A bracelet of silver beads flashed on her ankle. She smiled and tugged at her cigarette. Through the shroud of smoke her eyes flickered across my face, my hands, my clothes, my shoes.

  “Some girls don’t care. They work the streets, steal your money while you’re pressed against a wall with your pants around your knees. They give the business a bad name. I like to make my clients feel special. That’s why I’ve gone to so much trouble here. It always pays to take a little extra trouble.” She gestured around the room with a fat, white hand.

  The room was small and very hot. An aluminium blind with candy-coloured slats had been lowered against the window. On a shelf above the basin a bowl crammed with tablets of scented soap. A cheap glass vase of wilting roses on a low metal table. A wardrobe. Rugs on the floor. A telephone beside the bed. Several dolls on a narrow bookshelf.

  “I used to be a dancer,” she explained, “I’ve had classical training. But I have very weak ankles…”

  Without warning she opened her dress at her throat and peeled it away from her shoulders and breasts. There was a pause in the undressing while she searched for an ashtray, picked it up, dropped it, picked it up and stabbed it several times with her cigarette. Then she prised her fingers into the wrinkled satin that had bunched around her belly and pushed the dress to her knees. It fell whispering to her feet and she stepped out of it with a little wave of her hand and a smile. She was wearing nothing but a pair of fine black stockings that cut wickedly into the top of her thighs making the skin there seem excessively polished and fat. Her breasts were heavy and swung loosely when she moved. The nipples were small as buttons. She dipped her hand between her legs and tweaked at the hair between finger and thumb, twisting it into a long black curl. She did not seem disturbed by the stranger who sat and stared at her from the safety of the armchair. She lit another cigarette and then perched on the arm of my chair, swinging her leg, rubbing her breasts against my face.

  “There, Billy, isn’t that nice?” she inquired. She tugged at the cigarette, threw back her head and blew smoke towards the ceiling.

  The heat of her body, the slack, voluptuous weight of her breasts against my face, aroused me to a fever of excitement. I trembled. Yes. I stiffened and burned. But I was not aroused in the manner of other men. I would not penetrate and possess her in the manner of all the other men who had sat in that chair and taken the nipple between their teeth.

  As she fumbled with the buckle of my belt I reached up and whispered in her ear.

  “I wonder if you would allow me to indulge in a little habit of mine…?”

  Tulip stopped playing with my belt and stood away from the chair.

  “What is it?” she asked suspiciously, “I don’t want anything violent. And I don’t do anything – you know – dirty. This is a nice place.” She tugged in frustration at her cigarette.

  “Oh, no, it’s nothing unpleasant,” I said soothingly, “But I’d feel much happier if I could wear my gloves.”

  She frowned and shrugged.

  “They seem to lend me so much more confidence. I suppose it’s the rubber. They have such a wonderful rubbery smell.”

  “Yeah, but what are you going to do with them?” she demanded darkly.

  “Wear them,” I smiled innocently, afraid that she might have some more extraordinary experience of rubber gloves.

  As I reached into the leather bag for the gloves I slipped a knife up my sleeve with the sly movement of a conjurer’s deceit. The blade was cold against my skin. It made me shiver with delight. I turned again to Tulip and offered my gloves for her approval. She wrinkled her nose but said nothing. I began to roll the gloves onto my hands, kneading and poking them between my fingers.

  “What else have you got in that bag?” she asked, bending towards it.

  “Books,” I said absently.

  “I read a book once,” she said and crushed out her cigarette.

  Then the Sandman held out his arms and bade the Tulip approach. She smiled and stepped forward, pressing herself against him. He shook his sleeve and the blade sprang like magic into his hand.

  As she sank deeper into the embrace I dragged her forward and let her collapse softly into the chair. A chrysanthemum of blood had blossomed in her ear. I stepped back and stared. She was sprawled as if asleep, her arms hanging loose and her legs slightly parted. The stockings were wrinkled and torn loose from their moorings. Her head rested against one shoulder. She stared at me sweetly.

  I knelt down and tried to smooth the stockings against her knees but
the gloves made me clumsy and I dragged them down in exasperation and peeled them from her toes.

  I stared up at the woman and smiled blissfully. I was very happy. She wore the handle of the knife against her hair in the manner of a Japanese comb. The chrysanthemum had thickened and its petals were spreading against her neck. I stretched out my hand and touched her face tenderly with my bright rubber fingertips. I closed her eyes and her mouth fell open. Her tongue was as red as a pomegranate. I brushed the hair away from her breasts and arranged her hands in her lap. She had lost her mules and I retrieved them, neatly slipping them onto her feet.

  When I was satisfied with her appearance I took my leather bag from beneath the armchair and pulled out the Polaroid. I took three pictures of the woman and laid the prints along the edge of the bed. I peered at the pictures anxiously, impatient to examine their detail.

  And then I heard it. A scuffle, a muffled cough, a groan or a sigh. I don’t know – I cannot say exactly what I heard – but I felt someone was watching me! I turned in horror towards the window and stared at the cracks in the metal blind. I swung towards the chair and I snarled at the door. Oh God, I was frightened nearly to death. I began to wet my pants – I suppose it was the shock, the sudden alarm that made me lose control. But I managed to check myself, hold my breath and swallow the yawning fear in my throat. I could not see the face that concealed itself so cleverly but I could feel it watching me.

  Nothing moved. If I had stumbled into a trap there would have been the clatter of boots and the shouts of surrender and arrest. But there was only the silence. Whoever was watching me had stumbled by accident upon my terrible secret. Whoever was hiding there in the room must have taken his own pleasures from the withered Tulip. I twisted on my heels and scooped the pictures from the bed. I threw the photographs, the camera and the empty tumbler into the open leather bag, bundled my coat beneath my arm and ran from the room.

  As I scampered down the dark corridor of stairs into the glare of the busy street I struggled to pull off my gloves and pull on my coat. I turned blindly into Wilton Road and began to walk as fast as my legs would carry me towards the Thames. I was too frightened to return to the apartment. I remember reaching the Embankment and, saving nothing but the Polaroids, hurling my precious leather bag into the filthy water.

  When I turned I saw a figure standing, watching me, from the far side of the street. He looked like Archie. His head was tilted on his shoulder and he stared without blinking, stared at me with tears in his eyes. I was confused. I thought he had come to take me to the slaughter house. I thought he had come to take me to Dorothy’s grave. I wanted to open the freezer where Dorothy had been lain to rest and sleep beside her on her bed of ice. I shouted his name but he did not answer. He continued to stare. Then he pulled his hands from his pockets, big, butcher’s hands with ugly raw knuckles and began to walk towards me.

  I ran for my life, along the Embankment, across Vauxhall Bridge and into the unknown streets of Lambeth. At midnight or beyond, weeping with cold, I stumbled into a café to buy a few minutes’ warmth. I was lost and too tired to walk any more. I ordered a coffee and sat with it at the steamy warmth of a window table where I could keep a stealthy watch on the street.

  I reached for the coffee but as I raised the cup to my mouth I caught sight of blood on my sleeve. A purple gobbet of Tulip’s blood. I dropped the cup in horror, fled the café and staggered home to hide.

  Chapter Four

  He stopped reading. The diary was finished. There were several blank pages which he thumbed idly before he snapped the book shut. How long had he been crouched at the table? He squinted at his wristwatch. It was a little after four in the morning. His fatigue had distilled into a small pain behind his eyes. His shoulders ached.

  He ripped open the Camel pack and recovered the last cigarette which he gripped, rigid, between his teeth. He crept across the room and pressed his face against the door, his ear crushed cold against the wood, listening for the slightest sound. Through the whispering complaints of his own blood he fancied he could detect voices calling his name, distant laughter and footsteps on the stairs.

  He rummaged through the litter on his desk and teased out a narrow strip of paper. Gently, holding the scrap between finger and thumb, he rubbed the paper smooth. There was a telephone number on the paper. If he dialled the number it would lead him to the murder enquiry desk. A direct line to his own police confessional, twenty-four hours a day. He had copied the number from a newspaper report and, although the number was already etched in his memory, he read it again and recited it aloud.

  The sound of his own voice startled him. He knew, for the sake of sanity, he must telephone the police and surrender. He must not hesitate. He picked up the phone and dialled the number. His palms were cold and slippery with sweat. He pressed the receiver against the side of his skull as if it were a loaded pistol. He held his breath, listening to the number ring. And then a voice challenged him. He asked for the murder desk, there was a pause and a second voice demanded his name and address. He could not speak. He was weeping. When they asked his business he whispered the Sandman’s name and address. Again they asked for identification and again he whispered the Sandman’s name. Then he replaced the receiver and sat down to wait.

  Chapter Five

  This is the final entry I shall make in my little journal. The police came yesterday to question me about the killings.

  I answered the door and found two of them standing outside in the shadows. One was fat as an owl with a short, hooked nose the colour of garlic sausage. His hair was cropped too close against his skull and his ears, which were thick and very crumpled, seemed to sprout from his face like a pair of rudimentary wings. He was wearing a stainless steel wristwatch and a diamond ring. The other was a slightly younger man with a lumpy yellow face. His eyes were an extraordinary shade of blue and so pale that, when he entered the light, he looked quite blind. There were traces of a purple rash around his chin. The work of a blunt razor.

  “Is your name William Burton?” asked the fat one in a flat voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder if we might ask you a few questions, sir?” asked the younger one.

  “Yes, of course,” I said and ushered them into my room. They stood in the middle of the carpet and stared in different directions. When I invited them to sit down and make themselves comfortable they perched together on the edge of the sofa.

  “We’ve received a particular telephone call containing a very serious allegation…” the fat one said slowly.

  “How can I help you?” I enquired, sitting down in my armchair, folding my hands in my lap.

  “During this particular telephone call your name was given as that of a particular man we are seeking to help us with our enquiries concerning a particular number of serious crimes…” The fat police officer pronounced each word very carefully, as if he were speaking a foreign language.

  “But that’s terrible,” I gasped.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about but, as I’m sure you understand, we have to investigate every incident, no matter how trivial,” said the young officer with the lumpy yellow face. He smiled and exposed a set of very large teeth.

  “Do you live here alone, sir?” asked the fat one.

  “Yes.”

  “Very nice. Very comfortable. Very clean and tidy,” he said, as if reading from a phrase book.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “May I ask what you do for a living, sir?” asked the young one.

  “I’m a kind of historian – I’m writing a book about conjuring.”

  “Cutting women in half.”

  “Yes.” I smiled a broad and innocent smile.

  “It must be very difficult to make money from writing.”

  “Yes.” I frowned slightly.

  “Have you had anything published?”

  “No. I have a small private income – enough to buy the groceries.”

  “Very useful. Very nic
e.”

  “I wonder if you could tell us where you were on the night of the 15th, sir?”

  I frowned and nodded and thought back to the night of Tulip’s death.

  “It was last Sunday night,” said the one with the lumpy yellow face helpfully.

  “I don’t know if I was doing anything special – I usually spend my evenings at work.” I gestured around the room at my books.

  “It would help if you could try and remember if there was anything unusual…”

  I shrugged. “Wasn’t that the night the Butcher killed that poor woman in…”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But…you’re not here in search of him? Are you?”

  There was a moment’s silence. The two policemen stared at me without expression.

  “That’s terrible,” I exploded with a nervous laugh.

  The fat one began rubbing his nose, bending the sausage back and forth against his face.

  “Oh, don’t worry – it’s just part of the routine,” he said, “If it’s any comfort…” He stopped talking and teased a grey handkerchief from his trouser pocket, shook it a few times, wrapped it around the sausage and gave a long, wet snort. “You don’t even fit the description,” he concluded with a gasp.

  I was fascinated. “So you know who you’re looking for at last?” I gently prompted. “You have a description?”

  He’s a big black man. Twenty-five, thirty years old. Probably married with a couple of kids.”

  “But he’s a monster,” I protested.

  “Oh, yes. He’s certainly a monster. But monsters are strange animals, sir. When he’s not roaming the streets poking knives into women’s ears he’s probably as normal as the next man. We think he works in a factory or something similar.”