Assassins and Victims

by Campbell Armstrong

  ‘I told them you’ve got a bad attack of the runs,’ she said. ‘I suggest you go back to bed and catch up on your sleep.’

  I said that I might just do that. But I was beginning to feel a little guilty. I kept thinking about the boxes. I’d never stayed away before. I could see the conveyor belt and the cardboard boxes coming down it and I wondered if anyone would be standing at Number Three in my place.

  When Agnes had gone out of the room I lay down on top of the bed and closed my eyes. Funnily enough, I felt as if I really did have diarrhoea. There was this floating sensation in my stomach and my muscles were aching.

  Lying there with my eyes shut tight I began to think about my life. All sorts of thoughts drifted into my head for no particular reason. I was born in Chelmsford and my father was a carpenter there. He kept his tools in a cupboard under the stairs. He died of pneumonia after getting soaked at a football match. My mother lived for ten years after that, but she didn’t go into mourning or anything, no, she went out with as many men as she could. Mind you, she was very discreet about bringing them home. I can’t remember hearing her with a man, so she must have made them keep quiet when she brought them home. But she drank a lot. She died of some liver trouble in great pain.

  After she died I got turned out of the house because the council wanted it for a family of immigrants. Then I came up to London and got the job at King’s in Park Royal. I’ve been there for twelve years. Twelve years. That means I started there when I was twenty-five. It all seems a long time ago now, a lot of water under the bridge. At first I lived in Ladbroke Grove with a widow. I don’t mean I lived with her in that sense. No, I had this room in her house, and I was quite happy there for ten years or so. It was quiet and peaceful and then she started to push her daughter on to me. Daphne was ugly to look at, really hideous, so I had to clear out in the end. I felt sorry for the girl, but I didn’t like to look at her too closely. She had one of those wrinkled faces with deep eyes. I mean, she might have been nineteen or ninety. You just couldn’t tell. I didn’t like her even to touch me, even accidentally, when she was passing a plate or something. But there you are. Ten years, most of them happy ones.

  I even went to night classes for a bit. I learned some French words, but I’ve forgotten them all except merde, and that isn’t much good to me any more. I had this teacher there, a Mr Sprockmorton, and he read out Shakespeare to us every Wednesday night. Sometimes he didn’t feel like reading and he’d just sit at his desk with his book closed in front of him and he’d say nothing for hours, absolutely hours. The real reason I went to the classes was because I hadn’t got much out of school. Well, school’s different in a way. I was a very slow reader and the teachers used to knock my knuckles with their rulers and send home horrible letters to my father and he’d hit me with his belt and then sit down and weep. I couldn’t do sums either. In the end, the teachers never even bothered to write anything in my report card.

  The truth is, I was a slow learner. I knew I had it in me to do well and be smart, but it just wouldn’t come out properly. I got confused easily. I couldn’t take things in, and even when I did I forgot them pretty quickly. But they wouldn’t think me so stupid if they saw me now.

  Lying there, all this sort of flashed through my mind. I don’t know why. Looking at my life I felt quite satisfied. I wasn’t smug with it. I was holding down a good job at King’s, I had my eye on promotion, and I was doing well financially. You can’t really afford to be smug, even when things are going well. Everything can get turned upside down so quickly.

  When I was a boy I used to imagine that one day I’d get married and have a house and a family. Well, it isn’t too late for that even now, but the chances are getting thinner all the time. Not that it worries me at all. No, if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen, and that’s all. Besides, I’ve never had much energy for women. I think they find me attractive, I’m sure they do, but I can’t work up much enthusiasm really. When I think about Gladys Millar I count my blessings that I didn’t land up with her. But that’s the thing about women, and about people in general, you can never really tell what you’re going to get, can you? Everything goes all right for a time and then you start to find out things that you don’t care much for. Still, you can’t do much to change that.

  I opened my eyes. It was nearly eleven o’clock.

  It was strange not having to go to work. I washed my face and combed my hair and decided to take a walk. At the bottom of the stairs I met Agnes, who was speaking on the telephone.

  She said, ‘Are you going to speak to Mrs Peluzzi?’

  I’d almost forgotten about that. ‘Why, yes, I think I will. That sounds like a good idea.’

  I went down the front steps and along to the next house. I saw Mrs Peluzzi’s name on a little white card with a bell above it. I pressed the bell and waited.

  After a time the door opened and it was dark in the hallway so I couldn’t see a thing except this black shape. When my eyes became used to the light, I could make out her face. She was wearing a kind of black shawl that covered her whole body as well as her head and part of it was drawn up across her lips.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘I live in the house next door.’

  Her eyebrows moved upwards and she made a gesture with her hands.

  ‘Please don’t think I’m complaining,’ I said. ‘But the fact is, I can’t get to sleep at night on account of your dog Rex. He makes such an awful noise …’

  She took the shawl from her lips. She had this little moustache, it wasn’t too bad but it was plain enough. Tears were running down her face.

  ‘Are you police?’ she asked.

  ‘Police?’ I said, wondering what she was talking about.

  She buried her face into the shawl and kept sobbing as if she expected me to arrest her all of a sudden.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s about your dog.’

  ‘Don’t take him away from me,’ she said. ‘Don’t take him, please! please!’

  I waved my hands around, not knowing what to say.

  ‘He’s all I have! All!’

  She fell on her knees against the door and clutched the door-handle with her hands. All this time she was weeping. I thought, She’s just like her dog. All that wailing and moaning.

  I wasn’t sure what to do. So I just stood there and waited until she recovered.

  She said, ‘You’re a wicked man, an evil man.’

  ‘Please, I didn’t mean any harm,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t make me laugh, this isn’t a laughing matter,’ she said. She had changed by this time. She was up on her feet and there were no more tears. ‘You come to take my Rex away, this is no laughing matter.’

  ‘Take him away? Now, that’s really a bit silly.’

  She began to dodge around like somebody in a boxing match. She was throwing her arms back and forward, but she didn’t really mean to hit me.

  ‘I’m only asking you to make him keep quiet at night.’

  ‘Hah!’ She stepped back and then stepped forward again.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The shawl was coming away from her body now. Then suddenly there was this bang inside my head.

  She said, ‘Hah!’

  I put my fingers to my nose and saw that it was bleeding handeing. For a minute I felt like hitting her back, but I just kept my temper. I only wanted to speak to her quietly and reasonably, I didn’t want a brawl.

  ‘My God,’ I said. ‘My nose is bleeding.’

  ‘You deserve that,’ she said.

  I had to dodge her next punch. I took out my hankerchief wagderchief and wiped my face. It was covered in blood.

  She was shouting out loudly although people passing in the street weren’t really taking much notice.

  ‘He comes to steal my dog! Dog thief! Thief! He comes to my door, the door of a poor widow, and he wants to steal my dog!’

  ‘No, there’s been a misunderstanding,’ I said.

  ‘Hah!’ She looked at a group of chil
dren who were standing over by the railings. I felt sick. I can’t stand blood. ‘Look at this man, this thief,’ she was saying. ‘He comes here, to my door, to steal my dog. Heh? I punched him. I make his nose bleed!’

  I turned away. I was sick on the pavement. I went down on my knees and stuck my finger in my throat to get it all up. I could hear her going on behind my back. I covered my face with my handkerchief.

  ‘Look at him,’ she said. ‘Sick as a dog.’

  And then she was laughing like a maniac. I went in-doors and up to my room. I washed my face clean. I was shaking from the effort of being sick.

  I made some tea and drank it black and after that I felt a bit better.

  I don’t know when I decided to kill Rex. It must have been that same afternoon. I looked out of the window and he was staring up at me in this funny way. He was gloating. That’s what he was doing. Then I saw Mrs Peluzzi come out and get down on her knees and hug the beast. They were gloating together. The woman was insane. I knew that then. She was quite mad.

  But what was the best way to kill him?

  I thought of putting a bag over his head and suffocating him. But that wasn’t any good. He’d probably bite his way out of the bag. And I couldn’t use a gun, even if I’d had one, because of the noise. Poison would have been all right, if I could have laid my hands on some. Arsenic. But I didn’t know how to go about getting any. Even if I managed to get it, I couldn’t just ram it down Rex’s throat. I’d have to poison his meat and that left traces and I’d be tracked down by the RSPCA or somebody. No, I had to rule all those things out. I found that I was getting worked up about the thought. My hands were trembling violently. I just had to kill him. Then we’d all get some peace.

  Of course I could have moved out of the room. But that meant packing all my stuff again and I was really determined to stay put. Determination is one of my good qualities. I didn’t intend to leave. So Rex had to go instead.

  When it was beginning to get dark I thought about the string. I found a long piece in my suitcase. I wound it round my fingers. It would fit all right over the dog’s neck and all I had to do was pull it tight and hold it for a couple of minutes. It was really simple. It was better than guns and poisons and bags over his head. It was even quite cunning.

  Yes, the string would be the perfect thing.

  I waited at the window until it was finally dark except for the streetlamp.

  And then Roderick came into the room.

  ‘Did the plugs work?’ he asked.

  I was holding the string in my hand. I felt a bit guilty.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘They weren’t much good.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked at me fingering the string. ‘Are you going to strangle the dog?’

  ‘It’s the cleanest way,’ I said.

  Roderick sat on the bed. ‘Are you sure, man? What I would do is stab it with a knife or something. That’s even cleaner.’

  I told him that I couldn’t stand the sight of blood.

  ‘What a pity,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll just have to strangle him.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I wound the string round my hand. I never thought it would come to this, I really didn’t. Normally, I wouldn’t harm a fly. It’s wrong to take life, any kind of life. But this was really necessary. I’d had three sleepless nights. My nerves were all shot to pieces. I was losing my grip at the factory. It couldn’t go on. It had to end sometime.

  ‘You’ll have to climb the wall,’ Roderick said. ‘That’s a purely practical consideration, and it’s got nothing to do with the metaphysics of the situation. But if you don’t climb it you won’t get near the dog.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about that,’ I said. And I hadn’t. I just hadn’t considered any obstacles.

  ‘The wall is about eight feet high. But you should be able to scramble over. And scramble back again, when the deed is done.’

  I began to tell him about the puppy with the brown and white markings I’d had as a boy, but he interrupted me by saying,

  ‘A ladder might be helpful, man. Have you got one?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Too bad. You’ll just have to climb.’

  I uncurled the string and stretched it tight.

  ‘Have you thought about the broken glass?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. I could see it shining along the top of the wall. It looked sharp and nasty.

  ‘You’ll have to be careful or you’ll cut yourself,’ he said. He began to laugh and tap his fingers on the mantelpiece. ‘The whole thing’s absurd, absurd.’

  My fingers were trembling. I thought for a bit. The whole thing was really quite risky. I looked at Roderick.

  ‘Would you like to do it?’ I asked.

  ‘Can’t climb,’ he said.

  And then he went out, leaving me on my own.

  About eleven I went downstairs and along the passage that leads to the back yard. I couldn’t get the big door open at first and I twisted and turned the rusty handle and was about to give up and go back upstairs when all of a sudden it just sprung open. Outside, the yard was dark. There isn’t much light from the streetlamp because there’s a tree in the way. I realised I should have left my own light on so that I could see, but I might have exposed myself doing that.

  I went to the wall. It seemed very high in the dark. I tried to get up. But I couldn’t grip the top because of the glass. I cut the palms of my hands and feeling the sticky blood felt sick again. But I knew I had to see the whole thing through. I tried to get up at another part of the wall. I felt the glass digging into me and I cursed it. But by pushing my feet hard I got halfway over. I could see Rex down below, chained to the wall. He was looking up at me. His black ears were pricked and he was panting. Working himself up for his nightly performance, I thought. I felt stupid hanging there, my body slung across the glass.

  I dropped down. I tore my trousers against the glass. But at least I was on the other side.

  I took out the piece of string.

  In the darkness, the dog and I stared at each other.

  ‘Good dog,’ I said. ‘There’s a good dog.’

  I got down on my knees and circled the string round his neck. He didn’t seem to mind. He thought it was a collar and that he was going for a walk. But it was going to be a long walk for him.

  I began to pull the ends. I did this slowly at first. I was sweating.

  I had only to pull it tightly and quick, and hold it there for a couple of minutes and everything would be all over.

  He licked my hand.

  He licked my hand and I couldn’t do it.

  I dropped the string and stared at him. His rough tongue was splashing against my face. I couldn’t do it.

  I cut my hands going back over the wall.

  When I was in my room again I saw that my skin was bleeding badly. It was terrible. I went to the window and looked down. I could see him down there. He was wagging his tail.

  I felt foolish. I bandaged my hands with an old towel and then went to bed.

  At midnight he began to moan and howl. I lay in the dark and just listened. I was a coward. I hadn’t known it before, but I was. I might have been sleeping now, if I’d had the courage to do the job. Strangle him. But no. I was a coward.

  Or was I just tender-hearted?

  I was too soft to kill him. That’s always been my weakness. I should have known better.

  Even so, I thought, as I lay listening to the noise, he would have to be disposed of. He would have to go.

  He was ruining my life. I’d been conscientious and diligent, I’d been healthy, I’d been the perfect tenant. But I couldn’t go on being those things if I didn’t get my sleep.

  Rex would have to be killed.

  But I couldn’t do it. And if I couldn’t do it, I wondered who could.

  Who?

  2

  Matt

  On the night I met Eric Billings, I was sitting in a shabby pub in Cricklewood and thinking about the factors that had led me to undertak
e the Finchley job. In the end they boiled down to personal and professional vanity. Certainly there was an element of greed, there is always that element, but the job was important to my status. Now, on reflection, I regretted the whole thing. It wasn’t because I felt a twinge of conscience (I never feel such twinges), but because I was afraid. Just that. Fear. And the fear didn’t stem from the prospect of discovery but from the thought of violent recrimination. This time I had overplayed my hand. My sense of coolness, my judgement, my confidence above all – these things had deserted me. I was out on the proverbial bloody limb and all I could do, it seemed, was wait. But for how long? And how would I spend the waiting period? Biting my nails and slopping whisky in drab bars? Walking up and down some grubby bedsit? On the other hand, I could hide. But vengeance has a long nose and an acute sense of smell.

  My time – if I was going to be honest – was limited.

  But at least I could look back on the Finchley job with a sense of pride. It isn’t just anybody who can take Big Ed Sharp for as much as I had taken him. To achieve that you’ve got to be dedicated to this game, you’ve got to have a fully professional attitude.

  The Finchley job was my promotion from the lower leagues to higher ones. No more calls on crazy old women to read their gas meters and swipe the cardboard box with their life savings in it as soon as they had their backs turned: no more phoney charity collections and cold feet trudging from one door to the next: and no more false life-insurance policies or subscriptions to encyclopaedias that never materialise. All that was soul-destroying and a dead loss and highly illegal anyway.

  The beauty of taking Big Ed’s money was that it had been unlawfully earned in the first place. But if that was the beauty it was also the horror – because if he couldn’t take lawful steps to regain his cash there were other courses open to him. I’d seen it all before. I should have known better. Wisdom after the event is no wisdom at all. A boot in the face in some dark alley on a rainy night. A razor in the neck. Broken ribs, blood. I’d seen it all before.

  Pride – and a great deal of Big Ed’s money – was all I had left.