The Endings Man

by Frederic Lindsay

  ‘Luck,’ the young man said ironically. ‘Question is, where is it now?’

  ‘With the other necklace,’ the older man said. ‘I’d bet my career on it.’

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  ‘Are you drunk?’ Linda Fleming asked.

  ‘It’s the only way to travel,’ Curle said, more cheerfully than he felt.

  He staggered slightly, bumping the wall with his shoulder, as he went into the living room. It was a relief to sink into a chair.

  ‘I walked,’ he said. ‘I was in a pub in Hanover Street. It’s a long walk.’

  ‘Have you had anything to eat?’

  He thought about it. ‘I remember breakfast. Must have had something since. Crisps!’ He brightened. ‘Bags of those. Can’t remember the flavours.’

  She muttered something and went out. He dozed and when she came back asked, ‘Did you swear there?’

  Without answering, she laid a tray on the occasional table beside his chair.

  ‘Coffee and ham sandwiches,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not all that hungry.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake!’ she said. ‘Eat it.’

  Shocked, he picked up one of the sandwiches and nibbled a corner off it. She hadn’t struck him as a woman who swore. The sandwich tasted good, a little dry; he washed it down with a mouthful of the coffee.

  ‘I don’t take sugar,’ he said.

  ‘It won’t do you any harm.’

  She sat and watched as he worked his way through two of the sandwiches. The others defeated him.

  ‘I’ll make more coffee,’ she said, getting up.

  When he’d drunk a second cup, and been out to the lavatory twice, he finally said that he was sorry. ‘I don’t get drunk,’ he explained. ‘But you have to admit I’m reliable. I came when you said you needed me.’ He thought about it. ‘What did you need me for exactly?’

  ‘I wanted somebody with me,’ she said. ‘I think Bobbie Haskell is going to try to kill me tonight.’

  It didn’t sober him at all, or even shock him much, because he didn’t believe it for a moment.

  He shook his head at her. He spoke slowly, because he wanted her to understand. His main feeling was one of pity. ‘He isn’t the one. We talked about this. Brian Todd killed Ali.’ He leaned forward confidentially, almost losing his balance. From this angle, he noticed how strong and shapely her legs were. Swimmer’s legs. ‘Thing is,’ he lowered his voice, ‘the police are going to arrest him.’

  ‘That can’t be true.’ Far from being reassured, she sounded distressed. ‘How could they make a mistake like that?’

  ‘No mistake.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  He puzzled for a moment. ‘It’s true.’

  ‘They’re going to arrest this man for killing Ali?’

  ‘Ah.’ Why was everything so complicated? ‘He’s being arrested for something else. But once he’s inside, they’ll sort it out. You see?’

  ‘Not really.’

  They sat and looked at one another, as if on two rafts drifting gently apart.

  At last, he said, ‘What do you mean, he’s coming down?’

  ‘Sometime tonight. I think he’ll wait until the light in the hall goes out.’

  ‘Why tonight?’

  ‘I had tea with him this afternoon. I was very relaxed and talkative. Trying to give the impression I liked him. I told him I was leaving tomorrow and that I’d an appointment to see DI Meldrum before I caught my train. And I mentioned the diary as if by accident. Oh, not in so many words, but he’d know what I was thinking of. And at the end I said I’d forgotten my key but it didn’t matter, I was always forgetting to lock the door.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Curle said. Even not fully sober, there were so many holes in that he didn’t know where to begin. For somewhere to start, he said, ‘If he thinks you’ve found evidence in his diary that proves he killed your sister, how the hell could he imagine you liked him?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t swear,’ she said. ‘After I’d done it, I phoned the police. I spoke to DI Meldrum.’ She bit her lip and looked away.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That I was being very foolish.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I wandered about the flat until I couldn’t bear it any longer. That’s when I phoned you. I didn’t want to be here alone.’

  He sighed. ‘My wife will be wondering where I am.’

  She looked at her watch then got up and went out into the hall. When she came back, she stood in the doorway and said, ‘I’ve put the light out. I think we should wait in the bedroom.’

  The moment he stood up, she put off the light in the living room. In the hall, the only illumination came through the half-open door of the bedroom. Not knowing what else to do, he followed her in.

  She’d set two chairs almost side by side, halfway between the bed and the dressing table.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘And then I’ll put the light out in here.’

  ‘We can’t sit in the dark!’

  ‘I’ll open the curtain first.’

  As he sat down, he saw she was holding a black stick. It was about a foot long and it had a thick handle resembling the knot where two branches join.

  Seeing his glance, she said, ‘It’s a shillelagh. Ali got it on an Irish holiday. It’s made of blackthorn. A hard wood.’ She gave the word a vicious emphasis as if smacking it into a skull.

  Again he had to fight down the impulse to laugh. Fight it down, because it wasn’t funny, none of this was funny. A pathetic woman with God knows what private troubles of her own grieving for her sister, grieving for Ali. How would she cope when she came out of this fantasy? Her tragedy could end in a locked ward.

  Keeping it simple, he said, ‘I doubt if that would be much use against a desperate man.’

  She studied it and got up again. When she came back, she was carrying a carving knife. He recognised it. A Kitchen Devil; they had one at home.

  ‘You take this,’ she said, and handed him the blackthorn stick.

  When she put the lights out, it was black as a mine. Even when she drew the curtains, it was a matter of shades of black on black. The bedroom was at the back of the house, looking down on to patches of drying green.

  He thought about getting up and leaving. He would insist as he went that she locked the door behind him. But how could he be sure that she wouldn’t unlock it again? And if she did, what did it matter? There wasn’t a chance in the world that anyone was going to come creeping down the stairs. She might in the pathos of her madness sit alone here through all the hours of darkness until the first morning light. As he thought about this, he must have gone to sleep for he woke with her hand probing into his side. He was slumped over, any further and he would have fallen on to the floor. His fist ached from gripping the stick.

  When he spoke, his voice sounded rusty from disuse.

  He whispered, ‘Did you say you’d told Meldrum about stealing the diary?’

  He thought she wasn’t going to answer. Softly at last she said, ‘I told him it wasn’t me who was the thief. I gave Ali a necklace for her twenty-first birthday. I can’t find it anywhere.’

  Although there was no chance of seeing her face, he studied the darkness until his eyes wearied.

  He must have slept again, this time slipping into a profound sleep, for he started awake when she touched him. Her hand pressed his arm repeatedly. He opened his mouth to protest, and then he heard the footsteps.

  Brian Todd was moving through the hall.

  He couldn’t conceive of how Todd had come to be there. But for a murderer one night was as good as another. He lurched to his feet and threw the door back. And the monster out of the dark was there, the murderer, the man he hated, it wasn’t a dream. With all his force, he swung the stick.

  In the instant he felt the impact of wood on bone thrill up his arm all the way to the shoulder, Linda Fleming put on the light.

  Meldrum stood there with his right arm hanging by his
side. The colour had drained from his face leaving it the colour of soiled paper. With his left hand, he reached out and took the stick, exerting a controlled pressure to loosen Curle’s grip on it.

  He said quietly, ‘I’ve just arrested Robert Haskell for the murders of Ali Fleming and Eva Johanson. Would you like to tell me what you think you’ve been doing?’

  Shakily, Curle sat down on the edge of the bed. Thank Christ I didn’t have the knife, he thought. It was the only thought in his head.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  I’m a lucky man, Curle thought, as he sat on the edge of the bed with tears streaming down his face. That morning he had destroyed every note and memento he possessed of Ali Fleming. It had been a cleansing, not just for his sake but hers. He had burned away everything in her which she might have outgrown if she had lived. Let all that remained to memory be the best of her. Out of weakness, he had saved her photograph until last. This image from her past she had given him as a gift. It had been taken looking down on her, so that her face was a triangle and her eyes seemed enormous. ‘I don’t know why you like it so much,’ she had said. ‘I seem so needy and desperate.’

  When Liz came into the bedroom, he was startled. He had thought he was alone in the house.

  ‘My God,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He held out the photograph.

  She looked at it, then sat beside him.

  ‘Where has this been?’ she asked.

  ‘I hid it away. I hid it away with all the others.’

  ‘You told me you’d burned them.’

  ‘I think I was mad. I’ve been sitting here looking at it and wondering why you didn’t leave me.’

  ‘You had them all the time.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear to burn them. I started to – but then I couldn’t.’

  They sat looking at the photograph of their daughter, who was dead. Liz traced the outline of the child’s cheek with her finger.

  ‘Do you know how much I’ve wanted to look at them? How could you do this?’

  ‘I don’t know any more. That’s the truth. And once I’d lied about burning them, I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know how.’ When she didn’t answer, he laid his hand on hers, which lay on the child’s cheek. ‘And yet you didn’t leave me.’

  She wrenched her hand away from under his.

  ‘Understand this. I’m only going to say it once. For Kerr’s sake, I won’t break up our marriage. I’ll never break up our marriage. If that gives you a weapon against me, I can’t help it.’

  They became calmer as the day passed.

  In the late afternoon, Kerr was sitting with his mother in the front room doing homework, when Curle brought the photograph downstairs. He sat it on top of the glass-fronted bookcase. When he turned round, they were both watching him.

  ‘This is your sister Mae,’ he said. ‘When she died, your mother and I were very sad. But then you came along, and that made us happy.’ That should have made us happy. ‘I’m going to leave this photograph here to remind us of her. She’ll always be part of our family.’

  That night he returned from exile in the study. As he lay beside his wife, he felt more at peace than he had done for years. As he was dozing off to sleep, the phone rang.

  ‘Is that you, Curle?’

  A man’s voice. He didn’t recognise it.

  Cautiously, he said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Joe Tilman. I wanted you to know my wife is dead. One of the nurses found her hanging an hour ago. I’ve just been told.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Curle said. His lips felt stiff.

  ‘She couldn’t stand being in that place and you were the one who put her there. You killed her, you bastard. I wanted you to be the first to know.’

  The phone went down and left an echoing silence.

  Two hours later, they were both still awake. Curle felt as if he might never sleep again. They had been so separated that he had to explain it all to her, tell her who Martha Tilman had been.

  ‘I can’t see that it was your fault,’ she said for the tenth time. ‘I don’t even know why he phoned. He’s just trying to make you feel guilty.’

  Tilman the negotiator, Curle thought, negotiating another deal.

  Later she said, ‘He’s the one who put her in there. Whatever was wrong, it hadn’t much to do with you.’

  Somewhere in the small hours, she said, ‘You’re not a bad man. Whatever you think.’

  Wearied to the edge of sleep, he swore, ‘I’ll never hurt you again.’

  He thought she wasn’t going to answer, and then thought he heard her say, ‘I know you mean that,’ which in the last moment of wakefulness he felt as a judgement and that it was deserved.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The day Robert Haskell was given a sentence that meant that he might be back out on the streets in eight years, Curle felt enormously alive and cheerful. Coming out of court, he saw Meldrum standing on his own. Perhaps because of his height, he made an oddly isolated figure.

  Going up to him, Curle asked, ‘Well, was it worth it?’

  ‘McGuigan doesn’t think so. He’s gone off in a rage.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to settle for things as they are.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry about your shoulder. Is it all right?’

  ‘I’m a quick healer. Did you know she’d left the door open? I don’t mean unlocked. She’d left it slightly open.’

  ‘I thought she’d be at the trial.’

  ‘She wrote to me.’ The big man paused, and it was clear he’d decided to say no more. ‘Just as well.’

  On impulse, Curle asked, ‘Would you care to come for a drink?’

  To his surprise, Meldrum accepted the offer.

  They walked down the Royal Mile, Meldrum having suggested a tourist pub, as one not likely to be frequented by policemen.

  ‘Where do you usually drink?’ Curle asked.

  ‘Wherever I’m not likely to encounter someone I’ve put away.’

  ‘Are there many of those?’

  ‘A fair number over the years,’ Meldrum said misunderstanding.

  ‘I meant pubs. Morningside ones, eh?’ Meldrum laughed at that. ‘And stay away from the ones in Leith.’

  ‘I’ve got a flat off Leith Walk,’ Meldrum said.

  Even when you weren’t a suspect, Curle reflected, the man had a gift for putting you in the wrong.

  After they’d found a pub Meldrum approved of, Curle brought the drinks over to the corner table where he’d settled.

  ‘You’ve heard about Brian Todd?’ Meldrum asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was on the news. He was found on Calton Hill beaten half to death. At first they thought it was a mugging. He’s a homosexual – you knew that?’

  ‘I knew.’

  ‘Now there’s a suspicion it may have been a warning to keep his mouth shut. He got himself involved with some serious people, not just white-collar crime.’

  ‘He is a bastard.’

  ‘Likely enough. Just not a murderer.’

  They sipped in silence.

  Curle asked, ‘When did you suspect Haskell?’

  ‘More or less from the off. He was the obvious suspect. In real life, they’re the ones you go for.’

  ‘I didn’t believe Linda Fleming.’

  ‘You’re not a detective.’

  ‘No,’ Curle said. ‘In a crime book, I wouldn’t get away with it being the obvious one.’

  ‘I’ll tell you the strangest thing about it,’ Meldrum said. ‘Them all living on the same stair. It was like a domestic.’

  ‘I know what you mean. There was that kind of intimacy. People dying in the place where they feel safe.’ He shook his head. ‘Even after being in court, I don’t understand why he killed Eva Johanson.’

  ‘Nobody does.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Curle couldn’t help speculating, ‘he might have turned the anger he felt against Linda Fleming on her. Maybe, with me knowing about the diary, he was afraid to attack Linda.
But he had to hurt somebody. There is such a thing as blood lust.’ He looked to the detective for a response. ‘Does that make sense?’

  Meldrum stared down at his glass, turning it on the table. ‘There was a lassie in Glasgow two years ago. A prostitute. She was killed the same way, beaten and strangled.’

  ‘And you think Haskell might have done it?’

  ‘If he did, there’s no way of proving it. Believe me, I tried.’ He made a little chopping gesture of frustration. ‘But Eva Johanson should have been enough. That’s the one that should have put him away for a long time. It means he’ll do it again when he gets out.’

  ‘At least you got him.’

  ‘Might not be so lucky next time. He might have learned not to take souvenirs from the victims. Want another one?’

  ‘If you’ve time.’

  When Meldrum came back, he set the drinks down and said as he took his seat again, ‘Day like this, it’s all you can do. McGuigan’ll learn.’

  ‘I’d a nasty thought while you were away,’ Curle said. ‘Thinking about that prostitute in Glasgow, in my novels the serial killer, Jack’s Friend, beats women to death and strangles them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’

  Faintly irritated by the dismissal, Curle said, ‘Haskell worked in a bookshop.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something about Haskell that didn’t come out in the trial,’ Meldrum said.

  ‘What was that?’ Curle leaned forward.

  Meldrum gave one of his rare smiles. ‘Nothing important. That’s why the lawyers weren’t interested.’ He took out a notepad and pen and, after writing on it, passed it across. ‘Haskell had that hidden behind a cupboard door in his bedroom.’ He had printed in capital letters: THE ENEMY OF LOVE IS DEATH. THE ENEMY OF DEATH IS KNOWLEDGE.

  ‘The lawyers are wrong,’ Curle said. ‘Can I keep it?’

  ‘Of course. It’s only a bit of paper. He probably stole it from a condom advert. Believe me, murderers aren’t interesting.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘They’re the rest of us with something missing. It’s the people who are able to stop themselves from being murderers who are interesting.’