An Air That Kills

by Andrew Taylor

  Charlie entered a narrow, winding alley which led steeply uphill to Minching Lane. Halfway along, he paused and listened. He could hear nothing but the occasional car or lorry in the distance. It was strange to feel so alone in the middle of Lydmouth. Since the war, most of the inhabitants had moved out, either to Nissen huts in the former army camp on the outskirts of town or to the new housing estates. This part of Templefields was a ghost of its old self; it had reached the end of one part of its life and had yet to begin the next.

  He turned right into a small yard. Tall, narrow buildings reared up in front of him and to either side. He knew from experience that the alley he had turned off magnified sound. If anyone came along it, he would hear the footsteps – unless, perhaps, the person was trying to be quiet.

  Immediately to his left was a doorway. Charlie ducked under a low lintel and went down three steps into a semibasement. The room smelt of damp stones and soot. He struck a match. The floor was littered with broken glass, old newspapers and cigarette ends. Teenagers had used the place in the summer, but it was too cold for them now.

  Charlie moved across the room to the fireplace. The iron range it had once contained had been ripped out. The opening itself was large and very old. He stood inside it and looked upwards, but he could not see the sky. Stretching to his full height, he felt the lip of a ledge at the back of the chimney. His fingers touched hessian.

  The sack was still there. It wasn’t worth getting it down. If he tried to sell the contents, he would have to do it outside Lydmouth, preferably in a city large enough to guarantee anonymity. He went back to the alley and continued on his way to Minching Lane.

  The proceeds from all this danger and effort had been disappointingly meagre. A bottle of whisky, a few packets of cigarettes, a few cheap trinkets: he doubted that he could get more than twenty pounds for the lot, even if he found the right buyers. He dared not drink the spirits or smoke the cigarettes in public. Even taking them home would be asking for trouble.

  Beside, twenty pounds was a drop in the ocean. Carn claimed that Charlie owed him nearly nine hundred, and Carn, for all his soft-spoken ways and his bookish tastes, was not a man to let debts slide.

  Charlie wasn’t afraid just for himself. If that were the case, he could emigrate – he could even make sure the police discovered that he was behind the two robberies, and so be transferred to the relative security of prison. But it wasn’t that easy.

  ‘Always concentrate on the family,’ Carn had said to Charlie in the days of their partnership before he had gone to prison. ‘It’s much more sensible. Psychology, see? That’s how you make a man really do his best. After all, if you take it out on him, you’ve written off all hope of that money for ever. You can get a lot of leverage with a child, you know.’

  A child?

  At that moment, just as Charlie emerged into Miching Lane, the revelation came at last – and from a completely unexpected direction. One memory, of Carn’s dry, overprecise voice laying down his rules of conduct, acted as a bait to draw another from the shadows.

  Charlie remembered Tony as a child, poor kid, and how sometimes they met in the summerhouse. That was where he had seen a box like the one they had found at the Rose in Hand: in the summerhouse.

  The shock of remembering was immediately overlaid by different, stronger emotions. His mother’s house was just beyond the King’s Head. Its single ground-floor window was dark, and that was all wrong for this time of day, at this time of year. Panic gripped him and he broke into a run.

  The door was unlocked. Charlie pushed it open gently, as though there were a possibility that it might hit something breakable.

  ‘And there’s another thing,’ Carn used to say, ‘you’ve got to look at the wider picture. It really doesn’t do to get a reputation for being soft. Gives people quite the wrong idea. If you let Tom get away with murder, then Dick and Harry will want to, too.’

  The door opened straight into the kitchen which was also the living room. The first thing that struck Charlie was the chill in the air. He switched on the light and kicked the door shut with his foot. He was sweating and his heart was trying to leap into his mouth.

  His mother was sitting in the armchair by the range. She was shrouded with blankets. Her head was resting on one shoulder, as if the neck could no longer take the weight. Wisps of grey hair twitched in the draught from the door.

  The guilt and the anger rushed over him. She was dead. That bastard Carn had found her.

  Then she moved her head. ‘Charlie,’ she croaked.

  ‘Mam? What’s wrong?’

  He crossed the room and took her hands. They were very cold. He felt her forehead which was burning hot. She looked at him with dull, puzzled eyes in a blue, bloated face.

  ‘Just one of my turns,’ she wheezed. ‘You’ll have to get your own tea.’

  ‘You let the fire go out, you silly woman. Why ever did you do that?’

  He touched the side of the kettle and found that it was as cold as the room. She couldn’t have had a warm drink since the tea she’d made before he went to work. He ran upstairs and fetched more blankets from his mother’s bed.

  Quickly, he riddled the grate and laid a fire. Luckily there was plenty of kindling because he’d chopped a batch the previous evening. He threw it on the fire with a reckless abandon. Yellow flames licked up the dry wood but they gave off very little heat.

  ‘There’s bread and dripping in the larder,’ his mother mumbled. ‘You’ll need to buy some milk for your tea.’

  ‘You need a doctor,’ he said, still speaking loudly and angrily. ‘I’ll phone from the pub.’

  ‘But you have your tea first.’

  ‘Just shut up, will you?’

  ‘No need for a doctor. Anyway, it will cost.’

  ‘Not any longer,’ Charlie said.

  ‘I don’t like Dr Bayswater,’ his mother whined. ‘He’s got a cold heart.’

  Chapter Ten

  When Jane unbolted the door, the usual four men were waiting outside. They pushed past her and filed into the public bar of the Bathurst Arms.

  There was a fifth man outside tonight: a little chap with a beard. He was carrying a book under his arm, and he wasn’t in such a hurry as the regulars. He smiled at her and went into the lounge bar.

  She served him first because lounge prices were higher than the ones in the public bar. It was one of her stepmother’s rules, accepted as fair and reasonable by all her regular customers, that the lounge took precedence over the public. Jane suspected that most of them would have accepted it if her stepmother had said the moon was made of green cheese.

  The man laid a pound note on the counter. ‘A large whisky, my dear.’

  While she was filling the glass, her stepmother came into the serving area. By the smell of her, Jane thought, she’d emptied an entire bottle of perfume over herself.

  ‘Evening, Gloria,’ chorused the regulars, leaning as one man across the counter to get a better view of her.

  Gloria began to take their orders. The same counter, divided in the middle by a wooden partition, served both bars.

  Jane put down the whisky. ‘Soda, sir? Water?’

  ‘Soda, please.’

  She was surprised to see that the man was looking at her, not at her stepmother. She passed him the siphon and made to take the pound note. The man put his hand on it. Startled, Jane looked up at his face and saw that he was smiling.

  ‘I wonder if you can help me – I’m looking for a friend of mine. A man named Charlie Meague.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Charlie Meague.’

  Suddenly her stepmother was standing beside her. ‘It’s all right, Jane,’ she said grimly. ‘Sort them out over there. I’ll deal with this gentleman.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Major Harcutt thought of himself, with some justification, as a man of iron routine. After supper, he would sit and work for a couple of hours; sometimes he listened to the radio or read a biography, but such indulg
ences were exceptional. He thought of these hours as his writing time. He had always worked best after dinner.

  It was in fact some time since he had actually written any of his book. He had finished the introduction several years before and revised it twice since then. He had also mapped out the framework of the chapters. But, given the complexity of the subject, the wealth of material available and the constant stream of new discoveries, he found it necessary to devote most of his time to research.

  On the evening after Inspector Thornhill’s visit, he tried to follow the same routine, but with only partial success. He was not used to these interruptions – first Charlotte Wemyss-Brown and that friend of hers, and then the policeman. It had upset the whole day. He had planned to take the poppies round the village, and later to have a word with old John Veale, the secretary of the Edge Hill branch of the British Legion, about the arrangements for the Remembrance Day Parade on Sunday; but with all the excitement there simply hadn’t been time.

  It had been disturbing, too, to hear of the dead baby. Well, that was hardly surprising. But no historian, Harcutt told himself, could be entirely remote from his material. He had been pleased by the way he had handled the interview: the way the facts had come when he called them, marshalled in the right order. All in all, he flattered himself that he’d acquitted himself rather well. He imagined the young policeman sitting down and writing his report: ‘Thanks to Major Harcutt’s expert services, we can tentatively identify . . .’

  It was all over now. All gone. He wondered whether they would give the bones a Christian burial.

  Because of the excitement, Harcutt found it difficult to settle to his work. He had an extra drink after dinner to settle his nerves. Usually he took the dog out for her last run at ten o’clock and afterwards he would have his nightcap before going to bed. Tonight, however, he decided to take her out nearly twenty minutes before his usual time. Milly was badgering him, nuzzling his leg with her nose. The truth was, the major was restless, and his restlessness had communicated itself to the dog.

  Swaying slightly, he stood by the door of the room and dressed himself in his overcoat, scarf, gloves and hat. When he opened the door, Milly slipped into the hall and pattered towards the front door. Harcutt let her outside. It was another clear, cold evening which might well bring a frost with it. The major slipped on his rubber overshoes, took his stick and walked carefully down the drive. The collie, a black shadow, zigzagged in front of him. The ruts and the puddles made the ground underfoot rather treacherous, but Major Harcutt was used to negotiating these obstacles. He had almost reached the gates before he realised that he’d left Milly’s lead in the hall.

  The dog was waiting patiently at the kerb.

  ‘Good girl,’ the major muttered. ‘Daddy’s pleased with you.’

  He’d put her on the lead when crossing the road since she was a puppy. But come to think of it, there was really no need. Milly was a well-trained animal – he’d seen to that.

  ‘Sit,’ he said sternly.

  Obediently she lowered her rump to the pavement. The major came towards her and laid his hand on her collar. Even at night, there was a certain amount of traffic, but at this moment the road was clear. The two of them walked across. He let go of Milly’s collar and the dog loped away, her paws silent on the grass, in the direction of the church. It was very dark, apart from scattered lights in the houses fronting the green.

  Today was an anticlockwise day. Harcutt marched round the green twice every day, after breakfast and after supper, and each day was either an anticlockwise day or a clockwise day.

  This evening he walked quickly, keeping his ears and eyes alert for the sound of other people or other dogs. There had been one or two rather nasty incidents on the green in the past. He could not deny that, when provoked, Milly had a bit of a temper. On one occasion she’d nearly torn the ear off that nasty little mongrel belonging to the Veales who lived in the cottage nearest the church. There was also the question of dog messes. Complaints had been made to the parish council. Major Harcutt had been led to understand that several people were strongly in favour of putting up a notice on the subject.

  As he was passing the Veales’ cottage, their dog barked while Milly was doing her business on the grass, and the front-room curtains twitched. Milly barked back, and Harcutt had to drag her away. They completed the circuit without any other problems.

  On their return, they had to wait to cross the road because several cars came along, travelling at speed in the Lydmouth direction. As they waited, Harcutt realised that there was a man standing between the gateposts of his drive. He strained to see who it was, but failed. The dog saw the man too, and wanted to investigate.

  Frowning, the major crossed the road, his hand gripping Milly’s collar. There was enough light to see that the man was wearing an army greatcoat. A bicycle with a basket attached to its handlebars was leaning against one of the gateposts. It did not occur to Harcutt that there might be any reason to be frightened. He had a stick and a dog, there was plenty of traffic passing and in any case he had never been a physical coward.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s Major Harcutt, isn’t it?’ The voice was local, though the accent had been eroded by other influences. ‘I was just passing. Thought I’d look in.’

  ‘Do I know you?’

  Milly growled and Harcutt tightened his grip on the dog’s collar. She’d bitten people before, including the baker and the vicar, and he’d heard rumours that some people wanted her to be put down.

  ‘You used to employ me. Remember?’

  ‘I’ve employed a lot of people in my time, young man. I really can’t be expected to remember every single one. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .’

  ‘No, I mean here.’ The man waved towards the dark block of the house. ‘I didn’t work in one of the yards, look. I worked in your garden. Before the war, it was.’

  ‘Really?’ Harcutt bent down and said to the dog: ‘Be quiet, miss.’

  ‘My mam helped out with the cleaning. And I was the gardener’s boy.’

  The dog growled, but the major said nothing. Two lorries went by on the road behind him.

  ‘It was the summer of 1938 I started. I left about a year later. Remember?’

  ‘I most certainly do.’ The major’s breathing had become rapid and laboured. His fingers tightened round the stick.

  Charlie Meague came a step closer. He was several inches taller and Harcutt automatically took a step backwards; the dog strained to attack the visitor.

  ‘You still interested in history, then?’ Meague asked.

  ‘Now listen to me. I don’t think that’s anything to do with you. It’s very late and I really can’t stand here talking any longer. I’ll bid you goodnight.’

  He started up the drive, dragging the growling, reluctant dog after him.

  Meague raised his voice a little so it would be audible over the engine of a passing car. ‘Because I thought you’d like to know I’m working on that building site at Templefields, and we found some old bones yesterday. And some other stuff. Did you hear about that?’

  The major stopped.

  ‘Thought you might like to find out what was there.’ Now the voice had a silky, insinuating quality. ‘For your book, that is. You still writing the book, are you? But if you don’t want to know, well – that’s up to you. I’ll be off then.’

  The major turned back in time to see the man throw his leg over the bicycle and pedal away. As Harcutt turned, his foot slipped into a rut and he almost fell. His arms flailed as he fought to regain his balance and he lost his grip on Milly’s collar.

  The dog ran barking to the end of the drive and chased after the departing cyclist. A car passed, sounding its horn.

  ‘Come here, miss. Come here!’

  Harcutt broke into a stumbling run. He blundered out of the drive and on to the pavement. Meague had already cycled across the road. The red light on the back of his bicycle was moving steadi
ly along the green; for an instant it seemed to Harcutt that Meague for some mysterious reason of his own must be tracing the route that he and Milly had taken a few minutes earlier.

  The throb of another engine had been growing steadily louder for the last few seconds. As the major reached the pavement, a pair of headlights dazzled him. Only yards away was a lorry, pushing before it a cushion of air; something was rattling and flapping above the roar of the engine. The dog was not on the pavement. She was running across the road.

  ‘Milly!’

  The noise grew louder, the light became even more blinding, and the rush of oncoming air battered him. Major Harcutt ran into the road after his dog.

  Part Three

  Friday

  Chapter One

  ‘Brings back a few memories, eh?’ Philip said as he ushered Jill towards the room where the press briefing was to take place.

  ‘Extraordinary. It makes me feel eighteen again. I’m not sure I like it.’

  Philip grinned at her. ‘Tricky things, memories. I try and avoid them myself.’

  Jill had forgotten the smell of a police station. Like most people, she rarely had occasion to go into one. But once, in the years she had spent learning her trade on the Paulstock Observer, she had been familiar with the insides of both police stations and magistrates’ courts; they had been part of her professional habitat.

  The years had passed and she had changed, but the smell remained the same – and it was the smell which unlocked the memories. Lydmouth police headquarters, like other police stations in the past, was a masculine place, and it smelled of polish, sweat and tobacco. Underneath the odour of institutional authority were other, lesser smells – sour and almost feral, which reminded her of enclosed places in a zoo.