The Darkness of Death

by David Stuart Davies

  ‘What now?’ she muttered with annoyance, as she wriggled her feet into her slippers before flip-flopping her way down the hall. She opened the door a crack and stared out. The visitor standing on the threshold was a youngish woman, a little on the stout side with dark hair cut short; her squarish features wore a haunted look. Mrs Bentley recognized the face straight away for it belonged to Sylvia Moore, one of her old lodgers: Sylvia Moore, soon to become the wealthy Sylvia Moore, the inheritor of a thousand pounds.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Bentley, I wonder if I could have a word.’

  It was Hermione Bentley’s motto, newly minted, that one always did favours for wealthy folk because you never knew when it might benefit you.

  ‘’Course, Sylvia, do come in,’ she said opening the door wide. Somewhat nervously, Sylvia entered and Mrs Bentley led her into the shabby but cosy sitting room.

  ‘I was just about to take a little nip of rum. Can I get you a glass?’

  Sylvia looked unsure. Rum certainly was not her tipple but she didn’t want to upset the old harridan by refusing. ‘Just a drop—to keep the cold out. Thanks.’

  Mrs Bentley poured the drink and indicated that Sylvia should sit down. ‘Now then, what can I do for you?’ she said, passing the drink to her guest.

  ‘Well, it’s a little bit awkward like.’

  ‘Go on, love, you can trust me.’

  ‘I’ve had word that a fellow’s been asking about me, trying to find me.’

  Mrs Bentley narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, and how did you come to hear about that?’

  ‘It’s sort of complicated, but I wondered if anyone has come here asking questions, wanting to know where I’m living.’

  Mrs Bentley took a swig of rum before answering. ‘As a matter of fact, I had a chap here today looking for you, you lucky girl. Said he was representing a firm of solicitors in the Strand.’

  Sylvia paled. ‘Was he a youngish chap with an eye patch?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the feller. How did you know? Has he caught up with you already?’

  Sylvia clasped her hands together nervously and shook her head.

  ‘Well, don’t look so bloomin’ miserable. It’s good news, my dear,’ continued Mrs Bentley, warming to her task. ‘You’ve come into money. A thousand pounds I reckon. An old aunt of yours has left it to you in her will—’

  ‘An old aunt?’ Sylvia seemed very distracted now.

  ‘That’s right. He didn’t give her name. Said it was confidential. Well, I must say you don’t seem very pleased. I wish someone would leave me a tidy sum when they snuff it.’

  Sylvia attempted a smile. ‘It’s all a bit of a surprise. I haven’t seen this gentleman yet. Did…did you give him my address?’

  ‘Certainly did, my dear. I didn’t want you missing out on your good fortune. A thousand quid, eh? What couldn’t you do with that stash.’

  ‘Yes, it’s quite exciting,’ Sylvia said, attempting to elicit some enthusiasm. She rose awkwardly and placed her untouched drink on a side table. ‘So this one-eyed man knows where I live?’

  Mrs Bentley nodded. ‘Indeed, he does. Don’t you worry. I’ve no doubt he’ll be calling around tomorrow with the cheque.’

  ‘Well, that’s good to know,’ she said, edging towards the door.

  ‘Are you going so soon?’

  Sylvia nodded. ‘I’d better be getting back. It’s rather late. I just wanted to know about this fellow.’

  ‘Did you now? It’s a long way to come just to find that out. Is there something wrong? You don’t seem too happy. You know you can trust me.’

  ‘No, no, there’s nothing wrong; it’s just one gets nervous when strangers start asking after you. You hear such stories.’

  Sylvia moved into the hall and when Mrs Bentley followed, she hurried for the front door. ‘Thanks. It’s good to see you again. I’ll let myself out.’ And with that she stepped out into the night and slammed the door behind her.

  Hermione Bentley pulled a face. ‘Now that’s a funny how do you do,’ she muttered to herself as she slithered back into the warmth of her sitting room. ‘If I’m not greatly mistaken, that girl’s frightened of something. Perhaps it is that geezer with the eye patch. Come to think of it, he did look a bit dodgy…’

  Just as she was about to resume her seat by the fire, she noticed Sylvia’s untouched glass of rum. With a gentle shrug of the shoulder, she poured the measure into her own glass. ‘Waste not, want not,’ she said, and switched on the radio.

  *

  Across the city, in Leo Bernstein’s office, on the top floor of the Bamboo House, Gina Bernstein was holding court. She stood by the window, while Leo, Anthony and Vic sat listening to her in uneasy silence. Leo puffed on his cigar almost absent-mindedly, well aware that he was no longer the patron of the group but just a mere bystander—and in some ways rather relieved to be so. He was too old a dog to be learning dangerous new tricks.

  ‘I assure you it’s an easy thing to operate,’ Gina was saying with controlled enthusiasm, ‘and it brings in wads of cash. I ran a similar operation in Dublin before the war and it was a great success.’

  ‘But we’ve never done anything like this before,’ said Anthony, shifting uneasily in his chair. He was all for the status quo. That suited him. He was against anything that might disrupt the comfortable equilibrium of his life. Newfangled schemes involving danger and effort were not for him, especially when they were to be controlled by this bossy tart.

  ‘All the more reason to go ahead now,’ said Gina. ‘This business is in danger of going stagnant.’

  ‘What if they refuse to pay?’ asked Anthony.

  ‘A little rough stuff usually does the trick. Trust me.’

  Anthony glanced at Vic hoping to elicit his support, but he seemed to be studiously examining his fingernails.

  Gina ploughed on. She really didn’t care too much if she convinced them she was right, they were going to do it anyway. She was boss after all and each one of them in the room knew it.

  ‘I’ve picked out a few premises for a trial run tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ said Vic in surprise.

  ‘Why not? Why wait? The sooner we get started, the sooner we up our profits. I want you to join me in the morning, Vic, for our first sortie. It should be fun.’

  Instinctively Anthony leaned forward about to object. Why should Vic be chosen for this new venture? He always seemed the favoured one. But before he was able to open his mouth, common sense held his tongue. If this crazy and somewhat dangerous enterprise succeeded, he’d still profit. If it failed, he was well out of it. Let Vic act the role of guinea pig. Good luck to him.

  In the meantime, Vic had said nothing either. He sat impassively, staring at some spot in the idle distance.

  ‘Are you up for it, Vic, or are you going to bottle out?’ Gina said softly, but there was no mistaking the taunting tone of her question.

  Vic gave her a weary grin. ‘A cheap trick to suggest I might not have the guts to frighten a few shopkeepers. Shows how much you don’t know me.’ He winked hard at Gina. ‘Sure I’m up for your little scheme, missy. You are on. Give me the time and the place tomorrow and I’ll be with you.’

  Nine

  That night, we went back to Max’s little flat and made love. It wasn’t hurried, clumsy and frenzied like it had been the first few times. It was slow and passionate, real desire taking the place of animalistic lust, emotional euphoria blending with physical satisfaction in a cramped little bed in Max’s tiny bedroom. It was probably the happiest night of my life. At long last I belonged to someone. And she was mine also.

  Afterwards, we lay in the darkness, entwined in each other’s bodies, saying nothing. I just listened to her gentle breathing in a state of simple happiness. We parted with a final embrace at the door of her flat, Max promising to keep in touch, to write and telephone me often and begging me to take care of myself. ‘It’s only about three weeks. They’ll pass in a trice,’ she said, her eyes moistening.

 
‘Sure,’ I said, and gave her hand a squeeze before heading off into the night to my own bed.

  I slept the sleep of the just that night, or what was left of it, and rose late the next morning. The euphoria of the previous evening had worn away with the dingy dawn. I had hit the anti-climax. Even in daylight, the world seemed lifeless and bleak. I considered my immediate prospects and realized they were dull: a troublesome case and three weeks without Max. I tried to shake off my malaise with a brisk bath. By the time I was walking the streets and having given myself a little lecture about having to focus on my investigation, I did feel a little more positive and programmed. I had a lady to find—the key to the case of the reappearing wife. I gazed at the scrap of brown paper dear Hermione Bentley had given me: Cartwright House in Kensington. I was not sure where this was, so I treated myself to a cab, knowing the driver would be able to find it without any difficulty. And sure enough he did.

  It was around eleven in the morning with the sky, an unrelieved leaden grey, leaning down oppressively on the city, when the taxi drew up outside a large block of flats in the hinterland behind Kensington High Street. Somewhere in that Victorian mausoleum was Sylvia Moore. I paid the cabbie and made my way into the building.

  The foyer area was large and cold with a crazed marble floor. The sound of my footsteps echoed and re-echoed around me. It was like a ghost building with no sign of humanity about it. There was a lift of the old-fashioned cage type and two staircases with wrought-iron balustrades winding their way up into the upper regions. Affixed to the pillar by the lift was also a board listing the number of flats and their occupants. There were three levels with ten flats on each level. It did not take me long to discover there was an S. Moore on level two, Flat 11. It’s moments like this when a simple piece of detective work pays off that I feel a real tingle of pleasure. It was not to last, however.

  I harboured a strong distrust of lifts, having once been trapped in one with a large flatulent man with halitosis, so I took the stairs and made my way to Flat 11. Once there I rang the bell. And rang the bell. And rang the bell. I could hear its brisk tones reverberating inside the flat but it elicited no response. Of course, I told myself eventually, my friend Sylvia could be at work. Come to think of it, that was likely. Making sure I was alone on the corridor, I extracted the length of stiff wire I keep in my top pocket for those occasions when I feel a bout of burglary coming upon me. Inserting it into the lock and with a few deft movements—tricks of the trade, you might say, that I had learned from an old lag I knew when I was in the police force—I soon had the door open. Within a trice I had let myself into Flat 11.

  And the cupboard was bare! And I mean really bare. In the words of the old expression, whoever had lived here had done a moonlight flit. There was not one personal item left in the flat. The drawers and wardrobes were empty. There were no photographs, trinkets, or jewellery that could give any indication of the nature of the person or persons who had once inhabited this flat. However, there were signs that two people had been living here. I found two cups on the draining board, two cigarette ends in an ashtray, one with bright red lipstick and one without; and in the bedroom the dents in the pillows on the double bed suggested double occupancy.

  After twenty minutes, I gave up looking for further clues. I’m sure there were none—or certainly none that I would be able to interpret. All I knew was that whatever prompted the couple to scarper, they had done so in a hurry which suggested that they were frightened. But of what?

  I pulled the door to and rang the bell of the flat next door but got no reply. I tried my luck further down the hall and at Flat 15. At last I got a response. A youngish, unshaven fellow who looked as though he had just risen from his pit answered the door.

  ‘I wonder if you could help me,’ I asked politely.

  ‘I doubt it, but you can try me,’ came the reply through a stifled yawn.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get a response from Flat 11. A friend of mine, Sylvia Moore, lives there. She seems to be out or away. Being a neighbour, I wondered if you might know where she’d be.’

  His face crumpled with irritation. ‘Now why the hell should I? I don’t even know the woman. What’s she like?’

  ‘Medium height, squarish features, short cropped hair. She’s a hairdresser.’

  ‘Got a bit of a squat nose...? I think I know the one you mean. Yeah, I’ve seen her about. Never spoke to her though. They keep themselves to themselves at that flat. Agnes might know.’

  ‘Who’s Agnes?’

  ‘Agnes Colthorpe. The eyes and ears of the world. What she doesn’t know about what goes on in this building’—he paused to yawn again—‘isn’t worth knowing.’

  I grinned in a friendly fashion. ‘Where will I find her?’

  ‘Down below, Flat 8.’

  ‘Many thanks.’

  ‘S’all right,’ he said scratching his head. ‘Now if you don’t mind I’ll get back to bed.’ With that he closed the door.

  Agnes Colthorpe answered her door after the first ring. She was a tiny woman, bent with age but with a pleasant demeanour and two bright, intelligent blue eyes which gazed at me with enquiry.

  ‘I wonder if you could help me?’ I said again.

  ‘Certainly, young man, if I’m able. What is it that you want?’

  ‘I’m trying to trace an old friend of mine, Sylvia Moore. I believe she lives in this building in Flat 11.’

  ‘Flat 11...? Oh yes, I know. Which one is she?’

  ‘Which one.’ Now I was puzzled.

  ‘There are two young ladies who live there?’

  This was something I had not contemplated. ‘Well, Sylvia has short dark hair…’

  ‘Ah, yes, and the other one is a blonde. Artificial, rather a brassy colour.’

  I reached into my inside pocket and brought out the photograph that Brian Garner had given me of his wife.

  ‘Is that her, the blonde one?’ I asked, passing it to Agnes who held it up to her face and squinted at it.

  ‘I think so,’ she said at length. ‘I can’t see properly without my glasses. Come inside while I get them and I’ll be able to tell you.’

  I followed the old lady into a neat and tidy sitting room, where everything shone and sparkled from assiduous dusting and polishing. Even the wooden arms of the chair she offered me glowed brightly. She retrieved her spectacles from the mantelpiece and, sliding them gracefully on to her nose, she gazed at the picture again. ‘Mmm, well, I think that’s her. This was taken a few years ago, I imagine. She’s much more glamorous now. Her hair looks quite dull here. Now it’s as bright as that film star—that Harlow woman—and her face is always thick with makeup. The other girl, Sylvia, is much more restrained, plainer, dumpier.’

  ‘How long have they lived here?’

  ‘About two years, I should say.’ She chuckled gently. ‘But I can’t be certain. When you get to my age, time doesn’t mean as much as it used to. One day is much like the next and yet they fly by.’

  I nodded with what I hoped was an understanding and sympathetic smile.

  ‘I’m a little confused,’ she said, removing her glasses and peering at me with her clear blue eyes. Which one of these girls are you seeking? You asked me about Sylvia and yet you have a photograph of her friend.’

  She had me there.

  ‘Well, I know them both,’ I said, with as much conviction as I could muster. ‘But Sylvia is a special friend. You see, I’m just briefly in London and I wanted to call in and say hello.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ she said, but I could tell that the canny old bird didn’t believe a word I was saying. She was beginning to see through my paper-thin charade.

  ‘Do you know where she works, or her friend?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t, my dear. I see them in the foyer from time to time and we pass the time of day but I certainly don’t know their intimate details.’

  I felt as though I’d had my wrists rapped gently.

  ‘But as far as you know they
both work.’

  ‘Well, they leave the building in the morning and return in the evening.’

  ‘You don’t know what they’re doing now, I suppose? They used to be hairdressers…but with the war…’

  ‘I thought you were a friend.’

  ‘It’s some time since I’ve seen her.’

  ‘It would seem so.’ The voice had lost its warmth and the features had hardened. I could feel the frost building up inside the room. I knew it was time to depart. I had been too eager to get information from little Agnes and in doing so had underestimated her perspicacity. The shrewd, sharp-witted woman that she was, she had sussed me out.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ I said as I reached door.

  ‘If I should see Sylvia, who should I say was asking after her?’

  I uttered the first name that seemed appropriate: ‘Brian Garner.’

  As I was leaving the building, a burly postman brushed past me with his bag and a little light flickered in my head. I lingered in the foyer until he had departed. And then I retraced my steps to Flat 11, stepping inside once more. There, lying like large pristine snowflakes on the doormat were two letters. I scooped them up. They were both addressed to Miss S. Moore. I opened the first one. It was a bill from a milliners for a ‘black pill-box hat’. It told me nothing of consequence for my investigations, only that my Sylvia had a penchant for perky headgear. The second, however, was more fruitful. It was a short letter from someone who signed themselves ‘Aunt Ada’. The handwriting was crabbed and spidery suggesting that this aunt was quite old. She hoped that Sylvia was fine and that she had got over the ‘sad loss’. It seems like only yesterday, but I find it’s nearly two years, she added. What was of particular interest was the sentence, I hope you are still enjoying your senior position at Madame Rene’s Beauty Parlour. I knew you had the skill and talent to obtain a position in a high-class hair salon in such a nice area. Aunt Ada closed with extra best wishes for the forthcoming festive season. There were three tiny kisses following the scribbled signature.