by Joan Fleming
So when a young policewoman called at the neighbouring flat to that of S. Ledge she found it singularly unrewarding. This flat was on the same level as that of S. Ledge, the entrances from the same strip of balcony but divided by the lifts and two half floor-to-ceiling walls which effectively screened the doorways from each other. This neighbouring flat was occupied by two Italian waiters, long resident in England, so wrapped up in one another that they did not even know their neighbours by sight.
It was possible to live a more solitary and companionless life in Fiery Beacon than in the Western Desert; at least in the wild deserted places people greet one another in passing but not so in Fiery Beacon.
Thus, alone in his flat, S. Ledge mapped out his future for himself. He surveyed his financial affairs and affirmed that he had had one thousand eight hundred pounds in his current account at the bank; he had paid his rent for three months in advance, the electricity had been paid up to the last reading, he had bought a different car on part-exchange for cash and he had four hundred and thirty-six pounds and eleven pence left, taking into account what was under the floor boards.
He was in a much better position than any of the, as he thought, poor, pathetic train robbers, only one of whom at that time had not been captured and put into prison for thirty or so years. He had a lot more brain, he thought, for one thing; there had been too many involved in the train robbery whereas he, S. Ledge, worked on his own. The police had nothing against him, W. Sledge or S. Ledge, whereas all the world’s police forces were out after the train robbers.
The bigger the amount of loot the bigger the organisation had to be, he realised, but on the other hand, how much safer to keep it small, even if the gains were proportionately less.
He was a tidy chap, that much he knew because it was the only fragment of praise for him that had come from his mother in years: “I will say this for Winston: he’s a tidy boy.”
His thoughts were tidy, too; look how wisely tidy it had been never to have given his receiver friend an inkling of where he lived! And keeping himself out of the way when Amrita received her male visitors had been another tidy move; keeping out of the way: those hours he had spent at the swimming baths, at the ice-skating rink in Bayswater, watching television in the big stores, going to race meetings, it had all been worthwhile.
Just one tiny slip annoyed him, that he had taken Frances Smith to find a job at the premises of people who knew him and knew where he lived. That certainly was irritating but he put his carelessness down to Love at First Sight. The subsequent snatching of her luggage had been a small mistake, too; intended as a tiny revenge, in a way, for her wordless rejection of him sex-wise.
But then … if he had not taken her to “I Was Napoleon’s Mistress” she would never have known his name or his address; she would have vanished out of his life since she never intended to take the job he so kindly found for her, and he would have been denied a fine future, married to a young lady of class and money.
Yes, Madame Joan’s warnings had been timely, now he was taking care, it was, perhaps, a small pity that he did not go to the fortune-teller on the evening he went to collect Joe Bogey for their last “job.” It was annoying that she kept such strict professional hours.
He had now killed two women, he said it aloud, sitting on the plastic-covered stool beside his spotless kitchen table. “I have killed two women.” He said it again: “I have killed two women!” There was a kind of grandeur about it; he felt it to be satisfactory, somehow, that he should have killed two women, so neatly, so cleanly (well, perhaps not so cleanly in the case of Amrita) but cleanly in that there were no messy police court proceedings that led directly to him as the killer.
He knew it sounded crude and unkind but he could not help a slight feeling of pride in his work.
This being the day that poor little unfortunate Amrita was to be buried, three o’clock the time, Sledge knew the form, he had pride in a certain rectitude he found in himself, he dressed himself carefully in his neat tight black suit with the short sleeves and the newly-bought black tie. It was seemly, he thought as he climbed into his car, that the unholstery was black; he would have preferred red but upon this occasion the sober black upholstery was just right. He drove to the undertakers. He had agreed to pay them thirty pounds in cash so he could hardly grumble at the attendance, which was four bearers, not their best by any means, merely their part-time ones, slightly down-at-heel and shiny-seated as to trousers. However, one could not have everything for thirty quid. Not even … not even a grave to oneself but a municipal multiple grave in a cheap part of the cemetery.
Having followed the hearse at a decent slow pace, in third gear, he parked the Rover beside the cemetery gates and followed the coffin being pushed on a trolley rather than carried shoulder-high, along the tarmac paths.
There was no parson and no prayers, by his own request. She was certainly not a Christian, with that red caste mark upon her forehead, and how could he possibly be expected to know whether she would like Buddhist or Moslem or Hindu prayers said over her remains? Rather than, as he put it, make a faux pas (he pronounced it foh par) he had requested nothing at all. After the coffin had been lowered into the clayey hole the bearers moved back and looked expectantly at W. Sledge, almost as though they were prepared for him to throw himself in, or was it merely that they expected a tip? He stepped forward and allowed to drop on to the lid of the poor quality wooden box a small, now rather faded bunch of violets which he had bought specially last night.
Wordlessly, disappointed perhaps, the undertakers withdrew, walking briskly back with the bier towards the main entrance, invisible from the graveside. A workman with a barrow passed and as Sledge stepper farther back from the graveside, trying not to soil his new shoes overmuch, he saw an Indian or Pakistani couple standing not far off, looking, surprisingly enough, at him. Though it was not a particularly cold day they were that curious colour, greyish green, which a member of that race can take on so pathetically. The woman was wearing a gaily coloured sari but over it a long tweed coat so that the only part of the sari that showed was mud-bespattered and dirty from the London streets. They looked dejected, cast out and brought into darkness; W. Sledge was not near enough to see that their eyes were of the chocolate-drop type; they only seemed to be peering out from deep, blue-grey caverns.
At him.
But what the hell?
He walked briskly and confidently away.
There were a few people about, some crouching over the graves of their loved ones, changing the water in the vases, laying flowers on the ground or taking away dead flowers. Sadly and ineffectually the foreign couple tagged along behind the living, and striding boldly, with his new self-confidence, W. Sledge. He now whistled as he walked, it was a relief to get poor Amrita decently buried, after the terrifying mess she had been in, it made him happy and light-hearted to have done the right thing by her poor broken body.
He swung through the gates and into the street, he fumbled in his pocket for the keys, fitting one into the lock, opened the door of his car. He sat for a few moments with the Rover fluff-fluffing luxuriously beside the pavement … no hurry because it contained a satisfied young man, a man, that is, completely satisfied with himself and all his works. A man, indeed, who found himself admirable in every possible way. And not only admirable but, to use his own words: Bloody marvellous! The foreign couple caught up by now and, standing at the gates, watched him drive away. What else was there to do?
And now … young Sledge he would a-wooing go, wearing the same clothes he had worn for the funeral, he took the brown paper carrier of clothes he had worn for the slaughter.
Sometimes, when he allowed his thoughts to go back to his unhappy encounter with Lady, Whatshername, Bellhanger, he had stabs of regret that he had been too cautious to take her gun and not leave it lying where it fell. Now, he very much wished he had, because guns could do a lot for you, with birds. He thought he could easily go to a gunsmith and buy one but he did not
consider it wise. The trouble with guns, as he had so often told The Wotchas, was, they went off; occasionally when you didn’t really mean them to. If he bought a gun from a gunsmith, the gunsmith would for sure inform the police (they did, he’d proved it) and if you didn’t go for a licence they’d be after you. And if you did, well, they knew you were the owner of a gun.
At the time he had congratulated himself, as he so often did, on his foresight in not taking the gun which fell to the ground from the old lady’s hand. If it ever came to a showdown, as it wouldn’t of course, it would help to convince a possible jury that he had no intent to kill, but that she certainly had intent to kill, the murdering old so-and-so.
To get to the Bogeys’ flat he had to go down to the ground floor and take the lift round the other side of the building, and this he did, carrying the brown paper carrier and whistling cheerfully and hopefully. He knew the form at the Bogeys’ flat, you rang and waited to hear Pa Bogey’s voice through the intercom beside the door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Mr. Bogey, Sledge.”
“What do you want?”
“To see Joe.”
“Joe’s not at home.”
“Can I see you then, Mr. Bogey, please?”
“But what about?”
“I owe Joe some money.” That would do it, he thought, and it did.
To his surprise Mrs. Bogey opened the door, she was usually out at work at this time. “Come in,” she said and, shutting the door after him, led him into the living-room where Mr. Bogey sat in front of the window in his chair, his lower limbs covered with a rug. Beside him was a chess board and Mr. Owland from downstairs was playing chess with him. This old man made no attempt to go when Sledge entered, the three adults stared at him with such intensity that Sledge began to wonder. He didn’t have to wonder long. Mrs. Bogey had the whole thing worked out; he was now sure that Joe, as one might expect of such a contemptuous twit, having lost his nerve, had Told All. Sledge had always been slightly scared of Mrs. Bogey, she had brains, an accusation which could never be levelled at either of his own parents. Very often during the time he had known the family, Sledge had been brought up smartly by Mrs. Bogey but not so much of late, that is since Joe had been slowly fighting his way to freedom.
They did not ask him to sit down, they stared at him but not simply: in a frightening, complicated way.
He was just very slightly unnerved; he had meant to hold on to the brown paper carrier until such time as he had decided where to dispose of it but as it was, he was taken by surprise and put it down where he was standing, against a table leg; he brought out the bundle of notes for Joe, using both hands to count them, thus showing the others how much there was.
Wordless he handed it to Mrs. Bogey.
“Joe doesn’t want it, thanks,” Mrs. Bogey said quietly, “and he’s finished with you, Sledge. He’s grown up in these last few days.”
“Oh he has, has he?” Sledge said nastily.
Mrs. Bogey gave her husband his cue by looking expectantly at him.
“Look, young man,” Pa Bogey took over. “You’re out, in this family anyway, I think you’ll have a job explaining yourself to your Wotchas over this Bellhanger case. They don’t want murder. Look, I’ll bet none of them have been at your old meeting-place since it happened, am I right?”
Sledge didn’t know because he hadn’t been either; he hadn’t seen any of them.
“Yes, they’ll have hopped it at the sound of murder, like an ant-run vanishes when you spray it with insecticide, except for those who’ve fallen dead; they’re left lying there … but in time even the ants venture out to remove the bodies.”
Sledge took the tough line: “What the hell are you going on about?” he snarled. The cheek of it! Parents! Carrying on this way!
Mrs. Bogey took a soft line: “You see, we all know, everything. It’s a pity for you because when a lot of people know a dead secret … it’s dangerous, and you can’t kill the lot of us.”
Sledge received a small stab of fright; what did she mean by that? Could she possibly have been referring to the little domestic mishap of Amrita?
“Oh I see,” he snapped back, “so you’re keeping quiet to shield your tiny kid Joe, are you?”
“Not necessarily,” Mrs. Bogey returned steadily. “If Joe’s questioned, you’re caught, that’s for sure and you know it.”
“And if you’re not caught,” Mr. Bogey added, “you’ll be on your own altogether in future and you’ll be caught, sure as eggs is eggs.”
Sledge couldn’t help asking why.
“Why? Because you’ll get more and more confident, of course; in fact I’d say you were that now, since you are quite sure you’ve got away with your girl-friend’s suicide, aren’t you?”
Sledge could have fainted, he could have swooned right away.
“You know,” Mr. Bogey went on, “that disguise you’re wearing, I was foxed for about five seconds after you came in, didn’t recognise you, thought you were someone impersonating yourself, on the intercom.”
Mrs. Bogey frowned slightly to warn him from going too far. Sledge had gone a more deathly white than usual; afterwards Mrs. Bogey confessed she had been “dead frightened, thought he was going to lay about and slay the lot of us.”
But Sledge was far from slaughter just then, he was struggling with this awful weakness of his stomach nerves, he had to vomit.
He said something unintelligible and literally staggered from the room; still holding the money he had offered, he crossed the hall and slammed the door after him.
“What did he say?” Mr. Owland croaked.
“He said we’d all be sorry for this,” Mrs. Bogey murmured absently; she stooped down and picked up the paper carrier, so carelessly left behind, pulling out the contents and spreading them on the table for the men to see. The jeans, the fisherman’s knit sweater, the orange cotton pull-over with the polo neck, the beads …
She went over to Mr. Owland. “Well done, old sleuth!” she congratulated him. Mr. Owland chuckled, his head shaking from side to side. He was the only living soul on the south side who had paid attention to the tragic accident on the north side. Who had made a few discreet enquiries and put two and two together, that is, W. Sledge and S. Ledge. “Trust a chess-player,” was the modest reply he had made to the praises of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bogey.
As often in the past, he was sick in the lift, going down to his parents’ flat on the eighth floor. Still looking greenish and puffy, still carrying the fistful of money, he rang their bell. His mother was nearly always to be found at home in the daytime but he hadn’t expected to see his father, who was having a day’s rest. His mother cried out with surprise when she saw him.
“You’re looking terrible!” she exclaimed. “Whatever have you done to yourself, Win?”
“He’s dyed his hair,” his father observed sourly; “To escape police detection, I suppose.”
“Yer face is all sweaty, like when you’re sick!” his mother screamed.
For a moment W. Sledge could not recollect why he had come. There was, in fact, no reason, it had been pure instinct, that of a sick animal returning to its pad, except that it was not the place he considered to be his pad. It betrayed a bad crack in his adult defences. He found himself holding the notes and thrust them forward.
“Here, you can have these.”
“No ta!” his father barked shortly.
“What do you take us for?” his mother asked, looking greedily at the money. “You keep your hot cash to yourself.”
“Bin turned out of your base in Colindale? Have you?” his father asked shrewdly. He knew this was no social call.
“Well, if it’s shelter you’ve come for, Win, the answer is … no!”
“You chose to leave home, you’ve made your choice and that’s it,” his father added in agreement with his wife.
“And if the police come snooping round here I’ll tell them straight,” his mother’s voice was rising, b
ecoming more shrill.
“Tell them what?”
“Tell them you’re dead rotten!”
“That’s not evidence, that’s opinion.”
“Oh, you think you’re so bloody clever …”
Ad nauseam.
There was naught for his comfort here. He left. When the front door slammed behind him, his parents were staring at the very slightly unrolling notes on the table in the manner of dogs put on Trust for a biscuit, watching the biscuit tensely until the words: Paid for!
Mr. Sledge wanted it for betting; Mrs. Sledge for Bingo.
It was a bad thing for someone whose nerves were already raw and stinging that he should arrive back at his flat on the seventeenth floor to find two dicks waiting for him. They seemed enormous, taking up so much room on the tiny sliver of a balcony outside the flat door. They were leaning over and staring down into the playground and rough ground where the cars were parked below, talking together as though they had all the time in eternity.
They turned slowly, greeting him in the manner they would use when expecting his arrival. “Mr. S, Sam would it be? Ledge?” Might they come in? They were not the ones he had met before.
His heart gave one of those curious bounds when he remembered where he had left the brown paper carrier. Fortunately his stomach was empty, he had only to make the effort to control the nervous retching.
Stopping a long way short of calling him Sir, they were civil, almost uninterested. It was a routine call, they said. It concerned a robbery and they were checking up on all the Jaguar cars in the district because one of these cars had been seen near where the robbery took place.
In the district … that would mean on the outer edges of Chelsea and Battersea. In other words, the term was ambiguity itself, meaningless, he thought. And if they were referring to the Kensington robbery, where the old lady was murdered, why search for owners of Jaguar cars in Chelsea or Battersea, why not search the whole Metropolis, the whole of England, in fact; since, with the new motor-ways it was easy to go a long way in a short time now. Three hours after the robbery in Kensington the robbers in their Jaguar could be in Bristol, Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester almost.
