by Alan Hunter
The Major had stayed across the room. I could hear his thick breathing. He had turned his face away from the lamp: he appeared as a heavy shadow, gilded with crimson. I picked up the whip and flicked it, making the lash whisper over the bed. The Major’s breath caught in a moan: he edged further towards the gloom.
‘Was it . . . in here, then?’
I cracked the whip, making him jerk straight suddenly. His monocle had gone. Half his face was still shadowed: he stared wincingly at me across the bed.
‘Is this your property?’
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘Better take it then!’
I hurled the whip at him. He threw up his hand too late and the stock caught him across the face. He grabbed the whip awkwardly, sobbing.
‘Now, we’ll make a fresh start. You were going to tell me what happened on Monday, why you wrote the letter to Miss Swefling.’
‘You c-can’t prove that!’
‘You’ve just admitted it.’
‘No!’
‘Yes! Don’t bother to lie. Or do you want me to rope you to this bed and flog it out of you – the way she did?’
‘It’s not true!’
‘Hand me the whip.’
‘Oh God. Oh my God!’
‘You’ve been here before. You know this house. You know this room, all that went on here.’
‘Please . . . no!’
‘You were her lover – or she was yours. Which was it?’
‘Please. . . please!’
‘Hand me the whip.’
‘No, no . . . oh no!’
He dropped sobbing by the bed, his face burrowing into the velveteen drape. It was obscene. I could have kicked him. I knew suddenly he wanted me to use the whip. I took a couple of steps to the window and flung the curtains wide apart, letting a blaze of evening sun fall on the moron snivelling at the bedside.
‘Get up!’
‘Oh, please!’
I grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet. He blubbered and squinted, dazzled by the sun, but I wouldn’t let him hide his face from it.
‘Pull yourself together!’
‘Please, please!’
‘If you don’t, I’ll shove you under the shower.’
‘You . . . you’re heartless!’
He screwed up his eyes and sobbed.
It was enough: too much. I dumped him on the bed and got out of that room. I went back into the lounge and lit my pipe and stood staring through the window at the ships that passed.
Several did pass. As I smoked and waited I was watching the sun go out of the sea, and distant green hulls, buff funnels, white superstructures fade into blueness on a distant slate plain. At my elevation the horizon was remote, and never more so than during these minutes: the approaching night seemed to reveal a new country in the last narrow band between sea and sky. Ships, which before were simply larger or smaller, were now precisely charted in their relation with each other, and the high, pale curtain that stretched from beneath the cliffs appeared as only a small step towards the vastness beyond. And watching all this I found myself switched off: as though I had stepped out of time for that while.
But time returned. I heard a step behind me. The Major stood in the doorway. He wasn’t snivelling now, just looking pathetic, his monocle dangling and his eyes reddish. He had a glass of whisky in his hand: the glass was one of the dirty ones from the bedroom; they had been printed, but not washed, so he could have been drinking after his niece or the dead woman. I beckoned to him. He entered the room. Now I could see his face was paler. But there was a stillness about him, an absentness: perhaps the beginning of resignation.
‘I suppose my . . . lady wife . . . must be told.’
I twitched a shoulder. ‘This isn’t a game.’
‘It will be a shock for her, a great shock.’
‘So will the news of your arrest.’
‘But I’m not guilty, sir. That is the truth.’
‘Then you have a great deal to explain.’
‘Yes.’ He closed his eyes and took a sip from the gummy glass.
‘You’d better sit down.’
He moved obediently, taking a chair near me and the window. I sat across from him and occupied some moments in scraping out and relighting my pipe. Should I take him to the station? My instinct was against it. The delay and change of scene might break the spell. He was ripe now, ripe for confession, and once I’d got it I didn’t think he’d go back on me. He sat stooping forward, his arms on his knees, his empty eyes fixed on the coffee-table. Give him a cue? No. I drew smoke silently, and waited.
‘You . . . you haven’t any personal experience, sir?’
I tried to get his eye, but couldn’t.
‘Experience of what?’
‘Of . . . that sort of thing.’ He gestured with his head towards the bedroom.
‘I meet it in my profession.’
‘That’s not the same thing, sir. You’re seeing it only from the outside. But it’s different, sir, not what you’d think. Not . . . wrong. You don’t feel that.’
‘Is what you feel the criterion then?’
‘Yes, sir. Yes. There can’t be any other. Condemn me if you like – despise me, sir. But I don’t condemn or despise myself.’
‘Perhaps you feel superior to common morality.’
His head jerked. ‘You don’t understand. Morality and immorality don’t come into it. It’s something . . . beyond that. Something . . . loving.’
‘You love the lash.’
‘No! But a loving relation . . . a tender feeling.’
‘Expressed in violence.’
He gave a dragging sigh. ‘It wasn’t wrong. It was a way . . .’
He drank some more, several sips, his hand and lips trembling. I looked away. The sea was slowly blanching as the night crept out from under the sky. The dull blue shape of a passing trader was dusted with a pale, secretive sparkle: lights. And the gentle surfing sounded hollower, more articulate.
‘This . . . it’s been going on for several months.’
‘How did you come to make her acquaintance?’
‘One evening . . . before that I’d noticed her sitting in the bar of the Pelican. Watching me . . . you know the way a woman makes a man notice her . . . then smiling. Something in her smile. Never anyone sitting with her.’
‘Did you speak to her?’
‘No. Didn’t have the nerve to, sir. I mean, I’m pretty well known in there, it would get about if I talked to strange women. But I kept noticing her, the way she sat, the way she dressed, held herself. And her face, that was unusual. Had to keep wondering about her face.’
‘In fact, she was laying for you.’
He sighed gently. ‘Yes, sir. I have to admit that now. But at my age it is a little flattering to arouse even that much interest in a woman. She was youngish, you know, could have gone for youngsters. Must have been something she liked about me. And she was good to me, never disrespectful . . . never till that one time.’
‘How did she pull it?’
He was briefly silent. ‘I met her one evening on the Common.’
‘You mean she met you.’
‘If you say so. She was merely exercising her dog. The dog was lame, sir – thorn in its foot – wasn’t any doubt about that. So I took a look at it, natural thing to do. Then I helped her carry it back here.’
‘That dog was permanently lame.’
‘It was in pain, sir. I can vouch for it.’
‘It was still lame yesterday evening.’
He drew a deep breath, but didn’t reply.
‘So she brought you straight here, into her parlour.’
‘Yes sir. I’ve just admitted it.’
‘Then the dog was forgotten. She gave you a drink. Told you how happy she was to make your acquaintance.’
‘It wasn’t quite so crude, sir.’
‘But that’s what happened?’
He nodded, his mouth bitter.
‘And you finished up in
there with the red lamp, and a tale to be told when you got home.’
He winced.
‘What was the damage?’
‘Sir?’
‘How much were you paying Mrs Selly?’
‘Paying her?’ He looked startled. ‘It wasn’t that sort of association, sir.’
My turn to gape! ‘You mean you weren’t paying her?’
‘No, sir. Money didn’t enter into it. I gave her presents, cigarettes, a handbag, but never money. It would have been degrading.’
‘But . . . what was she getting out of it?’
He coloured delicately. ‘That is not for me to say.’
‘It was pure love?’
‘A loving relationship.’
‘But with a whip!’
His mouth shut tight.
We sat silently again. I didn’t believe him for one moment. Vivienne had been queer, but scarcely queer enough for a perverted love-match with a sexagenarian. Meanwhile, alongside, and doubtless more agreeable to her, had continued her antics with the girls; and it was against this background that she had set out to bring the Major into her clutches. An ulterior motive there must have been: had she been clever enough to conceal it? Unlikely, and so much more likely that the Major was simply lying. I stared: he moved uncomfortably; he nervously drank the last of his whisky.
‘I want the truth! Are you claiming she asked nothing of you?’
His glass jogged. ‘Not – not till Monday.’
‘Not till Monday!’
‘That was the only time. Until then she’d never asked for a penny.’
‘But on Monday she did?’
He squeezed the glass. ‘Sir, even then it wasn’t what you think. There was a business matter she wanted help with. She could conceivably have gone somewhere else.’
‘Except that you she could blackmail.’
His head drooped. ‘There were . . . threats. She became excited.’
‘Perhaps more than threats. Revelations?’
His head drooped further; he looked beaten.
‘So now we’re back there again,’ I said. ‘What it was that happened on Monday. Leading to what happened on Tuesday. And this time, I’d like the answers.’
Footsteps passed below, out of sight, and he cocked his head, listening. They faded. The room was isolated again by the sea. Out there the pallor and the darkness were merging into a uniform greyness, with the horizon no longer distinct between water and sky. Ships, moving jewellery, could have been sailing or flying in the undifferentiated void. A street-light flipped on. Its light was wan, ineffectual.
‘You think that I . . . did it?’
‘I think you had reason.’
He drew a deep, wavering sigh. ‘Yes sir. Yes. Reason enough. I’d think the same if I were in your shoes. I’m a soldier, too. That’s against me. I know all about killing. There’s plenty of blood . . . here. I was at Alamein, sir. At Normandy.’
‘You have killed men.’
He nodded. ‘But I did it without hatred.’
‘Still . . . you took life.’
‘Not willingly, sir. Not to serve a personal end.’
‘But the way is familiar to you.’
‘I know too much, sir, to take that way. It comes back to me too often. It should be no man’s duty to kill.’
‘Yet the occasion arises.’
He sighed again. ‘The poor girl. She must have been desperate. But it was no use. I couldn’t help her. I simply didn’t have the funds.’
‘Then money did come into it.’
‘Yes. But not as the prime consideration, sir. What she was seeking was an object in life, something to save her from aimless drifting.’
‘And that was to be what?’
‘A little business, sir. A shop in Church Street she had her eye on. She had noticed that we lacked a wool-shop in Wolmering and she was convinced she could make one pay.’
‘With, of course, your support.’
He bowed his head. ‘The project required a certain capital. The shop needed decorating and fitting-out, then there’d be the stock and a little publicity. But she wasn’t asking for a gift, sir. The proposal was partnership. She had some small savings she was prepared to contribute. I would receive capital repayment from profits plus an adjustable income during the life of the partnership. It was sound: she had had business training. But unhappily, I didn’t possess the capital.’
‘So that was it!’
He ventured a glance at me, but quickly sank his eyes again.
‘She was setting you up for a fat shake-down, and on Monday the pressure began. What were these threats?’
‘She was excited, sir—’
‘The first was to tell your wife, wasn’t it?’
‘Sir—!’
‘And then to put it about the town that the gallant Major was a flagellant! A fine scandal. You’d be finished here, through with your wife, through with Wolmering. And on top of this a piece of news – your niece was in it as deep as you were!’
‘Sir—’
‘What was the end to be? How were you going to shut her up?’
‘Please, I beg you!’
‘You couldn’t – could you? Because you didn’t have the money!’
The glass clattered to the table and he covered his face and whimpered. I stood up, letting my chair scrape, and closed the window with a slam.
‘Of course, you had to kill her. I understand that. It was the only practical solution. She forced it on you. If she’d been less greedy you might have worked something out. And you’ll get sympathy. The people here didn’t have any time for Vivienne Selly. All that really matters now is how to clear things up quietly.’
‘No . . . no.’
‘Yes. That’s best. A defended trial would bring the press in. If you don’t defend they won’t be interested – it’ll be just a walk-through at the local assizes. You won’t be required to say a word, we’ll simply read out your statement. A piece of routine court-business. Only good for a filler paragraph.’
‘I can’t . . . !’
‘It won’t really be so bad.’
‘Please, no! Don’t ask me.’
‘It’ll be off your mind. You can relax.’
He rocked his head. ‘Can’t. Can’t . . .!’
I banged out my pipe on the stacked ashtray. Sick, sickening: a filthy business. And not even a confession to extenuate me, to let me feel I was a good policeman. I struck the table.
‘All the same, you did it!’
‘No sir, no. No, no!’
‘You plumped a cushion on her face, then put your weight on it.’
‘I am innocent, sir. Please, I am innocent!’
I stared down at the poor swine, but the disgust was for myself.
‘All right. Get up. We’ll take your statement.’
One way or another, I was going to ruin him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BUT NOT YET: not quite yet. I permitted myself to do a foolish thing. Perhaps somewhere along the line the town had begun to soften me, to win me over on its side. At the station we found only two duty men: Eyke and his colleagues were out or off-duty; but on his desk still sat the tape-recorder, with a virgin spool newly-fitted. I used it. That was quite improper. Officially, I hadn’t taken the Major’s statement. All those damaging admissions, now docilely repeated, could be denied again as readily as uttered. I didn’t think the Major understood this, but any lawyer he employed would; and if a case was lost in consequence it would be a serious blot on my record. To hedge my bet I put a seal on the spool and had the Major sign it before witnesses; but this was window-dressing. The spool was fiction, and only the Major could make it something else.
A fine evening’s work! I returned to the Pelican to wash out my mouth with Scotch. The bar was crowded and droning comfortably with conversations I couldn’t join in. I sat till closing, about half-an-hour. Then the waiter I mentioned came to tell me his piece. He’d just remembered the Major’s buying Mrs Selly a drink, a
medium sherry, but several weeks ago. That one time? That one time. The Major, and nobody else at all.
I slept badly and woke when the shadows were still long in the market-place. I tried to drowse again but couldn’t; I bathed and dressed and went down. The kitchen staff were stirring and they gave me a mug of their special brew: sweet, pungent stuff, about the colour of old mahogany. Then I went out. I went up by the Guns and along the low road to the harbour, striding briskly, trying to throw off the dull fumes from my brain.
Because I hadn’t slept the Major away, nor the frightened face of Pamela Rede. The one and the other had broken my rest all the time my head was on the pillow. I was dreaming of hangmen, of the death-cell, of two collapsed figures being dragged along passage-ways: the ghastly dreams I used to have before state murder was reluctantly abolished. I was linking them together, the Major and his niece, while at the same time indignantly denying the collusion. Hence the dreams. The idea was growing in me, and I wanted to keep my eyes averted.
I reached the jetty and continued along it till there was nothing before me but the sea. The tide was incoming, running up the harbour in a series of curious, dolphin-like swells. Sun above sea made a gaudy shimmer below a pale, pacific horizon, and a red-funnelled tanker, motoring northwards, showed sharp and distinct as a primitive painting. Where was the dog now, the limping dog? Doubtless the crabs were picking his bones. My slender clue, the other piece of his lead, had not been found by Eyke and his leg-men. Not, for example, in the Major’s backyard, where his garage opened on a quiet service-road . . .
I picked up a splinter of driftwood and hurled it into the soft-going tide. Certainly there were holes in the case against the Major – it needed no defence counsel to point them out! He would have to have been lucky, strangely lucky. Nobody had seen Mrs Selly visit him. Of the hundred or more windows overlooking his house, apparently not one had harboured a witness. Had she entered at the rear? Same objection. To reach the service-road she must pass the houses. And if he had gone to the cottage and killed her there, how could he have removed the body unobserved? This last alternative was unlikely for other reasons (of which the tying-up of the dog was one), but one or other we would have to establish if the case was to go forward.
