In a sudden alteration, she brought her body close to his. She put his hand on her breast. 'I didn't mean that just now,' she whispered. 'We can make love, afterwards, we can, I won't mind, anything, afterwards.' In her urgency, she pressed herself against him.
The drum beat in Murray's skull. On the outer door, the fist beat steadily.
'If it is him, he's here to kill you,' he said.
She stepped back, needing room for her great moment.
'He's my father.' And she nodded, eager to share it. 'Not Frances – just me. My father. Mine. I've always known that. There's no way he wouldn't come when I told him that. He won't hurt me.'
But Mary O'Bannion was dead. What she said was impossible, a crazy thing. He struggled to find the words, a man in an alien country, that would make her understand.
'And Annette Verhaeren?'
An iron bar beating down into the flesh that had mothered her. The knocking on the outer door stopped.
'He'll go away,' she cried in the same soft hasty whisper. 'Oh, you bastard, why won't you go in there, before it's too late,' she began to push at his chest, herding him backwards, 'please, before he goes away, you fucking bastard – I didn't mean that – you're right.' He was the mirror in which she might glimpse these alterations. 'You're right, he's here to be punished, we'll punish him, there's a lane at the back, and I've parked my car close – please, please, he's going away – it won't be difficult, with two of us it'll be easy –' She had actually driven him back by the strength of her desperation. With her hands fluttering at his chest, he stepped into the narrow pantry-like space. Giving in, he moved away from her unurged until he was by the window. Through the droop of soiled curtain, he could see into the room they had left. 'He'll be just another of them,' she whispered. 'Just somebody else found in Moirhill.'
Out of the dark, Kujavia came, a small man, hardly taller than the woman, but very broad. He was wearing a suit rumpled enough for him to have slept in it, but the material looked heavy and of good quality. When he unbuttoned the jacket, braces showed curving over a little high paunch. His shirt was open at the neck with a scarf knotted at the throat. And Murray knew him with his lumpy potato face, dull, malicious, brutal, those erected spikes of black hair; he was the one from the nightmare out of the circle of standing men, a silver club glittering in his hand, the arc of his arm carrying darkness. A small man, not much taller than the woman, but very broad.
Apart from one glance round as he entered, Kujavia seemed unsuspicious. Perhaps he had been watching and had seen her arrive alone. In any case, it did not seem to occur to him there might be anyone else in the flat.
Behind the glass, they moved and gesticulated. The woman came nearer and then, as if surprised, retreated. The man's face was distorted by a heavy jeering contempt. His mouth moved and he showed his teeth like a dog. On his side of the glass, Murray listened in the silence to the uneven thunder of his heart.
Did you ever set a trap, Kujavia? You go back and it's been sprung. When you're very young and squeamish, it isn't a nice sight. The bar beaten into the fur of its neck. The paws stretched out like small hands. I was so squeamish, being young, that I picked all of it up by the edges of the wooden base, in a piece of newspaper so I wouldn't really touch anything, and threw it in the bin, trap, mouse and all. The mouse dangling like a glove, boneless and empty. Mother was angry at the waste. She made me go out and empty it (the horror in case the dead thing clung) then fetch it inside. A trap for every time – that would be expensive. She said to me, You have to learn to live in the real world.
And it always caught them across the neck. Crack! And you saw the pink show of its tongue. And a tiny pile of shit at the back, so little you might not notice it as you lift the trap away. It must nibble the cheese and release the trap and then jump back – for if it didn't, the bar wouldn't land exactly there on the neck – crack! Believe me, it's worked out. Whoever makes these traps, works it out. But suppose the mouse, when the trap moved, froze still? That might save it. Nobody's ever imagined a mouse that kept still when the trap went.
But whatever, whoever, would be able to stay when the great terror whistled in the air? –Nature was against it.
When he opened the door, it seemed Irene was as startled as Kujavia. They were standing as close as conspirators or lovers interrupted in guilt. Kujavia took three or four trotting steps backward, groping behind him, feeling for the door. 'Oh, fucking bitch,' he spat venomously. 'You do this. You do this to me.'
It was the moment of surprise. It was cripple or kill time and never a better chance. The knowledge was mapped into the memory of his muscles. Yet he let the precious time of advantage pass though he had been trained so it came more easily to act, his body, like the bodies of so many men, made over into an obedient animal prepared to slip the leash. Yet he stood, the animal was forgetful; his will tangled in the strangeness of their resemblance, as if beauty and ugliness could be confused.
And as the moment was lost, Kujavia made his own act of recognition.
'Sure...' He struggled with it, the thick pulpy brows drawn down, then showed a row of yellow teeth. 'Sure! I give you a small lesson when Mr Heathers ask me, then he take you on. He hire you. What is it? Does she pay you? Is that what she promise? She doesn't have any money. She talks fancy, but I know her. She's nothing. I pay you. I'm a rich man.'
'I was going to tell you he was there,' Irene said on one breath, like a child pleading.
'What do you care about this, mister?' Kujavia asked contemptuously. 'It's not your business. Is she going to sleep with you? I give you plenty of women.' He turned the black deadness of his gaze briefly on the woman. 'Or her. I can give you her. Blair Heathers is a rich man – like me. But I know how to handle the women.'
'I don't want you to be afraid of him,' Murray heard Irene cry. 'I don't want you to be afraid of anybody. He told me you killed –'
'You be quiet,' Kujavia interrupted her, without raising his voice. 'I don't tell you to speak. Keep your mouth shut.' He began to sidle forward, addressing himself now to Murray, keeping his attention fixed on the other man's eyes. 'You go away now. You and me don't have quarrel. Forget you ever been here. I deal with her, okay? You don't hear of her any more. You take some money. That's what you want. That way you have no problem, no trouble. I'm a rich man.'
Murmuring, he crept forward. It was too obvious a trick. Yet Murray waited inertly, his hands by his sides, his body slack. He was barely conscious of the words or what they meant... at first you could hear men all round you hidden among the trees and then there was only your own breath and the sounds your feet made on the iron floor of the forest... In the morning, a father and his sons came with blood on their boots and hands. Merchant's nightmare and his own fused. A murderous peasant who would kill him.
He was saved by the sweet smell of human dirt tickling the nostrils like sickness as Kujavia took the last step. It released the animal in the body. He knocked away Kujavia's fist with its deadly armour of rings striking for his throat. It was a forearm block and done with such force it took them off their feet and crashing to the floor with Murray underneath. As the terrible little man hooked for the eyes with his thumbs, Murray caught him by both wrists.
Like that, locked in an effort so great that they were held in a matched stillness, Murray understood that he was going to beat Kujavia. He was younger. He was stronger. All the frustration and doubt were burned away; the confusion was burned away in violence. The fear of death that the eating pain in his skull had taught was gone. Everything was simple. Steadily, remorselessly, he forced up his right hand to turn the other man. Kujavia panted, began to slobber with the effort, but little by little was being twisted. Each of them knew how it was going to end. They saw in one another's eyes the same knowledge.
Kujavia swooped his neck and open-jawed went for Murray's nose with his teeth. He was quick but Murray's response was faster. The hard crest of his forehead smashed into Kujavia's face as it came down. He felt the chee
kbone splinter and sink. In the shock of pain, Kujavia reared up and Murray saw above them Irene holding a knife.
The handle of the knife was brown. In the kitchen a set of them were laid out in the compartments of a drawer. Each had a brown handle and its blade sheathed in a plastic cover. He had passed them over as ordinary kitchen knives, but now, recognising one, he identified all of them. They were butcher's knives for severing, boning, chining. Honed, such a knife was sharp enough to slice meat without pressure: flesh melted under it. Holding one of them, a woman was a match for any man. Like a silver club, the knife shone on the arc of her arm. Murray heaved up in an effort to escape and in the same instant Kujavia writhed in the air like a blind worm.
The trap shut.
With a mortal scream of anger, Kujavia collapsed along the length of Murray's body, who bore his weight, felt him shudder and sigh until with a final threshing of the legs he groaned and lay still. He had bitten off his tongue and blood flowed from his mouth on to Murray's face.
In a convulsion of terror, Murray threw off the body. He jerked it away at Irene forcing her back and off balance. In the same movement, picked up by fear's hand, he was on his feet and had caught her by the forearm with both his hands. As he squeezed, she released her grip and the knife fell to the floor. Struggling for breath, they leaned together.
There was no way now of telling if his life had been at stake.
31 The Last Victim
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16TH 1988
'Tommy Beltane?' Murray asked.
It was a bad omen.
'There's Eddy,' Billy Shanks, distracted, was watching a group of men coming out of the building and starting across the yard. 'If I could get him on his own, I might learn some of the details.'
'What did he phone you about?'
'Who?' His attention elsewhere, Shanks was puzzled. 'Oh, Tommy – phoned this morning – I don't know – Hell! There's Peerse come out as well. I wonder if Eddy will be going with him'
He gave a little muffled snort of laughter. 'Would you know he was disappointed? Peerse doesn't bend – but he's had the leaves blown off. He had an idea Jill was his big chance – now it's over and –'
'Have they arrested her?'
'You're hurting me.' Murray had to force his fist to unclench off Shanks' arm. 'They're looking over. You'll get us arrested, Murray. It was all nod and a wink stuff from McKellar in there, but they're looking pleased with themselves. All except Peerse – I think he's coming over.'
The tall figure, followed by Eddy Stewart, detached itself from the group. As he watched their approach, Murray put his hands in his pockets to hide their trembling. He had not seen Irene since he had lifted the awkward weight of Kujavia's body out of the car.
When he came back, groping down the unlighted stair, she had driven away, either frightened off or abandoning him according to some plan of her own.
'What's he been doing? Crying on your shoulder?' Eddy
Stewart jerked a thumb contemptuously at Murray.
At the harshness of that tone, Billy Shanks' arms flew up from his sides as if he would pull his two friends together. 'On my shoulder for what?' Billy cried in distress.
From his great height, Peerse's gaze drifted over them, chilly and remote.
'Billy's the one who's been doing the talking,' Murray said. 'He tells me I'm innocent.'
'Were you accused of something?' Peerse wondered mildly.
'You were asked questions. If you're found wandering about Moirhill at one in the morning, you must expect to be asked questions.'
'Have you been held all night?' Shanks asked, suddenly understanding. 'We just met,' he explained impulsively, 'when I came out from the briefing. He was here and he asked me for a lift –' He broke off and cleared his throat nervously.
'It's all right, Billy,' Murray said. 'You're innocent too.'
'What did they hold you for? Just for walking about the street?'
'He had blood on his clothes,' Eddy Stewart said.
The words created an odd lengthening silence. The other men had left the yard and they had it to themselves. Although the sun had come out, it was cold in the long morning shadow of the building. A police car slid across the gate entrance and stopped. When Peerse looked towards it and then at him, Murray understood and fell into step at his side, walking towards the gate. Something unspoken was communicated between them.
'If I'd been there,' Peerse said, nodding back in the direction of the building they had left, 'during the night, I'd have asked you different questions.'
'Yes.' Murray made the simple acknowledgement; it was a fact they recognised.
'Would I have got different answers?'
'Maybe, then.' As he spoke, Murray was conscious of Peerse's gaze turning down to him. 'Not now.' They crossed the line of the shadow of sunlight. 'As a matter of fact, there weren't all that many questions. I spent most of the night in a room, waiting. Sometime after it got light outside, they started. But pretty soon, this guy came in and whispered something - and they went and left me. That was it. I think they forgot about me, until just now when they let me go.'
As they came near the car, the driver started to get out, but, at a gesture from Peerse, scrambled back, closing the door again.
Through the glass, Murray saw him staring straight ahead. 'Kujavia was found dead last night,' Peerse said. 'That's why they left you alone. Mary O'Bannion was found lying beside him. Would you like to offer a theory for that?'
'They quarrelled about something. Did he use that bar of his on her? It's surprising he hasn't killed her with it before. I don't know how she got him.'
'Did I say she was dead? You're right though, and about the iron bar. Only while all this was going on, she managed to stab him. They found the knife in her hand. It was quite a special knife apparently – and so they've decided she was Jill.'
'Mary O'Bannion?' Murray was so genuinely astonished, that he could not hide his incredulity at the idea.
'The psychologists will explain it all to us,' Peerse said. 'She was taking revenge for a lifetime of being abused. They're not much help while you're looking – but if you can give them a name, they'll fit an explanation to it for you.'
'None of that sounds like proof.'
'Oh, proof,' Peerse echoed ironically. 'You don't understand. It doesn't take a lot of evidence to convict a dead woman. There isn't going to be a trial. Not that they won't be cautious, nobody's going to say anything for the record. Not just now. They'll wait and see, let time pass – if there aren't any more Jill killings, that's all the proof they'll need. Sometime during the night, McKellar decided to see it that way; after that they all did. Shanks and his crowd got to read between the lines this morning. Nothing official. But from now on, everything runs down.'
'Unless there's another killing.'
Peerse shook his head. 'I'm an exceptional man in a profession that values mediocrity,' he said, without any particular emphasis, 'but I don't wish that. I should, believing in justice. Maybe I've been pretending not to be different for too long – with just enough showing to make myself distrusted and do the damage anyway. Maybe I'm not exceptional anymore.' He contemplated that possibility. 'I think it's possible the killings might have stopped – if so, we'll never know why. But McKellar will close the file. That fat clumsy whore will have killed them all. Did you ever see her walk? She wore slippers all the time, but she got rid of the bodies in back alleys in Moirhill. It's wonderful what a fat cripple can do. So it's probably over.' He stood, impossibly tall, and asked, 'Are you sure there isn't something you want to tell me?'
'Not if it's solved,' Murray said.
Peerse nodded abruptly and got into the car. He had to duck his head because he sat up so straight.
As Billy Shanks drove back into town, Murray stared out at the mean shop fronts of Moirhill Road flawing past and wondered where Irene might have gone. Had she gone home, back to the house she had shared with Malcolm? He had to see her.
'That was a long tal
k Ian Peerse had with you,' Billy said, jerking the car to a stop at a red light. 'Yes.' He whistled tunelessly, leaning forward over the wheel to watch for the lights to change. 'It wasn't like Peerse somehow... Yes. He seemed to be doing most of the talking. That's not like him. Not like him, eh?' He smacked into gear and wrenched the car forward. 'He's an arrogant bastard, but I could see he wasn't happy this morning. Not with any of it. What did you think?'
'I think,' Murray said, 'that I prefer Peerse arrogant.' But it was more than that.
What would he find to say to Billy, if he was able, if he could make himself be different?
-I thought that Peerse was the hunter who would not get tired. Without knowing it, not until now, he was the one I had put my faith in: so that whatever I decided or did, in the end he would make it be right. I knew, you see, he believed in justice, Billy – like me – only I didn't expect him to get tired. I thought he was an exceptional man.
'It's always just the one way with you, Murray,' Billy said. 'But if you want to get information, you have to give a little. That's something I've learned.' He concentrated on joining the traffic coming off the bridge; grey concrete legs of the flyover flicked past. A lorry laden with gaping pipes hung over them. They ran into a tunnel and out again. 'Eddy wouldn't come. I don't know what's happened between you two, but he sounded as if he hated your guts. I'm sorry.'
Because I said he was bent. Or maybe it wasn't even because of that: after all, Eddy's been on the take for a long time: that's something all of us know about Eddy. Because I wasn't polite to him in front of Blair Heathers – perhaps that was it; a man has his pride. But, Billy, aren't you supposed to be the one who hates Heathers? You should be on my side, not Eddy's. My friend, not his. My friend.
'Come where? Where was he supposed to come?' Murray asked.
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