How the Dead Live (Factory 3) (25 page)

‘Then the man who always sat on the pavement to draw by the entrance to the pub was there again; he often appears in those dreams. He had no limbs but drew with coloured chalks between his teeth, the Houses of Parliament and London scenes.

‘I go down to be with Marianne in the night. She is always near me, I sense her arms tight round me in the evenings and feel her saying hush, quiet your tears, I’m alive in a different place now and would be in heaven if only you could join me. I tell her I’m just coming and by a breath not to shake a spider’s web she whispers, I’m always here for you, always, because you kept your word. She tells me there are streams, lands and cities better than on earth and says, I sing all the time now, remade and longing for you. We have
to work the fields of heaven, she says, to produce a new seed; there’s much to do and we need you.’

He gazed at me and said: ‘It sounds banal, the dialogue of bereavement, doesn’t it, but it isn’t. The power of imagination as well as of science is so great, that thanks to the engines of the brain and heart we create that life beyond death which we are sure must be possible for us.

‘Reality is to be questioned, not accepted. Matter dangles on a rail, drawn and dark like a curtain or an overdraft. Our state is an unending crisis and the invisible, crammed with errors, crashes through us. Defeated, broken, my ideas ridiculed, my beliefs punishable by law, I am in an impossible decline, going to the point where life and death squarely cross. Reason steers me to my end; nightly both hurry in against me between damp sheets. But I resist, knowing that life is a short fever.

‘And so power is crowned and uncrowned at a stroke, the change between trust and murder.

‘I have cost none of you anything. I want to be helped out of myself now, having been here long enough; I want to fly upwards as the white bird of death.

‘They will laugh at me in court; everything I have ever done or thought will look absurd. Yet I have been through hell.

‘I remember when I was young I went out one September morning into Kent between Maidstone and Rochester and walked through the woods; the leaves were just turning. It was nineteen forty-one; I was on leave. Under slowly gathering weather, vast clouds, I walked for miles, considering what beauty and eternity were, and if I could ever carry off their prize. At last I lay down by a stream near Holborough quarries with my sandwiches and beer – you know what it is, such happiness as is possible for us must be had at once. I still see that day; the world felt bright as a new penny, like 1500; I still smell the smoke from the fields where they were burning off the stubble. I stayed there dreaming until my watch told me that I had to go back to the war. So I got to a pub called The Duke Without A Head, where I was staying on my
own, had an early supper, changed into uniform and took a taxi for the train. In that train I leaned out into the dusk as the carriage drew away round the curve from the station; I was filled with passion for all I had seen on my long walk; everything in the land I had seen seemed to me worth dying for, even as an army doctor. I had a case and gas-mask with me, I recall, also a thin book about love. I went on staring out at fields and towns increasingly obscured by night.

‘Ever since I have spent my time trying to struggle forward to where I can get into a position to think.’)

(‘During my treatment of Marianne I realized that existence is much more serious than many of us suppose. Just before I carried out the operation on her for the tumour she suddenly took my head into her deep breast and sang to me for a while in the dark. I reassured her about her illness, but she only shook her head at me, that I had already shaved, and smiled and said to me, you’ve done all you could. I’ll always comfort you, she said, now never be afraid of love, and I said, the only fear I have of love is losing it and she whispered, that will never happen.’

He was silent and then added: ‘It seems to me all the same that there’s nothing in my contract with existence that obliges me to live out every inch of it. I don’t know, perhaps I ought to rewrite my entire life, but I’ve no time now; forgive me.’)

They rang me from reception to say that a Mr Bowman and a Mr Fox wanted to see me in the lounge.

I went down and walked across the spaces between empty sofas till I reached them where they were waiting at the back of the room. I said: ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said to Fox: ‘You particularly. I already told you to get lost.’

‘Now don’t get cheeky,’ said Bowman, ‘watch your bloody tone.’

‘Get your little cocks out of my fundament,’ I said, ‘and everything’ll be OK.’

‘It’s orders I’ve got to try and be patient with you, Sergeant,’ said Bowman, and Fox sniggered.

I turned to him and said: ‘You find me amusing, do you?’

‘That’s right,’ Fox smirked.

I said: ‘You think that because you’re standing next to a chief inspector you’re running no risk, is that it?’

‘I suppose that’s right,’ said Fox.

‘You jaunty little man,’ I said, ‘wipe that smile off your face or I’ll smear it over a wall, now shut your boat.’ I said to Bowman: ‘Have you or your demon apprentice here touched this case at all?’

‘We’ve been up looking around,’ said Bowman, ‘yes.’

‘You’ve seen my man?’

‘It’s all quite in order,’ said Fox, laughing, ‘after all, we are police officers, and so what about it?’

‘I’ll tell you what about it, darling,’ I said. ‘If either of you have as much as sneezed on that man I will have your guts for a garter, now is that plain language or isn’t it?’

Bowman said to Fox: ‘He’s always like this, Darenth.’

‘Oh Darenth,’ I said. ‘What a sweet pretty name.’

‘Just let him row himself deeper into the shit,’ Bowman said to Fox. ‘No need to get riled, I’ve had years of practice with this one.’

I said: ‘Tell me what you have both been doing.’

‘Up your jumper,’ said Bowman, ‘we don’t have to tell you anything, you cheeky berk.’

I said: ‘Have you found out where Mrs Mardy is?’

Fox said: ‘We have.’

I said: ‘How did you find out?’

Bowman said: ‘We came down with a W, we did your work for you. I decided it was a serious crime. We went up, turned the place over, and found her OK.’

‘You dolts,’ I said, ‘and they call that detective work, just bomb straight in, never mind who gets hurt – what have you done to her?’

‘Never you fucking mind,’ said Fox, ‘this is for Serious Crimes from now on, we’ll take it from here.’

‘What did the husband do when you looked into that fridge?’ I said.

‘He came on a bit,’ said Fox, ‘and so fucking what?’

‘I’ll tell you fucking what,’ I said. I went over to him and hit him in the mouth so hard that I cut my knuckles open on his teeth. His problem was that he didn’t believe I was going to do it until it was too late; he went down like leaves in a hailstorm. I turned to Bowman and said: ‘OK, who’s next, do you feel like having a go? I’ll wreck that jacket for you if you like.’

He didn’t fancy it. He went and examined Fox, squatting down to do it. He said to me: ‘You cunt, you have really hurt him.’

‘That’ll teach him to keep his mouth shut,’ I said. ‘I’ve told you before, Charlie – never, never interfere in my business. Your friend can lie wired up in hospital for a month or two and think about that.’

‘What a lot of fuss about a killer,’ said Bowman. ‘Just because
we had the current cut off,’ he added. ‘You know you’re going to be disciplined over this, don’t you?’ ‘It won’t be the first time.’

‘No,’ said Bowman with satisfaction, ‘but it’ll be the last. I’ve finally got you. You wait and see the report I’m going to put in about this. You’re just a cunt, I’ve always told you that, and you deserve what’s coming to you the way a pork chop deserves apple sauce.’

I said: ‘Never mind that. What state’s Mardy in now? This is one more time you won’t make superintendent, Charlie. I’m going to heat this up for you, and so is counsel when it comes to court.’

‘You swear against me in court,’ said Bowman, ‘and that’s your career completely fucked, I guarantee it.’

‘By the time this comes to court,’ I said, ‘I’ll doubtless no longer be a copper, so get stuffed.’

‘You certainly hit him all right,’ said Bowman, peering at Fox. ‘I’ll say that for you. Poor sod.’

‘My arsehole,’ I said.

‘You people in Unexplained Deaths are funny,’ said Bowman, ‘very funny. Anyone’d think you were on this murderer’s side.’

‘I am,’ I said. ‘But it’s too complicated for you, Charlie.’

‘You’re a fool,’ said Bowman. ‘Anyway, you’re a goner.’

The night porter hobbled on to the scene and said: ‘Gents, I’m sorry, but you’re making too much noise, folks is trying to sleep. Haven’t you no bleeding beds to go to?’

I went back upstairs and heard my phone ringing. ‘It’s me,’ said Cryer, ‘I’m in a call-box just outside Thornhill, what do you want me to do?’

‘Play this my way, Tom,’ I said, ‘please. I’ve got myself in bother, but never mind that. Go straight back up to Mardy’s place and stick to the man till I can get to you.’

‘What’s going on up at Mardy’s?’

‘I’ll tell you now what you’d have found out anyway – his
wife’s in a deep-freeze in the basement and has been for months. This thing’s all breaking, I just want it to break my way and no other. Now this is your chance for the interview, but I want you to calm the man, not turn him on. I know it’s not your role, but help me and I’ll help you. You just look after the man till I can get up to you there, don’t bully him for the story now.’

‘What’s the rush?’

‘The rush is that I’m afraid you’ll find him in a terrible state – an interfering jumped-up detective-inspector has had his current at the house disconnected so they can get the body out and take it to the morgue for an autopsy, and if what’s inside the fridge there rises far above minus sixty-five centigrade it’ll start to go bad, and that’s what the rush is, Tom.’

‘But what did this man get the current cut for?’

‘It was just sadism.’

‘Did you get uptight with him? I know you.’

‘Yes, I altered his face, and that’s the trouble I’m in.’

‘It sounds like trouble for you all right.’

‘It does, and it is.’

‘I heard Charlie Bowman was down around there somewhere, nosing about.’

‘He is,’ I said, ‘I’ve just left him. But until I’m officially suspended I’m still on this case.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Wipe Baddeley up while I’ve the time, plus one or two others. Can you contact me?’

‘I’ve got a phone in the car.’

‘Give me the number.’

When I had it I said: ‘You’ll need strong nerves in that house, Tom, I’ll tell you.’

‘Worse than McGruder?’

‘Just as bad,’ I said, ‘but differently.’

‘No real story’s ever easy.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘it isn’t. Now for the love of Christ get going.’

I got through to the emergency service of the electricity board and explained who I was and what I wanted.

‘I’ll have to check.’ The man I was talking to was gone a long time, and when he finally came back on the line he said: ‘I’m afraid what you’re asking for’s not possible.’

‘Oh?’

‘The Mardy electricity supply’s not to be touched; it’s to be left disconnected, and that’s police orders.’

‘I am a police officer, and I’m asking you to reconnect it.’

He took my name and rank and said: ‘This has come down from higher up than you.’

‘Can’t you bend the rules just for once? It’s this man I’m worried for.’

‘It’d be my job if I did. Anyway, there’s a lot of money owing on that account.’

‘There could be a life owing if something isn’t done right away.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What’s the use of that?’ I said bitterly.

‘Why don’t you talk to the area manager in the morning?’

‘Why don’t I talk to almighty God?’ I said.

(Mardy had said to me: ‘I take dignity and respect among people to mean everything, honour and mutual trust – nothing else seems to matter. In that belief I find it possible to reach across any barrier and, if only in my dreams, retrieve every thing I have lost. I’m sixty-three now and ruined, but others will take up the great path.

‘My life and heart scatter on the wind of broken images. It’s hard for me not knowing why, for I’m sure I don’t understand what’s happened to me. Existence, to me, is so closely associated with experiment and risk that it’s painful for me to be destroyed by a society that understands neither. I can only say that in my heart I belong to a time when all men were free, and that now I grieve how we went down in our innocence.

‘However, my dead remarry in the air I breathe, invisible yet solid, reliving their situations in this wet house – a calm, upright spirit is the one response to evil, and that is our fight.

‘At least I know now that what I have lost here I can never lose again.

‘Oh God, if I had been born stupid I would have gone to my death like an ox and been eaten for my meat by my tormentors without ever knowing or caring why.’)

When I got into Baddeley’s living-room he was not alone. There was this chunky young sod with him in a white denim jacket and jeans, the latter with some dinner over them. The aggressive stare in his eyes was spoiled by their redness; he was a pisspot to me. You could see he was used to the fighting game by the way he held himself, but I doubted if he had ever seen many rings but stone ones – i.e. a street. When I came in Baddeley said: ‘What do you want?’

‘Both of you,’ I said. I said to the young fellow: ‘Who are you? Is your name Prince?’

‘That’s right, copper,’ he said, ‘Johnny Prince I call myself, and what is your fucking name?’

‘It’s here on my warrant card,’ I said, showing it to him, ‘but that’s not what you really need to bother about. It’s what I’m going to do to you that you need to concern your brains with.’

‘Ho, ho, ho,’ he jeered, ‘and what might you be going to do?’

‘Nick you, turn you round and send you off to an HM Prison workshop for rather a long time.’