How the Dead Live (Factory 3) (9 page)

‘Since when was the place in this state?’

‘I never noticed,’ he said, ‘I suppose that it slowly declined. My wife and I each had our own work. We were never ones for detail, and there would have been the cost.’

Had, I thought. We were never ones for. There would have been the. ‘You’re not a rich man,’ I said to him, ‘why do you live here?’

‘Where else would I live?’ he answered, confused.

Rain, which I could see pelting through a glassless window, had now set in for the night. It tapped monotonously on floors, on tables and broken chairs as we passed – a gilt clock without its dome and smothered in verdigris stood with its hands forever at twenty to ten on a dripping mantelpiece. Pictures, eighteenth-century prints and maps, askew on the walls, some lying on the floor in their own glass, gazed at us in the light of Mardy’s gas-lamp – light that also glanced across a tallboy with jammed and swollen drawers, on a stricken chandelier with half its lustres missing. It danced over a music-room with a concert grand in it; moss choked the blocked teeth of the keyboard. It slid over partitas spread wetly on a stand, on a drenched metronome with its pendulum rusted out to the left, and the water streaming down the walls glittered in it.

‘Why don’t you get the roof done at least?’ I said.

He stopped to look at me. ‘Don’t you realize?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘There’s an acre of it; life’s hard and I’m sixty-three.’ A gust of wind swept past us, slamming a door. Mardy’s eyes fixed me from his disordered, unshaven face. I studied the hairs that curled out of his ears and nose – the mouth that slipped down one side of his face in an expression that was not a smile.

We walked on.

‘Don’t you feel lonely here?’ I said.

‘No. I’m never lonely.’

Finally we were confronted by a door which he opened. ‘Here
we are,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first and put the light on, then you’ll be able to get on with your questions.’

‘There’s plenty of time,’ I said. The light came on. The room was warm after the damp we had walked through, and I smelt cooking. The smell was stale, the bad cooking of old people.

‘Sit down,’ he said, pointing to an old armchair.

I did so and said: ‘Where we’ve been through, was there any wiring in those rooms?’

‘There was,’ he said, ‘but it’s rotten so I don’t use it. It’s old and the wet gets through into it if you don’t look out.’

‘The wiring looks new in here, though,’ I said.

‘Yes, I’ve had some of it redone. This is my study in here though it’s half a kitchen now.’

Bookshelves covered two of the walls, a cooker stood against another next to a sink, and there were saucepans on a draining-board. It was a low room compared to those we had come through, and vaulted.

‘This is the old part of the house,’ Mardy said.

In a corner was a partner’s desk covered with papers. I just wandered over and had a look at what lay there. There were a lot of bank statements in Mardy’s name with the name of his bank on them. None of the statements looked very promising. There was other correspondence too, but I didn’t bother with any of that.

He took off his anorak. ‘You’re starting your questions?’ He looked thinner than ever in his cheap shirt – his ears, the too large ears of an old man, showing through his grey, uncombed hair.

‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘do you ever hear people’s voices in this house? I’d been told you lived alone, yet I thought I heard voices when I arrived.’

‘The only voices I hear are past voices,’ he said, ‘that begins happening to you when you get older.’

‘So you’ve no one living in? No staff?’

‘No, I’ve no staff at all.’

‘But you did have a gardener for a while called Richard Sanders.’

‘He’s gone now.’

‘Why?’

‘I wasn’t happy with his work.’

‘No more to it than that?’

‘No. I weed round the house myself now.’

I was sure he was lying; his answers were pat and too short. I said: ‘Until your wife returns?’

‘Yes.’

‘So in the meantime you live alone here in eighty rooms.’

‘As you see.’

I said: ‘Have you any idea where your wife is at this moment?’

‘All I know is that she’s gone on a long journey.’

‘Do you know where? Come on, she must have told you something.’

‘She’s not been well; she’s gone until she gets better.’

‘But how long was she going for, and where to?’

‘I don’t know how long for, but I think she’s probably gone to France since she was French, though she didn’t say. She was ill, and tired of our existence here at Thornhill for a while.’

‘But you only think she’s in France, is that it?’

‘That’s all I can tell you, yes. She was a mysterious woman.’

‘Even so,’ I said, ‘you must have had some news of her, her whereabouts, since she left. No? Nothing at all? That’s what I find mysterious. Aren’t you worried about her? Don’t you miss her?’

‘Miss her?’ he said. He choked right to his lips, a most sinister sound. ‘Excuse me.’

I said: ‘What family has she got in France that could be contacted for news of her?’

‘She had a brother but we haven’t written for years, I couldn’t tell you.’

‘So all you know is that you believe she’s in France somewhere, but you don’t know where, and you haven’t had as much as a postcard from her. That is what you’re saying, isn’t it?’

Tears came into his eyes. I said: ‘Look, I’m only trying to get at the facts. That’s my work; that’s why I’ve been sent down here, people are worried about your wife.’

‘She’s resting,’ he said. ‘She just got tired in the race.’

‘I’d like to hear more about her illness,’ I said. ‘What exactly was the matter with her?’

‘A general malaise.’

I don’t know why, but instinctively I didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Did she go for treatment of any kind? A local doctor here? Or to London?’

‘No, she said she’d rather go home to France for a long rest,’ he said, ‘and visit a doctor there. To France.’

I try to act out of disinterest, which nearly always clashes with my superiors’ ideas of what my work should be; but I can always tell when something’s hiding from the light.

‘Why did she wear a thick veil round the lower part of her face?’ I said. ‘What was she concealing, do you know?’

‘She had begun to hide from the world.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘She was your wife, and you don’t know? Did she take the veil away in front of you?’

‘Never.’

‘You realize I can’t be satisfied with answers like that.’

‘They’re the only ones I can give you.’

‘Why?’ I said. ‘Because they’re true, or just convenient?’

He said nothing, just looked away. I could have threatened him, but I was no Bowman – I wasn’t in the business of smashing down the resistance of an old man at the end of his tether, for I knew I was in the presence of a profound sorrow. So I stood up and said to him: ‘I’ve got other inquiries to make,’ since I was sure I could get at the answers I wanted by applying different methods to other people – I didn’t want to drive anybody mad. I only said: ‘I’ll have to come back again I’m afraid in the next day or two, you can be sure I’ll know a great deal more by then.’

‘There’s nothing to know,’ he said. ‘My wife’s just ill and abroad in her home country – if only you could all just leave me alone.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible now I’ve come down,’ I said. ‘I’ve no choice – I either have to get to the bottom of something or else put in a report that’ll wipe it off the books.’ This reminded me of his bank statements I had just seen on his desk. I said: ‘You’ve got money worries, haven’t you?’

‘Hasn’t everybody?’

‘Who is it?’ I said. ‘The bank?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what else?’

‘Tradesmen.’

‘What sort of tradesmen?’ I said. ‘Who are they? What are their names?’

‘No one I could pick out.’

I said: ‘Look, Dr Mardy, I can see you’re in some trouble you’re not telling me about.’

‘I’m not, I’m not.’

I said: ‘Be honest with me, because then I think I could help you.’

‘Isn’t that what the police always say?’

‘Some of them mean it,’ I said, ‘but if you won’t help me, I can’t help you, and I have a feeling I want to.’

‘I’m in trouble I can’t really explain,’ he said, ‘yes, I admit that.’

‘You mean you can’t explain it because you don’t know what the trouble is?’

‘Oh no, I know what it is all right,’ he said bitterly.

‘But you won’t tell me about it.’

‘I can’t. I’m literally not able to tell you.’

I said: ‘Come on, Dr Mardy, it can’t be that desperate.’

He said: ‘It is.’

‘I’ll find it out, you know,’ I said. ‘Not just from you, from all sorts of people here. I think there may be a villain or two about.’

He was quiet for a while, then he said: ‘What will Inspector Kedward have to do with your inquiry?’

I said curiously: ‘Why do you ask?’

He only shrugged, but the shrug was perhaps the most important answer he could have given me. Not for the first time, I was impressed by the association of words. No sooner did I mention the word villain, than up he came with the name Kedward. I picked up my torch.

‘Tomorrow, then?’ he said. ‘At about this time? I’ve no telephone, I’m afraid, but the front door will be open.’

‘That’ll be all right,’ I said, ‘I’ll have found out plenty by this time tomorrow.’

He relit his lamp and led me back through the rotten house and down to the entrance. ‘Goodnight,’ he said.

‘Goodnight.’

I went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the night thinking.

I came down the Quayntewayes staircase next morning at ten to ten. The steps had a way of making their concrete known to your feet under the cut-price carpet, and the reception hall, as it was named in green electric lights, had that enticing British habit of reminding you that you were on the away ground here.

An old blonde whose head looked as if it had been left behind in a train and whose bra was too big for her breasts sat behind the switchboard. She wore a ring with a big enough stone in it to deter a sex maniac, but had a nose like a peashooter that would have put him off anyway.

‘What was you wanting?’

‘Breakfast.’

‘Too late!’ she crooned triumphantly. ‘Kitchen shuts sharp at half eight, nothing till lunchtime now. Here,’ she said, pointing at a notice behind her with a finger that looked as if it had been borrowed from an archery course, ‘can’t you read?’

‘I’m good at it,’ I said, ‘and I could show you some card tricks too if I had as much time on my hands as you have, but I haven’t. Do you know a man called Dick Sanders?’

‘What do you want to know for?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I might want to tell him he’s won the pools; on the other hand I might want to tell him he’d been done for shagging sheep. What bloody business is it of yours?’

‘I don’t like your manners,’ she said, turning a dull orange colour.

‘Then you can think yourself lucky you don’t have to live with them,’ I said, ‘and not getting any breakfast makes my temper worse. Now do you know him or not?’

She said: ‘If you aren’t careful I’ll call the management and have you thrown out – you’re insulting, you are.’

I showed her my warrant card and said: ‘It’d take a little more than you, dear, to get a police officer thrown out of anywhere, so just answer the question, it’s quickly done, you either know the man or you don’t.’

Her whole manner turned coy. It’s always the same with people like that – they either spit at you or else go over on their back. ‘Of course I didn’t realize you were a police officer,’ she said, looking thoughtfully at me and nibbling a nail that curved sharply inward to get at the finger it grew on. She considered, lips spread across indifferent teeth. ‘I know him by sight,’ she said finally, ‘most people in Thornhill do.’ She shuddered delicately; it made her look like something being carried by a paraplegic waiter. ‘The Sanders are all just slag.’

‘I don’t care about that. Do you know where he lives?’

‘Somewhere out by Lakes Mill, who cares?’

‘I do for one,’ I said. ‘They on the phone?’

‘How do I know?’ she said. She nearly sniggered, then thought better of it. ‘I’m not in the habit of ringing people like the Sanders, my husband wouldn’t like it. He’s very strong, my husband is, and works for Cashabout, the security firm.’

‘I don’t care about your husband or where he works,’ I said. ‘Give me the local directory.’ I drifted through the S’s. The Sanders were listed OK, so I dialled them.

‘My husband, he works right through the night sometimes,’ said the receptionist.

I got the ringing tone and said to her: ‘Be quiet, will you?’ The phone answered the other end and a woman’s voice screamed down it: ‘Well?’

‘Dick Sanders there?’

‘No, he’s not in!’

‘He lives with you, doesn’t he? You’re his mother?’

‘Yes I am, no I’m not, yes he lives here, no he doesn’t, who the hell are you?’

‘I’m his uncle Bill, tell him.’

‘My Dick’s not got no uncle Bill.’ Then she got it and screamed
backwards from the phone: ‘My life, it’s only the old bill on the fucking phone.’

I said: ‘I’ll be round to see him today, this afternoon most like, make sure he’s in, ma.’

‘More of you interfering bastards!’.

I rang off. I made a note of the Sanders address. The receptionist said: ‘You like quick results, you do, don’t you?’

‘They’re the best kind,’ I said. ‘Do you know a house called Thornhill Court?’

‘Who doesn’t?’

‘Did the Mardys come into this hotel?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Did you see Mrs Mardy about with a scarf or veil round her face?’

Her own face went deaf and blind. ‘No.’

‘All right,’ I said, ‘I see there’s no point my pressing it. You just take my messages for me, all right?’

‘This isn’t the Policeman’s Arms.’

‘Just do as I say,’ I said, ‘and you’ll spare yourself a big pain in the fundament.’ I walked out of the hotel and into the morning. The weather was sharp and overcast with ice in the gutters. I walked up what was left of the old high street past the arch of the coaching-inn, now a boutique on one side and a fast food on the other – now, I guessed, the only carriages to be seen there were on veteran car club day, the only horses when young bank managers came down holding their children’s bridle on a Saturday morning. But why be bitter about progress? I walked past cottages converted into offices, with soft-looking men and breastless little brides hard at it on their IBMs behind bow windows. I looked at the business signs – Walter Baddeley, Estate Agents, HM Inspector of Taxes, a Listening Bank, W. Baddeley & Sons, Funeral Directors, until I got to the Jolly Sailor. His picture looked just as bucolic and amused as it had done last night while it swung benevolently over the five whites chasing the Asian, except that by morning light his smile and chubby cheeks looked improbable and hung-over. I went through into the public bar; the place was empty except for an African who was sweeping up.