Nine Lives (20 page)

‘See you next time,' I said, as I left her at Waterloo. That was my mantra too.

I was glad that Donald seemed to have found some form of happiness. He'd been happy enough when we'd been together. But sometimes he'd get depressed and the mood would last for days. I tried to talk to him about it, to find out what was the matter. But he was silent. Angrily silent. So I didn't ask any more.

Once there was a Christmas concert at the boys' school. End of term thing. The boys were in the school choir. We both love carols, Donald and I, and we went to cheer the boys. There were going to be a number of turns. There was no programme, so the headmaster announced each performer. The concert started with a short nativity play by the juniors. Then a young boy, about twelve he was, played the piano. And he was really good. I often wonder what became of him. Then there were carols and Donald took hold of my arm, and I heard him singing along under his breath. He was happy then. Occasionally he would squeeze my hand and I would respond. I remember we were happy. Both of us. And at the same time.

But it was not to last. I shiver now when I think about it. After the carols, the headmaster announced the last item of the concert. He promised us a treat. The performer was the pride of the school. He had been awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. The board was deeply impressed with his prodigious talent.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' he said. ‘Trevor Hope.'

And on came Trevor. He was a handsome lad. Smiling. Over-smiling, perhaps, to cover his nerves. He gripped his guitar under his arm. He made for the stool, centre stage, and rested the guitar on his lap. At last he seemed to relax. The smile faded, and as he dropped his fingers on to the strings, he closed his eyes and began. And it was then that Donald snatched his hand out of mine, and I felt him shiver beside me. He could have been moved by the boy's playing, but Trevor had hardly started. I couldn't understand it. I tried to take his hand, but he pulled it away. I stared at Trevor and tried to concentrate on the music. It was so beautiful that for a while I was lost in it as were the rest of the audience, who sat in awed silence. So when the slightest sound broke that silence, it was like thunder. And it came from beside me in the form of a sob. I dared to look at him and I saw tears rolling down his cheeks. He was racked with sorrow. I prayed that the recital would soon be over and that the applause would drown his weeping. And when it mercifully came, I was the first to put my hands together to cheer that young boy who seemed to have broken Donald's heart. The applause lasted for some while, and I prayed that there would be no encore.

Trevor left the stage, and the headmaster once again took the platform. He thanked us all for coming, and reminded us of the collection that would go to the fund for Christmas gifts in the local children's home. The audience began to leave. I took Donald's arm. He was calm. He wiped his face and put on a brave smile. Instinctively I knew that I should never, but never, make any reference to his disturbance. And I never did. But I kept remembering it, and on my way back home from the
prison that day it attained a dazzling clarity in my mind. And I wondered whether it was part of that elusive ‘why' that I was seeking.

I've never read this diary. I've written it. That's all. And when it is finished, when my crusade is done, I shall throw it in the fire. It is for no one's reading. Not even my own. In truth, I am afraid of it. For there are times when the purpose of my mission and its compulsion, there are times when they blur and almost fade: the attic, the rope, the kicked-over stool, the shattered guitar, all those images of my crusade; sometimes I wonder whether I have dreamed them all. It is because of those moments of loss of faith that I am afraid to read this diary. I've only two more to go. Though I think of it as one. Because the ultimate call will not be random. It has been in my sights since the very beginning. I know its address. I know whom I shall see, I know exactly what I shall say. And all of it gloveless, for what happens after that won't matter any more. I will have conquered and I will have found my peace.

But there's the rub. And that's why I delay. Why I postpone that final
coup de grâce.
It's because I fear that the peace I have been seeking all these years will elude me, because its price has been so monumentally high. So I delay. I shall spend my time reinforcing those images of my cause. I shall dwell in that attic, glued like a limpet to its door and I shall view the hopeless overturned stool, the shattered guitar and the rope. And I shall shut my eyes on what the rope cradles. Thus I will nurture my purpose, invigorate my resolve, and all will be well. I shall cease to be a murderer.

But poor Mr Quick still bothers me. No amount of righteous motive can justify his careless dispatch. I say to myself
it was human error, but the word ‘human' sits uneasily in that context. It was a mindless and brutal murder. When this is all over, I shall seek out Mrs Quick and offer, for what they are worth, my profound apologies. For then I shall be at peace with myself. I shall have honoured that pledge, the pledge that I made to myself all those years ago, the pledge that I swore on that attic threshold.

It took me some years to start on my crusade. I was not lacking in resolve. Or even courage. My enemy was procrastination. My marriage to Emma was one cause of the delay. I simply didn't trust her enough. She was a born questioner, and I could hide nothing from her. All I could give her was my silence, a silence filled with plans awaiting process. Then she left me and Verry happened. Verry, who found my silence normal and was not given by nature to questioning. And it was her total acceptance of everything I did and didn't do, of everything I said and didn't say, it was that acknowledgement that allowed me my first sortie. Thereafter, I seemed to be wholly licensed.

And as I plied my pledge, my boys were growing into men. Today is their graduation. They have both done well in their exams and they have gained places in a school for business studies. They want to go into banking. They are so alike, my boys, and so loving to me and Verry and to each other. We're taking them out tonight to celebrate. They've chosen a French restaurant. They went on a school trip to Paris last year and they were deeply impressed by the food. We spoil them, Verry and I. And why not? There is nothing on earth that is a substitute for parental love. And nothing on earth that can better that love between siblings. And I ought to know.

As we sat around the table, joking and laughing, I wondered what they would think of their father's crusade. One day, of
course, they will learn about it and I pray that they will understand and forgive me. That they will know that their father is no murderer but one who loved, was loyal, and one intent on settling accounts.

We returned home late, too late to make arrangements for another sortie. But I was not tired. Verry and the boys went to bed but I stayed up, imaging, standing at that attic door, renewing my pledge.

STILL SEVEN DOWN. TWO TO GO.

Wilkins considered that …

Wilkins considered that the move from the Council of Psychotherapists had paid off. The shrink-killer was lying low. Or perhaps he had even done with his gruesome trade, having acknowledged defeat. He took comfort in the thought that at least there would be no more victims, even if the threat to their lives still remained at large. From time to time, he reviewed the threadbare accounts of the killer's tally. Eight in all, but all his rereading revealed no clue. The French had unsurprisingly drawn a blank on Mademoiselle Lacroix, though they had put up a fine show. They had arrested and eventually freed seven suspects, despite having no evidence against any of them. They just wanted to be seen to be hot on the trail. But there are back-burners in Paris too, and that is where Mademoiselle Lacroix reposed, and would remain until Wilkins broke the barrier. For he was still convinced that the French murder was the work of the man he was seeking. But for now there was little he could do. He would have to wait until, and if, the killer struck again. Wilkins would be given another chance and though he prayed for it, he prayed equally for an end to the killings.

The station was not busy. It was holiday time, and even felons seemed to be on vacation. There were the usual muggings and break-ins, but those fell outside Wilkins' remit. They were part of the duties of lesser officers. Even his deputy was on holiday, and Wilkins looked forward to his return, so that he himself could take a break. Perhaps they would go to the Lake District again; it was within easy
calling reach of London. For wherever he was, Wilkins felt himself on duty.

He was idling with
The Times
crossword when his telephone rang. It was the duty officer. He reported an attempted murder at a house in Hampstead. An ambulance was on its way, and a man was being held.

‘You seem to have sewn it all up,' Wilkins said. ‘Why do you need me?'

‘I don't know,' the officer said. ‘The policeman on the site said it was one of your cases.'

Wilkins called for his car and reached for his coat. It was not quite murder. And a man was being held. That didn't necessarily make it one of his cases. He was curious. There was something missing. Some information to which he was not privy. Until he arrived at the scene.

The victim, he was told, was one Charles Mills, a psychotherapist. So it was clearly one of his cases. A man had been taken to the station. He had openly confessed to the attempted murder. He was found with the gun smoking in his hand. ‘An absolute nutter,' the policeman said.

The victim had been taken to hospital. Wilkins ordered the front garden to be sealed. It was there that the gunman had loitered, waiting for his victim's arival. The car was in the driveway, and Mr Mills had been shot getting out of it. There had been no attempt at escape. The shot had been heard and there was no shortage of witnesses. Moreover, there was a confession. Wilkins no longer needed fingerprints. But on his way back to the station, he wondered whether it was one of his cases, after all. If it was, then his killer had slipped mightily. Because of the Council's directive, he'd not been able to make one of his usual appointments. And he was desperate. He'd come out
into the open. But what didn't make sense was his change of weapon.

He was anxious to get back to the station and begin the interrogation. He chose a woman police officer to sit by his side in the interview room. A woman's presence during such a procedure was always useful. It could embarrass the subject or intimidate him, and that subject would find both unnerving. Wilkins studied the suspect carefully. He seemed to be a man in his forties, though Wilkins would not have been surprised if he'd been much younger, for his face was creased with worry lines which etched his haggard expression. He was tall and gaunt and, despite his clothes which were of the finest cut, and his air of wealth, he looked as though he could do with a good meal. He was not as Wilkins had imagined
his
man.
His
killer was short, stocky perhaps, ugly and bald. Nothing like the man who sat before him.

‘Is he going to die?' the man asked.

It was a perfectly natural question, Wilkins thought. The man was simply concerned whether he would be tried for murder or grievous bodily harm.

‘We don't know as yet,' Wilkins said.

‘I hope he does,' the man said. ‘He deserves to. After all he's done.'

But Wilkins would come to that later. He needed the simple facts of the assault. Its reasons could be explained when those facts were made clear. He switched on the tape.

‘State your name,' he said.

‘Thomas Rhys May.'

‘Age?'

‘Thirty-one.'

‘Occupation?'

‘Psychotherapist.'

Wilkins shivered. He thought of Dr Arbuthnot who had suggested an unfrocked shrink as the killer. Was this Mr May one of those struck off the register? His hopes rose once more. He saw his overcrowded back-burner quickly unpeopled. A slate wiped clean. He smiled. He suddenly loved Mr May. He would go easy with him for a while. He could afford to.

‘Just answer the questions,' he said. ‘Tell me what happened. In your own words. Just the facts.'

‘I was waiting for him,' Mr May said. ‘I knew he went every Thursday to work at a private clinic. Well, he would, wouldn't he, money-grubbing bastard? I knew what time he came home and how he parked his car in the drive. I'd watched him at it a number of times. So I decided to do it today. I hid behind the hedge in the front garden, and I waited. He arrived on time, as expected. I stayed hidden until he got out of the car, then I came out from behind the hedge and faced him. I wanted him to recognise me. I wanted him to know who was going to put him away.

‘“Thomas?” he said. He seemed surprised because in no way was he expecting me. He must have noticed the gun in my hand. Then I saw the fear on his face and I was delighted. I let him indulge his terror for a little while. There was a sudden puddle of it at his feet. Poor bugger raised his hands. Where did he think he was? On the Somme? But I don't take prisoners. So I shot him. That's it. I've confessed. What more d'you want to know?'

The facts were now clear. Mr May seemed to have held nothing back.

‘Have you done anything like this before?' Wilkins asked.
He still clung to the hope that the man was the killer he sought.

Mr May looked offended. ‘Of course not,' he said. ‘Do you think I make a habit of this sort of thing? Like that notorious shrink-killer? Now he's a
real
nutter and I don't know what his reasons are. But I had a reason. I had just one target. Mr Mills. If he doesn't die, then I hope that I've at least crippled him for life. Just as he's done to me.'

‘And what has he done to you?' Wilkins was patient. He already suspected the answer. He'd heard it before during his investigations.