The Furnished Room (26 page)

The dark woman and her footsteps had gone. The street was again deserted except by the heat. He turned back to the room.

There was an inverted toothglass on the ledge over the washbasin. He gulped down warmish water from the cold tap. Then he looked round the room. The paintwork was white like the walls. On the dressing-table were a crochet mat set, specks of face powder, and a few brown hairs.

He opened cupboards and drawers which were musty-smelling, lined with pages of Woman's Own, and biscuit-crumbed. The previous owner had left behind a wire coat-hanger, an empty Tampax carton, a bottle of auburn hair-tint, and a telephone number written in lipstick on a Senior Service packet.

He had to discover the time. He opened the door and looked down yards of silent carpet. The other doors were all shut, and there seemed to be nobody around. He went downstairs, suppressing a desire to do so on tiptoe.

In the hall, the grandfather clock, with courteous, old-world tick, was at ten past four. He had slept through the morning and most of the afternoon. The receptionist had left her knitting on her desk, but she herself was not there. There was a low murmur of voices from behind the television-lounge door.

Beckett returned to his room to wash and shave. The hotel had provided a laundry-stiff hand-towel which hung from the rail under the basin and a bar of hard cheap soap. When he was clean, he took the gun from his pocket. He balanced it on his palm and his hand turned to steel like the gun. The gun had the beauty of all efficient mechanisms, a high-powered beauty because its purpose was death. Beckett took the flowered cotton coverlet off the bed, and wrapped it round the gun. Then he put the bundle into a drawer. He peeled two pounds from the wad of notes and put the remainder in the drawer with the gun. He locked the drawer and pocketed the key.

At five-thirty he descended the stairs again and let himself out into the street. He went first to an off-licence, where he bought a bottle of Beaujolais and four packets of the most expensive cigarettes in stock. Then he went to the corner store and bought a large meat pie, a loaf of black-rye bread, butter, and cheese. The scent of fruit made him realize his craving for fruit. Oranges, apples, bananas, and apricots delighted his senses. He bought a pound of each, and left the shop with paper bags clasped to his chest. His last stop was at a newsagent's, where he bought
Reveille
,
Weekend
, and an
Astounding Science Fiction
.

When he got back to the room, he took off his shirt and socks and washed them with toilet soap in the basin. Then he hung them over the open window to dry.

He opened the bottle of wine by attacking the cork with his penknife. The cork went down suddenly, and wine spurted over his hand and bare chest. He licked his hand, then wiped his chest with his hand, then licked his hand again. His initial nausea overcome, he found that he was hungry. He tore off a hunk of bread, and buttered it with the penknife. There was a notice on the door forbidding eating in the bedrooms, but he had made the room his cave and did not want to dine with the other guests. His mouth full of bread-and-cheese, he swilled down wine, drinking straight from the bottle. Then he started on the pie, with its golden crust and juicy lumps of steak and kidney. When he had demolished most of the food, he started on the fruit. Soon the room was filled with the tang of oranges.

The breakdown of his moral system was still unrepaired. The links which normally bound behaviour into a certain pattern had gone. The murder seemed unrelated; there was no standard to measure it by. It was morally meaningless, having no good nor bad, just as an object outside gravity has no top nor bottom.

He tried to think of taking Dyce's money as bad, but could only see it as an action.

Water dripped off his nylon shirt on to the linoleum. From somewhere in the hotel he could hear music from a television cowboy serial. Behind the music was the distant sound of cars going somewhere else. He burped, and rubbed his stomach.

He thought: With me, everything is intellectual. I would even kill on an intellectual theory. I lack spontaneity.

He unlocked the drawer and removed the gun from its wrapping. For a while he fondled it, then reparcelled it in the flowered coverlet and returned it to the drawer.

He lay back on the bed to finish the wine and smoke cigarettes. There was an article in Reveille about Brigitte Bardot which he read.

Beckett got off the train at Sealing. He was ahead of schedule, because he wanted to arrive with the commuters on the city train in order to merge with the crowd. He walked towards the barrier, holding the black imitation-leather briefcase awkwardly under his arm. Irrationally, he feared that people were looking at him, that they knew the contents of his briefcase. It was a relief when he had got through the ticket barrier, and found himself in the High Street.

Sealing is a country town some twenty miles from London. Some of its inhabitants work locally, others in London. Trippers come down on cheap-day returns to picnic in its outlying beauty spots. There is a market in the square every Thursday.

Passing a Lyons teashop, he had an hallucination. He thought he saw Silent sitting at a table, with his plastic-surgery face and unmatching eyes, and his crutch propped against the table as it had been in Mick's Café.

The incident unnerved him. He had a sensation of horror. It was like the time when he had seen the baby's skull on the bed. There was no reason why he should imagine those particular things, the skull and Silent, but both images had been accompanied by the same sensation of horror.

He regained his grip on himself. He walked very straight, like a knife blade, along the centre of the pavement.

His thoughts turned to Dyce, weekending in Hampshire. He remembered that Dyce had recounted that he had once been lost in the jungle and had survived with no food and a minimum of water while searching for the path. If this story was true, it showed that Dyce had physical toughness and strong willpower. Dyce's only weakness was his desire for stimulating excitement, which might make him boast or deliberately throw out clues.

Beckett also thought that Dyce might try to swindle him out of his share of the money. Then he knew that the money was not greatly important to him. He had pretended that it was, because a money motive made his actions easier for both himself and Dyce to understand.

The entrance to the municipal gardens lay between the public library and the public conveniences. Beckett ran down the steps to the Gents and locked himself into a lavatory.

Here, in privacy, he opened the briefcase. He had bought it yesterday, secondhand. He checked the contents: the revolver, a pair of socks, a pair of gloves, a torch, a handkerchief, and a penknife. His hand closed round the gun, caressing it, as he listened to the footsteps on the pavement above his head. Then he locked the briefcase, violently pulled the lavatory chain, and left.

A snackbar was open, so he entered with the intention of having a coffee and sandwiches. Once inside, he knew that it would be impossible to stay in the café. He had to keep on the move. He asked for the sandwiches to be put in a paper bag to take away.

He returned to the municipal gardens. There was shorn grass and, as a centrepiece, a formal flower-bed in patriotic red, white, and blue. A few ducks swam on the artificial lake which was edged with crazy paving.

He sat down on the bench beside the lake. In the distance he heard the noise of children at play, a monotonous shout on one note only. He tore up the sandwiches and threw the pieces to the ducks. They made vee-shaped wakes as they swam for the bread. In the background the library building looked peaceful with the last sunlight on it. The scent of flowers fainted on the air.

He considered the difference between men and ducks. Men were political and had concepts of an improved future. To realize these concepts it was necessary to sacrifice human lives, like constructing a building and using individuals, willynilly, as bricks. Complete anarchy and individual freedom were impossible except in small political communities. There was a dialectic between the claims of individual freedom and social concepts. Yet the concept of a better society, a higher form of life, was humanity's greatness. These ducks had no such concepts. They had no wars, but no aspirations either.

The evening sky was coloured like plum juice and custard. When the sandwiches were finished, Beckett stood up and shook the crumbs from the bag into the water.

In the High Street he stood undecided, pressing the briefcase against his chest. He had time to kill and nowhere to go. Then he entered a pub. He saw himself approaching in the mirror over the bar, between the advertisement for Gordon's Gin and the electric light disguised as a bunch of glass grapes. He was a young man in a cheap suedette jacket, with an ill, rigid face and wariness behind the eyes. He leaned against the bar while he drank two double whiskies, and half-watched the other customers. Then he half-read an article in somebody's evening paper headed ‘
I Still Love Her
, Marquis says'. He stared around him and the pin chessmen rattled in his pocket. Some had escaped their box and he touched them with his finger tips.

The pub did not provide a resting place for long. He left and, unable to think of anything else to do, went to the cinema. Here he sat through a comic film.

Upper Lane led from the outskirts of Sealing into the open country. There were a few isolated houses along it. The house, Woodstock, was easily recognizable because, as Dyce had explained, it was directly opposite a pillar box. Beckett pulled on the socks over his shoes, then put on the gloves.

Standing in the laurel-bush darkness, he flashed the torch on the back door. The missing pane had been replaced by brown paper. He carefully tore away the paper, inserted his gloved hand and unlocked the door.

Inside the kitchen, he shone his torch again. A cat woke from a bed of old cardigans and stalked towards him, its tail erect, meowing. When he opened the kitchen door, the cat tried to follow him, and he had to hold it back with his foot while he let himself out into the passage.

According to plan, his first task was to search the ground-floor rooms, taking anything of value as a burglar would do.

His torch beam travelled the dining-room, resting briefly on the heavy Victorian furniture, the bobble fringe of the tablecloth, stuffed birds under a glass dome, a television set, and various photographs in velvet frames. One of the photographs was evidently of Dyce, taken some twenty years ago. The young Dyce had a hard new face and Brylcreemed hair.

His immediate impression was that he would find nothing of great value here. The old woman was a miser who preferred to keep her money in the bank. His thorough, systematic search yielded nothing except for six pound notes hidden in a biscuit barrel. He also discovered a box which had been hidden behind the cushion of an armchair. When he opened the lid, he found a chiffon scarf, a packet of sweets, and a few Woolworth's trinkets. These things seemed new, and he guessed that they were the prizes of kleptomania.

A clock struck with sweet silver notes. The inside of his mouth was dry. He had to hurry.

He left the room and started to mount the stairs, keeping one hand on the wall to guide himself. The free hand clasped the briefcase and torch to his chest. Halfway up, he had a moment of panic. He could not move. He stood paralysed, with one foot advanced towards the next stair, frozen in the everlasting moment. His limbs were heavy, like the slow-motion attempts to escape in a nightmare. He closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. Then, with an effort of will, he continued to mount the stairs.

He reached the landing. The house was noisy with silence. He mentally reconstructed Dyce's plan, labelling each door. This was the door of the spare room. Down the passage were the bathroom and the companion's bedroom.

Now, at the last moment, he was perfectly cold and calm inside. He moved automatically. He wrapped his handkerchief round the torch, then silently opened the old woman's door.

Inside, he flattened himself against the wall. He heard her heavy breathing. He crossed the bedroom crabwise, keeping an eye on the bed. The woman slept on. Her breathing was regular except when it stumbled on a snore.

He turned and met three lights aimed at him. For an instant he was bewildered. Then he realized that it was the triple mirror of the dressing-table, reflecting his torch.

He was mirrored in triplicate as he approached; three men behind three butts of light. Three hands stretched towards the dressing-table.

On it was some jewellery, which he snatched into the briefcase. He opened the drawers, but found only underclothes, a photograph album, a felt rose on a safety-pin, and an enema appliance.

He had reached the hardest part of his task. He had to wake her, in order to complete the effect of a burglar disturbed in the act. He listened to her breathing. Reluctantly, he took out the revolver. He wanted to take the things and go; he did not want to kill her.

The woman turned over in her sleep, grunting. Beckett stiffened, willing her not to wake. For a second, it was in the balance whether she would subside into sleep or surface to waking.

Then she sat up suddenly, uttering incoherent grunts at first and then words: ‘Who is it? ... Margaret, is that you? ... Who is there? ...'

Beckett shone the torch full in her face, trying to dazzle her and pin her down with the beam while he made his escape.

For a moment the plan worked; she was blinded and immobilized. Then she ducked under the beam, slid out of bed and made for the door.

They were some twelve feet apart, facing each other, she in the doorway and he in the room.

He croaked hoarsely: ‘No... No...'

She, seeing the gun, set up a hysterical jabber: ‘No, no, no, no!'