This Way Out (15 page)

She suspected him, didn't she? She knew he was up to something. God, what a fool he'd been not to think through what he was doing! Why, oh why, hadn't he stopped to change before taking the dog out into the forest?

The true answer was simple enough. He hadn't changed because he was in a hurry to put Sam safely out of the way in a boarding kennel; his clothes hadn't mattered because he didn't intend to do any walking. But if only he'd
thought
, he would have realized that he needed to change in order to give conviction to the lie he proposed to tell Christine.

It was a mistake, a bad mistake. He wasn't used to constructive lying, that was the trouble. He wiped a swathe of condensation off the bathroom mirror with a corner of a towel and stared at the unfamiliar, fearful-eyed face that confronted him. As if it wasn't bad enough to have to go through with everything that lay ahead … The alibi he planned had seemed to him to be watertight but now, too panicky to think it through yet again, he couldn't be sure.

Fifty-three minutes to go.

He pulled on his towelling bathwrap, padded back to his room and sat on the edge of the big double bed. He needed to rest, but anxiety tightened its grip on his stomach. He felt sick; no longer on Enid's account, but on his own.

But that was the idea, wasn't it? Not to give himself an easy alibi, but to offer expiation for the crime that was to come by putting himself through some form of punishment.

Fifty one and a half minutes to go.

At nine-fifteen Derek stood up, straightened the bedcovers, and put on clothes suitable for an evening at home: an old pair of trousers, a favourite soft shirt with a fraying collar, a light sweater. The casual shoes he chose, though, were substantial enough to go out in.

He felt detached again, as he had done in the Abbey gardens when he had discussed Operation Brickyard with Packer. He observed himself walking downstairs, crossing the hall, opening the living-room door. He noticed that Christine, some sewing material on her lap, hurriedly tucked away a handkerchief and picked up her needle when he looked into the room, but he was too intent on his purpose to allow her unhappiness to distract him.

‘I'm going to make a sandwich.' His voice was strangely abrupt in his ears. ‘Anything you want?'

‘I'd love a cup of tea.' She spoke brightly, though her nose was congested. ‘There's some cold lamb in the fridge, if you'd like that. Or you could have –'

‘I'll find something,' he said. He closed the door on her, leaned back against it, took two long deep breaths, and then walked steadily to the kitchen, switching on the lights as he went.

It was a large, comfortable room, dominated by an Aga stove and a family-sized pinewood table. A door led from it into a narrow pantry, which housed the freezer on one side and a refrigerator and wine rack on the other. Cans and jars of food were lined on shelves on the walls. At the far end of the pantry, above a built-in slab of marble which would have served to keep food cool in the days before refrigeration, was the north-facing window he had described to Packer.

It was the ideal place for a break-in.
Except that the sodding window was too small!

The original inner window, of perforated zinc designed to keep out flies in summer, was hooked back against the edge of a shelf. The narrow sash window was fastened with the usual catch, and secured by a screw-type bolt. Derek hunted for the key, found it at the back of the same shelf, fitted it with shaking fingers, unscrewed and withdrew the bolt. Placing bolt and key on the marble slab, he slipped the window catch and tried to lift the sash.

It wouldn't budge. He swore and sweated, got it moving, then jammed it again in his haste. Wiping his damp hands on his trousers, he tried again.

This time the sash opened to its fullest extent. The gap looked no more than eighteen inches by two feet, nowhere near big enough for a man to get through. Oh God … Derek thrust a handful of fingernails between his teeth in his anxiety.

And then he remembered. Packer, who had gradually assumed gigantic proportions inside his head, was in fact the size of a boy. Packer could do it.

Grunting with momentary relief Derek closed the window and fastened the catch, deliberately omitting to replace the bolt. Then he began to set up his alibi.

Hurriedly, he assembled on the kitchen table the bread board and half a wholemeal loaf, the butter dish, and the foil-wrapped remains of the knuckle end of a leg of lamb. As an afterthought, he filled and switched on the kettle.

His breath was coming more quickly. He snatched an earthenware dinner plate from the dresser, pulled the foil off the cold lamb, and placed the joint on the plate. The shank of bone, left exposed by the meat that had already been eaten, looked like the handle of some primitive tool.

Derek opened a drawer and took out the carving knife.

It was a knife that had been in his family for at least three generations, an old country knife with a yellow horn handle and an eight-inch Sheffield steel blade. The cutting edge had become concave through years of use, and he had sharpened it against the matching-handled steel, as his father and grandfather used to do, only last Sunday. Derek touched the edge gingerly, and drew his finger away with a hissing intake of breath. Yes, it was sharp.

He pushed aside the bread board. Cutting bread had been in his original scenario, but carving a joint would be better because the knife might so unarguably be deflected from the bone. Rejecting the use of the carving fork with its safety guard, he grasped the greasy shank in his left hand and the knife in his right, and gave conviction to his alibi by partially carving a slice of pinkish, fat-rimmed meat.

If the knife were to slip as he used it, the most likely place for the cut would be on his knuckles. But that wouldn't do, wouldn't be serious enough. Letting go of the joint, Derek turned his hand over so that he could see his outspread palm. There were traces on it of grease, and dark fragments of cooked blood. He would have liked to wash, but he was wary now of making mistakes; he wanted no one to doubt that he had been cutting meat at the time of the accident.

Willing his left hand not to tremble, he pressed the point of the knife tentatively against the bridge between his first and second fingers. The skin was tougher than he had thought. He pressed again, a little harder, and shamed himself by gasping and instinctively withdrawing his hand at the first prick of the blade.

He put down the knife and wiped his sweatered arm across his damp forehead. Somewhere on the edge of his consciousness, the kettle was coming up to the boil. He longed to postpone this ordeal: make a pot of tea, go and comfort Christine, try again another time.

But the decision wasn't his to make. Packer was in charge of Operation Brickyard, and Packer would by now be on his way to Wyveling. Derek looked at his watch. Nine thirty-six: if he didn't act right away, he'd cock up the whole thing.

The kettle switched itself off. Derek steadied his left hand by placing the back of it on the kitchen table. He planted his feet well apart, and took a tight grip on the carving knife. Then he drew a shuddering breath, pointed the knife, and slashed his palm from the base of his fingers to within an inch of his wrist.

He gasped with shock, but felt nothing on his hand except a light stinging blow. Staring stupidly at the white line scored across his palm, he realised that all he had done was to break the skin. He'd hardly drawn blood, for God's sake.

Disgusted by his cowardice, he watched as the line of the cut reddened and blood began to seep out from under the overlap of skin. He could feel the sharpness of it now, but he knew that the injury wasn't serious enough for his purpose.

He gripped the knife again. He had begun to shiver, but the adrenalin was running strongly enough for him to do what was necessary: retrace the line of the cut sufficiently deeply to ensure that Christine would have to take him to the nearest hospital casualty department, twenty miles away in Yarchester, to have it stitched.

It hurt, of course. He could hear his moaning intake of breath, his recurrent ah-h-hs of pain as the blade moved along the line of welling blood and bit into his raw flesh. But then he had meant it to hurt, hadn't he?

Think why you're doing this. Think of poor old Enid, upstairs, whose death tonight this is all about, and punish yourself for being her murderer's accomplice. Don't merely endure the pain, welcome it.

‘There's no need to shout, Derek. What's the matter?'

He had intended to take his injury to Christine, but the distance from the kitchen table to the living-room had defeated him. Reeling from shock, supporting his left wrist with his right hand, he stood holding out to her a cupped handful of blood that dripped from between his fingers on to the cork tiles of the kitchen floor.

‘C-carving meat. Knife slipped.'

‘Heavens above –'

Christine flew to his aid, steering him to the sink and thrusting his hand under a running tap. Derek yelped as the cold water hit the lacerated flesh like a blow from a metal bar. He clung to the edge of the sink with his right hand, watching with distant interest as the diluted blood washed pinkly down the plug hole, leaving a jagged V-shaped cut on his palm.

‘My poor love! However –? Well, however it happened, it looks as though it'll have to be stitched. Sit down and hold your hand up.' Christine pushed him on to a stool, snatched some kitchen paper from the roll, and pressed it into his raised hand as the blood began to flow again. ‘Clutch this while I make some kind of pad.'

Derek was shivering. He felt white round the gills as he watched his blood trickle from under the quickly-saturated paper, down his wrist and over his watch-strap on to the sleeve of his sweater. But at the same time he was secretly exultant that his part in Operation Brickyard had now been accomplished. He was thankful to be able to submit to Christine's loving care, absolved from guilt by the thought that whatever happened from now on was out of his hands.

There was, though, something he had to establish before he could relax. Christine, having folded a clean towel, had instructed him to hold it pressed against the cut while she telephoned the doctor. But they were patients of a group practice in Breckham Market, and the surgery was too close to home; if a doctor were able to attend to him immediately, he would be back at the Brickyard before Packer arrived. And having gone through all this pain, he wasn't prepared to let the operation be ruined.

‘Don't let's waste time with local doctors,' he said, wincing as he pressed hard against the injury. ‘Whoever's on call could be out already, and it might be ages before they fix me up. Remember when Les Harding cut himself with his hedge-trimmer last year? I drove him straight to Casualty at Yarchester Hospital, and his doctor said afterwards that it was the best thing I could have done.'

Christine hesitated for a moment, and despite his pain Derek realized how tired she was. Poor darling – after the long drive to Southwold and back, the quarrel with her mother and then the upset over the lost dog, she was in no fit state to take him to Yarchester. His plan had been based on the assumption that she would do the driving, but now he couldn't bring himself to inflict it on her. He'd have to get her out of the house some other way.

‘Call the Hardings, love,' he urged. ‘One or other of them will be glad to do the driving for you. Only – you will come with me to the hospital, won't you, Chrissie? Please? Sorry to be such a fool, but I do feel groggy –'

His wife was already dialling their neighbours'number. Evidently glad that she wasn't required to drive, she gave him an affectionate glance as she waited for her call to be answered. ‘Of course I'll come, if you want me to. Ah, Vera – sorry to bother you but we've got a bit of an emergency …

Derek exhaled with relief. His hand was hurting like hell; but he'd cleared the way for Operation Brickyard, and at the same time provided himself with an alibi that no one would ever question.

The Hardings, a tall thin couple a decade older than the Cartwrights,

arrived at the Brickyard within minutes. Under the lights that illuminated the outside of the front door, their teeth and glasses shone with friendly concern.

‘Tough luck, Derek,' said Les, holding open the passenger door of his Nissan. ‘Glad to have a chance of repaying your kindness, though. In you get, old man – oops, mind your hand. You coming too, Christine? Then you can take him straight in to Casualty while I find somewhere to park.'

‘That's what I did when Leslie had his accident,' said Vera. ‘It simplifies things no end. But we don't want you to go unless you really feel well enough, Christine. You know what hospitals are like, you're bound to be hanging about there for hours. That's why I've come round, to see if you'd like me to go in your place.'

Derek, gingerly holding his towel-swathed hand out of the way as Les fastened the seat belt for him, caught his breath. His wife was not particularly fond of Vera who, over-eager for friendship, invariably touched or patted her arm as they talked; but for all he knew Christine might be thankful to accept the offer and stay at home. And if she did, his plan would be ruined.

‘That's very kind of you, Vera,' he heard his wife say, ‘but no thanks. I feel fine.'

Good for Christine! Derek breathed again.

‘Well, as long as you're sure,' said Vera. ‘Anyway, don't worry about your mother – that's the other reason I've come. I'll stay here and keep her company until you get back.'

Appalled, helplessly strapped down, Derek shouted out in protest: ‘No!'

Aware that everyone was staring at him, he sought for milder words to deter their well-meaning neighbour. ‘We'd hate to put you to that trouble, Vera – wouldn't we, Chrissie? I mean, there's no need for it. Enid's not ill, she'll be perfectly all right on her own.'