Текст книги "Brond"

Автор книги: Frederic Lindsay

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‘Uncle Liam?’

She stared in disbelief.

‘That’s right. His wife and him. They’re going on to London – but they’re at your house tonight.’

‘But what time is it?’

I looked at my watch. It was nearly one in the morning.

‘Holy Mother of God!’ she said. ‘How can I go home now? What would Aunt Rose tell my mother? She never liked me.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’s just that they find you being perfect a bit hard to take.’

‘What are you talking about?’ At least she didn’t look defeated any more. She had come alive. ‘Are you telling the truth?’

‘How else would I know about your Uncle Liam? I went to your house this morning—’

‘And they saw you? Oh, what did you have to do that for? She’ll tell my father for sure – she’ll make a real story of it. My life won’t be worth living.’

‘Your Aunt didn’t see me.’

‘It doesn’t matter. He tells her everything.’

‘Oh.’

He had more to tell her than Margaret realised.

‘I can’t go home at this time of night,’ she said. ‘Not with her there.’

I took another biscuit. They were good although they must have been there since before the holiday fortnight. The sellotape round the rim must have kept them fresh.

‘Sleep here,’ I said casually.

A spray of crumbs spoiled the effect. She brushed them mistrustfully out of her lap.

‘There’s the bed,’ I said defensively.

‘What about you?’

‘No problem. I can walk till I get to an all-night bus stop – or until I get home.’

‘And leave me here on my own?’

It would be an eerie place to be alone. The old building settling in the dark; the bulky shadows in the store across the yard.

‘I don’t mind staying.’

‘You’re not sleeping in this bed.’

‘I’ll sleep in the chair.’

That idea seemed to ring a bell for her. She must have seen somebody doing it in a movie. In the films, though, the chair wasn’t an upright, wooden-seat cane-back tucked under a desk.

‘You’ll sleep through there,’ she said.

‘It’s cold through there.’

Before she could argue, I went through and cleared the typewriter and folders off the table. I lifted it into the small room and went back for the chair. I set them both by the wall as far from the bed as they would go. She didn’t really have a great deal of choice. There was no way she was going home or that she would spend a night alone here without protection.

‘Will you give me a chance to get ready for bed,’ she asked in a little voice.

‘Sure. I’ll wait in the shop.’

I didn’t want to risk putting the light on and attracting attention from that dark side street and so I took the torch. It didn’t take long to exhaust the sights. Standing in the dark, I got childish: I spun the light in circles, threw it up and caught it; stopped when I decided this was one night I particularly didn’t want to spend in a police cell. I stood quiet and let the light make discreet passes. As if it had a life of its own, it kept sliding back to a cash register on the counter. There was an illegal feel to the dark. I wondered how much Margaret was taking off to go to bed. There seemed no harm in looking at the register. It was an old model. When I tapped one of the keys, nothing happened. I tugged at the drawer but it wouldn’t open. There was a faint shout from Margaret. She must have got into bed. I got the trick of it – the drawer opened when you leaned on No Sale and pulled. They kept the petty cash in it; no notes but a lot of coins. I picked out the big ones and dropped them in my pocket. Softly I pushed the drawer shut. My heart was pounding till I thought it could be heard outside. Apart from cakes out of the bakers as a schoolboy, that was my first theft.

All that she had left outside the blanket was her face and a spread of black hair across the pillow. Trying not to be obvious, I looked around for her clothes. I thought she might have climbed into bed fully dressed until I saw her stuff folded at the foot of the bed. She had spread her shirt on top so it was impossible to tell what was under it.

‘Put the light out,’ she said.

‘Where’s the switch?’

‘There by the door. No, the other side.’

I put the light out and then put it on again.

‘I’ll need a minute to work out where things are or I’ll break my neck.’

Conscious of her eyes dark and wide over the blanket like a fugitive from a harem, I padded around adjusting the chair so that I could tip it back against the wall and pulling the table forward to where I could lift my feet on to it. I’d never seen an unlikelier sleeping arrangement.

‘That’s it then. It’s about as good as it’s going to be.’

I went back to the door and charted the route.

‘I’ll put the light out.’

The blackness was total. I stood still trying to get my eyes back. Suddenly, a breathless whisper asked, ‘Where are you?’

‘Here. By the door. It’s too dark to see.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m giving my eyes a chance to catch up.’

Gradually I decided I could make out shapes. The hatch window to the left of the sink didn’t so much give light as qualify the darkness. Slowly I edged forward. The side of my left hand knocked wood and I knew I was by the table. I bumped the chair and it rattled away. When that happened, I heard her gasp. I lowered myself into the chair and tipped it back gingerly until it rested against the wall. I put my feet up one at a time on the table. The silence was perfect.

‘Good night.’

‘Good night,’ I said. The chair cut into the back of my neck.

‘It was good of you to come with me.’ Her voice was low and husky. ‘I couldn’t have come by myself.’

Surprisingly, I slept. Perhaps it had something to do with the warm glow of righteous self-approval I was generating.

Even righteous sleeps end.

It was still dark.

‘Margaret?’

No answer.

I cleared my throat and tried a little louder.

‘Margaret? You asleep?’

Carefully I lowered the legs of the chair to the ground. It was a miracle I hadn’t tipped over and broken my neck. When I got up, my knees buckled. Blood must have stopped reaching them some time earlier.

In the dark I started undressing. As I pulled off my trousers, change spilled jingling from the pocket. My breathing stopped until I heard the deep rhythm of hers. Mother naked I set out for the bed.

This time I could see a little better but the bed was only a shape full of shadows. I thought she might be awake listening to the sounds I had made, pretending to be asleep or pretending it was a dream. I was ashamed enough to go back to my upright chair until I imagined trying to find that scatter of clothes. A small cold breeze licked my buttocks and I explored the cleft of pillows and sheet, peeled back the clothes and slid in.

She rolled over and put her arm round me. One problem solved: she wore bra and pants to bed. I lay still for a year or two and then softly ran my hand down her back. She had skin like warm velvet. I eased under her pants and on the last little bone I came to, rubbed gently. She sighed and snuggled comfortably closer. I stroked my fingers down one side of her soft parting and back up the other and pressed in between her cheeks.

‘Peter,’ she murmured and opened her legs so that mine slipped between them. Then I felt her hand come down and hold me.

Conscience apart it should have been all downhill sledging from there, but when I brought up my hand and touched her on the breast she trembled, let go as if I’d turned hot and threshed like a swimmer going down.

‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’

I thought she was having a fit. She quietened.

‘What are you– Is that– Get out!’

‘Look,’ I whispered reasonably. ‘I’ve slept in that hellish chair. It must be your turn.’

There was a pause. She was still spread half under me. The size of my interest puttered against her thigh like an over-crowded motor boat.

‘That was a terrible thing to do,’ she said very quietly.

‘You haven’t sat in that chair for hours.’

‘But you’ve taken all your clothes off.’

‘I didn’t want to get my vest crumpled.’

If she would only laugh, things might go right even yet. It was like lying beside a furnace. The heat of her body beat round me. I licked her shoulder. It tasted salty and smelled like warm milk and apples.

‘You’ll have to get out,’ she said calmly.

‘No.’

‘Please, now, you wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want you to.’

Somewhere about the middle of the next day, I would brood on what might have happened if I had yelled Yes and got on top of her.

‘Good God, no,’ I muttered soothingly into her neck. ‘I wouldn’t force myself on a girl. I’m not like that. I’ve never needed to force myself on a girl. We’ll do whatever you want.’

‘Get out of the bed, please.’

‘Apart from that. It’s bloody cold out there. I won’t stop you if you want to sleep in the chair.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. There was an intensely practical strain in her.

Another pause. After a bit, I moved my leg closer imperceptibly; only she perceived it and said, ‘Will you lie still . . . And we’ll go to sleep. That would be fair.’

She freed herself and turned away. The dim bulk of her back was presented to me. I put my hand on her backside hoping for some repetition of the earlier effect. She reached behind her and picked it off.

‘Go to sleep,’ she said. ‘That’s fair.’

‘Fair!’ I heard my voice squeak and deepened it for the next bit. ‘How can you talk that way?’

‘You’re a decent fellow,’ she said. Her voice began to trail away. Either she was the best actress since Sarah Bernhardt screwed on a wooden leg or she was falling asleep. ‘You’ve been good to me. I trust you.’

Sometime before morning, I fell asleep without abusing myself or murdering her – which must prove something about the resilience of human nature.

ELEVEN

There was a smell of frying bacon and since it was an illusion I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to be disappointed. Thoughts of the middle of the night ebbed into the forebrain. By cautious fractions, I stretched in the bed.

I was alone.

‘You’re awake then,’ a measured cheerful voice asserted. ‘You’re a good sleeper when you start.’

Reluctantly I peeped out of one eye. Margaret was bending over the cooker turning something in a frying pan. She had found a kettle, too, and a wisp of steam plumed merrily into the air. It was a scene of pleasing domesticity. I rechecked my memories of the night and clenched the eye shut again.

‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ she said. ‘The sun’s splitting the stones.’

I could hear the spatter of fat. Despite myself, my mouth began to water.

‘That can’t be bacon. Where would you have got it?’

Her laugh, like every sound and move she made, was music.

‘I found a little corner shop. There’s ham and eggs and coffee. And he had rolls. Do you like rolls?’

‘What could be nicer?’ I said, keeping my eyes shut.

‘There’s butter with them,’ she said coaxingly.

I put my forearm over my eyes.

‘Come on!’ she said. ‘It’ll spoil if it has to wait.’

If only, I fretted, she had thought about that during the night.

‘Chuck me over my clothes,’ I said.

‘In a minute. Do you like your eggs turned?’

Flesh and blood could stand no more. Resolutely I put back the blankets and stood up.

‘Sweet God!’ she said. ‘I hope you’re not one of those exhibitionists.’

With more awkwardness than grace, I progressed to where she had piled my clothes neatly on the edge of the table. Among her other virtues she seemed to be house-proud. I got into my underpants with difficulty. She could not resist another glance over.

‘No need to peek,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t recovered from the mauling you gave it last night.’

‘Oh, now,’ she said seriously, ‘don’t talk like that or I won’t think well of you.’

‘Turn them!’

‘What?’ she asked in fright.

‘The eggs – I like them done both sides.’

Fat hissed as she tipped them over.

‘I fried them in butter.’

‘You’ll give me a coronary one way or the other.’

Dressed, I came over and had a look.

‘You should fry bacon on a dry pan,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘It’s true. A dry pan – heat the bacon and slant the pan. Press the fat out as it fries. Makes the crispest bacon you could eat.’

‘I suppose you’ll manage this though.’

She sounded offended. I began to feel better. To tell the truth, I began to feel unreasonably cheerful. We had two eggs each as well as the bacon. She was a good eater. There wasn’t much talking until we had finished.

‘I’m going to be coarse again,’ I said.

She looked relieved when I scrubbed the plate with the buttery end of the last roll.

‘Run out and get the same again, would you?’ I licked pale flaky crumbs from the wet tip of my finger.

‘Are you still hungry? Would you like something else?’

There certainly seemed to be a hint there that she was ready to forage out again with her little shopping list. That was very compliant of her. She seemed to split her personality between the night and the daylight hours.

‘Don’t tempt me.’ A thought cracked my jaw in mid yawn: ‘Kilpatrick will be missed at his work. He told me he worked in an office somewhere.’

‘Oh, no. When he left the Army, he joined—’

She stopped abruptly, and though I waited she didn’t say any more.

‘Well, anyway,’ I said, ‘wherever he is, he’s not here.’

I wondered if the look in her eyes could be relief. If it was, guilt made her more emphatic.

‘I’m worried sick about him,’ she said.

‘I know, you lay awake all night worrying.’

She looked more seriously offended this time. I watched uncomfortably as she cleared away and ran water over the dishes.

‘That won’t clear the grease off them if the water’s cold,’ I said.

As a way of ingratiating myself, it didn’t work. She slammed off the tap.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

She was cramming back into her shoulder sack all the odds and ends that had got themselves unpacked.

‘Going?’

‘And you,’ she said. ‘I’m going to lock up.’

‘No, Miss Briody,’ a voice said behind me. ‘I can’t let you do that.’

Without turning round, I knew who it was. Margaret stared over my shoulder wide-eyed with shock at the interruption. As Brond spoke, he moved into the room until I could see him.

‘If you would wait here, Miss Briody,’ he said, ‘it would only take us a minute to make sure.’

‘Sure of what?’ she asked.

He tilted his head and almost smiled: the whole effect seeming to say, If you want to pretend, that’s your business, of course.

‘Who are you?’ Her voice trembled.

But it was his name she had used when she brought me the parcel. She had met him at Professor Gracemount’s party – but, of course, that was weeks ago. Perhaps I was the only one who could not forget what Brond looked like.

At a movement of his hand, I followed him through the door into the passage that took us out into the yard. We left Margaret standing by the table, her ridiculously crammed shoulder bag swinging from her hand.

‘There’s no one in there,’ I told Brond as he crossed to the unpainted padlocked door.

‘You’ve looked?’

‘Both of us looked.’

‘Last night? I see. Miss Briody has a key then.’

‘You don’t need one – the padlock’s broken.’

I pushed it open with my finger and lifted it clear. He took it from me and examined it, then looked about as if searching for a place to lay it. There was a box round a standpipe and he stood the lock on top of it at a careful angle.

‘Didn’t you find it strange?’ he asked.

Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door.

‘Didn’t you find it strange that a businessman should go off on holiday and leave his property so badly protected?’

‘I didn’t give it a thought,’ I lied stubbornly.

‘Extraordinary,’ Brond said, looking at me with interest.

The store seemed smaller than during the night. Builders’ material was stacked everywhere. What I had taken for ladders were lengths of timber propped against the far wall. There were ladders as well, hung on hooks from a beam. Light drifted down from dirty skylights. Slowly Brond paced the length of the place.

He stopped in front of a pile of empty sacks in the corner farthest from the door.

‘Well?’ he asked.

I could see no reason for the question. It seemed to me he was playing another of his obscure games with me.

‘Well?’ he asked again and swung his forefinger like a pointer. I could see nothing.

‘Are you joking?’

‘What an odd impression you must have of me.’ The note of his voice was as solemn as a Sunday bell. ‘Doesn’t it seem strange that the floor here is so clean?’

There was a path through the dust.

‘Shift them away.’

The sacks were dirty. I lifted one and a shower of grime settled on my shoes. I held up my hands. Each was oiled with a sooty smear.

‘This is stupid.’

‘Don’t stop. It would look bad if you refused.’

The bewilderment he imposed on me and the fear I would never admit made me turn again to the task. I tugged at the next sack trying to slide it off to keep down the mess. It would not move. I pulled again but something was holding it. I was doing Brond’s bidding. What kind of man was I? In blind anger I took a double grip on the sack and, too excited to be careful, gave a great heave. It came with a sudden release and I staggered back in an uprising cloud of dirt as the body of Kilpatrick turned stiffly out from among the sacks and sprawled at my feet.

Fastidiously, Brond waited until the dust settled. He bent over the body and turned back the shirt to look underneath.

‘Shot,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice question who killed him. The person who fired the gun or the one who brought him out here. If the two acts are traceable to the one culprit, the problem resolves itself.’

I did not understand. A broad smear of black grease striped the dead face from one eye to the side of the mouth. I felt in my pocket for a handkerchief although I never carry one.

‘Why did he come out here?’ I hardly knew what I was saying.

Brond stood up impatiently.

‘Come out? Without help? And burrow under the sacks? First being agile enough to bind himself.’

With the shoe that had the thick raised sole, he touched the body’s legs at a place where they were tied with a piece of cord.

‘His thumbs are lashed together also.’

The same shoe lifted the body over without effort. It was true. But what horrified me was to see how poorly the body was dressed – trousers, a cotton shirt, the feet were bare.

‘This would be a cold place at night,’ Brond said as if reading my thoughts. ‘He’d lost so much blood, of course, otherwise he would have struggled from under there at least. He must have been half dead already.’

It was too horrible to accept.

‘He must have been dead.’

‘No.’ Brond’s shoe scuffed at the sack. The body’s clenched fist lay on a corner of it as if to claim possession. ‘He bled on this while he was lying here. Not much – but then by that time he didn’t have a great deal left. Given his all for Queen and country. Or whatever he did give it for.’

I had never seen anything colder than Brond’s smile.

The door we had come out by lay open and so did the next two, until in the front shop I stared blankly at the last door which lay open to the street. Margaret was gone. Outside stood the sleek hulk of the car that had taken me to see Brond a lifetime ago. Primo sat behind the wheel.

‘Why didn’t he stop her?’

‘Would you have wanted that?’

‘Yes. Why would she—’

‘Well?’

Well? Well?

I shook my head. Was it conceivable that Margaret could have known while we lay in bed together that Kilpatrick was dying out there in the cold under a bundle of greasy sacks?

Nothing could make me believe that.

TWELVE

The man in the grey shirt and old flannels asked, ‘How long is that now?’

He had been asking at five minute intervals.

‘More than an hour,’ I told him.

‘It’s incomprehensible to me,’ he said.

‘Something’s happening.’

We listened to the sound of running feet and a voice shouting with an edge of panic.

‘I never imagined it would be like this,’ the man said.

There is something wrong about uncontrolled noise in a police station. You associate police stations with discipline. If anyone does anything violent, you expect it to be done quietly and off-stage. My mind shied off images of violent policemen. Thoughts like that are weakening when you sit waiting in an interview room.

‘To the police, of course,’ Brond had said.

I had been astonished.

‘Where now?’ I had asked, desperately casual, watching the vast shoulders of Primo as he steered the car through the morning traffic.

‘To the police, of course.’

He had turned on me a look of mild reproach.

‘I hope,’ he said, ‘you realise the seriousness of what we found.’

‘We found Kilpatrick,’ I said.

‘We discovered a murder,’ Brond chided. He was enormously the good citizen, expensively dressed, with Primo as chauffeur, leaning forward with a folded handkerchief to wipe a trace of greasy dust from his shoes. ‘In the event, that leaves us no choice. It would be unthinkable to do anything else.’

Until the exact moment we entered the station – even while we were climbing the steps – I did not believe him. My first reaction was an enormous relief. Someone was going to sort out the pieces and let me have my life back.

The whole station heaved with confusion. An unanswered telephone was left ringing. Three constables passed at the trot. Brond spoke to the sergeant at the desk. I could not hear what was being said. I saw his face change, then it was as though the same virus affected him. He hobbled away at an incredible pace down a corridor to my left. That was the last I had seen of him.

A plain-clothes man had taken me by the arm. Five minutes, ten, had passed while I waited for Brond to come back. A sense of some vast catastrophe built up round me. It was strange to be at the centre of so much activity and be so excluded.

‘In here,’ I’d been told.

‘What’s going on?’ I’d asked.

‘Wait here. Someone’ll be along to talk to you in a moment.’

He might have been deaf. As I asked again, he gave me the look policemen use to put you on a different planet. Then he shut the door.

The only other person in the room was a brown-faced, elderly man in shirt and flannels. Despite the stains on the flannels, he had that air which mysteriously but unmistakably signals prosperous respectability. Like me, he had been waiting. We had passed the time listening, trying to make out from the confusion of sounds what was causing the panic. Once the door was thrown open and we jumped up, but it was a flustered sergeant who stared at us as if we had no right to be there.

‘I’ve been—,’ my companion began.

‘Sorry, sorry. Later. Really sorry.’

The sergeant disappeared. I had never heard a policeman offer so many apologies. It was like a measure of disorientation.

We sat down slowly.

‘This is impossible,’ flannel trousers said.

‘Something serious is going on.’

‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘But still . . .’

We sat in silence. It was a miserable place. High on one tiled wall there was a narrow strip of window. I pulled the table over and stood on it. Pushing up on the toes of my good foot, I could just see out. It was some kind of air-shaft. Within feet of me, there was a featureless brick wall.

‘I don’t see any need for that,’ my companion said.

I climbed down.

‘Did you see anything?’ he asked inconsistently.

I offered him a sneer.

‘All I meant was that if there’s some emergency we’d best let them deal with it. All we can do to help is be patient.’

‘Splendid attitude,’ I said. ‘Admirable. You’re not a criminal yourself then.’

He flushed with annoyance.

‘Good heavens, of course not. Do I look like—’

He broke off, looking at the unsightly flannels.

‘I was gardening. That’s why I’m here. I’d bought onion sets. The roses at the back haven’t been doing well. Too sheltered perhaps. Anyway I’d decided to have them up and I’d bought onion sets. So I took out the bushes and raked and I had the sets in a pail. They’d been in water, you see. I pushed the dibble in – to make a hole, you see, for the set – but when I pulled it out the dry soil ran into the hole and ran and ran. And I stood up and stepped back and there was a roar and a gasp as if the earth itself had taken a breath. And half the garden was gone and I was standing right on the edge of a black hole I couldn’t see any bottom to. I mean it just went down, and I could hear little stones and clods still falling.’

He looked at me wide-eyed, reliving it.

‘You’re the first person I’ve told,’ he said.

I wondered if he was a lunatic.

‘Earthquake?’ I asked. ‘Surely not in Glasgow?’

‘Earthquake?’ He looked at me as if I was the one who was mad. ‘Who’s talking about earthquakes? Subsidence! My garden had slipped into an old pit shaft they’d all forgotten about.’

‘Jesus!’ I said.

‘Oh, yes. Lanarkshire, you see, rests on old coal mines.’

Not long after that someone came and took him away. Very politely, so it was possible his story was true. I waited. I had never been in this situation so it was hard for me to tell if the noises off were settling back to normal. Twice more I stood on the table. Brick walls don’t change much. Two and a half hours went by. The door was not locked. I tried it once. There was no physical barrier to stop me from going out and asking what was happening. I sat down and waited.

The short fat one took notes. The other one did the talking. Neither of them explained who they were; no names or ranks. My name. My age. My occupation.

‘How well did you know Peter Kilpatrick?’

‘Not well at all.’

‘How many of you lodge there?’

My mind scrabbled.

‘Three – no, four.’

‘Uh-huh. All of you students, isn’t that right?’

‘No – two of us. Willie Clarke and me. Muldoon isn’t. Neither is . . .’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘Kilpatrick. Peter . . .’

They knew that.

‘So you’re a student. At the Uni.’

He mouthed the word in the way Davie had just before he tried to butt me in the face – yoo-ni.

‘That’s right.’

‘Uh-huh. Why didn’t you like him?’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t like him.’

‘Ladies’ man, are you?’

‘Me. No.’

‘Big fellow like you. Not bad looking. All those stories about students.’

The fat man snorted appreciatively.

‘I asked you a question.’ ‘I answered it.’

‘Uh-huh. Incline the other way?’

I didn’t know what he was talking about. When I looked at him uncomprehendingly, he made a limp movement with one hand.

‘That way, are you? Fancy the boys?’

‘Not much.’

He hesitated and I thought I’d not been emphatic enough for him, but it was only a needle. He came back to what he was really after.

‘Ladies’ man, are you?’

‘I don’t run round bloody mad, if that’s what you mean.’

He turned to the fat man, who kept writing.

‘That what I mean?’

The fat man glanced up at him then at me. He sniffed.

‘No. Didn’t think so. Have a steady?’

‘A what?’

‘A steady – girl you go about with.’

‘No.’

‘Big healthy fellow like you. How long you been here?’

‘Since the session started – last October.’

‘All winter. And no girls. Funny.’

‘I didn’t say no girls. I’ve been out a few times. Took a girl home from a dance a few times . . .’

Walked the streets a few times. Howled at the moon a few times.

‘Names.’

‘Eh?’

‘Names. Give us their names.’

He waited. I thought of them being questioned by the police.

‘I’ll give you a name,’ he said. ‘Margaret Briody.’

‘She’s not a girl friend of mine.’

‘Where’d you sleep last night?’

Some time later he said that she’d been interviewed. Not long after that another man came in and stood listening.

‘Jealous of Peter, were you?’

‘Why should I be jealous of him?’

‘You’re telling us that you didn’t know he was sleeping with her?’

‘With who?’

‘Don’t play the funny man, son. Just answer the questions. You’re in a lot of trouble. You can do it the hard way or the easy way.’

The light in the narrow window had faded. Since the morning I had been sitting in that room.

‘I’m hungry,’ I said.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Get him a sandwich – no, I’ll go.’

He got up and stretched. The man who had been standing silent sat down. The one who had been questioning went out.

The new one sat with a pencil turning it on the table. The door opened and another two newcomers appeared. One sat down and took over from the fat man. The fat man yawned and left.

‘I want to piss, too,’ I said.

‘In a minute. Tell me first about Margaret.’

‘You must have heard – I’ve said all there is to say about her.’

‘Tell me again. When did you find out about her and Peter?’

It must have been an hour later when I remembered about the sandwiches. Nobody had brought me any. But the room gradually filled up. More men kept coming in. Some were in uniform. Two or three would ask me questions taking it in turn. The men in uniform were not constables – I didn’t know what ranks but they looked important.

It was just after I felt the strangeness of this roomful of men that the last one arrived. I was being asked a question and it stopped abruptly. The new arrival closed the door and waited as if he wanted to gather every eye. I watched him as if I too had been waiting for news.

He nodded – Yes. Yes.

There was a release of breath, a mingled sigh and snarl, like the purr of a hunting cat. Then every eye turned back to me.

The man who had just come in bent over and whispered to one of my interrogators and another one got up and he took his place.

Everything changed then. Although I had been frightened before, I could make sense of what was happening. Now the questions made no sense to me.

Had I ever been a member of a political party?

Where had I met Kilpatrick?

How did I feel about the Royal Family?

Had it been in a club I met Kilpatrick?

Some kind of society or organisation?

What group did I belong to?

And then over and over again:

Where had I gone during the night – while Margaret Briody slept – before I climbed into her bed – God, they knew about that – where had I gone? What time had I slipped out? Where did I go? Did I know – this house, that street, this hotel?

Had I been inside that hotel?

Riggs Lodge – but, of course, I had. It was the hotel I had worked in as a relief porter at Christmas.

When I said that, there came another of those strange sighing chuckles, fat and satisfied and at the same time hungry.

My watch had stopped. It felt like the middle of the night. I had at the back of my mind the thought – this is wrong; and I thought that I would say nothing more; I would insist on something to eat. Dully, I realised that I wasn’t hungry any more. I was tired. The questions kept coming and I answered them while behind their distraction I conducted with myself this other argument – that it was wrong; but until I settled it what else was there to do but keep answering?