A Death to Remember (26 page)

‘
No.’

Then
where had she gone? I moaned to myself.

‘
He rang while she was here,’ said Val.

‘
Then why in God’s name...’

‘
Kindly moderate your voice.’

‘
Sorry.’ The top of my head lifted to accommodate the effort.

‘
Go on.’

‘
He’d phoned to say he’d be late. I told him your young lady was here, and he spoke to her on the phone.’

‘
And?’

‘
And nothing. She simply said she’d see him there, and hung up.’

‘
See him where?’

‘
He was calling from his office.’

‘
But where did they arrange to meet?’

‘
Heaven knows, Cliff, and if he’s having it off with your woman friend at this very minute, I tell you, Cliff...’

‘
Don’t be ridiculous, Val,’ I said angrily, and I hung up.

Michael
Orton Associates! My fingers flicked and fumbled through the phone book. His phone rang on and on. I hung up, defeated.

She
was missing. It had been for too long for any simple explanation to cover it. Orton was missing, but I wasn’t going to worry about him. What I had to fear was that they were missing together. And where.

I
groaned in frustration. Nicola had been sitting there, and had suddenly gone to look at a Day Work Book. Therefore, she had seen something. I drew towards me the account book that had been open on her desk when I arrived.

It
was a book of invoices, or rather, of copy invoices. The carbon paper used had served out its life, and the copy I was staring at was barely legible. Date: 10 Nov. 1984. That was six days before my visit there, four days after the death of Colin Rampton.

Vehicle: BMW 525

Registration Number: CWS 73 P

Description of Work Completed:

To realigning steering, checking tyre pressures, checking
brakes, test on road. Pull to right now corrected. To checking and topping-up of battery, oil-level, gearbox level, brake fluid level.

Signature: T. Clayton.

Accepted as above: M. Orton.

I
saw now what had attracted Nicola’s attention. The registration number. It had my initials: CWS. But she couldn’t have known why.

This
was just before I bought the Volvo. It had been the
reason
I’d bought the Volvo. We’d been married three months, and Val was still trying. One day she drove me into town. She’d been using her old Jag at that time, and had taken me to the showroom where they had ready for the road, taxed, insured, and all checks completed: one BMW 525. Somebody had gone to extensive trouble to locate the district using the registration prefix: CWS. Edinburgh, it turned out to be. At Val’s instructions. It was a rather laboured gesture of personal consideration, and my instinct was to reject it. But her kind thought had been there. I’d accepted the car with gratitude and driven it home, and there, gently but firmly, I’d told her I just could not use it. A BMW 525 with a personalised number plate was simply too ostentatious for a Social Security Inspector to use, but of course Val hadn’t wanted me to go on with the job, anyway. The car was intended, really, to persuade me not to go on with it. Because of this, I’d
had
to reject it, and because of it, as a gesture of independence – which I now realised to have been infantile – I’d bought the Volvo. Only fractionally less ostentatious, but mine.

So
she’d parted with her Jag, which had begun to drink oil, and used the BMW herself.

But
Nicola could not have known this. The initials must have caught her attention. Yet she’d gone to my former home.

Perhaps
she had gone there because of the registration number, and had discovered it was now Val’s car. And then she had made an appointment to see the Day Work Book.

Why?
What could that have told her? The day the work was done?

Oh
dear Lord! I thought. What had Nicola seen? What had she realised, from having seen it?

The
fact that I couldn’t see anything in it didn’t mean that she hadn’t. She was bright. She would’ve used feminine logic, jumping barriers and associating impressions. Whatever she’d done, it had been for me, in order to rationalise my missing day and put my mind at rest.

But
where else but to Orton’s office could it have taken her?

I
set my elbows on the table and buried my face in my hands, and tried to think. To find her, and quickly, I needed to make sense out of all my conflicting images. I’d needed her help, but now, I believed, she needed mine. My poor, faltering and battered mind would not work. Every time I had approached a new avenue of information, I’d been presented with a fresh contradiction. Only one item of information remained to be explored.

I
knew where to find my Harris tweed jacket.

But
that way, I was certain, lay insanity. I knew what I’d find in that jacket. There’d be a black fountain pen, with which George Peters had written a withdrawal of his claim, so that I’d have had no reason to go to Pool Street Motors. And there’d be a piece of brown paper, or a brown envelope, on which Tessa had written a phone number for me to call, in order to deliver money she couldn’t have handed me, because Tony had had it in his pocket – although I’d seen her doing it.

In
those two items I would have to recognise the collapse of all reason.

Yet
I had nowhere else to turn. I had to go to my jacket, in the hope that truth, however frightening, would take me to Nicola.

And
if
that
, I thought grimly, was a logical idea, then surely I was already climbing the wall.

I
thought this with a sour, internal humour that surprised me. But I was busy steeling myself to an action that terrified me through and through. Didn’t one traditionally face terror with humour? Wasn’t that the way to go down – laughing?

I
wasn’t aware that the door behind me had opened until Bill Porter spoke.

‘
I guessed it was you.’ He stood in the doorway, with two uniformed men behind him. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’ he asked.

I
groaned. Another minute and I’d have persuaded myself I could face the Harris tweed jacket.

‘
Doing what you should be,’ I told him, angry that he’d disturbed my thoughts. ‘Trying to make sense of it.’

‘
We’re making sense. It’s you who’s not. Come along, Cliff, let’s have you out of here. You’re trespassing on Government property. I could take you in...’

‘
I’m finished here.’

‘
And what you expect to achieve here, I don’t know.’

‘
How many more people have got to die before you take action?’ I demanded. ‘Colin Rampton, Arthur Pitt, George Peters, Tessa Clayton...how many more?’

‘
I’ll run you home. You need some sleep. Look at you, for God’s sake!’

I
flung away his arm. ‘Leave me alone.’

‘
And you’re talking nonsense.’

‘
It’s Orton you ought to be talking to. Haven’t you realised that, yet?’

The
two constables glanced at each other. Bill came to the desk and stared down at the books. ‘Is that where it says it? That I ought to speak to Michael Orton.’

‘
Nicola saw something...’

‘
You’re obsessed, Cliff. If you don’t leave voluntarily, and now, I’m taking you into custody.’

He
wasn’t real, poor old Bill. Not with it, as they say. Reality was a Harris tweed jacket hanging in the foreman’s office. Now it was beckoning me, like a spectre’s finger.

‘
Don’t worry, I’m going.’

Then,
out in the car park, I calmly waited for them to leave before I pocketed the key and walked away. For some reason, dignity seemed to be called for. I watched them drive away, then I went to catch a bus.

When
every nerve strained for action and called for speed, when my heart cried out for Nicola, in danger I was certain, when time was an enemy that might erode my resolution...I caught a bus. This seemed logical to me. On the reverse face of the urgency there was trepidation. I wanted to run just as fast, but in the other direction. Cowardice demanded this. I thought I’d done rather well to climb on a bus at all. I was still on the right side of doing nothing; I was moving towards Pool Street Motors.

The
bus dropped me at the corner of Rock Street. I had to walk back, and then down Pool Street, where I could stand on the forecourt again.

One
of the streetlights was not working. It gave a bloody red flick every few seconds. The street was quiet. A long way off, a dog was howling. There was no breeze that evening to flap the sheet metal. No rain. A clear and quiet night, ideal for breaking and entering.

I
headed for the gap against the neighbouring wall. That gap was my friend; I couldn’t use the gate, open or not. I edged my way round cautiously towards the sliding doors.

17

There was no reason to expect the sliding doors to be open. It was simply a venture, to be followed, if necessary, by more violent action to gain access.

They
were two feet apart. I viewed the gap with suspicion. Once before I’d been led into a trap. I put my shoulder to one of them, trying to force it into the closed position. It was wedged by a stone in the track. This provided logic for the opening, so I was comforted. I put a foot inside, edged my shoulders through, and stood in the darkness with all my basic instincts straining.

There
was a dead smell in the air, the normal petrol, oil and fume smells now being commonplace to me. Even the dust seemed to be static. Now there was no faint light from the foreman’s office to guide me. I had no torch. Nothing but a patterned darkness faced me, broken only, from a point to my left where I’d previously seen it, by the red spot of light from the battery charger. There was no hum, though, this being overcome by the steady thump, thump of the air-pressure pump, and the whine of its electric motor.

For
some moments I stood and thought about that, and whether it meant that somebody was on the premises and had switched on the pump. But there could be no necessity for an air-pressure line at night. No...the answer was simple. The pump fed a cylinder of compressed air, and would therefore require a pressure-controlled switch so that the pressure would be maintained. It would be automatic, on and off.

There,
you see, brain working satisfactorily. Everything had a logical solution. But really, what I was doing was taking my mind from that foreman’s office and the jacket I would surely find inside it. I didn’t want to think what that jacket would tell me.

My
heartbeat was loud in my ears. Or was it the air pump? I moved forward a yard, panting with the effort. The terror was not of the dark, I told myself. Nobody’s terror is ever of the dark, it is of what might lie beyond it. I wanted to turn and grope back into the slightly less dark night, but Nicola’s face swam in front of me, and I had to go on.

There
were dangerous obstacles to be avoided, even to reach the office. But now I’d stood long enough for my eyes to have adapted, and shapes were becoming separate blacks, and my memory supplemented the information. Sweat trickled down my face and into the lines around my chin. My jaw ached. The air pump throbbed at a steady beat.

One
hand touched the hydraulic lift. It meant I’d passed the pit, which might still have been open. The frame of the lift guided me. I ran my hands along it, and jumped as I touched something loose that swung and rattled. I looked round. The red spot of light gave me a fix. A quarter turn to my right should line me up with the foreman’s office. I held out both hands in front of me and moved forward again, felt my fingers touch the door, felt it move. I forced myself to take the step inside, and groped across to the bench. My fingers found the bench lamp, and I pressed the switch.

The
flood of light was blinding. The shade was turned up directly into my face. Flailing in sudden panic, I twisted it around to face the wall, then I fell panting into the metal chair, my legs jelly and my heart tripping over itself.

When
I eventually raised my head again I saw that the light was centred on the row of filthy overalls. They were hung two or three layers thick, some originally white, some brown, some blue. But the oil and grease had layered them to a uniform black. No green of a jacket was visible.

I
got to my feet and moved to them, and starting from the left moved along, parting them up. It was the touch that alerted me, the rough, hairy feel of Harris tweed. My jacket. I had to lift off three sets of overalls to free the collar tag, then I had my jacket in my shaking hands. I held it by the collar, away from me. It stank of oil. The desire was to drop it on the floor and turn away. But that would be turning away from Nicola.

Slowly
I turned it. The breast pocket swung into view. There was a fountain pen clip showing outside it. Without my intention, my right hand moved forward and clipped it out. I held it in my palm.

It
was my black Parker pen with the normal nib. It meant I’d had it with me that day, had it when I visited George Peters. It would be dry now, but could have held ink at that time, and could have – undoubtedly had – written the withdrawal of his claim in George’s hand. I had the pen there in my palm, the proof that George hadn’t written a statement for me, the proof that I would therefore have had no reason for coming here to the garage. And yet I had come. I had heard a story of an accident, which my addled brain had later attributed to George.

But
I am not insane, I howled inside my head. I am not. And somewhere within the chaos of my mind another voice was calling out: help me, Cliff.

I
had to get out of there. All I had come for had been achieved, but it was destroying me. I reached for the desk lamp switch, and plunged myself into darkness, but darkness now was beyond acceptance. I put it on again, and saw, at the back of the bench, a black rubber battery torch. This I took in my hand. With this I might, I thought, find the main switch outside. I needed light...light. My legs were shaking as I fumbled my way out into the repair bay, my eyesight not reliable. But I found the main switch, and light flooded me. I dropped the torch and stood swaying.

The
jacket still hung from my left hand, the pen had disappeared. I must have dropped it, I decided wearily. Still the distress ran round in my brain, but through it was hammering the thud...thud...of the air pump. Did it never stop? I had to make it stop. It seemed that I could not force myself through the barrier of that sound to reach the beckoning night.

I
realised I was on my knees. All my energy and will power were required to bring me to my feet again, and now my objective was the pump. I staggered over to it, eyes squinting against the glare, head throbbing from the eternal beat.

The
main cylinder was about four feet long and two feet across. On it was mounted the electric motor and its V-pump. Now, close to it, I could hear the hiss of escaping air from the copper pipe running along the wall. The letters on the side of the cylinder read: MWP 200. The pressure gauge showed a needle against its stop. I leaned over, and managed to see the reading: 300+. I decided they meant: Maximum Working Pressure 200, and gauge level well above 300. The hiss now seemed loud. The pump throbbed on. I located a square box on the top of the cylinder, which must have been the automatic cut-out switch. The top of it had been smashed in.

Then
the answer swept over me, draining the blood from my face. It was due to explode, had been rigged to explode. But how could anyone have known I’d come there? There was no panic desire to run. My brain hadn’t got to it. In any event, there was a master switch box on the wall above it. I reached for its lever. There was no lever. It had been broken off.

Then
the panic hit me. I began to run. Twice, before I reached the sliding doors, my legs gave way, but I sprawled and scrambled and reached the gap, and panted into open air, still not safe, if that thing exploded, but with every second safer. Now, with one hand to support me against the outside steel wall, I could move faster, could reach the gap, the forecourt, the pavement...and it was there that I finally collapsed, sitting on the kerb, cursing my weakness and weeping at my own frustration.

But
I had to
do
something. The police, the fire service, Tony Clayton; somebody had to be told. I had to reach a phone. I saw a car approaching, and forced myself to my feet, managed to move a yard into the roadway and feebly wave my jacket, but they drove past. I stood with legs apart, cursing, and realised that something had fallen from the jacket pocket.

It
lay at my feet. I stared down at it. In the orange light it was difficult to be sure, but it seemed to be brown. An envelope. I stooped and picked it up. Written on it was the number: 259287. In blue felt tip.

Again
I collapsed on the kerb, the envelope in my hand. Somewhere in the back of my mind there was a whisper of hope. So she
had
given me the number. Again I saw her hand, holding it towards me, slipping it inside the wages book. So it was true. True! I must have taken it out of the wages book and put it in my inside pocket. Before the fight with Graham...

Oh
dear Lord! I thought. The screaming in my mind faded to the background, and lurked there. It was uncertain whether to launch another attack. Frantically, buoyed on by the hope, I fumbled through the jacket. In the inside breast pocket there were other things. I found my driving licence, and a sheet of white paper, now discoloured by oil. With my fingers trembling I opened it up. It had been folded twice, and was a sheet of A4 official minute paper. On it was written, spikily, with the splutters of a right-hand oblique nib used in the left hand:

I, George Peters, state that:

My accident happened on the 6th November 1984 in the repair shop at Pool Street Motors. I got my arm crushed when I was lying under this car I’d got on its pair of jacks, and the front wheels off, trying to change one of the steering ball joints. I’d been warned I ought to have it on a hydraulic lift, but Charlie Graham was using it, and I couldn’t wait. While I was looking up I saw the underside of the car moving, and I knew it was running off the jacks. I looked back, and saw what had happened. I saw some oaf backing up a car. I yelled, but he didn’t hear. I’d got the back wheels against a couple of bricks, but he nudged my car and it was sliding the breeze blocks. Then the car fell on my arm, crushing it. I saw part of the registration number. It was CWS–P.

George Peters 16/11/84

I wanted to run about the street, shouting my joy. This had to mean it was
all
true. My mind had produced the correct pictures. I was sane...sane...

Then
I stopped. My mind stopped. I started it again, forcibly. What I was holding was more than proof of my sanity. It provided reason for the death of George Peters. He had seen the genuine accident, and noticed the car’s registration number.
My
car’s registration number. He had been so foolish as to put it into a statement. Charlie Graham had seen the car, but perhaps he was now safe. Arthur Pitt was not safe. He had dived from a window. LSD? Perhaps. Hadn’t Charlie said that Arthur Pitt, too, had seen the car? And Tessa? Tessa probably had not seen the car, but she’d seen George Peters’ statement – probably I’d shown it to her – and she had phoned Michael Orton to tell him that I had that statement. Tessa, good friend of Michael Orton, who’d allowed her to continue to live, until I began to ask awkward questions and came too close to the truth. Originally, I had no doubt, I’d not been intended to live. But I had, and more recently there had been the chance that although I was alive, I might not remember. I had remembered too much.

It
hadn’t been for the money that I’d been attacked, but for the statement. By that time there’d been a withdrawal form to substitute for it, signed by George, and extracted from him by force before he died. But the statement hadn’t been conveniently in my briefcase, it’d been in my jacket in the foreman’s office.

I
saw all this in a second. Now, released from its terror, my brain was clear. I understood, and I saw what Nicola – so clever Nicola – had seen. If the car, CWS 73 P, had been collected on the 10th November, when had it been brought in? So she’d wanted to see something she called the Day Work Book. Work in, work out, by the day.

And
that...my God, I thought, such a record was not an account book. Orton had collected the account books from his office to check that nothing in them linked the BMW with the day Colin Rampton had died. He had seen nothing, so he’d felt safe in letting Nicola have them. But he’d forgotten about the Day Work Book. The old one could well be in use, still, and would be...where? Why, in the main office in the garage behind me.

With
a howl I sprang to my feet and turned. She was there...I knew it. I began to run for my friendly gap, the way in, was easing through it, running round, and stopped at the sliding doors.

The
air pump throbbed on. It seemed to throw its steady beat to the night. The lights from inside dazzled me. I took a step inside. The hiss of escaping air now dominated. From all sides it seemed that the pressure was seeking release. I could not walk past it. I could not.

But
there was another way. I turned and ran round the building to the outside staircase. Here there was no hiss, but as I put my hand to the rail I could feel the continuing thump, thump, thump through my palm. I clattered up, stumbling, my shoulder to the door in case it was locked. It wasn’t. I was in the darkened office, reaching for the switch.

Nicola
was sitting behind the desk, her head down on it, hands spread each side, one arm through the strap of her handbag. Her face lay on an open book. I ran to her. The pump and its cylinder were almost directly beneath us. It pressed its throb into the soles of my shoes. I groaned, and reached for her, lifting her head. There was an abrasion behind one ear. With the movement, she muttered something. Her fingers were clenched on the book. I tried to release them, but could not.