A Fragment of Fear (16 page)

But I stopped him before he had shut the door and said:

“That’s not the point. You wouldn’t understand this, perhaps, but it’s important to me.”

He paused with his hand on the door knob, and stared down at me.

“What’s important to you, old boy?”

“It’s the individual, that’s what’s important, it’s a question of whether the individual can survive when he’s pitted against the organisation, that’s what matters, that’s what matters to me, that’s why I’m being so bloody-minded—it’s not a question of whether the individual gets submerged in the State, it’s something far more primitive—it’s a question of whether the individual—me, in this case—has a bloody chance at all against the jungle these days, whether it’s a State jungle or any other kind of modern jungle. The peasant had a chance in the old days, not much, but just a chance, but has he now, Stanley?”

Elaine had gone along the passage, Stanley Bristow stood looking at me blankly.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Forget it. You don’t understand.”

“Of course I understand, old boy. You want to prove you can stand on your own feet. Quite right, too!”

I guessed it was silly to have submerged him in a stream of words and ideas. I imagined he was thinking that it was bad enough to have me suffering from an imaginary persecution, without having me build abstruse theories upon it.

“That’s right,” I said hastily. “Well, good night.”

“Good night, old boy.”

I helped him to close the door in case he came back at me. I couldn’t bear any more of him. Then I turned and saw Juliet, and in a way I was pleased and in a way I was shocked.

She was standing stiffly by the fireplace. All the superficial brightness had gone out of her.

The fear was back in her eyes.

“You don’t want to worry,” I said uneasily.

I went to put my arms around her, but she drew back.

“What’s the matter?” I said, as though I didn’t know.

“I now think it’s true,” she said, staring at me with big, frightened, dark eyes. “I think what you said is true, I think you’re up against something—some big criminal thing. It didn’t make sense till you saw Colonel Pearson, but it does now.”

“Maybe I’m right, and maybe I’m wrong,” I said, as lightly as I could. “Come on, cheer up.”

I put an arm round her and kissed her. She didn’t resist, but her lips were cold. She said:

“If I never ask you to do another thing, will you do this one thing for me?”

“The geranium?”

She nodded. I turned away.

“No,” I said. “No darling. I can’t. Not even for you.”

I watched the tears welling up in her eyes.

“It’s not just the story now. It’s not just a dislike of being pushed around. I’ve just got to prove something.”

“What?” she said evenly, but a second later I heard her sob.

To my astonishment, I heard myself echoing, in some part, Stanley Bristow’s words.

“That if he’s in the right, or at any rate not in the wrong, then a man can stand on his own feet, even these days against the organisation. It doesn’t mean much, I suppose, to most people. But I’m a bit keen on the idea.”

When we parted she was more cheerful. If she wasn’t, she pretended to be. I didn’t tell her that her name had been mentioned in the last message. I didn’t truthfully think it was more than bluff. I suppose it was criminally wrong of me.

T
here was nothing in my letter box when I retained to my flat, except the evening paper. I glanced through it before I went to bed. On one of the inside pages, a brief news item said that the woman murdered in Paradise Lane had now been identified as a spinster, aged forty-seven, called Mavis Battersby, of 247 Furleigh Road, London, N.W.1.

It didn’t seem to matter.

To me she would always be Poor Bunface, not Mavis Battersby. The real name meant nothing, does not mean anything now, and never will mean anything. I thought, think, and always will think, that she was killed because she knew a little too much, and because she was on the verge of cracking up.

When I undressed I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I always have a glass of water by my bed at night. Not a plastic tooth mug filled with water, but a real glass. Water tastes better in a glass.

I looked at the geranium in its pot on the window sill.

Its best summer blooms were past, but it still had one or two smaller autumnal flowers. It was leggy and some of the leaves had turned brown round the edges. I would cut it back in due course, and give it the minimum of water during the winter months, and next year it would flourish again.

Suddenly I felt extraordinarily tired; not physically tired, but spiritually exhausted. The temptation to lift the plant, take a few steps out of the kitchen and put it on the living-room window was irresistible.

I had felt all along that because the threat was seriously and efficiently operated, I could completely rely upon obtaining relief by carrying out their instructions. I was not faced with shifty little crooks whose word could not be trusted. This was something bigger; and, because it was coolly calculated, and, if my theory was correct, meant a great deal financially to the operators, then their terms would be honoured.

I turned away from the plant, and ran the tap to make sure the water would be cold, and as I waited, the feeling of spiritual exhaustion left me and was replaced by something more dangerous. It was a feeling of apathy. Exhaustion is a positive thing. You are conscious of it. You can try to do something about it.

Apathy is the negation of all effort and all emotion. Apathy means that if there is no way of avoiding action, then you take the easiest line.

I suddenly wanted to be left in peace.

Subtle voices spoke to me, pointing out that I was not engaged upon a crusade to save a large cross-section of humanity, but indulging in stubbornness and personal pride. Blackmail gangs always existed and always would, and the victims had only themselves to blame. Anyway, I couldn’t ever prove anything, and the police were not interested, and why should I be?

The subtlest voice of all argued in favour of a temporary surrender, until the heat had died down. This voice was a very crafty one indeed, and went into some detail.

The burden of its argument was that the people were intelligent enough to know that I was certainly not the only crime writer who would be interested, at some time or other, in the Pompeii murder. Although the Italian police might be content with current facts and clues, somebody, some day, would write the case up in great detail and with a full background. A black-out could not be maintained indefinitely. Therefore, the voice whispered, the black-out was being imposed for a limited period for some special purpose. So why not lay off now, and return to the fray later?

I picked up the geranium, and went out of the kitchen, feeling no sensation of defeat.

I turned right, into the bedroom, and put the glass on my bedside table, and went into the living-room, carrying the plant. The curtains were drawn, and I put the pot on the sill, preparatory to pulling the curtains aside.

But it wasn’t any use.

I remember I stood staring at it, thinking: there you are, boyo, on your hideous green saucer, representing the victory of the organised predators over the peasant who chooses to walk the trails alone. He thinks the Tribe can protect him, and sometimes it can, and sometimes it can’t, but it ought to be able to; and the more times it proves it can, the better for all peasants, but the peasants have got to lend a hand, they’ve got to fight back themselves, they’ve got to show willing, and if a peasant shows willing, in this day and age, then the peasant ought to be able to win through against the predators. He damned well ought to win through. Maybe he gets clawed down by that lot who slither along the jungle undergrowth beside him. Maybe he dies, and maybe he goes on, but he’s got to have a crack at it, God damn and blast everything and everybody, he’s got to fight back, because if he doesn’t bloody well fight back as an individual peasant, then the whole bloody Tribe is lost, because the individuals make the Tribe, it’s not the Tribe which makes the individuals, and damn all organised predators, and long live the peasant, I thought.

So it wasn’t any use, and I walked back into the kitchen and put the geranium in its accustomed place, and then went into the living-room and drew the curtains aside, so that by seven-thirty next morning my decision would be clear.

I went to bed, and slept reasonably well, and at seven-forty the next morning the telephone rang, and I naturally guessed who it was before I had lifted the receiver.

The voice was just the same as the first time, but he had now adopted a polite, but chilly tone.

“Well, now, this is most disappointing, isn’t it?” he said without preamble, and his voice was a sigh of regret at the intractibility of the human race.

“Oh, go to hell!” I said.

“Tell her to wear spectacles today, and at the wedding, if she’s there,” he said quickly and urgently, as though he were afraid I might ring off, and not answer the ’phone if it rang again.

“What do you mean?” I said sharply. I felt a jolt of fear in my stomach as sudden as an electric shock.

“What do I mean? I mean, I don’t think you are taking us seriously,” he said equally sharply. “That’s what I mean. That’s just what I mean, that and nothing more, nothing more than I said in the note you tore up. Got it? Remember what I said about a mark of disfavour? Got it?”

He asked questions, but he didn’t wait for a reply. He was speaking very rapidly indeed. It now occurred to me that he thought I might have made arrangements with the telephone authorities to notify the police of all calls to me from a telephone booth, as though he feared a police car might draw up outside his booth at any moment.

“Seven-thirty was the deadline. Seven-thirty this morning. I’ve been instructed to—”

In his haste he began to fumble for words.

“You’ve been instructed to do what?” I said as calmly as I could. “What have you—”

“I’ve been instructed to demonstrate that we mean literally what we say, so that—”

“Oh, for God’s sake be your age,” I broke in.

“Listen, I must go now, but—”

“Well, go then—I don’t want to talk to you—” I said brusquely, because I couldn’t resist the temptation to be rude.

“Don’t suppose you do,” he said quickly. “Don’t suppose you wanted to in the first place. Bad luck for you, isn’t it?”

Now for the first time the enamel was wearing thin. The politeness was departing. There was a quick, vicious tang to his voice.

“It’s too late now,” he snapped. “Too late for quite a while. But we’ll be back, see? Meanwhile, you’ll learn that we mean business, see? Meanwhile, get your girl to wear glasses—that’s my advice. Later, if you still love her—”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I say—mark of displeasure, see what I mean?”

“What mark of displeasure?” I said shakily, and felt the electric shock in the stomach again. “What do you mean, mark of displeasure?”

But I thought I saw what he was implying.

“I suppose you know the penalty for a razor attack?” I muttered ineffectually.

I heard him laugh.

“Nothing crude like that. We wouldn’t slash her. But remember about the glasses. For her own good, see? Nothing against her personally. She’s just dead unlucky. Don’t want to blind her. Acid is nasty stuff when you get it in the face,” he added abruptly, and I heard him replace the receiver.

I stared down at the telephone.

Now I was genuinely afraid.

Just as I had believed that if I had surrendered to their demands, Juliet and I would have gone unharmed, so now I believed without doubt that the threat to mar Juliet’s magnolia skin by flinging acid in her face was a genuine one.

I began to move restlessly about the flat, and did so for an hour or more desperately trying to decide upon some sort of action. In the end, without having bathed or shaved, or had a cup of tea, though it was already nine o’clock, I went downstairs and out to my car and drove to the police station.

Whatever the cost in humiliation, I had to make one more effort, now that Juliet was involved.

Unluckily, the same alert young sergeant was on duty as when I had called previously. He not only remembered me, he even called me by my name.

“Good morning, Mr. Compton,” he said pleasantly. “More trouble?”

“Is the superintendent in?”

“Ah, the superintendent?” he replied carefully. “Now he’s a difficult man to pin down. And very busy, always out and about, as you can imagine. Can I give him a message?”

“I want to know if he is in,” I said doggedly. “If he is, I want to see him.”

He leaned across the counter and began to talk in a chummy, confidential kind of way. I think he saw himself as a cross between Dixon of Dock Green and Spencer Tracy in an old-time film.

“Look, sir, he
is
in—that’s true—he
is
in, but he’s got a very important conference on, see?”

“When will he be free?”

He shrugged his shoulders evasively.

“Maybe an hour, maybe much longer. You can’t tell, sir.”

“I’ll wait. I’ll sit down and wait.”

“May I suggest something, sir? Why don’t you just let me write down what you want to tell him, and then, maybe, when he’s read it, he can get into touch with you, eh? How would that do? Save you all this waiting, eh, sir?”

He spoke in a kindly, gentle way, as one might to a very old lady suffering from mental deterioration. I had to bite back the instinct to be impatient with him. I had to remind myself that these people genuinely and reasonably thought I was suffering from a persecution complex, or at the very least some mental disturbance brought on by a car crash. There had been a few ghastly hours when I had had doubts myself. In the circumstances, he was being very patient and humane.

I nodded and pulled at my chin and felt the stubble. I don’t suppose my unshaven appearance and hastily combed hair improved matters.

I remembered that the superintendent and the sergeant had been a little rough at one point. But now I couldn’t blame them either.

They had been pulled in, from the first important stages of a murder hunt, to talk to a man who appeared to be suffering from some kind of post-accident neurosis.

“All right,” I said abruptly. “Tell him this. Tell the superintendent this. Tell him I’ve had another letter, like the previous one, but also threatening my fiancée. Tell him I’ve had another ’phone call, too, threatening to throw acid in her face, either today or tomorrow at my wedding. My wedding is at the Catholic Church in Baxter Street, Mayfair, at three-thirty, got it?”

“I’ll tell him, sir. Don’t worry.”

“Tell him I want police protection.”

“I’ll tell him, sir,” said the sergeant. “I’ll tell him all that, never you fear.”

“Tell him, I don’t think—”

I stopped and hesitated.

“You don’t think what, sir?”

“Tell him I don’t think my fiancée will need police protection today, but I want it at the church tomorrow. Right?”

“I’ll tell him what you say, sir.”

“Thank you,” I said dully. “Thank you very much.”

He would pass on my request, but nothing would happen. You couldn’t expect anything to happen, I thought. You couldn’t expect the police to provide protection for every nut-case who thought he was being persecuted. He hadn’t even asked to see the written message I had torn up.

I did not ask for protection for Juliet that day because except in a very important case, what does it amount to? A constable passing the house a little more frequently than usual? Knocking at the door a couple of times a day to see if all is in order, perhaps when the damage is done? The police station checking by ’phone when there is no one there to reply? I didn’t know.

What I did know was that they couldn’t detail a couple of men to follow Juliet around London on her last-minute chores.

I rang up Stanley Bristow. I had to feel that I had gone through what one might call all the paper formalities, useless though they might be.

He said he was glad I had ’phoned. He wanted to check one or two points about the speeches. When I could get a word in edge-ways I said:

“Listen, Stanley, I don’t want Juliet to go out by herself today.”

“She’s gone, old boy.”

“Gone where?”

“Only to the hairdresser’s, old boy, to have a perm. Why?”