Butcher (32 page)

Dysart asked, ‘What can I do for you, Sergeant?'

‘I have a report of a woman seen running out of this house a couple of nights ago. In some distress, it seems. Tell me about it.'

‘A woman? N-no woman was
here
.'

‘So the report is false.'

‘Yes, certainly
yes
. A complete lie. A Slabbite lie.'

‘They do this kind of thing often?'

‘Oh, they do much w-worse. Trash my yard. S-say all kinds of things. They call me a p-pederast. Or I'm a junkie doctor struck off. My hou-house is haunted.' Dysart shrugged and waved a hand as if to dismiss the effect the Slabbites had on him.

‘Haunted, eh? Ghosts and things that go bumpetty in the night?'

‘I suppose so … They don't know any b-better, Sergeant. Poor education, b-bad health system. Society fails so many people.'

He tolerates the unwashed plebs, Perlman thought. Nice guy. What could it be like to live in a house this alienated from its neighbours, a house from another era? You'd be the object of all kinds of suspicion and scandal. It was a tradition – yobs united against the big house, which symbolized a resented upperclass. Name-calling, spreading rumours, throwing shite over the walls: Perlman could see it. One day they'd probably torch the place. History was relentlessly cyclical.

‘You seen anything of a supernatural nature yourself?'

Dysart shook his head. ‘I'm a realist.'

‘What do you mean by realist?'

‘I mean … I b-believe in what I c-can see and touch.'

‘And nothing beyond.'

‘A … such as?'

‘Faith, for instance. In God.'

‘I don't have faith in any god.'

‘A godless man, eh?'

‘That m-makes me sound t-terrible. Call me agnostic.'

‘So you're waiting for proof, or divine manifestation, or a deathbed conversion.'

‘Any of the above.' Dysart smiled and seemed pleased with himself, visibly a little more relaxed, as if Perlman's questions were part of a test he'd been rehearsed to pass.

Perlman thought, Basic Conversation, Book One.

‘Live alone?'

‘Yes.'

‘Monster house for one,' Perlman said.

‘M-most of the rooms don't get used.' Dysart ran a hand across his short hair.

‘I'd really enjoy a guided tour.'

‘There's n-not much to see. Unless you have a taste for damp empty r-rooms—'

‘Damp, give me damp over dry every time. If I enter a room that isn't damp my body cries out, Turn around, get out, we'll turn into a prune, Lou.'

‘You need a certain amount of m-moisture in the air. For health.'

‘Exactly.' Perlman smiled, removed a glove, took out his small notebook and wrote something down. Scribbling in a notebook sometimes caused people to become ill at ease. They felt they were being recorded for an inscrutable official purpose, and so they became nervous and garbled. He wrote:
bollocks
, underlined it, and shut the notebook, then replaced his glove.

‘So you make a living how?'

‘I was left some m-money. And the house of course.'

‘Big upkeep.'

‘It's a weight, granted.' Dysart's hand flew to the knot of his tie as if he'd suddenly discovered a growth beneath his larynx.

Doesn't like neckties. Only wears them – when? Social gatherings? Restaurants? Why was he wearing one today? Expecting company? ‘I assume the legacy you got isn't enough to cover everything that needs repairing.'

‘There's wet rot in the basement—'

‘Wet rot?
Christ
. Talk to me about wet rot. You don't get that seen to, it spreads like the plague. I had some in my own cellar. I live in an old house myself, not huge like yours, but a total pain in the arse maintaining it all the same.' Like I try. Perlman shook his head in sympathy.

‘I have plans,' Dysart said, brightening. ‘I've t-talked to architects and b-builders about restoration. This house d-deserves to be restored. It really d-does.'

Perlman wrote in his notebook again.
Call Betty
. He wrote it on the page where he'd placed Kirk McLatchie's snapshot, which he'd meant to return, but forgotten: holes in his memory nets wide enough for schools of dolphin to pass through. ‘Forgive my curiosity, awful habit. Has it ever crossed your mind to sell, since you don't have the wherewithal to maintain?'

‘Are y-you trying to give me financial advice?'

Perlman laughed and made it sound hearty, two pals enjoying a chuckle and a coupla pints. ‘I'm the last person, Dorcus. All right if I call you Dorcus?'

‘Feel free.' Dysart clearly wasn't sure it was all right.

Lack of trust. He's unhappy, a cop in his house. Most people are. Most people have some secret they'd prefer to keep. What's yours, Dorcus?

‘My bank manager pulls a paper bag over his head and tries to hide every time I enter the bank,' Perlman said.

Dysart issued a thin laugh and ran his fingertips down the sharp creases in his trousers. Good hands, Perlman noticed. Sensitive fingers, such as you'd expect to find on a violinist. The nails had been buffed and trimmed. Recently, too. They hadn't had time to become imperfect. So, a necktie he isn't accustomed to wearing, a new manicure, throw in the good blazer and flannels with creases you could cut yourself on,
plus
the neatly laced sensible black shoes built to outlast ocean liners – is Dysart dressed up for going out, or waiting for somebody to come in? Such finicky questions. The polisman's mind, all fluff sticks. I'm DS Velcroheid, pleased to meetcha.

Dysart said, ‘Are you done with me?'

‘Just about. I wonder if you'd mind,' and Perlman suddenly tugged the chord that released one of the blinds and it ravelled at velocity, exposing window, overgrown gardens, tops of the towers. He needed a sense of the outside. The melancholy atmosphere of this house was a weight on him.

‘I t-told you I never raise the b-blinds.' Dysart blinked several times, and got up from his chair and walked quickly into the hallway.

‘Sorry.' Perlman went after him. ‘A wee bit of light just helps me see better. We can talk here, I don't mind.'

‘I thought w-we were finished—'

‘Two minutes, I promise. So you don't want to sell up. Old family home, emotional bonds. I understand. But this place is a money-pit, and if your inheritance isn't enough I assume you work at something else. Odd jobs here and there, this and that.'

‘I h-have just about enough to live on. But n-not enough for all the planned r-repairs. I'm talking to some people from the National Trust, b-because they often finance this kind of work.'

‘Civil servants. Paperwork. It's a mire sometimes.'

‘They've b-been very optimistic about funds.'

‘I hear it's a lottery. I hope you get lucky.' Perlman gazed into the room he'd just vacated. Rain thudded into the grass and bent the branches of trees and blew over the towers, causing the satellite dishes to quiver. ‘Does Jackie kick in a few pounds now and again to help?'

‘Jackie?' Dysart looked as if he was about to deny knowing anybody called Jackie. ‘I n-never ask Jackie for anything.'

‘I just thought since you and her have been friends a long time, mibbe she'd lend a hand. I imagine she makes good money at The Triangle.'

‘Don't think I'm rude, Sergeant, but I answered what you c-came to ask me, and I d-don't feel easy talking to a stranger about m-my m-monetary situation or p-personal matters.'

Perlman coughed into his gloved hand, then took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and eased one out. ‘You mind?'

‘I do m-mind as a matter of fact. But s-smoke if you n-need to. All smokers are selfish.'

‘I won't smoke if you don't want me to.'

‘No, smoke.' Dysart moved toward the front door and bent down to pick up his wet plastic mac. ‘You c-could quit if you had the willpower.'

‘If I ruled the world.' Perlman lit the cigarette and quietly admired the layered patterns of rising smoke a moment. ‘You got an ashtray?'

‘I don't
s-smoke
. Why would I have an ashtray?'

‘That's a very good point, Dorcus.'

Dorcus slung the mac over a peg in the wall. ‘I th-think the rain's letting up.'

He wants me out, Perlman thought. Jackie Ace was the same, wanted him out. I'm a serpentine presence, he thought. A suit filled with rattlers.

‘When you worked with Jackie at Tartakower's chop-shop, what did you do there? Some cutting, a little butchery, this and that?'

‘T-Tartakower – is that wh-why you're really here?'

‘In a roundabout way, aye. But do me a favour, drop the big astonishment act. One, you're no good at it. And two, I know Jackie's told you we talked and Tartakower's name came up.'

Dysart had the expression of a man who'd always hoped his past misdeeds had been forgotten, only now somebody had come along to expose them. He was the kind of
schlemiel
Perlman always
wished
he could give a break, not just because of the stutter, but because he transmitted rays of old hurts, the strange guy routinely singled out for mockery by careless teachers and cruel schoolmates and, later in life, by heartless nurses or callous professors. What did he feel when he heard laughter behind his back or when somebody impersonated his impediment?

‘I'm not interested in anything you did in your Tartakower days, Dorcus.'

‘You're not?'

‘Far as I'm concerned, that's bygones.'

‘Then w-why are you here?'

Perlman walked in deliberate little circles and talked in a patient manner about the severed hand. He explained he was following up this information, he wasn't here to make accusations or bring charges, this was – oh, that dear wrinkled old chestnut plucked from the fire – routine. Did Dysart understand?

Dysart had been leaning against the wall with his arms tightly crossed and his eyes fixed to the floor all the time Perlman talked. Only when Perlman finished did he raise his face and look at him. ‘So the w-woman you said y-you were looking for, that was a pretext—'

‘No, that was a genuine report.'

‘Now you're talking about s-something t-totally different. I c-can't follow you. I never c-cut off anyone's hand. I
never
did anything like that.'

‘I'm not accusing you, Dorcus.'

‘B-but you're thinking I did—'

‘No, no, I told you, I'm only making inquiries.'

‘T-tartakower's c-crazy. You can't b-believe anything he ever says. He tells ter-terrible stories and …' Dysart faltered, brain-blocked.

This stutter was agony to Perlman: so what was it like for Dysart, who heard his own mangled words echo in his ears? Perlman wished he could grab him around the chest and perform a kind of Heimlich that would free the word jam. ‘I didn't say I
believed
Tartakower, Dorcus.'

‘How can I t-trust you? It s-seems p-peculiar you come here about one th-thing and then suddenly move on to something else—'

‘Sorry if I give you the impression of a deception.'

‘You set t-traps. That's wha-what you do.'

‘Is that what you think?'
Trapper Lou. Snowshoes and caribou pelt and an Eskimo wife called Nanda
. He was finished with his cigarette. He wondered where he could put the stub. He raised his eyebrows at Dorcus, who was conscious of Perlman's little predicament but offered no suggestion.

Perlman said, ‘No ashtray, no sweat. Smokers are ingenious. I can hold it until it dies completely, then I can stick it in my pocket.'

‘A smoker's d-dilemma,' Dorcus said.

‘One among many.' Perlman smiled his biggest smile, the one reserved for the admission of his own weakness.

‘Think of your lungs.'

‘I never stop,' Perlman said.

‘Think of emphysema. Then you need a portable oxygen supply if you g-go out. I'm only p-pointing these things out as a doctor.'

‘Your concern's noted. You're just not the kind of guy who'd inflict a needless cruelty. Like cutting off somebody's hand.'

‘N-never.'

Perlman felt a floorboard move underfoot. Joists creaked. All this talk of cigarette diseases screwed with his head, accentuated his own lugubrious fears. And the house was having a disquieting effect on him too, as if in other rooms people were sharing whispered secrets. It was like a weird dream – you hear whispers, you burst into the room, nobody's there, just a circle of empty chairs still warm from recent use. But no evidence of anyone. He was tuning in to the sounds and rhythms of an old house dying, that was all. Every ancient house had its own terminal illness, its idiosyncratic gasps and sighs as extinction loomed.

The portraits glowered at him.
What are you really here for, Perlman? Have you come to bully our son
? The woman seemed to be fading into a mauve nothingness, a lavender afterlife.

Perlman asked, ‘Your parents?'

Dysart said yes.

Perlman regarded the portrait of Dysart's father, the sterile blue of the eyes. He edged a little further down the hall. A staircase rose into dusky uncertainty.

‘So what kind of shape is it in up there?'

‘Y-you won't be happy until you g-get the tour, will you?'

‘Honest, I wouldn't mind a gander. OK with you?' Perlman shook the handrail and then, without Dysart's approval, climbed the first four or five steps. The staircase was infirm, but it wasn't exactly on the edge of collapse.

Dysart caught up with him. ‘Wait.'

He doesn't want me to go up here. And yet – Perlman had the inexplicable feeling that for some reason Dysart
did
want him to explore. Why the mixed signals, the scrambled radar? The atmosphere of this house, the brooding light, Dysart's stiff awkwardness, his
strangeness
– a combination of them all, who could say?