He Died with His Eyes Open (8 page)

'You see him again?'

'Two Four? Not a chance. One of the drivers, Four Nine probably, marked is card and that was the end of that. It's a story we've all heard before ere at Planet. You'd be surprised how many of the drivers ave their little problems. And,' he sighed, 'don't we all, my life?'

'Okay,' I said. 'Is that all?'

'That's all.' He burped with difficulty, rubbing his hands across his wiry stomach. 'Too much eggs is very bindin, Sarge, don't you find? But I got this passion for em.'

'You want to get out and about more.'

'Ah, fuck it,' he said, 'I don't greatly care for walkin, not when I can ride, what's the use? I never was a great one for the plates of meat, not since the army. An since I was in the cats meats gaff a year back for my piles, I find walkin any distance brings a pain on you know where.'

'We've all got a pain somewhere,' I said. 'It's this case with me.'

'Yeah, well, I'm sorry about Two Four,' said Mr Creamley, 'I really am. E wasn't so bad. I used to ave im up to my place at Epping to teach my youngest girl to speak proper. She ated him. I used to get im out of there in the death, give im a Scotch, push im a ten, an tell im to fuck off—" You'll never get a place like this, Two Four," I used to tell im, "not with its swimmin pool an all, an in its own acre of ground." An they liked im ere, the lads did, even if e did rabbit on a bit.'

'This woman that came in,' I said. 'You don't know her name, I suppose?'

'Well, yes, funny you should ask that,' he said, 'she left it, I think. Delia love,' he called over to an adorer, 'get me that woman's address out of Two Four's file, will you?'

Eventually Delia came across with a piece of paper and stood holding it uncertainly between us.

'Well, go on, darling,' said Mr Creamley, winking with impatience, 'give it to the gentleman, e won't bite you.'

He looked at it with me. 'Christ, there's even an address,' he said. 'Fancy!'

I got up. 'Thanks a lot,' I said.

'Any time. Always a pleasure to see the law. Nother drop of the Illegal?'

'Not today,' I said. 'I'd rather have a cab in a hurry. You can trust me; the taxpayer always pays cash.'

'Don't I know it,' said Mr Creamley sickly. I left him rubbing his belly again with a shiny hand.

I tried the address they had given me, but needless to say she had moved.

11

It really is a dreadful nuisance his dying like this,' said Staniland's bank manager. 'He had an eleven-hundred-pound loan account, don't you know, and there's the interest owing on it.'

'An unsecured loan?'

'Well, not quite—there are a few equities. But equities are performing miserably at the moment, as you probably know.'

'No, I don't own any shares,' I said. 'I don't know.'

'The bank stands to be several hundred pounds out on this affair,' said the manager. 'Several hundred.'

'We're talking about a murder.'

'I daresay. Even so, it's very awkward.'

He was small and pink, and at first sight looked too young to be a bank manager. He had a harassed expression and a smile that was meant to be nice. He produced it with the practised ease of a conjuror.

'Head office cleared the loan. But I was against it.'

'Oh? Why?'

'Not a very stable individual, Mr Staniland.'

'Did he tell you what he wanted the money for?'

'No. Or rather, he told me some story or other, but I didn't believe it. I don't think he did himself.'

'Did he borrow all the money at once?'

'No, he borrowed five hundred; then, three months later, another five. I reminded him how steep the charges would be at today's rates, but he said he was going to be earning so that that didn't worry him.' He coughed. 'It worried me.'

He opened Staniland's file, and I looked at it over his shoulder. 'Most of the cheques are drawn Self, you see. He drew the entire loan amount right down to this very last payment for three hundred a week ago. We let it go through, though it overdrew him, but that was when I wrote to him—'

'Yes, I've seen the letter,' I said. 'It was with his property.' I got out my notebook. 'I'd just like to take the details of these cheques. I suppose you can tell me the banks they were cleared through? You know the codes.'

'We're not really supposed to do that, you know.'

'No, I know you aren't. But this man was actually murdered, Mr Bateson, and I am rather keen to catch the people responsible. I appreciate that you don't want to get yourself into trouble with your head office, but speed is vital.'

'Oh, yes,' said the bank manager. 'Oh, very well, then.'

12

Stanilands room was one of the most putrid I ever saw. I should have been round there already, and I would have gone if Bowman's people hadn't covered it. Romilly Place was off the Lewisham end of the Old Kent Road near the clock-tower; the houses were three-storey tenements and filthy. It was a dangerous bloody district too, especially for someone like Staniland—what we call mixed area, a third unemployed skinhead, and two-thirds unemployed black. It was a cul-de-sac, and in the warmth of the spring evening the air was filled with screams as kids and teenagers raced round the wrecked cars that littered the pavement. There were about twenty houses, mostly with broken windows and vandalized front doors. Some idiot on the council had had the idea of putting a public callbox on the corner; it now contained no telephone, no glass and no door—a directory leaf or two skittered miserably about in the breeze. The house I had parked by had been gutted by fire; the front had been shored up with timber, and there were sheets of corrugated iron where the windows had been; the chimney toppled inwards at a ridiculous angle to the blackened masonry. A youth saw me looking at it and came up. He was only about seventeen, but he had a very old face like a concentration camp inmate. There was a faint stubble on his long whitey-green skull that a flea couldn't have hidden in. 'Six geezers cindered in there,' he informed me, and added: 'But they was all black.'

'I'm looking for number seven,' I said.

'It's the one behind you,' he said, 'but everyone's fucked off. They say one of the ice creams that lodged there got topped over Acton way.'

I could have asked him how he knew that, but I would have lost him if I had. It would have made me smell of law, and I wasn't in a district where the law gets much cooperation. So I said: 'Oh, yeah? Well, I'm just looking around.'

'Why?'

'For a room.'

'What, in there? You must be bleeding mad. The place was rotten with fuzz only day before yesterday. You on wheels? That Ford over there? The Escort?'

'That's right.'

'They don't half go, them Escorts. Got a player in it? Any good tapes? You like to take me an my mates for a ride?'

'What's in it for me?'

'Well, I could get you into number seven easy, see, if you wanted to squat.'

'Yeah, that's what I wanted,' I said. 'For four of us. Looks nice and cheap.'

Some more youths had gathered round while we were talking. I let the skinhead pick his team for the ride, then ripped them round Lewisham clock-tower a few times.

'Where you get this jam?' the skin said enviously when we got back, walking round it. 'It's nice. You nick it?'

'What the fuck's that got to do with you?'

'All right, all right, dad—no need to go bleedin bananas.'

One of the youths standing around said: 'I could get you into that house if you wanted.' He hadn't been asked on the clock-tower trip; he was Asian, though I knew from his accent that he was South London born. 'You want to shoot up, dad?' he murmured. 'Pot? A sniff?'

'Why not a fix?' I said. 'But not now. Later, maybe. When it's dark.'

'Why when it's dark?' said the Asian.

'I just prefer doing it when it's dark,' I said. 'Why? Is it against the law or something?'

They laughed. Then the skinhead said: 'Where you from anyway, dad? You ain't from round here.'

'I never ask questions like that,' I said. 'In fact, I hardly ever ask questions at all.'

Someone said: 'Yeah. Bad habit.'

'I reckon e's got a job on,' said the Asian boy. 'That right, dad?'

'Well, if I had,' I said, 'I wouldn't go round telling people like you about it.'

'Look at this,' said the Asian boy suddenly. He had a knife in his hand quick as a gust of wind; then with another gust it went
stuck!
into the balk of timber that shored up the burned-out house. I hate knives; I've always hated them—I hate them worse than guns. The Asian boy looked at me to see if he'd got any reaction. But I said: 'I'm off to the pub.'

'Which pub?' said the skin.

'You will keep asking questions,' I said. 'You will keep doing it, won't you?'

'All right, dad.' He was needling me. 'Keep your syrup on.'

I was getting sick of being called dad. 'And don't call me dad,' I said. 'I'm not old enough to be your dad.'

'You look old to me,' said the skinhead.

'Anyone would look old to you.'

'You tryinter ave a go?' said the skinhead incredulously. 'You? At me? You must be bonkers, dad.'

'Ah, drop it, Scar,' said the Asian. I could see he wanted to make his sale.

'What pub again?' one of them said.

'The Agincourt.'

'Then you are bonkers,' said the skinhead called Scar. 'No one but a mad geezer'd go in there. Not at night.'

'Well, I'm going in,' I said.

'Meetin' someone?'

'That's right,' I said. 'Malcolm Muggeridge. He's an old mate.' I turned to the car.

'That's all right, dad,' said the skinhead. 'Listen, don't bother gettin' in, just throw us the keys. No sweat, I don't want to have to hurt you, but it's a nice motor.'

'You want the keys,' I said, 'you'll have to come and get them.' The Asian boy said: 'Ah, come on, Scar, turn it up.'

'Why don't you shut your black gob?' said the skinhead, and to me: 'Are you giving, dad, or am I coming?'

'Looks like you're coming,' I said, 'you little maniac.'

There were a lot of heads at the windows now, and the street had suddenly gone quiet. The last window was still opening when Scar came in fast with his left hand out flat in front of him; there was a length of bike chain in his right, and he was flailing it. There was something about his eyes that looked wrong as he came in. I blocked the chain with my left forearm; it cut straight through my anorak and marked the skin. I stamped very hard on his right instep. Now you're not going anywhere, I thought, and gave him my head up his nose. I caught the chain as he dropped it and slung it over a roof, feeling where he had filed the links sharp. I stamped on his other foot, cupped my hand under his chin, and threw him at somebody's front door. He went through it. After a while he crawled back out onto the doorstep and started to feel himself all over, trying not to cry with the pain in his feet.

'Anyone else, now?' I said.

Nobody said anything.

'I hate that kind of thing,' I said, turning back to the car, 'especially when I've got a lot on my mind. It gets right on my wick.'

'E's a bit of a nut, Scar is,' said the Asian boy. 'You don't want to bother about him too much.'

'I'm not,' I said. The skinhead was trying not to scream now, while he struggled to get his kickers off his swollen feet.

'Dad didn't look like e ad it in im,' somebody said.

'They never do,' said the Asian boy. He said to me: 'Tell you what, maybe I could get you a bird if dark meat don't bother you.'

'Another time,' I said, getting into the car, 'But I'll tell you this much, you've got the makings of a businessman, I reckon.'

'Well, you gotter graft,' he said, leaning in at the window. 'What about the other deal, then? The smoke. The fix. You know.'

'You could meet me outside the Agincourt around closing time if you liked.' I started backing the car out.

'You won't last long in the Agincourt, you bastard!' screamed the skinhead. 'I'm gointer get you done over in there!'

'Ah, shut up,' somebody said. 'You're just a nut.'

He still only had one boot off, and his feet stank.

13

Staniland's tape says:

Barbara was hatched in fury like a wasp, and she'll die in fury. Her promiscuity is aggression; she uses sex to obliterate a man—this is her revenge on existence. She forces me to assert myself, then cuts me down by refusing to have intercourse, and enslaves me. Every time I succeed in making love to her she leaves me; she knows this is the worst punishment she can inflict. Sometimes she varies the treatment. Last night in the Agincourt, for instance, she let herself be picked up by the Laughing Cavalier; she took him back to Romilly Place with her. Everyone roared with laughter at me as they left, the two of them. She said I could come back as well and watch if I liked; the idea sickened me so much that I went outside and was sick. I spent the whole night walking round London. There was a north wind blowing; the street lights looked brilliant in a sudden frost. I was sobered by the shock of what she had done; even so, I beat my fists against a wall and cut them. Two patrolling coppers pushed me up against a fence by some waste ground at one point, down by Rotherhithe, but I had money on me and could prove I wasn't a vagrant, so they let me go after I had talked to them for a while. They said nothing at all; their faces were just blank under their helmets. I don't remember what I said.

I realize I can't satisfy Barbara in bed. I don't believe anybody can. It's a strange form of love, to be compelled to convert the woman you love into a human being. She hates my love, she says; she says it's servile; she just wants to kick it to pieces. About a week after what I've just related, we were in our room one afternoon with the curtains drawn, and I was feeling over her body. She drew away, bored, and remarked: 'I've never had an orgasm in my life, not even when I wank. I don't really know what I bother to have sex for.'

But I know. She has it out of hatred. Later in the afternoon I managed to fuck her through her knickers. She started by pushing me off, as usual; then suddenly she just shrugged and let me do it. 'You'll have to get me a new pair,' was all she said when I'd finished. 'Why do you always manage to make me feel worse afterwards than before?' I asked her. She lay back on our mattress and lit a cigarette. 'Look, Charlie,' she said, 'I mean this—why don't you try and find somebody else?' 'I don't want anybody but you,' I said. 'Christ,' she said, 'you just bring out the very worst in me. You make me really enjoy hating you.' I rolled over on our mattress away from her and wept. She took no notice, but went over to the cooker and made herself a cup of tea, whistling 'Vincent'.