Incarnate (44 page)

44

E
VENTUALLY
Mr. Pettigrew gave up trying to persuade Danny’s mother to leave them alone. “If you can’t say whatever you have to say in front of me,” she told him, “you shouldn’t be saying it at all.” He sat with his back to the aquarium while Danny’s father stood beside it, and both of them glared at Danny. At last Mr. Pettigrew said, “Well, what about it?” in a voice that shook with suppressed fury.

His arrival had been almost a relief. Now at least Danny could talk about the Hercules. When he’d woken this morning, an hour later than usual, he’d had to pretend it was like any other morning, he’d had to get dressed and behave as if he were getting ready for work. He’d been so on edge that he had thought the knock at the door was the police. When he’d heard Mr. Pettigrew saying that the cinema had burnt down last night, he’d felt clear and refreshed, just as he’d felt on waking. They couldn’t prove anything.

“What about what?” he said.

“What did you leave on the projector last night?”

“I didn’t leave anything.” Danny looked innocent, and why shouldn’t he? Mr. Pettigrew was trying to make out he’d left something there that had caught fire, but all he had left on it was some of Dr. Kent’s face. “You’d have seen if I had, wouldn’t you?” he said with sudden delighted cunning. “You were going round checking when I left.”

“That’s right,” his mother said fiercely. “Of course Mr. Pettigrew would.”

The manager glared at Danny as if he wanted to glare at her. A fish sailed up behind his head like a thought in a cartoon. “Fires don’t just start,” he muttered. “Someone or something started this one.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re right,” Danny’s mother said.

Danny waited for her to go on. When he realized she had no more to say he said, “I know who might have.”

“There, you see,” his mother said. “Just give Danny a chance and listen to him for a change.”

The experience of being listened to by both his father and Mr. Pettigrew was so novel that Danny almost forgot to go on. “Those boys who went in the Ladies’ last night, they were throwing cigarettes before.”

“They ought to be horsewhipped,” his mother said—it wasn’t clear for which offense.

“What did they look like?” Mr. Pettigrew demanded.

“I didn’t really see,” Danny said.

“The girls must have. I’ll ask them. By God, if it turns out to be those little bastards—excuse me, Mrs. Swain— but if it turns out to be those sweet little darlings I’ll see that they wish they’d never been born. And their parents. I’ll get them in the papers, by God. I bought that place forty years ago and I’ve run it ever since. It was more my home than anywhere else ever was. It had a personality, didn’t it, John? Insurance won’t bring that back.”

“I thought you were thinking of selling it,” his mother said, and stared at his father when he grimaced at her. “You mightn’t have got so much for it if you’d sold it.”

The manager opened his mouth and closed it again, and shook his head as if she couldn’t be expected to understand. “We’ll take a look at what’s left if you’re ready, John,” he said to Danny’s father. “Danny, the police are over there sorting through what’s left. They’ll want a word with you.”

“So long as it’s in front of me,” Danny’s mother said and could hardly wait until the men left before she turned furiously to him. “I don’t know how he dared, as good as saying you started the fire. We could take him to court for libel if we wanted to.” She came to Danny and held him by the shoulders, knelt down in front of his chair, so that her face was level with his. “Tell me the truth, Danny. You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?”

Her breathing was growing wheezier, he thought she was going to have an attack before he could make himself say, “No.”

“Of course you didn’t. You mustn’t think I thought you did, I just wanted to hear you say it. I’ll tell you who I think started the fire—he did, to get the insurance money. That’s why he tried to make out it was you. Did you notice he could hardly look at me? That’s why, you mark my words.”

Danny was glad when she let go of him. “I’ll have a lie down,” he said. When she looked anxious he added, “Since I haven’t got to go to work.”

“That’s right, you have a rest so you’ll have your wits about you for the police.”

He wanted to get away from her, for her protectiveness wouldn’t let him think. Something Mr. Pettigrew had said was troubling him, but he’d forgotten what it was. He sat and gazed through his bedroom window at the shades of gray that seemed to be merging above Seven Sisters Road, and then at his wardrobe. Was there a clue in there? He opened the doors and found his extra suit. It looked like a hanged monkey, dangling arms and short legs, another hollow figure that his enemies could hide in to spy on him. It wasn’t until he tore at the buttons and threw the jacket open so that nobody could hide in there that he remembered the letter in the breast pocket.

He unfolded it and read it again before he put it back. He was pleased to have remembered it; Stuart Hay would have to be dealt with as well. He was obviously in league with Molly Wolfe. All the same, the letter was confusing him. He felt as if it ought to help him remember what Mr. Pettigrew had said.

He went to the window, as if that might open up his mind. Two policemen came strolling along Seven Sisters Road from the direction of the Hercules, and Danny dug his fingertips into the edges of the window frame so that he wouldn’t panic. He had to remember, because he thought they would ask him about it, whatever it was. Should he say that the boys had started the fire or that Mr. Pettigrew had? They couldn’t blame Danny—his father had said the place could catch fire and he wouldn’t notice. It was Mr. Pettigrew’s fault for not having the extractor fan fixed. Perhaps he’d left it because he was hoping the place would catch fire. That must be the truth, and Danny would tell the police so; his mother would back him up. Still, he didn’t feel safe anymore; he couldn’t remember what they were going to ask him.

It couldn’t be about Stuart Hay. It was even less likely to be about Dr. Kent, when she was out of the way for good. The two policemen were staring up the path at him, and he didn’t care if they could see that he was grinning defiantly. Then his head jerked back as if someone had seized him by the neck, arrested him. He had remembered.

Mr. Pettigrew had as good as told him. He’d said the police would want a word with him once they’d looked at what was left. The police must have seen what was left of Dr. Kent. They must have found her bones.

He began to dodge around the room, his knuckles pressing into the sides of his skull as if the pain might somehow control the writhing of his mind. He was dodging from comer to corner with no idea where he was going. He kept hurrying to the door and flinching away, his head tightening, lie wanted to tell his mother what he’d done to Dr. Kent and why, tell her before the police did, but he had no time. When he looked out of the window there was no sign of the police. They must already be on their way up.

His mother mustn’t know. That seemed to clear his mind. He must say he wouldn’t talk until they took him to the police station. He would have to insist that they took only him. She would try to stop him, perhaps she’d say that she would never speak to him again, but he was doing it for her, he mustn’t let her change his mind. As soon as the police took him outside he would get away somehow, to deal with Stuart Hay and Molly Wolfe. He mustn’t let himself be locked up until he had finished off his enemies.

He ought to go to the front door, to be ready to let the police in. He opened the wardrobe and lifted his overcoat from its round wooden shoulders. Shouldn’t the police be at the door by now? Or maybe they were still at the Hercules.

He hung up his coat and slumped on the bed, and then he made himself sit up. He ought to go to the Hercules so that they wouldn’t need to come to him. He must, because then his mother wouldn’t see them. He was rubbing his forehead savagely as if that would stop it tightening when someone knocked at the front door.

The next he knew, he was crouching in a corner of the room, hugging himself with his crossed arms, clawing at himself. Even when he heard his mother going to the door, he couldn’t move. He heard the front door open. When he cried, “Who is it?” it was almost a scream.

He heard his mother’s footsteps in the hall, and managed to shove himself away from the walls. He dug his hands into his pockets so violently that the material felt in danger of tearing. Perhaps he looked all right now. But she didn’t come in when she opened the door. “It’s a doctor,” she said.

He thought he was going to be sick with relief. Only a doctor, and past time she saw one. He was glad when he heard her close the front door, for it had let in a stench of burning that made him choke. She and the doctor were coming down the hall—a woman doctor, if the footsteps were anything to go by. She would keep his mother busy while he slipped out to the Hercules, to the police. He bit his lip and made himself stop wondering how long it might be before he saw his mother again, and where.

But his mother was opening his bedroom door. The doctor had halted outside too. The stench of burning must be overpowering, to have lingered so strongly; as the door opened he had to press one hand over his mouth and nose. It couldn’t be doing his mother’s chest any good, but as she came in quickly and closed the door behind her, she only seemed a little awed. “She wants to see you,” she whispered.

“Who does?”

“The doctor. She won’t tell me what she wants. She seems very nice, polite, and everything.” His mother stepped away from the door and reached for the knob. “She says she’s Dr. Guilda Kent from Oxford.”

His mother couldn’t have said that. She had been facing away from him. His mind was playing tricks on him, or somebody was. But the smell of charred meat flooded into the room as his mother opened the door wide, the smell he’d tried to close in the projection box, and he would have backed into the corner and covered his face except that his mother would see. She stood aside, and Dr. Kent came in.

“Well, Danny, this is a surprise, isn’t it,” Dr. Kent said. “I expect you thought you would never see me again.”

She wasn’t marked at all. She was smiling at him as if she wanted him to see the joke. He clenched his teeth until they throbbed, but his lips were twitching; he was afraid he was going either to laugh or to scream.

Dr. Kent looked disappointed. “Nothing to say for yourself?” She glanced pointedly at his mother and back at him. “If I were you I shouldn’t leave all the talking to me.”

Even if he found words, he couldn’t bear to open his mouth while the stench filled the room. The throbbing of his mouth was spreading into his skull and down his neck. Either she hadn’t been real last night or she wasn’t real now, he told himself over and over. It didn’t help. His mother frowned and nodded at him to tell him he was being rude, to make him speak.

“Is it how I look that’s bothering you, Danny?” Dr. Kent pointed at the side of her face. “A woman’s secret, that’s all. We both know I don’t really look like this.”

Danny ground his knuckles into his lips. Her face was blackening, her eyes had started to glaze and swell, first the left and now the right. He didn’t know if his mother was able to see this, but even if she wasn’t, she would soon know what he had done. He would have to tell her everything once he began to scream.

He was stumbling toward her before he realized what he meant to do. Above all he couldn’t bear her knowing. Her neck would be thin between his hands, he wouldn’t need to squeeze for long, she wouldn’t have time to feel much pain, she had enough trouble breathing as it was. Anything was better than the pain and shame of her knowing.

He reached for her, and then he threw himself aside, clenching his hands into fists. Good God, what had he almost done? He was as crazy as they wanted him to think he was. He screamed at the door as he wrenched at it, managed to turn the doorknob and flee along the hall, away from his mother’s anxious face and reaching hands and something blackened beside her with no eyes. They’d made him crazy at last, Dr. Kent and her fellow conspirators!

Perhaps they hadn’t quite. Now he was out of the building, away from the threat of his mother, his mind was clearing. He couldn’t go back home, but then he had been planning to leave anyway when Dr. Kent had appeared. It occurred to him that Dr. Kent had been intended to keep him away from Molly Wolfe. They hadn’t confused him, they had been too clever for their own good. They had shown him the truth.

By the time he reached the pavement he was almost calm. He had eleven years’ experience of resisting nightmares. He strode toward the station as if he were out for a walk, and ignored the people who stared at him. They must be wondering why he was out without a coat on such a wintry day.

Saving his mother, or getting away from her, had made him sure of himself. He knew where he was going. He caught the train to Oxford Circus and then to Notting Hill Gate, and didn’t look behind him once. When he emerged onto Bayswater Road he made his way past the estate agent’s, up the slope of the side street, down the steps beyond the railings, and stooped to the niche where he’d seen Molly Wolfe find the key. It was there. He let himself into her flat without making a noise and tiptoed quickly into the nearest room, the bedroom, eager to begin.

The room was empty. So was the rest of the flat. It was a few minutes past eleven in the morning; she must be out at work. He could wait, he would enjoy waiting, planning what to do to her. Tonight wouldn’t be like last night with Dr. Kent, over too quickly. He was going to take his time in making sure that Molly Wolfe was real.

45

M
OLLY
came to herself slowly, and wasn’t sure that she was. How could her bedroom seem so distant and somehow muffled, even if she couldn’t open her left eye? It took her a while before she realized she was lying on the floor in a corner of the room. When she made to get to her feet she cried out. It was pain that was between her and the room.

Her mouth felt huge and misshapen and immovably, and she was afraid to touch her teeth, even with her tongue. Her left eye felt as if it were swelling out of the socket. Now that she’d moved she could hardly breathe for the pain in her ribs. She stumbled into the hall, holding on to the wall, and made herself look in the mirror.