One Foot in the Grave (17 page)

“No. Tosca. Intercepted parcel. Took Wilson for drives. Smoked in car.”

“It makes me sick! So that's how she knew what brand of box—Tosca'd told her. All she'd got to do was buy the right cigars, plus enough of the joke ones, take the seals off carefully, transfer the bands, seal the whole thing up and send it off. Yes, and she'd know they were being intercepted, too, so she came down to see if she couldn't get round the system. Mrs. Fowles, who's not as scatty as she looks by any means, had actually spotted it and put it aside, but somebody must have nipped in and put it back with the mail for distribution. Jesus, she's got a nerve. But she's gone too far this time.”

“Not Mary Lou.”

“What do you mean?”

“Talking to her. Just before. Not her idea.”

“Sure?”

“No … listen. Wilson. Wanted you to get her to turn Queen's evidence.”

Through the daze of weariness he saw Mike's face change as the glare of simple rejection knotted itself to a frown. Pibble fumbled up another scraping of energy.

“Think she might,” he whispered. “Power over men. Ever since Vernon Smith. Always been her drive. Told me.”

“You don't say! Jimmy, you must have made a hit with her, and far as I know she's never fancied anybody except a line of rather bum black boxers before. I wonder if you're right. … The Blue Bear lot are a handful at any time, and if she's been as ill as she looks … I wouldn't have known her, honest. Which reminds me, that old gas bag of yours …”

“Ur?”

“It's all a bit iffy … Ted Cass—he's good, going to be very good—but he hasn't liked having me around with my line on the case. Tell you the truth, there was quite a bit of resentment because we'd never told them down here what we were up to at Fly­catchers. He really didn't want to know anything about my side. … But now Mary Lou's turned up, he's rather got to … except he's found an out. In fact he's taking the line that if your friend Lady Treadgold is as on the spot as all that, then she might be right about the other guff she's been feeding you. He'll have to tread bloody careful, won't he?”

“Ur. Talked to Maisie?”

“Who? Oh, that crazy nurse. Nothing there. She picked up the post as usual and took it round. The parcel was with the rest of it, except that Mrs. Fowles says it wasn't. Answer, Mary Lou. What makes you think it wasn't her, Jimmy? Admittedly it's not her style—much more like her to send a hit man round—but she might try it as a once off. Not a bad idea—bloke with a dicey heart having a relaxing smoke and the thing blows up in his face. It really might make him drop dead, and even if it didn't, it'd very likely scare him out of giving us the help we want. Uh?”

“She'd know about cigars. Know he'd spot it. Never get as far as lighting one. Couldn't know he'd … anger more than shock, anyway.”

“Um.”

“She didn't say anything else?”

“She's not even telling us the time till she's got her lawyers standing round her. … Still, you could be half right; one of her lads might have set the thing up without telling her, and when she got back she decided she'd better come down and see if she could make it all work. Show them she's still in charge, spite of having half her guts missing. What d'you think of that, Jimmy?”

“Ur.”

The mist of weariness closed in, blanking all perceptions. Before it became impenetrable, the shapes of the landscape loomed and changed.
She didn't say anything else?
Old fool, how do you expect them to listen to your mumbles? They'll go on talking about what they want to talk about, as if you'd never tried to show them, tell them. …

“Bye now, Jimmy. Sorry if I've worn you out. You've been a great help.”

“Ur.”

He woke from fathomless sleep and knew at once that Jenny was in the room. The awareness was enough to prevent him dolphining back at once beneath the surface, but even so it seemed an effort (very like that of a swimmer dragging his body into the weightfulness of air) to force himself fully awake. He spoke with closed eyes.

“Jenny?”

“You old monster! Sleuthing around, giving my patients heart attacks, getting yourself arrested!”

Her voice, low with conspiracy and chuckling faintly with the fun of it, came from somewhere near the window. Wilson's death seemed not to have perturbed her at all. Was it that Flycatchers was a place of death and she was calloused against it? Or that her energies were all so natural that she simply accepted death as natural too? Or …

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Want you to help me. Got to talk to Maisie.”

A long pause.

“Why?” she said, wary now.

“Got to stop all this.”

“All what?”

“Murders.”

Another pause.

“I don't think it'll do any good, Jimmy. You're a clever old thing, but honestly I don't think you'll get anywhere. I've tried to ask her a couple of times, but she goes into a sort of trance. All she can say is she was helping me wash my hair.”

“She wasn't.”

“No. But that's what she remembers. She only gets normal again if I talk as if I remembered it too.”

“Normal?”

“She's perfectly normal—most of the time.”

“Always been like that?”

“No. I mean, she's had these sort of fits—they're a bit like epilepsy with the physical symptoms left out—oh, for a year or two now. About once a fortnight, I suppose. Usually I just yell at her, or slap her face, and she blinks and doesn't remember anything. Only, since that night …”

“Ur.”

“But listen, Jimmy. This other thing—Mr. X—that's nothing to do with her. She was just taking the post round. She always does.”

“No.”

“What do you mean? You aren't suggesting Maisie went out and bought a box of best cigars and …”

“No.”

“And joke cigars, too. Do you know what that reminds me of?”

“Foster-Banks.”

“Oh, you're impossible! Do you always know what people are thinking? In that case why aren't you better at bridge? Lady Treadgold says you … no, that's not fair.”

“I want to talk to her.”

He heard her footsteps whisper across the carpet. He opened his eyes and saw her leaning above him, very serious.

“Listen,” she said. “If you shop Maisie, then that's the end. You understand.”

“Yes.”

“You understand I actually mean it? It'll make me think different about you?”

“Yes.”

“But you'd still do it?”

“Don't know till I've talked to her.”

“You would, though. You know, I believe you'd shop me if you thought I killed George.”

“Did for a bit.”

She stared at him, astounded. The possibility had evidently never entered her mind. He watched her beginning to think it out, tracing his footsteps through the maze, so he was ready for the sudden ugly flush that mottled her clear skin, and the look of appalled hurt and anger which meant that she was confronting the phallic herm in the cul-de-sac of dark yew.

“Knew it was impossible,” he said, deliberately clear but leaving the
it
unspecified.

“Am I mad, Jimmy?” she whispered.

“No. Crippen no.”

“Only I sometimes think … everybody else …”

“Not everybody.”

“It's all right if you're queer,” she said. “It's all right if you sleep around. It's all right, even, sort of, if you molest kids—I mean, they'll try to stop you, of course, but somehow … the only thing that isn't right is not wanting any of it, not wanting to talk about it or think about it, even. That's what's unnatural.”

“Stupid word.”

“What do you mean?”

“Too many different meanings. My dear, nothing you do, or don't do, is unnatural.”

He hadn't intended the emphasis on the pronoun, had meant it to be a mere generality, but the phrase came out as particular to her.

“My last job,” she said. “I thought I was enjoying it. I shared a room with a girl called Penny. I was going off duty one morning and I was passing one of the linen cupboards and I heard a noise, so I opened the door. It was Penny and one of the porters. He'd got his trousers round his ankles. She … when the door opened, they sort of froze and then they saw who it was and laughed and went on. I don't think they'd have minded if I'd stayed and watched them.”

“That's why you came here?”

“Sort of. I tried to explain to Penny later. I wanted to change my room, you see. I wanted her to understand that I liked her, but … and the porter—they weren't in love or anything, it was just like having a cup of coffee with someone—he started grinning at me. And he told some of the other men, and they …
I
was the freak, you see. I am a freak, aren't I?”

“No.”

She spread her short-fingered hands above the bed, showing him them.

“I was never finished. Look. I'm a Friday car.”

“Ur?”

“The ones the workmen leave bits out of because they want to knock off for the weekend. That's me. I've never shown you my feet, have I? They're ridiculous.”

“You told me about your shoes. Don't worry, my dear. I think there are quite a lot of us about—afraid to touch, don't like to be touched.”

“Us?”

“Yes. And we usually find each other, I think.”

“Lady Treadgold says you're going to marry me.”

“Ur. Not sure about that. Too convenient? You nurse me, I shield you …”

“Oh, Jimmy, there's more to it than that!”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I really do!”

“Um. I'd like to think so … but there is that too, uh?”

“I suppose so … well?”

“Later. Feet. What size are Maisie's?”

“I don't want to talk about Maisie's feet. I want to talk about whether we're going to get married.”

“Please.”

“Fives, very slim, and they make me green with envy. Now—”

“Shoes wet?”

“What do you mean?”

“When she came in.”

“Yes, soaked. Now, about—”

“Carrying a pistol?”

“How did you know? I was in her room, using her dryer. I always do because she's got a lot of fancy kit for her own hair and I help her with that, you see. She came through the door like a ghost and stood there, holding this gun as if she had no idea what it was. I was amazed when I saw it wasn't a toy. I asked her where she'd got it, and she said there'd been a duel on the castle roof. I couldn't think what she was talking about, but I was frightened, so I told her to give me the gun. Do you know, she curtsied? But she gave it to me, and a key as well, and just stood there. I took her cloak off her, and that was frightening too. She began smiling, but she went very pale and trembled at the same time. I put her cloak on and ran down to the staff door because I thought it might be that key, and it was. My first idea was to throw the gun into the bushes somewhere, but when I got out I heard the tower door slamming in the wind, and I thought that might be what she meant by the castle, so I went and had a look. I went right up the stairs. The roof was open too, and I found him there.”

“Dead?”

“Yes. I turned him over to check. Then I stopped and thought for a bit. There were some gloves in the pocket of the cloak, so I put them on, and I wiped the gun on the cloak and tucked it in under the body on the far side. I bolted the roof door when I went out, but I couldn't find the key to the bottom door. I thought the longer it was before anybody found the body, the harder it'd be to pin it on Maisie. Do you know, when I got back she was standing just where I'd left her, still smiling in that funny actressy way, just as if I hadn't been gone any time at all. I had to slap her face to wake her up. She couldn't remember anything. I told her she'd been helping me wash my hair and her shoes were wet because she'd spilt some of the water over them. I told her to take them down to the drying room, and her cloak—there'd be plenty of others there because it had been raining or snowing all day—and then I came rushing along to look after you because I knew you timed all my movements. I had to skip my poor old veg to be on time.

“I see.”

“But listen, Jimmy. I'm not going to have you shopping Maisie, not at any price. You understand that? Not at any price.”

“Um … try not to … tell me—don't be angry—important … this other girl you knew—Penny—Maisie like that?”

“No! No, of course not!”

“Not at all? She looks …”

“Yes, she does, but … blokes are always having a go at her, naturally, and I expect sometimes … we don't talk about it, but I expect she's sometimes … I mean, if it's the right bloke she probably enjoys it in a vague sort of way. I don't know. Really, I think the only people she's ever been properly in love with are the heroes in her toshy books.”

“Tosca.”

“No! Honestly not, Jimmy. He'd tried before, about six weeks ago. She was very upset. I'm quite sure about that, because she's really used to it—men trying to get off with her, I mean—and usually it doesn't bother her. But this time she seemed to be having one of her fits. She was very muddled. I couldn't make out who she was talking about for a bit. I thought it was old Follicle who'd had a go at her. She adores him, of course, but not like that—more as if he were her father—but then I worked out who she meant. Really, Jimmy, she wouldn't touch Tosca with a barge pole!”

“Those clothes. Douglas Fairbanks. Hero in her book.”

“Oh! And the way she curtsied to me! And that smile when I took her cloak off! Listen, Jimmy, I've just thought of something else. This morning, when we were looking at the tower and talking about cloaks catching in the roses …”