Secret Story (7 page)

“Then you’ll be making a fool of yourself in public,” Dudley said loud enough to be heard by everyone near. “I’ll leave you to get on with it.”

He sidestepped only for the man to mirror him. “I want to hear how you’re going to apologise when I bring them in.”

“I’ve nothing to apologise for. Go and ask the woman in charge if you don’t believe me.”

“You’re hiding behind a woman now, are you?” the man said, mimicking Dudley’s sidestep again. “What a completely pathetic little creep you are.”

He thrust his face so close that Dudley saw how every inflamed freckle was embedded in the skin, an oppressive proximity that drove him past caution. “Get out of my way,” he bellowed, “or—”

“Or what, you sad snobby little sadist?”

Dudley had hoped that his outburst would attract at least one of the security guards, but they seemed as idly amused by the confrontation as the passing audience. “Words don’t hurt,” he said and planted his hands on the thin shoulders, and pushed.

His persecutor stumbled backwards until the edge of a metal bench caught him behind the knees. He rebounded with a grimace. “See if this hurts,” he snarled, jamming a hand between Dudley’s legs. “You’ve not got much, have you? No wonder all you can do to women is hurt them.”

The ache that blazed in Dudley’s crotch seared away his ability to think. The man twisted his grip, widening his eyes in triumph or a challenge. Dudley imagined how they might swell if he dug his nails into them, but he was afraid of yielding to the impulse in public. “Help, someone,” he managed to shout more than scream. “Look what he’s doing. Stop him.”

A woman laughed, but that was all. Beyond his tormentor he could see a litter of plastic dogs bumping mechanically against the sides of a carton on the pavement and staggering back to renew their mindless assault. The pain rose to impale his stomach. “Let go or I’ll kill you,” he said through his clamped teeth.

“Go ahead if you aren’t going to apologise,” the man said and pressed against him.

The back of the hand with which he was gripping Dudley shielded his own crotch. Dudley could choke him by his wiry mottled neck, but suppose he was unable to desist once the man was released? As he emitted a moan, which he wanted to be only of frustration, the man said “What was that? Sorry, was it?”

“I’m sorry they thought I said something I didn’t.”

“Not good enough,” the man said and twisted harder.

Dudley’s next ruse came out nearer to a scream. “I’m sorry they heard me insult your sister.”

Two passing women booed this, and the man considered it for several seconds before relinquishing his grip. “I’ll tell them,” he said. “Maybe you won’t be seeing us again. Just don’t even dream of getting your own back.”

As the man turned away, Dudley thought of flying after him and seizing him from behind by the eyes. He imagined how the mob would cry a warning, not in time. Instead he tried not to move while the man reverted to one of the crowd, which gradually became composed of people who hadn’t witnessed the incident. Once he was sure that nobody was observing him, he set about transporting the ache somewhere he could keep it still.

Each of his paces threatened to sharpen it, and more than a few of them did. He was almost desperate enough to sit on a metal bench, but succeeded in waddling back to the job centre. He walked stiff with rage and pain to the door that admitted him behind the counter. He hadn’t reached the staffroom when Colette swung her chair around. As he managed not to scream at her to stop looking at him she said “Are you really going to have a story published and made into a film?”

“Maybe,” he snarled and retreated into the staffroom.

He was lowering himself gingerly onto the softest of the three chairs when Mrs Wimbourne plodded into the room. “Your attitude to your workmates needs improving in a hurry, Dudley. I suggest you give some thought to exactly what you want to do
with your life,” she said and went out, leaving him crouched over an ache that felt as if it mightn’t be assuaged until he transferred it to someone else. The trouble was that he couldn’t remember ever having believed that anybody experienced pain but him.

“At least it isn’t us that’s late this time,” Tom said and took a mouthful of his second pint of McCartney’s Marvel. “Did you get much out of your interview? There’s questions I’d have asked him.”

Patricia almost executed an impatient paradiddle on the table with her fingertips. After all, the crown of the table took the form of a drum. So did the seats of all the chairs in Ringo’s Kit, while their backs were skeletal metal guitars. Photographs of the Beatles in a selection of coiffures, images that Tom had already declared he could top, adorned the walls of the wine bar. Plastic notes lay cradled on foursomes of strings under the black ceiling of the long low room. None of this could distract her from realising that the photographer was only voicing the dissatisfaction she’d been levelling at herself ever since her pathetically feeble interview. She took a sip of Starr’s Sauvignon, though she had
expected it to be white rather than a cabernet, on the way to saying “Don’t be shy if Walt’s agreeable.”

“I’ll leave you your job.” As if the thought had arrested his pint on its way to his mouth Tom said “Have you followed up those names he dropped yet?”

Walt touched his smooth forehead with a dewy bottle of Lennon’s Lager, depositing a bead under his elevated hairline before lowering the glass stem past his long well-nigh rectangular suntanned face. “Which were those?”

“He didn’t seem to want to talk about one of them if you remember, Tom.”

“All the more reason to check up on it. If he really didn’t want you knowing he wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Vincent deposited his tankard of Best’s Best on a stained Sergeant Pepper beer-mat and wrinkled his small nose to hitch his large spectacles higher on his round widemouthed face. “You’ve got me interested,” he said.

“There was a teacher who tried to stop him writing what he writes,” Patricia had to say. “All right, maybe I should have probed more. I’ve still got time.”

“It starts now,” said Tom. “Here’s your murder man.”

She stood up to welcome him. He was approaching at a pace that looked positively uncomfortable. He wore a grey suit and white shirt and discreetly silver tie, and her instincts told her that Kathy had chosen the outfit. “Walt, Vincent,” she said, “this is Dudley Smith.”

“And you’ll remember me,” said Tom.

“Name your poison,” Walt said, having grasped Dudley’s hand. “Let me ask you, have you poisoned anybody yet?”

Dudley muttered something like a no as he ducked to the drinks list as if the weight of his broad face was too much for his chin. “If you want an adventure nobody’s had yet,” Vincent said, “there’s Harrison’s Hock.”

“I’d better, then.”

“What’s everyone having to eat?” Walt said.

A mop-haired waitress in a Beatles uniform came to take their order. Tom plumped for George’s Grill, and Vincent for Pete’s Pizza. Patricia decided on John’s Jambalaya and Walt, having waited in vain for Dudley to make up his mind, opted for Paul’s Prawns. “Looks like you’re for Ringo’s Ratatouille,” Vincent said.

“I’ll have that,” Dudley told the waitress.

“You know it’s vegetarian,” Patricia felt impelled to murmur, only to be met by an unfriendly glance that inhibited her from pointing out how many other items named after members of bands the menu offered. She suspected that he was unused to this kind of social gathering, especially when he didn’t wait for the Beatles to leave before he remarked to Vincent “So you want to film my story.”

“I’ll record this if you two don’t mind,” Patricia said.

“You want to film my story.”

Vincent seemed no more certain than Patricia whether Dudley was repeating himself for the benefit of the tape. “I think it could be a good starting point.”

“It’ll be the opening, you mean.”

“Or maybe just the back story. We’d have to make it more real if I was going to stage it.”

Dudley shifted on his chair. “What’s not real about it?”

“How did he get away with not being caught? There are security cameras on all the underground stations.”

The way Dudley’s face stiffened and grew blank showed how close he was to his fiction, Patricia thought, and so did his grin of relief. “They couldn’t have been working.”

“Pretty lucky for him.”

“You can call him lucky if you want. Nobody’s ever caught him.”

“Could the cameras have been vandalised?” Patricia suggested.

“That’s right, of course they were.”

“Let’s start with the basics,” Vincent said. “What’s his name?”

“Nobody ever finds out who he is or anything about him.”

“The public needs something to remember him by. They’re going to want to know more, and I am.”

“He’s never had a name,” Dudley said with a frown that Tom’s camera trapped.

“That doesn’t work for me. Let’s think of one that’ll stick in people’s minds. It could be so ordinary nobody would think he was a killer.”

“Like Dudley Smith,” Tom commented, and captured several expressions in fewer seconds.

“I don’t want to think about names just now.”

“I should have asked you in advance,” Vincent said. “Maybe you’ll have an idea when you aren’t trying to. Let’s work on something else, then. How does he get caught?”

Patricia had a notion that the camera was driving its subject deeper into himself. After a pause that a party of Japanese tourists filled with laughter he said “He never is.”

“Even the greatest can make mistakes,” Patricia said, though she felt that was to overrate his character. “Sherlock Holmes caught Professor Moriarty, didn’t he?”

“That was just,” Dudley said and gulped a mouthful of hock, “that was just a film.”

“It was a story first.”

“Right, an old story. Some people have got cleverer since then.”

“You think a lot of yourself,” Tom said.

As Dudley gave him a look that appeared to contain more than simple hostility, Vincent said “There has to be something he’s overlooked. That’s how real killers are caught.”

“He wouldn’t. I know. He never would have.”

“I’m going to tell you this is fascinating,” Walt said. “I’ve never met a writer who was closer to his creation. But listen, I guess you weren’t expecting to be asked to rethink your ideas. We could give you a day, why not a couple of days before the next session. What’s easiest for you?”

“I know what Patricia said you were ace at,” Vincent said.

“What?” Dudley demanded, and she felt as if he was doing so on her behalf.

“Finding places for killing people.”

“He means I said you were good with locations,” Patricia felt bound to translate.

“So tell us a few our character can use. Tell us some he’s used.”

“They won’t be any good for filming. I’ll need to find some new ones.”

Was it possible for an author to be too proprietary about his material? Patricia was wondering if a thought along these lines was behind Tom’s grin when he spoke. “Here’s someone that knows her way around.”

Patricia turned to see Shell tramping over, an inch or two in combat boots above her own five feet tall. She wore a combat outfit as well, complete with a peaked cap tugged low as if to give her permanently flushed face somewhere it could huddle even smaller and observe the world. “Hey, Shell,” Walt cried. “This is a surprise.”

Shell jerked her knuckly chin up, almost raising the shadow of the cap past her eyes. “I thought we’d got to eat at places with ads in the
Mouth
.”

“I guess I said it’d do no harm to support our advertisers. If you’re on your own I’m sure you’re welcome to join us, am I right?” When Patricia and quite possibly Dudley kept their reservations to themselves, Walt said “This is Shell Garridge, Dudley. She’s a comedian and she’s writing a column for us.”

Dudley gave her half a grin. “If I called someone in a story that, nobody would believe me.”

“It’s Shell all right. I made the rest up. It’s a joke.” She watched his grin fail to expand before she said “You’re the one that gets your kicks out of killing women.”

Patricia wasn’t sure how much of the twitching of his face was produced by the flashes of Tom’s camera. “Gee, you’re as sharp as a razor,” Walt said, “but go easy on our competition winner.”

“I never voted for him.” Shell’s stare at Dudley hadn’t relented. “If you didn’t enjoy thinking about it you wouldn’t write it,” she said.

“The last I heard we were still allowed to like creating what we create,” Vincent said. “Don’t you like making up your jokes?”

“I don’t make them up, I observe them. How about you, Dud?”

Dudley’s lips made such an issue of what he was going to say that Patricia didn’t expect it to be “My father used to call me that.”

“Wonder what he was thinking?” Shell looked away from him at last to tell a larger female Beatle “I’ll have Elvis’s Enchiladas and a Jagger’s Jigger,” and then said “Don’t let me stop you geniuses working on your masterpiece.”

“So where are we going to kill people?” Vincent said.

“Someone could wake up and she’s tied up with something in her mouth on the edge of the roof of, I don’t know, where’s the highest building? And then she falls.”

“She’d wake up a long time before you got her there,” Shell said and downed half her Jagger’s Jigger, “if she had the sense any woman’s got.”

“It’s kind of close to an old serial, is it?” said Walt. “Not so much if she’s not rescued.”

“All right, they’re laying concrete somewhere and he could tread her face in it, and she wouldn’t be able to make a noise. And if she wasn’t dead when it got hard she’d be stuck.”

“You boys love things getting hard, don’t you,” Shell said. “What’s making you sit like that, Dud? Like tying women up and gagging us?”

As Dudley finished squirming Vincent said “Nobody could shut you up, Shell. Any more ideas, Dudley?”

“He could get into wherever she lives while she’s drying her hair. You know how hot those dryers get, and he could tie her up and—”

“Are you maybe forcing it too much, Dudley?” said Walt. “I have to say you aren’t convincing me this is how a real killer would think.”