To Indigo Read online

  He came back into the room.

  “Impressive,” he said. “A bathroom with a loo and a separate loo with a wash-basin. Very sensible, if you have more than two people living together. Which you do, of course, Roy. You and Lynda.”

  “You were going to explain about finding this house.”

  “I was, wasn’t I. Thanks for the tea. Odd,” he hesitated a second, looking down into the mug, “has a bit of a funny taste.”

  He looked right at me, into my eyes. Although I had done nothing, been able to do nothing, my gaze quivered. I said firmly, “The milk’s probably going off.”

  “Or you added something to it. Did you, Roy?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ll soon find out, shan’t I?” He drained the mug and slapped it down again.

  It seemed to me this too could only be play. He knew I had done nothing at all. He would never have drunk it all if he thought otherwise.

  He sat again on the table, swung one leg.

  “I followed you from the pub in The Strand. Then I gave you my piano tuner card. Then I walked off. Did you look back to make sure I kept going?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times?”

  I couldn’t recall. I began to see and saw also, obviously, I hadn’t looked back a sufficient number. “Not enough it seems.”

  “Not enough. There were lots of people about to hide me. I just retraced my steps and then went after you again, only more slowly than you, lost in the crowd. You were perfectly followable. When you turned round we actually passed each other, you never saw it. Then I turned round too. You got to Charing Cross and went in, and soon after onto a platform. Still lots of crowds. The train wasn’t in but the time and destination were on the board. I dutifully purchased a ticket from a very pretty Asian woman, then hung about until the train appeared and you got on. Then I went through the barrier and got on the train too. I had a real fight to do it, I can tell you. The carriage was jam-packed.”

  “What would you have done if the train had been due to leave and I’d run for it? You couldn’t get through the barrier without a ticket.”

  “Well, I might still have found a way to do that. But it’s immaterial. I didn’t have to. It was meant to be.”

  “Then what? You weren’t in my carriage.”

  He looked faintly offended. “Of course not, Roy. I just simply pushed my way to the door and checked you weren’t yet getting out. I’m tall, six three, I can see over people. And it became easier as the crowd thinned. I don’t lie when I say I guessed the kind of station where you would alight. Not the exact station, just the type. And when you did, I got out too. Nothing was further from your thoughts at that time than our encounter. Rather wounding really. You didn’t look round once and I, once again, merely took my time. You went out over the forecourt and I fell into step about thirty-five, forty yards behind. If you speeded up, so did I a bit. If you went slowly, I went more slowly still. You didn’t look round even when you got out of the high street. Lost in your own little world, eh, Roy? The trees were useful in this street. Just coming into leaf. Shade, sinking light. Camouflage. I watched you open your door and in you went. And then I saw the passage running down a few doors up, the one that leads to the alley.”

  “Supposing I had seen you on the platform when I got off the train?”

  “I’d have gone up and said hello.”

  I thought this was doubtless a fact.

  I said, “You were in the alley behind the house. I saw you there.”

  “That’s right. And then that fantastic owl soared over. I thought I’d leave us at that, for then.”

  “You were here all night. Where did you sleep?”

  “There’s a pub in the high street does B and B. Not bad actually. Though breakfast wasn’t up to much, cereal and cold toast. I hate cold toast. How about you?”

  “What about the dustbin?”

  “I just bought it in the evening, a whim. There was a sort of bargain place still open, some sort of sale. They sell the beer you drink at the pub, so I got you a bottle of that too. Did you enjoy it?”

  “When did you put the bin in the garden?”

  “About ten to midnight. The pub goes on after it closes, regular den of vice, booze, weed, other stuff.”

  I thought, I was awake at ten to midnight. But I didn’t hear you. I had the radio on. I often do. Christ. I lay there and you were outside. But I’d known that already, hadn’t I?

  As for the pub, I knew its reputation. It did not exactly provide B and B, even though it would, for cash, put certain people up overnight, no questions asked. I wondered if Joseph were into ‘weed’ or ‘stuff’, or both. I didn’t ask.

  I said, “Very well. And how did you get the phone number?

  “B.T.”

  “You knew my surname?”

  “Not then. But I knew you were called Roy, or you said you were, and your address.”

  “You can’t be given a number without the proper surname.”

  “I thought that too. So first I tried your other neighbour, Ian, the man with a tea-towel over his arm.” He meant the house-husband at No 76. “I said, I’m looking for an old friend, short, thin, calls himself Roy Johnston, No 74 Old Church Lane. Is this Church Lane? And helpful Ian of the towel said, Oh yes, this is the Lane. Only that’s Roy Phipps at 74. And I looked knowing and said, Oh, it’s Phipps he calls himself now? Sure, said Towelly, looking a bit fazed. I added, slightly uneasy myself, But he does still call himself Roy, does he? Sure, said Ian. I could see he was dying to ask me why you used different names, but I thanked him, and then I said, It’s really great, I haven’t seen him for years. Used to be almost like an uncle when I was a kid. I’ll just go and get the beer out of the car. And off I went to phone you, leaving Mr Towel to marvel as he scrubbed his Cinderellarine dishes.”

  Had it been so basic? It could have been. At any point the scheme could have come unstuck, but it had not.

  One had an impression of the fortuitous. That this Fate had been written. As in my dream he had said. But I ceased to believe in God or destiny when I was a teenager. No momentous event dissuaded me. A pity in its way. When subsequent horrors did truly befall me, as most of us they do, I had nothing left to curse or turn my back on.

  His use of words had struck me. Was that inevitable for a writer? He was generally grammatical, and where not only with a sort of ironic colloquial concession. And Cinderellarine. There was a term to conjure with. But all this was a victim’s cotton wool, in which I wrapped my awareness in order to accept the unacceptable. I must be wary, not only of the amiable fiend who sat on my table, but also of myself.

  Presently we went into the front room.

  That was his suggestion.

  He pulled open the curtains and dull evening light revealed the room. I found myself examining it, seeing it through fresh eyes. His? The faded rose-pattern sofa and the two chairs, one of which had been recovered for my parents in a plain rose-colour fabric. The blocked-in fireplace with the electric fire. The wall-to-wall carpet, quite good in its day, but that day was long past. Most of the ornaments were gone. I’d given a lot of things to Oxfam. I’m not keen on clutter, and I hadn’t been sentimental over any of them. All except the red glass dog my mother had liked so much. I’d kept that on the shelf above the fireplace, with the clock that still worked, although now on a battery.

  Joseph went straight over to the dog. And something in me reared up, surprising me with its feral watchfulness, as my moment of wanting to kill him had not surprised me at all.

  “That’s unusual. It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?” He didn’t touch. I was ready to shout, perhaps jump at him. But he gave me no cause. He said, “I like things like that. It’s old, is it? Victorian, maybe.” Then he sat down in the old-new-covered chair. “Everything’s very clean and tidy,” he said. “I noticed especially upstairs. You don’t strike me as domestic, Roy. Not like Mr Towel.”

  “I have a cleaner.”

  “Oh
, not your wife, then?”

  I swore inwardly. Damn him. Damn him, after all that he had tripped me.

  I said, “My wife does some of it, but she broke her leg last year. I prefer her not to do too much.”

  “Oh dear. And now she’s at the hospital, waiting for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You think I won’t let you go?”

  “Will you, Joseph?” I used his name deliberately. But to use it was demoralizing to me, as if I were an extreme arachnophobe forced to say Spider. Spider.

  “Well not just yet perhaps. I want to get to know you a bit more, first. But why don’t you call her? Surely she has a mobile. Explain you may be late.”

  “Use of mobiles is not allowed inside a hospital.”

  “True. But couldn’t you leave a message? She’ll check for messages, won’t she? No? Well, it’s difficult.” He seemed concerned. “I wonder what we can do.”

  It occurred to me it was fruitless to permit more play to him on this. “Forget it,” I said. “She’ll think I couldn’t make it. She’ll probably call.”

  “Probably. And then you can tell her.”

  “And what do I say, Joseph?”

  “An old friend has turned up and detained you. Or I suppose we could both go to the hospital. Would you prefer that?”

  “I don’t think either Lynda, or her sick mother…”

  “I could always wait outside the ward.”

  “Joseph,” I said, “I don’t want you to go to the hospital. I don’t actually want you in this house, but here you are. Let’s keep to that limit, shall we?”

  “What if Lynda comes back?”

  “She will of course come back, and my son will be with her.”

  “And your son’s girlfriend,” Joseph reminded me helpfully.

  “Veronica…” the first name I could now lay mental hands on, “may not be coming back. Just my wife and son.”

  “Your son,” said Joseph. “What’s his name?”

  My mind went blank. Then it cleared.

  “I called him after my father,” I said with warped truth. “William.”

  “But it’s rather strange isn’t it, I think so, that your neighbours never mentioned your wife to me?”

  “Why should they? You were talking to them about me.”

  “Well next door, for example. The old couple. I implied you weren’t – quite yourself, shall I say. Wouldn’t they recommend we try to get hold of her, your nearest and dearest? They might assume, quite reasonably, if I was your son, I was Lynda’s son too.”

  I didn’t reply. What could I say?

  Joseph smiled.

  Abruptly he said, “Why don’t you stop calling me Joseph and use my preferred nickname? I made it up myself when I was a child. Sej. Call me Sej.”

  Something in me pressed me to ask, “Why Sej?”

  For a moment he seemed enigmatic, in possession of a secret, the way children are, when they think they know something important you have no idea of. But he answered at once. “Third and fourth letters of my name, with the capital J placed at the end.”

  To a psychologist this might be revealing. I am not one.

  On the shelf by the dog the clock now showed as twenty past five. He glanced at it. Engaging as a child – again – if not the cunning, demonic child he might – must – have been when a true child he was – Joseph-Sej asked me, “What’s for supper?”

  I’d forgotten them.

  In a way not quite absurd, since I had taken only one, and not gone back for more. They were sleeping tablets prescribed by my GP for a particularly bad spell of insomnia three years ago. But that one I took, although I had forgone my nightly single whisky or glass of wine, and I had slept nine hours, made me feel nauseous and rotten for twenty-four hours after. One should flush unwanted medications down the lavatory. Had I meant to? Or had I known, on some ridiculous ‘magical reality’ inner level that, three years after, I might need to have kept hold of them?

  They were in the bathroom cabinet, pushed behind the elastoplast and spare flask of shaving foam. Three years out of date, but they would still have a kick in them. They’d better have. They were all I’d got.

  Of course it occurred to me he might have seen them. Opening up a personal cabinet would be nothing to one like Joseph Sej Traskul. Conceivably he’d taken the Grande Tour of the upper storey and looked in every closed-off place. Then again these tablets were fairly anonymous, and stuffed behind other items. It seemed to me nothing had been moved.

  Preparation was another matter. But as I keep repeating, I write that kind of book. (Which also a police investigation would swiftly dig up. Culpable through prior plotting. At this point I did not care).

  Capsules that could be broken would have been easier, but I removed six tablets, and put them in the bath. Then I got in and ground them to powder under the heel of my shoe. Lack of hygiene after all was not a consideration. I kept rubber gloves for my cleaner in a box by the basin. I took one out, scooped up and put the dust of the tablets into the thumb of the glove, tied it off and cut it free with the nail scissors. Into my pocket it went. The rest of the glove I shredded and hid in the heap of socks in the laundry basket. He might investigate there, but perhaps he already had and decidedly it wouldn’t be somewhere to search from choice. The last trace of powder I wiped from the bath with toilet paper and then flushed.

  Having washed my hands, I left the bathroom and went down.

  He hadn’t made any objection to my going upstairs. Maybe he kept an eye on the front door. Now he was standing in the doorway of the other downstairs room, reading a book. This used to be a dining-room but for years it’s been my library. The book he was reading, or pretending to read, was Treasure Island. But he glanced up and said, casually, “You have a lot of novels by R.P. Phillips, don’t you? A favourite is he?”

  “Not really. People used to give me copies.” Both these sentences were factual.

  “Detective novels,” said Joseph whom I was to call Sej I said nothing but walked on into the kitchen.

  Opening the freezer I removed a couple of steaks. I employ the microwave seldom. It had been a present from Harris one Christmas, the only time he had ever given me a present actually. I’d always been slightly perplexed by it, but it had its uses. As now.

  The kitchen clock told me it was five to six. Normally I don’t eat until seven, or later.

  In my pocket the knife shifted, and the soporific thumb.

  He had followed me in and put the book on the table. He watched me, leaning on the units. “Have you read that?”

  “What? Treasure Island? Yes, two or three times.”

  “Boys’ adventure yarn,” he said.

  “It’s a bit more than that. You ought to try it sometime.”

  “I have. I couldn’t get through it. Perhaps I should try R.P. Phillips instead.”

  He knew. How the hell – Ah. I recalled the dreary little photo of me, reproduced on one or two editions ten years ago. I hadn’t changed that much, only got older.

  He said, “You know, you ought to shave your head.”

  “Really.”

  “It’d look better. Make you look stronger.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.”

  “What are we eating, Daddy?” he asked.

  This phrase, his playful tone, made my blood run cold. I thought, You’re having my best Sainsbury’s steak and M and S salad and red wine, if I can get you to drink it, with five or six sleeping pills.

  “What you see,” I said. “I usually have some wine with dinner. Do you drink wine?”

  A smile. “Yes.”

  “Red OK? It’s over there in the cupboard. Glasses next shelf up. Get a couple of bottles. We’ll have a glass now.”

  “Two bottles. That’s lavish.”

  “I don’t often have guests.”

  If he was wary of this first crack in my armour I wasn’t sure, but he lifted two of the three bottles of decentish plonk from the cupboard, and when I handed him the corkscr
ew he opened one, driving the spike straight in through the cork and the foil wrapper, which is what I usually do myself.

  “Just a minute,” I said, “before you pour.” I got the kitchen scissors and used the serrated part between the handles and blades to slice off the neck of the remaining foil. Lynda had done things like that.

  Joseph looked amused.

  I said, “Yes, pedantic I know, but sometimes bits of foil go in the wine otherwise.”

  He poured us a glass each and I let him. I wondered, as I raised mine to my mouth, if he had dropped something in it. But I didn’t think so. I had to presume he preferred me awake and on tenterhooks.

  The steaks cooked and the salad was on two plates. I put knives and forks and mustard on the table, and some kitchen towel for napkins. Oh, gracious living.

  We sat down either side, with the table still pushed up against the kitchen door. He hadn’t suggested we move it, nor had I. It would, of course, make any escape that way harder to achieve.

  The second bottle of wine stood at the end of the table, with the corkscrew beside it; I’d placed the scissors there too.

  He had already consumed glass one of the untainted wine. That was excellent. I remembered how he had been in the pub, downing a double gin or vodka, setting the glass ready for more. I refilled his glass.

  “Cheers,” I said. I made out my swallows of wine had relaxed me a little. It doesn’t take great acting, that sort of thing.

  “Well, here’s to your books,” he said. I knew he didn’t mean the library.

  “You spotted the photo,” I said.

  “Couldn’t miss it. You haven’t changed much. A bit less hair that’s all.”

  I learnt early, about twenty-five, to ride the comments on my galloping baldness.

  I said, “I’m not especially proud of them, those books.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Oh – I write them like a kind of machine, to pay the bills. I find them quite interesting when I’m writing them. But afterwards – they’re hardly profound literature.”

  “You set your standards too high,” he said. “Don’t people buy them?”

  “A few. Enough I make a modest living.”

  He ate eagerly and quickly, but in a mannerly way, just as I’d seen him do with the breakfast.