Fen Country (12 page)

Inevitably, her principal intention was that the death should be assumed to be due to the angina; and but for Parker’s grudge against Gellian, that is precisely what would have happened. In case this first line of defense failed, however, Mrs. Wynter took a further precaution: she used a poison which could be traced to Gellian, arguing that even if he were to be implicated, arrested and convicted, her hold over him was such that she could persuade him at least to make arrangements for keeping her in comfort during the period of his imprisonment; there might even, she thought, be a fair chance of marrying him before the warrant for his arrest was implemented.

There was little more that I needed to say. Gellian could scarcely have avoided noticing Mrs. Wynter’s terror, and his own reaction, as the details of this cruel murder plot were unfolded, was everything I had hoped for: he will be careful, I am confident, never to see or communicate with the woman again. What remained was the question of whether or no Mrs. Wynter would call our bluff. For of course it
was
bluff; the wretched Wynter undoubtedly chewed up every fragment of the final, poisonous letter precisely as he had chewed up every fragment of the preceding ones.

As your know, a confession obtained by trickery is not inadmissible in court; but we were aware that in the absence of confirmatory evidence, such a confession would be hopelessly inadequate for the purpose of a prosecution. In any case, we never got it: Mrs. Wynter challenged us to produce the sheet of paper which had supposedly been subjected to laboratory examination, and to that challenge we naturally had no reply. For a few moments Mrs. Wynter seemed confusedly to suppose that this circumstance would exonerate her in Gellian’s eyes. But the signs of her guilt had been too plain; and the two of them left Scotland Yard separately.

Like the majority of policemen I detest murderers, and accordingly it would be no sorrow to me if you were driven to expound Mrs. Wynter’s guilt in detail in the privileged circumstances of the House of Commons. The Opposition, however, is notoriously solicitous regarding the sensibilities of criminals; consequently I have no doubt that if the truth is made known to them in private they will exert themselves most strenuously to prevent its going further.

Hoping that this letter supplies as much detail as you require,

I am, Sir,

Yours truly,

J
OHN
K
IRKBRIDE

“After all, it’s only us,” they said.

I must introduce myself.

None of this is going to be read, even, let alone published. Ever.

Nevertheless, there is habit-the habit of putting words together in the most effective order you can think of. There is self-respect, too. That, and habit, make me try to tell this as if it were in fact going to be read.

Which God forbid.

I am forty-seven, unmarried, living alone, a minor crime-fiction writer earning, on average, rather less than £1,000 a year.

I live in Devon.

I live in a small cottage which is isolated, in the sense that there is no one nearer than a quarter of a mile.

I am not, however; at a loss for company.

For one thing, I have a telephone.

I am a hypochondriac, well into the coronary belt. Also, I go in fear of accidents, with broken bones. The telephone is thus a necessity. I can afford only one, so its siting is a matter of great discretion. In the end, it is in the hall, just at the foot of the steep stairs. It is on a shelf only two feet from the floor, so that if I had to crawl to it, it will still be within reach.

If I have my coronery
upstairs
, too bad.

The telephone is for me to use in an emergency. Other people, however, regard it differently.

Take, for example, my bank manager.

“Torhaven 153,” I say.

“Hello? Bradley, is that Mr. Bradley?”

“Bradley speaking.”

“This is Wimpole, Wimpole. Mr. Bradley, I have to talk to you.”

“Speaking.”

“Now, it’s like this, Mr. Bradley. How soon can we expect some further payments in, Mr. Bradley? Payments out, yes, we have plenty of those, but payments in…”

“I’m doing everything I can, Mr. Wimpole.”

“Everything, yes, everything, but payments in, what is going to be coming in during the next month, Mr. Bradley?”

“Quite a lot, I hope.”

“Yes, you hope, Mr. Bradley, you hope. But what am I going to say to my regional office, Mr. Bradley, how am I going to represent the matter to them, to it? You have this accommodation with us, this matter of £500…”

“Had it for years, Mr. Wimpole.”

“Yes, Mr. Bradley, and that is exactly the trouble. You must reduce it, Mr. Bradley, reduce it, I say,” this lunatic bawls at me.

I can no more reduce my overdraft than I can fly.

I am adequately industrious. I aim to write two thousand words a day, which would support me in the event that I were able to complete them. But if you live alone you are not, contrary to popular supposition, in a state of unbroken placidity.

Quite the contrary.

I have tried night-work, a consuming yawn to every tap on the typewriter. I have tried early-morning work.

And here H.L. Mencken comes in, suggesting that bad writing is due to bad digestion.

My own digestion is bad at any time, particularly bad during milkmen’s hours, and I have never found that I could do much in rhe dawn. This is a weakness, and I admit it. But apparently it has to be. Work, for me, is thus office hours, nine till five.

I have told everyone about this, begging them, if it isn’t a matter of emergency, to get in touch with me in the
evenings
. Office hours, I tell them, same as everyone else. You wouldn’t telephone a solicitor about nothing in particular during his office hours, would you? Well, so why ring me?

I am typing a senrence which starts
His crushed hand, paining him less now, nevertheless gave him a sense of
…

I know what is going to happen after ‘of’:
the appalling frailty of the human body.

Or rather, I did know, and it wasn’t that. It might have been that (feeble though it is) but for the fact that then the doorbell rang. (I hope that it might have been something better.)

The doorbell rang. lt was a Mrs. Prance morning, but she hadn’t yet arrived, so I answered the door myself, clattering down from the upstairs room where I work. It was the meter-reader. The meter being outside the door, I was at a loss to know why I had to sanction its being scrutinized.

“A sense of the dreadful agonies,’ I said to the meter-reader, “of which the human body is capable.”

‘Wonderful weather for the time of year.”

“I’ll leave you, if you don’t mind. I’m a bit busy.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, offended.

Then Mrs. Prance came.

Mrs. Prance comes three mornings a week. She is slow, and deaf, but she is all I can hope to get, short of winning the Pools.

She answers the door, but is afraid of the telephone, and consequently never answers that, though I’ve done my utmost to train her to it.

She is very anxious that I should know precisely what she is doing in my tatty little cottage, and approve of it.

“Mr. Bradley?”

“Yes, Mrs. Prance?”

“It’s the HI-GLOW.”

“What about it, Mrs. Prance?”

“Pardon?”

“I said, what about it?’

“We did ought to change.”

“Yes, well, let’s change, by all means.”

“Pardon?”

“I said, Yes.”

“Doesn’t bring the wood up, nor the way it ought to.”

“You’re the best judge, Mrs. Prance.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Prance, but I’m working now. We’ll talk about it some other time.”

“Toffee-nosed,” says Mrs. Prance.

Gave him a sense of—a sense of— a sense of
burr-burr, burr-burr, burr-burr.

Mrs. Prance shouts that it’s the telephone.

I stumble downstairs and pick the thing up.

“Darling.”

“Oh, hello, Chris.”

“How are you, darling?”

“A sense of the gross cruelty which filled all history.”

“What, darling? What was that you said?”

“Sorry, I was iust trying to keep a glass of water balanced on my head.”

A tinkle of laughter.

“You’re a poppet. Listen, I’ve a wonderful idea. It’s a party. Here in my flat. Today week. You will come, Edward, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course, I will, Chris, but may I iust remind you about somethingl”

“What’s that, darling?”

“You said you wouldn’t ring me up during working hours.”

A short silence; then:

“Oh, but
just this once
. lt’s going to be such a lovely party, darling. You don’t mind
just this once.”

“Chris, are you having a coffee break?”

‘Yes, darling, and oh God, don’t I need it!”

‘Well, l’m
not
having a coffee break.”

A rather longer silence; then:

‘You don’t love me any more.”

“It’s just that I’m trying to get a story written. There’s a deadline for it.”

“If you don’t want to come to the party, all you’ve got to do is say so.”

“I do want to come to the party but I also want to get on with earning my living. Seriously, Chris, as it’s a week ahead, couldn’t you have waited till this evening to ring me?”

A sob.

“I think you’re beastly. I think you’re utterly, utterly
horrible.”

“Chris.”

“And I never want to
see
you again.”

…a sense of treachery,
I typed, sedulously.
The agony still flamed up his arm, but it was now

The doorbell rang.

—it was now less than
—more than
—

“It’s the laundry, Mr. Bradley,” Mrs. Prance shouted up the stairs to me.

“Coming, Mrs. Prance.”

I went out on to the small landing. Mrs. Prance’s great moonface peered up at me from below.

“Coming Thursday next week,” she shouted at me, “because of Good Friday.”

“Yes, Mrs. Prance, but what has that got to do with
me?
I mean, you’ll be here on Wednesday as usual, won’t you, to change the sheets?”

“Pardon?”

“Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Prance.”

One way and another, it was a remarkable Tuesday morning: seven telephone calls, none of them in the least important, eleven people at the door, and Mrs. Prance anxious that no scintilla of her efforts should lack my personal verbal approval. I had sat down in front of my typewriter at 9:30. By twelve noon, I had achieved the following:

His crushed hand, paining him less now, nevertheless gave him a sense of treachery, the appalling frailty of the human body, but it was now less than it had been, more than, indifferent to him since, after, because though the pain could be shrugged off the betrayal was a

I make no pretense to be a quick writer, but that really was a very bad morning indeed.

Afternoon started better. With sorne garlic sausage and bread inside me, I ran to another seven paragraphs, unimpeded.

As he clawed his way out, hatred seized him
, I tapped out, enthusiastically embarking on the eighth.
No such emotion had ever before—

The doorbell rang.

—had ever before disturbed his quiet existence. It was as if
—

The doorbell rang again, lengthily, someone leaning on it.

—as if a beast had taken charge, a beast inordinate, insatiable.

The doorbell was now ringing for many seconds at a time, uninterruptedly.

Was this a survival factor or would it blur his mind?
He scarcely knew. One thing was abundantly clear,
namely that he was going to have to answer the bloody doorbell.

He did so.

On the doorstep, their car standing in the lane beyond, were a couple in early middle age, who could be seen at a glance to be fresh out from The Duke.

The Duke of Devonshire is my local. When I first moved to this quiet part of Devon, I had nothing against The Duke: it was a small village pub serving small village drinks, with an occasional commercialized pork pie, or sausage-roll. But then it changed hands. A Postgate admirer took over. Hams, game, patties, quail eggs and other such fanciful foods were introduced to a noise of trumpets; esurient lunatics began rolling up in every soft of car, gobble-mad for exotic Ploughman’s Lunches and suavely served lobster creams, their throats parched for the vinegar of 1964 clarets or the ullage of the abominable home-brewed beer; and there was no longer any peace for anyone.

In particular, there was no longer any peace for me. “Let’s go and see old Ted,” people said to one another as they were shooed out of the bar at closing time. “He lives near here.”

“Charles,” said this man on the doorstep, extending his hand.

The woman with him tittered. She had fluffy hair, and lips so pale that they stood out disconcertingly, like scars, against her blotched complexion. “It’s Ted, lovey,” she said.

“Ted, of course it’s Ted. Known him for years. How are you, Charley boy?”

“Ted,
angel.”

I recognized them both, slightly, from one or two parties. They were presumably a married couple, but not married for long, if offensive nonsenses like “angel” were to be believed.

“We’re not interrupting anything,” she said.

Interested by this statement of fact, I found spouting up in my pharynx the reply, “Yes, you sodding well are.” But this had to be choked back; bourgeois education forbids such replies, other than euphemistically.

“Come on in,” I said.

They came on in.

I took them into the downstairs living-room, which lack of money has left a ghost of its original intention. There are two armchairs, a chesterfield, a coffee-table, a corner cupboard for drinks: but all, despite HI-GLOW, dull and tattered on the plain carpet.