Nine Lives (24 page)

I knew that the trial would not last for very long. People were getting tired of Donald's refusal to explain. His protest was not acceptable. The verdict could only go against him even if only on the basis of the jury's irritation. It was not surprising when it came. Guilty. And a life sentence.

Almost a week later, after making their arrangements, my boys left home. It took me some weeks to accept that I was a grass widow and very long grass at that. Since then, I serve my sentence along with Donald, which is why I
think constantly of Mrs Cox who is doing exactly the same. And though either of us could be liberated at any time, neither of us can deal with such pity-laden freedom. Drunk or sober, Mrs Cox will be on the train, the ferry and the bus and I shall be by her side, because we cannot help ourselves.

I think of those weary, sturdy, determined mountaineers who climb Everest. There must come a moment when the summit is in their sights. Do they sit for a while and wonder? That spot where they will hoist their triumphant flag is more than visible. It beckons. Yet still they sit and wonder. They wonder about the aftermath. They wonder about the anticlimax. They are rooted to their penultimate station, because they are afraid. I wonder what gives them the courage to risk arrival. Or rather the courage to acknowledge that they have no choice. I sit here and I wonder. I waver and I falter. I am infirm of purpose and I know that the last sortie needs must be. And, in truth, I am terrified.

Those mountaineers, they climb, and no doubt with each step they are beset, like myself, by doubts and uncertainties. But there the likeness ends. For I have scruples, and they have none. But I think to myself that I have had scruples before, that my conscience has pricked at almost every station. Yet I have endured. Yet I have proceeded. But now, in sight of my goal, that same conscience paralyses me.

I am tempted to recap on my run of luck, itemising each attack, but that would only serve to further a delay, perhaps a total withdrawal, even though there is only one strike to travel. So I image again: that attic, that rope, that overturned stool and that shattered guitar, and I think that if ever I were to complete my mission, and in spite of it, those pictures would never fade. So I sit here, writing in my diary, postponing, delaying, stalling, while my hand sweats with fear.

I wonder how I must pass the time, but then I know that time is too precious to pass. I think I might write down an account of my climax. How I shall dress for the visit, what route I shall take to the house, how I shall enter, and what I shall say. It will not be a quickie. Not this one. It will take time, for I have much to explain. There will be little dialogue. I myself shall hold the floor. But then I think that should I write it all down the very writing would excuse me from doing it. That putting it all down would be enough. I would have said it and my words would be as good as the action. They would do. It is tempting. But it is a coward's way. I must steel myself. My crusade, every step of which has been so meticulously planned, oh so righteously deserved, that crusade must not, at its last port of call, be abandoned. But now at least, I have acknowledged that I have no choice. In my mind I have acknowledged it. But the distance between the mind and the heart is immeasurable. I pray sometimes, but I don't know to whom and even less do I know why. All I know is that in that attic, all those years ago, God's back was turned.

EIGHT DOWN. ONE TO GO.

The death of …

The death of Penny Brown had shaken the police department. Rank and file. For all could deduce its horrendous implications. The killer was choosy no more. Almost anybody was fair game. No one was more aware of this than Wilkins himself. He sat at his desk in utter helplessness, not knowing where to turn. All he could do was to wait for the call from his superior.

When it came, he was almost relieved. He was weary of blind alleys, of absent witnesses, of evaporated prints. He was beaten, and all the evidence, or lack of it, pointed to his defeat. Yet he didn't consider that anybody else on the station could have done any better and this thought heartened him a little as he made his way to the Chief Superintendent's office.

Chief Superintendent Billings was welcoming. He offered him coffee, insisted on it almost, as if to delay the matter of their meeting. As he poured, he asked after Mrs Wilkins and the children. Then he asked if he had a holiday in mind.

‘You've been working overtime, Wilkins,' he said. He was homing in on his target, sideways as it were. ‘Do you have any hobbies?' he asked. It was as if he were preparing an obituary before his subject was dead.

Wilkins put down his coffee cup. ‘Get to the point sir,' he said.

‘Well, I'll give it to you straight,' Billings said. ‘You've worked well. You've done your very best. But I think we need a new approach. So I'm promoting you to Chief Inspector. You're a good officer, Wilkins, and you've done
great service. I want you as my assistant. More pay, of course, and more generous leave. How do you feel about that?'

A desk job, was all that Wilkins could feel. The saving on shoe leather seemed its only advantage.

‘Who will replace me?' he asked.

‘Evans, your deputy,' Billings said.

‘He's a good man,' Wilkins said. ‘And loyal. But he'll need a stroke of luck. He'll have to wait for the killer's mistake. As I have done. Tell me, Chief,' he asked, ‘could I have done anything different?'

‘You did everything you could,' Billings said. ‘I don't expect any quick results under Evans. It's simply a question of shifting the burden on to another's shoulders. I would have imagined, Wilkins, that you would be almost relieved.'

‘Of course, there is a measure of relief,' Wilkins said. ‘But I'll miss the chase. It's become almost an obsession.'

‘That's the point,' Billings said. ‘Obsessions can be dangerous. They can cloud the issue. Not that they have done in your case, since you've been given very little issue to cloud. The shrink killer is an almost invisible man. It may take years to track him down. I'm doing you a favour,' Billings said.

Gratitude was in order. But how could he be grateful to be given the chance of sitting on his backside for the rest of his service days?

‘When do I start?' Wilkins asked wearily.

‘Take a few days off,' Billings said. ‘Then come in on Monday of next week. I'll have a comfortable office waiting for you. Can we have a drink on it?' he asked. He was already uncorking a bottle from his cabinet. ‘Let's drink to
a long and happy partnership.' He poured two glasses which both men raised to the toast. Wilkins drank, but more to swallow the lump in his throat than to celebrate his so-called promotion.

He went back to his office, and he was glad to find it unoccupied, that his deputy had not already moved in and assumed his status. When he heard the knock on the door, he knew it was Evans. ‘Come in,' he called, suddenly pleased with company.

‘What can I say?' Evans asked. ‘Except that I'm sorry.'

‘Sorry for what?' Wilkins laughed. ‘Sorry for my removal, or for the buck that passes to you?'

‘Both,' Evans said. ‘I can't do any better than you have. That I know. And I don't look forward to it. But I'll miss you. Won't be seeing you in the canteen any more. You'll be dining posh with the bigwigs.'

‘And I'll be sitting at my desk in my posh office all day, writing out reports.'

Both men laughed. Each would no doubt miss the other. Evans sat down. There was clearly something he wanted to say. He leaned forward. ‘Inspector,' he said.

‘You can call me James now,' Wilkins said.

‘Thank you, sir,' Evans said. ‘I just want you to know that if anything happens of interest, any evidence of any kind in the shrink killings, I want you to know that I'll inform you immediately, and you'll be back on the case. Even if on the quiet.'

‘I'm grateful to you,' Wilkins said, ‘and I hope for all our sakes that you will call on me soon.'

When he reached home, he broke the news to his wife. He sensed her feelings would be as mixed as his own. So he was surprised when she expressed her delight. She would
no longer have to share his false hopes and disappointments.

‘But I have failed,' he protested.

‘Rubbish,' she said. ‘You've done everything you could. You've had no leads to follow. Not in all these years. He'll never be caught, that killer. He's one step ahead and always will be. You're well rid of him. We're going to celebrate.' She took a bottle of champagne from the cabinet. ‘I've been saving this for a special occasion, and I can't think of anything more special.'

Her delight cheered him. ‘I've got a few days' leave,' he said. ‘Shall we go away?'

‘Let's go back to that Manor House,' Mary suggested. ‘It's so cosy there. D'you remember that nice couple we met and had dinner with? Dorricks or something. I wish I'd taken their address. Then I could have kept in touch with them.'

‘Perhaps they'll be there again,' Wilkins said. ‘But in any case, we'll have some leisure time together.'

‘I'll drink to that,' Mary said. ‘And to many more weekends. It's a new life for us, James.'

‘We'll have to invest in evening dress. Both of us. There'll be lots of official dinners.' He counted his blessings, and toasted them. But privately he drank to his erstwhile deputy, and his promise to include him in the kill.

Me again …

Me again. Ver-ine. I'm off to my punctuation. To my prison visit. I shall see Mrs Cox again. I shall not mention her last visit or the fact that I know about the late drunken call to the prison. She might volunteer it herself, and hopefully laugh about it. For no reason that I could fathom, I was feeling cheerful myself. I looked forward to another view of the mural, if that were allowed, and to sharing invented gossip with Donald if time were to hang heavily on our hands.

Mrs Cox was already seated in the train. And to my relief she was sober. And she looked contrite.

‘I'm going to be a good girl today,' she said as I took my seat opposite her.

Such a pity, I thought. Mrs Cox was far more interesting as a bad girl, but that was a mean thought and I suppressed it.

‘He's been in solitary again,' she said. ‘I don't know why.'

But I did, and was certainly not going to tell her.

‘Fighting, I suppose,' she said. ‘It'll be the death of him, that violence.' She said it with a smile, a wishful-thinking smile, and I could not help but join her.

‘I haven't brought him anything,' she said.

‘Neither have I,' I told her. It's hard to bring gifts for people who have everything, which in a sense they do, though both men, in truth, have nothing, a nothing which no amount of presents could augment.

Her axeman was seated as we entered, and he was already
looking at the ceiling and would probably continue to do so for the length of the visit. Donald was at his table too. He was not looking at the ceiling, but staring at nothing, as if in a trance. He did not look well, and my heart rushed out to him.

‘What's the matter?' I said as I sat down.

He didn't even look at me. I took his hand. ‘Are you not well?' I asked.

‘I'm a bit low today,' he said. And then he looked at me, as if I were a stranger.

‘It's me,' I said. ‘Verry. What's the matter with you?'

‘It's a bad day,' he said. ‘I get them sometimes.'

‘Anything in particular?' I asked.

‘Nothing,' he said.

‘Is the mural finished?'

‘Yes,' he said tonelessly. ‘And they want me to continue it on to the ceiling.'

‘But that's wonderful, Donald,' I said. ‘They must be very happy with it. It'll be like the Sistine Chapel.' I've never been to Rome, but I've read about that ceiling. Seen a film of it too. ‘Have you started it?' I asked.

‘Don't want to,' he said.

‘But why? It's a great opportunity.'

‘For what?' he asked. His voice was raised. ‘An opportunity to paint a ceiling. And maybe another ceiling. And maybe another wall. What kind of life is that? What kind of future?'

I had no answer to that one.

‘I might as well be dead,' he said.

I squeezed his hand. ‘Don't talk like that, Donald,' I said. ‘What will I do without you?'

‘I'll never get out of this place,' he said.

‘You will. I promise. After a few years, you'll get parole. They'll take your paintings into acount. You've done them a service.' I listened to the rubbish I was talking. Donald was right. He was unlikely to get parole. Ever. And he knew it.

I wondered what had brought on this sudden depression.

‘Are you especially worried about anything?' I asked.

‘I think of you a lot,' he said. ‘I wonder what you do at home. All by yourself.'

‘I keep busy,' I said.

‘Has the house changed? Have you moved furniture? Changed the rooms?'

I sensed that he was leading up to some question that he was afraid to ask.

‘I've changed nothing,' I said. ‘It's exactly the same as it was when you were there.'

‘Are you going to stay there?' he asked. ‘Or d'you think of moving? Packing everything up.'

‘No,' I said. ‘I'm staying where I am. And I'll be there when you come out.'

I was still waiting for the question that I knew he wanted to ask. And then it came.

‘Are my clothes still there?' he asked.

‘Of course,' I said. ‘Where else should they be?'

‘Verry,' he said, ‘I want you to promise me something.'

‘What?' I asked.

‘I know it sounds stupid. I just don't want you to give my clothes away. To Oxfam or something. Those shops are for dead people's clothes.'