The Hunter and the Trapped (11 page)

It was while he was doing this that the door bell rang again. Sweating slightly he went to answer it. Mrs. Morris slipped into the room before he could shut her out.

“Little me again!” she said, with a ghastly kind of gaiety. “Doll's bin in and took the rent money. 'E comes for it Monday so I'll 'ave to ask you to oblige.”

“I told you I had nothing for you.”

“Of all the obstinate …”

Simon took out his cheque book and wrote.

“You asked me for thirty pounds. I told you, which is perfectly true, that I have no English currency until I go to the bank tomorrow. But you can have this cheque. Blackmail, of course.”

“Now don't you start calling names!”

“It is plain ordinary sordid blackmail and you know it. I shall refuse to pay you another penny. If you attempt it I shall go to the police.”

“We've 'eard that before. It won't do you no good.”

“It'll do you harm, which will be the object of the exercise. I am no longer afraid of you – or of your employer.”

“Wot d' yer mean – employer?”

“You know what I mean. I'm calling your bluff – both of you. Mr. Dane's reputation will not be enhanced by his dealings with you. If he throws mud at me I shall see he gets some back in his own face and I know how it will stick.”

That silenced her for a bit. She took the cheque under the light to examine it closely.

“Wot am I supposed to do with this 'ere?” she asked.

“Anything you like. It's worth thirty pounds at your bank.”

“Bank! I got no bank.”

“Changing it is your own affair. Take it to your fence or whoever you deal with when you want to cash the things you steal.”

“Now look 'ere!” Mrs. Morris was speechless with baffled rage. Hitherto she had prided herself on managing Mr. Fawcett. He hadn't liked it, but he'd paid up regularly when asked. Perhaps thirty was a bit steep but it looked like he'd be clearing out before long and make hay while the sun shines was always her motto. But a cheque – Might be dangerous. She handed it back to him.

“I don't know it's worth the paper it's wrote on, do I?” she said, trying to assume a reasonable tone. “Cash or nothing.”

He tore the cheque across with fingers that had begun to tremble violently. He dropped the pieces on the floor between them.

“You had your chance. Now you've lost it,” he said. “And your employment here. I refuse to have you in my flat again.”

“Not before I 'as me lolly.”

“I've paid for your work. Now go.
Go
, I tell you.”

His voice was rising. He felt his mind begin to spin upwards, thoughts and visions crowding about it, ready to dart in and possess him. He struggled with the growing confusion, moving slowly towards Mrs. Morris to drive her away, out of his sight – away – away.

She snatched the torn pieces of the cheque from the floor and retreated a step or two, but her greed still ruled her.

“No good you getting on your 'igh 'orse with me, mate,” she said. “You got to pay so why make such a song and –”

The words choked in her throat as his hands closed about it. As his grip tightened his head went back and his voice in a high monotone rang through the room.

“They shall not prevail! The wolves in their packs closing in to kill! I will destroy them all. Men and wolves. Men that are wolves. Pursuing – jaws dripping – ravening – They shall not hurt me. Nor their jackals. Their …”

He was aware of a dead weight in his hands and found himself staring at a purple swollen face, a tongue stuck out at him between two rows of bulging teeth set askew. He snatched away his hands and Mrs. Morris fell heavily to the floor.

“No,” Simon whispered, looking wildly round the room. “No! No!”

He looked down at his hands, then clasped them together and lifted them joined to beat at his forehead. The rolling mists that wrapped his thought cleared suddenly. At the end of a long black tunnel there was a tiny sunlit view of a river bank, a fishing rod stretched over the water, – a figure –

On the floor Mrs. Morris first twitched, then struggled violently, then drew a painful, gasping breath or two and collapsed again. Simon sat down at the table and watched her. The sight of the river at the end of the tunnel had frightened him. Watching Mrs. Morris's slow recovery extinguished the tunnel, which pleased him and also was interesting in itself.

He saw his torn cheque beside her, stooped to recover it and put the pieces in his pocket. She would not dare to ask for it again. Remembering Penelope's threat to stop her own cheque he took that one from his wallet. He would not need it now. Slowly he tore it in half and dropped the pieces in the waste-paper basket. Then he went back to his place at the table.

Mrs. Morris was now breathing fairly regularly. The purple colour had faded from her cheeks, though it hung on her lips still. Her mouth, which had been widely open, began to move and close and mumble sounds of distress and indignation.

At last her eyes opened, fixing upon Simon, still sitting in his chair, regarding her with cold interest.

She screamed then, with remarkable vigour, scrambling first into a sitting position, then to her feet, where she stayed, swaying.

“Devil!” she gasped, hoarsely, and nearly fell against the door, but saved herself by gripping the handle. “Murdering devil! You'll pay for this! Mark my words, you'll …”

She choked, out of breath, clutching at her painful neck.

Simon rose, turning from her and lifting clasped hands above his head. His high voice again filled the room and this time Mrs. Morris heard the strange words.

“They shall not prevail! I will destroy them! The wolves shall be beaten back and the jackals destroyed – Destroyed!”

“Think you can get out of it putting on a mental act,” panted Mrs. Morris, with venom. “It don't cut no ice with me. I come 'ere for my right and due payment as you very well know and I mean to 'ave it and more beside. Ten quid the assault'll cost you. I've bruises to witness to it. You owe me forty quid now, see?”

He made no answer, did not, in fact, appear to have heard her. Mrs. Morris was disconcerted. Her fear, overlaid for a few minutes by her persistent greed, returned in full force. She moved across the door, facing him, feeling behind her back for the handle. When she had it in her grasp she turned swiftly, pulled the door open and disappeared. As she shut it she saw that Simon was still motionless, his clasped hands raised above his head.

But when she had gone and he was at last alone his figure drooped, his hands fell to his sides. He lifted them once to look at them with horror.

“Not that way,” his returning mind told him, with terror, with sorrow, “Never that way.”

He twisted his hands together once more in an agony of doubt. Then went to the mirror to gaze at a haggard, distraught image he scarcely recognised as his.

“We are as we are made,” he groaned, gripping the mantelpiece and leaning forward. As he stared and stared the harsh lines before him gradually softened, the yellow pallor gave place to a bronzed look of health. The dark eyes lost their hard glitter, softened, took on a doting tenderness. The mirrored lips parted in a gentle smile.

“We are as we are made,” Simon murmured, lifting a hand to stroke the cheek in the glass.

Mrs. Morris's dead body was found ten days later, lying behind the dust-bins at the rear of the Kilburn flats.

The dustmen, on Monday morning, made this discovery. The dust-bins, one for each floor of the block of flats, stood in a row under a lean-to shelter at the far side of a small yard behind the building. A narrow passage from the road led into the yard, through a heavy door with barbed wire along the top to discourage inquisitive children and others. Another door from the yard led into the caretaker's ground-floor premises, which were more roomy and better maintained than those of the tenants. This was not surprising, because the caretaker was also employed as handyman about the place, with instructions to touch up and even re-decorate the various flats as required. The surplus paint and distemper which he ordered in lavish quantities for these projects, came in very handy for his own rooms.

Mrs. Morris was not visible from the yard door as the dustmen entered, whistling drearily to allay the tedium of a fresh week's work. There were two of them, an elderly stocky man, whose movements were purely mechanical and who wore a yellow cigarette end fastened to his lip, and a thin lad, with long matted hair and very tight jeans, whose restless eyes darted about the yard in a sort of aimless desperation.

It was he who found Mrs. Morris. He was heaving the last dustbin out of the corner, to sling it up on his back, when he stopped suddenly, his slack mouth falling a little further open. He stared round at the older man, who had come back as far as the yard door to see why the young fellow had not followed him out.

“There's a woman in be'ind,” the youth said.

“Wod'yer mean – a woman?”

“Looks dead to me.”

“Yer kidding.”

The older man approached reluctantly. It was not the sort of joke he appreciated and the boy's face had a greenish look that suggested it might not be a joke at all. When he had satisfied himself that this was the case, he told the young man to go out and fetch in the driver of the municipal refuse lorry while he himself stumped over to the caretaker's back door.

Mr. Wilson opened the door immediately. He had, in fact, been observing the unusual behaviour of the dustmen from his kitchen window. His wife went out early every day on a cleaning job at the local cinema, so he was used to tidying up his own kitchen before he attended to the staircase and small dark hall of the flats.

“What's up?” he asked, immediately. He hoped the dustmen had not found something valuable in the bins that he had overlooked when he emptied the tenants' various receptacles into them.

The dustman explained. Mr. Wilson gulped, but did his duty by going to look at the find. Then he both gulped and retched, but was able to mutter, “Morris. Mrs. Morris. Worked here.”

“You know 'er then?” The older dustman spoke severely. The youth, too, who had returned, was eyeing Mr. Wilson with some interest. He'd never come across a murderer. Not unless you counted that Cyril – but it had come in manslaughter for him in the end, on account of the knife had slipped unintentional.

“I'll have to call the police,” Mr. Wilson stammered, looking round at three accusing faces, for the driver had now joined the group at the dust-bin shelter and after peering at Mrs. Morris in her dark corner, had turned his back on her to stare in a hostile manner at the caretaker.

At the word ‘police' the three men moved instinctively towards the door of the yard, but were checked by Mr. Wilson.

“You're material witnesses,” he said, enjoying his sudden power to keep them. “You'll have to wait till they say you can go.”

The dustmen exchanged glances, but saw the force of his words. While he was gone they lit cigarettes, even giving one to the boy, whose packet was empty and who had begun to shake all over, looking far from well.

“Shock,” said the older man, pityingly. “Never seed a dead body afore, I suppose?”

The youth shook his head, drawing heavily on the cigarette.

“Better sit down,” said the driver, kindly. He found a wooden box in a corner of the yard and eased the boy on to it. Then he and the other man began to exchange their experiences of the Second World War, which related to a great many dead bodies and did nothing to revive their young colleague.

They had not got very far with their anecdotes when Mr. Wilson came out of the house again. At the same moment the Law, in the shape of a young constable, walked into the yard.

“What d'you think you chaps are doing?” he said. “You've got that lorry of yours in the middle of the road and you're obstructing the traffic. I've got a jam a hundred yards long outside. What's the big idea?”

“It's what they found,” said Mr. Wilson. “I've just rung your station. Perhaps you'd like to take a look yourself.”

The constable did so and did not like what he saw at all. But he pulled himself together and took the initiative. In a very few minutes he had taken down the names and addresses of the three municipal employees and a brief account of the find. Then he let them go. He already had the number of the refuse lorry.

He was in the road, still sorting out the traffic after the dustmen had gone when the police car arrived with a detective-inspector and a police doctor.

The doctor made a brief examination of Mrs. Morris without altering her position.

“Strangled,” he said. “Manually, it looks like. Been dead, I should think, for over twenty-four hours. Probably more.”

The inspector nodded and going into Mr. Wilson's flat held a brief conversation on the telephone with the divisional superintendent. He also ordered an ambulance and then went outside to speak to the young constable, who had disposed of the traffic jam by this time and was hovering nearby, hoping to justify his actions.

He was relieved to find himself commended.

“Did you tell those chaps to keep their mouths shut at present?”

The constable was dashed.

“No, sir. But they weren't the sort to take suggestions,” he added.

“O. K.” The inspector grinned. “Better stay around. The ambulance will fetch a crowd. With luck the Press won't be among them.”

This wish was fulfilled. The unsensational sordid death did not find its way into the papers until Tuesday morning and then only as a brief paragraph on a back page. But it was murder. The pathologist in the mortuary confirmed the police doctor's speculative finding. The body was identified by relatives as well as by Mr. Wilson and the case, for a very good reason, was given to Chief-inspector Mont of Scotland Yard to untangle.