Upright Piano Player (10 page)

Once, at Cambridge, Henry had been involved in a nocturnal prank when, for a bet, he and a group of friends had climbed into a neighboring college to steal their first eight’s oars from the Porter’s Lodge. They had been blacked up, and tanked up, too, but they did manage to remove the oars, and later deliver a juvenile ransom note to the Warden. But what Henry remembered most clearly of that night had happened earlier.

They had been crossing the main quad, commando-style, running low, one at a time, across the lawn into the safe shadows of the cloister. The last of them had just made his ground when a triangle of light spilt out onto the grass—a porter had come out of one of the staircases for a smoke. Henry had hidden behind a pillar, his heavy torch poised to hit the porter if necessary. It would have been a gross overreaction. Even now he shuddered to think what might have happened had he felled the poor man. Henry would certainly have been sent down; he might well have gone to prison. Yet in the heat of the moment, he had been tempted. It would not have been courageous. The porter had been armed only with a Woodbine and Henry had been in no danger. What would he do now if confronted by the vandal? He had no idea.

The night after the police stopped their patrols Henry’s car was vandalized. A can of white paint had been emptied onto the bonnet of his Mercedes. It made no sense. A few days later, Henry received a letter. Inside the envelope on a single sheet of paper someone had scrawled the letter P with a blue felt-tip pen. The postmark showed that the letter had been posted in Clerkenwell. The following day another envelope came, postmarked S.E.3, with the letter E inside. By the third day and the arrival of the letter R (posted in Hampstead) Henry had a good idea where the correspondence was heading. The next letter, again posted in a different part of London, confirmed his suspicion; someone not short of first-class stamps was calling him a pervert.

“I’ve found with this kind of muck, sir, the victim often has an idea who might be sending it; I mean, pervert is a pretty specific kind of insult—you know, there’s usually some incident that gives us a lead. You’re sure you can’t remember any sort of unpleasantness?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

Henry had never been a convincing liar and the detective sergeant did little to disguise his skepticism.

“See, my theory is: someone saw you on the television and was able to put a name to your face and then track you down.”

“I’m ex-directory.”

“But Henry Cage & Partners isn’t, is it? I rang them—pretended to be a friend from New York who wanted to send you a book. They gave me your home address right off. And I don’t even have a good American accent.”

Henry had not wanted to tell him about the head-butting and the incident in the brasserie. He sensed that the detective already half believed that the letters must have been justified. No one is called a pervert without reason. It’s not like “Rich bastard” or “Wog.” It’s not just a piece of name-calling, there’s a narrative attached to it, there’s a story there somewhere.

“I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything. I’ll ring you if I do.” Henry had wanted him out of the house.

“You won’t do anything stupid? No go-it-alone stuff?”

Henry played the innocent.

“Since I don’t know who to go for, that would be difficult.”

The vandalism had made Mrs. Abraham bellicose and Henry had found her constant suggestions tiresome.

“What about security lighting, Mr. Cage? They say it really cuts down crime. Floodlight the front of the house. That’s what I’d do if I had the money.”

“Well, let’s see, shall we? Maybe whoever it was is finished now.”

She sniffed. “Why should they stop? Nobody’s doing anything to make them stop.”

Henry had noticed that she spent a lot of time cleaning the front windows or sweeping the front path. He suspected that she was checking all traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian.

HOUSEKEEPER MAKES CITIZEN’S ARREST—he imagined the headline and a photograph of Mrs. Abraham at the front door, looking so very much at home.

He had invited her to take two weeks off with pay until things got back to normal. He had said he thought he might go and stay with friends and get some sleep. She had accepted her unexpected break with grace, sensing the lie, but letting it pass without challenge.

As soon as he had the house to himself, Henry became nocturnal. There had been no more letters and the past few nights had been uneventful, but he knew that it was not over—he felt sure there was more to come. He sat up all night in a drawing room chair pulled up to the window. There was no street lighting immediately outside his house, but he could see the gate and the white picket fence well enough and the road beyond.

When he grew weary, he listened to the twenty-four-hour news on a radio small enough to nestle in the top pocket of his jacket. He had bought it to take to cricket matches, but for the past year had been taking it to bed. It was the only way he could get to sleep. He lay on his right side, an earpiece in his left ear, and he would drift off as reports came in of rogue kangaroos terrorizing a small outpost in Northern Australia or of a totally tattooed man in Alabama. There is not enough real news to fill twenty-four hours and by 4:00 in the morning trivia is rampant. It is easy for the brain to close down in self-defense, but now the same banality and repetition had to keep him awake.

He had a large thermos of black coffee beside him and sandwiches bought earlier in the day. Anxious not to reveal his presence at the window, he had removed the sandwich wrappings in the kitchen to keep the noise down. He was aware that he was being ridiculous.

The first night he had managed to stay awake. He had even enjoyed the experience. His street had once been a rat-run connecting the Fulham and Brompton roads, but pressure from the influential residents’ association had persuaded
the authorities to make the street one-way and now it was of interest only to residents, tradesmen, the relevant utilities—and (at least) one vandal.

By midnight the social comings and goings were over, the Wilkinsons a conspicuous exception. They had arrived home at 1:30 a.m. in their Lexus 400, a car shaped much like themselves—too heavy in the front to be graceful. They had slammed the car doors with tipsy abandon and then with fingers to their lips had hushed each other to their front door.

At 2:55, the clouds had parted and moonlight glossed the roof tiles of the houses opposite. Mr. Pendry had paid a visit to the bathroom at 4:15 and a black cat had daintily walked the length of Henry’s garden fence shortly before 6:00, when
The Today Programme
had rescued him from the inanities of all-night news. He had gone to bed at 7:00 but found it impossible to sleep. Daylight seeped in through the curtains and he was conscious of the sounds of the day beginning: the rattle of the letter box as the newspapers arrived, the bleep of a reversing garbage truck, the squeak of next-door’s gate. After an hour, he went downstairs and retrieved his radio, finally falling asleep to the estuary tones of a phone-in.

That afternoon he walked to the Conran Shop to buy a torch. He had once sat next to a woman at the Royal Opera House who had the score of
Tosca
opened on her lap. Before the performance began she had turned to him. “I have this torch that doesn’t spill light. I don’t think it will bother you.” She had been right, and now he thought such a torch would be useful; he could read or write without revealing his presence
in the window. Better still, there would be no need to turn on his radio.

He took up his position in the window shortly after midnight. He had watched television most of the evening in his study at the back of the house. He had received one phone call. Detective Sergeant Cummings rang to see if there had been any developments.

“No, everything’s been pretty quiet.”

“No more letters?”

“Not from him.”

“Oh, so you think it’s a man, do you? Any reason for that?”

Henry had recovered, not well, but quickly.

“Sorry, I’m of that generation that automatically thinks all doctors, judges, and taxi drivers are male. Criminals, too.”

The detective had paused before replying.

“All right, Mr. Cage, let me know if anything happens.”

If anything had happened that night Henry would not have been awake to see it. He had drifted off shortly before 1:00. Waking at 7:00 he had gone outside to check the front of the house. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Inside, he inspected every room, opening wardrobes and cupboards, needing to know that he was safe. It reminded him of a ritual that had marked him out at boarding school. A homesick eight-year-old, he would not get into bed without patting the bedspread first to make sure that no upturned dagger awaited him. In the ruthless community of the dormitory he had been subjected to nightly ridicule, each boy elaborately
patting beds, curtains, floorboards, and chairs in search of hidden danger. The ragging had gone on for weeks, until one night, exhausted by a cross-country run, Henry had fallen straight into bed, too tired to be timid. He had never patted the bed again and yet even in adulthood some residual anxiety remained. Nessa had teased him about keeping a baseball bat in the bedroom and here he was fearfully opening cupboards in a locked and alarmed house.

The following day had been like a day of jet lag. In the morning, he had mooned about the house, watchful and weary. He needed regular hours. He wanted to sleep in the dark and wake with the light. He decided to sit up for just one more night. By the afternoon, fatigue had blunted his instincts and he allowed himself to believe his troubles were over, that he had been mistaken, that the malice had been haphazard and would pass on. Sitting in the window that night he became almost lighthearted with relief. Listening to the radio, he dispensed with the earpieces and curled up in the chair, his head cushioned on the soft and ample arm. It was a position, he knew, likely to send him to sleep, but so what?

He awoke to the sound of the newspapers being delivered. But was it not too early? There was something wrong. His watch had twisted around on his wrist and he was confused and looked for it in the folds of the chair. It was barely light outside and someone was knocking on the window. Henry could see white knuckles rapping on the glass and the cuff of a black leather coat. When he stood up his knee locked and
by the time he got to the window he saw only the gate swinging back into place. He sat back on the chair and took a sip of coffee straight from the flask, scalding the roof of his mouth. Why had he come—what had he done? The click of the letter box replayed in Henry’s ear. The bastard had put something through the door.

In the hall he expected to see more dog shit, a firework, or worse, but on the mat there was a plain buff-colored envelope. He picked it up and carried it into the kitchen. The envelope was about five by seven inches and felt light. It could not contain more than a few sheets of paper. He tried to recall what he had read about letter bombs. He thought they had to be bulkier than this, more like a package. He took a knife from the dresser drawer and opened the envelope. Inside, a sheet of paper was folded around three Polaroid photographs, all variations on a single theme. He recognized the girl immediately: she was the head-butter’s girlfriend, naked on a bed, smiling into the lens, knees spread, her hands easing back the lips of her vagina. Two of the pictures were close-ups.