Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 633 & 634, October 1994

The Eye of the Beholder by Robert Barnard

© 1994 by Robert Barnard

Though he is best known for his comic mysteries, Robert Barnard is equally adept with darker stories of a psychological turn, and his new novel from Scribners, Masters of the House (September, 1994) is of this sort. For those who enjoy Mr. Barnard’s lighter side, a new book in the Bernard Bastable series is due out early in 1995, also from Scribners...

Simon Carraway’s trowel had been expertly flicking cement between bricks with a vigour and purpose which was the result of a newly acquired expertise. Now it slowed down, as the door to number eighteen opened. Simon knew what was going to happen, but he watched nevertheless: the situation at number eighteen interested him, as the doings at none of the other houses in Gordon Road did. The man came out, had his cheek pecked by the still-pretty woman who was the inhabitant of the house that Simon felt he knew best, then the door was shut from inside, and the man, bowler-hatted and carrying a briefcase and an umbrella, set off in the direction of the Underground.

Simon bent his back down again and his trowel resumed its deft slapping-on of cement and its neat placing of bricks. Nothing more to be seen yet awhile.

Simon was nineteen. When he met his former schoolteachers in the street they shook their heads that he had not changed his mind about going up to university. Oxbridge could have been yours for the asking, they said. Simon replied that university, and especially Oxbridge, wouldn’t be any use to him. He didn’t say, because it sounded pretentious if you said it too often, that the reason university would be no use to him was because he was going to be a writer. The only writer he had ever met had told him that any side job a writer took on should be something that did not take it out of him intellectually or emotionally. “Something mindless,” the man had said. So Simon had joined his father’s building firm as a labourer, putting up rabbit hutches for the newly married, on the site of a former factory in the road named after General Gordon.

His father told people he was working his way up from the bottom. It sounded so much better than that he wanted to be a writer.

Meanwhile Simon stored in his head the personal lives of his work-mates, listened in the pub at lunchtimes to the stories of teenagers and pensioners, watched the people in the old Victorian redbrick houses on the other side of Gordon Road, and made stories out of their lives.

Such as the woman who had just seen her husband off to work. A dull soul, he looked. And Simon knew all about dutiful pecks on the cheek. That was how his father was seen off every morning. But the thing that made the house interesting to him was the question of who the other man in the house was, and what did he do? Was he a lodger? He sometimes left the house, but at irregular times, and often he was — so far as Simon knew — in there all day. What was his work? What did they do — he and the wife? And what did the teenage children of the house think about it?

Simon’s trowel expertly slapped and smoothed the coffee-cream cement, and his mind buzzed.

Isabella Longthorn shut the front door and leaned her forehead against it momentarily. She did so hope things were going well with William at the office. Desperately she hoped that this was a new beginning. She shook herself and went to the kitchen to wash up the breakfast things. Even if this was not the new beginning she and he hoped for, she would go on supporting and loving William as she had always done. “Loving” — that was not too strong a word to use for a brother. Not loving in that way, of course. She felt the force of all the taboos that prevented her loving her brother in that way. But in another, a better, a higher way.

She had always protected her younger brother, because she had loved him from the moment when, as a toddler, she had taken the fragile burden of him in her arms for the first time. As he grew up their parents had characterised him as “lazy,” “unreliable,” “dishonest,” and finally “hopeless,” but she had always leapt fiercely to his defence. Since he had returned from South Africa, the joy of having him living with her again was intense, almost overwhelming.

Only Brian had been less than delighted.

As she dried her hands she shrugged. She was not very interested in her husband’s reactions. If he wanted her as his domestic servant he would have to put up with William. And the children — to whom he was something new — were delighted with him. William was staying.

She put on her coat, took up her old-fashioned basket, and went out to do the shopping, casting her usual glance of distaste at the new hutches for human beings rising on what had been the site of a factory opposite.

Brian Longthorn put down his pen as he heard the front door shut. The article for Rock Monthly could wait. More important was the selection of records for his Radio Two fifties and sixties nostalgia programme, The Heartbreak Hour. He got up and went across the landing to what he called his studio. Here, piled on shelves from floor to ceiling, were the tapes, CDs, and old 78s and EPs that represented the passion of a lifetime. Here he could find every record — well, nearly — of the performers of his childhood and adolescence, along with discarded takes, audition tapes, pirated live tape recordings, and suchlike specialist but delicious items. Much of the more arcane material couldn’t be used on the BBC, worst luck, but just possessing it gave him a delicious thrill. To get in the mood he put on the old EP of “Heartbreak Hotel.”

He loved playing his music when the children weren’t in the house. How they sneered! In fact, he’d got into the habit of only playing it when they were out. They’d got much worse recently, probably spurred on by that no-hoper of a brother-in-law. He still smarted from their parody rendition of what they called “Are You Loathsome Tonight?” and their horrible pelvic gyrations to “Hound Dog.”

Something stirred in Brian. It was ages since... since... In fact, not since his brother-in-law ensconced himself in the house. Isabella had said she was going to the library before doing the shopping. She’d be out for an hour at least. His eyes settled on the battered old suitcase. They contained his absolute treasures. The rest were in suitcase after suitcase in the attic. He went and closed the curtains, then switched on a desk lamp and opened the dear old case. Wonderingly, he drew out the topmost item — the beautiful, spangled, silver-blue suit. Even in the dim light of the lamp it sent out a magic sparkle. His own! Elvis’s own! He held his breath for a moment, then quickly removed his old jeans and his striped shirt. The wonderful old trousers were tight, of course — they had been for years — and the jacket felt constricted around the armpits. But — oh, it was wonderful to have them on again!

He went without hesitation to a tape, then set it going on the recorder. As the first bars of “Jailhouse Rock” sounded through the little room he began energetically, sexily, swinging his hips as he mimed to his idol.

On the building site, Simon Carraway was laying carefully, almost lovingly, the first row of bricks on top of the foundation blocks. It was really rather satisfying work, building. When he finished the row he straightened and looked towards the house in Gordon Road. Then he wiped his forehead and looked again. He could hear nothing for the din of the concrete mixers, but he could see dim shadows behind the curtained windows on the first floor of number eighteen. He knew that the woman of the house (he called her Sheila) had gone out, leaving the lodger (he called him Mick) alone in the house. Yet he could see shadows of the torso of what looked like a belly dancer, performing a dance of seduction. Though he could not see the hips, or their shadow, he could see that they must be undulating. Was this Mick’s kink? Did he have an exotic Eastern beauty he let into the house by the backdoor as soon as his landlady went out? Where on earth in the vicinity did he find such a creature?

“Something’s gone wrong,” Isabella thought one evening some weeks later as she watched her brother silently eating his supper. He had not been himself the evening before either. He was normally, once home, a riot of fun and amusement for the children, with the oddest games he had learnt during his travels around Africa, or a series of impressions of the strange people he had met. But tonight he had once again failed to cast off his sober, daytime self and had sunk into thought the moment he had finished his dinner. “Something’s gone wrong,” Isabella thought. And then: “I shall have to do something for him.”

She tried not to think what that might be, because over the years the things she had been asked to do had become more and more unacceptable to her. But she had always done them.

One evening in late October, clear and surprisingly balmy, Simon Carraway remembered he’d left his Walkman in the workmen’s hut on the Gordon Road site. There was a guard there, but a dozy one, and he decided to walk the half-mile from his home (where his dad had ranted over tea about “making something of himself”) to retrieve it. He waved through the darkness to the guard, and found it under the bench where he’d left it. He tried it out: nostalgia hour on Radio Two — “Wooden Heart.” Yuck! And he couldn’t stand the reverential tones of the bore who presented The Heartbreak Hour. He turned it off. He found “Wooden Heart” about as exciting as Jeanette Macdonald and Nelson Eddy, and imagined they must come from around the same period. He waved again to the guard and left the site on his way home.

The concrete mixers were still now, but this was London and there was the inescapable hum of traffic and of people living their lives close together. But the windows of number eighteen were open, or the living room one was, probably to let in the cool night air. Simon had never been past the house before when there was a chance of hearing anything from inside it, and as he strolled in the direction of home he slowed down when he neared the yellow-painted front door.

“Yes, of course it’s valuable,” he heard a woman’s voice (Sheila’s, surely) say. “That kind of memorabilia fetches a packet these days. But he’d never give it up — never. It’s his whole life, poor fish.”

Simon walked on. He would have felt awkward if he’d lingered; how could he have explained it? But when he reached the intersection he waited, thought, then turned and walked slowly back.

“But we couldn’t, William! We couldn’t!”

Simon heard a male voice, but it was an indistinguishable mutter.

“No, of course I don’t,” came back the woman’s voice. “You know that. All that died years ago. But this... this is different.”

This time the temptation to stop was irresistible, but the male muttering came again, then the sudden shutting of the window. Simon shook his head, turned again, and began the walk home.

A collection — some kind of collection of memorabilia. What sort of collection would that stuffed-shirt of a husband have? Medals? First World War bits and pieces? Cricket trophies? Souvenirs from the Great Exhibition? And what were they planning to do? Steal it?

Because Simon had changed his mind about the lodger, about Mick. He had been wrong about what he had seen. The wife had gone out shopping by the front door, but what was to stop her coming back in by the backdoor? Depending on her shopping route that could be the most natural thing to do. And he was in no doubt that it had been she doing that exotic dance for her lover, the lodger — one of their kinky games together. Now she and the lodger were planning to rob her boring husband. Or...

What exactly did she mean: “This is different”?

Isabella had been appalled when he had brought it up.

“Not safe? Your job? But things have been going so well.”

William shrugged.

“Oh, they have. He doesn’t want to get rid of me. But these are hard times, Sis. Everyone knows that. And the job is safe enough, if only I can get hold of the money to invest in the business.”

“What exactly is Mr. Latimer saying?”

“What he’s saying is that he needs me to invest thirty thousand in the business.”

“Thirty thousand!”

“It’s peanuts in business terms. If I can’t get hold of it he’ll have to dispense with my services.”

“But thirty thousand! Where could you get hold of a sum like that?”

He looked at her with his beautiful, steady, blue-eyed gaze. Impossible to mistrust him! Impossible to suspect that there was no job, was no Mr. Latimer, that where he went so impeccably dressed every day was to betting shops and racecourses.

“I thought you might have an idea, Sis.”

“Me? Have access to thirty thousand? You must be joking.”

“There’s Brian’s collection.”

She frowned.

“Collection?”

“All those tapes. All that fifties and sixties memorabilia he’s got stored in his studio and the attic — Elvis’s suits, Ringo’s drumsticks, all that crap. That sort of thing can bring in a fair bit, can’t it?”

“Yes, of course it’s valuable. That kind of memorabilia fetches a packet these days. But he’d never give it up — never. It’s his whole life, poor fish.”

“Greater love hath no man,” intoned William, “than that he lay down his life for his Elvis jockstrap.”

Isabella giggled nervously.

“Well he would, so you can put the collection out of your mind.”

“The ultimate sacrifice could be arranged,” said William. “And then the collection’s yours to dispose of.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, William.”

He leaned forward, intensely.

“I’m serious, Sis. We could kill him — no problem.”

“But we couldn’t, William. We couldn’t!”

“Why not? Think bold, Sis. You don’t have any feeling for him.”

“No, of course I don’t. You know that. All that died years ago. But this... this is different.”

“No it’s not. It’s a seizing of opportunity. Shut the window, Sis. This has got to be discussed seriously.”

She got up and banged down the window. Then she turned and confronted him.

“William, I don’t know how serious you are, but this is not on. I don’t love Brian, but I don’t wish him dead. And anyway, I’m not the murdering type.”

“You don’t have to be. You just have to give me an alibi.”

“But... but...”

“Nothing against a sister alibiing a brother, is there? Not like a husband and wife. I’ll be here with you on that dark night when he’s on his way home from the BBC and something very nasty happens.”

“Stop it, William. There’s the children. They’d be home. They’d know I was lying. I couldn’t face them knowing that.”

“When is half-term? They’re going to France on a school exchange, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you are, then. When is half-term?”

There was a silence. Then Isabella said: “The week after next.”

The houses were beginning to sell. Young marrieds were starting, nervously, to believe the government’s talk about green shoots of recovery and were going to banks and building societies to beg for loans. Some, mostly living with in-laws, were willing to move in even while the houses were surrounded by workers and the impediments of a building site.

Simon was working late one day, collecting overtime pay by finishing the brickwork on a house for just such a couple. It was twilight, and the streetlights had just come on.

Through the growing murk he saw coming down Lime Tree Avenue the buttoned-up figure of the husband (“Cedric,” as he called him). Suit, bowler hat, briefcase, umbrella under his arm. It was the route from the number ninety-three bus stop. One block away from Gordon Road the man slowed to a lingering pace, looking around him and upwards as well. There was a high wall at that spot, a telephone kiosk and a lamp standard whose light wasn’t functioning. Simon saw Cedric look up at the blank space whence the light should be coming, then nod and resume his walk home to number eighteen.

He’s probably meditating a letter to the local newspaper about the council’s negligence, thought Simon. Or a call to the council’s Highways Department. Prat, he thought. He’s the sort of prat who would do that sort of thing.

As the track of Alma Cogan lilted to its conclusion and Brian prepared to put the wrappers on The Heartbreak Hour for another week, his mind was on other things. He was fed up with having his damned brother-in-law cluttering up the house. Did he pay rent? Did he do his bit around the house? The heck he did! He was a leech, a limpet, a dead weight. He’d have to be told to sling his hook.

Isabella would cut up rough, of course. Well, he’d tell her she’d have to choose: her brother or her husband. If it came to the pinch, Brian thought he wouldn’t mind moving out, finding a flat nearer the BBC for himself and his collection.

One of us will have to go, he thought grimly.

Simon Carraway, in the Public Bar of the Dog and Gun, just off Lime Tree Avenue, was bored. He’d gone there with the men from the site after work, had had a very bad pub meal, and the conversation had now switched from the trouble one of his work-mates was having with his wife to the goal-scoring abilities of Ian Wright. Simon was not remotely interested in football. He took up his pint mug, went to stand in the doorway, and turned on his Walkman. Who in God’s name was Alma Cogan? He switched it off and began listening in to the conversation of a party of pensioners round the table next to the door. Someone from the group had died of hypothermia. “Already,” they said, as if it would have been quite acceptable if he had died of it once winter had set in. They began in on the personal habits of the deceased, and Simon found himself shaping a character in his mind.

It was over half an hour and another pint later that Simon saw “Cedric” go past the door. He was suited as usual, and briefcased and bowler-hatted, but Simon noted that today he was not carrying an umbrella. Silly of him, because it had been drizzly most of the afternoon. As he walked on down to the turn-off into Lime Tree Avenue he saw Cedric’s hand go into his pocket. Then he turned and was out of sight. Simon turned his mind back to his pensioners.

It was fifteen minutes later when he drained his glass, raised a hand to his work-mates, and left the pub. Ahead of him, turning the corner into Lime Tree Avenue, he saw a jerkined figure that he thought he recognised. He was halfway to the corner when he heard a cry. Running, swerving round it, he saw two figures grappling, and a bowler hat rolling into the road. The lodger and the husband! Throwing himself into the mass of limbs he got his hand on the jerkined figure, forced his shoulders against the wall, then down onto the pavement. Suddenly he realized he was using very little of his strength, that the body was slipping of his own accord. As he pushed the man’s trunk down against the paving stones, he realized with a lurch of the stomach that his hands were sticky. Satisfied that the man was not going to make off, he ran to the telephone kiosk and dialled 999.

“Police? There’s been a stabbing in Lime Tree Avenue. Send an ambulance too.”

As he stood there looking out into the dimly lit street it occurred to him to wonder where the man in the bowler hat was.

“What do you mean ‘How’s the husband?’ ” demanded the police inspector who came next morning to talk to Simon on the site. “You know how he is. A nasty stab wound to the side, but he’ll survive — thanks to you.”

“That’s the husband?” asked Simon. They looked towards number eighteen, which had a shut-up look and had evinced no sign of life since Simon arrived for work. “I’ve only seen them, you see, from here. I thought he was some kind of lodger.”

“Oh no. He’s the husband. Presents a programme on Radio Two — The Heartbreak Hour. He’s got a nice taste in music. I’ve listened to it now and then when I’m on obbo. They could write tunes in those days. Reckon he’ll have had enough of heartbreak when all this is over, though.”

“What about the other bloke — the City gent?”

“The wife’s brother. He’s no City gent. Got a record in three continents. He’d hardly washed the blood off himself when we arrived. There were still traces in the bathroom basin.”

“You mean — he tried to kill the one I caught?”

“Of course. You didn’t catch him, you saved him.”

“Why?”

“Good question. He says his sister put him up to it — wanted shot of her husband. Don’t believe a word of it myself. She’s a dupe if ever there was one. I think he was after his collection.”

“Collection?”

“Fifties memorabilia of the rock stars. Casefuls of it in the attic. Could fetch a bomb in an auction.”

“I did hear something a week or two back, when I was going past their window,” Simon said, and told him what he had heard. “I think you’re right. I don’t think she wanted it done.”

“Ve-ry nice,” said the inspector appreciatively. “You’re a sharp lad. I like someone who observes the facts. We’ll be needing you at the trial.”

When he had gone Simon bent over his wall, almost blushing. Sharp, indeed! He’d made a total fool of himself. It took him a while to cool down. The regular motion of placing the bricks, slapping on concrete, then placing another brick on top helped him, calmed him down. He was conscious that over the last few weeks he had come to enjoy the job he was doing. It was not mindless at all, but satisfying, an aesthetic experience. And it made you aware of other buildings — the shape, the size, the feel of them — all built by people like himself. He could certainly get interested in buildings. There was something about them that was solid, unchanging, definite. Something unhuman.