The Dwarves of Death

Key Change

Anyway, back to that night. The night of the murder, I mean. I’ve been doing my best to put it off, but there’s nothing more to tell you, now, apart from how it ended. I don’t relish the prospect, to be honest. Recently I’ve been trying to forget these events — not so much because of the details, which are a bit unpleasant, I admit, but because it frightens me to recall the state I was in. Psychologically. I hope to God that nothing like that ever happens to me again. I’ll try not to exaggerate, and I’ll try to say exactly what I mean: and for your part, you must take these words and really think about them. Because that night, I felt — and it’s the most terrible feeling, the worst feeling I know — that an entire world was slipping out of my grasp.

The thing that really surprised me, the one thing I had never expected about terror (never having experienced it before) was how bloody sad it made me feel. I sat there on that bus and I swear to you it was all I could do to keep myself from crying. It seemed that I was saying goodbye to so much, you see. Everything I had been working towards for the last few years had turned to nonsense. Not just all the music; not just all the effort I had put into living in London. Even the simple peace of mind enjoyed by the other passengers on the bus that evening — that was denied me now, as well. The only assumption I had ever made about my life — that it would never lose sight of a basic sanity and normality — had been casually shot to pieces.

Even as I realized this, more and more details of the murder were coming back to me. It was a strange, but undeniable, fact that the picture on the record sleeve Derek had sent me — the attitude adopted by the two dwarves, standing apart and looking straight ahead, faceless, impassive — was uncannily reminiscent of Paisley’s assassins. But as soon as I tried to get any further, to imagine how there could possibly be a means of piecing together these clues, my head began to spin, and there seemed to be no point of entry. It defied logic.

There was nothing to be gained from trying to sort it out anyway. It wasn’t my job to find out what was at the bottom of this crazy business — who was trying to kill who, and why, and what particular manner of illegal activity they were all engaged in at the time. I was only a musician, after all. I dealt in first inversions and augmented fourths, not crack or heroin, and I’d never even had a parking ticket before now or been caught watching the television without a licence. And now my reward, apparently, for twenty-three scrupulous years of law-abiding citizenship, was to have my life wrecked at a stroke by the stupid antics of a bunch of people I’d hardly met and had no connection with.

I closed my eyes and tried to pretend that it wasn’t happening. For a while my mind went blank; and when I did start thinking again, some minutes later, it was along quite different lines.

Back at the beginning of this story, I remember mentioning something which had caught my eye as Chester drove me through Islington. From the front seat of his car, my gaze had been drawn to the lit windows of Georgian terraced houses: kitchens and dining-rooms golden with lamplight as families prepared their evening meals and poured themselves pre-dinner drinks. If I had felt excluded from these scenes at the time, I felt infinitely more so now — but all the same, as I remembered them, and as the bus continued to carry me on in God knows what direction, a fantasy arose within me. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to live like that? Why should I let these senseless, random circumstances defeat me? I had a girlfriend. She lived in a beautiful house. There was no reason, no reason on earth, why I shouldn’t spend this evening with her.

For the first time, I looked out of the window of the bus, and instantly recognized the area: we were heading towards Kensington.

So Madeline had made no attempt to contact me since I sent her the tape; but what could be more natural? She would have been astonished, stunned, thoroughly taken aback by the realization that my intentions were far more serious than she had imagined. It was even possible that she didn’t know whether to accept or not. What she needed, in all probability, was the chance to talk it over with me, face to face.

Suppose I were to turn up there, now, with a bottle of champagne? A bottle of champagne, and a bunch of flowers? A bottle of champagne, a bunch of flowers, and a box of assorted continental chocolates? Apart from anything else, it would be safer than going back to my own flat, because nobody knew of my association with Madeline (apart from Tony and Harry, and even they had no idea where she lived). I could stay there for days, and nobody would ever find me. I could turn up, laden with gifts, I could tell her what had happened, she would comfort me, and then we could have a long and earnest talk about our relationship. We’d pop out to the all-night grocer’s, buy in some tagliatelle or rigatoni or something, cook a meal together, and then settle down with a couple of glasses of red wine and make some serious plans for our future. Finally, at around midnight, it would be time for bed. We would steal shy looks at the corner of the room, make embarrassing remarks about fetching a spare mattress and some blankets, but neither of us would mean it. I would still be in a state of shock, I would shrink from the idea of sleeping alone, and Madeline would sense this, instinctively. She would draw me gently towards the bed. I would sit there, she would stand before me and lay her hands on my shoulders and fix me with her grave grey eyes. Then, turning off all but the bedside light…

Where the fuck could I get a box of continental chocolates at this time of night?

For the next few minutes, at any rate, things went in my favour. I got off the bus at South Kensington and found an off-licence which also sold chocolates. Not far along the road, a florist was just putting the shutters down on his shop. I persuaded him to let me in and for three pounds fifty I was given a little bunch of manky carnations. Even though it wasn’t particularly late in the evening, I now felt as though I was in a frantic hurry, and I ran all the way to Mrs Gordon’s house. Before ringing the bell, I had to lean for a while against those massive oak doors in order to get my breath back.

Here, away from the West End, away from the traffic, away from just about any sign of humanity apart from the occasional pedestrian, it seemed incredibly quiet. A thin, frozen mist was hanging in the air; it mingled with my breath whenever I exhaled. Visibility was poor. If someone were to approach, discreet footsteps against the pavement would announce their imminence long before they actually emerged from the gloom. I could barely make out the tall hedge on the other side of the street.

Mrs Gordon’s house was in darkness, utter darkness. I could see at once that Madeline wasn’t in, but I rang the bell anyway. As you may have noticed, my mind wasn’t working very sensibly that evening. At first there was no answer and I thought that there must be nobody in the house at all. I rang the bell again, twice. Nothing. What about the cook? Wouldn’t she be there? Surely the whole household couldn’t have packed up and gone away, without Madeline even telling me about it. I rang the bell again, long and insistently.

There is nothing like a single, loud noise, for making the surrounding quiet seem even more absolute. When you are in the country, and a dog barks in the middle of the night, it merely punctuates and emphasizes the silence, making you hear it all the more keenly. Similarly, when I stopped ringing the bell, there descended a hush so sudden, and so still, that it seemed as if the mist had managed to cushion even London’s usual ceaseless hum. I stood waiting, feeling despair begin to creep into my bones, like the cold. I shivered and hugged the plastic carrier-bag containing my gifts. Now and again I stood back from the house and looked up at its dark, curtained windows.

Then, all at once, a light came on. It was on the first floor. A few moments later I could see a shadow moving behind a curtain. I went to the doorbell and rang again, pressing it four or five times. It was all I could do to stop myself from shouting out.

Nothing further happened for some time. Eventually, after I had rung the bell another half-dozen times, and run back and forth, up and down the steps which led to the doorway, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on upstairs, another light came on: this time it was the light in the hall, shining out through a glass panel above the front door. By climbing up on to the railings, I could just about raise myself to the level of this panel and see through it. I could see a tiny, fragile old woman coming slowly down the huge stairway, supporting herself awkwardly on a wooden stick. She was wearing a thick, pale blue dressing-gown. I jumped back down at once in case she saw me and took fright at the sight of my wild, staring eyes. Stupidly I tried to straighten my coat and brush back my hair, making tiny last-minute adjustments to my appearance. Nothing could have stopped me from looking like an escaped madman.

On the other side of the door, I could hear her slippered feet shuffling across the floor, and the soft thud of her walking stick against the marble. I could tell that she was only a few inches away. Now the letterbox was pushed open and a thin voice emerged:

‘Who is it? What do you want?’

Trying to make myself sound civilized and reassuring, I bent down to the letterbox and said: ‘My name’s William. I want to speak to Madeline.’

When she answered, I could see her puckered old lips mouthing the words.

‘Madeline’s not here. You’ll have to go away.’

‘I’m a friend of hers. A very good friend. I’ve been here before, lots of times. I must see Madeline tonight.’

There was a short silence, during which I thought that she had turned around and was going back upstairs; but then I heard bolts being pulled back and the turning of a key. The door swung open and Mrs Gordon was standing before me. She was a very small woman: she had to look up to study my face.

‘Why?’ she said.

Explaining, obviously, was impossible.

‘It’s personal.’

‘Madeline’s a very nice girl,’ said Mrs Gordon, opening the door further and letting me in. ‘I like her very much. You say you’re a friend of hers. I hope you haven’t got her into any trouble.’

She eyed me with suspicion. I could hardly blame her.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing like that at all.’

‘She’s gone out for the evening,’ she said. ‘You can’t wait for her, because she probably won’t be back until late.’ Then she asked: ‘You did say you were a close friend of Madeline’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know what day it is?’

So the old bat was senile, it seemed. Still, I could see no harm in humouring her.

‘It’s Saturday,’ I said.

She looked at me with a very penetrating gaze.

‘Look — ’ She was making me uncomfortable, and I was anxious to leave. ‘I really don’t want to disturb you any more. Do you know where she’s gone?’

‘She’s round at her friend’s house.’

‘Her friend?’

‘You know, her friend. Piers.’

‘Piers?’

I practically shouted the name. As soon as I heard it, a sort of madness seized me, as any number of suppressed fears and hunches began to emerge from the shadows at the corners of my mind, where they had been lurking for months.

‘Where does he live?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘The bastard!’

Mrs Gordon raised her stick and prodded me in the stomach with it.

‘You’ll be careful not to use language like that, in this house.’

‘If that bastard… If she and that fucking bastard — ’

‘I think you’d better leave. Now.’

‘I know — her address book!’

I dodged round Mrs Gordon and made for the staircase.

‘Don’t you dare go up there!’ she shouted. ‘I’ll call the police.’

But I was already on my way up, and within a few seconds I was in Madeline’s room. It took me no time at all to find her address book, which she kept beside the telephone. I also guessed that she would be the kind of person who listed her friends by Christian name rather than surname. Sure enough, there was Piers, under P. I memorized the address and was about to close the book when for some reason I couldn’t resist looking to see if my own name was there: I turned to W.

Madeline had beautiful handwriting, there was no denying it. She had written my name in capitals, in red felt pen, and beneath it was the address of Tina’s flat and my phone number. Tears sprang to my eyes as I stared at it. And then I looked around her room, her room which was so familiar to me and which seemed so strange this evening because Madeline herself wasn’t there, and because everything, suddenly, had changed. The murder I had witnessed in Islington seemed insignificant now beside the suspicions which had started to crowd in on me, and it rapidly became too painful to sit there, assaulted by memories, fighting them off. I swore, got to my feet, and ran back downstairs.

Mrs Gordon was standing by the telephone in the hallway, with her back to the wall.

‘I called the police,’ she said. ‘They’re coming round.’

I said nothing and walked straight past her. I slammed the door behind me, then set off through the cold London night in the direction of Piers’ apartment. I still had my carrier-bag full of chocolates, flowers and champagne.

It wasn’t until much later that evening that I realized the stupidity of what I had done: I could scarcely, in fact, have devised a better way of incriminating myself further than by bursting into an old lady’s house, and frightening her to the point where she would call the police and issue them (presumably) with a description which tallied exactly with the one they had already received. Like a fish caught in a net, I had writhed and struggled and achieved nothing except to get into an even worse tangle than before. All I can say, once again, is — believe me: you don’t think of these things at the time.

I don’t know that I was thinking at all, as I strode along through the wealthy, imperturbable streets of South Kensington, across the Fulham Road and on through Chelsea towards World’s End. Once I was in the general area I had to ask for directions: but it didn’t take long for me to find the address. I found myself standing outside a tall, narrow terrace; it was in darkness except for the second floor, which was brightly lit and full of the noise of voices and loud disco music. A party seemed to be in progress.

Immediately, my spirits rose. If Piers was giving a party, then of course he would invite Madeline; and if she wasn’t seeing me that evening, then of course she would go. Perhaps I had jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion. Perhaps my vision of an evening alone with Madeline was still within my grasp, after all.

I rang the bell and before long a young, well-dressed young woman had come to let me in.

‘I’m a friend of Madeline’s,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to the party.’

‘Sure.’

She gave me an odd look, which I put down to my appearance. My raincoat was dirty and crumpled at the best of times, and now, with my plastic carrier-bag and my tousled hair, I must have cut a peculiar figure. I followed her up two flights of stairs and was left standing in the hallway of a small, crowded flat while she went to find Madeline.

‘Chuck your coat in one of the bedrooms,’ she said, ‘and put the booze in the fridge. I’ll just go and get her.’

I stayed where I was. None of the other guests tried to introduce themselves to me. They all seemed to be called things like Jocasta and Jeremy, and were all wearing outfits which must have cost more money than I would have thought of spending on a year’s wardrobe. They gave me a wide berth, and sneaked glances at me with wary, amused eyes which made my cheeks burn.

Shortly afterwards, Madeline emerged from one of the other rooms. She looked absolutely wonderful. She was wearing a navy blue velvet party dress with a low V-neck at the front and back, with a string of tiny pearls around her throat. She looked pale, healthy and happy. As soon as she saw me, her face fell.

‘William?’ she said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

I rushed towards her, put the bag down and tried to hug her.

‘Oh Madeline, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through today. I’ve got to — ’

She pushed me away.

‘For God’s sake, William, what are you doing? Not here.’

We stood apart. She stared at me accusingly.

‘I brought you these,’ I said.

From the bag I brought out the box of chocolates, which was squashed, and the flowers, which were crushed. Two of the carnations’ heads had come off completely. She smiled when she saw the gift but it was a pitying smile, one I could have done without.

‘How did you know?’ she asked.

‘Know what?’

Her smile broadened.

‘That it was my birthday, of course.’

I gripped the box of chocolates tightly and tried to say something, but at first the words wouldn’t come. My mind went back to Mrs Gordon’s inexplicable question — ‘Do you know what day it is?’

‘This is… your birthday party?’

‘Of course it is. Piers very kindly said I could give a party in his flat. How did you get the address?’

Before I had time to answer, Piers himself appeared. He slid his arm around Madeline’s waist and said, ‘Darling, Charles is just putting that new tape on. Do I know your friend?’

Our eyes met and mine were the first to look away. Madeline turned towards him, put her hand on his shoulder and said, ‘No, this isn’t a good time to play it now. Take it off — please? Quickly.’

But it was too late. From the next room I could hear the familiar opening of ‘Stranger in a Foreign Land’: high, bright chords on the keyboard, shakers setting the tempo and the mood, and that strong, plangent figure from the sampled saxophone.

‘Why not?’ Piers was saying. ‘I think it’s smashing.’

I pushed past him and stood in the doorway of the room, watching the other guests as they danced to my music. In spite of myself I couldn’t help feeling a certain grim satisfaction when I saw how well ‘Stranger in a Foreign Land’ was working as a party record. If the other members of The Alaska Factory had been there, I would have turned to them and said, ‘I told you so’. But it would have seemed like an old triumph, now. I had already moved on.

Madeline touched my arm and said, ‘William, can we go and talk? Let’s go into one of the bedrooms for a minute.’

I looked past her, only half-listening. That key change from D major to F: that was really neat. I couldn’t have written something like that a year or two ago.

‘Look — I thought you knew what I was saying that night. When I said I wanted a change. And then I didn’t hear from you, so I thought… well, that you’d understood.’

‘But I sent you this song.’

‘Yes I know, but — you must have written it ages ago, didn’t you?’

‘No, I wrote it last week.’

She followed me as I made for the door.

‘Does Piers know that I wrote it?’ I asked. ‘Has he listened to the words?’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t think so. He’s not very interested in music.’

A riposte occurred to me at this point: something about them being suited to each other, in that case. But I didn’t say it. There’s a time and a place for everything, if you ask me.

*

Sometimes, all you can do is try and wipe things from your memory. As far as the rest of that night is concerned, I’ve done a pretty good job, and there’s nothing much to tell. One thing I do remember is the cold. I’ve never known cold like it. I suppose I could have gone inside somewhere, an all-night café or something, or a hotel, but I was too frightened, you see. Frightened of being seen. I went to a park. Several parks, in all probability, although they start to blur in my mind. I can remember going further into the centre of town, early in the morning it must have been, avoiding the queues for the night buses, ignoring the taxi touts and the beggars who kept coming up and asking me (me!) for money. I can remember heading down towards the river, sitting on some steps for a while. Steps that led into the water. I can’t find words to describe the cold. It was there — yes, it was there — that it started to get light. I watched the sickly dawn spreading itself over the Thames. I drank a whole bottle of champagne and ate a whole box of assorted continental chocolates. I was violendy sick, on two, three or possibly seven separate occasions.

It’s a strange feeling, to feel lonely and at the same time scared that somebody might talk to you. Gradually, after about ten hours or so, the loneliness started to win out. I became desperate to see someone, and my situation began to seem so insupportable that I considered, for the first time, going in and giving myself up to the police. Perhaps it would be best, after all, to make a clean breast of everything. Who knows, they might even have tracked down the real murderer by now, and I wouldn’t be under any suspicion. They’d be pleased to see me, I’d be a valuable witness, and instead of finding myself on the threshold of a never-ending nightmare I’d be able to see the whole business wrapped up and disposed of, never to trouble me again. Oh God, if that could only be true.

I didn’t have the courage to do it myself, of course. If I was going to give myself up I needed someone to help me, someone to take me along to the police station and be ready to back up my story. I only had one friend in London who could be relied upon to do that, and it was a lot to ask. An awful lot. But there was no choice, really. Not when you thought about it.

It took me another couple of hours to walk to Tony’s house, which was in Shadwell. I kept close to the river as much as possible, and then headed up north when I reckoned I’d come far enough. It must have been getting on for ten-thirty by the time I got there. He and Judith had a new, fairly modern little place on a housing estate. I stood in the porch for ages, worried about the impression I would make as soon as they saw me, unable to imagine any coherent way of telling my story. I considered running away again. I hesitated, and wavered, and thought, and sweated, and shook. Finally I rang the bell.

Judith came to the door almost immediately. She was wearing her coat over what seemed (from the parts I could see) to be her smartest clothes, and her hair looked immaculate. Far from being surprised to see me, she gave every appearance of being relieved.

‘William, there you are!’ she said. ‘We were starting to go frantic. We’ve been leaving messages on your machine all morning.’ Before I had time to say anything she had turned around and was shouting up the stairs, ‘It’s all right, Tony, he’s here!’

Tony came running downstairs. He was wearing a light grey suit with a narrow tie.

‘Judith was convinced you’d forgotten,’ he explained. ‘We were a bit worried when we couldn’t get you on the phone all night, you see. We thought you might have gone away for the weekend.’

‘No, I was… round at Madeline’s house last night,’ I improvised, not entirely untruthfully. I didn’t have a clue what was going on.

‘Come into the kitchen,’ said Judith, ‘and I’ll show you what’s what.’

As I followed her into the kitchen, the explanation suddenly hit me. It was Sunday morning, and I was supposed to be looking after Ben for the day while they went up to Cambridge for their luncheon party: that promise I had made more than two weeks ago. As was only to be expected, I had forgotten all about it.

‘There’s some salad in the fridge,’ Judith was saying, ‘and some quiche. You and Ben are to help yourselves but don’t give him any cucumber because he won’t touch the stuff. Don’t ask me why. He’s at that sort of age. He’ll show you how to work the video and he’ll probably want you to play with him on his computer games. There’s plenty of tea, and plenty of milk. He likes his milk with this strawberry stuff in it. It’s very easy, you just have to stir it in.’

What could I do? I had been on the point of giving them a complete explanation — of narrating a more fantastic chain of events than I could ever have invented, in the hope that they would believe me and find some way of helping me out. But I couldn’t do that now. Once again, circumstances were sweeping me away, carrying me beyond the realm where decisions could be made and free will exercised.

‘He’s in the sitting-room at the moment,’ said Judith. ‘He won’t come out to see visitors. Don’t ask me why. It’s a phase he’s going through. You’ll find him ever so easy once you get talking to him. If he tries to throw things at you just give him a good smack. It usually works.’

Tony came into the kitchen, jingling the car keys.

‘Come on, love, we’re going to be late.’

Judith fetched her gloves and I followed them both to the front door.

‘Feel free to use the piano,’ said Tony. ‘I don’t think we’ll be back any later than four.’

‘Help yourself to biscuits,’ said Judith.

‘Play some records if you want,’ said Tony.

‘There’s beer in the cupboard,’ said Judith.

‘Have a nice time,’ I said. And then they were gone.

From the sitting-room I could hear a medley of little electronic pops and whistles and bubbling noises, which seemed to suggest that Benjamin was happily occupied with a video game. I put my head round the door just to make sure.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hello.’

I think Benjamin must have been about eight at this stage. He was a cute little child, with a healthy face and a cheerful disposition, and he already showed signs of his parents’ intelligence. He never took his eyes off the television screen, but I didn’t feel that he was being rude.

‘I’m just going to go and play the piano.’

‘Fine.’

Tony had a really lovely upright piano which he had bought cheap at a sale from the Royal College of Music or somewhere. I had only ever played it a couple of times and it had made even my worst improvisations sound reasonable. To be able to spend a whole day with this piano was an absolute treat, in other words, but as soon as I sat down at it and opened the lid, a curious thing happened: I found that I couldn’t play. Even when I put my hands on the keys, chose a chord and took a deep breath, I couldn’t bring myself to sound the notes. I must have done this nearly a dozen times. I thought of standards, I thought of originals, I thought of classical pieces — but I couldn’t actually get any of them started. It was all too much. The murder, the flight from the police, that awful night in the cold, the realization that I was never going to see Madeline again — these things had been weighing down on me for too long, and all at once I caved in. I put my head in my hands and slumped forward on to the piano, and although I wasn’t really crying, my body shook with sobs.

I don’t think this lasted very long. The spasm soon passed, but I continued to lie across the keyboard, feeling oddly comfortable. I got up when I realized that Ben had come into the room and was staring at me. I don’t know how long he had been there.

‘I want to go for a walk,’ he said, solemnly.

*

Once Ben was suitably wrapped up in his little duffle coat and woollen hat and gloves, we stepped outside and I locked up the house.

‘Where do you want to go?’ I asked.

‘Let’s go down to the basin.’

It wasn’t a very good morning for a walk, in my opinion. It was far too cold, for one thing, and last night’s mist hadn’t entirely cleared yet. Of course, I also had my own reasons for not wanting to venture out, but I didn’t see that much harm could come from a quick excursion if it was going to keep Ben happy. It might even help to calm me down, since playing the piano (my usual form of therapy) seemed to be out of the question at the moment. The bleakness of those East London streets, the strange misty chill which lay over the whole area, harmonized pleasingly with my mood. I felt that I could smell mystery on every corner, and I enjoyed hearing the occasional, random sounds of a quiet Sunday morning — cars starting, children shouting — and seeing the fog roll back, way in the distance, over the grey and restless Thames.

‘Wow,’ said Benjamin. ‘What a massive piece of dog poo.’

I pulled him away from the offending object, which he had been inspecting with keen interest, and continued to hold his hand as we walked on. Before long, we found that we had come to a church: the vast, intimidating bulk of St George In The East.

‘Is it true,’ said Benjamin, as we walked past it, ‘that criminals and people can go inside a church, and the police can’t come and catch them?’

I stopped walking. I didn’t know whether this was still true or not, although I remembered once being told the same thing, many years ago. Sanctuary. It seemed a straw worth clutching at.

‘Let’s go inside,’ I said.

Benjamin, still holding my hand, seemed happy enough to follow me. As we got near to the doors I could hear the sound of ragged hymn-singing, but the thought that a service was in progress didn’t deter me for more than a few seconds.

‘Dad’ll be so cross if he knows that you took me to church,’ said Benjamin gleefully.

‘Why?’

‘He says that the church is a bourgeois conspiracy designed to preserve the existing social order.’

‘Does he?’ I said, rather taken aback. ‘He should really leave you to work these things out for yourself, you know. Come on, anyway.’

We seemed to have arrived in the middle of a sung communion: the church was about half full (mainly with old people) and they were singing ‘Immortal, Invisible’, with the choir adding eccentric harmonies apparently designed to confuse the rest of the congregation. Ben and I settled down in a pew near the back and joined the hymn just in time for the last line. The service still had about twenty minutes to run but I don’t think either of us paid very much attention to it. What I had said to Madeline all those months ago was true: I had been through a brief church-going phase when I was much younger (at the age when most of my friends were having adolescent love affairs — I don’t know why I should have been different), but I wasn’t religious by nature and my faith, such as it was, had faded away quickly and painlessly. The only thing I liked about religion now was the music it had inspired. So I didn’t go up to take communion with the rest of the congregation, and most of the time my thoughts were far removed from the words of the priest: when they weren’t spiralling around the events of the last twenty-four hours in a kind of daze, they were focused — oddly enough — on Benjamin.

He seemed to be poised between two different states, being both bored by the service and excited by the novelty of his unusual surroundings. Some of the time he squirmed in his seat and swung his legs restlessly over the edge of the pew; but sometimes he was content to settle against my side and stare up at the ceiling, or look around at the faces of the other worshippers, which presented a range of expressions from near-ecstasy to vacant inattention. The feeling of having a young child, trusting and dependent, resting at my side during a church service was (I need hardly say) the very last thing I had anticipated that morning. It was a long while, I realized, since I had spent any time at all in the company of children. I had shut myself off from even thinking about them. Had I ever fantasized, without admitting it to myself, about having children with Madeline? I tried to be honest, scratched around in the recesses of my most secret memories, but couldn’t see that I had. No, the only person I had ever discussed it with — and I could remember the conversation now: shy, serious, playful — was Stacey.

Benjamin and I stayed put while the congregation was leaving. After a few minutes, we had the church to ourselves.

‘Aren’t we going to go now?’ he asked.

‘No. Let’s stay a little longer.’

He got up and went on a brief tour of exploration. Even when he was out of sight, I could hear the echo of his footsteps as he ran backwards and forwards. It was one of those sounds — like the ringing of Mrs Gordon’s doorbell — which drew attention to the surrounding silence. I made no attempt to follow him but continued to sit there thinking about Stacey.

Benjamin broke in upon my thoughts by tugging at my sleeve and saying, ‘William. William.’

I looked up.

‘What?’

He seemed on the verge of asking a question, but after a short pause he ran off giggling instead. Eventually he came and sat beside me again. I put my arm around him and when the weight of his body started to feel heavy I assumed he had fallen asleep. But then he said it again.

‘William.’

‘What?’

‘Why were you crying in the back room?’

I glanced down at him, although for some reason I wasn’t surprised by the question. His eyes were wide and enquiring.

‘Well — without wishing to sound patronizing, I don’t think you’d understand.’

‘Men don’t usually cry,’ he said; but he said it to himself, as though, having decided that he wasn’t going to get a truthful answer out of me, he was pursuing his own train of thought. ‘Dad never cries. At least, only once, and that was Mum’s fault.’

‘Oh?’ I said, mildly curious. ‘Why was that?’

‘She had a fling.’ Benjamin was very matter of fact about this, and went on, ‘She told Dad about it, and they had an argument, and he cried.’

I would never, never have believed that anything could make Tony cry. I tried to picture him in tears, weeping on Judith’s shoulder, with Benjamin standing by the door, grave, unseen and watchful. It was the first time I had ever tried to picture Tony in a domestic setting; away from the piano.

‘Was it something like that?’ Benjamin asked.

‘Well… yes,’ I said, exasperated to find how good he was at drawing out confidences. ‘I’ve been having a bit of trouble with a woman, if you must know.’

Benjamin paused, his mind busily running through the possibilities.

‘Is it Auntie Tina?’

I shook my head.

‘You don’t know her. Her name’s Madeline.’

As concisely as I could, I gave Benjamin a resumé of our affair, culminating in the scene at the party last night. Then we both fell silent. I thought, Well, at least that’s shut him up.

‘Is she tall?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘How tall is she?’

‘I don’t know… slightly above average, I suppose.’

‘And what about Piers?’

‘I suppose you’d call him tall. Six-one, six-two — something like that.’ Suddenly I lost patience. ‘Look, if you’re suggesting that…’

Benjamin said nothing.

‘Well, I suppose it’s a thought…’

He got up.

‘I’m cold. Let’s go home and have dinner.’

He took me by the hand and we left the church, threading our way through the still backwaters of Shadwell, each absorbed in our thoughts. Benjamin was humming a tune to himself — it was ‘I’m Beginning to See the Light’, now I come to think of it, in his father’s favourite E flat — and I was wondering, ridiculous though it seemed, and however hard I tried to fight against it, whether there might have been an absurd grain of truth in his theory. If it was the truth, it was a bitter one; but in a way, I felt comforted. Any explanation was better than none, after all.

I didn’t attempt to play the piano again that day. When we got back to Tony’s house we had some lunch and then watched television and played video games. I let Benjamin decide everything, except that I insisted on watching the local news bulletin. There was no mention of the murder. Perhaps time was not running out quite as fast as I’d thought.

Tony and Judith returned at about half past four. They seemed to have had a good time, and they could tell that Benjamin had enjoyed his afternoon with me, so they were profuse with their thanks. So much so, in fact, that Judith offered me a lift back to the flat.

‘It’s no trouble,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s ages since I saw Tina properly.’

They must have been confused by my hesitation, but I think you can see why the prospect alarmed me. In my mind I had already put together a probable sequence of events which would have enabled the police to trace my address almost immediately. Chester and the band would have arrived at the recording studio; they would have waited for Paisley and me to turn up, with mounting impatience; finally Chester would have gone back to the house, swearing under his breath, only to find the place swarming with policemen. He would have been taken down to the station for questioning, and inevitably he would have told them that I was the last person to have seen Paisley alive. He would have given them my name, and told them where I lived. Without a shadow of a doubt, the police would be waiting for me at the flat.

But then, hadn’t I decided to give myself up anyway? Wasn’t that why I had come round to Tony’s house in the first place? I’d felt that I needed his help to go through with it at the time, but now, after a few hours’ rest, and after talking to Benjamin, I was stronger, clearer in the head, and I knew that I could do it alone. It would be a shock for Judith, admittedly; but at least her sister would be there (Tina would be worried already, with policemen coming round and asking where I was) and they could be of some comfort to each other until the whole business was cleared up.

And so I accepted her offer, and together we drove back to the Herbert Estate: Judith doing her best to make conversation, and me just gripping the sides of my seat tighter and tighter, my nervousness increasing steadily until by the time we were within a mile of our destination, I couldn’t stop shaking. I nearly shouted out loud when we turned into the estate and the first thing I saw was a police officer standing on the balcony outside our flat. There were two police cars parked by our staircase as well. Even though I had been expecting it, it was a terrifying sight.

‘Oh God,’ said Judith. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Stay here,’ I said, once she’d parked the car. ‘I’ll go and see what the matter is.’

‘No, I’m coming with you.’

We climbed the staircase and were stopped outside my door by a constable.

‘Do you live at this flat?’ he asked.

I nodded, told him my name, and said: ‘Look, I know what you’re thinking, but really I had nothing to do with it. I’m absolutely appalled by what happened and I can explain every — ’

‘It’s all right,’ he said reassuringly. ‘You’re not under any suspicion.’

‘I’m not?’

I couldn’t possibly describe the relief that flooded through me when I heard these words. It was so overwhelming that I barely listened to him as he continued: ‘We just need you to answer a few questions, that’s all. It’s a messy business, this kind of thing, but it happens all the time, and the young lady’s not in any danger any more — ’

‘Young lady?’

He stared at me.

‘That’s right. Young lady. You do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

He took me inside, where there were two more police officers going through the contents of Tina’s room. Apparently she had telephoned the ambulance service earlier that afternoon, to tell them that she had taken an overdose.

Judith took it very well, considering.

‘We get dozens of these things,’ said the constable. ‘Literally dozens every week.’ He was making a cup of tea for Judith, who sat, too shocked to move, at the kitchen table. ‘It’s a simple cry for help, really. Pure attention-seeking.’ He gently handed her the mug, and said: ‘Excuse me a moment, will you? Nature calls.’

Left alone, Judith and I found it hard to speak.

‘I can’t believe this,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it.’

I carried on saying useless things like that for some time, until she interrupted me. To my surprise, she sounded not grief-stricken but angry.

‘How the hell could you let this happen, William? You’re living with the woman, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Living with her? I never even see her.’

‘Well weren’t there any signs at all? Have you no idea what’s going on?’

I was about to make another petulant denial; but I realized, of course, that Judith was right.

‘There was this man…’ I started.

Another policeman came into the kitchen.

‘Could I have a word with you, please?’

We went into the sitting-room and he asked me a string of questions. I told him everything I knew about Pedro, all the fragments of information I had picked up about him, and I explained how Tina had been taking more and more days off work, and how she had looked last Sunday night, the last time I saw her.

A thought occurred to me.

‘She didn’t leave a note, did she?’

‘As a matter of fact she did.’

He handed me a sheet of ruled A4: a fresh sheet, with only one message on it. It said:

Dear W, Please remember to lock the front door AND BOLT IT when you come in tonight. I bought a nice big loaf today so phase help yourself. I don’t think that white stuff you eat is at all good for you. Can you write me a cheque for the gas as I want to go and pay it on Monday? Love, T.

I gave it back.

‘There’s one other thing,’ he said. ‘There was this message on your answering machine. I don’t suppose it has anything to do with what happened?’

He pressed the ‘Play’ button and there were the usual bleeps, followed by a woman’s voice.

‘Listen, William,’ it said. ‘About last night. I can explain everything.’ A pause. ‘I can explain everything, and get you out of trouble.’ A longer pause. ‘Come and see me at once.’

It clicked off.

‘Well?’

‘No,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘That’s a personal thing between me and… another woman.’

‘Fine.’

He told me the name of the hospital and the number of the ward where Tina was being kept, and said that we could visit her immediately if we wanted. I must have thanked him, I suppose, but by this stage, as I showed him and his colleagues out of the flat, I didn’t really know what I was saying. I was too busy wondering about that message. What did it mean?

And apart from anything else, how had Karla managed to find out my telephone number?