The Face That Must Die

Chapter XVII

Fanny was struggling to close her suitcase when she heard footsteps on the front drive.

It had to close. There was nothing she could leave out. She sat on the case, which felt like a hard lumpy bed, and dragged the zip shut while the case was overpowered. Its teeth bit an empty sleeve. Who was on the drive? Just let her deal with the case – if she gave it a respite it would never close. She poked the sleeve back, but a dress emerged from the far end of the case like a soggy Jack-in-the-box. “Get in, fustilugs,” she snarled and, heaving the case to her, flapped the dress into place and thumped herself down on the lid. She closed the case after a loud struggle and rested on it, panting.

She hurried to the window. Nobody was to be seen, even when she lifted the sash and leaned out. It must have been the postman. She went in search of the letters.

Except for shadows, the stairs were deserted. She ought to be less nervous now that Roy’s killer had been caught, but there was a shadow at the foot of the stairs – a blurred version of the strut between the front-door panes, perhaps – which unnerved her. Besides, whoever had sent the police to Roy must still be lurking somewhere in the house.

She sorted the strewn letters on top of the cupboard in which the electricity meters chattered among themselves. She felt an odd pang of apprehension: perhaps there might be a letter for Roy. No – but there was one for her.

It was from a girl she knew at the gallery. She dawdled upstairs, slitting the envelope with her nails. Did they want to know why she’d been avoiding the gallery? The page was obscured by its own shadows. Was she misreading it? Surely – But the brightness in her flat confirmed what she thought she’d read. More than half her paintings had been sold.

She sat beside her case, trying to absorb the news. It was incredible. She could bring down her prices spectacularly now, in order to appeal to the people she wanted to reach.

Didn’t she want to reach those who had bought her work? Her heel tapped a floorboard, urging her to answer, ticking off the seconds she had left. Was there such a thing as a wrong audience for one’s work, or a wrong reason to like it? Perhaps – but, she thought abruptly, it wasn’t up to her to judge. According to the letter, the gallery visitors realised that her name on the paintings was an intentional joke. Few people had before.

She must hurry, or she’d miss her train. She opened the curtains wider, to make sure no burglars thought she was pretending to have gone away. Sunlight gleamed in the detective’s eyes.

Might he have been wrong? He hadn’t offered any evidence that Roy’s persecutor lived in the house. Mightn’t it have been the man whom the police had caught? Even detectives could be wrong. She draped the painting to protect it from the sun.

She propped the letter on the mantelpiece, behind the card. The card fluttered to the floor. No time to pick it up. She strode about quickly. Gas off. Toilet flushed. Windows shut. Which coat to wear? The heavy one – it might be cold in Wales. Efficiently she buttoned herself up: snap, snap, snap. God, her case was heavy. She slid it out of the flat, glanced back once, and slammed the door.

In the park, trees feathered the chalk-blue sky. As she walked, branches disentangled themselves gradually and silently to reveal how complex the patterns were. At the end of the avenue the obelisk stood, clean as shell. Everything made her feel restful.

She was singing the William Tell Overture as she turned out of Aigburth Drive. “Ya-ta-tum, ya-ta-tum, ya-ta-tyum-tyum-tyum.” A man recoiled from her; his two Pekingese, their faces like furry Oriental demons, tried to snap at her ankles. So much for melody, she thought, giggling.

She plodded along Sefton Park Road. “God, you’re a weight,” she told her case. “I wish you were old enough to walk by yourself.” It wasn’t only the case that was slowing her down: she was suddenly full of ideas for her gallery picture. Wasn’t the painting too bitchy? Some of her new ideas were more genial.

Ought she to go back? She rested her suitcase and gazed like a pavement artist at the flagstones. Shouldn’t she spend just an hour with her painting? But then she’d have to send a telegram to say she would be late. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to predict how long she would be busy. She hefted her case. She’d sketch her ideas on the train journey.

What time was the train? She dropped her case at the bus stop. Was her memory five minutes fast or slow? She rummaged in her pockets. Don’t say the timetable was in her other coat. When she shouted her annoyance, people in the queue stared or ostentatiously ignored her. Because of all the distractions, she had left her train ticket in the flat.

She hurried home furiously. Her case thumped her leg, challenging her to carry it further. “All right,” she growled, “you just wait.” Where were all the taxis?

It was a good thing she’d had to return: although she thought she’d made sure they were open, she’d left the curtains drawn. So that was what selling did to her concentration! She fought the front door. Come on, damn it! The lock seemed not to recognise her key. At last she reached the stairs, which looked indistinct as a dusty attic. She climbed them anyway – it would have wasted time to go back to the time-switch.

Her suitcase accompanied her: bump, bump. Not until she reached her landing did she see how redundant its clambering was. She could have left the case in the hall. She didn’t need company on the dim stairs.

“ Just don’t start playing me up,” she told her lock. The key turned easily; the door opened, revealing dusk within. Everything was overlaid with the purple of the curtains. How could she remember the room as having been so much brighter?

There was her ticket, waiting amid the clutter on the table for her to choose which coat to wear. She stuffed it into her pocket. Faces hid beneath the cloth that draped her painting. But she’d covered the painting to keep it from the light – because the curtains had been wide.

Something else was wrong.

She stared about. Something was out of place. The lurking faces. The cuttings, and the newspapers with their rectangular holes. Clay on the table. The closed doors to the kitchen and the bathroom. The card on the mantelpiece. But she’d left that card on the floor where it had fallen.

The card held her gaze for minutes. She fought to distrust her memory. Although the card might have fallen after being replaced, the reverse was impossible. Someone had been in her room. When she glimpsed the looming unfamiliar shape, she whirled. It was her suitcase, squatting outside the door.

Now she couldn’t turn away. The depths of her mind were crying that worse was to be seen. Where? There was the door, which showed no evidence of having been forced; beyond it was the landing, guarded by her case. There was nothing else -

There was no sign of the metal bird which Tony had sculpted for her.

After a time which seemed paralysed as her thoughts, she dragged her case into the flat and closed the door. She sat on the case, staring emptily. The theft had violated her flat. She felt soiled, as though after a rape.

She glanced dully at her watch. No chance now of catching the train. In any case she wouldn’t have been able to go. She must call the police, and send a telegram. The dismal tasks burdened her mind; her head drooped.

The thief must have slipped in as soon as she’d left. Must it have been one of the other tenants? Who else would have had the opportunity? If only Cathy weren’t out at work – she couldn’t trust anyone else in the house. Was the thief Roy’s persecutor? Surely he would have taken more than the sculpture, unless he had meant only to distress her. Did he want the whole house to himself?

Still, she didn’t know that he had stolen nothing else. She must check before calling the police. She rose wearily. Confronted by the bathroom door, she was all at once uneasy: suppose he were hiding in there like a ghost train’s dummy, poised? Then by God, she’d scare him more than he had unnerved her. She wrenched the door wide.

She heard a noise within, small but sharp. She glared about, but could see nothing. Nobody could hide behind the bunched shower curtains. The only movement was of water, gathering lazily at the mouth of the tap, preparing to fall and pronounce another small sharp drip.

Stupid! She opened the kitchen door angrily. Nothing visible had been touched. Her memory of how the room had looked fitted snugly over it. One tap was straining to drip into the metal sink, but she wiped its mouth with a finger. Swiftly she checked cupboards and drawers.

So the thief had taken only the sculpture – unless he’d gone into the capacious wardrobe. There was nothing in there worth stealing; she had virtually stripped it when filling her case. Still, she’d better make sure. She was upset enough without looking foolish to the police.

The double doors were ajar, although she thought she’d closed them. She pulled them wide. Dimness, faintly purple, lay within. Her hanging overalls were huddled in the left-hand corner, as if for companionship. Their hangers squeaked, startled. At first the swaying of the flowered overalls obscured what else was in the wardrobe.

It was the metal bird, hovering waist-high in front of the overalls. It gleamed dully. So he hadn’t stolen it, after all! Why had he hidden it there, in one of the pockets? What was that meant to achieve?

It wasn’t in a pocket. Something else held it in mid-air. Nor were the overalls swaying only because she had disturbed them. Protruding from the foremost sleeve, holding the bird’s slim body, she saw a hand.

“ Come out,” she cried, as she might have if a mischievous child had startled her.

The flowers flapped outwards; a dim figure came at her. Before she could make out the face above the overall, the metal bird darted towards her. Its jagged beak pecked deep into her forehead.