The Face That Must Die

Chapter V

As he fled onto Lodge Lane, Horridge gasped with relief. The crowd within the bus shelter stared at him through apertures framed by claws of glass. The girl had seemed to know more than she should. What reason could there be for her to know?

He trudged unevenly, cursing his display of panic. The man at the table had looked like an official, but there had been no reason for him to notice Horridge. By fleeing, Horridge had drawn attention to himself – and he must be inconspicuous now.

He trudged. His leg throbbed, and felt swollen. His thigh felt as though burdened with a clinging child. The memory of his flight through the cinemas was aching there. He had to plod and sway like a drunkard. He couldn’t move faster than his doubts.

What had the girl been doing in that library? She wasn’t supposed to be there. She might almost have been planted there to send him on this trudge, to give his doubts more time to trouble him. She had seemed all too ready to tell him that she couldn’t help, without bothering to look in any index. How could she have known that he’d gone to that library so as to finish as quickly as possible what he had to do?

At last he managed to escape the faded street, the patrolling shoppers, the plague of shops that displayed dusty emptiness. At the roundabout he found he dared not pass the decayed house. He had to use the path just within the park, which followed the road but whose border of trees screened him from the house. He limped hastily by, distracting himself with a glimpse of a bench that had been turned to face away from the park, no doubt by vandals.

The lake was surrounded by fishermen, immobile as posts. If they’d nothing better to do they should go and clean up Cantril Farm, to make it fit for decent folk to live in. Why weren’t they at work? No wonder the Social Security were suspicious, with all these people who didn’t know right from wrong. But that was no reason to treat him as if he didn’t know how to behave. Babble, babble. Was his mind trying to distract him from his purpose too?

It seemed so, for his thoughts tried to fasten on Lark Lane, to slow him. How like a village it was: a butcher’s open-fronted shop with slabs, an old police station, an antique shop glowing brassily. It felt familiar, as though he had been here as a child – but he was sure he never had. Couldn’t he linger? A fish and chip shop said it was Chinese and English, which was a lie: it couldn’t be both. Enough chuntering. Get on with the job that must be done.

Behind the library counter stood a bearded youth with far too much hair. No, he wasn’t the goatish creature from the corrupt house. He tugged his beard as though ringing himself awake and said “Can I help you?”

Exactly the girl’s words. They were like automatons, not a pinch of character among them. “I want to consult the voters’ list, please.” Now that his request could be more specific he felt a little less uneasy.

“ What street do you want?”

He wouldn’t be caught like that twice. “I’ll find that out for myself, thank you.”

The youth groped out the list from beneath the counter. Through the dustily translucent plastic cover Horridge read AIGBURTH DRIVE, blurred as though drowned. He’d soon dredge it up. He sat as far as possible from the counter, in the junior wing. Surely the children wouldn’t spy on him: Britain wasn’t one of those countries yet, however many people wanted it to be. But he pretended to scrutinise several pages, in case anyone was watching. Only when his nervousness began to creep behind him, urging him to flee while he was still safe, did he turn to Aigburth Drive. He wasn’t safe – he hadn’t been since he had looked into the killer’s eyes. He must make himself safe.

An instinct surer than his thoughts directed him to the exact spot on the page. His gaze fastened on the number of the house: it appeared eight times, alongside eight names. Lurking among them, pretending to be like the rest, was the name.

Harty, Brendan Sean (Flat 1)

Lunt, Aneurin Cornelius (Flat 2)

Craig, Roy (Flat 3)

Adamson, Frances Sybil (Flat 4)

Day, Patricia Anne (Flat 5)

Shone, Susan Gloria (Flat 5)

Gardner, Peter David (Flat 6)

Gardner, Catherine Angela (Flat 6)

Alongside the listings, consecutive numbers counted the names. Somewhere on such a list, Horridge must be numbered. No time to brood on that now. The killer lived on the middle floor, and his flat must be one of the two middle numbers – which singled his name out at once.

Roy Craig

It lay there challenging him to see through its disguise. It sounded too masculine, too strong: that betrayed it – that, and the fact that “Roy” was a little like “gay”. That was what homosexuals called themselves, though Horridge was damned if he knew what they had to be gay about: it was an insult to the word.

Something else was struggling to emerge into his mind: a memory, a similarity – When he grasped it, he sniggered mirthlessly. Two children stared at him and hid, giggling. The name of the latest victim had been Roylance. That was no coincidence. Perhaps the killer’s guilty conscience had made him leave that clue for those who weren’t too blind to see.

He fumbled in his pockets. His pencil was shorter than his thumb, and as blunt. Still, it would write – but on what? He didn’t want to draw attention to himself by asking for paper. Disentangling his birth certificate from the rest of his documents, he printed Roy Craig’s name on the back. Then, from an obscure inkling that it might prove useful, he listed the names of the other tenants.

He stared at Craig’s name, hidden in the official list. Why didn’t it writhe maggot-like with shame? Let it stay as still as it liked – it couldn’t hide from him now. “Thank you very much,” he said at the counter, delighted with the way his politeness concealed his plan.

When he emerged, the cold seized him. His resolution began to shiver. He was provided with a telephone box too soon: a pair of them stood back to back not twenty paces from the library. He hadn’t thought out what to say. He mustn’t falter when he picked up the phone. Besides, the boxes stood between a Ladies’ and a bus queue. Suppose he were overheard?

There was another box beyond the dual carriageway. The roadway was lethal with cars, and railings barred pedestrians from crossing – unless you leapt over, of course, assuming you were lucky enough not to have an injured leg. A subway trained pedestrians from one pavement to the other. Too much regimentation for his liking: it reminded him of Cantril Farm. There would be a phone box in Lark Lane.

But now he had faltered, his purpose turned liquid within him. Though he struggled with the feeling, he was heartened not to see a phone box in Lark Lane immediately. No need to feel guilty – he could use the delay to prepare his words. Interruptions distracted him: a butcher’s cleaver chopped something brightly raw, a man trotting delicately ahead of Horridge with two tartaned poodles kept stopping to let his pets drip. All he could hold still in his mind was Roy Craig’s name.

It was too good for the creature. How could names be so unfair? Decent people were made to sound like buffoons – such as John Horridge. “Horridge the Porridge”, they’d used to chant at school, until he’d kicked and punched them: and then he was always blamed for fighting. “Horridge, you horror!” a teacher had roared, grabbing him by the collar, frowning at the smothered titters of the onlookers like a comedian pretending to be angry with his audience. For years Horridge had looked forward to leaving school. He’d expected life outside to be fairer.

Babble, babble. A glimpse hushed his memories: a side street, a tall red shape on the pavement, a cage with windows – a phone box. Apprehension plunged deep into his stomach. He advanced two lopsided steps, and saw that the box was occupied. He was reprieved. Angrily he forced himself to approach. He’d wait, and compose his speech while waiting. He was nearly at the box when a woman emerged from a car amid a fall of parcels and stood beside the box. She would have time for a good look at him. He retreated towards Aigburth Drive.

The road was empty of traffic. The tips of the bare trees swayed nervously; a few dogs played in the park. He was afraid to phone, was he? Scared to behave like a man? What was he, a lump of cringing slimy scum that slunk round corners and went limp whenever there was a problem to be faced? Wasn’t he a man?

Ahead of him on the deserted pavement a telephone box stood soldierly. It seemed to march towards him as he walked. There could be no excuses now, nothing to tempt him to falter, nothing to intervene between him and the box. If he passed it he was a coward, less than a woman. Only yards beyond it lurked the house that concealed Roy Craig. If he passed that house without having phoned he would be guilty too, soiled, an accomplice. He strode forward unevenly and dragged open the door of the box.

There was no directory on the shelf. He couldn’t use that as an excuse: he’d often heard the number on the radio, he had memorised it in case he ever needed it. Perhaps the phone wouldn’t work. Furious with himself, he groped for a coin and dialled.

The silence gave him time to feel how near Craig’s house was. It didn’t matter. Craig couldn’t spy on him: that window of the box was covered with a poster for domestic telephones, saying ISN’T IT WARMER AT HOME? The phone was ringing now: a pair of pulses, another. The sound was so close within his ear that it might have been his blood, throbbing unnaturally. If they didn’t answer after six rings -

He heard no click, but where the next pulse should have been, a girl’s voice said “Merseyside Police, can I help you?”

The pay tone cut her off, a rapid peeping like the cry of a frantic bird. He thrust at the coin, which refused to slip in. It was bent, or the coin-box was faulty! He struggled with it while the tone babbled urgently and sweat covered him like a shower of hot ash. All at once the coin broke through into the slot. A silence followed which he dared not disturb.

“ Merseyside Police, can I help you?”

She was still there. If he had lost her, he wouldn’t have been able to call again. But she had given him no time to think of what to say. Jesus Mary and Joseph, whom should he ask for? When he spoke, it was only to fight off the suffocating frustration. “I want to speak to someone about the murder of Roylance.”

He sounded absurd to himself: he might have been calling a shop to complain about damaged goods. But after a short pause she said “Just hold on, I’ll put you through to someone.”

Waiting, he started nervously. Had the receiver turned live and dangerous? Eventually he realised that the irregular thumping which shook the plastic in his hand was the jerking of a nerve in his palm. The plastic was slippery with sweat. What was taking them so long? Were they tracing his call?

If they didn’t answer by the time he’d counted ten, they’d had their chance. No, his mind couldn’t sneak that excuse past him. The phone sucked at his ear and kept touching his lips like a plastic kiss, whenever he forgot to hold it and other people’s germs away. Was somebody whispering amid the loud hiss? Were they sending a car to trap him?

It didn’t matter. He must see this through. He knew he was right. He must act like a man. Instantly he saw how he could make sure he wasn’t recognised. He shared a grin with himself in the disfigured mirror.

The man’s voice leapt out as if to scare him. “Yes, sir, can I help you?”

All these people pretending to be so helpful! This time they needed help from him. “You want to know who murdered Roylance,” Horridge said, making his voice as high and effeminate as he could.

“ Yes, sir. We have that under investigation.”

Horridge heard an almost imperceptible change in his tone. He was fooled, he thought Horridge was a pansy! “Well, I can tell you,” Horridge said.

“ Can I have your name and address, please?”

“ No, you most certainly can not.” He grinned back at himself between the tangled graffiti, delighted with his control of the situation. He was unaware now of his sweat, the stuffy box, the slippery burden in his hand.

“ Take this down,” he said, pulling out his birth certificate. “I won’t repeat it. I’m going to tell you the name of the killer.”

When he heard paper rusfling, he read out Craig’s name and address.

“ Have you got that?” he said tartly, and stood grinning at his grubby entangled reflection. What in heaven’s name was he waiting for – to be trapped by the police?

The phone was halfway to the receiver when the policeman’s voice arrested him. “May I ask where you got this information, sir?”

Horridge couldn’t resist fooling him once more. Effeminately wistful, he said “Roylance was my friend.”

Stuffing his birth certificate into his pocket, he elbowed his way out of the box. He felt inflated by laughter. He must suppress it, in case it drew attention to him. Next time he mustn’t hesitate so long, not when having acted felt like this. No longer was he conscious of his limp. He felt weightless with self-confidence.

He absorbed the view of the leafless trees against the pale bare sky. Nothing else had looked so clean to him since the quarry. Deliberately he walked towards Craig’s house. He had nothing to fear now. It was Craig’s turn to be afraid, just as his bound and helpless victims must have been. A breeze chilled Horridge’s grin.

The sight of the bench that faced away from the park halted him. Did he dare? But there was nothing to be dared – only to be enjoyed. Craig couldn’t touch him now. He crossed the road and sat on the bench. When the police arrived, he could pretend to be asleep. Eager as a child at his first pantomime, he waited for the show to begin.

He waited. The dark house squatted before him, sullen as a bully; it seemed to challenge him. He smiled tightly: he wasn’t to be tricked into anything rash, he had the upper hand now. Whenever he gazed at the house for a while, it appeared to stir nervously.

Bedraggled leaves crawled along the pavement. The shadow of the house crept towards him like a stain. A glass dagger gleamed before him on the roadway, amid fragments of a bottle. How long had he been waiting? Since he’d sat down the shadow had crossed the road.

Perhaps the policeman hadn’t believed him. Or perhaps he had, yet intended to do nothing. Horridge didn’t even know his name; he had been just an anonymous official voice. What secret might the owner of that voice have had? Horridge’s thoughts dragged his head down to stare at his shabby toecaps. He should have known better than to trust the police, after what they’d done to him.

He had still been at school; his father hadn’t long been allowing him to help on the ladder at weekends and on summer evenings. The knocking at the front door had shaken the house. He’d heard his mother’s sick enfeebled voice crying out upstairs, from where she was trapped in her bed: “What’s wrong? What is it? What’s the matter?”

Two policemen had wanted to know everything he knew about the cat burglaries. His father had tried to argue with them while his mother had cried out in the emptiness, unanswered. At last his father had given up, exhausted. “Go with them, John. Let them take your fingerprints. They’ll soon see their mistake.” But as he hurried upstairs to calm his wife, hadn’t he glanced uncertainly at his son?

They’d questioned Horridge at the police station for two hours. They had seemed unable to believe that he hadn’t heard about the burglaries, all of which had been of first-floor bedrooms. Because he minded his own business, they’d suspected him of lying. Eventually they had taken his fingerprints; then grudgingly they’d let him go. One of them had pointed at their copy of his prints. “Just remember – behave yourself.” He had never found out who had given his name to the police; he had suspected everyone.

He jerked free of the trance of his memory. A car was slowing outside Craig’s house. It halted there. It wasn’t marked like a police car – but when the two men strode towards the house, purposeful but unhurried, Horridge knew at once what they were. He had been right to phone. Some people could be trusted, after all.

He narrowed his eyes unobtrusively, so as to appear to be sleeping, and watched them ring the bell. Suppose Craig were not at home? Suppose one of the other tenants saw the police and warned Craig to stay away? Then Horridge would have helped him to escape justice! He squeezed his eyes viciously shut, to punish himself.

He heard the clatter of a window, and opened them in time to see Craig leaning out like a gargoyle. The swollen face seemed to venture into the daylight reluctantly as a maggot’s. “Who is it?” Craig called. His voice was deep enough to pass for a man’s, but Horridge heard something wrong with his intonation.

The policemen had to step out from beneath the porch before he could see them. “Mr Roy Craig?” one said, and displayed something in a small folder.

Craig hesitated, peering. “Just a moment,” he said, and closed the window.

As the policemen waited, Horridge saw them exchange a meaningful nod. He hugged himself, not to keep out the cold but to make sure that none of his glee drained away. Mightn’t there be a back way out of the house? At this moment Craig might be making his escape! For the love of heaven, why didn’t one of them go round the back? He squirmed on the bench, restraining his urge to do their job for them.

The door in the porch faltered open. When he saw Craig being escorted into the darkness within, Horridge closed his eyes gently and grew calm. Only once before had he felt so secure – in his grandparents’ cottage in Wales.

Some time later he heard the front door open. He let his eyes widen. No need to pretend to be asleep. He was greedy for the sight of Craig’s arrest.

The policemen were emerging from the porch, but Craig stood in the inner doorway. Was he resisting arrest? Then why was he smiling? Was he so brazen that he could still smile? Not until Horridge realised that the policemen were apologising did the truth seize him like paralysis.

It was as though the arrest had been turned on him – for one policeman was striding straight towards him. Horridge’s legs shook; if he stood up, they would give way. If he fled, his limp would deliver him to them. He closed his eyes, pretending sleep, but his eyelids twitched violently. The policeman halted just beyond the pavement and gazed at him. Horridge couldn’t catch his breath; the gaze was interminable, agonising. Then the policeman kicked the fragments of the broken bottle into the gutter and returned to the car.

When the car had moved away, Horridge sat trembling on the bench, like an alcoholic tramp bereft of his drug. His mind felt empty and aching as a belly purged by sickness. Suddenly he realised that Craig could see him. The creature must be supremely confident now. Suppose he pursued Horridge home? Horridge jerked himself to his feet and fled towards Lodge Lane.

A bus was halted at the stop. While he limped towards the doors, the driver gazed at him as though he were a second-rate comedian. Horridge wouldn’t have put it past him to drive off at the last moment – but he only made the engine roar impatiently.

Horridge clambered aboard panting and thrust the fare at the driver. The man only stared, waiting until at last he saw the notice: EXACT FARES PAY HERE

This driver does not accept money

That was a joke: never accepted what was offered, more like, with all their strikes and union meetings. As Horridge fumbled for the right change the driver watched indifferently, smug and stolid behind his official notice. He’d have liked to wipe the smugness off the man’s face. At last he found the change and dropped it in the slot. Finally satisfied, the bus leapt away – but before he reached his seat Horridge had to stumble back, having forgotten to claim his ticket from the machine. He could never remember how to behave with this new system. They couldn’t leave anything alone.

Around him passengers babbled. Nobody took any notice of him. Couldn’t they see what he had been through? He felt as though he was in a madhouse. Was the whole world mad? Nobody seemed to care that a killer, perhaps a madman, was loose.

But of course the killer was a homosexual, which made everything all right. You mustn’t do anything to upset homosexuals. Homosexuality was the most natural thing in the world: at least, that was what the government and the media – and now, apparently, the police – would like everyone to think. Horridge wouldn’t have believed that the police, the so-called guardians of the law, could be so corrupted if he hadn’t seen it for himself. They’d been quick enough to take him away on suspicion of burglary, but they mustn’t touch Craig, oh no – not when he was a homosexual. After all, he’d only killed two people. Perhaps they were homosexuals themselves. What sort of identification might have been hidden in the folder which one of them had shown Craig?

When the bus reached West Derby Road he jabbed the bell-push viciously: pity it wasn’t an eye. As the door faltered open, he glared at the driver. The man thought himself so secure, perched in his official box. He needed to be put in his place. But suppose Craig were trying to catch up with Horridge, to find out where he lived? He stepped hastily down.

He waited beneath what remained of a bus shelter. People hemmed him in with incessant vapid chatter. How could they prate such nonsense – unless they had something to hide? It must be meant to disguise their thoughts. Everyone was conspiring, or deluded by conspiracy. Only the other day he’d heard the latest filth that they were trying to make people swallow: that everyone was homosexual, whether consciously or not. He wasn’t to be brainwashed into thinking that of himself. On the other hand, he was sure there were more homosexuals than would admit to it. Today’s little spectacle proved that Craig had friends in high places.

A grubby bus to Cantril Farm arrived. Its grimy windows looked painted with fog. Downstairs people were smoking, despite the notices. You could get away with anything these days.

He sat, cramped into himself by the oppressive babbling. Friends in high places! They called that filth friendship! And their arguments were so pitiful. They tried to make out that because animals did it, it was natural: they wanted to behave like animals. They were a cancer on the human race. Perhaps their behaviour was the source of cancer. So much money was spent on cancer research, yet nobody thought to look at the obvious. Couldn’t they see that filth must breed worse filth? What men and women did together was bad enough.

The bus groaned through Tuebrook, past ragged gaps where streets had been ripped out as though they were infected teeth. Homosexuals must be close as Jews, protecting one another from normal people. Something had to be done about them before they took over completely. They ought to be put on an island where they couldn’t contaminate anyone else – except that that was too good for them: no doubt they’d enjoy romping about naked all day.

Here was West Derby Village, blurred by the coated windows. Among the gleaming semi-detached houses, creamy white stone lions flourished flags on the gateposts of a park. The first time he had ridden this route, having accepted rehousing in Cantril Farm, that glimpse had delighted him. Cantril Farm had sounded like countryside: he’d thought that was where he was going.

Melwood Drive was lined with trees that soon fell behind, making way for council flats followed by an army barracks. At least there couldn’t be any homosexuals in there: soldiers were men. Nevertheless the sight depressed him. The long low buildings with their regimented windows reminded him too much of Cantril Farm.

And here it was: home. He sniggered bitterly to himself. Within seconds Cantril Farm had closed around him, nothing to see in any direction but pebble-dashed walls, anonymous boxes for keeping people in, nothing to distinguish them but graffiti thick as vines. Over the lower roofs, tower blocks stood like guards. The estate looked like its purpose: to make everyone the same. Its name had tricked him into living here. It would be a good place to imprison all the homosexuals. That would soon teach them how to behave.

Over Christmas there had been no buses. He had been trapped in Cantril Farm. Yet compared with his situation now, that had been easy to bear. Never before except in nightmares had he felt so helpless. Frustration oozed through him like poison; its sourness filled his mouth. He gripped the bar of the seat in front of him until his whitened fingers trembled. What could he do in order to fight the unfairness of things? He was being carried back to prison, where Craig ought to be.