The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

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Harry Campbell

“We’ve used him once or twice,” Marie said, “just for little things. Not too expensive, I’ll say that for him. Turns up when he says he will, too. Not like some. And quiet. All I could do to drag a word out of him.” She smiled. “Tea with milk, no sugar. You could do worse.”

I started fishing around for something to write down the phone number, make a note of the email, but Marie said to keep the card, so I slipped it into my bag and that’s where it lay for quite a while. Until one afternoon when I pulled hard at the cutlery drawer and the whole front came away in my hand.

All I got at first was an automated message on his answer phone; then when he called back that evening I was just on to my second glass of wine and settling down to watch Kenneth Branagh in something Swedish and bracing.

“Mrs Francis? It’s Harry Campbell. I’m not disturbing you? It’s not too late to call?”

His voice was a trifle slow, but sure; traces of an accent I found hard to place.

“No. No, Harry, it’s not too late.”

Harry. First-name terms from the start. For me, at least. He would continue to call me Mrs Francis for quite some little time.

Eight o’clock, he’d said, and there he was on the doorstep, true to his word. Brown cord jacket and denim shirt, grey-green trousers – chinos, I suppose they were; canvas tool bag slung over his shoulder, grey van parked on the street behind. Broad-shouldered, tall. Imposing, is that the word?

“I’m not too early?”

“No, no. Not at all.”

I hadn’t quite finished dressing when he rang the bell; the wretched zip on my skirt had stuck, not for the first time, and I’d scarcely had time to run a brush through my hair. Standing there, I fastened another button on my blouse before stepping back to let him in.

“You’d like a cup of tea, I dare say?”

He’d set his bag down in the middle of the kitchen floor.

“No, I’m all right for now, thanks. Maybe in a while.”

I hadn’t been meaning to stare.

“Something about a busted drawer?” he said. “A few other things that needed sorting?”

I showed him what required attention and left him to it for the best part of an hour. Made the bed, fixed my face, watered the plants and riffled through the pages of a magazine. A voice I didn’t recognize burbled away between songs on Radio 2. The Telegraph still lay, folded and unopened, on the table in the hall.

“How about that cup of tea?” I said.

He was stretched out on the floor, ratcheting something underneath the sink.

Slowly, his head eased back into sight. “Thanks. Just a drop of milk and…”

“… and no sugar.”

“That’s right.” When he smiled, the skin crinkled around his eyes.

“I would offer you a biscuit, but…”

“It’s okay.” He patted the flat of his stomach. “Got to watch the weight.”

The cup seemed so small in his hand I thought it must break.

“I suppose you’re kept busy,” I said aimlessly, unable to sit there saying nothing.

“Busy enough.”

His eyes were pale blue; his hair, quite wiry, was starting a little prematurely to go grey. I supposed it was prematurely. He was what? Late-thirties, forty, little more. Not so great a gap. His other hand, on the breakfast bar, rested innocently close to mine.

“These units,” he said, glancing round, “I’ll do what I can, but it’s a bit like, you know, shifting the deckchairs on the Titanic.”

“You mean we’re going to drown?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Kate Winslet, I thought. Leonardo DiCaprio. Little more than a boy.

“You could get them replaced. IKEA. B &Q. Needn’t be expensive, if you don’t want.”

“I don’t know. This place, I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to stay.”

“Well, just a thought.” He set down his cup and was quickly to his feet. “Thanks for the tea.”

“You’ve not finished already?”

“Good as. I’ll sweep up those shavings if you’ve a dustpan and brush.”

“Only I was wondering…”

He looked at me then, waiting.

“The shower, upstairs, it’s been leaking. Quite badly now.”

“Seal’s gone, I dare say, needs replacing. I’ll take a quick look, but I’ve not got the right stuff with me now.” He glanced at his watch. “I could probably drop back later.”

“Yes, all right. Do. I mean, if that’s okay with you?”

It was raining hard when he returned. A darkening across the shoulders of his jacket and, as he came into the hall, careful to wipe his feet, a few drops fell on to his face from where they’d caught in his hair and I wanted to wipe them away.

Desperate Housewives, I thought. I was in danger of becoming a cliché.

The next time he came, a week or so later, I was careful to make myself scarce, dropping a set of keys into his hand the minute he arrived and asking him to pop them back through the letterbox when he was through.

“Off to work, then?”

“Something like that.”

The one good thing that came from my distant divorce, as long as I avoided undue extravagance and was careful to tread within my means, there was no more need for nine to five, not regularly at least. The occasional bit of market research, filling in from time to time at the agency where I used to be employed, and that was enough.

So instead I loitered over a latte and Danish at the local coffee franchise; gave over some time to a manicure and polish change; finally took a stroll down by the river, just as far as where they’re starting to fill in one of the old gravel pits, turn it into a country park.

As I neared home I tried to ignore the soft flutterings in my stomach, the lingering hope that he would still be there. In his stead, he had left some catalogues showing various styles of kitchen cabinet, appropriate pages turned down.

I stowed them in the bottom of a drawer. Pushed Harry to the back of my mind. Even flirted momentarily, crazily, with the idea of getting back in touch with Victor. One stupid, desperate day I even got as far as the door of the club – part bar, part casino – where he used to spend much of his time.

“Victor? No, he’s still away, I think. Out of the country. But if you want to leave a name?”

I shook my head and turned away, legs unsteady as I walked back to my car. Nothing – no promise of pleasure, however strong, however intense – could make me want to go through all of that again. Better by far to stay home with a good book, something comforting on the TV, Valium and a large G & T. The fleeting fantasy of a working man’s hands.

Just a few mornings later, as I left the house, my breath caught in my throat; across the street, at the wheel of an almost brand new Merc, window wound down, cuff of his white shirt turned back just so, sat Victor. Victor Sedalis. Smiling.

I should have walked away as if he weren’t there; gone back inside and locked the door. Instead I continued to stand there like a fool.

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” he said.

“No.”

“A couple of days ago. Wanting to welcome me back home.”

“I don’t think so.”

An eyebrow rose in that sceptical, amused expression I knew so well. “All right,” he said, “but you will.” He slid the car into gear. “Either that or I’ll come looking for you.”

I had to lean back against the door and grip my arms hard to stop myself from shaking. Right from the first, there had been something about him that had made me squirm, made me crawl; something that had made it impossible for me to say no. The loans asked for so casually and never returned; the three in the morning phone calls after the club was closed, when he would come to me with cigarette smoke in his hair, brandy on his breath and another woman’s perfume on his skin, and still I could never turn him away.

But then, without warning, he disappeared. Minorca, some said, Porta Ventura. Cyprus. Spain. Money he owed, gambling debts that had been gambled again and lost – something shady, dangerous, underhand. Of course, he had gone off before, weeks, months sometimes. But this seemed more definite, complete.

I floundered, came close to falling apart. It took an overdose and months of psychotherapy, but with help, I put myself back together, bit by bit.

It wasn’t going to happen again.

I called Harry and left a message on his machine: one or two things, I said, in need of your attention. The wardrobe, the chest of drawers.

When he arrived, I was busy in the kitchen; a wave and a few quick words and, tool bag over his shoulder, he was on his way up to the bedroom. When I followed, some little time later, my feet were quiet on the stairs.

He was standing at the open wardrobe, running his hand along the silk of a black slip dress I’d bought from Ghost, eyes closed.

I touched my fingers to his back and that was all it took.

There was a scar, embossed like a lightning flash, across his chest; another, puckered like a closing rose, high on his thigh.

“Harry?”

Sweaty, the surprise still lingering in his eyes, he touched my breast with the tip of each of his fingers, the ball of his thumb.

After he’d gone, I bathed, changed the linen on the bed, saw to my face and hair and wondered how I would spend the rest of the day till, as promised, he returned. A little light shopping, lunch, perhaps an afternoon movie, a quiet stroll.

He was there at the door at eight o’clock sharp, freshly shaved, a clean shirt. Before kissing me he hesitated, as if I might have changed my mind, filed it away under Big Mistake. And when I kissed him back I could feel something shift within him, a deliverance from some small fear or doubt.

We made love and then we talked – I talked, in the main, and he listened. Marie had been right. Though as this night gradually became a second and a third and he felt more at ease, at home, he let slip bits and pieces of his life. How his wife had told him she was leaving him in an email because she was too scared to tell him face to face. That had been when he was on his second tour of Northern Ireland, in Belfast. She was living in Guildford now, remarried; he saw the two boys quite often, though less often than he’d have liked. The eldest was away at university in Stirling, studying animal biology, the youngest was hoping to take up the law. Bright kids, he said, take after their mother. If either of them had gone into the army, she’d threatened to slit her wrists.

We started to fall into a routine: Fridays and Saturdays he would spend the evening, stay the night. If ever he came round mid-week, he would go home and sleep in his own bed so as to make an early start. The ring from his finger had disappeared to be replaced by a pale band of skin.

When finally I told him about Victor, the way he had made me feel, powerless, used, as if I had no will, no skin, there was something in his face I hadn’t seen before. Something that made his body tense and his hands tighten into fists.

“People like that,” he said, “they don’t deserve to live.”

Victor sent me texts, left messages on my phone, to none of which I replied. He didn’t like to be ignored. When finally he came round, it was not much after one in the morning, early for him. Possibly he’d been watching the house to see if Harry were there, I don’t know. I opened the door partway and held it fast.

“What’s the matter?” I said. “Lost your way?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“All right, you have. Now you can go.”

He was wearing a new suit, expensive, six or seven hundred at least; his face still tanned from his time abroad, eyes small and dark and rarely still. The same old smile slipped into place with practised ease.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Liar.” His tongue showed for an instant, lizard-like, between thin lips.

“Goodnight, Victor.”

I leaned against the door to push it closed and he pushed back. Whether he meant it to or not, the edge of it caught me hard in the face, just alongside the eye, and I stumbled to my knees.

“Careful,” Victor said, shutting the door behind him. “You could get hurt.”

He touched his finger to the well of blood and drew it down, slowly, across my cheek.

When he left, an hour later, all I could do was curl myself into a ball, cover my head and wish for sleep.

That was how Harry found me next morning, a surprise call on his way to work.

“This was Victor? He did this?”

Gingerly, I touched the side of my face. “It was an accident… sort of an accident. I don’t think it was meant.”

“Then how…?”

“Last night, he was here. I was trying to stop him from coming in.”

“He forced his way into the house, that’s what you’re saying?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Suppose?”

“Well, yes, then. Yes.”

“And forced himself upon you?”

I turned my head away.

“He raped you.”

“No.”

“Then what else would you call it?”

I had begun to shake.

‘‘I’ll kill him, so help me, I will.”

“Harry, don’t, please. Don’t say that.”

“Just tell me where I can find him.”

“Harry, no.”

“You want this to happen again? Keep happening?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then tell me. And I’ll put a stop to it once and for all.”

I didn’t tell him, not then. Not right away. The last thing I wanted was for him to go off angry and emotional, acting impulsively, without properly thinking it through. That he could kill a man, I had little doubt; he had killed men before, after all; men he didn’t know, men at close range, men he couldn’t – didn’t – see. It was what he’d been trained to do. He could kill a man, I was sure, with his bare hands. Those hands.

“The Concord,” I said. “You know, that place out towards the estuary. That’s where he spends a lot of time. Victor. If you still did want to see him. Talk to him. He’d listen to you.”

It was the next evening, the two of us propped up on pillows after making love; Harry’s head resting on my shoulder, my fingers combing through his hair.

“What if he doesn’t?” Harry said.

“Hmm?”

“What if he doesn’t listen?”

I reached down and kissed the palm of his hand. “Maybe the club’s not the best place to talk. Somewhere quieter might be better. Where he’s less likely to make a fuss. The park, perhaps. Up river. Where they’re filling in the old gravel pit. Somewhere like that.”

“He’d never come.”

“He might if he thought I was going to be there.”

I didn’t say anything more about it; neither did he. Several more days passed. A week. Then…

“I’m meeting him this evening. Later. Where you said.”

“You’re sure?”

His arms slid around me and I pressed my face against his chest.

“Don’t trust him,” I said. “Don’t turn your back.”

I didn’t see him again that night, nor for several nights after. I texted him to make sure he was all right and he was. Just busy. See you soon as I can.

When he did come round there was some bruising I noticed, now fading, to the back of his hand; his knuckles were grazed. An accident, I thought, while working, a chisel that had slipped, a length of timber that had leaped back at his face.

“You saw him?”

“Yes, I saw him.”

He didn’t tell me what had happened, what had been said. The only time I asked, weeks later, he said, “You just don’t want to know.”

Victor Sedalis had disappeared again, into thin air. Nobody asked questions, bothered to report him missing. After all, he’d done it before. Cyprus, this time, that was the story. Limassol, somewhere. Gambling debts he couldn’t pay, the interest rising, compounding day by day.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said the barman at the Concord, “if this time he’s gone for good.”

I continued to see a little of Harry, but after that it was never quite the same. The last I heard, he’d upped sticks and started a little boatbuilding business down near Southampton. One of his sons lives near there while he’s studying for his doctorate. Biotechnology? Something like that?

At first there was the odd postcard or two, but Harry’s not much of a one for writing and, I suppose, neither am I.

I did think about moving myself, got as far as putting the house on the market, but in the end I stayed. Too late to dig myself up, perhaps, too much effort, transplanting myself, at this stage of my life. And, besides, I like it here. Where I know. It suits me. My little lunches with Marie. The tennis club. I can just about hold my end up at doubles, much to my surprise. And on a sunny day like today, I’ll sometimes take a stroll down along the river to the country park. A few dog walkers, kids kicking a ball; quite often, weekdays, I’ve got the place to myself. Not that I mind. I feel safe there, secure. The ground, fresh and firm beneath my feet.

My thanks to Amy Rigby and Bill Demain, whose song, ‘Keep It To Yourself’, as sung by Amy, provided the initial idea for this story.

http://amyrigby.com/