Truth Dare kill

TEN

I woke in the early hours, roasting on the spit of my troubled dreams, and overwhelmed with the familiar image. The woman is lying face down. Blood oozing from the back of her head and gathering in a pool below it. There’s another pool under her hips. I’m holding a bayonet. Red drips from it and from my hands. The blood feels hot and slick. I’m pleading with her not to lie in the blood. That she’ll get cold. And then I hear the running feet…

I got up and made some tea and had a fag to calm me down. It was nearly light anyway. So I sat and watched the winter sun edge up over the rooftops. It didn’t warm me. I shouldn’t follow the stuff in the newspapers. I certainly shouldn’t go on a sodding tour of inspection. Serves me right for being a ghoul. With a brain as precarious as mine, I need to avoid inflammatory situations.

I decided to cook some porridge, a comfort food that reminded me of home and my mother. It was also cheap. I was on the point of excavating the grey lava from the bottom of the pot when a little voice took me unawares and banished my night time blues.

“Knock, knock. Is there enough for two?” Val said.

I was inexplicably happy to see her beaming face, and grinned at her. “Only if you have it with salt. I’m not letting you English put sugar on my porridge.”

She screwed up her face and came into my room. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Its end curled round her neck. She looked just fine.

“I’ll try it. Why not? We eat anything now, don’t we? Horses, yum, yum. Powdered eggs, goody, goody.”

I laughed. “I’ll get my mum to send us some haggis.”

“That’s where I draw the line.”

“One of my guys caught a snake in the desert and ate it.”

“Yuk! Was he sick?”

“Violently. I think he ate the wrong end.”

I lifted up the top of the fold-down table and sat out two bowls on the red Formica. When I make porridge I always make too much, so it stretched easily. I spooned the steaming sludge into the bowls.

“Watch, mind. There’s nothing hotter.” She flicked her ponytail back. “It’s nice like that,” I said staring appreciatively.

She blushed and tugged at it. “It’s too long. Drives me mad. I’m thinking of having it all hacked off. Like those magazines.”

“Don’t do that! You’ve got lovely hair.”

She smiled. “OK. I’ll keep it. For you.”

I took a chance. “There’s an old Scottish custom that says if you share porridge with someone, you must share a secret.”

She looked wary. “A likely story.”

I pressed on. “I’ve met you twice now and I don’t know anything about you, except your name. I don’t even know where you live.”

She shook her head and laid a scalding spoon of porridge back down. “Don’t make it hard, Danny. I told you, I don’t want to get involved. I just want to be able to drop in and have a natter. I don’t want the third degree.” Her eyes were determined. I was scared she’d up and leave. And what did it matter where she lived or what she did? “OK, pal. Just curious.” I smiled.

She sighed. “Look, there’s this bloke. He hurt me real bad. I’m trying to sort things out. Maybe then I’ll tell you the whole thing, ok?”

I knew it. We’re all bastards. Was she living with him? Would she leave him? Not if I pushed her. I changed the subject. I told her about Kate Graveney and the strange coincidence of Tony Caldwell. Val seemed rapt and let her porridge go cold. Or maybe it was the salt. She had her elbows on the table and her hands under her fine jaw. Her eyes were big and dark, weighing everything.

“Why did she need you to find Mrs Caldwell? She could have got anybody to ask at his club. Women like her know lots of men. It wouldn’t have been hard.” I noticed the little bit of spite in her voice as she spoke of women like her.

“It worried me too. Like it’s all being done for my benefit. To keep me away.”

I told Val about Liza Caldwell’s comments, how Caldwell had probably told SOE not to divulge his whereabouts. Especially to me.

It was then that Val came up with the mad idea, and I felt it take root in my brain like the seeds of a fever.

“Won’t SOE have files on you and Tony Caldwell?”

“Yes…?”

Her eyes were gleaming. “Why don’t you get in and see for yourself?”

“You mean break in?!”

“Would it be hard?” she asked, all innocence. She lit a fag.

I thought about the layout of Baker Street. It had grown like a rabbit warren to take up virtually the whole street. But I knew the records on agents were kept centrally at number 64. I also knew they were closing the whole shebang down.

They didn’t need our kind of talents anymore. So security might not be as tight as it used to be. If I could get past the guards at the door and then hide till…

“This is daft! Completely daft! You’re a madwoman, so you are, Valerie Brown.

And you’re turning me as mad as you.”

“I’m crazy,” she agreed and blew a smoke ring. “But I’m not mad. Come on, eat up. I’m taking you to feed the ducks. Got any old bread? Better not take any of this stuff, or they’ll sink!”

She didn’t finish her porridge. I dunked the two bowls in water so they wouldn’t set like concrete. Then she dragged me out. The weather was kinder; broken clouds and a South westerly. We chased a bus and leapt on as it slowly eased away from the stop. We landed breathless on the platform, faces aflame and laughing. I saw nothing but kind eyes from the passengers. We must have looked like lovers.

We got off at Hyde Park Corner and ambled into the park. The rolling slopes were winter drab, and the green seemed to have leeched into the Serpentine.

Bare-armed trees stood around the flat water as though they’d been stuck in the ground upside down. There were ducks marshalling by the landing stages and hoovering up the soggy bread thrown at them by squealing kids. Val joined in and I stood and watched her and felt something turn over inside. She was so fragile.

She came back to me, smiling. “What? What you looking at, then?”

“You, you daft thing. Like a big kid.”

“That’s me. Come on. Let’s run.” And she was off. I could have caught her in ten steps but I let her run till she was shrieking and breathless. There were dozens of folk around, but all in our distance. I caught up with her and collapsed on a bench beside her. Her cheeks were glowing. I would have kissed her then. I should have. We watched the water shimmer and the ducks take off in a panic of wings.

“What happened to your dad?” she asked suddenly. She knew my mother was still in Scotland.

I realised I’d never talked about it. I could talk about it now. I remembered the day like it happened last week. I was sixteen.

“My mum always waited by the window every evening. Darning socks or polishing the brass. But she’d keep looking at the clock. To make sure he came home. One night he didn’t. You know what happens when a pit collapses? And when they finally get the bodies out?” I didn’t expect or wait for an answer. “They lay all the men out in rows on open carts at the pithead. Then the women walk along and pick out their men.”

I felt her tense beside me. “They were all wearing shawls and sobbing and holding on to each other. I walked with my mum. She was clinging to me as if I could stop her from drowning.”

I paused and watched the wind whip up ripples on the water.

“She used to kneel at his feet and take his boots off every night when he came in from the pit. He never asked her to do it; it was just something she did. To thank him for putting food on the table, a roof over our heads. He’d stick his feet in the grate. I can still see the steam rising and smell his socks.”

Val said nothing, just looked at me with the same anguish she’d shown at midnight in the park.

“This time, she knelt by the cart and held on to his boots. As though she could stop him. As though she could haul him back from his journey. She kept them for me.”

I didn’t tell Val that I still carried the guilt of not being down there with him, like the other sons. Maybe I could have done something. I was young and strong and quick. Instead, I was poncing around in a school blazer, talking about university when there was real life and real death going on all round me.

Val got me up and walking again. Right round the lake. We were quieter now, closer. It was the best day I could remember. I would have stopped time. No, that’s not true. I felt this was the start of something and that the best would come if I had the patience. To crown it all, we got off the bus near my flat and the newspaper seller was calling out, “Read all about it, read all about it.

Ripper caught! The Soho Ripper caught!” I bought a copy. They were going fast. I greedily scanned the text.

“Look at this, Val. They’ve caught the bugger.”

“Oh, that would be fine, Danny!”

She wouldn’t come in, not even for a cup of tea. I said I wanted to see her again, go on a date, a flick or dancing even. Not that I’m much of a dancer. But she wouldn’t say when or if we’d see each other again. I watched her waltz off into the night. I wished the day could begin again. I climbed the stairs whistling and nursing all the flavours of the afternoon, making sure I wouldn’t forget a single moment.

I propped the paper on my table and dug out my folder with the other clippings.

I sat down and read the news in detail. I read it again and turned to some of the earlier reports. I began to rub my scar. This didn’t feel right. On my third reading I became convinced; they’d got the wrong man. They were quoting my old friend Detective Inspector Wilson of the Yard.

A suspect has confessed to the murder of all three unfortunate women. The suspect was apprehended yesterday evening after a tip-off from a vigilant member of the public. The suspect is an army deserter who was apprehended in the act of burning a blood-stained army greatcoat in the backyard of the block of flats.

The constables were attacked with a bayonet which may be the murder weapon. A search of his flat revealed other stained items of clothes. All items have been sent for analysis.

The journalist hadn’t let it rest there. He went on to quote neighbours. They described the man as drunk and violent. He frequently had women round to his flat. Often these sessions would end up in fights, verbal and physical. There were reports of disturbing smells coming from the flat and late night screams.

Great, but it didn’t fit with my view of the murderer. Whoever had been doing these killings went about his business quietly and discreetly. He wouldn’t make a song and dance about it and draw attention to himself. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to wear an army greatcoat on his murderous outings. Nor would he stand in the backyard of his flats and try to burn the evidence. The real murderer was wicked, not stupid; evil, not careless. He wasn’t a loudmouth with a penchant for drunken parties.

So why did he have a bayonet? There are thousands of war souvenirs out there. I hear of one bloke who came home with a German motorbike and sidecar still fitted with a machine gun. But why did he confess? Did Herbert Wilson and his merry men beat it out of him? Was he drunk or delusional? I’ve seen other confessions that turned out to be false; from lost men, men on the fringes, wanting attention, any attention, including infamy; or so addled with booze or drugs that they’d say yes to being the Pope. It was a favourite test of mine.

The real killer was still out there, reading this and laughing at us. How long would it be before he proved it? I ringed Wilson’s quote with my thick black pencil and scrawled Ha bloody ha! across it. I cut it out and put it with the rest.

I turned to the bottle to see if I could hang on to the best part of the day, but it was already fading and I could feel another damned headache creeping up on me. As though the false hope had soured things. It wasn’t fair. But then I wasn’t expecting it to be. It’s a bitter thought that on sunny days Scots say to each other: fine day, enjoy it, it’ll no last.

I fought against the tide of pain that was gathering behind my eyes. But finally I surrendered and crawled into my bed. The pressure built and I pleaded for it to stop. But I was crushed and drowned and sent off into my personal dark…

It was a beauty. It came and went over two days. A high price for half a day’s simple pleasure. I emerged shaking and thirsty and unshaven. The mirror told me of my suffering. The sink stank of my vomit and the porridge had grown a fine culture. My clothes looked like they’d been borrowed by a tramp for a month.

When I had half my vision again, I saw my jotter had been used. I couldn’t face it, not yet.

I scraped my beard until my chin was covered in bloodied bits of paper, then took myself down to the slipper baths at Camberwell, towel under my arm. My head had an anvil pressing down on it and my stomach rumbled and ached as the bus jolted over the potholes. I lay for the full hour in the hot bath soaking the pain away, and then made my way home. I was clean. Washed out more like. But I was beginning to think I’d live.

I stopped at the Co-op for a fresh loaf, and waited while the girl stabbed and chopped with her two wooden spatulas at a slab of butter. She finished off the pat by pressing on the shape of a sheaf of corn. It weighed in at exactly my weekly allowance of four ounces. She smiled in pride. I bought a can of sardines and a packet of fags and handed over my coupons. I picked up the paper to check the date and saw it was Monday the seventh. Two days lost. Then the headlines jumped out. “Ripper suspect released!” Forty-eight hours was all it had taken. I glanced down at the smaller print trying to get my eyes to focus.

The suspect had indeed been trying to destroy the evidence – but of a very different crime. The blood on the coat had been a pig’s. The man had been pinching meat from butchers all round Borough Market. He’d been boiling the carcasses in his flat and flogging the boiled meat to housewives who didn’t ask where he’d got it or how many stamps he needed. He was also making his own hooch. Stuff that would make you go blind. Between boiling the pigs and running the still, it was hardly surprising the neighbours had reported funny smells.

He’d retracted his confession when he’d sobered up and the police had to let him go for the murders. To show there were no hard feelings, they nicked him again for pinching the meat and making the booze. There were no comments this time from Inspector Wilson of the Yard.

I went up to my flat and opened the sardines. The loaf had a good black crust, just as I’d asked for, and the butter smelled of rich pastures and warm hide. I wolfed down the sandwich and began to feel better. Then I remembered the jotter.

Or to be honest, I hadn’t forgotten, I just wasn’t ready. I sat down with a cigarette and drew it to me. I already had faint impressions of what I’d been recalling. It wasn’t good. It was never good. I read my words…

Don’t go down in the woods today – teddy bears waiting – behind the furnace into the woods – wetting yourself bring you back with arms funny and legs funny and head funny – and naked and screaming dead face screaming dead and throw you on to the pile for burning – pork burning I held my head in both hands to stop it splitting in two. I was made to bring them back from the woods one day. They picked me and two others to wheel the cart out the gates and into a little piece of woodland behind the camp. It was pretty: birds, grass and the smell of green. But you knew you weren’t there to pick bluebells.

We followed a track and found two guards stripped to the waist, their white skin gleaming, contrasting with their tanned faces. One was sitting on a fallen tree, smoking. The other stood behind him, massaging his shoulders in a leisurely way.

Around them was the evidence of their morning exercise. Three naked, nameless men hung from the branches of a chestnut tree. It was a fine tree with fruit forming all over it.

The hanging men had their arms tied behind their backs. A rope was round their wrists and they’d been pulled up in the air so that their own weight dragged their bodies down and tore out their shoulder muscles and joints. The guards had been inventive. They’d tied stones to the swinging men’s ankles to add a little to the pain. Their bodies were covered with welts and bloody lines where they’d been whipped till their flesh disintegrated. Finally they’d been used as target practice for the guards’ Lugers. It must have been hot work.

We hauled them down and laid them gently on the cart and prayed to the god none of us believed in any more to spare us from being the centrepiece of the next picnic. As we shoved our laden little cart back out of the clearing I looked behind. The seated guard had his head arched back into the stomach of his friend and had his arms stretched behind him, round the other’s legs, pulling him to him.

I closed the notebook. There were other scribbles and other memories. The gaps were closing, but there was nothing good worth remembering. Days of blood and hunger. Wills bent wholly towards surviving the next hour. You couldn’t plan beyond that. To last a day was a triumph. To last a week or a month was so unlikely as to be not worth thinking about.

But it still left me with time unaccounted for. Time when I wasn’t in the camp.

Time when I was taken to the camp. Time when I was dropped into France. The only man who could have helped me fill in some of the missing pieces was dead. So it left one option. Val’s crazy option. I’d have to be just as crazy to even think of trying it.

So I began planning.