Truth Dare kill

THREE

Kate Graveney walked out with head high and without a backward glance, her uncertainty cast off like an out-of-date ration book. She seemed to have got what she came for. I wondered what it was. I listened to her all the way back down, toes hitting every step. I got up and went round and sat in her chair. It was still warm. I touched the arms where her hands had rested and thought I could feel a faint slick. Her scent hung about me as though her body had left a dent in the air. I sniffed deeply, trying to hang on to her spoor and in trying too hard, lost it, as though she was one of my elusive memories.

Enough. I stood up, pulled my hat and coat off the rack behind the door and made ready to go out into the night. I kicked the new briquette back with my toe so that it would die and I could use it to start the fire in the morning. A last impulse pulled me to the window. I eased the bottom pane up and looked out into the street. I was just in time. Kate Graveney was being handed in to the back seat of a big Riley by a bloke with a flat cap. The car was standing with its engine running, as though petrol rationing only applied to the hoi polloi.

As she bent to enter she turned her head up and looked up at my window, as though expecting to see me. I didn’t withdraw. We should have waved but we didn’t know each other that well. She gave no sign, but got into the car, and I watched it drive off down the street. Its exhaust left a trail of grey smoke on the dank air. I thought I saw her face looking back at me from the rear window, and another head wearing a hat, but I couldn’t be sure.

I closed the window and dug back into my desk drawer to check it hadn’t been an illusion. Sometimes things get blurred. I see things that turn out to be flotsam from my memories. I folded the four very real, very crisp notes and tucked them into my breast pocket. As I was closing the drawer I saw the front page I’d torn from this morning’s Daily Sketch. The rest I’d already quartered and hung in the shared lavatory on the floor below. I made sure I got a paper every day; it was one of the ways I could tell if I’d had a blackout.

The headlines were howling about the third body found in a flat in Soho. A prostitute again. But not a single clue, other than a man sighted going into the building around the time of the murder. Hardly noteworthy, given her occupation.

No fingerprints that matched any found at the other sites, and lord knew how many prints they found.

The body was naked and brutalised. Words like gruesome and sadistic were bandied about. But the details were omitted from this family newspaper: just vague references to a knife wound to the lower body and the head. My detective sergeant’s imagination translated this as genital mutilation and a killing stab through the base of the skull up into the brain. I hoped she got the skull thrust first.

I stuffed the page back in my drawer. I’d file it later. I’ve kept them all from the very first that merited only half a column on an inside page four months ago. Maybe it was getting to know Mama Mary and her girls. Maybe it was the way they’d died. Maybe it was the echo of a recurring dream. But these killings revolted and intrigued me at the same time.

I’d read and re-read the reports. I bought other papers to see if they said anything more, and kept picturing the dead women, naked and bloody, as though I’d been an eye witness. And I couldn’t recall if my dreadful dreams began before or after the first killing. Doc Thompson told me that it was my way of coping with the violence I’d seen in the camp. Violence without reason. Violence for pleasure. Trying to understand how a so-called civilised world could co-exist with such widespread perversion and sadism.

That’s what worried me. I used to think that most of us would rather cut off our right arm than beat a child to death with a rifle butt. That only a handful of warped bastards would set to with a will and enjoy the exercise.

But what if the devil were in all of us? Christ knows they’re still counting the corpses in the thousands of camps across Europe. They’re talking of millions, but I can’t believe that. Who would kill a million people just because they had bigger noses? And it wasn’t just the poor bloody Jews that copped it – as I knew to my personal cost. Every phobia catered for: gypsies, homosexuals, communists, book readers, hunchbacks, noisy neighbours…

Nor could you point the finger at the Germans and say it’s something in their blood. We know that Poles and French and Italians – half the Continent – sent women and kids to the camps knowing what would happen. And then there are the Russians. Just don’t start me on the Russians. I even feel sorry for those bloody Berliners.

If our allies could do that, why couldn’t we? Why couldn’t I? Three dead prostitutes in London hardly figured in the scale of horror over there. But it showed that the sickness was here among us too.

Outside, the crowds were getting excited. They were heading to Westminster and Waterloo, and then on to Trafalgar and Piccadilly. I went the other way. I rammed my hat tighter on my head and pulled the coat collar up, as much against the mounting revelry as against the night air. It was just gone eleven by the clock on the tower in Camberwell Green. The cheerful crowds began to thin. I pressed on up Denmark Hill enjoying the gradient and the need to put some effort into my stride.

I didn’t know what I wanted; company or to be alone, a drink or just a walk. A bit of me – to be frank, a baser bit of me – would have liked to be meeting up with Sandra tonight and cosying up with her in front of a warm fire with a full bottle. But three months back, with my face as healed as it was going to get, I called at the King Billy, and Sandra told me to get lost. More precisely, she got Big Alec, the guv’nor, to tell me.

She was standing behind the bar as though a year hadn’t happened, her hair piled up the way I loved. She saw me come in and her face went pink. Then she gave me a look that made me want to check the date of my last anti-tetanus jab. I know I’m not as pretty as I used to be, but a monster?

She walked straight over to Alec and spoke to him, quickly and quietly. Alec raised his brooding eyes and found me. He didn’t hesitate; he lifted the bar flap and came over, full of intent. He was an old pug, with hams for hands and plasticine for a nose.

“Piss off, Red. You’ve done enough damage round here.”

“I just wanted a pint, Alec. What’s the problem? Don’t returning heroes get a beer?”

“Red, you’re no fucking hero for Sandra. She don’t want to know. So, save you, me, and all of us, some trouble and sling your ’ook.”

I was aware of how quiet it had got. Sandra was standing as far away as she could from me, watching with hard eyes and sucking nervously on a fag. It had been the same eyes that had caused the barney the last time, over a year and a half ago. We’d been going out for a couple of months. I’d got digs round the corner in Peckham while I was getting trained up by the SOE. Sandra was fun, lively, beautiful and a champion cock-teaser. I never knew where I was with her; she could be dragging me into bed one night and sending me packing the next.

I guess I’m slow. It took me five weeks to realise I was one of a string. I don’t like that; don’t like being taken for a ride; don’t like sharing. I told her so and she promised to be faithful. But I didn’t trust her. And I was right; the night she should have been out with her mates – one of them was supposed to be getting married – I found her with her tongue down the throat of a right wee spiv round the back of the Streatham Locarno. He deserved the pasting I gave him, and she came back to me; she liked men fighting over her, I suppose. She was less happy when I gave her a clip, and from then on Sandra and I were fireworks. So I suppose Alec was right to get me out of his pub before we started some new slanging match.

“Ok, Alec. Point taken. I suppose I’m not as gorgeous as I was.”

His eyes softened, as did his voice. “S’nothing to do with your fizzog, Red.

You’re still prettier than me. She’s not bleedin’ worth it. She’s a tart with big tits. Which is what my clientele pays for. Forget her.”

I looked round at his clientele, over to Sandra, and nodded to Alec. I turned and walked out. I tried to put Sandra out of my head, but couldn’t help wondering if I should have just done a Nelson and ignored what she was up to; enjoyed what she gave me. For when she gave, it was memorable. Jealousy is my curse.

I shook her from my thoughts by focusing on the conversation I’d just had with Kate Graveney. I tried to make sense of her words and how they connected with me. I didn’t know whether to feel angry or relieved at being thwarted in my search for Major Tony Caldwell. It all seemed a wee bit too convenient for my liking. My short time as a detective in Glasgow convinced me that there was no such thing as a coincidence. But I’m also aware that I tend to get a shade paranoiac these days.

I stopped and looked back down the hill. I kneaded my leg with both hands where it was aching; the damp seeped into the bones where they knitted. I thought about the year ahead; it held little promise for me. New Year celebrations are sadder than glad affairs at the best of times. And these weren’t. The skies were soaked with rain that could turn to snow any time. The wind was blowing straight off the North Sea and up the Thames with few enough buildings left to take the edge off. At least it was keeping the fog away.

There was hardly a line of houses untouched; great swathes cut through residential streets and factories; stumps left where buildings either side had been straddled on a bombing run. Pipes hung out from nude walls like entrails, and wallpaper flapped in upstairs rooms open to the skies. Queues everywhere for everything. Half the city had no lights. London transport sent their buses and their trams out, but never enough, never on time to take the grey-faced folk off to their makeshift offices.

I laughed. If there was a god, sometimes you had to smile and shake your head at his bent sense of humour.

I came to Ruskin Park where I used to walk in the summer. It was cold and empty now. On impulse I climbed over the waist-high gate and walked in. I followed the path down to the pond in the middle. I smelt it before I saw it: that ripe stink of decay. It glistened like oil in the dark. Bare trees hung over the water. I didn’t see the girl on the bench till I was nearly on her. It was the white of her hands that caught my eye.

I coughed to warn her. “Hello. Are we too early for the party?”

She didn’t jump; must have heard me coming. She lifted her face. It was wet. She sniffed and took a hand to her cheeks. She looked about my age, though it was hard to tell through the long dark hair that hung like pondweed over her face.

She sniffed again and pushed the hair back to show a trembling lip and stricken eyes. She looked familiar, probably one of the shop girls from down at the Green.

“I hate crowds,” she said, meaning get lost, mate.

“Two’s not a crowd, is it?”

Normally I’m the first to take a hint, but I suddenly wanted company. Still missing Sandra, I suppose. There was room on the bench for me without getting too close. I didn’t want her to run away. We sat gazing at the pond, not looking at each other. There was no moon but enough light to let the shrubs and trees and pathway show up clearly. I could see her legs stretched out in front of her.

They were slim, with good ankles. She had to be daft, sitting alone in a park at midnight with a madman around.

“I just wanted some peace, you know?” Her voice had lost its edge. “Stuff to remember.”

Of course. A city full of tragedies. New Year’s Eve, and all you can think of is the family you lost in the Blitz or the boy who never came back from the front.

I began to get up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

She was quick. “It’s all right. Really. Shouldn’t dwell on things. Been here long enough. Go before I catch my death.” Her words were wreathed in vapour.

“I’m sorry…”

“Not your fault, was it?”

I turned properly and looked at her. She was crying again, and it grew to a sobbing and she didn’t cover up her face. She let her hands lie by her side and let her chest shudder and fall in helpless anguish. I was scared to touch her but wanted to reach over and squeeze her arm. She turned her head towards me and the sobbing began to slow. The last time I’d seen such hopeless eyes was in the mirror.

“Come on. You’re frozen. I know a bar. I’ll buy you a whisky. It’s good for cold hands; helps you forget too.” Not that I needed help, I almost added.

“I’m not a pick-up, you know!”

“Course not! But there are enough nutters around.”

Her glistening eyes sized me up. I tried to look like I was wearing a dog-collar. She smiled gamely and nodded.

“I’m Danny. Danny McRae. What’s yours?”

“Valerie Brown. Val.”

We got up and we walked back out of the park and up the hill till we cut over to Grove Lane. She was the right height to fit under my arm if we ever got that far. The George Canning still had its blackout curtains up; handy if you wanted to let your best customers go on drinking after hours. We had about ten minutes to go before midnight. Just before we went in and the lights hit us, I stopped and turned to face her.

“Val, I need to say something. I’m a wee bit war damaged too.” I took off my hat and made her see the white lines that I knew would be gleaming silver in the moonlight like a snail trail.

“You trying to impress me?”

“I didn’t want you to faint. Or drop your whisky.”

“You haven’t bought me one yet, have you?” She gazed with interest at the scars, then lifted her finger and stroked each one, so lightly all I could feel was a line of chill. She smiled and we went in.

We were clouted by light and noise and the smell of folk who’ve been wearing the same clothes for too long through too much. A few turned their heads to see who it was then went back to shouting at each other. Their faces were red and sweaty. I cut a channel for us through the smoke and the crowd and found a tiny bit of corner space with a shelf.

“Whisky, Jock?” mouthed Terry, the bald barman. I raised two fingers twice. He got the drift and two double scotches hit my hands. He whistled when I handed him the big new fiver and checked it against the light. He nodded and rang me up the change. I fought my way back to her and perched the glasses on the shelf.

In the heavy air her pale skin was already going pink under the eyes. The hair was gypsy black, like the Catholic girls I used to know in Glasgow. Her eyes were dark brown, not washed out like Kate Graveney’s. Two pretty women cross my path in one evening. Maybe the new year wasn’t going to be all bad? “Cheers!” I clacked my glass against hers. She smiled and toasted me back. She took a swig and choked and spluttered but held it down. This time the colour spread across her face and down her white neck. Someone called for quiet and several others joined in and suddenly there was still. Terry was twisting at the dial of the radio. The sound of Big Ben’s midnight chimes bonged through the waiting bar. As the last one fell, a cheer went up. Happy New Year!

I raised my glass and shouted, “Here’s to you, Tam and Archie!” as I promised I’d do every Ne’erday till I joined them – wherever they were.

People started embracing and kissing and weeping. Val didn’t seem to be too put off by what she’d seen of me in the light, so I leaned in to give her a quick kiss. She smiled, but like a flash, got her finger across her lips. Too hasty, that’s me. I saw her eyes brim and turned away so she couldn’t see my own tears welling. A maudlin Scot at Hogmanay. Silently I sent word to my mother, and hoped the neighbours were looking after her.

We had another drink and tried to talk but it was like shouting into a Hampden roar. So we gave up and just smiled at each other and at all the daft folk around us and I shook hands with strangers and for a moment I seemed to lose her to drunks. Then she returned to me flushed and flustered. They started singing, all those Vera Lynn songs, trying to recapture the best bits of the war, when we were all in the same boat rowing the same way. But I’d heard “Tipperary” and “White Cliffs” murdered once too often. I sank my scotch and nodded towards the door.

We walked back to my place without saying anything, without agreeing anything. I lit a fire and we sat gazing into it, supping more Scotch. We saw our own past in the flames and hoped… well, all I was hoping was to wake up beside her. But she made it clear there would be no hanky-panky. She stayed with me anyway, dancing out of her top clothes in front of the sparking fire. She kept on her slip and slid shivering between my cold sheets. We lay like orphans, the folds between us, spooned but passion-free, just glad to share a bed against the dark.

Her thin limbs shook until our bodies made a bubble of warmth under the heavy blankets.

I smelt the fag smoke on her hair and the cheap scent on the skin of her neck and gladly relinquished the memory of Kate’s costly perfume. We began to drowse.

A big spark would shake us and make her twitch. I’d shush her like a pony and she’d subside again. The fire dwindled and the shadows deepened. Her trembling eased and stopped, and sleep took us both.

The morning light woke me. But Valerie was gone.