Выбрать главу

He was thinking nostalgically about his early, too-brief halcyon period with Leila as he rode in through the front gate and dismounted in the shade of the remaining elm trees. Her cherry-coloured mini was parked in its usual place, which meant she had left the institute rather earlier than he had expected. That, he decided, was all to the good—it would be easier to talk his way into her apartment if he arrived unexpectedly on the doorstep. He propped his bicycle against a tree, turned towards the house and froze as his mind belatedly registered the presence of a green, wedge-shaped Triumph sports car beside Leila’s mini. Redpath had no real interest in cars and never, for instance, looked at their plates. But he knew that each one soon borrowed a pseudo-identity from its owner, and in this case there was something familiar about the positioning of the licence holder and the faint rain-flow patterns on the windscreen and bodywork. He approached the vehicle, glanced inside and saw a bundle of pink Jeavons Institute record files on the passenger seat.

Henry Nevison!

Redpath walked across to his bicycle and stood beside it for a moment with the back of a hand pressed to his forehead. The paving stones beneath his feet seemed to be rippling, as if seen through several inches of clear water.

It doesn’t mean a thing. Especially, it doesn’t mean that Leila and Henry are…Look, Leila had to come home to pick up some paperwork. Right? Urgent stuff. Papers that she should have brought in the morning—papers that Henry needs. In all probability he’s going straight on to a meeting somewhere, and that’s why he came home with her at lunchtime instead of waiting until she brought the stuff back with her in the afternoon. It’s all perfectly normal and reasonable and innocent.

Who’s kidding who around here?

Who, my poor deluded and ungrammatical friend, is kidding WHOM around here?

And who needs to be taught a lesson?

Redpath wheeled his bicycle to the back of the house and placed it in an inconspicuous position against a shed which was used for storing garden tools. He knelt down and began tinkering with the rear brake adjuster, making himself invisible from the house and at the same time providing a cover story for the benefit of anybody who might come along. There was, however, little chance of his being discovered because the house tended to be deserted at midday and the rear aspect was well screened with trellises and shrubs. The biggest risk he could think of lay hi the fact that he had both curtailed his field of vision and entered a shady area where there was a noticeable drop in light intensity. Those were two potent trigger factors and, for all he knew, kneeling down—altering the blood pressure at different valves throughout his body—was another. It was when he had knelt to pick up his mail that the day had begun to go so disastrously haywire, and he was in no mood for receiving visions, telepathic or otherwise. He could do without glistening red masks and slurries of congealing blood, and he particularly did not want to see Henry through Leila’s eyes or Leila through Henry’s eyes if they were doing what he thought they were doing up there in the plushy, peachy noonday stillness of her bedroom.

Redpath stared down at his hands and tried to decide if they really were quivering or if there was a shimmering in his eyes.

I don’t like that rippling effect. It makes everything seem unreal, like images projected on a screen. Of course, that’s all the contact we have with the outside world—two little images projected on two little screens at the back of our eyes. I wonder what it’s like when your retinas detach and roll up and you see the world rolling up with them, foreshortening and disappearing? Sorry, the Projectionist says. Technical hitch. That’s the end of the show. You could die…

The booming sound of the Triumph’s engine mingled with the private arterial pounding in Redpath’s ears. He raised his eyes and saw the low-slung shape wheeling out on to the Leicester Road in a blinding spray of sunlight reflected from its side windows. After-images danced inside his head, circles of violet fire.

He stood up and walked quickly to the tacked-on entrance which served the flats. The white concrete treads of the stairs flickered like stroboscopes as he sprinted up them. There was no time to waste—the trick being to ring Leila’s doorbell so soon after Nevison’s departure that she would assume he had returned and would fling the door open without mental or physical preparation. The truth will out. He reached the second floor landing, with its glossy olive green door, and pressed the bellpush. There was no immediate reply. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. It was taking too long; element of surprise being lost.

The key! Where was the key she thought he knew nothing about, the one she had always hung back to conceal? Not under the doormat—that would be too obvious. Redpath lifted the single plastic flowerpot and saw there was nothing on the windowsill underneath it. In the act of replacing the pot he hesitated, struck by a new thought, and raised the pot to eye level. The key was stuck to the underside of it, held in place by a soft pad of Blu-tack. Thinks she’s clever! He took the key, twisted it in the lock, then he was inside standing in the short hall which opened into every room in the flat. The rasping sound of his own breath added to the pulsing roar in his ears.

Leila came out of the kitchen. She was carrying a glass of milk and she was naked except for bedroom slippers and a triangle of white nylon across her hips. Her eyes and mouth widened—two white circles of fear, one pink circle of guilt—as she saw Redpath.

“John!” She tried to cover her breasts. “What are you…? You’ve no right!”

Redpath went towards her. “No right? Surely I’ve got the same rights as Henry—I mean you’ve got to be fair, you’ve got to ration it out equally. That’s the liberated way, isn’t it?”

“Get out of here at once.”

“No chance, Leila.”

“Do you want me to call the police?”

“Do they get a ration, as well?”

“Sick! You’re so…” Backing away from him as she spoke, Leila suddenly turned and ran into the kitchen, throwing her glass of milk into the sink. It splintered in a blue-white fountain.

Redpath darted after her and was just in time to see her disappear through the inner door to the living-room. The telephone gave a single ting as she picked it up. Redpath snatched a rosewood-handled carving knife from a rack. It rippled and shimmered in his hand.

A libbing knife!

If you want libbed, my dear, I’ll lib you. You’ve come to the right man.

He sped through into the living-room, moving as swiftly and effortlessly as though borne on the wind, and saw Leila standing at the phone with her back to him. Her back was slim, tapering, unblemished; paining him with its beauty. He ran the knife into her—striking low down, just to the right of the spine—and at the same tune the force of his rush carried her down on to the settee. She gave a coughing moan and the telephone flew from her grasp. She struggled round to face him, trying to push him away, but he bore down on her with deadly fervour, using the knife again and again. Gradually the look of outrage in her eyes turned to one of astonishment, then she was no longer Leila—merely a life-sized doll staring at the ceiling in glassy preoccupation.