“I’ve got an absolute cert in the last race at Aintree, and I’m going to give it to you for the odds of a tenner,” Tennent said, smiling at Redpath with uncritical friendliness. “How’s that?”
Redpath shook his head, beginning to see the light. “I haven’t any money.”
Tennent’s smile hardly wavered. “Tell you what I’ll do, John. I’ll lay the bet on your behalf and I’ll split the winnings with you—after taking my tenner back out, of course. Just to get you started. Now I can’t say fairer than that, can I?”
“I don’t gamble.”
“This isn’t gambling, John—this is shafting the bookies, making them contribute to a worthy cause. You’re on Swordsmith for a tenner, right?”
“Look, I told you I don’t…” Redpath broke off in mid-sentence, choked with annoyance and a sense of the monstrous unfairness of what was happening to him. The thing he needed most in all the world was a breathing space, a chance to hide out—even if only for a day or two—and think and come to terms with himself. Murder was a big thing, and surely to God a murderer was entitled to some reflective solitude without being hustled and pressured by every Flash Harry that came along. Redpath, suppressing an urge to run away, glanced up the first flight of stairs and saw two women watching him from the landing.
One of them was Betty York, still clad in blue velvet jacket and faded jeans, exactly as when he had first met her in the park. The other, from what he could see of her in near-silhouette, was a very tall and stooped old woman in an ankle-length dress. Her ivory-coloured hair was drawn into a bun and she wore rimless spectacles to which had been attached a safety loop of black ribbon. The overall impression was one of genteel frailty, and yet there was a subtle wrongness about her appearance which Redpath, even in his numbed condition, found slightly disturbing.
It can’t be a man dressed up. It can’t be Anthony Perkins getting ready to do in Janet Leigh. That would be too much—even for this ass-hole of a place.
“Look who it is,” Betty York said, coming down the stairs to meet him. “Have you been to collect your stuff, love?” There was nothing in her manner to suggest that anything even faintly out of the ordinary had occurred between them in the upstairs room, something for which Redpath felt a profound relief.
“I haven’t got any stuff,” he mumbled. “Just my bicycle.”
“I’ll get Albert to put it round the back for you.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re just in time, you know,” Betty said, taking his elbow and drawing him up the stairs. “There’s a big demand for comfortable digs in a nice area like this. If I’d put an ad in the Herald I could’ve let that room a dozen times over. At the top rate, too.”
Money, Redpath thought. People still use that stuff called money.
“About the rent,” he said. “I’m afraid I haven’t…”
“Don’t worry about rent, son.” Tennent gave him a thumbs-up sign and an exaggerated slow-motion wink. “Swordsmith is paying your rent. You’ll have plenty of rent tomorrow.”
“You leave the boy alone,” Betty scolded. “He’s not interested in your get-rich-quick schemes. Come on, John.”
Redpath nodded compliantly. Change of role—streetwalker to mother hen. What happened? He followed Betty’s strongly-working haunches to the landing, turned towards the front of the house and was just in time to see the tall old woman hurry into the first bedroom on the right. Instead of fully closing the door after her she remained in the narrow aperture and watched Redpath as he went by. Her powdery face was white, the skin like crumpled vellum.
“That’s Miss Connie,” Betty said in a loud voice. “Pay no heed.”
Redpath, who had been avoiding looking at Miss Connie, glanced involuntarily in her direction and saw that the room behind her was unexpectedly colourful, a patchwork of bright-hued rectangles interspersed with metallic glitters. The image was lost to him before he had time to interpret it, but as he turned on to the upper stair it came to him that Miss Connie’s room was piled high with canned foodstuffs, enough to stock a modest-sized store. There had even been cartons sitting on the bed, and the very air in the vicinity smelt like a grocer’s shop—bacon, coffee, oranges, washing powder.
Perhaps it really is a shop. Remember old Mrs Crangle who set up a counter in her own living-room and sold toffee apples across it? And Gus Minihan who tried to turn his garage into a speak-easy selling home-brewed ale? But it ought to be in the front room downstairs…
“Here we are, love.” Betty stopped at the door of the rear bedroom on the top floor and turned to face Redpath. She was breathing deeply after the climb, her ample breasts lifting against the crimson material of her T-shirt. Redpath noted the phenomenon with a wan detachment and reached for the door handle, anxious to get into the room and lock the door and find out who he was.
Betty looked down at his hand. “Are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing. I sliced it on a piece of glass.”
“I can get some plaster from Miss Connie.”
“No, it’s all right. I’m a bit tired, that’s all. I’d like to lie down for a while.” Redpath went into the room and was relieved to see that Betty was making no move to come in with him. “If I can get my head down for a couple of hours I’ll come and talk to you about the rent and so forth. Okay?”
Betty nodded and gave him a sympathetic smile. “Are you in some kind of trouble, love?”
“What makes you say that?” Redpath tried to look indignant.
“You’ll be all right here, love. Nobody can find you here.”
“Thanks.” Redpath closed the door and stood turning his head from side to side in an upsurge of panic. That can’t be customary, damn it all! If there’s a handbook of etiquette for landladies it doesn’t say, ‘Put new guests at ease by telling them they’re safe from the law.’
What is this place? What am I DOING here?
He surveyed the room—taking in the brown-ruled pink oilcloth, the mismatching furniture, the cobbled-up lighting arrangement—and went to the single window. The only change in the view outside was a slight difference in the angle of the shadows. As before, the notch in the screening row of houses provided a compressed view of Calbridge, and as before he found something tremendously endearing in the diorama of sunlit rooftops and spires—but now the town and the cosy normality it represented seemed distant and unreachable. There could be no more drowsing in coffee bars, reading dog-eared week-end magazines in the barber shop, taking books back to the stuffy, sane sanctuary of the public library…
He gripped the central cross-member of the window and leaned his weight on it, almost hoping it would give way. The window shifted slightly and a small piece of paper which had been wadded into the frame, probably to prevent vibration, fell on to the sill. He absent-mindedly picked up the paper, unfolded it and saw that it was a scrap of stationery with the heading, Commodore Hotel, Hastings, Sussex. His eyes mechanically scanned the words which had been written on it with a green felt-tip pen:
Keratin is a tough fibrous protein containing much sulphur, occurring in the epidermis of vertebrates, forming resistant outermost layer of skin, and also hair, feathers, horny scales, nails, claws, hooves and outer coating of horns of cows, sheep, etc. This means that, weight for weight, a bird is probably a better
Redpath stared moodily at the incomplete text, resenting its lack of relevance to anything which concerned him, then crumpled up the paper. He turned and threw himself down on the bed, burying his face in the pillows.