“Albert!” His voice was that of a demented stranger. “Where are you, sneaky little bastard?”
Redpath dragged his left shoulder along the wall until he reached the first interior door and threw it open. The living-room beyond was empty, its deep armchairs brooding in introspective silence. The next room, furnished with a long table and upright chairs, also was empty of people. Redpath paused, trying to control his breathing. From where he stood he could see that there was nobody in the kitchen, and as for the cellar…well, he had already been in the cellar and had no wish to go back to it. The pain in his groin was getting worse, threatening to engulf his consciousness. He turned back, still cradling his genitals with both hands, ran to the foot of the stairs and made the long, long climb to the first landing. The section of the landing which extended to the back of the house had one door on the right, two on the left. The door on the right was the one which, in his nightmare, had led into Albert’s bedroom. He pushed it open and groggily surveyed the deserted room, with its single bed which had not been slept upon. He backed out and crossed the landing to the nearer door on the other side. Smallest room in the house—nothing in there but a toilet pedestal. He walked three unsteady paces to the next door and swung it away from him. Bathroom. He was looking down into the tub. It contained two hideously blackened human bodies—one of them possibly that of a woman. And they looked as though they had been sandpapered to death…
Oh, no!
Oh, Christ Jesus… NO!
The world tilted away from underneath Redpath in a yawning, sickening, screaming slide which nothing could prevent. He hit the floor in a limp bundle, consciousness fleeing fast, the window at the end of the landing rippling and glimmering in his vision. A yellow fleur-de-lis unfurled its petals across the pane, like a bird of prey making ready to fly. Redpath blinked at it, all thought obliterated by dread, and discovered there were other people with him on the landing, blocking the light.
They were all there with him, smiling down at him.
Betty York, the Gypsy Queen; tricky, elusive Albert; queer old| Miss Connie; plump, snowy-cuffed Wilbur Tennent, the benevolent tipster.
They were all three with him.
Smiling down at him.
Redpath closed his eyes and tried to die.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Are you sure I can’t give you a lift?” Henry Nevison opened the door of his apple-green sports car and paused before getting in. “Leicester Road is practically on my way home.”
Leila Mostyn shook her head. “Thanks, Henry, but I’ve one or two bits of shopping to do. I can manage better on the bus.”
“Do you think your car will be all right in the morning?”
“It should be. I phoned my service station and they said they’d gone round after lunch and put in a new battery.”
“Right, but if you’ve still got problems give me a buzz and I’ll call for you in the morning.”
“Thank you.” Leila watched Nevison insinuate himself into the low-slung metal shell, briefly wondering why a man of his age and status should have chosen such an inappropriate style of car. Even she, who was considerably younger than Nevison and a good six inches shorter, had found it difficult to get into and out of the Triumph with anything approximating grace when she had borrowed it at lunchtime. Driving it to her flat to collect the half-yearly comparison charts she had left behind had been a demanding experience which made her yearn for the sloppy comfort of her own runaround. The obvious explanation was that Henry Nevison was trying to regain his youth, but she had learned to distrust facile Woman’s Own-type psychology. Human beings were too complicated for that type of analysis, as anybody who had met, say, John Redpath could testify…
The thought of Redpath caused Leila to glance around and note that his bicycle was not in its usual place, which meant he had gone home early. She frowned as she remembered how far she had let herself be provoked by him in the morning. The remarks she had made in the presence of Marge Rawlings had been prime and unforgivable examples of schoolgirl bitchiness, but that was part of the trouble with John Redpath—he was so absurdly vulnerable that merely being near him created breaches in her own defences.
Nevison’s car went by with a churning of deep gravel. Leila waved in response to his rather kingly salute and made her way out to the institute’s main entrance. The double gates had been newly painted green, with the wrought iron scrollwork picked out in gold which glistened like the real thing in the late afternoon sunlight. Looking at them, Leila felt a pang of nostalgia for the uncomplicated days of her childhood, days when it had always been midsummer or Christmas, when a walk to the park had been an expedition to the far side of a cosy world, with the homely aromas of spice cakes and lavender to greet the returning traveller. In those days there had been no problems with independence or career structure or sex…
This is ridiculous, she almost said aloud. I have no problems with sex—and no bicycle-riding, freckle-faced red squirrel is going to pose me any, either.
Concentrating her thoughts on a mental shopping list, she crossed the road and walked for five minutes to reach a small local co-operative where she bought bread, yoghurt, onion salt and bleach. Another brief walk brought her to one of the Y-junctions which enabled Calbridge’s spray of radial roads to send nourishing offshoots into its various suburbs. The first Leicester Road bus which came along was almost empty—it was a little too early for the daily exodus from the town centre—and she took a seat near the passenger exit. Buildings, trees and hedges began to move past the windows in a jerky progression, deflecting her thoughts inwards.
It had been a mistake to get involved with John in the first place, because he was—in the nicest possible way, and through no fault of his own, and with no hard feelings or thought of recrimination on her part—a bom loser. He seemed to set himself up to be a loser by, with unerring suicidal instinct, trying to be all things he could never be. He strove to be sophisticated when he was incurably naive, to be cosmopolitan when he was a pie-and-peas provincial, to be—using one of the movie-culture metaphors of which he was so fond—Bogart when he was Bambi. Possessor of neither money nor prospects, John Redpath had only two things going for him, and all the world knew that courage and a sense of humour were not nearly enough. Discussion closed.
When the bus reached her stop Leila descended and walked slowly to the house where she lived, the paper bag of provisions balanced on her right hip. Her car was sitting in the parking space with a folded-up garage bill tucked under one of the windscreen wipers. She removed the bill, crammed it into the pocket of her cardigan and went up the stairs towards her flat. There was a greenhouse heat in the narrow stairwell and she made up her mind to have a shower as soon as she put the milk in the refrigerator. Reaching the middle landing she paused at her own door, key in hand, staring at the other key which somebody had left projecting from the lock.
Visitor or intruder? Friend or foe?
She set the paper bag on the windowsill beside her, lifted the plastic flowerpot and felt underneath it. The spare key was gone, but—now that she thought about it—that piece of intelligence was of no immediate practical value. There was no way of telling if the key had been used by a perceptive burglar or someone to whom she had revealed its existence, nor could she predict whether or not that person had already gone away or was inside the flat waiting for her.