Dougal put away the letter. ‘I am as melancholy a young man as you might meet on a summer’s day,’ he said to Elaine, ‘and it feels quite nice.’
They came out of the pictures at eight o’clock. Nelly Mahone was outside the pub opposite, declaiming, ‘The words of the double-tongued are as if they were harmless, but they reach even to the inner part of the bowels. Praise be to the Lord, who distinguishes our cause and delivers us from the unjust and deceitful man.
Dougal and Elaine crossed the road. As they passed, Nelly spat on the pavement.
Chapter 9
MERLE COVERDALE said to Trevor Lomas, ‘I’ve only been helping him out with a few private things. He’s good company and he’s different. I don’t have much of a life.’
‘Only a few private things,’ Trevor said. ‘Only just helping him out.’
‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’
‘Typing out his nark information for him.’
‘Look,’ Merle said, ‘he isn’t anything to do with the police. I don’t know where that story started, but it isn’t true.’
‘What’s this private business you do for him?’
‘No business of yours.
‘We got to carve up that boy one of these days,’ Trevor said. ‘D’you want to get carved alongside of him?’
‘Christ, I’m telling you the truth,’ Merle said. ‘It’s only a story he’s writing for someone he calls Cheese that had to do with Peckham in the old days. You don’t understand Dougal. He’s got no harm in him. He’s just different.’
‘Cheese,’ Trevor said. ‘That’s what you go there every Tuesday and every Friday night to work on.’
‘It’s not real cheese,’ Merle said. ‘Cheese is a person, it isn’t the real name.’
‘You don’t say so,’ Trevor said. ‘And what’s the real name?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Lomas, truly.’
‘You won’t go back there,’ Trevor stated.
‘I’ll have to explain to him, then. He’s just a friend, Mr Lomas.’
‘You don’t see him again. Understand. We got plans for him.’
‘Mr Lomas, you’d better go. Mr Druce will be along soon. I don’t want Mr Druce to find you here.’
‘He knows I’m here.’
‘You never told him of me going to Dougal’s, week-nights?’
‘He knows, I said.’
‘It’s you’s the informer, not Dougal.’
‘Re-member. Any more work you do for him’s going to go against you.’
Trevor trod down the stairs from her flat with the same deliberate march as when he had arrived, and she watched him from her window taking Denmark Hill as if he owned it.
Mr Druce arrived twelve minutes later. He took oil his hat and hung it on the peg in her hall. He followed her into the sitting-room and opened the door of the sideboard. He took out some whisky and poured himself a measure, squirting soda into it.
Merle took up her knitting.
‘Want some?’ he said.
‘I’ll have a glass of red wine. I feel I need something red, to buck me up.
He stooped to get the bottle of wine and, opening a drawer, took out the corkscrew.
‘I just had a visitor,’ she said.
He turned to look at her with the corkscrew pointing from his fist.
‘I daresay you know who it was,’ she said.
‘Certainly I do. I sent him.’
‘My private life’s my private life,’ she said. ‘I’ve never interfered with yours. I’ve never come near Mrs Druce though many’s the time I could have felt like telling her a thing or two.’
He handed over her glass of wine. He looked at the label on the bottle. He sat down and took his shoes off. He put on his slippers. He looked at his watch. Merle switched on the television. Neither looked at it. ‘I’ve been greatly taken in by that Scotch fellow. He’s in the pay of the police and of the board of Meadows Meade. He’s been watching me for close on three months and putting in his reports.’
‘No, you’re wrong there,’ Merle said.
‘And you’ve been in with him this last month.’ He pointed his finger at her throat, nearly touching it.
‘You’re wrong there. I’ve only been typing out some stories for him.’
‘What stories?’
‘About Peckham in the old days. It’s about some old lady he knows. You’ve got no damn right to accuse me and send that big tough round here threatening me.’
‘Trevor Lomas,’ Mr Druce said, ‘is in my pay. You’ll do what Trevor suggests. We’re going to run that Dougal Douglas, so-called, out of Peckham with something to remember us by.’
‘I thought you were going to emigrate.’
‘I am.’
‘When?’
‘When it suits me.’
He crossed his legs and attended to the television.
‘I don’t feel like any supper tonight.’ she said.
‘Well, I do.’
She went into the kitchen and made a clatter. She came back crying. ‘I’ve had a rotten life of it.’
‘Not since Dougal Douglas, so-called, joined the firm, from what I hear.’
‘He’s only a friend. You don’t understand him.’
Mr Druce breathed in deeply and looked up at the lampshade as if calling it to witness.
‘You can have a chop with some potatoes and peas,’ she said. ‘I don’t want any.’
She sat down and took up her knitting, weeping upon it.
He leaned forward and tickled her neck. She drew away. He pinched the skin of her long neck, and she screamed.
‘Sh-sh-sh,’ he said, and stroked her neck.
He went to pour himself some more whisky. He turned and looked at her. ‘What have you been up to with Dougal Douglas, so-called?’ he said.
‘Nothing. He’s just a friend. A bit of company for me.’ The corkscrew lay on the sideboard. He lifted an end, let it drop, lifted it, let it drop…
‘I’d better turn the chop,’ she said and went into the kitchen.
He followed her. ‘You gave him information about me,’ he said.
‘No, I’ve told you -‘
‘And you typed his reports to the Board.’
She pushed past him, weeping noisily, to find her handkerchief on the chair.
‘What else was between you and him?’ he said, raising his voice above the roar of the television.
He came towards her with the corkscrew and stabbed it into her long neck nine times, and killed her. Then he took his hat and went home to his wife.
‘Doug dear,’ said Miss Maria Cheeseman.
‘I’m in a state,’ Dougal said, ‘so could you ring off?’
‘Doug, I just wanted to say. You’ve re-written my early years so beautifully. Those new Peckham stories are absolutely sweet. I’m sure you feel, as I feel, that the extra effort was quite worth it. And now the whole book’s perfect, and I’m thrilled.’
‘Thanks,’ said Dougal. ‘I doubt if the new bits were worth all the trouble, but -‘
‘Doug, come over and see me this afternoon.’
‘Sorry, Cheese, I’m in a state. I’m packing. I’m leaving here.’
‘Doug, I’ve got a little gift for you. Just an appreciation-’
‘I’ll ring you back,’ Dougal said. ‘I’ve just remembered I’ve left some milk on the stove.’
‘You’ll let me have your new address, won’t you?’
Dougal went into the kitchen. Miss Frierne was seated at the table, but she had slipped down in her chair. She seemed to be asleep. One side of her face was askew. Her eyelid fluttered.
Dougal looked round for the gin bottle to measure the extent of Miss Frierne’s collapse. But there was no gin bottle, no bottle at all, no used glass. He took another look at Miss Frierne. Her eyelid fluttered and her lower lip moved on one side of her mouth.
Dougal telephoned to the police to send a doctor. Then he went upstairs and fetched down his luggage comprising his zipper-case, his shiny new brief-case, and his typewriter. The doctor arrived presently and went in to Miss Frierne. ‘A stroke,’ he said.
‘Well, I’ll be off,’ Dougal said.