The thing that really surprised me, the one thing I had never expected about terror (never having experienced it before) was how bloody sad it made me feel. I sat there on that bus and I swear to you it was all I could do to keep myself from crying. It seemed that I was saying goodbye to so much, you see. Everything I had been working towards for the last few years had turned to nonsense. Not just all the music; not just all the effort I had put into living in London. Even the simple peace of mind enjoyed by the other passengers on the bus that evening — that was denied me now, as well. The only assumption I had ever made about my life — that it would never lose sight of a basic sanity and normality — had been casually shot to pieces.
Even as I realized this, more and more details of the murder were coming back to me. It was a strange, but undeniable, fact that the picture on the record sleeve Derek had sent me — the attitude adopted by the two dwarves, standing apart and looking straight ahead, faceless, impassive — was uncannily reminiscent of Paisley’s assassins. But as soon as I tried to get any further, to imagine how there could possibly be a means of piecing together these clues, my head began to spin, and there seemed to be no point of entry. It defied logic.
There was nothing to be gained from trying to sort it out anyway. It wasn’t my job to find out what was at the bottom of this crazy business — who was trying to kill who, and why, and what particular manner of illegal activity they were all engaged in at the time. I was only a musician, after all. I dealt in first inversions and augmented fourths, not crack or heroin, and I’d never even had a parking ticket before now or been caught watching the television without a licence. And now my reward, apparently, for twenty-three scrupulous years of law-abiding citizenship, was to have my life wrecked at a stroke by the stupid antics of a bunch of people I’d hardly met and had no connection with.
I closed my eyes and tried to pretend that it wasn’t happening. For a while my mind went blank; and when I did start thinking again, some minutes later, it was along quite different lines.
Back at the beginning of this story, I remember mentioning something which had caught my eye as Chester drove me through Islington. From the front seat of his car, my gaze had been drawn to the lit windows of Georgian terraced houses: kitchens and dining-rooms golden with lamplight as families prepared their evening meals and poured themselves pre-dinner drinks. If I had felt excluded from these scenes at the time, I felt infinitely more so now — but all the same, as I remembered them, and as the bus continued to carry me on in God knows what direction, a fantasy arose within me. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to live like that? Why should I let these senseless, random circumstances defeat me? I had a girlfriend. She lived in a beautiful house. There was no reason, no reason on earth, why I shouldn’t spend this evening with her.
For the first time, I looked out of the window of the bus, and instantly recognized the area: we were heading towards Kensington.
So Madeline had made no attempt to contact me since I sent her the tape; but what could be more natural? She would have been astonished, stunned, thoroughly taken aback by the realization that my intentions were far more serious than she had imagined. It was even possible that she didn’t know whether to accept or not. What she needed, in all probability, was the chance to talk it over with me, face to face.
Suppose I were to turn up there, now, with a bottle of champagne? A bottle of champagne, and a bunch of flowers? A bottle of champagne, a bunch of flowers, and a box of assorted continental chocolates? Apart from anything else, it would be safer than going back to my own flat, because nobody knew of my association with Madeline (apart from Tony and Harry, and even they had no idea where she lived). I could stay there for days, and nobody would ever find me. I could turn up, laden with gifts, I could tell her what had happened, she would comfort me, and then we could have a long and earnest talk about our relationship. We’d pop out to the all-night grocer’s, buy in some tagliatelle or rigatoni or something, cook a meal together, and then settle down with a couple of glasses of red wine and make some serious plans for our future. Finally, at around midnight, it would be time for bed. We would steal shy looks at the corner of the room, make embarrassing remarks about fetching a spare mattress and some blankets, but neither of us would mean it. I would still be in a state of shock, I would shrink from the idea of sleeping alone, and Madeline would sense this, instinctively. She would draw me gently towards the bed. I would sit there, she would stand before me and lay her hands on my shoulders and fix me with her grave grey eyes. Then, turning off all but the bedside light…
Where the fuck could I get a box of continental chocolates at this time of night?
For the next few minutes, at any rate, things went in my favour. I got off the bus at South Kensington and found an off-licence which also sold chocolates. Not far along the road, a florist was just putting the shutters down on his shop. I persuaded him to let me in and for three pounds fifty I was given a little bunch of manky carnations. Even though it wasn’t particularly late in the evening, I now felt as though I was in a frantic hurry, and I ran all the way to Mrs Gordon’s house. Before ringing the bell, I had to lean for a while against those massive oak doors in order to get my breath back.
Here, away from the West End, away from the traffic, away from just about any sign of humanity apart from the occasional pedestrian, it seemed incredibly quiet. A thin, frozen mist was hanging in the air; it mingled with my breath whenever I exhaled. Visibility was poor. If someone were to approach, discreet footsteps against the pavement would announce their imminence long before they actually emerged from the gloom. I could barely make out the tall hedge on the other side of the street.
Mrs Gordon’s house was in darkness, utter darkness. I could see at once that Madeline wasn’t in, but I rang the bell anyway. As you may have noticed, my mind wasn’t working very sensibly that evening. At first there was no answer and I thought that there must be nobody in the house at all. I rang the bell again, twice. Nothing. What about the cook? Wouldn’t she be there? Surely the whole household couldn’t have packed up and gone away, without Madeline even telling me about it. I rang the bell again, long and insistently.
There is nothing like a single, loud noise, for making the surrounding quiet seem even more absolute. When you are in the country, and a dog barks in the middle of the night, it merely punctuates and emphasizes the silence, making you hear it all the more keenly. Similarly, when I stopped ringing the bell, there descended a hush so sudden, and so still, that it seemed as if the mist had managed to cushion even London’s usual ceaseless hum. I stood waiting, feeling despair begin to creep into my bones, like the cold. I shivered and hugged the plastic carrier-bag containing my gifts. Now and again I stood back from the house and looked up at its dark, curtained windows.
Then, all at once, a light came on. It was on the first floor. A few moments later I could see a shadow moving behind a curtain. I went to the doorbell and rang again, pressing it four or five times. It was all I could do to stop myself from shouting out.
Nothing further happened for some time. Eventually, after I had rung the bell another half-dozen times, and run back and forth, up and down the steps which led to the doorway, trying to get a glimpse of what was going on upstairs, another light came on: this time it was the light in the hall, shining out through a glass panel above the front door. By climbing up on to the railings, I could just about raise myself to the level of this panel and see through it. I could see a tiny, fragile old woman coming slowly down the huge stairway, supporting herself awkwardly on a wooden stick. She was wearing a thick, pale blue dressing-gown. I jumped back down at once in case she saw me and took fright at the sight of my wild, staring eyes. Stupidly I tried to straighten my coat and brush back my hair, making tiny last-minute adjustments to my appearance. Nothing could have stopped me from looking like an escaped madman.