Left alone, Judith and I found it hard to speak.
‘I can’t believe this,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe it.’
I carried on saying useless things like that for some time, until she interrupted me. To my surprise, she sounded not grief-stricken but angry.
‘How the hell could you let this happen, William? You’re living with the woman, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Living with her? I never even see her.’
‘Well weren’t there any signs at all? Have you no idea what’s going on?’
I was about to make another petulant denial; but I realized, of course, that Judith was right.
‘There was this man…’ I started.
Another policeman came into the kitchen.
‘Could I have a word with you, please?’
We went into the sitting-room and he asked me a string of questions. I told him everything I knew about Pedro, all the fragments of information I had picked up about him, and I explained how Tina had been taking more and more days off work, and how she had looked last Sunday night, the last time I saw her.
A thought occurred to me.
‘She didn’t leave a note, did she?’
‘As a matter of fact she did.’
He handed me a sheet of ruled A4: a fresh sheet, with only one message on it. It said:
Dear W, Please remember to lock the front door AND BOLT IT when you come in tonight. I bought a nice big loaf today so phase help yourself. I don’t think that white stuff you eat is at all good for you. Can you write me a cheque for the gas as I want to go and pay it on Monday? Love, T.
I gave it back.
‘There’s one other thing,’ he said. ‘There was this message on your answering machine. I don’t suppose it has anything to do with what happened?’
He pressed the ‘Play’ button and there were the usual bleeps, followed by a woman’s voice.
‘Listen, William,’ it said. ‘About last night. I can explain everything.’ A pause. ‘I can explain everything, and get you out of trouble.’ A longer pause. ‘Come and see me at once.’
It clicked off.
‘Well?’
‘No,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘That’s a personal thing between me and… another woman.’
‘Fine.’
He told me the name of the hospital and the number of the ward where Tina was being kept, and said that we could visit her immediately if we wanted. I must have thanked him, I suppose, but by this stage, as I showed him and his colleagues out of the flat, I didn’t really know what I was saying. I was too busy wondering about that message. What did it mean?
And apart from anything else, how had Karla managed to find out my telephone number?
Coda
Gasping — but somehow still alive
this is the fierce last stand of all I am
MORRISSEY,
Well I Wonder
‘I’m going out,’ I said to Judith.
‘You mean you’re not coming with me to see Tina?’
It would have been pointless trying to explain. If it meant that her opinion of me plummeted even further, it was a problem I’d have to resolve at some other time. I simply left her the keys to the flat and told her to send Tina my love. As she watched me leave, her eyes burned with indignation.
It was quite dark by now. I ran all the way to London Bridge station, caught a tube to the Angel, and was standing outside the video shop in less than half an hour. Next to this shop, there was an unnumbered door, painted blue. It seemed likely that this would lead to the flats on the first and second floors. There was a man leaning against the door, a short, swarthy-looking man who wore steel-rimmed spectacles and was chewing gum. His hair was dark, tousled and curly. As I approached, he straightened himself, blocked the doorway and stared at me until I felt compelled to say: ‘I’ve come to see Karla.’
I thought he was never going to answer.
‘Name?’ he said at last.
‘William.’
He turned and rang one of the bells. The flats were equipped with an entrocom system, and before long the speaker crackled and Karla’s voice said, ‘Yes?’
‘William,’ said the man.
‘All right.’
The door was opened for me, and I climbed four flights of narrow, tatty stairs. They led to a small landing where there were three doors, one of which was ajar. From behind this door, Karla’s voice said: ‘Come in, William.’
I pushed the door open. It was a gloomy bedsittingroom, practically unfurnished. There was no carpet and there were no decorations on the walls. An armchair took up one corner of the room, next to a washbasin and a mirror. There was a chest of drawers, an iron bed and a little three-legged table. Karla was sitting on the bed.
‘I just got your message,’ I said, when it became clear that she wasn’t going to speak to me.
‘Good.’
Her gaze was searching, as if she was trying to deduce some inner secret from my outward behaviour.
‘I didn’t realize you had my phone number,’ I faltered, after an even longer pause.
‘No.’
She seemed different, very different, from the woman who worked behind the bar at The White Goat. She was morose and aggressive but I got the impression that there was furious activity going on inside her head at that moment. I began to wonder, in fact, whether she wasn’t just as confused as I was.
‘Are you going to explain?’ I asked.
‘Perhaps you should explain.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, William. You.’
I shrugged nervously.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Now look, you’re in a hell of a lot of trouble. The police are looking everywhere for you, in case you didn’t know. I told you that I can help you, but I need to know what you’re up to first.’
‘I’m not up to anything,’ I protested. ‘I’m a musician, that’s all.’
‘Are you on his side?’
‘Whose side? What are you talking about?’
Furious, she got up and advanced towards me. I hadn’t realized how tall she was.
‘Look — I know you’ve been following me. You admitted as much yourself that night in the pub. And the same night you tried to scare me by having that record lying on the table. You’ve been working with him, too. I know you have. And then you miraculously turn up in the house, just in time to see this guy — Paisley — get killed. So what’s going on?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said: it was almost a whimper. ‘I don’t know.’
Karla glared at me, then went to the chest of drawers and brought out an envelope from the bottom drawer. She took out a large black and white photograph and held it up in front of my face.
‘You recognize this, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. It was the photograph from the record sleeve, showing the figure of a woman looking out over a stretch of river, flanked by the two dwarves.
‘And what about this?’
She showed me a second photograph, and I stared at it in amazement. It was the same scene. But the woman had turned around, and was now clearly recognizable — in spite of her cropped, bleached hair — as a younger version of Karla. And the two little figures, who had taken off their hoods, were not dwarves at all. They were two children: small girls, identical in size and appearance, smiling warmly at the camera.
‘This is you?’
She nodded.
‘And that was… you — singing on the record?’ I asked, recalling the voice which had screamed its way through those two hideous songs.