The bus was full of greetings and chat. All the housewives must be from Cantril Farm, and must prefer to journey to these shopping areas. She enjoyed the slow pursuit, almost laughing; it was like a parody of a car chase. “Follow that bus!” she giggled to herself.
All at once the landscape became greyer. Tower blocks loomed as though embodying the fog. Long featureless walls crammed with windows dawdled by. Even the colours of curtains were obscured by fog. Housewives called goodbye. Gazing about, Cathy didn’t wonder they preferred to shop elsewhere.
She sat forward as though to watch the climax of a film. There couldn’t be many stops before the terminus. On the single road, people trudged beside the high curbs, along the paths of yellow lines. Her bus halted, blocked by its leader. Among the women emerging from the bus ahead and descending into the subway, she saw the detective.
She clattered downstairs. Oh, don’t let her lose him! “You’ll forget your head one of these days,” the driver remarked, opening the doors for her. The bus drew away its light; the chill of the fog seized her. When the sounds of the bus had retreated, she found she couldn’t hear the limping.
Wasn’t this a bit ridiculous? How far was she going to chase the poor man? Was she really going to trudge about this unfamiliar foggy place in search of him? It would be frustrating to have come so far for nothing. She thought of the unpleasantness that was seeping into the house on Aigburth Drive. If he could do something about that, he was worth chasing. Though she felt absurd, she hurried into the subway.
On the far side was silence. The walk climbed into the fog. It looked as likely a direction as any. She hurried past concrete yards and patches of grass soaked with grey. Only fog kept her company.
Within minutes she was lost. High identical walls full of flats surrounded her. A notice she’d hoped was the name of the block, or even a direction, proved to say ALL BALL GAMES PROHIBITED. Otherwise the walls were a mess of painted names. Paths led onto tufted mud in which lurked puddles and glass.
When she heard a bus on the main road, she headed back. There was no point in straying further. What a disappointing end to her adventure! She slithered down towards the subway, looking for steps that would take her to the outward bus stop.
Then she heard the limping. It began abruptly, surprisingly close. She whirled, and saw him in a concrete tributary. Was he lost too? He disappeared at once into the fog, but she could hear him clearly. She hurried in pursuit.
The limping echoed in a passage. She managed to distinguish the entrance, though the gap looked almost as solid as the framing wall, with fog. Beyond it, she found herself in what seemed to be a wide deserted yard within a square of tenements.
Oh, don’t say she’d lost him! Entrances gaped in the tenements, revealing stone stairs wet with fog. He could have vanished into any opening. She held her breath, though it tasted of the murk.
She heard something. Footsteps? Yes, though they were faint – shuffling. They were advancing towards her, slowly and unevenly. Unevenly! It must be the detective. How would he react when he saw her? While she pondered that, he might elude her yet again. She ran on tiptoe towards the shuffling.
Fog blanked her vision, and robbed her of any sense of distance. How near was the shuffling now? Surely he ought to be visible. She was certain she would jump when they came face to face – and so would he, no doubt, poor man. The thought made her tense, and distracted her. She almost collided with the dim shapeless figure when it shuffled into view.
Cathy gasped. It was an old woman in bedraggled carpet slippers. Her bare legs were red and thickly veined. She shrank back as though Cathy were a mugger.
“ I’m sorry,” Cathy blurted. “I thought – ” She couldn’t say more for choking on her mirth.
“ I should think so.” The old woman shuffled past, staring: her vacant gums smoked. “Just about think so too,” she muttered.
All at once Cathy heard the limping. It was on the far side of the yard, and retreating rapidly. For a few steps it echoed in a passage. She ran towards the sound. Obstacles seemed to menace her, but they were fog.
She found the passage quickly, and ran through. Footsteps came at her from the obscurity – her own echoes. Outside, a path dissolved into fog. On one side stretched a fence, on the other was a rank of two-storey flats that protruded boxily into tiny concrete yards. The prospect resembled an H with its top legs missing, repeated again and again.
The limping stopped. How far ahead? She ran faster than her doubts. Passages gaped between flats; windows dull as fog stood above them. Fancy having a hole where your ground floor ought to be!
Was he in one of the passages? She dodged towards each, then veered away. She had to go deep in each shadowy blurred gap before she could be sure. Oh, please don’t let him have hidden in his flat after all this – There he was, in a passage!
It was a dangling shirt that swung its arms as she ran at it.
When she reached the end of the fence, she gave up. Beyond the fence, another passage led out to wide murk. She stood beside a torn poster. AY NO T A BLACK ITAIN, it said. She stared at the flats opposite. A door which looked hardly coloured lurked beneath glistening stone steps.
She was dismally fascinated. Anyone who passed could bang on the windows or the walls: no doubt children did. She couldn’t have borne living in such a place. It must be like a cage. She would have gone mad.
Chapter XXV
So now she knew where he lived. He spied on her through a crack between the curtains. He ought to have killed the old woman as well, instead of letting her presence deter him. At last the girl slunk into the fog. She must have been making sure that he knew he was trapped.
Would she send the police for him? Let them come – he’d make some cuts in the police force. His joke failed to sustain him. He felt shrunken, a rat in a trap; his mind felt crushed. He would flee, except that there was nowhere to go besides the fog.
He sat in the centre of the anonymous room, facing the door, razor in hand. He listened to the radio. It might warn him, or help him somehow; surely his luck hadn’t deserted him entirely. The gathering night robbed him of the room. He found himself listening for words, he didn’t know which, that would tell him what to do. There must be someone on his side. Blurred stations drifted behind the newsreader’s voice. Horridge sat forward; the blade clicked. What was that about conspiracy?
But the blurred voice had gone. Oh yes, he knew about conspiracies; the world was full of them. Even presidents could be involved in them, which showed that anyone might be. Sometimes the plotters were careless enough to be found out, but what of those who weren’t? What about those homosexuals and their dupes, conspiring against him?
When he switched on the light the walls didn’t retreat far. He shut off the radio, which was trying to distress him. He couldn’t bear waiting; the room seemed like a condemned cell. Where could he hide? Where might the police not look for him?
Yes, of course. He never went to the pub – but he could pretend to be one of the herd. Why, that would make him seem normal by their standards; he would be unobtrusive there. He transferred his documents into his raincoat, in case the police broke in, and left.
Men were tramping along the path. Were they going to the pub? They looked brainless enough – too brainless to conspire against him. He followed them, so as not to be alone in the fog.
He’d judged their destination rightly. Already the pub was crowded. Addicts, all of them – but at least the sots would be too befuddled to plot against him. He reached the bar at last and bought himself a lemonade, despite the barmaid’s faint amused contempt. She was there to serve, not to have opinions.