She wouldn’t come in, not even for a cup of tea. I said I wanted to see her again, go on a date, a flick or dancing even. Not that I’m much of a dancer. But she wouldn’t say when or if we’d see each other again. I watched her waltz off into the night. I wished the day could begin again. I climbed the stairs whistling and nursing all the flavours of the afternoon, making sure I wouldn’t forget a single moment.
I propped the paper on my table and dug out my folder with the other clippings.
I sat down and read the news in detail. I read it again and turned to some of the earlier reports. I began to rub my scar. This didn’t feel right. On my third reading I became convinced; they’d got the wrong man. They were quoting my old friend Detective Inspector Wilson of the Yard.
A suspect has confessed to the murder of all three unfortunate women. The suspect was apprehended yesterday evening after a tip-off from a vigilant member of the public. The suspect is an army deserter who was apprehended in the act of burning a blood-stained army greatcoat in the backyard of the block of flats.
The constables were attacked with a bayonet which may be the murder weapon. A search of his flat revealed other stained items of clothes. All items have been sent for analysis.
The journalist hadn’t let it rest there. He went on to quote neighbours. They described the man as drunk and violent. He frequently had women round to his flat. Often these sessions would end up in fights, verbal and physical. There were reports of disturbing smells coming from the flat and late night screams.
Great, but it didn’t fit with my view of the murderer. Whoever had been doing these killings went about his business quietly and discreetly. He wouldn’t make a song and dance about it and draw attention to himself. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to wear an army greatcoat on his murderous outings. Nor would he stand in the backyard of his flats and try to burn the evidence. The real murderer was wicked, not stupid; evil, not careless. He wasn’t a loudmouth with a penchant for drunken parties.
So why did he have a bayonet? There are thousands of war souvenirs out there. I hear of one bloke who came home with a German motorbike and sidecar still fitted with a machine gun. But why did he confess? Did Herbert Wilson and his merry men beat it out of him? Was he drunk or delusional? I’ve seen other confessions that turned out to be false; from lost men, men on the fringes, wanting attention, any attention, including infamy; or so addled with booze or drugs that they’d say yes to being the Pope. It was a favourite test of mine.
The real killer was still out there, reading this and laughing at us. How long would it be before he proved it? I ringed Wilson’s quote with my thick black pencil and scrawled Ha bloody ha! across it. I cut it out and put it with the rest.
I turned to the bottle to see if I could hang on to the best part of the day, but it was already fading and I could feel another damned headache creeping up on me. As though the false hope had soured things. It wasn’t fair. But then I wasn’t expecting it to be. It’s a bitter thought that on sunny days Scots say to each other: fine day, enjoy it, it’ll no last.
I fought against the tide of pain that was gathering behind my eyes. But finally I surrendered and crawled into my bed. The pressure built and I pleaded for it to stop. But I was crushed and drowned and sent off into my personal dark…
It was a beauty. It came and went over two days. A high price for half a day’s simple pleasure. I emerged shaking and thirsty and unshaven. The mirror told me of my suffering. The sink stank of my vomit and the porridge had grown a fine culture. My clothes looked like they’d been borrowed by a tramp for a month.
When I had half my vision again, I saw my jotter had been used. I couldn’t face it, not yet.
I scraped my beard until my chin was covered in bloodied bits of paper, then took myself down to the slipper baths at Camberwell, towel under my arm. My head had an anvil pressing down on it and my stomach rumbled and ached as the bus jolted over the potholes. I lay for the full hour in the hot bath soaking the pain away, and then made my way home. I was clean. Washed out more like. But I was beginning to think I’d live.
I stopped at the Co-op for a fresh loaf, and waited while the girl stabbed and chopped with her two wooden spatulas at a slab of butter. She finished off the pat by pressing on the shape of a sheaf of corn. It weighed in at exactly my weekly allowance of four ounces. She smiled in pride. I bought a can of sardines and a packet of fags and handed over my coupons. I picked up the paper to check the date and saw it was Monday the seventh. Two days lost. Then the headlines jumped out. “Ripper suspect released!” Forty-eight hours was all it had taken. I glanced down at the smaller print trying to get my eyes to focus.
The suspect had indeed been trying to destroy the evidence – but of a very different crime. The blood on the coat had been a pig’s. The man had been pinching meat from butchers all round Borough Market. He’d been boiling the carcasses in his flat and flogging the boiled meat to housewives who didn’t ask where he’d got it or how many stamps he needed. He was also making his own hooch. Stuff that would make you go blind. Between boiling the pigs and running the still, it was hardly surprising the neighbours had reported funny smells.
He’d retracted his confession when he’d sobered up and the police had to let him go for the murders. To show there were no hard feelings, they nicked him again for pinching the meat and making the booze. There were no comments this time from Inspector Wilson of the Yard.
I went up to my flat and opened the sardines. The loaf had a good black crust, just as I’d asked for, and the butter smelled of rich pastures and warm hide. I wolfed down the sandwich and began to feel better. Then I remembered the jotter.
Or to be honest, I hadn’t forgotten, I just wasn’t ready. I sat down with a cigarette and drew it to me. I already had faint impressions of what I’d been recalling. It wasn’t good. It was never good. I read my words…
Don’t go down in the woods today – teddy bears waiting – behind the furnace into the woods – wetting yourself bring you back with arms funny and legs funny and head funny – and naked and screaming dead face screaming dead and throw you on to the pile for burning – pork burning I held my head in both hands to stop it splitting in two. I was made to bring them back from the woods one day. They picked me and two others to wheel the cart out the gates and into a little piece of woodland behind the camp. It was pretty: birds, grass and the smell of green. But you knew you weren’t there to pick bluebells.
We followed a track and found two guards stripped to the waist, their white skin gleaming, contrasting with their tanned faces. One was sitting on a fallen tree, smoking. The other stood behind him, massaging his shoulders in a leisurely way.
Around them was the evidence of their morning exercise. Three naked, nameless men hung from the branches of a chestnut tree. It was a fine tree with fruit forming all over it.
The hanging men had their arms tied behind their backs. A rope was round their wrists and they’d been pulled up in the air so that their own weight dragged their bodies down and tore out their shoulder muscles and joints. The guards had been inventive. They’d tied stones to the swinging men’s ankles to add a little to the pain. Their bodies were covered with welts and bloody lines where they’d been whipped till their flesh disintegrated. Finally they’d been used as target practice for the guards’ Lugers. It must have been hot work.
We hauled them down and laid them gently on the cart and prayed to the god none of us believed in any more to spare us from being the centrepiece of the next picnic. As we shoved our laden little cart back out of the clearing I looked behind. The seated guard had his head arched back into the stomach of his friend and had his arms stretched behind him, round the other’s legs, pulling him to him.