171207.fb2 A Shock to the System - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 4

A Shock to the System - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Graham Marshall passed a terrible night. The alcohol put him off to sleep quickly, but he awoke within an hour, sweat prickling along his hairline and soon drenching his nightshirt. The duvet pressed down damply as if to smother him, and the undersheet ruckled into torturing ridges. His arms started to tremble uncontrollably.

Merrily slept on beside him, unperturbed, the evenness of her breathing a continuing reproach. ‘The sleep of the just.’ The phrase came jaggedly into his mind — the sleep enjoyed by the righteous, by those good citizens who were not murderers.

His teeth started to chatter. He twitched noisily out of bed. Part of him wanted to wake Merrily, not to tell her what had happened, but just to have some reaction, some comment on his nervous collapse. The rhythm of her breathing broke, but settled almost immediately back to its infuriating regularity.

He looked at her outline, padded by the duvet, and felt unreasoning hatred. ‘The sleep of the just’ — again the phrase gatecrashed his mind. But it was the injustice of her sleep that hurt him. She had not had to suffer the provocation that he had. She had not had to murder an old man.

He lurched out of the bedroom. The skin felt tight and tingled on his scalp; he had a clear image of his brain drying up, shrivelling, sucking the flesh inward.

He went downstairs to the sitting-room and had a large Scotch, which he knew was a bad idea, but at least controlled the shaking for a moment.

All too quickly the thoughts returned.

He had committed murder.

A new inward trembling started, sending out fierce little shudders from his stomach, as the reality took hold of him.

What he felt was simply fear. There was no remorse — certainly no guilt — for what he had done. The old man had insufficient identity for him to feel such personal emotions.

And certainly Graham’s agony had no moral cause. Abstract morality played no part in his scheme of things. Abstract thought of any kind was alien to him. If he had stopped to examine his motives — which he never did — he would have found their sole impetus had always been the pursuit of success without social indiscretion. This had led him to a pattern of behaviour which was, from the outside, often indistinguishable from that of a moral person. But its imperatives were always those of expediency; they were not dictated by any system of belief. He believed in nothing except his own ability to recognise the next move required and to make it.

But the events of the day had given that belief a hammering. His failure to get George Brewer’s job had written off his life. The murder, and his subsequent arrest, would just be public recognition of that fact.

Fear of discovery was the only cause of his nervous collapse.

And, even through the paralysis of fear, he felt anger, fury at the injustice that had subjected him to the old man’s provocation. He regarded the murder as his misfortune, but not his fault.

He had to sleep. Alcohol wasn’t going to do the trick. There must be something else in the house. Wasn’t there some draught Merrily had given the children when they were wakeful? The stuff hadn’t been used for years, but it might still be around.

His angry scrabbling in the bathroom cupboard woke Merrily. She appeared again, bleary in the doorway. ‘What are you looking for?’ the little voice asked.

‘That stuff you used to give the kids. I can’t sleep.’

‘Oh, the Phenergan. I chucked it out before we moved.’

‘Damn.’

‘Why can’t you sleep?’

‘I don’t know. Why can’t one sleep?’

‘Are you worried about the job?’

‘Job?’

‘George’s job. Have you heard anything about the board?’

It was absolutely instinctive, but Graham didn’t know why he said no.

He had a triple hangover on the Friday morning — first, from the alcohol; second, from the loss of George’s job; and, third, from the knowledge of the murder.

He couldn’t eat any breakfast; Merrily and the children seemed more alien than ever; so he mumbled something about having to be in early, and left at about quarter to eight.

He was almost on Hammersmith Bridge before he thought about the route he was taking. A panic seized him. He felt he should run away and hide. There would be a little crowd of policemen in the middle of the bridge, questioning the passers-by, waiting for him. His step faltered.

But logic stopped his flight. His only chance lay in behaving normally, doing exactly as he had always done, exactly as he had done before he was a murderer.

He dared to look ahead. There were no policemen on the bridge; only the usual trail of pedestrian commuters moving faster than the solid mass of cars on their way into London.

With a great effort, he didn’t break step when he reached the scene of the crime. He flashed a look at the damp pavement, fearing bloodstains.

There was nothing.

The parapet too looked unmarked.

As he walked along he looked down at the Thames beneath. The tide was high, its level increased by the recent rains. The dull water flowed on strongly, its surface broken only by slow-turning driftwood and high-riding plastic containers.

For the first time, Graham Marshall almost believed the murder hadn’t happened.

Any serenity he experienced was short-lived. As he approached the office, again he faltered, convinced that there would be a policeman waiting inside for him. And again he managed to damp the panic down. His only hope was to behave naturally. The day before no one had thought of him as a murderer; he must act exactly as he had the day before.

Inside the building the commissionaire gave the usual respectful greeting as Graham flashed his identity card. George Brewer’s Stella was getting in the lift. It was early yet; just the two of them travelled up to the fifth floor.

‘I’m very sorry about the job,’ said Stella.

‘Oh. Thank you.’ To his amazement, his voice sounded normal. Or if it was a little thicker than usual, that could be put down to disappointment about the job. To people who didn’t know about the murder, there would always be an alternative explanation.

‘I was flabbergasted,’ she went on. ‘I’m not sure whether I’ll enjoy working with young Mr. Benham.’

He looked at her. He’d always rather fancied her in a resigned way, though never really contemplated being unfaithful to Merrily.

And now. . For a man who had committed murder and was shortly to be arrested, for someone like that even to fancy a woman was ridiculous.

On the other hand. . To his surprise, the thought came into his mind that any other transgression was meaninglessly trivial compared to the crime of taking human life.

‘I didn’t realise,’ he said, ‘that you went with the job.’

‘Oh yes. The desk, the chair, the fitted carpet, rubber plant, and me.’

‘Oh dear. That makes not getting it all the more disappointing.’

She smiled at him.

He smiled back. But he wasn’t really smiling at her; he was smiling at the incongruity of anyone framing pretty compliments only ten hours after murdering an old man.

There was no policeman waiting for him in his office, but Robert Benham was there, poring over some files on his desk.

The Head of Personnel Designate looked up without apology. ‘I’ve been in for an hour or so checking through some stuff.’

‘Ah.’

‘That report you did for George on Human Resources, you know, staffing in the ’Eighties. .’

‘Oh yes.’

‘His copy’s locked in his files, so I’m checking yours.’

‘Fine.’

‘Disagree with your conclusion that the size of Department’s right. There are a lot of idle buggers who don’t pull their weight.’

‘I know that, Robert, but George was very keen to maintain the Department at its present size.’

‘So you came up with the conclusions he wanted?’

Graham shrugged. Robert Benham nodded brusquely and closed the file. ‘Of course. As I’ve said, I’m more concerned with productivity than maintaining the status quo.

‘Yes.’

‘We must have a long talk about it. No time in ordinary office hours. You come down to my cottage at Stoughton one weekend. It’s near Chichester. We’ll fix a date.’

‘Oh, but I — ’

‘But what?’

But what indeed? Graham didn’t continue the sentence he’d been framing about Merrily and the children and trying to keep the weekends free as far as possible. He couldn’t pretend he enjoyed Saturdays and Sundays en famille. Anyway, for a man shortly to be arrested for murder, what did it matter whether or not he fulfilled his family responsibilities?

‘Nothing. No, I’ll look forward to that. Any weekend’ll be fine.’

At that moment George Brewer’s harassed face appeared around the door. ‘Oh, er, Robert, I was looking for you. I. . er — ’

‘I’ll be along in a moment.’ Robert Benham gestured his boss away without finesse, almost snapping his fingers at him. George’s head withdrew.

When Robert had gone, Graham had another attack of the shakes. They hadn’t found the body yet; it had been swept along by the river.

But they would find it soon.

And then they’d come and get him.

‘More sherry, Lilian?’

He knew the answer. He had never known his mother-in-law to refused. Since she had moved to Barnes, they’d got through a lot more sherry. At least he’d managed to wean her off the Tio Pepe and on to a cheaper brand. But it was still expensive.

He always had money to worry about in the rare moments of not worrying about being arrested.

Three days had passed, three days of nausea, broken by brief intervals of calm. The calm only came with oblivion, often after a few drinks, when he could forget about the old man, wipe the whole episode from his mind, pretend it hadn’t happened. But these moments did not last; soon his thoughts would be invaded by another image of the murder, or a recollection of having lost the job he’d hoped for.

The two injustices had by now become inextricably entwined in his mind. If he hadn’t been cheated of his job, he wouldn’t have had to kill the old man. The murder was Robert Benham’s fault, George Brewer’s fault for not standing up for his protege; anyone’s fault but Graham Marshall’s.

The killing itself had elaborated in his imagination. Though the reality of the episode had lasted less than half a minute, in his mind it had spread into a slow-motion horror film, with the sickening crunch of the blow to the victim’s skull, an endless dying gurgle, and long sprawling fall down to the dark water of the Thames.

The old man had assumed a face, too. It was the face of Graham’s father.

These were the images that kept the metallic taste of vomit in his mouth. But between the nausea and the snatched moments of calm, there were other thoughts, thoughts he could not yet fully define, but whose shadows were not displeasing.

Lilian Hinchcliffe let out an operatic sigh as her son-in-law recharged her sherry glass. It was more than her usual call for attention. On this particular day she had some substance on which she could build her performance, a dramatic theme round which she could improvise with increasing elaboration. The previous evening’s television news had announced the death in Switzerland of the distinguished film actor, William Essex. He had been found by his companion of many years, a considerably less distinguished actor.

To Graham, who watched bulletins in terror for announcements of bodies discovered or police investigations launched, the news had meant little. To Lilian it had been a licence to stage a major production of sentiment, nostalgia and meretricious grief. The climax of this performance had been reached the night before, but the sobs were reminders, after-echoes, each one requesting enquiry and solicitude.

Graham wilfully withheld both. A side-effect of his recent shock had been to liberate him from the need for pretence. He could now recognise, without guilt, the irrelevance of things that did not interest him.

‘Sherry, darling?’

Merrily had just come into the room from putting the kids to bed.

‘Thank you, darling.’

The ‘darlings’ were as automatic as a sailor’s obscenities. And as meaningless.

Merrily sank into an armchair. ‘Oooh, they’ve been wearing today.’

‘Poor you. I remember just what you and Charmian were like at the same age.’ Perhaps because of her background as an actress, Lilian Hinchcliffe could not avoid bringing every observation back to herself. Her sympathy for Merrily demanded, however retrospectively, sympathy for herself.

‘Where is Charmian, anyway? I thought she was meant to be coming this evening.’ She made her elder daughter’s absence sound like a personal affront, a particularly vicious affront in the circumstances, following the death of Lilian’s alleged lover.

‘She’ll be along soon,’ said Merrily. ‘I told Emma, if she’s here by nine, Charmian’d read her a story.’

‘Emma used always to want me to read her stories.’

‘Yes, Mummy, but she doesn’t see as much of Charmian these days as she does of you.’

Lilian Hinchcliffe swept her hair back with a petulant gesture. ‘Familiarity, no doubt, breeding contempt.’

Having given his women their sherry, Graham poured himself another large Scotch and took a long swallow. There was no doubt that drink helped. He felt steadier, the taste in his mouth less bitter.

The calm he felt now was subtly different. For the first time it came not from blotting out the murder, but from the tiny hope that it might never be discovered.

The doorbell rang, strangling the new idea at birth.

‘I’ll go.’ As he rose, the nausea and the terrible interior trembling returned. There would be a policeman at the door; the moment had finally come.

It was Charmian. He kissed his sister-in-law perfunctorily and she ran upstairs to see the children. Henry and Emma got on very well with her, better than they did with their parents or grandmother. She had the glamour of a career, of having no children, and of treating them like adults.

She seemed to love them too, something Graham found inconceivable. No doubt it was easier when they weren’t your own.

His calm was broken again and another large Scotch didn’t mend it. There is no way you can get away with murder. It was only a matter of time before they caught up with him.

Charmian came down. He equipped her with a gin and tonic and refilled the glasses of the other two, emptying the sherry bottle. God, have to buy more.

‘Jesus, they were playing a horrible game when I went up there,’ said Charmian.

‘What?’ Merrily drawled, putting into the monosyllable a reminder that she had been putting up with her children’s ‘horrible games’ ever since they came back from school, and indeed for years before that, while her sister only swanned in every now and then, so it was hardly surprising that she had novelty value for them. Merrily got more like her mother daily.

‘Henry said he was the Yorkshire Ripper and Emma was one of his victims.’

‘How revolting,’ Lilian emoted emptily.

Merrily shrugged. ‘It’s not surprising. There was so much in the papers, on the radio, television.’

‘There’ll be more when the trial starts,’ Lilian contributed gloomily.

‘Do you think he is the right bloke — the one they’ve got?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Charmian, with the authority of her Fleet Street connections.

Merrily shuddered. ‘Quite horrible, the whole business.’

Lilian wasn’t going to be emotionally outdone by her daughter. ‘Quite, quite horrible. What makes someone do something like that, to kill just for. . ugh, it’s beyond belief.’

You’d be surprised, thought Graham. People will kill for strange reasons. Because they’ve lost a job, maybe.

For the first time, his secret seemed valuable. He didn’t want to be identified with the Yorkshire Ripper; their crimes had nothing in common. And yet there was something, an exclusivity almost, in being a murderer.

‘Did you see that film on the box last night,’ Charmian began, ‘about a mass murderer? God, it was terrible. Some awful ’Fifties B-feature. Bad script. Terrible acting.’ She paused before the afterthought and sting of her statement. ‘It was the one they showed as a “tribute” to William Essex.’ The remark was aimed straight at Lilian, another salvo in the strange warfare that was their relationship. With absolute predictability, she rose to her daughter’s slight.

‘William Essex was one of the finest actors of his generation.’

‘Richest, maybe. Most exposed, perhaps. But, if you’re talking about talent, he wasn’t even on the map.’

‘Now listen, Charmian!’ Lilian screeched. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about! When William and I were lovers. .’

And so on. The same tired old stories. The same justifications. The same recriminations and tears. The same eternal sparring between mother and daughter.

Graham felt weary. He narrowed his eyes and sighted his mother-in-law along his toecap. From an early age, long before the Bond films had popularised such gadgetry, he’d had a fantasy of a machine-gun along the sole of his shoe. You point it at someone, press down with your toe, and. . bang, bang, bang. The person vanishes, obliterated, gone for ever.

A childish fantasy.

Except, of course, now he had taken one step nearer to realising that sort of fantasy.

Graham Marshall smiled.