A Demon in My View (24 page)

“Helen, I was half dead with misery and loneliness and you ask me if I’m
pleased?”

“I only wish,” she said, “that I’d seen your letter. I don’t suppose
I ever shall now and I’d waited so long for it. Can you remember what you wrote?”

“No,” he lied. “No, only that it was nonsense. You had the only good bit in the first line.”

She sighed, but it was a sigh of happiness. “Tony, what are we going to do? Where shall we go?”

“Who cares? Somewhere, anywhere. We shall survive. Right now we’ll go to Trinity Road.”

As he spoke the name he remembered. It was nearly three o’clock and he had delayed long enough. He put an arm round her shoulders, helped her to her feet. “Come along, my love, we’re going to Trinity Road, but we’ll take in an errand I have to do on the way.”

   Behind the curtains Arthur had sat all day, breaking his vigil every half-hour or so to examine his face in the bathroom mirror. Now, at three o’clock, he saw Stanley Caspian’s car draw up and park in front of one of the houses on the odd-numbered side. A man was coming to view Flat 1, and in a moment this man and Stanley would come into the house. Arthur watched the car but he could only see Stanley in it, sitting in the driving seat, his bulk and the bikini doll impeding further view. Perhaps he had brought the man with him or perhaps he was simply waiting for the new tenant to arrive for his appointment. Arthur went back to the bathroom. Already, so early, the winter light was beginning to fade. If Stanley did happen to call on him, if he had to show his face, perhaps those dreadful marks would pass unnoticed.…

As he came out of the bathroom his doorbell rang. The sound reverberated through Arthur’s body and he gave a tremendous start. He stood stock still in the hall. It was evident what had happened. Stanley had forgotten his key. Let him go home and fetch it then. The bell rang again, insistently, and Arthur could picture Stanley’s fat finger pressed hard and impatiently on the push. He forced himself to go back into the living room and look out of the window. Stanley’s car was empty. At any rate, it must be he. No police cars anywhere, no parked vehicles but Stanley’s and a couple of vans and a grey convertible. Another long ring
fetched him back into the hall. He must answer it, for it would look odder if he didn’t. But he was supposed to be ill and must give the appearance of having been got out of bed. Quickly, though he was shaking, he slipped off his jacket and took his dressing gown from the hook behind the bedroom door. A handkerchief to his face, he let himself out of the flat and went downstairs.

Outlined behind the red and green glass panels was the shape of a heavy, thick-set man. It must be Stanley. Arthur stood behind the door and pulled it open towards him. The man marched in, looked to the right, then to the left where Arthur stood, took the edge of the door in both hands and slammed it shut as violently as Jonathan Dean had slammed it in the past.

He was youngish, dark, and he was in the grip of an emotion greater even than Arthur’s fear. Arthur didn’t know what this emotion was, but he knew a policeman wouldn’t look like this, stand trembling and wide-eyed and wild like this. Because the hall was shadowy, lit with a misty redness and greenness, he took the handkerchief away from his face and stepped back.

“Is your name Johnson?”

“Yes,” said Arthur.

“A. Johnson?”

Arthur nodded, mystified, for the man peered at him incredulously. “My God, an old man! It’s unbelievable.” But he did believe and when he said hoarsely, “Where is she?” Arthur also knew and believed.

Once it would have been threatening, dreadful. Now it was only a relief. “You want the other Johnson,” Arthur said coldly and stiffly. “Sit down and wait for him if you like. It’s no business of mine.”

“The
other
Johnson? Don’t give me that.” His eyes travelled over Arthur’s dressing gown. He clenched his fists and said again,
“Where is she?”

Arthur turned his back and climbed the stairs. He must get to his flat, shut himself in and pray that Stanley would soon come to turn this intruder out before violence drew the police. And now, realising what could happen, he ran up the second flight to push open his own front door. A cry of dread broke from him.
He had no key, hadn’t dropped the latch, and the door had closed fast behind him.

He stood shaking, his back to the door, his hands creeping to shield his face. Out here what chance had he when Stanley came with the new tenant, when trouble broke out between Anthony Johnson and H’s husband? And now the man had reached the head of the stairs and was facing him. Arthur looked into the barrel of a small gun—a pistol or a revolver, he didn’t know which. Television hadn’t taught him that.

“Open that door!”

“I can’t. I’ve no key. I’ve left my key inside.”

“My wife is in there. Open that door or I’ll shoot the lock off. I’ll give you thirty seconds to open that door.”

His front door shattered, swinging on its hinges, would be worse than his front door locked against him. Arthur, who had moved aside when he saw the gun, brought his gaze first to the smooth circle of metal surrounding the keyhole, then, with greater dread, to the smooth metal cylinder pointed at that keyhole. A voice like a woman’s, a victim’s, screamed out of him.

“I can’t! I tell you I can’t. Go away, get out, leave me alone!” And he threw his body, arms upraised, against the door.

Something struck him a violent blow on his back, on the lower left side. The pain was unimaginable. He thought it was his heart, a heart attack, for he felt the pain long long before he heard the report as of a bursting firework, and heard too his own cry and that of another, aghast and terrified. Arthur fell backwards, his hands clutching his ribs. The pain roared in a red stream out of his mouth.

Heavily he rolled down the stairs, blood wrapping his body like a long scarlet scarf. The momentum flung him against Brian Kotowsky’s door and there he felt the last beat of his heart in blood against his hand.