A Taste for Death (66 page)

Standing back against the wall, the gun still pressed to her grandmother's head, Swayne kept his eyes fixed on her while she took the package of minced steak and the one of

liver out of the refrigerator for the frying pan. He said: 'Ever been to California?' 'No.'

'It's the only place to live. Sun. Ocean. Brightness. People who aren't grey and frightened and half-dead. You

wouldn't like it. Not your kind of place.'

She asked:

'Why don't you go back?'

'I can't afford to.'

'The air fare or the expense of living there?'

'Neither. My stepfather pays me to stay away. I'll lose

my allowance if I go back.'

'Couldn't you get a job?'

'Ah, but then I might lose something else. There is a little matter of step-papa's Seurat.'

'That's a painting, isn't it? What did you do to it?'

'Clever. How did you know that? The history of art isn't in the police curriculum, is it?'

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'What did you do to it?'

'Stuck a knife through it several times. I wanted to spoil something he cared about. Actually he didn't much care about it. But he cared about what it cost. Well, it wouldn't

have been much good sticking a knife in Mama, would it?' 'What about your mother?'

'Oh, she keeps in with my stepfather. She more or less has to. He's the one with the money. Anyway, she's never much cared for children, not her own, anyway. Barbara's too beautiful for her. She doesn't really like her. That's

because she's afraid my step-papa does, too much.' 'And you?'

'They don't want to know about me, either of them. They never have. Not this stepfather, nor the one before. But they will. They will.'

She tipped the mince from the paper into the frying pan and began moving it around with a spatula. Keeping her voice calm as if this were an ordinary dinner and he an

ordinary guest, she said above the hiss of singeing meat: 'This really ought to have onions in it.'

'Forget about the onions. What about your mother?' 'My mother's dead and I never knew my father. I'm a bastard.' She thought, I might as well tell him. It could evoke some emotion, curiosity, pity, contempt. No, not pity. But even contempt would be something. Contempt was a human response. If they were t6 survive she had to get some relationship established that was other than fear, hatred, conflict. But when he spoke his voice held nothing but an amused tolerance.

'One of those, are you? They've all got chips on their shoulders, bastards. I should know. I'll tell you something about my father. When I was eleven he made me have a blood test. A doctor came and stuck a needle in my arm. I could see my own blood flowing out into the syringe. I was terrified. He did it to try and prove that I wasn't his son.'

She said, and meant it:

'That was a terrible thing to do to a child.'

'He was a terrible man. But I got my own back. Is that

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why you're a policewoman, getting your own back on the rest of as?'

'No, just earning a living.'

'There are other ways. You could have been a decent

whore. There aren't enough of those around.'

'Are those the women you fancy, whores?'

'No, what I fancy isn't so easily come by. Innocence.' 'Like Theresa Nolan?'

'So you know about that? I didn't kill her. She killed herself.'

'Because you made her abort your child?'

'Well, she could hardly expect to have it, could she? And how are you so sure that it was mine? You never can be sure, any of you. If Berowne didn't sleep with her he wanted to. By God he wanted to. Why else should he have thrown me into that river? I could have done a lot for him, helped him if he'd let me. He couldn't.be bothered even to talk to me. Who did he think he was? He was going to leave my sister, my sister, for his dreary whore or for his God. Who the hell cares which? He was going to sell his house, make us poor and despised. He humiliated me in front of Diana..Well, he chose the wrong man.'

His voice was still low but it seemed to her that it rang out filling the room, charged with anger and triumph.

She thought:

I might as well ask him about it. He'll want to talk. They always do. She spoke almost casually, squeezing the tomato paste into the pan, reaching up for the jar of mixed herbs.

'You knew that he'd be in that vestry. He wouldn't have left home without saying where he could be found, not when there was a risk that a dying man would send for him. You told Miss Matlock to lie to us, but she knew where he was and she told you.'

'He gave her a telephone number. I guessed it was the number of the church but I rang directory enquiries. The number they gave me for St Matthew's was the one he'd given Evelyn.'

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'How did you get from Campden Hill Square to the

Cab? Car?'

'By bicycle, his bicycle. I took the key to the garage

pboard. Halliwell had left by then, what told the police. His lights were out and the Rover gone. I didn't take Barbie's Golf. Too conspicuous. A

was just as quick and I could wait in the shadows the road was clear and pedal quickly away. And I

leave it outside the church where it might have been seen. I asked Paul if I could bring it in, leave it in the passage. It was a fine night so I didn't have to worry

muddy tyre marks on the floor. I thought of everything, you see.'

'Not everything. You took away the matches.'

'But I put them back. The matches prove nothing.' She said:

'And he let you in, you and the bicycle. That's what 1 find odd. That he actually let you in.'

'It's odder than you think. Much odder. I didn't realize at the time, but I do now. He knew I was coming. He was expecting me.'

She felt a frisson of almost superstitious horror. She wanted

to cry out: But he couldn't have known! It isn't possible! She said:

'And Harry Mack. Did you really have to kill Harry?' 'Of course. It was his bad luck that he came blundering in. But he was better dead, poor sod. Don't worry about Harry. I did him a favour.'

Turning to face him Kate asked:

'And Diana Travers. Did you kill her too?'

j .He gave a sly smile and seemed to gaze straight through

as if reliving a secret pleasure.

'I didn't need to. The weeds did it for me. I trod water and watched as she dived in. There was a flash of whiteness cleaving the surface. And then it settled and there was nothing, only that liquid darkness. So I waited, counting the seconds. And then quite dose to me, a hand rose out of the water. Just a hand, pale, disembodied. It was un-canny. Like this. See, like this.'

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He shot up his left hand, the fingers tautly splayed. She could see the stretched sinews under the milk white flesh. She didn't speak. Gently he relaxed his fingers and let his arm fall. He said:

'And then that, too, disappeared. And I waited, still counting the seconds. But there was nothing, not even a ripple.'

'And you swam on, leaving her to drown?'

His eyes focused on her as if with an effort and she heard again in his voice the charge of hatred and triumph.

'She laughed at me. No one does that. No one will, ever again.'

'What did you feel like afterwards, knowing what you'd done in that vestry, the butchery, the blood?'

'You need a woman and I had one handy. Not the one I would have chosen but you have to take what you can

get. It was clever too. I knew she'd never break after that.' 'Miss Matlock. You used her in more ways than one.' 'No more that the Berownes did. They think she's devoted to them. Do you know why? Because they never bother to ask themselves what she really thinks. So effi-cient, so devoted. Almost one of the family, except, of course, that she isn't is she? She never was. She hates them. She doesn't know it, not really, not yet, but she hates them and one day she'll wake up to it. Like me. That dreadful old bitch, Lady Ursula. I've seen her trying not to cringe

when Evelyn touches her.'

'Evelyn?'

'Mattie. She does have a name of her own, you know. They found a pet name for her as they might for a cat or a dog.'

'If they've been overworking her for years why didn't she leave?'

'Too scared. She went off her head. Once you've had one spell in the funny farm and your dad's a murderer people get wary. They're not sure you're safe looking after their precious kids or let loose in the kitchen. Oh, the Berownes had her where they wanted her all right. Why should they think she got a kick out of it, fussing over that

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selfish old woman, washing under her droopy old tits?

Christ, I hope I never get old.'

She said:

'You will. Where you're going, they take good care bf you. Healthy diet, daily exercise, locked up safely at night.

You'll grow old all right.'

He laughed.

'But they won't kill me, will they? They can't. And I'll be out again. Cured. You'll be surprised how quickly they'll cure me.'

'Not if you kill a police officer.'

'Let's hope I don't have to then. When is that stuffgoing

to be ready? I want to get on.'

She said:

'Soon. It won't be long now.'

Already the kitchen was beginning to fill with the savoury smell of the sauce. She reached up for her pasta jar and tipped out a handful of spaghetti, breaking it. The thin cracks sounded unnaturally loud. She thought: If Alan has telephoned the police they could be outside already, boring through the wall, looking, watching, lis-tening. How would they play it, she wondered. Telephone and begin the long process of negotiation? Crash in? Probably neither. As long as he was ignorant of their pres-ence they would watch and listen, knowing that sooner or later he would leave the flat with his hostages. That would give them their best chance to disable him. If they were

there. If Alan had acted.

Suddenly he said:

'My God, this place is bloody pathetic. You can't see it, can you? You think it's all right. No, you think it's better than all right. You think it's really something. You're proud of it, aren't you? Dull, orthodox, ghastly, conven-tional good taste. Six bloody awful mugs hanging on their little hooks. You don't need any more, do you? Six people

are quite enough. No one else can drop in because there a mug for him. And the same in the cupboard. I've a look. I know. Six of everything. Nothing broken.

chipped. Everything neatly arranged. Six dinner

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plates, side plates, soup bowls. Christ, I've only got to open this cupboard behind me to know what you're like. Don't you ever want to stop counting the crockery and start living?'

'If by living you mean mess and violence, no I don't. I had enough of that when I was a kid.'

Without moving the gun he reached up his left hand and slipped the catch on the cupboard. Then he took out the dinner plates one by one and placed them on the table. He said:

'They don't look real, do they? They don't look as if they'd break.' He took one of the plates and smashed it down against the side of the table. It cracked neatly into two. Then he took the next. She went quietly on with her cooking and heard as plate after plate was carefully smashed, the two pieces neatly arranged on the table. The pyramid grew. Each crack was like the small report of a gun. She thought: if the police are actually here, if they've got their listening devices on, they'll pick that up, try to identify it. Th thought must have occurred to him. He said:

'Lucky for you the fuzz aren't outside. They'd wonder what I'm doing. It would be a shame for the old bitch if they broke in. Plates don't make a mess, but blood and

brains, you can't stack those up neatly on the table.' She said:

'How did you do it? How did you manage to surprise him? I mean you must have burst in on him half-naked, razor in hand.' She had asked the question to propitiate him, flatter him. What she hadn't expected was his reply. It almost burst out of him as if they were lovers and he had been longing to confide. He said:

'But you don't understand! He wanted to die, God rot him, he wanted it! He practically asked for it. He could have tried to stop me, pleaded, argued, put up a fight. He could have begged for mercy. "No, please don't do it. Please!" That's all I wanted from him. Please. Just that one word. The priest could say it, but not Paul Berowne. He looked at me with such contempt. And then he turned

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his back. I tell you he turned his back on me! When I came in half-naked, his razor in my hand, we stood and looked at each other. He knew then. Of course he knew. And I wouldn't have done it, not if he'd spoken to me as if I were even half-human. I spared the boy. I can be ner-ciful. And that boy is sick. If you get out of here alive, do something about it for Christ's sake. Or don't you bloody care?'

The blue eyes were suddenly luminous. She thought: He's crying. He's actually crying. And he was crying soundlessly, without a twitch of the face. And now her blood ran cold because she knew that anything was p0s ible. She felt no pity, only a detached curiosity. She hardly dared breathe, terrified that his hand would shake, that the gun pressed again against her grandmother's head would go off. She could see the old lady's eyes wide and glazed as if she were already dead, her figure rigid with terror, not daring even to wince at the hurt of the metal hard against the defenceless skull. He took control of himself. With a sound between a sob and a laugh he said:

'Christ, ! must have looked daft. Naked, or practically. Just my pants. And the razor. He must have seen the razor. I mean I wasn't hiding it or anything. So why didn't he stop me? He didn't even look surprised. He was supposed to be terrified. He was supposed to prevent it happening. But he knew what I'd come for. He just looked at me as if he were saying "So it's you. How strange that it has to be you." As if I had no choice. Just an instrument. Mindless. But I did have a choice. And so did he. Christ, he could

have stopped me. Why didn't he stop me?'

She said:

'I don't know. I don't know, why he didn't stop you.' And then she asked: 'You said you spared the boy. Nhat boy? Have you spoken to Darren?'