Blind Needle (11 page)

RHODES: What does he know?

BENSON:
(Soothing)
He doesn't know anything. Just forget about it, Russell. It's all arranged.
(Chuckle)
I have a friend who knows how to deal with that sort of thing.
(Scraping sound. A clink of something – glass or metal.)

RHODES: You call that fat junkie a friend? You trust him?

BENSON: He's handy with a needle.

RHODES: I don't see the joke, Neville.

BENSON: No? Ah well, never mind.
(Laughs and chokes.)

Holford will get the point all right.

RHODES: I'm not going to be involved in this.
(Low)
I refuse to be involved. This is none of my concern—

BENSON: Squeamish all of a sudden. You take the money and we take the risks.

RHODES: Five grand a month isn't worth that sort of risk.

BENSON: It had better be or I might start having second thoughts about you.

RHODES: I didn't mean—

BENSON: I don't care what you meant. You've taken the money. You're in it. You asked about Holford and I told you. If you don't want to know in future, don't ask.

RHODES: And what about the money? Have you got it with you?

BENSON: You'll get it tomorrow. I'll call you.
(Scrape of clothing.)
Time I went. Why not come down to the clubhouse? You could do with some fresh air after this place.

RHODES: I don't play.

BENSON: For Christ's sake, do you never relax?
(Door opening. Humming noise very loud. Footsteps on metal grating. Sound becomes blurred, voices indistinct.)

RHODES: Will you … that cigarette …

BENSON: Yes, yes … all right.
(Scrape of clothing. Humming sound even louder. Footsteps descending metal stairway. Voices barely audible.)

RHODES: Do you … worked here … ford …

BENSON: What? Who?

RHODES: Maintenance worker … Trafford. He found …

BENSON: … haven't … why did … never …
(Footsteps on metal stairway. Voices inaudible. Scrape of clothing. Click. Hiss of silence.)

I pressed the button to stop the tape and pressed it again to eject the tiny cassette. I held the tape between finger and thumb for a moment, and then as I replaced it in the clear plastic case I suddenly knew what was odd about the sound quality, and why. The recording had been made in secret. Benson had concealed the recorder – breast
pocket of his jacket perhaps – so that every time he moved his lapel scraped against the microphone. Though Benson was paying money to Russell, apparently he still didn't trust him. The tape was Benson's insurance, just in case Russell started to backslide.

And now I had Russell's money – whoever Russell was. Benson was paying him off – but for what? And how did Benson, who'd never in his life laid eyes on me, know I was here? Had someone told him? I couldn't think who. Dr Morduch at the clinic might have reported my departure to the police, but why should the police inform Benson? The one person, the only person, who knew for sure I was in this part of the country was Diane Locke. Not counting S –, which I didn't.

The thought of S – though, wherever he might be, sparked off another. I reached down to my bundle of things lying under the bed and took out the diary. It was cheap and nasty-looking, and I could hardly bear to touch its shiny black plastic cover. Handling it made me feel cold. It was as if, in stealing it and bringing it with me, I had dragged S – and his evil fantasies after me. Why hadn't I got rid of the hateful thing?

Even more incredibly, I now realised with a shudder, I had left the diary in my bundle, unattended, for anyone to wander in and read. I would had to be more careful.

Leaving the money in its envelope on the bed I put everything back in the attaché case, including S –'s diary, and looked round for somewhere to hide it. The room was bare as a mortuary. I used my weight to test for loose floorboards, then gave it up, knowing it was one of the places I'd have looked within five minutes of entering the room.

I took the attaché case and stepped onto the landing and listened. Slowly I moved towards the back of the house. The light was dim and I had to feel my way. Mr Patundi must have been a favoured customer of the local ironmongers because every door was padlocked. I came to a blank wall, fingers touching cold bare plaster through hanging strips of mildewed wallpaper. I didn't expect to find another door – there couldn't be more than four upstairs rooms in a house this size – but in fact there was one, narrower than the rest, and behind it pitch-darkness. I stumbled, cracked my knee, made a racket, and reaching out felt worn wooden stairs rising steeply upwards. I climbed.

In the attic a small dormer window crusted over with grime and
cobwebs looked out on a dismal prospect of slate rooftops wreathed in mist – and a long way below, the vacant, dusty shop fronts across the street, their ragged patchwork of fly posters torn into tatters by the wind.

The same wind that was moaning in the hollow brick vault of the chimney, like a trapped spirit.

I looked round at the detritus of previous occupants: an armchair leaking horse-hair, a folding-leaf table branded by tea pots and countless mugs of hot tea, a mattress trussed up like a soggy sausage roll, a chest of drawers kneeling forward with a leg missing, the drawers hanging out as if gasping for air. Broken ornaments, shards of crockery, rusty springs and curled yellowing newspapers were strewn across the pitted floorboards. Mr Patundi must have taken one eye-rolling look and flapped off down the narrow stairs.

I raised the armchair onto its back, pulled the hessian loose from the frame underneath, and wedged the case between the springs, which gave a dull protesting twang. Dust sifted down in the weak light as I scuffed some rubbish around it to cover my tracks. Everything slumbered on in mould and decay.

Back in my room I put on my overcoat and pushed the envelope into the deep inside pocket. I took the envelope out again, counted off three £20 notes, pushed it back down. Suddenly I had a ravenous appetite. I had no idea of the time. The drab daylight gave no clue. First, and more important than food, was my appearance. I needed a suit, shirt, raincoat, shoes, and a change of hair colour. How was it done – did you just wet the hair and comb it in? Perhaps I ought to let the barber do it, except that would mean sitting in the chair and letting him have a good long look at me …

I decided to buy the stuff and do it myself; Mr Patundi wouldn't begrudge me a kettle of boiling water.

Buttoned up, wearing my hat pulled well down, I stepped into the street. The envelope made a hard, solid bulge against my ribs, as if I were carrying a concealed weapon. I had an exhilarating sense of power. The money,
Benson's money
, would allow me to pursue him. His wife and daughter too. And to destroy them all. There was a pleasing symmetry about that, as if the fates, for once, were on my side.

Further along the street a light was burning behind the misted-up window. I pushed open the door and stood in the narrow space between a wooden bench and a partition of tongue-and-groove boards with panels of frosted glass upon which a shadow rippled, obscuring the light. An instrument buzzed and stuttered, and a voice called, ‘Won't be long, squire, take a seat,' and reflected in a blemished mirror I saw a pale fat neck bent forward, a shirt bulging at the waistband and strained tight over a shoulder like a flabby side of beef.

I now noticed something: that the colour pictures on the glossy yellow walls, torn from magazines, weren't of hairstyles after all. They were of birds, battleships, flowers, snakes, skulls, naked women, dragons, chains, guitars, concentration camps, sunsets, leaves, Nazi insignia, atomic bombs, circus clowns, panthers. On the shelves were bottles containing a rainbow of brightly coloured liquids.

The instrument rasped, making an angry sound like that of a mechanical hornet battering itself to death against a window pane. The air had a stale, used-up smell, mingled with the acrid taint of burnt rubber. I stood close to the partition and listened as the same voice said, ‘How many drops of blood d'ya want, Gaz? Three, four? Or a bleedin' bucketful?'

‘Give me four,' the other answered. And then, ‘Ouch! Shite and corruption, take it easy!'

‘Drops aren't easy. You've godder ged ‘em right or they look stupid, like onions. You don't want a bunch of onions on yer arm, do yer?' The fat one gasped a whinnying laugh, like someone getting the point of a dirty joke.

The buzzing swooped to a lower pitch; I moved slowly backwards to the door.

‘Nearly done, squire. Two minutes,' the voice called out, and the moon face swam up into the mirror. I ducked my head, bringing my hat brim down to cover my eyes. I fumbled for the latch, keeping my head lowered.

‘Jesus, Wayne, get on with it,' the customer complained. ‘This is bloody torture.'

‘Give it a rest, Gaz – Hang on, squire, nearly done—'

I slammed the door on the whining needle and walked quickly along the street towards the main road, away from the E GA FOO S ORE, heart thumping. I reached the corner and almost collided with an elderly woman in a headscarf and a coat with a moth-eaten fur collar who was dragging herself along the pavement under the burden of two overladen shopping-bags.

I went on past the lighted shop windows with their jumble of cheap goods, past a taxi-hire board with a solitary car at the kerb, and a butcher's with technicolor meat basking in a blue neon glow. Farther on, the main road split in two, sweeping like a forked river either side of a mock-Gothic structure of sandblasted stone the colour of biscuit, with words and Roman numerals carved above the arched entrance.

BRICKTON TOWN HALL + + + MDCCCLXXVI

There was a notice-board with a constellation of rusty drawing pins and some flapping scraps of paper. One was headed ‘Brickton & District Council Meetings – Sub-Committees', and halfway down the list: ‘Recreation & Entertainments – Room E14.'

A squeaky, high-pitched voice inquired, ‘Looking for the Job Centre?'

A small, thin-shouldered man in a peaked cap and a dark uniform jacket shiny with age stood in the entrance, peering out at me with an inquisitive squirrel's face.

‘Does the Job Centre have any jobs?'

‘You might be lucky. Bar staff. Caretaker. Lavatory attendant. They used to need street-cleaners but that's all gone mechanical. There's a haulage firm. They take people on when they're busy.'

‘I've tried there.'

‘Ah well, you see' – he wagged his narrow head – ‘it all depends on the Station. When they're busy you can have fifty loads a day – through the night as well. You damn near fall out of bed with the rumble.'

‘Which station?'

He blinked bright, watery eyes, as if I'd confessed some shameful
ignorance. ‘The processing Station. A lot of folk don't like it being so near, but if there's work, you'll tek it, won't you? When you've got a family and a mortgage. It's all right these conversationists making protests, waving banners and what have you …' He tugged at my sleeve, became confiding:

‘If you had to mek bombs or weapons or tanks to get a wage you'd do it, wouldn't you? You can't afford to protest on social security. I'd like to see some of them buggers try it. They'd soon shut up. Like a shot. They'd soon stop waving their bloody silly banners if they couldn't afford to buy their kids a decent pair of shoes.'

‘Does the Station employ many local people?'

He screwed up his face. ‘Few. Manual. But it's mainly technical – white coat, collar-and-tie jobs. They've all got degrees. Letters after their names.' He spoke of them as of untrustworthy foreigners with dubious reputations. ‘B-H do all right out of it, but they're on contract. You've already tried there, you said?'

I nodded.

He was eager to talk, to interrupt the long shapeless hours pacing the polished entrance hall. After gazing at silver-plated civic trophies in glass cases, pointing the way to the borough surveyor's department, nipping into the gent's for a smoke, it brought a flush to his hollow cheeks.

‘Try the Job Centre, that's your best bet. Oh it's very posh now, like a five-star hotel. They let you use the phone for nothing and give out envelopes and writing paper. There's free coffee and you can sit round with the others and have a chat. They've got carpets and armchairs; it's cosy on wet afternoons. I know two or three who go regular.'

I glanced at the noticeboard. ‘Are these meetings open to the public – the sub-committees?'

‘Some are, some aren't.' His little face screwed up in a frown of real perplexity. ‘You know something? I can never get over how chummy they all are. Outside they slag one another off left, right and centre. In here it's all pals together. Like a private club. Some of them even play golf together! You wouldn't credit it, would you?'

‘Thanks for the information … erm …'

‘Joe,' he said. ‘Chadwick. Everybody calls me Chaddie. Want to
know where anything is in this mausoleum, ask Chaddie they all say. That's me. The Job Centre's halfway down Queen's Street. They'll be open now. Use the phone, have a coffee, bit of a natter.' He gave a wave of his scrawny brown hand and turned it into a tug at the peak of his cap. Then he clasped it behind his back, straightened his spine, resumed his interminable pacing.

I went back along the high street and stopped at a chemist's on the corner and went in and asked for a bottle of hair dye, chestnut brown. The woman climbed onto a stool to reach it down. I took a pair of spectacle frames from a revolving rack and looked at myself in the tiny mirror. The black plastic frames emphasised my pallor. I tried on another pair, less severe, and got a shock when I took them to the counter.

‘Eighteen pounds.' I gave her a note. She held out her hand. ‘Another forty pee – two pound forty for the dye. We do testing as well, you know.'