In the Flesh (26 page)

  'I can't help you,' Cleve said, not even certain of what the man was requesting.

  The killer nodded. 'Of course not,' he said, 'I didn't expect. . .'

  He turned from Cleve and moved to the oven. Heat flared up from it and made a mirage of the hob. Casually, he put one of his blistered palms on the door and closed it; almost as soon as he had done so it creaked open again. 'Do you know just how appetising it is; the smell of cooking flesh?' he said, as he returned to the oven door and attempted to close it a second time. 'Can anybody blame me? Really?'

  Cleve left him to his ramblings; if there was sense there it was probably not worth his labouring over. The talk of exchanges and of escape from the city: it defied Cleve's comprehension.

  He wandered on, tired now of peering into the houses. He'd seen all he wanted to see. Surely morning was close, and the bell would ring on the landing. Perhaps he should even wake himself, he thought, and be done with this tour for the night.

  As the thought occurred, he saw the girl. She was no more than six or seven years old, and she was standing at the next intersection. This was no killer, surely. He started towards her. She, either out of shyness or some less benign motive, turned to her right and ran off. Cleve followed. By the time he had reached the intersection she was already a long way down the next street; again he gave chase. As dreams would have such pursuits, the laws of physics did not pertain equally to pursuer and pursued. The girl seemed to move easily, while Cleve struggled against air as thick as treacle. He did not give up, however, but pressed on wherever the girl led. He was soon a good distance from any location he recognized in a warren of yards and alleyways - all, he supposed, scenes of blood-letting. Unlike the main thoroughfares, this ghetto contained few entire spaces, only snatches of geography: a grass verge, more red than green; a piece of scaffolding, with a noose depending from it; a pile of earth. And now, simply, a wall.

  The girl had led him into a cul-de-sac; she herself had disappeared however, leaving him facing a plain

brick wall, much weathered, with a narrow window in it. He approached: this was clearly what he'd been led here to see. He peered through the reinforced glass, dirtied on his side by an accumulation of

bird-droppings, and found himself staring into one of the cells at Pentonville. His stomach flipped over. What kind of game was this; led out of a cell and into this dream-city, only to be led back into prison? But a few seconds of study told him that it was not his cell. It was Lowell and Nayler's. Theirs were the pictures sellotaped to the grey brick, theirs the blood spread over floor and wall and bunk and door. This was another murder-scene.

  'My God Almighty,' he murmured. 'Billy . . .'

  He turned away from the wall. In the sand at his feet lizards were mating; the wind that found its way into this backwater brought butterflies. As he watched them dance, the bell rang in B Wing, and it was morning.

  It was a trap. Its mechanism was by no means clear to Cleve - but he had no doubt of its purpose. Billy would go to the city; soon. The cell in which he had committed murder already awaited him, and of all the wretched places Cleve had seen in that assemblage of charnel-houses surely the tiny,

blood-drenched cell was the worst.

  The boy could not know what was planned for him; his grandfather had lied about the city by exclusion, failing to tell Billy what special qualifications were required to exist there. And why? Cleve returned to the oblique conversation he'd had with the man in the kitchen. That talk of exchanges, of deal-making, of going back. Edgar Tait had regretted his sins, hadn't he?; he'd decided, as the years

passed, that he was not the Devil's excrement, that to be returned into the world would not be so bad an idea. Billy was somehow an instrument in that return.

  'My grandfather doesn't like you,' the boy said, when they were locked up again after lunch. For the second consecutive day all recreation and workshop activities had been cancelled, while a cell-by-cell enquiry was undertaken regarding Lowell, and - as of the early hours of that day - Nayler's deaths.

  'Does he not?' Cleve said. 'And why?'

'Says you're too inquisitive. In the city.'

  Cleve was sitting on the top bunk; Billy on the chair against the opposite wall. The boy's eyes were bloodshot; a small, but constant, tremor had taken over his body.

  'You're going to die,' Cleve said. What other way to state that fact was there, but baldly? 'I saw ... in the city . . .'

  Billy shook his head. 'Sometimes you talk like a crazyman. My grandfather says I shouldn't trust you.'

  'He's afraid of me, that's why.'

  Billy laughed derisively. It was an ugly sound, learned, Cleve guessed, from Grandfather Tait. 'He's afraid of no-one,' Billy retorted.

' - afraid of what I'll see. Of what I'll tell you.'

  'No,' said the boy, with absolute conviction.

  'He told you to kill Lowell, didn't he?'

  Billy's head jerked up. 'Why'd you say that?'

  'You never wanted to murder him. Maybe scare them both a bit; but not kill them. It was your loving grandfather's idea.'

  'Nobody tells me what to do,' Billy replied; his gaze was icy. 'Nobody.'

  'All right,' Cleve conceded, 'maybe he persuaded you, eh?; told you it was a matter of family pride. Something like that?' The observation clearly touched a nerve; the tremors had increased.

  'So? What if he did?'

  'I've seen where you're going to go, Billy. A place just waiting for you . . .' The boy stared at Cleve, but didn't make to interrupt. 'Only murderers occupy the city, Billy. That's why your grandfather's there. And if he can find a replacement - if he can reach out and make more murder - he can go free.'

  Billy stood up, face like a fury. All trace of derision had gone. 'What do you mean: free?'

'Back to the world. Back here.'

  'You're lying -'

  'Ask him.'

  'He wouldn't cheat me. His blood's my blood.'

  'You think he cares? After fifty years in that place, waiting for a chance to be out and away. You think he gives a damn how he does it?'

  'I'll tell him how you lie. . .' Billy said. The anger was not entirely directed at Cleve; there was an undercurrent of doubt there, which Billy was trying to suppress. 'You're dead,' he said, 'when he finds out how you're trying to poison me against him. You'll see him, then. Oh yes. You'll see him. And you'll wish to Christ you hadn't.'

  There seemed to be no way out. Even if Cleve could convince the authorities to move him before night fell - (a slim chance indeed; he would have to reverse all that he had claimed about the boy - tell them Billy was dangerously insane, or something similar. Certainly not the truth.) - even if he were to have himself transferred to another cell, there was no promise of safety in such a manoeuvre. The boy had said he was smoke and shadow. Neither door nor bars could keep such insinuations at bay; the fate of Lowell and Nayler was proof positive of that. Nor was Billy alone. There was Edgar St Clair Tait to be accounted for; and what powers might he possess? Yet to stay in the same cell with the boy tonight would amount to self-slaughter, wouldn't it? He would be delivering himself into the hands of the beasts.

  When they left their cells for the evening meal, Cleve looked around for Devlin, located him, and asked for the opportunity of a short interview, which was granted. After the meal, Cleve reported to the officer.

  'You asked me to keep an eye on Billy Tait, sir.'

  'What about him?'

  Cleve had thought hard about what he might tell Devlin that would bring an immediate transfer: nothing had come to mind. He stumbled, hoping for inspiration, but was empty-mouthed.

  'I... I... want to put in a request for a cell transfer.'

  'Why?'

  The boy's unbalanced,' Cleve replied. 'I'm afraid he's going to do me harm. Have another of his fits -'

  'You could lay him flat with one hand tied behind your back; he's worn to the bone.' At this point, had he been talking to Mayflower, Cleve might have been able to make a direct appeal to the man. With Devlin such tactics would be doomed from the beginning.

  'I don't know why you're complaining. He's been as good as gold,' said Devlin, savouring the parody of fond father. 'Quiet; always polite. He's no danger to you or anyone.'

  'You don't know him -'

  'What are you trying to pull here?'

  Put me in a Rule 43 cell, sir. Anywhere, I don't mind. Just get me out of his way. Please.'

  Devlin didn't reply, but stared at Cleve, mystified. At last, he said, 'You are scared of him.'

  'Yes.'

  'What's wrong with you? You've shared cells with hard men and never turned a hair.'

  'He's different,' Cleve replied; there was little else he could say, except: 'He's insane. I tell you he's insane.'

  'All the world's crazy, save thee and me, Smith. Hadn't you heard?' Devlin laughed. 'Go back to your cell and stop belly-aching. You don't want a ghost train ride, now do you?'

  When Cleve returned to the cell, Billy was writing a letter. Sitting on his bunk, poring over the paper, he looked utterly vulnerable. What Devlin had said was true: the boy was worn to the bone. It was difficult to believe, looking at the ladder of his vertebrae, visible through his T-shirt, that this frail form could survive the throes of transformation. But then, maybe it would not. Maybe the rigours of change would tear him apart with time. But not soon enough.

  'Billy . . .'

  The boy didn't take his eyes from his letter.

  '. . . what I said, about the city . . .'

  He stopped writing -

  '. . . maybe I was imagining it all. Just dreaming . . .'

  - and started again.

  '. . . I only told you because I was afraid for you. That was all. I want us to be friends . . .'

  Billy looked up.

  'It's not in my hands,' he said, very simply. 'Not now. It's up to Grandfather. He may be merciful; he may not.'

  'Why do you have to tell him?'

  'He knows what's in me. He and I... we're like one. That's how I know he wouldn't cheat me.'

  Soon it would be night; the lights would go out along the wing, the shadows would come.

  'So I just have to wait, do I?' Cleve said.

  Billy nodded. 'I'll call him, and then we'll see.'

  Call him?, Cleve thought. Did the old man need summoning from his resting place every night? Was that what he had seen Billy doing, standing in the middle of the cell, eyes closed and face up to the window? If so, perhaps the boy could be prevented from putting in his call to the dead.

  As the evening deepened Cleve lay on his bunk and thought his options through. Was it better to wait here, and see what judgement came from Tait, or attempt to take control of the situation and block the old man's arrival? If he did so, there would be no going back; no room for pleas or apologies: his aggression would undoubtedly breed aggression. If he failed to prevent the boy from calling Tait, it would be the end.

  The lights went out. In cells up and down the five landings of B Wing men would be turning their faces to their pillows. Some, perhaps, would lie awake planning their careers when this minor hiccup in their professional lives was over; others would be in the arms of invisible mistresses. Cleve listened to the sounds of the cell: the rattling progress of water in the pipes, the shallow breathing from the bunk below. Sometimes it seemed that he had lived a second lifetime on this stale pillow, marooned in darkness.

  The breathing from below soon became practically inaudible; nor was there sound of movement. Perhaps Billy was waiting for Cleve to fall asleep before he made any move. If so, the boy would wait in vain. He would not close his eyes and leave them to slaughter him in his sleep. He wasn't a pig, to be taken uncomplaining to the knife.

Moving as cautiously as possible, so as to arouse no suspicion, Cleve unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops of his trousers. He might make a more adequate binding by tearing up his sheet and pillowcase, but he could not do so without arousing Billy's attention. Now he waited, belt in hand, and pretended sleep.

  Tonight he was grateful that the noise in the Wing kept stirring him from dozing, because it was fully two hours before Billy moved out of his bunk, two hours in which - despite his fear of what would happen should he sleep - Cleve's eyelids betrayed him on three or four occasions. But others on the landings were tearful tonight; the deaths of Lovell and Nayler had made even the toughest cons jittery.