live.
'Thank you for sending for me.'
Erlich said, ever so gently, 'That's just terrific, Miss Worthington.'
'It's only what I saw. You see it or you don't see it.'
' A n d again… '
' S o that you can write it down, Mr Erlich. He had fair hair, cut close, not shaven like those skinhead types, I don't suppose you have them in America, cut very tidily. He was wearing this woollen cap. If it hadn't slipped, just for that moment before he straightened it, then I would not have seen his hair. Rather golden fair hair.'
' A n d you'd know the face again?'
' O h, yes, Mr Erlich.'
'Positive?'
' H e looked at me, he smiled at me. When you've seen a man kill another man, then that man smiles at you, well, you are going to remember that face.'
' A n d he said…'
' H e said 'Hey, there'. That's when I looked up. The man, the foreigner, you see I thought that he was the worse for drink, and I started to cross the road. I had heard nothing. As long as I live it will be with shame, because I thought he was drunk and I started to cross over so that he wouldn't involve me. Then he fell and I saw the blood. Up to that time the man in the boiler suit had stood away from him, but then he went closer. I don't hear very well these days, I heard nothing. The man lying on the pavement, he just stopped moving, and I shall never know if I could have done something for him or not, but I was just going to get out of the way because I thought he was a drunk.'
It was the old training from Quantico that an interrogator never showed excitement. Didn't matter if he was getting the laundering system of a crack baron, or a confession to serial murder, the Fed was taught at the Academy not to show excitement. To show excitement was to lead. Never lead. He shouldn't have told Miss Worthington that she was terrific. That was a slip. It was the fifth house that he had called at in the street. He had knocked on the door. She was just inside the door and he could see her shape through the glazed glass. He had knocked and rung the bell, but she had been a long time answering. He had sensed she was faint, that the small dog was frantic. His intuition, that she was a prisoner in her own home. The shopping basket with the list in it had been on the carpet by the front door. It had been his intuition and his understanding. Nothing said. He had taken the basket, gone to the corner shop at the far end of the street. He had bought a packet of porridge, one pork chop, oven-ready chips, a carton of frozen broccoli, one apple, one orange, a small loaf of wholemeal sliced, and an 8oz tin of Pedigree Chum. And after he had ticked off each item on the list he had asked for two half LB bars of milk chocolate and a small bunch of chrysanthemums. He had come back to the house. He had allowed her to peck in her purse for the coins to reimburse him, but not for the chocolate and the flowers. He had cooked her meal, fed her dog. He thought that if she had not been standing near the door at the moment he had knocked, if she had been in the recesses of the house, then he would never have been admitted. She was 24-carat gold dust.
'Miss Worthington, my paper says that the police do not have a description of the assassin.'
'I really couldn't say.'
'Haven't they been to speak to you, Miss Worthington?'
'I wouldn't talk to them.'
'Why not, if that's not impolite?'
'I wouldn't open the door to them… You're different, Mr Erlich, and you're American.'
' D o you have American friends?'
'Two of my best friends are Mr Silvers and Miss Ball.'
Well done, Phil Silvers, well done, Lucille Ball, he thought, and he took the photograph from his inside pocket.
Miss Worthington, I am going to show you a photograph of a man. You really have to he very honest with me. If you don't recognise him, yon must say so. If you do recognise him…'
He laid the photograph on the table beside her, where there was her book and her reading light and her c l o s e w o t k spectacles.
She changed her glasses, took off her heavici pair, replaced them delicately from the table. He didn't prompt If she said what she thought he might wish to hear, then he would face weeks of wasted effort. She glanced at the photograph She didn't bother to hold it and peer at it.
'You're very clever, Mr Erlich.'
'Clever, ma'am?'
'Of course that's him.'
He was up from his chair. He kissed her on both checks. When he stepped back he saw the flush of colour in her pale face.
She said gravely, 'It was a terrible thing he did in our street, and he could have hurt those dear little girls.'
' A n d before that he killed a man who was my friend.'
'You'll go after him?'
'That was the promise I made to the widow of my friend.'
' D o you go to chapel, Mr Erlich? No, I don't expect you have time. I will pray for your safety, young man. Any person who can take the life of any of God's children, then smile at an old lady, he would have to be very dangerous. What is his name?'
'His name is Colt.'
' T h e best of luck to you, Mr Erlich. I have so enjoyed your visit. And, I will be praying for your safety.'
'What are we going to do?'
'I don't know.'
'Well, think, Frederick.'
'I don't know.'
''That is just a pretty stupid answer.'
'If you shout, Sara, you will wake the children.'
'Just how bad is it?'
'How bad.,,?' He laughed out loud. His voice was shrill, matching hers. 'How bad do you want it? I.C. I, have turned me down. That bloody man at the bank is turning the screws. Boll is doing annual assessments now and I'm behind on my work project, and getting nagged
'They wouldn't put a bailiff in…?'
'For what?' he scoffed
'Frederick, you have to tell me what we are going to do…'
They could take the cars, his and hers. They could take furniture. They could take thei clothes off their backs. Christ, it was obscene. .. All the lights were off in the house except for the bedside lights in the children's room, and the strip light in the kitchen. The heating was oil, because the boiler was shuttown. They couldn't take the television set, because it was rented.
'I'm going to say goodnight to the boys.'
'Frederick, we have to talk about ii '
'Something'll turn up.'
He stood at the bottom of the stairs. He thought that she was beautiful with the tired frightened anger in her eyes. He did not know how to talk to her. A dozen years of marriage and he knew nothing that mattered about her. If she ever went away from him, abandoned him, he could not have survived. Yet he did not know how to talk to her, and he loved her. Yes, something would have to turn up.
'Is that the best you can offer?'
'That something'll turn up, yes.'
Bissett groped his way upstairs towards the bar of light under the boys' door. He had always provided for his family. He had not expected that his wife should go out to work. That was his upbringing. Old-fashioned, yes. Working-class, yes. He had been the bright star of his college, he had a first class degree in Nuclear Physics, he was a Senior Scientific Officer, he lived in the house that he and the building society had paid?98,000 to buy, yet he would never escape from his upbringing. It was his responsibility alone to provide for his family.
