He didn’t look like a killer. Peter said so.
“Oh, lor’ bless us, no. I’m not actually part of our workforce, sir. I’m in sales.”
Peter nodded. That certainly made sense. “Can we—er—talk freely here?”
“Sure. Nobody’s interested. Now then, how many people would you like disposed of?”
“Only one. His name’s Archibald Gibbons and he works in Clamages accounting department. His address is . . .”
Kemble interrupted. “We can go into all that later, sir, if you don’t mind. Let’s just quickly go over the financial side. First of all, the contract will cost you five hundred pounds . . .”
Peter nodded. He could afford that and in fact had expected to have to pay a little more.
“. . .although there’s always the special offer,” Kemble concluded smoothly.
Peter’s eyes shone. As I mentioned earlier, he loved a bargain and often bought things he had no imaginable use for in sales or on special offers. Apart from this one failing (one that so many of us share), he was a most moderate young man. “Special offer?”
“Two for the price of one, sir.”
Mmm. Peter thought about it. That worked out at only £250 each, which couldn’t be bad no matter how you looked at it. There was only one snag. “I’m afraid I don’t have anyone else I want killed.”
Kemble looked disappointed. “That’s a pity, sir. For two we could probably have even knocked the price down to, well, say four hundred and fifty pounds for the both of them.”
“Really?”
“Well, it gives our operatives something to do, sir. If you must know”—and here he dropped his voice—“there really isn’t enough work in this particular line to keep them occupied. Not like the old days. Isn’t there just one other person you’d like to see dead?” Peter pondered. He hated to pass up a bargain, but couldn’t for the life of him think of anyone else. He liked people. Still, a bargain was a bargain . . .
“Look,” said Peter. “Could I think about it and see you here tomorrow night?”
The salesman looked pleased. “Of course, sir,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll be able to think of someone.”
The answer—the obvious answer—came to Peter as he was drifting off to sleep that night. He sat straight up in bed, fumbled the bedside light on, and wrote a name down on the back of an envelope, in case he forgot it. To tell the truth, he didn’t think that he could forget it, for it was painfully obvious, but you can never tell with these late-night thoughts.
The name that he had written down on the back of the envelope was this: Gwendolyn Thorpe.
He turned the light off, rolled over, and was soon asleep, dreaming peaceful and remarkably unmurderous dreams.
KEMBLE WAS WAITING for him when he arrived in the Dirty Donkey on Sunday night. Peter bought a drink and sat down beside him.
“I’m taking you up on the special offer,” he said by way of greeting.
Kemble nodded vigorously. “A very wise decision, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir.”
Peter Pinter smiled modestly, in the manner of one who read the Financial Times and made wise business decisions. “That will be four hundred and fifty pounds, I believe?”
“Did I say four hundred and fifty pounds, sir? Good gracious me, I do apologize. I beg your pardon, I was thinking of our bulk rate. It would be four hundred and seventy-five pounds for two people.”
Disappointment mingled with cupidity on Peter’s bland and youthful face. That was an extra £25. However, something that Kemble had said caught his attention.
“Bulk rate?”
“Of course, but I doubt that sir would be interested in that.”
“No, no, I am. Tell me about it.”
“Very well, sir. Bulk rate, four hundred and fifty pounds, would be for a large job. Ten people.”
Peter wondered if he had heard correctly. “Ten people? But that’s only forty-five pounds each.”
“Yes, sir. It’s the large order that makes it profitable.”
“I see,” said Peter, and “Hmm,” said Peter, and “Could you be here the same time tomorrow night?”
“Of course, sir.”
Upon arriving home, Peter got out a scrap of paper and a pen. He wrote the numbers one to ten down one side and then filled it in as follows:
1. . . . Archie G.
2. . . . Gwennie.
3. . . .
and so forth.
Having filled in the first two, he sat sucking his pen, hunting for wrongs done to him and people the world would be better off without.
He smoked a cigarette. He strolled around the room.
Aha! There was a physics teacher at a school he had attended who had delighted in making his life a misery. What was the man’s name again? And for that matter, was he still alive? Peter wasn’t sure, but he wrote The Physics Teacher, Abbot Street Secondary School next to the number three. The next came more easily—his department head had refused to raise his salary a couple of months back; that the raise had eventually come was immaterial. Mr. Hunterson was number four.
When he was five, a boy named Simon Ellis had poured paint on his head while another boy named James somebody-or-other had held him down and a girl named Sharon Hartsharpe had laughed. They were numbers five through seven, respectively.
Who else?
There was the man on television with the annoying snicker who read the news. He went on the list. And what about the woman in the flat next door with the little yappy dog that shat in the hall? He put her and the dog down on nine. Ten was the hardest. He scratched his head and went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, then dashed back and wrote My Great-Uncle Mervyn down in the tenth place. The old man was rumored to be quite affluent, and there was a possibility (albeit rather slim) that he could leave Peter some money.
With the satisfaction of an evening’s work well done, he went off to bed.
Monday at Clamages was routine; Peter was a senior sales assistant in the books department, a job that actually entailed very little. He clutched his list tightly in his hand, deep in
