He was afraid to phone, was he? Scared to behave like a man? What was he, a lump of cringing slimy scum that slunk round corners and went limp whenever there was a problem to be faced? Wasn’t he a man?
Ahead of him on the deserted pavement a telephone box stood soldierly. It seemed to march towards him as he walked. There could be no excuses now, nothing to tempt him to falter, nothing to intervene between him and the box. If he passed it he was a coward, less than a woman. Only yards beyond it lurked the house that concealed Roy Craig. If he passed that house without having phoned he would be guilty too, soiled, an accomplice. He strode forward unevenly and dragged open the door of the box.
There was no directory on the shelf. He couldn’t use that as an excuse: he’d often heard the number on the radio, he had memorised it in case he ever needed it. Perhaps the phone wouldn’t work. Furious with himself, he groped for a coin and dialled.
The silence gave him time to feel how near Craig’s house was. It didn’t matter. Craig couldn’t spy on him: that window of the box was covered with a poster for domestic telephones, saying ISN’T IT WARMER AT HOME? The phone was ringing now: a pair of pulses, another. The sound was so close within his ear that it might have been his blood, throbbing unnaturally. If they didn’t answer after six rings -
He heard no click, but where the next pulse should have been, a girl’s voice said “Merseyside Police, can I help you?”
The pay tone cut her off, a rapid peeping like the cry of a frantic bird. He thrust at the coin, which refused to slip in. It was bent, or the coin-box was faulty! He struggled with it while the tone babbled urgently and sweat covered him like a shower of hot ash. All at once the coin broke through into the slot. A silence followed which he dared not disturb.
“ Merseyside Police, can I help you?”
She was still there. If he had lost her, he wouldn’t have been able to call again. But she had given him no time to think of what to say. Jesus Mary and Joseph, whom should he ask for? When he spoke, it was only to fight off the suffocating frustration. “I want to speak to someone about the murder of Roylance.”
He sounded absurd to himself: he might have been calling a shop to complain about damaged goods. But after a short pause she said “Just hold on, I’ll put you through to someone.”
Waiting, he started nervously. Had the receiver turned live and dangerous? Eventually he realised that the irregular thumping which shook the plastic in his hand was the jerking of a nerve in his palm. The plastic was slippery with sweat. What was taking them so long? Were they tracing his call?
If they didn’t answer by the time he’d counted ten, they’d had their chance. No, his mind couldn’t sneak that excuse past him. The phone sucked at his ear and kept touching his lips like a plastic kiss, whenever he forgot to hold it and other people’s germs away. Was somebody whispering amid the loud hiss? Were they sending a car to trap him?
It didn’t matter. He must see this through. He knew he was right. He must act like a man. Instantly he saw how he could make sure he wasn’t recognised. He shared a grin with himself in the disfigured mirror.
The man’s voice leapt out as if to scare him. “Yes, sir, can I help you?”
All these people pretending to be so helpful! This time they needed help from him. “You want to know who murdered Roylance,” Horridge said, making his voice as high and effeminate as he could.
“ Yes, sir. We have that under investigation.”
Horridge heard an almost imperceptible change in his tone. He was fooled, he thought Horridge was a pansy! “Well, I can tell you,” Horridge said.
“ Can I have your name and address, please?”
“ No, you most certainly can not.” He grinned back at himself between the tangled graffiti, delighted with his control of the situation. He was unaware now of his sweat, the stuffy box, the slippery burden in his hand.
“ Take this down,” he said, pulling out his birth certificate. “I won’t repeat it. I’m going to tell you the name of the killer.”
When he heard paper rusfling, he read out Craig’s name and address.
“ Have you got that?” he said tartly, and stood grinning at his grubby entangled reflection. What in heaven’s name was he waiting for – to be trapped by the police?
The phone was halfway to the receiver when the policeman’s voice arrested him. “May I ask where you got this information, sir?”
Horridge couldn’t resist fooling him once more. Effeminately wistful, he said “Roylance was my friend.”
Stuffing his birth certificate into his pocket, he elbowed his way out of the box. He felt inflated by laughter. He must suppress it, in case it drew attention to him. Next time he mustn’t hesitate so long, not when having acted felt like this. No longer was he conscious of his limp. He felt weightless with self-confidence.
He absorbed the view of the leafless trees against the pale bare sky. Nothing else had looked so clean to him since the quarry. Deliberately he walked towards Craig’s house. He had nothing to fear now. It was Craig’s turn to be afraid, just as his bound and helpless victims must have been. A breeze chilled Horridge’s grin.
The sight of the bench that faced away from the park halted him. Did he dare? But there was nothing to be dared – only to be enjoyed. Craig couldn’t touch him now. He crossed the road and sat on the bench. When the police arrived, he could pretend to be asleep. Eager as a child at his first pantomime, he waited for the show to begin.
He waited. The dark house squatted before him, sullen as a bully; it seemed to challenge him. He smiled tightly: he wasn’t to be tricked into anything rash, he had the upper hand now. Whenever he gazed at the house for a while, it appeared to stir nervously.
Bedraggled leaves crawled along the pavement. The shadow of the house crept towards him like a stain. A glass dagger gleamed before him on the roadway, amid fragments of a bottle. How long had he been waiting? Since he’d sat down the shadow had crossed the road.
Perhaps the policeman hadn’t believed him. Or perhaps he had, yet intended to do nothing. Horridge didn’t even know his name; he had been just an anonymous official voice. What secret might the owner of that voice have had? Horridge’s thoughts dragged his head down to stare at his shabby toecaps. He should have known better than to trust the police, after what they’d done to him.
He had still been at school; his father hadn’t long been allowing him to help on the ladder at weekends and on summer evenings. The knocking at the front door had shaken the house. He’d heard his mother’s sick enfeebled voice crying out upstairs, from where she was trapped in her bed: “What’s wrong? What is it? What’s the matter?”
Two policemen had wanted to know everything he knew about the cat burglaries. His father had tried to argue with them while his mother had cried out in the emptiness, unanswered. At last his father had given up, exhausted. “Go with them, John. Let them take your fingerprints. They’ll soon see their mistake.” But as he hurried upstairs to calm his wife, hadn’t he glanced uncertainly at his son?
They’d questioned Horridge at the police station for two hours. They had seemed unable to believe that he hadn’t heard about the burglaries, all of which had been of first-floor bedrooms. Because he minded his own business, they’d suspected him of lying. Eventually they had taken his fingerprints; then grudgingly they’d let him go. One of them had pointed at their copy of his prints. “Just remember – behave yourself.” He had never found out who had given his name to the police; he had suspected everyone.
He jerked free of the trance of his memory. A car was slowing outside Craig’s house. It halted there. It wasn’t marked like a police car – but when the two men strode towards the house, purposeful but unhurried, Horridge knew at once what they were. He had been right to phone. Some people could be trusted, after all.
He narrowed his eyes unobtrusively, so as to appear to be sleeping, and watched them ring the bell. Suppose Craig were not at home? Suppose one of the other tenants saw the police and warned Craig to stay away? Then Horridge would have helped him to escape justice! He squeezed his eyes viciously shut, to punish himself.
He heard the clatter of a window, and opened them in time to see Craig leaning out like a gargoyle. The swollen face seemed to venture into the daylight reluctantly as a maggot’s. “Who is it?” Craig called. His voice was deep enough to pass for a man’s, but Horridge heard something wrong with his intonation.
The policemen had to step out from beneath the porch before he could see them. “Mr Roy Craig?” one said, and displayed something in a small folder.
Craig hesitated, peering. “Just a moment,” he said, and closed the window.
As the policemen waited, Horridge saw them exchange a meaningful nod. He hugged himself, not to keep
