all right,” he grumbled at last.
The fog was lifting intermittently. The van sped through its gaps. People were coming home from work; she watched houses light up. Pavements glistened like tar beneath streetlamps.
As she’d thought, the house was near the football ground. Dead floodlights towered above the tiers of seats. On the corner of the side street, a window was blocked by ripples of tin like a Venetian blind – but on the upper storey, light shone through curtains. She knew how it felt to live over emptiness.
The advertised house didn’t look bad. An arch of bricks framed the front door; alternate bricks were painted brightly. The door opened onto the pavement, but she hadn’t expected a garden. It looked a snug little house – they could make something of it. Not until she struggled to lift the knocker did she realise how rusty it was.
The echoes of its slow thuds died away. Were more echoes returning, or were those sounds footsteps? The door juddered open, revealing an old man in a suit and dressing-gown. His face was shrunken close to the bone, and looked small and timidly hopeful, like a little boy’s.
“ Are you for the house?” he said eagerly. “It’ll be just the job for you, I can tell.”
He trotted backwards, making way for them. The hall was dim; well, they needn’t keep it so. Were all the vague blurs on the walls shadows? Peter touched one and examined moisture on his hand.
“ Here’s the living-room.” Within, a small fire coughed thickly. Cathy understood now why the old man wore so many clothes; she shivered. She would make the house warmer.
“ It’s been a good little house.” The old man rested one hand on a framed photograph of a family; he was the father. The frame and its glass were free of the dust which sprinkled the room. “But it’s too big for one person alone,” he said.
He turned to Peter; this was man’s talk. “The rates are a bit high for me. They’re very reasonable. They’d be no trouble if I were your age.”
Cathy didn’t quite see why that should make a difference. Behind the scenes she thought she heard rodents moving. “Let’s see the rest,” Peter demanded.
She frowned at his rudeness – or was she less anxious now to view the rest? They followed the old man. The kitchen walls were sweaty; a table hardly wider than a chair stood beside a protruding sink. “You could have a dining-table in here,” said the old man hopefully.
He led the way upstairs. Peter stepped aside to tread on a board under the staircase; it leapt up, exposing an earthy hollow like a grave. Dust hung swaying from a lampshade above the stairs and made the flex thick and furry as a caterpillar.
“ This is the married bedroom.” The old man sounded wistful. Half of the double bed was bare; rust outlined the nuts and bolts of its frame.
He leaned on the headboard, smiling like a salesman, as if they must be persuaded by now.
“ What’s in here?” said Peter on the landing.
“ Oh, that’s another room. It needs a few things doing.” The old man hurried towards him; the floor broke into a chorus of creaks. Peter held open the door for Cathy to see. Beneath a ragged tear that displayed wooden ribs, a heap of plaster lay on paper fallen from the ceiling. The walls streamed.
In the living-room, the old man said “How does it look to you?”
His hopefulness was dismaying, for it seemed to contain no pretence. Peter waited impatiently in the hall. “We’ll have to think about it,” Cathy said trying to be gentle. “But – I’m afraid it isn’t quite what we’re looking for.”
“ Well, never mind.” Was his smile meant to reassure her, or himself? “I understand,” he said. “It’s a bit small if you’re planning to have children.”
Peter was hurrying to the van. “So much for that,” he said triumphantly. “If that’s all we can afford it’s not worth looking.” She didn’t bother keeping up with him. Let him wait. He was only hurrying to roll another joint.
Chapter XXVII
At last Horridge managed to sleep, but never for very long. Beer lay uneasily in his head and his stomach. His skull throbbed in time with the beat of the clock, whose ticking chanted nonsense, trying to tempt him to listen. In the darkness the plumbing muttered. Just let them come near. He clutched the razor.
He should have followed Mr Fearon home. There was no use trying to find him now, in the fog. The old man would be able to look up his address in the voters’ list, if he didn’t know already. Horridge writhed beneath the imprisoning blankets. He should have killed Mr Fearon.
Dawn crept into the room. It looked like fog, though the day was clear. Were they waiting for daylight before they arrested him, so that his neighbours could watch and approve? No doubt they would make the arrest appear legal and necessary. People were eager to believe anything.
There was one place where they mightn’t look for him. He need hide for only a few days, until his money was due. He’d thought of it during the dark hours. The idea had seemed dreamlike, but now it felt solid and right.
He switched on the radio. That would make them think he was staying. “Scattered showers and good sunny periods,” the newsreader said. What was the other voice murmuring – about a man obsessed with the idea that he was being watched, who had attacked a policeman?
Oh no, that wasn’t Horridge. They needn’t waste their time. No doubt they’d faked the incident to confuse people. Or perhaps they’d driven the man mad. The voice withdrew, having failed to delude Horridge. He turned to another station, and another. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that each new voice was the same voice, disguised. Were they aiming special broadcasts at him for some reason? A blare of pop music faded abruptly. “And it’s just ten past nine,” a disc jockey said. “Ten past eight, I mean.”
Horridge scrubbed himself thoroughly. He didn’t know when he would next be able to wash. Razor in hand, he squirmed into his raincoat and slipped the weapon into his pocket. He spent minutes easing open the front door, so that the radio wouldn’t hear. Let it sit there singing to itself – it was a fool, like its masters. His last glance showed him the wardrobe. He was glad to be leaving that behind. During the night he’d dreamed that blood had burst it open.
Before he reached the bus stop the ground began to hiss, rattle, blanch. Above the concrete desert the grey air was viciously striped with hail. The pelting stung his cheeks; his skin felt slashed. So the newsreader had been lying. He was one of their dupes.
Horridge wouldn’t be driven back. He knew where he was going; they wouldn’t stop him. Hail melted underfoot, and tricked his bad leg from beneath him; he almost fell. The storm slackened, only to renew itself vindictively. A mass like frozen porridge collected amid the grass, which twitched. Icy dandruff clung to his shoulders.
He stumbled under the bus shelter. It had no wall to ward off the hail – one of the planners’ sadistic jokes. Against a stagnant sky the colour of dust, tower blocks menaced him. The rushing air cut at his face. Let them do their worst. Did they think he had no stamina? He grasped the razor. If only he could meet Mr Fearon now!
The bus was full of workmen – at least, presumably that was what they called themselves. No doubt they were off to erect one of their signs: MEN WORKING, as though that were news – which of course it was these days. They mumbled to one another. Didn’t they dare own up to what they were saying? Talking about him, were they? Too many of them looked elusively familiar. They’d better not come too close, if they knew what was good for them.
When the bus reached Shiel Road, he stayed on board. That’d surprise a few of them! He rose just before the Boaler Street stop and tugged peremptorily at the bell. He waited until the bus had carried its mob of spies away.
Opposite was the box from which he’d spoken to Craig. It was appropriate that he’d returned to the scene of his first triumph. He was shivering; his raincoat was glued coldly to him. Could he really take refuge in his old home, where there weren’t even windows?
