Dirty Tricks

frantically, trying to stop my eyes down to a point where I could see what was going on.

The first thing I took in were the feet. They looked absurd, comic-book clodhoppers, all bumps and lumps and knobbly toes. Above them rose hairy legs, the left one bulging with varicose veins. The rest of the body was clad in a pink silk peignoir secured by a belt of the same material in a contrasting shade. A broad, flat, hirsute chest rose from the decolletage, and above it a head I recognized as belonging to Thomas Carter.

‘Let’s just get one thing straight,’ he said. ‘I was with Special Forces out in Nam. There are at least fifteen ways I could kill you with one hand.’

I laughed aloud. He looked utterly ridiculous, standing there in a woman’s pink silk dressing-gown five sizes too small for him, talking tough.

‘Tom? Tom?’ a woman’s voice called from the stairs.

‘I’m OK.’

‘What is it?’

‘I’ll handle it. Go back to bed.’

A series of creaks ascended towards the ceiling.

‘Well, well,’ I said. ‘I’ve suspected for a long time that you and Alison had something going. What I don’t quite see is where I fit into all this. Can’t you keep her satisfied, Carter, even with your big all-American Vietnam vet’s cock?’

There was a blur of movement, and the next thing I knew I was lying crouched on the floor, a piece of broken glass up one nostril and the taste of recycled malt in my mouth.

‘That was what we used to call a SOB,’ I heard a voice remark somewhere in yawing spaces above me. ‘A euphemism that’s also an acronym, we really ate those up. A “soften-up blow”. Very popular in the brig.’

‘I’ve never witnessed such a display of unprovoked, cold-blooded brutality,’ I gasped indignantly, struggling to my knees.

‘Oh but I have! I’ve seen things I couldn’t believe were happening even when I was watching them. And the people who were doing these things were kids I’d grown up with, played ball games with, gone to movies with. A month before they’d have peed their pants at the thought of the cops catching them driving out to the lake with an open six-pack on the back seat. Now they were napalming babies, raping moms, torturing grand-dads, never mind what we used to do to any suspected Vietcong we got our hands on. Ordinary everyday atrocities, committed by ordinary everyday guys who would otherwise have been selling cars or pumping gas or serving hamburgers.’

I stood up, leaning on the Welsh dresser. Alison’s collection of Sabatier cooking knives protruded invitingly from a wooden block just a few feet away.

‘That’s what brought me here,’ Carter went on. ‘When I got back to the States, I found I couldn’t pass a car showroom or a gas station or a burger bar without remembering what I’d seen. I didn’t believe in natural decency any more. I needed a society with a keel, a tradition of culture and civilization strong enough to balance all that. You want to grab one of those knives? Go right ahead. Stick it up your own ass, it’ll save me the trouble.’

I drew my hand back.

‘Of course!’ I cried. ‘I get it! I was the stooge, the decoy! That’s why Alison took me to that restaurant that night, knowing that you and Lynn would be there. And that’s why you invited us both to dinner right afterwards. It was all designed to divert Lynn’s suspicions from you and Alison.’

So potent was Thomas Carter’s aura of moral righteousness that I half-expected him to deny the whole thing and claim that he and Alison were just rehearsing a scene from a bedroom farce for a local amateur dramatic society production. I was really quite shocked when he calmly admitted the whole thing. Yes, he and Alison had been in love for several years, but they had kept it secret so as not to upset the children. Once or twice a month Rebecca and Alex were packed off to sleep over with friends the night the madrigal group met, leaving Thomas and Alison free to ‘make music together’. Just when Lynn had started to become suspicious, I had conveniently appeared on the scene. Alison had taken advantage of my infatuation as a cover behind which she and Thomas could continue their affair in safety.

‘Anyway,’ he concluded, ‘the real question is what we’re going to do about you now, my friend. What the fuck are you doing here anyway?’

‘I was beside myself with frustrated desire. I was going to strip naked, put on that dressing-gown and toss myself off to a cracked seventy-eight of Nellie Melba singing “Come into the Garden, Maude”. Do you ever get urges like that?’

For a moment I thought he was going to hit me again. Then he grinned, showing his bad teeth.

‘Of course I could just call the police and have you charged with breaking and entering.’

‘But you won’t, because then you’d have to explain what you’re doing here at this time of night. Look, why don’t we just pretend this never happened?’

Carter shook his head.

‘You can expose Ally and me any time you want. I can’t risk that.’

‘So what are you going to do, kill me?’

He looked at me for a moment as though considering the idea. It was the first time I had ever been regarded as a potential victim by someone who was capable of making me one. I must say it was very uncomfortable.

Carter’s face suddenly cleared.

‘I know! Alison told me about you asking her to fake an alibi. Well I’ll do the opposite. I’ll contact the cops and tell them that the Saturday your wife disappeared I went round to your house to keep an appointment we’d made, only you weren’t there. I tried several times that afternoon. Your car wasn’t in the garage, so I figured you’d gone out. I even rang later that evening, but there was still no reply.’

I stared at him blankly.

‘If you do that …’

‘Yes?’ he said with menacing emphasis.

I sighed.

‘Then I’m fucked.’

We both burst out laughing.

‘Now get the hell out of here,’ he said, ‘so I can get this goddamn housecoat off.’

I stepped over the broken glass to the back door. As I unbolted the door he added, ‘You know the funny thing? We all liked you. We really did.’

I jumped forward like a parachutist, obliterating myself in the night.

The next day I rang my broker and instructed him to liquidate the bulk of my investments and transfer the funds to an off-shore bank account. I had just hung up when the doorbell rang. A police car was parked outside the house. On the front doorstep stood a bulky, balding man in a heavy overcoat, his back turned to me. It looked like Moss. The doorbell rang again, more insistently. I crouched down behind the sofa. The doorbell rang again and again. Finally he gave up and the car drove away.

I ran upstairs and set about packing. It didn’t take long. I threw a selection of clothes and some toilet accessories into a suitcase, checked I had all the relevant documents, then showered and changed into a sober business suit, Jermyn Street shirt and old college tie. Before leaving, I indulged a long-standing desire to pee on the Parsons’ orange-tawny velveteen sofa. It was extraordinarily satisfying, and I was giggling as I walked out to the BMW.

The last-minute hitch has become such a thriller cliche that I was amazed to reach Heathrow without incident. Traffic on the M25 was even flowing freely, for a wonder. Inside the terminal the information board was fluttering like a flock of nervous pigeons. When it settled I selected a Varig flight to Rio de Janeiro which was leaving in two hours. There was plenty of room in first class, and it was an added luxury to pay with a credit card for which I would never receive a statement.

I put up at a luxury hotel in Copacabana while I made the necessary arrangements to draw on my off-shore bank account, then made my way here. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the recent currency devaluations had made me even wealthier than I had expected. Less than a month after my departure from Ramillies Drive, I moved into a pleasant furnished apartment in the fashionable Buena Vista district.