P James: Devices & Desires

A car was approaching, at once a symbol of safety and normality and an added threat. Everyone knew that the Whistler must have a car. How else could he kill in such widely spaced parts of the county, how else make his getaway when his dreadful work was done? She stood back into the shelter of the bushes, exchanging one fear for another. There was a surge of sound and the cat's-eyes momentarily gleamed before, in a rush of wind, the car passed. And now she was alone again in the darkness and the silence. But was she? The thought of the Whistler took hold of her mind, rumours, half-truths fusing into a terrible reality. He strangled women, three so far. And then he cut off their hair and stuffed it in their mouths, like straw spilling out of a Guy on 5 November. The boys at school laughed about him, whistling in the bicycle sheds as he was said to whistle over the bodies of his victims. 'The Whistler will get you,' they called after her. He could be anywhere. He always stalked by night. He could be here. She had an impulse to throw herself down and press her body into the soft, rich-smelling earth, to cover her ears and lie there rigid until the dawn. But she managed to control her panic. She had to get to the crossroads and catch the bus. She forced herself to step out of the shadows and begin again her almost silent walk.

She wanted to break into a run but managed to resist. The creature, man or beast, crouching in the undergrowth was already sniffing her fear, waiting until her panic broke. Then she would hear the crash of the breaking bushes, his pounding feet, feel his panting breath hot on her neck. She must keep walking, swiftly but silently, holding her bag tightly against her side, hardly breathing, eyes fixed ahead. And as she walked she prayed: 'Please God, let me get safely home and I'll never lie again. I'll always leave in time. Help me to get to the crossroads safely. Make the bus come quickly. Oh God, please help me.'

And then, miraculously, her prayer was answered. Suddenly, about thirty yards ahead of her, there was a woman. She didn't question how, so mysteriously, this slim, slow-walking figure had materialized. It was sufficient that she was there. As she drew nearer with quickening step she could see the swathe of long, blonde hair under a tight-fitting beret, and what looked like a belted trench-coat. And at the girl's side, trotting obediently, most reassuring of all, was a small black and white dog, bandy-legged. They could walk together to the crossroads. Perhaps the girl might herself be catching the same bus. She almost cried aloud, 'I'm coming. I'm coming,' and, breaking into a run, rushed towards safety and protection as a child might to her mother's arms.

And now the woman bent down and released the dog. As if in obedience to some command, he slipped into the bushes. The woman took one swift backward glance and then stood quietly waiting, her back half turned to Valerie, the dog's lead held drooping in her right hand. Valerie almost flung herself at the waiting back. And then, slowly, the woman turned. It was a second of total, paralysing horror. She saw the pale, taut face which had never been a woman's face, the simple, inviting, almost apologetic smile, the blazing and merciless eyes. She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no chance and terror had made her dumb. With one movement the noose of the lead was swung over her head and jerked tight and she was pulled from the road into the shadow of the bushes. She felt herself falling through time, through space, through an eternity of horror. And now the face was hot over hers and she could smell drink and sweat and a terror matching her own. Her arms jerked upwards, impotently flailing. And now her brain was bursting and the pain in her chest, growing like a great red flower, exploded in a silent, wordless scream of 'Mummy! Mummy!' And then there was no more terror, no more pain, only the merciful, obliterating dark.

Four days later Commander Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard dictated a final note to his secretary, cleared his in-tray, locked his desk drawer, set the combination of his security cupboard and prepared to leave for a two-week holiday on the Norfolk coast. The break was overdue and he was ready for it. But the holiday wasn't entirely therapeutic; there were affairs in Norfolk that needed his attention. His aunt, his last surviving relative, had died two months earlier leaving him both her fortune and a converted windmill at Larksoken on the north-east coast of Norfolk. The fortune was unexpectedly large and had brought its own, as yet unresolved, dilemmas. The mill was a less onerous bequest but was not without its minor problems. He needed, he felt, to live in it alone for a week or two before finally making up his mind whether to keep it for occasional holidays, sell, or pass it over at a nominal price to the Norfolk Windmill Trust who were, he knew, always anxious to restore old windmills to working order. And then there were family papers and his aunt's books, particularly her comprehensive library of ornithology, to be looked at and sorted and their disposal decided upon. These were pleasurable tasks. Even in boyhood he had disliked taking a holiday totally without purpose. He didn't know from what roots of childhood guilt or imagined responsibility had grown this curious masochism which, in his middle years, had returned with added authority. But he was glad that there was a job to be done in Norfolk, not least because he knew that the journey had an element of Might. After four years of silence, his new book of poetry, A Case to Answer and Other Poems, had been published to considerable critical acclaim which was surprisingly gratifying, and to even wider public interest which, less surprisingly, he was finding more difficult to take. After his more notorious murder cases, the efforts of the Metropolitan Police press office had been directed to shielding him from egregious publicity. His publisher's rather different priorities took some getting used to and he was frankly glad of an excuse to escape from them, at least for a couple of weeks.

He had earlier said his goodbye to Inspector Kate Miskin and she was now out on a case. Chief Inspector Massingham had been seconded to the Intermediate Command Course at Bramshill Police College, one more step on his planned progress to a chief constable's braid, and Kate had temporarily taken over his place as Dalgliesh's second in command of the Special Squad. He went into her office to leave a note of his holiday address. It was, as always, impressively tidy, sparsely efficient and yet feminine, its wall enlivened by a single picture, one of her own abstract oils, a study in swirling browns heightened with a single streak of acid green, which Dalgliesh was growing to like more each time he studied it. On the uncluttered desktop was a small glass vase of freesias. Their scent, at first fugitive, suddenly wafted up to him, reinforcing the odd impression he always got that the office was more full of her physical presence empty than it was when she was seated there working. He laid his note exactly in the middle of the clean blotter, and smiled as he closed the door after him with what seemed unnecessary gentleness. It remained only to put his head round the AC's door for a final word and he was on his way to the lift.

The door was already closing when he heard running footsteps, a cheerful shout and Manny Cummings leapt in, just avoiding the bite of the closing steel. As always he seemed to whirl in a vortex of almost oppressive energy, too powerful to be contained by the lift's four walls. He was brandishing a large brown envelope. 'Glad I caught you, Adam. It is Norfolk you're escaping to, isn't it? If the Norfolk CID do lay their hands on the Whistler, take a look at him for me, will you, check he isn't our chap in Battersea.'

'The Battersea Strangler? Is that likely, given the timing and the MO? Surely it isn't a serious possibility?'