Michael Dibdin - The Dying of the Light

‘The problem is William,’ Miss Davis panted, scissoring her arms from side to side. ‘He was spoilt rotten as a child, needless to say. No spunk, no gumption.’

One of the dead flowers, disturbed by Jarvis’s probing finger, broke free of the bouquet and fell. Borne on currents of air created by the flurry of activity at the centre of the room, it drifted laterally in a series of twirling spirals before coming to rest near the head of the bed.

‘Only a psycho could actually enjoy this work,’ Miss Davis grunted, ‘but what the hell, it’s a living. Don’t kill the golden goose is the way I look at it. But William can hardly wait.’

As Jarvis bent to pick up the poppy, a gleam caught his eye. He extended two fingers and grasped the slithery scrap of torn plastic.

‘And what will become of you?’ he murmured. ‘Back to teaching, is it?’

There was some black lettering on the plastic. Holding it up to the window, Jarvis read ‘50 ml disposable syr…’

‘Over my dead body!’ snorted Miss Davis.

Jarvis put the scrap of plastic into his wallet.

‘If you still fancied a job with the police,’ he said, ‘something might be arranged.’

Miss Davis ceased her exertions.

‘Really?’ she breathed.

‘We’re always on the lookout for people with the right mentality,’ Jarvis told her. ‘You can teach everything else, but you can’t teach that. You’ve either got it or you haven’t.’

Miss Davis’s eyes grew wider.

‘And you think I have?’

Jarvis winked.

‘I feel it. In my bones.’

Miss Davis blushed.

‘Cor,’ she said.

‘Now let’s just have a quick look next door,’ Jarvis went on briskly. ‘In case there’s a secret passage.’

Miss Davis looked flustered.

‘Secret passage?’

‘I think one might be regarded as permissible in a house such as this,’ he announced airily, heading for the door.

Miss Davis caught him up.

‘You can’t!’

‘Whyever not? You haven’t got anything to hide, have you?’

She stared at him in silence for some time, then shrugged.

‘I’d better ask William.’

Jarvis tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger.

‘Rule Number One,’ he said. ‘What your superior officer doesn’t find out didn’t happen. Right?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘Right?’

Miss Davis nodded.

‘Right,’ she said.

Jarvis opened the door and stepped inside. At first sight, the room seemed a mirror image of the one next door: the same miscellaneous assortment of third-hand furniture, the same oppressive volume of chilly grey light, the same sense of desolation and decay. The only difference Jarvis noticed at first was that the lower pane of the window had been replaced by a rectangle of plywood. Then he heard a low moan, and realised with a shock that what lay on the bed was not just a mattress but a man, bound to the frame at the wrists and ankles.

‘Doctor’s orders,’ Miss Davis explained, hurriedly undoing the webbing which bound the man to the bedframe. ‘Wouldn’t lie still, would you, George? Kept reopening his wounds, so we had to restrain him.’

The elderly man moved his arms and legs feebly, groaning through his clenched, toothless gums. A series of long shallow cuts extended from the temple to the chin on one side of his face, while on the other there were two deep gashes which had been stitched. His hands and arms were heavily bandaged. The rest of his body was concealed by the covers.

‘What happened?’ Jarvis asked.

Miss Davis took up a position at the head of the bed.

‘Had an accident, didn’t you, George? Tripped and fell out of the window.’

Ignoring her, Channing turned his head to look at Jarvis.

“They set the dog on me,’ he said.

‘We never!’ shouted Miss Davis.

She bent over the bed, fist raised. Jarvis grasped her arm and led her away.

‘If you’re to be any use to us in the police,’ he hissed, ‘you must learn never to interrupt an officer when he’s interviewing a witness!’

‘But the old bastard just fibbed himself!’

Jarvis nodded earnestly.

‘You don’t think I believe him, do you?’ he whispered.

Miss Davis gawked. Jarvis gave her a playful nudge.

‘Rule Number Two is let ‘em talk. The more he says, the easier it is to spot the inconsistencies and trap him in his own contradictions.’

A smile spread slowly across Miss Davis’s face. Leaning back slightly, she punched Jarvis on the shoulder.

‘Oooooh, you are a one!’ she said.

Surreptitiously rubbing his aching shoulder, Jarvis sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘what was that about a dog?’

A scornful smile appeared on the man’s ravaged face.

‘Jerry couldn’t hold me in ‘44. Got as far as Ostend that time, and would have made it back to Blighty if I hadn’t been turned in by some bloody Belgian. Whistling in the street, you see, hands in pockets. Not done, sur le continong, it seems.’

He pointed one bandaged hand at the broken window.

‘Worked the pane loose and climbed out. Managed to get down from the ledge in one piece, then the hound got me.’

‘And you’ve been kept tied up here ever since?’ Jarvis murmured.

The man nodded.

‘Medic came that afternoon, patched me up.’

He laughed soundlessly.

‘Worried I might die on them. Wouldn’t look good, he said. Got the wind up about old Dawers, too.’

‘Mrs Davenport?’

The bandaged hand beckoned. Jarvis bent down over the pillow and the man’s humid breath billowed in his ear.

‘Wall’s like paper. Hear every word.’

Jarvis nodded.

‘The morning they found the body, before the police got here, I heard Anderson talking to someone in there,’ Channing went on in a sibilant whisper. ‘Couldn’t make out the other voice, but it must have been…’

His eyes swivelled towards the figure in blue overalls standing by the window, ostentatiously not listening.

‘Anderson was in a bit of a panic. Man’s a dipso, of course. Always go to pieces at the first sign of trouble. Kept wittering away about how the police would be there any minute. Then something about getting rid of something at all costs. Miss Davis must have asked him where, and Anderson says, “In a bloody haystack.”’

‘A haystack?’ repeated Jarvis.

‘Then she said something else, and he said, “Well, we’ll just have to make sure they don’t get a chance to speak to her.” Then he laughed and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle them. The police are such clods.” ‘

The man lay back on the pillow, exhausted. Jarvis stood up.

“Thank you,’ he said.

He pointed to the wrist and ankle restraints.

‘I don’t really think those are necessary any more,’ he told Miss Davis.

‘Not if he’ll be good,’ she shrugged. ‘Will you be good, George?’

Jarvis took her arm.

Tm sure he will,’ he said, guiding her to the door.

‘What did he say?’ Miss Davis demanded as soon as they were outside.

Jarvis shrugged negligently.

‘Oh, nothing much. This and that. You know.’

This could be it, he thought as they started along the corridor. The one he’d always dreamed about, the one that got you on TV telling some prat in a mac how it felt. He imagined opening his morning paper to find a headline reading ‘HELL HOME HORROR – Exclusive Pictures and Interview with Detective Chief Superintendent “Accrington” Stanley Jarvis’. Then he blinked, and the next moment the whole thing looked as insubstantial as the world-shattering insights Tomkins tended to come out with after the fifth bottle of Bud or Schlitz or whatever it was that week.

No way, Stan, he told himself. The last thing he could afford to do was chance his arm on something that could blow up in his face and leave him without a leg to stand on if it subsequently turned out that he’d put his foot in it. This Miss Davis might come across with a bit of flattery, but her brother was considerably less of a soft touch, and well-connected with it. You couldn’t risk going up against people like that on the basis of a few ambiguous overheard phrases and the melodramatic fantasies of the dead woman’s best friend.