Michael Dibdin - The Dying of the Light

‘Can you save him, Rose?’

‘Her.’

‘Who?’

‘You.’

Dorothy’s eyes widened.

‘Me?’

Tm so sorry,’ Rosemary sighed. Try and be brave.’

‘But…’

‘It came to me in a flash while I was upstairs. I was thinking of what happened when we had tea. Do you remember? Belinda Scott was annoyed because of something that happened when you were outside the room, so she insisted on serving the tea in strict alphabetical order…’

‘But you had to wait until the end, even though you were getting my tea too. I didn’t think that was fair, Rose. You shouldn’t have stood for it! If I’d been you, I’d have…’

That isn’t the point!’ hissed Rosemary. ‘The names of the victims so far are Ayres, Bryant and Channing. Now do you understand? The killer is eliminating the residents in alphabetical order. Which means that you will be the next victim!’

Dorothy tut-tutted.

‘Come on, Rose!’ she exclaimed with a toss of the head. ‘This simply won’t do. It sounds like one of those awful American books about some maniac who goes about chopping up total strangers with an axe because he had an unhappy childhood. Not my cup of tea at all, I’m afraid. Life is quite horrible enough as it is, I should have thought, without scaring oneself silly with such rubbish.’

Rosemary smiled in a superior way.

‘That’s precisely what the killer wants us to believe. The plan-and I’m bound to say it’s a very clever one-is to create the impression that these killings are indeed the work of some distasteful psychopath such as you describe, whereas in reality all except one are simply red herrings designed to obscure the identity of the murderer’s true target.’

Dorothy’s eyes narrowed. She gave her friend a suspicious look.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘This has been used before, hasn’t it?’

‘Are you accusing me of plagiarism?’ snapped Rosemary.

‘Of course not, Rose. It’s just that, well, it has a familiar ring to it.’

This is no time to discuss the finer points of the genre, Dot! Every minute you remain here you are in the most terrible danger. This very night might be your last! We must get you out of here at all costs.’

‘Don’t be silly! No one’s ever managed that. Look what happened to Channing.’

Rosemary clasped her friend’s hand and smiled confidently.

‘We’ll think of a way.’

Dorothy shook her head.

‘Anyway, why should anyone want to kill me? It doesn’t make sense. I don’t like it when things don’t make sense, Rose. And I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you. I’m sure you must be mistaken about this. After all, we’re the detectives. The detectives never come to any harm, do they?’

The door banged open and the woman in the stained blue overalls swept into the lounge again. She looked round the room with a contemptuous sniff and then made for the corner where Rosemary and Dorothy sat talking. When she reached the centre of the room, however, she stopped and sniffed the air again, more deliberately this time. Then she turned round slowly, inspecting the residents, each of whom looked away as the beam of scrutiny passed. Eventually it came to rest on the pair still bent over their jigsaw puzzle. The woman hitched up the straps of her overalls. A feral grin convulsed her features.

‘Symes!’

Charles Symes quivered slightly but did not look up. The woman walked slowly towards him, swaying her hips in a slow sinuous rhythm.

‘To let the punishment fit the crime,’ she crooned softly.

She stood over Charles Symes and Grace Lebon, sniffing loudly. With a violent movement of one hand she swept the completed section of the jigsaw off the edge of the table. It broke up and fell to the floor in pieces.

‘Look at me, Symes!’ she howled.

Slowly, painfully, the man turned his head.

‘My nostrils suggest that you’ve beshat yourself,’ the woman remarked conversationally.

Charles Symes stared up at her without moving.

‘Do they deceive me?’ she inquired.

There was no sound in the room. The woman bent closer.

‘Well, Symes?’ she demanded in a stage whisper. ‘Which of us is at fault, my nose or your bum?’

She straightened up abruptly.

‘On your feet and let’s have a gander.’

A high-pitched keening made itself heard in the room. Swivelling on her heels, the woman slapped Grace Lebon hard with the back of her hand. The sound abruptly ceased. The woman sniffed her fingers briefly, then crooked one at Symes.

‘Make yourself erect, man!’

Symes rose from his chair, his face a mask.

‘Drop’em!’ commanded his tormentor.

With trembling fingers, Charles Symes struggled to undo the buttons of his trousers. The last one wouldn’t come free of the hole. After watching him fiddle with it in vain for some time, the woman reached across and tore the fastening loose. The trousers fell heavily to the man’s ankles, revealing the wrinkled, sheeny expanse of his buttocks smeared with a brown glutinous mess.

‘Oh my Christ!’ the woman exclaimed.

She gazed at the spectacle in disgust for some time, wiping her hands on the front of her overalls.

‘What I ought to do,’ she remarked at length, ‘is make you lick it up and then cauterize your arse with a red-hot poker. But seeing as my hands are full with Channing I’ll settle for a cold shower and Dettol rub followed by a night locked naked in the outside loo to remind you what that facility is for. Now fuck off out of here before I puke, you filthy old bastard.’

Holding his trousers loosely round his hips, Symes hobbled towards the door. The woman turned expressionlessly to the others. She walked over to Belinda Scott and plucked the paper poppy from her dress.

‘Remembrance Day’s long past, Lindy. Not that you have anyone to remember, do you? Or anyone to remember you.’

She tore the flower apart, petal by petal, and let the pieces fall to the floor.

‘Do you?’ she insisted.

‘No, Miss Davis. Sorry, Miss Davis.’

The woman nodded.

‘Still, look on the bright side, eh? At least you might still be in the land of the living come next Poppy Day, unlike some people I could mention.’

She shot out a finger at Dorothy, who got to her feet. Rosemary also stood up. Miss Davis raised her eyebrows at her.

‘No one rang for you, Travis.’

Rosemary squeezed her friend’s hand.

‘I’ll wait for you here, Dot. Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.’

Miss Davis sauntered over to them. She leaned very close to Dorothy, searching her face.

‘Yes, it’11 be all right,’ she said. ‘Just as long as you keep your trap shut, don’t fidget, shoulders back, tummy in and knickers clean. Otherwise you know what’11 happen, don’t you?’

Miss Davis stared at her intensely, her face a couple of inches from Dorothy’s. She leaned forward suddenly and kissed her on the mouth. Dorothy gave a muffled cry. When Miss Davis drew back, there was blood on her lips.

‘Yes, you know,’ she said. ‘You’ve dreamed about it, more than once. Only this won’t be a dream, my poppet. This will be real.’

She snatched Dorothy’s hand and led her to the door while Rosemary looked on in helpless anguish.

As dusk gathered beyond the plastic-shrouded windows, the light in the lounge imperceptibly faded, until the residents were no more than insubstantial shapes merging into the outlines of the furniture. For the most part they were silent, but from time to time one would suddenly burst into speech. This set others off, until soon the whole group was yattering inconsequentially away, all talking, none listening. Then as suddenly as it had begun it would stop, each speaker breaking off in mid-sentence until the final voice ceased and silence resumed once more.