John Bingham: A Fragment of Fear

“Seven-thirty was the deadline. Seven-thirty this morning. I’ve been instructed to-”

In his haste he began to fumble for words.

“You’ve been instructed to do what?” I said as calmly as I could. “What have you-”

“I’ve been instructed to demonstrate that we mean literally what we say, so that-”

“Oh, for God’s sake be your age,” I broke in.

“Listen, I must go now, but-”

“Well, go then-I don’t want to talk to you-” I said brusquely, because I couldn’t resist the temptation to be rude.

“Don’t suppose you do,” he said quickly. “Don’t suppose you wanted to in the first place. Bad luck for you, isn’t it?”

Now for the first time the enamel was wearing thin. The politeness was departing. There was a quick, vicious tang to his voice.

“It’s too late now,” he snapped. “Too late for quite a while. But we’ll be back, see? Meanwhile, you’ll learn that we mean business, see? Meanwhile, get your girl to wear glasses-that’s my advice. Later, if you still love her-”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I say-mark of displeasure, see what I mean?”

“What mark of displeasure?” I said shakily, and felt the electric shock in the stomach again. “What do you mean, mark of displeasure?”

But I thought I saw what he was implying.

“I suppose you know the penalty for a razor attack?” I muttered ineffectually.

I heard him laugh.

“Nothing crude like that. We wouldn’t slash her. But remember about the glasses. For her own good, see? Nothing against her personally. She’s just dead unlucky. Don’t want to blind her. Acid is nasty stuff when you get it in the face,” he added abruptly, and I heard him replace the receiver.

I stared down at the telephone.

Now I was genuinely afraid.

Just as I had believed that if I had surrendered to their demands, Juliet and I would have gone unharmed, so now I believed without doubt that the threat to mar Juliet’s magnolia skin by flinging acid in her face was a genuine one.

I began to move restlessly about the flat, and did so for an hour or more desperately trying to decide upon some sort of action. In the end, without having bathed or shaved, or had a cup of tea, though it was already nine o’clock, I went downstairs and out to my car and drove to the police station.

Whatever the cost in humiliation, I had to make one more effort, now that Juliet was involved.

Unluckily, the same alert young sergeant was on duty as when I had called previously. He not only remembered me, he even called me by my name.

“Good morning, Mr. Compton,” he said pleasantly. “More trouble?”

“Is the superintendent in?”

“Ah, the superintendent?” he replied carefully. “Now he’s a difficult man to pin down. And very busy, always out and about, as you can imagine. Can I give him a message?”

“I want to know if he is in,” I said doggedly. “If he is, I want to see him.”

He leaned across the counter and began to talk in a chummy, confidential kind of way. I think he saw himself as a cross between Dixon of Dock Green and Spencer Tracy in an old-time film.

“Look, sir, he is in-that’s true-he is in, but he’s got a very important conference on, see?”

“When will he be free?”

He shrugged his shoulders evasively.

“Maybe an hour, maybe much longer. You can’t tell, sir.”

“I’ll wait. I’ll sit down and wait.”

“May I suggest something, sir? Why don’t you just let me write down what you want to tell him, and then, maybe, when he’s read it, he can get into touch with you, eh? How would that do? Save you all this waiting, eh, sir?”

He spoke in a kindly, gentle way, as one might to a very old lady suffering from mental deterioration. I had to bite back the instinct to be impatient with him. I had to remind myself that these people genuinely and reasonably thought I was suffering from a persecution complex, or at the very least some mental disturbance brought on by a car crash. There had been a few ghastly hours when I had had doubts myself. In the circumstances, he was being very patient and humane.

I nodded and pulled at my chin and felt the stubble. I don’t suppose my unshaven appearance and hastily combed hair improved matters.

I remembered that the superintendent and the sergeant had been a little rough at one point. But now I couldn’t blame them either.

They had been pulled in, from the first important stages of a murder hunt, to talk to a man who appeared to be suffering from some kind of post-accident neurosis.

“All right,” I said abruptly. “Tell him this. Tell the superintendent this. Tell him I’ve had another letter, like the previous one, but also threatening my fiancee. Tell him I’ve had another ’phone call, too, threatening to throw acid in her face, either today or tomorrow at my wedding. My wedding is at the Catholic Church in Baxter Street, Mayfair, at three-thirty, got it?”

“I’ll tell him, sir. Don’t worry.”

“Tell him I want police protection.”

“I’ll tell him, sir,” said the sergeant. “I’ll tell him all that, never you fear.”

“Tell him, I don’t think-”

I stopped and hesitated.

“You don’t think what, sir?”

“Tell him I don’t think my fiancee will need police protection today, but I want it at the church tomorrow. Right?”

“I’ll tell him what you say, sir.”

“Thank you,” I said dully. “Thank you very much.”

He would pass on my request, but nothing would happen. You couldn’t expect anything to happen, I thought. You couldn’t expect the police to provide protection for every nut-case who thought he was being persecuted. He hadn’t even asked to see the written message I had torn up.

I did not ask for protection for Juliet that day because except in a very important case, what does it amount to? A constable passing the house a little more frequently than usual? Knocking at the door a couple of times a day to see if all is in order, perhaps when the damage is done? The police station checking by ’phone when there is no one there to reply? I didn’t know.

What I did know was that they couldn’t detail a couple of men to follow Juliet around London on her last-minute chores.

I rang up Stanley Bristow. I had to feel that I had gone through what one might call all the paper formalities, useless though they might be.

He said he was glad I had ’phoned. He wanted to check one or two points about the speeches. When I could get a word in edge-ways I said:

“Listen, Stanley, I don’t want Juliet to go out by herself today.”

“She’s gone, old boy.”

“Gone where?”

“Only to the hairdresser’s, old boy, to have a perm. Why?”

I didn’t trust him enough to tell him the whole facts. I didn’t trust him not to go and blab them out to Juliet. I was going to tell Juliet something, but not everything. I didn’t see the point in telling her everything. You can’t protect yourself against an acid thrower.

He can be anywhere. He can be in a bus, or in an Underground train, or waiting at a street corner, or passing you on the pavement, and one moment you are full of the joy of life, and the next the searing burning fluid is over your face, and your skin is ruined, and if it gets into your eyes your sight may be gone for ever, and that is that, and it’s no good talking then about police protection, or wearing glasses to protect your eyes.

“Forget it,” I said, “there’s nothing one can do about it today.”

Nor was there. If the police couldn’t protect her, then Stanley Bristow couldn’t. In the close-knit circle of a wedding, it was possible; in the normal run of the day, there was no chance.