Gordon Ferris - Truth Dare kill

I inspected myself in my mirror. I looked like a poacher. The pick went into my breast pocket along with a good clasp knife with enough gadgets to earn me a dozen scout’s badges. I washed out a big hip flask and filled it with water, turfed out my gas mask from its canvas shoulder bag and replaced it with the flask. A pack of fags, matches and some Spam sandwiches went in alongside.

Lastly I rolled up my plastic mac and stuffed it into the bag. This lot would see me right if I had to hole up for twenty-four hours.

I kept hoping to hear Val’s cheery voice before I left. Truth is I’d have liked her blessing. Maybe she’d had second thoughts about me. Or maybe – and I kept wondering this – she was married and couldn’t get away. It would explain a lot.

There was one thing I needed but didn’t have. I knew where to get it, though: a little army surplus shop at Camberwell Green.

“Bird watching then, guv?”

“Tanks,” I replied, twisting the screw on a pair of binoculars and aiming out the dusty window across the road.

“None of my business, I know.”

It wasn’t. I paid for the bins and found space in my gas mask case, and made for the tube.

If you walk up Hampstead Hill and into the trees on the edge of the Heath, you can circle round and get yourself to a vantage point on the wooded hill above Willow Road. From there to Liza’s house was a distance of about four hundred yards. There are enough shrubs and tree trunks, even in their denuded winter state, to provide cover. I found a spot down from the path where I had angled but unobstructed views of the Caldwell house and the whole area either side of her front gate. I didn’t need the binoculars to maintain my broad sweep.

The weather was cold and damp, but at least it wasn’t snowing. Real winter was forecast, but mainly for Scotland and the north of England. With luck it would steer clear of us. I piled dead leaves under my plastic mac and settled down to wait. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for; visitors to Mrs Caldwell?

Tony Caldwell himself in some fanciful resurrection? In truth I was following the habits I’d adopted as a private detective; stake out the target and watch, watch and note, wait for them to do something that convicts them. But what could Mrs Caldwell be guilty of?

It was a quiet street, even by the standards of the suburbs. Hardly a soul went by and cars were as rare as a winter tan. I felt the woods gently embrace me. A blackbird echoed through the bare trees and a dog barked from some distance away. The stillness infected me, and reminded me of long walks with my dad in the sounding woods above Dundonald Castle, a bus ride from Kilpatrick. We’d leave my mother laying out the old plaid and setting out the hard-boiled eggs, the meat-paste sandwiches and the vacuum flask with lemonade. And we’d go off into the woods and learn the names of trees and birds.

I raised my glasses and watched a man go by with a dog, talking to it as if he expected an answer. Then a couple who looked like they’d done all their talking years ago; then a weary old woman. I watched their closed faces and wondered about their lives. I trained my sights on the house to see if there was movement behind the net curtains. Nothing. And no smoke from her chimney. Had she gone away for a few days? By mid-afternoon I was stiff and cold and increasingly convinced this bird had flown. Then suddenly her door opened. Liza Caldwell stepped out in coat and hat. She had a little wicker shopping trolley which she carried down the short run of steps. She trundled off down the street.

An hour later she was back, and I could see she really had been shopping. She had to haul her basket up behind her, straining on each step. Soon afterwards lights went on in some windows and finally the street lights did too. I rose, aching and chilled. My ribs felt as though they’d been put through my mother’s mangle. I shook my mac and began the trek home, looking forward to warming up in front of a fire with a glass of whisky in my hand.

I repeated the pattern the next day. She was a creature of habit, our Liza. What did she do all day alone in the house? I would have kept up the vigil for the rest of the week except for the headache that started to come down on me as I travelled back to my flat. Maybe sitting in the cold with my eyes screwed up, peering down at the little house set something off.

I took to bed as the clamps came down. I think I got up a couple of times to be sick. Once I found myself in coat and pyjamas in the entrance hall, not sure if I was just going out or coming in. Sleepwalking of some sort. Then the blackness floored me for a full day and another night. I woke shivering and sick, my bedclothes in a damp tangle.

There were fresh scrawls in my jotter, but they told me nothing new about my condition or where I’d been. I was so sickened by the whole damn business I tore the page out and used it to help start a fire. In the flames I saw old horrors, old beatings in the camp and nearly picked up the phone to see if the Doc would take me back and blast some current through my brain and expunge these sordid memories for good and ever.

I needed another day lying doggo in my flat before I felt fit enough to tackle another watch.

Same routine, same result: nothing. It was on the fourth morning – not counting the two I missed – that my severely tested patience and sore ribs were rewarded.

A big car drew up. A Riley. A man was driving. He got out, opened the passenger door and handed a lady out. I would have known that car, that walk, and that turn of a blonde head anywhere. What the hell was Kate Graveney doing visiting her lover’s widow? Condolences?

I raised my glasses and trained them on the door as it opened. Liza smiled. I could see a welcome word or two being given and then Kate stepped inside. From their expressions and actions, this wasn’t a courtesy call by a woman finally acknowledging her lover’s death and come to pay her respects. They’d met before.

They might, if you simply read the faces and knew nothing about their relationship, be good friends.

Kate visited for thirty-five minutes. Again, the show at the door was too cosy for the situation. Unless I was hopelessly misjudging their nature. They could have met recently, recognising – in their shared bereavement – a kindred spirit, and become pals in that pragmatic supportive way of women. Somehow I doubted it, and I had to find out what was going on.

Liza’s day picked up its usual flow; that is, she disappeared behind her curtains until 3 o’clock. It was a big house, but how much housework could a person get through in a day? I watched her totter off with her wheelie. If she stuck to her routine, I had roughly an hour before she returned from her errands. I flicked off the leaves and dirt and made myself as presentable as I could. This would take strong nerves. I made my way down to East Heath Road and walked back up and into Willow Road.

I strolled smartly in through her gate to the comparative safety of her porch.

If anyone had been peeping through the net curtains of the neighbouring houses, they would have seen a man marching straight-backed along the road, open and easy, and then seeking entry at Mrs Caldwell’s. Had I met anyone coming along the street I would simply have tipped my cap, said good day and kept walking.

I studied the door. I’d watched her come out, pull the door to, lock the top Yale, and use a bigger key on the simple bolt below. I pulled out my penknife and flicked open the corkscrew gadget. I slotted it into the big bolt keyhole and felt for the single pin. Got it! I twisted and forced it back. I put the knife away and took out my little bent screwdriver and slid it into the Yale.

I began scrubbing. But it wasn’t as fine an instrument as my old pick. I felt some of the pins give but I couldn’t quite get the driver. I took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off my hands. This was taking longer than I’d hoped. Worse, I could hear the steady sound of a man’s footsteps heading my way. I had seconds to open the door and get out of sight, or withdraw now and pretend to have knocked and to be waiting for an answer.