Kenneth Cameron: The Frightened Man

Frank Harris, less red-eyed than usual, smiling his shark’s smile, rubbed a thumb and three fingertips together. ‘Lucre changed hands, copper showed me up the back stairs. Corruption in the bastion of law.’ He grinned. ‘Always think the worst of your fellow man — you’ll get farther.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Little bird told me a notorious murderer had been shot by a well-known author. I bustled. Rather early in the day for me to bustle — I do my best work in the dark — but I made an exception, and here I am with an offer that’s going to make your heart twitter with delight! You may want to kiss me, in fact.’

‘What’ve you done?’

Harris craned to peek out the window. ‘Not a word to that crowd of poltroons. We’re dedicated to one rag and one rag only, the News of the World , because they’re paying us a hundred pounds for your story!’ He grinned again, preened. ‘ How I Tracked and Shot the East Ham Monster with my Colt.45! ’ He waited. Clearly, he expected more than Denton was giving. ‘Well? Well? ’

‘It wasn’t a.45; it was a.36. And what’s this “we”?’

‘Ah, well, y’see, I thought that as I negotiated, in fact invented and negotiated this arrangement, fifteen per cent seemed justified. For me. Of a hundred pounds , Denton! That’s eighty-five for you, man — any money troubles you had are over! Eh? Eh?’

Denton stared at him. Anger had hit him first, now was giving way to some sort of humour, perhaps hysterical, a reaction to the shooting. He found that he was laughing. The more he laughed, the more perplexed Harris looked, making Denton laugh that much more. Denton leaned against the wall, feeling himself light-headed and knowing it was nervous reaction; soon he would feel emptied, then despairing. Pulling a trigger is easy; the labour comes after. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Harris.

‘Sorry for what?’

‘Can’t do it, Harris. No deal.’

‘I can’t get you more than a hundred. I tried — I said, “A hundred guineas!” but they wouldn’t budge. It’s no good-’

‘ No deal. I won’t do it. No. N-O.’

Harris’s voice was hoarse. ‘Why in the name of God not?’

Denton thought how best to explain it, saw that there was no way to explain it that would pierce Harris’s cynicism. He said, ‘I can’t make money from killing somebody.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘I just can’t.’ Denton shrugged. ‘I just can’t.’

Outraged, Harris put his swollen eyes close to Denton’s face and shouted, ‘Don’t you try to give me any crap about honour!’

Below, an elegant motor car was slowly herding the newsmen out of the way as it pulled up close to the station entrance. He smiled at Harris. ‘I wouldn’t have the guts to try.’ He raised a hand.

Janet Striker had been put in the women’s ward. Denton had arrived out of visiting hours and had been made to wait for more than an hour; leaning back against a wall in a bent-wood chair, he had felt himself slide into that state that is like exhaustion but that doesn’t come from labour. It is the emotional collapse after a single instant of action, the body raised to a pitch, then everything released, the result an inanition that could last, he knew, for days. He had tried to explain a few times why anybody who could kill without affect was a monster, but he supposed you had to live it to understand it. In the dime novels, on the stage of people like Cody, killing was easy and there were no awkward emotions afterwards. Life was a bit different.

‘You may come along now,’ a sister said. She was young, sweet-faced, but severe in her manner. ‘We’re making an exception for you.’ He supposed this to mean that it still wasn’t visiting hour.

She led him along a tiled corridor and through a pair of double doors, seemingly into a different building — older, darker, a lingering smell of ether and carbolic. Ahead, a door was open and a trim, small man with a moustache was standing outside it. No introduction was made; he simply grasped Denton’s arm and turned him away from the open doorway, through which Denton had seen a small room, not much more than a closet, with a railed bed and a lot of white sheet.

‘We’ve brought her out here rather than have you on the ward. All-female, and so on.’ He was a lot younger than Denton but clearly in charge, certainly patronizing. ‘The police wish us to accede to your wishes as much as possible. You’re the husband?’

Denton had to swim up from his exhaustion to say, ‘A friend. I was there when she was hurt.’

‘It was my understanding you were the husband. This is irregular. Well, as you’re here-I’ll have to ask sister to stay in the room with you.’

A hard remark occurred to Denton, but he suppressed it.

‘She will have a scar.’

‘I know that.’

‘Her left hand is another matter. There is damage to nerves and tendons; I don’t know how much use of it she’ll have. We had to transfuse her twice — great loss of blood.’

‘You were there for the, whatever it is. Operation?’

‘I performed the surgery. I am a specialist.’

Denton couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Something seemed required — hosannas, perhaps. He said, ‘Can I see her now?’

The surgeon arched his eyebrows once and said a little stiffly that of course, if that’s what he wished. He steered Denton back into the tiny room.

The room was almost too small for the two men and the metal bed. The insistence on propriety — he couldn’t go on the ward out of hours — seemed stupid to him, wasteful. She was walled off from him by metal bars that were painted pale yellow and chipped along the upper edges, as were the head and foot of the bed. Her right hand, even against the white sheet, was pale. The left side of her face was covered with white gauze, secured under her chin with plaster; her left hand was entirely swathed. Behind him, the nursing sister muttered, ‘They gave her morphine. She’ll be going to sleep any time.’

She looked asleep now. Denton said, ‘Can I talk to her?’

‘You can try.’

He leaned over the bed. Before he could speak, her eyes opened. They were unfocused, in fact not looking at him but at the ceiling. They swung towards him and she frowned.

‘I came as soon as they’d let me,’ he said.

She seemed to concentrate, to recognize him. ‘Did you kill him?’ she said in a hoarse voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

‘Well-’

‘It weighs on you?’

‘Yes.’

She drifted away, came back. ‘That’s good, too.’ Her eyes closed, and he thought she had fallen asleep, but after several seconds she stirred and even moved her right arm, as if to turn towards him. ‘They say I shall have a scar,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t matter!’

‘It does to me. Astonishingly. “Vanity, vanity…”’ Her eyes closed and her voice sank away.

He glanced at the sister, who looked annoyed. Mrs Striker’s breathing became slow and regular, then caught, and her eyes opened. ‘You’re still here.’

‘It hasn’t been long.’

‘You saved my life.’

‘No, you saved your life. You were — magnificent.’

She didn’t say anything for several seconds, her eyes narrowed as if she was perhaps seeing it all again, evaluating it. ‘Better a scar and no fingers than having my throat slashed.’

Denton laughed. He knew he shouldn’t have, because he heard the sister’s sharp intake of breath, but he laughed for the relief and the release of it. ‘You’re a tough bird,’ he said.

She smiled, winced as the smile pulled on her slit cheek and jaw. ‘A tough — sparrow-’ she said, and again her eyes closed and her breathing fell.