Pat Barker: Border Crossing

‘Whisky?’he asked.

Danny sat down, slumped rather, in one of the armchairs. He looked up and said: ‘Yes. Please.’

Tom handed him a full glass, and settled on the other side of the fireplace. The fire had burnt low, and he spent a few minutes feeding nuggets of coal into the glowing caverns. A domestic scene, he thought, looking round the walls that seemed less bare, now, than they had by day, the squares left by Lauren’s pictures obscured by leaping shadows.

‘Well now, what’s been happening?’

‘I was followed.’ Danny’s voice had the strident pitch of somebody who doesn’t expect to be believed. ‘I was working in the library, and there was a man at the end of the street when I left, and I noticed in Grey Street he was still there, and then he got on the same train as me. He sat at the other end of the carriage.’

‘Did you recognize him?’

‘No.’

‘Isn’t it possible he was just going the same way?’

A quick, stubborn shake of the head.

‘Did he get off at the same stop?’

‘I didn’t wait to find out. I got off the stop before, you know, waited till the last possible second then made a dash for the door, and then I ran across the bridge, down the other side, and jumped on a train coming back into town.’

‘Do you think you lost him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who do you think it was?’

‘A reporter. Or somebody who wants to beat the shit out of me, I don’t know. I daren’t go back to the flat.’

I’ll phone Martha,’ Tom said.

Martha was on her answering machine. He left a message, remembered the wedding, tried her mobile, left another message. ‘Is there anybody else we can phone?’

‘Not really.’

‘Martha said you had numbers you could phone.’

‘Yeah, but they’re in the flat’

So much for Martha’s claim to have everything covered. ‘What about the police?’

‘No, not yet. They don’t know. Only the chief constable knows. And what am I going to tell them? Somebody followed me? No, it’s best if we wait for Martha. She’s probably at the reception.’

Tom poured himself and Danny another generous whisky, and threw a log on the fire. There was quite a good blaze going now. It’s a pity we didn’t record our sessions,’ he said. ‘You could’ve burnt the tapes.’

‘It’s a gimmick. You know as well as I do things can’t be left behind like that. And anyway, I’d have to burn you too.’

‘Can I ask you something?’ Tom said. ‘Was it a coincidence, you jumping in the river like that?’

‘A hundred yards away from your house? No, of course it wasn’t. I’d been following you for days.’

‘Why?’

A shrug. ‘Wanted to talk. And every time I didn’t ring the doorbell, I got more and more depressed, and angry, not with you, with myself. It wasn’t…’ He tried again. ‘It wasn’t a great plot. I didn’t think, Oh, if I jump in the river and he comes in after me, we’ll both be drowned and serve him bloody right. I wasn’t thinking like that. I wasn’t thinking at all. I just wanted the pain to stop.’

Tom was becoming puzzled by Danny’s move-ments, which seemed to be a curious mixture of agitation and paralysis. He was — not twitching, the movements weren’t as rapid as that — but shifting his gaze about the room, glancing over his shoulder, looking from side to side. His glances, his gestures, were considerably more disturbed than his speech.

‘What’re you looking at, Danny?’

‘Nothing.’

No eye contact, and then, unnervingly, his eyes focused on something behind, and a little to the right, of Tom’s head.

‘Do you ever see her?’ he asked gently.

‘No, I’m not quick enough.’

‘You mean, she’s been there, but —’

‘I’m always just missing her.’

‘Does she ever say anything?’

‘No.’

‘So how do you know she’s there?’

‘Because she leaves things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Hair. There’s always a ball of hair in the bathroom.’

Tom was thinking that almost certainly this present mood was the closest he would ever get to understanding Danny’s state of mind in the missing five hours he’d spent alone with Lizzie’s corpse. ‘What did you do to her, Danny?’

His speech was slurred. ‘Made her do things.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Things.’

Again, Toiji saw the photographs: the marks on Lizzie’s ankles, wrists and upper chest, inflicted — so the pathologist had said — after death.

He played with her.

No point pressing for more now or, perhaps, ever. Pressing him now might well force him over the edge.

Silence. Danny’s eyelids looked swollen, he seemed to be drifting off to sleep, but then he said, ‘Do you believe in evil?’

A perfectly sane question. A lot easier to deal with than balls of hair in the bathroom. Tom, his mind full of alternative ways of getting hold of Martha — would Mike Freeman be likely to know where she was staying? — answered, almost absently: ‘In the metaphysical sense? No, I don’t. But as a word to describe certain kinds of behaviour, I’ve no problems with it. It’s just the word we’ve agreed to use to describe certain kinds of action. And I don’t think it’s an alternative to other ways of describing the same things. There’s no logical reason why “mad” and “bad” should be alternatives.’

‘And people? Do you think people can be evil?’

‘I suppose if somebody’s entire life is dedicated to performing evil actions, yes. But if you mean yourself… Killing Lizzie was an evil thing to do, but I don’t think you were evil when you did it, and I certainly don’t think you are now.’

‘There’s something I’ve never told anybody. Well, actually, I did tell you, but I don’t think you picked up on it. You know when I hid in the wardrobe? It was pitch black in there, there wasn’t a chink of light anywhere.’ He was whispering. ‘But I saw the fox.’

Tom said carefully, ‘Memory plays all sorts of tricks, Danny. You knew what was in there. You saw it when you opened the door, and then you felt it, you felt it in the dark and you’ve remembered touch as sight.’

‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

He didn’t sound convinced, and Tom was glad when he could turn away and resume his search for numbers. He’d found Mike Freeman’s number, but it was well past midnight now, and what explanation could he give for calling him? Perhaps it would be more sensible to make up a bed for Danny on the sofa, and try to sort things out in the morning.

He put down the phone book. ‘Look, I think it might be better if we tried to get some sleep. Martha’s obviously not going to ring now, and you need to get some rest.’

‘I won’t sleep.’

‘Well, at least lie down. I’ll get some pillows.’

Upstairs in the bathroom, in the act of pulling clean pillow slips out of the airing cupboard, Tom caught sight of himself in the mirror, and was shocked. Sweat, dissolving make-up, bags under his eyes: not a pretty sight. A shower, that’s what he needed, and then bed. Please, God, bed. The adrenalin rush of the TV debate had drained away, and, trailing pillows and sheets downstairs, he felt positively doddery.

Danny hadn’t moved. ‘Would you like some sleeping pills?’ Tom asked.

‘No, I’d better not. I’m trying to get off them.’

Tom made up a rough bed on the sofa, and went to fetch a glass of water from the kitchen.

When he returned, Danny had switched off the lamp and was lying under a sheet in the firelight. An arm and one side of his face and neck were etched in trembling gold. Poor bloody Angus, Tom thought, looking down at him, you didn’t stand a chance.