Incarnate (41 page)

“Just a little demonstration.” His face looked almost disinterested as his fist shot out and smashed her bag against the wall. She heard her perfume spray break, and something else that must have been her pen. She was on her feet at once, her mouth wide open. She’d forgotten who she was meant to be, but it no longer mattered. “Not bad for a wanker, eh? They teach you how to handle yourself in the police,” he said. “Maybe now you’ll tell me what you’re looking for, Nelly Swain.”

He pronounced the name with such contempt that it made her shudder. She mustn’t make for the door, she hadn’t heard Terry. “Why did you break my things?” she cried, like her alias or herself. “You’ll have to pay for them.”

“Oh, I’m terrified. I’m shitting myself, can’t you smell it?” Suddenly his face was wild, his thick tongue was out more than an inch and licking his lips. “There’s what you came for,” he said, pointing at the mantelpiece. “Go and see.”

She went, because it put distance between them. She faltered before she reached the mantelpiece. The cutting that was pinned down by one corner by the figure looked familiar, the silence was closing in as if she were losing consciousness. By the time she was close enough to see the rust that was blood on Lenny Bennett’s bracelet she had recognized that the cutting was about her, complete with photograph.

“There it is,” he said, “and there you are. And one more thing in case you don’t know it—this is the last time you’ll try and make a fool of the police.”

His delighted eyes were almost as moist as his lips and chin. He came toward her with small steps that looked delicate. His fists were half open, beckoning her or ready to seize her. The silence had closed in, and Terry wasn’t there. She was stiff with panic, yet somehow she felt the silence was hers if she could only use it. “Don’t you touch me,” she whispered. “Just you try.”

“Oh, don’t scare me. I can’t move.” His voice was parodying a wail, his paces toward her were even smaller and more studied; yet it seemed to her as if he were really almost wailing, and that he couldn’t walk. She knew suddenly that she had to go toward him, confound him that way. She had taken only one step when he fell.

Perhaps he had tripped on the carpet. Perhaps the excitement of what he meant to do to her had proved too much for him, or the sight of her not cowering but coming toward him had. As she moved to stand beside him. well out of reach, he tried to turn toward her, his face growing an agonized purple. He couldn’t even shuffle on his knees; he fell on his side. “What are you doing?” he snarled.

She hoped she wasn’t doing anything. It was enough that he thought she was. Though her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it, she was no longer afraid. “Someone was whistling in the corridor, Terry was, and she ran to the door.

Rankin began to scream at her as she opened the door: “I’ll get you for this, you bitch.” Terry gaped at him along the hall. “Jesus X. Christ,” he said, and had to be told to start filming. The door of the flat opposite wavered and then opened to reveal two middle-aged women in dressing gowns. “What’s wrong with Mr. Rankin?” one said hoarsely.

“He wants to tell us something,” Molly said, so convinced of it that she didn’t bother to think. Terry turned from filming Rankin—who had levered himself to his knees with an effort that left him panting—and the trophy as the women ventured into the room. He filmed them as Molly said, “Who killed Lenny Bennett?”

Rankin’s mouth was working, perhaps struggling not to answer, as the camera returned to him. His eyes pleaded savagely with the women from across the hall, who stepped back, afraid of him. At last his mouth opened as if someone were prying at it. “I did,” he mumbled, choking.

It mightn’t be enough. “You did what?”

His streaming eyes were growing red with effort or with hatred. “I killed Lenny Bennett,” he said in a harsh voice that was almost a shriek. “But it wasn’t only me.”

“Who else?”

“Inspector Maitland.” He seemed to be trying to grin viciously until his mouth shook. “Stop, stop.”

As Molly turned away to look for the phone, he crumpled and fell into a fetal huddle on his side. “I’ll call a doctor,” she said, and as the women began to retreat, “We’d all better stay until the doctor comes.”

Terry was still filming as he came over to her. “That was incredible,” he murmured. “How did you do it?” She wished he hadn’t asked; inexplicably, he had almost made her panic. Suddenly she felt that unknowingly she had started something from which there was no turning back.

41

D
ANNY
gazed through his window at the auditorium. Under the bright lights the faded seats looked like almost white cardboard. Mandy and Karen had chased out the last of the audience, three boys who’d been hiding in the Ladies’, and now the girls were searching for lost property. He had plenty of time, nothing was going to go wrong. He’d teach Dr. Kent to try and drive him mad. Tonight she would learn how mad he could be.

Mr. Pettigrew was padlocking the exit doors beside the screen. As he came toward Danny, before vanishing below his field of vision, he glared up at him as if he meant to keep him back after hours.

Danny didn’t care. He would still be in time if he ran. His resentment made him feel clear and intense and purposeful, above being confused.

Seven Sisters Road was black with ice. He felt cold as a knife, and as dangerous. Under the streetlamps everything •looked flat and thin and unthreatening, a stage for him. He ran up the concrete staircase to his home.

When he heard the television, he went into the parlor. Sydney Greenstreet was saying, “You’re the man for me, sir,” and Danny saw him swelling like a balloon, saw the seams of his suit begin to give, until he looked away: he mustn’t let that happen again, especially not now. “I’m going straight to bed.”

“That’s right, Danny, you try and have a good sleep.” His mother gave him a brave, forgiving smile, his father glowered. Danny slammed his bedroom door to make sure they heard, and thought of sighing loudly as if he had climbed into bed, but decided that was too much. He hauled back the blankets and ran lightly to the wardrobe for the newspapers he’d been begging from his mother all weekend.

He’d already tied the pages in knots. Once he had arranged them on the bed and draped the blankets over them, the shape looked very much like someone asleep, even more so when he turned off the light. He crept out of his room and eased the door shut; he tiptoed along the hall and sneaked out the front door, drawing it toward him with his key so the latch wouldn’t click.

He was on his way at last. Waiting through the weekend had given him time to enjoy what was coming. His mother seemed afraid of him ever since he’d disconnected the television to stop things changing, and his father hadn’t spoken once to him. His eyes were warning Danny not to upset her again, as if Danny wanted to. Danny no longer minded the helpless anger it made him feel: it was something else for Dr. Kent to pay for.

The black street seemed hardly there, it was slipping by so fast. Danny trotted the last few yards and turned ttie comer. Dr. Kent was waiting on the steps of the Hercules. This time she didn’t take him by surprise, not like New Year’s Eve. He glanced along Seven Sisters Road. The pavements were deserted—it was hardly a night for walking—and there wasn’t a car on the move. He selected his key as he strode up the steps to her. “Well, Danny,” she said, “you certainly like to keep a lady waiting.”

She couldn’t have been waiting that long. If she had, he hoped it had made her shiver. He unlocked the foyer doors and waved her in. “Quick, before anyone sees.”

“Shouldn’t we be here?” she said. For a moment he thought she was going to refuse. “I hope this is worth it, that’s all.”

“It will be, oh yes.” He mustn’t let her sense his eagerness. He locked the doors and pushed the keys as deep into his trousers pocket as they would go, and wondered what the smell in the dark foyer was. Of course, it was her coat, which looked like leather but smelled like plastic. “Steps here,” he said as he found his way up to his box.

He switched on the light and closed the door quickly, since she wasn’t following him. When he’d turned on the projector and the auditorium lights, he found she hadn’t moved. Had she been growing apprehensive, alone there in the dark? No doubt she thought she could get the better of him, but she wouldn’t for much longer. He held the doors open a crack. “See where you want to sit while I get the film.”

“Have you put the lights on just for me? I’m honored.” When she went in, looking amused and perhaps a shade wary, he closed the doors at once. Hercules Place led nowhere, nobody was likely to pass by, but there was no point in having light visible from outside. He switched on the light in Mr. Pettigrew’s office just as he dodged in. This was where Mr. Pettigrew would keep the film.

He sat in Mr. Pettigrew’s chair and put his feet up on the desk. “Come here, Karen, I’ll teach you to wipe your nose,” he growled, wagging his finger at the air. “And Mandy, I’ll give you both a wipe you won’t like.” He grabbed his mouth to keep in his laughter, in case Dr. Kent heard or he woke up Mr. Pettigrew’s suit on the back of the door. He got up and punched the jacket in the stomach, in case it was one of her spies, and made his way back to the projection box.

Dr.” Kent was sitting halfway down the auditorium. The sight made him feel even more powerful than sitting in Mr. Pettigrew’s chair. She must think he’d gone to Mr. Pettigrew’s office for the film, perhaps she thought he believed there really was one, but she couldn’t confuse him now.

He was still savoring the experience of watching her when she turned and looked at him. She must be wondering why the film hadn’t started. Though he felt a twinge of panic, he was excited too: it was time to tell her why she was here. But then she hurried up the aisle. As he pressed his cheek against the window to see where she was going, she opened the door behind him and came into the box.

“You haven’t shown me where you work. That’s your little spyhole, is it? Let me see.” She squeezed past him in the cramped box, and he jumped when he felt the heat of the projector on his shoulders. “You can see just about everything and never be noticed, can’t you? I’ll bet it makes you feel big. But there’s one thing I don’t see, Danny,” she said, turning. “I don’t see you putting on a film.”

He began to grin, even though her taking the initiative had stolen a little of his clarity. She was going to regret forcing the pace. “There isn’t a film, is there?” she said. “There never was.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“And your manager didn’t send you to Soho. You went there on your own behalf.”

She was smiling sadly at him. Sweat oozed into his eyes, making him blink and feel like weeping, but he mustn’t mop his. forehead, that would look as if she were bothering him. “You aren’t in Soho now,” he muttered. “You’re here. You can’t bother me.”

“Of course I can, Danny, without trying. All women do. That’s why you buy those magazines.” She held up one hand to stifle his denial. “Tell me something, Danny. What would you do, what would you really do, if you got a woman on her own, all to yourself?”

She’d better take care. She was making him feel trapped in the box where there wasn’t room for two people, trapped with the heat and the bulky projector and the plastic stink of her coat. He thought he was managing to smile, to show she couldn’t bother him, but something inside him was tightening, tightening. He was forgetting what he’d meant to do.

Then he had an idea that delighted him. He could turn off all the lights and leave her locked in. If she tried to break out he would call the police and say she had broken in—yes, broken in to hide the magazines that were under the carpet she was standing on, to discredit him with his parents and gain more of a hold over his mind. He was inching backward, toward the light switch and the door, when she said, “I’ll make it easy for you, Danny. I know what you’re up to.”

His face stiffened, and then his body. His sweat felt like hot salt water that someone was pouring into his hair. “You’ve brought me here and locked us in and now we’re on our own,” she said. “All right, Danny. I’m ready. Show me what you want to do.”

He would have if he could. He had only to reach for the light switch and dodge out of the door, to the fuses. But he couldn’t move, he could only grow tighter inside as she gazed at him and shrugged. “Just say it if that’s easier.”

She was taunting him, doing her best to make him feel helpless. He needed all his energy to fight his body, make it move. She was shaking her head now, pursing her lips sadly. “Danny, I don’t think we can make any further progress by ourselves. I think we have to involve your parents.”

She stepped forward as if she meant to go straight to them. Even if he couldn’t move, she wouldn’t get past him or the projector. She hadn’t reached him when she stopped and looked down at the carpet. Sweat crawled under all his clothes. She had found the magazines.

If she pulled back the carpet, the first thing she would see would be the picture onto which he’d stuck Molly Wolfe’s face. He wanted her to know he had seen through them both, knew they were in league, but he couldn’t bear the shame of her seeing the picture. His expression must have betrayed his fear, for she was stooping. “Leave that,” he screamed, and darted forward, shoving her away from the magazines.

His scream had jerked her to her feet but she was off balance as he reached her. Somehow, as if he had dreamed it and forgotten, he knew what was going to happen a moment before it did. He heard it first, the sound of meat thrown into a hot pan, and yet he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, not until her desperately flailing hands made it clear what it meant for her to fall with the side of her face against the projector.

He backed away toward the door. He couldn’t have touched her even if he had wanted to save her, he could only watch. It seemed a long time before she was able to hurl herself backward, crashing into the wall, and he was dismayed by how much of her face she had left on the hot metal. He was still watching when she struggled away from the wall and came toward him.