Summon Up the Blood (20 page)

‘You pushed me into saying what I have said. I repeatedly begged you to let the matter drop. But now that we have ventured into these waters, it is you who have been found wanting in courage.’

Quinn hung his head. It had suddenly struck him, with demoralizing force, how vast was the gulf between them. Not only that, he recognized it as the eternal gulf between the sexes. They were destined to misunderstand each other; to place the worst construction on each other’s motives; each to simplify the other’s psychology until it became a crude caricature.

Men and women were each a closed book to the other. That was the only conclusion.

‘Perhaps in future it would be better if we confine our intercourse to matters pertaining strictly to police business,’ said Quinn, in little more than a murmur.

‘That is something we can agree upon,’ said Miss Latterly, thumbing through the pages of Sir Edward’s diary.

Q
uinn eased the front door shut with both hands. One to push it to, the other to strain against that momentum with a counterforce. The hinges behaved themselves for once: the merest creak, no louder than a mildly complaining stomach.

He could suggest to Mrs Ibbott that she put a dab of oil on the offending parts, even volunteer to do it himself. But wouldn’t that look like he had something to hide? He half-suspected that Mrs Ibbott kept the hinges noisy deliberately, so that she could keep tabs on the comings and goings of her residents. Only a sneak or a spy, someone desirous of avoiding his fellow lodgers, someone who wanted to come and go like a thief in the night (only someone like Quinn, in other words) would take the trouble to argue for oiling.

But this business with other people, it fair wore him out. They wanted too much from him, with their questions and concern, their gentle manoeuvring, their insinuations and invitations. Far better to keep himself to himself.

Behind all this was his anxiety over Miss Dillard. To begin with, he was embarrassed about being made to look as though he had run away from dinner on her account the other night.

Far worse was the fact that he had allowed himself to use Miss Dillard’s name in his exchanges with the renter last night. Not only that, he had given the impression that there was some sort of understanding between himself and Miss Dillard. An understanding of the worst sort.

Quinn felt the through-rush of shame. All his attempts at any kind of interrelationship with members of the opposite sex seemed to be configured by it.

He felt that he owed her some sort of apology. But how could he apologize for something he could never admit to?
My dear Miss Dillard, I do apologize but I happened to mention to a renter who was trying to pick me up that I had no need of his services because all my sexual requirements were taken care of by you. I hope that’s all right. I know we don’t have such an understanding, so I really shouldn’t have said it – and perhaps I shouldn’t have said it even if it were true. But for some reason, your name was the first that came into my head. I can’t think why. Please be assured that I really have no desire for such an understanding with you – you need have no fear on that front. So I really am at a loss to explain why it was your name I thought of. I could have said Miss Latterly, or Miss Ibbott, because – to be honest – those are the ones about whom I really do entertain thoughts of that nature. The human mind is an unfathomable mystery. I feel sure I must have read that somewhere, but even so
. . .

The door to the front parlour opened and the lady herself came out, dressed as always in a dated and much-repaired gown. For one horrifying moment, Quinn thought he must have spoken aloud his strange monologue of apology. But her face was as mild and unassuming as ever, and as hopelessly unmoving to him.

Her gaze dipped modestly when she saw it was him, pathetically self-effacing. No, it was not true to say that her face didn’t move him at all. But the only emotion it inspired was pity. He could not say what colour her eyes were. He did not dare look into them for long enough to find out. He had a vague impression of wateriness there. And about her face, a certain bloated slackness, as of a balloon that was beginning to deflate.

What saddened him, sickened him almost, about all this was that he was capable of entertaining such ungentlemanly thoughts.

You’re no oil painting yourself, Quinn
, he told himself.

Do you think your Miss Latterlys and your Miss Ibbotts would ever look twice at the likes of you?

Perhaps Mrs Ibbott was right to point him in the direction of Miss Dillard. Or perhaps all she was doing there was steering him away from her daughter. He couldn’t blame her. In her shoes, he would do the same.

‘Mr Quinn?’ said Miss Dillard, with a note of surprise in her voice.

‘Good evening to you, Miss Dillard.’ Quinn removed his hat and gave a slight bow.

‘You are late this evening. I was just going up.’

‘Yes . . . we are very busy at the office at the moment.’

‘At the office, yes. One day you must explain to me exactly what it is you do at that office of yours, Mr Quinn.’ Miss Dillard smiled slyly and lifted her eyes. He flinched away from her look of timid enquiry just as it turned into one of alarmed solicitude. ‘Good heavens! What have you done to your nose?’

Her hand rose protectively towards his face, only to shrink back as she became aware of the involuntary and revealing gesture.

Quinn had forgotten entirely about his injury. It had not troubled him for some time, and thanks to Macadam’s arnica tablets the bruising was almost entirely gone. Only someone who took an obsessive interest in the state of his face could have noticed the slight heightening of colour at the tip of his nose. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. A little accident.’

‘You must take more care of yourself, Mr Quinn. We all worry about you, you know.’

Quinn found it hard to imagine Messrs Appleby and Timberley expressing any concern on his behalf, unless it were to do so ironically. And Miss Ibbott? He would have dearly liked to know if she was included in Miss Dillard’s circle of worry. Even Quinn realized he could not ask the question directly, certainly not of Miss Dillard. He settled for a sceptical: ‘All?’

‘Oh yes, I am certain the others share my concern for your welfare.’

Ah!
His image of the occupants of the lodging house seated round the table earnestly sharing their anxieties over him evaporated.

‘You must place a cold compress on it. If you like, I can . . .’

‘No, no. That won’t be necessary.’

Miss Dillard winced at the speed and sharpness of his rejection. ‘I was only going to say I could speak to Mrs Ibbott about it. I am sure she has a compress somewhere that you can use.’

‘It won’t be necessary, I assure you.’ Quinn endeavoured to soften his tone. ‘It’s very kind of you. Very kind.’ The sense that he owed her something – if not an apology, something – suddenly overwhelmed him.

Slowly, deliberately, he directed his gaze towards her eyes.

Grey. So that was it. Grey.

The least he owed her was to look into her eyes and acknowledge the strangely beautiful pewter grey of her irises.

He could not say that he detected any great intelligence in those eyes. But he felt their compassion, and that was perhaps the quality he valued most of all.

‘You are very kind,’ he said, the focus of his gaze still locked on to her eyes. ‘But really, it isn’t necessary.’

She smiled, and for once he did not feel that her smile was pathetic and pitiable. He realized that when he looked into Miss Dillard’s eyes, when he dared to do that, she made perfect sense to him. She was complete. She was not ridiculous at all, he realized. She was human.

The first thing he saw as he closed the door to his room was the brown paper package on his bed. He couldn’t believe he had left it in the open like that. Someone – anyone – could have come into his room, slipped the string, pulled apart the wrapping and seen the book inside. The offence of trespass would have been nothing compared to the opprobrium that would descend on him as one who read such material.

Betsy had clearly made the bed and replaced the book more or less where he had left it. Was there something pointed in this? A vile pornographic novel borne up on the homely neatness of a well-made bed? It struck him as a critical – perhaps even satirical – juxtaposition.

It was as if she was saying,
I know what you’re up to, mister.

But no, it was impossible to conceive of Betsy opening a private package belonging to one of the lodgers, especially one of the gentlemen lodgers. For one thing, she hadn’t the time. Mrs Ibbott kept her far too busy. But more than that, Betsy was a good sort.

He looked at the inert package with loathing. Even when he turned from it, he felt its presence in his room, a kind of challenge.
Dare you read me?
it seemed to be saying to him.

He left it where it was and crossed to his table. The tin of Set cigarettes transmitted a similar mute message:
Dare you smoke me?

Quinn had no eagerness to accept either challenge. The thought of the yellowish cigarette papers left him feeling physically nauseous. It brought to mind the deeper yellow cover of the book. The connection troubled him. It was as if there was some conspiracy at work here. He began to distrust the colour yellow. Although he had never thought so before, it seemed poisonous at its essence. He felt that the mere sight of the book would cause his mouth to flood with saliva, and his throat to begin the gag reflex.

As if to test himself, he picked up the tin and confronted the strange Egyptian figure depicted there. He could almost believe that this impossible being with a human body and animal head was the killer he was looking for, such was the antipathy it generated in him.

He remembered how the smoke from the cigarettes had estranged him from his room and himself. He had become someone else, under its drug-laden influence. Was it possible, he wondered, that it had a similar effect on the murderer? When the spirit of the cigarettes, the sinister Egyptian deity, entered that unknown person, did he become a creature capable of cutting and bleeding a young man till he died?

If that was the case, it was Quinn’s duty to do what he had little stomach for. The enquiry demanded it.

He opened the tin, took out one of the fat yellow cigarettes and lit it.

Clearly, not everyone who smoked Set cigarettes became a murderer. But he knew from his own experience that they had a disorientating effect. It was more than that. They tended to loosen inhibitions. Perhaps this was why it was so common for inverts to smoke them. The great line that had to be crossed in order for them to commit their acts together required a virtual abandonment of inhibitions.

If your inner nature was that of an invert, then Set cigarettes would serve to bring it closer to the surface.

If your inner nature was that of a killer, then the same principle would apply.

Quinn inhaled. And closed his eyes. Strangely, he did not feel nauseous. He was becoming used to the effect of the cigarettes. Welcomed it now, even.

He crossed to the looking-glass on the washstand and confronted himself. The sense of estrangement was less than he had experienced the night before, as if he was becoming reconciled to the idea that his reflection did not match the image of himself that he carried in his head. Or perhaps it was more that the outer and the inner Quinn were growing closer together. Was that the power of the cigarettes, then?

He took a second, deeper inhalation of smoke. His pulse raced. The room swam a little, shifted from its moorings in the universe before being pulled back into place.

Quinn went to the bed and picked up the book. It seemed lighter than he remembered it. Perhaps the Set cigarettes gave the smoker strength too? Quinn had an uncle who was prone to sleepwalking, who had single-handedly moved a mahogany wardrobe laden with clothes, watched by his incredulous wife. In the morning, he had been unable to restore it to its original position. The wardrobe had to be completely emptied of clothes before the two of them together were able to shift it an inch.

Relating these observations back to the killer, it was conceivable that when he smoked the cigarettes he believed himself capable of anything. Physically, he might be able to make short work of hefting a body, for example.

Quinn took the package over to the armchair. It was harder than he had imagined to remove the string, almost as if it were jealous of what it bound. Then he remembered that he had tied the knot, so all it really represented was his own desire to keep the horrid secret of the book hidden from prying eyes.

He lifted away the paper calmly, as if he wanted to prove – to that imaginary observer again? – that he was in no hurry to see what lay beneath. That he could take it or leave it, in fact.

When finally it lay revealed on his lap in its nest of brown paper, the yellow of the cover still struck him as an unpleasant lurid hue. Its stridency still offended, like a hysterical scream in polite company. Quinn took this as a good sign. The cigarettes had not so poisoned his mind that he was capable of looking on such a book with anything other than disgust.

He opened it with a grimace, the Set cigarette held between his teeth as he drew on it.

Merely the sight of the type on the page induced a strange breathlessness, accompanied by a feeling like butterflies in the pit of his stomach. His body felt hollowed-out and volatile.

He read short passages at random, flicking the pages whenever he encountered a repulsive word:

cockstand

spendings

frig

arsehole

buttocks

prick

mancunt

pego

balls

Such words recurred with monotonous frequency. As he might have expected, the book lacked any literary merit whatsoever. Even on this cursory examination, he noticed numerous spelling mistakes and examples of slapdash punctuation. Coupled with its monotony of vocabulary and style, as a novel it was let down by its excessive repetition of incident. It was little more than a catalogue of the sexual encounters of the narrator. Of course, the power of the book lay in the shocking nature of these encounters. And, for Quinn, that power was deeply disturbing.