Blind Needle Read online

  Had he really killed his wife, as he claimed? Was she even dead? Did he even have a wife to begin with? I’d already told him about Susan and something (not everything) of her entanglement with Benson, and it struck me that S – was trying to match my story with his, match it and beat it if he could, as if he couldn’t bear to be outdone. Almost as if he was jealous. I had a wife who had betrayed me, therefore so had he, though he had gone one better and manfully done something about it, not suffered in pathetic wimpish silence and self-torturing impotence.

  This must have been the point at which ‘transference’ (as Dr Morduch would say) began to take place. S – was living partly in his own fantasy world and borrowing bits of mine as and when it suited him. He hadn’t yet begun to make threats against me, and indeed I was still sceptical about his ‘Perfect Murder’ and whether in fact a murder had taken place at all.

  Then came the new revised version. Well, not so much revised as completely different from the original, another scenario altogether.

  He confessed to me one day that the story about tampering with the brakes of his wife’s car wasn’t strictly true. It was true to the extent that he had thought of doing it – had even begun to plan it in the meticulous way he had described – but then he’d had a better idea. A much better idea. It was stupid of him, he said, blind and bloody stupid not to have thought of it before, particularly when the method for the Perfect Murder was staring him in the face …

  His wife, S – told me, had been diabetic and had to inject herself daily with insulin. He himself had been instructed how to give the injection in case she missed one by accident and lapsed into a coma and was unable to administer it herself. What could be simpler? All he had to do was wait until she was asleep, prepare a dosage three or four times the prescribed level, and shoot it into the cheating, lying bitch. Even if she woke up, it wouldn’t matter; it would be too late. With that much insulin swilling about her system he simply had to prevent her getting to the phone and calling for help in the few minutes’ grace she had before her metabolism went into massive hypoglycemic shock. And that would be that. He would lie down beside her and go to sleep, and in the morning awake the distraught hubby, frantically trying to revive his beloved. Easily done, the doctors would tell him sympathetically, trying to lessen the blow, unless the user kept a strict check on dosage levels and daily intake, which it now transpired his wife hadn’t done; and that, according to S –, was exactly what the doctors did tell him.

  No suspicion fell on him. He had set out to commit the Perfect Murder and had achieved it.

  This might have been another of his boastful fantasies, part of his frantic desire to be thought charismatic, wickedly cunning and superior to ordinary mortals, and perhaps I would have dismissed it as such except for two things. The first was that he was very precise about the extra insulin he had injected into her: a full two millilitre syringe, or 200 units, equivalent to four times the normal dose. The second thing, which actually convinced me, was what had taken place during the night as he lay beside her corpse. She might have mocked him in the past for his inadequacy and rejected him in favour of her lover, but he was dead set on having the last fuck as well as the last laugh.

  And he actually did laugh, or rather giggled, as he told me this, as if delighting in his own fiendish cleverness and inviting me to join in his complicity, to celebrate with him the stunning success of all his schemes and stratagems.

  When I came to read the diary, several weeks later, it was the way he described these cold, methodical preparations to murder his wife that really chilled me. He even talked, or gloated, about how much his wife ‘trusted’ him – about how ‘caring’ and ‘attentive’ he had been, while all the time planning and plotting to do away with her. That was why I feared him so much, and believed he was capable of killing me with the same dispassionate madman’s logic. In his tortured mind he had transferred the blame to me: I was the ‘Murdering Bastard’ who had done the deed and I was going to pay for it. Next time, instead of toenail clippings in the mashed potato, it would be powdered glass.

  I finished my glass of beer and went to the gents along a passage which led outside to a small flagged yard. The lavatory was a primitive structure, drizzle whipping through the gap between the corrugated iron roof and whitewashed brick walls, coating the flagstones which gleamed slickly in the light of a frosted globe inside a wire cage. I heard the scrape of a shoe, and a low mumble of voices that went silent as I came in.

  There were two men – I registered no more than that one was young and pale and fat, his stomach bursting through the buttons on his shirt, the other dark, thin, one-dimensional. There was a washbasin in the corner with a single tap, but no plug, soap or towel of course.

  They hadn’t spoken since I entered, but now as I stood at the stained slab one of them said behind my back, ‘Need some stuff, squire?’

  I turned round, buttoning my coat, having done nothing. My heart was beating against my rib-cage; I wondered if they were homosexuals.

  ‘We’ve god some prime stuff,’ the pale fat one said in a friendly, wheedling tone, ‘if you god the readies.’ He had some kind of speech impediment or his nostrils were blocked with mucus. He winked slowly and pressed an imaginary plunger into his arm with a hand like a bunch of sausages.

  The other man nudged him sharply in the ribs. There was an irregular stain on his cheek, a birthmark in the shape of a chicken-claw. ‘We don’t know him,’ he muttered without moving his lips. ‘Shut your bloody hole.’

  ‘He looks all right to me,’ the fat one grinned, and even in the poor light I could see that his teeth were small and square, brown at the roots. ‘What about it, squire? You’re not CID, are you?’

  He gave a throaty cackle with his head lowered, watching me craftily from beneath puffy eyelids.

  I felt suddenly sick. The thought of the needle had churned the greasy food in my stomach into a fermenting cauldron: my bowels became liquid. I had finished with needles, I thought, for ever. Starched white coats and tight transparent gloves and glass ampoules with clear amber fluid. Dr Morduch’s waxy face swam up like a bloated balloon. It loomed larger as he bent towards me, his gold-framed spectacles glinting. His eyes bulged in the round lenses, filling them, and he frowned a little, V-shaped creases appearing on his wide forehead as he aimed the syringe. Christ, I could feel it happening … the hollow point bearing down … the thin cold sliding pain piercing to the marrow. Needles shrivelled my insides, made my head into a drum-beat.

  Without realising it I was leaning against the whitewashed wall. I saw the man with the birthmark – pointed nose, narrow furrowed brow, long thin ears – peering at me with small, glittering eyes like tiny sharp stones. ‘What the hell’s up with him? Bugger looks sick.’

  ‘Leave me … please,’ I said weakly. The smell of urine from the grate brought something up in my throat.

  ‘Hey, Ray,’ the fat one said, gleefully, as if struck by a wonderful idea. ‘Led’s give him a free shot. Eh? Why not? Build up our clientele.’ He reached into his pocket.

  ‘Okay,’ the man called Ray said. ‘Go ahead. And you pay.’

  ‘Who? What der you mean? Why me?’

  ‘What I said – give him one if you want to, only it comes out of your share. What do you think I am, the Salvation Army?’

  The light from the frosted globe gleamed weakly on something in the fat one’s hand.

  I closed my eyes.

  The wall was rough against the back of my head. If I could have died by willing it I would have chosen to. It was the same feeling I had when S – threatened me, the same numbing panic when he told me what he was going to do to me.

  ‘Roll his sleeve up,’ said the soft fat voice.

  ‘This one’s on you, is it?’ Ray said in a flat snarl. ‘Your fucking share, remember that, Wayne, not mine—’

  ‘He’ll have money. Feel in his pockets.’

  Hands rummaged inside my coat, dipped into my pockets. I took hold of a thin b
ony wrist and dug my nails in. The thin man yelped a curse and hit me with sharp knuckles. It wasn’t a hard blow but it made me angry. I opened my eyes and saw the needle. I hawked up what was in my throat and spat in his face.

  ‘You dirty …’ Ray said incredulously. ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘Hold him still,’ the fat one, Wayne, said. ‘While I jab him.’

  Ray wiped his face and edged sideways out of my vision. I tried to watch him but couldn’t keep my eyes from the needle’s point, weaving in front of Wayne’s straining stomach. On his flabby forearm there was a tattooed dagger dripping purple blood.

  Grinning at me with his bad teeth, Wayne said, ‘I dun’t care about the money. He can have dis one on the house. Hee-hee-hee. I can’t wait der see him come crawling to me on his hands and knees. I’ll mek him eat dog turds first. Make the bastard beg!’

  ‘Please keep away,’ I implored him. ‘Please.’

  ‘Please-please-please. He’s god manners.’

  ‘Stick him if you’re going to.’

  ‘How much do you want? I’ll give you money,’ I said, pleaded.

  ‘Come on,’ Ray said. ‘For crying out fucking loud.’

  ‘Led him sweat a bit.’

  ‘Why do you want to do this?’ I said hopelessly, knowing I couldn’t reason with them. Reason to them was a sign of weakness. Easier and quicker to obey your instincts, do what the mood told you to do. Thinking was difficult and unnecessary, gratification came easy, gave instant pleasure.

  ‘Lissen, squire,’ Wayne said gently, wheedling again. ‘You’ll enjoy this, you really will. You’ll be floating on a pink cloud in a blue sky. Brickton’ll seem like Torrimelinos. Your very own package tour – you’ll thank me, promise you will.’ He said sharply, ‘Ready?’

  I saw a blur of white hands reaching for me and stuck my boot out. It sank into something. Ray was holding my arms and shouting, ‘Where are you, where the fuck are you, what are you doing down there?’

  His grip was amazingly strong for such a thin runt. He tried to twist my arms behind my back, shouting at Wayne on the floor. We scuffled together, doing a comic dance on the damp flagstones; Wayne was grunting and wheezing, still on his knees. It was the kind of nightmare in which your limbs are constricted by a crushing weight, and unless you break free a terrible fate awaits you. I twisted and squirmed but whatever I did I couldn’t break his grip; it was impossible, beyond my strength.

  ‘Get up, get up,’ Ray was panting. ‘Stick the bastard if you’re going to, for Christ’s sake …’

  Wayne raised his moon face, rising slowly and murderously on one leg, wheezing like a steam engine. With my arms held fast I had no other choice but to put the toe of my boot under the hanging chin. He made a funny sound as he went over backwards and I heard the glass of the syringe break as it fell onto the flagstones and rolled into the urinal.

  ‘You bastard!’ Ray rasped in my ear.

  Wayne was slumped in a heap, holding his jaw with both hands. I don’t like violence but I hoped it was broken. I felt better with the needle gone. I wrenched myself sideways and Ray hung on, cursing me. We staggered to and fro, feet scrabbling for a hold on the flagstones, and I managed to get his body between me and the wall and put my full weight behind my shoulder, driving it into the narrow breastbone. I heard a dry gasp as his breath left him, and his hands went slack.

  I didn’t kid myself that I could have beaten him in a real fight: the grip of those bony hands was amazing. I was lucky to have caught him as I did, and while he was still gasping I took the chance and ran.

  There was a gate with a fringe of barbed-wire along the top. I pulled the bolt back and yanked the gate open. It opened six inches and stuck. There was a dustbin in the way. It weighed a ton, but I finally shoved it aside, squirmed through the gap and ran into the street. A voice behind me (I think it was Ray’s) shouted through a spasm of coughing, ‘Next time it won’t be smack. Next time it’ll be AIDS.’

  The rain had thickened, swirling like yellow smoke in the sulphurous streetlights. I ran without direction, not knowing the town, not really caring, just wanting to disappear. After a while I slowed down, stood panting and listening; I couldn’t hear footsteps. I felt nauseous again, with the running and the fear. I leaned against a wall with my wet ice-cold forehead in the crook of my elbow and with immense relief let it come.

  3

  Closer

  Getting closer

  Can you feel me

  Closing in?

  From the doorway

  Across the street

  I can spy

  Your hiding-place

  Above the shop

  With the broken sign

  E GA FOO S ORE

  The unlit room

  Where you think

  You’re safe

  Sleeping and dreaming

  Your tortured dreams

  But do you hear

  My footsteps

  Dragging nearer?

  My soft words

  Whispering

  In your ear

  Wife-killer

  Murdering bastard

  You must die too

  A death

  For a death

  The sins

  Of the past

  Wiped clean

  Not toenails

  Next time

  Not faeces

  Not semen

  This time

  Something sure

  And certain

  And permanent

  This needle

  In my pocket

  That Morduch

  Never missed …

  I slide back

  Sink deeper

  Into the shadows

  Police car

  Tall black shapes

  Peaked caps

  A brown face swims

  Behind the window

  Through the waving fans

  Of dried leaves

  A bell tinkles

  The door opens

  The policemen stand

  On the pavement

  As the Indian

  Rants and raves

  Arms circling

  Head swaying

  ‘I pay rates!

  Damn bloody vandals!

  My wife frightened

  My child sick!’

  The policemen shrug

  ‘What do you expect

  Mr Patundi

  When you stay open

  All fucking hours

  Allah sends?’

  A peaked cap turns

  Glances this way

  I squeeze back

  Into the doorway

  And my heel

  Touches and topples

  An empty milk bottle

  He frowns and stares

  With my toe

  I catch it

  Stop it rolling

  Hold it still

  Hold my breath

  The Indian rants

  ‘Three white youths!

  Catch them!

  Catch them!’

  The policemen turn away

  Weary and indifferent

  Get in the car

  Drive off

  The shop door shuts

  The light goes out

  The street is dark again

  And empty

  I look up

  Face numb cold

  Through the slanting drizzle

  At the unlit window

  Where Holford sleeps

  And dreams

  His tortured dreams

  Chapter Four

  1

  Dr Morduch’s waxy, heavily lined face came down, a syringe in his gloved hand. ‘Hold him still, can’t you?’ he said irritably.

  I twisted against the straps. Somebody was squeezing my ankles as if they wanted to break them off. I was gagged and couldn’t scream.

  ‘Now then, old chap,’ murmured Dr Morduch in his best avuncular manner. ‘You’ll feel better for it, I promise you. No more bad dreams. Right – hold him
still!’

  The hollow point bore down, a drop of pinkish liquid gathering at the tip like a dew-drop. The needle went in, burrowed into the vein, forming a long thin mound. The mound travelled along my arm, a tiny vindictive mole working away industriously towards my heart. If it ever reached my heart I would be dead and done for.

  Dr Morduch’s broad thumb pressed home the plunger.

  A molten river of spite coursed through me. I jerked, strained against the straps, went slack as my nervous system was knocked out of action. My eyeballs weighed a neutron star apiece.

  ‘He’s going … he’s going … going …’

  ‘Gone and never called me mother,’ said the moon-faced man with the vice-like grip.

  Somebody was wailing. I thought it was me until I opened my eyes, and the wailing went on. I expected to hear the gnashing of teeth and other sounds of lamentation. It was the radio, or perhaps a record, from below. I lay back on the flock bolster, still shaking, my neck stiff from the strain, watching the plume of my breath ascending to the ceiling like the smoke from a funeral pyre. For the past two nights I hadn’t dreamt of S –, which I took to be a good omen. Perhaps I really had shaken him off, and he was still wandering up and down the M6, a ghost looking for a phantom.

  The dirge-like voice kept to the same high monotonous pitch, a soul in torment, though to Mr Patundi’s ears it might have been bubble-gum music, number three in the Calcutta charts.

  After a quick wash in cold water I went out.

  The street was muffled in damp sea-mist. I welcomed it as protection, another layer of disguise. It was a pity I couldn’t alter my appearance in some way, but I had no moustache or beard to shave off, and my hair was already cropped. The barber along the street couldn’t be of assistance.

  Where I came from we called a chill mist borne on the wind moor-grime, but this was from the sea and I didn’t know if the locals had a name for it. Shrouded ghostly figures passed by. The cars in the high street had their lights on; lorries revved and groaned, frustrated by the creeping pace and the narrow corners. Their trailers clanked emptily.

  At a newsagents I bought a morning paper and asked the girl behind the counter where B-H Haulage was. She was vague – second left after the traffic lights, up the hill, or was it the third? – picking at a spot on her chin with a fingernail from which the polish was flaking. I wandered off without hope in that general direction, but in fact I found the place easily enough: metal bollards painted in black and white stripes were set into the pavement on opposite corners of the street to safeguard pedestrians from the turning lorries. Just then an articulated lorry, lights blazing, B-H in a circle on the doors, came down the hill with a shriek and gasp of its air-powered brakes.