Not Safe After Dark: And Other Stories Page 6

  “Did you come all the way down on Friday?”

  “Of course I bloody well did. I thought we had an—”

  “Oh God. Look, I’m sorry, mate, really I am. I tried to call. That woman at work—what’s her name?”

  “Elsie?”

  “That’s the one. She said she’d give you a message. I must admit she didn’t sound as if she quite had her wits about her, but I’d no choice.”

  Reed softened a little. “What happened?”

  “My mother. You know she’s been ill for a long time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, she died last Wednesday. I had to rush off back to Manchester. Look, I really am sorry, but you can see I couldn’t do anything about it, can’t you?”

  “It’s me who should be sorry,” Reed said. “To hear about your mother, I mean.”

  “Yes, well, at least there’ll be no more suffering for her. Maybe we could get together in a few weeks?”

  “Sure. Just let me know when.”

  “All right. I’ve still got stuff to do, you know, things to organize. How about if I call you back in a couple of weeks?”

  “Great, I’ll look forward to it. Bye.”

  “Bye. And I’m sorry, Terry, really.”

  Reed put the phone down and went to bed. So that was it—the mystery solved.

  * * *

  The following evening, just after he’d arrived home from work, Reed heard a loud knock at his door. When he opened it, he saw two strangers standing there. At first he thought they were Jehovah’s Witnesses—who else came to the door in pairs, wearing suits?—but these two didn’t quite look the part. True, one did look a bit like a Bible salesman—chubby, with a cheerful, earnest expression on a face fringed by a neatly trimmed dark beard—but the other, painfully thin, with a long, pockmarked face, looked more like an undertaker, except for the way his sharp blue eyes glittered with intelligent suspicion.

  “Mr. Reed? Mr. Terence J. Reed?” the cadaverous one said, in a deep, quiet voice, just like the way Reed imagined a real undertaker would speak. And wasn’t there a hint of the Midlands nasal quality in the way he slurred the vowels?

  “Yes, I’m Terry Reed. What is it? What do you want?” Reed could already see, over their shoulders, his neighbors spying from their windows: little corners of white net-curtain twitched aside to give a clear view.

  “We’re police officers, sir. Mind if we come in for a moment?” They flashed their identity cards, but put them away before Reed had time to see what was written there. He backed into the hallway and they took their opportunity to enter. As soon as they had closed the door behind them, Reed noticed the one with the beard start glancing around him, taking everything in, while the other continued to hold Reed’s gaze. Finally, Reed turned and led them into the living room. He felt some kind of signal pass between them behind his back.

  “Nice place you’ve got,” the thin one said, while the other prowled the room, picking up vases and looking inside, opening drawers an inch or two, then closing them again.

  “Look, what is this?” Reed said. “Is he supposed to be poking through my things? I mean, do you have a search warrant or something?”

  “Oh, don’t mind him,” the tall one said. “He’s just like that. Insatiable curiosity. By the way, my name’s Bentley, Detective Superintendent Bentley. My colleague over there goes by the name of Inspector Rodmoor. We’re from the Midlands Regional Crime Squad.” He looked to see Reed’s reaction as he said this, but Reed tried to show no emotion at all.

  “I still don’t see what you want with me,” he said.

  “Just routine,” said Bentley. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Bentley sat in the rocker by the fireplace and Reed sat opposite on the sofa. A mug of half-finished coffee stood between them on the glass-topped table, beside a couple of unpaid bills and the latest Radio Times.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Reed offered.

  Bentley shook his head.

  “What about him?” Reed glanced over nervously toward Inspector Rodmoor, who was looking through his bookcase, pulling out volumes that caught his fancy and flipping through them.

  Bentley folded his hands on his lap. “Just try to forget he’s here.”

  But Reed couldn’t. He kept flicking his eyes edgily from one to the other, always anxious about what Rodmoor was getting into next.

  “Mr. Reed,” Bentley went on, “were you in Redditch on the evening of nine November? Last Friday, that was.”

  Reed put his hand to his brow, which was damp with sweat. “Let me think now . . . Yes, yes, I believe I was.”

  “Why?”

  “What? Sorry . . . ?”

  “I asked why. Why were you in Redditch? What was the purpose of your visit?”

  He sounded like an immigration control officer at the airport, Reed thought. “I was there to meet an old university friend,” he answered. “I’ve been going down for a weekend once a year or so ever since he moved there.”

  “And did you meet him?”

  “As a matter of fact, no, I didn’t.” Reed explained the communications breakdown with Francis.

  Bentley raised an eyebrow. Rodmoor riffled through the magazine rack by the fireplace.

  “But you still went there?” Bentley persisted.

  “Yes. I told you, I didn’t know he’d be away. Look, do you mind telling me what this is about? I think I have a right to know.”

  Rodmoor fished a copy of Mayfair out of the magazine rack and held it up for Bentley to see. Bentley frowned and reached over for it. The cover showed a shapely blonde in skimpy pink lace panties and camisole, stockings, and a suspender belt. She was on her knees on a sofa, and her round behind faced the viewer. Her face was also turned toward the camera, and she looked as if she’d just been licking her glossy red lips. The thin strap of the camisole had slipped over her upper arm.

  “Nice,” Bentley said. “Looks a bit young, though, don’t you think?”

  Reed shrugged. He felt embarrassed and didn’t know what to say.

  Bentley flipped through the rest of the magazine, pausing over the color spreads of naked women in fetching poses.

  “It’s not illegal you know,” Reed burst out. “You can buy it in any newsagent’s. It’s not pornography.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it, sir?” said Inspector Rodmoor, taking the magazine back from his boss and replacing it.

  Bentley smiled. “Don’t mind him, lad,” he said. “He’s a Methodist. Now where were we?”

  Reed shook his head.

  “Do you own a car?” Bentley asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you live here by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ever been married?”

  “No.”

  “Girlfriends?”

  “Some.”

  “But not to live with?”

  “No.”

  “Magazines enough for you, eh?”

  “Now just a minute—”

  “Sorry,” Bentley said, holding up his skeletal hand. “Pretty tasteless of me, that was. Out of line.”

  Why couldn’t Reed quite believe the apology? He sensed very strongly that Bentley had made the remark on purpose to see how he would react. He hoped he’d passed the test. “You were going to tell me what all this was about . . .”

  “Was I? Why don’t you tell me about what you did in Redditch last Friday evening first? Inspector Rodmoor will join us here by the table and take notes. No hurry. Take your time.”

  And slowly, trying to remember all the details of that miserable, washed-out evening five days ago, Reed told them. At one point, Bentley asked him what he’d been wearing, and Inspector Rodmoor asked if they might have a look at his raincoat and holdall. When Reed finished, the heavy silence stretched on for seconds. What were they thinking about? he wondered. Were they trying to make up their minds about him? What was he supposed to have done?

  Finally
, after they had asked him to go over one or two random points, Rodmoor closed his notebook and Bentley got to his feet. “That’ll be all for now, sir.”

  “For now?”

  “We might want to talk to you again. Don’t know. Have to check up on a few points first. We’ll just take the coat and the holdall with us, if you don’t mind, sir. Inspector Rodmoor will give you a receipt. Be available, will you?”

  In his confusion, Reed accepted the slip of paper from Rodmoor and did nothing to stop them taking his things. “I’m not planning on going anywhere, if that’s what you mean.”

  Bentley smiled. He looked like an undertaker consoling the bereaved. “Good. Well, we’ll be off then.” And they walked toward the door.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me what it’s all about?” Reed asked again as he opened the door for them. They walked out onto the path, and it was Inspector Rodmoor who turned and frowned. “That’s the funny thing about it, sir,” he said, “that you don’t seem to know.”

  “Believe me, I don’t.”

  Rodmoor shook his head slowly. “Anybody would think you don’t read your papers.” And they walked down the path to their Rover.

  Reed stood for a few moments watching the curtains opposite twitch and wondering what on earth Rodmoor meant. Then he realized that the newspapers had been delivered as usual the past few days, so they must have been in with magazines in the rack, but he had been too disinterested, too tired, or too busy to read any of them. He often felt like that. News was, more often than not, depressing, the last thing one needed on a wet weekend in Carlisle. Quickly, he shut the door on the gawping neighbors and hurried toward the magazine rack.

  He didn’t have far to look. The item was on the front page of yesterday’s paper, under the headline, MIDLANDS MURDER SHOCK. It read,

  The quiet Midlands town of Redditch is still in shock today over the brutal slaying of schoolgirl Debbie Harrison. Debbie, 15, failed to arrive home after a late hockey practice on Friday evening. Police found her partially clad body in an abandoned warehouse close to the town center early Saturday morning. Detective Superintendent Bentley, in charge of the investigation, told our reporter that police are pursuing some positive leads. They would particularly like to talk to anyone who was in the area of the bus station and noticed a strange man hanging around the vicinity late that afternoon. Descriptions are vague so far, but the man was wearing a light tan raincoat and carrying a blue holdall.

  He read and reread the article in horror, but what was even worse than the words was the photograph that accompanied it. He couldn’t be certain because it was a poor shot, but he thought it was the schoolgirl with the long wavy hair and the socks around her ankles, the one who had walked in front of him with her dumpy friend.

  The most acceptable explanation of the police visit would be that they needed him as a possible witness, but the truth was that the “strange man hanging around the vicinity” wearing “a light tan raincoat” and carrying a “blue holdall” was none other than himself, Terence J. Reed. But how did they know he’d been there?

  * * *

  The second time the police called Reed was at work. They marched right into the office, brazen as brass, and asked him if he could spare some time to talk to them down at the station. Bill only looked on curiously, but Frank, the boss, was hardly able to hide his irritation. Reed wasn’t his favorite employee anyway; he hadn’t been turning enough profit lately.

  Nobody spoke during the journey, and when they got to the station one of the local policemen pointed Bentley toward a free interview room. It was a bare place: gray metal desk, ashtray, three chairs. Bentley sat opposite Reed, and Inspector Rodmoor sat in a corner, out of his line of vision.

  Bentley placed the folder he’d been carrying on the desk and smiled his funeral director’s smile. “Just a few further points, Terry. Hope I don’t have to keep you long.”

  “So do I,” Reed said. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but shouldn’t I call my lawyer or something?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. It isn’t as if we’ve charged you or anything. You’re simply helping us with our inquiries, aren’t you? Besides, do you actually have a solicitor? Most people don’t.”

  Come to think of it, Reed didn’t have one. He knew one, though. Another old university friend had gone into law and practiced nearby. Reed couldn’t remember what he specialized in.

  “Let me lay my cards on the table, as it were,” Bentley said, spreading his hands on the desk. “You admit you were in Redditch last Friday evening to visit your friend. We’ve been in touch with him, by the way, and he verifies your story. What puzzles us is what you did between, say, four and eight thirty. A number of people saw you at various times, but there’s at least an hour or more here and there that we can’t account for.”

  “I’ve already told you what I did.”

  Bentley consulted the file he had set on the desk. “You ate at roughly six o’clock, is that right?”

  “About then, yes.”

  “So you walked around Redditch in the rain between five and six, and between six thirty and seven? Hardly a pleasant aesthetic experience, I’d imagine.”

  “I told you, I was thinking things out. I looked in shops, got lost a couple of times . . .”

  “Did you happen to get lost in the vicinity of Simmons Street?”

  “I don’t know the street names.”

  “Of course. Not much of a street, really, more an alley. It runs by a number of disused warehouses—”

  “Now wait a minute! If you’re trying to tie me in to that girl’s murder, then you’re way off beam. Perhaps I had better call a solicitor, after all.”

  “Ah!” said Bentley, glancing over at Rodmoor. “So you do read the papers?”

  “I did. After you left. Of course I did.”

  “But not before?”

  “I’d have known what you were on about, then, wouldn’t I? And while we’re on the subject, how the hell did you find out I was in Redditch that evening?”

  “You used your credit card in the Tandoori Palace,” Bentley said. “The waiter remembered you and looked up his records.”

  Reed slapped the desk. “There! That proves it. If I’d done what you seem to be accusing me of, I’d hardly have been as daft as to leave my calling card, would I?”

  Bentley shrugged. “Criminals make mistakes, just like everybody else. Otherwise we’d never catch any. And I’m not accusing you of anything at the moment. You can see our problem, though, can’t you? Your story sounds thin, very thin.”

  “I can’t help that. It’s the truth.”

  “What state would you say you were in when you went into the Tandoori Palace?”

  “State?”

  “Yes. Your condition.”

  Reed shrugged. “I was wet, I suppose. A bit fed up. I hadn’t been able to get in touch with Francis. Hungry, too.”

  “Would you say you appeared agitated?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “But someone who didn’t know you might just assume that you were?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I was out of breath.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “Well I’d been walking around for a long time carrying my holdall. It was quite heavy.”

  “Yes, of course. So you were wet and breathless when you ate in the restaurant. What about the pub you went into just after seven o’clock?”

  “What about it?”

  “Did you remain seated long?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Did you just sit and sip your drink, have a nice rest after a heavy meal and a long walk?”

  “Well, I had to go to the toilet, of course. And I tried phoning Francis a few more times.”

  “So you were up and down, a bit like a yo-yo, eh?”

  “But I had good reason! I was stranded. I desperately wanted to get in touch with my friend.”

  “Yes, of course. Cast your mind back a bit earlier in the afternoon. At abou
t twenty past three, you asked a woman what time the schools came out.”

  “Yes. I . . . I couldn’t remember. Francis is a teacher, so naturally I wanted to know if I was early or late. It was starting to rain.”

  “But you’d visited him there before. You said so. He’d picked you up at the same place several times.”

  “I know. I just couldn’t remember if it was three o’clock or four. I know it sounds silly, but it’s true. Don’t you ever forget little things like that?”

  “So you asked the woman on the bridge? That was you?”

  “Yes. Look, I’d hardly have done that, would I, if . . . I mean . . . like with the credit card. I’d hardly have advertised my intentions if I was going to . . . you know . . .”

  Bentley raised a beetle-black eyebrow. “Going to what, Terry?”

  Reed ran his hands through his hair and rested his elbows on the desk. “It doesn’t matter. This is absurd. I’ve done nothing. I’m innocent.”

  “Don’t you find schoolgirls attractive?” Bentley went on in a soft voice. “After all, it would only be natural, wouldn’t it? They can be real beauties at fifteen or sixteen, can’t they? Proper little temptresses, some of them, I’ll bet. Right prick-teasers. Just think about it—short skirts, bare legs, firm young tits. Doesn’t it excite you, Terry? Don’t you get hard just thinking about it?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Reed said tightly. “I’m not a pervert.”

  Bentley laughed. “Nobody’s suggesting you are. It gets me going, I don’t mind admitting. Perfectly normal, I’d say, to find a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl sexy. My Methodist inspector might not agree, but you and I know different, Terry, don’t we? All that sweet innocence wrapped up in a soft, desirable young body. Doesn’t it just make your blood sing? And wouldn’t it be easy to get a bit carried away if she resisted, put your hands around her throat . . . ?”

  “No!” Reed said again, aware of his cheeks burning.

  “What about those women in the magazine, Terry? The one we found at your house?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Don’t tell me you buy it just for the stories.”

  “I didn’t say that. I’m normal. I like looking at naked women, just like any other man.”

  “Some of them seemed very young to me.”