Not Safe After Dark (21 page)

The old man stiffens, then drops to the floor, spent. One by one, we let the music dribble away from us. Then there’s the strangest sensation. The room seems to draw in on him, as if all
its energy focuses on that single inert figure. Everything feels tight, like a corked bottle about to blow. The room fills with pressure, and it’s hard against my eardrums, that deaf and
fuzzy feeling before your ears pop on an airplane, everything silent and in slow motion.

Then it pops, the air hisses out, and he’s just someone lying on the floor.

‘Jesus,’ whispers the man beside him. ‘When I go, I want to go just like that.’

Then the smooth, practised staff breeze in like a team of office cleaners, or scene changers between the acts of a play, and start to tidy up the mess in a silence as heavy as prayer. Someone in
white checks the old man’s pulse and takes out a stethoscope. The other inmates, dazed, mumbling and drooling, are all wheeled back to their rooms. And it’s getting to look like nothing
ever happened.

Before they’re done, Emily starts leading us back to the dressing room. ‘I think it would probably be best all around if you left now, don’t you think?’ she says.
‘Then we can get everyone calmed down. They take it hard, some of them, when one of them passes on, you know. See their own future, I suppose, poor things. Don’t worry, you’ll be
paid your normal rate, of course. It wasn’t your fault, after all, was it?’

I nod dumbly, walking beside her. She’s right, of course. It wasn’t our fault, no reason why we shouldn’t get paid. But even so.
See their own future, I suppose
. Somehow
that echoes, gets to me so much that I forget to ask for her phone number. And I remember it afterwards in the van. But this time Benny passes around the Jim Beam and Kit rolls another spliff and
soon it’s just another memory of just another shitty gig, after all, just another slice of turd on the nursing-home circuit.

Isn’t it strange
the way two strangers might strike up a casual acquaintance due simply to a quirk of fate? And isn’t it even stranger how that innocent
meeting might so completely alter the life of one of them? That was exactly what happened when Edward Grainger and I met in a pub one wet September lunchtime, only weeks before his tragic loss.

I work in a bank in the City. It’s a dull job, enlivened only by the occasional surge of adrenalin when the pound takes yet another plunge on the foreign exchange markets, and most
lunchtimes I like to get out of the office and take refuge in the Mason’s Arms.

As a rule, I will drink half a pint of Guinness with a slice of quiche or a cheese roll, say, and perhaps, once in a while, treat myself to a steak and kidney pie. As I eat, I work at the
Times
crossword, which I never seem able to finish before my glass is empty, and after my meal I enjoy a cigarette. I know the vile things are bad for me, but I can’t quite seem to
give them up. Besides, how bad can one cigarette a day be? And only five days a week, at that.

Given its location in the City, the Mason’s Arms is generally busy, noisy and smoky by half past twelve on a weekday, and that suits me just fine. Lost in the crowd, buffeted by
conversation and laughter that require no response on my part, I can concentrate on my crossword or allow my mind to drift in directions that the constant application of little grey cells to
columns of figures precludes.

That particular lunchtime I found myself leaving the office a few minutes later than usual due to an important telephone conversation with an overseas client. The short walk also took longer
because I had to struggle against the wind and rain with my rather flimsy umbrella. When I got to the Arms, as I had taken to calling it, I found my usual little corner table already taken by a
stranger in a pinstripe suit. I could hardly tell him to sod off, so I carried my drink over and sat opposite him.

As he read his
Times
, I studied his features closely. I would guess his age at about forty-five – mostly because of the wrinkles around his eyes and the grey hair around his temples
and ears – but having said that, I would have to admit that the overall effect of his face was one of youthfulness. He had bright blue eyes and a healthy, ruddy complexion, and he showed no
sign of that dark, shadowy stubble that makes so many men look downright repulsive, not to mention sinister.

After I had finished my ham roll, I lit my cigarette and wrestled with eight down, letting the ebb and flow of conversation drift over me until a voice seemed to single itself out from the crowd
and speak directly to me.

Startled, I noticed the man opposite looking at me in a way that suggested he had just spoken.

‘Pardon?’ I said. ‘I was miles away.’

‘“Crippen,”’ he said. ‘Eight down. “Quiet prince upset for this murderer.” It’s an anagram of “prince” and “p” for
silent.’

‘Yes, I do see that, thank you very much.’ If my tone was a little frosty, it served the bugger right. I hate it when people solve my crossword clues for me, the same way I hate
anyone reading over my shoulder. Takes all the fun out of it.

His face dropped when he saw the look I gave him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Very rude of me. Didn’t think.’

‘It’s all right.’ I put the crossword aside and flicked a column of ash at the floor.

‘Look, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about septic tanks, would you?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid not.’ As far as conversational gambits went, this fellow wasn’t exactly heading for the top of the class in my book.

‘Oh. Pity. You see, we’re having one installed in a couple of weeks, my wife Harriet and I. I’m just not sure what kind of mess to expect.’

‘Well, I suppose they’ll have to dig the garden up,’ I told him. ‘But I can’t honestly say I’ve ever seen one, so I don’t know how big they
are.’

He smiled. ‘Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? You’re not supposed to
see
them. We’re moving to the country, you know, to Hampshire.’

‘Why are you moving?’ I asked. And though I surprised myself by asking such a personal question of a complete stranger, it felt natural enough.

He sipped his gin and tonic before replying. ‘It’s for Harriet, mostly,’ he said. ‘Wants the country air. Not that I’d knock it, mind you. And it’s a
beautiful cottage, or it will be after the renovations. Seventeenth century. I’ll keep the flat in town, of course, go down to the country at weekends. Yes, I’m sure it’ll work
out.’

‘I hope so,’ I told him. Then I excused myself and headed back to the bank, it being almost one-thirty and Mr Beamish, the branch manager, being a real stickler for punctuality.

•

As time went on, our conversations became a regular feature of my lunchtime visits to the Arms, though I would be hard pushed now to think of everything we discussed: politics,
of course, on which we disagreed; books, on which we agreed far more than we would have imagined; and marriage, about which we couldn’t quite make up our minds. Sometimes, we would just work
on the crossword together in silence.

He also talked about weekends at the country house, of autumn walks in the woods, the occasional hovercraft trip to the Isle of Wight, quiet nights with a good bottle of claret, a hefty volume
of Trollope, and a log fire crackling in the hearth.

Though I had never fancied country living myself, I must admit that Edward’s accounts made me quite envious. So much so that when Evelyn brought up the subject at home after watching a
documentary on the Cotswolds, I thought it might become a real possibility for us, too, in a year or two’s time.

Edward and I never met at any other times or places – ours was a purely casual arrangement – but I like to think that a sort of friendship developed. Sometimes he didn’t turn
up at all. He worked in international finance, he told me, and now and then he had to sacrifice his lunch hour for emergency meetings or telephone calls from strange time zones. Occasionally, he
had to go abroad for a few days. But when he did come, we usually contrived to sit together and chat over our drinks and rolls for half an hour or so.

During that time, I didn’t find out very much more about his private life, and if I were to come to any conclusions they would be due entirely to my reading between the lines.

I didn’t ask Edward about his wife’s occupation, for example, but somehow I got the impression that she spent most of her time at home cooking, cake-decorating, cleaning, sewing,
knitting and such. What people used to call a ‘housewife’ in the old days. I suppose now she could call herself an ‘estate manager’ down in Hampshire. As far as their
relationship went, it sounded perfectly normal to me.

Though I had never met Harriet, I’m sure you can imagine how shocked I was on that bright, windy Thursday in early October when Edward came in a quarter of an hour later than usual,
looking drawn and haggard, and told me that his wife had disappeared.

•

Naturally, I tried to comfort him as best I could over the following weeks, at least as far as our brief and irregular meetings allowed. But there was little I could do. For the
most part, I could only look on sadly as Edward lost weight and his former ruddy complexion turned wan. Soon he came to remind me of the wretched youth in Keats’s poem: ‘Alone and
palely loitering’.

Weeks passed, and still there was no sign of Harriet. Theories as to her disappearance varied, as they do in cases like this. One tabloid speculated that she had been abducted by a serial
killer, then chopped up and buried somewhere. A local doctor suggested that she could have suffered some form of amnesia. If so, he went on, she might easily have wandered off and ended up living
on the streets of London with the thousands of other lost and lonely souls. One neighbour, Edward told me, speculated that Harriet could have been actually
planning
her escape for some time
and had simply taken off for America, Ireland or France to start a new life under a new name. With a new man, of course. Astonishingly, Edward also told me that even
he
had come under police
suspicion at one time, albeit not for long.

Christmas came and went. It was about as cheerful as a wet weekend in July, the way it usually is for families whose children have all grown up and left home. Edward seemed to have gained a
little colour when I saw him after the holidays. Or perhaps the Arctic winds we had that January had rubbed his skin raw. Anyway, it was around then that he started dropping in at the Arms for
lunch less and less frequently.

By the beginning of February I hadn’t seen him for three weeks, and I was slipping easily back into my old routine of doing the crossword over lunch. I missed his company, of course, and I
was certainly curious about Harriet, but we are creatures of habit, are we not? And old habits are deeply ingrained.

It was near the end of March when I saw him next, but it wasn’t in the Arms. No, I had come into the West End to shop one Saturday afternoon, mostly to get out of the way while Evelyn was
busy planting the herbaceous borders. I hate gardening, and if I’m around I usually get roped in.

Anyway, I was browsing downstairs in the fiction section of Waterstone’s on Charing Cross Road, when I saw Edward across the table of new releases. It took me a moment to recognize him
because he was wearing casual clothes and seemed to have done something to remove the grey from his hair. He was also fingering the new Will Self paperback, which one would hardly expect of a
Trollope man.

On second glance, though, I realized it was definitely Edward and that the pretty young blonde with the prominent breasts didn’t just happen to be standing beside him; she was
with
him. Surely this couldn’t be the elusive Harriet?

Then a strange thing happened. Edward caught my eye as I walked over, and I saw a very odd look pass over his features. For a moment, I could have sworn, he wanted to turn tail and avoid me. But
I got to him before he could retreat.

‘Edward,’ I said. ‘It’s good to see you.’ Then I looked at the blonde. I could see her roots. ‘I see Harriet has turned up, then,’ I said with a
smile.

Edward cleared his throat and the blonde merely frowned. ‘Well . . . er . . .’ he said. ‘Not exactly. I mean, no, she hasn’t. This is Joyce.’ He put his arm around
the blonde’s shoulders and looked down at her with obvious pride and passion.

I said hello to Joyce as Edward haltingly explained our relationship, such as it was, then he made excuses and they hurried up the stairs as if the place were on fire. That was the last time I
ever clapped eyes on Edward Grainger.

•

About a year after the incident in Waterstone’s, something so profound, so shocking and so unexpected happened to me that my life was never to be the same again. I fell in
love.

Like most people my age, I had long thought myself immune to powerful passions, long settled into a sedate and comfortable existence with little in the way of strong emotion to upset its even
keel. If I have unsatisfied or unrequited hopes and wishes, then I am in good company, for who hasn’t? If I regret some of the sacrifices I have made for the comforts I have gained, who
doesn’t? And if I sometimes feel that my life lacks adventure, lacks spice, then again, who doesn’t? In all that, I felt, I was perfectly normal.

Life, it had come to seem to me, was a slow betrayal of the dreams of one’s youth and a gradual decline from the desires of one’s adolescence. Little did I know what a fragile
illusion all that was until I met Katrina.

Imagine, if you can, my utter amazement when the bells started to ring, the earth moved and a sudden spring came into my step every time I saw her. Absurd, I told myself, she’ll never pay
the least attention to an old fuddy-duddy like you. But she did. Oh, indeed she did. Love truly must be blind if such a gorgeous creature as Katrina could give herself to me.

Katrina came to work for the branch in summer, and by autumn we were meeting clandestinely whenever we could. She lived alone in a tiny bedsit in Kennington, which was convenient, if a bit
cramped. But what is a little discomfort to a pair of lovers? We were consumed with a passion that could no more be stopped than an avalanche or a tidal wave. It picked us up, tossed us about like
rag dolls and threw us back on the ground dazed, dazzled and breathless. I couldn’t get enough of her sad eyes, her soft red lips, her small breasts with the nipples hard as acorns when we
made love, her skin like warm brown silk.