The Man Whose Dream Came True (13 page)

He spent the following hours in a state of dazed happiness, like a small boy who has swallowed several doses of nasty medicine as prelude to a promised treat and now, with the medicine consumed, sees unalloyed pleasure ahead. He spent the night at a hotel near London Airport, arranged for a six-thirty call – the ticket said he had to report at seven-fifteen – and tried to sleep, but found it impossible. In the end he took the travel pamphlets out of his case and spent an hour looking at them.

Caracas would be wonderful for a time, but no doubt they would get tired of it. And after that? Perhaps a journey to the hinterland which revealed, so the pamphlets said, the real history of the country. He was not much interested in ruins and monuments, but probably he would learn Spanish. He saw that there were ample opportunities for gambling. He would be careful about that. Perhaps it would be a good idea for Jenny to control the money, and to make him an allowance. At the airport he would buy a Spanish phrasebook. He did not think at all of Eversley Foster, who seemed to belong already to a past so distant that it might never have existed. Nor did he think of Jenny. Strangely enough, his mind turned to recollections of the General, the book of memoirs, his own behaviour. Those wretched little fiddles he had worked, and then the business with the cheque – he felt really ashamed of them now. Yet even these thoughts were not wholly painful, for they carried with them the consolation that there would be no need for him to do anything of that kind ever again. With that in his mind he fell asleep at three o’clock in the morning.

He woke at six, and by the time his six-thirty call came had washed and shaved. He dressed with care, allowing himself to consider whether it should be the charcoal grey suit or lightweight trousers and sports jacket. He knew perfectly well that the decision had already been made in favour of informality, for in thirteen hours of travelling the suit would get rather painfully creased, but still he laid out both sets of clothes on the bed and talked to himself aloud as he weighed the possibilities, wondering what the weather would be like in Caracas when he arrived at night. Were the nights chilly? ‘Even if they are I think this is going to be rather cosier, don’t you?’ he said to an imaginary companion before hanging up the charcoal grey again in his travelling wardrobe. As a gesture, purely as a gesture to Jenny because they were distinctly unsuitable, he put the orbicular links into the cuffs of his shirt. The money stayed in his wallet. He had decided to take Jenny’s ten thousand to one chance, and not to bother with a parcel. His euphoria was such that it did not need support from food. He did no more than nibble at the toast and sip at the coffee brought to his room. Then into the car he had ordered to take him the couple of miles to the airport. The car arrived on the dot, everything was going to plan.

‘European, sir, or Oceanic?’ the driver asked.

‘Oceanic. I’m going to Caracas. Venezuela.’

‘Venezuela, eh. You want to be careful. Friend of mine, merchant seaman, unshipped a crate of bananas once, bloody snake crawled out of it, six foot long and thick as your arm.’

‘I’ll take my chance,’ he said laughingly.

‘Lot of prickly heat you get there too, they tell me.’

It was annoying that the man kept on in this way, and he told the fellow rather sharply that Caracas had one of the best climates in the world, springtime the whole year round. The faint blemish on his pleasure was removed when they pulled up outside the airport building, a friendly porter took his baggage to be weighed, and he was swept up in the delightful process of having his ticket checked and obtaining his boarding card for the plane. His bags had disappeared.

‘I don’t suppose I shall see them again until I get to Caracas,’ he said to the girl behind the counter.

‘That’s right.’

‘They wouldn’t take them off by mistake at Amsterdam or Zurich or Lisbon?’ He said it archly, not because he really feared this would happen, but to make conversation and actually to roll the names on his tongue. The girl took him seriously.

‘Oh no, sir. You don’t change planes, they’re just stopping points. You’ll find they are still on board when you get to Caracas.’

She smiled. How nice she was. He smiled back. ‘I’m sure I shall.’

‘Have a good trip.’ What a different world this was from the one in which people threatened him because of unpaid debts and borrowed money, the world in which distasteful things had to be done. But that was all behind him, unalloyed pleasure lay ahead. He strolled about, bought newspapers and magazines and the Spanish phrase-book, felt the comfortable wad of money, looked at the people sitting in the lounge and wondered which of them would be fellow passengers. Very soon the call came and he was ready for the names which followed each other like notes in music: ‘… Amsterdam, Zurich, Lisbon…’ Oh yes, that’s mine, he thought, those places are for me. As they moved through the final barrier two anonymous-looking men stood on either side glancing at passports and repeating the same words. ‘Have a good trip, Mr da Silva… Mr Cournos… Mrs Walsh… Mr Kellett… Mr Medura…’ He waited for ‘Mr Jones’, but instead one of the men looked at the passport, then at him, and asked him to step aside.

‘Is something wrong with my passport? How long will it take?’

‘Just in here. Shan’t keep you more than a couple of minutes.’ He was shown into a small office. Through the windows he could see the man pick up a telephone and hear his voice murmuring indistinguishable words. He could not sit down but paced the room, looking at the desk which had a white blotting pad and ‘In’ and ‘Out’ trays, both empty, then at a notice on the wall which listed all the articles that could not be brought into or taken out of the country, then again through the glass at the figures who were passing through the barrier. Was he being kept back deliberately so that he would miss the flight? After a space of time he could not have measured, although it was perhaps no more than the two minutes mentioned, he opened the door. The last passengers were passing through.

‘Look, I’ve got my boarding ticket. I don’t want to miss the plane.’

The man turned, his expression placatory. ‘Very sorry, Mr Jones. They’ll be here in a moment.’

‘But who are they?’ He did not like to be aggressive, because the man was so polite.

‘Here they come.’ He nodded at a point behind Tony. An abrupt turn and he confronted them, two large men wearing hats, the leading one apologetically smiling.

‘Mr Jones. Sorry to have kept you.’

‘What do you want?’ With dismay he heard his voice rising.

‘Don’t suppose this will take more than a couple of minutes.’ They ushered him back into the room. The first man sat in the chair behind the desk and the other stood beside the door. ‘Lovely morning. Perfect day for flying.’

So there was no question of stopping him from leaving on the plane. The sense of relief he felt showed itself in a nervous laugh. He took the seat that was offered him, opposite the man.

‘Mr Anthony Jones,’ the man said reflectively. He was hairy, with a red, drinker’s nose. ‘So you’re going to Caracas. Venezuela. Never been myself. Why?’

The last word, barked out, surprised him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Why are you going? Business, pleasure, new job?’

‘I’ve got a new job. But anyway, I’ve had enough of England,’ he said recklessly.

‘Have you now?’ Without emphasis the big man repeated, ‘Had enough of England, did you hear that?’

‘I heard it,’ said the man by the door. He was big too, but where his companion had taken his hat off this man kept his on. They both began to laugh.

Tony stood up. There on the desk, two feet away from him, lay the blue-covered book that was his entrance card to the new world, the new life. Leaning forward he snatched up the book from the table, and moved towards the door. Both men stared at him in amazement, their laughter cut off as suddenly as a record from which the needle has been lifted.

‘Now then,’ said Hatless, ‘no use going on like that, you know. That won’t do you any good, interfering with the course of inquiries, Mr Jones. If you want to know my authority, here it is.’ He produced from his wallet some kind of card and put it back again.

‘Or Mr Bain-Truscott,’ said Hat.

Their questions fell thick and fast as a sudden snowstorm.

‘You’ve been working for Mr Foster, Eversley Foster, right?’

‘Staying with your aunt, a Mrs Widgeon, at the Seven Seas Hotel.’

‘Quarrelled with her yesterday, right?’

‘Helping Mr Foster with a book he was writing, correct?’

‘Packed your bags and left in a hurry.’

‘Quarrelled with Mr Foster too, correct?’

‘Then off to South America, funny place to go.’

‘Wouldn’t go there without a reason, not South America.’

‘Not South America, no. Stole from him, didn’t you?’

‘Then when he found out, that was it. You meant it right from the start, had it in mind.’

‘Or why use Bain-Truscott?’

‘Why use Bain-Truscott, right. When your name’s Jones.’

Silence again, and they were both looking at him. He found his voice. ‘I don’t understand, I don’t know what you mean. I was working for Mr Foster, but the job had finished. And I – about calling myself Bain-Truscon – what’s wrong about that, it’s not illegal.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ Hatless said. ‘I’m a Jones myself, I can understand how you feel. Perhaps this is all a mistake.’

He felt that he must make it clear that he had not meant to insult this hairy red-nosed Jones. ‘I didn’t mean there was anything wrong with Jones, it’s just, I’ve called myself Bain-Truscott for a long time.’ The customs man could no longer be seen through the glass, something was being said over the speaker system, it must be the last call for the flight. ‘I have to go, I shall miss my plane.’

‘Don’t worry about that, Mr Jones. Plenty of time.’

‘But there isn’t. The passengers have gone.’

‘You’ve got ten minutes yet, we’ll make sure you don’t miss the flight.’

At these words from the now friendly Jones relief swept over him, and with it a vivid picture of the thing being dropped from the motor launch with the weights attached to it. There was one chance in a million, or no chance at all, that the thing had been found, these two police officers must be here because of some misunderstanding. Realisation of this made him smile his own particular smile that had charmed so many women, and to speak with a serenity that could not fail to be impressive.

‘That’s very good of you. Tell me how I can help.’

Turn out his pockets! There were many things that he might have expected to be asked of him, but this was not one of them. Light-heartedly he complied, putting everything on the desk, loose change, a key ring with the keys of his cases on it, wallet and fountain pen, ticket – he put these things down with a confident and confiding smile, and he smiled again as he took off his watch and put it beside the other things. He picked up his topcoat, delved into the pockets and came up with some odds and ends of used bus tickets. In a final dramatic gesture he pulled out the linings of his pockets to show that nothing had been concealed.

Hat had come over to the desk and stood looking down at the things lying on it. Neither he nor Jones moved to examine them. Then Jones spoke, and his voice was no longer friendly.

‘Where did you get those links?’

He made an involuntary gesture towards his sleeve. The links were invisible now, but his movement revealed them again. ‘They were a present.’

‘Tie-pin went with them.’ That was Hat. The words were a statement, not a question, and Tony did not reply. Now Hat leaned over, stretched his hand to the wallet, glanced inside and passed it to Jones who carefully took out the notes and sorted them into piles according to their denominations. Hat retreated to the door and when Jones spoke again it was in a heavy Bradbury voice, the voice of school, authority, doom.

‘Where did this money come from?’

‘I –’ He shook his head, swallowed, started again. ‘I had to have money to go abroad. It’s mine.’

‘I’ll tell you then. Mr Foster drew them out of the bank yesterday morning. The tenners are new, and the bank have a note of the numbers. They correspond.’

Mr
Foster. He could only shake his head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Don’t kid me, son. These links were Foster’s too, right?’

‘I told you, they were a present.’

‘You stole them and Foster found out, you had a row and killed him, then pinched the money, right?’

‘No, no,’ he said again and then, because they were so completely wrong, he was led into indiscretion. ‘He’s gone away, Foster, he said he was going away. Just because he’s disappeared – you can’t prove murder without a body.’

Jones stared at him. ‘I said don’t kid me, son, I don’t like to be kidded. And what’s the point, anyway? Show him.’

Like some malign prestidigitator Hat produced from nowhere pictures, horrible and glossy, a body in a room lying in the crumpled awkward attitude of death, the head turned away, wrecked and bloody. There were several pictures, and he could not bear to look at them.

‘You wouldn’t know it was Foster from those,’ Jones said. ‘But try this one.’

He looked at the picture and felt a roaring sound in his ears. Groping for the chair he fell rather than sat in it. He had seen the photograph before, on the piano. It showed the elderly erect figure with a small moustache who had been named by Jenny as her cousin Mortimer Lands.

Dreams & Realities

At first the situation had so strong a flavour of absurdity that he could not take the warning, the arrest, and immurement in the prison hospital seriously. A
hospital,
of all places, did they think he was ill? Not until he was remanded did realities begin to come home to him. Had he got a solicitor? No. Had he private means, or did he wish to apply for legal aid? Legal aid.

In the cell below the Court his jailer, an elderly cougher, said: ‘Clerk of the Court says would you like – cough – Washington, Maple and Hussick, they’re next on the rota. Are they agreeable?’

‘Agreeable?’

‘Do you agree to accept their services?’

‘I suppose so.’ Since he knew no other solicitor there was really no choice. He asked timidly, ‘Are they here?’

The man’s laugh was punctuated by a cough. ‘Here, no, they’re not here.’

‘How will they know?’

‘They’ll be told, don’t worry.’

He was taken away to another prison hospital, Brixton this time. Everybody was very nice to him, and the food was surprisingly good. He asked the old man in the next bed, who had a cough remarkably like the jailer’s, why they were in the hospital.

‘’Cause it’s bloody cushy, mate, that’s why, and because of my lungs. They know my lungs. I’ve been here before.’

‘No, I meant why am I here. I’m not ill.’

‘’Cause you’re up for murder, they always put ’em in hospital. The doc’s got his eye on you, don’t worry. You’re what they call under observation.’

Tony looked round, but nobody seemed to be observing him. That evening one of the male nurses asked, ‘Everything all right, no complaints?’ The inquiry might have been made of a visitor in a hotel.

‘Yes, thank you. But I haven’t seen my solicitor.’

‘Plenty of time,’ the man said. ‘Don’t you worry.’

That night, however, he did begin to worry. He felt like somebody emerging from an anaesthetic aware that something is terribly wrong with him, but ignorant of the precise nature of his illness. Reluctantly he acknowledged that in some way he had been betrayed, and that there was only one possible betrayer, but he found it impossible to dwell on the details of what might have happened. The image of Jenny’s face came before him, the neat profile, delicately pallid cheek, firm mouth and chin. What had happened to her, what was she doing, what had she said to the police? When he determined resolutely to put this image away from him he could think of nothing but the ticket to Caracas. It had been taken away with the rest of his things when he went into hospital, but where was it now? Supposing he were let out in a week, would it still be possible to use the ticket? This was the first thing he mentioned when, on the following day, he was told that his solicitor Mr Hussick had arrived. The interview took place in a small square room with flowered chintz curtains. No prison officer was present.

‘Your ticket?’ Mr Hussick beamed. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that, but I’m sure we don’t need to bother about it for the moment.’

‘I don’t want to lose the money. I shall go there as soon as this is cleared up.’

‘I’ll make inquiries.’ Mr Hussick wondered for a moment whether his client was showing diminished responsibility. He looked sane enough, although of course that was nothing to go by. Mr Hussick was a little sandy man with dancing eyebrows, and as he often said he liked to look on the bright side of things. ‘How are they treating you? Best porridge in London, they tell me. Haven’t sampled it myself.’ Mr Hussick laughed with sheer pleasure at the thought of his sampling the porridge, and his eyebrows danced up and down.

‘This is all some awful mistake,’ Tony said tentatively, and was surprised by the solicitor’s hearty agreement.

‘I’m sure it is. That’s what we’ve got to put right.’

‘I should like – I want to get out of here.’

The eyebrows danced up and down. Mr Hussick laughed heartily, and then became momentarily grave. ‘It’s a serious charge, you know. The most serious charge in the book, that’s what they’ve thrown at you.’ He shook his head as though any decent sporting police force would have made the charge a lesser one, then took out what looked uncommonly like a child’s exercise book, and said in the tone of a doctor asking a patient to describe his symptoms, ‘If you’ll just tell me exactly what happened. Take it quite easy, quite gently, there’s no hurry at all. Don’t leave anything out.’

Don’t leave anything out.
‘Has anybody else been arrested?’

‘Not so far as I know.’ With more assurance he said, ‘Of course the police don’t take me into their confidence but – nobody else at the moment, certainly.’

So Jenny was still free.
Don’t leave anything out.
But it was inevitable, for his sake and for Jenny’s, that he should leave things out, for how could he tell the whole story without incriminating them both? He told the solicitor of the work he had been engaged to do, of the fact that the work had ended because Foster was going abroad, and of the revelation about Foster’s identity when he saw the photograph. He said nothing about the car or about the body – whose had it been? – that they had thrown into the sea. Mr Hussick made notes in a neat clerical hand. When Tony had finished he looked up, his eyebrows not dancing but apparently permanently raised.

‘So you never met Foster?’

‘I never met the man who was – whose photograph the police showed me.’ Hopefully he said, ‘There’s no question that it
was
Foster?’

‘None at all. Can you describe the man who was introduced to you as Foster?’ Tony described him, up to the streak of white on the top of his head, and Mr Hussick noted the details, asked if Tony had any idea of the man’s identity, and then tapped the exercise book with his pen.

‘What it comes to is this. You were deceived by Mrs Foster from the start. Do you have any idea what might have been the object of this deception?’ Tony shook his head. ‘Its effect has been that you are under arrest. Are you saying that this was her purpose? It would be a serious accusation.’

‘I can’t believe–’ What could he not believe? He started the sentence again. ‘I’m not accusing her of anything.’

Mr Hussick nodded in a neutral manner. ‘As you may have gathered, the body was found in the living-room. Death had been caused by head injuries. At the moment I’m rather in the dark about the police case. I shan’t know what it is in detail until the Magistrate’s Court hearing.’

‘I see.’

‘But there are two or three things we might try to clear up now. First of all have you any record, any criminal record? It wouldn’t come out at the trial, but I should like to know. Nothing? That’s good. Then, why Caracas?’

The words
prosecution, defence, trial,
had distracted him. ‘What?’

‘It seems a long way to go, but I understand you had a job waiting out there.’

‘No, that isn’t quite right. I’d saved the money and I’m fed up with England. I thought I could easily get a job there.’

‘I see.’ Hussick seemed about to say something more, but did not do so. He continued almost casually. ‘The police believe that the murder weapon was a hammer, and I understand it has your prints on it. Can you tell me how they might have got there?’

It was not Mr Hussick’s practice to make up his mind about any case in advance, and he regarded all his clients as innocent until they were found guilty, but he was disturbed by the look on Jones’ face. He meant to wipe his prints off the hammer and then forgot, the solicitor thought, and then put the idea firmly away from him. He offered cheerful words about it being early days yet to think of counsel and said he would handle things himself in the Magistrate’s Court. It would help if they could find the mysterious man with a white streak in his hair.

‘You must be able to find him,’ Jones said earnestly. He was a handsome young man, Hussick thought, although a little on the willowy side. He ought to make a good impression in the witness box.

‘We’ll do our damnedest. And let me know if you think of anything else, I’m here to help.’ A wave of the hand and he was gone. The officer who had been waiting outside the door took Tony back to the ward.