The Ministry of Fear (21 page)

The plump man began to smile. He drew out his hands and looked at his nails and tucked them back again. ‘That's interesting, Mr Rowe,' he said. ‘You mentioned murder, but I have said nothing about murder to you, and no paper has mentioned the word murder . . . yet.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘We play strictly fair. Read out his statement so far, Beavis.'

Beavis obeyed, blushing nervously, as though he were an overgrown schoolboy at a lectern reading Deuteronomy. ‘I Arthur Rowe, have made this statement voluntarily. Last night, when I saw a photograph of myself in a newspaper, I knew for the first time that the police wanted to interview me. I have been in a nursing home kept by a Dr Forester for the last four months, suffering from loss of memory due to an air-raid. My memory is not fully restored, but I wish to tell everything I know in connection with the murder of . . .'

The detective stopped Beavis. He said, ‘That's quite fair, isn't it?'

‘I suppose it is.'

‘You'll be asked to sign it presently. Now tell us the name of the murdered man.'

‘I don't remember it.'

‘I see. Who told you we wanted to talk to you about a murder?'

‘Dr Forester.'

The promptness of the reply seemed to take the detective by surprise. Even Beavis hesitated before the pencil bore down again upon the pad. ‘Dr Forester told you?'

‘Yes.'

‘How did he know?'

‘I suppose he read it in the papers.'

‘We have never mentioned murder in the papers.'

Rowe leant his head wearily on his hand. Again his brain felt the pressure of associations. He said, ‘Perhaps. . . .' The horrible memory, stirred, crystallized, dissolved . . . ‘I don't know.'

It seemed to him that the detective's manner was a little more sympathetic. He said, ‘Just tell us – in any order – in your own words – what you do remember.'

‘It will have to be in any order. First there's Poole. He's an attendant in Dr Forester's sick bay – where the violent cases go, only I don't think they are always violent. I know that I met him in the old days – before my memory went. I can remember a little shabby room with a picture of the Bay of Naples. I seemed to be living there – I don't know why. It's not the sort of place I'd choose. So much of what's come back is just feelings, emotion – not fact.'

‘Never mind,' the detective said.

‘It's the way you remember a dream when most of it has gone. I remember great sadness – and fear, and, yes, a sense of danger, and an odd taste.'

‘Of what?'

‘We were drinking tea. He wanted me to give him something.'

‘What?'

‘I can't remember. What I do remember is absurd. A cake.'

‘A cake?'

‘It was made with real eggs. And then something happened. . . .' He felt terribly tired. The sun was coming out. People all over the city were going to work. He felt like a man in mortal sin who watches other people go to receive the sacrament – abandoned. If only he knew what
his
work was.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?'

‘Yes. I'm a bit tired.'

‘Go and find some tea, Beavis, and some biscuits – or cake.'

He asked no more questions until Beavis had returned, but suddenly as Rowe put out his hand to take a piece of cake, he said, ‘There are no real eggs in that, I'm afraid. Yours must have been home-made. You couldn't have bought it.'

Without considering his reply, Rowe said: ‘Oh no, I didn't buy it, I won it . . .' and stopped. ‘That's absurd. I wasn't thinking . . .' The tea made him feel stronger. He said, ‘You don't treat your murderers too badly.'

The detective said, ‘Just go on remembering.'

‘I remember a lot of people sitting round a room and the lights going out. And I was afraid that someone was going to come up behind me and stab me or strangle me. And a voice speaking. That's worse than anything – a hopeless pain, but I can't remember a word. And then all the lights are on, and a man's dead, and I suppose that's what you say I've done. But I don't think it's true.'

‘Would you remember the man's face?'

‘I think I would.'

‘File, Beavis.'

It was growing hot in the small room. The detective's forehead was beaded and the little fair moustache damp. He said, ‘You can take off your coat if you like,' and took his own off, and sat in a pearl-grey shirt with silvered armlets to keep the cuffs exactly right. He looked doll-like as though only the coat were made to come off.

Beavis brought a paper-covered file and laid it on the table. The detective said, ‘Just look through these – you'll find a few loose photographs too – and see if you can find the murdered man.'

A police photograph is like a passport photograph; the intelligence which casts a veil over the crude common shape is never recorded by the cheap lens. No one can deny the contours of the flesh, the shape of nose and mouth, and yet we protest: This isn't me . . .

The turning of the pages became mechanical. Rowe couldn't believe that it was among people like these that his life had been cast. Only once he hesitated for a moment: something in his memory stirred at sight of a loose photograph of a man with a lick of hair plastered back, a pencil on a clip in the lower left-hand corner, and wrinkled evasive eyes that seemed to be trying to escape too bright a photographer's lamp.

‘Know him?' the detective asked.

‘No. How could I? Or is he a shopkeeper? I thought for a moment, but no, I don't know him.' He turned on. Looking up once he saw that the detective had got his hand out from under his thigh; he seemed to have lost interest. There were not many more pages to turn – and then unexpectedly there the face was: the broad anonymous brow, the dark city suit, and with him came a whole throng of faces bursting through the gate of the unconscious, rioting horribly into the memory. He said, ‘There,' and lay back in his chair giddy, feeling the world turn around him . . .

‘Nonsense,' the detective said. The harsh voice hardly penetrated. ‘You had me guessing for a moment . . . a good actor . . . waste any more time . . .'

‘They did it with my knife.'

‘Stop play-acting,' the detective said. ‘That man hasn't been murdered. He's just as alive as you are.'

2

‘Alive?'

‘Of course he's alive. I don't know why you picked on him.'

‘But in that case' – all his tiredness went: he began to notice the fine day outside – ‘I'm not a murderer. Was he badly hurt?'

‘Do you really mean . . . ?' the detective began incredulously; Beavis had given up the attempt at writing. He said, ‘I don't know what you are talking about. Where did this happen? when? what was it you think you saw?'

As Rowe looked at the photograph it came back in vivid patches: he said, ‘Wonderful Mrs – Mrs Bellairs. It was her house. A séance.' Suddenly he saw a thin beautiful hand blood-stained. He said, ‘Why . . . Dr Forester was there. He told us the man was dead. They sent for the police.'

‘The same Dr Forester?'

‘The same one.'

‘And they let you go?'

‘No, I escaped.'

‘Somebody helped you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Who?'

The past was swimming back to him, as though now that there was nothing to fear the guard had been removed from the gate. Anna's brother had helped him; he saw the exhilarated young face and felt the blow on his knuckles. He wasn't going to betray him. He said, ‘I don't remember that.'

The little plump man sighed. ‘This isn't for us, Beavis,' he said, ‘we'd better take him across to 59.' He put a call through to someone called Prentice. ‘We turn 'em in to you,' he complained, ‘but how often do you turn them in to us?' Then they accompanied Rowe across the big collegiate court-yard under the high grey block; the trams twanged on the Embankment, and pigeons' droppings gave a farm-yard air to the sandbags stacked around. He didn't care a damn that they walked on either side of him, an obvious escort; he was a free man still and he hadn't committed murder, and his memory was coming back at every step. He said suddenly, ‘It was the cake he wanted,' and laughed.

‘Keep your cake for Prentice,' the little man said sourly. ‘He's the surrealist round here.'

They came to an almost identical room in another block, where a man in a tweed suit with a drooping grey Edwardian moustache sat on the edge of a chair as though it were a shooting-stick. ‘This is Mr Arthur Rowe we've been advertising for,' the detective said and laid the file on the table. ‘At least he says he is. No identity card. Says he's been in a nursing home with loss of memory. We are the lucky fellows who've set his memory going again. Such a memory. We ought to set up a clinic. You'll be interested to hear he saw Cost murdered.'

‘Now that is interesting,' Mr Prentice said with middle-aged courtesy. ‘Not
my
Mr Cost?'

‘Yes. And a Dr Forester attended the death.'

‘
My
Dr Forester.'

‘It seems likely. This gentleman has been a patient of his.'

‘Take a chair, Mr Rowe . . . and you, Graves.'

‘Not me. You like the fantastic. I don't. I'll leave you Beavis, in case you want any notes taken.' He turned at the door and said, ‘Pleasant nightmares to you.'

‘Nice chap, Graves,' Mr Prentice said. He leant forward as though he were going to offer a hip flask. The smell of good tweeds came across the table. ‘Now would you say it was a good nursing home?'

‘So long as you didn't quarrel with the doctor.'

‘Ha, ha . . . exactly. And then?'

‘You might find yourself in the sick bay for violent cases.'

‘Wonderful,' Mr Prentice said, stroking his long moustache. ‘One can't help admiring . . . You wouldn't have any complaints to make?'

‘They treated me very well.'

‘Yes, I was afraid so. You see, if only someone would complain – they are all voluntary patients – one might be able to have a look at the place. I've been wanting to for a long time.'

‘When you get in the sick bay it's too late. If you aren't mad, they can soon make you mad.' In his blind fight he had temporarily forgotten Stone. He felt a sense of guilt, remembering the tired voice behind the door. He said, ‘They've got a man in there now. He's not violent.'

‘A difference of opinion with our Dr Forester?'

‘He said he saw the doctor and Poole – he's the attendant – doing something in the dark in Poole's room. He told them he was looking for a window from which he could enfilade—' Rowe broke off. ‘He
is
a little mad, but quite gentle, not violent.'

‘Go on,' Mr Prentice said.

‘He thought the Germans were in occupation of a little island in a pond. He said he'd seen them digging in.'

‘And he told the doctor that?'

‘Yes.' Rowe implored him, ‘Can't you get him out? They've put him in a strait-jacket, but he wouldn't hurt a soul . . .'

‘Well,' Mr Prentice said, ‘we must think carefully.' He stroked his moustache with a milking movement. ‘We must look all round the subject, mustn't we?'

‘He'll go really mad . . .'

‘Poor fellow,' Mr Prentice said unconvincingly. There was a merciless quality in his gentleness. He switched, ‘And Poole?'

‘He came to me once – I don't know how long ago – and wanted a cake I'd won. There was an air-raid on. I have an idea that he tried to kill me because I wouldn't give him the cake. It was made with real eggs. Do you think I'm mad too?' he asked with anxiety.

Mr Prentice said thoughtfully, ‘I wouldn't say so. Life can be very odd. Oh, very odd. You should read more history. Silkworms, you know, were smuggled out of China in a hollow walking-stick. One can't really mention the places diamond-smugglers use. And at this very moment I'm looking – oh, most anxiously – for something which may not be much bigger than a diamond. A cake . . . very good, why not? But he didn't kill you.'

‘There are so many blanks,' Rowe said.

‘Where was it he came to see you?'

‘I don't remember. There are years and years of my life I still can't remember.'

‘We forget very easily,' Mr Prentice said, ‘what gives us pain.'

‘I almost wish I
were
a criminal, so that there could be a record of me here.'

Mr Prentice said gently, ‘We are doing very well, very well. Now let's go back to the murder of – Cost. Of course that might have been staged to send you into hiding, to stop you coming to us. But what came next? Apparently you didn't go into hiding and you didn't come to us. And what was it you knew . . . or we knew?' He put ‘his hands flat on the table and said, ‘It's a beautiful problem. One could almost put it into algebraic terms. Just tell me all you told Graves.'

He described again what he could remember: the crowded room and the light going out and a voice talking and fear . . .

‘Graves didn't appreciate all that, I dare say,' Mr Prentice said, clasping his bony knees and rocking slightly. ‘Poor Graves – the passionate crimes of railway porters are his spiritual province. In this branch our interests have to be rather more bizarre. And so he distrusts us – really distrusts us.'

He began turning the pages of the file rather as he might have turned over a family album, quizzically. ‘Are you a student of human nature, Mr Rowe?'