Nine Lives Read online

  ‘Of course. Why else do you think I went there?’

  So he was not necessarily a rejected lover, at least not by Mr Morris, Wilkins thought. He had saved the crucial question till last. The ‘how’ of the murder, the guitar string and the garrotte, the unforced entry, the lack of clues, all these facts could have been garnered from newspaper reports. And they didn’t prove Johnson as the killer. The reason for the murders had never been reported because it was not known by anybody. Not even himself. So he paused before asking the vital question.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Johnson,’ he said. ‘Why did you kill him? What terrible reason did you have for taking a good man’s life?’

  ‘He wasn’t a good man,’ Mr Johnson said. ‘He let me down.’

  ‘In which way?’ Wilkins held on to his gentle tone, although it called for effort.

  ‘He was going on holiday. Three whole weeks.’ His voice trembled. ‘What right did he have to leave me? What was I to do for three weeks without his help?’

  ‘What have you done before when he went away?’ Wilkins asked.

  ‘But he never did, you see. He wasn’t a man for holidays. The odd weekend, here and there. But never a weekday. Never. He knew I couldn’t manage without him.’

  ‘How long have you been his patient?’ Wilkins asked.

  ‘Nine years, come August,’ Mr Johnson said with a certain pride.

  Three times a week? For nine years? Time enough to be cured of whatever condition Mr Johnson suffered from, Wilkins thought, and it was not difficult to guess what that condition was. The rouge, mascara and nail varnish proclaimed it. ‘That’s a long time,’ Wilkins said for lack of anything else to say. ‘May I ask how much you paid for this treatment?’

  ‘Thirty pounds,’ Mr Johnson said.

  ‘A week?’

  ‘No. A session.’

  ‘Ninety pounds a week then,’ Wilkins said. He tried to tot it all up in his head but it was too complicated and unashamedly he wrote down the sum on a piece of paper, and like an old-fashioned schoolboy he did his multiplication. Five down, carry four, until he reached the obscene sum of four thousand six hundred and eighty pounds a year. And he continued on his paper to multiply it by nine.

  ‘Forty-two thousand, one hundred and twenty pounds,’ he said aloud and he wondered how, for all that money, Mr Morris had bettered his patient’s condition. Perhaps the chipped nail varnish was a sign that Mr Johnson was losing interest in his little hobby but it still seemed an awful lot of money to pay out for a bottle of nail-varnish remover. Slowly Wilkins began to lose sympathy for the killer’s victim. Even with one patient, he reckoned that lot earned twice as much as he did, and probably twenty times that much, according to their patient lists. He decided that the killer might well be motivated by envy and he would put this theory to Dr Arbuthnot, whose job it was to take it into account. Although he knew that poor Mr Johnson – he had transferred his sympathies from the victim to the man sitting in front of him – was a hoaxer, he nevertheless decided to keep him in custody for a while. He hoped that he would learn from him something about the therapist’s profession, some facts that would enlighten him and perhaps give him clues to the killer proper.

  As he ordered his detention, he told his officers not to get too excited. Johnson would probably turn out to be a false trail, he told them, but one who might uncover some useful clues. ‘Treat him gently,’ he told them. ‘I’m pretty sure he’s innocent.’

  Wilkins was not too disappointed. Although his hopes had been shattered, he had found the interview useful. It had cast a new light on the case in hand. It had caused his own prejudices to shift, and he began to question his previous assumptions. He felt positive and confident. ‘It may take time,’ he said to himself, ‘but I shall run this fox to earth.’

  It’s my birthday today …

  It’s my birthday today. I’m forty-seven. My first birthday without Donald. He always arranged a birthday treat for me. We’d go out to dinner. Or the theatre. And he’d take great care to choose presents he knew I would like. I’m sad today. I’m sad because Donald’s not here. But sad too about my boys. They haven’t been in touch with me since Donald was taken. They don’t want me to know where they are living though I’m sure they’re together, and in London somewhere. They both work in the City. Insurance. And in the same company. When they left, they told me they were going to change their surname. Dorricks is not like Jones or Smith. It’s a singular name, and they didn’t want to be associated with it. So I don’t even know what my boys are called. I wish they would get in touch. I want to persuade them to go and see their father. If only I could remember the name of their firm. Perhaps Donald knows. I’ll ask him next time I visit.

  I don’t feel like getting up this morning. I want to sleep my birthday away. Birthdays are times when you think about your future. You daydream and you plan. But the future I have to look forward to is bleak and lonely, and when I’m in a low mood I find it easy to fall asleep. God is good sometimes.

  I was tempted to go and see if there was any post before I went back to bed. I had no reason to expect birthday cards, but I couldn’t help myself going to the letter box. And indeed, there was one letter, and in a pink envelope, so I knew that someone had remembered. I looked at the stamp and saw the franking of H. M. Prison, and I knew who it was from. I had half hoped that my boys would have remembered, but I had to make do with Donald. Which upset me a bit, for it was all because of him that the boys had not written. I get these moments of not liking Donald very much, yet sometimes I love him as deeply as I did in the very beginning. Between the loving and the hating, and the not knowing and not wanting to know, between my total belief in his innocence and my disturbing doubts, between all these things, I was mightily confused. I couldn’t face the reality, because I was not quite sure what the reality was.

  I opened Donald’s card. Inside was a painting, a river with a weeping willow, signed Donald Dorricks. And I loved him once again. There was a river quite near where I used to live, with a willow on its banks. We used to go there often, Donald and I, when we were courting. He must be dwelling on those times, I thought, those happy times before people said he did terrible things. But they lied. Not my Donald. He’s innocent. And I ought to know. I lived with him all those years. I would have noticed something, something not quite right. But everything seemed normal. He got depressed sometimes. But don’t we all? Nothing abnormal about that. It’s a good painting he’s done for me, and I’m glad he has a flair for it, because it will help him pass his time. His life, really, because that’s his sentence. He’ll have to do at least fifteen years before he’s eligible for parole. I’ll be sixty-two then, and he’ll be seventy-three – an old man. I was beginning to feel sad again, and I crawled back into bed and put his card under my pillow.

  Someone was ringing the doorbell, and the sound woke me. I was not expecting anybody so I tried to go back to sleep. But the ringing was insistent. I looked at my watch. It was already twelve o’clock. I’d slept almost half my birthday away, and with luck I could get rid of my caller and sleep away the other half. I dragged on a dressing-gown and went to the door. Through the coloured glass pane, I could see two shadows. I watched them and saw the one merge with the other. Always together. Always one. My boys. I no longer wanted to sleep. That shadow was a reality I could face. I was trembling. It was almost a year since I had set eyes on them, and as I tried to compose myself they rang the bell again. I knew that they were anxious to be indoors, away from the net-curtain stares, those down-the-nose looks they had fled to avoid. So I opened the door quickly and they brushed past me avoiding a doorstep greeting. But once inside, safely housed in their father’s ambivalent innocence, they embraced me, the two of them together, wishing me a happy birthday.

  ‘We’re taking you for lunch,’ Matthew said. ‘We’ve booked a table. Go and get dressed.’

  I have to confess it was a relief to leave them for a while. What does one do with all those words, all that vocabulary
chock-a-block in your mouth, utterances you cannot utter, hopes you cannot express and, above all, love so frayed by hurt?

  As I dressed, I imagined their conversation downstairs. They were planning their strategy. How to avoid the unmentionable. Or perhaps they were devising a plan that would shake my faith, that would force me to move from our home, that would dispose of the ‘Dorricks’ and take the name that they themselves had adopted, whatever that was. But being Dorricks was the only name I was sure of. To say nothing of the betrayal that discarding that name would imply. I so convinced myself of their strategy, that I worked myself up into a rage and I had to sit on my bed for a while to calm myself. But if my boys had a strategy in mind, I too had a purpose to fulfil. I had to persuade them to visit their father, but I had little hope of succeeding.

  They complimented me on my get-up. I had put on my best and they took my arms between them and hurried me gently to their car. I saw some net curtains stirring, but, unlike my boys, I was proud and delighted. Matthew drove and Martin sat beside him. I spread myself comfortably on the back seat. We drove wordlessly for a good ten minutes until the silence became embarrassing. I felt it wasn’t my place to break it. Yet I did.

  ‘It’s been almost a year since I’ve seen you,’ I said. As the words left my mouth, I felt the heavy weight of them, laced as they were with accusation. And though I meant every syllable of them, I regretted their sound. My boys made no response. Neither did I expect one, for how on earth could they answer but with a similarly loaded reply?

  ‘We’re going to a French restaurant,’ Martin said, breaking yet another silence.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said, because I had to say something, but, in truth, I was indifferent to any cuisine, because my appetite was fast fading. I tried to cheer myself up and be grateful for their visit and their concern, even though it might all come to nothing.

  We drew up at an hotel and an attendant approached the car.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Davies,’ I heard the man say as he opened the driver’s door. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  It was the first time I’d heard of my boys’ new patronym and I noted that at least they had retained the same initial. My boys were obviously regulars at the place and were made welcome. They introduced me as their mother. That was safe enough for them I thought, until the man said, ‘Welcome, Mrs Davies. I hope you enjoy your lunch.’

  He stepped into the car and drove it away, leaving the three of us on the steps of the hotel. Three impostors and I felt ashamed for us all.

  The boys took my arms once more, though less hurriedly this time. No Dorricks associates were likely to be found in this quarter. It was a grand dining room, overlooking the river and they had chosen a perfect table from which one could view the river traffic chugging along in its unconcerned way. When we were seated, a waiter approached and presented me with a rose corsage. ‘Happy birthday, Mrs Davies,’ he said. I smiled at him. My spirits lifted and I thanked the boys who had clearly gone to much trouble to make it a day I would remember. My appetite returned and I was prepared to sit silently throughout the whole meal in order to show my gratitude. And I kept that promise to myself through the first course of smoked salmon and blinis. Apart from comments on the food and its presentation, none of those stifled words were spoken. But gratitude is not durable. It is banal to start with, and as far as I was concerned it had run its course. And by the time the main dish had arrived, the words began to itch and threatened to choke me. So I opened my mouth on them, if only to free an air passage, and I mentioned the word that was strangling us all.

  ‘Your father,’ I said. And stopped. They were staring at me.

  ‘What about him?’ Martin’s tone was cold.

  ‘He’s innocent,’ I said.

  A glance of pity passed between them, as if their mother was out of her mind.

  ‘We don’t want to talk about it,’ Matthew said.

  ‘But I do.’ My voice was raised. I didn’t care that the diners at the neighbouring tables pretended not to eavesdrop. ‘I visit him as often as I’m allowed. In prison,’ I added. I wanted to put the other diners fully in the picture.

  ‘Shush, Mother,’ Matthew said. He was blushing with shame.

  But I didn’t care about that. It was the ‘Mother’ appellation that stopped me in my tracks. Where had that refined word come from? I had always been ‘Mum’ to them and ‘Mummy’ in their infant years. But never ‘Mother’. That word belonged to another class, a class that didn’t harbour a prisoner in its midst, a class of virtue, wealth and propriety, and no doubt the class which my apostate children had joined. I was sickened by the word, and angry, and that anger fuelled the words that were to follow. No more gratitude. I was going to give them what for.

  ‘Each time I visit him,’ I went on, ‘he asks after you. He asks for you. He wonders why you don’t visit him.’

  Then out came the words that they had not meant to utter. Words that they had tried to muzzle in the hope that they would not be called for.

  ‘We don’t want anything to do with him,’ Matthew said.

  ‘That’s right,’ came from Martin. ‘We don’t want to be known as his children. Ever again.’

  I felt a lump in my throat and I took a gulp of wine to swallow it. Then another. And another. I considered that my only escape from the pain was in alcohol and I stretched out my glass for a refill. Matthew looked at Martin who nodded, then he called over the wine waiter and ordered another bottle. Both hoped that the drink would soothe me, but feared too that I would shame them.

  ‘He was a good father to you,’ I persisted. ‘Do you remember how he used to play with you on the sands? The castles he made for you? The moats? The turrets? And how every weekend, he played cricket or football with you? How could you forget all that?’

  ‘All that was before it happened,’ Martin said. ‘Please Mother,’ he added, ‘finish your steak.’

  ‘Stop calling me that,’ I said. I would have yelled at him, but the alcohol served as a mute and my gentle voice offended me. ‘If you must address me, Mum will do. As it always has done.’

  ‘Then finish your steak, Mum,’ Martin said, and he managed a smile. But my appetite had ebbed, and I placed my knife and fork together on my plate.

  ‘What would you like to do this afternoon?’ Matthew asked. ‘We could go to the zoo, if you like. You always enjoyed that.’

  They were desperate to change the subject but I would not let them get away so easily.

  ‘He wants you to visit him,’ I insisted. ‘You owe him at least that.’

  They were silent.

  ‘I’m begging you,’ I said.

  ‘Stop it, Mum.’ Martin put his hand on mine. ‘We know that he did those things. We don’t know why. Nobody ever will. But we know that he is guilty. He almost said so himself. And we can’t live with it, Matthew and I. It happened in another place and in another time. We want nothing to do with it.’

  ‘But we want to keep in touch with you,’ Matthew said.

  ‘You mean once a year? On my birthday? That kind of keeping in touch?’

  ‘We’ll make it more often,’ Martin said.

  It sounded as if they were doing me a favour, and I was moved to assert myself. If they refused to see Donald, then out of loyalty I had to refuse to see them as well.

  ‘I don’t want to keep in touch,’ I said. ‘Not even on birthdays. You left me alone when I needed you most. I let you go without complaint. But now I can do without you and your birthday support. If you don’t visit your father, then I don’t want you to visit me.’

  I made to rise. I would find my own way home. The tears were gathering behind my eyes, and I feared a cloudburst. I had to get out of that room before I exploded.

  But as I rose, I heard the strains of ‘Happy birthday’ and through a blur of tears, I saw the approach of a large birthday cake, its token candles flaring. And the tears flooded. I could only hope that the waiters would consider me deeply moved by this display of
affection. Tears of joy or despair look exactly the same so I let them flow, uncaring how they were read. Inside myself, I cursed the cake but I knew I had to gather strength to blow out those bloody candles. What little breath I had was busy masking my sobs.

  They brought the trolley to a stop by the side of our table. And we had an audience too. All the other diners, happy birthdaying one who wished she had never been born.

  ‘Take a deep breath now,’ the head waiter advised.

  I blew as hard as I could, but my breath would hardly have disturbed a feather.

  ‘We’ll help you,’ the waiter said, and they all joined in, even my apostate sons; and the smoking, snuffed-out candles smelt like a funeral pyre.

  I knew I could not leave, so I sat myself down again and accepted Matthew’s handkerchief to dry my eyes. My sons knew they were not tears of joy.

  ‘Eat the cake,’ Matthew said gently. ‘Then we’ll take you home.’

  So I cut and I shared and I sipped coffee and even a brandy until, in front of all the other diners, we could decently take our leave.

  The homeward journey was silent all the way and none of us attempted to break that silence. The boys hurried me through my front door, and sat me down.

  ‘We love you, Mum,’ Martin said. ‘The three of us can still be together.’

  ‘Thank you for lunch and everything,’ I said.

  They seemed in no hurry to leave. But I was anxious for them to go. I wanted to be on my own. I would not crawl back into bed. The reality was a family destroyed. And I had to learn to face it.

  The Diary

  Five Down. Four to Go.

  I took some leave from my mission. I had to. I sensed a growing disgust with myself. My last encounter with Alistair Morris had thrown me a little. A man had gone to the police and confessed to the murder. I was outraged. He was treading on my crusade. His arrest was headlined in the papers. He was helping the police with their inquiries, the report said. A copper’s euphemism for beating the shit out of him. Anyway, they released him after a few days, which was a relief. All that was over a year ago.