Читать книгу Summer Night, Winter Moon - Jane Huxley - Страница 7

It is not unusual, on a warm summer evening, to look out of our bedroom window and see a Jaguar or Corniche parked downstairs in front of my gate on Chester Crescent. What struck me as odd was the vehicle which had just arrived – a black sedan such as a mortician might favour. Or a clandestine lover. Or a copper.

Since I was not expecting a visitor on this ordinary Tuesday evening, the presence of a strange car at my door was an obvious source of anxiety – made worse by the fact that the car doors opened and two men climbed out. Plain clothes that wouldn’t fool anybody. Least of all someone with a queasy conscience.

By the reddish glow of the setting sun, I saw one of them lift his head and stare at the façade of the townhouses that form a wide curve along the street. Good Lord! None other than Inspector Fielding himself! Those snake eyes of his darting swiftly as if afraid of losing their prey.

I had forgotten him the way we forget people we have no desire to remember. But if I wanted to reacquaint myself with him, he was giving me ample opportunity. Tall. Narrow head. Abrupt gestures that were part of the art of intimidating suspects.

He stepped forward under the streetlamp and chatted to his partner, whose dense silhouette I recognized as that of Sergeant Dale. Shorter. Plumper. More reticent. Less alert.

They both glanced at their watches, then focused their attention on my house. The black door, the windows upstairs, the small garden in front. Illogically, I wanted to stay welded to the window which might have given away the outline of my head had the lights not been switched off.

The buzzer rang two minutes later.

What’s two minutes in the life of a thirty-six-year-old man? A fucking lifetime, if you’ve ever looked out of your window and had a flash of insight that revealed you were about to be nailed for a heinous deed. So it’s a question of choice. You can let them cuff you and throw you into that swamp between nowhere and no place. Or you can pull yourself together. And bolt.

Now you listen to me, you fool, I said to myself. Who cares if those detectives waiting outside the door will sniff a touch of guilt in a fleeing man. What may look like a fugitive to them will be nothing more than a disciplined jogger to those who pass him along the way.

But I had two concerns – money and identification – without which an ordinary joe doesn’t cross many boundaries in today’s world. It would be unwise to stop at the gallery and take whatever bounty was stored in the safe. So I opened the lockbox camouflaged by the small Matisse on the bedroom wall and took out wads of pounds, bounded and crisp, and my passport, and stuffed them in the breast pocket of my jacket.

Not enough. I must take something of hers. Something I can carry with me all the way to wherever I end up. Yes! Her handkerchief. The small white one, with the A embroidered on a corner and the lingering lemony smell.

As I plucked it from her drawer, the mirror on the dressing table gave me a startling look of myself. The thick blond hair, spiky and dishevelled. The forehead shiny with perspiration. The grey eyes, ordinarily amused, wide open and red rimmed. One side of the mouth turned down in a smirk. The hint of a stubble on my cheeks. As for the rest of me, not much left of the slender carriage – I was all slumped shoulders and fidgety hands.

The buzzer rang again.

Come on, you fool, I muttered under my breath. Run!

Which is what I did. I rushed to the back of the house and attempted to lift the guest room window that let onto the fire escape. Damn! Stuck so badly only a ghost could pass through it. Now what? A hammer. A rock. Anything.

I found a boot and banged the frame to force the window open. It did, giving me the feel of summer air. I took a deep breath and jumped out for the long run to… Where? Onward, obviously. As far as I can get. The boundless lands of New Zealand, maybe. To what use? To move on, to leave no traces. Why? To preserve whatever part of me is salvageable. If any.