He Died with His Eyes Open Page 11

  'That's right.'

  'Ain't none of my business, but you got funny friends.'

  'What's funny about him?'

  'A woman wants to be careful with Eric,' she said. 'He's strictly negative, no-go, no-no-land. He likes to do strange things to a girl.' She thought hard and then said: 'You know? He's exploded like a tape recorder when you put too much juice through it. Like burnt out.'

  20

  Petworth Street was no distance from the pub, and I soon found number eighteen; it was the door that banged in the dark wind and had a pile of costermongers' garbage three feet high beside it. The door banged because it didn't lock, and it didn't lock because the traders used the street-level passageway for parking their barrows and empty crates. I stood at the foot of the stairs in the gloom for a minute, then got my flashlight out—where would anybody be in modern London without one? I looked for a push button to light the cement stairs that yawned in front of me; there was one, but it didn't work. On the inside of the street door was a wire basket full of mail. It looked like disagreeable mail, the kind that arrives in buff envelopes, and evidently nobody ever read it, because it looked as if it had been there a long time. I looked through it all the same, but there was nothing for Eric. After climbing three floors' worth of stairs— two doors to a floor, one left, one right—I reached the third floor. It had two kicked-in doors on the landing, both toilets, one with a broken cistern and no seat. The whole building smelled bad. At the end of the landing a green rail ran across a wide, unglazed aperture. I leaned out over it and looked down into the well of the building; at the bottom lay some rotten bedding and a wrecked bike. There were the same two doors facing each other at the end; the left-hand one had a line of light running under it and gave off the sound of rock. I went up to that door and banged on it. There was a noise of breathing through the thin wood planks, and when I banged on it again a reedy voice shouted: 'Who're you?'

  'It's me, Eric.'

  'I don't know your voice. I don't know you.'

  'Maybe not,' I said, 'but you've been waiting for someone like me to call.'

  'I'm not opening up!'

  'That's a drag,' I said. 'It means I shall have to come back with the help.'

  'You can't be from the council, not at this time of night. Look, what do you want?'

  'Open up and you'll find out. Come on. You'll have to sooner or later, and the more bother you give me, the more you'll get into.'

  He got the point. I heard steps shuffling over to the door, and a hand fiddled with the Yale lock. When the door opened a crack I moved in. 'Thanks,' I said. 'What a lot of fuss:

  Eric was tall, thin, and ill-looking. He was about twenty-five and did have rotten teeth. He didn't look much like his mother, except that his hair, what there was of it, had a reddish tinge. Behind him the music roared out:

  I like to rock all day!

  I like to rock all night!

  'Turn that off,' I said, 'I want to talk to you.'

  He turned it down and said: 'What about?'

  'About your stepfather, Charles Staniland.'

  'Well, what about him?'

  'Well, he's dead.'

  'As if I fucking cared,' he said. 'Who are you, you cunt?'

  'I'm a police officer,' I said. 'And watch your tongue. One more slip like that with it, and I'll tear it out of your head.'

  'Lets see your identification,' he said in a world-weary voice.

  When I showed it to him, he said: 'Oh, Christ. Look, I'm worn down, man, I'm strung right out.' He had a voice as thin as the rest of him; it seesawed up and down like an out-of-tune violin.

  'I'm too old for life, too old for the gigs, man—no one lasts for ever.'

  'You certainly don't look as if you were going to,' I said. He didn't quite make sense yet; I thought his indifference to me, to Staniland's death, meant that he was on his way down from a trip of some kind. But I didn't care; we had any amount of time.

  'How old are you?'

  'Twenty-four. Shows, doesn't it, dad?'

  'Yes, it looks as if you'd lived,' I admitted, 'only the film seems to have been run through mostly backwards.'

  'Oh, well, you gotter live. I'm at the age where a man's gotter live, gotter enjoy himself. You gotter get through it somehow. It's hell, it's strictly hell, but that's how it crumbles, dad.'

  'You want to get your valves ground in a bit, son,' I said. 'I'm forty-one, but I could bounce you up and down like a rubber ball.'

  'Anyone can use insults or violence,' he said with trembling disdain, 'especially if they're fuzz.'

  'Quite,' I said absently. I was looking round the room. There was a table with the dirty remains of a frozen meal on it, shepherd's pie for one, and a segment of Mother's Pride, two chairs and a bed covered with screwed-up army blankets; a soft-porn mag lay on the chair cushion that stood in for a pillow.

  I looked Eric up and down. He wore a brown, flowing robe like a monk's, the hem of which, as he sat down, he tucked up round his groin, displaying a lot of white, apparently boneless leg and then, far away where his feet were, sandals which had died slowly, perhaps while hitching a ride. He produced, out of the folds of his cassock, a plastic wallet which proclaimed that it had once contained Dutch tobacco. It was held shut with a rubber band in which a lighter acted as a tourniquet; he twisted the lighter round in the band as he stared at me until it seemed bound to snap— which it did, showering a brown detritus over the floor.

  'Shit!' he said, bending down.

  'Is it?' I said, picking some up.

  It was. He giggled on a high, unreal note, but I wasn't going to bust the poor little sod; I hadn't the heart unless it came in handy as a means of holding him for something else. I could see he had done some porridge as it was, because it said so on his left arm, which was tattooed 'Wandsworth I Love You'. But I was investigating a much greater tragedy than Eric. Eric might be all right for as long as anyone with his problems can be. He might even settle down in the country somewhere for a while on some reforming maiden's money and sit under a tree making cages out of twigs , while she uncomplainingly hoed the garden in a glow of sweat, martyrdom and packet soup. On Sundays her middle-class mum and dad would come and gaze at them helplessly for the afternoon while she hoed and he giggled, and then depart in the family motor not looking at each other, but staring wordlessly over the gears. Then one day, for any reason or more likely none at all, the relationship would snap abruptly, perhaps making, if there were some violence, twelve lines of print on page three of the News of the World, accompanied by a smudged photo with the background of weeds and a potting-shed.

  'I want you to tell me all about your relationship with your stepfather,' I said.

  There's nothing to tell.'

  'Oh, I don't agree,' I said. I watched him desperately trying to pick his pot up off the floor. He was too idle to get down on his knees for it, but tried to do it bending from his chair. 'Let's get back to reality, shall we? Your stepfather's been murdered. Murdered, do you understand?'

  'Yeah, yeah, I read you.'

  'You'd better have a look at this,' I said. I produced the morgue photograph of Staniland and handed it to him. 'Particularly as you're a relative.'

  He looked at it. 'Christ,' he said, his voice cracking, 'is that really him?'

  'It was. People like you don't think about death much, but that's what it can look like.'

  'Okay, okay,' he said. He seemed to have shrunk.

  'You wouldn't know anything about it?'

  'Who, me? Christ, no.'

  'It's come as a complete shock?'

  'Course it has! Christ!'

  'Why did somebody have to die to get you off the hook?'

  'He didn't! He must have gone and done it. He was upset after he broke up with my mother! He was in a state over my half-sister! I never gave him any sweat!'

  'Oh, come on, Eric,' I said woodenly. 'You can do better than that. I'm going to lean on you now. What did you do with that money?'

  'Money! What
money? I don't know what you're talking about!'

  'Yes, you do. He gave you money.'

  'I don't have to tell you that.'

  'Yes, you do. You have to tell me everything.'

  'I can't remember.'

  'Well, we'll wait together for as long as it takes you to remember. You've got a habit, haven't you?'

  'Okay, so you saw the pot on the floor.'

  'It's a more expensive habit than just pot, Eric. What is it? Cocaine? Heroin?'

  'Why? Are you gointer bust me or something?'

  'I can't be bothered. If I wanted to I could spend my life busting you pimply marvels. But I could hold you on it, pending another charge, it depends on you. You'd find yourself on remand over at Brixton in no time, and you don't want to do any more bird, do you? Last time it was just for thieving, wasn't it, but this time it'll be more serious; they'll throw the book at you harder, Eric, a lot harder.'

  'Look, if you're going to bust me, bust me. But I don't know anything about my stepfathers death.'

  'You're sticking to that?'

  'I am.'

  'If you're telling the truth that's one thing. But if you're not, Eric, you're being an Al prize jerk—you'd be safer telling me the truth. You'd be safer in the nick than you would be on the streets. Have you got a photograph of yourself, by the way?'

  'No.'

  'Yes, you have. You've got a passport, I checked.' I held my hand out. 'Give me the passport, Eric. I want the photograph '

  He rummaged in an overcrowded drawer and finally produced it. I turned to the photograph. It wasn't a very good likeness, but it would do. I put the passport in my pocket. 'Thanks,' I said. 'Now, I think you're lying to me, Eric; I think lies come naturally to you. But what I'm going to do is show this picture around among certain people, and if I find that you're known to them, God help you, son, do you see?'

  He swallowed. 'I move around a lot,' he said. 'An awful lot.'

  'Well, it's a matter of where,' I said, 'and who with. You go down to South London often?'

  'No.'

  'Sometimes, though?'

  'I go everywhere sometimes. I move around a lot, I keep telling you.'

  'All right,' I said, 'let's leave that for now. Let's go back to that money of your stepfather's. You spent that money on your habit, didn't you, Eric? Sometimes it was pot, but more often it was maybe a little heroin if you needed a nice strong kick.'

  'I've never touched horse!'

  'Come on,' I said, 'I don't have to look for the punctures to tell that you shoot up. Your friends call you the Knack, don't they?'

  'Some of them do.'

  'What have you got a knack for, I wonder, apart from a needle? Nothing very much, I shouldn't think. I wouldn't've thought you were into birds very hard, for instance—I've heard it said that you're not all that hot in the sack, Eric. But if you're turned on the whole time that's hardly surprising. Spending other people's money, is it? Come on, talk. I'm beginning not to be very fond of you, Eric, which as far as you're concerned is bad news.'

  'Look,' he said, 'go easy, will you? I admit I'm muddled and confused. The psychiatrist said it was because I never knew my father.'

  'You didn't do too badly with your stepfather, though. You did as well with him as a lot of kids would've done with a real father. You had a decent education, I can tell; you've got one of those classless accents that you get in expensive schools these days. Who paid for it, Eric? What school was it, Eric?'

  He told me. It was one of those schools for the delinquent dropouts of the middling well-off to rich. It turned out flops, would-be revolutionaries, drug addicts and trendies by the score; I'd had to deal with its products on other occasions.

  'Did your mother help with the fees? Oh, come on, Eric. It's so easily checked; I've only got to ask the school.'

  'No, I tell you, he paid for everything.'

  'He spoiled you, did he?'

  'I suppose you might call it that.'

  'You should get your teeth seen to,' I said absently. 'People shouldn't let themselves go like that at your age.'

  'Well, my stepfather wasn't much of an example, always drunk.'

  'You didn't like your stepfather much. Not really, did you? No matter what he'd done for you.'

  'He didn't like me, either.'

  'Well, he must've a bit,' I said, 'otherwise he wouldn't have given you that five hundred quid, would he?'

  'How the hell did you know about that?'

  'Don't bother about the details, I just know you had it. I also know it wasn't all you had. You had the two cheques, one for five hundred and the other for three. You pretty well cleaned him out, didn't you?'

  'No, I didn't.'

  'Yes, you did.'

  'Well, if I did, I didn't know I was doing it.'

  'How did you get the money out of him, Eric?'

  'What do you mean, get it out of him? I told him I needed it, so he let me have it.'

  'Soft touch, was he?'

  'That's right;

  'You know; Eric,' I said, 'I find life so strange sometimes, when I'm talking to liars especially. What you really said to him was, Give, or else. You knew bloody well he couldn't afford it. You forced him to go to the bank and raise it. You made his life hell for him until he did go to the bank.'

  'I didn't!'

  'You're lying again,' I said. 'You're an absolute chronic liar, Eric. What I really want to know is how you forced him.'

  He didn't say anything.

  'Well, I'll tell you what I think. I think you said to yourself, he's a drunk, he's an easy touch, he's weak and he's easily frightened. I think you put the boot in, Eric. I think you took a few other little knackies round with you, and I mean to find out who they were.'

  'I didn't take anybody round!'

  'I think you did, and the reason why I think it is because you've got no guts. You couldn't even square up to a middle-aged alcoholic without sending out for help. But you know what they call that in a court of law, Eric? A prosecuting lawyer would call that demanding money with menaces, and it carries five to seven years' porridge if you go down. You shouldn't have taken cheques from him, that's where you went wrong. Because you had to endorse the cheques and it will be very simple to establish that the endorsements were in your handwriting even if you used a false name.'

  'I tell you he gave me the money of his own free will.'

  'No court's going to believe that. We're talking about a murder, Eric, and you've got a record, also a motive.'

  'Christ, you're trying to fit me up for this!'

  'You fitted yourself up for it. And while we're on the subject of money, by the way, there's another three hundred quid still missing. Did you get that as well?'

  'No! Eight was the lot. Honestly!'

  'I wonder,' I said. 'I bet you were into your stepfather every time you got short of moonfeed.'

  'It wasn't like that, I tell you.'

  'I think it was. I don't think you could find any way of raising money except from your stepfather. You haven't the guts to graft, get a job, work on a building site, anything like that. No. But darling Eric has to have his moonjuice just the same. Only the knack ran out in the end, didn't it? You couldn't put the bite on any harder; your stepfather didn't have any more money. I'll bet at first you came on like no end of a wag over at the pub, for instance, flashing your stepfather's money about. That's how you really came to be called the Knack, wasn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if you invented that name all by yourself. God, I tremble with pride for you, Eric; you make me go all gooey.'

  'I keep telling you—'

  'But you weren't prepared to try the famous knack on anybody else, were you? No, because anyone with any balls would have told you to fuck off, and you'd have burst into tears, just like you're about to do with me. You're like a sinister little boy, Eric; every time the beastly horrid sand-castle falls in you burst out crying and try and kick someone smaller than you are. I bet you think of yourself as the detritus of your society—it's a good e
xcuse for a wallow in self-pity. But all you are, Eric, is just a wanker. What you did with your mates was start roughing your stepfather up a little, and then it all went too far, didn't it? Didn't it?'

  'No!'

  He folded up his chair, a ridiculous spectacle in that stupid robe, and gazed at me blearily through his tears. He shook uncontrollably and looked like something nasty that had been shot in the face. 'He gave it so easy the first times,' he said. 'There was nothing to it.'

  'And then after that there was more to it, and you lost your temper and then you roughed him up, and then it went too far and everyone had a go and you killed him.'

  'No, it wasn't like that!' he sobbed. 'I didn't kill him, I didn't, I didn't. I didn't get anything out of him the last time. And I was on my own with him and I didn't touch him—I reckoned I'd about got all I was going to out of him.'

  'Maybe he was sober that time,' I said bleakly. 'So you tuned him up the second time round, is that it?'

  'Well, he sort of fell over, yes.'

  'You sort of pushed him around that time until he sort of fell over, you mean.'

  'All right, then, yes. But it was really easy before, the first time.'

  'Yes, it was easy the first time because he was the kind of man who would give anybody anything if he had it. Your mother told me that.'

  'My mothers just a whore!' he shouted through his tears.

  'Well, true or false,' I said, 'you're the last person to make judgements about people. I believe you not only killed your stepfather, Eric—but look what you did to him. Look at this photo again.' -

  'I didn't!'

  'How hard did you hit him, Eric? To start with, when he told you he couldn't give you the money?'

  'Just a slap! I don't know! Just a couple of slaps!'

  'Because you were desperate for your moonfeed, and you were skint, and you hated and despised him anyway.'

  'Yes, all right, but I didn't kill him!'

  'Well, I'm not sure, Eric.'

  'Sure of what?'

  'Sure whether my proper course wouldn't be to search the place and then maybe book you on a hard drugs charge, also grievous bodily harm for a start, and take you across to the Factory so you can repeat what you've just told me over there.'