He Died with His Eyes Open Read online

  'Anyone hate him enough to kill him?'

  'Oh, come on, now,' begged the landlord, 'even you can't expect me to answer a question like that.'

  'It's a lucky thing for you you haven't got orange hairs on your forearms,' I said, staring at them. 'Any of your regulars got them? Big? About forty? Sometimes known as the Laughing Cavalier? Fancies himself with the birds?'

  'Not that I know of,' said the landlord. He tried to answer absentmindedly, but he looked more as if he were about to cry.

  'Okay,' I said, 'well, we'll stack that one.'

  'What do you mean, stack?'

  'Put it on one side. I've got plenty of time. I can always come back.'

  'Look, let me tell you, Sergeant, we're law-abiding here. I run a tight house.'

  'I can see it's tight,' I said. 'But the law-abiding bit—that could improve.'

  'I'll tell you everything I can,' he said pleadingly. 'Just give me a chance.'

  'Here you are, then,' I said, 'let's try this one. Who was his friend?'

  'Friend?'

  'Girl-friend. He use to come in with a girl-friend.'

  'Ah, girl-friend!' he said eagerly, as if immensely relieved. 'Oh, her. Who was she, you say? Christ, I don't know. I remember her, though. Dark, thin, buck teeth.'

  'No,' I said, 'I happen to know from the dead man's tapes that she was big, nice figure, had long blond hair, and gave him a hard time.'

  'Oh, sorry. Yes, that one. Yes, I get you now.'

  'Do you?' I said. 'Lucky for you. Because you could find yourself in a bit of bother if you didn't look out. I might decide I wanted to wind you right up tight if you misled me, just to see what would happen. And do you know what would happen, fatty? You'd go off pop! Like that.'

  'Okay, okay,' he said.

  'What was her name, now?'

  'I don't know. Could it've bin Barbara something?'

  'That's the one,' I said, 'that's the one. And what was her surname again?'

  'I'm not sure, I think it was Spark.'

  'I think so too,' I said. 'Very good! I'll buy you a drink if you go on like this. Okay, then. Did she use to frat with anyone in here except Staniland? Any of your customers?'

  'Not to my knowledge,' said the landlord heavily, pursing his lips. 'Not to my knowledge.'

  'Look, I'm going to give you an insight into police thinking,' I said, 'a sort of treat for your being so good. When someone I'm questioning exaggerates a gesture the way you've just done, then I know for a fact he's lying. So I'll just remind you of that bit about cooperating with me again, okay?'

  'Look, no one went anywhere near them,' said the landlord desperately. 'Honest. No one in here liked either of them, see?'

  'It's funny, but that doesn't square with things I know.'

  'What do you know?'

  'Nothing you need to.' I continued: 'So you're sticking to that, are you? That everyone in here just stood off at a distance and went no further than take the mickey out of him. You prepared to swear to that?'

  'Oh, that's right! You couldn't single no one out, like. No special person in particular. No, you couldn't!'

  'Strange,' I said, 'strange. Doesn't sound typical of a villains' incubator like this at all.'

  'Well, that's the way it was.'

  'And you've no idea why people took the piss out of him. Apart from his accent.'

  'That's the truth.'

  'And yet some person or maybe more than one hated him so much that they did this to him.'

  'Yeah, it certainly looks nasty.'

  'That's an understatement. You do fully realize this is a murder I'm investigating?'

  'Certainly I do!' said the landlord wholeheartedly, 'an I hope you catch them bastards what did it to him. Poor old Charlie!'

  'We'll catch them,' I said.

  Behind me the pub was beginning to fill up: men drifted in two, three at a time, truck-drivers mostly, the hole-digging gang from the street.

  All at once the landlord jumped. 'Oh, do leave!' he urged me in a deafening whisper. 'If those two over there even suspect I've been talking to you, they'll have my guts for a garter.'

  'All right,' I said. But I was in no hurry. I finished up my warm beer at my own speed. 'But I'll be back, I'm afraid.'

  'When?'

  'You won't know when. It could be any time.'

  'Look,' said the landlord, jerking the till open with a backward flap of his hand, 'I wonder if I could make a contribution to the Police Orphans' Fund?'

  'Certainly,' I said. 'You just send the cheque to the Fund at Scotland Yard. The address is in the book.'

  'That's not what I meant,' blubbered the landlord. 'I mean, oh, don't tie me into it, please.'

  'Fuck off,' I said.

  I watched him crawl off down the bar.

  As I left I looked hard at the men who had so agitated the landlord. The first was quite small, but that didn't make him harmless. He wore custom-built jeans, a red sports shirt, and a fawn cardigan; his gold wristwatch was too big, like his ego. A fat wallet stuck half out of his hip pocket, daring some poor idiot to have a go. He was talking to another man with protruding front teeth, wearing a yellow anorak, black jogging pants and sneakers. Neither of them had orange hair, and they weren't big. But they were villains. I couldn't remember their names offhand, but they were a team and liked clubs best of all—a nice slab of cash punctual on the thirtieth of the month for protecting a club or else smashing it up. They saw me looking at them; I didn't care.

  They were making casually for the bar as I left.

  Outside, the first edition of the only remaining evening paper had come out on the streets. I got one. Someone called Lord Boughtham had just been appointed Foreign Secretary and had made a long speech in the Lords that criticized everybody but himself. That was one way of earning sixty thousand a year.

  There was nothing about Staniland in the paper. Staniland wasn't news.

  7

  I sat in my office at the Factory reading Staniland. It's called the Factory by the villains because it has a bad reputation for doing suspects over in the interrogation rooms; people who still think our British policemen are wonderful ought to spend a night at the Factory banged up or put under the light by a team of three. We call it the Factory, too: but, if you want to know, it's the big modern, concrete police station that controls the West End north to Tottenham Court Road, south to Hyde Park Corner, northwest to Marble Arch and east to Trafalgar Square. The building itself is in Poland Street bang opposite Marks & Sparks.

  I stopped reading for a moment and started thinking about the cassette that had prompted me to go over to the Agincourt. I had played it over at home several times more. Out in the passage the cleaning lady had her transistor radio on while she slopped the water about; a lot of trendy lefties started protesting about something, and she switched it to another station.

  The landlord had been lying—not that that surprised me. He lied because he was frightened; that didn't surprise me, either. It needed a man with better nerves than his to run that place, also someone who wasn't a total pisspot. I wondered just how badly Staniland had been beaten up outside behind the gents there— probably much worse than he had let on. The landlord had certainly been threatened and told to button it, very likely by the two villains who had passed me drifting towards him in the bar that morning.

  I would have to go back there at some point. I wondered vaguely what I should wear for the encounter, and couldn't decide between a Chieftain tank and a self-propelled gun.

  I put one of Staniland's tapes on again. He said:

  There's a point where the string of the balloon breaks and it glides upwards to burst at that height where shape is no longer possible for it. Meanwhile, to be an animal that thinks persistently in terms way beyond its lifespan sets us a frightful problem. Every day you amass knowledge in a frantic race against death that death must win. You want to find out everything in the time you have; yet in the end you wonder why you bothered, it'll all be lost. I keep trying
to explain this to anyone who will listen.

  There wasn't any more on that tape, so I went on to the next. They were in a dreadful muddle, gaps, bits erased, some inaudible because used twice. His papers were scribbled over in the margin with footnotes and remarks on the back. He seemed never to have used a typewriter. In some places the handwriting was well- formed and spaced; in others it was hasty, with tremors, almost illegible.

  This piece was a letter. The handwriting was not Staniland's, but it resembled it; only it was much more careful, stiff. There was no address at the top, and no date. It read:

  Dear Charles,

  I have been thinking over our telephone conversation the other night, and have regretfully decided that it isn't the slightest use your coming over here and expecting any sympathy from us now. You chose to go abroad and live there for years at a time, never writing, letting all your contacts drop; and now that life has gone sour on you, you start ringing up or coming over and telling us all your woes. It won't do, Charles. Betty and I have enough problems of our own. I know you want money, though you don't say so outright, but I saw it in your eyes last time you were over here and I could hear it in your voice—I'm not your brother for nothing. I'm afraid it's no good. Even if I gave you money, you would only fritter it away on drink or on one of those awful women that you get so hooked on. No. You've simply got to understand that there's a code in life, and no foolish thirst after knowledge and experience will compensate you for abandoning it. Either you follow the code, or you don't. And you haven't. I hate putting this so bluntly, but you leave me no choice.

  In great regret, believe me, and of course love, your brother G.

  P.S.

  You can stay the night, of course, any time; I know Betty will be delighted to make up the spare bed for you. But that's all. I'm sorry you've come to this pass, old boy, and I honestly wish there were something I could do. But my own business is in difficulties; in fact, at times I hardly know where to turn.

  With a brother like that, I thought, no wonder Staniland drank. Rereading the letter, I thought there came across a vague note of envy, as though 'G' were attempting to punish Staniland for some experience which the brother, to his vexation, had never had.

  I turned the letter over. On the back Staniland had written the single word 'Crap'.

  As I was gathering up his papers to put in my desk before going to lunch, a single sheet of his writing, smaller than the others, fell out on the floor. It read:

  I understand everything now, Barbara. It was I who was so stupid; I should never have started to detect lies in people.

  Too late I've discovered that if you strip people down to the truth, you give them no chance to survive. Lies and evasions are necessary; they give us a chance to dodge.

  An advertisement cut out of a highbrow economics review was pinned to the sheet. It was highly unoriginal and showed a man in a business suit, carrying an executive briefcase, apparently about to tread on a wristwatch that lay in the foreground. The blurb read: 'Man is as beautifully crafted as the best Swiss watches—a Masterpiece that even Time can't beat!' Underneath Staniland had written: Balls. On the sheet behind the advertisement the letter continued:

  Every time I write or talk to you, Barbara, it's like my blood flowing away. My words leave my mouth only for you, like blood leaking out round a dagger. Once I've spoken my brain feels grey and feeble. Please come back to me—stay with me. It won't be a life sentence for you. I feel myself moving towards something final that even the dimmest of us will be able to understand. Oh, Barbara, you are the only—

  There wasn't any more, just a brown circle where a glass of whisky had probably stood.

  Before going out I rang Bowman's office, but they still hadn't managed to trace Barbara Spark, they said. I got the impression they hadn't tried very hard and weren't going to, and realized that I would have to do it myself.

  8

  That evening, around six, I went and interviewed Staniland's brother. It hadn't been difficult to trace him as, unlike Barbara Spark, he was in the telephone directory—Grampian D. Staniland. I could have rung him but decided not to, and simply went round. He owned a nice little bit of listed property in a Victorian terrace behind Essex Street Market. It was a fine April evening when I approached the purple front door with its shiny lacquered knocker. The street was bathed in petrol fumes and peace, except for a group of young blacks who were sneering at passers-by and drinking Coke against some railings; they gazed at me expressionlessly as I went up and banged on the door. There was no answer at first, so I banged again and lit a cigarette. Just as I had got it going the door opened with a lot of rattling and went a short way back on a chain. I couldn't see anything except a hand on the door; it seemed to be a woman's hand.

  'Mr Grampian Staniland's?'

  'Yes,' said the woman, still invisible, 'I'm Mrs Staniland. Who are you?'

  'Police.'

  The dim blur of her face appeared, scrutinizing me. I identified myself and said: 'Could I see Mr Staniland, please?'

  'I don't know. I suppose so.'

  'I'm afraid I've got to see him.'

  'Oh, well, you'd better, then.'

  She undid the chain. 'There,' she said at last, half opening the door. 'You can come in.'

  I squeezed past her into a narrow hall and managed to get past two tables loaded with knick-knacks. The hall was festooned with objects—paintings in gold frames, three clocks, an owl or something in a glass case, and a good many swords crossed on the wall and hanging there by means of strings. I avoided putting my elbow through a picture of an enraged-looking officer in a busby, but hit a suit of armour which crumpled rustily into itself..

  'What is this?' I said. 'An antique business?'

  'It's my husband's private collection,' she said frigidly.

  'I wouldn't care to have to pay death-duties on it.'

  She didn't like that. She got in front of me and strode carefully into the sitting-room. Hooked round it. There were more sofas there than in any small room I had ever seen—four. There wasn't logically room for anything else; all the same there were more pictures, either landscapes with the shrubbery done like overcooked sprouts or with that military flavour again. Also, eight small piecrust tables crouched under the weight of heavy shaded lamps, figurines, silver ashtrays and beaded mats meant for standing drinks on. Sombre curtains half shrouded the windows and were looped back with silk ropes. It was much too hot in there.

  Now I could take Mrs Staniland in. She was not attractive. She took no care of her skin, which resented it in the form of wrinkles. Also she had no bottom, and was flat all over like a playing card. Her gravy-coloured tweed suit did nothing for her, and she did nothing for it back. She had a nice string of pearls on, but they only emphasized the fact that she had no bust. Now that she had got over the shock of the word 'police', she spoke in a harsh, upper-class voice, some of it copied. Once she tried smiling, but it didn't get very far.

  'What is this about?'

  'I'd rather tell Mr Staniland that, if you don't mind.'

  'I see. I'll go and get him, then. Wait here, please.' She began swinging her skirts grimly towards the door.

  'Just a minute,' I said. 'Would you mind my asking where all this gear comes from?'

  She gazed at me as if I were something that shouldn't have been on the carpet (a Shiraz, I noted automatically).

  'Most of it was in my husband's family. He inherited it.'

  'They must have needed a castle to house this lot.'

  'They had one.'

  Well, she had got me there.

  'I can assure you it wasn't stolen,' she add viciously, 'if that's what you were getting at.'

  'I wasn't,' I said. 'It just makes rather a contrast with your brother-in-law's life-style, that's all.'

  'Oh, God,' she groaned, 'you haven't come about him, have you?' She added: 'You know, I had a feeling. Well? What has he done now?'

  'If you'd like to fetch Mr Staniland for me,' I said, 'you'll fi
nd out.'

  'He's collating some incunabula upstairs.'

  'Ask him to come down, please.'

  She started to leave, reluctantly.

  'It's all right, I won't whizz anything,' I said.

  She slammed the door on me. While she was gone I gazed at the seven clocks in there with me. One had a little pendulum that jumped up and down; another hiccoughed when it got to the half hour but couldn't chime. I wished they would upgrade our wages so that I could buy some decent clothes; I would have looked slightly less out of place.

  Somewhere upstairs I could hear two voices going vigorously in counterpoint; the sound was followed after a while by the sound of four feet galloping energetically down-stairs. Then the door flew open and Grampian came in rubbing his hands, also wearing a tweed suit—a well-cut one, two hundred and fifty pounds' worth from Savile Row.

  'Good evening to you,' he boomed heartily. 'My wife tells me you've come about my brother Charles. Well? What has he been up to this time?'

  'Well, he's gone and died,' I said.

  That put an end to the heartiness; there was a sudden silence in the stuffy little room.

  'Died?' repeated Grampian. 'Good God, whatever of?'

  'Of repeated blows from a builder's hammer. He was beaten to death.'

  'Who by?'

  'That's what I'm trying to find out.'

  After a while Grampian said: 'I very much doubt if we can be of any help to you. There was very little contact between Charles and ourselves, you know.'

  'Really? Well, I have to follow up every lead.'

  'Of course you do. Of course.'

  'Anyway' said Mrs Staniland in a brittle voice, 'he was definitely murdered, was he?'

  'Oh, yes,' I said. 'We're quite sure about that.'

  'Perhaps you could be more explicit,' said Mrs Staniland.

  'He just has been,' said Grampian.