Selected Stories

He assembled the cutlery and the table-mats with the galleons on them, and took a tray into the dining-room, where he set the table and turned the television on. They always ate watching the television, but not with plates on their knees, which both of them disliked. They sat side by side at the table and when they’d finished Gilbert helped to wash up and then usually went out, walking to the Arab Boy or the Devonshire Arms, sometimes driving over to the Bull or the Market Gardener. Rosalie had often listened while he explained that he liked to relax in this way after his day’s work; that he liked having people around him, while being alone himself; that he liked the sound of voices, and music if someone played the juke-box. He didn’t drink much; cider because he didn’t care for beer, a couple of half pints in the course of an evening. He often told her that also. He told her everything, Gilbert said, looking at her steadily, his tone of voice indicating that this was not true.

The window-cleaner, Ron, had been reprimanded by the police inspector in charge of the case, and later by a sergeant and by a woman constable. The body in the cotoneaster could have been still alive, he was told; it hadn’t been, but it easily could have. It was the duty of any citizen to report something of that nature, instead of which he’d callously ridden off.

Ron, who happened to be the same age as Gilbert Mannion – twenty-five - replied that he had a contract: the shop windows in Disraeli Street and Lower Street had to be washed by nine o’clock; if he delayed, either in the work itself or on his journey to it, that deadline would not be met. As well as which, he had been unnerved by the sight of a half-dressed girl lying all twisted up like that, her two eyes staring at him; no one like that could be alive, he maintained.

For five hours the police had worried about Ron Thomas. He had previous convictions, for petty larceny and damage to property. But there was still nothing to connect him with the crime that had been committed, beyond the fact that he’d failed to report it. In reprimanding him on that count, the inspector, the sergeant and the woman constable managed to assuage their impatience and frustration. The night before, between the hours of ten-fifteen and midnight, Ron Thomas’s whereabouts were firmly accounted for. ‘You appear to be a brute, Thomas,’ the inspector pronounced in a take-it-or-leave-it voice, and turned his attention to a silver-coloured Vauxhall that had been noticed in the vicinity.

A woman called Mathers had seen it, as had a couple who’d been kissing in a doorway. The car drove down Old Engine Way earlier in the evening, nine or so it would have been, then turned into a cul-de-sac – Stables Lane – where it remained parked for half an hour, although no one had emerged. Mrs Mathers, who lived in Stables Lane, heard the engine of a car and went to the window to look. The headlights had been switched off; Mrs Mathers had the feeling that whoever was in the vehicle was up to no good and remarked as much to her sister. The couple in the doorway said that when the headlights came on again the car turned very slowly in the cul-de-sac; as it emerged into Old Engine Way, they were dazzled by its lights for a moment; they couldn’t see its occupant.

‘Occupants more like,’ the inspector wearily corrected when the couple had left. ‘Some slag on the game.’

Even so, a description of the Vauxhall was put together, its bodywork scraped and rusty, its radio aerial twisted into a knot: within minutes, calls came in from all over London, of silver-coloured Vauxhalls with such distinguishing features. Some of the calls were malicious – the opportunity seized to settle old scores against the owners of such vehicles; others led nowhere. But a woman, phoning from a call-box, said that a friend of hers had been driven to Stables Lane the night before, at the time in question. The woman gave neither her name nor her profession, only adding that her friend had been driven to Stables Lane because there was a family matter to be discussed in the car and Stables Lane was quiet. It was assumed that this was the prostitute or part-time prostitute suggested by the inspector; as with Ron Thomas, interest in the silver-coloured Vauxhall was abandoned.

Gilbert was dark-haired, five foot eight tall, sparely made. His features were neat, a neat mouth and nose, brown eyes very like his mother’s, high cheekbones. Everything about Gilbert went together; even his voice – soft and unemphatic – belonged to a whole. The most distinctive thing about him was that – for no apparent reason, and even when he was not being loquacious – his presence in a room could not be overlooked; and often his presence lingered after he had left.