Affairs of Death Page 2

  “Rubbish! I always noticed you. I never dreamt of going near the house without bringing a present for you.”

  “And what did you bring me that year? Roller-skates. My mind is full of love potions and visions of languorous evenings in the heather and you slap me in the face with roller-skates. But I didn’t blame you. I always felt that Stella Lorn had gone with you to select them. I should have preferred ice-skates to stamp on her with. Isn’t it funny, now that I’ve got over it and you’ve got over it ——” She fixed me with a suspicious eye. “You have got over it, I suppose?”

  “If you mean Stella, I never had it,” I said, tampering with the truth a little.

  “Well, there you are. And now you’re going to Rossderg to stay with her, and I’m going to Rossderg to stay with ——” She hesitated.

  “With Kinky Myles, I think you said.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what’s funny about that?”

  “Nothing. Kinky is a very nice person.”

  “You implied some sort of dramatic irony.”

  I think that she had already made up her mind not to say any more when the conductor of our bus showed his face at the door of the bar as a tactful indication of the imminence of take off; certainly she got up with an air of relief and swept out of the room.

  “You’ll know soon enough, Standish,” was all that she said.

  After that the journey was not so bad; for one thing, we changed seats. Juliet decided that the hedges and trees and telegraph poles rushing past close beside her had a mesmeric effect and persuaded her that she was sick, whereas the inner view that I had found so boring would be to her merely soothing; and so it proved. Our speed slackened but our surroundings took on more individuality when we turned off the main highway to the west and traversed narrower winding roads, while the accents of our companions subtly changed as the shadows lengthened. The personality of the country changed, too, bewilderingly; green fields and soft-faced hills gave way to dark moorland and arid peaks with here and there oases where wild shrubs and flowers blazed in sudden splendour against a rocky background, or sometimes a landscape of Palestinian harshness was lightened by a placid lough surrounded by a scattering of small colour-washed houses and decorated with a flotilla of swans. As the miles rolled back into the past, Juliet became more companionable and appeared to be drowsily content.

  Seven hours is a long time in a bus, however; long before the journey came to an end its novelty had begun to pall, it seemed indeed to have been going on for ever — especially since the final hour showed us little but flat bogland. Had I been alone, I should have been able to make better use of our frequent halts; as it was, I forbore to climb over Juliet when she did not feel like moving and instead sat and watched our travelling companions swarming out to give and take in the local hostelry. It was just when I, too, had begun to feel drowsy and was becoming resigned to our ambling progress that it ended at Rossderg.

  It was not much of a place to be a road and rail terminus: a horseshoe of houses round a little bay, a single straight business street, a church spire and a church tower, a railway station under a roof of corrugated iron, a convent primrose-painted on a green hill, three or four herbaceous hotels and one hardy perennial, and — protecting the little huddle of dwellings from the fury of Atlantic waves and wild westerly gales — the massive reddish-brown cliffs that gave the place its name, Ros Dearg, the red rock. Stiffly, and for my part unwillingly, we began to file out of the bus.

  A fresh wind was coming in with the tide and snatching at the untidy black hair of a young woman who waited outside the pub that was the bus’s terminal point and parcels-office and provided cloakroom accommodation for the bus’s passengers. She was not a particularly striking-looking young woman — if woman she was — yet she caught and held my attention. Long hair does not mean much nowadays, nor do jeans and shapeless lumber jackets; on a windy day by the sea they might be worn by anyone of either sex. Nevertheless it seemed to me that there was something female in this particular shapelessness — and I do not mean feminine; that word has come to suggest something entirely different. At the moment, the amorphous, putty-coloured face wore a vaguely welcoming look.

  “Hi!” she said in the general direction of my right shoulder.

  “Kinky darling.” As I turned to help her down from the bus, Juliet, no doubt still a little unsteady from the effects of her anti-sick pills, missed a step in her excitement and descended upon the young woman with perhaps unintended violence to kiss her warmly on both cheeks. “How sweet of you to come and meet me,” she said. She recovered her balance and looked back at me. “This is my cousin, Standish — the actor.”

  Why is it that as a race we are so slovenly about introducing people? We look at A and mumble — “This is A,” and we look at B and mutter — “This is B,” so that, while no doubt A and B are both reassured as to their own identity, as often as not each misses the really interesting piece of information and fails to learn who the hell the other one is. In this case, of course, it was obvious to me that I was meeting Juliet’s hostess, or employer, Kinky Myles; but she had no forewarning of me.

  “I’ve seen you somewhere,” she admitted, offering a capable-looking hand of indeterminate hue. “Are you an actor?” She was ox-eyed like Juno and her smile was placid. She added hospitably — “If you want us to put you up, you’ll have to sleep with Juliet, or on the floor. We haven’t got another spare bed.”

  “I’ve got somewhere to stay — in fact I was expecting people to meet me,” I told her. “Thank you very much, though, for the thought.”

  “And you’d better take jolly good care that you sleep alone, where you’re going,” Juliet advised nastily; then abruptly she dismissed me. “Good-bye, Standish. It was lovely to see you again — even on a bus.”

  She picked up her light suitcase determinedly and started off, though in the wrong direction, it appeared, for the Myles woman grabbed her elbow to steer her into a different tack which brought them back past me again; the dark compelling eyes smiled at me from the putty-yellow face.

  “Drop in for a drink sometime,” she suggested, “if you’re going to be around. This evening would be a good time — we’ve actually got a drink in the house. We’re having a party.” She took the case from Juliet and went unhurriedly on her way, my young cousin in her high heels moving awkwardly at her side.

  I watched them till they had climbed into a rather flea-bitten-looking jalopy and driven out of sight. What, I wondered, were the components of the cocktail of continents that was Kinky Myles? Her husky voice was English without either local accent or affectation; the rest of her might perhaps have originated in the Levant. And why was I interested? In view of her looks, it seems unlikely that I had even subconscious designs on her virtue.

  “Are you waiting for anyone, boss?” a voice inquired.

  The driver had been in colloquy with a local colleague and now — on the point of taking the bus in off the street — he seemed loath to leave me standing forlornly amongst my baggage on the kerb. For my part, my curiosity about Juliet’s friend had so far kept me from being aware of irritation at the Hazards’ unpunctuality.

  “Friends were to meet me here,” I said. “They’re late.”

  “If it’s anywhere in the town, we could have your bags delivered right this minute,” the local man offered. “I suppose you know the address?”

  “I’m afraid they live a few miles away, thanks. I wired them that I was coming by this bus, so I’m sure they’ll turn up.”

  “Well, if you’d like to leave your things inside —” The man broke off as a thought seemed to strike him; he looked at me with a more personal interest. “Your friend wouldn’t be Mr. Hazard from Hazard Point beyond?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then I’m afraid you’ve missed him, sir. He was creating over at the station about half an hour ago because you weren’t on the train — but he’s gone home now.”

  “Gone home?”

>   “Sure ’twould never occur to him, sir, that you’d come on a bus.”

  What the hell did Barney think he was up to? I had used the word bus most distinctly in my wire — at least I supposed so; I had written it in a hurry and in a temper. And a temper was what I was fast getting into again now.

  “Then I shall have to hire a car and follow him,” I said.

  “Well now, that’s going to be difficult.” The man scratched his head. “What with its being early closing day and the County Hurling final over at Inishmore there isn’t a hire-car left in the town, or nigh it. But don’t worrit yourself, sir,” he added reassuringly. “Mr. Hazard will be in again to meet the next Dublin train.”

  “And when is that due?”

  “A quarter after midnight, sir, on the dot.”

  I nearly hit the man, though I suppose he meant well. At any rate, he offered to take my things to the station and leave them in the cloakroom there till I should have some means of collecting them. I did not for a moment believe that a thorough search would not disclose some sort of hirable vehicle, but I did not see either why I should put myself to the trouble of persuasion and the probable expense of bribery just because Barney Hazard was so bloody imaginative.

  “Then I suppose I shall have to walk,” I said.

  “Walk, is it?” The local man seemed aghast. “ ’Tis every foot of fifteen miles.”

  “ ’Twould be nigh on eleven o’clock before you’d make it — even going at a good lick,” the driver pronounced.

  “And you might go astray in the dark. It’s no fun wandering all night round the bog roads — specially for a foreigner like yourself.”

  “I’m not a bloody foreigner,” I was sufficiently unguarded to exclaim. “I was born in Cork.”

  “Is that a fact now?” The revelation seemed to afford them both some amusement. “There’s some would think that makes you a native of the country — and there’s more would not. To look at you anyway, sir, I’d say you were a man who likes his comfort. No offence meant.”

  Oddly enough I had taken none; the combined scents of sea and turf-bog were beginning to have their soothing as well as tonic effect on me, and the very perverseness of what I intended to do was cheering me up. “If sitting about waiting for five hours after having spent seven on a bus, is your idea of comfort,” I said, “it’s not mine. I’m going to walk.”

  “Why not hire a bicycle?”

  “A bicycle!”

  “You could get one of them easy enough — and you’d maybe make Hazard Point before the bloom’s gone off the dinner.”

  It was an idea: cheaper than a car, quicker than walking, it would still give my entrance a quality of the unexpected that appealed to me. It would also put Barney in his place.

  I settled for a bicycle.

  If during the evening I had some reason to repent of my decision, there was later cause for satisfaction in that I appeared to have an alibi for the first, at least, of the murders that marked my stay at Rossderg.

  CHAPTER II

  By half past seven I was pedalling through the streets of Rossderg on my way towards the coast road with that exhilarating “I should do more of this sort of thing” feeling that I remember experiencing in my youth during the very early stages of cross-country runs. The bicycle — those ordinarily hired out being all in use — was a new one, unwrapped from its swaddling clothes for my benefit and carefully wiped over to remove superfluous grease; to the carrier had been affixed a small bundle containing pyjamas, toothbrush and such other necessities of the night. Taking things all in all, I was in good heart.

  The bicycle then seemed a good idea; in fact it was a good bicycle, excellent in all its parts, provided that they worked together, but a bicycle divided against itself will fall — the rider too, unfortunately. But that was not yet; I drank in the tonic air and went my way.

  Rossderg was wearing that seaside air of cleanliness which, if sometimes deceptive, can be so very attractive; everything seemed to have been rinsed in salt water and scoured by salt winds. The old houses had obviously been freshly colour-washed for the season and bright pinks and orange and blued white glowed warmly in the sunset. I wondered if the interiors had been similarly refurbished. When gales roar in from the Atlantic blown sand must strip the paint pretty effectively from everything in the little town, including the faces of such of the local ladies as are optimistic enough to wear it. No uncommon perception was necessary, I decided, to distinguish the guests of summer from the residents of either sex; the former, most of whom were children, ranged in colour from a painful pink to a carefully baked golden brown, while the latter were all complected like their cliffs, from which their faces might have been rough-hewn. They were quite magnificent in their way, I suppose, but — on the distaff side — somewhat lacking in sex appeal; nor did I notice any particularly exotic looking pieces among the visitors. A good thing too, I had no doubt; I had had quite enough of women to last me for some time. One cannot be entirely blind to the decoration of the scene, however, and my eye wandered not a little as I rode.

  The road surface was good and, despite the distractions, I seemed to be making reasonable time. There was nowhere much in the direction in which I was headed except cliff and stony hill and bog and — some fifteen miles away — the oasis that was Barney’s, apart from the scattering of tiny cottages which no region of Ireland is so desolate as to be without; it followed that there was little traffic, though ramblers were to be seen in plenty on the bare slopes. There seemed to be an inordinate number of young men and girls walking hand in hand, a circumstance which underlined the dreariness of my own present life of unwonted celibacy, so that in spite of myself I began to wish that I had been going to stay with Barney alone, or with Stella, but not with both.

  Some two or three miles out of Rossderg the main road swung inland while my way narrowed to a lane with a good surface — a tribute perhaps to Barney’s influence with the county council — but so narrow that two sizeable cars could only pass each other with the greatest difficulty, and in places danger; there was now no traffic at all, however, and even the ramblers were out of sight, yet the view from this lane — where for a little it skirted the cliff-tops — was worth all the discomforts of the day. It was not beauty, nor grandeur exactly, that took the breath away but sheer distance; to the west the Atlantic stretched into the sunset; north and south the same jagged brownstone cliffs topped with palest green repeated themselves endlessly as they dwindled into infinity, while to the landward the hills were giving way to flat bogland that seemed to go on unbroken for ever. I had the illusion that the only real thing, the only tangible thing, the thing that — given the will to do it — I could reach out and grasp, was the sunset; it seemed so much nearer than those misty blue lozenges in the northern sea that were probably the Aran Islands. As I rode I could now see no house, no tree, no sign of human activity; I saw no movement save that of an occasional gull and heard no sound other than the distant murmur of the sea — none, at least, till a crash of organ music from behind me signalled the approach of a car.

  I think I have mentioned that the road was narrow; in fact the tarmac strip in its centre was scarcely wider than a fairly average shooting-brake, and the sort of car that heralds its coming with such impressive diapason is usually an outsize affair. The grass verge was criss-crossed with the ruts of last winter, now baked hard by sun and wind; because my mind had been wandering, I steered rather too abruptly into this maze then wrenched on the handlebars to straighten up, only to find that the front wheel had decided to continue on its lateral course. With my bicycle thus at cross purposes with itself, I took a gentle purler into the dry ditch.

  I had a brief upside-down view of something very big and shiny sliding to a halt beside me, then I completed the arc of my fall and came to rest in a position from which I could see nothing but the sky.

  “Well, one of you two is a bloody fool,” pronounced an emphatic voice from somewhere above me. “I don’t propose to take
sides.”

  I stayed where I was, at full length in the ditch; it was not uncomfortable. A second voice had come on the air with a torrent of words the import of which seemed to be self-exculpatory; I did not pay much attention until after a pause it came up with a question which seemed to concern me.

  “Say, do you figure the guy’s dead?” it inquired.

  “He should be the best judge of that himself,” said the first voice, as its owner came into view above me on the edge of the lane. He was a vast man of vaguely piratical appearance whom I judged to be an American because he was dressed rather like the subject of one of those photographs one used to see of ex-Presidents on vacation in Florida. “You all right?” he asked.

  I nodded my head which remained on my shoulders, though my neck felt a bit stiff. I was disinclined to talk.

  “Then why not get up? I’ll give you a hand.”

  He stooped down and held out both of them, and I obediently grasped the nearer one, the left; I was conscious of a feeling of surprise but before I could react to it he had taken my wrist in his right hand and yanked me to my feet without apparent effort. In the perpendicular I felt giddy. His outline wavered oddly. To steady myself I still clutched his left hand, a hand that — as I was just beginning to realise — was not one of flesh and blood but a manufactured article. To reinforce the piratical impression, of course, it should have been a hook. The thought seemed frightfully funny to me at the time.

  “You just learning to ride that damn’ thing?” he inquired.

  “It came apart in my hands. Bloody man who hired it to me hadn’t tightened the nuts. I steered north and the wheels went south — so I went west.”