Then he saw the paper – in the same place, tucked under the pillow. He marched to the table, allowing his shoes to make too much noise. He checked his watch with the bedside alarm clock: 11.32. He was a punctual person. Most nights he visited between half-past and a quarter to ten. He retrieved the paper. It was from the same map. A square half-mile. This time the Tower was in the middle. He turned it over. Two words. STOP NOW.
He saw himself die in the mirror.
Could he have seen the blood? Was that possible? The sudden arterial gush flying towards the silvered glass. Or was it the first memory of bell?
And behind him, Peter. Peter pulling the trigger. Reg Camm saw him for the last time in the mirror, and admired the dull gunmetal sheen of the revolver which touched his exuberant shock of hair as softly as a butterfly.
In the second before it was too late to care he saw his sons, from the bank of his memory, that summer, on the river, in their boat. And then he was gone, carried away by the blast which burnt his hair, and bore effortlessly through his neck to shatter his teeth on its way to the mirror.
Suicide – at least the attempts he had made – had been far worse. The tentative strokes of the razor across his shaking wrist, the fumbled bottle of pills and the agonizing vacuum of the stomach pump.
Perhaps it was the drugs that Peter had slipped into the whisky. He hadn’t seen him do it of course. But he knew just too late what was happening. The world stood back and Peter’s voice came to him like the shouts of his sons across the water-meadows.
He tried to stand then but his legs buckled and his mouth, tortured by the drugs, had grappled with the words he wanted to shout, like a nightmare’s call for help. He’d become resigned then, not by his immobility, but by the thought he looked undignified, pathetic, a loser. That he couldn’t live with any more.
And it had started so well, Just another Wednesday. October 31st. But then the note from‘T’ had promised so much. He’d got to Stretham Engine early. It was empty, waiting, the soundtrack still to be applied. He’d not been since the last time, the time they’d given it all to Tommy. All to‘T’.
The note had specified the cellar, but even then he had caught the disappointing scent of betrayal. So he’d climbed to the pulley loft above the great engine. Looking down he’d waited for‘T’, half expecting him to be an eighteen-year-old still. Would youth have been disfigured? A gentle man, he’d hoped not, for Tommy’s sake.
He’d recognized Peter immediately. He’d seen him many times since of course. They’d nodded, then not bothered, then crossed the road to avoid the memory.
Reg had called down into the great space –‘Peter.’ He knew his real name now but it made them laugh amongst the echoes. Then he’d called him up the giddy twisted stairs to the pulley loft.
Peter began the story even before they’d touched hands. ‘T’ wasn’t coming back, but he’d sent some money for all of them. All of them except Billy. He’d gone as well, they were together in the States. In business. Grocery. Reg lapped it up, nodding stupidly, feeling life turn another darkened corner.
What did the money matter now? So late. But they’d drunk to the money anyway. Gulped to fortune.
‘How much?’ he asked, the single electric light bulb reflected in the amber whisky, a pale imprisoned moon in the glass.
And in the theatrical silence Peter provided his own echo: ‘How much…? Fifty… each. Fifty thousand.’
Even if it was true it was too late. Reg’s life had been ruined for the lack of it. Getting it now would be an ugly joke. So he’d drunk some more and took the seat Peter offered him. Then he closed his eyes for a second – or a lifetime. Almost the same thing now.
He opened them at the click of the safety catch. In the dusted mirror the workmen had used he saw Peter, behind him, with the gun.
Then it was over at last. He was dead before his forehead crashed against the wooden floor.
Wednesday, 7th November
20
Humph’s mobile bleeped to answerphone mode: ‘Magical Mystery Tour begins 10 a.m. The Ship Inn mooring – bring a bacon sarnie.’ Dryden slid his mobile into his rucksack and made coffee in the stern of PK 122. The sun was already high over Brandon Creek. Frost melted and dripped from the heads of the reeds. He had slept well and late, confident that whoever was tracking him would take time to find his new berth. He had decided to avoid Kathy’s flat. He’d phoned the district hospital that morning to check her condition. The cracked skull was causing discomfort but they hoped her vision would clear soon. Until then she was confined to bed.