Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [18]
‘Last week,’ Simpson reminded her heatedly, ‘was business. Bloody bread-and-butter business. The sort of thing that pays the bills and puts the clothes on your back.’
He was thinking how unfair it was that the nicer moments of life – a few drinks under the belt, good food, a pretty woman seated opposite – were invariably spent in the company of one’s wife.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I know you don’t give a damn about that, as long as you manage to get out of the house and have another excuse for going to the hairdressers, but there are one or two mundane things that have to be paid for.’ He proceeded to list a few of them – the mortgage, the tax on her car, the red telephones she’d insisted on installing. He ended by telling her that Edward Freeman was in a potentially dangerous situation; didn’t she realise it could lead to blackmail?
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Muriel. ‘He’s not a member of the Cabinet. Besides, what has it to do with my telephones? It’s no good shouting at me. He’s your friend, not mine. I had nothing to do with the arrangements. As for getting out of the house, I’m perfectly capable of opening a door. I have merely to turn the handle.’
‘Go to bloody hell,’ ordered Simpson.
He almost took the wrong turning at the next roundabout. Muriel remained silent but pointed a contemptuous finger, at the last moment, in the correct direction.
It was raining heavily as they drove into Fulton Street. Simpson cruised slowly past a row of terraced houses, a block of flats, a further line of houses in a dilapidated condition, and a garage. Reaching the end of the road he reversed some distance down an alley and drove back the way they had come.
‘Aren’t the trees pretty?’ said Muriel. ‘The raindrops look like flakes of snow.’ She smiled.
Simpson stopped the car. He sat there with his leather gloves resting on the wheel and his plump thighs splayed wide. ‘I’ve forgotten the number,’ he confessed. ‘Freeman said something about a black-and-white cat, and some sort of creeper hanging over the balcony.’
‘Knock on doors,’ suggested Muriel. ‘Look at the names under the bell.’
She watched him sprinting across the road with the rain falling on him. She knew he didn’t remember the name either.
He ran up and down steps, peering at windows and glancing now and then at the car. She waved encouragingly once or twice. After a while he returned and slumped damply into the driving seat.
‘No luck,’ said Muriel. There was a funny smell coming from his suede overcoat.
‘I’ve got it,’ cried Simpson. ‘His car. Freeman’s car. It’s a brown Rover. It’ll be outside the house.’ He turned the key in the ignition.
‘He won’t have come by car,’ said Muriel. ‘Just drive very slowly and we’ll look for vegetation.’
There were three balconies, next to each other, entwined with thin strands of creeper. On Muriel’s instructions Simpson went up the steps of the second house and knocked on the door. Here the vine, coming into bud, hung low and dripped water down his neck. Muriel remained in the warmth of the car. The house was in complete darkness.
Edward plucked Simpson inside with such haste that to Muriel, observing the scene from behind a window distorted by rain, it was as if her husband had simply been swallowed up. She stared curiously at the empty porch.
Simpson’s propulsion into the hall was painful; he was pierced in the ankle by a sharp implement. His small cry of agony went unnoticed amid the enthusiasm of his welcome.
To Edward, the arrival of Simpson was comparable to sighting the cavalry on the brow of the hill when all seemed lost. He