The House of Lost Souls - F. G. Cottam [61]
He had to find a phone box. On an average Tuesday, he’d have been home half an hour ago. By the time he got home, he’d be well over an hour late. Lucinda wouldn’t exactly be tearing her hair out, might well be working late herself at college, but he had to oblige her with the courtesy of a call. He saw a phone box at the crossroads, diagonally opposite the small newsagent’s and shrine to Chelsea FC he had visited that morning.
Fishing for change, with the number dialed and the receiver against his ear, his eyes wandered over to the shop’s busy facade. In his pocket, he fingered a ten-pence piece. And he saw the shape of the big Irish proprietor, standing perfectly still behind the glass of his window.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s me.’
‘Hello, you.’
Except that he wasn’t standing perfectly still. He was standing on the one spot right enough, with his arms hanging at his sides. But he seemed to be swaying, ever so slightly, gently rocking from side to side.
‘You’ve got a murder mystery to crack and you won’t be home till midnight.’
‘Jesus. You’re psychic.’
Lucinda laughed. The sound was music, after the hacking laughter of Gibson-Hoare. ‘Is she tall and blonde? Your murder mystery?’
And Seaton had to laugh himself. ‘Listen, she doesn’t have me forking out for Chartreuse or Armagnac every time I go to the bar.’
A hundred yards away the Irishman was a dark shape, swaying ever so slightly behind the glass of his shop. Seaton was aware of the bump of what he’d stolen, pressing and unfamiliar against the small of his back. Across the road the Irishman’s face was in shadow, you couldn’t really make it out. But his mouth seemed to be hanging open as he swayed and watched. It was hot and close in the phone box, but Seaton shivered. The pips went and he shoved another coin in the slot.
‘I suppose she drinks cider,’ Lucinda said, ‘out of the can.’
‘In the street,’ Seaton said.
‘In the gutter. What time will you be home?’
‘Nine at the latest.’
‘Your dinner will be in the dog.’
‘We don’t have a dog.’
‘I’ll go out and pick up a stray.’
The Irishman had lifted one arm and seemed to be pointing his finger in the direction of the phone box. Seaton blinked sweat out of his eyes. You couldn’t really tell. He wasn’t much more than a hulking swaying silhouette behind the busy display and reflection of the glass.
‘Where are you really, Paul?’
‘Just doing a shit boring job with Mike. All around the houses for no more than an extended photo caption, probably.’
‘Poor you,’ Lucinda said.
He didn’t have a clue as to why he had just lied. He had surprised himself with the lie, with its casual conviction. Ordinarily he was a hopeless liar. At least, he was when he cared about the person he was lying to.
‘See you about nine, then.’
‘See you then.’
He pushed open the stiff phone-box door and turned his back on the strange apparition haunting the shop over the road. He’d decided he would get the Underground to Embankment station and then walk to the Victoria Embankment Gardens and examine the package, sitting on one of the benches there. He wanted to see what he had in daylight and in the open air. He needed to be away from Gibson-Hoare’s house, away from him and any other potential witnesses to his theft, before he did it. In the gardens he would be almost home, practically within sight of home, but on the other side of the river from where he lived. Lucinda sometimes walked along the river, but she never crossed it on her walks. He could go and examine what he had, undiscovered, there.
It was a favourite spot with him. He sat on one of the row of benches facing the Embankment wall and the river beyond. He sat in the shade of one of the great trees that bordered the green and the path. Some of the trees trailed leaves from branches so burdened by their own weight that they bowed and dipped beneath the surface of the river at high tide. The tide was high as Seaton sat. And he could hear the soft lap of water and leaves on the other side of the wall. The package lay now on the weathered black wood of the bench, next to him. The twine knotted