The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest Page 11

  “You’ve been very helpful,” said Pibble, lying. “I hope we won’t need to bother you again. Can I send for a car to take you back?”

  “God, no! And let Mr. Furlough hear about it? I’ll take a taxi.”

  She rose and smiled down on him dismissively, as Catherine the Great must often have smiled at last week’s love before sending him off to run and ruin some far province. Go now, the smile said, and I’ll retain fond lavendery memories of you; stay and I’ll bite. Then she was moving toward the door.

  At once Pibble realized why she would never have made an actress; there was something as inherently wrong about her walk as there was about the buttocks of the Etty above his head. He didn’t have time to decide where the absurdity lay before she was out the door, and he found he was sighing. He had often marveled at the propensity of a certain sort of staid businessman to run all sorts of social and business risks, to pay out three- and four-figure checks as if they’d been tips to commissionaires, all for the sake of a single night with a certain girl. Who could be worth it? Now he knew.

  Wondering whether Ned had come across her, he rang up Sergeant Burnaby and told him about the flat, and about Furlough having it in for Bob Caine, two-minute gobbets that might conceivably be useful. Furlough was said to be very tough indeed. Could he conceivably be moved by the same mad antipathy as affected Pibble?

  The afternoon outside the pub was mucky with dust and sticky with a foretaste of rain. The crisp morning, that sense of the world unwrapped from its cellophane, was gone, shredded to tatters with the weary abrasion of workaday minutes. Pibble turned stodgily toward the problems of Flagg Terrace. Assuming Robin’s prints were on the bowl, did that mean it must be Robin’s shirt? Not necessarily. Memo: ask Eve whether youths have a menial position in the men’s hut. Aaron’s blood, then? Pibble found he didn’t believe it—there was too much, for one thing, and the reaction of the old men had been wrong; they hadn’t wanted him to find the bowl, but they hadn’t been much worried when he did. It had been something private he’d sleuthed out, something secret, conceivably even shameful. But it hadn’t been immediately dangerous to them.

  Pibble cheered up slightly when he thought about this. His certainty about the reactions of the black men was encouraging in its tiny way. It was only when you let their differentness hypnotize you that they began to seem impenetrably opaque and strange. He remembered the first interview with the tribe in Eve’s bright room, and the waves of psychic force they’d seemed to generate when he made the bloomer about the women, and when he’d tossed the penny; and the way they’d laughed, too—you couldn’t call that being secretive about their emotions. And when he’d gone nosing around the men’s hut, flooding their shrines with blasphemies of light, the old men’s attitude had been subdued, a bit resentful, but tolerant. They had watched him as an elderly gardener might watch his employer poking around in the potting shed. Not Aaron’s blood, therefore.

  Fernham was at the door of No. 9.

  “Glad you’re back, sir,” he said. “The reports are in from the lab. The fingerprints on the bowl are Robin’s, but the blood isn’t the old man’s—something to do with a hereditary blood disease. And Mr. Thackerey said to tell you the bloodstains made a regular pattern on the back of the shirt, like a herringbone, he said.”

  “That doesn’t sound very nice. I’d better have a word with Robin first, and then I’d like to see the old men one at a time.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Fernham, “but I think Dr. Ku would be grateful if you could look in on her for a moment.”

  “O.K.”

  As Pibble climbed through the gloom, he heard the noise of furious voices. At first he thought another argument about tribal ritual must be in progress, but at once he realized that the timbre was wrong: this was no deep-lunged Polynesian bellowing, but a mere European yapping. It came from Eve’s room. The door was ajar and he went in without knocking.

  She was standing with her back to Paul’s desk, cornered, beset by the hounds. These were three Englishmen, two of whom were shouting at her when Pibble came in; but they seemed to sense the movement of the big door, for they stopped their clamor in midsentence and stood panting. The one in the middle was an elderly, stoutish figure, wearing a black waistcoat but no collar to his shirt; beyond him stood a younger man in blue overalls, a shortish citizen with a brown face wrinkled like a balloon that has lost most of its air; the nearest man, the one who had not been shouting, was younger still, tidily dressed in a clerkish way, with a pale, sick-looking face and crinkly dark brown hair.

  “What’s up?” said Pibble.

  “Oh, Superintendent,” said Eve, “I’m glad you’ve come. These are three of my tenants who came to inquire about the progress of your investigations and whether the crime is likely to affect the community of Flagg Terrace.”

  The overalled man marched bouncily across to Pibble. He seemed to be still in the shouting vein, for when he was barely a yard from his objective he gave tongue again.

  “You the law rand ’ere, then?”

  “I am the officer in charge of this case,” said Pibble. “If any of you has any evidence which he believes to be relevant, I shall be interested to hear it.”

  “’Ave we evidence?” shouted the man in overalls. “’Ave we evidence? An’ we bin living amongst ’em these twenny years, some on us. Barnd to come, sooner or later. Yer can’t bring a bunch of bleeding savages inner a sillized country and plonk ’em darn an not expeck sunnick to ’appen—’s against nature. We bin telling Mrs. Ku ’ere she’ll ’ave to clear the lot of em art, an’ the sooner the better. I don’t care where they goes so long as they goes soon. My missis is scyared to go art of an evening for fear she’ll come back one o’ these nights with ’er ’ead shrank. They’ll ’ave to go or there’ll be real trouble.”

  “What is your name, please?” said Pibble.

  “Tinker. Jack Tinker. An’ this”—he indicated the elderly man with a sidelong sniff—“is Rod Green an’ that’s Billy Youbegood, as’ll bear out what I bin saying, both on ’em.”

  The elderly man stopped twiddling his front stud and spoke heavily.

  “It’s not that we’re blaming them, mind. They’ve got a right to murder each other all over the shop, if that’s their custom, but they can’t come to Flagg Terrace and do it. And there’s many a day when I smell their cooking and then I can’t hardly face me own dinner afterward.”

  “An’ ver noise,” added Mr. Youbegood. “Clangging and bangging till all hours. I got ver top floor in Number eight, next door, an ver racket can be summing heevenish.”

  “Was there a lot of noise last night?” said Pibble.

  “Nah,” said Mr. Youbegood. “Night before you should of heard it. Summing chronic, it was, like a beat group run amuck. You hear it, Jack?”

  “Can’t say I did,” said Mr. Tinker. “Tuesday’s me night on. But it’s typical of the way they goes on, Officer. Unsettling the neighborhood, that’s what. Mrs. Ku dint oughter incourage ’em the way she does.”

  “An’ ver la-di-da way vey speaks,” chipped in Mr. Youbegood. “Like vat don on ver telly, digging up his bones. What call have vey to go talking like vat?”

  “It never has worked,” said Mr. Green sententiously, “and it never will work. East is East and West is West, like I keep saying, and the proper thing to do is to keep them apart. Pack them off somewhere else and let them go to the devil their own way.”

  Pibble’s bowels tightened inside him. Ha! The Lord (or, rather, the fluke that a notoriously criminal family in that area had an improbably memorable name) had delivered the enemy into his hand. He went over the top, determined to fight dirty.

  “Mr. Youbegood,” he said, “how much rent did your wife pay last time you were inside?”

  Billy Youbegood gave a small, patient shrug; the defeated gesture of the old lag whom the law will always pick on. But Mr. Tinker rea
cted into ferocious melodrama, swiveling around on the unembroiled Mr. Green and standing on tiptoe to crow at him.

  “I telled yer we shouldna brought ’im,” he shouted.

  “And I told you,” said Mr. Green with stolid reasonableness, “there has to be three of us. Two don’t amount to nothing. Well, now, do it, Officer?”

  Pibble was glad to have the ball patted so promptly back to him. He had just the right amount of adrenalin spicing his blood, and felt that he could at that moment have abolished the whole Ku Klux Klan down to the last probationary dragon.

  “All three of you,” he said, “amount to nothing; nothing at all. We’ll forget about Youbegood’s record and just think of you as three ordinary citizens who’ve been living for years on the charity of a woman. You know, Mr. Green, that there isn’t anywhere in London where you could get rooms like you’ve got for twice the money you’ve been paying. You, too, Mr. Tinker. You just feel you’ve a right to a soft option. Has either of you ever said thank you to Dr. Ku? I don’t believe it. Yet at the very moment she’s in trouble, with a close friend murdered in her house, you come round and abuse her because she chooses to help other people, too—other people who have skins of a different color. And I may as well tell you that I am far from convinced that the murder was done by a colored person. It could just as easily have been anyone who had a grudge against colored people—one of you, for instance. So if I hear of you bothering Dr. Ku again, I’ll know what to do. I’ll put a squad of men on to each of you, with orders to examine every detail about you that they can dig up. They may not turn up a motive for murder, but they’ll turn up something, you mark my words. Now clear out, and don’t come back unless you’ve something relevant to tell me.”

  Pibble opened the door for them, wishing that his fine emotions hadn’t come out as a windy sermon backed by an empty threat. Still, Tinker and Green slouched out defeated, and it was left to the despised Billy Youbegood to leave a little more cockily; he’d heard too many lecturings from magistrates to be impressed by a mere Pibble. He grinned at him as he passed and whispered, “Vere’s bin somebody out on ver roof evenings.”

  “Every evening?” said Pibble.

  “Nah, but most times when it ain’t raining.”

  “What about last night? And the night before, when there was all the noise?”

  “I heard him bofe times—arter ver racket ver first time. Not doing anyfing our line—yours an mine, I mean—more like a kid nosing about in summun’s yard.”

  “Thanks,” said Pibble. “I’ll look into it. How’s old Isaac? I suppose he’d be your uncle.”

  “Passed on, poor old sod. Dropped dead in ver dock wiv shock when ver jury found him not guilty. Receiving, it was, seeing as how he was past anyfing else. So long, ven, be seeing yer.”

  Pibble shut the door and turned to where Eve leaned against the desk, her arms a black isosceles, looking even more dispirited than when Tinker and Green had been baying at her.

  “Where’s Paul?” he said.

  “In the S.C.R., I imagine. We felt his presence would only make things worse. Thank you for your help. I suppose it was necessary to be so rough with them. Anyway, it can’t be mended now; what’s done’s done. How are you getting on?”

  “Slowly. I’d like to ask you a few more questions, if I may. First, do the Kus gamble much?”

  “Oh, yes. The men are ready to bet on absolutely anything. The younger ones have taken to horse racing and do quite well, I understand.”

  “Would the old men bet a few pence on something quite important to them, such as whether I would find a carefully hidden object in their hut?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Next, would a new member of the hut occupy a menial position and have to do things for the old men?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Next, is it true that Aaron wanted you to sell up and move the tribe back to New Guinea, and if so why didn’t you tell me?”

  Eve straightened and moved away from the desk toward the window. After a couple of steps she bent down, lifted her left heel across her right knee, and fiddled with the strap of her ballet shoe. It was a very elegant pose, asserting all the values of European civilization. It also meant that when she stood and faced Pibble again her face was almost invisible against the afternoon light.

  “Yes,” she said, “I suppose it was true. But not in the way a fact is true. It wasn’t a thing we had ever discussed, except in hints and vague suggestions. My relationship with Aaron was very delicate. We both knew that if we were in agreement the rest of the tribe would do whatever we wanted. But we couldn’t afford to disagree, or even to set off along a path that might lead to open disagreement, because then the tribe would disintegrate. I told you that the sense of belonging is immensely important to primitive people—to all people, I suspect—but especially to people such as we are; so the tribe, the thing we belong to, has to be preserved intact and Aaron and I had spent all our energies on that one end for over twenty years. We could not disagree.

  “But, that said, I think it is true that for some time past Aaron had been anxious to return to New Guinea. In fact, I sensed that he had become increasingly anxious about this over recent months.”

  “Did you have any idea why?” asked Pibble.

  “No, except that I think he felt that there was no future for us here as a tribe, and that the best hope was for us all to return to the valley. I feel the opposite, of course; the old men might be able to make the change, but not the young ones or the women, not the children, not I, or Paul.”

  “Did the problem of what would happen to Bob Caine ever enter into your calculations?”

  Eve moved again, over to the window, taking up another ballet dancer’s pose against the jamb. It was several seconds before she answered.

  “You have a gift for touching tender spots,” she said. “There was an episode nearly two years ago when Caine accused Aaron of stealing something from him, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. Aaron behaved like a dignified old lion, but he wouldn’t deny the theft. I decided he had taken something but didn’t regard it as stealing. It was funny, too, because I didn’t realize Bob had anything to steal. Bob and Aaron had always been very cool toward each other, but they were worse than ever after that, so I have always tended to discount anything they say about each other. But I did have a long discussion with Aaron about six months ago during which he made it clear that he thought Bob was a liability to the tribe, and also that I was somehow maintaining Bob (which, to be honest, I do) in order to appease my father’s ghost. He didn’t put it like that, of course, or say anything so direct. And I suppose it is true that we feel, all of us, that since Bob precipitated the disaster, the sacrifice must in the end turn out to have been worth while. It’s irrational, but strong, strong.”

  “I see,” said Pibble. “Let’s move on. You told me Rebecca has a hereditary blood disease: does anyone else have it, or any other like it?”

  “Only Robin.”

  “Who is his father, by the way?”

  “Bob. Can’t you see the likeness?”

  Pibble felt himself go pale. There was gooseflesh on his thighs and calves. Eve must have noticed the change.

  “You mustn’t blame Bob, Superintendent,” she said. “He was very lost and lonely and he came to one of our feasts. He hasn’t got a strong head, you know, and they can be very sexually exciting—they are designed to be, in fact. Besides, it has made all the difference to Rebecca’s life—not being made love to, I mean, but having a baby, a proper baby, the proper shape with proper fingers and toes. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. Please, Superintendent …”

  Please what? Please understand? No, more than that—please don’t muck this bit up, the one tiny piece that’s gone dead right for them. Can’t be helped …

  “Dr. Ku,” he said, “I found under the floorboards in the me
n’s hut a bowl of water with a bloody shirt in it. The fingerprints on the bowl are Robin’s and from what you tell me the blood must be, too. The pattern of the bloodstains on the shirt is very marked, a sort of herringbone. Does this mean anything to you?”