Seven Days to Death Read online

  Freddy gasped as he put the bottle down.

  “That’s better,” he said thickly; “plenty more where it came from?”

  “Enough,” said Benson.

  They ate; they lit cigarettes; and they sat against the walls, facing each other. Freddy started several different subjects of conversation, but they all fell flat. Then he asked if Benson had seen the kid.

  “Sure,” Benson said.

  “He okay?”

  “He’s fine,” said Benson, “He’s the way I like him.” There was a new, vibrant note in his voice, a depth of feeling different from anything which Freddy Tisdale had heard before. In spite of the gloom, he could see the way Benson’s eyes glistened, and he sensed something of what was going on in the other man’s mind.

  Then Benson began to talk.

  He had never talked so freely as this about any subject; just uttered a word or the clipped sentences, and lapsed into long periods of silence. Now he talked as if whisky had loosened his tongue, but there was no whisky on his breath, there was just the spirit of that boy. He talked, not knowing it, with all the pent’up love that he felt for his son, and all he had ever dreamed for him, all that had lain buried so long in his subconscious mind now came out and took possession of him.

  And Freddy Tisdale listened, fascinated at first.

  At last, Benson stopped. He picked up a bottle of beer, smacked it sharply against the table and knocked the neck off, and then put it to his lips, as if it did not occur to him that the broken glass would cut him.

  He drank deeply.

  “That’s the way it goes,” he said clearly. “That boy’s a chip off the old block, and no mistake. Give him ten years and he’ll be as good as his father. That boy’s got a future, Freddy, you can take it from me.

  Wouldn’t I like to have seen him growing up, instead of letting that —”

  He broke off.

  He gave the twisted, hateful-smile.

  “Well, she’s got hers,” he said.

  He stopped speaking, put a cigarette to his lips and then lit it. He watched the match burn out, unthinking. He did not appear to notice that Freddy had gone very still and quiet. Freddy was staring at him; and after a while Benson looked round, saw that, and asked in a harsh voice, “Seen enough?”

  “Syd,” said Freddy, and gulped and broke off. Now Benson sat there, with the empty beer bottle in his hand, and the broken neck with its jagged edges pointing toward Freddy; it had once been his favourite form of weapon.

  “What’s biting you?”

  Freddy said, “Syd, you—you haven’t been there and killed her?”

  Benson stared in turn, and then let his arm fall; he banged the thick end of the bottle on the table and began to laugh. The fact that he laughed aloud the first time since they had broken out of prison told Freddy a great deal about the state of his nerves; how tense they were and how easy it might be to break them.

  “Strike me,” he said at last, “what do you think I am? Go and see the old So-and-so? Me? With Gideon and half the flippin’ police on the doorstep? Have some sense, Freddy boy, have some sense!”

  “But you said —”

  “I said she’s got hers, and that’s what I meant,” Benson told him, “and I gave it to her. But not the way you think, son, not the way anyone thinks. Like to know how I fixed it?” He laughed again, but this time there was an edge to the laughter, and it came out slowly, as if he were not quite so sure that it was wise to laugh or to talk. Abruptly: “The kid’ll fix it.”

  Freddy caught his breath.

  “Young Syd?”

  “Any complaint?”

  “You can’t trust a kid like that to croak his own mother; even if he was pleased to see you, he —”

  Benson said, “Stow it. He was pleased to see me all right; and if I’d asked him, he’d have fixed her. But he’s only a kid, ain’t he? Think I’d want a kid to know he was going to do a thing like that? Not bloody likely! He’s going to give her some aspirins, that’s all, just a coupla aspirins. He won’t know what’s happened to her. Why, the way these doctors and psychologists work these days, they won’t even tell him what happened, they’ll just ask him where he got the aspirins from, that’s all - even if they get round to that. Let me tell you something, Freddy. They’re soft about kids, these days. The worst that can happen to him is a few years in Borstal, and that won’t hurt him. It could do him a hell of a lot of good, the same way as it did me. Syd’ll be okay. But Ruby ‘ll know what it’s like to be all twisted up inside before those aspirins have finished doing their job. What with her boyfriend’s face all burned off him, and —”

  He broke off again.

  Freddy said, in a strangely weak voice, “You know what you want, Syd, don’t you?”

  “And I get it.”

  Silence followed, and lasted for a long time. It was uneasy, sullen. The broken bottle stood on the table between them, the right way up; in Benson’s pocket was the poultry knife. About them was the gloom of the dingy office, and below-stairs the barrels of petrol and other oils, the bare walls with the great hanging cobwebs, the spiders, the rats, the bats. Outside, just across the alley, was the little window of Charlie Mulliver’s doss house, and beyond that the East End and Muskett Street - where Ruby Benson stood talking, not knowing then, what was going to happen to Art Small that lunchtime.

  Then, Freddy said, “Syd, you got everything laid on for that ship?”

  “I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Can’t go wrong. The captain’s drunk half the time, and he’s brought so much snow into the country, he daren’t refuse me a passage - the five hundred each wasn’t for him, it was to grease a lot of palms. Didn’t anyone tell you that palms want greasing sometimes?”

  Freddy forced a smile. “As if I didn’t know.”

  “You know. I’ll tell you what,” went on Benson. He became expansive again, sitting back with his shoulders and his head against the wall, and a dreamy smile on his face; it touched him with the gentleness of what might have been. “We’ll have a two-berth cabin on board, see? We’ll ship as crew, but as soon as we’re out at sea, we’ll be treated like favoured passengers - the only two, in the bargain. The ship’s carrying machine parts, and couldn’t be cleaner. We’ll live like fighting cocks, that’s what we’ll do, deck chairs and sunshine all day long, just a couple of bucks out on the sea voyage for the sake of their health. And when we get to Buenos Aires, okay! We find ourselves something to do. We find ourselves a couple of señoritas, too. You remember that skirt we used to know, back along’er. Spanish, she was, and – oh, boy!”

  He stopped.

  He didn’t go on again, this time, but stayed there with the half-smile on his lips, his eyes nearly closed, just able to see Freddy between his lashes. Soon, with his eyes closed firmly, he looked as if he were asleep, breathing smoothly, and without the slightest hint of a snore - a compact, handsome man with that black stubble and the deep lines of suffering and hardship at his mouth.

  Freddy closed his eyes, too, but kept opening them again. Every now and again his lips tightened, and he seemed to be looking at Benson for something he couldn’t be sure was there. He could not settle to a book, although there were several old paper-backed Westerns here.

  Ruby Benson was back at Muskett Street.

  A relief manager had been sent to the dress shop in the Mile End Road as soon as the news of the attack on Arthur Small had been reported. He had sent Ruby home at once, full of reassurance and understanding; she wasn’t to worry, she was to stay away from business until this period of anxiety was over; she needn’t have a care in the world. There was no need for him to provide an escort, for four policemen were now outside the shop; and wherever one looked, on the way from the Mile End Road to Muskett Street, it seemed as if there was a policeman. In fact there were three in Muskett S
treet, and two of them went into the little house and looked in every room before Ruby was allowed to go in. That was in spite of the fact that the house had been under surveillance day and night for nearly five days.

  That had been at two o’clock.

  Liz had been on her way back to school, and Ruby hadn’t tried to get her back.

  At quarter past two, a policeman came hurrying across the road, and she saw him through the front-room window. She was in there, hardly knowing what she was doing, wishing that she was with Art Small, knowing it would be no use waiting at the hospital. He might lose his sight, and he might die. She did not think consciously of her husband; she was obsessed by anxiety for the man who had brought so much brightness into her life.

  Then the policeman outside knocked sharply.

  Ruby got up, hesitated, and moved slowly toward the passage, then toward the front door. She knew that this could mean trouble, and it could also mean good news. She felt a sharp pain at her side as she thought of that, and pressed a hand against her aching head.

  She had never had a worse headache.

  It showed in her glassy eyes and in the twitching nerves at the corners of her eyes. The bang at the front door seemed to go right through her, making the pain much worse. Then she managed to make herself step forward, and opened the door.

  The middle-aged policeman standing on the doorstep looked really excited.

  Had the police caught him? Hope flared.

  “Your boy’s okay, Mrs. Benson,” the policeman said quickly. “He’s on his way here now, just turned the corner.” His eagerness faded when he saw Ruby’s expression and guessed at the pain she felt, but he went on: “Hope I’m not talking out of turn, but mind if I suggest something?”

  “Syd’s coming back? Young Syd?” Ruby felt a sudden relief, a kind of gladness. So her son could ease the pressure of her despair.

  “Nearly here now, Mrs. Benson,” the policeman said, “and if you’ll take a tip from me you won’t go for him too much for running away. Treat him gently now, and it might make all the difference.”

  She looked as if she hadn’t heard a word.

  “And he isn’t hurt?”

  “No,” said the policeman, “he’s all right, and —” He broke off, giving up his well-intentioned effort, and he watched her as she pushed past him, into the street. Her expression was very different from anything he had expected. Her eyes didn’t glow, but there was no anger in them, and for the first time he realized what a good-looking girl Mrs. Benson must have been when she was young.

  She stared along the street.

  Young Syd was coming toward her, at the side of a plainclothesman. His head was held high, and he walked defiantly. Ruby caught her breath, for he looked so like big Syd when she had first met him, as if he were prepared to look the world in the face, and nothing could keep him down.

  She found herself hurrying.

  “Syd, oh, Syd ...”

  He didn’t break into a run. He did nothing to suggest that he was pleased to see her. When she bent down and took him in her arms, he didn’t yield, as once he had, but kept his body stiff and aloof. She realized that, and it marred the relief of his return. She realized - or told herself that she did - that it would be a long time before she won his confidence again, that she would have to be very, very careful about the way she treated him.

  She took him in.

  “What’s the matter, Mum?” he asked. “You got a headache?”

  She wondered if he cared whether she had a headache or not, and couldn’t quite understand the sharpness in his voice.

  “A bit of one,” she said.

  “I’ll get you an aspirin, I know where ...”

  “I took two just before you came in,” Ruby said; “I won’t take any more yet, Syd. Syd, where —” She checked herself; questions could come later, just now she had to try to win him over. For although she did not know where he had been, she realized that he had really gone chasing after his dream - that if he could have found him, he would have run off to see his father. “Are you hungry, Syd?” she asked quietly. “What would you like to eat?”

  At half past four, Liz arrived, bursting into the house and hugging Syd.

  At twenty to five, Gideon arrived.

  19. The Truth?

  Gideon had come straight from Charlie. Mulliver, and he was a long way from certain that Charlie had told the simple truth. There was something worrying Charlie, and it might easily have to do with young Syd. Gideon hadn’t said or done anything to suggest that he was not satisfied that all Charlie had done was to give the run-away shelter, but after he had left he had called the Yard on his walkie-talkie radio.

  “Give me Chief Inspector Lemaitre ...”

  “Lem, George here. Have a word with the Division and tell them to check on Charlie Mulliver’s place, will you? Don’t give themselves away more than they can help, but just check who’s been in and out of there lately.”

  “You got something, George?”

  “Could have,” said Gideon, and rang off.

  Ten minutes later, he was entering the little house in Muskett Street. He had the latest report from the hospital about Arthur Small, and it was reasonably good; he expected Ruby to make difficulties when he started to question the boy, but whether she liked it or not, that had to be done.

  The sight of half a dozen policemen in the street depressed him; it should not be necessary to have so many; the attack on Small had put the breeze up all of them; not excluding Commander Gideon, although he hoped that no one but Lemaitre had guessed that.

  A policeman was just outside the house, another hovering behind the starched lace curtains of the front room. The policeman outside saluted and the man inside called something, and disappeared. A moment later, he opened the door. As he did so, Ruby Benson came hurrying from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a pink apron and then stretching behind her back to unfasten it. Something made her stop. The apron fell, crumpled, about her waist, and she stood squarely in the small passage, looking up at Gideon with the kind of defiance he had half expected.

  “I don’t want the children to hear what we say,” she said; “they’ve had enough trouble already.”

  Gideon said, “All right, Mrs. Benson” in his mildest voice. “Where shall we go?”

  She pointed to the front room, and followed him in. The constable closed the door. Outside, there was Gideon’s shiny car and more policemen and the curious neighbours - men, women and children. Outside, somewhere probably within easy reach of this house, was Syd Benson, the killer, the seeker of vengeance. His wife’s face now held all the strain that it had shown years before, at the time of the trial. The youthfulness had faded. Even her hair seemed flat and lifeless, and the sparkle was gone from her eyes. It was a pathetic, almost a shocking sight.

  Gideon knew her well enough to know that she was going to fight for what she wanted, no matter what he said: as she had fought before, to make the terrible decision to give evidence against her husband.

  She said flatly, “You’re not going to pester the life out of that boy.”

  Gideon held his felt hat loosely in both hands, in front of him. The woman didn’t come much higher than his shoulder, and he probably weighed twice as much as she.

  His head was only inches from the ceiling, so he dwarfed both her and the room.

  “No,” he agreed, “that’s the last thing I want to do, Mrs. Benson, but I must talk to him.”

  “That’s the same thing.”

  Gideon said, “I’ve talked to you. Have I pestered you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Listen,” Gideon said, “I’ve six children of my own. Six.” He gave a little, wry grin, and she was so surprised that momentarily she relaxed. “Quite a handful. The eldest is twenty-six, the youngest a year or two younger than young
Syd. I know children from the nappy stage upward. I know what they think like and what they feel like, and I know that if you start raising your voice at a boy like your son, and drive him into a corner, all you get is defiance and probably lies.”

  She didn’t speak when he stopped.

  “He ran away for one of two possible reasons,” Gideon went on very steadily, “and the first is probably the right one. The television show upset him, and he was so riled at me and the fact that you seemed to be on my side, that he couldn’t stand it any longer. Lots of children take a run like that - good Lord, I don’t have to tell you! If that was it, then it’s over. He’s let off steam, and now he’s come back under his own. You couldn’t ask any more.”

  She asked, “What’s the other possible reason?”

  “He could have been to see his father.”

  Her face was suddenly twisted with alarm. “Oh, no!”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s likely, either,” said Gideon, “but we’ve got to find out, Mrs. Benson, and I think you and I are the people most likely to get at the facts. Think you can tell when he’s lying?”

  She didn’t answer.

  She didn’t cry. “Yes, of course!” or attempt in any way to spring to the defence of her son. It was an odd thing, Gideon reflected gloomily, that she should be so absolutely honest, so naturally good. What had brought her to marry a man like Benson? The question was as fleeting as the thought.

  “Sometimes I’m not sure,” she said.

  “Well, let’s try.”

  “All right. Do you —” She hesitated, and then turned away without finishing what she was going to say. “We might as well get it over. I was just making some pastry for supper, he likes hot pastry.” What a story that told! And so did her tense, anxious plea: “Go easy with him, won’t you?”

  “You know I will,” said Gideon. “By the say, I called the hospital up just before I came. Mr. Small’s eye will be saved, and the scarring shouldn’t be too bad.”