Assassins and Victims

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  PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF CAMPBELL ARMSTRONG

  “Campbell Armstrong is thriller writing’s best-kept secret.” —The Sunday Times

  “Armstrong is among the most intriguing of blockbuster writers … near to unputdownable.” —GQ

  “While touching on suspense with a skill to please hard-core thriller addicts, he manages to please people who … warm to readable novels of substance.” —Daily Mail

  “Armstrong’s skill is not just an eye for a criminally good tale but a passion for the people that will populate it.” —The Scotsman

  “Subtle and marvelous … This is a dazzling book.” —The Daily Telegraph on Agents of Darkness

  “A consummate psychological thriller … Without doubt, Armstrong is now in the front rank of thriller writers.” —Books on Heat

  “Armstrong has outdone both Frederick Forsyth and Ken Follett.” —James Patterson on Jig

  “A full throttle adventure thriller.” —The Guardian on Mambo

  “A wonderful puzzle that keeps us guessing right to the end.” —Publishers Weekly on Mazurka

  Assassins and Victims

  Campbell Armstrong

  For Eileen

  with love and gratitude

  1

  Eric

  I got this room through a man in the Territorial Army. His name was Bayonet. One night he came up to me in the drill hall and said, ‘What-ho, me old soldier, I hear you’re looking for a billet.’

  That was right, I said. The room I was in at the time didn’t suit me. I’m not a fussy person; but the woman downstairs cooked cabbage soup every night and someone was always flushing the cistern, through the wall.

  Bayonet had this little stick he kept tapping against his leg. ‘Tell you what. My sister’s got a room she’ll let for seventy bob a week and no questions arsked.’

  I was earning twelve pounds a week clear at the factory in Park Royal; so seventy shillings wasn’t really a lot to pay.

  When can I see it, I asked.

  ‘Right now, me old cock,’ said Bayonet.

  We took a bus to Cricklewood and sat upstairs because Bayonet wanted to smoke, although I don’t smoke myself. He liked to tell stories of the time when he’d been a regular soldier. One of his mates was peeling potatoes in Cyprus, just outside their hut, when a sniper shot off his balls. I didn’t think that was very funny, but Bayonet began to shake with laughter. I imagined that would have been very painful.

  I liked the room at once. It has this large window that lets in a lot of light, which is good, because I can’t stand dark places. I looked around carefully. You have to be very sure. I once had a room that looked nice, it had this clean, shining appearance, but there were woodlice under the sink. So I examined the skirting for dry rot and looked under the bed.

  There was a chair, a sofa, a wardrobe and a bed. Bayonet sat down on the bed and sighed. He seemed nervous. There was a sink and a little gas stove behind a curtain. The only thing I didn’t like was the colour of the walls. Pink’s a woman’s colour. It makes you think of women.

  I wanted to test the bed, but Bayonet was lying on top of it.

  ‘Well now, what d’yer think?’ he asked.

  I looked under the sink but it was dark and I couldn’t make anything out. But at least I couldn’t see anything that moved. I can’t stand things that just move.

  ‘What are yer looking under there for, me old cock, a bit of fluff?’

  It looked quite clean, I said. I went to the window. You can see down into a little concrete yard and over the wall you can see part of the yard next door. A lane runs along the backs of the houses and there’s a street lamp with a blue light. On top of the wall little pieces of broken glass were shining.

  ‘Will yer take it then?’

  Yes, I said. I liked it very much.

  Bayonet got up and put his arm round my shoulder. He was smelling of sweat and aftershave. I’m sensitive to smells. And to noises.

  ‘You can have a bit of skirt up here any time you like – and no questions arsked. Eh? Eh?’

  He began to nudge me with his elbow.

  I wondered if I’d have to see his sister first. Perhaps she wouldn’t want me as a tenant. But I couldn’t see any trouble there. I’ve got good references. They say I’m a model tenant, clean, fastidious, quiet, considerate. She couldn’t quarrel with my references.

  ‘I’ll fix up that end,’ said Bayonet. ‘Don’t worry about her.’

  I had another look round. I’ve had fourteen rooms in the last two years. This time I wanted to be sure.

  ‘There’s a month’s rent to pay in advance,’ he said.

  He gave me his address and I wrote it down on a slip of paper. I had money in a post office savings account, more than enough to cover a month’s rent. We shook hands on the deal, I promised to send him the money next day, and then we left.

  Yes, I liked the place. I looked forward to living there.

  A week later I moved in. I rang the front doorbell and a woman came out. She looked at my two suitcases and she said, ‘Sorry, love, I’m not buying anything today.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not selling.’ I could see that the suitcases had confused her. I stepped inside and put the cases down.

  She put her hands on her hips. ‘Look, let’s get one thing straight. This is number fourteen Ponsonby Gardens –’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said, and I began to climb the stairs up to my room. I’ve got a good memory. I’d only been in the house once and I knew where to go. She came chasing up behind me.

  ‘Where the hell are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘To my room,’ I said.

  ‘Your room? Your room?’

  By then I had pushed the door open. I began to unpack. There’s no sense in wasting time over these things. Well, the sooner you get it done the sooner you can get settled in properly. I opened the wardrobe and saw mothballs there. That was considerate of her, I thought.

  ‘Moths can eat clothes so quickly,’ I said.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. She sat upon the bed and stared at me. She was a little woman with long red hair and a black dress that was covered with bits and pieces of thread, as if she’d been lying on a carpet or on a quilt.

  ‘How did you know about this room?’ she asked.

  ‘Bayonet brought me here. I sent him a month’s rent.’

  ‘Bayonet?’

  ‘Your brother.’

  ‘My brother!’

  Her mouth was open. She had lots of fillings in her teeth and her tongue was yellow. She simply stared at me and then said,

  ‘The bastard. He’s got a bleeding nerve.’

  I emptied one suitcase and began on the other. I could see that I wasn’t going to have enough space to pack everything away and I wondered if I could ask about getting a little chest of drawers or something like that.

  ‘Told you he was my brother, did he?’

  I looked at her. ‘Why, yes,’ I said.

  ‘What a bleeding nerve.’

  And she went out of the room, closing the door.

  I finished the second suitcase and felt thirsty. I hadn’t brought any groceries with me and so I went downstairs to see if I could borrow some tea and milk. I don’t take sugar, you see, because it can affect the heart.

  She was in her kitchen, just standing there staring, and the kettle was boiling away on the cooker.

  ‘Can I borrow some tea?’ I asked.

  She looked at me absent-mindedly and then threw a hand up in the air. ‘Go on,
have anything you like. You might as well.’

  I thought that was generous. But I only wanted tea and milk and that was all I took, although I liked the look of the biscuits on the table. But it’s wrong to take too many liberties with someone who’s being kind.

  I went back up to my room. Yes, I liked the place. I filled up my kettle and lit the gas and looked out of the window. In the yard next door I saw a black mongrel move about. It was chained to the wall, although the chain was a long one. I’ve never cared for dogs much, but I don’t dislike them either. I mean, I wouldn’t go out of my way to hurt one. Well, not really.

  The woman came into the room without so much as a knock on the door. I might have been changing my clothes for all she cared.

  ‘Bayonet, that’s who you said?’

  ‘He’s in the Territorials,’ I said.

  She began to shake her head back and forward.

  ‘Well, Jesus, that’s just about the limit. What a cool bastard he is.’

  And then she went out again.

  I made my tea and sat down to drink it.

  When I finished my drink I explored the room carefully. The gas stove had two rings and they were small, but that suited me all right. Living alone, you don’t really need anything large. It would be difficult if you were entertaining somebody, cooking them a meal, but I don’t ever entertain. It’s not that I’ve got anything against it, but whenever I’ve asked anyone from the factory to visit me – either Charlie or Nigel – they’ve always been too busy to come. I don’t mind. Charlie’s engaged for a start and Nigel, well, he’s keen on sport and spends his evenings at a badminton club.

  The wardrobe has a design carved on the wood round the door. Not figures or animals but flowers, thick-petalled flowers. Inside the door there’s a full-length mirror. I stood and looked at myself. Not out of vanity, you understand, more from curiosity. I’m five feet nine inches tall and round-shouldered. I don’t know why. Perhaps I slouched a lot when I was a boy. I’ve got fair hair that I always keep cut short. It’s healthier and tidier. My face is large and round and my eyes bulge a bit. There might be a medical reason for this, I don’t know. It doesn’t worry me.

  I closed the door and examined the rest of the room. There are four blankets on the bed. And the sheets aren’t cold linen but warm flannel. I like that. You don’t shiver when you get in at night. The mattress is soft. I remembered Bayonet talking about having a bit of skirt up in the room. But I’ve never really had much luck with women. The reason, the real reason, is that I haven’t tried very hard. I took Gladys Millar to the pictures once, but that was only because I wanted to see My Fair Lady and I knew that she was going anyway. We held hands. Hers were damp and sticky from ice-cream and mine began to sweat. When we came out they were soaked in perspiration. Gladys tried to kiss me in a dark lane but she smelled so much of cigarettes that I was almost sick. Why don’t you feel my breasts, she was asking. Feel how soft they are. Lay your head against them. Why don’t you. Come on, come on. But I didn’t like that very much. Anyway, she left the factory not long after and went off to have a baby.

  What I like most about the room is the window. The view isn’t much, but the window is nice. It takes up most of the wall, and it’s not just one big pane of glass but lots of little ones. It has a sort of old-fashioned look. I’ve seen windows like that in old pictures.

  I sat on the bed and looked at the window. Other rooms I’ve had didn’t have decent windows at all. Some of them were small, some were bolted tight shut, and some would open easily but were difficult to close again. You can get very annoyed with things like windows – when they don’t do what you want them to. I suppose they’re mostly meant for seeing through. But they should open and shut just the same.

  I don’t get angry very easily, I want to make that clear. I’m really mild-tempered and I don’t have a ruthless streak. But when something irritates me over a period of time, then I can really get angry.

  That might explain everything that follows a bit better.

  I washed up my empty cup and cleaned the teapot in the sink. And then she came to the door again.

  She was smiling this time. She said,

  ‘I suppose now you are here, love, we might as well make the best of it.’

  I didn’t really follow that. But I’ve found that it’s best to keep quiet when you don’t understand anything.

  ‘My name’s Agnes,’ she said and we shook hands. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Eric Billings,’ I said.

  ‘Well, Eric, how do you like your room?’

  I said that I liked it very much indeed. It suited me. I told her what I thought about the window. And then I mentioned the dog, the big black mongrel, that I’d seen.

  ‘That’s Rex,’ she said. ‘He belongs to Mrs Peluzzi next door. Poor dear. Her old man dropped dead last month.’

  ‘Dropped dead?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, the dog’s the only company she’s got left now.’ Agnes shook her head gravely. ‘Mind you, she could do herself up a treat and get another man. But she’s Italian, you know, and you know what they’re like.’

  I said that I hadn’t been to Italy, although there was an Italian, Benito, at the factory.

  ‘Factory? D’you work in a factory, dear?’

  She was on the bed again. I thought this a bit of a liberty. She had crossed her legs. The tops of her stockings were full of holes.

  ‘Over at Park Royal,’ I said.

  ‘That’s handy for the buses,’ she said. ‘What do you do there?’

  I told her how the big cardboard boxes come down a conveyor belt and how I have to fill them with smaller pieces of corrugated cardboard. I explained that there was a knack in it. You have to fold the corrugated paper with a one-inch overlap, otherwise it won’t fit the box properly. I’d found this out for myself. But I could see that she wasn’t taking it in properly. I tried to make it more simple for her but she said,

  ‘Now isn’t that interesting? Well, I never.’

  And then she smiled and went out of the room and back downstairs, saying she had left potatoes on the gas. I walked up and down the room, feeling a real sense of ownership. It was very pleasant. The window was red from the afternoon sun.

  What a pity that everything went wrong so soon.

  2

  I said that I wasn’t the kind of man who gets angry very easily. And that’s true. You can’t do much in this life if you go around losing your temper. I’ve always said that. But there’s a limit to everything.

  I’ll come to that later.

  After I’d tidied the place up, I went out to walk round Cricklewood. I’ve always lived in Harlesden or Neasden, so Cricklewood was a new district to me. I could see that it was grey and a bit drab, just like anywhere else. I saw a lot of Irish going into the public houses. They looked red, as if they’d just come from a steaming bath, and they were wearing black suits with wide shoulders.

  I don’t drink much myself, just the occasional lemonade shandy at the factory social club. Once I’d taken three pints of beer at a wedding and was sick down the front of a lady’s dress. It was embarrassing.

  Out of curiosity I went into one of the bars. It was noisy and cramped inside and there was this odd smell, a sort of mixture of carbolic tobacco and drink. I just stood there a minute looking round, and then I left again. But I didn’t walk home straight away. You have to explore new districts. I walked around the streets and went into the railway station to watch the trains. There’s something fascinating about trains, I think it must be the fact that they’re so noisy and yet it’s a noise you get used to after a time. You listen for a bit and then, though the sound is still there, you stop hearing it. Unconscious, that’s the word.

  When it started to rain I went back to my room.

  Agnes was talking on the telephone in the hallway. It’s in a gloomy little alcove. She had a drink in one hand and a cigarette was burning on her lips and ash spilled down the front of her black dress. Her feet were bar
e and dirty. I stopped and looked at her. I didn’t mean to, it’s bad manners to stare, I know that, but I couldn’t help it somehow.

  She covered the telephone with her hand and looked at me.

  ‘Well, Eric?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Did you want to ask me something?’ And she grinned at me slyly, crossing her legs one over the other.

  ‘Actually, I was going up to my room,’ I said.

  She took a drink from her glass and coughed. Well, she rattled more than she coughed, and I wondered what was inside her chest that sounded so loose.

  And then she began to speak into the telephone again.

  I went up to my room and sat on the bed. It was really very odd, but meeting her in the hallway seemed to have upset me. I couldn’t get the picture of her legs and that sly grin out of my mind. I shut my eyes to make it go away, but it only became sharper. I wouldn’t say it was unpleasant, no, but I didn’t want to go around with it in my mind. You’ve got to have some control over what you think about, after all. I boiled water for tea.

  As I sat in the chair drinking my tea, I could hear her speak from the bottom of the stairs. You’ve got a right bloody nerve, she was saying. When do I see some of the money?

  I wondered if she owned the house, or if she was just the caretaker. She didn’t look like a landlady to me, and I’ve got some experience in the matter. You develop a nose for landladies. They seem to be shifty, always watching you, always asking questions and seeing that you don’t do anything wrong in their house. Agnes seemed like a caretaker, except that she didn’t seem to take much care. You only had to look at her to see that. Though you shouldn’t judge from appearances. Sometimes you can make the most awful mistakes. King, for instance, the man who owns the factory, wears a boiler suit and looks like any ordinary workman. But he isn’t of course. He likes to think he is.

  It began to get dark and the house became silent. I hadn’t seen or heard any of the other tenants. But that’s how I like it to be. I undressed and got into bed and lay with my eyes open, just gazing up at the window. I liked the room. It was warm and cosy, although I hadn’t needed to put on the electric fire so far.