She grimaced as the liquid met her lips. He laughed. “You look as if you’re drinking poison. Knock it back, girl. Like this!”
He opened his throat and drained his own glass. Laughing, she shuddered slightly and gulped down her ale. He took the empty glass from her and folded her in his arms. She clung to him, her hands like a cold compress on the back of his neck. Releasing himself he drew her down beside him onto the armchair. Then, clasped together, they slid to the floor and lay together on the rug in front of the gas fire. He had turned off the light and her face shone in the fierce red glow of the fire as if she lay in the full sun. The hiss of the gas was the only sound in the silence.
He pulled a cushion from one of the armchairs and pushed it under her head. Only one cushion; he had a use for the other. It could rest on the bottom of the gas stove. She would be less likely to wake if he made her comfortable on that last, brief slide from unconsciousness to death. He put his left arm around her and they lay tight clasped without speaking.
Suddenly she turned her face to his and he felt her tongue, wet and slippery as a fish, infiltrating between his teeth. Her eyes, their pupils black in the gaslight, were heavy with desire. “Darling,” she whispered. “Darling.”
Christ, he thought, not that. He couldn’t make love to her now. It would keep her quiet but it wasn’t possible. There wasn’t time. And surely the police pathologist could tell how recently that had happened to a woman. He thought for the first time with relief of her obsession with safety and whispered, “We can’t darling. I haven’t got anything with me. We can’t risk it now.”
She gave a little murmur of acquiescence and nuzzled against him, moving her left leg over his thighs. It lay there, heavy and inert, but he dare not move nor speak in case he broke that insidious drop into unconsciousness. She was breathing more deeply now, hotly and irritatingly into his left ear. God, how much longer was it going to take! Holding his own breath he listened. Suddenly she gave a little snort like a contented animal. Under his arm he sensed a change in the rhythm of her breathing. There was an almost physical release of tension as her body relaxed. She was asleep.
Better give her a few minutes, he thought. There wasn’t much time to spare, but he dare not hurry. It was important that there were no bruises on her body and he knew he couldn’t face a struggle. But there could be no turning back now. If she woke and resisted, it would still have to be done.
So he waited, lying so still that they might both have been dead bodies stiffening together into a final, stylized embrace. After a little time he raised himself cautiously on his right elbow and looked at her. Her face was flushed, her mouth with its short upper lip curved against the white, childish teeth was half open. He could smell the paraldehyde on her breath. He watched her for a moment, noting the length of the pale lashes against her cheeks, the upward slant of the eyebrows and the shadows under the broad cheek bones. Strange that he had never got round to drawing her face. But it was too late to think of that now.
He murmured to her as he lifted her gently across the room to the black mouth of the gas oven.
“It’s all right, Jenny darling. It’s only me. I’m making you comfortable. It’s all right, darling.”
But it was himself that he was reassuring. There was plenty of room in the large, old-fashioned oven, even with the cushion. The bottom of the oven was only a few inches from the ground. Feeling for her shoulder blades he edged her gently forward. As the cushion took the weight of her head, he looked to make sure that the gas jets were still unimpeded. Her head rolled gently sideways so that the half-open mouth, moist and vulnerable as a baby’s, hung just above them, poised and ready to suck up death. As he slid his hands from under her body, she gave a little sigh as if she were comfortable at last.
He gave one last look at her, satisfied with his handwork. And now it was time to hurry. Feeling in his pocket for the rubber gloves, he moved with fantastic speed, treading lightly, his breath coming in shallow gasps as if he could no longer bear the sound of his own breathing. The suicide note was on the table. He took the screwdriver and wrapped her right hand gently round it, pressing the palm around the shining handle, the right fingertip against the base of the blade. Was that how she would have held it? Near enough. He placed the screwdriver on top of the suicide note.
Next he washed up his own glass and put it back in the cupboard, holding the dishcloth in front of the gas fire for a second until the damp stain had evaporated. He turned off the fire. No need to worry about prints here. There was nothing to show when last it had been lit. He wondered briefly about the paraldehyde bottle and Jenny’s glass, but decided to leave them on the table with the note and the screwdriver. The natural thing would surely be for her to drink sitting at the table and then to move to the stove when she felt the first signs of drowsiness. He wiped his own prints from the bottle and clasped her left hand around it, her right-hand index finger and thumb on the stopper. He was almost afraid to touch her, but she was now deeply asleep. Her hand was very warm to his touch and so relaxed that it felt boneless. He was repelled by its limp flaccidity, by this touch which was without communication, without desire. He was glad when he had dealt similarly with the drinking glass and the bottle of beer. It would only be necessary now to touch her once again.
Last of all he took his own letter to the Priddys and the pair of gloves and threw them into the boiler. There was only the gas tap to turn on. It was on the right of the stove and within easy reach of her limp right arm. He lifted the arm, pressed her index finger and thumb against the tap and turned it on. There was the soft hiss of escaping gas. How long, he wondered, was it likely to take? Not long surely? Perhaps only a matter of minutes. He put out the light and backed out, closing the door behind him.
It was then that he remembered the front-door keys. They must be found on her. His heart struck cold as he realized how fatal that one mistake could have been. He edged into the room again by the light of his torch. Taking the keys from his pocket and holding his breath against the gas, he placed them in her left hand. He had reached the door before he heard Tigger’s mew. The cat must have been sleeping under the cupboard. It was moving slowly round the body now, putting out a tentative paw towards the girl’s right foot. Nagle found that he could not bear to go near her again.
“Come here, Tigger,” he whispered. “Come here, boy.” The cat turned its great amber eyes on him and seemed to be considering but without emotion and without haste. Then it came slowly across to the door. Nagle hooked his left foot under the soft belly and lifted the cat through the door in one swift movement.
“Come out of it, you bloody fool. D’you want to lose all nine lives at one go? That stuff’s lethal.”
He closed the door and the cat, suddenly active, shot away into the dark.
Nagle made his way without lights to the back door, felt for the bolts and let himself out. He paused for a moment, back against the door, to check that the mews was empty. Now that it was over, he had time to note the signs of strain. His forehead and hands were wet with sweat and he had difficulty with his breathing. He drew in deep gasps of the damp and blessedly cool night air. The fog wasn’t thick, hardly more than a heavy mist, through which the street lamp which marked the end of the mews gleamed like a yellow smudge in the darkness. That gleam, only forty yards away, represented safety. Yet all at once it seemed unattainable. Like an animal in its lair he gazed in horrified fascination at the dangerous beacon and willed his legs to move. But their power had gone. Crouching in the darkness and shelter of the doorway, his back pressed against the wood, he fought off panic. After all, there was no great hurry. In a moment he would leave this spurious sanctuary and put the mews behind him. Then it was only a matter of re-entering the square from the other side and waiting until there was a casual passerby to witness his vain hammering at the front door. Even the words he would speak were ready. “It’s my girl. I think she’s in there but she won’t open up. She was with me earlier this evening and, when she’d gone, I found the keys were missing. She was in a queer state. Better get a copper. I’m going to smash this window.”