Chapter 12
Dundridge woke in a lay-by on the London road. He had a splitting headache, he was extremely cold and the gear lever was sticking into his ribs. He sat up, untangled his legs from under the steering wheel and wondered where the hell he was, how he had got there and what the devil had happened. He had an extremely clear memory of the party at the Golf Club. He could remember talking to Miss Boles on the terrace. He could even recall walking back to his car with her. After that nothing.
He got out of the car to try to get the circulation moving in his legs and discovered that his trousers were undone. He did them up hurriedly and reached up automatically to tighten the knot in his tie to hide his embarrassment only to find that he wasn’t wearing a tie. He felt his open shirt collar and the vest underneath. It was on back to front. He pulled the vest out a bit and looked down at the label. St Michael Combed Cotton it said. It was definitely on back to front. Now he came to think of it, his Y-fronts felt peculiar too. He took a step forward and tripped over a shoelace. His shoes were untied. Dundridge staggered against the car, seriously alarmed. He was in the middle of nowhere at… He looked at his watch. At six a.m. with his shoes untied, his vest and pants on back to front, and his trousers undone, and all he could remember was getting into the car with a girl with almond eyes and lovely legs.
And suddenly Dundridge had a horrid picture of the night’s events. Perhaps he had raped the girl. A sudden brainstorm. That would explain the headache. The years of self-indulgence with his composite woman had come home to roost. He had gone mad and raped Miss Boles, possibly killed her. He looked down at his hands. At least there wasn’t any blood on them. He could have strangled her. There was always that possibility. There were any number of awful possibilities. Dundridge bent over painfully and did up his shoes and then, having looked in the ditch to make sure that there was no body there, he got back into the car and wondered what to do. There was obviously no point in sitting in the lay-by. Dundridge started the car and drove on until he came to a signpost which told him he was going towards London. He turned the car round and drove back to Worford, parked in the yard of the Handyman Arms and went quietly up to his room. He was in bed when the girl brought him his tea.
“What time is it?” he asked sleepily. The girl looked at him with a nasty smile.
“You ought to know,” she said, “you’ve only just come in. I saw you sneaking up the stairs. Been having a night on the tiles, have you?”
She put the tray down and went out, leaving Dundridge cursing himself for a fool. He drank some tea and felt worse. There was no point in doing anything until he felt better. He turned on his side and went to sleep. When he awoke it was midday. He washed and shaved, studying his face in the mirror for some sign of the sexual mania he suspected. The face that stared back at him was a perfectly ordinary face but Dundridge was not reassured. Murderers tended to have perfectly ordinary faces. Perhaps he had simply had a blackout or amnesia. But that wouldn’t explain his vest being on back to front, nor his Y-fronts. At some time during the night he had undressed. Worse still, he had dressed in such a hurry that he hadn’t noticed what he was doing. That suggested panic or at least an extraordinary urgency. He went downstairs and had lunch. After lunch he would get hold of a telephone directory and look up Boles. Of course her uncle might not be called Boles but it was worth a try. If that didn’t work he would try Hoskins or the Golf Club. On second thoughts, that might not be such a good idea. There was no point in drawing attention to the fact that he had taken Miss Boles home. Or hadn’t.
In the event there was no need to look in the telephone directory. As he passed the hotel desk, the clerk handed him a large envelope. It was addressed to Mr Dundridge and marked Private and Confidential. Dundridge took it up to his room before opening it and was extremely thankful that he hadn’t opened it in the foyer. Dundridge knew now how he had spent the night.
He dropped the photographs on to the bed and slumped into a chair. A moment later he was up and locking the door. Then he turned back and stared at the pictures. They were 10 by 8 glossies and quite revolting. Taken with a flash, they were extremely clear and portrayed Dundridge with an unmistakable clarity, naked and all too evidently unashamed, engaged in a series of monstrous activities beyond his wildest imaginings with Miss Boles. At least he supposed it was Miss Boles. The fact that she seemed… Not seemed, was wearing a mask, a sort of hood, made identification impossible. He thumbed through the pictures and came to the hooded man. Dundridge hurriedly put them back in the envelope and sat sweating on the edge of the bed. He’d been framed. The word seemed wholly inappropriate. Nothing on God’s earth would get him to frame these pictures. Someone was trying to blackmail him.
Trying? They had bloody well succeeded, but Dundridge had no money. He couldn’t pay anything. Dundridge opened the envelope again and stared at the evidence of his depravity. Miss Boles? Miss Boles? It obviously wasn’t her real name. Sally Boles. He had heard that name before somewhere. Of course, Sally Bowles in I am a Camera. Dundridge didn’t need telling. He’d been had in more ways than one. In many more ways if the photos were anything to go by.
He was just wondering what to do next when the telephone rang. Dundridge grabbed it. “Yes,” he said.
“Mr Dundridge?” said a woman’s voice.
“Speaking,” said Dundridge shakily.
“I hope you like the proofs.”
“Proofs, you bitch?” Dundridge snarled.
“Call me Sally,” said the voice. “There’s no need to be formal with me now.”
“What do you want?”
“A thousand pounds… to be going on with.”
“A thousand pounds? I haven’t got a thousand pounds.”
“Then you had better get it, hadn’t you sweetie?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to get,” shouted Dundridge, “I’m going to get the police.”
“You do that,” said a man’s voice roughly, “and you’ll end up with your face cut to ribbons. You’re not playing with small fry, mate. We’re bigtime, understand.”
Dundridge understood all too well. The woman’s voice came back on the line. “If you do go to the police remember we’ve had one or two customers there. We’ll know. You just start looking for your thousand pounds.”
“I can’t -”
“Don’t call us. We’ll call you,” said Miss Boles, and put the phone down. Dundridge replaced his receiver more slowly. Then he leant forward and held his head in his hands.