“I’m so sorry to be a bore…” Cushing’s voice retained its usual mellifluous charm. “It’s Sunday evening. This isn’t a very good time, to be perfectly honest. In fact, I’m expecting guests any minute…” On tip-toes he craned over the other man’s shoulder, pretending to be scanning the path beyond.
“This won’t take long. I promise to God. Just a minute of your time, mate. If that. Honestly…”
“I have food in the oven. I’m most terribly…” Blast. The pyjamas and dressing gown were a giveaway that he was lying, and he had to think fast. “I’m, I’m just about to get changed. This really isn’t convenient. If you’ll excuse me…” He did an excellent job also of covering up the fact that his heart was pounding thunderously. When you can fake that, dear boy…
A hand slapped against the door. “Sorry, mate. Hold on. Hey. Mate…”
It stopped the door from closing but Gledhill, almost immediately embarrassed by his brisk action, quickly removed it and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, laughing again.
“Listen. Please. I really, really want to clear this up, sir. I swear, you have no idea what this is doing to me. You, a respected man in this, this community, I mean, loved in this town, let’s face it, Christ, thinking…” One cheek winced as if in momentary pain. “When she… that’s why I had to come over, see. I couldn’t let…”
Cushing wondered why he still felt afraid. Much as he hated to admit it, the man seemed reasonable. Why did he hate to admit it? What had he presumed the chap would be like? Here he was. Not an ogre. Perplexed, certainly. Bewildered, genuinely. It seemed. And—unless a consummate actor himself—shaken. The voice didn’t sound angry or vicious in the least, or beastly. Or evil—that was the remarkable thing. It sounded confused, and quite upset. No—hurt. Terribly hurt. Devastated, in fact.
“Of course, if you’re busy, sir, I understand. Blimey, I have no right to just barge over here, knock on your door, expect you to…” Running out of words, the man in the donkey jacket backed away, then turned to go. Then, as he reached the white-painted garden gate, turned back. “Look, the truth is… I’d hate you to think I’d done anything to hurt that boy. Or whatever you think. That’s just… Just not the case. Truly.” He made one last, haltering plea. “I… I just wanted to explain to you you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, that’s all. That’s what concerns me, more than anything. You’re a decent man. A perfect gentleman. You don’t need this. It’s not fair.” The front door had not shut and, this being so, he took this for some kind of invitation and walked quickly back into the conservatory.
Peter Cushing’s fingers did not move from the latch on the inside of the door. “I’d rather we discuss it here, if we must.”
Gledhill stopped, suddenly bowed his shaggy head and plunged his ruddy, working man’s hands deep in his jacket pockets, shuffling. “Yes, of course, mate. No problem.”
Letting the front door yawn wider in a slight act of contrition, Cushing retraced his steps and switched on the hall light, then returned to stand on the welcome mat whilst the man in the donkey jacket hovered in silhouette at the mercy of the shrill wind cutting in from the sea. It buffeted the door, sending an icy breath though the house, room to room, riffling paperwork like a thief.
Picked out of the darkness by the paltry spill of light from the hall, Gledhill shook a solitary Embassy from its packet. “Listen.” He rubbed one eye. “Carl is a good kid, a great kid. He’s quirky, a laugh, in small doses, don’t get me wrong. He’s a character. But he has problems, that’s what you don’t realise.” The lighter clicked and flashed, giving a splash of illumination from his cupped hand to his chin and upper lip. “He says things. Things that aren’t true.” A puff of smoke streamed from the corner of his mouth. “All the bloody time. Not just about me. About everybody. The school already has him down as a liar. And a bully. They have problems with him. He hurts other kids. That’s what kind of child he is, Mr Cushing. His mother worries about him day and night. So do I. Day and night.”
Night.
Cushing remained tight-lipped. The face of a hundred movie stills. Immobile. “You’re telling me I shouldn’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.”
“Honest to God.” The man’s next exhale was directed at the moon. The whites of his eyes seemed flesh-coloured too, now. Perhaps it was the ambient yellow glow from within. He dawdled in its penumbra. “You think he’s some kind of angel? You don’t know him. You don’t know any of us.” He let that fact, and its obvious truth, bed down in Cushing’s mind. “I didn’t have to take on this woman with her boy, did I? Let’s face it, lots of blokes would run for the hills the minute they know there’s a kid in tow. And I haven’t, have I? Because I love her. I’m trying to piece this family together. God knows. I’m going to marry her, for Christ’s sake. Put everything right for both of them. The boy too. I’m not a bad person.” He offered the palms of his hands.
“Then what do you have to fear from me?” Cushing spoke quietly and with precision.
“I don’t know.” Gledhill shrugged. “I don’t know what you think.”
And he laughed again. And the laugh had a wrongness. There was something in it, a grace note, deep down, disingenuous, that the older man detected and didn’t like. If pressed, he couldn’t have explained it any more than he could have explained why, on meeting his wife he knew instantly they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together: it wasn’t even love, it was that he’d met his soul. Similarly, the thing embedded in Les Gledhill’s laugh was inexplicable, and, inexplicably, enough.
“I think you’d better leave now. Good night to you.”
He shut the door but found something wedged into the jamb, preventing it from closing. The laughter had stopped. He didn’t want to look down and didn’t look down, because he knew what he would see there: A foot rammed in between the bottom of the door and the metal footplate.
O, Lord. O, Jesus Christ.
“I’m trying to be reasonable. I’m trying to…” Gledhill’s teeth were clenched now, tobacco-stained, his face only inches from the other man’s. “Why are you doing this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why are you doing this?” The Kent accent had become more pronounced, transforming into a Cockney harshness. “I’ve done nothing to you. I’m a total stranger to you. Have you ever met me before? No. So why are you doing this to me? Going to my house, upsetting my girlfriend. I come home to find her in bits. How d’you think that makes me feel? Before I know it she’s firing all kinds of questions at me. Stupid questions. Ridiculous questions—”
“Please…” The older man’s voice was choked with fear. He couldn’t disguise it any more. It took all his strength to hold the door in place. “I have nothing more to say.”
Gledhill’s face jutted closer still, his shoulder firm against the door, holding it fast, and Cushing could detect the strong sweet reek of—what, blood, decay?—no, alcohol on the man’s breath. But something else too. Something of death. “What kind of person are you, eh?”