The Stranger Came

  The Stranger Came

  Frederic Lindsay

  © Frederic Lindsay 2013

  Frederic Lindsay has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1992 Andre Deutsch Ltd

  This edition published in 2013 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  For Alison

  Contents Page

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter 7

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  BOOK FOUR

  Chapter 13

  BOOK FIVE

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  BOOK SIX

  Chapter 24

  BOOK SEVEN

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  BOOK EIGHT

  Chapter 28

  Extract from Ripped by Frederic Lindsay

  It was the back end of the year when the stranger met me on the hill called Scad Law, thanked me for putting him on the path and went down to the village. Though I didn't spare him a glance as he went, a man like any other, our great-grandfathers would have found a name for him. Not that I believe in the Devil any more than you do; that thought came to me only because of what happened later. All any of us can say for certain is that everything was all right before.

  There was no trouble until after the stranger came.

  Gibson's Twentieth Century Folklore

  PROLOGUE

  Minding

  'Why are you doing this? I won't listen to this.’

  'Well, you watch then,' he said, and took the nipple of the girl's left breast between his finger and thumb. As he twisted and wrenched it, an expression of disturbance rather than pain altered her features.

  'You're all right,' he told her, and at once the look passed from her face.

  'I've seen that before,' one of the other men said. 'It's his parlour bleeding trick.’

  There were two of them. As far as he allowed himself the idea of friendship, the Garage Owner was a friend, the closest one he had. The Minder though was a stranger, brought along without a by your leave, which showed the limitations and dangers of friendship. Not much more than twenty, uninvited, he had stepped in with a shrug of the shoulders as if conferring a favour. In his own eyes, it seemed, he had East End prestige – his connections being good to the families that mattered; he hinted at a death presently rumoured to his account. Watching the girl naked from the waist up, however, sweat gleamed now on his forehead and marked the line of the scar that ran from his upper lip.

  Sweat, you cocky young bastard!

  'Have you seen this before?' he asked the Garage Owner. 'Seeing as you know all my tricks.’ He spoke to the girl firmly, but not loudly, in the tone of ordinary conversation. 'Open your eyes, Sleeping Beauty. Have a look at your tit – the other one, stupid!' Obediently, her gaze shifted to the one he held by the tip. As he worked on it, she watched without any sign of response.

  'Jesus Christ!' the Minder said. 'It's not natural. She must be fucking mental.’

  'Not her,' he said, sly, triumphant, almost offended.

  'You'd rate her; meet her in her gear out on the street. Smart girl, got class. She wouldn't give you the time of day.’

  But he had gone too far. His stomach tightened with apprehension as the Minder touched the scar's disfigurement, scowling with a dark immediate anger. He hurried on. 'What I'm saying, all I'm saying is, she's not stupid. But she believes what I tell her.’ What I'm saying, all I'm saying is, you bastard, I've got power. 'That's all there is to it. I mean there's no magic to it.’ But could not resist adding, 'If you know how.’

  'Could you show me?' the young man asked. The scar on his cheek shone white against the flush of his skin.

  'How to – how to put somebody under like that?'

  Instead of answering, he said to the girl, 'Let's play dogs. Down you go.’ With eyes still open but unfocused, she went down on hands and knees . 'Wag your tail.’

  The Garage Owner burst into laughter. With some difficulty because of his bulk, he bent over her and curved his fingers into her buttocks. At the touch, she winced forward until the only voice she could hear ordered, 'Stay! The nice man wants to pat you. Good dog.’ At that she was still, supporting herself on hands and spread knees, her head hanging down as if in shame as the fat man pumped his hand against her. Only since he was the one who decided, how could she feel shame? A puppet having its strings pulled. He had some funny ideas come into his head. In the stillness, the fat man's hand made faint rasping noises against the material of her jeans.

  The Minder dropped to his knees beside the fat man. On his feet looking down on the two of them crowded against her, as much as her they appeared to him as animals.

  His expression altered as the young man looked up. 'Can I touch her?' he asked. 'She isn't going to come round?' At his shake of the head, the young man put out his hand and tentatively took a grip on the breast that hung nearer him. He took it gently, cupping its softness in his hand.

  Without taking his eyes from what he held, he said, 'She's a slag, knows what she's doing, must do. You're not making her, not really.’

  Cocky young bastard! What was he talking about? He knew nothing of the power.

  'You're a lucky bitch,' the voice told her. 'You're at the dog show, yes you are. The judges are going over your points. They're really going over them. Find out what kind of bitch you are. It wouldn't surprise me if you were in line for the first prize. Wag your tail, go on, give us a bark.’ As she moved against him, the Garage Owner groaned with pleasure; but at the double note of the broken cry she gave the young man snatched his hand away in guilty fright.

  'First prize!' the Garage Owner wheezed, wriggling his bulk against her. 'I've got it here; I'm going to give it to her.’

  'I think you might get a prize from all the judges,' he said, looking down on them. 'Tell you what – you need a pee first – lift your leg and do it like the dogs.’

  As the fat man cursed and bumped back, the girl cocked up a leg. Urine's sharp stench twitched their nostrils and a stain spread on the crotch of her jeans and darkened along the thigh.

  'That's a bloody liberty, that is,' the Garage Owner complained. 'You're an unhygienic bastard.’

  'Don't worry,' he said. 'They're due off about now. And when we've finished with her, she'll clean up the mess .’

  'She can clean up the crap with a toothbrush. That's a trick I could learn her,' the Minder said, laughing. The girl's indignity had released him from his inhibitions.

  'Finished with her?' the Garage Owner cried in his high fat man's falsetto. 'Who's talking about being finished with her? We haven't bleeding started on her. It'll be a long time before we're finished with her. A long time before I'm finished with her.’

  'With anybody?' he repeated and struggled between vanity and caution. 'I can put other people under. Course I can. But – I'm not denying she's a bit special.’ They stared at her where she crouched on the floor wiping with a piece of rag at the stains on the carpet. About all of them there was an air of satiety like men who had eaten too well. 'She was my bit of luck . I'd gone to this office –'

  'This kn
ocking shop, he means,' the Minder said.

  'She was only sixteen. My mouth watered when I saw her. I got her talking. She was having a bad day, and me – I was travelling in drugs then –'

  'Ladies' underwear, you mean,' the Minder said. 'You was travelling in ladies' underwear.’ The Garage Owner wheezed a chuckle, indulging him.

  'I was practically a doctor.’ He winked. 'She trusts me – that's the secret. I send her a letter and she meets me. I don't just bring her here, you know. We've eaten up West and one time I had her for the weekend at Brighton. But I put the blocks in, don't I? She don't remember anything I don't want her to.’

  'She won't remember any of this?' the Minder's friend asked. 'Not what we've done?'

  'Put it this way, she hasn't so far – and I've used her regular these last three years. Got a fair bit of cash out of her as well. For medical treatment. Her folks give it her. One time they got a bit stroppy about the cost and I told her she'd a paralysed hand. She couldn't straighten it out. Not until they gave her something to get it treated. Now she's on a better earner she pays her own way. Well, it's worth it, isn't it – to keep healthy?' With only a touch of parody, he shifted to the accent of a different class. 'There's no waiting list, of course, not like the bloody National Health – she's a private patient.’

  'What about those? What happens if somebody sees those? Her mother or somebody?'

  'She's not usually marked,' he said drily. The Minder frowned and glanced away. 'I'll tell her to be careful nobody sees them. Not even the boyfriend.’

  'Boyfriend?'

  'Course she has. Pretty kid like that. She's due to get married.’

  'That'll spoil your game.’

  'Why would that be? I don't know anything about him, but if he's flush I just might carry on with the treatment. Put the price up, shouldn't be surprised. Love's young dream, he wouldn't grudge it.’

  'Dodgy.’

  'Don't see why.’

  'Dangerous for you I mean.’

  'She does whatever I tell her. Maybe he's the one would have to be careful.’

  'It would depend who he is,' the Minder said. 'You wouldn't want to pick on the wrong guy.’

  'Such vileness! It has nothing to do with us. You have no right. '

  At the noise he seized up as if paralysed and then when he relaxed the sickness came up sour into the back of his mouth. He dropped the shirt into the case. On top he threw shoes and the electric razor in its box. Stranded helpless then, he tried to think. Time was running out for him.

  At first he had paid no attention to the man sliding on to the vacant stool beside him at the bar. More than a month had gone by since the night with the girl, but more than the time that had passed, it was the state of the Minder that prevented recognition until he spoke. His face had been carved and beaten out of shape.

  'I met her again,' he said. 'That little girl of yours. Funny thing is – I knew the bloke she was with. And, don't laugh, I told him. I'd been feeling bad about it, you see. And there was a time when him and me were by way of being mates. You're going to think I'm a real cunt – I wanted to make it right. I told them I'd pay you a visit myself, but they didn't want that. Him and her brothers took their time explaining that to me. And here you are still alive.’

  'I've been out of town,' he said stupidly.

  'I reckon they're going to fucking kill you the slowest way. And I'll come to the funeral. I wouldn't miss seeing you going into the ground.’ He stood up and moved the ruins of his face in what might have been rage or grief. 'You should have found out who her boyfriend was, you stupid bastard.’

  He stared into the case, not able to think what else he should take. Somebody had been in the flat. Though they had been careful, he had seen the signs. Once they heard he was back- He had to get away. But where?

  'All the faces looking for you,' the ruined man sneered.

  'You can't hide.’

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter 1

  The Good Wife

  It was the act of a good wife. If she did not go, it was true, he would still catch a connection within the hour; and even so early, probably he would be able to get something to eat while he waited. All the same, anticipating the pleasure of his surprise, she rose early with a good conscience, taking credit from the warmth of the bed she was abandoning of her own free will and finding the crisp clear air of a fine morning almost a disappointment.

  Fields and hills unwrapped themselves from the darkness as she drove, and coming into Edinburgh it was light. In Princes Street, she ducked her head to catch a glimpse of the old castle on its plug of rock, memento of a spent volcano. Flushed clouds in red and orange framed it. Dramatic, obvious, a bit of a cheat, all of that, but still she could for once, alone in the car at dawn on a November morning, enjoy it without bothering too much about its past or present. She enjoyed it for what it seemed to be. It rose in the cold air as a piece of theatre. People forgot that here you were north of distant Moscow. Or was it if you were in Aberdeen? Not that it mattered. Someone had told her that. She smiled and in her imagination the castle tipped, a giant absurd samovar, pouring tea over the ranked chimneys of the New Town and its Sunday sleepers.

  She had this ridiculous sense of making a beginning. She laid claim to the cold bright morning by right of virtue and early rising. The gaudy clouds flew a banner over the castle for her by way of promise.

  Yet she was only going to meet Maitland – whom she loved, of course, no doubt of that – but whom after all she had met in the mornings and evenings of so many days; a lifetime ago jumping off a bus at the stop near her parents' home; striding through the gate from an international flight (giving her his private signal of relief, Maitland hated flying); very often like today off a train, returning from a meeting, from a conference. It was a tribute to Maitland that she should still be capable of feeling this lift of excitement; surely it was a tribute to their relationship; anyway, it said something about her, about the youthfulness of her heart.

  It was annoying that the train should be late.

  'I had no chance to check,' she explained. 'I left home so early.’

  The girl in the brown coat, who had given her the bad news, nodded. 'I was even worse – I was so afraid of being late I was too early even if it had been on time. I hardly slept.’

  'Poor you,' she said seriously.

  They walked together past the newspaper kiosk where they were laying out the first bundles of early editions and turned along by the side of the booking hall. The girl pointed to a sign which read STATIONMASTER. 'We can ask there for when it's due,' she said. 'The porter told me to ask there.’

  'Who are you meeting? Your boyfriend?'

  The girl laughed self-consciously. 'No-one exciting, only my brother. He's coming up from Bristol.’

  'I'm meeting my husband – Professor Ure.’ She looked at the girl, for a moment expecting her to respond, then laughed and explained, 'My husband isn't on the faculty at Edinburgh. There's no reason why you should know him. It's just that at home all the students do, you see. And for some reason, I assumed you were a student.’

  She paused and glanced at her companion for confirmation, but the girl said nothing. 'I suppose it's because at home almost all the young people I come into contact with are students.’

  'I hope someone is here,' the girl said, and they turned into the Stationmaster's office.

  A counter separated them from the dingy interior. A young man in his early twenties leaned on a table and muttered into the phone. Diligently he ignored them. She disapproved of him – of his shirt-sleeves, of the earring, even of the rims of red flesh from which his eyes peered; he would revenge himself on them by means of an ingenious ignorance. When he finished, however, he was pleasant and even, within limits, helpful. It struck her that the girl was pretty. Very pretty.

  In fact – not a student, only a stranger after all – admit it, the girl was almost beautiful.

  'Not too long,' the girl said. 'Not as bad as the port
er made out.’

  'They like a bit of bad news to pass on.’

  'Do you think so?' The girl shook back her hair, a movement which would have been natural if it had been worn long, but with a crop cut short seemed affected. Perhaps it was a style she had taken to only recently. 'I thought he was all right.’

  'Once he detached himself from the phone.’

  'From the phone? No, the porter – I meant the porter.’ And neither of them smiled at the confusion. Normally, she would have, she was sure of that. The difference she felt came from the girl. The girl seemed to her with that habitual gesture, as if shaking back long blonde hair, and those moments when her pretty features went quite blank with self-absorption, someone whom it would be easy to dislike.

  At once, she reproached herself with being unfair.

  'I must get some Sunday papers,' she said. 'After travelling, my husband will be looking forward to a quiet afternoon.’

  In the kiosk, she gathered up Scotland on Sunday, the Observer, the Times, and went back with them to the car.

  Piling the fat wads of sections like bricks into the boot, she saw how the newsprint had streaked her hands with dirt. For a vague staring moment, she wondered how many trees had been pulped to make this bundle laid neatly to one side to leave room for Maitland's luggage. Leaves bunched and rising towards the light, living things needing to survive at any cost…

  As she crossed the concourse, people began to stream around the corner of the booking hall towards her. Leaning against the weight of cases, they had the crumpled appearance of overnight travellers. That fool of a man's got the time wrong, she thought. I'll miss Maitland; he'll be into a taxi and gone before I find him. She was swept by a flush of anger and then by a panic so excessive it made her afraid. If she missed him, it wouldn't be the end of the world. When she got back, they would laugh about it. It would become one of Maitland's stories, and then but more richly she would be a sharer in the event. As for blaming any of it on the girl, what could be more unreasonable? Yet if she had been alone, she would not have chosen that moment to go for the papers. It did seem, after all, as if it was the girl who had spoiled mysteriously all the morning's bright anticipations.