Lagercrantz, David - Fall of Man in Wilmslow by Lagercrantz David

Author:Lagercrantz, David [Lagercrantz, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2016-05-02T22:00:00+00:00

22

THERE HAD BEEN a voraciousness about Mrs. Duffy which stayed with him, a vulgarity which got under his skin and set his nerves jangling. However hard he tried, he could not help fantasising about her body and the way in which she would thank him: “You’re more of a policeman than all of the rest of them put together,” or whatever it was she would say. In any case her dress would be straining over her body, and her look would draw him towards her, and actually, why should he not succeed? Not long ago he had fancied himself to be a good interrogator who could easily identify people’s weak points, and sense the worry in their eyes. Did he not usually know exactly when it was time to stick the knife in? That was one of the advantages of being a sensitive soul. He saw the signs in others.

Where was he now? That was Pinewood Road over there. He was close, and he started to think of Abbott and Pickens, those bloody arses, which never cheered him up, but now it strengthened his resolve. In Corell’s imagination, Mr. Rowan’s face took on some of Pickens’s features and he straightened his back. Imagined that he was a senior intelligence officer on his way to an important mission. Yet he was not exactly bursting with confidence. He debated whether to turn back. No, no! If that muddle-headed Rimmer had managed to topple Turing, it should not be beyond him to bring down an old dancer. He looked at the names of the houses. A car, a Morris Minor, drove by and now he heard a child’s voice.

“Daddy, Daddy!”

He stepped into the garden. A little girl with long dark hair and small, serious eyes was splashing in a tub of rainwater. She had got completely soaked. Behind her a newly painted swing hung in a frame.

“Hello,” Corell said to her.

“Hello,” she answered tersely.

“You should change your clothes.”

“I’m not going to.”

“Don’t then,” he muttered and looked towards the house, a fine white stone house with a black roof and a conservatory next to the front door.

The door handle was gilded and to the right of the building was a slightly unkempt hedge and a far plainer next-door house made of green wood with well-tended flower beds but with a worn tile roof and small windows. Was that where Mrs. Duffy went around in her garish dresses? He rang the doorbell. A shiver ran through his body and all sorts of thoughts flickered in his mind. But when the door flew open he instantly became fully concentrated, as if a curtain had gone up, and he smiled his most trustworthy smile.

“Good afternoon.”

“How do you do,” the man said, in the same surly reserved tone as his daughter, and Corell could tell right away that Mrs. Duffy was right.

That man was a queer. Admittedly a handsome one, to be generous, fine-limbed and upright, a clear blue look in his eyes, but with something unmistakably graceful about his movements.

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