Copyright © 1999 Basil Copper.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-878252-40-2
Chapter One
BETTER DEAD
1
"Better dead!" said Robert exultantly as Boris pulled the lever.
The whole laboratory and watchtower exploded in dust and flames.
"Great!" said Robert, getting up to turn down the sound on the projector as the Universal end titles started coming up.
Joyce, who had just poked her head in at her husband's specially built brick projection room, yawned, glancing at the hundreds of metal film cans that lined the interior of the thirty-foot-long auditorium, the metal shelving reflecting back the screen images in tiny flickering points of light. Normally Robert had the curtains drawn across his archive treasures but for some reason he had not bothered this evening. The room lights went on as the last foot of black trailer went through the machine.
"You must have seen Bride of Frankenstein a hundred times by now," Joyce said wearily.
Robert's eyes glowed.
"And I expect to see it another hundred times before the year's out. The classics never stale."
Joyce shook her head.
"Tea's ready. Is there any chance of you cutting the lawn tonight?"
Robert gave her an expression of mock regret.
"Doubtful. I have two more film parcels to open yet."
"I've had enough of the dead alive," his wife said, a steely undertone coming into her voice. "Film collecting will be the death of you."
Robert chuckled, his eyes vacantly fixed on two huge cardboard cartons on the bench near his canvas viewing chair.
"What a way to go!"
The outer door slamming cut off any further remarks he might have made and with a slightly crestfallen expression he switched off the mains electricity and made his way back to the house. The couple ate their tea in silence, Joyce's eyes fixed smoulderingly on his face. An attractive, dark-haired woman of thirty-six, she bad to rein back the resentment within her at her husband's extravagant collecting habits, while she was forced to hold on to a boring secretarial job in order to help pay the bills.
Robert crumbled a piece of toast into his tea and ate it with satisfaction.
"I think Night of the Living Dead just turned up," he said at length. "We were looking forward to that one."
"You mean you were," his wife said pointedly.
She got up to clear her plate, the set of her shoulders indicating extreme displeasure.
She paused by the buffet, delicately cutting a slice of the cream gateau that they had started at lunch-time.
"I shan't be back until late this evening. I have a committee meeting and then I have some more typing to finish off at the office."
"Don't forget your key," said Robert absently, his mind still fixed on the parcels in his projection room at the bottom of the garden. He gazed fondly to where the roof showed through the top of the rose trellis outside the French windows. "I may be running stuff down there."
Joyce's eyes glinted with suppressed anger as she stood with the cake knife in one slim, well manicured hand.
"Do you want any of this?"
Robert shook his head.
"Just another cup of tea, if you'd be so kind."
There was an oppressive silence in the room as Joyce bent to pour, accentuated as the faint hum of a motor mower came faintly on the summer breeze.
"Incidentally," she said sourly. "Karloff never said, `Better dead!' Even after all those viewings you can't remember the dialogue properly."
"Oh," said Robert.
He gave his wife a twisted smile. For the first time she realised how ugly and worn he was looking, even in his early forties.
"Well," he said eventually, with an air of quiet triumph. "If he didn't say it, he should have!"
Joyce turned her face away so that he should not see the expression on it. She put the teapot down on the metal stand with barely suppressed fury.
She left the room without saying goodbye. The phone rang as she was crossing the hall. She turned quickly, made sure the dining room door was firmly closed.
"Hullo, darling!"
The voice was unmistakable. She changed colour, put her hand quickly over the receiver.
"How many times have I told you, Conrad. Don't ring here!"
"Why, is he home?"
She smiled tautly at the alarm in the other's voice.
"Don't worry; he's having tea in the dining room. See you tonight as arranged."
She put the phone down quickly as Robert's footsteps sounded over the parquet. She was putting on her light raincoat in front of the mirror when he opened the door.
"Just the office," she said, answering his unspoken question.
She smiled maliciously.
"Hope you're not too disappointed. It wasn't one of your film dealer friends."
She went out quickly, slamming the front door before he had time to reply.
2
Light exploded, splitting the darkness with dazzling incandescence. Joyce, nude, got out of bed, revelling in the fact that the dark, strongly-built young man next to her was admiring her sinuous curves, softly explored by the bedside lamp. But she ignored the imploring look in his eyes, dressing quickly with the ease born of long practice in the dangerous game they were playing. She glanced at her wrist watch, noted it had only just turned ten P.M. There was plenty of time then.
"When will I see you?"
She shrugged.
"Soon, obviously. But we can't keep this pace up, Conrad. We're meeting too frequently."
"Nowhere near frequently enough for me!"
He rolled over quickly, reaching for her, as she sat cross-legged, one stocking half drawn on, but she skipped out of reach, laughing and sat down on the bedside stool to finish dressing. He lay and watched her with the concentration she had often noticed; even when sated with sex men were never satisfied. As soon as the woman had dressed the mystery was there again, waiting to be revealed at the next encounter. She could not really understand the fascination, though she appreciated it in Conrad's case. She had never owned a man like him; the affair had begun two years earlier and he was a person of integrity, held to her by so many bonds of unswerving loyalty.
She deftly made up her mouth in the mirror, the ratchets of her mind clicking over hopelessly, as they had ever since the affair had begun. If there were only some way out that would make three people happy. If only Robert would find someone else. But that was not within his nature. He was so absorbed in his film collecting that he hardly noticed she was there; that being so, he would hardly turn his attention to another woman. And if he did not appreciate her attractions—and Conrad certainly did—things could go on as they were for ever if she and Conrad did not make some attempt to solve the problem.
"I can't understand him," Conrad said, as though he could read her mind.
"Who?"
Naturally, turning back from the mirror, she knew what he meant.
The dark-haired man in the bed shrugged impatiently.
"Your husband, of course. With all that under his roof he just doesn't seem interested."
Joyce smiled bitterly.
"You should be grateful, darling. People hardly ever value what they possess."
Conrad gave her a twisted smile in return.
"Until they've lost it ..."
The sentence seemed to hang heavily in the scented air of the bedroom.
Joyce bent swiftly and kissed him gently on the brow.
"We'll see in due course," she said in a low voice. "We have to be patient."
"I thought we had been. For two long years."
Joyce did not answer, her emotions suddenly overcoming her. She turned to the mirror, only the faint trembling of her fingers as she put on the lightweight raincoat betraying her inmost feelings.
"I'll ring you," she said through tight lips. "Please don't ring the house again. It's too dangerous."
He did not answer and she went out without a backward glance, letting herself out the back door into the secluded garden. It was a bright, starry night and she leaned against the wall, drinking in the fresh air until she had recovered herself. She drove home slowly, her mind still turning over useless prospects. It was still only a quarter to eleven when she got in. Lights burned in the dining room and the French windows were open to the lawn.
From the projection room at the end of the garden came the faint, tinny music. The Night of the Living Dead was under way. She sat down at the end of the dining room table, her emotions overcoming her. Slowly her head fell forward and she put her hands up to her face as she rested her elbows on the cold oak surface. Salt tears trickled through her fingers as the raucous music went on.
3
"It's alive! It's alive!"
There was a sudden burst of laughter from the other end of the dining room. Joyce shrank inwardly. The guests round the long table wore blank faces. Only Robert and his friend John at the head were laughing inanely.
"For God's sake, Robert," said Joyce irritably. "Can't you leave it alone for even a few hours?"
The nearest guests looked startled at the vehemence of her tones and John and Robert resembled figures congealed in a photo-flash picture. Joyce forced a smile, aware that she had made a social gaffe. John's wife was sitting next to her and she turned toward Isabel.
"I'm sorry about that, but this film collecting business is getting on my nerves."
The guests relaxed then, exchanging knowing smiles among themselves, and Joyce was inwardly gratified to see that both John and Robert wore chastened looks.
Isabel nodded, fixing her husband with a warning glance.
"Don't I know it, dear. John and I have no conversation at all nowadays unless it's about films."
She paused.
"Or, it's `Pass the salt!'"
"We must split them up when we have coffee," Joyce said.
Isabel sighed.
"I've tried before," she said resignedly. "There's no stopping them once they get on that topic."
Joyce stabbed her silver fork into the remains of her dessert with an almost savage gesture.
"They're hardly ever off it."
The two women laughed uneasily and then Joyce was in command of herself again. A few minutes later, when she had ushered the last of the guests into the drawing room and she and Isabel had returned to the kitchen to make the coffee, they were silent, as though both were absorbed with weighty thoughts that they did not like to impart to the other.
That night, long after the guests had departed, Joyce was washing up in the kitchen, when she heard the back door slam. Robert had, of course, gone off with John somewhere, as soon as he could decently excuse himself. Now he had come in and, despite the lateness of the hour, had gone out to his projection room. A few minutes later, as she finished drying the glasses she could hear raucous music coming from the end of the garden. The nearest house to theirs was quite a long way off, so Robert had not bothered to completely sound-proof his private cinema.
Joyce paused; a sudden thought had come in to her mind. Robert's acquisitions had risen to an alarming total in the past few months. Alarming in the sense that his "hobby," if it could be called that, must be costing him a great deal. Costing them a great deal, she suddenly realised. She stood, her lips pursed, her flat stomach against the draining board, the last glass poised in her hand. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror opposite. She looked absurdly like Joan Crawford in one of her Warner Brothers melodramas, she felt. Then she angrily dismissed the thought. She was catching Robert's disease. She crossed the kitchen and took the last trayful of clean glasses back into the dining room.
Then she went swiftly along the corridor to Robert's study. She switched on the green-shaded desk lamp, making sure that the thick curtains were already drawn across the windows. Robert always kept his chequebooks and stubs in the top righthand drawer. She went through them quickly, her breath coming faster as she noted the sums. She got out a sheet of paper and a pencil and started jotting down the figures. Anger was growing like a dull fire within her. He had spent several thousand pounds in the last two months alone! She fought back the feeling as she completed her calculations. And Robert sometimes grumbled that she was careless with the housekeeping money ... When she had finished, she replaced everything as she had found it, switched off the lamp and went back to the dining room.
She put the sheet with the notations at the bottom of her handbag and then replaced all the glasses in the big antique glass-fronted corner cupboard. She had just finished when she heard Robert come in, locking and bolting the back door behind him. He looked in at the open dining room door, as though surprised to see her still working. He rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
"I think it all went very well, don't you?"
"Yes, very well," she said slowly.
She kept her eyes fixed steadily on his face. It was as if she were seeing him clearly for the first time.
4
It was hard work mowing the lawn. Joyce was perspiring and a savage resentment was building up. Robert had disappeared some hours earlier but she had no doubt where he was and her eyes wandered to his cinema building at the far side of the garden. Another two parcels of film had arrived that morning and that had added to her anger. The two had spoken very briefly; long silences were becoming the norm within the marriage and Joyce was conscious that things had deteriorated to a dangerous degree over the past two years. This was one of the factors which had driven her into another man's arms; the utter indifference of her partner to her needs both as a woman and a human being.
Joyce put the mower away in the small shed just beyond the cinema, aware all the time of the faint music issuing into that corner of the garden. She ate lunch alone and when she went out again to continue her gardening activities she was only vaguely conscious of the fact that the shadowy figure of Robert had passed briefly across her field of vision, presumably on his way to the kitchen where she had left a cold salad lunch for him.
It was late afternoon and the shadows were lengthening on the ground before Joyce had finished her current projects in the garden and when she went back indoors to make herself a much-needed cup of coffee, there was no sign of Robert. She went through all the rooms in turn but he was not there. Then she made a quick, cautious call to Conrad confirming their next meeting. Then she returned to the garden, sitting on a teak bench in a small arbour to finish her coffee and biscuits. It was almost dark by this time and leaving the coffee tray on the bench she collected her spade, intending to take it back to the garden shed.
She paused by the entrance to Robert's private cinema. Strangely enough, he did not seem to be there. Or at least there was no sound of films being projected this evening. She bent to the door, listening intently. Unless he was showing silent films ... She made up her mind. It was time they had a serious talk. They could not go on in this manner. She was inside the vestibule now. Robert had constructed a small lobby which featured glass cases containing film stills. Of very old films, of course; mainly from the twenties and thirties. There was an inner door leading to the cinema proper, with its archive material, constructed not only to muffle the sound when films were being projected, but to prevent light spill from the outside.
Very quietly Joyce opened the inner door and glanced through. Yes, there was a film showing, but it appeared to be silent. Then she saw it was one of the Frankenstein series. Odd that there was no sound. Unless Robert had it switched off for some reason. She could not see him for the moment as she had not yet adjusted to the light intensity in here. Her eyes were again directed to the screen; she suddenly felt dizzy and her heart had begun to thump uncontrollably. Was she ill or had she over-exerted herself in her gardening activities today?
Yes, it was The Bride. There was Elsa Lanchester in her incredible makeup as the monster's mate and the hysterical Colin Clive facing the sardonic Ernest Theisiger, both men in their white surgeon's smocks. And here came Karloff himself, clumping clumsily into the laboratory. Or was it Karloff! The screen image seemed to be going out of focus, wavering and insubstantial as mist. Joyce's breath caught in her throat and she stared incredulously at the burning rectangle before her. It was impossible but there was Robert's face up there on the screen with the other actors. Karloff's massive body and Robert's features! It was impossible but it was happening. And still the silent pantomime went on.
She must be ill. This could not be happening. She pressed the sharp point of her shoe against her right instep. There was pain certainly so she was wide awake and not dreaming. Instead she was enmeshed in a nightmare. She looked round desperately for the light switch, could not find it. Then her eyes were caught by something else. The reflected light from the screen was strobing across the floor and winking on the masses of film tins. Robert could not have drawn the curtains across them tonight as he usually did to avoid the reflections from the projector beam. Then thunderous music began, startling her so much that she almost fell.
The screen light was falling across Robert's figure now, hunched in a canvas chair at the back of the projection room, apparently intent on the drama being played out before him. Joyce took one step forward, then froze. It was not Robert; someone much taller and more massive, wearing a thick sheepskin coat. She screamed then as the reflected light from the projector made vivid bars across the flat skull and horrific features of Karloff's monster. The light glinted on the neck bolts and the metal clip on the skull as the leering mouth was turned toward her. Joyce moved then, hardly realising that scream after scream was still being wrenched from her throat. The paralysis left her. She still had the spade in her hand, having apparently carried it in, though she had not been conscious of having done so.
She went forward rapidly, raining blow after blow on the hideous form of the monster in the chair. The music from the screen speakers dinned in her ears as the film came to its climax. Sick and trembling she at last found the light switch as the final leader of the film ran thrashing off the end of the spool. The noise went on until she pulled out the plug. The silence was thunderous as she turned to the crumpled form of the thing that had been watching the film. Rivers of blood, scarlet splashes on the spade she held in her hand. The face was almost unrecognisable. Joyce fell to her knees as she recognised the shattered remnants of the man who had once been Robert. She must have fainted then because her wrist watch showed that more than two hours had passed when she finally became aware of her surroundings.
Shaking uncontrollably she dragged herself to her feet. No, it had not been a mirage, but terrible reality. Her brain was working again now. Somehow she forced herself to look at her handiwork. Could the whole ghastly error have been an optical illusion? That somehow the mirror at the back of the hall and the reflection off the hundreds of film cans might have transposed her husband's image on to that of the screen? While the visage of Karloff had been superimposed on to her husband's features? Impossible, surely. And yet the deed was done. Wild thoughts passed through her head. Her first impulse was to ring the police. But how could she explain? No-one would believe her. It would mean years of prison at the least and the loss of all of her dreams of a shared future with Conrad. She forced herself into action, her mind made up.
The keys were on the side of the projection stand where they always were. She went out, her course of action clear. She switched off the light, locked the door, then washed the spade carefully under the garden tap. Cold water would remove all traces of blood, she had read somewhere. Not hot. That could be fatal. When the spade was absolutely clean she dried it thoroughly with a piece of sacking and then thrust it into the earth several times before replacing it in the garden shed. This she locked also. The garden was extremely secluded, with very high hedges and it was a bright moonlight night.
Back in the house, she locked and bolted the front door and poured herself a stiff brandy in the dining room. Fortified, she returned to the garden, procured a big tarpauling from the shed and then selected Robert's spade, which was much bigger than her own, and more suitable for the night's work. She had already locked the back door of the house and bolted the side gate so no-one would disturb her and she had all night. The earth was very friable about eight feet from the hedge, in the spot she had chosen.
She and Robert had always planned to have a York stone terrace there. She would need to be careful. Fortunately, Robert had no living relatives but there would be questions, of course, from friends and neighbours. And after several weeks she would have to report his disappearance to the police. There would be problems, naturally, but they were not insurmountable. And in the course of time, when people's memories had faded, they would come to think that Robert had walked out after a row; or had found another woman. Both she and Conrad were still young and would be able to marry after the statutory period was over.
She breathed deeply as she walked toward the most remote part of the garden. The moon shone on serenely as she began to dig like a madwoman.
5
It was a bright, sunny morning when Joyce went down the front path to check the car. She was meeting Conrad in an hour and they would spend the next fortnight in the Cotswolds. She had told him that Robert was away on business, which frequently happened, and he had asked no questions. She had already telephoned the contractors about the work on the new terrace. She and Robert had often discussed establishing it there, so there was nothing untoward in the request. Especially as the builders already knew of their intentions.
The tarpaulin with its contents was a good eight feet down. Fortunately, the soil had been very easy to work, though it had taken her almost until dawn to accomplish the task. It would be several weeks before the earth would settle, but then the contractors would not arrive on the site until another month had passed, as they had a large number of commissions to fulfil. Joyce walked back to the house for a final check and then again toured the garden to see that everything was in order.
She noticed as she passed the spot where Robert lay that there was a slight mound of earth over the place. She tamped it down with one elegantly shod foot.
Her heart was light as she ran toward the front gate.
"Better dead!" she said.