One Foot in the Grave Read Free Page B

which were proper to old age. The same cobweb had dangled from the ceiling for weeks; the carpet was worn; the lower light bulb had blown and not been replaced. … As far as he knew he was the only person who used the stairs, originally because the upward rush of the lifts drained his blood from his brain and caused him to black out, but later, as the plan took shape, in training for this one night. He put the training into practice—stick down, left leg down, shift grip on handrail, right leg down, stick down. …
    At the fringe of the near dark below the busted light bulb he stopped and looked at his watch again. Five minutes still before the man was due back—the unseen figure, known only by footsteps, whom Pibble had nicknamed the Liberator. Hamming self-confidence, he paced out of the dark, his shoes squeaking on the super-hygienic rubber stuff that covered this lower passage. At the kitchen door he hesitated. Because of the storm noises he hadn’t actually heard the kitchen staff leave, nor the Liberator’s first appearance to lock the outer door behind them. All seemed hushed. He opened the door, gave a tiny sigh of relief at seeing the expected darkness beyond, checked his bearings by the light from the passage, and walked in. Once the door was closed he shuffled through blackness until his stick rapped the leg of the big table. Now, as he’d expected, he could see the pale rectangle of the scullery door, outlined by the reflection of the floodlights from the low cloud layer. Still shuffling in case some stumbling block lay hidden in the floor-level darkness, he moved through the scullery. A jutting cupboard cast a patch of black. During his one reconnaissance visit—affable, dotardly, returning a fork which had somehow got missed from his breakfast tray—he had seen a tall stool standing in the niche. Yes. Perfect.
    As he inched his buttocks onto the stool, it tilted on some unevenness, only a bit, but enough to make him fling out a steadying arm. His hand rapped against something which itself began to move. Without orders the fingers clutched, caught, closing on a sticky mess. The thing or things stopped their slither and he detached his hand, holding it forward into the faint light, where it glistened with a long smear across the palm. Blood. Feeling into the wastebin at the little furrier’s. Hand easing down through the catlike caress of scraps till it touched a different sort of softness. Withdrawing it. Staring at the red smear. Sniffing the known reek. He sniffed at the mess, touched it with his tongue, smiled at the shock of sweetness and began to lick the mess clean. Raspberry jam and little suety crumbs. Jam-roll remains. Staff supper. Yes, he’d almost knocked over a pile of plates stacked ready for Mrs. Finsky to come and wash in the morning. That was part of the whole routine, listened for day after day and night after night, studied in the alteration of lights on the tiles of the kitchen courtyard below his window, smelt for, even … and now in three or four minutes the Liberator would come across the courtyard and unlock the outer door of the kitchen with a rattle of keys. The mortise and then the Yale. The door would open and the kitchen lights go on for a few seconds. There would come the snap of a big switch, the kitchen lights would go out a moment later. Then the man would leave, pulling the door shut behind him but not locking it. Six minutes later he would return, unlock the Yale, come in and lock up properly. Another switch would snap and the floodlights would go out. Then he would cross the kitchen and squeak out of hearing along the passage. …
    Six minutes during which the kitchen door was locked only with the Yale, and so could be opened from the inside without a key.
    Rest now. Gather energies. Hardest part still to come. Nearly there, though, nearly there. Deliberately he invited into his mind the retinue of nonsense. … There’s