A Very Good Hater Read online

  A Very Good Hater

  Reginald Hill

  ‘Hatred alone is immortal … We revenge injuries; we repay benefits with ingratitude … We hate old friends; we hate old books: we hate old opinions; and at last we come to hate ourselves.’

  WILLIAM HAZLITT

  ‘Dear Bathurst was a man to my very heart’s content: he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a whig: he was a very good hater.’

  SAMUEL JOHNSON

  Part One

  1963

  CHAPTER I

  ‘THERE HE IS!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Coming out of the lift.’

  Goldsmith looked with growing disbelief at the four passengers stepping smartly from the lift as though afraid the doors were going to close and crush them.

  Unless there had been surgery involving age, or height, or sex, Templewood must mean the man in the light grey suit. He was nearly six feet tall, and had a rather longer than military moustache, greying hair to match his clothing and the air of confidence possessed only by the monied or the criminal classes. He looked about fifty and had kept himself in trim or knew a good corsetière.

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Goldsmith relaxed for the first time in twenty-four hours.

  ‘You’re joking!’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  “Then you’ve bloody well flipped. Him? Just look at him! A man can’t change that much.’

  Templewood was unperturbed.

  ‘Twenty years does a lot. Here. Remember this?’

  He produced from his wallet a dog-eared photograph. Five soldiers grinned broadly at the camera. Goldsmith looked from the young man at the left of the group to Templewood who parodied the snapshot grin.

  ‘I can tell it’s you,’ he protested.

  ‘That’s because you know it’s me and because I don’t mind you knowing. You see me once a year at the reunion and I bet each year you think Christ! he’s changed. I’ll tell you something, Billy boy. I couldn’t tell this was you if I didn’t know.’

  His forefinger flicked the boy in the middle of the group.

  ‘I was only eighteen. Unformed. He was a grown man.’

  ‘Listen, Billy, I haven’t brought you here because I’m certain. I’ve brought you to help check out a suspicion, that’s all. When I’m certain, I’ll know what to do.’

  He glanced sharply at Goldsmith from under the luxuriantly bushy brows which he used to claim were partly responsible for his success with women. They all want to have their tit-ends brushed with these, he used to boast in the barrackroom darkness. Goldsmith, only a year younger by age but ten by experience, had listened to the stories with excited envy. What saved Templewood from being just another sexual braggart was an element of self-deprecation in his make-up; he salted his triumphs with tales of failure and fiasco which at the same time confirmed his unthinking assurance in his own virility.

  ‘Is that what’s bothering you, Billy? What to do if it is him?’

  Goldsmith shook his head.

  ‘I just can’t see a single point of resemblance, that’s all.’

  ‘Good. I hope you’re right, I really do. Because it bothers me, Billy. I’m too old to want to start killing people.’

  They sat in silence now for a few minutes. They were in the entrance lounge of the Kirriemuir, one of the old hotels in the vicinity of Russell Square. The man in the grey suit had paused at the reception desk to pick up an evening paper, then made his way into the cocktail bar. Through the glass door they could see him perched on a stool reading his paper and taking occasional sips from a sherry glass.

  ‘All right, ‘Tempy,’ said Goldsmith. ‘I’ve seen him. And I’m bloody glad I was coming down for the reunion at the weekend anyway! What made you ring?’

  The phone call had come the previous evening. He had not recognized Templewood’s voice at first and the man had been so excited that he hadn’t paused to give his name.

  ‘I’ve seen him!’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Hebbel! Look, I’m not sure, but it could be. Can you come down?’

  ‘Tempy? Is that you?’

  ‘Who the hell do you think? Listen, Billy. I’m in town. I came down early, thought I’d do a bit of business before Saturday. Well, I was wandering along Regent Street about tea-time when I saw him, just a glimpse, reflected in a shop window. I tell you, I nearly shit myself. Christ! Hebbel! I thought. It was just something about the way he moved, the angle of his head. For a second I was dead certain, but when I got a good look at the fellow … look, Billy, can you get down tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean … Hebbel! In London? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Sense or not, I can’t rest till I know. You’d be coming down for the reunion on Saturday anyway, wouldn’t you? What’s two days?’

  ‘I suppose I could. But … look, Tempy, what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Just take a look at him. I followed him. He’s staying at the Kirriemuir Hotel. Listen, where do you get your train from? Leeds, isn’t it? OK. I’ll be at Kings Cross to meet the first train from Leeds after ten o’clock.’

  And that had been that, Goldsmith had phoned Timkins, the manager of the car-hire firm for which he worked, and had met with no opposition to his request for two days off. The end of September was a relatively slack period. But in any case, he was determined to go. He had spent a restless night, his brief moments of sleep full of marching feet and the chatter of machine-gun fire, and by the time he reached London the following day, he had been ready to see Templewood accompanied by Sturmbannführer Nikolaus Hebbel resplendent in full SS uniform.

  Instead they had to wait until evening.

  And for this!

  ‘What made you ring?’ He had to repeat the question.

  Templewood looked very tired. There had been an aura of nervous excitement about him all day, but now it had died and he sat like a spent runner. A loser.

  ‘I was just so certain,’ he answered. ‘On the phone I said I wasn’t, but I was. I followed him back here, right up to his room. Then I managed to check with the book. He’s registered as Neil Housman. The same initials. That seemed to clinch it. I was hoping you’d take one look and say, that’s him! But you didn’t. Looking at him now, I don’t blame you! Christ, it’s probably just the reunion being so near. You know how your mind starts going back over things. Perhaps I’m just a bit obsessed.’

  He laughed, not very successfully.

  Goldsmith shook his head wonderingly.

  ‘Here in London! I mean, Buenos Aires perhaps; but London!’

  ‘I worked it all out. It seemed so obvious. If I were a bright SS Major, what would I do when I saw how the war was going? Not quite powerful enough or influential enough to have the aeroplane or the submarine booked for South America, I might just pick on some enemy POW with the same physical characteristics and no close next-of-kin and get myself conveyed to the last country on earth anyone would be looking for me. A bit of loot stashed away in a nice German cave ready to be picked up on my continental holiday a few years after the war ended. It makes a good story, you must admit. But hell, looking at him now, I just don’t know.’

  They stared through the glass doorway into the bar. The man called Housman was talking with the barman, waving his left hand to emphasize some point.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, Billy,’ said Templewood. ‘Come on. I’ll buy you a dinner to compensate.’

  ‘Hold on a second,’ said Goldsmith. Strangely, now that Templewood seemed willing to concede that he had made an absurd mistake, Goldsmith found himself looking much more critically at Housman, no longer just contrasting him with the uniformed figure of twenty years earlier, but now trying to f
ill that figure out, give it a moustache, lengthen and grizzle its hair. That gesture with the left hand … how accurate could memory be? The things we imagine we remember best are those we bring to mind most frequently and are therefore most likely to have embellished or embroidered.

  Housman picked up his glass in his left hand and finished his sherry. With a cheerful wave to the barman, he rose from his stool and made for the door.

  ‘Hebbel was left-handed,’ said Goldsmith. It was half a question.

  ‘Was he?’ Templewood examined his own hands as an aide-memoire. The top knuckle of the middle finger on his right hand was missing, a deformity which he assured his friends had unimaginable erotic advantages. When he’s ninety, someone in the barracks had said with envious admiration, Tempy will use his crutches.

  ‘Yes, I think he was.’ He sounded unimpressed. ‘Shall we move?’

  Housman came out of the bar and headed for the toilet.

  ‘I won’t be a sec,’ said Goldsmith. He rose and followed Housman.

  The bright strip-lighting glinted back from sea-green tiles. He stood a polite distance from Housman and pretended to urinate. It was difficult to take a close look at the man in such a position without drawing attention to himself, and he had the old working-class fear of being thought queer. But when Housman filled a wash-basin and began meticulously to cleanse his hands, it was possible to examine him fairly closely through the mirror.

  He had a long, strong-boned face, good very white teeth and his eyes were dark-blue almost to blackness. Nothing there which helped one way or another. The general structure matched Hebbels, but then, thought Goldsmith looking at his own deep-lined wind-and-sun-tanned face, so does mine. Housman’s teeth he suspected were expensively false, which would be the kind of efficient disposal of a possible source of identification he would expect from Hebbel. The eyes were a darker blue than he recalled. But memory could deceive. Or such things might change. Or nowadays you could get tinted contact lenses if you had the money to pay.

  Housman did not look as if he were short of cash. His clothes were elegantly cut and the gold wrist-watch and signet ring he had removed while washing his hands looked as if they had cost a couple of months of Goldsmith’s salary.

  It was the man’s hands which Goldsmith now focused on. He watched them intertwining, flexing, rubbing together under the hot-air dryer. The noise from the machine was a deep and somehow disturbing hum. It was like (or was his mind again creating memories?) the noise from the generator plant which day and night seemed to fill the air of the Waffen SS camp near the Normandy village of Anet. As he watched the man’s hands rubbing together, the noise seemed to fill his mind and set his whole body vibrating in harmony.

  Suddenly it stopped. The silence left Goldsmith almost paralysed. Housman turned, picked up his watch and ring and put them on. He nodded at Goldsmith, moved away, paused uncertainly and said, ‘Are you all right?’

  The voice had a strangely husky timbre, as though a second rate impressionist was ‘doing’ Paul Robeson.

  ‘Yes, thanks. Fine,’ said Goldsmith brusquely.

  ‘Good,’ said Housman with a smile and left.

  A few moments later Goldsmith rejoined Templewood.

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘In to dinner. Us too, I think. But not here. I’ve found a rather nice little trattoria in Dean Street. That suit you?’

  ‘If you like,’ said Goldsmith shortly. He was usually amused by the veneer of urbanity his companion had collected since the war. Tonight it seemed shoddily pretentious.

  The walk through the night air improved his spirits, and as he listened to Templewood ordering their meal with serious expertise, he was able to be amused once more. Did this new sophistication of technique mean that Templewood’s powers had improved or declined since the days when he claimed that if he couldn’t have a girl up against a wall in ten minutes, she was no use to him?

  ‘Now, for antipasto, how does funghi acciugati al forno grab you?’

  ‘Come on, Tempy. You’re not seducing me. Practise in your own time.’

  ‘But I am paying,’ protested Templewood humorously.

  ‘In that case I’ll have another scotch.’

  The waiter left and the two men sipped their drinks.

  ‘Well?’ said Templewood finally.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve been gnawing away at something since we left the hotel. Spit it out.’

  ‘It’s most unlikely that he’s Hebbel.’

  ‘All right. I agree. I’ve said I’m sorry.’

  ‘But it’d be silly not to make sure.’

  Templewood was re-arranging the cutlery on the table top like a retired general demonstrating strategy.

  ‘You think you spotted a resemblance too?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I’m very suggestible. That’s why I’m going to be eating chunks of soft plastic with Technicolour sauce in a moment. No. I didn’t spot a resemblance. But I watched his hands and I felt frightened.’

  That’s what I felt when I first spotted him in Regent Street,’ said Templewood excitedly. ‘But it’s not much.’

  ‘No. He spoke to me in the bog.’

  ‘You took a chance, didn’t you?’

  ‘What of? Like you say, I’ve changed beyond recognition. But his voice was interesting.’

  ‘You recognized it?’ asked Templewood, raising his heavy eyebrows.

  ‘Of course not. It was just that he sounded as if he had laryngitis, that’s all.’

  ‘And what do you think Hebbel would sound like after eighteen years in England?’ asked Templewood.

  The waiter appeared with plates of what looked like toadstool caps crossed by snail spoors. He rearranged the cutlery dramatically and left.

  ‘Suppose the million-to-one chance came off,’ said Goldsmith abruptly. ‘What then?’

  ‘It’d be our duty to turn him in,’ said Templewood with a humourless smile. ‘Let the law take its course. He’d probably get five or six years.’

  He turned over one of the hemispheres on his plate. It smelt quite appetizing.

  ‘They don’t seem so keen on killing people nowadays,’ he continued. ‘It’s against the trend. We might have to make a minority report.’

  ‘How do we start checking?’ said Goldsmith.

  ‘I got his address from the register,’ said Templewood, suddenly businesslike. ‘He lives up in your part of the world, just outside Sheffield. One of us had better do some checking there. I mean, if the place is full of his childhood friends, then we can pull down the shutters straightaway. Shall I look after that? I’ve got the car with me and I can drive there tomorrow, get back for the reunion on Saturday night. OK?’

  ‘Fine. Shouldn’t I come with you? Two of us could cover the ground much quicker. And I’ve got the accent.’

  Templewood thought for a moment.

  ‘No. It’d be better to keep an eye on him here too. See what he gets up to, what his business is.’

  ‘Things haven’t changed,’ said Goldsmith ironically. ‘You on the truck, me marching along the roadway with my knapsack on my back.’

  ‘You got the medal,’ said Templewood. ‘And if it turns out to be Hebbel, I’ll let you slide the first knife in. Now eat your food and don’t leave any crusts, there’s a good boy.’

  CHAPTER II

  FRIDAY MORNING started with farce.

  Housman came out of the Kirriemuir at nine-thirty sharp. He was wearing a dark brown suit and carrying a document case.

  Goldsmith felt absurdly conspicuous lurking in the doorway of a block of flats opposite the hotel. The temptation he found was to ham it up, to play the part of the private eye in an old American movie. He had been there for an hour and a half, his head swathed in a morning paper, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

  Now he folded the paper under his arm, ground his last cigarette beneath his heel and prepared for action.

  Across the street Housman stepped into a taxi. Twenty seconds later
it was out of sight.

  Goldsmith had wondered if this might happen, had been unable to think of any way of counteracting it and was now left stranded with nowhere to go. Except the hotel.

  He walked swiftly up to the desk.

  ‘Mr Housman, please.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s just left, sir,’ said the receptionist.

  ‘Damn. Look, did he say where he was going? It’s important.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Hold on a minute, though.’

  She went through into the small room behind the desk which housed the hotel exchange and returned with a note-pad.

  ‘He left a number he can be reached at this morning in case there were any calls for him here.’

  ‘May I?’ said Goldsmith, taking the pad. Quickly he jotted down the number. There was a public telephone cubicle opposite the desk and he went into this and dialled.

  ‘Amberson and Lockhart, can I help you?’ said a woman’s voice.

  ‘Sorry. I must have the wrong number,’ said Goldsmith. He replaced the receiver, picked up the first volume of ‘the telephone directory and thumbed through the pages. Amberson and Lockhart turned out to be merchant bankers with an address his London A to Z told him was just off Moorgate in the City.

  He made his way there by tube. There was no reason to hurry. It seemed unlikely that Housman was just paying a brief visit to the bank. His deduction turned out to be all too true and even his dawdling journey there did not prevent him from having to hang about for over two hours before he saw his man again. Fortunately it was a fine warm September day, but Goldsmith had long decided that the profession of detective was grossly over-glamourized when Housman finally emerged. He looked relieved to be out in the fresh air and headed west on foot. His destination was a small very unpretentious restaurant. Goldsmith peered through the door as though looking for somebody and saw Housman shaking hands with a thin bald-headed man already seated at a table. The place was quite full, but they looked settled, so Goldsmith decided to abandon his quarry for half an hour while he too got something to eat in a nearby pub. He thought of abandoning the chase permanently, but one-thirty saw him hanging around once more, waiting for Housman to reappear. After lunch the two men shook hands on the pavement and separated. Housman looked very pleased with himself and walked with the bouncy step of one who has put work behind him and now anticipates the rewards of pleasure. He strode smartly along Moorgate to Finsbury Square, where he turned off the main thoroughfare and at the same brisk pace made his way along streets whose names Goldsmith did not know. He began to fear that he had been spotted and that his quarry was merely testing him. At the same time the absurdity of his situation struck him. How could he explain following a complete stranger for miles through the streets of London? Perhaps Housman would recall their encounter in the hotel loo the previous evening. He dropped back to a distance of more than a hundred yards. Ahead, Housman turned right and Goldsmith accelerated once more, but when he reached the corner, the man had disappeared.