The Detection Collection. Simon Brett

       THE PART-TIME JOB

      P.D. James

      By the time you read this I shall be dead. Dead for how long, of course, I cannot predict. I shall place this document in the strong room of my bank with instructions that it shall be sent to the daily newspaper with the largest circulation on the first working day after my funeral. My only regret is that I shan’t be alive to savour my retrospective triumph. But that is of small account. I savour it every day of my life. I shall have done the one thing I resolved to do when I was twelve years old – and the world will know it. And the world will be interested, make no mistake about that!

      I can tell you the precise date when I made up my mind that I would kill Keith Manston-Green. We were both pupils at St Chad’s School on the Surrey borders, he the only child of a wealthy businessman with a chain of garages, I from a more humble background, who would never have arrived at St Chad’s except for the help of a scholarship endowed by a former pupil and named after him. My six years from eleven to seventeen were years of hell. Keith Manston-Green was the school bully and I was his natural, almost inevitable victim: a scholarship boy, timid, undersized, bespectacled, who never spoke of his parents, was never visited at half-term, wore a uniform that was obviously second hand and was, like the runt of the litter, destined to be trampled on. For six years during term-time I woke every morning in fear. The masters – some of them at least – must have known what was happening, but it seemed to me they were part of the conspiracy. And Manston-Green was clever. There were never any obvious bruises, the torment was subtler than that.

      He was clever in other ways too. Sometimes he would admit me temporarily into his circle of sycophants, give me sweets, share his tuck, stick up for me against the other boys, giving hope to me that all this signalled a change. But there never was a change. There’s no point in my reciting the details of his ingenuities. It is enough to say that at six o’clock in the evening on the fifteenth of February 1932, when I was twelve years old, I made a solemn vow: one day I would kill Keith Manston-Green. That vow kept me going for the next five years of torment and remained with me, as strong as when it was first made, through all the years that followed. It may seem odd to you, reading this after my death, that killing Manston-Green should be a lifelong obsession. Surely even childhood cruelty is forgotten at last, or at least put out of mind. But not that cruelty; not my mind. In destroying my childhood, Manston-Green had made me what I am. I knew, too, that if I forgot that childish oath I would die bitter with regret and self-humiliation. I was in no hurry, but it was something I had to do.

      My father had inherited the family business on the fringes of London’s East End. He was a locksmith and taught me the trade. The shop was bombed in the war killing both my parents, but government money compensated for the loss. The house and the shop were rebuilt and I started again. The shop wasn’t the only thing I inherited from that secretive, obsessive and unhappy man. Like my father, I too had a part-time job.

      Through all the years I kept track of Keith Manston-Green. I could, of course, have received regular news of him by placing my name on the distribution list for the annual magazine of St Chad’s Old Boys Society, but that seemed to me unwise. I wanted St Chad’s to forget I had ever existed. I would rely on my own researches. It wasn’t difficult. Manston-Green, like me, had inherited the family business and, motoring through Surrey, I would note every garage I passed which bore his name. I had no difficulty, either, in finding out where he lived. Waiting for my Morris Minor to be filled, I would occasionally say, ‘There seems to be quite a number of Manston-Green garages in this part of the world. Is it a private company or something?’

      Sometimes the answer would be ‘Search me, Guv, haven’t a clue.’ But other times I got a nugget of information to add to my store.

      ‘Yeah, it’s still owned by the family. Keith Manston-Green. Lives outside Stonebridge.’ After that it was only a question of consulting the local telephone directory and finding the house.

      It was the kind of house I would have expected. A new red-brick monstrosity with gables and mock Tudor beams, a large garage attached which could take up to four cars, a wide drive and a high privet hedge for privacy, all enclosed in a red-brick wall. A board on the wall said in mock antique script, Manston Lodge.

      I wasn’t in any particular hurry to kill him. What was important was to make sure that the deed was done without suspicion settling on me and, if possible, that the first attempt was successful. It was one of my constant pleasures, scheming over possible methods. But I knew that this mental anticipation could be dangerously self-indulgent. There would come a moment when planning, however satisfying, must give way to action.

      When the war broke out in 1939 my fear, greater than that of the bombing, was that Manston-Green would be killed. The thought that he would die in action and be remembered as a hero was intolerable, but I need not have worried. He joined the RAF, but not as a flier. Those coveted wings were never stitched above the breast pocket of his uniform. He was a Wingless Wonder, as I believed the RAF called them. I think he had something to do with equipment or maintenance and he must have been effective. He ended as a wing commander, and naturally he kept the rank in civilian life. His sycophants called him the Wingco – and how he revelled in it.

      It was in 1953 that I decided to begin taking active steps towards his elimination. The shop was modestly successful and I had a manager and an assistant, both reliable. My part-time job was an excuse for short absences and I could confidently leave them in charge. I began making short visits to Stonebridge, a prosperous town on the fringes of the commuter belt where my enemy lived. Perhaps the words ‘held court’ would be more appropriate. He was a member of the local council and of one or two charitable trusts, the kind that confer prestige rather than making unwelcome financial demands, and he was captain of the golf club. Oh yes indeed, he was the ‘Wingco’, strutting about the clubhouse as he must once have strutted in the Mess.

      By then I had discovered quite a lot about Keith Manston-Green. He had divorced his wife, who had left him taking their two children, and was now married to Shirley May, twelve years his junior. But it was his captaincy of the Stonebridge Golf Club that gave me an idea how I could get close to him.

      I could tell within five minutes of entering the clubhouse that the place reeked of petty suburban snobbery. They didn’t actually say that no Jews or blacks were permitted but I could tell that there was a set of clearly understood conventions designed to enable the members to feel superior to all but the chosen few, most of them successful local businessmen. However, they were as keen on increasing their income as were less snobbish enterprises and it was possible to pay green fees and enjoy a round, either alone or with a partner if one could find one, and to take lessons from the pro. I gave a false name, of course, and paid always in cash. I was exactly the kind of interloper that no one took much notice of. Certainly no one evinced any desire to partner me. I would have my lesson, drink a solitary beer and quietly depart. The undersized, ordinary-looking, bespectacled boy had grown into an undersized, ordinary-looking, bespectacled man. I had grown a moustache but there was otherwise little change. I had no fear that Manston-Green would recognise me but, taking no risks, I kept well out of his way.

      And did I recognise Manston-Green when I first saw him after so many years? How could I fail to do so? He too