Bloodhounds

Chapter Two

The Church of St. Michael with St. Paul, built just before Queen Victoria came to the throne, stands at the point where Broad Street meets Walcot Street, close to the Podium and the Post Office. The writer John Haddon in his Portrait of Bath described it as "a good eye-stopper," a summing-up that is difficult to better. The spire is one of the tallest in the city. The south front, necessarily slender because of the tapered piece of ground it occupies, is said to have been inspired by Salisbury Cathedral. Unhappily Salisbury Cathedral doesn't sit well in the center of Bath. Narrow lancet windows, buttresses, and pinnacles do not blend easily with Georgian or mock-Georgian pediments and columns. The nicest thing that has happened to St. Michael's in recent years is that the stone cleaners were called in. A century and a half of grime has been removed, and now the color of the building matches adjacent buildings even if the architecture does not.

At ten to eight on a rainy October evening a woman in a yellow PVC raincoat approached from Broad Street, taking care to block her view of most of the building with her umbrella. The scale of St. Michael's intimidated Shirley-Ann Miller. She was not a churchgoer. The only time she had braved the inside of a church in the past ten years was for a Nigel Kennedy recital at Christchurch during the Festival some years back. The adolescent crush she'd had on the punk violinist had lasted well into her twenties. This evening she was drawn by another enthusiasm, and it had to be a strong pull to get her here, for the meeting was to take place in the crypt.

The main doors to the church were locked. Shirley-Ann toured the outside searching for another entrance, doubts growing as to whether she had been misinformed. On the Walcot Street side she found a set of descending steps behind railings. She took off her glasses and wiped them dry, looking for some kind of notice. At the bottom of the steps was an archtopped door that definitely led under floor level. She released the catch on the umbrella and gave it a shake, took a deep breath, and stepped down.

Prepared for flagstones, cobwebs, and tombs, she was reassured to find that the way into the crypt was clean and well lit. There were doors leading off a short corridor, and she could hear voices from the room at the end.

She always felt nervous meeting people for the first time, but that had to be overcome. She pushed open the glass door to her right and stepped inside. It was like a private health center, warm, light and carpeted, with not a coffin in sight. The cream-colored walls had travel posters. Everything was so immaculate that she was concerned about marking the oatmeal carpet with her wet shoes.

The man and woman she had overheard stopped speaking and stared at her. To Shirley-Ann in her jittery state, the woman appeared a dragon empress, sixtyish, with a broad, powdered face with emerald-green eye shadow that toned with her peacock-blue high-necked oriental dress. Jade earrings. Heavily varnished nails. The rest of her was more European; permed blond hair and fleshy orange lips pursed in disdain.

The man was as awesome in his way as the woman. His black beard looked as if it came from a joke shop; it didn't match the silver hair on his head. Shirley-Ann found herself wondering if the beard was attached to his red-framed glasses, and if the whole thing lifted off in one piece.

Since neither of these people spoke, she introduced herself.

They just stared back, so she felt compelled to announce, "I do hope I'm not in the wrong place. Are you the Bloodhounds of Bath?"

How toe-curling it sounded.

The man didn't answer directly, but said, "Do you want to become a member, then?"

"I was told there might be room for me. I adore detective stories."

"I wouldn't admit to that if I were you." He cautioned her as if he were giving legal advice. "Some of the group won't be at all happy with such an admission. We have to define our tastes most scrupulously. You would be better advised-if you must give anything away at this stage-to say that you are a student of the crime novel, wouldn't she, Miss Chilmark?"

The dragon empress twitched her mouth and said nothing.

The man went on, "The term crime novel embraces so much more than the old-fashioned detective story." He took a measured look at the stone pillars of the crypt. "We're a broad church here."

Shirley-Ann realized that this last remark was meant to be witty. She managed a semistifled laugh, and then said, "I didn't mean just detective stories."

"What did you mean?" he asked.

She was beginning to think she had made a ghastly mistake coming here. "I said the first thing that came into my head."

"Not always wise. Should we call you Miss, Mrs. or Ms.?"

"I'd prefer you to use my first name, if that's all right."

"Perfectly all right with me," the man said in a more friendly tone. "I'm known to everyone as Milo. I don't much care for my surname. It's Motion, and I was called deplorable things at prep school. On the other hand, Miss Chilmark is always addressed as… Miss Chilmark."

Miss Chilmark explained in a voice that might have announced the programs in the early days of television, "There have been Chilmarks in the West Country for seven hundred years. I'm not ashamed of my surname."

"How many are there in the group?" Shirley-Ann asked. It had to be asked. If there weren't any others, she wasn't staying.

"The Bloodhounds? We're down to six. Seven, if you join," Milo informed her. "We've had a goodly number over the years, but they don't all persevere. Some die, some leave the district, and some are out of their depth. Are you well informed about the genre?"

"The what?"

"The crime fiction genre. What do you read?"

"Oh, just about everything," said Shirley-Ann, not wishing anyone to think she was out of her depth. She felt marginally more comfortable knowing that there were other Bloodhounds than these two. "I devour them. I've been through everything in the library and I have to go round charity shops for more. I'm always looking for new titles."

"Yes, but what are they? Whodunits? Police procedurals? Psychological thrillers?"

"All of those, all the time. Plus courtroom dramas, private eyes, espionage, historicals."

"And you like them all?" asked Milo dubiously.

"I read them all, even the dreadful ones. It's a compulsion, I think. I like them better if they're well written, of course."

"It sounds as if you could contribute something to the group," he said.

"Why not?" she said generously. "I have hundreds to spare."

Milo felt the beard as if to check that it was still attached and said, "I meant a contribution of opinions, not books. We're not all so catholic in our reading. We tend to specialize."

Miss Chilmark was moved to say, "Personally, I require some intellectual challenge, and I don't mean an impossible plot set in a country house between the wars. Have you read The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco?"

Shirley-Ann nodded.

She wasn't given time to say any more.

"A masterly book," Miss Chilmark enthused. "Full of wonderful things. Such atmosphere. Such learning. What a brilliant concept, placing a murder mystery in a medieval monastery. And the mystery-so intriguing that you don't want it to end! A map, a labyrinth, a distorting mirror, and brilliant deductions. Of course everyone else has climbed on the bandwagon since. These stories that you see everywhere, about the monk in Shrewsbury-"

"Brother Cadfael?" said Shirley-Ann.

"That's the one. Transparently inspired by Eco's great work."

"I think you could be mistaken there," Shirley-Ann gently pointed out. "The first Cadfael book, A Morbid Taste for Bones, appeared some years before The Name of the Rose. I know, because I read it when I was recovering from my appendix operation, in 1977. The Name of the Rose came out in 1983, the year I got a frozen shoulder."

"That can be agony," said Milo.

"Oh, but I'm sure it was available in the Italian," said Miss Chilmark with a superior smile.

"I should check your facts before you take her on," Milo muttered.

Shirley-Ann said no more about Brother Cadfael, but she had privately vowed to find the truth of it at the first opportunity.

There was a timely interruption. Another of the Bloodhounds came in, unfastened the silk scarf from her head-it looked like a Liberty design-and shook her hair. Blond and short, this was hair of the springy, loose-curled kind that needed no combing to look neatly groomed.

Shirley-Ann's hand automatically moved to her own head to tidy the crow's nest she knew was there. Hers would never cooperate.

Milo introduced the newcomer. "This is Jessica, our expert on the female investigator. Give her a chance and she'll reel off all their names."

"Lovely!" Shirley-Ann was relieved to discover that the Bloodhounds weren't all over sixty. "Let me try some. V. I. Warshawski, Kinsey Milhone, Sharon McCone, Jenny Cain."

"Let's hear it for the Brits," countered Jessica with a wide smile. "Cordelia Gray, Jemima Shore, Anna Lee, Penny Wanawake, Kate.. Kate… Val McDermid's character, em… Oh, what's my brain doing?"

"Kate Brannigan," Shirley-Ann said almost apologetically.

"You read McDermid?"

"She reads everything, apparently," said Milo without spite. "She's going to keep us very well informed. I'm extremely wary of disclosing my special interest in such company."

The remark, and the arch way it was said, caused Shirley-Ann to wonder if Milo was gay.

Jessica removed her black Burberry raincoat and dropped it on a table at the side of the room. She was dressed dramatically in a black top and leggings, with a white satin sash. "Where's the chair?"

Milo looked puzzled, and no wonder, since ten padded chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room.

"Chairperson," Jessica explained. "Polly."

"Late for once," said Milo. "And so is Rupert."

"Rupert is always late," said Miss Chilmark. "I'm quite willing to take the chair for the time being if you wish to begin." She strutted across to the circle and sat down.

"That one would love to take over," Milo confided to Shirley-Ann. "It's her ambition."

Jessica said, "Let's give Polly a few more minutes. She'll be all flustered if she thinks she held us up."

"Which is why we should start, in my opinion," said Miss Chilmark from the circle.

No one else moved to join her, and that seemed to settle the matter.

Jessica asked nobody in particular, "Is Sid here? Oh, yes."

To Shirley-Ann's amazement a man in a fawn raincoat confirmed his presence by stepping into view from behind a pillar and lifting a hand in a gesture that might have been intended as a friendly wave, except that the outstretched fingers and the startled eyes behind them suggested Sid was warding off a banshee attack. He must have been in the crypt before she arrived. He said nothing, no one took any more notice, and Shirley-Ann felt rather embarrassed for him.

"You must be local. Am I right?" Jessica inquired of Shirley-Ann in the charmingly assertive tone cultivated English women use to show that they ignore certain things.

"We have a flat in Russell Street," Shirley-Ann answered. "That is, Bert-my partner-has the flat. We've been together almost six months. He's local, born and bred in Bath. I'm afraid I'm not. I only arrived in the city last year."

"Don't apologize for that, my dear," said Jessica.

"Well, I do feel slightly ashamed among people who have been here for years. You see, I work with one of the bus companies, on their tours."

"You're a guide, and you only came last year!" said Jessica with a peal of laughter. "Good luck to you. Where are you from? You sound like a Londoner."

"Islington, originally."

"And your partner's a Bathonian. Well, you'll get all the gossip on the city from him, I expect. What does he do?" She was drawing out the information in a way no one could object to.

"Bert? He works at the Sports and Leisure Center. He's often out in the evenings, so the Bloodhounds would fit in quite nicely for me-if you'll have me. Who runs it?"

Milo pitched in. "We're totally informal," he claimed, though the evidence so far suggested otherwise. "Two or three of us-that is to say, Polly Wycherley, Tom Parry-Morgan (now dead, poor fellow) and I-discovered a mutual interest in crime fiction through a dinner at the Pump Room a few years back, when the writer P. D. James was one of the speakers. We happened to be sharing a table, you see. Polly is one of life's organizers, as you will discover, and she made sure that we all met again. Periodically we've been traced to our lair by other Bloodhounds."

"That's how you join," added Jessica.

"Now I understand the name," said Shirley-Ann. "And is there a fee?"

"We chip in enough to cover the hire of the room," said Milo. "We used to meet in pubs at the beginning, but some of the ladies decided a meeting room would be more civilized."

"That isn't true," Miss Chilmark called across from the chair. "We were asked to meet somewhere else after Rupert misbehaved himself in the Roman Bar at the Francis."

"We could have gone to another pub," said Milo.

"You know it would have been the same story."

The information-gathering had not been entirely one-sided. Shirley-Ann did some mental addition and realized that she now knew something about all the Bloodhounds. Six, Milo had said. Three women: Polly, the Chair, famous for her organizing skills, but liable to be flustered if late; the Eco devotee, Miss Chilmark, ambitious to take over; and Jessica, the expert on the female private eyes. She was grateful for Jessica. And the men: Milo, probably a civil servant by his pedantic manner, and possibly gay; Sid, who hid; and Rupert, who misbehaved in pubs. Good thing she hadn't come here to look for male companionship.

"Rupert's all right," Jessica told her. "I think it's mostly role-play with him. He claims to have met all sorts of famous people. But he stops us from getting too stuffy and parochial. He's deeply into what he calls 'Crime Noir'-authors like James Ellroy and Jonathan Kellerman."

"Will he be coming tonight?"

"I expect so, but not before we start. He likes to make an entrance."

Shirley-Ann wasn't yet convinced that she would tolerate Rupert as blithely as Jessica did.

A voice from the door said, "So sorry, everyone. What will you think of me? I dropped my car keys down a drain, and I've been trying to hook them up for the past twenty minutes." It had to be Polly Wycherley, and the poor dear was flushed with the experience, or her embarrassment. Her breathing sounded asthmatic. She raised the average age of the group closer to sixty, but there was a reassuring softness and mobility in her features. Short, chunky, silver-haired and wearing a pale green Dannimac coat, she was Shirley-Ann's idea of a favorite aunt.

"Did you get them back?" Milo asked.

"Yes-thanks to a kindhearted taxi driver who saw me on my knees by the side of the road. It happens quite often, apparently. Not to me, I mean." Dimples of amusement appeared in her cheeks. "I could tell you what to do if it happens to you, but I've wasted enough time already. Listen everyone, I've got to wash my hands. Why don't you begin without me?"

"Good suggestion," said Miss Chilmark. "Sit down, ladies and gentlemen."

"We can wait a few more minutes," said Jessica quickly.

"Yes, let's wait," Milo chipped in.

Miss Chilmark's eyes narrowed, but she said no more.

"What's the program tonight?" Shirley-Ann asked Milo.

"I'm not sure. We leave that up to Polly. We're not too rigid about the way we run it. One thing you should be prepared for: We take turns to talk about a book we enjoyed recently."

"Don't you dare mention The Name of the Rose," murmured Jessica.

"I hope I don't have to go through some initiation rite."

Milo's eyes sparkled. "A secret ceremony?"

Jessica said, "Black candles and a skull? What's that club that writers belong to? The Detection Club."

Polly reappeared, and there was a general move toward the circle of chairs. The Bloodhounds didn't look as if they went in for secret ceremonies.