Bryant & May 01; Full Dark House

∨ Full Dark House ∧

60

THE MOON IN A BOX

Biddle pulled a Woodbine from behind his ear and kept his eyes on Elspeth Wynter as he dug around for a light. He didn’t like the look of her. Panic was flickering in her eyes. She was searching for a way out. From the street outside came the familiar whine of the siren mounted on the roof of St Anne’s Church. For a moment he thought she was going to drop in her tracks.

“It’s all right, Mrs Wynter, our lads will find your son. Everything’s going to be fine.” It was the reassurance everyone gave each other throughout the war.

“He’s very strong,” she warned. “I feel a little faint. Do you mind if I sit down over there, where it’s cooler?”

“Here.” He took her arm and helped her to the stool in the boxoffice booth. “They timed the raid well tonight. The show’s just turning out.”

Behind them, the ushers opened the auditorium doors as the sound of applause billowed into the foyer. Moments later, they were engulfed by members of the audience, leaving quickly to obey the warning of the air-raid siren. Biddle took his eyes off her for only a second. When he looked back at the booth, Elspeth Wynter had gone.

♦

“John, where are you?” called Bryant. “Shine your torch.” He heard a strangled grunt in the dark. Water was dripping somewhere.

“Over here.” May was coughing, trying to catch his breath. He grappled for the Valiant and pointed its beam up once more. Bryant saw that he was sitting beside the mouth of the artesian well. He limped over and joined May at the glistening ring of stone.

“Down there.” May shone the torch over the side and saw Todd hanging by one claw-like hand from the slippery green brickwork.

“Good Lord, look how deep it is.” Bryant got onto his knees and leaned as far over the well mouth as he dared. “Todd, give us your hand. We can get you out of there.” He turned to May. “You’re taller than me, you can reach further.”

The boy was shaking his head rhythmically, scraping the damaged skin of his forehead along the brickwork until a dark caul of blood veiled his eyes. “No,” he called up. “I come from deep inside the Palace. This is where I belong. I see the stars from the skylight, lying up on the grid, just under the roof. The moon is always in a box, and the box is only full of tricks. I want something to be real. Death is real.”

As the detectives cried out in unison, Todd opened the fingers of his left hand and dropped down the centre of the well, a fall of almost seventy feet before he hit the black water below. There was nothing either of them could do. For a moment they lost him from view. Then they turned the torch on the distant oily surface until it settled once more into an unbroken mirror, the remaining effect of a vanishing act.

♦

Biddle pushed through the crowds, shoving his way out of the congested theatre foyer. His one chance to make good, to do something positive, and he had messed up. He threw his cigarette aside and looked around desperately as the theatregoers began making their way towards the shelters. There was no sense of urgency on the street, no rush or panic. Couples crowded the narrow pavement outside the Palace as ARP wardens directed them to the nearest shelter. He couldn’t see her. There were people everywhere. As Biddle searched the faces, the detectives arrived beside him.

“Where’s Elspeth?” asked Bryant, wheezing badly. “What have you done with her?”

“It’s my fault,” Biddle admitted. “She ran out as the stalls started emptying into the hall. My eyes were off her only for a second.” He looked at Bryant’s dirt-covered clothes. “What happened to you?”

“We have to find her, Sidney.”

“She can’t have got far. Here, give us a hand up.” Biddle leaned on the detective’s shoulders and hoisted himself onto the edge of a stone horse trough. On the other side of Cambridge Circus he saw the back of a woman in a brown cardigan and skirt, fleeing in the direction of the British Museum. “I can see her. Come on.”

The detectives lost precious seconds extricating themselves from the crowds. When they managed to catch sight of Elspeth Wynter again, she was running blindly across the intersection beside the Shaftesbury Theatre.

“Where’s she heading?” asked Biddle.

From somewhere near the river came the dull drone of a bomber squadron.

“Out,” said Bryant, “just out into the open, away from the theatre, but the more open it gets, the more frightened she’ll be.”

They were fifty yards behind her when she turned into Museum Street and froze, standing in the middle of the road, looking up.

Overhead, the thick grey clouds had parted to reveal a midnightblue sky glittering with stars as bright and sharp as knives. As the gap grew larger, the oval of the moon appeared, flooding the street with silvered light.

Bryant, May and Biddle came to a stop some way back, amazed by the sight of the buildings’ dark recesses melting away beneath the lunar brightness. “She’s reached it,” said Bryant, “she’s reached the light. If she can survive this, she’ll be free.”

“She’s still going to gaol,” said Biddle indignantly.

“Freedom will be inside her head.”

They could hear Elspeth sobbing in awe and relief as she looked up, transfixed by the quiescence of the moon. The droning of the bombers was fading now, growing quieter and quieter until the four of them were standing in unshadowed silence.

Bryant knew he could not compete with the world that beckoned to her. He watched as she took a faltering step away from him, then another. Part of him wanted Elspeth to run and keep on running, until she was liberated from the city’s life-crushing influence, free to live a normal life. Go, he thought, don’t look back. Whatever you do, keep going.

“Look, are we just going to stand here and let her get away?” asked Biddle impatiently.

“No, I suppose not,” said Bryant with a sigh as they walked forward. “Elspeth,” he called gently. “Please. Let us help you.”

She stopped in her tracks and looked back over her shoulder with sad deliberation. She saw Bryant and held his eye, unable to move any further, and in that moment she was lost.

Up ahead there was a muffled thump, and the road vibrated sharply beneath their feet.

“What the bloody hell was that?” asked Biddle.

Elspeth had heard the noise too.

“Oh no,” was all Bryant managed to say before the two-storey front of the antiquarian bookshop lazily divorced itself from the rest of the terrace and fell forward in an explosion of dust and bricks.

As the airborne sediment settled, they saw the neat rooms inside the bookshop exposed like a child’s cutaway drawing. The building’s frontage lay collapsed across the road, virtually unbroken. As a fresh wind picked up, the entire street was scattered with the pages of rare books. Colour plates of herons, butterflies, monkeys, warriors and emperors drifted lazily past them. There were diamond shards of glass everywhere. The detectives’ clothes were pincushioned with sparkling slivers.

“Bloody hell,” said Biddle, scratching his head in wonder.

Of Elspeth Wynter, there was no sign at all.