∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧
8
Horology
The familiarity didn’t lessen the fear.
Soles slapped on familiar cobbles, slipping and splashing in shallow puddles. Breath came in ragged gasps as the figure vanished around each corner, tantalizingly out of reach. Once again she was running through high-walled alleyways, the flickering lantern held aloft, illuminating the sweating brickwork.
Again, she found herself stopping dead in her tracks. He was turning now, laughing, wanting to be recognized. His arms were coated with blood, as if they had been plunged into a terrible wound.
And Jerry was awake, the pillow saturated in sweat, the house silent around her. In the corner of the room, a nightlight glowed. The alarm clock beside her bed read four thirty-five a.m. Gwen and Jack were asleep at the end of the corridor. She groped for the light switch, knowing that only brightness could dispel the chill touch of the dream.
She had returned home late to find that Gwen had left a glass of chilled white wine with her plated meal. It was the first time her mother had ever done that. Perhaps it was a gesture to show that she understood her daughter was growing up, even if she refused to allow her to leave home.
Jerry knew she meant well. It was a fact that made Gwen harder to dislike. Angry with her mother’s underhand tactics, Jerry had deliberately slammed around in an attempt to waken the house, but no one had appeared to reprimand her. Her mother was contemptuous of her need for a nightlight, and refused to accept the reality of her fears. Her solution was to book extra therapy sessions. Jerry’s father would explain his position on the subject by launching into one of his stories that began, “During the war…” During the war he could turn a Chieftain tank on a threepenny bit in pitch darkness with blackout curtains tied around it. Or something equally boring and stupid.
Back then, he would explain, nobody was afraid of the dark. Men were decent God-fearing chums who kept their chins up and their lips stiff whenever the Hun forced their backs against the wall. Not any more, though, judging by the way Jack instantly obeyed his wife’s every command. Gwen ruled the house with an iron fist in a Dior glove.
Jerry sat up and flattened her unruly hair. She wished Joseph was staying at the house. She had enjoyed their evening together. After the play, he had taken her for something to eat, and they had squashed in beside each other in a dingy Spanish restaurant, watching the red wax drip from the chianti bottle while they made loud small talk above thundering guitar music.
Joseph had graduated from college with a portfolio of designs that were about to be realized in the grandest way imaginable. His work had been chosen over hundreds of designs from other young hopefuls. Jerry had talked as little about herself as possible, painting a picture of domestic ease with her parents. She explained that she was temping in the receptionist’s job until she could start art college. For a brief moment, as she watched the candlelight leaping in his brown eyes, the thought crossed her mind that he wanted to be with her all night. But the moment passed and they parted awkwardly on the steps of Waterloo Bridge, and she supposed that tomorrow the status quo of guest and employee would be restored. A pity; she liked him because he was everything she wasn’t. There was something appealingly insolent about him, in the way he swung his arms as he walked, in the sunny, careless looks he threw at strangers. She was sick of being surrounded by men her mother approved as acceptable role models. It was time to choose her own friends.
The thought of Joseph dissolved her nightmares into harmless light. She knew now that she could find untroubled sleep with such a guardian angel to invigilate her dreams.
♦
“You’re in early. Couldn’t sleep? Sign of a guilty conscience.”
May hung up his overcoat and took a look around the office. His new roommate had been hard at work. Over a dozen crates of books had been unpacked. The shelves now groaned with forbidding procedural volumes, psychotherapy manuals, and medical texts. There was a particularly nasty-looking plant on the window ledge, possibly the remains of a diseased aspidistra. Bryant looked pale and out of sorts. He was trying to lever open the main window by wedging the tip of a screwdriver beneath the lintel.
“I don’t sleep much any more,” he said, cracking a spray of paint chips from the window frame. “I don’t want to waste time by being unconscious. It’s not every day a suspect explodes on you. Have you seen today’s papers? It’s been a godsend to the gutter press. They were all preparing features on Princess Anne’s wedding gifts when this landed in their laps. Now they can start running hate columns on the IRA again. If I catch any of those weasels near my witnesses there’ll be hell to pay. Give me a hand with this window.”
The press wasn’t the cause of Bryant’s anger, and May knew it. He had seen this mood too many times before. “You couldn’t have prevented his death, Arthur. Nobody knew he was carrying an incendiary device.” Together they shoved at the window until it burst open in a cloud of dust and dried paint.
“Are you sure it was a bomb?” asked Bryant. “Four witnesses saw a sudden ball of flame appear at Whitstable’s midriff. What kind of explosive can kill a man in a halffull railway carriage without injuring anyone else? First his lawyer, and now him. Tell me it’s a coincidence if you dare. What else have you got on Jacob?”
May pulled out a handful of papers. “Some scuff marks by the sinks in the Savoy toilet that the cleaners managed to miss, looks like Kiwi brand boot polish from Jacob’s right shoe. The pattern of marks will most likely confirm that he was attacked there. Some tiny scraps of linen at the site of the scuffle, a standard Indian blend, possibly from a pocket lining. No fibre match with Jacob’s clothing. One thing – the cottonmouth venom doesn’t have to come from a live snake. It maintains its potency, which means that it could simply have been injected from a syringe into his neck.”
“There were two puncture holes, like snake fangs.”
“Perhaps the murderer tried to get the needle in once, and Jacob struggled so much that he had to jab it in again.”
“But he’d been rendered unconscious before the administration of the poison.”
May raised his hands in exasperation. “Then maybe the killer wanted it to look like a snake had attacked his victim.”
“Why would he do that?” asked Bryant doggedly. “Snakes aren’t exactly a common sight in England.”
“As for the rest of the findings, take a look at the headlines. The press seems to know as much as we do. The guard on Peter Whitstable will keep the journalists at bay for the time being.” May frowned in annoyance. “Why do you want the window open, anyway? It’s freezing outside.”
“I didn’t want it open,” replied Bryant testily. “I wanted the option of having it open. There are about twenty layers of paint on the frame. It’s like seaside rock.” He pointed at the crate blocking May’s path to his desk. “That’s the last one I have to unpack.”
May knew that his partner would not settle to a comfortable work pace until he had made the new office his own in some way. He reached down into the opened crate and pulled up a bony brown object inlaid with silver. Turquoise gems returned sight to its eyeless sockets. “Where on earth did you get this?” he asked, turning it over in his hand.
“A friend of mine brought it back from Tibet,” explained Bryant. “It’s an engraved human skull. So long as the Chinese government is systematically destroying Tibetan culture, it stays on the shelf to remind me of the evil and injustice in the world.”
“You only have to take a look at the overnight crime figures to be reminded of that,” said May, holding the skull at arm’s length. “It smells terrible.”
“I don’t think they emptied out the brain cavity properly.”
May watched his partner as he carefully unwrapped a china figurine, a woman dancing in a delicate green dress, and placed it on his desk. It was strange being part of a team again. Arthur wasn’t looking so steady on his feet these days. He seemed to be ageing at a faster rate than everyone else.
“Who’s interviewing the brother, you or I?”
“I’ll take Peter Whitstable,” said Bryant. “He’s a major, fully decorated and highly respected. Let’s hope he’s capable of providing an explanation for his sibling’s behaviour. They’re all inbred, you know. Old families never strayed far from the family seat to marry. You can always tell; their eyes are too close together and they like folk music.”
Sergeant Longbright entered the room with a small plastic bag in one hand. Her shift had finished four hours late, at three a.m. Thick make-up hid the crescents beneath her eyes.
“I’m sorry you were pulled in on your day off, Janice,” said May. “Raymond Land is worried that this investigation will get too much of a public profile. He’s canceled all leave for the foreseeable future.”
“That’s okay, I was only sleeping.” If she was annoyed, she had no intention of showing it. She dropped the bag on May’s desk and displayed its tag. “Land came by a few minutes ago and left this for you.” She sniffed the air. “What’s that awful smell?”
“You’ll have to talk to Mr Bryant about that. Wasn’t there a message with it?” May held the bag to the light. Tiny metal shards glittered within, like crystal formations.
“He said he’d call once you’d had a chance to examine it.”
“Is Land based here full time?” asked Bryant.
“I’m afraid so, old bean. He has the office right at the end of the hall.” Raymond Land was a reasonably talented forensic scientist, but his meticulous manner and air of superiority did little to endear him to his colleagues. He was particularly irritated by Bryant, whose elliptical, unorthodox approach to investigations infuriated him. Land had been chasing promotion for some time, and had been appointed acting head of the PCU, a position he had most definitely not wanted.
May unzipped the plastic bag and carefully shook out its contents. He separated the curving slivers of gold with his forefinger. “What do you make of this, Arthur?”
Bryant searched in his drawer for a magnifier and approached the metal splinters. “Looks like old gold. Victorian, I should say. Much purer than the stuff you buy these days. Quite red, and very soft. There are some markings…” He slid one of the pieces beneath the magnifier and turned up the light. “Roman numerals. Calibrations of some kind? I’ve seen something like this before.”
“Could be pieces of a pendant,” suggested May.
“No, it’s something more technical. One of these fragments isn’t gold. Looks like good-quality silver.” He turned the metal over in his hand. “There’s a tiny hinge on one side. It’s the lid of an enamel container.” The telephone rang. “That’ll be Land. He’s been sitting at his desk timing you.”
“Well, John, what do you think?” asked Land, speaking too loudly into the mouthpiece.
“I’m not sure. Where did you get it?”
“Finch removed the pieces from your man, the exploded Whitstable. They weren’t inside his stomach to begin with; the force of the blast drove them in. I assume it’s part of the bomb casing.”
“Tell him it’s not,” said Bryant in a loud stage whisper. He held one of the gold shards between his thumb and forefinger. “Give me the phone.”
May passed the receiver over.
“Hello?” Bryant shouted back. “This is from a small gold clock. The kind made for a presentation.”
“That’s ridiculous,” replied Land. “You don’t build a bomb out of precious metals.”
“Why not? Craftsmen of the nineteenth century inlaid everything with elaborate metalwork.”
“It’s 1973, Bryant,” snapped Land.
“I’m aware of that. Still, I’d like you to spectrum-test the shards for chemical residue.”
“I really don’t see what use – ”
“No, but I do,” said Bryant rudely. “If you would be so kind.” He hung up.
“I won’t have many friends left around here by the time you’ve finished,” said May. “Let’s find out if Peter Whitstable has anything more to say.” They had taken a statement from the Major immediately after his brother’s death, but he had been too upset to be of help to them. Now it was time for some answers.