Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

15

Oubliette

The offices of Jacob & Marks smelled of age and affluence, oak and mahogany. John May, newly arrived in Norwich on a windy, ragged Thursday morning, found himself surrounded by the burnished parquet and marquetry of fine old wood, and smart young employees who hurried past sporting fashionably conservative suits. No wide lapels and patch pockets here. Legal firms of this calibre dealt only with large companies and old families. Shopkeepers, he had no doubt, were encouraged to go elsewhere.

May had been kept waiting in the law office for half an hour, and as the train’s buffet car had been missing due to the ongoing rail strike, he had so far made up for his lack of breakfast by consuming two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits.

Outside the sky was deep and turbulent, the colour of a summer sea, and leaf-churning eddies sucked at the windows, rattling the panes. May had forgotten the glory of the English countryside. Even in December, the verdant contours of low green hills appeared to offer a welcome.

But there was little call for the detective to visit the country. Much of May’s family had gone, and the few friends with whom he bothered to keep in touch were citybound. He took the odd trip to the south coast to visit his sister, but this pleasure was mitigated by the fact that she had three outrageously spoiled children to whom Uncle John represented a combination of cash register and climbing frame.

Bryant, of course, reacted to the idea of visiting any area beyond Finchley with a kind of theatrical horror. Whenever May suggested a trip to the countryside, his partner would convulse in a series of Kabuki-style grimaces meant to convey revulsion at the thought of so much fresh air and so many trees. The farthest Arthur ever traveled these days was Battersea Park, which his apartment overlooked. Bryant had been happy to leave this particular visit to his partner.

At five past ten, Leo Marks blew through the doors exhaling apologies, ushering May into his office while simultaneously firing off complex instructions to a pair of tough-looking secretaries.

The detective had expected to meet a much older man. Leo Marks appeared to be in his late twenties, although his excessive weight and dour dress had added years to his appearance. Seated opposite him, May found himself disconcerted by the fact that the grey pupils of the young lawyer’s eyes turned slightly outwards, so that it was hard to tell if he was looking directly ahead. After asking his secretaries to redirect his calls, he adopted a look of professional grief and turned his full attention to his visitor.

“We were terribly upset to hear of Max’s death,” he began in a measured tone. “It’s been awfully hard on Anne – ”

“His wife.”

“All this speculation in the papers has been having a terrible effect on her. There was talk of a snake attacking him – ”

“Somebody injected Max Jacob with a lethal amount of poison, a rare venom. One of our men found a hypodermic needle in the corridor beyond the washroom.”

“Someone should have told us, Mr May.”

“I’m afraid it only just turned up. It had been trodden into the carpet and missed in the earlier searches. Am I right in thinking that Max and your father were partners?”

“Actually, it was my great-grandfather who set up the firm with Max’s grandfather.”

“So your families have been close for a very long time.”

“We still are. There are loyalties here which go back well over a hundred years.”

“Does your father still work here?”

“Only part-time since his heart attack, although he hasn’t come in at all since Max died. It’s been a terrible blow for him. The worst thing is not knowing.”

“Not knowing who killed Max, or not knowing what he was doing in London?”

Leo Marks swiveled a look encompassing May. “I think I can tell you why he was visiting the city,” he said. May sat forward, waiting. “He had arranged to see Peter Whitstable.”

“Why would he do that? Peter’s sister told me that all financial arrangements were conducted through William. Surely Max would have informed his wife where he was going.”

“Well, it wouldn’t necessarily have been official business. Max and Peter were old friends, you see. They were all at Oxford together.”

“Was Max Jacob in the habit of taking off for London to visit the brothers without telling anyone?”

“Not really, but he had mentioned the idea of making the journey.”

“When was this?”

Leo turned back the pages of his diary. “The previous Thursday. That would have been on December second. He spoke to Peter several times during the course of that week. The brothers were having another argument.”

“You have no idea what they argued about?”

“No. But it wasn’t over money, I can tell you that.”

“How do you know?”

“Their finances are tied up from here. We acted as their stipendiaries, allowing each a set annual amount, the revenue from certain investments and so on. They were quite happy with the arrangement.”

“Who stands to benefit financially from their deaths?”

“No one, immediately. You have to understand that the Whitstable financial empire is so absurdly complex that half of the family beneficiaries won’t see a penny for years to come. I sometimes wonder if Dickens didn’t model the court case from Bleak House on them.”

In which case, we could blame the lawyers who set up the system in the first place, thought May. “What about Max Jacob?”

“That’s straightforward enough. His will appoints his wife Anne as his trustee.”

May checked through his notes, feeling as if his questions were leading him around in a circle. “I’ll be honest with you, Mr Marks…”

“Please, call me Leo.”

“The more I find out about the Whitstables, the less I understand them. The brothers were financially comfortable, established, settled in the most old-fashioned ways. I’m informed that they did nothing more adventurous than read the Daily Telegraph and listen to the radio. They bothered no one. They had once wielded influence in the City, but were no longer powerful men. Then one day, for no apparent reason, William commits an act of vandalism and subsequently explodes, while Peter gets an open razor across his throat. Concurrent with the first act, their family lawyer is injected with the venom of a watersnake, and finally their sister is paralysed with strychnine. Bombs and knives, poison and snakes. And all this Grand Guignol somehow leaves us without suspects.”

May leaned forward, carefully watching the young lawyer. “What on earth were these people hiding? They weren’t random victims; their deaths were carefully arranged, and must therefore serve a purpose. The killer can’t have been looking for some physical object. He’s shown no desire to search their homes. My partner thinks they’re acts of revenge, but I disagree. I think the goal is knowledge of some kind, knowledge that was also intimated to your father’s partner. Something so important and so secret that Max Jacob went down to London without even telling his wife where he was going.”

“I see your problem,” said Leo, not looking as if he could see much at all. “Could someone be trying to humiliate them by associating the family with scandal?”

There must be an easier way of humiliating people than blowing them all over the Northern Line, thought May, but sensibly kept the thought to himself.

“Tell me more about the Whitstables.”

Leo Marks massaged his florid jowls with the tips of his fingers. “They trace themselves back to the founding members of one of London’s finest craft guilds, as I’m sure you know.”

“The Goldsmiths, isn’t it?”

“Actually a subdivision, the Watchmakers’ Guild in Blackfriars Lane, although obviously there are strong affiliations with the Goldsmiths. There are still many such companies in existence, the Cordwainers, the Coopers, the Haberdashers, and so on, many of whom have their own boards, schools, trusts, and benevolent funds scattered throughout the capital. Inevitably, there are strong Masonic ties. Peter and William were both Masons. So was Max.”

“Is that common? Are there other Masons in the family?”

“Quite a few, I believe. The Whitstables made and lost fortunes through the decades, but I understand that the bulk of their present income derives from alliances forged in Victorian times…”

May shifted in his chair. His hopes of returning by a mid-morning train were fast disappearing. “I need to know much more about the family itself,” he explained. “Their businesses are presumably still active. Surely there are some younger members around?”

“A few, perhaps, but like so many old dynasties in today’s climate, the Whitstables are dying out. There was an unhealthy amount of intermarriage in earlier centuries, but I imagine the partial breakdown of the class system did the most damage. We do have a rather incomplete family tree for them, and some of their current addresses. I could let you have a photocopy.”

“That would be a great help.”

“You’ll have your work cut out if you’re planning to contact them all. Their last big population boom was a hundred years ago. Most of the grandchildren have long since married, divorced, or departed the country.”

“I still need to speak to as many of them as I can,” said May. With three members of the same family murdered there was no telling how many other lives were in danger.

“I understand.” Leo rose and summoned one of his sturdy young secretaries. “There was one other thing.” He pushed a red-leather appointment book across his desk. “On the day Max went down to London there were no engagements marked in his diary, but there was this.” He tapped his finger at the top of the page, where a number had been written: 216. “Does it help in any way?”

“Not that I can think of,” said May, who had already noted the doodle which encased the number. A burning flame, drawn in the exact same style of Peter Whitstable’s tattoo.

♦

“I never said they deserved to die,” exclaimed Arthur Bryant indignantly. “How dare you put such words into my mouth.”

“You more or less suggested as much,” said May, unrolling the Whitstable family tree and pinning it to the notice board beside his desk. Back in London the winter sky was the colour of gutter water, the clouds marshalling themselves around the damp buildings in preparation for another stormy assault.

“I merely said that I disapproved of the way the Whitstables made their money. The British upper crust exploited their colonies and destroyed the lives of their workers to preserve a status quo not worth clinging to. They deserve everything they get.”

“Including murder? I might remind you of your humanitarian oath at this point.” As he spoke, the two workmen who had entered the already overcrowded room a few minutes ago began to fire up an ancient blowtorch.

“What the hell are they doing?” May shouted above the din.

“I’m having the room returned to its original colours,” said Bryant brightly. “You saw the paint on the sill.”

“Do they have to do it right now?”

“If we don’t do it now, squire, we won’t be able to start until after Christmas,” said one of the workmen, shifting a crate to reach the window.

“We need to contact all the surviving relatives listed on the chart,” said May, attempting to concentrate on the business at hand.

“I’ve requested a source list for the strychnine,” said Bryant. “According to Land, the granular fineness is very unusual. That’s not the way it’s usually made commercially available.”

“Good. Janice has found a two-man team willing to check out the visiting members of the Australian Art Commission, and I’m afraid we need to make another appointment with Mr Faraday. It’s essential to pinpoint a connection between the deaths and the destruction of the painting, if there is one.”

Bryant walked over to the unfurled family tree. “Why did Max Jacob come here?” he wondered aloud. “What did Peter Whitstable tell him that was so important he had to drop everything and come to London? There’s some terrible principle at work, John. I can feel it. Everything’s out of alignment. There’s the cause and effect of each murder to consider.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you can usually see who a murder affects the most. But these crimes are free of motive and, more important, they have no real effect. They don’t change anything. How does Max Jacob’s murder benefit anyone? How on earth does Bella’s? Unnatural death is usually linked to sex and money. Why not in these cases? Take a look at this.” He tapped a name on the family tree. “Bella Whitstable never married. She’s the end of the line.”

“How many remaining family members are still living in this country?”

“There are certainly more than fifteen, possibly as many as thirty. Peter Whitstable had a wife who divorced him in the late sixties, so she’s not represented on the tree. There are two sons from the marriage, but they’re living abroad with an uncle. There’s also a Charles Whitstable living somewhere overseas. The rest are up here.”

“If Jacob looked after the fortunes of the whole family, it shouldn’t be hard finding a motive for his death.”

“Cherchez la femme,” said one of the workmen, wiping his hands on his blue overalls and relighting the blowtorch. “You can bet there’s always a woman involved.”

“Thank you very much,” said Bryant icily. “If we need your help, we’ll ask for it.”

“I reckon you could do with a hand, judging by what the papers are saying about you lot,” said the other workman.

“Perhaps you’d like to handle the investigation while we do the window frames.” Bryant turned to face the door, where Jerry waited awkwardly. The girl had wet shoulders and a pale, anxious face. She looked much younger than her seventeen years. “Could you possibly stop appearing like this?” he cried. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. Well, come in then,” he said, exasperated. “Have you got anyone else out there you’d like to bring in?”

“I brought you some evidence,” said Jerry, embarrassed to be speaking in front of the workmen, who had stopped tackling the paintwork and were watching the proceedings with fascination.

“What sort of evidence?” asked May.

Jerry withdrew the Bible from her jacket and set it on the desk.

May carefully opened the book and studied the flyleaf. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it in Mr Jacob’s room. The police missed it.”

“What were you doing in there?” Bryant asked. “Just having a look around.”

“And why do you think it’s of any interest to us?”

“There are some passages underlined,” she said. “They might mean something.”

“You mean you’ve been withholding evidence?”

“No,” she said indignantly, “I was looking around the room and – ”

“Suppose his murderer had been looking for this?” said Bryant. “You could have put your own life in danger. Did you stop to think of that?”

“No,” said Jerry, bowing her face. Suddenly Bryant saw how much of a toll her recent experiences had taken. She had knotted her pale hands over each other to keep them still. Death had unforeseen effects on the living. He wondered about the nature of the discovery it had brought to her.

♦

“She keeps turning up like some kind of awful wraith,” said Bryant as the squad car turned into another waterlogged avenue lined with sycamores. “She obviously has some kind of morbid fascination with this case. She’s starting to give me the creeps. I wish she’d smile occasionally.”

“You can’t blame her for wanting to be part of the investigation,” replied May. “The hand of Death has given her a good old shaking.”

“It can’t hurt, can it? You taking her around with you?”

“She’s bright enough, and I could do with the help. So long as we don’t let anyone else know.” May braked to a halt and killed the engine. The sound of rain continued to drum above their heads.

“If you need anything, you can call me on this number.” He handed his partner a slip of paper. “Or use your walkie-talkie.” Bryant reluctantly accepted the note and made a show of pocketing it as May watched him with suspicion.

“You haven’t got it, have you?” he said finally.

Bryant gave him a wide-eyed innocent look, and saw that it wasn’t going to work. “Er, no,” he admitted.

“What is the point of me providing you with a walkie-talkie if you don’t remember to bring it with you?”

“I put it in my jacket this morning,” Bryant explained earnestly, “but it, er, ruined the cut of the pocket.”

“What are you talking about?” May studied his partner, who had owned four secondhand suits in the last twenty years, all of them brown and shapeless. “You’ve lost it again, haven’t you?”

“Not lost, John, mislaid. Anyway, they don’t work properly.”

“Not the way you use them, filling them up with soup and fluff and bits of dinner.” May unclipped his own and passed it to his partner. “Take mine, I’ll get another. If you lose this one, you’re a dead man.”

Bryant climbed out of the car and watched as May drove away. Then he walked in the shadow of the dripping sycamores to the front door of Bella Whitstable’s house.

The property was situated in a pleasant part of suburban West London where only the company cars gave any hint of the area’s invasion by young professionals. Bella had rarely visited here in the past few years, preferring the peace of the country. Until recently she had allowed a lodger to stay rent-free in return for looking after the property.

Bryant pushed open a wrought-iron gate and crossed the overgrown garden. The sun, invisible during the course of the day, was making a faint embarrassed flourish through the fluctuating rain before dropping dismally behind the encroaching cloud of night.

When he had managed to fit a key to the front door lock, he entered the hall and tried the lights, but nothing happened. The electricity had already been turned off. He dug out a pocket torch and switched it on.

Bella’s house proved to be the opposite of her brothers’, decorated in a gloomy, spartan manner which suggested that the owner was little interested in comfort or the vagaries of fashion. These rooms were uncluttered by all but the simplest furniture, the walls adorned by a handful of sporting prints. Only the graceful decor of the bedroom upstairs gave any hint of warmth.

Wardrobes and cupboards proved mostly empty. A single unlabeled key lay beneath the lining paper in the empty chest of drawers. The belongings Bella Whitstable required for daily use were presumably stored at her house in the country.

Bryant shone his torch to the landing and up at the ceiling. There was no sign of a loft. He carefully descended to the ground floor again, pausing at the landing window to listen. Incredibly, it had begun to rain again. The sound suggested a long, dank winter filled with harsh saffron sunsets and flooded footpaths, the season of murder and suicide.

Bryant pulled his scarf tighter to his throat and shone the torch across a set of ugly Victorian hunting prints. For a brief second, his reflected face flared back at him. Perhaps there was a basement. Upon reaching the kitchen, he cast the torch beam across the walls, searching for a door.

He soon found it – a narrow wooden panel painted gloss white – but it was locked, and no key on his ring fitted the lock. Digging into his coat pocket he withdrew the unlabeled key from the bedroom and inserted it, turning the handle. The damp wood had swollen in its frame. Jerking it hard, he unstuck the door and peered inside.

Below him, a flight of stone steps led off into blackness. Beneath ground level, the temperature of the cellar was several degrees lower than in the rest of the house. There was an unhealthy, mushroomy smell.

As he descended, Bryant could see his breath condensing in the beam of the torch. Gardening equipment stood at one side of the steps. Behind the rakes and shovels were fence posts and bales of wire, presumably for use on Bella’s country property. Somewhere in front of him, water dripped steadily onto sodden wood. There was no such thing as a completely dry Victorian house in London.

The torch beam revealed the side of a large packing crate. Here were stacks of forgotten games that touched off childhood memories of his own: Lotto, Escalado, Flounders, Tell Me, Magic Robot. Setting down the torch, he reached in among ruptured teddy bears, grotesque china dolls with missing limbs and eyes, pandas and golliwogs with their stuffing protruding, and withdrew a sepia photograph in a mildewed frame of grey cardboard.

Three children stood arm in arm on a manicured lawn, tentatively smiling, as if they had been instructed to do so by an impatient parent. The girl, pale and heavyset, wore a lumpy linen frock decorated with large, unflattering bows. The two boys were older, and were dressed formally in suits and gaiters, adults in miniature. There was an air of melancholia about all three, as though the photograph had been taken during a brief moment of sunlight. Behind them, the ground floor of an imposing country residence could be glimpsed.

On the flyleaf of the frame was handwritten in violet ink: Will Whitstable, aged 11. Bella Whitstable, aged 8. Peter Whitstable, aged 13. Summer, 1928.

The portrait exhibited a lack of warmth that Bryant had so often found in photographs of the upper-middle classes. He pushed the picture into his pocket, aware that it might be of some future use.

Behind the crate was an identical box, filled to overflowing but harder to reach. The beam of his torch was dimming.

It was then that he heard the sound of shallow breathing in the dark beside him.

Someone, or something, had just woken up.

He must have disturbed a sleeping tramp. That was it, a tramp had gained entry to the house and had fallen asleep in the cellar. He swung the torch around and tried to trap the nearby figure in its barely visible beam, only to hear a rapid shift of movement to the far side of the room.

As the torch beam fluctuated once more, darkness pressed in. Bryant inched his way across the cellar floor. There was an odd, perfumed smell in this part of the room, a scent he associated with the hippies of the sixties. As he reached the stairs, he sensed the change in air pressure rather than hearing any movement; it was all that saved him from being knocked unconscious.

Armed with a wooden club of some kind, his assailant only succeeded in grazing his shoulder and thudding the weapon against the wall. His hand grabbed the detective’s coat, trying to pull him over. Bryant held tightly to the torch, shining its pulsing beam in his attacker’s face. Wide brown eyes stared back as the figure released a frightened cry. Bryant swung the torch hard and connected with flesh. The hand clutching his coat suddenly released its grip.

Bryant stumbled to the stairs and was halfway up when he was tackled from behind. This time, strong arms pulled his legs from under him. He felt himself falling, the torch beam flaring and whirling as he crashed over the steps into a pile of boxes. By the time he had righted himself, his attacker had climbed the stairs and slammed the door behind him, turning the key in the lock.

Bryant groaned, more in fury than in pain. He thumped the side of the torch, but the batteries were dead. Somewhere above a door slammed shut, then another. If he ever managed to get out, he would never live this down. No one knew he was here except May, and his partner was used to not hearing from him for days.

He pulled himself from his perch on top of the squashed boxes and felt in his pockets. Although he was a non-smoker, he always kept a light on him because of the name of the match company. Bryant & May were the bearers of illumination; it was an old joke, and one which still brought comfort. He removed the matchbox from his pocket and struck a light.

In the flare of the burning splinter he found himself sitting opposite a four-foot-high painting in an ornate gilt frame. He must have dislodged it from its packing crate as he had fallen.

Now the painting, in turn, began to topple forward. As it did so, in the moment before the match burned Bryant’s fingers, he saw the figure of a Roman emperor feeding his pigeons. The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius.

The sulphurous smell of the match filled his nostrils, and he was in darkness again. Bryant fumbled another from the box. Even in the flickering light that was afforded, he could see the signature: it was the mark of John William Waterhouse.