Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

35

Darkness Descending

Christmas Day, eleven fifty-five a.m. Jerry looked out at the Scrabble board of frosted white fields of Hertfordshire and speculated about her meeting with Charles Whitstable. According to her father, when news reached him of the Whitstable murders, Charles left unfinished business overseas to return to England, only to be waylaid by urgent financial meetings. Still, he could hold the key to his family’s decimation.

Jack’s keenness to set her working in the family business negated any guilt she felt about deceiving her parents. She was determined to be present at the conclusion of the investigation, and she would uncover the meaning of her mother’s correspondence. A part of her life would be closed so that a new part could open.

Jack’s black Mercedes pulled up outside the gates, its exhaust purling clouds into the chill morning air. A young Indian boy appeared from the gate-lodge and spoke to Jack in clipped public-school English. He showed every sign of recognizing him.

A veil of wind-blasted trees parted as they turned into the drive to reveal the Georgian grandeur of Charles Whitstable’s estate. Her father turned and smiled reassuringly. “Quite a place, isn’t it?”

“It’s beautiful. Have you been here before?”

“No, but Charles often mentioned it.”

“How did you meet him?”

“We got talking at a lodge dinner years ago, and I helped him with some cotton imports. Of course he’s from a guild, and there’s no finer recommendation than that. But Charles is rarely here these days. He came back because this trouble with his family is adversely affecting his stock. He’s having to reassure his shareholders.”

“It sounds like he’s got his hands full. You’re sure he wants to see me?”

“I heard he was keen to find someone he could train up as an assistant. He’s not prepared to trust the job to an outsider. He’ll even consider a woman.” Jack winked. “It’s not just a man’s world any more. Your change of heart has come at the perfect time.”

This is the lion’s den, she thought, and they’re happily putting me in it. Her father turned off the engine and fidgeted with his tie. He had every reason to be nervous. Their meeting was as much for his benefit as her own.

The front door was opened by an attractive young Indian maid. She showed them into the breakfast room, where she said Mr Whitstable would presently join them, and silently withdrew.

They seated themselves within a cluttered treasure trove of Victoriana. The wallpaper featured rose sprigs tied with satin ribbon. Ebonized cane chairs were set about an oak gate-leg table. On a green velvet runner stood bronze animals, penwork chests in black and gold, elaborate rosewood boxes, and sentimental figurines of children and dogs. The atmosphere was smothering, the room unaired.

Neither of them spoke. A slow-ticking grandfather clock provided the only sound. After several minutes, Charles Whitstable entered.

He was tall, six feet three inches at least, imposingly broad-chested, in his late thirties. His conservative black suit and slicked dark hair provided an image somewhere between city stockbroker and lord of the manor, and he bore a natural air of authority.

“Geraldine. You’ve grown since I last saw you.” His handshake was firm and cold. Jerry smiled back and met his eye. This was the man who had once thought of her as a daughter? It was like meeting a stranger. He was deeply tanned, almost as if he was wearing stage make-up. There was an absolute stillness in his face that quickly became unnerving. Charles approached her father and welcomed him. “Jack, I’m sorry we’ve seen so little of each other. I’ve been meeting with investors, trying to calm their nerves. Liverpool is not to be recommended in the winter.”

He seated himself in one of the cane chairs. “Well, young lady, you’ve blazed quite a trail since we last met.” For a moment, Jerry feared her real motive in coming here had been discovered. “Let’s see – you dropped out of school and embarrassed your parents. You made yourself ill, took a spell in care, indulged yourself at the expense of those who clothed and fed you. You’ve been acting like a child for long enough.” Charles pressed a brass buzzer on his desk. “You’ll soon be eighteen, but why should I assume you’re ready to start behaving like a responsible adult?”

The maid appeared in the doorway, and Charles gestured to her. Jerry shifted uncomfortably on her chair.

“I appreciate your honesty, Mr Whitstable. I know only what I read about your family in the papers, so you have the advantage over me. My parents have long wanted to find me employment in family business.” She couldn’t resist a glance at Jack. “Father thinks that I can be of use to you, and I’m willing to learn.”

“You have no plans for university, Geraldine. You haven’t had a guild apprenticeship. What makes you assume you could handle our kind of managerial training?”

“Enterprise is served by individuality, not conformity. That rather makes me a Whitstable in spirit, if not in name.” She had cribbed that part from the CROWET brochure.

Charles Whitstable rose and walked to the floorlength windows that overlooked the estate’s misty grounds. “I need someone I can trust. There aren’t many younger members of our family left. Too few children.”

“I understand. You need someone with new ideas.”

“Exactly.” Charles turned from the window. “Jack, I think you can leave the two of us to chat for a while.”

“I should stay with Jerry,” said her father, half rising in his seat. In that fleeting moment, she saw the discomfort in his eyes. He was afraid of Charles. But why?

“That won’t be necessary. Come on, Jack, it’s Christmas Day. You should be with your wife. Jerry can stay for dinner and keep me company.”

“But there’s no public transport today…” Jack began.

“Then she can stay over. I’ll have one of the rooms aired. You can collect her in the morning.”

Even though they had yet to discuss her terms of employment, Jerry knew that she had been accepted into the poisoned embrace of the Whitstable family.

♦

Maggie Armitage lit a joss stick and set it in the nosehole of an African spirit head. “That’s better,” she said. “Get rid of the smell of damp in here.” They were standing in her front room above the World’s End pub, opposite Camden Town Tube station. The streets outside were as bright and empty as an abandoned film set. The windows of the flat were misted with condensation. Water dripped steadily through a black patch on the ceiling. A few faded postwar paper chains had been strung between the corners in a desultory attempt to usher in some Christmas cheer.

Maggie was only a little over five feet tall, but what the white witch lacked in height she made up for in vivacity. All problems, national, local, or personal, were dealt with in the same brisk, friendly manner. For all the complexity of her personal belief system she was a practical woman, and it was this streak of sound sense that had kept the Coven of St James the Elder alive at a time when so many other branches were shutting up shop.

With their ranks now swollen to include a number of part-time honorary members, meetings took place in the flat every Monday evening, and were concluded rather more raucously in the pub downstairs. Much of the coven’s work was of a mundane nature – inter-coven correspondence was dealt with, and a mimeographed newsletter was produced. Public queries had to be answered, a forum for the discussion of world events was chaired, and new excuses were invented for avoiding eviction notices.

“You’ve managed to hang on to this place, then.”

Bryant warily eyed the saturated ceiling.

“The landlord’s been trying to sling us out for years, but his heart isn’t in it any more,” said Maggie. “Especially since Doris put an evil enchantment on his car.”

“I thought you didn’t do that sort of thing.”

“Well,” she confided, “we don’t as a rule, but he was being a real pain in the arse.”

“Did it work?”

“I think so. Whenever he comes around to collect the rent he’s always half an hour late and his hands are covered in oil. Would you like one of my special Christmas cups of tea?”

“I don’t know,” said Bryant, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Is it full of strange herbs and aromatic spices?”

“No, Earl Grey with a shot of brandy.”

“Oh, that’s all right then.” He shifted a stack of magazines and seated himself. “Where’s everyone else?”

“We finished early with just a few madrigals because Maureen’s cooking her family Christmas dinner, which she’s against in principle, being a practising pagan. The others have gone downstairs to the pub. They’re busy arguing about the origins of Yggdrasil, the cosmic axis. Things can get quite heated.”

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar – ” Bryant began. “Well, you should be!” said Maggie, pouring a generous measure of Calvados into his cup. “It’s why we put presents under the Christmas tree. Yggdrasil is the eternal tree of Northern belief, the great natural core that links our world to heaven and hell. Decking the tree is an act which symbolically brings us the gifts of wisdom. And strangely enough, it has something to do with your investigation.”

Bryant couldn’t wait to hear this one. Maggie crossed the room, nimbly skirting a pair of buckets collecting rainwater, and removed a large volume from one of the overflowing bookcases. “I’ve been delving into your dilemma, and I believe I’ve come up with something.”

She set the book down on the table before her. “This is an album of Christmas beliefs, printed in Scandinavia at the end of the nineteenth century. After our last meeting I started thinking about your Mr Whitstable and his Stewards of Heaven. I couldn’t see what had inspired him to form this kind of society, although it didn’t surprise me one bit that he had.”

“It didn’t?”

“Oh, no. You have to imagine the Victorian empirebuilders as they were. Champions of industry, taming the savages, spreading the word. How grand they must have thought themselves! How godlike! People like James Whitstable saw themselves as superior human beings, educated, enlightened, and powerful. They wanted to separate themselves from the rabble, to have their worth acknowledged by their peers. And they sought methods of spiritual improvement. Sometimes, however, they got sidetracked into bad habits. These days one tends to dismiss the Victorian age as a time of mindless imperialism.

It comes as rather a shock to recall that the youthful Queen Victoria envisaged a new era of democracy, tolerance, and freedom for all. Things turned out differently due to the rigours of the class system, and because men like Whitstable put themselves above the common herd.

Power is about access, and private societies are designed to exclude.”

She opened the book at its mark and revealed a pair of graceful watercolour drawings. One was a traditional evocation of Saint Nicholas with his reindeer. The other was a representation of the god Odin, astride an eight-legged creature with horns. Both looked very similar.

The distance between these two mythical icons was far less than Bryant had realized.

“I felt it was significant that Whitstable saw himself as Och, the Bringer of Light. The group photograph reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think what it was. Then I remembered. The room in which the seven men were standing was decorated for Christmas. You could see holly lining the mantelpiece. Now, Christmas is a unique festival, originally celebrating not the birth of Christ but the rebirth of light following winter’s shortest, darkest day. Do you want a mince pie?” She shook a tin at Bryant that sounded as if it contained rocks. “Midwinter has always been regarded as a time of terrible danger. To primitive man, it must have seemed that the nights would continue to lengthen until darkness reigned continuously. The people of Britain sought to ward off this all-consuming darkness with rites and ceremonies, and have continued to do so for over five thousand years. What a relief it must have been for them to find the days lengthening again! What an excuse for a party! You probably know that the festival of Christmas celebrates this turning point; the triumph of light over darkness, and thus the victory of good over evil, Satan held at bay for another year. People whinge about Christmas becoming too commercial, but before heavenly choirs of angels made it so bland and solemn it was a marvelously rowdy pagan celebration.”

“And this has something to do with James Makepeace Whitstable?”

“Sorry, I thought I’d made myself clear. Let’s assume that the photograph of the Alliance of Eternal Light was taken at the end of December. The Winter Solstice is the twenty-first or twenty-second of December. You see?”

“Not at all,” admitted Bryant.

“Look at the pictures,” said Maggie patiently. “Saint Nicholas is a cleaned-up Christian version of the fearsome one-eyed pagan god Odin, the original ‘Old Nick’ Odin’s horse, Sleipnir, becomes Rudolph the reindeer. When was the first murder committed?”

“The sixth of December.”

“The feast day of Saint Nicholas. The first day of the battle between light and darkness. A battle that can’t end until the light starts to lengthen once more, after the twenty-second of December.” She closed the book and handed it to him. “I’m afraid your murders aren’t over yet.”

“But it’s Christmas Day. The days have already started to lengthen again.”

“Have they?” asked Maggie. “With the terrible weather we’ve been having in the past few weeks, we’re well below the seasonal average for hours of daylight. Instead, we’ve had more and more darkness. What about all the power cuts? The government isn’t giving in. They’re forecasting three hours of darkness every evening, and they reckon it will get worse. Perhaps the sacrifices aren’t working.”

“I can’t afford to believe that the world is descending into darkness because a secret society has failed to restore the daylight, Maggie. Next you’ll be trying to make me believe that there’s a chamber full of cloaked figures somewhere clutching knives at a sacrificial altar.” Bryant scratched at his unshaven chin, confused. “You’re assuming that Whitstable’s alliance is still active, but we’ve found no evidence of that. Why would they act now, after waiting so long?”

“Perhaps it’s some kind of anniversary.”

“No, the big one would surely be one hundred years. That’s not due yet. And you’re suggesting the alliance wages some kind of occult war by actually murdering people; if that were the case, they would surely be going after their true foes, the enemies of day and light. These deaths are occurring within their guild, not outside it. That means they’re attacking their own people, their own blood. Why would they deliberately hurt themselves?”

“I agree with you,” said Maggie reluctantly. “It doesn’t make sense. But a lot can happen in nearly a hundred years. The system has inverted itself somehow. Perhaps it’s not stoppable.”

“It’s killing them one by one, Maggie. If they knew the danger of such a society, don’t you think the Whitstables would try to expose it?”

“Perhaps they daren’t confide in the police. Perhaps they’re too scared of what might happen.”

Bryant thought of the uneasy silence that surrounded the mention of Charles Whitstable’s name. “Perhaps they know they can do nothing to halt it,” he said uneasily.