Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

48

Bringing Back the Day

“You bitch, you knew all along.”

“Geraldine, whatever else you may think, I am still your mother, and you have no right – no right at all – to talk to me that way.”

They were facing each other across the parlour like a pair of evenly matched actresses in a stage melodrama. Gwen was even poised with a whisky in one hand. God only knew where Jack was, presumably sulking in his study, still smarting from his daughter’s success with Charles Whitstable.

Jerry was operating on pure adrenaline. With the past suddenly clear to her, it seemed that her life had been building to this moment. “You always knew,” she seethed.

“This is quite uncalled for.” Gwen threw back the Scotch and reached for the decanter with an unsteady hand. “I don’t know why you’re behaving like this.”

“I was convinced I was ill, abnormal, incurable, and all the time it wasn’t me at all.” Jerry took a step forward. She feared she might rush at her mother if she moved any closer. “He said he wanted a daughter. You farmed me out to him. I remember it all now, so you don’t have to pretend any more. I used to arrive with you at his apartment. It was you who took me, not Jack. You left me there. That’s when he started the hypnotherapy, gently putting me to sleep. Did he ever tell you what he did?”

“Geraldine, you have to believe me, I was horrified when I found out – ”

“I remember his hands crawling all over me. He used a blindfold, did he tell you that part? He said it was a game.” She was hysterical now, shouting at the top of her voice.

“He never – had intercourse – with you.”

“He would have if you hadn’t found out when you did.”

“I arrived early one afternoon to collect you. The door was open, so I walked in. Charles had – his hands were inside your skirt. You were asleep, you couldn’t possibly have known what was going on. I think he’d given you Valium, just a little pill. I started hitting him, screaming at him. He admitted he’d done it several times before. He blindfolded you because he was ashamed of his actions. He couldn’t look at you, but he couldn’t stop himself. He promised you wouldn’t remember anything.”

“All I remember was being touched in the dark. All the bullshit you fed me about my nyctophobia! It wasn’t fear of darkness.” No wonder she had barricaded herself from Nicholas, and fled from Joseph’s room. No wonder she had frozen at Charles’s touch.

“I just wanted what was best for you,” said her mother. “We had your welfare to consider. If I had gone to the police, the scandal would have made all our lives hell.”

“So you helped him to cover it up. Then you let me go back there, even though you knew the truth. How could you do that? Knowing what he’d wanted to do?”

“You have no idea what he was like.” The tremor in Gwen’s voice was a declaration of damage. “No idea. He knew my position with Jack and he used it.” She refilled her glass with unsteady hands. “He’s a very forceful man. I threatened to go to the police, but he persuaded me not to. He said he would help your father’s business. I refused to let him see you again. He said he couldn’t help himself. What could I do? He was highly thought of; he knew royalty. He would have lost everything if the scandal had come out. I felt so ashamed.”

She wiped her eye with the back of her hand, pacing back to the drinks cabinet. “When your father and I met, Jack was a different man. Full of energy, exciting to be with. Then he lost interest in me. He lost his drive, his ambition.”

“You knocked it out of him.”

“He said he no longer saw the point of wanting to improve our social standing. He was offered a directorship with one of the finest guild companies in Britain and he turned it down! I turned to Charles for help, and then his foolish, weak mistake cost us everything. After finding him with you, I thought I had the upper hand. I didn’t, of course. He just carried on, talking his way around me. I found myself doing anything I could just to keep him quiet, to keep him from harming us.”

“Jack must really despise you,” Jerry said viciously. “No wonder he keeps your letters in his desk drawer.”

“What letters?” Gwen threw her glass back on the cabinet counter with a crack. Whisky splashed on the floor. “The notes you and Charles sent each other. When he couldn’t call the house. Jack found them, and he saved them. It’s his proof, you see. It’s how he keeps his hatred of you alive.”

Gwen was crying now, smearing her lipstick with the heel of her hand. “I just wanted the best for us all. I should have made you my priority. But it was my life, too.”

“And now you have nothing.”

Jerry turned from the room and closed the door as her mother sank into the corner chair with her face in her hands.

♦

The Royal Free Hospital was one of the few buildings in North London with any electricity that night, and shone like a fog-smeared beacon as they approached it. The hospital’s emergency generators had taken over, and the patients and nurses could be seen at the windows moving through a sickly half light.

Two squad cars had already arrived in the visitor’s car park before them. Both were empty. May slipped into the Mini’s driving seat.

“If everything’s all right here,” Bryant called, walking backwards towards the main entrance to the hospital, “I’ll join you up at the house.”

“Good luck.” May started to reverse the Mini out of the forecourt. Bryant was about to enter the main foyer of the hospital when his partner reappeared.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bryant, startled. “On second thoughts, we’ll do this together,” May said. “I don’t want anything happening to you.” He alighted from the car with his head tilted, straining to listen. “Can you hear something funny?”

“Don’t let your imagination run away with you.” Bryant was about to head inside when he heard the noise himself. Someone was banging on the glass above them. As they looked up there was a loud crack, like the shot from a gun.

Spears of glass showered down as the body fell, its scream mingling with shouts of horror from the room behind the burst window, six floors up.

The figure in white hospital garb hit the ground headfirst as the detectives jumped aside. The sound of flesh and bone impacting on concrete was like no other on earth. The victim lay before them, the body arched into a position that could only be possible if its spine had been fractured.

Almost at once, the police began to arrive at ground level. One junior constable turned white and vomited. Sergeant Longbright came running across the foyer.

“He bluffed his way into the room, Sir,” she told Bryant, trying to catch her breath. “He was wearing a doctor’s coat and walked right past the night nurse. We arrived just after, and that constable there,” she pointed to the one being sick, “walked into the room to find him strangling the life out of the patient with a length of wire. We were just in time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bryant, looking over at the corpse.

“Peggy Harmsworth started to come out of the coma a couple of hours ago. She’s going to be all right. That’s the man who tried to kill her.”

“My God,” said Bryant. “If the first thing she saw when she woke up was someone throttling her, it’s surprising she didn’t go right back into a coma. What happened then?”

“He ran at the window before anyone could stop him, went through head first. Why would he do that?”

“Just obeying orders, Janice,” said Bryant, patting her on the shoulder. “Let’s get to Christian Whitstable and his daughter.” He made for the hospital entrance, dragging May in his wake. “There are more like him on the way. We have no idea how many.”

In the corridors of the fifth floor, dim emergency lights dragged at their shadows. The hall ahead was deserted and silent. Longbright slowed to a walk. “I don’t understand,” she began, alarmed. “I left a detail of men to guard Peggy’s room. They were here just a few minutes ago.”

“Which is Christian Whitstable’s ward?”

“He and his daughter are in a separate room, the last door on the left.”

Bryant, May, and Longbright approached as swiftly and quietly as they could manage. Bryant was the first to arrive. The door was wide open. In the half light he saw Christian Whitstable, up and out of bed, warning him back. As he walked further into the room, he saw the reason why.

“He has my daughter,” said Christian, never moving his eyes from the white-coated figure in a paper face mask, standing against the far wall of the room. Two other officers stood impotently nearby. Flora Whitstable was held close against the masked figure’s leg, a rubbergloved hand fastened across her mouth, a scalpel shining at her pale throat.

“All right, nobody move an inch,” said Bryant quietly, holding up his hands. “He has nothing to lose. He must fulfill his obligation or die.”

The killer had no interest in his victim. Like his accomplice, he was performing a task against his will; paying off a debt of honour that demanded the ultimate payment of a taken life.

How many of these assassins had struggled with their consciences? It explained why Daisy Whitstable had been spared. What a terrible dilemma her killer must have faced. Unable to comprehend why such a young life had been targeted for termination, he must have known that sparing the girl would place his own life in danger.

Did the man standing before Bryant have any idea of the complex forces that had brought him to this spot tonight? Was he prepared to complete his task with a clear conscience, like Bella Whitstable’s murderer? Or was he suffering the uncomprehending agony of being here?

“I know you don’t want to harm the girl,” said Bryant gently. “We know all about the duty you’ve been instructed to perform. If you let her go, I promise to help you.”

The killer took a step towards them. The hand tightened, the blade touched Flora’s neck. Bryant could hear the assassin moaning softly behind his face mask.

“Listen to me,” Bryant said, standing motionless. “You were supposed to finish the job after the tiger failed to do so. Neither of these two must be allowed to live. Am I right? Just nod once if I’m right. I won’t come any closer.” He raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “Please, just nod your head. Show us that you understand.”

Reluctantly, the assassin gave a slight nod.

“Put down the knife,” said Bryant. “Your orders are no longer valid. There’s been a mistake. You don’t have to do this now. I know the burden you’re under, and I want to relieve you of it. I believe you are a man of honour. Terrible things are happening around us. You don’t have to do this any more; I beg you, let us help.”

As they watched, the eyes above the mask glossed and spilled, and the man began to tremble, the pressure of the moment racking his body, tearing at his soul. Flora darted forward as the knife clattered to the floor. Longbright stepped in with the other officers and took control.

“Give the black bastard what’s coming to him,” said Christian Whitstable, wrecking the moment.

Before anyone could move, the tormented assassin fell to the floor with a terrible guttural wail, overcome with shame.

♦

“We have to get to the safe house before we lose any more.” Bryant hitched his raincoat about him. They had returned to the hospital forecourt, which had been sectioned off with makeshift barriers. The lights were still out in the streets, and the rain was falling in soaking waves. This was no time to think of himself. Without knowing how many assassins were on their way to the Hampstead house, everyone was in danger.

May looked back at the hospital as he climbed into the Mini.

“Let’s bring back the daylight,” he said.