The Medici Mirror

by Melissa Bailey

  I shook my head.

  ‘He was known as the Fabergé of footwear. The Empress of Iran ordered over a hundred pairs of his shoes a year.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘And Charles Jourdan. Know him?’

  I nodded. I remembered his name from the conversation I’d had a few weeks earlier with Ophelia. Thinking of that, my mind began to fill with images of truncated legs. A second later it flitted to the nightmare I’d had of the underground room. In the next moment came flashes of another dream. A woman with green eyes, a pink, plump mouth, opening and forming words. You have to find me. Then Ophelia with a distant look on her face, her thoughts closed to me. I shut my eyes, trying to still my mind, but saw only reflections of my own face, almost unrecognisable to me.

  ‘Imelda Marcos had heaps of Jourdan shoes.’ Tara chattered on. ‘There was a lot of experimentation at this time, people like Ferragamo, Perugia, all trying to achieve the most attenuated heel. The end result was this.’ She pointed to the machine. ‘These radicalised shoe design. By the end of the 1950s a five-inch heel was pretty standard – ultra-thin but reliable, less prone to breaking. Thus was the stiletto born.’

  She looked at me for a moment, before holding the plastic heels in the space between us. Then, without speaking, she raised her right hand to my neck until the heel rested lengthways against my throat. I felt it hard against my Adam’s apple. ‘Did you know that the word “stiletto” is derived from a knife, a sharp blade?’ Without losing eye contact with me, she went on. ‘It was first favoured by Renaissance assassins and later by the Sicilian underworld.’ She moved her hand around my neck and I felt the heel dig into my throat. ‘So while stilettos are glamorous, sexy, they’re also synonymous with death.’ She made a noise as of a throat being slit. ‘So you’d better tread carefully.’

  For a moment we stood in silence, staring at each other. Then Tara laughed and dropped the plastic heels back onto the table. They wobbled before coming to rest.

  Involuntarily, as I watched them, I ran my fingers over my neck. My voice, when it came, sounded curt, irritated. ‘How do you know all this stuff, Tara?’

  ‘Well, as I’ve said before, shoes are my thing.’ She was quiet for a moment. ‘Are you okay? You seem a little . . . tetchy.’

  I turned to face her. ‘I’m tired and I’ve got a lot on my mind.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Forget it.’ In the big scheme of things, it was the least of my worries.

  ‘Anyway, I didn’t come to talk to you about stilettos. I actually came to tell you something quite different. Something much more mysterious,’ Tara whispered conspiratorially.

  ‘Well?’

  A moment’s silence.

  ‘Someone died here.’

  It took a second for me to register what she had said. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard correctly.’

  I nodded, still not really having taken it in.

  ‘It came up in my research.’

  ‘What?’ I said again, not understanding.

  ‘You know, the owner of the factory, the green shoes, secret rooms, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Pause. ‘So how did it happen? An accident? With the machinery?’

  Tara shook her head. ‘No, it didn’t happen that way.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Hmm. Not sure. Even the coroner seemed uncertain.’

  ‘The coroner?’

  Tara nodded.

  ‘Right,’ I muttered. So we were looking at a sudden, violent or unnatural death.

  ‘Look, I think it’s better if I don’t try and precis the information. There’s a file here that I found in the storage cupboard when I was digging around. I think it’s about the investigation. Or at least part of it. Plus there’s some extra information I uncovered that I’ve added in at the back.’

  I nodded. Without really wanting to know the answer I asked the question anyway. ‘So who was it? Who died here?’

  ‘James Brimley. The second Brimley to run the factory.’

  23

  NIGHT WAS CLOSING in. I was lying on the sofa in my sitting room, cushions piled under my head. I had come home alone, needing some quiet time to myself, undisturbed. The TV flickered in the corner of the room, the sound down low. But I wasn’t watching it. Instead, I had just begun to leaf through the file that Tara had given me. I filled up my wine glass from the bottle beside me on the coffee table and took a mouthful.

  The first things I came to were two newspaper clippings, each containing an obituary of James Brimley.

  James Arthur Brimley passed from the sorrows of the earth September 25, 1898. He now rests from the labours of a well-spent life and his family will find consolation in contemplating his purity and virtues – in the pious and firm-grounded hope that he has gone to the eternal rest and that in the fullness of time, when it shall please God to call them, they will join him in that abode of peace where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.

  Full of Victorian religious hyperbole and sentimentality, it shed no light whatsoever on the actual cause or location of death. I turned to the next one.

  From The Times, September 28, 1898

  James Brimley, Director of Brimley & Co, shoemakers, departed this life September 25, 1898, aged 39 years.

  Born September 2, 1859, the first son of Eleanor and Jack Brimley. From an early age he manifested a keen interest in the industry founded by his father, often accompanying him to the factory in its nascent years when it operated out of premises at Spercer Mews, Clerkenwell, and when its workforce was comprised of far fewer individuals than at present.

  From 20 years of age, James worked alongside his father at the Company’s newer premises at Percival Square, Clerkenwell, having learned both the practicalities of shoemaking from the factory floor and the requisite enterprise necessary to develop and encourage the business. Renowned for his diligence, it was commonplace that he would spend long hours at the factory. However, he was equally known for his radicalism. A frequent traveller abroad, particularly to France and Italy, he was always keen to examine any new methods of manufacture and design emerging in shoemaking on the Continent.

  Upon reaching 33 years of age, he succeeded his father as head of the business, and under his steady control it continued to flourish. In the short time he headed the Company he amassed not inconsiderable wealth for his family. A quiet, knowledgeable man, he was an esteemed member of the business community.

  His death was sudden and without illness and our thoughts and prayers are with his family. A doting husband and father, he is survived by a wife, Elizabeth, 32 and one child, Thomas, 12.

  It was certainly less pompous than the first obituary and contained numerous details about James’s life. Frustratingly, however, there was little information about his death.

  Turning the page, I came to a coroner’s report, dated 28 September 1898. It was a long document recording the results of the inquiry into James’s death. This was more like it. I sped over the introduction and focused on the section in which the coroner summarised the statements he had obtained from James’s father, Jack, and James’s wife, Elizabeth.

  Jack Brimley indicated that his son’s state of mental health had been rapidly deteriorating over the summer months of 1898. This was a particularly troublesome time in the business with problems concerning the delivery of several large and important contracts hanging over the factory. It may have been that these pressures were exacerbating factors in his decline. In any event, there were sustained bouts of depression and anger, increased periods of absence from home and a predisposition towards solitariness. Nonetheless, the family were shocked when they heard of James’s death. They had never suspected that his unhappiness was so deep or would lead to such a drastic step.

  According to the coroner, Mrs Elizabeth Brimley’s account followed in the same vein.

  Her husband’s moods had become increasingly erratic and bleak over the summer months of
1898 and while James was present at the family home, albeit less and less frequently, he often sought silence and his own company. On occasion he would drink to excess. But in general he was a quiet man and remained so until the end.

  I turned the page and came to the end of the coroner’s report. Here he set out his conclusions on the case.

  At approximately 11 o’clock in the morning, on Sunday 25 September 1898, the body of James Brimley was discovered on the premises of Brimley & Co., shoemakers. The deceased was found by his father, Mr Jack Brimley.

  An examination of the body on site, made in daylight, indicated that there were grazes to the underside of the deceased’s hands. In addition, there were marks around the neck, possibly from being bound with rope. However, the body was otherwise externally unharmed and no implements were discovered at the scene which could have produced the markings. Given the peculiarity of this, notice was given of the need for a post-mortem to be carried out.

  Prior to the post-mortem, strangulation was the assumed cause of death (given the pattern of markings around the region of the neck) and suicide the suspected method. However, when the examination was carried out, it was found that the larynx was undamaged and there were no fractures to the bones in the neck. There were no indications (beyond the bruising) of self-violence. Death was, in fact, natural. The deceased’s heart appeared simply to have arrested.

  The time of death was difficult to establish but was determined, given the state of rigor of the body, to have occurred sometime in the early hours of 25 September.

  I dropped the file onto my chest and rubbed my eyes with my fingers. Poor old James. That was one hell of a strange way to go out. Dead in the factory, covered with bruises of unknown origin, inflicted by some unknown instrument. I reached for my glass and took a long, slow slug of wine, thinking about where in the factory his body might have been found. That was another thing that was unclear from the report. It could have been anywhere. Maybe the room where Tara and I worked day after day. Maybe the underground room. I shivered ever so slightly. No, if it had been there it would surely have been mentioned.

  I put down my wine and focused once again on the file. The next document was a handwritten note, the script small and difficult to read. Flicking through it, I concluded that it was a private note of the coroner’s, made after he had conducted his initial site investigation and consulted with the witnesses.

  It began with some general observations on the state of the body after discovery. This was what I could decipher.

  25/9/1898 James Brimley (39). Body discovered on ground floor of shoe factory (place of work) by father, Jack Brimley. Found facing upwards, arms and legs spread apart, eyes open. A tall man, 6 feet 7 inches, and of solid, muscular physicality, approximately 280 pounds in weight. His clothing was neat, indicating no sign of violence or altercation.

  A rough sketch of the dispatch room was drawn underneath this statement, with a cross indicating where the body had been located. Just metres from the cupboard and the entrance to the underground room.

  Time of death? Body shows signs of advanced rigor. Contusions around neck – but no bindings present at the scene. Not present when deceased last seen at family home (wife corroborated). Otherwise, no markings to the eyes, face or neck. Light grazing to palms and traces of earth in cuts and under fingernails – deceased crawled on all fours before death? From where? Evading assailant? But no signs of struggle in the surrounding area of the factory floor. No signs of forcible entry or intrusion. Presence of body only sign of disturbance.

  There was no mention of the underground room in this section of the note. So the doorway must have been closed or surely it would have been commented upon. And yet, James’s body had been found very close to it. Maybe James had been in the underground room. That could, after all, explain the presence of earth on his hands. I thought about the cloying smell of the room, the dampness of the earth floor. My palms became moist. Maybe he had crawled up the rough wooden stairs on his hands and knees into the main part of the factory. That would explain the grazing on his body. But why would he do that? Drunk, maybe. Or incapacitated in some other way.

  My eyes refocused on the section of text where the coroner had speculated about James’s injuries and the presence of a third party. Maybe he was trying to get away from someone. But who? There had been no sign of struggle or forced entry at the scene and his clothes were undisturbed, not indicative of a fight having taken place. What could James have been doing in the underground room, if indeed he had been down there? I felt a slight tingle journey up my spine as I thought, not for the first time, about the mirror. I looked back at the page to see if there was any mention of it. But there was none. There were no further conclusions.

  I flicked to the next page in the file. First was a death certificate, then a burial order, followed by a short article dated 1 October 1898, concerning the outcome of the coroner’s investigation and the details of James’s funeral. It seemed he was finally buried on 30 September 1898, in a quiet private ceremony at Bunhill Fields. I glanced over two small photographs which lay beneath the text. The one on the left was a small black and white picture of James alone. The one on the right, more faded, was presumably one of him and his family. I brought the page closer and looked again.

  The first image showed James, a tall, imposing man with a handlebar moustache and a beard. He stood incredibly upright, looking straight into the camera, dressed in a smart suit and waistcoat and resting his weight upon a cane. He looked stiff, starched and somewhat uncomfortable. His shoes shone brightly, his black hair was slicked back away from his face, which was unsmiling. He had dark brooding eyes. The photo was captioned Man of Industry and was dated 24 May 1896, more than two years before his death. He did indeed look the epitome of Victorian industriousness: sleek, serious and expensively entrepreneurial. I looked more closely at the photograph, at his eyes once again. There was something about them: the heavy lids, the irises quickening darkly beneath.

  Beside this image, the second one focused on a group of individuals. A certain grainy quality to the photograph, and around the central figures, made it difficult to see anything exact. Below it the caption read James Brimley and family, 27 September 1898. I brought the image closer towards me. James, dressed in a black suit and tie, stood rigidly upright behind a seated woman and child. They must have been his wife Elizabeth, who was also dressed conservatively in black, and his son Thomas, who looked like a miniature version of his father. They all stared ahead at the camera. I focused on the woman, trying to make out the details. But nothing beyond the generality of her features, her dark hair and eyes, the overall shape of her face, was discernible. The same was true of the son. But one thing was clear – a certain tension in the demeanour of all the subjects. The whole party were sombre, dour and unsmiling, and a mood of intense unhappiness seemed to hover tangibly over the image. I looked again at James. He was clean-shaven now and his once jet-black hair appeared to have wisps of grey running through it. But beyond the obvious contours of his face, his eyes, nose and mouth, I couldn’t decipher anything.

  I looked at the image once again. Something about it wasn’t right. I turned back to the coroner’s report, looking for the exact date of James’s death. When I came across it – 25 September 1898 – I knew exactly what was wrong with the photograph. It had been taken two days after James’s death.

  ‘It’s a Victorian death portrait,’ I said aloud.

  Now that I knew it, it seemed so obvious: the extra formal arrangement of the subjects, even down to the dead man standing upright to reinforce the idea of his being alive. I knew that such photographs were a way of remembering the life of the deceased. And yet, simultaneously, they were also a direct acknowledgement of death.

  I focused on the image once again. But it was too small to make out any more than I had done already. I got up and went to the cupboard in the kitchen to retrieve my magnifying glass. I often used it for work to look closely at plans or drawings or to
sharpen up old documents. It ought to enlarge the photograph enough to clarify the characters a little more.

  I sat back down on the sofa and looked at the image through the glass. Sure enough, now I could see the faces of the subjects more clearly. I saw Thomas, wide-eyed and uptight. No wonder, poor kid. The idea of such photographs was pretty morbid, if you asked me. Elizabeth, while she didn’t look as strained as her son, had a taut intensity about her face which suggested that she wasn’t relishing the experience either. I turned my attention back to James, to his greying hair, his shaven cheeks. As I looked, more closely now, at the black eyes staring out at me, my heart began to thud hard in my chest.

  I looked at the eyes again. They were deep wells of darkness and even death hadn’t quite obliterated the hardness at their edges. I swallowed and felt the fear explode in my stomach. I looked over James’s face once more but there was no way I was mistaken. I had seen this man before. I had met him.

  The dead man in the picture was the man I had encountered a few weeks earlier in my nightmare.

  I sat bolt upright, my head spinning. Then I got up from the sofa and poured myself another glass of wine, my hand shaking slightly as I did so.

  I took a long, slow mouthful and tried to make sense of things. But they didn’t make any sense. The man from my nightmare was James Brimley. And even though I hadn’t known what he looked like until now, I had seen him already in my dreams. I frowned. How could that be?

  I took another mouthful of wine and tried to think. James Brimley. He was born in 1859. He had been a Director at the shoe factory where I now spent my days working. We had no doubt trudged over the same floorboards, taken in the same scenes, maybe both been down to the underground room. I blinked hard. It was difficult to take in. He had been real. He had had a wife and a child and had died in 1898. And yet I had dreamed about him long before I had found out any of this.