by R. N. Morris
‘No. When he shot me, he was hidden behind the bushes that screen the railway tracks.’
‘But if it had been a rifle you would have seen it before then?’
‘A rifle? It wasn’t a rifle. It was a revolver, according to the chaps in forensics. They have identified it from the bullet they pulled out of me as a .455 calibre Webley service revolver. Why did you think it was a rifle?’
‘Well, you said he was a private. A private would be armed with a rifle, if armed at all. The Webley service revolver is an officer’s weapon. What on earth was a private doing with that?’
‘Perhaps he stole it.’
It was an interesting suggestion. After all, if the man was capable of murder, he was surely capable of lesser crimes too. Quinn was about to make the point to Macadam when he noticed that the sergeant’s eyes had fallen closed. He listened for Macadam’s laboured breathing to settle into the regular rhythm of sleep before stealing away with a backward, wistful look at the bag of apples.
TWENTY-SIX
Quinn dined in a Lyons teashop on Pentonville Road, close to his hotel. He had made little effort to find a permanent place to live. In some ways, despite its obvious shortcomings, the hotel suited him. And the longer he stayed there, the more it suited him. You can get used to anything eventually, he told himself.
He dined alone, of course. Quite often, he chose exactly the same dish on the menu: the mutton pie with Russian salad. He might briefly fantasize about bringing Miss Latterly here. He could see them sitting opposite each other, chatting easily about all manner of strangely unspecified things.
Before he knew it, he had finished his meal, so he supposed he had better go back to his hotel.
He drank the last swill of cold tea from his cup and left money for the Gladys. The same amount he left every night.
The evening was coming on. The darkness that would soon engulf the streets was beginning to make its presence felt. For now, it was just a sinister potential hanging in the air.
With the outbreak of the war, the tops of the glass globes on the street lights had been painted black. As a consequence, the nights were darker than anyone had ever known. Quinn couldn’t help but see it as a policing issue. A new realm of licence and transgression had been created. Shadows congregated within shadows.
Quinn walked into an invisible cloud of cheap scent, the first intimation he had of that second population that came out to possess the streets at sunset, drawn by the cover of a rapidly expanding night.
A street girl stood on the corner of Pentonville Road and Caledonian Road. As he drew closer, her face contorted into an expression of exaggerated lasciviousness. She twirled a tatty, folded parasol on her shoulder, all the time pouting and smiling and fluttering her eyelids like some kind of mechanical coquette. She began to move her body towards him in a series of shimmying sways, in which she seemed to invest every ounce of her femininity.
Quinn found the performance more alarming than alluring; it was so patently artificial.
‘Fancy a good time, darlin’?’ As soon as she had made the overture, she immediately collapsed into a fit of cackling. Quinn had never seen someone fall about with laughter before, but that seemed to be what he was witnessing now. He didn’t know what the joke was.
Quinn came to a halt in front of her, as if he were going to answer her question one way or the other. Why should he not go with her? Why should he not, for once, open himself up to such an experience?
She must have read his thoughts as she intensified her efforts to win his business. She pressed herself against him. Her voice was now a husky whisper in his ear. ‘My, you’re all wound up like a clock spring, ain’t you? I’ll bet you’ll go off like a bloody geyser.’
Was it really possible that he was about to go with her? Only minutes ago he had been eating a perfectly ordinary pie in an unexceptionable teashop, surrounded by stolid, decent citizens who could not have suspected into what depths of depravity he was about to plunge himself.
And how would he face Miss Latterly, Lettice, if he went through with this? It would seal the end of any hope of a future between them. For she would know. And even if she didn’t know, he would. And that would be enough to stifle their relationship. His guilt would mute him. He would withdraw even further from her for fear of giving himself away. He would find himself more alone than ever.
But his body so ached for the release the prostitute had promised. And the pressure of another human against him, unfamiliar and unsolicited, sent a jolt of something like electricity through him.
And at least with the prostitute there would be no Aunt Constance to contend with.
She began to grind her groin into his thigh.
Quinn made no response, except to reach slowly into the inside pocket of his ulster to take out his warrant card.
‘What you got there?’ The woman pulled back to look. The crest of the Metropolitan Police Force glinted in the failing light. The playfulness and promise went from her posture. A sour expression settled over her face. With her heavy layer of slap, she reminded him of a tragic clown, made up for laughter, but wearing a frown. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’
‘I ought to.’
‘Why don’t you then?’ Her look became contemptuous now. ‘Are you one of them dirty cops what expects it for free? A girl got to eat, you know.’
Quinn’s mouth was suddenly dry, as if filled with feathers. He pocketed his warrant card and moved on.
The hotel was on Caledonian Road. It was indicated by a sign in the window which read simply HOTEL. The window was filmed in soot and grime so the sign was difficult to read, especially at night when only a single dim light illuminated the reception lobby.
He collected his key from the desk. The room number, 217, was engraved into a greasy piece of wood that had been darkened by the manipulations of countless grubby fingers. He was fastidious enough to handle it only by the metal ring that connected the key to the wood.
It was the kind of place where if you looked down you would see threadbare rugs and black dust gathering on the skirting boards. If you looked straight ahead, or to either side, you would see peeling wallpaper and black fungal stains. If you looked up, you would see the corners of the rooms hung in cobwebs. The husky carcasses of flies, and the occasional bee, accumulated on every windowsill. The lace curtains in the windows were grey. You were not advised to move them. To do so would disturb the dust which gathered in the netting, in the spaces between weft and warp. The cloud that arose would set you coughing for days. If you did not have a weak chest when you came here, the chances were you would by the time you left.
In the light of his recent encounter, Quinn had little doubt that it was the kind of place where a prostitute would bring her clients. He supposed it was possible to rent rooms by the hour and doubted the sheets were changed between guests. To be fair, he had not passed any women who looked like prostitutes on the stairs. As for the men, he supposed that any one of them might be a punter. The step was always hurried, the glance shifty.
The only evidence he had for this libellous supposition was that of his ears. He would lie awake and hear the sound of coming and going on the stairs throughout the night. From time to time there would be fervid whispering too, or even incoherent drunken cries and joyless laughter. And the clincher: the sound of beds thumping against the flimsy walls, which could be heard at all hours.
These sounds would be strangely amplified in the quiet hours of the night. Quinn would feel himself to be under assault, as if the couple in the next room who were frenziedly working their way towards climax would at any moment come crashing through the wall.
The room was in semi-darkness, the only light a square of dying luminescence where the window was.
And after all, he knew every inch of the room without having to look at it. He knew where the sagging bed jutted out to catch his shins with its rusting iron frame. He knew where the one seat was, a wooden object so singularly devoid of comfort just looking at it in
duced a weary ache deep in his bones. He knew where the wardrobe with the door that wouldn’t shut loomed. Every joint of it was out of true, and if you pushed it with your finger it would tilt a good half-inch from side to side. One side of it was given over to drawers. It had taken him some time to work out that the wardrobe had to be leaning over to the right for him to push the drawers home, yet leaning to the left to pull them out.
Between bed and wardrobe there was barely room for him to stand. To move into his room, he had to turn sideways and edge his way in like a crab.
He fumbled to light the gas. The flickering glow flooded into every corner with an intrusive eagerness. Quinn took off his ulster and hung it in the wardrobe. He went through his usual ritual of repeatedly closing the wardrobe door and fiddling with the lock. Eventually, he managed to get it to stay shut. But as soon as he sat down on the bed it swung open with a mocking creak.
Quinn gave vent to a profanity, which somehow allowed him to move on. He took off his bowler hat and placed it on the seat of the chair.
It did not do to examine too closely the path that had led him to this place. It was an exercise akin to picking away at a scab. But he knew that he had come here for a reason. And if it had not been this hotel, it would have been another very similar.
This was the kind of room you came to to read your father’s suicide letter.
Every night he had pulled out from under his bed the tin box that contained his father’s correspondence to his mistress, Louisa Grant-Sissons. He had read every letter except the last, the one written after Louisa’s death. As he had not read it, he did not know for certain what it contained, nor that it was indeed a suicide note. But he had read the narrative of their affair laid out in the letters that preceded it. The postmarks revealed the sequence in which they had been written. This was the last, dated 7PM 16 JLY 1899, the day of his father’s death.
As he held the letter in his trembling hands, a weight of emotion expanded within him, pushing out with intolerable pressure against his ribcage. He felt a vice tightening on his heart and lungs. He gasped for air. The gasping turned into sobs. Heavy droplets of grief fell from his eyes.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I know you will never read this, my love, but that does not matter, because soon we will be together and I will be able to say all the words I long to say to you myself.
There are those who would say that we were sinners while we lived. And so, if we are united in death, it will not be in Heaven. But wherever you are, my love, will be Heaven for me, if I am able to be there with you.
But I am not religious in the conventional sense. If I have a faith, it is the faith that something of us endures after death. Where it endures, or how, I know not.
I know too that after death we will be united.
And what will unite us is that love we shared while we were alive.
For if there is a deity it is not some grey-bearded old man perched on a cloud, but rather a beautiful naked woman borne aloft on a scallop shell. Yes, I am a worshipper of Aphrodite, I confess it!
Love is the force that drives all living things. It is the surge that propels the sap to rise in spring. It is the fire that blazes in the heart of existence. It blazes green in every blade of grass. It blazes silver in the sunlit waxen leaves of an evergreen tree. It blazes red in the blood of every man and woman.
And so it will be our love that saves us. And a God of Love cannot but be moved by such a love as ours. And whatever else we did, whoever else we hurt, they will be as nothing next to our love. And know that in loving one another we did a great good thing. A pure good thing. And the God of Love will treasure us and celebrate us and love us for that. And she will forgive us those lesser sins, for she cares not one iota for them.
Am I raving, my love? Perhaps I am. Raving and raging.
Ever since you were so cruelly taken from this world, I have been raging in a pit of black despair. The only relief I have from this is the thought that I will be reunited with you in death. Soon, soon, my love. And that you will be whole again when we are together.
The hand that I held so often in mine will be restored to your body.
I have kissed each finger of that hand.
I have felt its gentle touch against my cheek.
I have followed its beckoning crook.
Do you remember when you held your forefinger playfully against my lips to silence me? Had I spoken too intemperately? Perhaps I had complained about your husband or the family ties that bound me. You always were my conscience.
Or perhaps I had begged too importunately for your caresses.
You always said I was in too much of a hurry.
Well, you were right. And I cannot wait any longer. I must hold your hand in mine again, and soon.
Soon, soon, my love, we will be together.
I am a doctor. A man of science. Do I truly believe that we will be reunited after death? It is not the scientist in me that believes this. It is the lover.
And if that lover is proven to be a deluded fool, and all that awaits me after death is nonexistence, then so be it. A nothingness with nothing in it is preferable to a world with everything in it but the one person that I love.
To feel nothing, to know nothing, to be nothing for eternity, is better than to endure another moment without you.
And so I am resolved, my love. I will be with you soon, or I will be nowhere.
Tonight I will inject myself with five grains of morphine. It will be a blissful death. I will sink into your arms, your two arms that I know are waiting for me.
Until we meet, my love. Soon. Soon.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The main CID room bustled with the appearance of activity. All Quinn saw was men who didn’t know what they were doing pretending that they did. Anger and frustration showed in the clash of raised voices as they marshalled the rabble of suspects they had pulled in for interrogation. Most of these were registered foreigners already known to MO5(g). Naturally, the men who had been brought in protested their innocence, loudly, and in accents that did not help their cause. The CID detectives shouted back, and sometimes jostled or even struck them. There might have been purpose to it, but the purpose had nothing to do with solving any case. The chaos that it was their job to keep at bay was closer to the surface than usual.
As soon as he could, Quinn signalled to Inchball.
Five minutes later they were back at Horse Guards Parade. All at once they were engulfed by a company of soldiers on bicycles, heading south in loose formation along Horse Guards Road. There were about a hundred of them, Quinn estimated, each one whipping past at a nifty lick. It took several minutes for the entire column to pass, the stragglers pedalling hard to catch their comrades. The whole thing had the air of an outing. It did not seem like men preparing for war. The soldiers on their bicycles struck Quinn as unspeakably vulnerable. Their jauntiness as they sped along had a hollow ring to it, as if each man knew he was heading towards his death but had sworn not to tell his fellows. Quinn could not shake off the image of a shell exploding in their midst and of the mangled wreckage of bicycle frames and bodies that would be left in its wake.
He waited for the cyclists to pass entirely before speaking. ‘I’ve spoken to Macadam.’
‘And?’
‘It was a soldier, that is to say a man wearing the uniform of a private of the Royal Fusiliers.’
‘Good God! Are you sure?’
Quinn nodded. ‘He got a good look at the cap badge. You need to tell Leversedge, I suppose.’
‘He won’t like it. He and Coddington are working on the theory that it’s a Hun spy.’
Quinn let the observation go without comment. ‘It might be advisable to get an artist down to Macadam and have him produce some kind of sketch of the suspect. Macadam said it was a young man, a recent enlistee most likely. Then take that down to the regimental HQ, show it around and see if it rings any bells. Time is of the essence. If he’s a serving soldier, he could get transferred out at an
y time.’
‘They won’t like it coming from you. Coddersedge, I mean.’
Quinn smiled at Inchball’s name for the two-headed hydra of incompetence. ‘No need to tell them. Say you heard it from Macadam yourself.’
Inchball’s expression grew pained. ‘That won’t wash. If I heard it myself, why didn’t I take it to them first thing?’
‘What does it matter? The important thing is it’s a definite lead. It’s got to be better than hauling in Germans off the street. You’ll just have to make a clean breast of it. A further thing you should know, our soldier shot Macadam with a Webley. Likely as not stolen from an officer. There’s a chance he could be a deserter.’
‘Or a German agent!’ suggested Inchball hopefully. ‘In disguise.’
It couldn’t be discounted. ‘If that’s what it takes to get them to do their job, then why not? First things first. Talk to the regiment. At least rule out it’s not a serving soldier. It’s called policing, you know.’
‘You don’t have to tell me.’ Inchball’s voice was spiky with impatience. But Quinn knew it was not directed against him.
Commands shouted and responses shouted back assailed their ears. An artillery piece was discharged. Quinn assumed it was a training exercise, the ammunition blank. Even so, it brought the idea of war closer.
The two men nodded grimly. Inchball took off at a brisk pace, heading back to the Yard to share the new information with his superiors. Quinn lingered for a few minutes more, watching soldiers square-bashing in front of him. His gaze was almost wistful. The idea of swapping the frustration and murkiness of police work for a life of soldiering was beginning to appeal to him.
As he approached New Scotland Yard along Richmond Terrace, Quinn was surprised to see Mrs Ibbott looking up at the building, her face set in determination. With her was her daughter Mary, whose expression somehow managed to be both daunted and sullen.
Quinn called out to his former landlady. ‘Mrs Ibbott, what are you doing here?’