Domini Mortum

by Paul Holbrook

  ‘I’d say a good hour, Isabelle,’ he replied, taking me by the shoulders and pushing me into the room. ‘There you go, fella.’

  I stumbled into the dimly lit room to see an older woman sitting on the bed with a drink in her hand. She was large, impressively so, and wore little clothing. I stood for a moment staring at her. Both Isabelle and the man, Harold, stood behind me.

  ‘Well then, boy,’ said she on the bed. ‘Are you coming over here or do I have to get up and come to you?’

  The couple behind me laughed and turned to leave, Harold giving me one last slap on the back. I felt drugged and hazy, as if caught in a dream. I did not move from where I stood. The woman got up from the bed and came towards me just as the door slammed behind me. It was a jolt which seemed to wake me from my stupor.

  As the large woman came close to me I threw my hands up, pushing her away, so that she tripped backwards, landing heavily on the floor. I turned and threw open the door, running out of the room towards the staircase.

  Isabelle and Harold were halfway down the stairs when I neared them. I tried to shove my way in between them and found Harold to be an impervious brick wall of a man. Isabelle, however, was small and light – and my push sent her tumbling down the stairs. Harold threw his arms around me, pinning mine to my sides, and we both watched as Isabelle landed at the bottom of the stairs with a sickening thud, her head bent sideways at an impossible angle.

  In that small moment all time stood quite still and I looked at her beautiful face, her pale green eyes and her wide, red-painted lips which were parted, and from which now began to leak the smallest tear of blood.

  Harold released me from his hold, ran down the stairs to her and crouched over her body, holding her head as if to put it straight again. I found myself following him, my feet slowly tripping down each step in shock. As I reached the bottom and looked down at the dead girl, Harold suddenly lurched upwards at me, his large boulder of a fist connecting with the side of my face.

  The world span violently before sinking into darkness.

  ***

  I awoke with a start. I had been dreaming of chasing a young woman whose face I was unable to clearly define. It was as if I was looking at her through thick fog, her features fading in and out of sight but never truly in focus. We were running through a large house and I could not tell if she was scared and in fear of me, or if this was some sort of game of tig like children play. Each time that she came within reach I stumbled and she slipped through my grasp. I was becoming frustrated – angry even. Why could I not catch her?

  We ran along a wide landing, lit by candles, at the top of a large staircase and suddenly I felt true cold fear. The chase was out of my control; she would slip and fall down the stairs, I had to stop her, to save her. I sped up and neared her once more, the staircase beckoning, almost sucking her towards it. As she reached the top step I threw myself forwards in an attempt to stop her from falling, but she was merely a shadow and I found myself tumbling through her form. As I hit the floor I began to roll down the stairs, feeling the sharp stab of each riser as it struck my body. I could see the bottom of the staircase approaching and I knew my death awaited me there. I closed my eyes, braced for the impact and woke.

  It was dark in my sitting room; the last embers of the fire were dwindling into barely noticeable orange flecks. I was sitting in my armchair, my drawing pad on my lap and on it a completed picture of two men pulling away crumbling bricks to reveal the skeletons of dead nuns. I could not remember completing it. I looked up and saw that the clock on my mantelpiece showed three o’clock in the morning and wondered whether Alice had returned whilst I had slept. There was no light on in the bedroom; perhaps she had found me asleep and decided that the armchair was the best place for me.

  I pushed myself to my feet and stepped lightly towards the bedroom door. My eyes tried to focus as I peered into the darkness beyond and to my bed. It was empty and untouched. The party was going to be a big one, Alice had said; perhaps it was a particularly late one. I began to worry about her travelling home alone; the streets of Marylebone, although a great deal safer than their East End counterparts, were still no place for a young girl, and I cursed myself for not arranging to meet her. I could go out now and try to find her, but it would be hopeless; I did not know the house where she was working and might spend the rest of the night wandering the streets of Marylebone in vain. I placed some kindling on the ashes of my fire, blew it gently to life and settled back in my chair, my tired eyes on the clock upon my mantle.

  I dreamt again, this time of a baby, no more than a few weeks old. The babe was laid in a cot which I had discovered at the foot of my bed. Unaided, the crib rocked gently, the small child sleeping deeply within. The child was pale, though, deathly so, and I found myself wondering if it was due to the terrible cold that I felt. As I approached I saw that upon the child’s pale skin were cracks, as if it were made from porcelain like a doll, and I found myself reaching out to touch its skin to see if it were real.

  As my fingers neared the child, the crib’s rocking stopped suddenly and the tiny figure began to stir. The cold in the room sent chills through me, starting at my feet and quickly rising throughout my whole body, causing me to shiver. I withdrew my hand from the crib and folded my arms, rubbing my shoulders in an attempt to warm myself. The child’s eyes opened and it stared up at me. It began to cry. A terrible sound which sent shots of pain to my ears. I was dreaming! This was a dream! Why was I standing here listening to this horrible sound? I shook myself violently. I had to wake! I had be free from this terrible noise!

  I awoke laid on the floor in front of the dead fire. Sunlight streamed through my window, blinding me, sending a pain into my head. My clothes were damp and cold with sweat and I forced myself to my feet. Looking up at the mantle, I saw that it was nearly nine o’clock. Alice had still not returned and immediately all thoughts of my own pain and shock disappeared. This was not right; she should be back with me by now. Without thinking, I made straight for the door.

  ***

  When I arrived at the Marylebone Service Agency the doors were locked and there was no sign of life. Noting a small coffee shop across the road, I went in and took a window seat where I could watch the agency’s doors from a place of warmth and comfort.

  I am usually a patient man; it does not bother me one jot when others are late for appointments. I am most happy in my own company and others’ tardiness only reflects badly on them, not me. On this day, however, as I wondered about Alice’s whereabouts, I could not have been more agitated at having to bide my time. I constantly glanced at my pocket watch, cursing as the minutes crawled by at a lacklustre rate. This would not do, I told myself. Ten more minutes and I would head off to the police station to report her missing.

  It was as I paid my bill and stood to leave that I saw the outlandish figure of Tandry strolling down the road as leisurely as you like. He was dressed in a suit of bright green velvet, a colour which was only drowned out by the glare of his curled red hair. I could see why he had taken so long to reach the agency as he seemed to stop and talk to everyone he passed, laughing and cajoling them, slapping shoulders and shaking hands, a broad smile fixed upon his face.

  As he neared the doors of the agency I ran over the road to meet him.

  ‘Mr Tandry!’ I called, waving to get his attention. ‘Mr Tandry, might I have a word with you?’

  As he looked up and saw me approaching I could see some confusion in his eyes; he obviously could not instantly remember our last meeting. Without taking his gaze from me he withdrew a large set of keys from his pocket and began to pick out the one he required.

  ‘Good morning, sir. Ha ha! And it is a fine morning, is it not? Full of sunshine and hope. Ha!’ He thrust the correct key into the lock and pushed his way inside the door.

  I followed him in.

  ‘Work is it, young man? Work that you are looking for? I have plenty for a bright young gentleman like yourself. Plenty to do.’
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  ‘No,’ I said, trailing him around the office as he took off his coat and hat. ‘You do not remember me, do you, Mr Tandry? I came in here a few weeks since with a young lady and you kindly arranged some work for her. Alice Griffiths, I am quite sure you remember her.’

  His eyes flicked downwards quickly and the smile on his face took on a fixed and mask-like countenance.

  ‘My dear man, a great many people pass through these doors, yes they do, a great many. And unfortunately I am not the young gentleman I once was, I can be dreadfully forgetful. A few weeks ago was it? Alice? I’m not sure I do recall her exactly.’ He turned towards the large, dark-stained bookcase set on the wall and pulled down a ledger.

  ‘Yes, a few weeks ago, I came in with her; her young brother was with us also. Surely if you do not remember that meeting you will remember seeing her yesterday? She came to you a little after two o’clock and you arranged some work for her, a party in Marylebone.

  He had begun to open the ledger on his desk but stopped as I spoke, quickly closing it again.

  ‘Yesterday, you say? Quite impossible. Yes, quite impossible. You see, I was not here yesterday, the agency was closed. Are you sure that it was here that she came? There are other agencies in the area, perhaps you are mistaken.’ He placed the ledger back on the shelf and turned back, the smile now quite faded from his face.

  ‘No, Mr Tandry, I am quite sure that it was you whom she saw. She returned home to me immediately and said as much.’

  ‘I think I know the girl you speak of, but I can assure you she was not here yesterday.’ He grasped my shoulder as if to lead me back to the door and out onto the street again. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I am a busy man, very busy. I have people to see today, yes, lots of people to see.’

  ‘But she did not come home last night, Mr Tandry,’ I implored, standing my ground. ‘I am worried for her safety.’

  He moved away from me then and sat down behind his desk. He let out a small laugh as he reached for the drawer at his right side.

  ‘Young man, if I had to deal with all of the problems of gentlemen in London whose ladies received a better offer and did not return to them, then I should be a far sight busier than I already am, a far sight.’

  I watched his hand as it slid into the drawer; I saw the grip of a pistol.

  I threw myself across the desk, sending both of us crashing to the floor. My fist struck him twice on the side of the head but I am no pugilist and my punches did little more than cause him to fight even harder. I sat on his chest as he struggled violently, attempting to throw me off. I continued to hit him, each time with greater force. The blood sprayed upon the floor and walls around us.

  Time and again I struck him, and he reached up with short arms trying to deflect my blows, trying to reach for my throat. I had lost all control now and brushed his arms aside, pinning them to the floor. With him finally under my power, I spoke.

  ‘Where is she?’ I demanded. ‘Where is Alice Griffiths?’

  With blood-stained teeth he smiled at me then. After all that I had done to him – he smiled.

  ‘Speak!’ I yelled. ‘Speak! Tell me where you sent her. Tell me where she is!’

  But speak he did not. Instead he laughed at me, a terrible gargled laugh which spat blood up at my face, red, wet flecks which covered me.

  This man did not fear me and he would not tell me what I needed to know. I trembled in anger, and looked towards the pistol which had been knocked from his hand to the floor by the doorway – too far. I reached onto the desk, grabbing a large glass ashtray.

  Slowly I brought it into his view. His expression did not change and he continued to chuckle, an act which only increased my anger. I struck him with the ashtray. He died instantly, but I did not stop. Again and again I brought the heavy glass down onto his face.

  I sat for a short while on his corpse. The room was almost silent, the only sound my own ragged breath, as I sought to compose myself whilst looking down at my handiwork. Tears ran down my face, mixing with the flecks of Tandry’s blood that decorated me. What had I done? What was it within me that made me a bringer of death?

  My tears turned to wracking sobs and I fell sideways from the man I had killed, laying on the floor beside him. For a while I stayed there, staring blankly up at the walls, which had not escaped Tandry’s dotted decoration.

  As my eyes scanned the room, they fell upon the clock on the wall; I could not lie here all day, it would not be long before someone tried the door of the agency and peered through the window to see the pair of us, killer and victim laid down together in stillness.

  Rolling to my feet, I dragged Tandry’s body into the back room. There was a small kitchen and a door which led into the back alley of the shop fronts. Returning to the main office, I locked the entrance door and hastily scribbled a note saying that the agency would be closed until further notice. With luck the body would not be discovered for a few days. I made to leave through the back door, pausing momentarily to return to the office. There I retrieved both pistol and ledger before making my escape.

  12

  They Come in the Night

  I awoke in darkness and pain. My head swam as if immersed in brandy, and I could feel the left side of my face swelling and throbbing intensely. What little light there was filtered through the roughly woven hessian sack over my head. I went to remove it but my hands were immobile, tied behind my back as I lay upon the floor. The room stank of stale alcohol, of beer long since flat and soaked into the boards on which I lay.

  I could hear distant mumbled voices, as if on the other side of a door; words spoken in anger.

  I shook my head slightly, trying to wake myself from the stupor that had been forced on me by the thundering fist of the man named Harold. I do not believe I would have been less stunned and damaged by his hand had it been made of brick itself.

  I thought of Isabelle, lying prone at the foot of the stairs, her neck twisted, the bones at the top of her spine attempting to force themselves free from within the pale smooth skin of her throat. It was an accident; surely they would see that? It was not intentional in the least; why would I ever want to kill the girl?

  The voices outside the door grew louder and then stopped suddenly, falling into an edged silence, only broken by the sound of a key rattling in the door. Heavy footfalls followed and large rough hands picked me up and sat me on a chair, causing me to let out a feeble groan. My hands, still bound behind me, were pressed against the back of the chair, the wooden spindles pushing hard into my wrists.

  As the sacking was pulled from my head, and my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see Harold standing in front of me. He did not look a happy man.

  I made to speak but the raised palm of his right paw was enough to quiet me.

  ‘It seems you have provided me with a problem, boy,’ he said quietly, with the expression of one looking upon an errant nephew. Pulling up a chair to sit opposite me, he continued, ‘You see, when young lads like you come through the door, not knowing their arse from their elbow and generally making a mess of the place, then I am of a mind to take you straight out the back and beat you into a bloody pulp. But unfortunately I am not the person to make these kinds of decisions. I am just a simple doorman, hired to keep the peace and to beat, break and evict any whom I am told to.’ He reached into his pocket and withdrew a carved ivory cigarette case, opening it and pulling out one of the white sticks within. He closed the case swiftly, then tapped the cigarette on the ivory before raising it to his lips.

  The silence pulled knives through me as I waited for him to continue.

  ‘I love my job,’ he said, blowing a large gust of smoke into the air above my head. ‘I get to be in the gracious company of the ladies of the house; I will usually have a small drink or two as the night goes on and sometimes I get to use my fists to crush the face of someone who won’t pay their bills when they’re asked nicely.’

  He took another large drag on his cigarette, the end of which glowe
d menacingly red in my direction, and continued. ‘But this is why tonight’s turn of events has brought me so much sorrow, for it is not I who gets to choose the men that get a beating. No, that job, on most nights, fell to our hostess. For Isabelle – you remember Isabelle? Tall girl? Red hair? Broken neck? Well, she was a woman without equal, a beautiful hostess, kind and warm – she was a real lady.

  ‘Now, when your sorry face appeared at our door tonight, I had half a mind to kick your arse and chase you off, but Isabelle told me to let you in. It was her decision to bring you into our little house and that, you might say, was her downfall, in more ways than one. And where is she now, I hear you ask? Well she is in the very next room, cold on the floor and awaiting the undertaker.’

  I began to shake at this point, gently, in the legs at first, but, as the full realisation of my actions dawned on me, it quickly spread throughout my body.

  ‘It was an accident,’ I said, the words falling from my mouth with difficulty as my tremor grew.

  ‘Of course it was, of course it was,’ he said with a short smile. ‘But accidents have consequences and consequences must be met, and this is where the problem that you have given me lies.’

  He pulled hard on the cigarette between his thin lips, the red tip glowing ferociously as he took it from his mouth and brought it to my chest, pushing it gently through my shirt until the burning ember touched my skin. I howled in pain, an action which did not dissuade him from his task as he brought the burning tip to my chest a further four times. When he had stopped, and my cries subsided, he spoke again.

  ‘You see, if it was up to me I would have you in pain in a great many ways before finishing you off and dumping you in the Ouse to float away with the rest of the shite. But it is up to my dear boss, who is a pleasant man, but one who I’ve seen do terrible things to people like you in the past. Isabelle was a particular favourite of his, and I’ve taken to thinking that maybe my way might be a little more merciful. Because I have seen my boss take the eyes from a man with nothing more than an old spoon…’ He leant in close; his face was just inches from my own and I smelt whisky on his warm breath. ‘Do we understand each other?’