by Evelyn James
“Always an adventure with you Clara,” O’Harris gave a playful sigh as they turned from the caravan to find the gunslinger’s tent.
“I don’t look for these sorts of things to happen to me,” Clara pointed out. “They just seem to find me. And it isn’t always like this. We went to that art exhibition last week and nothing criminal or mysterious occurred.”
“True,” O’Harris conceded. “But you did upset one of the artist’s when you referred to their work as being somewhat amateurish.”
“How was I to know they were stood right behind me,” Clara blushed at the memory of her faux pas. “And it wasn’t the best watercolour going, was it?”
“I’ll give you that,” O’Harris said. “Right, shall we see if there is a dead body in the gunslinger’s tent?”
“Oh, I hope not!” Clara declared.
“Something pretty traumatic must have occurred to cause our friend Clark to lose a great gulf of his memory. As I said earlier, no sign of a head injury to account for it. Seems to me it is a psychological battering he has taken, something that has knocked him so badly he has reverted to a happier time in his life, a time his mind feels is safer for him.”
“That seems somewhat dramatic,” Clara replied. “I mean, I can understand a soldier in the trenches reverting back to a time when he was at home in England, his current circumstances being so dire, but Clark’s life in England cannot have been that bad, surely?”
“It is all relative. The mind locks on to a place of safety, a time when everything seemed more secure and settled. It is an act of self-comfort. Doesn’t mean it is accurate, just that that place, that memory is the solid rock the troubled mind has latched onto,” O’Harris paused as they pushed through a particularly dense crowd of pleasure seekers. “I have read about it in papers concerning shellshock, even had a fellow at the home who was suffering from a version of it. He was convinced the year was 1913 and that he was meant to be in university finishing his degree. Trouble was, to bring him to the present meant reminding him of the horrid events he had endured. Pretty miserable choice, but we couldn’t leave him stuck in 1913.”
O’Harris ran a convalescence home for servicemen who had been left traumatised by the war. It was small scale, he fully admitted it a was a drop in a very vast ocean, but it was a start. He had all sorts of cases on his hands, but mainly men suffering from a variant of shellshock and desperately trying to restore their lives to something akin to normal.
“Thing is, if someone has been murdered right before Clark’s eyes and it triggered this delusion, you would think someone would have noticed by now,” Clara observed. “Only, no one else seems to be making a fuss.”
“Does seem odd,” O’Harris agreed. “Hopefully Clark’s tent will reveal all.”
Clark’s tent was set at the back of the funfair, close to the cliff edge. A sharp sea breeze was rattling through the canvas and making the flaps dance. The cloth doorway had been dropped from its tieback and was shut. A sign painted onto it declared the exhibit was temporarily closed.
“I suppose that explains why no one has been in here and noticed anything,” Clara said.
Someone had taken the time to secure the flap in place with toggles, so they could not see inside, and a sign advertising the times of Clark’s gunslinging performances – to be held in the main tent before a large audience – had been placed before it. Clara moved the sign to one side and noted that Clark had recently had a performance. He must have been returning to his tent when his amnesia began.
There was no knowing what was behind the tent flap and Clara felt a little knot forming in her stomach as her imagination filled in the gaps in her knowledge. She had seen quite a few horrid things these last few years, but you never really adjusted to seeing dead bodies. She gulped down on her dread, as she released the door flap and slipped inside.
The tent was illuminated by an oil lamp hanging from a central pole. There was not much inside other than a chair and table where Clark sat when people came to talk to him. A pile of publicity photographs stood on the table, ready to be handed out with a personalised message to the visitor. Beneath the table was a newspaper and a cheap novel. Clark clearly did not get a lot of visitors to his tent, mostly people wanted to see his gunslinging performance in the main ring, where he dazzled them with various sharpshooting skills. Clara recalled O’Harris had suggested they catch the eight o’clock performance of the display. That was not going to happen now.
O’Harris picked up a revolver lying on the table.
“Smith and Wesson,” he said. “Got some mileage to it, grip is pretty worn, wood polished smooth.”
He smelt it.
“Hasn’t been fired,” he broke the gun’s barrel open and showed Clara. “Isn’t loaded. I guess Clark has it here to show visitors.”
The tent was otherwise unenlightening. There was no apparent sign of some terrible event that had left Clark a nervous wreck.
“I honestly expected a body,” Clara said.
“You actually sighed in disappointment then,” O’Harris chuckled.
Clara looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t mean to.”
O’Harris winked at her and she blushed.
“I was only teasing,” he said. “I was expecting a body too. This is very bizarre.”
Clara took another good look around the tent. There was no obvious sign of a struggle, but the ground had been trampled quite heavily and that made it harder to say what was a fresh mark and what was not. Clara paused as she saw something that was a little odd.
“Would you say those look like drag marks?” She asked O’Harris, pointing to some scrapes in the hard dirt of the ground.
The marks were not deep and only appeared when the light fell in a certain way. O’Harris moved around Clara to see what she had noticed.
“It does look like something was dragged this way, or maybe pushed. The grass has been flattened there by something heavy. Is it relevant?”
Clara shrugged. It might just have been marks caused when the tent was being set up. Perhaps there had been a heavy trunk or box in the tent. Odd how the marks seemed to go under the back flap of the wall though. She looked at this wall closer and noticed how the wind was flicking it up more than the other canvas panels. The walls were joined by thin cord threaded through eyelets in each panel, forming a criss-cross pattern. Only, on the back wall, the pattern had several errors and there were gaps that were allowing the wind to billow the walls and flap the edges. Whoever had put this panel in place had not understood the correct way to thread the eyelets. Compared to the neatness of the other seams, this seemed suspicious.
Clara speculated that someone had recently opened this tent panel, perhaps to enter unseen, and when they had tried to re-secure it, they had discovered they did not know how and had hashed together the seam. It was curious that the drag marks also went under that wall, was it significant or just coincidence?
Clara undid the seam, which was not difficult as the threaded cord was so badly woven through it was barely holding anything together. When she lifted the flap she was assailed by the stern sea breeze, which was whipping salt into the air and slapping the cliffside with wintry fury.
“All that is beyond here is the cliff,” O’Harris stood beside Clara and stared out to sea. “Barely a foot or two before the cliff edge.”
Clara glanced down at the narrow strip of ground between the tent and a drop to the beach below. She always felt a little uneasy around cliffs, as if they might crumble beneath her feet. It was then she noticed that the drag marks went right up to the cliff edge and then over it.
“Something was pushed over the cliff,” she pointed at the marks. Going to the spot she peered to the beach below. The night was dark, and it was hard to see anything on the sand, but she thought there was a shape.
“Down there!” She hissed to O’Harris in a fierce whisper. “A body?”
O’Harris leaned over and tried to make out the shape in the dim light.
“I can’t tell, but that would explain a thing or two.”
“If we follow the cliff, there is a way down over there,” Clara indicated to her right, to a point at the far edge of the funfair. “I think we should check this out.”
O’Harris grabbed the lamp from the tent and they made their way as discreetly as they could through the fair goers. No one was paying attention to them; they were just another pair of visitors on this exciting night. They reached a duck shoot stand and slipped behind it, to a set of concrete steps that offered a way down to the beach. In the summer this would be a popular path for bathers and sun worshippers heading to the sands below, in the dark of November, it was a barely visible descent to the slapping sea.
O’Harris held up the lamp, taking a moment to assess the stairs.
“Slick with sea spray, best take them carefully,” he told Clara.
She did not say that she was well aware of the possibility of the steps being wet this time of year. She was a local girl after all. O’Harris had a tendency to fuss around her, which was sweet, though sometimes a little patronising. For instance, she really wanted to grab the lantern out of his hand and lead the way, but it would be rude and petty to do so, thus she had to be content to follow him down the stairs.
He kept holding out a hand to her as she stepped down, as if he thought she needed to be prevented from tumbling forward. Clara started to find this annoying, as she was fully capable of negotiating a set of steps. It did not help her mood when she managed to slip off the second to last stair and fell into the captain. He caught her, and as much as she liked being clutched in his strong arms, she was cross with herself for slipping in the first place.
They traipsed along the beach, the sea blasting them with saltwater as the tide drew in. The wind gusting sand into their faces and making them shiver in their coats. It was not the season to be down on the beach, and certainly not at night. They followed the cliff edge, skirting rocks and the odd piece of driftwood. They seemed to have to walk further to get back to the spot where Clark’s tent stood above them, then they had to reach the stairs.
Clara shivered and pulled her scarf further up her face. O’Harris had the lamp held high to illuminate their path and it cast eerie shadows on the sand.
“There is something ahead,” the captain said, pointing to a large, rounded shape that did not appear to be a rock formation or tumble of sand.
“Looks… big,” Clara said in surprise, the shape just ahead being awkward and indistinct. It didn’t look like a body.
Wondering if they had ventured down to the beach for nothing, Clara went the last few paces required to get a better look at the indistinct form. O’Harris held the lamp out and moved it from side to side, to help them see what was there.
“Well I never,” he muttered.
The shape – the rounded, large form – was the slumped carcass of a horse.
Still struggling to comprehend what she was seeing, Clara walked around the dead animal until she reached its head.
“Looks like we have a murder on our hands after all,” she said to O’Harris.
He hastened to join her and frowned in confusion as he saw what Clara had spotted.
Sticking from the horse’s head, in the vulnerable spot between the eyes, was the handle of a heavy-duty knife. The point must be deep in the animal’s skull and the blow had surely killed it. The real question was why? Why had someone expended a great deal of effort to kill the animal and then push it from the cliff.
“Is this what sparked Clark’s memory loss?” O’Harris asked aloud.
Clara had touched the horse’s bridle. There was a panel on the cheek strap with a name – it read ‘Gung-Ho’.
“I think this is Clark’s horse,” Clara said, feeling a little sick at the sight of the poor dead animal. “And to answer your question, considering all those photographs of horses we saw in Clark’s caravan, I would say yes, this is the trigger.”
Clara stood up.
“Someone murdered Clark’s horse,” she said. “And poor Clark has lost his mind because of it.”
Chapter Three
They returned to Clark’s caravan and discovered a tall older man stood in the doorway. He was smoking a pipe and looking out at the fair with a faraway expression on his face.
“Good evening,” Clara called to the man.
He turned a frown on her, looking unsettled by her voice. He had grey hair, and a slight beard. His face was dark from the sun and heavily lined. It was a narrow, oval face, not in any sense good-looking, but open and honest. Clara surmised this was Mr Maven.
“Clara Fitzgerald,” Clara introduced herself when the man did not respond. “Captain O’Harris and I here assisted your unfortunate gunslinger. I was just coming back to check on him.”
“Much appreciated,” the tall man nodded to her, he had a Welsh accent that took some getting used to. “Clark is sleeping. David tells me he was suffering from a sort of memory loss.”
Clara guessed that David was the coffee seller they had spoken to earlier.
“I suspect Clark is suffering the effects of a terrible shock, which has caused him to lapse back in time to a place where he felt happier and safer,” O’Harris spoke up. “May I introduce myself? I am the founder of O’Harris’ Convalescence Home for Servicemen. I specialise in mental traumas and help men to restore their minds.”
The man studied him in silence, the frown still deep on his brow.
“You will need to send someone down to the beach,” Clara explained. “Our cowboy friend’s horse, Gung-Ho, is lying on the sand.”
Finally, the funfair owner reacted.
“What?”
“Gung-Ho has been killed, stabbed to be precise and then pushed over the cliff edge to keep him from sight.”
“Clark would never harm his own horse!” The tall man had come alive and was upset by this news. “Clark adores his horse, treats the creature like a person. Gung-Ho came with him from America, he was raised on the plains of Arizona before being caught and broken. Clark dotes on him!”
“I suspect that the slaying of Gung-Ho could have been enough of an emotional trigger to send Clark into this strange state,” O’Harris said. “Unable to cope with what he had witnessed and the knowledge that Gung-Ho had been killed, Clark’s mind shut down the part of his memory that relates to his time in England. Self-preservation of the brain. It is not a coincidence that the first thing Clark asked for in this new state was his horse. He has forgotten that Gung-Ho is dead.”
The fair owner looked dazed by all this information, he pulled the pipe from his mouth and stared out at the tents and rides, the loud voices of his customers, the bright lamps glowing everywhere.
“How long will this last?” He said to O’Harris. “Clark has a show in an hour.”
“He won’t be performing tonight,” O’Harris informed him carefully. “As for how long he remains lost in his past, well, it all depends.”
“Depends on what?” The owner demanded.
“Whether he can be convinced to return to the present. If he refuses, or rather his subconscious refuses, then we shall have a problem. You see, returning to the here and now also means remembering what has happened to Gung-Ho and that may simply be too painful for him to do.”
The funfair owner’s baffled expression was growing.
“You could help him, right? You are one of those psychology fellows?”
“Not exactly, I run a home for the mentally traumatised,” O’Harris explained as simply as he could, most people found what he did difficult to fathom. “I am not, however, a psychologist. I have doctors who specialise…”
“But you know about this trauma business, this memory loss stuff?” The owner persisted. “Look, I’ll lay my cards on the table. Clark is a big draw to the funfair; his show is a best seller. This place makes most of its money through the ticket sales for the main ring. Clark’s show is always packed, everyone loves a real cowboy and he is a good showman. I nee
d him back to work, sooner, not later. You help him be back in that tent in time for the next show and I shall pay you good money.”
“I don’t need your money,” O’Harris grumbled. “And these things are not simple, it can take weeks…”
“I have an hour,” the fair owner snapped. “Heck, you don’t want my money, fine, but I could donate something else to that home of yours. Suppose I give your patients all free tickets to the shows here? Name your price.”
O’Harris’ annoyance was growing. Clara gently touched his hand to calm him.
“I don’t think you appreciate how long these things can take,” she said to the fair owner. “Consider it the psychological equivalent of a broken leg. Clark’s mind needs time to heal.”
“I don’t want to hear about time,” the owner complained. “Ok, so he doesn’t perform tonight, but I need him functioning soon. Help him, please.”
“I am not a specialist…” O’Harris began to protest.
“Supposing I bring a bit of my funfair to you?” The owner interrupted him before he could continue. “You say you don’t need my money, but all these private hospitals need cashflow. You no doubt have investors, private donors who help you keep going. So, here is my offer. You help Clark and I will put on a free gala performance at your home for the benefit of your investors and patients. A free evening of entertainment to dazzle your people. Now, you can’t say no to that.”
O’Harris, frustrated, glanced to Clara.
“Someone needs to help poor Clark,” she whispered to him. “Someone also needs to find out why his horse was killed. That was an act of malice, pure and simple.”
O’Harris considered all this for a moment, then he looked back to the fair owner with a sense of resolution.
“Here is my offer,” he said firmly. “In exchange for helping Clark – and I make no guarantees I can or how long it might take, but I shall try – in exchange, you will put on a gala performance for the benefit of my home and you shall pay Clara here to investigate why Clark’s horse was killed and whether he is in any danger.”