Seventy-Seven Clocks

by Christopher Fowler

Tomlins’s smile froze on his face. ‘You must understand that this is information we never give out . . .’ His voice climbed even higher than usual.

  May waved the objection aside. ‘You send your members mailings; every organization does. Your secretary must have the names and addresses. I’ll ask her.’ He rose.

  ‘All right, I’ll get you the list,’ said Tomlins hastily. ‘But I don’t know what you mean by an inner circle.’

  ‘We’ll go through the names first, then we’ll come back to the sacred flame. I’ll have a number of other requests in due course. Until then, I suggest you make yourself busy, because you wouldn’t believe some of the things I’m going to ask you to do for me tomorrow.’

  Alison Hatfield stood waiting for him at the foot of the main staircase, dwarfed by the white statues of the four seasons. As May approached her through the temple of chalced marble, he wondered if she had come to a decision. Last night he had called her and asked for her help. As she was employed outside the Watchmakers’ Company but within the same system, he figured she would be the ideal person to assist him.

  ‘Thanks for meeting me, Miss Hatfield,’ he said, as she led him to the deserted Court Room in the northwest corner of the building. ‘I need a guide through all of this.’ He tapped his folder.

  ‘Please, call me Alison. We won’t be interrupted in here.’ She pushed open a pair of heavily carved doors. May’s mouth fell open as he gazed upon the elaborate gold and silver cornices of the Court Room.

  ‘Impressive, isn’t it? That stone behind the Prime Warden’s chair is a Roman altar from the second century. Some workmen discovered it in the building’s foundations about a hundred and fifty years ago. The figure on the side is Diana, or Apollo, we’re not sure which.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ he agreed. ‘It makes you wonder how much more of London is still hidden away from public view.’ They seated themselves at the mahogany banjoshaped table that dominated the room. ‘I thought the guilds were created for the benefit of artisans and their families.’

  ‘They still carry out a lot of work for charity, but they’ve accumulated great wealth.’

  May emptied the folder on to the leather surface of the table. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Alison,’ he said with a sigh. ‘There are unusual pressures being brought to bear on us, and I’m desperate for some outside help. These murders occurred within a respected family during Common Market fortnight. Could William Whitstable have died when an incendiary device of his own making exploded? I know the whole family belongs to the Watchmakers. Their ancestors were men with mechanical minds. Are they doing this to each other? If so, why would they abduct a small child? Are the Whitstables members of some private club which exists within the Watchmakers? How can I find out if they are?’ He sat back in his chair and turned to her. ‘You see my problems.’

  ‘What can I do to help?’

  ‘I need you to find me the name of anyone who can tell me the truth about the Whitstables. Either Mr Tomlins is too scared to talk, or he genuinely knows nothing about what’s going on, or he is somehow involved. I fear it’s the latter. Can you honestly say that no one here has ever seen this sign?’ He held up the picture of the sacred flame once more. He didn’t want to tell her that the only person to recognize it as a guild symbol was Arthur’s butcher.

  Alison carefully examined it. ‘Actually, I have seen it somewhere,’ she told him.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I think it was on a brochure. We help the Watchmakers send out their mailings. I don’t know whether it was to do with them directly; there are many associated companies. I think it was something connected with their charity work.’

  ‘Would you have any brochures left?’ asked May.

  ‘There are bound to be some in the basement. We never throw anything away.’

  ‘Can we go and look?’

  ‘It’ll be cold and dark. A real mess. No one ever goes down there.’

  ‘It would be easier than trying to find them by myself.’

  ‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll take you down. But we’ll have to get a couple of torches.’

  The old trellis lift shook and rattled as they descended into musty darkness. Bare concrete walls rose around them. It was as if they were leaving the guild hall for the ruined Temple of Diana that lay buried far beneath it.

  ‘Why aren’t there any lights down here?’ asked May, watching his breath turn grey in the chill air.

  ‘I don’t know. There are emergency lights, but they must operate on a separate circuit. I think it’s a different voltage or something.’ Alison pointed to the tiny red bulb set in the ceiling of the lift. Standing in the gloom with her nose tilted and her hair brushed to the back of her long neck, Alison looked like a Pre-Raphaelite heroine. He wanted to touch her skin, to see if it could really be that soft and delicate.

  The lift groaned. May remembered his partner’s dictum that bad things happened when the lights went out. They stopped with an echoing thump, and Alison pulled open the trellis. She clicked on her torch and shone it along a dim corridor.

  ‘This way,’ she said, holding back the gate for him. They passed nearly a dozen darkened doorways before she turned into a tall, windowless storeroom. ‘If the brochures are down here at all, they’ll be in one of these.’

  ‘Okay, you start at one end and I’ll start at the other,’ said May.

  For the next half hour they tore open the lids of damp-smelling cartons and checked the mildewed contents. May was just resealing one of the boxes when he heard a scuttling noise in the darkness beyond the room, like tacks being scattered across tiles. ‘What was that?’

  Alison looked up at him, her pale eyes catching the light like some kind of nocturnal animal. ‘I think there might be rats,’ she said calmly. ‘Hardly anyone ever comes down here because of the leak.’

  ‘What leak?’ May looked down at the torch. The beam had begun to falter.

  ‘The river drains run right under here. Sometimes, after very heavy rainfall, you can hear a dull rumbling beneath the floor. It’s a really creepy sound. There’s a leak in one of the corridors below, and the rats get in. They breed in the river. They’re supposed to be as big as cats.’

  ‘There’s another floor below this?’

  ‘Yes, but they damned it up with cement because of the danger of flooding.’

  May found himself listening for the rush of the underground current. The torch flickered again. He tapped the glass with his hand.

  On the other side of the room, Alison ripped open a carton and emptied it. ‘I think I’ve found them,’ she called.

  May clambered over the boxes and joined her just as his torch beam dwindled to nothing. She held one of the brochures high and shone her light on it.

  The back page bore the stamp of the golden flame burning in heavenly light. The words LUX AETERNA were written in neat Tudor script beneath it, and beneath this were printed the words Alliance of Eternal Light. May took the brochure from her. The headline across the front read: Renovating London’s Most Beautiful Theatres: How You Can Help. Below was a reproduction of a Victorian painting showing an excited first-night audience. May opened the front cover and found himself gazing at a pair of photographs, smartly bordered in gold.

  One showed the late William Whitstable. The other was a portrait of James Makepeace Whitstable, a man who had been dead for the best part of a century. A man, thought May, studying the stern face in the photograph, who still exerted such power over his descendants that nothing, not even death, would allow them to share their secrets with the outside world.

  23 / Transgression

  The Guardian, Tuesday 21 December 1973

  POLICE INCOMPETENCE BLAMED

  FOR DAISY DELAY

  The search for Daisy Whitstable, aged seven, taken from her Chelsea home on Sunday afternoon, got off to a poor start due to a fourteen-hour delay, after Metropolitan Police units failed to communicate vital information. Daisy’s disappearance had not been connected to
an ongoing investigation of deaths among other family relatives. Because the crucial link had been overlooked, investigative work was set back at a time when it was most needed.

  Daily Mail, Tuesday 21 December 1973

  NO CHRISTMAS CHEER IN MISSING

  DAISY HOUSEHOLD

  Christmas stockings hang above a merrily burning log fire, waiting to be filled. A saucer of water stands beneath the sparkling, bauble-covered tree, a child’s thoughtful offering for weary reindeer. But unless a miracle occurs, there will be no joyous Christmas laughter in this house, only anguished tears.

  For this is the home of little Daisy Whitstable, abducted on Sunday afternoon. Instead of the welcoming sight of a jovial Santa stacking presents at the foot of the bed, there has been an uninvited, grimmer visitor— and instead of emptying his yuletide sack, he has filled it. See our Leader Column: ‘Is No One Safe in Their Homes? Why We Should All Be Afraid.’

  Letter to the Evening News, Tuesday 21 December 1973

  Dear Sir,

  Your recent suggestion that the ‘sacred flame’ symbol associated with the Whitstable murders has a connection with a secret Nazi assassination bureau is utter hogwash.

  The symbol that is currently being flaunted in the national press bears no resemblance whatsoever to the one which made a brief appearance towards the end of the Second World War. It is, however, very similar to the sacred flame of certain Victorian occult societies.

  Far from harbouring murderous intent, such societies were merely gathering spots for harmless English gentlemen who welcomed the chance to occasionally escape from the wife and summon up Beelzebub in the company of a few like-minded friends.

  Yours sincerely,

  The Rev. George Bartlett.

  ‘I want to see John May,’ Jerry said, trying to regain her breath after having galloped up the broken-down escalator at Mornington Crescent Tube station.

  Sergeant Longbright looked up from a stack of reports and regarded her coolly. ‘Good morning, Miss Gates. You’re starting early today.’

  The desk clock read seven forty-three. Jerry had not slept well, but it was the sergeant who looked as if she had been working all night.

  ‘However, Mr May was even earlier. You just missed him.’ She smiled. ‘He’s doing some more interviews. I’m expecting him back at noon. Do you want to leave a message?’

  ‘No—it can wait.’

  She was desperate to share her findings about CROWET, but forced herself to hold on until she could speak to the detectives in person.

  ‘Miss Gates.’ Longbright was tapping the pencil against the desk and frowning at her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you don’t have anything specific to do here, can you come back later? We’re really busy.’

  ‘Sorry. I thought I could, you know, help or something.’ She was about to leave when she noticed the damp-wrinkled theatre brochure on the sergeant’s desk. The front cover showed a painting of the interior of the Savoy Theatre. May had obviously been following the same lead. So much for promising to keep her in the picture.

  ‘At least let me buy you a coffee, Sergeant. You look tired.’ Jerry smiled encouragingly.

  ‘I’d love one,’ said the sergeant absently. ‘I can’t get away from this desk.’

  ‘I’ve only got notes. Do you have change?’

  ‘Let me see.’ As Longbright turned to the raincoat hanging on the stand behind her and fished through the pockets, Jerry slipped the brochure inside her jacket. She felt she had the right to do so. Joseph had been cheated out of his job, and the police would be unable to help him. It was up to her now.

  * * *

  ‘You said to drop it if I didn’t find out anything, but I did.’ They were seated in the coffee bar opposite the Savoy, where Jerry was supposed to have started her shift ten minutes ago. ‘I’ll just go to her house and talk to her. What harm can come of that?’ She stared into a cup of scalding, foamy tea and sighed. ‘I can’t get hurt, if that’s what you’re worried about. The police may never discover the truth. Lots of murders remain unsolved.’

  ‘If you think you can make a difference, fine.’ Joseph threw his hands up in defeat. ‘You’ve already stolen evidence from a police station and it’s not even nine a.m. Imagine what you can accomplish by lunchtime. Go and see this woman, pretend you’re from the press or whatever stupid idea you’ve come up with. I can’t stop you.’

  Jerry was determined to see the thing through, and that meant finding out more about CROWET. Peggy Harmsworth, née Whitstable, was William Whitstable’s co-director on the theatre committee, and the only other person to be listed by name in the CROWET brochure. Reading the biographies, Jerry had found Mrs Harmsworth to be a Whitstable, grandmother to the abducted Daisy, in what proved to be yet another uncharted branch of this interminable family.

  ‘Do me a favour? Tell Nicholas I have a cold and can’t come in to work.’ She reached across the counter to touch his hand, but Joseph withdrew it.

  ‘This is the last time,’ he warned.

  The rain was drifting through the trees like spider threads as Jerry pushed open the gates of North London’s exclusive Holly Lodge estate. The 1920s mock-Tudor houses were hidden beyond billiard-table lawns, and reeked of wealth. Jerry had rung Mrs Harmsworth to suggest conducting an interview with her for a new lifestyle magazine. Peggy Harmsworth had agreed to be interviewed because she could talk about her favourite charities, and because she had been offered money.

  Jerry smoothed out her skirt and rang the doorbell. Her Savoy uniform was smart, and added an aura of respectability. Unusually for a Whitstable, Peggy had chosen to change her name on marriage, although she had left the family name on the CROWET brochure. Consequently, she had not been contacted for the PCU briefing on Sunday.

  Peggy was seated in the drawing room awaiting her visitor. In its sixth decade, her face had developed a timeless look tightened by disillusionment and low body fat. Her sleek dark hair was arranged in a chignon and fixed with a gold clasp. At her feet lay a small, hypertense dog of the kickable variety. Peggy did not look as if she was about to countenance any nonsense. Nor, judging by the tumbler of Scotch at her side, was she entirely sober. After a brief but frank discussion about payment, they settled down to work.

  Jerry looked around at the antelope heads peering forlornly from the walls. ‘Did you kill these yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘One inherits so many ghastly things from one’s family.’ Peggy ground out her cigarette in an antelope-foot ashtray.

  No tea and biscuits here, thought Jerry gloomily. She rose and examined the smouldering ashtray-foot. ‘I assume there are three others like this.’

  ‘I thought you came here to ask impertinent questions about my life. It’s a little late to give me lessons in ecology.’ She tapped out another Sobranie and lit it. ‘For God’s sake, sit down; you’re making me nervous. Let’s get the interrogation over with.’ She exhaled a funnel of blue smoke and sat back, like Circe awaiting the effect of a spell.

  Jerry cleared her throat. ‘Obviously, I’d like to detail your charity work for London’s neglected theatres, but naturally our readers would like to know how you’re coping with recent tragedies. Do you think the abduction of your granddaughter is connected to these deaths?’

  ‘Of course I bloody do!’ Peggy exploded. ‘Anyone can see we’re being decimated.’

  ‘But who hates you enough to do such a thing?’

  She tipped back her head and fired another jet of smoke at the ceiling. ‘That’s rather the question, isn’t it? All international businesses make enemies. When your main aim is to throttle the life from the home competition, you’re bound to tread on a few toes. Of course, these days nobody behaves in an openly vicious fashion. Rivals don’t get obliterated, they get gently squeezed out, like spots. We’re hardly the Krays.’

  Peggy fanned smoke away from her face. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. The financial world is as cruel as it ever was, but subtler. The Whitstables haven�
��t destroyed anyone in years. Our grandfathers behaved like bastards, but then so did everyone else. The East India Company had set a fine example at the start of the last century— exporting opium to China, monopolizing the drug, and fostering the addiction of the Chinese so that Britain could profit from imported tea and silks. They had always had to fight for their trading rights. The British were outraged after the Black Hole of Calcutta, but that was nothing compared to what we did to the poor bloody Indians. Yet despite its independence, India still carries our legacy—look at the hopeless red tape we left behind in their government. I don’t suppose they teach you this sort of thing at school any more.’ She peered suspiciously through the smoke at Jerry. ‘There’s always been bad behaviour in the outposts of the business world. But I thought you wanted to talk about my theatre work.’

  ‘Yes, I read your brochure. Where did the CROWET symbol come from?’

  ‘It’s the symbol of the Alliance of Eternal Light. It’s not as grand as it sounds, merely an organization founded by some of the Watchmakers’ Company.’

  ‘Who, specifically? James Makepeace Whitstable— the gentleman on your brochure?’

  ‘Yes, it was James’s inspiration. No doubt the name came to him in one of his evangelical moods.’

  ‘What are the alliance’s modern-day duties?’

  ‘It’s a philanthropic trust involved in charity work, mainly raising money for churches and hospitals, although it originally began as some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. The family coffers were almost empty, and James came up with a plan to fill them. Whatever he did, it worked for a hell of a long time. Much of the Whitstable fortune was created by him. Now it’s evolving into a holding trust for organizations like CROWET. We’ve just taken over the restoration of the Savoy Theatre. A Japanese consortium was handling it, but we managed to buy them off. Rather, the Japs suddenly dropped out, leaving us with a successful bid for the building. It was almost too good to be true.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because we’ve always wanted the Savoy. Now, with the alliance’s help, we’ll be able to ensure that the theatre reopens in the New Year.’