Seventy-Seven Clocks

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘No, Earl Grey with a shot of brandy.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right then.’ He shifted a stack of magazines and seated himself. ‘Where’s everyone else?’

  ‘We finished early with just a few madrigals because Maureen’s cooking her family Christmas dinner, which she’s against in principle, being a practising pagan. The others have gone downstairs to the pub. They’re busy arguing about the origins of Yggdrasil, the cosmic axis. Things can get quite heated.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not familiar—” Bryant began.

  ‘Well, you should be!’ said Maggie, pouring a generous measure of Calvados into his cup. ‘It’s why we put presents under the Christmas tree. Yggdrasil is the eternal tree of Northern belief, the great natural core that links our world to heaven and hell. Decking the tree is an act which symbolically brings us the gifts of wisdom. And strangely enough, it has something to do with your investigation.’

  Bryant couldn’t wait to hear this one. Maggie crossed the room, nimbly skirting a pair of buckets collecting rainwater, and removed a large volume from one of the overflowing bookcases. ‘I’ve been delving into your dilemma, and I believe I’ve come up with something.’ She set the book down on the table before her. ‘This is an album of Christmas beliefs, printed in Scandinavia at the end of the nineteenth century. After our last meeting I started thinking about your Mr Whitstable and his Stewards of Heaven. I couldn’t see what had inspired him to form this kind of society, although it didn’t surprise me one bit that he had.’

  ‘It didn’t?’

  ‘Oh, no. You have to imagine the Victorian empire builders as they were. Champions of industry, taming the savages, spreading the word. How grand they must have thought themselves! How godlike! People like James Whitstable saw themselves as superior human beings, educated, enlightened, and powerful. They wanted to separate themselves from the rabble, to have their worth acknowledged by their peers. And they sought methods of spiritual improvement. Sometimes, however, they got sidetracked into bad habits. These days one tends to dismiss the Victorian age as a time of mindless imperialism. It comes as rather a shock to recall that the youthful Queen Victoria envisaged a new era of democracy, tolerance, and freedom for all. Things turned out differently due to the rigours of the class system, and because men like Whitstable put themselves above the common herd. Power is about access, and private societies are designed to exclude.’

  She opened the book at its mark and revealed a pair of graceful watercolour drawings. One was a traditional evocation of Saint Nicholas with his reindeer. The other was a representation of the god Odin, astride an eightlegged creature with horns. Both looked very similar. The distance between these two mythical icons was far less than Bryant had realized.

  ‘I felt it was significant that Whitstable saw himself as Och, the Bringer of Light. The group photograph reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think what it was. Then I remembered. The room in which the seven men were standing was decorated for Christmas. You could see holly lining the mantelpiece. Now, Christmas is a unique festival, originally celebrating not the birth of Christ but the rebirth of light following winter’s shortest, darkest day. Do you want a mince pie?’ She shook a tin at Bryant that sounded as if it contained rocks. ‘Midwinter has always been regarded as a time of terrible danger. To primitive man, it must have seemed that the nights would continue to lengthen until darkness reigned continuously. The people of Britain sought to ward off this all-consuming darkness with rites and ceremonies, and have continued to do so for over five thousand years. What a relief it must have been for them to find the days lengthening again! What an excuse for a party! You probably know that the festival of Christmas celebrates this turning point; the triumph of light over darkness, and thus the victory of good over evil, Satan held at bay for another year. People whinge about Christmas becoming too commercial, but before heavenly choirs of angels made it so bland and solemn it was a marvelously rowdy pagan celebration.’

  ‘And this has something to do with James Makepeace Whitstable?’

  ‘Sorry, I thought I’d made myself clear. Let’s assume that the photograph of the Alliance of Eternal Light was taken at the end of December. The Winter Solstice is the twenty-first or twenty-second of December. You see?’

  ‘Not at all,’ admitted Bryant.

  ‘Look at the pictures,’ said Maggie patiently. ‘Saint Nicholas is a cleaned-up Christian version of the fearsome one-eyed pagan god Odin, the original “Old Nick.” Odin’s horse, Sleipnir, becomes Rudolph the reindeer. When was the first murder committed?’

  ‘The sixth of December.’

  ‘The feast day of Saint Nicholas. The first day of the battle between light and darkness. A battle that can’t end until the light starts to lengthen once more, after the twenty-second of December.’ She closed the book and handed it to him. ‘I’m afraid your murders aren’t over yet.’

  ‘But it’s Christmas Day. The days have already started to lengthen again.’

  ‘Have they?’ asked Maggie. ‘With the terrible weather we’ve been having in the past few weeks, we’re well below the seasonal average for hours of daylight. Instead, we’ve had more and more darkness. What about all the power cuts? The government isn’t giving in. They’re forecasting three hours of darkness every evening, and they reckon it will get worse. Perhaps the sacrifices aren’t working.’

  ‘I can’t afford to believe that the world is descending into darkness because a secret society has failed to restore the daylight, Maggie. Next you’ll be trying to make me believe that there’s a chamber full of cloaked figures somewhere clutching knives at a sacrificial altar.’ Bryant scratched at his unshaven chin, confused. ‘You’re assuming that Whitstable’s alliance is still active, but we’ve found no evidence of that. Why would they act now, after waiting so long?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s some kind of anniversary.’

  ‘No, the big one would surely be one hundred years. That’s not due yet. And you’re suggesting the alliance wages some kind of occult war by actually murdering people; if that were the case, they would surely be going after their true foes, the enemies of day and light. These deaths are occurring within their guild, not outside it. That means they’re attacking their own people, their own blood. Why would they deliberately hurt themselves?’

  ‘I agree with you,’ said Maggie reluctantly. ‘It doesn’t make sense. But a lot can happen in nearly a hundred years. The system has inverted itself somehow. Perhaps it’s not stoppable.’

  ‘It’s killing them one by one, Maggie. If they knew the danger of such a society, don’t you think the Whitstables would try to expose it?’

  ‘Perhaps they daren’t confide in the police. Perhaps they’re too scared of what might happen.’

  Bryant thought of the uneasy silence that surrounded the mention of Charles Whitstable’s name. ‘Perhaps they know they can do nothing to halt it,’ he said uneasily.

  36 / Internecine

  Laden with the volumes on pagan winter rituals that Maggie Armitage had lent him, Bryant drove back from Camden Town to his Battersea apartment. He arrived to find his partner furiously pacing the floor.

  ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ May snapped. ‘We’ve been trying to page you for hours, but there’s been no response.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Bryant, pushing past him to remove a bottle of wine from the refrigerator. ‘My bleeper’s in the tie drawer of my wardrobe. You should have been able to hear it from in here.’ He searched for a corkscrew. ‘I promise I’ll try to get used to new technology before one of us dies.’

  ‘Arthur, there’s been another attack.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I rang in first thing this morning and everything was fine.’

  ‘That’s because they didn’t discover Pippa Whitstable was missing until they got around to searching her bedroom. The Met constable on guard forgot to conduct a morning roll call.’

  ‘Pippa . . .’ Bryant’s cheerful demeanour evaporated.


  ‘She sneaked out last night and was stabbed in the alley beside the house.’ May ran a hand through his chestnut mane, exasperated. ‘She’ll live, but she’s not much use as a witness. Says her attacker was a small Indian man, and that they “all look the same” to her.’

  ‘She’s been around too many white people. There’s madness at work here. It’s like an epidemic—the more we seek to contain it, the more virulent each outbreak becomes.’

  ‘We need to do something fast.’ May was studying him, concerned. ‘Have you eaten anything today?’

  Bryant shook his head. ‘It’s been the last thing on my mind.’

  They located the casserole his landlady had prepared the night before. ‘Where is Alma?’ Bryant asked, suspiciously eyeing the steaming bowl as he unwound his scarf.

  ‘She gave up waiting for you and went to stay with her sister in Tooting.’ May ladled chunks of stewed beef into bowls. ‘Tell me what happened with the spiritualist.’

  ‘Maggie’s not a spiritualist, John. The fields are only vaguely related. It’s like calling your dentist an optician. She’s managed to establish the source of my occult connection.’

  ‘Whitstable’s secret alliance?’

  ‘Yes, and you won’t like it. Someone in the family has failed to carry out the ritual that should ensure the renewal of light to the world.’

  ‘What?’ May carried a laden tray into the dining room. ‘This is the twentieth century, not the nineteenth. Are you telling me these are sacrificial murders?’

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ replied Bryant, peering into his bowl and sniffing. ‘Why would James Whitstable deliberately sacrifice the future generations of his family? I’m still missing something.’

  ‘Part of your brain, by the sound of it,’ muttered May, seating himself at the table. ‘I hate to disappoint you, but the Whitstable alliance was formed for a more mundane purpose.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘We must go back to the unit. I locked the trading contract in my desk. It’s safe there until I can arrange to have it properly analysed.’ The forensic department operated beyond the official jurisdiction of the PCU, and was running shifts with a skeleton staff through the Christmas break.

  ‘I suppose we’ve missed the queen’s speech,’ said Bryant gloomily, filling their glasses.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ said May. ‘You’re a republican, and yet you want to hear the queen.’

  ‘She’s a good woman who happens to be surrounded by idiots. Every outmoded hierarchy is the same,’ said Bryant. ‘Look at the Whitstables. They still trade on the respect of their ancestors, but that respect was created by fear. There’s nothing noble about power won in that fashion. And apart from that, they’re horrible people. How’s the casserole?’

  May prodded an indeterminate piece of vegetable matter with his fork. ‘If your landlady cooks like this because she cares about you,’ he said with a grimace, ‘I dread to think what she’d make if you fell out.’

  They arrived at the Mornington Crescent unit to find their office door wide open. The workmen had downed tools for the Christmas holiday. Water was pouring in through the unsealed frames. The office reeked of turpentine. Although all leave had been suspended in the division, the rest of the staff had been granted lunch breaks so that they could at least share a quick Christmas meal with their families.

  May unlocked his desk and removed the sealed envelope containing the Whitstables’ signatory contract.

  ‘This document was drawn up to protect and further the family’s business interests,’ he said, spreading the damp pages carefully across his blotter. ‘The Whitstables had little in common with their hardworking Northern brothers, who were running mills and forging communication links across the country. They were too old, too finely bred to be industrialists. They were entrepreneurs, opening markets via powerful Foreign Office connections, and made regular party payments to ensure favourable trade conditions.’ He tapped the pages with his forefinger. ‘It’s all here, couched in suitably euphemistic English. James Makepeace Whitstable set up the alliance to protect his family by preventing their assets from falling into the wrong hands.

  ‘These seven men declared their financial goals in writing. They had investments in iron, steel, and the railways, goldsmiths’ and jewellers’ concerns, and of course the Watchmakers. Remember you said that the Whitstables were the Victorian empire in microcosm? The terms of this contract suggest they were something more: a right-wing organization aimed at the furtherance of a dynasty. Look at this.’ He singled out one of the handwritten clauses. ‘ “In a situation of unfair competitive practice, the Alliance is fully prepared to disaffect said competitor with the utmost vigour.” I wonder if they were prepared to kill in order to safeguard the supremacy of the company.’

  Bryant sat and examined the document page by page. Finally he looked up at May. ‘Have you been able to verify any of this?’

  ‘I called Leo Marks. I thought he’d be bound to have other documents on file somewhere, but he says he’s never heard of them. Legally binding contracts more than fifty years old are stored in a shared vault, and take time to locate. His office is closed until the third of January. Janice checked with the Savoy to see if they kept guests’ registration records, and how far they go back. She asked them to run through the last two weeks of December 1881. The hotel’s ledgers are stored in immaculate condition. They were able to verify that Mr James Whitstable and friends—he paid for the rooms of the other six—stayed there for just one night. But it wasn’t on December the twenty-first of 1881. It was on the twentyeighth.’

  Bryant’s face fell. ‘You mean they missed the winter solstice by a whole week?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Your theory is wrong, Arthur. Your dates have to be purely coincidental.’

  ‘According to Maggie’s books, the day of each death matches points in the supposed battle between day and eternal night. The culmination of the fight occurs at the end of December. I’d have written it off as coincidence myself if I hadn’t seen the photograph of the Stewards of Heaven signing their contract at the Savoy. The whole business is filled with strange associations. Have you noticed how the lights always seem to flicker just before there’s a murder?’

  ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous!’ May exploded. ‘You can’t tell me they’ve put a spell on their descendants!’

  ‘Perhaps not, but I think the contract bound them spiritually as well as legally. The others had to sign. They didn’t dare not to.’

  ‘You’re sure all the dates match up?’

  ‘So far.’

  ‘You’d better see if there are any further events in the mystical calendar that we should be aware of.’

  Bryant stared at the pages, his thoughts far away. May knew the look. It meant there was something on his partner’s mind that he had failed to mention.

  Bryant opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

  ‘All right,’ May said finally. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking. Why did he pick the Savoy? The hotel had only been built two years before. Why sign the document there? Why not have it certified in legal chambers?’

  ‘No doubt the Savoy was the smart new place to be seen taking one’s business partners.’

  ‘I suppose if they were clandestinely signing the document, privacy would have been desirable. But I can’t help wondering if there was an association with the hotel that gave James Whitstable a reason for signing up his alliance partners there.’

  ‘We could go through their records, but I feel like we’re heading off track.’

  ‘Look at the contract,’ said Bryant. ‘It’s handwritten, filled with grammatical mistakes and anomalies, as if put together on the spur of the moment.’ He fanned the pages wide before him. ‘There are three different hands at work here. It was too much for one person to write by himself in an evening. Whitstable coerced his partners into creating a blueprint for their financial future. I think the contract was just o
ne part of a broader ritual.’

  ‘Arthur, we’ve spent long enough rooting about in the past. We need someone who’s alive today.’

  ‘I agree,’ rejoined his partner. ‘But until the Met comes up with a single shred of incriminating evidence, our only chance of finding a motive lies in understanding the family’s ancestry. Find the motive and we trace the culprit.’

  ‘And your motive is human sacrifice for the return of the daylight?’ May shook his head. ‘These aren’t the Dark Ages. Greed, jealousy, revenge—those are the only enduring reasons for murder. Human nature stays the same. This agreement was signed in late-Victorian Britain, an age of enlightenment. Advocating the murder of the family it was designed to protect makes no sense, can’t you see that?’

  ‘All I can see,’ said Bryant stubbornly, ‘is your refusal to acknowledge the debt we all owe to the past.’

  ‘You can’t bend the facts to fit your theories. Whitstable did not form his alliance on the day of the solstice. How much more proof do you need?’

  ‘I could have sworn I was right about that. Everything pointed to a supernatural ceremony.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure? Look at your own interests. You love all this mumbo-jumbo about pagan worship. Does it honestly belong in the investigation? I have a theory of my own, but I’m not trying to force it into place.’

  ‘And what is it, might I ask?’

  ‘A team of hired assassins carrying out instructions from someone in the family who bears an old grudge. The way everything’s meticulously planned, it’s as if it’s being computed.’

  ‘Now whose personal interests are coming through?’ Bryant exclaimed. ‘Look out there.’ He pointed to the window. ‘The days are still dark.’

  ‘Raymond Land’s been telling people you’re suffering from mental stress,’ said May, ‘that you’re intractable, bloody-minded. I told him not to be so damned rude. But unless you start working with me instead of developing these crazy notions by yourself, I’ll start thinking he’s right.’ He stalked from the office and slammed the door.