Seventy-Seven Clocks

by Christopher Fowler

  She was still trying to puzzle out the mystery when she heard the terrible breathing. Deep and rasping, asthmatic and obscene. And she saw the door to the children’s room moving back, widening slowly.

  Her first thought was to run back to her bedroom and wake her husband. She considered calling to him, but knowing what a heavy sleeper he was, Christian would not hear her. It was when she saw what stood in the doorway that she attempted to scream.

  Eight feet away from her, in the entrance to the room where Justin and Flora were fast asleep, was a fully grown male Bengal tiger.

  It was insanity to think of such a creature standing in a suburban London house. But there it was, watching Deborah with ancient yellow eyes, its tail restlessly swinging, rhythmically thumping against the door jamb.

  The beast was over six feet long, and its shoulders rose higher than the door knob behind it. It was old and distraught, confused by its unfamiliar surroundings. Long white hair hung from its sunken cheeks. Its fur was a deep orange-brown, beautifully marked with dark ochre transverse stripes. Its underparts were a dirty cream, its large splayed paws covered in mud and hooked with vicious black claws.

  As the creature raised its enormous head and dilated its nostrils, picking up her scent, it began to pad towards her, and she saw its ribs sticking painfully out beneath its hide. She had read somewhere that old or disabled tigers would eat human flesh if they were hungry and considered their prey to be weaker than themselves. The animal moving in her direction looked half mad from starvation.

  As Deborah’s shrill scream filled the air, the tiger loped forward and threw up its forepaws in a half-hearted leap, smashing her to the floor. Within seconds she heard shouts from her son and daughter, and even the sound of Christian attempting to rouse himself, but the body of the beast was crushing the life from her, its fetid breath blasting over her as it batted her head with its claws.

  The creature opened its jaws to reveal rows of tall brown teeth, and stinking saliva poured on to her face as it reached down to clamp its mouth around her head and bite down hard, cracking bone and flesh, tearing sinew and skin from its thrashing, defenceless prey.

  As Christian stepped into the hall in his pyjamas, his eyes widening in disbelief, the tiger dropped the victim it was lifting by the head. Attracted by the sound of the children screaming behind him, it turned its attention towards a more tender meal.

  42 / Proposition

  Arthur Bryant stood beneath the indigo stainedglass saints in the hallway, furling a dripping umbrella and slowly unraveling his wet Christmas scarf. What the hell was he doing here, Jerry wondered? If the detective made a display of recognizing her, her cover would be wrecked. Worse, he might decide to explain how they knew each other. She hastily slipped back against the wall, away from his line of vision.

  Luckily, when Jerry next looked she saw that Bryant was now standing with his back to the parlour door. She watched him speaking to Charles Whitstable. Moving closer to the doorway, she strained to hear what they were saying.

  ‘. . . understood that you were summoned back to England by your mother just last week, is that right?’

  ‘No, not exactly,’ Charles admitted. ‘I’d spoken to Berta before that. Naturally she was alarmed by what was happening, but she said there was little to be gained by my returning home, particularly as some members of the family have grievances about how I run things.’

  ‘Then what made you come back?’

  ‘I was concerned that the current adverse publicity should not affect the faith of our investors. And I’d received a summons from a business colleague who wanted me to help him with a problem.’

  ‘What kind of problem?’

  ‘He was trying to locate a document that belonged to my great-grandfather.’

  ‘Mr Whitstable, I need to know what you were asked to find for him.’

  ‘It’s no secret.’ Charles shrugged, unfazed by the demand. ‘Apparently James Makepeace Whitstable kept a personal chronicle covering certain key events of his life. It’s possible it may shed some light on recent events. I was concerned about my mother’s safety in London, so I decided to make the trip and check on her at the same time.’

  ‘Did you have any luck finding this “chronicle”?’

  ‘I’m afraid I was no help whatsoever. I barely had time to look. There were too many other problems weighing on my mind. Late on Christmas Day I received a call to say that I needn’t worry about finding it any more. He didn’t sound very pleased, I must say. Lawyers never are when you interfere with their plans.’

  ‘It was Leo Marks who summoned you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I need to make a call to London,’ said the detective, pointing to the hall telephone. ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Arthur Bryant was furious with himself for being so easily misdirected. Of course the law firm would be privy to the secrets of their oldest and most valued clients. If Max Jacob had known about the alliance’s philosophy, it explained why he had been carrying William Whitstable’s annotated Bible with him. The pages of the volume were marked according to William’s doctrine of light and darkness. He was a continuing part of the alliance.

  May had foolishly dismissed Leo Marks from his mind after noting the youth and inexperience of the junior partner, ignoring the fact that the lawyer was acting on behalf of his ailing father. Marks had probably searched the guild for the diary, but it seemed unlikely that he would have murdered Alison Hatfield. He may, however, have unwittingly caused her death.

  But once the diary was in the possession of Leo and his father, what had they intended to do with it? If it revealed the cause of the Whitstable family’s gradual destruction, surely they’d have wanted to protect the lives of their clients by turning it over to the police?

  Bryant wished he understood the thought processes of lawyers. He had to make sure that Leo Marks was brought quickly and safely into custody. Tomorrow was twenty-eight December, and who knew what the anniversary would signify this time?

  After the detective had departed, Charles came looking for Jerry.

  ‘Who was that?’ Jerry asked casually, rearranging a stack of books on the table before her.

  ‘Another policeman. He made a phone call to London and left in a hurry. Judging by the look on his face, I’d say he’d received more bad news.’

  She wondered what Arthur had discovered now. She’d been right to go her own way. The police would never discover the truth. If she could only get Charles to confide in her. Last night he had seemed upon the point of opening his heart and unburdening himself. She just needed more time with him.

  ‘I promised to get you back to London this morning,’ he was saying, ‘so that’s what we should do. I have to attend to some financial matters in the City, and then I must look in on my mother.’

  Make another date, she thought. Make him want you and he’ll tell you everything. Don’t let him slip away. ‘I still have to go back to work tomorrow, but I’m free tonight,’ she said.

  He came around to her side of the table and stood a little too close, looking down, smiling slightly. ‘Then let’s meet later. I have an apartment in Mayfair. My cooking’s no great shakes, but there’s an excellent Indian restaurant nearby. I promise we won’t talk about business. You can tell me all about yourself.’

  ‘Fine,’ Jerry replied. ‘And you can tell me all about your family.’

  John May had not been able to sleep. The continuing rain bothered him. The weather was becoming ever more inclement. He decided to rise and head for the PCU. He arrived in Mornington Crescent at six forty-five, just in time to intercept a second report call from the Chiswick residence of Christian and Deborah Whitstable.

  Thumbing back through the incoming night reports he found that the first radio call, at five past six, had reported that two of the family were dead, cause unknown, and two were alive. Raymond Land had been the only senior official still on duty, and had responded to the alert.
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br />   By the time May reached the crime scene, the entire house was surrounded with vehicles. He noted three ambulances, a fire engine, dozens of press photographers, an armoured truck, several squad cars, and a mob of onlookers. So much for keeping a low profile, he thought as he approached the overcrowded garden.

  ‘We managed to corner him, Sir,’ said one of the security officers. ‘It took three tranquillizer darts to bring him down.’ At first May assumed that they were talking about a human murderer, but before he could ask any further questions the unconscious orange-furred beast was carried out by guards on a long tarpaulin.

  As the white-coated attendants reached the garden gate they were caught in a firestorm of flashbulbs.

  ‘May, in here,’ cried Land, shoving his way through a sea of blue uniforms. He looked as if he was about to be sick.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t let the press see in through these windows, man,’ shouted May as they reached the stairs. ‘If they can get into the trees opposite with a long-distance lens they’ll be able to shoot all of this.’

  The officer he was addressing pulled the tall curtains closed, and turned on a battery of free-standing spotlights. An animal smell of rancid offal filled the building, mixed with the pungent odour that rose from the droppings left in the hall. May stepped over the forensic markers and walked on to the landing where Deborah Whitstable had met her death.

  Broad arcs of blood had smeared and splattered the walls, and lay coagulating in black pools on the stair carpet. There were further splashes and bloody handprints on the white-painted banisters. Mercifully, the bodies had already been photographed and removed.

  ‘How on earth did such an animal ever get in here?’ May asked, amazed. ‘We’ve been trying to piece together the sequence of events,’ said Land. ‘As far as we can tell, something first went amiss shortly before five-thirty, while the guards were waiting to be relieved of their shift. One of them was at the rear of the house. The other was beaten unconscious. The front door was opened with his passkey, and the tiger was admitted. A bloody tiger, John. What kind of people are we dealing with here?’

  ‘There had to be a large van or truck parked in the area, and it must have been brought close to the house. We’d better start checking with the neighbours.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be difficult. They’re all standing at the front fence in their dressing gowns.’

  ‘What happened once the tiger was shut inside?’

  ‘It would seem that the family were all still asleep. The veterinary surgeon we called in from the London Zoo reckons the creature had been systematically starved and conditioned to attack.’

  ‘Have there been any reports of such an animal going missing?’

  ‘It won’t take long to find out that information. It scented the humans in the house and came up the stairs to here.’ Land pointed to the claw marks on the surrounding woodwork. ‘It must have woken Deborah first, because she came out on to the landing in her dressing gown. That’s where it attacked her.’ He indicated a blackened corner of the passage.

  ‘Then it turned its attention to the little boy. When the police arrived, they found the husband barricaded into the children’s bedroom with the daughter. He’d been whacked in the shoulder and chest by its paws, but was unhurt. The creature finished off Deborah, and dragged the boy down the hall by his head. Maybe it was saving him for later.’

  Land lowered his voice further. ‘This is completely insane, John. Can you imagine the headlines we’ll get?’ May noted that his superior’s first concern was the intervention of the press, not the plight of the butchered family.

  ‘It’s not insane,’ he replied. ‘It’s clever. They knew that whoever went in to kill the family would have trouble getting out again, so they chose a murderer whom nobody in their right mind would get in the way of. Someone—something—unable to confess when he was inevitably captured.’

  He looked out of the window at the crowds gathering below. ‘Everything’s accelerating, cause and effect, faster and faster. Don’t you sense that?’

  ‘Then bloody well find a way to stop it,’ said Land, angrily heading for the stairs.

  Just before noon, John May arrived by police helicopter in Norwich, descending through the rain squalls to the offices of Jacob and Marks. He found the building sealed off and a team of officers ransacking each of the suites in turn, searching stacks of brief boxes for incriminating evidence. Leo Marks had been detained at the local station before being moved to Mornington Crescent PCU for questioning.

  ‘What exactly are we looking for, Sir?’ asked one of the officers.

  ‘According to Bryant it’ll be in a ledger,’ replied May, ‘a handwritten document, or just several sheets of loose paper. It’s over ninety years old, so it may have been sealed in something like a plastic folder.’

  ‘You mean like this?’ PC Bimsley was holding up a clear plastic bag filled with loose cream-coloured pages of hammered vellum.

  ‘Bimsley, I can’t believe it. For the second time in your dismal career you’ve actually done something useful.’ May took the bag and opened it, carefully unrolling the top page of the manuscript. It was entitled The Alliance of Eternal Light: A Proposition for Inducing the Financial Longevity of the Worshipful Company of Watchmakers of Great Britain. ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘It was in the safe behind his desk, Sir. Do you think it’ll help the investigation?’ asked Bimsley.

  ‘I’m hoping it’ll end it,’ replied May.

  43 / Mechanism

  Leo Marks was as jumpy as a cornered cat. ‘I keep telling you—I was acting on my father’s orders,’ the lawyer was saying. ‘I rang Miss Hatfield at the guild and asked her to help me locate specific documents pertaining to the family’s financial accounting system. It was simply what my father had asked me to do.’

  ‘Then you went there yourself to look for them?’ asked May.

  ‘Yes—she was having no luck. I think she was too busy trying to help you.’

  ‘What time was this, exactly?’

  ‘I’ve already told you.’

  ‘So you did,’ said May. ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘It was just after noon on Boxing Day. My girlfriend waited in the car while I went in. She was furious with me for having to come into work. You can check with her.’ That places the lawyer’s visit before the trip Alison made, thought May. Alison went there in the evening.

  ‘What I don’t understand is how you managed to locate the very thing that Miss Hatfield was unable to find.’

  ‘That’s the point, I couldn’t have found it without her help. She’d cleared away half of the cartons in the basement. And I had a better idea of where to look. My father had suggested trying certain box files. He was too ill to go to London himself.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear he’s in the hospital. Don’t you think it odd that Miss Hatfield should be murdered immediately following your visit to the guild?’

  ‘No—I mean, yes—I don’t know.’ Leo dropped his head into his hands and massaged his temples. ‘I know how it looks, but I didn’t touch her. I didn’t even see her.’

  ‘Let me get this right.’ May rose and approached the young lawyer. ‘Miss Hatfield tried to locate a longforgotten document for you, and was killed for her troubles. You, on the other hand, actually found what you were looking for, and managed to stroll out of the building with it. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

  ‘No, it’s just—’

  ‘Why the hell not?’ shouted May. ‘Why should she be murdered and you be allowed to walk away?’

  ‘Because she had more reason to be killed,’ retorted the lawyer. ‘She was an outsider, interfering in other people’s business.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bring the document to us? You must have realized that it was connected with Miss Hatfield’s death.’

  ‘Because,’ Marks answered softly, ‘my father was under strict instruction never to reveal its contents to anyone outside the family, whatever the circumstances.�
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  ‘Who gave him such instructions?’

  ‘His father. And he got them from James Makepeace Whitstable,’ he replied, ‘in 1883.’

  May placed an arm around his partner’s shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I need some air. Let’s get out of here.’

  They could see their breath in the corridor. ‘Why is it so cold in this building?’ asked Bryant as they reached their outer office. ‘My blood’s stopped moving.’

  ‘We’re still trying to clear airlocks from the heating system,’ Sergeant Longbright explained. ‘I’ve had to let most of the staff go home. It should be fixed by next weekend.’

  ‘I may be dead by then. Has there been any change in Peggy Harmsworth’s condition?’

  ‘The doctor says if her present status doesn’t change soon, she’ll suffer brain damage. They can only administer limited medication because of the impairment caused by the drugs in her system.’ The sergeant hadn’t slept for two days. There were four pencils in her hair and five half-drunk cups of coffee lining her desk. She was typing with gloves on, and, for the first time in living memory, wasn’t wearing eyeliner.

  ‘Where’s Raymond?’

  ‘He’s over at the safe house. The family were demanding to see someone immediately, otherwise they’re going to leave the building and report their grievances to the Home Office and then the press. Neither of you were available.’