Full Dark House

by Christopher Fowler

  With the arrival of the auditor, the company secretary and the treasurer’s wife, Stan Lowe gave up trying to keep the area restricted. Happily, Helena remained professional. She’d coped with ranting producers, cheating financiers and lying managers, compared to which the gripes of cast members who found their dressing rooms too far away or their fellow performers impossible to deal with were frankly small potatoes. But, God, she wanted a drink.

  Rachel Saperstein was just starting to cope with the idea of her son’s success. She was proud of him, even though the Saperstein family name was apparently not good enough for Miles any more. She had been up to the apartment the company had rented for him, and had found the meat-safe in his scullery completely empty except for a bottle of vodka, which would only ruin his stomach in later life. Now she was seated at the front of the upper circle, watching him perform on the London stage, and her heart swelled with pride as he sang each note.

  In the balcony of the theatre, above her, a young man named Zachary Darvell fidgeted in his seat and refined the tip of his hand-rolled cigarette with finger and thumb. ‘Of course I’m proud of her,’ he whispered across the seats. ‘I couldn’t do what she does, night after night. Trouble is, she doesn’t think I can do anything.’

  ‘So where’s your father?’ asked his best friend, Larry.

  ‘He buggered off ages ago. He was selling defence bonds until the war started, and now he’s a black marketeer. She rehearses all the time, so they were never together. I saw more of the baby-sitter than either of my parents.’

  ‘Lucky boy.’

  ‘Yes, it was pretty damned good.’ He held sharp smoke in his lungs, then exhaled. ‘Have the rest of this, I know you’re down to your last Woodie. Try not to cough, I don’t want her looking up and seeing me.’

  ‘What do you care?’ asked Larry, accepting the cigarette.

  ‘If she sees me up here she’ll throw a tantrum. Especially if she finds me with you.’ Zachary was supposed to be in medical college, but he and Larry had cut classes, not that there were many to cut at the moment. Every student with the ability to hold a scalpel had been seconded to the local hospital unit, where their tasks largely consisted of helping to clean up bodies. Sometimes identifying marks had been so neatly blown off that the only way to tell if the victims were male or female was to check for a sciatic notch. Everyone smoked because it was the only way to get rid of the smell of dead bodies. Today the students had decided to hang out in the West End, cooling their heels on counter stools in a few bars, looking out of the windows, watching stockingless girls in tight business skirts dart through the rain.

  Larry had asked where Zachary’s mother worked, and Zachary had suggested going to see her. He wanted to show Larry how he could breeze into a major theatre and be recognized. The pair had gone up to the balcony, standing at the rear, so close to the top of the building that you could hear the rain. Now they were sitting in its front row, smoking and watching. Below them, Barbara Darvell, soprano, wife of Jupiter, waited for her cue as a pair of stagehands struggled hopelessly with a prop cloud.

  ‘Must be peculiar, always being in buildings with no windows,’ said Larry, drawing on the last inch of the cigarette. ‘No night or day. You can’t even hear the traffic outside. At least there’s more room than in the shelters. I don’t know how people can be bothered to go down there. All those mewling infants. You’ve just as much of a chance staying under your stairs.’

  ‘My mother used to say that fire engines were the curse of the performer,’ said Zachary. ‘Now she’s had to add dogfights, bombs and sirens to her list of interruptions. She goes all over the world, but I don’t think she sees much outside because she’s either rehearsing or performing.’

  ‘Strange job.’ Larry checked his watch. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘You haven’t heard her sing yet.’

  ‘I know what opera singers sound like, it’s unbelievably horrible, no offence to your dear mama. Come on.’

  ‘I just want to stay until she does her piece.’ Zachary didn’t want to make a grand thing out of it, and tried to sound offhand. ‘I’ll catch you up. Go over to the Spice and order me a gin and French. I’ll meet you in the saloon bar.’ He watched in annoyance as Larry threaded his way along the steep row to the exit. Back onstage, Juno rose to join in at the end of Mercury’s song, but the sight of her was obscured by a gauze-covered purple cloud.

  Zachary pushed the seat back up and stood in the shadowed aisle at the front of the balcony. He wanted her to know he was there, but the idea embarrassed him. His mother preferred the company of her own friends, theatricals who talked endlessly about themselves to the exclusion of everyone else, behaving as if nobody else was worth a damn. He would come home to their overheated house in Chiswick and find the place filled with thespians slugging her whisky and getting excited about Euripides. Surely it was meant to be the other way round, with her accusing his friends of being layabouts? In a few months’ time he would be able to get to the front, then perhaps she would take notice of him.

  Below, Juno was singing about making room for Mercury, a bouncy song but not exactly Henry Hall, and if Zachary leaned forward he could see his mother rolling her eyes at the rest of the cast and overacting wildly, except that it was an operetta so nobody seemed to mind.

  Miles Stone’s mother thought the woman was overacting too. Why didn’t the director do something about it? It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t sit in the stalls. She had been told not to, because onlookers in the sightlines put the actors off. Juno was still shrieking away and waving her arms about like a demented windmill. Rachel felt like going down to the stage and giving her a slap. She was putting her son off his stride, anyone could see that. Rachel squinted back into the seats behind her, to see if anyone else had noticed, and her eye caught a glint of sharp light from the balcony above her head.

  Zachary heard a sound behind him, a seat creaking, and turned as the occupant rose. At first he thought Larry had returned. Then he saw the hulking, twisted figure. The poor chap was deformed, and was trying to speak. His face was like something from an amusement-park mirror, a badly made-up villain from a melodrama. A terrible face, like one of the demons from the production below, hideously brought to life. Big hands, young hands.

  ‘What’s the matter? How can I—’

  Zachary was going to ask him who he was. He wasn’t afraid, until he saw the slim shine of the cut-throat razor as it folded open. Then he jumped back. He raised his hands in protest when the blade flew past. For a moment nothing happened. Then the skin of his palms split like opening eyes. By now the razor was returning at a higher level, passing his left cheek, the bridge of his nose, slicing flesh and muscle and bone, stinging across his throat, cutting deeper at his thyroid cartilage. Other red mouths were opening all over his face and neck. He could not see. A thick caul of blood dropped over his eyes, obscuring his vision. The hand darted forward again, and Zachary felt a far more terrible pain at his throat. A three-pronged fork had been pushed into his windpipe, sealing it. He stumbled forward but was pushed back, over the step, and over the low wall of the balcony.

  Miles Stone had half expected Rachel to turn up at the theatre, but he hadn’t counted on seeing her seated at the front of the upper circle watching his every move. It was enough to put him off his stride. They were halfway through the technical and Juno was upstaging him all over the place, and there was nothing he could do but ignore her and go on with his lines. Eve was watching from the wings. She knew that his mother was coming to town, although she had no idea that he had slept with Becky as recently as his Carnegie gala night in New York three weeks ago. It made sense for Miles to keep his mother and his new girlfriend apart—they would either be instant enemies or, worse still, form an alliance against him.

  Stone could see his mother fidgeting in her seat. It didn’t help that she was wearing a preposterous hat. He tried to ignore her and carry on with his recitative, but from the corner of his eye he saw her twist round an
d look up. She didn’t appear to be watching the stage at all. Was it a criticism of his performance? He glanced back at Juno and realized that she had followed his glance to the upper circle. As he waited for the technicians to clip the cloud scrim back on its rollers, he looked over at his mother once more. She was still turned away from the stage. He was so intent on watching her that he missed his cue.

  ‘Miles, when you’re absolutely ready,’ called Helena. ‘I appreciate it’s been a long day but I hate to keep everyone waiting longer than necessary.’

  ‘Of course, sorry.’ They had cut Eurydice’s scene with Jupiter at the end of the third tableau and had skipped to the flight from Hell, but Public Opinion’s rowing boat was now stuck in the flies, and the orchestra seemed confused about their entry point.

  Between the late arrival of two woodwinds and the total disappearance of Jupiter, who had been replaced in the run-through with a hobby horse tipped on its end, Anton Varisich was close to walking out. The sudden noise in the balcony made the conductor cut his orchestra off in mid-note, although someone had trouble stopping, because there was a piercing howl from one of the instruments. For a moment he thought that somebody had thoughtlessly banged the seats up again, and in an afternoon of stops and starts, Varisich’s legendary temper was about to make itself felt.

  ‘Miss Parole,’ he called to Helena, referring to her so formally that it showed disrespect, ‘would you be so good as to join me at the podium for a moment?’

  Helena Parole allowed a beat of defiance to pass before complying with the conductor’s request, then made her way to the side of the stage. She had worked with Varisich before and had survived his angry outbursts often enough to know that he was relatively easy to mollify. It was a matter of letting him see that she appreciated the subordination of the stage performance to the music. Text was updated and retranslated at regular intervals, but the music remained sacrosanct. So long as she respected this rule, they would work well together. She tried to imagine a tall glass filled with Glenfiddich, and donned her most quenching smile. Varisich was going to complain about the presence of outsiders at the run-through, and about the levels of noise they were creating, but now somebody was yelling. On stage, several members of the chorus were pointing into the centre of the building.

  It wasn’t until they ran towards the screaming woman in Row A of the upper circle that they looked up and saw the man, now a twisting, bloody blur, flail and fall from the edge of the balcony.

  35

  MANIFESTATION OF GUILT

  Zachary Darvell’s nose had been pushed into his skull by the fall. His face was a crimson mask. The segmented flesh was efflorescing with bulbous bruises, pink jelly the colour of an infected gum protruding through slashed skin. His jawbone was exposed in a shockingly severe white line. The iron fork was sticking out of his gullet. He looked like a prop demon removed from the set after a particularly arduous run. His left arm hung at an unnatural angle to his body. There was a member of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade in attendance, uselessly armed with a tin box full of crêpe bandages, calamine lotion and smelling salts. Barbara Darvell had rushed up from the stage and was cradling her son’s head.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Bryant, who had just entered the auditorium in time to hear Juno’s son plummet noisily from the balcony.

  ‘He’s dead.’ Barbara Darvell swallowed thickly. ‘I looked up and saw him. He had his back to me. Someone was standing behind him. A tall man. I could see his arms moving. I couldn’t make sense of it from where I was.’ She pointed feebly down at the illuminated set of Hades. Droplets of blood had spattered the artificial carnation that still stuck from Zachary’s jacket lapel.

  ‘What’s that?’ Bryant pointed to the fork handle protruding from Darvell’s throat.

  ‘Aristaeus’ fork. It went missing from the prop box.’

  ‘I’ve just been up in the balcony. It’s deserted.’ Geoffrey Whittaker dropped to his knees and tried to catch his breath. ‘Let’s get everyone back to their dressing rooms for a few minutes,’ he suggested. ‘There was no one else up there, no one at all.’

  ‘How do you know?’ yelled Barbara Darvell. ‘How could you look everywhere? We can’t see in this damned gloom!’

  ‘I was in the stairwell and ran in,’ Geoffrey explained.

  ‘I certainly didn’t see you,’ said Harry.

  The assistant’s remark took Whittaker by surprise. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Just that I know who was in the stairwell and you weren’t there.’

  Whittaker was angered by the idea of having to defend himself. ‘If you must know, I’d gone upstairs to get something from my office, and stood at the back of the balcony for a moment. Mr Darvell was sitting in the front row by himself. I left the auditorium and was coming back down the central staircase when I heard a shout and a crash from the floor below. Then I ran down to him. He only just missed landing on that lady over there.’ He pointed at Miles Stone’s shocked mother.

  ‘He landed a seat away,’ gasped Rachel. ‘I nearly died.’

  ‘Then the person who pushed Mr Darvell must have passed you on the staircase,’ Harry insisted.

  ‘No one passed me.’

  ‘I don’t see how you could have missed him, Geoffrey.’

  ‘My son is dead, could you show some restraint?’ cried Barbara Darvell.

  ‘Perhaps we should leave the matter until the police have finished searching the building,’ Harry suggested.

  ‘You can manage here, can’t you?’ Bryant strode along the row of seats and raced down the stairs to the stage door. There he found Lowe and Crowhurst looking puzzled.

  ‘Has anyone left in the last few minutes?’ he asked, trying to get his breath back.

  ‘No, sir. Only the gentleman Mrs Darvell’s son came in with. What’s going on?’

  ‘There’s been another one,’ Bryant explained. ‘You’ll let me know if anyone tries to leave?’

  ‘Of course, sir, I—hang on, that’s the royal entrance.’ Beyond them came the muffled slam of a door.

  Bryant stuck his head out into the street and saw a broad figure in a shiny black raincoat divorce himself from the shadow of the royal entrance. He turned and saw John May walking from the other direction, towards the stage door.

  ‘John!’ he shouted. ‘That’s our man! Stop him!’

  The dark figure started and broke into a run, instantly followed by May. Night had fallen and the blackout was once more in full force. Shaftesbury Avenue, blurred and smeary with rain, was almost deserted as they turned into it.

  I’ve got him, thought May, watching the figure ahead as it hit a thicket of parked motorcycles belonging to the army despatch riders. There was something round the man’s neck, a raised collar or hood that obscured his head. He looked to be around six feet tall, but in the gloomy drizzle of the early evening it was hard to make out any further detail. To May’s horror, the raincoated figure vaulted the first motorbike and landed hard on the kick-start, firing up the engine. The army engineers kept their Matchless bikes in racks beside the road, ready to take them to emergencies. May grabbed the nearest machine and mounted it. He knew how to ride, but with the lights of London extinguished and the roads wet, he wasn’t sure whether he would be able to give chase. The engine barked into life on first kick, and he released the handlebar valve lift as he took off, slamming into the road so closely behind his quarry that their wheels almost touched.

  The motorcycle in front fishtailed sharply and skittered across the oncoming traffic in the direction of Piccadilly Circus. May felt his back wheel slip as he followed, and was able to keep the bike upright only by hammering his boot along the tarmac and forcing the machine into a vertical position. He concentrated on the black square of the numberplate in front, LR109. The figure hunched low as he throttled up, the engine’s roar deepening as he passed between a pair of unlit taxis. May forged ahead too, trying to draw alongside, but the bike was pushing beyond a safe speed. They passed the side o
f the London Pavilion and the darkened cinema opposite, hitting the Circus traffic at such speed that buses were forced to brake and swerve. The electric advertising hoardings that had become such an area landmark were extinguished, lending the buildings a drab, derelict air. LR109 cut the wrong way round the boarded-over fountain and shot into Piccadilly with May in pursuit. A policeman, visible only by the white stripes on his cuffs, raised his hands and ran towards them, then backed off when he saw that neither bike was going to stop. The sound of his whistle was quickly lost as the pair raced on past the Royal Academy into oncoming traffic.

  Bryant’s going to kill me if I don’t catch him, thought May as he accelerated. The young detective felt chill rain pitting his face as the wheels lost their purchase on the slippery road, found it again and pushed him on. The buildings on either side were great grey blocks, no light showing anywhere. Ahead, just beyond Green Park, a bomb had heavily cratered the middle of the road, and rubble-removal trucks indistinctly lined its edges. As they came closer, May saw that the entire causeway was cordoned off. He can’t get through, he told himself, watching in disbelief as LR109 pounded up over the kerb and into the long portico under the Ritz. May felt the kerb slam his tyres as he followed, the back wheel juddering as he shot beneath the arches, his engine reverberating in the tunnel as he scattered the shrieking evening-gowned women who were exiting the hotel.

  At the end of the colonnade, the bike in front swung sharply to the right off the main road and thundered into the maze of narrow streets that constituted Mayfair. May tried to close the gap between them, but was forced to slow in order to turn the heavy machine. He could hear LR109 revving and braking, but caught only glimpses of its brake light as the machine raced ahead of him. At Curzon Street the lead bike was forced to slow as pedestrians ran for safety, and May gained a few yards. As they turned into the dark chasm of Bruton Street, the detective saw the thick brown earth and bricks strewn across the road, and knew that his tyres would not cope with them. The other bike had bypassed the mess by mounting the pavement. He hit hard, the Matchless’s handles jumping out of his hands as the machine jerked from his control. He knew that if it went over now it would trap his leg beneath the engine, and forced himself to roll backwards, leaving the bike seconds before it toppled and slid along the street in a shower of sparks, to vanish over the side of an unfilled pit.