The Orpheus Trail

by Maureen Duffy

  It was a relief when the phone went dead. Now I was in the doghouse with everyone. I just hoped Hildreth wouldn’t call on me again, at least not yet. My hand gripping the receiver had gone numb. I felt I was on the edge of something but whether it was a breakthrough or a breakdown I couldn’t tell. In one way the chairman was right. The police didn’t seem to be making any progress. Was that my fault? Would it provide a vital clue if I set the police on to them? They had shown again that they were capable of anything. They might torch the museum, kidnap Hilary, kill me, without revealing who they were anymore than they had already, and where would be the gain in that? I was afraid; I admitted to myself. It wasn’t a heroic or attractive posture but there it was.

  A hole had been dug for me: a grave. I had fallen in and now I had to try to claw my way out before someone came and filled it in, burying me forever. I needed to take control of my life, not passively suffer whatever others threw at me. But how?

  I could try to get Stalbridge to meet me somewhere, if he could shake off his tail, and ask him outright what he knew. Would he agree? Well, if not I would say I was going to tell the police about his involvement and that would bring both the law and the people who ‘played rough’ down on him. Where could we meet? Not somewhere public where he could easily be followed. It would have to be private but a place he might reasonably go without rousing their suspicions. If he was a member of the London Library that might do. The chances were that he was, and his followers weren’t. And security at the library was very strict with only members being admitted on production of a valid membership card. It wasn’t somewhere you could just walk in.

  Hildreth had warned me against going it alone but I felt I had no choice. If they were watching me they knew about my involvement with the police so if Hildreth suddenly turned up on Stalbridge’s doorstep, with or without an escort everything could be blown apart. I picked up the phone and dialled Stalbridge’s number wondering if his line was tapped.

  ‘Professor Stalbridge? I wanted to ask you a few questions about the amulet?’

  ‘Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘I thought we should discuss your kind donation of the Saxon coin to our museum.’

  ‘It’s alright. That’s Kish, isn’t it. The phone’s safe as far as I know.’

  ‘I thought we should meet. I need to talk to you. I’m being watched. I’m being threatened.’

  ‘I was afraid that might happen.’

  ‘Are you a member of the London Library?’

  ‘Yes, yes I am.’

  ‘Let’s meet there. We can find a quiet book stack for our chat. Even if either of us is followed they can’t get in. But try not to be and I will too. When can you make it?’

  The doubts set in as soon as I put the phone down. What was I doing against police advice? Why was I starting out on this escapade, like some inept Don Quixote, not a knight in shining armour out of Malory but more the Tennysonian, miminy-piminy Launcelot, singing ‘tirra lirra by the river’ while endangering the life of someone, I believed, loved me. I must find a way to shake off any tail that might follow. I would go to work as usual and leave by the back way. I could easily spot anyone lurking about outside the museum in the open avenue leading to our Victoria Station. And Liverpool Street, when I got there, would be busy enough for me to lose a tail even if they’d managed to follow me that far. I had set up this meeting and now I had to go through with it. Stalbridge had a far harder task.

  Next morning I set off for work as usual, told Lisa I had to go to London, left by the back door, looked hastily up and down the road and felt a kind of elation when I saw the tree-lined pavement was quite empty. I walked briskly to the station where the last of the commuters were lining up for the London train, bought my ticket and stepped through the automatic doors of the carriage just before they closed. No one got in after me and when I looked out as the train moved away I could see no frustrated figure left on the platform – so far I hoped, so good.

  At Liverpool Street I merged into the crowd, only glancing up at the glass walls of the café where Hilary and I had met Jack what seemed so long ago although it was only a matter of weeks. I saw his thin veined hands spooning cappuccino froth into his mouth as if it was a great treat to be savoured. Someone had killed him, presumably Stalbridge’s rough friends. They had to be stopped. Maybe I was Sir Galahad after all. Looking back on myself then, I feel only astonishment and shame at such arrogant naivety.

  I took the Central line to Holborn, changed onto the Piccadilly, got out at the Circus and trotted along Jermyn Street, past the back side of elegant St James’s Church and down to the square. The London Library, for those who don’t know it, lies behind a tall thin façade squashed onto the furthest corner of St James’s Square. With a quick look round I trotted up the wide stony steps to the glass door. A driver was carrying brown cardboard boxes into one of the embassies, pausing to chat to a doorman in a black-fronted waistcoat. The usual rim of parked cars fringed the little park in the middle. I pushed open the door and presented my membership card, went through into the front hall and, as the rules require, hung up my briefcase and coat on a peg in the open slip of cloakroom, visible to the librarians sitting behind the long counter opposite.

  Leaving the computer seating, catalogue boxes and the rank of heavy red leather-bound volumes that looked as if they might have belonged to the founder, Thomas Carlisle, I climbed the mahogany-banistered, broad staircase under the gaze of past scholars, mostly males in mutton chop whiskers and high stiff collars, to the members’ room.

  Stalbridge was already sitting at one of the tables, reading the latest Historical Review but keeping a lookout for me. He got up at once and came to join me on the landing where we could talk.

  ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘Let’s start in the basement then we can work our way up through the floors as people come in.’ I led the way back to where an arrow pointed down through a door marked Periodicals, along a narrow passage and another door into the room that housed bound back numbers of newspapers, journals and magazines in stacks of metal shelving that have to be rolled back by rotating a ship’s wheel before you can get at the papers.

  We perched ourselves in a corner, on the one chair for Stalbridge and a hard concrete ledge for me, where we could keep the door in view.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ I said, not knowing quite how to begin. ‘Were you followed?’

  ‘I did my best not to be. I’m not very used to this sort of thing.’

  ‘Have you seen the papers?’

  ‘What in particular?’

  ‘The body at Bradwell. I think you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I did see something but I don’t see…’

  ‘I think you do.’

  ‘Why do you think… what do you think?’

  ‘That you know more about what’s been going on than you’ve admitted, maybe even to yourself.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’

  ‘Oh come on, professor. You know perfectly well I’m talking about a series of, at the very least, bizarre stagings of death scenes.’ Inconsequentially I found myself thinking of others: Madame Tussaud’s with its guillotine, the execution of Charles I, the death of Nelson, the London Dungeon.

  ‘Why should you think I would take an interest in anything so macabre?’

  ‘Because although the general public doesn’t know this, because the press haven’t picked it up yet, each boy had a piece of the Prittlewell gold plate from the amulet round his neck, and you gave me the companion to those pieces: the reworked Roman coin, knowing perfectly well where it came from. I’ve been wondering why you did that. Was it a cry for help? Or were you just playing with a not very bright provincial museum director?’

  ‘No, of course not. It wasn’t that. I suppose you were right the first time. I wanted someone else to be involved however peripherally. I was alone. I could have talked to Jack Linden I suppose but then it was too late, and anyway we never got on. Now I can’t talk
to you because I’m afraid. Only I can say I had nothing to do with the deaths. I never thought, understood that they could be real. I thought they would be dummies.’

  ‘Are you saying you designed the installations?’

  ‘They blackmailed me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They played on my collector’s addiction. They sold me stolen stuff. First they advertised artefacts on the internet, knowing someone would take the bait. Then they sold me things at low prices, things I’d always wanted but could never afford, reminders of my time in the Middle East, statuettes, a painted late Sarcophagus lid, treasures looted from war zones, until I was hooked and too far in to go to the police. Then they got me to design the scenes. I’d been in charge of the presentation of show finds for a time in Egypt. The first one, the fire on the pier, I’d thought would be a dummy. When I read in the papers…’

  ‘How did they know you could do presentations, installations, to target you in the first place or was it just chance?’

  Stalbridge gave me a short bark of laughter. ‘They’d looked up my CV on the internet. Then they were very persuasive when they’d got me. I was only asked to do some sketches based on different historical or architectural locations, embodying some socio-cultural material on the subject of funerary rituals. I even found it quite amusing, using my skills.’

  ‘And if you wouldn’t do that?’

  ‘I suppose they would have found another way to involve me or someone else to do what I did.’

  His head sagged forward and he put his hands up to his face as if to hold it in place. ‘I’m so tired.’

  ‘You realise I’ll have to go to the police now…’

  ‘Give me a day.’ He stood up. ‘I’m ill, you can see. I can’t tell you any more. I have to go. Just give me a day.’

  I stood up too. He was clearly unsteady on his feet. He put out a hand to stop himself falling and I saw that his hand shook as he laid it palm down, against the cold metal frame of the shelving. ‘I’ll get you a taxi. Can you make it up to the entrance?’ I knew I should take his arm to help him but my hand recoiled from touching even the sleeve of his jacket.

  Near Durovernum C. AD 316

  So I have placed orders for the mosaic floor of the triclinium in my new villa and it shall show Orpheus returning from the dead with the symbols of Bacchus, Christus and, not to be forgotten, Mithras who all give us hope of another life to come. And the design shall be ringed by dolphins who carry us to the Blessed Isles and in one corner shall be set the Chi Rho to please my wife and her Christian priest who since the visit of the Emperor has found a stronger voice so that our household is sometimes riven with discord when I wish to perform those ancient ceremonies due to the gods of our fathers, and even that due to the Emperor for, although he too has embraced Christianity, he has not forbidden the customary worship of himself as a god and benefactor of the whole empire.

  I must confess to a liking for those tales of gods and heroes, which I heard in my youth in the words of the poets, as part of the learning of the civilised world, whereas the story of a carpenter’s son, crucified as a felon, seems to lack the dignity and beauty of our heritage and is therefore espoused mainly by the plebs and women. My wife’s priest is from Gaul and returned with the Christian episcopi who attended their great council there two years ago. Many such came seeking positions among noble families or taking over the former temples of our gods for their own worship with an especial hatred of the worship of Mithras and Isis whom they despise as false creations and their worship mere superstition. Thus their influence grows daily throughout the land especially now that they have imperial authority for their beliefs and actions. They differ from the old ways in that they forbid their followers to take part in the ceremonies hallowed by tradition though we do not forbid them ours but would have all citizens of the Empire show the customary respect. So that if they continue in their way I fear that all the old ways, the very laws by which we live and the words of the poets will be lost to our children forever.

  And if they say there is only one god after the doctrine of their Jewish ancestors and as many faiths have held before them, and even the philosophers like Plato, and Socrates before him, then I would rather see him in the likeness of Dionysus with a wine cup in his hand or as the beautiful youth desired of both men and women and believe that love is god rather than as the Christians say their god is love while forbidding the pleasures of the flesh and even marriage itself, according to one of their prophets who has taught that abstinence is the state to be desired, so that sometimes I fear that my wife may take to refusing to share her couch with me anymore in the service of her god.

  I knew once I had seen Stalbridge off in a black cab that I had to contact Hildreth but I had agreed to give him a day before speaking to the police. Perhaps he needed time to recover enough to face them. It suited me to prevaricate. I was going to look at best a fool, at worst someone who had withheld possibly vital information and impeded a police investigation into very serious crimes. As Stalbridge’s cab drew away I wondered whether among the loiterers in the square there was anyone watching. His sudden collapse had meant I might have been seen in the street with him when I had tried so hard to keep our meeting secret.

  Should I warn Hilary? But what more could she do that I was fairly sure she would already be doing as a city dweller: not opening the door to strangers, not coming home late at night alone. I would ask Hildreth whether to warn her when I spoke to him in the morning. But next day, it was Hildreth who got in first. I was still having my breakfast when the phone rang.

  ‘Ah, Alex, I’m glad I’ve caught you. Were you going into work?’

  ‘Yes, yes I am.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to postpone that. I need you here in Oxford.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘Meet me at Professor Stalbridge’s flat as soon as you can. He’s dead.’

  The line itself died but I stood there holding the buzzing receiver and knew I was deep in trouble, even danger. As I drove towards the legendary dreaming spires I tried to rehearse what I would say but every attempt at an explanation sounded so lame in my head, like a kid caught nicking cheap sweets from the newsagents, that I gave up. I had to wait for Hildreth to speak first. And then? I just hoped some inspiration would come from whatever god of prevaricators and cowards.

  There was the usual police presence outside the house when I drew up at Stalbridge’s flat, as if I were a walk-on part in some detective series and Morse or Linley or Barnaby, or even Wexford, would be behind the front door. In my present state of guilt-ridden anxiety I rather hoped for Wexford’s comforting voice with its unthreatening rustic burr. They were all father figures who would restore order, chastise the wrongdoer, and we watchers could only observe and empathise with the surrogate victims who died in our place for our failings of commission and omission, the done and the undone.

  I gave my now usual pass formula, Hildreth’s name, and was waved upstairs. The door to what had been Stalbridge’s flat was open. Hildreth stood by the fireplace with a long white envelope in his hand, expecting me. The men below must have told him I was on my way up.

  ‘Come in, Alex. You made good time.’

  I looked around quickly and was relieved that there was no sign of a body. The room as far as I could see was completely undisturbed, uncannily as I had last seen it and as if Stalbridge might walk in at any minute.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He seems to have taken his own life. At least at the moment we see no reason to suspect anyone else was involved. He left this addressed for you. I’d like you to open it now and then we can talk about what this all means.’ He held the envelope towards me and I put out my hand to take it as if it might itself be dangerous, a poisoned chalice I was being told to drain.

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘The usual overdose, washed down with a lot of whisky. The cleaning woman found him this morning but time of death is set at around midnight.’ />
  So often it seemed it was women who went out to clean that were faced with these lonely deaths. They fitted their duplicate key in the lock, called out to see if anyone was in, went through to look for a note and found a body, and an envelope not addressed to them, or just an exhausted still lump, in a bed or slumped over the lavatory seat. There ought to be a society dealing with post-traumatic counselling for the army of cleaners. I opened a corner of the flap sealing the envelope and ran my forefinger along its length. Then I took out a sheet of A4 closely written on both sides in a script as small as on a clay tablet in cuneiform, that I recognised as Stalbridge’s.

  ‘Can I look through it first? I don’t know his writing very well. It’s rather hard to make out.’

  ‘Take your time, Alex. There’s no hurry. We’ve got all day.’

  I carried the letter over to the window where the light was better. I had driven down through waterfalls of cloudburst that had my windscreen wipers swinging dementedly. Now the sky was a sullen grey.

  Dear Alex Kish,

  I am writing this to you because I feel I owe you more of an explanation than I was able to give you earlier today when we met, and because this is my last chance to try to set things right and help, perhaps, to repair some of the damage.

  I was jealous of Jack Linden on several counts which was why I shopped him to the project managers. I was jealous of his commitment, his idealism. He wasn’t out there for status or money but out of a passion for the history of civilisation and a possibly naive belief that we could learn from it, whereas I believe that what history really teaches us is that we’ve learnt nothing, seem destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over until we finally destroy ourselves, and history indeed comes to an end as Fukyama once suggested, although he meant it rather differently, and anyway has since retracted his own proposition.

  But I was also jealous of his relationship with Fareed. The boy loved him and he did nothing about it. And I wanted him but he only had eyes for Linden. It became an obsession until I determined that if I couldn’t have him no one would. I was afraid that Linden would succumb and at the same time contemptuous of him for his failure to seize his chance. Then he made his lucky discovery and I couldn’t cope with his totally undeserved success. So I alleged that he was fucking the local boys who worked for us on site and he was sacked.