Nothing But the Night

by John Blackburn

  ‘I can believe that. It felt as if there was a block of lead in her handbag.’ Marcus pressed his handkerchief to a bleeding cut on his forehead. ‘Did anyone stop her?’

  ‘No, she got clean away down the stairs and across the hall. Obviously a maniac and the porter has telephoned the police and given them her description. They’re bound to pick her up without much difficulty, I imagine.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please clear this corridor and go about your business.’ He waved aside a group of students and nurses who had appeared on the scene.

  ‘Now, Nurse Rudgard, tell us what you know about this extraordinary business.’

  ‘The woman was Mary’s mother, Mr Dean. Hush, darling, you’re safe now.’ She held the weeping head against her bosom. ‘Thank God you got to them in time, Sir Marcus. She was quite mad, shouting that she was going to kill the child. If you hadn’t stopped her, I believe she would have done so.’ The nurse stared at the deep well of the staircase.

  ‘The mother.’ Plunkett frowned. ‘But how did she get in here? After that scene the other day I gave orders that she wasn’t to be admitted under any circumstances.’

  ‘Mr Haynes brought her, sir. I was busy in the linen cupboard and I saw them go into the room together. They were there for about half an hour and then I heard shouting and the woman came out dragging the child with her. I tried to stop her, but I slipped and fell. You saw what happened after that, gentlemen. Quiet, darling, everything is all right. I promise you.

  ‘May I put Mary back to bed now, Mr Dean?’

  ‘Of course, Nurse. But in another room for the time being. Give her a mild sedative and stay with her please.

  ‘Haynes. Always Haynes.’ Plunkett’s face was a study in anger. ‘He not only breaks my orders but must be com­pletely insane. To introduce a criminal lunatic into the hospital and leave her alone with a child! I’ll see that he never practises medicine again, if it’s the last thing I do.’

  ‘But did he leave them alone?’ Marcus had started to walk back along the corridor. His head throbbed as if an animal were trying to gnaw its way out through the skull and he had to concentrate to keep his feet in line. ‘The nurse was in the linen cupboard. She never mentioned seeing Haynes come out.’ He opened the door and stepped into the little bright room with its flowers and gaily painted furniture and Beatrix Potter wallpaper. Two chairs were set beside the cot. One was empty but Peter Haynes sat in the other as if he were still staring down at a face on the pillow. His own face was white and vacant and there was a red spot like a Hindu caste mark in the centre of his fore­head. It took Marcus a moment to realize that it was the knob of a long steel hatpin which had been driven into his brain.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Well, well, Mark. Fame at last, my friend. This has brought you more publicity than if you’d discovered a means to prevent old age.’ General Charles Kirk of Her Majesty’s Foreign Intelligence Service beamed at the pile of newspapers on the Levins’ sitting-room table. Five days had passed since Peter Haynes died, but as far as the Press were concerned he was very much alive. Anna Harb had vanished without a trace, and her appearance had been as much of a boon to the photographers as her history was to the reporters.

  ‘No, she certainly would not be my cup of tea.’ Kirk squinted at the heavy features glowering out from the Herald and picked up a copy of the Examiner.

  ‘“KILLER OF FOUR STILL AT LARGE”,’ he read from the headlines. ‘“WHY WAS THIS WOMAN EVER RELEASED FROM BROADMOOR?” “HOME SECRETARY HECKLED AT MEETING.” Humph, they might as well shout at a stone for all the attention Ivor Mudd will pay to that. Besides, his govern­ment weren’t in office when Harb was let out.

  ‘And here is something of a more personal nature, Tania.’ Kirk put on his glasses to read the small print.

  ‘But for the timely action of Sir Marcus Levin, K.C.B., F.R.S., Britain’s most recent Nobel prize-winner, Mary Valley would almost certainly be dead. Nurse Mavis Rudgard, an eyewitness to the incident, told our reporter that the woman was on the point of hurling the child down the well of the stairs when Sir Marcus arrived on the scene and rushed to the rescue.

  ‘Modest Sir Marcus himself claimed that he did nothing at all remarkable, but his handsome, debonair face still showed strain and the physical marks of the woman’s vicious attack.’

  Kirk grinned at the strip of sticking plaster on his friend’s forehead. ‘Well, well. Modest Sir Marcus, indeed! I’ve always considered you the most conceited of men, Mark. Who knows? With all this publicity the R.S.P.C.C. might give you some award to go with your other decorations.’

  ‘Publicity which I can well do without, Charles.’ Marcus was not finding Kirk at all funny. ‘All I did was to pull the child away from her and get laid out by a handbag of all things. But these blasted reporters have been pestering me ever since it happened.’

  ‘The price of heroism, Mark. Thank you, my dear. I will have one more very weak whisky for the gutter.’ The general allowed Tania to refill his glass. Though the room was warm he had not removed his overcoat and a thick woollen muffler was draped around his neck.

  ‘Tell me, Mark, is this nurse’s statement correct? Was Anna Harb about to throw her own child over the stairs, or was she simply trying to regain custody of her?’

  ‘Naturally I can’t say for sure.’ Marcus frowned, once more seeing the woman’s face swing round and glare at him, hearing her curses, and feeling the heavy bag crash against his forehead. ‘But I think she intended murder, Charles. After all, we know she had just killed Haynes and she was raving at the child. I heard her say something about sending a fiend back to hell. Also that Mary was a soul that should not have been born. I think those were her words.’

  ‘The devil they were.’ Kirk’s eyebrows came up in a white bar across his forehead. ‘How very curious because that’s a quotation from A. E. Housman concerning male homosexuality.’ He raised his voice and quoted pompously:

  ‘Oh soon, and better so than later

  After long disgrace and scorn

  You shot dead the household traitor,

  The soul that should not have been born.

  ‘No, one would not have imagined that Mrs Harb would have been the kind of person to quote from “The Shropshire Lad”. But let’s see what that revolting fellow John Forest has to say on the subject.’ The general turned to another sheet of newsprint.

  ‘Now, Little Mary Valley is happy again and back with her playmates at the Van Traylen Home on the lonely Isle of Bala off North-west coast Scotland. She will play and sing and laugh again and forget her terrible experience.

  ‘HAPPY, BUT IS SHE SAFE?’ [He stressed the sub­headings.] ‘Anna Harb has already killed four human beings and is known to bear an insane hatred towards her daughter. Until this woman is in a place from which she will never be released, John Forest and the London Daily Echo are convinced that the child remains in the gravest danger.’

  ‘Stupid, sentimentalizing, bloated, boring fool.’ Kirk snorted and blew his nose with quite unnecessary violence. ‘All the same he’s got a point there. That woman must be found quickly.

  ‘What did happen in that room, Mark? What set her off? By all accounts Harb appeared quite reasonable when she and Haynes arrived at the hospital, and the nurse heard them talking together in a normal manner. Why should she suddenly go berserk?’

  ‘Apparently the child rejected her, Charles.’ Marcus was wondering about Kirk’s interest in the case. The old boy’s job was foreign intelligence and one would have thought this murder was completely outside his province.

  ‘For obvious reasons they have not questioned Mary very thoroughly, but her story is feasible enough. She said that she didn’t recognize the woman at all, but was frightened by her appearance. Harb tried to kiss her and Mary screamed and clutched Haynes for protection. When he ordered her not to touch the child, the woman suddenly pulled out the hatpin and stabbed him across the cot.’

  ‘She did not recognize her own mother after a
period of less than three years? That sounds a bit unlikely to me, Mark. Could it provide a clue to the nature of this mental illness your friend Haynes kept talking about?

  ‘But I suppose we won’t get any more information from Mary Valley. Because she is naturally distressed by what happened it was decided, rash or no rash, to send her back to the orphanage.’ Kirk turned and massaged his hands before the electric fire.

  ‘That deception could have got you into serious trouble, my friend.’

  ‘I don’t need to be reminded of that, Charles.’ Apart from Haynes and Tania, Kirk was the only person who knew of his false diagnosis and Haynes was dead. Nobody would accuse him of anything and he was in the clear. All the same he felt partly responsible for what had happened and guilt and self-disgust were like the symptoms of a physical illness. Haynes had died, a child had almost died, and the last scene had brought everything back to him. An old, bent man hobbling into the bedroom and Mary Valley rushing into his arms.

  ‘Uncle Michael . . . Take me home, Uncle Michael . . . Please don’t let them keep me here to hurt me again.’ Fawnlee had wept like a child himself when the dean told him that Mary could leave at once and kept thanking Marcus for saving Mary. There had been something immensely touching in the sight of those two figures, one bowed and old and the other young and dancing with happiness, moving hand-in-hand to the waiting taxi.

  ‘Anyway, it’s over now and we can get back to our own affairs.’ Marcus left his chair and crossed to the window. The recent dull weather had blown over and it was a fine clear evening with the moon coming up across the river.

  ‘I wonder if it is over, darling? Until that woman is caught, I agree with the newspapers that the little girl may still be in danger.’ Tania was not looking at him, but staring hard at Kirk. ‘I also wonder if this visit is an ordinary social call, Charles.’

  ‘You have a most suspicious mind, my dear.’ The general fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a cigar case with his left hand, which was a fin of scar tissue and lacked three fingers.

  ‘You’re right of course and I admit I’m not here merely for the pleasure of your company. I wanted Mark’s eye­witness account of what happened at the hospital.’ He lit his cigar and then walked slowly across to the table, obviously reluctant to leave the fire. ‘The fact is that some months ago my department became rather interested in this Van Traylen Fellowship, and as you were very frank about your indiscretions, Mark, I’ll put my own cards in front of you.’ Kirk picked up his briefcase and laid it on the table.

  ‘Yes, the Van Traylen Fellowship. A group of thirty people, mostly elderly and mostly rich, who have banded themselves together for charity. Who would wish to hinder, thwart, or even destroy such a society, Tania?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ She watched him take a bundle of photographs from the case and slip off a rubber band. ‘Does anybody wish to destroy them, Charles?’

  ‘It seems likely, but let me show you the little evidence there is.’ Kirk laid the first photograph before them. ‘Here is Mrs Helen Van Traylen, the founder of the Fellowship, taken a month before her death. A very remarkable woman indeed was Helen. I remember meeting her once just after the First World War and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a beautiful creature. Be that as it may, she married a dis­gustingly rich American named Vincent Van Traylen, and did not return to this country till after his death in 1950. She then got in touch with her old friends over here, Fawnlee, L’Eclus and the rest of them, and they organized this charitable body together. Medical research, the pre­servation of art treasures and ancient buildings were some of their aims, but the children’s home was what mattered to them. The membership was restricted to thirty guardians and to ensure the loyalty and devotion of the staff they were included as equal members. Should a guardian die, the number of thirty remained because another person was at once recruited as a replacement. The qualifications needed are either money or some specialized skill which would be of use to the Fellowship. I have heard that the home on Bala probably offers the best educational facilities in the country. An extremely worthy body of people.’

  ‘She remained very beautiful, Charles.’ Tania was still looking at the photograph of a white-haired old lady smiling gently at the camera. There was a suggestion of both sadness and great strength in the lined, but still youthful face.

  ‘Not at the end, I’m afraid, Tania.’ Kirk shook his head. ‘She had a malignant tumour and blew her brains out. A clear case of suicide; or so they said.’ He laid down another photograph showing a tall, thin man stretched out in a deckchair. The man wore a straw boater, a blazer and what looked like an old Etonian tie.

  ‘This is Colonel Paul Anderson who died nine and a half months ago and brought my people on the scene.’ Kirk paused to pull at his cigar and finish the remains of the whisky.

  ‘Anderson fell from the balcony of a nursing home where he had been operated on for prostate gland trouble and was killed instantly. My department was mildly concerned because, though Anderson had retired last year, he had worked for Army Intelligence and was in possession of secret material which might be worth a good deal of money in some quarters. I don’t have to tell you about that, Tania.’ He gave her a little flickering smile.

  ‘Because Anderson’s death was dramatic we sent a man down to hold a watching brief, and the police soon satisfied him that the fall was a pure accident. As you can see from the picture, Anderson was very tall and the rail of the balcony was only three feet high. The police felt sure that he had leaned over and, being still weak from the effects of the operation, lost his balance. Verdict: Accidental Death. I did not discover that he was one of the Van Traylen governors till much later.’

  ‘So what, Charles?’ Marcus frowned up from the photo­graph. ‘A woman with a malignant growth takes her own life and a man loses his balance. Very sad, but why should you imply this . . . this conspiracy against the Fellowship as a whole?’

  ‘One reason is that I knew Paul Anderson, Mark. I didn’t like him, but I had to see a good deal of him pro­fessionally. The man suffered from vertigo and he would not even go near the edge of a railway platform for fear of falling. He also had a morbid terror of dying. A strange thing for a soldier, but the very word death could make him ill-tempered for the rest of the day. He was in the front line from Africa to Germany during the whole of the war and I think he had seen too much of it. The thought of Anderson leaning over that rail is quite ludicrous.

  ‘Helen Van Traylen and Paul Anderson. Only two reasons so far, but here are some more.’ He laid out another three photographs. ‘A child was the next. A nine-year-old boy in the Fellowship’s care. His name was Billy Martindale and he went swimming from a beach near the home and was thought to have been swept out to sea. In any case the body was never recovered.

  ‘Ah, I wondered if you’d recognize her.’ Tania was staring at an obviously posed photograph of a stout, man­nish woman seated before a typewriter. ‘That is Naureen Stokes, the novelist; quite a prominent literary figure I understand, though I don’t read historical romances. Miss Stokes had been spending a week-end at the orphanage and was on her way back to London. It was late at night and raining heavily and her car ran off the road and finished up at the foot of a cliff near Fort William.

  ‘Finally another death by gravity and water. Elsie Kingsmill, deputy matron at Bala, who was fishing from a point near the orphanage, lost her balance and fell into the sea. Her body was washed ashore a week later, but Mr Kipling’s “corpse-fed conger eel” had been at it and her head was missing.’ Kirk bundled up his photographs and slipped them back into the case.

  ‘That’s that. All I can tell you. One charitable institu­tion, five violent deaths within a single year and all the bodies which were recovered had been mutilated in some way. Now this horrible business of your friend Haynes and the Valley child.’ He closed the case with a snap and returned to the fire.

  ‘What’s your verdict, my friends? Can Modest Sir Marcus offer any other ex
planation except coincidence and a run of bad luck?’

  ‘That joke is wearing a little thin, Charles.’ The Press reports had begun to give Marcus a persecution complex and he scowled at Kirk. He could not even enter his club without having drinks thrust upon him; colleagues slapped him on the back and only this morning the milkman had seized his hand in a crushing grip. ‘All the very, very best, Doc. I promised my missus that I’d shake your mitt for what you did to save that little kid.’ There was another and more cynical attitude in existence too, and yesterday he had overheard two students laughing about ‘the chap who was laid out by a handbag.’

  ‘It can only be a set of coincidences,’ he said. ‘People do commit suicide when they suffer from incurable diseases, cars do skid on wet roads and children are swept out to sea. But just where does your department come in, Charles? I thought their job was catching spies?’ Marcus spoke rudely and he despised himself for it. Apart from the constant gnaw of guilt his temper had suffered since the death of Haynes and he was ready to take offence at the slightest thing.

  ‘The department does not come in at all, Mark. Their interest ended with the coroner’s verdict on Colonel Anderson.’ Kirk stooped down and once again massaged his torn talon of a hand before the bars of the grate.

  ‘As you know, I am semi-retired now and only hold a watching brief over a number of highly competent and trustworthy people who do not require any watching at all. I was bored out of my mind and that made me consider the Anderson case very thoroughly. Then, when I heard about the other deaths connected with the Fellowship I ceased to be bored and became very interested, very worried and very angry indeed.

  ‘What about you, my dear? Do you agree with Mark that it is all pure coincidence?’

  ‘There is not enough evidence to form any opinion yet, I think.’ Tania’s Russian accent was much more pro­nounced. Before her marriage to Marcus she had worked for Gregor Petrov, a departmental chief of the Soviet Secret Police and any problem of crime or violence fascinated her. ‘All the same, five deaths and three of those people were very rich, weren’t they? The Van Traylen woman, Ander­son, Naureen Stokes. Would the word childless also apply to them all?’