We found some posts to tie the horses to and walked towards one of the dilapidated buildings. Only too late I felt my foot plunging into a soft mass of faeces.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’
Nine-Nails cackled when he saw my otherwise shining shoe covered in dung. He headed to what looked like the filthiest, most crooked beer stall in town, set in the windows of a lodging house. It reminded me of the slums I had seen in London’s East End; murky spots where the poorest workers gathered to drink and alleviate a little the misery of their existence.
‘I thought we were going to see your crazy witch, not for a drink. Although this does strike me as a place sophisticated enough for you.’
‘Madame Katerina keeps the brewery as a side business.’
I whistled. ‘Beer seller and fortune teller! Why, she gets the clients drunk and then reads their hands! What a bright businesswoman.’
McGray talked to the fat chap who was serving beer to a couple of builders. ‘Mornin’, laddie. Can we see yer boss?’
‘Course, Mr McGray. Ye ken she always welcomes ye.’
The man took some coins from the already half-drunk workers and then led us in. We followed him through a darkened, damp storage room crammed with barrels of beer, and then up a creaking staircase. We passed into an equally dark room, lit only by the orange glow of a small fireplace. The room did have a window, but it was covered with thick curtains.
‘Madame Katerina won’t be long,’ the chap said and then walked away.
I looked around in discomfort. ‘Oh, McGray! Where have you brought me now?’
The weariness in my voice was well justified. Out of all the dubious places I’d seen in the previous days, this one was the strangest: the walls were completely covered with faded, moth-eaten tapestries (most likely second or third hand), there were shelves displaying stuffed birds and snakes, skeletons, crystal balls of all sizes, and many other artefacts whose use I preferred not to question. It resembled the mess in McGray’s office, only ten times odder.
As I looked around a heavy drowsiness began to hit me, partly because of the intense smell of incense mixed with other odorous herbs, but also because the fire kept the room much warmer than required. The tapestries on the walls helped to keep that uncomfortable heat inside … and to retain the herbal reek.
I sat at the round table in the middle of the room, took off my overcoat and produced my clean handkerchief. I pressed it against my nose for a moment and then carefully wiped beads of sweat off my temples.
Nine-Nails cast me a mocking look. ‘Och, next time we’ll bring ye a lavender posy and a Flemish lace fan!’
I was about to retort but was interrupted by the loud, coarse voice of a woman: ‘Oh, Adolphus! I knew ye were coming! I dreamt about ye last night!’
Turning round, I saw a medium-built woman emerging from behind the hanging tapestries. The wretched gypsy was so unbelievably weird I still do not know where to start … She was all wrapped in colourful cloaks and veils, over which lay countless chains, pendants, bracelets and charms, so she jingled with every move she made. She had a chiselled, angular face; her aquiline nose, thick eyebrows and rather pointy ears were all pierced with either a drop or a pendant.
Among her total extravagance there were a couple of things literally standing out, for she had the widest, largest bosom I have ever beheld. And she wore an indecent, plunging neckline, and walked with her back arched in a shameless, most vulgar way.
I chuckled, still not believing that I was actually there. ‘Did you hear that, McGray? She knew that you were coming! Why, she must have seen your hairy face in her tea … oh, sorry, you said that she uses her inner eyes!’
She looked at me with bitterness and, again, spoke with her loud voice and the strangest Eastern European accent I had heard. ‘Oh my! And you brought Inspector Frey! The greatest let-down of the English police!’ She drew closer and winked maliciously at me. ‘And I didn’t need to use my inner eyes to see that.’
I pulled my face away, for her breath stank of stale beer. Her green eyes, despite the abnormally long eyelashes agglomerated in excessive mascara, were fierce and alert. I could tell that I was in front of a clever, yet ruthless person.
‘Lassie, this is Madame Katerina,’ McGray said … needlessly.
She sat in front of me, stretching her arms on the table, as if to reaffirm that she fancied herself in charge, and drummed her very long fingernails on the red tablecloth – painted in black, they looked like vicious claws. Her bosom was so offensively wide that it was hard to keep one’s eyes off it. ‘Well, Adolphus, what brings you here today?’
I mumbled: ‘Oh, so when you foresaw that McGray was coming, you could not see what for.’
‘Shut up and give her the stuff,’ McGray snapped, sitting next to me. ‘We found these things in –’
‘Shush!’ she cried, ‘remember you mustn’t contaminate my vision! Give me that and I will talk.’
She extended her hand towards me and I could see that the sides of her fingers were tattooed with the shapes of thorny roses.
I first produced the piece of paper and Katerina snatched it, twisting and stretching her neck as if preparing for a tough physical chore. Her eyes were closed tightly when she began to run her fingers across the little paper … and then she groaned.
The woman spent several minutes in that attitude and I felt like an utter idiot simply for looking at her. However, whenever I was about to speak or tried to take the piece of notation from her, McGray would invariably elbow me in the ribs.
Finally, after a seemingly endless trance, she spoke hesitantly. ‘I-I … see a dark tunnel … black, very black. And then … some weak light in the end …’
I arched an eyebrow, for once as baffled as McGray. Could that mean that she was seeing …?
Katerina let out a growl of frustration and opened her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, that’s all I can see … this paper doesn’t have enough imprints for me to see more.’
‘What a surprise,’ I mumbled.
Katerina banged her palm on the table and snapped: ‘Would you be able to see if I turned all the lights off, you insufferable know-all? I wasn’t finished! There isn’t enough energy imprints in this … but I do feel that …’ She seemed confused, looking for words. ‘I feel that there is more to it than it seems. As if I’d been looking through a window and someone had drawn the curtains.’
I shrugged and replied carelessly. ‘That is one imaginative argument. You may be luckier with this one,’ and I gave her my very own pocket watch. McGray’s eyes were fixed on her, even more expectant than when she’d held the fragment of notation.
As soon as her fingertips touched it the woman started: ‘My goodness, so much noise! So much noise in this man’s head! It all comes in a torrent. Pernickety … cantankerous … conceited …’
‘What! ’
‘Sounds about right to me!’ Nine-Nails declared, grinning.
‘But there is something else. Something subtle, sort of whispering underneath all that noise. Yes. A very conscious sorrow; a feeling of – of … what does he call it? Lack of purpose … of not belonging.’ Then she dropped it on the table. ‘Other than that, this belongs to a quite harmless boy.’
I took the watch again, seeing with the corner of my eye that McGray was grinning mordantly. ‘We have one last item. You should be careful, it is sharp.’
I laid the piece of glass on the table and, from the moment she saw it, Katerina’s mood changed. She stared at it for a moment, examining it warily.
With a hesitant hand, Katerina picked it up and for a moment nothing happened. She closed her eyes and tilted her head, as if she were trying to make out a very faint sound, and waited.
All of a sudden Katerina gasped and changed colour, as if hit by a sudden nausea. For a moment I thought that she was about to vomit. She was quivering, her face distorted in a horrified expression, as she gripped the glass so tightly that I feared she would pierce her palm.
She opened her mouth and tried to speak but another voice came out; a vile, coarse whisper that chilled my spine.
‘I see … thin, long shadows on a filthy floor … It’s a cage, the bars of a cage! And there’s something there; something nasty, crouching, lurking – Oh, it’s a strong presence; turbulent … tormented. An encaged, deranged … genius!’ Her entire body shuddered then. ‘Bloodthirsty! Bloodthirsty and desperate to prove its value to the world!’
And then she threw the glass onto the table. I could see the outline of the shard printed on her skin, yet no wounds. She lounged back, panting as if she’d run a mile, her face distorted.
‘Are ye all right?’ McGray asked.
‘I thought you would be used to her theatricals,’ I said, but McGray seemed genuinely concerned. He moved closer to the woman and talked softly.
‘I’ve never seen ye quite like this, hen. Can we bring ye some water or something?’
I shook my head, still not believing her act. Katerina was taking deep, troubled breaths.
‘I think I’ve seen the Devil,’ she muttered at last. All fierceness had abandoned her eyes. She was totally frightened, and there also was a great confusion in her face. Then she grasped McGray’s hand. ‘Oh, Adolphus, you must catch this one! This is a monster, a monster I tell ye!’
McGray assented. ‘Now that ye’ve seen that, I can tell ye that we found those wee things in a crime scene. Mr Fon-teen –’
‘Fontaine.’
‘Shut up! A musician, he was, Cut throat and all butchered.’ I was going to protest, for McGray was giving away confidential information, but he extended his four-fingered hand, asking me to hold back. ‘Katerina, there was a mark painted with his blood … the five eyes.’
Katerina gasped. ‘Doesn’t surprise me, not now that I’ve looked into this wretch’s heart …’
‘Can ye see anything else?’
Katerina shook her head, visibly annoyed. ‘Nae, nae, Adolphus. Let me try again.’
She lifted the shard, held it for a while, mumbled and grunted, but that first, explosive reaction would not happen again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she moaned, her face all dejection. ‘It’s spent all its energy … But I did feel a weaker presence. I can’t quite describe it; it’s a gentle one – old. Doesn’t make sense to me.’
McGray assented, as I began to wonder whether she referred to Fontaine. I cast those silly thoughts out of my head.
She gave me back the shard and then took the piece of score one more time. ‘What a shame I can’t see more from this. It feels like there is more to this wee paper.’ She was looking at it with piercing eyes. ‘Oh yes. There is more to it, Adolphus, believe me. Find more about it, as much as you can. I’m sure this paper will lead your way.’
14
McGray left Madame Katerina’s brewery in an exhilarated state. ‘Told ye, dandy! She’s one in a million – and I almost met a million seers before findin’ her.’
‘I still do not believe what she said.’
‘Oh! Then how can ye explain what she said about ye?’
‘A lucky coincidence for her,’ I retorted, munching my bad temper.
‘Aye, yer always right! Also, she missed a mighty important bit about ye: she didn’t mention what a whiny bitch ye are! Anyways, I’m glad that chap Caroli’s looking for the name o’ that tune. My gut told me I had to ask him.’
‘There, there. Next you will tell me that you have inner eyes too. Shall we go and question that bloody Joe Fiddler now?’
‘Nae. ’Tis past noon. I need lunch.’
I sighed wearily, for I was beginning to learn that protesting against McGray was a total waste of energy. He innocently invited me to eat with him at the Ensign Ewart, and I could only laugh. ‘Eat there again? I’d as soon rub my tongue with a culture of bubonic plague.’
Nine-Nails replied with an unintelligible splutter in his most impenetrable Scottish and then went away. I saw him ride towards Castle Rock followed by Tucker, while I turned north heading to the New Club. That day they served the most succulent platter of fish and mussels, and as I savoured it I reflected on our visit to that bloody gypsy.
She was one disgusting person; undoubtedly one of those cold-blooded rogues who know exactly how to squeeze the paupers’ pockets. Nevertheless – and it pains me to even write this – the wretched woman had simply talked with sense! Her accuracy when describing my character was most remarkable … disturbing even: I still doubted that my efforts to redeem myself professionally were worth the doing, and felt utterly out of place in this town and in the stupid subdivision I had been assigned to … and Katerina managed to mention those sentiments with astonishing precision. She even divined my ‘lack of purpose’, which were the very words that haunted me throughout my dreadful journey to Edinburgh. Could such coincidences come to be? It was very unlikely, but not impossible.
And what if the information she’d given us regarding the case was similarly accurate? Her description of something that could have well been the interior of a chimney also puzzled me, and her further words – those that I could not verify from my previous knowledge – were intriguing, especially regarding the cage: ‘an encaged genius … bloodthirsty and desperate to prove its value to the world’. It was a chilling statement, and I could not forget that humbled, petrified look in her eyes, as if fear had displaced all her shrewdness.
So absorbed was I in these thoughts that I did not hear the voice of a man calling my name. He had to clear his throat loudly for me to notice, and looking up I found none other than Alistair Ardglass, with his jutting belly, standing next to my table.
‘Why, Mr Ardglass!’
‘Inspector Frey, what a delight to find you here! I did not know that you held a membership.’
‘I only acquired it recently.’
‘Would you mind if I joined you for a few minutes?’
‘By all means. Have a seat.’ Ardglass did so, and immediately the waiter cleared my table and served us some strong coffee. ‘I must tell you that I cannot be detained for long. I need to go back to my duties.’
‘I understand, Inspector. I shall not entertain you more than a little while. You see, last night I happened to have dinner with my good aunt Lady Anne Ardglass, have you heard about her?’
McGray’s sneering description of ‘Lady Glass’ was impossible to forget. ‘Her name has been mentioned once or twice since I arrived.’
My answer appeared to mortify rather than please him. Lady Glass must have her reputation after all.
‘While conversing with her, your name inevitably came up,’ he continued, ‘and my dear aunt was intrigued. She wishes to know whether you are related to the Freys of Magdeburg, connected to Chancery Lane.’
I arched my eyebrows in surprise. ‘Indeed I am. I did not know that our name would be acknowledged this far from London.’
‘Oh, believe me, some distinguished few do know about you. You see, my aunt had some thorny conveyancing business settled by a very good attorney; Mr William Frey. Do you know him?’
‘You might say so. He is my father.’
‘Your father! Oh, how delightful. My aunt will be so pleased to know that. She told me how troublesome that case was, and that your good father took care of everything quickly and neatly. She said that she hardly had to lift a finger once he was involved.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, my father is still well known in Chancery Lane. He is retired now though.’
‘A well deserved rest, I am sure. Inspector, I must tell you that my aunt would be very happy if you paid her a visit at your earliest convenience.’
I instantly remembered what McGray had said about Lady Glass being Fontaine’s landlady. Paying her a visit might help us a good deal, but the fact that she herself had requested the appointment inevitably raised my suspicions.
‘I am afraid that may take a while,’ I said, for I did not want to appear too keen. ‘The case of Mr Fontaine is top priority for the CID.’
‘Of course, we und
erstand that. You have a very serious profession. But do, do feel welcome to call on her whenever you have some time to spare. I shall give you her card …’ He produced a card written on expensive cotton paper. ‘Are there any means to contact you?’
‘Well, I am staying at 27 Moray Place; you can send any correspondence there.’ I checked my pocket watch. ‘You will excuse me, I must go now.’ I was not in a terrible rush, but I have never liked to become too close to the people involved in my investigations. I took the card and kept it safe in my breast pocket.
‘Oh, Inspector Frey!’ Ardglass called before I left, and then came and whispered at my ear. ‘Do not believe everything that Nine-Nails tells you, please. People say that mad blood runs in the veins of the McGrays; mad blood. I know that we are civilized gentlemen, not to believe in such tales, but one cannot deny it when a family happens to be that … odd.’
I could not help but wrinkle my nose. Every time Ardglass opened his mouth I liked him a little less.
15
‘What the hell is this, Frey?’
I had not passed through the doorway when McGray’s thunderous yell pierced my ears.
The main hall was full of trunks and packages of all shapes and sizes, so many that there were hardly any free spots on the floor. Sticking up between the mess there were two high piles of boxes, between which I found the plump, round figure of old Joan. The woman was wearing a mighty frown, her irreverence more evident than ever, and the dark bags around her eyes told me how tired and sick she was. Nevertheless, seeing her familiar face brought me a warm feeling I did not quite expect.
‘Master!’ George cried, trying desperately to find a way through the crammed hall. ‘This auld woman came in as if she owned the house and got the place all jam-packed! The witch won’t listen to me!’
The Strings of Murder Page 13