The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest
Page 18
“Mike,” the nurse said, “will you be coming up this way soon? I’m in Prince Albert.”
“Anything for you, Mary, darlint. Whassamatter?”
“Nothing much, but I’ve a concussion who’s a bit more restless than he ought to be. He’s keeping some of the others awake.”
“Arrah, I wouldn’t be minding keeping you awake one of these nights, darlint.”
“I detest stage Irishmen.”
“I’ll go to plastic surgery tomorrow and have me freckles removed. In the meantime, I’ll come up and give your joker a jab.”
Oblivion is not to be hired, but they can give it to you with a needle, with a needle, with a needle.
Pibble woke late, by hospital standards. His nose felt like a wet sandbag and his head sang with pain. He was still drinking his Codis when Superintendent Graham rolled in, wearing a suit which looked as though he’d put on half a stone since he’d worn it last. He was carrying a brown paper bag.
“Hello, Sandy,” said Pibble. Both his nostrils were blocked with blood and his voice came very guttural.
“Morning, Jimmy. I’ve brought you some tangerines. Grapes are Ass. Com.’s and above.”
“Thanks, Sandy. I’ve made a fair old mess of things, I’m afraid.”
“D’you want me to hold the fort on the Kus, or shall I ask for someone else from the Yard?”
“No point. Mrs. Caine killed him but there’s no proving it. The only thing you can do to ease my conscience is to get a doctor to look at Robin’s back—he’s one of the children. Have a word with Dr. Ku first.”
“Right you are, Jimmy. What happened to you?”
“Didn’t Ned Rickard tell you?”
“Rickard’s dead.”
“Dead!”
“Aye. He dumped you here and rushed off to raid a flat in Soho; at least that’s what I hear. There were villains there, burning papers and carting others away, and a couple of them had shotguns. Rickard stopped a load of buckshot with his stomach. They’ve got about five hundred men down there now, but they aren’t in yet, last I heard. Burnaby rang to say this Caine was somehow involved, and he thought Rickard might have said something useful to you.”
“No, I don’t think so. Christ, Sandy!”
“Nurse said I wasn’t to excite you, as they want you out by this afternoon, so I’ve left all the papers outside. What hit you?”
“Ned did. Mrs. Caine had just fallen off the building and he started pointing up at something when I walked into his gesture. Then I suppose I fell back and cracked my skull on something. Does my wife know?”
“Hospital rang her last night. What was Mrs. Caine doing on the building?”
“Climbing across to murder Robin. I’d told her he said he knew who’d killed the old man, and I’d told her he’d be out on the roof. I put her up there, Mac, and then I pulled her off with that bloody searchlight.”
“Easy, Jimmy, easy. She was a villain, too.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“Why’d she do it? Was she a nut?”
“Not really. She was obsessed with Caine. She loved him, Sandy, probably more than you or I will ever love anyone, villain and all. She sat at home and bit her fingernails down to the quick for him. I think she knew about Furlough—”
“Burnaby said something about that,” interrupted Graham. “He said he became so worried about Rickard a few months ago that he sent Mrs. Caine an anonymous letter, telling her all about her husband. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. But don’t pass it on, Sandy. Ah well. Anyway, she persuaded herself that Aaron Ku could get Dr. Ku to turn Caine out of his flat.”
“That doesn’t sound much of a motive to me.”
“Miss Hermitage told me that if he was turned out he would leave Mrs. Caine, too. He’d apparently done something like that before. And Mrs. Caine said something, I’ve forgotten what—I remembered it last night … Oh God …”
“Take it easy, Jim. Take it easy. The only point is that you’re sure she killed the other one?”
“Pretty well. What was she doing climbing across in the dark if she wasn’t on her way to kill Robin? And pretending to be right-handed whenever there was a policeman in the room! Dear Lord, I was slow! How’re you getting on with your sex maniac, Sandy?”
“Not a sausage. I ought to be getting back to him now. But first you’d best tell me, in simple words which a poor Celt can understand, just what did happen, and what you think happened. I’ll have to put a bod on it to tidy up the messes you’ve left.”
“Ah, hell, I suppose so. Dr. Ku brought the remains of the tribe back from New Guinea. She’d inherited enough money from her mother to allow them to set up as a tribe on their own, keeping their own customs. She owns all Flagg Terrace, you know.”
“Does she, now?” said Graham. “That must be worth a pretty penny.”
“Yes. That’s what caused the trouble. It’s worth enough to take them back to New Guinea and set up again in a valley—to go native, you might say.”
“Why’d they want to do that?”
“Aaron wanted to—the one who was murdered. The old men had become bored, and were turning back to a rather nasty but exciting kind of paganism, but Aaron was an ardent Christian. He thought he’d be able to bring them to their senses on their own ground. He didn’t know that Eve—Dr. Ku, that is—wouldn’t have let them go, because she wanted to stay in London for the sake of Paul’s painting. But Aaron warned Mrs. Caine about what he was trying to do (he thought Eve was staying for the sake of Caine), and then she thought that’d mean the Caines’ being turned out of their rent-free basement and Caine leaving her. So she climbed across and bashed him—she’d been a nurse, and knew how. You ought to be able to find marks of her movements on the pipes, if you can get some ladders up before it rains—she wasn’t wearing gloves.”
“Right. Damned expensive ideas you have, Jimmy.” Graham pulled out a pad from a strained pocket and made a note.
“Sorry. That’s what the two-headed penny was about. Caine had used it to trick the tribe into letting him stay with them, and Aaron thought it’d be the clincher for making Eve get rid of him. I daresay Caine would tell you about it now if you twisted his arm a bit. Miss Hermitage said he was as soft as butter.”
“He’s gone,” said Graham. “There’s nothing anyone can lay on him, as far as I can see, but he’s run. There’s a call out, but you can’t tell how long it’ll be.”
“Yes,” said Pibble. “She said he’d do that.”
“Who? Mrs. Caine?”
“Nan Hermitage. How are the others taking it, Sandy?”
“Not been down there myself, but Fernham rang up to say they were having a community hymn singing; all the gloomy ones—‘Abide with Me,’ and so on. He said they were quiet, but the men looked sulky. That all, Jimmy?”
“I’ve blotted my copybook with this one, Sandy. Heard what they think about it at the Yard?”
“Don’t you worry, Jimmy boy. They’re all too busy running round in circles after Furlough. They won’t notice a slight cockup over a silly little case like this.”
“I suppose not.”
“Anything else I can do for you?”
“Be a pal and find out if anything’s been done for Ned’s mother. She’s a little old saint, stone blind.”
“Right. Crewe sent you a letter. Bye, then.”
There was a handwritten note, saying, “This is from my girl in traffic control. I got quite pally with the chap I saw at London University, and the feeling seems to be that Dr. Ku is unique in a very specialized and very limited field, and that her ideas—as distinct from her knowledge—are on the old-fashioned side. Chaos here. Get well soon.”
“This” was a typewritten flimsy, which said:
EPHRAIM FLAGG, 18??—1893, born in Newcastle. Nothing else known of his early life.
Appeared in London in the mid-sixties with a small sum of capital and set up as a builder, at a time when London was expanding uncontrollably with the advent of the suburban railways. Flagg soon became notorious as a jerry-builder even in a jerry-building age. His property speculations were accompanied by lavish corruption of officials. He was never successfully sued, but only just escaped the attentions of a Parliamentary Commission—it was alleged by spending a fortune in bribes. In 1885, Flagg was converted to a sect of ultraenthusiastic evangelists whose moving spirit was the Reverend Richard Oakenhouse (later convicted for a series of frauds on elderly widows) and who called themselves the Pure People. Flagg wished to use part of his fortune to build them a church, but worship inside buildings was contrary to their tenets. However, Oakenhouse persuaded him to atone for his previous sins by building a terrace of perfect houses for the Pure People to inhabit. Oakenhouse vetted every contractor before he would pass them as workers worthy of their task. It was only when the buildings were almost completed that Flagg discovered how much commission Oakenhouse had squeezed out of the contractors. In his rage, he left the Pure People and named the Terrace after himself. The Minister has recently refused to place a preservation order on Flagg Terrace.
About the Author
Peter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.
The recipient of many awards, Dickinson has been shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was also the first to win the Gold Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for two books running: Skin Deep (1968) and A Pride of Heroes (1969).
A collection of Dickinson’s poetry, The Weir, was published in 2007. His latest book, In the Palace of the Khans, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal.
Dickinson has served as chairman of the Society of Authors and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Reprinted with the permission of the author and Georges Borchardt, Inc.
Copyright © 1968 by Peter Dickinson
Cover design by Mimi Bark
978-1-5040-0365-0
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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