Scimitar

by Terry Wheeler

  ‘I like to collect things on my travels,’ he said sitting forward in his chair. He was desperate to do something and was twisting his fingers together. ‘I think the dagger came from the Far East. I bought it a long time ago when I was studying the Ottoman troubles. Would you like to look at it?’

  ‘Knives upset me,’ Sophie said.

  ‘I can understand that,’ he said sympathetically, ‘particularly after what happened to your mother. But you can’t go through your whole life being frightened of the past.’

  What does he know about my mother? How could he know what happened to her? Questions were forming in Sophie’s mind and her unease was growing. She watched his fingers remorselessly twisting together. Outwardly he seemed so calm but his fingers were telling a different story. His face was eager, as if he was trying to please her, but she no longer felt at ease. It was as if this Dr Jonathan was different from the charming, urbane lecturer she knew.

  He stood up, crossed to the case and lifted it from the wall. Settling back into his chair, he rested the case across his knees.

  ‘I think it must have been a very special weapon,’ he said, opening the case. ‘You see, not only is its blade razor sharp, it also has a tiny jewel set into its handle.’

  Sophie shuddered as he lifted the dagger from its blue velvet nest. There was a momentary red flash as the ruby, deep set in the handle, caught the light. A long buried image of another flash of a red jewel surfaced in her mind. It can’t be, she thought looking at him.

  Dr Jonathan was gazing into the distance above her head. His eyes were unfocussed and he seemed to be in a daze.

  ‘It must have been a curved blade like this that killed your mother,’ he said, turning the dagger in his hand. Sophie heard his voice as if it were far away. ‘Only a curved blade could have left that sort of wound.’

  ‘How could you know about that?’ Sophie was aghast.

  The police had never released that information. They said it was the one thing that might lead to the eventual capture of her mother’s killer. She felt suffocated and struggled to stay calm.

  ‘The police ... they never …’ she began.

  Dr Jonathan was still gazing at the space above her head and the distant look in his eyes terrified her. He didn’t seem to hear what she’d just said.

  ‘If only she hadn’t moved,’ he said. ‘I only used it to keep her quiet.’

  Dr Jonathan scarcely seemed to notice her reaction. He was in another place, at another time. And then his eyes suddenly snapped back into focus and he looked intently at her.

  Sophie felt his eyes boring into her. She knew beyond a shadow of doubt that this man, charming, gallant and old-fashioned Dr Jonathan, was her mother’s killer.

  ‘She twisted her head as I took the blade away. She cut her own throat. It wasn’t my fault.’

  Sophie looked round the room. Her world had suddenly come crashing down and the only thought on her mind was her need to escape. She was struggling to equate the affable Dr Jonathan with the man sitting opposite her. Panic gripped her. She couldn’t move. She was frozen and she found it impossible to take her eyes from the dagger.

  ‘I know why you’re here,’ he said. His voice had changed and there was a steely, cold feel wrapped around his words. ‘I feel the same attraction to you that you have for me.’

  It’s too late, Sophie thought. She realised that he’d been leading her on from their very first meeting.

  ‘You knew who I was?’ she said as the truth began to dawn on her.

  ‘I didn’t recognise the name,’ Dr Jonathan said, his voice curiously flat, ‘but when I saw you, well, I knew who you were. No longer the timid little girl in the park but a fully grown replica of your mother.’ He felt his control slipping away. ‘Here to taunt me, flaunting your boyfriend in my face when I was only trying to be your friend.’

  He was staring at her, twisting the dagger in his fingers, and she felt him undressing her with his eyes. The memory that she had tried to forget, that she had pushed away into the furthest recesses of her mind was vivid and she could smell the dampness of the earth, the scent of the rhododendron bushes and she could see her mother struggling and then the rush of blood.

  ‘I knew, the second I saw you, I knew exactly what you were like, why you’d pushed yourself into my life. Your mother caused me so much pain and now you’re here to open the wound again, to torment me.’

  Sophie realised that he was becoming more and more unbalanced. The man sitting opposite her was not the genial, polite Dr Jonathan but a tormented, twisted and unbalanced, unstable man.

  ‘Daniel will be here soon,’ she said, grasping at anything to try to stop this. She needed to restore the balance, to bring him back. ‘Shall we talk about my reading?’

  ‘Daniel!’ Jonathan scoffed. ‘I bet he doesn’t even exist. I think it’s time we got better acquainted, don’t you? Before Daniel comes!’

  The look on Jonathan’s face left Sophie in no doubt as to his intentions. She summoned her courage.

  ‘Put the scimitar down. You must know that it terrifies me.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s my insurance. It’s always been that.’

  ‘You don’t need it.’

  ‘I’m afraid I do; we both know what headstrong young girls think they can do when they become desperate.'

  He leaned over and rested his hand on her knee. She flinched, trying not to shrink away from his touch.

  ‘Stand up,’ he said, the blade glinting as he turned it in his hand.

  She knew it was useless to resist. Her only chance was to prolong the moment in the hope of finding some way to overpower him or to escape.

  Chapter 25

  Daniel woke up late feeling strange, gripped by an inexplicable conviction that something momentous was about to happen. He felt a mixture of excitement and dread, almost like the panic that he’d felt when he’d sat his A levels, but it was more than that. It was laced with the expectation of … well, he didn’t quite know what. There was definitely a frisson of something, the kind of thrill he imagined that hunters would experience as they set out on a chase, a pent up tension that would build up until it was released.

  He tried to act normally; perhaps routine would restore the balance in his mind. It was a Saturday morning and he had no work that needed completing urgently; there were no deadlines looming on the horizon, just his washing to take to the laundrette and some odd bits and pieces he wanted to buy in town. There was nothing that could account for the way he was feeling and yet as the morning wore on he became increasingly anxious. He tried to call Sophie but her mobile was off. They’d agreed to meet later and yesterday she had told him that she was going to see Dr Jonathan about some reading she was doing; he assumed that all was well with her since she had not texted him.

  The weird feeling persisted; it wouldn’t go away. He went to the laundrette, he did his shopping and he even stopped off for a coffee in one of the many cafés that lined the side streets, but nothing caught his attention or eased the tension that he felt bubbling up inside him. He tried calling Sophie again but her mobile was still switched off. He left a voice mail. It was strange, he reflected; normally it didn’t take long for her to respond to a missed call from him, even if she was busy. He felt slightly uneasy about her. Perhaps she was unwell. He called one of her friends and was told that Sophie had gone out. He guessed she’d gone into town to see Dr Jonathan.

  He couldn’t account for the anxiety he felt; he needed to put his mind at rest and wondered whether he should go to Dr Jonathan’s flat to check up on her. He didn’t know why but, all of a sudden, he was convinced that Sophie was at risk and that this was the reason he felt so uneasy. There had been times before when he had been sensitive to what she was thinking and to what she was feeling, but this wasn’t like those times. Today he was aware that Sophie was happy and relaxed but at the same time he knew that she was heading towards danger. She thought that she was safe but her life was in peril.

  He to
ld himself not to be such an idiot, to get on with having a lazy Saturday and to look forward to spending the evening with her but, despite his best efforts to ignore his feelings, he found himself making his way towards Dr Jonathan’s flat. Sophie had shown him where it was on one of their walks through the town.

  He pressed the buzzer at the entrance to the flats but there was no response. He was flummoxed; what should he do? As he pressed the buzzer again he saw a woman coming down the central staircase into the entrance hall and making her way towards the front doors.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, coming out and closing the door behind her. ‘Who did you want?’

  ‘I was trying to contact Dr Porter.’

  ‘You won’t find him here, not at the weekend. He’ll be at his cottage. He was here yesterday evening but he left just as I came back home.’

  ‘Do you know where his cottage is?’

  ‘Not exactly. I know it’s out in the country. He’s a very private man, keeps himself to himself if you know what I mean. I don’t think any of us know him that well; just a nod as we pass, that’s as far as it goes. I’m sorry I can’t help you more.’

  As she turned and walked away Daniel felt his heart sink. The feeling that Sophie was in danger was becoming stronger and he knew that he had to find her, if only to put his mind at rest. How could he find where Dr Jonathan lived? He hadn’t a clue as to what he could do so he made his way back to the university. Perhaps the History Faculty would be open and he could ask there.

  The Faculty building was closed but the library was open. He went to the enquiry desk, trying to think of a plausible reason as to why he should want Dr Porter’s private address.

  His story about having to go to Dr Porter’s house sounded too feeble even as he began and the clerk at the desk was not taken in.

  ‘He’s got a flat in town.’

  ‘I know. I’ve already tried there but he’s not at home. One of the tenants said he’s gone to his cottage in the country.’

  ‘That could be right. He’s got a house at Thorn Cross but I can’t give you his address.’

  Thorn Cross, that’s something, Daniel thought. Thorn Cross. He repeated the name to fix it in his mind.

  ‘He wanted my work to read over the weekend but I missed him yesterday. I suppose that if I can’t get it to him he’ll have to wait until Monday,’ Daniel said.

  ‘You can leave it with me,’ the clerk said. ‘I’ll put it in his pigeon hole so that he gets it first thing on Monday.’

  ‘Thanks but if I’ve got another couple of days I’ll go over it again.’

  Daniel made his way out of the library. At least I know where he lives, he thought, but where is Thorn Cross? He went to the town bookshop and browsed the local maps.

  When he reached Thorn Cross he was at a loss as to how to find Dr Porter’s house. In the end he went into the Post Office and asked if they could help him.

  ‘He’s not always there,’ the postmistress told him. ‘Sometimes he comes at the weekends but during term time he often stays in town. He’s very busy at the university.’

  Daniel set off, walking in the direction he’d been given, feeling increasingly worried as he left the village. The houses petered out and gave way to open fields and isolated groups of trees. Just as he was beginning to doubt that this was the right road he spotted a cottage across the fields, a short distance off the road. It matched what the Postmistress had told him and when he came to the drive entrance he saw Dr Porter’s name on the mailbox. Feeling relieved, he turned off the road and started up the track that led to the cottage.

  Daniel stood at the gate for a moment taking stock of the situation and then he opened the gate and walked towards the front door. The tranquility of the countryside and the lazy buzzing of insects in the shrubs crowding the twisting path contrasted with the tension he felt boiling away within him and he began to doubt his sanity.

  Not the least disturbing aspect of the whole situation in which he found himself was that he had become aware of Scimitar again. Over the years since his dream Daniel had come to accept that he might never know if Scimitar really existed or if Scimitar was a figment of his imagination, the leftover memories of a particularly vivid dream. The vivid impression Scimitar had made on him had faded with time and when he had tried to resolve the matter Daniel had made no progress; the margin between reality and dreaming was too vague to produce a definitive answer.

  There were times when he felt that Scimitar had been instrumental in his relationship with Sophie. After all, it was at Scimitar’s insistence that Daniel had made the effort to speak to her in the first place. He didn’t believe in guardian angels but, he thought ruefully, if they did exist then Scimitar might well be his.

  He couldn’t escape the feeling that Sophie was in danger and, although the idea that Scimitar was warning him seemed preposterous, it was the main reason that he was here. It was time for him to act. Daniel tried to put the feeling down to his natural concern for Sophie, to what he liked to think of as his ‘enhanced’ conscience, but it was as if Scimitar was standing beside him and talking to him.

  No matter how hard he tried to be rational, there were times when Daniel was caught unawares. It was as if the ‘Scimitar experience’ was something outside of his control, as if it overtook his logical reasoning, possessing him in some way that he couldn’t explain and totally dominating his whole thinking. It was like that now.

  ‘Sophie is in danger,’ he seemed to hear Scimitar warning him. ‘Time is short. You must act. Now!’

  Daniel wanted to ask what he was supposed to do but being found talking to himself or his invisible friend on Dr Porter’s doorstep was unlikely to create a good impression. If he was taken for a gibbering idiot it would not reassure Sophie and would not deter Dr Porter from harming her if, indeed, that was his intention. At the moment all Daniel had was a feeling of unease and he was conscious that he was on the verge of making a fool of himself.

  If Sophie is at risk then I must try to help her, he resolved and then he rationalised that if she was well he could just say that he had come to meet her, to walk back with her. Put like that, it seemed sensible and not at all strange. She might wonder how he came to know she was here but he could just say that he was at a loose end and was missing her so he decided to surprise her. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more ordinary it all seemed and he wondered why he had allowed himself to become so disturbed.

  Feeling less foolish and desperately trying to think what he should say, Daniel paused at the cottage door, lifted his finger and pushed the white button in the centre of the tarnished brass escutcheon. The distant ringing of a bell at the rear of the house greeted his ears and he removed his finger. A moment or two later he heard a door close and the sound of approaching footsteps. In the silence that followed he heard a bolt being withdrawn and then the door opened.

  ‘I’d like to speak to Sophie, please,’ Daniel said as soon as he saw Dr Porter.

  ‘I don’t know who you are,’Dr Porter said, ‘but I’m on my own here.’

  ‘I’m Daniel, Sophie’s boyfriend,’ Daniel said, ‘and I need to speak to her.’

  ‘What makes you think she’s here?’

  Something in the way he replied made Daniel think that Dr Porter was hiding something. Perhaps it was the way he avoided coming straight out with the fact that Sophie wasn’t there, countering Daniel’s request with a question instead of a straight answer.

  ‘If I could come in, I’d just like to talk to her,’ Daniel persisted. He was watching Dr Porter’s face closely, looking for any hint of unease, but Dr Porter seemed totally calm and in control of himself.

  ‘As I have just told you, she’s not here,’ he said, smiling.

  The smile stayed rooted to Dr Porter’s mouth but it didn’t reach his eyes and Daniel was even more convinced that something was not right. He took a deep breath. This is it, he thought.

  ‘Let’s cut the bullshit. I know she’s here and I need t
o speak to her.’ Daniel didn’t know where the words were coming from. It seemed as if he had become a different person. He narrowed his eyes and stared straight at Dr Porter. ‘I can wait but I’m not going away.’

  ‘You’d better come in,’ Dr Porter said, standing aside. There was just the merest hint of anxiety about his eyes as he moved away from the door. ‘I think it will be better if we don’t talk about your delusions on my doorstep.’

  Daniel walked past Dr Porter, careful not to let his concentration slip. He turned and watched as the front door was locked.

  ‘I have to use the bolt,’ Dr Porter said, ‘the door doesn’t stay closed too well. That’s the trouble with these old houses. Things wear out. I suppose I must get it seen to one day. Not that it matters, I’m so far out that nobody ever comes here.’

  He moved across the narrow hall and into one of the front rooms. Daniel followed him and when Dr Porter indicated the sofa, he sat down. He was still thinking about what Dr Porter had said, about being so far away from civilisation that no one ever came. It was jangling a warning in his brain as if it was urging him to be careful.

  ‘Now,’ Dr Porter said sitting down in the brown leather armchair opposite the sofa, ‘what is on your mind that you come here uninvited and start accusing me of I know not what?’

  ‘I haven’t accused you of anything,’ Daniel said, noting Dr Porter’s assumption. ‘I just need to speak to Sophie.’

  Dr Porter sighed and shook his head.

  ‘How many times must I tell you?’ he said a trifle irritably. ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘Then you won’t mind if I look round the house, just to put my mind at rest?’

  ‘I would mind that very much. You might well be Sophie’s boyfriend, although I only have your word for that, but this is my house and it’s not open to the public. You have no right to come barging in asking to speak to someone who’s not here and then demanding to search my house.’

  ‘Let’s cut the pretence.’