Realm of Darkness

by C F Dunn

  “Your grandfather promised me his position when he retired; it was mine by rights. I’d worked damn hard to get where I was. I worked all the vacations, weekends. He used me like a dog on his pedantic project, throwing me the bones to chew, but never the whole bloody joint. He never trusted me enough to tell me what he was looking for; he never trusted me.”

  “You haven’t answered the question.”

  “No, I haven’t.” He wiped sweat from his top lip. “It makes no difference now, so you might as well know – he made sure I wasn’t given his post when he retired, vindictive bugger. It went to Stevenson, much good it did him.” Stevenson: a vague memory of a floridly jovial man in a loud checked tweed jacket and long side whiskers the colour of dying grass. A relic of an older age when eccentricity in an academic was tolerated.

  “I remember him; he was always kind to me. He died not long after Grandpa.” I shook my head. “My grandfather wasn’t vindictive; he must have had his reasons. You gave him a reason not to trust you, Guy.”

  He took off his jacket and threw it over Matthew’s desk, knocking several items like bowling pins. “The old sod found out I’d been having it off with Emerson’s wife. Didn’t think it was the done thing, thought that sort of behaviour was not the conduct of a gentleman.” His mouth twisted. “What century did he think we were living in? What did he think the gentry had been doing for the last effing knows how long?” He stabbed a finger in my direction. “What right did he have to say I wasn’t a gentleman? My family owned half of the Loire valley…”

  “He wasn’t referring to your class, Guy, only to your behaviour.” So, this is what it was all about: thwarted ambition and being jealous of a child. How pitiable. I could think of nothing to be afraid of here, nothing at all. I laughed and then found I couldn’t stop. I covered my face with my hands, and sobbed out long peals of relief until my chest hurt.

  “What do you think you’re laughing at, you little…” He grabbed the tops of my arms, but I didn’t care. He shook me roughly, his fingers bruising, and I saw spite in the way he lowered his head until his mouth came close to mine. I flinched back but he held me rigid.

  “I screwed you like a whore because you were his little Pipkin. I screwed you like he screwed me for his quaint ideas of chivalry and honour. You were on my course so that I could screw you. My only regret is that he’s not here to know what it is I’ve done to you, and what I’m about to do.” My eyes widened in fright. “No,” he said slowly, “that wasn’t what I had in mind. Ellie’s a lively little thing, thighs like a vice, stronger than she looks, but if you’re offering…”

  I finally managed to wrench myself free. “What do you want?”

  He scratched at premature stubble with his thumbnail, eyeing me. “You ruined my marriage. You ruined my career. What do you think you can do to make up for that? No, nothing? Can’t think of anything? Well, I’ll tell you, shall I? I’ll have your job, for a start…”

  “You can’t!”

  A thin smile slid over his face. “Can’t I? I already have. The good Dean offered me the contract today. Seems he wasn’t happy to discover that your qualifications are not quite what you led him to believe. Falsification of official documents is considered a very serious offence in the States – as it is in Britain. I think you’ll find the authorities in Cambridge are looking into several claims that you obtained your degree in less than… savoury circumstances…”

  “You… you bas…!”

  He didn’t let me finish. “I wonder what your friends and family – especially your father – will think of that?”

  “They won’t believe you. They know I wouldn’t do anything like that, and I have all the documentation to verify my degrees.”

  He shrugged in the knowledge he had me over a barrel. “But you will be suspended until a full investigation is carried out and, whatever the outcome, mud sticks, as you well know. Remember the trial? A little poison in a receptive ear… oh, come on, Emma; did you really think I would forgive and forget?”

  “How do you know about the trial?”

  “I was always good at getting information. I have contacts.” Fleetingly, the moth distracted him, dancing unsteadily in the whorl of air his hand created as he flapped it away. “Now, where were we? Ah yes, your career. You don’t seem as upset as you should be; perhaps you don’t need job security as much as you once did? You’re well set up here…”

  “You want money?”

  “I’m marrying money. The little cash cow will provide me with everything I need. Keep up, Emma.”

  “You’re already married!”

  “And?”

  “And you used to believe it was wrong to divorce. What happened to ‘I can’t get a divorce; it’s a sin, Emma’?”

  “You happened.” With a swipe he caught the moth and crushed it in his hand. “Or perhaps I never believed it in the first place. Whatever.” Dispassionately, he inspected the remains and brushed the frail carcass to the floor. “Anyway, Ellie’s young, rich, and a good lay. She’ll see me through to my old age. Which is more than I could say of your marriage. Now, you have a couple of choices: either you can ’fess up, I think the Yanks say, spill the beans, come clean – you get the drift – and resign your position here and in Cambridge without a fuss, and I’ll marry Ellie and we’ll all live as one big, happy family, or…” He paused, raised his head, and looked me dead in the eye.

  “Or what?”

  His voice ached with threat. “… or I’ll expose your husband for the fraud he is.”

  He must have seen the fissure rip through the surface of my control. I turned my back and stared sightlessly through the window into the solid night. Like an apparition in the gloss-black reflection of the glass, he hovered close behind me.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me how I know?”

  Dead, devoid of emotion, I asked, “How do you know, Guy?”

  “It was something your grandfather said a long time ago when researching the Lynes family in Martinsthorpe. Never told me why, but he had a real bee in his bonnet about it – was on to something – he must have told you?” He was fishing again. This time I wouldn’t take the bait. “No? Well, he was a secretive old bugger. Anyway, he’d had one too many…”

  “Grandpa didn’t drink,” I said flatly.

  “He did that night. With encouragement. ‘Vir, my boy’ – how I hated his sentimental tags – ‘Vir, my boy, the Lynes are not all that they seem.’ I asked him what he meant, but he wouldn’t tell me, and he never mentioned it again. I think he forgot he’d told me, but I don’t forget – I never forget. I found the monument to William Lynes – did he mention that in his diaries? I found it and he dismissed it as nothing, of ‘no importance’, he said. But the way he said it I knew there must be something significant about it.” His breathing quickened, his eyes reflecting sharp interest, a rare excitement. “I did my own research but came up blank. I lost interest for a while, but never forgot. And then I heard about your little escapade in the States – caused quite a stir for all of a minute in the department at home apparently – we don’t get many academics being attacked as colourfully as you were. I had to find out of course and tried to get in contact, but your father wouldn’t let me speak to you. Getting on a bit, isn’t he? And then there was the trial, and the publicity, and the name – Lynes.” He dragged out the final “s” in a sibilance. “That kept eating away at me so I did a bit of digging of my own.” He moved closer, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. “There was a time when the thought of a riddle would have turned you on. Do you know what the answer is yet? Am I boring you? Shall I stop or carry on?”

  My answer came automatically. “Don’t stop.”

  “No, well I wasn’t going to. This is making me horny – fancy a quickie?”

  I closed my eyes in disgust, clamping my mouth shut against the flow of vitriol that wanted to burst out and consume him like a mouth, like flame – a cleansing fire. Steel through flesh.

  My eyes snapped ope
n and I saw my reflection, grimly determined.

  He hadn’t noticed. “Never mind. Ellie’s a game girl; I’ll give her one later on. What’s the matter? Too vulgar for your refined sensibilities? What does your poor sap of a husband have to do to get his?”

  “Get to the point, Guy – if you have one.”

  Customary irritation broached the surface. “You always were so bloody impatient.” He turned away and picked up something from my desk. When he spoke again, he had regained control. “The Lynes of Rutland were supposed to have died out with the heir – Matthew – although I could find no record of his death. Matthew Lynes – now that is quite a coincidence, isn’t it? ‘But surely,’ I hear you say, ‘there are lots of Lynes,’ and of course you would be right. It’s a relatively common name – not as rare as D’Eresby, for example – but enough to make it traceable. I must admit that my original plan was to put a spanner in your works – vengeance is sweet, they say, and I’m certainly enjoying mine.” He moved slightly, and I stiffened as the glint of metal confirmed he held the photograph of our wedding. He flicked the silver frame with his nail. “The Lynes connection might have been nothing more than a passing interest until, that is, I went to visit the old lady. Deplorable state she was in. She’d been quite a lively old bird when I last saw her with your grandfather. Doug was always very protective of her. She was full of stories, but he wouldn’t let her share them with me.” His shoulders hunched and a sour note crept into his voice. “Now that was a mistake.” He replaced the photograph. “She was as sweet as pie when I went to see her this time. Lonely old girl, doesn’t get many visitors, likes a good chat.”

  I circled around in dismay. “What did you do to her?”

  He snorted. “What do you think I would do to a decrepit old woman? I’m not a monster; I wouldn’t leave my mother to rot like her son does. I’d at least put her in a home, for Pete’s sake. I let her talk – that’s all I did – talk. And she did. She told me all about your visit – you and your fiancé – and she told me that he’s a descendent of the Lynes of Martinsthorpe – the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on, as if he’d stepped out of history – ‘out of the window,’ she said. When I told her that the family had died out, she said, ‘I don’t believe in reincarnation.’ I thought she had lost it then, but it was worth looking into, given your grandfather’s obsession.”

  He waited for my response. He wanted me to ask him what he knew – his game, his rules – but I wasn’t ready to give in, not yet, not on his terms.

  “So what if Matthew’s descended from an English family? You’re wasting my time with trivia.”

  The clear bell of the clock made his answer all the more sinister.

  “But Ellie doesn’t know, does she? More to the point, Matthew’s father doesn’t know. I find that very strange and I’ve been racking my brains over why a son wouldn’t want his father to know something as basic as where he comes from. Don’t you find that odd? Doesn’t that set up an itch that’s desperate to be scratched? Come on, Emma, don’t tell me you haven’t asked yourself the same question, or has marriage to a dull doctor tamed your intellect?”

  The airless room had become rank. I lifted the window higher, breathing the saturated night air until I couldn’t tell whether my skin was wet with moisture or fear-induced sweat. “Matthew doesn’t know…”

  I balked as he ejected contempt like vomit. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? I’m not some amateur here. Of course he knows; there’s a picture of New Hall above the mantelpiece – the one the old girl had me bring here like an errand boy. He has an exact recreation of a seventeenth-century dining hall, a sword that belonged to the Lynes family, and he wears a ring with the Lynes coat of arms on it. Or hadn’t you noticed?” Interrogating my reflection, he demanded, “What’s the story, Emma – you know, don’t you?”

  “You said you would reveal him as a fraud, Guy. There’s nothing in what you’ve said that could be deemed fraudulent.”

  “So it won’t matter when I tell Henry his son’s been keeping family secrets then? You obviously have no respect for your father-in-law, so I will see it as my duty to inform him…”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You’re a cool little vixen. Perhaps the family won’t mind that Matthew’s not what he seems, but I think the authorities might… Ah, I thought that would get your attention. Having your welfare in mind, I decided to look into your husband’s credentials, and then I found that he didn’t have any – or that he does – a list as long as your arm, but they don’t add up. Quite literally. Like his esteemed relative’s grave, the dates don’t match. What’s more, he seems to have appeared from nowhere: no date of birth, no state records. Ellie couldn’t tell me where he was born – although she can give me precise dates, times, and locations for the rest of her family. Then she clammed up. That means only one thing…” He hung back to let the gravity of the situation sink in, but he didn’t need to; I was already there, wallowing in the mire at the bottom of a deep, dark lake, drowning. “… your husband’s a fake, he’s phony, he’s a sham. So, who is he?”

  My nail snapped as I gripped the windowsill, ripples of fear flowing up my arms and choking the hope out of me. I could see no possible solution but an inevitable death. Without answering, I wheeled around and pushed past him as I left the room.

  The dining room was unlit. I didn’t switch on the sidelights but used the glow from the hall to find my way to the fireplace. I didn’t think. I didn’t need to think. I acted as anyone would to protect what was most dear to them.

  The scabbard slipped seamlessly from the iced blade, the sword perfectly balanced. I turned swiftly and found my way blocked. I opened my mouth to scream but a hand clamped over it, stifling all sound.

  “Shh, quiet, it’s me.” Matthew removed his hand and put a finger to his lips, his eyes gleaming fire on blue. Moving silently, he closed the door to the hall before returning to me. “I’ll take that.” He prised my fingers from the grip and laid the rapier on the table. It rocked once, then lay still.

  “He knows too much! I’m going to kill him.” I reached again for the sword, but he blocked me.

  “No – you’re not.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said, my voice hoarse with suppressed rage and desperation. “He knows too much. He’s not leaving; he wants to expose you as a fraud. He won’t give up until he’s done whatever he can to hurt you – to hurt me. He’s never forgiven me; he’s never forgiven Grandpa. He’ll do anything he can – anything… he’s got to die. I want to kill him.”

  “I know. I heard what he said. He has no proof. He has enough to make things very difficult for us, but no proof – not yet. You’re not going to kill him, Emma.”

  I couldn’t understand how he could be so calm when his existence lay within a breath of exposure, when the solution appeared so clear, when the answer to this knot was… Alexandrian.

  “Matthew, I have no choice…”

  “Yes, we do.” That quietude, when he said everything in nothing. An anguished gasp escaped my lips as the veil of anger that blinded me slipped. I grabbed his arm as he moved to take the sword. “No, not you, I won’t let you kill him. He’s my responsibility, I brought him here.”

  He picked up the sword and in that moment I saw midnight resignation where before there had been light. “Emma, my love…”

  “No! Matthew, no!” I tried to drag his hand from the sword. “I won’t let you do this to yourself!”

  In the thin light from beneath the door, the fine blade shone, newly honed, as he rotated it slowly, his intention clear as he followed the line of the rapier to its point. “Have you ever seen a sword cut flesh? Seen muscle pared from bone? Bone splintered by blade? Have you spent each night with the faces of the men you’ve killed pressed against your own, and carried their image through your waking day? Have you heard, in the depths of the night, their dark despair and added to their cries your own? I have, Emma; I do. My soul is heavy with their blood,
and their fear. Once you have taken that step you can never go back; their death is your responsibility forever.” He drew a hand slowly over his face and then pierced me with a blazing look from which I shrank. “You will not give up your innocence to save me. I lost mine a long time ago.” He shook me free and, aligning the sword, took a step towards the door.

  Channelling panic and without thinking, I balled my fist and hit him in the small of his back as hard as I could. He grunted as I suppressed a yelp of pain.

  “What in Heaven’s name did you do that for?” He dropped the sword and reached out to me. “Your hand, Emma, let me see it.”

  Clasping my jarred limb against my chest, I hissed through my clenched teeth, “Get off! I don’t want you near me. I don’t want a killer touching me.” It hurt like blazes, but it had worked – he felt my pain.

  Exasperated, he shook his head as cold intent left him. “All right, you’ve made your point, you win. He lives – for now. Let me see your hand.” He felt the fine bones, and along each finger. “It’s not broken, just bruised. I’d have thought you’d have learned not to hit me by now.” He covered it with his own, drawing out the discomfort.

  I didn’t give a jot about my hand; the immediate problem had yet to be resolved. “What do we do, Matthew? We can’t wait.”

  “No, we can’t, but we need to buy some time. Can you stall him, do you think?”

  “He’s supposed to be giving a presentation tomorrow at the conference. He won’t give up a chance to be centre stage, not if he thinks he has me cornered. He’ll be in no rush to play his hand, but we have until tomorrow noon. That’s all.”

  “Tomorrow.” He went quiet for some seconds as he thought. “Then tomorrow will have to do. Buy me some time, Emma.”

  “You won’t kill him?”

  I’d grown accustomed to the dim light in the room enough for me to make out the unyielding set of his mouth. “It’ll be dawn in a few hours; just buy me some time.”

  The front door swung ajar. Tail lights and the acrid smell of fumes were the only evidence that remained of the retreating taxi. I ran to the study; it was empty.