The Devil in Amber

by Mark Gatiss

  I gawped at her. She’d been an invaluable help and I’d need her to find the causeway so, somehow, I found myself muttering, ‘Ye-es. Plenty of time.’

  Mrs Croup dragged on the rest of her ancient garments, smiling to herself. ‘Jesus, but you’re a handsome bastard. Don’t get many like you washed up on this old beach.’

  I clambered from the bed, stretched, and rubbed my hands together in cheery fashion in an effort to reassert some form of normality.

  Night showed through the ragged curtains as an indigo rectangle. I pushed aside the dirty netting and gazed out. The beach was utterly deserted.

  ‘Anyone been…hanging around?’ I ventured.

  Mrs Croup shook her filthy old bonnet and it rustled like newspaper. ‘Funny you should say that. It’s been quiet as the grave round here for longer than I can recall. Suddenly there’s a great hooplah about some escaped convict or other.’

  Before I could react, the old woman’s leathery face creased into a tortoise-smile. ‘We’d best keep an eye out for him, eh?’

  I nodded, immensely cheered. Keeping the old bird on a promise might help me out of a multitude of sticky situations.

  From somewhere in the recesses of the hovel, Mrs Croup managed to find a pair of boots and some thick socks that I hastened to pull onto my still-frozen feet. I wondered what other relics of male company she kept hidden away. A grisly image of a spider’s web dotted with flies’ wings sprang to mind.

  ‘Are we ready for the off?’ I cried, clapping my hands together enthusiastically and hoping to dissuade her from any more carnal thoughts.

  ‘Almost.’ As she rooted out a muffler and gloves, I spotted a stack of cardboard boxes. Noticing my interested expression, the crone smiled slyly and lifted one of the lids. ‘What d’you think to these, then?’

  I peered down at what at first I took to be cigars. Then the veil lifted. ‘Dynamite?’

  Mrs Croup gave a chuckle. ‘Herring don’t catch themselves, you know. Not at my age!’

  She carefully replaced the lid, then nodded her bonneted head towards the window and snuffed out the lamps. ‘Tide’s just about low enough now. We can cross by the causeway.’

  Outside it was a startlingly cold, clear, moonless night. The stars shimmered overhead like splinters of exploded champagne bottles. As we made our way across the rocky beach, I cast nervous glances over my shoulder.

  ‘Tide turns about midnight,’ croaked Mrs Croup from the recesses of her black bonnet. ‘If you’re not back by then, you’re stuck out there for the night. There’d be no one to save you. Put thirty grains of antimony into me laudanum and leave me to die in shrieking agony if I tell a lie!’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I cried. ‘I’m sure the…um…sisters of St Bede’s will give me a bed for the night.’

  The causeway was suddenly visible, projecting straight out from the beach and uncomfortably reminiscent of the narrow spur of shingle where I’d first come ashore. Though the tide was low, black water still sloshed over our booted feet.

  ‘On second thoughts, I reckon I’d best come with you all the way,’ said my guide. ‘Since you keep getting into trouble.’

  Fearing the loss of her best chance in years, the old girl clearly didn’t want to lose sight of me.

  ‘There’s absolutely no need, my dear,’ I cooed. ‘You get yourself home now.’

  At this, she swung sharply in my direction. The starlight glinted off her bloodshot old eyes. ‘You want to pack old Mother off to the Land of Nod just when things is getting interesting?’ she squawked. ‘The bloomin’ ingratitude! Youth! I’ve a good mind to flay you alive and pull off your—’

  ‘Now, now!’ I interrupted, hastening to still the cracked voice that was carrying startlingly through the still, freezing night. Taking her by her knobbly elbows, I beamed appreciatively. ‘Mrs Croup, I’ve offended you. I apologize unreservedly. You’re clearly made of stern stuff and I absolutely owe you my life. But I have to go alone. I’ve no idea what I might be facing and I simply won’t have you risking yourself for my sake.’

  The crone considered this, sucking noisily on wizened gums that pressed together like pencil rubbers. ‘I could wait and keep a lookout—’

  ‘These are desperate men—’

  ‘My favourite kind!’

  ‘–who’ll stop at nothing. It’s too dangerous, my pet. Now I’ll be back by midnight, I promise. Have the kettle on ready.’

  She sniffed and heaved a sigh. ‘All right.’

  I turned her about and she began to retrace her steps, though with markedly less enthusiasm.

  ‘Oh, by the way!’ I whispered at her retreating back. Mrs Croup turned. ‘Thanks for thinking of me as a youth. Does wonders for one’s confidence!’

  She held up a withered hand and was gone.

  What a dear, terrifying thing she was. Still, if I couldn’t be considered young next to a witch of eighty-odd then I truly was ready for the knacker’s yard.

  I put on a real pace now, having had to hang back somewhat to make allowance for Mrs Croup’s ancient gait, and sloshed through the water, the insecure causeway shifting beneath my boots.

  There was something uncanny about the sight of the wind-chopped sea stretching on either side of me and I hastened to cross, not liking the look of the salty depths and the mysteries they might contain. I was across the causeway in about ten minutes, suddenly finding myself on a soft beach, littered with dark, jagged rocks.

  Some way ahead, an imposing Gothic building reared up, utterly black against the starlight save for a single electric light burning in a high window. There was about it the familiar musty smell of a church building; a mixture of damp-foxed books, incense and rotten nosh.

  I padded across the sand until my feet hit surer ground. There was a kind of cobbled driveway stretching for about five hundred yards towards the convent’s arched porch and I could see at once a canvas-covered lorry–such as the army might use–and a rather smashing silver-coloured motor parked up outside.

  Utilizing an old trick, I carefully removed my boots and socks, then put the boots back onto my bare feet and the socks over them. I was now free to clump about on the cobbles with impunity.

  Obviously in no position to go knocking on the front door posing as an itinerant archbishop, I reasoned my best plan was to try to see what was going on behind that lighted window. Happily, a great verdant bush of waxy ivy was sprouting from beneath the stony crenellations and, grabbing great handfuls of it, I made my way by degrees to a spot just under the windowsill.

  I don’t know what I expected to find–a studious nun looking like the penitent Magdalen, perhaps, crouched over a sputtering candle and mumbling a catechism. What I certainly didn’t expect was to see my sister Pandora, legs neatly crossed ankle over ankle, smoking a cigarillo and pointing a gun at what was evidently the Mother Superior.

  15

  Whatever Possessed You

  The aged nun, her huge white wimple still perfectly ordered like the bowl of an orchid, sat bound to a rickety chair, a desk lamp blazing in her face. Pandora was regarding the woman with detached coolness, her black hair glossy in the reflected light.

  I was still hanging there on the ivy. The window under which I perched was old, the lead sealing the diamond panes unrepaired for donkey’s years, so I was afforded a pretty good chance to make out what they might say.

  Suddenly the door opened and Olympus Mons strode into the room, his face buried in some sort of file. He’d abandoned his absurd uniform for a well-cut dark pinstripe and neatly knotted tie, collar pinched into dimples by a golden pin. He gave the nun a warm smile as though he were a genial solicitor about to tell her she’d come into money, and then fixed Pandora with his penetrating stare.

  ‘Anything?’ he said sharply.

  My sister shook her head. ‘Still refuses to admit there’s any such thing.’

  Mons put down the file and folded his arms. Again, the dazzling smile flitted across his saturnine features, but this time th
e scarred lip curled up, exposing the full length of his dog tooth.

  ‘You’re not being very bright,’ he said directly to the Mother Superior in his light Yankee accent. ‘As I’ve explained, I’ll do whatever it takes to get hold of the Lamb. My fellows downstairs will start shooting the first of your order in…oh…about thirty minutes. So, as the gangsters say in the flickers, “Start talking, sister.”’

  He giggled at his own witticism and it had the uncomfortably shrill ring of a child’s laugh.

  The Mother Superior’s face was ashen but she raised her chin with dignity. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you. I can only repeat that here at the convent we have little or no interaction with the outside world. Why you think that—’

  Mons’s hand lashed out with terrible suddenness, catching the poor old girl across the face. His signet ring must have torn her skin because a little teardrop of blood rolled like sap down her withered cheek.

  ‘You’re trying to make a monkey out of me,’ he said in a low, threatening tone. ‘It’s awful inadvisable.’

  He began pacing the room, arms folded, his chin sunk onto his breast. It put me in mind at once of that strutting popinjay Mussolini and I had a sudden vivid impression of Mons studying hours of newsreel footage in an effort to emulate the Duce.

  ‘We happen to know that the Lamb was bred here,’ he went on. ‘Was sent out from here. It’s a secret your order has been guarding for years.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  Mons swung round to face the nun again, his eyes flashing like beacons. Then his heavy lids closed and he was all sweetness again.

  ‘I’m a reasonable fellow,’ he purred. ‘I don’t expect a Christian lady such as yourself to betray her vows just like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘But think of the alternative. All those poor girls downstairs. They’ve not done anyone any harm. They’re good, studious, pious kids.’ As if a switch had been flipped, his face hardened and his voice took on a lethal seriousness. ‘And they’re all going to die,’ he hissed. ‘Unless you tell me what I want to know.’

  The Mother Superior bowed her head, tears welling in her red-rimmed eyes. Mons approached her and raised her chin. ‘Now. Where is she?’

  I frowned. What had he said? Where is she?

  The nun slowly shook her head. ‘God forgive me,’ she murmured. ‘But I must serve a greater good. I will not tell you. I will not!’

  Mons’s face twisted with rage and his hands flew to the nun’s neck. She managed one rasp of shock as his fingers sank into the wrinkled flesh, then only a horrid squawking was audible as she struggled desperately for air.

  The American’s dark rage grew upon him like a storm, his face growing almost as black as his victim’s, oiled hair bouncing forwards into eyes that bulged like pickles.

  ‘You fool!’ he hissed. ‘You stupid pious fool!’

  ‘Olympus!’ cried Pandora shrilly.

  Still Mons throttled the unfortunate nun, his fingers almost meeting as he grasped at her neck.

  ‘Olympus, please!’ Pandora raced across the room and tried to prise Mons’s hands away. She pawed at him ineffectually and actually hung off his arm but he showed no signs of giving way, standing stock-still like an electrocuted man.

  I was about to smash through the window and come to the nun’s rescue when my sister saved me the bother, shrieking: ‘She’s all we’ve got!’

  At this, Mons seemed to come to his senses. He suddenly threw up his hands and stepped back, breathing raggedly.

  The Mother Superior slumped forward, gasping for breath, her black-garbed chest heaving, livid red weals already showing up on her throat.

  Mons smoothed back his hair, twisting his neck in his tight collar and adjusting his tie. ‘You’re right. We need this one.’

  Then he swivelled sharply round on his heel, his face right by Pandora’s, spit flecking his scarred lip. ‘But don’t ever touch me like that again, do you hear me? Ever.’

  Pandora positively wilted before his words, her hair falling forwards like curtains over her face.

  Mons swung back and addressed the recovering nun. ‘I warned you’, he said, producing a slim, long-barrelled foreign pistol from inside his jacket. ‘I shall shoot the first of your order myself. And you will watch me.’

  With that he hauled the unfortunate creature to her feet and began to drag her from the room. She dissolved into bitter tears, her whole frame shrinking, hands wrenching uselessly at the coil of rope that bound her.

  Pandora gave the old nun a push in the small of the back, as though blaming her for Mons’s response, and then the three of them disappeared into the corridor, slamming the door behind them.

  I wasted no more time. Taking the silk ‘handkerchief’ from my money belt, I wrapped it around my fist and, with a precise punch, knocked out two panes of the diamond-shaped glass, then reached inside to unhook the latch. In seconds I was through and skittering across the stone floor.

  The door hadn’t been locked and I crept out into a narrow corridor, down which a tomb-cold draught was creeping. Happily there was no guard awaiting me and I was able to move swiftly, keeping close to the scarcely lit walls, until I reached a sort of minstrels’ gallery that projected out over a large central hall.

  Under a beamed ceiling there was a festive glow of candle sconces: beneath that, a sea of black-and-white-garbed figures. Forty or so nuns had been rounded up into a square formation before a massive fire-blackened stone hearth, penned in like sheep with amber-shirt guards at each corner. Each guard carried a Tommy gun.

  There was an air of scarcely suppressed hysteria, although some of the older nuns retained a serene calm, as though above the threat of imminent extinction.

  Mons was pacing up and down in front of them, waving his pistol, grinning crazily and seemingly feeding off their distress. Pandora stood to one side, twisting a lock of her hair, a childish gesture I knew very well. She was anxious.

  At last, Mons raised the gun and fired into the air. It echoed with a terrific report and splinters tumbled down from the beams.

  ‘Listen to me!’

  There was silence, save for the odd whimper of distress. Or the odd wimple, I suppose.

  Mons smoothed back his boot-polish-black hair. ‘Your illustrious superior refuses to tell me what I need to know. So, I shall kill one of you in–’ he glanced at his wristwatch–‘two minutes. Unless—’

  There was a fresh outbreak of terror amongst the nuns and Mons raised his voice to compensate. Its already high timbre reached a hysterical pitch, the veins on his neck standing out like whipcords. ‘UNLESS,’ he yelled, ‘one of you can help me!’

  The Mother Superior, partially recovered from her near throttling, moved swiftly towards Mons, floating like a ghost over the flagstones. ‘You silly little man!’ she croaked. ‘You really think your brutal tactics will—’

  Mons blinked, staring down his nose at the woman as though she were an insect who’d suddenly acquired voice. A shot rang out and the nun standing closest to the Mother Superior simply crumpled into her robes as though she’d fallen through a trapdoor.

  The still-smoking gun in his outstretched hand, Mons spat on the body. ‘You were saying?’ he screeched.

  The Mother Superior blanched, her hand flying to her mouth.

  I looked down grimly from my hiding place. What the deuce could I do? There were too many of them for me to mount any sort of attack. Any advantage I had would be instantly forfeited.

  The nuns were positively screaming now and Mons revelled in the sight, darting in amongst them like a fox among sheep, giggling nastily as they veered out of his path, several tripping over their long robes and falling heavily to the flagstones.

  ‘That one,’ he yelled, pointing to the dead woman, ‘doesn’t count. So. Who’s going to be next?’

  To my horror, the gun spoke again and another nun was sent splaying to the floor.

  ‘Stop this!’ screamed the Mother Superior. ‘Oh please! Stop this I beg you!’

&nb
sp; Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in the ribs and swung round to find a broken-nosed amber-shirt thug jabbing his Tommy gun at me.

  ‘Sir!’ he cried and Mons looked up, his face glowing with blood-lust.

  Heaving a heavy sigh, I was soon padding down stone steps and across the floor towards the fireplace, hands above my head.

  Pandora ceased her hair-twiddling and gasped.

  ‘I say, sis,’ I said cheerily, ‘I’m not up on the old-time religion and all that but isn’t nun-murdering a little…beyond the pale?’

  Pandora groaned, as though we were children again and I’d kicked over her snowman. ‘Olympus, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what he’s doing here.’

  Mons broke into a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘But I do, my dear. I do. Would you care to enlighten us, Mr Box?’

  I gave a casual shrug. ‘I’m on a brass-rubbing holiday, would you believe?’

  Mons’s face fell. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t think so.’

  Pandora strode towards me, hands on hips. ‘What is this madness? Why the hell have you followed us?’

  ‘I didn’t exactly follow you, my dear.’

  Mons folded his arms and planted a booted foot on the back of one of the dead nuns, like a great white hunter posing for a picture with a recumbent tigress.

  ‘I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for a shock, Pandora,’ he oiled. ‘You see, my sources have been telling me some interesting things about your dear brother. He isn’t quite the gentleman he appears.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve always known that,’ said Pandora with a sour look.

  Mons was relishing every moment. ‘Whilst presenting the world with the image of a successful artist–well, a once-successful artist—’

  ‘That was low,’ I said.

  ‘–and fixture of the London demi-monde, your sibling has been, for many years, an employee of His Majesty’s Government.’