by R. N. Morris
‘That is a challenge for greater minds than mine. For the doctors of the psyche. I am a simple storyteller, a dreamer. A visionary, perhaps. Some have called me that. I merely present my dreams to the world. It is for others, those of a more practical bent, to convert them into reality.’
‘And what if he can never be cured?’
‘Ah, Inspector, unlike you I am an optimist. That’s to say, I believe in the future. The future has to be better than the past, does it not? Otherwise, what is the point of going forward into it?’
‘That’s all very well, but it doesn’t take account of Timon Medway. It would have been better for all if he had been hanged on the gallows.’
‘It will not surprise you to learn that I am an opponent of judicial murder. If we kill those who have killed, we render ourselves no better than they. And that is to say nothing of miscarriages of justice, innocent men hanged in error, or wilful oppression. In the wrong hands, the law becomes a political weapon, you know. And besides all this, I am a great believer in giving people a second chance. Capital punishment rather rules out the possibility of second chances, do you not think?’
Quinn felt something snap inside him. A surge of rage was released.
This man knew nothing, and yet acted as if he had the answers to all the world’s most difficult problems. Just like Medway with his system of New Mathematics. Perhaps he was even more dangerous than Medway.
Quinn could feel himself shaking again. The image of Wilfred Thomas’s mother came back to him. It was as if she was there in front of him, wailing uncontrollably, destroyed by grief and incomprehension, shaken undone by a pain that would never heal. Would Portman be able to utter such inanities if he had been there to witness her tears, her more than tears, her utter unravelling? If he had been the one who had broken the news of her son’s murder to her?
Quinn tried to superimpose the writer’s smug face into his memory of Elena Thomas. He fitted in surprisingly well, despite the incongruity of his comical hat. And in Quinn’s imagination, the man’s expression of contemptible complacency was transformed into shock as he at last understood raw human suffering.
‘Now then, who’s for lemonade?’ Reg’s voice was brittle rather than bright as she attempted to diffuse the tension that had suddenly arisen in the small garden.
Quinn watched in silence as she poured out the lemonade, the thin remnants of ice tinkling delicately against the Jugendstil ceramic jug. He took his drink eagerly and drained it in a few loud gulps, grateful for the biting, acerbic taste as it went down.
TWENTY-THREE
Quinn’s body craved sleep. But it was too hot. He lay on top of his bedclothes in his underwear. Unmoving, tense, his senses unpleasantly alert.
The window was open but there was no breeze to disturb the curtains. Despite the stillness, he sensed the night invading his room. The sounds of the street were startlingly present with him.
A dog barking in a distant garden was tethered to the bottom of his bed, shrunken to the size of a shrew. A yowling tomcat was keeping up his indignant plaint from the top of the wardrobe. The footsteps that passed along the pavement took a momentary detour across his windowsill. A nightingale twittered as it looped through the dark spaces beneath the ceiling.
Often in this state, suspended between wakefulness and oblivion, some breakthrough would come to him. He would sit bolt upright in bed, snapping awake and completely focused. But not tonight.
Tonight he was haunted by the image of Elena Thomas. It annoyed him that his mind was stuck on it. As far as he could see, Elena Thomas had no connection to the deaths of the three young men he was investigating, other than through Timon Medway. Her face was an obstacle to the progress of his thinking. And yet for some reason his mind persisted in presenting it to him. To make matters worse, there looking on, chastened but still in his ridiculous hat, was W.G. Portman.
Quinn opened his eyes and closed his eyes and opened his eyes.
His whole body ached with exhaustion. The buzz and hum that filled his head seemed to originate in his bones, as if his entire body had become a peculiar resonating box.
If only he could stop thinking about how much he needed to sleep, then perhaps he might be able to drift off.
But now a new noise intruded on his consciousness: voices, one female, one male, engaged in a low, intensely murmured dialogue. It seemed that the couple had decided to stop for their tête-à-tête immediately below Quinn’s window. It felt as though they were under his bed, which accounted for the muffled quality of the sound.
Although he couldn’t make out a word they were saying, he could tell from the tone and level of their voices that they were engaged in a discussion of the utmost urgency. Quinn had no idea what time it was. And he could not bring himself to find out. It wasn’t just that he lacked the energy. It was almost as if the continued existence of the universe depended on his lying absolutely stock-still. But, God, if only they would shut up with their incessant whispering.
They would move on soon, surely, and leave him in peace. He strained to hear. If he could understand just one word, he might be able to relax, sleep even.
The two people speaking under his bed became embodiments of the figures who are sensed but not seen in every investigation, whose actions leave an unintelligible impact on the present.
Quinn wondered if the conversation he was almost eavesdropping on was the prelude to a murder.
And if so, who was the murderer and who the victim?
Or perhaps they were conspirators in the murder of a third party. The woman’s husband, perhaps. Or his illegitimate older brother who stood in the way of an inheritance.
Strange how Quinn’s mind was capable of solving cases that didn’t exist but couldn’t pull together the strands of the real case he was working on. It was always the same though. There was only so far your mind could take you. You reached the point where you had to wait for the next piece of the jigsaw to reveal itself.
He would need his wits about him tomorrow. Tomorrow, he sensed, would be a day of revelations. He had enough experience of this work to feel when the balance was tipping in his favour. There was a rhythm to these things.
If only he could just snatch a few short hours’ sleep.
He heard the first stark notes of the dawn chorus begin to chitter and blurt. His room was filled with countless startled throats.
‘Oh, why won’t you let me be?’ cried Quinn.
He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. He lay stiller than ever to gauge their impact on the world. The voices of the couple had now stopped, he noticed. He thought he heard their footsteps moving away down the street.
Or maybe he only dreamt it.
The following morning, Quinn was greased with sweat from the moment he woke up. A weight of exhaustion pulled at his body, as if his insomnia had conspired with gravity. It was an effort to move his feet and his arms ached as if he had been hefting dumbbells.
At the same time his body felt curiously unstable, on the verge of flying apart at any moment.
He was worn out on a molecular level.
Macadam and Inchball were already at their desks when he got to the department and he could tell by Macadam’s face that there had been news. He had a look of barely suppressed excitement that Quinn knew well.
Even Inchball seemed buoyant.
Quinn waited until he had taken off his ulster and bowler before asking: ‘Well?’
His two sergeants exchanged boyish grins to see who would be the one to tell him. In the end they broke the news between them.
‘It’s the fingerprints, guv.’
‘The print on the card. It’s Medway’s, sir. As you suspected.’
Quinn nodded. It was the piece in the jigsaw that he had been waiting for. And yet he felt curiously numb, even deflated. The task ahead felt overwhelming. His sense of where it was leading was vaguer than ever. Nothing had come into focus. Yes, they had new information but it made no sense. If someone had advised him to give up the investi
gation, he would have done so without protest, gratefully even.
‘Have we had anything from Pottinger yet?’
‘The bastard’s holding out on me,’ said Inchball grimly.
Quinn was aware of his sergeants watching him anxiously. He knew that they must be disappointed by his subdued response. ‘Anything else?’
‘Miss Latterly called.’ Macadam consulted a note he had made. ‘Sir Edward wants to see you. Urgent, she said.’
Quinn felt the welling of emotion that had eluded him before.
Miss Latterly was at her typewriter. She hammered at the keys with an aggressive determination, and did not look up to inform Quinn: ‘He’s with someone.’
Quinn stared disconsolately at Sir Edward Henry’s closed door. ‘I shall come back then.’
‘No. He specifically asked for you to wait. He won’t be long, I’m sure. Do take a seat.’
A weight of disappointment settled on him. The last time they had spoken her tone had been softer, he felt sure. She had expressed a kind of exasperated affection for him, hinting at the possibility of something warmer developing between them. Or had he imagined it? Certainly, he had not acted on whatever encouraging moves she had made, so now of course, her demeanour had reverted to its earlier coldness. Exasperation won over affection. That was inevitable, and he only had himself to blame.
She had given him his chance and he had let it slip through his fingers.
But perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps they would both be happier if they never said another word to one another, other than those required by their duties. And yet that prospect saddened him unspeakably.
He sat down to wait.
Everything that he thought of saying to her sounded like an excuse. I have been very busy … a friend died … I have not been myself … I think I might be coming down with something … I’m working on a very difficult case at the moment …
Something came out of his mouth. He wasn’t quite sure what.
She heard it. ‘Yes?’
‘The weather has been quite …’ He broke off and winced a smile at the difficulty of expressing accurately just how the weather had been. ‘Well, at least it seems to be settling now. It has been stifling in the department.’
Miss Latterly gave vent to a despairing sigh. She might even have shaken her head, but Quinn was afraid to look.
To the relief of both of them, the door to Sir Edward’s office opened. A man emerged whom Quinn had often seen coming out of that very door, the Whitehall mandarin Sir Michael Esslyn. As always, Esslyn ignored Quinn. He seemed to have obliterated from his memory the fact that they knew each other. Esslyn had once been involved in an investigation that Quinn had conducted, from which he had emerged technically blameless, although in Quinn’s view at least, not entirely innocent.
Quinn waited for some sign from Miss Latterly that he should go in. But she was self-consciously intent on her work once more.
Sir Edward looked up from behind his desk. At the sight of Quinn, his features darkened. ‘What the Devil are you playing at, Quinn?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘This latest investigation of yours. Who on earth gave you authorization to look into the deaths of these three unfortunate young men?’
‘Details emerged about the circumstances of their deaths that led me to believe there was merit in an investigation.’
‘What circumstances? That each of the poor wretches had spent some time in a lunatic asylum?’
‘You know about that, do you?’
‘Yes, I know about that. I know that that brute of a sergeant of yours has been disturbing a very important public functionary as he goes about his difficult work. Work that is done in the national interest, I might add.’
‘Are you talking about Pottinger?’
‘Dr Pottinger to you.’
‘In what way, might I ask, is his work in the national interest?’
‘Good grief, Quinn! Do you need to ask? You with your history! This isn’t some personal grudge of yours I hope?’
‘On the contrary. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than never to have to set foot in that place again. But you know, Sir Edward, that I must go where the evidence leads me. Just this morning …’
‘Forget it. Do you hear me? Forget this whole thing. It’s for your own good that I’m telling you this. But also I have to tell you, I have it on good authority that you are barking up the wrong tree. In fact, not only is it the wrong tree, there is no tree. You’ve imagined the tree, Quinn. It’s not there.’
‘I never said anything about a tree, Sir Edward.’
‘Oh, you insufferable fellow! You know very well what I mean. I have as much sympathy for lunatics as the next man. More, in fact, as you well know.’ This could have been a reference to Sir Edward’s solicitude for a man who had once tried to kill him, who, it turned out, was in the grip of an extreme mental derangement.
‘You do not wish me to continue the investigation?’
‘There is no investigation!’
‘I have reason to believe … that is to say, evidence has come to light that Timon Medway …’
‘No no no no no! Not Timon Medway. Don’t bring him into this. We don’t want to give that man any attention again. Don’t you realize that’s just what he wants? To have us all buzzing around him like flies around …’ Sir Edward broke off. Quinn realized that he had never heard Sir Edward swear. He put it down to his faith. ‘We shan’t give him the satisfaction. Especially as he can have nothing to do with these deaths. You do know that, Quinn, don’t you? He was inside the asylum when the deaths occurred.’
‘I believe that he may have planted the seeds of their deaths in their minds when he encountered them in Colney Hatch.’
‘But you don’t even know that he knew them!’
‘But I do. I do now, as of this morning. I have certain proof.’
‘I don’t want to hear it. It’s not important. It doesn’t mean anything. You have certain proof of a coincidence, that’s all.’
‘Is this anything to do with Sir Michael Esslyn?’
‘That’s not a question you can ask, Quinn.’
‘What would you have me do, then?’
‘Haven’t I made myself clear? Drop it.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. That’s understood. I just meant, instead. What would you have us investigate instead?’
‘What is it that the Bible says, Quinn? Seek and ye shall find? Matthew, seven: seven. Do some seeking and finding. That’s what I would advise you.’
‘We were looking into a group of pacifists.’
‘Pacifists?’
‘Well, socialists and pacifists. That sort of thing.’
‘Do pacifists do any harm?’
‘I suspect these of being militant pacifists. I do not rule out the possibility of their using violent means to bring about world peace.’
‘Good heavens! Who ever heard of such a thing? Very well … continue with the pacifists. But what about the Irish? It pains me to say it, being of Irish parentage myself, as you know. But the Irish situation is very troubling. So much anger on all sides. I can see no good coming from it. And if we are drawn into a war with Germany, it will be so much the worse.’
‘We have been looking into them as well.’
‘Excellent, Quinn. That’s more like it. You see, you’ve got enough on your plate without bothering Dr Pottinger and his lunatics. Mad people kill themselves. That’s all there is to it, I’m afraid. It’s the ones that kill other people we need to worry about.’
Sir Edward gave a reflex smile that communicated nothing other than that the interview was at an end.
‘If I may, one last question, Sir Edward. Am I to take it that Dr Pottinger will not be supplying the information that Sergeant Inchball requested from him?’
‘No, he will not!’
The smile was gone from Sir Edward’s face entirely when Quinn got up to leave.
‘Shall I bring the car round, sir?’
/>
‘The car?’
‘To take us to Colney Hatch.’
‘We will not be going to Colney Hatch, Macadam. This line of enquiry is, I have been persuaded, fruitless.’
‘What the …?’ Inchball slapped his desk with his open palm in indignation. ‘Just as we was bleedin’ gettin’ somewhere.’
‘No. I am sorry. It is my fault. I led us down a blind alley. The fact is, we don’t even know who two of the dead men are.’
‘But if we had them names from Pottinger …’ objected Inchball.
‘Inchball’s right, sir. It wouldn’t take us long to identify them, if we had the information we were waiting for.’
‘It won’t be forthcoming.’
‘So that’s it? Even though we know Medway is behind it all?’
‘We know nothing of the sort, Inchball.’
‘His prints are all over them cards.’
‘One thumbprint, I believe was found. All that indicates is he touched the cards. He may have distributed such cards to many in the asylum. Everyone perhaps. And so therefore, the presence of the cards, and the fact that he handled them, proves nothing.’
‘This ain’t you. This ain’t you talking. You been got at.’
‘With respect, sir, we will never get to the bottom of the cards if we don’t go into Colney Hatch and investigate.’
‘I am afraid, Macadam, we simply have no authorization to do that.’
‘We can do what we bleedin’ well want!’ insisted Inchball with another slap of his desk. ‘We’re the Special Crimes Department. We have a special judicial warrant. Or have you forgotten that?’
‘We can do nothing without Sir Edward Henry’s approval. He wishes us to redirect our resources into investigating Irish agitators.’
Inchball gave a heartfelt groan. ‘Not that again.’
‘And also, we will be continuing to keep an eye on the pacifists. In particular, the Fellowship of the Gracchi.’
‘Of which Timon Medway is a member!’ cried Macadam delightedly.
‘Sir Edward did not expressly forbid us from investigating him as a political agitator. Although we must tread carefully. I fear there is a direct line of communication between the superintendent of the asylum and certain powerful interests within the machinery of government.’