The Yeare's Midnight

by Ed O'Connor

  And here she was. Six months down the line, on the verge of leaving her husband. She wondered how much John already knew. He had a dark, perceptive intelligence that she understood only too well. He suspected something was wrong, that was clear enough, and his natural pessimism had probably already led him to believe the worst. Julia climbed out of the bath and towelled herself dry. She put some cream on her legs – their skin always seemed to dry out so quickly – wrapped herself in her dressing gown and went upstairs. Her clothes were lying on the bed. The bed she and John had shared for eighteen years: the bed where neither of them could sleep.

  She dressed quickly and packed a few clothes and toiletries into a bag. Her purse and passport were in the bedside drawer. She removed them, along with her mobile phone. She placed a sealed envelope on the bedspread and, after a final look around, Julia Underwood left the house. One suitcase wasn’t much to show for eighteen years, she thought bitterly. She would stay at Paul’s that night and then decamp to her mother in Worcester for a couple of weeks. She had to clear her head and concentrate on the way forward. Progress through pain.

  22

  Underwood was trying to draw disparate threads of thought together. His meeting with Stussman had been memorable for two reasons: Stussman herself and the reason she had offered for the killer’s selection of Lucy Harrington. Underwood had been unable to push the memory of Stussman’s stone-blue eyes away from the front of his mind. They had bored into him with the kind of ferocious intelligence he usually found intimidating. She had talked with gravity and conviction about a subject Underwood had previously thought to be the preserve of old men and bespectacled undergraduates. She carried the quiet confidence that only the marriage of natural intelligence and hard work can forge. Underwood realized he envied her: someone so young and in command of their subject; so imbued with life.

  Then there was Stussman’s comment about Lucy Harrington. The name was important. Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford had been John Donne’s patron four hundred years ago. The killer had chosen her because of her name. Why? It didn’t make any sense. Then there were the flowers. ‘African violet petals,’ a smiling Jensen had told him half an hour previously. What was all that about? The fact that flowers are often associated with death seemed inadequate to him. There had to be more to it than that. The petals weren’t left anywhere near the corpse. The killer had not intended them to be part of the crime scene. It was almost as if he was carrying them around with him. Why? For comfort? Did he like the smell?

  Stussman had said one other thing that had rattled him. He checked his notes: he had written her comments down carefully – ‘Maybe your killer thinks that by using his rational mind he can create a new world.’ He had read several articles about how serial killers create a fantasy world for themselves and then live out increasingly ferocious recreations of that fantasy. The killer of Lucy Harrington had removed her eye and scrawled a line of poetry on her wall. That line had originally been written by a poet four hundred years previously, a poet whose patron had been someone called Lucy Harrington. There was an obvious circularity but what kind of fantasy did it denote? Underwood gave up as he started coughing again.

  There was a knock at the door. Jensen entered. She waited for the inspector to recover his composure.

  ‘Sir, we checked with the phone company. The call to Dr Stussman was made from a payphone on the B692 north of Cambridge. Marty Farrell has been to check it out but he says that there are no usable prints. Cambridge police have agreed to watch the kiosk for us in case the killer uses it again.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Underwood said abruptly. ‘He’s not an idiot.’

  ‘Sergeant Harrison asked me to let you know that he has a Mr Heyer in interview room one.’

  ‘Thank you, Jensen.’ Underwood’s heart skipped a beat. So, he’s here. Underwood had crawled out on a limb and was worried it might snap under him. Perhaps it would be better to let Harrison handle the interview: ask the obvious five questions and let the poor bastard go. Then he thought of Julia giving herself up to this man, the man who was trying to destroy his life. It was more than morbid curiosity: a cold hatred chilled his blood. He had the power. He had the advantage.

  Paul Heyer was confused. He sat in the claustrophobic whiteness of interview room one racking his brains for any reason why he might be there. He hadn’t committed any offences that he was aware of: a couple of speeding misdemeanours but that was in the past. Maybe it was something to do with his business: property development was a murky world sometimes but he had always tried to act honourably. Perhaps it related to a client or more likely an employee. That was probably it.

  ‘Will this take long, sergeant?’ he asked Harrison. ‘I don’t mean to be awkward but I am supposed to be in a meeting at the council offices in an hour.’

  ‘That depends, Mr Heyer,’ Harrison replied.

  ‘On what, exactly? I still don’t know why I am here.’

  ‘It depends on how long Inspector Underwood wants you to stay.’

  ‘Underwood?’ Heyer suddenly felt acutely uncomfortable. What was all this about? He thought of Julia. The door opened and Underwood walked in. Harrison turned to the recording machine.

  ‘One-fifty-five p.m. Inspector Underwood has entered the room.’

  Underwood circled the table and sat down directly opposite Heyer. He was scared, exhilarated and sickened – all at the same time. So this was the man who was fucking his wife. He wasn’t much to look at. Thin, not very well built. Affluent, though, that much was obvious. Underwood looked at Heyer’s hands. They were smooth, hairless. He wondered if they smelled of his wife. He tried to remain focused.

  ‘Mr Paul Heyer?’ Underwood’s gaze locked on the papers in front of him.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Of 17 The Blossoms, New Bolden?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Do you know why you’re here, Mr Heyer?’

  ‘No idea, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Do you read the papers?’

  ‘Regularly. Would you mind telling me what this is about?’ Heyer looked at Harrison whose face remained expressionless.

  ‘So you’ve heard of Lucy Harrington?’

  ‘Of course.’ Heyer paused for a moment. ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘I’m not implying anything. “The Blossoms”? Do you like flowers, Mr Heyer? Gardening?’

  Harrison leaned forward slightly in his seat and looked at Heyer more closely. The man suddenly seemed on edge.

  ‘As much as the next man. Have I been arrested for gardening?’

  ‘Where were you between eleven p.m. and two a.m. on the night of December the ninth?’ Underwood checked his notes again. He didn’t need to. Heyer opened his mouth to speak and then hesitated.

  ‘Mr Heyer?’ Harrison prompted.

  ‘I was at home.’

  ‘At home?’ asked Underwood. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Can anyone verify that, sir?’ Harrison asked the question for him. Underwood bit his lip to stop smiling. A film of sweat had spread across Heyer’s brow. Underwood suddenly wanted to force his fountain pen into Heyer’s eye.

  ‘No. I was alone.’

  ‘Can you remember what was on TV?’ asked Harrison.

  ‘No. I don’t watch television. I listened to music all evening.’

  ‘With a lady friend?’ Harrison watched Heyer intently.

  ‘No. As I said, I was alone.’

  ‘That’s very interesting. You see, we had a call yesterday from someone who claimed to have seen your car – blue BMW with licence plate S245 QXY – on Hartfield Road very late on Monday night,’ said Underwood. He had grown in confidence as the interview had progressed and was now looking Heyer directly in the eye. ‘Said you were going extremely fast and they had to swerve to avoid you.’

  ‘That’s absolutely ridiculous.’

  ‘You have had a couple of speeding convictions, Mr Heyer,’ Harrison added, consulting his n
otes. ‘Maybe you’d had a few drinks and can’t remember the details. It happens. We know how it works. Businessmen work under a lot of pressure these days.’

  ‘Look.’ Heyer was getting annoyed. ‘There has been a mistake here. I was in all Monday night. By myself. Your information is wrong. I didn’t take the car out all night. Actually, you can check my phone records if you like. I made a couple of calls from the house quite late that night.’

  “Thank you, Mr Heyer. We might just do that,’ said Harrison. Heyer hoped they wouldn’t. The only call he had made after eleven had been to order Julia’s minicab home.

  ‘You can understand our concern, though, Mr Heyer,’ said Underwood. ‘A well-known local girl is murdered, your car is reported to have been in the area and you don’t really have an alibi.’

  ‘There has been some mistake here. I came here in good faith. I don’t understand how this has happened.’ Frightened though he was, Heyer decided to go on the offensive. He was beginning to see the light. Underwood obviously knew exactly what he’d been doing on Monday night. He had to talk to Julia. ‘I think, if you wish to continue this interview, that I should have my lawyer present.’

  ‘No need, Mr Heyer.’ Underwood sat back in his chair. ‘I don’t have any further questions. That was very helpful. If you could provide us with an itemization of your phone calls that night, we’ll check them out with the telephone company.’ He paused as Heyer stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Heyer turned to face him. ‘I think someone is playing games with you, Inspector.’

  ‘You know, it’s funny,’ Underwood said. ‘That’s just what I was thinking.’

  Harrison led Heyer from the room. Underwood looked up at the clock on the wall.

  ‘Interview concluded at two-oh-six p.m.’

  It had been an enjoyable ten minutes. He had derived great pleasure from making Heyer wriggle in his seat: local notable he might be but Heyer wasn’t a very adept liar. Harrison didn’t miss much and Underwood was sure he would have picked that up. A couple of minutes later the detective sergeant returned to the room. He looked thoughtful.

  ‘What did you make of that, sergeant?’ Underwood asked.

  ‘He’s hiding something. That’s for sure,’ said Harrison. ‘I don’t know, though, guv. He doesn’t strike me as the type.’

  ‘We shouldn’t jump to any conclusions.’ Underwood could tell his sergeant had suspected Heyer had been hiding something. ‘Let’s have a look at his phone records and see if we can dig up any background on the bloke – his business, his friends. Before we discount him, I want to be sure we’ve looked under every bloody rock in his garden.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Underwood thought of Julia, imagined her perfume clinging to Heyer’s jacket, her hands on Heyer’s smooth pale skin. He felt a sting of jealousy but also strangely calm. Underwood had looked straight into the eyes of his darkest suspicions and had felt no fear: just cold hate. Hate was a positive emotion. It was a harbinger of action. Maybe it was time for a chat with his wife.

  Part II

  Multiplications

  23

  Crowan Frayne sleeps intermittently through the afternoon. His mind throws off sparks like a Catherine wheel. Shallow sleep is the realm of dreams and Crowan Frayne wades through nightmares that cling and pull him down. He is in a wooden ship, rolling across a dark, undulating sea. He is watching the sky. Mapping the stars that smudge like raindrops against night’s endless black panes. Dimension and distance gnaw achingly at his consciousness; he seeks pattern and accord where there is none. He is drawn by the asteroid Chiron. It completes its orbit of the sun once every fifty years despite the gravitational whirlpools that distort its progress: one blinding flash of clarity, one mathematical completion in a human lifetime. He imagines Chiron’s music as a brilliant deafening glissando that completes and repeats its slide once every fifty years.

  He sees distant planets, constellations and asterisms; flickering stars that may already be dead. Perhaps he is dead: perhaps his senses and awareness are mere corruptions of light and time distorted by the vastness of space. Others can map and record his dying light but he has long since collapsed into an oblivion that only mathematics can comprehend. Multiplication upon multiplication above, below, behind and beyond: multiplications of vastness upon emptiness upon chaos upon time. What gives us substance? Self-perception? Will? There are submicroscopic particles that only mathematics can identify: reductions upon reductions upon compressions. Higgs-Bosun particles give us mass and form. Ultimately, our existence is tangible only at a subatomic level. Crowan Frayne knows there is music in the tiny rotations of electrons, neutrinos and quarks. It is infinitesimally acute like a white-hot pin in the brain. He is awake for an instant. Winter sunlight pricks at his eyes but he can eclipse it with a wink; like the curtains hide the garden.

  There are flowers in the garden and the grass is overgrown. Crowan Frayne is a child who plays knee-deep in grass alone. He pulls grass from the ground with the soil that bore it. Soil is where we come from. Soil is where we go. Death gives soil its richness. Death is how we grow. Nothing is ever destroyed, it merely changes form: even Isaac Newton. Crowan Frayne travels along the spider’s web of carbons and proteins that simplify us; the interlocking spirals of acids that reduce us to chains of numbers. Every dead thing is simplified in the soil and drawn up within us as particles of food and fluid. We are rich with the dead. Imbued with the dead. The dead are everywhere: drawn into flowers and trees, the water in rivers, the air we breathe. They interlace us, bind us together. We assimilate the molecules of the dead into new living structures. Nothing ever dies, it merely changes form. Crowan Frayne feels the molecules of the numberless dead sing within him. If mass can exist only at the subatomic level, he must be a billion dead things wrought into newness; forged into one by mathematics and will. Every thought, pain, memory and instinct of the dead is bound within him. He is a multiplication of everything that went before, of everyone who preceded him. The dead liveth for evermore …

  He sees the war memorial in the older part of New Bolden cemetery. It is a white marble wall carved with the names of those who fell 1939–45. He likes to visit sometimes. Arrayed before the monolith are approximately two dozen gravestones, crosses stained grey by exposure to the polluted acidic air and soot from the railway. Frayne has taken cuttings of some of the flowers that grow there: roses, mainly blood red and bone white. He has learned many of the names and can converse with them as friends. Sgt P. Whittaker, Pvt. E. Plum, Cpt. J. Vigor. Specks of dust blown into oblivion. Frayne sees politics, war and conquest as essentially organic: no different in essence from packs of animals jockeying and fighting for territory or food. Sharks tearing apart seal pups: machine guns tearing up soldiers. The Spanish Armada was carried like a disease by the wind that eventually flung it to the bottom of the sea. Human affairs ultimately reduce to basic organic functions: birth, survival, death. The rest is poetry, mathematics and will.

  Crowan Frayne sits up and pushes back the hair that has become stuck to his forehead. There is a cold swaddle of sweat around him. He feels exhausted but he faces a long, important evening. The power of his rational mind will draw up the energies that are buried within him. He will be ready. He rises and walks to his desk. There are Saintpaulia ionantha plants around his work. He has transplanted them from pots to his grandmother’s graveside and back to pots. In this time they have flowered spectacularly. He knows that the petals and delicate stems are now as much imbued with her form as he is with her memory. As he touches the petals he feels like he is holding hands.

  He sits and extends his mind around the day’s events. Planning and the rational will has brought him so far. All that remains is concentration and energy. He has already mapped the constellation of possibilities. After the Providence of Lucy Harrington had thunderclapped across his consciousness he had begun developing his argument. He is uncertain where the next woman lives. However, he knows where she works; he has watched
her and constructed patterns of probability. A shark can smell blood in the water from three miles away. To Crowan Frayne human vulnerabilities are even more obvious.

  ‘Twice or thrice I lov’d yee / Before I knew thy face or name.’ In ‘Air and Angels’ Donne speculated that human souls exist together as angels before their physical conception. The death of the body returns the soul to its original angelic state. The cycle is inspirational to Frayne: beauty returning to beauty through the ugliness of existence.

  Lucy Harrington may now be an angel again. The Providence of her name had detonated an explosion of terrible possibilities in Crowan Frayne’s mind. He had researched extensively, sifting through his books and his own copious notes on John Donne. He marvelled at his own intellectual arrogance: the extraordinary yoking of opposites. Perhaps Stussman would understand. He wondered if she could, truly. Her breathtakingly original study of Donne had filled Frayne with hope and purpose but he doubted whether even she could anticipate his conceit. Stussman was a technician of language; a surgeon, brilliant but pitiless.

  He now had a selection of names to choose from. He expected that Stussman would soon develop a similar list. However, the identification of the coterie was merely a preliminary, like the smoke that, when viewed from a distance, puffs silently from a starting pistol before the explosion cracks out and the race begins.