The Yeare's Midnight

by Ed O'Connor

  73

  Jensen heard the screams and smelled the smoke rising from the house. There was a large stone urn in the front garden. She grabbed it, groaning under its weight, and smashed it through Violet Frayne’s living-room window. The broken glass tore at her skin as she climbed through. Three squad cars pulled up in the street outside.

  ‘Sergeant Dexter?’ She shouted into the smoke. ‘Dr Stussman?’ She heard a muffled scream in response.

  Jensen hurried into the hallway and opened the front door. She saw Harrison running across the road and turned back inside, staggering blindly through the smoke in the direction of he cries. She found the door to the basement in a few seconds. The handle was red hot. The door was locked. She looked desperately around for a key. Harrison had joined her.

  ‘We’re going to have to force it,’ she shouted.

  ‘All right. On three.’

  ‘Stand back inside.’

  They charged at the door together and it fell open, hanging inwards as the rotting frame gave way. The wall of smoke and heat hit them immediately. Jensen crouched, coughing, and reached blindly into the smoke. After a second she felt a body.

  Part VI

  The Glass and the Water

  Two months later …

  74

  Paul Heyer’s BMW purred to a halt outside the house. The spring sun was bright and hard. He could still see the moon, slowly receding from the morning sky. The light hurt his eyes. He flipped down the car’s sun visor and turned to Julia.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘I don’t like leaving you alone with him.’

  ‘It’ll be all right. He’s had a heart attack, Paul. I don’t think he’s up to a fight.’

  Heyer shook his head. He still bore the scars.

  ‘You’ve got your mobile phone?’

  ‘In my coat pocket.’ Julia tapped against the soft material of her new jacket.

  ‘If he tries anything – or if he looks like he’s losing it – just press your speed-dial button for my mobile. You won’t have to talk to me. I’ll come running as soon as I see you calling.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ She hesitated for a second. ‘You’ll be right here, though?’

  ‘At the end of the road.’

  Julia clicked open the car door and stepped outside. The house looked scruffy and exhausted, the garden overgrown. She took a deep, cold breath and walked up the garden path as Paul gently pulled away behind her. She pressed the doorbell. It didn’t ring. She knocked at the door. It opened almost immediately.

  John Underwood wore a jacket and tie. He was clean-shaven and had a smudge of toothpaste on his tie. He smiled at Julia and gestured at her to come inside. The house had recently been hoovered. Julia could smell furniture polish.

  ‘You’ve tidied up,’ she said as they entered the living room.

  ‘Just starting to,’ he said. ‘I’ve been back a week.’

  ‘The garden …’

  ‘Is next on the list.’

  Julia sat down in what had been her favourite armchair. She looked strangely beautiful in the sunlight. It glowed on the side of her face. Underwood remembered her standing by the bonfire twenty-something years ago. He squashed the thought as it dug at him.

  ‘Tea?’ he asked.

  ‘No, thanks. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Better. Back up to seventy-five per cent, I’d say.’

  ‘Have they given you drugs for your heart?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Underwood waved vaguely at a row of pill bottles on the sideboard. ‘Two of the green ones with breakfast and dinner – they’re for my heart. One yellow and one blue one every morning for my chest. They seem to be working, although my water’s gone a funny colour.’ He risked a smile.

  Julia looked at him closely. ‘And you, John, how are you feeling in yourself?’

  He paused for a second. Should he tell her about the nightmares, about the panics and depressions that rolled through him like storm systems over the North Sea? What was the point? He was too tired to try and score points. The endgame was over. He had lost. ‘I see Jack Harvey once a week,’ he said simply. ‘Do you remember him? He’s the police psychologist in Huntingdon.’

  ‘Vaguely.’ She didn’t.

  ‘The disciplinary committee insisted I see him. They like to keep embarrassing episodes like this in-house. I …’ He fumbled for the right words, ‘I want to thank you and Paul for not pressing any charges. It helped. It helped a lot.’ It hurt him to say that. He felt the rage rise slightly in his throat but this time it passed quickly; blown like smoke into the wind.

  ‘It was Paul’s decision,’ she said abruptly.

  Underwood smiled. He knew it must have been a bit more complicated than that.

  ‘Thanks, anyway.’

  ‘Will you go back?’

  ‘That depends, really.’ Underwood’s eyes tracked a sparrow as it darted past the window. ‘I am suspended for six months. Well, they’ve called it sick leave. In June I will have a full psychiatric evaluation and on the basis of that they’ll decide whether I can go back. I doubt CID will have me. Maybe they’ll put me on the cones hotline.’

  Julia smiled faintly. John was in there somewhere. Underneath the crumpled, tired face and the sunken, haunted eyes, there was a spark of someone she recognized.

  ‘John. We might as well get this over with.’ She opened her handbag and withdrew a piece of paper. She handed it to him. ‘This is the name and address of my solicitor. He’ll be sending you a letter next week about the house, the mortgage and so on. It’s really just paperwork now – making sure everything gets agreed, signed and exchanged.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Have you looked at any other houses?’ She floated the question tentatively; uncertain of how he would respond.

  ‘I’ve been looking at some flats advertised in the newspaper. Prices have gone mad here since they built the high-speed link to London.’ He tried to mask his concern. It was going to be a tough ride over the next few months.

  ‘I’m sorry, John, I really am. But it has to be for the best.’

  ‘That’s what I keep telling myself.’ His eyes had misted over slightly. ‘It’s got to hurt to work, right?’

  Julia nodded. She was upset but she wouldn’t cry. She had cried enough.

  ‘Sometimes we have to change to move on,’ she said. ‘I suppose I should go really. Paul’s waiting outside.’

  Underwood’s brow furrowed slightly. He still hadn’t reconciled himself to Paul Heyer. ‘Alas my love you do me wrong,’ the voice in his head sung sadly, ‘to cast me off discourteously.’ He suddenly realized that the tune no longer infuriated him. The voice wasn’t his.

  ‘Well,’ he said briskly, ‘we can’t keep him waiting.’

  He walked her to the front door. For the first time he noticed her hair. It was shorter, tidier than he remembered. It suited her. She opened the door and turned towards him.

  ‘I suppose this is it, then,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  Julia leaned forward and kissed John Underwood on the cheek for the last time. He closed his eyes for a second, drowning in memories. Then he remembered.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got something for you.’ He coughed away the tears and hurried back into the house, returning with a book in a small paper bag. He handed it to her. ‘I thought you might enjoy these. Don’t open it now.’

  ‘John. I …’

  ‘Just take it, please. I …’ He paused. ‘It would mean a lot to me.’

  Julia Underwood took the book and walked out of the life that had become a torture. She didn’t look back, not even when the door closed behind her. Paul drove up and parked just out of sight of the house.

  ‘How was it?’ he asked as she climbed in.

  ‘Fine,’ Julia replied. ‘He seems a bit better.’

  ‘I’ve been looking at some of the houses in the street. It’s a nice area. You might get a
quarter of a million for the old place if he tidies it up a bit.’

  Julia looked at Paul coldly but said nothing. For the first time, she felt a shiver of doubt and trepidation. They drove to a service station and Paul jumped out to fill the car with petrol. While he was away, Julia strolled to the edge of the forecourt, opened the bag and took out the book. It was a book of poetry: John Donne’s Songs and Sonnets. There was a bookmark at one of the centre pages. She opened the book and read:

  ‘Break of Daye’

  ‘Stay, O Sweet, and do not rise

  The light that shines come from thine eyes;

  The day breaks not, it is my heart

  Because that you and I must part

  Stay or else my joys will die

  And perish in their infancie.’

  Julia didn’t make it to the second verse. She closed the book and walked hurriedly towards the open door of Heyer’s BMW.

  75

  Heather Stussman lay in only mild discomfort in Ward C5 at New Bolden Infirmary. She hated hospitals: the smell, the noise, the invasiveness. ‘Hell is other people,’ Jean-Paul Sartre had once written. She now knew exactly what he had meant.

  It had been a painful eight weeks. Eight weeks of bandages and embrocation. The burns on her legs were the worst. The fire had seared through her trousers as Dexter had frantically tried to cut her free from the hell that was Crowan Frayne’s basement. The scars on her forehead were horrendous but improving. She had only looked ‘Pity’ in the eye once. It would take time and the agony of skin grafts before she could face the pity of other people.

  ‘Have you spoken to John Underwood?’ asked Stussman.

  ‘Not for a few weeks. He’s got other things on his mind,’ Alison Dexter said flatly, trying to conceal her guilt. ‘He’s not well.’

  ‘You should go see him.’

  ‘Maybe. I owe him a call.’

  ‘Are you feeling better?’

  Dexter shrugged. ‘It takes time, right?’

  ‘Nightmares?’

  ‘A few,’ Dexter said tightly.

  ‘It’s hardly surprising.’

  ‘They’re less frequent since they put Mr Frayne in the ground.’ Dexter hesitated. ‘Well, what was left of him.’

  ‘Not much, I imagine.’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  There was a brief silence. Both women knew how close they had come to joining their tormentor. Dexter felt uncomfortable and coughed the moment away. Stussman watched her closely.

  ‘You know, Alison, we got off on the wrong foot …’

  ‘Forget it,’ Dexter replied without emotion.

  ‘I was cold towards you.’

  ‘I’m used to it.’

  ‘So am I. That’s why I should have known better.’

  ‘It’s ancient history.’ Dexter’s hard green eyes watched the food trolley rattle past. The nurse had bobbed red hair. She was pretty. Dexter looked away.

  ‘I’ve had a lot of time to think while I’ve been lying here,’ said Stussman.

  ‘Thinking’s dangerous.’

  Stussman didn’t smile. It hurt to smile.

  ‘People like you and me …’ she said carefully, pausing to find the right words. Dexter shifted in her seat. She sensed where this was going. ‘We have no reason to be dismissive of each other. There’s no logic to it. In different ways we are fighting for the same thing.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Respect.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We’re driven by common elements. The characteristics that we value most in ourselves we often find repellent in others.’

  Dexter nodded, suddenly ashamed of herself. ‘You look tired. I should go.’

  ‘Do you think about it much?’ asked Stussman abruptly.

  ‘I try not to, but yes, thinking about it is unavoidable. It’s necessary, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Stussman’s head was stinging again and she adjusted her bandage as it became uncomfortable. ‘You know, in The Divine Comedy, after Dante leaves Hell he arrives in Purgatory. An angel writes “P” on his forehead seven times. It stands for “Peccatum,” which is Latin for sin.’

  ‘Seven deadly sins, right?’

  ‘Right. As Dante repents his sins each “P” is removed from his forehead until he can enter Paradise.’ Stussman’s gaze explored the clear sky beyond the grimy hospital glass. ‘I guess I have a way to go yet.’

  ‘It’s funny. The thing that bothers me now …’ Dexter paused, then went on. ‘Now it’s over and I’ve had time to think it through – why did he burn all those books? I would have thought that he loved books.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, too,’ Stussman said. ‘He talked a lot about every dead thing living inside him … about how he could hear the dead speaking to him. Maybe he thought the dead spoke to him through the books, too. Books are just thoughts on paper. Perhaps he thought that by burning the books he was performing some kind of fucked-up alchemy on them. You know: the ideas in the books become flame and smoke, he becomes flame and smoke, you and I become flame and smoke. We all become one big beautiful bonfire of ideas.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Donne wrote in “Air and Angels” that angels assume a physical reality, just as air condenses into clouds or fog.’

  ‘He talked about us becoming angels.’

  ‘“Then as an Angell, face and wings/Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth weare/So thy love may be my loves sphere.”’ Stussman smiled faintly at Dexter. ‘Perhaps he thought we were worthy of becoming angels with him; with faces and wings of smoke. A smoky ecstasy of angels and ideas, worthiness and knowledge.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound so bad when you put it like that. It’s a less attractive idea when your arse is catching fire in a basement, though.’

  Stussman let out a tired sigh. ‘The metaphysical poets tried to fill the gaps between recognized science, religion and logic. The Renaissance was a time of great uncertainties and intellectual conflict. Donne and his colleagues took these uncertainties and inconsistencies and catalysed them into a new mode of expression.’

  ‘Strange connections,’ said Dexter quietly.

  ‘Absolutely. Let’s take the case in point. Newton’s law of matter says that nothing is ever destroyed, it merely changes form. It’s not too much of an intellectual leap to say that ideas and memories don’t die, either. Maybe Mr Frayne thought that the fire would turn the knowledge buried in the books, the ideas and abilities that you and I have, and his own intelligence into something unitary, beautiful and complex.’

  ‘That’s mad.’

  ‘Alison, the Catholic Church believes that a wafer and a glass of wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ during Mass. There’s not a huge difference in the two positions. At least Frayne’s position is based on logic.’

  ‘You’ll burn in Hell, saying things like that.’

  ‘I doubt it. Let me ask you something now. Underwood said that these killers have a fantasy life that they live out through their killings.’

  ‘Some do. I guess our man Frayne fell into that category. They’re called Visionary Motivated Killers. They dream, they plan, they develop a fantasy that they gradually escalate and refine until they are compelled to act it out.’

  ‘Poets plan and fantasize, Alison. Donne is a very good example. He would plan and build a logical argument, then dream up a fantasy or an image that came to represent and extend that argument, and he would perform his work for the gratification and education of a selected audience.’

  ‘Like Crowan Frayne,’ said Dexter.

  ‘We live in uncertain times too, Alison. Donne said, “The new philosophy calls all into question.” That, in a nutshell, is the paradox of the modern world. Science has done an effective job of destroying our confidence in established religion without creating anything to replace it. We are drowned in information and starved of knowledge. We live in a free society but our freedom is dependent upon the forces t
hat value it least. Maybe Crowan Frayne saw some of these inconsistencies and uncertainties and thought he could hammer them into a new mode of expression.’

  ‘Can we talk about something else?’ said Dexter.

  Dexter stayed for another half an hour and although Stussman was worn out she appreciated the company. Southwell College had given her a term’s sabbatical to recover from her injuries. She wondered what McKensie and his henchmen would make of her new-found celebrity. There’d probably be a series of bad jokes followed by an overwhelming vote not to renew her research fellowship. Stussman wasn’t looking forward to her first night alone back in her rooms, though, or to the first time her phone rang. Staying in Cambridge at all might be difficult for her now. Suddenly the open spaces and quietness of Wisconsin didn’t seem as dull to her as they once had.

  Fortunately, her mother was coming over the following week and the two of them were planning to take a holiday in Europe together. Thank God for family. Isolation from her family had been hard. She thought for a second of Crowan Frayne, trying to give his dead grandmother back the beauty that had been torn from her. Heather Stussman felt a sudden flash of emotion. Perhaps it was Pity.

  Inspector Alison Dexter stepped out of the hospital foyer and paused for a second in the cold sunlight. She felt curiously empty. She should be happy; at least she should feel relieved. She paused for a moment. The wind hissed and rippled through the delicate branches of the newly planted saplings that lined the hospital car park. Out of the blue, she suddenly remembered a question she had been asked at college, years previously: ‘If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound if nobody is there to hear it?’ She pushed the thought aside.

  Ambition had driven her this far. Ambition had earned her the respect of others. Respect had earned her promotion. She was an inspector; she had achieved her dream. Why, then, did she feel so hollow? So utterly numbed by the whole experience?