Something Wicked

by David Roberts

  She felt very snug in the little cockpit. When she stretched out her legs, she felt the pedals move as if Free Spirit were alive. The stick between her legs wiggled without her touching it as Kay made herself comfort-able behind her. She looked at the instruments. They had a worn appearance as though they had registered a lot of height and speed in their time and nothing could now shock them. The compass seemed simple enough but, when she tried to read it, she found she could not understand it. It was like a small ship’s compass and you had to look down on it. She admired Kay so much for being the master of such a machine and it made her relax to feel she was in the hands of an expert. There was absolutely nothing she need do but see what there was to see and feel what there was to feel.

  Bert hopped up and locked her into her safety harness. ‘Good luck, miss. Your first time in the air?’

  Verity felt unable to answer and merely smiled.

  When Kay was satisfied everything was ready, she signalled to Bert – acting as prop swinger – and he pulled down on the propeller. She had explained to Verity earlier that the prop swinger had to ‘suck in’ by swinging the propeller four times while the switches were off to suck the fuel from the carburettor into the engine. When Bert had done this, he shouted ‘Contact’ and Kay switched on the pair of magnetos. After three more tugs on the propeller, the engine roared into life. As it warmed up, the noise engulfed Verity and she felt as though the life force was flowing through her.

  At a signal from Kay, the chocks were removed and they rolled over the grass. When they reached the end of the runway, she turned the Tiger Moth and prepared for take-off. They began to trundle over the grass. At first, Verity could see nothing ahead of her because the nose of the plane pointed upwards and blocked her view. Then the tail went up and she could see down the runway. Even when Free Spirit began to gather speed she could not believe they would ever leave the ground. Suddenly they were airborne. There was no sense of ‘taking off’. It was as though they just floated into the sky. A shiver of excitement went down Verity’s spine and she laughed aloud. Although she had flown in small planes before, she had never been in one as small as this. It was, she thought, like riding bareback. She could feel it alive between her legs.

  A gust of wind caught the Tiger Moth and tossed it to one side. Instinctively, Verity reached for one of the metal struts but stopped herself and relaxed. Free Spirit seemed so fragile, like a moth blown about by the wind. She had wanted to be free – free of her illness, free of the earth, free even of Edward – and now she was free. She had to suppress an insane desire to unfasten her harness, get up out of her seat, force herself through the wind between the struts and leap into nothingness.

  Perhaps it was the disease which had attacked her lungs that made her so light-headed. It was fortunate that Kay could not see her face or read her thoughts. She felt the stick move between her legs and remembered that this was how Kay had said she would get her attention. She turned with difficulty and saw that Kay was pointing right and downwards. There, far below, was Henley. As they swooped lower over the town, she could see the river glinting in the sun and, as they went even lower, boats and then people looking up at them. Verity wanted to wave but thought Kay might not approve. The bridge, the temple on the island, the church and the Phyllis Court tennis courts swung below them and, once again, she was overwhelmed by a sense of exhilaration close to hysteria. She struggled to remove her goggles but the wind made it difficult to see without them and, as the plane turned, the sun blinded her. The noise of the engine and the wind was much greater than she had imagined and her mind was bludgeoned into a state of pleasant numbness which made coherent thought almost an impossibility.

  All too soon, they were back over the aerodrome and below her she could see the little painted aircraft on the grass. Kay signalled for her to hold on. She was going to try a loop. The Tiger Moth began to dive and Verity was thrust back against her seat hardly able to breathe. Then Free Spirit – living up to her name – climbed away to begin the loop. At the top, the little craft began to spin and she felt rather than saw Kay try desperately to pull out of it. The plane seemed to lose momentum before, quite suddenly, rearing up into a climb and entering a fast unbanked turn, its wings parallel with the horizon.

  Verity realized something was wrong and that the Tiger Moth was spinning like a spider being flushed down the sink. It came into her mind that these might be her very last moments of consciousness but oddly enough – and when she thought about it later, she could not explain it to herself – she was not frightened or apprehensive. She did not scream or wave her hands about but merely smiled as though – if this was her fate – she would welcome it as a friend, as a blessed relief from earthly chains. For a second or two, the little plane – every joint and strut humming with effort – appeared to hang motionless. Verity saw the needle of the air speed indicator flickering round the lowest point on the dial. She wanted to breathe but could not. Behind her, she could hear Kay grunting and shouting as she tried to regain control.

  Kay hauled on the stick and kicked hard on the rudder pedal but nothing happened. The stick would not move. Sobbing with the effort, she tried to make her mind work and it suddenly came to her that she had not enlisted the aid of the engine. She slammed on full throttle. With some power restored to the elevators, the Tiger Moth almost instantly flipped into a normal spin and, just a couple of hundred feet above the ground, Kay regained full control. Relief flooded through her and the last reserves of strength left her. When they landed, she was very pale and her hands trembled as she taxied to a halt in front of the hangar and switched off the engine.

  ‘Verity, are you all right? God, I thought . . . well, I thought we’d had it. I’ll never forgive myself for putting you through that.’

  It took Verity several minutes before she could speak. She sat where she was, smiling idiotically, wanting to tell Kay not to fuss but unable to utter a single word. All the breath had been drawn out of her and her head still spun. Bert ran up and climbed on to the wing to help her remove her safety harness. After another few minutes she felt able – with his assistance – to haul herself out of the little plane. At last, very wobbly on her feet and clinging to Bert, she stood on the grass.

  ‘For Gawd’s sake, miss, what happened up there? I do believe I thought you’d had it.’

  ‘I really don’t know, Bert. I’ve never known anything like it,’ Kay replied. She took off her goggles and flying helmet and shook her hair free with an angry flourish. She was very shaken – no longer the cool, self-possessed woman of the world. ‘Verity, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I must have frightened the wits out of you. I know I was as scared as I’ve ever been.’

  ‘No, I . . . I wasn’t scared,’ Verity said, her voice gaining strength but sounding rather bewildered. ‘I can’t begin to explain it to you but I was . . . I was in another world.’

  ‘You were within a few seconds of being in another world,’ Bert said drily. Four or five uniformed men were running towards the Tiger Moth. ‘Here they come! I’m afraid the powers that be are going to make life difficult for you, Miss Kay. You’ll have to do a full report.’

  ‘And you’re going to have to do a full technical report. I just couldn’t move the stick,’ Kay responded crisply, regaining some of her customary poise and authority. ‘Bert, could you please take Miss Browne to the mess to rest and recuperate. Feed her coffee and brandy while I deal with all this.’

  A reaction had set in by the time Kay joined them in the mess. Verity’s exhilaration had left her and she felt numb with fatigue. She lay back on a sofa with her eyes closed. Kay sat down beside her and put her hand on Verity’s.

  ‘Have another sip of brandy. Waiter – a double brandy, please. I need it myself!’

  Verity opened her eyes and, seeing Kay’s expression, made an effort to reassure her.

  ‘I’m all right – just winded. Give me minute or two and I’ll be as right as rain.’

  Kay grimaced. She knew that
Dr Bladon – and Edward – would blame her for taking Verity up in the Tiger Moth, let alone nearly killing her. That loop at the end had been a stupid idea but there was no reason why it should have gone so badly wrong. The Tiger Moth was a reliable plane in which she had performed much more risky aerobatics than a gentle loop. Bert would go over it nut by nut, bolt by bolt and she ought to have his preliminary report tomorrow but her immediate anxiety was to get Verity back to the clinic and make her confession to Dr Bladon.

  Twenty minutes later, Kay helped Verity – half asleep and barely able to walk – into the car. She sank back and closed her eyes.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Kay asked, unnecessarily. It was plain she was not.

  ‘It was the happiest day of my life,’ Verity mumbled and fell into a profound slumber which Kay thought was too close to unconsciousness for comfort. She put her foot on the accelerator pedal and within the hour drew up with a spray of gravel in front of the clinic. Dr Bladon came hurriedly out of the front door accompanied by two nurses. It was obvious he had been waiting for them.

  ‘Miss Browne, are you all right? Miss Stammers, I really must protest! I gave permission for my patient to go for a short drive but you have been gone most of the day.’ He looked at Verity and felt her pulse. ‘Good heavens! Nurse, quickly please. We may need a stretcher. What has happened? What have you done to my patient, Miss Stammers?’

  Verity opened her eyes and, smiling sleepily, said she was quite all right. Leaning on the two nurses, she managed to stumble into the clinic without recourse to a stretcher.

  Kay made as if to leave but Dr Bladon insisted that she accompany him to his office and explain exactly why Verity was so exhausted.

  ‘I took her up for a spin in my kite,’ she said, trying to make light of it but unable to hide her feelings of guilt. She told him how much Verity had wanted to go up in the plane and how she thought the fresh air would do her good.

  Dr Bladon snorted contemptuously. ‘Please don’t be absurd, Miss Stammers. You know perfectly well that “fresh air” does not mean a wild adventure in your “kite”, as you call it.’

  ‘Well, it would have been all right except for . . .’ Kay hesitated.

  ‘Except for what?’

  ‘I had a bit of trouble with the controls and got into a spin. Still, I got her out of it . . . the spin, I mean, so it ended all right.’

  Dr Bladon looked at her, his eyebrows raised and his face red with anger. ‘Miss Stammers, from what you say – and I am inclined to believe you have only told me half the story – you have been at the least grossly irresponsible and at the worst criminally negligent. Miss Browne is a very sick woman and, if you have delayed her recovery, or . . . or worse, you will not be forgiven. Good day to you.’

  He opened the door of his office and Kay left, feeling that she had been severely but properly rebuked. She knew she had to tell Edward before he heard what had happened from another source and she decided to drive straight to Turton House, but he was not there.

  Edward was troubled by a feeling of impending doom. He felt threatened on all sides. Major Stille clearly had some sort of a relationship with Roderick Black and his son Guy. Was that why he was here in Henley? Edward could not believe it was just an innocent visit to watch the rowing and meet old friends. Stille never went anywhere without a purpose.

  Then there was Harry. Was he what he seemed, a generous host and loyal ally? Or was he devious and possibly murderous? It couldn’t be ruled out. Then there were the murders he was supposed to be investigating. What had he discovered? Only that Hermione Totteridge, Ernest Lowther and James Herold had all been murdered and that their deaths were linked by the phrases or quotations left on their bodies. He reminded himself that he must telephone Chief Inspector Pride and see if he had made any progress with his investigation into Eric Silver’s gruesome killing. If there had been an arrest, he was sure he would have been told. The newspapers which had paraded the dentist’s killing on their front pages no longer showed any interest in it. Their crime reporters had been transferred to a Liverpool shipowner who had, it appeared, murdered a prostitute to stop her telling all his sordid secrets to his wife. However, Edward knew that when Pride did make an arrest, Silver’s murder would once again be front-page news.

  Mulling it over in his mind, he decided that, on the evidence available, Silver’s murder was linked to the other three but tangentially. He was looking for a murderer who was far more savage than the killer of Lowther, Hermione Totteridge or Herold – someone who knew about these murders but had not committed them. Blackmail? Revenge? Or merely a wicked joke? He was being taunted by the entomological connection. He was at that stage in an investigation when he saw parts of the pattern and knew that quite soon – in a matter of days – he might see the whole. Yet his instinct also told him that he was being observed and that there would be more death, more killing before the murderer could be stopped.

  ‘Something wicked this way comes . . .’ he muttered to himself.

  Brooding on these and other matters, Edward strolled along the river bank acknowledging the greetings of coxes, coaches and rowers as they prepared their boats. According to his programme, on this second day of the regatta, there were three races he did not wish to miss. At five past two, Trinity – his old college – was competing against Leander in another heat of the Stewards’ Challenge Cup and at a quarter to three Eton was due to meet Westminster School in the Ladies’ Challenge Plate. That was followed by a heat of the Diamond Challenge Sculls with Guy Black pitted against L. D. Habbitts whom he had said he would be lucky to better.

  With time on his hands, Edward decided to hire a skiff and explore Temple Island. As far as he knew, it was uninhabited although someone had told him that, until recently, an old lady had lived there in some style. He particularly wanted to see the two-faced god under whose protection the island flourished. Bruce-Dick had told him the story of the first regatta in 1839 when four races were rowed from the tip of Temple Island to Henley Bridge. Oxford’s Old Etonians had trounced Brasenose College on that occasion and the same evening Trinity, having partaken of mutton chops and ale, had raced Black Prince – with the college’s three crowns on her bow – against an eight made up of Old Etonians from several Oxford colleges and beaten them by a canvas. Now, almost a century later, Edward could only feel anguish that the regatta, along with so much he treasured about England, was on the point of being blown to smithereens by evil men – of whom Major Stille was a prime example.

  There was not much river traffic round Temple Island as Edward bumped his skiff against the wooden jetty and jumped ashore, wetting his feet in the process. He swore but was soon entranced by the oasis of peace amid the bustle of Henley at the height of the regatta. The island was the shape of a ship and, in the sunshine, appeared to Edward as though it might at any moment set sail and float downstream. The folly itself was much smaller than it had seemed from the Arethusa earlier that morning. It consisted of a rotunda decorated with the Etruscan-style reliefs he had heard so much about. It was a charming room several feet above ground level, reached by wooden stairs. When he entered, he found it was a mere five or six yards across with curved windows giving views of the river and the green fields beyond.

  Walking to a little lawn on the ‘prow’ of the island, he found a bench from which he could survey the folly. Above the rotunda was the statue of Janus, fenced in or perhaps protected by pillars and surmounted by a delicate cupola. All in all, it was almost perfect – quite useless but pleasing to the eye, beautifully proportioned, sufficiently arcadian to satisfy any romantic poet and reminiscent of paintings by Fragonard and Watteau.

  On three sides, only a few feet of grass surrounded the folly and Edward was surprised how close it was to the river. He got up from the bench to look at a small plaque on the wall which marked the water levels reached in years gone by. He saw that on occasion the island must have been almost totally submerged and the little temple half drowned, but this was
midsummer and the water was tame and subservient. He thought he might try and climb on to the roof to see the statue close to but the narrow stone staircase was behind a locked iron gate so he had to be satisfied with admiring it from below.

  He returned to the bench thinking that he would enjoy the peace and quiet for a few more minutes before returning to his skiff. He closed his eyes and fell into one of those reveries where the mind drifts in shallow waters awaiting the call to return to the waking world.

  The hoarse, unlovely cry of a seagull roused him. Stretching, he got up from the bench – noticing to his annoyance that it had left a stain on his white trousers – and went to examine the Janus statue one last time. It was frustrating not to be able to get closer. He pulled at the metal gate and, to his surprise, found it was not in fact locked. He was almost certain that it had been when he had tried it earlier but told himself he must have been mistaken.

  He climbed up the stone steps and came out on a lead roof beside the statue. He saw that it stood on a pedestal which resembled a section from a Corinthian column but was much more recent than the statue itself. Now that he was eye-to-eye with it, he saw that Janus needed some attention. One of the statue’s two faces looked towards Henley and the other over the little wilderness at the other end of the island. The stone was flaking and the faces crumbling. There was a melancholy about it which was satisfactorily poetic and Edward wished he had the talent to sketch it or pen some suitable verses in its honour. There was no expression on either face and he imagined that in the dusk they must look quite sinister.

  He looked over the edge and wished that the Victorians had not surrounded the temple with such a clumsy wooden balcony. It was quite inappropriate, almost as if they had encumbered it with a chastity belt. He turned back to the statue and, as he was preparing to descend, noticed something metallic pushed between the feet of the god. Tugging at it, he found it to be an old cash box, large enough to hold a sizeable sum of money in banknotes. The box was unlocked and, his curiosity now fully aroused, he opened the catch. There were no banknotes inside but there was a large envelope. Edward was sure that he had stumbled on something secret, something he was not supposed to see. Without hesitation, he tore open the envelope and found inside a sheaf of papers. He had seen such papers before when working on a case in the Foreign Office. They were all marked ‘secret’.