Hall of Mirrors

by Christopher Fowler

  The gardener shifted himself to find some cover and the ashram’s inhabitants, wrapped in plastic sheets, climbed inside their tents. Someone forgot the baby, and only brought it in when it began to scream.

  The lunch gong had to compete with distant shelling and the rumble of the approaching storm. The apprehensive guests had begun to assemble in Lavender, where the weekend luncheons were to be laid out. A buffet of cold salmon and beef, much of it left over from the night before, had been placed on a long table, but it felt too early to eat. The illusion of a fine old country house going about its rituals oblivious to the outside world was offset by signs of furtive stage management; decorative blankets thrown over threadbare armchairs, a television set unplugged and disgraced in a corner, some folding chairs stacked behind a door.

  The thunder that rattled the windows was impossible to distinguish from army gunfire, and the collective mood became jumpier. Toby Stafford arrived and headed directly to the Rose Room, where official business was traditionally conducted. A desk, pens and extra chairs had been provided for him. Everyone was waiting for Donald Burke to appear for the completion of the sale, but the longer he stayed away from the group the more keenly his disdain for them all was felt. Could he, they all wondered, be having second thoughts at this late stage?

  In the drawing room, Hawthorn, the maid was laying out board games, cards and dressing-up props to fill what threatened to be a long wet afternoon. There was no radio except for a single portable transistor in the kitchen, and the only phone sat on its own little table in the hall. The house was a ship marooned in a green Sargasso sea.

  Bryant stood at the window in Lavender trying to see if he could spot any soldiers in the fields, but the rain was now falling in dense curtains, obscuring the view. He noticed that Monty was keeping away from the eaves, perhaps wary of being landed on by another mythical beast. He was peering out of the doors smoking nervously.

  May joined his partner at the window with a stick of celery in one hand. ‘This is like the Phoney War, waiting for another assault on Monty.’

  ‘Either something will happen or is happening or has happened but I have no idea what,’ Bryant agreed. ‘And the waiting is going to get worse because, oh joy, there are going to be games this afternoon. That television in the corner’s got a blown valve. I’ll have to miss Juke Box Jury.’

  ‘It finished a couple of years ago,’ said May. ‘Don’t try to pretend you know what’s in the charts.’

  ‘I do know. What kind of fool do you think I am?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re a fool, I just—’

  ‘No, that’s the name of a song in the Top Twenty.’

  ‘Arthur, don’t you think you could handle this weekend alone? It doesn’t take two of us to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Where did this come from suddenly?’ asked Bryant suspiciously.

  Seeing that Vanessa was nearby, May lowered his voice. ‘It’s just that a friend of mine is throwing a big party in Chelsea tonight. Couldn’t I just tiptoe away, maybe ask Vanessa if she cares to join me?’

  ‘Nice try, mush, but if I’m going to be stuck here having a lousy time you are too,’ said Bryant. ‘Suppose somebody has a go at Monty and you’re not around?’

  ‘No one’s going to have a go at him,’ May sighed. ‘That gryphon came loose by itself.’

  ‘I found a footprint and a cigarette.’

  ‘When were you going to tell me?’

  ‘When I remembered. They could have been there since the last time someone went up to clean the gutters.’

  ‘Nobody’s been snooping in Monty’s room except you. You probably resettled that stray thread from downstairs. You always manage to transfer your dinner around.’

  Bryant blew the fluff off a Fruit Gum and offered it to his partner. ‘There are too many things that don’t make sense here. Norma Burke said her husband wouldn’t join the gathering until he had sorted out his business with Toby Stafford, but Stafford just told me he waited all morning for Burke to show up at a café in Knotsworth. He’s starting to think that Burke has changed his mind about the purchase. I explained that we saw him briefly this morning, but that he quite literally vanished.’

  ‘Has anyone spoken to him today, apart from his wife?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s find out.’ Bryant turned from the window. ‘Did anyone speak to Mr Burke this morning?’ he called.

  Slade Wilson raised a carrot. ‘I had a short meeting with him in the drawing room – what’s it called? Hawthorn.’

  ‘What about?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘Just a few ideas for the new colour scheme. I was thinking aubergine; he was more on the page of prune. We agreed the redecoration budget.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Ah, actually I had a brief word with him about the church roof,’ said Trevor Patethric. ‘He has very kindly offered to help us in our hour of need.’

  ‘He did?’ Norma Burke looked sceptical. ‘I do find that surprising, considering he’s not set foot in a church in years. Did my husband pledge money to anyone else? You perhaps, Vanessa?’

  Bryant looked around. The temperature in the room dropped. ‘No, Norma,’ Vanessa replied. ‘I have my own savings. I didn’t have to marry anyone to make myself financially secure.’

  ‘I’m surprised the Church survives in this day and age,’ said Wilson testily. ‘All that ridiculous gold drag.’

  ‘Ecclesiastical vestments, Mr Wilson,’ snapped Patethric. ‘I suppose you’d know a lot about dressing up. The scandal of your balls has reached even our modest parish.’

  The temperature fell a little further. The very air felt electric. Bryant sensed the clenched features around him and wondered who would break first.

  ‘Talk of scandals invariably involves the Church, I find,’ replied Wilson coolly. ‘All that wealth, the valuable land, the ecclesiastical silver, and still you snatch money from penniless old ladies.’

  ‘The silver belongs to the people,’ said Patethric.

  ‘But it doesn’t, though, does it? Not really. Any more than the fine old masters dotting these walls belong to the people.’

  Thunder rolled over the meadows and a fresh squall of rain hit the windows.

  ‘Unfortunately my son decided to include the Gainsborough, the Stubbs and the Reynolds with the house,’ said Lady Banks-Marion. ‘We could have sold them at auction, but now it’s too late.’

  Harry opened a tobacco tin and began rolling, something he did whenever he was agitated. ‘Perhaps you should have taken more interest in the sale, Mummy. The furniture could have been sent off to auction years ago but you weren’t interested.’

  ‘Somebody had to take over the daily running of the house,’ Lady Banks-Marion bit back. ‘I was left here while you went off to India and—’

  ‘This is not a conversation to be held in public, Mother,’ cried Harry, hurt.

  ‘You should have gone to jail for what you did.’

  ‘I refuse to listen to this.’ Harry placed a hand over one ear. ‘I must go and talk to my peace collective. It’s not fair that you won’t allow them in the house.’

  ‘Those girls out there in your ashram look about sixteen,’ Pamela Claxon agreed. ‘I know where the law stands on this; I write crime novels.’

  ‘I rather like your novels,’ said Harry.

  ‘He means he likes the covers,’ said his mother. ‘My son is not literate. Although of course your books are not literature.’

  Moments later everybody was arguing at once. The detectives could only stand back and watch in confusion.

  ‘You think you could have got more for the ugly little Pre-Raphaelites in the bedrooms?’ Harry asked his mother. ‘Most of them are less valuable than the frames they’re in. What about the Chippendale dining-room set? Why not tear up the carpets and sell the parquet as well?’

  Lady Banks-Marion turned to May, something most people did sooner or later. ‘There were no other takers for the hall, Mr March,’ she said. ‘Harry ag
reed the deal with Mr Burke’s lawyer and threw in everything but the family silver, and now we can’t back out. Really, I cannot sit here listening to this nonsense any longer.’ She set down her napkin and rose to leave.

  ‘Can we not prevail upon you to stay?’ begged the reverend.

  ‘Look out, Trev’s after your daubs,’ warned Wilson. ‘Ask him what happened to the ones that used to hang in St Stephen’s. Perhaps we should all go home.’

  ‘I’m afraid none of you can go,’ said Bryant, finally starting to enjoy himself. ‘Not while there’s a risk of someone being hit by a stray bullet. The army isn’t going to reopen the road until tomorrow morning.’

  Something thumped against the bottom of the French windows. Everyone stopped talking and looked about. Harry’s necklaced piglet was bumping the glass with her snout.

  ‘Malacrida!’ he cried. ‘You poor thing.’ He went to the window and opened the latch to let her in.

  ‘I’ve told you, I do not want swine in the house,’ said Lady Banks-Marion.

  ‘Don’t let her hear, she’s very sensitive,’ replied Harry, reaching down to pat her on the head. Malacrida’s blank button eyes remained fastened on him as she was stroked. She seemed to be smiling more happily than ever.

  Bryant caught a look of puzzlement on Harry’s face as he rose. Harry raised his right hand and examined it, then slowly turned it to the others.

  His palm was glistening and crimson with blood.

  22

  * * *

  BITS AND PIECES

  For a moment nobody moved.

  ‘Everybody stay where you are,’ said Bryant, raising his hand to them as the piglet left bloody trotter prints across the rug. Somebody gave a small scream.

  ‘Now look here,’ said the reverend in a voice he reserved for keeping children off the backs of pews, ‘who are you to tell us what to do?’

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ Bryant said, ‘and this is my colleague Mr May. We’re detectives.’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Pamela Claxon. ‘You only have to look at the size of their feet. What are those, elevens?’

  ‘You might have picked a better name than Arthur Askey,’ Wilson told Bryant, offended.

  ‘Let me go with her,’ said Harry. ‘Malacrida knows me. Pigs are very sensitive. It might be nothing. Perhaps somebody in the ashram has had an accident.’

  ‘All right,’ said May, ‘get her to take you to where she was.’

  ‘That may not be so easy,’ Harry admitted. ‘She tends to search for rotten food.’

  Bryant stayed behind, watching over Monty while May and Harry followed the piglet out through the French windows. Malacrida led the way across the patio and on to the lawn, moving with fast, dainty steps. When May looked back he saw everyone crowded at the windows, peering out.

  Malacrida veered off suddenly and pranced into a flowerbed. She stopped abruptly and began digging. May examined the ground around her but there was nothing to see except wet grass and shrubbery. ‘It’s the lavender bush,’ said Harry. ‘She likes lavender. Malacrida! Naughty girl!’ He scampered after the little piglet but she was off again, heading for a hole in the hedge.

  Fruity Metcalf must have been following the commotion because he appeared still chewing a mouthful of his own lunch and clumped after them. ‘You can go around just here, gentlemen.’ He led the way to a larger opening in the greenery.

  At the far end of a short muddy field was a creosoted wooden barn, its door wedged half open. Harry slowed apprehensively and removed his spectacles, wiping the rain from them. ‘No, I don’t think I care to go in there.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked May.

  ‘It’s the pump for the septic tank.’

  ‘What’s that noise?’ May cautiously moved to the doorway. He fell back as an enormous raven burst out of the shadows with a shriek and flapped its way off into the rowans.

  The barn was dark and smelled strongly of chemicals. A motor was running but sounded as if it might stall at any moment.

  ‘There’s a light switch on the wall to your left,’ Harry called out.

  May felt for it and turned it on.

  Ahead was a rectangular box some twelve feet long with various pipes running into it. The angled sides were anodized steel and stained a reddish-brown. The air was acrid with the meaty stench of manure, rotting vegetables and solvents.

  May looked up and saw a rickety wooden walkway above them, running the length of the barn. It was reached by two primitive wooden staircases. One section of the walkway’s pine railing appeared to have been freshly split. The pieces hung down over the machine, which was grinding in an off-kilter fashion, a series of irregular thumps suggesting that something large was caught up in it.

  Metcalf headed for a large red plastic button under the machine and was about to hit it when May stopped him. ‘I may want to take fingerprints from that. It’s better if you leave before the ground gets too messed up.’

  Pulling down his shirt sleeve, he carefully pushed the button and let the rotor slow down. The whine ceased and an oppressive silence filled the shed.

  ‘It shouldn’t have been running,’ called Harry, still refusing to enter. ‘It’s self-starting. When something is fed into it the pressure on the blades kicks on the motor.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked May, peering into the shadowed patches beneath the contraption and covering his nose. His expensive patent-leather shoes had been swallowed by squelching mud.

  ‘The treatment plant for the house,’ said Metcalf. ‘It’s not supposed to be exposed like that. There should be a plastic mesh cover on the top.’

  ‘Why is it open at all?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask his lordship.’ Metcalf gave a quick backward glance and scuttled out, clearly anxious not to be involved.

  ‘Lord Banks-Marion, I need your help. Would you step inside for a moment?’ May asked. His lordship had changed colour, so that his face now matched his pale green kaftan. ‘Why is this device operating without a guard?’

  ‘The original ventilation lid rusted through some years ago so I put plastic mesh over the top,’ Harry explained sheepishly. ‘It was only meant to be a temporary measure. It must have fallen off. There are an awful lot of things to do around here.’

  To see over the side of the machine May had to stand on tiptoe. At the bottom of the macerator was a layer of thick brownish-grey scum. The chemical smell was eye-stinging. The plant’s contents, which looked rather like a heavy country stew, were steaming in the cool air.

  May squinted up at the walkway again. He began to feel uncomfortably hot. ‘Surely nobody could be so stupid as to …’ he began. ‘How does it work?’

  ‘Oh Lord,’ cried Harry, covering his nose and mouth. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Please, we need you.’

  ‘The original house was self-sustaining,’ he explained. ‘We grew our own vegetables and slaughtered our own animals. I tried to make the kitchens vegetarian but Mother wouldn’t have it. There was always a cesspit here. It was the perfect spot because there’s a large drainage field behind.’

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘Waste is discharged into the tank and treated with bacterial acid. Anything organic can be fed into it and turned into slurry. The resulting methane is released through a pipe at the back of the barn. I tried to keep it all as far away from the house as possible. I added a pair of rotary blades to remove solids and increase the tank’s efficiency. That’s why you could hear the engine.’

  Harry peered over the edge of the machine and was energetically sick.

  ‘That’s evidence!’ cried May, horrified. He shoved Harry back outside.

  When Bryant arrived he found his lordship bending over with his hands on his knees, fighting for breath. ‘In there,’ he said, spitting out and pointing behind him.

  The detectives unscrewed the trap beneath the rotary blade and examined the solid waste that had been caught before it could reach the storage tank.

  A human arm slid out in t
he muck and rolled over, its fingers open, crablike. On the fourth finger of its left hand was a gold wedding ring. It was followed by several ribs and part of a leg with a moon-pale kneecap still attached by its pink tendons. Several other identifiable items could be seen in the trap above the liquefied remains.

  ‘Oh my heavens,’ said Harry, ‘that’s a person.’

  ‘I need some gloves and a hose,’ May told him. ‘Arthur, could you have a look around?’

  Bryant found all the equipment they needed stacked against the side wall of the barn. A few blasts of water revealed the non-organic materials in the sludge: a watch, a chunk of shoe, part of a man’s tie. May knelt beside the emptied slurry and used a stick to extricate something else from the effluvium – a strip of skin with grey hair and an ear attached, and the remains of a white glove.

  ‘Please don’t tell me that’s who I think it is,’ said Bryant.

  ‘The man everybody came to see,’ replied May.

  ‘Well, they can see him now. He’s all over the place. How long does this contraption take to dissolve organic material?’

  Harry appeared distracted. He forced himself to think. ‘Usually around twelve hours, but I had the tank relined so that I could add hydrochloric acid to speed up the process.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Solids were still building up in the tank. I was trying to reduce the number of times we needed to have it cleaned out. Trouble is, it makes the air in here unbreathable.’

  ‘So if someone was overcome by the fumes and fell in from up there, how long would it be before their organic remains were reduced?’

  ‘The rotary blades would already render them into small pieces. It depends on weight and size but I don’t suppose there would be much left after about four hours.’

  May looked at his watch. ‘It’s after two o’clock now.’ He looked back at the doorway and tried not to think of the anxious faces behind the windows. ‘What on earth are we going to tell them?’