Murder at Malenfer

by Iain McChesney

  And how could Dermot ever forget? He relived it himself every night. “I remember,” was all he said.

  “I tried to ask you for something. I was going to ask for a favor.”

  And Dermot was back there, transported by the memory; the walls of his room turned to dirt.

  Dermot, if I don’t make it... if I don’t get out… I need you to....

  “Yes, I remember, Français. Only we were a bit busy at the time.”

  “Please listen, Dermot.” Arthur was sincere. “I need your help now, I desperately need your help. I’ll beg for your assistance or do anything it takes.”

  “Jesus, Arthur. Calm down, man. Take a seat.” The thought of Arthur having to beg, after all he’d done to him.

  Arthur sat down again. “We didn’t have many secrets, Dermot, but I kept from you one. I had children, Dermot. I have children. Two boys. Twins. I was young... an indiscretion, and their mother… she died giving birth.”

  Dermot paid attention now; he’d never heard any of this. But why Arthur was bringing this to him tonight he could not yet understand.

  “My own father took care of things,” Arthur continued. “He made sure they’d be all right. But I did her wrong, I see that now, and also my two sons.”

  “Christ, you’re a sly bugger keeping that under your hat. What do you mean, took care of things? What happened to them, then?”

  “None of this was told to anyone. My father covered it up.”

  “But what happened to your kids?”

  “They were nursed away somewhere, and then later brought back to the farm. My father saw that they were cared for, but I couldn’t speak of their existence and did not acknowledge them as my own.”

  “But he died, didn’t he? Your father died years ago. Didn’t you tell me that?”

  “He did. And I let things carry on. I got to watch them both grow up and work around the estate.”

  “Well...” Dermot wasn’t sure what to say; he didn’t want to judge. “That’s great, isn’t it? So now you’ve got two kids!”

  “Just recently, my brother Michel passed away. The question of the estate’s inheritance remains to be decided.”

  “But you’ll get it, won’t you?” He racked his memory. “I thought you were the eldest?”

  Arthur just looked at him and puffed out his mustache. “When you see things as they really are, you’ll better understand; but they, by rights, should get their share and be very well looked after.”

  “You said they work on the estate?”

  Arthur shied from the question. “I’ve not been a good father, Dermot, but I need to do this much for them.”

  “And your family doesn’t know?” Dermot repeated Arthur’s own words to try to keep things straight. In his head the absinthe bath was slowly unraveling everything.

  “Growing up, I thought the twins might suspect, or my mother would know the truth. But now I know I was wrong. I have to tell them, Dermot, don’t you see? It will mean so much for them all.”

  “I don’t really know, Arthur.”

  “The Malenfer line isn’t over! The family name lives on!”

  “And this is a big thing in your neighborhood?”

  “You should come and see for yourself.”

  “And why do you need me again? What am I supposed to do?”

  “You are the one who must tell them.”

  “That’s still the bit I don’t really get. Why don’t you tell them yourself?”

  “Because I told you, Dermot! I am dead, I really am, and no one else can see me. So you’d be really helping me out.”

  “Oh, I remember. It’s coming back now. You did tell me that bit, yes. Good, good. Nice to get that straight. So I’m sort of being haunted then, is that what we’re saying? You’re either messing with my head or you’re driving me mad from the grave?”

  “Old friend!” Arthur objected. “Please don’t think it so. I’m in need of a little assistance, and I thought that you might oblige.”

  Dermot ruminated a moment while he drew again heavily from his glass that was getting dangerously low.

  “OK,” he proposed. “So a few things might be happening here.” His mind had been at work. “Scenarios one and two are what I think are likely, but there is a scenario three.”

  “Go on.”

  “You don’t think I’m serious?”

  “I’m intrigued.”

  “Well.... Well, that’s all right then, I suppose. So. Here it is. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Good. One: I’ve gone mad, like I long suspected, and should really lay off the drink. Until I do I can now expect successions of dead friends and family to parade through my life as they please.”

  “It’s likely just me. There aren’t a lot of us.” Arthur tried to help.

  “But that’s OK.” Dermot talked to himself, ignoring Arthur for the moment. “I’ll lay off the absinthe for a week. See what happens when I finally dry out. Except I can’t do that. It’s the green fairy in the bottle that keeps all the bad thoughts away...” He pondered the conundrum. “So how am I going to sleep if I can’t be touching the absinthe? This is a pickle I’m in.”

  “I don’t follow you, Irlandais.”

  “You don’t?” Dermot readmitted Arthur to the dialogue. “See, if I’m mad, then there’s no need to help you because it’s all going on in my head. In fact I should really not be doing anything, even talking to you. I should lock up the door and stay safe!”

  “What is your option two?” Arthur interrupted. Dermot blinked.

  “Option two? Yes. Very strange. Talking friends that shouldn’t be here... Well, option two is what I’m counting on, as it’s definitely the best of the bunch.”

  “For me or for you?”

  Dermot gave the question consideration. “Definitely for both. Option two is that you’ve lost your marbles, but that you’re alive and you’re really here.”

  “Oh, I’m here.”

  “Then there you go!”

  “...but please, continue all the same.”

  “Well. How I see it is I’ve had a rough night... obviously... but I’m lucky enough to have met an old friend.” He looked here hard at Arthur, the shifting colors that made up his body, the ravine of scarred flesh down his face. “And you’ve had a rough night too, by the looks of you. And you’re a nutter now, obviously, which means you’ve been locked up somewhere and just got out, or you’ve gone wandering about on your own. Maybe you’re an absinthe jockey like myself, eh, Arthur? Do you like the green and sugar? And somehow you’ve come to think that you’re dead...” A thought just occurred to him. “You’re not playing with my head here, are you? It’s not a funny joke if you are.”

  “No. Sorry, Irlandais. No joke, I’m afraid.”

  “Well. That’s too bad, though looking at it objectively, I suppose it could be amusing. Now, seeing as how option two says you are mad, it behooves me to help an old friend. Get you safely back to the loony bin from which you’ve obviously fled. That sort of thing. Kids or no kids. Do the best I can for you.”

  “And option three?” Dermot stalled; that had sounded OK to him. “Option three?”

  “Now I don’t really like that one.”

  “Let’s hear it anyway.”

  “Option three is things are just exactly as you’ve said.”

  “Aha!”

  “That you’re a ghost and I’m not mad and that you’ve actually got two kids.”

  “Just so!”

  “But even if that were the case, I think that still makes me insane.”

  “Not so much insane. Difficult to accept, perhaps; courageous even; but not so much insane.”

  “I need another drink.” Dermot drained the remains of his glass and poured Arthur’s into his.

  “Come to Chaumont with me, Dermot. Help me make these things right for my children.”

  “Now, how could I do that?”

  “Tell my family about my boys for me, that’s all that I’m asking
from you.”

  “They’re going to believe me? A story about hidden children. Now you really are nuts.”

  “I have proof: their birth certificates! I hid them in the house.”

  “Judas’s arse.”

  “It’s easy.”

  “What a story. I’ve clearly gone off the deep end.”

  “Then think of it as I’m really here, and you’re just escorting me home.”

  That struck Dermot as better somehow, though none of this was going too well. Practicality occasionally smites a man who is well into his glasses, and Dermot sensed the time had come for him to lay his head down. Things, he thought, might seem a little clearer in the cold light of the morning.

  “How about we talk this over one more time at breakfast?” He was practically horizontal already.

  “An excellent idea. Can I take the floor?”

  But Dermot was already asleep. If Arthur had known, he’d have pitied Dermot, for it wasn’t a peaceful place. Sprawled out in the chair he was far away, back down in the tunnel again.

  6

  The Tunnel

  Dermot salvaged broken timber from the floor. Arthur had found a pry bar. They picked a spot in the roof that had collapsed on them a little, and there they clawed, struck, leveraged, and pulled, clearing what fell down on them back towards the mine face, and then returned to the roof once more.

  The plan was to keep their own end open as long as possible, in case rescue, by some unimaginable hope, did come for them. Dermot’s forearms and shoulders burned with the strain. He had long ago become numb to the unending fatigue from muscles held elevated above his head. They shielded themselves from whatever fell and then scraped and dug for more. They had nothing else, no other hope, and soon that was all that fueled them.

  Time slipped by. Arthur’s pocket watch, a tick tick tick without reference. Dermot found its persistence slowly picked away at his mind. The darkness was unending.

  “Above!” Dermot called the warning. He’d worked a rock free, and it dropped on them unexpectedly. It spilled off Dermot’s shoulder and must have hit Arthur. He heard him groan and fall to the ground. The watch fell silent.

  “Are you all right?” Dermot called down.

  “I’m fine.” There was the sound of broken glass being shaken. “That was a present,” he said.

  “I’ll get you another for your birthday.”

  The watch gone, time now passed unquantified, left to the imagination. Dermot found this disturbed him more, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  Sometime later, he called for a rest.

  “It’ll be a long go. Let’s pace ourselves.” He didn’t say anything more, their progress difficult to measure. He tried to visualize the dimensions of the room that encapsulated their existence. He fought down his growing despair. There was, by now, six inches of water in the tunnel and a thick viscous mud underneath it. Resting was uncomfortable, and the thought of sleep terrifying – to be swallowed whole, unexpectedly, and wake up with your choking lungs full of muddy water.

  The air about them grew heavy and foul, and Dermot was breathing hard to get it. Soon they were fighting for the depleted oxygen even when they rested. Dermot knew their time was fleeting.

  “Back at it, Lieutenant?”

  Dermot heard Arthur rise up, felt the stale thick air move around him. His friend’s large hand found his shoulder.

  “Dermot, I may die here,” Arthur said slowly. “And if that happens I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “You don’t love me, do you, Frenchy? It’s been worrying me something terrible.”

  “You’re a good sort, Dermot Ward, but not my type. But I do have a favor to ask of you.”

  Dermot heard the change in Arthur’s tone, the resignation. It saddened him. “Go on,” he encouraged.

  “If we don’t get out... if I don’t get out, I need you to...”

  There was a second in which the whistle was audible, very faint and behind them.

  “Down!” Dermot yelled, and they dropped into the muddy pool just as the whole earth shook around them. The explosion bucked Dermot like a mule. The roof ripped from the ceiling. Dazed and stunned, Dermot turned onto his back, shaken and uncomprehending. Blurred shapes swirled in front of his face that were now becoming clearer.

  “I can see. Arthur. I can see!” Dermot looked up at the hole, his fingers moving and stretching before him. A ray of light silhouetted his hand. He felt a splash of runoff or rain. “Arthur? Arthur!”

  Dermot pulled at him, dragged him up out the water, and lifted his head clear. He was rewarded with a heaving splutter as the big man caught his breath. Arthur coughed and choked, clearing his mouth of the dirty water that had collected in his throat. He gasped to regain his breath. “Dermot.” He spoke too loudly then cradled his head in pain. “My ear!”

  “You’re OK, you’re OK.” Dermot soothed him down, although he saw the trickling blood and knew immediately that Arthur had ruptured an eardrum. He could see! “Don’t worry, your hearing will clear. If you can hear me at all, it’ll clear. Well, probably... It doesn’t matter, Arthur,” he continued quickly. “We’re out, Frenchy! You lucky bastard. Did you hear me? I said we’re out!”

  “Out?” Arthur cast about, as if aware all of a sudden that he was able to use his eyes again. “What was that? What happened? Another shell?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe, but I think it came from back there.” He thumbed at the direction of the cave-in. “I think they’re trying to get us out or kill us in the attempt.” Dermot was all cheer.

  “And the hole?”

  “We must have gotten pretty close to the surface, and then that last blast loosened it up. There’s light, Arthur, which means there is air. We’re safe. We’re going to get out! Jesusing Mary, I never thought. I’m going up for a look.”

  “Wait a second,” Arthur gripped his arm. “Why don’t we just stay here instead? Wait for them to get through to us?”

  “Are you nuts?” Dermot shook him off. “Who knows how long they’ll take? Another hour? A day? And this place isn’t safe by a long shot.” He looked up at the ceiling as if to prove his point. The danger he’d envisioned in the dark was now confirmed by the penetrating light. “No, I tell you, we’re both getting out of here right away. Pack your bags, big man, it’s been a lovely time and all, but I think we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

  Dermot shimmied back up the tight chimney they’d painstakingly carved out together. The light went out for Arthur beneath as Dermot filled the chimney.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for night and cover?”

  “Maybe.” Dermot’s voice was muffled as he squirmed forward, widening the opening with his arms. “I’ll only take a peek.”

  He had to writhe and wriggle but at last he was out, reborn from inside the earth’s hot womb into a brand new world. Only it wasn’t. It was a familiar world of wire and bodies, of mud and freezing rain. He was on the side of a large crater – thankfully not the bottom. It was a lake down there, and had they come up under it they would certainly have been drowned. Dermot sank to his hands and knees. He drank deeply from the clean well of air like a straggler who’d reached an oasis, a man who thought he’d reached his end and couldn’t quite believe it was real. He felt the unnerving sensation of falling, falling back into an ocean of space with the open air around him. He fought against the tears that ran from his eyes, and took a second to collect himself.

  He’d been gone, he knew it. He’d given himself up for dead. It was only for Arthur that he’d kept it together, too ashamed to show him his fear. Soiled from the mud and the dirt of the hole, Dermot sank to his knees and he prayed.

  “What’s it like?” It was Arthur’s voice from below, the only answer he heard.

  “Lovely. You should see what they’ve done with the place. Come on up, it’s all clear.”

  Dermot, keeping low, lifted a German rifle from a boy who wouldn’t be needing it, and crept up to the crater’s edge. He inched
forward, writhing on his belly, until at last he peered over the rim.

  At first he didn’t quite understand what he was looking at; it took a few seconds to comprehend. “Bastarding Jesus, this can’t be happening.” He watched for a short time more, judging the wind and direction. But it was. “Jesus, Mary. No.”

  A noise behind him distracted him and Dermot reluctantly turned. He turned in time to see Arthur emerge from out of their tiny hole. Turned in time to watch Arthur stretch to ease his knotted cramp. Turned to see Arthur stand tall, his long bony arms held high. Dermot turned too late to stop him.

  “Arthur, get down, you fool!”

  The bullets came from behind Arthur where the German trenches lay. Arthur whirled, sent tumbling to the ground, as Dermot shot wildly in reply. He saw no-one, firing blindly only to keep heads down. He scrambled over, frantic now, until he reached Arthur’s side.

  “Christ, you stupid bastard! Look what the hell you’ve done!”

  Arthur lay gasping, stunned by the shock. His mouth was open as if trying for sound that seemed unable to form.

  “Christ, you’ve taken one.” Dermot could see the mess. “Jesus. Maybe more.”

  “Go! You go,” Arthur managed, forcing the words, as he clutched his own arm tightly.

  More shots, but overhead. Dermot let off a couple in reply to give them something to think about, and then he dropped the rifle down the hole.

  “What did you do that for?” Arthur still had the sense to wonder.

  “Things aren’t good. We’re going back down.”

  “They’ll find us. There’s no point. You’ve got to run.”

  “They’ll not be looking for us pretty soon, they’ll have other things to worry about.” Dermot grabbed Arthur by the shoulders and lifted, pulling him a few feet, his boots dragging in the mud. The Lieutenant let out an ungodly scream when Dermot touched his shattered arm. “Sorry about that, Français, can’t be helped.” Arthur had almost blacked out. “Christ, you’re bastarding heavy.” He heaved. He’d got Arthur’s feet into the hole.

  “Why?” Arthur stammered. “Why go back down?” Anyone would know their cave was a deathtrap – one grenade would finish them off. But Arthur had seen Dermot’s face and was clearly scared by what he saw: Dermot was crying. “What is it, Irlande? What’s going on?”