A Gathering of Saints Read online

  Black swallowed again and cleared his throat. ‘Presumably this has something to do with my investigation.’

  ‘Yes.’ Spilsbury nodded. ‘We believe it does.’

  ‘His name is Eddings,’ said Liddell, taking out a well-used pipe and a box of matches. He lit the pipe and puffed, staring down at the body on the table. ‘Merchant seaman, twenty-three years old. His papers, National Registration Card and passport were on his person when he was discovered.’

  ‘Discovered where?’ asked Black, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. If the body in front of him really did connect with his investigation then that investigation was being interfered with by Liddell, and obviously with Spilsbury’s blessing.

  ‘Portsmouth. Stonehouse Backs to be precise. In what the local constabulary politely referred to as a “lodging house.” Place called the Ant and Bee. Well known, apparently.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This morning. There was a raid in Portsmouth last night. A lot of incendiaries. A fire at the Ant and Bee. At first they thought it was from the bombings—’

  Spilsbury was bent over Eddings’s body, poking away at the cooked flesh around the nostrils with a long metal tool. ‘An incendiary would have caused more generalised burning,’ he said. ‘From the preliminary report it would also seem that the fire was localised in the room occupied by Eddings.’ Black looked away quickly as part of Eddings’s face crumbled under pressure from the pathologist’s hand. Spilsbury continued, unperturbed, bending low and delicately blowing away the ash obscuring his field of view. He sniffed, his wide nostrils flaring. ‘Phosphorus, that’s clear enough,’ he muttered. ‘Something else as well. Thermite.’ He stood, wincing slightly and putting one splayed hand over the small of his back.

  ‘So it was an incendiary,’ said Liddell.

  Spilsbury nodded painfully. ‘Yes. A homemade device.’ He grunted.

  ‘But it wasn’t the cause of death,’ said Black.

  ‘No.’ Spilsbury shook his head. ‘The X rays I had taken show a projectile lodged between the second and third cervical vertebrae, just as before.’

  ‘Queer Jack,’ said Black.

  ‘Who?’ asked Liddell.

  ‘A name he’s been given,’ said Black, embarrassed by the slip.

  ‘Good enough for the time being.’ Liddell smiled, his face wreathed in smoke from his pipe. Black was thankful for the masking smell of the tobacco.

  ‘I would have liked to have seen the body in situ,’ said Black, frowning. More interference from above; first Spilsbury and Purchase at the Talbot scene, now Spilsbury again and Liddell. It was more than simply irritating; it was suspicious. Trying to ignore his rising annoyance, Black tried to concentrate on the job at hand. He glanced at the cadaver then looked back up at Spilsbury. ‘He was naked, like the other two?’

  ‘Yes. Sitting in a chair close to a window. If you look, you can detect ligature marks on the wrists and ankles.’

  ‘He was bound?’ That was something new.

  ‘Postmortem,’ said Spilsbury. ‘Just enough to keep him upright in the chair.’

  ‘Like a display at Madame Tussaud’s,’ put in Liddell. Black turned and looked at the tweed-suited man. The anonymous intelligence officer had the air of a mildly condescending schoolmaster.

  Black held himself in check again; Cornish had been nothing more than an errand boy, relaying the order for him to come here. Liddell, whoever he was and whomever he represented, clearly had powerful connections, and this was neither the time nor the place for Black to make a stand; better to find out what he was up against before stepping out of bounds.

  Black turned back to the pathologist. ‘Is there anything else to connect him with Rudelski and Talbot?’

  Spilsbury nodded and crooked a finger in Black’s direction, motioning him towards the examination table and its horrid cargo. Gathering himself together, the detective stepped forward. Spilsbury lifted up Eddings’s right wrist. A narrow blackened area zigzagged around the otherwise unblemished skin, banding the wrist like a tattooed bracelet.

  ‘Quite ingenious,’ said Spilsbury. ‘It was done using electrical current. Postmortem again, like the other wounds.’

  ‘This was found in the room at the Ant and Bee,’ said Liddell. He moved aside and picked up a large manila envelope from the counter behind him. He tipped it up and a length of electrical cord spilled out. One end of the flex had been stripped of its insulation and connected to a length of heavy wire, bent in the shape of the burn on Eddings’s wrist. The plug end was intact. Liddell held up the bent-wire end. ‘You see it?’

  Black looked, then nodded. ‘Yes, I see it.’ It was easier to spot than it had been on the dead man’s wrist – the wire, bent back and forth, formed a jagged row of Z’s, three of them. ‘He’s adding one for each victim.’

  ‘He’ll add one more,’ said Liddell. ‘ZZZZ. We’re almost certain of that.’

  ‘Really,’ Black answered flatly. ‘Perhaps you should tell me just who ‘we’ is, Captain Liddell, and why you’re so sure of what this man is going to do.’

  ‘Yes,’ Liddell said pleasantly. ‘I suppose I should at that. In due time.’ He turned to Spilsbury. ‘You’re all right here, Sir Bernard?’

  ‘Yes, yes, quite all right. Plenty yet to do. I’ll send you up my report tomorrow.’ The pathologist was now deeply engrossed in measuring the burn on Eddings’s wrist, using a pair of scaling calipers.

  ‘Good,’ Liddell said briskly. ‘We’ll be getting on then. If Tin Eye asks for more information about this you can refer him to me.’ Spilsbury nodded absently without looking up from his measurements. ‘Come along, Inspector Black, I’ll run you back to the city.’

  * * *

  Liddell drove Morris Black back into London, taking the eastern route through Brentwood and Hammersmith to avoid the inevitable traffic problems caused by the nightly bombings. Black waited for his companion to make his explanations but none were forthcoming and he wasn’t about to beg for information. They drove most of the way in silence.

  As they neared Shepherd’s Market, Black finally spoke. ‘Odd way to wage a war.’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘Without knowing who your enemies are, or your allies for that matter.’

  Liddell smiled blandly. ‘You sound a little put out.’

  ‘You might say that. Moonlight rides into the countryside. Anonymous assignations with members of nameless organisations. I cobble villains for a living, Captain Liddell, if that really is your name and rank. I’m not much for cloak-and-dagger games.’

  ‘It’s not a game, Inspector Black, I can assure you of that.’

  ‘Why is Secret Intelligence interested in my investigation?’

  ‘What makes you think I work for SIS?’

  ‘I don’t really care whom you work for, one way or the other. I do want to know why you’re putting your oar into Scotland Yard business.’ Black paused. ‘My business.’

  ‘I told you, Black, all in due time.’ Liddell pulled to the curb and threw the gearstick into neutral. The quiet burble of the idling engine was barely audible over the thump and thunder of the bombs exploding in the eastern end of the city. The sky was alive with the flaring light from bursting detonations and the rising fires. They were a block away from Black’s flat. ‘Close enough?’

  The detective nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘We should continue our little conversation under less unfortunate circumstances. Luncheon perhaps?’ Liddell paused. ‘Tomorrow. Grill Room at the Royal Palace.’ He smiled. ‘My treat of course.’

  Black nodded again. ‘All right.’ He pulled down on the door handle then turned back to Liddell. A shot in the dark, just to see how the tweedy little bastard reacted. ‘It’s because he knows, isn’t it?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s because he knows about the bombings.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Queer Jack. That’s why you’re interested, isn’t it? Because he knows wh
en the raids are going to come. You want to know how he manages it.’

  Liddell’s bland expression was a frozen mask. ‘What makes you think that?’ he asked quietly.

  Black smiled pleasantly. ‘The look on your face.’ He pushed open the door. ‘Good night, Captain.’

  ‘The Grill Room. Tomorrow.’

  The detective slammed the door and then stood on the pavement, watching as Liddell drove off. He’d touched a nerve and had at least one question answered. Good enough, at least for the moment. He turned and made his way cautiously through the passageway leading to Market Street, then stumbled through the darkness towards home, using the intermittent bomb flashes to guide him on his way. Except for the crumpled sound of the explosions and the moaning rise and fall of the sirens, the city was silent. Pausing in front of his building, Black brought the glowing dial of his wristwatch up to his eyes. Just past midnight – it had been a long day.

  He opened the door to his building, then turned, startled as a bomb exploded only a few blocks away, close enough for him to feel the shock wave pressing at his eardrums. The pavement shivered beneath his feet and windows rattled overhead.

  A single anomalous bomb or was the Luftwaffe shifting its sights away from the East End? He stood for a moment, heart beating hard in his chest, listening tensely. All around him the sirens wailed in terrible broken harmony, the sky lighting up beyond the chimney pots, clouds slashed in a blinding symphony of lurid pink and green.

  To reach the nearest refuge he’d have to make his way along White Horse Street and Shepherd Street to the large block of flats with the designated shelter for the area in its basement. A night awake surrounded by nervous, chattering strangers or a few hours’ rest in his own bed? He went up the stairs. He’d had enough of the world’s savagery; all he wanted now was the short-lived oblivion of sleep.

  That night he dreamed of Fay again, sitting by the window this time, painting quietly, her face lit up in brief flashes as the bombs fell and the city burned around her. In his dream Black prayed for the bombs to keep falling, keeping her face so brightly alive. Somewhere in the dream the face of his wife became the face of the woman he’d met on the train, and then, horribly, transformed itself into the charred, ruined corpse of Eddings, Queer Jack’s third victim, seated in Fay’s place, bound to her chair with wire, the ghastly, empty eye sockets draining down over the split and oozing jaws.

  Black awoke to utter silence just before the grey breaking of the dawn and wondered for a moment if the world had somehow ended while he slept or if he had gone mad. Outside, rain spattered against the bedroom window and on his cheeks he could feel the drying traces of his tears.

  Chapter Nine

  Friday, September 13, 1940

  10:30 a.m., British Summer Time

  Joan Miller had the taxicab drop her at the main entrance to the Botanical Gardens on Royal Hospital Road then travelled on foot the short distance back along the Chelsea Embankment to the rows of aristocratic town houses on Cheyne Walk and the narrow entrance to Cheyne Mews. There were two reasons for her discretion: Potts, the ex-Guardsman Max had taken on as a driver, was as much a watchdog as he was a chauffeur; and even now, after the better part of half a century’s acceptance, visiting a psychiatrist was still cause for embarrassment and even shame.

  The strikingly attractive brunette gripped the lapels of her long lamb’s-wool coat tightly as she made her way quickly along the pavement. There was no sun today; the sky was a dull shade of lead and a stiff breeze was blowing, ruffling the surface of the river to her left.

  The raid last night had been a bad one and the breeze was carrying the wet-ash stink of the still smouldering East End fires. Another smell was in the air as well, a darker, richer scent. The smell of an open grave.

  The young woman shivered and kept on. The Embankment was deserted and traffic was eerily absent except for the occasional taxi hurrying along, usually headed away from the city centre. Everything was silent except for the rustling of the trees above her and the faint, intermittent moaning of the sirens.

  The warning had been sounding regularly from the moment Potts let her off at Waterloo Station on the Lambeth side of the river but so far she’d heard no bombs. Perhaps the poor weather was keeping the Germans at bay for the moment. It wasn’t something she really worried about; there was as much chance of being bombed in the little house in Camberley as there was of being blown to bits on the Chelsea Embankment.

  So far the raids had scrupulously avoided any targets west of Charing Cross Road, still concentrating on the East End. Bombing by caste as Maxwell called it. Levelling the lower-class slums of Spitalfields and Shoreditch but leaving the upper-class confines of Mayfair alone. Not that it would last. If it went on long enough no one would be safe, at least that’s what Max said, and if anyone should know it was him.

  She turned down the narrow passage leading into the Mews and came out into a small-cobbled courtyard. Number 6 stood to her right, a tall Edwardian house in patterned brick and terracotta, much like the other homes in the prestigious riverside community. She felt herself relaxing for the first time since beginning the drive up through the Surrey countryside; she was alone.

  According to Dr Tennant, Numbers 1 to 5 were empty, abandoned by their wealthy owners for safer residences in the country, part of last year’s great exodus out of the city by anyone who could afford to leave. She walked across the courtyard, pressed the brass button to the right of the tall black door as she always did, then let herself in.

  She closed the door behind her, hung her coat on the ornately carved stand and went down the short hall to Dr Tennant’s office. The large, high-ceilinged room had a single, narrow window looking out onto the Mews. As usual the heavy curtains were pulled across the glass, the room lit by several softly glowing lamps.

  The exotic feel of the office always excited her. The thick, deep blue and gold Chinese carpet, the lacquered cabinets and the perfectly arranged collection of small, pre-Raphaelite paintings on the moiré silk walls were a far cry from the heavy Victorian furniture she’d grown up with and further still from Max’s plain, rustic tastes.

  At the far end of the room there was a large, black-lacquered table Dr Tennant used as a desk and a modest display of his diplomas and degrees was mounted on the wall behind his chair. Eton, Cambridge, the Vienna Institute of Psychiatry, McGill University in Montreal, Princeton and his framed commission as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. She sighed; Charles Tennant was barely ten years her senior yet he’d already seen and done so much with his life. Still a man’s world and likely to remain so.

  To the left and right of the desk, on flanking walls, there were floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with all the texts and tomes that were the totems of the psychiatrist’s art. In the four months of her relationship with Tennant she’d leafed through most of them while she waited for the doctor to come down from his upstairs flat.

  Freud, Jung and Adler, Otto Rank, Wilhelm Stekel and Sandor Ferenczi. Books by Franz Alexander of Berlin, Karl Abraham, Max Eitington, and Ernst Simmel. Wexberg’s Individual Psychology nestled beside Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. D. H. Lawrence cheek by jowl with Rollo May and Father Wilcott’s Catholic Thought and Modern Psychology. There was even a copy of Van de Velde’s Ideal Marriage. Representative, according to Dr Tennant, of his membership in what he called the ‘Eclectic’ school of psychiatry.

  ‘Hello, Joanna.’ She turned as Tennant came into the office. He was shorter than average, like Max, but dark, and darkly handsome, wearing a perfectly cut pinstripe suit and Eton tie with a cream-coloured silk shirt. His thick black hair was cut just a little longer than was stylish and his large, hazel eyes were ringed with a faint corona of gold that she found almost hypnotic. His voice had the same effect, a perfect baritone, accentless and almost ethereal.

  She flushed at the name he’d called her. Max didn’t have the slightest idea she was seeing a psychiatrist but she knew that his obsession with security demand
ed the false identity.

  So to Tennant she was Joanna Phipps and she had the documents to prove it. She hated the subterfuge but some things she couldn’t divulge, even here.

  ‘Hello Doctor.’

  ‘Charles, please, I’ve told you that.’

  He smiled, gestured with a small, perfectly manicured hand towards the leather-covered chaise to the right of his desk then seated himself. Joan lay down, letting her head drop gratefully against the back of the couch, arranging her long blue skirt around her ankles and placing her hands together on her lap. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, promising herself that she wouldn’t cry this time, although, God only knew, she had enough to cry about.

  ‘I heard the sirens,’ said Tennant, invisible behind her. ‘Raid still on then?’

  ‘Umm. False alarm, I think. I didn’t hear any bombs raining down.’

  ‘It was bad last night.’

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘Do you feel safe out in the country?’

  ‘I suppose I am. Lonely is a better word.’

  ‘Mr X not spending very much time with you, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor his wife, I suspect.’

  ‘No. Neither one of us. He came down for an hour or so last night and then he was away again.’

  ‘Any progress?’

  ‘With Mr X?’

  ‘Umm,’ Tennant murmured. Joan could feel him settling back into his chair, his eyes half-closing.

  ‘I suppose you mean sexually.’

  ‘Anything you’d like.’

  ‘I bet you say that to all your patients.’

  ‘I’m saying it to you.’ His voice was firm. Fatherly? No. Deeper than that and not so obviously Freudian. Caring. Or was that just wishful thinking? She could feel the familiar heat spreading out across her chest. A tight, heavy knot began to form below her stomach. The feelings she had for Max. The feelings she couldn’t express to him.

  ‘No progress.’