The Dark Palace--Murder and mystery in London, 1914 (20 page)

The thing was the fellow was dead and it was a terrible, unfortunate accident. But there was nothing he could do about it now. And no amount of soul-baring and hair-shirt-wearing was going to bring him back.

So why did he still wake in a cold sweat from dreams of crackling flames and choking smoke?

Once, waking in the grey dawn, with the din of the morning chorus chiding him, he had seen Ted Lapidus's charred body lying across the foot of his bed. The image had quickly resolved itself into the crumpled sheets kicked down to the bottom of the bed. But that first vision had printed itself indelibly on to his memory. It was with him always, now. A dim shadow lurking behind more pressing preoccupations: the need to keep the punters coming in, to raise cash, to ward off the City regulators, to get the new production with Waechter under way, at all costs to keep the celluloid frames flying through the gate of his projection machines … But no matter how many distractions he sought, no matter how many other flickering images he layered over it, it was always there. The dark inert shape of a man's flame-blackened body.

The thing was … the only thing was … A drink. He needed another drink. ‘How much further, Novak?'

‘Not far now, Porrick, old chap.'

One of the things Porrick hated about the Yank was his phony way of affecting an English accent.

‘I just want to make a quick stop at our little pied à terre.'

And now he was indulging in phony French. ‘You have a pied à terre?'

‘We do. We find it awfully convenient.'

‘And where is your country seat?'

‘Haw haw! Very funny, Porrick. You got me there, all right! Country seat … I like it. All right, you got me. This ain't so much a pied à terre as a bolt hole. We all need a place to lie doggo from time to time.'

‘Who do you need to hide from, Novak?'

‘You got me wrong, Porrick, old bean. But sometimes you need a place to do some thinking … You unnerstand? You might find yourself in a tight situation one day. I'd be more than happy to put the place at your disposal.'

Porrick was beginning to have more of a sense of his surroundings. He realized that they had just turned into Dean Street. The window of an Italian restaurant drew his interest. The diners inside appeared happy in the candle glow. A warm smell of food seeped from the open door, where a waiter stood enticing passersby with a wide smile and a constant stream of patter. He offered a rose to every woman that passed.

‘I say, Novak, what about a bite to eat?'

‘Of course, yes. But first … it's just here, old chap. Come up for a moment and have a snifter. I just need to pick up some money, then I'll stand you some dinner.'

They came to a door a few paces on from the restaurant.

Novak grinned sheepishly as he put his key in the lock. ‘I say, you're not going to be a prude, are you, old chap? If you're going to be a prude, we won't have any fun at all.'

The narrow stairwell smelled of every variety of fungal rot. Porrick stumbled in the dark. He heard a sharp hiss from Novak, shushing him urgently. It struck him as odd that the Yank should be so considerate of his neighbours. But he did not have time to draw any definite conclusions as to why it should be.

It struck him as odd, too, that the door had been left open, as if there was someone already inside the flat, someone who was expecting them.

A
s soon as the lights went on, and the heaving naked male arse was revealed in the blazing glare of electricity, Porrick understood everything.

The arse carried on pumping for a moment. It was an ugly, dispiriting sight. A stark, pale obscenity moving with brutal energy in the shabbiest rented room imaginable.

Novak's startled oath – ‘What the devil?' – was enough to bring Lord Dunwich (Porrick remembered his name as soon as he saw his face) to his feet, his sorry aristocratic member bobbing disconsolately, before drooping and shrinking rapidly. His lordship grabbed a cushion and held it in front of him.

The woman, Novak's wife of course, pulled her skirt down and sat up in the bed. Her expression might have puzzled an observer who didn't fully grasp the situation. A mixture of annoyance and boredom. She all but rolled her eyes at her husband.

She retrieved a cigarette from the bedside table and lit it. Soon, she was wholly preoccupied by the pleasures of smoking.

‘Now, it's not what it seems!' pleaded Lord Dunwich. Porrick had to laugh at that. Despite his loathing for Novak and his wife, he had little sympathy for Dunwich.

‘On the contrary, Lord Dunwich, it's crystal clear what's going on here,' said Novak.

‘I didn't know …'

‘You didn't know she was my wife?'

Porrick noticed a flicker of a smile on Dolores Novak's face. Lord Dunwich had his back to the woman, so he missed this hint of collusion between husband and wife.

Novak showed no sign of registering his wife's amusement. ‘Please, Lord Dunwich, don't insult me. Don't add a lie to the offence you've already committed.'

‘No, no. I wasn't going to say that. I knew. I admit I knew. It's just that I didn't think you minded, you see.'

‘Not mind? Why would you think I wouldn't mind? Because you're an aristocrat? You forget, I'm an American. We don't acknowledge
droit du seigneur
in America.'

Mrs Novak tossed her hair appreciatively.

‘I honestly thought you film people were more lax about these things. I thought you and Dolores had an understanding. Look … may I put my trousers back on? I feel that I'm at something of a disadvantage.'

‘You shoulda oughta thoughta that before you took 'em off!'

His wife's tongue licked out, as if to taste the acrid flavour of her husband's histrionic ire.

Porrick had had enough of this. ‘Let him put his trousers on, Novak. I for one am not very comfortable with him undressed like that. In fact, I think I should step outside.'

‘Now look what you done! You've upset my friend, Mr Porrick!' Porrick felt his lip curl at Novak's bogus protests. He resented being dragged into the sordid affair.

‘Actually, come to think about it … it's probably time for me to go home.'

‘You stay where you are, Porrick. I want you to bear witness to this man's … depravity!'

Dolores Novak lifted her head self-righteously, as if she were the innocent party.

‘Steady on, Novak. You're rather overdoing it, you know. After all, didn't you say to me …'

Novak cut him off with hasty indignation. ‘Overdoing it? Would you say that if you caught some bounder in flagrante delicto with Mrs Porrick?'

Porrick was momentarily distracted by the unlikelihood of this possibility.

‘My dear fellow.' The smooth, soothing confidence in Lord Dunwich's voice was the sound of a man mentally reaching for his wallet. ‘I'm most dreadfully sorry about this whole unfortunate misunderstanding. I quite,
quite
understand your being in a funk about it.' It was also the voice of a man used to paying for his pleasures – not to mention buying his way out of trouble.

‘I ought to whip you like a dog.' Novak turned his stagy ire on his wife. ‘And as for you, you she-devil …'

Her eyes widened theatrically. She snarled back at him. She was evidently enjoying herself greatly.

‘Now listen here, you mustn't take it out on Mrs Novak. Do what you must to me, but please, leave Dolores out of it.'

‘I'm an American!' declared Novak proudly. ‘You can't tell me what to do!'

‘I wouldn't dream of telling you what to do. But perhaps we can find some way to … effect a suitable form of restitution.'

It had all been engineered with the utmost skill, Porrick had to give the Yank that. But it was despicable all the same. He'd been responsible for a few windy schemes himself over the years. But nothing as blackguardly as this. He was in two minds whether or not to blow the gaff. He did not care to look too closely into what prevented him. He discounted a dim presentiment that the situation might turn out to be to his advantage. If that did turn out to be the case, he could at least excuse himself by arguing that he had done nothing to bring it about. He was not actively complicit in Novak's blackmail scheme. (Oh, it was pretty clear to him that this was something Novak and his wife had cooked up between them.) And as far as he was concerned, Lord Dunwich had brought it on himself.

Porrick had to admit that Novak had chosen his third-party witness well. Of course, he needed someone else there, because otherwise Lord Dunwich would have been able to say that it was just one man's word against another's. And the aristocrat's word would always be preferred over a seedy Yank with Serbian antecedents. But his choice of Porrick – a man he knew to be in financial difficulties and to have few moral scruples – revealed Novak's instinctive talent for exploiting human weaknesses. Porrick smiled ruefully.

Novak seemed to sense which direction Porrick's thoughts had taken. ‘All I can say is I'm sorry you had to see this, Porrick.'

‘As am I,' said Lord Dunwich.

Porrick was suddenly aware that he had sobered up entirely. His head was marvellously clear as he began to calculate the best way to play this.

‘Perhaps it's better if you do go home. And leave his lordship and me to sort this out between ourselves. Man to man.'

Porrick pursed his lips, then nodded. ‘Yes. I've seen enough here.'

If he understood a man like Novak at all, he was sure he would use his advantage to touch Lord Dunwich for more than one compensatory contribution. He would become a veritable leech. So, for now, the best thing was to let Novak do his worst. The time would come when his intervention – for either party, or even for both – would reap the maximum dividends.

And now he understood at last why he had conceived such an instinctive antipathy towards Novak. The man reminded him too much of himself.

‘I'll go then,' he said. ‘But for God's sake let him put his trousers back on.'

The gleaming, raw gratitude in Lord Dunwich's eyes both touched and shamed him. As soon as he saw it he knew that he had the peer in his grip. And he knew too that he would not balk from exploiting that power to the full.

Against his better judgement, he glanced one last time at the woman on the bed. She was brushing specks of ash from her skirt. An arch of odious complacency was described in one eyebrow. She knew, as did her husband, that he would play his part exactly as they had predicted. They knew they could count on Porrick to do the base thing, if that was what his interests required.

He fled the shabby rented room in haste, as if he were fleeing the worst part of his own nature.

G
eorge Bittlestone's step slowed as he approached the entrance to the Middlesex Hospital on Mortimer Street.

It was all very well for Lennox. He claimed to be a newspaper man – and all right, he had a sound instinct for the angle that would sell. That was because he was a businessman first, and a newspaperman second. Put a notebook in his hand and send him out on the streets in the night looking for a story, and he wouldn't have a clue where to start.

After all, you couldn't very well just walk through the front door and march up to the admittance desk and demand to see the girl who had had her eye gouged out.

If she was there, every member of the staff would know about it. Equally, they would do everything in their power to keep you away from her.

He carried on walking past the hospital, the railings of the hospital's courtyard to his right. The courtyard was quiet and badly illuminated: a shadowed expanse on the other side of which the hospital lights twinkled and glowed, beacons to the infirm.

Of course! That was it! The one sure way to gain admittance to where she was.

He saw ahead of him the lights of a public house. If his memory served him right, it was The George, a popular haunt of the musical and literary sets of Fitzrovia. There was a chance he might bump into someone he knew, which would be inconvenient, but not disastrous. He didn't see any way of achieving his goal without calling in. For one thing, he needed a fair dosing of Dutch courage for what he had in mind.

The George was heaving. He could only imagine that the performance had just finished at the nearby Queen's Hall and the place was packed with concert-goers and musicians. He believed he could discern a musical lilt to the laughter, an exuberant delight that he felt was in keeping with an evening of symphonic appreciation.

When he eventually got served, he ordered a large whisky from the barmaid. She was a young chit of a girl, dead on her feet, with dark smudges of exhaustion under her eyes. He held the glass up to the light. It was clean enough to the naked eye, and no doubt the alcohol would prove beneficial on that score. He downed the contents in one gulp and pushed through the crowd, sheltering his empty glass against his chest like a fairground prize.

He took the glass outside.

Very well. The easy part was done. He had formed the intention. He had acquired the means. Now he had to carry it through.

He held the glass up to his face and ran the rim of it along his forehead.

Yes, somewhere there. Above his eyes.

But not the forehead. No.

He was going for immediate spectacle, rather than permanent disfigurement. No story was worth that.

He dashed the glass against the wall. The distinctive brittle explosion of sound interrupted the flow of joviality inside the pub. There were noises of mock solicitude and then laughter. The smashing of a glass was a trivial catastrophe after all.

In the glow from the pub windows, Bittlestone could see the jagged edge of the broken glass in his hand. He felt suddenly nauseous. A familiar, safe, useful object – a vessel for containing liquid – had been transformed into a dangerous weapon.