The Dark Palace--Murder and mystery in London, 1914 (38 page)

‘How can the world allow such horror?'

‘The world does not know,' said Diaz. ‘One day I tell the world. I make film. I was there. The soldiers not see me. I film it all. One day, the world will see my film. The world will know the truth.'

She thought of Paul. Of his sad, lonely death. Paul had always seemed to have a connection with Diaz. Perhaps he had sensed the Chilean's suffering, and experienced a feeling of kinship. ‘Has Berenger seen your film?'

Diaz nodded. ‘It is not finish. But some parts of it I show him. He very sad. I hope not my film make him …'

‘When did he see it?'

‘Today. I show him today.'

And she had gasped to hear that. Had the film played a part in pushing Paul over the edge? ‘I wish to see it,' she had said. She had to know.

She had not wanted to spend the night in the Savoy. No, not there, not in the room next to Paul's. So Diaz had taken her back to their digs in Islington, giving up his bed for her, while he topped and tailed with his nephew.

She lay in the strange bed, staring up through the strange darkness, lost, alone, adrift. She tried to imagine the scenes that Diaz had described to her, the film she had not yet seen, projected on the ceiling. But they were scenes beyond imagining. And they chased away any more comforting images. She tried to conjure an image of her mother. Her failure only served to remind her how far from home she was. How far from home she always would be.

And what was strangest, perhaps, was that it did not occur to her to be afraid.

M
acadam took the intersection of Pentonville Road and Islington High Street at a reckless lick. The narrow Model T banked and tipped. For a moment, Quinn was convinced that two of the car's wheels left the road. He instinctively leaned his body against the tilt, as did the be-goggled Macadam in the front. The car righted itself with a bouncing thump. For no good reason, Macadam sounded the horn, as if another driver were to blame for the car's temporary imbalance.

Quinn looked out and saw the looming bulk of the Angel Hotel sweep by, blotting out the sun in its course. A great brown edifice of substance and mass, it was impossible to conceive of anything less seraphic. And yet it floated past, as if borne away from him on invisible wings of celestial energy.

Soon they were bumping along Upper Street. The conch-like entrance to the abandoned Porrick's Palace drew his attention. He watched its concavity rotate and vanish as they left it behind.

The address that Hartmann had given him was a rundown property in Almeida Street. Macadam stood in his driving goggles as they waited for the door to be opened, watching Quinn with an inscrutable gaze.

‘What is it, Macadam?'

‘I am concerned, sir.'

‘You needn't be. Not on my account. If that's what you mean.'

‘I seem to remember that one of the knives in my pal's collection was of Chilean origin. A rather vicious-looking hooked blade it had, somewhat like a crow's beak. If memory serves me right, the weapon is called a
corvo
.'

‘I see.'

‘Funny how these things come back to you.'

‘I don't know what I would do without you, Macadam.'

‘I do hope you will be careful, sir. In all respects.'

The door was finally answered by a mildly inebriated middle-aged woman who somehow reminded Quinn of Miss Dillard. He looked into her eyes in the hope of seeing something miraculous there. But they were a murky green colour and stared him down without compassion or intelligence.

Quinn informed her who they were and why they were there. The woman answered that she had seen ‘the funny little foreigners' go out.

‘Was there a woman with them?' Quinn asked urgently. ‘You would have noticed her. She is the most extraordinarily beautiful woman you will ever have seen.'

Yes, now that she came to think about it, there had been someone with them, quite possibly a female. Though she couldn't say for certain that it had been the most extraordinarily beautiful woman she had ever seen.

So there was hope. They had gone out less than an hour ago. Eloise was still alive less than an hour ago. She could still be alive now.

‘Where do you think they've taken her, sir?'

Everything depended on his being able to answer that question.

‘Look like they were goin' on a picnic, if you arsk me,' said the woman.

‘A picnic? Why do you say that?'

‘Well, one of them was carrying this big pie. Leastways I think it was a pie. It was a big round tin. I don't know what else you would put in it if it warn't a pie!' A burst of gin-scented laughter erupted from a mouth of high gums and sparse teeth.

Macadam climbed into the driver's seat after cranking the engine. ‘Where to now, sir?'

‘That wasn't a pie, was it, Macadam?'

‘I would say it was not, sir.'

‘A reel of film perhaps?'

‘My thoughts exactly, sir.'

‘What might you have in mind if you are carrying a reel of film?'

‘It could be that they intend to show the film?' suggested Macadam.

‘And to show a film, you need …?'

‘A projector?'

‘Very good, Macadam.'

‘And for a projector, you might be advised to go to …'

‘A picture palace?'

‘Quite so. But if you wanted to show the film somewhere quiet, somewhere where you might not be disturbed? Let's say you had other ideas in mind. Ideas of a criminal bent.'

Macadam didn't answer the question, except to nod his be-goggled head decisively.

‘S
hould I get your uncle? Should I get Diaz?' There was a desperate edge to her voice now, the necessity of fear at last making itself felt.

But before Inti could answer, if indeed he had any intention of answering, a beam of swirling light shot out from the back of the auditorium.

She was compelled to watch. There was some simple physical law at work. If you cast a luminous image into the darkness, people near it will look towards it. They will feel their heart enlarged by the potential for drama and escape that it promises. Until the horror of what you are showing dawns.

The opening shot was of a sign: La Escuela Santa Maria de Iquique. This cut to a wider shot, which showed the same sign in the centre of a low, strung-out building. A stream of people were converging on the school, and filing in through the main entrance. The sequence continued for some time. The people kept arriving, and disappearing inside the school. The men were all hatted. Some appeared dressed in their best clothes, as if for church. Though many, the majority in fact, were covered in little more than rags, some even bare-chested. Their wives and children were with them.

Now the camera was looking down from a higher viewpoint, presumably from the roof of the school, on to a huge, massing crowd packed densely into an enclosed square. Eloise could make out the hatted heads of men in the crowd, bobbing and stirring. There was an air of expectancy. Movement was limited and everyone seemed to be facing the same way, as if they were waiting to be addressed.

The film cut to a different camera angle. Diaz was down on the ground now, among the crowd. Faces looked resolutely into the camera. No one was smiling, but they were not dejected. There was a patient dignity to their stance, which even the children shared, for, yes, there were children there too. Some, the smallest, ran heedlessly between the adults' legs. But the older ones stared with the same calm defiance into the lens. She looked to see if she could recognize Inti among the crowd, but then remembered he would have been a lot younger. Diaz had told her last night that he was ten when the film was made.

A sequence of shots emphasized the vastness of the crowd. There must have been tens of thousands of people jammed into that school yard. They were penned in like cattle.

The camera angle changed back to the original high viewpoint. There was a stir of agitation in the crowd. The boaters on the heads of some of the men bobbed more rapidly. A flow of bodies began, away from the direction they had been looking, but had nowhere to go. The movement became frantic, and frustrated. It was like watching a pan come to the boil. The camera shifted slightly on its tripod, revealing the entry of a detachment of soldiers, led by an officer on horseback.

The soldiers were armed with machine guns. A cannon was wheeled in behind them.

The soldiers drew up in formation and raised their sinister black guns towards the crowd. A small ball of death was tipped into the barrel of the cannon.

If the crowd was meant to disperse at the sight of this threat, it was difficult to see how they could. Diaz's establishing shots had made it clear that there was nowhere to go. The soldiers were blocking the exit. The land they were on was enclosed by buildings on every side.

There was, of course, no sound with the film. But it was clear when the soldiers began firing. The people began to fall.

They fell, not one by one, but in groups, tens at a time. In a few short minutes, the field of people was devastated. Bodies lay everywhere on the ground. Those that had not fallen ran, in a blind, desperate panic. Some continued to fall. Whether because they had tripped over the bodies on the ground or because the soldiers were still firing, it was impossible to say. At any rate, they did not get up. Or move.

The film ran out. The empty beam continued to cut through the darkness.

Eloise struggled to breathe. The auditorium seemed suddenly to be devoid of air.

There were footsteps. Diaz was at her side, speaking. ‘At this point, I could crank the camera no more. I packed it up and ran off before the soldiers saw me. It is impossible to know how many of the miners and their families were killed, because the authorities did not acknowledge their deaths, not a single one. Some say three thousand. It is a figure I can believe. The soldiers gathered up the bodies and threw them into a mass grave under cover of darkness. Among the dead were Inti's father – my brother – and the rest of his family, his mother, two younger brothers and a sister. Inti only survived because he pretended to be dead. He too was thrown into the pit with the dead. He lay there among the corpses and waited until the soldiers had gone before he climbed out. Our government ordered its own soldiers to fire on its people to protect the interests of a few foreign nitrate companies.'

‘I am so sorry.'

‘You are not responsible. But your friend, Herr Hartmann … he must bear some responsibility. And that is why … Inti …'

There was a stirring in the darkness. The sound of something being sloughed off. A sudden merciless glint curved up from the boy's hand.

‘He saw what no child should ever have to see. He saw his family gunned down. Those dearest to him. The ones he loved. How can we imagine what this felt like for a child of ten? It is a wonder his eyes were not poisoned by the sight. He lost everything that day.'

‘I will speak to Oskar. He will—'

‘He cannot put things right, if that is what you were going to say. There is no way to put this right, my dear lady.'

‘He will help you finish your film. The world will know about this. I know Oskar. He is a good man. He would not have wanted this. He would not have allowed it, if he had known. He will help you.'

‘I am not a fool. People here are not interested in my film. They are not interested in the deaths of three thousand miners seven years ago in a far-off land. The film will not make them interested. War is coming. They will need nitrate for their bombs. They do not care about the men who toil under the baking sun to dig it out of the ground. They do not care that the men were paid in tokens, not money. That they can only use those tokens to buy expensive commodities from the company shops. That the companies refuse to pay for half the nitrate they dig up because they say it is substandard, but they still use it because all they have to do is refine it a little. People do not care about any of this. They will not watch my film. They will not take notice.'

‘We must find a way to
make
them take notice,' urged Eloise.

‘Oh, we have found a way, my dear. Inti has found a way. It is good that you have been able to see my film. We did not get a chance to show it to Dolores. She did not understand why we must do this. Why we must make the men responsible know what he has lost.'

Something snapped in the darkness, then snapped again. Eloise realized these were the sounds of gunshot.

She felt a hand clamped over her mouth, felt herself dragged from her seat and pulled towards something hard and hot. Felt the prick of something sharp and unrelenting touch the skin of her neck.

‘L
et her go!' Quinn held out his revolver at arm's length. He peered along the sight. It was hard in this gloom to get a clear view of the one holding her, the boy. The danger was, of course, that he might fire and hit Eloise.

But he could see the viciously crooked knife at her throat. He had to do something.

‘
It's over. There's nowhere for you to go. Killing her won't save you. It will only make things worse.'

‘She must die.' The boy's voice cracked with emotion. There was an almost pleading tone to his words, as if he was not sure that what he said was true and needed confirmation. He looked to his uncle, imploring him with his eyes. Quinn thought he could see the trails of tears, silvered by the fall of light from the projector's beam.

‘No.' Quinn's authoritative negation drew Inti's gaze. The boy was just a child. He would do whatever he was told. ‘Why do you say that, Inti? Why must she die?'

Inti again looked to his uncle.

It was Diaz who answered for him. ‘She must die because of the massacre of the Escuela Santa Maria de Iquique. In 1907, thousands of striking nitrate miners and their families were slaughtered by soldiers of the Chilean state. Why was this done? It was done for men like Hartmann. My nephew's family was killed for Oskar Hartmann. Now he will know what it is to lose the most precious thing in his life. I am sorry, Eloise. It must be.'