The Yeare's Midnight (24 page)

‘What now, then?’ His voice had quietened.

Julia was fired with confidence, as if a vast weight had been lifted. She was not going to hide any more. She took pride in her new-found self-belief. ‘Paul and I are going away for a week. Your bonfire last night made my mind up. Neither of us can cope with New Bolden or you any more.’

‘Ah, diddums.’

‘Paul is furious. He wants to report you, John. Report you to the Police Complaints Commission. I stopped him.’

‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’

‘No. You’re supposed to leave me alone. Why is that so difficult? You never usually have a problem with it.’

Silence.

‘Where are you going with him?’ asked Underwood eventually, as though the thought had finally hit home.

‘That’s none of your business, John.’

‘Of course not. Why should I care? You’re only my wife.’

‘I’m surprised you remember.’

‘Do you read the papers? Do you know what we’re going through? Some maniac is ripping women’s eyes out, smashing their skulls open. He nearly killed my sergeant this morning. Don’t you think I deserve some respect, a bit of fucking slack?’

‘That’s not my problem any more, John,’ said Julia.

‘Maybe I’ll send you the pictures. Tell you what, we’ll do swapsies: you send me your holiday snaps, and I’ll send you some tasteful shots of Lucy Harrington’s bathroom. That’ll give you and your boyfriend some food for thought.’ He hung up.

Julia dropped the phone and flopped back on the bed, exhausted. How many more phone calls like that would it take before this was over? The cottage in Norfolk suddenly seemed like the best idea in the world. Paul was right. ‘Bugger John’. Bugger his madness and his selfishness. The guilt was ebbing out of her. The phone call had reminded her of why she was leaving him. She was determined now, more than ever. When she next made love to Paul she would enjoy it all the more now, would give him more than she ever had before. She would scream her enjoyment into the night and hope that John Underwood heard every last gasping syllable.

Underwood smashed down his office phone. Fury burned within him, twisting and contorting his thoughts. He would show that polluted bitch and her ponce boyfriend, the poisonous little shit. He reached inside his drawer and withdrew his near-empty bottle of whisky. A large, hard gulp stopped his hand shaking.

The
Earth
depends
on
the
gravity
of
the
moon.
Without
it,
the
planet
would
topple,
its
axial
tilt
dangerously
exaggerated.
Wobbling
like
a
spinning
top,
plunged
into
eternal
winter.

Dexter appeared at the door, her head heavily bandaged. Heather Stussman was with her. Underwood slipped the bottle back into its hidey-hole and looked up. He even managed a half-smile as he gestured at them both to come in.

‘Hello, Heather.’ He hoped she couldn’t smell his breath.

‘John. How are you?’ She could.

‘You were right about the names, then,’ said Underwood. ‘Dexter almost got to Elizabeth Drury in time.’

‘In time to get beaten up,’ said Dexter unhappily.

‘I don’t feel very good about being right.’ Stussman seemed downbeat.

‘We’ve got a crime-team meeting in half an hour. It would be helpful if you attended,’ Underwood continued. ‘I should warn you, though, it won’t be pleasant. There’ll be the post-mortem report on the Drury woman and some nasty photographs, among other things.’

‘Not squeamish, are you, Doc?’ asked Dexter.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I’d like you to be there,’ said Underwood. ‘I might get you to say a few words about Donne. Now this is clearly a serial-killer investigation, we are going to get much more press attention. Be warned, the papers will find out about you and they will pester you. Try not to tell them anything.’

‘I understand.’

Dexter took over. She had found the crime scene and was not in the mood to stand on ceremony. ‘I found two separate pieces of poetry in the room where Elizabeth Drury was killed. The first was written on the ceiling: “For in a common bath of teares it bled, which drew the strongest vitall spirits out.”’ Dexter looked up at Stussman. ‘What’s all that about, then?’

‘It’s from “The First Anniversary”, Donne’s poem that commemorates the death of a girl called Elizabeth Drury. As I told John yesterday, she was the daughter of a rich landowner, Robert Drury, who was acquainted with Donne’s sister. Elizabeth died, aged fifteen, of some disease or other and Donne
wrote “The Anniversaries” to celebrate Elizabeth’s life and thereby to ingratiate himself with Sir Robert.’

‘What else?’ Dexter was terse. Her head was killing her.

‘“The First Anniversary” is really over the top, linguistically. Donne exalts Drury to the status of some quasi-celestial power. He depicts her as the essence of all that was good about humanity and maintains that only the presence of her spirit prevented the total corruption of the Universe. By her death, Donne said that the world had become a “carcass” devoid of hope and form. “
Shee,
shee is dead; shee’s dead: when thou
know’st
this,
Thou
know’st
how
ugly
a
monster
this
world is
.”’

‘When your killer called me today,’ Stussman continued, ‘he asked me when is the world a carcass? Twice, come to think of it.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Dexter. ‘“When is the world a carcass?” Dead, you mean?’

‘Yes. You see, Donne argues in the poem that the world ceased to retain its goodness following the death of Drury. Remember, he is trying to exalt her: “
And, oh, it can no more
be questioned that beautie’s best Proportion is dead
,”’ Stussman continued.

‘You mean because of the death of this woman, everything else in Donne’s world has lost its value?’ asked Dexter.

‘Be careful,’ said Stussman. ‘Remember that Donne never knew Elizabeth Drury personally. There is no real emotional engagement with this dead girl. In a way, she’s a means to an end. He is celebrating her in grandiose language, attaching a metaphysical significance to her death that he supposes will have repercussions for all humanity. The objective is to impress the dead girl’s father with Donne’s wit and magniloquence.’

‘Gotcha.’ Dexter’s mind was firing despite her headache; like a car engine racing and leaking oil at the same time. Perhaps the pain helped. The image of Dr Elizabeth Drury half-submerged in a bath of her own blood kept drifting across her consciousness.
A means to an end. No real emotional attachment to this girl,
Dexter mused.
To
whom,
then?

‘What was the other piece of text that you found?’ Stussman asked.

Dexter read aloud from her notebook. ‘Or if, when thou, the …’

‘…
World’s
soule
goest,
/
It
stay,
’tis
but
thy
carkasse
then,
/
The
fairest
woman
but
thy
ghost
/
But
corrupt
wormes,
the
worthiest
men
.’ Stussman finished the extract for her.

‘How did you know that?’ Dexter asked.

‘Your killer read it out to me over the phone this morning,’ said Stussman, shivering at the memory. ‘It’s from a poem called “A Feaver”. I brought it with me. It’s similar in its content to “The First Anniversary”: again, it refers to a sick woman and suggests that her death will rid the world of its last vestige of value.’ Stussman handed over the pages and read aloud:

‘It’s the same as “The First Anniversary”,’ said Dexter. ‘The world is a carcass because this girl is dead.’

From his crazy toppling orbit, Underwood watched her in amazement.

‘That knock on the head must have done you some good,’ he said.

Stussman ignored the joke. ‘There are two other things. First, Donne again compares the woman with celestial forces like he did with Elizabeth Drury in “The First Anniversary”. In the penultimate verse, he says her fevers are “but meteors”: transitory, inconsequential things in comparison with her beauty which is an “unchangeable firmament”. The woman is a timeless wonder, like the universe itself. I think your killer is a bit of an amateur astronomer.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Underwood asked. This was a specific. Specifics got people caught. Like Julia.

‘A number of Renaissance writers tried to incorporate scientific ideas of the time in their works. Developments in astronomy and other sciences had significant religious repercussions and, as such, contributed to the uncertainties of the time. The man who called me this morning asked me if I could hear the music of the spheres.’

‘The what?’ This was a new one on Underwood. The last week had been full of surprises.

‘Ancient philosophers believed that the planets each made a different noise depending on their relative distance from the Earth. Just like the length of a string on a guitar determines its pitch. They believed that the music of the spheres was the most beautiful sound in the universe. Your killer thinks he can hear music from the planets. He asked me if I could too.’

‘Can you?’ asked Underwood.

‘Of course not.’

‘What was the other thing?’ Dexter asked.

‘The other thing?’ Stussman frowned.

‘You said there were two other things. Celestial forces was one. What was the other?’

‘Ah, yes.’ Stussman looked back at the page. ‘You notice the last verse:
Yet
’twas
of
my
minde
seising
thee
/
Though
it
in
thee
cannot
persever
/
For
I
had
rather
owner
bee
/
Of
thee
one
home,
then
else
forever.
Does that remind you of anything?’

‘Not really.’ Underwood suddenly found himself wandering blindly in fields of broken glass. He saw his own reflection smashed and contorted everywhere. Voices shouted back at him from every angle:

Julia’s
screwing
another
man,
Julia’s
screwing
another
man.
Little
Johnny
limp-dick.
Little
Johnny
Lonesome.

She was unworthy of him. Or were they unworthy of each other?

‘After the Harrington girl was killed we talked about the other poem: “A Valediction: of Weeping”. Remember?’ Stussman asked.

‘I do,’ said Dexter, conscious that Underwood seemed to be drifting out of the conversation.

‘We talked about the power of the rational mind. That the human will was capable of anything, even metaphysical accomplishments. Well, it’s the same idea again: he’s saying that he would rather seize her soul for an hour than possess everything else in the universe for ever.’