The Sterling Directive

by Tim Standish

  ‘I will, sir.’

  ‘Good fellow. Right then, let’s finish off this pen-pushing.’

  So it was that the next night I and a dozen of my men were edging carefully along a series of barely discernible forest trails on our way to rendezvous with Talbot. In addition to the troops, the Major had lent us his guide, a Mohawk tribesman called Tayo, attached to the camp as an irregular and who knew the area like the back of his hand. His trail-finding abilities were somewhat legendary amongst the men, as was his skill with knife and pistol and I was very glad to have him along, scouting ahead of us as we threaded our way through the dense forests that lay between us and the rendezvous. Even without him, though, I knew enough of the territory to realise that our trip was taking us a few miles the wrong side of the border.

  We made slow progress and arrived at the rendezvous, a log cabin at the edge of the forest, a few minutes after the allotted time. It was halfway through the short Canadian autumn and, though no snow had fallen yet, it was the kind of night that told one winter wasn’t far off. Walking at the head of the small column with Tayo, I walked a little quicker, looking forward to even a moment’s rest out of the cold when a sharp tug on my arm pulled me to a halt.

  ‘Wait.’ It was Tayo, his pressure still on my arm, and I was about to give him an earful when he released it then motioned for us to move back into the cover of the trees. Behind us, Sergeant Jones had seen him signal and, without waiting for me to tell him, instructed the men to take cover. I crouched down with Tayo at the edge of the trees. The log cabin was a few hundred yards from the treeline, a simple single-storey structure typical of the region. No lights showed and it looked deserted. If Talbot was there, he was understandably playing a very cautious game.

  ‘What is it?’ I whispered in his ear.

  Tayo shook his head. ‘Wait here.’ He moved off slowly and quietly round the treeline. There wasn’t much of a moon and he moved without making a sound so I lost him a few times as he made his way towards the cabin, suddenly catching sight of his silhouette as he reached the rear wall.

  Jones moved alongside me. ‘What is it, sir?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. Something’s spooked Tayo,’ I said.

  ‘That doesn’t sound good. Shall I disperse the men, sir? Set a picket down the trail?’ asked Jones in that not-really-a-question way that he tended to employ when he thought I was about to do something inadvisable.

  I nodded. ‘Carry on, Sergeant. But keep it quiet.’ He moved back slowly to the men and I heard gentle rustlings as they moved into position. I had fallen into the habit of carrying a rifle myself as well as my pistol and I slipped mine off my shoulder and pushed it out in front of me, sighting across the clearing.

  Jones came back and dropped down next to me. ‘All set, sir,’ he said, voice low. ‘Any sign of Tayo?’

  ‘Not yet,’ I replied.

  Neither of us spoke for the next few minutes as we both stared across the clearing, trying to catch sight of Tayo.

  ‘You think an ambush, maybe?’ Jones said. ‘The Confederates setting us up?’

  ‘Seems like a lot of trouble,’ I said. ‘Why wait till we get to a clearing when they could have had their pick of good spots in the trees?’ Jones nodded agreement but didn’t look particularly reassured.

  Just then I caught a glimpse of Tayo as he came back round the treeline towards us. Jones and I rose to a crouch as he arrived, eager for news.

  ‘We must go,’ Tayo said, gesturing back down the way we had come.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked ‘Is there no sign of Talbot?’

  He was silent.

  I turned to Jones. ‘Sergeant. Half the men to come with us, the rest to cover our approach. Tayo, you show us the way.’

  ‘Please, Captain, it is better we go,’ Tayo replied.

  ‘If Talbot isn’t here or if something has happened to him, we need to know. We can’t go back to the Major empty handed. Come on, Sergeant.’

  Somewhat reluctantly Jones called out names in a hoarse whisper and half a dozen of the men spread out behind us in loose skirmish order as we walked towards the cabin. Tayo waited for a moment then suddenly he was there beside me, a vicious-looking throwing axe in his hand. He quickly moved ahead of us, glancing around us as he led the way.

  ‘Stay out here, Sergeant,’ I said as we arrived at the rear of the cabin. ‘Keep watch and stay out of sight.’

  Jones gave me one of his special ‘sir’s, neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’ appended, a sure sign that he wasn’t wholly convinced by the order he had just been given.

  ‘I’ll just be a minute, Jones,’ I said. ‘then we’ll go.’ He nodded and gestured to the men with us who moved out to positions around and beyond the cabin while Tayo and I walked round to the front. Firewood was neatly stacked along the outside but the windows were shuttered and there was no sign of life from within. As we reached the door I saw that it was slightly ajar. Tayo looked at me and I nodded, holding my rifle ready as he opened the unlocked door. I followed him inside and waited for my eyes to get used to what little light the door let in.

  Most of the furniture had been moved to the walls, leaving a clear space in the centre of the room. In the middle of that space was a single chair, facing the door. Talbot was tied to it. His naked body bore the marks of the torture they had carried out before they killed him. The blood looked black in the half-light but some of it was still fresh, its metallic tang in the air. Talbot’s clothes were in a pile next to the chair.

  ‘Captain.’ Tayo’s voice, suddenly quite loud, and I realised that he must have said it a few times without getting my attention.

  I looked at him, not nauseous or shocked but dazed.

  ‘Captain.’ He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘We must go. They are watching. Perhaps many. We must go.’

  I wanted to say that we should untie him, take him with us or bury him there but I just nodded again, unable to find the words quickly enough. I took a deep breath and walked to Talbot’s clothes carefully keeping my eyes away from the ruin of his corpse. On top of the pile was a notebook I remembered him using. I opened it and saw that it was just the covers and blank pages; any notes had been removed. The message was loud and clear. I pocketed the notebook.

  ‘Captain.’ Tayo again. ‘There is nothing else here. We must leave him.’

  ‘Just a moment, Tayo,’ I said. He stood silently by the door as I moved to the fireplace and held my hand over it. Still warm. I used my knife to rattle the embers back to life then pulled them out onto the floor, stacking kindling and a few logs around them before throwing Talbot’s clothes on top. Looking around I saw an oil lamp in the corner of the room, opened it and poured its contents onto the pile. I waited for several seconds till the kindling caught then left the hut. Tayo followed me out, closing the door behind him.

  Jones was waiting for me outside.

  ‘Is it Talbot, sir?’ he asked. I nodded. Jones looked around. ‘We should go. They’ll be out there somewhere, waiting to see who turns up.’

  I took another deep breath and I could still taste the room at the back of my throat. I breathed in and out a few more times then looked at Jones. ‘Let’s go, Sergeant.’ Jones gave two short, low whistles and several dark shapes unfolded from points around the landscape and began their slow retreat, working in pairs, taking up firing positions, covering us and each other as we went back to join the rest of the patrol in the treeline.

  We made it back to the camp without incident, arriving just before dawn. The Major was awake, waiting for us nervously. I let him know what had happened and gave him Talbot’s notebook then caught a few hours’ sleep, shaved and wrote my report for headquarters. I realised afterwards, when I thought about it, that I should have known what I would find before I had even opened the door. There was something about the stillness, the silence of the place, that should have told me.

  I had tried to put it out of my mind, tried to rid my thoughts of the scene in that cabin and I had been
mostly successful. Eight years later, though, as I pushed at the half open door of Richardson’s lodgings in Blackpool the memory of that far-off cabin flashed suddenly into my mind and I knew, without a doubt, that Richardson was dead.

  Church came in after me, and closed the door without a sound, and the two of us stood still on the tiled surface of the hallway for a moment, listening. We were earlier than arranged but even so the house was quieter than it should be, no sound coming from the landlady’s room on the ground floor. A tall, square table was near the door. On it was a handwritten card that said ‘All post to be collected within 24 hrs’. On the floor next to the table was a painted wooden box that I recognised as Richardson’s make-up box from his dressing room.

  I walked to the landlady’s door, rapped sharply. Nothing. I tried the handle and found the door unlocked so opened it. Church followed me through into the landlady’s rooms. Her living room was warm and tidy, a low fire burning in the grate. Her bed was made, the breakfast crockery washed and drying in the rack. An automated clothes washer was quietly rattling its load in the kitchen. Of the landlady herself, however, there was no sign.

  We walked upstairs, me in front with Church following. I didn’t know what floor Richardson was on but, as the only lodger, I assumed he would be in the closest room. The landlady hadn’t looked like someone who found much enjoyment in stairs. The door on the first floor was ajar so I pushed it further open and walked in with Church close behind. The room we walked into was a sitting room with a tiny kitchen area in one corner and a small bureau in the other. The curtains were undrawn and the light was muted. A small and overladen bookcase stood next to the window. The door to the bedroom was off to the right.

  Richardson’s landlady was slumped in the only armchair, arms hanging down, one leg stretched out in front of her. She was wearing a lilac day dress and a much-laundered pinafore which had been pulled up to cover her head. Church walked over, gently tugged it down from her face and briefly felt for a pulse. He looked back at me and shook his head. He stood up and I saw the mass of raw bruises around her neck.

  I felt a slight judder of nausea, and did my best to swallow it down, to detach myself from the scene. Church seemed completely unaffected by the scene and it struck me that Agent Sterling should probably be the kind of spy who didn’t lose his breakfast over the trivial matter of a dead body.

  I went to the bedroom door and opened it.

  Richardson was hanging from the clothes rail of his wardrobe. He was slumped forward away from the wall, legs half bent. Richardson’s face was purple and horribly swollen, his tongue protruding. The navy-blue cord that was round his neck matched the dressing gown that he was wearing over pale blue pyjamas. The room was a mess, a pile of clothes on the bed, an odd shoe lying on the floor. A shaving mug and brush stood ready on the small sink next to the wardrobe. The grate was full of ash and burnt paper, the smell of which just managed to eclipse the odour of human soil that hung in the room. Another judder sprang up my oesophagus from my stomach and this time Church heard it.

  ‘You can step out if you like. Get some air.’ I shook my head, swallowing hard. ‘It’s fine, I can handle this on my own.’

  Mastering the nausea, I shook my head again. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Okay. Do it in the sink if you have to.’ Church pointed at the small sink over by the window where a pair of grey socks hung drying next to a pair of white silk stockings.

  He stepped carefully around the room, looking over the scene from a few different angles before moving closer. He crouched down next to Richardson’s body. ‘You poor bastard,’ I heard him say softly as he began to feel around Richardson’s neck.

  I couldn’t help but agree. I thought about Richardson, tucking himself away up here and shuffling along a carefully drawn line between dreary day and starry night. Putting a past behind him that we’d brought with us and pulled him sharply back into.

  I scanned the small bedroom; a single, iron bed, a shabby wooden dresser whose top drawer was open and a cheap bedside table were the only furniture in the room besides the wardrobe. The carpet was worn and the curtains had seen better days. On the bedside table was a single piece of notepaper, a few lines of handwriting on it. Picking it up I saw there was no date or signature. A rough edge down one side showed it had been torn from a notebook.

  ‘What does it say?’ Church asked over his shoulder from where he was carefully examining Richardson’s hands.

  ‘Not much. He was unhappy, ashamed of living a lie. Ashamed of even bigger lies than that one. Nothing about wanting to end it all. No mention of the landlady. It looks like it has been torn out of a notebook,’ I added.

  ‘So,’ Church said. ‘Richardson strangles his landlady then hangs himself in a fit of remorse. Because he likes to sing in a dress every now and again, and maybe, maybe he’s a molly. Fair enough, I’ve seen men top themselves when someone finds out they are a homosexual, but that tends to be men with a reputation to lose,’ he gestured at the room, ‘and they tend not to murder other people while they’re doing it.’

  Church stood up and reached into the wardrobe and gave the rail a sharp pull. It held. He turned back to me. ‘What’s the first thing you would do if you were going to hang yourself from this wardrobe?’ he asked.

  ‘I would imagine,’ I said, doing my best not to look at Richardson’s face, ‘I would make sure it was strong enough.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Church. ‘And the paint on the rail is flaking so if you did that, you would expect to come away with some on your hands. Church held up his hands and, sure enough, his palms were covered in flecks of paint. ‘Richardson’s hands are clean,’ he continued. ‘Now maybe he saw the paint and thought to himself “oh I couldn’t possibly top myself with dirty hands” and gave them a wash, so he was nice and neat before he strung himself up. Or maybe he’s been planning this for a while and tested the rail some other time. Maybe. But it doesn’t look like that to me.’ He bent down again to study the body.

  The methodical manner with which Church worked his way through the scene seemed well practised and it reminded me that he’d told Richardson he had been an inspector. ‘What kind of inspector were you?’ I asked him.

  ‘No kind really.’ He replied tugging the knot away from Richardson’s neck. ‘Military Police for a while. Worked with the Branch on a couple of things. Went private for a while, overseas mostly.’ He bent closer, looking carefully at the marks on Richardson’s neck. ‘But, you know, you pick up a few things along the way.’

  ‘Right,’ he continued after a short pause for thought, ‘here’s what I think happened. There were two of them. They got here this morning, strangled Richardson and did their best to make it look like suicide. You can get away with it if you know what you are doing but they had to rush it and they didn’t quite get it right. They searched the place and burned whatever papers they could find. As they were doing it, they found a journal, had a read and thought to themselves “aye aye, let’s grab a page of this while we’re at it, make it look nice and proper”. At some stage the noise brought the landlady up and so they killed her too. Because I bet you a ten bob note that if you measure your man’s fingers here and compare them with the marks on her throat, they’ll be apart by a mile. But please, don’t take my word for it.’

  ‘I believe you.’ It was my turn to work it through. ‘It was our conversation last night. They knew that Richardson had spoken to us.’­

  ‘And knew that we were coming here this morning,’ said Church.

  ‘They had someone in the club?’ I suggested.

  ‘Maybe. Or that guide Evan let them know you were asking questions down in Whitechapel and they came up here as quick as we did. Or a microphone in the dressing room. Which would mean they were looking for the photos that he told us about. Poor bastard. What time do you make it?’

  I looked at my wristwatch. ‘Quarter to ten.’

  ‘We need to be going,’ said Church.

  ‘Why?’

&
nbsp; ‘If it was a microphone, they heard us arrange to meet and, if I was them, I’d be calling the Old Bill right about now and encouraging him to send a van round here. I’ll give the other room the once-over, you see if any of those papers are worth rescuing and let’s get out of here.’

  I poked around in the remains of the fire. What paperwork remained was badly charred, but I picked out a few pieces of paper showing parts of medical diagrams and what looked like the edges of a couple of cardboard folders, their labels still just about readable. I carried the pieces next door to the bureau, found an envelope and dropped them in, then sealed it and slid it into my jacket pocket. ‘Anything else here?’ I asked Church, who was looking over the bookcase.

  ‘Nothing. Time to go.’

  I followed Church downstairs then stopped as he opened the door. ‘Hold on,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said the photos were in his dresser.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I think dresser means something different in the theatre. Something to do with costumes. Maybe it’s the same for make-up?’ I pointed at the make-up box.

  ‘And?’ asked Church

  ‘And maybe that’s his “dresser”?’

  Church closed the door and put the box on the table, then unfastened and unfolded it and the two of us rifled through the contents. Nothing looked promising until we got to the bottom layer where I spotted a large, round powder dish. I took it out, carefully prized the lid off. Inside there was a glass disc, about five inches in diameter, with a crack running across its middle. Around the outside of the circle were six small, circular images.

  ‘It’s from a Stirn,’ said Church.

  ‘A Stirn?’

  ‘A hidden camera. You wear it under your waistcoat,’ Church replied.

  I tilted the plate, trying to see what was in the images. ‘They’re too small to make anything out. That could be a boat.’ I pointed to one of the images. ‘Which doesn’t make sense if these are from Whitechapel.’

  ‘We’ll get them back to Patience, see what she can do with them,’ said Church. ‘Let’s go.’