The Candle Man

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘A woman?’

  He said nothing. Which was, perhaps, to the voice around the corner, everything. ‘I think at this stage, it’s best for us if I keep our briefing to the person we’d like you to deal with.’

  A long pause. Long enough that he was beginning to wonder if he’d caused the Candle Man to be offended.

  ‘Of course,’ he said finally. ‘Why don’t we begin, then? Tell me who it is you’re after, George.’

  CHAPTER 15

  26th September 1888, Holland Park, London

  A nightmare. He was watching them hack the young man to pieces. The first few strokes of the tamahakan buried deep through pale skin into gristle and bone, and caused the tied up young man to scream. A pitiful, shrill scream like a child’s. The others joined in, a dozen of them, swinging and hacking, the wet cracks of impact quickly lost beneath somebody else’s wailing voice.

  He could see another pale body tied up on the ground next to him, naked like the young man. A woman, older, kicking, flailing, screaming with tormented anguish as if every blow was landing on her. The young man’s mother. He knew that somehow, even before she started screaming her agony for him.

  The young lad’s own shrill cries had already stopped. The ferocious onslaught of rising, falling blades was beginning to wane now.

  There were a dozen bronze-skinned men standing over the now motionless corpse, dabbed with chalk-white paint across their chests and faces; dark charcoal smears around their eyes made them look a little like sun-bleached skeletons that had come to life. They had worked on another couple of bound prisoners before the lad. He could see their tattered remains, barely recognisable as human cadavers now, just bloody lengths of butchered meat. From the end of one of them he could see a long blonde tail of matted hair; from the other, a pale and recognisably feminine shin, ankle and foot, unblemished, unspotted with blood. As if it belonged elsewhere.

  He struggled against the twine binding that lashed him in a seated position up against a wooden stake. There were others, another three of them, tied up on the ground and desperately wriggling, squirming, knowing the same fate awaited them.

  Why am I not on the ground with the others?

  Why am I sitting up?

  They want me to watch.

  One of the chalk-white figures turned towards him then, holding something bloody in one hand. The savage stepped slowly towards him, holding it closer so that he could see it better. The thing in his hand lurched and twitched, reminding him of a mouse he’d once caught and tossed into a cloth bag; the cloth twitching, lifting, dropping, as the mouse scurried around in blind panic inside.

  It was the boy’s heart, still shuddering with post-mortem spasms. A part of him still alive, in a way.

  The chalk-painted savage squatted down in front of him. Offering the heart and smiling; an almost friendly, inviting smile. Like that of a benign, favourite uncle, offering a drumstick from a steaming roast turkey.

  He cocked his head and then began to eat it.

  Argyll found himself sitting bolt upright, just as he’d been in the nightmare. But now sitting in total darkness instead of the light of day. ‘Oh, god! Oh, dear god!’ he cried, his voice every bit as shrill as that young lad’s had been.

  He heard a muted woman’s voice. ‘John?’ The thud of bare feet on a wooden floor in another room. Then he detected the faint flicker and dance of a match lighting a wick. A moment later, through his bedroom door, open ajar, he saw the glow of a candle in the hallway.

  ‘John, love? Are you all right?’ His door creaked open wider and the candlelight entered his room.

  There was a moment of puzzlement for him. The woman who entered was wrapped in a nightgown, a freckled face framed by a riot of untidy, pillow-messed hair.

  ‘John!’ she whispered. ‘You having nightmares?’

  The woman confused him. Familiar, but he was not sure for the moment who she was. She hurried across the floor, setting the guttering candle on his bedside table, and sat beside him on the bed.

  ‘Settle back down, sweetheart,’ she cooed softly, pressing his shoulder firmly. He did as he was told and reclined back against the cold, damp cotton of his pillow.

  ‘Shhhh.’ She stroked the hair from his still-bandaged forehead. ‘It’s just another horrible dream.’ She whispered like a mother calming her own child.

  She’s not your mother. A voice from a far corner of his mind.

  ‘Were you dreaming about what happened to you again?’ she asked.

  Her voice, that accent, managed to re-unite a collection of disparate and recent memories and the moment of puzzlement, sleep-addled confusion, was suddenly banished. Yes, it was Mary. Mary. How silly that he’d been confused as to who she was.

  ‘Mary . . . I . . . I’m so sorry . . . I . . .’

  She shook her head, discarding his needless apology. ‘Nightmares, my love. That’s all. Just them nasty nightmares again.’

  She was right, of course. Mary.

  He looked at her dishevelled strawberry blonde hair and freckled face still half asleep, and he realised again how beautiful she was. Not just the kind of beauty that makes a man’s loins stir and twitch – he pushed that thought away. No, it was the glowing, warm beauty of someone he was certain cared for him with all her heart. Very much like the love of a mother for her baby. He wondered how alone, how helpless, he’d be without her. Still lost in a large echoing hospital ward without even a name for himself.

  He knew he’d been crying in his sleep. ‘I wish . . . I wish my damned mind would come back to me,’ he uttered.

  She nodded reassuringly, still stroking the sweat-damp tresses of his hair. ‘I’m here, John. I’m going to look after you while we wait for it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. He suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of gratitude towards her; gratitude and complete dependence. Yes, even utter devotion to her.

  ‘Mary, I . . . I think I love—’

  She gently placed a finger on his lips to hush him. He thought he saw the slightest wince of pain on her face. ‘You save them three words for me, John. Save them ’til more of your mind comes back. ’Til you know me properly again.’ She smiled a little sadly. ‘’Til you know for sure you mean it.’

  She was right. There she was with her wise words again. Wisdom beyond her young years. He closed his eyes once more, soothed by the light touch of her fingers across his forehead, stroking and playing with the coarse hairs of his eyebrows, the whiskers beside his ears.

  ‘It’ll all come back to you, John,’ she said softly. ‘And if it doesn’t . . . well, it’ll be like us starting all over again.’ He heard the rustle of her nightgown and felt the light touch of her lips on his right cheek. A polite kiss that suggested nothing more, right now, than concern and a genuine affection. ‘And who but us is lucky enough to get to fall in love all over again, eh?’

  He nodded sleepily, his mind beginning to slide back down into the muddle of sleep.

  Please . . . I don’t want that nightmare again.

  Some of the details of it, at least, were already faded and gone. He still remembered woods, mountains and an untroubled blue sky, idyllic if not for the butchery going on down on the ground.

  He could hear Mary singing a lullaby, a go-to-sleep song for a troubled child. It felt reassuring, the soothing timbre of her voice, the soft play of her fingers, the warm, embracing wrap of a mother’s love. The womb-like comfort of feeling like a child. Snow-capped mountains and tall pine trees and crisp blue skies and dancing skeletons with bloodied hand axes, hacked carcasses of bloody human meat . . . spun away into a sleepy fog, like milk stirred into tea.

  Just as he began to feel the gentle gravity-drop of sleep engulf him, he heard a quiet, mature voice, his own voice, but with just a little bit more of that accent the surgeon had guessed was American.

  She’s not your mother; just remember that.

  He banished the voice. He didn’t want to hear it again right now. He rather wanted to believe Mary was
his mother and he was freshly born into this maddeningly confusing world. At least that would excuse him behaving like a foolish child.

  He smiled, almost completely asleep again. How lovely if, in fact, it could be just the two of them, mother and child, in this room, this moment, this lullaby. A pleasant fiction to hold onto forever.

  CHAPTER 16

  27th September 1888, Hyde Park, London

  ‘Please . . . no, Mary! I’ll fall.’

  ‘Come along,’ she said firmly, holding his hand and tugging him gently.

  Argyll looked around at the other people strolling along the tidy gravel paths of Hyde Park. ‘I’ll fall over!’ He looked up at Mary, the shame and embarrassment of that possibility already on his face.

  ‘I won’t let you, John. I’ll be right beside you.’ She reached down to pull him out of the wheelchair as he awkwardly hefted himself up, cursing as an unlocked wheel rolled back slightly and his balance momentarily faltered.

  He grabbed her shoulder to prevent himself from slumping back in the seat and teetered on his good leg as he probed the ground with the other.

  ‘I can’t feel a damned thing with this wretched leg!’ he hissed.

  ‘Come on, let’s just walk for a few dozen yards. See how you get on, love,’ she cajoled him.

  Two young women passing by caught the slightest taint of the street in her vowels and the colonies in his. They glanced at each other and smiled patronisingly as they watched the unlikely couple struggle together.

  She pulled out the crutches poking from the carry-bag at the back and handed them to him as he swayed unsteadily on his good leg.

  The two young women glanced back once more over shawl-covered shoulders. Mary thought she heard the barely suppressed conspiratorial twittering sound of giggling from them. ‘Ignore those silly cows,’ she said quietly to him.

  He manoeuvred the crutches under his arms and took the weight, steady once more. ‘They’re all watching me,’ he muttered. There were some children standing beside the duck pond nearby, patiently waiting for him to topple over.

  ‘No they’re not,’ she replied, louder than was necessary. ‘They’re minding their own bloody business!’

  Embarrassed faces flicked away from them.

  Mary knew how it was here in the park. A quiet place far away from the vulgarity of the busy street. A place for sensitive social correspondence, for questions to be timidly danced around and finally hinted at, if not actually asked. For politely veiled inquiries to be made and tactfully ignored. For courtships to begin or be politely brought to an end. A place for quiet exchanges.

  Nobody makes a scene here.

  Argyll took his first tentative steps, lurching forward on his wooden crutches and doing the best he could to control his entirely numb and stubbornly useless leg.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘that’s not so bad.’

  He grimaced. ‘This feels so ridiculous. My leg is just fine, after all. I just can’t seem to tell the thing what to do.’

  ‘You remember what the doctor said, though. The harder you work on it, the sooner you’ll be able to walk normal again, John.’ She pushed the wheelchair along beside him, keeping close enough that she’d have a chance to catch him in it if he started to lose his balance. ‘It’s like teachin’ your leg to walk again. Just like you teach a baby to walk.’

  He gave a dry, humourless laugh. ‘I suppose that’s what I am now: an oversized child for you to have to care for.’ He sighed. ‘Not a man anymore, eh?’

  ‘I’m going to help you get better again.’ She smiled at him. ‘You’re still the same gentleman I fell in love with, you know.’

  ‘But . . .’ He shook his head slowly, thoughtfully. ‘I’m not, am I? I remember nothing of who I was. Nothing of where my home is, who my family are.’ He turned to her. ‘What was I like? What things did I enjoy? Tell me more about who I was. Please.’

  Be careful, Mary.

  ‘The doctor said I shouldn’t tell you too much about your past.’

  ‘Well.’ He ground his teeth, exasperated. ‘There’s nothing coming back to me, Mary, not a thing. I hate being like this, so . . . like a blank page, like a damned blackboard scrubbed clean. I’m . . . I feel like nothing. Like an empty space! Please, Mary, please, for pity’s sake, give me something about myself, more than just my name.’

  Take care, Mary. She knew told lies had to be remembered like a well-told story. Not bandied about willy-nilly. A lie fired off without care had a way of coming back to bite you, always.

  ‘Well,’ she began, ‘you already know you come from America.’

  Her mind worked hard at all the things she’d heard him say, both awake and sometimes in his sleep. He’d said something about tall buildings once. She knew of only one place in America with tall buildings. ‘New York, John; that’s where you used to live.’

  He nodded thoughtfully at that. ‘It’s like London, isn’t it?’

  Mary had no idea at all. ‘Yes, exactly like London.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘How long what?’

  ‘How long since we . . . how long have you and I been together?’

  Mary had originally planned to say they had been living as man and wife for the best part of a year. She’d even considered telling him that they had discreetly married, but that would require a licence as proof. He might ask which church. He might want to go there to see if it tugged a memory out of his mind. He might want to speak to the chaplain. And then her lie would be undone.

  ‘Well, it’s been thirteen months since you sent me flying. Ended up on my bottom in the middle of Covent Garden, my shopping all over the cobbles.’

  He muttered an apology. Again. She’d told him about that moment before, but decided to tell it again. Reinforce the story in his mind.

  ‘Ooh, don’t be daft, my dear. It was very funny. You came bustling around the corner of a grocer’s stall like a bleedin’ steam train. Straight into me, you did. And lord, you were so embarrassed! So apologetic, so worried you’d hurt me. You picked me up, helped me gather my bits and pieces of shopping and then insisted on taking me to a tea shop.’ She laughed gaily. ‘You all but marched me to the nearest one and sat me down. Bought us some tea.’ She reached out and squeezed his arm. ‘The perfect gentleman.’

  He sighed. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

  ‘And so we talked, you and me. Talked the long afternoon away until them market stalls started packing up and the lamp lighters finally came out.’

  Her gaze was far off, indulging in the finer details of this particular little fantasy. Many a night she and some of the other street girls had played this same old game down the Firkin, cackling like fishwives over a beer-damp table and through skeins of pipe smoke. The game? Not so much a game but the collectively authored fantasy of Meeting the Perfect Gent. Something they could all add their tuppence-worth to. A tall man? Yes, of course! Slender or muscular? Oh, he’d have to be a healthy man, all muscles an’ that!

  ‘And you don’t remember a bit of that, do you?’ she asked Argyll now.

  He shook his head sadly. ‘I would like to, though.’ He then stopped, hesitated, with his weight balanced on the crutches. ‘Please tell me that I—’

  Her face split with a coy grin. ‘That you behaved yourself?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Of course. Treated me like a lady, you did. All Mr Manners an’ that. By the time we had to say good evening, you and me had arranged to take a walk together the next day.’ She nodded towards the Serpentine, where a cluster of boys in shorts and navy tops played with model boats on the water. ‘Right over there, as it happens. We’ve strolled in this park many times, John.’ She smiled. The lie came easily. She’d rehearsed the Covent Garden story many times over; a part of the fantasy she’d made up with the girls: the mysterious and chivalrous gent, rich enough to whisk her away from the grime and the grinding poverty of the East End.

  ‘We walked in Hyde Park the next day. Talked about this and that and ev
erything. Your life over there in America and—’

  ‘And your life?’ He lurched another step forward, testing his weight on his numb left leg. ‘What about you?’

  She shrugged dismissively. ‘Oh, my life weren’t that much to speak of. Just a workin’ girl.’

  ‘Tell me again.’

  Mary had this part of her fiction all worked out. She stuck to the truth as best she could. And when it wasn’t truth, it was how her life could have gone if fate had been a little kinder.

  ‘I used to live in Wales. As a small girl. Then I came to London when I was eighteen. I wanted to see the big city. To explore the very heart of our empire. I suppose I hoped I might find my fortune here, enough to eventually take me to some exotic far-flung corner of the empire.’ She smiled wistfully. A huff of amusement at the naïveté of her younger self. ‘As it happened, I ended up teachin’ piano to rich and precocious children. Can’t say I earned very much doing that, though.’ She steered the empty wheelchair clear of a bench occupied by an elderly couple who were fast asleep with legs stretched out onto the gravel pathway. ‘I suppose my job now is making sure you get better again, John.’

  ‘Mary?’ She sensed he had an awkward question. One he was having trouble finding the words to frame.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How old am I?’

  ‘Oh, you’re thirty-nine,’ she replied, without missing a beat.

  He shrugged. ‘I thought I was much older than that. I was looking at myself in a mirror.’

  ‘I should say you look much younger.’

  ‘But you are, aren’t you? Much younger?’

  She allowed herself the briefest pause, wondering how much to stretch the truth. ‘Twenty-six,’ she replied. She added just three years onto her real age. Enough to narrow the gap between them to thirteen years. Not an implausible age difference.

  ‘But, I could almost be your father!’

  ‘You’d have to have been a very young one if so. More like an older brother.’