The War in the Dark

by Nick Setchfield

  He closed the eyes of his echo man, almost tenderly. And then he lifted the cold, bloodless hand, shuddering at the fish-scale texture of the skin. There was a vicious imprint in the flesh. Hatherly’s wrists had been scored by cord. He had been bound before he died.

  Winter knew this for what it was, of course. A piece of theatre. A warning. A totem.

  Again he caught himself. A totem? Peculiar choice of word. Wasn’t that something to do with voodoo? Malcolm’s talk of an occult war had clearly had an effect.

  Winter rummaged among the clutter of Ordnance Survey maps on the back seat. He found his grey felt trilby, dusted it down and placed it over Hatherly’s eyes, hiding the bullethole but not the frozen scream of the mouth.

  He peered into the alley once more. There was a sweep of headlights in the distance, the nearby growl of an engine. A lorry, perhaps, reversing. He clicked on the dashboard radio and tuned aimlessly between the channels. A gust of static resolved into the clipped tones of the Home Service and then the sound of The Shadows playing ‘Wonderful Land’ on Radio Luxembourg. He listened to the feeble, fading signal as it clutched the airwaves, then he switched the tune off. It felt inappropriate in the company of a dead man.

  He started the car and drove out of Knightsbridge, doing his best to ignore the body beside him. He had to get rid of it, clearly. There was no other choice. It would deny a decent man a funeral but his other options would lead to complications. Hatherly would have understood. Field agents knew how ugly practicalities could be.

  Best not to report this to Faulkner, he reasoned. Malcolm had put the worm of doubt in him. He needed time to evaluate just whom he could trust.

  He drove to the docks at Wapping, taking the side streets where he could. He let the car purr through the wharves, past the filthy Victorian warehouses with their shattered windows and grime-blackened names of sugar traders. Great cranes rose over rusting hulks of boats, their towering steel frames like a fossil army against the horizon.

  A fog prowled the quays, grey and spectral. These docks were meant to be a place of activity. By night they felt like a place of abandonment. A place where things could be abandoned.

  Winter tucked the car into a cobbled alley. He rooted around by the gear stick and found a tin of Simpkins travel sweets. He twisted the lid, reached inside and broke apart a congealed cluster of fruit drops. He popped one in his mouth and looked out at the docks. He imagined Telstar gazing down on them in disdain. This was an old world, an old Britain. Its time would soon be gone.

  It was then that Hatherly spoke.

  ‘Hurts…’

  It was a single word, a single syllable, but it sounded as though it was being torn from his throat. The dead man said it again and this time it was even more wracked. ‘Hurts…’

  Startled, Winter lifted the brow of the hat. Hatherly’s eyes were open now. Something glimmered in the pupils; something alive, but not quite life. The mouth forced itself wider and there was the sound of bone grinding in the jaw.

  ‘Hurts!’

  The breath was rank, like the buried air of a grave. Winter almost gagged. He watched, incredulous, as the man’s right hand began to move. The death-locked fingers juddered, creaked apart, unfurled.

  And then, with uncanny speed, they reached for Winter’s throat. The hand encircled his windpipe, clammy and determined. Winter countered Hatherly’s arm with his own and tried to force it away but there was an extraordinary amount of power in the dead man’s chokehold. His vision began to blacken at the edges.

  Fighting to focus, channelling all of his strength into his forearm, Winter smashed the fist of the corpse into the dashboard. The undead fingers flexed and curled.

  Winter’s free hand snatched the pistol from his shoulder holster. He jammed the barrel of the Webley against Hatherly’s head and pulled the trigger. A bullet tore through the man’s skull and pierced the glass of the passenger door, striking the wall of a warehouse with a bright, fleeting spark.

  A soup of blood and brain matter lay splattered on the windscreen. If there had been life in Hatherly’s body it was now expelled.

  Winter lay back in the driver’s seat, his heart hammering. And then, very much aware he had just fired a bullet without a silencer – the docks were bound to be patrolled – he exited the car. He hurried to the passenger door and dragged out Hatherly’s remains.

  There was the steady slosh of water against the wharves. From a nearby quay a ship’s horn sounded through the fog. Winter opened the boot and gathered up a sheet of tarpaulin, unused since a camping trip to St Ives. He wrapped Hatherly’s body inside it, coiling the ends and fixing them tight with twine.

  He rolled the bundled body to the edge of the cobbles and looked down. The Thames waited. With a makeshift prayer he kicked the corpse away. It landed with a splash in the river, bobbed among the weeds and the empty ale bottles then sank into the dark water. As it vanished, Winter wondered if he had seen the tiniest stir of movement inside the tarpaulin.

  He walked back to the car, took a handkerchief to the windscreen and drove away.

  * * *

  It had gone eleven o’clock when he returned home to Jubilee Close. He parked the Ford Zephyr in the drive, having smashed its passenger window. An attempted robbery was so much easier to explain than a bullethole. A damp rag had dealt with the remaining blood and brains.

  He took a moment to look around the cul-de-sac, hearing the rumble of the overground line in the distance. This corner of Croydon always felt impregnable, a whole other life away. He could be another man here, sometimes.

  He put the key in the lock, pushed at the frosted pane and called Joyce’s name. The house was warm. A little too warm. The radiators were on full blast again. There was the queasy-sweet smell of washing drying in the heat.

  He followed the sound of orchestral music to the living room. Joyce was in the spare chair, dozing as a Mantovani disc swirled on the Dansette. He watched her for a moment. As if sensing his presence in the room her eyelids opened. She gave him a sleepy but delighted smile. It was the smile of the girl he had met in Bentley’s Shoes, all those Saturdays ago.

  ‘Hello, Chris.’

  He walked over and gave her a desperate hug. She put her arms around him in response, crossing her wrists and pulling him tight and close for a kiss. He buried his face in her black lacquered hair and inhaled her. A long moment passed. He heard the loyal sweep of the carriage clock.

  Joyce knew what he did, to a point. There were lies, inescapably, but he had always taken care to emphasise the duller side of the service, the dossiers and the boxes. It made the conversations simpler.

  She pulled away and looked at him, searchingly. ‘What’s the matter?’

  He gave her the usual word. ‘Work.’

  ‘Talk about it?’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Later maybe? Your casserole’s in the oven. I couldn’t wait any longer.’

  ‘It’s fine. Thank you, sweetheart. I appreciate it.’

  He left the room and walked to the kitchen, still in his overcoat. It was even warmer in here and there was a rich, comforting fug of cooking. He turned on the hot water tap and let it run. He reached for the plastic bottle of Quix washing-up liquid and squeezed a dollop onto the palm of his left hand. He ran it under the tap and let it foam. And then he scrubbed. He scrubbed until the water steamed, until his flesh hurt, until every trace of that dead man’s touch had been erased.

  He returned to the hallway. As he eased his shoulders out of his coat he saw a note by the phone, scribbled on a flyer for a local production of Gilbert and Sullivan. There was a single word on it, in Joyce’s handwriting. Malcolm.

  ‘Joyce,’ he said. ‘Did someone ring for me?’

  ‘He said his name was Malcolm,’ she called from the living room, shouting above a sudden surge of Mantovani. ‘Said he works with you. Said it was urgent. Wouldn’t say what it was.’ She laughed. ‘He sounded in a state!’

  Winter slipped his shoulders bac
k into his overcoat. He put his head around the door. ‘I need to go out again.’

  Joyce looked genuinely dismayed. ‘You’re joking… It’s almost midnight!’

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s really important.’

  ‘What’s so bloody important?’ she demanded, a rare but familiar flash of anger in her voice.

  He reached for the word again and felt a swine as he said it. ‘Work.’

  4

  The fog had found Belgravia.

  Winter watched as it curled through the moneyed square, past the white stucco-fronted terraces. It came from the city’s chimneys, its firesides and its factories, a throng of soot and sulphur that joined with the dank mists of the Thames Valley. It turned the streetlamps into hazy blooms and it condensed as oily smears on the windscreen of the Ford Zephyr.

  The wipers turned. So much for the Clean Air Act, he thought.

  It was cold in the car. The night air came through the broken glass in the passenger window. Winter had watched Malcolm’s home for twenty minutes now, unsure what to do. There was an etiquette to these things, after all, a professional discretion. You simply didn’t make direct contact outside of the Broadway office. If you had to meet it was in secret, and mutually agreed, as with the Fairbridge.

  And yet Malcolm had called him at home, and spoken to Joyce. That was a breach of procedure in itself. Something was wrong tonight.

  There was a muted light in one of Malcolm’s windows. A reading lamp, perhaps, or the television – if he even had a television, and knowing Malcolm he would prefer the wireless, or a volume of biography. Winter had spotted no signs of movement behind the glass and no one had left or entered the building by the front door.

  He stepped out of the car. He could feel the fog on his skin, damp and close. The square was hushed. Mindful of the rap of his steps on the cobbles he crossed to Malcolm’s townhouse.

  The door was open, just an inch. Suspicious, Winter pushed it further. The heavy mahogany swung into a darkened hallway. Some fog floated in ahead of him.

  Best to keep the lights off.

  Winter entered the hallway, his eyes decoding the gloom. There was thick carpet beneath his shoes. A pigeonhole stood to his left, still filled with items of unclaimed post. He reached out a gloved hand and found a sturdy banister. He took the stairs slowly, as quietly as he could. These old Regency buildings could betray you. He reached the first floor. He climbed to the second.

  A shape came barrelling out of the dark, a cannon of a man. He rammed into Winter, sending him stumbling back down the stairs.

  Winter struck the wall of the landing. Winded, he struggled to his feet.

  A headbutt. A fireflash of pain in the skull. The man had him by the coat collars, his fists bulging like meat. Winter glimpsed a crested tie and military hair.

  The man swung a punch. Winter ducked and the great blunt fist connected with the banister, splintering wood. Another fist came. This time Winter blocked it, then kneed his assailant hard in the crotch.

  The man reeled. He took a third strike at Winter’s head. Again Winter evaded it. The man’s fist hammered into the Gainsborough print on the wall, the impact shattering the frame. There was a drizzle of glass.

  Winter scrabbled on the carpet, seizing a shard. He slashed upwards in a brisk, vicious arc, slicing the glass into the man’s face. In retaliation his opponent snatched a statuette from an alcove window, wielding the white marble like a club.

  Winter dropped, twisted, dodging the Grecian nymph as it swung close to his head. He kicked at the man’s arm and sent the improvised weapon flying into the wall. The nymph cracked in two. The man grunted, blinking, his face a mess of blood.

  Then both men froze. There was the sound of a lock unlatching. A landing door opened. An elderly man peered out, wrapped in a candy-striped dressing gown, his sparse white hair awry. He had a stiff, regimental air. With ill-concealed disgust he appraised the broken statuette, the scattered glass, the ruined banister.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he declared. ‘Words fail me.’

  Winter’s opponent slugged the old man and knocked him out cold.

  And then he was gone, bolting down the stairwell, impossibly swift for his bulk. Winter pulled his gun and levelled it into the dark but the man was too fast. He was already out of the doorway. Winter realised he had no stomach for pursuit. Let the bastard run.

  He took a moment to recapture his breath. The old boy at his feet wouldn’t be waking any time soon. Winter stepped over the prone body and climbed the stairs to the third floor. He felt sure he could smell burning.

  The door to Malcolm’s apartment was ajar. Winter studied its edges, noting the shreds of burgundy paint, the buckled brass of the catch, the indentation in the woodwork. It had clearly been forced.

  He nudged the door wider with the tip of his shoe. The bitter, burnt tang was more pronounced now. There was a sound, too. A rasping, a scratching. It was insistent.

  He entered the apartment. There was a 78 revolving mindlessly on the turntable, the needle scouring its run-out groove in an endless loop. Each futile cycle was amplified by the small black speakers mounted above the door. The needle sawed through the dead vinyl.

  The room was dim and warm, sleepily lit by lamps. A large leather sofa dominated the space, blocking his view of the floor. There was a tumbler perched upon it, a tiny swill of whisky in the glass. Winter noted the empty bottles of Glen Moray stacked against the side of the sofa.

  The air was acrid. Something had recently been on fire in here. There was another scent too, oily and pungent. Kerosene, perhaps?

  Winter stepped around the sofa, past the discarded bottles and the strewn broadsheets. He saw the shoes first.

  Christ. Malcolm.

  The body lay on the floor, the arms and legs splayed, as if ritualistically. The clothes were singed – Winter saw the familiar paisley bow-tie – but the face, the flesh blackened and peeled by heat, was barely recognisable as Malcolm.

  There were no eyes.

  There were no eyes, and in the charred sockets someone had jammed a brace of snakes. A third, fat serpent filled the mouth. They coiled obscenely.

  Winter’s stomach spasmed in repulsion. This was ungodly. He snatched the rug from the back of the sofa and flung it over the body. It was the only decent thing he could do for Malcolm now. But he’d also done it, he knew, to try and bury the sight. It was too late, of course. He would always see it. The horror of it had branded his memory.

  He looked around the room. If there had been time – and a chance – then Malcolm would surely have found a way to leave a clue. Some desperate final communication, secreted in plain sight. Winter’s eyes picked over the ivory carvings on the mantelpiece, the hand-painted military figurines on the glass table, the Elizabethan globe in the corner, its undiscovered reaches patrolled by sea monsters. There were no family photos.

  His gaze moved to the bookshelves. Milton. Marlowe. Bunyan. And there it was; a thin volume of Blake, bound in dark cherry leather. There was a flash of blue chalk on its spine, the same discreet indicator they used to mark dead drops in the field.

  Winter pulled the book from the shelf. It opened at the frontispiece. William Blake, it announced, 1757– 1827, and it showed one of Blake’s pictures, Angel of the Revelation. A towering, golden-curled figure stood halfway between the sea and the land. One hand clasped what looked like a page of verse, the other was raised to the sky, palm upturned, touching the edge of the picture as if testing the frame that held it. There was a light behind the angel, celestially bright, streaked with amber fire.

  He knew what this meant. Good old Malcolm. Winter pocketed the book and left the room. As he did so he glanced, inevitably, at the body on the floor. There was a squirm of movement beneath the rug, coiling and serpentine.

  * * *

  Winter shinned over the padlocked gates of Matilda Park. Taking care to avoid the spear-tipped railings he dropped to the ground, landing in an autumnal mulch of leaves.

  The fo
g was thicker now. It filled the park, great grey banks of the stuff, massing between the bony October branches of the trees. London’s streetlamps looked like ghost lights in the distance, or ships at sea. Winter began walking, rain-slick leaves clinging to his shoes.

  He soon found the statue. It was another of Blake’s angels. This one had granite wings, sweeping forward in the moonlight. They guarded another figure, a girl. She wore the crown of a queen. There was an inscription chiselled on the base of the statue and rainwater ran between the words. ‘And I wept both night and day, And he wiped my tears away; And I wept both day and night, And hid from him my heart’s delight.’

  Winter plunged his fist into the earth. His fingers rooted in the wet soil. They found a metal spike and pulled it free.

  It looked like a long nail. The centre band was knurled, the rest of it smooth steel. Winter wiped the dirt from the object and, with an effort, unscrewed the cap. Then he removed the lean winder that nestled inside the spike, pulling it carefully past the O-ring seal that was still tacky with glue.

  There was a message wrapped around the winder. Malcolm’s writing. The hollow spike also contained a sheaf of money – big notes – and a tiny sliver of microdot film, along with a business card. Winter pocketed them all and lobbed the dead-drop spike into a nearby bush.

  It was then that he saw her.

  ‘Joyce?’

  Surely it was Joyce. She stood ten yards away from him, dressed in a coat he was sure he had once bought her – an anniversary present, maybe, or something for Christmas. She had Joyce’s stance, the familiar chocolate-dot mole beneath the lower lip and a fringe of black hair that skirted her eyes, just as Joyce’s did.

  She was looking directly at him, her expression inscrutable. The fog wreathed her.

  It had to be Joyce. But why was she here? It was impossible. He began to walk towards her, his eyes blinking through the condensation in the air. ‘Darling?’

  The woman’s head tilted as he approached, as if only just aware of him. The shadows left her face. And they left nothing behind. There were no features. Nothing but blankness, a void of skin where the face of his wife had been.