by Mike Ashley
Snapping out commands, the Deputy Commissioner rapidly put everyone to work. Each square inch of the grass floor of the dressing-room was examined by the hands-and-knees searchers. The carpet outside was equally subjected to a comprehensive patting examination. Akbar, Moti and Caesar were set to tugging their handlers here, there and everywhere, sniffing and sniffing. At the entrance gate the handful of early arrivals were each subjected to questioning, even though Ghote had assured the Deputy Commissioner that none of them had penetrated the fenced-off audience area. The musicians were body-searched from head to foot, although they, too, had never come beyond the surrounding fence. Sergeant Moos, crouching and kneeling, stretching and peering, spread clouds of his dark and light dusting powders over every surface he could find, likely and unlikely. Everywhere there was buzzing activity. Only the swami, who ignoring the Deputy Commissioner, had sat himself down cross-legged beside the neglected body of the nondescript victim and had entered into a trance, provided a small aura of stillness.
But no results of any sort emerged.
“Damn it,” the Deputy Commissioner shouted eventually. “That man’s legs are somewhere. Somewhere. Find them, find them. The damn things can’t have just walked.”
Then he realized the dreadful pun his fury had caused him to perpetrate, and, for want of a better person to vent his rage upon, directed a glare of unrestrained ferocity towards Ghote, who, after having on the Deputy Commissioner’s own orders escorted the Beauteous Bhakti’s father to wait in his car, had placed himself on one of the audience chairs in the back row. Solitary and ignored, he had sat there waiting, feeling all he could do was to keep an eye on the two constables keeping their eyes on the brick-suited ganglord.
At last Vasubhai rolled down a window in the big Contessa, its engine softly running in order to operate the air-conditioner; driver and bodyguard two stone-still presences in the front seats.
“Deputy Commissioner sahib,” he called out. “My daughter would be coming at any minute. She is late already. What to do?”
The Deputy Commissioner shot him a glance, still sparking with fury.
“Oh, take her back home, man,” he shouted. “Take her back home. You are not thinking she will be giving her recital now, are you?”
“No, no, Deputy Commissioner. Out of question, a singer of my Bhakti’s status. So I will be saying goodbye itself.”
A tap on the shoulder of the Contessa’s driver and the engine was revved up.
And then Ghote jumped from his chair. With a wildly launched leap he vaulted the fence behind him. And, as the ganglord’s big car began to move off, he flung himself into its path.
“Stop,” he shouted. “Stop. Police orders.”
From inside the car Vasubhai yelled to his driver “Go on, man, go on.”
But Ghote stood his ground. And, with the car’s gleaming chrome bumper actually touching his legs, the driver brought it to a halt.
The Deputy Commissioner came striding up.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
“Sir,” Ghote said. “Sir, I have just only realized how the legs of the murdered man were coming to disappear.”
“Nonsense, man, nonsense. Legs cannot just disappear. They are here somewhere, I tell you. They are somewhere inside that shamiana. They must be.”
Ghote drew in a breath.
“Sir, no,” he said.
“What the hell do you mean No, Inspector? Have you gone out of your head?”
“Sir, it is simple. Sir, I am believing this is where we were going wrong. Not looking, sir, for one obvious answer.”
Rapidly he corrected himself.
“Sir, it is where I myself was going wrong when I was telephoning yourself, sir.”
“You were going wrong? That I can believe. So, how was it you were making the mistake of calling out the whole of Crime Branch?” Eh, man? How? How?”
“Sir, as I was saying, sir. It is altogether most simple. Sir, I am realizing now who that fellow dead inside there must be. Sir, he would be someone Vasubhai here was planting in the gang of his rival, Gulshan Singh. A spy, sir. A jasoos. And, sir, Gulshan Singh must have discovered same. That is why he was sending some message to yourself, sir, saying there was something at this festival now that would interest police. He was wanting us, and whole world also, to see what happens to anyone who tries and attempts to infiltrate his gang.”
“Ha. Well, I dare say you could be right there, Inspector. I thought something on those lines might be in the air. That’s why I sent you here to keep an eye on things. And what did you do? You let that jasoos be murdered right under your own eyes.”
“No, sir.”
“No? Are you contradicting me, Ghote? To my face?”
“Sir, answer is simple. Sir, this spy was not strangled here in that dressing-room and his legs cut off. If they had been, sir, I would have smelt blood as soon as I was entering to carry out inspection. But, sir, I was not. I was smelling blood just only later when Vasubhai was calling to me to go in there.”
“Now, what the hell are you saying?”
“Sir, just that the jasoos was strangled and his body put under that tarpaulin before even I was coming here. He must have been murdered by Gulshan Singh at his own place and then brought here so that, when time was ripe, he would be found and Vasubhai would be losing very much of respect with each and every member of his own gang.”
“Inspector, how the hell can you have the face to say that a body that was found by you yourself, with the mutilated stumps of its legs still bleeding, was put here before you were even coming?”
“Sir, quite simple. The fellow was never having any legs.’
He paused a moment in the hope that what he had brought himself to say would penetrate to the Deputy Commissioner in time.
“Sir,” he went on, gulping a little, “that man must have been one of the legless beggars that are everywhere in the city, sir, going here-there on their little wheeled platforms. And only if Vasubhai’s gang members were seeing a legless beggar, would it be plain to them that the hundred per cent nondescript spy put into Gulshan Singh’s gang had been found out, sir. Sir, because of that man having no distinguishing feature except for not having any legs, what was it Vasubhai had to do when he was find his body? Sir, he must at each and every cost make it look as if the body was not that of his jasoos. He must make it look, sir, as if it was the body of a man who was having as many legs as any other person. Then there would be no rumour or gup, sir, about a legless beggar having been murdered. You must be well knowing, sir, what I was remembering: in cases of asphyxia, such as death by strangling, blood clotting is by no means immediate. Sir, you will find, I am thinking, those cut-off layers of flesh in the pockets of Vasubhai’s safari suit, or, if they are now inside his car itself, there may be some blood stains on the inside of the pockets.”
And find the two layers of flesh they did, and some bloodstains. But who took all the credit? The Deputy Commissioner, of course.
THE NEXT BIG THING
Peter T. Garratt
Peter Garratt (b.1949) is a clinical psychologist who has written scores of stories of fantasy and science fiction since his first sale “If the Driver Vanishes . . . ” (1985). His mystery stories have also appeared in my anthologies Shakespearean Whodunnits and Shakespearean Detectives.
“This Morrigan May’s husband is here! I think you’d better see him.” Monique said. She’s the de facto head of our partnership, often said to be the best Clinical Psychologist in the UK, not just the best paid. She’s as good a boss as I’m ever likely to get, but does have a thing about bad publicity. It was Friday, the week’s paperwork was heaped up, and a cancellation had offered a mirage of a chance to shut myself in my office and clear it. But an angry widower arriving with news of a dead client, a possible suicide, couldn’t be kept out by a plastic “Engaged” sign.
Still, I sat hesitated, making sure I remembered all I could. Megan May . . . Morrigan was her writing name . . .
hadn’t come to see me to talk about suicidal feelings. She’d digressed a lot onto aspects of her unusual career, but didn’t make it sound suicidally bad, and I hadn’t bothered with a full history. I feared my notes had been scrappy, and hoped profoundly that she hadn’t hidden some dark pocket of depression which her husband would know about and expect me to have uncovered and in some way dealt with.
Monique led the way to her consulting room. She likes our suite to look respectable but glamorous, her own image. The carpets are blue and the walls white, with pictures of Phraxos and other Greek islands, including one of Monique, dark-haired and tanned, leading a group at the Phraxos Personal Growth Centre.
I flicked my hair and straightened my tie, then realized that wasn’t necessary. The man in Monique’s room was about thirty-five, with long brown hair in a pony-tail, a short beard like stubble gone just beyond designer, and a battered leather jacket over a black T-shirt with part of a lurid red pattern just visible. Monique said: “Mr May, this is Owen GlenMorgan. He did see your late wife once, but only once.”
I extended my hand and said: “I was very sorry to hear about your wife.” I was trying to sound sympathetic, but as in our one meeting Morrigan May had said nothing suggestive of suicide, I felt as much puzzled and alarmed.
“Edwin May. In theory we were separated but . . .”
“It was a bolt from the blue?” Monique enquired solicitously.
“I knew those bastards at BattleSpear were putting her under a lot of pressure, but . . . I wouldn’t even put it past them to . . . no, mustn’t get paranoid!”
As I was trying to remember who the bastards at BattleSpear were, he blinked back tears, reached into a black shoulderbag marked “WORLD SCIENCE FANTASY CONVENTION –BRIGHTON”, and pulled out a book. “This was her.”
It was a hardback called The Merlinus with a battered dust-jacket. The front showed a boy in Druid garb beside a ruin. He was surrounded by warriors and was trying to face down their leader. Edwin May fumbled out the back flap. It had a full-colour picture of Morrigan. I remembered her more clearly now. Like me, she was Welsh but marooned long-term in London. She had a very distinctive hairstyle, bobbed and dyed red near the roots, then a wide blonde band, with the tips a luminous green, so her head resembled a traffic light switched to “Go”. She wore a little black leatherette top and a lot of silver jewellery. I remembered that in our one interview she had touched on her appearance and its relationship to her career: “I’ve been the Next Big Thing in British SF for ten years now. That’s rather a long time to be next. Image helps. If I look like a mixture of punk, pagan and technogoth I sell a few extra copies. I get far enough past the break-even point to stay in print.”
She had made a little knowing smile at that point, and though there was a slight air of sadness about her . . . she wore a dark outfit even though it wasn’t revealing or leathery . . . she had a vibrancy which was brittle but real. I liked working with people like Megan, or Morrigan. She’d become epileptic after an accident, and then for some reason dropped out of an academic career to become a writer. She didn’t explain that in detail, because she hadn’t regretted the decision. Like so many creative people, her life had become a constant struggle to do what she wanted and postpone the day when she’d have to appease her bank manager by looking through Sits Vac for a job selling replacement kitchens. She’d put it off for ten years and had sounded pleased with her progress. It was shocking to think she was dead. I said to Edwin May: “Just exactly what happened?”
“It was a week ago. Friday. A day or two earlier, I suppose. I went round on Friday with Dai . . . our son . . . Megan was supposed to have him for the weekend. My sister gets him to school, Megan never could get up in the morning. We went round on Friday and rang and there was no answer. Dai had a key and he said it would be OK to let ourselves in and wait. It was about half four. We went into the flat and I put the kettle on and looked at some letters that had arrived. I didn’t open them at that stage, but I was her agent, still am I suppose, there were a lot of letters on the mat and I was looking for publishers’ logos on . . . there was something I didn’t like about the flat that day. Not the way she kept it . . . full of BattleSpear crap . . . the place stank of joss and piss. That wasn’t like Megan . . . she hated the smell of joss, said it made her feel she was going to fit, and if she did fit, well, she usually did piss herself, but she always cleaned up. She was disciplined like that.”
Megan’s main reason for coming to see me had been to discuss the medicine she’d been taking for her epilepsy. As a non-medical psychologist, I could only give her general advice about that, so I’d referred her on to a neurologist, Professor Vron. Edwin went on: “Dai called me to the bedroom. I hadn’t been in there since we split, but . . . the whole thing was so unlike Megan.
“There wasn’t any doubt . . . she was cold as . . . I’d never seen anyone dead before . . . and for our son to find her!”
Monique offered him a box of tissues, and he grabbed a thick wad and wept into it for a long time. I didn’t know why they had split up, but it didn’t sound to have been an irreparable breach. A hint of jealousy, but more to do with differences in lifestyle and writing policy, she’d said in passing: mainly him differing loudly from her. Now he was crying as though he’d realized for the first time that maybe marriage was about not dying alone because there’s no one to pop in and ask if you want a cup of tea and notice you’re dying.
Megan had been on phenobarbitone, an old fashioned anticonvulsant which had once doubled as a tranquillizer. Its use had long been restricted to a few cases of epilepsy which responded to it best, because people could get too tolerant to it. Eventually, to get an effect a person needed a potentially lethal dose, and if misused, as it often had been in the past, it could be more dangerous than heroin. Morrigan May had insisted that safer and more modern anti-convulsants had less impact on her fits. If she was going to take pills, they had to be phenobarbs, though she would prefer to take none.
He started to calm down and dry his eyes, and I said: “I suppose she must have inadvertently taken an overdose of the phenobarb. I’m surprised she was still on it . . .I did send her to a neurologist who should have tried to get her onto something safer. In the old days there were lots of phenobarb ODs, and most of them were accidental.”
He stared at me blankly. “She didn’t mention all the strain . . . all the hassles she was getting from BattleSpear?”
“No.” I added cautiously: “Just who is BattleSpear?”
He didn’t answer but pulled a document out of his bag. “Just look at that!”
The letterhead had a logo of a Conan-like figure hurling an enormous spear. It was a critique of a book, presumably one of Morrigan’s. It was full of comments like: “P3 par 1: Do your homework! Trulls are quite distinct from Urks, the latter being able to use but not service a stun laser, while stupid Trulls are quite unable to comprehend that such a small and shiny item could be a weapon!
P3 par 2: Rubbish! Trulls have enhanced Night Vision, but that does not mean they suffer from snow blindness in good light!”
and in the same vein for seven pages.
“I don’t know why BattleSpear went into publishing! They’re just toy makers, not even games really, toys with rules for playing, ripped off from sensible people. How could a writer, a sensitive artist like her, be expected to tolerate that! They’re men playing in a child’s world and nerds in a grown-up’s! I’m sueing them! They’re responsible for her death, and I need you to help prove it!”
The flat was in Wandsworth, above a shop in a small parade opposite the Common, in an area where the Victorian streets had been ramped and chicaned against speeding motorists by gentrifiers who nevertheless all owned cars. I had once briefly been a police officer, and it felt as if Monique and I were staking the place out, as we waited for Edwin May after our regular day’s work had finished. We were in my reconditioned Morris Minor, rear wheels on a double and the front sharing a Residents Only bay with a Ho
nda Goldwing. Monique had decided against using her Merc . . . she thought that if he saw it, May might decide to sue us rather than BattleSpear. She said: “Let’s formulate this case before he gets here.”
“We have a writer, published but not especially successful.”
“I’d never heard of her.”
“I did a search on the Internet. Alta Vista found her. She began with a series of eco-SF novels . . . the Deep Green trilogy. She got rave reviews from small magazines, got nominated for awards no one’s ever heard of. Then she switched to the fantasy historical stuff he showed us, Dark Age, Celtic, slightly more sellable, but not a real breakthrough. Her husband is her agent. He drifts off, perhaps because she signs with a down-market teen-games firm.”
“He really hated them!” Monique said with feeling. “Did she say anything to you, to suggest this firm BattleSpear somehow drove her to suicide?”
“Not exactly. She said they were stressful to work for, but that was why she wanted to come off the phenobarbs, thought she was using them for the wrong reasons. She said she was getting preoccupied with long-term health, holistic approaches to health . . . even writing a book about holistic health.”
“Doesn’t sound suicidal at all. Isn’t that him? Edwin May?”
Across the street, a man was pushing the bell of Morrigan’s flat. He wore an old leather jacket, brown, and though it was August and a fine late afternoon, the collar was turned up. He looked a bit like Edwin May: I couldn’t see if he had the trademark pony-tail because of the collar, but when he stepped back from the door I saw it wasn’t him. The pale, bony face looked similar, but this man had stubble rather than beard and he wore a collar and tie. He looked up at the flat, at the greengrocer’s below which seemed to have closed, walked slowly away. I said:
“It’s not him. This guy’s ringing, not unlocking.”
“OK! You agree it doesn’t sound like suicide?”
“I think she cut the tablets down too quickly, had a fit, then put them back up too quickly. So the fact that working for Battle-Spear was not a paradise, and her hubby seems to have had a better deal lined up which has now gone down the drain, is just unlucky coincidence.”
