Nemesis

by Rory Clements

  After Weir had left, Wilde took his place by Horace’s bedside. He kept talking to him in a low, soothing voice, hoping at least some comforting words would get through. He reminded Horace of his achievements in a long life in politics and academia, and assured him his days had been well spent. He spoke, too, about Lydia and their forthcoming child. In the end he realised he was thinking aloud. ‘It’s something I never really expected, Horace, not after losing Charlotte and the baby. Now I’m . . . well, I was going to say terrified, but apprehensive is probably a better word.’

  He was holding Dill’s hand and was sure he experienced a little squeeze of the fingers.

  ‘Is there anything you want, Horace?’ Wilde released Dill’s hand and poured a few drops of water into his own left palm, then dipped his fingers into it and touched Horace’s dry, cracked lips.

  Dill was a long way away, close to death. His breaths were shallow and infrequent now and it was hard to discern words among the few sounds he was making. Once or twice, Wilde did wonder whether the old man was indeed calling for his mother, but it was too indistinct to be sure.

  And then Horace’s eyes opened. They were rheumy and fading, but Wilde was certain that they were looking at him, searching for something, some connection. Wilde took his hand again and Dill clutched his fingers like a man on the edge of a precipice.

  ‘It’s me, Horace, Tom Wilde. I’m here.’

  ‘Mother . . .’

  ‘Your mother loved you, Horace.’

  Horace closed his eyes, took several urgent breaths. He spoke again and this time the word was clearer – not mother but Marfield.

  ‘Marcus Marfield?’

  Another long pause, several seconds, and then that desperate whisper. For a few moments, his voice – though quiet – was clear. ‘He loves him, always has . . .’

  ‘Horace, I don’t know what you’re saying.’

  But there was no more. The breath left him in a long sigh.

  Wilde sat beside Dill’s body for a few minutes, holding his hands, until he was certain that he had gone.

  At last he rose and took a large slug of the whisky. Pulling back the blackout an inch, he saw that it was still dark. He hadn’t brought his watch, but reckoned it must be about four in the morning. No hurry now. He could sit here a little longer.

  He held Dill’s hand as it began to cool, then he finished the flask and smoothed the bedclothes so that he looked at peace. At last, he let himself out, went downstairs and walked across the courts towards the porters’ lodge. He would leave all the arrangements in their hands.

  Why would Horace mention Marcus Marfield in his dying breath? He loves him, always has. Who did Marcus love, apart from himself? Horace had never tried to hide his homosexuality, so it was perfectly possible he had desired Marcus Marfield, but why leave it until the end to declare it? Horace Dill was not a man to conceal his passions. If he had loved Marfield, he would have shouted it from the college roofs. But in any case, Dill had made no secret of his contempt for the young man. No – he must mean that someone else loved Marfield. Were Dill’s last words a warning of some sort?

  Wilde stopped in the darkness. The world around him was absolutely silent. This ancient college had always been a repository of great learning, but this night it seemed to hold dark secrets, too. His gaze drifted around the old court, taking in all the staircase entrances and the black-shrouded windows, before making his way to the porters’ lodge.

  Osgood, the new night porter, greeted him. ‘Any news, Professor?’

  ‘Professor Dill is dead, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir.’

  ‘When you hand over to the day shift, let them know. They’ll see to the necessary arrangements. Death certificate and funeral directors, notification of next of kin.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘One other thing: do you know if Mr Laker is in his rooms tonight?’

  ‘The Director of Music? Yes, sir, I believe he is. He came in a few hours ago, soon after my shift began. He was with Professor Barnes.’

  ‘Barnes? I thought he had joined up.’

  ‘I believe so, sir. But I think he’s on leave because he has been in and out of college this past week or two. Apparently he’s been called away to his regiment tonight.’

  ‘Would you put a call for me through to Mr Laker’s rooms, please?’

  Osgood was doubtful. ‘Won’t the gentleman be asleep, Professor?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take responsibility for it.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  Osgood dialled Laker’s number, but there was no answer. After a minute he handed the phone to Wilde: nothing but a ringing tone.

  ‘Come on, Mr Osgood, bring your keys, I want you to open Mr Laker’s rooms.’

  The night porter looked very unsure. ‘I shouldn’t really leave my post. Are you sure, sir?’

  ‘Never been more sure of anything in my life.’

  *

  Before opening Laker’s door, the porter insisted on pounding it for a full minute, then called at full volume as though his voice would penetrate the solid wood where his fist had failed. Finally, he inserted the key.

  The large sitting room had a homely feel. The baby grand dominated one corner, as far away from the hearth as it would go. Sheet music was scattered across a coffee table. The paintings on the wall were discreetly sexual. Wilde was sure he recognised a nude watercolour as the work of Egon Schiele. It was difficult to tell whether the bony, lean-muscled figure was male or female.

  ‘No one here, sir.’ The porter had removed his bowler as a mark of respect.

  Wilde opened the door to the adjoining bedroom. Where the sitting room was elegant and inviting, this compact room was rank with the stench of stale tobacco smoke, sweat, and some other smell that was so out of place that Wilde didn’t quite register it at first: petroleum.

  The oversized bed was a tangled mess.

  He couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing: it looked like a clutter of bedclothes in need of laundering. But then he realised that a man’s body was stretched out on the bed, naked except for a rumpled sheet covering his chest and head.

  Wilde pulled the sheet away and revealed the face and tormented body of Timothy Laker. His matchstick arms were stretched out behind him, his bony wrists bound tightly to the bedposts. His ankles, too, were tied to the foot of the bed. A gag of cloth bulged from his mouth. An Egon Schiele work brought to life.

  Wilde’s first instinct was that Laker must be dead, but that impression lasted only a moment: the man’s chest was heaving and his eyes were wide open, looking at Wilde in terror.

  ‘Mr Osgood, come through here would you?’ Wilde wanted a witness to this scene.

  The porter followed him into the room and his ill-shaven jaw dropped in shock. ‘Good Lord, Professor!’

  ‘Do you have a knife?’

  ‘There’ll be one in the gyp room. I’ll look.’

  Two minutes later, Timothy Laker had been cut free and was sitting on the edge of his bed, modesty restored by a dressing gown. Wilde dismissed the porter back to the gatehouse.

  ‘I think you need to talk, Laker – and fast.’

  ‘For pity’s sake give me a cigarette, Wilde. You’ll find a packet on the piano. Please . . .’ Laker was in agony, painfully flexing his joints and muscles, trying to get some blood circulating.

  Wilde found a packet of Players and a box of matches and handed them to Laker.

  ‘I take it Marcus Marfield did this to you. You’ve been hiding him here.’

  Laker said nothing, drew deeply on his cigarette and looked down at his shaking hands.

  ‘You told the night porter he was Barnes, didn’t you? Being new, he wouldn’t have known any better. Not difficult to conceal someone’s identity if you move them in and out by night. The question is, Laker – where is Marfield?’

  Laker turned on Wilde. ‘I could have died just now!’

  ‘Are you sure you wer
en’t enjoying it?’

  ‘How dare you talk to me like that!’

  ‘I think, Laker, that you haven’t quite come to terms with how much trouble you’re in. You have been concealing a man wanted for murder. Aiding and abetting a violent criminal. People have been hanged for less – you could certainly go down for twenty years.’

  ‘He needed sanctuary – what was I supposed to do?’

  ‘You always loved him.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t love him?’

  ‘If you loved him, why did you tell me about Gus Percheron’s complaint against him?’

  He shrugged. ‘I hated him, too. Marcus is Marcus. He always spurned me – until these last two weeks when he needed me.’

  It was a story as old as mankind; the lover and the loved. And it was always the latter who held the whip hand. Right now, Wilde had other concerns. ‘He’s a killer and I need to know where he is. If you help me, I might even testify on your behalf. And why do your bloody rooms smell of petrol?’

  Laker was sweating, biting at the nicotine-yellow tips of his finger; smoke swirling around him. He turned his head to the wall and shook his head.

  Wilde suppressed a desire to hit him. ‘OK. Let’s get you to the police station. Marfield killed one of their own – they’ll have a fine time with you.’

  ‘Damn you, Wilde! I don’t know where he’s gone. I had no control over him.’

  ‘And the petrol? I saw you with a jerrycan, remember?’

  ‘He’s been building something – an incendiary bomb, I don’t know. Something he learnt in Spain apparently. I couldn’t stop him. Said he was going to burn some Americans.’

  Marfield on the loose with an incendiary bomb, in the early hours when households slept. Wilde felt sick.

  CHAPTER 42

  As her eyes opened in the dark, she was immediately assailed by a smell of smoke and petrol. She took a deep breath. Her nerves were getting worse. She knew she was being watched, of course. How could she not be aware of the click on the phone line, the watchers in the street?

  She slumped back into the pillows. The smell was her imagination. There was no sound, nothing. She closed her eyes; she had slept little these past weeks.

  ‘You said we were in this together . . .’

  Her eyes widened, first in panic, then hope, peering into the pitch darkness while her hand scrabbled for the bedside lamp, only to send it crashing to the floor. ‘Marcus, is that you?’

  ‘Hello, Elina. Have you missed me?’

  She was out of bed now, standing up, naked. She always slept naked. ‘What are you doing here, Marcus? What’s that smell? Please, turn the light on.’

  The beam of a torch lit her torso, her eyes and her fair, wavy hair. She couldn’t see him, but he could see her pale flesh. Then, from out of the light, came a flash of steel. Even as the knife struck she didn’t realise she had been stabbed. She gasped as though she had been punched and her hands went to her throat as she fell back onto the bed. Why was her throat wet?

  The blade came again, into her arms and face. Again and again. Ferocious in its speed, but not frenzied: a controlled onslaught. She flailed wildly, aware now that she had been stabbed. He held the beam of the torch to his own blood-drenched and expressionless face. His body, naked from the waist up, was streaked with blood. Her blood.

  For a few uncomprehending seconds, her eyes met his. And then her eyelids closed, her hands sank away from her throat to the bed, and she died not knowing why.

  *

  The house was ablaze from bottom to top. From the end of the street Wilde could see flames licking the sky and black smoke belching from the windows. He twisted the throttle, accelerated two hundred yards, the front wheel of the Rudge rising from the road, then came to a screeching stop outside the burning house.

  A small crowd was gathering, all in nightclothes. The fire roared and crackled. Smoke poured from the roof into the night sky.

  Wilde ditched the bike on its stand and raced in the direction of the house, then stopped, helpless. It was an impenetrable furnace and there was no way in.

  He heard the clanging of a fire engine somewhere in the distance, back in the centre of town. Please God let it be coming here.

  ‘No one’s coming out of that alive,’ someone at his side said. He turned to face the man: Neville from across the road, who worked as a floor manager in the Pye factory. Neville’s eyes met Wilde’s and he turned away shame-faced.

  ‘Neville,’ Wilde said. ‘Where’s Lydia?’

  Neville shook his head and shuffled away.

  ‘Has anyone seen Lydia?’ Wilde was shouting now, the centre of a growing crowd.

  The fire engine had turned into the road; the clanging of its bell sounded like the knell of death. What would they be able to do? There was nothing the firemen nor anyone else could do against such a blaze. Anyone or anything inside that house would be cinders and ash.

  And then, at the far end of the road, Wilde spotted a face he knew. Marcus Marfield, naked from the waist up, standing there, watching his foul handiwork.

  *

  Constable Edgar Gates was among the first at the scene of this devastating house fire. He’d been three streets away when he saw the glow in the sky. By the time he got there, a crowd had gathered to stare at the huge blaze. First things first, get the fire brigade out. He blew his whistle hard to alert other beat bobbies, then collared a woman clutching a baby.

  ‘Got a phone, luv?’

  ‘I’ve already called the fire brigade, constable.’

  ‘Is there anyone still in there?’

  ‘If they are, they’re done for.’

  The crowd was building now. Someone raced up on a motorbike – the householder? Gates was just about to go over to speak to him when he spotted the young man with his hands in his pockets and a bare chest that looked as if it was streaked with blood. There was something about him. As he approached, PC Gates’s grip tightened on the haft of his truncheon.

  The young man’s gaze was fixed on the fire. He had fair hair and his face seemed familiar. ‘Do you know something about this, son?’ Gates demanded, turning on his torch and looking the young man up and down. He was covered in blood. ‘Have you injured yourself? We’ll have an ambulance along soon enough.’

  The young man smiled, took his bloodstained hands out of his pockets and held them out, palms up, then down. ‘My name is Marcus Marfield,’ he said. ‘You had better arrest me. You’ll be a hero, constable. I’ve killed some Americans . . .’

  *

  Wilde pushed through the crowd, fists clenched, just as the constable was putting Marfield in handcuffs. A woman appeared at Wilde’s side, and grabbed hold of his arm. He tried to nudge her away, and then saw that it was Lydia, her hair sleep-tousled, her feet bare beneath her dressing gown. He stopped. ‘Lydia – thank God.’ He took her in his arms. ‘Where are Jim and Juliet and the boys?’

  ‘Throwing some clothes on. They’ll be out in a moment. Tom, your lovely house – how did this happen?’

  Wilde nodded towards Marfield.

  Lydia’s eyes followed his gaze. ‘My God, Tom, it’s Marcus!’

  ‘I’m going to kill the bastard. He got the wrong house – he thinks he’s murdered us.’

  Marfield had seen him. A slight twitching of the lips; his expression was hard to read. Was he gloating? Wilde began again to shoulder his way towards him. Lydia pulled him back again.

  ‘No, Tom – let the hangman do it.’

  *

  In the morning, as the last few spirals of smoke rose from the dampened ashes and the firemen finally declared the fire was out, they stood there in line and looked on the ruin of Tom Wilde’s home: Wilde and Lydia, Jim and Juliet and their children, Doris, who had worked so hard keeping the house pristine over the years, and knots of neighbours.

  Wilde put his arm around Lydia’s slender shoulders. ‘It’s all gone,’ he said. ‘Everything that I don’t keep in your house or at college. Papers, books, irreplaceable
photographs, years of research . . .’

  ‘But you’re alive – and we’re all alive.’

  ‘How I wish I’d never heard of Camp du Vernet. How I wish we’d just left the bastard there to rot. All this, and poor Horace gone, too.’

  Jim and Juliet moved closer to them and now all four of them stood arm in arm, with the two boys in front of them, straight-backed and silent.

  ‘This is the way it’s going to be, buddy,’ Jim said. ‘Whole cities bombed and burned to extinction.’

  ‘I know,’ said Wilde.

  Lydia leant into him and put her arms around his waist. ‘No alternative now, Professor Wilde,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to move in with me properly, like it or not.’

  He snorted. ‘This is all part of your master plan, is it?’

  She shrugged, and smiled, then he began laughing and she laughed, too. And those around them were confirmed in their long-held suspicions that they must be mad.

  NOVEMBER 1939

  CHAPTER 43

  ‘How will you face your death, Marcus?’

  ‘With equanimity and a few well-chosen words. I want the world to know what I was trying to do.’

  ‘When I found you in France – at Le Vernet – you had a much-read copy of the Book of Common Prayer. So, in the light of all you have done, are you able to make your peace with God?’

  They were in the condemned cell at Pentonville two weeks after the judge had donned the black cap and pronounced the sentence of death in courtroom number one at the Old Bailey. Wilde had been there. He had not been required to testify because Marfield had pleaded guilty to all the charges laid before him – four counts of murder, including that of Elina Kossoff, and arson resulting in the destruction of Wilde’s property in Cambridge.

  The whole trial had been over in a morning, and Marfield had been escorted down from the dock into the white-tiled holding cells below with the words of the judge ringing in his ears: that he would be taken to a place of execution where he would be hanged by the neck until he was dead – ‘and may God have mercy on your soul’.