The Nightmare Detective

by K Childs

  My father thrust a glass of something thick and auburn into my hands and nodded at one of my uncles on his right.

  I contorted my face into a stiff, formal smile and gave my uncle a hearty shake of his hand. “Uncle Travis, good to see you.”

  “It’s not decent!” Gertrude wailed from the living room and I glanced through the doorway to see she and my mother, Elizabeth, were going on about whatever their current disagreement was. I presumed some of the new train station expansions. It was unlikely to be Charlotte’s death, despite the funeral and wake; Gertrude had always been more animate about the city council than her children.

  Pleasantries were traded between the Beaumont family, food was stacked on my plate and eaten. Family refilled my glass almost as soon as I took my second sip and I knew it was going to be like most Beaumont evenings.

  “Gertrude is in the spare room, Rose, make sure you see her before you leave.” My mother pointed upstairs. “I gave her something to help her sleep.”

  “Is she being hysterical?”

  “Her daughter is dead, Rose.” She shrugged and pulled out a small pill from a canister in her handbag, popping one in her own mouth. She had dozens in there. She was a firm believer that a little medication did not hurt anyone.

  I found Gertrude in the hall, and the tightness in my chest became a leaden weight. She teetered in front of me, her breath a toxic mixture of too much gin and whiskey.

  “Rose, you were supposed to look out for my baby.”

  My mother gave me a pleading look over my aunt’s head. Her mouth didn’t move but her eyes said ‘don’t make a scene.’

  Gertrude grabbed my arm, a wail escaping her throat, “It’s your fault.”

  I caught her wrists before she could pound my chest with her other hand. “Aunt Gertie, I’m sorry.”

  Not my best choice of words.

  “Sorry?” Her voice wobbled and broke. “Sorry, Rose?”

  “Aunt Gertrude,” I said.

  “Sorry won’t bring my daughter back, Rose! Sorry won’t bring her from the dead. You filled her head with this ridiculous farce! You wanted to play at being a cop and now Charlie is dead!” She hit me, hard enough my lip split.

  I tasted blood.

  My mother dragged her sister off me, and the family closed ranks. “Calm down, Gertrude.”

  “You’re drunk, Gertie. Show a little dignity.”

  I fled downstairs into the kitchen.

  “Mince pie?” My cousin asked.

  I wasn’t hungry. I took the whiskey that was in my cousin’s other hand and downed it. The alcohol stung my broken lip.

  “You look dreadful, Rose.”

  “Yes.”

  “Not just the lip—although she got in a good shot, I see.”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  Charlie had learned to box from her mother.

  “You going to catch who killed her?”

  I turned on my cousin, my mouth a thin line. “No, I intended on sitting on my backside and doodling all afternoon. After that, maybe I’ll take a nap and eat a sandwich.”

  My cousin held up his hands in placation. “Sorry I asked.”

  “Of course I’m going to nail the blighter to the cross. Half this damn family knows what goes on in the Dreamscape, but you all act like it’s a great shameful secret. Charlie died protecting someone from the very secrets you would all bury. She died a damn hero. Acting like I killed her?” I snarled, “No. A monster killed my bloody cousin. Unlike the rest of you who have the power to do something but refuse to. I will go after it and see the killer hanged.”

  “Right.” He straightened his tie, and made for a strategic retreat, muttering. “Save me from the women in this bloody family.”

  I found myself another drink.

  The family filtered out.

  Only Cousin Bernice was still in the house ten minutes later; she washed the dishes and her son put them away in cupboards. Bernice looked at me from the kitchen and nodded at the door. “Your father didn’t look well. Agatha took him home.”

  My father never looked well. Neither did I. We spent too much time in the Dreamscape.

  I sat down in the parlour with a coffee and watched the light fade. The room fell into shadows and the faint ghosts of perfume and warmth of other human bodies.

  Bernice finished in the kitchen. “The funeral was the usual.”

  In a clan as big as ours, you got used to the dramas. “Who arranged it?”

  “Agatha. Gertrude was too distraught and Stuart… he put on a brave face but…”

  I nodded. My mother was ever the family practical hand.

  The doorbell rang. It startled both me and Bernice, and she ushered me to settle while she went and answered it.

  I heard her speaking in soft tones. The door didn’t close after a few seconds, then she called out to me, “Rose, I’ll put the kettle on, love.”

  She returned, Darrien Montagu in tow.

  I sat up. “What are you doing here?”

  “Ben said you were at a funeral.” He looked around, like this didn’t look like what he had expected.

  “Yes, this is my cousin Stuart’s house. This is a wake.”

  He looked at the empty house.

  “Everyone’s gone home already. Bernice and I are looking after Stuart and Gertrude.”

  “Charlie’s brother and her mother,” Bernice supplied helpfully. “Please, come in, sit down. How do you know Rosie?”

  “He’s a victim I’m trying to protect,” I told Bernice.

  She shook her head. “Everything you do is backwards, Rose.”

  It was something my father had shouted in a rage at a family picnic six years ago, after four vermouths too many. The whole family had heard it. They liked to repeat it from time to time. Sometimes to egg him, more to rib me.

  I shook my head. “Sit down, Darrien.”

  He stopped hovering and sat, finally.

  My cousin retreated to the kitchen to prepare tea. She returned quickly; the kettle was still hot. The cups were very floral, and I wondered if they were Stuart’s or something that Charlotte had given him.

  I finished my tea. It was a very domestic scene.

  Darrien stirred his tea, perhaps realizing he had intruded, but too proud to leave just yet, “I was worried.”

  I said, “Darrien, I am afraid that is not your place to concern yourself over my comings and goings.”

  “I am concerned when my mother might decide to pay you another visitation.” He glanced at Bernice, coughed. “Of… of a more permanent nature.”

  “His mother hired thugs to attack me last night,” I said.

  Bernice’s son’s eyes widened. “Did you beat them up with your magic?”

  Bernice corrected her son, “Don’t call it magic—that’s a dirty common flap-show. You know better. Cousin Rose is an Oneironaut.”

  “Of course, did you?” Her son was not to be deterred.

  “I was thoroughly beaten. They broke my nose, ribs, turned me out black and blue.” I didn’t lie to children, no matter how much it stung my ego.

  “Why aren’t you bandaged up then?” There was a disbelieving tone in his voice.

  “Darrien here used Animancy to heal me.”

  “But he’s a man!”

  Darrien coughed up tea. Clearly, he’d not dealt with the more common reaction to the strangeness of a male Animancer.

  “Men can be Animancers. It’s rare but it happens,” I

  chuckled.

  “Then why do you still look awful?”

  Bernice cuffed her grinning son about the head, lightly, for a good shot in was acceptable and she was too busy hiding her own bark of laughter. “I think that is my signal to take someone upstairs.”

  I moved so she could go past me and take her son to bed… and presumably teach him some decorum.

  Darrien looked about the small house and managed a smile. “I’ve not seen a home like
this from the inside.”

  It lacked the sweeping archways, the grand tapestries, the suits of armour and the cabinets filled with valuables. Instead there were a few small paintings, two bookshelves, and the rest of it was just furniture and knick-knacks from relatives that Stuart managed to display. It was a good home, cluttered but clean, lived-in.

  “This is how the average London family lives.” I shrugged. I didn’t know how average my family was, but we were far from abnormal.

  “Do you live in a place like this?”

  “I live in Grandfather Beaumont’s old hotel. It’s an apartment for unmarried women with jobs. A bit different.” I didn’t need to tell him my father still owned the hotel. We had some money in the family, but I wouldn’t consider us wealthy.

  “About mother…” He stopped, clearly struggling to speak.

  “You gave her a wrong impression of me to keep her away from a new mistress?”

  “No!” He put the tea down. “No! Not at all…”

  “Well then?”

  “I did ask you to marry me, back at the castle.”

  I frowned, trying to recall a conversation to that effect. Nothing sprang to mind. “I don’t remember you kneeling and holding up a ring.”

  He adjusted his tie. “Well not as such—but ought I?”

  “We spoke of why you weren’t married already…” I remembered that conversation clearly enough. I wanted to ask how his mother knew about the conversation, but truthfully, I wasn’t sure the knowledge would ease my fear of the woman.

  “And I slipped it into our conversation.” He squirmed,

  actually squirmed.

  “You did so with a deal of stealth. I think an explanation is in order, then.”

  “I like you.” He opened and closed his mouth a few times, struggling. “You’re not like the women in my life. I’d like to change that. Make you part of my life.”

  “Marriage is a rather permanent way of doing that. You’ve known me barely a week, Darrien. No one marries someone they’ve known for such a short period of time. Let alone a man with your…”

  He blinked. “My…?”

  “Proclivities,” I finished, delicately as I might.

  He touched his chest. “What do you mean?”

  “Darrien, you’ve been unfaithful to your fiancée, your mistress, and your mother. That isn’t a ringing endorsement of a man’s character.”

  “And you’re a member of the constabulary!”

  “Hardly a notch against my character. I’m a pillar of society.”

  “I’m a bloody Duke. A few bad years and I could be sitting on the damn throne.”

  “The French would say that nobility does not make one noble, nor a pillar of society.”

  He placed his hands on his knees. “So I’m to be prejudiced by accident of birth?”

  “No. Merely that your birth does not guarantee your manner nor your conduct.” I set my tea down. “Shall I give you an account?”

  “Please, since apparently I know so little about myself.” He waved.

  “You’re arrogant, but not without reason; you’re a charmer. You get most of what you want by being pretty and rich. But you are honest and quick. You don’t abide abuses, and you don’t hide behind pretence.”

  His hands smoothed over his pants, smoothing out invisible wrinkles. “Then shall I ask you again?”

  I frowned. “No. Don’t ask me. Your fiancée just died. You’re rushing into what you think is a good idea because you’re worried you won’t find real love. I don’t want to be that woman for you.”

  Darrien stood, his eyes stormy.

  He didn’t speak. His mouth worked but nothing come out.

  I’d finally pushed him too far.

  Instead he left through the front door.

  I sat back down, rubbing my head.

  Bernice came back into the room, taking a sip from her tea and shaking her head. “Backwards.”

  I left my cousin taking care of the family and hailed a cab from the main street.

  I’d spent most of the day musing on my multitude of other conundrums; it was time to deal with the true issue at the heart of the week’s long reign of terror. I had a dragon to catch.

  The Duchess had shown me her hand: she had a healing scar, one from a knife stabbing her. The Duke possessed a similar scar, from his wound received on Monday. A wound made by Charlotte waking him from a dream by force.

  I’d spent the last few days trying to sift through so many motives and opportunities, trying to narrow the suspect list down to one murderer, thinking about all the traits that dragons were reputed to have, that the killer had slipped between the cracks of my thoughts. The little clues I’d been chasing the last few days, all the trifling inconsistencies and all the interviews I had conducted led to one, and only one, culprit. It was time to cage my dragon.

  I returned to my own home and found I had no uniform to change into. Both of mine had been ruined.

  I borrowed Charlie’s woollen jacket and found her spare shock-stick in the coat pocket. She’d had one made by the clankers specially after witnessing a woman almost raped while seconded to another unit.

  The break from the case had served to clear my head. I was finally focused and sharp enough to know how the evening would play out.

  Dressed as an officer of the law, and armed, I had Mrs. Davies call me another cab, and I left a message for my Chief with the desk sergeant.

  “Piccadilly, 34 Wardour street please,” I told the cabbie.

  The apartments that the Duke kept were rather understated on the outside. The façade was plain, with tasteful French motifs on the edges and painted cherubs frolicking amid flowers on the door. It was probably where he took his city mistresses and partied away from his mother’s prying eyes.

  I doubt he’d been enjoying that habit the last few days.

  I paid my fare and stepped out of the cab, wishing I had something a little bigger than just a shock-stick.

  I rang the doorbell to the apartments and one of the brutes that the Duchess had used the previous night opened the door. He looked a lot less brutish but more intimidating in his jacket and suit. “You shouldn’t be here, miss.”

  “It’s Detective Inspector. Now get out of my way before I make you.”

  He eyed me like he expected that was a rather empty threat from a woman of my size and stature. I suppose it might have been on most nights.

  One large hand moved to close the door.

  I activated the shock stick, pulled it from my belt and jabbed it into his hand. The movement was smooth and clean, rather belying the pain and weariness in my bones.

  A crack sounded as the brute hit the table on the other side of the foyer and he, the table and a vase of flowers hit the ground. The vase shattered, leaving him covered in water and chrysanthemums.

  I closed the door behind me.

  Ben and one of our constables came running into the hall with a mighty bellow.

  I took off my coat, ignoring them for a moment and hanging it by the door. “I take it everyone is dining at the moment?”

  Ben straightened. “Yes Inspector.”

  I twisted the shock-stick around, resetting the gears and readying it for another maximum charge. “Are any of the Duke’s entourage not present?”

  He shook his head. “No, everyone is at dinner.”

  “Good. Secure the doors. Do you have Hardigan’s sword?”

  “No, the sword is in the Duke’s room.”

  “Then retrieve it first. I’ll delay. Do hurry.” If things went sideways, I would be alone with a rather angry giant snake. Outside the Dreamscape, the dragon was certainly the more formidable foe.

  I doubted the Duchess would warm showing my face after her warning. If she had her way, I am sure I would have crawled off to lick my wounds and let someone like Puttick take over the case.

  I didn’t crawl off in shame. It simply wasn’t my style.

/>   I strode into the dining room.

  It was half the size of Lord Howard’s London estate, while the servants had set it to accommodate the group seated around the table, I expected that Darrien rarely used the table when he was in town.

  The fire was stoked, candles lit to ward off the spring chill. The Duchess reclined at the head of the table like a matron watching unruly children. Her steely gaze settled on me and her mouth snapped.

  “Oh, Miss Rose, you’ve returned!” Mary stood and embraced me warmly.

  “Yes, indeed.” I extracted myself from her and walked slowly around the dining room, noting the window and receiving a look of hostility from the doorman as he came limping in, Constable Marcus on one side.

  “I’m sorry Ma’am, she electrocuted me!” he hissed.

  “And I’ll do it again if you don’t simmer down, this time to the Duchess.” I tapped the stick against the Duchess’ chair to emphasis my point.

  “How dare you!” Duchess Montagu hissed.

  “Don’t,” I snapped. “Any attempt to impede me at this point will be interfering directly with a murder investigation, coupled together with other charges… and you, Your Grace, are not immune to the law.”

  I was half-bluffing. I had a pretty strong belief that even if she did interfere grossly, we’d be letting it happen. But sometimes one must play like you’re holding all the cards. Even if you only have one.

  Darrien rose to his feet, gaze turning stormy. “Rose, I hardly think this scene is becoming of a lady.”

  “Yes, it is rather emotional.” Alston shook his head.

  “As I must keep reminding everyone in this room, I am a Detective Inspector and I am investigating murder. Not proper etiquette nor my social standing.”

  I moved away from the Duchess and placed myself in front of the southern door, blocking the kitchen. “Now, I am here to make an arrest.”

  That announcement fell over the room, making them hush.

  “I have to admit; this case has suffered from a great deal too much evidence from the start.” I didn’t like explaining my methods, but as long as everyone was focused on me, no one was watching for Ben.