(c) 2008 by Tom Tolnay
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Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider
Murder on the Air: One of this column's readers sent me an e-mail to remind me that for people who like to listen to tales of mystery as well as read them, there are a lot of sources of entertainment on the Internet. Part of the charter at BBC 7 (www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7) is to re-broadcast old radio shows, and it's a good place to hear tales about Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie's stories are also popular there, along with some comedy and science fiction. BBC 4 (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4) has fewer mysteries, but they do turn up there.
There are any number of Internet sites devoted to old-time radio (OTR to its fans). OTR.Network Library (www.otr.net), for example has “over 12,000 ... shows available for instant listening.” You can hear the cases of sleuths like Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, who might be a bit different from the characters you've read about in books by Chandler and Hammett but who are nevertheless entertaining. You can listen to the adventures of Jack, Doc, and Reggie on I Love a Mystery, a personal favorite. And you shouldn't miss Pat Novak for Hire with a pre-Dragnet Jack Webb spouting more similes per second than any private-eye before or since. There are many others: Nero Wolfe, The Falcon, Barry Craig, Michael Shayne, Rocky Fortune, and on and on.
Another fine site is Old Time Radio Fans (www.oldtimeradio-fans.com), which, like OTR.Network Library, offers listeners hundreds of shows. Both have comedy, science fiction, and variety shows as well as mysteries. Not to mention Westerns like Hopalong Cassidy, Gunsmoke, and Have Gun, Will Travel.
Yet another site worth checking out is RadioLovers.com (www.radio-lovers.com), where you can find many shows for free listening. Some of the same shows mentioned above are available here, but you need to check all three sites to be sure you find what you're looking for.
Finally, if you're interested in the history of OTR or if you'd just like to learn more about it, a good resource is Old-Time Radio (www.old-time.com). You can have a look at the frequently asked questions or find lots of basic information.
Copyright (c) 2008 Bill Crider
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Novelette: A DEATH by Kevin Wignall
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Art by Mark Evans
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Kevin Wignall is not a prolific short story writer, but he has produced three previous tales for this magazine and a couple for the anthology market since his debut on the crime scene in 2002 with the novel People Die. His fourth novel, Who Is Conrad Hirst?, was nominated for this year's Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original and is currently up for the Barry Award, whose winner will be announced at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in October.
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Hammond stayed in the car, knowing it would cost him his place in the Branch and maybe even his career. At first he'd tried to defend himself by imagining that if his first job had been anything other than this, he'd have been able to go through with it, but he realized now that they'd chosen him for this job specifically, as a final test.
And he'd failed. Perhaps they'd even anticipated it, perhaps his bosses were betting with each other right now on the odds of him being in the car while Baker was inside killing the old lady. His stomach tightened with the reminder of it, the fact that Baker was inside that neat little bungalow, ending the life of a seventy-nine-year-old woman.
Hammond would have been in the car no matter what threat she'd posed, but he couldn't imagine any justification for killing her. She'd served her country for the best part of fifty years, he knew that much, yet now, for whatever reason, she'd become a liability in the eyes of her former masters and had to be removed.
He looked at the garden, the first spring flowers beaten relentlessly, but somehow holding their own against the overcast bluster of this threatening March day. He wondered if she looked after the place herself or if she had a gardener. And he wondered about the view, which was surely uninterrupted down to the sea, even though it wasn't visible from this side of the house. Above all, he tried not to think about what was happening inside.
And then he didn't have to think about anything, except the imminent downward spiral of his own career, because Baker stepped carefully through the front door and walked back to the car.
He leaned down before getting in and smiled, saying, “You're looking a little green—you want me to drive?"
"I'm fine,” said Hammond and started the engine as Baker got in and buckled up.
He hated Baker now, not just for the air of superiority, the way he was looking down at him as if he were some kid out of his depth, but because he was everything Hammond had failed to be. Baker was in his thirties, but he'd probably always looked like that and always would, an easy confidence about him, comfortable with his own life, comfortable with ending the lives of others.
"You realize I have to report this."
Hammond nodded and said, “I don't suppose they'll give me a second chance?"
"Doubt it,” said Baker. “Shame of it is, Dorothy Jennings wasn't a tough one. Diabetics overdose on insulin every day. And she didn't put up much of a struggle, so that was it, really. Easy. Peaceful."
She didn't put up much of a struggle—what horrors could be hidden within a phrase like that! Hammond's stomach was gnawing at itself, the nausea swelling as he listened to Baker's glib description of an elderly woman's murder.
"That could've been your grandmother in there."
"But it wasn't,” said Baker. “I'm not gonna give you all that ‘ours is not to reason why’ stuff, but you can't be personal about this—job needs to be done, you do it. Dorothy Jennings understood that, and she did plenty in her time.” Hammond knew there was more to come and sure enough, Baker added almost as an afterthought, “She wouldn't have stayed in the car."
Hammond guessed it was pointless fighting his corner. Baker was the senior officer, he'd report back that Hammond had bottled, and that would be it, game over.
He could argue as much as he liked that there was a difference between occasionally having to kill an enemy of the state and killing one of its former servants—but arguing suggested thinking and they didn't want him to be a thinker.
"Stop the car,” said Baker, with such urgency that Hammond wondered if he'd left something at the scene.
They were in a narrow country lane with no other traffic ahead or behind so Hammond hit the brakes firmly and waited till they were at a standstill before saying, “What is it?"
"Back up to that signpost back there.” Hammond dutifully reversed and waited while Baker studied the black script on the small white sign that pointed down an even narrower lane. “Amazing. Take this right."
Hammond did as he said but couldn't resist saying, “What do you have in mind, a little sightseeing after a good morning's murder?"
Baker snapped back at him, “Hey, I don't enjoy what I just did, but it's my job! If you can't cut it, that's fine, but don't get smart with me, Hammond!"
He was furious, but not upset, and Hammond felt it was a little misplaced when he said, “Sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"That's right, you shouldn't!” Baker took a couple of beats to calm down, then said, “There's a hotel down here, that's all, overlooking the sea—we stayed here a few times when I was a kid."
"I see,” said Hammond, though he didn't.
It was hard to imagine Baker ever having been a kid, but he certainly didn't seem like someone who went in for nostalgic visits. And it wasn't just that Baker was hard, it was as if all the edges had been worn off him, leaving nothing on which another human being could gain purchase, like an abstract bronze, seamlessly cast.
Perhaps Baker sensed his confusion because he said, “It's a good place to eat—we can lunch there and then head back."
"Right, I get it."
He didn't want to eat, of course, or didn't think he could, but it took them twenty minutes to get there and by that time his stomach had settled a little.
The unimaginatively named Point Hotel was an attractive white Victorian place that had undoubtedly seen better days and was somehow sullied further by the presence of a dozen or so cars and a small bus outside.
It was situated on its own promontory, a moss-sprung patch of green with dark cliffs that were ragged and broken enough to allow easy access down to the water's edge.
Not that anyone would want to be down there on a day like this, the sea like liquid slate, threatening and muscular. Even as they walked into the hotel, fifty yards from the nearest cliff edge, Hammond could feel the salt moisture in the wind, and the noise was enough to create a sudden sensation of deafness as they stepped into the lobby.
The menu wasn't particularly diverse and they both ordered steaks, but they were good when they came and Hammond felt better for getting something in his stomach. They both drank mineral water, which suggested either that Baker planned on doing some of the driving or that he didn't believe in drinking on the job.
For the most part they ate in silence, and the only distraction from their own thoughts was when they'd almost finished and a party of schoolchildren spilled clumsily past the dining-room windows and out across the promontory.
There were about twenty of them, maybe fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds, togged up in waterproof coats, hair flying wildly in the wind. Three teachers, two women and a man, were trying in a half-hearted way to keep them under control, calling out cheery admonitions.
All it did was remind Hammond that he couldn't imagine Baker ever having been like that. And in turn, that made him think of Dorothy Jennings again, her insulin-poisoned body waiting to be found even as they enjoyed their food and thought about the long drive ahead of them.
The nausea returned unexpectedly on the back of those thoughts, as if it had merely been lying low, waiting to ambush him. He didn't think there'd be any quelling it this time, either. He pushed quickly away from the table, fearing for a second or two that he wouldn't even make it out of the dining room.
Baker had just put down his knife and fork but looked surprised and said, “Something wrong?"
"No,” said Hammond. “I'm not sure. You'll have to excuse me for a minute."
v v v
Baker couldn't help laughing to himself a little as he watched Hammond make a dash for the toilets. He'd known from the minute he'd met him that Hammond wouldn't be able to cut it and this was just about the final proof. The guy hadn't even made it inside the bungalow and now he was revisiting his lunch.
He settled the bill in cash and stepped outside to get a feel for the place while he was on his own. It wasn't quite the same, of course, because they'd always come here in the summer, but they were still big memories, happy, swelling up almost as dangerously as the sea below him.
He wished these kids weren't running around shouting, because even though he'd known this place as a boy himself, he didn't remember it ever being loud or raucous. Back then, as recently as twenty or so years earlier, it had been the kind of hotel where children were expected to behave, where a certain genteel calm had ruled.
He walked a little distance from the hotel, closer to the point where the cliffs broke down in a way that allowed an easy path to the water's edge. It had been one of his favourite haunts as a child, a haven of rock pools at low tide, out of sight of the hotel terrace. The kids were here too, though, volatile, running where they wanted.
The male teacher was right on the far tip of the promontory with a group of three kids. The two female teachers were standing close to Baker but were so busy talking that they had no idea what their charges were doing. He was tempted to go over and tell them to keep their kids under control but his chain of thought was interrupted by something more pressing.
Despite all the shouting and excited screams, he immediately picked out a girl shouting, “Oh my God!” She'd shouted no louder than any of the others but he'd picked it out immediately because her tone was strikingly different, the tone of urgency and fear.
He spotted her, followed her gaze to sea, and saw it instantly, a pulsing swell coming in, deceptively flat at the moment, but only because it was broad and high, a big enough wall of water to overwhelm the lower reaches of those cliffs.
The girl was screaming now, directing her shouts to someone on the rocks below. He'd seen a few of the kids run down the path and seen some emerge, and he wondered how many were still down there, how many had lingered too long. She seemed to be calling a single name, so maybe it was just one.
A couple of the girl's friends joined in with her, a hopeless siren chorus, desperately trying to tell one of their classmates what the teachers should already have told them, that it was dangerous to be down there, that soon it would be fatal.
The two female teachers glanced in the direction of the girls but still didn't seem unduly concerned. Baker looked at the swell and knew already that it was too late, that this would be in the papers tomorrow, because someone was about to die.
He looked back to the hotel, willing Hammond to get a move on. They had to get away from here now, or soon, before there were emergency services on the scene and a need for witness statements.
It wasn't so much that he didn't care, just that it was his job and his duty not to become part of it. Besides, one look at that incoming wall of water had told him all he needed to know, that there was nothing they could do.
The chorus screamed. He turned back to the cliffs and saw the spray explode into the air, causing more excited screams from those who didn't yet know what had happened below. The two female teachers stopped talking and looked with astonishment as the spray fell away again like the dying bursts of fireworks.
One of the screaming girls appeared to faint and was left on the floor. The first to scream turned and shouted at her teachers, her voice full of terror but clear and strong.
"Tom's in the water!"
He heard the teachers swear in hushed panic, then one of the two took control, saying to her colleague, “Call the coast guard, then go and get Dave!"
Baker guessed Dave was the male teacher who still didn't appear to know that anything was wrong. The woman who was left standing near Baker started fumbling for her phone. The other ran toward the cliffs and started calling the children away, telling them to get back near the hotel, all too late.
And as if proof were needed, Baker spotted the kid in the sea, his head alone visible out on the swell, looking almost like a seal from up above, not a boy who had the screaming shock of the cold coursing through him, a boy who would drown or die of hypothermia long before any helicopter arrived.
The scene descended into panic within seconds, as first some of the kids, then all of them, became aware of what had happened. The male teacher was running back, bringing the three kids in a trail behind him. Others were running back to the hotel on their own. Two more were attending to the girl who'd fainted.
Some just stood, not knowing what to do. There were always some like that, thought Baker, and in a terrorist attack or natural disaster, those were the people who inevitably died.
The female teacher who'd laughably attempted to take control was shouting instructions at people, unaware that the kids were following their own instincts as much now as they had been ten minutes before. The other teacher was cursing shakily to herself as she tried and failed to get a signal on her phone.
Then Baker saw him, a boy with a mess of brown hair, and he was instantly mesmerized. In the middle of all this chaos, unnoticed by any of his friends or teachers, the boy was calmly taking off his coat, then his shoes, then his socks.
Baker knew what the boy was planning—how could he not know?—and a part of him wanted to tell him that it was the wrong decision, that he wouldn't be saving anyone, only killing himself. But the boy's movements were so graceful, they seemed to produce an air of transcendent peace around him upon which it would have been impossible to intrude.
The boy left his things on the ground and walked the few yards to the top of the path. Even now, barefoot on th
e cold rocky slope, he didn't walk gingerly but with a strangely assured step. It was like watching an Indian mystic walk effortlessly across burning coals.
Baker found himself walking forward, not with the aim of stopping the boy, just in eagerness to keep him in sight as he descended toward the water's edge. At the same time, the male teacher, still some way off, saw the kid and started shouting, not at the boy but at the female teacher, who looked around frantically, unable to see what it was that she was meant to be doing.
The attention of the whole party finally fell on the boy just as it became too late to intervene. He stood on the rocks above the water, as oblivious to their shouts as the boy who was already out there riding the swell. He studied the waves as a surfer would and then, as if in slow motion, he sprang away from the rocks in an easy and confident dive.
He'd been like a boy outside of time, superhuman, but the illusion exploded the moment he hit the bitter truth of the water. When he emerged through the swell, he swam furiously, perhaps in that first adrenaline rush of dread realization that the sea was colder than he'd expected, fiercer, that his undoubted bravery had been fatally misplaced.
Even as the boy reached his friend, Baker felt a terrible sorrow for him, because he was strong and decent and selfless and he would die for it. His friend would die for being stupid, but in a sense, the second boy would die for being noble but stupider still.
"I need the coast guard! The Point Hotel, a boy went in the water, two boys.” It was the female teacher, some way behind him, close to hysteria.
A girl walked past Baker, drifting towards the hotel in shock. She looked at him and said, as if he were a reporter or a policeman, “His name was Jake."
Baker nodded, though he doubted the girl was even aware of him, and certainly didn't know that she'd been right to use the past tense. He looked out to sea, one of many sets of eyes fixed on the same spot of the ocean's darkening pulse.
The boy whose name had been Jake was holding the other, holding his head as if trying to give him instructions, but he was constantly glancing further out to sea, too. Maybe he was looking for a rescue boat, or maybe he was just overawed by the scale of the waves now that he was almost underneath them.
EQMM, December 2008 Page 12
