Hotel Midnight

by Simon Clark

  North rubbed his jaw. ‘No, I think it’ll be a long time before we can get any sense out of him, Chadwick. A common enough symptom with the violently killed. Right, Chadwick, down to business. What do you make of it?’ North nodded at the corpse.

  ‘Well, sir. Mid-twenties. Recently killed. Casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.’

  ‘Expensive clothing?’

  ‘Not at all, sir. The jeans are pretty old, not a quality make. And the T-shirt looks as if it’s been through the washing machine a good many times.’

  ‘But note the shoes. Expensive footwear is easy to spot in any day and age.’

  ‘Yes, that’s odd, sir … I’d have expected him to be wearing trainers, but these are brogues. Probably hand-made. Look, leather soles.’

  ‘So how does a young man in cheap clothes wind up dead in rich man’s shoes?’

  ‘Nicked them, sir?’

  ‘Possibly, Chadwick. Now to cause of death?’

  ‘Well … without being able to turn the body over, I’d say these two’ – he indicated two bloody holes in the man’s back – ‘are exit wounds from a small calibre weapon.’

  ‘That’s a fair deduction. Instantaneous death?’

  ‘Impossible to say, sir.’

  ‘But there’s a trail of blood across the grass as far as the body here.’

  ‘The corpse might have been dragged.’

  ‘Unlikely. The blood isn’t smeared, it’s fallen as drops.’ North pressed his fingertips together into a church roof and steeple. ‘Also, you’ll note there’s a copious amount of blood immediately around the corpse.’

  ‘So his heart was still pumping the blood out through the wounds a while before he died?’

  ‘That would be my guess, too, Chadwick. In short we can imagine this man was shot twice, escaped his attacker—’

  ‘In expensive shoes.’

  ‘In expensive shoes, Chadwick, then, mortally wounded, he ran down this meadow, where he fell into the long grass and eventually expired.’

  ‘At night, sir?’

  ‘Again I’d hazard a guess in the affirmative. Perhaps he was shot somewhere up on the road – at night – ran down here. Fell into the long grass. His attacker either fled straight away, or they might have followed him but were unable to find him in the dark. The question now, Chadwick, is did any of our lot see him arrive?’

  ‘Our lot? Oh, I see, sir. Any of the dead?’

  ‘Absolutely, Chadwick.’

  ‘No, not that I’m aware of, sir. The shepherd boys found him this morning as they—’

  ‘Searched for a lost lamb. Yes, yes, I recall, Chadwick.’

  ‘What now, sir?’

  ‘Does the corpse yield any more clues?’

  ‘Clean shaven.’

  ‘Then he may have shaved before going to meet someone in the evening.’

  ‘I can see a wallet in his pocket.’

  ‘Was the motive robbery? Perhaps we’ll find out when our mortal colleagues begin their investigations.’

  ‘So we have to wait for someone – that is, someone in the pink – to find the body?’

  ‘Yes, Chadwick. Alas, yes.’

  Three

  Someone found the body less than twenty minutes later.

  ‘Now that is surprising,’ Chadwick murmured, as a middle-aged man with an abundant crop of silver hair came upon the body. ‘You would have expected to see the man express shock. Not relief.’

  They watched as the silver-haired man studied the body for a moment. Then he quickly pulled off the corpse’s shoes and lobbed them into the river. All the while he shot glances back over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching him.

  ‘I reckon we’ve found our murderer, sir.’

  ‘Indeed we have, Chadwick, indeed we have.’

  ‘But what’s he doing?’

  ‘Come, come, Chadwick your eyes are a damn sight younger than mine.’

  ‘I mean, I can see what he’s doing. He’s thrown the shoes into the river. Now he’s going through the corpse’s pockets. See … he’s found a piece of paper; he’s reading it … now he’s putting it in his own pocket.’

  ‘So there is nothing wrong with your eyesight, Chadwick. I’m relieved.’ North gave a grim smile. ‘Filthy business though, isn’t it? Murder?’

  They watched as the middle-aged man grinned down at the corpse; then he gave it a playful slap on the face; much in the way an old friend might greet another. Then the man’s face darkened. He gripped the corpse by the hand and dragged it through the grass toward the river.

  ‘So, the crime isn’t over yet, Chadwick.’

  At that moment the two detectives were distracted by the ghost of the murdered man who rushed through the long grass toward the man dragging the corpse. ‘What’s happening? What’s happening? What’s happening?’ At that moment he saw the middle-aged man’s face. The ghost shrieked and slapped the palms of both hands to the sides of his head. ‘Morton!’ he cried, then circled the man pulling the corpse, shrieking all the while: ‘Morton! Morton! What’s happening? What’s happening?’

  Of course Morton, if that was the murderer’s name, being mortal heard and saw nothing at all. Saw nothing, that is, but a river, a meadow, and butterflies rising from the flowers; perhaps the corpse’s passing disturbed more receptive insectile senses. And Morton would hear nothing but a skylark singing high in the sky. The ghost departed shrieking.

  ‘Sir….’

  ‘What is it, Chadwick?’

  ‘We’ve caught him red-handed, sir. Are you sure we can’t do anything?’

  North sighed regretfully. ‘Nothing, Chadwick. Absolutely nothing.’

  They watched the man drag the corpse down to the river where he rolled it into the water. Wading in after it, he weighted his victim with stones. A moment later it was invisible beneath the surface.

  ‘Damn, I hadn’t expected that,’ Chadwick hissed. ‘Now there’s a good chance no one will ever find the body.’

  ‘And we will be the only ones to know that the perpetrator was an individual by the name of Morton, who will probably return to his everyday life, and grow old and contented with his pipe and slippers before a roaring fire, hmm?’

  ‘Something like that, sir. Just think, though, the injustice of it.’

  ‘I think there’s been some rough justice meted out already. Look at Morton’s shoes. The man has taste, hmm?’

  ‘They’re the same kind of shoes as the corpse was wearing. But sir …’ Chadwick was near speechless. ‘You don’t kill a man for stealing your shoes.’

  ‘No, you don’t Chadwick: you’re a civilized man. But I’ve heard of a man murdered for taking nothing more than a smear of another man’s hair-cream.’

  They watched as the middle-aged man dried his hands on the grassy bank and then smoothed back his handsome head of silver hair.

  North reflected, ‘But I think there was more to it than that. We have to give our imaginations their head, Chadwick: might we not suppose that Morton there is a criminal himself? Perhaps the unfortunate young man chose the wrong man’s house to burgle. Perhaps the young man discovered a secret or two he shouldn’t have known. Morton there, found the young man. Lured him here somehow, perhaps with an offer to buy that piece of paper we saw drawn from his pocket. Of course, Morton had no intention of honouring such a deal. He shoots the young man. Bang-bang! Mortally wounded, the young man escapes to this very meadow only to be found the following morning. Now we see the concluding events.’

  ‘Morton hiding the body, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. And it’s a pity. A great pity.’

  ‘Where’s a policeman when you want one, eh, sir?’

  North frowned for a moment then gave a slight, some might say a ghost of a smile. ‘Quite, Chadwick. If only the police could be alerted right now.’

  ‘Wait a minute, sir.’

  ‘What is it, Chadwick?’

  ‘Over there, by the bushes.’ Chadwick’s voice brightened. ‘I think our prayers might ha
ve been answered.’

  North looked in the direction of Chadwick’s pointing finger. There behind the bushes stood a man – a mortal man. He was around seventy with wispy hair and held a small dog in his arms. He’d clearly seen everything.

  ‘I think justice might be done after all, sir.’ Chadwick sounded pleased with himself now.

  North wasn’t so sure. ‘I hope you’re right. But I’m very much afraid …’ He paused and looked back at Morton. ‘Yes … I’m very much afraid events have just taken a turn for the worse.’

  Morton had seen the old man as well. As soon as their eyes met the old man began limping away as quickly as he could along the river-bank to where the bushes grew more thickly. He couldn’t outrun the younger man. That much was clear. Was he now planning on hiding?

  Chadwick let out a breath. ‘Oh, good grief … Morton’s got a gun.’

  They watched Morton stride energetically toward where the old man had taken refuge in the bushes. The revolver he held in his hand was a hefty, menacing thing in glittering chrome.

  ‘Oh, no …’ Chadwick was dismayed. ‘You know what’s going to happen now, don’t you, sir?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Chadwick … tragically, our numbers are going to be increased by one.’

  ‘Are you sure there’s nothing we can do?’ Chadwick watched Morton march through the grass to where the old man tried hard to conceal himself under a bush. The dog whimpered in the old man’s arms.

  ‘Chadwick – I’ve told you: we observe, we consider, we discuss; sometimes we draw conclusions … but we cannot interfere.’

  ‘But the old man’s going to be shot. This is monstrous. Surely we can do something?’

  ‘Yes, there is one thing we can do, Chadwick, old man.’

  Chadwick looked at North suddenly expectant.

  North continued, ‘And that, regrettably, is to turn our back on what will happen next.’ North’s expression was grim. ‘Poor ineffectual creatures, aren’t we, Chadwick?’ He sighed, then gazed at the church spires rising above the town. ‘Now, that is a crime isn’t it, old man? When a policeman has to look the other way.’

  With that, North walked toward where the ancient dead sang about the great mysteries. He tried not to hear the gunshots when they at last violated this pleasant summer’s day.

  That was the moment the birds fell silent. But the ancient dead sang on….

  THE HAND OF GLORY

  Oh, Hand Of Glory,

  Shed thy light,

  Direct us to our spoil tonight.

  (From The Burglar’s Psalm, circa 1800)

  He began screaming an hour ago. I’m shutting it out. I’m going to write this down….

  Clayton was the idiot. Not me. He was pissed because there was nothing worth taking from that poxy little house at the end of Church Lane; the weird one that leans so far out over the harbour wall you could sit in the kitchen window and dangle your feet above the sea. He bust the TV screen with his foot – POW! – it went off like a bomb and filled the house with smoke. Then he wrecked the place a bit. He got all lusty about it. His shaved head sweated so much it shone like a glass ball. While that big gorilla face of his got so screwed up the crucifix tattoo between his eyes disappeared into a fold of frown skin. It was when he kicked the bathroom to crud that he found a shoebox behind the bath panel.

  That was going to be our lucky break. A box hidden under a bath? That had to be something special, didn’t it? You don’t go to all that trouble to hide your favorite pair of Nikes, do you?

  So, chuckling away like B movie villains, we quit the house by the same window we’d come in through and carried the box back home – if you can call a poxy caravan by the river home. There, the branches of a tree beat the roof with all the berserk rhythm of a drummer who’s burned out his brain on crack-cocaine. Bang, bang, bang-dee-bang. Fucking crazy, man. Some nights I’d have a girl there. She’d jump out of bed when the sea gales woke up old man tree to begin his mighty beat, and she’d scream the place was under attack. Bare assed, she’d tumble out of the caravan to run back to Whitby, a streak of naked flesh, yelling so loud that it would send all the seagulls spinning up into the air and crying out fit to burst. Man, the times we laughed about that, Clayton and me.

  Yeah, an aluminum box in a field. It let in rain. It stank of wet socks. It was a mess. A right royal grade A mess.

  And it was home. That’s where we carried our prize.

  A shoebox full of gold rings? Stolen cash? Even better, a couple of pounds of pure white coke?

  Nah….

  ‘Christ, shit on this!’ Clayton hooted. ‘Hey, Nick, whatcha make of it?’

  ‘Jesus, that’s never real in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘Well, what are those things pointing out the end? They’re bone, aren’t they?’

  ‘But who’d want to keep a freakin’ hand under their freakin’ bath?’

  Clayton made with the Vincent Price. ‘It’s coming for you, Nick. It wants you.’

  So, there’s that hand lying there on a bed of newspaper in the box. It’s a mummified hand; all brown, all warty with skin that’s shrivelled to buggery. It’s as if the bones in the hand have been shrink-wrapped. Of course, Clayton, the mad bastard that he is, can’t resist picking it up and gliding it through the air toward my face while doing the spectral, ‘It’s coming for you, Nick. It wants to feel your balls….’

  And I can see the filthy thing is real. I see fingernails with greenie-black grunge stuck beneath them that might be century-old bogies; cracks in the skin show bones beneath; I can see the stubby bit of bone that pokes out the wrist where it was chopped from an arm. Remember when Spock used to do that funky salute with his palm flat, fingers stretched out into a kind of V shape? Well, that’s how that thing looked, only this had a thumb that looked longer than was natural and it jutted out to a point, hitching a ride to Eternityville.

  ‘Nick … Nick. Look at me. I’m a kid again. I’m sucking my thumb.’

  ‘That’s gross, Clayton. What if the bastard died of leprosy, or cancer, or something?’

  Now he did a Homer Simpson, glazing his eyes in bliss. ‘Hmmm … salty. Like sucking a peanut.’ He suddenly flashed me one of his crazy leers. ‘Want a go, Nick?’

  And that was Clayton to a T. The first time he really got in deep with the cops was ten years ago when he was fifteen. He broke into a funeral home, tipped some old dear out of her coffin, strapped her to the back of a stolen motorbike, then he blazed through Whitby, sounding the horn, the dead woman’s clothes fluttering in the breeze, her head nodding up and down with all the loose-necked frenzy of those novelty dogs you stick in your car, all the time, her eyes staring wide like dusty glass balls in her head. ‘Look at my missus!’ Clayton was yelling. ‘She isn’t wearing any panties!’

  The arresting police officer puked into his own helmet.

  We were sober the next morning. Clayton had left the hand on top of the TV. ‘That’s our new ornament,’ he announced, leering at it with nothing less than sexual pleasure. ‘We bring it out for the girls when the time is right.’ He chuckled. ‘Girls love a finger of fun.’

  I’d been going through the shoebox. ‘There’s more stuff in here,’ I said, spreading out papers on the table.

  ‘Cash?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not interested, then. We got any beer?’

  ‘There’s pages that’ve been ripped from a book.’

  ‘Write it down in a letter for me, Nick. I’ll read it sometime never.’

  ‘No, listen … it tells you about the hand.’

  ‘Yeah, as if crap in a book can tell you anything worth knowing.’

  Clayton doesn’t read … can’t read. Gets all touchy if someone tells him stuff about a book. It’s as if he thinks all books have shit written down about him, about what he’s really like. You follow? Paranoid is the word, I guess. It gets him punchy. So he kicked open the caravan door; stalked off, cursing any bird that flew near him. He’d been gone about an hour when
he came back with beer and food. He must have snatched them because we hadn’t had so much as a penny to scratch our you-know-what for a week. Grunting, he plonked a beer in front of me along with a vacuum pack of pastrami. As I ate. I noticed he was watching the hand. Then he looked at the book pages in the shoebox. This went on for a while. Me eating, him pulling on the can of beer, watching the mummified extremity.

  Then at last he said, ‘OK, Einstein, what does it say about the hand?’

  ‘It’s famous.’

  ‘The hand? You’re pulling my dick.’

  ‘No, look for yourself.’

  ‘You look for yourself.’ Touchy again because I showed him the page with all those bamboozling (to him) black marks.

  I explained, ‘There’s a photo of the hand in a museum case. Someone must have snatched it then hid it under the bath.’

  ‘What is it, then? Egyptian?’

  ‘No, it’s local.’

  ‘If it’s from here it’s worth squat, then.’

  I read the page. ‘“In Whitby museum is the grisly relic The Hand Of Glory. The hand came from a gibbeted murderer. After the blood was squeezed from the severed limb it was embalmed in salt and pepper before being dried in the sun.”’

  He opened another can. ‘Sounds like a streak of piss to me. I mean – why bother?’

  ‘I’m getting to that,’ I told him. ‘The Hand Of Glory was used by thieves. When they went housebreaking they’d put this outside the door of the house with a burning candle wedged between its fingers, then it’d send everyone in the house into a kind of trance. After that, old Johnny Lightfinger strolled into the house and took what he wanted.’

  ‘With no one any the wiser?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  He stared at the hand, his big ugly face scowling as he thought so hard the skin from the top of his head to his eyes formed into hard ridges. I thought he’d make his usual scornful remark about the hand, but then he said something surprising. ‘OK, Nick. Let’s try it.’