Charisma

by Jo Bannister

  The woman put out a slim hand, laid it not on his shoulder but on the back of his chair. She gave him a quiet smile. ‘You’re here because they need you, Michael.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that, tell them!’

  ‘When you tell them so much better?’

  ‘I can only tell them if they’ll come and listen!’

  ‘They’ll come. They always do. It’s first-night blues, that’s all.’

  ‘Castlemere.’ It came out as a long sigh. ‘There’s something – impervious – about it. Maybe they really don’t want to know. Maybe they’d rather have the corruption than the trouble of cleaning it up. There was a girl killed here the other day, did you know?’ The woman shook her head. ‘She was found in the canal right by here. A young girl, a prostitute apparently. What’s the world coming to? The people of this town, they see young girls working as prostitutes and do nothing to stop it; they see them murdered and dumped in their canal and still they don’t care enough to come and talk about the mess they’ve got themselves into. You’d think they’d be glad of any advice anyone could give them.’

  ‘They were, those who came. And there’ll be more tomorrow, when word’s had a chance to get round. Tonight people came on spec: they’d nothing better to do, there was nothing on the TV, or they go to religious meetings out of habit regardless of who’s speaking. But now they know you’re something different: not just another Bible-thumper repeating the same old stale formulae but someone who has something important to say, something concrete to offer them.

  ‘They were part of something real tonight, and they won’t keep it to themselves. The posters are all right as far as they go, but there’s nothing like word of mouth to get people interested. You know that, Michael. It’s always like this when we work a new area. We’ve never been here before. Give them time to hear what kind of a man you are, what kind of an inspiration. Then they’ll come.’

  ‘Inspiration!’ he exclaimed self-mockingly.

  ‘Michael, you are! Don’t undersell yourself. Things that other people are afraid to say, you spell out. You don’t dress it up for them, tell them it’s not their fault, that they’re the victims of society. You make them face the fact that they are society, that whatever power there is for change is vested in them. You’re a fine speaker, Michael, of course. But what’s infinitely more important is that what you are and what you do actually makes a difference to people. They’ll come, because you give them something no one else dares to: the promise of a better here and now if they want it enough to go out and claim it. Jam today. Believe me: for that they’ll come. They always do.’

  He ran a thick hand through his hair. ‘I must be getting old, Jenny. Was it always this hard?’

  She laughed, affection dancing in her eyes. ‘Of course it was. Often it was harder. The first time in France they shouted insults and tried to pull the tent down. But then they came inside.’

  Davey regarded the knuckles of his right hand reflectively. ‘Was it there I was arrested for affray?’

  ‘I do believe it was,’ said the woman, trying not to smile.

  It was mid-evening before Donovan went home, across Cornmarket and up the tow-path to avoid Broad Wharf. Not because he was afraid of meeting Bailie but because he’d been told to stay away from him. Donovan came from a long line of poets and wordsmiths: he could find alternative meanings in all but the most explicit of statements. Unfortunately Inspector Graham had already discovered this and spoke to him the way solicitors draw up contracts, in short sentences with minimal punctuation. He could have disobeyed her order to stay away from Bailie but he could not have claimed misunderstanding as his defence.

  Dark had already fallen and the lights in the big tent threw giant shadows on to its white walls. At one point he heard the distant apologetic hum of not enough voices raised in song. Soon after that the faithful shuffled out of the tent and up the walkway to Brick Lane. Donovan grinned. He’d been right: Mavis Spurge the religious groupie was one of them. She’d throw herself at anything in a dog-collar.

  Tara was a narrowboat built to carry grain and coal and general cargo on the inland waterways. Once her master and his family lived in a tiny cabin at the after end, but conversion had opened up her holds as living accommodation. So Donovan had a perfectly good bedroom and a perfectly good bed. There was no need for him to sleep on the couch in the saloon. But that as often as not was what he did, with a book propped on his knees and music playing softly on the tape-deck. If he was awake enough to get up and go to bed he usually stayed put and read a bit longer instead. So it was this night.

  The tape reached its end and switched itself off unheeded. Broad Wharf was in darkness, the congregation away to their beds in the small streets of Castlemere, the preacher away to his in the Castle Hotel. Even the road crew had played enough poker and drunk enough beer and no lights showed at the windows of their caravan. It seemed that nothing stirred along the canal.

  But something did stir: a shadow moving among the great still shadows that blackened the tow-path. A crescent moon was just high enough to cast a shimmer on the water, the lonely light burned behind the timber yard; but there was more than enough darkness to shield the progress of the man-shaped shade moving swiftly along the wharf. A hunting cat saw it and froze back into the alley until it passed. No one else heard or saw anything at all.

  Donovan was jerked from sleep by the sudden massive conviction that he was dying. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Numbing weight pinned him down. His eyes flew wide, bulging with panic, but he couldn’t see: either his reading light had gone out or he was blind.

  Someone said, so close to his ear that he could feel the breath on his face, ‘Lie still, you bastard, or I’ll brain you.’

  He froze at the sound. It was like a hand reaching out of his past to grab him. It was probably the accent, Donovan had never had the sort of personal dealings with Liam Brady that would have marked the voice indelibly on his mind, but the chill of recognition struck him to the heart. There was no longer any point coming home the long way: Brady must have seen him at the same time he saw Brady.

  Even in the shock of the moment a part of his mind managed a grim satisfaction at this unarguable proof that he’d been right and Special Branch wrong.

  The smug feeling vanished as he wondered what Brady intended to do now. He didn’t suppose the man had broken into his boat in the middle of the night, switched off the light and pinned him to the couch in order to ask for news of home.

  Brady may have taken his stunned immobility for compliance or he may have thought that if Donovan didn’t breathe soon he’d have another body to explain. For whatever reason he shifted the hand clamped over Donovan’s mouth and nose. ‘That better?’

  Donovan was too busy sucking in air to reply, and with Brady’s knee in the middle of his chest it wasn’t as easy as it might have been.

  ‘Now listen to me, Cal Donovan.’ Brady had never been a man to shout, he’d held people’s attention in other ways, and he wasn’t shouting now. His voice was soft, calm, even faintly humorous. He wasn’t so much as breathing heavily. ‘I don’t want any nonsense out of you. You give me a hard time and I’ll break your arm, see if that’ll keep you quiet.’

  ‘What do you want?’ gasped Donovan.

  ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’

  It might have been politic to deny it. ‘Of course I do. Look, if you want to talk will you get off my bloody chest?’

  Brady chuckled. He levered himself off Donovan; then he pulled Donovan upright and pushed him against the back of the couch. ‘Now, stay you there. I mean it: give me any trouble and I’ll hurt you.’

  Donovan wasn’t afraid of being hurt but he didn’t think it would achieve anything. They should have been a fair match, Donovan the taller, Brady a little heavier. But the older man was a practised street-fighter: Donovan would take him on if he had to but he didn’t want to be beaten up for no good reason. He stayed where he was. ‘What are you doing here? I don’t
know what you want.’

  Brady’s face was invisible but his voice was relaxed. ‘A little information, that’s all. When did you spot me?’

  Donovan saw no reason not to answer. ‘Yesterday afternoon, when you were unloading the chairs.’

  The beanbag whispered as Brady nodded. ‘That’s when I saw you.’ His grin was audible. ‘I couldn’t believe it: little Cal Donovan, scourge of the RUC graffiti squad, all grown up and helping the English police.’ The voice hardened a tone. ‘Then I saw you ordering them other coppers round so I knew it was true, you were one of them.’

  ‘It’s what I do.’ Donovan offered no further explanation.

  ‘Who did you tell about me?’

  ‘Away on!’ Donovan exclaimed indignantly, moving to get up. He had his breath back and thought he could move faster than Brady could reach him.

  He was wrong. He rose into the path of a blow that somehow in the dark found the side of his face and sent him tumbling over the soft furniture until he fetched up in a heap against the door. Before he could defend himself Brady was on him, cranking his head back by a handful of hair. He felt the cold clean prick of steel against his throat.

  Brady hissed in his ear, ‘You want to try that again, Cal? I warned you, mess me about and I’ll gut you. You may be God’s gift to Castlemere CID but to me you’re still a snotty-nosed kid with an attitude problem. Feel that? That’s disembowelled better men than you. You give me some answers, boy, or I’ll vivisect you.’

  The problem was, Donovan believed him. He didn’t like yielding to coercion, it went against the grain with him, but it would be nothing short of silly to let Brady cut his throat. He growled, ‘My inspector, my chief inspector and Special Branch.’

  Brady laughed out loud. He sat back, unknotting his fingers from Donovan’s hair. ‘Special Branch? What did they have to say?’

  Donovan no longer had any qualms about answering. He’d called Brady’s bluff and found he wasn’t bluffing. ‘They said you were dead. They said I was mistaken. Looks like it, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What about your chief? Who did he believe?’

  ‘Special Branch.’ With his face in the carpet Donovan still managed to convey disgust.

  ‘Good. Very good.’ The hand that didn’t hold the knife lay amiably on Donovan’s shoulder. ‘Now, listen to me carefully. You were mistaken. Liam Brady is indeed dead, God rest his soul. So nobody held a knife to your throat and nobody asked you any questions. Tomorrow you can tell your inspector and your chief inspector that you were wrong, Joseph Bailie isn’t the man you knew in Glencurran. They know I couldn’t have killed that girl: if I’m not a terrorist either they’ll lose interest in me. So will you. Won’t you?’

  Donovan felt the cord of his carpet pressed against his face, felt a cool spot of blood where the blade had pricked his skin, felt humiliation rise through him like a crimson tide. He gritted his teeth and said nothing.

  The knife pricked behind his ear. ‘I mean it, boy. I don’t want to turn round and see you ever again. What I do is none of your business. You keep out of my way. If I catch you nosing round again, I’ll fix you. You’ve seen men knee-capped, Cal, you know that’s a thing worth avoiding. Unless Castlemere CID has a positive discrimination policy about detectives on sticks, don’t give me a reason to come back.’

  ‘All right, damn you,’ shouted Donovan. His cheeks were hot, his eyes squeezed tight and he had to unclench his jaw to get the words out. Saying it cost him precious self-respect but there was no alternative that wouldn’t cost him more. ‘All right.’

  7

  Too tired and too rattled to sleep well, Liz woke early. She lay still for a while, hands behind her head, watching the sunlight strengthen through the flimsy curtain, her mind stumbling over a confusion of images drawn from her work and her marriage. She was unhappy about both, in oddly similar ways.

  There was too much happening under the surface, unstated and only dimly perceived, brewing up a turmoil that she should be dealing with and could not. Poor Charisma and her cut throat. Poor Brian, whom she both loved and liked yet who once again found himself playing second fiddle to her career. This move was to benefit her career. He’d taken a set-back in his own to accommodate it: he’d headed the art department at his last school, might have to wait some time for a similar chance at Castle High. But she’d come down here with her horse and a few other treasures, and left him to do everything else alone. She didn’t know what else she could have done, but perhaps that was no answer. Perhaps it was in failing to see the alternatives that she was at fault.

  She wondered if breakfast in bed would cheer him up. She didn’t fool herself that it would put everything right but it was at least a gesture. But he was still deeply asleep, his face pensive against the pillow with a tiny frown between the eyebrows, and he wouldn’t thank her for waking him yet. She got up to see to the horse instead, sliding her feet into the boots she kept behind the kitchen door. She made up a feed and a haynet in the little store beside the stable, then – fetchingly attired in green wellies and a nightshirt announcing ‘Policemen do it with conviction’ – walked through the orchard to catch Polly.

  The mare had acquired a little friend. Her nose was thrust deep into the high hedge enclosing her field and the tip of a small white nose peeped through from the other side.

  If Liz had been here long enough to get her bearings she’d have known the pony had no business being there, that it wasn’t another field beyond the hedge but the lane round Belvedere Park. A forward-thinking council, an unusual thing in the history of Castlemere, had taken the Belvedere estate in settlement of taxes during the ’50s and now used the house as a town hall and the grounds for public recreation. The lane was a bridleway.

  Only when the white pony followed Polly up the hedge and appeared at the side of the house, saddled and with its reins dangling, did Liz realize it had gone AWOL. The likeliest explanation was that it had dumped its rider and set off at a spanking trot with its tail in the air to show the world how clever it was. Some hot and grubby little girl was probably pursuing it as fast as her jodhpur boots would carry her.

  With Polly safe in the stable Liz went into the lane with a handful of feed. The pony was wary of her, standing on tiptoe with its neck arched and nostrils flared. But when it got the smell of food it threw caution to the wind and made a dive for it; Liz snatched the rein and the pony had the grace to acknowledge itself caught.

  There was still no sign of the rider. But there were marks in the grass verge to show the pony had come from the park and not up the road so after a moment Liz, wishing she were more formally dressed, led it back the way it had come. Then she cast dignity aside, mounted – her feet hanging to the pony’s knees – and let it do the work.

  Rounding an overhanging rhododendron she saw a pair of polished boots and thought the decanted rider must be hurt, concussed perhaps. She dismounted quickly, tied the pony to the bush and pushed aside the lower branches to see what damage the girl had sustained.

  When she saw, she stood frozen for perhaps half a minute. For another half minute she concentrated on what she was seeing, in case someone came by and disturbed the scene after she left. The gaping wound in the throat, ear to ear as before. The denim jacket pulled half-way down her back, imprisoning her arms. The putty-coloured jodhpurs pulled down to her booted calves. She was a child, not even as old as Charisma, and she was dead.

  Then Liz flung herself back on the pony and galloped for home, shouting for Brian as she ran to the telephone.

  Dr Crowe agreed with Liz, that the similarities between the two murders were significant. The throat wound in particular struck him as distinctive, almost as individual as a signature.

  ‘There are no hesitation marks. There was no doubt in his mind, either about what he wanted to do or how to do it. That should tell you something about him.’

  Liz had pulled on some clothes, and a warmer coat than the season dictated, without making much impact on the deep inner chill
occupying her. She’d seen many bodies in the course of her work, some of them nastier sights than this, but this was the first one she’d discovered. The shock of that was like cotton-wool in her brain, keeping the synapses from firing. ‘Like what?’

  Shapiro saw what he was getting at. ‘This wasn’t done on the spur of the moment – he didn’t just happen to be here, see her and find himself overwhelmed by lust. It was planned. Look at the jacket: that’s not the sort of thing you’d think of in the heat of a struggle. He knew exactly what he was doing, had it all worked out. He got her off the pony, pinned her arms, cut her throat, then went on his way. He could have done the whole thing in half a minute.’

  Liz stared. ‘Not if he raped her he couldn’t.’

  ‘But did he?’ He turned to the pathologist as if he thought he knew the answer already.

  The large young man shook his head. ‘No. There was no sexual assault beyond the disordering of the clothes.’

  ‘He was disturbed? Again?’ Liz heard her voice soaring and steadied it. ‘At eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning in a country park? This is getting silly. Nobody’s that unlucky.’

  ‘Nobody’s that lucky, either,’ grunted Shapiro. ‘What are you suggesting? – that he was disturbed in the act of rape, and killed the girl to ensure her silence, and not only did he get away without being seen but the person who disturbed him didn’t notice the body? Or they noticed it and did nothing about it? And this happened not once but twice? Pull the other leg,’ he suggested dourly, ‘it’s got bells on.’