The Woman in Silk

by R. J. Gadney

  “Lower. Lower. Here. Hold me. Inside. There. Don’t stop.”

  Flat on my stomach, mindful of the venomous snake, I look for a battery and a wire and the best place to break the circuit to the detonators. I can withdraw the detonators, unravel the wires, and disable the electronics. But cutting into the hardened foam will cause dangerous vibration.

  And for the third time you rose from the dead

  Ascended into heaven

  And sitteth on the right hand of the Father

  Whence he cometh—

  45

  “The séance,” she was saying. “You want to join in?”

  “Why not? We’ve got an hour to have a look around before they start summoning up the dead. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”

  He cursed. “I have to get that Velamorphine from the Range Rover.”

  “Then go and get it,” she told him. “Don’t look so scared. I won’t vanish. Get dressed. Look at you! You’re a wraith. You should put some weight on. But stay as sweet as you are.”

  “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

  “It’s true.”

  “And you … who taught you to be so gentle with your fingers?”

  46

  As a kind of bait, so that nothing would get in the way of Teresa or Francesca retrieving the NulFail, he had deliberately left the Range Rover unlocked. He had of course already told Teresa where his Velamorphine was.

  Sure enough, Francesca had taken the NulFail, leaving his Velamorphine on the back seat. If and when WPC MacQuillan and her friends searched The Towers they’d find the illicit drug in the nurses’ possession: a nugget of criminal intelligence that might prove handy down the line.

  He opened up the garage storage unit, found a variety of metalwork tools and took two flat pieces of steel to raise the tumbler locks’ five pins to breaking point. Most likely MacCullum would have used the most readily available five-pin cylinder locks. So he also selected an old-fashioned tension wrench to rotate the cylinders and release the locks.

  On his way back to the kitchen to store his Velamorphine in the refrigerator he took the precaution of collecting the shotgun from the Gun Room. This, at any rate, had been his intention when he unlocked the gun cabinet.

  The ancient pistols and rifles were there: the family relics from the Second Anglo-Boer War, the German Mauser automatic pistol, the Lee-Metford, and the two Lee-Enfield rifles. But not, definitely not, the Holland & Holland Badminton double-barreled shotgun.

  Teresa must have taken a leaf from his own book and removed the weapon to use it as evidence against him. Why remove it—why not simply leave the bloody thing there anyway? He doubted that either she or Francesca would know one end of the shotgun from the other. Then again, they might. Whichever way you looked at it, the shotgun’s disappearance was disturbing. He couldn’t imagine what complexion the rebarbative WPC MacQuillan would put on it.

  Passing the Library, he heard the introductory chimes of BBC TV’s News at Ten. A headline had reduced Teresa and Francesca to hysterical laughter. “Heaviest snow in living memory …”

  The clangs of the BBC time merged with the chiming of the Winterhalder & Hofmeier UhrenFabrik clock: I—II—III—IV—V—VI—VII—VIII—IX—X

  —the X’s echo hanging in the cold darkness like a witch’s sneer.

  47

  An abandoned world presented itself beneath The Towers. It had existed only in his memory throughout his adult life as an uninhabited exotic territory, the subterranean extravagance of his Victorian forebears.

  He’d forgotten when it was, during childhood, that he’d found Turkey on a map and parted these barred gates; then tiptoed down these same stone steps in sandaled feet to the Turkish baths.

  His hands shook as he began to pick the lock MacCullum had installed and it required all his strength to open the rusted gates for Sophie to enter the cavern that housed the swimming pool.

  To his relief, he found the underground electric light system was in working order, and it revealed the dereliction in a haze of green.

  Layers of viscous silt covered the floors and above the empty pool were remnants of a trapeze and rings. They dangled from rusted poles of a scaffold like a hangman’s noose.

  At the far end of the pool he could see the remains of the diving board: a brownish stump protruding like a rotted tusk.

  He glanced up at the Moorish arches and the cast-iron columns that supported pointed windows and the cupola on a miniature version of the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  “This is very sad,” he said.

  Then, with a sigh, he wiped away crusted slime to reveal a riot of painted flowers. “The tiling was beautiful. I remember finding these … carnations and hyacinths, roses and tulips; and Chinese clouds—look … still here. And—up there … nothing there now—I think there was a gallery with lattice-work … so contented guests could sip cold wine and watch the swimmers.”

  He led Sophie into the ruined rooms of the Turkish baths.

  “Originally two were hot rooms heated by steam coils; two cool, with small central fountains …”

  On into what had once been the two hot rooms, each measuring some fifteen feet square. Beneath an octagonal dome were the broken marble slabs on which guests had dozed either wrapped up in hot towels or naked.

  “This is the tepidarium where they soaped themselves … The cool room’s over here … Here’s what was the plunge room. Here, the douche room with showers. I believe the taps were gold-plated … This is where the coal-fired boilers were housed … between the two hot rooms. Dampers or valves regulated the flow of the heated air and temperatures …”

  The cold air reeked of decay and sewage. Sophie winced and shifted her balance uneasily on the slippery floor. “The moldiness is noxious.”

  “Not surprising. It’s been neglected for years. You think it’s in danger of collapse?”

  “Hard to tell. Is that why it’s been off-limits so long?”

  “The reason’s bizarre. Two Turkish brothers who’d worked in hammams or baths in Istanbul were found dead in here. They’d been castrated. The murder was never solved. They were buried in the Moster Lees churchyard. Thereafter the use of the baths was forbidden. So they can’t have been used for long. No one could be bothered to keep things in good repair. See for yourself. This is how I first saw it. The surfaces of pool and baths cracked; even back then there were pools of watery green scum and burial mounds for termites, cockroaches, mice and rats. My mother hated the pool with a vengeance. She had an obsessive detestation of Turkey, Turks and Turkish baths.”

  “And you?”

  “Me? I have dreams of their restoration.”

  He led her toward the door to the Stirling family Crypt and Chapel and could smell its decades-old human decay.

  *

  As he entered, he felt a chill presence by his side.

  He heard himself reciting in his father’s unmistakable voice, word perfect: “Repeat after me …”

  “The Chapel may be found described in architectural guides.

  Tiling plays an important part in the decoration of the nave.

  Painted by Mallord Stembridge and manufactured by

  Mansfield L. Foulkes and Sons, the panels from left to right depict—

  Abraham, Moses, Daniel and St. John the Baptist—

  The Nativity; St. Mary Magdalene;

  and in the final panel—

  St. Peter …”

  “It’s my father’s voice.”

  Sophie took him in her arms. “Stop torturing yourself.”

  And drudge of all my father’s house am I—

  My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears …

  “Are you sure you can continue, Hal?”

  48

  The cellars smelled of chloroform blended with disinfectant and, to Hal’s surprise, it was dry.

  Powerful fluorescent light illuminated cardboard and plastic boxes, their labels completed with a librarian’s skill in his mother�
��s handwriting. His father had found the perfect archivist in his prisoner and the curator and scholar’s widow in Priscilla had kept the flame of death alight. He was amazed that their vile industry had been so prodigious.

  Arranged in alphabetical order, the boxes were stacked on floor-to-ceiling PVC shelving. The racks were firmly bolted to the walls so the boxes slid in and out with ease. The polished wooden and glass-fronted cabinets contained the biological specimens, manuscripts and correspondence, the latter labeled MOST STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

  More transparent plastic boxes revealed dated fragments of human skeletons, mummified lumps and body parts; mostly male and female sexual organs in apothecary jars; fused and individual human bones; skin samples, bladders and molecular analyses of fungal microbiota from human skin and psoriatic lesions.

  The alcoves were jammed with embalming and autopsy slabs: cold chambers: emulsification and freeze-drying equipment. His mother had written a bold notice above one such alcove: WARNING | CPU: CORPSE PRESERVATION UNIT | −10°C (14°F) | −50°C (−58°F)

  “Look at it,” said Sophie. “Dear God—what the hell was going on in here?”

  He’d seen it before:

  SKOPTSY [скопцы]

  Christian sect. Imperial Russia. See: Ritual Castration; REMOVAL OF MALE PENIS, TESTICLES AND SCROTA. Preservation of same. REMOVAL OF WOMEN’S BREASTS; see also: Grass, K. K. Die geheime heilige Schrift der Skopzen. Leipzig, 1904; Die russischen Sekten Leipzig, 1907.

  —Et cetera

  Sophie held out a wad of faded postcards, stamped and postmarked WORCESTER MASS.

  Hal chose one at random and read aloud:

  Dear Professor Stirling,

  You again ask me to describe my castration by our beloved S—. I’ve told you, Stirling-san, this was many years after the castration of Ishida.

  I cannot recall the actual moment S—cut IT off or what she did with IT. If IT still exists I do not think whatever authority may possess IT will part with IT.

  Do you really want IT? Why should they give IT to you? Cannot you establish sexual telepathic contact with S—and me through some other tangible medium?

  Do NOT, Sir, beg me to keep on and on retelling the story. I’ve told you again and again that S—performed a ritual of great elaboration in ecstasy.

  She drenched her white silken kimono in jasmine oil. As if it were yesterday I can smell it here and now. She mixed my blood with oil and drank it.

  She demanded IT raise itself to resemble the Indian cobra head, the Naja Naja, and injected me with priafil inducing a priapismic condition in a narcotic opiate state.

  She squatted on me and pleasured herself dementedly. Upon climax she used a sashimi knife to sever my genitalia.

  What more can you possibly want to know from me?

  I send you greetings from Worcester.

  Sincerely yours,

  Miss Yoshida.

  Each postcard showed the identical view of a sprawling mansion, its architecture resembling The Towers: THE HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE, WORCESTER, MASS. USA.

  “What could he have wanted with another penis … What do you think?”

  Hal never heard her complete the question.

  The acrid fumes overcame him and Miss Yoshida’s postcards from the lunatic asylum in Massachusetts fluttered to the floor.

  49

  “Hal … can you hear me—HAL?”

  Sharp lights pricked his eyes. His head had fallen forward and he saw the blur of Sophie’s face upside down.

  “Sit still,” she said. “Breathe in. For God’s sake, c’mon, breathe … slowly … deeply.”

  She was seated on a stack of archival boxes. Soaked in sweat, he lay sprawled across her lap, his right arm dangling to where the postcards had fallen across the floor.

  “We have to go,” she whimpered. “I can’t take it.”

  The malodorous mixture of putrefaction, chloroform and disinfectant fumes made him wheeze: old man’s gurgles, click-clack, sounded in his throat. His clothes had twisted around his torso; they constrained and trapped him like a straitjacket. His skin and genitals itched; his fingers had turned a purplish red. He whispered hoarsely to himself: “Calm down.”

  He fought to control the twitching in his fingers and heard his mother pleading:

  “Won’t someone help me? I’m dying. Does no one understand? We are one in flesh and blood, my son … My beloved son in whom I am well pleased …”

  Another voice called out: “Is anybody there?” He heard his voice begging: “Father, are you here?”

  “It’s me … Sophie—”

  She struggled to help him to his feet saying: “I heard a woman’s voice. A minute ago. Someone else here. Now. Over there, in the shadow, look.”

  “I can’t see.”

  “There.” Her voice had risen.

  “Where—what’s she saying?”

  “She’s asking for you by name.”

  “Where?”

  Sophie was gripped by foreboding. “I can’t see … the face … it’s hidden, she’s hidden behind a veil … Oh my God …”

  She drew her arms tight around her body.

  “What’s she saying?”

  She clutched her throat and shuddered. “Can’t you hear? Listen—‘I’m—Sada Abe.’”

  “I can’t see her.”

  “She’s gone. There’s nothing there. She’s gone.”

  Hal was breathing with great difficulty. “You saw her?”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Of course I believe you. Only I didn’t see her.”

  “You heard her?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “She was in here. Standing there. In front of that alcove. Her withered paw on the rail of that autopsy slab. And so help me God—in the shadow—there was another figure—close behind her.”

  He lowered his feet slowly to the floor and stood unsteadily, peering into the alcove.

  “There was a pair of them,” she said quietly. “Who are they?”

  “I’ll tell you once we’re outside.”

  He kicked aside the postcards and they hurried back the way they’d come, their shoes clattering across the tiled floor.

  In the anteroom he gave her a garbled version of Sada Abe’s murderous history.

  50

  Hal glanced at his wristwatch. “There’s five minutes until they start the séance.”

  “Another time, Hal.”

  “It’s a chance to show them their telepathy is bullshit.”

  “I can think of better things to do.”

  “I’m curious.”

  “You may be,” she said. “Not sure I am. First light—and I’m off to the world of sanity and the living.”

  The blizzard was battering The Towers.

  “I don’t want to disappoint you,” he said, “but listen to the wind. You aren’t going anywhere in that.”

  “I’ll get MacCullum to drive me to Carlisle.”

  “In this snow?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe Teresa and Francesca can control the blizzard.”

  “Those witches can control sod-all,” he said.

  “Not me,” she said. “Not those things in there, whatever they may be. You mustn’t let them get to you anymore, Hal.”

  “They already have. It’s like some bloody awful tune you can’t stop hearing in your head. The more my reasoning mind tells me Mother’s not here, the more she occupies my brain.”

  “Then don’t let her torture you.”

  “I can’t help it. Like I said, Sophie, I’m drawn to look at her. To see her, touch her.”

  “You musn’t. We’re talking dead, Hal. Departed souls, whatever. The incorporeal. No substance. No form. Intangible. Get it? They consist of nothing. Nada. You’re seeing thin air. That’s what all of us vanish into in the end.”

  “They live here.”

  “Hal—they do not live here. They’re dead.”

  “You saw them.”

  “I honestly don’t know w
hat I saw in there. I don’t—I don’t know … I was just seeing things.”

  “Too right,” he said. “Real things.”

  “Unreal things, Hal.”

  “If you say so,” he said. “Let’s not argue.”

  On edge, gripped by unconscious indecision, they were hanging back from climbing the stairs to join the séance.

  The German clock began to sound XI. The beating and booming of the wind against the windows drowned out the final chime as a beam of light flashed through the Great Hall.

  They turned sharply and Sophie walked very fast to the nearest window. “MacCullum,” she said, peering after the car’s rear lights.

  “Are you sure it’s him?”

  “I’m not sure of anything. Could’ve been Warren.”

  “More likely MacCullum,” he said. “What’s he want now?”

  “Perhaps I imagined it.”

  51

  The séance took place in the candlelit room that had been Priscilla’s bedroom. The dim light was diffused by Satya Nag incense smoke floating to the ceiling.

  “This Holy Sanctum,” Teresa said reverentially, “where Priscilla passed over is now the place for us to contact Her. Contact must be the only thought we have tonight. Please speak now if any of you have Contrary Purpose. In that event, our circle’s psychic energy will be too feeble and attunement impossible.” Hal, Sophie and Francesca were seated close together at the round table. Their faces were ghostly masks. None declared Contrary Purpose.

  Hal averted his gaze from whatever of his mother’s possessions remained there under the dust sheets and was grateful that the powerful incense obliterated any trace of her familiar lavender-scented talc that might have lingered.

  Teresa drew layers of diaphanous white silks around her, adjusted her veil, and raised the amethyst and tiger’s eye around her neck, kissing it as if it were a holy relic.