The House of the Wicked (a psychological thriller combining mystery, murder, crime and suspense)

by D. M. Mitchell

  “I told you, after France there would be no more. It would end there. We had an agreement,” he repeated, but the act of repetition appeared to weaken it.

  “Events have put that agreement on temporary hold. I – we – need your services again, for a little while yet, Mr Wilkinson.”

  He got to his feet. “Then secure them elsewhere, I am finished with the business.”

  “Sit – “ she said sharply. Then more gently, “ – Mr Wilkinson. Please?” That same barbed wire smile.

  With reluctance he returned to his seat, nodding for her to go on, his face as pale as if he were about to hear a sentence of death.

  “We desire to remove Stephen from London. Relocate him to somewhere a little quieter. Out of the way. Secluded. More conducive to his health. You understand?” Another sip of tea. She looked aside, almost wistfully. “Mr Wilkinson, I have for some time been intrigued by those Newlyn painters, in Cornwall.”

  “I know of their work. What of it?”

  “I’d like you to persuade Stephen to accompany you there.”

  He laughed, though it had a nervous, quivering edge. “What? To Newlyn? The place will be as bad as Pont Aven, people swarming all over the place. There’s even a special train put on to carry out the weight of canvases being produced. It is hardly secluded.”

  “Not to Newlyn, to Porthgarrow.”

  His brows lowered. “Where on earth is that?”

  “Precisely,” she said. “You will fabricate some believable story and you will encourage my son to follow you there. You will keep him in this Porthgarrow place, for the time being.”

  His eyes narrowed. “And if I refuse?”

  “My dear young man, you cannot refuse. You know that.” She angled her head. “Mr Wilkinson?”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes tired, his head beginning to throb.

  “Mr Wilkinson?”

  A shadow at his shoulder caused him to start.

  “Mr Wilkinson, is everything alright?” It was Jenna Hendra, cheeks flushed with the cool morning air. I hope I am not disturbing you.”

  “Miss Hendra, how delightful to see you. Forgive me, my mind was deep in contemplation.”

  “Contemplating your art, no doubt,” she said, pointing out his sketchbook.

  A page fluttered like the wing of a wounded bird, on it a brooding charcoal sketch of black fishing boats and shadowy fishermen. He clutched a charcoal stick that had smudged on his fingertips. “That’s right, my drawing. You know how it is, should it be a dash here, a line there? Choices that we artists must labour over in our restless search for perfection. We are doomed never to find peace,” he said heavily.

  “Alas I fear you shall never find perfection. As for peace, that is another matter, rare but ultimately attainable.”

  Peace, he thought; that would be a wonderful, precious thing.

  “Is your friend Mr Denning not here yet?” She feigned only a cursory interest but he could read in her expression a suppressed eagerness. “He will miss events. The launch – it is both important and a spectacle.”

  “It is barely light. Stephen is unused to arising at such an early hour. I warrant we shall not see him for a while yet.”

  If she were disappointed she did not reveal it. He noticed how difficult it was to read this woman. She held before her a deliberate veil through which one caught only the haziest glimpses of her true disposition.

  “Father tells me he has commissioned him to paint my portrait. I wish to arrange the details with him.”

  She didn’t strike him as one who was so vain as to pursue having her portrait painted. It confirmed his estimation of her true motives. “Yes he has ability. On that account I can vouch for his utmost reliability and sincerity. But only on that account, Miss Hendra.”

  “Should I be looking for other meanings hidden behind what you say, Mr Wilkinson?”

  “Alas, Miss Hendra, they are not so deeply hidden.” He closed his sketchpad. “I shall say only that he is a man of inestimable depths.”

  “You are a strange friend to talk so.”

  “We have a strange friendship.” He stowed the pad away under his arm, pocketing the charcoal stick. “I shall not detain you in attending to your duties; the boats await you.”

  She followed his gaze to the ranks of fishing boats on the beach, the crowd of people swarming over the shingles, passing between the tar-black hulls like a colourful sea. Someone was playing an accordion, badly. She always loved this time of year the most. The launching. The thrill of casting the first seines, the sea alive with thousands of flittering silver fish being scooped out of the water. The place burst with life, with hope and expectation. A time of plenty.

  She saw her father amongst a small group of black-suited seine owners, his obvious importance and standing placing him at the centre. Reverend Biddle was there also, positioning the tea chest upon which he would stand to give his blessing to the entire venture and from which he would spout another of his interminable sermons. Her father motioned for her to come over.

  “You do not like me, do you, Mr Wilkinson?”

  Dark eyes appraised her. Dark thoughts behind them. “You will believe what you wish to believe.” Then his features softened. “Mr Denning is indeed a fine-looking young man. He has wealthy and influential connections. But trust me on this; he is not for you, Miss Hendra.”

  “You presume a great deal.”

  “I am for my sins an artist. I am fated to read all those truths that others might not know to be there.” His fingers brushed his eyelid. “Here, for instance…” Then his cheek. “…here…” Then to the base of his throat. “…and here. We say so much when we believe we are saying so little.”

  She turned her head away from him, his words, his gaze, disquieting. “Is it because of who I am, my humble origins? Does that offend your sensibilities?”

  He stroked his hair back from his forehead where the wind had cast it. “On the contrary. My father was a factory labourer’s son. He has made his fortune and name from manufacturing biscuits, yet he cannot write that name, nor read it in giant letters above the doors of his factory. It is not where you come from that colour my words, but where you may take yourself. That is all.” He gave a tiny bow. “When I see Mr Denning I shall inform him you were asking after him.”

  “It’s been a pleasure,” she said with little pleasure.

  “Mutual,” said Wilkinson, equally perfunctory.

  As she came close to her father the tiny group of men began to disperse. She knew it was she that caused it. The other owners did not take kindly to a young woman having so much authority and power in such a strong male bastion. Only her father’s near monopoly on the seine ownership in Porthgarrow prevented them from openly disclosing this simmering displeasure. They had many other subtle methods of displaying it, though. Avoiding her was one of them. Her father knew all this, of course, but their inability and reluctance to voice their position only served to heighten his.

  Only two remained close at her father’s coat tails by the time she came to his side. Both men raised their hats to her, nodded politely enough.

  “Good morning, Mr Wearne, Mr Pellow,” she acknowledged.

  Pellow was second only to her father in standing. He owned four successful seines, Delight, Intrepid, Swift and The Union. Mr Wearne’s Resolute and Gull were but small fry by comparison.

  “Taking the morning air?” said Wearne.

  “Taking care of business,” she returned. She could almost detect his jaw wince beneath his beard.

  “An example to us all,” he said. “I have business of my own to attend to.” And both men tipped hats and wandered away.

  Her father gave a single, hearty laugh. His weighty arm draped across her shoulder and drew her closer to him. “I am pleased you are engaging with our new guests,” he said. He bent close to her ear and stabbed a thumb at Wearne and Pellow’s backs. “Such people are a welcome distraction from all the huffings and puffings of pompous Porthgar
row politics, eh? And not without benefit to you and I.”

  “I watch their wake with interest, father, but am careful not to be drawn too readily into it.”

  He removed his arm from her shoulder, rubbed his red hands together. Squadrons of dark clouds sailed overhead. Two gulls bobbed like buoys on the restless water before them. Hendra did not like what he saw. And what he saw were small catches again, and smaller profits. His concerns were mirrored in the worried chittering of his business colleagues, and in the faces of the fishermen preparing the boats for launch. But unlike his colleagues the common people were a superstitious lot and did not voice their doubts, for they believed that to speak of them often brought them to life.

  “What do you think of Mr Denning? He is of exemplary stock.”

  “You speak of his family as if they were cattle, and he a prize bull.”

  He motioned with his nose to the sea. “You as well as I can read the signs.”

  “I read them very well, father.” She lifted her chin. He saw her mother reflected in that small action and was both warmed and grieved. “But I will not offer myself up as insurance against another poor year. We will come though this season as we have come through others. If you at least listen to what I propose – “

  He held up a stiff forefinger. “What you propose is not acceptable; it is foolhardy and far too daringly venturesome. It could ruin us.”

  “As you say,” she said.

  He watched her walk away over the shingles. The gulls savaged each other with red-tipped beaks before rising from the sea on a frantic clapping of wings. He could no more control Jenna than he could the weather, he thought broodily.

  Revered Biddle came to his side. “Don’t worry, Gerran, God will provide.”

  It was as if he could hear his thoughts. He grunted in reply. Agitated fingers wrestled with each other behind his back.

  “I hear that Jowan’s son has returned to the cove,” said Biddle.

  The fingers froze for a moment, then resumed their fraught bickering with each other. “He is not welcome here. He will soon leave.”

  “That is hardly Christian, Gerran.”

  “The sins of the father…” he returned.

  They stood in silence for a while, their own thoughts noisy in their heads. “Foolishly some are already blaming the bad weather on his return. How easy the old ways are revived.”

  “I cannot stop them believing what they wish to believe.”

  “See, they make futile offerings of fish on the beach to Baccan, to appease the spirit.”

  “It has always been so. There is no harm in custom.”

  He pointed out a huddle of fishermen. “Look upon their faces. Is that merely harmless custom that darkens their brows, or is it unfounded fear stirred up by an unfaltering belief in some ancient story? When custom leads to harm, as it has in the past, then that is all the more reason to stamp on it at the outset to prevent it from raising its ugly head.”

  Hendra took out his pocket watch. He did not need to know the time but it diverted his attention, gave him pause for thought. The heavily ornamented gold case, a generous gift from a consolidation of pleased investors in his business, was also a symbol of his success and how fragile that success depended upon the whim of the sea. Reminded him how easy it was to lose your footing on the business ladder, how a few bad years could ruin a lifetime’s work and achievement.

  “As long as each and every hogshead is filled I care not what they do or what they think. Do you not have a custom of your own to perform?” He realised how cutting his words must have sounded. “Please, Marcus; they will take great comfort from your blessings. As will I.”

  Biddle buttoned up his coat against the stiffening breeze that threw up choppy little waves across the water. “Help me onto my box, there’s a good fellow. My knees are starting to fail me in my old age.” Hendra clutched the man’s arm and aided him to his position on his makeshift pulpit. He looked imperiously down. “Call them around, Gerran, and let us see if God will deign to answer all our prayers.”

  Hendra thought that he would pray to any devil, spirit or false idol if that would protect his business. Before him lay his black-tarred, beach-stranded empire – to his left the Laurel, Napier and Active seines; to his centre the Catherine, Unity and Providence; to his right the Majestic and Lady White. Each clutch of boats that made up the individual seines bearing their own special mark on the prows. As he had made his own mark on this cove, in this community.

  But shadowy thoughts prowled his head that prayers, in any form and to any deity, had done little to quell. His stared at his daughter – his future; she was bending to a small boy who had snared her attention. How he longed to have sent her away from here. He did not want to see her trapped in this cove for her entire life, as he had been, her life shrunk to these stinking, decaying confines. He’d once harboured plans to leave, to seek his own future elsewhere. But that future had long ago been stripped from him and he was now as chained to Porthgarrow as Baccan was to his rocky gaol. Young dreams long ago rotted away to leave behind a vile-smelling bitterness and resentment. Yet there was still hope for Jenna. Still a chance. If he could keep the business afloat long enough for it to attract an eligible, and preferably wealthy, suitor then it might be different for her.

  He scanned the blurred horizon. A squall was building for certain, even before the first boats had been launched, and his heart sank. Perhaps it may hold off long enough to land a first good catch. That would auger well for a good season.

  Prayers? Yes, he was in desperate need of an answer to those.

  * * * *

  At first she did not look at the piece of paper the boy had given her. The boy had tugged at her skirt like a bell rope, thrust a crumpled up wad of paper into her hand. Another little game, she thought as the boy skittered across the shingles between groups of villagers. Jenna’s mind was elsewhere, running over the conversation with that sour little man Wilkinson, whom she did not like in the least, for all his varnished manners. And her interest in Denning? Like most men, he assumed that women are driven purely by, and prisoners to, their over-active emotions. Love? Marriage? She laughed inside. She was enamoured not of his admittedly pretty face and well-proportioned frame but his potential financial backing.

  Catches were dwindling year on year. The Italian and Spanish markets drying up. The techniques employed by her father were outdated and wasteful, designed for a time when the pilchard were landed in such abundance that surplus or damaged catches could be thrown over the fields as fertiliser in huge quantities without putting a dent in profits. The fish were still salted and bulked by hand in the palaces, an old time-honoured method little changed in hundreds of years. They created large stacks of alternate layers of fish and salt, a process that over many weeks cured the catch before it was eventually pressed in barrels for shipping abroad. Damage to the fish if not properly cured or packed was common. With so few fish being landed these days, this was fast becoming uneconomical.

  On a recent visit to Newlyn she had seen at first hand a new kind of factory employing the most modern of technique of canning in oil or brine. The fish escaped being handled so much and the packed cans were less likely to spoilage on long journeys, better suited to the growing West Indian market. What’s more it required less labour to carry out. What better way to make the most of what was being served up by the sea.

  Secretly she had met with a representative from a Messrs Buckler and Stone of London to learn about the new processes and enquire as to the necessary investment required for the establishment of such a factory. If she were to progress this she had first to break through her father’s seemingly impenetrable stubbornness in doggedly hanging onto the old methods and then she must secure the additional fiscal means to make it a reality.

  When her father had initially informed her of the two artists she first supposed that it would be Wilkinson who would be the fat fish to lure into her net, but his antipathy towards her was too much in evidence to m
ake any reasonable advances possible. Denning, on the other hand, came from a well-connected family of means. Moreover he had shown a palpable interest in her from the outset, so she had decided he would become her trout ripe for the tickling. Her father had played into her hands by suggesting the portrait. Thus thrown together she could work on him at her leisure. He was also a man whose interest in money matched that of his interest in woman. She didn’t have to be an artist to read that, she thought. Eventually he would respond just as passionately to a return on investment of 60% as he would the promise of a kiss.

  She learnt from an old woman of the cove that to attract and keep a man she should treat him to sunshine rain and snow. Bursts of sunshine to warm his heart, the rain to make him always feel just that little bit uncomfortable, and the snow to keep him so in the cold as to desire the sunshine again. Mr Denning had already begun to feel a little of each.

  Idly she unfolded the piece of paper that rested like a tiny white butterfly in the palm of her hand. What game is being played now? she thought. The cold air blast of the words in harsh black pencil caused her to catch her breath.

  Meet me in the grounds of the monastery. Please, this is of utmost importance. Jowan C.

  What game is this? She thought angrily, looking about her for the conspirators. She studied the note, re-traced every crude letter. Glanced about her as if lost. Her fingers folded over the paper.

  * * * *

  Canvases were sprawled against the walls, some half finished, most of them blank. Brushes lay sprinkled across a table. A paint-mottled easel stood empty in a corner. Everywhere about the cramped room were the implements of activity with little sign of the activity itself.

  Wilkinson knelt by his bed, tossed aside a few canvases that blocked his way, sliding out a trunk from beneath. He paused, lifted the lid with the gravity of an explorer disturbing an ancient tomb. Underneath the clothes within lay a cloth-wrapped bundle tied with twine. Small, heavy. He untied the string and peeled back the material and instead of the dead, cold bones of an ancient king he touched the dead, cold metal of a revolver, silent and menacing amid its deathly shroud.