Siding Star

by Christopher Bryan

  heatley moved stealthily forward, the gun in his hand. He was almost where he needed to be. Another couple of meters would do it. He edged another few steps, watching where he trod, careful to make no sound—only to hear a distinct thud and the crackle of leaves behind him. Damn! Had the police come back? Well, too bad! Now reckless of all consequence, he swung around ready to kill whoever it was. But whoever-it-was was upon him out of the darkness faster

  than he could have thought possible.

  “In your dreams!” it said—and its voice was a woman’s. He could smell her perfume. Exquisite pain shot through his

  hand as the gun flew into the air. Enraged, he tried to fight back, to grapple with her, to smash her down, but a stab of pain along his entire arm sent him spinning. The earth revolved and he hit it with a thud that knocked the breath from him. Gasping, he tried to rise but was driven down again by a blow to the small of his back that at once became fierce and unrelenting pressure. He could only lie helpless, raging into cold soil and gravel that pressed hard against his cheek.

  Brisk, unkind hands ran over him, his back, his arms. “You just stay there while I make sure you’ve nothing else up

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  ChristoPher BryAn your nasty little sleeve.” It was Cavaliere again! But how the hell had that bitch known he was coming here? He hadn’t known himself. Damn her! Was she a witch? Was she everywhere?

  “I take it you’re all right.” A man’s voice. He sounded slightly breathless.

  “Oh yes, I’m fine.”

  Furious barking. Jesus Christ, they’d a whole pack of dogs! He loathed dogs!

  Another woman’s voice, “Cecilia! Madonna! Che stai facendo? Chi è questo?”

  “Ciao Mama! Questo?” The bitch switched back to English. “This, Mama, is Henry Wheatley, who’s in serious trouble. Hello, Figaro! Oh, thank you! A sloppy kiss is just what I needed.” Wheatley himself was subjected only to a series of fierce growls.

  “All right Mr. Wheatley, the rest of you seems to be clean. Let’s have you up and into the house!” She jerked him unceremoniously to his feet. “Oh, and Mama, this is my new friend, your friend Michael. He shared the driving, which was very kind of him. And he’d already provided me with an excellent dinner: salmone al vino bianco alla francese. Yum. Come along, Mr. Wheatley, I think we need to have you in the light, where we can see you.”

  Andrea and Rosina, at Cecilia’s request, went to telephone the police and make more coffee. “You sit down,” Cecilia told Wheatley. “Over there. On the couch.”

  But from his expression Michael guessed that Wheatley’d recovered enough to bluster.

  He had. “And then what happens? Are you going to keep me here all night?”

  “What happens, Mr. Wheatley, is that in a few minutes my colleagues will arrive. Then you’ll be charged with various criminal acts, of which the least significant will be illegal

  siding stAr 203 possession of a handgun. Of course we all know the law’s just a convenient meta-narrative for successful groups—but the law’s my meta-narrative, and I happen to be successful here, so you’re going to have to live with it.”

  “Successful? You were merely lucky.”

  “Just as you like, Mr. Wheatley. In the meantime sit down.” “Or what, officer? Will you make me again? Thinking of

  trying a little more police brutality?” Cecilia looked at him. There was the tiniest change in her posture, the slightest alteration in the angle of her head.

  “Why, Mr. Wheatley,” she said softly, “surely you’re not going to complain I’ve been harassing you?”

  Wheatley blanched.

  “Or perhaps you’ll say the cruel policewoman set her fierce and savage dog on you?”

  Watching her from the rug and happy to have his Cecilia back, Figaro thumped his tail and grinned amiably at everybody.

  “And by the way Wheatley,” she said, “if talking rubbish was a chargeable offense, I’d have arrested you the first time we met.”

  Wheatley looked blank.

  “All that nonsense about Christianity bringing down the Roman Empire! Yes, it’s all in Gibbon, but anyone who knows anything about anything knows Gibbon was wrong. It was the western empire that fell. If Christianity caused it, why didn’t the eastern empire fall, too? It was just as Christian as the west. Maybe more so.”

  Wheatley stared at Cecilia, and his jaw dropped. Michael always thought of the expression “his jaw dropped” as a metaphor. It had never occurred to him to wonder what that would look like if it actually happened. Now he knew.

  “If you really want to know what did it,” she said, “it was several stupid military decisions plus the economy. The west collapsed because it couldn’t pay its bills. Trust me. Papa’s professor of classics. I know about these things. And Wheatley,

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  Christopher Bryan guess what? I was trying to make things a little easier for you just now. I can’t think why, since you just tried to murder my parents. But the fact is I don’t care whether you stand or sit. Just don’t move suddenly. And keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Wheatley sat.

  Michael’s jaw dropped. The wait took less than five minutes. Yet they were, for Michael, minutes of agonizing length. Cecilia stood motionless by the door, never taking her eyes from Wheatley. Wheatley sat on the couch and stared into space, now refusing to look at them or say a word. Normally Michael would have felt it appropriate to leave a man in such a position to his own thoughts, allowing him opportunity to come with what dignity he chose to an acceptance of defeat. But this was different, for there grew in Michael’s heart a certainty that for this man, time was almost over—that if he did not reach out to him now, there would be no other chance.

  At length, with a bluntness born of desperation, he said: “I know what will happen at daylight.”

  Slowly, Wheatley raised his head and looked at him.

  “Well, good for you. And so?”

  “So there’s help for it. Even now—there’s another way.”

  “You think I’ll ask your help while your lady protector stands there, watching how clever you are?”

  “Cecilia—I’m sure you would leave us for a moment?”

  “It’s of no consequence,” Wheatley said. “I will never, never ask for help from you. Or any like you. You ask too much.”

  “I ask for nothing,” he said.

  “On the contrary, you ask for everything.” Wheatley turned away.

  Michael was silent. He knew that what Wheatley said was in one sense true, and he had no answer.

  Siding Star 205 A condition of complete simplicity

  (Costing not less than everything)

  Never had he been more conscious of personal inadequacy.

  Never more hotly aware of the limits of his own compassion. There were sirens and lights. Minutes later the room was full of men and women in uniform, and Cecilia was uttering the ritual forms of English law. “Henry Wheatley, I am arresting you….”

  And now it struck Michael that in this moment Cecilia Cavaliere stood for Caesar. Certainly he, Michael Aarons, stood at times for an authority greater than Caesar’s. When as priest he spoke certain words—this is my body, this is my blood, I absolve you—being in himself nothing very special he yet spoke with the authority of Jesus Christ. But Christ from the beginning had always recognized Caesar’s authority in its own realm. You would have no power over me unless it were given you from above. And this was that realm.

  The ritual words rolled on.

  “You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand this?”

  Wheatley grunted.

  “Is that ‘yes’?”

  “Yes.”

  Cecilia nodded to one of the constables.

  Handcuffs appeared, and two of the uniformed figures took Henry Wheatley from the room.

  Caesar ha
d spoken.

  Forty-seven

  East London. 2:47 a.m.

  PCs Roger Jenner and Akhtar Zamir drove slowly from the direction of the Commercial Road. Ahead of them were the decaying splendors of the Town Hall, the Nautical School, and the East India Dock Road.

  It had been a relatively quiet night.

  “Not long to go now,” Jenner muttered.

  Zamir, who was driving, nodded—then frowned. He had noticed something on the opposite pavement. Now

  Jenner saw it too—moving slowly, awkwardly, with a limp. “What the hell’s that?”

  He slowed the car, did a U-turn in the empty street, and

  drove back.

  But now there was nothing.

  The two looked at each other. Had it just been a trick of the

  shadows? Or had it—he? she?—turned off?

  Zamir pulled over to the side and stopped.

  They sat, listening.

  Nothing, except the low chatter of the radio.

  They glanced at each other again, got out of the car, and

  looked up and down the road, listening.

  Still nothing.

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  ChristoPher BryAn Except a smell.

  Something burnt. Something decaying.

  “Jesus Christ!” Jenner said. “What the hell died?” Zamir nodded. It was not the imprecation he would have

  chosen, for he was a follower of the Prophet, but with the sentiment he could only concur. The stench was appalling. There was a moment’s pause. Then, by unspoken mutual consent, the two men walked slowly in the direction the dark thing seemed to have been taking. The street itself was well lit, but there were doorways and alcoves in shadow. There they shone their lights and peered.

  Nothing.

  They came to the crossroad, and stared up and down it. Here the smell was worse. But still there was nothing to see. Nothing but a well lit, deserted street.

  They looked at each other.

  “Maybe it was a trick of light,” Jenner said.

  “A trick we both saw?” Zamir said. “But I tell you what—the drains round here must be in a bloody awful state.”

  They stood for a moment longer.

  “Let’s get out of this,” he said.

  His partner nodded.

  A few minutes later they were again proceeding down the East India Dock Road.

  The episode hardly seemed worth the trouble it took to report.

  Forty-eight

  Exeter. The Cavalieres’ house. At about the same time.

  “S

  ergeant Stillwell, take two others and look in the garden, just outside the kitchen window. There’s a revolver out there somewhere. In the bushes to the right. A Smith and Wesson .38, I think. Anyway, record carefully where you find it and be very careful how you handle it. It’s got our friend’s prints all over it. You know what to do.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Constable Wilkins, you’ll find Wheatley’s Lexus LS 600h L sedan parked just to the left of our front gate. The latest model. I want a forensic examination. It might tell us all sorts of interesting things.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Michael drew her aside.

  “Cecilia, tell them to watch Wheatley carefully until morning. I think he’ll try to kill himself.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Too complicated to explain now. I’ll tell you later. But get them to watch him.”

  “If you say so. They can put a suicide watch on him. The last thing we need’s a custody death.”

  ***

  By the time Cecilia came back from the patrol cars, Michael was sitting in the kitchen with Rosina and Andrea, drinking decaffinato that actually tasted remarkably like the real thing.

  Cecilia looked at him and shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t have left you alone with Wheatley! Forgive me. He’d already attempted two murders this evening.” Michael bowed his head. This too, he conceded, was in

  Caesar’s realm.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I did tell them to watch him. They’ll

  see he doesn’t damage himself. Now, I know we’re tired, but I

  need to get some things clear, Michael.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank God you realized back at the rectory that something

  was happening here—but can you tell me more? Is there more

  we should know?”

  She seated herself by the fireplace, her eyes intent on him. “All right.” Michael put down his cup. “Well, let’s take it in

  order. First, do you have that triangle of paper?”

  “Yes. Wait a minute.”

  She was back in a few minutes with the evidence bag, wearing forensic gloves. Even so she used tweezers to take out the

  scrap they’d found in Michael’s study.

  “Oh!” Rosina said, as Cecilia set it on the table.

  “You’ve seen something like it before?” Michael asked. “Yes. I found it this morning pinned to the front door. I meant

  to show it to Andrea, but I forgot. I’ll get it.”

  When she returned, “Please, give it to Cecilia,” he said.

  “Cecilia, lay the torn sides together.”

  They fitted perfectly.

  “How extraordinary—”

  “It’s just what I expected,” Michael said. “And I will explain,

  but first, can you tell me about what happened here earlier?

  Before the police came? You say you both fainted?” Rosina and Andrea described what they remembered of

  their ordeal.

  siding stAr 211

  “Now, about what time do you think this happened?” Andrea shook his head. “I’m not sure. It was pretty late, well past eleven. Wait—now I remember! I put my watch down on the dressing table when I went into the bedroom, and it said half-past eleven.”

  “And that’s when it happened?” Michael said.

  “Not at once,” Rosina looked at Andrea. “I brushed my hair for a bit after you came into the room. Ten minutes. I don’t know. You said you were finishing an article, remember? I said your bath was getting cold.”

  Andrea nodded. “That’s right. Christopher McDonough’s review of Lombardo’s new translation of the Aeneid.”

  “So then, Papa, it happened?” Cecilia said. “Say, between 11:40 and 11:50?”

  “I should think so.”

  “All right.” Michael turned to Cecilia. “Do you know when you reached the academy?”

  “About eleven.”

  “And when did you sense the disturbance there?”

  “Eight or nine minutes after midnight. It was from 12:02 to 12:05 when I photographed the book. The camera recorded the time.”

  “Then I think I can see the timetable. Rosina, Andrea—I know you may find this hard to believe, but I believe you were victims of an attack instigated by Wheatley and the academy. This divided paper is an ancient form of malediction. The instigator keeps one part. The other he passes to the victim—in this case, you. And some kind of ritual inaugurates it.”

  Andrea raised an eyebrow. “I know Germanicus thought he was a victim of something like that. Tacitus talks about it. But I’m not sure Tacitus believed it. Are you saying these academy people could do something like this and it might work?”

  “Well,” Michael said, “I know what these represent”—he pointed to the paper triangles—“and we all know that something unusual and destructive happened here between 11:40 and 11:50.”

  “I suppose,” Andrea said, “we might have hallucinated some of that, or dreamed it, or something.”

  “Then we both had the same hallucination,” said Rosina, “and in any case we didn’t hallucinate the fire.”

  “That’s true.”

  “A fire that no one seems able to explain. But then it all stopped.”

  “Yes,” Michael said. “It did, at about midnight. At just about exactly the time when there was some kind of distur
bance at the academy, as we know from what Cecilia saw and from the time record on her camera. And out of the academy at about midnight came the notebook we now have, containing exactly the kind of ritual that’s intended to inaugurate this kind of thing. And the notebook further contained the addresser’s half of a malediction specifically targeting you. So while I hate to seem like the credulous priest who’ll believe anything, I simply can’t see a way to fit all that together except by saying that it looks as though what we’ve got is a malediction—a curse, if you like— that actually was working. Frankly, I’ll be obliged to anyone who can show me a more pedestrian explanation. I do actually prefer the universe to operate in ways that correspond with the normally apparent dictates of cause and effect and common sense.” “No,” Andrea said after a moment, “I can’t see another way to fit all that together either. And since—to return the compli- ment—I hope I’m not such a rationalist, positivist bigot as to suppose nothing can happen beyond categories I can explain, I concede the possibility.”

  “Well, maybe,” Rosina said. “But still it seems an awful lot of trouble to go to just to set this house on fire. They could have managed it better by paying a couple of thugs and giving them a few cans of petrol.”

  Michael shook his head.

  “Forgive me—I’ve already told Cecilia. This ritual—I know something of it. It wasn’t just undertaken against you. If completed, there’s no knowing what it was meant to destroy. What perhaps it could have destroyed.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Then on the other hand, if they thought they could do so much with a ritual,” Rosina said, “why did your friend Wheatley need to come after us with a gun?”

  “Because the ritual was stopped and because your deaths were necessary to him. To someone—or something—he had promised them. You were his offering.”

  “I see. Charming.”

  “And in such affairs as this, if the offerer fails to keep his bargain, he must pay the penalty himself.”

  “And that’s what you were talking about to him?” Cecilia said. “And why you think he’ll try to kill himself?”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “And so now, Cecilia, there’s still the notebook. I know you can’t destroy it. But you’ve seen how dangerous it may be. Please, please, be careful with it.”