The Witch Queen

by Jan Siegel

  He addressed Bradachin: “Where is he?”

  The goblin jerked his thumb, pointing upward. “Her bedchamber.”

  They went upstairs. The body lay where it had fallen, cold and pale in the morning light. Will surveyed the face for a minute, thankful that the eyes were closed. It was the color of tallow, or the color he imagined tallow ought to be, the black hair, flattened by the crash helmet and deprived of gel, falling in limp spikes over the forehead. He didn’t look at the wound, or remove the pad of reddened towels that concealed it. There was blood on the carpet, stiff and dry now. The spear had gone; Bradachin must have extracted it somehow. “Ye maun bury him deep,” the goblin said. “I’m thinking there’s those that wouldna understand what the maidy had tae do.”

  “I know.” He would have to dispose of the body. He thought about it coldly, matter-of-factly, because that was the only way to think right now. “Can you help me?”

  “Yon’s tae pondersome for me.”

  He would have to ask Gaynor. He didn’t want to, but there was no one else. “I won’t bury him: digging takes too long, and new-turned earth is always obvious. There’s a lake about an hour’s drive from here. Far enough.”

  “And the motorcarridge,” said Bradachin. “Ye maun get rid o’ that, too. Folks will be noticing it muckle soon.”

  “Pity.” Will was concentrating on detachment. Fern, who never panicked, had panicked—Fern who had faced dragon and witch queen, who had stolen a fruit from the Eternal Tree, walked the paths of the ancient Underworld, ridden out the tempest at the Fall of Atlantis. Now everything was down to him. “I didn’t like Luc, for the little I knew him,” he remarked with studied flippancy, “but it’s a shame about the bike.”

  “Aye,” said Bradachin. “I dinna approve o’ carridges without horses, but yon’s a bonny machine. I would ha’ liked to gie it a try.”

  Back in the kitchen, Will said to Gaynor: “I’m really sorry, but I’m going to need your help, if you can bear it. It’ll take two of us to carry the body.”

  “Body,” said Fern. “Luc. The body . . . Like s-something on TV.” The tea mug rattled in her hands.

  Gaynor said: “Yes. All right.”

  “Hell of a way to start a relationship,” said Will, giving her shoulders a quick squeeze before they entered the bedroom.

  Gaynor made a wry, unhappy face. “Hell of a way to finish one.”

  Mrs. Wicklow arrived around lunchtime, but Will had anticipated this, and he and Gaynor had already moved Luc, wrapped in a sheet, to a room on the third floor, and put Fern to bed, claiming she was ill. The motorcycle had been wheeled into Will’s studio and covered with another sheet, though they trusted the housekeeper would have no reason to go in there. She expostulated over the breakages and traces of droppings, attributing them correctly to some sinister cause, and cooked a sustaining meal that neither Will nor Gaynor could eat. Fern, exhausted and heavily dosed with aspirin, had finally fallen asleep and was left in peace. Fortunately for the other two, Mrs. Wicklow ascribed their lack of appetite to what was clearly a blossoming romance, and her superficial dourness led her to ask few questions. She went home at last around four and Will and Gaynor, with a bizarre sense of relief, lapsed back into tension.

  “When do we go?” asked Gaynor, stroking the she-wolf’s head for reassurance.

  “Not till ten. We need full dark. Dark for dark deeds. It’s Sunday night: there shouldn’t be many people about. Let’s hope to God anyone who is out is unobservant.”

  “Fern shouldn’t be left.”

  “It can’t be helped. Bradachin will take care of her. Lougarry will go in the car with you; I’ll lead on the bike. Strange: I’ve always wanted to ride a Harley, but now—“ He shrugged.

  “Mrs. Wicklow’s made steak-and-kidney pudding,” Gaynor remarked, pale. “Her steak-and-kidney’s awfully good.”

  “Afraid we’ll have to freeze it,” Will sighed.

  The lake lay cupped in hills, reflecting the moon. It was an authorized beauty spot, a tourist destination of the kind that forbade picnickers and where angling was allowed only with a license. Will had gone there in his college days, to lie in the sun smoking dope—that didn’t count as a picnic—and attempt the seduction of a girl he had been pursuing. Now he couldn’t even remember if he had succeeded. There were legends attached to the lake, one concerning a drowned village, or maybe just a church, a priest who sold his soul to the devil, a local beauty who killed herself, and the bells that could be heard tolling sometimes, far beneath the water. Older stories spoke of kelpies, and a green-haired nix, and a lake god bearded with weed who lurked in the deepest places. More recently another local beauty had been pulled out, or part of her, after a ten-year absence, on the end of a fishing line. The prime suspect was her husband, who had collared her money, changed his name, and gone to live in the Balearics. Extradition proceedings were still under way. The lake had a bad name, for all its picturesque qualities; perhaps that was why Will had thought of it so quickly. Almost as if some dark intuition had invaded him, prompting his subconscious. Somehow, he felt it was the only choice.

  They arrived just before midnight, driving along an unsurfaced lane to an empty parking area. Gaynor pulled over under trees, switching off her lights. Will told her to wait and, joined by Lougarry, cast around for a footpath to the water. The one they selected was stony and would show few tracks; Will took the motorcycle and followed the path up to a low bluff, wishing he could extinguish his headlight but afraid to negotiate the rough ground without it. At the top, he dismounted, shutting off the engine, and wheeled it across the grass to the edge. Above, a pale blur of moon shone through thin cloud, silvering the wind-scudded water farther out, but immediately below he could see only blackness. “Is it deep enough?” he whispered.

  Lougarry turned her head.

  Yes.

  He inched the Harley forward until the front wheel dipped over the brink. One last shove and it plunged down, swallowed up in a huge splash that sounded very loud in the dead midnight. Spray rose toward them and fell back; the disturbed water seethed and bubbled for what seemed like an age but was really less than a minute. Walking carefully in the dark, Will trailed Lougarry back to the car.

  “Now for the nasty part,” he said to Gaynor.

  She turned to him a face whose expression he could imagine, though he couldn’t see it. “I’ve been thinking—are you sure we can’t tell the police? After all, it was self-defense. His prints must be on that knife. She could say he went mad or something . . .”

  “And she just happened to have a spear on hand?”

  “Sorry . . .”

  “Look, if you want to back out, it’s not too late. I could drive you somewhere, Lougarry and I will finish this, and I’ll pick you up later. Disposing of dead bodies wasn’t in the job description when you opted to become my girlfriend.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m with you. All the way.”

  She got out of the car. He took her hand for a second, clasping it tight and hard.

  “I’m okay,” she averred.

  Lougarry led them to another path, shorter and muddier, skirting the lakeshore in the opposite direction. Will produced a flashlight—Luc’s flashlight—and shone it along the bank. The moon had vanished altogether, and they moved in a world of dim shapes, groped by the occasional outstretched arms of bush or stunted tree, feeling rather than seeing the expanse of water beside them. Lougarry, trotting ahead, came to a halt at a point where the flashlight showed them the bank sloping steeply down and a thin breeze chilling the water into gooseflesh.

  “Here?” asked Will.

  Yes. I can smell the depth. He will roll down and the weed will bind him. It will be many years and an ill chance ere anyone draws him out.

  “Right,” said Will. “Let’s go and get it.”

  Back at the car, they opened the trunk. The light panned over the contents, the terrible guilty thing muffled in sheeting, folded into lumps and mounds. Will said: “Yo
u take the legs.” With no hands free they had to switch off the flashlight, groping for purchase on their load, dependent on Lougarry’s guidance to take them back along the lakeside. The body was awkward and very heavy, with the additional weight of the leather jacket and pockets stuffed with stones. Gaynor found herself wondering about rigor mortis and whether the mild warmth of Dale House could have delayed it; the limbs still felt supple enough. But she had little space for thought: physical effort took all her concentration. More than once, she had to rest, setting the legs down while Will supported the torso. The second time the sheet fell back, and she saw the head lolling against him, a pallor of skin, a darkness of hair.

  She said: “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I could believe in the other stuff—dragons and goblins and magic circles—but not . . . this.”

  Will said: “Nearly there.”

  It seemed to take a long time, staggering sideways, or forward, or backward, encumbered by a bundle that felt heavier with each step. A soft drizzle began, powdering everything with damp; Gaynor felt her hair adhere clammily to forehead and neck. Her sneakers slithered frequently on the muddy path. “It’ll blur our footprints,” Will said. “Not that anyone’ll come looking.”

  We hope, Gaynor thought, and shivered with the rising terror of discovery, the idea that someone, somewhere might be watching—a nocturnal dogwalker, lovers at a rendezvous—that police might come, the next day, or the next, searching for the impression of distinctive shoes, fishing in the black water . . . She mustn’t think like that, or she would never sleep again. The task itself was enough to burden her conscience.

  She stumbled on.

  And eventually Lougarry halted and turned—Gaynor saw the yellow blink of her eyes—and Will said: “This is it.”

  They hefted the body over the edge, half dropping, half rolling it down into the lake. They could see almost nothing: rain blotted out their surroundings, darkness filled them. The splash this time was muted, but they heard the water slurping against the bank like the licking of giant lips. Will said: “Has it gone?”

  Yes.

  “Better get rid of this, then.” He threw something out into the lake; Gaynor realized it was the flashlight. Then his arm came around her, guided more by instinct than sight, and he hugged her close, and suddenly she knew that she loved him, that he loved her, not for a month or a year but for always. He had done this for his sister, this terrible secret thing, and he had taken her with him, trusted her, and she knew in her gut—in her soul—that he would have trusted no one else. It seemed strange and wonderful to her that at such a moment she should experience this revelation. So they clung to each other, staring across the water, into the rain. The darkness looked thicker out there, drawing into itself, condensing into a core of blackness deeper than the engulfing night. It was difficult to be sure, but Gaynor thought she could distinguish it as a billowing mass, hovering above the lake, drifting shoreward.

  “He sold himself to a demon,” said Will. “Maybe the demon is coming to collect.”

  He pulled her back from the bank and hurried her along the path, though she needed no urging. Lougarry was already there, visible as a gray movement flickering ahead of them. They were almost running now, despite slithers and stumbles. They didn’t look back.

  As they turned away from the lake toward the parking lot, Will thought he caught a faint echo of sound somewhere behind them, like a bell tolling far away, or deep under water.

  A fortnight went by. Fern had returned to London and work immediately but struggled to cope with the simplest tasks and was instructed to take a week’s leave to recover, though nobody knew from what. (“Lovesick,” opined an associate. “It turned out badly. He doesn’t call anymore.”) Gaynor stayed a few days with her and Will visited constantly, usually bringing therapeutic videos since she didn’t seem to want to talk things out. Ragginbone, who was not much of one for videos, went back to Yorkshire. In the FT and the Economist, they read the breaking news of an investment banker with a hitherto unblemished reputation who was implicated in a vast fraud involving both clients and colleagues. By the time the story reached the tabloids, a mystery woman was included who had since disappeared, the protagonist’s son was said to have absconded, also—according to rumor—with large sums of ill-gotten money, and the whole business had acquired a flavor of Greek tragedy or TV saga. Kaspar Walgrim was shown in photographs and on television, between arresting officers, turning away from the cameras. (“Poor man,” said Gaynor. “It wasn’t his fault.”) Lucas Walgrim had been sighted at the gambling tables in Monaco, on the top of the Empire State Building, in the souk in Marrakesh. Dana was reported to be in rehab, then was said to be recovering from a “long illness” in a private clinic somewhere.

  “I ought to go and see her,” Fern said out of the blue. “I owe it to—to Luc. Or to her.”

  “You don’t owe him anything,” said Will.

  “I’ll go if you like,” Gaynor offered. “As your representative. It isn’t as if she knows you.”

  “Would you?” Fern sounded truly grateful. “It must be terrible for her. In a coma for months, and then coming around to all this. And not—not understanding any of it.”

  “Should I explain?” Gaynor asked uncertainly.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Use your own judgment,” said Will. “I’ll go with you.”

  But she declined, feeling that two of them might be too much for someone in Dana’s presumed condition. The next day, she took the afternoon off and arrived in Queen Square behind a large bunch of flowers, only to find Dana had been moved and staff were reluctant to reveal her present whereabouts. “You might be a journalist,” said a senior nurse, bluntly. “She needs privacy right now.”

  “I’m not,” said Gaynor. “Honestly I’m not. I restore manuscripts. You can check.” She gave her work number. “I know Luc—Dana’s brother. He came here a couple of times with another friend—Fern Capel—who’d been in a coma too and was trying to help them. Support stuff. She’s not awfully well now, so I’m here instead of her. We just want to know Dana’s okay.”

  “I’ll get back to you,” the nurse conceded.

  Gaynor took the flowers to Fern, and they returned to their perusal of the papers, who were getting nowhere in their search for the mystery woman. Melissa Mordaunt was clearly a fictitious identity, but since the person behind it had no records of any kind—no birth certificate, National Insurance number, passport, or driver’s license—they were unlikely to track her farther than Wrokeby. Luc’s defection continued to baffle, but no one suggested he had been murdered, and the issue was clouded still further when someone in his office managed to shift responsibility for some dubious financial transactions onto him. Meanwhile, Kaspar Walgrim’s lawyer expressed remorse on his client’s behalf and called in psychiatrists to explain that he had acted while the balance of his mind was disturbed. Pictures appeared of Dana at various society events over the past several years, but the newspapers were beginning to abandon the carcass of the story for lack of meat when the clinic finally contacted Gaynor.

  The following day, armed with more flowers, she drove down to an exquisite Georgian country house where those who could afford it retired to convalesce, generally from drug addiction, alcoholism, or nervous breakdown. Knowing a little of Dana’s history, Gaynor wondered if she had been there before. During the journey she had dwelt unhappily on the fact that this was Luc’s sister she was going to see, and although she had done her utmost to put that night at the lake out of her mind, she could not help feeling steeped in guilt. Dana’s opening remarks nearly sent her bolting straight back to London. “I don’t know who you are,” she said, “but I’m told you’re a friend of my brother. Have you any idea what’s happened to him?”

  She didn’t resemble Luc, Gaynor thought, striving desperately for a natural reaction. She was a little thin and pale, which suited her, and had the type of good looks that result more from grooming than nature: well-cut, high-gl
oss hair, clear skin, manicured hands. There was none of Luc’s suppressed intensity or Modigliani bone structure. Unable to find a suitable answer to her question, Gaynor handed her the bouquet and hovered undecidedly by a visitor’s chair.

  “Actually,” she said, “I’m only an acquaintance, really. I didn’t mean to deceive you, but it was too difficult to explain properly at the clinic. The thing is, Luc got in touch with Fern Capel—she’s my best friend—because he’d heard from a doctor that she’d gone into coma in circumstances very like yours. Luc thought maybe she could help him. I know she went to see you a couple of times when you were unconscious and she wanted to visit you now, but she isn’t very well at the moment, so she asked me. I’m sorry: does any of this make sense?”

  “Nobody makes much sense right now.” Dana looked bleak. “Look—sit down. I could ask for some tea. They don’t allow alcohol here.”

  “Tea would be lovely,” said Gaynor.

  Dana pressed a bell and ordered the tea, and Gaynor, in a painful attempt to adhere to the truth, said: “I’m afraid I—I haven’t seen your brother in a while. I don’t think anyone has.”

  “They’re saying he’s gone off with money from the firm,” Dana persisted, “but he wouldn’t do that. He’s unscrupulous sometimes, but not a thief. He’s not that stupid. He had a great life—plenty of dough—why quit for a few extra bucks?”

  Gaynor mumbled: “I don’t know.”

  “Some people came from the Serious Fraud Office,” Dana went on. It occurred to Gaynor that she was short of a real confidante and desperate to talk to almost anyone. “About Luc and—and Daddy. They said Luc might have debunked because he’d found out about Daddy, or been involved with his business affairs, but that’s nonsense. I told them, he would never just leave. Not without a word. We hadn’t seen much of each other lately, but when we were kids he always looked after me. He would never, ever run out on me. They didn’t believe me. They didn’t say so, but I could see it. They looked awfully cynical, and tired, and sorry for me . . .” She began to cry helplessly, trying to sniff back the tears. Gaynor groped in a flowered box for a wad of tissues and decided this was quite the worst afternoon of her life.