The Yeare's Midnight

by Ed O'Connor

  It was dark when Stussman left the Faculty. The reflected lights of Queen’s College wobbled brightly in the black Cam as she retraced her steps across Silver Street Bridge. There was a lot of traffic in Cambridge, far more than the small town deserved, and Stussman was soaked with spray from the roadside puddles by the time she arrived at her rooms. She could hear her phone trilling sharply behind the door. She fumbled with the key and stepped quickly inside, making it to her cluttered desk just in time.

  ‘Heather Stussman.’ There was a faint crackle of electricity. Then she heard the voice that would come to haunt the silent spaces of her existence.

  ‘Your book is promising.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The newspapers have mistaken your originality for carelessness. Sadly, your obsession with logical clarity seems to have dulled your empathetic reflexes.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Who is this?’

  ‘Did you receive my letter?’

  ‘If you don’t tell me your name, I won’t know if your letter arrived or not.’

  ‘It would have arrived this morning,’ the voice said simply.

  Stussman paused. This was getting weird. Her mind chewed over the alternatives: a practical joke, maybe. It was probably Mark, an ex-boyfriend from Wisconsin now researching Milton in Edinburgh. He could do all sorts of funny accents. She reached into her rucksack and pulled out the envelope, still unopened, that she had received earlier in the day. She wedged the phone between her right cheek and her collarbone and tore the envelope open. Inside was a neatly folded piece of writing paper.

  ‘What does the letter contain?’ said Crowan Frayne.

  ‘A line of poetry.’

  ‘You recognize it, of course?’

  ‘Is this some kind of joke? If that’s you, Mark, I’m going to kick your ass.’

  ‘Tell me.’ The voice was insistent. Stussman could feel the frustration rising within her.

  ‘It’s a fragment from “A Valediction: Of Weeping” by John Donne.’

  ‘You are familiar with it?’

  ‘It’s all in the book, Buster – maybe you should read it more closely.’

  ‘I read it voraciously,’ Frayne said. ‘I am a poet. Watch the evening news.’

  ‘Who is this?’ Stussman’s patience had never been her strongest feature and now it evaporated completely in the sudden heat of annoyance. Whoever this was, it wasn’t Mark.

  ‘Explain it to the police.’

  The line went dead. Stussman slammed the phone down angrily and closed the door to her rooms. It was probably some student trying to freak her out. Or one of McKensie’s cronies. She looked out of her small window across the dimly lit courts of Southwell College and its braying cabals of students. Car headlights crawled interminably up Trumpington Street as the early-evening rush hour tightened its grip on the ancient city.

  Heather Stussman felt very alone.

  12

  Underwood sat at a desk in the Incident Room. A list of Lucy Harrington’s known friends and local acquaintances lay in front of him. Harrington’s parents had managed to provide most of the names that afternoon before heading back to Peterborough. None of the names struck him as particularly promising. Most of the people they belonged to were female and none had criminal records. Lucy Harrington was a serious-minded athlete and her social circle was limited, consisting mainly of her fellow swimmers. Underwood felt that the curious and savage circumstances of the case would require more complex treatment. They were hunting a predator.

  Dexter was opposite him, frantically writing a crime-scene report. She had brought in an electric lamp from home and Underwood found its hard white light hypnotic. He was a rabbit in Dexter’s headlights. Now she was tiring him out and he was finding it hard to concentrate. A brief conversation with Julia ten minutes previously had done nothing to improve his mood. She was apparently going to the cinema with her sister.

  Underwood didn’t believe her. His stomach flipped again. He had to find out what was going on. He had learned to beware the banal, suspect the plausible. His wife was a good liar: too good, in fact. Underwood dealt with liars all the time. He recognized the symptoms.

  ‘Have you got a minute, sir?’ DC Jensen was standing at his side. Dexter tensed visibly. Underwood wondered for a second if his sergeant was the jealous type. He crushed the thought. Jealous of what, exactly? Don’t flatter yourself, pal.

  ‘We are continuing the house-to-house, sir. Nothing as yet. We’re going to work up one of those “Did you see anything?” major-incident posters for motorists and put them up on Hartfield Road,’ Jensen said.

  ‘And London Road.’ Dexter shot across Jensen’s bows without looking up. Jensen ignored the detective sergeant and continued.

  ‘Harrison and I have been going through the newspaper articles that were printed after she won her medal.’

  Dexter swore under her breath. She had been planning to do that herself.

  ‘Good,’ said Underwood. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘There’s an article in the Echo, sir,’ Jensen waved the paper in front of him, ‘Can I read you a section?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘It’s just one paragraph, actually.’ Jensen sat on the edge of Dexter’s desk and read aloud. ‘“Lucy Harrington returned home today after a triumphant Commonwealth Games. Lucy won the hundred-metre freestyle in a new European record time, narrowly defeating Australian world champion Suzy Baker-Douglas. Lucy, of Hartfield Road, Fawley will be guest of honour at a Civic Reception on December 9th. Tickets available from the Town Hall.”’

  ‘So?’ Dexter put her pen down firmly. ‘I imagine they all say much the same thing.’

  ‘They don’t, actually.’ Jensen smiled, ever so sweetly. ‘This is the only one that says where she lives.’

  ‘It doesn’t give her address, though. Hartfield Road goes on for miles. She lived in a cul-de-sac off the main road anyway,’ said Dexter dismissively. ‘There’s no mention of that.’

  Underwood shook his head. He was getting the point. ‘Think about it. Hartfield Road, Fawley.’ He got up and walked over to the map board. ‘Fawley isn’t a village or a town. The area only has that name because of Fawley Wood.’ He pointed at the green smudge on the map that represented the woodland behind Lucy Harrington’s house. ‘The implication of the article is that Harrington lived somewhere along the Hartfield Road as it cuts through the wood. If you look, there are only two groups of houses in this section of the map: Fawley Close and Sherling Drive. It wouldn’t have taken our man long to figure out which one she lived in.’

  Dexter thought for a second. ‘Who wrote the article?’

  Jensen checked. ‘George Gardiner.’

  ‘That’s the journo the killer called this morning,’ Dexter said. ‘If the killer read the Echo then he’s almost certainly local. It’s delivered through the letter box.’

  ‘Well done, Jensen.’ Underwood watched the detective constable as she walked away. The double helix of desire and despair twisted darkly inside him. He tried to crush it. ‘Dex. We should pull up records of people arrested for burglaries in the county over the last five years. The way our boy gained access to the house suggests to me that he’s done it before. If he’s local, he might already be in our system.’

  ‘Right. That’ll be a long list,’ she said tightly.

  ‘What’s up, Dex? Jensen gets your hackles up, doesn’t she?’ Underwood asked.

  ‘Off the record?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘Jensen is a slag. She screws around. She thinks she knows it all. She’s a bright girl but you should see her off duty –’ Dexter was warming to her theme ‘– staggering around the pubs with a fag in one hand and a double gin in the other.’

  ‘Doesn’t make her a bad person.’

  ‘It makes her a bad police person. You don’t become one of the lads by screwing them. The way she behaves affects the way the other coppers look at me.’

  ‘That’s your imagination.’


  ‘When I was a uniform, back in London, I was sent to Coventry by my entire relief because I wouldn’t sleep with any of them. That’s the mentality we have to deal with. I decided that if I was going to be a serious copper, then I should behave like one. If a bloke slags around he’s a hero. If a girl slags around, she wrecks her own reputation and makes life twice as hard for the rest of us.’

  Underwood went quiet. He thought of Julia again: cold and uninterested. Screwing another man and enjoying it. Laughing at him. He was angry that somehow the thought excited him: as if it had injected life into their dead sexuality. Dexter sensed her boss’s change of mood and switched the subject. She was learning how to play him.

  ‘This case, sir. Have you ever seen anything like this before?’

  ‘Not really.’ Underwood stood and pulled his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘But I’ve got the feeling that it’s going to be a long winter.’

  Dexter watched him leave. They were both flying blind. They would have to learn together.

  13

  The railway line cuts into the northern suburbs of New Bolden, through the city’s new retail and industrial parks and then on towards Parkway station. The line has become much busier in recent years, following New Bolden’s growth both as a commuter station and as a business-development zone. A number of software and logistics companies have sprung up in the city, taking advantage of the new sites and financial incentives that the city council has made available. Their hi-tech, smoky glass buildings back onto the railway line, reflecting the tired faces of rail passengers as the crowded commuter trains for London flash past.

  The line is old and unsuited to the increase in traffic volume. The fencing is rusted and broken in places. At some points, it has ceased to exist altogether. Sometimes, at the weekends or during school holidays, children crouch in the overgrown hedgerows and hurl stones at trains as they accelerate out of New Bolden.

  Tonight, however, the area is deserted apart from a cluster of birds huddling together for warmth on a steel pylon and Crowan Frayne who walks in the centre of the southbound track. It is almost nine p.m.

  This section of track is long and straight. He can see two miles in both directions. He has plenty of warning, plenty of time to avoid oncoming trains. There is a small risk that he might encounter maintenance staff working on the track but he is unconcerned. Granite splinters crunch hard underfoot. Crowan Frayne stares ahead. There is blackness on either side. Blackness above. Only the path ahead is lit, the rails stretching endlessly to the horizon. He has walked three miles from his house and is nearing his destination. He has decided not to drive. His car is not distinctive but he does not wish to attract attention. Eyes are everywhere. Like the dead.

  New Bolden Cemetery sits next to the main line. It is a huge sprawling place that predates the new town. Frayne finds its proximity to the railway unfortunate. He thinks of the dead jarring in the ground with every express train; two trains an hour in both directions. Fifteen minutes of blissful oblivion between each disturbance. There is a splintering fence half swallowed by hedgerow. He is over it quickly and inside. The cemetery is dark and vast. There are trees that seem to ache with cold. Most of the graves are terribly overgrown. Tall, unkempt grass obscures the inscriptions on many of the headstones.

  Crowan Frayne moves like a ghost along the dark pathways. He is not afraid. He is energized by the concentration of nature. There are elemental forces focused here: disease, war, fire, flood, life, birth, death. He feels a strange energy, as if the numberless infinities of the dead have risen and surged up within him. There is a quieting as he moves deeper inside. Crowan Frayne looks at the star-strewn sky. He is familiar with the constellations and the bright spots of planets. He listens for the harmonies. In this place he can sometimes hear the Harmoniae Mundorum: the harmonies of the planets.

  He is familiar with the writings of Pythagoras and Aristotle. He is attracted to the idea that each of the planets produces a particular musical note determined by its distance from the Earth. This celestial music is the most beautiful sound imaginable and is so exquisite, so rarefied, that is beyond the comprehension of ordinary mortals. He has explored the Pythagorean notion of musical intervals expressed as simple numerical ratios of the first four integers: octave 2:1, fifth 3:2, fourth 4:3. In this context, the relative distance between the planets corresponds to a musical interval.

  Frayne remembers Kepler’s attempts to ‘erect the magnificent edifice of the harmonic system’ and one occasion attempted to recreate the sound himself. He spent considerable time translating the distances of the various planets from the sun into musical intervals that could be applied to a piano keyboard. He applied the same logic to the largest asteroids in the Solar System – Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta – and even tried to work in variables such as orbital velocity that were not available to Kepler in the seventeenth century. In a fury of excitement he transcribed the notes into a repeating musical pattern and recorded it. The result was frustratingly discordant: a leaping, falling cacophony. He has blamed the failure on mathematical miscalculations and is determined to correct his errors. However, behind the silences of this place, he sometimes hears snatches of the Musica Mundi: brief, distant but heartbreakingly beautiful.

  His grandmother’s grave is at the far side of the cemetery. It is one of the newer plots. The area is not yet overgrown but Crowan Frayne tears any weeds from the ground. He eats the colourful ones. He is a regular visitor. The headstone is black, marbled and inscripted with gold text. ‘Violet Frayne 1908–1999, beloved mother and grandmother: One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die.’ Crowan Frayne chose the inscription himself.

  He speaks to his grandmother for a while, sitting squat on the cold earth. As is his habit, he recites two or three of her favourite poems from memory and tells her how his own studies are progressing. He can feel her reaching out for him and drives his hand into the damp soil as deeply as possible. The music is much louder now and its colossal beauty wells up within him, tearing at his soul. He begins to cry. He can hear Violet’s voice – encouraging and learned – floating between the notes of time and space. He will be with her soon.

  A train clatters behind him as Crowan Frayne smoothes the soil that he has disturbed. An hour has passed. It is time to leave. He has lots to plan: a thousand variables to pitch and sound. He steps over another grave as he leaves. He does not allow himself to read the headstone. He tries to beat away the bad memories that rise from the soil and scratch at his ankles.

  14

  Underwood had left the station and driven to the end of his own road. He had a clear view of the front door of his house but remained in the car. He waited. There was a debate on Radio Four about the ethics of genetic engineering. He listened without hearing. Shortly after nine a minicab drew up at his house and Julia came out. He couldn’t make out what she was wearing but he saw her best necklace sparkle briefly against the porch light. The minicab drove off and indicated left at the end of the street. Underwood thought for a second. He felt curiously excited by the experience. He started his engine and followed.

  He tried to rationalize his feelings. He felt a degree of guilt, even shame that he had fallen so far; that he doubted his own wife’s word. However, he felt impelled by the inherent justice of his cause. This would settle the facts of the matter. The rest was about conscience and he knew he could handle that. The cab’s lights glowed ahead of him. He kept a reasonable distance but was not uncomfortable. He knew Julia wouldn’t be expecting a tail.

  The cab turned towards New Bolden town centre; Underwood knew that the cinema was in Argyll Street. There was a one-way system so they would have to turn left at the end. On cue, the cab indicated and swung into the line of traffic. Underwood held back; two cars behind them. Eventually the cinema loomed brightly ahead and the cab pulled up in front of the foyer. Underwood quickly veered into a side road. He pulled up with a decent view of the entrance to the cinema. Julia
climbed out of the cab and rushed inside. Underwood sat back in his seat, suddenly aware that his shirt was soaked with sweat. So she had been telling the truth. His heart sank slightly. He was uncertain whether to feel ashamed or relieved, both or neither.

  He started the engine and was about to drive off when Julia emerged from the front of the cinema and jumped back into the cab. The car promptly leapt out in to the traffic and drove off. Underwood was shocked. He began to feel sick and flattened the accelerator, breaking into the stream of cars to a raucous cacophony of hoots and shrieking tyres. He closed on the minicab. The driver had moved into the right-hand lane of the dual carriageway. Underwood’s mind was working rapidly, trying to calculate possible destinations and explanations. Maybe Julia’s sister hadn’t turned up and she was going to collect her. But Sarah lived at the southern end of town and they were heading north-east. What was up there? Nothing, really. It was a wealthy residential area: detached houses and Land Rover Freelanders.

  The traffic melted away as the two cars left the centre of town. Underwood was careful to hold back. Wide leafy avenues replaced the dual carriageways and Underwood realized that they were only a mile or two from Fawley Woods. He thought of Lucy Harrington: torn up on a mortuary slab. He should be hunting her killer, not checking up on his wife.

  Fuck Julia for making me do this: creeping about, degrading myself. She has hammered me into something pathetic.

  The cab pulled up about one hundred metres ahead. Underwood stopped outside a large mock-Tudor house. It was tasteless in its mockery. The double garage smirked at him. He watched his wife step out of the cab. She paid the driver and then, without waiting for change, scrunched up the expensive-looking gravel driveway. This time, the cab drove away.

  Underwood stepped out of his car and walked briskly up the other side of the street. He was careful to stay in darkness all the way. The trees provided a shadowy camouflage against the street lights. He stopped opposite the house in time to see Julia ring the doorbell. Underwood’s chest was burning but he dared not cough. Instead, he stared in morbid fascination. The door opened. A man appeared. He quickly stooped to gather Julia in a vast hug and drew her inside. The door shut. Underwood was horrified, his darkest fears confirmed. Should he confront them, knock on the door and demand to see his wife? Was she in danger? Would he have to fight for her? Could he be bothered to fight for someone who clearly no longer loved him? No. There were other ways. At least he had the advantage now. The endgame was truly under way. He stepped out of the shadows and crossed the road. There was a blue BMW in the driveway. He took out his notebook and wrote down the registration.