The Yeare's Midnight

by Ed O'Connor

  ‘Paul Heyer,’ said Harrison with a note of triumph in his voice. He knew he had her now. He was wiping her nose in the shit trail her precious boss had left behind him.

  ‘Heyer? The same bloke—’

  ‘The same bloke who Underwood supposedly got an anonymous tip-off about, right. The same bloke that me and him interviewed a couple of days ago about Lucy Harrington. Don’t you see? He made it all up, Dex. I’ve been up in the Chief Super’s office taking the flak. This Heyer bloke filed a complaint about Underwood this morning. Assuming he stays alive, Underwood’s up to his neck in the brown stuff.’

  Dexter recoiled slightly in shock. She felt betrayed and angry. They had wasted time looking into Heyer: interviewing him, researching him and his company. Time that could have been better used elsewhere. Maybe Drury and the others would still be alive. Then she remembered Underwood, alone and heartbroken, wired to a machine. She banished the thought.

  ‘If what you’re saying’s true, he’s finished,’ she said quietly.

  ‘All hail, Inspector Dexter,’ Harrison said, with the ghost of a smile. ‘You shall be king hereafter.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  She walked back to the noticeboard. ‘We’d better get cracking. What else have I missed this morning?’

  ‘Jensen has taken a PC and started visiting the names on that list of local housebreakers. She’s done two so far: one’s got a gold-plated alibi for both nights, the other’s in a wheelchair.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ she said bitterly. ‘I knew that list was a waste of time.’

  ‘Your doctor friend called for you this morning,’ Harrison continued.

  ‘Leach?’

  ‘No, the American woman. Stussman.’

  ‘Has he called her again?’

  ‘I don’t think so. She said she needed to speak with you.’

  ‘I’ll call her.’ Dexter reread the names of Elizabeth Drury and Lucy Harrington for the tenth time. ‘Get hold of that list Stussman did for us. We have to find out if anyone else with those names lives locally. We just concentrated on Elizabeth Drury before, now we need to follow up on the others.’

  Harrison winced. That would take an age and Jensen was out. ‘OK. I’ll try and second some uniform grunts to help me out. It’s such a slow fucking process. Anything else?’

  ‘Get someone to look up local antique dealers on the Net. Cambridge especially. Leach reckons our man might have bought himself some Jack-the-Ripper doctor’s bag. It might be worth a look.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said Harrison. It sounded more interesting than trawling through the electoral register. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to the library.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Underwood thinks that the killer is trying to educate us. I want to have a look at some books on Donne. The answer’s in these poems somewhere. We can’t rely on Stussman all the time. We need to get smart.’

  ‘By the way, while you’re there –’ Harrison lifted a piece of paper from his desk ‘– you might want to check this out. Drury wrote a book.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Lard-arses. It’s called The Weight of Expectation. Her secretary told me.’ He handed her the slip of paper.

  54

  New Bolden library was a ten-minute drive from the police station. The rain and volume of traffic doubled the journey time. Dexter fumed silently. Everything seemed to take an age. London had traffic problems but it also had benefits. New Bolden still seemed very small to her.

  She decided to hold off calling Stussman until she had learned some more about Donne. Half of what the academic said had gone over her head and, in any case, Dexter hated being out-flanked in conversation. She would ambush Stussman with her knowledge when she called her back. Harrison’s comments about Underwood had upset her. The inspector had certainly been behaving strangely and he had confided to Dexter that his wife was seeing someone else. However, Dexter couldn’t believe Underwood would manipulate his position to get at Heyer and then actually attack him. It didn’t ring true. Maybe Underwood had lost it.

  The library was almost empty and was gratifyingly warm. Dexter exchanged some uncomfortable pleasantries with Dan, the librarian she had briefly dated. She politely refused dinner and then hurried, as directed, to the literature section. She found the poetry shelves and scoured the titles for Donne. Nothing. She remembered that there had been some texts on Donne when she had visited a couple of days previously. Annoyed, Dexter marched past the newspaper and magazine section and found Dan again.

  ‘Dan, sorry to be a pain, but all the books on Donne have gone.’

  ‘They can’t all have gone,’ he sniffed. ‘Some people don’t put them back. Students, mainly. We get a lot of students from Westlands College. Messy sods. I bet your Donne books are lying about in a workroom somewhere. I tell you what.’ He took her gently by the arm and led her towards the library computer system. She shifted slightly, uneasy that he had touched her. ‘Have a look on this. It’s our central database. If your books are here it will tell you. If they’re out, it will tell you when they should be back.’ Dexter winced slightly: Dan’s breath smelled of stale coffee and constipation.

  He leaned over the glowing console and typed in a few instructions. The screen changed. He stood up. ‘There you go. That’s the search page. Just type in the author you’re looking for and you’re away.’

  ‘Thank you, Dan.’

  ‘No problemo!’ He grinned and headed back to his book stacks.

  Dexter cringed. Nobody said things like ‘No problemo’ any more. And she had got off with the bloke: twice, in fact. What had she been thinking? She scratched her head thoughtfully and sat down in front of the computer terminal. She used the cursor to click the name ‘Donne’ into the on-screen keyboard. Lines of information appeared:

  Search results: Five matches

  First Match

  Author: Donne, John

  Title: Complete Works

  Class Mark: 604.111’ 282

  Year: 1946

  Material Type: Non-Fiction

  Language of Text: English

  Copies: 1

  The other books were listed below. She selected the first entry and pointed her cursor at the ‘Status’ key at the bottom left of the screen. The computer paused for a moment, then displayed its results:

  Copies: 1

  Copy in Library

  It looked like Dan had been right. She repeated the process with each of the five entries and received the same response each time. According to the computer, all the Donne books were in the library. Or they’ve been nicked, she thought. Dexter glanced around: the workrooms were all upstairs, adjoining the reference section. She walked up the central stairway and moved through the reference area towards the three workrooms. A man and a woman were working at opposite ends of one room: both looked up at her as she entered. She smiled apologetically and closed the door again. All the other rooms were empty and there were no books lying around in any of them. She swore beneath her breath and returned down the stairs to the computer terminal. Dexter wasn’t academically minded and the silent stillness of the building brought back uncomfortable memories of school and hot exam rooms. She undid the top button of her blouse and looked at the screen again.

  This time she typed in ‘Donne’ as a search term rather than an author name and got twelve matches. She scrolled down the list, writing down their class marks. Most looked like academic studies of Donne and all were apparently in stock. She was pleased: someone explaining poetry in simple English was much better than trying to figure out the gobbledegook for yourself. Dexter was about to leave the terminal to seek her list of titles on the shelves when she remembered Harrison’s passing comment about Drury’s book.

  She unfolded the note of paper he had given her. The Weight of Expectation. By E Drury. Dexter cleared the search results from the computer and called up the now-familiar on-screen typewriter again. She selected ‘Author Search’ and careful
ly pointed her cursor arrow at ‘D’. She clicked her mouse. Then ‘R’. She clicked the mouse again. It was a slow system. Something flickered on the screen and she looked up at it.

  Drury, Elizabeth J appeared automatically in the prompt box.

  Dexter paused. How had that happened? The computer was a mind-reader. She thought for a second and then cleared the prompt box. Again, she selected ‘D’ and then ‘R’ and again Drury, Elizabeth J popped into the prompt box. Dexter pressed ‘select’ and read the search results.

  Search results: One match

  Author: Drury, Elizabeth J.

  Title: The Weight of Expectation: Obesity and Self-Image

  Class Mark: 678.094’ 081

  Year: 1992

  Material Type: Non-Fiction

  Language of Text: English

  Copies: 1

  Dexter tried to marshal the thoughts that were flying at her. Dan was hovering nearby. She caught his eye and waved him over.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked through his yellow teeth.

  ‘I have a question.’ She was trying to keep a lid on her excitement. ‘I’m doing an author search, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So, I clear the box like so …’ She clicked her mouse and deleted the text in the prompt box.

  ‘OK …’

  ‘And then I type in the name of the author I’m after.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So here goes. D, then R.’

  Drury, Elizabeth J appeared again in the prompt box.

  ‘Why does that happen?’ Dexter asked sharply. ‘Why does a name appear in the box even though I’ve only typed in two letters? There must be loads of names that begin with D R.’

  Dan nodded. ‘It’s a time-saving device in the software. It’s a default setting. When you typed in DR, the program defaulted to the last name beginning with DR that a user entered. In this case Drury. You’ve been looking for books by John Donne, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So watch this.’ Dan cleared the screen and typed in D, then O. Immediately, Donne, John flashed up in the prompt box. ‘Do you see what I mean? You were the last person to type DO into the author search. So the program automatically reverts to its last search command that began with the same letters. In case you’re the same person coming back and repeating your search. Like I say: it’s to save time.’

  Dexter nodded but didn’t speak.

  ‘Anything, else?’ Dan asked. Dexter shook her head slowly. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it,’ he added as he walked away.

  Dexter wasn’t listening. She felt a cold rush of excitement and again typed in DR:

  Drury, Elizabeth J.

  She was struggling to organize her thoughts. The system defaults to the last entry beginning with those letters. So someone was searching for Elizabeth Drury’s book recently. It’s a public database. Public information, like the newspaper articles. Has the killer used this terminal? All the Donne books are missing. Maybe he took them. He’s clever. He’s local. He wouldn’t want his name and address in the library records. The killer used this library. He touched this terminal. Fuck. Can they lift off the keyboard or the computer screen? Jesus Christ. Think. Think. There could be dozens of partial prints on the terminal. But what if one matched a police record of violent offenders or housebreakers?

  Dexter stood immediately and walked over to Dan. She told him to turn the computer terminal off and to stop anyone from using it. He did so and put dust covers over the screen and keyboard. Outwardly calm but shaking with nervous excitement, Alison Dexter pulled her mobile phone out of her handbag and walked out of the library’s main entrance.

  She pressed her fast-dial button for the police station and waited for a reply. Rain streamed off the canopy over the library’s glass doors, rippling the puddles spreading on the pavement. She decided to finish the call before making a dash for her car. The line connected and Harrison answered.

  ‘Incident Room.’

  ‘Dexter here.’

  ‘What’s up, Alison?’

  ‘Get a print team down to New Bolden library. I think the killer might have used the computer terminal they use to find books.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘I’ll explain it later.’ She squinted up at the clouds that tumbled unhappily overhead. ‘There’ll be lots of prints on the keyboard but we might get a partial. Our man might have a record. It’s something.’

  ‘I’ll send one of Leach’s boys down. We might have to bring the machine in to the lab.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Are you coming back now?’

  ‘No. I’ll hang around here until the print team turns up. I’ve got some calls to make.’

  She hung up. Now she needed Stussman’s phone number. Dexter reached into her bag for her notebook and rummaged among its contents. No notebook. She must have left it in the car. Rain hammered down hard on the concrete: it seemed to roar back at her. The noise reminded Dexter of standing outside Upton Park as a child and listening to the chants and roaring of the football crowd inside. If she ran to the car she would get soaked. Could she call Stussman later, when the rain had stopped? That didn’t strike her as very professional: she was running the investigation now, after all.

  ‘Oh, fuck it,’ she muttered and dashed out into the rain. The car park was at the back of the library and Dexter tried to use the side of the building to protect herself from the brunt of the downpour. It made little difference. She was drenched almost immediately and felt water running down the back of her neck. She hated that feeling. It made her shiver.

  Her Mondeo was parked under an elm tree about fifty yards from the exit barrier, sandwiched between an exhausted-looking Fiesta and a white van. She fumbled with her keys at the driver’s door. She could see the notebook on the passenger seat and swore at her stupidity. She would have flu now for sure: that was all she needed. Finally the car door opened and she leaned inside, stretching over the handbrake and reaching for her book.

  Crowan Frayne stepped out from behind the Escort van. It was time. He seized the driver’s door of Dexter’s Mondeo and slammed it hard against her legs. Half inside the car, Dexter fell face down against the seat. The pain in her legs was agonizing and she felt a sudden surge of panic. She tried to extricate herself from the car but the door slammed again on her legs. She screamed for help: her right leg felt as if it was broken. It was bleeding, too: she could feel blood flowing warmly against her chilled skin. Got to get out … got to get out. Crowan Frayne was quickly inside the car. Dexter felt his weight against her back: the pressure was intense and she thought her spine might snap. She shouted for help but Frayne pushed her face into the upholstery. She couldn’t move. She steeled herself for the blow that she knew was coming.

  ‘It’s the yeare’s midnight,’ said Crowan Frayne softly.

  Dexter, using her last vestiges of strength, twisted her head sideways and for the first time stared the killer of Lucy Harrington and Elizabeth Drury in the eye.

  ‘You fuck …’ she gasped. ‘I’ll fucking kill you.’

  Crowan Frayne tightened his grip on her neck. ‘I am every dead thing.’ He pushed Dexter’s face into the seat and punched her hard, twice, in the side of her skull. He knew that the cranial shell was at its thinnest by the temples and he had aimed his blows with precision. Dexter’s body went limp. Crowan Frayne got out of the car and looked around. The car park was empty. The rain had kept everyone inside. He opened the back doors of his Escort van and dragged Dexter’s unconscious form along the side of her car. With an effort, he hauled her inside before climbing in himself and slamming the van doors shut behind him.

  He crouched over her. Dexter was groaning softly, her leg bleeding onto the wooden floor of the van. Frayne reached into his toolbox and withdrew his roll of masking tape. He gagged her and bound her hands and feet. He then rolled Dexter onto her side and pushed her into a foetal position. He looped a length of washing line around her neck and tied the
ends tightly to her ankles and her wrists. If she moved her hands or legs the cord would tighten around her neck. She was a cop and Frayne did not plan to take any chances with her.

  He touched the wound on her leg. The blood felt warm. He held his hand up to the light and watched the fluid form into a droplet and hang in the air. Frayne thought of the millions of dead compressed into the tiny red stalactite. Just as all matter had burst from a tiny particle, infinitesimally small, so had the memories and goodness of a thousand generations of life been fused and dissolved into Dexter’s blood. He would bind them with his own in an infinite multiplication: a beautiful amplification of their intelligences. Frayne suspended the pendulous droplet above his open mouth, watched it ripen and bulge, then felt it drop onto his dry tongue.

  Frayne savoured its metallic taste spreading in his mouth. He sensed electricity as he drew the goodness up into himself like his favourite laburnum tree.

  Once he was satisfied that Dexter had been immobilized, Frayne climbed into the front seat of the van and reversed out of the parking berth. Following Dexter had been considerably easier than he had originally imagined it would be. He had noted her car and registration number outside Elizabeth Drury’s house after their first meeting. The thick traffic had slowed Dexter’s car and he had trailed her from the station to the hospital, back to the station and then to the library without incident.

  Frayne swung his Escort 1.8d onto the large roundabout opposite the library and headed for the east side of town. Home.

  55

  Heather Stussman was angry and panicky. It was well after nine now and no one had called her back. She had called New Bolden police station three times already that morning and had still failed to speak to either Underwood or Dexter. She was confident that she had discovered something. That she had answered the killer’s question: when is the world a carkasse?

  It is the yeare’s midnight today, she thought. The world is a carkasse now. Today is St Lucy’s Day. Someone is going to die today. Maybe the killer. Maybe me.