Wicked Autumn

by G. M. Malliet

  He gradually had become aware that many of those he came across on his journey were slaves, damaged and undocumented people from nowhere, some mentally ill or deficient, probably sold by their poverty-wracked families. In the remotest regions, children would come up to him and rub his arm, thinking his skin color was painted on. Poverty and isolation, wherever he looked, walking hand in hand.

  He often wondered about the child born on that ship.

  This time, he signed up for a glossy tour of Egypt. Just another old fogey being led around the sights. Fine with him. But on this tour, looking only for escape and luxury, rest and good food and forgetfulness and the need never (ever) to do or think for himself again, he found his compass. He found his God, as some would have it. The decision—rather, the clear view of the road ahead—was instantaneous and unquestioned. At the moment, he never stopped to wonder what Egypt had to do with a calling to the modern Anglican priesthood, or why faith had come to him in a reverse of the usual process: people generally lost their faith when faced with a tragedy that made them question what kind of deity would allow such things to happen.

  * * *

  The group had been in the second week of the Egyptian trip and the processes of getting to know one another had advanced apace. There were those whose company one might seek out for a drink at the end of the day. There were those to avoid—talkative, intrusive, loud, or boastful. Old couples, one family. Divorcées and merry widows galore. Again, he didn’t want to have to think and he reveled at first in this mindless freedom. He had wanted someone else to decide what he should have for breakfast, and when, and where.

  So he was simply drifting through days that were much of a sameness, despite the changes of scenery, and doing as he was told when it was time to get on the next bus. But his presence caused such a commentary among the single women and the older couples—why hadn’t he realized how intrusive this would become?—that he was already planning to leave the tour and strike out on his own when they came to Luxor.

  The land of the pyramids was a place as tawdry and mysterious as the glossy posters had promised, but somehow both at once—a Mae West of a country. They had stopped for the day at the vast, badly ruined temple complex of Karnak, such a staple of Egyptian travel literature as to be required viewing, with only the Giza pyramids for real competition. The complex was the work of over thirty pharaohs, or so the tour guide told them. A purely mankind-engineered enterprise, then, like Canterbury Cathedral or the temples of Machu Picchu. Lofty, exalted, and the result of a wonderful hubris amounting to madness that impelled their creation. Immortality for both pharaoh and worker, set in stone.

  There among the massive columns, dwarfed and insignificant, he felt what he could only describe as a lightening, as if someone had taken from his hands some enormous, heavy container he’d been holding forever—and holding onto for dear life. As if someone had tapped his shoulder and said, Here, let me take that.

  And the thought came to him clearly, unbidden: I can’t do this anymore.

  He couldn’t be a part of it anymore, and that was all. The men poisoned to impress a higher up—initiative from below. The people garroted on a nod, a lift of the eyebrow from some unknown thug in charge, perhaps several thousand miles away. The lies that were becoming second nature to him. He’d seen it all, witnessed too much.

  Paul’s death could have turned him toward a quest for justice or revenge, but at that point he was at a place past revenge—at the point of tiredness and exhaustion with vengeance. He wanted, simply, something easier and at the same time far, far more difficult than hatred.

  Time shifted, collapsed. It was his road-to-Damascus experience, and it came not with a blinding light, or a parting of the clouds by an unseen hand, but with a calm certainty, in the most banal of circumstances. He thought: Life was running out like water cupped in his hands. What was he doing with his time?

  It was as if he were following a directive as instinctive as the impulse to stand and fetch a drink when he was thirsty. He was literally called. He went.

  He returned to the rest of the group that day and looked about him at his fellows, at the couple that had squabbled its way across Egypt, at the women, young and old, without partners, at the man who had complained about the food nonstop since their arrival, and he understood their commonality was that one day all of them would put down their worries and their concerns large and small, and they would be forced to make that final journey alone. They suddenly became to him what they were—fallible, ordinary people all carrying stories to tell that they dared not tell anyone. The compassion that had always been a part of his makeup rose to the surface and remained there, subtly and forever altering his landscape.

  So began his surrender to feeling rather than to thought. It was not until he was well launched in his theological studies that he came across the famous quote from Pascal: “It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason.”

  He stayed with the group, then returned to England to train for the ministry, ending up back at Oxford. A more complete contrast to his raucous undergraduate days could hardly be imagined. He would, after his training, be ordained a deacon, then serve as a curate. God willing, he would be ordained a priest. And then … it was the “then” he didn’t know. Just that this was what he had to do, now.

  And so he came to join the dwindling ranks of men and women who saw the church as an avenue of peaceful change. The ranks these days included escapees from all walks of life—civil servants, teachers, farmers, scientists. MI5 agents. Max didn’t see himself as a rarity.

  Now here he was, watching from the top of Hawk Crest the almost comic scene below as villagers were chased by invaders from the police and the news corps. A few yards behind him, the stone menhirs lurched, disinterested witnesses, in their uneven circle.

  He sat a long while, staring at nothing but the tips of his trainers, which were again giving out—he walked miles every day, for one reason and another. He had joined Five in an excess of dewy-eyed belief that he could save the world; he had joined the Anglican priesthood when that world had shifted. In coming to Nether Monkslip—in seeking out the ordinary, the predictable, the boring, even—he had thought he’d be getting right away from things. It was a place where he knew no one and could start fresh. He had found himself looking eagerly forward to a quiet life where local scandal might amount to strong feeling and umbrage taken over the choice of reading material for the Church Book Club, or perhaps a dispute, easily resolved (or so thought Max in his blissful, city-bred ignorance), over a stray sheep or two.

  He’d lived a life of fear, of defense against terrors known and unknown. In Egypt, he had wondered what life would be like if he relinquished those defenses. If he simply handed over that heavy burden and gave in.

  In Nether Monkslip, he felt, he’d been given his chance to find out.

  And now this.

  A snake in his Garden of Eden.

  CHAPTER 13

  Medicine Man

  By Monday breakfast, Max’s disquiet was full-blown, and the invasion of his village complete.

  He began the day with a breakfast of muesli with blueberries, buttered wheat toast, and a pot of strong tea—a wholesome meal consumed over the appetite-destroying pages of the Globe and Bugle. The paper throbbed with the news of Wanda’s demise, the bare facts of which were related in near-histrionic tones by a reporter apparently suffering from sleep deprivation and lack of adult supervision. Following in the great tradition of its big sisters in London, the paper managed to imply a great deal without actually saying a great deal at all. The reporter had turned DCI Cotton’s “No comment at this time” into a veritable indictment of a corrupt police force and lax British penal system, the result of which was a populace at the mercy of every stray madman for hundreds of miles round.

  Max rushed through his meal, anxious to get a start on the day. He had again had a hard time convincing Mrs. Hooser that the old-style sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, kidneys, and tomatoes
fry-up could not be consumed by mortal man every single day, not if he didn’t want to demonstrate his mortality almost immediately. She considered that a strapping man such as himself would waste away on muesli, which she maintained was related to cat food. They had reached a détente of sorts on the subject but Max felt it would not long last. Mrs. Hooser aside, his arrival in Nether Monkslip had been an introduction of his taste buds to unprocessed, unirradiated food, much of it not more than a few minutes or hours from the field, nourished by the region’s mild temperatures and deep, rich soils.

  He quickly downed his honey-sweetened tea. He was scheduled to appear at a preliminary inquest that afternoon, once he’d attended to the religious and secular affairs of St. Edwold’s. After that, he would begin his “officially unofficial” investigation of Wanda’s death, as he thought of it, with a visit to Dr. Winship’s.

  So Max later that day found himself, for the first time in his life, giving evidence at an inquest. He provided only the sketchiest details surrounding the finding of the body, and his and Guy’s efforts to resuscitate Wanda, reliving the moment when, for a brief fleeting second, there had been hope, however false and instantly quashed, that Wanda might be revived. Dr. Winship likewise gave testimony—a formality, merely, but what he had to say clearly made an impression on the coroner. The expected adjournment was announced.

  Afterward, DCI Cotton held a media conference where he read out a statement of cryptic opacity, having first announced that he would be taking no questions at that time. Max, sliding uncontested into the back of the room (the clerical collar opened doors it really should not have, although it also sometimes closed them), had the chance to marvel again at Cotton’s ability to appear perfectly open and forthcoming while revealing nothing whatsoever. When the jostling mass of reporters began yelling out questions, he turned heel and left the room.

  * * *

  Max timed his visit to Dr. Winship’s for late afternoon, when he thought it likely Bruce’s sister Suzanna would be gone, and for when normal surgery hours and times for rounds might allow for a little break—even though the National Health Service didn’t allow for much in the way of respite. Max told himself he wanted a free and uninterrupted conversation about the pathology of the case: he knew from previous experience of Dr. Winship that murder was a bit of a hobbyhorse for him. But dodging the delectable Suzanna was, Max quietly acknowledged, part of his motivation for the timing.

  “I thought I might see you again today,” the doctor greeted him at the front door. Leading him into the sitting room, he carried in one hand what looked like a medical journal, published in lines of microscopic type. Like many surgeries in small villages, Dr. Winship’s offices were a part of his house, and tucked behind the main dwelling. The path to that door was worn almost into a rut: as sole GP for the village, Dr. Winship was kept busy.

  “The mind of the murderer,” he now said ruminatively, and with barely concealed glee, settling into an overstuffed chair by the warm hearth, tossing aside his reading, and waving Max into the seat opposite. It was a slightly smaller chair that Max imagined might, in the evening, be occupied by Suzanna.

  “Let’s come straight to the point,” said Dr. Winship, rubbing his hands together in a down-to-business manner, having first offered the contents of a well-stocked drinks tray. He might have been counting the hours until Max showed up to discuss the case. Likely he had. “Death was due to anaphylaxis—a severe allergic reaction,” he said, now wagging a forefinger (Bruce had a pedantic streak). “But we know that Wanda would not have committed suicide. Well, not unless she took half the village out with her. Sorry, Vicar, but you knew the woman as well as I did. This was not her style at all. I told that Cotton chap on the day that there could be no death certificate issued for this kind of sudden death without her being looked at by a specialist. Of course he agreed. Had no choice—the police would be mad to ignore the indications that gave me pause. Nothing too obvious, but enough to make me wonder, you understand. Told him that in my opinion he needed to get a Home Office pathologist onto it right away.”

  Max nodded, taking in the lecture but following his own train of thought. Many sins might be laid at Wanda’s door, most having to do with pride, as most sins were, but suicide he would certainly agree wasn’t among them.

  “You treated her?” he asked. Dr. Winship had not been many years in the village, and it was always possible Wanda was one of those who made the trek into Monkslip-super-Mare for medical treatment. “You were her physician?”

  “Yes. I saw her for routine care, although strong as two oxen, she was. No diagnosis of the sudden onset of an existing illness would be possible here. Nothing like that. She also saw a specialist in Monkslip-super-Mare, but that was nothing serious. Not a thing wrong with her except sometimes she liked extra attention.”

  Sometimes? Max, looking at him squarely, said, “You’re not satisfied with what you saw on Saturday. Can you tell me why?”

  Dr. Winship paused, allowing a silence to hang in the air between them as he took a sip of his drink. He had the face of a cherub—an exceedingly worried cherub—with a receding hairline and round glasses.

  “No, I can’t say I can,” he said at last, “because I’m not entirely sure myself. If the choices we’re given are accident, suicide, or even murder, well … All I can repeat is a less suicidal woman than Wanda Batton-Smythe never was born. Nor one less prone to accident. Everything with Wanda, if you know anything of the woman…”

  Here Max toggled a hand equivocally. Not so much.

  “Well, everything,” Dr. Winship continued, “would refute the possibility of her making a careless mistake. You saw the plate of biscuits in the kitchen there at the Village Hall?” Max nodded. “The peanuts were whole or roughly chopped and quite visible. It’s not as if they had been ground into a fine powder, like glass, and mixed into her tea or something. She hadn’t suddenly gone blind—she’d have seen the peanuts. Smelled them, even. So…”

  “So…”

  “So someone fed her the peanuts deliberately, knowing she was allergic.”

  “How?”

  Somewhat testily: “How do you mean, how?”

  “There were no signs anything was forced down her throat, I mean,” said Max. “That her mouth was forced open. No bruises on her face. Whatever she ingested, she ingested deliberately.”

  “Yes, you’re right, of course,” said Dr. Winship. “That’s what makes it so difficult. Someone must have ground up the peanuts, and introduced them to her disguised in some other food—those biscuits we saw in the Village Hall had nothing to do with it. But what is certain is she didn’t eat a biscuit with some big honking peanuts in it. That plate of biscuits was staged, I think—left there deliberately to mislead. That tells you something right there.

  “And I’ll tell you something else.” Here the doctor paused for dramatic effect. He might have been taking lessons from Wanda.

  “Ye-s-s?”

  “The fact that her auto-injector was not in her handbag is the major clue. I had the police look for it, as I testified at the inquest. Not there. It was always with her. She would have used it to inject epinephrine into her outer thigh the moment she realized her mistake, if she ingested peanuts by accident.”

  “Unbelievable,” Max breathed. “And definitely suspicious. So … suicide is absurd even to contemplate, but an accident is nearly as hard to believe,” said Max. “Could she possibly be so distracted she didn’t notice what she was eating? Let’s say that is just possible. If so, where was the ever-present auto-injector…” he trailed off, then repeated, “Unbelievable.”

  Dr. Winship was nodding so enthusiastically his glasses nearly slid off his nose. He settled them back around his eyes and, leaning forward, told him, “She had a supply of three injectors—two at the house, one in her handbag. Always. She was terrified of ever being caught without one. Have you ever seen one?” Max shook his head. “It is about the size of a permanent marker pen. Anyone who has ever experienc
ed a severe allergic reaction can tell you that you never want to experience that kind of fright again.”

  Max puffed out his cheeks, thinking.

  “But it comes down to why,” the doctor went on. “Why would anyone want to kill Wanda?”

  “You mean apart from the fact she exhibited all the diplomatic skills of a Latin American dictator?” asked Max.

  “Well, yes. She must have trampled on someone’s feet, and hard.”

  Max nodded. His thoughts had trodden, so to speak, down much the same path.

  “The psychology of crime,” Dr. Winship murmured, now openly astride his hobbyhorse. “Most fascinating. Do you know I toyed at one time with the idea of becoming a psychiatrist? But I opted instead to address diseases with a higher cure rate than psychosis and all the rest. So much of what we see nowadays is drug-fueled, after all, rather than being a good old mother fixation or something amenable to Freudian analysis.”

  “You’re not allowing for plain, old-fashioned evil as the culprit in crime, then?”

  “‘The Devil made me do it’? I wouldn’t discount anything, Max. I try to keep an open mind. But more often than not the motivation for crime can be traced back to all the usual, boring suspects. Greed and lust, for example.”

  “Plain, old-fashioned evil, in other words.”

  Dr. Winship smiled. “If you like.”

  Max looked at him speculatively. He’d never in his career with MI5, which employed a lot of shrinks in one capacity or another, run across one who wasn’t a teensy bit barking in one direction or another. He liked Bruce Winship, and overall was glad, for his own sake, that he’d made the career choice he had.

  The doctor was offering him tea, which he waved away politely, and more whiskey, which he did not. He was thinking: people lie, cheat, and steal—Max felt he was rather a pragmatist about this. People were, without exception and by definition, far from perfect. But murder … Committing murder did such damage to the soul, it put the whole business into a category unto itself. The one crime to make one an outcast from the human race. Who would have done such a thing, and over Wanda? A silly woman, a nuisance, a disruptive force, certainly. But what could she have done to put herself in the way of such depravity?