Kingsley's Touch

by John Collee

  He hurried across the hall, pursued by screaming guilt. The side door was still unlocked. He closed the door behind him. The glass shivered in its frames. Around him rose the heavy architecture of the Douglas Calder, capped in snow, white on black. The mortuary was in darkness now. Above it the clear sky was peppered with stars. Kingsley crossed the courtyard. His clogs compressed the snow in the flagstones, leaving rough, black holes in his wake. On the steps of the mortuary he noticed the light that leaked from between the slats of Short's study. Kingsley hesitated for an instant, then he climbed the steps to the mortuary door. It opened. From beyond the anteroom came a faint, persistent drone – a man's voice, chanting.

  In the anteroom he stepped out of his clogs. As his eyes became accustomed to the dark, a table emerged from the opposite wall. Kingsley swept his hand over the surface. He encountered Cranley's heavy glass ashtray. He shook out the stubs. His hand closed around it. From the darkness beyond the far doorway the chanting continued. Higher now. Louder.

  Kingsley transferred the ashtray to his right hand. He stepped through to the dissecting room. The chanting stopped.

  'Dhangi,' he said.

  No reply. Kingsley forced his eyes against the darkness. Lights from the small high windows fell on something dark, moving, swaying against the far wall.

  'Dhangi?'

  Kingsley waited, holding his breath, every sense pricking. The sickly smell of blood hung in the black air mingled with formalin.

  A tiny familiar noise: a match being struck repeatedly against the side of a box, then a choked grunt of exasperation, then the match again. A light flared. Dhangi's face was picked out for an instant, in sharp chiaroscuro. The disembodied hand moved sideways. It lit a candle. The small flame flickered and grew, revealing first Dhangi then the eviscerated corpse at his feet.

  Dhangi was naked, his body smeared and daubed with blood. Thick gloves of blood to the elbow, blood covering his face and matting his pubic hair. Behind him the great fridge door hung open, its metal drawers ransacked, empty, to either side. Kingsley padded towards the centre of the room. The floor was cold and tacky. His bare feet encountered an obstacle. In the flickering twilight he perceived a sprawling corpse. Something cold and slimy was oozing from its middle. Kingsley choked. Two more bodies were roughly piled on the table to his right. They stank. A third was splayed over the second dissecting table.

  Dhangi swayed. He turned from the light, moving his tongue in his mouth like a wakened sleeper.

  'Kingsley,' he said.

  Words of horror and outrage rose to Kingsley's throat and choked him. 'I've been with Cranley,' he said.

  'Cranley?' Dhangi spoke slowly, as if recollecting with difficulty, some distant score. 'Ah yes, Cranley,' he repeated.

  'I've never seen such a thing . . . it's . . . a horror . . . it's . . . obscene.'

  'He is dead now,' said Dhangi. 'That is all, just dead.'

  'Murdered. You killed him,' Kingsley shouted. 'You beat him unconscious then disembowelled him with your hands. I've been a surgeon for more than twenty years, Dhangi, but I've never seen anything as grotesque . . . as horrible, senseless, unnecessary . . .'

  'He brought it on himself.'

  'He did no such thing,' said Kingsley.

  'He was ignorant,'

  'No,' said Kingsley. 'He was a good, upright, brave old man.' He focused with difficulty on Dhangi's candle-lit form. 'And you,' he said, 'whatever else you may be, whatever powers you possess. You, Dr Dhangi, are a twisted, evil person, and I can't tell you how much I regret ever having associated myself with you.'

  'It was never your choice,' said Dhangi. 'It is your fate.'

  'I don't believe in fate,' said Kingsley. 'I believe in responsibility. And accountability. And you're going to have to account for this, by God you will. I'll see to that.'

  'You don't understand, Mr Kingsley. You have never understood.'

  'I don't have to understand, Dr Dhangi. This mess speaks for itself.'

  'The gods threaten to desert me – they must be appeased.'

  'The gods can go to hell.' Kingsley waded forwards.

  'Stop, Mr Kingsley.' There was a dangerous edge of panic to Dhangi's voice. 'You have the power, you know the prophecy . . . you must trust me, just trust me.'

  'I'm handing you over to the police,' said Kingsley quietly. 'Come with me now.'

  'The prophecy . . .'

  'There was no prophecy. Once you're under lock and key you might be able to help with some research.'

  'Research. Research is nothing.' Dhangi spat the word. The candle danced, flinging wild, leaping shadows over every wall. 'You have never realized, Mr Kingsley. You are the saviour of our religion. If not in this life, then in the next.' A wild light appeared in Dhangi's eyes. 'Yes,' he said. 'You are not yet ready. In the next life we will succeed. Come, I will liberate you. Here. Now. Come.'

  There was a ringing of metal on china and a long blade appeared from Dhangi's hand.

  'Put that thing down, Dr Dhangi.'

  O Shiva

  Bring strength to the arm of your fallen servant

  that he may be reborn

  that he may play by the banks of the holy Jumna

  that he may attain moshka

  Dhangi's mumbling, staggering form loomed out of the darkness.

  'Dr Dhangi. You're sick. You need help.'

  But Dhangi was advancing towards him, lurching over the crushed and crumpled bodies at his feet. The candle disappeared behind him. Dhangi came forward, a black shape in the darkness.

  Kingsley swung at him with the ashtray. It glanced off Dhangi's outstretched arm and smashed into the glassware behind. Something large and heavy fell through two glass shelves and exploded on the tiles.

  Richard Short kissed Rhona on the lips and lifted his thick body from between her legs. She smiled and drew up her calves around his waist. Her eyes remained closed, one arm stretched over the desktop. Short stooped and growled and worried at her nipples with his teeth.

  'Christened,' she said, hugging his head.

  'What?'

  'Your desk.'

  'And cold?'

  'Yes.'

  Richard Short disengaged himself and climbed down. He was searching for her dress when his eyes hit on the golf club. He picked it up from the corner of the office and padded back to her.

  He stepped onto the swivel chair then carefully placed his feet astride her head. When she opened her eyes she was staring up his legs. A small, beaming face appeared over his genitals.

  'What are you up to?'

  'I'm going to show you a trick.'

  'I've seen your trick.' Then she saw the golf club. 'What's that for?'

  'My practice range.'

  'I meant what's it for now?'

  Richard Short bent over her. His penis dangled towards her neck.

  'The sword of Damocles,' she giggled, tugging it. Short crumpled a ball of writing paper and placed it on her navel.

  'OK, stay very still.'

  Rhona's knees came up to her chest.

  'You're not going to take a swing at that – you're drunk, you'll hit me.'

  'Come, Rhona, show a bit of faith.'

  'Well, if screwing a chap on his office table isn't a show of faith, I don't know what is.'

  Short laughed. 'It's nothing to worry about. I'm just going to whack that little piece of paper towards the Venetian blinds. Just close your eyes and . . .' He was trying to prise her hands from her knees when they heard the shouting, then a crash. 'What was that?'

  'Someone breaking milk bottles.'

  Richard Short stepped from the desk and parted the slats of the blind. Across the dark, narrow alley from the mortuary came the sounds of raised voices. One of them was Kingsley's.

  Kingsley took a step backwards. Intestines squelched under his bare feet.

  'There's no escape, Dhangi. They'll find out who killed Cranley.'

  Dhangi stopped. He swayed. Kingsley could see his eyes, now glazed and unseeing
.

  'Life from life.'

  'Stay there, Dhangi.'

  'Death from death.'

  Kingsley backed away.

  'Death from life.' Dhangi was three feet away. Kingsley could hear his guttering breath.

  'Life from death.'

  Kingsley took another step back, slipped, and Dhangi was upon him. He raised one hand to protect himself from the knife and the two men hit the floor together. Dhangi's hand was at his face, clawing, gouging. Kingsley tore himself free and rolled sideways against the legs of the china table, choking in the thick, tacky blood and the fumes of the formalin. He made a grasp for a torso, a leg, but Dhangi slipped from his grasp like soap. The candle went out.

  Silence.

  Darkness.

  Kingsley groped for the lip of the table and hauled himself to his feet. Nausea rose through him. He fought against it, every sense grasping for Dhangi's presence. His knees had turned to pulp. He had lost his spectacles and his eyes streamed.

  'Dhangi,' he croaked.

  There was a noise behind him. Before he could turn a thin, fantastically strong arm grabbed him by the throat, dragging him backwards over the corpse on the table. High above him, in Dhangi's other hand, the long blade conjured itself from the darkness. It hung for a moment above his throat. Then the lights went on.

  In the blast of white light he heard Richard Short's voice. His scorched vision cleared and, from directly below, he saw Dhangi's chin swivel sideways, then heard the shearing whistle as Short's four wood scythed through the air. The golf club swept over his face in a low, screeching arc, then the awful wooden crack as it made contact with Dhangi's mandible, snapping his head backwards.

  The knife fell from his hand and rattled round Kingsley's ears. Then Dhangi's dark face crumpled out of sight.

  Chapter 23

  The much publicised advance in cancer therapy may never now emerge from the Douglas Calder hospital. The discovery has been attributed to Dr Dhangi, the resident pathologist who died there in gruesome circumstances three nights ago.

  Dr Dhangi, who has been employed in Leith hospital a mere two months, is now thought to have been responsible for the murder of his predecessor, Chandra Mukesh of Canning Close, Stockbridge, and Archibald Cranley of Kings Wharf, Leith.

  'The murders,' said a police spokesman, 'were the work of a psychopathic killer. It is not inconceivable,' he added, 'that Dr Dhangi's mind was unbalanced by the magnitude of his potential contribution to medical science . . .'

  Kingsley put the paper down.

  He felt his neck.

  'Darling?'

  He smiled at Sheila across the cornflakes. 'Have you seen my black tie?'

  All along the front approach to Mortonhall Crematorium the cropped grass was tipped with ice. Behind a screen of black trees the Pentland hills rose into the winter sky. Steam billowed from the mouths of the mourners and hung above them as they emerged from the church.

  Richard Short put on his scarf in the doorway, took a couple of brisk breaths, buttoned his coat, slapped his sheepskin gloves together and took Rhona by the arm.

  'I thought the minister did that really nicely,' she said as they walked to the car.

  'Yup.'

  'Poor old Cranley. Twenty-six years – can you imagine that?'

  'No,' said Short.

  'And then getting killed like that . . .'

  'Yes.'

  Rhona shuddered. 'It's grotesque.'

  Richard Short opened the door of his car for her. 'Yes,' he said. 'Certainly gives a whole new meaning to getting arseholed before the party.'

  Rhona stopped. 'Aw, Richard.'

  'What? Quick, hop in, I'm freezing my balls off.'

  Rhona was not looking at him.

  'Don't you want me to drive you home?'

  Rhona's lip quivered. 'Drive yourself home,' she said. Then she turned abruptly and began to walk down the driveway, shoulders hunched against the cold. For a few moments Short watched her slim, veiled figure recede towards the gate, dwarfed by the fat green rhododendrons. Eventually, convinced that she would not turn back, he hurried after her. He caught up as the first departing car mashed past them. Rhona had stopped to blow her nose.

  'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I can't stand funerals. The whole thing's so much baloney. It’s a damn shame Cranley got done in, but I never knew the guy. His death doesn't affect me.'

  'Nothing affects you. I feel sorry for you, I really do.'

  Richard Short stood around dumbly. Rhona had not finished.

  'You're completely superficial. You don't have the capacity to get emotional . . . about anyone. Any kind of sentiment embarrasses the hell out of you. You have to cheapen it with some crummy joke.'

  Rhona blew her nose again. Another car passed. Short stuck his hands under his arms. 'I'm sorry, Rho.'

  'I don't want you to be sorry.'

  'Listen,' said Short. 'I never was too hot on sentiment, I'll give you that. But I know a tragedy when I see one. D'you ever ask yourself what made a guy like Cranley work twenty-six years in a mortuary?'

  'He had a sense of purpose.'

  'Balls to purpose. I'll tell you about Cranley. He got called up in the last war, just before the Normandy landings. In the middle of basic training he somehow managed to shoot himself in the leg. He spent the rest of the war in hospital. Meanwhile three quarters of his battalion got massacred on the beaches. Cranley should have been there. No one said it wasn't an accident but Cranley never overcame his sense of guilt. He got himself a job in the hospital and never came out again. That's Cranley's tragedy. He felt he should have been a martyr. When it happened it was twenty-six years too late.' He tipped her chin, 'You see that?'

  'I'd rather you hadn't told me.'

  'It's the truth.'

  'Who wants the truth?'

  Richard Short walked back to the car. The passenger door still stood open. He closed it and got in his own side, then pulled off, leaving two brown scars in the pink gravel.

  He stopped opposite Rhona, leant across and swung her door open. 'Coming?'

  From behind the veil Rhona, cheeks drawn, studied him in silence. A car stopped behind Short's, its engine running, steam rising from its bonnet.

  'Rhona?'

  'Yes.'

  'I love you,' said Short.

  Suddenly, behind the black lace, Rhona's mouth relaxed into a reluctant smile. 'You expect me to believe that?'

  'No.'

  Rhona hitched up her skirt and stepped into the car. Her door swung shut and Short pulled off.

  *

  When Kingsley and Sheila emerged from the church a brisk man in a sheepskin jacket was scuffing gravel back over the tracks left by Richard Short's Porsche. Kingsley stopped.

  'Mr Cairney.'

  Cairney looked up. He recognized Kingsley and smiled.

  'Hello, Mr Kingsley.'

  'This is my wife Sheila. Sheila – Detective Inspector Cairney.'

  Cairney and Sheila shook hands.

  'I'm impressed by your thoroughness, ' said Kingsley.

  'What, the gravel?'

  'No. Following up the murder like this.'

  Cairney laughed. 'Oh yes, that. Well, thanks, but I'm not exactly here in my official capacity.'

  'You knew Mr Cranley?'

  'Not really. We were members of the same church in Leith.'

  Kingsley said, 'I didn't think policemen went to church.'

  'Most of them don't,' said Cairney. 'I'm their Edinburgh representative.'

  Kingsley smiled. 'Just your little joke?'

  'Yes, just my little joke.' Cairney leant back on a car bonnet. It buckled under his weight and he stood up quickly. 'You should come along sometime, both of you. We like to see new faces at St Martin's.'

  'Thanks,' said Kingsley, 'but I've never felt comfortable with religion. I'm a scientist at heart.'

  The two aren't mutually exclusive.'

  'I’d prefer it if they were.'

  They left Cairney to complete the cosmetic job
on the driveway.

  Just before Christmas Kingsley returned to the Douglas Calder and the old place welcomed him back. He felt a new affection for these blackened spires and turrets, the derelict warehouses, the scrawled gang slogans, the ripped posters and all the dusty squalor of the wrestling, the docks, the pubs and the bingo. Leith vibrated. It was alive. It housed the people he had sweated over and sworn at and comforted for fifteen years. Dhangi was nothing now – a shadow, an aftertaste.

  He asked Rhona to send follow-up appointments to those cancer patients he had examined or operated on since September. By careful examination and needle biopsies, he established to his satisfaction that no active disease had endured the crisis.

  By mid-January Kingsley felt he had earned a rest. They retired to Denholm. Late in the second week Richard Short and Rhona paid them a visit. Rhona looked glossy and radiant. Short's pointed nose had turned purple at the tip and his moustaches had a tendency to collect snow.

  He emerged from the kitchen in a floral apron, polishing a plate.

  'No further trouble with that leg of yours, Sheila?'

  'So far so good,' she said brightly. 'But I'm still going to follow-ups.'

  'In a way,' said Short, 'it's a pity you never had the operation – could have really souped up your sex-life.'

  'Oh for God's sake, Richard.'

  Rhona shot him a withering look. Kingsley coughed on the stem of his pipe. 'Come on,' he said, 'get that ridiculous apron off and we'll go for a walk.'

  They trudged off towards Moncrieff's Folly. The low stone bridge was knee-deep in snow. Below it the river flowed in a latticework of Venetian glass. They trudged over Jackie's field and up the shoulder of Sickle Hill. When they reached the wood they stopped and looked back; the house and the trees around it had sunk deep into the brilliant fields of white.

  Short wiped the snow off the wall and sat on it with his back to the pines. He blew out and watched his breath in the sharp air. 'Nice here.'