Hokey Pokey, page 7
“Does he still have business here?”
“Not the way you mean.”
“I don’t follow.”
“He had a wife, back in Alspath.”
Alspath. Another name that made Nora’s stomach clench. Enid carried on.
“But he got some girl into trouble. He killed her. He didn’t get away with it, though. He was hanged. But I don’t think he knows he’s dead. Not if he’s still wandering the streets. Who wouldn’t feel faint after seeing him, eh?”
This was the same Edward Markham, then. Nora might have known that, on returning to England, he would haunt her. Especially because she knew the woods were close, very close, to this particular bit of England. But she had never known Mr Markham worked in Birmingham.
“How – how did he kill the girl?”
“With an axe,” Enid whispered. “Some parts were never found.”
She retreated to fill the teapot. Soon she came back with strong sweet tea in a china cup. The steam condensed on Nora’s face as she drank. She might have told Enid: only one part was never found. An arm, with a tattoo upon it, and a rash from stinging nettles. Nora’s eyes were so heavy. She finished the drink and let them close. A blanket was draped over her lap before oblivion claimed her. The oblivion was welcome, blocking out thoughts of Edward Markham, the girl who was killed with an axe, and the scent of flesh cooking in the pot.
7
The Cathedral clock struck five in the darkness and most of the Regent clientele were asleep. The cinema king’s wife slumbered in rose satin pyjamas. Charlie the skylarker snored in a fellow libertine’s bathtub, yet to remove his cream lounge suit. Mrs Reid’s niece, Pretoria, overwarm with bronchitis, cried out from nightmares of her aunt trapped in the snow. Crouch was alert and readying himself for the morning ahead. As he contemplated his lathered face in the mirror, he thought: I’m shaving my father. On each floor the nightworkers were handing over. The still-room maid filled the urn to make tea for everyone starting their shift. All the cooking fires were cleaned out, set and lit by the porters. In the stores, the kitchen clerk drew the sugar, flour and salt needed for the day. She noted their weights in the Daily Account. The linen keepers brought freshly aired tablecloths to the Pinfold Dining Room and billowed them over the plain oak tables. Waitresses folded serviettes while the commis arranged coffee spoons in electroplated cruets. One of the waitresses hung a printed breakfast menu by the door: Cambridge sausages; eggs fried or poached; grilled lambs’ kidneys; fillet of whiting; kippered herring; broiled bacon; marmalades; and compotes of peaches and apricots. Minute by minute, the hotel was awakening.
*
Soon Nora was waking up too. Light slipped between the striped curtains that didn’t meet in the middle. She could just see the sun above the rooftops. Snow lay thick upon the slates, thawing only at the base of each chimney. Her own breath was misting and the ends of her fingers were icy. But she was still fully dressed in the previous evening’s clothes, including her thick coat, and a blanket lay over her lap. Enid must have spared one of her own. Nora glanced over at the bed, where Enid seemingly slept soundly, beneath a dome of further blankets which put Nora in mind of a tortoiseshell.
A steel wall clock ticked in the alcove. Half past seven. With the coming of the day Nora felt rather foolish for staying here at all. She had let herself be spooked in the darkness with a name from her past. But it was only unpleasant coincidence that Enid should speak of Markham. Nora didn’t believe that the dead come back. Not as anything other than a vivid memory – and not while the sun was out. At any rate, she remembered Markham’s dog. He was not as large as the dog in her room. She would return to the hotel, like the sensible adult that she was; make her room secure as she had previously planned; and patiently wait until the snow cleared for her passage home.
The prospect of waking Enid, if it meant discussing Markham again, didn’t appeal. Silently, Nora stood up and folded the blanket upon the arm of the chair. She felt guilty for skulking away, and to assuage her conscience took the cash she had on her person and left it upon the mantelpiece. Enid slept as Nora crossed the room and let herself out.
The hallway was empty although Nora could hear the slamming of doors and the shouting of children above. On the front step she passed a black and white cat, licking his paws; she saw his prints in the otherwise flawless drifts across the pavement.
Her walk to the hotel, uphill for the return journey, was laborious. She discovered her boots were less waterproof than she had thought; wet stockings twisted round her toes. This time as she progressed she could see the variety of buildings that lined the street: more boarding houses, from the look of it, then a derelict pub. As she drew closer to Temple Row, the style and nature of the buildings altered dramatically. She passed several large finance companies. Was one of them the workplace of Markham? Enid hadn’t specified the street name; only said the company was called Parkes.
He probably never worked near here, Nora thought. Ghost stories often used little local embellishments to persuade the listener of their veracity. That didn’t mean Enid set out to lie. It might mean she liked repeating ghost stories more than she liked looking for holes in their credibility.
Nora could hear birdsong, and gratefully switched her attention to guessing the source. Robins, probably. The cathedral came into view – the clock was now nearing eight – and Nora turned left, towards the hotel. She arrived at the grand entrance, which was flanked by one of the red-jacketed porters and a couple of doormen in blue and gold. Self-consciously she shook snow from her toecaps before passing through. Inside, she hoped to evade the attention of reception before getting to the stairs, because she had slept in her clothes; she hewed close to the walls. This took her past the silence cabinets. On each door hung a neat printed sign, proclaiming the telephones OUT OF ORDER. She paused at the cubicle she had occupied when the lines went down. Through the glass she could see the loose page still hanging from the telephone book. Again her thoughts turned to Markham. Parkes would be in the book, wouldn’t it, if it were a real firm? That was one verifiable detail. She stepped into the booth, picked up the book, and ran her finger down the P column. She hovered halfway down. Parkes and Son, 16 and 18 Cherry Street…
She jumped at the clatter of the cabinet door opening behind her, just as the draught hit her neck.
“Make room, angel!” Berenice said as she crammed inside, pulling the door closed again. “What are you doing in here? Did you forget again that the phones aren’t working?”
They were close enough for their fur lapels to touch. Nora let go of the telephone book, losing her place as it swung from the wooden holder.
“I wanted to check an address,” she said.
“Oh! I thought you might be trying to telephone my husband.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You suggested testing him.” Berenice laughed, to Nora’s discomfort.
“That was a joke,” Nora said. “I wouldn’t know where to find your husband. Why are you so cheerful this morning?”
Maybe Merlini had put her in good spirits.
“I’m pleased to see you, Dr Dickinson. I’ve had time to think about your mimicry.”
“Oh?” Nora said in surprise.
“It was rude to dismiss your gift. I should have taken it as a compliment – your wish to imitate me.”
Nora’s mimicry was neither gift nor compliment, as she understood it; it was a function, like a Dictaphone recording and replaying. When she imitated a person, she was passively relaying the truth.
Berenice said: “Now, I don’t even know the point of your trip. I bet you were drawn here to meet me. Weren’t you?”
Nora recoursed again to the explanation she’d given Crouch. “It’s approaching the anniversary of my mother’s death. The memorial is in Warwickshire. But the roads there are blocked with snow and this is a convenient breaking point.”
A beefy-faced man rapped on the glass. He mouthed: “The telephones are out of order.”
Berenice stuck her tongue out at him. The man blinked in surprise, and he stepped away.
“Are you going to, or returning from, breakfast?” Nora asked Berenice. It wasn’t like the Icon to be up at so early an hour.
“This morning I couldn’t touch a morsel,” Berenice said. “There’s rumours of another disappearance – the Italian servants were gossiping.”
Merlini had overheard something, then, presumably between the breakfast waiters.
“Who do they say has disappeared?” Nora checked. Thinking of the dog, she said: “They didn’t go missing from their room, I hope?”
“Not a guest, thank God! Oh, I forget the name. A man who works here. Lousy of me not to remember, I know – but I barely slept,” Berenice said, and Nora thought of Merlini again, as she watched the Icon yawn prettily, raising the back of her slender hand to her mouth.
“I’m tired myself,” Nora responded. It wasn’t only the aches from sleeping in Enid’s chair. It was monitoring Berenice’s every gesture and utterance, and pretending to want her friendship. It sapped her as nothing else could.
“Two disappearances, Dr Dickinson! I bet the police will start a manhunt. The killer will have me next in his sights, in case the police use my gift to find him. Oh!”
“What?”
“Let’s say you do resemble me as much as you say. Wouldn’t that be a swell thing?”
“Why?”
Berenice looked mischievous. “Because the murderer might come for you instead of me. I know, I’m selfish! But we both could benefit. Two of us divides his attention.”
Ah. Such a jab showed she was still rattled after all; the accuracy of Nora’s imitation threatened the Icon. But Nora would parry in like spirit. It was all a chance to study Berenice’s quirks. So she said: “We’d have a common enemy.”
“How perfect.” Berenice pulled the booth door wide again. “I saw you just as I was planning a walk through the snow. I’m going out there now. It’ll liven me up. Maybe I’ll find the killer on the way.”
That seemed to be her farewell. Then, almost as an afterthought, she turned back and pecked Nora on the mouth. Berenice’s lip was warm, and papery – chapped from the winter weather. Nora thought of kissing the envelope of a love letter. She was so startled by the kiss she said nothing at all by way of farewell. But she stored the sensation away. It would be useful to know how Berenice kissed a person goodbye. It would be a useful thing, to remember, and to replicate, when she supplanted her.
*
Nora’s room was exactly as she had left it. Whoever might have visited in the meantime, they had caused minimal disturbance; she was certain of that, because she checked behind each curtain, under the bed, in the closets and in the drawers. She propped a chair back under the handle to prevent further breaches while she was in the bath.
The hot water restored her thoroughly. She submerged herself, letting the water run into her mouth. As her bones warmed through she remembered what Crouch had said about the redemptive powers of the hotel’s water supply; and she remembered a conversation with Claus Kruger, the Medical Superintendent at the Holzberg asylum. When she was a student he’d told her, privately, of a woman he’d once treated for depression. The woman had suffered a tragic bereavement. Her small daughter had died after drinking too much Soothing Syrup. The bottle was ordinarily kept in a locked cabinet but the woman had neglected to return it from the side of the cot, and the little girl drained it in the night. Kruger suspected his patient had fulfilled an unconscious desire to kill the child, and the depression arose from her guilt. He weighed whether to say so during analysis, uncertain whether she could stand to hear it without her condition worsening. Instead, when he confronted her, she recognised and accepted the truth. With it voiced she recovered from her depression and left the hospital very soon afterwards. Nora had been struck, at the time, not by the healing capacities of psychoanalysis but by the fact Kruger hadn’t discussed the matter with the police. It seemed he thought himself answerable to a different law, like a Catholic priest in the confessional. Perhaps all psychoanalysts felt that way. And not just psychoanalysts; she had personal experience of people turning a blind eye to confessions of heinous crimes, for altruistic, and not so altruistic reasons. But now she was straying close to thoughts of Markham again – none of that. She deliberately focused her mind on Berenice, and how well Nora would be able to imitate her when she returned to Leo in Zurich, surpassing the original in one important regard: fidelity. She did not love Leo, but she would be loyal to him if he worshipped her mimicry. He was the highest judge of her similarity to Berenice. Two of us divides his attention, Nora mouthed while the steam condensed on her face.
She sat in the water until it was tepid and the pads of her fingers had wrinkled, then dried herself and donned a simple green frock. She was just rubbing fresh panstick onto the tattoo on her arm when an envelope was passed beneath the door.
A telegram, from Leo, as if made manifest by her daydreams in the bath.
She had told him she had seen Berenice admit Merlini to her room with a kiss. Now she would read Leo’s reaction. She tore the seal. Typed inside were the words: SAY NOTHING—I WILL CONFRONT ON HER RETURN—WAITING FOR YOU MY OZALID—L.
Nora sat on the bed, tracing his words with her fingertip. She would do as he instructed; if Leo wanted to confront Berenice with the advantage of surprise, then Nora would comply. She would do so happily, knowing her chance to supplant Berenice had come. Why else would Leo say waiting for you my ozalid?
Her stomach growled with startling ferocity. Often she forgot mealtimes, and here, unmoored from her usual routines, the need for fuel was particularly easy to overlook. She had attended neither breakfast nor, the night before, dinner. No wonder she had been unsteady on her feet and imagining things in the cathedral. She’d lacked sustenance. What a mundane explanation, when Enid was sure she’d seen a ghost.
The hour had turned twelve; the dining room would be open for luncheon. Nora returned there wondering if she would see Crouch. He might know more about the missing servant Berenice had mentioned – she wanted to know if the rumour had any basis, given Berenice’s propensity for exaggeration – but his pomposity the preceding evening had been off-putting. The dining room was moderately busy and Crouch was, in any case, nowhere to be seen. Nora compensated for her long fast by indulging in all five available courses: scotch broth, grilled halibut in anchovy sauce, beef olives, roast mutton and rice pudding. The cold weather must have heightened her hunger for blood, because she could have eaten the sheep entire. And didn’t she deserve a feast? She had vanquished the Icon, and that must be celebrated. She drank a glass of Chablis, of champagne, and of claret while she ate. By the meal’s end she was as warm as a furnace, happily immobile, and more benevolent towards Crouch. He had said he often spent his afternoons in the Reading Room. If he were there, he might enjoy telling her the latest hotel tittle-tattle. And if he weren’t, she would read the newspaper.
The Reading Room sat on the opposite side of the building from the dining room. Gridded glass acted as a divider from the hall, so that Nora saw the interior before she entered: innumerable captains’ chairs (one of them occupied by Crouch), two expansive leather chesterfields and reading lamps with fringed shades. Phosphorus scallops patterned the wallpaper above the dado. Nora perused the newspapers by the entrance, ironed-smooth and folded upon the tabletop. Despite their neatness they were all a couple of days old now, because deliveries were delayed. She hovered over Der Bund but picked up The Times and strode towards Crouch, before taking the opposing chair. He looked at her, placing a thumb between the pages of his book to hold his place. The Winding Stair, the volume was titled in small gold type; W.B. Yeats. He frowned.
“Pax.” She kept her voice low, so as not to distract the other handful of readers in the room. “I know you couldn’t mean any of that nonsense about me being hysterical just because I disagreed with you.”
“I enjoy a rational disagreement. Giant dogs don’t fall into that category.”
“I’m extending an olive branch – show some grace in return. Is it true someone else here has gone missing? Someone who works here?”
He tapped his fingers upon the table. “Now,” he said, his tone more inquisitive, “where did you happen upon that information?”
If she said Berenice he’d snort and stay schtum. “Carlo Merlini.”
“That surprises me. I had no idea of his powers of observation. He seemed to have eyes only for his duet partner.”
“You noticed that, did you?”
“I’m not an idiot.” He paused. “A few of the hotel’s people were upset this morning. It’s our friend Westall.”
“What about him?”
“He didn’t report for work − that’s most unlike him – and his rooms are empty. The dog is gone too.”
“He can hardly have gone far, not with the roads as they are – does he have family near?”
“Yes, his parents. He isn’t with them. They’re bewildered not to have heard from him and are assuming he’s been hurt in an accident. But don’t you think the timing is interesting?”
“In what way?”
“He must have gone AWOL straight after seeing us. I have a theory. You see, Harvey also thought Westall’s dog was the one in your room, though she’s under orders not to say as much. She questioned Westall about it but couldn’t prove anything and heavily intimated she would pass the matter on to the police if he wasn’t forthcoming. After all, a man letting himself into a female guest’s room shouldn’t be taken lightly. When we approached Westall in the square, it must have been obvious why you were so interested in the dog. Westall thought it wouldn’t be long before he got into trouble for it. So he scarpered.”
