The Unhappy Medium, page 24
‘Mmm’ said Scott, rubbing his chin. ‘I reckon it’s gonna have to be pint of Hang Bats mate.’
‘A fine choice,’ said the barman, ‘I can see that you are a man of fine tastes.’
‘I am,’ said Scott. ‘Can I have some peanuts?’
‘Indeed you may sir,’ said the barman. ‘I’ll have a word with chef.’ Scott raised his thumb.
In time, the bell rang and Newton’s food was delivered to his table. Despite the somewhat casual presentation, it was a reasonable meal, good even. Newton, sated, washed it down with his pint until, sitting back, he looked down once more at the holdall. He realised then that he hadn’t even seen the pistols properly, despite the fact that now, for all intents and purposes, he owned them. Throwing caution to the wind, he reached into the bag, pulled out the case and placed it carefully onto the table in front of him. Looking around to make sure he wasn’t being watched, he slowly lifted the lid.
Inside, the two small, aged pistols rested in a tired velvet insert, a silver nameplate nestling next to the ivory stocks, scratched in a spidery copperplate.
‘Baron László Norbert von Kovordányi,’ read Newton. He cautiously reached out a finger, and despite an instinctive dislike of guns, lifted one of the pistols up by its handle.
Almost at once he felt a strange coldness in his brain. It was something he’d never felt before, and it heralded the firing of dormant neurons, a release of fantastically rare hormones and some strange biological processes, occurring for the very first time deep within his normally sensible grey matter. With it came a sudden flash of images: darkened chambers, sudden violent fluttering silks and lace. There was also a vile, cackling male laugh and a weeping female voice – a frail voice pleading, pleading. Then blood. Lots of blood.
This sudden rush of unexpected imagery shocked Newton so much that he dropped the pistol as if it was a hot brazier; it clattered noisily to the pub floor. The sudden severed contact mercifully stopped the grim presentation dead. Newton, back to his senses, looked around in alarm. While the old bar had been almost deserted a minute ago, he could make out traces of human forms flitting silently about in the motes of dust. In period dress, visible only in the lightest of outlines, they were all around him, sitting at chairs, drinking, passing through blocked-up doors and standing at the bar like regular drinkers. Stunned by these apparitions, Newton now knew exactly what this so-called ‘sensitivity’ actually meant. He sat fixated at the eerie phenomena, not knowing whether to be scared or fascinated. But it wasn’t long-lived, for even as Newton watched, the effect was already beginning to fade. It had obviously been triggered by his direct contact with the duelling pistol. That was clear enough, so, looking down at the gun on the floor, he opted to take precautions, gingerly lifting the gun back into its box with a napkin before firmly closing the lid.
‘Dr Newton Barlow, isn’t it?’ said Ascot McCauley, suddenly leaning over him like a scaffold. Newton, startled, grabbed the case tightly.
‘Err yes. That’s right. You were at the auction.’
‘Yes,’ he said with a slimy menace. ‘Yes I was. May I introduce myself? My name is Ascot McCauley.’
‘McCauley,’ said Newton, ‘so I gather.’
‘You will forgive my familiarity with your name, Dr Barlow. But I recognised you from your television days, oh, and that later “fraud” business. Bubbles wasn’t it? How very unfortunate for you.’
‘So nice to meet a fan,’ said Newton defensively. Ascot McCauley looked down at the bag. His fingers fidgeted against each other with a mix of desire, lust and hunger. Then he fixed Newton with a resentful, jealous eye.
‘You drove a hard bargain today.’
‘Well, you know, that’s an auction for you,’ said Newton, smiling awkwardly.
‘Quite,’ said Ascot McCauley. ‘But you see, Dr Barlow, unfortunately, I have a problem. The pistols you see – I want them.’ The sickly smile abruptly fell from Ascot McCauley’s face like a fried egg from a non-stick frying pan.
‘Well then you should have bid higher,’ said Newton.
‘Oh I don’t think flashing around one’s money in a public space like that is very seemly, do you? No, I think these things should be settled in a more gentlemanly way. The pistols, how much do you know of their history?’
‘I know some.’
‘Baron László Norbert von Kovordányi – quite a character, you know. He had a taste for beautiful women and fine food.’
‘Did he?’ said Newton, feigning disinterest. ‘Did he really?’
‘Yes he did, Dr Barlow. Sadly, though, he had trouble telling them apart. A sort of Baroque Hannibal Lecter, if you will. Those pistols there – he didn’t use those on the girls, oh no. He duelled for fun, for money. But he believed that consuming the blood and flesh of aristocratic virgins brought him luck, and power.’
‘Well that’s nice. So did they?’ asked Newton, looking past Ascot for an exit.
‘For a while, maybe. He certainly killed a great many of his rivals with those guns. But of course, it didn’t last, well, how could it? They caught him with one of the girls. Pretty grisly, I gather. It was the talk of Budapest for a while. They called him a vampire, a demon. Maybe he was.’
‘And that’s why you want them? Nice,’ said Newton, pulling a face.
‘Oh I’d love to lay my ... hands ... on ... them. Touch ... them. My brothers and I have a large collection of such ... how to put it ...’
‘Crap?’
Ascot narrowed his eyes to demonstrate his inherent lack of humour. ‘I was going to say, dark ephemera.’
‘Well, you must be very disappointed then,’ said Newton, slipping the box back into the bag. ‘Anyway, if you don’t mind, I’ll be off.’ As he stood up, Ascot’s hand suddenly descended with surprising force, pushing down on Newton’s shoulder until he was pinned back onto his chair.
‘Hey! Get off me, arsehole!’ Newton yelled.
‘Give them to me.’
‘No.’
‘How much do you want?’ hissed Ascot.
‘Not selling,’ said Newton. ‘Take your fucking hand off me.’
‘Don’t make me use force, Dr Barlow, I really don’t want to have to hurt you.’ Ascot McCauley then tightened his talons into Newton’s clavicle, making a stab of unbelievable pain shoot up his neck like an electric shock, leaving him unable to move, let alone retaliate.
‘Argghh,’ yelped Newton. ‘What are you doing you weird bastard?!’
‘Give them to me now! Do yourself a favour!’
‘Oi!’ came a voice behind Ascot McCauley, who turned around surprised, but maintained his grip on the subjugated Newton, who was wincing and paralysed. ‘Leave my pal alone,’ said Pete.
‘Mind your own business,’ said McCauley, infuriated by the interruption. Turning to face the threat he was obliged to then release Newton, who immediately grabbed the holdall and backed fast away from the table nursing his pain-stabbed shoulder.
‘I don’t like you,’ said Pete, smiling.
‘This is private business!’ said McCauley, taking in the now-apparent bulk of the regular. A full six feet tall in his steel toe caps, his giant fists, toned by a life of casual labouring and professional bar fighting, had balled up, ready.
‘That there is my mate, and this is my boozer, so therefore, most assuredly, it is my business,’ Pete said with meaningful deliberation. ‘Sling it, ya toss-pot.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ said Ascot McCauley. ‘I’m a property developer!’
‘You’re not a property developer,’ said Pete, ‘you’re a knob.’
The barman and Scott had appeared at Pete’s side now, and Ascot was conspicuously outnumbered. Even the landlady had appeared, her publican’s nose for trouble bringing her down from the upstairs rooms.
‘What’s happenin’ here?’ she asked.
‘This guy is starting a fight,’ said Scott.
‘Oh is he now?’ said the landlady. ‘Well we’ll see about that won’t we? I think you’d better leave sir. ’
At this moment, Ascot McCauley’s muscle-bound driver chose to make an appearance, and seeing how the numbers were starting to stack up, he began to drag his infuriated employer away towards the door just as yet another customer appeared, blocking the exit in his work overalls.
‘Pint of Guinness!’ he said to the now-empty bar before noticing the direction of the collective gaze. ‘Ello, something tasty kicking off?’
‘Allo Bill,’ said Pete. ‘Arsehole ‘ere was just leaving, weren’t you mate?’
‘Yes, and it’s time to go if you don’t want to say hello to the police,’ said the landlady, rolling up her sleeves. Ascot looked around him; things were most certainly not going in his favour. It was not something he was used to.
‘You people need to learn some respect,’ snarled Ascot, as he and the hired muscle edged towards Bill at the doorway.
‘Well I’m so very glad I popped in,’ said Bill, taking off his coat and hanging it on a beer pump. ‘I could do with some exercise.’ He adopted a somewhat theatrical threat posture, his fists before him all Marquess of Queensberry.
‘Call off your little friends Barlow, we’re leaving,’ hissed Ascot defiantly, and he and his driver quickly bustled past Bill and out to the shiny black Land Rover parked outside. As they climbed in, Ascot turned back. ‘By the way, I know what you do, Barlow. I know everything. I just hope you know what you are up against. Trust me, we will resume this conversation another time.’ The black door then slammed shut and the Land Rover screeched away in an ostentatious squeal of rubber.
‘I didnae remember to tell him he was barred!’ laughed the landlady, as they all watched from the doorway. When the blue smoke cleared, they returned to the bar.
******
Newton had some pleasurable difficulty extracting himself from The Two Crowns via several rounds, all of which he found himself happy to finance. They were a pleasant crowd and they waved Newton off as he finally left to begin the journey back to London. The early darkness of a winter evening was upon him as he finally parked up.
‘Deptford Arches, Unit 14’ read a badly painted sign on the rusted corrugated iron entrance. He knocked at the secure door, noticing a strong smell of burning and something uncomfortably reeking of incense.
‘You’re late,’ came a voice, as the door was unlocked. ‘We were expecting you three hours ago.’ A nondescript man with brown overalls and greased back hair held the door open to allow Newton into the enclosed space of the unit. Inside, what looked like a furnace was burning brightly, casting the overhanging arch with a deep orange light. By its side stood an ageing industrial grinding machine and a tall serious-looking chap who may or may not have been a priest.
‘Yes, sorry about that,’ Newton lied hopefully. ‘The traffic was bad.’ He hoped that the ale wasn’t too noticeable on his breath.
‘Been here sitting on our arses for three hours, haven’t we padre?’ the man said to the priest. ‘It’s not time we’re here to burn, mate.’
‘Well said,’ replied the priest. ‘You have the items Dr Barlow?’
‘I do,’ said Newton. He handed the case containing the pistols to the man in the overalls.
‘Nasty,’ he said as he ran his hands over the guns, his eyes closed, sensing. ‘Very nasty.’ He closed the box with a snap. ‘Padre, you wanna get started? I’ll get the flames up.’ He walked purposefully over to the furnace and with metal tongs opened the thick doors wide. A shock of intense heat scorched the room, making Newton retreat. Adjusting controls on the side of the furnace, the man focused the gas into clean blue jets, and with deliberation, placed the pistols, still in their case, onto a wheeled trolley, moving it closer to the furnace doors in readiness. Beside him, the priest had spread out what appeared to be a small altar. On a purple velvet blanket, he had laid out a mix of religious and other objects, a melange of creeds and chemistries, all piled together with no obvious pattern or doctrine.
‘Wanna kick off, padre?’ said the man in the overalls. With this signal, the priest began a low murmuring, his head bowed in concentrated contemplation as the furnace operator began to slide the box forward. Deep into the intense destroying flames it went, until finally the evil pistols and their box were utterly engulfed.
In Purgatory, the sinister cackling soul of Baron László Norbert von Kovordányi was hanging restrained inside his bonds like a vampire bat in a fishing net. Mad as a pewter spoon, and as malicious and self-interested as a hookworm, the one-time cannibal smiled to himself in a last moment of beastly ignorance. The moment was short. The wooden case, blown away by the furnace operator’s gas jets, sizzled and spat into smoke and charcoal as it burnt briskly away, and the murderer’s final earthly relics began to ignite in the intense fires. His pompous, dandy face was suddenly a picture of astonished shock and horror. His laced-cuffed arms tensed and writhed in the restraints as his weedy frame panicked and flailed in a pointless futile jig. Like a puppet in a washing machine, he wriggled and tensed as the flames began to clean and wipe him finally from the earth. And as his foul memory left the earth-bound record, so his tormentors also erased him finally and totally from Purgatory. His clumsily made-up features were now shrieking in terror, just as his terrified victims had shrieked while he had laughed and teased them in their dying moments. In his wheezy little voice, he begged, he pleaded, he squealed – but the councillors and administrators floating around him only watched impassively as he finally began to dissipate into the plasma around him. Relentlessly, he drifted into an utter and complete nothingness, the flames of the furnace and the grinding of the machine destroying his last reliquary, pounding it into an inert and meaningless dust.
He was gone.
Newton sensed much, if not all, of this. It came to him in a distant echo, a vague sense of the events glimpsed with a feeling not unlike déjà vu or the half-remembered bad behaviour of a stag night – faint inexplicable pictures drifting on the edge of observation. He was fascinated and for once, too dumbstruck to ask any meaningful questions. Their work at an end, the priest and the furnace operator led the quiet, thoughtful Dr Barlow to the door.
Mildly stunned and overwhelmed by the events of the day, he drove home.
CHAPTER 20 – Astrolog y
Newton Barlow woke up with Ascot McCauley’s talon marks still red and painful on his shoulder. In the shower, he let the hot water linger on the injury while he stood lost in thought, mulling over the bizarre first day at work.
Once dressed, he phoned the telescope shop.
‘Well, I did tell you to go straight to the Arches,’ countered Jameson reproachfully. ‘You have to be very careful with people like that. These collector bods can be a tad obsessive.’
‘He was a bit more than that,’ replied Newton, wincing as he tried to settle his collarbone back into position. ‘If the locals hadn’t waded in ... well, I’d be a bar snack by now.’
‘Oh the McCauleys are all puff, don’t let it bother you.’
‘Maybe,’ continued Newton. ‘But something he said worried me – McCauley said he knew what we’re doing. Could he?’
‘Did he now,’ answered Jameson thoughtfully. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Just interesting ? That could be serious couldn’t it?’
‘Oh I shouldn’t worry,’ said Jameson, brushing it away. ‘He might have suspicions but I doubt he can really know anything we need to be concerned about.’
‘Anyway,’ said Newton, getting to the point, ‘yesterday, was that a typical day? I mean it was all very interesting and everything, but I can’t say it really used my skills. How does a fully qualified physicist particularly help you with that?’
‘Oh that was just a warm-up,’ said Jameson. ‘Just to get you in the zone, so to speak. As it happens I’ve been drawing up a few proper jobs for you. There’s one in particular you will enjoy – you can start today if you want. Perfect job for an academic.’
‘What’s that then?’ asked Newton, intrigued.
‘Let me see,’ said Jameson, ruffling some papers. ‘Ah yes, here it is. Case 225/7A, Flavian LeClarard.’
‘Who’s he?’ asked Newton.
‘An astrologer, 17th century. Mean-spirited little charlatan. Nowadays, he’d be called a mere conman, but back then his mumbo jumbo was no joke, no joke at all.’
‘OK, go on.’
‘The little tosser flitted from court to court giving bogus advice. Really, really bad advice. In fact, it was downright evil. It says here that he’s thought to have started five minor wars, one revolution and a famine – all in the name of the stars, of course. He’s supposed to be trussed up and forgotten, but he’s been getting back to earth somehow and causing mayhem.’
‘What kind of mayhem?’
‘Well he’s been popping up at religious settlements, you know, the whacko fringe stuff, cults and so on. He goes all end-of-the-world on people, scares them senseless, then talks them into doing the old mass-suicide shindig. Nice easy target for him, you see – those culty folk have the most concentrated gullibility on this earth. We’ve had incidents in Brazil, Honduras, the Solomon Islands and Bishop’s Stortford. Adds up to about 200 dead, all attributed to our little friend here.’
‘Nasty,’ said Newton. ‘For fun or profit?’
‘Fun, we think, it’s all a bit senseless. He’s just carrying on with what he liked to do when he was alive, namely using mysticism to persuade impressionable people to commit horrible acts. Turns him on, I imagine. Classic psychopath. Now here’s the thing, we don’t know how he’s getting out of Purgatory, but there is a pattern.’
‘Which is?’
‘It’s always on the bastard’s birthday. Some kind of sick yearly outing. We can restrain him every day of the year but one; somehow he’s breaking free on the same date. He must have a relic somewhere on earth, but so far none of our team has found it. The suspicion is that he’s used his own considerable talent for deception to hide something, something that’s helping to keep himself vivid down here. Eric the Greek has been interrogating the little sod for centuries, but all he can get out of him are riddles. But there’s one thing to go on – LeClarard was a great lover of codes and ciphers, and he’s hinted that he’s set up one of these puzzles for our benefit. Since you have a predilection for code breaking and linguistics, you might be able to figure it out so we can finally rein the little twat in. I’ve emailed you a short report containing everything we currently have on our LeClarard. I suggest you get started so that we can solve this before his next birthday party.’
