A Smaller Hell (14 page)

The room was plush with wood, leather and velvet, and from the ceiling swung half a crystal chandelier.  Beneath it on the hardwood floor, scattered shards of the other half.  I looked around the room at various expensive trinkets from Glassware and China, most of which lay on the floor in pieces.  The storm outside was still raging, making the chandelier swing like a hurricane lantern, the remaining lights on it casting weird, animated shadows all over the walls.  On the table lay a large, elegantly detailed mirror, covered in white lines of powder, some of which had broken its ranks and made its way on to the table and floor.  Amongst the smashed pile of green glass beneath the table, I could see the label of a Krug champagne bottle.

I walked by the doorway to another room, from which came the sounds of female pleasure and the creaking of a bed.  I looked down into the mirror to see that my reflection was as white as the powder scattered around it. 

I peered round the doorjamb to see moonlight being cast into the room through a large porthole in the ceiling, illuminating the undulating sheets and the shiny, satin waves rolling and crashing in time with the gasps and the murmurs of pleasure coming from beneath them.  Every now and then, bare flesh would poke out through the surface of the black tide.  I walked over to the bed and tore the sheet from it.

Emma leapt up and away, screaming and grabbing the sheets to cover herself while Doyle lay there, exposed and smiling. 

I removed the oil lamp from its hook on the wall and held it up to the figure cowering in the corner of the room.
 
‘Emma?’ I said, tugging on the sheet she was using to cover her face.

She refused to look at me, snatching the sheets back to hide herself.

I turned back to Doyle to find the bed empty. 

‘Where’s Rachel?’ I spoke into the darkness.  ‘This has gone far enough.  Show yourself.’

Emma’s eyes were fixed on the doorway to the adjoining room.

‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked, creeping towards the doorway.  ‘What do you want?’

The answer came softly from shadows.  ‘You know
.
’

Doyle appeared in the doorway wearing just a fur coat, her bare legs drawing shadows on the floor.  ‘And so does Rachel,’ she said, lighting a cigarette.

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s in the galley, fetching up another bottle. Feel free,’ she said, spreading her claws in the direction of the cocaine mirror.

I stayed put.

‘Ah, I see.  You think that I’m a terrible person. 
Evil,
’ she said, taking a long drag on her cigarette. 

‘What have you done with her?’

‘Nothing … yet,’ Doyle said.  ‘She’ll be back any minute; ask her yourself.’

‘I know about Tanner.  I know what Graziano did.’

‘Terrible business,’ she replied, breathing out a plume of smoke.  ‘Albert wasn’t supposed to come home early that day.  I’m not sure what he was thinking, going for Graziano like that.  And with a Ming vase, of all things.’

‘Vase?

‘Graziano was in bed with me when Albert hit him with the vase,’ she said, tapping her ash straight on to the wooden floorboards.
 
‘He snapped Albert’s neck like a twig, then collapsed with a brain haemorrhage.’

‘And you were the sole heir?’

‘Let’s call it a happy accident,’ she said.  ‘Is Graziano hurt?’

‘Rachel knows about her father.  She knows that you sent him away.’

The ferry rolled, initiating a symphony of metallic groans while Doyle pulled deeply on her cigarette, her sparkling, feline eyes never leaving mine.

‘We’ve all made mistakes,’ she said.  ‘Some of us feel the need to atone.’

‘Tell me where she is.’

‘And some of us don’t,’ she smiled.  Her eyes were huge: the deathly black pupils dilated by the cocaine.  It was as if the darkness inside her was seeping out through her eye sockets and into the room.  She put her cigarette out under her bare foot and stooped to the mirror to inhale another line.  

‘What’s life without a little fun?’

‘You did all this for your own amusement?’

‘I’m not a big fan of television,’ Doyle said, tossing her hair and licking her lips.  ‘And I had to know.’

‘Know what?’

‘If it wasn’t for you, none of this would be necessary in the first place,’ she said.  ‘I just wanted to go out with a bang, Mr. Black.  Shame we never got around to it.’

‘Emma, how can you be here?’ I asked, hoping for an answer that might pull me out of the rabbit-hole.

‘Emma has been compensated for her troubles, don’t you worry about that,’ Doyle said. 

The ship rolled hard, hurling me to the floor.  When I stood up, all of the cocaine on the mirror was gone and there was a bloody trail of footprints from the pile of shattered glass to the door.  Doyle was nowhere to be seen.

‘Stay here and lock the door behind me,’ I told Emma.

My footfalls clanged as I followed the footprints to the galley.  The first thing I saw when I entered the room was a small metal crucifix hanging on the tiled wall above the sink.  It made me wonder whether the God I had read about when I was at school would come and make Himself known; whether any of those songs I had sung, bathed in the colours of those stained-glass windows, would work in my favour right now. 

I stood alone in the galley, leaning against a humming fridge, being watched by the various utensils hanging on the walls like portraits.  When the ship rolled, they swung on their hooks, reflecting the moonlight around the galley.  Continuing to follow the bloody prints, I drew the edge of my shoe through one of the smudges to find that it was still wet.  The trail led to a knife block with a blade missing, then out of the galley and up the spiral staircase to the deck.  I took the knife next to the empty slot and continued to follow the trail, more anxious to find Rachel than ever.

I spilled from the staircase into what was now a fierce blizzard on deck.  My vision obscured by the ice and snow, I staggered forwards towards the bow, aiming for the light of a lantern and the sound of voices from beyond the wall of weather.  Shielding my eyes with one hand, I kept the knife folded backwards towards my elbow in the other, using my feet to feel my way through the maze of benches.

When I reached the bow of the ship, I found Doyle leaning against the railings, her feet black with blood in the moonlight; her legs as white as the fur she was wearing.  She had the huge carving knife pointed at her chest, embedded in the fur, while Rachel yelled for help.  Doyle smiled as the ship rolled and the waves crashed up against the sides, covering the top deck with an icy spray.  I lost my footing and clattered over a bench, alerting the two of them to my presence. 

Rachel ran to me, shouting above the wind, ‘She’s going to kill herself!’

‘Let’s get out of here.  We’ll send help.’

‘I think that you should hear what she has to say.’

‘She’s lying to you.  Whatever it is, she’s lying.’ 

‘If she dies, I might never find my father.’

Doyle sniffed and smiled, tilting her head backwards over the railings, exposing her sinewy neck and collarbones beneath the fur as the ship lurched.  Having rammed the knife into the wood of the railing, she then began to climb over it, so I ran across the slimy deck to pull her back.  As soon as I laid my hands on the fur, she pulled away violently, knocking over the oil lamp, which smashed on the deck creating a flaming puddle.  Having yanked the knife from the wood, she retreated to the stern, her bare feet splatting along the full length of the ship as Rachel and I followed.  We came to a halt at starboard stern, just beneath the red warning light.  She turned around to face us, clutching the knife in a small, shivering hand. 

‘I’ll cut you if you touch me again,’ she said, sticking the knife in the railing’s handle again.
 

The ferry rolled and a wave, bright green against the lights of the docks, came crashing down onto the deck.  We all lost our footing and slammed into the port safety railing.  The three of us clung to the metal bars while the white froth receded across the old wooden boards of the deck.  Doyle grabbed my shirt and pulled herself closer to me as we floundered about on the slimy surface. 

I heard the heavy steel door leading on to the deck slam shut and footsteps walk towards the red light.  Graziano walked past me and crouched down to pick up Doyle.  She let go of my shirt and stood facing Graziano, her sodden fur silhouetted against the city lights on the other side of the river.  She lifted up one of his hands and pressed it to her face, kissing it tenderly before letting go.  I took off my belt and wrapped it around the railing, remembering the Captain’s story about the Jamaican sailor.  Just as she kissed Graziano tenderly, another wave, this one apocalyptic in size, smashed on to the deck of the ferry.  I grabbed Rachel and we both retched and spluttered to remove the water from our lungs.  Opening my eyes, I could see Graziano had been hurled on to one of the benches, but Doyle was nowhere to be seen. 

Graziano howled her name, bending himself double over the railing to search for her.  As he threw one leg over, I stood up and grabbed him by the shirt, but he swatted me away to the deck.  I held tight to the railing and searched the waves below, but there was no sign of either Doyle or Graziano anywhere. 

I stood outside the hospital’s main entrance, illuminated only by one or two floodlights in the car park, the glowing red tips of the smokers’ cigarettes and the twinkle of fairy lights from the foyer surrounding me like fireflies.
 
4:37 a.m.  After I had convinced the doctors to let me out of the bed and get dressed, I went to visit Rachel immediately.  They wanted to keep her in over Christmas, but she refused.  While I waited for her to emerge through the revolving door of the hospital, I kept to the shadows.

The tyres of a black BMW squealed around the bends of the car park to pull up right alongside me and the tobacco fireflies.  A blacked-out window whirred down and a familiar face beckoned me over.

‘Chapman …’ I said, taking a step back.

‘Don’t run,’ he said, holding out a fat envelope.  ‘We’ve something for you.’

I crouched down to look inside the car.  The driver was the sergeant who had been questioning my landlord.  He smiled from beneath his bushy moustache and made a small saluting gesture before returning to his driving position.  Chapman’s breath shrouded the envelope he was holding out of the car window.  He waved it around and looked at his watch.  ‘It’s not a trick.’

I grabbed the envelope, never taking my eyes off him and the sergeant. 

‘Good right hand, Mr. Black.  No hard feelings,’ Chapman said.  ‘Call us if you need anything.  And don’t lose that envelope.’

The sergeant wished me a merry Christmas and pulled away into the night.  I looked at the envelope which was addressed to me, whilst from behind the glow of the fireflies, the smokers watched my every move.  On the front was written in black ink:

Better to reign in Hell.

The first document I pulled out was a genealogy report with my name on it.  Inside was a detailed tree diagram explaining my tenuous ancestral link with Commander Tanner and the deeds to Tanner’s Fine Goods Emporium. 

I laughed and the fireflies jumped.

A barrister’s letter explained how my claim to Tanner’s fortune had first been brought to his attention by a department store employee called Pearl Allister.  Underneath this section was a disclaimer signed by Doyle absolving him of any responsibility for the
events leading up to the handover
and signed off with an invitation to call him upon receipt of the letter.

As I shuffled through the remaining documents, a small, bright red envelope fell to the ground.  I picked it up to find that it was unsealed and written on the front was ‘Merry Christmas’.  When I opened it, I found a cheap petrol station card with a picture of a reindeer holding a tankard of beer.  Inside it was written:

 
4 p.m.

I woke up in Rachel’s bed only a few hours after her mother had driven us back from the hospital.  I put on a T-shirt and some pants, took the barrister’s envelope and crept towards the front door of the cottage, picking up a portable phone from its stand on the way.  It was still dark outside and when I opened the back door, flakes of snow blew in between my bare toes.  Putting on the shoes that Liz had brought me at the hospital, I stepped out in the white garden and looked over the south river at a dozen small towns waking up to Christmas amongst the fields and mountains.

The time on the portable phone was 6:38 a.m., but the barrister sounded wide awake, kids laughing and screeching with excitement in the background.  ‘Mr. Black.  Thank you for calling … Let me take this in my study.’

The sounds of Christmas faded in the earpiece.

‘Hello?’

‘There we are.  I will have all the relevant documents for you to sign tomorrow, if you can make it over here in the snow.’

‘Mr. Cliff, I just want you to tell me straight: is this for real?’ I asked.

‘I sympathise, Mr. Black, I really do: I headed up Dianne’s legal team for eight years, so I know how you feel, but yes, this is genuine.’

‘Is she dead?’

‘Still no bodies found as of two hours ago.  My guy down there said they won’t find anything now.’

‘Why did she do it?’

‘Like it said in the disclaimer, I had no knowledge of her plans, Mr. Black.  Or her reasons,’ Cliff said.  ‘I have no agenda other than to facilitate the handover.  Can you be here tomorrow at 9 a.m.?’

‘I’ll be there,’ I replied, leafing through the contents of the envelope. 

‘Please don’t be late.  And come alone.’

‘Mr. Cliff, there’s one more thing,’ I said, inspecting the red envelope.  ‘Does 4 p.m. mean anything to you?’

‘The in-laws are gracing us with their presence at 4 p.m. here,’ said Cliff.  ‘Apart from that …’

‘It was written on a card with the documents Chapman gave me.’

‘I wouldn’t know.  I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Black.  9 a.m.’

‘But the envelope …’

‘Mr. Black?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Merry Christmas.’

I put the phone back on its charging cradle before wandering back to Rachel’s room and slipping the envelope under the mattress, trying not to wake her.  Unable to get back to sleep, I inspected the card and its red envelope for any clues as to the meaning of
4 p.m. 
The clock on Rachel’s bedside table blinked in bright green digits at me:
07:14. 

Another nine hours.

‘Dinner will be ready soon,’ Rachel said, shaking my shoulder.

‘What time is it?’

‘Twenty to four.’

I pulled off the covers and got dressed.  ‘Does your mum want any help?’ I asked, buttoning my trousers.

‘It’s all done.  Come and sit down.’

As I walked in the kitchen, Rachel’s mum kissed me and wished me a happy Christmas.  I sat down and looked at the old clock above the sink reading ten to four.

‘What was that envelope you had with you last night?’ Rachel asked.

‘Another one of Doyle’s games.  It’s nothing.’

‘Suicide note?’

‘Not quite.’

‘You two just forget about all that,’ Liz said.  ‘It’s Christmas.’

With that, she began heaving trays, dishes and bowls of food on to the table before sitting down to join us. 
Three minutes to four.

Pouring herself a big glass of wine, she told us to get started before it went cold, trying to be inconspicuous as she glanced at her husband’s empty chair.

Four o’clock exactly.

Nothing happened and nobody spoke.  The tink-tink of cutlery on plates and the carols on the stereo were the only sounds.

Fourteen minutes past four.

Still nothing, except for some brief discussion about what we were going to watch on TV after dinner.

‘Have you ever heard of a man called Derek Cliff?’ I asked Rachel, frustrated by the broken promise of
4 p.m.

Liz put down her knife and fork and poured herself another drink.  ‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about Tanner’s.  Or
her
.’

‘So you’ve heard of him?’

‘He’s Doyle’s lawyer,’ Rachel said, spearing a roast potato with her fork.  ‘Why do you ask?  Did he give you the envelope?’

A knock at the door straightened everyone up in their seats.

‘On Christmas Day?  In this weather?’ Liz tutted into her wine glass.

‘I’ll answer it, mum,’ Rachel said.

‘I’ll get it,’ I said, as all three of us headed to the porch.

Liz took the latch off and opened the front door to a man wrapped in a hat, scarf and coat, standing knee-deep in snow with a suitcase in his right hand.  As he pulled the scarf and hat from his face, Rachel bolted across the threshold and hugged her father while her mother’s wine glass shattered on the floor.

I went to get the envelope and wrapped up for the journey to Derek Cliff’s house, hoping that his in-laws would understand.