Mayhem (20 page)

I fell asleep after that, awaking only when the three men came into my room. Through the window I could see the sun was sinking into a lazy late afternoon. The heat was fading, and a light breeze worked its way through the room, making me feel better than I had. I smiled and pushed myself up on my pillows and looked at my guide, Josep – a man in his thirties who did not say much, but at the same time had an air of affability about him that had made him an easy travelling companion for the past few weeks.

‘Please tell these gentlemen how grateful I am for their village’s hospitality. I will of course reimburse them for everything they have done for me.’

Josep nodded, but did not speak to them, instead tugging at his cap with his hands as he spoke in English to me.

‘They want to know how you got sick.’

I looked at the two men with him. It was hard to place their ages. Their skin was weather-beaten and leathered from working the fields, and their beards were grey. They watched me intently.

‘Are others ill? Like me?’ I felt a growing dread. In the short time that I had recovered my senses I had not considered that my illness might be contagious, or that I might have brought a plague on those who had been kind enough to take care of me.

‘No,’ Josep said, ‘but—’ He hesitated, then went on, ‘Some animals have sickened. Cows aren’t milking.’

‘Perhaps it is this awful heat,’ I said.

‘Perhaps. But they want to know when you started feeling unwell. And if you remember exactly what you were doing beforehand.’

‘You know this already, Josep. We had been travelling for several hours and were both hot and tired. We stopped for a rest.’ My eyes moved from him to those beside him as he repeated my words in this unfamiliar language of which I am ashamed to say I have learned only a phrase or two. I regretted that now. There is nothing worse than relying entirely on others for your
communication. So much can be lost in the space between the words and the meaning that comes with the delivery.

‘You fell asleep under the tree, and after I had finished my lunch – bread and dried meat – I went for a walk. I was very hot and sweaty, and walked until I found the river. You had told me we were not far from one. I crouched by it and soaked my face and hair. Though it was freezing cold – far colder than I expected – I would have stripped and swum in it, but the bank dropped away steeply and I couldn’t see the bottom. Judging from the temperature, I thought it must be deep and I did not want to get tangled in any weeds at the bottom.’ As I spoke I thought of Edward. Had Edward been with me, he would have leapt into the water without even considering its depth. In his company I probably would have too. I thought once again that perhaps it had been folly to amend my travel plans and move away from the well-tried routes of the Grand Tours of the past.

‘I sat there for a while,’ I continued,’ and then before I turned back, I leaned over the side and drank some of the water. It was later that afternoon that I started to feel odd.’ A thought struck me at that point. ‘Do they feed the animals from that river? Perhaps that is the cause of their illness and mine? Some kind of parasite in the river?’

Josep, his hand gesturing as he spoke, once again relayed my words to the two sombre men beside him. They turned away and spoke rapidly and quietly between themselves. I could see Josep getting confused trying to catch their words.

‘But actually,’ I said, leaning forward slightly, a memory of that afternoon suddenly hitting me, ‘I am not sure it was the river water – I think I might have been running a slight fever before that, but not realised. Perhaps it was an insect bite that has made me ill.’

‘Why?’ Josep looked almost relieved, and I wondered if the animals were sicker than they were telling me. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘It was something that happened when I was drinking the water,’ I said. ‘I had forgotten all about it until now – I suppose with the fever and everything, I have barely known who I am myself.’

‘What happened?’ His tone was sharp.

I felt slightly defensive as I explained, ‘I must have had a fever because I had a momentary hallucination – ridiculous, when I think about it – but as I knelt on the bank and leaned forward to drink, I was sure that I saw something rushing up towards me, from the bottom of the river. A dark shape.’ I laughed slightly, but the warmth had gone out of the room with the memory. ‘It gave me quite a fright. I can see it still: something on the
other side of the ripples, moving incredibly fast, and with such intent I almost thought I drank it in. I leapt right back from the edge, I can tell you.’

Josep swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously in his throat, before translating my words.

‘Of course,’ I continued, ‘it was probably a reflection of a cloud or some such, but it must have been some precursor of the fever that gripped me later in the afternoon.’

Josep almost tore his cap in two as he relayed my last sentences, and for the first time I saw emotion on the two men’s faces: dread; fear; anger. I had no idea what I had said, but as I looked dumbly around me, they got to their feet and stormed out. At the door, one spat out a word so vehemently, I knew it had to be a swearword of some kind. The old woman peered through for a moment, and then the door closed.

‘What?’ I asked Josep. ‘What is it? I don’t understand.’

He said nothing but stared at the floor, his cap now a twisted wreck in his hands. I had to repeat his name three times before he looked up.

‘It is just a stupid superstition,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it. Just get better. I will talk to them.’

‘What kind of superstition?’

‘Just sleep.’ He got to his feet. ‘I shall be in the other room.’

If he had been trying to reassure me, well, he hadn’t been successful. What did those men think I had brought to their village?

About an hour ago, the old lady brought me another bowl of soup, but this time one of the men accompanied her. He waited in the doorway, watching me, as she put it on the table by my bed.

I reached up weakly to take it and she grabbed me suddenly, holding my face tightly in her gnarled hands. She stared into my eyes with such intensity that I almost cried out.

After thirty long seconds or so she released me and stepped backwards, her face a mixture of revulsion and more than a little fear. I tried to speak to her, but she would have none of it, instead muttering under her breath – some kind of incantation or prayer – as she returned to her companion in the doorway. She said one word to him – I heard it clearly, even though I had no idea what it meant.

They closed the door and this time I heard the key turn heavily. They had locked me in.

It is dark now, and I should be sleeping. I am still exhausted and the small candle is nearly burned out. However, I cannot relax; I keep thinking about how the man’s face had changed when the old woman had spoken that word:

Upir
.

18th June, 1886

Yesterday I was left alone for the whole day, except for two bowls of soup being shoved through the briefly opened door. I was forced to rise from my sickbed to retrieve them. My legs were weak, but I was pleased to find that I could stand now, and make it across the room and back without dropping my food. I could not afford to waste any potential energy.

The coughing fits are still gripping me. At one point, after leaving a bloom of blood on my pillow, I tried calling out for help, but none came. Instead, once my breathing was restored, I had to fetch the jug of water to ease my throat myself. To say that I felt uneasy would be an understatement. Not even Josep had visited me. I felt entirely abandoned and more than a little afraid.

What had I done to offend these people so? If they did not want me here, why not just send me on my way? I tried the door several times, but it would not open. During the previous night’s fitful sleep I had been awoken by the sound of nails hammering into the wooden window frame, and when day came the room was patterned in streaks of sunlight and gloom, and full of shadows. They had sealed me in. The window had been my only means of escape and I had failed to use it while I
had the chance. As I lay there in that strange halflight I wondered what they had done to my guide. The poor man had wanted to provide for his wife and child by leading me into the countryside and then setting me on a course for home; he had no bond with me. I hoped I had brought no ill fate onto him.

My stomach churned, my anxiety fighting with my hunger as my recovering body cried out for nourishment, and slowly the hours passed, one bleeding into another until night fell once again. I felt calmer in the darkness though I am not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was the thought that these people who were both my saviours and my captors were asleep. I also felt oddly stronger, as if the cooler air were energising me.

I was fully in the grip of the night when I heard the key turning in the door. It was a cautious sound, and I sat bolt-upright in my bed, my heart hammering in my weak chest. In the darkness I could make out only a dark shape as a man stepped inside.

‘Who is it?’ I hissed.

The man raised his hand to his mouth to silence me and to my great relief I realised that it was Josep. He hurried over to me.

‘We have not much time,’ he whispered, and handed me a small bundle of clothes – those I had arrived in. ‘Get dressed. We have to leave now.’

‘What is happening? I don’t understand what I have done to these people.’

‘They have called for a holy man. Quickly!’ He snapped the word; his urgency was obviously driven by fear.

My questions could wait. I was as eager as he was to leave.

Josep carried my small trunk, which had been in the room with me, and I paused only to leave a few coins on the table for the old woman who had fed and looked after me. Whatever had happened to make them hate me so, this was not an affluent village and I wanted to pay my debt to them.

It was dark outside, the ground only a shade lighter than the sky, but here and there were torches marking the ends of the roads and placed around chicken coops, no doubt to fend off any hungry foxes. It was bright enough that I paused to stare at the wooden doors of the villagers’ ramshackle homes: every one had a strange sign daubed on it, and some had trinkets and crucifixes crudely affixed to the wood.

‘What is that?’ I whispered, ‘that sign on all the doors?’ In the still air I could still smell the acrid fumes of the paint: this work was fresh.

Josep said nothing for a moment, but my refusal to move finally prompted an answer. ‘It is to protect against evil. They want to stay safe until the holy man comes.’ He walked on ahead
and I followed, my curiosity overwhelming my desire for safety.

It was only when we had retrieved our horses and cart and quietly left the village for the safety of the woods that Josep spoke again.

‘We will move quickly through the night. We will be safe – they will not come after us. I will take you as far as the next railway, and from there you must travel alone.’ He did not look at me.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For what you’ve done. I was worried that perhaps they had harmed you, or that you believed whatever madness has gripped them about my illness.’

‘It is not madness,’ Josep said, ‘but if I helped them, then the holy man would kill you and cast the devil back into the river.’ He kept his eyes on the barely visible black track ahead. ‘And that would mean the devil would still be in my country.’ He hawked and spat. ‘This way, it will be gone. You are strong enough to last until you are home, and then it will be your England’s problem.’

I was starting to tire and I shivered. I pulled the cart’s rough blanket round my shoulders, finding comfort in the smell of horses ingrained in its fibre. It was a natural smell. Earthy.

‘What devil?’ I said, wearily. He was making no sense to me. Was this some old superstition? These people were more backward than the more
civilised European countries like England and France, and their beliefs in folklore and legend had persisted longer than ours, especially out here, in the middle of nowhere.

‘I think I have the consumption, nothing more,’ I said, as if that weren’t a worry enough in itself. ‘I have always been prone to illness in my chest.’

‘That is not consumption,’ Josep said. The horses’ hooves beat a steady rhythm on the uneven track. ‘That is the
Upir
. You woke it in the river. And now it has you.’

It was the word the old woman had used, and I refused to acknowledge the dread I felt on hearing it. ‘I don’t know what this
Upir
is,’ I said, ‘but I assure you, I am simply ill. These are modern times – there is no place for silly superstitions.’ I looked at him. ‘You live in the city – surely you know that.’

‘I know many things,’ he answered, ‘and I know, just as the old lady did, that you are cursed. I should never have told you the river was there. I shall pray for you.’

‘It is going to kill me, is that what you are saying? This devil – this
Upir
?’ My patience was wearing thin. I wanted to be home, or at least in civilisation somewhere. In the dark, with the trees hanging over us as if reaching down to tear me limb from limb with their jagged branches, it was hard to believe in my own logic. I had seen
the symbols painted on the doors. I had seen the fear. If I were not careful, I could get sucked into believing their ridiculous legends, especially if even Josep was refusing to see reason.

‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘it will not kill you. It will be far, far worse than that.’

And then he told me.

It is now past dawn, and even in the sunlight I shiver while writing down his words. I scoffed at him, of course I did, but my heart is filled with dread. It was awful, and I wish I had never heard a word of it.

25

London. November, 1888

Dr Bond

‘So, these
are
your rooms,’ I said, as the priest moved out of the way to allow us entry. ‘You do not live elsewhere.’

‘I had a feeling that the only way you would return was like this.’ He looked at Kosminski, who was shaking and shivering the doorway. ‘Unless the members of the Metropolitan Police Force have lowered their standards.’