Summon Up the Blood (17 page)

Quinn’s hand came down on something solid.

‘That’s it.’

The youth set off again. By now, Quinn’s eyes were getting used to the darkness. He could see the moving silhouette in front of him. ‘Are you taking me to Jimmy, or not?’

The youth stopped. There was some business in the darkness, as if he were pushing aside a curtain. All that was revealed was a deeper darkness. ‘In ’ere. You first.’

Quinn stepped forward. The darkness closed around him. ‘Where’s Jimmy?’

‘You don’ need Jimmy. You got me now. I’ll be your Jimmy now.’

Quinn felt the breath of another close to his face. Then a hand on his cheek. Another hand rummaging below. His own hands flew out to ward off the contact. The same hands, tensed into fists, lashed out wildly. One blow met bony resistance. There was a cry of surprise and pain.

‘Whacha do that for?’

‘Do you even know who Jimmy is, you bloody pervert?’

‘I ain’t no more a pervert’n you, mister. Why d’ya come wiv me if that ain’t what you wanted?’

A different voice came out of the darkness, somewhere to Quinn’s left. ‘Will you two pipe down? Are you trying to get us all arrested?’

‘I got me a time-waster, ’ere. That’s what it is,’ said the youth. ‘A time-waster an’ a bully.’

‘You wan’ us to sort him out for yer?’

‘I’m not a time-waster,’ whispered Quinn. ‘I’ve got money. I’ll pay you money. I’m sorry I hit you. I couldn’t see. It’s so dark here.’

‘That’s the idea, mister. We carn’t very well carry on like this in broad daylight, can we?’

‘Pipe down!’ urged another voice again.

‘Lissen,’ said the youth. ‘Let’s make this quick. Unbutton yer flies an’ I’ll suck you off fer half a crown.’

The youth must have been on his knees now. Quinn felt him groping at his groin.

‘Good God!’

‘You can imagine it’s Miss Dillard doin’ it, if it’ll make yer feel better. All the same in the dark, ain’t it?’

For Quinn, this was the last straw. He spun on his heels, pushed through the resisting curtain of branches and ran back towards the lights of Piccadilly.

Behind him he could hear the darkness hiss in urgent outrage. After a few paces, he crouched down behind a thickening of the night. He felt the unseen twigs of another bush scratch his face.

‘Who was that?’

‘Shall we go after ’im for yer? Sort him out?’

‘Are you all right, dearie?’

‘Did he hit you, the brute?’

‘What was his game?’

‘He was asking for Jimmy.’

‘Ain’t you ’eard? Jimmy’s dead. Leastways that’s what Tommy Venables said. He said he heard it from some copper who was going about with Jimmy’s picture, asking questions.’

‘This feller had a picture.’

‘That’ll be him. The copper.’

At the mention of that word, there was a sudden agitation in the darkness. Figures broke away, dark outlines running back towards the light.

‘Now see what you done! You scared off all the gentlemen!’

‘They’ll be back.’

‘Mine’s still here, ain’t cha, lover?’

A more educated voice, groaning with the strain of delayed gratification, answered: ‘Would you mind terribly finishing me off? There’s a good chap.’

The sound of an energetic pumping action gave a brisk rhythm to the speaker’s words: ‘According to Tommy Venables, this copper says someone done for Jimmy. Cut his throat.’

A moan of ecstasy was drowned out by a squeal of horror. ‘No-o-o-o? Ooh, that’s horrible!’

‘You gotta be careful who you take in the bushes, dearie.’

‘The coppers’ll be crawling all over us now.’

‘That’s a pretty picture!’

‘Seriously. Very bad for business.’

‘So is getting yer throat cut, dearie.’

A cigarette was lit. Quinn recognized the aroma as Set. The more educated voice spoke again, calmer now: ‘This boy that was killed. Jimmy. What was his full name, do you know?’

‘Why do you wanna know?’

It was very much the question Quinn wanted answering.

‘Listen, the police won’t help you chaps. As far as they’re concerned, if someone starts killing the odd renter here and there, that’s one less pervert on the streets. Doesn’t it strike you as fishy that a young man has been murdered, and yet there hasn’t been a word about it in the papers? Now I don’t know why that is, but I can tell you that if the police keep something like this out of the papers they usually have a damn good reason for doing so. The only way we’ll get to the truth of what happened to your friend Jimmy is by shining the torch of independent inquiry. But look, we shouldn’t talk about it here.’ The speaker raised his voice pointedly: ‘You never know who might be lurking in the bushes. And that fellow with the picture, you know, we can’t be sure he’s a policeman.’

His meaning was swiftly taken, and in silence.

The darkness stirred around Quinn. He heard footsteps on gravel. Then, with startling speed, the midnight park emptied and he felt himself alone.

H
e could not believe it was so easy. Really, it should not be so easy.

They ought to see it in his eyes. There should be something in his eyes alerting them to what he was about.

Blood.

He imagined his eyes were filled with blood, as the eyes of victims of strangulation are reputed to be. He imagined the whites of his eyes turned a deep crimson.

A colour beyond beauty and ugliness, just as his acts were beyond good and evil. It was the colour of pain and joy, the colour of truth.

It amazed him that his eyes were not flooded with that colour.

Was it really possible that his eyes were indistinguishable from other men’s?

As before, he had given this one every chance to get away. There would be no restraints, no binding, until the very last moment. By which time it would be too late. He would have made his choices. His fate would be decided. There would be nothing he, or anyone, could do.

When the first one had given him that imploring look at the last, mutely pleading for mercy as he took the blade to his throat, he reminded the boy that he had come with him willingly. He had not forced him into the cab. A gentle guiding hand, perhaps, but if he had pulled away from his grip at any moment, he would have let him go. The operation required that both parties entered into it willingly.

The boy took that badly. Tears – of regret, no doubt, and self-recrimination. For it had to be said, he had no one to blame but himself.

And when they had reached the house, he had not held a gun against his head to force him inside. If the boy had refused to get out of the cab, he would have willingly paid his fare home for him. But he knew – they both knew – that there was never any question of that. The boy was always going to get out of the cab and follow him inside.

‘This is your doing as much as mine,’ he had said as he slid the steel into skin and allowed the hot gushing of blood to begin. He remembered the exultant shock against his naked tingling skin, his body tensed in anticipation, as he was bathed in the hot shower of the first boy’s dying.

He did not create these situations – these works – so much as allow them to occur.

It began with the cigarette. That was the first test. He had decided that if they accept the cigarette – the symbol of our Lord Set, the Great Lord of Chaos and Confusion – then the work may be considered to have begun. If they decline the cigarette, they may go on their way. And so, that first choice, the choice that determines everything that follows, will always be theirs, and will always be freely made.

He had offered the cigarettes for a second time tonight. Once again, he had chosen his subject well. Just like before, this boy had taken one. These hungry, greedy boys could not resist. They would take anything offered to them. It was in their nature.

The work was simply the perfection of their nature.

As death is the perfection of a man’s fate.

‘Look at me,’ he commanded, sitting up in the filthy bed. He held the lantern up to his face.

The boy, already stripped and sodomized, stirred in the bed. He was sleepy and confused, not used to the heavy smoke of the Set cigarettes.

The sheets had not been washed since he had entertained the first one there. The excrement stains had at first disgusted him. But now he accepted them as a necessary part of the work. And he knew that he would be washed clean by what was to come.

In his explorations of the esoteric arts he had read about the Alchemical Wedding. This part of his work corresponded to the stage of Nigredo in Alchemy. All the great philosophies were derived from a unified source. That was how he could be sure that his own method was divinely inspired. He had not made it up out of whole cloth. It had been revealed to him, in all likelihood by the Great Lord Set himself.

And so it was important that he should overcome his squeamishness and take strength, as well as delight, from his immersion in degradation and dirt. He was not a natural sodomizer. It was his knowledge of the strength he would gain from the work that aroused him, not the sight of a young man’s buttocks.

The act, the work, required this of him. He would not shrink from it.

‘What do you see?’

The boy frowned earnestly as he tried to make sense of what he was being asked. He shrugged.

‘You see the world remade. Do you understand? The world purged of weakness and fear. A world that has undergone such tumult and mayhem that there is nothing left to fear. Do you know what fear is? Fear is the unknown. If you set yourself to know everything, you will fear nothing. I can take you to a place beyond fear. I will share with you my knowledge, and release you from fear. Come with me now, willingly. Take my hand and the two of us will go together, naked, to a place beyond fear. Will you do that?’

The boy nodded. He held out his hand and allowed himself to be led.

T
o look at him, Quinn would not have imagined he was given to the kind of practices undertaken in Green Park at night. With his strong jaw and confident gaze, there was no hint of the degenerate to his person. No flinch of shame. No telltale signs of weakness about his mouth or eyes. His handshake was firm and dry, his stance and features thoroughly masculine.

But as soon as the man opened his mouth, Quinn realized he was listening to the same well-educated voice that had come out of the darkness the night before.

‘I think you know why I’m here, Inspector.’ He handed Quinn a card as he sat down, bowler in hand:

George Bittlestone, Esq.

Investigative Journalist

The Daily Clarion

Fleet Street

‘Let’s not play games with each other. You are investigating the death of a renter. I have information that I believe would be helpful to your investigation. In return for this information, you will share with me what you know, in an exclusive arrangement.’

‘My dear sir . . . My dear –’ Quinn deliberately consulted the card. ‘Mr Bittlestone. It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. If you have any information about this matter, it’s your duty to pass it on to the police. There can be no question of reciprocation. But kindly note that I have not yet acknowledged the existence of any such investigation. I am curious as to what led you to this department.’

‘It wasn’t hard to track you down. I have friends in the Met. You’d be surprised.’

‘No doubt I would.’

‘And how is your investigation going, Inspector? I must say, I find your methods rather unconventional. Picking up a renter of your own. Then assaulting him and running off to hide in the bushes. But perhaps that’s the sort of thing we should expect from Quick-fire Quinn.’

Quinn glanced guiltily towards his sergeants. The look of aggressive scepticism on Inchball’s face suggested that he was ready to defend his chief’s honour.

‘I was conducting an undercover operation.’

‘And what did you uncover, undercover?’ The arch tone did not go unnoticed by Quinn. It was the first hint he had picked up of the man’s proclivities.

‘For one thing, I witnessed you engage in an act of gross indecency.’

‘Really? My recollection of last night was that I took a walk in Green Park with some friends. It was somewhat dark, I seem to remember. Impenetrably so. I am amazed that you were able to see anything.’

‘I didn’t have to see. I could hear.’

‘Whatever you think you might have heard, Inspector, I rather suspect that you will have a hard time proving beyond reasonable doubt that I was involved in it. And as you will know, it is that question of reasonable doubt that decides the issue of guilt or innocence in any legal trial.’

‘There can be no question of the police granting an exclusive to one newspaper over any other,’ said Quinn, changing tack. ‘Our duty is to protect the public. Therefore, if there is a need to involve the press, we will talk to as many newspapers as possible. We will treat everyone equally and fairly.’

‘Now now, Inspector Quinn. You know that’s not how the world works. The world revolves on the basis of one very simple principle. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Here we are trying to find out who has the upper hand. You think you have, because you believe you heard some renter frig me last night. Whereas I think I have because I happen to know that your investigation has come to a grinding halt. And I am in possession of a piece of information that could move it forward.’

‘Tell me what you know and you will not face charges over your behaviour last night. You know as well as I do that even to be charged with such an offence would be highly damaging. Especially for you, as a journalist at the
Daily Clarion
. How would your readers respond? Not to mention your employers. The
Clarion
in the past has taken rather a hard line against such offenders, I seem to remember.’

‘Are you threatening me with blackmail, Inspector? I am prepared to defend myself against any baseless accusation. I am also prepared to go to press with what I know already. Indeed, I have already written a story which I have left with my editor in a sealed envelope, with instructions to open it if I did not return from this interview. I anticipated that you might take this line.’