The Harvest Man

ALSO BY ALEX GRECIAN

The Yard

The Black Country

The Devil’s Workshop

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Publishers Since 1838

A Penguin Random House imprint

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

Copyright © 2015 by Alex Grecian

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grecian, Alex.

The harvest man : a novel of Scotland Yard’s murder squad / Alex Grecian.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-63640-4

I. Title.

PR6107.R426H37 2015 2014049858

823'.92—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Roxane,
who always has my back.

When children are playing alone on the green,

In comes the playmate that never was seen.

When children are happy and lonely and good,

The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood.

Nobody heard him, and nobody saw,

His is a picture you never could draw,

But he’s sure to be present, abroad or at home,

When children are happy and playing alone.

He lies in the laurels, he runs on the grass,

He sings when you tinkle the musical glass;

Whene’er you are happy and cannot tell why,

The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!

He loves to be little, he hates to be big,

’Tis he that inhabits the caves that you dig;

’Tis he when you play with your soldiers of tin

That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.

’Tis he, when at night you go off to your bed,

Bids you go to sleep and not trouble your head;

For wherever they’re lying, in cupboard or shelf,

’Tis he will take care of your playthings himself!

—R
OBERT
L
OUIS
S
TEVENSON
, “T
HE
U
NSEEN
P
LAYMATE
,”
A Child’s Garden of Verses
(
1885
)

M
other and Father were sharing a bed. The Harvest Man hesitated in the open bedroom door, staring down at his bare feet, his face flushing scarlet beneath the plague mask. Mother and Father had always slept in separate rooms. He was certain of it. But perhaps their habits had changed over time. That made perfect sense. If they had remained the same, he felt sure he would have found them long ago.

Mother stirred in her sleep and the Harvest Man finally moved. He wasn’t ready for her to wake up. He uncorked a bottle of ether and placed a folded face cloth over the rim, tipped the bottle up, and held it until cold liquid soaked through to his fingers. He set the open bottle on the floor next to the doorjamb, where he knew the liquid would silently turn to gas.

Everything always changing, things disappearing without a trace.

He moved forward in slow motion, keeping his head and shoulders straight up and down, only bending at the knees. He made no sound. Mother stirred again, rolled onto her back, and the Harvest Man moved around the foot of the bed to her side. He preferred to deal with Father first. Father was bigger and stronger and, if he woke early, he always caused trouble. But Father was snoring and Mother was moving, on the verge of waking. Better to tend to her.

He knelt by the bed and gazed at Mother’s sleeping face. The room was dark, but the window was open and the moon shone bright. He could see well enough even through his thick lenses. Mother was pretty. He thought she had always been pretty, but she didn’t look like he remembered. It took him a moment to categorize the differences. Fortunately, he had a very good memory for faces. Mother’s nose was slightly larger now, and was turned up at the tip. Her eyes were spaced closer together and her lips were thinner. She had lost a little weight, and her forehead was wider, her hair a different color, her neck longer, her cheekbones more prominent. He shook his head and the heavy beak at the front of his mask moved back and forth. Why did they always make so much work for him? They shouldn’t change so very much. It always made him cross.

Mother opened her eyes and they were not the same color as he remembered. He hesitated, confused, but when she opened her mouth he clapped the ether-soaked cloth over it, held it tight to her face. She struggled for a moment, then relaxed, and her arm fell limp over the side of the bed. He picked up her hand and placed it on her chest.

Around on the other side of the bed, Father shifted his position, and so the Harvest Man leaned far across Mother’s limp body, stretched out his arm, the moist cloth pinched between the ends of his two longest fingers, and shared the ether fumes with Father. When both parents were insensible, he left that room and explored the house. He had been in a hurry earlier and had bolted for the attic without taking his customary tour.

There were two children, both boys, sleeping in a small bed tucked under the staircase. He pushed the plague mask up to the top of his head so he could see them better, enjoying the feel of fresh air on his cheeks and chin. He rubbed his ear. Sometimes it still itched where the top of it had been pulled away. The mask’s goggles rested against the back of his head and the long pointed beak stood straight up like the face of a baby bird straining for food. The Harvest Man stood and watched the children’s chests move gently up and down. He gazed without affection at the nearest boy’s chapped lips, which were parted, the upper lip deeply grooved and dark pink. The boy’s eyelids fluttered. The Harvest Man placed his drying facecloth between the children, trusting that the remaining essence of ether would keep them from waking.

He climbed up the stairs above the sleeping boys and retrieved his boots and knife and a coiled length of stout rope from the attic. He sat on the top step and pulled the boots on. He tugged the plague mask back down into place and adjusted it so that it wouldn’t slip from his face while he worked.

He decided to ignore the boys. He didn’t know them. They might be his brothers, but he couldn’t remember their faces and so it would do no good to remove their masks. He would ask Mother and Father about the other children when they woke later. Then they could determine together what was to be done. As a family.

But first things first. Before they could be a family again, he would have to remove Mother’s and Father’s masks to reveal their true features. He smiled, excited, and stood, picked up the curved knife and the rope and trotted down the stairs, no longer concerned about making noise. He couldn’t wait to see his parents’ faces again.

How happy they would be that he had finally found them.