The White Devil (28 page)

DID PICKLES SUSPECT
them? He sat in the back, quietly. Andrew took the front seat of Fawkes’s cigarette-marred Citroën and stared forward. He had been able to pull Fawkes aside long enough to tell what had happened to Persephone in hissing tones.

“Did you tell Sir Alan?” Fawkes shot back at him when he had finished.

“No! I haven’t had time! I only just got back.”

“He needs to know.”

“She’s conscious. She’ll tell them to call.”

“Why did you go, Andrew? And why the hell did you take
her
? I told you . . .” Fawkes began, angrily. But then Pickles strolled up, regarding them quizzically, and they threw Andrew’s overnight bag into the car and slammed the trunk shut.

Dusk settled over the hill. They drove only a half mile at most, but in the twisty world of suburban roundabouts and intermittent streetlights and extended avenues without sidewalks, it felt like a long way. Any distance that took them from the well-trod crown of Harrow-on-the-Hill felt like a separation, Andrew realized; despite his initial impressions of Harrow having no campus, the school undoubtedly had one. Taken as a whole, the Hill, with its neatly painted shops, its iron railings and chapel buttresses, possessed the familiarity and scope of an entire landscape. Outside it, Andrew felt jarred, expelled from a protected zone that cultivated centuries of lore. Within its borders, the past found a home.
Only a place like Harrow
, he thought darkly, as Fawkes vroomed down Green Lane,
could harbor John Harness
.

Within a few minutes Fawkes swerved into a shallow parking lot alongside a dusty, exhaust-stained thoroughfare. He jerked the handbrake. “Here we are.” Andrew looked up at the shadows of the Hill on their left and realized they had only made a wide arc around the commons on its north side. The chapel’s spire rose, in the darkness, almost directly above them.

The building abutted the street, separated from it only by a three-foot wall of brick. It seemed typical of the Harrow area: a shambling, archaic brick structure, with too many sections for its size, multiple portals, and the appearance of being glued together by layers of thick glossy paint on the molding. A carved sign, illuminated by a halogen lamp, announced it with a historical flourish as
The Three Arrows
, but the trucks roaring past—and, inside, the pink walls and tiny breakfast room, furnished with institutional utility—made it anything but quaint.

“You can see why they chose this place,” said Pickles. “Desolate.”

An unsmiling young woman with glasses greeted them at the front desk. She took Fawkes’s credit card and Andrew’s passport.

“Do you need to look round, Mr. Pickles?” said Fawkes. “You know, inspect the rooms?”

“Hm? No,” said the HPA man. He had his hands in his pockets and was eyeing the common areas like a bored tourist. He seemed to have lost interest in the whole venture. Fawkes suspected that Pickles’s motivation in coming had been to make a show of heroic action in front of the head man; but once here, and having recognized no obvious threat at the hotel, he was ready for teatime. Fawkes reminded himself that Pickles was a low-level government functionary, not a counterterrorism expert. The pint (to Fawkes’s relief) was forgotten; Pickles tapped his watch and asked to be returned to his car so he could go home.

Fawkes drew Andrew aside. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Did you find anything in Cambridge?”

Andrew told Fawkes about the letters, and what they revealed about Harness’s murderous intent.

“Jealousy. It makes sense.” Fawkes chewed a nail. “What are you going to do?”

“Start writing my essay. I brought the Harness folder, my notes from the Vaughan; some new stuff I printed out from Dr. Cade’s website. But I still don’t know who Harness killed, or why he’s so obsessed by it.”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just enough to confront Harness with the truth about himself and the murder. Must have been this new boyfriend of Byron’s. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” said Andrew, his mind turning. “Okay.”

“Good man. I’ll come back as soon as I get rid of this idiot.”

“
All right then, Mr. Fawkes?
” called out Pickles on cue, standing pointedly by the door.

Fawkes waved to Pickles.

“What about Father Peter?” Andrew said.

“Can’t locate him.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly. You going to be okay?”

“Of course,” shrugged Andrew.

Fawkes handed Andrew his room key, a plastic rectangle that looked more like the bathroom key for a restaurant.
Coming, Mr. Pickles
, he called, and went to collect his guest. Andrew turned toward the elevators. His stomach sank. His bravado had been entirely fake. Andrew wondered if there were any other guests here. The place was crummy, a spot for guidebook-carrying retirees on budgets. Yet John Harness had followed him to stranger places. Andrew shivered. He turned back to find Fawkes, to ask him not to leave.

He heard the tires of the Citroën grind out of the lot. He was alone.

21

The Face Under the Pillow

ANDREW HOISTED HIS
overnight bag and stepped into the lift the girl had indicated. It was a tiny box, a mechanized coffin, room for only one. Riding up in it, he felt lonelier than ever. He had been removed from school. No one except his housemaster and some random government official even knew where he was. And he had left Persephone alone in a hospital, coughing blood.
In your love is comprised my existence here and hereafter
. But those were Byron’s words, not his . . . no, they were
Harness’s
words. Andrew’s head swam. The hum of the elevator became a throb. The overhead light glared. The distance between floors could not be more than ten, fifteen feet, but Andrew felt like the ride had taken twenty minutes. He leaned against the wall and tried to breathe, but the air felt heavy, oppressive.
Oh no
, he thought.
It’s that feeling

The doors opened and he staggered forward into a darkened, hazy corridor.

Why are the lights so low? I should tell the girl at the desk

Naturally he had expected to see more of the same décor he had found in the lobby. Pink paint, particleboard trim, fuzzy red carpet. Instead he saw

I know this place

a slender corridor with hardwood floors. Three or four wood-paneled doors along the passage, with handles of black molded tin. Whitewashed walls.

He turned to his left—and reared back. He nearly bumped into the back of someone standing there. Someone in a black coat.

I’m sorry, I didn’t see you

But the words were shoved back in his throat by some force, as if the hall were filled with water and would not admit breath or sound. In the density of the place, there seemed only room for Andrew to stand rigid and watch.

The figure remained in place.

Is he frozen too?
Andrew wondered.

But no—he sensed that this person’s movements were unhindered. Yet the figure did not move, because he seemed to be resting. He leaned with one hand on the wall. The shoulders heaved, as if the figure were out of breath from having climbed

I know this place

a stairwell. Back behind him. A narrow stairwell, with a wooden railing. It had a sconce, holding a candle, at the landing.

Andrew had climbed it, in his dreams.

pulled himself up by the flimsy wooden railings like climbing a mountain

And with that realization several things happened at once.

First: the figure began to move forward, down the hall.

Second: Andrew could hear again. Sound poured into his senses. Shoes on wood. Creaking, clomping. The swish of the hand on the wall. Very faint. Then the noise he feared most. The wet, unnatural breathing of the consumptive.

Hrch
. . . the exhale . . .

hrr hrr hrr hrr hrr
. . . the inhale.

It accompanied Harness’s footsteps like the leer of a slow and deliberate monster. Andrew felt himself follow Harness, dragged along, as if he were attached to him by a rope. He felt, along with Harness—as if they were one

not Andrew and Persephone—Andrew and Harness!

the shooting thrill of fear and excitement as he

they

stood outside one of the doors.

Oh yes the moment has finally come I am ready

His breathing troubled him. Too much excitement.

Hrr . . . hrr hrr hrr . . . hrch . . .

Harness clutched his chest.
Please, not now, remain in control
. He leaned against the wall, rested his head back against its cool whitewashed surface, raised his eyes, calmed his breathing. He must put aside all doubt, about whether he had the physical strength, or the moral strength, to snuff out a life. He could hear the boy inside the room! The figure that had obsessed him, as a creature, as a figment, as a little flame of pure hate like the candle that lit his room;
that boy
was now so close he could hear him shuffle and snivel on the other side of the wall. That alone was a miracle so singular—Harness had done it, he had found him, even in his condition—that it shrank the other obstacles to nothing. Salvation lay at hand. He would murder his enemy. Then he would recline into glory with his lover, protected, coddled, cared for, nursed back to health in the luxury he had imagined. All it required was an act of will.

Harness reached out his hand. Touched the handle. Cool, smooth metal. The door pushed . . . open! The boy had been careless. Harness had been lucky.

And there was the young man. Alone. The room lay in a haze, lit only by daylight through the curtains. He was bent over, rummaging in an open trunk, looking for something. The door touched the wall with a light
pock
. The boy stood upright. He wore a cap. He had light brown hair and a small, pointed nose. He was indeed pretty. Large eyes, heavy lashes, a mouth of curved pink. A dainty frame. The clothes fit poorly. He was underfed, and he had rough hands with soiled, gnawed fingernails. Harness noted this with the eye of someone accustomed to closely judging other people’s social standing to see which levers he might pull. Would he affect the Harrow-Cambridge accent to put a challenger on the defensive? Or the tradesman’s simper? Or a gutter Cockney, to show his street smarts, to show he would not be bullied? He had all these voices at his fingertips.

Oo
’er you?
the boy demanded.

A moment of doubt. Did he answer? Did he speak to him?

A cold cleverness came over Harness. He smiled, all friendliness. He closed the door behind him. The boy merely stared, puzzled. Harness turned back to him. He took a step toward the boy.

What’s this?

The boy’s passivity had given Harness an advantage. . . . He lunged.

He had surprise on his side. He wrapped his fingers around the boy’s throat. The boy was weaker even than Harness had hoped for, but he was spirited, and tried to kick over tables and call for help. They grappled in what seemed an interminable struggle. At last Harness—who for a brief, elated moment was freed of his shallow, swampy breathing; transported by the lightning flashes of adrenaline—grasped a pillow, forced it over the boy’s face, and pushed, and pushed, the snarl of triumph and satisfaction growing.
Yes, yes, swallow it if you can
, the words came out of his mouth (along with something else—slaver? Yes this felt good, deliciously good) and he held on,
pushed
, teeth gritted in a grin of pleasure, even after the boy’s body stopped kicking, because Harness savored the pure domination of it.

At last, he sat back, utterly spent. He closed his eyes. He wiped the liquid from his chin.

He opened his eyes again.

He had an idea.

He would
tell
his lover what he had done. Not with words. With a message. A symbol. With one exhausted hand, he tugged the ring he had been wearing on his left ring finger since the day before. Then he lifted the pudgy and soiled hand of his rival—still warm!—and screwed the ring on
his
ring finger. It would only go halfway down; it did not matter. It was better, in fact, if it looked unnatural. His lover would notice, and understand.

Smiling to himself, satisfied, Harness staggered to his feet. His body was slick with sweat. He began to cool. The adrenaline that had carried him (miles from London, in secret) began to drain away. The liquid from his chin annoyed him, felt sticky on his hand, between his fingers. He examined it now. Blood. His own. From a wound? No; from his own mouth. And the blood was the kind the doctors had warned him about; rich, red, sticky, wet. The rust-colored expectorate, the kind that looked older, scabbier, was better. This was arterial blood.

His elation rapidly ebbed. He swayed. Only one thing remained: to strip the pillow from the boy’s face and gaze on his dead enemy. To feel the full triumph.

He reached out for the pillow that still lay pressed over his rival’s face. He gripped one corner and tugged. The face. Yes, going livid; yes, mouth askew, a death in fear and struggle. But he scarcely noticed this. Because when the pillow pulled away, it pulled with it . . . tresses of hair.

A pin had stuck to the pillow. The pin was attached to hair. And now the pin, and pillow, dragged the hair loose; unspooling it in a foot-long strand.

Harness stared, uncomprehending.

Then he understood.

Woman’s
hair.

The long hair had remained, up to now, successfully concealed by being tucked under the cap.

A woman. Harness had killed a woman.

He tossed aside the pillow. He gripped the corpse’s shirt, angrily, with his bloody hand. Popped the buttons. He saw bandages across the chest. He tugged these and saw them:
breasts
. Nipples, folds of flesh, squeezed and hidden by the displaced bandage. Confusion engulfed him. A woman? A girl, in disguise? Where was the boy he had heard of? Where was his rival? Who was this person he had murdered? Why was she here, now? Was this a thief? A stranger? A chambermaid? A female lover?

He stared at her and realized he had killed the wrong person. And—even more important—he knew he did not have the strength to kill again. He would die before that. He knew it now. Shock plunged into Harness’s chest like a pike. The adrenaline was gone. The slime in his lungs revived. Harness fell. There, on all fours, he began to cough, the worst he had ever experienced; it began in his hips and rolled forward like a wave until it reached his teeth—
aagh
, repulsive, he choked it back—but with the second wave it broke free, a splash of bloody vomit. He crawled through it, felt it slide under his knees. His coach was waiting. He had paid enough so that no questions would be asked—even about bloodstains. But would he make it back? He would have to crawl. Forcing himself, fighting for every inch, he raised one knee, gripped the hotel room molding, and stood. He caught his breath and began the journey back to the street . . . hurry. . . . A chill, and a childish terror of capture, and prison, now seized him. He wiped his face carefully with a handkerchief. . . .

Andrew stood in the hotel room. Silence throbbed there after the storm of violence. He was still in the vision. He was still in Harness’s world. His eyes were closed. Yet he knew what he would see if he opened his eyes. The body on the floor. The face of the victim.

You’re in the center of this
, Dr. Kahn had told him.
It’s right for you to lead the charge
.

He did not want to lead the charge.

But you have to, he told himself. You’re here for a reason. If you don’t find out who Harness killed, your friends—innocent people—will die.

He opened his eyes.

That watery, oppressive world of the vision poured in on him again. The screaming began deep in his chest and rose up, screams of horror.

The face on the corpse was Persephone’s

It’s only the vision, it’s not real, keep telling yourself that

she’s not dead she’s not dead

coils of black hair tracing her features

that he could smell that he loved that he could feel tickling his face

her green eyes propped open by death.