“Not so innocent, maybe,” Brandon said quietly to his back.
The policeman turned and studied his prisoner with genuine interest. “How could you know anything of him... of his innocence or badness? How would you have met or known him?” he persisted. “He only began his new job as waiter last night. That was why he went to your room — he had gotten the bungalows mixed up, poor boy. He was delivering room service, you fool.”
“His first night?” Brandon questioned softly, the metal cup drooping in his fingers, its contents dribbling unheeded onto the concrete floor. “... But there was the rapping... the knocking...?” But the policeman had already left to pull his truck around to the cell entrance.
Brandon felt everything whipped loose from its moorings like a twister dismantling a barn, board by board, even the nails being sucked out and driven like shrapnel before the maelstrom. He tottered to his feet like a drunk and peered out the barred window to the dawning, hellish day. On its ledge a gecko filled its throat-sack with air and sang its few improbable notes to the departing night, filling the echoing chamber with the resounding tap-tap of wood striking wood, or perhaps it more resembled the sound of someone knocking at the door urgently demanding entry or attendance... tap-tap... tap-tap-tap.
After a moment of this Brandon began to scream.
Copyright © 2011 by David Dean
Vanishing Act
by Christine Poulson
Yorkshire-born Christine Poulson is an art historian who wrote several books on 19th century art and literature before creating her academic mysteries starring Cambridge University English lecturer Cassandra James. The most recent novel in that series is 2006’s Footfall. She currently lives with her family in a water mill in Derbyshire. Her short fiction for EQMM includes 2010’s “A Tour of the Tower,” which was short-listed for the Fish-Knife Award, offered jointly by the CWA and Fish Publishing.
“One of these men is a murderer.”
Edward looked at the grainy black-and-white photo that Edith held up. Three men smiled out at him.
“What’s this all about?” he asked. “Who are they?”
“I’ll give you a clue. One of them’s my brother — and he’s not the murderer.”
Edward gestured impatiently. “I need a better look.”
She brought her wheelchair closer to his bedside and leaned forward, bringing with her a gust of perfume, something warm and spicy.
Theirs was a new friendship and it would inevitably be a short one. The doctors were careful not to offer any predictions, but Edward knew that he didn’t have more than a week or two. He was bedridden now. The morphine took care of the pain, but what he hadn’t expected was the boredom. Strange that time should drag when there was so little of it left, but so it was. That was why Edith was such a godsend. She was in the hospice for a week’s respite care. They had taken to each other and she visited him every evening, scooting down the corridor in her wheelchair. She was an interesting woman, had spent most of her working life in Canada as a museum curator. He enjoyed her “take no prisoners” attitude without feeling it was one he could adopt himself.
“Your brother is the one in the middle,” he decided. They had the same nose: That bump on the bridge was unmistakable. “Who are the others?”
“Let’s call that one Dr. X and that one Dr. Y.” She pointed with a red-varnished fingernail.
Edward studied the photograph. Dr. Y was tall and fair with something irresolute about his mouth, the kind of man who is a little too anxious to please. Dr. X was short and dark with a widow’s peak and full, sensuous lips.
“When you say murder...?”
“This all happened a long time ago — say, twenty-five years, even thirty? A surgeon had an affair with a theatre nurse. When it turned sour, he murdered her to save his marriage — and his reputation. There was a conspiracy of silence amongst his colleagues, and he was never brought to book.”
“Then how do you know?”
“My brother told me. He was one of the doctors who kept quiet. Fred died a couple of months ago.” She gave a caw of laughter. “He’s beaten me to it. Just. He was very near the end when he let it out of the bag. It preyed on his mind. You know how it is...” She shrugged.
When you’re near the end? Yes, he did know — who better? — and counted himself lucky. On the big things, marriage, children, work, he’d done just fine. He did rather regret that he’d never got round to reading Proust, but you can’t have everything.
“Fred told me what I’ve just told you,” Edith went on. “One of these men is a murderer.”
“Did he say how...?”
“She was found dead in bed. Healthy young woman, never had a day’s illness in her life. One of those unexplained deaths. Hospital dispensaries are full of things that could bring that about. They weren’t as strict about keeping track of drugs in those days.”
Edward thought it over.
The stillness was broken only by the slap of sleet on the window. The curtains hadn’t been drawn against the November night. Streaks of rain gleamed on the glass and overlaid the smeared lights of the town in the valley below.
At last he said, “After all this time, it’s pretty academic...”
“Is it, though? What about all these breakthroughs in forensic science and what they can do with DNA? If the police reopened the case, who knows what they might find.”
There was a knock at the door.
They both started, caught each other’s eye, and laughed.
“Edith?” A nurse, a thickset man that Edward hadn’t seen before, was standing at the door. “It’s time for your injection.”
Edith swung her wheelchair round.
“Hey! You can’t just leave it at that! Which one is it?”
“You decide. Observing criminals was your job, after all.” As she headed for the door, she raised a hand in farewell. “Let’s see how good a judge of character you are.” The words rang out like a challenge.
He watched as she disappeared through the door. Helpless and exasperated, he slumped back on his pillows. That was Edith all over. Surprising that someone hadn’t murdered her before now.
She had left the door open, but it didn’t matter. He liked to see people coming and going up the corridor.
His glance strayed to the clock on the wall. Only nine o’clock. An hour until he could expect his daughter’s phone call. He sighed and picked up the photo again. Yes, he had seen many killers in his time as a court artist. But he had long ago learned that, as Shakespeare put it, “there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.” Appearances could indeed be deceptive.
The men were standing on the steps of a building — neo-Georgian — and now that he looked more closely he saw that one of them had a glass in his hand. Some kind of celebration? Had this been taken before the murder? If indeed there really had been a murder. The three men were much the same age, somewhere around the mid thirties. The clothes and the body language — it was surprising how much you could learn... Was Dr. X or Dr. Y wearing a wedding ring? If only he had a magnifying glass...
When the phone rang, he was surprised to see that an hour had passed.
Jennifer cocked her head. Her ear was so attuned to the night and the silence that she was alert to the smallest unusual noise. She wasn’t the nervous type — never had been — and she was used to working nights, but... what was that sound?
She put her paperwork to one side and went out into the corridor. It stretched out in both directions. It was empty, but she had the feeling that she had just missed someone. She listened again. The silence was unbroken. On a quiet night like this the hospice must be one of the most peaceful places in the world. No visitors, no phones ringing, no consultants’ rounds. And tonight she wasn’t expecting anyone to die while she was on duty.