Mrs. Kenton put the kettle on and hurried to answer the doorbell.
Her neighbour, round-eyed, thrust a copy of the local paper at her. “Here you are, Sue. Page three. What a tragedy! Ever so sorry, dear. Better not keep you, in the circumstances.” And she hurried off.
Sue Kenton settled down at the kitchen table with a pot of tea to read the account.
Angel of Death Flies Over Village.
Second mysterious death in twenty-four hours.
Has the Angel of Death flown over Shepton this weekend? This is the question villagers are asking themselves as they grieve for a second local person whose dramatic death is reported.
A young detective constable whose family lives in the village, Christina Kenton (26), witnessed the tragic event. Walking in a quiet country lane near her home, she was surprised, on approaching the Foxfield level crossing, to be overtaken by a black taxicab. “The driver must have seen the lights flashing and the bar come down,” states the witness. “Everything mechanical appeared to be working perfectly. The driver hesitated and waited until the goods train drew near and then he charged forward deliberately into its path.”
The taxi was swept a quarter of a mile down the track. It’s a miracle that no one but the cab driver was killed. The driver of the train was taken to hospital suffering from shock but later released.
The victim was thirty-eight-year-old actor Julius Jameson, who will be remembered for his appearances as a young surgeon in the popular East Anglian series Cottage Hospital. Coincidentally, Mr. Jameson was, in recent years, actively concerned in real life in hospital affairs. He was one of the moving forces in the red-ribbon AIDS charity and was returning from an event at the Cambridge Clinic hours before the incident. Mr. Jameson made no secret of the fact that he was himself a sufferer from the scourge of HIV. In the circumstances, police are treating the death as premeditated suicide.
Minutes later, Chris appeared, still in her dressing gown, pale and distressed. She’d shown every sign of bearing up well after the death of her old schoolteacher, but the news on Sunday of Sarah’s death had sent her into a shuddering and prolonged silence. She came and sat down by her mother’s side to read.
“Jameson wouldn’t be pleased. Second billing. His death only makes it onto page three this morning,” said Mrs. Kenton with asperity. “You lied to them, Chris. You told me you were in the car with this nutter seconds before. Have you told me everything?”
“I told them the simplest thing. What I thought they’d believe. It’s taken me awhile to work it out for myself,” Chris said. “He was going to kill us both.” Her voice was subdued, emotionless. “I couldn’t get through to him, Mum. He wasn’t even listening. He’d decided I was some worthless whore who’d be better off dead. He was doing me a favour. And using me to ward off the loneliness. He could never function without an audience and I was unlucky enough to drop into the front seat of the stalls to witness his grand finale. His death scene.”
Her mother hugged her and poured out two mugs of tea. “What made him change his mind?”
“I used the only words that would penetrate his delusions.” She smiled. “Not my words. The Bard, as he called him, came riding to my assistance.”
In a pure, awed voice she repeated the lines:
“That death’s unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame:
These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
They do not point on me.”
“Good Lord! That’s Desdemona pleading for her life minutes before Othello kills her! And you’re saying he heard you? Did he understand? What did he say?”
“He understood, all right! He was never one to miss a cue! He gave me Othello’s response: Down, strumpet!
“And all I had in reserve was the very next line: Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!”
“It didn’t work for Desdemona, poor chick.”
“The train hooted its half-mile signal. He burst out laughing, unlocked the doors, and pushed me out into the lane. He gave one of those Shakespearean bows, you know, all fluttering hands, gleaming teeth, and tossing curls, and barged through the crossing bars. End. Finis.”
“But why the hell…? I don’t understand! At least I can see why he’d want to do away with himself… but… why put you through all that?”
“Well, this is why, Mum! Here I am, here we are, talking about his final flourish. If he’d had a lonely death, unobserved by anyone, they might have thought he’d made a silly mistake, lost concentration, been blinded by the sun… Idiots drive through level crossings every month, don’t they? Who would know that Julius Jameson had died with panache, handsome as the devil, laughing at Death?”
Chris’s calm finally broke, her voice stricken and angry: “He’s left me forever with that image branded onto my mind. He made sure that there was someone here below who’ll never forget his last performance.”
But her mother was having none of it.
“Bollocks!” she said. And, surprisingly:
“All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and their entrances.
“Fine, Chris love. The bugger’s had his exit, as far as you’re concerned! Got that? Offstage… through a trap door… up in smoke… whatever you can picture. And now what you’ve got to do is look forward to an entrance. Prince Charming, for choice. Surely time for him to show himself?”
Barbara Cleverly
Barbara Cleverly is very familiar with the east of England. The Latin Hall of "An Old Magic" was inspired by the medieval Suffolk house she used to live in.
A crime novelist, her first three books have been enthusiastically received and The Last Kashmiri Rose, was named one of the best crime thrillers of 2002 by the New York Times.
