The Candle Man (12 page)

Tolly, though, seemed to be getting a little too edgy now. Dangerously edgy.

‘Excuse me.’

A whispered voice.

‘What is the word?’

The voice seemed to be right beside his ear. Warrington lurched in his seat. Looked either side of him and saw no one.

‘Tell me, what is the word?’

This time he detected the soft voice coming around the end of the booth divide. He twisted on his seat to look behind him. Above the shoulder-high wooden panelling was a frieze of decorative
frosted glass, and through its foggy mist he could see the dark outline of the back of a head. Perfectly still.

‘The keyword. The word that allowed you to read my message, if you please.’

He’s right there
. Warrington could feel his heart skipping a jig.

‘Spirit,’ said Warrington quietly.

‘Very good. Now, best if you settle down. Turn back around. You don’t need to be staring at this partition to hear me, do you?’

Warrington nodded. ‘No, no, of course not.’

He heard the rustle of a newspaper.
‘Do you have a paper to look at while we talk?’

‘Yes.’ Warrington pulled the
Illustrated London
News from his coat pocket, shook out the folds and opened it up.

‘Splendid. Now, before we discuss the particulars, I’d like to know a little bit about who I’m dealing with.’
Warrington heard the man shuffle slightly on the
other side of the thin wooden partition.
‘I’d like to know a little about you.’

‘My name is—’

‘No, I don’t need a name. It’s best if we don’t exchange real names.’
His voice was a little clearer. He must have shifted position so that his mouth was
just around the edge of the booth. Just a few inches away from Warrington, just around the corner of a thin lip of wood.
‘For the duration of our little discussion, I shall think of you
as, let’s see . . . you seem like a “George”. So that’s what I’m going to call you. And as for me? Well, you have my nom de plume.’

Warrington shook his head with an uneasy incredulity at the man’s lucky guess. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘The sort of people I shall be dealing with, George.’

‘You have dealt with associates of ours before, I believe? In New York?’

‘Indeed. Reliable clients. Settled their fee promptly. I have no complaints. But what about you, George? Are you reliable? Will this particular contract end with both parties
satisfied?’

Warrington swallowed nervously. ‘We’ve been informed you are wholly reliable. Full discretion assured.’

‘Of course, of course. I really wouldn’t come so highly recommended if that were not so. But for my part, I need to know if I can trust you. No half-truths, George, no hidden
arrangements, no contingency plans that I’m not aware of.’

‘Of course not.’

The Candle Man said nothing. Across the station’s busy concourse, a platform attendant blew a shrill whistle to announce the imminent departure of a train.

‘We have a man we paid to do a job for us. And now he’s attempting to blackmail—’

‘The details can come later. Since I’m dealing directly with you, George, I want to know what kind of a person are you. Can you deal with me honestly?’

‘I shan’t attempt to deceive you. We . . . uh . . . we’ve heard stories, rumours, of what happened last time a client tried to . . . uh . . . tried to con you. The cannibalism
story. Whether that particular rumour is true or—’

He heard a soft chuckle come around the edge of the booth.
‘Stories . . . The underworld does love its little fairytales, doesn’t it? All part of the business of
reputation.’

Warrington noted that was not exactly a complete denial of the rumours. He felt something roll and flip lazily in his stomach. ‘Indeed.’

‘It does my professional reputation no harm at all, George, for little folk tales like that to proceed me. Keeps a client on his guard.’
The newspaper rustled.
‘Rest
assured, I’ve been satisfied with the outcome of my business dealings thus far.’
That soft chuckle again.
‘One way or another, my clients always settle up.’

‘Well, I’m certain there will be no difficulty agreeing on your fee.’

He seemed to ignore that.
‘So tell me, George: what’s this all about? I’m assuming there’s somebody you wish me to locate, someone you wish me to deal with. But what
is the motive? Tell me the “why”.’

‘This is a sensitive area. It could lead to some sort of a scandal which we really can’t afford to happen right—’

‘Ahhh, a politician, is it? Someone’s been naughty?’

Warrington was hesitant to give too much away. ‘Perhaps one might say . . . careless.’

‘A woman?’

He said nothing. Which was, perhaps, to the voice around the corner, everything. ‘I think at this stage, it’s best for us if I keep our briefing to the person we’d like you to
deal with.’

A long pause. Long enough that he was beginning to wonder if he’d caused the Candle Man to be offended.

‘Of course,’
he said finally.
‘Why don’t we begin, then? Tell me who it is you’re after, George.’

A
nightmare. He was watching them hack the young man to pieces. The first few strokes of the
tamahakan
buried deep through pale skin into
gristle and bone, and caused the tied up young man to scream. A pitiful, shrill scream like a child’s. The others joined in, a dozen of them, swinging and hacking, the wet
cracks
of
impact quickly lost beneath somebody else’s wailing voice.

He could see another pale body tied up on the ground next to him, naked like the young man. A woman, older, kicking, flailing, screaming with tormented anguish as if every blow was landing on
her. The young man’s mother. He knew that somehow, even before she started screaming her agony for him.

The young lad’s own shrill cries had already stopped. The ferocious onslaught of rising, falling blades was beginning to wane now.

There were a dozen bronze-skinned men standing over the now motionless corpse, dabbed with chalk-white paint across their chests and faces; dark charcoal smears around their eyes made them look
a little like sun-bleached skeletons that had come to life. They had worked on another couple of bound prisoners before the lad. He could see their tattered remains, barely recognisable as human
cadavers now, just bloody lengths of butchered meat. From the end of one of them he could see a long blonde tail of matted hair; from the other, a pale and recognisably feminine shin, ankle and
foot, unblemished, unspotted with blood. As if it belonged elsewhere.

He struggled against the twine binding that lashed him in a seated position up against a wooden stake. There were others, another three of them, tied up on the ground and desperately wriggling,
squirming, knowing the same fate awaited them.

Why am I not on the ground with the others?

Why am I sitting up?

They want me to watch.

One of the chalk-white figures turned towards him then, holding something bloody in one hand. The savage stepped slowly towards him, holding it closer so that he could see it better. The thing
in his hand lurched and twitched, reminding him of a mouse he’d once caught and tossed into a cloth bag; the cloth twitching, lifting, dropping, as the mouse scurried around in blind panic
inside.

It was the boy’s heart, still shuddering with post-mortem spasms. A part of him still alive, in a way.

The chalk-painted savage squatted down in front of him. Offering the heart and smiling; an almost friendly, inviting smile. Like that of a benign, favourite uncle, offering a drumstick from a
steaming roast turkey.

He cocked his head and then began to eat it.

Argyll found himself sitting bolt upright, just as he’d been in the nightmare. But now sitting in total darkness instead of the light of day. ‘Oh, god! Oh, dear
god!’ he cried, his voice every bit as shrill as that young lad’s had been.

He heard a muted woman’s voice. ‘John?’ The thud of bare feet on a wooden floor in another room. Then he detected the faint flicker and dance of a match lighting a wick. A
moment later, through his bedroom door, open ajar, he saw the glow of a candle in the hallway.

‘John, love? Are you all right?’ His door creaked open wider and the candlelight entered his room.

There was a moment of puzzlement for him. The woman who entered was wrapped in a nightgown, a freckled face framed by a riot of untidy, pillow-messed hair.

‘John!’ she whispered. ‘You having nightmares?’

The woman confused him. Familiar, but he was not sure for the moment who she was. She hurried across the floor, setting the guttering candle on his bedside table, and sat beside him on the
bed.

‘Settle back down, sweetheart,’ she cooed softly, pressing his shoulder firmly. He did as he was told and reclined back against the cold, damp cotton of his pillow.

‘Shhhh.’ She stroked the hair from his still-bandaged forehead. ‘It’s just another horrible dream.’ She whispered like a mother calming her own child.

She’s not your mother.
A voice from a far corner of his mind.

‘Were you dreaming about what happened to you again?’ she asked.

Her voice, that accent, managed to re-unite a collection of disparate and recent memories and the moment of puzzlement, sleep-addled confusion, was suddenly banished. Yes, it was Mary. Mary. How
silly that he’d been confused as to who she was.

‘Mary . . . I . . . I’m so sorry . . . I . . .’

She shook her head, discarding his needless apology. ‘Nightmares, my love. That’s all. Just them nasty nightmares again.’

She was right, of course. Mary.

He looked at her dishevelled strawberry blonde hair and freckled face still half asleep, and he realised again how beautiful she was. Not just the kind of beauty that makes a man’s loins
stir and twitch – he pushed that thought away. No, it was the glowing, warm beauty of someone he was certain cared for him with all her heart. Very much like the love of a mother for her
baby. He wondered how alone, how helpless, he’d be without her. Still lost in a large echoing hospital ward without even a name for himself.

He knew he’d been crying in his sleep. ‘I wish . . . I wish my damned mind would come back to me,’ he uttered.

She nodded reassuringly, still stroking the sweat-damp tresses of his hair. ‘I’m here, John. I’m going to look after you while we wait for it.’

‘Thank you,’ he whispered. He suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of gratitude towards her; gratitude and complete dependence. Yes, even utter devotion to her.

‘Mary, I . . . I think I love—’

She gently placed a finger on his lips to hush him. He thought he saw the slightest wince of pain on her face. ‘You save them three words for me, John. Save them ’til more of your
mind comes back. ’Til you know me properly again.’ She smiled a little sadly. ‘’Til you know for sure you mean it.’

She was right. There she was with her wise words again. Wisdom beyond her young years. He closed his eyes once more, soothed by the light touch of her fingers across his forehead, stroking and
playing with the coarse hairs of his eyebrows, the whiskers beside his ears.

‘It’ll all come back to you, John,’ she said softly. ‘And if it doesn’t . . . well, it’ll be like us starting all over again.’ He heard the rustle of
her nightgown and felt the light touch of her lips on his right cheek. A polite kiss that suggested nothing more, right now, than concern and a genuine affection. ‘And who but us is lucky
enough to get to fall in love all over again, eh?’

He nodded sleepily, his mind beginning to slide back down into the muddle of sleep.

Please . . . I don’t want that nightmare again.

Some of the details of it, at least, were already faded and gone. He still remembered woods, mountains and an untroubled blue sky, idyllic if not for the butchery going on down on the
ground.

He could hear Mary singing a lullaby, a go-to-sleep song for a troubled child. It felt reassuring, the soothing timbre of her voice, the soft play of her fingers, the warm, embracing wrap of a
mother’s love. The womb-like comfort of feeling like a child. Snow-capped mountains and tall pine trees and crisp blue skies and dancing skeletons with bloodied hand axes, hacked carcasses of
bloody human meat . . . spun away into a sleepy fog, like milk stirred into tea.

Just as he began to feel the gentle gravity-drop of sleep engulf him, he heard a quiet, mature voice, his own voice, but with just a little bit more of that accent the surgeon had guessed was
American.

She’s not your mother; just remember that.

He banished the voice. He didn’t want to hear it again right now. He rather wanted to believe Mary was his mother and he was freshly born into this maddeningly confusing world. At least
that would excuse him behaving like a foolish child.

He smiled, almost completely asleep again. How lovely if, in fact, it could be just the two of them, mother and child, in this room, this moment, this lullaby. A pleasant fiction to hold onto
forever.