The Yeare's Midnight (16 page)

The
shop
was
tucked
away
in
a
side
alley
behind
the
entrance
to
Hampstead
Tube
station.
A
woman
worked
alone
inside.
She
was
middle-aged,
quietly
elegant
with
greying
blonde
hair.
Frayne
noticed
her
silk
scarf:
it
was
beautifully
styled,
with
azure
patterns
that
sharpened
her
porcelain-grey
eyes.
He
started
when
he
heard
her
sudden
phlegmy
smoker’s
cough.
The
entanglement
of
beauty
and
ugliness
jarred
in
him.
Using
information
he
had
gleaned
from
the
website,
Frayne
managed
to
sound
like
something
of
an
expert.
He
said
he
was
looking
for
an
antique
medical
kit
as
a
birthday
present
for
his
father:
a
prominent
London
eye
surgeon.
The
woman
had
made
the
connection
herself
and
told
Frayne
that
she
had
the
very
thing.
She
disappeared
to
a
darker
and,
judging
by
the
increased
fre
quency
of
her
coughing,
dustier
section
of
the
shop,
returning
with
the
small
ophthalmic
surgery
kit
Frayne
had
seen
on
the
website.

It
had
been
made
in
1840
by
John
Weiss
(later
of
Weiss
and
Son)
of
The
Strand,
London.
The
small
black
leather
box
bore
Weiss’s
name
and
crest.
The
inside
was
lined
with
red
silk
and
contained
twelve
ivory-handled
scalpels,
a
selection
of
grisly
surgical
scissors,
four
small
clamps
for
holding
back
the
eyelids,
some
long
needles
with
hooked
ends,
a
pair
of
forceps
and
two
L-shaped
scraping
implements.
There
was
also
a
set
of
spindly
metal
surgeon’s
magnifying
glasses
that
clamped
around
the
patient’s
head
and
enabled
the
surgeon
to
look
deep
into
the
eye.
The
kit
was
in
immaculate
condition,
a
unique
set.
Frayne
had
picked
up
one
of
the
scalpels.
It
felt
almost
weightless
and
beautifully
balanced
in
his
delicate
grip.
The
cutting
edge
had
lost
some
of
its
sharpness
but
Frayne
knew
that,
with
care,
it
could
be
restored.
‘Makes
you
shudder,
doesn’t
it?’
said
the
woman,
smiling.
‘What
those
poor
people
must
have
gone
though.’
Frayne
had
politely
agreed
with
her
and
paid
the
eight
hundred
pounds
asking
price
in
cash.

Tonight
he
would
visit
Dr
Elizabeth
Drury
in
her
house
near
Afton.
He
had
no
intention
of
keeping
Dr
Thomas
Stiglitz’s
appointment
at
The
Drury
Clinic.
However,
when
Dr
Stiglitz
failed
to
turn
up
he
reckoned
that
Drury
would
rush
to
catch
the
7.17
from
Liverpool
Street.
He
had
effectively
cleared
her
appointments
for
that
evening:
she
had
no
other
reason
to
delay
in
London
and
he
could
predict
her
timetable
accurately.
He
would
be
in
the
car
park
at
Afton
station
waiting
for
her.
Before
then
he
would
need
to
focus
carefully
on
poetic
expression.

Donne
had
commemorated
Drury’s
premature
death
in
‘The
Anniversairies’.
However,
in
‘A
Feaver’
the
poet
had
attempted
to
wrestle
with
similar
concepts,
particularly
the
exaltation
of
the
dead
woman
to
the
status
of
a
celestial
entity
and
the
reduction
of
the
world
to
the
status
of
a
carcass.
‘A
Feaver’
was
more
concise
but
related
to
Elizabeth
Drury
only
in
its
roughly
equivalent
thematic
content.
Frayne
was
confident
that
Dr
Stuss
man
would
make
the
connection.
If
she
didn’t,
he
would
enjoy
explaining
it
to
her
personally.

When Paul Heyer returned home at three o’clock that afternoon, Julia Underwood was already waiting for him. She had poured herself a gin and tonic and was sitting on the edge of the sofa, her suitcase resting pathetically and accusingly in front of her. She jumped when she heard his key turn in the door and she ran out to embrace him.

‘Paul! I was worried. I thought you’d be here.’ She was shaking.

‘So did I.’ He took a step back from her embrace.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked, her eyes seeking a clue in the lines of his face.

He wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘I have been in a police interrogation room, being grilled by your husband.’

‘By John? Why?’ Julia was shocked: she felt as though a terrible weight had dropped in her stomach.

‘I don’t fucking know. A police car turned up at lunchtime. They asked me to go to the station where I had the pleasure of being interrogated by your husband. He was asking where I was on Monday night.’ Heyer was shaking, partly with rage.

‘But you were with me on Monday night.’

‘Of course I was. He knows, Julia. Don’t you see? He’s playing games, trying to frighten me off, I suppose.’

‘Did he mention me? Did he say anything?’ Her heart was leaping and pounding.

‘No. He kept asking me about the dead girl: the swimmer. He said my car had been seen on Hartfield Road that night. He implied I was a suspect.’

‘But you were here, with me.’

‘I know I was here. He’s making the whole fucking thing up, trying to put the wind up me. You should have told him, Julia. It’s all gone up the wall now. I think he’s lost it completely.’

‘I left him a note today,’ Julia said, misery welling inside her. ‘He won’t answer any of my calls.’

‘Well, now we know why, don’t we?’

‘How could he know about us? Nobody knows.’ She was crying.

‘I have no idea.’ Paul poured himself a large Scotch at the sideboard and gulped it gratefully. ‘But he knows, all right. I could see it in his eyes: pure bloody hatred. He’s made up some cock and bull story about the car to get me in there. Frighten me. Well, if he tries it again I’ll have my lawyer with me and we’ll have the bastard for harassment and fabricating evidence.’ There was a rage in his eyes that Julia hadn’t seen before. It frightened her. ‘You say you’ve left him a note?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t mention you. I told him it was over and I had gone to stay with my mum.’

‘You have to speak to him, Julia. It’s out of hand now. He has lost the plot.’ He took another giant swig of Scotch and relented slightly. He looked at the suitcase. ‘Still, at least you’re here.’ He sat beside her on the sofa and put his arm around her.

Heather Stussman had spent the morning drawing up a list of names. She went back through her own research on Donne and flipped through some of the more compelling biographies. She reasoned that the killer would use names that were directly associated with Donne’s poetry and so she discounted a number of the poet’s casual relationships. And yet, if the killer had focused on the notion of a coterie, an audience of like-minded intellectuals, wouldn’t he also have included contemporaries of Donne? Other poets such as George Herbert or Thomas Carew? If so, the list would be enormous.

She focused on the
Songs
and
Sonnets,
Donne’s letters and his religious poems. Stussman began to divide people associated with these pieces into categories: dedications, patrons, relatives and subject matter. After an hour she had put together the following list:

It was by no means a full list. It was not even a list of all those closest to Donne. However, it was a decent enough collection of people directly associated with Donne’s writings.

Pleased with her efforts, Stussman printed the list off from her computer and left her rooms. There was a uniformed police officer from the Cambridge Police HQ at Parker’s Piece standing guard at her door. She explained to him that she was only going to the college office and he let her go alone. She faxed the page through to Underwood with a brief accompanying note: ‘We discussed the potential significance of names. Attached is a summary list of some of Donne’s acquaintances. Yours, Heather Stussman.’

She bumped into Dr McKensie as she left the office. He seemed amused. ‘Well, well! Who’s a naughty girl, then? Word is that you’ve been entertaining the police all afternoon. There’s a frightfully good-looking young officer standing guard outside
your door. We
do
like a man in uniform. What on earth have you been up to?’

‘Just leave it, McKensie, I’m not in the mood right now.’

He carried on regardless, his gaze boring into her like lasers. ‘Professor Dixon wondered if it was tax evasion. I suspected it was for crimes against academic convention. Are you under house arrest? Can we expect a visit from the FBI?’

Stussman pushed past him. McKensie grinned at her retreating back like a hungry dog. ‘Do let me know if I can be of any help. I have friends in the House of Lords should things progress to court.’