The Night Lies Bleeding Read online

  ‘You look well, sir,’ said Briggs. It was not a compliment. Any man of Craw’s age should have been sporting the swollen face of a firefighter after the previous night.

  Craw smiled. ‘Thank you, Constable.’

  Even if Craw had wanted to fight the fires, he was forbidden to. His job, which he had not wanted but had been given, was as master curator for the London museums and antiquities. He was chosen not for his knowledge of the past but for his eye to the future. He decided what could be moved to safety – where it was moved to and how it was stored – and what would have to wait a while under the bombs. His was the task of deciding what was history and what was ashes. The government deemed him too important to lose, and so he was mandated to spend his evenings in a Whitehall shelter, something he contrived to avoid.

  He wouldn’t have gone on fire-watch even if he’d been free to do so. It would have been as demeaning to him to man a hose as to cower in a hole. Craw did not like war but, when he did participate, he preferred to do so directly. His family motto, given to him by King Charles I of Sicily in 1274, expressed it neatly: Iugulum – The Throat. It had inspired Craw’s modern name.

  Craw’s study would have led a casual observer to deduce that the room belonged to some interior designer or avant-garde artist. Balby, however, was perhaps the least casual observer Craw had encountered in five centuries. Watchful by inclination, the inspector had trained any remaining sniff of lackadaisical attention from himself in thirty years of diligent police work. His title was Inspector, but it could have also described his personality.

  He had been in many rooms in the course of his career, but he had never been in one like this. It was very large for a living space, and had clearly had several walls removed to make it that way. There was so little in it, too. Balby had expected strange native heads, weapons, photographs of expeditions, and all manner of native tat from an anthropologist. This place was virtually bare and everything that was in it was as new as in a showroom.

  Balby had never seen such a room of chrome and leather. There was a desk with a glass top which struck him as dangerous, a cube of an armchair that looked very uncomfortable, and bookcases that seemed very ill-designed for holding books. They were no more than strips of pale wood. There were no curves or comforts, or even carpet on the polished wooden floor, just a plain-as-porridge rug.

  He thought of his own wife, Lily, who had been taken in the 1919 influenza. ‘Frill it up, Jack!’ she would have said. And he would have done, because he liked to please her.

  He also noted, because not much missed him, that there was only one representation of a living human being in the room – a stark black and white photograph of Craw himself looking out from a sleek silver frame on top of the desk. Beyond that there was not so much as a snap of a wife, a lover, a favourite nephew or a pet.

  Besides what Balby considered the hugely egocentric photograph, the room’s only other adornments were three large pictures. The one above the brushed steel fireplace was no more than a collection of smudges and lines that he thought a child could have done. The other was a large reproduced advertisement, of all things, for the record-breaking Coronation Scot steam train which ran between London and Glasgow. Why anyone would want an advert on their wall was beyond Balby; there were enough of them outside, weren’t there?

  Only one painting struck a jarring note. It was on the wall with the tall window in it. It was an old thing for such a modern room, a collection of three boards with a background of Byzantine gold. The painting itself was done in some sort of powdery oils. Balby knew nothing about art, but he looked on the strange, flattened but not flat, faces, the ornate halos, the rich golds and reds, and he had a feeling that the painting must be both very old and also foreign. On the centre board a young woman with blonde plaits sat holding a child at a strange angle, a small figure of a man at each shoulder. Two boards served as wings, each with two larger figures of men. The woman’s face, he thought, was extraordinary – evaluating, cold almost, but expressing a yearning and a restlessness that made you think that any second she might get up and run away.

  ‘Taddeo Gaddi, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints,’ said Craw.

  There she was – Adisla, looking down at him from the wall. He’d found her through the visions of an Arab hermit in the Rub al Khali desert, the Empty Quarter. The man was a descendant, it was said, of the mystical tribe of Ad, hated by God, they of the lost city of Iram of the Pillars. Forty years of meditation in the sands, under the heat of the sun and the cold of the stars, living off scorpions, rats and the bitter desert flowers, sucking the water from the rocks of fugitive springs, had retuned the hermit’s mind to the frequency his ancestors had known. He recognised Craw for what he was – one of the cursed. That meant he could connect with him. The man had touched him and said ‘sleep’. Craw had awoken in the morning knowing exactly where he had to go to find his love.

  He’d raced from the towering sands, down the camel trail that the frankincense merchants had abandoned a thousand years before when the dunes had turned from hills into mountains, through Persia and Turkey where, at Antalya, he had taken a Venetian glass galley to Italy, buying his place with a seat at the oars, then on over the Apennines, running with the wolf packs through the forests, and down into Florence itself, to the church of Santo Stefano that he had seen in the visions the hermit had lent him. And there she was, staring out at him from the altarpiece, a hundred and fifty years dead. He had taken it with him, encountering some difficulty with the priests. There had been blood.

  ‘The lady is extraordinary, don’t you think?’ said Craw.

  He remembered so little of her; only snatches of conversations – those, and the dull ache of his bond of love. How many times had she been reborn? How many times had he failed to find her over how many human lives?

  Balby snorted. To a man of his persuasion, saints and Madonnas were idols, plain and simple.

  The painting aside, the spare and tidy space of Craw’s rooms appeared to the policeman like something from a silly story in the newspaper – life as it will be lived in the year 2000 – and it all looked as if it had been put up ten minutes before they walked in.

  It would normally have made Balby suspect Craw of being a poseur or a dandy, or even a homosexual. Craw, however, looked like a serious man. He was on the short side of average, dark and pale and sharply suited, more like an architect than an academic. Balby had noted the signet ring when they shook hands. He found its wolf’s head motif a little, well, suspicious.

  ‘A very interesting room, sir,’ said Briggs, as if ‘interesting’ was a quality of dubious legality.

  The policeman perched himself uncertainly on the sofa. It seemed too deep for him to sit on it properly.

  ‘Yes, officer,’ said Craw, ‘it’s the Bauhaus style – do you know it?’

  ‘Sounds German to me,’ said Briggs.

  ‘How insightful of you, it is German. From the design school at Dessau.’ The policemen exchanged a look. ‘If you’re interested I could put you in contact with a dealer.’

  ‘I shan’t be wanting any Nazi furniture, sir,’ said Briggs. He too had seen the ring.

  ‘Well then, this would be ideal for you. The Nazis shut the school down. Degenerate art, you see.’

  ‘I thought you said it was German,’ said Briggs.

  ‘Not all Germans are Nazis,’ said Craw.

  ‘And not all Englishmen aren’t,’ said Briggs, who tended to view conversations as a sort of toned-down fight.

  Craw smiled. ‘Shall we get to business, gentlemen? Please, Inspector Balby, sit down. This is 1940 and manners are no longer the thing.’ His eyes flicked towards the seated Briggs.

  Craw was mildly annoyed at the implication he was a Nazi. Nothing so low born, he. The upstart Hitler had been a corporal, a dirty, sweating, toiling corporal. How could the proud princes of the Rhine, who traced their right back beyond Charlemagne, allow themselves to be ruled by such a creature? At least Britain was led by a man of the blood.

  ‘Professor Craw,’ began Balby, ‘we have reason to believe …’

  (My God, Craw thought, they really say ‘we have reason to believe’.)

  ‘… you may be able to help us. You are an anfro— An anthara—’

  Balby was an intelligent man but not a learned one. His brain ran to practical pursuits. He left the long words to the coroners and the judges. Craw did not try to help him with the word.

  ‘Antharapologist,’ he finished.

  Craw lowered his eyelids in assent.

  ‘Specialising in …’ Balby paused over the next words too, not because they were unfamiliar, but because he disapproved of the ideas that they raised.

  ‘Systems of belief,’ said Craw. ‘When I’m allowed the time to get on with my proper work.’

  ‘Heathen systems of belief,’ said Balby.

  ‘All systems.’

  ‘I hope not Christianity, sir.’ There was one subject capable of cracking Balby’s professional demeanour – that of the living Christ.

  ‘That too,’ said Craw.

  Balby rocked his shaved head from side to side, like the boxer he had once been loosening up for a bout.

  ‘Christianity is not a system of belief, sir, it is the word of God.’

  Craw had no wish to enter a debate with a believer because, as he had found down the centuries, you cannot debate with a believer. Believers believe, they don’t question. If you want a debate you had to pick a debater, people of very different mindsets. A change of subject might be appropriate, he thought.

  ‘Perhaps, Inspector, you and the constable would like a drink
after your long journey. Shall I ring for my man? I’m afraid all we have is advocaat. The last of the whisky went last night, and it may be a day or two before we can get any more.’

  ‘My church doesn’t allow alcohol, sir,’ said Balby.

  ‘I find nothing against it in the Bible,’ said Craw.

  ‘I don’t know which Bible you’re reading,’ said Briggs, with a short laugh. He had never read it himself, though he tried – unsuccessfully – to kid his boss that he had.

  ‘Well, I prefer it in the French, the vulgate. The language sings, don’t you find? So much more so than the vetus Latina.’

  He instantly regretted his flippancy. When you’ve lived so long you learn many different ways of being. You can try them on like clothes and discard them like last season’s fashion. This is not to fight boredom, it is to remain sane. If you simply are what you are then you get left behind, become a relic.

  The aloofness of the English upper classes of the 1920s and 1930s, their refusal to treat anything seriously, the lightness of the jeunesse dorée, had appealed to Craw, but sometimes he became carried away. He didn’t want to belittle people; to him they were already little. Mortals exuded a strange sort of sadness, even in the fullness of their youth. Like cut flowers, he thought, they were beautiful and must die. He had no wish to add to their woes in the brief moment of their lives.

  ‘Alcohol is the drink of the devil, sir,’ said Balby.

  Craw smiled. ‘In the case of advocaat we are in agreement, Inspector. It’s not a drink, it’s an assault on a perfectly good brandy. You should prosecute.’

  ‘I don’t prosecute, sir, I just arrest.’

  Craw stopped himself from saying that he was impressed by the man’s literalism. Balby showed an admirable exactness. It was refreshing to be with someone to whom words actually meant something.

  Balby, a professional student of people, scrutinised the academic. He could tell that the levity was a veneer, that something else was under the urbanity, the polish, the charm. What, he couldn’t say. Still, Balby liked charm, not for its own merits but because of its weakness. Men asked to explain why they were loitering at midnight were charming, murderers were charming, con men … Well, some of them. Those in control had no need to be charming, only those seeking to control. Kings weren’t charming, only courtiers, he thought.

  Charm wasn’t a weapon at his disposal. In fact he had to guard against its reverse, a sort of clodhopping earnestness that he could neither like nor prevent in himself.

  He didn’t regret raising God, but he regretted having to raise God. He would have been happier to know he was dealing with a pious man. Not that Balby often dealt with pious men; the impious were his bread and butter. It was just that he expected better from a man of learning than he did a criminal. Still, as Craw had been unintentionally flippant, he had been unintentionally too serious and was keen to return to business. He didn’t want to antagonise the professor – he needed him.

  ‘We need your help, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’ said Craw. ‘How can I enlighten you, gentlemen?’

  Briggs bristled. This man, he decided, gave himself airs. He was wrong there. Someone else had given them to him. If Craw had to guess, he would have said he took on such views after the mind-warping effects of a transformation, some time in the age of chivalry. He wished he had not done so, but what is, is.

  ‘Take a look at this,’ said Briggs.

  He removed a large flat photographic box from his briefcase. He opened it and passed the first photograph over to Craw. Briggs watched Craw’s eyes as he examined the print. He’d hoped to see him start, to watch the smoothness fall away before the picture of the first corpse. Ann in the canteen had nearly fainted when he’d given her a glimpse. Was it asking too much to see this upper-class ponce do the same? It was.

  One of the fallacies the lower orders maintain about their betters, Craw had noted many times, was that those on top were in some way delicate creatures, cut off from life. Briggs and his like mistook them for the bourgeoisie. Craw had been brought up to the hunt and the battlefield. He had seen worse than that photograph before he was six years old.

  ‘There are some strange marks upon him,’ said Craw, squinting closer.

  Balby took a large magnifying glass from his pocket and passed it to him.

  ‘Oh, you really carry those, how delightful.’

  ‘Only when required, sir, they’re not part of the uniform.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Craw, suddenly feeling rather foolish for his enthusiasm. The police wanted his help and all he could think of was the excitement of looking like Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. He’d never read the books until he’d seen the films, and hadn’t been able to believe what he’d been missing.

  ‘The young man was kept somewhere before he was killed?’ said Craw, studying the photograph like a vintner assessing the colour of a wine.

  ‘How do you know that?’ said Briggs, as if Craw had just given himself away as a spy.

  He didn’t like this fellow’s cool. It had taken Briggs himself years in the CID before he could look at things like that unflinchingly. He was proud of his professionally armoured personality. Craw, he felt, had not earned his calm in the face of horrors. And ‘the young man’. Craw himself was no more than thirty-three, and yet was taking on as if he was in some wholly other category to the boy before him, some wise head to shine the light for the lumbering dolts of the police.

  ‘I don’t know, I was simply asking a question. He has bruises on his wrists which might indicate manacles and, though I am no expert on the fashions of the young, I would be surprised if these other marks are among them. Presumably someone did this to him? How long do you think it would take to raise the flesh like that?’

  ‘We think at least four months,’ said Balby. ‘Have you seen anything like it before?’

  Craw had seen most things before and, yes, he had seen something like it. And yet he had never seen anything exactly similar.

  The photograph showed what looked like the body of a youth, naked and lying in a freshly excavated grave.

  The entire surface of his flesh was marked with what might have been mistaken for pimples, had it not been for the regularity of the pattern. Viewed in one way they might be swirls, in another, regular lines. Craw had seen the technique before, in Africa. The skin was cut and had substances rubbed into it until it formed permanent calluses. It was a form of tattooing, though more painful, lengthy and intricate. Never, though, had he seen it quite so extensive. The marks, some new with scabs, others quite established, covered every inch of the boy’s flesh, with one notable area of exception.

  ‘And who,’ said Craw, ‘do you think removed his face?’

  ‘Well, that, sir, is what we’re trying to find out,’ said Balby.

  ‘Quite,’ said Craw, with a neat smile. ‘I can say nothing without indulging in speculation, which may obscure as much as it illuminates. I’m afraid you may have wasted your time here. Do you have a hotel or are you returning directly?’

  ‘Half time, sunshine,’ said Briggs.

  Craw raised his eyebrows. He was more fascinated than insulted. Was this the modern age, butting its way into his drawing room? Did people really talk like that nowadays, with such brutality, such lack of respect? It almost made one pine for the age of the rapier and the small sword. There were downsides to each gentleman carrying his own weapon, but the general effect on manners was not one of them. Not that Briggs was of high enough social status to be challenged to a duel. But even giving such a man a beating was against the law today. The world has grown soft, he thought, the world has grown soft.

  Balby put his hand into the air, embarrassed at the constable’s manner but unwilling to criticise him in front of Craw.

  ‘There are others like this,’ he said. ‘Other murders. We would like you to come and examine the bodies personally. I have permission from the War Office to take you up to the Midlands.’