Darkmans (66 page)

The phone rang. They all stared at the phone.

‘Hello?’ Kelly pressed the phone to her ear.

‘Forgive
me?’ Harvey Broad bellowed jovially. ‘What the fuck
for,
ya crazy Sort? I’m takin’ ya ta bloomin’
Florida,
remember?!’

‘What’re ya doin’?’ Kelly demanded.

‘Doin?
I’m phonin’
you,
ya plum! Little Kelly Broad! My favourite nice!’

He paused ‘…
niece,’
he corrected himself.

Kelly’s eyes narrowed into slits.

‘Sorry to hear about Paul,’ he added (almost as an afterthought), ‘I just had your old ma on the blower burnin’ my bloody
ear
about it, but like I says to her, I says, “Dina, the kid made his
own
choices, yeah? ‘Nuff said.’”

Kelly grimaced. ‘Where
are
ya, Harve?’

‘Where?
Uh…I’m on Mill Bank Road, as it happens, on my way to see a client.’

‘What for?’

‘To wring his scrawny
neck,
darl, for tryin’ ta cancel on a job.’

‘Then stop right there, Harve,’ Kelly instructed him. ‘This is
important,
yeah? Pull over. Stay
exactly
where you are, d’ya hear me? I’m signin’ myself out, mate…’ she indicated, impatiently, to Gaffar‘…and then I’m comin’ to save ya.’

‘I’m rushed off my feet, Win,’ he grouched, yanking on the handbrake and cutting out the engine. ‘Can’t I call you back later?’

‘My head’s completely
fucked,
Kane,’ Winifred whined. ‘I barely even slept. I
really
need to get stoned…’

Kane inspected his watch. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘London.’

‘London?’
Kane frowned. ‘So why the hell ring
me,
then?’

‘Because I’ve got some bad news for Kelly and I needed some advice on how to
break
it to her. I’m still at the bloody
library
…’

‘What?’

Kane grabbed his cigarettes from his pocket, tapped one out and flipped it into his mouth. He peered anxiously through the window. He was parked at the end of an exclusive cul-de-sac facing a luxury, detached town house in well-tended grounds.

‘Andrew Board. The infamous
doctor.
There’s a strong possibility that he
isn’t
related to her…’

‘What?’

‘I know. I
know.
I mean she was so
excited
about the whole thing.’ ‘Back up a minute…’

Kane was searching for some matches, but instead he found a lighter. He removed it from his pocket and stared down at it, blankly.

Then he blinked –

How the hell’d that get there?

It was the red lighter – the Ronson – which he’d handed over in the restaurant, several days before. But it was different. It
felt
different, lying there, in his hand.

‘So she forgave you too, huh?’ Winnie mused.

‘Who did?’

Kane was totally confused.

‘Kelly.
Kelly
Broad.
Your
girlfriend,
remember?’

‘
Ex
-girlfriend.’ Kane lit his cigarette. ‘In fact I’m currently up to my ears in the funeral arrangements for her brother…’

‘Right now?’

‘No. Not right now. Right now I’m going to see a client…’

‘Well let them wait. This is important. Because what I really need to know,’ Winifred continued, ‘is whether it’s better to
tell
her or not.

I mean the probability of her finding out any other way is minute, and I only came across it in a secondary text…’

‘Stop…’

Kane closed his eyes. ‘Just go back to the beginning. I’m all at sea here. Kelly isn’t
whose
relative?’

Winifred drew a deep breath. ‘Dr Andrew
Board.
The physician. Henry’s physician. The bloke who wrote the book about the
Jester
…’

Winifred paused. ‘Although he
wasn’t
actually the king’s physician and he probably didn’t write the book
either,
if it comes to that…’

‘So you mean…’ Kane scowled ‘…you mean the guy who wrote the book which you photocopied for Beede?’

‘Yes!’
Winifred all but exploded.

‘I saw Kelly had it when I visited her the other day…’ Kane muttered, ‘which I thought at the time was rather strange…’

‘She delivered it for me, as a favour,’ Winnie butted in, impatiently.

‘But beyond that…’

‘And she thought she was
related
?’

‘
Duh!
’

‘But on what evidence, exactly?’

‘Because her father or her uncle or someone was always going on about how they had this famous relative who was once a physician to royalty. They claimed he wrote a book about building practices in the sixteenth century but she’d thought it was all just bullshit…’

‘She never mentioned this before,’ Kane said, glancing over towards the house.

‘Why would she?’

‘Why
wouldn’t
she?’

‘I’ve been up all night, Kane…’ Winifred groaned, ‘and I’m feeling
really
weird. My head’s buzzing. My heart’s racing. It’s almost like I’m…’

‘Too many espressos,’ Kane interrupted, breezily.

‘You can’t take drinks into the Rare Books section,’ she snapped. ‘It’s against the rules.’

‘The
rules?
!’ Kane scoffed. ‘Since when did Winifred Shilling submit to the
rules?
!’

‘Grow up,’ Winifred snarled.

‘Hang on a minute…’ Kane’s spine suddenly straightened, ‘I
forgive
you,’ he grinned. ‘Of
course
she did. I got a text – late last night…’

‘She forgave
everybody,
you moron. She found
God.
Where’ve you
been? Her dead brother sat up and said “bollocks” and she thought it was a
sign
…’

‘Her dead brother?
Paul?
Paul came back to
life
again?’ Kane was astonished.

‘No,
stupid. Before
he died. He sat up. He swore. And some lunatic old Reverend – I mean I’m filling in the gaps here – had some kind of a
vision
which predicted that he would…’

‘Fuck off, Win.’

Kane’s grin was starting to slip a little.

‘I’m serious.
Ring
her.
Ask
her.’

‘Fuck
off,
Win,’ he repeated.

‘I’m
serious.
’

She sounded serious.

‘Let’s just cut to the quick here, shall we?’ (Kane suddenly felt rather irritated by the whole thing.) ‘What is it that you really want?’

‘I already
said
what I really want. I want your
advice,
you
idiot.’

‘My advice?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well my advice – for what it’s worth – is to leave well alone.’

‘That’s
always
your advice,’ Win said tightly. ‘And that advice – for your information – is a piece of crap.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Pleasure.’

Pause

‘This is where you hang up,’ Kane informed her, inspecting his watch again, ‘and I run off to meet my client.’

‘You’re right…’

‘Although…’ he frowned, ‘one quick question…’

‘Fire away.’

‘First my dad, then my ex-girlfriend…Might there be some strange kind of
pattern
developing here?’

Winnie chuckled, dryly. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree.’

‘Am I?’

‘Oh yeah. Completely.’

‘Well if I am, then would you kindly tell me how the hell
you
happen to fit into all of this?’

‘
I
fit,
you
fit, we
all
fit,’ Winnie snapped. ‘That’s the whole f-ing
point.’

‘Nope. I’m still not…’

‘She forgave
me,
too,’ Winifred interrupted. ‘I got this text late last night…’

‘How’d she get your number?’ (Kane wasn’t buying it.)

‘From the bloody
photo
copy. Same as you.’

‘Oh.’

‘And it pissed me off, quite frankly. She’d been holding me responsible for her brother’s stupid
glue
habit. You know how I loathe glue…’

Kane slowly scratched his chin.

‘So you’re serious?’ he said.

‘Deadly.’

‘This isn’t some ornate wind-up?’

‘Bloody
hell
!’ Winifred expostulated. ‘You actually think I’m capable of inventing this stuff?’

‘In your sleep, Win. On your
head.
’

‘Fine. Whatever. Think what you will. I don’t care.’

As she spoke, a large, green Rover pulled up behind The Blonde and parked. Kane glanced at it, fleetingly, in his rearview mirror.

‘So Kelly found God,’ he murmured, shaking his head. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. It just is.’

‘She said everything suddenly fitted together, like a puzzle. She claimed we were
all
somehow a part of it. She was completely hyped up.’

‘She was probably just stoned. They gave her something to calm her down at the hospital. She was climbing the fucking walls when I spoke to her earlier…’

‘Well she was perfectly lucid when we chatted at around twelve…’

‘Oh.’

Pause

‘I’m still a little confused,’ Kane said.

‘But it
is
quite weird – quite confusing – I mean when you actually stop and
think
about it…’ Winifred persisted.

‘What is?’

‘The coincidence. She falls off the wall – yeah? – delivering this book to Beede. She breaks her leg. She goes to hospital. She acquires the book again – I’m not entirely sure how. An old Reverend predicts her
brother’s death. Her brother suddenly dies. She reads the book and realises that she’s related to this crazy religious nut, this
monk
…’

Pause

‘Sorry? A
monk
?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But you said he was a doctor.’

‘He
was
a doctor – or a
Physic,
as they called them back then – but he was also a monk.
Underneath.
A Carthusian. They’re a very strict…’

‘Yes,’ Kane interrupted her, ‘I know who the Carthusians are.’

‘They’re totally fanatical…’

‘Yes,
Win, I
know.’

‘Hair shirts, fasting, the whole kit and caboodle…’

Kane took a long drag on his cigarette. A tall man in a uniform was now climbing from the driver’s side of the car behind him. Kane glanced out of his window, casually exhaling, then he froze –

Fuck

It was
Dory.
It was Isidore. His forehead horribly disfigured by this terrible
bruise.

Kane quickly sank down in his seat, choking back the smoke.

‘Kane?
Hello?’

Winifred again.

‘Hi.’

Kane suddenly had a huge frog in his throat.

‘Kane?’

He coughed into his hand to try and dislodge it.

‘Hi,’ he croaked, his eyes watering, ‘I’m still here…’

‘Is there actually any
point
in my talking this through with you?’

‘Yeah.
Sure.
I’m just…’

He coughed again. Then he sniffed.

‘Late for a client,’ she finished off, bored.

Kane watched through streaming eyes as Dory approached the town house, took out a key and unlocked the front door. He’d barely pushed it open, though, when a blonde woman appeared and invited him inside.

Kane pulled himself up straight again, with a grunt, rubbing his face dry with his sleeve.

‘Okay,’ he said, struggling to gather his thoughts into some semblance of order. ‘So just
tell
her, Win. Be straight up with her. That’s my advice. Ring her. She’ll be fine about it. She’s a very sensible – very practical – girl, beneath all that mouth…’

‘But I wish you could’ve
heard
her…’ Winnie interrupted. ‘I mean it was incredibly…I don’t know…incredibly
touching,
somehow…’ ‘What was?’

‘How happy it made her feel. How delighted she was that her family weren’t all bad. She thought it was important – a
sign,
a
portent
…’

‘But she was wrong. She simply got her wires crossed.’

Silence

‘I mean you said this monk guy was a lunatic – a nut – so where’s the loss?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Yes you did.’

‘No. I said he was a little
flakey,’
Win rapidly rallied to the monk’s defence, ‘but he was an astonishing character. This seething mass of contradictions. He was released from his vows – as a bishop – after twenty-odd years of strict observance, but he still continued to wear the hair shirt, fasted – the whole deal – right up until his death. He was totally hardcore, in other words. It just transpired that his
real
love, his real
calling
was medicine. He was talented at it, by all accounts. He travelled extensively – all over the world – working as an ambassador for Britain – a diplomat, even a kind of
spy,
on occasion. He wrote some of the earliest known texts in the English language. Stuff about building, astronomy, medicine,
comedy
…’

‘But I thought you said…’

‘Yeah. There’s some doubt over his authorship of the Scogin book. It may well have been written later and just attributed to him. The Prologue kind of sets out his store – I don’t know if you read it – all this stuff about how “honest mirth” preserves health…That’s
very
Boardian. But the same introduction also claims he was the King’s Physic, which he definitely wasn’t. He may’ve attended Margaret – Henry’s daughter, once or possibly twice…I mean he was a Catholic
– a bishop – he was imprisoned intermittently even
after
he swore the Oath of Conformity. He died in jail – Fleet Prison…’ Kane frowned.

‘…1550 or thereabouts, although he wasn’t locked up for treason. He was imprisoned for maintaining three loose women in his chamber, “for
his
use” – I quote – “and that of the other priests”.’

‘The old dog,’ Kane murmured.

‘Yeah. He was a passionate adherent of the
humoral
theory of the body; this idea that the body of a man contains four main
humours
which have to be perfectly combined for good health – blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile…And then a similar – equally important – combination of the four
elements:
hot, cold, wet, dry…The theory originates with Hippocrates. Sounds a little crazy to begin with, I’ll admit, but when you sit down and really
think
about it, it’s actually quite a cool idea…Kind of modern…
Holistic,
even…’