Provender Gleed (46 page)

'Don't be daft, you know he does. When we were out there on the road to the tram stop, and even when you were bossing him about in the television room...'

'He doesn't look at me in a way.'

'Trust me, he does. He's smitten. You can see it a mile off.'

'Please, 'Strav, he doesn't.'

'You may not want him to but that's not the same thing. It's nothing to get alarmed about. I mean, you're not Family, but at this stage, frankly, we're past caring about that. It's just a relief that he's considering anyone at all.'

'"Considering".'

'Yes.'

'Implying
I
don't have any say in the matter.'

'Is,' said Extravagance, sweeping an enthusiastic arm around, 'what choice is there to make?'

They had arrived at the head of the staircase that curved down around the perimeter of the cylindrical atrium where Triumph stood, and Is had to admit that, if what you were after was a life lived amid splendour, Dashlands House was unquestionably the place for it. Extravagance's gesture took in the statue itself, the apexed glass roof, the staircase's ornate wrought-iron banister, and by implication the whole of the rest of the house. She was offering Is, in effect, a future as glittering as Triumph's gold accents.

Before Is could respond, there was a commotion down below, quickly followed by the appearance of Romeo Moore in the atrium, fleeing, and Carver, in hot pursuit. Moore took to the stairs, and Carver was right behind him, arm out, inches away from grabbing hold. Halfway up, Moore missed his footing and stumbled. Carver seized him by the jacket collar. Moore writhed, wriggled free from his jacket, and resumed running up the stairs. Carver tossed the item of clothing aside and carried on after. His face was set in a ferocious leer. Moore's expression was pure terror.

Near the top of the stairs Moore caught sight of Is and Extravagance and faltered. The pause was brief but enough to allow Carver to catch up with him again. This time he took a firm hold of the Anagrammatic Detective, swung him around with appalling ease, as if he weighed next to nothing, and slammed him against the banister. The air was driven from Moore's lungs. Carver then proceeded to bend him backwards over the banister's handrail, fist locked against the base of his throat. Moore's head was canted directly over Triumph's upraised left hand; her fingertips daggered up approximately four yards below the back of his skull. He grunted, he grimaced. Carver's contorted face, looming over his, was surely the worst thing anyone would want to see when in a position like this, and Moore's bulging eyes said exactly that.

'Carver!'

Extravagance's sharp cry had little effect on the manservant. He pushed Moore further over, until the detective was touching the stairs with just his toecaps.

'Carver, what are you doing? What is the meaning of this?'

'It doesn't concern you, Miss Extravagance,' Carver said from the side of his mouth. 'You should leave. You too,' he added, meaning Is. 'This is between me and this ... thief.'

'Thief?'

'I caught him attempting to pilfer some small trinkets. Great and I both witnessed him getting ready to stuff his pockets with Family valuables. Naturally, when we came upon him
in flagrante
, he ran, and naturally I gave chase.'

Moore was whipping his head from side to side and would have denied the accusation out loud had Carver's knuckles not been sunk into his windpipe.

'You're hurting him,' said Extravagance. 'Let him go.'

'I can't do that, Miss Extravagance. Not without risk to yourself. He's a desperate, dangerous man.'

'He's half your size,' said Is, 'and from what I know of him he's no danger to anyone.'

'Nobody asked
your
opinion,' Carver growled.

'Let him go,' Extravagance said again. 'That's an order.'

Carver did not obey, nor did he openly disobey. What he did was shove Moore fully onto the banister, so that all that was supporting Moore and keeping him from falling was the banister itself and Carver. Moore's arms flailed and his eyes rolled, panic-stricken. The drop beneath him, assuming he missed Triumph on the way down, was far enough to kill a man.

Is took a step towards Carver, and at that same moment the banister groaned. A shudder ran through it from top to bottom and from somewhere along its length there came a resonant metallic
snap
. Moore let out a strangulated moan. Is took three more steps. Carver turned his head and shot her a look that would have scorched paint. The scar was a livid lightning flash against the thundercloud of his face. His lips were pulled back and Is could see that several back teeth were missing on the same side as the scar, presumably knocked out when the injury was inflicted.

'Do not interfere, girl,' he said, reverberantly low. 'Stand back or I will mess you up so badly your life will not be worth living.'

'You don't scare me,' Is said.

'I should and I do.'

'No, you don't.' She meant it, too. 'This man hasn't tried to steal anything. You're lying about that and I think I know why. He's rumbled you, hasn't he? And you want him out of the way, you want to silence him. I know who you are, Mr Carver. I know what you've done.'

'You know nothing.'

'
You're
Damien's insider.'

'Shut your mouth. You're talking nonsense.'

'Is, what do you mean?' said Extravagance. 'Who's Damien? What's going on here?'

'Gleeds not paying you enough, Mr Carver? Oh no, wait, all the money was going to Damien. So what was your angle? What were you after? Do you not like Provender much?'

'I have never,' Carver said, 'ever done anything to the detriment of the Gleeds, any of them, and never would. I have served this Family immaculately all my years. I am loyal to them to my core. You're speaking of things you have no way of understanding, girl. I reiterate: shut your mouth.'

'Will someone explain this to me immediately!' Extravagance shouted.

Is said, 'Put him down, Mr Carver. We'll sort it out without hurting anybody.'

The banister gave another groan and wobbled slightly beneath Moore's back. Moore yelped and clutched Carver's sleeve in fright.

'No one has to die over this,' she said. 'There's no point in killing the detective because I know your secret now and so does 'Strav.'

'I do not,' said Extravagance. 'Do I?'

'Carver masterminded the kidnapping. He's behind it all.'

'Carver? This can't be true. Is this true?'

'An abject falsehood, Miss Extravagance.'

Extravagance looked puzzled. 'Why don't I believe you?'

'Probably because he's holding a man suspended over a thirty-foot drop,' said Is. 'That puts a bit of a dent in his credibility.'

'But what's my brother ever done to you?' Extravagance wanted to know.

'And what about the war?' said Is. The truth was unfurling in her head like a roll of carpet. 'I bet you didn't count on that. And Mrs Gleed. Surely you didn't intend her to come to harm, did you? It was a consequence you just didn't foresee.'

Carver looked down. Oh so briefly, but the action was a giveaway nonetheless. It spoke of a conscience pricked - remorse felt, however fleetingly.

The banister gave a lurch.

Moore squawked.

Carver raised his head again and looked Is squarely in the eye.

'I only caught a glimpse of you at the ball,' he said, 'otherwise I'd have recognised you straight away when you came back today. I didn't even make the connection when you attended to Mrs Gleed, which was remiss of me. I thought you were an associate of his.' He nodded at Moore, who flinched in the mistaken belief that he was about to be head-butted. 'Had I been thinking more clearly at the time, I would have put two and two together. It came to me shortly afterwards. The nurse. Damien's helper. But of course I wasn't going to say anything even then, and thereby incriminate myself. I'd pay no attention to you, and then you'd leave and no one would be any the wiser.'

'Except it didn't work out that way. You realise, don't you, that Damien would - will - identify you as his accomplice.'

'Will he I wonder. And even if he does, I'll have protection. You really don't know as much about this as you think you do, young lady.'

'Maybe not. Still, we're discussing it rationally, it's out in the open - so perhaps, please, you can pull Mr Moore back. He doesn't need to be hanging over the edge like that now. He's not a threat to you any more.'

'I'm not accustomed to taking orders from a non-Family member.'

'Tell him, 'Strav,' Is said, turning. 'I don't like the sounds that banister's making. Tell him to --'

The sound the banister made next was like nothing Is had heard before. There was a long raspy shriek, punctuated by a series of deep pizzicato
plunks
as though some giant harpist was running her fingers along the uprights. Then came a warping, grinding
sprunnng
noise, and Is spun round in time to see the upper end of the banister detach itself from the staircase and twist outwards as fluidly as though it were cotton ribbon. It went flat, and Moore and Carver went flat with it, sprawling one on top of the other. The banister kept them there, suspended, for an instant of infinity. Then, with a squeal, it gave way.

Is threw herself forwards headlong, hand outstretched. She grabbed blindly, and more by instinct than aim seized hold of a forearm.

She hoped, she prayed, it was Moore's and not Carver's.

The banister peeled away, unspooling downward until its upper end hit the atrium floor with a clang. In the echoes of the impact Is heard a cry of pain followed by gurgling distress and then a sharp sigh. Her eyes were closed. She was lying prone on the stairs, with one arm hanging over the edge and supporting the weight of a grown man. Something had torn in her shoulder - a muscle wrench rather than a dislocation, she thought, but still it hurt like hell. She could not move. Dared not. She was gripping whoever's wrist as hard as she could. She would not let go, refused to. She was aware of Extravagance beside her. 'Come on,' Extravagance was saying. Not to Is. 'Help us help you up. Come on. Put your foot there. Yes, that's it.'

She would not let go, even after the man was safely on the stairs next to her. It took Extravagance pulling back hard on her fingers to get her to unclamp them from his wrist.

Then, at last opening her eyes, she looked and saw Romeo Moore, prone, panting frantically.

Alive.

Which meant...

She rolled her head round and looked over the edge.

It was a sight which Extravagance was trying desperately to avert her eyes from and which Moore was too traumatised to think about viewing just yet.

But Is looked. Stared. Had to see.

Triumph's upraised arm. Hand gloved to the wrist with blood. And below the hand, like some ghastly bracelet, a body. Carver. Limbs dangling. Head thrown back. Impaled through the abdomen. Twitching his last.

72

A gathering of the Clan.

The place: the fourth largest drawing room at Dashlands House, decorated with bamboo screens, tropical ferns in urns, an elephant's foot umbrella stand, and a plethora of animal pelts, from tiger throw rug to antelope wall-hanging to leopardskin upholstery - a great white hunter's paradise.

Present, seated left to right: Provender Gleed, Isis Necker, Prosper Gleed, Fortune Gleed, Gratitude Gleed, Extravagance Gleed, and Great.

Supervising the proceedings: Anagrammatic Detective Romeo Moore...

...who was acutely aware how this scene resembled the final chapter of one of those country-house murder mystery novels he used to devour as a child, the revelatory moment when the police inspector or the private investigator unmasked the villain, who was usually the person you least suspected until after you had read widely enough in the genre, whereupon he/she became the person you suspected from the start. Moore could not help thinking he ought to say something like, 'I expect you're wondering why I've called you all together.' The temptation was there, but resistible. He also had to fight the desire to crack a joke about the butler having
really
done it.

No, this was a sombre moment, not the time for clowning around. Nor was it the time for revelling in success. Moore's achievements as a detective, pleased with them as he was, meant little when he was confronted by a Family in a state of shock. The faces arrayed before him, Great's excepted, were bewildered and drawn and haggard. The Gleeds had a lot to come to terms with, and Moore's natural courtesy inclined him to downplay his role here as bringer of truth and exposer of foul play.

'I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you what I have to tell you,' he began. It helped, from the point of view of sounding tactful, that his voice was reduced to a husky croak. His throat hurt if he spoke above a certain volume. Carver's fist had bruised his larynx and Is said it would probably be sore for the next few days but the only remedies were time and not talking too much.

'I didn't even know what I was doing,' he added modestly. 'It all just seemed to fall into place of its own accord. I suppose it's because I'm in the habit of looking for patterns. Patterns within words, patterns in everything. If not for that, I wouldn't have --'

'Why did Carver try to kill you?' said Prosper Gleed, curtly.

Moore was thrown by the interruption. He blinked, regrouped and restarted. 'Allegedly he wasn't trying to kill me. Allegedly he caught me stealing something and was tackling me as he would have any thief. But in fact I believe he
would
have killed me if he had had the opportunity to get away with it. Then he'd have planted some piece of incriminating evidence in my pocket and come to you with the whole terrible story. And my death would have been made to look like an accident, I'm sure, or less his fault, more mine. Your manservant was keen to cover his tracks, and I, as far as he was concerned, was in every way expendable.'

'But it's hard to conceive,' said Gratitude. 'Carver, willing to take a man's life.'