The Meaning of Night (8 page)

awaits.

I lie down, am handed the instrument of dreams, loaded with its potent freight,

and the dissolution begins. Clouds, piercing sunlight, the shining peaks of eternal

mountains, and a cold green sea. An elephant gazes at me with a look of ineffable

compassion in its small dark eyes. A man with red hair whose face I cannot see.

The boundaries of this world are forever shifting – from day to night, joy to

sorrow, love to hate, and from life itself to death; and who can say at what moment we

may suddenly cross over the border, from one state of existence to another, like heat

applied to some flammable substance? I have been given my own ever-changing margins,

across which I move, continually and hungrily, like a migrating animal. Now civilized,

now untamed; now responsive to decency and human concern, now viciously attuned to

the darkest of desires.

I admit these degradations because they are true, as true as anything else in this

confession; as true as the killing of Lucas Trendle and my hate of Phoebus Daunt; and as

true as the cursed love I hold, and will always hold, for her whom I cannot yet name. If

these acts disgust you, then it must be so. I do not – cannot – seek to excuse them, or

explain them; for the terrible itching urge to wander perpetually , like some poor

Ahasuerus,? between light and darkness, will stay with me, driving me under its goad,

until the day of my death.

A reviving cigar and I return to the fog-weighted streets. Once again, I wearily

climb the stairs to my rooms in Temple-street as the day struggles into life.

On reaching my sitting-room, I slumped heavily into the chair by the fireplace I

had left some hours before and fell into a deep untroubled sleep.

I awoke with a start a little before noon, thinking of Jukes.

Fordyce Jukes, my neighbour on the ground floor. His greasy, cunning look and

insinuating manners: ‘So nice to see you, Mr Glapthorn. Always a pleasure, Mr

Glapthorn. A touch cold today, Mr Glapthorn.’ The opportune opening of his door as I

pass up or down the stairs; the glutinous smile of greeting; and always the infallible sense

of a watching eye at my back.

It was Jukes! I was sure of it. I should have seen it immediately. He had followed

me that night to Cain-court. He knew it all.

He was a clerk in the offices of Tredgold, Tredgold & Orr, solicitors, of

Paternoster-row, where I was also employed, and of which I shall have occasion to speak

more fully hereafter. Clever enough, certainly; educated enough, with sufficient

knowledge of my comings and goings to ensnare me; and – to clinch it – I already

suspected him of enriching himself at the expense of the firm. Yes, it must be Jukes. We

had never spoken of Bella, it was true: our conversations had been scrupulously neutral

on all personal matters; but he had found her out.

What had begun it? I knew him to be a damned inquisitive meddler; my nocturnal

ramblings were frequent, and the stairs would have creaked out my exits to his always

receptive ears. An urge one night – impossible for this ultracrepidarian sneak to resist – to

follow me out, to see where I went and what I did, then repeated on other nights until a

habit is formed. How many shadows had welcomed his watching eye; how many

doorways; how many dark and secret places?

Then, one late-October night, he follows me again, a little earlier than usual,

puzzled by the apparent lack of any specific intent or objective, as I make my way to

Threadneedle-street. He cannot see Lucas Trendle standing outside the Bank: only I can

see him. But he continues to watch, still puzzled, as I proceed westwards towards the

Strand.

He cannot know why I committed the deed he witnessed, but he knows I did it.

He knows.

The revelation galvanizes me. After splashing my face with cold water, I descend

the stairs. His door stays closed and there is no sound from within, for these are of course

his usual hours at Tredgolds. But I know that he must have contrived to be absent from

the office for the afternoon in order to carry out his intention to confront me at Stoke

Newington, or at least to satisfy himself that I have accepted his invitation to pay my last

respects to Lucas Trendle. All the same, I stop at the foot of the staircase and contemplate

forcing an entrance to his chambers, in order to secure confirmation that the hand

responsible for the two anonymous notes was his. But this, I decide, is both foolhardy and

unnecessary; so I step out into the street, to execute the plan I have formed.

I am in Chancery-lane in time for the half-past twelve omnibus to Stoke

Newington, for it is November the third, and Mr Lucas Trendle is to be buried. The

omnibus comes and leaves without me – I do not intend to take any chances. I therefore

hold back, observing every face that passes along the street, every stationary or loitering

figure. Now I move to the back of the queue for the next green ‘Favourite’, which I

board, and then immediately descend as it pulls away. Satisfied that I have not been

followed, I finally take my place on the one o’clock vehicle, and arrive at last at my

destination.

Through the portals of Death,? surmounted by hieroglyphs announcing ‘The

Gates of the Abode of the Mortal Part of Man’, I walked into Abney Cemetery, in the

quiet village of Stoke Newington. London lay behind me, beneath a louring and

obscuring red-yellow pall interposed between earth and sky, the progeny of a million

chimneys. But here the air was clear, the day dull, but with a promise of brightness.

It wanted an hour until the time. I wandered, as a casual visitor might, amongst

the spacious lawns and Lebanon cedars, observing the monuments of granite and marble

– some striking, most of a becoming simplicity, for this was a resting-place for

Non-Conformist mortality; the petrified angels; the columns and draped urns. I examined

the small Gothic Chapel, and then made my way over to a fenced-off spot, around a large

and venerable chestnut, that marked the favourite place of retirement of Dr Watts,? friend

of the former Lady Abney, and tutor to her daughters.

Lingering here, I looked about me, taking in the patterns of paths and walkways,

and trying to picture to myself how events might unfold.

Would Jukes risk a direct approach in such a place? Would he take me quietly

aside and put some proposal to me for the maintenance of his silence? I could not feel in

the least physically threatened by him – a stunted, weaselly fellow – and was, in any case,

well prepared for that eventuality. I would take the initiative and suggest a quiet

discussion of the matter, gentleman to gentleman. He would be appreciative of my

consideration: no need for unpleasantness, no need at all. Simply a little matter of

business. A stroll, perhaps, towards the chapel, and a further meeting arranged – at some

mutually convenient place and time in town – in order to conclude matters. Then I would

secure my advantage, complete and final.

Thus I imagined as I continued to stroll slowly up and down the path, as if in

sober contemplation of my surroundings. I took out my watch. A few moments later the

church clock tolled three.

I turned back towards the gates to see a hearse pulled by four horses –

ostrich-plumed and richly caparisoned – enter the grounds, followed by two mourning

coaches and a number of smaller carriages swathed in rich black velvet. I counted four

mutes in their gowns, and a little group of perhaps half a dozen pages. A moderately

expensive affair, I reflected, in spite of Mr Trendle’s plain theology.

A little knot of villagers, not of the family party, followed the procession a little

way behind. I scanned this group closely, moving nearer, and as quickly as I dared, to try

and make out my man.

The cortège entered through one of the arches of the Chapel; the coffin was

removed by the bearers and taken inside; the mourners descended and followed the

doleful burden.

I waited a little distance off. His mother – there – for sure; a slight figure holding

for support against the arm of a tall younger gentleman, perhaps his brother. I did not

detect a wife or children, for which I was grateful. But the sight of his poor mother

unnerved me momentarily, as I saw again in memory the rictus smile her son had given

me as I had withdrawn the knife from his neck.

As the members of the family party took their places in the Chapel, I surveyed the

accompanying group of neighbours and others for a second time. Jukes must be amongst

them, but his distinctive squat figure was not apparent to me. Then the thought strikes me

that he might send an agent; though it seems unlikely, I sweep my eye once more over the

onlookers, and move closer, until I am a part of the little crowd.

‘Were you acquainted with Mr Trendle, sir?’

The plaintive enquirer was a little person of some rotundity, who gazed up at me

through pale grey-green eyes from behind a pair of gold spectacles.

‘Slightly, ma’am,’ I replied.

My companion shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘Such a wonderful man –

wonderful. So good and generous, so adoring of his mamma. You know Mrs Trendle, I

dare say?’

‘Slightly.’

‘But perhaps not her late husband?’

‘No, indeed.’

I did not wish to keep up the conversation, but she came back again.

‘You are of the Chapel, perhaps?’

I replied that I had known the deceased only through business.

‘Ah, business. I do not understand business. But Mr Trendle did. Such a clever

man! What the dear people in Africa will do without him I cannot think.’

She continued her lament for some time, animadverting in particular, with a

curious kind of wistful relish, against the wickedness and certain damnation of the person

who had thus deprived the Africans of their great champion.

Eventually, unencouraged by any response from me, she smiled faintly and

waddled away, her fluttering mourning clothes making her seem like a great aggregated

ball of soot escaped from the prison of fog that still lay in a dark looming bar across the

murmuring city at our back, pressing down on the poor souls beneath like the weight of

sin itself.

No sign. Nothing. I moved about the crowd, anxious to be part of it but wary of

any individual contact. When would he come? Would he come?

In due course, the Chapel bell tolled out and the coffin, followed by the mourners

and their attendants, was carried back out to the awaiting hearse. Slowly, the procession

wound its way to the place that had been prepared.

The ceremony of interment was duly performed by an elderly white-haired

clergyman, and the usual displays of grief and abandonment were displayed. I found

myself unwillingly regarding the coffin as it was lowered gently into the receiving earth,

the last mortal home of the unfortunate Lucas Trendle, late of the Bank of England. For I

had put him there, and for nothing he had done to me.

The party began to disperse. I looked once more at his mother, and at the

gentleman I had seen accompanying her earlier. From beneath the rim of his hat peeked a

narrow curtain of red hair.

Eventually, I was left alone at the graveside with the diggers and their assistants.

Of Fordyce Jukes there was not a trace.

I waited for nearly an hour, and then made my way back towards the Egyptian

portals, with darkness coming on. The gatekeeper tipped his hat as he let me through a

smaller side entrance. I took a deep breath. The wretched Jukes had played me for a fool,

sending me all the way out here as a prank, for which he would pay dearly when the

moment of reckoning came.

But then, just as I was passing beneath the deeply shadowed arch into the outer

world, I felt a tap on my shoulder as a person – a man – pushed past me. I had

instinctively swung to the left, towards the shoulder on which I had received the tap; but

he had gone to the right, quickly becoming absorbed in a remaining group of mourners

standing just outside the gates, and disappearing into the deepening gloom.

It had not been Jukes. Taller, broader, quick on his feet. It had not been Jukes.

I returned to Temple-street dejected and confused. As I passed through the

staircase entrance, the door of the ground-floor chamber opened.

‘Good evening, Mr Glapthorn,’ said Fordyce Jukes. ‘I trust you’ve had a pleasant

day?’

6:

Vocat?

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The conviction that Fordyce Jukes was my blackmailer would not leave me; and

yet he had not been at Stoke Newington, and no attempt had been made by any other

person or persons to make themselves known to me – except for that tap on the shoulder:

that unsettling sense of gentle but firm pressure deliberately applied. An accidental brush

by a hastily departing stranger, no doubt. But not the first such ‘accident’ – I still thought

of the incident outside the Diorama – and not the last.

Why had he sent me out to Stoke Newington, if he had not intended to reveal

himself to me there? I could reach no other conclusion but that he was biding his time;

that the second note, summoning me to the interment of my victim, had been designed to