The dog leapt up, but gave no yell,
The wire was pulled, but woke no bell,
The ghastly knocker rose and fell,
But caused no riot;
The ways of death, we all know well,
Are very quiet.
Bombs in public places are police matters, and cannot be well investigated by half-hearted amateurs. Charles found it a great relief when the blue uniforms moved in. He felt he could have gone on snooping in the dark for ever; the police had the advantage that investigation was their business. And they got on with it very efficiently.
An Army bomb disposal expert saved Queen Mary’s historic apartments from destruction. As Charles sat waiting to be interviewed at the Edinburgh City Police Headquarters in Fettes Avenue, he wondered what would have happened if the device had gone off. The wholesale destruction of twenty-odd tourists and a guide might have put Rizzio’s murder in the shade. And it would have needed a hell of a big brass plaque.
He had assumed that the bomb had not reached its detonation time when it was discovered and received an ugly shock when the findings of the bomb disposal expert were communicated to him. It had been set for twenty minutes earlier. The minute hand on the clock had reached its brass contact screw fixed in the clock face; it was only luck that had prevented it going off. The device’s construction was amateur and the motion of Charles’ holdall appeared to have broken one of the inadequately soldered joints in the wiring. But for the cavalier, drunken way he had manhandled the bag, the bomb would have worked.
He found its failure small comfort. The intention was no less destructive. The bomb was an unsophisticated weed-killer and acid device, which might not have been too devastating in the open, but in an enclosed space like the supper room… He didn’t like to think about it. Particularly as he had been carrying the thing. Even in the unlikely event of his surviving the blast, he would have been typecast for the rest of his life as Long John Silver or Toulouse Lautrec.
When he talked to the police, he was amazed at how much they knew. The assumption that they had written off Willy Mariello’s death as an accident and were just waiting for this to be officially confirmed in the Procurator-Fiscal’s report proved to be naive. Ever since the stabbing they had been investigating and keeping an eye on the D.U.D.S. They knew about Martin’s dual identity and had been following his movements with particular interest.
It all made Charles feel crassly amateur. Not only because his own stumbling investigations seemed so pathetic, but also because it showed he had an outdated image of the police as thick village constables whose only function was to have rings run round them by the brilliant amateur sleuth. That was the way it was in most of the plays he had ever been in, and plays were about his closest contact with the police. What he had taken in this case to be their lethargic inactivity had been discreet investigation, gathering together sufficient evidence for an arrest.
And they reckoned the bomb was probably enough evidence. Certainly enough to justify a search of the flat in Nicholson Road.
There was no question in the police’s mind of investigating anyone but Martin. Like the Laird, they reckoned that his behaviour was suspicious and, unlike Charles, they were not held up by vague woolly liberal notions that the boy was misunderstood and must have other explanations for his actions. Charles felt as he had in Oxford when, after an elaborate midnight climb back into college over walls, across roofs, down drainpipes and through dons’ bedrooms, he had discovered that the main gate was open.
He also felt rather out of it, though at the centre of operations. At least on his own abortive investigations he could maintain the illusion of doing something important in his own right. Here at the police headquarters he was just a source of information, politely asked to wait, filed for reference when necessary. They were interested in what he knew, not what he thought.
So rather than stage-managing dramatic denouements himself, he found out at second hand what had happened. The search at Nicholson Street had provided plenty of evidence to convict Martin. It was a positive bomb factory, chemicals and components scattered around on tables without any attempt at concealment. There was also an unpleasant collection of knives and other weapons, including a meat cleaver. The boy’s fantasies of violence took a disturbingly tangible form.
What the police did not find at the flat was Martin Warburton himself. And, though they found a bottle of spirit gum substitute and a brush, there was no sign of his false beard or glasses. So it was possible that he was somewhere in Edinburgh in his disguise.
They tried the obvious places, which were Coates Gardens and the Masonic Hall, but he was not at either. Apparently he had left the theatre after a disagreement with Plug over some lighting effect. That was shortly before three, and nobody had seen him since.
The case had changed from a whodunnit to a manhunt.
Charles was thanked courteously for his co-operation by the police and asked to keep them informed of where he would be contactable if he left Edinburgh.
It was then about seven o’clock. Frances, he knew, had got a ticket for the Scottish Opera’s Alceste at the King’s Theatre. Denied her calming therapy for his shattered nerves, he saw no reason to change his plans of earlier in the day, and got drunk.
At the Police Headquarters James Milne and Charles had arranged to meet for coffee in the flat the next morning to talk through what had happened. Charles had found the truth of Dr Johnson’s dictum about the proximity of death concentrating a man’s mind wonderfully, and regained his flagging interest in the case.
About eleven on the Sunday he arrived at Coates Gardens. ‘Do you mind if I have something a bit stronger than coffee?’
‘Still in a state of shock? So am I.’
‘Well, mine’s only an indirect state of shock, James. I was so shocked yesterday that I had to have a great deal to drink for medical reasons. That’s why I need something stronger now. Hair of the dog.’
The Laird chuckled and reached for the malt whisky bottle. ‘Well,’ he said when they were sitting and the first gulp was irrigating Charles’ dehydrated head, ‘it seems that I was on the right track.’
‘About Martin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm. Of course, I knew there was something wrong with him right from the start. Now I come to think of it, the first night I was here, I heard someone crying in the bathroom-I’m sure it was him. Obviously in the throes of a nervous breakdown. A schizoid condition, aggravated by overwork for his finals.’
‘All work and no play…’
‘Makes Jack a nutter, yes.’
‘“Much study had made him very lean…”’
‘“And pale and leaden-eyed.”’ Charles completed the quotation automatically without thinking. Martin’s case seemed more relevant than literary games. ‘What surprised me was that all his fantasies manifested themselves in a real way. Usually with that type all the action’s in their minds.’
‘Not, it seems, in this case, Charles.’
‘No.’ He paused for a moment, ruefully. ‘Poor kid. He was so mixed up. He seemed so much the obvious suspect that I never really considered him.’ He laughed. ‘I must get a less subjective view of criminals.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look at me-on this case I miss out the obvious solution just because Martin’s someone I like and feel sympathy for. Instead I go off into wild suspicions of more or less everyone else I meet.’ The atmosphere between them was friendly enough for a confession. ‘Do you know, I even suspected you at one point.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘God knows. My mind wasn’t working very well. I suspected everybody. Still, even if we didn’t know about Martin’s bomb factory, I think I’d have to cross you off my list now. The average murderer doesn’t deliberately try to get himself blown up.’
‘No.’ They laughed.
Then Charles sighed. ‘I wish I’d got it all a bit more sorted out in my mind. I mean, it’s now clear that Martin planted the bomb, and presumably planned Willy’s death as well, but I still don’t see exactly why.’
‘He was unbalanced.’
‘Yes, but… I don’t know. I suppose I’ve got a tidy mind, but I’d like to find some sort of method in his madness, some logical sequence.
‘What about the Mary, Queen of Scots thing I suggested a few days ago?’
‘That would explain the Mariello stabbing, I suppose. Willy was playing Rizzio, so there might be some identification there, but what about the bomb?’
‘Darnley was blown up with gunpowder, Charles.’
‘Was he? Good God.’
‘Yes, I’m sure he was. At the instigation of Bothwell, as I recall.’
‘Bothwell? But that’s who Martin’s playing in Mary, Queen of Sots. And… yes… he talked to me once about how easy it was to identify with people from history.’
‘There you are then.’
‘Let’s work it out. He’s in this show about Mary, Queen of Scots and gets obsessively involved with her life…’
‘A life surrounded by intrigue and murder.’
‘Exactly. He identifies with Bothwell and-I say, it’s just struck me. I bet there’s a portrait of Bothwell in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.’
The Laird nodded excitedly. ‘There is. It’s a miniature. And it’s the only extant picture of him.’
‘Yes.’ Charles pieced it together slowly. ‘Right. Martin identifies so completely that, in his confused mind, he becomes Bothwell and Sam Wasserman’s awful play becomes reality. And that reality suits his existing obsessions about violence.’
‘So Rizzio has to be stabbed. Willy Mariello doesn’t exist for Martin; he actually is David Rizzio. And Martin must have said something that made Willy afraid of him, which explains what Willy told me in the Truth Game. By a stroke of luck, the stabbing looks like an accident, and so Martin is free to plan his next murder, that of Darnley…’ His racing thoughts were suddenly brought up short. ‘But that’s strange. If he was living the reality of the play, why did he identify me with Darnley and not the bloke who’s actually playing the part?’
‘Perhaps he was just getting a bit confused,’ the Laird offered.
‘That’s a bit lame. I’m sure if the obsession’s as complicated as it seems to be, there must be some logic behind it, some sort of crazy justification for his action.’
‘You don’t think there’s anything missing in the historical Mary story?’
‘I don’t know. What happened to Bothwell in the end?’
‘I think he died in prison. Insane.’
Charles smiled grimly. ‘I’m afraid that part of the identification could be horribly apt too. No, there’s something we’re missing. Why does he turn on me as Darnley?’
‘Because he thinks you’re on his trail?’
‘Doesn’t really fit the historical obsession bit. Unless…’ The solution flashed into his mind. ‘Good God! Anna!’
‘What?’
‘Anna Duncan. She’s playing Mary. And Willy Mariello had an affair with her. Martin must have seen them together and killed him out of jealousy. And then me. He saw us together downstairs a couple of days ago.’
‘You and Anna?’
Charles felt himself blushing, but the picture was developing too quickly for him to be discreet. ‘Yes, we were having an affair, and after he saw us together, he started to identify me with Darnley. So I had to be blown up.’
‘Leaving Anna to him?’
‘I suppose so. But don’t you see, James, this may give us a lead on what he’s likely to do next.’
‘Why?’
‘Who’s the next person to be murdered in the Mary, Queen of Scots saga?’
The Laird pondered with infuriating slowness. ‘Well, I think actual murders are a bit thin on the ground after Darnley. There are plots and battles, but I don’t think any more major figures were actually murdered.’
‘None at all?’
‘No. Well, not until Mary herself had her head cut off. There are a lot of Scots who still regard that as a murder.’
Charles sprang to his feet with a feeling of nausea in his throat. ‘No! I must get to the Lawnmarket.’ All he could think of was the fact that among other weapons in the Nicholson Street flat the police had found a meat cleaver.
He was so relieved to see Anna open the door of the flat that it took a moment before he realised the situation’s inherent awkwardness. She looked at him and the Laird without emotion. ‘Good morning.’
Urgency overcame Charles’ embarrassment. ‘Have you seen Martin?’
‘Yes.’
‘What, here?’
‘Yes, he was here.’
‘When?’
‘He left about half an hour ago.’
‘And how long had he been here?’
A hard look came into the navy blue eyes. ‘Listen, if you’re playing another of your elaborate games-’
‘I’m not. This is serious. We’ve got to find Martin. He’s in a dangerous state.’
‘Certainly in a strange state. He was babbling on about the police being after him or something.’
‘That’s true.’
‘Why?’
‘They want him for the murder of Willy Mariello and the attempted murder of Charles Paris.’
Her mouth fell open and an expression of frozen horror came over her face. Charles realised it was the first spontaneous reaction he had ever seen from her.
‘Where is he now?’
‘I don’t know, Charles. He came here last night in an awful state and begged to stay. I thought he was mad, so I didn’t argue.’
‘Just as well. I think you were next on his list.’
‘What?’ She started to cry with shock, and looked human and ugly. But Charles did not have time to notice. ‘Have you any idea where he was going?’
‘No, but he was dressed up.’
‘Disguised?’
‘Yes. I thought he was joking when he suggested it, but he was so fierce and insistent that I let him have the stuff.’
‘What stuff?’
‘A smock and a handbag of mine. And a curly dark wig I’ve got. And my sunglasses.’
‘He was wearing all that when he left?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you.’ He turned to rush away.
‘Charles?’ she whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think he really might have murdered me?’
‘Yes, Anna. I do.’
As he ran down the steps from Lady Stair’s Close towards Waverley Station, he knew it was a long chance, but he could not think of anywhere else to go. If Martin wanted to get out of Edinburgh, that was the quickest way. Charles had a feeling that there was a London train at two o’clock. In twenty minutes.
The cold sweaty feeling of his hangover mixed with the hot sweaty feeling of running. Ambling tourists turned bewildered faces towards the middle-aged man pelting down the road in the calm of a Sunday afternoon. James Milne was a long way behind him, doing the ungainly penguin run of a man with things in his pockets.
Charles sped down the taxi-ramp into Waverley Station and halted in the sudden cool shade, gasping to get his breath. Then he moved slowly towards Platform 1/19 where the London train would leave. It had not yet arrived.
He stalked along the railings that ran the length of the platform and peered through at the passengers, who stood waiting with their luggage. They all looked extremely ordinary. He walked on. The women were very womanly.
He stopped and looked at one back view again. The clothes were right. Red smock, blue jeans, curly hair, handbag dangling casually from one hand. It must be.
But he hesitated. There was something so feminine about the stance. And no trace of anxiety.
But it must be. Martin’s chameleon-like ability to take on another personality would enable him to stand differently, to think himself so much into the part that he was a woman. Any actor could do it to a degree and a psychopath could do it completely.
Charles moved with organised stealth. He bought a platform ticket and walked through the barrier. Then he advanced slowly towards the ‘woman’. People peered along the line and started to gather up their luggage. The train was coming. He quickened his pace.
He was standing just behind his quarry when the train slid protesting into the station. Even close to, the figure looked womanly. Charles waited a moment; he did not want to risk a suicide under the oncoming wheels. But as the passing windows slowed to a halt, he stepped forward. The curly head was close to his face. ‘Martin,’ he said firmly.
The violence of the blow on his chest took him by surprise. He had time to register the skill of the boy’s make-up as he fell over backwards.
The shove winded him and it was a moment before he could pick himself up again. By that time Martin had charged the barrier and was rushing through the dazed crowd in the main station. Charles set off in gasping pursuit.
The boy was at least two hundred yards ahead when Charles emerged into the sunlight, and running up the hill which the older man had just descended. Martin was young and fit and moving with the pace of desperation. Charles was hopelessly out of condition on the steep gradient and could feel the gap between them widening.
Then he had what seemed like a stroke of luck. Martin was keeping to the right of the road as if he intended to veer off down the Mound into Princes Street where he would soon be lost in the tourist crowds. But suddenly he stopped. Charles could see the reason. James Milne was standing in his path. Martin seemed frozen for a moment, then sprang sideways, crossed the road and ran on up the steps to the Lawnmarket, retracing Charles’ footsteps.
In fact, going straight back to Anna’s flat.
Realisation of the girl’s danger gave Charles a burst of adrenalin, and he surged forward. As he passed the Laird on the steps he heard the older man gasp something about getting the police.
Martin was spread-eagled against the door in Lawnmarket when Charles emerged from Lady Stair’s Close. The boy was hammering with his fists, but Anna had not opened the door yet. No doubt she was on her way down the five flights of steps. Charles screamed out Martin’s name, turning the heads of a party of Japanese in tam o’shanters.
The youth turned round as if he had been shot and froze again like a rabbit in a car’s headlights, unable to make up his mind. Charles moved purposefully forward. It had to be now; he had no energy left for a further chase.
He was almost close enough to touch Martin, he could see the confusion in the young eyes, when suddenly the youth did another sidestep and started running again. Charles lumbered off in pursuit, cursing. If Martin made it down to the Grassmarket, he could easily lose his exhausted hunter in the network of little streets of the Old Town.
But Martin did not do that. He did something much more worrying.
Instead of breaking for the freedom of the Grassmarket, he ran back across the road and up towards the Castle. In other words, he ran straight into a dead end. With a new cold feeling of fear, Charles hurried after him, up between the Tattoo stands on the Esplanade and into the Castle.
The fear proved justified. He found Martin standing on the ramparts at the first level, where great black guns point out over the New Town to the silver flash of the Firth of Forth. A gaping crowd of tourists watched the boy in silence as he pulled off the wig and smock and dropped them into the void.
Charles eased himself up on to the rampart and edged along it, trying not to see the tiny trees and beetle people in Princes Street Gardens below. ‘Martin.’
The look that was turned on him was strangely serene. So was the voice that echoed him. ‘Martin. Yes, Martin. Martin Warburton. That’s who I am.’ The youth wiped the lipstick from his mouth roughly with the back of his hand. ‘Martin Warburton I began and Martin Warburton I will end.’
‘Yes, but not yet. You’ve got a long time yet. A lot to enjoy. You need help, and there are people who will give you help.’
Martin’s eyes narrowed. ‘The police are after me.’
‘I know, but they only want to help you too.’ This was greeted by a snort of laughter. ‘They do. Really. We all want to help. Just talk. You can talk to me.’
Martin looked at him suspiciously. Charles felt conscious of the sun, the beautiful view of Edinburgh spread out below them. A peaceful Sunday afternoon in the middle of the Festival. And a young man with thoughts of suicide. ‘Don’t do it, Martin. All the pressures you feel, they’re not your fault. You can’t help it.’
‘Original Sin,’ said the boy, as if it were a great joke. ‘I am totally evil.’
‘No.’
For a moment there was hesitation in the eyes. Charles pressed his advantage. ‘Come down from there and talk. It’ll all seem better if you talk about it.’
‘Talk? What about the police?’ Martin was wavering.
‘Don’t worry about the police.’
Martin took a step towards him. Their eyes were interlocked. The boy’s were calm and dull; then suddenly they disengaged and looked at something over Charles’ shoulder. Charles turned to see that two policemen had joined the edge of the growing crowd.
When he looked back, he saw Martin Warburton launch himself forward like a swimmer at the start of a race.
But there was no water and it was a long way down.
And Brian Cassells got another good publicity story.