Breaking the Circle, page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Also by M.J. Trow From Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
The Real Margaret Murray
Also by M.J. Trow from Severn House
A Margaret Murray mystery
FOUR THOUSAND DAYS
A Geoffrey Chaucer mystery
THE KNIGHT’S TALE
THE YEOMAN’S TALE
The Kit Marlowe series
DARK ENTRY
SILENT COURT
WITCH HAMMER
SCORPIONS’ NEST
CRIMSON ROSE
TRAITOR’S STORM
SECRET WORLD
ELEVENTH HOUR
QUEEN’S PROGRESS
BLACK DEATH
THE RECKONING
The Grand & Batchelor series
THE BLUE AND THE GREY
THE CIRCLE
THE ANGEL
THE ISLAND
THE RING
THE BLACK HILLS
LAST NOCTURNE
BREAKING THE CIRCLE
M.J. Trow
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First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2023
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.
Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2023
by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.
This eBook edition first published in 2023 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
severnhouse.com
Copyright © M.J. Trow and Maryanne Coleman, 2023
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of M.J. Trow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-5070-6 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0832-3 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0831-6 (e-book)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
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ONE
The sounds of the city seldom found their way into this little room, chosen deliberately because it was at the back of the slightly run-down house. Sometimes, a shrill call of a coster would impinge, but today, not even commerce could break the suffocating silence. Two people sat at the table, opposite each other, one, dressed in a light coat leaning back casually, the other, in a flowered housedress, leaning forward, her head cradled in her arms, apparently asleep.
‘Have you ever thought,’ the lounging one said, ‘whether if a tree falling in a forest with no one there makes a sound?’
There was no reply.
‘Nothing to say? Well, of course, the correct answer is that God would hear, but I don’t know whether you are of that opinion, are you?’
The visitor made a rueful face – it was always so rude when people didn’t answer a civil question. The silence was briefly broken by the squeal of a chair being pushed back on worn linoleum.
‘Well, I must be off. It has been, as always, an absolute pleasure. But you’ll excuse me, I know, if next time I visit one of your colleagues. We just don’t seem to be getting anywhere, do we?’
There was a sniff as sensitive nostrils snuffed the air.
‘And I have never been able to abide the smell of mulligatawny.’
With a small sigh, the door opened and closed, leaving Muriel Fazakerley to settle down just a little further into her bowl of soup, cooling and congealing in the quiet, airless little room. Outside the blossom might be bravely shaking its petals in the spring breeze, the air singing with the joy of the reborn sun. But Muriel Fazakerley had passed beyond the veil, and would never smell a London May day again.
Early May in Bloomsbury. The fogs of winter had long gone and the trees around Gower and Malet Streets were heavy with blossom. Not that Margaret Murray had time for such irrelevance. Most ladies of her social class would be rising with the aid of a maid or three, taking breakfast in bed and considering the wardrobe for the day. In Margaret’s case, she had already battled her way on the omnibus, wedged between a gentleman with shoulders like tallboys and a woman who was clearly a martyr to catarrh.
Margaret had an important meeting that morning, a confrontation, she feared, with Mr Bernard Quaritch of Bernard Quaritch, Publishers of that Ilk, regarding her new book, Elementary Egyptian Grammar. It had all gone very well at first. Mr Quaritch – ‘Dear lady, do, I beg of you, call me Bernard’ – had been most complimentary and had spun worlds of fame and fortune in the air. Then, it had started to go a little pear-shaped, and from being ‘dear lady’, she had become ‘par hempt’ as the ancient Egyptians would have it, as in ‘Keep par hempt away from me, she is driving me insane!’ All she wanted was for the artist to rein himself in. The eagles, dogs, vultures and flies of the hieroglyphs did not, she had told him numerous times, need to have small, appealing faces. If she had wanted flights of fancy, she would have asked Ernest Shepard, who she happened to know was always on the lookout for work. In vain had she told Mr Quaritch that all that was needed was a simple line. The page proofs kept coming back looking like a galley for Punch.
Today was make or break. She would tell Bernard Quaritch, and brook no argument, that the world of academe was waiting with bated breath for the volume. Flinders Petrie himself had given her his seal of approval. Professor Virchov had written from Berlin to say how impressed he was – perhaps not unsurprisingly, as she had given him a shameless plug on the first page. But of course, from fellow archaeologist Arthur Evans, there was not a word. But first, she needed to have a word with Mrs Plinlimmon and have someone make her a cup of tea.
She flashed her dimples at Kirby, the man at the door who carried the keys of the dead and, hauling up her skirts, bounded up the stairs to her inner sanctum. Jack Brooks was there already, of course, except that his face was invisible behind the Telegraph. Margaret flicked the paper with a practised finger and thumb and the young man nearly fell off his chair.
‘Sorry, Professor,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘Clearly not.’ Margaret unpinned her hat. She was not actually a professor, but a quiet inner vanity stopped her from correcting the boy. ‘At least it’s the Telegraph, so I don’t have to do that tiresome joke about you being behind the times.’
There was no fear of that. Jack Brooks was one of the Brooks of Hertfordshire, a family that had stood staunchly behind every Tory prime minister since the elder Pitt. There was absolutely no chance that Jack would be seen dead reading The Times.
‘Tea, Professor?’ He folded the paper carefully.
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ and she sorted her papers as he clattered the crockery. ‘What was so riveting in the Telegraph?’
‘Well,’ Brooks set about warming the pot, ‘it’s quite intriguing, really. Something that might interest you.’
‘Oh?’
‘Lights,’ he said, reaching for the paper and sitting down again. ‘Strange lights seen in Wales.’
Margaret sat down too. ‘Say on.’
Brooks found the relevant article. ‘Merthyr Tydfil,’ he read. ‘Last Thursday. A clergyman – or at least, a Unitarian minister – was making his way home from a friend’s house when he saw three or four circles of light in the night sky. There was no street lighting where he was and the lights were in the form of orbs that moved independently.’
‘Was this near water?’ she asked.
Brooks glanced quickly through the article – it was no use being inaccurate when it came to conversations with Dr Murray. ‘Doesn’t say,’ he confirmed. ‘Why?’
‘Marsh gas,’ she said, ‘or something of that sort. Some ponds glow with an eerie light.’
‘Yes, but marsh gas doesn’t bob about all over the place, does it? Independently, I mean?’
‘I suppose not,’ she said. ‘How large were these lights?’
‘About the size of tennis bal
Margaret was as mystified as Brooks. ‘If the reverend had been an Anglican,’ she said, ‘or a Roman Catholic, I would have suspected the old vino sacro, but I don’t think the Unitarians partake, do they? Still, who’s to say how much he may have consumed at the friend’s house?’
‘That’s probably it,’ Brooks said as the gas hissed under the kettle.
‘It probably is,’ she smiled, ‘and, if I may say so, those hallucinations pale into insignificance alongside the edicts of Amenhotep. How are your translations coming along?’
‘I’ll get right on to it, Professor,’ Brooks smiled, folding away his newspaper. ‘As soon as I have made the tea.’
Detective Sergeant Andrew Crawford had already read it twice. And he was still grinning from ear to ear when he hurtled down Whitehall and took a sharp left into Clarence Place. The Yard loomed above him, as it had for the last ten years now, never the opera house it had been intended to be but the most famous police headquarters in the world. France had the Quai d’Orsay; Germany, Wilhelmstrasse; America more precincts than Ancient Rome. But there was only one Scotland Yard and Andrew Crawford was crossing its threshold once again.
He called cheerily to the desk man. ‘Any joy on the lift, Nacker?’
The desk man shook his head. ‘Week Thursday,’ he said. ‘Apparently – and I quote – “There has been an unprecedented upsurge in the demand for elevating machinery”. And we’re twenty-eighth on the list.’
Crawford grunted and made for the stairs.
‘Our business is important to them, though, they assured me of that,’ Nacker called after him and Crawford didn’t doubt it for a moment.
The Yard’s staircase didn’t faze a man like Andrew Crawford. Older coppers knew it as the treadmill, but he was still the right side of thirty and fit as a flea. He burst in to the offices on the second floor, A Division, detectives for the use of. His boss was already there.
‘Good of you to call, Detective Sergeant,’ John Kane said, looking over his rimless spectacles at the lad. Kane didn’t usually do sarcasm, but there were limits.
‘Sorry I’m late, guv,’ Crawford chirped. ‘Horse down in the Aldwych.’
‘Always,’ Kane sighed. ‘And the Tube?’
‘Leaves on the line round Ealing Broadway.’
‘In May?’
Crawford smiled. ‘No one said how long they had been there.’
Kane tutted. Then he caught sight of the folded paper under the arm of his number two. ‘Are you reading what I’m reading?’ he asked.
Crawford grabbed a chair. ‘The Telegraph, God bless ’em. The Stratton brothers! The Mask Murders. We did it!’
‘That we did, lad.’ Inspector Kane knew that neither of them had been involved in that case, but he knew what Crawford meant and they shook hands. The first felons to be sentenced to death based on the evidence of their fingerprints. It was a milestone and both men knew it. ‘More work for the Billingtons, I suppose,’ he shrugged, ‘on a chilly morning in Wandsworth.’
‘Forgive me, guv.’ Crawford sensed his boss’s mood. ‘You don’t sound as chipper about all this as I had expected.’
‘Read the small print, son.’ Kane stabbed the newspaper with his finger. ‘That overpaid shit Curtis Bennett, for the defence, did his best to undermine the march of science. Luckily, the jury didn’t fall for it, but that old fart Mr Justice Channel – why they named a stretch of water after him, I can’t imagine – said he didn’t think the jury should convict on fingerprint evidence alone. The assistant commissioner’s having kittens.’
‘Still, job done, eh?’ Crawford held his ground. ‘And two more murderous bastards will be walking the walk at Wandsworth any day now.’
‘Indeed they will,’ Kane nodded. ‘Indeed they will.’
Edmund Reid looked out of his study window over the beach and the glittering sea. How long, he wondered, would this view survive? Kent, he had warned everybody since he had moved to Hampton-on-Sea, was falling into the water, inch by inch, foot by foot.
Where was he before he was distracted by the view? Ah, yes. He dipped his pen into the inkwell again and continued his sentence, the second-most-vitriolic in his latest missive to the Council – ‘Hampton has no roads, paths, lights, sewer, water or dust collector, nor any residents receiving parish relief despite an annual payment of £40 in rates.’
How should he sign it? Ex-Detective Inspector, Scotland Yard? The man who hunted Jack the Ripper? The inspiration for the Inspector Dier series of novels? Balloonist? Conjuror? Tenor? No. He would just sign it ‘Reid’ and the Council could add any adjective they liked.
He put the pen away and stretched and yawned. He reached for the Telegraph lying untidily across his desk. The Stratton brothers – that was good; at last, an edge for the rule of law. That nonsense about weird lights in the sky – it could only happen in Wales. Then, his eyes fell for the first time on a little piece he’d missed. He read it aloud, as if to remind the gulls, screaming and wheeling outside his home, that they did not rule the air alone.
‘Famous Sensitive Found Dead. Police Baffled.’
The whole thing sounded archaic. Nobody had called a medium a sensitive for years. And as for ‘Police Baffled’ – that sounded like one of the better lines of the ever-predictable Arthur Conan Doyle, whose ludicrous detective creation Sherlock Holmes was advertised as about to make a comeback. Joy! People like the violin-playing cocaine addict of Baker Street gave real private detectives like Reid a bad name. And as for the dead medium, old habits died hard and ex-Inspector Reid found himself drawn to the scanty details as if he was looking down at a body in a mortuary.
The Famous Sensitive looked neither famous nor sensitive, laid out on a slab in the mortuary of Vine Street Police Station. She had not been a beauty in life and the police mortuary attendant was not a mortician, but he had felt sorry for the poor soul, found face down in her soup at her solitary table, so he had done his best with her, washing her face and getting the worst of the mulligatawny out of her hair. Her sister, standing now looking down at her, her handkerchief a sodden ball clutched in her hand, appreciated it, he could tell.
‘Mrs Whitehouse, is this your sister, Muriel Fazakerley?’ the police constable in attendance asked. ‘I know it’s upsetting, but we need a positive identification, if you don’t mind.’
The woman looked up at him, her eyes dark pools of tears and nodded, clamping her lips together. ‘Only … she didn’t go by Muriel, not these days,’ she said.
The police constable narrowed his eyes and thought of the pile of paperwork he had amassed on the dead woman. ‘Had she changed her name by deed poll?’ he asked, tersely.
‘Oh, no, dear.’ The dead sensitive’s sister couldn’t help calling the constable ‘dear’. He looked just like her youngest, only just out of short trousers. She gave another sniff; it was true what they said, about policemen looking younger the older you got. ‘She just used her other name for business, you know. She said to me, “Maudie,” she said, “Nobody’s going to come to Muriel Fazakerley to get told whether Auntie is happy in the Beyond and what’s going to win the 12.50 at Plumpton.”’
The constable drew himself up. The woman may be dead, but he was still on the lookout for any misdemeanours. ‘She claimed to tell the future?’ he rapped out. ‘That’s illegal, that is.’
Maud Whitehouse was a patient woman, made so by the brood of children she had given birth to and waved from her door with varying degrees of pleasure or regret. It was just her and Alf, her husband, now, and young Alfred, off on an apprenticeship soon, or her name wasn’t Maud Whitehouse. But she had had enough of this wet-behind-the-ears lad and his stupid questions. She took one final, enormous sniff and stowed her handkerchief up her sleeve. ‘Illegal, is it?’ she snapped. ‘Illegal? Oh, goodness, we’ll have to wake her up and arrest her. Are you going to do it, or shall I? She’s sometimes a little hard to rouse in the mornings.’ And to the horror of the mortuary attendant and the constable, she took her sister by the shoulders and shook her, hard. ‘Come on, Muriel,’ she shouted into the dead face. ‘Wake up.’
