I Hear the Sirens in the Street

bottom. A narrow passage lead to a door which said: No Entry Except By Authorised Personnel.

I pushed on the door and entered the chamber. It was like a cave really and everything a cave should be: big, cathedral-like, sonorous, intimidating and impressive.

Two bright arc lamps lit the white, chalky and oddly beautiful walls and cast shadows deep into the back recess of the cavern. To one side there were several metal cupboards and in the middle of the room Emma McAlpine was sitting on a sofa next to a generator which didn’t appear to be running. (How the lights were working was the first of the several mysteries.)

She must have heard me coming down the ladder but she did not look up.

“What are you reading?” I asked. “It’s not the Bible, is it?”

“Inspector Duffy,” she said, and set the book on her lap. It had yellow binding; not many Bibles had yellow covers, not even The Good News.

She was dressed in jeans, an Aran sweater and a wax jacket. Riding boots, of course, but she had kicked those off. Her hair was tied back in a pony tail. Under the fluorescent lights she looked wan, sickly, not a million miles removed from Elizabeth Siddal in Ophelia.

I walked towards her. “I get the feeling that you were expecting me,” I said.

“Why would I be?”

“Because you heard the news.”

She nodded. “Inspector Dougherty. I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry for what?”

“Dougherty was a brother officer, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like some tea? I brought a flask. It’s already made up with milk and sugar. Scandalous, I know.”

“Sure.”

“Have a seat.”

I sat next to her on the leather sofa. She smelled of horse and sweat and leather. The sofa was covered in a layer of powdery white shit from the crumbling ceiling; I brushed myself a space with the back of my hand and sat down. She produced a flask with a paisley design on the side, unscrewed the plastic lid and poured a cup of tea into a white plastic mug.

“I also brought a flask of gin, if you want to slip that in there,” she said, as if that would be the most natural thing in the world.

“No, you’re all right, thanks.”

I took the tea, which was weak and very sweet. The way I liked it. The type of tea you were supposed to give to people to stop them going into shock.

“Dougherty came to see you, didn’t he?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“What about?”

“I think he may have been drunk. He had certainly been drinking.”

“What did he talk to you about?”

“In an extremely vulgar manner he demanded to know exactly where I had been when Martin got shot.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him that I was in the kitchen.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He said that he didn’t believe me. He said that I wasn’t telling him everything.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“I told him that no one could call me a liar in my own home and I asked him to leave.”

“And did he leave?”

“No. He did not. He abused me in the most disgraceful language. At one point I felt that he was going to strike me.”

“And then?”

“Well, then he did leave, but not before melodramatically promising that he would return.”

I rubbed my chin and leaned back into the sofa cushions.

“But he didn’t return, did he?”

“No.”

“Did he call you or have any other communication with you?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t go see him?”

“Of course not.”

She looked at me. Her blue eyes were not entirely pleasant. They radiated an icy quality. Not quite contempt but not far off it. Distance, a lack of concern.

“What are you reading?” I asked in a lower register.

“It isn’t the Bible, since you ask.”

“The Bible was on my mind. Someone called me up and asked me to meet them and when I went there they had left a note,” I explained, leaving out the chase scene.

“That sounds like fun,” she said. “What did the note say?”

“It was a Bible verse.”

“And?”

“‘Now I see through a glass darkly.’”

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea.”

She grinned and slapped her thigh. “Oh, I get it. You thought I was reading the Bible and that maybe I was the person who left you the note, is that it?”

“It was a woman on the phone. But it was an English woman.”

“Maybe I was disguising my voice.”

“Maybe you were.”

“I didn’t call you and I didn’t leave you a note. How would I get your number anyway?”

“I’m in the book.”

“Oh.”

“And I went to see your brother-in-law.”

“Why?”

“Just to be nosey.”

“And what did you find out?”

“His cars are in a bad way.”

“His cars?”

“The Bentley and the Roller. Beautiful machines sadly gone to pot. He should at least keep them in a garage.”

“Are you aware of the Japanese concept of mono no aware, the bitter sweetness of things?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“The Japanese sages say the best way to appreciate beauty is to focus on its transient, fragile and fleeting nature.”

I nodded. “Is that what your brother-in-law’s doing? I thought he was just a careless fucker.”

“And what else did you learn from your visit to Red Hall?” she asked.

“He’s a knight. It’s Sir Harry McAlpine. He’s been to see the Queen. Somebody gave him a knighthood.”

She shook her head. “Nobody gave him a knighthood. He’s a baronet.”

“What’s a baronet when it’s at home?”

“It’s the lowest order of peerage.”

I must have looked blank because she elaborated. “It goes Prince, Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Baron,