Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘I am still unclear, Krall, what you hope to achieve by questioning a delusional recluse. What can he know of this drug, or who might have made it? These are matters of the real world.’

Krall’s eyebrows drew together. ‘I am not the first person who thought a recluse with unusual interests might yet do some good.’ Crowther felt his meaning, and his lips thinned. ‘Thing is, Kupfel was a good friend to me before this madness took him. My father died when I was just starting off in life, and without Adam’s advice and guidance I’d have probably lost everything he left me. Many the evening I spent at his house while his son played on the hearth-rug. He had the sharpest mind, and such learning. We would have been in a better state in Maulberg if he had taken the seat where Swann now sits, but such opportunities are available only to those of noble blood.’

‘I see.’

‘I doubt that you do. As to what he can tell us now, for all his madness no man within a hundred miles is as skilled with the methods of distilling and preparing drugs.’

‘Stop dawdling! Think I have all day to wait while you pick apart my history?’

Kupfel had to turn sideways to lead them into his lair, so close did the piles of refuse tumble together, but in the narrow opening Crowther saw a steady glow. As he squeezed through after their host he found himself in a more open space. It was as if they entered a cave, carved from the walls of detritus around them. There was no dust here. Every surface was clean and bright. A fire burned evenly in a huge brick fireplace, and by its light Crowther saw the walls were lined with books. Desk and stool stood to the right, a pair of armchairs to the left, and behind them a door, part-open to show a wall of glass jars and distilling bottles. Kupfel saw where Crowther was looking and went to shut the door, frowning.

‘Sit down then, Benedict, you and your friend. Why do you disturb me? I was reading.’ He said the last with a vicious emphasis. Crowther noticed that Krall looked a little abashed.

‘You have heard of the murder?’ Krall asked.

‘At the Festennacht ? A woman, slaughtered by some hot-blood.’

‘Mr Clode’s guilt is called into question.’

‘Hmm.’ Kupfel curled up in the armchair by the fire like an old dog and began to work his hands over each other. Crowther noticed they were covered in small scars and burns. There was a scar on his neck too which Crowther only noticed now as he twisted sideways in the light of the flames. It lapped his neck on the left side from collarbone to the underside of his chin, the flesh pink and puckered. Some sort of burn, certainly. Vitriol? Without willing it Crowther imagined a vessel exploding, the man turning away to shield his eyes and leaving the flesh of his neck exposed to the clawing liquid. The pain must have been indescribable, and the damage deep. No wonder his voice had that wheeze. How long had it been before Kupfel returned again to the fire? ‘How was she killed?’

Crowther spoke. ‘Drowned. Drowned without sign of restraint or resistance.’

Kupfel bent over the fire and gently shifted one of the logs so it would burn more evenly, then, still stooped, he looked at Crowther. His glasses reflected the flames.

‘Where did you learn your German?’

‘Wittenberg University, largely.’

‘A man of the nobility then. A man of money, to study there. No wonder you talk my language as if you had that stick up your arse.’

Crowther did not react, and remained looking into the flames reflected on the smeared glasses. The Alchemist put his head on one side, then the other. Once Crowther had seen a Persian tempt a snake from the basket with his pipe at a London fair. As he had watched the animal and the man, he had wondered who was influencing whom. The movement of Kupfel’s head made him think of that snake again. There was a tang of sulphur in the air.

‘I had heard in the chop-shop that an Englishman and a widow had come here to declare the hot-head innocent. You’re no widow, so that makes you the anatomist then, I suppose. A man of science.’

‘I am. My name is Gabriel Crowther.’

The reflection of the flames in the Alchemist’s eyeglasses hid his pupils, making him seem slightly inhuman. He bared his black teeth. It seemed he had no interest in Crowther’s name. ‘Pah. Science. Progress! Man can be perfected, but by mystery. By the transformation of the stars he can live through time, raise the dead, become a god, know God.’ He leaned forward, and as he did so, the wheeze in his voice began to sound more like a hiss. His voice was not loud, but so insidious and intense it felt like a finger pressing on Crowther’s eyeballs. He wondered, trying not to listen, what fumes hung around this place. The air was thick, the fire hot. ‘That is wisdom and it comes with sacrifice. Knowledge! Big word for little minds. In your cutting about of the flesh, have you ever found a soul? Found a thought, a dream? Found love?’ He turned away again. ‘Of course not. You’re merely picking through what you can see. You’re like a man dabbling in a pool of ditchwater thinking he examines the moon he saw reflected there. Look up, Mr Crowther, look up!’

‘I do look, Mr Kupfel,’ Crowther said. ‘I look and observe, and I endeavour to understand. But I work with observable fact, not the babble of fantasy and imagination.’

Kupfel waved a hand at him dismissively. ‘How can you understand anything without imagination? Your mind is too small for the Great Work. Too timid and wheedling. You seek little truths. An understanding. Which shows how little you comprehend.’

He sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his coat-sleeve. ‘Why have you brought this man here, Benedict?’

‘Mr Clode — the man we all thought guilty: it seems some preparation was smeared on his mask. Confused his mind, made him see things. There is a suggestion it might contain datura .’

‘Have you brought it?’

‘Yes.’

Kupfel snapped his fingers and Krall produced the mask, carefully wrapped, from his bag and handed it to him. Kupfel sniffed it, and his face changed, stiffened. He looked between his visitors like a rabbit looking between dogs and deciding which way to run.

‘You recognise it,’ Crowther said.

‘Yes, Science Man. Did you say she went quietly …?’

‘She did, but this mask-’ Krall said.

‘Shush, Benedict. It’s all one. No signs of drink? Laudanum? No bruising on the wrists?’

‘No indication in the reports of anything of the sort. But you recognise the smell in the mask, do you not, Herr Kupfel?’

‘I do. And I know the book where the instructions for making it are writ down. It is datura and some other odds and ends, not sure what works and what’s there for the fun. Complicated. Very. Never managed to pick it apart entirely. One stitch wrong and the whole thing unravels. In the same book there’s another receipt, one for a drug that can render people passive. Like dead, but not dead. It lasts some hours, perhaps a day then they wake up again, wander about, think it all a bad dream maybe. Unless you kill them for real. It’s clever. Breathing is suppressed, heart hardly to be felt, the limbs stiffen. They look dead enough to bury. But they live. Poor bastards.’

‘What book, Adam?’ Krall said, leaning forward. ‘In what book are these things writ down?’

Kupfel looked up. ‘Mine. In my book.’

Pegel was on the last page of code, and thought he might actually make it. He had started to sweat and he had to concentrate hard to make sure he made no mistakes in the transcription of the code, but he was close. There was a very soft crunch of footstep on coal on the stair. He thought for a moment of risking it and finishing, but with a wrench he placed the letters back into the Bible and slid it back into its dark corner. The steps on the stairs were getting closer. Fools — they must realise they were making a noise, why not charge at the door? He reached for the hatch to the roof and hauled himself up, then dropped it behind him and looked about the narrow loft. He had been hoping for something bulky to hold the hatch shut. Quickly now. There, a trunk. Lighter than he would have liked, but needs must. He dragged it over just as the door went below. There was a shout of rage. He saw the trap door onto the roof and stepped from beam to beam to reach it, used the crow bar to snap the lock, pushed it open and clambered out.