Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

Stone on two sides. All that solid mahogany above. There was a instant of calm, unutterably sweet.

Langstone’s breathing changed tempo. The table trembled. Rory stared between Langstone’s legs, thick and as solid as an elephant’s, at the half-open door to the cloister. The table grated on the floor. The bastard was trying to drag it away from the wall. Automatically Rory threw his weight against the table leg behind him.

There was a grunt. Then the side of the table nearer the door began to rise. Langstone was lifting it up. Rory’s hands scrabbled for purchase.

And he touched something .

Something that wasn’t made of stone or mahogany. He laid his hand over it. Something dry, angular and hard, equipped with extraordinary jagged edges, ridges, holes and protuberances. This part here, he thought, which was almost straight, was like the teeth of a saw blade.

Like teeth .

Fimberry’s skull. The goat’s head that had come in the post for Mr Serridge, which Fimberry, governed by some strange sense of propriety, had deposited in the Ossuary, the place of the bones.

The table reared up and went over on its side with a thump that seemed to shake the foundations of the chapel. As it rose, Rory uncoiled his body and launched himself like an exploding jack-in-the-box at Langstone. Langstone gave ground, lifting the cosh as he did so.

Rory rammed the goat’s skull into Langstone’s face. The points of the two horns dug into the sockets of his eyes, tearing into soft tissue, jarring on bone.

Langstone shouted. He reeled back, slapping his hands over his face. Rory curled his right hand round one of the horns, raised the skull again and this time brought it down in a sweeping backhand arc. The other horn snapped on impact. Jagged fragments of bone raked through the skin of Marcus’s cheek and ripped into the flesh beneath. Something pattered on the flagstones, like a flurry of sleet.

Goat’s teeth?

Rory ran for the door. There was no one in the cloister. The electric lights were on and the windows were black mirrors. He stumbled over the uneven floor, pain shooting up his left leg from the ankle Langstone had hit with the cosh. He was only halfway down the cloister when he heard footsteps, boot heels slamming against the stones.

He glanced back. Langstone’s face was a blur of blood, with a single eye and white flashes of teeth. Rory staggered on. From behind him came a laugh.

‘It’s locked,’ Langstone said.

Rory looked over his shoulder again. Langstone was swinging the cosh, breathing hard in a series of rhythmic snarls, blood trickling down his face and bubbling beneath his nostrils.

He heard another sound: metal moving on metal: a key turning in a lock.

The door to the outside world swung open. A current of cool air flowed through the cloister. Lydia Langstone was standing on the threshold. Her eyes widened when she saw him.

Rory gaped at her, his mouth open. ‘Run,’ he whispered. ‘Run.’

She stepped closer to him, reached up and grabbed his tie. She yanked it as if it were a lead and he a reluctant dog. He plunged through the doorway and sprawled in a huddle of bruised limbs on the forecourt. He was still holding the remains of the goat’s skull.

As if from a great distance he heard the sound of the key turning in the lock of the door.

For the second time that afternoon, Lydia hurriedly unlocked the door of 48 Rosington Place and pushed it open. She retrieved Rory, who was holding on to the railing beside the door and swaying gently, and towed him into the hall. She shut the door and slipped both bolts across. She turned to look at him.

He had propped himself against the wall; his eyes were closed and he was breathing fast and noisily through his mouth. He had a split lip and perhaps he had lost a tooth or two. Blood trickled over his chin and there were drops of it drying on his tie, his collar and shirt. Just below the left eye, the cheek glowed an angry red. She wondered what had happened to his raincoat and cap.

Lydia stooped and opened the letter flap. No one was within her range of vision. There was just enough light to see that Fimberry’s keys were where she had left them, in the lock of the door to the cloister, preventing Marcus from unlocking the door from the inside. Marcus would have to find another way out or somehow raise the alarm — though in that case he might face awkward questions.

She stood up and looked again at Rory. His eyes were open now. He tried to say something but his words mingled with blood and spittle and emerged as an indistinguishable mumble.

‘There’s a lavatory with a basin at the end of the hall,’ Lydia said.

He tried his weight on his left leg, and winced. ‘Ankle,’ he said.

She knelt down in front of him and rolled up the trouser cuff. He grunted as she eased down the sock and probed the ankle with her fingers. She lifted the leg and moved the foot to and fro and from side to side.

‘I think it’s a sprain or bruising,’ she said, hoping she was right. ‘You’ll have to lean on me and sort of hop if necessary.’

‘Second time,’ he muttered.

‘What?’ As she spoke, she realized he was trying to smile.

‘Second time you’ve done this.’

Come to the rescue? She smiled. ‘We mustn’t let it become a habit.’

‘I don’t know.’ He paused, gathering energy. ‘You’re rather good at it.’

With her supporting him, he hobbled down the hall. He paused at the newel post to draw breath. She was surprised how heavy the weight of his arm over her shoulders became, and surprised at the racket they made in the silent house. He smelled of tobacco and faintly of mothballs, as though his clothes had been hanging too long in a wardrobe somewhere, as perhaps they had. The tweed of his sports jacket felt rough and stiff;off-the-peg stuff.

Once again they moved forward like a wounded crab, his arm still draped over her shoulders.

‘Are you all right?’ he said, his voice much clearer now.

‘It’s you I’m worried about.’

‘I didn’t mean to-’

‘Save your breath.’

Rory was flagging badly. Step by step, they struggled onwards. Lydia kicked open the lavatory door. She manoeuvred him inside, lowered the cover over the pan, and sat him down. His breathing began to quieten. She turned on the Ascot and filled the basin with hot water. There were two damp hand towels on the rail. She used one as a flannel to bathe his face. The water in the basin turned a darker and darker shade of pink. He kept his eyes closed, and she examined the blue veins on the lids. It occurred to her with a little jolt of surprise that this was the first time in her life that she had ever washed anyone other than herself.

‘How does your mouth feel?’ she asked.

The eyes flickered open. ‘Like a battlefield.’

‘Have you lost any teeth?’

‘I don’t think so.’ He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. ‘One’s chipped.’

‘You’re going to have some bruising on your face. I’m not sure what to do about the ankle. Assuming it’s a sprain, we take off the shoe, bandage it up and raise it on a stool or something. The trouble is-’

‘No bandage, no stool,’ he said. ‘Also, if I take the shoe off I’m not sure I’m going to get it on again. Where are we? Is this where you work?’

‘Shires and Trimble are two floors up. I think I’m going to have to get help. You can’t walk out of here. You’ll need a taxi. The problem is we don’t want to get you out while Marcus might still be around.’

He nodded. ‘And I’d better not go back to the flat.’

‘The others were going to Mecklenburgh Square.’

‘I know,’ he said absently. Then he looked sharply at her. ‘But you were with them, weren’t you — Fenella and Dawlish? And that old chap who stood up and started shouting.’