D. Mitchell - The King of Terrors

‘Yes, sir; Nobby.’

‘Can’t see your problem. Nobby Stiles was a hero of mine. He helped lift the World Cup for us back in ’66. Skinny, bald, gap-toothed and not very pretty, but a hero all the same.’

‘So you say. But Nobby has other connotations these days, as you are well aware. Anything but Nobby, is all I’m saying.’

‘Let me think about it,’ said Stafford lifting the gate catch and strolling down the path. He looked back over his shoulder. ‘Yeah, this is the one, Nobby!’ He saw Styles curl his lip and he smiled inwardly. Young pups should always know who the top dog is, he thought. Didn’t hurt to remind them now and again, especially someone as irritatingly ambitious and self-centred as Styles. ‘Sort of place you’d half-expect a historian to live, ain’t it? House on its last legs, garden overgrown, weather damp and dreary. Northern.’

‘You’ve make it perfectly clear; history is not your thing.’

‘Hated the fucking subject,’ he said with venom. ‘Dry old farts lecturing me about dry old dates that no one gives a toss about.’

‘Except for ’66, of course’ he said.

‘That’s not history!’ he retorted.

‘It is to me,’ Styles drove home with a wry smile. ‘Positively medieval.’ He looked back at the high hills, the clouds wrapping themselves around their summits like gauzy scarves. ‘We learn from the past,’ he continued. ‘Or at least we should do, if people’s minds are open to it and they want to learn.’

‘Bollocks!’ scoffed Stafford.

‘My point exactly.’

‘Nobody learns from history,’ he said. ‘That’s a joke. Talking of which, did you hear the one about the new origami museum?’

‘No, sir,’ he said absently.

‘It folded.’

‘Great.’

‘Or the calculator museum?’

‘If you must.’

‘It didn’t work out.’

‘Your point being, sir?’

‘My point being history is like the pencil museum.’

‘And that is?’

‘Pointless!’

Styles stopped before the door, its paint peeling or scuffed away to reveal past incarnations of colour. ‘That’s not true. The book is a case in point,’ he said, pointing at the volume of True Crimes in Stafford’s hand. ‘What point is there in being here unless we want to learn something from the past, find a connection?’ He reached for the brass doorknocker, so in need of a clean that it looked as if it had been smeared in green-brown boot polish.

‘Yeah, whatever you say,’ he said absently. ‘The curtains are all drawn,’ he noticed.

Styles rapped the knocker hard. Presently the door opened, a gloomy hallway glimpsed sketchily beyond. Whoever opened the door remained unseen behind it.

‘Hello?’ said Stafford.

‘Please come in,’ a disembodied voice invited. ‘I take it you are DCI Stafford?’

Stafford stepped over the threshold, Styles following close behind. A man stood in shadow behind the door. ‘That’s right,’ Stafford said, ‘and this is DI Styles. You are Charles Rayne?’

The man closed the door swiftly, whipped back a thick curtain to cover it entirely. ‘That’s correct. Please forgive me,’ he said warmly, reaching out and flicking on a light switch. ‘My condition,’ he explained. ‘I have to avoid all sunlight.’

Stafford did his best to hide his surprise at seeing the old man before him. His face was a mass of tumour-like growths, particularly down the left-hand side of his face. His lips looked painfully cracked and sore, his eyes rimmed red. His white hair had all but fallen out, clumps of it desperately clinging onto the yellow skin of his head. There were growths on the top of his skull too, above the ear. He held out a gloved hand for Stafford to shake.

‘Don’t be alarmed; it isn’t contagious.’

‘No, of course not,’ Stafford said, shaking his hand.

‘Over the years my exposure to sunlight has caused me to have a few skin problems, as you can see. It is more unsightly than harmful. Is that the book?’ Rayne said. ‘Can I see it?’

The officer handed it over. ‘Your grandfather was a famous man in his time. A good police officer by all accounts,’ Stafford complimented.

Charles Rayne handled the book carefully, delicately almost. ‘This is a rare thing. I knew it existed, but assumed they had all been destroyed. I have never been able to track one down.’

‘It belonged to a colleague of yours,’ said Styles. ‘Carl Wood.’

‘Carl? Oh, yes, poor Carl.’

‘You heard about his death, obviously,’ said Stafford.

‘Oh yes. Very sad. Very sad. Though we had not seen each other in perhaps ten years or so. I did not know he had a copy of this.’ Then he smiled. ‘Sorry, how rude of me, keeping you standing in the hallway like this. Please come through to the living room. Can I get you something to drink? Tea, perhaps?’

‘No tea,’ said Styles abruptly. ‘No thank you; we had something on the way here, sir.’ They followed the man down the hall and through into another room.

‘It’s a little untidy,’ said Rayne apologetically. ‘I live on my own and I dedicate my time to my work. It sort of takes over. One grows used to living in it and not seeing it.’

The curtains were fully drawn and obviously made of a very hefty material designed to keep out all the light. The artificial light was bright enough, mainly provided by an array of lamps. They lit up a room dominated by bookcases crammed full of old leather volumes, modern hardbacks and piles of well-loved paperbacks. There was a desk on which a VDU peered from behind precarious stacks of papers and cardboard files, more paper and box files stacked on the floor against the walls. If this were his living room, thought Stafford, he’d hate to see the office.

‘Reminds me of my desk,’ Stafford said, and then thought better of it. ‘I mean, I accumulate paper, tons of it, even though it’s supposed to be a paperless office.’

Rayne shrugged. ‘I did try and tidy it up a little, knowing I had visitors coming, but it might not be immediately apparent to the untrained eye.’ He swept his hand in the direction of a sofa. ‘Please, make yourself comfortable.’

The two officers sat down. ‘Styles here says you’re quite the famous historian. A number of books published and all that.’

‘More than just a number of books,’ Styles interjected. ‘I read Shining a Light on the Dark Ages — a seminal volume. Mr Rayne’s work is highly regarded. They gave you honorary degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge isn’t that right?’

‘Rayne waved it away. ‘A little difficult to attend the ceremonies, I admit, and not easy to conduct at night or in the dark. Still, I am flattered you have even heard of me. As you can see, I keep myself to myself.’

‘But technology makes the world more accessible,’ said Styles, looking at the computer.

‘In the same way it makes privacy less accessible,’ he returned. ‘You know, holding this book makes me feel closer to my dear grandfather.’ He sat down, opening the volume and fanning through the pages. ‘So this is what you came to see me about?’

‘Your relationship with Carl Wood first, Mr Rayne,’ said Stafford.

‘Like I said, we hadn’t seen each other in a long while.’

‘Mrs Wood informs us that Carl Wood, Howard Baxter and you were part of a little group called the Lunar Club.’

He smiled. ‘That’s right. A long time ago, when we were young. We wanted to change the world, as young people so often do. We met up to discuss theories, have a glass or two of spirits and smoke cigars.’

‘Is that all?’

‘What else could there be? In any event, we stopped meeting a long time ago.’

‘Any particular reason?’ said Styles, cutting across Stafford.