Christopher Fowler - White Corridor

“Thank you, Janice.” Giles raised his head and smiled ruefully at her. “I won’t let any of you down, I promise. What amazes me is how Arthur figured out the truth.”

“Oh, he’ll have read the answer in some dusty old book,” said Longbright, smiling to herself.

Arthur Bryant stood at the dark tunnel entrance and listened. The reflected light from the snow only lit the first five feet of the track, and he had left the Valiant, May’s trusty cinema torch, on the dashboard of the van. He looked back at Ryan, anchored to the bushes, and slowly advanced into darkness.

He heard dripping water, a click of flint. There was a scuffling sound somewhere ahead of him, a brush of material against rough brick. He was now moving in total darkness. By sliding one foot before the other around the edges of the sleepers, he was able to avoid the rails, staying close against the right-hand wall of the tunnel.

“I know you’re there,” Bryant called gently. “And I think I know the truth about you.”

There was a fresh sound of displaced gravel, much closer now. He stopped and listened to someone else’s ragged breathing. He was wondering whether to go further, and suddenly realised that he was afraid. Not for himself-death had long since ceased to hold any terrors-but because something was very wrong, and had been for a while now. This, he thought, is my hour of reckoning, the descent of my black angel.

He took a step forward, then another, still feeling for the edges of the sleepers. The bitter blanket of blackness pressed in on him, for it was even colder in the tunnel than it had been outside. It seemed that he could smell the cuprous tang of metal and coal-soot, although no steam trains had passed through here in decades.

His right boot pressed against something soft. Lowering himself to a crouch, he reached forward and felt around. The body lying beside the track was still warm to the touch, but there was no longer a pulse in its wrist.

“What are you doing?” asked May as Maggie snatched the mobile from him.

“Come on, we both feel it,” she told him, “a deviant force at work, trying to fool us into making a mistake. We can’t fight it alone, two elderly men and a crazy lady of a certain age coping with her psychic senses and a hip replacement; we need help, so that’s what I’m going to get us.” She punched out the number of the PCU. “Hello, dear, to whom am I speaking? Well, if it’s a wrong number why did you answer the phone? Anyway, it’s not; get me April on the phone, would you? John May’s granddaughter-yes, I suppose that does make her name April May. Well, she probably never told you because she was embarrassed.” She pursed her lips at the phone. “This is no laughing matter, young man, put me through at once!”

“Got her,” said April, running down the list of names on her computer with the phone propped under her chin. “Kate Summerton went to jail on seven counts of fraud the first time in 1998, second time for receiving stolen goods and intent to deceive in 2002. Address, twenty-four Cranmere Road, Greenwich SE-10, and there’s a phone number. We’ll get someone to call her right now and put the frighteners on her. No, not literally, Maggie, it’s an expression I heard on the telly.”

“That’s good,” said Maggie. “I thought you were referring to shape-shifters.”

April jotted down the number, tore off the strip of paper, and passed it to Bimsley. “I hear Uncle Arthur managed to resolve our investigation at Bayham Street. Perhaps we can return the compliment and do the same with his. Colin, we need everything you can get on a Madeline Gilby, she’s a client of this woman.”

Meera came into April’s office with a folded page in her hand. “Your grandfather wants a check run for these names on your ICDb,” she explained. “He’s on the line, waiting for an answer. They’re all supposed to be victims of the bloke they’re looking for on Dartmoor. Can you do it right now?”

April looked at the piece of paper. “This is an Indian takeaway menu,” she said.

“Other side.”

April turned the sheet over and entered the names into the International Criminal Database: Pascal Favier, Patrice Bezard, Johann Bellocq, Edward Winthrop, Paulo Escobar, Pierre Castel.

She took Meera’s phone and transferred it to a speaker while she typed. “Easy, Granddad, they’re coming up on my screen, all well-known cases by the look of it. Johann Bellocq was born in Marseilles, then moved to the family home near the village of Roquebrune, Alpes-Maritimes, charged with manslaughter for beating his mother to death in March 1986, but the judge commuted his sentence to a stay in a mental hospital due to the extenuating circumstances of the case, which he called ”devastatingly sad.“ Bellocq was released five years later. Bezard was executed in Normandy for the murder of his wife in 1945, likewise Escobar for the same crime in Paris in 1958. Winthrop was a lawyer murdered by his client, Pascal Favier, in 2004 in Marseilles; they never caught Favier. Castel was jailed for the murder of his mother in La Rochelle in 1976. They’re all in a book, Famous French Trials of the 20th Century by Edith Corbeau, published in France two years ago by J’ai Lu, currently available here in paperback from Transworld.”

“My God,” said May. “I’ve just seen that book today. Madeline Gilby had a copy of it in her handbag.” He broke the connection, pocketed the mobile, and turned his attention to opening the envelope Madeline had left in her Toyota’s wheel arch.

He found himself looking at Johann’s old passport, its expiry dated for August the previous year, and ten colour photographs, scenic postcard views of different gardens in bloom at the Villa Rothschild. “She lied to us,” he said. “There are no murder victims here.”

“No, she didn’t lie. I think she genuinely believed she could see them,” said Maggie. “I told you, Madeline is convinced that she has the gift of second sight. Her reality is not yours or mine.”

“Then Arthur is in the gravest possible situation.” May grabbed Maggie’s hand, pushing on towards the distant tunnel.

The ringing telephone pierced the stillness of the terraced Edwardian house. There was a creaking of the shabby leather armchair, a shuffling of tartan slippers. A hand reached for the telephone.

“I’m afraid Mrs. Summerton is not here at present. Can I help? I’m Roger Summerton, her husband.” He listened for a minute. “Yes, blond, very attractive, I remember her well. She’s often here. First came to the refuge after her husband beat her up, but she went back to him a couple of times before finally deciding on a divorce. Oh, she has a history of trouble. I think the same thing happened to her own mother, but I’m sure Mrs. Summerton will be able to give you more information; she’ll be back soon.”

Bimsley scrawled down the details and passed them to April, who called her grandfather back.

John May stopped dead on the great white hill below the railway line. “I’m getting a message,” he said. “My trousers are vibrating.”

Maggie looked delighted. “I knew we would make a believer of you eventually.”

“No, a text message.” He pulled out his mobile.

“Honestly, you get more calls in the middle of the English countryside than you do in your office,” the white witch complained. “I’m surprised anyone can ever get hold of you. And you’re slowing us down.”

“I can’t move any faster than this,” May replied. “If you were a real witch you’d take us up there by broom. Let me read this; I’m being sent important information.”