Atticus Fox decided not to sleep that night. Instead, after they had informed a fulminating Sir Hugh of his housekeeper’s death, calmed a profoundly distressed Mr Collier, and after Lucie had settled sufficiently to kiss him goodnight and curl up snugly under the counterpane, Atticus picked up one of the oil lamps. He gathered up his travelling chess set, poured a large glass of chalybeate water from a freshly filled, porcelain jug and slipped out of the door.
His mind was a maelstrom of unconnected facts, suspicions and conjectures and in truth he felt a little like a music hall turn, juggling balls or spinning plates and trying with every ounce of his concentration not to allow any single one of them to drop.
What he desperately needed to do now was to think. He needed to ponder each and every one of his thoughts, relate them somehow to each of the others and then link them all logically together to form that elusive picture that was the identity of the murderer – the murderer who had struck five times now in the space of a single week and three times that very day.
The house was deserted, save for the phantoms and spirits conjured onto the walls by the flame of the lamp. Urth silently watched as he flitted down the stairs and without knowing why, he gave her and her sisters a wide berth on his way to the solitude of the orangery.
He set down the oil lamp, his chess set and his water onto a table and allowed his tension to vent in one long sigh. Then at last, he was able to focus his mind absolutely onto the facts of the case and the clear links between the murders and legends of King Arthur.
There was a very particular link to the supposed relics of Arthur, and he listed them in his mind: the sword, the garter, the bugle horn and then the Hallows themselves; the grail, the lance, Excalibur and the platter.
There had been five murders and there were seven relics. Might they therefore expect two more killings yet? Or were they already too late? Had the killer already committed the murders and, like Bessie Armstrong, did they await only their grisly discovery.
He shuddered at the thought.
Seven relics. There was something else about the number seven that niggled at his mind too, something elusive that he couldn’t quite grasp.
Instinctively he reached for the glass of chalybeate water and the movement reflected in the glass panes of the orangery caught his eye.
There was the horrific butchering of the victims too, and the ripping out of their hearts through the curious X-shaped gashes he or she had made across their torsos. All except Bessie Armstrong that is; the wounds on her body were only superficial.
He suddenly thought of Lucie, quite lovely and absolutely at peace somewhere above him and he felt a momentary urge to join her in the warm, soft bed. But his mind was racing and he knew he could have no such tranquillity. Was she right though? Perhaps Bessie Armstrong’s killer was merely copying the modus operandi of the real murderer. He pictured again, the bloody gashes in her shirt. They were in precisely the same position as those on the other bodies and in the same style of cross – the crux decussata – the style of the Cross of St Andrew and of the saltire.
He moved a white pawn forward across two squares of his chessboard.
St Andrew’s Cross; the symbol of the Scots. For centuries the Scots, and before them the Picts, had ravaged this very land. Was there a connection there perhaps? He turned his chessboard and moved a black pawn to meet the threat from its carved-ivory opponent. No, he was sure, there was not. It was merely a coincidence. The link had to be Arthurian.
The crux decussata was also the Roman numeral for ‘ten,’ from decus meaning honour, glory and, yes, he remembered with a shiver, completeness. Where they to expect ten murders in total therefore and not seven? Again, he thought not. The link to the number seven was too strong, somehow too vivid.
The keys to unlocking the puzzle were the number seven and Arthurian legend. He glanced through the orangery windows into the shadowy blackness of the night beyond and thought of Michael Britton, out there alone somewhere. He had to be the murderer.
Or did he?
Atticus grimaced ruefully as he thought of the statue at the foot of the stairs. If only he could read men’s hearts as the Sisters of the Wyrd could, and write their lives in runes.
Runes!
There was a rune that was formed as a cross – a crux decussata. It was the rune – Atticus frantically searched his memory – it was the rune giefu, the runic character for the modern letter ‘G’ and the symbol for gift. Giefu was the seventh rune and the reason the number seven was considered to be lucky by the ancients.
Dear Lord, could that be it? The seven relics were for seven deaths; perhaps they could also be for seven gifts. But gifts from, and to, whom? And why had the hearts been removed from all of them – all of them barring Bessie Armstrong that was?
A sudden dark shadow falls across Lucie Fox as she lies in her bed and a phantom with piercing blue eyes stands, silent and perfectly still and watches her as she sleeps.
“Do you see her beauty?” whispers Skuld careful not to wake her.
He nods. “Yes.”
“And do you remember our promise to you?”
He nods once more, suddenly breathless.
“There remains only Atticus Fox to offer to us as wergild, and then we will cause Igraine’s spirit to fill her and be yours once again.”
“Thank you.” His voice is husky, barely louder than the thumping of his heart.
“Look at her,” Verthandi commands him.
Obedient to her call, he reaches down to the bedcovers. His hands tremble and his breath begins to catch in his chest. She is quite beautiful.
“LOOK AT HER! You want to, don’t you?”
Yes, he does want to so very much. Gently he lifts the bedcovers and lifts them back. Fingers of moonlight from the annulets cut into the window shutters lie across Lucie’s – no not Lucie’s – Igraine’s cotton nightdress, pure, white and virginal. They lie across her breasts, her slender shoulders, her—
“Touch her now!” Verthandi’s voice is urgent and insistent.
He nods.
His fingertips trickle across her cheek and the sculpted line of her jaw. Her skin is warm and so very soft, so feminine. She gently nuzzles her cheek into the pillow and unwinds her slender neck to his ravenous gaze.
Without waiting for Verthandi to prompt him, Sir Hugh Lowther slips his fingers behind the nape of her neck and gently traces the line of her throat with his thumb. At his touch, her breathing begins to quicken and deepen, and he watches transfixed as her breasts rise and fall in the moonlight against the thin cotton bodice of her nightdress.
“Do you see how she already responds to your touch?” Skuld murmurs, her own voice husky.
Sir Hugh cannot answer her. He stoops and gently touches his lips against hers. They are so soft, so warm, so very much like Igraine’s.
Lucie gently sighs in her sleep and he feels her lips firm and tighten, the soft tip of her tongue probing him.
“NOT NOW, LOWTHER!” Urth’s sharp rebuke shatters the tension and he starts. “She is not yet Igraine. She is still Lucie Fox and you must wait until the madman is shamed and you have slain her husband. But remember the feel of her tit. It is a sign of our promise to you.”
When Lucie Fox stirred from her sleep early the following morning, she shivered. For some reason her blankets and counterpane had fallen off her bed in the night and for some reason she had awoken feeling disturbed and discomforted, just as if she had escaped from a nightmare she could no longer recall.
On the floor below her, Atticus by contrast, was feeling more relaxed than he had in days, calm and strangely energised by his new thought and purpose. True, he was utterly exhausted and true, he could still not quite fit the piece of jigsaw that was the murder of Bessie Armstrong into the puzzle, nor fully comprehend why the hearts of the victims might have been torn out, but at least he had now, if not a theory, then at least the workable basis for one. Unfortunately, that theory also pointed to the fact that the cycle of murders was not yet complete and the knowledge of that remained to greatly trouble his mind.
As he poured the last of the now tepid chalybeate water into his glass, he thought again of his principal suspect, the one who was most likely to hang, with a deep mix of emotions. He was angry of course; angry that the lives of five people had been cut brutally short; angry that the lives of two more were in mortal peril and furious at how that of an eighth was about to be destroyed. But he also felt a great sadness for the agony of the tortured soul who could see no other option in the destiny of his life but that of murder and revenge.