Among the Mad (30 page)

She followed Croucher along Warren Street, and because
the street was busy with people going in and out of the pubs—perhaps a little
more raucous than usual on the last night of the year—she parked the MG where
it could be seen by the police and then continued on foot, keeping Croucher in
view. Where was MacFarlane? Was she being observed without her knowledge?
Croucher continued on, and she wondered why he had not stepped off the bus
earlier, when he’d had the opportunity, opposite Great Portland Street
underground station. He could have simply walked across the road from there.
Maisie allowed a distance to grow between Croucher and herself. It occurred to
her that he might know he was being followed and was testing his theory by
taking a circuitous route to his destination. With each step as she drew
farther away from the more populated area around Warren Street, she knew she
was on her own.

Turning again, this time into the top end of Cleveland
Street, Croucher snaked back and forth across neighboring streets until he
stopped at the top of a flight of steps leading down into a basement flat. She
stepped back into the shadows when he stopped and looked behind him. Though she
could only see him as a gray shape in the darkness, she was aware that it was
only after he had scanned back and forth several times that he began his
descent. She approached the house with care and took stock of the neighborhood.

It was said of the environs of Fitzroy Square—and they
were not far from the square—that a peer could sit next to a plumber at supper,
and neither would feel the worse for it. There were well-appointed houses
adjacent to tenements, and clean properties neighboring slums. There were
mansions where two people lived in comfort, and bed-sitting rooms where the
landlord asked no questions, as long as the rent was paid. Some had only the
soot-covered walls to look out upon, and others had compact walled gardens,
where a riot of color fought against the grayness of buildings assaulted by
smoke and damp. She could see that Croucher had come to visit someone who lived
in a cold-water flat, cheap accommodation for a person on the bread line—an
ugly place to live for someone who could not afford anything more, where the
occupants vanished into the night, and were all but invisible during the day.
It was a place where a sense of disenfranchisement could grow unchecked, where
disappointment and despair were bedfellows, where a clammy damp kept the blood
cold, and where warmth was sucked out, along with hope.

Peering over the iron railing, Maisie saw the pale
light from an oil lamp grow, as if the occupant lived in the dark, but now,
with a visitor, turned up the wick to illuminate the room. She moderated her
breathing, placing the fingers of her right hand against her coat, just three
fingers width below her waist, balancing herself so that she would breathe with
ease, and move with dexterity. She looked around, just in case MacFarlane’s men
had discovered her whereabouts and help was on its way, but could wait no
longer. She made her way down the steps and stood against the wall alongside
the window.

The men’s voices were low, almost indistinct. A few
seconds passed, then there was movement toward the window, and she heard the
voice of the man she knew to be the one for whom she searched. His words were
thick, as if the man’s gullet itself were mucus-filled. He cleared his throat
and wheezed, coughing before he spoke again.

“I don’t need you to protect me, Croucher. I am able
to look after myself. You have shown kindness, in bringing me food.”

“You’ve got to look after yourself, sir. You need
better food, and I can’t always get it.”

“Don’t worry. It will soon be all over, anyway.”

“What do you mean, sir, what do you mean?” Croucher’s
voice escalated in tone, edged with a whine, as if he were a man facing the
inevitable. Maisie frowned. The tone of the porter’s response suggested he was
trying to control the man in the flat, and was without power against his will.

“I mean, it’s almost over. Midnight. Then they’ll
see.”

“But you can’t, please don’t do it. I can’t cover for
you anymore. The Dobbs woman came back to see Lawrence this evening—didn’t make
an appointment first, just came to the hospital. I know she’s after you, I know
she’ll find you. I’ve seen her type—she’s a terrier.”

Keep your mouth shut and leave. Leave now . . . Maisie
whispered into the cold night, knowing Croucher was playing with fire. Don’t
say another word, just leave.

“I think you should just lie down, sir. Let me make
you a nice broth, or a cup of tea—look, I’ve brought you some bits and pieces
of food. Slim pickings today, but enough to keep you going.”

Maisie flinched upon hearing something crash to the
ground—a jar, perhaps, or a can and two or three items. Had the man swept
Croucher’s offerings from the table? She held her breath again as he raised his
voice.

“I don’t want your pity, and I don’t want you telling
me what to do.”

The man slurped as he spoke.

It’s him, I know—it is him! thought Maisie.

“But I’m only trying to help—”

A dull thud made Maisie flinch again. Had the man been
pushed too far? Had he assaulted Croucher, perhaps with a sturdy walking stick,
one with a steel tip, perhaps, or brass handle? She closed her eyes and
imagined a cane brought against a head at a certain angle with weight behind
it, and she knew that Croucher was down, and probably unconscious. He might
even be dead.

She closed her eyes and in that moment asked for guidance,
asked a God she had doubted on many an occasion to aid her, for she knew—knew
in the gut—that when the man left the flat, it would be with the intent to kill
and he would not kill just one person. In the distance she heard a clock chime.
It was past eight o’clock. Crowds would be congregating on the steps of St.
Paul’s. People were already in the pubs—one only had to walk along to Charlotte
Street to see that both rich and poor alike were merrymaking. With barely a
sound she stepped up into the street and looked both ways. Nothing. No sign of
the men from Special Branch. She had hoped the police would find her
distinctive MG and then conduct a sweep-search of the neighboring streets. If
the man left his flat, she couldn’t wait for them to arrive—she would have to
stop him before he set foot on the street. At risk to her own life, she had to
prevent him leaving.

THE MAN PULLED BACK his chair and watched blood ooze
from Croucher’s broken skull into a shallow puddle on the floor. He felt a
coldness take over his body. It was not a chill that was the opposite of
heat—he had, in any case, become used to the cold and damp, though sometimes it
brought him down, took away his strength so that he could not emerge from his
bed. No, this was another biting numbness. It was the thread of unfeeling that
ran through his body as mercury runs in a line through a thermometer, the
weight of the matter channeled along the tunnels of life, taking from him all
sensitivity, all sense of horror, so that even when he regarded Croucher as his
skin grew cold and his bones stiff, the man felt nothing. No shame, no sadness,
no fear, no . . . nothing. If he had a soul, he could feel it no longer.

He looked down at Croucher as if observing an
experiment, watched the blood coagulate and stop in a pool, then thicken, so
that, if he pushed a finger against it, it would wrinkle. He had never struck a
man before. It was not his way. But it did not matter. What does anyone matter,
after all? He pulled the leather-bound notebook toward him, unfurled the string
that bound the pages, and took out the pencil. He ran his thumb across the
lead, and winced when he felt a sliver of wood against his skin. Limping to a
drawer, he brought out a knife and a sharpening steel, and took his seat again
in a way that suggested he was losing his balance. Sweeping the poker-like
sharpening steel back and forth across the blade, his brow furrowed as he
brought every ounce of his attention to the task at hand. Once more he tested
the blade, and satisfied that it was now up to the job, he set down the steel
and whittled the pencil again until the lead was sharp, with a good eighth of
an inch free of the wood. He placed the knife on the table and began to write.

This is my last entry. I will write no more, for I
will be gone. And no one will miss me. But I will not go alone, and perhaps,
perhaps, perhaps, someone will take notice. I know my limitations, know the
extent of what I can do, and if I could take the Prime Minister, or his
self-serving cohorts, then I would. But I can’t, so I must take who I can, and
then those fools in Westminster will know what it is to be invisible. One of
the forgotten, one of the lost.

The pencil dragged across the page in a jagged line.
The man closed the leather book, bound it with string, and placed it in a
pocket inside his threadbare greatcoat.

THROUGH THE WINDOW, with barely any light to cast a
shadow, Maisie Dobbs watched him turn up the wick and move to a cupboard. He
removed a jar, and though she squinted, she could not tell whether it contained
a viscous liquid or a thick powder. He collected matches and a vial. And as she
watched, she knew she could not let him leave, could not let him go on his way.
She could not let him kill again. She turned away from the window, took one
step to the side, and knocked on the door.

SIXTEEN

“Who’s there? Who’s there at this time of night?”

“Mr. Oliver?”

“No one of that name here.”

Maisie bit her lip and tried again. “Sir, I think you
know who I am. My name is Maisie Dobbs. I believe you mentioned my name in a
letter, delivered on Christmas Day.”

Silence.

“Sir?”

“What do you want?”

Maisie cleared her throat. “I’d like to talk to you,
if I may.”

“What about?”

“Well . . . ” She paused. “We could start with Ian
Jennings. I believe you knew him, and so did Mr. Croucher. They were both
friends of yours, weren’t they?”

“Weren’t they?” The man’s eyes narrowed.

She realized her error—she had referred to Croucher in
the past tense. They were both friends of yours. Now he knew, now the man knew
she had seen him strike Croucher. She heard the rattle of a chain, then a key
unlocking the door, and a bolt drawn back. The door opened.

Maisie showed no emotion when she saw the scarred
face, the livid line that ran down from the man’s forehead and across his eye
until it reached his jaw. His back was curved as if he were a hunchback, and
one foot was splayed to the side. His right shoulder was held higher than the
other, and his hands were like fists in front of him as he stood before her.
She imagined that he might once have been a tall man, perhaps six feet or more.
Now, though, he was diminished by circumstance, and she could only speculate as
to what might have happened to him. But she knew she had seen him before.

“I’ve seen you before, on Charlotte Street, I—”

Without warning, the man reached forward with one
clawed hand and dragged Maisie into the room by the collar on her jacket. He
slammed the door behind him.

“I have come to help you, sir, I—”

“Well, you’re too bloody late!”

In the flickering shafts of light and dark caused by
the oil lamp’s wick burning down, Maisie fought the urge to steal a glance at
the floor and the body of the man she had only seen as a taciturn hospital
porter. Looking into the killer’s dark, expressionless eyes, she knew an
empathetic approach would gain her nothing. She had been surprised by his
strength, and knew that there was no connection, now, between rational thought
and his actions.

“Sir, I believe I understand why you’ve taken the
lives of both men and animals, and I understand the . . . the great weight—”

“Oh, do me a favor, please!”

They stood facing each other, and Maisie wondered what
words, what actions might placate a man for whom all accepted modes of human
communication seemed to mean nothing. Even as he was facing her, his eyes
rolled back in his head and saliva issued from his mouth.

“You have committed murder, and I believe you intend
to murder again, only this time you plan to take the lives of many more
innocent victims.”

“Innocent? Innocent? Innocent of what? Innocent of
being blind toward the plight of other people, when you can see with your own
eyes what they have to put up with? That’s a terrible thing, Miss Maisie Dobbs.
I don’t see innocence, I don’t see innocence at all.”

Maisie collected her thoughts again, hoping to play
for time, hoping that soon the police would be searching street to street, door
to door, for surely they would have found her motor car by now.

“I saw you. I saw you on the street and gave you what
I could.”

The man nodded. “Yes, and you tried to give something
to Ian.”

“It was you, then, the man who was watching me.”