Mezzanine and Other Curiously Dark Tales Read online

  His smile returned. This time it seemed cold. ‘I am legion,’ he whispered.

  When the silence grew too long I asked, ‘Why take me to Nathan? ’

  ‘Nathan has offended me.’

  ‘For torturing and killing so many women?’

  He laughed, almost gaily. ‘In truth, I barely noticed such a petty outpouring of squalid evil. Your society bred Nathan and as such should accept or vilify him. No, little sister, his crimes against me lie right here.’

  He waved a hand and my mantle of gauzy white melted away leaving me naked and disfigured before him. He traced a long scrolled glyph across my breast with his cool finger. The scar tissue burned with a bright green flame but didn’t hurt me. His finger moved on, making more of the terrible tracings burn and glow with intense light of different colours. I was like a rainbow set afire.

  ‘Nathan dared try to speak the name of God, and he wrote it nine times on the impure vellum of human flesh. Such insults will not go unanswered. This is also how he bound you to him, even in death. Trapped you between the myriad layers of the infinite. Tiny crumbs brushed between the cracks of the floor in the eternal. He etched these on your flesh so they would resonate with his own crude attempt at naming God and so empower him. He must have been filled with molten pleasure when he played with you. But it drove him utterly insane in the end. Mortal men are not made for such rich sweetmeats.’

  ‘Will you kill him then?’

  ‘No, little mezzanine sister. You will. Already he burns in a hell of his own design. All your sisters have been returned to his company, reflecting back the name of God eight times over. His brain must be almost at boiling point by now. I returned his playmates to him one by one. It’s always more satisfying to cook such a blasphemous worm slowly, and to stoke the furnace with extra logs just when he thinks it can’t get any worse. But nine is the magic number. You will be the grain of sand that topples the sphinx. The blade of grass that cuts down the lion.’

  He took my hand and marched me towards the doorway where the sun streamed in like a golden ground-mist. But instead of seeing the familiar hillside when I stepped through the doorway, I found myself in a hospital room. Nathan was bare-chested on a bed with two doctors around him. Beneath his eyelids, twin orbs scuttled frantically like trapped rats. His limbs jittered and spasmed, and rivulets of sweat streamed from every pore. Nathan, indeed, was in a hell of his own making.

  Electronic screens flashed jagged lines like sharply-peaked mountains erupting from a sea of hot magma. Standing sentinel against the walls of the small room stood the blank-faced Mezzanine Maidens. Like me, they were naked and glowing with a filigree tracery of fire and flame. The runes and symbols on Nathan’s chest were burning too, nebulas of power streaking across the room to infuse him with the name of God. I felt my own scars pour energy towards Nathan. The peaked mountains on the screen became needle-like teeth that must have been tearing and rending Nathan’s brain to the consistency of warmed-up gruel.

  The doctors looked frantically at the screen, unable to understand what they were seeing. One called to a nurse to bring more ice, but suddenly the needles collapsed and a straight white line ran across the screen to the sound of an unbroken high pitched tone. The second doctor shut off the sound and said, ‘He’s gone. Completely brain dead. I’m calling time of death.’

  The medical team’s voices faded as the young man stood facing all nine of us. The fire was now gone from our flesh along with any scars. We were unblemished. Cleansed.

  The young man bowed solemnly to us. ‘Thank you, ladies. You may depart.’

  ‘Where will we go?’ a few uncertain voices asked.

  A slow smile formed on the young man’s face. ‘To somewhere better. It’s always best to think on it that way, I’ve been told.’

  And we began to unravel. Softly, gently, we lost shape and form and drifted on the breath of the universe. Before the hospital room vanished completely from my sight, I saw something that showed me even gods have a sense of humour.

  The young man placed something among Nathan’s personal effects.

  A small plastic rectangle.

  An organ donor card.

  The Mystery of the Seven Suicides

  (A Denny Deuchar Investigation)

  I was putting the finishing touches to the McQueen case-file and worrying where my next pay cheque was coming from when my office door creaked open and a skinny guy wearing an anorak, woolly-hat and national-health glasses slipped inside. His face was narrow like the prow of a ship, which only accentuated his long, pointy nose.

  ‘Take a seat, pal. Be with you in a few minutes,’ I growled.

  Having a gravel-toned voice is a definite advantage in my game. It fits with the ingrained public image; a distinct echo of a thousand hard-boiled private-eye novels. Pointy Nose, to give him credit, sat quietly while I finished typing an email to my client, Mrs McQueen, and attached the incriminating jpegs I’d captured with my zoom lens. The lady in question hired me to check up on her middle-aged husband whom she suspected was having an affair. It turned out to be whole lot more interesting than that.

  I’d spent the previous evening tailing Steve McQueen (honestly) watching and clicking my camera as he checked into a cheap Travel Lodge room and emerged an hour later wearing a red polka-dot blouse, blonde wig, purple mini-skirt, seamed stockings, and high-heels. Even if he’d bothered shaving off his moustache he was never going to fool anyone.

  I followed McQueen to the Anderson district where Glasgow’s prostitutes ply their sorry-looking trade from shadowy doorways and badly-lit street corners. I lurked in my car and watched in disbelief as he struck a series of alluring poses at passing vehicles. A few slowed down and one guy even stuck his head out the car window and wolf-whistled, but McQueen had no takers. The genuine working-girls found his antics amusing and made no attempt to chase him off their patch. Eventually the excitement got too much for McQueen who disappeared into an alley with a buck-toothed, waif-thin street-girl whose clapped-in face declared she had a monster heroin habit to feed. McQueen returned ten minutes later with his make-up dishevelled, his wig askew, and rips in his stockings. I guessed the first thing his wife did with the jpegs was to forward them directly to her solicitor.

  I knew that the end product of my job had the same effect as a switch-blade on assorted marriages, careers, and insurance claimants. Doing my job well always led to misery and confrontation. I was the whirlwind that devastated lives. It was impersonal, no malice involved. Just professional pride. And a pay cheque of course.

  Across the desk from me, Pointy Nose waited patiently until I hit the send button and leaned back in my chair with my hands behind my head. ‘So, how can I help you, pal?’

  He introduced himself in a thin, nasal voice. ‘I’m Ian Shand. Pleased to meet you. Mr… Deuchar?’

  ‘Denny Deuchar. That’s why it says DD Investigations in the phone book. So. What’s your problem?’

  ‘It might help, Mr Deuchar, if I start by telling you I’m the Chairman of the Mallard 4468 Club. You might have heard of us?’

  ‘Can’t say I have. Mallard Club, eh? You mean like, as in ducks?’

  Shand shook his head making his glasses slide halfway down his pointy nose. ‘Ducks? Oh, no. The Mallard in question is an A4 class steam locomotive. It still holds the world speed record for steam trains. It was built in Doncaster in 1938…’

  I stopped him by holding up my hand. ‘Hang on, you mean you belong to a steam train enthusiast club?’

  Shand looked slightly put out. ‘Not specifically, no. Although the club is named after a famous steam train, our members indulge in a wider spectrum of locomotive appreciation. Steam enthusiasts can be quite elitist, but we’re happy to reside beneath a broader train-spotting umbrella.’

  Any private investigator worth his salt in a gritty noir novel would at this point be pulling open the bottom drawer of the desk with his foot and reaching inside for the bottle of malt whisky. Instead I made do with digg
ing the end of my ball-point pen into a notepad with Betty Boop printed on each page. A present from my niece.

  ‘Listen up, Mr Shand, if you’re here scrounging for a donation or trying to recruit me into your organisation…’

  Shand interrupted me. ‘We are not the Jehovah Witnesses nor the Mormons, or even the Scientologists for that matter. I am here to ask if you would investigate a sensitive matter for the club as we are unsure how to proceed on our own.’

  I stopped torturing Betty Boop with the pen and sat up straight. So what if Shand was representing a train-spotting club? This was business and business meant money. I pointed to his anorak. ‘Perhaps I could take your coat?’

  Shand bristled indignantly as if I’d just asked him to run naked up the length of Sauchiehall Street. ‘No thanks. I’m fine just as I am,’ he said primly.

  I shrugged. There was no law against talking to a private investigator while wearing an anorak. Not yet anyway. ‘So how can I be of assistance, Mr Shand.? Someone got their fingers in the petty-cash box? You get infiltrated by the Boy Scouts?’

  ‘Nothing like that. What concerns us happens to be of a quite a different nature altogether. In fact I think it might be much easier if you come along to our club-house. The evidence is all stored there.’

  ‘Evidence? You mean criminal evidence?’

  ‘Not as such. Hard to explain really. It involves a certain train.’

  I gave Betty Boop another fatal wound with my pen, twisting the point as it tore through the paper epidermis of her cleavage. ‘Shouldn’t you be talking with the Railway police about this?’

  Shand’s pale blue eyes rolled upwards behind his thick lenses. ‘It’s a cover up. They know all about this and they’re doing nothing. Lives are in danger here, Mr Deuchar. Will you help us or not?’

  So I told Shand my rates and we agreed on a flat fee for a few days of my time. I wrote down the address of his train-spotting duck club and promised to pop along that evening. My only worry was that I might have to swap my battered old fedora for a woolly hat to gain entry.

  ***

  At seven o’clock prompt I met with Shand under the hanging clock in Glasgow Central railway station and he led me towards a barely noticeable door on the east side of the station which opened on to a steep flight of stairs. The staircase seemed to go on forever but we eventually arrived at a stout wooden door adorned with a sign proclaiming The Mallard 4468 Club, under which was an engraved image of a steam train. With a flourish, Shand swept the door open and my jaw dropped as I saw a spacious, high-ceilinged room filled with more railway memorabilia than I’d ever seen in one place before. This wasn’t a clubhouse, this was a regular train-spotter’s grotto.

  The walls of the room were covered with cast-iron plaques with defunct station names and literally hundreds of photographs of various locomotives They had signal lights that flashed from green to red, bookshelves stacked with timetables and engineering manuals - and taking centre spot in the middle of the room was a huge, complex model railway system where half a dozen men with stern expressions and comb-over hair-styles controlled the trains whizzing along the 0 gauge tracks. At least now I knew why so many train-spotters wore woolly hats. To add a surreal touch to the proceedings, in the background there was the constant sound of steam trains chuffing along ghostly tracks through concealed speakers. There were even a few mannequins scattered around the room dressed in old fashioned railway employees’ uniforms. I thought that touch a bit creepy.

  I wandered over to a large window that ran the length of one wall and found myself gazing down upon the interior of Central Station itself. I turned back to Shand. ‘Very impressive,’ I said.

  Shand beamed at me, the tip of his long, pointy nose red with pride. ‘Yes, it’s marvellous. British Rail let us use this room free of charge on account of the fact that it effectively doubles as an unofficial railway museum equipped with dozens of unpaid curators to look after the exhibits.’ He removed his anorak and hung it on a coat stand festooned with similar garb. I noticed he was wearing a green tank-top adorned with orange sheep over a blue shirt with a brown cord tie. This room definitely wasn’t a place for the fashion conscious.

  ‘So, what’s the big mystery you want me to make enquiries about?’

  Shand stopped beaming and looked serious once more. From his pocket he took a guard’s whistle and gave three sharp blasts. Five men wandered across from various sections of the room and gathered round us. ‘This is Frank, Gilbert, Roger, Ted, and Tim,’ said Shand by way of introductions. ‘The inner circle, so to speak.’

  As I solemnly shook hands with each man, the one I thought might be Ted smiled smugly and said, ‘Not to be confused with the Inner Circle Glasgow Underground Railway Society. They’re a completely different organisation. Bit of a waste of time really as they only watch the same trains going round in a big circle all day. Bunch of saddos, if you ask me.’

  ‘Now, now,’ rebuked Shand. ‘Each to his own. Each to his own.’

  I bit the inside of my lip to prevent myself from laughing.

  ‘You were going to show me some evidence,’ I prompted. ‘Explain exactly why you need my services.’

  The inner circle looked expectantly at Shand who fussed with his tie for a moment before saying, ‘Ah, yes, where should I start, where should I start.’

  ‘The suicides, of course,’ blurted out Frank, although he might actually have been Tim. I hadn’t been paying too much attention when the introductions were made and one comb-over looks much like the next.

  Shand took a deep breath. ‘It’s like this. Seven months ago, a mentally disturbed woman threw herself in front of a class 220 Virgin Super Voyager travelling at a hundred and ten miles per hour. Killed the poor woman instantly.’

  I nodded sympathetically in case it turned out the suicidal woman was a relative of one of the men standing beside me. ‘Tragic,’ I said. ‘I imagine quite a few suicides end their lives this way.’

  Frank (or possibly Gilbert) chimed in. ‘On average, there are two hundred suicides on the railways each year which costs the operators an estimated fifteen million pounds per annum. Interestingly enough, there’s a ten per cent survival rate among these jumpers of which fifty per cent attempt…’

  Shand cut the man off. ‘Not the time to weigh Mr Deuchar down with statistics, Roger.’

  Roger (who was neither Frank nor Gilbert) went immediately quiet and looked a little sulky. Shand once more took up the tale. ‘Naturally the train itself was inspected for damage and got a clean bill of health. Then the following month a man with a long history of mental illness dropped himself off a bridge in front of the same train. Bad luck? Coincidence? Probably most people thought it a bit of both. The company decided to remove the train from its scheduled Glasgow to Birmingham route and used it instead on the Manchester to London line. And guess what?’

  ‘Another suicide?’ I prompted.

  The entire inner circle nodded their heads as one and Ted (definitely Ted this time) murmured, ‘Bipolar teenager.’

  Shand nodded, looking grim. ‘The train was then moved to a different route and the same thing happened once again. This time between London to Leeds. A chap with borderline schizophrenia. People began to talk about the train, said it was cursed. A deadly magnet for those with mental problems. They even started referring to it as Black Bess.’

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Four suicides in as many months?’

  ‘Oh no, Mr Deuchar, the figure now stands at seven. Every time they move the train to a new route the same thing happens. If we don’t do something, that evil train is going to keep killing people. We need your help.’

  One of the inner circle produced a ring binder and handed it to me. ‘This is the evidence. A collection of rescheduling notices, press cuttings, internal memos we’ve intercepted, railway police reports, and the minutes from the last meeting between management and the unions.’

  After flicking through the dossier, I tucked it under my arm. I had to admit the
story did on the surface at least appear to have substance. I pushed back my old fedora, scratched my head and said, ‘But why me? Why not tell this story to a journalist? Surely exposing this story in the press would force the railways to junk the train?’

  The inner circle of The Mallard 4468 Club heaved a collective heavy sigh of frustration.

  ‘But we already did, Mr Deuchar,’ said Gilbert (possibly). ‘He rang us back to say the story was being quashed due to the railways putting pressure on the press. Lawsuits were mentioned. He even hinted the government is involved at some level to hush things up as they don't want to undermine the public’s confidence in the railways while the economy is shaky.’

  ‘What are the railway staff doing about it? They must know there’s something weird going on.’

  Shand smiled coldly. ‘There’s been talk of a drivers’ strike over the number of deaths and the union have been appealing for the train to be stripped down for spares but trains are expensive to replace, so she’s still out there. In fact…’ Shand looked at his watch, an action replicated by each member of the inner circle. ‘If you look out the window you’ll see Black Bess on Platform Three right now.’

  I walked across to the window and looked down. There on Platform Three I could indeed see a sleek, bullet-nosed Virgin Voyager, its engines idling as it prepared to depart along the gleaming metal rails. Even from that curious room up in the roof of the station I could feel there was something wrong with the locomotive. It seemed to shimmer and thrum as if an alien and ancient mind was lurking within its panel-beaten steel hide.

  I turned to the group of men waiting expectantly behind me, took off my fedora and spun it in my hands. ‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘I’m on the case.’

  ***

  The following day I was back in my office reading through a sheaf of photocopied newspaper reports on the Virgin Voyager suicides. As Shand had explained, there were seven incidents in all. Each casualty was mentioned as having mental health problems, which was understandable as no-one in their right mind would throw themselves in front of a speeding train. Even for a hardened cynic like myself, seven suicides in seven months involving the same train was too much of a coincidence. As far as I could determine, there was nothing connecting the suicides themselves other than the fact they all shared a history of depression and other mental health issues. Could this train somehow be sending out a signal, a lethal lonesome whistle tuned to the frequency of these vulnerable, damaged people?