on his own, or rather in the company of his dead uncle. Aunt Jackie had made him promise he wouldn’t leave Sir Keenan on his own, and of course he hadn’t refused her that.
But when he got back to the house after putting his wife on the Chichester train –
That had been the worst of all. It had been – mindless! Ghoulish! Unbelievable! And for all that it had been fifteen minutes ago, he was still reeling, still sick, numb to his brain with shock and horror, when Harry Keogh’s ring at the doorbell took him staggering to the front door.
Tin Harry Keogh,’ said the young man on the door step. ‘Sir Keenan Gormley asked me to come and see -‘
‘H-help!’ Banks whispered, choking the word out as if there was no wind in him, as if all the spit had dried up in him. ‘God, Jesus Christ! – whoever you are – h-help me!’
Harry looked at him in amazement, grabbed him in order to hold him up. ‘What is it? What’s happened? This is Sir Keenan Gormley’s house, isn’t it?’
The other nodded. He was slowly turning green, about to throw up – again – at any moment. ‘C-come in. He’s in … in there. In the living-room, of all bloody places -but don’t go in there. I have to … have to call the police. Somebody has to, anyway!’ His legs began to buckle and Harry thought he would fall. Before that could happen he pushed him backwards and down into a chair in the lobby. Then he crouched down beside him and shook him.
‘Is it Sir Keenan? What’s happened to him?’
Even before the answer came, Harry knew.
Soon to die in agony. First and foremost a patriot.
Banks looked up, stared at Harry from a green-tinged face. ‘Did you . . . did you work for him?’
‘I was going to.’
Banks baulked, burst to his feet, staggered to a tiny
room to one side of the lobby. ‘He died last night,’ he managed to gulp the words out. ‘A heart attack. He was to be cremated tomorrow. But now – ‘ He yanked open the door and the odour of fresh vomit welled out. The room was a toilet and it was obvious that he’d already used it.
Harry turned his face away, grabbed a mouthful of fresh air from the open front door before quietly closing it. Then he left Banks retching and walked through into the living-room – and saw for himself what was wrong with Banks.
And what was wrong with Sir Keenan Gormley.
A heart attack, Banks had said. One look at the room told Harry there’d been an attack, all right, but what sort didn’t bear thinking about. He fought down the bile which at once rose up and threatened to swamp him, went back to Banks where he crouched weakly at the bowl of the toilet in the small room. ‘Call the police when you can,’ he said. ‘Sir Keenan’s office, too, if anyone’s on duty there. I’m sure he would want them to know about. . . this. I’ll stay here with you – with him -for a little while.’
‘Th-thanks,’ said Banks, without looking up. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be more help right now. But when I came in and found him like that. . .’
‘I understand,’ said Harry.
‘I’ll be OK in a minute. I’m working on it.’
‘Of course.’
Harry went back to the other room. He saw everything, began to catalogue the horror, then stopped. What stopped him was this: a Queen Anne chair with claw feet lay on its side on the floor. One of its wooden legs was broken off just below the platform of the seat. Embedded in the club-like foot was a tooth; other teeth, wrenched out, lay scattered on the floor; the mouth of the corpse
had been forced open and now gaped like a black shaft in ‘ the wildly distorted, frozen grimace of the face!
Harry gropingly found himself a seat – another chair, but one free of debris – and collapsed into it. He closed his eyes, pictured the room as it must have looked before this. Sir Keenan in his coffin on an oak table draped in black, rose-scented candles burning at head and feet. And then, as he lay here alone, the . . . intrusion.