Читать книгу Imajica - Clive Barker, Clive Barker - Страница 44

Leader called Oscar on the morning of 17 January, with the news that his brother’s estranged wife was asking for information on his whereabouts.

‘Did she say why?’

‘No, not precisely. But she’s very clearly sniffing after something. She’s apparently seen Estabrook three times in the last week.’

‘Thank you, Lewis. I appreciate this.’

‘Appreciate it in hard cash, Oscar,’ Leader replied. ‘I’ve had a very expensive Christmas.’

‘When have you ever gone empty-handed?’ Oscar said. ‘Keep me posted.’

The lawyer promised to do so, but Oscar doubted he’d provide much more by way of useful information. Only truly despairing souls confided in lawyers, and he doubted Judith was the despairing type. He’d never met her - Charlie had seen to that - but if she’d survived his company for any time at all she had to have a will of iron. Which begged the question: why would a woman who knew (presuming she did) that her husband had conspired to kill her, seek out his company, unless she had an ulterior motive? And was it conceivable that said motive was finding brother Oscar? If so, such curiosity had to be nipped in the bud. There were already enough variables at play, what with the Society’s purge now underway, and the inevitable police investigation on its heels, not to mention his new major domo Augustine (né Dowd) who was behaving in altogether too snotty a fashion. And of course, most volatile of these variables, sitting in his asylum beside the Heath, Charlie himself, probably crazy, certainly unpredictable, with all manner of titbits in his head which could do Oscar a lot of harm. It could be only a matter of time before he started to become talkative, and when he did what better ear to drop his discretions into than that of his enquiring wife?

That evening he sent Dowd (he couldn’t get used to that saintly Augustine) up to the clinic, with a basket of fruit for his brother.

‘Find a friend there, if you can,’ he told Dowd. ‘I need to know what Charlie babbles about when he’s being bathed.’

‘Why don’t you ask him directly?’

‘He hates me, that’s why. He thinks I stole his mess of pottage when Papa introduced me into the Tabula Rasa instead of Charlie?’

‘Why did your father do that?’

‘Because he knew Charlie was unstable, and he’d do the Society more harm than good. I’ve had him under control until now. He’s had his little gifts from the Dominions. He’s had you fawn upon him when he needed something out of the ordinary, like his assassin! This all started with that fucking assassin! Why couldn’t you have just killed the woman yourself?’

‘What do you take me for?’ Dowd said with distaste. ‘I couldn’t lay hands on a woman. Especially not a beauty.’

‘How do you know she’s a beauty?’

‘I’ve heard her talked about.’

‘Well, I don’t care what she looks like. I don’t want her meddling in my business. Find out what she’s up to. Then we’ll work out our response.’

Dowd came back a few hours later, with alarming news.

‘Apparently she’s persuaded him to take her to the Estate.’

‘What? What?’ Oscar bounded from his chair. The parrots rose up squawking in sympathy. ‘She knows more than she should. Shit! All that heartache to keep the Society out of our hair, and now this bitch comes along and we’re in worse trouble than ever.’

‘Nothing’s happened yet.’

‘But it will, it will! She’ll wind him round her little finger and he’ll tell her everything.’

‘What do you want to do about it?’

Oscar went to hush the parrots. ‘Ideally?’ he said, as he smoothed their ruffled wings. ‘Ideally I’d have Charlie vanish off the face of the earth.’

‘He had much the same ambition for her,’ Dowd observed.

‘Meaning what?’

‘Just that you’re both quite capable of murder.’

Oscar made a contemptuous grunt. ‘Charlie was only playing at it,’ he said. ‘He’s got no balls! He’s got no vision!’ He returned to his high-backed chair, his expression sullen. ‘It’s not going to hold, damn it,’ he said. ‘I can feel it in my gut. We’ve kept things neat and tidy so far, but it’s not going to hold. Charlie has to be taken out of the equation.’

‘He’s your brother.’

‘He’s a burden.’

‘What I mean is: he’s your brother. You should be the one to dispatch him.’

Oscar’s eyes widened.

‘Oh my Lord,’ he said.

‘Think what they’d say in Yzordderrex, if you were to tell them.’

‘What? That I killed my own brother? I don’t see much charm in that.’

‘But that you did what you had to do, however unpalatable, to keep the secret safe.’ Dowd paused to let the idea blossom. ‘That sounds heroic to me. Think what they’ll say.’

‘I’m thinking.’

‘It’s your reputation in Yzordderrex you care about. isn’t it, not what happens in the Fifth? You’ve said before this world’s getting duller all the time.’

Oscar pondered this for a while, then said: ‘Maybe I should slip away. Kill them both to make sure nobody ever knows where I’ve gone - ‘

‘Where we’ve gone.’

‘- then slip away and pass into legend. Oscar Godolphin, who left his crazy brother dead beside his wife, and disappeared. Oh yes. That’d make quite a headline in Patashoqua.’ He mused for a few moments more. ‘What’s the classic sibling murder?’ he finally asked.

‘The jaw-bone of an ass.’

‘Ridiculous.’

‘You’ll think of something better.’

‘So I will. Make me a drink, Dowdy. And have one yourself. We’ll drink to escape.’

‘Doesn’t everybody?’ Dowd replied, but the remark was lost on Godolphin, who was already plunged deep into murderous thought.