THE DOOR TO the cottage was standing slightly open. Careful to stay out of aim of anyone in the interior, Joe crept close and put his ear to the jamb. He listened for a drunken snoring. No sound. Joe pushed the door open a further inch or two and almost fell backwards in surprise as a sound shattered the silence. An unnatural, inhuman sound. The squeal of a blocked organ pipe? The smothered screech of a strangled cat? Joe discarded both of his original impressions. This was some pitiful animal caught in a trap, he decided, calculating that the brief sound was magnified by the small dimensions of the wooden hut.
He breathed deeply and moved inside, steeling himself to deal with whatever creature was in distress.
A nightmare scene assaulted his wide-eyed stare into the gloom.
In the curtained interior, sprawled on the bed in what seemed to be the single room of the cottage, lay a corpse.
The body of Virbio, Joe assumed. Lying across his coverlet. With his woolly grey hair and gnarled limbs, bunion ed white feet sticking out of his winceyette pyjama legs, cup of tea half drunk on his bedside table, he could have been anyone’s grandfather sleeping in on a Sunday morning. Had it not been for the copious streams of blood that covered torso and arms and the red splatter staining the white-painted wall behind the bedhead. A double-barrelled game rifle lay beside the bed, having, to all appearances, dropped from his dead hand. Nauseated by the battlefield stench of fresh blood, stale alcohol, and cordite, Joe moved closer and peered down at the remains of the face.
Fired from below, the blast had caught him on one side of the neck and made its way upwards, smashing the jaw and deflecting sideways. The eyes were intact and open. Disconcertingly, they seemed to be staring back at him. In alarm, Joe moved sideways out of their range. The eyes followed his. Locked on. From the open mouth there came the same inhuman shriek Joe had heard from the doorway. Joe steadied himself with an effort. With his speaking mechanisms smashed to pieces, all the dying man could do was make a noise through one pipe or other that remained intact. Joe reckoned that he must have survived twenty minutes in this hopeless state of paralysis and that death would come very soon. He’d cradled dying men in his arms in the trenches, in disbelief at the amount of a man’s body that could be shot away and yet leave him for a few moments able to communicate.
Virbio, he could have sworn, had recognised him and was pitifully trying to form a word with his lips.
Joe repeated what he took to be the sound. “ ‘Die?’ Did you say—‘Die’?” He’d had never been able to deceive a man whose case was hopeless with good-hearted lies. Quietly he said: “Yes, old chap. I’m afraid I think that’s the likely outcome. Not much I can do. Look here—would you like me to pray with you? I could have a word with God on your behalf.” He bent down, took hold of the lolling right hand and held it.
Whatever their professed religion or lack of one, men usually, at the end, sought after the beliefs of their youth. God, Allah, Jehova, Vishnu, to Joe they were all a central idea whatever their tribal names and he would gladly call on any of them if it brought comfort to a dying man. He watched as Virbio’s eyes closed emphatically at the word ‘God.’ Dismissive? In the flood of pain the man must be suffering, could Joe possibly pick out an element of something so petty as frustration? Was Joe reading too much into the expression? He didn’t think so. Then, blindingly, he understood. “Not ‘die’! Diana!”
The eyes opened again in response to his re-interpretation.
“You want to pray to your goddess!”
Joe went on holding the chill hand and, not entirely satisfied he was doing the right thing, he began to whisper some lines of Ben Jonson he’d been set to learn when a boy on a school bench, his “Hymn To Diana.”
“Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.”
He couldn’t remember all three verses so he said the first one over again and stumbled on, improvising: “Goddess excellently bright, thou that mak’st a day of night, light the way for this your faithful servant, Virbio, and guide him into the happy fields of Elysium.”
The eyes held his, unafraid, even mocking. Then suddenly, with the timing of a tough East End audience delivering its judgement on a third-rate comedian, the throat emitted a derisive gargle followed by a last gobbet of blood and the man expired, a look of infinite scorn fixed on his features.
Only then did Joe allow himself to behave like a policeman. First, he leaned over the body and put a finger behind the remaining ear to find the pulse spot, performing the automatic physical checks that death had indeed occurred. Then he stood and assessed the scene. An apparent suicide. No sign of another presence in the room, though Hunnyton and his forensics boys would go through it with a fine-tooth comb.