Mr Lynch's Prophecy

  Mr Lynch’s Prophecy

  A Clara Fitzgerald Mystery

  Book 16

  By

  Evelyn James

  Red Raven Publications

  2019

  © Evelyn James 2019

  First published 2019

  Red Raven Publications

  The right of Evelyn James to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the permission in writing from the author

  Mr Lynch’s Prophecy is the sixteenth book in the Clara Fitzgerald series

  Other titles in the Series:

  Memories of the Dead

  Flight of Fancy

  Murder in Mink

  Carnival of Criminals

  Mistletoe and Murder

  The Poisoned Pen

  Grave Suspicions of Murder

  The Woman Died Thrice

  Murder and Mascara

  The Green Jade Dragon

  The Monster at the Window

  Murder on the Mary Jane

  The Missing Wife

  The Traitor’s Bones

  The Fossil Murder

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter One

  Private Peterson stared helplessly at his bloodied hands. He stumbled forward, a sharp pain jabbing into his lower back and making each step agonising.

  Where was he?

  It was dark and very late. Flashes of memory came back to him fitfully. There had been the picture house; a couple of the men had talked about going to see a screening of the latest silent flick, Nosferatu. Peterson had overheard them and, although not invited, had thought he might make his separate way to the movie theatre to watch the film. He had read about it in the papers. It was all about a vampire. Reviews said it was appropriately horrifying and warned that those of a nervous disposition should not attempt to watch it. The film had been out a few months but, when it was first screened, Peterson had not wanted to go – he was having nightmares and didn’t think watching a flick about a murderous vampire would help.

  However, he had been feeling much better lately, almost like his old self, and he had thought he would find out why everyone was calling this the scariest picture ever. Thus, when the other men left the house, he followed them at a distance, waited for them to get inside the picture house and then bought his own ticket and sat in the back row.

  That was about the last thing he could remember clearly. After that things became… complicated. He was pretty certain he had left before the end of the picture. He hadn’t liked it; the vampire was terrible in appearance and he had started to feel uneasy. He had always been a little worried about the supernatural – his mother was a firm believer in ghosts, fairies and witchcraft. She made little charms to hang around people’s necks; one’s for easing teething pains in babies; ones for bringing luck; ones for soothing headaches. She had made a very special one for Peterson just before he left to go to the war. He had been made to promise to wear it at all times. It would keep him safe, his mother said, it would bring him home again.

  Seemingly, it had worked, it had certainly brought him home. There were occasions when he wished it hadn’t, when he wished he had ripped the charm from his neck and let some German bullet find its target. But he had made a promise to his mum and he wasn’t going to let her down. Peterson might be messed up, his mind might be broken into pieces, but he never forgot his loyalty to his family.

  Peterson’s foot caught on a raised slab in the road as he shuffled forward. He stubbed his toe, but it was the pain the shot through his back that nearly downed him. He reached out a hand to the nearby wall and leaned heavily against the brickwork, panting through the pain, tears pricking his eyes.

  What had happened after he left the picture house?

  He had slipped out a side door, not wanting the other men to notice him. They had never been unkind to him, or anything like that, but they were of a different class and he found it hard to mix with them. He also didn’t want them to see he was leaving, in case they thought he was unsettled by the movie – which was the truth, but he didn’t want them to know that. He supposed it was his pride that made him want to avoid letting anyone know he was finding the vampire on the screen upsetting.

  After that things became hazy. He had started walking, heading for home. There was a slight nip in the air, now that September was slowly drawing in. Peterson had shoved his hands in his pockets and walked quickly. He was uneasy, his mind playing tricks on him and conjuring up long-fanged vampires around every corner. He should never have watched that film. His mind was not nearly as ‘fixed’ as he had hoped. He jumped at shadows, and when people appeared from side roads or out of doors, they made him startle. He could feel he was breathing hard, beginning to panic and that was when he had ducked down an alley and headed for the quieter back streets. He didn’t want anyone to see him in the middle of a panic attack. It was humiliating.

  The attacks had started at the Front. Never when he was on duty or in the middle of fighting; somehow he always held himself together then. It was usually afterwards, or when he was on respite, when everything was quiet and peaceful. Then this crippling fear would engulf him; he would start to tremble and quake. His hands would flick and twitch, he would need to get up and move, to pace about or sometimes to just run. Eventually the panic would catch him no matter what he did. It would grab him about the throat like a savage dog, it would narrow his vision to a pinprick, the world around him would become meaningless as he fought himself. He would gasp, cry out, shake from head to foot and often end up curled in a ball just rocking back and forth. Tears would stream down his face and he could not bear for anyone to touch him, then it would pass, like a dreadful pain in the gut that suddenly eased. He would relax, he would go icy cold and slowly the crippling fear would lift.

  All that was left afterwards was a sensation of being utterly drained and then the shame of how he had behaved during the episode. It didn’t matter if people were sympathetic to him or not, he still felt embarrassed at himself. And even if he told himself not to let the panic take him over like that again, he still let it do so the next time. It was like he had no control, and that was the worst of it.

  That night he had been in the alleyways of Brighton, trying to navigate towards home, while also losing his mind to panic. He wanted to run, to bolt – the sensation was terrible. Fighting himself all the way he had bumbled about in the dark, knocking into metal bins, spooking a cat that hissed at him. Then there had been something else, something that his panicked mind had caught a glimpse of just before everything evaporated from his
memory.

  Peterson felt as though his strength was being sapped from him. He was using the wall as a prop now, moving his hand along with each tentative step. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep conscious and he was lost. The roads looked unfamiliar and he had no idea if he was heading towards home or away from it. There was just this lingering sense in the back of his brain that he had to keep moving, that he had to get away from whatever was behind him. That could be a fictional vampire from his imagination, or it could be something real. There was a gulf in his thoughts that meant he could not explain to himself why he must keep walking, only that he would use all his remaining strength to keep going. It was like some primitive instinct was driving him on and no rational contemplation of the situation was going to change that.

  He had left a bloody handprint on the wall, he wondered whose blood it was, some strangely calm part of his mind contemplating this issue, which, right then, was really irrelevant. It might be his blood, it might be someone else’s, whatever the case, he had to get help. But that pain in his back was getting worse and his left leg was starting to drag. He was having trouble feeling his foot.

  Had he been in a fight? Peterson looked at his right hand, the one not helping him to balance against the wall. It was covered in blood but, aside from his back, he did not feel as if he had been in a brawl. He wrapped his right arm around his middle, pressing it into his stomach to try to counteract the sharp thudding that was now shifting up his spine. His world was becoming absorbed by that pain.

  “Help! Can anyone help me?” He called out.

  He had not done so before because he had been so desperate to get away with no one seeing him like this. Now he knew that without help he was not going to make it. His strength was fading, each step was a test of will.

  “Anyone? I need help! Please…” his voice tailed off to a choking gasp that made the agony in his back a thousand times worse. He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached and tears crept from his eyes.

  “I’m going to die.”

  Peterson came to a halt, the astonishment of this realisation overcoming that instinct to drive on. He had survived a war, escaped shrapnel that had killed his comrades, miraculously avoided the bullets that had mown down his mates, been in just the right place to avoid being blown to smithereens by a shell or buried alive by the earth it threw up, and it would be here, in Brighton, that he died.

  Peterson sank to his knees. It wasn’t just the irony of the situation that had finally stopped his momentum, it was the peace the sudden understanding had brought him. Finally, to be released from the horror which had tracked him for so long – it felt like a mercy. Whatever had happened to him, it appeared to be a blessing in disguise. He could stop fighting, he could stop the unhappy battle for survival. He could give up and no one would blame him, because you can’t fight death, not in the end.

  Peterson cast his eyes up to the sky. There was a crescent moon creeping through the clouds. He shut his eyes and his body started to sag. He hadn’t expected to die that night, but he was at peace with himself, and with death. He was glad of it.

  The pain surged in his back again and he dipped his head, clenched his jaw against a scream. He clutched his right arm as tightly around himself as he could, his fingers reaching around his waist and to the spot on his back where all this trouble seemed to stem from. He could feel wet blood beneath his fingers and then, his groping hand trying to compress the wound and quell the hurt, touched something else, something cold and hard.

  There was a knife in Peterson’s back.

  Suddenly a new spark dragged Peterson from the brink of oblivion. He had been stabbed! His fingers probed the knife, what little he could feel of it and instead of release, Peterson now felt fury. Someone had stabbed him! He tried to get to his feet, but his legs were completely numb. The panic started to return – could his attacker still be nearby? No, surely not. He had been stumbling along for a while, had they wanted to finish him off they could have done so by now.

  Peterson tried to get to his feet again, without success. He wasn’t going to die here, of that he was determined. He might have been willing to embrace death a moment ago, but now he was just as eager to survive and find out who did this to him.

  “Help me! Someone help me!” He called out again.

  If he could not get to his feet, then there was nothing else for it but to crawl. He started to drag himself forward, inch by perilous inch, knees scraping the ground, the pain in his back almost too much to bear.

  “I need help!” He cried. “Anyone, please, can you hear me?”

  So many of his comrades had endured similar fates in the muddy battlefields of Belgium and France, calling out for help as they lay dying, not knowing if anyone could hear or whether they would be reached in time. Peterson had heard those cries and, when he had been able, he gone to them. Now he hoped someone would return that kindness to him.

  “I am hurt! Please! Someone…” a fresh groan cut off his words, the pain in his back was too much.

  He was now having to drag his entire body by the strength of his arms, he could not even move his legs to crawl on his knees. He could feel nothing below his hips, though that pain in his back was as vivid as ever, a burning blot on his mindscape. He managed to scrape himself forward a few more inches by using his forearms to pull himself along.

  “If anyone can hear me, I am injured!” He cried out, starting to feel hopeless.

  He didn’t think he could remain conscious for much longer and he was scared of what might come after he closed his eyes. He no longer wanted to die. His fight had returned, just when it was too late.

  Peterson looked around him, trying to see somewhere to go and get assistance. He was in a narrow alley with yards either side. There were gates into the yards, but all were shut. All he could do was crawl to the nearest and try to open it. He put his last strength into moving the two feet to a gate. Every inch was torture and he didn’t seem to get any closer. He had to stop, barely able to breath. It was over. His body was spent.

  This was not the way Peterson had thought his last moments would come and he was baffled as to why he had ended up this way. He could not think why he had been stabbed; he had no memory of the attack, and it seemed that whoever had done the deed was going to get away with it. All there was left to do was to lay his head down on his hands and let his last energy slip away.

  The pain, at least, was easing in his back. He managed to take a long breath and expel it without being crippled by agony. As he lay still, letting his life sap away, he saw one of the yard gates open and a pair of feet emerged. He could see no higher than the lower legs of the owner of the feet as they came towards him.

  “Good God!” A voice above him cried out. “Are you alive?”

  A hand touched his shoulder, the warmth of the touch was like a drop of water to a man dying of thirst, it flooded through Peterson’s system, rousing him. He took a raspy breath.

  “He’s alive!” The person above him called over his shoulder to someone else. “Go fetch the doctor, hurry! There’s a knife in the fellow’s back!”

  The person knelt nearer to Peterson.

  “Can you hear me, son?”

  Peterson wanted to nod his head, he could not. All he could do was whisper a last word before he slipped away.

  “Nosferatu.”

  Chapter Two

  Clara Fitzgerald had been a private detective for nearly three years. And in all that time, she had never been summoned to the opening of a magic box. She had never even considered it a possibility. But that morning, upon the arrival of the first post, there was a letter among all the usual bills and correspondence that was decidedly different. The envelope, for a start, was printed with an image of an owl perching in the lower right corner and staring out at the recipient. When Clara opened the curious piece of mail, she discovered it had been sent to her by the Director of the Brighton Institute for Astronomy, a man named Professor Hugo Montgomery. He had a lot of initials af
ter his name which meant nothing to Clara, but she assumed they were impressive to other astronomers.

  Professor Hugo Montgomery had a problem. Twenty years earlier, his predecessor had passed away leaving a number of his books to the institute’s library. Nothing odd about that, and there were several rare editions in the collection that were very welcome. However, unbeknown to the current director, his predecessor had also left a box to the institute, to be kept in the safe hands of the librarian until a given date when it could be revealed. The librarian had kept the box a secret, as had been requested of him, until twenty years to the day of the man’s death. That day had been Monday last, and the librarian had dramatically produced the box, as he had been instructed to do.

  So far, not a great deal to cause a stir. Except, the last director had been somewhat peculiar and in his final days had taken to making prophecies. He based them on the star alignments in the skies and some of his students felt there was more to them than just clever talk. They had begun to believe them.

  It had been rumoured that the director had been working on an important prophecy shortly before his death, one that could change the course of history. It was thought he had died before completing his work, there had been no sign of this prophecy among his papers. That is, until the librarian revealed the box, given to him just days before the director’s death and with strict instructions he had not dared to ignore. The box contained this last great prophecy, along with something that would save Britain from catastrophe in the near future – or so the orders the librarian had been given stated.

  Now, the current director considered this all poppycock and would have gladly thrown the box out, never even opening it. Unfortunately, some of the other fellows at the institute were less sceptical and were insistent the box should be opened. This created another complication, as the past director had commanded that the box should only be opened in the presence of four bishops and the king. There were members of the institute in the process of writing letters to the Crown to arrange this, much to the director’s horror.