The Boxing Day Murders - Epilogue

It's New Year's Day. The snow has finally been cleared enough to make a path for the guests and their cars to make a speedy escape. We all share the feeling that to dwell another night in Bedford Manor would be tempting fate. Danielle is among the most disheartened:

"Typical," I hear her say to Penny. "I finally meet a man of substance, and he turns out to be a maniac."

"Better luck next year," Penny says, "I suggest we stay in London, though."

Alice accompanies me back to the station, driven by Warwick. I notice as we fill the boot of the car that she carries a suitcase of her own.

"So what are your plans now?" I ask.

"Well, my employer recently died," she says, "so I suppose I'm at something of a loose end."

"If it's work you need, I know a firm in London that could make use of your talents."

Alice grins.

"Lead the way."

As we leave Bedford Manor in the car, there is not a single spirit in sight. Alice leans into me, and I put an arm around her, and we spend the journey to the station in thoughtful silence.

I hope that Kit and his mother can be finally reunited. I pray that poor Sylvie finds the peace she never had in life. And I know that Baxter and Bess are hosting the party to end all parties, wherever they are.

The Boxing Day Murders - Chapter Three

The next morning I decide that I need to tell someone about Baxter's affair. When I ask myself the question of who I can trust, one name comes to mind straight away.

"Are you sure?" Alice asks me, when I tell her about Baxter's indiscretion.

"He told me so himself, the night before he was murdered." I've brought her into Baxter's study; everybody else is attempting to make breakfast, Warwick is still absent. "Here," I show her the letters in Baxter's desk. "Somebody knew about the affair. No demands, no extortion, but they wanted to make him aware that they knew."

"So Baxter was unfaithful to Bess, what, twenty odd years ago? And he more or less got away with it..."

"Nobody found out. There was no contact between Baxter and the other woman after the fling, and she died shortly afterwards."

"Foul play?"

"Natural causes, according to Bax."

"So for two decades Baxter gets on with his life, then out of the blue he starts getting letters about this woman. And as soon as he tells somebody about it, he and Bess are both strangled."

She shivers, and I instinctively rub her arms for warmth. The dandy's words echo in my ear.

"Dark times at Bedford Manor," I murmur.

"What?" Alice asks.

"Oh, nothing."

"So is everybody a suspect?"

"Not everybody." I gesture between the two of us, "I mean I'm certainly innocent, and I know how much you thought of Baxter and Bess both."

"Who does that leave, then? Danielle, Sylvie, Kit..."

"Danielle, unlikely. She's got a shady past but murder is a little dark for even her reputation."

"Sylvie?"

"I get a funny feeling about that one. Incredibly frail, but there's something she isn't telling us."

"I think I may know what that something is."

"Do tell, by all means."

Alice leans in conspiratorially, even though we are the only two people in the room.

"I overheard Bess telling Baxter that Sylvie has recently spent some time in a facility for the mentally unstable."

"Any details?"

"I'm afraid not. All I know is, the doctors weren't particularly keen on the idea of her being let out for Christmas. Bess had to assure them that she would be very closely watched."

"So we have an heiress to a sizeable fortune, with a screw loose. That sounds like a fairly simple equation to me."

"Shall we go talk to her?"

"Lead the way."

Alice and I never get the chance to speak to Sylvie about her recent institutionalisation. She is nowhere to be found among the other guests, and a quick search of the manor yields no results. Everybody takes this absence as a form of confession.

"Makes sense," Danielle says. "She was Baxter's niece, the closest thing he had to a child. Wouldn't surprise me if she were to be left everything in the will."

"But killing her aunt and uncle, only to run away – it smacks of guilt, doesn't it?" This is from Kit. "Acting that way, like a criminal, it ruins the whole plan."

"Maybe she panicked." Greyson chimes in. "She could be stranded out there in the storm now, a fugitive from the law..."

"Don't be so dramatic," Penny interrupts. "For all we know, she never left." She adds, sinisterly.

The author's words chill me to the bone. It's entirely possible that Sylvie is still somewhere in the manor; there are enough servants' corridors and obscure doorways to keep a killer hidden for days on end.

Theories about Sylvie's motivations and whereabouts dominate conversation for the rest of the day. Alice prepares a hearty stew for supper, and we retire. This pattern of waking, fretting, pacing and then sleeping is taking its toll on everybody. A couple of times we've had to dissuade Ben from clawing his way out into the snow, desperate to escape.

"Help me," I say under my breath as I crawl into bed. "Give me a sign, please..."

The Victorian dandy is my host this time. He pours me a glass of crème de menthe and takes me on a tour of the grounds.

"Things are getting out of hand at the manor," I say, meaning of course our manor, the manor of the living. "Something needs to be done soon. Sylvie needs to be found."

"She'll turn up soon enough," he says, "don't you worry about that. Our killer has a troubled, haunted mind. I feel sympathetic, almost."

"Almost?"

"I'm a murder victim myself, you know. I agree with Delilah, when the criminal resurfaces, we want custody."

"I'm not going to kill Sylvie. If I find her, I'll make sure she's arrested."

"You want justice, Mr Swift. It's admirable. But we want retribution. They are markedly different."

"I don't doubt you. But I refuse to take a life."

"That choice may not be yours to make, Mr Swift. There is a curse on this house, and it can only end in death."

"I think I preferred it when Fanny was my ghost."

The dandy laughs.

"They all say that," he says, knocking back his crème de menthe.

It is morning, and I am taking coffee with Alice and Kit when Danielle shuffles into the kitchen, her face ashen, all kittenish sway absent from her step.

"We..." She chokes back a sob: "...We've found Sylvie."

~

The Boxing Day Murders - Chapter Two

I dream of the ghost I saw on the path to the manor. Tawny curls fall over her shoulders, forming a frame for her corseted cleavage.

"Hello lover," she says, leaning on tiptoe to kiss my cheek, leaving the aroma of cloves in the air immediately before me.

"Hi there," I respond, unable to ignore how solid and real her body feels so close to mine, compared to earlier.

"My name is Frances Potter," she grabs my hand and shakes it vigorously, "but everybody calls me Fanny. Do you want to come to my party?"

"Of course," I nod and let her lead me into the same drawing room that I spent most of my evening in. The guests at Fanny's party appear at once to be more diverse in nature than those of the Bedfords, and by that I mean only half them are wearing clothes from this century. A Victorian dandy tips his hat and waggles his dress cane at me in a most suggestive manner, and Fanny laughs.

"Don't mind him. We don't get a lot of living guests, if you catch my drift sir."

"Everyone here is a ghost?"

"All bar you, yes. We're spending the holidays at Bedford Manor, as is the fashion."

A slender lady dressed entirely in white dances alone in the middle of the room, spinning and swaying like a marionette. Her pale blonde hair stands on end and she puts me in mind of Hans Christian Anderson's Snow Queen. From this distance, I find it hard to tell where her glittering dress ends and her bare alabaster skin begins.

"That's Estelle," Fanny whispers in my ear. "Would you like to meet her?"

I try to speak, but I can't. Fanny takes my silence as a yes, and takes me by the hand once more. As we reach Estelle, a rose-red blotch appears on her white, white chest. It grows and spreads, and the ghost's pale blue eyes open wider than I ever would have thought possible, and she screams.

I'm awake in an instant and I know straight away that the screaming is real. I leap out of bed, still in my clothes from last night, my head pounding, and run into the hallway. Sylvie stands frozen outside the doorway to Baxter and Bess's bedroom, tears streaming from her usually heavy-lidded eyes. I walk past her into the room, where Warwick the butler stands over my friend and his wife, taking the pulse of Bess and then of Baxter, before looking to me and slowly, sadly shaking his head. Their eyes are closed, and if it weren't for the bruises on both their necks, I'd swear they were sleeping.

"No..." The word turns to bile in my throat and I think I'm going to be sick. More guests appear in the hallway, Alice among them, and I stumble back to my room, eyes stinging. Alice follows me, grabbing my arm before I can collapse back onto the bed and try to end this bad dream.

"Who could have done this?"

"I don't know..." I struggle to focus on her, my vision blurry and my head spinning.

"Marcus!" She puts a hand on either side of my face to steady me, and the contact brings me round a little. "Marcus, what do we do?" I see her now. Without the usual make-up, with her hair loose and tangled, with shock and grief and fear in her eyes, she is still beautiful.

"We call the police."

"I tried already, it's no use." She points to the window and I see what she means; the view is pure white. "Some kind of freak blizzard, all the cars are snowed in and I can't get a signal on my mobile or the landline."

"That's not possible..." I reach for the phone on my night stand and Alice rolls her eyes.

"Trust me, Marcus, I've tried. We're unreachable."

The full impact of what she is trying to say takes a while to dawn on me, to dawn on all of us. All of the guests go down, one by one, to the kitchen where Warwick has started a fire to dispel the bitter morning cold. By the time lunchtime comes around, it has been decided among us all that Warwick will brave the storm on foot to go and get help. I offer, but Warwick insists that he go alone, showing the dedication of one born into service.

And so the Bedfords' bedroom door is closed and locked, and Warwick sets off wrapped up from head to toe like a belated present, and the rest of us stay in the manor, uncomfortably avoiding the subject that is on all of our minds... There is a killer in our midst.

Boxing Day fades like the drying salt of tears. Before we know it, we're waking up the next morning on the various sofas and chairs in the vast kitchen, aching for hot showers and clean clothes. Danielle looks particularly worse for wear, this being no doubt the longest time she has gone without applying foundation or changing her underwear.

Sylvie has barely said a word since yesterday morning, has barely even made eye contact with any of us. The steely flower has wilted before my very eyes, and my heart goes out to her. I know what a cruel thing it is, to be completely alone in the world. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, let alone a girl who has faced so much loss already.

Ameera hasn't left Hector's side since the bodies were discovered. I still find it bewildering, but I finally believe that it is real love between them. The trust she shows, the complete devotion in her eyes, it warms my cynical heart.

I guiltily realise what I have been doing; observing the other guests, looking for signs of culpability. Penny, the authoress, has been making cups of coffee for everybody non-stop, turning hers Irish on the sly; the actor, Ben, wouldn't stop talking at first about the inhumanity of it all, but he soon stopped when he realised that, trapped as we are, he still didn't have a captive audience. Sleazy Greyson has wasted no time in sidling up to Danielle, who in turn has ignored him and sought comfort from Kit.

Now Kit, he truly baffles me. He doesn't seem as shaken as the others, there is a stillness to him that I saw in Sylvie on Christmas Night, but... I don't know, I sense that he is quietly grieving, 'behind blue eyes' as it were.

Conversation is stilted all day. Nobody dares speak too loudly, or heaven forbid, smile. The blizzard rages on outside, and the ground floor windows are half obscured by the snow. At any other time, this kind of weather would set the stage for all sorts of festive fun; snowball fights and snow angels... But none of us can tear our thoughts for long from the two cold bodies lying in bed upstairs.

Despite the vast amounts of coffee drunk by us all, we are all exhausted. After one night of sleeping downstairs, the other guests seem keen to get back to their own rooms, even if it means splitting up and going upstairs. Before going up myself, I slip away to Baxter's office and retrieve from his desk one of the many duplicate letters he received. In the privacy of my quarters I pore over it, trying to identify the handwriting as that of anybody I knew Baxter to run with back in the old days. Failing miserably, I put the letter in my dresser drawer and get ready for bed.

Lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts return to Boxing Day morning, to Warwick shaking his head, to the bruises on their necks... My chest tightens and I feel tears sliding down my temples from the corners of my eyes. I can't remember the last time I cried, not really. Not a gentlemanly quality, to blub at the drop of a hat. But two of my oldest friends have been murdered and I haven't the foggiest idea who killed them – I cry as much out of frustration as I do from their deaths.

Exhausted, I start to see the ghosts before I even fully close my eyes. They come in through the walls, wispy and transparent, reaching out to me...

… And they become more and more solid until they are jostling next to me, dragging me into the centre of a dance.

"Don't be sad, Marcus," Fanny sings, "it's not so bad, you know, being like us."

"Perhaps not," I say, "but a crime has still been committed."

"And there'll be more of that before the year is through," the Victorian dandy adds. "Dark times have befallen Bedford Manor."

"You don't say." My voice is full of acid as I say this, although obviously it isn't this ghost's fault.

"I've seen to it that they're taken care of, if it's any consolation," Fanny tells me, still dancing around me with the others; I make myself dizzy just following her.

"They're here?"

"Yes."

"Can I see them?"

"Afraid not, duck. They're beginners, can't do no haunting just yet."

"I see." Another thought strikes me. "Do they know who killed them?"

"They barely know their own names, love. As clueless as newborns. Don't you worry about them, though – you just leave their wellbeing to me." She slows down, takes a deep mock breath, then pulls me out of the circle dance. "Now. What are we going to do with you? You were much better company last time."

"Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind. Murder doesn't sit well with me."

"Hmm..." Fanny thinks for a moment, then snaps her fingers. "I can see you're not going to be satisfied until we sort that out. Tell you what. Delilah!" This last exclamation is a summons, barked across the room to a formidably built woman dressed from head to toe in tweed.

"Coming, old girl," the woman wheezes, wobbling across the room.

"Marcus Swift, this is Delilah Bedford."

"Bedford?"

"Baxter's maternal grandmother," the tweed lady says, extending a disproportionately dainty hand. I shake it and give it back, rather numb to what is happening.

"Have you... seen them?" I ask. "Since they... I mean..."

"Oh, yes. Awful business. Needless to say, I want you to catch the fiend who did this to them. And when you do..." She leans forward at this point, "I want you to send them our way."

Before I can respond, an ice-cold hand touches my shoulder and I turn to see Estelle, the snowy lady, tears frozen in rivulets down her face.

"Born in a manger,” she whispers. Then, louder: “It's not too late. You can still save him!”

I am about to ask her who she is talking about when Fanny snaps her fingers and the dream ends.

~

Vampire Love Songs #4: Brandy Alexander

Tired of being on the heights I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensations. - "De Profundis", Oscar Wilde

They call him Billy, and lately that's what he's been calling himself. At first it was a novelty; like going on holiday. Bleaching his hair and getting himself inked had been the first step in creating distance from his old self, running into Seth and Mallory that night had been the second. So when Seth jokingly first christened him, he didn't bother to correct him. Now, Billy seems just as good a name as the one he had before.

The TV is broken, making the flat feel even emptier without the two guests who have fast become a fixture. He doesn't know where they are, wonders if he's allowed to ask. Decides he's not sure he wants to know. Everything is so new, he's careful of pushing. So instead, he lies on the sofa, not calling them, but thinking of how their voices would sound if he did.

This curious relationship he has with the two of them, it's one of the more interesting turns his new life has taken.  Sharing his time (and his body) between men and women isn't exactly a change for Billy, but the ease and speed with which their ménage à trois has become the norm surprises him.  When he first met Seth and Mallory, he had not expected to see them beyond that night.  The decision to let them bite him had just been another experiment of his, like the tattoos.  The search for an answer to a question he doesn't think he has ever voiced out loud:

What can't I do?  If nobody stops me, how far will I go?

The tattoos are six months old.  His white blonde hair is darkening at the roots.  Up until last year, Billy had never smoked more than a couple of adolescent, clandestine cigarettes out of his bedroom window. Now the bottom drawer of his night stand holds a small baggie of undisclosed pills, a pouch of amphetamine crystals and a considerable amount of Mary Jane. As much fun as all of that is, though, Billy still prefers a drink on days like this. Shit days when Mallory isn't around for him to fuck and Seth isn't around to fuck him.

He wonders if he has the ingredients for a Brandy Alexander. For somebody who doesn't eat much, he thinks it's basically the same as comfort food. The smooth cream and the warmth of the Courvoisier almost always make him feel better. It's like New Year in a glass, and Billy wants to feel new.

He is in luck: there's some brandy under his bed and a small amount of pouring cream in the fridge. Billy doesn't remember buying it, but a quick sniff convinces him it's consumable. He is delicately mixing the two together over ice when the phone rings, so he leaves it for the machine.

It's Randall, a friend of his parents. Billy once nursed strong suspicions that his mother was cheating on his father with Randall. Hardly seems to matter now.

"Alex," the machine says, "I'm worried about you. You said you'd check in, let me know you're alright. Haven't heard from you in a while. Call me. Please."

"Fuck you, Randy," Billy raises his glass to toast the thin air and then downs its contents. The rich cocktail doesn't have the desired effect: the sweetness soon sours in his mouth, and instead of a warm glow, Billy begins to feel slightly sick. Too much Courvoisier and not enough cream. Or maybe the cream was bad to begin with.

He goes into the bathroom and sits on the floor against the wall in case he needs to throw up any time soon. Probably for the best that Seth and Mallory aren't around, he thinks. Nobody wants to see the calf vomiting before it gets served up as veal.

The bathroom tiles are cold on his bare feet, and Billy can feel a chill through the seat of his jeans. After a while, half an hour maybe, it becomes apparent that the dodgy drink isn't going to make him ill, so Billy stands up and leaves the bathroom. He only briefly considers making another one, before heading to bed with a copy of Howl by Allen Ginsberg. He gave up halfway through Tropic of Cancer but holds out hope for this one. The page keeps shifting in and out of focus, and the words seem to continually change order – in the end, Billy gives up and closes his eyes.

And that's when he sees them.

His mother looks beautiful, as always. He can't bear to imagine her with a broken neck. The damage done to her, thankfully, hadn't been instantly visible. His father, however, has seen better days. His nose is black and flattened between pale, flat cheeks. Three tiny cuts, from glass one would presume, decorate his right temple. Miranda and Gregory Brown have not changed one bit since the day he identified their bodies in the mortuary.

Billy opens his eyes before they can speak. It's always worse when they try to talk to him.

Something beneath him vibrates: he rolled over onto his mobile phone when he nodded off. It's a message from Seth and Mallory: On our way over. Can't wait to see you.

Billy swings his legs off the bed and goes back into the kitchen, checking the vodka is in the freezer. All three of them enjoy a little drink before going to bed. He busies himself cleaning a few glasses, then takes himself off into the living room to wait. While mere moments before he'd been filled with a queasy sense of exhaustion, now he can feel his cock stirring in his jeans.

In his mind, the scenario plays out ahead of time. He will take what he needs this time. He will push Mallory down onto the bed and clamp his hand over her mouth as he enters her. He'll feel the weight of Seth at his back before he forces himself in, and he won't know which hurts more, that, or the teeth on the side of his neck, but either way he'll cry out. Everything will go into that wordless noise: everything that made him who he was before he was Billy. Afterwards, Seth will lick the blood from his lips while Mallory lies panting on the bed, and he'll say: “You're quite the howler, aren't you Billy?”

Here they come now.

~

Vampire Love Songs #3: Dr. Feelgood

She's cheating on him, and the only reason Seth knows this is because she's giving him a blowjob. In the years they've spent together, he has come to recognise this as one of the myriad, more exotic ways in which Mallory's guilt manifests. He wonders if it's to spite him after the thing with the dancer. He wonders if she even knows about the thing with the dancer.

There are cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. Seth can't seem to look away, and it breaks his... well, concentration isn't quite the word. Mallory looks up at him questioningly. He pulls her up level to him, kisses her on the cheek, and hops off the bed. Before Mallory can figure out what happened, the bathroom door is closed and he's in the shower.

He considers masturbating while in there, but can't muster up the will. Instead he stands under the stream until the water runs cold. By the time he steps out, he has decided to start following Mallory.

She's sleeping when he comes out of the bathroom. As quietly as he can, Seth locates the bottle of vodka, and pours what little remains into a dirty glass, necking it. It barely touches the sides. He knows what would hit the spot – what always does the trick when vodka won't quite take the edge off. Seth could really do with someone to drink. But a glance at his sleeping wife stops him putting his shoes on and going out.

He's stopped going to meetings, because a weekly circle wank was never going be enough to curb these cravings.  Many try to sublimate the urge with something else, but he's already an old acquaintance of just about every vice going. Seth is beginning to think a cure is impossible.  And he's surprised by how little he minds.  Mallory, he knows it bothers Mallory.  The killing.  And when you get down to it, it bothers Seth too - conceptually.  But when it's happening, when it actually matters, he's usually too lost in his own bliss to care.

***

Two nights later, Seth follows Mallory to a building he recognises. It takes him a moment to place it; it is the home of the young man they met, what, two weeks ago? Seth had called him Billy, as a joke, because he had white blonde hair and a pretty punk mouth. Mallory disappears into the apartment building, but Seth follows her no further. Instead he walks to a bar he knows just a few streets away, and does his best to get wasted.

Odd, how much Seth can see while trying so hard not to. The once familiar look of arousal on Mallory's face, and the twin swallows that adorn Billy's young, muscular chest.  The smooth, unspoiled flesh of his buttocks as he flips her over, making her squeal with giddy pleasure beneath him.

Seth knows his wife is sleeping with somebody else.  And now he knows who that somebody is. All that he doesn't know is what he plans to do with this information.

Kill him? The ease with which this thought comes into his mind should worry him. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. Which Seth realises it has become, for him. He doesn't know whether it's the alcohol or the rage, but his stomach feels like it is on fire.

Mallory is still gone when he gets back to the hotel. He paces the room, palms itchy, chest tight. He thinks he's going to be sick. Withdrawal. And for what? Seth has long known he's a bad man. He has tried to be better for Mallory, to be the kind of husband she deserved. And where is Saint Mallory now?

He goes through all of his pockets, through the handbag Mallory left on the floor, through every drawer in the night stand until he finds something sharp enough. A small pair of scissors. He presses his thumb against the blade, wincing when the pressure gives way to hot, searing pain. So that's what it feels like, Seth thinks, as he brings the thumb to his lips, hungrily sucking on the small cut. The tightness in his chest loosens slightly. He feels his panicked breathing slow.

He kicks off his shoes and climbs into bed, still sucking his thumb like an insecure child. Only now does everything he had to drink earlier come rushing to his head. The room begins to sway like a cabin on a boat, and Seth finds it helps rock him to sleep.

***

When he wakes up, Mallory is in the bed next to him. He rises without waking her and changes into some clean clothes – or, at the very least, cleaner than the ones he slept in. He deliberately avoids looking at Mallory as he walks around the bed and leaves the room.

It's sunny out – oppressively so. Seth wishes he had a pair of sunglasses to protect his sensitive, hungover eyes. After just a few minutes of walking he can feel the white shirt clinging damply to his back, and his legs sweltering in the black trousers.

He doesn't realise until he is standing outside the door that he hadn't even been sure which flat number he was seeking. Seth doesn't knock, just lets himself in.  The blinds in the living room are almost completely closed; smoke floats in the thin shafts of light that remain.  Billy is lying on sofa, a joint in one hand and an open paperback in the other.  He jumps a little when Seth enters, although he regains his composure far too quickly for Seth's liking.

"Tropic of Cancer?" Seth asks, gesturing to the book.

"It's my aim to get through every book that's ever been banned for lewd content," Billy replies.

"How's that going so far?"

"Not well," Billy sighs and drops the book onto the floorboards.  "I'm shocked by how little it takes to shock some people."

Seth ponders asking him his opinion on Lady Chatterley's Lover, but dismisses the idea as too crasse.  Instead, he says casually:

"You're fucking my wife."

Billy doesn't speak for a moment.  When he does, he surprises Seth.

"I think it would be more accurate to say that she's fucking me."

"Excuse me?"

"The first night we met," Billy says, "You remember?  I brought you back here.  I let you do this," he tilts his head to one side, exposing the healing marks on his neck, "and then later, she came back and we had sex."

He gets up off the sofa, walks over to Seth and offers him the joint.  He takes it.

"I let you take what you wanted," Billy says.  "Both of you."

"But you have feelings for her."  Seth does not like the way Billy keeps looking at him - straight in the eye.

"I don't know.” Billy shrugs. “I think so.  She's..."

"Complicated?"

"Fascinating."

"She has feelings for you," Seth tells him.  "Did you know that?"

Billy doesn't say anything.

"She's my wife."

Billy ignores that comment too, simply saying:

"You're no open book either, are you Seth?"

Seth exhales heavily. He doesn't know why he came here. He passes the joint back to Billy, fully intending to turn and go.  But when their fingers brush together, and Billy's touch lingers for just a second on his lacerated thumb, he knows he won't be leaving this room for quite some time.

“Would you like something to drink?” Billy asks.

~