Butterflies (The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal) by KJ Charles

Author:KJ Charles
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: short story, free, mm, gay romance, ghost stories, gay ghost story
Published: 2013-11-25T16:00:00+00:00

***

The police sergeant was more welcoming than the butterfly collector. Many provincial policemen swell with pride at being interviewed by a real London journalist, and the greatest difficulty is to stop them talking. This one was much of that type, except that he evidently felt that the whole butterfly business was an embarrassing nuisance.

‘It’s peculiar, yes,’ he said. ‘Very peculiar. But peculiar ain’t my business. The Chief Constable’s brought a fellow down here to look into it, a Mr Feximal, I expect you know the name. Peculiar is his business. My business is law-breaking, and I’ve quite enough of that to be getting on with.’

I made noises of sympathy and he launched into a recital of his woes. I had covered many a crime in London and it seemed to me he had very little to complain about: a few burglaries, the usual cases of drunkenness and wife-beating, a nasty piece of vandalism in the Cathedral, involving the desecration of an ancient tomb. He cast no light on the butterfly killings, or much else, but his story of the tomb caught my attention and I considered it as I nodded along to his monologue.

I doubted Simon would be finished with whatever he was doing in the morgue yet. The Cathedral was no great distance. It would be worth a glance, and if the vandalism was as dramatic as the sergeant claimed, it might make either excellent local colour or even a short article of its own. I was paid by the word; these things count.

I headed off to Winchester Cathedral, and soon found myself in its chilly stone interior. It is a building of extraordinary beauty, the soaring pillars and arched roof like a petrified forest above me, and I paced through it in some awe, feet ringing on the flagstoned floor.

I asked a verger for what I sought. His face showed reluctance, but I dropped the sergeant’s name into his ear and a shilling into his hand, and he took me to a tomb, concealed from the public by a temporary curtain.

‘Here it is, sir,’ he said. ‘The tomb of Peter des Roches. Appalling.’

The medieval effigy of a reclining man carved in stone had doubtless been beautiful once, but time, or perhaps the touches of the faithful, had worn away the statue’s features until he had the appearance of a leper, pitted and noseless. Underneath the effigy, the side of the tomb was cracked and splintered, with a jagged-edged hole exposing its black interior. I ducked down to look at it, and recoiled.

It was cold. I could feel the icy air stealing out from the dark interior. And it was dark inside, too, not just an absence of light but darkness as a force, a hungry, waiting thing that would devour all attempts to see in. I looked at the broken edges of stone, and perhaps it was merely the shadows, but it looked to me more than that. As though the darkness was staining the stone. Slowly spreading outward, into the light.

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