Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(83)

Upon reflection, I did not. “No, but the police might have retrieved it and sent it off to be examined by a technician. If he did keep one on hand, there might have been film inside it. Ah, over here, yes, look at this one—it’s quite clear: These were taken inside the flat, in front of the blackboard. He used it for a background.”

“Did he have help, do you think? Can one take one’s own photo so easily?”

“There’s a simple switch on a cable with a button,” I said, now peering as intently as possible at the other portraits—all the same, just a shot of Leonard from the waist up, standing in front of that blackboard. “If you could see his hands, I’m sure you could see him holding it, and snapping the picture that way. This was not a man with friends or coconspirators; that much is obvious from his home—if nothing else of use was gleaned there. You know, I’m not entirely sure this is all . . .” I ran my finger thoughtfully along the bottom of each photo, scarcely touching them at all. “This isn’t water damage. Not all of it.”

“On the back of this one I can make out some of the writing. ‘I can’t be the only one who sees it.’ That’s what it says.”

“Which one?”

“Here.” She tapped one of the first in the series. I say it was a series, but really I only hung up the photos in the order they were stacked. Lizbeth continued. “And I think I see the word ‘shadow’ again. Do you see a shadow?”

“I might see a shadow disguised as water damage. Here, around his waist, at the very edge. I expect he would’ve loved to take a full-length shot, but lacked the room to set one up in that tiny hole of a place. I thought it was only the water at first, but it doesn’t crest the white border at all. It must be part of the image.”

She scooted off the bed. It was quite tall, and she landed with a short hop. “Let me see . . .”

“I think if we scan these from left to right . . . I think we got the chronology correct after all. There’s something around him.”

“Yes . . . There it is,” she muttered. “You can barely see it here at first . . . but by the end it’s quite clear. Or quite hazy, depending on how you think of it. He wondered if anyone else could see this dark fog, or if it was even real—so he took these photographs, trying to find out. Oh, that poor man . . .”

“That poor man? This fellow who apparently axe-murdered heaven knows how many people?”

“That poor man,” she asserted, “who feared he was going mad, and fought against delusion with science—with a camera, trying to find evidence that might counter his confusion and terror. That poor man who was crucified to the wall of that dark little flat, by parties unknown.”

“Your well of sympathy goes deeper than mine.”

“My intuition, too, perhaps. I’m a woman, after all. Supposedly, ours is exceptionally keen.”

“And what else does your intuition tell you about this man, these photos? That he was some kind of victim?”

She nodded. “Yes. Whatever terrible person or thing may have driven him, it claimed him in the end, didn’t it? And no one had any ill to speak of him, if George can be believed. There’s more to this, that’s what my intuition says. Rather, it screams. This man and his numbers, his theories . . .”

That offhanded remark of hers reminded me of the papers, with their penciled notes. “His numbers and theories, yes. Are you any good at mathematics?”

“Average or better. It wasn’t a favorite school subject, but I performed well enough.”

“Then you’ve outstripped me. I’ve never had a head for it myself.” By then, I was sorting through the box with its meager offerings. “So tell me, do these equations mean anything to you?”

She took the lined paper from me and gave it a cursory examination. “No, I’m afraid not. This is well above my skill level. I don’t even recognize half these symbols . . . but the numbers are enormous, I can see that much. He’s jotting down figures to the thirtieth or fortieth power—digits with hundreds of zeroes at the end. Whatever this refers to, it must have been positively cosmic in scale.”

“Cosmic . . . ,” I echoed, because the word sounded correct when I wrapped my tongue around it. “There is something cosmic about it all, isn’t there? All these churches, every last one of them is looking up to the sky. It’s not like the good old days, when you dug temples out of the earth and talked to snakes. Wait. I actually know of churches where snake handling is practiced . . . hmm . . .”

“I don’t believe churches typically think of prayer as space exploration, but I’d agree with the sentiment,” she granted.

“It’s an absolute fact, and I’ll not settle for hearing it called ‘sentiment.’ If there’s any God out there, He’s someplace we can’t reach Him. Otherwise, all this nonsense would be put to rest with a quick interview and a sip of holy wine.”

“You’re tragically blasphemous, dear Inspector.”

“Says the woman who studies the dark arts in her spare time.”

“Hardly,” she said, but it was half for laughs, and half to defuse the awkwardness I sensed was brewing within her. “An interest is scarcely the same thing as a devoted study, though one day I do hope to perform a proper séance.”