Page 193 of Troubled Blood

All suddeinly with mortall stroke astownd,

Doth groueling fall…

The martiall Mayd stayd not him to lament,

But forward rode, and kept her ready way…

Edmund Spenser

The Faerie Queene

Satchwell bade the attendant in the art gallery farewell by clasping her hands in a double handshake and assuring her he’d look in later in the week. He even took fulsome leave of the disgruntled painter of Long Itchington, who scowled after him as he left.

“Provincial galleries,” he said, chuckling, as he and Robin headed out of the Pump Rooms. “Funny, seeing my stuff next to that old bat’s postcard pictures, though, wasn’t it? And a bit of a kick to be exhibited where you were born. I haven’t been back here in, Christ, must be fifty-odd years. You got a car? Good. We’ll get out of here, go froo to Warwick. It’s just up the road.”

Satchwell kept up a steady stream of talk as they walked toward the Land Rover.

“Never liked Leamington.” With only one eye at his service, he had to turn his head in exaggerated fashion to look around. “Too genteel for the likes of me…”

Robin learned that he’d lived in the spa town only until he was six, at which point he and his single mother had moved to Warwick. He had a younger half-sister, the result of his mother’s second marriage, with whom he was currently staying, and had decided to have his cataract removed while in England.

“Still a British citizen, I’m entitled. So when they asked me,” he said, with a grand wave backward at the Royal Pump Rooms, “if I’d contribute some paintings, I thought, why not? Brought them over with me.”

“They’re wonderful,” said Robin insincerely. “Have you got just the one sister?” She had no aim other than making polite conversation, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Satchwell’s head turn so that his unbandaged eye could look at her.

“No,” he said, after a moment or two. “It was… I ’ad an older sister, too, but she died when we were kids.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Robin.

“One of those things,” said Satchwell. “Severely disabled. Had fits and stuff. She was older than me. I can’t remember much about it. Hit my mum hard, obviously.”

“I can imagine,” said Robin.

They had reached the Land Rover. Robin, who’d already mentally calculated the risk to herself, should Satchwell prove to be dangerous, was confident that she’d be safe by daylight, and given that she had control of the car. She unlocked the doors and climbed into the driver’s seat, and Satchwell succeeded in hoisting himself into the passenger seat on his second attempt.

“Yeah, we moved froo to Warwick from ’ere after Blanche died,” he said, buckling up his seatbelt. “Just me and my mum. Not that Warwick’s much better, but it’s aufentic. Aufentic medieval buildings, you know?”

Given that he was Midlands born and raised, Robin thought his cockney accent must be a longstanding affectation. It came and went, mingled with an intonation that was slightly foreign after so many years in Greece.

“Whereas this place… the Victorians ’ad their wicked way with it,” he said, and as Robin reversed out her parking space he said, looking up at the moss-covered face of a stone Queen Victoria, “there she is, look, miserable old cow,” and laughed. “State of that building,” he added, as they passed the town hall. “That’s somefing me and Crowley had in common, for sure. Born ’ere, hated it ’ere.”

Robin thought she must have misheard.

“You and…”

“Aleister Crowley.”

“Crowley?” she repeated, as they drove up the Parade. “The occult writer?”

“Yeah. ’E was born here,” said Satchwell. “You don’t see that in many of the guidebooks, because they don’t like it. ’Ere, turn left. Go on, it’s on our way.”

Minutes later, he directed her into Clarendon Square, where tall white terraced houses, though now subdivided into flats, retained a vestige of their old grandeur.

“That’s it, where he was born,” said Satchwell with satisfaction, pointing up at number 30. “No plaque or nothing. They don’t like talking about him, the good people of Leamington Spa. I had a bit of a Crowley phase in my youth,” said Satchwell, as Robin looked up at the large, square windows. “You know he tortured a cat to death when he was a boy, just to see whether it had nine lives?”

“I didn’t,” said Robin, putting the car into reverse.

“Probably ’appened in there,” said Satchwell with morbid satisfaction.