Read Online Butterflies (The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal) by Kj Charles - Free Book Online Page A

astonishment that it was constituted, not of paper, but of butterflies. Butterflies in their thousands, of the most extraordinary variety of hues, of species not native to England or ever seen here. The insects were all dead or dying, with barely a flutter to their wings, and the two ladies approached to look closer, and then a drift of the lovely dead things slipped to the ground, and what had seemed merely extraordinary became terrible.
    It was not simply a heap of butterflies, as if there was anything simple about such a thing in a chilly English October. The bright wings hid a corpse.
    He was Thomas Janney, Old Tom, a vagrant of the Winchester woods. Known to the police as an itinerant and a drinker, prone to foul language in his cups, but with little real harm said of him at any time these past two decades. And he was dead, face suffused with blood, skin shrivelled and dry, and inside his mouth, down his throat, in his lungs, were butterflies.
    An appalling discovery, but the passing of a tramp makes little impact on the world, however mysterious the circumstances. It was the second death that had set the news wires alight.
    This time it was a local schoolmaster, Hubert Lord. No weakling he, as unlike the broken-down wanderer as could be imagined. A young, healthy man in his twenties, he had set off into the woods for a cross-country run, as was his peculiar habit, and he had not returned. Alarmed for his safety, his young wife contacted the police, and it was not long after that his body was found, his face distorted with fear and horror, his throat crammed with butterflies.
    Where were the creatures coming from? How could two such swarms arise? Why should they kill?
    The local journalist, though his account was verbose and greatly too conscious of its own styling for the taste of a brisk London professional like myself, had included a few valuable pointers in his story. Chief amongst these was the interview with Dr Merridew, an amateur lepidopterist apparently held in high regard by those who shared his interest. He had been asked to give his views by the police, as Winchester’s only ‘butterfly man’, and had volunteered the information that some of the species had never been seen outside South America, that none of them were equipped for the rigours of an English climate, and that it was as impossible for butterflies to be directed to kill as it was for such a peculiar mix of species to be bred in captivity, or for them to swarm together.
    And yet they were bred, and they did swarm, and two men had died.
     
    ***
     
    I took a room in the Wykeham Arms, a pleasant inn set in winding red-brick streets. Compared to London, everywhere was convenient in this little cathedral city, but I was pleased to note that it was just a short walk from Dr Merridew’s address on Culver Street. My first step was to send him a note requesting an appointment at his earliest convenience. My second was to go down to the crowded little dining room, ready to plead with the staff to find me a seat for luncheon.
    I walked in and saw Simon Feximal.
    He sat alone at a table for two, directly in front of me, intent on a newspaper as he ate, and I stopped dead, gaping with the shock of recognition, and with that unwelcome, unstoppable quiver of sensation in my gut as I took him in. I had told myself that my memory and the dramatic circumstances of our first meeting had exaggerated his attractions, but he was every bit as commanding a presence as I remembered. That hair like spun steel, that beaky nose, those powerful shoulders that I had clutched as he drove into my body...
    The landlady made a politely impatient noise, urging me forward, and as she did so, Feximal looked up.
    ‘Robert?’ he said blankly. ‘What are you doing here?’
    ‘Oh, you gentlemen know each other!’ cried the landlady, and swept me forward to the spare seat at his table with relief. ‘Then I dare say you won’t mind sharing. We’ve steak and ale pie, sir, sit