Goldsmiths - University of London

“But nobody knows to this day if Lizzie Borden did murder her parents or whether she was framed!” he shrieked, dabbing at his forehead with a yellow handkerchief.

The group shuffled in the dark hallway.

“He’s eerie,” whispered the Ohio girl. Gelsinger drew his forefinger across his neck in a slow, slicing motion and grinned.

“I’m Leonard Pickel,” said the man, his thick sleeves swinging about his hands as they cut through the air, “Curator of The Lizzie Borden Museum for forty years. Despite her court acquittal, many still think Lizzie did it, though I believe she was innocent.” He stuck out a bony finger towards the kitchen window. “I live over there.”

Under the sloping branches of the maple tree, white paint curling from its sides, stood a large converted barn.

“We’ll spend the next hour in the rooms where these crimes took place. Any questions, please ask.”

Leonard’s white hair rose up from his head like a blizzard.

“Sadly,” he said in a low voice, "The infamous axe discovered in the barn in 1892 is not with us. It went missing after being removed for police evidence.”

The group groaned.

Leonard nodded towards a door with two bloodstained faces painted on its panels. “But the lavatory is here should you get taken short.”

Gelsinger’s eyes darted across the group. A bucktoothed girl was staring at him. Swiftly, his eyes moved back to Leonard’s ratty tie, ill-fitting brown slacks; his tired, hawkish eyes. His words spiralled into the air like steam.

He gazed up the wooden stairs to the bedroom where the first murder had happened, picturing Lizzie standing over the body, her grey dress trailing in its blood, white marks on her cheeks from where her fingers had viciously pressed in. He felt a hardening in his trousers.

“We shall visit the souvenir shop later. It has some amusing items.” Cocking an eyebrow, Leonard added, “Any jokes about past events in this house, however, I request you kindly keep to yourselves. Out of respect, you understand.”

He glared at a Japanese girl in luminous trainers playing with her iPhone.

“The House of Forty Whacks might revel in such humour,” he snorted, “but here, we have standards!”

Leonard tugged at his tie. “For those not yet aware, Forty Whacks recently opened on the other side of Fall River, and is now selling itself as the officialLizzie Borden museum. This has culminated in the most dreadful legal battle. I’d like you to know, we are the only original Lizzie Borden museum in America. The murders took place between these four walls, and it was her home until that terrible day…”

“Business suffered much?” asked a French boy in skinny jeans.

“It has, I’m afraid,” Leonard said, dropping his tie. “The whole of Fall River is now suffering for its sins! But now my dears, let me take you to where the first of these dreadful deeds took place.” He wafted his handkerchief up the stairs. “To the bedroom!”

As usual, they’d wanted their photos taken by the couch where Lizzie’s father had lain for hours, head caved in. They’d bought the $1.99 Lizzie Borden Snowstorms by the dozen. Inside, tiny houses puffed out red snow that swirled around a miniature Lizzy, her plastic eyes bulging, her axe raised to the sky.

Over the years, Leonard had grown weary of the demands for Ouija boards and midnight séances. His large, hooked nose would wrinkle every time he saw the plastic hatchet with Welcome painted in red on its blade above the front door. He blanched at the steady sales of key rings and Mother’s Bloody Soap. No one ever asked him what Lizzie was really like.

Blowing dust from its cover, Leonard placed the vinyl on the turntable, lifted the lever and watched it spin. Debussy’s The Swan cascaded through the speakers, swirling like mist around his head.

Back in his armchair, he carefully removed his hairpiece and placed it in the Horne’s shoebox on the table. The lamp cast a limp, brown light along the walls. He stared across the yard to the main house, the red rims of his eyes growing wide as the notes of the clarinet soared.

Leonard got up and poured the water into the teapot. He went over to a sideboard strewn with newspaper cuttings. They read: Murder Museum Opens To Controversy, Marilyn Manson Unveils New Exhibit, The Fight For Lizzie Borden: Who Will Win? He opened the top drawer and took out a glass-fronted case. Placing the case on the table, he pulled a tiny key from his trouser pocket, fitted it into the lock, and turned.

Leonard peered in. It gleamed in the flickering light from the silent television. He took it out of the case, a red velvet cloth draped around it. To him, it looked like the thin body of a young girl, half undressed.

He sank back down into his armchair and brought the axe up to his face, nestling his cheek against the old metal blade.

His eyes fixed on the only light left on in the main house. It glowed yellow in the dark. Taking a puff of his cigarette, he let the axe rest gently in his lap and stared up at the bedroom. Something was moving.

Melody filled the shed, fingers dancing impossibly over black and white keys. He looked up at the window. Something was materialising, coming into being. An unreal feeling gripped him. The music twisted towards climax as, in the window, fragments collected themselves and dispersed again, lines getting sharper, blurred edges slowly taking shape.

Leonard watched as the form coagulated, thickening first into jelly and bone, then hair and flesh. As seconds passed, a hand emerged from the dark, then a shoulder, then, the pinched bone of a knee. The hand turned like a feather in the silent room.

As Leonard watched, tears dripped onto his lilac shirt. The figure became stronger, breasts more fiercely alive, belly more buoyant and supple. Then finally he saw her face, sad, turning in the yellow light.

She pirouetted and leapt in grey skirts, her small dark toes pointing upwards. Shadows darted in and out of curtains, the lamp sprinkling her with a sickly, golden light. As the piano soared and the turntable reached its penultimate spin, a red ribbon around her neck finally tore and came loose, her black hair unpinned, curls tumbling down her neck.

The record player clicked. Leonard stood up.

Leonard sent the ginger cat screeching into the air. He brought a mouthful of soup to his lips and blew.

It was six-thirty, and almost twenty-four hours since his encounter at the window.

“I’ve enough on my mind…!" he spat at Heidegger, now winding in and out of his ankles. He slammed the pan against the ring.

A small brass bell wired to the main house started to shake. “He’s an hour early!” he muttered to himself, rolling up his long johns and yanking a cheap paisley robe from the door.

Outside, flowers were bent low by the weight of rain sheeting across the garden, summer heat sizzling in the drains. Leonard streaked across to the house.

Undoing the front door chain, he saw a man on the step in a crumpled blue raincoat, rain dribbling off his nose into his beard. The stranger cocked his trilby.

“Oh,” said Leonard “I was expecting someone else!”

“My name’s Gelsinger – from The Herald. Can we chat?”

Leonard lifted an eyebrow. “I thought your lot were only interested in that buffoon at The House of Forty Whacks? He pays your boss for more than enough coverage to put me out of business!”

Gelsinger let out an enormous sneeze. "I know The Herald hasn’t exactly been on your side in this dispute, Mr Pickel, but I want to change that. Please, just ten minutes of your time!”

Leonard closed the door and began walking down the hallway.

"I can help you keep your museum open," shouted Gelsinger. “… I know about the axe!”

Gelsinger yanked off his raincoat.

"I grew up here. My mom taught at Fall River High. After I finished my Creative Writing MFA at Columbia, I ended up working in hedge funds."

He stared down at a wet patch on Leonard’s floor.

“I think maybe my coat… should I?”

Leonard shook his head.

“I was renting a studio in Brooklyn with my… we broke up. I’d not written for five years. So I came back here, started a novel. Now, this job with The Herald."

Gelsinger was dressed in a classy polo neck and expensive, well-cut corduroys. Leonard looked down at the soggy Converse pumps.

“You still write?”

“On my second book.”

"What's it about?"

Gelsinger placed his trilby on the radiator. "Murder, I guess."

His hair was black and wiry, fizzing about his head as he talked. But the rest of him looked like it was carved from ivory – his white swan-like neck, arms frail and willowy; his elegant nose. He beamed a soft smile at Leonard. “You do these?"

He pointed at three paintings hanging on the barn wall.

“Yes, a long time ago."

“They’re good. I really… ”

“… Can you tell me why you were snooping around here the other day?"

Gelsinger puffed on his inhaler. "Checking out your tour before we connected, I guess.”

“And what makes you think I want to connect?”

“This cold’s playing havoc with my asthma!”

“… I do have another meeting in thirty-five minutes.”

“I want to talk about the axe.”

“What axe?”

Gelsinger smiled. “I know you’ve got it, Mr Pickel.”

Leonard let out a laugh. “And how do you know that?”

“Mr Pickel… ”

“I think it’s best you see yourself out!”

Gelsinger looked like he’d been slapped. “You think I’m here to screw you, Leonard, but without that axe on display, this museum’s dying on its knees. You know you can’t beat him; he’s got too much money, too many connections. He’s got The Murder Channel piped into every room… Angelina Jolie did her Esquire shoot in the Haunted Honeymoon Suite!”

Leonard rolled his eyes. “I don’t need to hear this.”

“Your place stinks, the walls are damp. If you aren’t going to sell out, the axe is your only option.”

Leonard flicked his cigarette into the ashtray. “Why do you care?”

“I’m a writer! We love to champion the underdog!” Gelsinger suddenly roared with laughter. “Seriously, your place is a work of art; extraordinary. But the tourists laugh at you. I even joined in the other day. You’ve this incredible slice of Americana, of history, Leonard, but you’re blowing it!”

“I’m a dying breed, Gelsinger. Perhaps it’s time I was extinct.”

Leonard’s jaw drooped like a hound’s, too old and tired to fetch the ball one more time. Eventually, he said “What’s in it for you?”

“This probably sounds nuts, but your museum makes me feel alive… real again somehow. The Forty Whacks… this country – they’re so careless with all that beauty right under their noses...”

His eyes suddenly filled up.

“You’re very… passionate, Gelsinger.”

“Look, my boss Diane will give you all the press you need. We could get The New York Times onto it very quickly. But we need the axe.”

Rain peppered the window like bullets.

“Damn America,” said Leonard. The clock struck seven. “He’s coming round to sign in thirty minutes.”

“You’re selling today?”

“Looks that way. To Forty Whacks.”

The fire glowed in the grate as Gelsinger quickly paced across the room, slipping his hands in and out of his pockets.

He stopped abruptly. “I was crazy about your museum as a boy.”

“You were?”

“My Grandpa brought me maybe a dozen times. Do you know how terrifying you were? Your strange red silk shirts… that long black hair!”

“You came here?”

“Yes. Grandpa was great friends with your Aunt Minnow during the Depression.”

Leonard suddenly glowed, as though a ray of sunshine had just passed over him. “… you mean Edith!”

“Yes, Edith! They kind of lost touch, but they still met, once a year, here at the museum. They’d speak of her time working as Lizzie Borden’s maid up at Maplecroft, and how she was only sixteen but Lizzie’s one true friend.”

“You know about that!”

“One night, your Aunt showed Grandpa the axe. Lizzie had given it to her just weeks before she died – saying she wanted to be free of it. Kind of perverse; but seems after the trial the police gave her the axe, and Lizzie had hung onto it in case the real killer ever showed. Even as an old lady, Lizzie still wanted revenge. But you know all this...”

“I didn’t know about your Grandpa!” spluttered Leonard.

“Well, I’ve known about the axe since I was little – from Lizzie to your Edith… now you. So I understand why you hid it. Lizzie may have been acquitted, but that murder case ruined her life – she’d have never wanted the axe reduced to some museum showpiece!”

Leonard hovered over the sideboard, dressing gown hanging off him like a loose bandage, bony shoulders poking through the silk. “I’m not sure who I’m hiding it for anymore.”

He opened the drawer. “Fifteen years I’ve kept it.”

It was phosphorescent. Leonard put the axe on the table and poured them both a large brandy.

Gelsinger lightly fingered the blade. “Sounds strange, but it’s more beautiful than I imagined.”

Leonard threw another log into the flames, his eyes glowing red in the light. “I never thought life would turn out like this.”

“Like what?”

So Leonard told him… about the slum council estates in Fifties Glasgow, then running away to London with his sister, Betty. On the banks of the Thames, sat like a mud lark, watching early morning mist rise over Tower Bridge. Carrying the guilt of her suicide all the way to the USA. Finding Aunt Edith… a new life… the museum. Open Days – hippies wielding Aleister Crowley manuscripts, Charlie Manson tapes. The fateful night she told him about Lizzie. Leonard was young, idealistic; he could still fall in love. But everything must pass. And Edith, the only one who truly cared. Before Alzheimer’s completely took her, she handed him the axe… in the end they all leave!

Leonard fell to his knees.

“I’ve kept that axe too long, Eric. Sometimes I think it’s sending me mad. I see things. I watch her every night. I don’t know if it’s my head or if it’s… sounds crazy to talk about spirits… I can’t leave her; leave this house to those who’ll suck the life out!”

He hung his head.

“You’re just spending too much time by yourself, Leonard – this kind of secret would be too much for anyone. That axe has been hidden a hundred years! They’ll always point the finger; say Lizzie was guilty. But you told her story, kept the axe safe… honoured her memory!”

Leonard’s face was lost, a blur of tissues. “But Eric, don’t you see? That’s why she’s still here. She’d no other way out; she was driven to it. They did terrible things to her. Things you wouldn’t believe!”

“Who?”

“Her parents.”

“What?”

“I can’t say…!”

“Grandpa told me rumours about the real murderer. Lizzie could have hung for that bastard.”

“You’re not listening, Gelsinger.”

“She carried the stigma all her life… ”

“Listen to me.”

Gelsinger fumbled around in his pocket for another tissue. Leonard looked up, wet streaking his red cheeks.

“She did it… Lizzie did it!”

The clock struck quarter past.

“I don’t understand.”

“They’d treated Lizzie like a slave, she lost control. It was never cold-blooded.”

“You’re kidding!”

Leonard slumped, his bony feet beneath him. “Edith took me in, saved my life. She loved Lizzie – saw her life destroyed by what she’d done… she heard her confess.”

Gelsinger wheezed, groping for his Ventolin.

“Your Aunt told Grandpa she was innocent!”

“To protect her!”

“No, it doesn’t make sense. Why would you open this place if you knew Lizzie was the murderer?”

“Eric. Listen!”

“She stuck an axe in her parents’ heads!”

Gelsinger raged about the room, running his hands through his hair until it stood on end. “No. You’ve ruined everything!”

“I don’t understand why you’re getting this upset, Eric.”

Gelsinger slowly turned, his gaze like ice. “Well, I guess you know nothing about me, Leonard. I dreamed about this place, about Lizzie… about you. It’s taken me years to even pluck up the courage to come and talk to you about the axe. When I heard your museum was folding, I finally got my chance to see it… and help you. I thought this place was worth saving… it was different...”

“Different from what? Eric, you’re the writer – guilty or innocent, isn’t it thestorythat matters?”

“Like you believe that! I can see that tortured look in your eye; Lizzie Borden’s made you a wreck! Five years wasting my life trying to finish that dumb novel – my girlfriend Sarah left me in the end… said I was ‘unavailable’! And guess what it was about? Yes, Lizzie – poor tormented innocent Lizzie. I thought it’d be finished this summer. But that’s all shit, isn’t it Leonard… a fantasy like everything else in my life. I’m the idiot. A stupid, naive idiot.”

“There are things that you know nothing about!”

Gelsinger picked up the axe. “You’re a fake, Leonard! Worse than Forty Whacks, worse than that yellow-suited oaf!”

He peered down at Leonard, lifting the axe. Then he turned on his heels and fled.

The front door was only a few metres – he could leave, be gone forever. Forget. He didn’t have to finish the novel, didn’t have to do any of it. He could go back to banking. Get a new girl. Move.

The hall seemed darker than ever. He turned towards the toilet door and its grotesque, silent faces.

The first blow split the panel, slashing the image of Mr Borden across his oily, red mouth.

“Fuck you Lizzie!”

He raised the axe again. This time it came down across the stepmother’s neck. “Fuck Fortnum & Stateside Hedge Funds!”

The axe split the soft wood over and again, the Ladies and Gentlemen sign turning to pale mush.

“Fuck you Sarah!”

The axe stuck in the wood. Out of breath, Gelsinger slid to his knees.

“I wasted twenty-five grand on a college education!”

Leonard watched from the kitchen doorway, his eyes still red from crying.

“Any better?”

Gelsinger blinked twice. “No.”

“You’ve messed up my artwork,” Leonard smiled, poking his slipper into the debris. He helped Gelsinger to his feet.

“I’m sorry… so sorry… ”

“It’s all going to be okay.”

“I should leave… I’ll pay for damages!”

“Don’t worry.” Leonard put a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve done enough damage myself.”

“I‘m so sorry. I’ve been having a difficult time lately. I gotta go…”

Gelsinger rushed to the front door, tears flying from his eyes.

He squeezed the handle and wrenched the door open. Rain hammered the rooftops outside.

On the step, stood a man in a yellow suit puffing on a fat cigar. He blew a smoke ring at Gelsinger, and stepped inside.

“Good evening Leonard,” the man said. “Looks like you’ve been having some fun in ‘ere!” He waved the contract.

Gelsinger followed him back in.

“Boyle! I know we agreed… but something’s come up,” said Leonard.

“I can see that,” said Boyle, eyeing the toilet door. “What crazy shit you been up to this time?”

“Now’s not good. Can we… ” A splinter stuck in Leonard’s foot, “…do it tomorrow?”

Boyle growled. “Is this what I think it is?”

The axe jutted out like a broken tooth.

“Listen, I’ve changed my mind. I’m not selling.”

Boyle threw some pills down his throat. “No can do, Leonard. Lawyers are already onto it. Just red tape now.” He raised an eyebrow. “And this’ll set the museum up nicely! I always knew you’d something up your sleeve.”

Gelsinger heard a rumbling upstairs.

“This axe isn’t yours!”

Boyle lumbered over the floorboards like a great, fat budgerigar, his cigar trailing ash across the wood.

“I’m warning you!”

The noise came again, like a slow, metal grinding.

“Let me see it!”

Leonard levered the axe out of the door and swung it about his head.

“What is that noise?” Gelsinger shouted, his hands at his ears.

Leonard streaked upstairs two steps at a time, halting outside the bedroom door. Boyle followed.

“Make it stop!” screamed Gelsinger.

Boyle looked up as though disturbed from a daydream. “Geez, it is loud. What’s in there?”

Leonard raised the axe above his head.

“You look stupid, Pickel.”

“Leave us alone!”

“I want to see that axe!”

Boyle’s suit… his skin, eyes, even his teeth, bared now – all were sickly yellow.

“Don’t touch that door! She won’t let you take it. It’s hers!”

He raised the axe again.

“You need to look in a mirror, Leonard. Threatening me in your underwear!” Boyle groaned, clasping his head. “Oh, it’s so loud, I gotta do something!”

The noise had turned into a high-pitched scream. Boyle kicked the door open, both men grimacing at the sound. Then he peered over Leonard’s shoulder. The blue of his irises suddenly flashed, his pupils growing wider. Then slowly, delicately, a shadow danced across them. Boyle stood motionless, his face ashen.

He felt something trickling down his lapel. Glancing down, he saw his yellow shoes disappearing in a bright red pool of liquid.

He put a hand up to his neck and touched metal. Leonard stood in front of him, his face white and contorted with horror, his hands gripping the axe handle. Boyle tried to speak, but blood gushed from his mouth, teeth stained pink, lips twisted like rope.

Boyle’s suit was slowly turning red. He staggered backwards, dragging Leonard with him, the axe still in imbedded in his neck. The men swung in circles, Leonard’s hands frozen around the wood, shoes skidding in the blood that now spread across the floorboards.

Boyle wailed like a wounded beast. Tears carved white trails down his red spattered cheeks; eyelids collapsing, mouth still spitting blood. He fell against the banister, Leonard’s full weight on him. The wood buckled, uprooting itself stick by stick, as the two men were flung into the air.

Their bodies pirouetted past grey walls, the axe still glinting between them. They hit the floor. Boyle landed face down; feet squashed beneath him. Leonard’s fingers still touched the axe that lay glittering in the dirty hallway, his neck contorted like a broken ventriloquist’s dummy, blood streaming from a mouth that seemed to smile.

The noise had stopped, and the house now stood silent. Gelsinger crawled across the floor, fumbling for his inhaler.

STILL ON TRACK FOR DEADLINE ON DOUBLE HOMICIDE?

Diane

WITH YOU IN TEN, BOSS.

Eric

Gelsinger clicked back into Word. At the head of the page he typed: Lizzie Borden Owners Discovered In Grisly Death Plunge – Murder Weapon Missing!

Still staring at the screen, he sipped his brandy, scanning the page for errors.

“Not bad!” He returned to his email.

The cat padded across the apartment to the open window. The pages of Gelsinger’s novel flapped gently in the breeze.

He peered in the open case beside him.

It was phosphorescent.

His fingertips snaked over the cloth inside until they reached metal. For a few minutes, his hand rested against the cool blade.

Why he’d taken it, he still didn’t know.

He could hear the sounds of the street below. A bird was singing. He pressed Send.

Gelsinger stood up.