The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

by Natasha Pulley

  ‘Ooh, fire,’ one of the other juniors said from behind the door, and hurried in.

  Only a few seconds later, Mrs Nakano’s daughters stopped in the doorway. Thaniel thought at first that they wanted to come and get warm too, but when they started across, they came much too fast. They ran. One of them snatched the tea-towels off the cupboard door handles. The other pushed Thaniel aside hard, and together they plunged their arms into the grate and smothered the little fire.

  ‘Hey!’ Pringle squeaked, sounding very young in distress.

  ‘What in God’s name?’ snapped Vaulker at the same time, and then everyone was shouting at once in a blinding salvo of reds and indignant blues, and Thaniel couldn’t make out anything from anyone. Vaulker snatched the older girl’s arm and began to shake her.

  ‘Tom! Jesus Christ.’ Thaniel caught Vaulker’s wrists to stop him and the look he got for it was hotter than anger. ‘Let her go,’ he said quietly. He put himself between them, which forced Vaulker to step back.

  ‘What is going on?’ Thaniel asked her in Japanese.

  ‘We’ve been telling everyone all morning!’ she said, nearly as angry as Vaulker. ‘You can’t have fires! They bring the ghosts! Why do you think we’re leaving the kitchens?’

  ‘They bring the ghosts how?’

  ‘How should I know? But the ghosts like fire. Don’t light fires. Tell everyone. It’ll all be worse than ever in this weather.’

  ‘What’s she saying?’ Vaulker asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Thaniel shook his head once and switched to Japanese again as the butler came in, alarmed. ‘Mr Ueno, I think Miss Nakano needs a cup of tea and …’ He stopped, because Ueno was shaking his head.

  ‘She’s right, sir. It’s the fires. With this storm, I really don’t think we ought to light any more.’ He swallowed, and looked agonised to be arguing. ‘I had a nasty scare myself this morning. I believe if we want the legation to run smoothly, it would be best … that is to say, if the gentlemen will insist on lighting fires, I’m afraid we must all leave you to it. Even the stable-boys agree.’

  While he had been talking, some of the other servants had materialised too. They must have been waiting all morning for this argument. Everyone was nodding. Not a single person looked uncertain.

  ‘They say they’ll leave if we light fires,’ Thaniel said at last to Vaulker. ‘They say the fires bring the ghosts.’

  ‘Oh, for—’

  ‘Just for now,’ Thaniel interrupted. ‘We’ll have to put up with it for now. We can hire new people but not everyone all at once.’ He felt the servants watching him. None of them really spoke English, but they were fluent when it came to tone and posture.

  Vaulker studied him and the chisel went down. Thaniel didn’t think he would be picking it up again soon. ‘Very well then,’ he said. ‘No fires. Someone do alert Dr Willis, however; I can see flu and lung disorders hoving in force over the horizon.’ He left, and his office door clicked once as it closed, then again as he locked it.

  Pringle and the other juniors looked worried. Ueno the butler had melted away already, and most of the other staff were on their way out too, but the Nakano girls were both still standing in front of Thaniel.

  ‘Whatever you mean by it, I wish you’d just say,’ he said.

  ‘Fire brings the ghosts,’ the eldest girl said solidly. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Steepleton, but it does, and I for one can’t bear to see any more of them. Do you know who the last one was? A little boy who had fallen in the oven. I don’t think you would like to see that twice either.’

  He sighed. ‘Come and talk to me if you think of anything I can do.’

  ‘You can keep the fires out,’ she said.

  Her sister smiled. ‘We know you’re doing your best,’ she said as the older girl turned away. She was softer-spoken, less like their mother. ‘But your best would be better if you’d listen to us.’

  Once they had gone and the argument was over, Thaniel felt how cold it was again and tucked his hands under his coat sleeves to warm them up on the insides of his elbows.

  Pringle squeaked. ‘Why is it always me?’

  ‘Another electric shock,’ one of the juniors explained when Thaniel looked back. Three of them were huddled together on the dead hearth, in a miserable row like winter ducklings.

  ‘Silk shirt?’ Thaniel asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Pringle brightened. ‘New, actually. Got it for an absolute steal at a charming little place in Kabuki-cho. You must go. If you mention my name you might get a discount, the store girl seems rather keen on me.’

  Thaniel had to concentrate not to interrupt him. He did like Pringle, but it was difficult sometimes to separate Pringle himself from Pringle’s packaging. He had differently coloured handkerchiefs for every day of the week, ironed between two sheets of crepe paper into origami tulips. Thaniel’s soul cramped whenever he thought about paying so much attention to something meant for sneezing on. ‘I mean you’re a conductor. Better change into cotton.’

  Pringle smiled and nodded too much. ‘Ah! Yes, sir.’

  Thaniel nodded once, slightly, to make him do it less. Pringle copied him. Thaniel felt proud of him. However badly Eton and Oxford had tangled him up, Pringle did try hard.

  ‘Sir?’ Pringle said. ‘Is there anything in the papers about the weather?’

  ‘Is there?’ Thaniel said to them all, because they were meant to be learning Japanese too.

  ‘It’s too hard to read,’ one of the others mumbled.

  ‘Anything about science is deuced difficult,’ Pringle put in.

  Thaniel relented. It was too cold to be a school-master. ‘Everyone’s saying it’s the mountain,’ he said, motioning towards the window where Fuji would have been visible in clearer weather. ‘Something about iron in the rock.’ He picked up one of the ironed newspapers and flicked through to the weather section. ‘Yes. The Met Office says—’

  ‘Our Met Office?’ Pringle chipped in.

  ‘No, the Tokyo Met Office.’

  ‘They’ve got one here?’

  ‘No, they’ve got a shaman who forecasts the weather with a special dance.’

  Pringle looked uncertain, then laughed experimentally. Thaniel smiled to show he’d got it right.

  ‘The Met Office thinks that in the right conditions you’ll get this kind of thing every so often within a certain radius of Fuji.’ He scanned the dense print. ‘Increased electromagnetism when the volcano is active. They’re not too sure.’

  ‘I can’t believe you know the kanji for electromagnetism,’ Pringle said.

  Thaniel showed him the article. Pringle giggled when he saw that the sign for magnet was just the sign for stone with wiggly lines coming off it. Behind them, the ashes smoked sadly. The tea-towel was a black web now.

  The butler leaned in. ‘Sir, there’s a gentleman to see you. He says he’s misplaced his wife.’ He spoke quietly, exuding apology for interrupting again.

  ‘A gentleman? Ah – he needs Mr Vaulker, not me.’

  ‘He asked for you by name.’

  Thaniel stood up, puzzled, because he didn’t know anyone in Tokyo who would come to see him here. His heart tightened wondering if it was Mori. He stopped still when he saw his ex-wife’s new husband studying the paintings in the hall.

  ‘Matsumoto.’ He hadn’t thought he’d expected Mori enough to feel disappointed, but he did. It felt like being punched unexpectedly, when you were still tying on your gloves. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Oh, hullo,’ Matsumoto said. He was handsome and impermeably cheerful, and exactly the same as he had been the last time Thaniel had seen him four years ago. He always wore beautiful suits from Paris, pitch-perfectly chic, and he always had shoelaces that were a different colour to his shoes. Today, they were a pleasing shade of kingfisher blue. They sounded like a girl singing a high note.

  When the question arrived, it was a peculiar one. ‘You haven’t seen Grace, have you?’

  ‘What? No, we’re not really … on
speaking terms. Why?’

  Matsumoto hung his hat on the banister of the stairs while he took off his scarf. He smelled, even a few feet away, of vanilla. ‘I seem to have lost her. Or put her somewhere, I really don’t know. But never mind. She’s not turned up here?’

  ‘No,’ Thaniel said, bewildered. ‘Sorry, how can you lose her?’

  ‘Oh, you know what she’s like. One minute she’s at the university and then she’s gone off to the States to talk to Tesla about his magic tower. I lose track.’ He paused. ‘She thinks it’s nosy if I ask what she’s doing too often.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her,’ Thaniel said again. He frowned when he remembered that her father had been asking after her at the Foreign Office.

  ‘Never mind,’ Matsumoto said, still cheery. ‘How are you? You look ghastly.’ Now Thaniel was scrutinising it, the cheer had cracks in it. Something like hysteria winked through. No, not something like. It was. Matsumoto was scared out of his mind.

  ‘Do you want to come in for some tea?’ Thaniel said. ‘Tell me more about it?’

  ‘No, no, I’ll be on my way,’ Matsumoto said quickly. ‘Thank you. Didn’t mean to fret at you. I guarantee she’s gone to Colorado and I forgot to put it in the diary again.’

  Thaniel moved towards the door to block the way without getting right up close to him, very aware of his own size. ‘I can start a missing persons file, that’s what we’re here for—’

  ‘God, no, she’d go spare,’ he laughed, looking like he might break in half.

  ‘No, you’re coming in,’ Thaniel insisted carefully. ‘Matsumoto – what’s going on?’

  ‘No, I …’ Matsumoto snatched up his gloves.

  Thaniel caught his arms. He didn’t like doing it. Like Mori, Matsumoto was delicately made, but, unlike Mori, he had not been born into an era of sickening violence. ‘Please. This is my job. You came here for a reason.’

  ‘If anyone comes asking,’ Matsumoto said softly, ‘you can’t tell them I told you. This was just a social visit. We like each other, don’t we?’

  ‘Of course.’ It was true. He’d been glad when Grace and Matsumoto announced the banns in the newspaper. The two of them had gone to Oxford together; they were a damn sight better matched than Thaniel and Grace had ever been. ‘Who would come asking?’

  Matsumoto shook his head. ‘Don’t know. A government man, he said, but he didn’t look one. I thought he was from the mafia at first, they all dress like demented actors. But he had a court injunction ordering me to speak to no one about Grace. He wouldn’t tell me where she was.’ He swallowed. He was speaking much too fast. ‘I ignored it, of course, it’s absurd. People can’t go round kidnapping a fellow’s wife, can they? I asked some people in the cabinet, you know, my father’s friends. Next day the same man came back with a baseball bat.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Come in and sit down. I’ve got brandy.’

  ‘No. No, this was a bad idea. Look, you can’t open a missing person’s file. Her name’s been tagged, or something. I just wondered if you’d – heard anything.’

  ‘No,’ Thaniel said, and couldn’t quite believe it was true. There were so few British people in Japan that it seemed ridiculous they could lose one and not know. ‘But Matsumoto, I can open that file. I’m diplomatic staff, if someone comes after me with a baseball bat then it’s a major international incident.’

  ‘Yes,’ Matsumoto said, not sounding sure at all. ‘I see.’

  ‘Please stay.’

  ‘No, I think someone’s following me.’ He hesitated, and then set his teeth together. ‘Could you ask Keita Mori? It’s true about him, isn’t it, that he knows … things?’

  Thaniel shook his head, feeling pointless. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t seen him since before Christmas, he’s …’ Not coming back. Absurdly, even almost voicing that solidifying certainty growing like a cancer at the back of his mind made his eyes start to burn. Mortified, he coughed to hide it. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘No. No, of course,’ Matsumoto said, and left.

  Thaniel stood in the doorway for a while, wondering what had just happened. He looked over the morgue reports for the last few weeks, but there were no unidentified white women in any of them.

  He wired Tokyo University, just in case.

  While he waited, he pulled across a few newspapers, meaning to do a quick translation of the headline articles so that Vaulker would have no excuse not to know what was going on. The Constitution parades tomorrow featured a lot, along with a good few little asides about the weather, and precautions about binding horses’ hooves, and brief cheery theories about the electromagnetic properties of Mount Fuji. The Russian fleet was now floating in plain view of Nagasaki.

  He couldn’t concentrate. Seeing Matsumoto had spun him around.

  He had known, when he left Yoruji, that whatever fragile bauble of a life he and Mori had in London was broken. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. But it was like Six’s lightbulbs. The filaments were delicate things, and if the electrical current surged by even a couple of volts, they snapped, and the feedback shorted the circuit. You couldn’t go round blaming the filament, or the electricity. They were just two things that any sensible person recognised might destroy each other if conditions were anything less than perfect. Thaniel liked to imagine he was a sensible person. God knew a sensible person would just get on with life, without sulking about broken lightbulbs.

  He’d done quite well consciously. He’d been busy: even ordering dinner at a pub was a major intellectual exercise now if a person were to avoid cartilage in disguise as real food or a bartender who thought it would be funny to recommend raw whale. Finding out how bank accounts worked on diplomatic papers alone was mad; learning how the legation worked was even harder. He’d got into a new rhythm that, because Mori had never been part of it, didn’t feel the loss of him.

  Otherwise, he hadn’t done so well. It was the oddest reaction to anything he’d ever had, but he’d stopped dreaming. Sleep took much longer to arrive than it ever had before. He’d lost the direction of it; he could lie down, but he couldn’t turn towards it anymore. There was a broken compass somewhere in him. He was so ashamed that he couldn’t come anywhere near speaking it.

  If he sat still and let himself think, he could feel all the snapped filaments and cracked places.

  The telegraph rattled. The overhead, which came through first in a brief clatter, was from Tokyo University.

  Dr Grace Matsumoto on research sabbatical.

  He snorted and answered straightaway. Back when?

  There was another long pause. Then, finally, Uncertain. Perhaps next year.

  I know she isn’t on sabbatical. Where is she? Her family in England have reported her missing.

  The reply was only one word.

  Classified.

  There was no diplomatic trick to get around that. Unacceptable to have no information whatever about a British citizen, he tried.

  Can confirm Dr M alive and well.

  Provide proof or I’ll open a murder inquiry.

  The line went silent.

  Bizarre. He pulled a pen and a pad over to write Matsumoto a quick letter, to say what had happened. He was halfway through when something brushed his sleeve and made him jump. The curtains were silk, and they rippled towards him like something alive and hopeful.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Abashiri, Hokkaido, 10th January 1889 (one month ago)

  The prison was simple.

  Upstairs, in a sparse office, were the warden and the warden’s secretary. Below were the guards. There should have been thirty. There were only ten. Then there was Horikawa, the gatekeeper; the cook, whose name nobody knew; and now Takiko, to clean. In the cells were nine hundred and seventeen prisoners.

  It was easy to get lost. The four wings, arranged like wheel-spokes connecting to the entrance hall, all looked identical. From that midpoint, they were long, dark, quadruplet corridors whose length she could only make out from the specks of lamps burning at th
e ends. High, high windows, darkened by the snowfall, let in some light from above the rafters, but only just enough to cast shadows. The guard told her not to talk to the prisoners, and certainly not to say her name. A man – and as he said it, he pointed out to the miserable wooden shed in the courtyard – had escaped and killed one of the guards.

  Once she had found a brush and a bucket, Takiko edged downstairs to investigate the kitchens. There were taps close to the door and no sign of anyone else. She filled up the bucket, tipped in some cleaning salt, and struggled back upstairs with it, then along the long wing to start at the far end. It was difficult to see into the cells. Most of the doors were only bars, but all the light, what there was of it, was from the corridor. The men inside must have been able to see her, because some silhouettes came close to the bars as she went by. At the end, a friendly voice said,

  ‘Make sure you keep rubbing your nose.’

  ‘My nose?’ she said slowly.

  ‘Or you’ll get frostbite. Shame if it were to fall off.’

  ‘It would be a shame,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you.’ She turned away from him and lit a cigarette so that she would have a clear excuse not to speak.

  ‘Who are you, then?’

  ‘I’m not meant to talk to you, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not a murderer, don’t worry. I’m here because I wrote rather an ill-advised book.’

  She kept a few feet away from the cell. The bars were wide enough for a slim person to fit their arms through. ‘And how long have you been here?’

  ‘Nine years. It wasn’t even that interesting a book. One wishes one could at least go to prison for something spectacular. Do you know who the Marquis de Sade was?’

  ‘I’ll stop you there,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he protested. ‘I meant he went to prison for a spectacular—’

  ‘Stop scaring the girl,’ a rougher voice said.