Pax Britannia: Human Nature

by Jonathan Green

  Before he could recover himself, Nimrod stepped forward, the barrel of the pistol pointed directly at Wraith's face. The rogue's features lost what little colour they still retained as he realised that he had come to the end of the line.

  "Go on then - kill me, if that's what you're going to do. Just don't make a damned meal of it."

  "Don't be so bloody stupid," Ulysses laughed. "I've not hunted you through Whitechapel and chased you over rooftops simply to kill you now. As you said yourself, Mr Magpie, we have unfinished business you and I."

  Wraith looked up into Ulysses' cruelly smiling face and felt his bowels turn to water. He suddenly felt much worse than he had done when he just thought that Ulysses was going to have him killed.

  "I hope you have a head for heights," Ulysses hissed as Nimrod delivered a blow to the head with the butt of his pistol.

  Slowly a bleary consciousness returned and Gabriel Wraith opened his eyes. He immediately let out a wail of fear as the street appeared four storeys above him, gently swaying from side to side. His head felt thick, engorged with the blood that seemed to be collecting within his skull. The shock of his situation merely helped to bring him round more completely.

  Gradually reality reasserted itself and he realised the seriousness of his predicament. He looked up, straining his neck and could see the cord around his ankle just as he became aware of the dull throb there. Beyond that lay only the dark pall of the Smog, under-lit a satanic red by the blinking lights of the city below, the Overground network a dark spider's web against it. The cord ran up and over a bent aerial mast and back to a window on the fourth floor of the house.

  "Ah, you're awake. Had a nice sleep, did you?"

  Wraith froze. The familiarity of the voice cut through him like a blade of ice and brought with it sudden remembrance of the night-time chase over the rooftops of Whitechapel and Quicksilver's sudden attack within his own home.

  Wraith's lip curled into an angry sneer. "Quicksilver, you bastard," he snarled. "What are you doing? What, precisely, do you think you are doing?"

  "I'll give you a clue," Quicksilver said, the same cruel smile still locked on his face. "Nimrod?"

  At once the line holding him up went slack and suddenly he was falling. The cord whizzed over the mast, accompanied by the sharp smell of scorched rope.

  He cried out in fear as the slabs of the pavement and the points of the railings shot rapidly closer.

  He was only vaguely aware of Quicksilver shouting for his manservant to halt his descent.

  "You said... you weren't... going to... kill me!" the panicking Wraith protested, as he panted for breath. "That's what you said!"

  He could see Quicksilver's manservant now, standing at another window on the top floor of the house, the rope held tightly in his great bunched fists.

  "I said I hadn't come all this way to kill you then," the other clarified, an expression of cruel delight etched onto his clean cut aristocratic features. "But your fate now depends on whether you answer my questions truthfully. You see, there are things that you know Wraith - or should that be Magpie? - things that I need to know."

  "And what makes you I'll give you the answers?" Wraith retorted pathetically, making one last ditch attempt at a rebellious front.

  "Because I believe you to be a sensible man," Quicksilver said calmly. "Nimrod?"

  The cord went loose again and Wraith dropped, another involuntary cry escaping his lips.

  It took longer for his fall to be slowed this time and, with a growing sense of dread, Wraith realised that Quicksilver quite possibly was willing to do anything to get the answers he wanted.

  As he hung there, swinging from the end of the thin line, upside down, like a fish on a hook, gravity pushing his eyes out of his head, he had a clear view of the spear-tipped railings outside his Bloomsbury residence. Were he to fall he would be lucky if all he ended up with was a fractured skull and a broken neck; at least that way death would be instantaneous. If he was unlucky, he might puncture a kidney, or skewer some other vital internal organ, before bleeding to death in agonising pain, like a stuck pig on the railings.

  He felt the cord jerk again, but this time he was being pulled upwards. When he was level with the sadistically-smiling face once more, Quicksilver spoke again. "If you're suspended uncomfortably, then we'll begin."

  Wraith nodded slowly; he didn't see that he had any other option.

  "You were behind the theft of the Whitby Mermaid, weren't you?" Quicksilver stated calmly.

  Wraith paused for a moment. He had determined to be defiant to the end, but the fire had gone from him now. All that stubbornness would save him, other than his pride, was a painful death on the pavement below.

  He nodded again. "Yes."

  "But why steal a fake? What was it worth to you?"

  "A fair amount. It was stolen to order," Wraith stated flatly.

  For the first time something other than an absolute conviction in his own arrogant opinion crossed Quicksilver's features. It was the one thing that gave Wraith some small nugget of satisfaction.

  "To order?" Quicksilver echoed.

  "That's what I said."

  "Who for?"

  The pedant in Wraith couldn't resist: "I think you mean 'for whom?'"

  The cord went slack again. Wraith dropped a floor before the rope pulled taut, tugging sharply on his hip. He almost bit through his tongue with the shock of it.

  "Bellerophon," he gasped, blood spraying from his mouth as he spat the name.

  "Who is Bellerophon? And don't tell me he's a hero from Greek myth."

  "I don't know," Wraith snarled. "It was just a name. There was never any face to face meeting."

  "What does Bellerophon want with a fake?" Quicksilver pressed.

  "I don't know! I didn't ask!"

  "You just took the money."

  "As you say," Wraith snarled, "I just took the money."

  "So, where is it now? The mermaid."

  "There were instructions to send it north, to Whitby."

  "Back to Whitby, eh?" Quicksilver pondered. "It keeps coming back to Whitby. But I still don't understand why someone would go to so much trouble to steal what appears to be - what must be - a fake." He stepped back from his place by the window and Wraith heard him say to his manservant: "We're not done with this mystery yet, Nimrod. But we're done here."

  Disbelieving doubt was soon ousted by cold horror as Wraith awakened to his fate as he watched the one called Nimrod tie off the cord to something inside the room. Quicksilver turned from the window, immediately disappearing into the shadows of the room beyond.

  "You can't just leave me here!" Wraith screamed after him, all his fear and anxiety suddenly taking hold.

  There was a moment's pause and then his tormentor appeared at the window again.

  "Oh, can't I? Goodnight, Mr Wraith." He turned and then was gone, for good this time.

  Wraith stared up at the heaving morass of the Smog that hung over the city like a funeral shroud and listened as the distant sounds of police sirens grew louder.

  It was the end of the line for the Magpie, and, more importantly, it was the end for Gabriel Wraith as well.

  His eyes on the cord cutting into his aching ankle, he reached deep inside a trouser pocket, searching for the pen knife that he always kept there.

  This night would see the end of both the master of the House of Monkeys, the Magpie, and Gabriel Wraith, London's finest consulting detective. And all thanks to that smug-faced bastard, Ulysses Quicksilver.

  ACT TWO

  The Hound of the Hanivers

  November 1997

  Chapter Nine

  A Word to the Wise

  The journey north took no time at all, or so it seemed, once the train had left St Pancras and the looming edifices of London. Heavily built-up suburban conurbation gave way - along with the ever-present, tangible tobacco-yellow Smog - to pleasant green countryside beyond the furthest limits of Londinium Maximum as they passed through Hertfo
rdshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. Stations, villages and towns whipped past in an anonymous blur as the speeding locomotive ate up the miles.

  The further north they travelled the darker loomed the sky ahead of them as the clear cerulean blue, drawn with streaks of white cotton clouds, steadily gave way to the polluted skies of the North. The towns of the Midlands had been swallowed by the rampant industrialisation that had continued throughout the twentieth century leaving the conurbations as islands of miserable, second-rate civilisation, separated by great expanses of automated factories and industry-polluted wasteland. At this point in the journey, stewards took care to secure all the windows, least the sulphurous fumes of that region proved disagreeable to those travelling on the ten thirty from St Pancras.

  What had started out as a relatively fine day in London - and that had become a clear, chill autumnal day in the farmland beyond - now gave way to the permanently overcast misery of Nottinghamshire. The toxic wasteland gave way at last as the train diverted across the windswept moors of Yorkshire, this natural wilderness seeming almost as desolate as the industry-spoiled wasteland through which they had passed on the way.

  Having left London only that morning, that same afternoon saw the huffing and puffing locomotive hissing to a halt amidst a rising cloud of steam at Whitby Station, the end of the line, the tracks coming to a stop less than half a mile from the sea.

  It being late in the day, the dandy and his manservant set about finding lodgings for the duration of their stay. After making enquiries at the station master's office, they took a horse-drawn cab to the East Crescent and took rooms at a superior lodging house there that had plenty of vacancies, for those few visitors Whitby still received at this time of year; people looking to benefit from the curious properties of the sea air or wishing to follow in the footsteps of Mr Stoker's Dracula.

  Determining to begin their search for the mysterious Mr Bellerophon - an assumed name, Ulysses presumed - first thing the following morning, He and Nimrod retired for the night in their suite of rooms on the second floor, Ulysses taking the master bedroom, while Nimrod made for the significantly smaller valet's chamber off the suite's day room-cum-dining room.

  "Nimrod, that was a triumph," Ulysses declared, placing his knife and fork together on the grease-smeared plate before him.

  "I shall pass your compliments to Mrs Scoresby, sir," Nimrod replied.

  "There's nothing like a full English to set oneself up for the day. And I do like black pudding."

  "More coffee, sir?"

  "Yes, why not, old chap?"

  Ulysses lent back in his chair, putting his arms behind his head. His wrist still hurt as did the broken fingers of his right hand which were still bound together to aid their healing.

  Nimrod dutifully got up from his seat at the breakfast table opposite his master, draped a freshly-pressed napkin over one arm, lifted the cafetiere from its silver-plated salver, walked round the table to where Ulysses sat stretched out in his dressing gown, and carefully re-filled the dandy's coffee cup.

  "Thank you, Nimrod," he said as his manservant placed the cafetiere back on the salver in the middle of the table and returned to his seat. Nimrod nodded in polite acknowledgement.

  Ulysses deposited a heaped teaspoon of sugar into the dark steaming fluid and began to stir languidly.

  "So, where to start?" he mused, not so much asking Nimrod for his advice as simply giving voice to his own thoughts.

  His eyes drifted across to the front page of the local paper that had been laid on the pristine white tablecloth next to his place setting.

  "Hey, look at this will you, Nimrod?"

  Eyebrows arching, Nimrod looked down his nose, concentrating as he read the inverted headline in front of him.

  "'Ghestdale Beast claims Tenth Victim'," he read. "Hmm, it sounds... intriguing, sir."

  "I'd say!" Ulysses exclaimed excitedly, scanning the column inches beneath the attention-grabbing banner headline.

  "Tabloid scare-mongering?" Nimrod queried as Ulysses reached the bottom of the page and looked up again, a delighted grin on his face.

  "It says here that the body of some poor sod was found up on the moors yesterday with his throat and intestines torn out."

  "Sounds ghastly," Nimrod said dispassionately.

  "Apparently he was found by a sheep farmer who's lost a number of his sheep to wild animal attacks over the last few months."

  "Wild animals, sir?"

  "That's what it says here."

  "But the British Isles have very few natural predators left, certainly nothing big enough to take down a man, surely. I must be some kind of feral dog, or perhaps one of those big cats that keep getting lose from private zoos."

  "That's what the editor of this local rag thinks too." Ulysses pointed to the editorial comment at the top of the second page. "At least, local rumour's blaming it on the Barghest, some local legend, a phantom hound said to stalk Ghestdale Moor."

  "A phantom hound, sir?"

  "According to folklore, those who see the beast don't live to see another day."

  "If that's the case, how can anybody have ever reported that that is the case?"

  "You can't over-analyse folklore, Nimrod," Ulysses pointed out. "That's what it says here."

  "Surely they can't be serious."

  "Well, according to this, there have been ten confirmed deaths, supposedly perpetrated by this hobgoblin hound, and just as many people have simply disappeared over the last four months. Most of the bodies were discovered on Ghestdale, the expanse of moorland that lies south-east of Whitby, close to the coast and the notorious Beast Cliff, which is said to be another haunt of the Barghest."

  "If you don't mind me saying so, sir, that is nothing but a load of old poppycock."

  "But something's responsible for all those deaths."

  Nimrod's eyes narrowed as he attempted to assess his employer's true opinion regarding the matter.

  "How did the others die?"

  "All in a similarly savage manner, from what I can gather from this. Gutted, throats torn out, internal organs missing; some of the bodies were even partially devoured."

  "Delightful. It really is a mystery, sir."

  "A mystery indeed. And you know how I feel about mysteries."

  "Indeed I do, sir," Nimrod said with what Ulysses hoped was feigned weariness.

  "But," Ulysses went on, with what sounded like profound disappointment, "we already have one mystery on our hands; that of the identity of the elusive Mr Bellerophon, which is, I have to assume, an assumed name."

  "Quite, sir," Nimrod agreed. "So, if I might be so bold as to ask, how do you suggest we move things forward from here?"

  Putting the paper to one side, Ulysses devoted all his attention to the older man seated opposite him, immaculate as ever in his simple self-styled butler's uniform.

  "You know what, Nimrod? I think it's about time we played the part of tourists to the full and took in the sights of Whitby, starting with some of those delightful looking ale-quaffing establishments down by the docks."

  "Very good, sir. Shall I unpack the pistols, or will the bloodstone suffice?"

  By the time Ulysses was dressed and ready to face the day - wearing a light tweed suit underneath a long check overcoat, finished off with a crimson cravat held in place with a diamond pin - it was already past ten.

  Leaving their lodging house on the Crescent, the dandy and his manservant made their way to the East Terrace and the footpath that led down towards the estuary of the Esk, passing through the whale bone arch - a reminder of Whitby's whaling past - to emerge at the harbour end of the great stone West Pier. From there, the two men skirted the Esk, following the river back upstream through the old fishing town. The air was thick with the smell of fish, wood smoke and the ever-present pollution that drifted down off the moors from the vast brick-built factories with the morning mist.

  Through the bobbing forest formed by the masts and rigging of the ships moored in the Lo
wer Harbour, Ulysses could just make out the grey ghost of the Abbey, up there on the windswept crown of East Cliff, through shifting spaces between the smoke billowing from chimneys up and down the town.

  Whitby was all of a bustle at this time in the day and even though it wasn't the height of the tourist season, there was still plenty for the local populace to do; the fishing and jet industries were still the life-blood of the old town.

  Passing the swing bridge that crossed the silt-brown river as if flowed on its inexorable way to the sea, following the smell of bubbling pitch and the echoing clamour of sawing and hammering, Ulysses led the two of them towards the shipyards of Endeavour Wharf and onto New Quay Road.

  They stopped at last outside the white painted facade of a large, five storey building that sported a sign declaring that this was 'The Angel Hotel'.

  "This looks like just the place to start making our enquiries," he said, looking past the stacks of lobster pots to what had all the appearance of being one of Whitby's principal drinking establishments, "don't you think?"

  "If you're sure that this is the best way to go about our business here, sir," Nimrod replied with a hint of wariness in his voice.

  "Oh, don't be such an old woman," Ulysses chided the older man good-humouredly. "Come on, it'll be fun!"

  Five drinking establishments later, and Ulysses Quicksilver and his manservant found themselves in the blue-fugged bar-room of the Black Swan Inn on Baxtergate. It was just like every other. Although it was still only the middle of the day, the taverns in the vicinity of the docks were heaving, the fishermen and many of the stevedores having finished work for the day and made it the few yards to the public houses of Whitby to start spending their wages straight away.

  Such was certainly true of the fish-reeking clientele of the Black Swan. For many of them, the working day had finished hours ago, and the men were well into their cups, having been at their seats in the bar since the pub first opened its doors to the desperate drinkers.

  Ulysses stepped into the lamp-lit dark of the snug and, blinking against the change in light levels, he casually took in the sprawl of the bar - with its low beams and closeted drinking stalls - which looked just like every other tavern he had entered that morning.