by Mark Latham
Mrs. Whitinger showed me up the stairs to my rooms, and Jim followed along. It was almost as I had pictured. There were three rooms—a large lounge ran the length of the house, with a window overlooking the street and a good-sized fireplace in the far wall flanked by two comfortable-looking armchairs. A small Chesterfield sofa, breakfast table and chairs, mahogany sideboard and a tall, half-empty bookcase completed the furnishings. Two rooms led off from that one, a bedroom at the rear of the house away from the hustle and bustle of the main street, and a small study at the front. The apartment overall was of a modest size, light and airy, but with a fussy décor, all flowers, figurines and soft furnishings. It looked homely. I guessed that Mrs. Whitinger had been expecting a new lodger—the bed was freshly made and a small posy of daffodils filled a vase on the windowsill of the lounge. It turned out that she had received a message the previous evening from an administrator at Horse Guards, informing her that an officer might be coming to stay the following day, and to have the apartment ready just in case.
Seeing that I was pleased with my lodgings, Jim began to take his leave.
‘The first month’s rent shall be paid on the morrow,’ he said, and Mrs. Whitinger thanked him. ‘I leave you in the good hands of Mrs. Whitinger, John, and shall call on you this evening. I trust you will dine with me?’ he asked, although he gave me no time to refuse. ‘And don’t be too frightened by Mrs. Whitinger; she may look formidable but she’s a dear thing really.’ Before the old landlady could reply, he was taking off down the stairs, chuckling as he went, leaving Mrs. Whitinger exasperated.
‘Really, Captain Hardwick, I don’t know what I’m to do with him.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I replied, with a smile. ‘Did you mention breakfast just now?’
‘Oh, yes, yes, of course. Please do follow me to the dining room,’ she said apologetically, and led the way downstairs again. ‘So that you know, sir, I live in the rooms just to the right there, should you need anything.’
Mrs. Whitinger showed me into a small dining room from which the smell of bacon emanated, setting off my rumbling stomach. An English breakfast after months of ship’s rations seemed suddenly to be the most important mission of my day. There were two other guests from the upper rooms already tucking into the spread. I introduced myself to my fellow guests, who seemed uninterested in all but the most cursory chit-chat, which was how I liked it.
At last, the others took their leave, and I was able to steal a moment with the newspaper that one of them left behind. One story in particular piqued my interest, and I read it with an inexplicable sense of anxiety.
POLICE DUMBFOUNDED OVER DYNAMITE ATTACKS
LONDON—Scotland Yard has been forced to admit that it is no closer to solving the heinous bomb attacks that have shaken the City in recent months. Speaking at Whitehall yesterday, the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Alexander Carmichael Bruce, admitted that despite hundreds of police hours being spent on the case, the attackers remain at large.
Sir Alexander refused to comment on rumours that one of the perpetrators had been shot at the scene of January’s Bond Street bomb last month, on the day when London was rocked by three such explosions. He also could not rule out the possibility that the attacks mark the return of the Irish-American Dynamiters, who have not conducted such activity on a large scale since the Gower Street explosion of ’85.
Sir Alexander stressed that London was not under attack and that people should not panic. Anyone who sees suspicious activity that may be linked to Dynamiters should report directly to New Scotland Yard.
It was hard to believe that trouble of this nature could be just around the corner. Having travelled clean across the world from one conflict to another, I had pictured my eventual return to London as utterly serene, as if Britain had never been touched by violence. But of course, there had always been anarchists opposing the status quo, and I presumed that these particular agents of chaos were affiliated with one of the many nations with an axe to grind against England—a list that seemed to be growing rather than shortening during this so-called ‘long peace’.
I finished my breakfast and thanked Mrs. Whitinger as she came to clear away the dishes. I took the newspaper up to my room to peruse it more thoroughly, although I fancied a stroll around the locality once I had freshened up somewhat.
There was a large bathroom opposite my apartment, well-appointed with large enamelled tub, washbasin and the first indoor flushing toilet I had ever seen—a luxury that somehow made me feel outside my own time. I unpacked my rather meagre-looking travelling bag and washed, before taking a straight-razor to my matted seaman’s beard. The small mirror in the bathroom confirmed my fears—I looked terrible; tired, haggard and unkempt. I had always been tall and somewhat thin, but now I was a shadow of my former self, with barely an ounce of fat on my body and with wiry muscles that resembled taut, knotted cords. My body was a catalogue of pain and suffering, every mark on my flesh providing a reminder of a darker time. I winced as I looked at the scars on my bared torso—burns, cuts, tears, bullet wounds and the tiny round blotches left by hypodermic syringes and vicious torturers’ barbs. That was one part of my tale that I had not related to Jim. The countless nights spent wailing at the dark, fighting off night terrors as the opium had left my system. Colonel Swinburne, to his great credit, had never spoken of those episodes, and there was no record of them on my papers. The colonel had seen me cured of my addiction, or so he had thought. Some urges had never left me after I had escaped the rebels’ clutches. even as I dwelt on it now, I could smell the mouldy, dirty prison; could hear the screams of the inmates and the sadistic laughter of the guards, until the noise began to deafen me and my head swam. I gripped the sides of the porcelain sink tight, and closed my eyes, willing the nightmare to be gone. As the sounds faded and I regained control of my senses, something darker still stirred within me. I became nauseous and dizzy, and a gnawing hunger tore at my insides until it became a stabbing pain in the pit of my stomach.
I threw my shirt on once more and flung open the bathroom door, heading back to my room in a wild mood. As I did so I crossed paths with Mrs. Whitinger and almost barrelled her over. I think I mumbled something by way of an apology, but did not otherwise look up to meet her eyes. As I closed the door of my rooms behind me, I could hear her calling to me in concern, but I did not answer and she did not press the matter. I was rummaging through my bags with increasing panic, before I laid my hands upon the object of my obsession.
I laid out the small, battered wooden box on the breakfast table. My hands shook as I opened it to reveal the syringe and phial of opium solution within. I stared at it, disgusted by my weakness. In truth, after leaving Rangoon I had indulged my craving only twice, and it was with the weak solution that the phial now contained, given to me by a sympathetic Chinese doctor in Hong Kong. The dose was barely strong enough to quell the symptoms, but I had almost beaten my addiction completely, and the drugs were now there for those times when I could cope no longer. This, I decided, reluctantly, was not such a time. I clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes tight shut until the shaking stopped and the pounding in my head ceased. Until the screams of the prisoners and the shouts of the torturers faded away. Taking several deep breaths to compose myself, I snapped the case lid shut and repaired to my bedroom to dress.
* * *
My destination was Covent Garden, although I had not realised that Friday was one of the busy market days in that part of London. I’d hopped onto an omnibus to save my sea-legs from walking, but soon regretted the decision when it slowed to a crawl as we neared the congested streets. The roads were clogged with traffic, largely caused by lumbering ox carts resupplying the market stalls and local traders, and the advertising carts pulling their large billboards slowly around London with scant regard for the inconvenience caused to other drivers. As soon as I spied the towers of St. Paul’s looming majestically over the buildings to the south, I hopped down from the back of the ’bus and continued on foot.
&nbs
p; After a short walk through the bustling crowds, I turned onto Henrietta Street, counting down the numbers of the shop fronts until I found what I was looking for. An anonymous-looking black door lay just beyond an iron railing, with a small brass plaque next to the doorknocker its only identifying feature.
NAPLEY, FAIRCLOUGH & ASSOC.
SOLICITORS AT LAW
I was admitted to the lawyers’ office by an ageing, spindle-fingered clerk with wispy grey hair and a serious face. He extended me every professional courtesy, and I was acutely aware that the clerk was better dressed than me.
It was almost three-quarters of an hour before I was called to see the solicitor, Mr. Fairclough. He was a small, rotund fellow with a serious face that would have looked intimidating were it not for his bulbous nose with small round spectacles balanced precariously on the end.
‘Mr ehm, Hardwick, is it?’ he asked, offering me a seat in a chair facing his overlarge desk.
‘That is correct, Mr. Fairclough.’ I replied. ‘I have not had cause to do business with your firm for many years, as I have been abroad, serving in Her Majesty’s Army. But you represented my late father, Brigadier Sir Marcus Hardwick, and now that I have returned I have come to examine the state of the family assets, whatever that may be.’
‘Ah, of course. I did not recognise you, sir, but then I believe we met only once or twice and, as you say, it was long ago. I—ehm—do remember your father, however, and I’m sure I can be of service. Now, let me see…’
He got up from his tall leather chair and waddled over to a large bookcase, from which he pulled a large ledger. Placing it on his desk, he turned to a filing cabinet by the window and after some searching retrieved several sheaves of paper.
I had not known what to expect. I had fair resigned myself to the fact that most of my father’s assets would have long been dissolved or sold off to pay debtors—whether there would be anything left for me to take charge of was questionable. However, I found myself pleasantly surprised. As Mr. Fairclough droned on, I realised that my father had been as shrewd a businessman as I could have imagined. He seemed to have had shares in firms all over London, from haulage and shipping to factories and liveries. Some had gone bankrupt or ceased trading over the years, but many were still solvent, and the dividends had been steadily accumulating during my time abroad. I had inherited a goodly percentage of all my father’s assets, and so much of the money, and the shares themselves, were now mine. I was even more surprised to learn that my father had owned properties in various parts of the country—a cottage in Keswick, Cumberland; a small townhouse in York; a flat in Nottingham; an isolated farmstead in Kent; and others too. Whilst inspecting these papers, Mr. Fairclough remarked upon a peculiar irregularity. It appeared some of the properties were still leased or rented, while others had long-standing tenants for whom my father had made provision, and who provided further income. There was more than one estate manager on the books, who dutifully deducted expenses, paid rents into the proper accounts, and looked after the properties and the tenants. My eyes were drawn to one particular paper, listing the deeds to that address near Faversham in Kent, the closest we had come to having a family home. It was there that we had lost my sister, Lily, to pneumonia, an event which had brought to a close perhaps the happiest days of my childhood, and changed the course of my life. I was surprised that it was still ‘in the family’, and the discovery filled me with a deep longing to return there. Along with all of my father’s sundry business dealings that were still active, there was almost too much to take in. The late Brigadier Sir Marcus Hardwick seemed to be running a shrewd and profitable business some ten years after his death.
Mr. Fairclough could see that I was perhaps not best suited to take immediate control of such a web of legality and business endeavour, and so he helped me through the tangle of papers, showing me clearly what was mine and what I was responsible for. There were a few plots of land, derelict properties and even unprofitable agencies that I asked Mr. Fairclough to close down there and then, as with no one to manage them they were leeching off the income; but otherwise I was left with a pile of documents that made me not rich, but certainly comfortable. I arranged for any money that I was owed to be paid into my own bank account, which had lain dormant for some time, and procured what papers I required to prove my identity to the bank manager.
‘Congratulations, Mr. Hardwick—or is it still Captain?—it seems you have had a most profitable day. It is always a pleasure to be the bearer of good news; in my line of work it is seldom the case, I am afraid to say.’
* * *
By the time I had reached the bank on The Strand, it was past midday, and I was already starting to feel tired from the morning’s activity. I was far from my old self even now. Yet I pressed onwards, meeting with the bank manager and arranging the transfer of funds, bonds and promissory notes. I watched as he jotted down all manner of notes and calculations in his ledger, and breathed a sigh of relief when he presented me with my final account documents. When I had arrived I had feared my father’s holdings would be in a terrible state, and that I would have to rely on an army pension to survive until I found gainful employment. As it stood, I need not have worried—I decided to tell Jim that I would pay Mrs. Whitinger’s rent on my own after all.
Part of me worried that I might succumb to darker temptations now that I had money in my pocket, but I pushed such thoughts aside. Today, at least, I would enjoy those comforts of home that had so long been denied me. I took my leave of the bank and refreshed myself at a coffee house, before visiting a tailor and ordering four new suits, a new hat, shoes, sturdy walking boots, two neckties, a cravat, half a dozen silk handkerchiefs, a pair of leather gloves and a plain ebony walking cane. I bought a suit off the peg that fitted well enough, and changed into it immediately. The tailor promised to have my new clothes delivered to my lodgings on Monday morning, and even took my old suit away for mending and cleaning. Feeling twice the man I had done earlier that day even in an untailored suit, I headed back towards The Strand. The teeming mass of people on the broad street seemed to part for me, and I filled my lungs with air as if for the first time. Now it felt like home. Now I was truly in London.
* * *
That night I dined with Jim at a modest restaurant in Bloomsbury. We talked for some time, naturally, of army life; of promotions and retirements, of battles won and campaigns fought, of the colonies struggling abroad. Jim was good company, and I finally began to feel at ease. I was certainly forced to re-evaluate my earlier opinion of him, for he was not as shallow as he appeared. We talked of my future plans—I knew I had to look into my father’s business concerns, I told him, at least to ensure that everything was well; but after that I confessed I had no idea what to do with my time. Jim questioned me on my past, and his face lit up when I explained I had once harboured literary ambitions.
‘What I said earlier about writing your memoir—now I’m certain you should!’ he exclaimed. ‘You have travelled so much, seen so many places and met so many interesting people. It would fly of the shelves, especially if you write it with a little… panache. You have a—how can I put it?—rather unique experience to share with the world.’
I tried not to let thoughts of my imprisonment sour the mood, for I knew Jim meant well.
‘I’m afraid the pain of that “unique experience” is still too real in my mind for me to fictionalise it,’ I said, somewhat gloomily.
‘Who said anything about fiction? Listen old boy, you’ve been through a lot, probably through more than you’ve told me, but you’ve come out of it all right, haven’t you? Still got the old moral fibre, faculties all intact? That’s a bloody marvel, a triumph! If you wrote up all of your adventures abroad, you could fill a bookshelf with stirring tales, or high-brow memoirs, or penny dreadfuls—your choice, really. But people would lap it up, and it would get your name out there into the literary world. The world is your oyster!’
I smiled. It was the second time he had told me
that already, and his enthusiasm was so infectious that I actually considered his plan. He had implanted a thought so deep in my imagination that it threatened to take root—could a long-dreamt ambition be realised? I had the means, and the time, to write my memoirs, and why shouldn’t I? However, before the conversation became uncomfortable, and Jim felt compelled to talk more of Burma, I changed the subject, and we resumed a pleasant evening of good wine, rich food and cheerful banter.
* * *
When I returned to my lodgings that night I was in good spirits. As I closed the door of my apartment and lit a paraffin lamp, I noticed a letter pushed under my door. I turned up the lamp and sat at the small table to read it. The envelope was of thick, creamy parchment, and there was no address written on it, just the words ‘Cpt. John Hardwick’ in an elegant, yet masculine hand. It had been hand-delivered; I made a mental note to ask Mrs. Whitinger about the delivery boy in the morning. Inside the envelope was a short, handwritten missive on crisp white paper:
Captain Hardwick,
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you back to England. However, there is a matter of business that we must discuss urgently.
Meet me at my club next Wednesday evening, 2nd April, at six o’clock. The Apollonian, Pall Mall. Show this letter at the door.
Yours, &c.,
Sir Toby Fitzwilliam, Bart.
I was puzzled. I had heard of the Apollonian Club, but could think of no reason why I would have any call to conduct business there. It was renowned as a club for the rich and powerful—anyone who was anyone in London sought membership to the Apollonian. I had even heard of Sir Toby Fitzwilliam, whom I seemed to recall was a judge of some repute, though I was certain we had never met.
With a head full of questions, I retired for the night, knowing that I would not sleep. I slept little at that time—without the comfort of knowing that there was a battalion of soldiers outside my door, or that I was safely on board ship in the middle of the ocean, my mind refused to switch off, instead remaining alert to every possible danger, real or imagined. I dozed once, I think, but awoke in a fright, in a cold sweat—a result of fitful dreams in which I relived my worst sessions of cruel torture, and all of my guards and tormentors wore monstrous masks that twisted and writhed as if they were made of melting flesh, and inflicted their brutalities upon me with wicked blades that seemed to grow from their very arms. And then the dragon came, as it always did in the nightmare, and as everyone in the dream was consumed by fire, I woke.
