London Under Midnight

by Simon Clark

  But everywhere he went he was haunted by that graffiti rendered in blazing red paint:

  VAMPIRE SHARKZ

  ☺ They're coming to get you ☺

  Even though examples of the graffiti were easy to find in that distinctive script, the identity of its creator was going to be more difficult to uncover. Dangerous, too, if it was a criminal gang marking their territory. He passed offices built on the site of Miller's Court where Jack the Ripper's last victim, Mary Kelly, had been butchered. Even a rear wall of that building wore the blood-red lettering.

  So exactly what are Vampire Sharkz? A bunch of drug dealers? An R&B band? But why are they going to get us? How will they get us? What do they intend to do with us? Why the smiling face motif? Was the lettering the work of one artist? Or were there teams of them?

  Ben did what he was paid to do. He asked around. Had anyone seen the graffiti artist? Mostly, the responses were smiles, shakes of the head. Some people were annoyed by the vandalism of property. One kid declared it 'Cool', and gazed at the five-foot-high letters in admiration. A man with a shaved head told him he'd heard a Vampire Shark was the new narcotic that would replace cocaine. A stony-faced woman with bags full of oranges insisted that the Arts Council had paid some millionaire conceptual artist to violate her beloved city. So the rumor mill had begun to turn out fanciful stories. The graffiti was already acquiring its own mythology.

  The people he needed to speak with were the ones that watched the streets night and day. The security guards, the police, the paparazzi who lay siege to celebrities' houses at ungodly hours. He retraced his steps along Brick Lane in the direction of Whitechapel High Street. The sun blazed down on him; it made his back itch. The minutes were ticking away to the deadline next week. If he didn't deliver this high-profile assignment it was likely he'd be relegated to filler articles that the editor used when nothing newsworthy was happening.

  'Come on,' he muttered to himself. 'Make this good. Make an impression.'

  His eye caught a rack of newspapers outside a newsagent's. One headline ran with typical tabloid slickness: Boat Prophet Faces Boot. Then in smaller print: Mayor tells hermit his days are numbered.

  Ben clicked his tongue. 'There's your man.'

  NINE

  'Ladies and gentlemen! You have ten minutes to save your lives. Quickly! How are you going to do it?'

  Ben approached the plywood dinghy that sat on top of its ten-foot pole in the park beside the river, just a short distance from the distinctive landmark of Tower Bridge. The huge structure of the bridge with its latticework of steel, along which red double-decker buses flowed, rippled in the heat haze as if the sun melted it.

  In the dinghy atop the pole sat a man with blue-black skin who called down to passers-by. He shaded himself beneath a black umbrella of the kind that used to be favored by London's office workers in the days of yore. A girl with bare, sunburnt shoulders walked by the boat-on-a-stick without looking up.

  'Madam! You have ten minutes to save your life. Quickly! How are you going to do it?'

  With her eyes down on the path she trudged through the hot air without responding.

  Ben shielded his eyes against the glare and peered up at the man, sheltering from the blazing sun beneath his brolly. The man was elderly yet his unlined face appeared astonishingly youthful.

  'Sir,' the man said. 'You have ten minutes to save your life. Quickly! How are you going to do it?'

  'Mr Kigoma?'

  The man moved his umbrella slightly as he leaned over the edge of the airborne vessel to look down. 'There's only one human being in the whole of London who lives in a boat on top of a pole; who the hell else could it be?'

  'My apologies, Mr Kigoma. I wondered if you would like to talk to me.'

  'Of course.'

  'My name is Ben Ashton.'

  'You from the Mayor's office?' There was a kind of wide-eyed innocence as the man gazed down.

  'No, sir.'

  'You're definitely not police.'

  'That's right. I'm-'

  'A reporter.'

  'Well, a feature writer for a magazine.'

  'That's not a reporter? Are you not writing for a publication?'

  'Yes, sir, I am.'

  'Writing a report about what you've been assigned to investigate?'

  'Ye-ess…' Ben conceded. The man in the boat wasn't hostile. Oddly, his manner suggested a child-like curiosity. 'Can I ask you some questions?'

  'Lord, yes!'

  'Thank you, sir.'

  'Call me Elmo.'

  'Elmo.' Ben nodded. His neck was beginning to ache from looking upwards. The old man was neatly dressed in a shirt, buttoned at the neck with a neatly knotted tie. How the shirt could be such a pristine white and the tie so uncrumpled, Ben couldn't begin to guess. With an air of youth, the man seemed to glow with cleanliness despite residing in the boat. Short silver locks of hair hugged his scalp and Ben couldn't avoid picturing those statues of Greek philosophers in the British Museum with the same crisp hairstyles.

  Elmo began to recite a speech that he must have given plenty of times before to TV crews and reporters. 'My name is Elmo Kigoma. Some dub me the modern Diogenes after the philosopher who lived in Athens four hundred years before Christ; there he resided in a wash tub, and reputedly he walked the streets in daylight with a lamp telling everyone he searched for an honest man. I was born in the Congo eighty-six years ago this very month. Two weeks ago my sons and I erected a pole in the park then set the boat on top. All this we did without the consent of the Mayor's office - she now wishes rid of me, and will send men to tear down my boat. But I have a mission. I am here to warn people that in order to save their lives they must abstain. To eat and drink frugally is the key to longevity.'

  Ben jumped in when Elmo took a breath. 'I'm interested in what you see from your boat up there.'

  'Oh?'

  'Well, that's some vantage point, and you're here night and day.'

  'I'll tell you what I see, Ben. I see humanity in danger. They are in peril. Death waits nearby.'

  'From overindulgence?'

  'Yes, Ben. But not only that.'

  Ben took in the park. It was peaceful enough. A man in a red bandanna walked his dog. Children sat in the shade to eat ice creams they'd bought from a kiosk beside the river. And Old Father Thames flowed at an untroubled pace toward the sea. When Ben couldn't identify any source of danger whatsoever, he returned to the serene expression of the man who gazed down on him.

  Elmo turned his head to scan the river. 'You won't see it now but the signs are there.'

  Ben admired the man, and his fearless expression of his beliefs, not to say his devotion to helping humanity, though Ben guessed the threat Elmo identified might be difficult for most people to understand - Ben included. What Elmo uttered next bore this out.

  'Ben, I've laboured to explain the danger, but people's minds are tuned to a different wave-length. Their minds are incapable of understanding when I tell them that Edshu has returned.'

  'Edshu?' Ben echoed the unfamiliar name.

  'Edshu the trickster god. Whose sole aim is to bring about conflict and disharmony. For Edshu, spreading strife is his eternal joy.'

  'I'm sorry, Elmo, I've never heard of Edshu.'

  'He's a deity from my homeland. When Edshu wishes it he can make all kinds of mischief. Listen, how can I explain it more clearly? When you drop a slice of bread. If it falls with the buttered side down on to your rug, that's the touch of Edshu. You know your dog has been touched by Edshu if your pet becomes lost and you spend hours searching for him. But when you find him, instead of the pleasure of being reunited the dog bites your hand. That's the touch of Edshu. The trickster god doesn't confront you with an enemy; he turns your friend into your enemy.'

  'Just as food can change from a source of nourishment and pleasure into your enemy, too.'

  'Ha!' Elmo threw down the umbrella and stood up in the boat. The post quivered alarmingly. 'Ha!' Elmo pointed down, his eyes wide. 'I
like you, Ben. You are the first person to understand my message. Food and drink in moderation gives you life. Excess is death. I like you very much!'

  Ben found himself grinning up at the man. While Elmo was in the process of thinking so highly of him it might be fruitful to ask that key question. 'Elmo, you've lived in this park for a while, so perhaps you can solve a mystery for me?'

  'I like you, sir, so I will try my hardest.'

  'My employer has instructed me to find out who is painting a message all over London. You can make out the lettering on that fence across there.'

  Elmo nodded. 'I've seen it.'

  'Vampire Sharkz. They're coming to get you.' Ben shielded his eyes against the sun's glare. 'Did you see who painted it?'

  'The identity of the individual isn't important.'

  'That's what I've been asked to discover.'

  Elmo Kigoma's voice rang out with a sudden power. 'You must write about the warning. Soon Edshu will test the men and women of London. If they're strong enough to survive the enemy he has created then the gods will permit you all to live. If you are weak the gods will wipe out the city. I have seen the Dead-bone Woman kill a man on that very path. She's a creature of the sticky hair. When I was a child they would lash out at my people from the darkness of the jungle. Now the same creatures will lash out at people from the river that flows through this city. Write down the warning in your magazine. Tell everyone that they must be on their guard because the battle they will soon fight will make all the battles of the past seem like nothing!'

  'I'm sorry, Elmo, I don't understand the exact nature of this threat. You say there's something dangerous in the water?'

  'You understood what I meant about abstinence and excess. Think about what I told you - you'll make sense of it!'

  The sudden outburst of emotion exhausted the old man. He raised the umbrella over his head to shade him from the sun. In the distance clouds bubbled up on the horizon. Those thunderheads promised the arrival of a storm.

  TEN

  'Come back, you're going to get electrocuted.'

  'The power goes through that third rail. The electricity goes nowhere near the bridge.'

  'You're still too close, bro.'

  'Stop your worrying, Mickey. Look, safe as houses.'

  Ped proved the gantry that ran beneath the bridge was solid by jumping up and down. Not that it would reassure Mickey for long. Mickey dreaded electricity. When the tube train ran under the bridge the contacts brushed against the live rail, triggering blue-white flashes that were dazzling. Ped held a paint aerosol in one hand; the other arm he draped across his brother's shoulders.

  'Listen, it can't hurt you, Mickey. The juice's down there. We're up here.'

  Mickey's wide eyes tracked the train as it ran along the surface line. 'Look at them flashes, bro. All them sparks. The electric's getting out!'

  'No. It isn't.' He hugged his brother so hard the kid's shoulder dug into his chest. 'Electricals are safe. They don't hurt no one.'

  'Electric chair. Arc. Danger of death.' Mickey had begun to mutter his litany again. 'Voltage, volts, voltmeter. Amp, ampage. Power points, live terminals.'

  'Mickey, look… hey, look at this. I'm painting your tag here.' He shook the aerosol; the bearings inside rattled. 'There… M for Mickey. Then I write mine. P-E-D. Then I put the wall around, keeping us safe inside. You see, Mickey?' He painted the initials in fluorescent green then circled it with a band. 'All safe inside, Mickey. No electric can touch us there. Nobody else, either.'

  'The Electric Man?'

  'We've been through that before, Mickey. There is no Electric Man.'

  'He stood in the doorway watching me last night.'

  'That was Ma's new bloke.' Ped shook the can. 'Mickey, I'm going to blast our tag on these bridge panels. We're going to be famous, bro. Tomorrow morning all those commuters are going to see your initials. Thousands and thousands of people. Keep watching me, Mickey. That's it; see how I form the letters - a big M; like I'm painting two mountains side-by-side.'

  In the distance a church clock struck eleven. The lights of the city blazed all around them. Office blocks rose in shining pillars of light. From the kebab house on the high street the spicy odors of Levantine fast-food drifted on the sultry night air. Meanwhile, Ped talked to his brother; the tone always reassuring: they'd be safe; electricity couldn't reach Mickey up here. Ped glanced at his brother to make sure he was watching him aerosolling the steel bridge panels. Mickey turned twenty last week, and for the first time since he left school there was a chance he'd land paid work at the community farm. Ped had gone with him for the interview to make sure that he wouldn't get jerked around. Mickey had always been tormented at school, if not downright bullied. It's like this: once the kids found out that Mickey had this thing about electricity they'd use it to torture him. He'd get called names; sometimes kids would chase him with batteries. Just silly stuff to them but Mickey was really terrified. Once some thugs had held him down while they touched those metal nipples of a nine-volt battery against his lips. Okay, it only tingled, but Mickey had screamed the school down. So Ped did what he could to protect his younger brother.

  'Electric Man,' Mickey said.

  'No such thing, bro. Now let me work.'

  'Electric Man!'

  'You're stopping my arm, Mickey, I can't draw the circle.'

  Mickey grunted with fear as he dropped to a crouch beside Ped; there he wrapped his arms around one of Ped's legs.

  'Hey, Mickey,' he hissed. 'Do you want to throw me off this thing?'

  'Electric Man!'

  'Heck, bro, you nearly toppled me.'

  His brother's frightened grasp felt close to snapping his knee.

  'You're going to get your fingers burned doing that.' The stranger's voice made Ped look up from where he stood on the gantry, which in turn ran along the bottom of the bridge. A guy with a shaved head glared down at the pair of them. He was joined by three more men, each with shaved heads; as well as the shorn scalp they all shared an expression of hatred.

  One said, 'Are you the bastard who's doing this Vampire Sharkz stuff?'

  'No.'

  'Because that bastard went and messed up our logo. And you don't slash our work round here.'

  Ped kept his voice conversational to avoid antagonizing the men. 'I'm just doing tags. Nothing heavy.' Glaring down at him were fellow graffiti artists but there's no fraternity among wall daubers that over-paint another guy's work. Do that and you're in danger, pure and simple.

  'This is our bridge.' The man angled his shaved head so he could see what Ped had inscribed. 'You've no friggin' right.'

  Another of the guys peered over. 'Hey, who's there with you?'

  'Just my brother.'

  'What's he doing?'

  'He gets scared sometimes.'

  One of the shaved heads tilted to one side. 'Hey, I know him. It's Sparky.'

  Ped shook his head. 'That was at school. His name's Mickey.'

  'Sparky Lectric. That's what we called him. He's scared of batteries and plug sockets, anything to do with electricity.'

  'I don't care what the fuck they call him.' The gang leader's eyes blazed with fury. 'They've messed our logo.'

  'Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to slash your piece.'

  The leader pointed. 'You? I'm going to break your arms. Your brother? We're taking him down to the track to fry his dick on the live rail.'

  'We'll go home. We didn't-'

  'Get them!'

  The gang weren't listening. Ped knew that he and his brother were in for a kicking at least.

  'Come on, Mickey. On your feet!'

  'Electric Man.'

  'If we don't get away they're going to hurt us, Mickey. Move!'

  Ped noticed that the gang split into two. One pair to block the end of the gantry, while the others would trap them at the other side, then work into the middle. Ped bundled Mickey along the gantry as a train hummed beneath them. Electric contacts shot sparks from under the carri
ages. Mickey groaned with fear.

  'Mickey, listen. We're going down the ladder. Then we cross the track. See the canal at the far side? There's a path we can use.'

  As much as mapping out the route it was a way of distracting his brother from what would be the biggest obstacle. Mickey would have to step over the high-voltage rail. Just to see that gleaming band of steel was enough to scare the bejesus out of him. To get close would freak him out. 'It's either that or get pounded,' Ped grunted. 'I'll go down the ladder first. Follow me. But fast, okay?'

  In the gloom he could see the gang members, who were going to seal one end of the gantry, had already climbed over the bridge wall, then they'd jump the last five feet on to the steel pathway. Down the ladder was the only exit.

  'Keep following me, bro,' Ped called. His brother obeyed. The kid might be cursed with a phobia but he wasn't simple. He knew the gang wanted to hurt him, so the two brothers clanged their way down the ladder that was fixed to the wall. Soon they descended into a deep cutting where the trains clattered.

  Ped glanced up. The gang had reached the top of the ladder. One of them was pointing down, so they'd spotted their prey. 'Keep moving, bro!' He climbed down another dozen rungs to where a light was fixed to the brickwork alongside the ladder. Ped zipped by it without a second thought, then he noticed his brother had stopped just a couple of feet above it.

  'Come on, Mickey. You can't stop now.'

  'I'm going back up.'

  'No!'

  The steel ladder convulsed under his hands as the gang swarmed on to it; they descended with their boots clumping against the rungs. In ten seconds they'd reach Mickey; then what? Stamp on his hands until they made him fall the twenty feet to the tracks below?

  'Mickey,' Ped hissed. 'Hurry up.'

  'Can't.'

  'What's wrong?'

  'Light.'

  'It's just a light.'