After a moment he turned back to Howser but the dark corner where he had been sitting was empty. The letter that he had brought was on the table, soaking up the liquid that now spilled out of his overflowing glass. Graham stood and looked around for the man but it seemed he had vanished.
CHAPTER 24
IT WASN’T NIGHT YET BUT THE DARK SNOW filled sky afforded Arthur a rare chance to travel during the day. He had been on the move constantly since the two men had found him in the Underground.
News about Bridget Kable was difficult to come by, but not impossible. The people he visited had been reluctant to speak about the girl, the Church or The Grigori. It was a dangerous situation to get mixed up in, but he could be very persuasive. As a result he had more information than he had started with but not nearly enough to find the her.
Nobody looked at him twice. He was a lone man, tall and pale with looks that were out of place in the modern world. He wore a long coat that might have been a cloak and was under dressed for the weather. But people saw what they wanted to see and if he looked a little out of his time he also looked dangerous and when you looked dangerous you could get away with dressing in any way you liked.
He didn’t rush. He enjoyed the different aspect the world took on during sociable hours. The people that he saw were not hurrying or worried as they were if caught out after midnight. They were relaxed and calm, stepping into shops that he had rarely seen open. There was music in the distance, accompanied by the steady groan and rumble of construction work below.
There had been no further communication from The Grigori but he had taken their threat seriously. He couldn’t allow anything to happen to Elizabeth, she was his responsibility and maybe he would have to do something terrible to protect her but he had done a lot of terrible things already, what was one more to add to the collection? Once upon a time, not so very long ago, he had tried to atone for past mistakes before realising that it was a futile effort. Nobody could stay alive without causing or contributing to atrocities, he was just more honest about it.
After ten minutes he could feel his skin prickling with heat. He needed to get inside or he would start to burn and even he would attract attention if he burst into flames. He was still in the seedy part of town. The shops were fewer here and the ale houses more frequent. Above them there were brothels that operated throughout the day and night. He could hear the girls up there talking. They would be dark rooms, the curtains constantly pulled shut, he considered stepping inside one but didn’t. A man in a brothel who just wanted to sit and hide from the sun would be noticed, commented upon, remembered later if people started asking questions.
Instead he walked into another dark alley where the tall buildings on either side cast permanent shadows. He sighed with relief as the cool darkness covered him. He was so focused on his relief that for a moment he didn’t hear them coming. Later he would wonder whether they had made any sound at all.
He turned around and saw three figures standing at the end of the alley. They were all male and they were all big but if they had been human that wouldn’t have been a concern. He knew at once that they were not. They smelled different.
“Arthur Park?” said one of them, he couldn’t tell which because none of their mouths moved.
“Who are you?” he said.
They walked towards him, their dark clothes were wrapped around them like togas. Their jaws were strong and their eyes dark. They looked different but somehow the same. The world seemed different in their presence, as if they were more solid than reality. He expected to feel the ground shake as they walked towards him but he couldn’t even hear the dry snow crunching beneath their sandals.
“Are you Arthur Park?” said the voice and this time the one in the middle moved his mouth but it was out of sync, as if someone else was speaking and he was merely mouthing the words.
“That’s right,” Arthur said. “Who wants to know?”
Before he could do anything to defend himself his arms were grabbed and pulled behind his back, not brutally but he could still feel the pressure. He didn’t attempt to defend himself, whoever they were they had shown themselves to be quick and strong and he doubted he would be able to beat them in a fair fight. Instead he let himself be picked up and carried away.
He didn’t recognise the streets. They seemed to be travelling in a world that was not quite Lunden but similar. There were people but they moved too slowly and out of time with reality as he saw it. Effect occurred before cause; he saw people tripping over before they had walked into anything, he saw doors closing and people still walking through them. They travelled soundlessly through the strange reality, too quickly and quietly. He couldn’t smell or hear anything.
When they finally came to a stop they were inexplicably inside. The room dark and airless. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust but even when they did he saw no features that he would remember, black walls and a black floor. The men who had been holding him let go but two remained behind him to block off his exit through the dark corridor. He had no choice but to follow the one in front forwards.
They emerged in a large room. Lots of people of different ages in different styles of clothing sat on the floor, huddled together in groups, talking in quiet whispers. They did not look scary or threatening.
It was not often that Arthur found himself in a situation that was unusual to him, he had been alive for a long time and witnessed many things, but this was new. This was strange. The people in front of him, from baby to old woman, all appeared human but he knew instinctively that they were not. They were all perfect, the idealised version of a person at that stage of his or her life. They looked up at him with big moist eyes. “Where am I?” he said.
One of the men turned to face him. He had blond hair and deep blue eyes. He looked Roman or Greek. When he spoke this time his lips moved in perfect time with his voice but it still didn’t seem to be coming from his mouth. “My name is Apollo,” he said.
Arthur looked around the room, babies, women, men all sat there. They looked cold and vulnerable and completely out of place. It seemed impossible that they were gods but a few hundred years ago it had seemed impossible that ‘she’ was a vampire and that had turned out to be the true. But if they were gods what were they doing crammed together in a basement in Lunden? And what was he doing there with them?
He turned to Apollo. “What am I doing here?” he said.
Apollo put a hand on his arm, a strong perfectly realised hand that might have been an artists carving if it hadn’t felt warm and made of flesh. A thought flashed through Arthur’s mind, ‘what would their blood taste like? What would it do to him?’
“We need your help Arthur Park.”
“My help?”
“You have been looking for The Girl?”
“Bridget Kable?” Arthur said.
Apollo nodded.
“Why do you want to know?” he said.
“We are forgotten Arthur Park. We live but is this any life for a god?”
Arthur shook his head.
“Jehovah has forsaken us,” Apollo said. “We were promised eternal glory and look what we have become.”
“He did this to you?” said Arthur.
“We supported his war against Lucifer and he promised us a rich reward but we have been cast aside. We are gods and we cannot die but is this not worse?”
Arthur looked around. These people had ruled a dynasty from the great palace on Olympus and they had been reduced to hiding in the dark. Apollo was right, it was no life for a god, it was no life for anyone. “Why would I help you?” he said.
“We can be allies in this quest Arthur Park. You are strong and brave but you cannot do this alone. You have set yourself against Jehovah, which brings you favour among our kind, but there are others who will not be so welcoming. He still has many friends. We can help you find The Girl.”
“And what do you want her for?” said Arthur.
“She can help bring an end to our suffering. Sh
e can help us find Jehovah and take our revenge. She is the key to all of this.”
“Will you hurt her?”
“Why would we hurt the bridge to our salvation?” said Apollo and he seemed genuinely confused by the idea. Arthur warmed to him at once.
“I’m listening,” Arthur said.
Apollo spoke. All the eyes in the room turned to him. Arthur saw them nodding in agreement to everything he said. Arthur listened to the god’s plan and found himself nodding along with the rest of them.
CHAPTER 25
GRAHAM STOOD AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS and looked up into the darkness. He was a day sober and feeling a lot less confident than he had done the previous night. His hands shook slightly and his vision was blurry. He ran a hand through his hair and wondered again if he should just forget about the whole business.
It wasn’t going to be pleasant but it was the right thing to do and god knew he had done precious little of that recently. So he gripped the hand rail so tightly that his knuckles turned white and pulled himself up the stairs.
It seemed a lot higher than it once had. He could hear laughter and conversation as he made his way up but it stopped at once when he walked into the room.
A dozen faces turned to look at him, blank expressions that he couldn’t understand. No one spoke to him, and he made no effort to engage them, as he walked through the room to Hayes’s office.
The door was closed but unlocked. He knocked but didn’t wait for an answer before turning the handle and going through.
“Kable,” Hayes said with some surprise, jumping up from his desk as if he had been caught in the middle of doing something he shouldn’t. He quickly recovered himself. “It’s good to see you. Take a seat.”
Graham remained standing. “I want to be assigned to Bridget’s case,” he said. “Agnes’s as well, they are probably linked.”
“Graham you know I can’t do that,” Hayes said. “And as for them being connected, that’s a stretch don’t you think? They are completely different.”
“Two people from the same family, one gets kidnapped and the other gets killed within weeks of it. Did you know Agnes was investigating herself?”
The news did not appear to be a surprise to Hayes but Graham suspected he had looked into the case himself. “Even so,” he said, “you won’t be allowed to investigate. Even if I thought it was a good idea, which I don’t, you know I don’t have the authority...”
“Then I want to speak to Commissioner Lodge.”
That, if nothing else, seemed to set Hayes off his track. “Mr Lodge is very busy.”
“I can wait,” Graham said, he didn’t have anywhere else to be and now that he had started it felt right that he should finish things before moving on. The extra time might even allow him to work out what he might move on to.
“I can assure you that Commissioner Lodge will tell you exactly the same as I have. This might damage your career Kable.”
“I will take that chance,” Graham said.
“Very well,” Hayes said, “if you insist upon it.” He walked to the door and leaned out. “Carter?”
A young man walked over to them. To Graham he looked fresh out of uniform. He had that glow in his eyes, a mixture between ‘I can’t believe my luck’ and ‘I am in well over my head’. “Yes sir?” he said.
“Run ahead and let Commissioner Lodge know that I’m on my way,” Hayes instructed.
“Commissioner Lodge?” the boy said, who evidently had never spoken to so high ranking a person.”
“You heard me,” Hayes said with uncharacteristic anger, “now snap to it.”
The boy slunk away and Hayes shut the door.
The answer came at once and twenty-minutes later they were sitting in silence in the long corridor outside of Commissioner Lodge’s office. The floor was covered in a thick red carpet that would not have looked out of place in a stately home but didn’t seem quite right outside the office of the county’s most senior policeman. Ancient paintings depicting law enforcement officers through the ages hung from the walls, lit by greasy lamps that sent dark plumes of smoke into the air.
They sat in silence on hard chairs that had been placed along the wall. Graham was sweating and not with nerves for what he was about to do. Heat seemed to radiate through the door to Lodge’s office.
“Come,” said a deep voice from the other side of the door.
Graham stood.
“It’s not too late,” Hayes said. “You can still back out, I will think of something else to tell him.”
Graham shook his head but wondered why Hayes was so keen to stop him going through with it. He wondered if Lodge might actually approve his request but then why would Hayes be so against it? He opened the door and went inside.
A frail man sat behind a desk, a roaring fire like the pathway to hell was burning behind him, heating up the room to the temperature of an oven.
“Shut the door,” the little man said. His hair was mostly gone, what was left clung to his head in white patches, the rest of his head was covered in liver spots and moles. It was not the voice that had invited them in. That belonged to a man standing in the corner. “You’ll let in the cold.”
Graham felt hot moisture creeping up his back as Hayes closed the door behind them and stood at his side.
“Detective Kable, isn’t it?” Lodge said.
“That’s right sir,” Graham said. As well as kicking out plenty of heat the fire scorched his eyes and he found himself having to squint. He could hear the flames roaring and the dry wood cracking and popping.
“I’m sorry we didn’t meet sooner detective. I heard about the unfortunate circumstances of your arrival, and of course your recent tragic loss. You must take whatever time you need to mourn your family.”
“Thank you sir,” Graham said. He looked around. The man in the corner was a menacing presence. A dark shape that might not have been there at all if the light hit the room differently. “Actually, it’s my daughter I’m here to see you about.”
Lodge nodded, his neck looked as if it might snap under the weight of his head. “Go on,” he said.
Graham took a deep breath and pressed ahead, he knew coming in that there was little chance of getting what he wanted but he had been a policeman all his life and if he didn’t at least try he would feel like he was betraying something sacred. “I would like permission to join the team investigating Bridget’s kidnapping.”
Lodge raised his eye brows which were barely visible tufts of white hair. “Kidnapping?” He turned to Hayes. “Is it a kidnapping?”
“It seems unlikely sir. There hasn’t been a ransom note which we would expect to be in circulation by now.”
Graham thought about the letter that Howser had shown him and then about the things he had told him.
“There you go detective, not a kidnapping.”
Of course it wasn’t a kidnapping and he could have slapped himself for using the term. It was proof, of course, that Hayes was right to prevent him joining the investigation. He had become so wrapped up in it that he was already jumping to conclusions that were patently not right: if it was a kidnapping then there would be a ransom note and there was no such thing.
“Anyway,” Lodge said, “you want to investigate your daughters disappearance?”
“That’s right sir,” he said, feeling even less confident now.
“Perfectly understandable, of course, but you understand we can’t let you do that?”
Graham was already nodding, this was exactly what he had expected.
“Quite apart from anything we have no new evidence to reopen the case.”
He wasn’t sure that he had heard that right, he frowned and looked at Hayes who gave him a blank stare. He turned back to Lodge. “Excuse me sir,” he said, barely holding his temper, “am I to understand that the investigation looking for my daughter has been closed?”
“That’s correct,” Lodge said.
“And might I be permitted to know why?”
“Hayes?” Lodge said, leaning to look past Graham. “You tell the man.”
Graham turned to face Hayes.
“We have no evidence, no witnesses, no ransom note, nothing. We only have your word to go on that you even have a daughter,” Hayes said.
“She’s registered at the parish in Odamere,” Graham said, but Hayes was shaking his head.
“Not according to any record we have been able to trace. Officially she isn’t even missing because she was never here in the first place.”
Graham turned back around to look at Lodge. “So let me get this straight,” he said. “You are no longer investigating the disappearance of my daughter and you won’t assign me the case to work on?”
“That’s correct,” Lodge said.
“And my wife?”
“Her case is being handled by detective Palmer along with related cases.”
“Should I even ask if you will let me work on that?”
Lodge shook his head. His decision was made and so was Graham’s.
“Then you leave me little choice but to offer my resignation.”
That surprised them both. Lodge leaned forward over his desk, his thin wiry body looked like it was made of china. “Detective Kable, do you understand what you are saying?”
He nodded, he understood very well. He had spent the last twenty-four hours considering it and decided it was the only thing he could do. He might not be able to find Bridget but he needed to try.
“If you no longer work for Scotland Yard you will lose our protection,” Hayes said.
“A lot of good its done so far,” Graham said. He doubted there was any protection being given.
“I refuse to accept it,” Lodge said. He leaned back in his seat. “You’re too good a detective to lose over this Kable.”
“With all due respect sir,” Graham said, “you don’t have any choice. I won’t be coming back.”
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