Waking Caliban

by Mike Cartlidge

  My shoulder was feeling better but I took more aspirin anyway, washing the pills down with brandy from a bottle I kept in my room. When I tossed my jacket down on the bed, I picked up my mobile and realized that I’d forgotten to turn it on after killing it for the funeral service. I flicked the ‘on’ button, waiting while the device found service. A buzz told me a message was waiting.

  I called voicemail and listened to Miranda Smart’s exhortations for me to ring her, no matter what the time. I refilled my glass of brandy, checked my watch, shrugged and then punched the mobile number she’d left with the recorded message. She can’t have been asleep: she answered after three rings and, obviously picking my identity from her caller ID, asked me how the funeral had gone.

  “Like most funerals,” I told her. “People trying to be cheerful as they remembered the good times. Family members trying to hold in the worst of what they’re feeling.”

  “Bummer. I hate funerals. Did he have children?”

  “A girl and a boy. They looked as though their souls had been anaesthetized.”

  “That’s too bad.” We were both silent for a second or two until she continued. “You OK to talk business?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I had some information from my sources,” she told me. “About the dead man, Marr. He was a curator at the Stratford museum.”

  I considered how much I should tell her and settled on the bare minimum. “The police told me about him.”

  “He was more than just a curator, though. He was an expert on Shakespeare’s life and times…”

  “So I believe.”

  “Seems to me he could be the man Roden traveled to Stratford to see.”

  I was quiet for a moment, wondering if her insight about Roden and Marr was based on anything more definite than a hunch. If she had more positive information, it would be interesting to know where it had come from. I was sure she was connected with potential buyers for the prize Roden had been chasing, which meant that she might know a lot more about the nature of that prize than she was letting on. It might also mean that somewhere among her contacts were the people responsible for Geordie Thorpe’s death. I thought again of Thorpe’s son, standing like a statue in front of the French windows, and felt rage stir like acid in my veins. “What do you want, Miranda?” I asked.

  “Some people I know reckon Marr had a parcel of papers that date back to Shakespeare’s time.”

  “Which people?”

  “Can’t reveal my sources, Hastings. But these people are real keen to take a look at that parcel.”

  “I’m sure they would be.”

  “Since Marr’s death, there’s been no trace of it.”

  “You think I know something?”

  “Marr was killed in the elevator of your hotel, Hastings. It may have been coincidence but I’d guess the chances are about a zillion to one that he was there to see you.” She paused. “As you’re keeping quiet, I’ll assume you don’t want to dispute my brilliant deductions.”

  “It’s late, Miranda. I just want to get to bed.”

  “OK. Just tell me one thing. Did you see Marr before he died and did you get the Shakespeare papers from him?”

  “That’s two things.”

  “So you’re a mathematical genius. Come on, Hastings, spill.”

  “Come and see me in the morning,” I told her.

  We arranged to meet at 11A.M. and I broke the connection and turned off the phone before sitting on my bed and swilling down the dregs of the brandy. I could feel the onset of a headache at the back of my skull and hoped the aspirin I’d swallowed would deal to it before it had a chance to build. From somewhere down below I could hear the sounds of people celebrating and then the thud of people walking up the stairs, giggling and making the noises people make when they’re trying to be quiet after drinking too much. There was the clump of someone tripping and falling on the stairs and I heard a woman’s voice cajoling and encouraging and then the deeper bass of a man apologizing. After a few moments, I heard a door opening and closing, somewhere along the hall, and things were quieter apart from the continuing buzz of voices from the ground floor.

  ***

  I drifted off to sleep quickly but my night was filled with dreams. When I woke, the most vivid image that stayed with me was of a night-time scene in ages gone by, as if my slumbering mind had conjured up some ancient movie. In the dream, there were no street-lights, although we were in a town, and the only illumination was coming from the moon and a distant, flaming torch. I found myself walking along an alley-way beside a large Tudor-style house and then through a lane rutted with cart tracks. Another man walked in front of me, unaware of my presence. This man’s progress was slow and painful. Several times he stopped and leaned against a wall or a tree, as if he needed to recover his strength. Owls hooted and, a few streets over, a lonely-sounding cur yelped into the night.

  Further along the lane, beside the river, another man waited in the shelter of a church-yard lych-gate. He wore a black hempen coat, the hood pulled over his head to hide his face from the sight of stray passers-by. He heard the sound of a stone being dislodged by my companion’s boot heel and I saw him move forward in welcome.

  The man I’d been following staggered slightly and, again, leaned a hand against the mossy wall to steady himself. I saw that his other hand clasped a parcel to the side of his body. His lips moved and, in a melancholic voice, he murmured words I strained to hear.

  “My wife doth bid a sick man in sadness make his will.”

  “Do you heed her, friend?” whispered the other.

  “Ah,” he said, “it is word ill urged to one that is so ill.”

  In the lucid illogicality of the dream world, I found myself becoming the man who had waited at the lych-gate. I pulled the hood from my head so that my friend could see me properly. I tried to smile my encouragement but, even in the dim moonlight, I could see the ravages of fever on his face. I wanted to tell him to cease this foolishness and return to his sickbed. I knew, though, that my words would never shake his resolve. I took the package he’d been holding, bracing the muscles of my arms against its weight. He leant towards me and whispered in my ear, admonitions that I’d heard a dozen times before, that in the absence of his dead son, these parcels that he delivered to me were his progeny, his immortality, and that I was to hold them safe and keep my promise, on my life and on that of my own dear child.

  His voice grew weak and I had to press my ear to his mouth to hear the sorcery he invoked.

  Chapter 18

  Despite my late night, I was fully awake by first light. I can never lie in bed of a morning. I rose, packed my gym bag and put on a track suit and running shoes. Not even Brabant was about as I tiptoed down the stairs and through the front door.

  Yesterday’s rain had made everything clean and new. The weather was improving and I guessed that, once the sun was properly up over the city’s houses and office blocks, the day was going to warm up nicely. The streets were almost deserted but when I got to the gym it was packed with straining, sweaty bodies. I stripped down to shorts and vest and spent an hour alternating between hard sprints on a running machine and a circuit of weights, keeping pressure off my injured shoulder, doing enough just to stretch the muscles on that side of my body, and warming down with a series of tae kwon do routines, combinations of punches and kicks and ritualized movements.

  After I’d showered and dressed, I left the gym, swinging my bag in my good hand, and headed home. There were more people about now, joggers and walkers, and the damp sidewalks were beginning to steam as they warmed up. A couple of blocks from home, I sidestepped an elderly couple tugging on the leash of a determined dachshund. The dog obviously had a pressing need to visit a lamppost across the street and its owners were both pulling against it. Nobody was making any progress but, if it developed into a test of stamina, my money was on the dog.

  As I walked past the life-or-death struggle, I saw a dark blue Jaguar parked at the side
of the road in front of me. The occupants had seen me, too. The front passenger door opened and a figure climbed out, using his hands on the roof of the car as he levered his massive frame through the door. Even from twenty meters, I could see the blond hair and the close-set eyes, the effeminate mouth pursed into an insolent grin, the line of tattooed teardrops running down the cheek. Someone once told me that, in the States, a teardrop tattoo meant that you’d killed someone and that hardcore criminals collected lines of them like Second World War fighter pilots painted lines of Swastikas on their fuselages. I wondered whether this man was a killer or just some sort of fantasist. Maybe I was going to find out.

  The dark-haired man was, by now, out of the driver’s side and leaning on the car’s bonnet. The air of menace coming from the two men was unmistakable. I looked around. I figured I could get away from them if I made a run for it, but too much of the previous day’s anger stirred inside me. This pair were undeniably big and strong but they had the look of brawlers rather than class fighters. I told myself I could take them down if I had to. No problem. It’s good to have self-confidence.

  I kept walking. As I reached the car, the dark man pushed himself upright and moved forward to try to blind-side me. I turned towards him and heard a murmur from the blond. I looked down and saw a small, snub-nosed pistol in his hands. I froze, my arms held away from my body, and forced myself to think calmly.

  “Have I met you gentlemen before?” I asked.

  The dark man’s mouth was close to my ear and his voice was a basso rumble. “I’m sure we’d recollect if we’d had the inestimable pleasure of prior acquaintance with this gentleman, wouldn’t we, Mr. Havoc?”

  The blond man nodded. “Indubitably we would, Mr. Damage. I think we can be unequivocal on that particular point of debate.” Like the dark man, he had a Cockney accent and I thought of East Enders I’d known in the army who, as a matter of principle, would never use a simple word or phrase when a more elaborate one was available.

  “I was just wondering,” I said. “You remind me of a pair of gorillas who broke into my hotel room in Stratford a week or so back.”

  The blond stared in mock surprise. “I had no cognizance that the population of Stratford included jungle-dwelling primates. Did you, Mr. Damage?”

  “My degree of cognizance in this regard was positively infinitesimal, Mr. Havoc.”

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot, willing my tired muscles to stay loose. At least the man behind me – Damage – didn’t seem to have a firearm. “What do you want?”

  “We just wondered,” Havoc went on, “if you’d care to accompany us in a short excursion.”

  “I had planned to get breakfast before I did anything else today.” I half-turned so that I could see his face.

  He winked at me. “Well, perchance we can partake in a tasty repast when we get to our destination,” he said.

  “That destination being?”

  “Ours to know and yours to discover, my good sir, and all in the fullness of time.” His hand was in my back now and he spoke to his blond friend. “I say, Mr. Havoc, would you mind opening the rear door of our conveyance?”

  “I should be indescribably delighted, Mr. Damage,” the blond man said. Reaching behind his back, he opened the Ford’s back door before stepping back and holding up his free hand.

  I cocked my head to one side. “I’m very fussy about my breakfast. I insist on having my eggs runny and I only eat them with crispy bacon, cooked just to the point of dryness.”

  The blond man looked at me as if I was some sort of simpleton and his eyes flickered skywards. It wasn’t exactly a loss of concentration but, I figured, it would have to do. I dropped my gym bag onto Damage’s foot and stepped forward, sweeping Havoc’s gun to one side and smashing my forehead into his face. I was aiming at his nose but the height difference between us was so great that I took him on his chin. As his head jerked back, I grabbed his arm and braced against his elbow until he dropped the gun.

  By this time, his mate had side-stepped my bag and was aiming a punch at my face. I half-parried the blow so that it glanced off my cheek and then dropped and scythed a kick into his knees. He went sideways and bounced against the car mirror and, using the split second I had before he came back at me, I dived to the ground, rolling and scooping up the pistol. My fingers felt for the pistol’s safety catch, flicked it off and, in a continuous motion, worked the slide to bring a round into the breech. The blond man was starting towards me again and I crouched and lined the pistol up with his eyes. He froze, his arm reaching out to hold his mate back.

  Too many things were happening at once. I realized that a woman pedestrian across the street was crying out for help and, back on the corner, the dachshund was barking up a storm and one or both of its elderly owners had begun to scream. Despite these distractions, I kept my attention on the two men in front of me. After a few moments, I saw the blond, Havoc, smile again and straighten up. His mate was still ready to come at me despite the gun: he had murderous rage in his eyes but Havoc pulled at his sleeve and nodded towards the car. The dark man hesitated and then shrugged and they both turned.

  I tried to think quickly. I was sure these were the men who’d attacked me in my hotel room and there was a fair chance that they’d also been involved in Thorpe’s death. I steadied the pistol between my hands and shouted at them to stop. They looked towards the screaming bystanders and I could see them working out the odds, as I’d done a few seconds ago. Then, as if on a signal, they broke and dived for the car doors.

  If they thought I wouldn’t shoot them in front of witnesses, they’d underestimated my anger. There was no doubt in my mind that, irrespective of the consequences, I’d shoot rather than let them escape. By this time, Damage had the car door open and was starting to slide inside. Deliberately, I lowered the pistol, switching my aim from his head to his lower thigh. Holding my breath to keep my aim steady, I pulled the trigger.

  There was a dull click and nothing else happened. I cursed and tried to work the slide. The gun had jammed. In frustration, I hit it with the flat of my hand and tried the mechanism again but it was obvious that the weapon would need to be stripped down before it would work again.

  It was too late now, anyway. I heard the sound of the car’s engine turning over as its doors slammed shut. Almost immediately, it began to accelerate from the curb, leaving me standing in the middle of a city street with a gun in my hand. I looked around, panting hard to catch my breath. The elderly couple, their dog and a number of other onlookers were staring at me in various stages of amazement.

  I wondered whether anyone had called the police. I decided I really didn’t want to spend more of my life in an interview room, answering questions I didn’t want to hear. I did my best to grin and waved at the oldsters. “Sorry to disturb you. That was a run-through for a movie scene.” I flicked the pistol’s safety back on and waved it. “Just a prop. Made of plastic. Rubbish the stuff they give us to work with. Bloody amazing it didn’t break when we dropped it.”

  I picked up my gym bag, sliding the pistol into one of its outer packets, and walked towards the old couple. This was, of course, the opposite direction to home: I thought it best to distance myself from base in case the police, once they heard about the morning’s excitement, decided to come looking for someone who matched the witnesses’ descriptions. A quick walk around the block, I reckoned, and I should be able to trot back into Madame George’s with no-one any the wiser.

  As I passed the dachshund, it gave me an uncertain stare and barked once before scurrying behind the old lady’s legs. I felt around inside my mouth with a finger, reassuring myself that my teeth were only jarred and not loose. My finger came away slick with blood and I looked at the old couple, who were still gazing at me with their mouths wide open. “Tomato ketchup,” I explained.

  Chapter 19

  Fortunately, none of the onlookers had the presence of mind – or, I suppose, the nerve – to follow me. Once I was away from th
eir staring eyes, I huddled in a doorway and wiped my fingerprints from the pistol before stripping it down and dropping its components into nearby drains.

  When I made it back to Madame George’s, I washed up in the bathroom along the corridor from my room, rinsing a thin smear of blood from my face and again changing the dressing on my shoulder. I hadn’t been aware of it during the fight but something must have parted: the stitched flesh was weeping blood and I dusted it with antiseptic powder and bound it as tightly as I could with fresh gauze and bandage.

  I had nearly two hours to kill until I was due to meet Miranda. Starting up my computer, I used my scanner to take jpeg images of the Shakespeare papers and then accessed a secure pay-per-use site on the Internet. The site allowed users to copy files from their home computers so that they’d have a recoverable backup in case of a disk failure. I uploaded the scanned images of the papers to the site and then, on the basis that the locked drawer on my desk wouldn’t have withstood a determined assault from a toddler armed with a ripe banana, took the originals and deposited them in the suitcase in the Victoria Station left luggage office.

  As I walked back to George’s, I tried to piece together the morning’s events. If Havoc and Damage were responsible for the shooting of Young and Thorpe, they’d displayed incredible gall in attending Geordie Thorpe’s funeral. Somehow, though, I guessed that kind of insolence would appeal to them. I considered the possibility that one of them was the man who’d killed Roden and almost done for me, in the Stratford alley, and instantly discarded the idea. I didn’t recall either of them being left handed, like the alleyway gunman, but the clincher was that that man had been about my size, not a giant like Havoc and his mate. Depressingly, that meant there were at least three evil-doers in the field.