The Skeleton Clock

by Justin Richards

  ‘The Toymaker’s daughter?’

  ‘Yes. She didn’t go home last night. Her father is worried.’

  Mandrake got up from behind his desk. ‘And so he should be. Yes, Sarah was here yesterday afternoon. But she left at about…’ He considered. ‘Oh, about five. Perhaps a little after, it was dark but not late.’

  ‘I know she went home,’ Jake said. ‘But I thought maybe she came back later?’

  Mandrake shook his head. ‘I am afraid not.’

  ‘You’re sure? If she hadn’t finished what she was doing..?’

  ‘I am quite sure. That is, I am quite sure she didn’t come back. Whether she had finished, I couldn’t say. She was interested in toys. Toys and monsters.’ He was standing close to Jake now. ‘Are you also interested in toys and monsters?’

  ‘Why should I be?’ Jake asked, immediately wary.

  ‘Oh no reason. You know she was here, and you seem to be a friend. I wondered if you shared her interests, that’s all.’ Mandrake smiled reassuringly. ‘But that doesn’t help you find her, does it?’

  ‘No,’ Jake said unhappily. ‘I hoped she’d come back, but if not…’

  ‘May I make a suggestion?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right, and perhaps Sarah did indeed continue her researches, whatever they are. But somewhere else. Is that possible?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Jake admitted.

  ‘Is there anywhere else she might have gone as a result of what she discovered here?’

  ‘I don’t know what she discovered here,’ Jake pointed out. ‘But I did wonder if she’d gone back to the Atherton Archive…’ He paused, not sure if he should have mentioned that. ‘Or to see Mrs Gladhall,’ he said quickly.

  ‘A nasty business,’ Mandrake said sadly. ‘Poor old Atherton. Not that I knew him well, but we were acquainted. But why do you think she might have gone to see Mrs Gladhall?’

  ‘Oh, no reason. We heard she might own a figure we were interested in.’

  ‘A toy soldier?’ Mandrake asked quietly. ‘She said she was interested in toy soldiers.’

  Jake nodded. How much had Sarah told him?

  Mandrake pulled at his lip as he thought. ‘Well, I hope the young lady is all right,’ he said. ‘Would it help if I showed you the books she was looking at? You might guess from those what her next move might be.’

  It seemed a good idea – or as good as any idea at the moment. So Jake followed Mandrake through to a small room at the back of the warehouse.

  ‘She was interested in this section here,’ he said, indicating a series of shelves. ‘Toys, games… Chess was mentioned. She admired my table here.’

  He turned to point to a low table at one side of the room. A chess table, the board made up of red and white squares. Jake couldn’t make out much detail in the weak glow of the oil lamp that Mandrake was holding.

  ‘Hold this a moment,’ Mandrake said, handing Jake the lamp. ‘Let me bring the table out into the main room where there is more light. It’s rather fine.’

  Jake didn’t really want to waste time looking at an ivory chess table, but it seemed impolite to complain when the man was trying to help him find Sarah. So he followed Mandrake back to the main room, where the bookseller set down the chess table beside his desk.

  ‘She did seem very taken with it. I wonder if it might somehow be related to her researches?’

  Jake couldn’t believe that Sarah saw any relevance in the table. But of course, she was a Toymaker’s daughter, so she was likely to be intrigued by the chess table in any case. He made a show of examining the table.

  ‘Is it broken?’ Jake wondered, seeing the empty bracket and slot at one side of the board.

  ‘I don ‘t think so. More likely something is missing.’

  ‘The table top is very deep. Does it open?’ He wondered if there was storage for the chess pieces beneath the board, where there was obviously several inches of spare depth in the top of the table.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to open. But the carvings are very fine, don’t you think?’

  ‘Very fine,’ Jake agreed. Each of the four sides of the table beneath the board were embossed with battle scenes. Knights on horseback charged at foot soldiers; massive armoured elephants stood in the background; priests read the last rites and a king and his queen surveyed the scene.

  Jake hadn’t seen anything like it before, and yet he realised as he looked again, it seemed familiar. Not the whole scene, but elements of it. He walked slowly round the table examining each of the four sides. There was no doubt about it, the figures going into battle were armoured and posed like the cavalryman he had found, like Geoff’s foot soldier, like the figures at the Atherton Archive.

  ‘No,’ he heard himself saying levelly, ‘I don’t think this table has anything to do with what Sarah was looking for.’

  But he was sure it did. Had she realised? Did the table date from the same time as the figures, or had it been made by the same person? And what had happened to Sarah?

  ‘I should be going,’ he decided.

  ‘Of course,’ Mandrake said. ‘But let me give you something first. A gift. A book. It may help.’

  Mandrake carried the table back through, Jake following. While Mandrake hunted along the shelves for the book he was after, Jake stepped out of the room.

  Through the next room, there was another doorway that gave out on to a small stairwell. Wooden steps rose to the upper levels of the warehouse, and stone steps led down, presumably to the basement and cellars. Jake stood at the top of the stairs, looking down into the darkness, listening to hear the lapping of the water. But it was silent.

  Although the only light was coming from the rooms behind him, Jake could make out the top steps. The edge of each step was painted with a yellow line, which emphasized how chipped and ragged they were. They seemed completely dry, which surprised him. Hadn’t Mandrake said the water flowed up and in? Maybe it came a different way. But there did seem to be patches of damp on the steps – almost a line of them up the stairs. Almost like large footprints.

  He turned away, and something else caught his attention – on the wooden post that supported the bottom of the banisters for the stairs leading upwards. He reached out to touch it – and pulled back as Mandrake’s voice came from just behind him.

  ‘There you are. Your friend Sarah was looking at this book. I thought…’ He shrugged. ‘Well, it might be of use. If not, give it to her when you find her, with my best wishes.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Jake took the book – a history of chess. It wasn’t very big, the dark leather cover stained and mottled. He slipped it into his coat pocket. ‘I’m sure I’ll find her.’

  Mandrake smiled. ‘I hope so.’ He was still talking as he led Jake through the main book room and out to the entrance to the tunnels.

  But Jake wasn’t paying attention. He was worrying about Sarah; he was thinking about the figures carved on the side of the chess table, and most of all he was remembering what he had seen on the banister rail. The dark circular imprints, as if burned into the wood.

  Exactly the same shapes and pattern as he had seen on the monster’s tentacles at Whispers. Exactly the same shapes and pattern as he had seen burned into Mrs Gladhall’s face.

  The tunnel seemed even darker. But Jake’s eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom. He could hear the damp dripping off the curved ceiling. There was no sign of anyone else, no sound from further along so he guessed the Circle was still closed.

  He walked with one hand brushing against the side wall, it was so dark. Finally a weak sputtering light appeared in front of him as the tunnel curved slightly. It was difficult to judge in the darkness how far he had come. Jake looked back, and the morning light that shone down the hatchway where he’d entered was already out of sight. He must be half way back to the main tunnel by now. Mustn’t he?

  Jake still couldn’t hear anything, but the section of tunnel to the Memorial had been fairly quiet anyway. He’d be there soo
n.

  The wall behind his hand trembled. Like the ground under his feet when the roof riders had been coming. Ahead of him, the light on the wall juddered. At the same moment, the tunnel reverberated with a dull thud. Jake stopped – what was that?

  But everything was silent again. He took a step forward. Still nothing. Another step. And the wall was shaking again – harder now. The sound echoed round him like the beating of a drum, or a giant heartbeat.

  Jake stepped away from the wall. It must be his imagination, but in the flickering light it seemed as through the wall of the tunnel was moving. Another thump of sound, and the wall seemed to bulge towards Jake. A brick slid forwards, cement dust spitting out from its sides. Then water.

  Thump! The brick shot out of the curved wall, a sudden stream of dark water forcing it aside and erupting into the tunnel.

  Jake was running. But the thumping sound was all around him now, echoing inside his head. He could feet the spray of the water rushing in behind him, feel the ground shaking, see the light dancing furiously as it trembled. Jake’s feet splashed through the water that was flowing down the tunnel after him. He was running for the junction, for the flood gate – for his life.

  The thumping sound seemed to follow him along the tunnel. But it was hard to hear it now above the rush of water in the tunnel and the rush of blood in his ears. Thump-thump-thump…

  Except – the sound wasn’t following Jake now. It was ahead of him.

  Just as he realised that, the whole side of the tunnel in front of Jake crashed in. Bricks and stone and water avalanched across the floor. A writhing mass of tentacles clawed and tore through the brickwork, forcing its way into the tunnel, water spraying round the sides of the creature.

  Jake was running too fast to stop. A tentacle lashed out at him – he could see the throbbing suckers illuminated by the dying gasps of the nearest wall lamp. Then everything went dark.

  He jumped, hoping he’d clear the tentacle. His foot caught on something, and Jake went sprawling – splashing down in the rising water. Struggling to he feet, wading as quickly as he could onwards. The tunnel was filled with the shrieks and screeches of the creature behind him. Something slimy and alive whipped past Jake’s face.

  Another light – in the distance. Was it the junction? The water was up to Jake’s waist now and he could hardly move. He gave up trying to wade through it. He pushed forward, striking out with his arms, swimming through the shallow water.

  The light was dimming – not going out, but being closed off. An alarm was blaring out insistently, the klaxon competing with the screeches of the monster. The flood gate was swinging shut.

  Jake was closing on the gate, but the gap between gate and wall was narrowing even faster. Fortunately the gate was closing against the flow of the water, and its movement was slowing as the water level rose.

  He was going to make it, Jake thought. He almost laughed with relief, the gate was closing even more slowly now. The motors that drove it were straining and protesting. Jake was being swept through by the water, dragged along now – the water was his friend.

  Then a tentacle wrapped round his arm and yanked him backwards. He grabbed for the gate with his free hand – caught hold of it, tried to drag himself free and through. He tore his arm away from the creature, but the tentacle wrapped and caught and clawed at his coat.

  He was struggling to stand upright, with both hands clasped on the side of the thick metal flood gate as it inched shut. It would tear through his fingers as it closed if he didn’t let go. He’d drown or be killed by the creature if he did.

  With a last desperate effort, Jake shrugged out of his waterlogged coat. He felt the creature’s pull disappear, and he dived for the gap – just big enough. If he was quick. If it was now.

  Something clamped down on Jake’s shoulder and pulled him violently off his feet.

  Chapter 12

  Jake was dragged forcefully through the closing gap. He collapsed into the shallow water beyond the flood gate. The gate clanged shut. Jake emerged spluttering and coughing from the freezing water.

  ‘Thank you,’ he managed to gasp to the man who had pulled him away from the creature and through the closing gate.

  ‘You all right?’

  Jake nodded. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Well, in your own time then,’ Officer Revelle said calmly, ‘perhaps you’d tell me what’s going on here. What was that thing? Why was it after you? And why’s it stopped?’

  Jake was shivering. ‘What do you mean, stopped?’

  Revelle pulled off his coat and wrapped it round Jake’s shoulders. ‘Let’s get you somewhere warm,’ he said, guiding him down the tunnel. The water was slowly being pumped away, but it was still up to Jake’s knees.

  ‘From what I saw,’ Revelle was saying, ‘that thing smashed through the tunnel wall. So the floodgate wouldn’t be much of a challenge if it was out to get you.’ He turned to examine Jake’s reaction in the light from one of the pale electric bulbs strung from the tunnel ceiling. ‘And it looked to me like it was out to get you.’

  ‘It’s out to get me,’ Jake said. ‘It tried before, at Whispers. And it was at Atherton’s – it killed him.’

  ‘While you were there with the Toymaker’s girl?’

  Jake nodded. ‘I think it might have killed my friend Geoff too. And maybe Sarah.’ He looked down at the dark water, not wanting to think about it.

  ‘You were asking for her at Mandrake’s,’ Revelle said gently. ‘Any luck?’

  He shook his head. ‘She didn’t go back there. Her dad’s so worried.’

  ‘I know, I just came from the Toyshop. He told me where you’d gone.’

  They had reached a rusted metal ladder on the wall of the tunnel, like the one up to Mandrake’s.

  ‘The Circle’s still closed,’ Revelle said. ‘This is a service hatch, I opened it earlier. I’ve got a ferry waiting up top.’

  Revelle let Jake go first, climbing up only when Jake had emerged on to the wood planking at the top of the ladder. There was a boat moored to it, a broad woman with cropped grey hair and dark eyebrows was sitting in the boat. She had a pack of cards and was dealing them out face-up into different piles, whistling as she did it.

  ‘You know,’ Revelle said as he heaved himself out of the narrow hatch, ‘maybe it’s not you that thing was after. Maybe it got whatever it was it was looking for and that’s why it backed off.’ He climbed down into the boat after Jake. ‘Haven’t you got a coat of your own, by the way?’

  *

  The Watch Tower was part of a much larger building that was now submerged. Someone had told Jake the building extended under the water all the way from the Watch Tower at one end to Baby Ben at the other. There were no other buildings, or parts of buildings, in this area tall enough to break the surface.

  Up close, Jake knew that baby Ben was actually quite large. The same was true of the Watch Tower. It loomed massively over the little boat as they approached, jutting up magnificent and defiant from the murky water.

  A Watch man checked Revelle’s identification at the mooring, and gave Jake a glare. They walked past several patrol boats and in through a low doorway. A narrow stone staircase led up to an open office area. Uniformed Watch men and women were sitting at desks, talking on radios, looking at screens made of glass that showed text and pictures and moving images.

  Revelle led Jake through the office, and up a metal spiral staircase to the next floor. It was very similar to the one below, but with fewer people. Revelle’s desk was in a corner, close to a narrow stone-framed window that looked out towards Whispers. One side of it seemed to be taken up with little pots filled with dirt.

  ‘They like the warm,’ Revelle said, seeing Jake looking at the pots. ‘Not much to see now, but soon there will be little green shoots, eventually flowers. Now, you must be hungry,’ Revelle went on before Jake could comment. ‘I know I am. I’ll get you a sandwich and a hot drink.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Re
velle gestured for Jake to sit in the chair behind his desk. ‘Meanwhile, take a look at this.’ He leaned across Jake to tap away at a keyboard. But it didn’t seem to have the effect he was hoping for and he looked round the office for help.

  ‘Cath, can you give me a hand?’ he called.

  A young woman got up from a nearby desk and came over to join them. Like Revelle, she wasn’t in uniform, but wearing jeans and a faded blue jumper. Her hair was a mass of dark curls.

  ‘What is it this time?’ she asked, turning to Jake and adding: ‘He’s hopeless with technology.’

  ‘I want to hack into the camera circuits for the White Tower,’ Revelle said. ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘It’s illegal,’ she told him.

  ‘That’s why I said “hack”. Can you do it?’

  Cath leaned across Jake, her face close to his. She smelled of soap. Jake hated to think what he smelled of, but she didn’t comment.

  ‘Can get you into the external cameras. They’re on the main system. Inside is a different matter. Sealed and encrypted. I doubt they even show up on the main net.’

  ‘Give me the main entrance to the Tower.’

  ‘Please,’ she admonished.

  ‘Please,’ Revelle conceded.

  A square appeared on the screen, framing a blurred black and white video image. It showed the main gateway entrance to the White Tower, seen from above. Two Defeaters were standing talking, their faces just visible under their distinctive black hats.

  ‘I’ll enhance it,’ Cath said, and the image became clearer. ‘Best I can do. What are you looking for? Expecting someone?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Revelle said. ‘I want to see who came and went yesterday.’

  Cath showed him how to rewind the image to a specific time, then fast wind through at various speeds.

  ‘Albright says you’re thinking of leaving,’ Revelle said. He was watching the woman intently for her reaction.

  She didn’t seem to react at all. ‘We’re all thinking of leaving,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t desert you. Where have I got to go?’