‘Millions?’ Mum was mortified.
‘Over two million US dollars for the last rare one in March. Now which issue was that? Jog my memory, Ben.’
‘Adventure Comics number one. The first ever Superman story.’
‘And this is the first ever Batman and Robin,’ Tom said knowledgeably.
‘Only Batman,’ I said. ‘Robin came a year later in issue thirty-eight.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And how much is this reprint worth?’ Mum asked.
‘Oh, nowhere near as much,’ Tom said. ‘Only a thousand or so.’
She stared at it aghast. ‘Good God. You said it was valuable, you never said this valuable. Tom, it’s too much. Ben can’t accept it, can you Ben?’
‘No,’ I said, reluctantly offering it back. ‘Mum’s right. I’d be scared to touch it.’
Tom Sutherland spoke calmly but with a firmness that put an end to the argument before it could begin. ‘Donna, I insist. What’s wrong with giving the boy something he’s only ever been able to dream about? Open it, Ben, read it. That’s what it’s for. I’ll be disappointed if you don’t.’
He could be persuasive, I had to give him that. At the same time I had the uneasy feeling the gift was being forced on me. This comic, even a reprint, should be in a glass cage in a museum, not here in my sweaty hands.
The ride continued. I eased the comic from its wrapper, half-expecting a peal of thunder when I turned to the first page. The Bat-Man, it said. The Case of the Chemical Syndicate. Six brief but dazzling pages followed, ending with the revelation that Bruce Wayne had been the Bat-Man all along.
Tom and Mum chatted quietly as we went. Mum giggled from time to time and I concentrated on the comic to filter them out. How would Dad feel if he could see the three of us now – Mum and this wealthy stranger, me with the hugely expensive comic on my lap and the whiff of luxury all around?
And I thought, he’d feel as easy about it as you do.
This wasn’t me. It wasn’t us. Mum had struggled hard and long to make ends meet and deserved a better life, but this one didn’t fit her any better than Mr October’s reaper costume fitted him.
The next time I looked up, we were coming down Haverstock Hill with the tube station on our left. Across the street below a cluster of bistros and shops was the bench where I’d sat one afternoon with Mr October after a call around the corner on Belsize Grove. The newly-departed, a 43765, had suffered from a heart condition and died of fright.
On the same side of the street was the telephone box Mr October had used that day, changing inside it for the next leg of his shift. Past the phone box, two shady figures with indistinct faces darted into a grocery store as if to avoid being seen. I stared after them, but they hadn’t reappeared when Hector turned off the hill onto Downside Crescent.
Tom’s place on Lawn Road was concealed behind a tall yellow stone wall which ran the entire length of the block. A security gate opened as if by magic as Hector pointed the Cadillac towards it and closed after us as he drove through. Sliding the comic back inside its wrapper, I sat up to look around.
‘What about this,’ Mum said, squeezing my hand. ‘I’m so excited. It’s a palace!’
The limo crunched over a gravelled forecourt, parking in front of a grand three-storey building with pillars flanking its stepped entrance and French doors letting onto balconies at every level. Despite the overcast day the house sparkled, reflecting light. Even a rare first edition issue 27 couldn’t buy a home like this.
‘Thank you, Hector,’ Tom said, not waiting for the driver but opening the door himself, taking great care to guide Mum out by her good arm.
Stepping outside, I felt I’d just entered another world. The nearby streets were incredibly quiet, troubled only by birdsong and a rustle of trees. It was like being in the countryside, miles from anywhere.
A dark bronze sculpture stood on the forecourt, a reclining male figure. ‘A Henry Moore,’ Tom said matter-of-factly, seeing me stop to admire it. ‘An original, unlike your comic.’
There were more precious works indoors – marble statues and busts and paintings. An eye-popping image of black and white waves overlooked a great stone staircase. A Bridget Riley, said Tom, and I didn’t bother asking if that was an original too.
Like the records room at headquarters, the entrance hall and downstairs rooms seemed larger than they should be, their high ceilings and stone floors amplifying our footsteps as we went. At the rear of the house we came to a bright shimmering space where turquoise water lapped the white-tiled sides of a heated indoor swimming pool.
On the pool’s far side, French doors looked out on a well-maintained landscape garden. Shrubs and dwarf trees were arranged on several stepped levels, and a narrow stream bubbled from a cluster of rocks on the right and disappeared underground on the left, dividing the garden in two. An arched bridge crossed the water towards a high walled maze, which stretched far into the distance.
‘The maze is a gift to myself,’ Tom said. ‘It gives me a kind of peace and privacy I can’t find anywhere else.’
‘It’s all so beautiful,’ Mum said.
‘But strange,’ I said.
Tom looked at me. ‘Strange?’
‘I mean . . . the maze is so big and the next house along looks so far away.’
‘Another property used to stand between here and there,’ Tom explained. ‘I bought the land and developed it into what you see now.’
‘Seems like a great big expense,’ I said. ‘Buying a place just to demolish it and building a maze no one will use.’
He patted my shoulder. I flinched, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Well, I use it myself occasionally, and visitors sometimes do. In fact I’ve a hunch some of last month’s guests are still inside, trying to find their way out.’ He laughed. ‘Joking aside, it is rather hard to navigate. If you like, I’ll give you a guided tour before lunch.’
Mum shivered. ‘It’s cold out there. Suppose we get lost?’
‘You won’t if you stay with me,’ he said, ‘and you’ll find the maze isn’t at all cold. It has underground heating. At times you can hear the pumps working under your feet. Very faint sound, but it’s there.’
He took us outdoors and across the bridge. Silvery fish sparkled in the shallow stream. The air was chilly and a pale mist shrouded the Belsize rooftops, but closer to the maze we were met by a gush of tropical warmth. A map of the layout was fixed to a post noticeboard inside the entrance.
It was all mazes within mazes. Puzzle paths reached everywhere, some plotting courses that dwindled to nothing, others leading close to a central square before doubling back towards dead ends. The pathways quivered around the map, seeming to shape themselves into new routes even as we looked.
‘An optical illusion,’ Tom said. ‘It isn’t really moving by itself, but if you study it too closely, or not closely enough, it plays games with your eyes. My op art collection inspired the design.’
We’d just started inside when a sickening feeling of claustrophobia hit me. If anything, the headache that came with it was worse, and I had to stop for breath while Mum and Tom, walking ahead, turned left off the path and out of sight.
Against the near silence, birds twittered distantly and the garden stream babbled away. There was a subterranean rumble I felt through my legs, a thrum of heating pumps. I was wondering how far Mum and Tom had gone, whether they’d realised I was missing, when they reappeared at the head of the path.
They looked different somehow, their faces distorted and fringed with migraine lights. They hadn’t changed, but the way I was seeing them had. I shouldn’t have come. The sickness hadn’t passed yet. In the same moment I heard Tom’s worried voice – ‘He’s really not well, is he? Let’s get him inside. . .’ – the maze whirled around me and the grassy ground came rushing up.
Later, I wouldn’t remember Tom catching me mid-fall or lifting me off my feet to carry me back to the house. I sank towards unconsci
ousness while a voice inside my head kept repeating over and over:
Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. As she gets better so you get worse.
I managed to open my eyes for a second just before Tom took me indoors. I was staring straight up at the sky, and high in the mist a congress of ravens flew in formation, their dark forms spelling out words against the grey, and the words said:
WE HAVE A LIST TOO AND YOUR NAME IS ON IT.
17
THE GREAT AND DANGEROUS
he doctor’s name was Rosewood. He was an old friend of Tom’s. They’d settled me on a sofa before a crackling fire in a large, dim living space. A mirror brightened above the fireplace when Tom opened a shutter to give his friend more light.
The doctor slipped a thermometer into my mouth and checked my glands and blood pressure, burbling in a mellow voice that nearly lulled me into a doze.
‘Stand by, this may sting a little,’ he said. A needle prickled the crook of my arm. ‘Just a wee something to bring down your temperature.’
‘Brave boy,’ Mum said as Dr Rosewood packed away his stethoscope.
‘Not brave, just sick,’ I said. Being brave was something you had a choice about.
They moved to an adjacent room. From the tones of their voices behind the closed door I guessed the prognosis wasn’t bad. Mum sounded reassured and even laughed at some remark Tom made before his doctor friend left.
I rested there until I felt brighter, more able to stand, and then crossed to the door and opened it a crack. In the next room Mum and Tom sat at a small dining table overlooking the misty garden. There were vases of fresh flowers all around the room and a spread of cakes, scones and sandwiches on the table.
They seemed unaware of me standing there and looked content and at ease in each other’s company. Were they meant to be together, and would I have to get used to this? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Hearing the door creak, they both looked up and smiled.
‘Ah, the warrior returns,’ Tom said. ‘Here, Ben, can you face a bite to eat?’
Mum patted the chair seat next to hers. ‘Sit down, hon. Dig in.’
‘If this doesn’t appeal I’ll have the kitchen drum up something else,’ Tom said. ‘The chef’s very good. Ran two of the best restaurants in town before I headhunted him.’
I wasn’t hungry, but a glass of iced water from the table eased the parched and bitter taste in my mouth.
‘Suppose I must’ve fainted,’ I said.
Mum nodded. ‘So you did. Good thing Tom saw it coming and caught you in time. We were just saying, weren’t we Tom, we were wrong to bring you out so soon. We’ll do this another time when you’re well.’
Tom poured steaming tea into china cups. ‘Dr Rosewood reckons it’s the same thing he’s been seeing all month, a three- or four-day bug at worst. Says you’ll be fighting fit by tomorrow.’
‘We’ll get you home after this,’ Mum said. ‘That’s where you should be when you’re out of sorts.’
‘Or Ben could rest here,’ Tom said. ‘There are plenty of guest rooms.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I can get home by myself.’
Mum was having none of it. ‘Fat chance. You need mollycoddling.’
‘I only need rest. There’s nothing you can do at home, anyway, except sit around while I sleep.’
‘Suppose I have Hector take him?’ Tom suggested. ‘Would that ease your mind? And if it’s what Ben wants. . .’
‘Sounds good to me,’ I said.
Mum wagged a finger at me. ‘Then be sure to call if you need anything and if you feel any worse you must let us know. I don’t want to spend the day worrying.’
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ I said. ‘You heard the doctor.’
‘All right, you win. Have it your own way.’
Later, kissing me goodbye on the steps outside, she said, ‘I wouldn’t let you go if I didn’t think you looked so much better. And he does look better, doesn’t he, Tom?’
‘Five times better, ten times.’ Tom shook my hand with both of his and leaned close to speak confidentially, man to man. ‘And you shouldn’t worry either. Your mum’s where she wants to be and I couldn’t be happier to have her here. You do trust me to look after her, Ben, don’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ I replied, watching her, not him.
‘Terrific. Here, in case you need to ring.’
He pressed a business card into my hand and I pocketed it without looking at it. As I did, I noticed a distinctive smell about him, probably aftershave, similar to the miniature cactus’s sweet-sour scent in my room.
‘Don’t forget your comic,’ he said. ‘I think you left it in the car.’
It was still on the seat when I climbed in. Hector turned the Cadillac around on the forecourt and Mum and Tom waved us off from the steps before turning indoors.
Let them be together, I thought, as long as I don’t have to see them together.
On the journey to Hackney I held the comic on my lap without opening it while Hector negotiated traffic. In Camden we moved slowly through a stop-start jam under the fiery gaze of the demons and Chinese dragons that clung to the walls above the shops.
‘So how long have you worked for Mr Sutherland?’ I asked.
‘A very long time,’ Hector answered.
It was our only exchange of the journey.
Twenty minutes later he pulled up outside my block on Middleton Road and waited while I unhooked my belt and slid out. The air was bracing, my breath jetting steamy trails as I leaned to the driver’s door to thank him.
‘Don’t mention it, young sir,’ Hector said. ‘It’s what I’m employed for.’
As he turned back to face the street, the light falling across his eyes turned his irises to vertical slits. It was only a flash, a brief impression, and Hector drove away without another word. Shuddering, trying to shake off what I thought I’d seen, I headed indoors. Now I really was seeing things.
I washed and put on clean jeans and my I SURVIVED BAD SATURDAY T-shirt. In the bathroom mirror I looked more like myself, pink rather than grey-skinned. It was strange how the sickness came and went. Even stranger, the scar Nathan Synister had etched across my cheek had faded almost completely. I could barely feel the marks with my fingers. I took a breath and let it out slowly. The world was steadying, at least for now.
I’d call Becky soon. We’d lost touch since midweek, and I was sure we had lots to catch up on. First, though, I wanted another closer look at the comic. As I took it to the bed and opened it, the sweet-sour cactus scent filled my nose, the smell I’d caught in the air around Tom. It still clung to the palm of my hand he’d shaken even though I’d only just washed it. The scent seemed ingrained, trapped in my pores, and remembering that handshake I stopped at the thought of something he’d said.
You do trust me to look after her, Ben, don’t you?
And why exactly had he needed to ask that?
I looked at the comic. It lay open to the last page of Batman’s Chemical Syndicate adventure and the first page of the second story. It wasn’t the story I expected to come next. It wasn’t the story that should have come next. I stared at it in bemusement until, piece by piece, everything fell into place.
Until today I’d never actually seen an issue 27 up close, but I’d read enough about it to know what to expect, and this wasn’t it. The second story should be ‘Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator: The Killers of Kurdistan’. Instead, leaping off the page in bold reds and blacks was something called ‘The Great and Dangerous Adventures of The Lords of Sundown’.
The story, which ran to eleven pages, began with two demons sitting on rocks on a beach, watching the midnight tide. Far above them, above the headland, twin crimson moons coloured the sky, turning the sea blood red.
Tonight had been a travesty for their side in the eternal war. The fallout would soon begin. An hour ago in a hidden London alleyway a great battle had been lost at Pandemonium House. More than three hundred of their number had tak
en part, demons of every size and kind, and only a handful had returned safely home.
The senior demon, Nathan Synister, let out a deflated sigh, found a smooth flat fragment of bone on the ground and skimmed it across the water. It bounced two hundred and eighty six times before sinking. His red eyes, one of which never blinked since it lacked an eyelid, were troubled and far away.
‘Someone must pay for this debacle,’ he said. ‘The Lords of Sundown have suffered setbacks before, but few as catastrophic as this.’
His companion, a junior entity named Luther Vileheart, looked up at the sound of his leader’s voice.
‘There’ll be weeping and moaning tonight,’ he agreed. ‘Grieving on an almighty scale.’
‘And that’s just for starters,’ Synister said.
‘Yes, sir.’
In contrast to his leader, Vileheart had a smart, nearly-human appearance, dark featured, strong-boned and handsome, at least, handsome for a human. Under his robes he wore a black single-breasted suit and polished black Oxford shoes. A talented Shifter – like all Shifters he could transform at will – he specialised in undercover work among mortals. Only the diamond pupils of his snake eyes marked him out as a friend in these parts.
‘At least we didn’t leave empty-handed,’ he said. ‘At least we brought back a handful of souls to replace those we lost. We could’ve fared worse.’
‘Not much worse,’ said Synister. ‘Look around you.’
Luther Vileheart looked.
Fires blazed across the land, and as far as the eye could see the shoreline was littered with skulls and other bodily parts, a carpet of dead, dry bones. The demons stared in silence, overwhelmed by the scale of the defeat.
Something was stirring in the far distance, close to the headland. Vileheart noticed it first, a movement so slight it might have been a death’s head moth twirling inside the murk.
‘See that, sir?’ he said. ‘It comes our way. It could be a messenger, don’t you agree?’
‘More than that,’ Synister said as the figure slowly emerged from the darkest furthest corner of the beach. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, that’s our master Lord Randall Cadaverus.’
The Great and Dangerous Page 14
