The Severed Streets

by Paul Cornell

  ‘There are no gods. But that’s what all the gods say.’ He looked again to the woman. ‘That’s better. More cryptic.’

  ‘If that’s what you stand for, why did you save me?’

  ‘Because, while I don’t know much about your case, I do know that things up there –’ he pointed to the roof again – ‘might be about to get a lot more orderly. This is the way the British do things, you see: too much chaos, then too much order, swinging from one extreme to the other, always giving them something to complain about. They say they want a happy medium. They really don’t. If you lot manage to nick the Ripper, then things will continue to tick along, with chaos in the mixture. If you don’t, then…’

  ‘You’re talking about the extreme right taking power?’

  ‘The British always love to flirt with that nice Mr Hitler, but they’ve never quite decided to take him home. Yet.’ The Rat King stared his off-kilter stare at Sefton, and he got the feeling that his mind was being searched again. There was no sensation to it at all, and for some reason, what was terrifying and intrusive in dreams was fine here. ‘Yes, you’ve had similar suspicions. Someone is waiting in the wings to save you all. Someone likes chaos only up to a certain point, the point where they can march in and make it all better.’

  ‘Who?’

  The Rat King shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You’re the policeman.’

  ‘What’s the Smiling Man’s part in all this?’

  ‘Ah, you’ve met the new boy?’

  Sefton was startled at that word. ‘New?’

  ‘Most of us go back to before you lot could stand upright. He’s just a kid, relatively speaking. But he’s made himself very powerful, very quickly.’

  ‘I always sort of thought he was, you know, the Devil.’

  The Rat King burst out into a staccato laugh that became a wheezing cough. ‘Oh, no, dear me, no – the delusions of a child.’ He threw an arm theatrically around Sefton’s shoulders. ‘Everyone you’ve met or heard about during this case has had good and bad sides to them, correct? That’s one thing that’s getting in the way of your search for meaning: that these days everything’s got a bit mixed up. Anything seems to be able to mean anything; all the signifiers have been thrown into a barrel and are being picked out at random and assigned to just about anything, and the choice of what means what, as always, seems to be down to those with money and power. You despair about making accurate judgements about anyone. Well, I’m here to tell you, boy, it was always thus. And that doubt of yours is the first sign of wisdom. I liked it when you pondered, on the dance floor, the loveliness of Barry Keel, not that I myself share that opinion. That doubt of yours must be why Brutus picked you.’

  ‘He “picked” me?’ Even though it had surprised him to hear it said, Sefton sort of knew it to be true

  ‘My point is that what you call the Smiling Man isn’t “a force for evil”. He’s a bloke who’s not real, like me, with his own aims and plans and maybe even a good side.’ The Rat King considered for a moment. ‘Maybe. I don’t know if the shape he’s made in lets him have one.’

  ‘The shape he’s made in?’

  ‘By you lot. Don’t look so startled. You people make all of us. And that’s all you’re going to get about him. I’ve already said more than I’m allowed. But the shape I’m made in allows me always to do more than I’m allowed.’ He sniggered at his own cleverness. ‘Oh dear, since you have walked this path and unfortunately found only me, I am obliged to offer help. What would you like for Christmas? No, wrong holiday.’ He started to look in the pile of rubbish, throwing aside items which ranged from things that looked rotten to things that looked like precious jewels. ‘This is the rubbish of London,’ he said. ‘It all descends to my level. Ah, here we are.’ He pulled out a water-stained police notebook, which Sefton saw was one of the ‘special’ notebooks Quill had set aside for the work of his team that a judge might find unbelievable.

  Then he realized. It was Quill’s own notebook.

  Sefton put down his tea, took the notebook, opened it, recognized Quill’s handwriting. He flipped to the most recent page. He looked to the Rat King again, amazed. ‘This is brilliant.’

  ‘Glad to be of service. You haven’t drunk your tea.’

  Sefton felt a little abashed as he put the notebook inside his jacket pocket. ‘In everything I’ve read, if you go somewhere outside of the real world, you’re not supposed to eat or drink anything that’s given to you. Sorry.’

  The Rat King laughed. ‘Clever fucker. I nearly had you obliged to serve me. See, you made a judgement call. You can do it. Even in this horrible new world you people have made. Bye then.’

  Sefton looked in puzzlement between the Rat King and the woman, both of whom were now bowing to him as if this was the end of a play. ‘What—?’

  The Rat King clicked his fingers and the lights above them suddenly went out.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Sefton woke up. He looked around. It was early evening. He was sitting on the pavement, just along from a bus shelter. People were walking past him without looking at him. He sniffed. He’d pissed himself. So much sweat as well. He realized he knew this place. This was exactly where he’d come back last time he’d taken a trip to the outer boroughs; he was near Cannon Street tube. Why this place? He had no idea.

  He remembered what had happened and urgently looked inside his jacket. There was Quill’s notebook. Incredibly. He’d brought back evidence from outside the world. Somehow. He was exhausted, beyond fatigue, but he’d done it. He’d done it. He felt … too tired to come to any conclusions about how he felt, but there was a kind of level playing field in his head now. He had sorted something out inside himself. He reached for his phone, but his fingers were too numb to dial. He felt his throat and was sure he wouldn’t be able to say anything if he could.

  A car pulled up beside him. The window slid down, and to his surprise, there was Superintendent Lofthouse. ‘Get in,’ she said. ‘I put some newspaper on the seats.’ She sniffed. ‘Now I realize why.’

  * * *

  She drove him to Gipsy Hill. He drank strong sweet tea from a flask as Lofthouse let him know what had been happening with the others. He let the drink start to warm the terrible cold inside him. His legs kept cramping, and his stomach was tied in knots. Costain and Ross were waiting back at the Portakabin, Lofthouse said. She’d managed to call them and order them to come back in. She wouldn’t say how she’d known where to find Sefton. Whenever they stopped at the lights, she’d toy with that key on her charm bracelet. Sefton finally managed a whisper, because he was so angry at her keeping secrets from them. ‘Five is better than four,’ he whispered, his throat aching. ‘Told that. Meant to be team of five. Like the Continuing Projects Team were. Right now, there’s just three. You could at least make us four.’

  She was silent for a long moment. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Not now. You’re just going to have to accept that. If, that is, you want me to keep helping you.’

  * * *

  When Sefton stumbled into the Portakabin, Ross came straight over. ‘Oh my God, Kev,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘We both are,’ said Costain. ‘We had to go; we thought we were onto something.’

  Had they really? There was that look on Costain’s face that Sefton knew not to trust. He fell into a seat and Lofthouse asked the others to get him a blanket and a change of clothes and a cup of strong coffee. He wanted a shower, but didn’t feel able to walk over to the nick to get one. Slowly, as he was provided with those things, his voice came back to him and he spoke about where he’d been. Ross added the notes to the concepts column of the Ops Board. Did she seem even more distant than usual? He was so unequipped to tell right now. With his hands shaking, Sefton took out Quill’s notebook, was gratified by their astonished reactions. He read out the last page: ‘Met the suspect in a dream. No clue who. Fell into the figure. Back in time. Longbarrow. Fingerprints on the wall. Dead woman. Locked up. Angry. Dreaming.’

&
nbsp; ‘Oh, James,’ said Lofthouse, ‘what the fuck?’

  ‘“Back in time”?’ echoed Costain. ‘Was it him who was locked up?’

  ‘So Jimmy encountered whatever’s been visiting us in our dreams,’ said Ross, ‘“fell into it,” and … went back in time? Or did he have to get back here in time to do something?’ She made a few attempts at adding new entries to the concepts list, crossing things out a couple of times before she was satisfied.

  ‘It must be important,’ said Sefton. ‘That’s what I brought back. It was so hard…’ He found he could hardly continue. ‘The secret to all this is in those notes.’

  ‘“Longbarrow”,’ said Ross. ‘That limits what he was dreaming about to a set of specific places. Maybe he was trying to tell us where to find the Ripper.’

  ‘With fingerprints on the wall,’ said Costain. ‘So that’s something we can follow up on. I’ll bet there are records of fingerprints found at prehistoric sites. We find out where that longbarrow he mentions is; if it’s real, at least we can go and see it, maybe find out why it’s relevant.’ He did an image search on his phone for barrows with handprints and showed them three pages of results. ‘Doesn’t really narrow it down,’ he said. ‘Six of these are in London, and four of them are now buried under shopping centres and stuff like that.’

  ‘Send the pictures of those prints to Forensics,’ said Lofthouse, ‘they’ve got databases of fingerprints going back centuries, maybe some connection will leap out at us.’

  Ross did as she asked.

  ‘I really want to go to sleep,’ said Sefton. ‘I should think you lot do and all. But now I know what Jimmy knew. Now we all do. If that’s what got him killed…’

  Lofthouse nodded. ‘This better be on my head,’ she said. ‘I’m ordering you all to take the meth.’

  Sefton found himself desperately wanting to say no. As an undercover, he’d always turned down drugs, plus he wasn’t sure if his system could stand it. But what was the alternative?

  Costain got out his packets and looked to Ross with a raised eyebrow. ‘Orders are orders,’ he said. She just looked coldly back at him.

  They all sniffed the powder. Sefton erupted into a coughing fit and hated the sharp feel of it up his nose. But after a moment … yes, it did make him feel better.

  Lofthouse didn’t partake. ‘So,’ she said, ‘James said your next move should be to raid the Keel shop?’

  Costain nodded, a bit too quickly. ‘Yeah. Okay. Okay. We can interview Keel about scrying glasses: if he’s got one; who else does he know who has; if there’s any defence against them.’ He gestured to the mirror that stood outside the window. ‘We can ask what that thing is – if it’s just a fake that Vincent got stuck with, which just happened to have the Ripper come out of it—’

  ‘Or whether the object itself was actually a trap,’ said Lofthouse, ‘using the Ripper, maybe set up by those “dark forces” Vincent thought were working against him. Either way, you might get a lead on who was trying to kill Vincent, why that was so long before the other attacks, and why, uniquely, that one failed. And we might find some way to protect you three.’

  ‘The strike starts at noon tomorrow,’ said Costain, looking interrogatively at her. ‘Noon. Tomorrow. Do we do this off the books? Do we even have time to do it any other way?’

  ‘Let me talk to my friend the judge. I may have to bend the vernacular a bit to find just cause, but I’ll come up with some legal reason for the raid.’

  Costain paused. Then he nodded, again a bit too quickly. ‘Ma’am.’

  * * *

  While Lofthouse got on the phone, Ross stared at the board, hoping something would leap out at her. Once the prospect of a raid on the Keel shop would have made her wonder if there was anything there like the Bridge of Spikes, but the unique nature of the item had been emphasized by everyone they’d talked to, Lassiter included. If she’d been writing this story, then Keel would have bought the Bridge from whoever had stolen it from Lassiter, but Ross knew coppers and their friends could never be that lucky. She’d started to appreciate the feeling of the meth keeping her pulse racing. That was a bad sign. It was like a distant echo of happiness. She would have to make sure, after all this was over, that she never got the chance to be tempted by it again. After this was over. It didn’t feel as if it ever could be. If it was, what would she do with her life? Be with Costain. Be unhappy.

  It took an hour for Lofthouse to find and persuade a member of the judiciary that she had an urgent lead concerning the murder of James Quill, that they had evidence to suggest that senior members of the organization behind the Toff mask protests, which had obvious connections to the Ripper, could be found at a particular shop premises, where the masks were on sale. No, she hadn’t had reports of any, but it was obvious there’d be some there, wasn’t it?

  Ross thought she saw an admiring look on Costain’s face as he watched Lofthouse deliberately venture into what was very dodgy territory for a police officer: making up connections that weren’t yet suggested by the evidence but that you assumed would be provided by the raid yet to come. Except in this case – and she was surely risking her career to do this, even with the blurry distraction the strike would provide – she was obviously not even imagining that the scenario she was describing was true.

  She finally put down the phone having gained a search warrant. ‘I feel dirty,’ she said.

  ‘Is that really different from turning the place over without any authority?’ asked Costain.

  ‘It is, because we have a piece of paper. I decide the meanings here. Now, how do you propose to conduct this raid of yours?’

  * * *

  They worked through the night. They took a lot of meth. They managed to find an Armed Response Unit in central London who, while they didn’t want to be blacklegs, were relieved to be rounded up for an operation that would be going down an hour before the strike. Lofthouse got her call to Forrest answered at 6 a.m. ‘You’re getting in under the wire,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you need to do this now?’

  ‘I am. Operation Fog will of course report back to you with everything it finds.’

  Ross got an email at nine o’clock that made her heart sink once again. The fingerprints that had been taken at Anna Lassiter’s flat didn’t match those of anyone in the records, and certainly weren’t a match for those left at the murder scenes. There were some glove marks, but no DNA other than that of the resident. Ross supposed Lassiter didn’t get many callers.

  * * *

  At 10.55, on a brilliantly sunny morning, where the light seemed only to illuminate how nervy and strung out the city felt, an unmarked van pulled up on double yellow lines on a side road near the Keel occult shop that Sefton had visited undercover. This was the place that a ‘customer seeking urgently to sell some items’ – actually Costain – had been told he could find Mr Keel. Costain had seen from the windows of the van as they drove through the centre of London how quiet the streets were, how many businesses were boarded up or operating through side doors or had private security standing there already. The strike had put fear into the metropolis. He felt that tension in his head alongside a thumping in his heart from where he’d partaken again of his supply. London seemed to be as on edge as he was.

  A traffic warden banged his knuckles on the side window. Costain pulled down the window and shoved his warrant card in his face. The warden just raised his eyebrows and wandered off: strange to meet a copper on the streets these days. ‘We cut them off from the back of the shop,’ said Sefton from the back of the van. ‘That’s where the serious shit is.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ross. ‘Okay. Okay.’

  Costain didn’t like her looking as focused as this. It was as if she was slowly getting less and less range of expression. She finally saw him looking and managed a deliberate … well, it wasn’t quite a smile. It seemed that she was already forgetting how to do that. Sefton opened the rear doors and got out, headed off on his part of this mission. Costain leaned in and kissed
Ross, then she too got out and headed off.

  Dear God, the last few days had damaged them all so much. Costain got out of the van and locked it. He himself had a terrible choice to make. He’d done something terrible. Again. It kept going round and round in his thoughts. The meth meant he couldn’t trust how he felt about anything. For the hundredth time, he put it out of his mind. He took out his Airwave radio and called the Armed Response Unit, who confirmed they were in place, and on a clock counting down to noon, when the strike began. He was certain that if they ended up in a fire-fight, the unit weren’t just going to down tools on the hour, but still, their clock-watching didn’t fill him with confidence. He waited for Sefton and Ross to get to their destinations then headed towards the shop. To walk felt too slow, so he started marching.

  * * *

  Sefton entered the small car park at the back of the Keel store, used jointly with a patisserie next door. There was a lower door and a fire escape leading up to an office level, as their research had indicated. He felt like death, he didn’t like the fire of the meth coursing through his system, and he knew sometime soon he was going to crash. But he was doing his duty, working for Jimmy and Joe and everything he stood for in this town, and he was content with his own head now and would keep going. If London survived, he could just about glimpse a future for himself. He’d called Joe and shut down all his fearful questions, and reassured him he was okay and then said he had to go. He couldn’t help but look behind him to where the unmarked van containing the Armed Response Unit was sitting ready.

  He made sure nobody was about and tried to steady his breathing, but failed. He got out the London Olympics branded water carrier with a picture of that weird cartoon alien on it dressed as a copper and, his hands still shaking, started sprinkling its contents around the frame of the door. The water he was dosing the door with was from the underground river Neckinger, which met the Thames at a point where criminals were hung. Ross would be doing the same thing to the front door at the same moment. He finished with the lower door and headed for the fire escape, aiming to climb it as quietly as he could, aware that his limbs were shaking.