by Paul Cornell
‘That was my choice to make.’ She took a moment to hold herself back. ‘You think you’re going to Hell. I’m in Hell. I won’t forgive you.’
She went to her car and drove away.
Costain watched her go. He understood what he’d done. He had been surprised by a chance at happiness. He had stamped that chance into the ground until it was dead, and all the time he’d said to himself he was doing the right thing, the only thing.
‘I know,’ he said.
* * *
Rebecca Lofthouse wasn’t entirely surprised when one morning a different but equally beautiful young woman rang her doorbell, refused to identify herself and announced she was here to drive Lofthouse to a picnic. She’d spent the last few days explaining to Forrest, and to many other incredulous parties in the Met, how Quill could still be alive. She’d told them his team had faked his death in order for him to go undercover, the details of which she would not share. It was only the fact that Quill obviously was alive that allowed her to get away with such a thin deception.
The picnic turned out to be by the Thames, down Henley way, in a meadow so perfect that Lofthouse wondered if it had been constructed for this purpose. Rita and Sue sat with a hamper and an ice bucket containing a bottle of champagne. Lofthouse felt they hardly needed the ice. There was a slight chill in the air, and the shadows were getting longer, but summer had not yet ended. There were still a couple of rounds of the County Championship left to play. Another group of picnickers sat at a distance, obediently picking at caviar. The beautiful driver went to join them.
‘My team are a bit perplexed,’ said Lofthouse, sitting down.
‘What about?’ asked Rita, a look of mock innocence on her face.
‘They wonder why Jack the Ripper so conveniently committed suicide, having written such a specific note, incredibly, if accurately, incriminating the late Russell Vincent.’
‘Oh, I saw that in the papers,’ said Sue. ‘Very neat, I thought.’
‘It does give Londoners the feeling that things are back under control,’ said Rita.
‘Let’s say that the still-unidentified corpse wasn’t really Jack the Ripper. Hypothetically,’ said Lofthouse. ‘Where would someone get such a corpse?’
‘I would imagine, said Sue, ‘assuming whoever did this had the interests of the great British public in mind, it would have been ethically sourced.’
Lofthouse considered all the ways in which an organization with the Security Service’s resources could find and doctor a fresh corpse and decided that she was willing to believe her. But still she was angry. ‘You worked out early on that Russell Vincent had something to do with the Ripper—’
‘The list of victims was indicative,’ said Rita.
‘—and you let my team get mangled as they tried to figure out what.’
‘We picked right,’ said Sue. ‘They did a great job.’
‘They even, though we’re still not sure how, arranged for Vincent to be hoist by his own petard,’ said Rita, ‘fatally.’
‘They’re not pleased about that,’ said Lofthouse, amazed. ‘But you are, aren’t you? You’re happy he ended up dead.’
‘Russell Vincent,’ said Sue, reaching for her knife to butter a piece of bread, ‘was somehow learning other people’s innermost secrets.’ She grinned hugely at Lofthouse and dropped her voice to a stage whisper. ‘Only we’re allowed to do that.’
* * *
Lofthouse took a taxi home. At least now she had something to tell Quill’s team. She wished she could tell them everything. She looked to the key on her charm bracelet. There were times when she wanted to throw the damn thing out of the window. But the consequences of that were too terrible to think about.
* * *
Gaiman looked down at London at night as the aircraft he was in banked to begin its climb westwards over the Atlantic. He hadn’t known Quill was going to come back, had been surprised to hear, from the same friends that were now also suddenly alive and well, that the policeman was too. He was glad. He had stayed in hiding, got out of Britain when it felt safe to do so. He didn’t want to face any more questions. He believed he had managed to do as much good as anyone could, in circumstances which few people understood.
But, he thought, as London vanished under the clouds below, that’s what they all say.
* * *
Quill lay in bed with Sarah. She’d been looking at his new body parts, pink and tender. He’d told her everything, though he knew she’d be horrified. Everything, that is, apart from one thing – that sign he’d seen on entering Hell. That would make too much of a difference to her life, to everyone.
‘I don’t know where to begin,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you can deal with it. I don’t know how I can help. But I want to.’
‘It was harder on you. I learned a lot by being absent. I’m fine.’
‘Of course you’re not … fine, Quill!’
‘I’ve just got some odd memories, which seem a bit like a dream now, and a new cock. Thought you’d be pleased.’
The phone on the bedside table rang. Quill looked at the display and recognized the number. He hesitated. No, he had to answer it. He took it out into the hall and closed the door behind him before he did, so she wouldn’t hear. There was, as he’d expected, only the sound on the other end of the line of something big and far away, breathing. Quill knew he was connected to the Smiling Man.
‘So you’re calling me to try and scare me,’ said Quill, ‘to remind me where I’ve been. I think you’re hoping I might tell someone, even just Sarah, what was written on the sign I saw over the gates of Hell.’ Silence. Had the breathing paused? ‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking about everything that’s happened, and I’m pretty sure that’s what you want me to do. That’s why my time never ran out in Hell, because you didn’t want me coming back here a gibbering wreck. Maybe you planted the document that set Ross off on her quest for the Bridge of Spikes. Let me walk you through it.’ He went down the stairs into the kitchen and started to make a cup of tea, the phone clamped to his ear, aware he was doing this to hold off with sheer domesticity the idea of who he was talking to. ‘Gaiman was working for you. He made sure Vincent killed me. But I wonder if he also made sure my notebook ended up in Sefton’s hands. He could have burned it, couldn’t he, or just kept it? But no, he disposed of it somewhere in London, so it fell into the Rat King’s clutches. Of course, he could have just left it at the scene of the crime, but then it wouldn’t have seemed so important, would it? It took Sefton such a lot of work to find it that it was obvious those ridiculous few words of mine must contain some major clue. That was what got Sefton and Ross to the long barrow, and opening that finished off Vincent. So why would you want to let Vincent nearly complete his plans, and then get rid of him?’ Quill watched the kettle boil. ‘I think you like chaos in London. So you liked what Vincent was doing, but not what he was planning for afterwards: all those jackboots, all that order. If anyone gets that done, you want it to be you. Am I right?’
Silence again. The breathing had definitely slowed. Quill wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the Smiling Man speak. But he was going to keep daring him to do so. ‘I suppose some other people must have come back from Hell, or know what’s written above that gate, what the secret is. But you’ve seen that I’ve got a thing about doing my duty. You were sure I’d have to tell everyone who’d believe it. That gradually that message would sink in to them. That it’d grind them down even more than they’ve been ground down now.’ The kettle finished boiling. He poured the tea. ‘So I’m not going to do that. I’m going to find a way to heal my unit. I’m going to wait until I’m sure they’re able to cope with what I know. Then we’re going to find some way to change it.’
There was a click from the phone. He’d hung up.
Quill found that he was actually smiling. He took a slow sip from his tea. He thought about Sarah and Jessica asleep upstairs, and what the words on that sign over the gate of Hell meant for them and for everyone else
he knew. The sign had read:
It’s everyone who ever lived in London
Acknowledgements
This book could not have been written without the permission and cooperation of Neil Gaiman, to whom I owe an enormous debt. He read through all the relevant sections and gave his approval. He is, of course, an honest and lovely man.
Others who aided enormously in the writing of The Severed Streets are: Simon Bradshaw, Dave Clements, Judith Clute, Simon Colenutt, Andrew Englefield, Kieron Gillen, ‘SJG’, Simon Guerrier, Lynn, Harry Markos, Jamie McKelvie, Cheryl Morgan, Chief Inspector Andrew Smith and Mark Wyman. Thanks are also due to Steven Moffat and Sue and Beryl Vertue, for old times’ sake.
By Paul Cornell
London Falling
The Severed Streets
PAUL CORNELL has written some of Doctor Who’s best-loved episodes for the BBC. He has also written a number of comic book series for Marvel and DC, including Wolverine and Saucer Country. He has been Hugo Award-nominated for his work in TV, comics and prose, and won the BSFA Award for his short fiction. The Severed Streets is his second urban fantasy novel.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE SEVERED STREETS
Copyright © 2014 by Paul Cornell
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
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First published in Great Britain by Tor, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
First U.S. Edition: May 2014
eISBN 9781429943857
First eBook edition: May 2014
