Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3)

by P J Thorndyke

  “It’ll be a symbol of capitalism or state control,” he answered at length. Then it came to him. “Greenwich Observatory!”

  “What has the observatory got to do with capitalism?” Warren asked.

  “When my associate and I were brought down to Pedachenko’s underground lair we were met by an armed patrol who said they had been checking the exits at Greenwich and the Docklands. As the home of the Prime Meridian, Greenwich Observatory is a symbol of the status quo. Pedachenko was ranting about bringing down all that is and starting from scratch. He’s gone after the economy and now he wants to attack time itself!”

  “Right, sergeant,” said Commissioner Warren to the man at the desk. “Wire to Greenwich Station and tell them to get every copper they have to form a perimeter around the observatory. Pay special attention to the park. Get all the night time strollers out of it. And have officers keep a watch on who comes out of Maze Hill Station. I’ll be there in a tick.”

  “Room in your cab for two more?” Lazarus asked the Commissioner.

  “Two? You’re not thinking of taking this blower along, are you?” said Abberline with a glance to Mary.

  “Watch who you’re calling names, copper!” Mary interjected.

  “Do you want to spend the night in the nick?” Abberline said to her, his fist held threateningly under her nose.

  “She comes with us,” Lazarus affirmed. “The stock exchange was just the beginning. I hope you’ve got all your coppers to hand, Commissioner, because London is set to become a warzone within the hour. And I’m not letting this woman wander off home through it all alone. Where I go, she goes.”

  “For the love of Christ,” Warren wheezed. “But only because there is no time to argue.”

  They all scrambled into the Commissioner’s Clarence outside, and the driver gave the horses such a lash that they shot off down the street like a bat out of hell.

  “Run many people over in your line of work, Commissioner?” Mary asked him.

  Lazarus gritted his teeth. He would have to have a word with her about insolence when time permitted. But the Commissioner’s face was a picture, he had to admit.

  When they rolled up outside Maze Hill Railway Station they saw that the Commissioner’s wire had been received. Officers in uniform stood guard at the exit, analyzing anybody and everybody who emerged through its doors. They gulped at the sight of Commissioner Warren in his silk hat and cape, sweeping towards them like a phantom.

  “Have you fellows got all the entrances to the observatory bolted up tight?” he demanded.

  “Yes, sir,” one of them replied. “Inspector Bellamy is there himself.”

  “And the park is clear?”

  “Um, I don’t know about that sir. Inspector Bellamy said to focus all our efforts on evacuating the observatory and making sure nobody gets in.”

  “Damn him!” Warren cursed. “They could come at us from any side and we wouldn’t know about it until they were too close.”

  They hurried into the park and made their way towards the observatory’s northern entrance. There were still a few people wandering the nighted green under the trees like specters in the moonlight. When they got to the observatory, Commissioner Warren let rip into Inspector Bellamy about insubordination.

  Lazarus felt that this was not wholly deserved. After all, the poor inspector had only a handful of men and he had been right to evacuate the building. But Warren was a man under intense pressure these days. The press did not make light of the inability of the Commissioner and the men under his command to catch the Ripper. Baseless accusations were hurled at him and it seemed that he could not win on either front. If he swamped Whitechapel with uniformed men then he was accused of being a tyrant, yet if he sent them in plainclothes, nobody noticed them and bemoaned the lack of a police presence to protect them.

  Well, few will be bemoaning the lack of coppers on London’s streets by the end of this night, Lazarus thought to himself grimly.

  Orders were given to rid the park of all its occupants and little by little, under the stern commands and gentle prods of the constables’ truncheons, people began to dissipate. But for every one that left the park, two seemed to take his place. It became apparent that the police cordon was a subject of excitement, and drew spectators from the streets surrounding the park.

  “The damned fools don’t know that we’re trying to help them,” grumbled Inspector Abberline. He turned to Lazarus. “Why don’t you nip back to the station and inform the officers there to start telling people that they’re not to go into the park.”

  Lazarus was about to tell the inspector that he should send one of his own bloody men on his errands, when he spotted a figure in a flat cap and open jacket that had slipped by the policemen and was heading towards them. “There!” he cried. “Stop that fellow!”

  Abberline called the attention of two nearby officers and told them to apprehend the man.

  “No!” Lazarus snapped, noticing the container swinging in his grip. “He’s carrying something.”

  It looked for all the world like a tin of something one might purchase in a hardware shop; varnish or paint.

  “Keep away from him!” Lazarus ordered the men.

  The two coppers halted in their tracks and looked back at him dumbly. Lazarus drew his revolver. “You there!” he cried out to the man with the tin. “Stand still! Don’t come any further! I’m warning you! I’ll shoot!”

  The man, as if deaf, continued his brisk pace. Lazarus knew it was futile to try and persuade him. This was undoubtedly one of Pedachenko’s mind-controlled puppets. He would waste no more time attempting to negotiate. He fired once and hoped the hit would not be fatal.

  He was to be disappointed. The man stumbled and fell. As soon as the varnish tin hit the grass there was an almighty explosion. Turf was torn up and showered like confetti through a billowing cloud of smoke, in which body parts rained down with heavy thuds.

  “My God,” said Abberline. “What could his intention have been? There was no way he could have detonated that device and made it out alive.”

  “Pedachenko has hypnotized his men into suicidal followers,” Lazarus said. “I suspect it was a similar story at the Stock Exchange.”

  “Suicide bombers,” Abberline mumbled in disbelief. “What in God’s name is the world coming to?”

  Commissioner Warren appeared behind them. “They’ll need to break out the shovels for that one,” he said in a flat tone. “But we’ve got worse problems.”

  Lazarus and Abberline turned to him.

  “There’s a mob running riot in the East End. They’re storming factories and sweatshops, beating up foremen and persuading the workers to join them.”

  “Have the military been called in?” Lazarus asked him. “Pedachenko’s got war machines; armored things with guns.”

  “The 8th Hussars and the 11th Horse Artillery are on their way,” Warren replied. “As well as two infantry regiments. But they won’t get through for some time. I’ve had every available constable, life guard and volunteer marshaled at the stations on Leman Street and East India Dock Road. We’re for Leman Street. On the way you can tell me more about these war machines of his.”

  They bundled back into the Clarence and headed north east. By the time they had reached Limehouse, the evidence of the riot was clear. Smoke from burning buildings hovered over the streets like a fug, lit from beneath by an orange glow. People were everywhere; most were frightened Londoners wandering about in a state of shock. Others were looters taking advantage of the situation by smashing shop windows and snatching what they could, resulting in ferocious brawls with the proprietors.

  “Take us down some back streets,” Commissioner Warren told the driver, poking his head out of the window. “Don’t try to get through this.”

  The Clarence lurched to the left and wound off down a narrow side street. It wasn’t long before they found their way blocked once again. A Clarence much like their own lay overturned in the street, one of i
ts horses dead and the other broken free from its reigns and nowhere in sight. The carriage was on fire and a crowd stood around it. The two passengers lay dead in the street, their fine clothes torn and their faces bloodied.

  “The bastards!” Abberline hissed, drawing his pistol.

  Warren grabbed his arm. “Leave it, Frank.”

  “Why do this?” Abberline said, seemingly on the verge of tears.

  “It’s the glorious revolution,” Lazarus told him. “No toff is safe now. These people have been stirred up into a frenzy for the blood of those who have lorded it over them for centuries.”

  “Turn around, driver!” Warren called up.

  “Can’t, sir!” came the reply. “Street’s too narrow.”

  “Well back it up or something, man!”

  It was too late. The crowd had spotted them. Their angry cries swept towards them like a tsunami as they surged forward, bricks, bats, clubs and knives in their hands.

  “You have my permission, Inspector,” said Warren, his face pale as he fumbled for his own revolver.

  Lazarus drew his too and as one they opened the doors of the carriage and leaned out, firing into the crowd. Several of the rioters fell dead and Warren yelled to the driver to plough through them.

  The carriage trundled forward, and the terrified horses reared up at the faces of the crowd that pressed close. The driver lashed them on and one rioter was crushed under the wheels of the carriage. Abberline, to his credit, thought of a plan that Lazarus wished he had. Reaching out through the window and plucking one of the lanterns from the carriage’s side, the inspector hurled it at the feet of the rioters.

  The explosion of flame forced the crowd back. Lazarus did the same from his window and they quickly found themselves engulfed by fire on either side. They could hear the driver’s moans and feverish prayers as he pushed on, the horses eager to leave the inferno behind them.

  More people pressed in from the right and crashed against the side of the carriage, pawing, clawing at its doors to get in at the occupants. Abberline fired again and again through the open window, but there weren’t enough bullets between them for the entire mob.

  The carriage began to tip under the press of bodies. Lazarus grabbed Mary. “Keep your head down and be ready to run when I say,” he told her.

  She squeezed him tight and shut her eyes in terror as the carriage toppled. All the windows shattered as the overturned carriage struck the cobbles. The occupants were tumbled end over end in a jumble of flailing limbs. Then the crowd was upon them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In which London faces another Great Fire

  Scrambling over the cursing Abberline, Lazarus booted open the door of the carriage and rose up as one might rise from a grave. He shot the closest rioter to him, then slammed the butt of the revolver down on the temple of a man who was trying to climb up over the axle of the ruined carriage.

  Warren and Abberline joined him and between the three of them they managed to hold the crowd at bay. Lazarus helped Mary up and out of the carriage and they jumped down onto the cobbles, dashing towards a row of darkened and looted shops.

  Lazarus did not notice Warren and Abberline taking off in a different direction until they had ducked into an alleyway. It was deathly silent but for the muted cries of the crowd on the street behind them. None had apparently seen them slip away and for a moment, Lazarus felt a twinge of guilt and sympathy for the commissioner and the inspector, who had no doubt drawn the brunt of the crowd’s attention.

  “This is a bloody nightmare!” Mary said. “What are we going to do? We can’t get through to Whitechapel. It’s impossible!”

  “Then we head for the police station in East India Dock Road,” Lazarus told her. “Or, failing that, my place. It’s not exactly safe, but we can lie low for a bit and hope we can hold out for the night.”

  They made their way east, using the narrow backstreets and alleys and avoiding Commercial Road until it became East India Dock Road. Rejoining it, they found that another mob was rampaging up and down within yards of the police station, smashing windows and stealing goods.

  “Lazarus, I’m scared,” Mary said, clutching him as they stood in the shadows of the alley, peeping out like spectators to the end of the world.

  Lazarus was scared too. The whole city was going up in smoke, but he had to remain firm for Mary’s sake. “Look how we’re dressed,” he told her. “A docker and a bag-tail. They won’t care about us. We’ll blend right in.”

  They moved out onto the street and followed its gutter. Up ahead, a crowd had gathered around some poor wretch like scavengers around a wounded animal. They struck at him with bats and bits of pipe, and Lazarus had to wonder how anyone could withstand such a beating. Then he recognized the tattered greatcoat encasing the massive muscles and knew why.

  “It’s Clumps!” he said.

  “Oh, the poor thing!” Mary exclaimed, and then remembered herself and added, “does he feel pain, do you think?”

  “I’ve often wondered that myself. Look at him stand up to them, though!”

  The mechanical was not going down without a fight; that much was clear. He swung with his fists as if he were batting at flies, felling men left, right and centre. The ground was littered with the bodies of the fallen, but that only seemed to drive the mob on in their ferocity. The sight of his grotesque face with all its pipes and tubes had probably frightened them into a rage. People will always seek to destroy what they fear, Lazarus thought grimly.

  There was nothing for it. Although he desperately wanted to deliver Mary safely to the police station, he could not pass by and leave his old comrade to be torn apart by his fellow Londoners. He fired into the crowd and felled a man who was swinging a crowbar at Mr. Clumps. Heads turned, including that of the mechanical.

  The sight of Lazarus and the danger he had brought on himself by killing a rioter spurred Mr. Clumps to even greater brutality. Smashing the face of the nearest assailant, he ploughed forward like a great bear protecting its young. People were crushed underfoot as he came towards Lazarus, decreasing the number of hostiles even further.

  Feeling less confident about beating a lone man to death when that man’s comrade was opening fire on them from the rear, the crowd fell back and contented themselves by yelling “Freak!” and “Get gone, monster!” at the back of the mechanical’s coat.

  “Glad you made it,” Lazarus said to Mr. Clumps, slapping him on the back as the reunited trio took off down the street.

  “Likewise,” the mechanical replied in his usual calm voice. He puffed on his cigar and exhaled a vast cloud of steam. “And you, Miss Kelly.”

  “What the devil’s been happening to you?” Lazarus asked him.

  “I lost Pedachenko’s men in the tunnels and caught a train headed east.”

  “Caught a train? Didn’t your face alarm the passengers?”

  “I hung on to the back of the last carriage and rode it to Stepney, where I managed to get into the police station without drawing attention to myself.”

  “I’ll bet you gave those coppers a fright!” said Mary, with a short laugh.

  “They didn’t know whether to greet me or shoot me,” he continued. “But your message had got through to all the stations and so I was made as welcome as best the circumstances allowed. I stuck near the telegraph operator and kept tabs on incoming messages. He didn’t like that too much, but I pointed out to him that as top secret government property I probably outranked him, and he didn’t have much of a choice but to be my friend for a while.

  “It wasn’t long before word came through that you had been at Muswell Hill Station, but had moved on to Greenwich. If you were still in the company of Commissioner Warren, then you were expected at either Leman Street or East India Dock Road within the hour. The rioting was so bad in Whitechapel that nobody could get through. The mobs and Pedachenko’s soldiers have blockaded most of the streets and are engaged in fire fights with the infantry regiments as we speak. I decided
to try for East India Dock Road.”

  “That’s where we’re headed,” said Lazarus. “It’s the only safe place nearby. We can hold out there.”

  “No we can’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are no policemen left at the station.”

  “What? Where are they all?”

  “Killed. The mob succeeded in storming the station not long after I got there. It was a bloodbath. I am the only one left. They dragged me out into the street to kill me and they would have succeeded had you not come by in the nick of time. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Lazarus replied, but his head was whirling. The police station overrun? Every copper killed? It was abominable.

  “Where the hell do we go now?” Mary asked, desperation showing in her voice.

  “North,” said Lazarus. “To Edmonton.”

  “That’s miles away! What’s in Edmonton anyway?”

  “My... the man who raised me. We can follow the River Lea. The mobs won’t have spread to the valley and we’ll be under the cover of darkness.”

  Mary seemed unsure. She must have been exhausted, and her boots were falling apart. But she bore herself up bravely. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get a move on.”

  They passed the police station, and had to cross the street to avoid being scorched by the inferno. Flames roared from every window. To Lazarus, it was a symbol of chaos’s victory over order. How could sanity hope to survive in a world gone insane?

  As they headed north they saw evidence of hard fighting between the military and the mobs. A few dead horses along with their riders—both police and Hussars—lay in the shadows cast by the streetlights, like giant slugs oozing liquid. The bodies of rioters choked some streets, strewn between smashed barricades of fruit carts and furniture, beaten and trampled by the passing of the military.