“Yes?”
“The time has come to tell you precisely why we are prosecuting this war — why the House of Windsor is the sworn enemy of this city. The time has come to tell you the secret.”
Jasper touched my shoulder. “Sorry. I always liked your innocence.”
“You might want to sit down,” Dedlock said. “People often find they lose the use of their legs when they hear the truth. I would ask you also not to scream. This is the city’s most profitable attraction and I’m loathe to scare our visitors away.” He grinned again in that same ghastly parody of good humor. “Now then,” he said, with what he probably thought of as an avuncular twinkle. “Are we sitting comfortably?”
Stepping out of the pod, I walked swiftly through the mirage, past the queue of sightseers and toward the scrap of grass which backs onto the Eye. There, I found myself an isolated corner and proceeded to be copiously sick. When I was done, I straightened up, dabbed at my mouth with a tissue and began to worry about my breath. A seagull landed at my feet and pecked inquisitively at the vomit.
Trying desperately not to consider the ramifications of what I’d been told, I stumbled to the river and stared dully down into its murky waters.
Someone strolled up beside me. “They’ve told you, then?”
The speaker was an elderly woman, fragile with age but in possession of a certain geriatric poise which suggested that there was little she would not be willing to face down.
“I suppose you’ve come to sell me some double glazing?” I said.
A hint of a smile. “Could I tempt you to a stroll? We don’t have long.”
Wearily, I agreed, and together we walked along the riverbank, past tourists, buskers, tramps, office workers on an early lunch and truculent-looking kids on skateboards — all of them oblivious to the secret I had just been told, the truth that made a perverted joke of every one of their lives.
“Hits you rather hard, doesn’t it?” the old lady said, as though she was discussing nothing more alarming than a national shortage of buttered scones. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Are you going to tell me who you are?”
“Unlike the rest of them, Henry, I’m going to do you the courtesy of telling you the name I was born with.” She smiled. “I am Miss Jane Morning.”
“Are you… Did he…” I gesticulated inarticulately toward the Eye.
“Before his defection to the BBC, your grandfather and I worked together at the Directorate for many years.”
“I never knew any of this.”
“There are less than two dozen men in all of England who know of the Directorate’s true purpose. Your grandfather loved you dearly but, come now, he was hardly likely to entrust you with one of the best-kept secrets of British intelligence.”
“That’s why they need me, isn’t it? Because of Granddad.”
Miss Morning nodded. “The whereabouts of Estella is keeping the war in stalemate. That was always your grandfather’s secret. And with him gone” — she looked as though she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry — “well, as I believe the saying goes — all bets are off.”
“You’re not making a great deal of sense. Not that anything seems to lately.”
“Concentrate, young man. The hunt is on for Estella now. Your grandfather knew this day would come and he planned for it. But something’s gone wrong. Certain forces have taken an interest in us and it is most unlikely that we shall survive their attention.” She broke off. “You seem frightened.”
“Of course I’m frightened. I’m extremely frightened. Probably close to terrified if I’m being honest.”
“That’s eminently sane of you. But things are about to get a good deal worse. If I know how Dedlock thinks — and I’m very much afraid that I do — then he’ll take you to see the prisoners tonight.”
“Who are these prisoners?” I asked. “How do they know who I am?”
“You don’t want me to say their names. Not out loud. Not in public.”
“Why on earth not?”
“Names have power. Theirs more than most. I warn you, Henry. They’ll lie to you. If they ever tell the truth, it will be to twist it to their own purposes. Don’t take a single wicked word they say on trust. They are chaos incarnate. They delight in destruction for its own sake. And nothing is sweeter to them than the corruption of an innocent soul.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then I fear you may have to discover it for yourself.” Miss Morning snapped open her handbag and passed me a discreet square of card. “Call me when you need me. And you will need me.”
“Can’t you tell me more?”
“Not today.”
“Why?”
“Because if you knew everything, I doubt you’d find the strength to carry on.”
Although this sentence might look a little theatrical on paper, I should point out that it was delivered in a tone which was remarkably calm and matter-of-fact.
“There is one more thing,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I have his cat. It found its way to me.” A sad smile. “As, in your own way, have you.” Then she gave me a good crisp nod goodbye and walked into the crowd.
If I thought it would do any good, I’d tell you the secret now. I’d write it down and damn the consequences. But I can’t see what help that would be. I don’t see how laying before you those terrible truths about the House of Windsor, their insane treachery and their secret lusts, would serve any useful purpose save to infuse your nightmares with clammy and crepuscular dread.
I stood motionless, my mind whirling with impossibilities. Then — bathos.
“Henry? Is that you?”
Someone chunky stood in front of me, a sandwich engorged with cheese and pickle clasped half-eaten in her hands.
“Barbara!” I mustered a wonky kind of smile. “How are you?”
“Mustn’t grumble. But how are you? How’s life in” — she lowered her voice in serio-comic reverence — “the new department?”
I gulped back a bitter laugh, wondering what kind of cover story she’d been fed. “It’s… challenging.”
Barbara grunted and took a noisy bite of her sandwich but seemed to have nothing further to add to the conversation.
“How’s Peter?” I asked.
“He’s fine,” she said between mouthfuls. “Keeps talking to me about all the gigs he’s going to.”
I rolled my eyes and we shared a moment of exasperated collusion.
“Actually,” Barbara chomped on, “I had a phone call from one of your colleagues. Mr. Jasper. Remember? He introduced himself when he came into the office. Tallish man. Lovely skin.”
I don’t think she noticed me flinch at the mention of the name. What the hell was Jasper doing calling Barbara?
“He’s taking me out to dinner,” she said in answer to my unspoken question. Then, with a small crescendo of pride: “We’re getting pizza.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“He seems really nice.” For an instant, she sounded like a very small girl. “He is nice, isn’t he?”
“He’s interesting,” I said. “Oh, he’s full of surprises.”
Barbara looked at her watch. “Better go. Nice seeing you again.”
“And you,” I said politely, meaninglessly, as Barbara lumbered away, leaving me to watch the surge of strangers, wondering if any of them had the dimmest notion of how brittle the world really was.
My landlady and I sat in front of the television in an exploratory embrace, Abbey trying her best to get comfortable with my arm around her, me struggling against that nausea which had settled in my stomach ever since I’d been told the truth about the war.
Abbey had remarked on my pallor but I had admitted only to being worn and exhausted from my new job. I’d not forgotten Mr. Dedlock’s threats.
So as not to hurt her feelings, I was wearing the lemon-colored sweater which she’d given me for my birthday.
She was channel hopping. “Poor bastard,” she said as she came to rest on BBC1.
I forced myself to focus on the screen. “Who?”
“Prince Arthur,” she said, as the crinkled Prince of Wales moped dolefully across the screen. “Sixty today and still no closer to being king. No wonder he looks so flipping miserable.”
“Hmm.”
“I mean, look at him. Always so sour.”
“Hmm.”
“Wife’s quite pretty, though. Never understood what she saw in him.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you OK, Henry? You seem miles away.”
“Difficult day,” I murmured.
“You can talk to me, you know.”
I laughed, and judging from Abbey’s expression, I imagine the sound cannot have been a pretty one.
Consequently, when the doorbell rang, I was grateful for the excuse to get to my feet.
The sky was stormy and black, and Mr. Steerforth was standing on our doorstep. He seemed bulkier than ever, dressed in some kind of flak jacket and the sort of khaki trousers which boast a preposterous amount of pockets. “You all right? ’Cause you look bloody rough.”
“I’m fine.”
Steerforth snorted. “The secret will do that to you. Better get used to it.”
“What do you want?”
“Get your coat. You’re going to see them tonight.”
“See who?”
“I can’t say their names. Not their real names. But I call them…” He swallowed hard. “I call them the Domino Men.”
“What?”
“Just get your coat,” he barked, then, unable to resist a grin: “Nice sweater.”
“Who was that?” Abbey asked, her attention half on me, half on the TV, which had now begun to show a montage of the heir to the throne’s baby photos.
“It’s work. I’ve got to go out.”
“This late?”
“Sorry. Can’t be helped.”
The look that she gave me was split between sympathy and suspicion. “I wish you could tell me what’s really going on.”
“Believe me,” I said grimly. “So do I.”
It had begun to rain, a mean, thin drizzle, and Barnaby was waiting in the car, slouched in his seat, engrossed in the Dissemination of Irony: The Challenger Narratives Through the Prism of Postmodernism.
“What a bloody awful sweater,” he said, then blew his nose defiantly on the sleeve of his jacket.
Steerforth was already inside.
“Isn't Jasper coming with us?” I asked.
The driver spat out of the window. “Too chicken. Strap yourselves in.” I did as I was told and Barnaby started the engine with the dutiful air of a man doing the school run for someone else’s kids.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Barnaby said.
Steerforth nudged me in the ribs. “Dedlock wants to talk.”
“Fine.” I looked around for a phone. “How’s he going to manage that?”
“Give me a minute.” Steerforth screwed up his face s though grappling with the most gruesome kind of constipation. “He’s coming through.”
Then the big man’s face began to twist, flex and gurn; it was possessed by rubbery quivers, spasms and twitches, contorting itself into strange and horrible shapes. He was evidently in considerable pain and it only seemed to end when the man who sat opposite me was utterly transformed. He may still have had Steerforth’s body, but through some impossible realignment of his features, he’d become a parody of the old man in the tank. Even his voice was altered, moving into a higher pitch, suddenly wavery with unnatural age.
“Good evening, Henry Lamb,” he said.
I stared, astonished. “Dedlock?”
“Do not be alarmed. Steerforth is the pit bull of the Directorate. Some time ago, he submitted to a small procedure which allows me, on occasion, to borrow his physical form.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Indeed. And speaking of unbelievable… What a splendid pullover.” The body of Steerforth emitted a series of gurgles which I presumed, after a while, to be laughter. “We’ve been left with no choice,” he said. “Tonight, you meet the prisoners. You need to prize just one single piece of information from them. The whereabouts of a woman called Estella. Have you got that, Henry Lamb? Am I making myself unequivocally clear?”
“Who are these prisoners? How do they know so much?”
“I don’t wish to say their names. Not now.”
“Dedlock? I need to know who these people are.”
It was raining harder now, each drop a hammer-blow against the pane. “My, my.” The thing in Steerforth gave a liquid giggle. “Who said anything about them being people?”
There was a final burble, then Steerforth’s face, running with rivulets of sweat, went slack and sagged back into its old, familiar lineaments.
“What the hell was that?”
Steerforth yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “Now you see the price of the war,” he murmured. “And we can’t afford it. Not by a long shot.”
The car sped on through the night, passing out of south London, over the river, toward the center of the city. It was a silent journey except for the deluge which beat ferociously against the windows, the windscreen, the roof.
At last, we headed past Trafalgar Square and turned into Whitehall, stopping outside a metal barricade guarded by a man with a machine gun slung around his neck. Hair plastered to forehead, his uniform sodden with rain, the sentry motioned for Barnaby to wind down the window. “State your business,” he said, with all the thoroughgoing charm of a German border official.
“My name is Barnaby. This is Steerforth. We work for Mr. Dedlock.”
The soldier peered into the back of the car, then took a stumbling step backward. “Sorry, gents,” he said. Then again, cravenly: “Really sorry.”
Barnaby muttered something resentful, wound up his window and drove on toward the most famous address in England.
I think I might actually have shaken my head. “You can’t be serious.”
Steerforth was unable to keep a hint of pride from his voice. “Welcome to Downing Street.”
Number Ten Downing Street is full of false doors. Built, re-built, altered, extended, improved and reconceived over generations by a plethora of architects eager to impress, almost everything done by one designer his later been summarily reversed by another. The result is that the building his acquired the air of a folly, filled with corridors which lead nowhere, staircases that curve gracefully into thin air, doors which open onto brickwork. It is a place of doubles and traps where little is what it seems and nothing can be trusted.
Steerforth led me inside (the door to Number Ten, being perpetually open, has no handle), down a long, tapering corridor which, rather dispiritingly, seemed every bit as gray and nondescript as those in my old office. Eventually, we reached a spiral staircase, the walls of which were decorated with portraits of past prime ministers, beginning with the most recent incumbent before stretching chronologically backward in time.
Then Steerforth led me down into the past. At first I recognized many of the politicians depicted on the walls — men and women who had held high office in my lifetime — but as we descended, the pictures grew older and increasingly unrecognizable, their costumes changing with the unfurling of the years, from starched collars and cravats to powder wigs and frock coats to lace and frills until, as we reached the lower levels, they scarcely seemed like statesmen at all. The people in those paintings were men of shadows, their faces half-masked and their bodies shrouded in darkness. At the end of the sequence, there were men in animal pelts and furs, hailing from an era of history I wasn’t even sure I recognized at all.
At the bottom of the staircase was a lavish library, its walls filled with shelves, packed tight with books — but not the kind of books that one would expect to see here, not parliamentary records, treaties, contracts a
nd points of order, but other, more troubling titles, akin to those I had found in Granddad’s house, though stranger still. The tang of the forbidden was in that room. Often I think back to some of those half-glimpsed titles and I shudder.
The only space not taken up with books was filled by a life-sized portrait of a Victorian gentleman, his face still young but starting to show the corruption of age, his dark hair worn daringly collar length, a flutter of grim amusement on his face. I thought I recognized that smile. I have my suspicions as to why, but even now, I shouldn’t like to say for certain.
Steerforth walked over to the portrait, pulled out a two-pronged metal tube identical to a device I’d seen Jasper wave at Granddad and pointed it at the picture. There was an electronic whine, a subtle click, and the painting swung backward. No, not a painting, I saw now. A door.
A halogen light flickered on to reveal the smooth steel walls of an elevator.
Steerforth stepped inside and asked me to follow.
Numbly, wondering why the madness of this life no longer seemed to affect me, I did as I was told.
Steerforth pressed a button, the door hissed shut and I heard the painting snap back into place. Smoothly, the lift began to descend.
“Is there any point in asking where you’re taking me?”
The man said nothing.
“Steerforth?”
The lift came to a halt, the doors swept backward and Steerforth led me into another long corridor. Two guards, both armed, greeted us with grim nods.
On either side of us were glass windows fronting small rooms or cells, as if we were passing through the reptile house at the zoo. It was completely silent save for our footsteps and the shuffles of the guards. As I followed, I saw that there were people in each cell and that every one of them was naked. All seemed ill but their actions careered between the extremes of human behavior. One raged and gibbered at the sight of us. Another placed his hands imploringly upon the glass, tears curving down his plump cheeks. Another still seemed quite oblivious to us, curled up in a fetal ball, his flabby body quivering in despair. There was even a man who seemed faintly familiar. He let fly a thick stream of urine as we passed before crouching down and enthusiastically licking it up.
V 02 - Domino Men, The Page 9
