Roofworld

by Christopher Fowler

  Chymes swung his leg up and kicked hard, catching Zalian in the stomach and sending him backwards, but the blow lacked power. Whatever energy he had gained from his sacrifice had yet to manifest itself in physical strength. As the Lord of the New Age attempted to stand, Zalian returned with a double-fisted punch that sent him reeling to the edge of the ramp.

  For a second, it seemed as if Chymes would regain his balance, then he slowly fell backwards onto the lettering behind him. ‘You’ll die a hundred times over for this,’ he bellowed, clawing to the top of the letter. As he began to slip, he instinctively reached out for the electrical cable which was now throbbing with diverted current. There was a blue flash as his steel hand made contact with the bare wire and the fingers welded themselves over the flex in a molten seizure. Chymes’ body thrashed and banged against the wall of the tower, his teeth grinding together in a silent scream as the steel hand refused to release him from the pulsing cable.

  Fingers knotted over his throat, Zalian fell to his knees with a cry. It seemed as if he too could feel the searing pain. He was about to reach out his hand in a gesture of help when Spice pushed him aside. ‘There’s nothing you can do for him, Nathaniel. Come away.’ She hauled the horrified doctor to the back of the platform as the static faded from the air and the storm resumed its natural pattern once more.

  Deprived of their leader, the skinheads seemed suddenly confused. Several of them came to the front of the ramp and stared over at Chymes’ blackened body with mouths agape. Nathaniel’s remaining men used this opportunity to mount their strongest attack yet on the now disoriented group.

  Further around the tower, Robert was rubbing the back of his head and trying to raise his body from the flat top of the ‘T’ across which he had fallen. Each time he moved, the world around him dipped and spun crazily. Back on the platform there seemed to be screams and shouts as blurred figures lunged at each other. Had Chymes really vanished in a blaze of celestial fire? What on earth was going on? He chuckled dizzily to himself. It was hardly on earth….Robert managed to hoist himself into a sitting position. Snow settled on his nylon suit and melted as he forced his paralyzed mind to remember where he was. Moments later, just as the memories of recent events were neatly and obligingly slotting into place, he did a stupid thing. He sat back and fell straight over the edge of the ‘T’ like a diver dropping from the side of a boat.

  —

  The battle had ended. The remaining members of the New Age were skulking away like wounded animals, adrift without their leader. There had been many casualties, but mercifully few fatalities. Zalian sat on the platform with his head leaning against the railing, watching Sarah’s gradual return to consciousness. As she opened her eyes and made sense of the scene before her, he reached over and slipped his arms through hers.

  ‘All—I ever wanted,’ he said, ‘was you—by my side in the Roofworld.’ She slowly raised her face to his. He smiled and pulled her tightly to him, lightly kissing her forehead. One look at her eyes told him all he needed to know. Gently, Sarah returned the kiss.

  There was something pressing against her ribs. Puzzled, she looked down. Protruding from just below Zalian’s heart was the shaft of a steel arrow, buried deep and angled upwards. By the time her eyes returned to his, the doctor was dead.

  —

  ‘Can somebody give me a hand?’ Rose pleaded from her position atop the letter ‘T’. Robert’s sneakers had become wedged in the metal struts supporting the bottom of the letter. Rose was holding him upright by hanging onto his ears, the only part of his anatomy that she had been able to grab as he dangled upside down from the side of the windswept tower. Robert was releasing pained yells at three-second intervals. As Lee and Spice reached her side, Rose leaned over to him and grinned. ‘There’s a reason why God gives us these physical attributes,’ she said. ‘It’s a good job your mother didn’t decide to pin them back when you were a kid.’

  ‘They’ll stick out more than ever now,’ he howled miserably. ‘I’ll look like bloody Dumbo.’ Finally the three of them managed to haul him back up to the safety of the platform.

  ‘Rose! Look!’ Simon was pointing from the railing to the spot where Chymes had been electrocuted. ‘He’s gone!’

  The steel hand of the Imperator still hung fused to the cable, but the corpse had disappeared. Ahead, barely discernible through the blizzard, a large golden eagle circled and swooped before fading into the ashen dawn.

  As Robert slumped to the steel deck nursing his wrenched and swollen ears, Detective Constable Butterworth appeared and gazed sternly down. He proceeded to give out measured stares from one face to the next, then produced a notepad from his jacket pocket. ‘You are all under arrest,’ he began. ‘Anything you say will…’ It was as far as he got before being grabbed on all sides and wrestled to the floor.

  Wednesday 24 December

  Chapter 49

  Butterworth Reports

  Outside Hargreave’s office, the snow sparkled on the windowsills in a thick three-day-old glaze. Inside, despite the central heating, Hargreave felt every bit as cold as the tramps freezing in the alleyways behind the station….‘Wait, wait a minute. Let me refresh your memory as to the facts in this case. As a result of the mysterious activities performed by this person on the night of Saturday the twentieth of December, we were left on Sunday morning with seven—count them, Butterworth—seven corpses, all discovered at the base of the Post Office Tower, another four bodies in the surrounding area, the wreckage of a single-seater ’plane and, let me see, about sixty office windows smashed by arrows, for God’s sake. We had reports of bombs going off, fire in the sky, screams in the night and assorted UFO sightings. We have a statement from a young girl who swears she was attacked by a golden eagle on her way to work on Sunday morning. In addition, somebody seems to have vandalized the British Telecom sign at the top of the tower. And this, this joke is the best report you can turn in?’

  Hargreave threw the thin folder to the desk with a bang and knocked over his tea in the process. Butterworth suppressed a smile as he offered his boss a Kleenex.

  ‘It wouldn’t hold water as a bloody high school essay and you know it.’ Hargreave uprighted himself, clutching the dripping tissue. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘You’re up to something, lad. I’m not daft. I wasn’t born yesterday. Who gave you that black eye?’

  ‘I told you, sir. It was the result of landing on PC Bimsley.’ Butterworth touched his face gingerly and smiled.

  ‘Bimsley, bollocks,’ Hargreave snorted, turning his blotting pad upside down and leaning on it. ‘Tell me again. Never mind the report, just put it in plain English.’ He rubbed a hand across his face in a familiar gesture of exhaustion. ‘I know it’s difficult, but think of me as your friend rather than superior officer. Come on lad, be honest.’

  Butterworth cleared his throat and began. ‘Well sir, as I understand it, there was a gentleman named Mr Chymes, a one-time mental patient whose file I believe you are in receipt of. My informant tells me that this Mr Chymes had developed a penchant for climbing tall buildings, that he was in the habit of kidnapping passersby at random and that he subsequently took to murdering them on the tops of his favourite London landmarks.’ Butterworth stepped back, pleased with his recital.

  ‘Your informant?’ asked Hargreave wearily. ‘I believe you have managed to mislay him?’

  ‘Went missing shortly after releasing this information to me, sir, just as it…’

  ‘…Says in the report, I know.’ Hargreave dropped the sopping blotter into his wastepaper bin. ‘And you believe this “informant”. Ergo, I am supposed to believe your cock-and-bull story. So there were no “gang wars”, no ritual killings, just the workings of a deranged maniac who conveniently managed to pick out a number of people already on our Missing Persons files and murder them, moving all over the city from victim to victim, alone and unaided.’ He sighed deeply and sat back in his chair. ‘Considering the various recorded times of the deaths he must have
been moving at twice the speed of Concorde to have managed them all.’

  Hargreave closed the file which lay in front of him. He looked like a man whose spirit had finally been broken. Butterworth almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  ‘Do you understand how close I came—how close we came—to solving the case of the century?’ he asked. ‘Do you know what it would have meant to this department? Or what it would mean to me personally, to be able to clear my name at last, after that sodding vampire business last year? Well, Butterworth, if you ever do decide to come clean, make sure I’m the first to know, eh?’

  ‘There is one more thing, sir,’ said Butterworth. ‘I tendered my resignation this morning. Not cut out for this sort of thing, I’m afraid.’

  Hargreave’s eyes grew narrower still. ‘I’ll have you,’ he said. ‘Don’t think you’ll get away with whatever it is that you’re up to because there’ll be an official investigation into this whole business.’ He rose from his seat and grew red in the face. ‘In fact, if I didn’t know better I’d say that you collaborated with this nutcase. Nearly a hundred reports of strange disturbances on the night of December the twentieth. That’s how many people we have who are prepared to swear in court that they saw everything from dancing goblins to bloody Superman in the sky!’

  He thought for a moment, then dropped back into his chair. ‘Unfortunately,’ he said quietly, ‘I cannot follow up the statements of these fascinating witnesses as I am being relieved from work for the time being, pending a full investigation.’ He stared morosely at the tea pooling along the edge of his desk. ‘You might be interested to know that it is your father who has seen fit to have me suspended from duty,’ said Hargreave with a grimace. ‘He seemed to think that I was unfairly singling you out for the rough stuff. Somebody,’ he added suspiciously, ‘seems to have tipped him off.’

  Butterworth performed an inward leap of joy.

  ‘Go on, then,’ the Detective Inspector groaned. ‘Get the hell out of here.’

  —

  ‘How did it go?’ she asked, sliding her arm around his waist.

  ‘Not in here,’ hissed Butterworth from the side of his mouth. ‘Wait until we get outside.’ Reluctantly, the girl removed her arm. As they walked to the car, she gave him a provocative smile. ‘So,’ she said. ‘How long do I have to wait before you come and join me?’

  Butterworth considered the question for a moment. ‘Well, they may make me work out my notice and Hargreave will probably want me to appear for the investigation, then of course I shall have to get rid of my apartment, and find someone to take the tropical fish and I’ll have to sell the stereo, but hopefully things should be sorted out within a month.’

  The girl reached up on tiptoe and kissed him. ‘I’ll be around to haunt you until you’re ready to leave the ground. You know where to find me.’ She pointed the forefinger of her right hand up at the sky and began to walk away, swinging her hips with knowing sexuality.

  ‘The sooner you get through down here,’ she called, fishing into the pocket of her jeans, ‘the sooner we can pick up from where we left off in the Centre Point building.’ She tossed him the key to the handcuffs she had been persuaded to unlock when last they met. Her laugh continued after her figure had vanished beyond the corner of the police station.

  Butterworth climbed into the car with a happy grin on his freckled face. He was pleased that he had finally figured out what to do with his life. Hargreave would never discover the truth about the Roofworld. After all, hadn’t he failed to solve the Leicester Square Vampire case?

  —

  In the computer room, Hargreave lit a cigarette and began to scroll through the screen pages of the Icarus file one last time. All the facts had been at his fingertips. His research had given him every answer except one. He ran the cursor down to the final page of his notes.

  *NAME OF SUSPECT/W.W. CHYMES*

  PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

  6FT 2INS CAUCASIAN BLACK HAIR GREY EYES

  LEFT HAND MISSING ORIGIN OF DISABILITY UNKNOWN

  LONDON DIRECTORY LISTING

  26 LILLIE GARDENS WEST HAMPSTEAD

  CURRENT STATUS REGISTERED MISSING

  WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN RELATION TO THE FOLLOWING CHARGES

  FRAUD 6/2/83

  ARSON 9/5/84

  AGGRAVATED ASSAULT 26/3/86

  MURDER 11/9/87

  OTHER KNOWN ALIASES INCLUDE

  J. BOEHME, 35, PRITCHARD AVENUE, EDINBURGH

  R. BACHMAN, 14, NETTLEFIELD TERRACE, ISLINGTON, LONDON

  G. HERBERT, DELACOURT SQUARE, NORWICH

  S. PARTRIDGE, 35, WESTERDALE ROAD, GREENWICH, LONDON

  (more follows)

  Hargreave drew heavily on his cigarette and examined the screen. To the questions ‘Who’, ‘Where’, ‘When’ and ‘How’ he could find satisfactory replies. But the reason ‘Why’ still eluded him. He had traced his rogue alchemist from alias to alias and the computer had authenticated every address. He had assembled a profile of each person on the list and noted their similarities. All those named were in their mid-thirties, all had successful careers and were registered members of the same national societies and he suspected that all were probably Freemasons. It was, however, impossible to bring any of them in for questioning, for the simple reason that all had died not long after the turn of the present century. He had run a double-check through the computer and, sure enough, the name of Chymes recurred in different aliases back down through the years.

  It didn’t make sense. By his calculations, Chymes would now have to be approximately one hundred and twenty years old. So what had he been dealing with here? Some supernatural being who kept appearing through the ages like a vengeful wraith?

  Hargreave enjoyed a good conspiracy theory and naturally had his own. He imagined the existence of a centuries-old society whose leaders had taken turns to adopt the mantle of the ancient alchemist known as Chymes. But to what end? Perhaps he should investigate the matter further, starting at the address last listed by the computer….But then another thought struck him. If the press ever got hold of this one, they would drag his tarnished reputation through the shit once and for all. He hesitated.

  No, it was too great a risk to take.

  Reluctantly he lowered a nicotine-stained index finger to the keyboard and pressed the ‘Erase’ tab, watching the strings of characters strip from the screen as he sealed the contents of the file disc, probably forever. A feeling of empty depression immediately began to descend. There was only one way of curing it. He decided to complete something he had started some while ago. Turning off the console, he rose from the desk to go and find Janice.

  As he gently clicked the office door shut, the fathomless secrets which had unfurled across the computer screen with a dying luminosity were banished into an equally mysterious maze of micro-circuitry.

  —

  Sergeant Longbright was not the kind of woman to forsake her duty for any length of time. However, there was a sexual edge to her cold-showers-and-no-nonsense appeal that Margaret Thatcher would have envied. Even now, a few hours before Christmas Day, she was down in the morgue with Finch arguing over some incorrect paperwork.

  Hargreave liked that. ‘Hullo,’ he called, cheerily waving across an array of waxy, opened bodies. ‘I thought I might buy you a seasonal drink.’

  ‘That’s very nice of you,’ said Finch, wiping his bone-saw clean and replacing it. ‘I’ll have a pint of bitter.’

  ‘Not you, you bloody grave-robber, I meant Janice.’ He looked around the room. ‘Not very Christmassy in here, is it? Couldn’t you stand one of the corpses in a corner, maybe paint its nose red and cover it in tinsel?’

  The sergeant looked up from her report folder and gave him a broad, white smile. Even her teeth were sexy.

  ‘We’ve got some mistletoe over by the body drawers,’ Finch pointed out, ‘although I wouldn’t expect much passion from this lot. Most of them have had their insides removed. Anyway,’ he said morosely, ‘it’s all
right for you, up there with your computers while I’m down here, elbow-deep in someone’s stomach doing your dirty work.’

  ‘The least you can do is buy him a drink, Ian,’ said Janice. ‘After all the help he gave you.’

  All the help in the world isn’t going to prevent me from being sacrificed in the coming investigation, thought Hargreave, casting his eyes over the lanky forensic scientist who, as usual, smelled as if he had doused himself with a gallon of cheap aftershave. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You can come too. But only if you wash your hands first.’

  While Finch was cleaning up, Hargreave leaned across a biopsy sink and kissed Janice lightly on the cheek. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘if you might consider something as old-fashioned as becoming engaged to me.’

  ‘I might,’ conceded the comely sergeant. ‘So long as you promise me one thing.’

  ‘You name it.’

  ‘Please don’t consider proposing to me in here as well.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’ He grinned and hugged Janice self-consciously, as if half-expecting the other residents of the room to sit up and applaud. It wasn’t going to be such a lousy Christmas after all.

  Chapter 50

  Back to Earth

  The group had gathered inside a small, covered station on the roof of Greater London House, overlooking a mist-veiled section of the Thames. Earlier the shelter had been ransacked and battered by Chymes’ men, but at least it provided refuge from the wind. The other remaining members of the Roofworld were nursing their wounds atop special quarters set up on the roof of the Capital building on the road leading north out of the city.

  ‘At least Nathaniel is at rest now,’ said Sarah. ‘Lee and I buried him in a quiet part of Highgate cemetery.’ She walked to the door and watched as a small police cruiser moved upriver through the sluggish grey water. ‘It looks as if it’s about to snow again. On Christmas Eve, too.’