Hell To Pay n-7

by Simon R. Green

  But…I have to say, I wasn’t that impressed. The hallway was big, yes, but you soon got over that. The gleaming wooden floor was richly waxed and polished, the walls were brightly painted, and the high ceiling was decorated with a series of tasteful frescoes…but there were no standing suits of armour, no antique furnishings, no great works of art. Just a really long hallway with an endless series of paintings and portraits covering both walls. All of them depicting Jeremiah Griffin and his wife Mariah, in the fashions and styles of centuries past. Paintings hundreds of years old, celebrating two people who were probably even older. From formal stylised portraits where they both wore ruffs and the obligatory unsmiling expressions, through dozens of kings and more Parliaments, from Restoration to Edwardian and beyond. Some by artists so famous even I recognised them.

  I spent so long admiring a Rembrandt that Hobbes had to come back and hover over me, clearing his throat in a meaningful manner. I turned to give him my full attention. Hobbes really was the archetypal butler, upright and stern in his formal black-and-white Victorian outfit. His hair was jet-black and so were his eyes, though his tightlipped mouth was so pale as to be almost colourless. He had a high-boned face, and a long, pointed chin you could use to get pickles out of a jar. He should have been amusing, an anachronism in this modern day and age, but behind the arrogant servility there was a sense of enormous strength held in check, ready to be released in the service of his master. Hobbes…was creepy, in an utterly intimidating sort of way.

  You knew he’d be the first person to lean over your shoulder during a formal dinner and loudly announce that you were using the wrong fork. He’d also be the first to toss you out on your ear, probably with a broken limb or two, if you were dumb enough to upset his lord and master. I made a mental note not to turn my back on him at any time and to fight extremely dirty if push ever came to shove.

  “If you’ve quite finished, sir…?” Implied threats filled the pause at the end.

  “Tell me about Jeremiah,” I said, not moving, just to be contrary. “Have you worked for him long?”

  “I have had the honour of serving the Griffin family for years, sir. But you will of course understand that I cannot discuss the family’s personal matters with any visitor, no matter how…well-known.”

  “I like your gardens,” I said. “Very…lively.”

  “We do our best, sir. This way, sir.”

  It was clear he wasn’t going to tell me one damn thing, so I set off at a fast pace down the long hallway, and he had to hurry to catch up with me. He quickly resumed the lead, gliding silently along a careful two paces ahead of me. He was very quiet for such a big man. I felt like sticking my tongue out at his back, but somehow I knew he’d know, and wouldn’t care. So I settled for ambling along again, making as much noise as I could, doing my best to leave scuff marks on the polished floor. Every now and again, other servants would emerge from side corridors, all of them dressed in old-fashioned Victorian outfits, and every time they’d crash to a halt and wait respectfully for Hobbes to pass, before continuing on their way. Except…respectful wasn’t quite the word. No, they looked scared. All of them.

  Jeremiah and Mariah Griffin continued to stare solemnly back at me from the walls as I passed. Clothes and hairstyles and backgrounds changed, but they remained the same. Two hard, unyielding faces, with unyielding stares. I’d seen portraits of kings and queens in all their finery who looked less royal, less sure of themselves. As Hobbes and I finally approached the end of the hallway, paintings finally gave way to photographs, from faded sepia prints to the latest digital clarity. And for the first time the Griffin children appeared, William and Eleanor. First as children, then as adults, again fixed and unchanging while the fashions and the world changed around them. Both children had their parents’ strong bone structure but none of their character. The children looked…soft, pampered. Weak. Unhappy.

  At the end of the hallway, Hobbes took a sharp right turn, and when I followed him round the corner I found we were in another great hallway, where both walls were lined with trophies of the hunt. Animal heads watched and snarled from their carefully positioned wall plaques, stuffed and mounted with glass eyes that seemed to follow you down the hall. There were all the usual beasts of the field, lions and tigers and bears, oh my, and a single fox head that creeped the hell out of me by winking as I passed. I didn’t say anything to Hobbes. I knew he wouldn’t have anything to say about it that I wanted to hear. As we progressed further down the long hallway, the trophies progressed from the unusual to the unnatural. No-one cares about permits in the Nightside. You can hunt any damn thing you take a fancy to if it doesn’t start hunting you.

  There was a unicorn’s head, complete with the single long curlicued horn, though its pure white hide seemed drab and lifeless, for all the taxidermist’s skill. Further along there was a manticore, with its disturbing mix of leonine and human features. The snarling mouth was full of huge blocky teeth, but the long, flowing mane looked as though it had been recently blow-dried. And…an absolutely huge dragon’s head, a good fourteen feet from ear to pointed ear. The golden eyes were big as dinner plates, and I’d never seen so many teeth in one mouth before. The snout projected so far out into the hallway that Hobbes and I had to edge past in single file.

  “I’ll bet that’s hell to dust,” I said, because you have to say something.

  “I wouldn’t know, sir,” said Hobbes.

  Several hallways and corridors later, we came at last to the main conference room. Hobbes knocked briskly, pushed open the door, and stepped aside to gesture me through ahead of him. I strolled in like I did this every day, and didn’t even glance back as I heard Hobbes close the door firmly behind me. The conference room was large and noisy, but the first thing that caught my attention were the dozens of television screens covering the wall to my left, showing news channels, business information, market reports, and political updates from all round the world. All blasting away simultaneously. The sheer noise of the babble was overwhelming, but no-one in the room seemed to be paying it any particular attention.

  Instead, all eyes were on the man himself, Jeremiah Griffin, sitting at the head of his long table like a king on his throne, listening intently as his people came to him in a steady flow, bearing news and memos and files and urgent but respectful questions. They swarmed around him like worker drones with a queen bee, coming and going, clustering and re-forming, and competing jealously for the Griffin’s attention. They all seemed to be talking at the same time, but Jeremiah Griffin had no difficulty telling whom he wanted to talk to, and whom he needed to listen to. He rarely looked at any of the men and women around him, giving all his attention to the papers placed before him. He would nod or shake his head, initial some pages and reject others, and occasionally growl a comment or an order, and the people around him would rush away to do his bidding, their faces fixed and intent. Impeccably and expensively dressed, and probably even more expensively educated, they still behaved more like servants than Hobbes. None of them paid me any attention, even when they had to brush right past me to get to the door. And Jeremiah didn’t even glance in my direction.

  Presumably I was supposed to stand there, at full attention, until he deigned to notice me. Hell with that. I pulled up a chair and sat down, putting my feet up on the table. I was in no hurry, and I wanted to take a good look at the immortal Jeremiah Griffin. He was a big man, not tall but big, with a barrel chest and broad shoulders, in an exquisitely cut dark suit, white shirt, and black string tie. He had a strong, hard-boned face, with cold blue eyes, a hawk nose, and a mouth that looked like it rarely smiled. All topped with a great leonine mane of grey hair. Just as he’d looked in all his portraits, right back to the days of the Tudors. It seemed he’d only come to his immortality when he was already in his fifties, and the package hadn’t included eternal youth. He’d just stopped aging. He sat very upright, as though doing anything else would be a sign of weakness, and his few gestures were sharp and controlled.
He had that effortless gravitas and calm authority that come from long years of experience. He gave the impression that here was a man who would always know exactly what you were going to say even before you said it, because he’d seen and heard it all before. Over and over again.

  His people treated him with a deference bordering on awe, more like a pope than a king. Outside this room they might be people of wealth and breeding and experts in their field, but here they were just underlings to the Griffin, a position and a privilege they would rather die than give up. Because this was where the power was, where the real money was, where all the decisions that mattered were made, every day, and even the smallest decision changed the course of the world. To be working here, for the Griffin, meant you were at the very top of the heap. For as long as you lasted. Somehow I knew there was a constant turnover of bright young things passing through this room. Because the Griffin wouldn’t stand for anyone becoming experienced or influential enough to be a threat to him.

  Jeremiah Griffin kept me waiting for some time, and I got bored, which is always dangerous. I was supposed to just sit there and cool my heels, to put me in my place, but I am proud to say I have never known my place. So I decided to act up cranky. I have a reputation to live down to. I looked unhurriedly round the conference room, considering various possibilities for mischief and mayhem, before finally settling on the wall of television screens.

  I used my special gift to find the channel control signal and used it to tune every single television screen to the same appalling show. I’d found it accidentally one night while channel hopping (never a good idea in the Nightside, where we get not only the whole world’s output, but also transmissions from other worlds and other dimensions), and I actually had to go and hide behind the sofa till it was over. The John Waters Celebrity Perversion Hour is the single most upsetting pornography ever produced, and now it was blasting out of dozens of screens simultaneously. The various men and women hovering around Jeremiah Griffin looked up, vaguely aware that something had changed, and then they saw the screens. And saw what was happening. And then they started screaming, and puking, and finally running for their lives and their sanity. There are some things man is just not meant to know, let alone do with a moose. The conference room quickly cleared, leaving only myself and Jeremiah Griffin. He looked briefly at the screens, sniffed once, then looked away again. He wasn’t shocked or upset, or even impressed. He’d seen it all before.

  He gestured sharply with one hand, and all the screens shut down at once. The room was suddenly and blessedly quiet. The Griffin looked at me sternly. I leaned back in my chair, and smiled easily at him. Jeremiah sighed heavily, shook his head briefly, and rose to his feet. I took my boots off the table and quickly got to my feet, too. The Griffin hadn’t become the richest and most powerful individual in the Nightside without killing his fair share of enemies, many with his bare hands. I struck a carefully casual pose as he approached me (never show fear, they can sense fear), and he came to a halt carefully out of arm’s reach. Presumably he’d heard about me, too. We studied each other silently. I didn’t offer to shake hands, and neither did he.

  “I knew you were going to be trouble,” he said finally, in a calm cold voice. “Good. I need a man who’s trouble. So, you’re the infamous John Taylor. The man who could have been king of the Nightside, if he’d wanted.”

  “I didn’t want it,” I said easily.

  “Why not?”

  It was a fair question, so I considered it for a moment. “Because it would have meant giving up being me. I never wanted to run other people’s lives. I have enough problems running my own. And I’ve seen what happens…when power corrupts.” I looked the Griffin straight in his icy blue eyes. “Why do you want to run the Nightside, Jeremiah?”

  He smiled briefly. “Because it’s there. A man has to have a goal, especially an immortal man. No doubt running the Nightside will turn out to be more trouble than it’s worth, in the end, but it’s the only real goal left for a man of my ambitions and talents. Besides, I bore very easily, these days. I have no peers, and all my dangerous enemies are dead. I have a constant appetite, a need, for new things to occupy and distract me. When you’ve lived as long as I have, it’s hard to find anything truly new, anymore. That’s why I chose you for this assignment. I could have had any detective, any investigator I wanted…but there’s only one John Taylor.”

  “You seemed to be keeping yourself busy,” I said, gesturing at the door through which his people had departed.

  He made a short dismissive sound. “That wasn’t business, not really. Just…makework. It’s important that I be seen to be busy. I can’t afford to be seen or even thought of as weak, distracted…or the sharks will start to gather round my operations. I didn’t spend centuries building up my empire to see it all brought down by a pack of opportunistic jackals.”

  His large hands closed into heavy, brutal fists.

  “Why would anyone think you weak?” I said carefully. “You’re the Griffin, the man who would be King.”

  He scowled at me, but his heart wasn’t in it. He pulled up a chair and sat down, and I sat down opposite him.

  “My grand-daughter Melissa…is missing,” he said heavily. “Maybe kidnapped, maybe even murdered. I don’t know…and not knowing is hard. She disappeared yesterday, just forty-eight hours short of her eighteenth birthday.”

  “Any signs of foul play?” I said, doing my best to sound like I knew what I was doing. “No sign of a struggle, or…”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Then maybe she just took off. You know teenagers…”

  “No. There’s more to it than that. I recently changed my will, leaving everything to Melissa. The Hall, the money, the businesses. The rest of the family get nothing. It was supposed to be strictly secret, of course. The only people who knew were myself and the family lawyer, Jarndyce. But three days ago he was found dead in his office, butchered. His safe had been ripped right out of the wall and broken open. The only thing missing was his copy of the new will. Shortly afterwards, the contents were made known to every member of my family. There were…raised voices. Not least from Melissa, who had no idea she was to be my sole heir.

  “And now she’s gone. Nowhere to be found. No sign of how she was taken. Or how her abductors got into the Hall, unseen by anyone, undetected by any of my security people or their supposedly state-of-the-art systems. Melissa has vanished, without a trace.”

  I immediately thought Inside job, but I had enough sense to keep that thought to myself, for now.

  “Do you have a photograph of your grand-daughter?” I said.

  “Of course.”

  He handed me a folder containing half a dozen eight-by-ten glossies. Melissa Griffin was tall and slender, with long blonde hair and a pale face completely devoid of makeup or expression. She stared coldly at the camera as though it was something not to be trusted. She wouldn’t have been my first choice to leave a business empire to. But maybe she had hidden depths. I chose one photo and tucked it away inside my coat.

  “Tell me about the rest of your family,” I said. “The disinherited ones. Where they were, what they were doing, when Melissa disappeared.”

  Jeremiah frowned, choosing his words carefully. “As far as I can ascertain, they were all in plain sight, observed by myself or others, perhaps even conspicuously so. It’s not usual for them all to be present in the Hall at the same time…It was the same the day before, when Jarndyce’s office was broken into, and he was killed. But I can’t really see any of my family as suspects. None of them would have the backbone to go up against me. Even though they were all mad as hell over the new will.” He chuckled briefly. “Actually horrified, some of them, at the thought of having to go out and work for a living.”

  “Why did you disinherit them?” I said.

  “Because none of them are worthy! I’ve done my best to knock them into shape, down the years, but they never had to fight for things, the way I did…They grew up with
everything, so they think they’re entitled to it. Not one of them could hang on to anything I left them! And I didn’t spend centuries putting my empire together with blood and sweat and hard toil, to have it fall apart because my successors don’t have the guts to do what’s necessary. Melissa…is strong. I have faith in her. I’ve since hired a new lawyer and had a new will drawn up, of course, replacing the lost document, but…for reasons I don’t propose to share with you, the will is only valid if Melissa returns to sign certain documents before her eighteenth birthday. Should she fail to do so, she will never inherit anything. I need you to find her for me, Mr. Taylor. That is what you do, after all. Find her and bring her safely home, before her eighteenth birthday. You have a little under twenty-four hours.”

  “And if she’s already dead?” I said bluntly.

  “I refuse to believe that,” he said, his voice flat and hard. “No-one would dare. Everyone knows Melissa is my favorite and that I would burn down all the Nightside to avenge her. Besides, there’s been no ransom demand, no attempt at communication. It is possible she just ran away, I suppose, intimidated by the responsibilities lying ahead of her. She never wanted to be a part of the family business…Or, she might have been afraid of what the rest of the family might say, or do to her. But if that was the case, she would have left me a note. Or found some way to contact me. No, she was taken against her will. I’m sure of it.”

  “Any friends who might be sheltering her?” I said, to show I hadn’t given up on the running away idea.

  “She only has a few real friends, and I’ve had them all checked out carefully, from a distance. They don’t even seem to know she’s gone missing yet. And that’s the way it has to stay. You can’t tell anyone, Mr. Taylor. I can’t be seen to be vulnerable, or distracted.”

  “An impossible case, with impossible conditions, and an impossible deadline,” I said. “Why don’t you just tie both my legs behind my back while you’re at it? All right, let me think. Could she have fled outside the Nightside, into London proper?”