Kraken

by China Miéville

  Walking, even through his headphones Billy was startled by noises. For the first time ever outside the corridors of the Darwin Centre, he heard or imagined that glass noise. The light in that early evening was wrong. Everything’s screwed up, he thought. As if the fat spindle of the Architeuthis’s body had been slotted in and holding something in place. Billy felt like a lid unsecured and banging in the wind.

  The station was just off the high street, much larger than he expected. It was one of those very ugly London buildings in mustard bricks that, instead of weathering grandly like their red Victorian ancestors, never age, but just get dirtier and dirtier.

  He waited a long time in the waiting area. Twice he got up and asked to see Mulholland. “We’ll be with you shortly, sir,” said the first officer he asked. “And who the fuck’s he?” said the second. Billy grew more and more irritated, turning the pages of old magazines.

  “Mr. Harrow? Billy Harrow?”

  The man coming toward him was not Mulholland. He was small and skinny and trimly kempt. In his fifties, in plain clothes, a dated brown suit. He had his hands behind his back. As he waited, he leaned forward and up on his toes more than once, a dancey little tic.

  “Mr. Harrow?” he said in a voice thin like his moustache. He shook Billy’s hand. “I’m Chief Inspector Baron. You met my colleague, Mulholland?”

  “Yeah, where is he?”

  “Yes, no. He’s not here. I’m taking over this investigation, Mr. Harrow. Sort of.” He tilted his head. “Apologies for keeping you waiting, and thank you very much for coming in.”

  “What do you mean you’re taking over?” Billy said. “Whoever it was spoke to me last night didn’t … She was bloody rude, to be honest.”

  “Though I suppose with us lot taking over your labs,” Baron said, “where else were you going to go, eh? I suppose there’ll be no pickling for you till we’re done, I’m afraid. Maybe you can think of it as a holiday.”

  “Seriously, what’s the score?” Baron led Billy down striplit corridors. In the white light Billy realised how dirty his glasses were. “Why’ve you taken over? And you’re way out here … I mean, no offense …”

  “Anyway,” said Baron. “I promise we won’t keep you any longer than we have to.”

  “I’m not sure what it is I can do for you,” Billy said. “I already told you lot everything I know. I mean, that was Mulholland. Did he mess up then? Are you a cleaner-upper?”

  Baron stopped and faced Billy. “It’s like a film, this, isn’t it?” he said. He smiled. “You say, ‘But I’ve told your officers everything,’ and I say, ‘Well now you can tell me,’ and you don’t trust me and we dance a little bit and then eventually after a few more questions you get to look horrified and say, ‘What, you think I had something to do with this?’ And we go round and round.”

  Billy was speechless. Baron did not stop smiling.

  “Rest assured, Mr. Harrow,” he said. “That is not what’s going on here. My absolute honour.” He held his hand up in a scout pledge.

  “I never thought …” Billy managed to say.

  “So having made that clear,” Baron said, “do you reckon we can dispense with the rest of the script and you can give me a hand? That’s a blinder, Mr. Harrow.” His little voice fluted. “That’s peachy. Now let’s get this done.”

  It was Billy’s first time in an interview room. It was just like on telly. Small, beige, windowless. On the far side of a table were a woman and another man. The man was in his forties, tall and powerful. He wore a nondescript dark suit. His hair was receding, his haircut severe. He clasped his heavy hands and regarded Billy levelly.

  The first thing Billy noticed about the woman was her youth. She was out of her teens maybe, but not by much. She was, he realized, the policewoman who’d done a brief cameo at the museum. She had on a blue Metropolitan Police uniform, but it was worn more informally than he would have expected her to get away with. It was not buttoned up, was a bit thrown-on. Clean, but rucked, hitched, and tweaked. She had on more makeup than he would have thought permissible, too, and her blonde hair was messily fancily styled. She looked like a pupil obeying the letter but straining against the spirit of school uniform rules. She did not even glance at him, and he could not see her face more clearly.

  “Right then,” said Baron. The other man nodded. The young WPC leaned against the wall and fiddled with a mobile phone.

  “Tea?” said Baron, gesturing Billy to a chair. “Coffee? Absinthe? I’m joking of course. I would say ‘Cigarette?’ but these days, you know.”

  “No, I’m fine.” Billy said. “I’d like to just—”

  “Of course, of course. Alright then.” Baron sat and pulled bits of paper from his pockets and searched through them. The scattiness was not convincing. “Tell me about yourself, Mr. Harrow. You’re a curator, I think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Preserving, cataloguing, that sort of stuff.” Billy fiddled with his glasses so he did not have to meet anyone’s eye. He tried to see which way the woman was looking. “Consulting on displays, keeping stuff in good nick.”

  “Always done it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And …” Baron squinted at a note. “It was you who prepared the squid, I’m told.”

  “No. It was all of us. I was … it was a group effort.” The other man sat by Baron, saying nothing and looking at his own hands. The young woman sighed and prodded her phone. She appeared to be playing a game on it. She clicked her tongue.

  “You were at the museum, weren’t you?” Billy said to her. She glanced at him. “Was it you who called me? Last night?” Her Wine-housey hair was distinctive. She said nothing.

  “You …” Baron was pointing at Billy with a pen, still sorting through the papers, “are too modest. You are the squid man.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Billy shifted. “Something like that comes in, you know … We were all working on it. All hands on deck. I mean …” He indicated hugeness with his hands.

  “Come come,” said Baron. “You’ve got a way with them, haven’t you?” Baron met his eye. “Everyone says so.”

  “I don’t know.” Billy shrugged. “I like molluscs.”

  “You are an endearingly modest young man,” Baron said. “And you are fooling no one.”

  Curators worked across taxonomies. But it was a standing claim in the centre that Billy’s molluscs in particular were special. The stress could be on either word—it was Billy’s molluscs, and Billy’s molluscs, that kept pristine for ages in their solutions, that fell into particularly dramatic enjarred poses and held them well. It made no sense: one could hardly be any better at preserving a cuttlefish than a gecko or a house mouse. But the joke did not die, because there was a tiny something to it. Though in truth Billy had been pretty cack-handed when he had started. He had shattered his way through a fair few beakers, tubes, and flasks; had splayed more than one dead animal sodden on the lab floor before rather abruptly coming into his skills.

  “What’s this got to do with anything?” Billy said.

  “It has the following to do with what for,” Baron said. “See we’ve got you down here, or up here, depending which way you hold your map, for two reasons, Mr. Harrow. One, you’re the person who found the giant squid missing. And two, something a bit more specific. Something you mentioned.

  “You know, I have to tell you,” Baron said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I mean I’ve heard of stealing horses before. Plenty of dogs, of course. A cat or two. But …” He chuckled and shook his head. “Your guards’ve got a lot to answer for, haven’t they? I gather there’s a fair old degree of mea culpa-ing going on right now, as it goes.”

  “Dane and that lot?” Billy said. “I guess so, I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t mean Dane, actually. Interesting you bring him up. I was referring as they say to the other guards. But certainly Dane Parnell and his colleagues, too, must be feeling a bi
t daft. And of them more later. Recognise this?”

  Baron slipped the page of a notepad across the table. On it was a vaguely asterisk design. Maybe it was a burst of radial sunbeams from a sun. Two of the several arms coiled at their ends, longer than the others.

  “Yeah,” said Billy. “I drew that. It was what that bloke on the tour was wearing. I drew it for the guy interviewing me yesterday.”

  “Do you know what this is, Mr. Harrow?” said Baron. “Can I call you Billy? Do you know?”

  “How should I know? But the bloke who had this on, he was with me all the time. He never had any time to go off and do anything, you know, dodgy. I would’ve seen …”

  “Have you seen this before?” The other man spoke, for the first time. He gripped his hands as if holding them back from something. His accent was classless and without any regional pitch—neutral enough that it had to have been cultivated. “Does it jog your memory?”

  Billy hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can I just … Who are you?”

  Baron shook his head. The large man’s face did not change but for a slow blink. The woman glanced up from her phone, at last, and made some little tooth-kissing noise.

  “This is Patrick Vardy, Mr. Harrow,” Baron said. Vardy clenched his fingers. “Vardy’s helping with our investigation.”

  No rank, Billy thought. All the police he had met had been Constable So-and-so, DC This, Inspector That. But not Vardy. Vardy stood and walked to the edge of the room, out of the immediate light, made himself an illegitimate topic.

  “So have you seen this before?” said Baron, tapping the paper. “Little squiggle ring any bells?”

  “I don’t know,” said Billy. “Don’t think so. What is it? Do I get to know?”

  “You told our colleagues back Kensington-side that the man wearing this seemed quote het up unquote, or something?” Baron said. “What about that?”

  “Yeah, I told Mulholland,” Billy said. “What were those names you said?” he said to Vardy, who did not answer. “I don’t know whether the bloke was weird or what,” Billy said to Baron. He shrugged. “Some people who come see the squid are a bit …”

  “Seen more like that recently?” Baron said. “The, ah, oddballs?” Vardy leaned forward and muttered something in his ear. The policeman nodded. “Any people getting unusually excited?”

  “Squid geeks?” Billy said. “I don’t know. Maybe. There’s been a couple in costumes or weird clothes.” The woman made a note of something. He watched her do so.

  “Alright, now tell me this,” Baron said. “Has anything strange been going on outside the museum recently? Any interesting leaflets being handed out, any pickets? Any protests? Have you clocked any other interesting bits of jewellery on any other visitors? I know, I’m asking as if you’re a magpie, all googly-eyed at shinies. But you know.”

  “I don’t,” Billy said. “I don’t know. It has happened that we get nutters outside. As for this bloke, ask Dane Parnell.” He shrugged. “Like I said yesterday, I think he recognised the guy.”

  “We would of course indeed like to have words with Dane Parnell. What with him and Mystery Pin Man seeming like they know each other and so forth. But we can’t.” Vardy whispered something else to him and Baron continued. “Because a bit like the specimen he was paid to look after, and indeed like Pin Man, Dane Parnell’s disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?”

  Baron nodded. “Whereabouts unknown,” he said. “No one on the phone. Give the dog a bone. Not at home. Why might he disappear, you might ask. We are very keen to have him help us with the old enquiries.”

  “You spoken to him?” said the WPC abruptly. Billy jumped in his chair and stared at her. She put her weight on one hip. She spoke quickly, with a London accent. “You talk a lot, don’t you? All sorts of chatting you shouldn’t be supposed to.”

  “What …?” Billy said. “We haven’t said more than ten words to each other since he started working there.”

  “What did he do before that?” Baron said.

  “I’ve got no clue …”

  “Listen to him squeak!” The woman sounded delighted.

  Billy blinked. He tried to take it in good humour, smiled, tried to get her to smile back, failed. “To be honest,” he said, “I don’t even like the bloke. He’s chippy. Couldn’t be bothered to say hello, let alone anything else.”

  Baron, Vardy and the woman looked at each other in speechless conclave. They communicated something with waggled eyebrows and pouted lips, repeated quick nods.

  Baron said, slowly, “Well if you should think of anything, Mr. Harrow, do please let us know.”

  “Yeah.” Billy shook his head. “Yeah, I will.” He put up surrender hands.

  “Good man.” Baron stood. He gave Billy a card, shook his hand as if the gratitude were genuine, pointed him to the door. “Don’t go anywhere, will you? We might want to have another chat.”

  “Yeah, I think we will,” the woman said.

  “What did you mean ‘Pin Man’s disappeared’?” said Billy.

  Baron shrugged. “Everything and everyone’s vanishing, isn’t it? Not that he ‘disappeared’ really; that would imply he was ever there. Your visitors have to book and leave a number. We’ve called everyone you were escorting yesterday. And the gentleman with the sparkle on his lapel …” Baron tap-tapped the design. “Ed, he told your desk his name was. Right, Ed. The number he gave’s unregistered, and no one’s answering.”

  “Hie thee to your books, Billy,” Vardy said as Billy opened the door. “I’m disappointed in you.” He tapped the paper. “See what Kooby Derry and Morry can show you.” The words were weird but weirdly familiar.

  “Wait, what?” said Billy from the doorway. “What was that?” Vardy waved him away.

  BILLY TRIED AND FAILED TO PARSE THE ENCOUNTER ON HIS BEWILDERED way south. He had not been under arrest: he could have left at any time. He had his phone out, ready to do a tirade for Leon, but again for reasons he could not put into words, he did not make the call.

  Nor did he go home. Instead, full of an unending sense of being under observation, Billy went to the centre of London. From café to bookshop café, mooching through paperbacks on his way through too much tea.

  He did not have a phone with Internet connection, nor did he have his laptop with him, so could not test his intuition that his own reveal the previous night notwithstanding, there would be no information about the squid’s disappearance in the news. The London papers certainly did not cover it. He did not eat, though he stayed out late enough, hours, that it was past time, until it was evening, then early night. He did not really do anything but moodily consider and grow frustrated, did not call the centre, only tried to consider possibilities.

  What came back and back to him, what grew to gnaw him most throughout those hours, were the names that Vardy had said. Billy was absolutely certain he had heard them, that they meant something to him. He regretted that he hadn’t insisted on more from Vardy: he did not even know how to spell them. He scribbled possibilities on a scrap of paper, kubi derry, morry, moray, kobadara, and more.

  Got some bloody poking around to do, he thought.

  On his way home at last his attention was drawn, he was not sure why, to a man on the backseat of his bus. He tried to work out what he had noticed. He could not get a clear view.

  The guy was big and broad, in a hoodie, looking down. Whenever Billy turned, he was hunched over or with his face to the glass. Everything they passed tried to grab Billy’s attention.

  It was as if he were watched by the city’s night animals and buildings, and by every passenger. I shouldn’t feel like this, Billy thought. Neither should things. He watched a woman and man who had just got on. He imagined the couple shifting straight through the metal chair behind him, out of his sight.

  A gust of pigeons shadowed the bus. They should be sleeping. They flew when the bus moved, stopped when it stopped. He wished he had a mirror, so he could watch without turning his head,
see that man in back’s evasive face.

  They were on the top deck, above the most garish of central London’s neon, by low treetops and first-floor windows, the tops of street signs. The light zones were reversed from their oceanic order, rising, not pitching, into dark. The street on which lamps shone and that was glared by shopwindow fluorescence was the shallowest and lightest place: the sky was the abyss, pointed by stars like bioluminescence. In the bus’s upper deck they were at the edges of deep, the fringe of the dysphotic zone, where empty offices murked up out of sight. Billy looked up as if down into a deep-sea trench. The man behind him was looking up, too.

  At the next stop, which was not his, Billy waited until the doors had closed before bolting from his seat and down the stairs, shouting, “Wait, wait, sorry!”

  The bus left him and headed into the dark like a submersible. Through the dirty window at the rear of the top, he saw the man look straight at him.

  “Shit,” Billy said. “Shit.”

  He jerked his hand defensively out. The glass flexed and the man jerked backward as the bus receded. Billy’s own glasses shivered on his face. He saw no one moving behind the window, past a crack in the glass that had suddenly bisected it. The man he had seen was Dane Parnell.

  Chapter Four

  BILLY SAT UP LATE THAT WEIRD DEEP NIGHT. HE CLOSED THE curtains of his living room, imagining the unsavoury squirrel watching him as he poked around on his laptop. Why would Dane have followed him? How? He tried to think like a detective. He was bad at it.

  He could call the police. He’d seen Dane commit no crime, but still. He should. He could call Baron, as he had requested. But despite his discomfort—call it fear—Billy did not want to do that.