‘It’s Bobbin that’s been missing? Why didn’t you say so? I’ll do what I can.’
This brought Constance up short. ‘You know him?’
Green Man shrugged and then looked a little sheepish. ‘Well, yes. He’s been making my clothes for quite some time.’
‘He never told me that,’ Constance said. Now she was irked at Bobbin. It was rich that she hadn’t been the only one keeping secrets while he’d walked out on her for the very same thing. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ she asked, exasperated now.
‘I dare say he knew you wouldn’t approve.’ He went back to fiddling with his pens. It was difficult to tell, but it appeared he was chagrined. ‘He didn’t want you knowing he worked for me.’ He looked up at her with a determined expression. ‘He’s one of my people and I protect them. Well, not one of mine in the usual sense.’
Constance narrowed her eyes. Bobbin was hers. Green Man had a lot of brass.
‘Then why are you helping me?’
‘You built the Greenwood Centre for jokers here in the East End. And I know you’ve always hired jokers to work for you. I think you’re one of us – even if you don’t possess a wild card.’
‘So, I’ll owe you, then,’ she said.
‘I won’t hear any talk of owing me,’ he said. Constance didn’t believe him. ‘I’ll find him.’
‘You’ll be better than the police. I reckon you have far more resources on the street.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do indeed.’
Alan had been careful to arrange this meeting with Richard in a room of Kensington Palace that was private enough that they couldn’t be walked in on, but public enough that Richard wouldn’t risk making advances. He wanted to be a better husband to Sebastian; they could still have twenty good years together, after all. Sex wasn’t everything – and perhaps, if Alan put his mind to it, he could help Sebastian with that as well. It was just another problem to solve, and Alan Turing had always been excellent at solving problems.
Now Alan leaned across the ornately carved mahogany table towards Richard, keeping his voice low. ‘So, that’s Margaret’s story. I’ve been searching ever since. If I find the child, that will keep Henry off the throne – problem solved.’ It would be such a relief, not to be discussing fratricide with the Prince. If Richard asked it of him, could Alan even go through with it? It was one thing to decide Henry was a bad king, but that was a far cry from regicide. Agreeing to even consider that now seemed like one of a series of poor decisions, not fully thought out.
Richard frowned. ‘Finding another heir doesn’t work for me, Alan, and you know it. Some random stranger to take the throne of England? A stranger who’s been raised as a … commoner all these years, with no training in what duty to the country entails?’
Alan said, ‘I wanted to offer you the option.’ Couldn’t Richard see that they’d gone too far? ‘You could just step back—’
‘No,’ Richard said firmly.
Alan bit his lip. There was no point in arguing with the Prince when he was in this kind of mood. Retreat, regroup. ‘Well, the first step, regardless, is to find out if the other prince is even still alive. We can’t calculate the risk factors until we know more. And if he is a threat, we need to move quickly to control it.’
‘Fine, Alan,’ Richard said impatiently. ‘Go – go find out everything you can. Think, and think hard. Can you work at home, so no one stumbles in on you?’
‘That should be doable.’ Alan didn’t have quite the same set-up at home, but he could move some machines around and make it work. It’d certainly make Sebastian happy, to have him around a little more.
‘Good. I’ll tell the rest of the team that you’re busy with a private project of mine.’ Richard pushed himself up from the table, drawing himself up to his full height.
He did look handsome, with those piercing blue eyes. The sun caught his hair, glinting gold, and Alan’s breath came a little faster. He swallowed down desire; virtue wasn’t always easy. Focus on the mission. ‘I don’t know if the Lion will—’
Richard said firmly, ‘Being a prince has got to be useful for something. He’ll do what I tell him. Now go on. Get to work.’ He smiled, with that wicked edge. ‘If you’re very good, I’ll give you a nice reward.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Alan said, casting his eyes down. No need to have that conversation now.
Bright swirls of colour covered the street-facing wall of the Greenwood Centre. A week ago, the wall had been a sensible olive green. Constance had the cabbie stop and she got out. She didn’t mind that someone had painted the wall – the pattern was amazing and the colours were unexpected, just the sort of thing she liked – but no one had told her it was happening. And that gave her an uneasy feeling.
She walked briskly around the freshly painted wall to the courtyard embracing the front doors. Sitting on benches and the ground was a group of paint-splattered students. Most of them, except a handful of nats, were jokers. Usually, she would have received a friendly greeting – after all, she’d founded and helped to fund the centre – but today they just looked at her miserably.
She frowned then glanced around and saw spray-painted in black and red on the interior walls: JOKER LOVERS DIE. FUCK JOKERS. GET OUT NOW.
A different pattern in different shades from the outer walls was being painted – soon it would cover the foul sentiments written there.
‘When did this happen?’ Constance demanded, her voice quavering with anger.
‘Yesterday,’ one of the nat kids replied, jumping to his feet. ‘Bastards. Cowards. They came here in the dead of night. I’m not a joker, but I spend time here all the same. Don’t make no difference to them if I’m a joker or not, ma’am.’
‘The youngsters who come here for classes after school, they saw it,’ said a joker girl with bony protrusions tipped with stiff fibres like paintbrushes in place of hair. ‘And they’re taking it hard.’
This is Henry’s fault, she thought. If he hadn’t been all too happy expressing his loathing for jokers and anyone else who wasn’t ‘human’ those hooligans wouldn’t have felt quite so safe while committing such an ugly crime.
‘What about the elders? Do they know?’
‘Oh, yes, ma’am,’ the nat replied. ‘They say they’re scared, but that they’ll come back anyway. They’re coming to help clean up later this afternoon.’
Constance nodded, but she wondered how many of them really would come back. Many of them were of a similar age to her and she’d noticed it was easier and easier to find things to be afraid of now. She’d had to work at keeping that sort of thinking at bay and it must be worse being an older joker. They might just stay at home in fear, and the isolation would only fuel the fear.
‘Dammit!’ she exclaimed, a little spittle shooting out. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. It wasn’t ladylike, but she really didn’t care. ‘It’s bad enough they want us out of Bethnal Green after we’ve been here for decades. Now this!’
‘They want to move the centre?’ cried the joker girl with the paintbrush hair. Constance remembered her name was Temperance.
‘Yes,’ she replied hotly. She pulled a handkerchief out of her trouser pocket. ‘Property values are going up here, but having a centre that caters to jokers, well, that’s keeping them lower than the property developers would like.’
Temperance shook her head and the bony handles on her hair clacked together. ‘Bastards.’
‘Yes,’ Constance replied. ‘Bastards indeed.’
Constance glared at the graffiti painted on the wall of her centre – the centre she’d named for Glory all those decades before. It was a blow that the neighbours wanted them gone. And who were these nasty bastards who wanted them to be afraid? Were they some of the locals? That there was a hatred harboured for jokers after all these years in the community got her back up. Then a cold slice of fear went through her and she fervently hoped Green Man could find Bobbin quickly – before someone took their joker hate out on him, too.
>
Green Man felt the phone in his pocket vibrate. Very few people had this number and even fewer would use it. He tried to remember a single time it had rung for anything that wasn’t an emergency.
He failed.
‘Yes,’ he said into the phone.
‘It’s me,’ Wayfarer replied. Her voice was oddly low. ‘We’ve got incoming. Military, I think.’
‘How many?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Sound the alarm and get clear.’
‘What about you?’
He knew that if there was time for her to come and get him and for them to escape together, she’d already be at his side. ‘Worry about me later.’
He left the room alone, moving down an old concrete corridor that smelled of damp. He ascended the stairs at the end of it until he arrived at a scuffed wooden door, and heard the whispered sounds of his pursuers on the other side.
They were too quiet for him to judge their number, but he guessed there were at least two or three of them. He would have to be quick, decisive and a little lucky if he was to overcome them and escape. He watched the door handle begin to turn very, very slowly.
When it had revolved about a quarter of the distance required for the door to open, he lurched forward, slamming both hands into it. The momentum tore the lock and hinges from the door as easily as rotten teeth from a gum, leaving them standing proud in the frame while the door continued forward at speed.
The first of the soldiers took the force of it full in the face, and both he and the door were carried directly into the second soldier. Green Man didn’t pause to see the effects. He reached up to the exposed beam above his head … And pulled.
There was a groan of timber and then bricks and dust fell from the ceiling. He hoped the soldiers had been pushed clear of the rubble but had neither desire nor the time to check. Instead, he rushed to the wall opposite and dived through it. Plasterboard popped and insulation blew outwards in a tiny shower of black rubber spheres.
Though the immediate threat had passed, Green Man did not relax. After dusting himself off, he rushed to the nearest window and saw a number of black vans parked outside, vomiting uniformed figures from their open doors. They’d already have made a cordon. His only hope – and it was a weak one – was to punch through that cordon and find safer streets before they could bring their superior numbers to bear.
He ran towards the main entrance, only to find soldiers, too many, coming the other way. Turning, he ran towards another door as a grenade rolled into the room. Smoke began to issue from it. He wasn’t particularly worried about being able to breathe, but he was worried about being able to see.
Should I surrender? he wondered. I can’t hope to win, and the more I fight, the worse my case will be. But he dismissed the idea. His history already damned him, and anyway, he knew the way the justice system was loaded against jokers. To escape was not enough: if the soldiers got a confirmed sighting of him fleeing it would give King Henry and the media everything they needed.
Falling back deeper into the building, he noted how empty it seemed, and was pleased. Hopefully Wayfarer and the others were well on their way to safety by now. More grenades had been thrown, the gas clouds rapidly filling the space, giving everything an unreal, ghostly feel.
A trio of soldiers rounded the corner ahead of him, their silhouettes just visible through the smoke. Green Man turned into a side corridor, feeling more and more like an animal being herded towards slaughter. A shotgun roared at his back, accompanied by the sounds of other weapons, all urging him on. Not really thinking now, he rushed on as fast as he could, the net of enemies growing swiftly tighter.
Why now? a desperate part of him wondered while another, more logical, part already knew the answer. It makes perfect sense. After Henry’s comments they will be expecting the Twisted Fists to take action. This is simply a pre-emptive strike. The irony of this being the one thing that would compel the Fists to shed blood was not lost on him.
If they killed him, it would herald a time of bloody vengeance, but if they captured him, they would learn too many of the Fists’ secrets. Not just about the organization itself, but the myriad web of connections between them and the joker community. Such connections could be used to set joker rights back another fifty years.
He could not afford to die today.
He could not afford to be captured.
He could not afford to be identified.
He emerged from the smoke, the soldiers coming fast on his heels. Another shot was fired, shredding the fabric of his right trouser leg, and gouging a new groove in the back of his thigh. He grunted and stumbled against the wall as a door opened to his right. He raised his hand instinctively, but instead of a soldier, he saw an old woman standing there. Her body was wrapped in bandages, fresh enough that patches of white were darkened by blood. She held herself tall, however, black-and-white hair framing sharp features, and a look of the purest determination.
‘This way,’ she hissed, turning before he had a chance to answer.
The Green Man did not pause to think. Did not dare. Pushing off from the wall, he lurched after her, the sounds of booted feet and angry guns loud at his back.
The Green Man tore through the building – quite literally. One of her crows showed how he ripped a door from its hinges and flung it behind him. Catching himself on a piece of furniture, he smashed himself free.
But his pursuers were determined. She flew one crow at the barrel of a gun to put off a soldier’s aim. Once, she swooped on a grenade and flew it back the way it had come. One less witness. Most satisfactory.
And finally, the Green Man burst through the back door.
‘This way,’ she told him, allowing the mood of ‘urgency’ to show in her voice and on her face, although, of course, she felt nothing. Only her regenerated self knew the power of emotions.
She led him into the nest of alleys to the north of the hideout. The enemy was coming. Everywhere, her crows wheeled through the sky. Or sat still in hidden rookeries, forbidden even from cawing lest they drop the razor blades they held in their beaks. The goddess had prepared herself well.
‘Pick me up,’ she told him.
He was stronger than he knew and three ribs snapped beneath his wooden fingers. The pain was inconvenient. ‘Run straight ahead, but not to the right. Not the right, I said!’
Footsteps echoed behind them. Soldiers were coming and the Green Man wasted precious seconds turning around.
Two guns were brought to bear. ‘Put down the hostage! Put her down!’ The men stepped forward together. But then, the one on the right stood on a manhole cover and dropped away with a yelp.
‘Run!’ said Badb. ‘Go left.’
The Green Man obeyed, taking directions as she threaded him through streets and lanes while the hunters were always just out of sight, calling to one another; wondering why their drones kept crashing, or stumbling on comrades whose throats had been cut, although nobody knew how.
The buildings here were a crumbling nest of squats, zoned for demolition any day now so that yet more glass and steel could rise above the river.
The only working light on the street revealed a set of steps, with a door hanging from its hinges at the top.
‘Quickly,’ she told her companion. ‘In there. And put me down now.’
He did, and though it was pitch black inside, she was aware of him surreptitiously wiping his hands of her blood. Good.
Then, although he should have known better than to speak, the leader of the Twisted Fists, an organization little known for its squeamishness, couldn’t help whispering, ‘It stinks of death in here.’
‘Junkies,’ she told him. ‘Died in their sleep.’
That much was true, at least.
She knew nobody was outside yet, so she lit a match, crouching against the wall. Her bandages were completely sodden by now. Her blood oozed down onto a carpet of old needles and rat droppings. ‘Here,’ she whispered. ‘When I say, you must kick the w
all as hard as you can. Understand?’
She couldn’t read that wooden face, but the whole set of his body spoke of puzzlement. Still, she knew he would comply. Sure enough, when she cried ‘Now!’ his massive right leg swung forward with all the power of a cannon. The loosened bricks shot out of the wall at head height, pulping the men beyond despite the helmets they were wearing.
The Green Man ran to the door and Badb could read the shock in him at the results of his own handiwork. ‘Wait!’ she said. ‘Wait! Three more seconds.’
‘What? I—’
The explosion came from four streets away, and then screams followed and everything was on fire.
‘What … what was that?’
IRA Semtex. But there was no need to tell him that.
‘We can go,’ she said, allowing exhaustion to show in her voice. She really did need to regenerate soon, although she knew her irrational, younger self might not be up to the great work that lay ahead. ‘The path will be free now.’
‘How?’ he said, still bewildered. ‘How did you know?’
‘It’s in the name,’ said Badb. ‘Finder. I know things. I find things. Like escape routes. It’s who I am. What I am. I used to make a living off it. But … but I’m too hideous now.’
‘Not to me.’
She sighed. ‘Yet, even you … even you, a joker, wiped your hands of me.’
‘I—’
‘And I have nowhere to go now. But I’m glad … I’m glad I helped you. You’re the only one who ever stood up for us. So … so, I … will leave you in peace.’
‘But, Finder, where will you go?’
She allowed her shoulders to sag despite the way it rubbed the broken ribs together. ‘The sewers are good enough for me. It’s best I disturb you no further.’
He grabbed her arm, fiercely enough she thought it would pop from its socket – a great inconvenience. ‘No!’ he said. ‘No. Our whole organization would have died tonight without you. You must come with me. You deserve the gratitude of every joker in Britain.’
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