He sits before his mirror, reawakening his fluffy bouffant, reapplying his fake moustache and inserting the false teeth that will complete the disguise.
He has entered his room as author, detective and paranormal investigator and researcher, Fairfax Urban-Smith; he leaves it as Chase Gaimen, gentlemen’s gentleman about town.
With a wave of the hand and a cheerful, “yoo-hoo!” Chase hails a taxi on the Marylebone Road and instructs the driver to drive him to Wotney Street. The taxi waits with its motor running while Chase enters a pub, The King’s Elbow. He returns less than ten minutes later, after successfully purchasing several grams of cocaine and amphetamines, half a dozen tablets of ecstasy and a bottle of amyl nitrate.
Next stop is The Silver Dragon on Greek Street. The front of the club is decorated in green and gold, and is easily recognised by the neon sign in the shape of the eponymous beast standing regally upon its hind legs and breathing yellow neon fire.
It is early yet, and the club is quiet, but this suits Chase to a tee for he wishes to speak with the members of The Silver Dragon’s staff. The club is arranged over three floors, with a bar on each, and dance floors on the ground floor and first floor. There is a ‘quiet area’ on the second floor, where patrons may become better acquainted without needing to shout to be heard. It is here that Chase decides to make his initial enquiries. He buys himself a gin and tonic, and one for the barkeep, a slim young man with dark straight hair that falls down to his eyebrows yet is shaved at the sides and back as if for a practical joke. He sports pale lipstick and dark eyeliner, giving him a cadaverous look in the harsh fluorescent lighting.
“Isn’t it awful about Godfrey?” says Chase.
“Dreadful,” agrees the young man. “Were you a friend of his?”
“Occasionally.”
“I didn’t really know him myself,” admits the barkeep, “but he was very popular.”
It seems that Sir Godfrey was a regular Friday night patron of The Silver Dragon, dancing and drinking until the wee small hours, and invariably leaving with different gentlemen each week, sometimes two at a time. Chase finishes his drink and then circulates around the club, speaking to various members of staff and hearing the same from each; Sir Godfrey was something of a party animal, enjoying the high life and the company of like-minded gentlemen of all shapes, sizes and colours.
By nine o’clock, the club is becoming busy. Chase is a popular new addition to The Silver Dragon’s clientele, partly due to his impressive height and slim physique, but also due to his nimble footwork upon the dancefloor. He finds himself embroiled in conversation with several amorous suitors with whom he retires to the bathroom to share conversation and narcotics.
A private room has been booked for an exclusive invitation-only party, and Chase easily earns himself an invitation. Just after ten o’clock, he is led downstairs by a diminutive gentleman who introduces himself as ‘Big Kenny.’
In the basement, Chase is greeted by a group of about a dozen men in various costumes, including an Elvis Presley, an Adolf Hitler, and three separate Santa Claus’. At the rear of the room, two clothing racks are fairly bulging with a variety of costumes and uniforms. Big Kenny selects a unicorn for himself and a traffic warden’s outfit for his newest friend, Chase.
“You know, Chase,” giggles Big Kenny, “I’ve always had a thing for a man in uniform.”
*
“Tell me, Rupert; have you ever been made to dress as a traffic warden, then been violated by a dwarf in a unicorn costume?”
“Absolutely not,” I lied. “I have an allergy to unicorn fur.”
“Poor Rupert.” He eyed me sympathetically. “What a bleak existence you have endured. How do you find the courage to carry on?”
“One day at a time, Fairfax. One day at a time.” I withdrew a slice of toast from the rack and reached for the marmalade. “In the midst of this frenetic activity, did you discover a clue to the identity of Sir Godfrey’s killer?”
“Possibly, Rupert. It transpires that one of Sir Godfrey’s more regular liaisons was a fellow named ‘Dragon,’ who runs a tattoo parlour on Braxton Street, imaginatively titled, ‘Dragon Tattoos.’”
“Good Lord!” I spluttered. “That cannot be a coincidence. What do you know of this Dragon, or should I say, Dwagon?”
Urban-Smith paused momentarily to drain his teacup. No sooner had he done so than Mrs Denford scuttled over from the far side of the kitchen, teapot in hand, to refill his cup, and I found myself thinking, as I often did, how on Earth would we ever manage without her?
“The man is of impressive build,” Urban-Smith informed me, “broad of chest and belly, arms like oak trees, and tattoos from the crown of his shaven head to the soles of his great flat feet. My fellow partygoers described him as the archetypal bear.”
“Bear?” said I, unfamiliar with the term, although I did recall Urban-Smith having referred to Sir Godfrey’s bedroom as a bear-trap.
“A bear denotes a gentleman in the gentlemen’s gentlemen’s community who is of a distinctly masculine demeanour, often large and hirsute and, in the correct circumstances, perhaps rather cuddly.”
“You must tread carefully,” I cautioned. “This Dragon chappie could be a dangerous customer.”
“Nonetheless, if the trail leads to Dragon Tattoos, then that is where we must head.” He sipped at his tea. “Have you ever wished for a tattoo, Rupert?”
“Can’t say that I have. And you?”
“A tattoo is too readily identified. I rely on my ability to change my appearance at a moment’s notice and remain unrecognised as I probe the seedy underbelly of our great metropolis.”
“I have noticed,” said I, “that your nocturnal excursions invariably culminate in your disrobement.”
“Pure coincidence, I can assure you.”
“If you say so, Fairfax.”
“Oh, by the way, Rupert; Mr Hunt, of Hunt and Hunt solicitors, has forwarded me an e-mail from Utterly Legal Genetic Services.
“‘Dear Mr Hunt,’ it reads, ‘please find attached the results of your client’s paternity test. The test indicates that there is less than a 0.01% chance of a father-son relationship between the two parties. For legal purposes, this excludes your client from being the father of the second party.’
“Mr Hunt goes on to say, ‘I trust that this concludes the matter to your client’s satisfaction. If you have any further enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact me.’”
“Well then,” I said, rising from the breakfast table, “that would seem to settle it.”
“I’m not so sure, Rupert. There is something about this affair that seems a little peculiar.” He reached for his laptop and flipped it open. “However, there are more pressing matters to attend to, and I have no wish to make you late for your work.”
“Indeed, time is marching on,” I agreed. “I shall see you at suppertime.”
“Not tonight, I’m afraid, Rupert. I have been invited to dine with the Badgertons, and shall not be home before bedtime.”
“In that case,” said I, stepping carefully over Gonzáles, who had scuttled across the kitchen to retrieve an errant crust of toast, “I shall see you anon. Toodle-pip.”
*
Work was an unremarkable affair, with a handful of autopsies to perform before lunch, followed by an afternoon of routine paperwork. At five o’clock, I bade farewell to my colleagues and caught the number 30 to Baker Street Station, with the expectation of a peaceful evening upon the sofa without the company of Urban-Smith. However, as with all best laid plans, things were to quickly gang agley.
Each pathologist at the Unit is required to be part of an on-call rota, which meant that, one or two days a week, I was required to be available at any time of the day or night. Due to the nature of my duties, however, it was indeed rare that I should be summoned outside normal working hours, yet on this particular evening, that is precisely what occurred.
I had scarcely set foot across the threshold of number s
ixteen, Chuffnell Mews when the hallway was graced with REO Speedwagon’s Keep on Loving You. I hurriedly fumbled my mobile telephone from my pocket and retreated from Gonzáles’ frenzied yapping, which accompanied any visitation upon the threshold.
The telephone call was from the police despatch controller advising me that I was to make myself present at BBC Western House without due delay and report to the officer in charge of the scene, a Sergeant Benihill.
Mrs Denford graciously agreed to save me a serving of her ever-popular fish supper, and furnished me with a round of jam sandwiches, which I consumed as I hurried down Baker Street, onto the Marylebone Road, and then right at the underground station onto Great Portland Street.
It was already dark outside, and from as far back as Weymouth Street, the blue emergency lights were clearly visible touching upon the skyline. Unlike the adjacent Broadcasting House (a beautiful, elegantly designed building with a stunning curved façade, replete with a stunning statue of Prospero and Ariel recessed within its Portland Stone frontage), Western House is a grim, utilitarian monstrosity that looks to have been erected in order to draw the flies away from the neighbouring buildings. If anything, the ambience of the place was greatly improved by the strobing blue lights, temporary barricades, and red and white plastic tape that separated the building from the public.
The police had closed the road, and several police cars and two ambulances were parked in the vicinity. In addition to the obligatory crowd of onlookers, many of whom were recording the activity on their mobile telephones, several news crews were in attendance.
The London rain was just beginning to put in an appearance, and I drew my collar up as I approached the nearest uniformed officer and asked to be admitted to the scene. I presented my identification, and was allowed past the cordon and introduced to a squat, stern-faced policeman, who ushered me over to a nearby Fire Brigade lorry with the words, Operational Support Unit emblazoned upon the side. I climbed into the back and was issued with a shiny yellow plastic hazmat suit and respirator.
“What’s this in aid of?” I asked, but Sergeant Benihill was in no mood for preamble.
“Sixth floor,” he growled. “Take the stairs.”
I pulled the suit on over my clothes, hopped down from the back of the lorry and made my way to the entrance of Western House. Part of the lobby was cordoned off, and there were paramedics with face masks and plastic aprons checking the blood pressures and temperatures of the building’s occupants. I spied anxious faces, red eyes and tear-streaked make up, but more alarmingly, there were drawn, haggard looks amongst the attending police officers stationed about the lobby’s perimeter, and I was seized with a sense of dread and foreboding. Nobody challenged me as I approached the stairwell, and it was clear from the gazes that followed my passage across the floor that none were eager to follow in my footsteps.
Heavy with foreboding, I climbed the stairs. The stairwell reeked of the same oily, charred pungency that I had encountered at the abode of Kevin Ferno, but with a strong overtone of infection and decay. The stench worsened as I ascended, until I reached the sixth floor, where I was greeted by a police officer who directed me through the exit.
I pulled my respirator into position and peered along the main corridor, where several other persons in Hazmat gear stood gesticulating and muttering to one another. The floors and walls were covered with clear plastic sheeting, as was each door, save for a pair facing one another at the corridor’s far end.
I steeled myself and strode across the sheeted floor to introduce myself to the other parties, who indicated a glass door a few feet beyond and on my left. I paused at said door and peered through, but the inside of the glass was coated and smeared with a greasy, sooty residue, and I could make out little. Cautiously, I opened the door and entered.
I found myself in a sitting room of some description, complete with comfortable chairs, a sofa, a low table, and a coffee machine in the corner. The far wall was entirely of glass, likely affording a charming view of the surrounding London streets and high-rises, but the filth and grease had coated each pane, and all that was visible was a distorted kaleidoscope of lights from the surrounding streetlamps, shopfronts and neighbouring buildings.
Evidently, there had been considerable heat, enough to activate the room’s sprinkler system, and every surface was saturated and dripping. Even through my respirator’s carbon filter, there was no escaping the dreadful atmosphere, and I fought not to gag and retch as I squelched across the sodden carpet. Grease congealed upon the walls and ceiling, concentrated most strongly above the heat’s source, a prostate figure slumped upon a reclining chair near the coffee machine.
It was obvious that the body had been well ablaze; the skin of the head and arms was blackened and cracked, and the clothing hung in scorched tatters. The body itself had split open, and the burned intestines spilt out like a string of overdone sausages from the abdomen. There were no bloodstains upon the floor or the furniture, likely washed away by the torrential downpour from the overhead sprinklers. I noted with interest that the victim’s legs and feet appeared to have been unaffected by the heat, but the arms had become contracted and pulled tightly against the chest.
I was loathe to touch the body at this stage, and so contented myself with skirting the perimeter of the scene and limiting myself to a purely visual inspection. Even this cursory level of examination demonstrated a most bizarre pattern of tissue destruction, for beneath the scorched loops of intestine, much of the gut remained unburned, yet had liquefied and perforated in the abdominal cavity as if the body had been decomposing for several days.
I knew not what to make of it, and would learn nothing more until the remains were moved to the mortuary for autopsy. I wandered the room once or twice, trying to survey the scene through Urban-Smith’s eyes, but I could determine nothing of value, and quickly made my leave.
Directly opposite my destination, the door was wide open. One of the Hazmat team led me into an office with the desk and chairs pushed against one wall and covered with the same clear plastic that protected the corridor. Two pressurised cylinders squatted in the centre of the floor, each with a hose and spray attachment, and the covered floor was liberally coated with a thick, greenish liquid. I was instructed to rotate slowly, while my companion liberally doused me with green disinfectant from one of the pressurised cylinders.
“You can remove your suit in the corridor,” he said, “and place it into the clinical waste bin out there.” I did as I was told, then held my hands out while another of the team sprayed them with more disinfectant from an aerosol can.
“Don’t eat anything until you’ve washed your hands again,” she advised.
I gratefully made my way past the police guard and back into the stairwell, and rapidly descended to the lobby. There were still quite a number of people waiting in line to be examined by paramedics or to deliver a statement about the afternoon’s events to the.
“Pardon me,” I said, hailing a nearby constable and presenting my ID card. “I’ve just examined the victim. What do we know about them?”
The young man’s eyes widened in surprise. “Hasn’t anyone told you? That’s Chris Peabody.”
Well, dear reader, I scarcely need remind you that brash, bubbly, ginger-haired DJ, television presenter and presenter of radio 2’s afternoon drive-time show, Chris Peabody, was (and remains to this day) a household name, his ever-present grin and horn-rimmed spectacles instantly recognisable in every corner of the land.
“What on Earth happened?” I spluttered.
“Apparently, he was taken unwell shortly before he was due to begin his show. He went for a rest, and a few minutes later, the fire alarm was activated. When the fire brigade turned up, they found the body and called us.”
“Did anybody see what started the fire?” I asked.
“No. Nobody.”
I thanked the officer for his time and made my way out of the building, studiously ignoring the microphones and dictaphones being
thrust at me from all directions, and began to search for Sergeant Benihill.
“All finished, Doctor?” The man had sneaked up behind me, and I jumped like a jack-in-the-box at the sound of his voice at my shoulder.
“Yes, thank you,” I managed once I had regained my composure.
“What happened to him?” asked Sergeant Benihill.
“The poor man appears to have burst into flames. The heat has split him right down the middle.” I shook my head in despair. “Shocking! Dreadful!”
“What caused it, Doctor?” he insisted, but all I could do was shrug my shoulders.
“We’ll need to do the post-mortem before I can speculate.” I looked around at the onlookers and photographers. “How did the press arrive so quickly?”
“The station went off the air for several minutes when the alarm sounded. It caused quite a stir. First time that’s happened in a long time.”
The temperature had dropped, and I shivered as I drew my coat tightly about me. “You may move the body now, if you wish, Sergeant. I’ll speak to the mortuary; we’ll have the level-three biosafety lab prepped. Please ensure the Hazmat team follows isolation protocols.”
He thanked me and I departed, pushing my way through the gathered crowds and hurrying against the rain, impatient to reacquaint myself with Mrs Denford’s fish supper, followed by the warmth and comfort of my favourite chair.
*
That night, I dreamt that the house was ablaze, and despite my best efforts to extinguish the flames, they crept and grew until the fire had spread to the next house and the next and the next, and I knew deep in my heart that the fire would burn and spread and grow until the whole World was nought but ash.
*
11. Rekindled
Thursday the 1st February
Smoked Havoc Page 9