The station was home to men, women and children of all ages and races. A lot of the younger men and women were dressed in black biker leathers, much like Fat Joseph and his accomplices. Walker guessed that it was some kind of uniform, even for those who didn’t ride motorbikes. The elderly residents and the children were dressed differently – in more casual attire such as t-shirts, shorts and jeans – items that looked more comfortable, if a little tattered around the edges.
As he walked further inside, Walker had the feeling that he was intruding upon a massive community meeting taking place not in a town hall, but on the concourse of Liverpool Street Station.
All eyes fell upon the visitors.
Walker ignored the muted discussions going on around them as he and Barboza were led through the station.
Fat Joseph was looking into the crowds on either side, as if searching out a particular face. When Walker saw a smile creeping onto the fat man’s face, he guessed that he’d found his man. Fat Joseph veered off the path, towards a small group of people gathered outside what had once been a newsagent.
Fat Joseph touched one of the men on the shoulder. The man, who was dressed in the ubiquitous biker uniform, turned around.
“Couple of people here to see you Michael.” Fat Joseph said.
The man turned around and Walker recognised him immediately.
Michael King was a little heavier than Walker remembered. But that wouldn’t have been hard because Michael King had been a stick insect of a young man in 2011, when he’d been in his early twenties at most. He was about thirty years old now, still lean but no longer boyish. Long black dreadlocks fell down his back. He had a thick, impenetrable beard and if not for this, Walker would have suggested there was a strong resemblance between Michael King and the great reggae singer-songwriter, Bob Marley.
Walker recalled watching the man talking on TV during the London riots. He’d been impressed by how sharp, intelligent and articulate Michael King had been. After Chester George, it was Michael King who’d been the spokesperson for the rioters. Now, nine years later, it seemed like he was the man who ruled North London.
“What do we have here?” Michael King said, approaching them.
“Special visitors,” Fat Joseph said. “This young gentleman ’ere says he has some information that might interest you.”
“Oh really?” Michael said, looking at Walker. “Have you got some information that might interest me?”
Walker nodded.
“Says he knows the name of the bastard that shot Chester George,” Fat Joseph said.
There was an uncomfortable silence. At first Walker thought his information wasn’t as valuable to Michael King as Fat Joseph had suggested it was. Maybe Michael King didn’t care after all these years about who shot Chester George. Maybe he’d moved on and Walker had nothing of value to sell. Maybe he wouldn’t get his information after all.
But then Michael King smiled. He ended that long silence with a loud greeting that almost everyone in the building could hear.
“Welcome to Liverpool Street Station,” he said. As he spoke, he raised a hand into the air, gesturing to the building around them with an outstretched finger.
“Did you know this station was built upon the original site of Bethlem Royal Hospital?” he said. “It’s quite the historical location, not that anybody cares about stuff like that anymore. Except me. As time passed, the hospital became better known as Bedlam. It was one of the oldest mental institutions in the world, built in 1247 by Christians to shelter and care for homeless people. As the years passed, its focus primarily turned to those who were considered mad. From there on, it became an infamous place, particularly for its harsh treatment of the mentally ill. What could be more appropriate?”
Fat Joseph smiled. “Now you folks know where you are,” he said. “This is Bedlam.”
“Bedlam?” Walker said. “I thought you called this place Station.”
“This is Station,” Michael King said. “Joseph is talking about the territory that you’re standing in. The entire northern half of London, everything from the river up to the M25 – that is Bedlam. That’s the name we’ve given it because this city belongs to the people now. There is no longer any east or west – only north of the river and south of the river. There’s only Bedlam and the Hole. You didn’t know?”
“We’ve been in hiding for a long time,” Barboza said.
Michael King nodded. “A wise choice.”
Walker looked at the hundreds of people who were scattered across the concourse. “Are these the Good and Honest Citizens?” he said. “From 2011?”
“We are the Bedlamites,” Michael King said. “Some of us here were once part of the Good and Honest Citizens movement. But that’s a name that we no longer use.”
“Why not?” Barboza asked.
Michael King sighed. “That name died with Chester George. It’s not 2011 anymore my friend.”
Walker nodded. He was trying to concentrate but it was damn hot under the roof of the station. He felt a single, excruciating bead of sweat running down his back. There was sweat gathering on his brow too, something that probably made him look suspicious to Michael King and Fat Joseph, who were still sizing up the newcomers.
“So what are the Bedlamites?” he asked, trying to think of something to say.
Michael King looked at him, a slightly puzzled look on his face. “You really have been in hiding, haven’t you?” he said.
“Aye,” Walker said.
“The Bedlamites are the largest gang in the north,” Michael King said. “Bedlam is our territory – everything that lives and breathes north of the river is ours – one way or another. Station is our base, our HQ. Some of us live here in the old train station itself, while others live out of the hotel next door. There are a couple of trains still on the platforms. Some people live in the carriages and there are even a few of us who like to sleep down in the underground with the spirits.”
Walker looked around. “Did everyone come here after Piccadilly?”
“Far from everyone,” Michael King said. “Most people with their wits still intact tried to get out the city when they heard about the super barriers that were being built. But those of us who were too late – who realised we were trapped, well we got organised. We founded this refuge on the site of the old hospital and over time it’s become home to a lot of people. Not everyone, but a lot. We’ve grown to become a large, functioning family. I much prefer that word – family.”
A little boy was standing behind Michael King, having crept up quietly while the Bedlamite was speaking to Walker and Barboza. He must have been about eight or nine years old at most and his wide eyes were almost buried beneath a mop of floppy brown hair that wasn’t far from being a bowl cut. He was using Michael King’s body as a barrier, tucking himself behind the man’s legs, peering out at Walker and Barboza. His eyes were glued in particular, to the axe in Walker’s hand.
“Charlie!” a woman’s voice called out, from further down the station.
Walker looked behind the boy and saw a forty-something woman running down the pathway towards them. Her short brown hair, which was slightly greying at the sides, bounced gently at the sides as she ran. The woman – dressed in a dark t-shirt and black jeans – crept up behind the boy, glanced at Walker and Barboza shyly, then wrapped her arms around his waist and planted a kiss on his cheek.
The boy turned around and greeted her with a smile. Then he turned his attention back to Walker’s axe.
“Don’t sneak up on people like that Charlie,” the woman said, speaking softly into his ear. “This conversation is between Michael and the visitors. It’s got nothing to do with us, okay? Eavesdropping is bad.”
Michael King turned around, greeting woman and child with an affectionate smile.
“It’s okay Carol,” he said. “Children are curious creatures. And who are we to interfere with the nature of a child?”
Carol smiled. She stood up straight, took Charlie by th
e hand and led him back down the path in the centre of the concourse. As they walked away, the boy turned his head back several times, looking at Walker and Barboza as if they were the most fascinating things he’d ever seen.
“I envy the children,” Michael King said, watching them go. “The ones who were born after Piccadilly. They have nothing else to remember.”
“Aye,” Walker said. “I can’t help but feel sorry for them myself.”
“Carol is Charlie’s guardian,” Michael King said. “Carol has been with us a long time, almost since the beginning. Charlie is a more recent addition, but he’s definitely part of the family now. Both their lives have been difficult – but they’re much better off having found each other.”
Michael King looked at Walker. “So you were at Piccadilly?” he asked.
Walker nodded. “Front row seats.”
Michael King took a slow, deep breath. It was like he was meditating standing up. “You know his name?”
“I do,” Walker said. “And I know that you caught up with him by the fountain that day. Right after he shot Chester George.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because he was about to shoot me,” Walker said. “Don’t you remember? He was pointing a gun at my face just before you caught up with him. Lucky for me, that gun was empty or I wouldn’t be standing here today.”
Michael King closed his eyes for a second.
“Yes,” he said. “I saw him pointing a gun at someone. You?”
“Aye,” Walker said. “I knew him, just for a short while. He lived on your estate. But you don’t remember his name?”
“Like you say,” Michael King said. “He was a kid on our estate. I knew his face but that was all. Moody little man, built like an ox. Never could remember what they called him. God knows I’ve tried, especially in the first few years after it happened. But I never could remember.”
“Hatchet,” Walker said.
Michael King’s face lit up, as if someone had just handed him a map to lost treasure.
“Of course,” he said.
“I’m looking for him,” Walker said. “That’s another reason we came out of hiding. But I had to come here first. I had to make sure you didn’t kill him that day.”
“If Hatchet is dead,” Michael King said. “It wasn’t by my hand. More’s the pity.”
“What happened that day?” Walker said.
“We fought by the fountain,” Michael King said. “I was going to kill him no matter the cost to myself. I didn’t care about the crowds or the chaos. Killing him – that was going to be the last thing I ever did and it’d be the best thing I ever did. And I got a hold of him but the fight didn’t last long. There were too many people – it was like we were lying in the middle of a stampede as the world lost its mind. We could have been – should have been – crushed to death. But it wasn’t to be – he managed to wriggle out of my grasp. He was strong. I saw him disappearing into the crowd and tried to go after him but there were too many people blocking the way. It was only after I lost sight of him that my self-preservation instincts turned back on. Suddenly I didn’t want to die so like everyone else, I tried to get out of there.”
“I’m going to find him,” Walker said. “I’m going to make him pay for it. For everything.”
“You think he’s in the Hole?” Michael King said.
Their conversation was interrupted by a child’s voice.
“Anybody want a sandwich?”
Walker looked to his left. It was the little boy, Charlie. He’d returned and this time, he was carrying a plate of sandwiches in both hands – an assortment of white and brown bread cut diagonally – the same way that Walker’s mother used to cut sandwiches. Just the way he liked them.
Carol was a few paces behind the boy. She was carrying a tray with two glasses of something that looked like orange juice.
Walker’s body ached with thirst and hunger.
“Charlie,” Michael King said. “Your timing is impeccable as always my boy. It looks like a late lunch is in order for our guests.”
Charlie stood there, holding onto the plate of food with one hand. With the other, he tugged nervously at the Tottenham Hotspur football t-shirt he was wearing.
The boy was staring at Walker’s axe again.
“You’ve travelled far enough for one day,” Michael King said. “Stay here in Station tonight as our special guests. Take some food and rest. Then pick up your journey in the morning with my blessing. Find Hatchet and kill him – come back and tell me all about it.”
Walker shook his head. As much as the offer appealed to him, he wasn’t comfortable about the idea of hanging around in a place with so many people. He was already starting to feel dizzy. Too many faces, too much noise.
“Thanks for the offer,” he said. “But I think we’d prefer to keep moving. Try and cross the river before…”
Michael King raised a hand in the air, like he was about to take a vow.
“Rest,” he said. “I insist my friends. Staying here with us tonight is better than being out there on the streets. Nowhere is safe tonight, north or south.”
“What do you mean?” Walker said.
“We can protect you in here,” Michael King said. “This is perhaps the one place in London where you are guaranteed to be safe tonight.”
Walker gave the handle of his axe a gentle squeeze.
“I’d like to leave,” he said.
Michael King shook his head. “No,” he said. “You’re going nowhere.”
Chapter 7
“You won’t let us go?” Walker asked.
His eyes darted back and forth across the station, searching for signs of an alternate exit. There had to be something – Liverpool Street Station had been a major transport hub back in the day. There had to be more than one way out of the building. But wherever they were, there was also the small matter of getting through all these people, finding the exit, and then not getting caught as they made their escape through the streets of London. Or Bedlam, or whatever it was called now.
Jesus Christ, it was so hot. Walker felt like his head was going to explode.
But Michael King shook his head, smiling at the two visitors as he did so.
“Please don’t misunderstand my friends,” he said. “Let me clarify. If you truly wish to go then nobody here will stop you. But I don’t recommend it.”
“No?” Walker said.
“Put it this way,” Michael King said. “You’ve picked quite the day to go travelling my friends.”
“What’s so special about today?” Barboza said.
Michael King stretched out a small clump of beard hair between his forefinger and thumb. He looked at it thoughtfully for a moment. Walker got the feeling he was stalling for time, trying to think of the right thing to say.
“If I let you go,” he said. “You’ll both be dead by morning. And if you’re not dead, you’ll wish that you were.”
Walker and Barboza glanced at one another.
“Why?” Walker asked him.
“The bad men are coming,” Charlie said.
Walker had almost forgotten that Charlie was there.
“When the bad men come, we don’t go outside.”
“Charlie,” Carol said, kneeling down beside the little boy, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Maybe you should let Michael explain.”
Michael King looked at the boy and smiled. “Actually Carol,” he said. “I think Charlie explained it rather well. You can always trust a child to tell the truth.”
“I still don’t get it,” Walker said. “What’s going on? Why shouldn’t we leave?”
“Run along Charlie,” Michael King said. “Why don’t you and Carol go and help Joseph fill up the bikes with petrol?”
Fat Joseph bent down and lifted Charlie over his head like the boy was the FA Cup and he was the team captain holding the trophy aloft.
“We can’t fill up the bikes without little Charlie, can we?” Fat Joseph said, w
alking away from the others. “Let’s go get ’em boy. Give ’em a drink.”
Fat Joseph – with Charlie now sitting on his shoulders – and Carol marched along the concourse. They went back up the stairs towards the front entrance and disappeared through the door that led onto Bishopsgate.
“Charlie’s a good boy,” Michael King said, after the others had left. “Very curious like all children of course. But while we believe it’s important to be truthful with our children, we do keep some of the truth from them. The worst parts.”
“Like what?” Walker asked.
“Like the precise details of what’s happening tonight,” Michael King said. “All Charlie and the other children know for sure is that the bad men are coming up from the south to do bad things. And that we stay out of their way.”
“What’s happening?” Walker asked. “What do the bad men do?”
Michael King looked back and forth between them. Clearly this wasn’t a comfortable topic for him to discuss.
“First you must understand that certain allowances have been made in order to preserve peace between the people in the north and south,” he said. “Nobody wants a war, not us and not them. So we do what we can in order to co-exist. Compromise. That’s how it works – at least for now.”
“I don’t get it,” Walker said. He looked at Barboza, who didn’t look half as confused as he felt.
“Have you ever heard of the Big Chase?” Michael King said.
Walker looked at Michael King and shook his head. “No.”
“The Big Chase – that’s what’s happening tonight. The Ghosts of London are coming north for their annual hunt here.”
“Oh shit,” Barboza said.
Michael King gave Barboza a curt nod. “So you’ve heard of them? You know what I’m talking about?”
Barboza glanced at Walker. She had guilty eyes, like she’d just been caught saying something she shouldn’t.
“Sort of,” she said quickly, turning back to Michael King. “That is, I met someone up north once who was trying to get as far way from the Hole as he could. He’d travelled across the city from top to bottom. He told me about the Ghosts of London. I didn’t want to believe such things were real, but I guess they are, right?”
The Future of London Box Set Page 42