Knightley and Son (9781619631540)

by Gavin, Rohan

  “Aren’t I always?” said Tilly, and nodded to the scrap of paper in front of Darkus. “Better put that away before the doofus starts asking questions.”

  “Good idea,” replied Darkus.

  Outside the house, Bogna examined Clive with skeptical curiosity mixed with outright animosity. Clive parked on the street, colliding with a recycling bin, then got out of the Jag and walked up the driveway. The presence of the large Polish lady and the black Fairway cab parked in his spot would usually have prompted an outburst of some kind, but on this particu­lar day he only raised his eyebrows with distaste and continued up to the house.

  “Jackie? I’m home!” he said cheerfully.

  He marched through the door, looking up the staircase, then glancing into the living room. “Is that Alan’s car outside? Is Darkus back?” he called out. “Jax?”

  “We’re in here.” Her voice appeared from the kitchen.

  Clive’s face registered an odd combination of pleasure and something darker and more determined. His eyes moved without blinking, permanently staring into the middle distance. He checked his thatch of hair in the hallway mirror, then followed his wife’s voice, which sounded strangely far away.

  Clive wandered through the house, still experiencing a heaviness in the brows that slackened his entire face into a vacant frown. When he entered the kitchen, Tilly instinctively retreated away from him, expecting a barrage of anger and disbelief. What she got instead was completely unexpected.

  “Hello, Tilly,” he said casually. “Didn’t feel like school?”

  “Er . . . ,” she stammered, certain it must be a trick question. “Yeah. Well, I’m just helping Darkus with something.”

  Jackie started cleaning up the kitchen, clattering plates to break the awkward silence. “How was Homebase?” she asked tightly, barely able to conceal her annoyance.

  “Phen-omenal,” responded Clive. “And, Darkus . . . ,” he continued, turning to his stepson with a furrowed brow and a strangely intense expression. “How are you?”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, that’s very good to hear,” said Clive, his left eye twitching as he attempted a smile. “Very good indeeed.” His face looked like it was under anesthetic. The jaw muscles contorted but the smile failed to transpire.

  Darkus noticed a small ball of spittle on the corner of Clive’s lower lip. It appeared to be foaming like an aspirin dissolving in water. Strangely fascinated, Darkus couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  “Something’s wrong,” Tilly whispered across the kitchen table. Clive didn’t even hear her because his gaze was still fixed on Darkus.

  “Clive?” said Jackie. “Can I have a word in private?”

  “Hut!” Clive snapped, holding up his hand to demand silence. Jackie’s head spun, now supremely annoyed. Clive continued: “First me and Darkus are going to have a little talk. Upstairs.”

  “We are?” asked Darkus, finding Clive more mesmerizing than he ever imagined possible.

  “A little talk. Man to man,” said Clive, gently but firmly moving his stepson’s chair back from the table.

  Darkus stood up, not wishing to make a scene.

  “What’s all this about, Clive?” asked Jackie.

  “I’ll explain later,” he said enigmatically, and guided Darkus toward the door.

  As Darkus followed orders, Tilly got to her feet, sensing something was most definitely wrong, but not having the evidence to support it.

  Darkus shrugged and walked past the fridge, noticing a Post-it note stuck to the door among the various ornamental magnets and family photos. The Post-it read:

  The writing was Clive’s.

  Darkus’s nostrils flared, then he shook off the idea. Not Clive. It was too implausible.

  And yet, Clive clearly required self-help, and clearly suffered from attention deficit disorder. And the Combination would certainly have been very grateful to receive his call.

  It was not implausible. It was suddenly very plausible.

  Now that they were out of sight, Clive shoved him a little harder, nudging him up the staircase to the upper floor.

  “Where are we going?” said Darkus.

  “None of your beeswax,” Clive replied.

  Darkus decided it was not in his best interest to be left alone with Clive. If necessary, he would have to make a scene. He turned back on the stairs and opened his mouth to shout out, just as—

  The doorbell rang, drowning out his cry.

  “I’ll get it!” said Jackie.

  Clive reacted quickly, clamping a large, sweaty hand over Darkus’s face and maneuvering him onto the landing.

  “Wh—” Darkus shouted through the hand, feeling his feet being dragged across the carpet. “What’re you doing?”

  “If you could just be quiet, that would be fan-tastic.”

  Darkus struggled, trying to get a grip on the tracksuit, but Clive held him in a massive bear hug.

  In the entrance hall, Jackie went to the door and opened it to find a familiar figure on the doorstep.

  “Inspector Draycott,” she said impatiently.

  “Chief Inspector Draycott,” he reminded her.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Funny. I was just in the neighborhood, and I couldn’t help but notice Alan’s car in the driveway—”

  “I’ve noticed you’ve been in the neighborhood a lot lately,” she replied. “I’ve seen you through the kitchen window. If it’s Alan you’re after, I’m afraid he’s not here.”

  Draycott glanced over his shoulder at Bogna, who was still standing guard in the front garden. “Is that right?”

  “Yup.”

  “I can understand your reluctance to talk to me,” he continued, “but I assure you I’m only performing my civic duty.” He stroked his whiskers furtively. “If you’d just satisfy my curiosity about the rather large officer who relieved me of duty on my last visit . . .”

  One floor above, Clive manhandled Darkus past his bedroom, giving a view of the street with Draycott’s police car parked outside, containing two more officers. Clive’s eyes went wide at the sight of it, and he steered Darkus more aggressively toward the bathroom.

  Darkus complied, realizing his only chance of escape was to catch Clive off guard, when he least expected it. The catastrophizer went into overdrive, its cogs and gears engaging, churning out possible scenarios. The question was: if they’d gotten to Clive, what had they instructed him to do?

  “You’ve read it, haven’t you?” said Darkus, but got no response. “The Code, Clive.”

  “I know The Code,” recited Clive. “I know the meaning of fear . . .” He pushed Darkus backward into the bathroom.

  Darkus grabbed hold of the towel rack, which came away from the wall and thudded onto the bath mat, cushioning its fall and deadening the sound—downstairs they would still have no idea of the drama unfolding above them. Darkus lost his balance and fell backward into the bathtub in a parody of the unwilling bather. He scrabbled to get out again, looking for any kind of improvised weapon, until . . .

  Clive grabbed the shower hose and looped it around Darkus’s neck. Then he began to tighten the metal coil, pressing it into Darkus’s skin, which quickly became a bright red welt. Darkus’s hands flailed and grasped then they found the hot and cold water taps, and spun them to life. The shower hose expanded with water, loosening its stranglehold, and water ejected out of the nozzle into Clive’s face.

  “Blast!” Clive barked, recoiling.

  Darkus clawed at the tub, his shoes slipping on the enamel surface, until he managed to stand up.

  Clive instantly picked him up by the lapels and swung him against the mirrored bathroom cabinet with such force that one of its doors burst open and toothbrushes, deodorants, and aftershave bottles cascaded off the shelves, shattering on the floor. There was no disguising this noise.

  Downstairs, Jackie looked up from her conversation with Draycott and shouted: “Clive? Is everything all right up there?”

&nb
sp; Clive looked past the boy that he was now holding three feet off the ground, pinned to the bathroom cabinet. He looked past Darkus and into the mirror itself. And Clive saw himself—only it wasn’t himself. It was Clive 2.0, laughing maniacally from inside the mirror, his clothes and hair on fire, flames licking up the walls behind him.

  “No . . . !” he shouted at himself.

  Darkus felt Clive’s hands tighten around his neck; his feet kicked into space hopelessly. He could feel and smell Clive’s foul breath hyperventilating out of his gaping mouth. Clive’s pupils were dilated like voracious black holes, expanding and imploding.

  Darkus realized the catastrophizer was overheating, redlining, throwing valves, running on empty. The worst-case scenario had happened. Darkus was staring death in the face. Clive’s gaping features were surrounded by a halo of stars. Darkus knew this was just a hallucination because his brain was being starved of oxygen. Clive’s grip had blocked his carotid artery and compressed his airway. Darkus felt his lungs burning and his limbs draining of energy. Death was probably a minute away at most.

  It was at that moment that Darkus experienced a crashing wave of recollections, similar to those attributed to a drowning man. But instead of seeing his whole life flash before his eyes, Darkus’s mind seemed to fast-forward straight to the important parts. He saw his father looking down at him and realized how dearly he wanted to see him again, to continue where they had left off, to solve the case, and, most of all, to make up for all the years they’d lost. To be together again.

  That thought was quickly replaced by a more pragmatic one. If he wanted to see his dad again, he had to fight this battle with his stepfather on his own. He suddenly remembered the cardinal rule of Wing Chun: remain relaxed. He also remembered the theory of the one-inch punch: that in the correct state of complete relaxation and total focus, the fist only needs one inch to hit its target with a force equivalent to the practitioner’s own body weight. In Darkus’s case that was approximately ninety-two pounds. It wasn’t much, but directed at just the right spot, it might be enough. Instead of struggling, Darkus went limp and slowly positioned his fist on Clive’s center line.

  Clive thrust Darkus against the cabinet again, breaking the mirror. The insane image shattered, and the shards of Clive’s fractured personality fell away. Amid the hail of glass and bathroom items, Clive’s e-reader fell and hit him squarely on the head, then fell to the floor with The Code displayed on the cracked screen. Clive looked at it, spooked. His grip loosened, distracted for a moment, giving his opponent the advantage.

  In a split second Darkus punched forward, rotating his fist from a horizontal position to a vertical one, connecting directly with Clive’s solar plexus, the soft collection of nerves in the center of the upper abdomen. A gale of air was expelled from Clive’s mouth as he let go of Darkus, who instantly slumped to the floor.

  Clive staggered backward and doubled over, unable to breathe.

  At that moment, Jackie and Tilly opened the door to find Darkus on the floor, and Clive heaving against the wall by the toilet, both of them struggling for breath.

  “Darkus, are you okay?” shouted Tilly.

  Jackie’s eyes struggled to take in what she was seeing. “Clive! What’s going on?”

  Draycott appeared behind them in the doorway. “Leave this to the professionals,” he said, politely shoving them out of the way and marching in with an air of implacable authority. “Now, Clive. What seems to be the—”

  Clive suddenly reared up from behind the toilet bowl and headbutted Draycott, who toppled elegantly, like a controlled demolition, landing in a heap at Jackie’s feet.

  “Clive!” said Jackie in shock.

  “Sorry, dear,” he replied, looking bewildered.

  Draycott groped for his walkie-talkie and mumbled into it, “Request assistance. First-floor bathroom.” He wiped his mustache, finding blood on his finger. Through the window, on the street below, the doors of his police car flew open and two officers ran toward the house.

  Confused, Clive turned to Darkus, who was slowly getting his breath back, pushing down with his feet to slide himself back up the wall to an upright position.

  “Darkus, what happened to your neck?” said Jackie, then spun to Clive accusingly. “What did you do to him?!”

  “I-I think I might be having a breakdown.”

  “You think?” said Jackie sharply.

  Clive stared at her pleadingly as the two policemen raced up the stairs and burst through the doorway.

  “Inspector?” one of them asked hesitantly, finding their superior stretched out on the floor.

  “Chief Inspector,” whined Draycott. “Well, don’t just stand there. Arrest that man!” He jabbed a bloody finger at Clive. “And bring the whole lot of them in for questioning.”

  “No . . .” Clive struggled as the officers secured him in an armlock and manhandled him across the landing, his feet kicking in all directions.

  Jackie rushed over to Darkus and grabbed him around the shoulders. “What happened?”

  “It’s not his fault,” said Darkus.

  “What do you mean, not his fault?” demanded Draycott.

  Darkus nodded to the broken e-reader on the floor. “It’s The Code. Don’t read it, Mom. Get it out of the house. Destroy it.”

  Tilly nodded in agreement.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” blurted Jackie.

  “There’s no time to explain. Please, just do as I say.”

  Darkus left his mother behind and walked across the landing toward the stairs with Tilly in tow.

  Bogna was waiting in the entrance hall. “You are okay, Master Doc?” she asked.

  “Fine,” said Darkus. “But we need to get out of here.”

  As Clive was stuffed into the backseat of the police car, Bogna hopped into the Fairway and started the engine. Darkus and Tilly got into the back of the cab and closed the door. Bogna activated the central locking and lurched into reverse.

  “Halt!” Draycott shouted and stepped into the path of the backing cab. Bogna didn’t even see him, and for the second time that day Draycott was knocked elegantly to the ground, this time losing consciousness altogether.

  Jackie ran into the driveway, hopeless, only to see Darkus wave good-bye from the back of the cab.

  Darkus leaned forward and slid the divider open to talk to Bogna, and for the first time realized that he had no idea where to instruct her to go. His eyes fell on a London A–Z street map resting on the top of the dashboard. He looked at it intently. Tilly noticed his nostrils flare and his ears lift—all the telltale signs.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Bogna, would you pass me that, please?”

  Bogna passed the A–Z through the glass divider.

  Darkus pulled out the scrap of paper with the Combination on it:

  He quickly leafed through the street map to page 75. He ran his index finger over the grid references, finding 2 on the vertical axis and D on the horizontal one. His finger arrived at the appropriate grid square, which contained a cluster of small streets in central London, just off Piccadilly.

  “You cracked it!” said Tilly.

  “Not yet,” he replied. “It’ll take days to search all these streets.”

  “What about the number ten?” she said, referring to the last two digits. “Maybe it’s an address.”

  “Number ten . . . ,” Darkus recited to himself. “Number 10,” he realized.

  “What is it?”

  “This is Down Street,” he said, pointing to a short street in the center of the grid square. “It’s a Tube station.”

  “On what line? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “That’s because it hasn’t been in use since World War Two. It’s a ‘ghost station.’ Winston Churchill used it as a headquarters during the London bombing raids. He named it Number 10. Not Downing Street, but Down Street.”

  Chapter 26

  Down Street

  Bogna made
the trip to central London in record time, negotiating the bus lanes with ease. By her own admission, she was starting to enjoy driving Alan’s “taxi-car.”

  The meter read £1020.20 as the Fairway cab circled Hyde Park Corner and arrived on the wide swath of Piccadilly, lined with grand stone facades and exclusive hotels. To the north, the former mansions of London’s seventeenth-century elite were now home to upscale stores and private clubs. To the south, Green Park was buried under a carpet of autumnal leaves, its foliage reduced to a row of skeletal trees. The thoroughfare in the middle was awash with black cabs, one of which indicated right, but turned left, incurring the wrath of several motorists. This particular black cab then turned onto Down Street.

  Compared to its busy neighbor, Down Street was quiet and residential. The classical white stone was replaced by ordinary redbrick facades, lined with black railings.

  Darkus signaled to Bogna to pull over, seeing the former Tube station on their left, secreted within a row of apartment buildings. Although it was redundant and lacking any identifying signs, the station retained its trademark London Underground pillars and arches, decked out in ox-blood red glazed tiles. A drab-looking general store occupied the central archway. The archways on either side of it contained an entrance to a small alley and a narrow gray door with a warning sign on the front.

  Darkus set his phone to forward calls to Bogna’s cell phone and told her to stay put and wait for Uncle Bill. Darkus had called the hospital again on the way, and the nurses told him his uncle was still sleeping—but he couldn’t sleep forever, or at least Darkus hoped not. Bogna was to let Bill know exactly where they were and request reinforcements.

  “Just get Alan home in one pieces,” she said, making the sign of the cross.

  “I’ll do my best,” said Darkus, getting out of the cab and holding the door for Tilly to follow.

  The two of them approached the station. Darkus tried the narrow gray door, which was locked tight, while Tilly checked the alley entrance.