The Liberators

by Philip Womack

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ said Miranda, and they began to bicker.

  Ivo looked up. ‘You don’t have to help me if you don’t want to,’ he said, somewhat snappily, and then regretted it, and then they all started arguing.

  ‘Look,’ said Felix, ‘I know it’s important to you but I’m not going to spend my free time trawling through papers. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I want to go to the cinema. I want to go swimming. I want to hang out. I want to play on my PS2. I want to do loads of things. I mean really. What do you think, we really believe you, that some weird object told you to come here? FIN!’ He went to the mantelpiece. ‘Or did you expect something else? Did you think you’d push one of these and then something would happen?’ He pushed and pulled at the fish on the mantelpiece, angrily. ‘See. Nothing.’

  ‘Well, it was your stupid idea anyway,’ Ivo snapped back.

  Silence enveloped the room, and Ivo felt the hugeness of the exercise bearing down on him. Maybe Felix was right – there was no point. Whatever mystery Blackwood had entrusted him with would have to remain that. There was no way he could find out. He put down the folder he was looking at. He would never uncover what had caused his death, never put a stop to the dreams that haunted him.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s no use. Let’s go.’ He got up without looking at Felix.

  ‘Oh Ivo . . .’ said Felix.

  Miranda, meanwhile, had been fiddling with the mantelpiece. ‘Wait!’ she said, looking at the fireplace again. She frowned. ‘Have you still got that thing – what was it, that said FIN on it?’

  Ivo took it out of his pocket and held it out.

  ‘Look!’ Miranda grabbed Ivo by the sleeve and pulled him to the fireplace. She felt carefully over the fish again, and then her forehead creased, she took the object and fitted it neatly into a small depression on the underside of the mantelpiece. It clicked in, quite satisfyingly, and three letters, F I N, began to glow on it. Miranda turned to Ivo with a widening grin. ‘Listen!’ she said, and stood back; there was a groaning sound, and a crack appeared in the mantle; the two huge heraldic fish on either side of it moved in opposite directions. The crack widened and opened to reveal a television screen.

  Letters appeared on it:

  .

  F I N

  Which slowly morphed into:

  FREEDOM

  IS

  NOTHING

  The screen coalesced into a uniform white, and then images began to play on it. A young man appeared, gaunt, angular, tired.

  ‘Blackwood!’ exclaimed Ivo.

  ‘Freedom is Nothing,’ said Blackwood, as if it were an incantation, or a greeting. ‘You have the Koptor.’ His voice was haunted, his eyes wide. ‘We are FIN. We exist to stop the Liberators,’ said Blackwood. ‘Use the Koptor. If you have found this message, give the Koptor to Hunter. Stop them. We are the force of control. They are the force of chaos. You must stop them.’ Blackwood’s face vanished and was replaced by a series of confused images.

  A band of soldiers wielding swords charged across a plain. ‘They inspire madness,’ came Blackwood’s voice over the top. There were shots of villages, smoke pouring out of the houses, and of a crazed-looking man holding a meat cleaver dripping with blood. ‘Madness, loss of control. Throughout the centuries they have worked to sow chaos.’ The scene changed to one of tanks rumbling across battlefields, and war-ravaged towns, and bombs; screams echoed from the speakers; a woman ran across, blood pouring down her face, mouth open in pain. ‘Excess is their watchword. The end of everything is their goal.’ Felix, Miranda and Ivo each shivered with horror; Miranda put her hand to her face, and Felix held her by the shoulders; Ivo stood a little aloof, almost transfixed by the screen.

  ‘Freedom is Nothing,’ said Blackwood again, and disappeared; the two carved fish glided back into their places in the mantelpiece, where they looked as if they were nothing but ornamentation, not strange messengers from a stranger world.

  Felix, Miranda and Ivo all sat down at once, speechless.

  ‘So that’s it,’ said Ivo. ‘That’s who killed Blackwood. They were on to him. The Liberators. The Koptor. That’s what we heard, in the tunnel. It all fits. So now . . . Now we have to stop them. Unless you want . . .’

  Felix said, ‘Hey, look, Ivo –’ But Ivo spoke over him.

  ‘It’s OK, don’t worry, there’s no way I could have expected you to . . .’ He stopped, unsure how to continue, and Felix moved in awkwardly, and hugged him.

  Miranda made a gagging sound. ‘God, honestly, you boys are worse than girls.’

  ‘So we’re OK?’ said Ivo. There were sounds of assent from Miranda, and Felix drew his brows together, pursed his mouth and made the slightest of nods.

  They resumed their search vigorously, a clear aim in mind. ‘Hunter. He said find Hunter. An address book,’ Ivo said, ‘a letter, something, there must be something.’ They continued their search until the clock rang out three times, and Felix said, ‘I’m so hungry.’

  ‘Is that all you ever think about?’ said Ivo.

  ‘Well, I am!’ he said, plaintively. ‘I think I’ve got a tapeworm or something . . .’

  ‘Shall we go and get something to eat? Maybe there’ll be something in the kitchen . . .’

  ‘No need. Got it!’ said Miranda, tossing her elegant head back, brushing her hair behind her ear, from which some small earrings jangled and clanked. ‘It’s a letter from one Alice Hunter. Her address is at the top. It’s in Kensal Rise.’

  ‘God – that’s miles away,’ said Felix. ‘We can’t go now – we’ve got to get back or Ma’ll be furious. Perkins has got his day off, after all. He’s probably off slinking in some rank hole somewhere.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Miranda. ‘You’re making me feel ill.’

  ‘That man is evil, I swear,’ said Felix.

  So clutching the letter from Hunter, they let themselves out of Blackwood’s house and got back on the bus in the opposite direction.

  ‘Can you remember what Blackwood said to you on the platform?’ asked Miranda when they were on it.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ivo. ‘But I don’t really understand it. He said “koptay thurson”, whatever that means.’

  Felix’s eyes glittered with excitement, and, balancing his bony face on his hand, he said, ‘That’s Greek. It must be. Can you write it down?’

  ‘Felix loves Greek,’ said Miranda.

  ‘Shut up,’ Felix said, poking her in the ribs.

  ‘He does!’

  ‘OK, I do,’ said Felix, smiling a little. ‘Go on, write down what the syllables were.’

  Ivo searched in his pockets, found a receipt, and Miranda found a pen in her bag; Ivo wrote, in big letters:

  .

  KOP-TAY THUR-SON

  ‘You know what I think that is?’ said Felix. ‘It’s this.’ Underneath he added some squiggles in the Greek alphabet:

  .

  ‘But what does it mean?’ asked Ivo. ‘I’ve only done a bit of Greek.’

  Felix stared at it for a while. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that the second word is a noun – it’s got a noun ending. And the first word is a verb. I think it’s from the verb kopto. That means “I cut” or “I break”. And kopte means “cut” or “break” – it’s an order, a command, like when you’re telling somebody to do something. And a thyrson – or thyrsos it would be called, you know the endings change in Greek? – it’s a kind of, stick I guess, that the maenads carried.’

  ‘What are maenads?’ asked Miranda.

  ‘Followers of the god Bacchus,’ replied her brother, ‘idiot. Women who went into frenzies in his honour. They tore things apart – animals, even humans. Did you not know?’

  ‘Break thyrsos,’ said Miranda, ignoring him. ‘It sounds even more con
fusing in English. Well done though, old brother of mine, you’ve done well there.’ She patted him somewhat condescendingly on the head.

  ‘Cool. So the Koptor . . . that would mean, something that breaks things?’

  Felix nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess so. It doesn’t sound proper Greek, but it could be a kind of slang or shorthand or something – maybe a nickname for something that breaks.’ They were reaching Park Lane, the bus was crowded. Music blared from somebody’s headphones, and some schoolchildren pushed their way down the stairs.

  ‘Break the staff?’ said Ivo. ‘But what on earth does that mean?’

  Felix shrugged. ‘I just don’t know,’ he said, and turned to look out of the window.

  .

  Chapter Eight

  They parted at Charmsford Square, arranging to meet the next day to go to Hunter’s house in Kensal Rise, and Ivo made his way back to his aunt’s, where he managed to sneak in without being seen. He spent the rest of the afternoon lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, twisting what he now knew to be the Koptor around in his hands. Wind rustled leaves outside in swirls of black and brown. The sun that day had tinged the clouds with an edge of crimson, as if the sky itself had been pierced. Koptor . . . koptay thurson. His spirits were heavy and his brain slow. His dreams had been haunted by the images from the tube playing like a stuck video; now they were endless, shifting, formless masses. Later, he shambled along the corridors and asked Lydia for a sleeping pill; she gave him one, reluctantly, and soon Ivo had fallen gratefully into oblivion.

  When he eventually loomed out of sleep the next morning, it was nearly twelve o’clock. He noticed a pattering at the window, steady, cold and relentless; he had forgotten to close the curtains, and grudgingly he got out of bed and pulled them together, then managed to get himself down to the kitchen.

  Ivo was wondering how people coped in war zones. How could you deal with seeing somebody torn apart? The human brain wasn’t equipped for that sort of thing, he thought. Although it must have been once; in early times, when men crawled out of caves and hunted ferociously and ruthlessly, then we must have been programmed for blood, he thought. Maybe what they had seen on the video was what everyone wanted – to be liberated from themselves. He could see that it was a seductive thought and shuddered.

  As Ivo made his way down to the kitchen, his thoughts turned to his peaceful first term at school, so safe, so untouched, hidden in its fortified turrets, ancient and calm, like a benevolent giant. It perched in the middle of a valley, near to a river, and cast a glow over all the surrounding countryside. But now his memories seemed unreal, as if he had dreamed them, and he had a sudden longing for his tiny cubicle with its posters and books and music. He remembered Ballard, the boy who had the room next to his, and how he’d played cricket in the corridors, and all the slow, comfortable ritual he’d grown used to.

  Ivo found Lydia in the breakfast room in a state of some excitement. She was standing – she never seemed to sit these days – with her mobile pressed to one ear, a landline held dangling from the other; her laptop, humming along on its wireless connection, displayed several open emails, whilst roosting next to it was a pile of important – and rather boring-looking – correspondence.

  ‘Hold on,’ she said into the mobile, and gestured at Ivo, pointing with her elbow to a large envelope on the table. ‘When you’ve eaten something, dear Ivo, take that to Julius, will you? It’s the proof of the menu. I want to make sure he likes it. He lives on South Audley Street, or is it South Molton Street? You can walk there, I think, or there might be a bus or something, don’t you think?’

  Ivo nodded, and Lydia resumed her conversation into both telephones and began tapping at the laptop. Ivo remembered Olivia Rocksavage’s message about the party, and wrote it down on a piece of paper, putting it on top of Lydia’s pile of correspondence, and then he pondered. Deliver something to Julius – Ivo wasn’t sure if he wanted to come into contact with that man again, who seemed to have such power – real, tangible power. It seemed as if reality was, somehow, affected by Julius, in a way that was not entirely pleasant, and Ivo felt that he would be afraid to be alone with him. He plucked up the courage to speak.

  ‘Do I have to?’ he said when Lydia was between calls, his voice a little more dejected than usual. He knew that he was bound, whilst he stayed with his aunt and uncle, to be as polite as possible to them; but Lydia directed a glance past him which showed that she was pretending she had not heard what he’d said and dialled another number.

  Christine came in with tea and toast, and put it down in front of Ivo. He consumed it swiftly, allowing Lydia’s chatter to buzz around him. ‘Do we want the nymphs to pour drinks? . . . What about the living statues? . . . How much security will we have? . . . Do we have Charles and Camilla? . . . Our guests will want a little freedom, after all . . . Well you know, darling, I’ve found all this so liberating, I mean I love the studio, but it’s so limiting, don’t you think, and dear Julius has given me such a new slant on things . . .’

  Ivo looked at Christine, who was taking away some plates.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked quietly.

  She half turned to him. She looked as if she hadn’t slept, and her eyes were puffy and red.

  ‘Yes . . . yes, I am. Do not worry about me. It was a shock, that is all. It was horrible . . . a madman . . . Who could have done such a thing?’ She trembled and the plates shook; Ivo leaped up, offering to help, but she shook her head, eyes downcast, and left the room.

  Lydia glanced at Ivo in a disapproving manner, which he took to mean that she wanted him to clear off, so he got up grudgingly, found an A–Z, and set out in the rain. Luckily the envelope was inscribed with Julius’s address, and he found it on the map without any difficulty.

  It wasn’t so bad, and he enjoyed feeling the coolness of drizzle on his skin. He sent a text message to Felix, and walked slowly down towards Oxford Street. Julius lived on the other side of it, on South Audley Street, and it didn’t take Ivo long to get there, dodging as he did through the dawdling tourists and the frantic Christmas shoppers on their lunch hours. He sought gaps, sliding past women with shopping bags and on to the relative calm of Julius’s street.

  When he arrived at the address, he saw a flight of stone steps leading up to a huge double door, which was painted black. The doorknocker was in the shape of a lion, and there was a shoe-scraper set into the wall by the side of the doorstep. Ivy grew up around the door, and there were hanging baskets spilling over with abundant greenery. Hesitantly, he buzzed the bell, and it was a few seconds, as Ivo stood uncomfortably, head bent into the speaker, before its strange crackle announced a voice, which said simply, ‘Who?’

  ‘Er . . . Ivo . . . Ivo Moncrieff,’ said Ivo. ‘For Julius,’ he added, as an afterthought.

  There was no reply, and for a moment Ivo thought that he wouldn’t be admitted; a police car rushed past, some raucous teenage girls sashayed by; then the door clicked and swung inwards at his touch.

  He was in a large entrance hall, which had a sofa in it and a semicircular table next to the wall, on which stood an imposing vase of flowers. There were plants everywhere, so many that it looked as if they were growing out of the ground. A great marble staircase was directly ahead of him.

  Ivo set foot on the bottom stair and cautiously climbed up, holding the banisters for support. Wreaths of ivy leaves grew up and around. It was unpleasant to the touch, so he took his hand off and continued to walk unaided.

  At the top of the staircase there was a door which opened straight on to the top stairs. As he came nearer, it was flung open to reveal in the frame Julius – so still, so like a mannequin, his hewn features set in that civilised face; he looked to Ivo like some god who’d taken the wrong turning and appeared in the wrong century. He was encased in a three-piece suit, his hair artfully disarranged, his eyes – those changing, liquid eye
s – seeming purple, almost as if they were not a part of Julius, but some remnant from the wild and savage past.

  Ivo was transfixed, and unable to speak; when Julius opened the door wider and made the slightest of gestures to allow him in, Ivo scampered past like a frightened goat.

  Standing in the middle of the room, Ivo could not prevent himself making a sound of appreciation. Hearing the door shut behind him, he turned to see Julius, immobile, arms folded.

  ‘Well, what did you expect?’ said Julius.

  The room was huge, cave-like, almost domed; large windows at either side let in the grey light, which seemed, upon entering, to take on a different, more magical hue; this was a room of shadows, of gold, of hidden wonders and luxuriant riches.

  Carpets of Persian design caressed the polished wooden floors, their muted colours playing like a kaleidoscope. Furniture crowded and jostled, each piece holding some object – a horse’s hoof mounted, some horrifying long-nosed Venetian masks, a statue of a woman, frozen in mid-flight, invitation cards, some gilded little jewelled boxes that whispered ‘Open me’, vases made of china so thin it was almost translucent; there were books bound in every colour conceivable, paintings, exquisite clocks, jars of pickled embryos, a tiny, winged skeleton, of no species that Ivo had ever seen or heard of.

  ‘So, Ivo Moncrieff,’ said Julius, very carefully, and Ivo started, for he was at his elbow, ‘what brings you to the house of Julius Luther-Ross?’ Ivo thought, for a moment, that he had heard an edge of the foreign in Julius’s voice, but when he spoke again, it had gone.

  Ivo thought about Strawbones and the snake. I proved myself to him, he thought. I can do the same with Julius. He tensed his back and raised his chin, saying stiffly, ‘Lydia sent me.’ He held out the envelope. Julius took it without saying thank you, without even looking at it, and tossed it so that it landed on a desk beside some writing things. Julius walked behind Ivo, and towards a set of shelves, on which the horse’s hoof stood. He made no noise when he moved.