‘Stop!’ yelled somebody. ‘Stop!’ It was Perkins, pushing his glasses back, and he advanced upon the two brothers. ‘You can’t do that! I have devoted my life to you!’
‘Then we will take you with us,’ snarled Strawbones, and leaping up, he hobbled towards Perkins and grabbed him with his remaining arm and tore into him with his teeth. Perkins tried to escape: Ivo saw the horror in his eyes. But Strawbones had broken his neck with one snap; he tossed him nonchalantly aside as if he were no more than a toy. Ivo looked around again.
The Acolytes had all fallen to their knees; people were streaming out of the gallery; outside, police cars and armed police vans had drawn up and officers in riot gear were storming the building. Through every door they poured, soon the room was swarming with men in battledress, looking like black robots, truncheons and guns bristling all over them. An official shouted through a megaphone; the guests, frightened and shivering in their evening clothes, were corralled out; stretchers were brought in and several people were carried out.
The room was in confusion. Paintings had fallen to the ground; a chandelier had shattered; tables had been overturned. Paramedics were checking through the debris, searching for the injured. Several officers surrounded Julius and Strawbones, pressing in front of Lydia, Jago, Ivo, Miranda, Felix and Hunter. When they tried to move in, Hunter shouted, ‘Don’t!’ and the officers backed away, staring in fascinated, disgusted horror at the savagery in front of them. Perkins’ mutilated corpse lay to one side.
Strawbones was the last to die. He was nothing now, a stump of a creature, his head thrown back, his eyes opened wide, green and shining, and they looked at Ivo and they laughed.
.
Chapter Twenty
Ivo opened his eyes and saw, bending over him, a long tangle of yellow hair. He tensed all over. Strawbones, he thought. He’s come back to get me. He’s come back to life. He was enveloped by terror, paralysed. Then the head moved and, shaking the hair away, the smiling face of Miranda was revealed. She sat down heavily on his bed, and reached across to him. ‘Ivo . . . it’s OK, it’s finished,’ she said, whispering.
‘Miranda!’ Ivo grabbed hold of her, and she hugged him back tightly.
A chuckle came from the other side of the room and Ivo looked up to see Felix. ‘You two getting on all right, then?’
‘Shut up, Felix!’ said Miranda, but softly.
Ivo realised that he was panting. His throat was dry. He sat up in bed. ‘Has it . . . is it really finished?’
Felix leaned back lazily, but Ivo could see deep relief in his eyes. Miranda and Felix exchanged glances. ‘Yes,’ answered Felix.
‘Your parents . . . are they OK?’ asked Ivo. He remembered, suddenly, his own.
Miranda nodded quickly. ‘Yes. Felix found them. Ma’s got a few cuts and bruises, but otherwise they’re fine. Pa’s already telling all his friends and making jokes about it. He was on the news this morning.’
‘Well, come on then. Let’s go! Put on some warm clothes,’ Felix said urgently.
Ivo got dressed (having pushed Miranda out of the room) and went downstairs with Felix. At the door to Lydia’s studio he paused. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said to Felix, who tapped his feet impatiently.
Ivo went in. It was empty. The portrait of Strawbones was on the easel, finished. He went up to it, his heart in his mouth. There he was, his long white face, his blue, kind eyes, his red patchwork jacket. The painting didn’t move. There was no sign of the figures he’d seen before. It was just a painting. And then, without really thinking, he picked up the portrait and broke it over his knee. It split, with a harsh crunch, and then he threw the two halves, violently, into different corners of the room.
Three minutes later, Ivo was being dragged out of the house by the two siblings. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked. Outside, the sun had come out. It was three days after the party. Ivo had been in hospital for a couple of
days and had been released. He was tired, still so tired. His head was filled with a dull ache, his eyes were drooping. The sky was intense and blue, dotted with white clouds made gold by the light. Ivo looked up and saw a mass of clouds form together, like a bird, wings spread for flight, and then, as quickly as it had appeared, it went.
‘Come on! It’s nearly one o’clock! We’re going to be late!’
‘Late for what?’ asked Ivo, noticing the black minicab that was waiting for them.
‘Not saying,’ answered Felix, and then, laughing even more, he pulled Ivo behind him into the car. The streets were now frosted and clear, and Ivo remembered when he had met Felix and Miranda, and how excited he had been. I wanted adventure, he thought ruefully. Now I just want peace. He looked out of the windows and saw the Londoners, milling and swarming as if nothing had ever happened, resilient and strong. The radio was on, and it played Christmas songs, to which Miranda sang along, to the mortification of Felix. Through the streets they drove, until they reached Hyde Park. The car pulled up and the three friends got out. The park was empty, the expanse of grass white with snow in patches.
‘What’s going on?’ Ivo asked. His cheeks were reddened by the cold. His breath blew out like mist. They were nearing the Serpentine lake, and it appeared in front of them, edged with rime and shards of ice. Ivo could see a small group of figures standing at the shore by the boats. As they neared, Ivo saw that two of the people who were standing together were moving towards him, and they were heavily muffled up; his heart beat a little faster. Felix and Miranda slowed down. Ivo realised, with a surge of joy in his heart, who they were, and broke into a jog; soon he was sprinting, and he flung himself at his parents.
He said nothing at first, but held them tightly, enveloped in their arms. His father’s stubble was rough on his cheek, and he could smell his mother’s favourite scent. ‘Mum . . . Dad . . .’
Ivo looked up into his father’s usually cheerful face, now grave, and his mother’s eyes. ‘Jago told us something was going on. We were so worried, Ivo. We’re so happy to see you.’ They kissed him once more, and he held them, and for a moment only he and his parents existed, and they were safe and they were together and they were alive.
Ivo looked across at the others, and saw Jago, tall in a black overcoat, with no tie on, and Lydia, with a mink fur hat on her head; and Hunter, shuffling from foot to foot in an old brown padded jacket. Ivo let go of his parents and walked over to the other three. Jago bowed a little stiffly, and then hugged him, and Lydia joined in, whilst Hunter stood looking away; then Ivo, remembering her, gave her the biggest hug of all. When he released her, he was surprised to see tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, I’m not crying,’ she said. ‘It’s just the cold.’ She wiped away a large tear and cleared her throat. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘Jago took you to hospital, after . . . after the end. You were exhausted. But you’ll be all right.’ Everybody was there now, in a circle, around Ivo. He looked at each one of them in turn.
‘What happened? Can they come back?’ he asked Hunter. ‘Are they dead now?’
Hunter said, clearly and brightly, ‘No, that’s it. They can never come back. The Thyrsos is destroyed. That power is gone from the world, like so much else.’ She said the last with a tinge of sorrow. ‘Such a thing will not be seen again.’
‘I saw him . . . this morning . . . in my head . . . Strawbones.’
‘I know, Ivo. And you will again. They will live on in our minds for ever.’
‘And FIN?’ He looked up, wondering for a moment whether he might join, whether he might continue to help Hunter.
Hunter smiled and said quietly, ‘Finito.’ Ivo could see the sadness in her eyes. It had been her life. ‘I’ve written up what happened. You will be a hero, Ivo, in the secret files of Britain.’
‘So what will you do now?’ said Ivo, to cover up his embarrassment as Felix poked him in the ribs and Miranda laughed.
> ‘Oh, I don’t know. I might retire. Take up knitting. Write a book. Rescue another city from certain danger. Who knows?’ she smiled, and patted Ivo, and wiped from her cheek another tear that was not a tear. ‘Maybe something else will emerge. There is always something, waiting in the darkness.’
Jago came forward and said, ‘I rang your parents when I found you in the Luther-Rosses’ . . . in the Liberators’ flat.’
Ivo was overwhelmed. He could feel pleasure all over him, but it was pure and clean.
‘Come on,’ said his father, his face twinkling. ‘We thought we’d take your mind off things.’
Hunter was already jumping into a boat. ‘Who’s coming with me?’ Miranda leaped in, yelling, and Ivo got in one with Felix, and they pushed off into the lake. The greyish water was dappled and dotted with points of light like guttering candles.
‘Hey, Ivo,’ said Felix. ‘Me and Miranda have got you a present.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, Miranda did mostly. I wouldn’t have thought of it. You’ll like it, I think.’
‘What is it?’
Felix smiled, and said softly, ‘A kitten.’ He put down his oar and looked shyly at Ivo, who said nothing, but clasped his forearm.
They rowed across into the centre, and then paused, the four boats in a circle, and Ivo looked at Felix bending over the oars, at Miranda and Hunter splashing, at his parents, at Lydia and Jago, and thought, Now I am free. The lake and the trees and the grass and the sky, my family and my friends, the ripple of water and the rush of the wind, these are the things that matter, and these are the things that will keep us free.
.
FIN
00
Acknowledgements
Are due to my editors, Sarah Odedina, Isabel Ford and Talya Baker; my publicists, Ian Lamb and Emma Bradshaw; and all at Bloomsbury, and to my agent, Felicity Rubinstein.
Without these people, The Liberators would not be what it is: Anna Arco, Tom Beasley, Olivia Breese, the Chappatte family of Hawkridge Place, Lottie Edge, James Elliot, Julia Finch, Venetia Hargreaves-Allen, Con and Nicky Normanby, and their children Sibylla, John and Tom Phipps, Owen O’Rorke, Lizzie Spratt, Humphrey Thomas, Marie, Richard and Ashley Womack.
And, most importantly of all, to the god Dionysus himself, I pour libations and give humble thanks for his inspiration.
The Liberators Page 20