by Tom Becker
“Yeah. I’m fine. It just feels a bit funny, being back in the house and all.”
Mrs Elwood nodded sympathetically. “Of course. You’ve been very far away, and. . . There you are!”
Jonathan turned round to see his dad standing in the doorway. Alain Starling was carrying a book in one hand and his glasses in the other, and had stopped in his tracks at the sight of his son. His hair was still prematurely grey, and his face etched with worry lines, but he seemed a little less drawn, a little less gaunt, than he had been in the past. They stood looking at each other for a couple of seconds, before a broad grin broke out across Alain’s face, and Jonathan knew everything was going to be all right.
He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Suddenly his plate was too small, and he couldn’t pile enough food on to it. On the other side of the table, Alain and Mrs Elwood studied Jonathan as he thrust his fork into a mountain of chips.
“I’m glad that Elias is taking care of you,” said his dad. “How is he these days?”
Jonathan thought for a second. “Short-tempered. Brutal. Rude.”
“No change there, then,” laughed Alain.
“It’s odd. I can’t really imagine you two as friends.”
“Well, it was a long time ago. A lot’s changed since then.”
“I guess.” Jonathan paused as he swallowed another mouthful, and took a swig of Coke. “You look better, though. I wasn’t sure . . . you know . . . how you were going to be.”
“Oh, thanks.” There was a note of surprised pride in his dad’s voice. “I still have bad days every now and then, but I do feel better. I won’t be running the London Marathon just yet, but you never know.”
“Now that you’re here, you are going to stay for a while, aren’t you?” Mrs Elwood cut in anxiously. “There’s no need for you to go back there.”
Jonathan put down his knife and fork. “I’m afraid not. I can only stay the night. I’ve come back for a reason.”
A look of comprehension dawned on his dad’s face. “Theresa?”
Jonathan nodded.
“I see. Finish your meal, and then we’ll go and talk in my study.”
After they had cleaned up the kitchen they went upstairs together, leaving Mrs Elwood downstairs watching television. Jonathan was pleased to see that his dad’s study – once little more than a prison cell – was unlocked, and the door open. The thick shutters that had prevented sunlight from entering the room had been taken down, and the stale atmosphere had lifted. Bathed in the soft light of a table lamp, it all seemed rather cosy.
Alain gestured at Jonathan to sit down in the chair, while he perched on the edge of the desk.
“So, then. What’s going on, son?”
The story came out in a muddled rush, and several times Jonathan had to go back to explain parts again and insert crucial details. Alain listened intently, his eyes serious. When his son had finished, Alain thought for so long that Jonathan was almost worried he had reverted to his old catatonic self. Then he cleared his throat.
“I so badly wanted to go back to Darkside,” he said, his voice husky. “In some ways, it drove me mad. Everything had been going so well. We were married; you’d just been born; and we’d finally decided to live permanently in the Darkside. Theresa was Darkside through-and-through, and crossing affected her badly. She couldn’t spend more than a few days in Lightside without falling ill, whereas I could get by in Darkside. It wasn’t always easy, but I had her, and you. And I know this might sound crazy to you, but we were happy there. Theresa loved her job at The Informer, and I had found some work in a watch shop. Darkside was so vibrant, so alive, that it made the rest of London look dreary. So we concocted a story that we were moving to South America, and went back to Lightside for one last time to tie up all the loose ends.”
“We spent that morning – the last morning – doing normal things: shopping and the like. Then, over coffee, while we were sitting there reading the papers, Theresa suddenly went very quiet. Then she made some hurried excuse and went off on her own, without even finishing her food. That was the last time I saw her. Later that evening she left a message on the answerphone telling me she’d gone back to Darkside early. Maybe if I’d heard the phone I’d have been able to speak to her, persuade her to wait for me. But I was looking after you upstairs, and missed it.”
“As soon as I listened to the answerphone I should have gone back, but I didn’t. After all, Theresa had lived in Darkside all her life: I knew she could look after herself. I still had a lot to sort out here, and – to be honest – I was angry at the way that she had run off. So it was a couple of days until I went back to the crossing point. But ... there had been an accident. A building had caved in on top of the crossing point, burying it in tons of rubble. And that was that.”
“Why didn’t you go to another crossing point?” Jonathan burst out.
“Don’t you understand? It was the only one I knew.” The saddest of smiles touched Alain’s lips. “I still wonder what the odds of that happening are. A thousand to one? A million to one? More? It was like I’d won some sort of horrible lottery. My prize was to lose my wife. To stay locked up in this room for over a decade, trying to find a way back to her.”
Jonathan sat stupefied. It was the longest speech he’d ever heard his dad make. Twelve years on, it was still so raw for Alain. There were no tears in his eyes, just a deep emptiness in his soul. As he thought more about the story, a thought occurred to Jonathan.
“But if you were stuck here, how did you hear that Mum had gone missing in Darkside?”
A voice from behind Jonathan made him jump.
“Because I came here and told him.”
Mrs Elwood had slipped into the study unnoticed.
“WHAT? You’re from Darkside?”
She nodded, biting her lower lip. Jonathan rubbed his face with disbelief. For years Mrs Elwood had been the only constant in his life. He had depended on her so much. She had been so ordinary, so stable compared to everything else in his life. And now it turned out that – like everyone else – she wasn’t the person Jonathan thought she had been.
“I’m afraid so. I was a friend of your mother’s. I saw her briefly when she came back from Lightside, and was one of the first to hear that she had vanished. I knew that someone had to tell Alain, so I raced over here to find him. I must have been one of the last people to make it through the crossing point before it collapsed.”
“But surely you must have known another way to get back?”
Mrs Elwood shook her head.
“You don’t understand, Jonathan. Darksiders and Lightsiders don’t mix. Most people don’t cross back and forth like you do – the strain would kill them. The day I came over was the first time I had ever seen the rest of London. I used the one crossing point that most people knew about – it was quick and safe. When the building caved in on it, Alain wasn’t the only person stranded here. Luckily for me, the crossing didn’t affect me too badly, and I managed to adapt to Lightside. Before long I was even happy here, whereas your father, well. . .” She moved forward and patted Alain on the arm. “But you have to understand, I know just how evil Darkside is. That’s why I don’t want you to go back there. Either of you!”
Alain let out a long sigh. “The problem is, Jonathan has to go back.”
“Why, in God’s name?”
“Because I can’t.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
“The state I’m in now, just the atmosphere of that place would kill me. Unlike you, son, there’s no Darkside in my blood. It’s not easy for a Lightsider to live there. But you’ll be all right. And if the murder of this Ripper really is linked to your mum’s disappearance, you and Carnegie have to find out what’s going on. You’ve got to continue the search for me.” Alain swallowed hard, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked. “This . . . could be our only cha
nce. . .”
In the silence that followed, Mrs Elwood shook her head sadly and left the room. Jonathan let his father compose himself before turning to him.
“Dad? You know you said Mum left an answerphone message?”
Alain nodded.
“Have you still got it?”
A sad smile crossed his dad’s face. Then, fishing a key from a loop around his neck, he opened up a box on his desk and pulled out a small cassette tape.
“I try not to put it on too much. Don’t want it wearing out.”
Alain slipped it into an antiquated answerphone player and pressed play. The machine beeped, and after a pause, a woman began speaking. Her voice, tinged with an Irish accent, was agitated. Jonathan’s dad closed his eyes.
“Alain? It’s me. Look, I have to go back to Darkside early . . . tonight, in fact. I’ve found something out about a story I’ve been working on, and there’s someone I urgently have to talk to. It can’t wait. I didn’t say anything because I knew you’d insist on coming with me, and I have to do this on my own. I’m sorry . . . but I’ll see you in a couple of days, and everything will be all right again, I promise. I love you.”
There was a click, and Theresa Starling was gone.
13
That night, tossing and turning in his old bed, his feet twitching underneath the covers, Jonathan was stalked through his dreams by a nightmarish creature that was part beast, part fire, and part shadow. He could hear the tramp of its feet as it hunted: slow and purposeful footfalls that never hurried, and never stopped. Jonathan wanted to run, but he felt as if his feet were trapped in mud. In his dream, places from his past merged seamlessly together. With agonizing slowness, he turned off the Grand and came out on to the playground from his old school. On the other side of the tarmac was the glasshouse at Vendetta Heights. Jonathan stumbled past that until he reached the offices of The Darkside Informer, where the beast finally came to a halt. A wave of relief passed over Jonathan, until he looked back over his shoulder and saw why it had paused. Theresa was working at her old desk, her back to the beast. The beast growled softly, and padded towards her. . .
Jonathan woke up shouting and drenched in sweat. Later, revelling in the powerful jets of the shower, he resolved to go back to Darkside as soon as possible.
He said his goodbyes that morning. The sky was grim, and heavy with bulging clouds. Jonathan hugged his dad at the end of the driveway, while Mrs Elwood moped gloomily around in the background.
“I’m sorry you have to go so soon,” said Alain.
“Yeah. Me too. But I can’t stop until I find out what’s going on.”
“At least let us take you back to the crossing point.”
“Nah. I’ll be fine. It’s a long journey, and you need to build up your strength. And anyway,” Jonathan added with a smile, “I don’t want you getting all soppy on me in public.”
Alain grinned. “Fair enough.”
“Make sure you send word to us as often as you can,” Mrs Elwood called out. “We need to know you’re OK!”
“I will. Try not worry. I’ve got Carnegie with me.”
She pulled a face. “That’s not much of a reassurance.”
Alain hugged him again, and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m very proud of you,” he said softly. “You know that, don’t you, son?”
Jonathan nodded, a lump in his throat, and walked hurriedly away. He didn’t look back as he carried on down the street, scared that he might change his mind. There was a part of him that would have liked to have stayed in the house for a while – until Christmas, maybe even beyond that. Maybe he could have forgotten all about Darkside, with its gruesome inhabitants and ever-present danger. After all, Jonathan couldn’t say for sure what he was going to do when he got back there. It was clear that his mum had seen something here that had sent her hurrying back to Darkside, but what? He had a gut feeling that it was connected to the Gentlemen and James Arkel’s death, but there was no way of proving it.
However, as he headed down into the Underground and boarded a train, there was one thing Jonathan was sure about. He had heard his mum speak for the first time, a lilting voice coloured with an Irish accent, and he had never felt closer to her. School and normality would have to wait. He had to find out what had happened to his mum.
Elias Carnegie could feel the animal rising within him.
It was late afternoon on Fitwilliam Street. Tension reigned. Gusting winds whisked sheets of an old edition of The Informer into spirals high up in the air, while cobblestones echoed to the drumming of horses’ hooves. The sun was dipping behind gap-toothed roofs and, as a parting gesture, slanted a weak ray of light across the wereman as he strode across the street, seemingly oblivious to the carriages that hurtled past him, missing him by inches.
Carnegie’s senses had sharpened so much he was in danger of being overwhelmed: the scent of horse dung smeared on a washerwoman’s skirts; the sound of a coin being tapped absentmindedly against a lamp post far down the street; the outline of a weapon in a gentleman’s jacket. But above all that, he was acutely aware of flesh and blood all around him. Carnegie had spent the day in his lodgings going back over the details of the Rafferty case, and had forgotten to eat. Now the raging animal inside him was hungry, and he had to satisfy it before it consumed him.
Every day was a battle between the two sides of his nature. Sometimes Carnegie felt so weary that he wanted to give in, and revel in the power and the simple pleasures of the beast. Life seemed so much easier when he changed form. There were no grey areas: just black and white – and red. He wondered whether Jonathan could ever understand how difficult it was for him. For all his fondness for the boy, there were times when Carnegie looked at him and saw merely fat, muscle and bone. At those moments, Jonathan’s life hung by a thread.
Dark thoughts. Carnegie moved swiftly into the butcher’s shop and caught the attention of the man behind the counter with a curt gesture. Col’s cheery greeting died in his throat. He gestured grimly at Carnegie to go through to the meat locker, then, after he had passed out of sight, tucked a large cleaver into his belt before turning to the next customer.
Though he was aware of his breath steaming in the cold environment of the freezer, Carnegie didn’t register the change in temperature. He was focused on the slabs of meat that hung down from the ceiling. He cast an expert eye over them, before selecting the closest to him. Suddenly the shabby private detective was gone, and a ravenous animal was ripping and tearing at the slab with sharp claws and teeth, gobbling down strips of meat without thought or feeling, barely even chewing. Dried flecks of blood stained his face and his hands.
It was as he was licking his fingers clean that Carnegie realized he wasn’t alone. The cold had numbed his sense of smell, but he could just make out the sound of shallow breaths coming from somewhere in the room. The wereman grinned viciously.
“I’m not full yet,” he called out. “I can always find room for warm flesh. Why you don’t come out from your hiding place, whoever you are, and let’s talk about it?”
On the other side of the room, Raquella stepped out from behind a meat rack. She was dressed in a black outfit – thick woollen overcoat, hat, scarf and gloves – that stood out against the stark white backdrop of the freezer. The colour had drained from her face: maybe from cold, maybe from fear. By contrast, blood was galloping through Carnegie’s veins. Barely resisting the urge to lunge at the girl, the wereman slowly raised an eyebrow.
“A friendly face. That’s a surprise.”
“I’m sorry for disturbing you, Mr Carnegie, but it was an urgent matter.”
“So I can imagine. I must be getting predictable in my old age. I trust you haven’t been waiting long for me?”
“An hour, maybe two. Not long.”
Carnegie ran his tongue over his canines. Somewhere within his soul, a voice urged him to stay still, no
t to kill this one, to ask another question. . .
“How did you get in here?”
“I dodged past the butcher when he wasn’t looking. It wasn’t difficult.”
“It might sound a bit old-fashioned, but you could have just come up to my lodgings.”
She shook her head. “No one must know I’ve seen you. It’s not just Vendetta – there are other considerations. . .”
Her voice was trembling, but she held herself together, standing upright and looking Carnegie right in the eye. She works for Vendetta, he reminded himself. She has faced death before. The wereman could feel his pulse rate starting to drop, and the first drops of compassion seep back into his bloodstream.
“You watched me eat?”
She nodded.
“My apologies. My table manners aren’t the best.”
Raquella smiled for the first time. “You needn’t apologize, Mr Carnegie. I have a small brother. Believe me when I say I’ve seen worse.”
Carnegie laughed huskily, and with a growl the beast inside him retreated back into a dark corner.
“Come on. We can’t talk here. Let’s think of a way to smuggle you back to my lodgings.”
From his vantage point at the window of Carnegie’s lodgings, Jonathan watched the wereman as he left the butcher’s shop and crossed the street, carrying a huge hunk of meat wrapped in white cloth in his arms. The journey back from Lightside had been uneventful, but it had taken an age to get back to Fitzwilliam Street from Lone Square. As he moved through Darkside, Jonathan could feel the fetid atmosphere of the borough reclaiming him, sliding underneath his fingernails and nestling in his hair. He didn’t want to admit it, but it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation.
He drew back from the window as he heard Carnegie stamping up the staircase. The wereman kicked his door open, struggling with the huge bundle of meat in his arms, and noted Jonathan’s presence with equanimity.