by Will Hill
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
“I was, actually,” he replied. “Jacob Scott woke me up.”
Kate frowned. “What did he do that for?”
Turner considered the implications of her question. If he told her it was classified, he knew she wouldn’t complain; the nature of Blacklight meant that some Operators always knew things that others didn’t. But he had no desire to lie to her. He knew exactly what she had risked by volunteering for ISAT, and knew exactly why she had done it: because she had cared about his son and wanted to honour his memory. He opened his mouth to answer her question and realised he was about to break one of the Department’s most fundamental rules, one that he, as the Security Officer, should have treated as nothing less than sacred; he was going to tell her what had just happened in Cal Holmwood’s quarters, in a meeting that was Zero Hour classified, the highest security level the Department possessed.
“We don’t lie to each other, Kate,” he said. “Am I right about that?”
“Yes,” said Kate, instantly. “That’s right.”
“Good. Do you remember the speech Interim Director Holmwood gave after the Loop was attacked?”
“Of course.”
“Do you remember him saying that he would be setting up a Task Force to dictate strategy for dealing with the rise of Dracula?”
“The Zero Hour Task Force?” asked Kate.
Turner blinked, then allowed a small smile to creep on to his face. “I should have known you would already know,” he said. “Can I assume that Lieutenant Carpenter told you about it?”
A worried expression appeared on Kate’s face.
“It’s OK,” said Turner. “I’m not going to discipline him for doing what I was about to do myself. Jamie told you, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Kate. “Before Valeri’s attack, when everything was going bad, we promised each other no more secrets. So he told us.”
“Us?”
“Matt and Larissa and me.”
Paul Turner’s smile widened. He knew full well that Jamie Carpenter believed that he hated him, was unfair to him and singled him out, and it satisfied him to let the young Operator think so. The truth was very different; there were few Operators in the entire Department that he admired more than the youngest Carpenter, a boy whose stubbornness, temper, and absolute loyalty to his friends reminded him so much of his younger self that it was almost painful. Of course Jamie had told his friends about the Zero Hour Task Force; he knew exactly what the boy’s thought process would have been.
He knew something that he thought his friends needed to know. Something he thought they would be safer knowing. So he told them. Simple as that.
“That’s why Jacob woke me up,” said Turner. “He’s on the Task Force, or at least he was until about ten minutes ago. He had something he wanted to show us.”
“What?” asked Kate.
“Footage from the Broadmoor escape. It turns out that Albert Harker, one of the very few descendants ever to turn down the chance to join us, had been locked up in there for almost a decade. And now he’s out there somewhere, turned into a vampire like all the others.”
“Jesus,” said Kate. “That’s awful.”
Turner nodded. “I knew Albert’s brother, Robert. And I worshipped his father. When I came in, David was the Operator everyone wanted to be, me included. Yet, according to Jacob, it was David who had Albert committed to Broadmoor, while Robert stood by and did nothing.”
“Why?” asked Kate. “What did he do?”
Turner shrugged. “Gave an interview to a journalist. About the Department. Seems like he was angry at his dad, or his brother, or maybe both of them. I don’t know. A breach that a Security Operator could clean up in ten minutes on his first day in the Department. But Albert’s father clearly thought it was serious.”
He walked across the room, lowered himself into the chair that stood by the small desk, and rubbed his face with his hands. He felt empty, like he had nothing left.
“Thank you for telling me,” said Kate.
“You’re welcome,” replied Turner, then started to laugh, low grunts without any humour in them whatsoever; if anything they sounded, to Kate’s ears at least, as though they were dangerously close to sobs.
“Go and get some sleep, sir,” she said. “There’s still time. Our first interview’s five hours away.”
“That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about,” said Turner, lowering his hands and looking at her. “You’ve seen the schedule, right?”
“I’ve seen it,” said Kate.
“Are you going to be OK?”
“I’ll be fine,” she replied. “It was going to happen sooner or later. Weird they both came up for this morning, but I’ll be glad to get them out of the way, to be honest with you.”
“Good,” said Turner. “And you’re not going to be doing them on your own. I’ll be right there.”
“I know that,” said Kate. “So I’ll see you here at seven thirty, yes? After you get some sleep.”
Turner laughed. “That really isn’t necessary.”
Kate put the folder aside and got up from the sofa. She walked across the lounge and held the door open, a wide smile on her face.
“I insist, sir,” she said.
17
OLD SCORES
YESTERDAY
Albert Harker strode through the streets of Clerkenwell, marvelling at the power he could feel coursing through his body. Every ten steps or so, he lifted himself into the air and floated above the cracked squares of pavement, relishing the indescribable sensation of no longer being tethered to the earth.
The streets around him were empty. The sun would be coming up in less than ninety minutes, and the men and women who had packed the local bars and restaurants had long since wandered off in search of taxis and night buses, blissfully unaware of the monster in their midst. They would not be so innocent for long, if Harker had his way; they would not thank him for what he was planning, he knew that much, but he believed that, in time, they would come to see that he had only their best interests at heart.
Forewarned is forearmed, he thought, as he pushed open the gate that led to Johnny Supernova’s front door. It had been almost a decade since he had last visited this place, on his final evening as a free man. During his years in Broadmoor they had tried to convince him that the things he knew were nothing more than delusions, and when he refused to show even the slightest inclination to believe them, or work with them, they had tried to drive them out with every means at their disposal. They had tried hypnosis, cognitive therapy, and course after course of electro-shock treatment as they attempted to erase his own memories from his head. He had clung to them as tightly as a drowning man clutches a lifebelt; his memories were all he had left and he knew they were real, no matter how many times he was told the opposite.
The house before him was dark and silent. Harker peered up at the windows of the flat on the first floor and saw empty squares of glass, without curtains or blinds. He pushed himself into the air, marvelling at how easy it was to do so, how utterly natural it felt, and floated outside the windows.
The room beyond them was empty. The jumble of furniture and books and records that he had once tiptoed round was gone, the walls and floorboards were bare, and a thick layer of dust lay on every surface. Harker let gravity exert its pull on him and descended slowly to the ground, his mind racing. He had allowed for the possibility that Supernova might no longer live at the same address; the journalist was flighty and unpredictable at the best of times. Harker was disappointed, as he would have liked this first part of his quest to have gone smoothly, but not undeterred. After glancing quickly around to make sure there were no witnesses to his presence, he swung a leg that felt as powerful as a steam piston and kicked the front door clean off its hinges. It broke as it flew into the dim corridor beyond, shattering into pieces that spread across the threadbare carpet. He stepped inside and looked around.
The h
allway was clean and almost empty. But on a shelf beside the door, as is the case in most shared houses, there stood a thick stack of unopened post. Harker leafed through it and found what he was looking for immediately: three thick cream envelopes, stamped with the logo of CHESNEY, CLARKE, ABEL & WATT and addressed to The Executor of the Estate of Mr J. Bathurst, Esq.
Panic exploded through Albert Harker. He had been prepared for the fact that it might take some time to track his old acquaintance down, but he had not allowed for the fact that Johnny Supernova might no longer be alive. The journalist was central to his plans, to everything he intended to achieve, to all the good he meant to do for the world.
Calm down, he told himself. Calm down. His flat is empty, which means all his possessions have gone somewhere. There’ll be next of kin.
Someone will know.
He tore open the first of the letters and scanned its contents. A smile of pure relief lit up his face as he read, his eyes settling briefly on the name at the bottom of the letter, then on the address printed at the top. He read it a second time, then slipped it into the pocket of the overcoat he had pulled through the smashed window of a tailor’s shop near Liverpool Street, and headed back out into the early London morning.
Tom Clarke parked his car in front of the house he was going to spend the next twenty years of his life paying for, turned off the BMW’s engine, and sighed deeply.
It had been an awful day and he wanted nothing more than to lie in the bath for an hour while his wife put their kids to bed, then open a bottle of wine. His secretary had phoned in sick, an inconvenience he knew he had no right to be annoyed about, given Janet’s impeccable attendance history and the generally exceptional quality of her work. But today had been one of those days; there had been two client conferences before lunch and a partners’ meeting afterwards, and without her he had been woefully unprepared for all three. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t stop him blaming her.
He climbed out of the car, locked it, and crunched across the drive to his front door. The house was Bonnie’s dream home: a huge, detached, four-bedroom on one of the best streets in Hampstead that they had bought the year he made full partner. It had been a reach even then, but they were surviving, more or less, and as long as big companies kept buying little companies and needing lawyers to help them, they would probably continue to do so. But it was tight, and he had come to see the house in precisely the opposite way that Bonnie viewed it: as a millstone, a weight round his neck that threatened constantly to drag them down.
Tom turned his key in the lock and pushed open the door. Instantly, he could hear what had become the regular soundtrack to his life: James and Alec shouting over one another, as Bonnie tried half-heartedly to calm them down.
He put his briefcase on the table in the house’s wide hallway and walked into the living room. The chaos was familiar; a bright, garish DVD boomed deafeningly from the television as James and Alec rolled and wrestled on the thick carpet, managing to somehow avoid the huge number of toys that had been scattered across the entirety of the room. Bonnie was sitting in her favourite chair, beaming at their sons with such inane pride that it made Tom want to vomit. He was about to say hello when the doorbell rang and he headed back into the hallway, grateful for the distraction. The outline of a dark shape was visible through the frosted glass of the door. Tom turned the handle and pulled it open, concluding that a chat with Jehovah’s Witnesses or some door-to-door charity worker was a far more pleasant prospect than going into the living room with his family.
The door was barely halfway open when a fist looped through the gap and crashed into Tom Clarke’s nose. It broke with a loud crunch; blood sprayed up and out as he staggered backwards. A bolt of pure agony sliced through the centre of his forehead, his feet tangled, and he fell heavily to the floor, his hands going to his face as crimson pumped out between his fingers.
“Honey?” called Bonnie. “Are you all right?”
Tom’s throat worked convulsively and he fought for breath as the dark figure stepped silently into his house, locking the door behind him. He tried to focus, tried to get a clear look at the person who was invading his home, but his eyes were full of blood and tears. The figure walked past him without even looking down; Tom tried to reach out and grab its ankle, but it kicked his feeble grip away and disappeared into the living room.
A second later the screaming started.
The high-pitched noise hit Tom like a bucket of cold water, instantly clearing his head and galvanising his limbs. He rolled over on to his stomach, forced himself first to his knees then up on to unsteady legs, and staggered for the living-room door. He lurched through the open space and saw something from his worst nightmares made real: Bonnie was lying on the floor, screaming her head off, as a man with a terrible smile on his face stood over her, holding their sons by their throats. The boys’ faces were twisted with fear, and Tom could see that James had wet himself; the dark patch on his pyjamas reached almost down to his knees.
“Don’t hurt them,” shouted Tom, his voice cracking and muffled by the blood that was running down his throat. “Please. We have money and jewellery. Just please don’t hurt them.”
“Mr Clarke?” asked the man, his voice well-spoken and remarkably calm. “Thomas Clarke?”
“That’s me,” replied Tom, staring at the stranger. He was wearing an expensive overcoat over a suit and shoes that would not have looked out of place in the office where Tom went to work every day. His hair was thinning and his skin was pale, but his eyes danced with terrible lividity.
“We have business to discuss, you and I,” said the stranger. “Private business. I would assume that such a lavish house as this is equipped with a cellar?”
“We have a cellar,” said Tom, his voice trembling. Bonnie was staring up at the boys, her eyes wide and frantic. James and Alec were looking at him with terrible faith in their eyes, the unquestioning belief that their daddy would make everything all right.
“Is there a phone down there?” asked the stranger. “Or any other means of communication? Don’t lie to me.”
“No,” said Tom. “There’s wine and our safe. There’s money—”
“I’m not interested in your wealth, Mr Clarke,” interrupted the stranger. “I’m here for a higher purpose than petty burglary. If you suggest otherwise again, I’ll make you choose which one of these two fine young boys I kill. Maybe that will make you pay attention.”
Bonnie shrieked in terror, and James and Alec began to thrash and squirm in the stranger’s grip. He looked utterly unmoved by the reaction his words had caused.
“OK,” said Tom, holding his hands out wide in a gesture of utter submission. “Whatever you say. Just tell me what you want.”
“The cellar,” said the stranger. “Does it lock?”
“Yes,” replied Tom.
“From the inside or the outside?”
“Outside.”
“Excellent. Where is the door?”
“In the hall.”
“Mr Clarke,” said the stranger. “I want you to go and open the door. Then nice and quietly, nice and peacefully, we’re going to lock your family in the cellar. Then you and I are going to talk. Is that all clear?”
“Yes,” replied Tom. “It’s clear.” His heart was racing and his stomach was churning, but the thought of putting his wife and sons in the cellar, putting at least some distance between them and the stranger, ignited a flickering flame of hope.
Maybe they’ll get out of this, he thought. Even if I don’t.
“Good,” replied the stranger. “Before we go, I’d like you and your wife to empty your pockets. Just in case you happen to have any mobile phones you forgot to tell me about. I’d like you to do that now, please.”
Tom immediately fished his mobile phone from the inner pocket of his jacket and threw it down on to the cream leather sofa. He dug into the pockets of his trousers, pulled out his wallet and the entry card for his office, and tossed them down
beside the phone, praying that the single remaining item wouldn’t be visible through the material of his suit.
“Thank you,” said the stranger, before turning his attention to Bonnie. “Mrs Clarke?”
Tom watched as his wife, who was now weeping steadily, emptied the pockets of her jeans. They contained her mobile phone, chewing gum, and nothing else.
“Good,” said the stranger. “Lead the way then, Mr Clarke. And please, for your family’s sake, don’t do anything stupid.”
Tom nodded, then walked slowly out of the living room, casting a final desperate glance at his sons as he did so. The cellar door stood near the end of the hall, just before the kitchen; it was plain wood, locked by a single sliding bolt. He slid it back, hauled open the door and stood stiffly beside it. A moment later Bonnie emerged from the living room and came towards him, her face wearing the look of a woman who is trapped in a nightmare from which she has no idea how to wake up. She walked unsteadily down the first few steps, then turned, waiting for her boys. The stranger carried them down the hallway as though they were weightless, and put them down before their father.
“Go with your mother, boys,” said Tom, in a strangled tone. “Go on now.”
James and Alec ran through the cellar door and flung themselves against their mother; she almost overbalanced, but managed to right herself. Then the three of them were sobbing, clutching at each other and whispering incoherently.
“Close the door, Mr Clarke,” said the stranger. “If you told me the truth, then they will be quite safe down there.”
Tom pushed the door slowly closed; the last things he saw before it clicked into place were the faces of his family, staring pleadingly up at him from the darkness.
“Do you mind if I sit?” asked the stranger. Tom had led them back into the living room as soon as the cellar door was bolted, and had taken a seat on the sofa, as instructed.
“No,” he said, slowly. “That’s fine.”