by Clive Barker
Quite suddenly, the beating and the cursing and the kicks all ceased, as two officers broke into the ring of lynchers. Two or three of the mob had already taken the opportunity to slope away before they were detained, but most of them showed not the least sign of guilt. Quite the reverse; they wiped the spit from their lips and began to justify their brutality in shrill voices.
‘They started it, officer,’ said one of the number, a balding individual who, before the blood had stained his knuckles and shirt, might have been a bank cashier.
‘Is that right?’ said the officer, taking a look at the black derelict and his sullen mistress. ‘Get the fuck up, you two,’ he said. ‘You’ve got some questions to answer.’
XI
THREE VIGNETTES
1
e should never have left them,’ Cal said, when they’d made a circuit of the block and come back up Lord Street again to find the street crawling with officers, and no sign of Jerichau or Suzanna. ‘They’ve been arrested,’ he said. ‘Damn it, we shouldn’t have – ’ ‘Be practical,’ said Nimrod. ‘We had no choice.’ ‘They almost murdered us,’ said Apolline. She was still panting like a horse.
‘At this point, our priority has to be the Weave,’ Nimrod said, ‘I think we’re agreed on that.’
‘Lilia saw the carpet,’ Freddy explained to Apolline. ‘From the Laschenski house.’
‘Is that where she is now?’ Apolline enquired.
Nobody replied to the question for several seconds. Then Nimrod spoke.
‘She’s dead,’ he said flatly.
‘Dead?’ Apolline replied. ‘How? Not one of the Cuckoos?’
‘No,’ said Freddy, it was something Immacolata raised. Our man Mooney here destroyed it, before it killed us all.’
‘She knows we’re awake then,’ said Apolline.
Cal caught her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes had become like black pebbles in the puffed dough of her face.
‘Nothing’s changed, has it?’ she said. ‘Humankind on one side, and bad raptures on the other.’
‘The Scourge was worse than any rapture,’ said Freddy.
‘It’s still not safe to wake the rest of them,’ Apolline insisted. The Cuckoos are more dangerous than ever.’
‘If we don’t wake them, what happens to us?’ said Nimrod.
‘We become Custodians,’ said Apolline. ‘We watch over the carpet until times get better.’
‘If they ever do,’ said Freddy.
That remark put an end to the conversation for a good long while.
2
Hobart looked at the blood that was still bright on the paving stones of Lord Street, and knew for certain that the debris the anarchists had left on Chariot Street had been only a curtain-raiser. Here was something more graspable: a spontaneous eruption of lunacy amongst an ordinary cross-section of people, their violence whipped up by the two rebels who were now in custody awaiting his interrogation.
Last year’s weapons had been bricks and home-made bombs. This year’s terrorists had more access to more sophisticated equipment, it seemed. There’d been talk of a mass hallucination here, on this unremarkable street. The testimonies of perfectly sane citizens spoke of the sky changing colour. If the forces of subversion had indeed brought new weapons into the field – mind-altering gases, perhaps – then he’d be well placed to press for more aggressive tactics: heavier armaments, and a freer hand to use them. There would be resistance from the higher ranks, he knew from experience; but the more blood that was seen to be spilled the more persuasive his case became.
‘You,’ he said, calling one of the press photographers over. He directed the man’s attention to the splashes on the paving underfoot. ‘Show that to your readers,’ he said.
The man duly photographed the splashes, then turned his lens towards Hobart. He had no opportunity to snatch a portrait before Fryer stepped in and wrenched the camera from his grip.
‘No pictures,’ he said.
‘Got something to hide?’ the photographer retorted.
‘Give him his property back,’ said Hobart. ‘He’s got a job to do, like all of us.’
The journalist took his camera and withdrew.
‘Scum,’ Hobart muttered as the man turned his back. Then: Anything from Chariot Street?’
‘We’ve got some damn peculiar testimonies.’
‘Oh?’
‘Nobody’s actually confessed to seeing anything, but apparently around the time of this whirlwind things got crazy. The dogs went wild; all the radios cut off. Something strange went on there, no doubt of that.’
‘And here too.’ said Hobart. ‘I think it’s time we spoke to our suspects.’
3
The haloes had faded by the time the officers threw open the back of the Black Maria, and ordered Suzanna and Jerichau out into the yard of Hobart’s headquarters. All that was left of the vision she’d shared with Jerichau and Apolline was vague nausea and an aching skull.
They were taken into the bleak concrete building and separated; their belongings were taken from them. Suzanna had nothing she cared much about but Mimi’s book, which she’d kept in either hand or pocket since finding it. Though she protested at its confiscation, it too was taken from her.
There was a brief exchange between the arresting officers as to where she was to be lodged, then she was escorted down a flight of stairs to a bare interrogation cell somewhere in the bowels of the building. Here an officer filled in a form of her personal details. She answered his questions as best she could, but her thoughts kept drifting off: to Cal, to Jerichau, and to the carpet. If things had looked bad at dawn they looked a good deal worse now. She told herself to cross each bridge as she came to it, and not fret uselessly about matters she could do nothing to influence. Her first priority was to get herself and Jerichau out of custody. She’d seen his fear and desperation when they were separated. He would be easy meat if anyone chose to get rough with him.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. A pale man in a charcoal-grey suit was staring at her. He looked not to have slept in a long while.
‘Thank you, Stillman,’ he said. The interviewing officer vacated the chair opposite Suzanna. ‘Wait outside, would you?’
The man withdrew. The door slammed.
‘I’m Hobart,’ the newcomer announced. ‘Inspector Hobart. We have some talking to do.’
She could no longer see even the merest shadow of a halo, but she knew, even before he sat down in front of her, the colour of this man’s soul. It gave her no comfort.
Part Four
What Price
Wonderland?
Caveat Emptor
(Let the Buyer Beware)
Latin Motto
I
TO SELL IS TO OWN
1
hat was the most important lesson Shadwell had learned as a salesman. If what you possessed was desired ardently enough by another person, then you as good as possessed that person too.
Even princes could be owned. Here they were now, or their modern equivalent, all assembled at his call: the old money and the new, the aristocracy and the arrivistes. watching each other warily, and eager as children for a glimpse of the treasure they were here to fight over.
Paul van Niekerk, reputed to own the finest collection of erotica in the world, outside the walls of the Vatican; Marguerite Pierce, who had with the death of her parents inherited at the tender age of nineteen one of the largest personal fortunes in Europe; Beauclerc Norris, the Hamburger King, whose company owned small states; the oil billionaire Alexander A., who was within hours of death in a Washington hospital but had sent his companion of many years, a woman who answered only to Mrs A., Michael Rahimzadeh, the origins of whose fortune were impossible to trace, its previous owners all recently, and suddenly, deceased; Leon Devereaux, who’d come hot-foot from Johannesburg, his pockets lined with gold dust; and finally, an unnamed individual whose features had been toyed with by a succession of surgeons, who could not ta
ke from his eyes the look of a man with an unspeakable history.
That was the seven.
2
They’d started to arrive at Shearman’s house, which stood in its own grounds on the edge of Thurstaston Common, in the middle of the afternoon. By six-thirty they had all gathered. Shadwell played the perfect host – plying them with drinks and platitudes – but letting few hints drop as to what lay ahead.
It had taken him years, and much conniving, to get access to the mighty, and more trickery still to learn which of them had dreams of magic. When pressed, he’d used the jacket, seducing those who fawned upon the potentates into revealing all they knew. Many had no tales to tell; their masters made no sign of mourning a lost world. But for every atheist there was at least one who believed; one prone to moping over lost dreams of childhood, or to midnight confessions on how their search for Heaven had ended only in tears and gold.
From that list of believers Shadwell had then narrowed the field down to those whose wealth was practically unfathomable. Then, using the jacket once more, he got past the underlings and met his elite circle of buyers face to face.
It was an easier pitch to make than he’d imagined. It seemed that the existence of the Fugue had long been rumoured in both the highest places and the lowest; extremes which more than one of this assembly knew with equal intimacy; and he had enough detail of the Weaveworld from Immacolata to persuade them that he would soon enough be able to offer that place for sale. There was one from his short-list who would have no truck with the Auction, muttering that such forces could not be bought and sold, and that Shadwell would regret his acquisitiveness; another had died the previous year. The rest were here, their fortunes trembling in readiness to be spent.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced. ‘Perhaps the time has come for us to view the object under consideration.’
He led them like sheep through the maze of Shearman’s manse to the room on the first floor where the carpet had been laid. The curtains were drawn; a single light shed a warm illumination onto the Weave, which almost covered the floor.
Shadwell’s heart beat a little faster as he watched them inspect the carpet. This was the essential moment, when the purchasers’ eyes first alighted upon the merchandise; the moment when any sale was truly made. Subsequent talk might massage the price, but no words, however cunning, could compete with this first exchange of glance and goods. Upon that, everything pivoted. And he was aware that the carpet, however mysterious its designs, appeared to be simply that: a carpet. It required the client’s imagination, stoked by longing, to see the geography that lay in wait there.
Now, as he scanned the faces of the seven, he knew his gambit had not failed. Though several of them were tactical enough to try and disguise their enthusiasm, they were mesmerized, each and every one.
‘This is it,’ Devereaux said, his usual severity confounded by awe. ‘… I didn’t really think …’
‘That it was real?’ Rahimzadeh prompted.
‘Oh it’s real enough,’ said Norris. He’d already gone down on his haunches to finger the goods.
‘Take care,’ said Shadwell. ‘It’s volatile.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘The Fugue wants to show itself,’ Shadwell replied. ‘It’s ready and waiting.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs A. ‘I can feel it.’ She clearly didn’t like the sensation very much. ‘Alexander said it would look just like an ordinary carpet, and I suppose it does. But … I don’t know … there’s something odd about it.’
‘It’s moving,’ said the man with the lifted face.
Norris stood up. ‘Where?’ he said.
‘In the centre.’
All eyes studied the intricacies of the Gyre design, and yes, there did seem the subtlest eddying in the Weave. Even Shadwell had not noticed this before. It made him more eager than ever to have the business over and done with. It was time to sell.
‘Does anybody have any questions?’ he asked.
‘How can we be certain?’ said Marguerite Pierce. ‘That this is the carpet.’
‘You can’t,’ said Shadwell. He’d anticipated this challenge, and had his reply to hand. ‘You either know in your gut that the Fugue is waiting in the Weave, or else you leave. The door is open. Please. Help yourself.’
The woman said nothing for several seconds.
Then: ‘I’ll stay,’ she said.
‘Of course,’ said Shadwell. ‘Shall we begin?’
II
TELL ME NO LIES
he room they’d put Suzanna in was cold and charmless enough, but it could have taken lessons from the man who sat opposite her. He handled her with an ironic courtesy that never quite concealed the hammer head beneath. Not once during the hour of their interview had he raised his voice above the conversational, nor shown the least impatience at repeating the same enquiries.
‘What’s the name of your organization?’
‘I have none,’ she’d told him for the hundredth time.
‘You’re in very serious trouble,’ he said. ‘Do you understand that?’
‘I demand to see a solicitor.’
‘There’ll be no solicitor.’
‘I have rights,’ she protested.
‘You forfeited your rights on Lord Street,’ he said. ‘Now. The name of your confederates.’
‘I don’t have any confederates, damn you.’
She told herself to be calm, but the adrenalin kept pumping. He knew it, too. He didn’t take his lizard eyes off her for an instant. Just kept watching, and asking the same old questions, winding her up until she was ready to scream.
‘And the nigger –’ he said. ‘He’s in the same organization.’
‘No. No, he doesn’t know anything.’
‘So you admit the organization exists.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You just admitted as much.’
‘You’re putting words in my mouth.’
Again, the sour civility: ‘Then please … speak for yourself.’
‘I’ve nothing to say.’
‘We’ve witnesses that’ll testify that you and the nigger –’
‘Don’t keep calling him that.’
‘That you and the nigger were at the centre of the riot. Who supplies your chemical weapons?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘That’s what you are. You’re ridiculous.’
She could feel herself flushing, and tears threatened. Damn it, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
He must have sensed her determination, because he gave up that line of questioning and tried another.
‘Tell me about the code,’ he said.
This perplexed her utterly. ‘What code?’
He took Mimi’s book from the pocket of his jacket, and laid it on the table between them, his wide, pale hand placed proprietorially across it.
‘What does this mean?’ he said.
‘It’s a book …’
‘Don’t take me for a fool.’
‘I don’t,’ she thought. ‘You’re dangerous, and you make me afraid.’
But she replied: ‘Really, it’s just a book of faery-tales.’
He opened it, flicking through the pages.
‘You read German?’
‘A little. The book was a present. From my grandmother.’
He paused here and here, to glance at the illustrations. He lingered over one – a dragon, its coils gleaming in a midnight forest – before passing on.
‘You realize, I hope, that the more you lie to me the worse things will get for you.’
She didn’t grace the threat with a reply.
‘I’m going to take your little book apart –’ he said.
‘Please don’t –’
She knew he’d read her concern as confirmation of her guilt, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Page by page’ he said. ‘Word by word if I have to.’
‘There’s nothing in it,’ she ins
isted. ‘It’s just a book. And it’s mine.’
‘It’s evidence,’ he corrected her. ‘It means something.’
‘… faery-tales …’
‘I want to know what.’
She hung her head, so as not to let him enjoy her pain.
He stood up.
‘Wait for me, would you?’ he said, as if she had any choice in the matter. ‘I’m going to have a word with your nigger friend. Two of this city’s finest have been keeping him company –’ he paused to let the sub-text sink in, ‘– I’m sure by now he’ll be ready to tell me the whys and the wherefores. I’ll be back in a little while.’
She put her hand over her mouth to stop herself begging him to believe her. It would do no good.
He rapped on the door. It was unbolted; he stepped out into the corridor. The door was locked behind him.
She sat at the table for several minutes and tried to make sense of the feeling that seemed to narrow her wind-pipe and her vision, leaving her breathless, and blind to everything but the memory of his eyes. Never in her life had she felt anything quite like it.
It took a little time before she realized that it was hate.
III
SO NEAR, SO FAR
1
he echoes that Cammell had spoken of were still loud and clear in Rue Street when, as evening drew on, Cal and his passengers arrived there. It was left to Apolline, using pages torn from the atlas spread out like playing cards on the bare boards of the upper room, to compute the carpet’s present location.
To Cal’s untutored eye it seemed she did this much the same way his mother had chosen horses for her annual flutter on the Derby, with closed eyes and a pin. It was only to be hoped that Apolline’s method was more reliable; Eileen Mooney had never chosen a winner in her life.
There was a burst of controversy half way through the process, when Apolline – who appeared to have entered a trance of some kind – spat a hail of pips onto the floor. Freddy made some scathing remark at this, and Apolline’s eyes snapped open.