[Vampire Babylon 01] - Skarlet (2009)

by Thomas Emson

  Chapter 11

  CAPTAIN RED.

  HE sliced into the meat and blood bubbled from the cut.

  Murray’s gorge rose and she turned away and glanced around the restaurant. They were in an Aberdeen Steak House near Leicester Square, and she was paying.

  “So, Steve, you organize the – the goth-stroke-vampire night at Religion through this – this Academy of London Vampyres of yours.”

  “That’s right,” said Steve Hammond, chewing on the meat, the flesh pink between his teeth.

  Murray cringed, stared at her salad.

  “You don’t like steak?” he said.

  “I’m a vegetarian. I thought you would be, too.”

  “Why’s that?” said Hammond.

  She shrugged. “Alternative culture and all that.”

  “Are you alternative, Christine?”

  “No – I just don’t like the taste of meat.”

  “Not a good place to be then,” he said, gesturing at the tables of meat-eaters surrounding them.

  “The smell is gut-wrenching, I have to admit.”

  “We could’ve gone somewhere less meaty, but since you said you’d pay and this” – he jabbed at the steak with his knife – “is my favourite meal, I thought, Why the hell not?”

  Hammond – Captain Red, vampire-night organizer and DJ at Religion – had on a black velvet jacket and frilly white shirt. His hair was Flock Of Seagulls-style. He wore black eye makeup and lipstick.

  His long, clawing fingernails were painted purple.

  Murray said, “Are you a vampire?”

  “I am.”

  “Do you drink blood?”

  “I don’t.”

  “I thought vampires drank blood.”

  “I’m a psychic vampire. I suck the energy out of people.” He leaned forward, his mouth full of flesh, and said, “That’s why you feel lethargic, now: I’m drinking up your lifeforce.”

  “I don’t feel lethargic.”

  Hammond shrugged and went back to his steak, saying, “Doesn’t work all the time.”

  Murray said, “The blood-drinking. How does it work?”

  “I said, I don’t – ”

  “I know you say you don’t drink blood, but some of your friends do.”

  “Make a little cut, drink away.”

  “I’ve read,” said Murray, “that some of these sanguinarians are so convinced they need blood, they’ll actually drink tomato juice, or eat black pudding, to pretend they’re getting blood.”

  “The world is a wonderful place, Christine, full of diversity – vive la différence, eh?”

  “What about AIDS, HIV?”

  “They don’t drink from anyone they don’t know. It’s like sex – it’s consensual. And they practise safe blood drinking.”

  “Do you take drugs?” she said.

  He chewed and glanced up at Murray. “Sometimes. I smoke some weed. But you don’t have to be a vampire or a goth or anything to take drugs – journalists take drugs, don’t they. In the morning, you write a story about how terrible cocaine is, then you’re off to some trendy wine bar to snort in the evening. Am I right, or am I right?”

  “You’re right, I’m sure – but I go home to my – family in the evening,” she said, and felt a pressure in her chest.

  “Nice, nice,” he said, laying his knife and fork down on the bloodsoaked plate.

  Murray looked at the dish and took a swig of water. She put the glass down and said, “You’ve been charged with possession of ecstasy, Steve.”

  The vampire leaned back in his chair. “Few tablets,” he said, “fined, that’s all. And I do it for the kids, you know – it’s a service.”

  “But a few are enough to kill, aren’t they? Did you have tabs on you at Religion last night?”

  He glared at her, and his face went red. “Don’t write that in your fucking paper. Or I’ll sue. It had nothing to do with me, no fucking way.”

  “I was asking, that’s all, Steve – and since I’m paying for that steak, I guess I can ask pretty much anything.”

  He threw his hands up. He rolled his tongue around his teeth, prying out pieces of meat. He said, “Fucking ask then.”

  She said, “Do you know Jake Lawton?”

  “Yes, I know Jake Lawton. Vaguely. He’s a doorman at Religion.”

  “What else d’you know about him?”

  Hammond shrugged. “Ex-Army. Always frowning. Tough guy. Don’t mess with him.” He shook his head. “I don’t mix with that sort. He’d look down his nose at me.”

  “Is he into drugs?”

  “No clue. Ask him.”

  “I have. He doesn’t like me. I upset him once.”

  Hammond scratched at his teeth with a long, painted fingernail.

  He said, “A lot of the old-school doormen, you know, they might still be involved in drugs. But these days they’re all SIA accredited – it’s all legal. But you know, that means fuck all. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Lawton’s got his fingers in the cake. They turn a blind eye to dealers, then take a cut. But it happens everywhere, doesn’t it. Cops take backhanders, don’t they. And journalists.”

  “All the time,” she said.

  “So, dessert – and you can tell me how you upset Jake Lawton.”

  Chapter 12

  HASSLE.

  LITHGOW, head down and watching his feet, strode through Kensington High Street towards the Tube station.

  He sweated and his heart raced. He’d told the bank he was sick, could he go home, and his supervisor said it was fine. But he wasn’t ill, he was scared. And it was Lawton who scared him the most. Lithgow thought about what he’d said.

  Fuck, he thought what if I am on CCTV? I’m screwed. His mind reeled back to the early hours of the morning, him holding those pills over the toilet bowl. Should’ve tipped them down the loo, he thought; pulled the chain and watched them wash away.

  He shook his head, cursed himself. He’d lose his job and Dad would go ballistic again.

  Dad had warned him the last time: “I’m not bailing you out again, Fraser. You should’ve listened to me and did what I did, what your grandfather did, what your great-grandfather did – you should’ve gone into law. You could get yourself out of these pickles, then.”

  But law seemed like hard work. And Fraser was already dealing by the age of fifteen, making more money than he had fucking sense.

  After scraping through his A-levels, he’d said he wasn’t going to study law. “I’m doing media studies, get a job in TV or something.”

  Dad’s face went purple and he said, “I’ve paid for your education, and I expect something in return.”

  “Well, you’ll get yourself a TV-star son, won’t you,” said Fraser.

  Dad said, “Mickey-bloody-Mouse degree.”

  It was – lucky for Lithgow. He scraped a Third, thought TV was too much hassle with everyone trying to get into the industry, and found himself on a bank’s graduate trainee scheme.

  Dad, still purple, said, “If you’re going into banking, join a City bank, a proper one. Not one of these high street branches where you get all kinds of rubbish coming in and out, dealing with pennies, not pounds.”

  Kensington High Street’s branch was hardly pondlife, but Dad still fumed. Anyway, three years down the line, a sideline in tabs, and Fraser was doing all right, thank you very much. Until he got caught by that Lawton cunt trying to sneak some pills into Religion. Dad did his purple face thing, issued his warning about not bailing Fraser out again, and got him out of trouble.

  And now, Lawton was hassling him again.

  Fraser stuttered to a stop outside High Street Kensington station.

  The Evening Standard’s billboard read:

  Drug Deaths: 28 dead, Police Hunt Dealer.

  Fraser’s bladder sagged and a cold sweat made his back sticky. He whimpered, turning away from the terrible news.

  And turned directly into worse news.

  “Thought about what we discussed?” said Lawto
n, leaning against the station entrance.

  “Shit.” Lithgow put his head down and strode into the station.

  Lawton walked beside him. “You’ve got to give me time.”

  “Time to what, Fraser? Time to find a hiding place? Tell me who sold you those pills. Or I’ll fuck with you for the rest of your life.”

  The odour of cooked pastry wafted up Fraser’s nostrils from the West Country Pasties stall, and hunger carved a hole in his belly. He licked his lips, then pushed the urge for food away.

  Stopping near the barriers, Fraser said, “Are you sure I’m on tape?”

  “I’m sure. I’ve seen it.”

  This was all wrong. Now he’d have to turn to dad again. And dad would tell him to lie in his bed, since he made it.

  He looked Lawton in the eye. He could tell this bastard bouncer everything, get him off his back. But Fraser guessed that Jake Lawton, like a dog, wouldn’t let go once he got his teeth into him.

  Fraser stared into Lawton’s cruel face. He swallowed. Commuters swept past them. Some of them sighed because Lawton and Lithgow were in their way.

  Lithgow said, “I can tell you who knows and where to find him.”

  “Who knows? What d’you mean, ‘Who knows?’ You got the pills, you know who gave them to you.”

  Lithgow put a hand on his head. His hair was greasy. “I can tell you who knows, Lawton, right. Who sorted this out. Who helped me.”

  Lawton stared at him. He didn’t blink his steel-grey eyes.

  Fuck, thought Fraser; he can kill you just by looking at you.

  Lawton’s glare seemed to drain the strength out of him.

  Fraser said, “Steve Hammond. Captain Red. He was there with me when I got the pills. It’s his local.”

  Lawton’s eyes narrowed. “Where?”

  * * *

  DS Phil Birch watched the grainy CCTV image showing Fraser Lithgow handing something to Jenna McCall.

  The girl had died a couple of minutes later. And she wasn’t the first clubber Lithgow had given drugs to that evening. He was pictured on this tape selling to a dozen – and that dozen had died, along with another sixteen of these goths or vampires or whatever the hell they were.

  Birch sat in his study at home, the study illuminated by the flashes of light that came from the CCTV image playing on his PC. He’d brought the VCR in here and wired it up to the PC. He didn’t want to play it at work – too risky. He didn’t want to play it in the living room, Viki walking in on him, shouting that he was bringing his work home again, turning to Czech when she got agitated.

  Birch curled his lip and scratched his chin.

  Lawton had been telling him the truth. But why shouldn’t he?

  Okay, he was suspected of killing a man in cold blood, got himself kicked out of the Army because of it, but Birch knew that didn’t make Lawton guilty.

  Who cares if he’s guilty or not? he thought; that wasn’t the point, was it.

  Lawton was a useful diversion, that was all.

  Lithgow would never be done for this. Lithgow was marked for other things.

  Birch had taken the CCTV tape from the club on the night of the deaths. He’d warned the CCTV operators not to say a word. He’d told them the cops had something on Lawton. And suggesting to the doorman that the tape had gone missing was a way of getting him to make a mistake, Birch had said. If he didn’t slip up, he said to the operators, then we can eliminate him from our inquiries. And he smiled at the pair, the word “eliminate” staying in his mind.

  Birch stopped the tape, and the PC screen turned blue, the light shimmering in the gloomy study. He rewound the cassette and then removed it from the VCR.

  He studied the photograph of Viki and the girls that was on his desk. Eyes on the picture – taken at Alton Towers last summer – Birch plucked the tape out of the cassette, spooling it around his fingers. He yanked it free of the plastic casing. Gaze still fixed on his family, Birch dropped the coil of tape into the aluminium Shrek wastepaper bin his eldest daughter had bought him for Christmas.

  He reached into his pocket, took out a Zippo lighter.

  He clicked the wheel. The flame flickered and he smelled the fuel.

  Birch dropped the Zippo in the bin.

  He stood, job done, ready to go back to work.

  The tape burned.

  Chapter 13

  INSURGENCY.

  Rustumiyah canal near Al Hillah, Mesopotamia – 8.40 p.m., July 24, 1920

  TOM Wilson, private with the 2nd Manchester Regiment, said, “Two years ago I was covered in shit and blood in France, my mates dead or dying. Two years ago I thought I’d seen the end of war.”

  Lieutenant Guy Jordan, on horseback, glanced down at Wilson and said, “We’ll never see an end to war, Wilson.”

  “You’d think, sir, that these Arabs would be grateful. We’re trying to help ’em, after all.”

  “That’s politics for you, Wilson. It’s all about factions, you see, factions out to cause trouble. The nationalists, the Islamists. They all hate us, Wilson, always have and always will. Mind you, I wouldn’t trust any of them, come to that.”

  They’d left Al Hillah at 9.15 a.m. and reached the Rustumiyah canal at 12.45 p.m. The heat lashed down, and it hit the boys badly.

  “Medics,” said Jordan to Wilson earlier as the whines and moans of the sick filled the air, “say sixty per cent of the lads, mostly Manchester Regiment, need complete rest for twenty-four hours. How bloody likely is that, eh?”

  A group of 35th Scinde Horse rode out towards Kifl, where the relief column was headed, to scout the area. Wilson watched them go, galloping towards the minaret that rose above Kifl. Date-palm groves bordered the town, and Wilson wished he could rest in their shade.

  The rest of the company made camp near the canal. Troops started to dig trenches at the north of the camp. Wilson got out of those wretched duties: he was Jordan’s bagman, and had responsibility for the loot they’d captured the previous night.

  Guilt still ate at Wilson for what he’d done. But Jordan flapped the soldier’s remorse away, saying, “It was them or us, Wilson, and I tell you, man, they’d have gladly slit our throats. Look at what that wretch did to you.”

  Wilson rubbed his bandaged arm. “But lieutenant, they were youngsters – ”

  Jordan interrupted him, told him to be quiet. Wilson shut up and wondered about the relics wrapped up in the packs on Jordan’s horse.

  What secrets did those artefacts hold?

  In the early evening, the scouring party of Scinde horsemen returned from Kifl with the warning that ten thousand insurgents were headed their way.

  Panic spread through the camp.

  “Ten thousand,” said Wilson. “Sir, we’ll be butchered.”

  “Ten thousand, indeed. That’s bloody Scinde Horse bullshit, my man. More likely to be three thousand. Take arms, Wilson, come along.”

  A dust cloud rose in the distance as the hostiles approached. Wilson heard their shouts carry across the plains. Guns barked as the 39th battery opened fire on the insurgents. Wilson hunkered down and listened to the firefight. The tribesmen were a hundred and fifty yards from the camp’s perimeter.

  Too close, thought Wilson, too close by half.

  I’d rather them five miles away in Kifl; I’d rather be fifteen miles away from here in Hillah.

  He got his wish. Senior officers ordered a retreat to Hillah.

  A company of Manchesters was now ready to lead the withdrawal, Jordan and Wilson among them. The officers were on horseback and the men on foot. Fear crept through the ranks.

  More troops would flank them as they marched, protecting the vehicles at the head of the column from hostiles.

  July had been a bloody month. The whole country seemed to erupt.

  But the worst of it was down here, along the lower Euphrates. Muslims declared a jihad, a holy war, against the British in Karbala. Insurgents besieged Samawa and Rumaitha until the RAF swooped in to support ground troops. They flew
over 4,000 hours and dropped 97 tons of bombs. But the rebels kept coming. And their hit-and-run tactic took its toll: the Brits lost men.

  Dust peppered Wilson’s eyes, and he blinked away the pain. His throat felt coarse, and he thought, I could do with a beer in the Dog and Duck, a sing-song with my mates, a tumble with Dora the barmaid. I could do with going home.

  Jordan said, “How old are you, Wilson?”

  Wilson looked up at him, “Sir? Eighteen, sir.”

  “Eighteen?” Jordan looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Are you, now?”

  Wilson lowered his gaze and felt his cheeks redden.

  “Never mind,” said the lieutenant. “I don’t care how old you are.

  If one’s old enough to carry a gun, one’s old enough to die for one’s country.”

  Wilson glanced up at the officer again. Dust coated the lieutenant’s skin. It made him look as if he were made of marble. His green eyes shone like emeralds, though. Despite his ashen face, he looked alive; he looked excited.

  He said, “I’m going to give you an order, Wilson.”

  “Yes, sir, right you are, sir.”

  “And the order is” – the night erupted, gunfire snapping all around them – “that you must, come what may, live.”

  Wilson furrowed his brow. “Live, sir?”

  “Survive. Get through this.”

  “I – that’s – that’s what I’d like to do, sir. I don’t think I need to be ordered to do that, lieutenant.”

  “You do, Wilson, you do need to be ordered. You’re a brave lad; I’ve seen that. You’re all brave lads. But what I’m telling you is, I need you to be a coward if it means that you’ll survive.”

  “A coward, sir?”

  “It’s most important, Wilson. By being a coward, by making sure you live, by avoiding deadly situations, you will be contributing to the survival of more than just yourself, more than a few comrades.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’ll be contributing to the survival of the human race, Wilson.”

  Wilson’s mouth opened, but he couldn’t find words. He didn’t know what the lieutenant was talking about.

  Jordan said, “Don’t question this, Wilson. Just do it, is that clear?”