The Doorkeepers

by Graham Masterton

  Shuddering with shock and cold, he looked down and saw that more steel wires had been screwed into his kneecaps and all along his thighs, seven or eight of them, right into the bone. These, too, were attached to the frame of the harp, so that every time he shifted his legs, they tugged at his nerve endings and gave him a kind of pain that he never could have imagined possible.

  His penis looked as if it were half-erect, and it took him a few seconds to focus and understand why. A single steel wire had been inserted into his urethra, and he could feel something sharp and prickly deep between his legs. Blood was dripping from the end of his penis, and this alone would have been enough to make him weep.

  But there was more. Wires had been screwed into his forearms and his shoulder blades. Wires had been driven right through his nipples, through his body, and attached by screws to the chair in which he was sitting. If he had tried to sit up, he would have sliced himself into a grisly julienne of Josh.

  He waited, shaking like an epileptic. He was sitting in a bare cream-painted room, nothing exceptional about it, except a large portrait of a somber-looking man dressed all in black. A police officer was standing in the far corner, staring at the floor.

  “Ah …” Josh choked. “Ahh … agghh … ah!”

  The police officer lifted one finger, as if cautioning Josh to have patience. He picked up the phone, and said, “Yes, Master Edridge. Yes, he’s come round. He seems well enough, yes.”

  When he had finished, the police officer hunkered down next to Josh and smiled at him for a while, as if enough smiling could compensate for what they had done to him. The police officer had pitted cheeks and a tiny gingery moustache, no bigger than a smoker’s toothbrush. He could have been painted by Norman Rockwell, if there hadn’t been such deadness in his eyes.

  “Master Edridge is coming to see you. Take my advice. If Master Edridge asks you a question, answer it. Don’t try to tell lies. The pain isn’t worth it. You’ll probably be dead by the end of the day, so don’t worry about heroic gestures, if you know what I mean. And the rest of your lot, what are they worth? All you subversives. They’d sell you down the river, too, if it meant they didn’t have to suffer the Holy Harp.”

  So this was the Holy Harp that Simon Cutter had warned him about. He tried to choke out some kind of reply to the police officer, but he was suffering far too much pain, and all he could manage was a gargling sound. He dropped his head down, but the wires tugged at the nerves in his teeth and he had to lift it up again.

  “They’ll execute you quick and clean if you confess,” said the police officer, surreptitiously checking his watch. “The longer you mess them about, the more riled they’re going to get, and the more they’ll make you suffer. And let me tell you, some of the things I’ve seen them do … They’re agents of the Lord, that’s what they call themselves. And that gives them carty blanky.”

  The door opened and Master Thomas Edridge came in, with a loose black hood draped over his head. He was closely followed by a dog-handler with a vicious pink-eyed terrier, whose claws kept dragging up the rugs. Edridge approached the Holy Harp, slowly and almost prissily, and when he was standing close enough he dragged a long white handkerchief out of his sleeve and patted his face and his scalp. Josh saw his eyes glance for a split second between his legs, but then he coughed like the Bey in Lawrence of Arabia and said, “Ready to be cooperative yet, Mr Winward?”

  Josh couldn’t say anything. His lips were numb, his tongue was swollen, and his teeth felt as if they had been wrenched around in his gums.

  “I don’t expect you to talk,” said Edridge. “We don’t expect miracles, after all. But here is a pen and here is a sheet … of good-quality paper. On this paper you will explain exactly why you came here. And you will list the names and addresses of all of those you came to see, and what help you expected from them.”

  Josh hesitated for a moment, but then he took the pad and wrote the only word he could think of. No.

  “You came here to make contact. With troublemakers. Come on. Admit it.”

  No.

  “If that wasn’t the reason for your coming through the door, then what was?”

  I told you, Josh wrote. I want to know who killed my sister.

  “To find out … who killed your sister. That’s brilliant! What a cover. One of the very best that the subversives have ever come up with. It wouldn’t surprise me if you killed your sister … yourself. In order to give yourself a watertight cover.”

  You’re sick.

  “Sick? You talk to me of sick? I’ll show you a world where people no longer fear God. I’ll show you a world where every one of the ten commandments has been crushed underfoot. I’ll show you a world of such greed and licentiousness and lack of faith that it would take your very breath away. Except that it wouldn’t. Because that is your world, my friend. And that is why we guard our doors, and hunt down subversives with such vigor. To prevent you from infiltrating us, from corrupting us, from undermining our faith and our moral fortitude. For let me tell you, Mr Winward, the world where you come from is the very definition of hell on earth.”

  Josh hesitated for a moment. He felt such pain that he could hardly keep the pen steady. Then he wrote, Hell is made by bigots.

  Edridge stood up. He circled around the room for a moment, but then he leaned close to Josh and whispered in his ear, “You could have everything you wanted, in this world, if you helped us.”

  Josh flicked his eyes toward him. It would have been too painful for him to try to move his head.

  “We reward those who help us to track down subversives. We reward them very well. You could find yourself with a very fine house in the country, and substantial money in the bank. Do you know the price on John Farbelow’s head? Three thousand pounds. Think of it! A man could live like a king.”

  Josh wrote, Don’t know squat.

  “Squat? What’s squat?”

  Josh tossed the pen down on to the paper. Edridge suddenly lost his patience. He stepped away from Josh’s chair and beckoned the policeman forward. “Show him how the Harp works. Play him a penitential hymn.”

  With a serious, wary look on his face, the policeman approached the Holy Harp and flexed his fingers. Josh stared back at him, sitting rigidly upright, hardly able to bear the idea of the pain that he was going to feel. The policeman hesitated for a moment, but then he dragged the tips of his fingers down the tightly-stretched wires. They made a plangent, harmonic sound, in a minor key, like the beginning of an avant-garde symphony. At the same time they tugged at the naked roots of Josh’s teeth, so that he let out a hoarse, incoherent roar of total agony. They pulled at every ganglion in his shoulders. They dragged at his nipples and made his stomach muscles convulse. His knees shuddered; his thighs tensed in a vicious, vise-like cramp; and his penis felt as if it had been peeled inside out, and every single nerve exposed.

  The pain was so intense that it was almost wonderful. Josh felt crucified, sanctified – lifted above his everyday existence into a world where there was nothing but dazzling red light and blinding white pain. He could almost believe that he was close to God.

  The strings of the Holy Harp were rippled again, and he closed his eyes tight as the pain made every nerve ending in his body contract and flinch. It was his teeth that hurt him the most, though. His teeth hurt so much that he was far beyond weeping.

  The policeman stepped back, and Edridge came up to Josh again.

  “What a hymn that was,” he said, softly. “Now do you think you might tell me what I have to know?”

  Josh reached out for the pen but his hand was like a helpless claw. Edridge picked it up for him and placed it between his fingers, like a solicitous mother teaching her three-year-old to write. He pushed the paper nearer, and Josh was able to scrawl I know 0.

  “Nothing?” said Edridge. “That can’t be right. Young Simon Cutter has already told us that he took you to meet John Farbelow, and that you and he spent the evening discussing acts of sabotage and sub
version. Don’t tell me he was lying to us. If he was lying to us, he will have to die for obstructing our investigation – and very unpleasantly, too. The wicked must be permitted to see the evil of their ways before they are allowed to enjoy the comforts of the grave.”

  He waited for almost half a minute for Josh to answer. Then he beckoned to the police officer again.

  It was then that Josh knew that he wasn’t going to be able to take any more hymns on the Holy Harp. His training in the Marines had given him a high degree of tolerance to physical pain; and his studies of Zen and hypnosis had made him mentally able to detach himself from his immediate surroundings. But the agony of the Holy Harp had penetrated right through to the very root of his soul. It had taken away everything: his pride, his dignity, his endurance – and most of all, it had taken away his humanity. He had been reduced to the level of an insect, writhing in agony on the end of a pointed stick.

  He scrabbled for the pen, picked it up, dropped it, and then made another desperate grab for it. As he tried to lean forward, the wires in his mouth tugged at the nerves in his teeth and his eyes filled with tears. Edridge watched him in amusement.

  “You want to write something else, perhaps? Don’t tell me that you wish to confess.”

  Wincing, Josh managed to scrawl, Yes dont hurt Cutter.

  “You’re sure of this? You’re going to tell us everything you know? You won’t change your mind once we release you from the Holy Harp?”

  No. Josh didn’t have any idea what he was going to tell them, but he knew that he would rather invent names and addresses and subversive secrets than face any more pain. At least it would give him time; and he knew that Nancy wouldn’t abandon him here.

  Edridge nodded to the police officer and the police officer picked up the phone. A few minutes later a thin young man in a white lab coat and wire-rimmed glasses came in, carrying a small leather wallet. He drew up a chair, sat down beside Josh, and opened the wallet to reveal a neat set of shiny little tools.

  “Still as you can, please,” he said. His breath smelled of spring onions. With the smallest of wrenches, he unfastened the tiny bolts that had been screwed into Josh’s teeth. Josh breathed in through his mouth, and the cold air was sucked directly on to his nerves.

  One by one, the dental wires were released and drawn out of his mouth. Then the thin young man unfastened the wires that went right through his body and were screwed to the back of the chair. He had to slide them right through Josh’s muscles, and through the soft tissue of his abdomen. When he drew the wire out of his penis Josh had to bite his own hand.

  He might have fainted. He remembered being helped out of the seat. He remembered somebody wrapping a coarse woolen bathrobe around him. But the next thing he knew, he was crouched up in the fetal position on a thin ticking mattress, on an iron bedstead, in a pale green cell. It must have been morning, because there was wishy-washy light coming in through the high barred window.

  He eased himself gradually into a sitting position. His mouth was enormously swollen, and when he opened his bathrobe he saw that his whole body was peppered with tiny scarlet wounds, as well as dozens of purple and yellow bruises. The last time he had felt as bad as this was when he had driven his Firebird into a sofa-bed that somebody had dropped in the middle of the San Diego freeway, and rolled over three times.

  Outside his door he heard whistling and laughter and the scratching of dogs’ claws on linoleum flooring. His teeth ached so badly that he was almost tempted to bang his face against the bedrail and knock them all out. He tried to stand up, but the pain between his legs was unbearable.

  He lay down again, and in spite of his pain, he managed to doze for a while. An image of Julia and her daisy kept spinning slowly through his mind, around and around. He hoped to God that she hadn’t suffered as much as this.

  He didn’t hear Edridge and the Hooded Man come into his cell. He opened his eyes and there they were, standing over him.

  Edridge said, “Feeling fit, Mr Winward? We’re going for a little ride.”

  A black Ford V8 was waiting for them in the courtyard. The rain was lighter now, whirling down in a fine, prickling spray, but still enough to give them a soaking. One of the Hooded Men was already waiting in the front passenger seat, next to a uniformed driver with a haircut so short that the back of his neck bristled. But neither of them turned around as Josh was pushed into the back seat, sitting between a plain-clothes police officer in a brown double-breasted mackintosh and Master Thomas Edridge, in his hood.

  “Let’s get cracking,” said Edridge. They drove out of Great Scotland Yard and headed east, along the Embankment. Josh was still feeling swimmy with shock, and every jolt was agony, but he kept thinking to himself that he still had a chance. What had they told him during his Marine training? “Every minute you’re alive, that’s an extra minute to take the advantage.” And what had he read from the Chinese scholar Lao-Tzū? “The Way is an empty vessel that may yet be drawn from.”

  “Where are you taking me?” he asked Edridge, in a puffy voice.

  “The Tower, you’ll be privileged to hear. We have some people there who are very good with blasphemers and subversives.”

  “The Tower? Isn’t that where they used to lock up traitors?”

  “What do you think you are, Mr Winward?”

  The Ford’s transmission whined; the windshield wipers flapped feebly against the rain. The plain-clothes policeman began an elaborate exploration of his right nostril with the tip of his index finger. In another time, in another place, in another world, Josh would have said something sarcastic.

  They had almost reached Blackfriars Bridge. On their left, an exit ramp led up to New Bridge Street. As they approached it, Josh was sure that he could see headlights coming down it, in the wrong direction, and coming down it fast. Other vehicles were swerving to the side of the exit ramp to get out of the way. As they came closer, Josh could see that they belonged to a huge dray lorry, loaded with wooden kegs of beer.

  “Bloody hell!” said the police driver. “What the bloody hell does he think he’s—”

  Edridge gripped the seat in front of him. Even the Hooded Man raised his arm to protect himself. But the dray came roaring straight down the ramp without slowing down at all, and collided directly with the front of their car. With an ear-splitting smash, they were spun around on their axis, and collided backward with the median strip. Josh was thrown forward, hitting his chin on the seat in front. The Hooded Man knocked his head so hard against the passenger window that it cracked.

  “Get out of here!” Edridge screamed at the driver. “Put your foot down! It’s an ambush!”

  The driver must have broken his ribs on the steering wheel, because his face was gray and he was whining for breath. Next to Josh, the plain-clothes policeman reached into his coat and produced a large Webley revolver. He wound down the window and jabbed it wildly at everybody that he could see, shouting, “Keep your distance! Keep your distance! Police! That’s an order!”

  With a miserable slithering of tires, the driver managed to get the Ford moving. “Go!” screamed Edridge. But before they could cover more than fifteen feet, another car came hurtling toward them – a big black car like a Pierce-Arrow, its headlights blazing – and it crashed into them at nearly twenty miles an hour. They were hurtled backward, and the Ford hit the side of the Blackfriars underpass so hard that its trunk was flattened.

  Josh, stunned, was aware of men in long flappy raincoats running across the road. The front passenger door was wrenched open and the Hooded Man fell sideways on to the tarmac. The plain-clothes policeman seemed to have lost his gun, because he was fumbling around on the floor, but then his door was pulled open, too. Josh saw an iron bar swing, and the policeman was cracked so hard on the side of the head that he dropped into the gutter, quaking.

  Edridge was struggling to open his door, but it had been jammed by their last collision. He turned to Josh and both of his eyes were bloodshot, like a vampire’s. “
You will pay for this, you and your friends! You will burn in hell, for ever and ever, as Latimer and Ridley had to burn!”

  He was still struggling when his window was smashed open with a hammer, and he was showered with glass.

  “I am Master Thomas Edridge!” he screamed. “You dare to touch me, on pain of execution!”

  Two hands in grubby gray mittens reached in through the window. One hand snatched at Edrige’s little ponytail, and forced his head back, exposing his protuberant Adam’s apple. The other hand held an upholsterer’s knife, short-bladed and sharp. Edridge didn’t even have time to protest before it sliced across his throat. It happened so quickly that Josh didn’t understand what was going on; but the next thing he knew there was warm blood spattering his hands. The car door was heaved open, and Edridge tumbled out sideways, with a gargling noise.

  The mittened hands took hold of Josh’s arm and pulled him across the back seat. For a terrible moment he thought that he was going to be killed, too. But then an urgent voice said, “Come on, Mr Winward. We have to skip out of here quick!”

  Josh managed to climb out of the car. He supported himself on the roof for a moment, his eyes half-closed against the drizzle. Then he staggered: he could hardly walk. A tall young curly-headed man in a gray raincoat helped him across the street, his feet tripping and stumbling. Four or five young men and women were keeping watch all around them, in poses that were almost heroic. They lifted him into the back of the Pierce-Arrow, and climbed in beside him. He heard doors slamming, and then they were roaring away down Upper Thames Street.

  They swerved left, and then right, and then up through all the steep side-turnings between St Paul’s and the river. The Pierce-Arrow was a huge car, with very soft suspension, and it collided several times with roadside bollards and parked cars and boxes of rubbish. But at last they skirted their way around St Paul’s Cathedral, and the first police car they saw with its blue light flashing and its bell ringing was speeding off in the opposite direction, back to Blackfriars.