The Doorkeepers

by Graham Masterton

  A black face appeared over the top of the front seat, and gave Josh a wide and toothy smile. Ella – with her hair knotted up in a scarf, so that she looked like a 1930s scrubwoman.

  “How are you doing, Josh? You look like something the cat sicked up.”

  “Ella?” he said. He could hardly believe it.

  “It’s a long story, Josh. But don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Another face turned around from the front seat. It was John Farbelow, his thistledown hair concealed beneath an old black beret, his chin prickly with white stubble. “Welcome back, Josh,” he told him. “That little exercise tested our resources, I’ll have to admit. But we couldn’t let the Hoodies have you, could we?”

  “You’ve been here before?” Josh asked Ella. “You know these people?”

  “I was born here, Josh. Brought up here.”

  “I don’t get it. The séance … the letter … why did you bother with any of that?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Ella. “I have to confess that I put you both at risk. But like I told Nancy, I didn’t really know how genuine you were. The Hoodies have agents and informers absolutely everywhere.”

  “Well … our informers aren’t bad, either,” said John Farbelow, with a satisfied smile. “We knew which car Josh was going to be traveling in; we knew approximately when; and the rest was just a case of being totally violent.” He paused, and lit a cigarette. “The dray was good, though, wasn’t it? I mean, what’s anybody going to do when they see eight tons of best bitter hurtling toward them?”

  Ella playfully tugged his beret down at the back. “You know as well as I do that it was a fantastic piece of planning. You did well, John. And so did all the rest of you. Thanks.”

  They kept speeding north-westward – jolting down sidestreets, bouncing through mews and garage blocks and private driveways and parks. The rain was lashing down harder still, and it was so dark inside the Pierce-Arrow that they could hardly distinguish each other’s faces.

  “How’s Nancy?” asked Josh. “She didn’t come back with you, did she?”

  “Nancy’s great. She’s back at your hotel, resting.”

  “How are we going to get back?”

  “The Farringdon door,” said John Farbelow. “It isn’t used very often, because it’s difficult to find. The Hoodies will probably think that you’ve gone back to Star Yard.”

  “I didn’t tell them anything,” said Josh. “They knew your name already; and they knew that Simon Cutter had taken us to see you.”

  “You can’t keep any secrets in the resistance,” John Farbelow replied. “There’s too much bribery, too little faith. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d blabbed. Nobody can take more than two or three hymns on the Holy Harp. My friend Michael died when they did it to him. Heart attack. And of course the Masters of Religious Observance never take the blame. ‘Death by natural causes in the course of routine judicial questioning.’”

  They reached the corner of Farringdon Street and Bowling Green Lane. It had suddenly stopped raining, even though the gutters were flooded and cars were still swishing past them in clouds of spray. Josh was helped out of the car and across the street, with John Farbelow and Ella following close behind. They passed a sandwich shop on the corner, with steamed-up windows and a sign advertising Craven A cigarettes – “the only cigarettes that don’t hurt my throat”. Just past the sandwich shop was a narrow alleyway which Josh would never have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to him. It was less than three feet wide and looked like nothing but a crevice in between the sooty black buildings.

  “Right to the end,” said John Farbelow. They walked about thirty or forty feet, where the crevice came to an end. Bricked up. Blank. Josh leaned against the wall, his mouth throbbing and his whole body tingling with pain.

  John Farbelow knelt down and took three stubby church candles out of his pocket. “They say that the doors go right back to the days of the Druids. They made them so that they could escape from the Romans.”

  Ella glanced nervously back along the alleyway. “Can we hurry, John? You never know who might have been following us.”

  “Oh, there’s always somebody following us. Always somebody ready to sell their soul for seven-and-six.” He lit the candles one by one, and crossed himself. “There – that should take you over. Good luck, Ella, and pray for us, won’t you?”

  Ella held him tight. “You don’t know how much I appreciate what you’ve done, John.”

  “It was nothing. It was time that we shook them up a bit, anyway. Time we drew some blood. They won’t be so damned complacent now that we’ve given Master Thomas Edridge an extra smile.”

  He grasped Josh by the elbow, supporting most of his weight, and led him toward the candles. Josh felt so weak that he didn’t know if he was going to be able to stumble, let alone jump. But John Farbelow picked him up bodily, held him a foot off the ground, so that his legs dangled, and then physically threw him over the candles into the end of the alleyway. He fell heavily on to the ground, in a mess of wet leaves and pigeon-droppings. He didn’t shout out, because of masculine pride; but he lay on his face for a moment, biting his tongue so hard that he could taste blood.

  “Come on, Josh! Up!” John Farbelow shouted at him. “Ella’s coming through!”

  Josh managed to grip the brick wall and drag himself on to his feet. As he did so, Ella came bounding across the candles and almost collided with him.

  “Let’s go, quickly,” she urged.

  Josh lifted his hand in greeting to John Farbelow; and John Farbelow, as he turned his back, gave him a wry, dismissive salute.

  “Where do we go from here?” he asked Ella, looking around. “This still looks like a dead end.”

  “Oh, there’s always a door, everywhere,” said Ella. At the very end of the alleyway there was a narrow crevice in the brickwork, barely wide enough for a cat to squeeze through.

  “We can’t go through there.”

  “It’s the only way. Well, it’s not the only way. You could jump back over and give yourself up.”

  “Ella, confined spaces give me panic attacks. I mean, serious panic attacks. How far does it go, this gap in the wall?”

  “Fifteen feet, not much longer.”

  “Fifteen feet, Jesus. What happens if I’m wedged?”

  “You won’t be wedged. I’ll push you out ahead of me.”

  “What happens if you get wedged?”

  “What are you trying to tell me here, that I’m overweight?”

  “I didn’t mean that. But you have to admit that you’re curvy.”

  “Oh, I see. Now my ass is too big.”

  “Your ass is perfect. But that’s a real narrow gap there. And I don’t want to end up a skeleton, jammed solid between one world and the next.”

  Ella took hold of both of his hands and kissed him. “You’re making excuses, Josh. You’re hurt. You need to get back to reality. Just force yourself through. Don’t panic, it’ll make you breathe more deeply, and your lungs will expand. Take shallow breaths and tell yourself that you’re going to keep on going, and that nothing’s going to stop you.”

  Josh took two or three very deep breaths, then a succession of shallow breaths. “OK … I think I’m ready.”

  He pressed his back flat against the brick wall and pushed himself into the crevice. Now that he was in it, he could see the end of it, but it looked a very long way off, as if he were viewing it down the wrong end of a telescope. More like fifty feet than fifteen. All the same, he pushed himself sideways, his clothes scraping harshly against the brickwork, almost hopping with his feet to keep himself going.

  Ella followed him, and the two began their slow, arduous journey from one side of the universe to the other. It didn’t take long before their knuckles were scraped raw, their feet ached, and they were gasping for lack of oxygen. For Josh, the struggle was even worse, because his teeth ached and his body ached, and he could barely find the strength to move hims
elf along.

  “Don’t give up,” Ella panted. “It’s not far now.”

  But Josh was suddenly overwhelmed with a terrible feeling that he was going to be trapped between these two brick walls for ever. He was only six or seven feet from the end of the crevice. He could see daylight, and hear traffic, and he knew that it was the real world, his world, where there were no Hoodies and no Holy Harps and the skies didn’t grind with the sound of Zeppelins. But he couldn’t move any further. He was exhausted, agonized, and he simply couldn’t find the will to continue.

  “Move!” Ella urged him. “Come on, Josh, you have to move!”

  He shook his head. It was strange, but he almost felt like going to sleep, pinned between these walls. Anything was better than trying to scrape his way through. Anything was better than carrying on.

  “Move, Josh, you bastard!” Ella screamed at him.

  “I can’t,” he told her.

  “Oh yes, you can. Because Nancy’s waiting for you; and your parents are waiting for you; and, most of all, because Julia wants you to catch the man who killed her, Josh, and you won’t be able to do that if you’re stuck here between these two brick walls.”

  Josh looked at her. He had never seen a woman’s eyes look so fierce.

  “You’re right,” he said. “God, I hate you. But you’re right.” And, inch by inch, he began to drag himself further along the crevice, until at last he reached the end. Ella followed him, and the two of them walked along the narrow alleyway until they reached Farringdon Road.

  Outside, on the street, there was a blast of noise. Buses, trucks, taxis, trains. Hundreds of hurrying pedestrians. The air was thick with pollution, but at least the smell was familiar. He had left behind the oily diesel of the other London’s buses, and the stench of horse manure. He looked up in the sky and saw a small private jet whistling on its way to London City Airport. The sky was streaked with cloud, but the day was bright, and it was his sky.

  They took a taxi back to west London. Josh was beginning to tremble uncontrollably, and Ella wanted him to get to bed as soon as possible.

  “Do you want me to call you a doctor?” she asked him, as they went up in the hotel elevator.

  “What am I going to say to a doctor? All of my teeth have been drilled right down to the nerves and there are holes in my body. He’s going to think I’m some kind of sado-masochist.”

  “Just watch out for infection, that’s all.”

  “I’ll take a salt bath. But I need sleep, more than anything else. And I need to see Nancy.”

  He opened the door of his hotel room. “Hallo?” he called. “Nancy?”

  He knew that she wasn’t there, the moment he stepped inside. The television was blank, the bed was neatly made. He walked through to the bathroom and switched on the light, but she wasn’t there either.

  “Maybe she’s gone round to your place,” he suggested. He opened the closet. She didn’t seem to have taken any of her clothes. There was a beige cardigan lying across the bed which he had never seen before.

  Ella held up a note that she had found on the dressing table. “I don’t think so. You’d better read this.”

  Josh sat down on the bed. The note was written in big, loopy writing, the kind that Nancy used for love letters.

  Don’t be mad at me, Josh. I pray that Ella has brought you back safely and that you’re able to read this note and I want you to know that I love you so much. But there’s only one way to finish this, and that’s to catch Frank Mordant. I knew you wouldn’t let me go, so I’ve kind of made a unilateral decision. I’m one hundred percent sure that I can handle this, so please don’t worry about me. I’ll be back before you know it, and I’ll be bringing Frank Mordant back with me.

  Twenty

  Did you know that she was going to do this?” Josh demanded.

  “I didn’t have a clue, Josh. Honest. But it sounds to me like she’s got some kind of a plan.”

  “How the hell does she expect to catch Frank Mordant single-handed? The goddamned Hoodies will have her before she’s gotten anywhere near him!”

  “She probably stands a better chance alone,” said Ella. She picked up the cardigan that Nancy had left on the bed. “It looks like she bought herself some period clothes, too, so she shouldn’t attract too much attention.”

  “I have to go after her,” said Josh. “She doesn’t have any idea what kind of danger she’s in!”

  “I think she does,” said Ella. “I told her all about Frank Mordant. Well, the little we know. Obviously she’s decided that she can deal with him better if she deals with him alone.”

  “Deal with him? Deal with him? How do you deal with a guy like Frank Mordant in a world where the Hoodies are loose? You might as well deal with your broken sink disposal unit by sticking your hand down it.”

  “Josh, there’s nothing that you can do. You’re injured; you’re in shock. You need to sleep for twenty-four hours just to get your head back together. Besides, you can’t go looking for Nancy because you’ve only been back here for less than an hour.”

  “I’m not tired, Ella. I’m going after her.”

  “Josh, it’s impossible. You have to wait for at least one full rotation of the earth before you can go back to that London. Otherwise, you’ll carry on to the next London, and the next.”

  “But it’s only a door, right? You come in, you go out.”

  “We call it a door but it’s not like a normal door. If you go through it again and again, all on the same day, you’ll take yourself further and further away from the London you left. We’re talking about parallel worlds here, Josh. Worlds within worlds, like one of those Japanese ivory balls, with another ball inside it, and another ball inside that. To put it in words of one syllable, things have to line up.”

  “Ella, I can’t let Nancy wander around alone in that other London. She’s not sightseeing, for Christ’s sake – she’s trying to find a serial murderer!”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you that she might know exactly what she’s doing?”

  “Oh, sure. And maybe bears go into the woods and dress up as women.”

  Ella laid her hands on his shoulders and looked him directly in the face. “You cannot go after her, Josh. Neither can I. Right now, all we can do is to give her some time, and wait to see what happens. If you really want to go and find her tomorrow, then we’ll talk about it. But you’re a wanted man now, and you won’t be able to do it unaided. If the Hoodies catch you again, they’ll kill you, no doubt about it.”

  That evening, Josh ordered a turkey club sandwich on room service, and after he had eaten it, he poured the entire contents of the salt-cellar into the bathtub, to make a healing saline solution. He had a long and painful soak, and several times he nearly fell asleep. When he managed to haul himself out of the bath, he stood in front of the steamed-up mirror. He hardly recognized himself. He looked like an amateur boxer after an unsuccessful fairground challenge; or the victim of a head-on traffic accident.

  It was so tempting to creep between the clean white sheets of his hotel bed and fall asleep. After all, hadn’t Ella told him that there was nothing he could do until tomorrow? But he wasn’t sure that Ella had been telling him the truth about the rotation of the earth. Simon Cutter had said the same thing, but both he and Ella had shared a vested interest in him not going immediately back through the door. Ella, because she obviously cared about him, and wanted him to rest; and because she didn’t want him causing any more trouble for the resistance movement. Simon, because he had wanted to exploit him for all of the watches and laptop computers and bottles of whisky that he could get.

  But Nancy was out there someplace. Nancy was out there, all on her own. And it didn’t matter to Josh how independent she was, how self-sufficient. It didn’t matter if she was one hundred percent sure that she could handle herself. All that mattered was that he wasn’t able to stand beside her and protect her.

  He wondered if he was jealous of her, for having had the courage to go
looking for Frank Mordant on her own, and for trying to solve the mystery of Julia’s murder for him. All his adult life, people had come to him for help, and he wasn’t used to the idea of being looked after.

  In spite of his anxiety, he slept for nearly an hour, although when he woke up he felt worse. He read a few pages of a John Grisham novel that somebody had abandoned in the nightstand, folded over at page twenty-three. Then he watched the television news. Serbs and Muslims were killing each other in Kosovo. Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Northern Ireland. A famous television chef had suffered a heart attack. England’s cricket team were all out for eighty-seven. Tomorrow’s weather: humid, with thundery showers. No hijacks along the Embankment; no Hooded Men killed; no Masters of Religious Observance found in the road with their throats cut. But what was the difference?

  Did that other London really exist? Or did this London really exist? What did existence mean? If nobody knew that you existed, would you still be there?

  The phone rang. It was Ella. “Are you OK?” she wanted to know. In other words: you’re not going to try anything rash, are you?

  “Sure, I’m fine. I’m just trying to catch some zees.”

  “Well, make sure you do. Abraxas will never forgive you if you do anything stupid. He’ll come around and bite your balls off.”

  “I’d like to see him try.”

  When he woke up again it was half past midnight. He went into the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water. He still felt stiff and pummeled, but he was much steadier on his feet, and his head was clear.

  After cleaning his teeth, he went to the closet and took out a pair of dark blue chinos, a pale blue check shirt, and a tan linen coat. Maybe it wasn’t exactly period costume, but it was reasonably inconspicuous. He had seen three or four people in the other London wearing linen coats. Admittedly, they had all been clerics, but that was a chance that he was prepared to take.