The Madness Underneath

by Maureen Johnson

  The rain picked up a bit, and I hurried along so my computer wouldn’t get wet. It was in my bag, and I was under an umbrella, but I always get paranoid about things like that. Once I was safely in the coffee shop with a large cup in front of me, I logged on to their Wi-Fi and decided to look up some articles about what happened at the Royal Gunpowder. There were plenty of these to choose from.

  England has some pretty seedy newspapers, and there were several headlines like this:

  PUB OWNER PAYS PRICE FOR CHARITY

  Charles Strong knew about the dangers of drink. A recovered alcoholic, fifteen years sober, he managed to maintain his pub without touching a drop of his wares. “He believed that the pub was the centre of the community,” says daughter-in-law Deborah Strong. “It didn’t matter that he didn’t drink. He was there for the customers. He was there for the people.”

  But Charles never forgot what it was like to recover from an addiction. He made it a policy to hire people in recovery, to give them a chance to get back into the working world. He was proud of his employees, many of whom went on to other jobs. But it may have been Charles’s altruistic nature that caused his death. On the morning of 11 November, Charles was beaten to death with a hammer by his employee, Sam Worth, a former drug addict with a history of violence. Worth called the police and led them to his employer’s body. Worth claimed innocence at the scene but, in the face of overwhelming evidence, changed his plea to guilty. He has offered no explanation for his actions. No motive has been determined, but the suspicion is that it was an argument about money.

  All of this has come as a shock to an area of East London still reeling from the Ripper murders. Only two days before the death of Charles Strong, a student at the Wexford School was attacked on school property, just one street away from the Royal Gunpowder. The Metropolitan Police have increased their presence in the area. A Met spokeswoman offered this comment: “While these two unfortunate events are unconnected…”

  The BBC offered something a little less sensational in tone.

  NO MOTIVE IN PUB SLAYING

  Police are still searching for a motive in the murder of Charles Strong, 56, owner of the Royal Gunpowder public house. Strong was murdered on 11 November by one of his employees, bartender Samuel Worth, 32, of Bethnal Green. Worth had previously been convicted for GBH and possession of narcotics, but had been clean and sober for over a year. There was no known argument between the two men, and police have found no evidence of a criminal motive in the attack.

  Worth is currently under observation at the Royal Bethlehem Hospital following a suicide attempt. Worth initially denied any role in the murder, but changed his plea in custody. He is now being evaluated to determine whether or not he is fit to stand trial…

  When Jerome had explained it, it sounded much more straightforward: a man had killed his boss. These articles painted a slightly different story. A man killed his boss with a hammer for no apparent reason. Maybe I was a little paranoid, but I knew things now—I knew, for instance, that an entirely fake story had been built around the Ripper to explain the whole thing away. And sure, maybe this guy was just unstable. But…two days after the Ripper and just around the corner from Wexford? What were the chances? London was a big and bustling place, but people generally didn’t go around murdering each other at rates like this.

  I took Artillery Lane on the way back, stopping in front of the pub. I walked around the two exposed edges of the building. The pub was closed for business and dark inside. I peered in the windows, but there was nothing other than tables and chairs and a bar all waiting in the dark. Such an ordinary place, too. Table tents advertising a drink special, a trivia machine in the corner, quietly waiting for a player.

  As I made my way back around to look at the photograph in the window, something on the ground caught my eye. I knelt down and pushed some of the flowers and bottles away, revealing the edge of the building and the sidewalk.

  A hairline crack ran across the sidewalk and butted into the side of the building. The crack was narrow near the street and widened as it hit the wall. I positioned myself against the wall and turned in the direction it pointed, just across the street, slightly to the right. There was another building in the way, but there was no mistaking it.

  The crack pointed right toward Hawthorne.

  A crack in the sidewalk is nothing to get excited about. London is full of cracks. It’s got a lot of sidewalk. It’s old. But that creepy old rhyme kept running through my head, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back…” (Who even thought of that? Why would stepping on a crack break anyone’s back? Why specifically your mom’s? Was it an early, failed attempt at a “your mom” joke?)

  But there was a crack in the sidewalk, and there was a crack in the bathroom floor.

  I thought about it all night. I zoned throughout all of dinner, excusing myself early to walk back around the corner to the Royal Gunpowder afterward. It was too dark to see the crack now, but a sign had appeared in the window saying REOPENING TOMORROW LUNCHTIME.

  I got my phone out of my pocket. My finger hovered over Stephen’s number, which was now safely back in my phone after he had texted me. I was just about to press the button to call, when my brain played out the conversation as it was likely to go. “I just want you to know? There’s a crack? In the sidewalk?” After the awkward silence, he would probably say something like, “I see. Well, thank you for informing me.”

  Yes, the crack in the bathroom floor had appeared the night of the explosion, because there had been an explosion. Or a power surge. Whatever it was, it had broken glass. Sure, it takes a bit more force than that to crack a tile floor, but…in any case, the crack in the sidewalk had probably been there already. I was making connections where there were none, and to what end? So what if there was a crack?

  If I called Stephen with this, I would look like an idiot. And that was unacceptable.

  I put the phone away.

  I may have mentioned that when I get an idea in my head, I sometimes can’t let it go.

  I do try. If it really seems to be pointless or bad for me, I try to shake it loose—but these ideas, they cling. It’s like I’m shackled to them with an iron chain. They rattle along behind me, dragging against the ground, always reminding me of their presence. The crack, the crack, the crack. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.

  It haunted me all through Wednesday, distracting me in class (not that difficult, to be fair). I considered going over to the library to talk to Alistair about it, but then I remembered how I’d almost killed him the last time I was there, purely by accident. Maybe it was best to avoid him until I got this new little trick of mine under some kind of control.

  Why was I so hesitant to call Stephen? Who cared if he thought it was dumb?

  I sat at my desk in my room that afternoon, puzzling this over until dinner, accomplishing nothing. It occurred to me only right before it was time to go to the refractory that I didn’t have to tell Stephen, but Callum and Boo had also put their numbers into my phone.

  Callum would like to go out, do a little investigating. Callum would come out in a second. He wouldn’t even ask why. Why did I always think Stephen had to be called?

  So I texted him.

  Want to come out and play tonight?

  I heard nothing back, even though I stared at my phone for fifteen minutes. I went back to my room and sat at my desk and tried to do some more problem sets for maths, but I kept checking and checking. Dinner came, and there was still no answer. I found it hard to engage in conversation. It didn’t help that much of the conversation around me was about exams, and I did not want to talk about exams. They started this time next week, and everyone was beginning to lose it a little. My normally cool and in-control friends were fraying around the edges. People were starting to look sleepless and get snappy. Doors slammed with regularity. And here, at dinner, people were talking, but there was a moodiness. Some people ate three helpings, while others could barely eat at all. Some
people studied as they ate.

  I just ate. And waited. My phone buzzed right as I was getting up for dessert.

  Was underground, couldn’t reply. Does that mean what I think it means? I’m not too far from you. Liverpool Street? How about 7:15?

  That was only twenty minutes from now. I typed a quick OK and put my phone away.

  11

  “I’M NOT GOING TO LIE,” CALLUM SAID. “I AM VERY, VERY HAPPY right now.”

  I met Callum just inside the station. Making my escape from dinner and explaining where I was going—that had required a little bit of fast thinking. I’d said I needed to go to Boots, and Jazza said she would come with me, so then I had to say that I was going to call my parents on the way and have a long talk. And I did give my parents a very quick call as I ran over, just to make myself a little less of a liar.

  “I have a whole list of you-know-whats that need dealing with,” Callum said. “Let’s go make boom booms.”

  “Okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “But first there’s something I have to show you.”

  I led Callum back down Artillery Lane to the Royal Gunpowder.

  “Did you hear about the man who was murdered here?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. This was big news. The hammer murder. Very nasty.”

  “Just a few days after the Ripper attacked me. It’s so close to my building.” I pointed in the direction of Hawthorne. “I mean, that’s, like, yards. Or something. Or a few hundred feet. It’s not far. And it happened just two days after the Ripper. And there’s a crack. Look!”

  I had to explain my crack theory. Callum listened, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket and rocking back on his heels a bit.

  “Trust me,” he said, “I’d be thrilled if that was one for us. But that’s just a straight-up murder. A man killed his boss. He confessed.”

  “But the crack—”

  “This is London,” he said. “We have a lot of cracks in a lot of pavements.”

  “But there is also a crack in the floor of the bathroom. And this crack…Look, it looks kind of like it’s coming from the direction of Hawthorne.”

  “Is it a new crack?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But isn’t it weird?”

  “If the guy hadn’t confessed, then maybe?” Callum said apologetically. “But he did. They know he did it. He had blood all over him. He’d done this kind of thing before. We can go in and look, if you want.”

  “It opens for business tomorrow. But maybe we could get in?”

  “That’s breaking and entering,” he said. “I like where you’re going with this, but I really think maybe this isn’t one to worry about.”

  “But don’t you think…”

  “Look,” he said, not unkindly, “when you first get your sight, it’s hard to understand it, yeah? Like I got mine after getting a bad shock with a live wire in a puddle, and I was terrified of electricity and puddles…puddles. Do you know how hard it is to walk around and be scared of puddles?”

  Callum didn’t look like someone who would be scared of anything. Maybe it’s a bad assumption to think that just because people have broad shoulders and big muscular arms that they aren’t afraid of things.

  “The Ripper stuff, it was really bad. And you went through a lot, so…I’m just saying. You can make yourself crazy thinking that everything has a meaning, or that it could happen again. Like, I knew I wasn’t going to get electrocuted again, but it took over a year before I wasn’t terrified of everything…like using my phone if it started to rain. I thought all water, all electricity wanted to kill me.”

  I could see what he was saying. I could make myself sick thinking that all these things had significance.

  “I’m not saying it’s not weird that someone was killed here,” he went on, “but people were tense, yeah? The Ripper scared people. And this guy who killed his boss was on all kinds of drugs. But they know he did it, so don’t let it scare you. We can do some real work, yeah? I got a whole list of things I want to deal with, so let’s go do it.”

  Since I had asked Callum to come out with me, it only seemed fair that I follow through with it and go with him to where he wanted to go. And the first ghost he wanted me to see was apparently right there at Liverpool Street.

  “There’s been one here for a few weeks,” he said as we headed down on the escalator. “I’ve been dying to get rid of this one.”

  Callum scanned the platform, which was packed with people all the way to the wall. It was still London rush hour.

  “Next train in three minutes. You’ll see him then.”

  Sure enough, the train came in. People poured off, and more people tried to cram on as the others came off, and then the platform was clear for a few moments. Except for one guy. One guy who wore only a dirty sheet. He was thin and bearded and laughing. And he was doing some kind of dance, a hopping sideways dance. He leaned into the opening of the door and shouted something inside. It wasn’t English. I’m not sure it was any language. It sounded like loopgallooparg.

  The doors bounced back open. He laughed harder and did it again.

  “He’s an idiot,” Callum explained. “And doesn’t seem to understand anything I say. Doesn’t like it when I do this.”

  Callum slapped the ghost’s head. He wasn’t quite solid, not like Jo or Alistair, but he did flinch and hop away a few feet. The doors closed, and the train glided away.

  “So I do that,” he said. “I slap ghosts in the head. That’s what I’m reduced to.”

  He looked at me expectantly. I looked at the strange, hopping man.

  “Is he really doing anything wrong?” I asked.

  “Holding up the trains causes huge chaos.”

  “But I mean, wrong wrong. Like, really wrong.”

  “Train chaos isn’t wrong enough?”

  The platform had already started filling again, so we had to lower our voices.

  “Too many people,” I said, looking around. “I can’t do it with so many people. I get sick. I throw up.”

  “Sure,” Callum said. “All right. Well, there are some others I know of in some less public places. I just really wanted to take care of this one. But that’s all right. Another day. Let’s take a ride.”

  So we got on the train. I looked out into the darkness. Through the Tube windows, I could just about see the walls of the tunnels mixed in with our reflections. The Tube rocked me gently back and forth.

  “Been thinking,” Callum said. “I was saying to Stephen that you should, you know, be one of us. Properly one of us.”

  From the way he said it, I think he was trying to sound casual on purpose, like this was just a little something he wanted to slip into the conversation. But, of course, there was nothing casual about that statement.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He said you were American and in school.”

  “Why do those things matter?” I asked.

  “The American part means it’s hard to be hired to join what’s essentially a secret service. But they can get around that.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what joining would really mean. Probably living in England for a long time, and not being traceable, and lots and lots of lies…I had no idea what went into it all. But the idea fit. It was a future I could see.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I never thought about it.”

  “It’s not easy,” Callum said. “But, you know, if anyone was right for the job, it’s you. You should start leaning on Stephen before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “I don’t know how long this takes, and you’re not here forever, are you? And he needs convincing. I don’t know why he’s being so difficult. It’s just common sense. Anyway, this is our stop.”

  Another station, another ghost. This one was much less entertaining than the last, another pathetic creature, barely visible. She looked to be about my age. I couldn’t even tell what she was doing wrong, but Callum claimed that she was probably respons
ible for a signal disturbance. I didn’t see how. She sat in the corner, just behind the safety barrier, looking generally terrified by everything, especially us.

  “Callum,” I said, “I don’t think I can do this. I—”

  “I already figured that much out,” he said, looking deflated.

  “I’m really sorry. I mean, she’s just not doing anything. I can’t.”

  “No,” he said. “I understand.”

  He tried to sound like it didn’t bother him, and I appreciated the effort.

  When we were back on the train, I nudged him.

  “Maybe let me get used to it for a while,” I said.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Callum said, “but I wish it had been me. What I wouldn’t give to be what you are now.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  “I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” he said. “Not without a terminus.”

  “You’re going to quit?”

  “I probably would have quit, but…Boo. And Stephen. I don’t think he could cope. We’re like his family, you know? But maybe…maybe I won’t have to. Maybe it’ll all shut down on its own.”

  “But you just got permission to keep going.”

  “For now,” Callum said. “We still can’t really do anything. You’re the terminus. We’re just some sods who see ghosts and can’t do anything about it. And Stephen should have told us we were in danger of being shut down, but that’s Stephen. Keeps it all to himself. Won’t delegate. It’s driving Boo and me mental. It’s hard, you know? I was good at football. Then I got hurt and got the sight, and I couldn’t play anymore. Then I got this job, and I got a terminus, and everything made sense again. I had control again. I hate to say it, but I get why Newman wanted one so much. I don’t think he should have killed everyone he worked with, but I get him wanting one.”