by Ian Richards
‘Okay,’ Martell said. ‘Let’s get this show on road.’
*
They travelled all morning. At first the city seemed reluctant to let them go. The scenery remained unchanging: a dreary landscape of tower blocks, fast-food restaurants, billboards and traffic that offered little hope of anything beyond rain and red lights. When they finally made it to the suburbs it came as a great relief. Now the road began to pick up speed. The last vestiges of London fell away in a rush of retail parks and golf courses and by mid-afternoon they were deep in the heart of the English countryside. Where exactly they were, Tony couldn’t determine. The snaking roads and sharp turns conspired to spin him around, and the lack of road-signs or recognizable landmarks offered no help either. He knew London. Knew it better than anywhere else in the world. But this, this empty, rainy landscape of open fields and distant woodland. These endless country lanes. This he didn’t know. And the farther they got from the city the more uneasy he felt.
‘We’re on track to get to the auction house by about nine,’ Martell told him. ‘We’ll be given a table in the preparation area to make last-minute adjustments to the doll. Once we’ve got her looking her best she’ll be taken by the house staff and we won’t see her again until the bidding begins.’
Tony stared ahead as the wipers swept back and forth, pushing water from the windscreen. The doll. How strange to think that she had once been adored by one of history’s most famous princesses. And how unlikely that she should resurface now, all these years later.
Darkness came upon them quickly now. Martell switched on his headlights—two canons of blazing brilliance that cut through the rain like searchlights. Almost at once the weather began to worsen. Thunderous curtains of water threw themselves against the windscreen. The wind screamed. When the first fork of lightning zigzagged its way across the horizon, illuminating a thatch of twisted trees on a nearby hill, Tony almost cried out in surprise. It was as if the world was becoming wilder with every new twist in the road—more primal. Sure enough, the scenery shooting past his window now seemed to consist of nothing but one grotesque image after another. He saw spidery trees, black ponds, terrifying scarecrows that struggled against their bonds like condemned prisoners before a firing squad.
And always the rain, a pounding, incessant rain that covered the road in water and drummed on the roof like gunfire.
Eventually the lights of the auction house appeared in the distance, glinting wickedly. Tony whistled. The house was enormous—the kind of stately home typical to the outer reaches of the countryside. A long driveway led the way to the entrance, flanked on both sides by towering conifers that bobbed and swayed in the wind. Martell drove around to the building’s side where a host of other vehicles stood parked in glistening rows. A damp figure in a raincoat waved them into a parking space and disappeared to attend to some other business almost immediately.
‘Here we are,’ Martell said.
As soon as Tony stepped out of the van he was struck by the freshness of the air. It was clean and clear and smelt damply of fallen leaves and rain-soaked grass. Compared to the city it was remarkable: like he was breathing properly for the first time in his life.
Martell led the way across the gravel, sheltering the shoebox beneath his coat as he did so. Tony followed closely behind. Together they hurried up the steps of the auction house and into the warmth of the lobby. Martell brushed the raindrops from his coat and smiled. ‘What do you think? Quite a place, isn’t it?’
Tony looked around, nodding. The lobby had immaculate white walls with framed paintings hanging from them in regimented rows. Already a steady stream of people were passing through. Some were traders like Martell, stern men carrying boxes loaded with books or enormous canvases covered in bubble-wrap. Other guests were more obviously auction connoisseurs—elegant men in tuxedos, diamond-decorated women who wore sleek dresses and left veils of perfume trailing in their wake.
Martell pressed on through the lobby and into a grand hallway lined with mirrors. Here the decor became even more spectacular. This was opulence on a scale that Tony had never before experienced. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Servants offered guests flutes of champagne from shining silver trays. Between the perfumed air and twinkling lights it felt to Tony as if he had stepped into an enormous jewelry box.
‘You didn’t tell me it was this fancy, Martell.’
‘Oh yes. Although this is where the bidders tend to mingle, not the sellers. We want the backstage area.’
He led Tony to a doorway guarded by a slim registrar with a lectern. Upon seeing the damp figures in front of him the registrar raised a single, disapproving eyebrow and trailed his finger down his list.
‘Name?’
‘Joseph Martell. Of Martell’s Antiques, London.’
The registrar nodded. ‘And you’re selling today, Mr. Martell?’
Martell held out the shoebox for inspection. ‘I am. Lot twenty-three, Anastasia Romanov’s doll.’
The registrar nodded again. He was pale, solemn man. Tony thought he looked a bit like an undertaker. Stepping aside, he gestured for them to proceed on into the next room. ‘Through there, Mr. Martell.’
Then, almost as an afterthought, he handed them each a program and added, ‘Happy Halloween.’
*
It didn’t take long for Tony to realize that midnight auctions were nothing at all like the auctions he had been to back in London. The difference in scale was enormous. In the city the preparation areas were small and cramped—dirty back rooms that smelt of raincoats and furniture polish. This was something else altogether. Here the preparation area took up an entire hall. A communal area of tables and sellers stretched all the way to the big bay windows at the back. Martell and Tony were assigned a table by the farthest wall. Opening the shoebox, Martell removed Anastasia’s doll and held her up to the light. A few specs of dirt had settled on her cheeks during the journey, transforming her from ice-princess to freckled cherub, but he remedied this with an old handkerchief and a dab of polish. He continued the preparations by straightening the wrinkles in her dress and brushing her hair with a tortoiseshell comb.
Usually Tony took great pleasure in this part of the auction experience. He liked getting antiques ready for their moment in the spotlight. He liked polishing and cleaning and making last minute alterations and surreptitiously concealing dents, rips and scratches. But here, surrounded by such grandeur, he found himself unable to do anything but look around in wonder. A buzz permeated the hall—a palpable hum of excitement. Everywhere he turned boxes were being unwrapped, deals struck, notes counted. Standing on his chair he surveyed the scene in front of him with delight, a rippling sea awash with odd-looking characters, antiques, mystery, adventure.
Martell swatted the boy with his program. ‘Get down,’ he chuckled. ‘Do something useful. Here, have a look at the competition for us.’
Tony hopped to the floor and unrolled the program. Guessing how much items would sell for was a popular pastime in the antiques trade. He was good at it usually; he’d once managed to correctly predict five sales in a row, a record that even Martell couldn’t beat. Attempting to judge how a midnight auction would play out though, that proved much more difficult. Things here were completely alien to him. For one, he faced an unpredictable audience. There would be more money in the room than he was used to. This had the potential to send prices dizzying up faster and harder than he could possibly imagine. Secondly, just as problematically, many of the items up for sale were much stranger than he was used to. He could guess the prices of antique furniture or ornaments without much fuss, but cauldrons and thumb-screws? Reading through the program only confused him further.
Lot number two: fertility statue from Papua New Guinea.
Lot twelve: trepanned skull of 18th Century French murderer.
Lot thirty-three: Box of Mystery: contains assorted items and instruments of occult purpose.
How was anybody supposed to know how much a Box of Mys
tery would sell for? Or a fertility statue? Or a human skull for that matter? The more he read, the more uneasy he began to feel. He had been warned that midnight auctions were out of the ordinary, but some of the lots they would be competing against took things further than he had anticipated.
Lot six: 19th century bone-saw used by Harry Howard Holmes, American doctor-turned-serial killer.
‘Still bloody,’ the notes read. ‘In good working condition.’
Lot nineteen: ancient Haitian voodoo curse.
‘Kill your enemies from a distance. 100% effective. Secrecy guaranteed.’
Lot twenty-six: jar of poltergeists.
‘Danger. Do not open in a confined space.’
Tony tossed the program onto the table. ‘Come on, Martell’ he said. ‘How are they able to get away with this?’
‘With what, my boy?’
‘With all this rubbish about poltergeists and voodoo curses. I’m surprised there isn’t someone here selling magic beans.’
Though he expected Martell to offer a reassuring explanation—a wisecrack perhaps—the old man’s only reaction was a rueful shrug of the shoulders.
‘I told you midnight auctions were different.’
‘I know, Martell, but really —’
He stopped himself. Suddenly things were beginning to fall into place. Sir Roderick had been pestering Ebenezer about finding him a spell for good luck. And Martell had told him there would be occultists in the crowd: magicians, he had said, though evidently not the top-hat-and-tails variety Tony had assumed.
‘You’re kidding me …’
At once he clambered back onto the chair, surveying the sea of bodies surrounding him like a ship’s captain on the lookout for dry land. There, over by the farthest wall—an elderly man in a dusty tuxedo applying a coat of wax to a piano riddled with bullet holes. And there, near the entrance, a blonde woman in an overcoat hanging lot tags around a series of small stone statues—statues that resembled frozen children, crying out in terror.
Tony looked down at Martell and then back towards the other auctioneers.
‘Magic,’ he gasped. ‘It’s actual magic. Spells and curses and witches and wands.’ He laughed aloud: a manic, frightened laugh. ‘It’s real. It’s actually real.’
He turned again to the program.
Lot twelve: selected pages of the Necronomicon.
‘Doctor Dee translation. Notes included.’
Lot twenty-eight: willow-wood broomstick.
‘Perfect for beginners. Flies at speeds of up to sixty miles per hour.’
The feeling that shook him at that moment was incredibly powerful. It was as if his soul had caught fire—as if the world had burst into life and was now burning with colors more vivid than any he had ever seen. He felt his stomach quiver and his knees weaken. He savored the panicked pleasure of a frightened heart thumping against his ribcage.
‘Martell,’ he said. ‘It’s not just dark things people are selling. It’s magical things, too. This place is fantastic. It’s amazing.’
And he smiled and laughed and gave his uncle a hug.
And in that moment Martell was struck by just how much Tony Lott resembled his father.
*
The rain was still coming down as the hearse slipped into the car park. The driver parked up beneath the bough of an old yew tree and switched off the engine. His passenger glanced at his pocket-watch.
‘Ten o’clock,’ he said. ‘We’re early.’
‘I don’t hang around,’ the driver smirked. ‘Shall we go in then?’
‘No.’ The passenger clicked the pocket-watch closed and put it back in his jacket pocket. ‘We don’t want to spook them too soon. Let’s wait a while first, shall we?’
The driver grinned. ‘Right you are, Mr. Kepler.’
His partner nodded. ‘Right you are, Mr. Krook.’
And so they sat beneath the yew tree, the old man and the dwarf, and they waited.
7 - Vanessa
By the time Martell had the doll ready it was approaching eleven o’clock. He had been meticulous in his preparations. He had styled her hair, polished her face, straightened her dress, moved her arms into an appropriate position, moved them back again after deciding that he had it right the first time. When he had finally finished all that remained was the matter of her lot tag—‘NUMBER 23’—which he dutifully hung around her neck, as if she were a child soldier receiving a medal for valor. Anastasia’s doll. Away from the grime of her shoebox she looked resplendent. Her golden hair, her sparkling blue eyes. She began to attract attention from the other guests almost immediately. A steady stream of strangers approached their table, asking Martell questions and marking his answers in their programs whilst nodding thoughtfully. Tony wondered how many of these people would actually raise their hands when the bidding began and how many were just curious. He could certainly see how his uncle had earned his reputation as the Black Magician. Martell had a salesman’s charm and a way with words that captured the imagination of all those around him.
He told a pale man in a dark suit about the fall of the Romanovs, conjuring up images of snowy winter cities, revolutionaries in the streets, the crack of gunfire, the smell of burning buildings.
He treated a slender woman with haunted eyes to a brief account of unsolved mysteries from throughout history, making sure that Anastasia Romanov’s disappearance took top billing above the JFK assassination and the Bermuda Triangle.
Tony observed all of this silently. He enjoying listening to Martell talk up the doll, and he liked trying to read the reactions of the guests, all of whom did their best to play it cool, as if they were poker players who didn’t want to tip their hands too soon.
But compared to the excitement taking place everywhere else in the house … compared to actual magic …
The rest of the hall bustled with activity. There was a constant buzz of laughter and conversation in the background that every so often would be punctuated with shouts or bangs or ironic cheers. Sometimes he caught a momentary whiff of an exotic scent or saw a plume of colored smoke rising from a far-off table, and when he did he felt a longing deep in his belly to be out there, experiencing these things in person, actually involving himself in this strange, wonderful world.
Unfortunately, his uncle had other plans. After handing the doll over to a member of the house staff, who whisked it away through a hidden doorway, Martell looked at his watch and announced that it was time they took their seats in the main hall. ‘The auction won’t start for another hour,’ he said. ‘But we want to make sure we get ourselves good seats, don’t we?’
Tony’s spirits sank even further. They were standing in the middle of the most wonderful carnival he had ever experienced and Martell wanted them to spend the next hour guarding seats in an empty hall? There was still so much to see, so much to experience. He longed to explore properly, to see what the other sellers were like and examine their antiques in person. There was the rest of the auction house, too. They had passed staircases on their way in, spiraling staircases that led towards goodness knows where. And the guests, the elegant crooks and the battered traders, the sleek women and the dark strangers, if only he could spend some time in their company, mingling and talking and finding out what their stories were.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Martell said. ‘But we’re here to do business, remember. It’s not a holiday.’
‘I know that, Martell. It’s just—I’ve never been anywhere like this before. And I probably never will again. Can’t I just have a little look round? I won’t get into trouble, I promise.’
Martell smiled sadly. ‘When you father was here—’
‘But I’m not him, am I?’ They were both taken aback by the quiet ferocity with which he spoke. ‘I’m not, Martell,’ he continued, his voice calmer now. ‘I’m nothing like him.’
‘I know that, Tony. But if something happened …’ His voice fell away from him. For a long moment Martell remained silent, as if weighing up t
he matter in his mind. ‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘You can have a look around. But only in this hall and only if you promise to be careful. I mean it, Tony. You’re not to do anything but look. You’re not to buy anything, you’re not to touch anything, you’re not to agree to anything, you’re not to argue with anyone.’
‘Bloody hell, Martell, is it too late for me to save those seats after all?’
They grinned at each other.
‘Be good, all right?’ Martell said.
‘Always.’
Then he was off, roaming through the preparation area and reveling in the excitement of it all. The mood amongst the other sellers was upbeat and positive. Big sales were expected; the kind that made reputations and changed lives forever. Most of the antiques on display were similar to Anastasia’s doll in that they were relics of history’s darkest days—pieces of the past that spoke only of tragedy and horror. Tony saw Jack the Ripper’s knife and Gladstone bag, a dream diary that had once belonged to Mary Shelley, a blood-splattered wooden mermaid taken from the prow of Blackbeard’s ship. He wandered the aisles in a daze, amazed by the sights and sounds surrounding him. Everywhere he looked there were strangers inspecting antiques and sellers calling out to attract attention to their tables.
‘Magic wands, genuine magic wands, if you want ‘em, you’ll have to bid for ‘em.’
‘Lot twenty, ladies and gentlemen, lot twenty—the bullet that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It started a war and it can be yours for just the raise of a finger.’
Towards the back of the hall a small village of stalls had been set up by traders looking to pick up custom from the auction attendees. An old woman sold second-hand books from a barrow. A gypsy-gentleman offered sprigs of lucky heather and brightly colored handkerchiefs to anyone who caught his eye. There was even a crooked card game being run by a gangly man in a suit. Tony identified the sleights of hand being used in the con at once—a widow’s weave, a couple of King George shuffles—and felt proud of himself for spotting the deception. So much for ruthless criminals, he thought. Seems to me this is amateur hour all the way.