He darted into the road, back towards the hard white lights of the West End, running until his throat was filled with burning scraps of breath. Forced himself to stop, knowing that somehow, somewhere they could be studying his every move. Was it possible to be in the centre of a city of nine million people and yet be entirely alone?
Although the wind from the river was freezing against his face, rivulets of sweat trickled down his spine. He looked at his watch. 10:55 p.m. He’d miss the next deadline and that would be it; he would end up like Strangeways, lying in a gutter with his throat slit, bundled into garbage bags by a couple of rented thugs. It would be so easy to disappear. A wild malevolence swept through him as he snatched the letter containing the next challenge from his jacket and opened it.
The Challenge of War and Disobedience
Three dead men, tried in court as if alive.
Slaughtered and tortured beyond the grave.
Buried once more.
Only to rise and continue their damnable conversation.
How can this be? They have no mouths but still must speak.
Obtusus obtusiorum ingenii monumentum. Quid me respicis, viator? Vade.
Time allowed: 120 Minutes
What? He stared at the page in horror, knowing that this time he had been stonewalled. The text was gibberish, obscure, impossible. He had nowhere even to begin, no one to help him, no time to solve the damned stupid puzzle or to reach the destination hidden within the text. How long did he have before the paper it was written on fractured into dust?
Vince sat down on the wet kerb, heedless of the icy slush seeping into his jeans, and rested his head in his hands. There was nothing more he could do but await the arrival of the League.
—
Pam pulled a piece of gum from the pink stiletto of her left shoe and stepped back in the road. She looked up at the first-floor windows. No lights showed. If Vince was in he must have gone to bed, but the curtains were undrawn. She rang the bell again and waited. He was her closest friend, someone who could be trusted with nearly all of her most important secrets, and she really wanted to be with him tonight. When she set her mind to a task, she rarely stopped until she had completed it. Where the hell had he gone?
It would have to be a process of elimination. She slipped into the doorway of the laundromat next door to shelter from the biting wind, dug into her bag for her mobile phone and began making calls.
—
‘He’s not going to crack this one, Bunter,’ complained Sebastian. ‘You’ve made it too difficult.’
‘Well, there’s no point in the clues being too easy, is there?’ said Ross Caton-James, who allowed no one to call him Bunter but Sebastian. ‘You said so yourself. And he’s got about fifteen minutes to figure it out before the chemicals eat through the paper. Look, is it too much to ask for the port to be passed in the correct direction?’
He reached out to accept the decanter and poured himself a generous measure. The wind was sweeping across the river’s reach to moan and bat at the mullioned windows like Marley’s ghost. Caton-James had thinning sandy hair, a florid complexion, a corpulent girth and the torpid demeanour of a fifty-year-old who had made his pile and was now resting. The fact that he was only twenty-four made his profound sense of self-satisfaction all the more alarming. But then his father was one of the richest men in England, and the elderly knight’s children had never been contradicted or disobeyed in their lives. It lent one’s most frivolous remarks a certain gravitas.
‘Do you propose giving him a clue? I should be rather disappointed. It would count as cheating.’
‘I have no desire to aid him in any way, as you can imagine.’ Sebastian pulled his bow-tie undone and loosened his shirt collar. ‘Give St John Warner a call and find out what he’s doing now. Don’t use that thing at the table; show some fucking decorum.’
Caton-James rose and moved to the rear of the dining room. He pulled the black plastic button from his jacket top pocket and clicked it, addressing the tiny transmitter. ‘This is Mount Caucasus. What’s happening down there?’
A thin crackle of static preceded the reply. ‘He was sitting by the river a few minutes ago, close to giving up by the look of it. Now he’s moved out of range.’ St John Warner had access to the Embankment’s closed-circuit traffic cameras. Indeed, via his father’s connections with New Scotland Yard he had access to virtually every transmission received by the electronic crimewatch and traffic surveillance equipment in the city. The rest of the monitors, those situated on private property and operated by independent security firms, were pretty much covered by colleagues in the private sector who had access to the larger CCTV systems in use around the city. In the course of nearly a hundred years, the League had managed to lay in place a comprehensive network of grace and favour. The roots ran deeper than even Sebastian himself realised.
‘You’ll let us know when he comes back in vision?’
‘Of course. Although I think he’s blown it this time.’
‘We’ll do the thinking, okay? All you have to do is bloody report.’ He returned the transmitter to his pocket. ‘Stevens has dropped the homeless boy off in the Thames, although the dog ran away before he could catch it.’
‘Dogs can’t talk, Bunter.’
‘He wanted an extra hundred for getting rid of the body but we’re persuading him to settle for sixty.’
‘He’s pushing his luck,’ said Sebastian, refilling his glass with port. ‘Stevens hardly had to do anything. We’re doing all the real work. How can he call himself a hit man when he only half-finishes the job? Anybody can drop someone in their tracks. You have to clear up afterwards. It’s all part of the deal.’
‘He complained about getting blood over his clothes. Wanted us to foot his cleaning bill.’
‘Bloody cheek.’
‘Said he feels bad about having to kill the boy.’
‘Classic liberal stance: go along with everyone else, accept handsome payment, then start bleating. Take no notice; Xavier Stevens has killed plenty of times before. You’re not telling me he didn’t get out of his car and watch that editor burn behind her steering wheel. You know he gets off on it, don’t you? I mean, it’s a sexual thing with him.’
‘I’d heard that.’
‘Well. He’s just trying it on.’
‘I think we got our money’s worth,’ said Caton-James. ‘Reynolds is running shit-scared now. You should be enjoying yourself. This whole charade is costing enough.’
Bunter was right, of course. Crucially, though, the League’s ‘investment’ in this evening’s events had passed through such a convoluted network of international financial institutions that it would not be traced back in this lifetime.
‘So, no clues then,’ muttered Caton-James, reseating himself and draining his port. ‘He may come through yet, of course. If he uses his head. Get it?’ He sniggered at Sebastian and reached for the decanter once more.
—
The buzz of the mobile phone startled him. Vince had intended to throw the damned thing in the river. He didn’t like using them, anyway; they were talismen, part of the new shamanism, like web-sites and swipe-cards. The boy had probably spoken into it so often that it contained part of his spirit. Besides, it was unusable now that he knew they were listening in. He withdrew it from his jacket and opened the line, dreading the sound of Sebastian’s voice.
‘Vince? Are you there?’
‘Pam? How on earth did you get this number?’
‘Welcome to the twentieth century, darling. I collected my messages and picked up the last number redial. It works with mobiles now, didn’t you know? Where on earth are you? Do you remember you were supposed to be eating with me tonight?’
‘Listen, Pam, you can’t stay on this line, it’s not secure. Let me call you back in two minutes.’ He folded the phone away and ran up the slope towards Blackfriars. In the street that curved behind the statue-bedecked Parthenon of Lever House he found a phone box covered in call-girl stic
kers, and rang Pam’s number. He lost precious minutes explaining his predicament, still more trying to decide a plan of action with her.
‘Please, Vince,’ pleaded Pam, ‘let me go to the police.’
‘If you do, the League will know about it.’
‘How can they? Ask yourself, how would that be possible?’
‘I don’t know, I just know they would. I’ve seen what they can do. I don’t want to put anyone else at risk.’
‘Then what can I do to help?’
‘I have to see it through. If you want to be of use, you can find me a fast answer to this damned puzzle.’
‘This is crazy…’
‘You asked if you could do anything, here’s your chance. I can’t solve it by myself.’ Pam could help him without placing herself in danger. Even if they could see him, they could not possibly know who he was calling.
‘Well, if there’s no other way—’
He read the instructions slowly enough for her to write them out. The paper was drying, but had not yet started to dissolve.
‘Christ, you’ll have to spell out the Latin stuff.’
‘I don’t have the time.’ Vince glanced back, half expecting to see figures running through the shadows. ‘Just put it down as it sounds. You’ll have to concentrate on the first part.’
‘But how can I? I failed history and I was never any good at languages, I don’t know—’
‘Wait. Call this guy, explain who you are and ask him to help you. I’ll ring you back in ten minutes.’ He gave Pam the home number of Dr Harold Masters and replaced the receiver. Then he pushed himself back against the wall of the building, waiting for his pulse to slow. He studied the letter again.
Three dead men.
They were setting him tasks whose solutions reinforced their own beliefs, in order that he might learn lessons; the solution to the first challenge had shown a disapproval of mixed marriages, the second and third suggested a nostalgia for times past, solid right-wing notions. What on earth could this be?
A historical puzzle. Corpses tried in court, buried only to rise and continue talking—as what, ghosts? That had to be it, the spirits of dead men, but whose? A fine damp mist had settled at the end of the crescent, causing penumbral light-cones to form around the streetlamps. His feet were growing numb. He stamped and checked his watch. Just gone eleven o’clock. They had generously given him two hours to solve the puzzle this time, but he had already lost the first hour. Even if he somehow came up with a correct solution, he still had to allow for travelling time.
He reinserted his phonecard and called Pam again. The line was still engaged. He tried Harold Masters’s number. This time the call was answered.
‘Hullo there, Vincent. I think your friend is just about to ring you.’ Far from being annoyed, the doctor sounded pleased to have been asked to participate in the evening’s events. ‘I’ve got something. I was just checking the exact location in my A–Z. I think this is to do with the revenge taken on Oliver Cromwell.’
That made sense. The League would have heartily disapproved of such a man. They saw a symbolic threat to the monarchy, plain and simple. No sense of Charles I’s absolutism or Cromwell’s puritanism. World history in black and white. ‘What about him?’ he asked. ‘Wasn’t there some confusion about where Cromwell was buried?’
‘That’s just it. Cromwell and his parliamentarian colleagues Ireton and Bradshaw were originally interred in Westminster Abbey, but after the Restoration their bodies were exhumed and brought to trial at Westminster Hall.’
…tried in court as if alive…
‘They were found guilty of regicide and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. As a mark of public humiliation they were dragged on sledges to Tyburn…’
‘The Tyburn route is now Oxford Street, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but the actual site of Tyburn tree, the name of the triangular gallows, is at the junction of the Edgware Road and Bayswater Road, although Charles Dickens pointed out that the exact location was still under dispute in his time. There’s supposed to be a stone marking the purported spot on the traffic island there.’
‘You’re both geniuses, thanks,’ said Vince.
‘Well, not really because—’
‘I’ve no time to spare, Doctor. I’m on my way.’
‘You misunderstand me,’ said Masters, ‘that’s not where the clue is sending you at all.’
But Vince had already returned the receiver to its cradle. Even now he was running into the mist enveloping the end of the road.
Chapter 26
Trick Question
Harold Masters stood in the kitchen with his hands in his pockets watching his wife making a cup of tea. Jane had been working at the Victoria and Albert Museum when they’d met. A shy, almost reclusive woman, one of the world’s leading experts on Peter Carl Fabergé, she had asked his advice about the supposed rediscovery of a jewelled casket, a legendary ‘lost’ piece that had vanished during the Russian Revolution, and in doing so had unexpectedly awoken a deep and abiding passion within herself. Finding a strength she had not known she possessed, she had asked him to marry her, and Harold had gratefully accepted. They never did manage to locate the missing Fabergé casket. Jane was his voice of reason, his calm centre. He had already decided that he would take her advice on the matter that was troubling him.
‘It’s a bit late to start getting people together,’ she pointed out, placing the kettle on the stove.
‘It’s supposed to be for insomniacs, for God’s sake!’
‘We’re not due to meet up until next week, and that’s meant to be at Maggie’s place, not here. I’ve hardly got anything for them to eat.’ She removed two cups from the cupboard and set them out. ‘I suppose you could call around and see who’s available. Ring Arthur, he’ll definitely be up for it. The poor man never seems to sleep at all.’
Masters slipped his arms around Jane and gave her a quick hug. Anyone else would have considered his idea preposterous. ‘I don’t just love you because you indulge me, you know,’ he said.
‘I know.’ Jane smiled and began digging about in the refrigerator. ‘Go on, then. Get out of my way. Go and make your calls.’
—
Vince was going to miss his deadline for the fourth challenge, he knew it. Nobody would be safe then. Alighting from the half-empty tube at Marble Arch he made his way up to ground level and exited on the north side of Oxford Street. Any day now the stores would start staying open late for Christmas shoppers, but tonight they were dark and silent. Absurdly postured mannequins bore blank witness as he passed. The great floodlit block of Marble Arch, designed as the main entrance to Buckingham Palace and moved because it was too narrow for coaches to pass through, rose above the traffic, a remnant from a grander time. And there, running through a revolving phalanx of black cabs in the centre of the intersection was—Pam, dressed in a navy-blue two-piece with gold buttons and pink high-heels, looking like a cosmetics representative late for a date.
But he didn’t want to see Pam—couldn’t see her. There were traffic cameras staring down at every section of the road. She had placed herself in terrible danger coming here. Vince turned away and began hastily walking in the opposite direction, back towards the searing neon lights of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant further along the street.
‘Wait, Vince, it’s me!’ Pam had spotted him. There were few other pedestrians left on the streets. The cameras were bound to pick her up. There was nowhere to hide. He searched the cornices of the buildings; nearly every single one had a small black box at its apex. He imagined the two of them, soft grey figures colliding and talking as their electronic images sprawled across banks of TV monitors. Pam was running full pelt towards him, stilettos tick-tacking across the tarmac, her candy-blonde hair flying about her face. Vince fell back into the unlit doorway of a shoe store, praying she would pass by.
‘What are you doing, it’s me!’ Pam came to a halt in front of him.
‘We ca
n’t be seen talking,’ hissed Vince. ‘Do you want to get killed?’
‘No one’s expecting to see us here, Vince, you’re safe.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you? That I saw somebody murdered tonight? That anyone who talks to me is at risk? They’re watching each of the challenge sites.’
‘But this isn’t one of them,’ said Pam breathlessly. ‘They’re not expecting to see you here. That’s what I’m trying to explain, if you’ll only have some patience and listen for a minute. You hung up on the doctor too quickly. You’re in the wrong place. I came to tell you—’
‘Tyburn tree…’
‘It’s nothing to do with Tyburn! I spoke to Doctor Masters, he was giving you the full story when you jumped to conclusions and cut him short. Hang on.’ She pressed a hand against her chest, drawing breath. ‘It’s recorded that Cromwell and the others were hung up here until sunset, then beheaded. Their remains were supposedly chucked into a pit under the gallows, and their heads were stuck on poles on the roof of Westminster Hall. But Masters reckons it’s a trick question. He says that the night before the bodies were taken to Tyburn they were kept at the Red Lion Inn in Holborn, and that a “Tyburn” can mean any place of execution.’
‘So they may not have come here?’
‘Think about it. Why would they have been dragged east to Holborn when this Tyburn lies to the northwest of Westminster? There were other Tyburns, one where Centre Point now stands, and another in Fetter Lane. The bodies were kept at Red Lion Square and here’s the important part—there used to be an obelisk with your Latin inscription on it, standing in a paddock near the square.’
‘So the last lines of the riddle refer to what, their ghosts?’
‘They’ve been seen through the centuries, walking diagonally across the square deep in conversation, which is weird because their heads weren’t buried there with them.’
…They have no mouths but still must speak…
‘Do you have any money on you? I’m nearly out. I’ll pay you back if I get out of this alive.’
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