Disturbia

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘This book had better be worth it,’ said Louie, pulling the computer disk from his jacket.

  ‘What on earth are you doing walking around with that on you?’ asked Vince.

  ‘I thought it would be safer if I kept it with me. Fucking hell, don’t shout, I’ve had a hard night. I had to take this off some geezer who’d nicked it from my flat.’

  ‘Louie, what are you doing here?’ asked Pam. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He’s a bit distraught.’ Vince looked from one to the other. ‘Are we expecting anyone else? Perhaps you’ve invited my mother along too?’

  ‘No, there’s just us. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  Vince shook his head in defeat. ‘Well, now that everyone’s here, I guess you might as well help. But when they find out, believe me, there’s going to be trouble about this.’

  —

  Caton-James lifted his legs from the desk and tipped his chair away from the monitors. ‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘that’s enough.’ He punched out Sebastian’s number and waited for him to answer. ‘He’s having a fucking school reunion party outside the cemetery,’ he complained, ‘standing there talking to his friends in the pissing rain like it’s all some big joke. Either you stop this farce now or—’

  ‘Or what?’ asked Sebastian.

  ‘We’ve got enough. This is the seventh, and seven should do it. We’ve won. We can get rid of the others.’

  ‘No. I want them all.’

  ‘Why do you need the other three, for God’s sake?’

  ‘It’s foolproof then. Ten out of ten, don’t you see? No other explanation needed.’

  ‘All right, but we have to get rid of his friends, and do it right now.’

  ‘I’ll have to agree with that. What do you suggest?’

  ‘Where’s Xavier?’

  ‘He should be somewhere near the cemetery by now. He’s supposed to be keeping Reynolds in his sights. You’d better give him a call.’ The line fell silent for a moment. ‘God knows how he’s supposed to get the bodies from there to the river without arousing suspicion. He’ll need a larger vehicle than his bike, that’s for sure. Have we got any cars in the area?’

  ‘The Rover’s nearby, but it’ll need a driver, someone who can keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘Wake up Protheroe. He’s monitoring CCTVs for us at Liverpool Street station. Get him out on the street. The fresh air will do him good.’

  —

  ‘I’ll stay on this side and keep a lookout,’ whispered Pam, even though the street was deserted. ‘I’m not fond of cemeteries.’ Rain dropped straight and hard on her head and shoulders. The noise of the downpour drowned out any other sound. The colour of her soaked navy-blue suit had run, staining her blouse and her tights. It looked like someone had thrown several pots of ink at her. She would make sure that Vince bought her a new outfit if they survived the night.

  The cemetery was sectioned off to protect its more fragile homes. The headstones were tall and thin, often the size of a man, and most had been blown flat by bombs during the Second World War, although their owners were among the few residents in the area who had not lain awake all night waiting for the engines of the V1s to cut out overhead. Louie and Vince found nothing remotely elfish on or around any of the graves. The more famous, and therefore more visited, tombstones had all been repositioned in the centre of the cemetery, on or around its gravel path. The place had lost the chaotic untidiness it had possessed between the wars, and looked the worse for it.

  ‘It would help if we knew what we were looking for,’ Louie complained. ‘I’ve never heard of any bloody Elf King.’

  It was eerie here even in broad daylight, but worse now with the rain spattering from the claw-like branches of the plane trees, and the streetlamps strobing jaundiced shadows. Beyond the cemetery railing, Pam wrapped her arms around her dripping jacket and tried to stamp some life back into her frozen feet. In doing so, she broke the heel of her shoe. She was staring down at the fracture, trying to think of a way to mend it, when she saw the embossed lettering.

  ‘Oh my God. Vince! Louie!’ She threw a discreet distress call over the cemetery wall and waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. ‘Vince?’

  She looked back at the raised metal letters of the manhole cover. It read METROPOLITAN WATER BOARD SV SELF LOCKING PLATE, but the lettering on either side of the cover had worn down to leave the central raised section—ELF KING.

  What did the instructions say?

  Go below.

  Carefully hitching up her soaked skirt, she pulled at the sides of the iron disk and found that it had already been loosened. It shifted easily, so that she was able to roll it aside and stare down into distant rushing darkness.

  Chapter 42

  Aqua Mortis

  The iron-runged ladder was so cold she was afraid for a moment that her hands might stick to it. She fixed the penlight torch Vince had left her in the belt-loop of her skirt, and its narrow pool of light instantly revealed the stark white oblong of the letter, weighted down with a piece of brick on a dry stone ledge ten feet underneath her. The rushing water below must surely contain sewage; she imagined that the SV on the manhole cover stood for ‘Sewage Valve’, but in this cold temperature it thankfully had little odour. Climbing into a sewer during a thunderstorm in high-heels was not something she had ever intended to do in her lifetime. She knew she should have waited for Vince and Louie to come back, but it was a chance to prove herself and do something proactive. It was time women took more of an initiative, she told herself.

  It was an easy climb, despite the fact that the drain was narrow and one of her heels was broken. She collected the letter from the ledge, tossing the brick that pinned it into the black waters, then folded the paper and slipped it into her handbag.

  She started up the ladder again. At the top, she lobbed her bag back onto the pavement and was about to climb out when the manhole cover abruptly slid back in place with a clang, catching her on the side of the head, and she dropped from the ladder, down into the roaring black spray.

  —

  ‘She drowned,’ said Harold Masters. ‘It was an accident. The hour was late, the girl was high, on drugs, on drink. It was his son’s party, and the boy was blamed. Twenty-one years of age. His nascent career never recovered after that. Surely that’s enough to make anyone bitter.’

  Bryant pushed a sheaf of clippings in his colleague’s direction. ‘Come on, Harold,’ he said, ‘just look at Wells’s background. He comes from a long line of empire builders, the so-called backbone of the nation. Sebastian’s future had been decided for him before he was even born. His father was a supporter of Mosley, a hard-line member of the League of Prometheus, its president for a number of years at a time when their membership was swollen with patriots, and his son took up the life almost at once. Look at his extracurricular track record at Oxford. He was set on becoming a leader of men. And yet he ruins his chances with this one slip-up.’

  ‘It’s a human life we’re talking about,’ said Maggie, ‘not just a “slip-up”. Besides, a lot of bright young men and women lost their way during their college years.’

  ‘I know, but this doesn’t ring true,’ complained Bryant, rubbing a weary hand across his face. ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you expect to find,’ said Purbrick. ‘The son simply went to the bad.’

  ‘Try reading the clippings chronologically,’ Bryant suggested.

  ‘Really, I don’t see how this will help.’

  ‘Something happened between Wells pere et fils. Look at this, in 1988 they shared a platform at a local rally, completely in agreement. The following year, the same thing, joint appearances and then—1990, the son appears alone, and the father has suddenly retired from public speaking. The son even speaks out in public against his own father, who by this time has changed his political affiliations. And this girl drowned in the summer of 1989. Now, what does that suggest to you?’

  ‘They f
ell out over the girl’s death,’ said Jane. ‘It would be more surprising if they hadn’t. Where was the mother while all this was going on?’

  ‘She dropped out of the picture some years earlier. Lives in France.’

  ‘Later the father took to the lecture circuit without his son,’ Masters pointed out. ‘He remained a Conservative, but his position was shifting. Getting soft in his dotage, the son told the papers. Sebastian kept a hard line on immigration, while his father founded that initiative, the Without Borders thing. Supposed to bring down trade barriers. Although I imagine the old man set it up so that his business interests would benefit from changes in the migration laws, bring more wage slaves into Britain, that sort of malarkey. Their flags are out all along the Mall this week. There must be something going on.’

  ‘It’s as if father and son were competing with one another,’ muttered Bryant.

  ‘That’s right. Sebastian is fresher, younger, the stronger of the two. He had an advantage over the old man, he was heading for the top. Then the scandal of Melanie Daniels’s death hit him, and he never recovered his credibility. In the battle of ideologies, the father somehow won. This is very curious.’

  ‘I really don’t see what’s so odd,’ said Maggie impatiently, ‘or how it helps anyone. We should be helping Vince find this Elf King.’

  ‘He’s looking for it now,’ said Masters. ‘I’m sure he’ll call us as soon as he has news. I’m going upstairs to check on something. Bryant, will you come with me?’

  ‘Certainly, old man. You know, I have an idea…’

  ‘We should never let those two get together,’ said Jane, wearily pouring herself a scotch. ‘Heaven knows what they’ll hatch up.’ It was safe to assume that she would be preparing a cooked breakfast for five this morning, shortly after the arrival of dawn. The Insomnia Squad had passed long nights before, but never anything like this.

  —

  ‘She wouldn’t have just left it here,’ said Vince, picking up the sodden bag and turning it by its strap. ‘She must be around somewhere.’ Louie walked to the corner and returned. ‘Nope, no sign of anybody.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear anything?’

  Louie narrowed his eyes, the rain spattering across his forehead. Above him, thunder grumbled. ‘In this?’

  ‘She wouldn’t have left without me.’ Vince opened the bag and peered in. He instantly recognised the envelope. ‘Looks like she found it.’ He pulled it out, noting that it had not been opened.

  ‘Where, though? Where was she standing just before I climbed over the railings after you?’ They looked around, but it was still a few minutes before they saw the manhole lid.

  Whoever had put it back had stamped it into place, knocking off pieces of the paving stone’s cement edging. The cover was now firmly jammed. Louie searched around for some kind of lever, and picked up a broken section of branch. He tried to wedge it under one end of the lid, but the wood was wet, and split. Vince found a discarded hubcap in the gutter and after chipping away at the cement edging they jammed it beneath the edge of the lid, but it took another five minutes to prise the iron disk from its setting.

  ‘Aqua Mortis,’ said Louie, kneeling and peering into the blackness. ‘That’s what they used to call the Thames. Water of death. So much sewage flowed into it. The stench alone was enough to kill you. You don’t think she’s down there, do you?’

  ‘With the Elf King? Somebody pulled the thing up. Pamela!’ yelled Vince, but the cry was lost in the noise of churning water. The pipes were thumping and gurgling with the deluge of torrential rain. It was a pity he had given his torch to Pam. He could see no more than three or four feet into the top of the shaft.

  ‘I don’t think I can go down there,’ said Louie. ‘I get claustrophobia.’

  ‘Suppose she reached up to throw the bag out and the lid fell back on her, knocking her down the steps to the bottom? She might be just out of reach, unconscious.’

  ‘And she might be dead. Suppose there’s someone else here? You yourself said they don’t want you talking to anyone.’

  Vince stared at Louie. ‘You know we have to go and look.’

  ‘Shit.’

  The next sound to pass between them was that of an arrow cleaving the air. Louie looked back at Vince’s wide eyes and dropping jaw, then down at the side of his own thigh, from which protruded six inches of slim aluminium shaft. ‘Man, I don’t believe it,’ was all he managed to say before Xavier Stevens kicked him over the manhole-mouth. Vince scrambled to his feet and heard the crossbow reload in his direction. Louie tried to maintain his balance but fell back into the sewage shaft.

  The water level had risen since Pam climbed down to retrieve the letter. There was a scrape of brickwork and an echoing splash when Louie hit the bottom.

  Stevens kicked the heavy lid back into place again, stamped it hard into the surround with a steel-capped boot and hesitated in front of Vince, staring him down, daring him to move. He was tempted to finish the job and face the consequences later. He wasn’t afraid of anything Sebastian might threaten him with. But then his bloodlust subsided, and he began thinking practically. He’d done the League a favour. Caton-James had called him to say that Protheroe was bringing something to put the bodies in, but he would not be needed now. Stevens returned to his motorbike and kicked it into life. This night was going to cost Sebastian dearly. They were going to discover that his silence had a painfully high price.

  Vince helplessly tried to tear the lid from the drain, but it was too firmly wedged in place now to shift without tools. He darted across the road and hammered on the door of the saloon bar, but no lights came on, no heads appeared at the windows above. Running around the corner, he rang the bell of the first flat he chanced upon. No answer again. Given the late hour and the inclemency of the weather, it was hardly surprising that no one was prepared to open their door to a stranger in the street.

  Returning to collect Pam’s fallen bag, he removed her mobile phone, walked back to the comparative shelter of the pub doorway and punched out Masters’s number. The doctor answered on the second ring, listened to what had happened and promised to call the police immediately.

  ‘I can’t get the lid up by myself,’ Vince shouted above the drumming rain, ‘it’s stuck in place.’

  ‘You mustn’t panic,’ said Masters. ‘Let’s think this through. In normal weather he’d probably be able to go along to the next valve shaft and surface there, but in this downpour the tunnel may well be flooded all the way to the roof. Jane’s calling the police on our other line, Vince. You’d better get away from there fast.’

  ‘I can’t just leave them like this. Jesus, they might both be—’

  ‘There’s nothing more you can do, is there?’

  ‘Not without equipment, people to help me—’

  ‘Exactly. If you stop now, they’ll have suffered for no purpose. You have to keep going.’

  ‘I can’t—’

  ‘You can. You say you have the new envelope. Have you opened it yet?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘Jesus Christ—’

  ‘If you don’t do it and stay calm, Vince, everything is lost.’

  ‘Okay. Hold on.’ He pulled the sopping letter from his pocket, tore off the end and attempted to read the paper inside.

  The Challenge of the Hours

  The night of September 3rd and the passing of Proserpine.

  A Sunday evening near Sadler’s Wells with Diana and her cuckold Actaeon.

  Noon at L’Eglise des Grecs in Hog Lane, where a good woman is silent.

  Aurora arrives at St Paul’s at five to eight, less pious than she appears.

  The words had been transcribed with a fountain pen as usual, and were once again in a different hand. It was a wonder the rain had not ruined them. He wondered what effect water would have on the chemical treatment of the paper. Vince read the letter aloud, pausing to allow the doctor time to jot each sentence down.

  ‘I can hardly hear you, the rain’s coming down
so hard,’ he shouted.

  ‘I said I think we have a double bluff here,’ Masters told him. ‘At first appearance it’s quite simple, but no, the more I think about it the more confusing it becomes.’

  ‘Simple?’ He could not share the doctor’s excitement for the game. It was fine for him; he was warm and dry and safe. Vince just wanted to solve the damned thing and find out what had happened to his friends. His boots were full of water and rain was dripping inside his collar, down his spine.

  ‘This is to do with a set of paintings,’ said Masters. ‘Hogarth’s four famous Times of the Day paintings to be exact, Morning, Noon, Evening and Night. They’re right here in London. The problem is, they’re absolutely stuffed with allegorical allusions that point in all sorts of different directions. We have too many clues to follow.’

  ‘Couldn’t it be simpler than that?’ asked Vince, forcing himself to think clearly. ‘Surely Sebastian wasn’t expecting me to work out the symbolism in paintings at five o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘I think that’s precisely what he wants you to do,’ replied Masters. ‘Don’t you see, he’s thrusting his preferred kind of education on you, British, classical, old school. And these paintings are games, filled with little puzzles, just the sort of thing he likes.’

  ‘I’ve seen the Hogarth pictures at the Tate Gallery. Couldn’t I be intended to go there?’

  ‘What would be the point of specifying the Hogarth pictures so exactly when any artist exhibited at the Tate would do? And why go into such detail about them? No, the answer has to be in the paintings themselves.’

  ‘Do you have any reproductions of them to hand?’

  ‘I probably have quite a few. They’re featured in a great many art volumes. Are you sheltering somewhere out of the wet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Listen, you’d better make yourself scarce from there if the police are on their way. It’s going to take us a few minutes to locate reproductions of the paintings and examine them. We’ll call you back.’