Disturbia

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘Which is?’

  Sebastian looked straight ahead. His pupils had flattened into distant green disks. ‘Obviously, I’m required to take my own life.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Vince. ‘You set up this night of challenges yourself. You planned it.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Then why on earth didn’t you make it impossible for me to win? Why did you set me tasks that you knew I would have to solve in order to fulfil your other purpose? If you wanted to get back at your father, why not do it another way? You could only beat him by allowing me to win. You deliberately created a situation in which your main purposes cancelled each other out. Why would you do such a thing?’

  Sebastian raised his dead green eyes. He looked older in the growing light. ‘As you yourself pointed out, I am very fond of paradoxes,’ he said, smiling coldly.

  ‘So you’ve lost and won.’

  ‘That’s the best result I could ever have hoped for. The resolution of this night is now in your hands.’

  From the street below came the whine of a milk float making its deliveries. The rain was finally easing, but the sky remained grimly dark. Sebastian rose unsteadily and unstuck half a bottle of claret from the sideboard. The atmosphere in the room was fetid and heavy.

  ‘Well, what’s it to be, young Vincent?’ he asked, tipping the bottle over his glass and slopping wine on the floor. ‘Do you accept the offer and take over as part of the League’s new “grass roots” order? They’ll guarantee you won’t be implicated in the night’s events. It’s simply a matter of a few phone calls. Could you be seduced by the thought of such power and spend the rest of your days with my death on your conscience?’

  He set down his wineglass and dug inside his jacket. ‘It’s a service revolver,’ he said, brandishing the dull grey pistol. ‘Holds an important ceremonial role in the League’s traditions. It’s been used many times before, for many different reasons.’ Removing the safety catch, he raised it to his throat and tilted his face to the ceiling. ‘God, you spend years trying to change the world, only to discover the final hellish paradox.’

  ‘Which is?’ asked Vince, watching him and waiting for a chance to snatch the gun away.

  ‘That the good intentions die with you, and the evil ones live on.’ His finger tightened on the trigger as he slowly tipped his chair back. ‘You’d better get out of here before the sound of the shot brings the others running.’

  ‘No way,’ said Vince, shifting forwards. ‘I want to make sure you pull the fucking trigger.’

  Sebastian was so surprised he nearly shot himself.

  ‘Come on, then, do it. You don’t get off the hook by chucking me a bit of paraphrased Shakespeare and hoping I’ll buy it. Let’s see you take the noble way out, do the decent thing. Open the tent flap, look over your shoulder and tell me you might be gone for some time.’

  Sebastian held the pose, but his eyes flicked uncertainly back at Vince.

  ‘Go on, join an illustrious gallery of honourable suicides. How old was Brutus when he killed himself?’

  Sebastian remained motionless for a few seconds more, then started to waver. ‘Jesus.’ He lowered the revolver. ‘I think it’s quits, don’t you? You’re not about to join our ranks, and somehow I don’t think we’ll ever be able to join yours. The poor old Prometheans are like this city; we’re carrying too much baggage to ever start entirely afresh. We’ll still be here next month, next year; a little older and shabbier, but still here. And no doubt it will be the task of someone like you to cancel out each forwards move we make.’

  Vince gave a rueful smile. ‘Then the game would continue for ever.’

  ‘Of course.’ Sebastian laughed. ‘How could it ever end?’

  ‘But it has ended,’ said Vince, seating himself at the other end of the table. ‘You see, there’s one final paradox you haven’t considered.’

  Sebastian shifted nervously in his armchair. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Vince’s smile broadened. The loaded pistol sat between them.

  ‘I accept the League’s offer of membership,’ he said, smiling wider as he picked up the gun and aimed it at Sebastian’s forehead. ‘Get on the floor.’

  Sebastian was aghast. He struggled to understand the command. Vince came forwards and kicked him from the chair. Drunker than he realised, Sebastian fell to his knees, then rolled over on his back.

  ‘Open your mouth.’

  Meekly, he did as he was told, unable to comprehend the turn in events. Vince dropped a mudstained boot to his throat, jammed the steel barrel between his parted teeth and fired once.

  The bullet that passed through Sebastian’s upper palate also tore through his brain before exiting his skull and embedding itself in the mahogany herring-bone floor tiles. Vince remained holding the gun as the others came running into the room.

  ‘Come on in, boys,’ he called, still eyeing the twisted body on the floor. ‘The leadership contest is over. I think you can figure out who won. You may as well make yourselves comfortable. We’ve got a lot to talk about.’

  Part Three

  ‘The shouting of democracy, like the singing of the stars, means Triumph.

  But the silence of democracy means Tea.’

  —E. V. Knox

  Chapter 49

  The Never-Ending Game

  ‘All right,’ said Stanley Purbrick, ‘it’s my turn. Chameleon. Sculptor. Toucan. Dragon. Furnace. Chisel. Microscope.’ He sat back smugly and drained his beer. ‘Sort that one out.’

  ‘Pathetic,’ mocked Maggie Armitage. ‘Hopelessly easy.’ She shook the last crumbs of salt and vinegar crisp from her packet and munched them. ‘They’re all—’

  ‘Don’t be a spoilsport,’ warned Stanley. ‘You always know the answer. Let someone else have a chance at getting it. Jane? Harold? Any ideas?’

  ‘They’re all constellations, aren’t they?’ asked Masters, hardly bothering to look up from his newspaper.

  ‘That does it.’ Purbrick folded his arms across his cardigan. ‘I’m not going to play this any more.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a bad loser, Stanley. You hate anyone knowing more than you, and lots of people do.’ She examined the inside of her crisp bag and ran an exploratory digit around it. ‘Almost everyone, in fact.’

  ‘That absolutely does it. I’m going home.’ He rose to leave, but was waiting for someone to push him back in his seat.

  ‘Do sit down, there’s a chap, I’ve got you a top-up.’ Arthur Bryant had arrived with a tin tray full of drinks. The Insomnia Squad were seated in what had once been the snug bar of the Nun and Broken Compass. Maggie had been due to conduct a meeting of the Camden Town coven in one of the upstairs rooms tonight, but her secretary had muddled the dates and they had found themselves double booked with the Norman Wisdom Fan Club, so Arthur Bryant offered to buy them all drinks. As no one could ever recall the elderly detective offering to buy anyone a drink before, they jumped at the chance.

  ‘We should have invited Vincent tonight,’ said Maggie. ‘I’d like to meet him one day. It galls me a bit to think that we helped save lives and nobody knows about it. I suppose that now he’s a celebrity he won’t want to talk to the likes of us.’

  ‘It’s odd that he never even rang to say thank you for all the help we gave him,’ complained Purbrick.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Dr Masters, ‘you can read all about him instead.’ He held up a section of the Independent for everyone to see.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Maggie.

  ‘A review of his book. He already has the critics slavering. According to this he’s been commissioned to write another volume.’

  ‘That should please the League of Prometheus.’

  ‘They’ve gone very quiet, haven’t they?’ Maggie stirred her tequila and blackcurrant with her little finger. ‘Not much good without their leader. One never really knows what’s going on. You don’t suppose they’re planning something new?’

  ‘Someone’s always
planning something,’ said Bryant vaguely. ‘That’s what cities are for. The countryside is where you can settle and be at peace with yourself. Cities are there to disturb your thoughts, your dreams, your complacency. I agree with Stanley, though; it’s odd that the boy hasn’t been in touch.’

  ‘You don’t think something’s happened to him?’

  ‘Not if the smiling photograph in the paper is to be believed.’

  ‘Funny,’ said Masters, examining the picture. ‘He looks just like Sebastian Wells here. Must be the angle it was taken.’

  ‘Be careful of my overcoat, would you, Maggie?’ pleaded Bryant. ‘There’s a cat in one of the pockets.’

  ‘I wondered where my crisps had been going.’ She eyed the garment warily. It was indeed moving. ‘You get cats the way other people get colds.’

  Jane Masters pulled aside the curtain and checked the wet inhospitable streets.

  ‘Looks like it’s in for the night,’ she sighed. ‘We’ll just have to stay here. As a matter of interest, does anyone know why this place is called the Nun and Broken Compass?’

  ‘Bryant can tell you,’ said her husband. ‘He heard the story from the landlord. It’s really disgusting.’

  Arthur Bryant leaned forwards with a rare, disgraceful grin on his lips. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘it seems that about a hundred and seventy years ago a beautiful young convent-raised woman worked behind the counter here, and customers used to come from miles around to be served by her. Back then, of course, the place was still called the Cromwell Arms, and one night the saloon door was opened by two monks who had lost their way in the foggy backstreets…’

  Chapter 50

  The New Brigands

  He stood beneath the melancholy greenery of the cemetery, looking at the white marble sarcophagus which bore so many Wells family names, and thought that even here Sebastian had not been able to escape his father. Sir Nicholas had arranged to have his son illegally interred in the family vault instead of being left beyond consecrated grounds, on the sterile little lawn where all the other suicides were buried. If he had known the truth, he would have been saved the trouble.

  Vince raised the collar of his Burberry against the misting rain and returned to the gravelled path. He thought back to the events of that eternal night, and how it had crystallised his vague ambitions. Poor Sebastian had wanted to teach his pupil a few lessons in leadership. If only he had known what an ambitious fire he would fan with that first spark. Prometheus was reborn, but not in the way he had intended.

  Vince knew he had been given one chance to attain the good life. It was surprisingly easy to make the jump. After all, what was there to give up? He just wanted what the other League members had, to redress the balance a little. And they had offered it to him. No more was he a child of the streets, but an owner of the houses.

  And he had to admit that it was a good life, heading up the League. It wasn’t called the League of Prometheus any more, of course. Getting rid of all that xenophobic classical crap had been the first big change. Kicking out some of the more useless toffs and replacing them with smart street lads had been the next. He had dumped the racism, the snobbery, the cruder tools of persuasion. He was even thinking about approaching Louie with an offer.

  To cover his tracks, he had still written the book. After all, he still enjoyed writing. Only, what with all his copies being destroyed, he had re-created it from a new angle. Xavier Stevens’s secret file on Sebastian (kept, touchingly, in a shoebox on top of his wardrobe) had been useful for that. Useful for publicly burning the old-style League and damning its leader, while allowing the core of the organisation to go underground in a new, more nineties-friendly form. Buying and selling, creaming profits, hiding discrepancies, keeping secrets, burying connections, bending the rules, cementing relationships, fixing deals, fiddling the books, prioritising, publicising, damning, demonising, and doing pretty much what all government ministers did, only more so. Beating them at their own game, as it were.

  The League’s public profile had been getting too high, anyway. The others had much to thank him for. Strictly speaking, there were no League members now, only businessmen. He had returned the League to its roots, made it truly invisible again. Streamlined its organisation. Modernised its procedures. Now it was on the path to true power.

  There had been a major change in attitude. Under the old regime, Sebastian would probably have had Xavier Stevens executed for compiling a blackmail dossier on him. Vince had congratulated the assassin on his initiative, and promoted him. Xavier was now loyal for life.

  He never saw Pam any more. She went out of her way to avoid him, never even rang his old home number. It was as though she had sensed a sea-change in his character. He missed her. She and Louie, and the life to which they belonged, were part of the trade. He had not seen Betty again, either. Hey, everyone had to make sacrifices. You couldn’t have a new life while still hanging on to the old. It was time to put away the past and look to the future. For him, for the city. The political arena beckoned.

  The sleek black Mercedes was waiting at the cemetery gates. Caton-James was his driver now. Not terribly happy about it either, as he wasn’t allowed to smoke in the car. He saw Vince appear at the entrance and brought the vehicle to a smart stop, hopping out to open the rear door.

  Poor Sebastian, thought Vince as he slipped into the Mercedes. I got to be him, but he didn’t get to be me. Prometheus could only pass the light one way. A flaw in the paradox.

  Tonight he was taking a young lady to an Offenbach concert, then onto dinner at the Waldorf. The new company—he preferred to think of it in this way, rather than a league, which sounded too Conan Doyle-ish—was turning over a fortune. His book, City of Night and Day, was a best-seller.

  Apart from one niggling annoyance, Vincent Reynolds felt at peace with the world.

  Epilogue

  TAKEN FROM THE foreword of City of Night and Day by Vincent Reynolds.

  London has changed. Now it is a city built on sand, shifting and eliding into a thousand different lifestyles—ghost-images transmitted through interference. Its residents are finally free to plot a course through the maze of glass and steel and flesh, to locate the coordinates of their dream lives and exist within them. And like waters running over sand, strange new tributaries grow and die with the speed of rolling clouds. The social classes once deemed so necessary to maintain the land’s financial structure are being replaced by tribal cults.

  London’s architecture has been freed of religious significance, its pagan influences purged, its Mycenean alignments to moon and stars forgotten, Solomon, Boudicea, Blake and Hawksmoor no longer forces to be reckoned with. Now it is styled on sterile American lines, freed from the weight of the past.

  London is no longer a city of formalities. Its institutions are falling, its stock exchange no longer a closed shop, its companies no longer tradition-bound, its employees loyal to none but themselves, its intentions no longer honourable. The agreements that existed within a handshake, like the silk top hats of the city, have vanished. The tailored suits were too restricting, too earthbound; flight requires freedom.

  Once I referred to London as a slumbering giant, but now the giants are gone and there are only people; people with the ability to redefine the power of this mighty city. Change, of course, is not absolute. Some old ways remain. Two thousand years of dreams live on in the shadows around us. It will take a clever man indeed to unite those ancient dreamscapes with our hopes for the future. To return Prometheus and Dionysus, Solomon and Boadicea, to return the pagan glory of the planets to our streets, to reforge our links with day and night, summer and winter, to bring back the sunlight of Helios and the moonglow of Diana into London lives. The dead hand of Christianity ultimately led us into darkness. Perhaps someone will be ruthless enough to lead us back out of it, and into the light.

  For Bal Croce, whose energetic pursuit of London’s hidden histories inspired this tale.

  Acknowledgements

&nb
sp; The solidarity and support of Richard Woolf made this book possible, and for this I am eternally grateful. Jim Sturgeon is the sensible half of my brain. Our creative partnership spans almost a quarter century, and that’s where the ideas come from. Thank you, James. Maximum love, as always, goes out to parents Kath and Bill, superbro Steven, Sue and family.

  FAQ: How do I find the time to write when I have a day job? With the help of great friends like Mike and Sarah, Jo, Twins of Evil Martin and Graham, David and Helen, Damien, Sebastian, Alan, Jeff, Richard P, Sally and Gary, Pam, Maggie, Poppy, Amber, Stephanie, Di, Kevin, Lara, Michele. My agent Serafina Clarke may not be entirely au fait with the Internet but makes a superb champagne cocktail, a far more desirable skill. Editor Andrew Wille and Nann du Sautoy are as essential as WordPerfect, and I suspect represent the ‘X-Files’ end of Little, Brown; my kind of folks, as are Jenny Luithlen and Pippa Dyson, international rights and UK film rights respectively, and Joel Gotler at Renaissance. Thanks also to fellow authors Graham Joyce, Nick Royle, Kim Newman and Joanne Harris.

  BY CHRISTOPHER FOWLER

  Spanky

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  Rune

  Red Bride

  Darkest Day

  City Jitters

  The Bureau of Lost Souls

  Sharper Knives

  Psychoville

  Flesh Wounds

  Disturbia

  Red Gloves

  Soho Black

  Personal Demons

  Calabash

  Uncut