by J. F. Penn
One of the Members launched himself across the room towards Osborne, fists raised as he screamed abuse. The press clamored on the balcony as they tried to get the best footage. The action seemed to disintegrate any reserve left in the room, as the two sides of the Chamber rose to their feet. Men from either sides clambered down to the middle of the room and the thump of fists against flesh could soon be heard above the din. Harriet watched the thick green snakes writhe in and out of the bodies, fangs glistening, coils wrapped around the figures below. She was crying now, desperate for this to end but pinioned to the bench and unable to move. Her heart pounded in her chest and the sound of her own pulse thudded in her head as the shouting in the room grew louder. It was overlaid by another voice, whispering spite and hate, insidious with vile suggestion that spurred the mania to a new dimension.
A scream rang out and Harriet saw two of the Members holding down Miriam Lender, MP for Banbury. She could only watch as Miriam struggled against them. Another man tugged away her skirt and a serpent slithered across Miriam's bare belly as the man between her legs began to unbuckle his pants. Harriet's screams were frozen in her throat, tears running down her cheeks as she bore witness to the frenzy around her. One of the MPs drove another man's head against the wooden end of the bench, bashing it until blood ran onto the floor. Two others kicked a third, who lay prone on the stairs, hands wrapped around his head.
Security guards ran into the Chamber, blowing whistles and dragging some of the Members off each other. But there were too few of them and the brawling men turned on the security guards, pulling them down and kicking at their heads. Harriet watched as some of the Members tried to escape, but there were so few exits in the Chamber and bodies of others blocked their path. She couldn't tear her eyes away from the maelstrom below as it disintegrated into a writhing mass of confusion.
Suddenly, someone grabbed her from behind, an arm around her neck, pulling her over the back of the bench. Harriet struggled, squirming to escape the grip but the man pulled harder, grunting with exertion. Her vision began to fade as the lack of oxygen left her gasping.
"Stay still, you bitch," the man rasped. She felt two more sets of arms and then someone lifted her feet up, helping the men to pull her over the bench. The thick green snake wound around her body tightened its grip. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see properly, but she felt their hands on her and she stared up at the ceiling, her brain screaming, her mouth frozen in silence as darkness descended.
***
As the hallucinogens kicked in and the Chamber erupted into violence, Matthew looked around for the Prime Minister, the man whose signature supporting RAIN had damned his sister, the man who justified abuse of power with no regard for the lives destroyed in the process. Glen Abrahams rolled on the floor with his Lord Chancellor, the animosity between the men finally spilling over into thrown punches and attempted strangulation. Matthew couldn't help but grin at how this would look on the evening news, the likely resignation of the man he despised, the madness of these ineffectual politicians who would have spurned his Bill today. These few minutes would have dramatic consequences indeed.
A clumsy punch slammed into his back. Matthew spun round to see the Minister from Coventry North East, eyes wide and bloodshot, locked on visions beyond the physical realm. Matthew ducked easily under the man's second punch and slipped to the floor. He needed to get out. The police would be here soon, and he didn't have to stay any longer to know his plan was complete.
Matthew dropped to the floor, and crawled around the edge of the brawling crowd. Outside in the corridor, he saw uniformed police and more security guards rushing to the scene. He stepped back to let them past, the noise from the Chamber echoing around the grand entrance hall as he left the building just before the shut-down siren sounded.
Chapter 27
Jamie folded the photograph of Blake into her jacket pocket and with gloved hands placed the rest of the images on Matthew Osborne's desk. This whole place would need to be processed later, but it might be too late for Blake by then. She had to get him out of RAIN, but first, her responsibility was to her partner. She turned and ran down the stairs.
Pulling up in front of the Houses of Parliament ten minutes later, Jamie parked the bike in the Sovereign's Entrance just as the rain started to hammer down. Pedestrians hurried past to the shelter of the underground, umbrellas raised as they splashed through puddles. As Jamie tugged her helmet off, she heard an alarm ringing throughout the building. Something had already happened. Please let him be OK, she thought, desperate to get to Missinghall. She had sent him here, she had put him in harm's way.
The siren wail of ambulances and police cars scythed through the rain and cars parted on the road to let them through. People stopped on the pavement to watch, the atmosphere of high drama in the air. Jamie pushed through the gathering crowd and ran to the entrance hall, where a line of tourists was being held at the security gates. She showed her warrant card to one of the uniformed police.
"I need to get in there," Jamie said. "My partner's inside, along with a murder suspect. Please let me through."
The officer bent to look more closely at her card. "Sorry, Detective. We're under shut-down protocol, and so's every government building in the city. No one's coming in here now." He shook his head. "It's chaos in there anyway, and it looks like the bastard who did this got out before we closed everything down."
Shouting burst from the corridor behind the security area and a flurry of activity turned heads. An ambulance crew wheeled out gurneys with unconscious figures slumped upon them. Jamie's heart thumped in her chest, desperately hoping Missinghall wasn't among them.
"Clear the area! Let them through."
The uniformed officers onsite pushed the tourists aside to allow the medical staff by. Jamie looked down at the faces of the victims as they passed, some recognizable from the media, all high profile. Jamie realized that St Paul's had only ever been a practice run – this was Matthew Osborne's endgame.
A gurney came past with a big man lying prone, hands manacled to the side. His head was bruised and he wasn't moving.
"No," Jamie whispered, her hand flying to her mouth. She stepped out to the ambulance crew, holding her warrant card high.
"Please," she said. "That's my partner, he's a policeman. Detective Constable Alan Missinghall. Is he going to be alright?"
One of the medics waved at her. "Get clear," he said. "We have to get this lot to the hospital."
Jamie stepped back, allowing them through. She clenched her fists, turning to push through the crowd back to her bike. The rain was heavier now but she held her face up to it, letting it soak her dark hair. Where would Matthew Osborne go? He must know that all officers would be out looking for him, so he wouldn't return to his flat. She thought back to their first conversation, when she had realized the depth of his love for his sister. Had he said anything that would help her find him? She closed her eyes and let the rain trickle down her face and into her leather jacket as she replayed the interview in her mind.
There was one place he had mentioned. The Tower of London, and how Lyssa had seen it as a metaphor for her mind, locked down to protect the treasures within. Anything was worth a try at this point, and Jamie needed to reach Matthew before anyone else. She understood his grief and maybe, just maybe, she could convince him to give himself up. She owed Missinghall that. Jamie kicked the bike into life and roared off down Victoria Embankment.
Urgency fueled Jamie's ride as she swerved the bike through traffic along the north bank of the Thames. Darkness had fallen now and the rain made visibility difficult. She pulled off the main road into Lower Thames Street, ignoring the signage to ride along the pedestrianized area down to the walkway on the riverside. Then she saw Tower Bridge, the two halves splitting open, starting to rise up into the air to allow ships through underneath. Osborne had said that sometimes he would watch it with Lyssa. Jamie revved the bike onwards.
***
Matthew felt the
vibrations of the bridge as it started to part, the two halves slowly swinging upwards on their scheduled opening. He sat for a moment absorbing the physical pulse of the structure, wedged into an access doorway at the base of the north tower. He had slipped inside as security guards had cleared the bridge, the routine operation nothing special to them. He heard voices approach and fade again and then only the sounds of machinery reverberated through the structure. It was time.
He clutched the gun in his pocket, the unusual weight of it making him feel unbalanced. He had bought the Glock 17 a few weeks ago, when he had made the decision to avenge Lyssa and punish those who had exploited her. In the end, a gun wasn't right for them, but it was a good option for what he had planned tonight.
Cracking the door a little, Matthew could see the barriers closed in the distance and the bridge all but empty. The angle of the slope was getting steeper as one half rose into the air in front of him. He needed to get as high as he could, and he wanted one last glimpse of this city of grand beauty. He took a deep breath and started to walk briskly up the ever-steepening incline, every second a chance to be alone up there.
"Matthew!" A shout came from the crowd. "Stop!"
Matthew turned, seeing a black-clad figure with the security team. She was waving at him frantically. It was the police officer who had interviewed him after Monro's death. He started to run, panting now the incline was sharper, the bridge still rising inexorably.
There were more shouts behind him. Matthew looked back to see her break through the guards and come after him. She can't catch me now, he thought, pushing himself harder, chest bursting. Reaching the top, he hooked his arm around the railing at the side of the bridge as the incline steepened further. Matthew looked out at the Thames, winding through the city he loved, and smiled. It was so beautiful.
"Matthew," a voice came from below. "Please wait."
He looked down to see Detective Jamie Brooke, now almost below him as the bridge rose to vertical and they both clung to the side. She climbed towards him, her hazel eyes almost amber in the lights, burning with a righteous anger.
"Stop there, Detective. Don't come any further."
Jamie paused below, but her body was tense, ready to move quickly.
"I need to know," she called up. "The drug you put in the wine – will they recover from it? My friend was in there. He's a police officer, a good man with a family. He shouldn't have been there."
"I'm sorry about your friend," Matthew said. "But there's always collateral damage, and RAIN never cared for the lives they ruined." His voice softened, and he smiled gently, shaking his head. "But I'm not like them, Detective, and the effects of the drug are temporary. Your friend will be fine in a few days, as will those bastards who deserved it. I just hoped to give them some perspective, some empathy – but I won't be here to see it." Matthew looked out across the water to the battlements lit up before them, a bastion of the British monarchy for almost a thousand years. "I've always found the Tower to be an inspiration. From the outside it's symbolic of strength, but it's really like our minds, full of rooms where nightmares and violence lie hidden. Where skeletons are buried, and evil deeds are committed in the dark. Tell me, Detective, have you stood at the place where Anne Boleyn was beheaded? There's a resonance you can feel, a mental scream that echoes through the centuries. That scream continues in the way we deal with the mad, in the way Lyssa was treated, in the way that RAIN deals with those who are different."
"RAIN will be investigated," Jamie said. "Your speech is all over the news, so you've made sure they will be held accountable."
Matthew shook his head. "I have my doubts about that, but I can't do any more. Hating means that you're still alive, but I have no hate left now. I've done what I can, but RAIN is bigger than all of us. You don't know how powerful they are. They take anyone they want and if they're not mad already, they become so in their care. They could take you, Detective, and if I'm still around tomorrow, for sure they'll take me in recompense for my actions. Those who are sectioned have no choice."
Matthew began to climb over the railings, pulling himself up, the veins in his arms bulging at the physical effort required to lift his own weight over the edge.
"Don't do it, Matthew," Jamie whispered, reaching towards him. "Lyssa would have wanted you to stay, continue your work. You said you wanted to help others."
He turned his head to look at her, eyes clear and focused. "I know this is my end, and I go happily. But what of your grief, Detective? Perhaps you want to join me. A second's jump into blackness is nothing, a moment of panic perhaps and then oblivion. Is your life as worthless as mine is without Lyssa, I wonder?" Matthew reached out a hand. "Jump with me. End your own suffering."
Chapter 28
Jamie looked at Matthew's outstretched hand and thought of Polly's ashes on the shelf in her cold, dark flat. Part of her wanted to take this chance and step with him into blackness. Together, it would be easy, but perhaps it was the hard things that were the most worthwhile in life. She thought of Blake, held in the RAIN clinic, under the authority of the man she'd seen in Scotland Yard with Dale Cameron. She had to help him now.
"No," she said to Matthew. "I have someone who can help me live again. But I understand why you want this and I won't stand in your way. I won't make you suffer any more than you have already."
Jamie backed away and carefully began the descent to the road level of the bridge. She didn't look back, but all her senses were heightened in anticipation.
As she neared the bottom of the struts, she called on her radio.
"Suspect on Tower Bridge. Requesting backup."
A moment later, a shot rang out in the night air and Jamie turned to see Matthew's body fall from the apex of the bridge. The slip of the wind seemed to whisper 'Lyssa' as he fell, a caress as he went to meet his sister.
Jamie touched her radio again. "Suspect has jumped from Tower Bridge. Gunshot heard, possible suicide. Requesting backup from Marine Police and a river search team."
The Marine Police boat arrived quickly, its searchlight sweeping the dark water for Matthew Osborne. It didn't take long before they dragged a body from the water slightly down-river. Jamie found herself holding her breath, wanting him to have found his escape. The police on deck pulled a body bag out and Jamie knew that Matthew was gone. She was grateful that fate had not been so cruel as to leave him here.
Jamie stood for a moment looking down into the river, the eddies in the current reflecting her indecision. The Detective Sergeant side of her knew she should return to the police station and report on everything, be a part of the Westminster case gathering the evidence. She pulled the photo of Blake from her inside jacket pocket, her fingertips trailing across his haunted face.
Chapter 29
The archways of London Bridge were only a few blocks away. Jamie cruised the back streets of the area, her eyes scanning the passages underneath the branching railway tracks, fanning out from one of the biggest stations in the city. The sheer blue sides of the Shard towered over her, a symbol of wealth in this rejuvenated part of London. She pulled into one street, recognizing the looming structures of Guy's Hospital. The arches opposite looked familiar, so she ducked the bike down a side alley. Stopping to pull out the picture of Blake, Jamie could see that this was the place.
The clinic had a professional facade, with opaque glass over the front and discreet signage indicating it was a mental health practice. There were some lights on but no movement or shadows inside. The next two archways had no signage and only the last one had a door on it with just a keypad. Did the clinic stretch further inside the structure?
On a nearby corner, a twenty-four-hour greasy spoon cafe was still open, advertising all-day breakfast for a few pounds. It was the type of place that did so well next to a bastion of health, as people craved comfort food and sweet tea when faced with terrible news. Jamie parked the bike and headed into the cafe, ordering a mug of tea and sitting in the window, so she could watch the clinic
.
As she sipped the tea, Jamie thought of Blake, lost in his nightmare visions and how she had done Cameron's bidding by involving him in the case. She was responsible for Blake being in there, so she needed to get him out. Lyssa Osborne had died because of what RAIN did to her in there, amplifying her internal anguish, making her believe there was no point in living. Jamie didn't want to lose Blake in the same way.
The progression of night changed the types of people walking this area from professionals scurrying home late from the office, to those seeking oblivion from the day's stress. There were nightclubs under some of the arches, their doorways hidden by graffiti elevated to the level of street art through vivid detail and color. The clubs drew seekers and Jamie wondered whether the clinic found some of its clients from those who had lost the path completely.
This area of Southwark, south of the river, had been the red-light district, the entertainment area for much of London's history. The Rose Theatre of Marlowe and Shakespeare's Globe had once stood here, the reconstruction of the Globe just minutes from where she sat. The pilgrims from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales met in the Tabard, a pub on the thoroughfare on the route to Canterbury near here. Just a street away, there was an unconsecrated graveyard known as Cross Bones for the outcast dead, the prostitutes and their children. The paupers had been forgotten in their own time, but now the place bloomed with flowers, left there by those seeking the favor of the dark shades.