Glass Town

by Steven Savile

  “Why don’t you talk us through it, Josh,” Julie Gennaro said, intruding gently on the moment. “Everything you can remember from the funeral onward. This is a safe place; no one is going to judge you. You never know, it might help saying stuff aloud.”

  “I doubt it,” Josh said, letting go of his mum’s hand to reach for one of the cups. He didn’t drink from it. He cradled it in both hands. He couldn’t look his mum in the eye as he explained what had happened after Boone’s funeral, how he’d slipped out the back and met his “cousin” in the yard behind the Scala, how Lockwood had asked if Boone had left him anything in his will, and how he’d returned home to find some woman in the process of robbing the place. He didn’t say she looked like a long-dead Hollywood icon. Or that she glowed blue. There were some things that didn’t need sharing.

  “And you think Gideon Lockwood was behind the break-in?” the policeman asked, pushing him toward the truth. “You think that he sent the woman to find whatever he suspected your grandfather left you?”

  “Seth,” Josh corrected him without thinking. “And, yes, that’s exactly what I think.”

  “So, do you mind if I ask what your grandfather left you?”

  “Nothing,” Josh said, a little too quickly.

  Julie Gennaro’s lip twitched—maybe it was his bullshit detector pinging? Josh figured cops had fairly finely tuned BS detectors. People lied to them all the time, maybe not big fat lies; just little ones to make them look better or make sure they took themselves out of the frame. “That’s a lot of trouble to go to for nothing, if you don’t mind me saying, Josh.”

  “We haven’t had the will reading yet,” Rosie said, supporting her son. “We were supposed to do it on Monday, but with Josh gone…” She didn’t finish the thought.

  “Ah, so Lockwood might not actually be wrong then? There could be something? Any idea what it might be that Lockwood thinks it might be?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Josh said, finding it a little easier to lie now that his mother had given him a way to wriggle around the truth.

  “Okay,” Gennaro seemed to accept his denial at face value. “So what happened next?”

  “You went after him, didn’t you?” Lexy blurted the words out. “Oh, you fucking idiot. You promised me you weren’t going to do anything stupid … but you went after Lockwood, didn’t you?” Lexy pushed herself up out of her chair. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She couldn’t storm out, but she couldn’t sit still, either, so she stood there, fists clenching and unclenching impotently. “What did you do?” What she really meant was what kind of trouble are you really in?

  He could see the cogs clicking into place and 2 and 2 making about 6,027 as she leaped to all sorts of worst-case conclusions. He could guess what they were: He’d gone after Lockwood; lost, badly; and they’d taken him prisoner. That was the only way she could rationalize him not calling, not letting them know he was alive—because he couldn’t.

  That changed the way she looked at him.

  She stared at Josh, looking for signs of it on his body; there had to be bruises, cuts, something, some marks to prove he wasn’t just a fucking selfish bastard for making them suffer.

  Josh held out his hands for her to see. “I’m all right,” he promised, knowing she didn’t believe him. “Really.”

  “Did they hurt you?” That was his mother’s next question.

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Do you know where they held you?” That was the policeman.

  “They—” he started to say didn’t, but knowing that by denying that he’d been held captive he’d have to find another excuse for his disappearance, stopped himself. “Isn’t it enough that I’m back? I’m not hurt. I’m safe.”

  “Obviously that’s between you guys,” Julie said. “If you tell me there’s no crime here, there’s really not a lot I can do apart from enjoy this touching family moment, but I’d advise you strongly to tell the truth.” Josh shrugged. “Okay, well, do me a favor, walk me back to the car, will you? If that’s okay with you, Mrs. Raines?”

  Rosie nodded.

  They left the house together. Outside Julie said, “Okay, mate, you’re not a bad liar, I’ll give you that, but you’re far from a good one. What is Lockwood after and don’t think about lying to me again. There’s just me and you here. You don’t have to worry about protecting your mother from the truth. I don’t care what you’re involved in, but I want to know what happened to you? What’s going on here? You know a lot more than you’re letting on.”

  “I really don’t know if I can explain it.”

  “Try.”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “Again, try me. I’ve seen some shit over the last couple of hours. You never know, I might wind up being the friend you need.”

  Josh shrugged. “Okay, but it’s better that I show you.”

  “Then maybe you want to let your mum know we’re taking a little trip. Wouldn’t want her thinking you’d disappeared again, would we?”

  29

  A PROBLEM SHARED OR TWO LIVES RUINED

  Josh took Julie to the flat in Rotherhithe.

  “You wanted to know what Boone left me. This is it in all of its glory.”

  “This place?” the policemen asked, looking up at the dark windows. “Nice. Must be good to have rich relatives.”

  “You say that now, but you might not think so in a minute,” Josh opened the door. “Welcome to the obsessive world of the Raines family, Constable Gennaro.” Josh led him upstairs. “You might want to brace yourself; you’re about to enter a whole lot of crazy.”

  Julie nodded, it all beginning to come clear. “So this is where you got to for a week? Some sort of love nest you didn’t want to tell your mother about? No telephone I take it?”

  “Ah, well … not quite … I think it’s best if I just open the door and let you see for yourself,” and so saying, Josh opened the lounge door and stepped aside to let the policeman enter the room.

  There was a momentary silence followed by a slow whistle, which in turn was followed by, “Holy shit … you weren’t kidding. What is this place?”

  “My inheritance,” Josh said. “This little lot is what Boone left me.”

  Julie turned and turned about, trying to take it all in, just as Josh had the first time he’d walked into the room. The sheer amount of articles and photographs Boone and Isaiah had gathered about Eleanor’s disappearance and events surrounding it was overwhelming. But that was nothing compared to the web of threads linking them all. Crazy was the only rational word for it. The policeman walked across to the nearest wall, ducking under the colored yarns, to read some of the vast wealth of information plastered up there. “You think this is what Lockwood wants? Some old newspaper articles?”

  “It’s not what they are,” Josh said, “it’s what they’re about. Read them.” Josh waited for Julie to skim a few and get the gist of the crime the room was dedicated to before taking him next door. He was putting his trust in the policeman, with no real reason to think he was worthy of it, or that he’d keep it save for the fact he’d obviously seen the Comedians, even if he didn’t understand what it was he’d seen.

  “An actress disappeared nearly a hundred years ago? Seriously? This is the big mystery that kept you away for a week?” He shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe the answer was something so understandable after all of the intimations he’d have to see it to believe it.

  “There’s stuff in here he’d rather no one knew,” Josh said, looking toward the wall obsessed with Damiola’s antics.

  “Look, even if his grandfather was complicit in the kidnapping, it’s water under the bridge now. We’re talking about a century. Crimes don’t last that long, no matter how shocking they are at the time. Unless we’re talking something like Jack the Ripper, no one’s interested, and even then it’s purely academic. You need to face it, Josh, they got away with it. And believe me, that family have gotten away with a lot worse over the last twen
ty years.”

  “They haven’t gotten away with it.”

  Julie looked at him, then he seemed to realize why Josh hadn’t gone home and that it had nothing to do with love nests or lost weekends with lovers hiding away from the world. “You disappeared down a rabbit hole chasing this lot, didn’t you? Jesus, mate, that’s insane. Let it go.”

  “There’s something I need to show you if you’re going to understand, but you might not want to see it.”

  “There you go again, all vague and mysterious. Look, you need to know this: I’m a cop in London. The Rothery’s part of my beat. I see the worst humanity has to offer every single day, without fail. And let’s not forget what happened today. I might not have killed two men, but I hit them trying to get out of your way. I’m pretty sure there’s very little you could say that will shock me.”

  “No matter what had happened out there, you wouldn’t have killed two men,” Josh said, but didn’t elaborate. “And honestly, no matter what you think, you haven’t seen it all. We can remedy that, though. Come with me.”

  They went through to the projection room, where Josh fed the film back into the reel while Julie worked his way around the walls, looking at Eleanor and Eleanor and Eleanor. “She was really something,” he said after a while.

  “That she is.”

  Josh powered up the projector and set the lost Hitchcock playing once more. If the policeman noticed the switch in tense from past to present he didn’t say anything. “This was going to be her breakthrough. If she hadn’t disappeared, she’d have been our Louise Brooks, our Garbo,” and naming film stars he was immediately reminded of the woman riffling through Boone’s room, Myrna Shepherd. The film flickered, the first few seconds blurry before it settled down. Josh added his own narration. “Hitchcock began shooting on his first flim, Number 13, in the early 1920s. It’s a lost film. No one’s seen it in years. The common belief is that the film itself was melted down for its chemical content; that being more valuable than what was on it. What you’re watching is a little piece of cinematic history.”

  “Must be worth a pretty penny,” Julie said, as though he’d just found Lockwood’s motivation in all of this.

  “I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s worth,” Josh agreed. “A lot. It’s Hitchcock, but not just that—it’s the first-ever Hitchcock, abandoned because he ran out of money.”

  “So the way you’re explaining this, maybe this whole mess isn’t as mysterious as you think? Most things come down to money in the end, even with a nasty piece of work like Lockwood.”

  “This isn’t about money. It never was. It’s all about the girl. Eleanor Raines.”

  “Ah, the other classic motive. Sex and money; I’d be out of a job without those twin vices.”

  “I don’t want to tell you anything about the film itself,” Josh said. “I don’t want to influence you in any way. I just want you to watch. No preconceptions. No prejudices.”

  “I can do that.”

  For the best part of half an hour the pair of them stood spellbound as the young director worked his magic, the actors and actresses telling their silent story of homelessness and murder.

  Julie recognized the pub across the street, and realized the flat was in the middle of the set. He remarked as much. Josh nodded.

  It wasn’t much, but he was glad the detective had caught the geographic significance of Boone’s secret place. Maybe he’d see the rest without prodding.

  When they came to those thirty seconds near the end when Seth Lockwood drifted across the background of the shot, then turned to stare at the camera, out of the screen and straight at them Julie Gennaro pointed. “That’s him … isn’t it? The guy from the café?” He shook his head, doubting himself. “That’s Lockwood.”

  “That’s Seth Lockwood,” Josh agreed. “I’m sure of it.”

  “This is what you wanted me to see?”

  Josh nodded. “This is part of what I wanted you to see. Seth Lockwood in flesh, side by side with Eleanor Raines days before she disappeared.”

  “Well, there’s no doubt it offers a compelling narrative in terms of means, motive, and opportunity, but I hate to break it to you, it’s impossible. It can’t be the same guy that was threatening you earlier, not if the film was shot almost one hundred years ago.” Josh could see him struggling to make it fit. It didn’t; that was the problem. The pieces didn’t fit into any rational, mundane picture. “It’s been tampered with, hasn’t it? Edited. He’s been added to the shot somehow. It’s good. Clever. You almost had me. But he can’t be there and here at the same time, not looking the same. It’s not possible.”

  “And yet he’s right there, believe me.”

  “Did you do it? Is this your handiwork?” And then, as the images flickered on unsteadily Julie saw a second familiar face projected against the wall and did a wild double take, shaking his head. “You? Okay, what the fuck’s going on here? This whole thing stinks. You’re playing me for a fool. All this you-won’t-believe-your-eyes shit. Okay, well played. You almost had me, but I’m out of here.”

  “That’s not me,” Josh said. “That’s my great-grandfather, Isaiah.”

  Julie thought about it for a moment. “Fine. Then applying the same logic, that’s not Lockwood. If it can happen once, it can happen twice. That’s his great-grandfather and your great-grandfather and by some freak of genetics you both look just like dead men. That I can believe. Just about. At least it’s more believable than the alternative.”

  “It would be easier if that was true, but…” Josh shrugged.

  “But. But, but fucking but…”

  That was a big word.

  But.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “That sounds eerily like a confession’s coming?” Julie said.

  “No. But if you don’t believe what you’ve seen so far, there’s no way you’re going to believe the rest of what I’ve got to say.”

  “Frankly, you’re right, I don’t believe you. There’s a scam here, I just don’t know what it is, and I don’t appreciate you taking the piss like this. I’ve got better things to do with my life than waste it being dicked by a bunch of petty criminals.”

  “There’s no scam. But I don’t know how to convince you other than to show you.”

  “Fine. Show me.”

  He spread his arms wide. He’d hoped the projection room would sell it, but he had other alternatives now, thanks to Damiola. Thirteen of them burned on the floor in the other room: the locations of the anchors. With Damiola’s glass he would be able to peel back the layers of illusion hiding them and show the policeman. That would change the way he looked at the world. “Okay, come with me.” He led Julie back through to the other room and knelt down, placing his hand on one of the scorch marks burned into the floorboard. It was where he’d found Damiola’s workshop and bludgeoned his way through into Glass Town. “These marks aren’t random. They’re important. It’s a map.”

  “I can see that. London. But it’s not right.”

  “It is. I’ll show you. But you need to understand what’s at risk. He can’t know we’re sniffing around. If he finds out … I don’t want to think about what he’ll do to Eleanor.”

  “By him you mean Lockwood?”

  Josh nodded. “She made me promise. If he knows there’s a way in, he’ll kill her. Or us. Or both. Seth is a monster. I don’t doubt that for a second. I’ve already seen some of what he’s capable of. That thing you hit—”

  “The men?”

  “They weren’t men,” Josh said. “Not like you and me.”

  “Look, Josh, you seem like a decent guy, but I’ll be honest with you, I don’t believe a word that’s coming out of your mouth. Did Taff put you up to this?”

  30

  THE TALE OF ONE BENT BASTARD

  Taff Carter was in paradise.

  Myrna Shepherd knelt between his legs, taking him into her mouth again.

  There was more pleasure than he’d ever imagined in
dying; that was the lesson she was teaching him. She was the most exquisite creature he’d ever encountered, which made it a lesson he was happy to learn, welcoming the fact that he grew weaker by the ejaculation, diminished, so that she might be sustained.

  She looked up at him.

  Her eyes were alive. That was his gift to her.

  “Perhaps it’s better if I live in your heart, where the world can’t see me. If I’m dead, there will be no stain on our love.”

  This isn’t love, he thought in some disconnected part of his mind, but didn’t fight her. In a week he had gone from being an overweight slob of a man to the wretched wreck of skin and bone, stripped of fat, muscle degenerated to the point of emaciation, slouched on the couch in his dark lounge, and still she fed on him, even though there was nothing left to give. There was an unquenchable emptiness to the woman between his legs. That hollowness was in part what made her so compelling. That and her face; her beautiful, beautiful face. This succubus was so much more than perfection; she was a distillation of beauty, a reduction of the divine. He couldn’t imagine his life without her now, even if it meant sacrificing what little remained of it to feed her and keep her with him. That, he thought, is a death worth dying.

  A song played on the stereo. He used to know what it was called. It had been one of his favorites before she came into his life. Saxophone. That was the instrument. Such a sad sound. Like so much else in the last week, the name of it had slipped away from him.

  Myrna Shepherd’s hand still cupped him. She worked him, even as it began to go flaccid. Each gesture was harsher than it was tender.

  “I can’t,” he said, meaning he was spent, exhausted no matter that his body was trying to rise to the occasion, meaning he needed to rest, gather himself, but she was hungry. His traitorous body couldn’t help but respond as she refused to let him shrivel.

  Holding eye contact, staring deep into him, she took him all the way in to the back of her throat. Taff buried his fingers in the terry cloth of his dressing gown as she used her tongue to draw a hitching breath from his lips and with the glint of mischief in her eyes, she milked him until he stiffened beyond anything comfortable or pleasurable.