by Andrew Lane
The feral boy ahead of him seemed to be climbing rather than walking. Fingers and toes found cracks in the brickwork, and he moved above, rather than across, the yielding mud. Nails scraped against the bricks with a grating sound that made Sherlock want to scream. He’d obviously learned how to move around the tunnels and arches in a way that Sherlock couldn’t.
Abruptly the brickwork narrowed to a point where Sherlock had to turn sideways to get through. The walls clutched at his chest and his back. He breathed out, making his chest as thin as he could. He squeezed himself forward as far as possible, but eventually a projecting brick caught against his ribs and he knew he couldn’t go any further.
He couldn’t breathe. Not properly, anyway. The gap was too small to allow him to take more than a small gulp of air.
Panic welled up within him, dark and acidic. He tried to move back, but something in the narrow cleft had changed. Maybe by moving through it he had shifted some of the bricks. Whatever it was, it was as if the gap behind him had actually narrowed after he’d passed through it. When he tried to push himself backwards he found that something hard was pressing into his spine. He couldn’t move forward or back. He was trapped!
He wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t take enough air into his lungs. A red mist seemed to spill across his vision. His heart stuttered, beating heavily and irregularly, apparently trying to break out of his ribcage as desperately as he was trying to break out of the cleft.
A hand grabbed his wrist and pulled, hard. Brick scraped skin from his back and his ribs, but then the brick crumbled away in a shower of gritty dust and desperately flailing insects and he popped out like a cork from a bottle into a wider area.
The feral boy was standing in front of him. It had been his hand that had pulled Sherlock free.
‘You could have just left me,’ Sherlock breathed through gulps of air. ‘You could have just waited until I’d suffocated and just taken all the money from my pockets.’
‘Oh,’ the boy said, expression unreadable. Yeah. S’pose I could’ve at that.’ He turned away, then looked over his shoulder at Sherlock. ‘Got to keep going. They’re not far behind.’
Just a few feet ahead, the gap ended in a narrow flight of steps. Sherlock followed the boy up and out into a cavernous space, and what he saw made him gasp in disbelief.
They had emerged into what appeared to be a massive warehouse, so full of stacked boxes that Sherlock couldn’t see the walls. He could see the ceiling, however. It was made of grimy panes of glass held together in an iron framework, with blessed sunlight spilling through them, so bright to his dark-adapted eyes that he had to squint to see anything. Bigger iron girders crossed the space beneath them. Somewhere up there he could hear birds fluttering.
But it was the boxes that caught his attention. They were long – about seven feet from end to end – and narrow, but their sides weren’t regular. They swelled out to their widest point about a quarter of the way along, then narrowed again. For a few seconds he stared at them blankly, trying to work out what they were, and then he realized. Actually, he had known from the first moment he saw them, but his mind just hadn’t let him accept the horrible truth.
They were coffins.
‘What is this place?’ he gasped.
‘It’s where they store the bodies, ready to ship ’em to the Nekrops.’
‘The Nekrops?’ He’d not heard the word before.
‘Yeah. You know. The place where dead people are taken.’
Sherlock’s mind raced. You mean a cemetery?’ And then it clicked. You mean a Necropolis.’ The Greek he’d learned at Deepdene School came flooding back: a necropolis, a city of the dead.
‘Yeah. Down at Brookwood. That’s where the trains go.’
Brookwood? That was near Farnham, where his aunt and uncle lived. Where he was staying. And then he remembered something that Matty Arnatt had said when they first met, about not wanting to cycle to Brookwood. He hadn’t wanted to say why, and Sherlock hadn’t pursued the matter. Now he knew. There was obviously some kind of massive cemetery at Brookwood: a place where bodies were shipped from far away.
‘Why don’t they bury them in London?’ he asked.
‘No room,’ his rescuer said succinctly. ‘Graveyards here are all full. Bodies buried on top of other bodies. Come a decent rainstorm and coffins’re bein’ washed up an’ exposed for everyone to see.’
Sherlock looked around at the piles of coffins, noticing that they all had a chalked number on the side. Presumably the numbers corresponded to entries on a list that somebody had written down somewhere, so that a particular coffin could be associated with a particular funeral. ‘And all of these are… occupied?’
The boy nodded. ‘Every one of them.’ He paused. ‘Good pickings.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Boxes sometimes get dropped. Smashed. And people sometimes get buried with their possessions – watches, rings, all kinds of stuff. And there’s the clothes as well. Some people’ll pay well for a nice jacket. Don’t matter who was wearing it before them.’
Sherlock felt sick. This was a whole new world, and one he didn’t want any part of. But despite himself, he couldn’t help but ask more questions. He needed to know. ‘So how do they get to Brookwood?’
‘Special railway’ The boy gestured into the distance. ‘Nekrops Railway. Tracks are over there.’
‘They run trains just for the dead?’
‘And for the ones they left behind.’ The kid smiled, revealing a mouth with one rotten tooth left in it. ‘First, second and third class travel, just for the coffins. Travel in style when you’re dead, you can.’ He gestured around. ‘Good thing people don’t see how their loved ones’re looked after before they get put on the train, ain’t it?’
Sherlock looked around again, at the serried ranks of coffins, stacked up higher than his head. All with dead bodies inside. He was standing among enough dead bodies to populate a small town. Scary stuff.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
The boy shook his head. ‘You’re on your own from here, mate.’
‘All right.’ Sherlock handed across the fistful of change from his pocket. ‘Thanks.’
The boy nodded. ‘You’re a gent.’ He stepped back, put his fingers to his lips and let out a whistle so loud it hurt Sherlock’s ears. ‘’E’s over ’ere!’ he yelled at the top of his voice. ‘’E’s escapin’!’
‘I thought you were helping me,’ Sherlock protested.
‘I was.’ The boy shook the fist in which he was holding the coins. ‘Deal’s completed. Now I’m ’elpin’ them. Maybe they’ll let me ’ave your shoes.’
Sherlock could hear noises from the narrow gap he’d emerged from – the sound of long fingernails and toenails against brick. Looking into the darkness he could see the glitter of tiny eyes blinking in the light.
He stepped forward and caught the boy by the wrist. Twisting him round, he pushed him into the gap. ‘He’s got my money!’ he shouted. ‘He’s holding it!’
The boy stared back at Sherlock in horror for a moment before he was pulled into the shadows by a score of tiny hands. Sherlock heard him shout, and then there was nothing but the sounds of fighting and cloth tearing.
He ran. While they were distracted, he had a chance to get away.
Still feeling breathless, still feeling a burning in his lungs and his muscles, he moved as fast as he could through the stacks of coffins. Within a few moments he was clear and out in the open.
Ahead of him were three steam trains. They were on rails, but standing at the end of the line, nestled against barriers. They were like the one that had bought him and Amyus Crowe to London, except that they were painted black: engine and carriages. Each of the carriages had a white skull painted on it at the front and the back. The white skulls had crossed bones beneath them.
Sherlock assumed that the trains only ran after dark. Seeing one of those during the day would be a distressing experience for anyone.
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Then again, having one appearing at night out of a cloud of smoke, boiler glowing red with the heat of the burning coals, would be a pretty terrifying experience as well.
He glanced back over his shoulder at the stacks of coffins. In the shadows around them he thought he could see the glimmer of eyes watching him, but he wasn’t sure. The important thing was that they weren’t pursuing him. They wouldn’t come into the light, and he certainly wasn’t going to go back into the darkness. It was over. For the moment.
He turned and took a step forward. Something crunched beneath his feet. He looked down, and saw a white section of bone protruding from the ground. He’d stepped on it, cracking it in two. Boxes sometimes get dropped, the feral boy had said. Smashed. It looked like the contents got left where they had fallen. All this pomp and circumstance for the dead – special trains, a massive city of the dead at Brookwood – and yet the remains were just left to rot where they fell if the coffins got broken. It was as if the spectacle was more important than the actuality. The mourners did not know, or maybe even did not care, whether the family member they had lost was in the coffin when it was buried.
Somewhere beyond the trains, the tracks would lead out into the open air. A breeze was blowing in, scouring away the smell of the catacombs through which Sherlock had been chased and in which he had so nearly lost his life. He trudged wearily towards the weak sunlight. Somewhere out there, back in the real world, Mycroft was still facing a murder charge, and Sherlock had to help clear his name. He was exhausted and in pain, but that didn’t matter. Mycroft needed his help.
He was so tied up with his own thoughts that it took him a few seconds to register the fact that the man with the stringy hair had just stepped out from behind the engine of one of the trains.
‘No escape for you, sonny,’ he said. He raised his hands. The meagre light glinted off the metal spikes on his knuckledusters. ‘And it looks like I saved myself a half-crown into the bargain.’
CHAPTER SIX
Sherlock felt his heart sink. All that effort, all that running, all that scraping of his skin against brick, and he still couldn’t get clear. He was too tired to do anything more. He had run out of energy.
‘How did you find me?’ he wheezed.
‘I couldn’t get through those gaps, could I?’ the man replied. ‘But I knew most of them came out here in the bone yards, so I made my way around the outside and waited. I was about to give up when I heard you scraping through.’ He paused. ‘I still need you to tell me why you were following me,’ he said darkly. ‘And then you die.’
A bulky shape moved smoothly out from the space between engine and tender, behind the man with the beard and the knuckledusters. It was wearing a hat.
Sherlock recognized Amyus Crowe just as Crowe slipped his left arm round the thug’s neck, grabbing the wrist with his right hand. The man’s neck was caught in the crook of Crowe’s elbow. Sherlock saw the fabric of Crowe’s sleeve tighten as he tensed his muscles.
The man’s eyes bulged. He brought his hands up to grab at Crowe’s arm, but he couldn’t budge it no matter how much he pulled. His face turned purple as Sherlock watched, too tired to be amazed. Crowe must have been exerting enough force to stop the man from breathing.
The man desperately kicked back with his booted right foot, but Crowe had braced his legs to either side and his captive couldn’t reach. Next he took his hands away from Crowe’s arm and punched backwards, behind his head, hoping to catch Crowe with the spikes of his knuckledusters, but Crowe just moved his head out of the way and increased the pressure on the man’s throat.
‘Ah’m disappointed that you were careless enough to let this man see you following him,’ he said mildly, looking at Sherlock over the man’s shoulder.
Sherlock ran a grimy hand through his hair. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d kept myself well out of sight.’
‘Learn a lesson,’ Crowe said amiably. ‘Traps can be reversed. That’s the difference between animals and humans – rabbits don’t suddenly turn around and hunt foxes, but men can switch roles. Prey can become predator. Look out for the signs. If your prey is leadin’ you somewhere isolated then just maybe they’ve spotted you and want to get you alone.’
‘Don’t you ever stop teaching?’ Sherlock asked wearily, remembering the lesson on the lake while they were fishing.
‘Life teaches us all the time, if we’re alert enough to understand.’ Crowe’s gaze flickered sideways, to where the man’s face was becoming increasingly congested and his eyes were bulging. ‘Now,’ he said conversationally, ‘let’s you and me have a little talk. Why are you threatening my friend and protege here with violence? That ain’t particularly civilized, friend.’
‘He was following me,’ the man wheezed.
Crowe looked over at Sherlock and raised his eyebrow. ‘Ah presume you had a reason,’ he said. ‘You weren’t just practisin’ your trackin’ skills – although they obviously do need the practice.’
‘I found the printer who made the visiting card,’ Sherlock said. ‘He said that this man was waiting out in the street for the man who had the visiting card printed. They went off together.’
Crowe nodded. ‘I assumed it was something like that.’ He turned his attention back to his captive. ‘So, that leads us to the question of why? Why did you pay for a poor, sick man to have a single visiting card printed up, and why did you then send him in to visit Mister Mycroft Holmes in his club?’
The man tugged at Crowe’s arm. ‘You’re choking me!’ he protested.
‘Neatly spotted. I am choking you.’
‘You’re breaking my neck!’
‘Not yet. Another few ounces of pressure and your neck will snap like a rotten twig, yes, but not just yet. You’ll suffocate first.’
‘You’re killing me!’
‘Yes,’ Crowe confirmed. ‘Ah believe ah am. Talk fast.’
‘I was paid!’
‘Of course you were. Ah didn’t think you were doin’ this out of love of Queen and country. The question is: who was payin’ you?’
‘I don’t know their name!’ The man pounded on Crowe’s rigid left arm. ‘Just let me breathe! Please!’
Crowe released his grip by a fraction, and the man drew in a shuddering breath. His lank hair was plastered across his face. His face lost some of its beetroot colour.
‘I was approached in the Shaftesbury Tavern one night,’ he gasped. ‘People know I’m a fixer. I can make deals, and find the right people for a blagging, or anything you want. I was told to find a man who was close to meeting his Maker and needed money for his family. I was told to persuade him to do one last thing, and if he did it properly he would secure his family’s future comfort.’
‘And you knew a man like that?’
‘I knew hundreds of men like that! They’re ten a penny around here. Consumption, alcoholism, gut-rot – there’re many ways to die in London.’
‘And what was this last task he had to complete?’
The man was silent.
Crowe tightened his grip. ‘Just one more ounce of pressure,’ he murmured, ‘and the last sound you will hear is your neck breaking. Ah’ve done it to cougars, ah’ve done it to alligators, and ah’ve even done it to a bull in my time. You will not present much of a challenge, believe me.’
‘He had to go to this club in Whitehall,’ the man said hurriedly, ‘and ask to see a man in private. Alone, like. A man named Mycroft Holmes. And then hand over a card which we had to have printed up. Just the one card. And when he was alone with this cove, he had to spray some stuff in the cove’s face – stuff from this thing like a perfume bottle. The cove would look like he had fallen asleep on his feet. Then he had to put a real knife in the cove’s hand and stab himself in the heart with another knife made of ice. Like a pantomime it was.’
‘Where did the knives come from?’
‘I was told that a boy would run up to us as we got to the club. He’d give us a case with the knives in it. We had t
o do it that way otherwise the ice knife might melt, even though it was in the case.’
Crowe smiled. ‘Didn’t this all strike you as a bit strange?’
‘I’ve done stranger,’ the man admitted, ‘and I was being well paid.’
‘This man who hired you – did you know his name? Can you describe him?’
‘I didn’t say it was a bloke, did I?’
Crowe’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. ‘Indeed you did not. My mistake. So – you were hired by a woman?’
He nodded, as much as he was able with Crowe’s arms around his neck. A woman, yes.’
‘Describe her.’
‘Youngish. Slim. Well-dressed.’
Crowe snorted. ‘The face, man – describe the face.’
‘Couldn’t see it. She was wearing a big hat and a veil.’
‘Colour of hair?’
‘Couldn’t see under the hat.’
‘But you followed her, didn’t you? After she hired you?’
Sherlock saw the man’s eyes flicker with surprise. ‘How did you know?’ he hissed.
‘Ah know you, my friend. Or at least, ah know men like you. A woman with a large wad of cash – of course you followed her. You wanted to find out where she lived, in case you could break in later and steal the rest of the cash she obviously kept on the premises. Men like you are always looking for an openin’, an opportunity. So – where did she go?’