by Wendy Reakes
Ben couldn’t fathom it. It was like nothing he’d ever heard before, yet the tones lulled his senses, until he was absorbed by the instrumental sound reverberating around the cavernous city like a gigantic hi-fi system. The music was a collection of sounds, like blended bird calls and the sound of wings flapping, and within it, an organ, more like a piano, played notes, making it all fuse together as one piece, with highs and lows, altos and sopranos.
Then the girl began to sing. Her sweet voice sang words of wisdom in tune with the music. Her arms reached out, as if she was embracing the crowd and the people became silent as they all became mesmerised. The music was a seduction of sounds and the girl’s voice was sublime, until she suddenly stopped, with a look of dread upon her face.
For there, stepping out from the crowd, stood man with brown tinted skin with a look in his eyes that exuded the unfettered pleasure he felt for the girl singing that song.
‘The Song of the Underground’
Methinks already from this chymic flame
I see a city of more precious mould,
Rich as the town which gives the Indies name,
With silver paved and all divine with gold.
Already, labouring with a mighty fate,
She shakes the rubbish from her mounting brow,
And seems to have renewed her charter’s date,
Which Heaven will to the death of time allow.
More great than human now and more August,
New deified she from her fires does rise:
Hew widening streets on new foundations trust,
And, opening, into larger parts she flies.
Before, she like some shepherdess did show
Who sat to bathe her by a river’s side,
Not answering to her fame, but rude and low,
Nor taught the beauteous arts of modern pride.
Now like a maiden queen she will behold
From her high turrets hourly suitors come;
The East with incense and the West with gold
Will stand like suppliants to receive her doom.
The silver Thames, her own domestic flood,
Shall bear her vessels like a sweeping train,
And often wind, as of his mistress proud,
With longing eyes to meet her face again.
The wealthy Tagus and the wealthier Rhine
The glory of their towns no more shall boast,
And Seine, that would with Belgian rivers join,
Shall find her lustre stained and traffic lost.
The venturous merchant who designed more far
And touches on our hospitable shore,
Charmed with the splendour of this northern star,
Shall here unlade him and depart no more.
After the Great Fire of London, 1666.
By John Dryden
Chapter 32
Mark Buzzard walked through the crowd towards Wren as she sang her song. He couldn’t help himself. She had told him to remain incognito, but he couldn’t stop heading her way as she stood in the centre of the auditorium. Her voice was a seduction; a mesmerizing sound that made him want to hold her and dance with her and perhaps even to carry her away so that he could make love to her. He was in a daze. His head was swimming like he’d just shared a joint with his college friends.
Smoke was swirling around his face as he lost himself among groups of people inside the crowds. Smoke that was inhaled through smoking devices and shared between them; smoke that was making him imagine himself soaring above them all to reach his beautiful Wren before she left him once and for all...
The sound of her lovely birdlike song stopped suddenly and was replaced with a man’s voice, which boomed across the auditorium. “Who is that man?” It echoed until his ears felt like they were ringing. “Take him, take him. He is an upsider…an intruder. Take him take him.”
Mark felt hands grasp his arms and pin him to the floor. The weight of them on his body was nothing, yet he couldn’t throw them off. They were too strong, too powerful. His eyesight was fading. He couldn’t keep his lids from closing. It was the strongest sensation and yet far in the distance he could still hear the shrill scream of Wren calling his name. “Markkkkk!!! Leave him alone…MArkkkk!!!”
Chapter 33
Ben Mason was trying to push away the people who had the stranger from upside pinned to the floor. The princess was yelling, demanding his release, and the king was stomping his foot as his voice boomed around the auditorium, instructing them all to halt.
They did.
Ben pulled the stranger to his feet and the princess rushed to his side. “Mark. Oh my poor Mark.”
The crowd parted and the king the Bird Catcher and the Colonel stepped forward. The king looked incredulous, the Bird Catcher looked shaken, and the colonel looked confused. Ben put his hand on the stranger’s shoulder. He seemed dazed and his eyes were dilated, but he was gradually coming round. “Who are you, mate?” Ben asked, before the king had chance to make other demands.
He raised his head and looked at them all watching him. He had an American accent. “Mark Buzzard.”
“Yes, but who are you?”
The king stepped in front of the colonel. He was a startling figure when he was enraged. “Is this one of your men?”
The colonel shook his head, only once. “No, he’s not one of mine.”
As she clung to the American’s arm, the princess raised her chin in defiance. “He is mine,” she said.
“What is that you say?” The king’s voice was low and formidable.
The Bird Catcher stepped in. “The girl brought him here today, king. I was going to present him to you after the banquet.”
“You knew about this? Fetch Cannes,” he roared.
Cannes was already there. He simply stepped out from the crowd. “My king, forgive…”
“How did this upsider get into the city?” King Kite was spitting with anger. All Ben and the colonel could do was watch the events unfold. The whole thing was crazy as far as Ben was concerned, but the colonel probably already knew how much weight the king’s anger bore.
The princess intervened. “I brought him in. It wasn’t Cannes’ fault. It was my doing.”
“You fool,” the king spat, as the king lunged towards her.
Mark Buzzard pushed her behind him and confronted him. “It is not her fault.”
“Take him,” he ordered Cannes.
Cannes’ men seized him and nearly knocked over the princess.
Wren screamed her objection. “Where are you taking him? Not to…”
“Silence!” The king bellowed. “I will speak to you later.”
Mark Buzzard looked like he was coming out of his daze. He looked at the crowd of underworld people encircling him, as if he had just jumped into a sea of sharks. Ben related well to that.
“It’s all right, Wren. I’ll be all right,” Mark Buzzard said.
“Take him to Bedlam,” the king said once more. And all anyone heard beyond the chattering of the crowd was Wren’s devastated scream. “Mark…No…”
End of Part 2
Chapter 34
Charlotte Croft returned to her flat in Knightsbridge at nine o’clock that evening. She had spent the latter part of the afternoon at the office, trying to find out more about the conspiracy everyone was talking about; the one involving her husband, Ben Mason. Earlier that evening, Nick Vaughan, editor-in-chief, had asked her to join the meeting in his office. He was being unusually polite. Charlotte knew he was after something and she had a pretty good idea what that was.
She‘d received a wave through the glass of his office and hers. She nodded and waved back, throwing her pen upon the desk and leaving her glass dome to meander across the floor. She didn’t knock. The other two men in the room stood-up as she entered. “Charlotte,” Nick Vaughan announced. “This is Brett Welsh and Tim Trainer. They work for us.”
Charlotte shook Brett Welsh’s hand first. She had a firm handshake. It was guarant
eed to throw any man off guard who thought he was better than she. Either that or they believed she was trying too hard to be accepted as one of the boys. Charlotte denied the latter.
“Gentlemen!”
Tim trainer offered his hand. “Happy to meet you.” She shook it with the same grip she’d used on the other guy.
Charlotte pulled down the sleeve of her blouse. She’d secured the other one, on her way over. “I’m surprised we haven’t met. I’ve been here…what…six years now and yet this is our first introduction.” She was playingthem. She liked to take the edge; manipulate the conversation so that she could stay one step ahead of them. Men were her easiest target, or so she’d always maintained.
Nick Vaughan had many freelancers working for him out on the streets. They gathered information, like detectives, and then they sold their reports to the newspaper. Not so much paparazzi; more like paper-azzi. They made good money and it was a pretty well known fact that they manufactured a lot of their data. Nick’s best people were the ones who didn’t do that. Or if they did, it could never be proved or used as libel.
“The first meeting is always the best, I find,” Tim Trainer responded with a flirtatious glance.
Charlotte smiled back. He was good looking, about the same age as her, maybe older judging by the grey hair at the temples. His teeth were perfectly white and straight, veneers probably, and his clothes were tailored. That was definitely a Saville Row jacket he was wearing. She checked out his shoes - black and shiny brogues. He was well cared for and no doubt high maintenance. Probably a bachelor through-and-through, single, streetwise and selfish. Not her cup of tea at all.
Brett Welsh interjected. “Personally, I prefer the second meeting. Perhaps over dinner?”
Ah, that one was more of a forthright flirt with even more to hide. She forced a disarming smile. “Is your name really Brett?”
“’fraid so. My mother was a die-hard Rhett Butler fan. However she was good enough to consider that ‘Rhett’ was a little too obvious, so she satisfied herself with a sound-alike. Don’t even ask what she called my sister.”
Charlotte grinned, feigning intrigue.
He held out his chair and as she sat upon it, he whispered in her ear. “Scara.”
Charlotte offered him a grimace, before he went to the side of the office and took a chair for himself. He placed it in the middle, between her and Tim-the-trim, as she’d already dubbed him.
Nick Vaughan came straight to the point. That was the news reporter in him. “You heard anything from Ben today, Char’?”
She pouted her lips as she considered the question. She saw Tim-the-trim staring at her legs. She crossed them elegantly. His unmoving eyes were fixed on them as if he was staring into space. “No, why?”
“People are asking.”
“Who’s asking?” She knew Nick well. He was a pushover.
“Just people.”
“Oh, really, Nick, because last time I looked, people had names.” She laughed and they all joined in. Nick Vaughan’s eyes were shining. He was either tired or he’d been taking too many swigs of the dark rum he kept in his bottom drawer.
“Okay, okay. I’ll get to the point. Ha, ha! I never could pull the wool over this little lady’s eyes.” They all nodded and laughed. “So, the story is this, Char: Ben went off the radar this morning and we want to know where he’s gone.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “Why?” She smiled again, but no one smiled back.
Nick seemed reluctant to offer too much information. That was how he played, with his cards close to this chest. “He had a meeting at Number ten, with someone…someone who you wouldn’t normally expect him to be involved with.”
“Oh? And who was that?”
“Some guy from the army. He’s quite a hot-shot. Reports to the PM.” Nick picked up his pen and doodled on a pad next to his computer screen.
“Strange!” Her face mirrored their pensive expressions.
“Yeah, that’s what we thought.” Nick looked at Tim Trainer for back-up.
Tim-the-trim brushed an imaginary fleck of dust from his trousers. “We are concerned there’s something going down that we don’t know about. Something we should know about.” He cast a glance over to Nick Vaughan. Nick nodded.
It was Brett’s turn to enlighten her. Charlotte would be enjoying herself if it wasn’t for the fact her husband had pissed her off so much lately. Maybe this was her chance to get her own back. “We thought you might give us some leads, seeing as we all work for the same company and all,” Brett said.
She nodded. “Yes, of course. That’s our business, right? We’re all here to give the public what they want. It is our single ambition to share the joy.”
Brett Welsh looked like he’d had enough of Charlotte’s banter. “It’s what we all get paid to do.” Suddenly his charm flew out the window. Charlotte knew what those guys were like at the mention of money.
“But not all of us get paid as much as others, do they Brett?” The air in the room was suddenly stifling. Charlotte wished Nick would open his window, but it was raining outside so maybe it was just as well. At least turn down the bloody heat… “Look, fellas…Nick…” she looked into the pleading eyes of her boss. “If I knew what Ben Mason was up to, I’d tell you. Really! But seeing as he and I are unofficially separated, he doesn’t tell me anything about his work or anything else for that matter. In fact, you could say he never has.”
It was Tim’s turn to offer some verbal foreplay. “You still live together.” It was a statement rather than a question. It threw her for a moment and he knew it. She looked at him, but tried to remain impartial. “How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “I get paid to know everything.”
“Hmm, I see. Well in that case, you’ll also know that Ben Mason booked a table at the Savoy this lunchtime, for himself and a pretty backbencher called Claire. Maybe you should try interrogating her. In fact you may even find him at her place…not so much ‘under the radar’…more like under the sheets.”
Nick Vaughan coughed; the result of forty years of chain smoking. “Well, gentlemen, I believe Charlotte has told us as much as she knows.” He nodded towards the door. “Thanks, Char.”
Charlotte stood up and felt their eyes on her as she walked to the door. Before she could pull it open, she heard Nick speak. She turned around with her hand still on the door handle. “If you hear from him…you’ll let us know?”
“Of course. No problem.”
Now, Charlotte was home at last, looking forward to pouring herself a nice glass of cold Chardonnay and putting her feet up next to the fire whilst penning an idea for next week’s column. ‘Men, naked beneath the suits’.
She turned the key in the lock and stepped inside. She flicked on the lights, threw her bag onto the chair in the hall and went into the lounge. There she stopped as if her heart had stopped. The flat had been turned inside out and there was hardly a piece of carpet showing through the papers scattered about everywhere. It was an unholy mess.
Charlotte stayed in the doorway contemplating whether or not the people who had ransacked her home were still in the flat. She felt angry, violated, but she was no fool. She had nothing on her to use as a weapon, accept for her umbrella, and it wouldn’t take a lot to overcome her, even with that in her clenched fist.
She stepped further into the sitting room. She couldn’t hear anything except for the sound of the London traffic outside. Even the double glazing didn’t keep that at bay. Not that she’d want to. The familiar sound was what she drew comfort from. She once told Ben that if she could hear the busy streets of the city, then it proved she was still alive, and that was good enough for her.
Looking at the mess of her flat should she be worrying about what Ben was involved in? If someone went to so much trouble to find out what that was exactly, then it must be as serious as hell.
She stayed near the door and stretched her neck to see over the side of the couch, shrugging off the notion that sh
e’d expected to find a body on the floor. She’s seen enough movies in her time to expect as much. After all, wasn’t that what normally happened? A dead body thrown in for added suspense. Still, there were no inert legs sticking out from behind the sofa, so she put the idea right out of her mind.
Charlotte used her astute reporter head to get a picture of what had happened in there. The cushions had been lifted up and left in disarray, but the clock on the mantel hadn’t been touched, neither had the lamps, nor the photograph of her and Ben on their wedding day, posing outside Chelsea registry office. The desk in the far corner of the room had been completely pulled apart. Papers were strewn across the carpet, and the cup of coffee she’d only half-finished that morning had been spilled onto the floor with the brown stain soaked into the carpet.