The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  ‘Her name is Emeline.’

  ‘Marc and Emeline. They sound nice together.’

  ‘Merci.’

  Katherine turned back to the lights. She took a slow breath. ‘Marc, I think I’m going to leave soon.’

  ‘I know, because your friend the detectiveman is hiding in the cathedral tonight and I’m very sure he’ll take you home.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw him by the fountain before I climbed the tower steps. He said he was coming after dark and I should keep an eye out for him.’

  ‘Keeps getting more crowded in your cathedral, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think they mind.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Otto the Brave Knight, the skeletons, the teasing shadows and the—’

  ‘Marc?

  ‘Oui?’

  ‘When you meet Emeline leave out the part about the skeletons, just till she gets to know you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Trust me.’ She looked back to the coloured lights dotting Lausanne. ‘There’s something I need to tell you, Marc.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me now because you have to?’

  ‘Yeah. While you were buying things for me, I was going to steal the money you had in that tin. I was going to run away.’

  Rochat stared at the ground, scratched his head, began to rock back and forth on his heels.

  ‘You can take the money if you want.’

  ‘No, listen to me. I wasn’t even going to say goodbye. I thought you’d think you imagined the whole thing. That you’d just go on with your life.’

  ‘You can take the money.’

  ‘Oh, believe me, I could take your money, and put a big smile on your face doing it but …’

  ‘You can take the money if you want.’

  She reached to him and took his hands.

  ‘Marc, listen to me. I’ve spent my whole life not giving a damn about anyone but myself. Then my whole life goes to hell and you gave me a place to hide, you protected me.’

  ‘It’s my duty.’

  She reached under his chin and raised his face, looked in his eyes.

  ‘No, Marc, it’s who you are.’

  ‘It’s my duty.’

  ‘OK, it’s your duty. It’s just … I don’t know what’s going to happen to me and I only know one way of making it in this world. I don’t know if I’ll ever change. But you touched me, Marc. Like no other guy I’ve met.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  ‘If you knew the whole story, you’d call it a miracle. What I’m trying to say is … is …’

  Her voice faded in the cold wind. Rochat watched her eyes, the way they looked wet.

  ‘Are you going to cry now?’

  ‘Yeah, I am. God, I’m so seriously PMSing.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘Never mind, it’s a girl thing.’

  She fell silent, he waited for her to speak.

  ‘It’s just when the time comes, I don’t know how I’ll say goodbye.’

  Rochat stared at her, then he turned to Marie-Madeleine. Katherine leaned closer to him.

  ‘Marc? Did you go somewhere?’

  He turned back to Katherine.

  ‘I was imagining what Marie said a minute ago.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘The same thing as you.’

  ‘What?’

  Rochat took off his hat and scratched his head. He almost spoke, but didn’t. He tugged the hat back on.

  ‘Hey, are you all right?’

  ‘I’m finished working till it’s time to light the lantern and call the hour. Are you hungry? Because it’s Friday.’

  ‘I’m starving, but what’s Friday got to do with it?’

  ‘Friday means Monsieur Dufaux is making filets de porc avec pommes frites et salade. And we can have dessert tonight, because you’re leaving with the detectiveman. I can go down to Café du Grütli and pick it up in an hour. And I can make tea now and draw your picture till I go.’

  ‘You want to draw me? Like this?’

  ‘I want to draw you like this. So I can remember when you came to the cathedral to hide and I protected you the way Maman told me to.’

  ‘Yeah, Marc, anything. But it’s a mess in there, let me clean things up. And let me make the tea, I really want to do it.’

  Katherine dashed into the loge, poured water from one of the jugs in the kettle and arranged the cups and saucers. He watched her through the open door a moment, then he turned to the great silent bell hanging in the timbers.

  ‘She said the same thing as you, Marie, about saying goodbye. Why did you both say Maman’s words from beforetimes?’

  Rochat looked out over Lausanne and Ouchy. The snow-covered vineyards and villages along the lake, the lights of Évian flickering to life on the far shore and the shadowy mountains cutting into the darkening sky. And the winter sun breaking through the clouds once more and brushing the ice and snow of the shadowy mountains in pastel shades of violet and blue. The timbers creaked and Marie-Madeleine rang out for six o’clock. Rochat watched the last of the light fade from the sky. A cold wind swept through the tower. The dark clouds raced faster towards Lausanne.

  ‘Be not afraid, Rochat. Be not afraid.’

  A familiar fluff of grey fur curled around Rochat’s ankles, rubbed against his crooked foot. He bent down, picked up the beast and held it in his arms.

  ‘Bon soir, Monsieur Booty. Did you come to say goodbye too?’

  Mew.

  thirty-three

  He picked up the receiver and pressed the button next to the man with the tray.

  ‘Oui, Monsieur Harper?’

  ‘I’d like to order water to my room.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘De l’eau, s’il vous plaît.’

  ‘Monsieur has bottled water in his minibar, still and sparkling.’

  ‘I want the local stuff. Fill a jug from the kitchen tap, toss in a few ice cubes. No lemon, no limes.’

  ‘Of course, monsieur.’

  Harper opened the curtains and watched raindrops smack at the windows. They dripped down the glass like ragged tears. He reached in the pockets of his mackintosh and pulled out the scraps of Enoch, his notebook. He crumbled the lot in his hands and let it fall to the floor. Then the photographs of Yuriev. Seeing the poor sod dragged from the casino by a pair of bad-guy shadows. Harper tore the photos to bits, sprinkled them atop the small paper mountain at his feet.

  ‘“Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur.”’

  There was a double tap at the door. Harper looked through the spy hole and saw the waitress with a gun carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and a glass, a bowl of perfectly squared ice cubes. He opened the door.

  ‘Come on in, champ.’

  She walked in, set the tray on the desk with a rude clank.

  ‘The name is Officer Jannsen, monsieur.’

  ‘Sure, but from what I’ve just been told in the cathedral we’re all pals. You, me, the Inspector, Mutt and Jeff.’

  ‘I have no idea of who Mutt and Jeff are.’

  ‘The Inspector’s boys, Mutt and Jeff, rhyming slang for death. Rather good when you think about it, not that I ever was.’

  Harper dropped a few ice cubes in the glass, poured from the pitcher.

  ‘It’s like that other rhyme I heard recently, “Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of Saint Clement’s.” What’s the rest of it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, I’ve never heard it.’

  ‘No? “You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of Saint Martin’s.”’

  ‘Will there be anything else, monsieur?’

  Harper drank to the bottom of the glass and poured another.

  ‘You know, this really is the most amazing water. You drink this stuff?’

  ‘Ten glasses each day.’

  ‘So that’s the secret. Here I was thinking it’s the milk in this place. Turns out it’s the tap water.’

  He dr
ank quickly, poured again. There was only half a glass on the third round.

  ‘Seems I need a few more glasses to meet my quota, Officer Jannsen.’

  ‘Then may I suggest you refill your glass from the bathroom sink?’

  ‘Swell, I’ll just finish this.’

  Harper threw the water in her face and kicked her across the back of her knees. She went down hard. He tore the gun from her holster and tested the weight.

  ‘Well, well. A SIG P-229R, necked throat for a .357 hollow-point round, DAK trigger system.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He flipped off the safety and took point blank aim at her head.

  ‘Haven’t you heard, there’re traitors everywhere. Can’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘In this town that passes for normal. Now, let’s see if you followed standard operating procedures. Did you load a bullet in the firing chamber before you entered the room or not?’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Wrong.’

  He swung back his arm, pulled the trigger. An explosion punched through the room like a boxer’s fist, the room’s windows blew apart. Harper brought the barrel down on her head.

  ‘Your spare clips, mademoiselle, if you please.’

  ‘You could have killed a local!’

  ‘We’re well above the locals and the bullet’s already taking a dive in the lake. Odds of killing man or fish are well within rules of engagement.’

  Harper heard a polite cough behind him.

  ‘Are we interrupting something?’

  Harper turned, saw the cop in the cashmere coat standing in the hallway. Mutt and Jeff either side with their own hefty weapons drawn. Laser sights targeted on the kill spot between Harper’s eyes.

  ‘May I remind you, Mr Harper, that regardless of the intended eternity of your being, if my men shoot you in human form you’ll die.’

  ‘Die in their form, you die for ever.’

  ‘I’m pleased you remember how it works.’

  Harper lowered the weapon, flipped on the safety, stuffed it in his belt. Mutt and Jeff holstered their guns. Officer Jannsen jumped from the floor, stood at attention.

  ‘Je suis désolée, Inspecteur.’

  ‘Oh, think nothing of it, officer. Now that Mr Harper’s finally come around he’s a very different sort of perch. But would you be so kind as to give him your kill kit?’

  Officer Jannsen raised her skirt, pulled two ammo clips from the velcro garters around her left thigh and the black steel knife strapped to her right. She handed them over.

  ‘Try not to hurt yourself, monsieur.’

  ‘Cheers, and sorry about the water in the face thing. Old tricks being what they are and all.’

  ‘I thank you for the lesson, monsieur, rest assured I shall not forget it.’

  Inspector Gobet signalled Mutt and Jeff to take positions in the hall, he entered the room and saw the damage.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Officer Jannsen, please advise the concierge the windows of room 511 will need repair.’

  ‘Oui, Inspecteur.’

  ‘And draw another kill kit for yourself from stores.’

  ‘Oui, merci.’

  She walked out, closed the door. The Inspector looked at Harper.

  ‘Not very gallant of you, Mr Harper. She’s not one of us, she’s a human partisan and she’s still in training.’

  ‘She seems tough enough.’

  The Inspector removed his gloves, opened his cashmere coat and loosened his silk scarf, noticed the small mountain of papers and shredded photographs on the floor.

  ‘You weren’t planning to set fire to the room, were you? Bullets through windows are one thing, burning the Hôtel de la Paix to the ground might cause the locals to wonder just what is going on in their fair canton.’

  ‘Actually, I was … I don’t know what the hell I was doing, Inspector.’

  Harper tossed the SIG and clips on the bed. He tossed the killing knife from hand to hand. The Inspector watched him.

  ‘You do remember how to use that thing?’

  Harper held the killing knife to his eyes. Slightly curved, razor sharp on the long edge, serrated in the curve, tip shaped like a small fishhook. Designed to slice and rip open a throat in one quick move.

  ‘Sure, like riding a bicycle, isn’t it?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Harper flipped the knife in the air and caught it by the handle, twisted it over the back of his hand and gripped it again to reverse the angle of attack.

  ‘Nice to see you in killing form then. We were losing hope you’d come around.’

  ‘How long was I out?’

  ‘Ninety years. But we only had six months to reanimate you in this form.’

  ‘Christ, no wonder I feel hungover as sin.’

  ‘Indeed. By the way, what was the roughty-toughty with Officer Jannsen?’

  ‘“Oranges and lemons”, she couldn’t finish it.’

  ‘Bit of the kettle calling the pot black, isn’t it? You couldn’t finish the same rhyme for Sœur Fabienne. She could have slaughtered you in the gift shop of Lausanne Cathedral.’

  ‘The little old nun is one of us?’

  ‘Old tricks being what they are and all, what? It was only the fact you asked for the maquette of the cathedral that spared you.’

  ‘Lucky me, saved by a cardboard cut-out.’

  ‘And for future reference we haven’t used the Oranges and Lemons code since the First World War. Sœur Fabienne only used it to try and snap you out of your stupor – to no effect unfortunately.’

  ‘I didn’t recognize her eyes.’

  ‘Not surprising, given your state. Retinal luminance recognition should return within the next forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Right.’ Harper held up his hand. He stared at it as if examining it. ‘And who’s this?’

  ‘British forces captain of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. He was lost in a tribal region of Pakistan six months ago. He’d been captured by Taliban fighters and tortured for some time before managing to escape. His wounds and the exposure killed him. One of our cells snatched the body and got it to London for regenerative stasis. It was in fairly bad shape, I’m afraid. There’s still some rough spots in the lower chest.’

  Harper felt the tenderness in his ribs and stomach.

  ‘Thought I’d fallen over while pissed.’

  ‘We planted that idea in the hippocampus region of your brain to keep you from asking too many questions. We also did a memory sweep before you took form. You will still sense phantom feelings of the man he was. Very much as the amputee senses the itch of a leg that’s no longer there.’

  ‘I know the drill, Inspector.’

  ‘Yes, well, there’s some concern you might find the sensations to be much more acute. London’s never turned around a body so quickly. But it was the form we needed for the mission and we’re under some pressure.’

  Harper sat on the bed, rubbed the back of his neck.

  ‘He didn’t like heights.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Him, me. He didn’t like heights. Odd for someone in special ops, but he loved the job. And he loved … his wife, I think.’

  ‘He was listed, Mr Harper. He was finished with this body.’

  ‘No jumping the gun then, being as you were under pressure and all?’

  ‘The devouring of the human souls and theft of their still living forms are the tactics of the enemy, not us.’

  Harper looked again at his hand.

  ‘Did his soul make it?’

  ‘For the record, Jay Michael Harper was comforted before he died. His soul has already been born into another life.’

  The Inspector pulled his cigarette case from his cashmere coat, offered Harper a gold-tipped smoke.

  ‘More of that fine hand-rolled Moroccan tobacco, Inspector?’

  ‘Please, take one. An awakening can be something of a jolt. A good strong dose of radiance might be he
lpful in maintaining balance.’

  ‘As in keeping my eternal being separate from a dead man named Jay Michael Harper.’

  ‘That and clearing the cobwebs, what?’

  Harper grabbed one and lit up, drew the smoke into his lungs, let it soak into his blood. He sat on the bed, looked down to the shreds of paper and photographs at his feet.

  ‘One more thing, for the record, Inspector?’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘Alexander Yuriev. Our kind, or human partisan?’

  ‘Does it matter? Either way, he’s gone for ever.’

  ‘It matters.’

  The Inspector took his own flash fags and lit up.

  ‘The real Alexander Yuriev drank himself to death shortly after returning to Russia. We’d been tracking him for many years as part of a long-term operation in Moscow.’

  ‘An operation that went belly-up, I take it, or you wouldn’t have had to pull a rush job with me.’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. Yuriev and his operating cell of partisans were exposed by a mole in our Paris operation. All our partisans working with Yuriev were slaughtered and their souls fed to the devourers.’

  ‘You say “devourers” as if I’m missing something, Inspector.’

  ‘Since you were last here, the enemy has perfected the manipulation of half-breed DNA. What was once a mutation has become a swarm, following fast at the enemy’s heels, waiting to dine at the table of mass death.’

  ‘For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land.’

  ‘Indeed, Mister Harper. Except these monsters, unlike the locusts of Moses, devour the chemical substance of the human soul.’

  Harper drew at his fag, remembering something from somewhere. History Channel, episodes on WW1 maybe. No, he’d seen it himself. He could still smell it. He’d been there. Lacerated fields where only death lived among the blackened stumps of trees and barbed wire and shell holes filled with bloodstained water. Slogging through fields of mass death, hunting down the devourers of souls. All the time hearing the cries of the dying ones begging to be saved. What was once a mutation has become a swarm, bloody Christ. The Inspector’s voice dragged Harper back to now.

  ‘Mister Harper?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m with you. Yuriev’s partisans were slaughtered in Moscow.’