Cannonbridge

by Jonathan Barnes

  The driver calls back. “Close the door!”

  “No,” Toby gasps. “We’ve got to wait… for Gabriela…”

  “Was she with Keen?”

  “I… I think so. Yes.”

  The driver snarls. “Then, the chances are, she’s dead. Now close the damn door!”

  Without waiting for her instruction to be obeyed, she floors the accelerator and the van speeds hectically, desperately, away, leaving in its wake, it seems to Toby, something vital, something irreplaceable.

  Something of his heart.

  1888

  SCOTLAND YARD LONDON

  AS HIS SERGEANT unlocks the door to the cell, Inspector Frederick Abberline of the London Metropolitan Police allows himself, for the first time in months, the tiniest suggestion of a smile.

  A small, side-whiskered man, just on the cusp of plumpness, Abberline steps inside, the Sergeant trotting behind him. In fact, the room is not exactly a cell although, with its blank walls and single chair, bolted to the ground, its bars upon the windows, its locks and guard without, it would be a connoisseur indeed of such accommodation who might feel confident in parsing the difference. Abberline looks down towards the man who is at present assisting them with their enquiries—tall, saturnine, clad fashionably in black, he sits with a galling insouciance on that solitary seat. Nonetheless, the Inspector feels a small surge of triumph at the thought that, after all the tribulations and obstructions of recent weeks, they have at last succeeded in bringing the man here, thwarting his well-connected allies and his own considerable will and summoning him for questioning.

  “Sergeant?” says Abberline to his companion. “Leave us a while.”

  “Sir?” The note of disapproval in his voice is unmistakable. The Sergeant is a good man but he is a stickler for orthodoxy and a martyr to the rulebook. He has yet to learn the necessity of those occasional circumventions of protocol and reorderings of procedure which are sometimes vital to ensure that true justice is done.

  “We need a moment alone,” Abberline says and still the subordinate gazes concernedly in his direction. “The responsibility’s mine, lad. Not yours.”

  Reluctantly satisfied, the Sergeant nods and withdraws. The door slams shut behind him and a violent clatter of the turning of locks and the drawing of bolts ensues. There is silence for a moment in this cell that is not quite a cell.

  The man in the chair (not the prisoner, Abberline reminds himself, for the fellow is not yet formally that and remains, technically, a mere member of the public) is looking up at him with amusement quite apparent on his face.

  Abberline looks down and smiles back at him, seemingly affably enough, holding the expression for a few taut seconds before suddenly collapsing his demeanour into one of brutal disapprobation—a trick which has, in the past, unsettled many a thief, cracksman and cutthroat.

  With this particular suspect, however, it seems to move him not at all.

  “Mr Cannonbridge,” says Abberline, moving behind the chair now so as to remind its occupant who possesses control in this long-expected encounter.

  “Inspector,” breathes the suspect softly, still and unperturbed.

  “I imagine you understand why we’ve had to bring you in like this.”

  “No doubt you have suspicions, Fred,” says the black-clad man with wholly inappropriate good cheer. “You strike me as the kind of man who would nurse dozens of the things without having the faintest notion as to what to do with them.”

  “Kind of you to say so, sir. But why don’t you tell me to what you think these suspicions of mine, of which you hold me to be so fond, might pertain?”

  “Oh, Inspector. Please. I fear I really couldn’t say.”

  Abberline sucks in a breath, takes his time, counts to fifteen before replying. “Four women,” he says, “of the most unfortunate sort, slaughtered on these streets.”

  “I do glance at the newspapers, Inspector. From time to time.”

  “Let me be frank, sir. Let me be wholly and entirely frank with you. Can you account for your whereabouts on the nights of each and every one of the murders?”

  Is it Abberline’s imagination or does even the great Matthew Cannonbridge blanch a little, as have others before him, at the asking of this question?

  “I… really cannot say, Inspector.”

  “Cannot, Mr Cannonbridge? Or will not?”

  “I fear I am not always able to account for my movements. Even to myself.” The eyes of the dark-clad man dart swiftly into the corners of the room.

  “Oh dear, sir. That is unfortunate. Yes indeed. That is most unfortunate.”

  Cannonbridge glowers back at the policeman and Abberline wonders if some strain of lunacy might not lurk within the fellow— he has long considered, after all, that no completely sane man can possibly have been responsible for the outrages that he has seen perpetrated upon the bodies of those wretched drabs. “We know you have a house in the district, sir. We know that your writings contain a good deal of bloodshed and terror, directed especially towards women. Why, The English Golem remains a shocker, sir. A real, twenty-four carat shocker. And now you are unable to account for your movements on the nights in question. Tell me, sir—what am I supposed to think?”

  Matthew Cannonbridge does not at first reply but only waits until the Inspector, who has continued to stalk behind him and around and about, returns to his original position. Only then does the dark-haired man speak and only then after he has first turned his eyes upon the detective and favoured him with a broad smile which seems, remarkably, given his present state of incarceration, to be fuelled by genuine good humour.

  “Fred,” he says, an almost playful tenor to his voice. “Come now. You have no real motive for me. You have nothing connecting me to any of these grisly tableaux. You have no eyewitness accounts. No testimonies. No hard evidence of any kind at all. No, what you have are suspicions only—wellnurtured to be sure and no doubt teeming in that stolid little proletarian brain of yours. But all quite worthless, either here or in any reputable court of law. The whole world knows, Inspector, that to someone of your sort suspicions are as populous as fleas upon a beggar.”

  Abberline draws in, through nostrils only, a noisy, rattling breath and brings his face as close as is practicable to that of his chief suspect. “I know it was you,” he says, spitting out each word distinctly. “I don’t know much of how or why but I’m certain it was you. Call it intuition. Call it a copper’s hunch. Call it second bloody sight if you want but I’m absolutely certain that you, Mr Matthew Cannonbridge, are the man they call the Ripper.”

  Not a single muscle moves on the face of the man in the chair. Neither person speaks, their faces close enough to touch.

  Eventually, the corners of the suspect’s mouth twitch upwards. “And what if I were?” he says. “If I really were the inhuman beast you describe do you honestly think that you alone could bring me down? A man as famous, as rich, as beloved as I? No, my friends—a whole nation of them—would never allow it. You know this to be true, I think. That I am, so far as fellows like you are concerned, eternally out of reach.”

  At this, Abberline feels suddenly and unexpectedly subject to a tide of emotion which he has long since imagined himself to have trammelled and tamed—namely fury of the most intensive and all-consuming kind, fury which clouds judgement, fury which burns away sense, fury which leads to the making of life-altering mistakes. It is only by means of the very greatest exertion of will that Inspector Frederick Abberline succeeds in quelling the urge to strike this fellow here and now and strike him again and to go on striking until the man in his custody is merely a mass of pulped flesh and bruises, snapped bone and bloody skin.

  The Inspector has little doubt that, were he to succumb to this urge of primitivism, the assault would be accompanied by screams of rage, at the insolence of the villain, at the regular and widespread triumph of criminality over the law, at the sheer injustice of the world. But he swallows it back, he holds it in and, as he doe
s so, he notices that Cannonbridge has been watching him all the while and that there is something in the author’s expression which suggests that he knew all along of the detective’s internal strife and that it has provided him with no small quantity of mirth.

  “Mr Cannonbridge,” Abberline begins with, uncharacteristically, no particular idea of what might follow this opening salvo of syllables.

  The suspect looks questioningly up but he has no time to make any further remark as, with a terrific flurry of metal against metal, the door is unlocked and pulled back and the young Sergeant, flushed and visibly out of sorts, strides into the room, with a cream-coloured piece of paper held in his hand.

  “Stop, sir! Stop!”

  “What’s this, lad?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I’m very sorry. But we’ve got to let him go.”

  Abberline looks at the lad’s earnest, anxious face then glances down at that of their guest and sees that, far from following the conversation, Cannonbridge is gazing into the middle distance, as if lost in poetic thought.

  “What are you talking about, lad?”

  “Here, sir.” The Sergeant holds out the paper. “See for yourself. From the Commissioner.”

  Abberline snatches the letter, glares down at it, sees the awful, treacherous words swim and distort before him as if they are the product of some terrible mirage. Their meaning, however, is quite plain.

  Cannonbridge smiles as if at some private joke. Still he gazes daintily before him.

  “Must be from Charlie Warren,” he says lightly, as though the thing’s of small account. “Of course we’re old friends. From the club, don’t you know?”

  Abberline, feeling once more the approach of the tide, crumples the letter in his fist and throws the resulting ball towards the Sergeant who catches it.

  “Mr Cannonbridge,” murmurs Abberline, knowing now how the sentence must end, “you are free to go.”

  THEY WALK WITH him out of the cell that is not a cell, out of the building and beyond the walls of the Yard to where Cannonbridge’s coach is waiting, a black-muffled driver atop. Beside it is a broken-down man, with rheumy, red-rimmed eyes and a scuttling, unhealthy gait. This poor specimen of humanity ushers Cannonbridge inside. Neither man looks back towards the Inspector and the Sergeant, both of whom stand watching the departure of their chief suspect with glum resignation.

  Abberline finds that he is half-expecting to see the face of his quarry grinning in triumph as the vehicle goes past but, no, the drapes are pulled immediately within and he is robbed even of that small moment, the tiniest indication that the afternoon has been any more to Matthew Cannonbridge than a mild and faintly absurd inconvenience.

  “Sergeant?” says Abberline as the coach rattles away. “Who was that odd fellow? The one who was waiting for him.”

  “Hmm. Just a moment, sir.” The Sergeant reaches into a pocket and retrieves a notebook, very properly kept and maintained. He turns the pages to the relevant point and squints at the words that he finds there, as if finding it hard to read his own handwriting: “A Mr Swaine-Taylor,” he says at last. “A Mr Daniel Swaine-Taylor.”

  Abberline says nothing to thank him but only watches the vanishing coach, first as it diminishes and then as it disappears entirely.

  But he does not forget.

  No, the Inspector never forgets that name.

  NOW

  THE VAN IS moving faster now, at frantic, reckless speed. The hotel is already lost behind them and they are heading to the edge of town, to the A9 beyond. There is a ferocious roaring sound within of rushing air which Toby Judd silences when, with a single sob born equally of exertion and despair, he wrenches shut the sliding door. The atmosphere made a little calmer, the roar of air and engine diminished to the point at which bellowed conversation is possible, the driver calls over her shoulder. Her voice is tough and authoritative but all the same tinged with fear.

  “You must be in the mood for explanations, Judd.” Toby looks about him at the van’s grimy, lived-in interior, the old mattresses, the bundles of clothes, the low, dark hump at one corner.

  “You could say that,” he mutters, the instinctive mildness of this phrasing suddenly striking him as grotesquely inapt. He swallows, only partly successfully, a whoop of hysteria.

  The woman at the wheel tuts as if at an errant child. She keeps checking the rear view mirror, twitchily, with learned, long-term paranoia. “Get a grip, Judd, and come and sit beside me.”

  Chastened, Toby obeys, clambering awkwardly into the front of the van, buckling himself into the passenger seat as the vehicle hurtles and sways.

  He has the chance to get a better look at her—she can’t be much more than forty, he thinks, though she seems much older somehow, lined and battle-weary, a veteran of relentless campaign.

  “Gabriela,” Toby gasps.

  “That your girlfriend?” the woman snaps as they move, picking up speed, onto the dual carriageway. “The little waitress?”

  “Not my girlfriend,” he says sadly. “But she is a waitress... amongst other things.”

  “Tough cookie,” the woman says approvingly. “If she’s sacrificed herself then it’ll have been to secure your escape. You ought to be grateful.”

  “I am… grateful. But… that man… mightn’t she have..?”

  “Unlikely. No one’s ever got the better of Keen. If I was you I’d start looking to the future. Leave the past behind.”

  “But…” Toby begins.

  “Partly my fault anyway. Should’ve made contact before. We’ve been trying to keep you under observation but that’s difficult with a life like ours. Besides, we didn’t think they’d send Keen in so soon.” She doesn’t sound particularly apologetic. “But we should share information. You’ve been to the Cannonbridge Collection?”

  “We have. And we’ve been on the island too. We… saw the thing that guards it.”

  “Did you now? Hmm. Well, I suspect what you saw was whatever the island wanted you to see. There are times when it’s fine to go there—if the island wants you on it. But if it doesn’t—if it wants to keep you away, it’ll make damn sure that you do. But it’s impressive that you got so far in the first place. Most people in your position, Judd, they’d be long dead. You must’ve had good protection.”

  “You said your name was… Blessborough?”

  “That’s correct. I’m Anthony Blessborough’s granddaughter. Last of the line. Well, more or less.”

  “So what are you doing? In this van? Hanging about outside a Holiday Inn? Chasing round Scotland? I mean, forgive me, but it looks like you live in this thing.”

  Faster and faster they travel, well in excess of the limit. Toby is rocked to and fro in his seat. He reaches for a belt and straps himself in but the effect is scarcely lessened.

  “We live off the grid, Judd. We have to. Our lives are spent on the run.”

  “But why? Why?”

  “Cause of what my grandfather discovered. On Faircairn. Because of his book. And because of Matthew Cannonbridge. Don’t you see? Anyone who’s got even slightly close to the truth they eliminate. Spicer. Your policeman friend. They’re powerful enough to do it. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice. There’s nowhere they don’t have influence. Whole governments are completely in their pocket.”

  “But who are they? And why are they doing this?”

  “We were hoping that you could help us with that last question. As to exactly who they are, as to the precise nature of our opponent, I’d have thought that was obvious. It is the snake that devours its tail.” Angrily, she flips the indicator down and manoeuvres the van towards an exit. As she does so, Toby hears, from somewhere behind him in the recesses of the van what sounds horribly like a human groan.

  Only then does he realise that there was something strange in the grammar of Blessborough’s speech.

  When speaking of her life on the road she’d not said “I”.

  Never “I”. But “we”.

  “Is there someone else,�
�� he asks thickly, “in here with us?”

  He turns his head to look behind him. To his horror, the pile of rags and clothes, the low, dark shape which he had taken to be possessions, is moving and shifting and stretching.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” says Blessborough. “I’m taking us to York. There’s a safe house there. We can talk properly. And then, once you’re fully in the picture, it’s going to be time, at long last, to fight back.”

  Toby feels a surge of fury at the new madness of his life.

  “Who,” he snarls, “is in here with us?”

  The bundle of rags moves closer, revealing itself as a woman in early middle age, wild-haired and pale and dressed in tatters. She pulls herself forward up to the seats at the front of the van.

  She stinks, Toby realises, understanding that he is in the presence of deep and intractable madness.

  “Don’t be alarmed, Judd. It’s only my sister.”

  They are driving cross-country, off the main roads. Trying to lose themselves. The madwoman is at Toby’s ear. Her voice is cracked and raw, and Toby is put in mind of photographs that he saw once long ago of meths drinkers on the streets of London in the 1960s—a tribe that existed on such extremities of society that they began to seem like something else entirely, something other than human.

  “You want to know what it is?” she hisses and Toby, despite himself, finds that he is flinching—cringing, almost—away. “It’s a demon… A demon they’ve let into the world…”

  “Shh, Alix.” This from Jenny. “Hush now. Don’t agitate yourself.”

  “Toby…” The sister slides a prematurely gnarled hand onto Judd’s shoulder and, with awful enthusiasm, squeezes. “They created a space in the universe… And something slipped through. Karl saw the edges of it. Edgar was driven insane by it. Oscar guessed the truth before the end. Old Fred had his suspicions. And the Order, they spoke to… an aspect of it. It hungers, Toby. It hungers for life.”