Cannonbridge

by Jonathan Barnes

  “What precisely do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, my dear Matthew, that you positively reek of… money. Always so distinctively vulgar a scent.”

  His expression unchanging, Matthew Cannonbridge rises swiftly to his feet, steps to the door, knocks once upon it and shouts a command. At once, the locks are drawn back and the thing is swung open. Before he leaves, Cannonbridge turns back towards the prisoner. For an instant, all control has been lost and he presents a rictus of fury and frustration.

  “You understand nothing,” he hisses. “You see no pattern. And you are in utter ignorance still. I hope that you rot here in the dark.”

  The prisoner does not reply—gives no indication, in fact, that he has even heard these words save for a rare and fleeting smile which plays about his lips.

  Cannonbridge snarls, steps over the threshold and is gone.

  The prisoner does not stir but sits, unmoving, listening. Shortly afterwards, a guard moves into the room. It is Delaney, the best of them, in the prisoner’s opinion, by far.

  “On your feet, C33! Look lively now!”

  Unthinkingly, the prisoner obeys the command. As he shuffles towards the door his jailer says: “So that was Matthew Cannonbridge?”

  The prisoner nods. “Perhaps,” he murmurs as, with hideous inevitability, he trudges to his cell. “Or perhaps it was something else entirely… Something inhuman. Just wearing that man’s skin.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean by that,” says the guard.

  “No, my dear fellow,” murmurs the prisoner as he allows himself to be casually manhandled. “Neither do I. At least… not entirely. Not yet.”

  NOW

  THEY HAVE PASSED into London’s outer edge. Once caught in the gravity of the metropolis they head east, towards what half a century past had been the area of docks and shipping but which is now given over to the generation of money from money.

  It is with little surprise that Toby realises their destination: Canary Wharf, the new financial district, its steel spires and gleaming corporate minarets a jagged statement of intent against the horizon. He has been here a few times before and always found it a strange sort of place, all too new somehow, too clean and wellordered, seeing in the driverless electric railway which connects the place to the centre, in its expensive chain restaurants, its soaring yet somehow chilling architecture and, above all, its utter lack of the unsuited, the non-professional, the poor, some dishonesty, a particular view of the world with all naysayers and rebels swept politely out of sight. Not so very different then, he thinks, with bitter recollection, to the University.

  Until today, however, he has never found the district to be so sinister. The shadows are lengthening and the streets—wide and brash and somehow, in their fit-for-purpose design, unEnglish— are oddly empty, lending the scene a minatory air, as if, faced with some pending disaster, an evacuation had happened here.

  Neither Toby nor Mr Keen has said anything for hours. Judd nurses in silence his ruined hand. Somehow the pain, the grim monotony of the journey and the quiet surreality of the region bring about in him an oddly meditative state. As the Saab goes on he finds himself turning over and over in his mind the disparate pieces of this demented puzzle—the glimpses that he has been afforded, the scraps of evidence, the island, the Collection, the words of Spicer and Angeyo and the Blessborough sisters, those fragmented, contradictory testimonies from history—until, very dimly, the outline of a terrible picture begins to emerge.

  At last—mercifully in a way for it has begun to seem to Toby as if they might go on and on indefinitely, into the night and the day beyond and the night again, prowling the streets of the city or pounding the motorway, on endlessly into darkness, with only Mr Keen for company and roadside food for sustenance and the promise of some inventive beating to provide variety—the car comes to a halt.

  Toby, waking from his bleak reverie, sees that they have come to rest in an executive bay at the base of a skyscraper, no rarity in this region but an example of the form which seems to convey to a remarkable degree, the geometry of pure power.

  Keen speaks then. “This is it, doctor. Now we’re going to get out of this car and we’re going to walk into that building and we’re going to ride the elevator to the penultimate floor. And what are we going to have from you?”

  Toby blinks. His hand aches.

  “Well?”

  “No trouble,” Judd says. “No trouble at all.”

  Keen nods briskly, a teacher genuinely pleased by some slow pupil’s belated progress. “Good,” he says. “You’re learning.” He touches a button and, with a solemn clunk, unlocks the passenger door. “Now. Shall we?”

  Feeling as though he has never truly understood before now the meaning of the old cliché about the lamb being led to the slaughter, Toby steps out of the car and breathes in a lungful of gritty London air.

  “With me,” says Mr Keen, steering Toby towards the huge sliding glass doors which provide the chief entrance to the tower.

  “And what is this place?”

  “It’s a bank, Dr Judd. Rather, it’s the bank.”

  And it is with a horrible sense of inevitability that Toby reads the legend inscribed upon the doors.

  One word.

  Reynolds.

  INSIDE THE LOBBY is vast and cool and effortless in its demonstration of wealth. Two beautiful young women, a blonde and a brunette, stand efficiently behind the reception. Keen nods in their direction.

  “Mr Keen,” chirrups the blonde.

  “Right on time,” sighs the brunette.

  He looks back, unspeaking. Both women ignore Toby utterly.

  This, however, he scarcely notices, his attention being arrested both by the name of the institution, written again in gigantic letters behind the front desk, and also, beneath it, what, he realises now, is surely the corporation’s logo—a slick, stylised representation of a snake devouring its own tail. Ouroboros.

  “Don’t dawdle,” says Mr Keen as he applies the slightest pressure—no more than a fingertip—on Toby’s back.

  Without complaint, Judd walks on with Mr Keen, beyond the reception to the row of lifts beyond, into the first of them and then up, up in the metal cylinder, the killer smiling by his side, all the way to the top of the building, to the highest level but one.

  Their ascent comes to the smoothest of halts, marked by a single discreet chime, and they step out into a thickly-carpeted vestibule. In the distance there can be heard repeated drumming sounds, like hammer blows.

  Mr Keen says: “The view from all the way up here is impressive.” He seems almost affable now, Toby thinks, remembering, with a wave of revulsion, Alix’s face just before she went beneath the wheels of the Saab. “This way, please.”

  Keen leads the way, out of this antechamber and into the main body of the floor. Here the sound of drumbeats grows louder and more ominous.

  If Toby has been expecting anything it is some large and lavish office. The place—this entire penultimate floor—is empty save for scattered pieces of gym equipment—a rowing machine, a cross-trainer, a rack of dumb-bells, a line of contraptions meant to expand the chest or pump up the muscles in the legs. All this, backed by great glass windows which, Keen was quite correct, offer a wonderful view of the city’s skyline. And, right at the end of the room, the source of what Toby had erroneously imagined to be the beating of a drum—a small, plump, balding man in late middle-age, dressed in a plain grey t-shirt and sweat pants, jogging earnestly and heavy-footedly upon a treadmill. The slap of expensive trainer on moving rubber echoes loudly.

  Toby and Keen approach, disbelief in the first man’s eyes, something curiously like reverence in those of the second. They reach the running machine and watch for a minute or so as the chubby man finishes his ungainly sprint, his belly wobbling up and down, perspiration heaving on his swollen face. The whole time he pays no heed to his visitors—gives no indication, in fact, that he even cares that they have arrived.

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nbsp; Eventually, the machine beeps officiously, the motor glides to a stop and the treadmill ceases to revolve.

  At last the sweating man turns to face them. He steps gingerly off the machine and onto the floor.

  “Dr Judd?” he says.

  “Yes,” says Toby.

  “Pleased to meet you,” the jogger says in a companionable voice, as if he is offering to buy Toby a drink at the golf club bar. “I’m the CEO in these parts. I would offer to shake hands but I’m afraid I’m a trifle moist at present. The name’s SwaineTaylor. No, don’t look like that. I’m Giles Swaine-Taylor. The original was a very obscure and ancient ancestor of mine. Best to keep money in the family, if one possibly can. Thank you, Mr Keen. As usual, you’ve been most effective. But you can leave Dr Judd and me alone now.”

  Keen nods, somewhat doubtfully.

  “I’ll see you again soon. At the gala.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And like a bad dream dissolving in the morning light, Keen nods once more, casts Toby an indecipherable look and withdraws.

  Swaine-Taylor beams. “Now I’ve no doubt you’ve got dozens of questions.”

  “Who exactly are you people?” Toby asks. “What the hell has this all been for?”

  “Ah. Yes, and that’s two of them. Well, as you surely know—this is a bank. The bank. Well, the investment bank. Nothing on the high street but plenty of brand recognition in the industry. So—ha ha—we’re all a bunch of bankers here. As for your other point, as to why this has all been done, well, come with me… I’d like to introduce you to a man who’ll be able to make everything clear to you far more eloquently than I ever could.”

  “I see,” says Toby. Were it not for the throbbing pain in his hand, he would wonder if he were dreaming.

  “Now if you’ll just come this way, Dr Judd, than I can get you two acquainted and we can make a start.” He pauses suddenly, looks up with bright, mocking intelligence in his eyes. “And just so that we’re both absolutely on the same page, I ought to warn you now that should you make the slightest attempt to cause a fuss or raise an alarm in the course of the next twelve hours I will, with regret but without compunction, have you permanently removed from the board. Is that understood?”

  Pain surges as if in sympathy in Toby’s hand. He nods in sullen agreement. “I suppose you’ve been threatening me a while now, haven’t you? The weird phone calls. The message at the cash point.”

  Swaine-Taylor looks at him oddly. “Dr Judd, I’m afraid I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Then… Then who or what..?”

  “Later, later. Now, come this way. Chip chop.”

  And back they go, back along the lines of top-flight fitness gear (none of which, Toby thinks sourly, seem to have done all that much for Swaine-Taylor’s physique), back to the vestibule and the lights, where they step into one of the lifts and wait for the doors to snap shut whilst the executive presses the necessary button.

  “Just one more floor,” he murmurs. It doesn’t take long and then the doors are opening again and Toby and Swaine-Taylor are stepping out into another wide space. But this one, unlike the gym beneath, is darkened and gloomy. Only a couple of lights are on very dimly and all of the windows are blocked up with smooth wooden boards. There’s a smell in the air—like decay, Toby realises, like damp earth, like mould.

  You would not think, perhaps, that any office in so modern a building could ever seem so eerie as does this.

  In the centre of the room there is a kind of nest of computer screens, heaped high on a long low desk. There is a figure sitting behind it on a tall black orthopaedic chair. Toby walks closer to see, a horrible suspicion taking shape in his mind.

  It is, he sees now, an old—a very old—man, lank-haired and bearded, with fierce eyes and few teeth and the air of a hermit or a wild man. He grins crookedly at their approach.

  “Now, this ought to be interesting,” says Swaine-Taylor, playing the jovial host, limber and witty and almost flirtatious. “Dr Judd, I’d like you to meet a very old friend of the bank’s. This is Professor Anthony Blessborough.”

  1900

  THE HOTEL D’ALSACE PARIS

  IN HIS FOURTEEN and a half years as proprietor of the Hotel d’Alsace, Monsieur André Lachette has grown accustomed to entertaining patrons of the most secretive, eccentric and outré stripe.

  His establishment is not, after all, of the first rank nor are its location and décor conducive to those visitors to Paris who wish to circulate and be seen in the city’s most fashionable districts, or particularly attractive to those with a respectable income or any reputation to speak of that they wish to uphold. Indeed, the place has long proved to be something of a magnet for a certain kind of impecunious gentleman or lady in search of privacy or solitude, looking for somewhere inexpensive where they might lie low. In consequence, Monsieur Lachette has become most proficient at passing no comment or judgement, at looking the other way. He is a master of discretion, an adept of selective memory, a titan of benevolent hypocrisy. He has trained himself to be blind to all but the worst human excess. He is, in other words, the ideal hotelier.

  And yet, for all of his experience and skill, his attitude of openhanded unshockability, there is something which troubles him— something which troubles him about the man in room sixteen.

  Monsieur Lachette knows well, of course—has always known— the precise identity of his guest, for is not Mr Wilde, for all his attempts at disguise, his ludicrous pseudonym of Sebastian Melmoth and his oft-stated desire for solitude, still amongst the most notorious men in Europe?

  Not that monsieur judges, of course—this is Paris, after all, and the supposed sins of the poet seem somewhat trifling in such a place as this—yet, in spite of Lachette’s worldly disregard for the tedious prejudices of that rain-soaked little island which God, in his unfathomable wisdom, has placed a few short miles from the coast of his own mighty nation, there is something else concerning that guest, beyond the taint of English scandal, which weighs heavily upon the imagination of the proprietor.

  It is this, he decides, as he sits in his little parlour at half past nine on a Friday evening, with a bottle of red wine uncorked before him and the remnants of his supper cooling on its plate: it is the fellow’s scent of mortality. For the man was ill when he first came to the Hotel d’Alsace three weeks previously, pale and unsteady on his feet and possessing a countenance suggestive of intolerable pressures and of accelerated decay. He cannot, Monsieur Lachette concludes, be long for this world and he wonders whether he should count it as a blessing or a curse that the poet’s unhappy twilight should be spent within the walls of his own establishment.

  He is about to pour himself a fresh glass and raise it in solitary toast to the dying man who slumbers somewhere overhead when he hears the hectoring tinkle of a bell. It originates, he sees with a lack of surprise which is in itself surprising, from the room which has lately been made the private territory of the man who called himself Melmoth. With a slightly lingering look back at the bottle, Lachette rises stolidly to his feet and moves, with an urgency that he does not wholly comprehend, to answer the summons of Mr Oscar Wilde.

  When he reaches the room, Monsieur Lachette discovers it sunk nearly into darkness. The merest stub of a candle provides feeble light to illuminate a place that has been thrown somewhat into disarray as though a struggle has happened here. The hotelier is struck by the paucity of the man’s possessions—a small valise, a handful of favourite books, clothes that are close to rags—little to suggest that their owner was once a legend of the stage, a hero of the salons. The man himself is no more than a shadow upon the narrow single bed, his form rising and falling with horrid irregularity. The voice that emerges from this undignified shape is ragged and uncertain.

  “Robbie?” it hisses, “is that you?”

  “No, monsieur. It is I—Lachette.” As ever, when in the company of foreign guests the proprietor somewhat overstates his natural accent. />
  “Of course. Of course. Lachette. Draw nearer would you, my dear fellow?”

  The Frenchman does as he is bid and steps with dainty trepidation to the invalid’s side. The air is thick. There is a smell of overspilling drains. “I am here, monsieur,” says Lachette, breathing, as much as is practicable, through his nose. “What do you require?”

  “A great cup of bitterness has been pressed against my lips.”

  “You are unwell, monsieur?”

  “There is… yes… an excitation in my ear… a great ringing sound like the clarion of judgement.”

  “You wish me to fetch a physician, monsieur?”

  “No. Only Robbie. Only Robbie Ross. He will be quite sufficient for all my needs.”

  “Very good, monsieur.” Imagining the interview to be at an end, Lachette begins to creep away from the dying man when, suddenly and quite without warning, Oscar Wilde sits, with a hideous effort, close to bolt upright in bed.

  “Monsieur,” he says and his voice is louder now, tinged with something close to madness. “I understand at last. In my dreams I saw him. The undying man. The devil robed in flesh. The evil at the heart of the story. Finally, now I see it at all. And Monsieur…” His voice cracks and gurgles. “Monsieur, I know exactly what he is. The most impossible, terrible thing. Such a leap, such a leap in evolution, you see, such as Mr Darwin could never have foreseen. Not Man at all. Rather—the development of consciousness in something greater than the individual. Greater… but soulless. Inhuman.”

  “I fear, monsieur, that you are succumbing to delirium. You must rest.”

  “No! No, on the contrary, I doubt I’ve ever been more perspicacious and clear-sighted. It is the date, you see. 1842. The date of institution. Of establishment. Look at the date again, monsieur. You must look at the date again.”

  No sooner has the last syllable been spoken than the figure of the ruined writer sinks in a sick, quivering motion back upon the bed.

  “Monsieur!” cries the hotelier and hastens back to Melmoth’s side.