Cannonbridge

by Jonathan Barnes

  One moment more—Cannonbridge is but a head above the water—one moment more of seething and shadows and the greatest writer of the nineteenth century, its very spirit, its dark soul, is gone, vanished, lost to the Thames, weighed down by a suicide’s melancholy baggage.

  With a sudden, convulsive gasp, Arthur realises that he is able to move once again. The urchin and the old woman are moving, far too slowly, in his direction.

  Despite his new freedom, Sir Arthur stands quite still in shock.

  The surface of the water is flat and apparently untroubled.

  Why, he thinks, with a horrible and quite uncharacteristic sense of detachment, it is as if some dreadful sacrifice has been made, as if something precious has been surrendered in exchange for some bleak and unknowable future boon.

  NOW

  TOBY IS BACK in the Saab again with a dinner-jacketed SwaineTaylor beside him. The killer, Mr Keen, is driving and the two men are chuckling at some joke that Judd hasn’t caught—like a couple of genial uncles taking their favourite nephew out for a trip.

  Toby’s hand has been bandaged and he has been dosed liberally with painkillers but his imagination is still in that strange room, back in the darkened office which smells of graveyard earth, and he is turning the old man’s fantastical story over and over in his mind, trying to see it from the right angle, the one from which everything is suddenly going to make sense.

  Coolly, the CEO disrupts his train of thought. “You must be pleased, Dr Judd.” The skyscraper is behind them now and they are moving through the streets at a ponderous pace as if in some Presidential cortege. They are heading, Toby realises without a trace of surprise, towards the river. They are going down to the water’s edge.

  “Why?” Toby asks.

  “Because of what you’ve been told. You know everything now.”

  “No. On the contrary, I’m not sure I do. There’s so much that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Oh, there are bound to be a few loose ends, aren’t there?

  They’re just a part of life.”

  And the Saab goes on, its blood-spattered wheels revolving. Swaine-Taylor arranges his plump little hands upon his lap.

  “We still have a few moments before we reach the gala. If there’s anything that I can clear up for you in that time, I’d be delighted to help…”

  Toby thinks. Marshals his questions. “Your bank—it bought the island of Faircairn, yes?”

  “Owned it lock, stock and barrel. Since, oh, 1946. Just after the war.”

  “And you’ve paid for Blessborough? You’ve employed him?

  Cared for him?”

  “We own Anthony just as surely as we own that island. Body and soul.”

  Toby looks the rich man in the eye and asks: “Why?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why? I mean, what’s this all been for? What’s an investment bank’s interest in Victorian literature?”

  “None whatsoever. Christ, no. Musty stuff. I’m more of a Freddie Forsyth man myself.”

  “Then…”

  “What do you think? It’s the possibility of the technology. We think it might be alien, by the way.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The island. It simply doesn’t exist on any maps before 1750 or so. Our boffins think it could be extraterrestrial in origin.

  Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s perfectly possible, don’t you think? Though we’re always open, of course, to theories. But what exactly it is or where precisely it’s come from… well, these things are largely beyond our purview. But with the power to warp reality itself… Heh…” Swaine-Taylor pauses, licks his lips. “There wouldn’t be an economy we couldn’t manipulate, a stock exchange we couldn’t rig, an investment we couldn’t artificially inflate. You see? The power of the island could make us a new Midas.” Judd looks at the pudgy man in his expensive suit and stares in disbelief. “That’s all?” he says. “You’ve discovered the most frankly astonishing thing, the most amazing, impossible thing, in human history and you’re going to use it to… make money? To turn a bigger profit?”

  Swaine-Taylor looks genuinely bemused by the question. “Of course. What else would we do with it?”

  “Help people? Make the world better?”

  “We’re a bank, Toby. And a bank’s not a person. We don’t do compassion or charity or skipping. We exist only to expand. We exist only to make money. But—and this is the important part— our making money does improve the world. Course it does. All the time. Everyone is enriched by it. The stronger the economy, the happier the populace. All wealth trickles down in the end.”

  “You’re right,” Toby says dimly, a new thought percolating.

  “Yes. Of course you are.”

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  “No. About what you said before. About a bank not being a person. In a way, it’s more than a person, isn’t it? But also less.

  Also inhuman.”

  Swaine-Taylor looks at him oddly. “Quite. And here we are.” The Saab has stopped now and the broad, dark torrent of the Thames is in view.

  Upon the riverbank has been installed, no doubt at terrific and unthinking expense, an elaborate row of pristine white marquees, already thronging with smart, dapper guests. Toby recognises some of them even from a distance—politicians and actors and football players, stars from every public constellation.

  Behind a barrier of red rope, a press pack surges, their cameras flashing, calling out names to attract the attention of their subjects.

  And everywhere there are banners, of the saturnine man who disappeared more than a hundred years ago. Beneath it is the legend ‘The Cannonbridge Bicentenary’ and, below that, the name of the bank and its familiar Ouroboros logo.

  “The bank’s sponsoring all this,” Swaine-Taylor says. “It appealed to our sense of irony. Made me laugh. Besides, it has considerable tax benefits.”

  Toby shakes his head.

  “Right. Time to mingle.”

  Mr Keen gets out of the car, hurries obediently round and opens the passenger door. Swaine-Taylor rises regally from his seat and steps out. Once on his feet, he adjusts his cummerbund and straightens his bow-tie. “This way,” he says, as Toby emerges. Swaine-Taylor strolls towards the first and largest of the marquees—the VIP lounge—in the centre of which has been erected a stage and a microphone. Cameras click and whirr. In the distance, the urgent sluicing of the river.

  Inside, the air is scented and sweet. Waiters circulate with canapés and champagne. Soft jazz plays.

  “Now, Toby,” says Swaine-Taylor with infuriating largesse.

  “I want you to enjoy yourself tonight. Have a few drinks. Some nibbles. Have fun. Enjoy this monument to what we’ve achieved.

  And when we’re done, at the end of it all, we’re going to have a little chat.”

  “Are we now?”

  “Yes. We are. You see, there’s an offer I want to put to you. I suppose you could call it a job offer. Ah. I see that you understand.”

  “So,” says Toby, as a man with a tray of vol-au-vents slaloms past him, “that’s why you’ve brought me here? That’s why you’ve kept me alive?”

  “Blessborough’s old. He’ll need replacing soon. And nothing he’s tried that hasn’t involved Cannonbridge seems to have actually worked. We think he’s simply weak. Oh, we’ve tried a few others too and they’ve not worked out either. It seems you need, in some sense, to be immune to the effects of the stuff. So we were waiting for someone like you to see through the Cannonbridge deception.

  Someone stable and smart and industrious. The Blessborough girls were too flighty. Spicer and his ilk far too crazy. No, it has to be you, Dr Judd, and we’d make it worth your while. To be blunt:

  we’d make you fabulously rich. Don’t scowl now. You should know that we’ve already made sure that all charges against you have been dropped.” He smiles. “Though it’d only be the work of a moment to have them reinstated. Think about it. We’ll talk later. For now, ju
st enjoy your evening. Oh, and I’m sure you wouldn’t, but don’t think about leaving us too soon. Mr Keen will be watching you at all times.”

  With a final, deceptively benign smile, the CEO disappears into the crowd. Toby stands alone, lost in the whirl of strangers.

  Of Keen there is no sign, though Toby has no doubt that he is somewhere close at hand. Browbeaten by events, by revelations of impossible things, he does not move.

  Someone thrusts a glass of champagne into his hand and, unthinkingly, he takes it. A few faces he recognises amongst the throng from TV—theatrical knights, cricketing stars, half the Cabinet front bench, newsreaders, celebrities, national treasures— the familiar studded amongst a sea of anonymous figures in immaculate black tie, there, he has no doubt, to represent the real money, the real power. Speechless, he sips the champagne and feels a surge of hysteria. Then, he feels a hand on his arm.

  “Toby?” There are few voices in his life which are quite as familiar. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  He turns to face her. Dazed, he says simply: “Caroline?” It hasn’t been long but he is struck by how different she seems, by how much has evidently shifted within her. Nothing too visible— no dramatic weight loss or gain, no startlingly different wardrobe or savage new haircut. No, there is just something new about her, in her aura, in her essence. It is—supposes Toby with a sudden start of mingled curiosity, envy and a strange, creeping sense of relief—real happiness.

  “You’re looking well.”

  “Thanks.” She smiles tightly. “But what are you doing you here?

  My God, all that weird stuff on the news that they’ve gone and retracted. And, erm, what’s up with your hand? And… Christ, why have you shaved your head?”

  He winces. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Believe it or not, it all seems to be part of a crazy kind of job interview.”

  But his wife isn’t listening to him anymore. No, she’s looking over his shoulder, towards the entrance to the marquee. “Wow,” she murmurs. “I mean I’d heard the rumours but…” Toby looks round at the object of her attention—it is immediately clear. Walking in, the crowd opening before him, flanked by a rugby team’s worth of security, the tall aristocratic figure of one of the country’s most famous men, tuxedoed and immaculate. At the sight of him, Toby exhausted by recent events, can only find it in himself to mutter: “Oh. The Prime Minister.”

  Caroline rolls her eyes, mistaking fatigue for insouciance. “Oh, come on. You’ve got to admit that’s impressive.”

  “I suppose. Anyway, what are you doing here?”

  “You know why.”

  “I don’t. Or if I do, I’ve forgotten.”

  Caroline nods towards the stage. “I’m here for him, Toby. I’m here for J J.”

  Of course. And there he is, young Dr Salazar, approaching the microphone as the jazz music fades out, dolled up and preening, strutting like a rock star.

  “Good evening,” he says and his amplified voice causes all of the guests, even, Toby notes from the corner of his eye, Her Majesty’s First Minister, to cease their conversations and pay him heed.

  “Good evening to you all. Mr Prime Minister, my lords, ladies and gentlemen. Before we begin our celebration of the man who is surely the foremost of the nation’s creative minds, I should like to say thank you to the sponsors of this evening. They are themselves another great British success story but this time in financial terms.

  I speak, of course, of Reynolds bank. Without their generosity, this wonderful, wonderful gala may not have been possible. So, heartfelt thanks to all the guys at Reynolds.”

  Polite applause at this.

  “And it seems especially fitting that these two fine English names—Cannonbridge and Reynolds—should be plaited together tonight for they share a common history. They are both children of the nineteenth century. Whilst Matthew Cannonbridge was, as we know, first glimpsed in 1816, the bank itself was founded less than three decades later, in 1842. And now if you’ll spare me just a few moments, I’d like to take you back to that time, to a villa in Geneva two hundred years ago.”

  But Toby isn’t listening any more. He has gone completely white, he is trembling and a vein is pulsing ferociously in his forehead. “The date,” he mutters against the drawl of Salazar’s speech.

  “Of course. The date of foundation. A new form of consciousness.

  What comes after humanity?”

  “Toby?” His wife is glaring at him.

  “And the brick in the wall… the false brick… it was paper. Dirty, sodden paper thrust into the gap.”

  “Toby? What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  “I see it all,” Toby mutters. “At last. I can see what they’ve done.

  And—my God—I know what they’ve unleashed.”

  1902

  GLEBE HOUSE BLACKHEATH

  SKIN ON SKIN and tongue on tongue, one soft hand moving at the back of his head, another caressing his shoulder, Sir Arthur sits in the drawing room of a house that he does not own with a lady who is not his wife sitting astride him. The lady’s mother is at present elsewhere in the building, having been distracted by some spurious errand, and the lovers have seized this opportunity, all too rare, for intimacy.

  “Not now,” Arthur whispers as the lady adjusts her petticoats, moves so that she might be set more snugly again him. “Not yet.”

  He lets her continue all the same and makes no move to make her desist ruffling his hair or tickling his moustache or to push away the tantalising proximity of her honeyed breath. She sighs and shudders beneath her bulky dress and as he sits, unmoving, in this illicit paradise all manner of possibilities flit, in sensuous parade, across his imagination.

  Their snatched idyll is interrupted by the soft, decorous peal of a bell.

  Arthur starts, like a man being woken from a dream.

  The lady places a finger against his lips. “Only someone at their door. No need to fret.”

  “Nonetheless,” says the moustachioed man, “we should probably endeavour to restore some semblance of decorum.”

  “Shh.” Finger placed on lips once more, her closeness intoxicating. Then, in realisation: “Bother.”

  “My dear?”

  “The servants have the afternoon off.”

  “Ah.”

  “And I should so hate to trouble mother.” She moves with practised grace back to the ground and to her feet again.

  When she has completed this smooth, supple motion, the bell is heard again.

  Briskly, Sir Arthur rises, adjusts his clothes, smoothing down his jacket and trousers in the manner of a battle-weary commander stepping reluctantly onto the parade ground. “I shall answer it myself, my dear.”

  “Arthur, honestly, there really is no need.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” he says, and with a stern nod which contains also a note of cheeky erotic promise, he steps proudly from the room.

  THERE IS AN elderly man waiting upon the threshold, dressed, slightly absurdly, in what looks like the uniform of His Majesty’s Post Office.

  “Good afternoon,” says Sir Arthur. “How might I be of assistance?”

  When the caller speaks it is with a pronounced American twang. “I have a letter, sir.”

  Sir Arthur wrinkles his nose. “A Bostonian by birth, I would surmise. Once considered something of an Adonis in your prime, now fallen on hard times and running to seed.”

  The old man on the threshold looks unsurprised by the performance. “That’s mighty impressive, Sir Arthur,” he says as he draws from his pocket a slim white envelope. “Now this is for you, sir.”

  “For me? But who would know… I mean, this is not, you understand, strictly my address. Not at all. No. I am visiting… a family friend. This must be a mistake.”

  “No mistake, Sir Arthur.”

  The old man holds the letter outstretched, takes a faltering step closer and Arthur sees that it is indeed his name that
is inscribed upon the paper in a black, calligraphic, rather old-fashioned hand. “How…” he begins. The sentence goes no further.

  A look of near-infinite sadness washes over the face of the postman. “Wherever you were, sir,” he murmurs, “this would have found you.”

  Sir Arthur opens his mouth to reply but— “I’d just take the letter, sir.”

  Another gape of protest.

  “Take the damn letter.”

  So Arthur Conan Doyle does what has been requested and takes the letter and thanks the stranger and closes the door upon him, his final impression of the old man’s face being that of long and painful service coming, at last, to its conclusion.

  “wHO WAS THAT?” says the lady when Sir Arthur returns with letter in hand. She is standing in the centre of the room, looking pleasant and unruffled and altogether ready to play the hostess.

  “Postman,” says Sir Arthur simply. “Letter.” He brandishes the relevant item.

  “For me?” asks the lady, with a faux-coquettishness that the writer, for all that it usually charms him, currently finds somewhat vexing.

  “No, my dear,” he says, more sharply than had been his intention. “For me.”

  “For you?” she asks, both fear and triumph visible in her expression. “How is that..?”

  “I know, my dear. I know.”

  “Who is it from?”

  “Let us see,” says Sir Arthur, and noting, although he does not say so, the quality of the paper and the evidently expensive brand of ink, tears open the envelope and draws out the letter within.

  Impatiently, he scans the contents.

  “Good Lord,” he says at last. “He must have been mad.”

  “But who is it from?” asks the lady, who is not entirely successful in keeping a note of petulance from her voice.

  “Matthew Cannonbridge,” Sir Arthur says.

  “How is that possible?”

  “It seems that he wrote it before his death and left instructions for it to be sent to me today.”

  “But why? What did he want?”

  “These are… instructions. For a ceremony meant to commemorate his life. There is to be a gathering down by the river. Some toast to be made in his name.”