“Another nutter, Sarge?” asks Constable Warner, struggling into his oilskin cape.
“Maybe, lad,” replies Dixon. “But you'd better go round and check, it's just a few streets away. Report of a disturbance.”
Warner raises an eloquent eyebrow.
“Not Jack up to his old tricks?”
The sergeant emits a wheeze of humorless laughter.
“No, this is a landlady saying their might have been a murder in the flat downstairs. Several shots fired, they say.”
“Or a lorry backfiring,” says Warner, buttoning his cape. “All right, what's the address? Assuming I can ever find the street!”
Ten minutes later, Warner is being shown into a shabby old Whitechapel house long since divided into low-rent apartments. The excitable Polish landlady is describing every aspect of the incident, and a lot else besides.
“Is good house, clean, I only rent to respectable people, this man he talk nice, I know he gentleman, war hero, I ask about scar but he not say! Now it all bang, crash, shooting!”
“Don't distress yourself, madam,” says Warner, mimicking his sergeant's reassuring voice. Always sound as if you know what's going on, especially when you don't, he thinks. Good advice.
“Do you know the gentleman's name, or his line of work?”
“I no ask, I no busybody, not like some people, that old cow at Number Eight, she always in everybody's business, she gossip about this, make me look bad!”
The woman continues her monologue as she shows the officer to what's left of the door of an apartment.
“And they just walked in off the street and did this?” he asks.
“No, I no hear anything, front door fine! They picked lock, but Mister Jones, he bolt his door!”
“Jones?” asks Warner, taking out his baton. “That's the name he gave you? No identification or references, I suppose?”
“I don't need reference from English gentleman!”
The woman gabbles on while Warner enters the flat, feels for the switch, and flicks the light on. A low-wattage radiance reveals a single bed-sitting room. There's a bottle of whiskey on the decrepit night-stand, two rickety chairs, a simple iron-framed cot in the corner, and a body face down on the floor.
The landlady's monologue goes up an octave. Warner waves her back, goes and crouches next to the corpse. The man is definitely dead, shot in the face judging by the fact that half the back of his head is missing. There's a snub-nosed automatic in the dead man's right hand. A cartridge case lies a few inches away.
Warner, who did his national service in the jungles of Malaya, has seen far worse, but not in England.
Gangsters? Spies? Not your regular domestic dispute, anyway. And I think we can rule out the landlady. Great. Whoever did it is long gone and this smog guarantees no witnesses to their arrival or departure. Unsolved murder in Whitechapel, new variation on an old theme.
Warner stands up, looks around the room again, hoping for a clue. Nothing stands out except for a child's coloring book on the cot. Shrugging, Warner turns to go and phone Dixon to start the process that will bring Scotland Yard to one over-excited landlady's door.
“Excuse me, madam,” he begins, “Could you tell me where your …”
There's a man in the doorway, tall, clad in black, about fifty, with a nasty-looking scar down one side of his face.
Warner instinctively tightens his grip on his baton. I've seen your sort before, mate, he thinks. Dirty tricks department, leave no traces, no names given.
“I'm sorry sir, you can't come in here, it's a crime scene,” he says, firm but polite.
The stranger looks over at the corpse, nods, looks back at Warner.
“So I see,” he says. “Pity. I nearly had it sorted. Now we're all buggered, I'm afraid. Should have realized the bastards could track me down with their magic tricks. Ah, well.”
The man reaches into his jacket, takes out a silver cigarette case, and opens it. Then he stops, looking into the case with a bemused air.
“Now here's a thing,” he says, apparently to himself. “How true to life is this? Only one way to find out.”
The stranger takes out a cigarette, begins to pat his pockets.
“Here, let me,” says Warner, reassured by this familiar conduct. He takes out his own battered brass lighter, flips open the lid.
“Oh, thanks, Constable,” says the man, stepping forward to let Warner play the flame over the tip of his cigarette.
It doesn't light, but instead the white cylinder crumbles and falls to the floor in pieces. Both men peer down at the little heap of debris. It melts away as if the fragments of tobacco and paper are seeping into the threadbare carpet.
“Bloody hell,” says Warner, looking back at the stranger.
“Very possibly, given the things I've done,” replies the man. Then he, too, melts away, and Warner is looking out into the hallway.
The landlady is slumped against the opposite wall, silenced, eyes wide in shock. Warner goes in search of a phone and some smelling salts.
***
“Another sherry, Tony?” asks Lady Burnside, gesturing at her butler, who glides forward with a tray bearing a decanter.
“No, please, I'm fine,” says Tony, putting a hand over his glass.
He feels light-headed, perhaps because the room is so warm thanks to a huge open fire. Dinner was lavish in content, but minor torment psychologically, as Tony struggled to find anything to talk about other than work and the war.
“Moderation in all things, eh Tony?” chortles Burnside. “Well, that's not a bad thing. Start the day with a clear head. Good show!”
Oh shut up you noisy, privileged buffoon, thinks Tony. I wish Rachel was here. I wish I could check on Emily. In fact, why not?
“I hope you don't mind, sir,” he says, struggling to keep his words from running into one another, “but would it be all right if I called home? Just to check on my little girl?”
“Of course, old chap!” says Burnside, clearly relishing the role of generous host. “Wilson, show Major Beaumont to my study.”
Tony follows the butler through the labyrinth of the vast town house and finds himself in a study-cum-library. It's a surprisingly bookish sort of den. He's distracted briefly, wonders at the sheer number of volumes, and at how old some of them look.
Latin, Greek, German, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, he thinks. The old bugger's either very pretentious or a bit of an intellectual on the side. Is he playing the Tory buffoon?
He shakes his head, goes to the desk and sits down. It takes him a second to remember his own number. God that Cyprus sherry's strong, you can tell when you've had the good stuff. Then he recalls the digits, dials, and hears the phone ringing. He imagines Charlotte rushing to answer, then wonders if Nate will be there first. The ringing goes on, the familiar mechanical rhythm becoming a bleak mockery. He puts the receiver down, gets up, and resolves to go home.
A smiling Burnside and his impassive butler are standing in the doorway.
“Couldn't get through, eh?” says Burnside. “Everything's disrupted because of this damn smog. Workers staying at home, too much demand on the system, and all that. Never mind, try again later.”
“No,” says Tony, walking unsteadily towards them. “I must get back to check, there's danger, something I didn't explain.”
“Oh, you didn't need to, old chap!” says Burnside, and nods to the butler.
The impassive servant steps forward, reaches out for Tony, who reacts instinctively, punching the man on the jaw. The butler reels back, colliding with Burnside, and Tony pushes past them and heads in the direction of what he thinks is the front hall.
“No point in running old chap!” shouts Burnside, clearly amused. “She's already gone.”
Tony spins around, loses his balance, leans against the wall.
“What do you mean? What have you done?”
The two men don't answer, just walk forward, taking their time. The butler, rubbing his jaw, produces a set of
brass knuckles.
***
The impromptu interview has gone well, but Rachel feels increasingly uneasy. Her initial sense that James is not the man she expected has evolved into a sense of vague but intense discomfort with the whole set up.
And yet there's nothing obviously wrong, she thinks. I'm doing what I've wanted to for years, watching and listening as the Ghost Man broadcasts.
Perhaps it's the nature of the story James is telling that's the problem. It's far darker and stranger than anything she's heard before, a dense narrative about demonic forces unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
She looks through the glass at Kneale and his team, all listening intently. They're as spellbound as millions of listeners, stuck in their homes, unable to go out to the movies or a pub, she thinks. This smog is ideal for the BBC, they must be getting their biggest audience numbers ever, bigger than the war, even.
Rachel's gaze wanders around the recording booth, stopping to catch the Ghost Man's eye. He gives a wink, continues reading flawlessly, the consummate professional. She looks at the microphone instead, seeking reassurance in its black solidity, focuses on the BBC logo of a broadcast tower emitting stylized lightning bolts. The story is reaching its climax, now.
“The black magician – no longer my old friend, companion of a merry if misspent youth – began to chant the foul conjuration of his esoteric order, the ritual that summoned the foulest denizens of Hades! I struggled against my bonds but I knew it was futile, and his voice took on a mocking tone as he recited the final part of the incantation! It was a veritable roll-call of preternatural beings, summoned to destroy the greater part of humanity and subject the few survivors to a reign of perpetual torment!”
James pauses, glances through the glass with a smile. He’s leaving just a moment for the tension to mount, thinks Rachel. He's just so good at this.
“Metatron! Mazarial! Tirias! Oliban! Gargator! Luspio! Valakan! Bahemut! Zephona!”
The list goes on, a dozen names, then two dozen, and James becomes more animated as he reads, the final page of the script quivering in his bony fingers.
Is he going to stop? How can he think that just reading a list is a proper climax?
Rachel looks at the recording team again, sees no sign that they are concerned. If anything, they seem mesmerized by the steady stream of syllables they're broadcasting to the smog-bound city.
Chapter 12: The Star Wormwood
“Where's Garmouth?” roars Churchill.
“I'm sorry, prime minister, he left some time ago,” says a nervous official.
“Where did he go?”
“Broadcasting House, sir, for an emergency board meeting, I believe.”
Churchill emits a disgruntled sniff.
“His lordship spends too much time at the British Broadcasting Corporation! How hard can it be for a glorified committee to decide on when to broadcast the football results, for God's sake? Country's falling apart and he goes to a bloody meeting!”
Confronted with a furious elder statesmen, the official wisely attempts no answer, but instead asks, “Is there anything I can do, prime minister?”
“You can bugger off,” retorts Churchill. Then, “No, hang on, bring the car round. You've given me an idea.”
“Yes, of course, sir,” says the official, relieved at having something straightforward to do. “Where will you be going?”
“Why, Broadcasting House, of course! The people need to hear from me! Time of troubles and all that. Need to boost morale.”
The official scurries away to make arrangements, leaving Churchill to go back to pondering the pictures of London from the air. Most show nothing but a sea of smog, with not even the tallest building showing above the murk. But two photographs are different. They are marked 'Infrared', plus the height of the spotter plane. Both pictures show gray squares divided by straight lines. One, marked 8,000 feet, shows two lines that apparently converge out of the frame. The other, taken at 20,000 feet, shows most of a very obvious star.
Churchill picks up the phone, dials a now-familiar number.
“Jim? Yes, I got them all right! But I don't see any landmarks. Where's the middle of this blasted thing, whatever it is? The focal point? Ah, I see. Just the central area, nothing more precise? Hell and damnation! Quite literally, in this case.”
He listens to a few moments.
“Well, get as many of your RAF Regiment troops into London and just start searching, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Yes, issue live ammunition, you dolt! Yes, I know, needles and haystacks, but we must act! I'm going to be on the BBC shortly, I need to say something is being done about this infestation of phantoms. It's leading up to something, that's the only clear thing in all this foul miasma!”
Churchill slams down the receiver, leans back in his chair, strokes Chartwell. The cat, agitated by all the shouting, is soon purring again.
“Sorry, my friend, but I'll have to go soon,” says the old man. “Duty calls. Probably see you again soon. Then we'll see about a treat from the kitchen, eh?”
***
Graeme has used half his detonators so far, enjoying the satisfying bang as each train runs over the percussion explosive. He hears the bangs from further down the line, showing that Steve is doing his job, too. His mask doesn't seem to be helping with the smog much, but every now and then he takes out a bottle of water and wets it. It makes it even less pleasant to wear, but he can see from the dark green gunk on the gauze that the water is at least absorbing some of the filth he would otherwise be breathing.
Graeme checks his watch and notes that he is well past the halfway point of his shift. His bag of detonators is still half full, perhaps because fewer trains are running. But he feels pride in his work.
Grimsdale was right, he thinks. This is like a war, and I'm on the front line. Next time I see Sandy, I'll tell her that, she'll understand.
He places another detonator, steps back, checks his watch again. Then he cocks his head to one side. There's a distant rumbling, so deep he feels it going through his body as much as into his ears.
Must be a big coal train, he thinks, shaking his head. More muck going into the air.
But the rumbling grows, soon it's louder than any train Graeme's heard. Yet it's coming from the tunnel.
Something's coming. Something big.
He takes a few more paces back, almost trips over his bag, stoops to pick it up. Looking back towards the tunnel mouth, he sees the blurred red light vanish.
Power failure? That's not good. He should go and check, but he can't bring himself to move towards that sound.
“What's happening?”
Graeme jumps, spins round to see Steve standing behind him.
“Sorry. Scared you, did I? Thought I was a ghost?”
“Piss off, Steve!” he snaps back. “There's something wrong, the tunnel warning light's failed.”
Steve peers into the smog, looks back as Graeme.
“So we go and check it, report it, like proper railwaymen,” he says, plainly sneering behind his mask. “Come on! Or are you scared?”
“You go, since you're so brave,” replies Graeme, feeling his face redden under his mask.
“Wanker!” calls Steve as he sets off up the line.
Cursing, Graeme follows, bag slung round his neck, detonators clinking. The deep thrumming sound suddenly stops, as do the two apprentices. Steve turns round.
“Bloody hell, sounds like it's broken down in the tunnel!”
“No ways that's a train, Steve!” insists Graeme. “It's something else, it's …”
Before he can finish, there are two crashing impacts, and a huge man-like shape looms out of the smog behind Steve. Graeme can't speak from surprise. Then, terror keeps him silent as a huge, seven-fingered hand snatches Steve into the air. The monster lifts the yelling teenager ten, twenty feet high, so that he fades from Graeme's sight. There's a scream that instantly becomes a gurgling squeak, then a horrible sound like a butcher cutting mea
t. A warm liquid spatters onto Graeme's upturned face, then something falls beside the tracks. An arm.
Graeme turns and runs back towards the signal box, screaming for Mister Grimsdale. He hears thudding footsteps behind him, the sound of a vast being following at its own pace. He hears a noise that might be laughter, too. He glances over his shoulder and glimpses what might be a face, a mass of writhing tentacles tipped by eyes surrounding a circular maw with concentric rows of dagger-like teeth.
“Jesus Christ, oh Jesus!” he shouts, and yanks the bag from round his neck, scatters its contents behind him. The crashing steps grow louder, then there's a bang and a deep bellow that makes Graeme's bowels quiver.
The footsteps stop, start again. Another bang, a roar of definite anger now. The steps resume, their pace faster now.
Shit, I've only annoyed it!
The signal box looms up but Graeme keeps going, inhaling lungfuls of smog, feeling his lungs start to burn.
***
Emily’s sleep is deep, unnatural, tainted as the London air. In her dreams, she sees the pig-faced men with blank eyes and metal snouts. She wants to fight them off, to kick and scratch and bite, but she can't move as their black paws close in on her. They gather her up, take her to a black van, and then drive her to a great gray tower in the heart of the city.
There are lots of other men, now, gathered around her where she lies on a big table. They utter strange words in voices similar to when teachers explain things, but somehow cruel, or worse than cruel.
They don't care about me at all, she thinks. They don't even hate me. I'm just like a toy. Or food.
“She was already sedated? A stroke of luck,” says a short, fat man.
“There is no luck, Wetherbell, only fate,” says another man. His voice is smooth, Emily thinks of rich chocolate. “Fate, and destiny.”
“What about the Sentinels?” asks a third man. “They were present, the snatch squad said.”
“But ineffective! We were right about their limitations,” says the smooth-voiced man, who must be the leader. “Away from their own limited territory their power to act is no greater than that of any other ghost.”
The Smog (The Sentinels Series Book 3) Page 14