by Mark Latham
‘It is done, Lieutenant,’ Pickering said as he approached. ‘Mr. Dawkins over yon has pledged to make an unscheduled stop at Commondale. It cost a pretty penny to arrange, I can tell you.’
‘I can assure you, Mr. Pickering, money is no object, and you will be reimbursed in full,’ John said.
Pickering held up a hand. ‘It does not matter a jot to me. All I care about is that the plight of the north is at last recognised by this so-called government. Assuming you return to London in one piece, may I have your word that you will relay our situation accurately, and tell those in Whitehall that a resistance, though small, waits for the word to rise up?’
‘You have my word, a thousand times over,’ said John. He extended a hand, and Pickering shook it firmly.
‘Once is enough, Lieutenant, for I see in your eyes that you are a man of honour. I am sorry I could not secure you more comfortable travelling conditions, but the journey is a short one.’
Pickering nodded towards the man, Dawkins, who loitered nervously next to a pair of wood-planked freight cars, one of which was emblazoned with Pickering’s name.
‘A freight train?’ Smythe groaned, echoing John’s feelings on the matter. Third class suddenly seemed like a dream long wished for.
‘It transpires we were wrong about the enemy’s hold in Scarborough,’ Pickering said, ignoring Smythe. ‘Their eyes and ears are everywhere, particularly at the station, and even the coaching inns hereabout. The hotels have closed early, for no holidaymaker would travel here and risk being waylaid on the road. Yet the Knights Iscariot leave the freight alone, for now. Perhaps I am too cautious, but I guessed you would rather that than the alternative.’
John nodded. ‘You were wise to be so, and I thank you. I shall take no risks where my sister’s life is concerned.’
‘The train will arrive at noon,’ said Pickering, checking his pocket watch. ‘You must be aboard and well hidden before it gets here. Dawkins will couple these cars and speak with the driver. When it stops, it shall be for but moments, and you must alight quickly. Is that understood?’
‘Noon?’ John’s heart sank. ‘There is no other way?’
‘There is not,’ said Pickering. ‘I am sorry, Lieutenant—I know this matter is urgent, but there is no point in getting captured, is there? You must look after yourself if you are to find your sister.’ John and Smythe both agreed, though reluctantly. ‘Now, I am sorry I cannot be of more assistance, but I must be away—my absence will be noted if I’m not back in Hull by sundown. I shall leave you in Mr. Dawkins’ hands.’
John and Smythe grabbed their kit bags. ‘Thank you again, Mr. Pickering,’ John said, ‘for everything.’
‘Fare well, Lieutenant; Agent Smythe. God speed.’
With that, the two agents took their leave of their benefactor, and made for the draughty freight car, both of them hoping that their mission would soon be over.
* * *
Lillian awoke numb and cold. Her head throbbed. Weak shafts of light filtered through gaps in weathered boards, stinging her eyes. The smell of livestock, of muck and blood, assailed her. She lay on a hard floor, draped only in a cloak, and the sight of it brought back recollections of the horror she had experienced. There was no blood on the floor, but the pinkish stains beneath her were unmistakeable—no amount of scrubbing could clean away such signs of butchery. Thick, dried blood congealed beneath her fingernails, and dried on her pale skin like mud. She did not want to look about her, for she knew what she would see, and wanted nothing more than to deny her ordeal as anything more than a nightmare.
Lillian Hardwick had never shied away from life’s harsh realities, and it was not within her to start now. She turned her eyes upwards, blinking hard as they adjusted.
The chair in which Arthur had been bound was overturned. The ropes lay loose on the floor, frayed where they had been severed. Scuff marks and a claret smear led away to the far wall, near the outline of a door in the gloomy barn. Any hope Lillian had that Arthur had escaped died when she saw the body.
It was slumped against the door. It was unmistakeable.
Arthur was dead.
Lillian was almost beyond feeling; she had thought him dead twice already, and her heart had broken anew each time. Her detachment from her present situation hung over her, a void as terrifying as the Rift. She ought to feel more; she ought to feel something.
She tried to stand, but her legs felt as though they belonged to someone else, and shook so tremulously that she went to her knees. There was no one around to witness her weakness, and little option but to suffer further indignity in private, and so she crawled towards the door, towards the body.
A small knife gleamed on the floor beside Arthur’s corpse. He had clung to life longer than anyone had a right to. She guessed that he had stirred after Montfort had gone, and had managed to free himself. But why had he dragged himself to the door rather than tend to her? Had he even seen her in his weakened state? Lillian could not bear the thought that Arthur had been all too aware of what had happened; that he had been repulsed by the very sight of her in his final moments, this creature that had once been his heart, and was now glutted upon his very life-blood.
She crawled to him, cradling his cold head to her breast, trying hard not to see his ghastly, almost desiccated appearance, the sallow skin and shrunken gums now making him resemble an Egyptian mummy rather than the proud man she had known. The man she had loved, yet had never told as much. It had taken de Montfort to make her realise it—no, he had known it, even before she had known it herself. The thought that de Montfort had shared so intimate a bond with her, when the man she loved never had, filled her with resentment. For de Montfort. And for herself.
* * *
‘It’s like a ghost town.’
John had to agree with Smythe’s assessment. Commondale was a wraith of a village. Its dwellings were in poor repair, its business premises locked or boarded up.
The two agents walked with caution down the cobbled main street, which sloped and curved meanderingly towards a copse of dark trees, from where the babbling of running water was the only sound to be heard. They walked past a handful of half-timbered premises, whose render had long since cracked and chipped, and whose roofs were riddled with holes.
John and Smythe rapped upon several doors to no avail. Soon, they passed a shopfront proclaiming itself ‘Post Office, Telegraph, Chemist’, and paused to peer through a grimy window.
‘Hi-ho,’ said Smythe. ‘I’d say we have a clue here.’
John squinted. Within the dingy shop was a scene of destruction. Tables and chairs overturned, displays ransacked. Furniture and stock seemed to have been piled high against the front door, and hastily cleared again, just enough to make an exit.
‘If I were on the run behind enemy lines, this is just the kind of place I’d make for,’ John said.
‘And if the enemy were on my tail,’ Smythe followed, ‘then maybe barricading the doors and praying for a new day’s light would be the sensible option.’
John’s brow furrowed. ‘In the best circumstances, Lillian would not hide from anyone. Or anything.’
‘I know,’ Smythe replied. ‘So if it was Lillian who made this mess, I’d say her situation was desperate. Perhaps the barricades are cleared because she left as soon as she could.’
‘Let’s not think about the alternatives, or speculate too rashly. We should take a look inside. You go around the back and I’ll—’
John stopped as a new sound floated up the lane from beyond the trees. A low, mournful singing. It took a moment for either of the agents to recognise it.
‘Church,’ Smythe said. ‘So that’s where everyone is.’
‘On a Wednesday afternoon?’ John asked.
Smythe shrugged. ‘Funeral?’ The sound was certainly too solemn for a wedding.
‘I have a bad feeling about this place,’ John said, speaking quietly even though the entire village appeared deserted. ‘But I never look a gift-horse in
the mouth. If everyone is preoccupied at church, let’s take a look in here, and be quick about it.’
The post office was in a poorer state inside than it had appeared from the window. Not only was every stick of furniture rammed against the doors front and back, but the entire premises was filthy, every surface coated in a carpet of dust such that it looked as though the village truly had been abandoned.
In the kitchen, they found a few plates and mugs that had evidently been used recently. John’s face turned pale when he noticed the state of the kitchen table, for although a cloth had been thrown over it and sundry pots and pans placed upon it, pinkish splotches had started to seep through the linen from the underside. Smythe saw it too, and quickly cleared away as much of the large table as he could, before peeling back the cloth.
‘Blood,’ he whispered.
‘Human?’ John asked.
‘There’s no way of telling, not without my laboratory,’ Smythe replied. ‘However, the positioning is consistent with an abdominal wound, assuming the marks at this end of the table are boot-scrapes. The droplet pattern is still visible, even though it has been cleaned. There’s a faint odour of alcohol and stains in the wood where such a chemical might have indelibly marked the wax—I would adduce that some surgery has taken place here.’
Smythe’s observational skills were mocked and respected at the club in equal measure, and John would have been more impressed had there not been the suggestion that Lillian was the recipient of this slipshod surgical procedure.
‘Can we be sure it was… them?’ John asked.
‘Not from this alone, although it is an educated guess that someone from the royal train would end up here. Let us search some more—if they were here, we need to find out where they went.’
Smythe was taking the lead, and John allowed it, gratefully. As Smythe busied himself searching through decrepit cupboards and shelves, casting his magnifier across every surface, John walked around the kitchen, running his fingers absent-mindedly over cupboards, boxes, and the large stove. He paused, and more out of a need to busy himself than any intuition, he opened the stove and checked the grate.
‘There’s been a fire here recently, I’d wager,’ he said. ‘Oh…’
Smythe came over to see what had given John pause. The fire had been made with kindling and coal, but there was paper on it too, some of which was mere remnants. John had fished out a tiny, burnt fragment, some half an inch across, and now held it up to Smythe. The surgeon squinted, and then his eyes widened as he saw what John had seen: one tiny Burmese character.
‘They were here,’ John said. With that simple statement, his fear grew. Either Sir Arthur Furnival or Lillian had been wounded, and stitched up in this very room. Now they were gone, and there was no way to tell if it had been by choice, or under duress.
‘We need to tear this place apart,’ said Smythe, his jaw set with uncharacteristic determination.
‘Agreed. You carry on down here, and I’ll…’ John stopped, inclining his head to hear better.
‘What?’ asked Smythe.
‘Didn’t you hear that? Listen.’
The two of them stood in silence for a moment, until the sound came again. A distant, muffled voice. Less of a discernible language, and more of a high cackle, as of some pantomime crone. The sound appeared to come from beneath the two agents, and as Smythe stooped to determine its source, it came again, and this time was accompanied by another, more guttural voice. It was again unclear, but more recognisably the shout of a man.
Smythe went to the pantry door at once, looking inside for any sign of a cellar door. John began to look about the kitchen floor, throwing back the large rug that covered much of the floor space. The rug was nailed to the boards at one end, and as John tugged at it, it lifted up, and a trapdoor with it. As an entrance to a set of cellar stairs was revealed, John hissed at Smythe to come at once.
‘There’s someone down there,’ Smythe whispered.
‘Or something,’ John said. ‘Neither sounded much like Lillian.’
‘Well, there’s only one way to find out, old boy.’
John took up a paraffin lamp he had seen earlier, and lit it. Smythe pulled out a pistol as John reached down for the trapdoor. Without a word between them, John threw back the trapdoor fully and hung the lamp as low as he dared into the black space beneath, while Smythe pointed his pistol at the narrow stairs that stretched below them.
There was no movement, and the muffled sound stopped at once.
John took out his own pistol, nodded to Smythe, and proceeded down the stairs, squeezing as close to the brick wall to their left as he could, allowing Smythe a clear shot if anyone were to attack.
When Smythe joined John at the foot of the stairs, they saw a cellar laid out like a pauper’s living room—two small armchairs with grubby antimacassars draped over their headrests, a threadbare settee, a table, a crocheted throw, huddled groups of church-candles almost burned down to nothing, and a rickety sideboard upon which were laid hunks of cheese, stale bread and a pitcher of water.
As John cast the light about, he noticed a door at the far end of the cellar, and almost as soon as the agents had seen it, a strange voice came from the other side—a croaking, childlike voice, rasping with age and lilted with madness.
‘Old Father Long-Legs can’t say ’is prayers; take ’im by the left leg, and throw ’im down the stairs.’
‘Silence, woman!’ A second voice, unmistakeably male.
Some domestic disagreement seemed to be taking place beyond the door; at the very least John was relieved that it was not vampires he was dealing with.
‘Open the door!’ John shouted, the full weight of his frustration and anger behind his command.
He was met with silence.
‘Open the door or I shall—’
The door flew open with such force that Smythe’s aim was thrown off. His shot was deafening in the small space, though it hit nothing but brickwork. A tall, thin man, eyes wild, hair thin, screamed like a demon, brandishing a rolling pin as if it were a battle-axe.
Something made John refrain from the pulling the trigger. He wanted the man alive. He tried to step out of the way and tackle the man instead, but with his hands full all he could do was shove the gangly lunatic aside. The improvised cudgel missed John’s head by an inch, catching his shoulder lightly before its bearer pirouetted clumsily towards the stairs.
John dared not drop the gun, knowing the madman was not alone, and so he set down the lamp and grabbed at his assailant. The man looked at John over his shoulder with wide, sly eyes, his aquiline nose and bulbous head accentuated in ghastly fashion by the flickering yellow lamplight. He was not just mad, but terrified.
‘Stop! You don’t have to be afraid,’ John said, but his words fell on deaf ears. The man kicked out, forcing John back. He twisted, hurling the rolling pin at the agents, before scrambling up the stairs as fast as he could, looking more spider than man.
Before John could react, another shot rang out from behind him. He saw a puff of blood and torn fabric ripple from the back of the gangly man’s thigh, but it did not slow him enough. His feet vanished through the trapdoor, and they heard his footsteps over their heads, a stumbling, limping gait. John was relieved that the fugitive had not thought to close the trapdoor and lock them in the cellar.
When his ears stopped ringing from the gunshot, he heard the woman’s voice, growing louder and more incessant: a nursery rhyme, punctuated by cackling, hysterical laughter.
‘Old Father Long-Legs can’t say ’is prayers; take ’im by the left leg, and throw ’im down the stairs. And when ’ee’s at the bottom, before ’ee long has lain, take ’im by the right leg, and throw ’im up again.’
The room beyond the far door was small and dingy, lit only by tallow candles. The air was thick, and smelled of sweat and unemptied chamber-pots. A bed was pushed into one corner, in which sat a woman of middle age, light hair greying, several teeth missing. She sat upright on filt
hy pillows, rocking gently back and forth as she recited her nursery rhyme.
‘Ah… hello?’ Smythe ventured.
The woman laughed as though he had made a joke.
‘What was the name on the sign outside?’ John whispered to Smythe.
‘Began with a “G”… Galtress? Yes, that was it.’
John stepped forward. ‘Mrs. Galtress?’
The woman stopped, and squinted pale eyes at the agents.
‘Oo wants ter know? Can’t be ’aving no gentleman callers at this hour. I’m a married woman! Respc’able.’
‘Agent Smythe,’ John said, ‘would you be so good as to check on things upstairs whilst I speak with this fine lady?’
Smythe looked uncertain, but acquiesced; with the gangly man on the loose, time was not on their side.
‘Fine lady!’ the old woman repeated.
Once the surgeon had left the room, John dragged a stool over to the woman and sat beside the bed. She was thin, malnourished, and looked old before her time. Her eyes were almost lifeless, and never alighted on anything for more than a second before fading to stare into the middle distance.
‘Mrs. Galtress, I apologise for the, ah, lateness of the hour,’ John said. ‘This is a matter of utmost importance. I have been sent by… the Queen.’ He chose the words carefully, scanning her features for any glimmer of recognition, or of betrayal. What he saw was an expression of happiness, though fleeting.
‘God save the Queen!’ the woman said, with enthusiasm.
‘Yes. The Queen is very pleased with your work here, and says she’s going to come and save you all. From… them.’ He nodded at her knowingly. It was a gamble, but John imagined that the woman’s hardship was due to the draconian rule of the Knights Iscariot, and that the gangly man—presumably her husband—was to blame for their misfortune.
She looked at John pitifully. ‘Them as comes in the night,’ she said. ‘Will the Queen save us all?’