The Quorum

by Kim Newman

  Quilbert nodded to the muscle, who clambered onto the desk and stuck his head into the crawlspace.

  ‘Smells like she’s been smoking,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a secret,’ she said. ‘I quit but backslid. I have to take extreme measures to cover up.’

  ‘I think I can see... buckets?’

  Quilbert looked at Sally as if trying to read her mind. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I’ve forestalled the Device,’ she said. ‘It was all wasted.’

  Quilbert’s clear blue eyes were unreadable.

  ‘Only an innocent can intervene,’ Drache said pompously. ‘You’ve taken blooded coin.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Quilbert said. ‘You don’t understand at all. Everything has been pre-arranged.’

  ‘Not everything,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a baby.’

  Drache looked stricken but Quilbert and Tiny didn’t get it. She supposed they found it all as hard to believe as she did.

  ‘There’s something burning,’ a voice mumbled from above. ‘In the buckets...’

  Drache flew around in a cold rage.

  ‘If she’s carrying a child, she’s washed clean,’ he said, urgently. ‘It’ll upset the balances.’

  ‘What have you done?’ Quilbert asked.

  Sally smiled. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

  ‘Put out the fires,’ Quilbert shouted up, ‘at once!’

  She should tell them not to tamper with the buckets in case the burning fuses fell. For the sake of her child, she couldn’t die.

  ‘Careful,’ she said...

  The ceiling burst and a billow of flame shot into the office, flattening everyone. A dead human shape thumped onto the desk, covered in burning jelly. Sally’s ears were hammered by the blast. The stench of evaporating goo was incredible. Metal wrenched and complained. Hot rivets rained onto the fitted carpet. She heard screaming. A raft of steel and plaster bore down on Quilbert and Tiny. The windows had blown out, and the air was full of flying shards, glinting and scratching. She felt a growing power deep inside her and knew she would survive.

  The cloud of flame burned away almost instantly, leaving little fires all around. Drache stumbled, a bloody hand stuck to half his face, and sank to his knees, shrieking. Sally was flat on her back, looking up at the ceiling. She saw night sky and felt the updraught as the accumulated misery of months escaped to the Heavens like prayers.

  * * *

  They kept her in hospital for weeks. Not the same one as Drache and Quilbert, who were private, and certainly not in the department that had received the still officially unidentified van driver. She only had superficial injuries, but in her condition the doctors wanted to be careful with her.

  She read the media pages every day, following the ripples. In the week before the auction, the consortium fell apart. Mausoleum Pictures, wildly over-extended, went bust, bringing down yet another fifth of the British Film Industry. Tiny promised Survival Kit would be back as soon as he was walking, but he’d have to recruit a substantially new staff since almost everyone who had worked in the now-roofless Mythwrhn Building was seeking employment elsewhere. Most wanted to escape from television altogether and find honest work.

  The police had interviewed her extensively but she pleaded amnesia, pretending to be confused about what had happened just before the ‘accident’. No charges against her were even suggested. Mythwrhn even continued to pay her salary even though she’d given notice. After the baby, she would not be returning.

  Derek Leech, never officially involved in the consortium, said nothing and his media juggernaut rolled on unhindered by its lack of a controlling interest in a franchise. GLT, somewhat surprised, scaled down their bid and fought off a feeble challenge at auction time, promising to deliver to the British Public the same tried-and-tested programme formulae in ever-increasing doses. On Cowley Mansions, Peter the gay yuppie had a son-brother and, salary dispute over, the ghost of Ell Crenshaw possessed her long-lost sister.

  Apart from the van driver and Drache, who lost an eye, nobody had really been punished. But none of them benefited from the Device either. All the gathered misery was loose in the world.

  The day before she was due out, April and Pomme visited. April was taking it ‘one day at a time’ and Pomme had discovered a miracle cure. They brought a card signed by everybody on Survival Kit except Tiny.

  The women cooed over Sally’s swollen stomach and she managed not to be sickened. She felt like a balloon with a head and legs and nothing she owned, except her nightie, fit any more.

  She told them she’d have to sell the flat and get a bigger one or a small house. She’d need more living space. That, she had learned, was important.

  LEECH

  ISLE OF DOGS, 1961

  Born of filth, he stood on the river-bed, feet anchored, completely submerged. A lily of hair floated on the surface. His buoyant arms rose like angel wings. Though weak, standing by the dock current streamed at his back. The river worked to uproot him.

  He opened his eyes; his first image was green murk, shadows filtering down. Before the murk, there was nothing. He was new-formed. Yet his mind was full: he had language, knowledge, purpose. He had a name: Leech.

  For a moment, he hesitated, suspended. The water was warm. It was all he had ever known. To leave would be a peril, an adventure.

  A newspaper passed by, sliming his face like a heavy eel. Experimenting with his face, he constructed a tight-lipped smile that grew to be a skull-wide grin.

  The adventure began.

  He took his first steps, lifting his feet and wading through scratchy silt. His head slowly broke the surface. He blinked away water. A rush of noise poured in: the backwash by the dock, gulls, distant traffic. Nose and mouth clear; he filled his lungs and began, evenly and deliberately, to breathe. He did not gulp or choke.

  The Thames coughed him up. Covered in an oily film, he walked. The tug of water passed down his body, pulling at his chest, his groin, his shins. It was the work of minutes to get ashore.

  Emerging from the dock’s shadow, he stood on a stretch of mudflat at the foot of a grey wall inset with rusty giant rings. Water-smoothed chunks of glass and snapped lengths of clay pipestem pricked the soft soles of his feet.

  He wiped sludge from his face. Carefully, before muck could dry on him, he washed. Naked and clean, he squatted by the river. He considered his wavering white reflection a moment, then scattered it with a swirling dip of his fingertips.

  The flat was littered with gifts. He collected a pair of empty spectacle frames, a bottleneck with a blade of sharp glass, a stub of pencil, a cellophane crisp packet and a squeaking rubber teddy bear.

  A gull alighted on the dock and watched him with disinterest. It beat its wings once. He imitated the movement, shaking his head, straining his shoulder-blades. The bird reached up and flapped into the air. Unblinking, he watched it spiral to the sun.

  A ropey twist of cloth, stiff with sewage, unwound into a long overcoat, its pockets exploded, its buttons a memory. He did his best to wring out the dirt and covered his nakedness. He found a length of material, once a school tie, and used it as a belt.

  His first meal was a soggy breadcrust with a stone-hard core and a ripe dog turd. He had no taste or smell, but knew his current appearance and habits would give general offence. Soon, he must moderate them. He tore an arm off the bear and chewed it, mouth filling with saliva, sharp teeth grinding. He needed to keep his jaws working, lest his teeth outgrow his mouth.

  On top of the wall, something tiny fluttered. It was a pound note, paperweighted with an egg-shaped stone. Using a ring as a foothold, he eased himself up and claimed the prize.

  He held up the note and looked through it at the sun. Green light shone through a young woman’s face.

  POPLAR, 1961

  His first spoken words were ‘I want to bet.’

  ‘You got no shoes, mate,’ said the man behind the window.

  ‘I want to bet,’ Leech repeated
, smoothing the note on the formica counter.

  ‘It’s your money.’

  ‘Dog Number Six.’

  ‘Twenty to one, mate.’

  ‘Dog Number Six.’

  The man shrugged and took the note. He scribbled a ticket and slid it under the grille.

  A man in a cap, slouching by the steam radiator pointed and laughed, low-hanging belly shaking. Leech took out his spectacle frames and put them on. Receiving a quick glance, the man stopped laughing.

  While he waited for the result, he chewed the severed bear arm. He ignored people who stared at him.

  Dog Number Six came in at twenty to one.

  ‘Lucky Jim,’ someone said.

  Leech told the clerk to let his winnings ride and picked Dog Number Four in the next race.

  By closing time, he had nearly £400. Outside, men waited to take his money from him. He put the banknotes into the surviving inside pocket of his coat and took out his treasure trove. In one hand, covered by the long sleeve, he held the bottleneck. In the other, concealed by his palm, the stub of pencil. He left the betting shop and protected his winnings.

  SOHO, 1963

  He insisted on sprinkling his own cappuccino. Without the distraction of taste, he was able to create a perfect image of chocolate-spotted froth.

  ‘You’re a connoisseur signor,’ Mama Gina said. She brought him his pastry. He would crumble it and eat slowly, making it last. He kept food in his mouth to have something to chew.

  Leech did business from the rear table in Mama Gina’s on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. His suit had no lapels, his shoes were shined to black mirrors. His hair just grew down over his ears. He wore midnight-black sunglasses and, a distinctive touch, a wide-brimmed hat. They called him ‘pilgrim’.

  ‘You’re No Good’ by the Swinging Blue Jeans came tinnily from the pink plastic radio.

  Two girls ventured in and asked for him at the counter: Mama Gina nodded them towards him.

  About fourteen: Jackie bands in their hair, white-cream dresses with cassata swirls of colour. Too close in age to be sisters. Best friends.

  He took out his wallet.

  ‘We were told,’ the more intrepid girl began.

  He opened his wallet. It was stuffed with tickets. The Searchers, Gerry & the Pacemakers, The Animals, Dusty Springfield.

  ‘Sold out for weeks, they said at the hall,’ the girl lamented.

  The Beatles. This year, everyone wanted the Beatles.

  ‘Nothing is ever sold out.’

  Nervous smiles.

  He named a price. One girl gulped but the other opened a tiny handbag and took out a tinier purse. She unfolded notes and emptied small change on to the table.

  ‘Jan, where d’you get all that?’ her friend asked.

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘She know?’

  Leech put two tickets on the table.

  ‘My pleasure, girls,’ he said.

  CHELSEA, 1967

  ‘You live over the shop?’ Tamsin said. ‘It’s just a box.’

  It was a room with a bed. Leech rarely slept.

  The bass player and the drummer sat on the bed. Denny Wolfe, the lead guitarist, crouched by the cold grate. Leech and Tamsin stood by the open window. She was the singer.

  ‘Thought you’d have a flash pad,’ the drummer said. ‘You must be rakin’ it in downstairs.’

  Downstairs was the original Derek’s. Leech started in the King’s Road selling militaria, then rented rack-space to local designers. This year, old curtains with armholes would sell as swinging London fashions. There were five Derek’s now, dotted over London.

  ‘Money is only a tool,’ he said.

  The musicians grinned. Boyish in cavalry sideburns and bright shirts. They would have six Top Twenty hits but only Tamsin would have a real career after the break-up. The drummer, now rolling a thin joint, would overdose in a New York hotel within ten years. Wolfe would strike a separate Deal but see little profit from it. The others would fade away.

  Leech had had the management contract drawn up. Wolfe made a great show of reading it.

  ‘What’s your company called?’ Tamsin asked. ‘Derek’s Discs?’

  ‘Real Records.’

  The drummer snorted and lit up. After a heavy toke, he passed the joint to Wolfe. Smoke, odourless to Leech, drifted towards the window.

  Leech took out a pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum and made a token of offering it round. No one took him up. He unwrapped all five oblongs and put them in his mouth. The ball would last for months.

  The girl watched him closely.

  ‘You must love that stuff?’

  He shrugged. ‘Only way to shut me up.’

  Tamsin would marry him and, after three years, walk out claiming never to have known him. By then, she would be an official living legend. And he would still be a coming man.

  Now, her face unlined and angular she looked at him. The light from the window hit her face exactly as it would on the first LP cover. She would never stipple her blackheads, but would redefine the word ‘beautiful’.

  She leaned over and gently removed his sunglasses. He didn’t blink as she looked into his eyes.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Do you have a pen?’

  NORWOOD, 1972

  ‘This top’s too effing tight,’ the model complained, South London shrill, ‘pardon my French.’

  Her name was Brenda but she called herself Brie. Blonde hair down to her waist, she knelt in six square-feet of sand. A blue space-hopper lay half-buried in front of a cyclorama of Mediterranean sky.

  ‘Bollocks, dearie,’ said Chaz, the photographer. He leaned into the shot to adjust the offending bikini.

  ‘Mind your bleedin’ hands, octopus,’ Brie said, slapping him away.

  She was right. The striped cups squeezed her breasts, the straps bit her shoulders. Angry pink skin plumped around straining edges.

  Leech sat in the shadows, champing the ends of a Biro. He wore his hat, brim down, to keep the studio lights out of his eyes. Since his take-over the Daily Comet had transformed from dying broadsheet into thriving tabloid. Its image was younger, more daring, more vital; yet offering a return to traditional values. Leech’s first great campaign ran under the banner of ‘I’m Behind Britain’.

  Chaz, irritated with Brie, was nervous with the new boss hanging around. Everything else about the paper had changed, he must think the Beach Beauties were for the chop too.

  The Comet Beach Beauties had been a national institution since the twenties. From knee-length costumes through to cutaway bikinis, these heroines of garage and barracks had married into titles, rocked governments and becomes hostesses on The Golden Shot. Brie, this year’s model, had been on television with Benny Hill and was cast in a film where Christopher Lee would suck her blood.

  Brie squirmed under the lights and writhed in her top as if it were a hair shirt. Chaz’s bald spot was a sorely embarrassed red.

  At first rival papers made jokes about the ‘with-it’ Comet. The several fortunes Derek Leech had made in pop music and the rag trade did not qualify him as a latterday Lord Beaverbrook. Within a year of the Comet’s relaunch, the competition switched from sneering at his tactics to imitating them.

  ‘I’ll do myself a permanent damage,’ Brie whined, tugging at the constricting cups. Her pleasant face twisted in discomfort.

  Chaz ignored her, muttering into his battery of camera equipment.

  ‘This all right, Mr Leech?’ he asked.

  Leech walked onto the set and looked the girl over. Her head barely came up to his chest.

  ‘It’s agony, luv,’ she said.

  ‘Take it off,’ he told her.

  She undid the clasp and shrugged. Her breasts breathed.

  ‘Take her like this,’ Leech told the photographer.

  ‘You can’t put tits in the Comet,’ he protested. ‘They’ll never stand for it.’

  ‘Let me worry about that.’

  Chaz snapped off shots. Brie,
suddenly giggly, posed naturally for the first time. She laughed and shaded her eyes, looking into the shadows at him. Leech knew exactly which exposure they would run: thumbnail in mouth, innocent and knowing, sexy but clean.

  ‘Knock out,’ Brie said.

  FLEET STREET, 1977

  Elizabeth II looked exactly as she did on a pound note, except for the safety-pin through her nose. ‘God Save the Queen’ was assembled from newsprint like a ransom note.

  ‘It’s a strong image,’ Leech said, placing the record sleeve on the table. ‘You have to admire that.’

  Moore, the Comet’s notional editor gurgled outrage. He had come with the paper and still loitered nervously.

  In the year-end ‘Derek Leech Talks Straight’ column, he was denouncing the Sex Pistols.

  The Comet, swathed in the Union Jack throughout Jubilee year would brook no shilly-shallying. Comet ‘Knock-Outs’ had posed as British heroines, climaxing on Jubilee Day with Brie Simon, at twenty-five the grande dame of naked breasts, kitted up as Britannia Herself.

  1977 would be remembered not for celebration bonfires and patriotic bunting but for gobbing and pogoing. Real Records, buried in the heart of the Derek Leech media portfolio, had ridden the razor-blade along with the rest of the industry.

  ‘Shocking,’ Moore said, tapping the poster. ‘Some people have no standards.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Leech agreed. ‘Reproduce it with the column. Give the Queen vampire fangs. It’ll be stronger.’

  Moore knew better than to object. He scuttled off.

  Derek Leech Enterprises had manufactured cardboard Union Jack hats and tin ‘Stuff the Jubilee’ buttons. Both sold well, sometimes to the same customers.

  The current office was not quite suitable. When the Comet was rehoused in the pyramid he would put up in London Docklands, things would be better arranged. That was in years to come. Leech already owned the site but the technology that would be housed there had not yet developed. The processes which would destroy the Fleet Street of hot-metal stirred inside the serpent’s egg, tentatively poking the shell.