by Mark Morris
So whatever had killed and presumably devoured Lacey had done so with astonishing speed and ferocity. We’d come to the same conclusion about the prostitute’s death, of course, but in that instance we hadn’t seen the body. Witnessing the damage rather than just being told about it was a whole different ball game. It made the impossible real – more so when it was likely the killer was still close.
Or killers. Because yet again what Lacey’s corpse made me think of was a school of savage airborne piranhas. As the light from Hawkins’ second Lucifer guttered out, I stepped back out of the room.
‘There’s nothing we can do for the poor sod,’ I said. ‘We need to find Clover.’
It was a relief to pull the door shut and trap some of that mushroomy stench inside. Not all of it, though. It trailed us down the corridor like tendrils of fog – or tenacious vines that had latched on to us and wouldn’t let go. Its persistence made me wonder whether the stench itself, or some invisible thing within it, was the killer. If so, was it sentient or merely a weapon? Was it at this moment sizing us up, waiting for the right moment to attack, to unravel us in an instant? I imagined a kind of mutant Ebola, its power, its voracity, magnified to inconceivable proportions. If that was what we were up against there was nothing we could do. Our fate was sealed.
We reached the end of the curving corridor. In front of us was the door that led to the dingy, oil-lit area lined with dressing rooms. Was that where we’d find Clover? And maybe Willoughby too? Sprawled like some vast, gluttonous king on his throne, awaiting our arrival?
I tried the door. It was locked. I glanced at Hawkins, raising my eyebrows in surprise. If this was a trap, I would have expected our route to be unimpeded. I opened my mouth to speak – but just as I did so the dark openings on our right, which led into the auditorium, bloomed with light.
I jerked and spun round, pointing my howdah at the nearest opening. I expected things to pour from them: Tallarian’s nightmarish conglomerations of flesh and metal; flying piranhas with vast mouths and jagged teeth; monsters with tentacles and wings and too many eyes.
But nothing happened. Nothing but the fact that somewhere in the auditorium someone had turned on the lights.
From the angle and the subdued glow I guessed the illumination was coming from the stage. I moved silently towards the nearest opening, Hawkins behind me. Pressing myself against the wall beside the wide arch, I took a peek around the corner. The stage was down on my left, faced by sloping rows of seats. From here, with the rest of the auditorium in darkness, it reminded me of the mouth of a furnace fed by a wide conical chute.
There was a wooden chair in the centre of the stage and Clover was sitting in it, slumped forward. She wasn’t moving. I hoped she was simply unconscious. The fact she hadn’t fallen off the chair suggested she was tied to it, but from where I stood it was impossible to tell. I couldn’t see anyone else, but the message was clear:
Come and get her if you dare.
My stomach clenched to see her so exposed and vulnerable, but I felt a measure of relief too. Although I couldn’t say for certain whether she was alive, at least she hadn’t suffered the same fate as Lacey, who had clearly been deemed surplus to requirements.
My prime suspect for Lacey’s murder and Clover’s capture was, of course, Willoughby, though perhaps I was jumping to conclusions and there was more to this situation than met the eye? Whoever he, she or it turned out to be, however, I wondered how effective my howdah would be against them.
Turning to Hawkins I said, ‘We should approach the stage from opposite sides of the auditorium. I’ll go in this side and crawl down using the seats for cover, and you can do the same from the other side. What do you think?’
Hawkins was as imperturbable as ever. Nodding slowly he said, ‘I don’t suppose that we’ve arrived here undetected, but it’s as workable a plan as any. May I make one suggestion, though, sir?’
‘Go for it.’
‘Please allow me to draw the attention of our enemy while you remain concealed. With luck my presence will be sufficient to entice the blackguard from hiding, which may allow you to take a potshot at him.’
‘You really think he’ll be that gullible?’
‘Frankly? No. But I still believe it’s worth a try. Is it not better to make a heroic stand whilst endeavouring to rescue a maiden fair than to sneak away with one’s tail between one’s legs and leave said maiden to a grisly fate?’
There were times when I didn’t know whether Hawkins was being entirely serious; times when his choice of words seemed a parody of the ultra-English persona he had adopted, and at the same time to hint at a gallows humour so black it was impenetrable. I looked at him quizzically.
‘Are you sure you’re Hungarian?’
He responded with a stream of guttural, Eastern European sounding words.
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ I muttered. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It is the beginning of my country’s national anthem. The poetic translation, as opposed to the literal one, is thus:
O, my God, the Magyar bless
With thy plenty and good cheer!
With thine aid his just cause press,
Where his foes to fight appear.’
‘Very nice,’ I said. ‘Very appropriate.’
A thin smile appeared on his face. ‘Ours is a just cause, sir. Let us hope that it is enough to win the day.’
He turned and hurried back along the corridor. I gave him a couple of minutes to get into position, then I bent low and slipped through the arched opening. I scuttled across to the seat closest to me – the last one on row R – and crouched beside it. As I paused, looking around, even craning my neck to peer into the shadows above to make sure nothing on the balcony or in one of the boxes was about to drop on me, I was suddenly struck by how totally and crazily my life had changed in the space of a few months. At the beginning of September I’d been gearing up for another year of teaching, of looking after my youngest daughter, of hoping I’d be able to juggle work and home and keep everyone I cared about happy. And now my life had flipped upside down and inside out, and I was a completely different person. I barely recognised the man I’d once been, and that saddened me more than I could say. His life, his simple ambitions, seemed unattainable to me now. Even though I was straining every sinew to become that man again, in my heart of hearts I doubted it would ever happen. How could it? I’d come too far, seen too much. I was a murderer, and a marked man, and however this whole crazy business worked out I would never be safe and normal again. Yet I still clung to that hope, because… well, because there wasn’t anything else I could cling to. I had to believe I would get the obsidian heart back, and then Kate, and then my life. If I didn’t believe that, then nothing would be worth anything ever again.
I shook the thought free and began to crawl towards the stage. I was pretty sure I was shielded by the rows of seats, but it was so quiet in the auditorium I had no guarantee my scuffling progress couldn’t be heard from one end of the room to the other.
Although adrenaline was racing through my system, by the time I reached row H I was knackered. I was tense and scared, my heart was pounding, and even though the temperature inside the theatre wasn’t much higher than it was in the streets, I was sweating, my skin crawling with an almost feverish heat.
I paused, took several deep breaths, and decided that perhaps now was a good time to raise my head above the parapet, check what was going on. When I did so, nothing seemed to have changed. Clover was still slumped on her chair and her attacker (Lacey’s killer?) was still out of sight. I glanced to my right, along the row of seats to the other side of the auditorium, but there was no sign of Hawkins. Neither could I hear anything, which I told myself was a good thing – because if I couldn’t hear Hawkins, then maybe our enemy couldn’t hear me.
I knew if I was going to rescue Clover I’d have to venture into the open sooner or later, but I was determined to put that off for as long as possible. Or maybe I wo
uldn’t need to show myself. Maybe Hawkins’ plan would work and by using himself as a decoy we’d be able to turn the tables. I wondered, if the opportunity arose to pull the trigger, whether I’d actually be able to shoot someone, and what it would feel like if I did. I might only get a split second to think about it and do it – in which case, could I be decisive enough, clinical enough?
After a few moments I felt able to carry on. I crawled down to row A, and once I was there, facing the left-hand corner of the stage, I eased myself into as comfortable a position as I could and waited for Hawkins to make the first move. I pointed the gun vaguely at the stage, though not at Clover. Now that I was close enough, I was relieved to see that, although she was unconscious, she was definitely breathing.
A minute passed. I shifted position, my left foot starting to go numb. Had something happened to Hawkins? It sickened me to think he might have encountered Lacey’s killer.
Shuffling back slightly, I peered along the narrow aisle between the first two rows, trying to make out any movement at the far end. I guessed that would be where Hawkins was hiding if he’d made it. Could I see something? The dark bulk of a figure, crouched out of sight as I was? Or was my mind playing tricks? Was I only seeing what I wanted to see?
‘The game is up, Mr Locke. Please rise to your feet without delay, and then throw your weapon into the darkness behind you. If you fail to do so, your pretty wife will be slaughtered where she sits.’
Though I froze, it didn’t surprise me that it was Willoughby’s voice that rang out through the auditorium. Even though I was pressed into the shadows of the seats on my right, and there was no way I could be seen from the stage, I felt like a rabbit in the headlights. I was about to obey when it struck me that Willoughby might have spotted Hawkins and mistaken him for me – in which case, if Hawkins could keep his face concealed…
‘Without delay, Mr Locke,’ Willoughby repeated, his voice hardening. ‘And the same goes for your companion. I shall count up to three, and if, by that time, you have not risen to your feet, Mrs Locke will die. One…’
I scrambled upright.
‘Stop!’
On the far side of the auditorium, I was aware of another dark shape rising too.
‘The weapon, Mr Locke,’ Willoughby reminded me. I quickly scanned the stage, wondering if a quick shot fired in his direction might send him scrambling for cover, allowing us to grab Clover. But there was no sign of him. If he was standing in the wings he was taking care to remain out of sight. With a sinking heart I turned and flung the howdah into the dark mass of seats behind me. I heard it hit something with a thump and clatter to the floor.
‘And your cane, sir,’ Willoughby said.
Hawkins was still a dark blur on the far side of the auditorium. My eyes registered no more than a rapid suggestion of movement, which was followed by the hollow rattling clatter of his cane falling among the empty seats.
‘Excellent. Now, gentlemen, if you would both take your places in the front row the performance can begin. Seats fifteen and sixteen will suffice, I think.’
Willoughby sounded confident and mocking – and why not? Feeling vulnerable, I stepped out in front of row A and walked along it until I found seat fifteen. I sat down, and a moment later Hawkins sat down beside me, a resigned almost weary look on his face.
For a few seconds nothing happened, and then Willoughby emerged from the wings on our right.
He appeared to be unarmed. Moving smoothly, even delicately, for a man of his bulk, he sauntered to the front of the stage and peered down at us. He looked smug and calculating. He looked like a performer in full command of his audience.
‘Now, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘perhaps you will enlighten me as to who exactly you are, and why you are taking such a singular interest in my affairs?’
I tried to bluff it out. ‘You know who we are. We’re helping the police. We’re investigating the murder that—’
‘Poppycock!’ boomed Willoughby. ‘You are no more a peeler than I, Mr Locke. From our mutual friend Mr Lacey I gleaned that you may more accurately be termed a man of business, though it appears that even in this sphere you are little more than a lucky investor, who makes a comfortable living by skimming the cream of profit from an admittedly impressive array of providers. But who are you really? What are you? Why have you been paying our Mr Lacey to remain alert for, as he termed it, “unusual occurrences”?’
So Lacey had been interrogated before he died. And tortured too? I didn’t want to know.
Sighing I said, ‘There’s no need to play games, Mr Willoughby. You know who I am.’
Willoughby was silent for a moment. Then, a little less confidently, he said, ‘So it’s true? The Society has tracked me down?’
I blinked. ‘What Society?’
His face twisted in anger. ‘Now who is playing games, Mr Locke? Please do not provoke me. It is far too late to profess ignorance.’
He stepped across to Clover’s chair, grabbed her hair in one meaty fist and yanked her head back. She groaned, but remained unconscious. I jumped to my feet.
‘Leave her alone! There’s no need for that!’
‘Sit down!’ screamed Willoughby. ‘Sit down or I swear I shall snap this whore’s neck and damn the consequences!’
I raised my hands and lowered myself back into my seat.
‘All right, take it easy. Let’s just talk like reasonable human beings.’
‘Human beings!’ he snorted. ‘Is that what we still are?’
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, and he didn’t look as though he expected me to. Flapping a hand dismissively, he said, ‘So talk, Mr Locke. Talk for your lives and for my own. Tell me all that you know.’
I frowned. This wasn’t working out the way I’d imagined. Willoughby wasn’t behaving how I’d expect one of the Wolves of London to behave. He didn’t sound as though he’d lured us into a trap on their behalf, but as though he was running scared. I wondered what this mysterious ‘Society’ was. A rival group to the Wolves of London? There was only one way to find out.
I started to talk. I told Willoughby I didn’t want trouble; that all I wanted was to find the obsidian heart. I expected a reaction to that, but all he did was stare at me with bafflement and growing impatience on his face.
‘What nonsense is this?’ he growled, his fist tightening in Clover’s hair.
‘It’s not nonsense, I promise you.’ Choosing my words carefully, I said, ‘I didn’t come here looking for you, Mr Willoughby. I came because of what happened to the girl in the yard. Her death was… unusual. Impossible. The way she was killed was… beyond the means of any normal person.’
I held up my hands, as though pressing home my point.
‘The group I’m looking for is the only one I’m aware of capable of such things. They call themselves the Wolves of London, and they have something I want… something I need…’
‘This “obsidian heart” you spoke of?’
‘Yes. It’s the only thing that will allow me to find my daughter again. I’ve been scouring London for it, employing people to act as my eyes and ears. So you see, Mr Willoughby, I have nothing to do with this “Society” of yours. I’ve never even heard of them.’
‘Why don’t you tell us about them?’ suggested Hawkins. ‘Perhaps we can aid each other?’
Willoughby was silent, his eyes flickering from me to Hawkins and back again. I could tell he was wavering. I could tell that beneath his bluster and arrogance, he was scared shitless.
With a silent apology to Horace Lacey, and to the young girl slaughtered in the yard, I said, ‘Hawkins is right, Mr Willoughby. Perhaps we can help each other. I can’t believe that the Wolves and the Society are unrelated. So why don’t we trade our information? You look as though you could do with someone to talk to.’
Willoughby licked his lips. Untangling his fist from Clover’s hair, he took a couple of small, tottering steps backward. For a moment I thought we’d got through to him, thought that Ha
wkins and I had achieved – for the time being, at least – an uneasy truce.
I was shocked, therefore, when he muttered, ‘No, I can’t risk it. I will have to kill you – all of you. I will have to change my identity once more, start again elsewhere…’
With surprising spryness – or perhaps not so surprising, considering his background – Hawkins leaped to his feet.
‘Kill us?’ he scoffed. ‘And how do you propose to do that, sir? You are not even armed. I suggest that your energy would be better served in flight.’
‘Careful, Hawkins,’ I said, jumping up too and putting a hand on his arm. ‘I think there’s more to him than meets the eye.’
But Willoughby seemed to be having problems. He tottered back a couple more steps, swaying slightly, as if about to faint. His mouth dropped open, his eyes rolled up in their sockets, and he started to shake violently. His face turned red and he began to make guttural, choking sounds. His huge body spasmed violently with each ratcheting bark. He sounded like a cat coughing up fur balls.
‘He’s having a seizure,’ I said, thinking the stress must have been too much for him. ‘Maybe even a heart attack.’
Grabbing our chance, Hawkins and I rushed forward and clambered on to the stage. Although he was a good twenty years older than me, my butler was a damn sight more agile than I was. While I was still hauling myself up and over the wooden lip, Hawkins, having vaulted past me, was rising smoothly to his feet and striding towards Clover. She was coming round now, groaning, trying to raise her head. Behind her, having retreated almost to the back of the stage, Willoughby was shaking like a volcano about to erupt, his head a crimson balloon, his mouth yawning open.
Hawkins reached Clover at the same moment that something oozed from between Willoughby’s widely stretched jaws and hit the stage with a splat. I was clambering to my feet, and so only caught a glimpse of the thing as it emerged, but when it hit the wooden boards my head snapped up.