Double or Die

by Charlie Higson

  The cemetery was arranged on a wooded slope and the graves weren’t laid out in neatly ordered rows, but were scattered, seemingly at random, among the trees and bushes between the winding, muddy paths.

  A thin mist was trapped in the branches of the trees and it served to muffle all the sounds of the city. There was an eerie quiet. It was easy to forget that this was London.

  ‘Where on earth do we start?’ said Perry.

  ‘I should imagine that the Egyptian tombs should be pretty easy to recognise,’ said James.

  They picked their way slowly uphill, moving deeper into the cemetery. The graves nearer the path were for the most part well looked after, but the ones further away were being swallowed up by vegetation. Weeds and ferns and brambles tangled among fallen headstones that were covered in moss. Many of the graves were marked with elaborate statues and carvings, some of which were unrecognisable beneath glistening shrouds of black ivy. As well as angels and crosses of all shapes and sizes, there were carvings of praying children and sleeping babies, open books and even dogs, faithfully watching over their dead masters.

  James was shaking, but whether from fear or the cold he couldn’t tell. His exhaustion was making his nerves jangle. This place would have given him the creeps in broad daylight, but at night, with the torchlight slicing a ghostly white beam through the misty air, it was easy to imagine all sorts of terrors lurking in the dark. He was beginning to wish he’d listened to Perry and they’d left it until the morning.

  Don’t be a fool, James, he told himself. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

  Only there was.

  The past twenty-four hours had shown him that there was a lot to be afraid of. Not spectres and ghouls, perhaps…

  The dark silhouettes of the statues looked like people hiding among the trees, and he expected someone to jump out from behind every grave they passed. He stayed close to Perry, wishing they’d bought two torches.

  As well as the ordinary graves, there were huge stone mausoleums, standing like houses, their sides stained with green mould. The walls of some of them were collapsing and their roofs had fallen in. The Victorians must have thought that their last resting places would be looked after forever, but the cemetery was giving up, losing its fight with nature. Like the corpses beneath the ground, it was rotting and returning to chaos.

  James and Perry were just about to give up hope when they rounded a corner and nearly bumped into two simple stone obelisks and they found themselves face to face with what looked like a ruined Egyptian temple. Perry played the torch beam over a high wall, built into the bank. Jungly creepers and vines spilt over the top and down great pillars, carved with lotus leaves, which stood on either side of a central archway. The archway led into a long, dark passageway lined with tombs.

  ‘Good grief,’ said Perry. ‘I wasn’t expecting this. We are well and truly in the city of the dead.’

  There was an otherworldly atmosphere in this corner of the cemetery. James felt almost as if he had stepped out of time and been transported to some foreign place. But Perry quickly brought him back down to earth.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ve got obelisks, but where’s Nero?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said James. ‘Let’s explore a bit more.’

  They walked through the archway into the passage beyond. It sloped gently upward and had tombs along each side, whose metal doors had upside-down keyholes and were decorated with upside-down flaming torches. The roof of the passageway was open to the sky, and water dripped from overhanging vegetation and ran down the walls.

  At the top of the passage they came out into a circular sunken walkway, with walls at least twelve foot high. In the centre of the circle grew a vast cedar of Lebanon that loomed over them like a great black bat, making this the darkest part of the cemetery they had been to yet. Round the outside were more tombs, dug into the bank. They were even bigger and grander than the ones they had just passed. The names of the families inside were carved above the entrances, and several of the doors had small windows in them. By shining the torch in they could see stone coffins placed on shelves.

  ‘I can’t help thinking that the Victorians were overly interested in death,’ said Perry. ‘This whole place is a m-monument to death.’ He stopped and pointed. ‘Look there,’ he said, ‘one of the tombs is open.’

  Sure enough, a little further around the circle the iron door to a tomb was standing ajar.

  ‘Let’s look inside,’ said Perry.

  ‘Be careful,’ said James.

  ‘You’re not scared, are you?’ said Perry.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ James protested, but the truth was that his heart was beating faster and, despite the cold, his palms were sweating. Before he could say anything else, though, Perry had marched forward and was peering round the open door into the tomb. James caught up with him just as he went in.

  Inside was a medium-sized room, taller than it was wide, with damp stone walls and two wide marble shelves on either side. The air was chilly and musty and the tomb was entirely windowless. After all, the dead don’t need a view. There was a sealed sarcophagus on the lower shelf to the left, but above it, on the higher shelf, was an open one, with the lid propped against the wall.

  The two boys crept forward and Perry shone his torch into the open coffin.

  There was a body inside, the body of a man, fully clothed in tattered rags, its face dark, as if varnished, its hair tangled and matted. It smelt awful. Sour and mouldy.

  ‘I’ve never seen a dead body before,’ Perry whispered.

  ‘Leave it,’ said James. ‘Have some respect.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Perry. ‘What can he do now?’

  James watched as Perry stretched out a hand towards the man’s face. Just as his fingers touched his cheek, the dead man’s eyes snapped open and suddenly the body was alive.

  Perry screamed and let go of his torch. The tomb was instantly plunged into utter darkness.

  James felt like a bucket of icy water had been emptied inside him. For a moment he stood frozen to the spot, unsure if what he had seen had really happened. But there were sounds of a scuffle and he heard Perry shout for help so he knew he had to do something.

  He dropped to the floor and groped around for the fallen torch. There were horrible gasping and choking noises coming from Perry, and James got a nasty kick in the side from his flailing feet.

  Then Perry fell still and James heard a man’s voice, soft and menacing.

  ‘And who would you be, eh?’ he said. There was no reply from Perry, just a muffled grunt. ‘And what would you be doing sneaking up on me like a thief in the nighty-night? Eh? Would you be a demon, sir? Would you be a rat? Or would you just be one of them boys who think it funny to hurt an old tramp when he’s a-sleeping? What would you be? Quid pro quo?’

  James’s fingers at last found the smooth metal casing of the torch; he snatched it up, fumbled for the button, and switched it back on.

  Perry was pinned to the wall by the man, who had one strong, brown hand around his throat. Perry was struggling for breath and his hands flapped feebly at the man’s forearm.

  ‘Stop it!’ James yelled. ‘We don’t mean you any harm.’

  The tramp’s head flicked round and he glared at James, his eyes yellow in the darkness.

  ‘There’s two of ’em, eh?’

  ‘Please,’ said James, ‘let him go.’

  ‘Let him go, he says, as if it was as simple as that.’

  ‘Honestly,’ said James, ‘I promise you. We thought you were dead.’

  The tramp looked surprised. He released Perry and his whole body gave a long twitching shudder like a dog having a dream.

  Perry slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, wheezing air into his lungs and rubbing his bruised throat.

  ‘Dead?’ said the tramp. ‘Why would you think I was dead?’

  ‘Well, m-mostly because you look like a corpse and you were lying in a tomb without m-moving,’ said Perry cro
ssly.

  ‘I’ve lived among the dead too long,’ said the tramp. ‘The war was the worst. The trenches was full of corpses, all me mates. Many was the time I wished I could join them. Maybe now I have.’ The tramp laughed with the sound of water gurgling down a plughole. ‘You must have had quite a shock! Being strangled by a dead man!’

  ‘We’re really sorry to disturb you,’ said James.

  ‘Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori,’ said the tramp.

  ‘Do you live here, then?’ asked Perry, looking into the sarcophagus.

  ‘I come in here in the winter,’ said the tramp. ‘To keep warm and dry. I pushes the door open and I makes myself comfortable. Seems a shame to let a good bed go to waste. But I have respect, sir. I know this is not my house. I won’t do my business in here. I do my toilet elsewhere. Others don’t have such respect. Others will drop their guts wheresoever it pleases ’em. Not I! Omni fulcit temporens. Oh, but I’m aching for a drink. My bones are like dust.’

  ‘Do you know this cemetery well?’ asked James.

  ‘It’s my world,’ said the tramp.

  ‘We were looking for something,’ said James.

  ‘I’m sure you were,’ said the tramp.

  ‘Maybe you can help us,’ James went on. ‘We were looking for Nero. Do you know of a statue of him? Or a grave with that name on it?’

  ‘You’re asking me if I know Nero?’ said the tramp. ‘Course I know whom Nero is. Everyone knows Nero. Nero’s a lion. Leo, leonis.’

  ‘Come on,’ Perry muttered quietly. ‘This is a waste of time. He’s not all there.’

  But James ignored him. The man might be slightly unhinged, but there was an intelligence behind his ravings. ‘You’re saying there’s a lion here?’ he asked. ‘There’s a lion in this cemetery?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the tramp. ‘Though he don’t roar none. Seeing as how he’s made of stone.’

  ‘It’s a statue, then?’

  ‘Course it’s a statue! What did you think?’ said the tramp. ‘That there’s wild beasts here? Prancing among the tombs. What do they teach you boys these days?’

  He stopped and leant in closer to James. The stink coming off him was awful. It looked like he hadn’t taken his greasy clothes off in years, let alone washed them.

  James got a good look at his face. It was puffy and swollen, the skin bunched from old injuries, the nose broken and badly reset. His skin was black with ingrained dirt and from the effects of living outdoors for years on end.

  ‘I don’t know, though,’ the tramp whispered. ‘Some nights I do see things, when I’ve had myself some liquor. Then I swear old Nero gets up and runs around, chasing the pixies.’

  ‘Why is there a ruddy statue of a lion here?’ asked Perry.

  ‘To mark the grave of old George Wombwell.’

  ‘And who was he?’ asked Perry.

  ‘He had a travelling circus and a zoo,’ said the tramp. ‘Showing off his animals for anyone as would pay. He’d make poor Nero fight. Other wild beasts, dogs, whatever you liked. Oh, Nero was a popular attraction. But Nero and Wombwell both are long dead. Ethday umscay ootay us all.’ The tramp crossed himself.

  James realised that he was still shaking from the shock of seeing the ‘dead’ body come back to life and his heart was battering his ribs. Everything that had happened this evening had a sense of unreality about it. Now, it seemed, this tramp was going to solve their puzzle for them.

  ‘Can you take us to the grave?’ he asked.

  ‘What? Now?’ shouted the tramp. ‘It’s the middle of the flaming night.’

  ‘It’s not that late, actually,’ said Perry.

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘Well, I only m-meant that –’

  ‘Who are you to be saying how late it is, eh?’ said the tramp, turning his battered, filthy head towards Perry. ‘Who are you? Old Father Time? It’s late for me, I’ll tell you for nothing. I sleep when it’s dark and I wake when it’s light. Caramba santifex, omnia mori.’

  ‘Please,’ said Perry. ‘We’ll give you some m-money, eh? What about it? You can buy yourself a drink, a nice little inkdray.’

  Perry dipped into his pockets and found some coins that he held out for the tramp. The tramp scratched his head and wiped his nose. ‘It degrades a man to take money from a stranger,’ he said. ‘But I’ll not refuse it.’ He delicately plucked the money from Perry’s palm. ‘Come along, I’ll take you to see Nero.’

  As they walked back outside they felt a few drops of water and soon the heavens opened and threw down a barrage of heavy rain on to them. It stung their faces and drilled into the ground, churning it to sticky mud. Perry cursed. He had left his umbrella behind at Charnage’s. They had nothing with which to protect themselves from the downpour.

  The tramp didn’t seem to notice. ‘These are all my friends!’ he shouted over the rain, like a proud homeowner showing friends round his house. ‘The dead what lie sleeping here.’

  ‘Any of them famous?’ Perry yelled back at him.

  ‘I’ll say,’ said the tramp. ‘Greatorex, Wellbelow, Faraday, Petavel, Charlie Cruft and Tommy Sayers, why even old Karl Marx himself is buried here, the father of communism, the man who turned the Russian bear red! I’d like to be buried here myself, but no one will put up a gravestone with my name on it.’

  ‘What is your name?’ James yelled.

  ‘You can call me Theo,’ said the tramp. ‘I had a longer name once, but it’s no use to me now. It’s gone. Along with all me teeth.’

  He stopped and grinned at the boys, showing his purple and toothless gums. ‘I have not a tooth in my head,’ he said. ‘Omnia dentistry fugit.’

  ‘His Latin’s a little confused,’ Perry whispered. ‘What’s he trying to say?’

  ‘All his teeth have fled,’ said James and Perry started to laugh. James couldn’t help but join in, and as he laughed all the tension went out of him, washed into the dirt by the freezing rain.

  They returned to the main part of the cemetery, Theo muttering and mumbling to himself as he led the way along the twisting paths. James saw that his feet were bare, the toenails grown long and claw-like.

  After a while, Theo suddenly stopped.

  ‘There he is,’ he said and pointed to the life-size statue of a sleeping lion, resting on a grand stone plinth. James went in for a closer look. A plaque read To the memory of George Wombwell (menagerist).

  He turned to thank the tramp, but there was no sign of him. In the distance, though, was a jingling of coins.

  ‘Charming fellow,’ said Perry.

  ‘Without him we’d have been stuck,’ said James.

  ‘We’d simply have had to come back in the daylight and ask a sane person to point us in the right direction,’ said Perry. ‘A groundsman, or a gravedigger, or something, this is utter m-madness poking around here in the dark, getting soaked to the skin and risking pneu-m-monia.’

  ‘Less talk, more action,’ said James. ‘We need to find out why Fairburn wanted us to come here.’

  James raked the area with the torch beam, slowly squaring the ground, his eyes alert for anything unusual, but as he didn’t know quite what he was looking for, he was in the dark in more ways than one.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ said Perry. ‘Why don’t we come back in the m-morning?’

  ‘Perry!’ James snapped. ‘We don’t have time. Tomorrow is Sunday. They’re taking Fairburn out of the country, and his machine too, for all we know. We have to do this. We’ll stay here all night if necessary, but we have to find whatever it is Fairburn wants us to find.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Perry. ‘This place gives m-me the creeps.’

  James said nothing, but got down on to his hands and knees and searched all round the base of the statue.

  ‘There’s got to be something here,’ he said. ‘We just have to find it.’

  He pushed aside the brown, frostbitten fronds of a fern and there, on the ground, soggy and filthy, was a folded piece of paper.

  He pick
ed it up and was able to gently open it out without tearing it.

  ‘What is it?’ said Perry, crouching down next to James.

  James showed him. On one side was the copy of an inscription, made by rubbing a wax crayon over the paper to reveal what was underneath: In loving memory of Doctor Cornelius Shotbolt, F.R.S. and A.S.

  ‘Anything on the other side?’

  James turned the paper over and gave a triumphant snort of laughter. It was a letter from Peterson to Fairburn.

  ‘I’m sorry I ever doubted you,’ said Perry. ‘But can we go now? I’m cold and I’m wet and I want to be out of this ghastly cemetery. I feel if I stay here m-much longer they’re going to have to bury m-me.’

  ‘I’m sure that can be arranged,’ came a voice from the darkness, shockingly close.

  James wheeled his torch around.

  Two men stood there.

  Evidently Charnage had solved at least one of the clues in the cipher.

  It was the two men who had tried to kill him last night.

  Wolfgang and Ludwig Smith.

  16

  Carcass Row

  Wolfgang had a bandage wrapped around his head with thick padding over where his right ear had been. His face was pale and his black-ringed eyes were shining feverishly. The rainwater pouring down his face made him look like he was crying.

  He was holding a pistol and a torch. They were both shaking slightly.

  Ludwig had his hands in his pockets. With his skull face he looked completely at home here in the cemetery. His top hat was keeping the worst of the rain off him.

  ‘Well, this is a nice surprise,’ said Ludwig, with no hint of emotion in his voice. ‘Finding you here. An added bonus. Now, I think you’ve got what we was looking for. So, give us the piece of paper, boy.’

  ‘Or what?’ said James.

  ‘Or whatever you like,’ said Ludwig and he lifted his hands out of his pockets. In his hands were two weird and sinister weapons – stubby revolvers, with very short muzzles, whose grips were knuckledusters.

  Ludwig smiled. His hands were not shaking. They were rock solid. As he raised the guns towards the boys a narrow bayonet slid out of the end of each weapon with a metallic click and snapped into place. The blades were not much thicker than knitting needles and tapered to tiny stiletto points.