‘That’s not how it looks.’ He grins and licks the edge of the cigarette paper. He’s enjoying winding me up.
‘In the Crypt Boy, I mean.’ I jump at the sound of a sharp bang.
Charlie drops his cigarette on the table and goes across to open the door, and it turns out that the thing doing the banging is a metal hook, and that the bloke attached to the other end of it is Dinny.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A Clever Duck
THE THING ABOUT Dinny, he has this particular way of coming into a room. He takes one look at me—
‘Salaud!’ That’s French for shithead. Dinny flies in like he’s on springs and pins me to the wall with the sharpened tip of one hook pricking my throat. ‘I look for you.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Don’t be clever duck—’
‘Dick, Dinny. Clever Dick.’
The hook bites deeper. I may never breathe again.
‘You ’ave money that belong to me. One ’undred twenty pounds.’
‘For what?’
One of the reasons I like Dinny, even though he’s a total nutter: he never stays mad at you for long. He looks at me reproachfully. ‘Mais, pour le requin.’
I know what he’s talking about, but why make it easy? I look blank. He waves his other hook around desperately, his face creased with concentration. Finally, the light goes on—
‘For the shark!’
‘What shark?’ I’ve got one finger round the hook, trying to lever it out of my throat. ‘I mean, we talked about it, Dinny, but I don’t remember a deal.’
‘But still, you ’ave the shark—’
‘Last I saw, it was still lying on the floor back in the Hole.’ Hey, it’s worth a try.
‘Fronk, Fronk.’ The sharp tip of the hook glides across my throat. ‘I speak to your friend Carter . . .’
‘I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend, Dinny. Just a jack I know to say hello to.’
‘He say, you and your girlfriend—’
Now I know who he means, but suddenly it’s like part of my brain’s grabbed the lamp and gone wandering off on its own, leaving me standing there in the dark waiting to catch up with myself. After a while it strolls back, and of course the picture it’s holding up is . . .
Kazia.
Yeah, bonkers. But just for a moment, I imagine Dinny’s looking at me with some sort of respect, and it’s like I’m not just this sad case – I’m this kid who’s got a girlfriend.
Even if she does keep trying to kill me.
‘—what her name?’ Dinny’s face brightens. ‘Marvell!’
Charlie’s trying not to laugh.
‘She’s not my girlfriend.’
‘If you say. But Carter tell me you take it away together, you and Marvell. So you ’ave the shark, and I do not ’ave one ’undred twenty pounds.’ He glares round at Charlie. ‘Est-ce juste?’
Fair? Not really.
‘Tell you what, Dinny.’ Charlie opens a drawer and pulls out a roll of banknotes secured with an elastic band. ‘Sixty quid. Call it quits.’
Dinny frowns.
I say, ‘Charlie, that’s not fair on you.’ But I don’t say it very loudly.
‘Just till you’re sorted.’ He turns back to Dinny.
‘OK?’
Dinny shrugs and steps away. I check my throat for holes while I watch him open his coat with one hook and pull the inside pocket open with the other. Charlie drops the notes in.
‘You understand, Fronk,’ says Dinny. ‘Business.’
‘Sorry, Dinny. Things have been a bit desperate, you know?’
‘That is what I ’ear.’
‘All right, Frank. Time to go.’ Charlie grabs the mandrake and tosses it over to me. ‘Just do what the Society wants, for once. Go on the bloody pilgrimage like they ordered you to – you look like you need the fresh air.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ I whine.
‘Look, even if you have found the girl . . . now what?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ I stick the mandrake in the pocket of my jerkin. I’m not a complete fool and I know I’m kidding myself. Kazia keeps kicking me in the teeth; but never hard enough to knock me right out and stop me picking myself up and sticking my chin out again.
Charlie grabs me by the arm and leads me over to the window. He murmurs, ‘If it was her who did the magic on the Crypt Boy—’
‘Yeah, I know: Matthew.’
Whatever Kazia did to the Crypt Boy, she must have done it long before I dumped the Boss in the cellar.
While he was still giving her orders.
‘So talk to him,’ Charlie says.
I glance round at Dinny, who’s kneeling down, scratching Preston’s back with one hook. ‘Not that simple.’
‘I know he’s missing, and it sounds like you’ve got an idea what happened to him. Frank, the Society know you didn’t go to Rome – and what I hear is, they think you know where Matthew is.’
‘They won’t find him.’
‘For Christ’s sake—’
‘He’s not dead. Just . . . somewhere they won’t find him.’
At least, I hope not.
‘Don’t tell me where.’ Charlie’s got his hands over his ears.
I grab his arms and pull them away. ‘Charlie, I’m screwed. It’s like I built this thing and now I’m stuck on top of it and it’s rigged to explode. I can’t get off it. Can’t defuse it.’
Charlie whispers, ‘If she’s a sorcerer . . .’
‘Who is sorcerer?’
‘Shut up, Dinny. Make coffee.’
‘’Ow?’ Dinny waves his hooks.
Charlie turns back to me. ‘The Society won’t burn her, if that’s what you’re afraid of.’
‘Wanna bet? They’ll take her apart to see how she works. Then burn the bits.’
The Society spent centuries trying to work out why some kids are Gifted. Originally, they thought it was a gift from God. But in 1867 this guy called Walter Beckford started conducting autopsies on the bodies of members of the Society. And he claimed to have discovered characteristics of sorcerers’ brains that were different from those of the rest of the population.
His conclusions have always been controversial. But Saint Cyprian’s has a whole room full of sections of sorcerers’ brains, preserved in formaldehyde and sandwiched between sheets of glass.
As far as the Society’s concerned, Kazia would be a novelty. If they got their hands on her, I figure they’d get slicing. And I know for a fact that some of the research has been done on live subjects.
‘A girl with the Gift.’ Charlie shakes his head. ‘Who’d’ve thought it?’
‘Makes you wonder what else they’ve been lying about.’
‘Wonder all you like, Frank. I don’t care any more. Now clear out. Me and Dinny, we’ve got things to discuss.’
Preston rolls away from Dinny and follows me to the door. I stop with my hand on the knob. ‘One thing, Dinny. You know most of what goes on in the Hole.’
He nods proudly.
‘Marvell,’ I say. ‘She had a brother, aged nine. Got knocked down by a Ghost—’
Dinny shakes his head. ‘Is not possible.’
‘OK, a van or a cab. Ring any bells? It’d be about a year ago—’
‘Young boy?’
‘Nine.’
‘I hear story.’ Dinny glances at Charlie. ‘The man who tell me, c’est un connard—’
‘An arsehole.’ Charlie grins. ‘Like you, Frank.’
I pull a ten-pound note out of my pocket. ‘Tell me.’
‘So you ’ave money . . .’ Dinny gets one hook into my jerkin and pulls it open. When he’s checked that my pocket is empty now, he says, ‘Not friend to you. This priest—’
‘Can’t imagine you knowing a priest, Dinny.’
‘He tell me, anyways, this does not ’appen in the city; it is outside, in the country . . .’
‘What was he doing there?’
Dinny watches me tuck the banknote into his
pocket. ‘He don’t say. I don’t ask. This is when you say: a year ago. He see lights on the road. A Ghost come slower and slower and stop. He hide and watch. He tell me some men get out. They go round—’ Dinny makes circular movements with both hooks. ‘Back of Ghost – le coffre.’
‘The luggage compartment?’
‘Yes, they open, and pull out young boy.’
‘So then what?’
Dinny just does his famous French shrug.
‘This priest, can I talk to him?’
Dinny smiles. ‘Charlie is very good friend to you, but you owe me fifty pounds still.’
We both know I keep cash in my studio. In an emergency you can hold a demon off for a few vital seconds by tossing it coins or by burning banknotes.
‘OK?’ Dinny taps my forehead with one hook. ‘I know ’ow you make money.’
I turn lead pipes into gold and sell it. If the Society knew, it would have my hands off.
‘Just don’t go telling people. OK, Dinny?’
‘Of course. I like you, Fronk, même quand tu me fais chier.’
‘Really, Dinny? I piss you off?’
‘This priest: he must not know you are sorcerer.’
‘He’s ASB, Frank,’ says Charlie.
That’s handy. ‘Can you take me to him?’
Dinny looks round at Charlie, who just shrugs. ‘The coffee’ll keep.’ He gives me this look. ‘Just don’t go messing about, Frank.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Automaton
I KNOW I get into trouble every time I set foot in the Hole; but I feel, I dunno, at home here.
I’ve followed Dinny round mud and raw sewage, dodging rats and mad idiots looking for someone smaller than themselves to jump up and down on. It’s pissing rain – there’s a surprise. It’s like the Hole has its own special weather system, squatting right on top of it.
And by the way, yes: you can change the weather by magic. The trouble is, one man’s refreshing shower of rain is another man’s scorching drought or howling tempest. That’s another one that was covered by the First Geneva Convention of 1864: don’t fiddle with the weather.
The place Dinny’s brought me: hundreds of makeshift shelters straggle down the old castle mound towards the high wall separating the Hole from a branch of the river and the real world. The castle’s long gone, except for a crumbling tower overshadowing a sea of mud where people from the Hole put themselves out as casual labourers on crap jobs around Doughnut City, or in the orchards out to the west.
There’s a wooden caravan; but the wheels have gone and it’s propped up on blocks. The front hinges down to reveal a counter and a small kitchen, so you can get a drink or a rat sandwich. There’s a kid inside, gazing vacantly off into space. And a single customer, with a huge gut, face-down in an earthenware tankard.
‘There.’ Dinny points with one hook.
Over in the shelter of the tower, there’s a long pole sticking into the ground, with a metal cross attached to the top. A fat priest stands facing it, with his back to me and his arms held wide. He’s got a congregation of sorts: about half a dozen of them, kneeling in the mud, huddled together in the smoke from a brazier.
‘You are angry?’ says Dinny.
It takes me a moment to get there: ‘Hungry, no.’
‘Me, yes.’
As Dinny reaches the caravan, the existing customer pushes himself off the counter and lumbers in my direction.
‘Try to look like a dog,’ I whisper to Preston.
‘Who’s kidding who?’ I get the smell of beer as the bloke jerks his thumb at the worshippers. My heart sinks: I know that voice . . . that seaweed-like crop of curly grey hair, that gleaming red nose—
Norrie Padstowe. Used to drink with my dad, when my dad was still alive enough to drink.
The priest’s hard at it. ‘Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep . . .’
‘He’s cute.’ I think Norrie means Preston, not the priest. ‘What is he?’
‘Abyssinian truffle hound.’
‘Any good?’
‘What at?’
‘Finding truffles.’
‘Not really. There aren’t any truffles in Abyssinia.’ You do realise I’m making this up, right? ‘So the breed’s nearly extinct.’
Meanwhile, according to the priest, ‘We have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us.’
Norrie’s still staring at Preston. ‘He’s a funny-looking thing.’
‘Have you looked in a mirror lately?’ Preston mutters.
‘What’d he say?’
‘C’mon, Norrie. He’s a dog.’ I give Preston a surreptitious kick.
‘Do I know you?’ Norrie pulls my scarf away. He blinks – ‘Nekker!’ – and stumbles back, crossing himself with one hand while he fumbles in his pocket with the other.
‘Grow up, will you?’ I’m kicking myself. Once an arsehole, always an arsehole. I mean Norrie, not me. For once.
He turns to the idiots under the tower. ‘Nekker!’ he yells. He’s hauled a string of beads out of his pocket and he’s waving them around desperately.
‘Piss off, Norrie, will you?’
Most of the worshippers try to ignore us and concentrate on inhaling the smoke from the brazier. But the priest has turned round. He yanks the cross out of the ground—
‘He’s Joe Sampson’s kid,’ Norrie gibbers. Even his nose has gone white.
The worshippers part like the Red Sea, then fall in behind the priest as he advances through the mud with the cross held high. And there’s something about its shape that’s worryingly familiar—
‘You!’
And as I spot the birthmark on his forehead I realise I have a problem. Like Dinny said, this arse is with the ASB and it’s only twenty-four hours since he tried to brain me with the cross, outside the termite nest.
A voice: ‘Silas!’
I look round and see Dinny wading back through the mud towards us. The priest is gabbling away in Latin, his eyes burning like live coals. His followers are back on their knees in the mud, crossing themselves madly.
Dinny again: ‘Silas! Arrête tes bêtises!’
Roughly translated, ‘Stop pissing about.’
OK, so the priest’s name’s Silas and he’s holding the cross high in the air, ready to swipe. Just to be sure I know what I’m up against, he’s switched to English—
‘I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy—’
There’s this angry bellow and Dinny comes charging past me. Silas falters and stumbles back, towards the tower. Not fast enough. With a metallic crash, Dinny’s upraised hooks hit the cross.
They lock together, both red in the face. Dinny gets one hook round the shaft of the cross. He pulls. The hook slides up the shaft until it catches on the crosspiece. He gives it a final, violent yank. The cross tears out of Silas’s hands and goes flying past my head to smash crockery inside the caravan.
Dinny’s lost his English with his temper. The worshippers scramble for safety as he shoves Silas backwards through the mud and up against the stonework of the tower. Silas is making mewing noises through the hands clasped across his face.
‘Dinny.’ I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘That’s enough.’
For a nasty moment I think he’s going to turn on me. But then he blinks and smiles—
‘Sorry, Fronk.’ Stepping back, he hooks Silas’s cassock and pulls him upright. ‘See what you make me do?’
Inside the tower there’s a tiny chapel. It’s maybe fifteen feet square, with dirty white paint peeling off the stones and a mouldy painting of Saint George with a lance, poking a fairly harmless-looking dragon in the eye.
I don’t think Silas is seeing anything much except stars. His legs are shaking and the only reason he hasn’t fallen over is because Dinny’s still supporting him.
‘
Let him sit down,’ I say.
As we park him in a rickety chair, he manages to raise one trembling finger and point to a small cupboard in the wall behind the altar. I open it and find a corkscrew and a dozen bottles of communion wine; at least I assume it’s communion wine because it’s got the pope’s coat of arms moulded on the bottle, just above the label. I grab the oldest – 1952, because that’s got to be the crappiest, right? – and I’m halfway through filling a battered silver chalice when I stop dead to give that coat of arms a second look.
‘Fronk?’ says Dinny.
I’m just standing there, staring at the bottle. The moulded bit, anyway. The coat of arms: a papal tiara over a pair of crossed keys . . .
I’m still blinking stupidly at it when Silas grabs the chalice out of my hand and gets stuck in. Dinny gets the bottle between his hooks and peers at the label. His eyes light up. ‘Châteauneuf du pape!’ He tips it back.
‘It doesn’t keep.’ Silas has perked up no end. ‘So we might as well finish it.’ He jumps up, grabs the bottle back off Dinny and refills the chalice. It’s like magic, how fast that wine disappears . . .
Leaving me clutching the empty bottle. I used to have to gargle wine when they said mass at Saint Cyprian’s; and the termites still drag me into the monastery chapel and administer a medicinal dose every now and then. I run my fingers over the coat of arms.
Crossed keys . . .
I haul Sean’s notebook out of my inside pocket.
‘I went to Saint Cyprian’s.’ A tear runs down Silas’s face. ‘But I renounced Satan’s gift. I opened my heart to God and resolved to do his work.’
I’m reading Sean’s spidery writing again. July 29th. The Grandpont near the Red Bridge. ‘Crossed Keys.’
The photograph of the Ghost driver has still got smears of dried mud from when Marvo dropped it. I rub it across the seat of my jeans and peer at the badge on the driver’s peaked cap.
‘Do you see?’ I shove the photograph at Silas.
He pushes it aside. ‘I see only the promise of salvation and the threat of eternal damnation.’
‘The badge, though – it’s the same as the bottle. Crossed keys.’
Silas is hitting his stride. ‘Hell yawns at your feet!’
‘Yeah, but that’s the pope’s coat of arms. So this driver’ – I’m pointing at the badge – ‘the guy he’s driving for . . .’ It takes a bit of juggling, but I hold out the photograph of Vannutelli, the papal legate, reading without his glasses.
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