Trapping Fog

by William Stafford

  And so, down in the tube station at midnight, we jemmied the front off of the crate and Sprite did her best to arrange Coppélia in her best come-and-get-it pose. The idea was, when Foggy Jack come down and saw her, he’d step into the crate and me and the doctor would spring out from behind it and nail it shut. Then we’d scarper out of there pretty sharpish. As soon as we come out on top, a team of navvies would fill up the shaft with all the dirt they’d dug out of it. Only at this point, the navvies hadn’t bleedin’ turned up. Still in the pub, I reckoned. Still down at the Old Bull and Bush. I told Doctor Hoo he shouldn’t have bleedin’ paid them before they’d done the job. So it looks like it’ll be me and old Inspector Fishface getting busy with the shovels when the time comes. Thank you very much.

  When I addressed this matter to the doctor, I wasn’t sure he was taking it all in. Here, Doctor, I says, are you all right? Only he don’t answer. You ain’t half looking run down, I says, only because it’s true. You want to look after yourself. And his lip sort of gives a twitch like he’s trying to smile at me only he decides it’s too much like hard work.

  So, with Coppélia in place, I had to chivvy him along. “Come on; what’s the matter with you? Get your arse behind the crate so he don’t see you.”

  I’ve never seen him so dozy. I bundled him behind the box and I had just enough time to get myself squirreled away before we heard commotion from up top. It was all kicking off up there. My heart was thumping; this is it!

  And then we heard something what put a stop to all the shouting all of a sudden.

  Gunshots!

  Two of ’em.

  Thirty-Four

  “Stay back!” Kipper cried. A dark thought flashed across his mind: Sergeant Adams would serve as a shield if Beighton came at him with a blade. No. That was wrong. He set the sleeping policeman carefully on the ground and stood tall to face his foe.

  “Steady on,” said Lord Beighton. “It’s not what you think. Honestly.”

  He held out his hands to show they were empty.

  “How did you get out of the nick?” Kipper’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “Ah, it’s the queerest thing,” said Beighton. “There I was, in my cell, feeling all sorts of sorry for myself when it began to get cold in there. And unpleasant. Colder and more unpleasant than it already was, I mean - Let’s face it, it’s hardly the Dorchester. I saw mist coiling through the keyhole and forming a cloud. That cloud took on the shape of a man. I have never been more terrified in all my days, let me tell you.”

  “Foggy Jack!” Kipper gasped.

  “We were not formally introduced but yes, I suppose it was.” Beighton shuddered at the memory. “He laughed and said, in a deep and horrible voice, that he could help me. He could get me out of my current predicament in seconds flat, and I said something about there was no way I could get out the way he had come in - the things one thinks of in moments of duress! - and he laughed again and said all I had to do was let him in. Let him inside me and let him do the rest. Well. I told him I was not that way inclined, despite what went on at boarding school, and he laughed again and assured me it was nothing of that sort. I asked what was the catch and he told me I was a very astute gentleman and no mistake. Lead me to Kipper, he said. And I said I don’t know where he is. And he said you could find out. And I said I couldn’t see how, being stuck in this hole, and he said you haven’t been listening; I can get you out. He was losing patience with me, I could tell - lucky he didn’t have my throat out on the spot.

  “Well, what option did I have? Certain he would kill me if I denied him, I agreed to his terms. What would you have done, Inspector? What would anyone have done? I sat on my bunk and closed my eyes. It was a curious sensation. Akin to sitting in a draught and then becoming the draught, if you see what I mean. I opened my eyes and nothing had changed, except the foggy man wasn’t there.

  “Oh, I’m here all right - his voice was in my head, like the pinch of a hangover the morning after a night on the tiles, what! Relax, he said, like that was even an option. Allow me to take the reins.”

  “I got to my feet - or rather, he got to my feet. Another curious sensation: like when you’re blind blotto and yet somehow you manage to walk. I - he - We moved to the door and he made my hands reach for the buttons on my trousers. He cursed, which was excruciating, and I said, Let me do it. I unfastened my trousers and let them drop to my ankles. Before I could give voice to a question about this turn of events, he has my old chap working. Nice handiwork, he observed, extending the brass thing and setting it spinning.”

  “You drilled your way out,” said Kipper, flatly. “Like you did with that prostitute.”

  Beighton reddened. “I tell you, that was not my fault. I am just as much a victim as that poor woman.”

  “Tell that to the beak,” said Kipper. “How did you get up here? How did you know where to find me?”

  “I merely asked the man at the front desk. He looked me up and down and asked, bizarrely, if I was one of the inspector’s magicians. Foggy Jack answered for me. Yes, he said. After that, the man, a constable, I suppose he was, spilled the beans. He told us you would be here so here we headed, and now here we are.”

  “We?” Kipper glanced around. “You seem your old self again. Where is he?”

  “I’m awfully sorry, Inspector,” Lord Beighton stepped back. Kipper became aware of someone standing behind him. He turned around.

  “Inspector!” said Foggy Jack. “How delightful to see you!”

  Kipper paled. The body of Sergeant Adams lurched toward him, against the will of the original owner, it seemed. Adams’s eyes rolled and his head shook, helpless to prevent the advances of the evil spirit within him.

  “Stay back!” Kipper yelled. “Get out of my sergeant!” he commanded.

  Other voices and police whistles sounded as Bigby and his team from Scotland Yard appeared from the fogbound heath.

  “I say! Stop where you are!” Bigby cried. His police-issue pistol was aimed squarely at the sergeant’s chest.

  “No!” cried Kipper. “Don’t shoot him! Adams, fight it! Stand still, man!”

  “Trying...to...sir...” Adams grunted, but his feet slid forward, edging closer to the inspector.

  Bigby shot him. Twice.

  Sergeant Adams fell to the ground.

  Thirty-Five

  I was out of that shaft like a rat up a drainpipe. Well, down there we was sitting ducks, wasn’t we? Out in the open I’d have more of a chance of getting away. I nipped behind a stack of building materials - wood for propping up the tunnels, I suppose; I didn’t really have the time to take an inventory - and I was horrified by the scene playing out in front of me. The sergeant who seemed to like wearing women’s clobber was lying on the ground. I could see it was him on account of his wig being orf and his ginger hair glowing in the mist. He wasn’t moving. As for Fishface, he was standing there with his hands in the air, like he was being held up or something. That bloke from Scotland Yard was pointing a gun at him and at that bleedin’ toff - how did he get here? - and he was screaming.

  “Which one? Which one of you is it?”

  “Ain’t me,” said Kipper.

  “Not I,” said the toff. “I can assure you.”

  “If you shoot us, it won’t make no difference.”

  That Bigby bloke scowled. “Do you mean it won’t make a difference or it will make a difference? Honestly, old man, your propensity to speak in double negatives can prove perplexing.”

  “Do what?” said Kipper.

  “But if I shoot you both, that’s two less places for him to hide, no?”

  “No!” cried Kipper and the toff in alarm.

  I came out of my hiding place. “Here, you’ll have to shoot me and all,” I said with my hands in the air so he could see them. “And all your blokes and all. And yoursel
f, come to think of it.”

  “He’s right,” said the toff.

  Bigby was dithering. “All right!” he capitulated. He lowered his gun and that was when Foggy Jack made his move. Via the physical form of Edward, Lord Beighton. He shoved the inspector into Bigby and lurched toward me, with his more recent leg leading the way. I sprang back but it wasn’t me he was after. He gave me a laugh of contempt as he went by, on his way to the shaft. Foggy Jack was going underground.

  “You fool!” said Kipper. “You’ve led him straight to it.”

  “Hang on,” I stood up for myself. “Wasn’t that the bleedin’ plan?”

  “Well... yes. But you were supposed to be down there and all, you berk.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said.

  We - Kipper, Bigby, and me - hurried to the mouth of the shaft. Bigby had his gun poised again, as if that was going to bleedin’ help. Coppers with guns - I’m against that kind of thing.

  “It’s awfully quiet down there,” Bigby observed.

  “It’d be bleedin’ quiet up here and all,” snapped Kipper, “if you shut your bleedin’ trap.”

  “Ladies, please! A bit of hush!” I raised my voice. Shouting at coppers - I’m all in favour of that.

  It did the trick. We all shut our traps and listened, bent over that hole like we was contemplating chucking ourselves into it. Bigby was right: it was quiet. Too quiet.

  Long minutes dragged by. What the hell was going on down there?

  “I’m going down,” I said, almost out of my mind with the not-knowing. The coppers grabbed my arms and pulled me back. And I wondered if I could somehow unfasten my arms, the arms what the doctor had given me, and escape. Mind you, if I did, I wouldn’t be much use with no chalk farms, would I? Well, I could still kick somebody’s arse, I suppose.

  A slam! From the underground chamber, followed by a slow clink-clink-clink.

  “Somebody’s climbing up!” I whispered.

  We peered over the edge. Bigby’s gun was shaking so much if it had been a bleedin’ barn climbing up that ladder, he wouldn’t have hit it.

  “Who is it?” said Kipper, as if we knew the bleedin’ answer.

  “Ssh!” hissed Bigby. “I’m trying to focus.”

  We watched and we waited as a shape emerged from the depths. A patch of yellow, like dim candlelight, grew as it rose toward us.

  Coppélia’s blonde wig.

  “Here,” said Sprite from inside the decoy dollymop, “You gents going to give me a hand or what?”

  Kipper and me heaved our shoulders in relief but Bigby weren’t so happy to see the rubber-faced tart. He kept his gun trained on her.

  “How do we know it’s not...him?” he jabbered but me and Kipper ignored him and we helped her out of the hole.

  “This is Sprite,” said Kipper. “Sprite, this is Bigby of the Yard.”

  “Yard?” laughed Sprite, looking Bigby pointedly in the crotch. “I’d say three inches at the most.”

  “What happened down there, girl?” I arsked. “Why have you come out?”

  Her shoulders clunked as she shrugged them. “I think I became surplus to requirements, on account of Foggy Jack finding a different host.”

  Bigby was incandescent. “What in blue blazes is going on?” He may even have stamped his foot. “What is this - thing?” He pointed his pipe at Coppélia, who didn’t look too impressed with him neither.

  “Later,” said Kipper. He rounded on Sprite. “Tell us what happened and sharpish!”

  “All right; keep your hair on. Well, that toff come down, didn’t he? I don’t know what we was expecting but it weren’t him, only he’s having a bit of trouble, like he’s trying to come down and go back up at the same time. Help me, he says in a posh voice, I can’t hold him orf indefinitely. And me and Doctor Hoo glances at each other and it’s like we both understands: Foggy Jack can’t completely control a human body. Not for long. That’s why he ain’t run orf with one before now and gorn orf around the world. And this toff, he’s putting up a good fight. And the doctor and me looks at each other again and there’s that understanding between us, and we grabs the toff by his arms and flings him into the crate. Foggy Jack roars in surprise and we shoves the front on the crate and I hammers it on - I’m stronger and faster and can use me fist instead of a hammer. Besides, the doctor ain’t looking too clever. He’s sluggish, looks exhausted. Like a clock struggling from tick to tock. And I says we’d better shift ourselves and he waves me away - he can barely lift his arm. Well, Foggy Jack is pounding on the inside of the crate - or maybe it’s the toff, not too keen on the idea of being buried alive. And the doctor sinks to the ground and it’s like the crate is going to burst open, so I gets out of there and, well, here I am.”

  She grabbed Kipper’s arm - tight it must have been because I saw him wince. “Protect me, Inspector! I don’t want Foggy Jack coming after me.”

  “Is that likely?” said Kipper, only I ain’t sure who he was arsking.

  “I’d say,” said Sprite. “This body’s a bleedin’ marvel. Indestructible, I shouldn’t wonder. I’d like to hang on to it.”

  “But what about the doctor?” I peered into the shaft. “Won’t Foggy Jack get inside him?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Sprite. She put a hand on my shoulder - it was quite a wallop; she don’t know her own strength. “He’s... stopped, love. That’s the only word for it.”

  And I felt the weight of the key he had given me. The key to his heart. And I understood.

  There came a roar and a rush of air and a great cloud of fog poured up from the shaft and formed the shape of a man in the sky.

  “Fools!” Foggy Jack grumbled like thunder. “No wooden box can hold me.”

  He threw something at our feet, something red and pink and yellow. It was the head of Edward, Lord Beighton. Bigby fired his gun at the demon in the sky until he ran out of bullets. Foggy Jack laughed, sending a shiver down our spines. It was the sound of pure evil.

  “Very well, gentlemen,” his voice rumbled, like thunder as I said, like an underground train but in the sky. “I shall cease butchering your womenfolk. For now. They have served their purpose in bringing the esteemed doctor out of the woodwork. He’s the one I’m after, except he doesn’t seem to be as lively as he once was.”

  “Fuck off,” sneered Inspector Fishface, surprising us all. “You’re finished in this town. We’re on to you. You’ll never be corporeal.”

  “Big word, Johnny,” I heard that Bigby mutter. “I’m impressed.”

  And then Foggy Jack’s eyes glowed red and fixed on me and his face twisted into a malevolent grin. It was like I was glued to the spot.

  “I see you,” he said. “I will find you.”

  With that, he disappeared, dissolving along with the rest of the mist as the first streaks of sunrise broke up the darkness with pink and gold. His minces was the last to go, like he was the bleedin’ Cheshire Cat of supernatural murderers or something.

  “Lucky for you the sun come up, I reckon,” said Sprite.

  But I didn’t feel lucky at all. Not by a long chalk.

  “I don’t understand,” said Kipper. “Why didn’t he come after Coppélia when he had the chance?”

  “I’d like to have seen him try,” said Sprite, holding up Coppélia’s fists like a prize-fighter about to spar. “I’ve become rather attached to this body, even if it is a false one.”

  “I know,” I said, my hand closing around the key in my pocket. “He’s got his eyes on a bigger prize.”

  Thirty-Six

  What a mess. What a bloody mess. Inspector Kipper tried to make sense of the night’s events. Sergeant Adams was alive - that was the main thing. He would spend a long time recuperating in hospital but he would recover. Whether he would come back to work or not was yet to be determi
ned. Knowing Adams, Kipper reflected, wild horses wouldn’t keep him away from Bow Street nick.

  Perhaps it was a good thing that the macabre Doctor Hoo was out of commission and Sergeant Adams would have to go without new parts. Kipper shivered; the world’s not ready for that kind of medicine.

  “Lovely to see you, sir!” Adams tried to sit up in bed when Kipper came in. “Them’s nice blooms.”

  Kipper placed the bunch of flowers on a bedside table. “You’re looking better than last time I saw you.”

  “Bless you, sir. Did you catch him?”

  Kipper reddened. “Not exactly. But don’t you worry about that. You just worry about getting back on your pins.”

  Adams nodded at a chair in the corner of the room. Kipper brought it to his bedside and perched on it. “I’d make you a cuppa but I ain’t best disposed to at the minute, sir.”

  “That’s all right.”

  The pair sat in companionable silence. Kipper wondered whether he should tell the sergeant how relieved he was, how worried he had been. But, he found he didn’t have to utter a word. Adams, as ever, seemed to know what the inspector was going to say before Kipper knew himself.

  “I’ve been thinking, sir,” Adams looked away. “Get a lot of time to do that, lying here. Thinking about things. Life is short, sir, and mine was very nearly all the shorter. So I’m sorry but I ain’t coming back to work, sir. Not as a copper.”

  Kipper’s jaw dropped. “Don’t be so - I mean, I shall - the force will miss you, man.”

  “You’re very kind, sir. But I’m going to try a new career, ain’t I? I’ve been thinking about it ever since I first put on women’s clothes.”

  Kipper was aghast. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be a dollymop!”

  Adams chuckled, so much his injuries pinched him. “No, sir, Lord above, no sir. Soon as I’ve got me strength back, I’m orf down the music hall, sir. See if I can’t get me a job as a female impersonator. Sort of like Dan Leno, sir. Them magicians - who still want paying for that engagement, sir - they said they’ll help me out. Sorry to leave you to muddle along without me. You look like you don’t know what to say, sir.”