by Darrell Pitt
‘My goodness,’ Mr Doyle said, angrily. ‘The games our government plays make me sick sometimes.’
Mr Griffin ignored him. ‘The Darwinist League continued working on the potion,’ he said. ‘We recently received notification that it had been perfected. It was ready for human trials, but now it has been stolen.’
‘How did SCAR and Domina find out about it?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘How do these people find out anything? There was a leak.’
‘Can we see the lab?’ Mr Doyle asked.
Griffin led them to the underground safe where the robbery had occurred. Files and cases were upturned. There was broken glass everywhere. The thieves had turned the place upside down searching for the potion.
‘So how is the Valkyrie Circle involved?’ Jack asked. ‘How do they fit into all this?’
‘That’s a very good question, my boy,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘And I believe the answer is very simple: they’re not.’
‘What?’ Scarlet said.
‘It’s too much of a coincidence that the bombing should occur here,’ he continued. ‘You may recall the Valkyrie Circle sent threatening letters for years without actually causing any violence. Then there was a lapse when they made no contact at all.’
‘It looked like they’d disbanded,’ Jack said.
‘Which they probably did,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘SCAR or Domina probably found out about the Valkyrie Circle and realised they could use them as a cover.’
‘For what reason?’ Scarlet asked.
‘The whole bombing campaign was orchestrated to divert attention from their true purpose—to steal X-29. Today they added the piece de résistance: notifying police that bombs were placed at railway stations across London. They bombed the building, knowing every police officer in London would be elsewhere.’
Griffin pointed around the vault. ‘They made quite a mess in here,’ he said. ‘But in the end they got the potion.’
‘Who was the scientist who took the potion?’ Mr Doyle asked. ‘The one who it so terribly deformed.’
‘His name was Ben Sykes.’
Mr Doyle started. ‘You don’t mean the Ben Sykes whose brother is…’
‘Bruiser Sykes. Who could guess that one family could create such different men?’
Mr Doyle explained to Griffin that he had been employed to find Ben Sykes. Jack glanced about. One of the MI5 men was tidying boxes. Another was fingerprinting surfaces. Using fingerprints in detection was still in its early stages, but Mr Doyle had said it would one day revolutionise the solving of crime.
An MI5 man carried a box past Jack.
‘What’s this symbol?’ he said, pointing.
Thomas Griffin glanced over. ‘It’s the X-29 emblem,’ he said. ‘A picture of a lightning bolt. Why do you ask?’
Jack didn’t answer, but gently grabbed Scarlet’s elbow and led her from the room.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I’ve seen that symbol before,’ he said. ‘And it means I know where to find Ben Sykes.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jack and Scarlet quickly explained their mission to Mr Doyle. He wanted to accompany them, but Jack objected.
‘The fewer people Ben Sykes has to deal with, the better,’ he said.
‘Are you sure about the symbol?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘I saw that same image on a piece of cloth in the underground sewer in Whitechapel. The monster must be Ben Sykes.’
‘But to go alone—’
‘He’s already been attacked and hounded,’ Jack pointed out. ‘But because he knows me, I may have a chance to communicate with him.’
‘It’s too dangerous,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘Anything could happen.’
‘There are always dangers,’ Scarlet said. ‘But I’m inclined to agree with Jack. He may respond to two children far better than an adult.’
It took them over an hour to walk to Whitechapel. The rail network was still closed, although the promised bombings had not eventuated. Now, as they reached the sewerage building, Jack felt his confidence fading. The monster he had glimpsed in the dark had been enormous. If he was wrong…
‘Scarlet,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should wait here.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, grabbing his arm. ‘Come on.’
Inside, Jack pointed at the floor, where burnt timbers were piled about the top of the stairs. ‘Someone started a fire here,’ he said.
‘Toby said some people wanted to hunt down the monster,’ Scarlet replied. ‘I hope they didn’t get far.’
Picking up a charred pole, Jack set it alight with a match and they crept down the stairs. Jack wondered how anyone, or anything, could live down here. They reached the room with the four tunnels leading away from it.
Jack pointed. ‘That’s where I saw him before.’
A trail of water ran down the centre. It looked like these tunnels were some sort of overflow section, in case there was a blockage elsewhere. Two other tunnels split off at the end. Jack could easily understand how people could be lost in here.
A few more turns and we’ll be completely lost.
‘Which way?’ Scarlet asked.
Jack looked down. ‘Here are some footprints. Big ones.’
The shaft opened up into a mezzanine service area where workmen could store their equipment.
‘Hello?’ Jack called. His voice echoed around the chamber.
…hello…hello…hello…
‘Ben?’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you. We need your help.’
…help…help…help…
Jack wasn’t sure what to do. If Ben Sykes had been living down here for months, he would know these tunnels well. Jack and Scarlet could spend years searching for him without success.
‘I know you’re down here,’ Jack called.
The shadows danced and weaved in the light like ghosts. A fleck of dust drifted past his face. Jack looked up—and gasped.
The person who had once been Ben Sykes was now a hunchback, twice the size of a normal man. Orange fur covered him like an orang-utan, except for his head, which was bald.
He perched on top of the arch like a gargoyle on a church gable. His arms and legs were gangly; there was not an ounce of fat on him. Everything was muscle: shoulders, arms, legs, torso. No wonder he had leapt between the rafters at Bee Street with such ease—he looked more animal than man. The only clothing he wore was a pair of ragged shorts. Printed on them was the X-29 insignia.
But it was his face that was the saddest part of the transformation. Half was still that of a handsome man: a proud, strong face that would have made women’s heads turn, a face that other men would envy.
The other half of Ben Sykes’ face could not have been more different. The X-29 potion had melted it. His mouth sagged, his nose was reduced to a drooping lump and his eye hung where his cheek had once been.
Sykes leapt from the brickwork, landing as nimbly as a cat. Scarlet shrieked as she fell back in horror.
‘That’s it,’ Be
n snarled. ‘Fear me! You should! I am a monster!’
‘You’re not a monster,’ Jack said. ‘You’re Ben Sykes.’
Ben towered over Jack like a grizzly bear. ‘But I am a monster!’ he roared. ‘That’s how people look at me. They want to hunt me down like an animal!’
Scarlet stepped forward. With a shaking hand, she touched Ben’s arm. ‘You’re not an animal,’ she said, voice quivering. ‘You’re a person.’
Ben looked down at her hand. For a moment he appeared ready to tear her to pieces. ‘I could break you like a stick!’ he cried into the shadows instead. ‘Snap you in half.’
Jack had no doubt the man could do exactly as he said. ‘But you won’t,’ Jack said. ‘You’re not a killer.’
‘You didn’t want the potion tested on a criminal,’ Scarlet said. ‘Not even a condemned criminal.’
‘I was a fool!’
‘Being compassionate is not being a fool,’ Scarlet said. ‘That’s being human. And there may yet be a cure—’
‘A cure!’ The man roared with laughter and the sound echoed around them like bats in the night. ‘I am condemned to be scarred like this…forever!’
Clenching his fists, he glared at Jack and Scarlet as if ready to crush them, to beat them to death.
‘Then sometimes we’ve got to live with our scars,’ Jack said. ‘Maybe that’s where real courage lies. When you face something that can’t be faced. When you endure what you can’t endure.’
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ the man growled. ‘You have your whole life ahead of you. Your unblemished life.’
‘I became an orphan when my parents died,’ Jack said. ‘Can you imagine what that’s like for me? Do you think a day goes by when I don’t think of them? Do you know what I’d give to see them one last time? Just for one minute. Just for one second. But I can’t. I’ve got to live knowing I’ll never see them again.’
There were tears in his eyes now.
‘Do you know how alone I felt?’ Jack asked. ‘Like I was the only person left on Earth, even when I lived at a crowded orphanage.
‘But then I was taken in by Mr Doyle. I met Scarlet. Gradually I came to know people who care about me. And I care about them too.’ He paused. ‘It didn’t happen all at once. It took time—and I had to make it happen.’
‘You may not appear as you once did,’ Scarlet told Ben. ‘But you’re a good man inside.’
Ben lowered his eyes. ‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘What do you want?’
They told him about the bombings and the theft of the potion. Ben’s face twisted with anguish.
‘Those fools!’ he said, pacing about the chamber. ‘Didn’t they know the potion doesn’t work?’
‘They kept experimenting with it,’ Scarlet said. ‘It sounds like they’ve perfected it.’
‘How is that possible? I’m the only person who understood the process.’
‘No-one could have continued your work?’
‘One man was determined to make it succeed,’ Ben said. ‘Warren Dudley.’
Warren Dudley? Jack thought. Where did he know that name?
‘The owner of the pharmaceutical company?’ Scarlet said. ‘Married to Edwina Dudley?’
Of course, Jack thought. He remembered the quiet man who had accompanied his wife to Bee Street. Could he be behind all this?
‘This can’t be a coincidence,’ Scarlet said. ‘Dudley must have come up with the idea of the bombings through his wife. She may even be mixed up in all this.’
‘Mr Doyle said someone else used the bombings as a cover,’ Jack said.
‘That may or may not be true. At any rate, he must be the one who leaked the information about the potion to SCAR and Domina. Possibly he thought he would become rich.’
‘Riches were always Dudley’s concern,’ Ben said. ‘He’s a hopeless gambler. The last I heard, he owed money everywhere.’
‘So where is the potion now?’ Jack asked. ‘Do you have any ideas, Ben?’
Ben frowned. ‘Just before I took the potion, I remember him mentioning an auction,’ he said. ‘It was supposed to take place on board an airship.’
‘That would make sense,’ Scarlet said. ‘With London in gridlock, the only things moving are airships.’
‘We need to go,’ Jack said. ‘We must tell Mr Doyle what we’ve found out and find the potion before it leaves the country.’
They started towards the exit, but then Jack stopped.
‘We could use your help,’ he told Ben. ‘There’s a life out there if you want it.’
Ben looked down at his misshapen form. ‘The only life for me is here,’ he said. ‘This is where monsters belong.’
‘You’re no monster,’ Jack said. ‘No more than I am.’
But the man would not be moved. He wished them luck in their search for Dudley. Jack and Scarlet returned to the outside world, into late afternoon sunlight where the air was fresh and the sky clear.
‘That place is like a prison,’ Jack said.
‘Some of the worst prisons are of our own making,’ Scarlet replied.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
‘We must pursue Dudley immediately,’ Mr Doyle said, leaping to his feet. ‘I’ll let Thomas Griffin and MI5 know too.’
They were back in their sitting room at Bee Street. Jack and Scarlet had revealed everything they had learnt about Dudley. Mr Doyle scribbled a note and gave it to Gloria, who promised to deliver it to Griffin.
Minutes later, Jack, Scarlet and Mr Doyle were soaring across London in the Lion’s Mane.
‘I feel badly about Ben Sykes,’ Jack said. ‘I hate the idea of him living in that hole in the ground.’
‘We will visit him when this is all over,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘I’m sure he can be persuaded to rejoin the world.’
‘I hope so. I don’t see why he thinks he has to hide from people.’
‘By all accounts he was an exceedingly good-looking man. It must be hard for him to reconcile that the people who once admired his appearance are now repelled by it.’
They flew to Twickenham, landing on a roof in a well-to-do area. The buildings were all white terraces with red tile rooves: quite old, but lovingly maintained. Tiny gardens crowded with daffodils and rose bushes fronted the footpath.
Checking the house numbers, Mr Doyle settled on a building and strode up the stairs. There was no answer when he knocked at first, then the door slowly creaked open, revealing Mrs Dudley.
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Mr Doyle and his companions.’
‘May we speak with you for a moment?’ Mr Doyle asked.
‘I am not receiving visitors today.’
‘It’s very important.’
Grudgingly, Mrs Dudley allowed them in, and they followed her through to a sitting room with a view of the rear garden. A magnolia tree, heavy with red flowers, pressed against the window.
She sat, looking pale and tired. ‘Have you made any headway in tracking down who is responsible for these bombings?’ she asked.
‘We have,’ said Mr Doyle. ‘Actually, we’re on the verge of making an arrest.’
‘Really?’ Her voice went up an octave. ‘Who are you arresting?’
‘I think you already know.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Mrs Dudley looked terrified. ‘I must ask you to leave immediately!’
Mr Doyle remained seated. ‘I can understand how difficult life has been for you, my dear,’ he said. ‘I notice you’ve disposed of six items of furniture in the last month alone including a Queen Anne dresser.’
‘How did you—’
‘It is obvious. The dust trails on the carpet indicate this room was once filled with furniture. Piece by piece it has been sold off.’ He studied her closely. ‘You have my condolences, madam. Gambling is a terrible addiction, but there is something more important here.’
Mrs Dudley remained silent, her chin quivering.
‘People have already been killed,’ Scarlet said. ‘I know you wouldn’t want that.’
‘I would never want anyone hurt.’
‘Then you must tell us where we can find your husband,’ Mr Doyle said. ‘It’s vital to the security of our nation.’
‘You must be mistaken!’
‘The potion he is selling will change the global balance of power. It may lead to another war.’
‘War? No!’
‘How could it not? Super-powered warriors could not be allowed to go unchecked. England and other countries would respond—with force.’
Mrs Dudley began to sob. ‘I didn’t imagine it would lead to this,’ she said. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Where is your husband?’
‘He has a meeting aboard the Stapleton,’ she said. ‘It’s due to depart from the Battersea Airship Terminal at 6pm.’
Mr Doyle glanced at his watch. ‘We don’t have much time,’ he said.