A feeling of dread began to descend on Robert. After arriving in the middle of the fight between Simon and Zalian, he was now anxious to get the hell off the roof before Chymes and his crazies turned up in full force.
‘We still don’t know the location of the execution sites,’ Lee pointed out. ‘Fighting between ourselves isn’t going to solve anything.’
‘Then make him tell us,’ said Simon angrily. ‘What’s the big deal with Chymes that you can’t face up to him, Nathaniel?’
‘Before this conversation gets too heated, let me tell you about a couple of things we’ve found out,’ said Rose, pushing through the group and picking up the notebook from the desk. ‘Put the knife away, Simon, you’re not going to solve anything with that.’
The punk glowered defiantly at Zalian, then looked back at Rose. Finally he let the knife fall to his side.
‘You told us Chymes stands for everything that’s opposite to your world and we’ve taken our cue from that,’ she said, explaining her alchemical theory to the assembled gathering. ‘This afternoon I checked it out with the British Museum library. Chymes—the original Chymes—was supposedly the inventor of alchemy. And the doctor here is Jewish, aren’t you, doctor? “Nathaniel”? Sounds pretty Jewish to me.’ Rose’s gaze met a host of puzzled faces. She moved back to Zalian. ‘I looked it up. The word “alchemy” comes from the Middle East. To antagonize you, Chymes chose to base his “opposite society” on a science with Arabic origins. I guess he planned for the two of you to be natural enemies, right from the start.’
‘Well, I’m sure that’s very fucking interesting, Rose,’ said Simon. ‘But what practical help is it?’ He turned his knife over, but was reluctant to return it to his belt.
‘I’ll tell you. We located him once before—last night on top of the London Metal Exchange—and we can do it again. If we know where he gets his strength we’ll be able to figure out his weaknesses.’
‘It’s no use,’ Zalian pleaded. ‘He seems to know my every thought. He can’t be beaten. It’s like he’s my mirror image, a twisted black mirror. Everything I do, he undoes. Every move I make, he’s ahead. How can you defeat someone who doesn’t behave in a human fashion?’
‘You don’t turn off the radio transmitter,’ said Simon. ‘You don’t pump smack into your veins and curl up in a ball and pretend he’s just going to go away.’
‘No, I…’
‘That’s how we defeat him,’ said Rose. ‘If you’re his equal, you must know him just as well.’
‘No, I’m not his equal. He has night sight.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He can see in the dark. Don’t ask me how or why, but he can.’
‘It’s true,’ said Simon. ‘I’ve seen him run across a roof and jump the gap between two buildings in pitch black. It’s like he has some kind of supernatural gift.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Spice, ‘what is this, the fucking Twilight Zone? Let’s get real for a minute.’ She reached forward and grabbed Zalian by the shoulders. ‘Doc, you have to snap out of it, or we’re all dead.’ She turned to Simon. ‘Is there anything we can do to bring him around?’
‘I’m not incapable of answering for myself.’ Slowly, Zalian raised his head and brushed the hair out of his eyes to look at her.
‘Then tell us everything you know about what he’s likely to do next. If you guys are so alike, surely you can figure out what his movements will be. So he can see in the dark, big deal.’ Spice pulled him around to face the desk. ‘We got this far. Come on, Doc, don’t fade out on us now.’
Everyone in the group seemed to agree with her and began talking at once. Zalian rose slowly and held out his hand for silence. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said, slurring his words slightly, ‘Chymes stole Sarah away from me. He seduced her and won her over to his side and slept with her to deepen his victory. He destroyed her faith in me. Maybe not completely, but enough to stop her from trusting me with her notes. Instead, she gave them to her mother. She deliberately betrayed me and he’s gloating over the fact that I know it.’
‘All the more reason for us to beat the shit out of him,’ said Simon enthusiastically.
Robert glanced nervously at his watch. Twenty past one. It felt much later than that. He was sure that Chymes and his men would arrive any second and wished they could all move somewhere safer to settle their differences.
‘Wait a minute, this is all wrong,’ said Lee, stepping forward. ‘Sarah was nuts about you. She’d never have betrayed you, never. She couldn’t stop talking about how much she loved you, for Christ’s sake.’
Robert had had enough. He pulled free of the crowd and moved to the back of the conduit. He stepped out onto the freezing roof, where two members of Spice’s crew kept watch for invaders. Lighting a cigarette he drew a deep breath, pulling the warm smoke deep into his lungs. Out here it seemed as if nothing could disturb the arctic calm of the night. He looked up into the sky. The moon was half obscured by fleeting cloud. They were all mad, he decided, surviving on a lunatic Lewis Carroll logic to which it was all too easy to succumb. Even so, their only hope of defeating Chymes was to restore their leader to his full strength. Robert considered the problem for a few minutes, then headed back into the arguing crowd in the doorway.
‘She loved you enough to join up with the New Age,’ Lee was saying. ‘I was the last one to hear from her. She even said that she’d find a way to get a message to you if she was taken. Those aren’t the words of a cheating woman, Nathaniel.’ There was a moment of silence while Lee’s words sank in.
‘I agree with Lee,’ said Spice finally. ‘I don’t think that Sarah could have betrayed you. If you ever manage to figure out where the hell she is before we all die, you can ask her yourself. Meanwhile I suggest that we do something about fighting back, or we elect ourselves a new leader.’ The silent gaze of the group fell upon Zalian. The doctor searched the grimy, earnest faces surrounding him.
‘What’s it going to be?’ asked Simon, exasperated. ‘Stay here and get killed, or are we gonna go to war?’
Zalian mumbled something under his breath.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ said Simon, craning forward. ‘What was that?’
‘Let’s go to war.’
‘All right!’ Lee clapped his hands together and suddenly the group began to cheer up. Spice ushered everyone from the door of the conduit and moved to the equipment shed in order to start refilling the depleted supply bags.
‘Let’s get organized before Chymes gets here,’ said Lee, swinging a pack onto his shoulders. ‘We’ll head further in towards the West End and regroup. If they attack us here, we’re finished.’ He looked across at Rose, who was staring at him with wide eyes.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It just occurred to me,’ she said slowly, half to herself. ‘Sarah promised that she’d try to get a message to you, even if she was captured? I think I know where the message is. I’ve known all along. God, I get worse. What a bimbo!’ And with that she ran off.
‘Wait!’ called Zalian. ‘Don’t let her go off alone.’
‘That’s right,’ said Simon. ‘She tends to get stuck.’
‘I’ll meet up with you in a little while,’ Rose shouted back. ‘Where are you headed?’
Spice stopped loading her bag and looked over to Lee. ‘What about Euston station? We’ve got a storage locker there.’
‘Good thinking,’ agreed Lee. ‘Rose, when you’re through just come to the station forecourt and we’ll show you the way to the roof. Stay in radio contact. You sure you don’t want anyone with you?’
‘No, I’ll be all right.’
‘Where are you going?’ called Robert, irritated by the fact that she seemed to have no intention of asking him along. Rose ran over to him. ‘Back to my apartment,’ she said. ‘On the day Sarah came to plead with her mother, she was accompanied by two of Chymes’ men. But one of them was actually working for Zalian, remember? While he was waiting for Sarah to c
ome down, he scratched something on my front door. I told you about it when we first met, I just didn’t think anything of it at the time.’ And with that, she vanished over the side of the fire escape before Robert had a chance to reach her.
‘Come on, let’s move out,’ said Lee, kicking shut the door of the conduit. ‘Chymes and his charm school rejects will be here any minute.’
‘What about taking to the streets below?’ suggested Robert, instantly realizing that he should have known better than to ask. Around him, everyone jeered.
‘He’ll never force us back down there,’ said a small red-haired girl who looked about eleven years old, ‘even if he takes the exchange.’
Grouped together, they looked rather pitiful and exhausted, like a gang of undernourished chimneysweeps. After a brief respite Lee, Spice and Tony were goading them into action once more, leading the way from the roof.
Suddenly, one of the watchmen raised the alarm. The doctor ran unsteadily to the edge of the roof and lifted a small pair of field glasses to his eyes, searching in the direction of the guard’s pointing finger.
‘Somebody’s going to have to keep an eye on him,’ said Lee. ‘We don’t want him dropping off into the street.’
‘They’re coming,’ Zalian shouted back. ‘Forty, fifty of them, about half a mile off. Damn. What’s the time?’
Robert glanced down at his watch. ‘Just after two.’ He noticed that the date-square had clicked over to the twenty-first. The twenty-first of December…didn’t it have some significance in the calendar? He turned to Zalian excitedly. ‘Today, it’s the day of the winter solstice. The turning point of the sun!’
‘Well, if Chymes is an alchemist, he’s bound to make this his time of triumph. It means we only have until sunrise to pinpoint the sacrificial sites.’ Zalian attached his belt-line under Lee’s watchful eye and launched himself away from the roof of the Exchange. As he did so he called to Robert, who had already harnessed himself up and clipped onto the line just behind. ‘I hope Rose knows what she’s doing. We should never have let her go alone.’
Robert could not answer. The raw, arctic air rushing into his face prevented him from catching his breath. The muscles in his arms and legs seemed on the point of seizing up. He was sure that he would be able to sleep right through the Christmas celebrations after this, if he managed to stay in one piece until then.
—
Spice and the others occasionally had to help Robert and Zalian in their clumsy progress across the rooftops but at least, for the first time, the whole group was travelling together. Below, the city would be at its most silent in these, the approaching dead hours of the night. Far behind them, the massed forces of Chymes’ New Age had landed on the roof of the Exchange and were systematically destroying Zalian’s secret hideout in the conduit.
The group passed over Jockey’s Fields and Bedford Row, across Theobald’s Road, via the new office blocks which had replaced those so badly destroyed in the Second World War, and on to Bloomsbury Square, the first and noblest of its kind, where once the Gordon rioters were hanged and where now a giant car park had been built. Here they paused to catch their breath, suiting up against the glacial night as a light snow began to fall.
‘That’s all we needed,’ said Simon. ‘If this gets any heavier it’ll be almost impossible to see the line-bolts. We’d better stick to the established runs.’ He looked nervously back at Zalian. Above them, large white flakes drifted lazily down from a laden sky, slowly obliterating the moon. The significance of this was not lost on the doctor.
‘The snow will reduce our travelling speed,’ he called to Simon, ‘but it’ll reduce theirs as well. Who has the notebook?’
‘I thought you took it.’ Robert searched his bag.
‘No matter,’ Zalian shrugged. ‘I don’t think it can help us any more.’
What he really meant, thought Robert, was that now he had regained some of his former strength, he would no longer need to rely on the book as an excuse for his procrastination. ‘We could have done with the moonlight on our side. Chymes’ night sight will enable him to gain on us.’
‘I guess we’re really on our own now,’ said Spice. The group’s earlier mood of euphoria had dissipated somewhat. With muscles torn and minds taut with the effort of just trying to stay alert, they looked up into the unfurling clouds and waited for the approaching blizzard to encircle them.
Chapter 44
Homing In
Kneeling down on the curving brass-plated step of the porch, she shone the torch at the base of the front door. At first glance she thought that one of the tenants had obliterated the markings. Then she saw them: a series of small scratches in the green paintwork. Rose remembered the morning Sarah had visited the house. She had dashed out into the rain to buy orange juice at the corner supermart and on her return had found one of the ugly skinheads accompanying the girl digging his penknife into the kickboard of the door. At the time it seemed the kind of simple-minded, thoughtless act she had grown inured to living in London. Now though, the lacerations beneath her torchlight took on an entirely different meaning. There seemed to be several letters—an ‘M’ or an ‘H’, it was hard to tell, a space, then a ‘T’, an ‘E’ and an ‘L’.
Presuming that the space indicated a missing letter, the word could be ‘HOTEL’ or ‘MOTEL’. Rose sat down on the step and withdrew her walkie-talkie, hoping that the crackling radio static would not disturb her sleeping neighbours.
She had used one of the fixed runs to return to Hampstead, figuring that it was better to keep the muscles in her arms supple than to relax in the back of a cab and risk seizing a tendon. Travelling across the rooftops held no terror for her now. On the contrary, it was being on the ground that seemed odd. The buildings and trees seemed to rear up around her and the sky was all but obliterated. With a feeling of regret she had left the run at the top of a whitewashed shopping complex just beyond Hampstead tube station and had walked through the empty backstreets to the house. Here the increasingly heavy snowfall had begun to settle and coat the desolate roads.
‘That’s right, like “HOTEL”, without the “O”. Any ideas?’ Rose clicked the ‘Receive’ switch over.
‘Could be anywhere, couldn’t it?’ Robert’s voice buzzed over the microspeaker. ‘The Hilton, the Ritz, Claridge’s…’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ This sounded like Zalian’s voice cutting in. ‘We’ve already covered most of the big hotels. Rose, can’t you tell at all whether that first letter is an “M” or an “H”?’
Rose clicked the torch back on and leaned close to the scratch marks. ‘It’s hard to say. It looks like both.’
‘If the word is “HOTEL”, why leave out the “O”?’
‘It’s the only curved letter in the word. Maybe it was too difficult to scratch out. Sorry, guys, I think I’ve reached a dead end.’
‘You tried. We’re at Hardwick station, on top of Euston. We don’t think Chymes knows where we are at the moment, but it won’t be long before his scouts locate us.’
‘I’ll come and join you there in a few minutes after I’ve had another look at this door. Over and out.’
She replaced the radio in her bag and snapped off the torch. There was a footfall behind her, the sound of a nailed boot on concrete. She was just beginning to think that she had imagined it when a tattooed hand shot out and sealed over her mouth.
‘Keep very still, or I’ll twist your fuckin’ head off.’ Rose caught a glimpse of shaved head, a grazed, bloody cheek, the glimmer of a switchblade.
As the hand was removed from her face, the blade of the knife forced her back against the door. The front of Reese’s jacket was soaked in blood from the dart that Spice had fired at him in the park. He lurched closer, pressing the blade dangerously hard in Rose’s chest. ‘We met before, you and I. Remember?’
‘No, no, I…’ Rose’s breath came in short gasps.
‘There were three of us.’
‘You were here with Sarah, yo
u were the other one!’ Rose’s eyes widened in fear.
‘That’s right. We’re tidying up the loose ends tonight. Chymes wants to meet the girl who’s been causing him all this trouble.’ He glanced down and saw the scratches on the door.
‘That traitorous bastard was writing something, wasn’t he?’
‘You should know,’ coughed Rose. ‘He was standing right next to you at the time. You were too thick to notice what he was up to.’
Reese pushed his free hand into his pocket and withdrew a pair of handcuffs. ‘Well, now you’ll get a chance to find out where the message leads.’ He pulled Rose’s hands together and snapped the handcuffs over her wrists. ‘Sorry there aren’t two of us to help take you back, but my mate’s hanging in the park with a tree sticking out of his stomach at the moment.’ He stared down at her body. ‘You’re a pretty one.’
His rancid odour assaulted her nostrils as he leaned closer. Suddenly he ran his tongue over her face. ‘You’re going to see the sun rise over the city, lady.’ He grinned, displaying an array of fragmented yellow teeth. ‘Only the city won’t be able to see you.’ He lowered the knife and dug into his pocket, producing a length of rope.
‘Help me!’ Rose suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs, leaping to her feet and jabbing her foot squarely into Reese’s testicles. ‘Help, rape!’
A light went on in one of the windows above, then another.
‘You cow,’ groaned Reese, grabbing Rose by the hair and hauling her out of the porch into the snow. Slipping and stumbling on the wet pavement, she screamed as Reese pulled her away down a side road towards the heathland at the bottom of the hill. Although lights had been lit in the houses around her, nobody ventured out into the street. Twice she slid over, falling hard on her side, to be lifted back up and dragged off once more. As Reese drew her deeper into the dimly lit slopes of the park, she knew that her chances of escape had all but vanished.
—
Robert leaned back against the curving glass canopy of the station and let the snow settle on his burning face. ‘I guess I’m really out of condition,’ he panted, rubbing his shoulders. He looked across at Spice, who had travelled the same distance, but was not even breathing heavily. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t grown arms like a gorilla.’
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