The Somnambulist v-1

by Jonathan Barnes

  Moon eyed the squat-featured stranger suspiciously. “Have we met?”

  The ugly man seemed palpably disappointed. “Surely you can’t have forgotten me so soon?”

  “Mr. Cribb?”

  A sudden grin. “The same.” This said more as proclamation than confirmation, as though he believed his name to be instantly recognizable. He held out his left, four-fingered hand.

  Moon ignored the gesture. “I thought you promised we’d never meet again.”

  Cribb wore an infuriatingly amused look. “Did I? Well, doubtless that was true from my perspective. From yours… let’s just say that time runs differently for the two of us.”

  The detective snorted in irritation and began to walk away.

  Cribb shouted after him, “I can tell you the truth about the Fly.”

  Moon stopped short but, his face blank and unreadable, did not turn back. “What do you know?”

  A smile insinuated itself across Cribb’s unlovely face. “Walk with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is what we do. What we must do, will do, have done already. Viewed from a certain angle, of course, we did it months ago.”

  “I’m too busy,” Moon protested, but already he could feel curiosity, his old, persistent mistress, tugging at his coat sleeves.

  “Just walk with me.”

  A moment’s hesitation and uncertainty. A heavy sigh. An ostentatious glance at his watch as if to imply some deliriously hectic schedule. Then a nod, a half-smile, a reluctant agreement. And as they strolled back across London Bridge, Cribb began to talk.

  “The Vikings were here,” he said, apropos of nothing in particular. “Nine hundred years ago they tore down this bridge.” He began to gesticulate expansively like an overzealous don keen to impress at his first lecture, his intonation shifting from the conversational to the rhetorical. “The Norsemen tied their ships to the scaffolding of the bridge, chained them to its beams, its bolsters and supports — and they rowed. Dragged downriver, the ships dislodged the structure of the thing, brought the whole, glorious enterprise toppling into the Thames. London Bridge is falling down. You see? But it was built, rebuilt, many times. The city endures.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Moon asked, bemused by the impromptu history lesson.

  Cribb did not reply, as though he thought the answer entirely beneath him. Instead he turned to Moon and said: “You’re not a man accustomed to failure.”

  “True.”

  “You’re used to solving crimes after an hour or two in the Stacks, to unraveling riddles from your armchair, to coming up with vital insights in the arms of some misshapen girl at Puggsley’s.”

  Moon sounded almost afraid. “How do you know all this?”

  Cribb shrugged. “You told me. Or rather you will. But there is so much you have to learn. You never understood the Honeyman case. You don’t know why the Fly recognized your name. You have so many questions and so terribly, achingly few answers.”

  “If you know something, I suggest you say so at once. If need be, I can bring down the full weight of the law to support me.”

  “Please.” Cribb’s tone was that of a disappointed but still indulgent headmaster. “There’s no need to bandy threats. My hands are tied. There are rules.”

  “What do you want?”

  “All crimes have a context, Mr. Moon. All murders take place as the result of an intricate sequence of events. Occasionally that sequence may be a matter of hours or days or weeks. More commonly, it is a question of months or years. But in a few — in a very few remarkable instances — a single death may represent the work of centuries. You lack perspective. I have in mind a modest tour. I’d like to show you the city.”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “London is spread out before us like a great book. Follow me and I shall teach you how to read.”

  Leaving the bridge behind them, they walked swiftly along Upper Thames Street, into Queen Street and from there to Cannon Street, where they paused outside a forlorn, neglected-looking church.

  “Saint Swithin’s,” Cribb explained, in the peremptory manner of the career tour guide. He strolled inside. Moon followed.

  Between services, the church was all but deserted. The smells of must and incense hung heavy in the air and a handful of the faithful sat scattered among the pews, a few deep in prayer or meditation but most asleep or, in the case of one row of bulbous-nosed old lushes, stupefied by drink. Of any priest or rector there was no sign — theirs was a foundering flock, deprived of its shepherd.

  Moon watched his companion crouch beside the altar, peering intently at something just out of sight.

  “Edward!” he called in a hoarse whisper. “Over here!”

  Moon bridled at the man’s overfamiliar manner. “What are we doing?”

  Cribb pointed. “There. Do you see it?”

  Built into the dark fabric of the wall, set high above the altar beneath two mildewed cherubim, was what appeared to be a large chunk of masonry, dappled with spongy patches of damp, etiolated by age and gloom, utterly alien to the rest of the building. Lime, perhaps, Moon guessed, or sandstone.

  “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  “The London Stone,” Cribb breathed, his voice tinged with reverence.

  The detective flung him an exasperated look.

  “There are many stories about the origins of the city,” the ugly man began, ignoring the glances or irritation directed toward him by those still-conscious faithful. “According to legend, its founders were the children of the Greeks. Brutus is said to have sailed here guided by a dream from the goddess Diana in which she foretold the whole of London’s history. ‘Beyond the setting of the sun,’ she said.” At this point in his narrative, Mr. Cribb adopted a slightly embarrassing approximation of a woman’s voice. “ ‘Beyond the realms of Gaul, there lies an island, once occupied by giants, now desolate and empty. I have prepared it as a sanctuary for your people. In years to come, It shall prove a second Troy. A race of kings will be born there from your stock, and the round circle of the earth shall be subject to their rule.’ ”

  Moon yawned.

  Cribb forged on, the old story flowing easily from his lips. “The goddess gave Brutus this stone. She promised that as long as it endured, so the city would flourish. But her warning was clear — if the stone is lost then the city shall perish.” He looked about him at the church’s shabby interior. “Frankly, I think we ought to take better care of it.”

  “A pretty fairy tale,” said Moon, peering again at the stone.

  “This has always been a sacred place. Where we stand now Boudicca razed to the ground. In a few years’ time, archaeologists will find her revenge marked upon the earth beneath us in a seam of red soil, a scarlet thread running through London’s history. Even now there is a certain… thinness here. Can’t you feel it?”

  Moon grimaced. “Listen,” he said, as reasonably as he knew how, “why don’t we forget all this and find ourselves a drink?”

  “You need to understand the nature of the city,” Cribb said, rising to his feet. “Come. There is more to see.”

  Riled by the man but still, despite himself, intrigued, Moon followed as they headed up Cannon Street and toward the center of the financial district. This was not an area of the city he had ever felt the need to wander in — despite its easy affluence there was something indefinably depressing about it, something gray and oppressive. Flocks of black-clad businessmen strutted through its streets, self-important crows oblivious to the passing of the conjuror and the ugly man. A distinctive scent, largely unfamiliar to Moon, was omnipresent: the acrid perfume of commerce, everywhere the rich, dry, second-hand smell of money.

  They turned into King William Street and cut through to Threadneedle Street by way of Change Alley.

  “Much of this district will be bombed,” Cribb said matter-of-factly.

  “Bombed?”

  “Destroyed, obliterated by explosives from the air.”


  “Impossible.”

  “Saint Swithin’s, for one, will be reduced to rubble in forty years. They build a bank on top of it. There’s nothing left to say the church ever existed.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  Cribb’s repulsive little face darkened for a moment. “I’ve seen it. More than once. The first bombs fall a decade or two from now, no more.”

  Moon laughed. “You’re joking.”

  Cribb smiled infuriatingly in response, then walked away, compelling Moon to adopt an undignified trot in order to catch up. They emerged into Threadneedle Street where the twin centerpieces of the city reared up before them — the great Guildhall and the Bank of England.

  “I’ve always wondered about those,” Moon said idly and pointed up at a pair of statues which stood weather-beaten, monolithic guard over the doors of the Guildhall, two stone giants wielding wooden clubs and dressed in animal skins.

  “So you are willing to learn.”

  “I’m curious.”

  Cribb rattled off the information with the self-assured authority of some articulate encyclopedia. “They are Gog and Magog. The last of England’s giants, brought here by Brutus to guard the city gates. Legend says they were banished from London by King Lud after a bloody quarrel.”

  “How did you come to learn so much about the city?”

  “I cannot leave. I am circumscribed by its limits. But this is not why I brought you here.” Cribb nodded toward the Bank of England. “Look.”

  “I stopped a bank robbery there a few years ago,” Moon said conversationally. “The Somnambulist and I still laugh about it from time to time. Fellow tried to burrow into the vaults, hoping to get at the gold reserves, but ended up waist-deep in sewage. Thoroughly entertaining at the time.”

  Cribb seemed irritated by the digression. “I want you to look at it. Really look at it. Try to see its true self, see the skull beneath the skin. Understand what it represents.”

  A moment’s silence.

  “The poison heart of London!” Cribb spluttered, suddenly splenetic with rage. “A monstrous canker at the center of the city! We are oppressed, Mr. Moon, and all around us are the signs and symbols of our subjugation.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Make no mistake: the city is at the heart of this business, the prime mover in these crimes. Now I have one more thing to show you.”

  He walked away and Moon followed as they retraced their steps through King William Street and hurried onward to the Monument (an enormous Doric column erected in the seventeenth century in memory of the Great Fire).

  Forgive me if the above sounds condescending — I add this last detail only for the benefit of the ignorant and for tourists. I should hope my readers educated enough to recognize the significance of Wren’s achievement without it being explained to them, but regrettably it remains the case that one must always make allowances for dullards. I cannot police the readers of this manuscript and it is a sad and tragic truth that I have never yet succeeded in underestimating the intelligence of the general public.

  Close by the Monument on King William Street some construction was under way.

  “Trains,” Cribb said briskly as they strode past. “They’re renovating the Underground.”

  The two men paid for their tickets at the little booth outside, entered the Monument and climbed the corkscrew stone staircase to the top, emerging eventually into the chill autumn air, sweaty and panting. A flimsy metal rail seemed the only barrier between them and a queasily high drop.

  The last visitors of the day were leaving (there had been several awkward moments on the stairs as various parties had attempted to squeeze and maneuver their way around one another) and for a few minutes Cribb and Moon had the view entirely to themselves.

  They looked out across London. It had begun to rain, a thin colorless drizzle, and it was as though some drear and dusty veil had been draped across the panorama.

  “Ugly, isn’t she?” Cribb said. “You see her now as she really is, without her make-up, without her rouge. After the Fire, Wren wanted to build a new city — the London of his dreams, a new Jerusalem, a shining metropolis constructed upon pure mathematical lines.”

  “What happened?”

  “The city defeated him. It refused to be bent into shape; it stayed a willful, sprawling, sinful place. It even told him as much. When he walked through the gutted wreck of old Saint Paul’s, he tripped and fell over a piece of rubble — a tombstone. When he got to his feet and dusted himself down he saw that it read, in Latin, ‘Resurgam’ — ‘I Will Rise Again.’ ”

  “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  “I’m doing my best. But there is a limit to what I can say.”

  “Are you always so cryptic?”

  Cribb grinned toothily. “The Monument is two hundred and two feet tall. Coincidentally the same height as the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “Secret geometry, Mr. Moon. The city is filled with it.”

  A guide appeared and pedantically informed them that opening hours were over and that they were to leave at once.

  “Where now?” Moon asked once they were outside.

  “Tea and scones, I think.”

  Despite his may disreputable and insalubrious qualities, there was something arresting, even magnetic, about Thomas Cribb. Or so Moon assured me — I was never able to see it myself. Still, over tea and scones in a Cheapside coffee house, Moon found himself warming to the man, quizzing him incessantly on his knowledge of London history and trying to prize from him whatever it was he knew, but refused to tell, about the Human Fly and the Honeyman-Dunbar murders. Halfway through his second cup of Earl Grey, Moon asked a question which he had no idea how to verbalize without sounding foolish. In the event, he favored candor. “Why do you tell people you travel in time?”

  Cribb toyed with his coffee spoon. “I say nothing of the kind. I admit merely that I have lived in the future.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “What you believe is your own affair. But I can tell you this: Nine years from now, the King will be dead. Thirteen years from now we will be at war and then again less than three decades later. In nineteen fifty-two, hundreds of Londoners will be killed by poisonous fog. Ten years later and the city’s skyline changes for ever — new buildings soar and scrape the sky. And a century hence great and terrible temples will be built where now our docks and shipping yards thrive and prosper.”

  Moon stared at him, in genuine admiration for the man’s effrontery. “How can you possibly claim to know all this?”

  “I’ve lived it,” Cribb said simply.

  Moon laughed, a little uncertainly. “Your patter’s good, I’ll give you that.”

  Before Cribb was able to reply, an unwelcome figure appeared beside their table and coughed politely.

  The albino, Mr. Skimpole, stood before them. He nodded in greeting. “Gentlemen.”

  Moon ignored him.

  “Skimpole,” Cribb said quietly.

  “Have we met?” the albino asked uneasily.

  Cribb waved the question aside. “You won’t remember me.”

  “No.” Skimpole stared at him. “No, I don’t. Here. My card.” He passed him a blank square of cardboard which Cribb examined with obvious distaste.

  Skimpole peered over his pince-nez, a glazed smile hovering about his lips, the very picture of insincerity. “So sorry to interrupt, but I must crave a brief audience.”

  Moon glared at him. “Have you been following me?”

  “Thank you for the tour. Most instructive.”

  Cribb looked back at him with undisguised curiosity. “My pleasure.”

  “What do you want?” Moon snapped.

  “What I’ve been asking of you for weeks: your help. Nothing more or less. I give you my word you’ll be handsomely rewarded.”

  “You already have my answer,” the detective replied, barely able
to keep his anger in check.

  “Please,” Skimpole pleaded. “The city is in danger.”

  “So you say.”

  “I’d have thought after Clapham you’d be champing at the bit. Don’t force me to use drastic measures.”

  “Never,” Moon spat, his hackles rising at the pale man’s threat.

  The albino heaved a melodramatic sigh. “Then I’m afraid you leave me no choice.” He bowed and sloped from the room. “We’ll meet again.”

  “Unpleasant fellow,” said Cribb once he had gone, chewing on a muffin. “You’re not friends, I take it?”

  Moon shook his head. “Skimpole exploits human frailty,” he explained flatly. “He feeds off petty jealousies and weakness. Believe it or not, he has the full force of King and country behind him. He works for a department in the government. It calls itself — absurdly — the Directorate.”

  “You have some history with him?”

  “Before I met the Somnambulist,” Moon said darkly.

  “Before?” Cribb looked faintly surprised. “You seem as though you’ve been together forever.”

  “Before… Years ago, I had a partner.” Moon paused. “A young man. He possessed my critical faculties to a greater degree even than I. He might easily have outstripped me. In a kinder, better world he would have. Oh, but he was so beautiful, Mr. Cribb. Strikingly, heart-stoppingly beautiful.”

  Cribb sipped his coffee politely, taken aback by this unexpected outpouring of emotion.

  “I shan’t go into particulars, but Skimpole found his Achilles’ heel. An unfortunate incident, a minor indiscretion, a moment’s weakness, nothing more. But the Directorate hounded him for it, blackmailed him into working for them. The dear boy followed the albino’s orders only to avert a scandal — as much for my sake as for his.” Moon closed his eyes in grief. “In the end his sacrifice cost him everything. In the course of his work for the Directorate he was…” Another pause. An embarrassed cough. “He was lost to me. So you understand why I can barely restrain myself from shooting him on sight.”