Perch is surprised to find all of the brothers present in the Boardroom when he enters, but, of course, he hides his surprise masterfully.
The brothers are seated around the table in their respective chairs. The dark side of the dome fills the three windows from corner to corner, from edge to edge, a solid wall of blackness, and the brothers have not switched on the ceiling lights. Perch can barely make out their faces. He can see their eyes, though. All of them turn to stare at him as he comes in, except Master Sonny, who is slumped in his mock throne and seems to be asleep.
Master Sonny still here, too? Extraordinary.
None of the brothers speaks as Perch approaches the table. Their eyes follow him, glimmering in the gloom, but none of them addresses him, which is strange. Strange, too, is the smell that grows in Perch’s nostrils as he nears the table, a tangy, clean, metallic odour that is desperately familiar, although he cannot quite place it.
He notes some dark stains on the tabletop, like spattered oil. He noticed similar stains on the switch handle as he came in, but dismissed this as an illusion caused by his eyes not being accustomed to the gloom. The stains on the table are definitely there, though, and there are further stains on the carpet nearby. Perch tuts mentally. He will be on his hands and knees till midnight scrubbing those out.
He halts a metre away from the edge of the table, Mungo to his left, Sonny to his right.
“I came to see if that will be all, sirs.”
The silence holds for a while, until finally Mungo says, “Since you ask, Perch, I think we would all like something to eat. Nothing fancy. Could you possibly rustle us up a snack?” His voice seems to be coming from somewhere deep down inside him, faint and hollow as though issuing from the bottom of a well.
“A snack? Certainly, sir. I think there is some cold roast beef in the refrigerator. Will roast beef sandwiches do?”
“Roast beef sandwiches will do fine.”
“Seven rounds?” says Perch, with a brief glance at the sleeping Sonny. There is something odd about the way he is sitting, the way his arms are hanging down, the way his chin is resting on his breastbone...
“Absolutely,” says Thurston. “Seven. One for each of us.”
“Because all seven of us are here, are we not, Perch?” says Sato.
“Of that there can be no dispute, Master Sato,” says the brothers’ indefatigably phlegmatic manservant.
“Because the charm of Seven is vital to the continued success of the store,” says Wensley. “That’s what our father used to say.”
“Those were his words, sir.”
“And it mustn’t be broken,” adds Fred.
“No, it must not, Master Fred.”
The brothers are talking in the dull, numbed tones of survivors of a train crash, and Perch wonders if they might not be suffering from some kind of delayed shock as a consequence of the explosion.
“If nothing else is required, then?” he says.
His eyes have by this stage adapted to the dim light, and as turns to leave he takes a good look at the figure of the youngest son of Septimus Day.
Sonny hardly resembles Sonny at all. Sonny is a twisted, mangled, lumpen approximation of Sonny, like a wax effigy left out too long in the sun. His skin is webbed with patterns of blood, the same blood that besmirches the table and the carpet. His dangling hands are horribly misshapen, and the angle at which his jawbone is lodged against his clavicle would, for a living person, soon become unbearably uncomfortable. One eye is lost beneath puffy black lids, while the other bulges alarmingly, veiny and gelatinous. His lips have bloomed like a pair of purple fungi, and his nose lies almost flat against his face, as though it is made of putty and someone has squelched it down with their fist. His hair is clotted with indefinable matter and splinters of bone.
This time, keeping his features calm and inexpressive, the habit that has come to Perch naturally throughout all his years of service to the Day family, is the hardest thing he has ever had to do.
He looks round at the six still-living sons of Septimus Day, and in their widened, white eyes sees fear, and something else besides, something he is reluctant to name.
“Sonny is going to be with us every day from now on,” Mungo tells Perch. “He’s turned over a new leaf.”
“I... I see, sir. Yes.”
“I personally will make sure that he gets up in good time and is prompt for breakfast. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Very good. Well, Perch?” Mungo attempts to instil the words with his usual authority, but it sounds like a child’s gruff imitation of a grown-up. “Our snack?”
Perch takes one last look around the table, then closes his eyes very slowly and, equally slowly, nods.
“Of course, sir,” he says. “Sandwiches for seven, coming up.”
Acknowledgements
Adam Brockbank was involved with Days since its inception, and helped shape a handful of amorphous concepts into a plot, suggested ideas, proposed different (and invariably better) ways of doing things, and throughout the writing of the novel offered accurate, insightful comments and criticisms.
On the technical side of things, Lieutenant Hugh Holton of the Chicago Police Department initiated me into the mysteries of handgun use and arranged a memorable and eye-opening tour of his precinct station. Ian Hillier, meanwhile, was kind enough to give me a few pointers on how to go about constructing a homemade deflagrating device. Viva the Kew Liberation Front!
Peter Crowther has been a constant source of support and reassurance, always ready to give me a metaphorical clip round the ear whenever I’ve started whingeing but also always ready to cheer me up whenever I’ve really needed it.
Simon Spanton found the book a good home at Orion, and his incisive editing, far from inflicting a death of a thousand cuts, proved to be fat-reducing surgery of the highest order.
John Kunzler and Lesley Plant I have to thank for countless Sunday suppers and Sega sessions. I am equally grateful to the boys at Flying Pig Systems Ltd. for many things, the least of which is calling their company Flying Pig Systems Ltd.
Finally, Susan Gleason took on the unenviable role of being the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, or, as it’s technically known, “literary agent”. It is a task she has performed with grace, dedication and a necessary measure of good humour.
These are the people without whom, etc. etc.
James Lovegrove
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Days Page 38