‘I’m here for the party,’ said Ryan.
‘He means the feast,’ said Jonathan.
‘Oh.’ The girl seemed surprised. ‘Aren’t you a little on the skinny side?’
Jonathan lowered his head and pushed past her, dragging Ryan behind. ‘Ignore her,’ he muttered. ‘She’s always going on at me. Do you have pets?’
‘Uh, no,’ he said. ‘But my granddad has a begonia.’
‘A begonia isn’t a pet.’
‘You haven’t met this one.’
Jonathan angled off the path, ducking through a gap in the shrubbery. Ryan trailed after him, elbowing his way through the bushes to emerge in a clearing on the other side. Between two flower beds was a raised patch of grass, bowed up in the centre like a hump back bridge.
Ryan looked around for a hutch. ‘So what have you got? Rabbits? Guinea pigs?’
‘Something much better. Doctor Never brought it back from one of his expeditions.’
Ryan stopped himself from making a lame dad joke about him being Doctor No’s cousin.
‘When it first arrived in the garden, it could fit in his hand. But that was a long time ago. Even then it was vo-ra-cious. That means it had a big appetite. Doctor Never tried to get rid of it, but it was too late.’
‘Eat too many carrots, did it?’ Pets were expensive. Ryan had never been allowed one for that very reason.
‘At first, he tried to make it leave, but that didn’t work. It only made it sad. So he carried on feeding it, to keep it happy. It likes me, I think because I’m the one who brings it food.’
Ryan had about had enough of the boy’s weird and also rather dull pet story. He wasn’t here to look at fluffy animals; he had a job to do. ‘Listen, Jonathan. I need your help. This is serious.’
The boy paused and looked up at him expectantly.
‘I’m searching for a key,’ Ryan said. ‘A very special one. It might be made of gold, or it might look like a regular, y’know, key. Someone hid it in your garden, and it’s very important that I find it. Quickly. So, if you have any idea –’
Jonathan nodded. ‘I know exactly where it is.’
Well, that was a stroke of luck! The Doctor would be impressed when Ryan produced the second key in less time than it’d take to travel from one end of the universe to the other in a TARDIS. ‘That’s great. Good lad. I mean, good for you. So, show me.’
Jonathan swept back a flowering branch that had fallen over what Ryan now saw was a short flight of worn steps that led down into the grassy hump. The two of them descended, Jonathan’s shoes making a hollow clicking sound on the stone steps.
At the bottom of the stairs, there was just enough daylight to make out a small space with a soil floor and a low, arched ceiling fashioned from corrugated iron. A wooden bench sat against one wall.
‘It’s called an Anderson shelter,’ explained Jonathan. ‘It’s an old air-raid shelter from the war. Lots of bombs were dropped on London during the Blitz, and the people who lived here used to hide in this shelter during the raids. Never Square was hit four times.’
‘I’m surprised it’s still here.’ Ryan tried to picture a family huddled in the shelter, taking refuge from Nazi bombs.
‘That’s because not all the bombs went off. They found one of them a few years ago, buried in a flower bed. UXB. It stands for unexploded bomb. Can you imagine something so deadly lurking just under your feet all that time?’ Then the boy gave a small chuckle.
Ryan looked around. At some point since the war the shelter had been turned into a garden shed and a dumping ground. Broken flowerpots lay strewn across the soil floor, and a rusting rake and a handful of other tools were propped against one wall. A colony of insects had taken up residence in a pair of worn gardening gloves. On the floor next to the gloves sat a surprisingly new LED lamp designed to look like an old-fashioned storm lantern. Unlike the rest of the dust-laden objects in here, it looked as if it had been in use recently.
‘So where’s my key, Jonathan?’
‘It’s close,’ he said, clicking on the lamp. It spread a cool, blue light into the corners of the shelter, illuminating a section low down in the back wall that appeared to be a hatch. It was held loosely in place by a handful of screws. Jonathan unscrewed them, and removed the hatch.
Ryan was immediately hit by a waft of stale air mixed with something more pungent. The sharp stink of fox or some other wild animal, perhaps.
Jonathan raised the lantern and, on hands and knees, scrambled through the gap beneath the hatch.
Ryan watched the light fade into the darkness beyond. This would certainly make a good hiding place for a legendary key.
‘Well, come on,’ urged Jonathan. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Ryan squeezed through the hatch, and was surprised to find himself in a tunnel made of compacted earth, with a roof high enough that he was able to stand up. The tunnel appeared to slope gently downwards. Jonathan’s swinging lantern was already several metres ahead, lighting the gloom, and Ryan hurried to catch up.
‘So what’s the tunnel for?’ he asked the boy. ‘Was it built as part of the air-raid shelter?’
‘No, silly,’ said Jonathan with a breathy giggle. ‘I told you.’
By the lantern light, Ryan noticed that Jonathan’s shirt was flecked with mud where he’d brushed up against the soil. So was his face. Streaks of mud decorated his cheeks and forehead like a tiger’s stripes. The marks were too deliberate – the boy must have applied them to himself.
‘What are you talking about?’ Away from the warmth of the summer’s day outside, Ryan suddenly felt cold. ‘What did you tell me?’
‘That we needed two guests for the feast, but only one showed up.’
From somewhere along the tunnel came a scuttling that shook the walls. Loosened by the vibration, beads of mud dribbled down the sides. Ryan felt a prickling at the nape of his neck. ‘What was that?’
With a grin, Jonathan raised the lantern. At the very limit of its illumination, Ryan glimpsed something in the tunnel. Something monstrous.
‘Father will be pleased.’
Yaz was stuck in her own head, but she was supposed to be in the TARDIS’s. This wasn’t like previous occasions, such as when she couldn’t escape her anxiety about a forthcoming exam or shake off a persistent song lyric. No. This time, she was literally stuck. In her head.
The Doctor had sent her to dredge up the co-ordinates of the third key from the TARDIS’s circuits, but so far all she’d accomplished was a reunion with her best friend from school. They’d been following the directions in her homework book, when Aisha had vanished like a dream in the morning, leaving Yaz alone in some kind of limbo. Where before she had been surrounded by artefacts of her own history, thoughts and moments endlessly replayed in her mind, now she was engulfed in darkness. A non-place. She hung in the void like an untethered astronaut in space. At least she was no longer twelve years old – once was quite enough.
She cupped a hand to her mouth and called out, ‘Doctor! Can you hear me?’
No reply, except for the faint echo of her own voice.
How was she going to get back to the TARDIS now? If she was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz she could have clicked her heels together three times. She glanced down. Clicking was trickier in trainers. As she stared at her shoes, a round, glowing disc formed beneath her feet, the universe tilted and she tumbled away, landing a moment later with a thud on the bare floor of a brightly lit corridor.
It was the TARDIS. She’d made it.
The walls curved up and around her, their smooth silver surface interrupted at regular intervals by glowing rounds like the one she’d glimpsed a second ago. Or was it an hour ago? The passage of time was tricky to measure. The silent corridor stretched out before her, the repeating pattern on the wall vanishing into the distance. She looked over her shoulder. It was the same in that direction.
S
eeing no other option, she began to walk. Somewhere in here was the information she needed. But where? After a while, she began to wonder if the straightness of the corridor was an illusion and in fact she was going round in – her eye caught the pattern once more – circles.
She decided to test her theory. Her plan was simple: scratch a mark into one of the discs, then keep walking. If she encountered the mark again, she’d know the true nature of the corridor. All she needed was something to make a mark with. Unlike the Doctor, she didn’t carry a handy sonic screwdriver. She used to keep a spare key to her flat and a couple of bank cards in her wallet, but she’d stopped taking the wallet out with her since almost losing it on a Martian moon base in the year 3049. That would’ve been a tough call to the bank’s helpline.
With low expectations, she delved into her pockets, and was surprised when her fingers clutched something cold and hard.
It was a small silver key. The one that opened her flat’s front door.
She had no recollection of putting it in her pocket. All the talk of keys must have affected her, and this must be another of those imaginary constructs the Doctor had warned her about. No matter. It would do. If she was trapped in some diabolical mind-maze, this would prove it. She pressed the point of the key to a disc on the wall.
‘Won’t work,’ said a voice.
Yaz jumped, startled. She looked round to see a boy, around nine years old, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. She squinted at him in disbelief.
‘Ryan?’
Graham helped himself to another mini mushroom Wellington and observed the partygoers with quiet satisfaction. Men in grey suits and women in summer dresses enjoyed drinks on the lawn, their polite burble of conversation accompanied by the tinkle of cut-crystal glasses and the pop of champagne corks. Honeyed music played by a string quartet swooned over the garden, while waiters glided among the guests, offering up silver trays laden with canapés. As the evening light faded, two waiters set flaming wooden torches into the ground, filling the garden with flickering light.
So far, so good. Graham’s ruse had worked, and he’d made it inside. At first, he’d gone back for Ryan, but couldn’t find him so decided to press on with the mission. The boy was resourceful – he’d probably made it into the garden already. Graham was sure they’d be reunited very soon.
He looked around at the assembled guests, and congratulated himself on his deception. It was brilliantly simple, really. Half of the houses round the square were empty, their international owners rarely there to occupy them. They were investments, not places to live. He’d found one such house, identified by the mailbox overflowing with unopened mail, made a note of the name and pretended to be a cousin. He’d convinced the host of the party, Mr Delgado, with surprising ease. Delgado struck him as an agreeable man, not keen to cause a scene at the residents’ summer bash by turning away an uninvited guest.
There was just one minor drawback to Graham’s ploy. The name on the mailbox had been Ivanov, which meant he’d had to adopt a Russian persona. He’d put on an accent and felt fairly confident that he sounded Russian, but there was a chance he was coming across as Welsh.
He polished off another canapé and took a tiny sip of champagne. He needed to keep a clear head if he was going to track down the second key. He knew it was close, but where exactly?
He scanned the garden and the guests. Most were chatting, while a few listened to the music. A couple of the men had discarded their jackets, rolled up their sleeves and, by the light of the torches, were using a hammer to bang a wooden post into the lawn between the three heaped mounds of earth. The other guests ignored the report of hammer strikes. Briefly, Graham wondered if it was some kind of maypole that they would dance round later. Or perhaps it was part of a very big croquet set.
A statue in the far corner of the garden caught his eye, and he forgot all about the men with the hammer. He drew closer. The stone figure looked like a typical Edwardian worthy, but there was something about the way he held out his hands that didn’t make sense. They grasped thin air. As if something was missing from their grip.
‘Ah, there you are, Mr Asimov!’ Delgado’s voice hailed him from across the lawn.
Graham turned to see him approaching, accompanied by another guest. Like the rest of the male guests, the men wore sober suits and the residents’-association tie. Delgado sported a beard and moustache as neatly trimmed as one of his prize hedges, while the other man was bald as an egg. Delgado gestured towards the statue. ‘I see you’ve discovered our founder, Doctor Never.’
‘Da, da,’ said Graham, using the only Russian word he knew. ‘Was he ze even more evil cousin of Doctor No?’ He attempted a deep chortle, and was answered by blank looks from the two men. He cleared his throat and raised his champagne flute for another sip.
‘The good doctor was a plant collector,’ Delgado said, his eyes fixed on the statue. ‘Went all over the world bringing back rare and exotic species. Sometimes not just the flora, but the fauna too. Over the years, he returned from his travels with many strange and wonderful beasts. You’d be amazed at what kind of creatures still exist in the so-called modern world.’
Graham paid little attention to Delgado; he had more important things on his mind. ‘It seems as if ze statue should be holding something. Do you know vot?’
‘Well spotted,’ said Delgado. ‘Yes, it was a key.’
The second key. It had to be! Graham tried not to show his excitement. ‘And vot became of zis key?’
Delgado made a face. ‘No idea, old chap. There are photographs in the archives that show it as part of the statue, but at some point over the years it went missing. Why the interest?’
Graham thought desperately for a sensible answer. ‘I am a collector too…of keys. Da. Anything with keys.’ What was he saying? ‘Keys, keyboards…’ Shut up now, Graham. ‘Monkeys.’ He smiled awkwardly, and drained the rest of his champagne.
Delgado exchanged a puzzled look with the bald man. Then, as if he had just remembered why he was there, he introduced the bald man. ‘Mr Asimov, may I present a compatriot of yours. This is Professor Tarkovsky.’
Graham almost spat out his champagne. This was bad. He could just about fool another Brit with his dodgy accent, but there was no way he’d get away with it in front of an actual Russian person. He was just wondering how to dig himself out this hole when Delgado added, ‘He is also Mr Ivanov’s real cousin.’
Caught red-handed, Graham braced himself for the inevitable accusations, perhaps even the threat of the police, certainly the immediate prospect of being kicked out of the garden. But Delgado was interrupted by another guest whispering in his ear. He smiled and turned to Graham. ‘It seems we’re ready for you.’
Before Graham could ask what was going on, he felt hands grip him and pin his arms to his sides. Protesting, he was half carried through the crowd, the guests parting to create a corridor of leering faces at the end of which loomed the wooden post. Since he’d last looked, the post had gained a heavy chain and manacles. Delgado signalled to one of the men, who clamped the manacles to Graham’s ankle. He felt it bite.
‘Hey! Get it off me! What is this? You’re all crazy!’ His objections went ignored. Whatever was going on, everyone here was in on it. He raised his voice to shout for help, hoping to be heard on the street beyond the garden, but the string quartet played louder to drown him out. He noticed that the musicians had changed their tune. In place of genteel chamber music, they now played something altogether less harmonious. The violins screeched like the cry of some injured animal, and Graham found himself panting quickly in time to the terrible, primal rhythm.
Mr Delgado collected a handful of loose soil from one of the nearby mounds and, using a finger, streaked his own cheeks and forehead. As Graham looked around, he saw the other guests doing the same.
Delgado turned his back on Graham and threw up his arms. Instantly the music faded to a backgrou
nd murmur, and he began to address the other residents. Graham could have shouted for help now, but he was transfixed by Delgado’s words.
‘We are gathered here today to give thanks to the One That Lurks,’ he began.
‘The One That Lurks,’ echoed the guests.
What was he on about? Graham wanted to believe he was the subject of a cruel prank, but something about Delgado’s tone made him suspect otherwise. A few clumps of earth trickled down the side of the nearest mound of soil.
‘For more than a hundred years, the residents of Never Square have lived side by side with our neighbour, in peace and harmony. We enjoy these splendid houses, this beautiful garden, affordable council tax, convenient residents’ parking, and the wonderful amenities of the borough. All our neighbour asks in return is our annual gift. Tonight, we give it. But, first, in accordance with the time-honoured ritual, let us recite the sacred by-laws.’ He drew breath and intoned, ‘The garden is reserved for the exclusive use of rate-paying owners.’
The residents repeated the line.
‘Children under ten must be accompanied by an adult.’
They repeated that too.
Delgado continued to list more rules, and the residents echoed each one back to him. ‘No football at any time. Dogs shall not be allowed on weekends. Barbecues must only be lit in designated areas. The flesh of two men must be offered up for the annual feast.’
Graham snapped bolt upright. ‘Beg your pardon?’
It appeared that he’d fallen into the clutches of some weird cannibal cult. In Kensington.
‘Bring the additional tribute,’ Delgado commanded, and one of the guests stepped forward. For some inexplicable reason, she was holding a shiny chrome espresso maker. She thrust it into Graham’s hands. What the – ? Was he about to be sacrificed to a demonic barista?
Delgado turned slowly to face him again. ‘Neighbour, we consign the flesh of this man to you so that you may sleep with a full belly for another year, and we –’
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