by Paul Magrs
There’s ten yards between us, but his mellifluous voice reaches us easily. He’s used to speaking in the public lecture halls near here in Spitalfields. How beautifully modulated his voice is. You could almost believe every word he says. He smiles at us ingratiatingly. Henry and I stare at him, frozen.
‘Is this really necessary?’ Freer says. ‘All of this subterfuge? This ridiculous gadding about?’ There is something whining about his voice. There is a febrile cast to his eye. I realise I was right. Alucard killing Edith right before his eyes: it’s driven Freer completely off his rocker. He gabbles on: ‘Why don’t I just give you the address of where I’m going and you could come along later on, rather than following me about like spies, hm? I mean, what do you hope to achieve?’
To my surprise Henry thrusts himself forward and covers the distance quite efficiently. Suddenly he’s marched all the way up to Freer and he’s bopped him one right on the nose. ‘I used to box at school,’ he tells me, quite cheerfully. ‘Rather satisfying, really. Cuts through all this fellow’s verbiage.’ Then he hits him again, smartly, round the chops and Freer goes down easily. Henry sighs in a businesslike fashion and bends to pick up the carpet bag. He checks inside and there, presumably, is what we are chasing after. ‘This is only about fifty pages of Reg’s book,’ he says gruffly, leaning over the groaning Freer. ‘Where is the rest, hm?’
Freer is rolling about on the dirty cobbles, clutching his face. No action man, he. I’m a bit disappointed by that. I expected more of a barney.
‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ Freer says harshly. ‘You . . . shouldn’t . . . you’ll pay for this . . .’
‘Yes, yes,’ says Henry, passing me the scroll of fifty pages. I stow them away inside my good winter coat. Henry grabs our twisting enemy by the scruff of his neck. ‘I want you to lead us to your master. Alucard, or whoever it is you are both working for. I want you to take us there at once. And we are not leaving until all of Reg’s work has been returned to our safe-keeping.’
Still Freer is writhing and moaning abjectly. ‘You don’t know what you’re dabbling with! There are dark forces at work here. Things you can’t possibly understand . . .’
‘Hm,’ says Henry. ‘Possibly you’re not listening to me.’ He boxes Freer’s ears, hard, in order to wake him out of his delirium. ‘I feel like a guilty fool because of you, Freer. I petitioned my friends to let you join the Smudgelings, much against Tyler’s advice. He said you were a shabby little satanist, in with a bad lot. And he was right, wasn’t he? Now, I want to make amends. You’re going to do precisely what I tell you to do.’
Now, as far as I’m concerned, this is all going rather well. I think Henry’s getting on with things somewhat impressively. He’s certainly surprised me with his strong-arm tactics. I never expected the venerable linguist to start slapping our foe about like that.
It’s all going so well, in fact, that I have stupidly let my own guard drop. So entertained have I been by Henry’s technique, I’ve stopped keeping an eye out. And that’s when the gang of Chinese get us. Oh, I could kick myself. We’ve been grabbed by the tongs.
They come hurtling – a whole bunch of them, pigtailed, in satin pyjamas – screaming into the alley and overtaking us with arms and legs whirling about. Doing all their martial arts stuff. Of course we don’t stand a chance, Henry and I. I do my best, swinging my deadly, heavy limbs about. I catch one or two of them and give them a hefty walloping. But they are so nimble! So small and agile! In seconds they’ve got Henry down on the slimy ground, and he’s bellowing in protest.
I go very cold. We could be dead. They are ruthless, the likes of this lot. If they wanted they could have cut our throats already by now. The cobbles could be running with our frantic blood. But we have been spared. The gang’s objective is obviously to rescue William Freer. He gives himself into their care and they carry him off swiftly and expertly and as I lie there, in the murky gloom, stinging with the nasty blows I’ve received, I’m irresistibly reminded of the spectacle of a colony of ants carrying off the recumbent form of a caterpillar. Back to their anthill, wherever that might be. Now they are gone. We have lost them.
I drag myself groaning over to Henry, who is livid and purple in the face.
‘I still have the manuscript!’ I tell him, grinning crazily. ‘Our Asiatic friends didn’t realise we had snatched it back.’
Henry sits up, looking mightily perplexed. ‘Chinese involved. Vicious tongs. Very bad news, that.’
I nod at this and can only agree. In that moment I become aware of the mournful hooting and honking of boats on the Thames, somewhere near, beyond these dirty buildings. And I am aware of that great dense body of water and the seamy mists rising off it to obscure the night.
In a moment of madness Henry signs us in as Dr and Mrs Von Thal. So! I think. He’s not averse to subterfuge. The lie comes so easily to his lips.
All we’ve come here for is to stop for the night and lick our wounds. Gather our resources and be ready to strike out in the hours before dawn. But we need to marshal our strength and plan our next moves. That is essential, we both agree. So . . . the next thing is, we’re standing in the small but classy lobby of a discreet hotel not too far from the docks. The kind of place you wouldn’t even suspect existed, unless you had someone like Henry with you. Someone who must have used it before.
I’m standing behind him thinking, we don’t have any luggage. Oh, how must that look? And he bends to fill in our details, the gas lamp making his bald head shine. The hotelier seems not to give a jot. He produces keys for our room at the top of the building with a small, smart flourish and tells us breakfast is at seven. Henry turns to smile at me and I feel as if we are complicit in carrying out some dreadful misdemeanour. Dr and Mrs Von Thal, indeed. I wonder if I should fake an accent, just to make my alias complete? But instead I keep schtum as we navigate the twisting staircases.
I examine the room busily, trying not to look Cleavis in the eye. My aches and bruises are forgotten now as I turn back the covers on the large bed, and pull the cabbage rose curtains on the night. I’m blushing, I know I am.
Henry sits heavily in the tatty armchair in the corner and removes his shoes laboriously. He seems quite at home here, I realise. He’s brought women here before, I think. Tarts. That’s what he does. He lives the respectable life in Cambridge. The chaste, devout don in his bachelor’s faded rooms. And then he comes here, to the wicked capital, and lives an occasional secret life in the underworld.
I sit on the very edge of the bed. What have I gone and got myself into? I’m in a room with this man. He’s harmless-looking and he’s kind. But what am I doing here? And how do I get myself into these things?
‘I’m so sorry about all of this,’ Henry Cleavis says at last. ‘I am sorry to involve you in all this danger.’
He looks so concerned, bless him! I shrug heavily and the mattress jingle-jangles beneath me. ‘I’m quite used to danger, Henry. My life so far has been a rather complicated one.’
‘You’re no ordinary housemaid, are you?’
I shake my head sadly. I watch him stand and take off his tweed jacket and waistcoat. He hangs them in the empty wardrobe. The empty wardrobes in places like this make me sad for some reason. Henry seems quite used to all of this, though. The bleakness of the place.
‘I think we had better try to rest,’ I say. ‘Fix up our grazes and wounds, and then rest for a while.’
He comes to sit by me. He reaches over and pats my hand. ‘You could have protested at any moment,’ he says.
‘About coming to London?’
‘About coming to this room. Most girls would have been shocked at my suggestion. What we have done, using aliases to stay here, is quite shocking, you know.’
Girls! I laugh. I’m hardly a girl. ‘I don’t subscribe to the same ideas as most people,’ I yawn, ‘about what is shocking. This is just expedience, isn’t it? We need to hide away and rest, and plot our next move.’
‘You are a remarkable person, Brenda.’ Now he’s got a funny look in his eye. I have seen this sort of thing before. Perhaps I should nip it in the bud. ‘No common housemaid, you.’
‘That’s very true,’ I say.
And then he kisses me, very lightly, on the lips. It’s such a hesitant, careful thing that it takes my breath away. I am used to fellers being quite gung-ho and so scared of rejection that they sort of flatten you against the wall when they first kiss you. They squash and prod you to prevent you from escaping. But Henry’s kiss is an exploratory, fluttering thing: it comes with a question mark attached. He sits back and I blink, feeling his kiss scorching my lips. His gentleness has shocked me in a way that a swift, rapacious attack wouldn’t have done. And the next thing – to my instant shame – is that I burst into loud, jagged tears.
Henry looks appalled. He leaps up. He flaps his arms. He doesn’t know whether to embrace me and coddle me, or to run away to safety under the torrential onslaught of my tears. I’m bawling like the baby I never was. He sits and he reaches out tentatively to hold me and I fall helplessly on to him. I just about crush the life out of him, the poor devil.
‘My dear . . . whatever is the matter?’
‘Y-you’re being so kind to m-me . . .’ Oh, I sound pathetic. The whole hotel and all its seedy inhabitants, including the wry maître d’ at the desk, will hear my shenanigans and think me crazy. I’m a lunatic whore that Henry’s been unlucky enough to pick up and this thought makes me howl even harder. He pats and rubs my back and he even says ‘There, there’ until the violence of my breakdown subsides.
‘I’m so embarrassed,’ I tell him. The handkerchief he’s given me is sopping.
‘Don’t be. You’re a sensitive woman. I am mortified to have upset you like this. To have, um, insulted you. Your reputation. To have compromised you by bringing you here.’
And just then I want him to kiss me again. I’d like him to take me and hold me in his arms properly this time. I feel this sudden, giddy rush of excitement that I’ve never known in years and I realise that I want him to get me into this bed and have his wicked way with me. A new light must have come into my eyes because Henry is looking at me strangely. And, at once, he backs off.
‘I will sleep in the chair,’ he stammers. ‘If you’ll let me have one of the, um. Yes, blankets.’
I don’t suppose all those tears and all that mucus are great aphrodisiacs.
Henry props himself in the faded armchair and I flop out, fully clothed, in the bed, which jangles horribly. So it’s just as well, perhaps, that nothing has gone on between us. The lamps are turned down. We wait there in the semi-darkness for sleep to come. But with the street noise and the river noises comes the awareness that the whole of London is out there, with its dangers and its scheming enemies and all that life. It’s quite hard for us to relax. And there’s a tension in here, too, between us now. I want him to kiss me again, I realise. This time there would be no shock. I would feel no shame. I would relax into that surprising gentleness of his. I would have a suitable reply to that unspoken question.
So I drift off, into troubled dreams. Troubled, because I know that if I take this thing any further with Henry Cleavis, then there will be certain things I will have to explain to him. He will need to understand that I am not like any other woman he might have experience of. He would need to be warned.
And my dreams bring me face to face with my father. His long, handsome, lunatic face. Telling me that I am to remain loyal only to my husband. That the only reason I exist is to complement my husband, who was my father’s first creation. I was invented so as to be the perfect partner for him. I am the perfect embodiment of that man’s desires. My father knew my husband so well – inside out – that he could make that man’s dreams into flesh. No one else will ever love you so well, I was told. No one else will ever love you at all.
But it never worked out, did it? I can see my husband in my mind again now. Handsome, too, in his own way. But he was never allowed anywhere near me. He never even held my hand before everything went to the bad.
See how easily these memories come out to disturb me? Memories over a hundred years old? That was a different world we were in. I have learned to live by myself on the earth since then. And I have proved my father wrong. I have known love outside our tight family unit. I have learned to love people – and they have loved me. I am sure they have.
I toss and turn on the rowdy mattress. I’m not even sure if I have slept, or whether I am turning these things over consciously as I lie in the semi-dark.
And then that voice comes to me again: the ancient, quavering, disembodied voice that I heard on the train tonight. It is stronger, reverberating inside my muddled skull. We are closer to its source and it is crying out for me: ‘Brenda! Come to me! It is destined that we should meet!’
Which is all very peculiar. And troubling. I can see I’m never going to get any proper rest tonight. I lie there and try to keep the memories, the nightmares and the mysterious voices at bay.
After a while I glance at the illuminated face of the clock and it’s past three o’clock. So I must have slept. I sit up slowly and glance across at Henry, who looks so bundled up and uncomfortable on that chair. I should have insisted he slept in the bed with me. It’s ridiculous, all these qualms and silly morals. He’ll be one huge mass of aches and pains tomorrow. I should have taken the matter in hand. I should have dragged him into bed and told him what was what. I tut and shake my head at myself. Easy to be so confident and sure after the event.
I need a sip of water. There’s only the water jug on the stand by the window. Just a mouthful. Just to wet my whistle. My dreams have left me parched. I get up, swaying, heavy-limbed, throbbing-headed. I lumber to the stand and take up a handful of freezing water. Actually, the whole room is much too cold. I’d protest about that, if I were Henry. A sharp, nasty frost has come over the city and I can see it hanging there, crystallised on the air. Glittering down there in the darkened streets. There is a film of cobwebby ice on the window pane and I reach out to chip at it, to scrape it with my nail.
Alucard is standing out there.
His face is level with my own as he hovers in the empty air. He grins at me and exposes those ludicrous canines and I lurch backwards and send the nightstand crashing to the bare boards. The jug and basin smash and I’m covered in frozen water. And I can still see Alucard there, standing easy as you like in the darkness, taunting me and laughing fit to burst.
Henry has come awake with a great yell and hurtles over to join me.
‘Brenda! What—’
And he stops because Alucard has turned away in a swirl of frozen mist and I know Henry has caught a faint, chilling glimpse of his cloak and his dainty little feet as he streaks off into the night.
It’s dawn and we’re checking out of the discreet hotel. The sardonic-looking man is still behind the desk, and he looks me up and down. Does the man never sleep?
I feel rumpled and awkward. I feel as if there’s a wall of silence between Henry and me and I don’t know what to do about it. All we can do is focus on the task in hand.
Soon, we’re sitting in a poky café he seems to know well. We’re spooning sugar into huge mugs of thick tea and he’s saying we should both order fried breakfasts, in order to put a lining on our stomachs, which is a disgusting phrase, but I know what he means. This morning it is bitterly cold. We walked a little way along the riverside and it really looked as if it was frozen over completely. The clothes I’ve come away in feel completely inadequate for the weather and, if I’m honest, I’m starting to regret this whole escapade. Danger and adventure I don’t mind. Bitter cold, embarrassment and yesterday’s clothes are another matter.
As we slurp our sweet, dark orange tea, Henry is turning through the pages of the chunk of Tyler manuscript we rescued last night. He squints at his friend’s scratchy hieroglyphs and, to my surprise, invites me to scrutinise the pages too. ‘What are we looking for?’ I’m pleased
that he’s asked me: a lowly housemaid looking for clues in the text. He’s the expert, surely?
‘I’m not sure.’ Henry sighs. ‘But there has to be something here. Something of value. Something that makes this book Henry’s been writing more than just a novel . . .’
I frown at the runic figures and only gradually do they become legible as English script. ‘If Freer was going to such lengths to fetch these pages, in smuggled sheaves like this . . . and if they were worth having Edith Tyler murdered for . . .’
‘Oh, good God,’ says Henry, looking up at me. ‘I’d managed to put that out of my mind. What are we going to tell Reg? Should we go back now and tell him?’
‘No,’ I say decisively. ‘That’s for the police. The poor man doesn’t want us gallumphing in and telling him about all sorts of lurid stuff. We need to get on with things at this end. We have to find his book.’
Henry nods, looking stricken. ‘I didn’t know Edith well, but she seemed a decent sort. She was his nurse, you know. Years ago. When he started writing this thing . . . in Whitby . . .’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I know all of that.’
‘Freer was risking everything to get the book to Alucard . . .’ Henry shivers here. ‘And Alucard tells us he is working, in turn, for another.’ Henry waves to the waitress – a churlish-looking slattern who tuts at him and heads our way. ‘We were attacked last night by Chinese men. That suggests only one thing to me.’
The waitress is poised above us with her grease-stained order book. ‘Yes?’
‘Two full English,’ Henry tells her, smiling broadly at me. He makes the act of ordering breakfast seem like some sort of patriotic thing. The waitress tuts once more and slops away in her dirty mules.
I lower my voice so no one else will hear: ‘What does our being attacked by Chinese men suggest?’