by Nick Baker
Assured of his bearings, Frankl pushed on for Saffron Hill, implausibly named because of the herb that had once grown on the riverbanks of the lost river. The place was now nothing more than a featureless alley lined by tall, imponderable buildings. His vision settled on a fashionable inn. The faint sound of laughter issuing from beyond bolted doors and shuttered windows suggested it was still busy, even at this hour. The sorry looking building next door was Frankl’s destination, and in stark contrast to the inn, its windows were boarded and defaced, yet he still felt a thrill of expectation as he withdrew a key and placed it in the lock. It had been over ten years since he had last visited this place, and as he stepped over the threshold, he paused for a moment to listen. All was silent bar the faint scurrying of mice, and after shutting the door, he strode along the hallway and entered a bare room save for a generator sitting precariously on rotting floorboards. Despite the contraption’s shabby appearance, it was well lubricated and fuelled thanks to the recent attention of a lackey Frankl had dispatched to service it. The machine was simple in its construction, consisting of an internal combustion engine powered to rotate a set of coils inside a magnetic field that would generate sufficient electricity for the property’s meagre needs. As one of the Order’s safe houses, Pearly had always taken the utmost care to avoid prying eyes, even from the likes of the electricity board.
The floorboards creaked as Frankl tiptoed gingerly into the room. He leant on the generator’s crank handle, and the engine powered up. With a nonchalant flick of a wall switch, the light bulb dangling precariously from the ceiling spluttered pathetically into life, bathing the room in a wavering glow of artificial light. Once the machine was up and running, he vacated the room, closing the door behind him to muffle the sound of the engine’s gentle chugging.
He hurried along the passage to a door nestled below a rickety set of stairs that looked as if they would collapse at the first sign of trouble. He stooped to pass through a low entryway onto a flight of steps that led down to a dark, musty cellar. He was approaching a subterranean room Pearly had always referred to as ‘the vault’, and judging by the dank, still air, it was likely that no one had visited the room in years.
Pearly had purchased the property at the height of the Order’s pomp fifteen years earlier via a string of intermediaries to conceal its true ownership. It had quickly become one of his favourite haunts, largely because of where it was and what it led to. Like the surrounding district, the building had a rather surprising past, and with Pearly’s research so intimately intertwined with the past, it was inevitable that, from time to time, he managed to unearth fascinating historical discoveries like the hidden gem on Saffron Hill.
During the nineteenth century, the house had belonged to the Metropolitan Board of Works as accommodation for itinerant workers brought to the capital to deal with the increasing problem of the city’s sewage, which had always drained as untreated effluent into local cesspits and thence the Thames. With the inexorable growth of the city, disease inevitably flourished, including several outbreaks of cholera and the resultant loss of life. The final outrage was the ‘Great Stink’ of 1858, when, due to a combination of untreated sewage and the unprecedented heat of the summer, the House of Commons was forced to make a rapid U-turn by reinstituting a sewage policy previously devised by Joseph Bazalgette, Chief Engineer to the Metropolitan Commission for Sewers. Soon after, intercepting sewers were built to the north and south of the Thames to divert waste to pumping stations in the east at Beckton and Crossness.
The house on Saffron Hill was a doss house for a crew of labourers partly responsible for the three hundred million bricks or so that were laid in seven years during the construction of the monstrous underground wonder. The property was purchased on behalf of the Order after Pearly had discovered a portal in the cellar leading to the subterranean course of the long-buried Fleet where the navvies had once moved silently from bed to work and back again, never seeing the light of day for weeks on end.
Pearly quickly developed a fascination for the rivers, culverts, conduits, channels, spillways, tunnels, drains and sewers that formed an endless maze of interconnecting passages beneath the city. With unhindered access to an underground lost world, Lex was the most to benefit from the silent and near invisible mode of travel the tunnels allowed, and he soon began to pass undetected into some of the most secure areas of the city, well beyond the scrutiny of Internal Security, thus propelling his status amongst his fellow criminals to that of a god-like phantom. Access to the hundreds of miles of underground sewers also led to the discovery of Pearly’s most favoured meeting place, and the destination to which Frankl was presently heading.
Wren’s Cache was a storm relief drain that was part of Bazalgette’s Northern Outfall Sewer, designed to divert flow away from the Fleet on its journey from Hampstead to the Thames. At times of heavy rainfall, Wren’s Cache was at risk of flooding, inevitably increasing Frankl’s unease following the rain that had fallen during the past twenty-four hours.
Frankl hesitated at the top of the stairs and looked nervously at his watch. He was due to meet with his compatriots in less than an hour and envisaged the effect it would have on them by holding the meeting in Wren’s Cache. With the electrifying information he was about to reveal, he could not cancel now. Pearly had always held his meetings in the most dangerous surroundings for the loyalty and unity they instilled, and he would not renege on a principle that his former boss had laid down when the Order was first established.
Wren’s Cache was a name guaranteed to instil fear in anyone with links to the Order after the gruesome outcome of a meeting in which a cohort of Pearly’s thieves, inevitably led by Lex, were planning an audacious heist of the nation’s most beloved treasures from the National Gallery. Unfortunately, the meeting ended in unmitigated disaster due to the combination of a full moon, a spring tide and an unusually heavy rainfall for the month of June. Not long after the group’s arrival, Wren’s Cache was submerged in a deluge of floodwater, and although most of the men were flushed into the Thames below Blackfriars Bridge, they still had to swim from the swollen river and claw their way up the sheer walls of the embankment to make good their escape.
It was some time before anyone realised that Lex’s trusty lieutenant, Club Patterson—so named for his injudicious use of said weapon—had not been so lucky. Club’s body was never found and no one knew what had befallen him until a subsequent meeting held in Wren’s Cache when his sorry fate was laid bare for all to see. No one dared to mention the sight of Club’s infamous toupee dangling from a metal pipe high up on a wall for fear of upsetting Pearly, and for the rest of the meeting, the water-sodden wig remained where it lay as a grisly testimony to a fallen comrade.
Frankl dismissed these unnerving memories as he traipsed down the stairs into the vault. He could barely see more than a few paces in front of his feet in the dull light of the small windowless space, but after uttering a few words in his native tongue, an unnatural glow issued forth from his hands to reveal a heavy metal grille recessed in the stone floor. As he strained to lift the dead-weight, a sweat broke out on his brow, yet his unhealthy appearance belied a great physical strength, and all in a flash, the cover heaved open.
Frankl set off down a spiral stairway that led into a seemingly bottomless pit. After an uncomfortable descent with his perverted radiance highlighting the way, the steps finally gave out onto a small platform that led into a low tunnel and the distant, yet ever-growing, sound of flowing water. He clambered through the narrow passageway, and after a dozen strides, he emerged into a wider space that signalled his arrival at the Fleet Sewer.
He paused to stare in wonder at the circular walls that encased the Fleet. The river had once been clear and free-flowing but had slowly dwindled into a filthy trickle. The mills, abattoirs, and tanneries that had once prospered on the riverbanks had expelled their effluent into the river without cease, and as the increasingly populated city outgrew its cesspits, the Fleet had
gradually been transformed into an open sewer. Frankl peered circumspectly into a river whose name had become synonymous with squalor and degradation, and as he stared into the river’s inky depths, he imagined that he caught a glimpse of the city’s distant past. He shook his head; it was hardly a surprise that the Fleet had been bricked over and incarcerated, and much to his astonishment, he was left with a sense of melancholy at the corruption of the age-old river.
He shook himself free of his reverie and set off southwards along the path amidst a confusing maze of intertwining tunnels. At intervals, the red-bricked walls were interspersed with monumental floodgates and sluice channels, an ominous reminder of what lay on their other sides. The smell of filth was overpowering, forcing him to pull a neck scarf over his nose while treading carefully on the slimy path underfoot. At last, there was a sudden change in the colour of the wall from red to yellow brick, highlighting the tunnel he was searching for. He stopped and unfurled a fist to cast a glowing ball of heatless flame into the air; a signal to mark the way and a beacon to aid his return. The small circular tunnel that branched off the high-arched passage encasing the Fleet looked much the same as the others he had passed, but without hesitation, he left the towpath and disappeared through the entrance, stomping through the murky black effluent that spilled over his boots.
After a short march, the narrow tunnel opened into a vast, vaulted space that was oddly out of place after the claustrophobic passage. Frankl looked around with the same sense of wonder he always experienced whenever he entered Wren’s Cache. In the murky light, it was difficult to appreciate the high-arched ceiling that towered above a circular amphitheatre set around a central channel. He looked nervously towards a voluminous inlet pipe that protruded through the opposite wall, spilling water into the channel, and was delighted to note that the flow was little more than a trickle, suggesting that the excess rain of the past twenty-four hours had been diverted elsewhere.
He marched to the midpoint of the head-height conduit where metal ladders on opposing walls led to a semi-circular stone platform on one side and tiers of terraced steps on the other. He looked up towards a tangle of interconnecting pipes that ran along the wall beyond the steps. In the dim light, the pipes looked like a writhing mass of serpents, filling him with dread. Here, dangling on a large metal tap, poor Club’s toupee had once been found, ominously suggesting the height to which the water had risen on that fateful occasion.
He clambered up the ladder and scrambled onto the dais. He withdrew a handful of sturdy candles and placed them in a circle around him, lighting up the chamber with flickering candlelight that created an element of theatre just as Pearly would have liked. His work now done, Frankl sat down on the platform, closing his mind to the constant sound of running water while he waited apprehensively for his guests to arrive.
19
THE STONE OF MADNESS
Acta Neurochirurgica
DROPLETS OF SWEAT RAN down Henry Price’s brow as he stooped to retrieve a crucible from the furnace. He shied away from the blistering hot, noxious vapours that billowed from the shimmering surface of the molten alloy nestling in the bottom of the receptacle. He set the crucible down on the bench and leant over to inspect its contents, nodding appreciatively at the amalgam as it coalesced in the cool laboratory air. He stared transfixed at the solidifying metal and failed to hear Albright’s steps on the stairs as he descended into the smoky depths of the laboratory.
‘There’s a visitor for you, Professor. I believe you were expecting a Dr Asquith. He’s waiting for you in the sitting room,’ Albright announced.
Price stirred from his deliberation. ‘Thank you, Albright. Tell him I’ll join him shortly. I need to change out of these clothes. Perhaps you’d ask Mrs Brimstork to provide us with some refreshment?’
‘It’s already done, sir,’ replied Albright sombrely, who had turned and was on his way back up the stairs.
Ten minutes later, Price opened the double doors to the sitting room and joined Asquith, who was sitting by the fire staring pensively at the glowing coals.
‘Abram, welcome. Thank you for coming at short notice. I know how busy you are,’ said Price, startling the seated man, who was deep in thought.
Asquith was a respected member of the Royal Society by dint of his reputation as a distinguished neurological surgeon and had met Price on several occasions. He was a tall man and looked ungainly as he struggled out of a low chair to greet his host.
Price held out a hand. He baulked at the sight of Asquith’s spindly fingers despite the digits being entirely in proportion with the rest of the man’s wiry frame. His thin face was dominated by a bulbous nose that supported a pair of half-moon spectacles. The glasses were positioned so improbably on the end of his nose Price wondered how on earth they managed to stay there.
‘What can I do for you, Professor?’ said Asquith brusquely as the men shook hands.
‘I need your help with a medical matter,’ replied Price, who reached into his jacket and withdrew the typed post-mortem report on Black.
Asquith’s bony hand jerked out and took the papers like a praying mantis snatching its quarry. He unfurled the pages and raised his head, bringing the spectacles on the end of his nose to good use. ‘May I ask the source of this report?’ he asked after several minutes scrutinising the notes.
‘It was undertaken by a Home Office pathologist who, unfortunately, is no longer with us. I believe Dr Cantonus was a man with flawless credentials. He was a former president of the Royal College of Pathologists, no less.’
Asquith nodded. ‘An eminent fellow, indeed.’
‘I’m afraid that this is a rather delicate affair, and I must ask that the details of our conversation remain confidential, but I’d like your opinion on the mysterious object described in the report,’ said Price.
Asquith appeared taken aback but nodded perfunctorily. ‘Very well,’ he said, perusing the notes. After a few minutes, he set the papers down on the arm of the chair and looked inquisitively at Price, waiting for the inevitable interrogation.
‘What do you make of it, Abram?’
‘It’s certainly most intriguing, Henry. I’ve never encountered anything like it before. Could you tell me when the post-mortem was carried out? I think it may be important.’
‘About ten years ago,’ replied Price. ‘As you can see, these notes are incomplete and do not relate the cause of death. Black died as a result of other injuries, but we believe that an accomplice removed the object the report alludes to soon after death.’
‘Do you have any more information on what was removed?’
‘I’m afraid not. I was rather hoping you might be able to enlighten me.’
‘I see,’ replied Asquith noncommittally. He paused to digest what he had just read before he responded. ‘The first thing I would say is that the method of fixation used to stabilise the vertebral column may be significant.’
‘Go on,’ Price encouraged.
‘It appears that the initial procedure to access the brainstem was carried out by a surgeon with specialist skills. Exposure of this area is hazardous, and in the wrong hands, such an approach would almost certainly result in death or debility. Only a surgeon well-versed in neurosurgical technique would be capable of placing the implant. It’s a standard surgical approach to the area. I’m intrigued, however, by the method that was used to stabilise the vertebral column after the bone was removed.’
‘I’m not sure I follow,’ said Price.
‘The vertebral column is made up of twenty-four bones linked by strong ligaments extending from the base of the skull to the sacrum, yet its articulations allow the body to bend, flex and rotate, in fact, move in almost any direction without risk of damage to its contents. It provides vital protection along its length to the spinal cord, which is a delicate structure comprising of an intricate mass of sensory and motor nerve tissue.’
‘Yes, I understand all that,’ said Price impatiently. ‘What of the surgery, though?
’
‘Well, you can see from the post-mortem that bone was removed from the back of the upper two cervical vertebrae,’ said Asquith. He picked up the papers lying on the arm of the chair and passed them back to Price. ‘The pathologist refers to these vertebrae by their medical names—the atlas and axis—the two most specialised, and perhaps, important, of the vertebrae.’
‘What makes them so important?’
‘Damage to the spinal column at this site would inevitably result in death. Bone was removed to access the spinal cord and brainstem, but in doing so, it rendered the area unstable. If no further steps had been taken to stabilise the vertebrae, the moment the person awoke from the anaesthetic, they’d have been pithed, resulting in immediate death. Instead, an arthrodesis was performed.’
Price frowned.
‘An arthrodesis is the fusion of two bones. It’s usually carried out to abolish or minimise movement when stabilising a joint that’s causing pain.’
‘But not in this instance,’ Price stated.
‘No, indeed. What’s most interesting, though, is that the bones were fused utilising a laminar screw fixation method. I remember quite clearly the surgeon who described this technique; it was published some years ago in a neurosurgical journal, Acta Neurochirurgica.’
‘What makes this procedure so important?’
‘That’s the whole point, Henry. Nothing! Although the method has certain advantages, it never gained credence. Additionally, the man who first described the technique no longer practises.’
‘Mm,’ said Price pensively. ‘What was this surgeon’s name?’
‘Luca Nexus. He once held rooms in Harley Street, but he’s not been heard of for many years.’
‘What became of him?’
‘That’s what interests me most in the context of this report. Nexus was not well-liked amongst his peers, and it was no surprise when he was discredited and forbidden from practising.’