The Wolves of London (31 page)

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I heard whirring and clicking sounds behind me. Turning, I saw that flooding in through the crypt entrance were dozens of waddling, lopsided, scuttling
things.
Benny was still directing the light towards the monstrosity unfolding itself from the stone coffin, which meant that the more nightmarish details of the descending freak show were temporarily hidden from view. Even so, I got the impression that leading the pack was some sort of armoured metallic crab spouting angry puffs of steam from apertures in its back as it lurched from step to step, and what appeared to be the frantically spinning workings of a grandfather clock atop a thrashing tangle of tentacles.

Then Benny spun round with the lighter, sending wavering blocks of light and shadow careening across the walls. As buttery illumination washed over the descending hordes I was assailed with a barrage of nightmarish images. I glimpsed a pair of bloodshot eyes glaring from a quivering mass of flesh inside a bell jar; an open mouth with serrated metal teeth in the shrunken, eyeless face of a child; a human hand, dragging what appeared to be a miniature cannon that had been fused to its wrist; a monstrous amalgamation of what appeared to be Siamese twins and some sort of wheelchair-like device, that moved not on wheels but on juddering, steam-driven pistons that tentatively probed the way ahead like the white sticks of the blind.

‘What is this?’ Benny’s voice was a snarl, but I’m certain I detected a waver of fear in it. He spun back to face the tall man. ‘Who the fuck
are
you people?’

Despite my own fear, I felt a savage satisfaction at seeing him so rattled.

‘Out of your depth, are you, Benny?’ I said. ‘All this a bit outside your comfort zone?’

He turned smartly to face me, the light swooping again. ‘Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll shoot you where you stand,’ he barked.

The tall man had unfolded himself fully from the sarcophagus now and was standing up. His movements were precise, unhurried. He made me think again of a spider, one which knew its victims were wrapped up tight in its web and couldn’t escape. As he rose to his full height, he was forced to bend almost double, his upper body stretching along the ceiling like an elongated shadow. He towered over us, his thin slash of a mouth opening wetly in a red smile. The flat discs of his spectacle lenses reflected the yellow flame from Benny’s lighter, which made it look as if glowing embers burned in his eye sockets.

Benny looked up at him and licked his lips. Though he still brandished his gun, he now looked no more dangerous than a small boy playing at cowboys.

‘I don’t know who you are, mate, and I don’t care,’ he said, fear roughening his voice, bringing his natural London accent to the fore, ‘but I’ve done what you wanted, I’ve brought him here’ – he jerked the gun in my direction – ‘and now I’m going to leave.’ He turned and took a couple of paces towards the stone steps, and then he hesitated, halted.

The menagerie, still wheezing and puffing and whirring and clanking, had come to a stop. They were ranged across the steps, some of them still halfway up, forming an impenetrable barrier. Somewhere in the darkness above our heads I heard things darting and buzzing, their tiny motors making me think of robotic flies. In the gloom I could hear the squelch of wet flesh too, as it expanded and contracted in tortuous respiration.

Benny waved his gun from side to side, a nervous and rather pathetic gesture. ‘Out of my way.’

The menagerie didn’t move. Benny levelled the gun at the centre of the mass of flesh and clockwork bodies.

‘I
said
out of my way.’

Despite the threat the menagerie remained motionless. Suddenly there was a sharp clicking like ratchets aligning or tumblers falling into place, and to my surprise the tall man spoke.

‘I would advise you against threatening us, little man.’ His voice was plummy, the words pompous and a mite archaic. It was not entirely a human voice, however. It was underpinned by an insectile buzz, as though filtered through a vocoder.

Scowling, Benny looked up at the looming white face. ‘We had a deal. I made the delivery you asked for. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave.’

The tall man’s face gave nothing away, but I had the impression he was considering the request. Finally he said, ‘Very well. Go.’

Benny looked momentarily surprised, then gave a grim nod. ‘Thank you.’

As he stepped forward, the clockwork army creaked and shuffled aside, making a gap for him. Benny turned briefly and looked at me, and I expected him to make some cutting remark. But he simply regarded me through narrowed eyes for a moment and then turned back to the steps.

That was when it happened. I had a split-second impression of what seemed like a colony of bats, disturbed by some commotion, suddenly exploding into life around me, and then I was plunged into darkness. My immediate assumption was that Benny’s lighter had gone out, but then I realised that I was standing in silence too. I could no longer hear the clicks and whirrs and the fleshy, wet billows of breath from the clockwork creatures; nor could I hear the crunch of grit underfoot when I shifted my feet. The sensation was akin to the one I’d experienced in Benny’s house almost twenty-four hours earlier, when the four of us had been engulfed by living darkness. The difference this time, though, was that I didn’t feel as though my spirits were being crushed, stifled; on the contrary, I felt enclosed in a protective pocket, in a place where nothing could touch me. Even so, I had no idea how I would free myself. I didn’t know which way was forward and which was back. I had lost all sense of direction.

I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jacket and squeezed the heart, but it was cold, unresponsive.
Okay
, I thought,
okay
.

‘Hello?’ I called, but the sound was flat, dead, devoid of echo. I took the heart from my pocket, squeezed it, stroked it.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Come
on
.’

And then I saw a light.

I tensed – was this something to do with the heart? It didn’t
feel
like it, but I couldn’t be sure. The light glimmered brighter, as if something or someone was approaching. Nervously I slipped the heart back into my pocket, squinting to make out what appeared to be a dark shape, or at least some kind of nucleus, in the centre of the light. I couldn’t run or hide; there was nowhere to go. The light drifted closer, a soft effulgence, and suddenly I saw that there
was
a shape within it.

It was the man I had seen at Benny’s, the one in the demob suit. He was walking unhurriedly towards me, a slight pigeon-toed waddle in his step. If the situation hadn’t been so bizarre it might have seemed comical. I watched him approach, until at last he was standing directly in front of me, so close that I could see a tiny shaving cut on his cheek, a rash of soreness where his shirt collar rubbed his neck.

He regarded me a moment, taking a final puff on his roll-up before dropping it and stamping on it.

‘Hello, Alex,’ he said, his voice slightly nasal, his accent pure south London. ‘My name’s Frank Martin.
Private
Frank Martin.’

He stuck out his hand and instinctively I shook it. His flesh was cold, his grip bony but firm.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘now that’s out the way, we’d better get down to particulars. If you want to stay alive you need to come with me.’

T
en minutes after he had introduced himself, Private Frank Martin and I were strolling side by side through the quiet, ill-lit streets of Walthamstow, heading in the direction of the tube station. As we walked I kept sliding sidelong glances at him, half-expecting him to disappear in a puff of smoke. But he seemed reassuringly solid and, despite his dated appearance, reassuringly normal.

My mind was boiling with questions, and the only reason I wasn’t bombarding him with them was because Frank had assured me he would tell me what I wanted to know as soon as we had put some distance between ourselves and what he referred to as ‘the Surgeon’s mob’. Even so, I had managed to give voice to a few before he’d convinced me of the need for haste – the first of which, after he had instructed me to accompany him, had been, ‘Why should I? How do I know I can trust you?’

Frank had sighed, his almost translucent eyelids drooping in weary exasperation. ‘I was told you might be difficult.’

‘Told by who?’ I countered.

For a moment he looked as if he might be about to answer, and then he released an even longer sigh, perhaps realising what a can of worms he might be opening with his reply. Raising his hands he said, ‘Look, Alex, this really ain’t the time right now. What say we find a boozer and talk about this over a pint?’

Without the clamour of war that had swirled about his slight frame during our previous encounter, his threat seemed minimal, and yet still I was wary. ‘You’ve attacked me once,’ I said, recalling how he had dredged darkness from within himself. ‘How do I know you won’t do it again?’

He shook his head and offered a watery smile, which barely offset the haunted look in his deep-set eyes. ‘That wasn’t an attack, it was a rescue. I needed to get you out of there quickly, which was why I turned on the fireworks – to get you to respond. There were bad things coming.’

‘Worse than you?’ I asked.

He rolled his eyes. ‘A lot worse. Believe me, mate, I’m one of the good guys.’

Suddenly he winced, as if pain had stabbed through his head, and despite myself I asked, ‘Are you all right?’

His face cleared, though he looked more washed-out than ever. ‘That Surgeon’s a strong one. He’ll break out sooner rather than later. We ought to scarper – and pronto.’

As far as I knew, I could have been heading out of the frying pan and into the fire, but deciding that even if I was I could barely make my predicament any worse, I nodded.

‘Okay. But how
do
we get out?’

‘You just stick close to me. Safest thing would be to hold hands, but I’m not that sort of bloke. So what say I go ahead and you follow with your hand on my shoulder?’

I agreed and he turned his back on me. Reaching out I did as he had suggested, aware of the delicate, almost bird-like jut of his bones beneath the cheap material of his suit jacket. I could smell his hair cream, combined with tobacco smoke and the faint whiff of mothballs.

‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

‘Right then. Best foot forward.’

I’m not sure what happened then. It was like being in a sensory-deprivation tank, or perhaps a trance, and then of having my senses restored one by one. There was no sensation that I could later recall of ascending the stone steps of the crypt, or of negotiating what I knew to be the uneven terrain of the cemetery. Nor was I aware at first of cold air moving against my skin, or of outdoor sounds like the almost ambient thrum of traffic and the susurration of branches and leaves and long grass, set in motion by the wind.

Yet gradually these things were returned to me, like small, unexpected gifts. I was walking with my hand on Frank’s shoulder when suddenly I realised that I could feel grass brushing against my shins, or a breeze stirring in my hair. Or I could see the glow of a distant street lamp flickering through a jagged silhouette of leaf-stripped branches.

By the time we reached the entrance to the cemetery I had no further need of Frank’s guidance. Letting go of his shoulder I cupped my hands to help boost his scrawny frame over the gate, and then I clambered after him.

We barely spoke again until we were sitting on a tube heading back into central London. The rush hour was well over by now and apart from us there were only four or five people in the carriage. I had deliberately led Frank to the seats at the far end, out of earshot of the other passengers, who had given him a few curious glances before turning their attention back to their iPhones and BlackBerries. London was full of weirdos, after all, and Frank in his retro gear was not all that strange compared to some.

As soon as the train began to clank its way out of the station, I leaned forward.

‘Time for some answers,’ I said.

Frank looked tired. From what he had said earlier, I guessed that manipulating the darkness was an energy-sapping experience. Sure enough he said, ‘Have a heart, Alex. I’m all done in. Could do with a nice pint of stout to see me right.’

‘I haven’t got time for the pub,’ I snapped. ‘I need to get back to Clover.’ Realising I was being a little harsh I raised my hand. ‘Look, I’m grateful for what you did, Frank, but my daughter’s missing, I have no idea what’s going on, and I don’t want to leave Clover alone for any longer than I have to. There’s a bar at the hotel. I’ll buy you a pint of stout there – I’ll buy you
ten
pints – if you’ll give me some answers.’

He slumped back in his seat and expelled a long breath.

‘Right then,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Well… for a start, who are “the Surgeon’s mob”? And who are you? Where do you all come from?’

He smiled faintly. ‘The Surgeon’s mob I can’t help you with – for the simple fact that I don’t know all that much about ’em, except that they’re a bad lot. As for me, I’m guessing you want a bit more than my name and place of birth?’

I raised my eyebrows and he nodded resignedly.

‘Fair enough. Well, my name’s Frank Martin, like I said. I was born in Lewisham in 1897 and died at Ypres in August 1917 during the battle of Passchendaele. I was twenty.’

My heart lurched. I raised a hand. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘No. What did you say? You died? In the First World War? Are you… are you shitting me? Are you telling me you’re a… what? Zombie? Ghost?’

Frank scratched his nose. ‘Not entirely sure what I am, to be honest with you. All I know is that I’m here. I copped it from a bullet – then you brought me back.’

It wasn’t just my heart that lurched this time. The whole world seemed to tilt. I felt dizzy, sick. I felt something akin to panic. As if I was clinging to a ledge above an abyss, and my fingers were slipping, and there wasn’t a single damn thing I could do about it.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Wait. Whoa a minute. What are you talking about?
I
brought you back?’