The Map of the Sky (48 page)

“Very well,” said Clayton, “in that case we’ll carry on with our plan until your meeting tomorrow. And don’t worry, Mr. Wells, I’m sure the tripods won’t manage to enter the city before dawn tomorrow. Your wife will be all right.”

Wells nodded. He hoped the inspector was correct, since it was plain that this calm would last only until the tripods succeeded in breaking through the lines of defense. When that happened, no one would be safe. He was about to thank Clayton for his reassurances, but the inspector had already turned away and was watching with interest a group of four or five men who were breaking into a bicycle shop at the end of the
street. This was the first disturbance they had witnessed, and doubtless it would not be the last. However, what had attracted Clayton’s attention wasn’t this minor act of looting, but rather the three policemen watching the scene from the opposite corner without intervening. The only one not in uniform was a young inspector, a pale, skinny fellow whom Clayton appeared to recognize. He told the others to wait a moment and approached the trio, intrigued.

“Inspector Garrett?”

The young man swung round and looked at Clayton, surprised. For a few moments he simply gazed at him in silence, as he would a stranger.

“Inspector Clayton,” he whispered at last, as though he had plucked his name from a distant hazy memory, despite the fact that they regularly bumped into each other at Scotland Yard.

Garrett fell silent again, staring fixedly at Clayton with a startling coldness that made the latter shudder. Clayton had imagined exchanging excited impressions about what was going on, or discussing the possibility of joining forces and devising a plan together: anything but this unnerving indifference. A few steps away, the two uniformed police constables contemplated Clayton with the same cold expectancy. Not knowing what to say, Clayton motioned with his chin toward the robbery taking place on the other side of the street.

“Do you need some assistance, Inspector?” said Clayton, pointing his chin at the looters.

Garrett gazed nonchalantly toward the looters.

“Oh, no, we have the situation under control,” he assured Clayton.

“Good . . . ,” Clayton said skeptically, as Garrett turned back to look at him with the same disconcerting indifference. “Then I’ll continue on to Scotland Yard.”

“Why are you going there?” the young man inquired abruptly.

“I have a prisoner to deliver,” Clayton replied, thrown by this sudden show of interest.

Garrett nodded slowly, his lips pursed in a grimace of regret, and then, breaking off the conversation, he gestured to his men, and the
three of them sauntered over to the bicycle shop. Seeing them approach, the thieves abandoned what they were doing and, after a brief exchange, ran off down the street. At this, Inspector Garrett glanced over his shoulder to see whether Clayton was still there and found the other man watching him. Clayton wheeled round uneasily to return to the carriage, but not before taking one last look to make sure the two policemen were picking up the bicycles and replacing them in the shop. As he moved away, Clayton puzzled over the policemen’s strange behavior, in particular that of the young inspector. Garrett was a mere acquaintance, yet Clayton knew he was one of the Yard’s finest brains. His ability to solve cases, apparently without stepping out of his office, was legendary, as was his squeamishness about blood. Perhaps this detachment was the only way a sensitive mind such as his could respond to the invasion, Clayton told himself. The situation had undoubtedly overwhelmed him, turning the flawless logic with which he solved everyday crimes on its head and leaving him all at sea, incapable of responding or giving orders to his men.

Clayton shrugged and climbed aboard the coach. They were soon heading toward Scotland Yard, threading their way through streets filled with the same leisurely crowds. Leaving the carriage in front of the building on Great George Street, they marched into police headquarters. Clayton headed the motley band, pulling along the man with the ape face with his good hand while the other dangled, shattered, from his right sleeve; then came Wells, haggard and cross and worrying about Jane, while Murray and Emma brought up the rear, exchanging joyous glances and engaging in lively banter, like a couple out choosing wedding presents. To the group’s surprise, they found the entire place deserted. There was no one in the main entrance or the adjacent offices, and the pervading silence made them think they would probably not find a soul in the whole building. Startled, they walked warily around the entrance hall, here and there discovering disturbing signs of violence: an occasional upturned table, a smashed typewriter that had been thrown against the wall, a dented filing cabinet. But the most eerie things of all
were the splashes of blood on the walls and floor. Hundreds of stains everywhere, like macabre symbols no one dared decipher.

“What the devil happened here?” Murray declared at last, puzzled by the enormous stain in the shape of Australia that covered one of the walls.

“I don’t know,” murmured Clayton.

“What’s that smell?” Emma asked.

“Yes,” Wells remarked, sniffing the air, “what a stench.”

“It seems to be coming from upstairs,” Clayton observed, gesturing toward the staircase leading to the upper floor housing the inspectors’ offices.

The group glanced nervously at one another, realizing they had no choice but to go up there. Handing the prisoner over to Murray, Clayton took out his pistol and led the hesitant procession as they climbed the stairs. With each step, the evil smell grew more intense. When they reached the floor above, which was equally deserted, it became unbearable. Grimacing with revulsion, Clayton led the others down the corridor where Scotland Yard’s inspectors and other high-ranking officers had their offices. By chance, the nauseating odor guided him to the end room, which belonged to Inspector Colin Garrett. The coincidence baffled Clayton. The office door was closed, but the stink was clearly coming from within. Clayton swallowed hard, placed his metal hand on the doorknob, and gave the others a solemn look, as though warning them to be prepared for anything. The others nodded, equally solemn, and watched as he tried to open the door with his fake hand while brandishing his firearm with the other. For a few moments, Clayton struggled feebly, testing his companions’ patience, until finally he succeeded in prising open the door. The putrid odor wafted from the room, turning their stomachs. Gritting their teeth, they ventured into the office, trying hard not to retch. But the bloody vision they found inside was more appalling than any of them could have expected.

The room seemed to have been turned into a kind of makeshift abattoir. In the center, piled on top of one another like sacks of flour, lay
more than a dozen half-dismembered bodies. Besuited inspectors, uniformed policemen, and even a few high-ranking officers in full dress lay in a ghastly jumble, faces twisted, guts ripped out, blood dripping from their multiple injuries, red rivulets slowly merging as they trickled down the pile, pooling on the floor below. All of them had met a grisly end, throats slit, bones snapped, stomachs brutally sliced open, slain by a killer with no notion of pity. Limbs torn from sockets and various organs lay strewn about the macabre monument, giving the impression that whatever had done this had slaughtered its victims all over the building and then hidden them there, gathering up every piece down to the last morsel of lung.

“Good God . . . ,” Clayton muttered. “Who could have done this?”

Wells stifled the urge to vomit.

Stepping gingerly over a piece of liver lying on the floor, Clayton leaned over and examined a wound on one of the victims’ faces: three deep cuts from the forehead down to the chin. It looked like the work of a fierce set of claws, which had not only flayed the skin but had gouged out one eye and sliced off half a nose. The inspector shook his head slowly as he surveyed the baleful scene. Wells was stooping over the pile of bodies, observing some of the wounds with clinical interest. Murray had dragged the girl out into the corridor, opening a window so the evening breeze would revive her, while the prisoner stood in the doorway, white as a sheet. Then Clayton noticed the dead man slumped in Garrett’s chair, his head turned toward the wall at an impossible angle, as though the killer had broken his neck by twisting it round a hundred and eighty degrees. His stomach had been ripped open and his intestines lay in a heap on his lap. And yet instead of throwing him on the pile like the others, his killer had clearly taken the trouble to sit him in the chair. Curious as to the identity of the policeman who had been singled out for this special treatment, Clayton turned the dead man’s head around.

“What on earth?” he cried, startled out of his wits.

The others looked at him in alarm.

“What’s going on?” Wells asked, walking over to the inspector and trying not to slip on the entrails strewn over the floor.

“It’s Colin Garrett,” Clayton explained, bewildered. “The young inspector I was talking to not five minutes ago outside the bicycle shop.”

He went out into the corridor, overcome in equal measure by the nauseous smell and his own bewilderment. Wells followed.

“Are you sure it’s the same man?” asked Murray. Clayton was about to nod when a spine-chilling voice echoed along the corridor.

“Didn’t they teach you to respect the dead, Clayton?”

As one, the group turned toward the direction the icy voice was coming from, only to discover a dim figure observing them from the end of the passageway. As the intruder moved toward them, stepping into a halo of lamplight, they made out the features of the same pale, skinny young man whose broken neck and torn face they had just seen inside the room. They stared at one another in disbelief at the sight of this disquieting double.

“This is not possible,” Clayton whispered.

“I thought you believed anything was possible, Clayton,” the false Garrett retorted, his voice devoid of all humanity.

Clayton responded to the provocation by stepping forward away from the others and raising his revolver.

“Stop! Don’t move another inch, whatever you are,” he commanded in an unnecessarily theatrical voice.

The false Garrett contemplated him for a few seconds with the air of a sleepwalker, then replied almost indifferently, “I wasn’t intending to, Clayton.”

At this, his mouth opened grotesquely, and what looked like an incredibly long, reddish tongue like a toad’s or a chameleon’s darted along the corridor toward Clayton. The inspector felt the hideous appendage coil itself round his arm, and his gun went off without him even realizing he had pulled the trigger. Even though he had not had time to aim, Clayton saw the bullet hit the head of the false Inspector Garrett.
As Garrett dropped to the floor, his monstrous tongue uncoiled, furling back into his mouth like a ball of flesh. Before anyone had time to react, Garrett’s body began to writhe hideously in the middle of the corridor.

Agent Cornelius Clayton of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard, who was standing between the convulsing form and his companions, saw how the same monster he had seen emerging from the tripod shot down on the outskirts of London—that reptilelike biped that had dragged itself moribund along the ground for a few moments before expiring in front of them—began to worm its way out of Garrett’s body. The head of the hapless Garrett began to contract as though it had been crushed in a vise. His jaw stretched until it resembled a crocodile’s maw. At the same time, his hands began to taper into hideous talons, joined by a kind of membrane, while his skin grew greenish scales and his body swelled up to monstrous proportions. And then, before the ghastly transformation was complete, the monster, which still bore a faint resemblance to Inspector Garrett, sprang to its feet and once more shot out its slimy tongue at Clayton, who was still aiming his now empty gun at the creature. Diving to the floor, Clayton managed to avoid the viscous coil. He watched helplessly as it struck the prisoner’s chest, knocking him to the floor. Then it raised the poor wretch up off the ground and began drawing him toward its enormous fangs. Struggling desperately, the prisoner managed to grasp hold of the open window. This halted his advance for a moment and even managed to confuse the creature as its laborious metamorphosis continued. Overwhelmed with pure terror, the apelike porter managed to plunge out of the window, grabbing hold of the windowsill from the outside. He stubbornly clung on in midair, while the hideous tongue tried to jerk him back into the corridor. Clayton stood up, placing himself once more between the creature and the terrified group. Not knowing what to do, he simply watched Garrett’s continuing metamorphosis into what looked more and more like a two-legged reptile, shredding the hapless inspector’s skin. Just then, with a swift movement that surprised everyone, Murray leapt away from the group toward the window, where with savage determination he began pounding
the hands of the unfortunate Mike, who, unable to cling on, gave a muffled yell as he plunged downward. The rest of them looked on as the monster’s tongue tensed and the weight of its victim dragged it, helpless, toward the window. The startled creature made a desperate lunge for Murray, who managed to tear himself free with a cry of pain, then it clasped hold of the window frame. Fortunately, the monster’s claws were not yet properly formed, and it was powerless to stop itself from plummeting to the street, attached to the prisoner by what looked like a grotesque umbilical cord.

After Murray’s astonishing intervention, thanks to which they found themselves alone once more in the corridor, safe from attack by any hideous creature, the group gradually recovered their composure. Everything had happened incredibly quickly; moments before they had been in mortal danger, and now, suddenly, they were not.

“I’m sorry I had to sacrifice him,” Murray lamented a few seconds later, “but it was his life or ours.”

“Don’t apologize, Mr. Murray,” Emma replied, trying to stop her voice from shaking and to appear as resolute as possible. “If that creature had completed its transformation, it would have killed us all.”