Pastworld (13 page)

‘Must be losing my touch,’ Bible J called out as they ran.

They turned a corner down a walled alley near the Strand and the next thing they knew two red-faced bobbies were standing in front of them looming out of the mist, blocking their way.

The boys slid to a halt. ‘Now, now, you two, stay right where you are,’ one of the officers said. ‘We have had a report of a series of robberies, dips off of Gawkers in fact, and there has been a killing, a murder. A boy of about your age has been reported as a suspect. We shall need to see your papers, lads.’ Caleb looked blankly back at the policemen. He shuffled himself back a little way and pressed against the alley wall. He reached out to it for support. He heard the distinct jingle and rattle from his coat pockets which had been filled with jewellery and other stuff by Bible J.

‘You all right, son?’ said the policeman.

Caleb looked distressed. The policeman unhooked his lamp and held it closer to Caleb’s face.

‘You’ve got your papers then?’ the other policeman said.

‘Of course we have,’ Bible J said, brushing himself down. ‘We’re legitimate visitors, give us a chance; they’re just here in my pocket.’

‘With respect, all of you lot try that one. If you really are innocent Gawkers, then I need to see the proof.’

‘I’m just trying to find the proof.’

‘You don’t look very like visitors, especially you. Gawker’s are always clean, with respect,’ the other constable said.

Caleb watched the exchange between them.

‘Wait on,’ said the nearest policeman. ‘Don’t I know you?’ And he shone his lantern directly at Bible J.

‘How would you make that out?’ Bible J said, drawing himself up straighter, as if that might confer a little more respectability. Then suddenly he kicked out straight at the nearest policeman and caught him hard in his plump stomach. The constable dropped his iron lamp and doubled over.

‘Come on,’ Bible J shouted and he ran straight out into the road, among all the early morning traffic and horses. Caleb froze. ‘Run, you idiot. They’ll lock us up and throw away the key. Come on.’

‘That was a serious assault,’ the other policeman said unhooking his truncheon and aiming a swift blow at Caleb.

Caleb ran.

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Chapter 22

He followed Bible J and they ducked and dived through the clattering traffic. They ran on together, hidden by the bulk of a horse-drawn omnibus. They heard a police whistle, a piercing shriek. Bible J seemed to take that as his cue and he called out for Caleb to jump and they leaped for the platform by the outside staircase of the omnibus. They landed and clung on to the stair rail. Caleb balanced himself, breathing fast as the omnibus bumped over cobbles and potholes. The policeman blew his whistle over and over, as he pushed his way through the crowds of pedestrians, looking for them.

The bus conductor made his way out to the platform. ‘Hold on very tightly now, please.’ He noticed the two boys, and the pursuing policeman’s whistle and said in a quieter, and much less friendly voice, ‘You’ve got five minutes to work this lot, and then you’re off. You can do the downstairs, then hop it, quick.’

The early morning passengers either stood, bumping against one another with the unsteady movement of the bus, or sat on the slatted wooden seats. Bible J pushed between the standing passengers, a fixed, smiling expression on his face.

‘Please, sir,’ he said, to a red-faced man in a tweed cape, ‘could you spare a poor lad a penny?’

One of the other passengers groaned, ‘Oh no, not more of them,’ but the red-faced man fished in his pocket and then held out a great meaty handful of coins. He spoke through his beaming smile in an American accent. Caleb looked back nervously through the window for signs of a police pursuit.

‘Now, which of these things is a penny, my lad? I never can seem to get used to your money here,’ he said and he laughed.

Bible J pulled a bright new penny out of the cluster of coins, and held it up for the man to see.

‘OK, so that’s a penny. Help yourself, kid. Maybe you can buy yourself a little soap.’

The woman sitting next to him muttered, ‘He don’t smell too good.’

‘That’s the idea,’ said another passenger. ‘It’s authentic,’ and they all laughed. The boys made their way further between the seats. Bible J collected coins from two more of the Gawkers. Caleb turned to go back to the platform when a hand grabbed at his wrist.

‘Hey, you,’ said a man wearing a black suit and a high white shirt collar. Caleb tried to pull his hand away but the man gripped him harder.

Bible J recognised the plain clothes copper and stepped back and hid himself among the standing passengers. The man’s great round moon face came close to Caleb’s and he breathed sickly sweet minted breath at him as he spoke.

‘I’ve seen you. I know all about you and your sort. Perhaps you might show me your accreditation?’

The omnibus slowed and stopped. ‘Farringdon Road,’ the conductor shouted and rang a bell. The man stood up abruptly and pulled Caleb after him towards the platform. One or two of the passengers applauded.

‘I’ve done nothing,’ Caleb called out as he was dragged past the conductor.

The conductor raised his hands and rang the bell. The man pulled Caleb with him down onto the pavement. Caleb turned his head and looked up at the windows of the departing omnibus. Bible J looked back at him through the window. Bible J held up his hand palm outwards and showed Caleb that he had hold of the watch, his father’s watch. Bible J pointed at the face of the watch and nodded, and mouthed ‘Wait’ to Caleb as he was led off among the crowd.

M

Excerpt taken from the Little Planet Guide to Pastworld
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TM
London

M

People visit Pastworld for a variety of reasons. For most it is a trip into the past to experience a way of life and an atmosphere of free and rumbustious living that had, until Pastworld’s completion, all but vanished. The great city of London was chosen, after the apocalyptic financial meltdown at the start of the new century, to be ‘reverted’. The city was retro-fitted and restored to the condition of its great Victorian heyday. The opening ceremony took place at the re-dedication of the once vandalised and destroyed Euston Arch, and an emotional day it was for those who cared for the architecture of the old city.

Travellers though should be aware of all the legal anomalies and pitfalls. The Buckland Corporation turned back the legal clock too. Old statutes were brushed off and brought back, forced through in a special Act of Parliament by a panicked government terrified of losing the huge financial patronage of the Buckland Corporation. A man, woman, boy or girl can be hanged for certain crimes, and this brings a frisson of danger to daily life. It’s irresistible to some visitors, risk takers, thrill-seekers or voyeurs.

There are those who would enjoy watching capital punishment carried out in front of them. There are those who would pay to watch the Ripper disembowel a victim or two, or who wish to witness any number of brutal and psychotic events. Look for instance at the popularity of the bootleg murder tours . . .

M

© Little Planet Guide. All rights reserved.

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Chapter 23

Sgt Catchpole’s spirits lifted. He was back in Pastworld, and this time with a mystery to solve, a proper mission to complete. He left the office at police headquarters and made his way through the night streets to the lodging house he had used many times before. The landlady happily welcomed him back, despite the hour. She fussed over him, made him a nightcap cup of strong tea laced with a little whisky.

He settled himself down in a comfortable button-backed armchair in his rooms by his landlady’s good coal fire, and began to read the dossier that the Inspector had given him. While he read, he was comforted by the thought that no telephone would ring, no text alert buzz him. There would be no emails to attend to, no screens to monitor, just the crackling of the fire and the rustle of real sheets of paper as he turned the pages and read the file.

The notes were written in longhand on neat lined pages.

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FILE: The Fantom

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Strictly Confidential

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Subject: The Fantom. AKA The Gentleman.

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Age: Indeterminate; early 20s at most.

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Known Associates: An affiliation of beggars and petty thieves; a city-wide network colloquially called ‘the ragged men’. Mostly ex-convicts or street children kept and nurtured by the Fantom over a number of years. Exact numbers unknown. On numerous occasions Inspector Lestrade has requested forces from the cadet corps to deal with the ragged men problem in a single ‘surgical’ strike. Permission and funding to this date have been denied by the Buckland Corporation

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Biography: The Fantom at once terrifies and uplifts the spirits of the lower populace. The Gawkers see him as an adjunct to all the other entertainments on offer, just another elaborate recreation managed by the Buckland Corporation. Sadly in this they are much deceived. The Fantom is now as unofficial as it is possible to get. Suffice it to say that he must always be approached with the utmost caution. He is protected by his ragged men; these are the key to finding and destroying him. They are for the most part organised as a series of cells, a force to protect and supply the Fantom.

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Once the Fantom was content to carry out violent and showy bank robberies. This enabled him to both comfortably control and hide his empire. His later public appearances – those open street battles with rival criminals, those jumps to certain doom from roofs and towers, those resurrections, and those redistributions of wealth – are but the tip of a very large iceberg. He deals with those who try to find, thwart, or betray him with a vicious and mechanical psychotic violence. It is never enough for him to kill an enemy or perceived enemy. He also mutilates in emulation and parody perhaps of the famous Ripper of the East London murders. It is as if he were handing the Corporation a series of historically styled murders to add to the authenticity of their dream city.

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Sgt Catchpole looked up from the notes. He felt at the back of the folder and pulled out an envelope sealed with a wax seal and stamped in red officious letters,
Strictly Confidential
. He broke open the seal. Inside was a typewritten fragment cut from a longer document.

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SUBJECT: Dr Jack Mulhearn.

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After initial Biology master’s degree trained in the USA at MIT and came back to London just before the financial crash. Sought employment from the Buckland Corporation after his tenure at the Bio-Med research institute was cancelled. Assisted Lucius Brown on various classified projects for Buckland Corp., including the haunted house initiative, seance and ghost manifestations and finally the Prometheus project, which was terminated by the Corporation after an accidental fire destroyed the experimental site. Missing since the fire and officially recorded as dead. He is actually believed to be living somewhere quietly and well hidden in the Pastworld complex, sheltering Subject B. There have been no official sightings and in any case his appearance is likely to be much changed after fire injuries etc. He was marked with a small security biometric tattoo on his inner right wrist, a mark shared by few but carrying high corporate significance.

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Chapter 24

Inspector Lestrade arrived at the head offices of the Buckland Corporation. The building stood close to the restored fruit and vegetable market at Covent Garden and had once been a club for actors and lawyers. He was shown into a magnificent first-floor room, with a desk at one end dominated by an antique globe of the world. The centre of the huge room was completely filled with an enormous scale model of Pastworld London. It was complete with toy airships on wires which hovered over the miniature buildings and streets. Mr Abel Buckland stood in an elaborate quilted dressing gown adjusting something on one of the model buildings. He looked up and smiled at the inspector.

‘I have this whole model running on a very fine and elaborate system of steam and clockwork,’ he said. ‘It even has its own underground railway running beneath it. If you look in the cutaway section you can see it all. The most perfect miniature clockwork imaginable. I want to put a big skydome over the model eventually, just like the real thing, right up to the ceiling in here. I’ll run it both night and day and show all the constellations seasonally just as they would appear.’

Lestrade cleared his throat. ‘This is not a social visit, Abel. A severed head was retrieved from a girder on top of Tower 42, and Lucius Brown has been abducted. He was violently lifted in the street on his way to the Corporation Halloween Party. I need your permission to strike at the ragged men now.’

Abel Buckland set a little airship moving on its wire across the city. ‘Your proposal for solving all of this is to kill all the ragged men?’

The Inspector watched the little machine whirr for a moment, and then he said, ‘I have some photographs I think you should see.’ He walked over and tipped the photographs out among the bric-a-brac and toys on the desk.

Buckland came and sat in his chair. He put on a pair of glasses and peered down at the pictures. He picked one up. ‘I suppose this is from one of those wretched little spy cameras,’ he said. ‘You’ll be asking me to approve a whole slew more of them in a moment if I know you.’

‘No, I won’t,’ said the Inspector. ‘Just look very carefully.’

Buckland flicked through the pictures. He paused, studied one picture in particular, and then another.

‘So,’ Buckland said eventually, ‘it was not just Lucius then, but Jack as well.’

‘Oh yes, him as well, and they killed him, straight away.’

‘He was blinded then by the fire, or nearly by the look of it. Why didn’t he just come in, come back to us?’

‘He was protecting her.’

‘Our clever friend the Gentleman seems to have arranged it all somehow?’

‘It certainly looks that way.’

‘What are you doing about it?’ Buckland looked up, pale in the lamplight. He let the photograph fall to the desk.

‘I have two prongs. First I sent in a good man. He will be on the trail and will report to me on whatever he finds. He is looking for Lucius and the boy, Lucius Brown’s son. My other prong is the cadet corps, a crack team. Give me the word and we can sweep away the ragged men in an hour.’

‘And this man you have sent, he is reliable?’ Abel said, ignoring the Inspector’s request.

‘Perfectly reliable. Sergeant Catchpole is a romantic like you, and perhaps like I once was. He is someone very much in tune with the dream of this place, I assure you.’

‘Good, good. We must keep this dream alive at all costs. The dream is all.’ Buckland stared wistfully across the room at the huge whirring model, at its twinkling lights. ‘Find him, find the Gentleman. It’s been too long. I would save him if I could. And of course you must find her too, the girl. That goes without saying; it was never more important,’ he said. ‘The big demolition is planned as a real spectacular. The last of the wretched old modern buildings is scheduled to come down in a beautiful and contolled explosion. I want it all solved by then. That will be a good moment for your “solution” to the ragged men problem. Use your cadets by all means, but leave the Fantom; he is mine.’

The Inspector said, ‘Well, it was all our fault in the first place. If we had listened to –’

Buckland interrupted him. ‘What we did was in the interests of science and pure research, and that is that. We have nothing to reproach ourselves for. I feel no guilt, rather pride. Yes, Lestrade, pride.’

The Inspector went to pick up the photographs, but Buckland stayed his hand. ‘No, leave them with me,’ he said. ‘Do you know that visitor and resident applications numbers are predicted to double in five years? We will have to open new induction centres, and commission a new fleet of airships. The past, with all its rough and ready crudity, its dirt and its rock-solid certainties, is going to mean so much to so many people in the future.’ He gestured at the huge twinkling model with wide open arms. ‘Find them, please, Lestrade. You and I are the only ones left who know the truth about them. Find them, and try your best to save them both.’