V 02 - Domino Men, The (18 page)

By the standards of the family of Windsor, Clarence House is not especially large nor particularly ancient — certainly, it was nothing like so vast and distinguished as the properties he would eventually inherit upon his ascension to the throne, but as he wandered abroad that night it seemed to him that the house grew bigger than before, that it swelled and budded into marvelous new shapes.  Spurred on by the laughter of his wife, he wandered through rooms which he had no recollection of ever having seen before — a hothouse filled with plants of astonishing hues, an immense library stocked with books written in impossible languages, a place which appeared as a strange museum, stuffed with trophy heads of terrible beasts and ancient armor designed for creatures less than human.

At last, he passed into a hall of mirrors, each of which twisted his dressing-gowned form into something gangling and bizarre.  Then he saw her, at the end of the hall, waiting on the threshold by the doorway, her favorite nightgown pulled down to reveal a generous swathe of cleavage, slick with sweat.  She was smiling, panting, waiting for him to come to her.

“Laetitia!”

“When the prince looked again she was gone and the door stood slightly ajar.  Shaky and aching with excitement, Arthur dashed on in pursuit.

Inside, Mr. Streater was waiting.  Barefoot, crouched on the floor, he was caught in the act of pressing a syringe filled with pinkish liquid into a vein somewhere near the region of his big toe.

“Chief!”  Streater’s face was suffused with jollity, as though he had just bumped into an old acquaintance at the bar.  “You’re a bit early.”  He depressed the plunger.

Wearily, Arthur turned and peered through the door.  No hall of mirrors stood on the other side — just an unassuming stub of corridor that he must have walked down countless times before.

“Streater?”  The prince spoke carefully, delicately, swilling each syllable around his mouth as though to test that they were real.

The blond man was pulling on socks and shoes again, stowing away the hypodermic.  “What’s the matter, mate?  You look shocking.”

“I think…,” Arthur said slowly.

“Yeah?”  Mr. Streater sounded impatient, like a home-care worker chivvying along a befuddled charge.

“I think I must have had a nightmare,” Arthur said at last.  “Just a nightmare.”

The prince noticed that Streater had a teapot and a couple of cups.  One was filled for each of them.

“I’ve had word from my mother.  She tells me you’re the future.”

Streater laughed.  “We’re the future, chief.  You and me together.”  He passed the prince his tea.  “Drink up.  Time we got started.”

Arthur took the proffered cup and had only just had time to raise it to his lips when Streater clapped his hands together, the lights in the old ballroom went out and the pageant began again.

His ancestor, the Empress of India, sat shimmering before him, every bit as cold and monolithic as before, although this time Arthur thought he could detect a certain satisfaction, something almost post-coital in her bearing.  She was flanked by three strangers, a trio of men, all in their Sunday best, their hair shiny and slicked flat.

“Streate—” the prince began, but his mother’s creature merely waved for him to be silent, with no more respect than a parent might show a persistent child on a long car journey.

“Don’t be so impatient, chief.  Just sit back and enjoy it.”  He smirked in the gloom.  “I gather there was a time when your missus used to give you similar advice.”

Arthur was about to protest at this distressingly accurate slur when the door swung open and the translucent figure of Dedlock strode in, coat-tails flapping, his face set in an expression of reckless determination.

The old Queen, one hundred and six years dead, turned up her lips in a gruesome approximation of a smile.  “To what do we owe this most irregular pleasure?”

The man from the Directorate seemed flustered and ill at ease.  “Forgive me, your majesty.  Forgive me my haste and my discourteous intrusion.  I had no choice but to see you.”

The Queen gazed upon her subject, impassive and unspeaking.

“Your Majesty, I do not believe that Leviathan is what he claims.  Surely you know that name is written in the Bible?  It is the sea beast, the great serpent, the tyrant of the seven heads.”

“Really, Dedlock.”  The Queen was tutting like a ticket collector faced with a recidivist fare dodger offering up some deliriously complicated excuse.  “There is no need for such theatrics.  Leviathan said you might react like this.  He told me last night that there will be doubters.”

“Last night, ma’am?”

“He came to me again in a dream and told me what I must do.  I am to construct a chapel beneath Balmoral in his honor.  He will keep our borders safe.  He will maintain our empire and ensure that this country remains in the hands of my house for all time.”

“Have you never considered, ma’am, that we may achieve all of that without the aid of this Leviathan?”

The Queen did not seem to have even heard the question.  “I don’t believe you’ve been introduced to my solicitors,” she said.  “They have been hard at work upon the contract.”  Like clockwork mannequins, the men behind the Queen stepped forward.  “I’d like you to meet the firm of Wholeworm, Quillinane and Killbreath.”

The first of the men thrust out his hand.  When he spoke, it was in the rich, plummy tones of the cream of England’s boarding schools.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dedlock.  I’m Giles Wholeworm.”

The next lawyer stepped forward, his hand also extended.  “Jim Quillinane,” he said, in the musical lilt of the Emerald Island.

“Robbie Killbreath,” said the third of the lawyers in a thick Scots brogue.  “Good tae ken you.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Queen.  “You have your orders.  You know where to find the boy?  Has Leviathan given you directions?”

Wholeworm bowed his head.  “Yes, your highness.”

“I know I can rely on your discretion.  We will meet again tomorrow.”

The advocates nodded their understanding and, careful never to turn their heads upon the monarch, edged slowly, and with painful respect, from the room.”

“Amusing, aren’t they?” said the Queen after they had left.

“Ma’am?”

“What is it, Mr. Dedlock?  What do you want now?”

“I want you to think, ma’am.  Please.  Consider carefully before taking any action you might regret.”

“Come back tomorrow.  Then you shall see.  By the time we are finished, you will fall to your knees and worship with me.”

“Tomorrow, ma’am?  What’s happening tomorrow?”

The Queen leant toward Dedlock, and even from his distant vantage point, Arthur Windsor thought he could see lights of madness dancing in her eyes.  “Something wonderful, Mr. Dedlock.  Something glorious.  Tomorrow, Leviathan is coming to Earth.”

Heading back to the flat, half an hour or so after saying goodbye to the old lady, I noticed that a dead ringer for my old bike, which I’d abandoned at work on the day of my initiation into the Directorate, had been roped around the exact same lamppost to which I used to lasso my own.  That’s curious, I thought.  What a coincidence.

Inside, I found Abbey sitting at the kitchen table and sharing a bottle of wine with the very last person I would have expected.

“Barbara?”

Unflatteringly dressed in chunky knitwear, her hair in some abortive attempt at a bob, the dumpy girl giggled in greeting.  “Henry!  Hello!”

“What on earth are you doing here?”

“I brought your bike back.  You left it at work.”  A hint of a blush suggested itself at the peripheries of her cheeks.  “I’ve chained it up outside.”

I was quite touched by this.  “That’s very kind of you.  I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“You don’t need it for your new job?”

“Not really.  They usually send a car.”

Barbara beamed in admiration.

Abbey broke in.  “We’ve just been getting to know one another,” she said.  “I did say that Barbara could leave the bike with me but she seemed to have set her heart on seeing you.”

Barbara flushed pink.

Abbey gave me a meaningful look.  “We thought you’d be home sooner.”

“I’ve been at the hospital.”

Barbara looked sympathetically deflated at this and Abbey shot her a look of profound irritation.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Barbara.  “Is there any change?”

“I’m not sure there’ll ever be.”

“Have a drink,” Abbey said quickly.  “Join us.”

I sat down, poured myself a glass of wine and asked Barbara how she was getting on at the office.

“You know how it is.  More files than we know what to do with.  Even the Norbiton annex is running out of space now.  And Peter’s been acting funny.”

“No change there, then,” I said, and Barbara laughed dutifully.

“They keep sending me down to the mail room.”  The pudgy girl leant over to me.  “That lady down there, the fat, sweaty one.  She gives me the creeps.”

“Oh, I know,” I said.  “I remember.  But how are you?”

As Barbara chattered on, Abbey curled back into her seat and gulped sulkily at her wine.

“I had the most wonderful evening the other night with your Mr. Jasper,” Barbara said.

A shiver of suspicion ran through me.  “You did?”

“Lovely man.  So attentive.”

I felt troubled by this, though I was uncertain why.  “Are you seeing him again?”

“Definitely,” she said, with just a touch too much certainty.  “Hopefully…,” she added.

Abbey yawned, then gaped in fake astonishment at her watch.  “God.  Is that the time?”

“What a tedious woman,” she said, the moment poor Barbara had gone.

I was in the kitchen, putting the kettle on.  “Wouldn’t call her tedious.”

“Clearly she finds you fascinating.”

“Sorry?”

“Coming all the way here just to drop off your scrap-heap of a bike.  It’s embarrassing.”

“I thought it was a nice gesture.”

“Nice gesture?”  Evidently, this suggestion was absurd.  “I think she’s after you.”

I could hear the kettle boiling.  “What do you mean ‘after’ me?”

Abbey folded her arms.  “I can see it in her eyes.”

“That’s ridiculous.  Why would Barbara be interested in me?  Anyway, do you want a coffee or not?”

Abbey stalked from the room.  “Good grief,” I muttered.  “Surely you can’t be jealous?”

My only answer was the slam of her bedroom door.

I was giving serious thought to knocking on that door, to taking Abbey in my arms and confessing that I was falling for her in the most hopeless, overwhelming kind of way (and that I wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in Barbara), when the doorbell began to clamor for my attention.

The driver from the Directorate slouched on the threshold.  “Fetch your coat,” he grunted.  “The Prefects want a word.”

I made as much noise as I possibly could in retrieving my coat and preparing to leave the flat, but Abbey didn’t emerge from her bedroom and I was too proud to tell her that I was going.

Barnaby had Radio Four playing in the car, some piece of late-night esoterica with a couple of professors spatting crustily over the early works of H.G. Wells.

“Academics,” Barnaby spat as we drove past Tooting Bec station and began the usual protracted escape from south London.

“But weren’t you one of those once?” I asked mildly.

“Yeah,” Barnaby said, his voice bristling with an even greater than usual distillation of belligerence.  “Difference is — I knew what I was talking about.  Still would, as a matter of fact, if those bastards hadn’t set me up.  If they hadn’t concocted that farrago of—”