London Under Midnight Part 5

'Carter? Where are you?'

The bushes concealed him now. In fact they were so dense she had to push her way through the lush green branches. The air was heavy with musk-odors as if animals curled up here to sleep in the vegetation. When she reached out to push a creeper back so she could scramble through she encountered a horizontal ma.s.s of hard material. For a moment she thought her way had been blocked by a sandstone cliff, but then she saw the remains of a window that was nearly obliterated by ivy.

A house? With a surge of optimism she pictured herself knocking on a door that would be opened by some boatman who'd say, 'Of course, you can use the telephone.' Then she'd leave this hump of dirt in the river. Only that image of a smiling face Fizzled into disappointment when she put her face to a pane of grubby gla.s.s. The place was clearly derelicta and derelict for years at that. In the gloomy interior she could make out what appeared to be abandoned furniture. Peeling wallpaper hung down, like the room was some weird reptile that was in the process of shedding its skin.

A hand gripped her wrist. April recoiled in shock.

'This way.' Carter leaned through a ma.s.s of trailing willow. 'Hurry. You need to see them before the sun starts to rise.' He beckoned her into a green tunnel formed by the vegetation that led to the front door. The paint had cracked on the timbers. The only window she could see on this side of the property had old cupboard doors nailed across it. As he pulled her through that green tunnel to the derelict, unloved house she suddenly stopped.

'I don't want to go in there.' That strange arrhythmic breathing began its stuttering gasps again. For some reason the house terrified her. He wanted to show her someone in there - the 'family' - only she didn't want to go. It seemed wrong. There was something rotten inside. She didn't want to see ita Terror ran through her in a dark, pulsating stream. The sense of dread was every bit as powerful as the hunger that had gripped her earlier. If she stepped into the house nothing would be the same again. This is where the April Connor she knew would be no more. It wouldn't be her death because death is the end of everything. No, this would be a transition from her old way of life - of planning a new home with her fiance, Trajan - to something new, but something so alien, and so shocking she didn't know whether her mind could handle it. At that moment it really did seem preferable to flee back to the beach where those maniacs tore at one another.

'April. Hurry. Before it's too late.'

With a sudden furious strength he grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her along the leafy green tunnel toward the door of the derelict house. It had been partly open. Now it creaked back of its own accord as he dragged her toward it.

'Carter? What are you going to do to me?'

Inside. Gloom. Silence. Stillness. A sense of the very air being imprisoned for decades. On the wall a framed photograph of a man and woman standing in front of the house when it still functioned as a dwelling. On the lawn in front of the cottage the photo revealed a rowing boat. Wicker cages of the kind used to catch crabs were stacked against a wall. The faces of the man and woman had vanished. The creeping damp had erased them from the photograph long ago.

Carter guided her across the hallway to a room. Sheets of wallpaper hung from yellowed plaster. A solitary armchair faced a fireplace that contained dead leaves. Either standing or sitting in the room were six figures. Their clothes were little more than sc.r.a.ps of material that hung from their bodies. They were men and women of different ages. Their skin held bluish tints, their hair glisteneda Sticky, April told herself. Sticky hair. She touched her own. It was sticky, too. Like her, they'd either lost their footwear or still retained one shoe. And what struck her the most was their stillness. Their expressionless faces could have been cast from solid plastic. Although their eyes were part open they appeared to focus on nothing. They could have been a group of eccentrics pretending they were recreating a still photograph.

'Misfires,' Carter whispered. 'At least that's what I call them.'

'Misfires?'

'See? They're a lot like us. They were washed up on the sh.o.r.e but they never came back to life properly. They wandered around the island aimlessly until they ended up here. I guess there's some ghost of a memory in their heads that tells them to take shelter in a house. So in they come. They stay. They don't do anything else.'

'Like they're waiting?'

'Waiting for doomsday, more like. They don't talk, don't move. Nothing.'

April s.h.i.+vered. 'They are alive, aren't they?'

Carter's gold teeth gleamed as he smiled. 'Alive? As much as you and me.'

She stepped up to a man of around forty who still wore the remains of a business suit. Before this transformation he could have been an executive working in some prestigious office building. Now he gazed bleakly through slitted eyes. Yes, the name Misfire was appropriate. They failed to function properly.

'These Misfires,' she began, 'why have you shown them to me?'

'Because you're not exactly like them and you're not exactly like the Berserkers on the beach. These Misfires don't feel hungry like we do. Then again that hunger hasn't pushed us over the edge like the others.'

She turned to a woman of around twenty. The woman stood by the fireplace, her arms hung loosely down by her side. Her brown hair stood out in sticky tufts. The eyelids were half closed revealing dull splinters of white. Slowly, April reached out to touch the woman's cheek. Cold as a pane of gla.s.s. The woman didn't know April was there, or that she'd touched her. These weren't men and women. They were things that were nine tenths dead. Only for some reason the last shred of life hadn't deserted them. It clung to their body tissues, feeding just enough vitality into their flesh to prevent them rotting where they stood.

April stepped back. These things made her nauseous. 'I want to leave now.'

'Leave?' Carter shook his head. 'We can't go outside now, the sun's rising.'

'I can't bear it in here.'

'Compared to out there this is going to be paradise.'

'I feel sick.' She blundered past him as a bright light began to s.h.i.+ne into the hallway. He grabbed hold of her to stop her leaving.

'Let go of me!' April wrenched free of him; the movement so explosive that she reeled back into one of the figures. It toppled to the floorboards with a thump, then lay there to stare upward. Not a flicker of expression. No surprise, no shock, no hurt.

'April, stay here!'

She knew he pursued her through the doorway into the hall.

He keeps these people here. They were normal when they arrived at the house. He's done something to them. Now he wants to do the same to me! Those thoughts snapped through her head as she ran. He'd tricked her to come to this miserable hovel hidden in the bushes. His feet pounded the boards as he raced after her. In front of her the door was part open. Beyond it was the green tunnel of vegetation that led back into the island.

'April! You can't go out there!'

'Don't you touch me!'

'April, it's too late!'

She hurtled down the hallway to the door, then ran outside. At that moment she longed to see the sun again after a night that had seemed eternal. Instead of following the tunnel of foliage, she ripped aside the branches to find a new way through. She had to escape the monster that pursued her at all costs. Yet the moment she pushed aside the branch she found she was facing the dawn. Only it was a dawn she'd never encountered before. The sky was white. That's when a wall of incandescence surged across the island, bleaching out all the trees, the bushes, the bare expanses of dirt into whiteness. Nothing but whiteness. A dazzling, ubiquitous universe of blistering light. She screamed as the sun's rays seared her face. The wound in her side felt as if it shriveled to pucker her flesh. The light itself could have been the hand of a G.o.d pressing her down toward the ground. As she toppled a pair of hands seized her then dragged her inside the house. She heard the door bang shut but still the light shone with the intensity of laser beams. They blasted through the keyhole and gaps between the door and frame.

'I warned you,' Carter panted as he hauled her deeper into the house. 'I told you that you wouldn't like the sunlight anymore.' He half carried her into a back room. The windows were boarded but still rods of searing, white light pierced c.h.i.n.ks to drill holes through the darkness. 'Lay down against the wall.'

Dazed, she did as he told her. Exposure to the sunlight had half-blinded her. The wound in her side itched. All she could make out was that the room was bare. A sc.r.a.p of carpet covered part of the boards that in turn were scattered with dead leaves and clumps of ancient cobweb. Sitting on the floor, with their backs to the wall, were three of those Misfires. Two men and a woman. Their eyelids were such a burden to them they could barely keep them open. Without moving, without any sign of them noticing April, they maintained that dull, unfocussed stare into nothingness.

April Connor had barely any strength in her to move. So there was nothing she could do when Carter lay down beside her. She expected him to reach out and grasp her. But all he did was seize the piece of carpet that was the size of a bed sheet then drag it over their two bodies so it covered them completely. Then he lay there as if his ability to move had all of a sudden ceased.

Outside came the dawn chorus as bird-life welcomed the arrival of the sun. Beneath the carpet in their little world of gloom and stillness April Connor listened for the beat of her own heart. The hours pa.s.sed. She strained to hear that familiar pulse in her chest. And it was a long time before she could finally admit to herself that there was nothing there.

EIGHT.

Ben Ashton left his apartment before seven. The morning sun blazed down on to the River Thames as he walked along the path and past his car parked at the side of the road. London's population was bursting through the seven million mark so driving wasn't the quickest way of negotiating the metropolis at the best of times. He decided to nose around, seeing what facts he could dig up in the neighborhood. His editor was convinced that there was more to that rash of graffiti than met the eye. Ben wasn't persuaded but he'd been paid to investigate this to the best of his journalistic ability so that's what he'd do. As always, when he received an article a.s.signment, he began to map out how he'd write up the story. Of course this was a voyage into the unknown.

The ident.i.ty of the Vampire Sharkz graffiti writer - or should that be dauber? - was a mystery. He didn't know who. He didn't know why. Again, Raj was certain there was some motive for the graffiti beyond the fun of spraying the words in big red letters on buses, trains, walls, gravestones, you name it. So the who and the why were still intangibles; it was only the when that he had a reasonable handle on. The graffiti had just appeared in the last month or so. It seemed to arrive on the first breath of the heat wave that they were enjoying right now. Although from the marked increase in humidity Ben guessed it wouldn't last. A British hot spell tends to end in a thunderstorm. As well as uncovering information about the graffiti artist's ID he ran through the presentation of the story. It made sense to put the graffiti into historical context. He could mention the kind of comments and pictures the ancient Romans and Egyptians violated their walls with - or should it be expressed their creativity with?

Graffiti serves all kinds of purposes. Some is political comment, religious or social matters. Some of it is downright rude. And most simply mundane: 'Joe was here', that kind of thing. Then there were proclamations of love: 'Tiz and Bex forever'. That thought nearly diverted him to his late night brooding over April Connor. Instead, he turned his mind back to the article. The magazine had won an international readers.h.i.+p, so, as well as his investigation into the Vampire Sharkz street art, plus some history about graffiti, he should also describe the graffiti artist's canvas: London itself.

Just how many facts to include is crucial. Use too many and the article becomes a tourism commercial rather than a penetrating investigation into a singular message that infects every street in Londona yeah, he was getting that tingle now as the words started to flow. How about this? A brief description of Britain's capital city of seven million souls, standing on the river that is quaintly known as Father Thames. If anything, most of the graffiti seemed be cl.u.s.tered around the river itself so he could draw this geographical feature into the article. How's this for a description? The river is tidal and stretches from the wide estuary with its tiny forgotten islands to its source in the Cotswolds. It became a favourite port of the ancient Romans because the tidal surge was so strong their boats rode the influx of water fifty miles inland without even having to dip an oar or raise so much as a sail. Too much? Yeah, too much history. Focus more on the phantom nature of the graffiti artist. They're never seen but their work appears magically overnight. So how does the phantom artist move around? Probably on the London Underground tube - more than two hundred and fifty miles of subterranean track that allows them to flit undetected about the city.

Ben paused on the corner of the street. On one side was a billboard that advertised suntan lotion. In turn that bore the now well-known warning: Vampire Sharkz. They're coming to get you. Directly opposite that was a cafe, which boasted it opened at five in the morning and closed at midnight.

Okay, he told himself. This is where you turn detective. Time to start asking questions.

At that time of the morning the cafe catered for just two customers who wore suits despite the heat. They must have been early for an appointment in one of the office blocks that towered over the river and were killing time by discussing the strategy of their forthcoming meeting. The smell of coffee was a fine one and Ben breathed it in. Even though the decor was homely the range of coffees was an exotic one: mocha, espresso, cappuccino, latte; it seemed almost an insult to ask for his regular filter, no cream. The proprietor, a balding man in his fifties, chalked today's specials on a board above the counter. This eastern swathe of London used to be the place to dine on jellied eels, or pie and mash doused in something called liquor (Ben still wasn't sure what this savoury liquor was other than it was a cream-coloured sauce speckled with parsley), but the traditional eateries were being pushed to the margins by more cosmopolitan cafes. The specials board boasted an array of salads with mullet, freshly grilled sardine, calamari, crayfish, Thai shrimp, Scottish salmona the list went ona not an eel in sight, though. Years ago the eel would have been devoured by the ton in this neighbourhood. Although Ben had tasted those snake-like fish he couldn't admit to liking them. That first mouthful had been a combination of cold slime and what seemed to be around a hundred little bones that he'd grimly chewed before swallowing with all the pleasure of someone forced to drink chilled poison. He thought about those eels worming their way along the Thames and told himself they were safe from his jaws at least.

The proprietor finished chalking 'bouillabaisse' in pink then turned to Ben.

'Hot enough for you?'

'Plenty,' Ben replied. He wondered why most conversations in England begin with the weather. 'Looks as if we're heading for a thunderstorm.'

'The dog's hiding in the cellar. He can't stand thunder and he always knows when it's coming. Right, what can I do you for?'

'A cappuccino please.' Journalists know that to order a coffee that takes longer to prepare than other varieties gives them more chance to pump their target for facts. 'Quiet today?' Begin conversationally, that's the way.

'You should see it in an hour when the offices e-mail orders for sandwiches. That salmon's going to walk right out the door.'

'Not much call for jellied eels these days?'

'My grandfather ran a stall at Spitalfields that sold nothing but. Thirty years ago he was making a fortune. Today you can't give eels away. Same goes for whale meat. The first man I met who owned a Rolls Royce earned his money boiling up whale. Even with all his money he couldn't find a girl that would marry him. It was that stink of boiled blubber. It stuck to him like glue. Pastry with your coffee, sir?

'A Danish, please.'

The man operated the steam machine to froth the coffee.

Ben took a paper napkin from the dispenser. 'Any call for shark?'

'Oh? We used to do a shark's fin soup but tastes change. Why do you ask?'

'Shark seems to be all the rage these days.' Ben nodded back through the window at the graffiti.

'Ah, the infamous Vampire Sharkz.' He chuckled as he set down the frothed beverage. 'It's everywhere.'

A woman wearing chef whites emerged from the back to set a dish of chopped tomatoes into a chill cabinet.

The man turned to her. 'Vampire Sharkz, Julie. I was just saying to the gentleman that the graffiti is everywhere.'

She wasn't amused. 'The so-and-so got us the other night. It's painted all over our gate.'

Ben nodded in sympathy. 'Makes you wonder who's doing it?'

'Kids,' the man said firmly.

'It's more than that.' The woman closed the chill cabinet door. 'Whoever's painting it is on a mission.'

'They'll be on a police charge if they don't watch out,' the man joked. Then he held up a silver shaker. 'Sprinkles?' When Ben nodded the man dusted the cappuccino with chocolate dust.

'So what's your theory?' Ben asked the woman.

She gave him an appraising look. 'Why are you interested?'

He decided to be upfront. 'I'm a writer. I've been commissioned by a magazine to investigate the great Vampire Sharkz mystery.'

The man chuckled. 'It sounds as if you don't think there's much of a story in it.'

Ben shrugged. 'Probably not. But you never know. Last year I worked on the green bottle mystery. You might-'

'Oh, the drug smuggling.' The woman smoothed down her chef's whites. 'I remember that one.'

The man looked bemused. 'The green bottle mystery. What's that?'

'You should spend some time reading instead of watching the telly. Shall I tell him?'

Ben nodded. 'Be my guest.' The couple were chatting freely now. If he indulged them then he might be able to tease out some clues about the phantom graffiti artist. People who work in pubs and cafes are great sources of information. It's just a question of filtering fact from gossip.

'The green bottle mystery,' she began. 'Correct me if I'm wrong, sir.'

'Call me Ben.'

'Ben,' she said. 'Let's see, a gang of drug smugglers filled green bottles with marijuana then dropped them over the side of the boat down at the river mouth. That way they avoided sneaking the stuff through customs.'

'Doesn't seem very clever to me.' The man sniffed. 'How did they find it again?'

Ben said, 'The bottles were a distinctive green. They had a gang collect them off the beach right under the noses of the police.'

'But they must have lost most of their stash.' The man began slicing bread in readiness for the office orders. 'The bottles would've floated anywhere and everywhere.'

'Ah, that was the clever bit.' Ben sipped his coffee. 'When the tide rises a ma.s.s of water surges up the Thames. If you drop a bottle way downstream, where the river empties into the sea, providing your timing is right, the bottle will be carried by the tide right into the middle of London.'

'But you've still the problem of fis.h.i.+ng the bottles out.'

'It's all down to the mechanics of tidal flows but all rivers will methodically sort out all material thrown into the water. If you go along the banks you'll find distinct areas where the sh.o.r.e consists of sand, go a bit further then you'll find a stretch of stones that are the same size and shape. Go a bit further and that's where all the driftwood will congregate. It's a known fact that anyone drowning in the river will, likely as not, wind up on the sh.o.r.e at Tower Bridge.'

'So all these green bottles filled with drugs ended up on a Particular beach?'

'Exactly.'

The man squirted steam into a jug. 'Now that's what I call cunning.'

'Did you catch the smugglers?' the woman asked.

'No. My job was to write about the river and its tides and currents.'

'And now you're investigating the Vampire Sharkz. Good luck, mate.' The man stacked the sliced bread. 'My opinion, for what it's worth, is that it's kids.'

'You're wrong,' the woman countered. 'This graffiti's different. Vampire Sharkz. They're coming to get you. Don't you see? It's either a threat or a warning.'

The man caught Ben's eye. 'Who am I to argue? The oracle has spoken.'

She bustled into the back with the words, 'There's a storm coming; I want you to get the dog out of the cellar or he'll howl the place down.'

Ben Ashton moved through the East End of London into the maze of streets around Spitalfields Market. This is the place that movies portrayed as being the fogbound haunt of Jack the Ripper. Where hansom cabs clattered along, and cries of 'Murder! Murder!' in a c.o.c.kney accent would be followed by the piercing note of the constable's whistle. The infamous London smog had gone now. Today, Ben strolled through the summer suns.h.i.+ne where the rows of Victorian townhouses were punctuated by modern buildings. A redbrick house with an ancient front door and extravagant cast-iron knocker that would be perfect as Scrooge's residence in A Christmas Carol might sit next to a gla.s.s-sided photographic studio. The reason for the mixture of architecture was apparent from the gouge marks in the old walls where they'd been scarred by Hitler's bombs. During the blitz of World War Two many properties had been literally blown off the map. Yet the street names were still there: Brick Lane, Chicksand Street, Fas.h.i.+on Street, Petticoat Lane, Whitechapel Road. Now c.o.c.kney sparrows lived side-by-side with middle-eastern families. Brick Lane exuded the mystique and aromas of a Damascus street market. Arabic music ran helter-skelter from cafe doorways. A heady mix of different nationalities thronged the streets. When Ben Ashton visited this neighbourhood it sent tingles down his spine. He loved how Eastern exoticism found a unique fusion with c.o.c.kney London. Although he noticed, regretfully, that it was only just mid-morning otherwise he'd be tempted to slip into one of the restaurants where he could enjoy the Moroccan flavors of lamb slowly cooked with almonds and honey.