Anno Dracula Dracula Cha Cha Cha (51 page)

‘The Super sent me with a heads-up for you. B Division will be all over this patch tomorrow. Those flower children had better not be passing around that Camberwell Carrot. The Drug Squad has invited itself into the investigation. Sergeant Pilcher is itching for an excuse to get his size-elevens up the fundaments of the chemical hippies of this parish.’

‘Is this one of those pacify-the-papers shows? To prove you’re doing
something
?’

‘Ah-hah, we’d like you in the press to think so… because you’d still have to pat us on the back. But there are wheels within wheels. There’s a real reason.’

Are you going to make me try to
fascinate
you into coughing it up?’

Griffin enjoyed playing I’ve Got A Secret, but let it go. ‘The autopsies, love.
Trés
interesting. They called in Hardy…’

The pathologist Dr John Hardy worked with the Home Office on high-profile cases. He ruled Stephen Ward’s death a suicide and Joe Orton’s a murder.

‘…and he found something which would have been easy to miss. When the blood’s gone, it’s difficult to test for, say, alcohol.’

‘But the blood’s never
all
gone, is it? Even in white-lips cases.’

‘No, there’s always something. The brain, they say, is a retentive sponge. All those little capillaries. If you suck them dry, would you pick up the dying thoughts of your victim, do you suppose?’

Kate looked at Griffin. He can’t have been a vampire more than a year.

‘Try not to use emotive terms like “victim”,’ she said. ‘Irks the Enochites.’

Griffin shrugged and carried on. ‘Hardy found enough blood in the cerebella to test. Both girls were high when they popped off. tripping on quality BOP, manufactured close to the source. Which would mean in that building over there. The one with the mural which looks like the Dulux dog spewed up fifteen shades of non-gloss on the wall.’

‘The dead girls were on Bowles-Ottery Pellets?’

‘Handfuls. Not that it should make a difference. One’ll do the trick. Serious bopheads drip liquid Bowles-Ottery onto a sugar-cube. You could have it in your breakfast cuppa and take a trip to work. Semolina Pilchard gave a speech about ways and means of turning on. He’s like your secret vampire lovers. Rabbits on and on about filthy drugs. The thought of duffing up a long-haired pop singer and copping a stash gives him a week-long stiffy. He times his raids when the dim herberts are with groupies so he can get an eyeful.’

Sergeant Pilcher collected famous hippie scalps. He’d busted Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Jerry Cornelius, and had American singer Lionel St Dubois turned back at Heathrow. A policeman with a press agent, Pilcher sailed close to the wind in staging his headline-grabbers. In court, Horace Rumpole, Cornelius’s brief, proved Crown Exhibits A through C were herbal cough medicines. Pilcher knew a lot about drugs but couldn’t spot the good ones. He should have led with Exhibit D: Chew-Z cut with vraxoin, bug powder and dreamshit. So dangerous a cocktail Jerry didn’t nerve up enough to drop it until the seven-day party thrown in Derry & Tom’s Roof Garden to celebrate his acquittal. He was still in a happy coma and seemed to have changed colour.

‘I assume everyone at Syrie Van Epp’s bash was on something?’ she said.

‘Uh-huh, and we can guess how the BOP got from here to there. With one of your Prof’s pals.’

‘He’s not
my
Prof.’

‘Bellaver’s not happy.’

‘Front page news?’

Griffin shrugged. ‘He doesn’t like the way everything in this case leads to St Bartolph’s.’

‘He’s right. It’s too neat and tidy. Little arrow-signs. Pointing here. Makes you think we should be looking somewhere else.’

The sun was down now. Blessed shade.

Griffin took a small pack out of his pocket. ‘Opal Fruit?’

‘Ta,’ she said. ‘Lime, please.’

‘Connoisseur, eh?’

He shucked sweets from the tube like bullets from an automatic, till he found a lime. He took a strawberry one.

They sucked and chewed. Her taste buds still worked. She got no thrill from cocaine, opium or vintage champagne (yes, she had tried), but Opal Fruits — ‘Fresh with the tang of citrus! Four refreshing fruit flavours!’ — made her mouth water. And saliva brought out her fangs.

‘At least these never let you down,’ said Griffin, looking at the individually wrapped sweets in his hand. ‘Not like…’

‘Drugs?’

‘Blood.’

Kate knew how Griffin felt. She’d got past the disappointment a long time ago. None of Croft’s Black Monks had shown the signs, and most must have turned about when Griffin did.

‘Know why I became a vampire, Kate?’

She didn’t.

‘Donna…’

‘WPC Rogers?’

She had known they were going out but keeping it quiet.

‘Know why
she
turned? B Division. As a viper, she was a cert for promotion… Otherwise, she’d stay a glorified traffic warden. Warm WPOs have a hard time in the Met. Best she could hope for is Vice Squad. Dressing like a tart and entrapping kerb-crawlers. But in B Division… well, there are opportunities for advancement. So, she was all fired-up for the turn. Good Old Cheery Old Jolly Old Julian went for it too.’

Kate hadn’t known Griffin’s first name.

‘No one told us about vampire couples. It’s not in that little leaflet you get at the doctor’s.’

Kate understood. Turning quickened every sense, but realigned them too. No more booze or sunny days on the beach. but Opal Fruits triggered your pleasure centres.

‘Some stay together,’ Kate said, well aware she’d never stayed with another vampire for more than a few weeks. ‘Some marry.’

‘And become those two-in-one monsters. Mind-melded forever. Can’t tell where one leaves off and the other begins.’

‘Isn’t that love?’

‘Maybe, but it’s terrifying. Most of the ones you’re talking about are elders, right? They got together when there weren’t so many vampires walking about.’

Croft had been married, Kate remembered. Lady Croydon was burned at the stake in Massachusetts in the eighteenth century. Perhaps that explained him — he was only half a person. Not that it was any excuse.

‘If one partner’s strong in the head, the other dwindles,’ said Griffin. ‘I’ve read about Dracula’s “wives”…’

The ghost of Lucy Westenra walked over the grave Kate wasn’t resting in.

‘I doubt WPC Rogers is a psychic quagmire like Dracula.’

‘It’s not that, though. It’s the bedroom, isn’t it? You can do all the things you did before and they’re… well, nice. Strawberry Opal Fruit nice. But it’s not blood. And for blood, you have to find. other people.’

Kate understood. Frank Harris, the vampire who turned her, lost interest the moment she ceased to be biteable and became a rival. She had sought him out in the first place because he could give her an experience but wouldn’t fill in her dance card. She’d — scandalously — slept with him, becoming ‘a woman who did’. It seemed a waste not to. She knew turning vampire would enrage her father so much he wouldn’t trouble to be bothered about additional harlotry.

‘When we were warm, we’d lie there… afterwards. Smoking, dozing, sticky. Together. Now, after we have it off, I know what Donna’s feeling because I feel it too. Red thirst, screaming in the brain. I want to get out of bed, get away on my own, and find someone to…’

She held his hand.

‘I know. It’s part of turning. I’ve been a vampire for eighty years. Sometimes I don’t know why I did it. Except I’m still alive and I get to see how the story turned out.’

‘What story?’

All of them. Do you want me to talk with Donna?’

A new vocation — Agony Auntie. Katie Reed’s Advice to the Lovelorn. Many of the men in her life would laugh at that.

‘Too late for that, love,’ he said, letting her hand go. ‘We’re on different courses, now. We’re not the same kind of viper.’

Few vampires used that word. Griffin retained the prejudices of his former life. Scratch him and he probably agreed with Enoch Powell. He hadn’t yet accepted that he was one of the monsters.

‘You’re a catch, Julian,’ she said, trying to mean it.

He was a new-born, not one she responded to. It wasn’t a matter of fancying or not fancying him. She had extra senses. This was like glancing at a field of horses and knowing the winners from the also-rans before the race. She didn’t see the spark, the hint of sharp ivory in a smile, in Sergeant Griffin. In DeBoys and Eastman and even Donna Rogers, she did — they would be
great
vampires. Griffin was fated to be Good Old Cheery Old Jolly Old Julian. Just like she was always going to be Carrot-Top Katie, Four-Eyes Reed, the Freckled Freak. Not that she wanted to be great, just
good
.

There was a commotion on campus.

‘Talk about careless driving,’ said Griffin.

A blue-and-white Volkswagen van swerved off the approach road to the car park. It ploughed across the lawn, making ruts. Students scattered out of its way. The dope-smokers were befuddled by the sudden excitement. One of the girls was together enough to shift her friends. Their blanket was ground under the wheels of the juggernaut. The VW’s unusually bright headlights hurt her eyes. Heraeus metal-halide incandescents. Sun-lamps, developed in Germany for military use. Extra beams were mounted on the roofrack.

Kate was fully alert.

Griffin stood. His fangs were sharp and his eyes reflected red.

‘Oi, you,’ he shouted, hand up to shield his face from the dazzle.

The van wrenched to a halt. Its side-doors opened. Several men jumped out. They wore white boiler-suits with crusader crosses on their fronts — vertical bar from crotch to neck, horizontal from armpit to armpit — and heavy Doc Martens, plus cheap plastic masks of
Beano
and
Dandy
characters. Dennis the Menace, Plug from the Bash Street Kids, Desperate Dan, Biffo the Bear, Korky the Cat. Students laughed but this wasn’t another Rag Week stunt.

Plug and Korky had crossbows, Biffo a blowtorch. Dennis and Dan touched rag-wrapped sticks to the flame, and they caught. The firebrands advanced across the lawn, waving flames at any creatures of the night.

One of the vampire kids — the lad with the guitar — got in the way, and his kaftan was set on fire. He screeched and rolled on the grass, extinguishing the flames. The comic characters stepped over him. Korky stuck the boot in, landing a vicious kick to the kid’s ribs. His Docs had metal toe-caps. Steel or silver.

Kate had her claws and teeth out.

‘Knock it off, you lot,’ said Griffin, producing his warrant card. ‘Police officer.’

Plug raised his crossbow and fired.

The bolt pierced Griffin’s eye, its silvered tip punching out the back of his head.

The policeman dropped his ID and buckled at the knees.

Kate caught Griffin and tried to let him down gently. His good eye stared, angrily. Blood gouted from his wound. His whole body spasmed. She didn’t know what to do. How to start to help. His mouth opened and closed. Word-chains leaked out.

Most of the students legged it.

Kate saw Nezumi running towards her, hockey stick raised, boater blown off. Plug fitted another quarrel, turned and fired. Nezumi leaned out of the way of the dart but didn’t break step.

Biffo made ‘quick quick’ hand-gestures.

Dennis and Korky grabbed Kate and dragged her towards the van. She lost hold of Griffin, who was left behind on the grass. She twisted and got an elbow in her face. Her glasses flew off in pieces. A gloved hand closed over her mouth. She tried to bite, but shock flew through her fangs. Silver plates under canvas. The Bash Street Gang had come prepared for vampires.

Fire was held close to her and she went slack. Biffo nodded approval. He was in charge.

She was nearly in the back of the van.

Griffin wasn’t moving. Plug put a bovver boot on the policeman’s chest and pulled out his bolt. Silver tips were costly. Dan stuck his firebrand against Griffin’s side. That polyester suit caught light, sheathing Griffin in flame. He didn’t writhe or screech.

Sergeant Griffin was truly dead.

She couldn’t let herself be taken into the van.

Nezumi charged through, bringing her hockey stick down against Plug’s knee. Biffo dropped his blowtorch and took a revolver out of his hip pocket. Could the Japanese vampire dodge bullets?

Kate grabbed Dennis’s wrist, where the skin was bare, and extruded her nails into his meat. He let go of her mouth and she scratched, hoping for an artery.

Nezumi stood, demurely. Biffo aimed his pistol at her.

Dennis got his arm free of Kate’s claws. He dropped his flaming torch and pulled a lathe-sharpened length of wood from his tool-belt. She bobbed and ducked like a boxer, shifting her torso so a heart-stab wouldn’t be easy. Especially through the eyeholes of a plastic mask. Dennis ripped off his face — she didn’t recognise him, but he had the close-cropped haircut she associated with Enoch’s nastier followers — and concentrated on her. Blood flowed freely over his gauntlet. She felt inconvenient red thirst.

Korky, Dan and Plug joined Dennis. They made a ring around her. Dan jabbed with his torch. Korky and the limping Plug held crossbow bolts like stakes. She wheeled about, hissing. She resented being reduced to this defensive cartoon. She saw in a bloody blur.

They were herding her towards the van.

Then, Dan’s torch was ripped from his grip and tossed away. It arced high over the lawn like a distress flare. Dan’s mask came off, disclosing a plump, bland, scared white face. An instant later, his face came off. Wild eyes stared out of a red ruin.

Black shapes mixed in with the comic characters, moving swiftly, tearing and biting and breaking. Plug screamed when his bolt was taken from him and stuck into his back before he could see what had attacked. Korky’s arms kinked the wrong way and he was dragged yards away from the light. Dennis, undeterred, knocked Kate down and got his knee on her stomach. She crossed wrists over her heart as he raised his stake high. For a moment, she saw clearly — the clean wooden point. This would kill her.

And she’d never know how this story turned out.