The Doorkeepers (34 page)

“You're very kind.”

“Don't mention it. I always like to think of myself as something of a Good Samaritan.” He stood up, and held out his hand. “Meanwhile, I'll see if I can find out anything more about Julia for you. It would be rather jolly if you were reunited, wouldn't it?”

“Yes. Very jolly.”

The receptionist rang for a taxi. “Fulham, is it?” the cab driver asked her, as she climbed into the back.

“No. Take me to the British Museum.”

“You're the boss.”

Cromwell Road was heavily congested with traffic and it took them nearly forty-five minutes to reach Bloomsbury. The morning was warm and windy and in the middle of London the air glittered with golden needles of dried horse manure. Nancy saw two Watchers along the way, one of them standing on the corner in Knightsbridge and the other in Leicester Square. She raised her hand across her face in case the Hooded Men had issued a description of her.

She paid the cab driver and he gave her a handful of big bronze pennies and chunky little threepenny bits. She crossed the street to the British Museum and walked around to the entrance where Simon Cutter had taken them to see John Farbelow. As she approached it, however, she saw that there was some kind of commotion going on. The street was crowded with people, and five white ambulances were drawn up along the curb.

She slowed down. Over the heads of the crowd she saw the tall black hats of Hooded Men and their dog-handlers. There were seven or eight of them at least. Her heart beating quickly, she crossed back over to the opposite side of the street and hid herself behind a postbox. It was difficult to see what was
happening. Somebody started shouting and screaming and then abruptly stopped. The Hooded Men came through the crowd and everybody shrank out of their way. They stood together, surrounded by their dog-handlers, as if they were waiting for something.

An old woman in a yellow floral print dress came and stood close to Nancy and shook her head. “That's the way to deal with them,” she said. “Show them the sharp end, that's what I say.”

“What's going on?” Nancy asked her.

“Subversives, that's what I heard. The Hoodies went in to arrest them, and they put up a fight.”

Nancy felt a growing sense of dread. She had come here to make sure that Josh had been successfully rescued. She prayed to every spirit of life and good fortune that he hadn't still been here, with John Farbelow's people, when the Hooded Men arrived.

There was a murmuring from the crowd, and then a spontaneous burst of applause. Two ambulancemen came up the steps from the museum basement, carrying a canvas stretcher. At first Nancy couldn't see very well, but then the crowd parted a little, and she caught a glimpse of a young man, his clothes drenched in blood. One hand swung loose, and blood dripped from his fingertips and made patterns on the pavement.

Two more ambulancemen appeared, carrying another body, a girl this time. Nancy's first impression was that her hair was ginger, but then she realized that it was blonde, and soaked in blood. The girl had been cut with a sword across the bridge of the nose, so that her face had almost been sliced in half.

The procession went on, and after twenty minutes the ambulancemen had brought up eighteen bodies, each grisly new appearance greeted by more applause, and even shouts of “hooray!” Nancy still hadn't seen anybody who looked like Josh, or John Farbelow, but she thought that she recognized the Chinese-looking girl who had first opened the door for them, and one or two others.

After all the ambulances had driven away, their bells shrilling, the Hooded Men dispersed the crowd and went
marching off to a sharp, aggressive drumbeat. Nancy walked down to Oxford Street, where she hailed a taxi to take her to Fulham.

She felt seriously frightened now, and physically sick with guilt. Of course she had understood that John Farbelow and his band of young subversives had been running a risk, trying to rescue Josh – but she had never thought that the Hooded Men would react with such savagery.

But right now, there was nothing she could do. She couldn't even go back to the “real” London until tomorrow afternoon. Her courage began to fail her. Far from being daring and clever and independent, her plan to capture Frank Mordant now seemed ridiculously dangerous.

The taxi drew up outside a shabby four-story building, yellow London brick with red-painted front steps. “This is it, miss. The Sheffield.”

Inside the Sheffield, there was a red and gold carpet so swirly-patterned that it almost gave her motion sickness, and gilded mirrors, and vases filled with dried honesty, all sprayed gold, and a pervasive smell of disinfectant. A blond young man in a green blazer was sitting behind the reception desk, working on a cryptic crossword. He didn't look up as Nancy approached, but licked his index finger and turned the page.

Eventually, Nancy said, “Frank Mordant said I should come here. He said you could find me a room.”

The young man blinked at her as if he couldn't understand how she had managed to walk right up to the reception desk without him seeing her. “A room?”

“This is a hotel, isn't it?”

“Of course. What sort of a room?”

“Something pretty basic. I only want it for a couple of nights.”

“Hmm,” the young man pouted. “I don't know whether we've got anything
basic.”

“Well, whatever. So long as it has a bathtub.”

The young man pushed a registration card across the counter.
“If you fill in your particulars. Do you want breakfast in the morning? You have to order porridge the night before.”

“No, thanks. No porridge.”

“Is that all the luggage you've got?” he said, nodding toward Nancy's overnight case. “We're not supposed to accept single ladies without a full-size suitcase. It's the law.”

“Oh, Frank Mordant has my bags. He's bringing them around later.”

“Room eleven, then,” he said, handing over the key. “Top of the stairs, third on the right.”

Nancy climbed the swirly-patterned stairs. When she was halfway up, the young man said, “Excuse me!” and she stopped. “You can't think of an eight-letter word meaning ‘banned church service on the field of slaughter'?”

“No, I'm sorry. I can't. I'm not very good at cryptic crosswords.”

“Oh. All right, then. Just thought I'd ask.”

She let herself into her room. It was large and airy, with a high Victorian ceiling, but it was so crowded with chairs and occasional tables that it was more of an obstacle course than a bedroom. The walls were hung with more gilded mirrors and prints of white horses dancing through the surf; and the bed was covered with a swirly-patterned bedcover in brown and white.

Nancy took off her shoes and sat down at the fussy little onyx-topped dressing table. Her reflection looked completely composed, quite unlike the way she actually felt. She stared into her eyes. How can you appear so calm, when you're so scared? How can you look so remote, when they were carrying up the bloodied bodies of all those young people, and it was all your fault?

She was beginning to feel hungry but she knew that she wouldn't be able to eat. She took off her coat and hung it in the wardrobe. Then she lay down on the brown and white bedcover and tried to rest. She told herself to stop panicking. She had a well worked-out plan to entice Frank Mordant to return to the “real” London with her, and if she managed to
pull it off, Frank Mordant would be arrested and charged, Julia would have the justice she deserved, and Josh would be able to take her back to Mill Valley, where they could forget all about Hooded Men and dogs and drummers and Doorkeepers. Early this afternoon, she had felt like giving up, and going back to the “real” London as soon as the world had turned around. But now she felt determined to finish what she had started. Her grandfather had once put his arm around her and told her that a hunter never returns home empty-handed. “No matter if it takes all winter, you never return to your family without carrying your kill over your shoulder. That is why the hunter hunts. That is why the family waits.”

She was still thinking of her grandfather and his gentle, finely wrinkled face when she fell asleep, and the world turned even further.

She was woken up by the phone jangling. It was light, but she didn't have any idea what the time was. The phone was a white Regency-style affair with a gold revolving dial. She picked it up and said, “Yes? Who is it?”

“Miss Andersen! It's Frank Mordant. I didn't wake you, did I? Do you know what time it is? Ten past nine!”

“What? I must have overslept.”

“Well, not to worry. I know what it's like, coming through the doors. Knocks you for six, bit like jet lag. The thing is, though, I might need you to start work with me a little earlier than I expected. Like, today.”

“Today
?
”

“I hope that's not inconvenient. The problem is, Sandra phoned in this morning and said that she wasn't coming back. Sandra, that's my secretary. You know what these young girls are like. Boyfriend trouble, more than likely. But she's really left me in the lurch. I was wondering if you could come in A.S.A.P. and help me out. I'm absolutely snowed under.”

“I don't know, Mr Mordant. It's kind of sudden.”

“Yes, quite. I do appreciate that. But it's pretty straightforward work and I'm sure you can cope. Especially since the flat's free now, and you can move in any time you like.”

“You mean that Sandra's moved out completely?”

“Upped sticks. Didn't even leave me a forwarding address. Inconsiderate, or what? But if you come in now, we'll have time to take a look at it.”

Nancy sat up. She hadn't expected to have the opportunity to put her plan into action so quickly; but now that the moment had come, she felt a sudden rush of adrenalin. “Listen, give me an hour,” she said.

“Chop-chop, then. I'm having lunch with a chap from the Coal Board at twelve thirty, and I'd like to get things weaving before then. Take a taxi; Wheatstone's will pay for it.”

Nancy dressed in her suit and the cream silk blouse that she had brought in her overnight case. She knew that she could chicken out now, if she wanted to. All she had to do was wait for three and a half hours and she could go back through the door and forget that Frank Mordant and the Hooded Men had ever existed. But that would mean that Julia's murder would go unpunished and that she would never be able to stop Josh from coming back here and trying to make sure that Frank Mordant got what was coming to him.

She had seen for herself how vengeful the Hooded Men were: they wouldn't let Josh escape a second time. Not only that, if she went back to the “real” London now, who could tell how many more vulnerable young girls like Julia would be killed and mutilated? To say that Sandra's sudden disappearance was deeply suspicious was the understatement of the century.

She hailed a cab on the corner of Munster Road. It was one of those strange hazy mornings when everything seems out of focus. The taxi driver never stopped talking, all the way to the Great West Road. He thought that all the colored people ought to go back to where they came from, and that Parliament ought to bring back beheading. “Stick their heads on a spike, that's what I say. Make an example of them.”

They were delayed for almost twenty minutes at the Chiswick Flyover. A private autogiro had crashed on to one of the carriageways. As Nancy's taxi crept past it, she saw the pilot
still trapped in the wreckage. It was almost impossible to tell where the man ended and the machine began.

“Never get me up in one of them things,” remarked the taxi driver.

Frank Mordant was on the telephone when she arrived at the office but he beckoned her in.

“No, Malcolm,” he was saying. “It's absolutely out of the question. Well, tell him that's the lowest I'll go. Ninepence a unit? Who does he think I am? Father Bloody Christmas?”

He cradled the phone and leaned back in his chair. “Well, then,” he said. “You managed to get here all right.”

“I'm looking forward to it.”

“As I say, the work's pretty humdrum. Pretty run-of-the-mill. Typing, filing, all the usual. Have you ever used a manual typewriter? Good exercise for the fingers, I can tell you.”

“I'm sure I'll pick it up.”

“Jolly good.” He looked at his wristwatch and said, “We've just got time for me to show you the flat. If you like it, you can move in today. If you don't – well, don't feel embarrassed to tell me. I can always help you find diggings somewhere else.”

He ushered her downstairs, and out into the car park, opening the door of his Armstrong-Siddeley for her. “By the way,” he said, as they drove out of the factory gates, “I made one or two enquiries about Julia for you.”

“That's kind of you.”

“I talked to her landlady, in case she'd been back to pick up any more of her stuff, but no joy there, I'm afraid.”

You liar,
thought Nancy, picturing Mrs Marmion's body hanging over her bathtub. She must have been discovered and buried by now.

“I talked to some of her chums in the office. One of them said that Julia was always keen on going to Scotland, so we might have a lead there.”

“I see,” said Nancy. “Scotland's a pretty big place, though, isn't it?”

“You never know. If she took the train from King's Cross, somebody in the ticket office might remember her.”

“Kind of a long shot.”

“I suppose so. But I got back to an old pal of mine at Scotland Yard yesterday afternoon, to find out if he had any ideas.”

They reached the Sir Oswald Mosley pub and Frank Mordant parked outside. “It's like I tell all the girls … it's a little noisy here, but it's cheap, and it's close to the office.”

“All
the girls?”

“They come and they go. Little boats bobbing past on the river of life, if you don't mind me being poetic.”