The Severed Streets (15 page)

In the far corner, in the same place as on the floor above, was a different tweedy bloke with a beard, sitting guarding yet another downward stairwell.
As above, so below.
So there was another level beneath this.
Of course.

Quill went over to the juke box, in exactly the same place as in the bar above.
This one was an old-fashioned job with vinyl singles, and the selections were all songs about London: the Kinks; Blur; the Small Faces.
To play one cost only twenty pence.
But he didn’t feel like being the first to select a track.
He went to a table and picked up a menu.
These cocktails had names like the Lambeth Walk, the Ally Sloper, the Black Shock.
That last name made something echo in his head.
Like déjà vu for something that hadn’t yet happened.
Quill didn’t know one bottle of champers from another, but the top of the range down here was considerably cheaper than upstairs.
He went to check out the paintings on the walls.
These were all portraits of individuals, their names underneath, nothing spooky about them.
Though, wait a sec, Aleister Crowley – there was a name he recognized: fat bloke, a sort of coked-up mania about him, half performance, half something a bit more worrying.
Beside him: Dion Fortune; Austin Osman Spare; Gerald Gardner … There were many more – a complete circuit of them on the walls – and in between the portraits were what seemed to be action scenes, or at least metaphorical versions of such.
Here were a group of figures under the searchlights and blimps of wartime London, their arms arranged in stark stick-figure angles, protesting against or attacking what was surely the threatening shape of a falling V2 rocket.
Here was a parting of the ways, a splitting, as many figures walked many different paths, some falling off into nothingness, into a sunlit map of London.

So someone in this community knew at least a bit about the history of it.
Looking around, though, Quill decided that even the punters down here seemed about as useless as the general public he was used to.

*   *   *

Ross looked into the white face of the barmaid.
‘What can I get you, my darling?’
said the woman, her mask of make-up not equalling the welcome of her broad East End accent.
The mask was extraordinary, now she was up close.
Some of it, around the eyes, was obviously cosmetics on the surface of skin, but some of it was absolutely smooth, blank, as if there was only the artificial colour of the cosmetics and nothing underneath.
If she wiped it all off, the woman looked as if she might be just eyes and what was around them and a mouth floating in mid-air.

Ross realized that she was staring and ordered a glass of red she had no intention of drinking.
The barmaid gave it to her.
Ross could see fine old cuts in almost every inch of the skin of her hands, making it look like a map on vellum.
Her fingernails were cut to the quick.
‘And how are you going to pay for that?’

Ross made a decision based on what she’d seen at the New Age fair.
‘Not with money.’

‘Good.
Were they upstairs already?
Are they going to come down here?’

‘Who?’

‘Well, that’s even better, you going the right way about things without knowing what’s going on.
All right, what have you got to offer?’

What had the fortune-teller at the New Age fair lost?
Fingers, teeth … ‘Blood?’

The woman laughed.
‘Bit much, my dear.
Never met anyone before who
opened
with that.
Tell you what, I’ll start a slate for you, and eventually you can make a donation.
Blimey, I can’t get over it, a first-timer who actually wants to follow the form.
You came here wanting something, I take it?’

Did she know?

The barmaid obviously read the expression on her face.
‘I haven’t just rifled through your drawers, love.
It’s why most people come here.’

*   *   *

Sefton followed the abusive young woman to a group of people seemingly familiar to her, hoping they’d take him for an acquaintance of hers and that would give him a way in.
But the woman looked sidelong at him as soon as he got there, like a bird of prey needing to alter the angle of its vision to get perspective on its target.
Perhaps, Sefton thought nervously, that was exactly what she was doing.
He was among power, of varying degrees, and who knew who was hiding theirs?
The users of it were all looking at him, and at Costain, now he turned to look, as if the two of them were a terrible development.
He should think of this lot, as he did when he was in a gang, as being armed and dangerous.
‘Fucking poser jacket,’ said the abusive woman, actually raising her voice so he’d be sure to hear.
‘How did you get down here, when you look like a complete fuckwit?’

Sefton was too intrigued now to get in her face again.
Besides, a character shouldn’t be one note.
Her straightforward aggression was a relief after the chill coming from the rest of this lot.
Also, she’d chosen a non-racial approach this time.
Presumably she’d exhausted that material.
‘I’m a complete fuckwit.’

Sudden mocking laughter erupted from behind Sefton.
It sounded almost like a voice saying ‘ha ha ha’, in an extraordinarily cynical, almost self-critical way.
‘At least
someone
here knows themselves.’

Sefton turned to see that an extraordinary figure had joined the group.
He looked middle-aged, with a face that made him look as if he had some sort of wasting disease, a skull that, under a shock of bright red hair, boasted handsome cheekbones and eyes that seemed continuously challenging, rolling and staring.
Those eyes knew everything about him, in a moment.
Sefton found the undercover part of him reacting, certain he’d been recognized, that somehow this man he’d never seen before knew who he really was.
He had to stop himself from marching for the door, telling himself there was no logical reason to do so, that this still might
just
be a feeling.
Besides, the look of the man had stopped him in his tracks.
His jacket was made of newspaper, from enormous edifices of Victoriana to brash red-top headlines, flowing and changing.
The pattern on the man’s trousers was a grid that resembled tartan, but it flexed like a topographical map.
The man’s grin was increasing as he took in what Sefton was now absolutely bloody certain he’d learned about him.
Never mind walking out; in a moment, Sefton might have to sprint.

‘Don’t mind me,’ the man said, ‘I’m not real.’

‘What do you mean?’

The man shook his head, impatient with the wrong tack being taken.
‘Don’t like that question.
I’m going to answer a different one.
Yes, I know
all
about
you.
Fortunately, I don’t care.’
Sefton kept his fear in check, making himself look calm once more.
But still, this lot would now know there was
something
dodgy about him.
‘I might know anything about anyone,’ the man continued, ‘with just one look.
All the information of this world flows down to me.’
He poked a finger into Sefton’s jacket, and Sefton felt the vanes in his breast pocket jerk at the contact, trying to point towards the gravity of the man.
The group had all turned to look at the new arrival, he realized, as if he was some sort of touchstone for them.
‘You’re all right, you are.
He’s all right, everybody!’
That had been a call with no expectation that it would have any result, an irony at the man’s own lack of influence, but Sefton could see that it had actually had some effect.
‘Oh, it’s all going pear-shaped tonight,’ the man continued, looking back to Sefton.
‘Our barmaid over there,’ he indicated, ‘I know her name but I will not share it; she made the mistake of continuing with the old ways, of not allowing coin to stay in her palm.
The Keel brothers did not like that.
The penalty was the loss of her face.
Les yeux sans visage,
as some pretender once said.
The Keels would like her to continue working here, to please the old clientele even as they begin to fleece them.
They have promised to give her face back if she’s a good girl.
But tonight we’ll see.’
He looked Sefton up and down, an arrogant and yet somehow self-mocking smirk on his face.
‘We all love our masks, don’t we?
It’s the only option when a circle has to fit inside a square.
When one song has to be sung to the tune of another.
The distortion continues.
Ever feel you’re being bent out of shape?’
He whirled a finger in the air as if sampling the oppressive quality of the air, and then licked it, seeming to be entertained by the taste.
He pointed downwards.
‘The things I have to crawl up through to attend these soirées now.
The things you people put up with.
The things you
allow.
’ Now his gaze was fixed again on Sefton.
‘But still we get
new
arrivals.
Oh, sorry, I said the N word –’ he made a quick, scathing glance at the gathering – ‘sorry.’
He suddenly held out his hand to Sefton.
‘I am John, and I was born in London.
They call me the Rat King.
When they call me anything at all.’

Sefton understood that that was a hell of a thing.
In a company of people who kept their names like hoarded treasure, here he was being offered one for free.
From someone who apparently knew who and what he was.
He felt himself trusting this man with his own real identity because of that single surprising gesture.
He shook the hand.
‘The fuckers of this culture,’ said the Rat King, ‘are going to be troubled by what you might bring to their community.’
He enunciated every syllable, underlining their meaning and put an entire landscape of irony between himself and that last word.
‘So I am delighted to see you.’
He leaned closer to whisper in Sefton’s ear.
‘But I am afraid I
don’t
know the thing you most want to find out.’

His meaningful glance made Sefton certain that the Rat King was talking about the Ripper.

*   *   *

Costain, meanwhile, aware of the looks he was getting and not wanting to be seen as coming on too strong, had been looking for differences between this bar and the ones above.
He was now inspecting one of several large cracks in the plaster of the walls.
Were these walls under pressure from being underground?
Pretty rubbish construction, if so.
There was something … he leaned closer to the wall and saw something sparkling inside one of the cracks, something … silver.
He could feel it on his face: the material in the crack was freezing cold.
Yeah, here was that silver goo again.
Only this time it seemed to be being used to hold this place together.

*   *   *

Quill managed to overhear a few conversations that expressed horror or wonder at the activities of the Ripper.
Some of this lot had definitely, having seen the news on TV, noted the glowing figure leaving the crime scene, but apart from that, not a thing suggested that this community was better informed on the subject than the wider public.
Also, nobody had said anything about a smiling man.
He’d heard a couple of conversations where people had talked about making ‘sacrifices to London’, as if the metropolis was the thing this lot worshipped.
Whatever plan the Smiling Man had used Rob Toshack to hint obliquely about to Quill’s team, this group didn’t seem to be in on it.
Quill was backing up, trying to move round to join the fringes of another conversation, when he hit something with the back of his thighs.

He turned round and saw that he’d encountered the long legs of a man in black jeans, black T-shirt and black leather jacket who was sitting in a discreet corner of the bar, his mobile phone in his hand.
He had a long face, caring, slightly sad, with a worried look around his mouth, and a shock of dark hair.
He was looking as if Quill had disturbed him in the middle of a thought.

Quill realized, to his surprise, that he recognized this man.
He didn’t quite know from where, but he had a feeling that it wasn’t in a police context.

‘Can I help you?’
said the man.

Quill became aware that he had been staring, and at the same moment knew where he’d seen this guy before.
It had been on the inside flap of a book he’d read to Jessica, and on another that Sarah had been reading in bed, and he’d been surprised that the same bloke had written both.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘aren’t you that writer?’

‘I’m
a
writer.’

‘Children’s books?’

‘All sorts of books.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘It’s usually pretty quiet, and I can write, sometimes.’

‘I mean, so you’ve got, I mean you must have … to get down those stairs…’ Quill pointed to his own eyes.

‘The Sight?
Of course.’

‘Of course.
Of course.
Myself, I got it when I touched a pile of soil.
But of course it’s not … always that.
Is it?’
Arrgh.
Why couldn’t he just talk normally to this bloke?

The man paused as if wondering whether or not he should answer, then went ahead, possibly thinking it was the quickest way out of the conversation.
‘Someone handed me an object at a signing.
They said they hoped it would give me “inspiration”.
It gave me a headache and a bunch of terrible visions on the way to the airport.
And, as it turned out, every time I visited London.
So the inspiration it gave me was mostly to live abroad.’

‘And you got to the Goat…?’

‘When I got used to the idea of London being horrifying, I did a bit of exploring and found a few places.
This bar has been relatively friendly, but I worry about the new management.’

‘Have you been further downstairs?’

‘No.
But…’ He considered for a moment and was absolutely silent, looking aside as if weighing up a few different possibilities.
Quill found himself wanting to interrupt, but was too interested in what the man was about to say.
‘No,’ the man finally said again, as if it was a decision.
Then he smiled broadly at Quill.
‘Good to meet you.’

Quill understood he was being politely dismissed.
‘And you.
I’ll let you get back to…’ He gestured in the abstract direction of whatever the man had been looking at on his phone.
‘Cheers.’

He headed off, kicking himself for asking a lot of bloody copper interview questions, completely ignoring his own rules, all because he’d run into someone who was, presumably, famous.