Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? (33 page)

Ross looked round and saw the audience were taking part. She felt the gravity of the Sight surging around her, pulsing like the smallest, most precise underwater currents, around the auditorium,
between the seats, then straight at the stage. It was building and building. She looked to Costain. He was clearly worried. He didn’t know how to take part any more than she did. Nobody was
paying them any attention, thank God.

Onstage, some of the robed figures were wavering, as if the air between them and the audience had become warmed by the bonfire, no, much more than that. Sefton might have had words for what was
happening. The shape of the room and everything inside it were being changed. Ross felt as if she was standing at the edge of a cliff, but also, she’d never felt more in London. It was like
the metropolis had been taken out of context and put on the stage, at a sudden, scary distance. The room was warping around the call that was being broadcast from the stage.

‘I think they’re trying to summon all of them, at once,’ whispered Costain.

It didn’t feel like they all wanted to come. There was resistance in the air. Ross found herself hoping they didn’t come, or not all of them. The shape that had been Tock was
particularly worrying, something like a black hole. One of what was being summoned definitely wasn’t coming. The man representing ‘Morningstar’ was gesturing pointlessly, looking
frustrated, while all the other robed figures were transforming. Ross was interested to see what ‘Trickster’ would appear. That figure was blurred, but seemed to have only got so far, a
formless cloud that showed no sign of becoming clear. ‘Other’ was quickly settling into a seated shape. The vision of her suddenly leaped forwards, and Ross was teetering above her,
feeling like she was about to fall, her arms flailing, held up only by the trivial forces of physics. ‘Other’ had become a black woman in a wheelchair, only a fine sheen of hair on her
head, her ears opened by rings, a stud in her nose, her eyes those of . . . Ross had been about to say an animal’s, but it was Ross who was the animal and she was something more. For a
moment, she was different, green with purple spots. ‘You have to
do
something,’ she said, her voice clear and angry. She was saying this to the whole room, Ross realized, not
just to her. ‘You have to do something before it’s too late.’

There was somehow a feeling of agreement from the rest of the swirling mass. ‘Other’ raised a hand, a stump, and suddenly the vision leaped back and to the right, and they were all
craning their necks towards the gravitational heave of . . . the top of St Paul’s Cathedral, she was sure it was, that familiar dome. It was suddenly clear, in the room with them now. Every
other building in London, every spire, every skyscraper, was leaning precariously towards it. On the steps of the cathedral stood a figure, the Smiling Man. This was a vision of him in the future.
He was laughing: a bellowing, vomiting laugh. From the sky was falling . . . snow? No. It was a fine white dust, and it was in her mouth and nose, and she coughed it, and thought for a moment it
must be ashes, but no, it smelt of . . . electricity, straight into her head. It was cocaine. It was raining cocaine.

Around her, she could hear sobbing, cries of anger. She felt the rest of this community beside her, these wonderful, vulnerable people, and she realized they weren’t in this future. They
didn’t have a place in it. By this point they were all gone. What about Ross? What about her friends? She didn’t know how to begin to search for them. Sefton could do this, maybe; she
couldn’t. They were seeing all this, and they had deliberately left Sefton behind!

She felt the intensity of the vision growing and growing. It had taken over everything else. ‘Other’ was still sitting there at the edge of it, but now she was making wild gestures,
as if it had got out of her control. The audience were tumbling out of their seats now, trying to hang on as the auditorium upended itself, and they were grabbing things, trying not to fall into
that huge laughing mouth, which was getting bigger and bigger.

An enormous sound.

The slamming open of a door.

Ross fell back and so did all those around her. They were panting, tears on their faces. Beside her, Costain carefully and slowly relaxed back into his seat. She looked back to the stage, where
the robed figures were staggering, trying to support each other, sitting down.

‘You must excuse me.’ The familiar voice came from the back of the room, theatrically loud. Ross turned to look. Standing in the central doorway of the auditorium was Gilbert
Flamstead, in a grey jacket with a red silk lining. ‘Could anyone tell me where I am?’ he asked. ‘I’m here completely by accident.’

Lofthouse wouldn’t normally have elected to go to sleep at eight o’clock in the evening, but she was exhausted. The key on her wrist was urging her to keep moving,
but that was beyond her. She used her torch to look long and hard at the cavern she’d come to and found nothing in the graffiti to suggest it was particularly dangerous. There was a sheer
drop nearby, but not so close that she might roll into it in her sleep. She started pulling the sleeping bag from her pack. She’d have the first portion of her rations. She had four more
packs: supper tonight and three square meals tomorrow, because whatever happened, she had to be out of here by Sunday night.

She tensed at a sound from deeper down the tunnel. She waited, but no further sound came. Water would drip. Rocks would fall. The silence would never be complete.

She ate some of her Kendal mint cake, drank some of her water, curled up in her sleeping bag, still fully clothed, and switched off her torch.

She waited in the darkness. Was she going to be able to get to sleep? What else could be down here? She realized that the texture of the silence had changed. She heard . . . voices? Yes,
definitely voices. She sat up, fumbled for the zip on her sleeping bag, found it and slowly, deliberately tugged on it, needing her legs to be free. The voices weren’t speaking English. The
language sounded sibilant, like nothing that could be made by a mouth. It was like hearing water talking.

She got slowly to her feet, trying not to make a noise. She picked up the bag with the gun and found her torch. There was definitely movement at the end of the passage, between her and where she
would be heading tomorrow. Something big and slow . . . a cluster of them. A smell came with them, something like rotting fat. She found the cartridges and started to load them into the shotgun. If
these were animals, the noise in this space would . . . also do permanent damage to her ears, yes. She pulled the cartridges out again. If these were animals, the torch might prove just as
shocking.

She prepared herself, aware that all that was keeping her hands moving in the face of sheer, physical terror was a sense of something beyond herself, of duty. She aimed the torch towards the
mass at the end of the tunnel and switched it on.

She got a glimpse of three enormous pink men, or something like men. They were naked, vastly obese, with enormous hands, small eyes, large, flaccid genitals and . . . long, elephantine probosces
instead of noses. These were not, incredibly, beings one needed the Sight to perceive, she realized in that second. There was something about them that looked hungry.

They screamed through their trunks and flung up their hands to cover their faces.

They screamed as they rushed at her.

A thought was in her head to go forwards, not to flee. She ducked past the first set of flailing arms that grabbed for her and dived towards the end of the tunnel. One of them spun and the back
of a wet red hand sent her staggering. Her feet slipped on the sudden wetness of the path. She was going to fall. She tried instinctively not to let go of the gun, threw a hand out to steady
herself.

There was nothing there. She fell. She hit a wall. She was in darkness. She screamed. She fell once more.

Ross had expected the audience to realize that here was the Trickster, summoned by their ceremony, but among those all around her getting to their feet, none of them seemed to
be doing that. A few close to Flamstead had already risen to engage with him, some of them star-struck, shaking him by the hand, answering his question, some of them berating him for interrupting
this ancient ceremony. Ross looked back to the stage. Tock was sitting there, his gaze flicking suspiciously to Flamstead as the other robed figures talked to him urgently. They had gained a
vision, but the interruption meant they were wondering if they could have seen more. There seemed to be no question of starting again. The acolytes were spraying fire extinguishers on the blaze,
and it was already reducing to smoke, which impossibly flattened and rushed back into the pile of blackened wood.

‘Him,’ said Costain.

‘Yeah,’ said Ross, ‘you got a problem with that?’

Before he could answer, Flamstead, with a shout of surprise, had come trotting over. ‘What a vast surprise to find you here! You shouldn’t really come for a drink with me, should
you? Or can I persuade you?’

Ross took his hand and allowed herself to be helped out of her seat, and kissed him hello. She looked deliberately back at Costain. ‘I’m buying,’ he said.

They went to the hotel bar, which already had in it a handful of the audience from the summoning, those willing to stomach the prices in search of something to fortify them after that. Flamstead
just said, ‘Anything,’ when Costain asked him what he wanted to drink. Ross wondered if that actually meant nothing, but it seemed, considering the long gulp he took of the pint of
lager Costain gave him, that not expressing a preference meant he didn’t have to lie. She stayed on the Diet Coke.

Costain rather aggressively clinked glasses with the actor. ‘So,’ he said, ‘obviously it can’t be a coincidence you’re here – let’s get past
that.’ Flamstead made a sad clown face, emphasizing that any comment he would have made had been cut off. ‘And I know asking you questions isn’t a good idea. So. Most of this lot
don’t get who you are.’

Flamstead smiled. ‘The ones who do trust me implicitly.’

‘Meaning that the ones who realize who you are don’t want you here.’

‘Because,’ said Ross, joining in, ‘he represents lies, and they’re after the truth.’

‘I’ve never done them any harm!’ laughed Flamstead. ‘Or caused any of them to stumble on the path. Or thrown any of them from windows or anything like that. Not at
all.’

‘They probably don’t like your tone,’ said Costain. ‘I’ve known people like you all my life. It’s all fun, until somebody loses an eye, and then it’s
still fun for you.’

Flamstead simply bowed. Then he looked to Ross. ‘Don’t think I’m here for you, young lady.’

She felt suddenly scared again. If he was here to help her, then she must need helping.

‘Oh, just leave it out, OK?!’ Costain had put his pint down and was suddenly in Flamstead’s face. ‘I do not intend to allow you to . . . I can’t just frigging . . .
You can’t have her without . . . !’ His fury seemed to be getting in the way of his speech, his head actually jerking back and forth with each wrench of indecision. ‘Fuck
it!’ He lashed out with his hand, not at Flamstead, but towards the table, and sent the pint glass flying, causing the barkeeper to start yelling that he’d pay for that. But Costain was
out of the door.

‘I wouldn’t dream of paying for the damage,’ said Flamstead to the barkeeper, doing just that.

Ross realized she was shaking. God, she hated that that had been about her. Did making her own choices really have to end up with blokes acting like that? That had gone beyond all normal
behaviour. Was Costain cracking up too? ‘He . . .’

‘Knows what he’s doing, and yet he doesn’t.’

‘Hey. That has to be true.’

Flamstead scowled as if caught out. ‘What are you to him, do you think? A prize to be fought over? An individual whose wishes are to be respected? A lady to look up to? A colleague, a
source of anger, a regret, a foul temptress? Do any of these words set off anything in that brain of yours?’

There was a shout from the doorway. Tock, back in his normal attire, had entered, and with him were several more of those who’d been onstage. They were all looking angrily at Flamstead.
‘You’re not welcome here,’ Tock said. ‘I can tell this bar not to serve you. You know you’re banned from this hotel.’ Flamstead just smiled indulgently.
‘You’ – Tock pointed at Ross – ‘you should know what happens to those who worship him. Have you made a sacrifice to him?’

‘More the other way round.’ She’d meant it as a joke, but they obviously understood what she meant and, to her surprise, backed away slightly. She recalled what had been said
at the first auction she’d been to, about not giving up oneself to London or any other power that got sacrificed to. Was she wrong to trust Flamstead? She looked at him now, and still felt
that sense of baseline ease. She would, after all, always know when he was lying.

‘Fucking whore,’ said Tock. ‘I don’t use those words lightly.’

‘Fucking cunt,’ said Ross calmly, and took a sip of her drink. ‘Me neither.’

‘I bought your happiness fair and square. You know what I’m planning to use it for? I’m going to give it away, as a sacrament, something to share out at the end of this
convention, something to hold this culture together, in the face of that vision we all saw just then. We know what’s coming now. We’re going to swear to stay together, to bind ourselves
to solidarity by all drinking from the same cup, by all feeling uplifted for a moment. So go on, call me the bad guy, when I’m doing that and you’re fucking that thing.’

Ross wondered if he’d been so unpleasant before the death of his . . . wife, partner, whoever ‘Mags’ had been. There was something about the bullish set of his shoulders that
said yeah, probably. ‘Are you going to throw us out?’

‘Are you going to behave?’

The bartender looked up from his phone. ‘Erm, actually, Mr Flamstead can stay,’ he said. ‘The manager says that’s policy from now on.’

Tock stared at him for a moment, so angry he couldn’t speak. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and left. The others followed him, glaring back at Flamstead as they went.