Out of the corner of my eyes I could see the approach of several policemen and the inspector. They hung back, waiting to see how the situation would play itself out. I suppose I’ve no right to be angry but I rather think it was their duty to save me, not stand by and watch my murder.
“Does he die?” Moon asked, sounding — I have to say — unnecessarily bloodthirsty. “Is he executed?”
Cribb pulled a face. “They won’t hang him.”
“No justice, then?”
“I can promise you this: He gets punishment enough. He suffers. Please. Put down the gun.”
For a moment, Moon looked as though he still might go through with it.
“Please,” the ugly man said again. Moon seemed to relent and started to return the gun to his pocket. But at the last second he brought the gun back up toward my face.
“No!” shouted Cribb.
Moon, distracted by the sound, pulled the trigger too soon. The bullet went wild, missed me (though I fancy I felt it brush my cheek) and hit the ugly man instead. The damage can’t have been all that serious but he fell to the ground nonetheless, whimpering like a soccer player hoping for sympathy, clutching at his left hand and muttering to himself.
The police finally appeared (not before time) and I was wrenched roughly to my feet. Handcuffs were slapped on me with little or no consideration as to how they might chafe. I was led away and Moon said nothing.
As I walked, however, I heard him call out to someone. Cribb? Perhaps, but I have always felt a strange certainty that he was addressing someone else entirely. “The Somnambulist is dead,” he cried, then more quietly: “The Somnambulist is dead.”
Chapter 20
It happens every morning underground. Chances are you’ve noticed it yourself.
In the rush hour, as all those beleaguered commuters fight their way off the trains at Monument Station, pinstriped and bowler-hatted to a man, ready to submit themselves to the merciless grind of another day’s work, they bear witness to an extraordinary phenomenon.
Shit. The choking stench of it becomes on some mornings almost overpowering. I am reliably informed that there is many a nose wrinkled in distaste, many a copy of the
I think this is significant. It seems to me that London reveals something of its real self at such moments, shows the skull beneath its skin, its true cloacal nature. It is meant as a warning, I think, and as a rebuke.
How different things might have been had we succeeded! Poppies and daisies would grow now where the banks and counting-houses stand. London in its corrupt state would have passed away and in its place the state of Pantisocracy would flourish and bloom. A dream, you say? A childish fantasy? Perhaps.
Two and a half hours after Mr. Hawker’s searing handshake had rendered him unconscious, Mr. Dedlock opened his eyes and hoisted himself groggily to his feet. Happily, he had awoken from his stupor without any obvious ill effects, save for a faint, throbbing ache in his head, no worse than he had endured on countess occasions after a night’s overindulgence.
Around him, the fires had been extinguished, the dead were being cleared away and the walking bandaged up — everything polished and cleaned and made tidy. Within a day the battlefield would be restored to its usual condition and the citizens would try to pretend that nothing had really happened there at all. It was as though after Hastings the survivors had simply swept up the debris, stowed away the casualties and hoped everything would be back to normal again tomorrow. Such small-minded behavior — London had come within a hairs-breadth of being saved, and her people had responded like children afraid of the dark, by squeezing shut their eyes and begging it to go away. The Church of the Summer Kingdom had offered them salvation but they were content to live on just as they always had, in iniquity, in ignorance and sin.
Not, of course, that Dedlock thought about any of this when he looked approvingly around him. No, he was merely relieved that the incident was over and that he had survived unscathed. Just a little self-consciously, he cleared his throat, walked across to the nearest group of policemen and began barking orders.
But Dedlock had changed. It wasn’t until hours later, when he was back home and undressing for bed, that he happened to glance into a mirror and see for the first time exactly what the Prefects had done to him, the subtlety of their promised gift.
The scars on his torso had gone and with them the marks upon his face — those milk-white indentations which had once so strikingly criss-crossed his body — all had been wiped away, erased as easily as the Somnambulist might remove chalk marks from his slate. Dedlock looked down at his chest, unlined and newly smooth, and was disgusted by what he saw, now so commonplace, so unbearably everyday and unremarkable.
Suddenly short of breath, he shrugged off the last of his clothes, slumped down upon his bed and did something he’d not done for almost twenty years.
In the morning, when he called the Survivors’ Club to tender his resignation, his eyes were still puffy and red from weeping.
The Prefects knew exactly what they were doing. But compared to the albino, Dedlock got off lightly.
I’m not sure how much I can bring myself to tell you about what happened to Mr. Skimpole. Where should I begin? At which point in that protracted and humiliating death? The long and agonizing journey back to Wimbledon? The moment when he was ejected from his hansom cab after spewing a glutinous red substance over the seats? When he looked down at the mess and wondered, almost idly, whether some of that putrescent slime might not be the last remnants of his stomach lining?
No. I’ll spare you that — we’ll begin, I think, as the man arrived back at his house, wrestled with key and lock for the final time, the roar of pain in his head blocking out even the sounds of his neighbors’ revelry. To steady himself, he leant against the front door for a moment, then half-walked, half-stumbled inside, rasping out his son’s name.
Of course, there was no reply and Skimpole tottered further inside, determined to be with his only child as death collected her due. Reeking of vomit and bleeding from at least a dozen separate places, he stumbled into the kitchen, wailing for his son.
It was then that he saw him. Or rather what was left of him.
Even I (scarcely a squeamish man) can hardly bear to describe the thing. No doubt you have a good idea yourself — you will have guessed by now the nature of the Prefects’ ‘fee.’
The Skimpole boy lay supine on the floor, pale and clammy, a pitiable look of terror on his face. His skin and clothes were spattered with crimson and every bone in his body was broken. He had been expertly battered to death with his own two crutches.
Numbly, Skimpole wondered if they had taken turns.
Too weak to scream out his rage and grief, too tired to cry, the albino fell to his knees and collapsed on his son’s ruined form. With his last remaining strength, he clasped the corpse’s hand (still wet with blood), squeezed it tight and waited patiently for the end.
As for the murderers themselves — no policeman will ever track them down nor any court try them for their innumerable crimes.
After they disappeared, a half-hearted manhunt was arranged but nothing came of it and the matter was swiftly dropped. To be frank, I doubt if anyone
To the best of my knowledge, the Prefects have appeared twice more since then, though I’ve no doubt that they figure in many other stories yet unknown to me — lurking at the corners of other narratives, some very old,
