The Black Country

“I will, if you insist, but first there’s something I’d like to show you, if you’ve a moment,” Campbell said.

“What’s that?” Day said.

“Follow me.”

Campbell walked toward the woods beyond the church and turned. He waited to see if the inspector would follow. Day hesitated. To follow this strange man into the frozen woods seemed like suicide, particularly given what he now knew about the supposed ornithologist. But detective work was about finding things, learning things, and Day had the bug. If there was something out there, he wanted to know it, needed to know it. Curiosity had killed the cat, but the cat had clearly been a detective. In the end, he’d really had no choice.

But Day wasn’t stupid. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his Colt Navy. He showed it to Campbell and raised his eyebrows. Campbell nodded, message received. Day would go along, but Campbell had better watch his step. Without a word spoken, Campbell turned and walked past the tree line. Day followed along, the gun down at his side, held loose but ready.

“Ow bist!”

Day turned, his gun coming up without any conscious direction from him. A young man was racing toward them. The first thin trees, outliers of the woods, were between them, and visibility was low, but Day lowered his gun. As he drew near, the young man’s features came into focus and Day recognized Dr Denby. The doctor appeared to be out of breath and stopped a few feet away from Day. He put his hands on his knees and breathed hard. Day glanced back and saw that Campbell had stopped and was patiently waiting farther back in the trees.

Denby held up a finger, then he coughed. He turned his head to the side and coughed again, a deep barking sound that came from somewhere deep inside and didn’t make it all the way out. His whole body spasmed, and Day thought he could see a fine red mist spray from the doctor’s lips. There was a long moment of silence, and Denby took a rattling breath and stood up straight. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and came toward Day with his hand out. Day moved the gun to his left hand and shook the offered hand.

“Sorry. Saw you from the window,” Denby said. “Terribly sorry about all that.”

“Are you quite all right?”

Denby grinned sheepishly and pushed his hair back from his eyes. “Hazard of being a doctor, I suppose. The humors are always out of balance. But never fear, I recover quickly.”

“I certainly hope so.”

The doctor looked over at Campbell, who was still waiting. “Mr Campbell. Good to see you, sir.”

Campbell nodded, but said nothing.

“I heard you’ve brought in another doctor,” Denby said. “Someone from London?”

“We did.”

“I hope I didn’t give the wrong impression last night. I’m completely at your disposal, you know, whatever you should find. Of course, I do hope the Prices are safe and well, but I’m available should the worst come to pass.”

“Thank you. We mean no offense. We’d arranged for Dr Kingsley to join us here before we ever arrived ourselves. It was no reflection on you or your abilities. Perhaps the two of you could work together. You know the people here, after all.”

“Oh, absolutely. Very wise of you, actually, bringing him along. My hands are rather full. We’ve lost another two people in the night to this illness.”

“Lost them?”

“They were older. It’s unfortunate, but their bodies couldn’t withstand treatment as well as some of my younger patients.”

“What treatment is that? I don’t. .” Day was interrupted by a shuffling noise. He turned and nearly bumped into Calvin Campbell, who was standing directly behind him.

“Dr Denby,” Campbell said. “You might be useful.”

“Sorry?” The doctor appeared to be nervous, and Day understood why. Campbell was intimidating. Quiet and commanding and subtly dangerous. Like the military man Day now knew him to be.

“I was going to show the inspector something I found out here, and you might be able to say something about it if you come along.”

“Say something about what?”

“Come.”

Campbell turned and walked away into the dappled shadows, leaving no time for argument or refusal. Denby shrugged his shoulders at Day and meekly followed along. Day breathed deeply through his nose. He took his flask out, uncorked it, and took a sip. The heavy brown liquid warmed his chest. He looked around at the trees and then up at the featureless sky. He already missed his wife. And he was reasonably certain he was getting nowhere with the current case. He worried that he would never make it home to her.

He recorked the flask, stuck it in his pocket, and plunged into the woods close behind the doctor and the surly giant.

32

Hammersmith felt like a stranger in his own body. Like someone small and tired inside someone larger, looking out through the larger person’s eyes at a place he’d never been and didn’t understand. Across the room, a framed drawing, pen and ink, fell off the wall and the glass smashed. A cabinet walked itself sideways and toppled forward, narrowly missing Jessica Perkins. The chandelier above Hammersmith swayed back and forth, slowly, then faster until it began to twirl in ever-widening circles. The rug under his feet bunched and crept about the floor, only anchored by his own feet.

But he didn’t fall.

In fact, Hammersmith couldn’t feel that anything unusual was happening to the house. He could see the evidence of some seismic shift all around him, but he couldn’t feel it. He stood rock-steady, or so he thought, as everything around him went utterly mad.

The Price children all sank immediately backward against the walls and slid to the ground, covering their heads with their forearms. The housekeeper disappeared somewhere back in the shadows of the hallway behind her. Jessica pushed Hammersmith away from the center of the room, and he fell backward against the sofa. Jessica rolled across the ground and fetched up against the tips of his shoes as the chandelier came loose from the ceiling and crashed to the floor where Hammersmith had been standing only seconds before. Teardrop-shaped crystals smashed against the rug, came loose from their wire fasteners, and propelled themselves outward in every direction. One of them hit Hammersmith in the knee. He thought it was beautiful the way it caught the light and reflected it back in a spiral.

And then everything stopped moving.

The Price children stood back up, all at once, as if this were part of the normal course of daily events. The housekeeper reemerged from the back hall with a broom and began sweeping up glass. Jessica picked herself up and brushed off her skirt. She tested her leg, put weight on it and winced. She smiled at Hammersmith as if embarrassed, then quickly looked away.

“Are you quite all right?” Hammersmith said. He still felt like a prisoner in someone else’s body, and his voice came to his ears like a distant echo.

“Yes, thank you,” Jessica said. “This sort of thing does happen.”

“What sort of thing was it?”

“The house sank.”

“It sank?”

“Yes, I’d judge that was at least an inch or two.”

“It sank into the ground?”

“Into the tunnels beneath us.”

“You should really stop building houses atop tunnels.”