“I know,” Connie said. “But Chloe’s worried. They’ve been friends a long time; almost like sisters, Chloe says. They used to look out for each other when Chloe worked the streets. Chloe’s always insisted they meet up regular as clockwork. It’s Chloe’s time off. She’s been out. Molly hasn’t turned up at any of their usual places.”
Jago looked sceptical.
“It’s true.”
“Ain’t sayin’ it’s not. Maybe this time, the girl doesn’t want to be found.”
Connie shook her head. “Chloe tells me that’s not likely.”
Jago shook his head and sighed. “I take it there’s no man around?”
“There was. He was a private in an infantry regiment. Got killed in Portugal. She couldn’t make ends meet, so she went on the game.”
It wasn’t anything Jago hadn’t heard a hundred times before. There wasn’t a town in the land that wasn’t home to an ever-increasing number of war widows left to fend for themselves while the bodies of their menfolk lay bleaching under some foreign sun. For those with a child or children to support it was even worse, particularly for the widows of rank-and-file soldiers. Scores of women had been forced to take to the streets in search of crumbs and coin.
“So, you want me to put the word out?” Jago asked doubtfully.
“You know people,” Connie said.
“You insinuatin’ that I’m acquainted with people of a nefarious disposition?”
“Well, probably not
“Aye, you’re not wrong there. All right, as it’s you who’s askin’, I’ll see what I can do. But you’d best tell Chloe not to get her hopes up. It ain’t likely I’ll turn up anything and, if I do, it might take a while. Girls like that, with nothing to their name … Hell, you know what it’s like. You’ve been there. It’s why the law wouldn’t give you the time of day.” Jago looked towards the window, and the shadowy shape of the city’s rooftops. “It ain’t no land of milk and honey, that’s for sure. What’s the girl’s name?”
“Molly, Molly Finn.”
“What’s she look like?”
“Me, if you knock off twenty years.”
Connie’s request suddenly began to make a kind of sense. Jago looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “That another reason why you wanted the favour?”
“Maybe. Though maybe it’s because it’s not the only thing the two of us have in common.”
“Meaning?”
Connie smiled sadly and lowered her head on to his chest. “We both fell for a soldier.”
Sawney, hemmed in by darkness, descended the stairway. He knew he should have brought a light with him, but for some reason the requirement had slipped his mind. He was navigating by touch alone; feeling his way down the cold stone wall with all the caution of a blind man in a mine shaft.
As if the lack of illumination wasn’t bad enough, he’d become increasingly aware of the curious smell. He wasn’t sure what it was. Can’t have been damp – the walls were quite dry – but whatever it was, it hung in the air, an odd metallic kind of smell, so pungent that it seemed to catch at the back of his throat. Sawney generated saliva and swallowed in an attempt to erase the coppery taste, but the ruse had little effect. If anything, it only made it worse.
He could hear noises, too; distant and muffled. In the darkness it was hard to pinpoint where they were coming from. There were faint mewling sounds, like an animal was in pain, soft murmurings, and now and then a wheezing sigh, like air rattling in someone’s throat.
Suddenly, the stairs ended. Sawney felt flagstones beneath his feet. He looked down. His eyes caught a dull yellow gleam several paces ahead of him and he saw it was candlelight leaking through the gap at the bottom of a closed door. Sawney stepped forward quietly. As he did so, a low whisper sounded on the other side of the wall. The hairs on his neck lifted like stalks. He placed his ear against the door. The whisper came again, but it was impossible to make out the words.
Sawney hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do was open the door, but he didn’t want to be trapped in the darkness either. He was still considering his options when the latch clicked up as if by its own accord and the door swung open.
The cellar was long with a low, arched ceiling. Gloomily lit, it seemed to stretch away into the darkness like a tunnel. Pallet beds were arranged around the walls, feet facing outwards. Each was shrouded in shadow save for a pale areola cast by a stub of flickering candle set on a small wooden chest at the side of each mattress. The pallets, Sawney could just make out, were all occupied, but by whom it was difficult to tell. He could see vague shapes, some partially covered by a rough blanket, but individual features were indiscernible in the half-light.
A long moan rose from one of the beds. The sound was full of pain. Hairs rose along Sawney’s forearms. He heard the whispers again, as indistinguishable as before. He tried to locate the source, but it was impossible. It was like listening to leaves rustling in the wind.
Sawney found himself moving cautiously towards the nearest bed. The shallow breathing grew in volume as he edged closer. He paused by the end of the pallet. He could see the pale blur of a face, but the form beneath the blanket looked odd and stunted, not fully grown. He realized then that the person lying on the pallet had no legs. He moved towards the bedhead. The patient’s eyes were wide open and staring up at the ceiling. There was a familiar look to the man’s face, which Sawney found curiously unsettling. At first, he wasn’t sure why that was, and then realization dawned. As the shock hit him, the patient’s head turned. The mouth opened but no sound emerged. When he saw why, Sawney backed away, stifling a scream.
He turned quickly and moved to the adjoining pallet. Here, the patient’s arm had been severed at the shoulder. The bandage that covered the stump was black with blood, as was the blanket and the edge of the mattress and the floor beneath. Sawney’s eyes lifted to the patient’s face. As it looked back at him, the breath caught in Sawney’s throat for the second time and he recoiled in horror.
Shaking, Sawney crossed to the next bed. In this one, the lower half of the patient’s cheek and jaw had been shattered. For one awful moment, Sawney thought the man was grinning at him. But then he saw by the light of the flickering candle that only the patient’s upper row of teeth remained. They were poking out of the gums like splintered yellow pegs.
Sawney spun away with a rising sense of panic. He looked around him. It was the same in every pallet, as far as he could see: wounded, disfigured men, the casualties of a terrible battle. Some still wore the vestiges of a uniform; a blood-smeared jacket or a pair of tattered, muddy breeches. Their injuries were horrific. Many were missing limbs. Others had terrible, gaping chest wounds. They were the ones making the wheezing sounds Sawney had heard earlier, their breathing ragged as bellows as they fought to drag air into their tortured lungs. There were men with half their faces shot away, some with deep gashes in their skulls, whether caused by sabre or shot, it was impossible to tell in the darkness.
A movement further down the cellar caught Sawney’s eye. A figure was standing by one of the beds, dressed in a stained white shirt and dark breeches. He had his back to Sawney and was bending over the pallet, busy with some task. Sawney moved forward warily. He tried not to look at the broken bodies or the faces of the men in the beds, though he knew their eyes were following him as he made his way down the cellar to where the man in the shadows was waiting.
The whispers began again, soft and insistent. He now knew where they came from. They were the voices of the men around him. It was the same word, repeated over and over again:
Sawney was less than ten paces away from the figure when his ears were assaulted by a scream of such intensity it seemed to vibrate through every bone in his body. The sound hung in the air for so long, Sawney thought his eardrums would burst. He cupped his hands over his ears. As he did so, the figure standing by the bed turned. Sawney gasped. It was not the gore-soaked apron the figure was wearing that caused Sawney’s breath to catch, nor the arms that were black to the elbows or the outstretched hand wielding the blood-stained knife. It was the creature’s eyes. They were the darkest, coldest, most cruel eyes Sawney had ever seen. Sawney tore his gaze away, towards the other beds further down the room. More bodies, more patients, but somehow these looked different. It was only a fleeting impression, but to Sawney’s eyes they didn’t look real. They looked … deformed …
