‘Duty?’ Immacolata said, and her bones laughed.
‘You are so deceived. You think you’re alone –’
‘No. You’ve forgotten yourself; and so you’ve been forgotten.’
‘You are not alone. Nobody – nothing – is alone. You’re part of something more.’
‘There’s nothing left to guard,’ Immacolata said. ‘But your duty.’
‘Look at yourself. I dare you. Throw the man you’re wearing away, and look at yourself.’
Uriel did not speak its reply, but shrieked it.
And with its words it unleashed its fury against the body of bones. The statue flew apart as the fire struck it, burning fragments shattering against the walls. Shadwell shielded his face as Uriel’s flame ran back and forth across the chamber to eradicate the Incantatrix’s image completely. It was not satisfied for a long while, scouring each corner of the Shrine until every last offending shard was chased to ash.
Only then did that same sudden tranquillity descend that Shadwell loathed so much. The Angel sat Hobart’s wretched body on a pile of bones, and picked up a skull between the fire-blackened hands.
The suggestion was floated so delicately, its tone so perfectly a copy of Shadwell’s Reasonable Man, that it took him a moment to comprehend the ambition of what it proposed.
It looked up at Shadwell. Though its features were still in essence Hobart’s, all trace of the man had been banished from them. Uriel shone from every pore.
Shadwell murmured that it would.
Then, eager not to delay its goal’s consummation by a moment, it started back towards the stairs, and the sleeping Kingdom beyond.
III
THE SECRET ISLE
1
he train was an hour late reaching Birmingham. When it finally arrived the snow was still falling, and taxis couldn’t be had for love nor money. Cal asked for directions to Harborne, and waited in line for twenty-five minutes to board the bus, which then crawled from stop to stop, taking on further chilled passengers until it was so overburdened it could carry no more. Progress was slow. The city-centre was snarled with traffic, reducing everything to a snail’s pace. Once out of the centre the roads were hazardous – dusk and snow conspiring to cut visibility – and the driver never risked more than ten miles an hour. Everyone sat in wilful cheerfulness, avoiding each others’ eyes for fear of having to make conversation. The woman who’d seated herself beside Cal was nursing a small terrier, encased in a tartan coat, and a picture of misery. Several times he caught its doleful eyes regarding him, and returned its gaze with a consoling smile.
He’d eaten on the train, but he still felt lightheaded, utterly divorced from the dismal scenes their route had to offer. The wind slapped him from his reverie, however, once he stepped out of the bus on Harborne Hill. The woman with the tartan dog had given him directions to Waterloo Road, assuring him that it was a three-minute trot at the outside. In fact it took him almost half an hour to find, during which time the chill had clawed its way through his clothes and into his marrow.
Gluck’s house was a large, double-fronted building, its facade dominated by a monkey-puzzle tree which rose to challenge the eaves. Twitching with cold, he rang the bell. He didn’t hear it sound in the house, so he knocked, hard, then harder. A light was turned on in the hallway, and after what seemed an age the door was opened, to reveal Gluck, the remains of a chewed cigar in his hand, grinning and instructing him to get in out of the cold before his balls froze. He didn’t need a second invitation. Gluck closed the door after him, and threw a piece of carpet against it to keep out the draught, then led Cal down the hallway. It was a tight squeeze. The passage was all but choked by cardboard boxes, piled to well above head height.
‘Are you moving?’ Cal asked, as Gluck ushered him into an idyllically warm kitchen which was similarly littered with boxes, bags and piles of paperwork.
‘Good God, no,’ Gluck replied. ‘Take off your wet stuff. I’ll fetch you a towel.’
Cal skinned off his soaked jacket and equally sodden shirt, and was taking off his shoes, which oozed water like sponges, when Gluck returned with not only a towel but a sweater and a pair of balding corduroys.
‘Try these,’ he said, slinging the clothes into Cal’s lap. ‘I’ll make some tea. You like tea?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I live on tea. Sweet tea and cigars.’
He filled the kettle and lit the antiquated gas cooker. That done he fetched a pair of hiker’s socks from the radiator, and gave them to Cal.
‘Getting warmer?’ he asked.
‘Much.’
‘I’d offer you something stronger,’ he said, as he produced tea-caddy, sugar and a chipped mug from a cupboard. ‘But I don’t touch it. My father died of drink.’ He put several heaped spoons of tea into the pot. ‘I must tell you,’ he said, wreathed in steam, ‘I never expected to hear from you again. Sugar?’
‘Please.’
‘Pick up the milk, will you? We’ll go through to the study.’
Taking the pot, sugar and mug, he led Cal out of the kitchen and upstairs to the first landing. It was in the same condition as the floor below: its decoration neglected, its lamps without shades, and heaped everywhere the same prodigious amount of paperwork, as though some mad bureaucrat had willed Gluck his life’s work.
He pushed open one of the doors and Cal followed him into a large, cluttered room – more boxes, more files – which was hot enough to grow orchids in, and reeked of stale cigar smoke. Gluck set the tea down on one of the half-dozen tables, claiming his own mug from beside a heap of notes, then drew two armchairs up beside the electric fire.
‘Sit. Sit,’ he exhorted Cal, whose gaze had been drawn to the contents of one of the boxes. It was full, to brimming, with dried frogs.
‘Ah,’ said Gluck. ‘No doubt you’re wondering …’
‘Yes,’ Cal confessed, ‘I am. Why frogs?’
‘Why indeed?’ Gluck replied, ‘It’s one of the countless questions we’re trying to answer. It isn’t
‘Falls?’
‘From the heavens,’ said Gluck. ‘How many sugars?’
‘Frogs? From the sky?’
‘It’s very common.
‘Two.’
