not alarm men so courageous as yourselves. But I am not followed by my own people. Not Russian. No, sir, these men you do not know, though I think you are aware of their activities. They are powerful, sirs. Very powerful. They have long been plotting against the city. You know to whom I refer now, I fancy?”
“Perhaps,” Skimpole said evenly.
“We’ve heard rumors,” Dedlock admitted, blunter than his partner. “We’d be grateful for any information you might be able to offer. The Directorate is a powerful ally. We can guarantee your safety. Who are these people? What do they call themselves?”
“They have no name, sir, but I believe that they are quite without scruple. They hired the Irish Slattery to stop you. He failed, I know, but they will not hesitate to try again. They will not stop until the Directorate is defeated and dead.”
“How do you know this?”
“Mr. Dedlock,” the Russian hissed. “I know because they have tried to turn me.”
“You?”
“Me,” Grischenko repeated, a hint of pride in his voice. “I resisted, of course. I threw their filthy offer back in their faces. I am a man of principle.”
“But of course.”
“There is more.”
Dedlock gestured for him to continue.
“They failed with me, but they have succeeded with another. An old associate of mine.”
“What do you mean?”
“They have a sleeper.”
“A sleeper?”
“Our deadliest. And now this man, this killer, a man we ourselves planted in this country many years ago, now he is recruited to their cause.”
“Who?” Dedlock snapped. “Give me a name.”
“He has many aliases,” the Russian said doubtfully. “His real name has disappeared.”
Dedlock frowned.
Grischenko brightened. “But he has a code name.”
“Tell us.”
Grischenko muttered something which sounded like “The Mongoose.”
“The Mongoose?” Skimpole repeated incredulously.
Dedlock swallowed a laugh. “The Mongoose?”
The Russian shrugged. “We were running out of names.”
“Means nothing to me.” Dedlock sniffed.
“He has killed many dozens and he has yet to fail. He is the worst of men, Mr. Dedlock. Please, gentlemen, on this matter you must be absolutely certain: he is coming for you.”
“Coming for us?” Skimpole echoed.
Grischenko nodded vigorously. “Like a pale rider,” he murmured. “Upon a pale horse.”
Skimpole shivered. Grischenko scrambled to his feet. “I must go,” he said and scuttled to the door, readjusting his disguise as he went.
“Wait,” the albino protested, but Grischenko ignored him.
He paused. “Be watchful. Promise me, sirs. Be watchful.” With this final, gnomic advice, he disappeared through the door and into the street.
“We should have him stopped,” Skimpole said. “Bring him in. Interrogate him properly.”
“Let him go. He’s told us everything he knows.”
“You believe him?”
“It would seem he risked his life to warn us. To be frank, I think we should expect the worst.”
“Who are these people?” Skimpole asked angrily. “What do they want? Good God, if only we hadn’t lost Bagshaw.”
“You don’t look well. Go home. I’ll keep you fully informed of developments.”
“I’d rather stay.”
“Go,” Dedlock insisted, not unkindly. “But be careful. We should both be on our guard. From now on, it seems, the Directorate is under siege.”
The Strangled Boy opened early for business. Even arriving shortly after ten, Edward and Charlotte Moon were far from being the first customers of the day — that dubious honor had already been claimed by those patrons who were even now on their second or third glass of the morning. Charlotte was discomfited by the beery, masculine smell of the place but Moon appeared not to notice. Waving his sister toward a rickety barstool, he ordered drinks.
“You see they’re rebuilding the old place?” he asked as he sat down beside her.
Charlotte peered from the window across the square to the burned-out hulk of the theatre where squads of workmen swarmed about its scaffolding like carrion flies on a corpse.
“This isn’t especially convenient, Edward. I thought we’d agreed not to see one another for a while.”
“It’s an emergency.”
“I’m busy.”
“With what? More ‘debunking’?”
“There’s a psychic in Bermondsey who reckons she can move household objects by the power of thought and bring back the dead in her front room.”
“You think she’s a fake?”
“The objects are raised up on strings, the dead people are her accomplices in white sheets and cheesecloth.”
“Charlotte, if I’ve learnt anything from my recent experiences it’s that it is as dangerous to believe in nothing as it is to believe in everything.”
“Stop pontificating and tell me why I’m here.”
Moon reached into his briefcase and pulled out a folder swollen fat with paper. He swallowed, ill at ease. “I have a favor to ask of you,” he said, extricating a sheaf of documents and placing them carefully on the table. “The Somnambulist and I have not been idle. Whilst you’ve been off running table-rappers to ground, we’ve been pursuing an old obsession of mine.”
“Honeyman?”
“You know about his mother? Also that of Philip Dunbar — the Fly’s other victim? Both of them gone. Vanished into the city without trace.”
“People go missing all the time.”
“I’ve since discovered that both women were prominent figures in a small but extremely affluent religious group called the Church of the Summer Kingdom.”
“I’ve heard of them.”
Moon seemed surprised. “You have?”
“Silly name, of course, but harmless from what I can gather.” She paused. “Presumably, you disagree.”
“I suspect they’re not as benevolent as they appear.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Too many coincidences. Too many connections. They’re linked to the Fly, I’m sure of it. Their sigil — a black, five-petaled flower — was daubed on his caravan. From what I can make out, it’s practically the symbol of the church. Coleridge, too.”
“Coleridge?”
“Barabbas gave me a copy of the
Charlotte sighed. “Edward,” she began, speaking much as one might to a beloved elderly relative, formerly alert and intelligent, but now sunk into befuddled senility, “you can’t believe a word that man told you. Not for nothing did the popular press call him ‘the Fiend’.”
Moon, turned ashen, did not reply and Charlotte was glad of the distraction when a serving girl brought
