He vanished back into the outer tunnel. Moon watched him go. “We climb toward the light,” he said and swung himself into the tunnel, grasping the ladder firmly, and began to move slowly downwards. He called up to his friend. “Coming?”
Frantically the Somnambulist tried to remind Moon of his fear of heights, but his efforts were rendered invisible by the gloom.
“Don’t worry,” Moon said lightly. “It’s too dark to see how high we are.” He clambered further down and the giant followed suit. Had he been able to mutter resentfully under his breath, no doubt he would have done so.
Roger Clemence emerged back onto the station platform to find a well-fed, ruddy-faced man waiting for him, clutching what looked like a half-eaten pastry.
“Evening, Mr. Clemence.”
“Mr. McDonald.”
The fat man took a meaty bite, chewing noisily, like a dog truffling through a bowl of leftovers. “It’s done, then?”
“Signed, sealed, delivered.”
“At last. We were starting to wonder if he’d get there at all.”
“He’s not what he was, you know. He’s past his best. Worn out. Used up. Shop-soiled.”
“I know.” Donald McDonald smiled. “That’s precisely why we want him.”
After an age of climbing, Edward Moon and the Somnambulist emerged into the light. Shaking a little from his ordeal, the giant stepped with obvious relief from the final rung of the ladder back onto solid earth. They looked around them, drinking in the sounds, sights and smells of Love.
At last, Moon broke the silence. “I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed.”
The Somnambulist just looked glum. They were in some kind of storeroom, surrounded by empty boxes, old bottles and rotting sacks. There was an unpleasant odor, too, as though meat had been allowed to spoil. Moon walked toward the door. “Let’s hope things prove more interesting out there.”
They found themselves in a big round room, currently deserted but evidently used as a dining hall or refectory of some kind. Chairs and trestle tables were set out before them in regimented rows, and at the far end of the room, beneath a balcony arranged for public address, a gigantic banner hung upon the wall. It depicted a symbol they had seen many times before: a black, five-petaled flower.
Moon could not resist an exclamation of delight. “At last.”
The Somnambulist looked less overjoyed — already suspecting, perhaps, the true nature of what they had stumbled into.
“Edward!” The voice reverberated across the room.
Moon turned around. A gloriously familiar figure stood before them.
“I’m so glad you made it.”
Moon laughed with a mixture of gratitude and relief. There may even have been tears nudging the corners of his eyes. “Charlotte! Thank God. Are you all right?”
Miss Moon gave a beatific smile. “I’m fine. In fact, I’ve never been better. Through I’ll thank you not to call me by my old name.”
The Somnambulist shot Moon a concerned look.
“Old name?” Moon said carefully, as though by slowing his conversation down he might somehow delay his fast-approaching realization of the truth.
“That woman is dead,” his sister said cheerfully. “I’ve been reborn in her place. From now on you must call me Love.”
Moon was appalled. “Charlotte.”
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Moon edged gingerly away, as if backing off from some savage animal for whom sudden movement would be an incitement to kill. “Oh, yes? Who’s that?”
“He’s a very, very dear friend. A great leader. A hero. Any my inspiration.”
At last Moon began to understand what was happening. “Then he’s the man behind it all,” he said, suddenly furious. “The prime mover in the murders of Cyril Honeyman and Philip Dunbar. The mastermind behind the attacks on the Directorate and the plot against the city.”
“You’ll like him,” Charlotte said sweetly. “I’m sure you’ll get on famously.”
“What have they done to you?”
She looked up. “He’s here now, Edward. He’ll explain everything.”
A stranger glided onto the balcony. He had been waiting outside, biding his time in order to make the most dramatic entrance possible. Slight and narrow-featured, he was an unassuming little man, his skin pockmarked, lined and swollen. But despite these shortcoming he was not without a certain nobility, an innate dignity. When he spoke his voice was soft and low and seemed to pulse with hypnotic power. It was the voice of someone accustomed to being obeyed without question, whose every utterance was treated with reverence and awe.
“My name,” he said, “is the Reverend Doctor Tan.”
But you will know me better, dear reader, as your narrator.
Chapter 18
I fear I may not have been entirely honest with you.
Of course you’ll say I ought to have been truthful from the start, that I should have owned up on page one, come clean from the outset. But stay your verdict a while longer; don’t judge me for withholding a few minor details, a name or two, for fudging some of the minutiae.
I never revealed my true identity to you because I didn’t want you to think
However, you may be able to detect a slight unevenness in my portrayal of one particular character. I have done my utmost to write as impartially as I am able but — sweet Christ — how I hated that man by the end.
Nonetheless, when the two of us met again in the great hall beneath Love, Love, Love and Love, I tried my best to be civil, though it was with no small difficulty that I resisted the temptation to gloat.
“Mr. Moon. Delighted you could make it.”
“Have we met?”
“Edward,” I chided. “How can you have forgotten?”
“Reverend Doctor Tan,” he replied (in what I felt to be an unnecessarily sarcastic tone). “Can we assume that’s not your real name?”
“My title is an honorary one,” I admitted, “but I must say I’m hurt you don’t remember me.”
Moon spoke to his sister. “Who is this man?”
I cannot claim the honor of having known her well, but during the course of our all-too-brief acquaintanceship, Miss Moon always struck me as a thoroughly decent sort. Intelligent as well as pretty and (after a few days’ gentle persuasion) no mean convert to our cause.
“He’s a hero,” she said again. “A leader and a great friend.”
I blushed at this undeserved praise. “You really don’t remember me?”
Moon shook his head. “Never seen you before in my life.” He turned to the Somnambulist: “He ring any bells with you?”
Infuriatingly, the giant merely shrugged.
I felt cheated. For years, I had looked forward to our meeting, anticipating it with all the sick excitement of a child on Christmas Eve. On so many occasions I had mapped out the ideal version of this conversation — I would be magnanimous in victory, witty, wise and inspirational. I planned to dazzle.
