Jonathan Barnes - The Domino Men

“What was that all about?” I asked once Jasper had wrapped up his conversation with the invisible man and returned his attention to us. “What have you got to tell me?”

Mr. Jasper looked like he was about to cry. His glass of Baileys was stuck to the wooden table by the glutinous remnants of spilt beer. “This place is filthy,” he said. “ Filthy. ” A febrile kind of urgency infected his voice. “You were expected, Henry. Did you know that? They told us you’d be coming.”

“Who told you? What are you talking about?”

Jasper grimaced, as though every word was causing him pain, each syllable costing him dear. “Somewhere not very far from here, deep underground in their own private dungeon, sit two prisoners of war. They have the blood of hundreds on their hands. They’ll never be released alive.”

Behind us, the Day-Glo tom-tom of Europop.

“In the course of their sentence, these prisoners have never spoken to a soul. Not one solitary word. And yet, last week, quite casually, they told their guard two things. They gave him a name. And they gave us a warning…”

“What’s this got to do with me?” I asked.

“They told us about your grandfather before it happened. Then they told us who you are.”

“Who are these people? How do they know anything about me?”

“I can’t say. But God forgive me — we have no choice but to introduce you.”

Steerforth wiped his lips on the back of his hand, making a slurpy smacking noise. “Tomorrow’s truth time, Henry. If I were you, I’d drink up. Enjoy your last night of freedom.” He took a drag on his cigarette before exhaling a thin gray stream of smoke. He was the kind of man, I strongly suspected, who smoked not because he particularly liked the taste but because he still thought it was cool. He winked at someone over by the bar — a skinny girl in tight black jeans. “’Scuse me, gents.” He got to his feet and swaggered over. “A-level totty.”

Jasper muttered something bitter under his breath, although I noticed that he never took his eyes off Steerforth.

Suddenly I remembered and glanced down at my watch. “Damn.”

“What’s the matter?”

“You mean apart from my grandfather’s house burning down?”

Jasper nodded distractedly like this was the kind of thing which happened to him all the time.

I bundled up my coat. “I’m late.”

“For what?”

“For a date.” It was the first time all day I’d felt like smiling.

Before I could leave, Jasper grabbed my arm and held it tight. “Come to the Eye first thing tomorrow. The war hangs in the balance.” He sank back in his seat and took a sip of his Baileys. “You’d better go. You don’t want to keep Abbey waiting.”

I dashed for the door and ran into the train station, grateful to be free. Only later did it occur to me to wonder precisely how it was that Jasper knew her name.

She was waiting for me in Clapham, a part of the city whose facade of well-monied gentility only barely papered over its dirt and degradation. When I emerged from the tube, a homeless man blundered past me, smelling strongly of feces.

Abbey stood outside the Picturehouse, traces of irritation marring her beautiful face. I must have looked a real state, as when she saw me her expression changed immediately to one of sympathy and concern. She fussed over me, smoothing my hair, brushing down my jacket, picking charred flakes from my lapels. “What’s happened to you? You stink of smoke.”

I wasn’t sure how much it was safe to tell her. “I was at Granddad’s house. There was an accident… a fire.”

“Oh, you poor thing.” She kissed me chastely on my forehead. “You have been in the wars.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Listen, we’ve missed the film. You’re knackered. Let’s go back to the flat.”

I nodded my grateful assent. “I’m so sorry about tonight.”

“It’s OK.” She grinned. “You’ll have to make it up to me.”

Three stops on the Northern line and we were home again. Abbey made beans on toast and we sat together quietly, the atmosphere between us thick with the unspoken.

“How was work?” I asked at last.

“Same as usual,” she said. “Bit boring. Just a couple more rich people getting divorced. I’m starting to think there’s got to be more to life.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Henry?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s happening to you?”

I hesitated. “I can’t say. I’d love to tell you but I really can’t.”

“If you ever need someone…”

“Thanks.”

She leant toward me and kissed me, long and lingeringly, on the lips. I surprised myself by not being too tired to respond.

“Abbey?” I said as we lay stretched out on the sofa, our hands entwined, our arms clasped together in tentative embrace. “What would you say… what your reaction be if I were to tell you that a secret civil war has been waged in this country for years? What if I said that a little department in the civil service has been fighting tooth and nail with the royal family since 1857?”

Abbey laughed. “God, Henry. You’re so different from the other blokes I’ve been out with.”

Granite-faced, I gazed back at her.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Of course,” I said, despising myself for my cowardice and fear. “Of course I am. Just joking.”

Floating in amniotic fluid with only his trunks to protect his wrinkled modesty, Dedlock glowered at me from within his glass sarcophagus. “You failed to retrieve anything of value from the house of your grandfather. The old man’s journal is lost to the flames.”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

As Dedlock paddled over to me, I was put in mind of a shark I had once seen at the aquarium on a half-term trip with Granddad. Toothless and gray, it can’t have killed its own food for years and must have spent half a lifetime chewing on stale meat tossed into the water by its keepers, yet despite all this, it still had murder blazing in its eyes. Looking at it through the glass, I knew that one chance was all it needed, one momentary slip on the part of its owners — and it would grab the opportunity to kill again, seize it with its withered gums and swallow it whole.

“Unacceptable, Henry. You’re not filing paper anymore. Every secret in that house is in ashes. The only man who can help us is in a coma. And now the House of Windsor is marshaling its forces against us. It is only a matter of time before they make their move.”

I was flanked by Steerforth and Jasper, both of whom had remained strategically silent in the course of my thorough dressing-down. Steerforth looked as though he hadn’t shaved that morning and appeared to be nursing a more than usually persistent hangover. A volcanic pimple protruded from his chin.

“We’ve no other choice, sir,” he said. “We all know it.”

When Dedlock turned to me, his eyes were glittering with a horrible facsimile of geniality. “Henry Lamb?”

“Yes?”

“The time has come to tell you precisely why we are prosecuting this war — why the House of Windsor is the sworn enemy of this city. The time has come to tell you the secret.”

Jasper touched my shoulder. “Sorry. I always liked your innocence.”

“You might want to sit down,” Dedlock said. “People often find they lose the use of their legs when they hear the truth. I would ask you also not to scream. This is the city’s most profitable attraction and I’m loathe to scare our visitors away.” He grinned again in that same ghastly parody of good humor. “Now then,” he said, with what he probably thought of as an avuncular twinkle. “Are we sitting comfortably?”