Jonathan Barnes - The Domino Men

Stepping out of the pod, I walked swiftly through the mirage, past the queue of sightseers and toward the scrap of grass which backs onto the Eye. There, I found myself an isolated corner and proceeded to be copiously sick. When I was done, I straightened up, dabbed at my mouth with a tissue and began to worry about my breath. A seagull landed at my feet and pecked inquisitively at the vomit.

Trying desperately not to consider the ramifications of what I’d been told, I stumbled to the river and stared dully down into its murky waters.

Someone strolled up beside me. “They’ve told you, then?”

The speaker was an elderly woman, fragile with age but in possession of a certain geriatric poise which suggested that there was little she would not be willing to face down.

“I suppose you’ve come to sell me some double glazing?” I said.

A hint of a smile. “Could I tempt you to a stroll? We don’t have long.”

Wearily, I agreed, and together we walked along the riverbank, past tourists, buskers, tramps, office workers on an early lunch and truculent-looking kids on skateboards — all of them oblivious to the secret I had just been told, the truth that made a perverted joke of every one of their lives.

“Hits you rather hard, doesn’t it?” the old lady said, as though she was discussing nothing more alarming than a national shortage of buttered scones. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Are you going to tell me who you are?”

“Unlike the rest of them, Henry, I’m going to do you the courtesy of telling you the name I was born with.” She smiled. “I am Miss Jane Morning.”

“Are you… Did he…” I gesticulated inarticulately toward the Eye.

“Before his defection to the BBC, your grandfather and I worked together at the Directorate for many years.”

“I never knew any of this.”

“There are less than two dozen men in all of England who know of the Directorate’s true purpose. Your grandfather loved you dearly but, come now, he was hardly likely to entrust you with one of the best-kept secrets of British intelligence.”

“That’s why they need me, isn’t it? Because of Granddad.”

Miss Morning nodded. “The whereabouts of Estella is keeping the war in stalemate. That was always your grandfather’s secret. And with him gone” — she looked as though she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry — “well, as I believe the saying goes — all bets are off.”

“You’re not making a great deal of sense. Not that anything seems to lately.”

“Concentrate, young man. The hunt is on for Estella now. Your grandfather knew this day would come and he planned for it. But something’s gone wrong. Certain forces have taken an interest in us and it is most unlikely that we shall survive their attention.” She broke off. “You seem frightened.”

“Of course I’m frightened. I’m extremely frightened. Probably close to terrified if I’m being honest.”

“That’s eminently sane of you. But things are about to get a good deal worse. If I know how Dedlock thinks — and I’m very much afraid that I do — then he’ll take you to see the prisoners tonight.”

“Who are these prisoners?” I asked. “How do they know who I am?”

“You don’t want me to say their names. Not out loud. Not in public.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Names have power. Theirs more than most. I warn you, Henry. They’ll lie to you. If they ever tell the truth, it will be to twist it to their own purposes. Don’t take a single wicked word they say on trust. They are chaos incarnate. They delight in destruction for its own sake. And nothing is sweeter to them than the corruption of an innocent soul.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then I fear you may have to discover it for yourself.” Miss Morning snapped open her handbag and passed me a discreet square of card. “Call me when you need me. And you will need me.”

“Can’t you tell me more?”

“Not today.”

“Why?”

“Because if you knew everything, I doubt you’d find the strength to carry on.”

Although this sentence might look a little theatrical on paper, I should point out that it was delivered in a tone which was remarkably calm and matter-of-fact.

“There is one more thing,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I have his cat. It found its way to me.” A sad smile. “As, in your own way, have you.” Then she gave me a good crisp nod goodbye and walked into the crowd.

If I thought it would do any good, I’d tell you the secret now. I’d write it down and damn the consequences. But I can’t see what help that would be. I don’t see how laying before you those terrible truths about the House of Windsor, their insane treachery and their secret lusts, would serve any useful purpose save to infuse your nightmares with clammy and crepuscular dread.

I stood motionless, my mind whirling with impossibilities. Then — bathos.

“Henry? Is that you?”

Someone chunky stood in front of me, a sandwich engorged with cheese and pickle clasped half-eaten in her hands.

“Barbara!” I mustered a wonky kind of smile. “How are you?”

“Mustn’t grumble. But how are you? How’s life in” — she lowered her voice in serio-comic reverence — “the new department?”

I gulped back a bitter laugh, wondering what kind of cover story she’d been fed. “It’s… challenging.”

Barbara grunted and took a noisy bite of her sandwich but seemed to have nothing further to add to the conversation.

“How’s Peter?” I asked.

“He’s fine,” she said between mouthfuls. “Keeps talking to me about all the gigs he’s going to.”

I rolled my eyes and we shared a moment of exasperated collusion.

“Actually,” Barbara chomped on, “I had a phone call from one of your colleagues. Mr. Jasper. Remember? He introduced himself when he came into the office. Tallish man. Lovely skin.”

I don’t think she noticed me flinch at the mention of the name. What the hell was Jasper doing calling Barbara?

“He’s taking me out to dinner,” she said in answer to my unspoken question. Then, with a small crescendo of pride: “We’re getting pizza.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“He seems really nice.” For an instant, she sounded like a very small girl. “He is nice, isn’t he?”

“He’s interesting,” I said. “Oh, he’s full of surprises.”

Barbara looked at her watch. “Better go. Nice seeing you again.”

“And you,” I said politely, meaninglessly, as Barbara lumbered away, leaving me to watch the surge of strangers, wondering if any of them had the dimmest notion of how brittle the world really was.

My landlady and I sat in front of the television in an exploratory embrace, Abbey trying her best to get comfortable with my arm around her, me struggling against that nausea which had settled in my stomach ever since I’d been told the truth about the war.

Abbey had remarked on my pallor but I had admitted only to being worn and exhausted from my new job. I’d not forgotten Mr. Dedlock’s threats.

So as not to hurt her feelings, I was wearing the lemon-colored sweater which she’d given me for my birthday.

She was channel hopping. “Poor bastard,” she said as she came to rest on BBC1.

I forced myself to focus on the screen. “Who?”

“Prince Arthur,” she said, as the crinkled Prince of Wales moped dolefully across the screen. “Sixty today and still no closer to being king. No wonder he looks so flipping miserable.”

“Hmm.”

“I mean, look at him. Always so sour.”

“Hmm.”

“Wife’s quite pretty, though. Never understood what she saw in him.”

“Uh-huh.”