Jonathan Barnes - The Domino Men

“Streate-” the prince began, but his mother’s creature merely waved for him to be silent, with no more respect than a parent might show a persistent child on a long car journey.

“Don’t be so impatient, chief. Just sit back and enjoy it.” He smirked in the gloom. “I gather there was a time when your missus used to give you similar advice.”

Arthur was about to protest at this distressingly accurate slur when the door swung open and the translucent figure of Dedlock strode in, coat-tails flapping, his face set in an expression of reckless determination.

The old Queen, one hundred and six years dead, turned up her lips in a gruesome approximation of a smile. “To what do we owe this most irregular pleasure?”

The man from the Directorate seemed flustered and ill at ease. “Forgive me, your majesty. Forgive me my haste and my discourteous intrusion. I had no choice but to see you.”

The Queen gazed upon her subject, impassive and unspeaking.

“Your Majesty, I do not believe that Leviathan is what he claims. Surely you know that name is written in the Bible? It is the sea beast, the great serpent, the tyrant of the seven heads.”

“Really, Dedlock.” The Queen was tutting like a ticket collector faced with a recidivist fare dodger offering up some deliriously complicated excuse. “There is no need for such theatrics. Leviathan said you might react like this. He told me last night that there will be doubters.”

“Last night, ma’am?”

“He came to me again in a dream and told me what I must do. I am to construct a chapel beneath Balmoral in his honor. He will keep our borders safe. He will maintain our empire and ensure that this country remains in the hands of my house for all time.”

“Have you never considered, ma’am, that we may achieve all of that without the aid of this Leviathan?”

The Queen did not seem to have even heard the question. “I don’t believe you’ve been introduced to my solicitors,” she said. “They have been hard at work upon the contract.” Like clockwork mannequins, the men behind the Queen stepped forward. “I’d like you to meet the firm of Wholeworm, Quillinane and Killbreath.”

The first of the men thrust out his hand. When he spoke, it was in the rich, plummy tones of the cream of England’s boarding schools. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dedlock. I’m Giles Wholeworm.”

The next lawyer stepped forward, his hand also extended. “Jim Quillinane,” he said, in the musical lilt of the Emerald Island.

“Robbie Killbreath,” said the third of the lawyers in a thick Scots brogue. “Good tae ken you.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Queen. “You have your orders. You know where to find the boy? Has Leviathan given you directions?”

Wholeworm bowed his head. “Yes, your highness.”

“I know I can rely on your discretion. We will meet again tomorrow.”

The advocates nodded their understanding and, careful never to turn their heads upon the monarch, edged slowly, and with painful respect, from the room.”

“Amusing, aren’t they?” said the Queen after they had left.

“Ma’am?”

“What is it, Mr. Dedlock? What do you want now?”

“I want you to think, ma’am. Please. Consider carefully before taking any action you might regret.”

“Come back tomorrow. Then you shall see. By the time we are finished, you will fall to your knees and worship with me.”

“Tomorrow, ma’am? What’s happening tomorrow?”

The Queen leant toward Dedlock, and even from his distant vantage point, Arthur Windsor thought he could see lights of madness dancing in her eyes. “Something wonderful, Mr. Dedlock. Something glorious. Tomorrow, Leviathan is coming to Earth.”

Heading back to the flat, half an hour or so after saying goodbye to the old lady, I noticed that a dead ringer for my old bike, which I’d abandoned at work on the day of my initiation into the Directorate, had been roped around the exact same lamppost to which I used to lasso my own. That’s curious, I thought. What a coincidence.

Inside, I found Abbey sitting at the kitchen table and sharing a bottle of wine with the very last person I would have expected.

“Barbara?”

Unflatteringly dressed in chunky knitwear, her hair in some abortive attempt at a bob, the dumpy girl giggled in greeting. “Henry! Hello!”

“What on earth are you doing here?”

“I brought your bike back. You left it at work.” A hint of a blush suggested itself at the peripheries of her cheeks. “I’ve chained it up outside.”

I was quite touched by this. “That’s very kind of you. I’d completely forgotten about it.”

“You don’t need it for your new job?”

“Not really. They usually send a car.”

Barbara beamed in admiration.

Abbey broke in. “We’ve just been getting to know one another,” she said. “I did say that Barbara could leave the bike with me but she seemed to have set her heart on seeing you.”

Barbara flushed pink.

Abbey gave me a meaningful look. “We thought you’d be home sooner.”

“I’ve been at the hospital.”

Barbara looked sympathetically deflated at this and Abbey shot her a look of profound irritation.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Barbara. “Is there any change?”

“I’m not sure there’ll ever be.”

“Have a drink,” Abbey said quickly. “Join us.”

I sat down, poured myself a glass of wine and asked Barbara how she was getting on at the office.

“You know how it is. More files than we know what to do with. Even the Norbiton annex is running out of space now. And Peter’s been acting funny.”

“No change there, then,” I said, and Barbara laughed dutifully.

“They keep sending me down to the mail room.” The pudgy girl leant over to me. “That lady down there, the fat, sweaty one. She gives me the creeps.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “I remember. But how are you?”

As Barbara chattered on, Abbey curled back into her seat and gulped sulkily at her wine.

“I had the most wonderful evening the other night with your Mr. Jasper,” Barbara said.

A shiver of suspicion ran through me. “You did?”

“Lovely man. So attentive.”

I felt troubled by this, though I was uncertain why. “Are you seeing him again?”

“Definitely,” she said, with just a touch too much certainty. “Hopefully…,” she added.

Abbey yawned, then gaped in fake astonishment at her watch. “God. Is that the time?”

“What a tedious woman,” she said, the moment poor Barbara had gone.

I was in the kitchen, putting the kettle on. “Wouldn’t call her tedious.”

“Clearly she finds you fascinating.”

“Sorry?”

“Coming all the way here just to drop off your scrap-heap of a bike. It’s embarrassing.”

“I thought it was a nice gesture.”

“Nice gesture?” Evidently, this suggestion was absurd. “I think she’s after you.”

I could hear the kettle boiling. “What do you mean ‘after’ me?”

Abbey folded her arms. “I can see it in her eyes.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would Barbara be interested in me? Anyway, do you want a coffee or not?”

Abbey stalked from the room. “Good grief,” I muttered. “Surely you can’t be jealous?”

My only answer was the slam of her bedroom door.

I was giving serious thought to knocking on that door, to taking Abbey in my arms and confessing that I was falling for her in the most hopeless, overwhelming kind of way (and that I wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in Barbara), when the doorbell began to clamor for my attention.