Jonathan Barnes - The Domino Men

“More than that,” Miss Morning said. “They would tear this city apart simply because they’re bored.”

“There are other resources available to the Directorate,” Dedlock said. “I’ll see all of you again at nine A.M. at the Eye for a council of war. Until then — get some rest. Guards will be posted at your homes. You’re dismissed.”

Miss Morning, who, lacking an earpiece, had not quite been following all of this, turned to me and said: “Tell him I’ll be seeing him tomorrow.”

“Sir?” I said. “Did you hear that?”

“Why would I want her?” he asked. “What do I need with a bloody secretary?”

“Tell him I understand these monsters. Tell him I know what makes them happy.”

There was a long pause. “Very well. Bring her. I’ll see you in five hours.”

Soon afterwards, Barnaby arrived to take us home. Miss Morning and I clambered wearily into the cab but Jasper elected to stay behind, clinging to what was left of Steerforth with a disturbing tenacity.

As we drove, I saw that Dedlock’s whitewash team had already moved in — a phalanx of people in what looked like full-body anoraks, the personification of unsqueamish efficiency with their scrubbing agents and wire brushes, their sponges, sprays and tweezers. The street was lined with polyester bags the size of coffins, zipped up snugly to hold the dead.

We were negotiating the circle of Trafalgar Square when a van screeched past us, speeding toward the seat of power. I caught a glimpse of its passengers — more killers, tooled up and bristling with eager death.

“Jackboots,” Miss Morning murmured. “Dedlock’s reserves. The chase goes on.” She yawned and settled back in her seat, bleakly deferential to defeat.

We were too exhausted and distraught for much conversation, but as Barnaby drove us through the glum streets of Elephant and Castle, Miss Morning muttered: “I’ve seen them.”

“What? I’d been staring out of the window, doing my best to forget.

“Whilst the rest of you were gone. I saw them. They were watching it all.”

“Who was watching?”

“The three,” she whispered. “The three are moving again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know them, Henry. The Englishman. The Irishman. The Scotsman.” Even after all the lurid horrors of the night, at this I felt a peculiar frisson of disgust.

I turned my face away from the old woman and stared through the window. All I could see was my own reflection in the glass — a haggard, weary man with pity and accusation in his eyes.

Dawn was skulking over the horizon and the fog was just beginning to lift when Barnaby dropped me back outside the flat in Tooting Bec.

I let myself in, set the alarm to give me four hours’ sleep, unpeeled my clothes and sank gratefully into bed, wriggling under the cocoon of the duvet, hugging it close for comfort.

When I woke again it seemed like mere minutes had passed, although the officious chirrup of my alarm insisted that it was past eight o’clock and that I had less than an hour to present myself at the Eye.

To my surprise and delight, Abbey was in my bed. She gave a little groan at the alarm.

“Thanks,” she said when I switched it off. She moved close to me and wrapped her arms around my chest.

“You’ve come back.”

“Of course I’ve come back.”

I kissed her on the forehead and I think my hand may have inadvertently brushed against her breasts. She gave a husky sigh of pleasure.

“Oh, Joe,” she murmured.

For a moment, I wondered if I had imagined it, but then she said it again, quite clearly, as though to leave me absolutely no room for doubt, no merciful space for self-delusion. “I can’t believe you’ve come back, Joe.”

“Joe?” I wondered aloud. “Who’s Joe?”

When I looked again, Abbey’s eyes were fluttering shut, her lips slightly parted as though in provocation for a kiss, and the last good thing in my life had just begun to dribble away.

For the first time in his long and privileged existence (with the regrettable exception of an indiscretion during his university freshers’ week, kept from the media only by the application of an improbably large donation from the royal purse) the Prince of Wales woke up the following morning without the faintest idea of where he was or why.

As soon as he came to after a peculiarly troubling dream (something about a little boy and a small gray cat) he felt the first flailings of panic. Struggling into an upright position, he surveyed the room in which he had woken — small, functional, yet dimly familiar. Beside him, on the floor by the sofa on which he had presumably passed the night, was a little heap of items which had nothing whatsoever to do with his life, stock props from the horror reel of someone else’s existence — tourniquet, syringe, a vial of bubble-gum pink liquid. It was around this time that the prince realized that he was wearing nothing more than his boxer shorts (florid, festooned with hearts and pineapples, purchased by Silverman at Laetitia’s request). Arthur had no memory of having stripped off his clothes and realized that someone must have done it for him. It was only when he noticed Mr. Streater, face-down on the bed and dressed in a silver thong which flossed insouciantly between his buttocks, that Arthur Windsor remembered the sight of the needle, the fizz of the liquid in his veins.

His emotions upon this realization were complex. Naturally, there was shame, a certain amount of humiliation and a large portion of self-chastisement, but there was also — and this was something that the prince was able to admit to himself only much later, when events had sucked him in, seemingly beyond the point of no return — a sneaking, secret pleasure, the shuddering joy of the forbidden.

Arthur retrieved his clothes from where Streater had abandoned them on the floor and began to dress himself. As he struggled on with his shirt, he noticed the neat, professional puncture mark on his left arm — the first, we are grieved to have to tell you, of the many which were to come — and felt a spasm of disgrace and self-pity. More than once his eyes drifted across the room and alighted upon Mr. Streater’s bottom, the smoothly pert contours of which he compared to his own sagging, hemorrhoid-ridden posterior and felt a swell of sadness.

Taking care to close the door as softly as possible, the prince tiptoed from the room and headed back toward his own. Aware of his wretchedly disheveled appearance, he moved as fast as he could, keeping his head down low, praying he would attract no attention. Relieved to find that there was no one on guard outside his quarters, the prince locked himself inside, took a shower and tried to make himself presentable, whilst all the while a hideous lust was dragging at his soul, hectoring, pleading, begging to get it what it needed.

The prince felt a flare of concern. Where was Silverman? Why had he not come to find him last night? And, worst of all, why was he not here now, to dress him? Arthur Windsor could count the number of times in his adult life when he had been forced to clothe himself on the fingers of a single hand.

He sat on the bed, reached for the telephone and dialed Silverman’s private number. It rang incessantly without reply. Confused, the prince rang through to the Clarence House switchboard.

“Hello?” The voice was young, female and, like the majority of her generation, tinged with the taint of estuary.

“This is the Prince of Wales.”

“Good morning, sir.”

“To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Beth, sir.”

“Ah yes.” The prince had a vague memory of false nails and hoop earrings. “Good morning to you, Beth. I’m trying to get through to Mr. Silverman. But he doesn’t seem to be picking up his telephone.”