Jonathan Barnes - The Somnambulist

Moon tossed the thing onto the kitchen fire where it was satisfyingly consumed by the flames. As it burned, he came to a decision.

The Somnambulist shambled into the room, his monolithic frame swaddled in a florid purple dressing gown. Moon bade him good morning; the Somnambulist yawned in response.

“I’m canceling the show tonight. It’s time we went on the offensive.”

The Somnambulist stretched and yawned again. He scrawled a message.

WHERE

When he heard Moon’s reply, the Somnambulist lost his bleary-eyed torpor and found himself suddenly and uncomfortably wide awake.

They waited until dusk before leaving the theatre, creeping past a disapproving Mrs. Grossmith and in inebriated Speight already settling down for the night. Moon raised his hat in greeting, to which the man managed a sottish sort of reply.

A coach waited for them a few minutes’ walk from Albion Square. Moon and the Somnambulist climbed silently aboard, saying nothing to the driver who sat draped in black, his face obscured by muffler and scarf. He was an associate of the inspector, a fellow renowned for his tact and discretion.

“Tonight is a hunting expedition,” Moon explained once they were inside. “We’re after information. Just fishing. I don’t want a repeat of your behavior last time.”

The Somnambulist nodded sagely.

“But if things become unpleasant — as I fully expect they might — I trust I can rely on your… expertise?”

Another nod.

“”Thank you. There’s no one I’d rather have by my side on these little excursions.”

The giant smiled shyly in response and the coach rattled on through the night.

Less than half an hour passed before they arrived at their destination, a squalid alley deep in the bowels of Rotherhithe. This was an evil place, a collection of vile tenement buildings, doss kitchens and tumbledown slums. The streets were putrid with the stench of neglect and its people seemed more animal than human, their faces grimy, leprous and grizzled. It was a part of the city that cried out for civilization, for mercy and — yes, I do not hesitate to use the word, however unfashionable you may happen to find it — for love .

Midway down the street, amongst a row of crumbling houses leaning drunkenly together, between a pub and a lodging house where the very poor paid tuppence a night for the privilege of sleeping slumped up against a rope, stood an establishment well known to Edward Moon. An aged, drunken Lascar stood guard, and as they approached, Moon nodded politely — just as one might to a doorman at the Ritz, to the gatekeeper of some exclusive club of which one is a lifetime member. The Lascar studied them with rheumy and suspicious eyes but, too inebriated perhaps to offer much resistance, let them pass without comment. They walked down a crooked, well-worn staircase into the main body of the building, its poisonous heart, a gigantic cellar reeking of sin — the notorious opium den of Fodina Yiangou.

The cellar was wreathed in a fog of livid yellow smoke and the floor was thick with human bodies: contorted, ugly and unnatural. A young man sat lost in some heaven or hell of his own creation, the very portrait of ruin, mouth agape, eyes wide open, pupils shrunk to pinpoints. Hunched beside him was a broken-down soldier, still dressed in the scarlet livery of his regiment, filthy and ragged from years of neglect. Their hands like claws, they clutched feebly onto their opium pipes — granters at once of ecstasy and torment. Made drowsy by the poppy, they lolled listlessly on their couches, their pale, pasty faces illuminated by the light of the oil lamps, helpless as puppets shorn of their strings. Moon and the Somnambulist picked their way amongst them, and almost as one the men shuddered as they passed.

“Lotus-eaters,” the conjuror murmured. His companion gave him a quizzical look, but before he could write anything in reply a stooped Oriental materialized beside them, his face cracked and raw as though ravaged by some hideous disease.

“Mr. Moon?” His voice was thickly accented, insidious, sly.

The detective bowed politely.

The Chinaman jabbed angrily at the Somnambulist. “Why he here?”

Moon did his best to placate him. “The Somnambulist has come as my guest. You have my word he’ll be on his best behavior.”

“He not welcome,” Yiangou insisted.

“Don’t say that,” Moon grinned toothily. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

Yiangou snarled. “What you want?”

“What do I want?” Moon asked nonchalantly. He moved toward the Oriental and pinched his pug nose hard between forefinger and thumb. “I want information, Mr. Y. I trust you’ll be happy to oblige.”

The Chinaman yelped in reluctant agreement.

“Capital,” said Moon, releasing his nose. “Now let’s see if we can manage a more civilized conversation. I’m investigating the murder of Cyril Honeyman.”

Yiangou nodded sullenly.

“I’m sure a man of your intelligence could hazard a guess at my next question.”

Yiangou laughed. “You must be desperate to come here,” he said. “I think you fail. You fail!”

“I never fail,” Moon replied stiffly.

“Clapham!” The Chinaman cackled triumphantly. “I think you fail there.”

The shadow of the Somnambulist fell across Yiangou, and the Chinaman immediately fell silent.

“I want names,” Moon demanded, “anything you might have heard. Any whisper, any clue let slip by one of your poppy-addled clientele. Every evil thing in London comes through here at some time or another. One of them must know something.”

Yiangou gurgled a sigh. “I no help you, Mr. Moon.”

“I could persuade you.”

“I think you could not.”

Moon glared. “Do you know something?”

The Chinaman gave an elaborate shrug, only to give himself away by giggling.

“You do!”

He shook his head.

“Given our long friendship, Mr. Yiangou, I rather think you owe it to me to say.”

Yiangou simpered.

“Alternatively,” suggested Moon matter-of-factly, “I could ask my friend here to break your fingers one by one.”

“Ah.” The Chinaman sighed. “I been told to expect you.”

He clapped his hands and two burly men appeared by his side, stripped to the waist, awesomely muscled, prolifically tattooed, glistening with perspiration. Yiangou snapped his leathery fingers. At this signal both men drew out alarmingly vicious-looking swords and advanced toward Moon and the Somnambulist.

“You’ve been told?” the conjuror said thoughtfully. “By whom, I wonder?”

One of the men lunged eagerly toward him, his blade cutting the air inches from Moon’s face.

“You’re making me nervous, Mr. Yiangou. And you used to be such a generous host.”

The man swung his sword again and Moon took an instinctive step backwards, silently berating himself for not bringing a gun with him. He gulped and wiped a trickle of sweat from his temple.

The other thug brandished his sword at the Somnambulist who, unlike the conjuror (never at his best in any physical confrontation), stood resolutely firm.

“Run away!” Yiangou squealed as Moon muttered something about the better part of valor. “You come to me,” the Chinaman went on. “You threaten. You disturb my customers. You aggravate for many years.”

“I can close you down any time I like,” Moon protested, rather out of breath. “The only reason you’re still here is because you’re of use to me.”

It was quite the wrong thing to say. Yiangou clapped his hands. “Bored now,” he said, and the thugs moved in for the kill, their eyes aflame with the promise of murder. Moon leapt aside as one of them tried to skewer him, but was forced back against the wall. Exhausted, he knew he wouldn’t last much longer.