Jonathan Barnes - The Somnambulist

“You know about his mother? Also that of Philip Dunbar — the Fly’s other victim? Both of them gone. Vanished into the city without trace.”

“People go missing all the time.”

“I’ve since discovered that both women were prominent figures in a small but extremely affluent religious group called the Church of the Summer Kingdom.”

“I’ve heard of them.”

Moon seemed surprised. “You have?”

“Silly name, of course, but harmless from what I can gather.” She paused. “Presumably, you disagree.”

“I suspect they’re not as benevolent as they appear.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Too many coincidences. Too many connections. They’re linked to the Fly, I’m sure of it. Their sigil — a black, five-petaled flower — was daubed on his caravan. From what I can make out, it’s practically the symbol of the church. Coleridge, too.”

“Coleridge?”

“Barabbas gave me a copy of the Lyrical Ballads . The church — if that’s really what it is — seems centered on his ideology.”

Charlotte sighed. “Edward,” she began, speaking much as one might to a beloved elderly relative, formerly alert and intelligent, but now sunk into befuddled senility, “you can’t believe a word that man told you. Not for nothing did the popular press call him ‘the Fiend’.”

Moon, turned ashen, did not reply and Charlotte was glad of the distraction when a serving girl brought across their drinks, slammed down the glasses and shuffled truculently away.

“You mentioned needing a favor,” she said, once Moon had taken a fortifying sip.

“I spent the night in the Stacks.”

“You spend half your life there.”

“The Church of the Summer Kingdom is one of the richest organizations in London.”

Charlotte pursed her lips. “Are you sure?”

“No question. They’ve hidden it well. I had to wade through oceans of paperwork. But they’ve left a trail. It only needed someone with enough persistence to follow it to its source.”

“And what did you find?”

“That the church is funded almost entirely by a single body. A corporation which calls itself… ‘Love’.”

“Love?”

“Bankers and brokers. Moneymen of some kind. Massively wealthy and a major player in the city. Their full name — believe it or not — is Love, Love, Love and Love.”

“Sounds like a joke.”

Moon did not smile. “The Somnambulist and I went to their offices. He recognized the building. Said he’d seen Speight of all people walk inside, dressed in a suit and behaving as if he owned the place.”

Charlotte laughed. “He must have been confused. Or drunk. He strikes me as the kind of man who might be.”

“The Somnambulist is far and away the most sensible person I know. Besides, I’ve only ever seen him drink milk.”

“The mystery thickens. You must be delighted.”

“Don’t’ you see that something’s happening here?”

Charlotte drained her cup and spoke again, calm and in control. “I agree it’s suspicious. How can I help?”

“I’ve arranged a job for you at Love.”

“Presumptuous of you.”

“Forgive me. Time is short.”

“How did you manage it?”

“Skimpole. The Directorate has its uses.”

Charlotte sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Infiltrate Love. Discover their connection to the church. Find out what they’re planning.”

“Nothing too demanding.”

“Report everything back to me, no matter how extraneous or irrelevant it may seem. Please, be scrupulous. I’m relying on you.”

“And what will you be up to whilst I’m doing all this?”

“The Somnambulist and I have to pursue another lead but — rest assured — I will be watching.” Moon fished a business card from his pocket. “Here’s the address. Be careful. I hope to God I’m not putting you in danger.”

“Danger? What are you expecting?”

“If Madame Innocenti was right we only have three days left.”

“You believe her?”

“I hope I’m wrong. But I think the pattern is beginning to make itself clear.”

Irritation rose in Charlotte’s voice. “You’re being mysterious again.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “I can’t help it.”

Dedlock took a cab to the center of the city and alighted amidst the bustle of Piccadilly Circus, that Mecca for the sybarite, the pleasure-seeker, the good-time girl. He did not stop to sample the delights of the place but headed instead toward the genteel calm of St. James’s Park, at the borders of which was situated his club, a well-heeled oasis scant seconds from the populous commotion of the city.

There had been an atmosphere of disquiet in the Directorate for days, a tangible sense of menace in the air. The Slattery incident had unsettled them all, the business with Grischenko even more so. Dedlock had sent the “Chinamen” away (vetted more carefully since the Mackenzie-Cooper debacle) and Skimpole had slouched off home for the day, gloomier and more grisly-looking than ever. Clearly something was up with the man, but in all the years they had known one another Dedlock had always found it difficult to sympathize with him, had never had the stomach for the spindly palpitations of his permanently sickly colleague.

He walked down a narrow avenue just of Pall Mall, stopping outside a house halfway along the street. A bronze plaque had been placed by the doorbell and read, in neat, black, unassuming letters:

THE SURVIVORS’ CLUB

STRICTLY MEMBERS ONLY

Dedlock rang the bell and an elderly man hobbled to the door.

Shriveled, hunched and wizened, he had huge eyebrows — vast white things like spiky tadpoles mutated to a dozen times their normal size — which hung precariously beneath his brow and cast strange shadows across his face. He recognized Dedlock at once. “Pleasure to see you again, sir. Do come in.”

Inside, Dedlock was immediately assailed by the familiar scents of the place, its indefinably comforting cocktail of whisky, port, stale tobacco smoke, must carpets and the aroma of manly perspiration.

“It’s rather quiet today, sir,” the man with the eyebrows apologized as he took Dedlock’s coat. “You’re just a little early.”

“That’s fine. I’ll go straight through.”

“Very good, sir.”

Dedlock sauntered down a long corridor and into the last of four open rooms. “Afternoon,” he said, by way of a general greeting. A chorus of grunts and murmurs ensued, emanating from the half-dozen gentlemen sitting inside, all of whom clasped cigarettes, cigars or pipes.

Dedlock took his usual armchair by the door. Opposite him, engrossed in the Gazette , was a tall, rangy man, besuited and wholly unremarkable — but for the fact that most of both his legs were missing, the lower part of his body reduced to a flabby stump hanging impotently over the front of his chair.

To his right sat a man so grotesquely disfigured that most of us would probably have screamed or swooned at the sight of him. Dedlock, however, only nodded with the same nonchalant courtesy he might have afforded any other, more recognizably human acquaintance — a friend passed in the street, perhaps, or a workmate encountered at the bar. Evidently the victim of a terrible fire, half the man’s features had been ravaged and deformed, his hair entirely scorched away, his skin dyed a livid shade of purple. Doubtless, Dedlock thought, this fellow was an object of pity in the world at large, doubtless he was jeered at by children as he went about his daily business, pointed out and stared at and made an object of ridicule. Fishwives (it would not surprise him to learn) cast aspersions on his sexual capabilities whenever he so much as raised his hat in greeting. But here in this most exclusive of the city’s clubs, here the man could relax without shame and hold his head up high amongst his peers. Today, in fact, he seemed positively cheerful, puffing enthusiastically away on an ancient briarwood pipe. Dedlock waved and the man smiled lopsidedly back.