Jonathan Barnes - The Somnambulist

“Listen, you tug me along through London, you tease me with clues and intimations. You seem to delight in cropping up in my life unannounced and tantalizing me with slivers of the truth. Why, sir? To what purpose? That business by the docklands — you led me to Lud on purpose, I’m sure of it.”

“I did?” Cribb looked genuinely bemused. He scratched at his left hand, which, Moon noticed, was bandaged up as though he had been recently injured. “Rather, you mean I will. You seem to forget that your past is my future.” He smirked. “And vice versa.”

“What was it? A prank? Are you laughing at me?”

He tutted. “I’ve no idea. You ought to have asked me at the time.”

“I feel as though I am traveling into the dark and that it is you who has led me there.”

“Come, come. There’s no need for all that.”

Moon snorted and, at long last, Cribb did his best to explain.

“Perhaps you’re right. Maybe I do owe you an explanation.” He sighed. “I’ve seen the future, Edward. Not by traveling but by living. Forgive me, I’m not sure how to phrase these concepts in a way that will make sense to you… Look at it like this. Yours is a single chronology, rosy and predictable. Tuesday follows Monday, Wednesday follows Tuesday. Not for me. I walk backwards through my life. I wake on a Wednesday morning and the day before was Thursday. My life is a constant slipping away, a losing touch. From your perspective we will meet twice more. The next time I shall not be myself, the time after that I’ll barely recognize you. I’ll say goodbye the day we met.”

“Ridiculous.”

“You know it’s true.”

“Then you know what happens to us? To the Somnambulist and me, to the city?”

“Know but can’t tell.”

“Why?”

“There are rules I can’t break. My position is a privileged one, and though I have the utmost respect for you and your methods, I will not jeopardize it.”

“Do you ever speak plainly?”

“Believe it or not, I am never deliberately oblique. I have always done my best for you.”

“Was Innocenti right? If she was, we’ve only two days left.”

“Well, then. Perhaps we should save the recriminations for another time. Why am I here?”

“I need your help.”

“I’d assumed as much.”

“There is a man I have to locate, the final link in the chain I have forged.”

“His name?” Cribb asked, sounding as though he already knew the answer.

“Love.” Moon watched his companion intently for any sign of recognition. “Ned Love.”

“Ah,” Cribb sounded pleased.

“Ah?” Moon repeated, infuriated. “What do you mean by ‘ah’? Do you know him?”

“I can tell you only that you’re close. Very close. No more than that.”

“But can you find him? He’d be an old man by now.”

“If he’s somewhere in the city, then yes, you may rely upon me. As soon as I have him I’ll send word.”

“Excellent.”

“Well, then.” The ugly man got to his feet.

“Thomas?”

He turned back.

“Please. Tell me how it ends.”

“Sorry.” Cribb smiled. “You’ve no idea how complicated it is being me.” He touched the brim of his hat and walked from the cafe.

Moon settled the bill and wandered home, troubled in his mind and anxious for a resolution. This case, singular though it had been, had hung over him for far too long. High time to bring an end to it.

E ,

I apologize if this letter is to be shorter than the rest. Love 893 has been removed from my room and a new woman put here in her place. Older by far, a long-term employee, Love 101 is a hatchet-faced crone who has assumed an immediate dislike of me and seems determined to act more as my gaoler than my roommate. Why 893 was summarily evicted I am not entirely certain, though naturally I have my suspicions.

I am watched all the time and I am no longer permitted to absent myself from the evening prayer meetings. It seems more and more as though I am a prisoner here, one neither liked nor respected by my fellow inmates. Needless to say, I do not sleep well — my nights are fitful, my dreams troubled.

Tomorrow I am summoned into the presence of the Chairman of the Board. His name is spoken amongst the faithful in the most absurdly hushed and reverential tones — he is as royalty to these people, small god of their little realm.

He is Love 1, the alpha company man, Ur-Love. It seems as though a thousand is some predetermined limit for the company, a quota to be met. That number is almost attained, and as soon as a Love 1000 is found it seems certain that whatever it is these people have been planning will come to fruition.

I cannot for the life of me make out how much in earnest these people are. At times I am convinced that, with their poetry and prayers, they are harmless zealots who delight in schemes and plots which can have no reality beyond their own fevered minds. But more and more I feel as though I am in danger here, that my colleagues are working toward some terrible and devastating end, some outrage to be perpetrated upon the city. Whatever evidence led you to place me here (and I quite refuse to acknowledge any part the charlatan Bagshaw may have played in the matter) you did well to heed it. Whatever they are planning, they mean for it to happen soon.

My work was as uninteresting today as ever but I did happen to stumble upon one small item of note. Whilst working through an especially tedious ledger, I came upon a record of the company’s transactions. Until recently Love, Love, Love and Love were buying up a great deal of property underground. Disused pieces of the sewer system mostly and some stretches of tunnels abandoned by the railway. I have no doubt that you will find this suggestive, though its precise significance eludes me at present.

I shall endeavor to find out more when I am able, but for now I must tread carefully. I am under close observation and I should not like to guarantee my own safety in the event of their discovering my true purpose here. When may I leave? I feel like the dim heroine of some shilling shocker walking blithely into peril.

But I must go. My time alone has ended. I hear my warder approaching.

C .

No man alive knew the city better than Thomas Cribb. Like an old and faithful lover, he knew her every curve and crevice, her every aperture and inlet, all the intimate places of her body. He was custodian of her secret and hidden terrain. In a few hours he was able to find any individual in London from the lowliest street-sweeper to a peer of the realm, regardless of how well they believed themselves to be hidden. He boasted that on numerous occasions he had assisted the police in precisely this manner, bringing to justice dozens of wanted criminals who, in their vanity, had believed themselves disappeared for good.

But Ned Love was a different matter. It was almost as though the city were hiding him. No one had ever proved as elusive — not even in the far-flung future when (Cribb assured me) the metropolis would be still more densely populated than it is today.

Consequently, it was late in the afternoon on the following day when Moon and the Somnambulist received word from the ugly man, and by the time they found themselves standing on the threshold of their quarry’s singular residence, light was already fading.

Ned Love lived in a low, mean district of the city. His house, with its boarded-up windows, its doors heavily bolted and barred, had the appearance of being utterly abandoned, so much so that the Somnambulist angrily scribbled that Cribb might have sold them a pup and led them on a fruitless expedition for some mischievous purpose of his own. Ignoring the suggestion, Moon knocked as loudly as he was able. “Mr. Love!”