Jonathan Barnes - The Somnambulist

The giant looked carefully about, checking to make sure they were unobserved. In such an area as this, surely it did not pay to draw attention to themselves.

Moon was about to shout again when the letter box creaked open. Suspicious eyes peered out. “Go away,” a voice croaked.

“Mr. Love?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is Edward Moon. This is my associate, the Somnambulist.”

“Don’t like visitors. Got no time for guests.”

Moon looked at the house, derelict and shuttered-up as if awaiting demolition. It astonished even him (no stranger to unconventional accommodation) that anyone could seriously conceive of living there.

“It’s vital that we speak to you,” Moon said urgently. “Many lives could be at stake.”

“Go away. You can’t get in. Shan’t let you.”

“I have… questions. Concerning the poet.”

“Poet? Don’t know any poets.”

“You knew him when you were a boy,” Moon snapped, his patience already wearing thin. “I’ve no time for games. If my sources are correct, we’ve little more than twenty-four hours before the city is attacked.”

“Is it come, then, at last?” He muttered something, to quiet for anyone else to hear, then: “I feared it must be close.”

Moon bent down to address the letter box. “Mr. Love. This is not the most comfortable position in which to conduct this conversation. Please let us in. We need your help.”

“Wait.” The face vanished, the letter box snapped shut and groans and clankings ensued as an improbably number of locks and bolts were undone. All this took far longer than it ought — Barabbas himself had not been so secure within Newgate’s walls as was Ned Love at home. In the event of a fire he would assuredly perish before he could open his own front door. Moon made a mental note not to inform Mr. Skimpole of the fact — given the man’s predilection for arson, it might put some nasty ideas in his head.

At last the door swung open and a very old man ventured out to greet them. His face was lined and weathered like a piece of fruit left in the sun too long; he was dressed in an ancient brown suit which showed unmistakable signs of having been habitually slept in, and clutched in his left hand a half-finished bottle of noxiously cheap whisky. “I am Love,” he said grandly. “But you may call me Ned.”

They followed him inside and he led them down a corridor which smelt of mildew and animal hair, into what must once have been a sizeable morning room. If gas had ever been laid on, it had long since been disconnected and the place was lit by a dozen or so candles, flickering half-heartedly against the gloom, their wax puddling onto the floor. A mass of blankets had been pushed up against the wall, a small stove sat in the center of the room and the remnants of several rough meals lay scattered about on the ground. Surely a magnet to vermin , thought the Somnambulist (his instinct for cleanliness and hygiene cultivated over the years by the meticulous house-sense of Mrs. Grossmith).

“Take a seat, gentlemen, please.” Love scuttled about them, stepping nimbly over the debris with a dexterity that belied his advanced years. “Might I offer you a drink?”

“I’ll have whatever you’re drinking.”

Love produced a grubby glass and poured the conjuror a tot of whisky. “And for your friend?”

MILK

“Milk?” He looked astonished. “My, what a curious request. Well, never let it be said that Ned Love doesn’t do his best for his visitors. Invited or otherwise.” After hunting around under blankets and pillows, sending up great clouds of dust and feathers in the process, Love emerged with a filthy milk bottle, a quarter full of a grey-green liquid. He passed it to the Somnambulist. “You’re welcome to this,” he said doubtfully. “Though I can’t vouch for its quality.”

The giant took the bottle, sniffed it with barely concealed disdain, then placed it discreetly to one side.

“Well, then,” Love began once they were all seated. “What can I do for you? I ought not to have admitted you but you did seem so very keen. Should I be flattered? The fact you’ve found me at all, you know, speaks volumes for your tenacity.”

“Why do you live like this?”

“I know it must strike you as strange. I often think so myself when I am awakened in the morning, usually by some small creature or other nibbling at my toes for its breakfast, roving about my cuticles for its aggs and b. Ned, I say, Ned old man, why do you live like this? Good God, I think. This isn’t worthy of you. You’d planned so much more than this.”

Moon arched an eyebrow. “Quite.”

“It was always my intention, you see, after I was removed, that I should shut myself away from the world entirely. I had a fancy to become a hermit, here in the midst of the city. An anchorite in the old tradition. I decided to abjure the material world in favor of a meditative life. I had discovered the eternal truth that one cannot serve God and Mammon both. I’d hoped never to see or speak to a human soul again. Though perhaps I didn’t think the matter through all that thoroughly. I have to make frequent excursions outside. For provisions, you understand. Oh, only for the most absolute essentials. I’m not the kind of hermit who goes dashing out every time he fancies a loaf. Absolutely not. No, no, I’m terribly strict with myself. Try to limit my forays to once a week or so. Still, that does mean I’m not quite the ideal anchorite. Not that that’s my only sin. I get visitors, too. Men like yourselves. By rights, I oughtn’t to speak at all. I’ve started to wonder recently whether I’m really cut out to be a recluse. But despite it all I continue to aspire. Saint Simeon, you know, spent thirty-seven years up a pillar. Best years of his life, he said. Remarkable, don’t you think? Absolutely remarkable.”

“Mr. Love,” Moon said gently, “I need to ask you some specific questions. You mentioned that you were ‘removed’. May we assume that this was from the corporation Love, Love, Love and Love?”

The man paused to take a noisy swig from his liquor bottle. “So you know about the firm? My, you have been diligent. What else do you know? Or should I say…” — he wiped his mouth with a grubby sleeve of his jacket — “what do you think you know?”

“I know that the city is in imminent danger from a plot masterminded by Love in collusion with a religious group known as the Church of the Summer Kingdom. I know that this same firm is responsible for the deaths of Cyril Honeyman and Philip Dunbar, for the disappearances of those men’s mothers., for the execution of Barabbas and for the assassination attempt upon the heads of the Directorate. I know that they are utterly without scruple and that they will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. The only thing I do not know is the nature of their plan.”

“Or why,” Love breathed softly. “You don’t know that.”

“You don’t deny it, then?”

“Deny what?”

“That the firm which bears your name is behind the bloodshed.”

“I’d hoped and prayed they wouldn’t stoop to this. You must believe me when I say that the company in its present form represents the most monstrous perversion of its original conception.” He paused for breath. “You’ve guessed no doubt that I am the founder of Love, Love, Love and Love.”

“We had assumed as much.”

“You will know, too, then, that the firm was established according to the stipulations of a will made by Samuel Coleridge. To enable you to understand his motives in making such a curious request, I shall have to explain it from the beginning.”

“Pray be as precise as you can.”

The old man took another long swig of whisky. “You were quite correct, of course, when you said that I knew the poet when I was a child. In the last years of his life he dwelt in Highgate with a kindly medical man — one Dr. Gillman. In fact, the doctor’s young daughter lives there still. Bit of a looker. She might be able to furnish you with more facts about the old days. My memory has grown a little hazy.”