Christopher Fowler - Disturbia

A glance in the mirror revealed that he was actually baring his teeth at the thought, growling rhythmically like some kind of inadequately caged panther.

'So,' he said aloud, 'you still think it's a game, do you? Let's see if you think that in an hour's time. Then, perhaps, you'll start doing what you're told.'

'Blind Pugh,' explained Vince. 'In Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island Pugh holds out the piece of paper with the dreaded Black Spot on it.'

'The mark of disease,' said Strangeways. 'We could try a clap clinic. James Pringle House, I've been there a few times. I picked up a girl in their reception area once. We waited until we both had the all-clear, then went at it like goats.'

'There's supposed to be an ancient plague-site at Highbury Fields. They built windmills over it. It was said that the bread of London was ground on the bones of the city's dead. And plague victims were buried in the great pit at Cripplegate.'

'How come you know so much about it?'

'My specialist subject, this city,' Vince replied proudly. 'I've never had a chance to use the knowledge until now.'

'So where are we going?'

They were still waiting for a train on the empty platform at Golders Green station. The electronic board above them promised to deliver one in five minutes. London Transport minutes were longer than real-life minutes, and could be stretched infinitely.

'To Blackfriars.'

'Why there?'

'The Mermaid Theatre. Every year it stages Treasure Island at Christmas. Look.' A poster for the production had been pasted to the wall no more than ten metres from them. Previews were starting in a few days' time. 'Blind Pugh comes on stage waving the Black Spot about, frightening all the kids in the audience. The clincher was the sea salt, a bit of a giveaway, that. So, we just go there, retrieve the envelope -'

'Hold on, how long do you have to keep this up?'

'The challenges? There are supposed to be ten of them. This is the third.'

'And say you don't get completely cream-crackered from all this running about and manage to find all ten envelopes, then what's supposed to happen?'

'I win the right to go public with my story, the whole bit.'

'And you honestly think you'll be allowed to do that?'

The same thought had not left Vince's mind. 'These people pride themselves on being gentlemen,' he explained unconvincingly. 'It's what they hang onto most in life. Honour and duty. Victorian values. I think they'll stand by their word.'

'It didn't bother Lord Lucan, mate. I guess we move in different circles. I trust myself and Crippen. And I don't even trust him because he'll go with whoever feeds him. And I especially don't trust this city. The richer you get the more private you become, the more private you become the more you disappear. And when you disappear, you can hide anything. London 's so private it's almost invisible. A place of great secrets. I think you should protect yourself.'

'How?'

'You could give me a copy of what you've written. I'll put it somewhere safe.'

There was a distant booming as the train approached.

'It's on my computer. But I made copies on disks.'

'Where?'

'I have one on me.'

'Then let me look after it. Trust me. Just in case anything weird happens.' He hoisted Crippen into his arms and wrapped him inside his overcoat. Vince hesitated. He knew nothing about his companion, beyond the fact that he was willing to help a stranger. Suppose Sebastian had planted him, instructed him to help Vince out with one of the clues, just to show that he was genuine? For what purpose though, to make him hand over what he had written? There was no point in that, not when the League had shown how easily they could enter his flat. He could afford to trust no one, not tonight, perhaps never again.

'I think I'll hang onto this, if it's all the same to you.' As the train rushed in Vince reached for his bag and held it close to his chest.

The darkened theatre stood on Puddle Dock, at the edge of a blank new section of the city. Between the building that housed it and the sluggish grey waters of the Thames ran a four-lane road that passed alongside the gilt statues of Billingsgate on its way to the Tower of London. The area had been bombed flat during the Blitz, then rebuilt to accommodate a fast-lane society that was only beaten by the city's Barbican Centre in its spectacular failure to co-exist with pedestrians. There was nothing remotely theatrical about The Mermaid. It was modern, anonymous, red-brick, hardly a theatre at all, more like a bottling plant. There were no glass awnings, no strings of bulbs, no Art Nouveau balustrades behind which to hide an envelope.

'This has to be the place,' said Vince. 'Look, there's even a picture.' He pointed to an encased poster showing the character of Blind Pugh displaying his dread message. Strangeways hopped up and down, trying to see above the entrance. Crippen decided that this must be the signal for something interesting and threw himself about in circles, growing ferociously overexcited.

'I can't see anything. Maybe it's inside.'

'The building's locked up. He wouldn't leave it in a place that was completely inaccessible to me. Sebastian wouldn't be interested in playing if he thought I didn't have at least a sporting chance.'

'Sounds like you know a lot about him.'

'I'm learning, believe me.'

Beside the theatre an arch passed over a narrower road, a slipway to the brilliant yellow tunnel which led to the bypass. From here came the sudden loud clang of steel on steel. Vince and Strangeways exchanged looks. The noise emanated from the rear of the building. As they followed the wall around, they left the main streetlights behind for an area where pedestrians were trespassers.

At the back of the theatre an extraordinary sight confronted them. Tall, waving palm trees. Dozens of them stood in rows, their emerald plastic fronds eerily rustling in the cold night air. The polystyrene logs of Ben Gunn's island stockade stood against a wall, awaiting assembly. The vast steel doors to the stage stood wide, and the prow of a great wooden ship could be glimpsed within. Scenery shifters often worked at night, after performances. They must have been here only moments ago, but were nowhere in evidence now.

'It's there, look, that's got to be it.'

Strangeways waved excitedly at him, pointing to one of the trees.

'I don't see anything.'

'Here, take Crippen a sec.' He threw Vince the string lead and ran forward into the artificial forest. It took Vince a while to spot the envelope taped high up in the tallest palm. Strangeways began climbing the trunk. 'I'll bring you back a coconut.'

'You don't know if it'll take your weight. They're not made to -'

Strangeways had already reached the envelope and pulled it free when he seemed to lose his balance. 'Oh, fuck.'

The plastic foliage was rattling and shaking, then shaking still harder, shedding fronds. Something was flying through the trees – a tiny silver bird.

'Strangeways?' Vince could only imagine that he had slipped on the base of one of the trees, had fallen further into the faux -undergrowth and was attempting to pull himself back up. He ran forward, pushing through the cellulose tatters, trying to see in the faint light flickering from the arch. Strangeways was in the grass below him, and suddenly grabbed upwards at his jacket. He was like a winded footballer, too surprised by a foul to cry out. His hooked fingers were red and lustrous, as though they had been dipped in gloss paint. Vince saw the sickly oval of his face, his puzzled eyes. Heard him try to speak, only to spatter his chin and neck with blood. A black arc twisted his throat into a deathly grimace; the skin had been opened with a razor. Dark liquid poured over the lower rim of flesh like a flooding bath. As his head fell back, the parted wall of his trachea revealed itself in pornographic detail. The cascade abruptly ceased, and his body dropped down.