Christopher Fowler - Disturbia

'What do you mean?'

'My agreement with the other League members was that I would admit defeat if you managed to beat me. I do not acknowledge your victory. But I have a feeling that the members will. In which case, I must formally ask if you would be prepared to accept unconditional membership into the League of Prometheus. I am also duty-bound to inform you that if you accept the offer, I must fulfil the final part of my contract with the League.'

'Which is?'

Sebastian looked straight ahead. His pupils had flattened into distant green disks. 'Obviously, I'm required to take my own life.'

'I don't understand,' said Vince. 'You set up this night of challenges yourself. You planned it.'

'That is correct.'

'Then why on earth didn't you make it impossible for me to win? Why did you set me tasks that you knew I would have to solve in order to fulfil your other purpose? If you wanted to get back at your father, why not do it another way? You could only beat him by allowing me to win. You deliberately created a situation in which your main purposes cancelled each other out. Why would you do such a thing?'

Sebastian raised his dead green eyes. He looked older in the growing light. 'As you yourself pointed out, I am very fond of paradoxes,' he said, smiling coldly.

'So you've lost and won.'

'That's the best result I could ever have hoped for. The resolution of this night is now in your hands.'

From the street below came the whine of a milk float making its deliveries. The rain was finally easing, but the sky remained grimly dark. Sebastian rose unsteadily and unstuck half a bottle of claret from the sideboard. The atmosphere in the room was fetid and heavy.

'Well, what's it to be, young Vincent?' he asked, tipping the bottle over his glass and slopping wine on the floor. 'Do you accept the offer and take over as part of the League's new "grass roots" order? They'll guarantee you won't be implicated in the night's events. It's simply a matter of a few phone calls. Could you be seduced by the thought of such power and spend the rest of your days with my death on your conscience?'

He set down his wineglass and dug inside his jacket. 'It's a service revolver,' he said, brandishing the dull grey pistol. 'Holds an important ceremonial role in the League's traditions. It's been used many times before, for many different reasons.' Removing the safety catch, he raised it to his throat and tilted his face to the ceiling. 'God, you spend years trying to change the world, only to discover the final hellish paradox.'

'Which is?' asked Vince, watching him and waiting for a chance to snatch the gun away.

'That the good intentions die with you, and the evil ones live on.' His finger tightened on the trigger as he slowly tipped his chair back. 'You'd better get out of here before the sound of the shot brings the others running.'

'No way,' said Vince, shifting forward. 'I want to make sure you pull the fucking trigger.'

Sebastian was so surprised he nearly shot himself.

'Come on, then, do it. You don't get off the hook by chucking me a bit of paraphrased Shakespeare and hoping I'll buy it. Let's see you take the noble way out, do the decent thing. Open the tent flap, look over your shoulder and tell me you might be gone for some time.'

Sebastian held the pose, but his eyes flicked uncertainly back at Vince.

'Go on, join an illustrious gallery of honourable suicides. How old was Brutus when he killed himself?'

Sebastian remained motionless for a few seconds more, then started to waver. 'Jesus.' He lowered the revolver. 'I think it's quits, don't you? You're not about to join our ranks, and somehow I don't think we'll ever be able to join yours. The poor old Prometheans are like this city; we're carrying too much baggage to ever start entirely afresh. We'll still be here next month, next year; a little older and shabbier, but still here. And no doubt it will be the task of someone like you to cancel out each forward move we make.'

Vince gave a rueful smile. 'Then the game would continue for ever.'

'Of course.' Sebastian laughed. 'How could it ever end?'

'But it has ended,' said Vince, seating himself at the other end of the table. 'You see, there's one final paradox you haven't considered.'

Sebastian shifted nervously in his armchair. 'I don't understand.'

Vince's smile broadened. The loaded pistol sat between them.

'I accept the League's offer of membership,' he said, smiling wider as he picked up the gun and aimed it at Sebastian's forehead. 'Get on the floor.'

Sebastian was aghast. He struggled to understand the command. Vince came forward and kicked him from the chair. Drunker than he realised, Sebastian fell to his knees, then rolled over on his back.

'Open your mouth.'

Meekly, he did as he was told, unable to comprehend the turn in events. Vince dropped a mudstained boot to his throat, jammed the steel barrel between his parted teeth and fired once.

The bullet that passed through Sebastian's upper palate also tore through his brain before exiting his skull and embedding itself in the mahogany herring-bone floor tiles. Vince remained holding the gun as the others came running into the room.

'Come on in, boys,' he called, still eyeing the twisted body on the floor. 'The leadership contest is over. I think you can figure out who won. You may as well make yourselves comfortable. We've got a lot to talk about.'

'ALL RIGHT,' said Stanley Purbrick, 'it's my turn. Chameleon. Sculptor. Toucan. Dragon. Furnace. Chisel. Microscope.' He sat back smugly and drained his beer. 'Sort that one out.'

'Pathetic,' mocked Maggie Armitage. 'Hopelessly easy.' She shook the last crumbs of salt and vinegar crisp from he packet and munched them. 'They're all -'

'Don't be a spoilsport,' warned Stanley. 'You always know the answer. Let someone else have a chance at getting it. Jane? Harold? Any ideas?'

'They're all constellations, aren't they?' asked Masters, hardly bothering to look up from his newspaper.

'That does it.' Purbrick folded his arms across his cardigan. 'I'm not going to play this any more.'

'Oh, don't be such a bad loser, Stanley. You hate anyone knowing more than you, and lots of people do.' She examined the inside of her crisp bag and ran an exploratory digit around it. 'Almost everyone, in fact.'

'That absolutely does it. I'm going home.' He rose to leave but was waiting for someone to push him back in his seat.

'Do sit down, there's a chap, I've got you a top-up.' Arthur Bryant had arrived with a tin tray full of drinks. The Insomnia Squad were seated in what had once been the snug bar of the Nun and Broken Compass. Maggie had been due to conduct a meeting of the Camden Town coven in one of the upstairs rooms tonight, but her secretary had muddled the dates and they had found themselves double booked with the Norman Wisdom Fan Club, so Arthur Bryant offered to buy them all drinks. As no one could ever recall the elderly detective offering to buy anyone a drink before, they jumped at the chance.

'We should have invited Vincent tonight,' said Maggie. 'I'd like to meet him one day. It galls me a bit to think that we helped save lives and nobody knows about it. I suppose that now he's a celebrity he won't want to talk to the likes of us.'

'It's odd that he never even rang to say thank you for all the help we gave him,' complained Purbrick.

'Never mind,' said Dr Masters, 'you can read all about him instead.' He held up a section of the Independent for everyone to see.