Simon Green - Live and let Drood

No one else from my family made it out of the Hall alive, I said carefully. There s always the rogues, of course.

Of course. I am sorry for your loss, Edwin. Some of them were my friends. And I do know what it s like to lose family. Now, what can I do for you?

I need information, I said. Where, exactly, can I find the Department of the Uncanny and the Regent of Shadows?

Catherine Latimer looked genuinely surprised. Why on earth would you want him, of all people?

Because my family never wanted to talk about him, I said.

It doesn t matter how much experience you have of the world or how much you think you understand how things work; every now and again the way things really are will just rise up and slap you round the head.

Molly and I stood together looking up at Big Ben, with Molly not saying I told you so so loudly it was almost deafening. As Catherine Latimer had taken a certain delight in telling me, the Department of the Uncanny was indeed currently based at Big Ben. Just as Madame O had said back on Brighton Pier.

Smugness really is very unattractive in a woman, I said, looking straight ahead. Bloody Big Ben I ve heard of hiding in plain sight, but this is ridiculous. Hiding one of this country s most secret organisations behind a major tourist attraction? That s thinking so lateral, it s positively perverse.

Big Ben is actually the name of the bell, Molly said solemnly. Not the tower, or the clock at the top. I know many other useful facts about Big Ben, if you re interested.

I mean, we re talking about a bloody big tower right next to the House of Commons! I said bitterly. And no one in that place could keep a secret even if you put a gun to their nads.

Molly looked at me sharply. We re not going to have to go down into Under Parliament again, are we? That whole layout gave me the creeps big-time.

No, I said. There s a hidden door right at the base of the tower. Raise your Sight and look straight ahead.

I was already looking at it. A simple everyday door, standing upright on its own some two to three feet in front of the tower. Invisible and intangible to the rest of the world, it was a dimensional door, kept subtly out of phase with reality to provide a gateway to another place. Which meant the Department of the Uncanny wasn t actually in Big Ben, but somewhere else. Which meant that technically speaking, I d been right all along. I had enough sense not to say that, of course. There was even a very neat and polite sign on the door saying, DEPARTMENT OF THE UNCANNY; ENQUIRE WITHIN, for those with the eyes to see it. What next a welcome mat? Guided tours? A souvenir shop?

Stop frowning, said Molly. It ll give you wrinkles. Tell me things about the Department of the Uncanny. Lecture me. You know that always puts you in a better mood.

It would have made a much better peace offering if she could have said it without the smirk, but of such compromises are successful relationships made. Or so I m told.

Catherine Latimer had quite a lot to say about the Department of the Uncanny, I said. While you were prowling round her office, looking for more things to steal. Most of these remarks were of a somewhat jealous and judgemental nature, but that s competing secret organisations for you. It s what she didn t say that intrigues me the most. She seemed to know things only about the Department s previous incarnation, when it was run by the Shadowy Cabinet. Political appointees, the lot of them, and living proof that it s who, rather than what, you know that gets you ahead in government circles. They re all gone now, of course; the entire Shadowy Cabinet was killed off during the Great Satanic Conspiracy.

Whose side were they on? said Molly.

No one knows, I said. The Satanists wiped them all out, apparently for not making up their minds quickly enough. To my mind, the very fact they were considering the question was good enough reason to stamp them all into the ground with extreme prejudice. The Regent of Shadows was invited to come in and do the whole new-broom thing shortly afterwards, and that was when Catherine Latimer s information stopped. Which suggests, if nothing else, that the Regent runs a tight ship and holds his secrets close to his chest.

Good for him, said Molly. He ll talk to us, though. Won t he?

Oh yes, I said. He ll talk to us.

If he knows what s good for him.

Exactly! Can I lecture you some more?

Oh, go on, then. You know that professorial voice gets me all hot. And it ll help cheer you up for being so totally and utterly wrong about Big Ben. If you start to get boring, I can always heckle and throw things.

The Department exists to keep an eye on the hidden world, I said. To find out and know everything that matters about those aspects of the supernatural world that might pose a threat. Or at the very least, to know as much as possible. Because everything is always changing in the hidden world. Which is why the Department s agents are always so busy, overworked and just a bit twitchy. The Department then passes the relevant data on to those best able to make use of it, or at least to those the government of the day approves of. The Ghost Finders, the SAS combat sorcerers, the London Knights even the Droods; after they ve tried everything else, including prayer, and closing their eyes and just hoping it all goes away. Governments have always hated going cap in hand to my family.

Gosh, said Molly, I can t think why. Could it be because you always want something really hefty in return?

Who s telling this? I said. The Department of the Uncanny is part of the Establishment, though they like to say they re separate from it. But then, everyone in the Establishment likes to think that. Helps them sleep better at night. Catherine Latimer told me that Big Ben is the real London Eye, the Eye on the outer worlds. That the clock faces are just a disguise, a distraction. Because apparently someone or something lives at the top of the tower and Sees all and knows all.

Like Madame O? said Molly.

Rather more clearly, one hopes, I said. The Department gathers most of its information through field agents. They work in the shadows, as shadows, entirely undetected. No one knows who they are.

Not even each other?

Must make for some stilted conversations in the staff canteen. And then there are the special agents, not unlike Drood field agents, for when something must be done. Usually in a hurry.

I suppose no one knows who they are, either, said Molly.

Got it in one! In fact, there are those who have been known to suggest that these Special Agents may not exist at all. Just smoke and mirrors to fool all the other secret organisations into taking the Department of the Uncanny more seriously.

Don t the Droods know?

Oh, I m sure someone in the family did, I said, and then stopped to correct myself. I m sure someone does. We always make it a point to know the things that no one else knows. Knowledge is ammunition in the hidden world of secret organisations.

I glanced casually about me. Night was falling, the lights were coming on and tourists strolled up and down the pavements, stopping now and then to take photos of one another before places of interest. And to peer uncertainly across the River Thames at the Houses of Parliament and wonder if anything important might be going on. And all the time they had no idea a door stood before Big Ben, unseen and unknown, that could have delivered them right into the heart of the secret world. But then, that s always the way. Wherever you are and wherever you go, you re never far from someone or something you re better off not knowing about.

Once again, I d left the Phantom V parked so illegally it was practically committing treason just sitting there. I d told Catherine Latimer I d be parking the Rolls right next to the Houses of Parliament, so she could warn off the security people. In the full knowledge that the boss might or might not pass the information along. Depending on whether she thought it might be funnier not to. Like most people in positions of power, Latimer was famous for her perverse, not to say downright peculiar, sense of humour.