Simon Green - The Man with the Golden Torc

"I’m sure we could make some kind of deal," said Girl Flower in her breathy voice, batting her eyelashes at me, and then spoiled the mood by giggling.

"There is a traitor at the heart of the Droods," said Digger Browne.

"That’s common knowledge. But I don’t think anyone knows who."

"Lots of people have put forward names," said Mr. Stab. "But it’s all guesswork. Lots of people thought it might be you, Edwin. A field agent operating on his own, far from Drood central control, the only Drood ever to run away from home and not be hunted down like a dog by his family. The only reason everyone didn’t think it was you was because that would have been too obvious."

"And none of you know why I was made rogue?" I said.

"I’ve done some work for your family on occasion," said Digger. "I’d have sworn you were depressingly squeaky clean, like most of your family. I mean, yes, you run the world and everything, but—"

"I too have done work for the Droods," said Mr. Stab. He smiled crookedly at me. "Pretty much everyone here has, at one time or another. It’s the Droods’ world; we just live in it."

"We would never deal with filth like you," I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t know what my family was capable of anymore.

"There are many like us," Molly said carefully. "Allowed to operate as long as we don’t rock the boat too much. As long as we pay tithes, or perform the occasional service for them. Dirty jobs, off-the-books cases; the kind you regular field agents aren’t suited for. The kind you were never supposed to know about, because it might stain your precious honour. We’ve all done the Droods’ dirty work. That’s why we’re all so ready to bring them down."

My head was spinning. I felt sick. Could I really have spent my whole life supporting a lie? Was there really anything left to me now, except to bring down my own family?

There are times in every man’s life when the woman you’ve taken up with suddenly disappears on business of her own, and you’re left to make polite conversation with her friends. Personally, I’d rather stick needles in my eyes, but it’s one of those things you just have to do. Molly Metcalf produced a one-time-only mobile phone and headed for the women’s toilet so she could reach her contact in Manifest Destiny without being glared at by everyone else in the club. I approved of her sense of caution. One-time-only phones are phones you can use only once, and then immediately discard and destroy. A call that can’t be tapped and a phone that can’t be traced. It was good to know Manifest Destiny operated in a professional way. But it did mean I was left alone with Molly’s friends, most of whom I would have tried to kill on sight only a few days before. And vice versa, quite probably. So we stood and smiled awkwardly at each other, while the only thing we had in common disappeared into the ladies’.

"So," I said finally to the ghoul, Digger Browne, as the least obviously disquieting of the bunch, "you say you’ve done work for my family, on occasion?"

He shrugged easily. "I help out, when called upon to do so. The price of existence, in these hard times. My clan’s status is not what it was in the old days, when we had an honourable place in society, cleaning up the mess left behind by man’s many battles…These days, your family only ever call us in to devour those bodies deemed too costly or too dangerous to otherwise dispose of. You know; the kind that might rise again, or regenerate, or melt down into hazardous waste. There’s not much a ghoul can’t digest. Though admittedly our toilets have to be rather more thorough than most…"

I raised a hand. "I think we’re rapidly approaching the point of too much information. How do you feel about the Droods? Or this new resistance group, Manifest Destiny?"

Digger shrugged again. "The names change, faces come and go, but there’s always someone in charge. I’ve yet to see any hard evidence that Manifest Destiny would be any kinder or more just than the Droods…But it doesn’t really matter to me. Whoever’s running things, there will always be work for me and my kind."

I turned, just a little reluctantly, to Mr. Stab. He was drinking a Perrier water with his little finger crooked, every inch the calm and cultured gentleman. I once helped fish a victim of his out of the Thames, down by Wapping. She’d been gutted, cut open from crotch to throat and all her internal organs removed. He’d done other things to her too, before he finally killed her. The only reason I wasn’t tearing him to pieces right now was because it might upset Molly, and I needed her on my side. For now.

"I hear you got shot with an arrow," he said calmly. "Right through your celebrated armour."

"News does travel fast, doesn’t it?" I said, careful neither to confirm nor deny. "But I doubt you’ve got anything that could touch me."

"You might be surprised," said Mr. Stab. "But you really should try to relax, Edwin. You’re in no danger from me, as long as you’re with Molly. Dear girl. She’s an old friend, and I’d hate to upset her."

"You said you’d done some work for my family," I said. "What did you do for the Droods?"

"Sometimes people can’t just be killed," Mr. Stab said smoothly.

"Sometimes it’s necessary for them to disappear completely. No trace of what was done to them, or why. No body, no clues, just a gap in the world where someone important used to be. Someone who thought no one could touch them. I’ve always been able to make people disappear. The world only gets to see a small fraction of my many victims. The ones I want seen, to keep my myth alive…to maintain my reputation. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity; but my legend is all I have left, and I will not have it tarnished or diminished by my many inferior imitators."

"How did you get to meet Molly?" I said.

"She tried very hard to kill me," said Mr. Stab, smiling fondly at the memory. "She was part of a coven in those days, still learning her trade, when I found it necessary to kill one of her witchy friends. After we’d exhausted ourselves trying to kill each other, we fell to talking and discovered we had more in common than we thought. Certain people we detested, and with good reason. People of power and influence that we couldn’t hope to reach on our own, but together…Ah, those were happy times, teaching her the ways of slaughter."

"But did she ever forgive you for killing her friend?" I said.

"No; but she’s a practical soul. She knows that sometimes you have to go along, to get along. I like to think we’re friends now. You can’t do the things we did and not grow…close. And in all London, she is perhaps the only woman I have no desire to kill. I still remember her friend, whose death brought us together. Her name was Dorothy. A dainty little thing, and she screamed so prettily under my blade…Don’t, Edwin. Don’t even think about calling up your armour. You can’t kill me. No one can. That’s part of what I bought, with what I did in Whitechapel, all those years ago."

"I’ll find a way," I said. "If I have to."

Girl Flower moved quickly in to put a gentle hand on my sleeve.

"Boys, boys…lighten up, darlings. We’re all friends here, and we are very definitely not at home to Mr. Grumpy." She rubbed her shoulder up against Mr. Stab, like an affectionate cat, and he nodded briefly to her before giving all his attention to his Perrier water. Girl Flower batted her overlong eyelashes at me and pouted with her dark lush mouth.

"Why do men always have to talk about such awful things? Life contains much that is good, and much that is bad, and there’s nothing we can do that will change it. So why not just choose to celebrate all the wonderful things in life? Like me! I am the lovely Girl Flower, created just so that men might have the pleasure of adoring me! If they know what’s good for them…Honestly, darlings, if everyone just had sex a lot more often, the world would be a far happier place." She beamed at me. "Would you like to undo the buttons on my blouse and play with my boobies, Edwin?"