Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

“Simon! Christ almighty! Look at the state of you!”

“I’m all right, Whippy. Don’t make a song and dance about it. I’m lucky I’m still living and breathing. This is Mr Winward.”

Whippy wiped his hand on his apron and held it out. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, in a strong Manchester accent. “Any butty of Simon Cutter’s is a butty of mine. Taking your dog for a walk, are you?”

“He’ll be OK, don’t you worry.”

“I hope so. If those Hoodie dogs get a smell of him, it’ll be mutt chops for breakfast.”

Whippy tossed the vegetable peelings on to a compost heap, and then he beckoned that they should follow him through the gate and into the grounds.

The hospital was set amongst wide, well-trimmed lawns, and was illuminated by floodlights, which gave it an appearance of unreality, as if it were constructed of nothing more substantial than cardboard. It was a large three-story Victorian building built in the shape of a cross, with four Gothic towers at each end. There were lights shining in almost every window, but there were no ambulances here, no staff walking around. Beyond the hospital walls they could hear the sound of buses and horse-drawn wagons clattering along Bunhill Row; and in the distance they could make out the mournful drone of a Zeppelin as it flew toward London Airport. But inside the hospital grounds it was oddly quiet, and windless, as if the whole world were holding its breath.

Whippy led them along a gravel path to the kitchen entrance, his feet noisily scrunching. “I’m cleaning up now, that’s all, so there’s only me.” The kitchen was large and bright, with white enamel worktops and a wide green-enamel range. There was a faint smell of steak-and-kidney pie in the air, but a very much stronger smell of pine disinfectant.

“Do you have any idea where Nancy is?” asked Josh.

“Oh, yes. I have to cook her tea in the evening and send it up. Room three-thirteen, on the third floor.”

“Is the room guarded?”

“Doesn’t have to be. It’s locked.”

“Have you seen her? She isn’t hurt or anything?”

Whippy lifted a casserole dish out of the sink, rinsed it under the faucet and wiped it with a tea-towel. “I haven’t seen her myself, but Sophie has. She’s the nurse who takes her food up for her. She says she’s amazing, for a Purgatorial. She talks, she eats. You’d have never credited it, would you, a dead person talking and eating? But I suppose that’s the way it happens, isn’t it? If God doesn’t want you, and the Devil sends you back, what else can you do?”

“What has she eaten?”

“Eggs, bacon; a nice cheese omelet; steak-and-kidney pie; gooseberry fool.”

“Has it occurred to you that somebody who eats like that can’t possibly be dead?”

Whippy clattered saucepans. “I’m a cook, mate. Not a fucking philosopher.”

“She’s alive and I have to get her out of here.”

“Come on, Whippy,” said Simon. “You said you would. You owe me that much after everything I did for you. Your kid brother would be brown bread by now, if it wasn’t for me.”

Without another word, Whippy reached into his apron pocket and produced the key to a five-lever lock. “I lent it off Sophie. Whatever happens – if you get caught – don’t you say where you got it from. Otherwise it’s both of us heads.”

Josh said, “What kind of security do they have in this place? Any Hoodies? Any patrols?”

“There’s only a skeleton staff. You shouldn’t have any worries, so long as you’re quick.”

“Right, then. Let’s get going.”

Simon sat down behind the kitchen table. “I’m sorry, guvnor. This is as far as I go.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I mean that I’ve got you into the hospital, and given you the key, and they could scrag me for either of those. I can’t risk going any further.”

“Simon, you’re beginning to give me a very bad feeling about this.”

“I’ve lost my hand. I’ve had three ribs broken. My balls have been burned to buggery. I don’t want to lose my bonce, that’s all.”

Josh stared at him narrowly. “You’re telling me the truth here, right?”

Simon shrugged, and looked down at the kitchen floor.

“You’re telling me the truth here, right? There are no Hoodies waiting for me up on the third floor? Nancy’s safe and well?”

“I brought you here – what more do you want? I almost died, because of you!”

Josh went up to him and laid his hand on Simon’s shoulder. Under his coat, his shoulder felt like chicken bones. “Yes, you did, and I’m sorry.”

He took Abraxas and walked out of the kitchen, into the corridor beyond.

It wasn’t difficult to locate the third floor. The corridor led to a huge, high-ceilinged hallway with a highly-polished floor of white and tawny marble. A sweeping flight of stairs led up to the first-floor landing, with nude bronze figures holding up torches on the newel-posts. Abraxas had difficulty crossing the hallway: it was so shiny that his paws kept slipping, and he made a loud scrabbly sound until he managed to reach the other side. “You should wear Keds,” Josh admonished him, and he let out a thin, suppressed whine.

They climbed the stairs to the first-floor landing, where huge dark oil paintings hung: portraits of famous benefactors and doctors. Abraxas was panting again. Ella had kept him in her apartment for most of the day so he wasn’t very fit. Josh almost had to drag him up the next flight of stairs, and at the bottom of the third flight he refused to move, and sat on his haunches whining.

“Come on, Abraxas, you can’t stay here. We have to go find Nancy.”

He heard echoing voices in the hallway below. Footsteps, and people laughing. “Come on, Abraxas, for Christ’s sake! We have to go find Nancy!” The footsteps began to mount the stairs, and there was even more laughter.

Abraxas still refused to budge. Josh tried pulling the leash, but he sank his shoulders lower to the floor and frowned up at him, defying him to try to pull him bodily up the next flight of stairs. The footsteps were climbing higher, and the voices were so clear that Josh could actually hear what they were saying.

“… plenty of new supplies, and without any risk whatsoever …”

“… don’t have to be squeamish …”

“… who’s squeamish …?”

Josh came back down the stairs and sat close to Abraxas. “You are going to come up these stairs with me, and you are going to be alert and hot and ready to trot whenever you’re told. Do you understand that?”

There was a moment when he knew that Abraxas had agreed to do what he was told. It was hard to tell exactly how he knew; but he felt something pass between them – not spiritual perhaps, but certainly empathetic. That weird understanding between one species and another.

“Come on,” he said, and climbed the stairs, and Abraxas came bounding up after him.

He walked along the third-floor corridor, looking for 313. The corridor was decorated with Regency-striped wallpaper, maroon and cream, and it smelled like a stuffy, second-rate hotel. There were crystal wall-lights all the way along, but two out of three of them had broken, or needed new bulbs, and so the corridor was filled with occasional pools of darkness.

Room 309, Room 311 … He turned the corner and it was only then that he realized what a fool he had been. Right ahead of him, silhouetted against the next wall-light, were three Hooded Men and two dog-handlers. Another man was standing behind them, right under the light – pale-faced, with greased-back hair, wearing a navy-blue blazer with brass buttons. He laughed out loud as Josh appeared.

“Look at this! Didn’t I tell you! Here he is! Aren’t the Yanks the stupidest race on earth! He trusted Simon Cutter! He bloody well trusted him! And here he is!”