The call was marred by static and the voice kept cutting out, but its identity was unmistakable. Sebastian’s louche drawl had tightened with urgency. Vince wondered why it had taken him this long. He checked his watch. 4:22 a.m.
‘To give up now is the same as admitting you’ve been wrong all along,’ he wheedled.
‘You can do what you like,’ Vince answered wearily. ‘I’m going home for a hot bath and a large whisky, and I’m going to ask a nice thick Camden plod to stand on guard outside the flat, just in case you get any bright ideas.’
‘Then you should know before you decide to abandon the challenge—’
‘I’ve already decided. I should be doing your job, mate, I’d be much better at it.’
‘—that your agent will no longer be handling that pernicious diatribe you call responsible journalism. She was killed at her apartment a few minutes ago. Surprised an intruder and was brutally stabbed to death. An awful lot of blood, apparently. Sprayed gouts of it across the ceiling, would you believe. Knifed in the neck, the lungs and the kidneys. Ruined the hardwood floor. A very thorough job, though. She squealed like a pig being slaughtered. The main thing is, we got your copy from her, which just leaves the one you gave your darkie pal.’
‘Fuck you, Sebastian. You’re lying.’
Despite the temperature, Vince broke out in a hot sweat. Christ, not Esther, not her. What had she ever done to hurt anyone? His hatred of Sebastian swelled into something insane and almost tangible.
‘I wish I was, Vincent. None of us wanted this to happen, but there you are, it has and it will again unless you continue the challenge.’
‘If you’re telling the truth, why should I? There’s no one left to publish the damned thing now.’
‘How delightfully callous and self-serving of you. I had no idea you possessed such a streak. The game, dear oafish lad, the game cannot be abandoned. We’ve quite a wager going this end.’
The phone line wasn’t secure. Didn’t he care about the call being monitored or recorded? Vince prayed he was starting to get careless. ‘No. I won’t do it for your amusement.’
‘Then do it in the memory of your publisher and your dear dead agent. Do it for the homeless boy you befriended, and the dealer in the nightclub. Do it for Louie. Do it for Pam.’
He expected they’d try for Louie; he could handle himself, but Pam? How did they know about her?
‘What do you mean, Sebastian?’
‘She followed us home. Can we keep her?’ The receiver clicked down. The call had been made from a public telephone, he could tell. He prayed that Sebastian was bluffing about Esther, but Pam—without a moment of hesitation, he turned back to the strengthening rain and the litter bin where he had discarded the envelope of the seventh challenge.
It seemed obvious that the mobile telephone had been designed by a white man; the little Velcro flap he had to open on the carrying case before he could put his ear to it stuck itself to dreadlocked hair and pulled a piece away every time he made a call. Louie winced as he detached the thing from his head. No answer from Pam or Vince. It was probably just as well; the glowing numerals on his watch warned him that it was past four.
What a night—the band had performed terribly and hardly anyone he knew had bothered to show up. On his way home he half-digested a pungent kebab prepared by a grease-spattered Camden Town vendor with filthy fingernails, and had almost reached his flat when some kind of typhoon set in. He smoked one very strong joint and drank a couple of cans of Red Stripe, but that did not explain why there was someone standing on the first-floor scaffolding outside his bedroom, or why the lower half of the window was up, admitting the pelting rain.
His first thought—that Vince was playing some kind of trick on him—vaporised when he saw the size of the man. He was taller than Vince, hunched forwards with his back turned, used to moving in a surreptitious manner. He reminded Louie of the skinny burglar in the cartoon version of 101 Dalmatians. Clearly he had just exited the flat and was about to climb down to street level. The council were arranging for the front of the building to be repainted, and had warned him about security, but he had never considered the possibility of owning anything that someone else might want.
As the burglar turned and stepped back to the edge of the scaffolding platform, Louie lunged out through the window and grabbed his ankles. The effect was dramatic. The man above lost his balance and tottered back with a yelp of surprise, but as his feet were anchored he fell forwards and turned upside down so that he was hanging by his boots. Louie released his hands and the burglar hit the street, landing on his head. The fall did not render him unconscious, but when Louie jumped down and sat astride his chest, he started blacking out. In the breast pocket of the intruder’s jacket was a clear plastic envelope containing a computer disk. Since Vince had entrusted the manuscript to him, it had resided safely in the vegetable crisper of Louie’s refrigerator. The disk was still ice-cold.
‘Who put you up to this?’ Louie asked, raising his victim’s face from a puddle and breathing Red Stripe into it. No answer was forthcoming, so he dropped his new friend’s head on the pavement a few times. The noise made him squeamish, so he slapped the pained face beneath him on the chops, then raised his skull by tightly holding on to his front teeth.
‘Tell me where Vincent is. Have you done something to him?’
Although the burglar’s arms were pinned he tried to beckon Louie closer by rolling his eyes, but when his captor leaned forwards he nearly had his ear bitten off. Louie had no compunction then in sitting back hard until he heard one rib crack beneath his thighs, then another. When the burglar began to whimper in pain, Louie felt sure that he would find out anything he needed to know.
Vince wiped a string of icy mucus from his nose with the back of his hand and dug deep into the bin. The envelope was covered in chips and soaked in the remains of a can of cola someone had dropped in. He tore the sopping paper open and read:
The Challenge of Nonconformity
Opened after Defoe’s Year,
Blake and Bunyan make a show.
Paradise was founded here,
Seek the Elf King, go below.
Where was he supposed to go this time? For the sake of Esther and Pam it would be necessary to unravel the latest puzzle quickly, but where in London was it waiting for him? He looked down at Trafalgar Square, where throngs of clubbers were waiting for night buses, then up towards Cambridge Circus at the thinning traffic. The first thing was to get off the street and make a call to his lifeline, presuming that Dr Masters and his Insomnia Squad were still living up to their name.
He realised he must have been standing in the sweeping rain for several minutes, trying to formulate a plan, when a young woman, naked from the waist up and wrapped in a vast sheet of clear plastic, called out ‘You all right, Vince?’ as she passed. Vince’s ears and hands were numb. The girl should have been frozen, but if she was she didn’t show it.
‘Hey, Meat Rack,’ he shouted back, recognising her, ‘what are you doing dressed like that?’
A nightclub in Adelaide Street was emptying out its customers, and pavements that had been deserted moments before were filled with a laughing, chanting urban tribe. It was as if a rainbow had splintered into human life and spilled itself across the wet brown roadway. The girl stopped and walked back. ‘Christ, Vince, nobody calls me Meat Rack any more, I’m just plain Caroline again. The old crowd’s all split up. Nobody stayed around. I’m surprised you’re still here. This city’s gone to shit. It’s all over.’
‘You look like you’re still having fun.’
She looked around at her friends. ‘Us? We’re just partying in the wreckage, baby. Picking over the ruins.’ He looked at her in wonder. Hadn’t someone else said the same thing tonight? She pointed out a skinny Asian man next to her. ‘You remember Miserable Phil, don’t you?’
‘Sure, sure.’ They shook hands almost as strangers, although they had once been united by music, parties, unemployment, the fun of being young and footloose. ‘Frameboy and Travelling Matt are still with us, the last ones to leave, lazy sods. Remember them?’
‘Of course I do.’ He smiled, suddenly saddened. ‘Which way you heading?’
‘Who knows? We’re foraging for food. You wanna come?’
‘I’d like to. I can’t.’
Meat Rack slipped her arm through his. She smelled of dry ice and peppermints. Her plastic sheet crackled. ‘Not even for old times’ sake?’
Vince looked about himself, disoriented, then up at the closed circuit cameras. If he was ever to slip away, now would be the time to do it. He joined the mafficking clubbers, hiding himself within their colourful nucleus, crossing the road by the London Coliseum to head towards Piccadilly Circus. At the first building he reached with a recessed, shadowed entrance, he squeezed Meat Rack’s arm.
‘Hey, look after yourself.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m going off into hibernation. Ain’t gonna come out again until global warming’s back. Stay fit. Have hope.’
He slipped away into the darkness. When he opened up the mobile phone, he found the battery completely depleted. He must have left the damned thing on. Looks like I’m on my own this time, he thought, as the rain dropped in freezing veils. He watched the clubbers disappear in the distance like a roving carnival of religious hysterics, invading the wet grey streets to search for converts.
Arthur Bryant accepted the mug of tea from Jane Masters and walked over to the window, drawing aside the curtain. Outside, the rain was starting to flood the streets of Battersea. ‘How well did you know this fellow?’ he asked.
‘I spoke to him on the phone a couple of times, and met him face to face once,’ explained Harold. ‘Wells was friendly enough, aggressive and very confident. Smile on the face of the tiger and all that. Clearly used to having his own way. Dropped the smile and changed his voice to a sort of low bark the moment anyone disagreed with him, in that cornered manner the more rabid ministers adopt when they’re being interviewed about a blunder.’
‘What’s his background?’
‘As I told Vincent, there doesn’t seem to be much written down about the League of Prometheus since the war. Sebastian and his members have been used to spin-doctoring any publicity that manages to leak out. When they can get away with it, of course. They don’t like to be seen as obvious, so they put in a quiet word here and there. What it is to have friends in high places, eh? I collected a little material on him but never used any of it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I abandoned that avenue of enquiry after Wells put pressure on me.’
‘Did you keep any documentation at all?’
‘I saved some bits and pieces. I vaguely recall a couple of articles about some personal tragedy he or his family suffered. The files should still be in the attic—if Jane hasn’t thrown them out.’
‘Now, Harold, you know I wouldn’t dare touch any of your papers,’ said Jane.
‘Could you have a look for me?’ asked Bryant. ‘I’d be particularly interested in shedding some light on his personal life. We can’t know what he’s thinking at the moment, but it might help us if we fill in his background. Especially as we seem to be in a period of radio silence. It’s a lucky chance this boy found you.’
‘Lucky perhaps,’ agreed Masters, ‘but not much to do with chance. The moment you start investigating London’s private clubs and societies you come up against the League of Prometheus in one form or another. It’s just that most people don’t get very much further.’
The sudden loud trill of the telephone startled everyone. When Maggie answered it she was surprised not to hear Vince’s voice but that of an unknown man asking her questions.
‘Slow down,’ she snapped, ‘I can’t understand a word you’re saying.’
‘I’m sorry, I’ve just had a bit of a fight with someone and I think it’s making me speedy. I’m trying to find Vincent Reynolds.’
‘This isn’t Directory Enquiries. Who are you?’
‘No, I just—look, I got a message to call Vince, but there’s no answer from his flat and he left your number on my machine, and everything’s very—hyper, if you know what I mean—’
‘Are you a friend or foe?’ asked Maggie sharply.
‘Friend! Friend! If there’s something wrong, I want to help him.’
‘Perhaps you should start by explaining yourself more clearly,’ said Maggie, lighting a herbal cigarette.
‘I think he might be in trouble. You won’t believe me…’
She exhaled a plume of smoke. ‘If this is about the League of Prometheus we’re way ahead of you,’ she offered.
‘Let me talk to Doctor Masters.’
‘It’s for you.’ Maggie handed him the phone, miffed. Masters spoke quietly, with an exactitude and attention to detail that had always defeated Maggie. She strained impatiently, trying to hear both ends of the conversation.
Louie had alighted from a night bus at the Trafalgar Square central stop. He did not realise that he was standing no more than a thousand yards from Vince when he made his call. Masters was able to verify that the man who had broken into his flat had not been feeding him false information, although he had simply said ‘National Gallery’ before passing out.
‘So he should be right around here somewhere.’
‘That’s right,’ said Masters. ‘Our last contact point for him was at the side entrance of the National, just around the corner from your call box.’
Considering London was a home to seven million people and covered six hundred and one square miles, the coincidence of looking up and catching sight of the back of Vince’s head should have startled him. It didn’t, of course, because it was precisely the kind of thing that occurred in the capital every day. But locating Vince proved easier than catching up with him, for once Louie spotted his friend darting along the walls of the buildings in Charing Cross Road, he realised that dozens of home-going clubbers clogged the pavement between them. Something in the Camberwell Carrot he had smoked must have been impure because his stomach was turning over. He tried to concentrate as he kept the retreating figure in his sights, but as his quarry rounded the corner ahead, the gap between them grew frustratingly wider.