8

ROGUE’S GALLERY

ecky gave her account in the personnel office, a dingy grey room with filing cabinets along one wall and a steel table at which we sat with Mr October. Three plain Manila folders from the cabinets were spread out on the table before us.

Mr October listened closely while Becky talked, his features skipping between three personalities, one shocked, one sympathetic, one wise and all-knowing. His face steadied and below the black hat’s brim his frown lines resembled a capital Y.

‘These are trying times,’ he said, ‘but I have to admit I’m not surprised. At least your family is safe, Becky, and you know your father escaped from them, Ben, which is some small consolation. But this is another kettle of worms entirely.’

Mr October drew the files towards himself but didn’t open them yet.

‘You’ve seen and heard the enemy screaming and yelling,’ he said, ‘doing the blood and thunder thing – you’ve witnessed them doing their worst. What you haven’t seen is the enemy doing its best. Believe me, they can be very crafty, very persuasive.’

‘You mean how they feed thoughts into people’s minds,’ I said, ‘like the girl at the tube station yesterday.’

‘Yes, exactly like that.’

‘Well, if that method works so well, why would they do it any other way?’ Becky said.

Mr October said, ‘As long as they’re yelling and smashing things in front of you, you won’t hear them sneaking up from behind. The real damage is done in small ways while you’re preoccupied with the bigger events.’

‘Like the Whisperer,’ Becky said. Seeing Mr October’s vacant look she added, ‘A new boy in our class. He’s kind of suspicious.’

‘Hmm. I haven’t heard about him. So they’re infiltrating the schools now, are they? Keep me posted.’ He turned to the files. ‘In light of this new information and the intel reports we’re receiving, it’s time you both saw this.’

He opened the first folder, fanning its mess of papers across the table. Among the piles of memos, notes and report sheets were photos and artists’ impressions of a variety of faces.

‘Ethan Hill,’ Mr October said. ‘A mole inside the Ministry until ten years ago. Leaked vital information which led to the deaths of Lu’s entire family in a 66231 at a level crossing, and an accomplice of another low life – we’ll get to him presently. Lu wears her sadness well and rarely speaks of it, but her pain runs deep. Because of Hill’s actions we were unable to save her family. They’re still lost in the great In-Between.’

Some of the mug shots showed a weasel-faced man with spectacles, others a monstrous white-eyed demon with a screaming mouth of jagged teeth. Still others pictured a withered gaunt man with Rasputin beard and hair.

‘So many faces,’ Becky marvelled. ‘And all of them his?’

Mr October returned the documents to their folder. ‘Yes, and no doubt there are others not on record. Next. . .’

He opened the second file. More of the same, except that here the majority of the faces were almost human, and were all the more disturbing for that. In one, the long-faced subject’s eyes, their pupils vertically slitted like a cat’s, radiated pure dark malice. This, I thought with a shudder, was the real face of the enemy.

‘Meet Luther Vileheart,’ Mr October said. ‘Like Ethan Hill, a former Ministry employee. He deserted us even more recently, four years ago. His activities weren’t uncovered until the damage was done, and Becky’s story confirms what we’ve long suspected.’ He laid a hand on my forearm, briefly becoming the kindly grey-eyed old man, the empathiser. ‘Ben, we believe Luther Vileheart supervised the fatal accident which took your father. Yes, he was acting on orders, but only after stealing the list of crash victims from these premises and trading them for a place in the enemy ranks. In return for those names they gave him a position of great power and standing.’

Mr October paused, allowing me to swallow this bombshell. Then he said, ‘You should know this because what we’d feared and expected is happening now. The war is becoming more personal.’

‘It’s already personal for me,’ I said.

‘Don’t let it be. Try not to let it be. With grief comes anger, which is only natural and normal and no bad thing, but you mustn’t let the anger control you. If you do, the enemy will consider it a weakness and try to exploit it.’

I glared at Vileheart’s faces until Mr October hastily covered them and put them away.

‘Are you OK?’ Becky watched me worriedly but not with the fear she’d shown earlier. Her nosebleed hadn’t started again.

‘I will be. I’m still taking it in.’

Mr October said, ‘You must remember that nothing you do can bring him back. Your mother is your priority now.’

‘I know.’

‘Good, then let’s move on. Last file. There are many more where these came from but these are our three Most Wanted, and here’s our number one,’ he said, opening the third folder. ‘A nasty little specimen. We go further back in time with him – he fled from the Ministry in the late 1960s, and like the other two he’s still at large. This is Professor Adolphus Rictus.’

Now we were looking at a feral being with a clenched ratty face, beady dark eyes and a chilling grin that stretched from ear to ear. In some of his file photos, in demon form, he looked oddly similar but with shiny reptilian skin and the creepy grin widening further.

‘A slippery little oik,’ Mr October said. ‘Rarely seen but always present. Worked undercover for the enemy here, and for six decades went undetected. He was on our medical team. There were times when the books became unbalanced and the numbers of departeds didn’t match the names on our lists, and no one knew why. After Rictus defected, the numbers came back into alignment. We discovered he’d been fashioning a surgical method, right here under our noses using our own facilities, to extract living souls and transport them to the dark territories known as Abhorra. He’s since shared this dangerous medical knowledge with others – the Mawbreed, for example, although their ways are even cruder than his. Some of our own employees were among his many victims.’

With a sigh Mr October put away this last pile of paperwork. ‘Read the dossiers in your own time, learn how these scoundrels work – familiarise yourselves with their ways and disguises.’ Finally he turned to me. ‘And just because they’re making this a personal issue doesn’t mean we will. We can’t allow anything to undermine our good work.’

I nodded but didn’t reply.

‘You’re gifted with considerable powers, young man, powers you’re still coming to terms with. They’re not to be used for revenge – the Ministry doesn’t condone it. Is that understood?’

‘Yes.’

But it wouldn’t be easy, knowing what I knew now about the order Nathan Synister had given and Luther Vileheart had carried out. It wouldn’t be easy at all.

Mr October was watching my hands, which were drawn into pale-knuckled fists on the table. Slowly I unclenched them and sat back and breathed out.

‘That’s better,’ he said, looking up at a knock on the door. The door opened a crack and Sukie peered cautiously in.

‘Sorry to disturb,’ she said, ‘but the telegraph’s going crazy, right off the map. Whatever’s going on, I think we’ll need extra hands.’

‘We’ll be right along,’ Mr October said. Leaving the three Most Wanted files on the table, he stood to follow Sukie out.

The day hadn’t begun well, what with the cone-head tornado all but flattening Becky’s house and then the revelation about Dad’s fatal crash. You wouldn’t have imagined things could get worse, but it was all downhill from there.

As we entered receipts the telegraph greeted us with a terrific smack-bang. Sparks and spurts of blue flame leapt around its metal housing, which had gained several new scorch marks. The printed list it was delivering curled all the way to the floor. We kept our distance, expecting another blast, but the machine let out a mournful whale groan and stopped.

‘Needs oiling,’ Mr October said. ‘Ben, when you have a free moment, check the User’s Quick-Start Guide and get that sorted.’

‘Will do.’

Collecting the printout, he unrolled it in front of him like a scroll, and his face clouded over as he skip-read the details. The ever-present wailing wind rose and fell and the candle flame that lit the office began to twitch wildly.

‘Oh no,’ Mr October sighed. ‘Oh dear.’

While Sukie prepared the cards, rolling the first into the typewriter, he turned the list around for us to see.

‘Huh?’ I said.

‘What’s it mean?’ Becky said.

‘Why?’ said Mr October.

The first few printed blocks on the list were strictly routine, not particularly eye-catching. A natural causes, non-specific, in Forest Hill. Another 3624 on the Northern line at Clapham South. A second natural causes across the common on Lavender Hill.

What followed was highly irregular – more than twenty names and reference numbers crammed together in tightly spaced blocks, a large number to arrive all at once even during peak hours. While the telegraph told us three things about most cases – who and how and where – there were other things it couldn’t tell. It couldn’t predict exactly when a soon-departed’s time would come, how many minutes or hours they had to spare, and it couldn’t answer Mr October’s question.

Why?

It was a question I had to ask too as I scanned the list again. It wasn’t just the length of the list that left me speechless, but the connection between the soon-departeds it named. All of them – every one – were at the same address.