Dream London (5 page)

“I won’t.”

The voice was hesitant. This was a half-hearted threat, if I ever heard of one.

“What do you want?” I said.

“Me? I don’t like to say. But this isn’t about what I want. I was sent by the Daddio.”

“Who?”

The voice sounded a little surprised.

“You haven’t heard of Daddio Clarke and the Macon Wailers?” it said.

Now I understood. “Right. The Daddio from the East End. I’ve heard stories. I’m not sure that I believe most of what I’ve heard.”

“Really? I’m not sure I would admit to that.”

At that moment the accordionists’ bellows sighed to a halt. The music lingered in the air for a little longer before fading into the night. I heard the clicking of buttons, the snapping of catches as the accordions were placed in their cases and lifted, the receding footsteps of the players. Now my mysterious assailant and I were left alone.

My voice was calm. No sense in panicking a man holding a knife to your kidneys.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m not sure why you’re here, but you can tell the Daddio that Captain Jim Wedderburn sends his compliments and wishes him well. Beyond that, as far as I’m concerned, we have no other business with each other at present.”

“I think you misunderstand me. The Daddio isn’t unhappy with you. Quite the opposite!”

“Then why are you holding a knife to me?”

There was a pause whilst my assailant thought of his answer.

“To ensure I have your attention,” he said, eventually.

“You have it.”

“Good! Then let me tell you that the Daddio also wanted you to know that he admires you, Captain Wedderburn. He wants you to know that a man of your calibre could do well in his organisation. He’d like to offer you a job.”

Two jobs in one night. Why had Captain Jim Wedderburn suddenly become so popular? I played for time.

“Why does the Daddio think I’d be interested in a job?” I asked.

“Why do you think you have a choice?” The voice seemed genuinely mystified.

We seemed to be having trouble communicating. One of us had to break the impasse.

“Listen,” I said. “I can’t think like this. I’m going to step away now.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the pressure of the knife withdrew. I stepped forward, out of range, and then turned to face my captor.

Any thought of fighting died right there and then.

He was a man, but only just. He was much taller than me, and much, much wider. His arms were as thick as my legs, his legs as thick as my body. He wore what might once have been regular clothes, but if they were the seams had been unpicked and extra panels sewn in so they would fit. There was something slightly grotesque about his body, but that was nothing compared to his head. It was twice as big as it should be. His eyes were narrow and bright, his mouth a wide slit like something cut into pumpkin. But worse than all of that was what lay inside his mouth...

“What’s that in your mouth?”

“In my mouth? There’s nothing in my mouth.”

He sounded so certain I didn’t know how to disagree with him. I leant closer to check, but there was no mistaking it. Two eyes were set in his tongue, and they looked down at me with a keen intelligence.

“What are you?” I asked.

“One of the Daddio’s Quantifiers,” said the man, reluctantly.

“What happened to you?”

“What do you mean, what happened to me?”

The two eyes in the big man’s tongue were looking at me. I did my best to ignore them. I looked up into the Quantifier’s eyes.

“What sort of a job does the Daddio have for me?”

“The Daddio is getting ready to expand his organisation. Extortion, protection, gambling. He does it all. Vice. Who controls the whores of West London, Captain Wedderburn?”

“Not me! I just keep things ticking along on my own little patch. I look after my girls. Keep them in candy.”

“All on your own?”

“Well, Second Eddie helps out.”

“But it’s mainly you.”

“I should say so.”

“They trust you, then?”

“That they do.”

“The Daddio is expanding. You see all this?” The Quantifier waved his knife around the surrounding buildings. “Someone may own all the property, but there’s still money to be made farming the people. That’s what the Daddio is good at.”

“Farming people?”

“S’right. And I’ll tell you what. That’s just the beginning. There’s whole new worlds going to come crowding in here soon, and the Daddio aims to take control of what he can. He’s got plans, and he wants you to be part of them.”

“And if I refuse?”

The Quantifier frowned.

“You did feel my knife, didn’t you?” He held up the blade for inspection. It looked as if it had been shattered from a ceramic drum: it was black and shiny and wickedly serrated. I know the move: plunge the blade into a stomach, twist it, and watch as the victim’s own stomach acid eats into their body.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

Again the Quantifier looked puzzled.

“I don’t understand. You have to answer me. Are you working for the Daddio, or do I have to kill you?”

I looked up at the Quantifier’s vast bulk and wondered about fighting him. I had a pistol, after all.

I doubted it would be much use against this creature.

“Very well,” I said.

The Quantifier’s frown deepened.

“Very well what? Do you mean you’ll work for him?”

“Tell the Daddio that Captain Wedderburn has received his message and is delighted to be held in such regard!”

“Okay...” said the Quantifier, nodding slowly. He seemed satisfied, but his tongue leant forward to take a closer look at me.

“Right, can I go home now?” I asked.

“No! There’s one more thing. I have to give you a message. The Daddio says you are to have nothing to do with the Cartel.”

I paused. Did he know about my meeting with Alan? Or was the timing of this meeting just a coincidence?

“Really? Why not?”

The Quantifier scratched his big pumpkin head with the tip of the knife.

“I don’t think it’s up to you to ask questions of the Daddio, do you? But, like I told you: the Daddio has big plans for Dream London. He likes the way things are going, and he doesn’t want the Cartel hindering this new world.”

“What’s the Cartel?” I asked, innocently.

There was a moment’s pause.

“I think you’re pretending.”

I changed the subject.

“So what does the Daddio want me to do?”

“The Daddio wants you to do nothing for the moment. Go home, go to bed. The Daddio will be in touch when he is ready. It may be in a few days, maybe a few weeks. Don’t you worry about it.”

“And if I don’t do what the Daddio wants?”

“Why shouldn’t you? You’re working for him now.”

“I forgot. So you said.”

Again, the two eyes in that tongue stared at me.

“Okay. Can I go now?”

“Yes.”

The Quantifier stood to one side.

Slowly I walked from the square, heading from Mandolin Vale, back towards Belltower End and my flat. Down the long road, framed by the buildings and the purple sky, I could see the tall bulging shape of the belltower from which the area got its name. The moon was hiding at the moment, keeping secret the time of night.

Down the streets, stepping between the pools of light, listening to the call of the blue monkeys, the chitter of the insects, the sound of singing from the half-open pubs.

One of the whores standing outside a shop doorway recognised me.

“On the house, Captain Wedderburn!”

“Not tonight, Suky Sue.”

“Come on. We’ve got the time.”

The time. What was the time, anyway? Alan had warned me about checking the time. What if I were to do that now?

Suky Sue fumbled for my hand. “Have you got any candy at least?”

I fumbled in my pocket, passed her a striped piece wrapped in cellophane. She took it and walked off, leaving me lost in thought.

What was I doing?

Going home, obviously.

But by doing so I was obeying the wishes of the Daddio. Or was I? I had planned to go home anyway.

What were my plans? Captain Jim Wedderburn gave the orders, he didn’t follow them. Yet whichever choice I made tonight I would be going along with someone, be it the Daddio or the Cartel.

Standing there in the streets of Dream London, I suddenly remembered Christine and her gift from earlier that evening. Caught in indecision, I pulled the fortune scroll from my pocket.

What was going on tonight?

My arrival back in London had coincided with the beginning of the changes. Buildings growing, people changing. It had been almost imperceptible at first, but events had accelerated as time had gone on. It seemed as if tonight things had stepped up a gear.

I didn’t believe in fate, in fortunes, in predictions. But there was something about this evening: the air seemed to hang heavy with the promise of... something. The streets were darker; the air had a spicier scent than ever. There was a sense of the world holding its breath waiting... waiting for what? For me to choose?

Curiously, I unrolled the scroll, and began to read the predictions.

You will meet a Stranger

You will be offered a job

You will be offered a second job

I paused at that, unsettled. Hadn’t that happened to me tonight? I frowned, thinking. In Dream London, everyone was on the make. People were always trying their hand at things. Would it be so unusual to be offered a new job? I read on.

Go to the inn to meet a friend, one who will betray you

Go to the docks and meet your greatest friend, the one you will betray...

I stopped reading at that point. That was the trouble with fortune tellers. The things they told you were only useful after the event. The parchment had told me I had been offered two jobs, and I had – after a fashion – but it gave no advice on which one to take. What was the point of that?

I rolled the parchment up and tapped it on my lips, thinking.

What was I to do? Before it had been so simple, simply return home to bed. But if I were to do that now, I would be following Daddio Clarke’s instructions. I had to make Alan’s house by sunrise, that was what he had told me. If I simply stood here, then I was, albeit unwillingly, doing what the Daddio had asked me.

Either way, I was being manipulated, and I hated that. What to do?

In the end, I did what I always did when unsure. I followed the money.

H
ALF AN HOUR
later, I found myself standing outside the door of the Poison Yews, card in my hand.

Alan opened the front door, the look of relief on his face obvious. He stood back and I entered into a wide hallway. A grandfather clock stood at the far end, ticking its way slowly through time.

“Don’t look at it!” warned Alan. “This is part of the protection, keeping us unfocused.”

I heard footsteps and another man entered the hallway. An incredibly pretty young man, dark and lithe and with eyes like a flowerboy.

“He came, then,” he said, a bored note to his voice.

“Of course he did,” said Alan. “Come on. Let’s get Jim to sleep before dawn breaks.”

They took me up stairs to a room with a large brass bedstead. They were holding hands in the doorway as they wished me goodnight.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” said Alan.

BLUE

THE POISON YEWS

I
WOKE TO
sunlight and the smell of coffee.

I followed the trail of the aroma downstairs to its end where I found a woman sitting at the table in a large dining room. She smiled at me and lifted the silver coffee pot.

“Black please,” I said, and then, “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I’m Margaret, Alan’s wife.”

I guessed she was in her late forties. A full-figured, good looking woman with big brown eyes and brown hair neatly cut to just above her shoulders. She was wearing a flowered dress, though she looked as if she would be more at home in a dark suit, on the board of some City firm.

“His wife?” I said, thinking of the Molly house we had visited last night.

“We have an agreement,” she said, rising to her feet. “Would you like the full English?”

“Yes, please.” My stomach rumbled in agreement, and I realised just how hungry I was. Hungrier than a man who only a few hours ago was eating steak and oysters should be. Last night’s meal seemed as ghostly and insubstantial as the other events I had experienced.

“Help yourself to more coffee if you want it.”

I looked around at my surroundings, getting a feel for the house.

Alan was obviously well off. This house was large and well furnished, and even if Dream London was altering its topology night by night, the quality of the surroundings spoke for themselves. Polished floors that had gained a deeper shine than was possible by mere beeswax, polished mirrors reflecting worlds glowing in deeper colours than ours, velvet curtains slicked with richness, thickly upholstered furniture festering with paisley and infested with lace. The ornaments that had once decorated this house had transmuted into porcelain jars and vases. And yet the house retained an airiness and sense of light. I paused a moment to breathe in the scent of honey wax and pollen. Perhaps if all went well with the Cartel, I, too, would live in a house like this.