Mariah Mundi (14 page)

Alone, his mind whirring as to what to do, he tried to listen to
the hushed conversation that crept stealthily through the door of the inn. He picked the occasional slurred phrase from the air: talk of the Kraken and sea creatures, murderous villains and the walking dead. Mister Grimm kept the conversation stoked like a raging open fire. He filled the short silences with grunts of concern, adding to the pot any story he could pick from his imagination and how
he
had been responsible for wondrous feats of detection. All listened intently in the presence of a great master.

Mariah relaxed in his anxiety, the fears of the night fading with the hubble-bubble of the half-gleaned, eavesdropped conversation. Grimm spoke ever louder of his toil and trouble, louder than the rest, in a fine Oxford accent. As Mariah clung to the cold stone step, the cackling chatter held a joy that broke the fear of darkness. He shrugged his shoulders, shaking from him a dark creature of fear that sat on his back, whispering in his ear. The night chilled colder as the sky opened and cleared of cloud. High above, the blackness was spiked with a million sparkles of crisp, flickering lights that shone brightly in the firmament. Steam slowly lifted from the handcart as his nocturnal companion quickly cooled in the frosting air. Mariah stepped from the lamplight to look up into the sky as a single grit-speck burst against it and sped like a firebrand from west to east. The shot star died before it had lived two heartbeats, yet in that time had travelled further than Mariah would ever know.

On the hilltop the clock pressed to the church tower chimed a single semi-breve. In the still night it sounded loud and bright as it chased the call of seagulls out to sea.

‘One o’clock,’ Mariah said out loud, knowing his companion in the cart would not offer a reply. A nagging thought persisted, whispering to him again and again. He stepped back into the light and slipped his cold fingers into the door crack, pulling it slowly open until he could see inside.

The inn was bright, filled with pipe smoke that hung in long blue strands. Grimm sat with his back to the door, a funeral man at each side as Mathias filled their glasses yet again. The old candles had been replaced and oil lamps burnt bright; a full scuttle of sea coal had been thrown on the fireback. They were set for the night as they drank the cup of conspiracy. Mariah’s heart sank, knowing they would be there until first light, and he left outside guarding the corpse. He looked at the cart and then to the brightening street that was now etched in the silver moonlight.

Quickly he strode from the steps and set off from the inn, burying his hands in his deep pockets and casting a last sharp look behind. His pace slowed as he reached the corner by the alley that had led them to the cellar. Mariah tried to remember what his mother had said to him. He could see her in his mind, looking, smiling, but the words had gone. Before him were the sand tracks of the carriage that had taken Luger back to the Prince Regent. He set himself to follow, walking in the centre of the narrowing road that led by the side of the harbour. He scurried past the crumbling old sandstone houses, by stacks of twisted crab-pots and houses strewn with hanging nets. He never looked back, always keeping his eyes to the fading carriage tracks that crossed sand and cobbles, leaving a teasing glimpse of where it had travelled. His pace increased, keeping time with his deepening concern as, from close by, came the first patter of steps that kept pace with his. At first he thought they were but an echo of his own. Footfall on footfall, they sounded sharply from building to building. Then, as he again looked back, he saw him.

Following behind and keeping himself to the shadows was a man. Mariah could see the trailing wisps of his long coat dragging against the shadows and stirring swirls of sand. He could make out the hunched shape that hid its face under a thick sea
cap. Mariah argued, mind against soul, that this was an innocent meeting, that they were fellow travellers making their way towards the bright streets. Just a coincidence, Mariah thought, a reveller on his way to a stacked garret, a fisherman fresh from sea. But in several paces he failed in this reverie. His wits twisted the thoughts, telling him not to stop, telling him not to welcome his new companion, telling him to run, that the follower was the Kraken.

The twisting gut and gnarled throat came quickly upon Mariah. The tip of his nose burnt as he tightened his lips to hold back the growing sense of hopelessness that magnified with each step. His mind flashed to the face of the cart-bound corpse with its slashed forehead and deep-cut neck, and with every other step Mariah turned his head to glance at his nocturnal stalker.

A swirl of seabirds took flight from their resting place on the sharp-sloped rooftops above the quayside. Mariah looked up: the sky was filled with their cawing and moaning as they circled about the moon. He turned again and the man still followed, slowing his pace as he jumped in and out of the long moonshadows and with rat-like pace skirted the gutters.

With sudden compulsion Mariah burst into a trot, then a canter, his feet pounding against the mounds of sand blown by the wind. He cast a glance back – the man had begun to gallop, his uneven gait throwing his body from side to side, keeping twenty paces behind. Ahead, the bright sign of the Golden Kipper lit the street. Mariah thought of Jack Charity as he ran headlong towards the harbour. Again he cast a glance back, and saw that the Kraken was failing to keep up and was falling further behind. It slowed in its canter, half hobbling as the its feet scoured against the sanded cobbles. Mariah pressed on, running faster as his antagonist disappeared back into the shadow, giving up the chase.

To his right he saw a flight of long steps that led to the Customs House. He darted through the narrow yard and by the doorway of an old silversmith’s shop with its boarded window and broken sign. With long strides he danced the steps three at a time, smiling to himself, knowing the street to the Prince Regent was two corners away. He sighed heavily and happily as he rubbed streaks of water from his face. He shook the fear from him and looked up at the bright night sky and hopeful moon. Then Mariah slowed to a walk, rolling the coin in his pocket, feeling the smoothness with his fingertips.

A hand grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the floor. It had fired from the darkness, hidden by the emptiness of an open doorway. Mariah rolled on the damp stone as he twisted to get to his feet. The blow came again, hitting his chest with such force that it knocked him from his feet and down a flight of steps. He looked up at the cloaked figure that hobbled towards him, its wide red eyes glowing in the shadows, its sea-wet coat dripping as it trailed across the cobbled steps.

‘NO!’ shouted Mariah as the creature took out a handful of golden pennies and scattered them like wedding grass upon him. It grimaced as it scraped its bootless foot across the stone. Mariah could see the webbed toes and gnarled stubs that gripped the earth like bird claws. It stood before him like an ancient mariner in a bedraggled and barnacled bilge coat that frocked to the floor. Upon each wrist was the broken band of an iron manacle that wrapped itself tightly to its faded hide, and around that a thin silver bangle etched in straw figures. From inside its coat it took a triple-bladed dagger. It grunted and coughed, spluttering seawater from its mouth as it stepped towards Mariah. Its eyes searched him out as they darted back and forth.

‘More trouble, boy?’ came a calm voice from behind the Kraken. The creature half turned as the staff crashed across its
back. It fell towards Mariah, tripping over his feet and stumbling down the long steps. Jack Charity followed on, hitting the creature again and again as golden coins spilled from the pocket of its long coat and clinked on the steps towards the sea. ‘Away with you!’ he shouted as the Kraken turned and looked at him, shielding its head from yet another blow of his staff. ‘Back to the sea, your ship awaits you!’ Charity shouted as he held out his staff towards the sea beast.

The Kraken brushed the hair from its face and looked at Mariah and then stared at Charity, nodding to him as if it understood his raging. It turned, hobbling the final steps as it disappeared into the darkness and the labyrinth of passages that ran to the harbour.

‘Not a place I would have expected to find you, Mariah Mundi …’

J
ACK Charity gripped the long charred handle of the frying pan and was engulfed in a vast cloud of steam that sizzled from the crisping fishes that curled and crackled in the pan. It wafted like a gigantic billowing white cloud that mushroomed from the hotplate to the ceiling above, taking with it the delicious fragrance of hot sliced monkfish. Mariah sat at the end of a long table, neatly decked with upturned drinking glasses and silver cutlery, all set on the finest, whitest linen. Behind him was a tall glass window that looked out over the harbour, the crammed fishing boats bobbing back and forth, and the lighthouse that spun its beam out to the blackened sea. A large brass and wood telescope stood majestically upon an oak tripod.

From the gold-leaf chair with its velvet padding, he stared at Charity as he sweated over the large black range that filled the entire wall of the open kitchen. On the walls was a collection of curios, framed by the bright white cornice that ran around the high ceiling and the polished skirting boards that edged the shining wooden floor. He had never seen anything so meticulously clean. Whilst Charity rushed back and forth, Mariah
eyed the strange creatures that hung from the walls with their dead staring faces and dull lifeless eyes. Some he recognised, others he had no idea what they were or how they had got there. He knew the bison and the moose from drawings in the
London
Chronicle
. Once a Bison had visited the school, dragged from a crate by a young man with a tasselled suede jacket and pointed boots with triangular heels.

It was the large crocodile that caught his attention. The beast lay by the wall near to the door, like an upturned canoe, several feet in length, its tail purposefully curled so it could fit the room. As the fat sizzled in the pan and Charity muttered and chuntered while stirring a large vat of thick green mashed peas, Mariah eyed it enthusiastically. He began by counting every scale that jutted from its thick skin and then added to those to the number of teeth that stuck from its locked jaws. The beast was so preserved that it gave Mariah a shy grin as it stared back through large brown eyes the size of teacups. Without thinking, Mariah smiled back, captivated by the creature’s apparent understanding, even though he knew the beast to be the product of a proficient taxidermist.

Jack Charity untied the pleated blue apron from around his waist and rubbed it across his brow. He picked a large oval plate from the counter and, using the apron to protect his fingers, carried it across the room towards Mariah.

‘Bet you’ve never seen the likes of this, boy?’ he asked excitedly as if it were his latest invention. ‘Fish extraordinaire … from the deepest depths of the sea to your plate, and as fresh as the wind.’

Mariah stared at a mountainous concoction of crisp golden slices of fish, surrounded by a ring of bright green mashed peas pierced by slices of deep-fried potato. The aroma leapt across the room like thieves’ fingers, gripping him by the throat and causing him to swallow deeply as his stomach raged and gulped
with joyous anticipation. Gone were the thoughts of the night, the Kraken and even of Sacha. The plate filled his imagination and his half-starved gut with all the thoughts that his mind could muster, as the swirling steam from the hot fish spiralled higher and higher.

‘Let’s be thankful,’ Charity said, and he closed his eyes momentarily and spoke silently to himself. ‘Takes a life to bring this to us, never forget that.’

Mariah clutched the knife and fork in his fingertips and looked to Charity as if to be told when he could eat. The man smiled back, raising an eyebrow and winking his eye as if it were the start to a race. In the dim light of the tallow lamp Mariah ate and ate, never lifting his eyes from the dish. All that spoke of his deep contentment was the occasional grunt of glee as a morsel or fragment of delicious proportions burst upon his tongue and slithered through his body.

‘Bread and tea …’ Charity said as he returned to the table with a tray laden with a hot loaf of brown bread that shimmered on a silver plate in its own heat. ‘Nearly there?’ he asked Mariah, who gulped and nodded at the same time, knowing that his belly was practically full to the brim, yet wanting to eat more and more. ‘Then I better craft something for a sweet tooth,’ Charity said. He left the table and walked the forty feet to the open kitchen at the end of the restaurant.

Mariah guzzled on, swamping the bread in his mouth with a gluttonous swallow of hot tea. He looked at the crocodile and smiled; the creature smiled back and slowly and meaningfully winked one eye. Without pausing it did the same with the other, then, as if it too had just feasted on the same meal, closed its eyes and appeared to sleep.

A sudden sense of dread filled Mariah from head to foot. It turned his full stomach several times as he saw a short spasm of mist flit from the crocodile’s nostrils and disappear into the air.
At the far end of the restaurant Captain Charity worked on, unaware that the stuffed crocodile was now alive, and not only did it have a sullen grin but winked and snorted.

‘Captain Charity,’ Mariah whispered, not wanting to wake the creature from its slumber. ‘I need to tell you something, urgently.’ He kept his gaze fixed upon the crocodile as he picked his feet from the floor and propped them as high as he could on the opposite chair.

‘First we eat Pricky Pudding and then you can tell me all about the Kraken and Otto Luger,’ Charity said as the sound of cracked eggs and fork-whisking echoed around the room. ‘Plenty of time to sort out the world before dawn. I’ll have you back at the Prince Regent before they even know you’re gone.’ He took a hot sponge from the oven and covered it with the golden liquid that he poured from the bowl. ‘Three long minutes and then you’ll be bathed in ecstasy,’ Charity shouted. The crocodile opened one eye as if it followed the words from one end of the room to the other, then it stared at Mariah.

‘Is the bison from the Americas?’ Mariah asked feebly as he got to his feet and hopped from the chair to the long window ledge that ran across the bay of the room.

‘You know well,’ Charity shouted quickly as he disappeared below the counter, only to reappear seconds later clutching a silver bowl and large whisk. ‘Brought it back myself many years ago. Liked it from the first time I saw it.’

‘Was it hard to shoot?’ Mariah asked. He was standing now on the window ledge, wondering if he could run the length of the restaurant from table to table before the crocodile could snap him from the air.

‘Don’t really know,’ Charity replied as he tipped the Pricky Pudding on to another large plate and covered it with steaming custard. ‘Bought it from a man at Dock 31 in New York, just before I sailed home. Never would want to kill something as
beautiful as that. Everything you see I have picked up here and there. They are objects of art, things of fancy, keepsakes of my travels.’

‘Crocodiles?’ Mariah whispered, his voice tremoring, hoping the creature would stay where it lay.

‘I wondered how long it would be before Cuba caught your attention.’ Charity spoke with a glint of mirth in his voice as he carried the pudding from the kitchen to the table and presented it to Mariah like a great scalding prize. ‘
As the mournful crocodile
with sorrow snares relenting passengers
… Didn’t take her long to snare you, did it, Mariah?’

‘It’s real?’ he asked loudly, stepping from the window as Charity beckoned him to sit back at the table.

‘Real, friendly … and full of fish. An old girl, caught her myself.’ Charity picked a leftover tail of monkfish and threw it to the beast. ‘Getting too big to keep her here and yet whenever I take her for a walk, she always makes for where I found her.’

‘Africa?’ asked Mariah hesitantly.

‘The sands outside the Prince Regent,’ Charity replied. ‘Found her on the beach a week after that place opened, just a tiny thing no bigger than your hand. Kept her in the cellar ever since. Floods with the tide and she’s good for eating any … leftovers.’ He laughed the words to himself. ‘We were burgled once. Two villains got into the cellar by the old coal hatch. They say you could hear the screams on Castle Hill. Never did find much and for some reason the police didn’t want to investigate the scene of the crime … Not like any crocodile I’ve seen before,’ he went on. ‘She has the legs of a lizard and only one webbed foot. More of a dragon than a crocodillo.’

Mariah didn’t reply as he looked from Charity to the sleeping Cuba and back again.

‘Have some Pricky Pudding,’ Charity said as he doled out two large scoops of thick sponge, encrusted with wild brambles
and syrup, and covered in yellow custard. ‘Just the thing for an early breakfast.’

Mariah looked to the large golden clock that hung above the door. Its hands clung to the face to herald the next hour of the night. A spinning second hand flew quickly between each mark, dragging the minute closer to the hour. With infinite precision it gave out a melancholy chime that jangled and jarred about the room. Cuba snapped at the air, sprung to life by the two bitter notes. She chewed an empty breath, a year’s worth of teeth snapping tightly shut as her large eyes gazed about her.

‘Hates sudden moves and loud noises … Never could train her to ignore them. Not best to be near her at midnight.’ Charity laughed as he took the spare spoon, dipped it into the centre of the pudding and filled his mouth to overflowing.

‘On the steps,’ Mariah asked quickly, ‘the creature – what was it?’

‘That, Mariah, we will never really know. A Kraken, a Croque-mitaine to frighten children … There are many things in this world that are beyond our understanding,’ he said as he chewed the pudding and wiped a dribble of thick custard from his chin. ‘One thing is certain – it wanted you.’

‘What of the money?’ Mariah asked as he felt the coin in his pocket.

‘Some say the Kraken comes from a sunken ship filled with Icelandic gold. A Viking treasure, stolen from the grave of a king. That he carries the money to give as a gift for the death he leaves behind.’ Charity got up from the table and pulled the thick red velvet curtain across the large pane of glass. ‘Some things are best said in private,’ he said softly as he paused and looked about the room.

‘There was a man killed by the Three Mariners, a cut across the head and three wounds in his neck, just like the Kraken’s
knife.’ Mariah thrust out his hand into the air. ‘If you hadn’t been there it would have …’ He stopped and thought for a moment as for the first time he looked directly at Captain Charity. ‘Why were you there?’ he asked. ‘How did you know?’

‘Questions, questions. I have a great many for you. Here you are, hardly more than a day in the town and already being rescued from murder. What of that man on the train, what became of him? Tell me, what of Otto Luger and Bizmillah, how do they treat you?’

‘You were following me, Captain,’ Mariah insisted as he placed the spoon and fork neatly side by side on his plate and folded the large white napkin.

‘When will you realise that it was a coincidence?’ Charity snapped.

‘You
were
following me.’

‘So, what if I was? And a good job to boot. That thing would have had you in pieces. If you stand under the window of the Golden Kipper talking to your lady friend, then a man like me
will
be intrigued.’ Charity smiled and held out his hand. ‘Came along in friendship, remembered you from the train and wanted to make sure you were all right. I warned you then and I’ll warn you now. There are events taking place that you will never understand and you are caught in the middle of them, Colonial boy in your five-pound suit and shiny shoes.’

Charity put his hand on Mariah’s shoulder and stared him eye to eye. In that brief moment, Mariah could see every line of the man’s battle-worn face. He wondered what sights that piercing blue gaze had looked upon before, what wonders, marvels and misery they had beheld. There was no awkwardness in their looking, no embarrassment in the stare or unease in the glance. The boy looked to the man and in some hidden, half-thought way, saw his own future.

‘Were you really in the Sudan?’ Mariah asked.

‘In the rebellion, fought for two years.’

‘Did you ever …?’ Mariah asked, unable to finish his question.

‘Your parents?’ Charity replied, as if he knew the question before it was spoken. He went on quickly. ‘I thought of them when we met on the train. Never give up hope – search for truth until you find the answer.’

‘I would go there tomorrow,’ Mariah said as he gritted his teeth. ‘Search every inch of the land and look for them. If I could have just one bone or knuckle to say it was them, a fingernail to remove the doubt, then … I would have the answer.’ Mariah paused as he nervously twirled a long strand of hair around his finger. ‘Somehow, a scrap of paper telling me they were gone couldn’t end their lives. The Professor made me tell the school they were dead, had me repeat the word again and again as if it mattered. But they’re not dead, not in my mind, no matter what people say.’

Charity listened, his eyes glistening with the flames from the lamp. They reminded him of a small village with a circle of burning huts that brightly glowed against the black Sudan sky. In his mind he stood there again, the hot flames taking away the chill of the desert night. Seven black scorpions scurried from the burning brush, waltzing back and forth as they darted about his feet, down a rocky slope and into the dry riverbed.

‘Sometimes things happen in war,’ he said dreamily, ‘things we never mean to do. Often so cruel that our minds find them hard to remember and our silence is looked upon as grim, heroic modesty, when all in all we hate ourselves for what we have done.’ Charity looked at the few remains that lay scattered about the plate. ‘Filled and ready for the night,’ he said, and a sudden change came to his voice as if the world gripped him again. ‘Time to have you back to the Prince Regent. Cuba needs a walk on the beach.’

Charity stood and clicked his fingers to snap the dragon from its sleep. Cuba lifted herself to her feet, all but one of its long legs tipped with a clawed foot. She slinked quickly in and out of the tables and sat by the door, her tail twitching excitedly as she waited for her master. Mariah wiped the remains of the day from his face and followed at a distance as Captain Charity donned a heavy overcoat and from its pocket took a long leather strap that he slipped around the beast’s neck.