The Parliament of Blood (16 page)

The broken glass reflected broken images of the scene as Eddie hurried back to Charlie. He took the boy's cold hand. But Charlie himself did not appear in the reflections.

‘I'll get help,' Eddie said. ‘It'll be all right, Charlie. I promise.'

‘No it won't,' Charlie gasped. ‘It's too late. But you done the right thing, Eddie. Don't let them get you. Don't listen to their promises.' He gripped Eddie's hand tight. His voice was barely a whisper: ‘Thank you.' Then Charlie's hand was limp, falling back across his body.

Blood welled up round the wooden strut in his chest. The reflection of a dead boy faded into the broken glass. Shouts came from inside the Damnation Club, and Eddie ran for the wall.

There was a chill breeze coming from the window. The curtains had blown slightly open and the light of the moon fell across the blankets on Horace Oldfield's bed.

He struggled to sit up, wondering what had woken him. It might have been the draught, or perhaps a sound from outside. From the bed he could see the back wall of the tiny garden behind the house. Built into it was an old outhouse. The brickwork was pitted and scarred and the roof was missing more than a few tiles. But the door was securely fastened and locked – and never opened. Even Oldfield himself had not been inside for years. Not since …

His mind was wandering, and he made an effort to bring it back to the present. He had been ill. Collapsed or fainted. Liz had said so, though all he remembered was the blackness. Blackness so intense it made him shiver. Blackness and shadow and darkness and death.

On an impulse, he reached back under his pillow. But the movement made him suddenly aware of the deepest shadows just inside the door.

‘Who's there?' Oldfield called. He could just make out a shape – the silhouette of a young woman. His throat was dry and his voice was cracked and weak. ‘Liz – is that you?'

‘Your daughter had to go out,' a voice replied from closer to the bed. A dark figure stepped forward, into the moonlight shining through the window.

Oldfield turned back towards the door. ‘Then – who?' He gave a gasp of astonishment as a dark-haired woman in a pale green dress stepped into the light.

‘She's abandoned you,' Clarissa said quietly. ‘Just as you abandoned me.'

‘Never!' Oldfield insisted. ‘Why have you come back to me? What have you done with Liz?'

‘Nothing. Not yet.' The second figure was wearing a dark cloak. But it was his face that now transfixed Oldfield.

The face of a skull.

‘Who are you?' the old man demanded.

The skull-faced figure's reply was a rattle of dry laughter. ‘You know who I am. And whose coach I drive. You met my sister Belamis many years ago – can you ever forget?'

Oldfield struggled backwards, pressing against the head of the bed, the pillow tight at his back. ‘No,' he gasped. ‘No – it can't be!'

‘That is what I said when they told me about you,' Clarissa told him, walking slowly towards the bed. ‘After all these years. All these unkind years. You could have stayed so young.' She was beside him now, reaching out a pale hand and stroking down Oldfield's trembling cheek. Wiping away the single tear.

‘Clarissa,' he murmured. He closed his eyes, remembering.

The woman sighed. ‘But now you will have to be old. For ever.'

Oldfield's eyes snapped open in horror. ‘You can't …' he stammered.

Clarissa smiled sadly. ‘Oh, Horace. We already have.'

‘But – my daughter!'

The Coachman was standing beside Clarissa. ‘Your daughter will be very well looked after, I assure you.' He leaned over the bed.

The skull all but filled Oldfield's world. That and the hard edge of the box under the pillow. He grasped it tight, pulling it free.

‘We owe you that, at least,' Clarissa's voice said from the darkness.

‘You owe me nothing but death,' Oldfield said.

Clarissa sighed. ‘I'm afraid it will be a long time before you go to heaven.'

Oldfield brought the silver box from behind him. His fingers were trembling as he struggled to undo the clasp. ‘Then it's time you both went to hell!'

The skull drew back. The broken, discoloured teeth opened. But the sound that came out was brittle laughter. A bony hand pointed to the silver box with its embossed crucifix on the lid. ‘A cross? How very quaint. You threaten us with symbols?'

‘And silver,' Oldfield said. He was relieved and pleased to see that the skull-faced man drew back slightly. ‘And faith.'

The laughter had stopped. But the dark figures did not withdraw. The Coachman and Clarissa stood motionless, framed against the pale moonlight from the window.

Oldfield had finally undone the clasp. ‘And this,' he said, as he opened the lid.

Clarissa's scream joined the Coachman's cries of fury and fear as the contents of the box were revealed.

The man was hurrying along the pavement. His dark cloak spread out behind him as he staggered towards a carriage waiting further down the street. A woman was already climbing quickly inside, slamming the door shut behind her. Liz could see the two pale horses waiting patiently as the man clambered with some difficulty up to the driving seat.

‘Do you think we should help?' she asked Malvern, who was checking his watch.

‘Probably spent too long in the nearest public house,' Malvern said, but he did look concerned. Their carriage was drawing up opposite Liz's house.

The other carriage moved quickly off, disappearing into the night. Liz caught sight of the woman inside, framed at the window, staring back at her.

‘Whoever they are, they'll be fine.' Malvern smiled. ‘Just late for an appointment, I expect. May I walk with you to your door?'

‘Thank you.'

The driver opened the carriage door and Malvern climbed out before helping Liz down to the pavement.

‘I do hope Father is all right,' she said. ‘I had not intended to stay out so long.'

‘I'm glad you did.'

As they approached, Liz saw that the front door was standing slightly open. She couldn't have left it like that – Malvern had been with her, and one of them would have noticed. Suddenly afraid, she ran to the house.

She hurried up the stairs and into her father's room. Gasping with relief, Liz saw that her father was still there, in the bed. But as her eyes adapted to the dim light, she saw that he was sprawled back against the pillows and headboard. The blankets and sheets were in disarray, as if he had struggled to be free of them. The curtains were blowing in the breeze from outside.

And a dark shape lifted from the pillow close to Horace Oldfield's head. Black wings beat the air, propelling the creature towards the moonlight outside.

Liz gave a startled shriek and jumped back as it flapped past her and through the open window. She saw it flying rapidly across the garden, heading for the back wall, for her father's old outhouse and the gardens and streets beyond …

There were heavy footsteps on the stairs behind her, but Liz hardly heard them, was hardly aware of Malvern hurrying into the bedroom.

She was hugging her father's lifeless body, her tears dripping on to the bed, her hand fumbling for his wrist to check for a pulse. She could feel nothing.

‘Let me.' Malvern gently eased her back, and bent his head to listen to the old man's chest.

‘There was something …' She could barely get the words out.

‘I don't think he's breathing,' Malvern said anxiously.

‘On the pillow. Black. Horrid. A bird.'

Malvern looked up abruptly. ‘A bird? You think there was a bird in the room?'

‘No, not a bird,' Liz realised. A part of her mind was analysing what she had seen. A dispassionate part of her had picked up her father's shaving mirror from the dressing table by the door.

‘Then – what? What did you see?'

‘It was a bat,' Liz told him. But she was too upset, too distracted as she approached the bed to see the fear in Malvern's eyes. She saw only her father's immobile body, drained of life.

It was not George Archer who came for him the next morning. Nathaniel Blake regarded the tall, gaunt stranger with suspicion. But the man assured him that Mr Archer was already waiting for them at the British Museum.

‘He said he'd come himself if he needed anything else,' Blake said. ‘Got some other mysteries he wants cleared up, eh?'

The tall man's voice was loud and confident. ‘There is something to be cleared up, yes.'

‘Well, it has to be more stimulating than sitting around here,' Blake admitted.

The carriage was certainly impressive. Blake settled his more than ample form into the plush red seat. There had been a symbol on the door, like a coat of arms. But he had not caught the detail of it as the early morning light was filtered through a heavy smog.

There was a chill in the air, and the driver of the carriage had been visibly shivering inside his heavy cloak. Coming down with a chill, perhaps, Blake thought. It
didn't do to hang about out in the cold and damp for too long.

It was difficult to see anything of the journey through the heavy air, and Blake settled back and closed his eyes. His mind drifted back to younger days – to his time at Lacock with Talbot; making his own way as a photographer; his wife Sarah – God rest her soul …

He jerked awake as the carriage stopped. Bleary-eyed, he squeezed himself out and followed the tall man to the door of the large imposing building where they had stopped.

‘This is not the Museum,' he said, confused.

‘Please – Mr Archer is waiting.'

Blake hung back. There was something forbidding about the place that made him feel uneasy. ‘You said Archer was at the British Museum.'

‘He was. But he wants to meet you here. This is where the mystery is. This is …' the man smiled. ‘This is his club.'

Blake grunted. ‘Rum sort of place, if you ask me.'

Inside, the building seemed cold and empty. Dust hung in the air and the lights were turned down low. Behind Blake, the driver in his cloak and hat stepped into the entrance hall.

Immediately a young woman appeared in a doorway opposite. She was dressed in a scarlet evening dress, and hurried to greet the driver.

‘You are no better?' she asked, concerned.

‘I'll recover. You were lucky to escape unharmed.' The
driver's voice was scratchy and cold. Blake shuddered as he caught sight of the man's face beneath his wide-brimmed hat. It was like staring at a skull.

‘I was nearer the door. We'll make him pay for what he did,' the woman said. ‘It's lucky you have not drunk for so long.'

‘Look, what is going on here?' Blake demanded. ‘I was brought here to see George Archer, not to discuss this coachman's ailments.'

‘Don't worry about his ailments,' the tall man who had brought Blake here said.

‘Better to worry about your own,' the driver snarled.