Chapter Eleven

S t. Stephen’s Tavern on the corner of Bridge Street was a smart stone building from the last century, with elegant, arched, floor-to-ceiling windows and a rather beautiful bar of dark wood, polished to a sheen and lit by tasteful gas lamps. A bright and welcoming refuge from the dreary day.

It wasn’t a place Josef often frequented these days, but before the war, he’d sometimes had occasion to meet his fellow journalists there, as well as a couple of Labour MPs. Alex looked right at home, of course. His brother, the earl, would have a seat in the Lords, and the place was positively riddled with Right Honourable Members. Alex nodded to half a dozen of them as he made his way to the bar. No doubt friends from school or Cambridge, although Josef didn’t miss the surprise in their expressions, nor the disapproving stares levelled Josef’s way.

It didn’t bother him; he was used to disapproval. Basked in it, in fact. Why should he give a toss for the good opinion of these overstuffed, indolent anachronisms? As far as he was concerned, they’d all benefit from a long stint in the firing line.

What surprised him, though, were the looks sent Alex’s way, and he wondered what they meant. Maybe Lord Beaumont went about spouting his lunatic theories among his own sort too? Or, more likely, he’d been indiscreet with his choice of bed mates and had been exposed as an irredeemable invert.

Either way, Alex appeared as unconcerned as Josef by their disapprobation.

He found that irritatingly admirable.

They each bought their own drink—under DORA restrictions, ‘treating’ another man to a drink was prohibited—and then looked for a table.

“This’ll do,” Josef said, sliding onto the bench behind a small round table tucked into the back corner of the pub. Before he sat down, Alex removed his expensive-looking overcoat and laid it neatly over the back of an empty chair. Josef kept his jacket on, although he unbuttoned it, forgetting that he was wearing Alex’s borrowed cardigan beneath until he saw the man’s eyes drift over it.

“What?” Josef snapped, eyeing him suspiciously. “You’re smiling.”

“Am I?”

Josef pulled off his cap, releasing the lock of unruly hair that always flopped forward over his eyes. Irritably, he pushed it back and reached for his half pint of Mild. “Bloody hell,” he groused, “it’s like dishwater these days.”

“Which is why I avoid it.” Alex lifted his single shot of whisky and knocked his glass against Josef’s. “ Salut .”

“Cheers.” Josef swallowed another mouthful of watery beer, grimaced, and set down his glass. “Right then,” he said. “Let’s have it.”

Despite the recent air raids, Londoners were uncowed, and the pub remained busy. The shortened wartime opening hours helped, too, cramming everyone in between midday and two-thirty. All of which meant the place was alive with noisy chatter, and in Josef’s experience there was nowhere safer to talk about secrets than in plain sight amid a noisy crowd.

“I’m going to tell you the truth,” Alex said, “but I ask you to let me finish before you tell me it’s all nonsense.”

Josef sat back in his seat, unhappy. “If it’s more of this goblin bollocks—”

“What I’m going to tell you is the truth. Whether you choose to believe it is up to you.” He held Josef’s gaze and said, “You want to know how the body of the young man we both saw die in Flanders came to be found in a London sewer, and I think you’d like me to say he was brought here by the Intelligence Corps, and that his body was used for experimentation in the search for yet another terrible weapon of mass murder. As if the world doesn’t have enough of those. It would be convenient for me to let you believe that, but unfortunately, it’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Josef folded his arms over his chest. “Go on then—astonish me with the truth.”

Alex appeared to consider that, swirling his whisky around in the bottom of his glass, watching it catch the light. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“Most stories start at the beginning.”

Alex smiled. He had a lovely smile; it quite transformed his face, taking Josef back sharply to that warm room in Poperinge. “That’ll make for a long story.”

Pushing all tender thoughts aside, Josef said, “Pub closes at half two.” He took another sip of beer, watching Alex over the rim of his glass. “Better get a move on.”

Alex met his challenge with a glitter in his eyes that excited Josef more than was reasonable. “Are you familiar with the Norman invasion? The Battle of Hastings?”

“1066 and all that? Yes, I’m not a complete ignoramus even if this country doesn’t see fit to educate working men beyond the age of twelve.” He tapped his breast pocket and said, with satisfaction, “I have a library card.”

A fleeting smile touched Alex’s lips, and Josef bristled, ready to take offence. Then he realised it wasn’t derision he saw in Alex’s eyes; it was something else. Something… warmer.

“Very well,” Alex said, “then you’re aware that William, Duke of Normandy, landed in England almost a thousand years ago, bringing with him a coterie of Norman aristocrats who set about colonising the country, building castles and—”

“Are you taking the piss?”

“Are you going to listen?”

Josef gave him a mutinous look. “When I said start at the beginning, I didn’t mean the beginning of the bloody history book.”

“It’s pertinent.”

“For God’s sake.” He huffed, slouching back in his seat, lips pursed. “I’m warning you: if you tell me a load of old crock, I’ll punch you on the nose.”

“I consider myself warned.” Alex took a bracing sip of whisky. “William sent his knights about the country to catalogue his new territory—every square foot of land, every building, head of cattle, and so forth.”

“The Domesday Book,” Josef said. “Yes, I know about that.”

Alex inclined his head. “What isn’t known beyond a certain, very narrow set of people is that a second, secret book was commissioned—a book to catalogue all the unnatural threats William would face in his new kingdom.”

Josef frowned. “Unnatural?”

“Boggarts, silkies, grindylows, pixies, wights, changelings, revenants… What we call supernatural creatures.”

“What I call children’s stories.”

“Hardly that.”

“Folklore, then.”

“Yes, some of it—but not all. And so, the knights went out, and with the help of their Saxon hunters, tracked down every report of such creatures. Killed them, when necessary, made peace with those they could. Everything was recorded and brought back to Winchester—at the time, the greatest city in England.” He hesitated, as if considering how much more to say. “Over the centuries that followed, the Knights Winchester and the Wild Hunters maintained their watch.” He met Josef’s sceptical gaze. “And we maintain it still, the knowledge and responsibility passed down to the second son in every generation of the knight’s family.”

Josef stared at him. “You expect me to believe this codswallop?”

“The man you saw today, in the mortuary, died in Flanders. His body was infected by a… a creature woken by the cacophony of war. A creature that feeds on horror and violence.” He met Josef’s gaze, serious as stone. “A ghoul. They’re haunting the battlefields, the trenches, and foxholes of no man’s land… The soldiers call them wild men. They believe they’re deserters and suchlike who live beneath no man’s land, creeping out from abandoned trenches and tunnels to scavenge iron rations from the dead. Or to cannibalise them. You must have heard the stories.”

“I’ve heard them. I don’t believe them.”

“As with most myths, they’re part invention and part truth.”

“I’ll tell you what I think. I think it’s easier for soldiers to believe in wild men than to accept that the cries they hear at night are friends dying alone and in agony behind the wire.”

Alex conceded that point with a nod. “It’s certainly easier to tell ourselves stories when the truth is too difficult to believe.”

“And which of us is doing that?”

“You saw the body today. You saw its eyes.”

Having no answer to that, Josef remained silent.

Alex said, “What is true is that the ghoul have reached London. As to why they left the battlefield, I’m not sure. But something drew them away from their natural haunt. Something brought them here.”

Josef glanced away, out onto the street. The fog had lifted a little, the other side of the road now visible through the mist, but his mind’s eye was back in Poperinge. Should he tell Alex what he’d seen—what he thought he’d seen— outside the hotel that night?

Across the table, Alex sat up straighter. “What is it?”

Shaking his head, Josef lifted his beer and took a frowning sip. Once he’d set it back down, he said, “I don’t believe any of this bollocks…”

“But?”

He scowled, shifting uncomfortably on his seat as he tugged on the long sleeves of Alex’s cardigan, pulling them past the ends of his jacket and around his cold fingers. Reluctantly, he said, “I’ve seen him before.”

“Who? Sykes?”

He nodded. “In Pops.”

Alex’s attention sharpened palpably. “What do you mean?”

“He was outside the hotel when we…” He cleared his throat. “I couldn’t sleep, so I got up, and I saw him. I mean, at the time I thought my eyes were playing tricks. But I saw his eyes, that same uncanny blue. They almost glowed in the dark. He was watching the hotel.”

“Christ alive,” Beaumont breathed. “Why didn’t you say?”

Josef laughed. “Why would I? I assumed it was… It probably was just a bloke smoking a fag.”

“The photograph was still in your camera,” Beaumont said. “Even undeveloped, it was powerful enough to draw the creature to you.”

“The photograph?”

“There’s a certain power in images.” He cocked his head. “But you know that, don’t you?”

“That I do, but it’s nothing supernatural. The power of a photograph lies in the truth it tells.”

Alex smiled. “Yes, correct. And the one you took of Sykes at the front would have captured the presence of a ghoul. You would have seen it had you developed it.”

Josef made no answer to that, thinking about the strange ghostly image around Sykes’s face in the photograph he had developed. A double exposure, he’d assumed...

Into his silence, Alex said, “I destroyed the photograph when I exposed your film later that night, but…” He cocked his head. “Sykes followed you to London, which means you have another photograph.”

Josef laughed darkly. “You’d better believe I do.”

“Then you must destroy it.” Alex leaned forward across the table, jostling his whisky in his urgency. “No, give it to me. I’ll destroy—”

“Give it to you?” Josef said. “And why’s that?”

“I just told you why. A ghoul tracked you in Poperinge, and it tracked you to London. It’s drawn to the photograph. And you’re in danger while you have it.”

“Sykes is dead ,” Josef snapped. “What danger can he pose now?”

Alex looked grim. “Yes, Sykes is at peace now, but he’s not the only one. The ghoul...” He considered his words, brow drawn into a frown. “They’re not separate creatures, like humans. They’re... connected. We call it an infection, but it’s more like a spiderweb of consciousness. If a body fails, it’s discarded, and the infection moves to another, but the ‘mind’, if you can call it that—”

“Bloody hell !” Josef fisted a hand in his hair. “This is bollocks, Alex. I don’t know why I’m even listening to it.”

“Perhaps because you know the truth when you hear it.”

Josef barked a hard laugh and didn’t reply.

“Or perhaps because there’s no other explanation for what you’ve seen. As the great man said, When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth .”

“Who said that? William the bloody Conqueror?”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“Don’t tell me you think he’s real an’ all.”

“No.” Alex studied him. “I know it’s difficult to believe. I was fifteen when I was told and… well, it made for a memorable birthday.”

Josef studied him in return, his noble features and intelligent eyes. “The thing is,” he said slowly, “you don’t look like a looney.”

“I’m not.”

“But what you’re saying…” He shrugged. “Look, maybe you’re not a liar. Maybe you believe it—maybe you need to believe it. But me? I’m a factual man. I don’t put much stock in spooks. I don’t even believe in God. I believe what I can see with my own two eyes, and through the lens of my camera.”

“And what did you see in Poperinge?” Alex said, looking as calm and reasonable as a man trying to convince a sceptic that the sky was blue. “Or in the sewer last night? Or on the mortuary slab this morning? Was none of that real enough for you?”

Josef was having none of it. He knew Alex was an accomplished liar; first, he’d been Captain Winchester of the RAMC, then Lord Beaumont of the War Office, and now this. And of course, he’d taken Josef in completely that night in Pops. What he couldn’t understand was why Alex was trying to sell this load of old bollocks, but either way it was time to put an end to it.

“You and I,” he said, “we’ve seen horrors, haven’t we? Real horrors, I mean. We’ve seen hell, Alex. We met in hell. And all of it was created by men. Ordinary men. Bakers and bus drivers, fathers and sons. Good men, too, killing for King or Kaiser. So, I don’t need your ghost stories to explain what I saw last night, because I know the most dangerous, malicious, evil creatures on this earth are men. And that’s explanation enough for me.” He pushed to his feet, looking down on Alex. “Fair warning, I will get answers to this. You haven’t scared me off.”

Alex’s generous mouth compressed into a grim line. “I wasn’t trying to scare you—but, Christ, can’t you see you’re in danger?”

“A threat?” Amused, Josef raised his eyebrows.

“A warning, for God’s sake!” A couple of heads turned in their direction, and Alex lowered his voice. “Listen to me. Drop this. I’m not acting alone, and others will be less forgiving—the ghoul aren’t the only danger you face. Do you understand? That photograph makes you a target. There’s a great deal at stake here.”

“ That , I can believe.”

Clearly frustrated, Alex reached into the breast pocket and withdrew his card, offering it to Josef. When he made no move to take it, Alex set the card on the table between them. “If you refuse to believe me, or to heed my warning, then there’s nothing else I can do for you. But…” He stood and collected his coat and hat from the empty chair next to him. “Should anything untoward happen, you’ll be able to reach me here.”

After a hesitation, Josef reached down and drew the card toward him with one finger. In gold lettering on a cream background, it said The Winconian Society, and, beneath it, an address in Belgravia. Of course.

He glanced up and found Alex watching him with an expression caught halfway between frustration and…something else. Something heated. Or perhaps it was simply a different sort of frustration. Nevertheless, Josef’s blood rose in response, as helpless as the tide responding to the moon.

He fought the swell of desire back down. For God’s sake, Alex was either a lunatic or a liar, and there was no chance of them reprising their night in Poperinge. There had never been any chance of that because it would be a dreadful mistake.

Deliberately, he pushed the card back across the table. “Keep it,” he said. “I can look after myself.”

Alex’s expression cooled, turning decidedly haughty. “So be it,” he said. “I’d advise you to be careful, but I doubt you would listen.”

“I dare say we’ll run into each other again, Lord Beaumont.” Josef infused the title with trenchant irony. “If not, keep an eye out for my piece in the Clarion . You spell it B-E-A-U-M-O-N-T, don’t you?”

Snatching up his card, Alex left without further comment.