Chapter Thirteen

J osef took the tube the next morning, finding comfort in the crush of people. Better that than face more time than absolutely necessary in the foggy morning which scarcely seemed brighter than the previous night.

He ran from the station along Carmelite Street. When he reached the brightly lit offices of the Clarion, it was with a huge sense of relief, and he raced up the stairs, two at a time, and into the office.

There he found a scene of devastation.

May stood amid it, sleeves rolled up to her elbows and fists planted on her hips, flyaway hair looking like she’d been tugging at it with both hands. All around her lay papers. The whole office appeared to have been ransacked, filing cabinets emptied, drawers turned out, her desk raided.

She looked up when he slid to a stop in the doorway, and their eyes met.

“I can only think it was the police,” she said, gesturing around. “Looking for censored material. We’ve sailed close to the wind a couple of times, but I never thought…”

Not the police. Josef knew exactly who’d done this; it was too much of a coincidence to be anyone other than Alex. Hadn’t he, only yesterday, demanded that Josef hand over the photograph of Sykes? Clearly, he hadn’t taken no for an answer. Then there were the photographs Josef had taken at the morgue. Probably, Alex had imagined Josef would develop them at the newspaper offices and had come here searching for them.

Only he hadn’t found them here, which meant…

Josef’s heart gave a hard thump. Alex knew where he lived, and the negatives showing Alex with Sykes’s body were hanging up in his room.

Stupid!

He’d been so afraid of those eerie blue eyes in the fog that he’d forgotten that the real threat came not from a fairytale monster but from Lord Alexander Beaumont and the government for which he worked. Had Alex been out there in the fog last night, waving blue lights about to frighten him? At this point, Josef could believe anything.

Including the fact that right at this moment Alex was probably searching his bloody room. The Cohens couldn’t hold back a powerful man like him even if he’d come alone. If he’d brought a companion, as he had the night in the sewer, the Cohens would be utterly at their mercy.

“Shit,” Josef said.

“I think it might be a warning,” May said, righting her chair with a sigh. “So far, I can’t see that anything’s been taken. There’s nothing here that breaches DORA, but–”

“They were after my photographs. The ones from the front.”

“How would they even know about them?” May frowned. “Here, you haven’t been flapping your mouth about them down the pub, have you, Joe?”

“No, of course not. Anyway, it’s not the police.”

“Who then?”

“Military Intelligence.”

Her face set. “Joe…”

“May, listen to me. Yesterday, I found Sykes in the mortuary at St. Thomas’s. He’s the same boy I saw click it at the front. The one I photographed. He’d been fished out of the sewer right here in London, but his wounds looked fresh, and then Lord Beaumont showed up, and he said—”

He cut himself off when he saw May’s pained expression. She didn’t believe him. Of course she didn’t, because he sounded like a madman. Until he understood what was happening himself, how could he try to convince anyone else?

“Did you bring your article, and the photographs for the pamphlet?” May said, sounding weary. “If you give us a hand tidying up, I’ll take a look at them afterwards, and we can—”

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t stay. I have to… I left something back in my room. I need to get it. If I can, I’ll come back later.”

She nodded, looking more relieved than anything else. No doubt he was one less thing she wanted to worry about today. “Listen,” she said as he was turning to leave, “be careful, all right? I heard there were zeppelins and Gothas over Kent last night. No casualties, but even so…”

Death from the sky, death from beneath the earth. Was there no part of the world men wouldn’t pollute with their weapons of war? “You too,” Josef told her. Then added, “If there is a raid, and you shelter in the underground, stay with the crowd. Don’t stray into the tunnels.”

May regarded him for a long, bleak moment before she nodded.

With that they parted, and Josef plunged back into the fog.

He wasn’t afraid now. Only embarrassed that he’d let Alex’s story distract him from what was actually going on. Embarrassed and enraged.

When he got back to the Cohens’ shop, breathless after running all the way from the tube, he was relieved to find no signs of disturbance. Mr Cohen looked up from behind the counter, eyebrows rising when Josef burst through the door.

“Good heavens,” he said, “what on earth’s the matter?”

It took Josef a moment to catch his breath before he said, “Has a man been here? A toff. Or maybe a man in uniform? An officer.”

“Josef?” Mrs Cohen came in from the back of the shop. “You’re back quickly. What’s happened?”

Mr Cohen said, “He’s asking if we’ve had an officer in the shop.”

Instantly, Mrs Cohen beamed. “Do you mean your friend, Subadar Dutta?”

Josef stared blankly. “Who?” Then understanding crashed in with a jolt. “An Indian officer? Quite tall and very posh-sounding?”

“That’s right,” Mrs Cohen said. “Very proper, he was. Well, they are, aren’t they?”

“How long ago?” Josef hurried across the shop, ducking under the counter. “Did he go upstairs?”

“Upstairs?” Mrs Cohen looked at her husband in bemusement. “Of course not. He came in for a door handle and asked if you was here. When I said you wasn’t, he bought his handle,

one of the expensive brass ones, and left. He was very polite, and quite talkative…”

“Of course he was.” Racing past them, Josef hurried down the passage and took the narrow stairs two at a time. Shoving open the door to his room, he half expected—hoped?—to catch Alex with his sticky fingers in the desk drawer.

No such luck. All was silent and undisturbed in Josef’s room, no sign of the frenzied search he’d seen at the Clarion . Relief washed over him, and then drained away like cold bath water when he saw the empty space where the negatives had been hanging.

Fuck .

Of course, there’d been no need to search; like an idiot, he’d left what Alex wanted right there in plain sight. It would have been the work of a moment for him to slip in the back door and up the stairs while his friend kept the Cohens talking in the shop.

Furious with himself, Josef went to his desk. Someone had evidently riffled through the photographs in the drawer, but nothing else was missing. In fact, something had been left behind.

Alex’s card sat in the middle of his desk, gold letters gleaming, and on it he’d scribbled four words.

You are in danger.

The fury Josef had felt earlier rushed back, hotter than ever. How dare the man break into his room, into the Cohens’ home, and issue threats? Who the hell did he think he was? There might be a war on, but Britain still had laws. An Englishman’s home was still his castle. Even if his castle was one room above an ironmonger’s. Alex had no bloody right to march in here, steal what he wanted, and leave behind intimidating notes for law-abiding citizens. How dare he—how dare the government —think they could get away with this?

“Well, they won’t,” he told the empty room. “I’ll see to that.”

Snatching up Alex’s card, he shoved it into his pocket and headed for the door.

***

The Winconian Society was to be found on Wilton Crescent in Belgravia, which was not a part of town where men like Joe Shepel usually had business.

Too bad.

After consulting his map, Josef took the tube to Victoria. Now that the morning crowds had thinned, the vast station was quieter, and his footsteps echoed as he left the platform and trotted up the stairs.

A familiar unease dogged him. That same sense of being watched that he’d felt last night.

Glancing over his shoulder as he hurried through the empty station corridor, he saw nothing. If anyone was following him, he told himself firmly, it would most likely be Alex or his Indian accomplice. Subadar Dutta, Mrs Cohen had called him. Although, if the man was anything like Alex, that name could well be false. Nevertheless, if either man was following Josef now, it would only save him the trouble of hunting them down at their poncy club.

Emerging from the station, he found himself in the same November fog he’d left behind in Spitalfields. Its slightly metallic, smoggy tang felt fresh after the stale air of the Underground, and he realised he was grateful to be outside. Despite his anger at Alex, his fury at having been lied to and stolen from again , he couldn’t shift the memory of his murderous encounter in the sewer. It would be a long time, he thought grimly, before he would be comfortable beneath the ground. Or alone in the dark.

Luckily, outside it was busier. Traffic rumbled past, the steady mix of omnibuses, motorcars, a few old-fashioned horsedrawn carts, and plenty of people on foot. Plenty of men in uniform, too, as always. Men on leave, loud and noisy, no doubt trying to drown out their dread of returning to the front. Or their glee. A couple of men stood smoking in the lee of the station wall. One poor sod, in a captain’s uniform, wore a God-awful tin mask over his nose and mouth. It was what they gave to men whose faces had been so shredded by shrapnel, or bullets, or mustard gas that the sight was too disturbing for civilians to witness.

Hastily, Josef looked away before the man saw him staring. It boiled his blood, though, to see his wounds and to know that men like Alex were cooking up more weapons. Worse weapons, weapons that stripped away the last of man’s humanity. As if the war hadn’t done enough of that already.

He’d find the truth, though. He’d find the truth and expose it. Strip off the hideous masks of King and Country behind which men like Alex hid their own horrors.

Thoughts of that, and of what he’d say when he confronted Alex, occupied his thoughts as he strode away from the station and into the rarefied air of Belgravia. Tall, elegant buildings of the last century, or perhaps older, rose up on either side of the wide streets. White-painted, they might have gleamed in the sun on a bright summer’s day if it weren’t for the smoke and smuts that turned everything in the city grey.

Beautiful, understated, and quintessentially British: this was the heart of the establishment. A place where men like Lord Alexander Twisleton-Beaumont made decisions over luncheon that sent men like Private Andrew Sykes to their deaths in the meatgrinder of the salient.

He hated it.

Hated the elegance and the beauty, hated the wealth and the privilege. All of it built on the bent backs of labouring men and women.

There were no streetlights here, even though the fog made it feel more like dusk than noon. No streetlights anywhere in London, not with the recent zeppelin raids. Some windows blazed bright, though, their light pushing into the fog and turning it a murky mustard yellow.

Like gas.

He shivered, then jumped at the scrape of a footstep behind him. Turning, he was startled to find a man, a soldier, walking towards him along the street. Why that should startle him, he couldn’t say. London was full of soldiers. Perhaps because of the fog, and his thoughts of gas. His nerves had been jangling ever since he’d got back from the front, May was right about that, and for good bloody reason. Now, though, his fists clenched, and he wished powerfully for the poker he’d cradled last night.

So much for his vaunted pacifism.

Good job he wasn’t standing there wielding a fire poker like a lunatic, though, because it was just a man going about his business. An ordinary man among millions in the city. Nobody Josef recognised, and why should it be? Not in Belgravia where he didn’t know–

Metal glinted beneath the peak of the officer’s cap. A mask, like one worn by the man Josef had seen smoking at the station.

Was it him?

Unease prickled along Josef’s spine, lifting the hair at the nape of his neck as he started walking again. He could feel the man’s presence behind him, hear his footsteps echoing flatly in the deadening fog. Josef’s nose twitched, his heart stumbling as he caught a cloying, deathly scent in the dank air. Imagination. Surely?

He glanced over his shoulder, and now the man was closer, walking steadily. Josef tried to swallow, but he found his throat too dry. Stupid, to be afraid. It was just a man. An officer.

Not looking where he was going, Josef stumbled over a crooked paving stone. He almost fell but caught himself in time. When he looked back again, the soldier was closer still.

And then the man lifted his head and looked at Josef.

Spectral blue eyes gleamed above the tin mask, through which a sound that no man had ever uttered snarled through the fog.

For a dreadful second, Josef froze solid, as in the grip of a nightmare. Or the rigour of death.

Then the man—the creature—leaped forward with a cry, and Josef fled.

Heedless of where he was going, he bolted into the fog. Weird shapes loomed ahead, resolving into lamp posts, trees, motorcars, and then, appearing out of nowhere, a park railing. Josef skidded, sliding to avoid crashing into it headfirst. His momentum slowed, he scrambled for speed as he darted right, sprinting along next to the railing.

Belgrave Square, he recalled from the map. This was Belgrave Square.

Behind him came the wet sucking sounds of inhuman breaths. Close. Closer.

Lungs labouring, Josef fought for more air, more speed. Wilton Crescent was nearby, just the other side of the park. If he could reach it, Alex would—

A hand grabbed the back of Josef’s jacket, yanking him sideways, slamming him hard into the park railing. He staggered, stumbling, caught himself, and spun to face his attacker.

Through the shifting mist, he saw the cursed phosphorescent gleam of eyes, a dull glint of the tin mask, and an officer’s khaki uniform. His boots and puttees were caked in mud.

“Who the fuck are you?” Josef shouted, backing up, his hands raised defensively. “What do you want?”

The man, if it was still a man, didn’t answer. He only prowled closer. That dreadful, familiar stench came with him, and now that Josef looked, he could see that it wasn’t mud on the man’s legs but blood.

“My God,” Josef said, pity vying with horror. “What have they done to you?”

No answer came to him, but the creature coiled, and from behind the tin mask came another snarl. It pounced, but Josef was ready, ducking under the creature and jamming his shoulder up into its ribs. The stench was unbearable, and Josef retched as he pushed up with his legs and vaulted the creature over his back. It was a move he’d made a dozen times in a dozen street fights as a boy. He could hardly believe it had worked, but the creature landed with a wet thud on the street behind him.

Josef didn’t stop to see whether it got up again; he knew it would. He just ran.

Keeping the railing on his left so he didn’t lose himself in the fog, he sprinted north. Some small analytical part of his mind, the part that had kept him alive for ten months in Flanders, tracked his location and alerted him when he reached the curving sweep of Wilton Crescent.

The man—the thing—was behind him still, gaining ground. Josef could hear its wet, rasping breaths, feel its relentless pursuit. Its relentless hunger.

He couldn’t go much further, though—his lungs were on fire, legs burning, but if he stopped, it would kill him. Or worse.

There are worse things than death , Alex had warned him that first day among the dead.

In his desperation, he tried to shout. “Alex…” It came out a gasp, a breath squeezed from empty lungs. “Alex!” Louder this time. “ALEX!”

And then the thing had him again, its inhuman hands scrabbling at his arms, his back, his hair. Josef spun, fighting it off like a cornered cat, spitting and hissing, lashing out, screaming Alex’s name with his last shreds of breath.

The officer lunged, and they went down together, rolling, Josef on top and then beneath, punching and kicking and gouging. In the fight, the creature's mask came loose and fell away, hanging from one ear, swaying as the creature glowered down at Josef through spectral eyes. The face beneath the mask was nothing but gore and white bone, half the jaw missing, his teeth sharp and bloody spikes.

Josef screamed his horror, hands locked on the creature's coat, arms shaking as he struggled to hold it at bay, the ravening ruined mouth lunging and snapping at Josef’s throat…

Then, a sound.

A silver whisper, like a sniper's bullet, and something flashed past Josef’s eyes.

The creature’s head landed on Josef’s chest, spattering his face with gore. Then it rolled off onto the pavement with a sickening thud and lay there staring at him with doused, disturbingly human eyes. A moment later, the rest of the creature’s lifeless body collapsed on top of Josef, and he found himself staring up into the stern face of Lord Alexander Beaumont.

He wore a fashionable slim-fitting suit, and a fedora cocked at a rakish angle. A gentleman on his way to the office, except for the sodding great sword clutched in one hand.

“Well,” Alex said, slightly breathless. “Perhaps this time you’ll believe me.”