Disturbia

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

'ALL RIGHT,' said Stanley Purbrick, 'it's my turn. Chameleon. Sculptor. Toucan. Dragon. Furnace. Chisel. Microscope.' He sat back smugly and drained his beer. 'Sort that one out.'

'Pathetic,' mocked Maggie Armitage. 'Hopelessly easy.' She shook the last crumbs of salt and vinegar crisp from he packet and munched them. 'They're all -'

'Don't be a spoilsport,' warned Stanley. 'You always know the answer. Let someone else have a chance at getting it. Jane? Harold? Any ideas?'

'They're all constellations, aren't they?' asked Masters, hardly bothering to look up from his newspaper.

'That does it.' Purbrick folded his arms across his cardigan. 'I'm not going to play this any more.'

'Oh, don't be such a bad loser, Stanley. You hate anyone knowing more than you, and lots of people do.' She examined the inside of her crisp bag and ran an exploratory digit around it. 'Almost everyone, in fact.'

'That absolutely does it. I'm going home.' He rose to leave but was waiting for someone to push him back in his seat.

'Do sit down, there's a chap, I've got you a top-up.' Arthur Bryant had arrived with a tin tray full of drinks. The Insomnia Squad were seated in what had once been the snug bar of the Nun and Broken Compass. Maggie had been due to conduct a meeting of the Camden Town coven in one of the upstairs rooms tonight, but her secretary had muddled the dates and they had found themselves double booked with the Norman Wisdom Fan Club, so Arthur Bryant offered to buy them all drinks. As no one could ever recall the elderly detective offering to buy anyone a drink before, they jumped at the chance.

'We should have invited Vincent tonight,' said Maggie. 'I'd like to meet him one day. It galls me a bit to think that we helped save lives and nobody knows about it. I suppose that now he's a celebrity he won't want to talk to the likes of us.'

'It's odd that he never even rang to say thank you for all the help we gave him,' complained Purbrick.

'Never mind,' said Dr Masters, 'you can read all about him instead.' He held up a section of the Independent for everyone to see.

'What is it?' asked Maggie.

'A review of his book. He already has the critics slavering. According to this he's been commissioned to write another volume.'

'That should please the League of Prometheus.'

'They've gone very quiet, haven't they?' Maggie stirred her tequila and blackcurrant with her little finger. 'Not much good without their leader. One never really knows what's going on. You don't suppose they're planning something new?'

'Someone's always planning something,' said Bryant vaguely. That's what cities are for. The countryside is where you can settle and be at peace with yourself. Cities are there to disturb your thoughts, your dreams, your complacency. I agree with Stanley, though; it's odd that the boy hasn't been in touch.'

'You don't think something's happened to him?'

'Not if the smiling photograph in the paper is to be believed.'

'Funny,' said Masters, examining the picture. 'He looks just like Sebastian Wells here. Must be the angle it was taken.'

'Be careful of my overcoat, would you Maggie?' pleaded Bryant. 'There's a cat in one of the pockets.'

'I wondered where my crisps had been going.' She eyed the garment warily. It was indeed moving. 'You get cats the way other people get colds.'

Jane Masters pulled aside the curtain and checked the wet inhospitable streets.

'Looks like it's in for the night,' she sighed. 'We'll just have to stay here. As a matter of interest, does anyone know why this place is called the Nun and Broken Compass?'

'Bryant can tell you,' said her husband. 'He heard the story from the landlord. It's really disgusting.'

Arthur Bryant leaned forward with a rare, disgraceful grin on his lips. 'Well,' he began, 'it seems that about a hundred and seventy years ago a beautiful young convent-raised woman worked behind the counter here, and customers used to come from miles around to be served by her. Back then, of course, the place was still called the Cromwell Arms, and one night the saloon door was opened by two monks who had lost their way in the foggy backstreets…'

CHAPTER FIFTY

HE STOOD beneath the melancholy greenery of the cemetery, looking at the white marble sarcophagus which bore so many Wells family names, and thought that even here Sebastian had not been able to escape his father. Sir Nicholas had arranged to have his son illegally interred in the family vault instead of being left beyond consecrated grounds, on the sterile little lawn where all the other suicides were buried. If he had known the truth, he would have been saved the trouble.

Vince raised the collar of his Burberry against the misting rain and returned to the gravelled path. He thought back to the events of that eternal night, and how it had crystallised his vague ambitions. Poor Sebastian had wanted to teach his pupil a few lessons in leadership. If only he had known what an ambitious fire he would fan with that first spark. Prometheus was reborn, but not in the way he had intended.

Vince knew he had been given one chance to attain the good life. It was surprisingly easy to make the jump. After all, what was there to give up? He just wanted what the other League members had, to redress the balance a little. And they had offered it to him. No more was he a child of the streets, but an owner of the houses.

And he had to admit that it was a good life, heading up the League. It wasn't called the League of Prometheus any more, of course. Getting rid of all that xenophobic classical crap had been the first big change. Kicking out some of the more useless toffs and replacing them with smart street lads had been the next. He had dumped the racism, the snobbery, the cruder tools of persuasion. He was even thinking about approaching Louie with an offer.

To cover his tracks, he had still written the book. After all he still enjoyed writing. Only, what with all his copies being destroyed, he had recreated it from a new angle. Xavier Stevens's secret file on Sebastian (kept, touchingly, in a shoe-box on top of his wardrobe) had been useful for that. Useful for publicly burning the old-style League and damning its leader, while allowing the core of the organisation to go underground in a new, more nineties-friendly form. Buying and selling, creaming profits, hiding discrepancies, keeping secrets, burying connections, bending the rules, cementing relationships, fixing deals, fiddling the books, prioritising, publicising, damning, demonising, and doing pretty much what all government ministers did, only more so. Beating them at their own game, as it were.

The League's public profile had been getting too high, anyway. The others had much to thank him for. Strictly speaking, there were no League members now, only business men. He had returned the League to its roots, made it truly invisible again. Streamlined its organisation. Modernised its procedures. Now it was on the path to true power.

There had been a major change in attitude. Under the old regime, Sebastian would probably have had Xavier Stevens executed for compiling a blackmail dossier on him. Vince had congratulated the assassin on his initiative, and promoted him. Xavier was now loyal for life.

He never saw Pam any more. She went out of her way to avoid him, never even rang his old home number. It was as though she had sensed a sea-change in his character. He missed her. She and Louie, and the life to which they belonged, were part of the trade. He had not seen Betty again, either. Hey, everyone had to make sacrifices. You couldn't have a new life while still hanging onto the old. It was time to put away the past and look to the future. For him, for the city. The political arena beckoned.

The sleek black Mercedes was waiting at the cemetery gates. Caton-James was his driver now. Not terribly happy about it either, as he wasn't allowed to smoke in the car. He saw Vince appear at the entrance and brought the vehicle to a smart stop, hopping out to open the rear door.

Poor Sebastian, thought Vince as he slipped into the Mercedes. I got to be him, but he didn't get to be me. Prometheus could only pass the light one way. A flaw in the paradox.

Tonight he was taking a young lady to an Offenbach concert, then onto dinner at the Waldorf. The new company – he preferred to think of it in this way, rather than a league, which sounded too Conan Doyle-ish – was turning over a fortune. His book, City of Night and Day, was a best-seller.

Apart from one niggling annoyance, Vincent Reynolds felt at peace with the world.