The Domino Men

Chapter 19

At nine A.M., the last of the Directorate gathered in the Eye for a council of war.

When the pod doors opened and Miss Morning and I walked inside, Jasper was already waiting. He was wearing the smug, self-satisfied expression of a man who’s just had a long-cherished dream rubber-stamped by someone who can actually make it happen. I didn’t like that look, as you can imagine. I didn’t like it at all.

Dedlock swiveled in his tank and splashed noisily through the fluid. “Henry Lamb! Miss Morning!”

“You seem cheerful,” the old lady said, understandably suspicious.

“Mr. Jasper has good news.”

“You’ve found the Prefects?” I asked.

“My jackboots have yet to track them down. But Jasper… Jasper may have given us the means.”

Miss Morning stepped up to Mr. Jasper, a wrinkled Holliday at the OK Corral. “What exactly,” she said, “are you proposing?”

“The Blueprint Programme,” said the smooth-skinned man, a gleam of triumph in his voice.

As usual, it was left to me to ask the necessary questions. “And what’s the Blueprint Programme exactly?”

“To track the Prefects,” Jasper explained, “we need a hunter. Someone ruthless. Someone tenacious. Someone with a talent for getting their hands dirty.”

Dedlock chipped in. “The Directorate may have lost Estella in 1967. But we did not let her make her sacrifice without persuading her to leave us with a memento.”

“A memento?” Miss Morning’s wizened frame seemed suddenly animated by rage. “What did you do?”

Dedlock spoke lightly, conversationally, like he was discussing the weather or the football or giving directions to tourists. “We made a copy of her etheric signature.”

“Her what?” I asked.

“Her essence, Mr. Lamb. Her animus.”

Miss Morning was furious. “Why?”

“So we could copy her abilities. So we could replicate the highlights of her mind in someone new. And we’ve finally found a way to do it.”

“But we’re looking for Estella,” I said. “Aren’t we? I mean, isn’t that what all this has been about?”

“We need her in physical form, yes,” said Dedlock. “We need the real Estella. But this is something quite different. I take it you’ve heard the phrase, ‘set a thief to catch a thief’?”

Jasper delved into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a silver pill and, like a soothsayer picking through the skeleton of some sacred animal, held it aloft for our scrutiny. “In this pill,” he said, “is the essence of the best field agent in the history of the Directorate. It only needs to be ingested for the subject to begin the transmogrification into a second Estella.”

“How remarkable,” Dedlock murmured.

“How wicked,” Miss Morning snapped.

“What exactly are your objections?” Dedlock asked Miss Morning.

“That boy’s grandfather would be appalled by this blasphemy,” she said. “It’s illegal and immoral. It disgraces the memory of a woman who gave up everything she had in the hope of keeping this city safe.”

I noticed that the old man couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye. “The Blueprint Programme is already sanctioned. But I’ve made it very clear that our subject must be a volunteer.” He splashed toward Mr. Jasper. “You understand that? A volunteer. We’re not barbarians.”

Jasper rolled out his answer, smoothly prepared. “Naturally, sir. But bear in mind that we’ll need a woman in excellent physical condition, someone with a lively, eager mind, someone… clean.”

“Clean? What are you talking about — clean?”

“Trust me, sir. Estella was a formidable woman. Anyone we choose will be grateful for the improvement.”

Miss Morning was practically spinning in fury. “Disgusting. These methods are beneath you.”

Dedlock sighed. “We do whatever it takes. You understand me? Things have changed since you were last in the game. The world is much less genteel now.” He swiveled in my direction. “Mr. Lamb?”

I was starting to hope he had forgotten me.

“I want you to go to the hospital. Hawker and Boon have unfinished business with your grandfather and it’s just possible they might try to see him. Don’t look so worried. I’ll put a security detail on you. Morning? Have you anything useful to contribute?”

The old lady looked defiant. “I’ve a lead of my own I’d like to follow.”

Dedlock stared suspiciously at her. “Very well. I’ll see you all back here at six o’clock. Jasper, I expect to see your hunter. Now — get to work!”

There then followed an embarrassing ten minutes of small talk and chit-chat as the pod took a little age to complete its revolution and reach the ground again.

When we stepped out of the Eye, Jasper was still wearing that same look of smug vindication. I think I knew even then, although I lacked the slightest sliver of evidence to prove it, that he had been waiting a long time for the programme to go ahead and that all this suffering and death had ever meant to him was a chance to test his wretched theories. For this, I never forgave him. The rest of his betrayals I can live with, but for that, for his part in the inception of Blueprint, I can’t imagine I’ll ever find a shred of clemency.

Miss Morning, still denouncing the rank immorality of the man in the tank, walked away down the South Bank, off to pursue her nebulous lead. I can’t say I was unhappy to see her go. She was starting to unravel, sinking into confused, directionless rage, and I found the spectacle of it upsetting. It would have been better for her if she’d never got involved with the Directorate again. Better, perhaps, for us all.

“Jasper?” I said.

The baby-faced man, urgently tapping into his mobile phone, didn’t look up. “Shouldn’t you be with your grandfather?”

“I wanted to ask…”

“Yes?”

“This Blueprint Programme. This pill of yours. Who are you going to feed it to?”

“Don’t get yourself all tied up, Henry.”

A horrible suspicion had begun to claw toward the forefront of my brain. “You are going to find a volunteer, aren’t you? Dedlock — he said it’s got to be a volunteer.”

“Leave it to me, Henry. I’ve given Blueprint a lot of thought.”

“I’ll just bet you have,” I said. “Christ, you’ve been grooming someone, haven’t you?”

“Look.” Mr. Jasper was gazing over my shoulder. “Isn't that your landlady?”

He was right. Abbey was strolling over the grass toward the Eye. She smiled, waved, and I waved back, but when I turned around to confront Mr. Jasper he had already disappeared.

Abbey drew close enough to kiss me — a brief meeting of the lips and, to my surprise, a swift intrusion of tongue.

“Hello,” I said, once she had stepped away.

“What’s that?” she asked, staring suspiciously at my earpiece.

I shrugged, sidestepped the question. “It’s for work. But what are you doing here?”

“I’m up in town for a meeting. Wondered if you were around for a quick coffee. I was going to ring but, well, here you are.”

“Love to,” I said. “But I’ve got to go to the hospital. See my granddad.”

“I thought you were working.”

“I am. It’s… it’s kind of connected.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’d love to meet him.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Course I’m sure.”

“He’s not at his best at the moment. Not very chatty.”

Abbey laughed. “Come on. We’ll get the bus.”

The 176 belched toward Dulwich, hissing and snarling through the sullen traffic. The bus was almost empty, and despite my situation, there was something rather pleasant in sitting on the top deck with Abbey whilst everyone else was hard at work. The world of the Prefects, the Directorate and the Blueprint Programme suddenly seemed a world away, something pulpy and ridiculous which had happened to somebody else. The grotesque reality of it all was brought back only when I turned in my seat and noticed the black car that was following us — Mr. Dedlock’s promised watchman.

“Hope I didn’t wake you this morning,” I said.

“Course not. But I was impressed you were up so early after last night.”

“I had to go to work.”

“God. This promotion… They’re pushing you hard, aren’t they?”

I shrugged. “Making me work for my money, I suppose.”

“Money?” she said. “Is that why you’re doing it?”

“No, not just the money,” I admitted.

She nodded sagely. “Job satisfaction. That’s what I like, too. It’d be wonderful to do something important. Something really worthwhile.”

“What, like charity work?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure, to be honest with you. Perhaps I’ll know it when I see it. I’d just like to make a contribution.”

“I think I understand.”

“I’ve missed having you around the flat,” Abbey said softly. “I’ve missed you.”

“Me, too,” I replied, and we sat in contented silence, enjoying whatever mysterious connection it was that we had begun to share. Naturally, I had to go and ruin it.

“Abbey?”

A soft smile. “Yes?”

“Who’s Joe?”

The smile fled from her lips to be replaced with a trembling impostor. “Where did you hear that name?”

“You whispered it this morning. You called me Joe.”

Abbey didn’t reply but only stared out the window, her pretty face filled with sadness and regret.

“Abbey?” I said. “Abbey?”

“Joe’s no one.” She mustered a feeble, unconvincing smile. “He’s a ghost, that’s all. Just a ghost.”

Strutting into the Prince of Wales’s private bedroom without even bothering to knock, Mr. Streater shouted: “Chief! Get your glad rags on! We’re going out!”

Arthur wandered in from the bathroom, his scanty hair still heavy and dripping with Brylcreem following his tragically inexpert attempts at styling it.

“Out?” said the prince, searching around for a towel. “What do you mean ‘out’?”

“Don’t stress. Nothing heavy. I’ve got a coupla buddies I’d like you to meet, that’s all.” Streater picked up a towel abandoned on the floor and tossed it over to him. “You looking for this?”

“I can’t go out,” said the prince. “I’m meant to plant a tree at a primary school this morning.”

Streater made calming motions with his hands. “Mate… Mate…” He slid something out of his pocket — another syringe loaded, inevitably, with the candy sizzle of ampersand. “You want some of this?”

Desire twisted inside him and the prince, submitting again to the demands of his new, remorseless mistress, could only nod dumbly.

Streater’s answer was a wolfish smile. “Then you’re coming with me.”

“…I need some now.”

“You can’t even wait till we’re in the car?”

“Streater, please.”

The blond man cupped his hand over his left ear. “Can’t hear you, chief.”

“For God’s sake, man. Please.”

“OK then.”

With the terrible proficiency of the expert, Streater rolled up the prince’s sleeve, tapped a vein and plunged in his syringe. A tiny pressure on the plunger, a murmur of ecstasy from Windsor and the thing was done, already easier than before, a little more seductively natural every time.

“Come on, then,” Streater said as the prince, now dazed and wide eyed, rebuttoned his shirt sleeve.

“Streater? I had a dream last night…”

“Yeah?”

“About a little boy and a gray cat.”

The blond man shrugged. “With this shit inside you,” he said, “with this gunk gumming up your veins — take it from me, that’s only the beginning.”

No one tried to stop them as they walked out of Clarence House, strolled into the staff parking lot and climbed inside Mr. Streater’s effluent-brown Vauxhall Nova. Dimly, the prince wondered why not a single person had lifted a finger to challenge them, why they had done nothing to save him from himself.

In fact, the incident of his departure had gone unnoticed. There was gossip promiscuously exchanged amongst the household servants, there was tittle-tattle in the scullery, idle talk amongst the grooms and scandal whispered in the ears of ladies’ maids — but remarkably not a single one of them ever went to the press about it. Although if you knew of the reprisals conducted in secret by the House of Windsor against those it considers disloyal this might not seem so surprising.

“Do you like it?” the blond man asked once Arthur was inside and staring vacantly through the windscreen, past the grime and squashed flies which the wipers had formed into protractor-neat curves and whorls.

“It’s a nice car,” Mr. Streater.”

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong.” Streater turned the key in the ignition and started, quite unnecessarily, to rev the engine. “This isn’t a car. It’s a pussy wagon.” He smirked. “I’ve lost count of the quim I’ve had in that seat you’re sitting in right now.”

Arthur flinched.

With ridiculous rapidity, they drove out of the parking lot, squealed down the length of the Mall and braked extravagantly before the gates, whose guardians, long inured to the whims and eccentricities of their employers, allowed them to pass without comment.

Streater wrestled the steering wheel toward the City. “Something the matter, chief? Something on your mind?”

The prince turned his heavy-lidded eyes toward his companion. “My wife, Mr. Streater. I think she…”

Streater had to coax him. “Yeah?”

“She and Mr. Silverman. I think they may be…”

“Yeah? What are they doing?”

Arthur screwed up his face. “I think they may be having” — his voice diminuendoed to a whisper — “…relations.”

“So they’re shagging?”

The prince gazed mournfully at him. “I think it’s just possible that may be the case, yes.”

“Unlucky, mate. Having your missus get schtupped by another bloke. But you’ve only got yourself to blame.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean, Your Royal Highness, is that you let her get away with too much shit. You gave her everything she wanted from the get-go so there was nothing left for you to bargain with. She got bored. Birds are like that.” Streater broke off to honk at a schoolgirl. His tongue darted out of his mouth to wet his lower lip. “Wouldn’t throw her out of bed for eating prawn crackers.” He wound down the window and bellowed a suggestion of staggering vulgarity.

The prince hardly seemed to notice. “Tell me, Mr. Streater,” he murmured. “And in this matter I should appreciate your candor. What would you suggest?”

“Treat ’em mean, mate. I’m not saying that’s an original thought, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Women like to know who’s boss. There’s a reason why blokes like me get ore pussy than we know what to do with, while blokes like you end up with your wife tupping around behind your back. You know what that is?”

Slowly, solemnly, the prince moved his head from side to side.

“It’s because you’re afraid of women and I’m not. I know how to play them and I know how to give them what they want. It’s a game, Arthur, and the sad thing — the bloody tragedy of it — is that blokes like you just never learnt the rules.”

“So am I to take it, Mr. Streater, that you’ve never been in love?”

In the kind of voice which made it very clear that he would answer no more questions on the subject: “Just once.”

On Shaftesbury Avenue, Streater swerved blithely into a bus lane and the prince inquired where they were going.

“Not far. I promise.”

“But I am to plant a tree today. The children are expecting me.”

“Sod the children!”

The prince just blinked. “What was that?”

“Sorry,” Mr. Streater muttered. “Sorry, mate. Didn’t mean to blurt that out.”

Streater brought the car to a halt just outside the bleak terminus of King’s Cross station in a space reserved for emergency vehicles, switched off the engine, yanked open the glove compartment, pulled out a ragged, faded baseball cap and passed it to the prince.

“What’s this?”

“It’s your disguise, chief.”

The prince was just becoming used to this unfamiliar thing perched on his head when the doors at the back of the car were flung open and a couple of fat men squeezed themselves inside, along with the smells of grease and roadkill.

One of them shuffled his bulk forward to stare at Arthur. “This him, then?” he said in a mockney growl. “Bugger me, he’s uglier than I expected.”

The other one thrust a cardboard container running with oil and slime under the nose of the heir to the throne.

“Golden arches?” he asked, bafflingly.

Arthur never learnt to tell these two apart. They seemed almost identical — both thick necked, both jowly and unshaven, dressed in grubby shirts, frayed jackets and stained raincoats. They both smelt the same, too — of the street, of bad money and of corruption.

“I’m Detective Chief Inspector George Virtue,” one of them said. “This fat wonker’s Detective Sergeant Vince Mercy.”

“What is the meaning of this?” asked the prince, only just keeping the incredulity from his voice.

“Little field trip,” one of them said. Virtue? Mercy? It was so difficult to tell. “Little bit of R ‘n’ R.”

“Just sit still,” Streater snapped, “we’re going inside in a bit.”

“You’re catching a train?” Arthur asked hopefully.

Streater looked as though he was about to remark that the prince should just wait and see when someone tapped on the windscreen, scurried round to the back of the car and, miraculously, crammed himself in beside the fat policemen.

The newcomer was sweaty and nervous, had graying hair (too long) and wore an embarrassing amount of gold jewelry. “Streater?” he said, and nodded toward the prince. “Who’s this? What’s he doing here?”

This question elicited a more than usually large grin from Streater. “This is Arthur Windsor. Arthur, this is-”

“Mr. X,” the man interrupted, suddenly frantic.

“For Christ’s sake. This is the next king of England. If you can’t be upfront with the Prince of Wales, who the hell can you be straight with?”

The man seemed embarrassed. “Of course. Sorry. I’m Peter.” He stuck out his hand, and instinctively, the prince shook it.

On the back seat, one of the policemen belched, and for a vile moment the smell of half-digested Big Mac lingered in the atmosphere.

“Time to move,” Streater said, and opened the door, admitting a merciful blast of cold air.

Together, the five of them walked into the station.

“You’ve probably been wondering exactly what ampersand is…,” Streater said.

One of the fat men laughed. “Tasty!”

Streater went on as though the interruption had never happened. “Fact is, it’s a natural substance. Grows by itself under certain conditions. Peter here… what’s the word you’d use, Pete? He gathers it, he… harvests it for us.”

The gray-haired man flushed pink.

“But demand’s seriously outstripping supply. The kids are lapping it up so we’ve had to find a way to replicate. A mate of mine has a mate who knows a man who did time with a guy who’s shagging the sister of a bloke in France who’s tight with a sympathetic chemist. Result — ampersand manufactured by the ton. We’re off to meet our courier off the train.”

Detective Sergeant Vince Mercy slapped his hands together in glee. “New delivery! Fresh meat!”

Streater grinned. “Welcome to the real world.”

The blond man led them into the station and down the escalator to the Eurostar terminus, where they took up positions by the coffee shop. Arthur kept the baseball cap pulled down over his face but was strangely disappointed to find that not one member of the public so much as glanced at him.

Streater bought Peter and the prince a latte (oddly, not offering to do the same for the two policemen) and they all stood suckling at the plastic teats on their cups, trying not to look suspicious. One of the fat men jabbed Arthur in the ribs. “Has he told you how it’s done, guv?”

“I’m sorry?”

“This bird we’re meeting. She’ll be carrying the stuff inside her.”

“What do you mean?”

The other detective leered and Arthur was assaulted by a venting of his rancid breath. “Obliging little cow swallowed ampersand in a prophylactic. We’ll strain it out of her later.”

“That’s horrible.”

“That’s life, mate. We weren’t all born with a silver spoon up our jacksie.”

Streater looked up from his conversation with Peter. “Everything OK, chief? You seem worried.”

Arthur was stuttering his way into a reply when a train’s worth of people emerged from the exit gates, last amongst them a dark-haired woman just on the cusp of middle age.

“Here we go,” grunted one of the policemen. “I’d recognize that wiggle anywhere.”

Peter seemed even sweatier and more nervous than before. “No,” he muttered. “Something’s wrong.”

Streater shot the man a sharp look. “What?”

“Look at her. Something’s up.”

They all stared as the woman moved across the floor. It was as though she was drunk but trying her best to walk in a straight line, staggering under some appalling strain. As she drew closer, they saw that her skin had turned a violent shade of pink.

“Oh God.” Peter was whimpering. “Oh God.”

“What is it?” Streater snapped. “What’s happening?”

All the blood had drained from his face. “I think it’s split inside her. If she’s ingested that amount of raw ampersand… Christ knows what’ll happen to her.”

None of the men, not even the policemen, had any answer to this. They all just stood in silence and watched the inevitable unfold.

The woman staggered again, stumbled forward and lurched onto the ground. Arthur made a move to help but Streater grabbed his arm to hold him back.

A couple of customs staff had seen the woman fall and hurried over but it was already too late. Her face grew more florid, seeming to bloat and swell far beyond its natural size. Shiny, bulbous boils rose upon her face, and even from a few meters away, Arthur could see that they were filled with lurid pus, moving and squirming with some life of their own. Her body seemed wracked with a tremendous pressure from within, shuddering like a blocked water pipe after the taps have been left running. Once or twice, Arthur tried to turn away but failed to do so, morbidly riveted by the spectacle of it.

The woman was still shaking. A keening, piteous moan escaped her as a crowd began to gather, impotent yet transfixed.

At the end, Arthur’s view was mercifully obscured, but he heard the sound she made when she died. One could hardly miss it — it was the hearty impact of a water balloon on a summer’s day — and he saw the aftermath, too, the spreading pool of bubblegum pink which crept along the station floor, staining the stone with ampersand.

Peter was retching into his handkerchief. Virtue and Mercy were shaking their heads in grim disbelief. But Mr. Streater only smirked. “Just goes to show,” he said. “Turns out you really can have too much of a good thing.”

And he smiled his secret smile.