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Overture
Chapter 2
Refuge
The very next day, Gordon headed out into yet another chilly flurry of rain, safeguarding his umbrella as best he could against the regular blasts of wind that assailed him from random directions. He’d left V asleep in the spare bedroom, with a blanket pinned over the window to bar those rays of sunlight that the curtains might not field.
At V’s request, he’d not entered the room once his guest had retired for the night but, just before dawn, Gordon swore he’d been woken by a guttural shout from across the upstairs hall. He’d missed that first outcry, still half-snared in sleep as he was, and had heard no further emissions of such ferocity, although for a minute or two he’d listened as V subsided into a jumble of words that might have been Italian, or Latin, or possibly an admixture of both. Either way, they were utterly untranslatable, and had eventually tailed off.
After this small revelation that, unfortunately, had not been as revelatory as all that, Gordon had blacked out again until his alarm woke him an hour later. He’d breakfasted alone in spite of a gnawing in the pit of his stomach that gainsaid a healthy appetite, then made a fresh cup of tea and take it upstairs.
With one knock on the bedroom door, which was not acknowledged, he left the cup on the table by the door and then drew the curtains at the end of the corridor so that V might be able to retrieve it in comfort. He’d then sighed deeply and shakily and left the house on his particular errand.
It was almost two miles to the estate agent’s office, a pleasant
enough walk in late spring or summer but little short of a
Matthew Bright looked up and smiled as Gordon appeared in the office doorway, rattling his umbrella like a wet dog before dropping it just inside the door.
“Gordon,” he enthused, rising from his desk to greet his client, “always a pleasure. What can I do for you? Cup of tea? Rotten weather, eh?”
Gordon agreed that this was indeed the case, then drew one slow hand down his cheek, noticing a bitter sting under his eyelids as he did so.
“No tea, thank you, Matt.
I’ll get right to the point,” he said, the quiver in his throat and
lungs belied by the unexpected firmness of his tone. “I want you to take the
Matthew was taken aback by this; so much so that he actually retreated a step in confusion.
“What?” he stuttered, before his training came to his aid. “Can I ask why?” You of all people know that we’ve finally had some interest in the place and, besides, I thought you were desperate to get shot of it. I’ve just had a bid of two hundred and eighty grand and for a renovation project of that size, let me tell you that’s a very generous offer.”
It was at this point that Gordon flushed. All matter of his sexuality aside – and he understood that it was fast becoming a matter of naked self-preservation to conceal that fact – he had never been at home with duplicity. He knew that lies eventually needed a scaffold of more lies, and so on, until one stood atop a house of cards in a high wind. Given this, he elected to try for a simple omission rather than an outright untruth. Also, the bare fact was that he’d had neither the time nor the mental strength to compose a cover story.
“I know, and I really am grateful for all your help. However, I have a few good reasons that I’d like to sit on this sale for a while.”
“All right,” Matt breathed, his hands in the air between them, surrendering. “You know your own mind, of course, although these bidders aren’t going to be very happy. There’s no legal contract yet, of course, so you are at least in the clear.” Matt thought for a fraction of a second before adding, “They did seem very keen.”
“That just goes to show you, then,” Gordon said, his eyes twinkling happily. “If they were eager for that old wreck, they’re barking mad, and I hate dealing with mad people outside of working hours. Anyway, is there anything you need me to sign right now...?”
“Just a few things. If you’re absolutely sure?” Matt asked, still probing gently for any sign of uncertainty in Gordon’s decision. He found none, however. Gordon simply nodded tartly.
“I’m sure,” he said.
Later that evening, with the sun already a distant memory printing its ghost across the western horizon, Gordon drove the five miles to the Victoria Station area with V huddled on the back seat, his cloak drawn over his face.
This was an understandable precaution; though the chances of a random stop and search were slim, and rendered slimmer still when one understood that the police, in their breathtaking selectivity, were highly unlikely to regard a man in a custom-built Jaguar as a potential terrorist, Gordon nevertheless felt much more secure with his passenger laid low and suitably concealed.
They arrived at the
The years had, alas, extracted their toll in measure of the Walker’s glory and grandeur; as trains became faster and more comfortable, as cars replaced what the railways could not and did not hope to provide, the hotel had fallen first into disrepute and then into decay.
It had been closed for four years when Gordon purchased it for an
alarmingly low investment cost, and he had spent several days exploring the
building to be sure that there were no astounding structural defects that might
explain its bargain price. He had even,
in the end, retained an independent surveyor to appraise matters, but the man
had pronounced the
The hotel, though connected to the mains, also operated from a generator in the basement as and when required and, for this, Gordon was now grateful. He would much rather not go into the intricacies of reconnecting the power supply to the hotel, much less face the questions that this might raise.
He’d headed to the first level basement by way of a torch fetched from the boot of his car, although he’d recalled the matter of V’s owl-like night vision and allowed the haunted, cloaked figure to lead the way after a while. After a pause to grind the generator into submission, Gordon applied the lights in the basement. They were low enough down here, and Gordon heard a tiny grunt of satisfaction from beneath the mask at the reduced illumination.
There was little enough to see in the basement beside the generator and the old coal chute, so they descended the two flights of steps to the wine cellar. This, in complete and startling contrast to what lay above it, was an imposing vaulted and pillared cavern of a size that fulfilled every promise of the once-palatial structure it served, and must once have provided a happy home for more than four thousand bottles of delightful vintage and their associated tools and activities.
This cellar was all but empty now save for the massive wine racks. The remaining bottles had been one particular aspect of his purchase that Gordon had had no trouble selling off, although it had puzzled and continued to puzzle him as to why the hotel’s previous owners had left them behind to begin with.
Still, there was rarely any mileage in subjecting good fortune to overly critical analysis, and he’d sold six hundred bottles of wine for just over forty thousand pounds in total, although he’d quietly reserved a dozen particularly choice years for his own kitchen.
The furniture upstairs had been a very different matter. Though surprisingly untouched by woodworm, it had all nonetheless lain in a cold and unremittingly damp atmosphere for the past several years, and as a result was now in a state most generously described as ‘functional’.
Gordon, brought around to this fact by his own stream of consciousness, made mention of the furniture to V, who indicated his agreement.
“If you like,” Gordon volunteered, “I’d suggest using what’s in the rooms on the south-west side of the hotel. Not that it’ll make a tremendous difference, you understand, it’s just that those rooms will have stayed a little warmer and drier than the others.” Gordon reached into his pocket and pulled out a surprisingly small bunch of keys, handing them over.
“Here. I’ll keep the spare set just in case you need it, but,” he said, conscious of V’s desire for privacy, “I promise I won’t use them unless I have to. You’ve got the keys for the main doors,” he said, pointing out various keys as he spoke, “the service entrance, the side doors, and this one’s a skeleton key that’ll open any of the guest bedrooms.
“Oh. I almost forgot to mention,” Gordon added, raising a distracted hand to his forehead. “I left some food in the kitchen yesterday; there’s plenty there and it ought to keep for a while. And I turned the water back on, although I simply can’t vouch for the state of the plumbing, I’m afraid.”
It was only now that the two men felt the floor beneath their feet buzz faintly, and a subdued, echoing rumble filled the cellar for a few seconds. V raised his head elegantly, although Gordon couldn’t help but observe that there was also something rather primitive about his stance for that one second, as if he were a wild animal searching for the scent of a predator...or, indeed, the scent of prey.
“Don’t worry about that,” Gordon spoke up. “We’re almost directly alongside the Circle Line down here. You’ll soon get used to it.” V said nothing in reply; he merely continued to cast his gaze around the cellar as if forming plans in his head as he turned, and as if unaware that Gordon had spoken. Perturbed, but still wanting to disrupt this sudden silence, Gordon went on.
“By the way, I’ve been thinking. About your light sensitivity?” he ventured. “What you need are some polarised lenses. I could get them fitted for you tomorrow at the studio, that’d be no problem, but...um, I’d need to take the mask with me.”
He worried, then, that he’d said something dreadfully insulting. He saw V’s back stiffen perceptibly before the man swung around and took a small step closer, boots scraping very loudly and suddenly on the dusty flags of the floor. Then he smiled, and this was not quite illusion; Gordon was rapidly becoming attuned to the signs of V’s changes in humour. He wasn’t completely sure what it was – maybe nothing more than a particularly strong aura – but whatever it was, V exuded a tangible cloud of personality that even projected itself onto the steel mask he wore and seemed to mutate its expression to reflect his mood.
“But of course,” V said, gently, “and I must thank you for your assistance.” Then he turned his back on Gordon once more and reached up to the back of his neck to unfasten the straps. This done, he placed his hands at the sides of his face and slid the mask down, gently and infinitesimally, and then dropped his arm so that it hung at his side, the mask held between finger and thumb.
Gordon held his breath for a second, taking in every small detail of this tableau as he moved closer. He could see V’s shoulders rising and falling as he breathed, and this was odd, given that he’d never observed this intensity before. He wondered whether the man was feeling both physically and emotionally exposed now that he was unmasked, even with his back turned, and decided that though he might think for a century, he’d never truly understand the position that V was coming from.
As he heard Gordon come up behind him, V dropped his chin onto his chest so that the wig fell in glossy black curtains across his face. There was something so heartbreaking about the vulnerability that this bespoke that for an instant, Gordon thought to lay a comforting hand upon V’s shoulder. He eventually dismissed the idea, and simply reached out to take the mask.
It was unexpectedly warm to the touch, which proved surprising given that Gordon’s only prior experience of V’s skin, when those scarred fingers had been seeking his pulse, had shown it to be cooler than living human flesh had any right to be.
“Thank you,” Gordon whispered, so close now to V that he could detect that maddening, lovely scent once more. Then, clasping the mask to his chest, he forced himself to retreat and, eventually, to turn around so that he could mount the stairs back up through the cellars, past the kitchens and into the foyer. All the way, he kept the mask pressed against him, conscious of its strange heat and of the way it seemed to be taking time to fade.
Down in the bowels of the hotel, V pricked his ears carefully as he heard Gordon leave by the side door, locking it behind him. Only then did he ease his stand and relax fully, brushing his hair away from his face, before hefting the keys he’d been given and looking up at the ceiling, a speculative smile surfacing.
Gordon’s day proved itself to be distressingly busy; he spent most of the morning proofreading in his office, with only the occasional tactful interruption from Anne, who kept up a reliable flow of tea and shortbread. At one point he’d asked her for a brandy but, beneath the flame of the sudden reproachful glare she turned on him, he’d wilted.
“Gordon Deitrich,” she said, her voice metamorphosing into the epitome of affronted motherhood, “Far be it from me to dictate what you do on your own time, but while you’re under my care I’ll be buggered if I let you start boozing.” She stopped, and snorted in derision. “It’s not even eleven o’clock yet, for heaven’s sake...”
“I might be dead now if it wasn’t for you. I know that. I am grateful, Anne”
“Is that so?” she retorted, although now through a small smile. “You don’t sound it. But here,” she continued, now sitting down and pouring herself a cup of tea. “Put that stuff away for a minute and talk to me. I know damn well something’s wrong with you and I’m not going to ignore it again. What’s up?”
Gordon knew the signs. Anne very rarely pushed him for a confession on any given subject, knowing as she did that he would eventually get around to it on his own. The fact that she broke this rule only rarely was an indicator of how seriously she took it, and if she was insisting upon a dialogue right here and right now, it was for a sterling good reason.
Anne, for her part, gazed gently into Gordon’s eyes for a second and saw, deep within them, the assurance that he wasn’t going to give in. Not this time. However, she felt that she had to do her duty by him and if that meant applying a little pressure, it was for his own good.
“What is it?” she persisted. “Man trouble?” She watched Gordon hesitate for a moment before shaking his head uncertainly.
“No,” he ventured. “Well, in a sense, yes, but not the one you’re thinking of. I’ve...I’ve just met up with someone from my past and...” he paused again, picking his words as if each and every one were white-hot, “...it’s rearranged me a little. I’ll be fine. It’s not something anyone else can help me sort out, really.” Anne sipped carefully at her tea as she thought for a second.
“Just promise me one thing?” she asked, firmly.
“I’ll try. What is it?”
“Promise me that this isn’t going to land you in prison.”
Only after lunch did Gordon finally get the chance to head down to the technical department, taking the mask with him, wrapped in paper. He located Tricia in the darkroom, knocking gently on the door, although she eventually called out that she wasn’t working on anything and that he could come right in.
Gordon had been fond of Tricia from the moment they’d met. Though ten years his junior and fresh out of college, they’d clicked almost immediately, finding in the midst of a careless discussion that they shared an abiding interest in pre-Raphaelite art. Not that one would ever have suspected this of Tricia; her purple hair, her nose-ring, her Japanese tattoos all spoke of far less intellectual pursuits. However, it was she who’d introduced Gordon, fully and freely, to the concept of the dark horse.
Now he pulled the door behind him until it latched, and held a finger to his lips as he laid the mask on a side table and pulled back the paper. He saw Tricia’s brows drop as she studied it intently.
“What on earth’s this?”
“I wish I could tell you, my dear,” Gordon sighed. “I do, but it’s part of a plan I have, and I really don’t want to jinx it by telling anyone just yet.” Tricia turned her chin up to him for a second before returning her absorbed expression to the mask.
“Fair enough,” she said, although not without a very faintly affronted sniff. “What d’you want me to do with it?”
“I need some polarised lenses fitted behind the eye sockets. It’s made of steel; is that going to be a problem?”
“Good grief, no,” Tricia said, finally tearing her gaze away from the mask with, it seemed to Gordon, some difficulty. “I’ve got everything I need. When do you want it done?” Only now did Gordon reach into his inside pocket and withdraw his wallet, then extracted two fifty-pound notes and folded them between his fingers.
“Right now would be ideal, I’d say,” he chuckled. “Fifty for your trouble and fifty for keeping quiet about this, and I don’t want to hear any argument, missy.”
“I don’t know what gave you the impression that I’d argue,” Tricia smirked, taking the money with all due delicacy and grace, and shoving it into her back pocket, “I should have it done by the time you go home, although this has got to be the eighteenth strangest thing I’ve ever been asked to do.”
“Only the eighteenth?” Gordon repeated, curving one eyebrow.
“About that, yes,” was the reply, as she picked up the mask and held it up to her face, regarding its contours. “Remember, I’ve had an adventurous life, sweetheart...”
It was close to midnight by the time Gordon returned to the
The slight alteration that Tricia had wrought had had a far more devastating effect than he’d thought it would. With this turn and that, the lights he passed occasionally caught the lenses behind its eyes and gave them a subtle, suggestive, ophidian gleam that was hypnotic and distracting enough with nothing but empty space behind it. He could only wonder at what extra allure the mask would take on when it was reunited with its owner.
Well, Gordon realised, he was about to find out. He drew up in the alley by the north side entrance, fetched the mask from the seat and pressed the button on the entry phone. Long minutes passed, during which the wind rose to a distraught howl down the narrow alley and whipped an old newspaper past him and up into the air, spiralling frantically. Finally, there was a click as the summons was answered, softly and cautiously.
“…Yes?”
“It’s only me, V,” he replied, hugging himself as some defence against the cruel wind. “I’ve brought the mask back.”
There was a sharp buzz that indicated that the door had been unlocked and, pulling it open, Gordon stepped thankfully out of the tempestuous weather. V stood behind the door, head deeply bowed once more to conceal his damaged features although, in the shadows of this inner sanctum, it scarcely seemed necessary. Without a word, Gordon closed the door behind him and handed the mask over then, displaying as much tact and consideration as he’d ever been capable of, turned his back.
He heard several associated sounds from over his shoulder; there was a breathless exhalation of relief, then the smooth slither of steel on skin, and then a creak as V secured the straps of the mask. Gordon waited a few seconds more before he turned around, to be sure. When he did, he faltered and took a step backward in spite of all that he’d expected to see.
V’s eyes glimmered like a feral cat’s and, more than that, he oozed the same fully justified aura of self-satisfaction and assurance of total poise. The lenses, far from lending a hollow echo to the mask as if one might see nothing but their own soul reflected therein, instead afforded it the last piece of the puzzle and gave that sable gaze an approximation of living that was almost more animate than life itself.
Gordon remained transfixed as V crossed the room and flicked the lights on. The neon tubes stuttered momentarily before flashing into full brilliance but now, instead of his former reaction, V stood bathed in the relentless light with no evident sign of discomfort about his manner.
“Gordon,” he said, turning his face up to the ceiling and basking all but lasciviously in the brightness, “this is a vast improvement. My thanks and regards must go to the artisan responsible for this.”
“I’m glad I was of some help. Really,” Gordon added, emphasising his words with meticulous care. “Have you been settling in here all right?”
“Wonderfully so, thank you,” V said, his voice radiating genuine pleasure. “I took your advice and kept to the south-west side of the hotel but, really, what I’ve found there is more than adequate for my needs. This must once have been the finest establishment in the city.”
“It was. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid it’s long past my bedtime,” Gordon said, wearing his best attempt at a wry, world-weary smile despite the fact that he appeared to be held fast in the path of those soft, glowing eyes. It was only with a conscious act that he tore himself away and turned to leave.
Before he’d reached his car, however, V moved to the doorway and halted him with a word.
“Gordon?”
“Yes?”
“I assure you that you’ll be repaid for your trouble on my behalf.” Gordon ducked his head briefly, then pulled the door of the Jaguar open and laid his hand on the roof before responding.
“There’s really no need for that,” he said, placidly.
“The absence of requirement is requirement itself, Gordon. In any case, I have many future requests, and I fear that they may soon become onerous. This I cannot tolerate without offering some form of recompense.”
“If it’ll make you happy, then,” Gordon supplied, climbing into the driver’s seat with a grunt of effort. Over the course of the last forty-eight hours he’d begun to feel older and older. Not that his health had ever been at a splendid peak, especially not after the last few years of very sumptuous living, but he was, right now, aching from his hair downwards and wanted nothing so much as his bed.
Gordon found his mood at that point somewhat difficult to analyse, although he tried as best he could as he started the engine and eased the car carefully down the narrow alley. There was, he forced himself to admit, just the lightest veneer of anger at V coating the surface of it all.
Though intellectually he knew that V had not elected this state of affairs either and, in fact, had endured more in the last twelve months than any human body could be expected to tolerate, this current Gordon Deitrich, a tired and bewildered creature, was in no fit state to succumb to such a logical perspective. Besides, he felt that as irrational as it was, he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t harbour some sense of entitlement to his bitterness about all of this.
The other portion of his turmoil was, depending on how he looked at it, either the strangest or the most natural aspect of all; he was fast becoming bewitched by V. Oh, it had almost nothing to do with his sexual preference, that much was apparent. Gordon had heard his own father describe the mesmeric qualities of this man and, as if that weren’t enough, it could be divined from the encounter with Lucifer that V possessed an uncanny power of enchantment over both man and beast.
Perhaps these facets had more in common with each other than he’d first suspected. Gordon was sure that even though his desires - and the indulgence of them - had led him into trouble on more than one occasion in the past, he’d always liked to think that he was, ultimately, in charge of them and in charge of his own mind.
In the past few days, however, he’d had cause to believe that when V was around, this state of affairs was in some doubt...and because of this realisation, he was both perturbed and frightened in equal measure.
V, meanwhile, had remained in the doorway until the purr of the Jaguar faded entirely. Though the streets were still lively with traffic even in the witching hour, here at the back of the hotel there was relative calm and little more than the soporific sigh of litter skating up and down the alley.
The sound was soothing; the midnight city’s answer to the crashing of the waves on an unnamed shore. V tilted his head back and allowed the cold wind to enter the narrow gap between the neck of his tunic and the edge of the mask for a moment.
He understood that as much as he’d made an acceptable trade, as much as he could live with the idea of spending the rest of his life on earth under a decorous and decorative disguise to keep the extent of his injuries from the eyes of others, it was the simple pleasures such as this cool contact that he would pine for from time to time.
V closed his eyes now, meditating, drawing the risk of this unknowing exposure against his thankfully shadowed position in the secluded alley. His mind flittered, butterfly-like, before taking wing and beginning to glide. It found its lift from those few precious moments, amongst the destruction of Larkhill Detention Centre, when he had been nothing more complex than a caged animal with the pure scent of freedom in its nostrils at last.
And it was in this tranquil state, and in the temporary fugue that it had induced, that he formed a truly delightful plan.
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