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Overture
Chapter 3
Saturnalia
The train was four minutes late out of St. Pancras, for which Ken knew he would receive a reprimand.
It was always the way, he knew. In spite of the company’s stated and re-stated commitment to customer care, in practise, the passenger trains were always running late these days and despite the volume of complaints they received, the directors weren’t too bothered about that.
The overnight goods trains, however, were a different matter; their clients paid a substantial amount of money for an efficient service and, all extenuating circumstance aside, could be assured that any driver who was responsible for a delay – and it was always the driver who’d be held responsible, no matter what – would suffer for it.
Still, this was a matter for tomorrow, and that lay at the end of a three-hour run up to
The
The train headed out across the canal at just less than ten miles per hour. Even so, it was an unnerving ride. The canal bridge, while structurally sound, was old, and the tracks hadn’t really been constructed with the weight of modern engines in mind. In short, it rattled like a loosely-jointed skeleton as the engine and carriages pounded laboriously over it.
Ken ran his window down as the waters passed by far below, and flung his cigarette end out into the darkness. He was well aware that smoking in the cabin was practically a flogging offence but, then again, like most of the rules he had to adhere to, it had been put forward by those who didn’t have to do the job he did and didn’t understand the working conditions.
The engine was all but clear of the tunnel when Ken felt rather than heard a soft, muffled impact on the roof. Reflex had him let go of the switch, and the brakes cut in with a piercing squeal that set his teeth edge-on against one another. He put out a hand as he was urged forward by the jarring halt and then pushed himself back into his seat, catching his breath, trying to listen for any further sound from above.
There was none forthcoming, although after a second or two there was a thumping on the cabin door behind him, which resolved itself into an irritated voice.
“What the bloody hell’s going on?” it asked.
“Sorry,” Ken called back, twisting around over his shoulder. “Thought I heard something on the roof. Did you hear anything?”
“No. Now get going, we’re late already!”
That seemed to be that. In truth, Ken had to admit that he’d probably imagined it. His nerves were still somewhat stretched; just two months ago he’d had a couple of idiots throw a paving stone off a bridge and into the path of his engine. Their aim had not been a match for their optimism, it appeared, as the stone had missed the train entirely and cracked neatly in two across the rails in front of it. Nevertheless, it could still have derailed the engine, and he’d reacted just in time.
He applied his hand to the switch again, and he heard the couplings groan gently as the engine shunted forward once more.
In the first carriage, the two guards shuffled themselves back into their seats and resumed their cribbage game. Their accommodation was luxurious enough; it was one of the old First Class carriages from the storage yard. They were no longer used for passenger transportation any more, the company having abandoned the idea of segregated rail travel and instead vowing to offer the same level of service to all its travellers. Admittedly, that level of service had turned out to be universally unreliable, but it was the thought that counted.
The oldest of the pair picked up his cards and dug an industrious, self-absorbed finger into his ear as he studied them. A five, two Kings, a seven, an eight and a two. He discarded the eight and the two and set his hand back down as he waited for his companion to make a decision. He knew it would take quite some time, judging from the constipated look on the kid’s face. He sighed, dropped his chin into his palm and stared distantly out of the window as the city slid past them and the train finally picked up a decent turn of speed.
With his attention thus occupied, he heard a sharp gasp. He started, and for one fraction of a second looked up at the window before turning his head, briefly seeing the shadow looming over their table. When he swung around he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder. This authoritarian grip tightened until a wicked lightning bolt of pain ran down his arm, and he was forced back down into his seat.
V sighed meaningfully, turning his attention to the younger man, who had now thrown himself to the far side of the table, his eyes glazed and panicky. V struck out with a practised fist, catching the lad just above the ear and sending him face-down across the table, spraying cards as he fell, his eyes rolling back into his head.
All of this had taken just two seconds; not nearly enough time for the older guard to marshal his vocal cords into anything more coherent than a strangled squawk. Now, as that cool, leather-gloved hand moved to the back of his neck and began to squeeze, he managed to grunt out a query.
“Who are you?”
“Please allow me to introduce myself,” V said, voice lilting, betraying no hint of effort expended. “I’m a man of wealth...and taste.”
These formalities done with, V’s fingers found the nerves in the guard’s neck and burrowed in. The man twitched like a trout on a hook before he joined his companion in the temporary liberation of unconsciousness. V kept a firm grip on the back of his neck as he sagged and, out of basic consideration, slid the cribbage board aside before allowing his boneless victim to slump over the table with a thin trickle of saliva running from his lower lip.
The train continued to click and rattle beneath V’s feet as it passed into the city suburbs. He swung his head from side to side, scanning the carriage, but it seemed he’d dealt with the entirety of the meagre protection that this train had been afforded. He moved to the rear of the carriage and slid the door back, entering the first of the three freight wagons.
Unlike the adjoining carriage, this one was musty and unpalatable and, aside from the racks and lockers used to store the goods, was little but bare steel from floor to ceiling. It also tilted fitfully on the rails as the train rounded a gentle curve in the track, and V grasped a rail to steady himself. When the passage straightened out, he eased his grip and started to browse.
It was with some surprise that he noted the frailty of the lockers, most of which were opened by the simple expedient of punching the doors in near the bolt. The first yielded a consignment of fine porcelain dolls, and V paused to scan these white, wide-eyed faces with pertinent curiosity before moving on. The next contained watches, and the next, curiously enough, nothing more than several bundles of old photographs.
Stepping across the narrow aisle, V delivered a sharp blow to the next locker, which failed to respond immediately. He shook his hand to ease a sudden sting in his knuckles, and tried again. This time, the door buckled and swung back on its hinges.
V tilted his head with interest. Ah. He reached out and curled his fingers possessively around the contents of the locker, drawing them out and holding them in the dim wash of light from the single bulb in the wall.
Ken swore quietly to himself as he heard the lock on the door click back. Those two jokers knew that they were supposed to stay in the carriage for the duration of the journey. As much as the company had been cutting some serious corners in the past few years and, truth be told, their customers would probably have a haemorrhage if they knew how lax the security on these trains really was, there was such a thing as doing a good job in a bad situation.
He was just about to turn around to remonstrate when a freezing cold blade slid around his shoulder and fetched up against his throat, pressing almost lovingly against his cringing flesh. Ken jerked back reflexively but, at that point, a voice insinuated itself into his left ear.
“Good evening,” it said, politely. “If you would, please go on with what you were doing. I would not like to think that we had failed to understand one another.” The knife slid one half-inch to the side and now turned, bringing the blade into unadulterated contact with his skin.
Ken almost nodded at this juncture, but he had no sooner started to than he realised that this would result in his opening up his own artery. He simply swallowed heavily and gripped the switch and the accelerator all the more forcefully.
“I have a question,” that silky voice continued, the knife caressing Ken’s trembling throat all the while, “is this train scheduled to make any stops?”
“Only one,” Ken quavered, swallowing again through a mouth as devoid
of moisture as
“Excellent,” the voice purred, its cadence soaked in genuine approval. “Unfortunately, this means that our brief association is at an end. My apologies,” it added, softly, and then Ken received a ringing blow to the back of his neck, after which the world was switched off.
V slipped the knife back under his belt and grabbed the comatose driver by the back of his collar, hauling him ignominiously from the seat and allowing him to slide to the floor of the cabin. He then took up station at the controls, fixing his hands over the levers and keeping the train gliding through the night, watching the rails unfold in front of the rattling engine for half a minute, urging the thundering monster to greater and greater speeds.
It was close to midnight., and Gordon was reading in bed. It wasn’t something he’d normally have been doing, but he’d decided to catch up on some classic literature and, to this end, was buried in the pages of Don Quixote.
"The mischief," said Don Quixote, "lay in my going away; for I should not have gone until I had seen thee paid; because I ought to have known well by long experience that there is no clown who will keep his word if he finds it will not suit him to keep it; but thou rememberest, Andres, that I swore if he did not pay thee I would go and seek him, and find him though he were to hide himself in the whale's belly."
He wasn’t sleepy. This in itself was unusual, and so he’d been reading for the better part of an hour now for two reasons. Firstly to pass the time without actually declaring surrender and getting out of bed and, secondly, to prevent himself acknowledging the little mouse of worry that was now gnawing at his nerves.
It had now been three days since he’d seen or heard a word from V and, though he knew he was probably being slightly unfair, Gordon couldn’t help but wonder whether this radio silence meant that the man was up to something...dramatic.
Gordon set the book aside, marking his place and sliding it under his pillow. He was too itchy to read any further and, besides, that last paragraph had struck a little too close to home, talking about payment. V’s parting words to him had made mention of some kind of ‘recompense’, and he’d still not managed to wrap adequate meaning around them.
He shivered; the bedroom seemed to have grown colder in the space of the last few minutes. Shifting his legs out of bed, he heaved himself up and reached for his robe. There seemed to be no further use in this struggle against insomnia, and he had a handful of diazepam set aside for emergencies. To be honest, he confessed in the privacy of his head, he hadn’t had to use them in over a year, alcohol being the acceptable sedative that it was.
The light in the bathroom was vicious and unremitting compared to the lamplit corridor, and Gordon blinked several times to clear his vision before he opened the medicine cabinet. He had to pick up several bottles before he found the one he was seeking – again, not a very good indicator – and was just about to unscrew the cap when he heard the distant sound of the letterbox snapping back.
Reflex sent a sharp twist through his stomach, although reflex was by now some way behind current events. Gordon had a fair idea who might have stopped by at this time of the night. Exercising a modicum of self-control, he finished his mission first, twisting the cap from the bottle and shaking one pill out. Just one. He dry-swallowed this, then flipped the light off and made his way downstairs to the hall in the darkness.
The hall always seemed larger in low light, and this was no exception. Still, there was enough of a wash through the fanlight to make out an envelope lying on the rug. For reasons he couldn’t identify, Gordon glanced back up the stairs before he crossed the hall, the gesture reeking of nervousness and...guilt? Then he took three sudden strides and bent to pick up that smooth, white, and oddly threatening item.
It was bulky, his first impression supplied as his fingers explored the heavy paper. There was no writing on it, but there was a sketch of sorts, scrawled out in soft pencil. A capital ‘V’, set within a rough circle, as if further evidence were needed as to the identity of this midnight messenger.
Pulling back the flap – the envelope was of such quality that it wouldn’t slit easily – Gordon slipped his fingers inside, touching fine velvet. Some sort of pouch, caught with a length of ribbon. He reached out absent-mindedly now to turn the light on, and extracted the velvet bag from the envelope. His movements were languid, almost dreamlike as he pulled at the drawstring, and he paused only momentarily for breath before tipping the contents into his hand.
Gordon’s eyes widened. He lost all sense and semblance of reality at this point, and simply stared and stared at his own clammy palm and what lay quite innocently nestled in it.
As a matter of necessity, the track had been closed in both directions. If Chief Inspector McLennan felt that he had anything at all to be grateful for in the midst of this bizarre debacle, he decided that he was grateful that this little incident had not taken place during morning or evening rush hour, neither of which would have boded well for him. As it stood, if he could get everything wrapped up before dawn, he just might not find himself stuck with the explanations.
He turned, studying the abandoned carriages, immensely distracted, until a hoarse cough from behind his shoulder brought him back to his senses.
“Inspector?” said a gruff voice, its tone ever so faintly apologetic for intruding upon his thoughts. McLennan swung around and beheld his newest acquisition, that new Detective Sergeant...what was his name? Transferred less than a month ago from some godforsaken Northern backwater; that was all he could recall at present. This was the first time they’d been paired up. McLennan’s mind was far too mired in this current event to be bothered with petty detail, anyway.
“What have we got?” he barked, and then forcibly reeled himself back in.
“Not much, sir, I’ll be honest,” the DS replied, tugging his earlobe as he spoke. “I’ve had a word with the guards, but they’re both still a bit wonky, and it doesn’t look as if they got a good look at the bloke in any case.”
“What about the driver?”
“He’s a lot better. Unfortunately,” said the DS, finally letting go of his ear, “he was taken by surprise. Got a knife held to his neck from behind and didn’t see anything before he got a wallop.”
“Well, isn’t this nice,” McLennan said, as sourly as he could. “Their insurance company’s going to have a field day with this, and that’s before they find out how bad the security was to begin with.”
He watched the DS drop a ‘not our problem’ shrug, and was struck by
the general hangdog air of the man.
Everything about him seemed to sag, engendering a tangible air of
generalised hopelessness about his head.
Maybe that was how they bred their coppers in
“You reckon it might be an inside job, then, sir?” the DS was saying, very softly. McLennan, distracted again, caught only the gist of this question.
“It’s not my job to reckon anything,” he responded, firmly. “Or yours. Have SOCO finished in there?”
“Almost, but if you want my opinion, this guy’s crafty. We already know he was wearing gloves, and as for jumping on the roof of a moving train in the first place...” The DS let the rest of that sentence slide quietly into oblivion.
“Yes, yes,” McLennan said, now rattled beyond the bounds of his patience. “Let’s start speculating when we’ve got something concrete to speculate on, shall we? Anyway, have we got the engine back yet?” He watched the DS start pulling his ear again and, deciding that this was obviously a nervous tic, concluded that the news wasn’t going to be what he wanted to hear.
“That’s going to have to wait until they’ve got it back on the tracks, sir,” the DS volunteered. “It derailed on a curve up in Highgate and ended up nose down in a ditch. The perpetrator dragged the driver into the carriage, then rigged the accelerator and the switch and uncoupled the lot.”
McLennan turned away, turned back, stared at the sky and then eventually said: “Why?” although all that this gained him was another purely vertical shrug from the DS.
“Couldn’t say, sir,” he added, to amend the shrug somewhat. “So far it doesn’t seem as if it was central or even necessary to the plan when it’d have been simpler just to stop the whole lot and stroll off. Maybe he just wanted to make a mess? Some do.”
McLennan jammed his hands into his coat pockets so hard that he was sure he felt the lining give out somewhere along a seam. It was past two in the morning now, and a fine, prickling drizzle was meandering out of the sky, taking its time, well aware that it had all night to soak things through.
“All right,” he said, through painfully clenched jaw muscles, “let’s wrap up here for now, not a lot we can do until we get some evidence in our pocket. Hopefully we’ll have more luck with the engine.” Here he halted, while a dreadful thought occurred to him. “It is in one piece, isn’t it?”
“So I’m told, sir, but as I say it’ll be a while yet before they can winch it back onto the rails and drag it down here. I’ll wait for it, sir, if it’s all the same to you. One of us’d better keep an eye on things.”
McLennan coloured himself surprised at this turn of events, although he covered it well. Maybe the fellow could prove useful after all, for a Northerner.
“If you want,” he said, awash with relief that he hadn’t had to bother with delegation, which was something he’d never quite mastered to full effect. “Thank you, Sergeant...er...” he went on, suspending the unspoken query between them in a rose-coloured haze of embarrassment.
“Finch, sir,” the DS said, with not a smidgeon of awkwardness.
Meanwhile, some way across the sullen city, Gordon drew his car
carefully up into the alley alongside the
He was not entirely in touch with events by this point, he was aware, and he’d taken a measurable risk by driving after having taken a potent sedative. That said, however, he also had an inkling that if he didn’t get this sorted out now, by the time dawn cracked across the land he would have either lost his nerve altogether, or put the whole thing down to a badly-digested dream.
This conclusion reached, he clambered out of the car and into a fine spattering of rain. Reaching the doorway, he huddled into it as best he could, then pressed the buzzer with a finger that was already tending to numbness. The call was answered with commendable haste – didn’t the man ever sleep? – and then Gordon mumbled a greeting into the intercom.
V bowed his guest into the wine cellar with all the hallmarks of proprietorship and, even in the midst of his soup of bewilderment, tiredness and upset, Gordon found time and space to be stunned at the changes V had wrought in the space of just a few days. He’d shifted several magnificent pieces of furniture down from the floors above, and it had to be admitted that if anything, they looked more at home down here than they ever had in the baroque splendour of the staterooms they’d come from.
Several paintings had also been hung on the walls, seemingly without regard to arrangement but with an obvious joy in their displaying. Some of them looked familiar, though most didn’t register with Gordon’s memory banks.
Looking around, he spotted the piano that had once held pride of place in the hotel’s restaurant, and a small forest of gorgeous Tiffany lamps, all stored against one wall for future distribution about the cellar. There was also a suit of armour propped, blind and loose-jointed, in one corner, although Gordon couldn’t for the life of him recall seeing it about the hotel itself.
To complete the picture, the central gallery and surrounding alcoves had been laid with rich, red Oriental rugs, while complementary curtains in that same shade of brooding scarlet swathed off parts of the cellar.
V stood back, not speaking, his hands clasped modestly before him, allowing his visitor to study the details of the scenery he was surrounded by. He waited courteously until Gordon had finally closed his gaping mouth, and then nodded politely.
“I have, as you can see, been fully occupied in setting up home,” V said. “I must say that whoever furnished this hotel was possessed of some fine and cultured tastes.”
“Er, V?” Gordon began, less than hopefully, and had to restrain himself from backing down as that ghostly face swung in his direction, its attention fixing him with an all-too penetrating lock. “Did you...I wondered if it was you who gave me these?” Gordon made the point by pulling the black velvet bag from his pocket and upending it over his cupped hand. A miniature waterfall of brilliant cut diamonds poured out, catching every beam of the subdued light in the cellar and flicking them back out in a chaos of tiny rainbows.
It was absurd, and that much must have been obvious, but Gordon waited as V directed a careful, calm and pointed stare at the heap of gems before replying.
“It was,” V replied, his voice betraying no emotion stronger than, perhaps, a soupçon of wry humour. “You’ll recall that I promised you recompense? I trust that this will suffice.”
“Suffice?” Gordon echoed, his voice hollow and his eyes now feeling like two holes bored in solid granite. “V, these are stolen, aren’t they?”
“Of course they are,” V said at once, his tone now undeniably amused and, Gordon thought, ever so slightly patronising. However, once again he was subjected to that eerie sensation of a shift in the mask’s expression, and this time a smoke-curl of sorrow tainted the air between the two.
“I feel I am in a debt of apology, Gordon,” V continued, taking a step forward across the rug. “Of the two of us, I am the one with very little to lose, and I regret that I have involved you in these affairs. However...” here he hesitated, seemingly to marshal his flowing thoughts, and glanced at the far wall, “...I may not have been entirely clear about what lay before us and I had, perhaps, been remiss in leaving that explanation to your father when that duty properly belonged to me.”
Gordon was now helplessly lost in all of this. He closed his fist around the diamonds until they ached against his skin, and elected not to say anything until he had a halfway coherent idea of what he could possibly say. He was content just to listen as V continued.
“I am already a hunted fugitive,” he said, his tone now as soothing as a physician’s. “I had hoped that this was the one apparent fact in what must seem, to you, to be a tremendous mess of loose ends and shadows. If it was not apparent, that fault is mine, and not yours.
“However belatedly that understanding has arisen, though, I hope that you now understand why the very least that I am forced to undertake in order to make my way in the world is banditry?”
“I...” Gordon said, and then visibly sagged. V moved away, returning moments later with a mysteriously chilly glass of white wine. Placing a solicitous hand on Gordon’s shoulder, he led him to a nearby chair and urged him down onto it, placing the glass in his hand as he did so. Gordon gulped gratefully at this cold lifeline and waited until he trusted his voice again.
“I do understand,” he said, his throat both chilled and lubricated now, and consequently feeling quite some way better. “And I suppose you’re right. Things aren’t going to improve from this point on, are they?”
“No,” was the bare reply, from above his head.
“I believe I can live with a little brigandage, when it’s put into perspective,” Gordon went on, as if V hadn’t spoken. “And,” he laughed with only the merest edge of hysteria, “I wasn’t saying I wanted to give the diamonds back, if that’s what you thought.”
“Why, then the world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open,” said that sonorous voice, and when Gordon raised his head it was to see a bright and elfin spark cross those deep, dark eyes as V tossed his head back in genuine mirth.
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