The Domino Men

Chapter 18

What happened next was chaos in its purest form.

Cries of panic and disbelief, Dedlock screaming in our ears, the rattle of weapons, the jabber of gunfire, the bellow of Steerforth’s commands as he screamed phrases so dismayingly hackneyed I thought I would only ever hear them on television. “Secure the perimeter!” “Go, go, go!” “Damn it, I want them alive!” And all around us, the ceaseless swirl of fog.

Mr. Jasper had turned the color of chalk. “How did they do it?” he asked. “How was it so easy?”

“It’s a game,” Miss Morning murmured, a grim kind of satisfaction in her voice, a melancholy I-told-you-so crouched behind each syllable. “It’s always been a game to them.”

Steerforth turned to the soldier who still stood, stricken with shock, by his side.

“Captain, give me a status report.”

In the palm of his right hand, the soldier clutched a PDA which displayed an electronic street map of Whitehall.

“They’re on the move, sir.” He stabbed a finger toward two smudges of black that were barreling across the screen. “They’re heading toward the roadblock.”

“Then we can still catch them.” We all heard it then in Steerforth’s voice — that awful Ahab mania. “I need twenty volunteers.”

The pit bull of the Directorate got his volunteers that night — more than he had asked for. All the killers who were there lined up before him — brawny men in khaki, the kind who’d been good at games at school, now trained to murder on the say-so of the state. The captain was amongst them and as he strode across to join the others he trust his screen into my hands. I began to protest but he pressed it toward me with such insistent vigor that I felt I had no choice but to accept. It made me uneasy, this piece of high technology which turned men’s lives into pixels and reduced mortality to a mouse click.

As Steerforth was yelping more orders, exhorting them to bring the Prefects back alive, Miss Morning was shaking her head. “What a waste,” she murmured. “And they all seemed like such nice young men.”

Steerforth must have heard because he spun around to face her. “They’re the best. They’ll run those bastards down. You have my word.”

“Those creatures are death incarnate, Mr. Steerforth. Take it from me — your men won’t stand a chance.”

The soldiers sprinted into the fog, and as I scrutinized the screen, I saw twenty spots of white hare after the Prefects’ trails of black.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” Miss Morning said pityingly. “When will you people learn?”

The next few minutes were a study in impotence. Powerlessly, we watched as the white chased the black. We watched as the two colors met somewhere at the very tip of Whitehall and we watched as, one by one, the splashes of white were extinguished.

“No…” Steerforth whispered.

“Boys will be boys,” Miss Morning murmured with what, under the circumstances, I suppose should count gallows humor.

Dedlock was shouting in our ears again. “Are they dead? Are they all dead?”

Jasper tried his best to calm the situation. “It would seem so, sir, yes.”

“Where are they now?”

I consulted the PDA. “Moving out of Whitehall. Heading toward Trafalgar Square.”

“Then find them!” “Dedlock screamed.

A vein twitched in Steerforth’s temple. “Please, sir…”

“What is it, Mr. Steerforth?”

Despite the arctic tinge of the night, the man was sweating prodigiously. “I’m afraid, sir.”

“Steerforth! We do not have time for your soul-searching!”

Jasper moved to the burly man’s side and placed a hand discreetly on his arm. “You’re Mr. Steerforth.” His voice was gentle but underscored by steel. “You’re the hero of the Directorate. There’s nothing you’re afraid of.”

At the time, I assumed that Jasper was doing his best to support a friend and colleague, trying to cajole him into action. Now I’m not convinced that there wasn’t some other, darker agenda at work.

The voice of the old man crackled in our ears. “Stop bleating! Do your job!”

Steerforth seemed to come to a decision. He straightened himself up, pushed back his shoulders and snapped a reply: “Yes, sir!” Turning to the few of us who were left, he said: “I’m going after them. Who’s with me? Who’s bloody with me?”

“Steerforth?” Dedlock snarled. “Bring me their heads!”

“Yes, sir!” And again, filled with the unfettered joy of hara-kiri: “Yes! Sir!”

As Steerforth pelted into the fog, Jasper and I started, reluctantly, to follow.

I have never claimed to be a hero and I’m happy to admit that I was absolutely terrified. It wasn’t long before we came across the first of the corpses, the body of the young captain, contorted in death, splayed out on the Whitehall street like a doll abandoned by children who play too rough. I almost tripped over him and, at the sight, swallowed back a sick-bag surge of nausea and despair.

“What is it?” Dedlock bellowed in my earpiece. “What can you see?”

“Casualties, sir,” said Jasper.

“Bad?”

“Couldn’t be much worse.”

We walked on in silence, respectful though full of fear, treading through the fog past the ranks of the fallen.

Somewhere out of the billowing banks of mist came the voice of Mr. Steerforth: “I’m at the roadblock, sir. Everyone’s dead.” There was a swell of hysteria in his voice. “Did you hear me?” Everybody’s dead.”

“Mr. Steerforth!” Dedlock barked in everybody’s ears. “Moderate your tone!”

“Don’t you understand? Those things are loose in London. Nothing’s safe now. They’ll turn this city into a charnel house.”

“Clearly you’re not robust enough to cope. I’m taking charge of this operation personally.”

“With respect, sir-”

“I don’t give a tinker’s cuss for your respect,” Dedlock snapped. “Just give me what I want.”

“Please-”

It was too late. There was a grinding, crunching sound, the noise of clanking cogs and arthritic gears — and when Steerforth spoke again it was in the voice of Mr. Dedlock. There could be no question what had happened.

“Slaughter!” His voice was full of fury. “Slaughter on the streets of London.”

The rest of us hurried toward him, terrified of what we might find.

In our earpieces, Dedlock spoke again through Steerforth. “They’re heading toward Trafalgar Square. I’m going after them.” Then — “I can see them! I’m in pursuit.”

Somewhere ahead of us, he was dashing after the Prefects. It may have been my imagination but through my earpiece I was sure I could hear the malevolent lullaby of their laughter.

I can imagine how it would have gone, how they would have taunted and teased him, showing just enough of themselves — a flash of blazer, a glimpse of gnarled knee, a distant glint of penknife — just enough to keep him going, to feed him hope and lead him on.

We emerged at the mouth of Whitehall to find the roadblock in ruins and yet more tragedy, stumbled over in the fog.

Dedlock was screaming. “I can see them! I’ve got them in my sights.”

Jasper and I moved toward Trafalgar Square, where only the base of Nelson’s Column was visible, the great man’s view being mercifully obscured.

Steerforth was still shouting that he could see them, that he was going to bring them back and make them pay — although we could make out nothing ahead but endless fog.

Through our earpieces, we caught a fragment of conversation.

“Hello, sir!”

“You’re looking a bit peaky!”

“Not feeling yourself, sir?”

Much laughter at this, then a scuffling sound, then a thud, then a sickening crack.

Dedlock’s voice: “Forgive me. I have to leave you.”

Then, strangely, Steerforth’s again: “Please, sir. Don’t leave me like-”

He was interrupted by what sounded like a scream. There was an animal whine, cut abruptly short, the abattoir shriek of metal on bone. Then another sound, a bouncing, rolling noise like a bowling ball as it speeds toward the skittles.

Sometimes I dream about what we saw come wobbling out of the fog toward us, sliding over the tarmac of Trafalgar Square. I felt a powerful urge to vomit and even Mr. Jasper seemed to have tears (or something like them) swelling in his eyes.

It rolled to a stop a few centimeters before it reached me, saving me the embarrassment of having to halt its progress with my foot as though it were a child’s football kicked into the street.

Dedlock spoke again into my earpiece. “I think… I think Mr. Steerforth may have passed away.”

None of us replied. Jasper sank onto his haunches and, almost tenderly, picked up the disembodied thing. Still, there was silence.

“Apply yourselves!” Dedlock was shouting again. “Get me a status report.”

“The Prefects have disappeared,” I said flatly. “They’ve gone.”

“Gone?”

“They must have known we’d put tracers on them,” Jasper muttered wearily. “There’s only two of us left here, sir. What do you want us to do?”

Dedlock hissed. “I want you to find them!”

“With respect, sir. You’ve seen the casualties we’ve taken. You’d be sending us to our deaths.”

Then — a bitter order. No apology. No trace of sympathy. “Go back to Downing Street.”

We trudged forlornly to Number Ten, where Miss Morning was waiting. At the sight of what Jasper was carrying, she seemed to tremble on the edge of tears.

“Now you understand,” she said quietly.

Dedlock spoke again. “I’m sending in a whitewash team to deal with this mess. Our first priority must be to find the Prefects. They’re still our only like to Estella.”

“More than that,” Miss Morning said. “They would tear this city apart simply because they’re bored.”

“There are other resources available to the Directorate,” Dedlock said. “I’ll see all of you again at nine A.M. at the Eye for a council of war. Until then — get some rest. Guards will be posted at your homes. You’re dismissed.”

Miss Morning, who, lacking an earpiece, had not quite been following all of this, turned to me and said: “Tell him I’ll be seeing him tomorrow.”

“Sir?” I said. “Did you hear that?”

“Why would I want her?” he asked. “What do I need with a bloody secretary?”

“Tell him I understand these monsters. Tell him I know what makes them happy.”

There was a long pause. “Very well. Bring her. I’ll see you in five hours.”

Soon afterwards, Barnaby arrived to take us home. Miss Morning and I clambered wearily into the cab but Jasper elected to stay behind, clinging to what was left of Steerforth with a disturbing tenacity.

As we drove, I saw that Dedlock’s whitewash team had already moved in — a phalanx of people in what looked like full-body anoraks, the personification of unsqueamish efficiency with their scrubbing agents and wire brushes, their sponges, sprays and tweezers. The street was lined with polyester bags the size of coffins, zipped up snugly to hold the dead.

We were negotiating the circle of Trafalgar Square when a van screeched past us, speeding toward the seat of power. I caught a glimpse of its passengers — more killers, tooled up and bristling with eager death.

“Jackboots,” Miss Morning murmured. “Dedlock’s reserves. The chase goes on.” She yawned and settled back in her seat, bleakly deferential to defeat.

We were too exhausted and distraught for much conversation, but as Barnaby drove us through the glum streets of Elephant and Castle, Miss Morning muttered: “I’ve seen them.”

“What? I’d been staring out of the window, doing my best to forget.

“Whilst the rest of you were gone. I saw them. They were watching it all.”

“Who was watching?”

“The three,” she whispered. “The three are moving again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know them, Henry. The Englishman. The Irishman. The Scotsman.” Even after all the lurid horrors of the night, at this I felt a peculiar frisson of disgust.

I turned my face away from the old woman and stared through the window. All I could see was my own reflection in the glass — a haggard, weary man with pity and accusation in his eyes.

Dawn was skulking over the horizon and the fog was just beginning to lift when Barnaby dropped me back outside the flat in Tooting Bec.

I let myself in, set the alarm to give me four hours’ sleep, unpeeled my clothes and sank gratefully into bed, wriggling under the cocoon of the duvet, hugging it close for comfort.

When I woke again it seemed like mere minutes had passed, although the officious chirrup of my alarm insisted that it was past eight o’clock and that I had less than an hour to present myself at the Eye.

To my surprise and delight, Abbey was in my bed. She gave a little groan at the alarm.

“Thanks,” she said when I switched it off. She moved close to me and wrapped her arms around my chest.

“You’ve come back.”

“Of course I’ve come back.”

I kissed her on the forehead and I think my hand may have inadvertently brushed against her breasts. She gave a husky sigh of pleasure.

“Oh, Joe,” she murmured.

For a moment, I wondered if I had imagined it, but then she said it again, quite clearly, as though to leave me absolutely no room for doubt, no merciful space for self-delusion. “I can’t believe you’ve come back, Joe.”

“Joe?” I wondered aloud. “Who’s Joe?”

When I looked again, Abbey’s eyes were fluttering shut, her lips slightly parted as though in provocation for a kiss, and the last good thing in my life had just begun to dribble away.

For the first time in his long and privileged existence (with the regrettable exception of an indiscretion during his university freshers’ week, kept from the media only by the application of an improbably large donation from the royal purse) the Prince of Wales woke up the following morning without the faintest idea of where he was or why.

As soon as he came to after a peculiarly troubling dream (something about a little boy and a small gray cat) he felt the first flailings of panic. Struggling into an upright position, he surveyed the room in which he had woken — small, functional, yet dimly familiar. Beside him, on the floor by the sofa on which he had presumably passed the night, was a little heap of items which had nothing whatsoever to do with his life, stock props from the horror reel of someone else’s existence — tourniquet, syringe, a vial of bubble-gum pink liquid. It was around this time that the prince realized that he was wearing nothing more than his boxer shorts (florid, festooned with hearts and pineapples, purchased by Silverman at Laetitia’s request). Arthur had no memory of having stripped off his clothes and realized that someone must have done it for him. It was only when he noticed Mr. Streater, face-down on the bed and dressed in a silver thong which flossed insouciantly between his buttocks, that Arthur Windsor remembered the sight of the needle, the fizz of the liquid in his veins.

His emotions upon this realization were complex. Naturally, there was shame, a certain amount of humiliation and a large portion of self-chastisement, but there was also — and this was something that the prince was able to admit to himself only much later, when events had sucked him in, seemingly beyond the point of no return — a sneaking, secret pleasure, the shuddering joy of the forbidden.

Arthur retrieved his clothes from where Streater had abandoned them on the floor and began to dress himself. As he struggled on with his shirt, he noticed the neat, professional puncture mark on his left arm — the first, we are grieved to have to tell you, of the many which were to come — and felt a spasm of disgrace and self-pity. More than once his eyes drifted across the room and alighted upon Mr. Streater’s bottom, the smoothly pert contours of which he compared to his own sagging, hemorrhoid-ridden posterior and felt a swell of sadness.

Taking care to close the door as softly as possible, the prince tiptoed from the room and headed back toward his own. Aware of his wretchedly disheveled appearance, he moved as fast as he could, keeping his head down low, praying he would attract no attention. Relieved to find that there was no one on guard outside his quarters, the prince locked himself inside, took a shower and tried to make himself presentable, whilst all the while a hideous lust was dragging at his soul, hectoring, pleading, begging to get it what it needed.

The prince felt a flare of concern. Where was Silverman? Why had he not come to find him last night? And, worst of all, why was he not here now, to dress him? Arthur Windsor could count the number of times in his adult life when he had been forced to clothe himself on the fingers of a single hand.

He sat on the bed, reached for the telephone and dialed Silverman’s private number. It rang incessantly without reply. Confused, the prince rang through to the Clarence House switchboard.

“Hello?” The voice was young, female and, like the majority of her generation, tinged with the taint of estuary.

“This is the Prince of Wales.”

“Good morning, sir.”

“To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Beth, sir.”

“Ah yes.” The prince had a vague memory of false nails and hoop earrings. “Good morning to you, Beth. I’m trying to get through to Mr. Silverman. But he doesn’t seem to be picking up his telephone.”

One moment, sir.”

There was a click and a pause before Beth spoke again. “His private line’s working fine, sir. I’ll look into it and get back to you.”

“Many thanks to you, Beth. I’m most grateful.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The prince set down the receiver, paced, vacillated, chewed his fingernails, watched the little hand on his watch go 360 degrees, then picked up the telephone again. He tapped in a number which rang interminably before it was answered.

His wife sounded out of breath. “Who is this?”

“Laetitia?”

“Arthur? Is that you? Where have you been?”

Strangely, Arthur thought he heard a male voice on the other end of the line. His wife’s breathing seemed to grow heavier. “Darling? What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I’ve just woken up.”

“Nothing? Is that the truth? Is there something going on I don’t know about?”

“Of course not. I told you. Anyway, shouldn’t I be the one asking you that question?”

Arthur heard what sounded like a grunting sound on the other end of the line. “I rang to ask for your help,” he said, disgust pushing its way into his voice.

“I’m so sorry, Arthur. This isn’t really a good time. I don’t feel at all well. I’ve got to go.”

Without warning, the line went dead.

Forced, without Silverman, to make his own decisions, the prince had picked out a charcoal-colored suit and was dallying by the mirror, trying everything he could to make himself appear less pop-eyed and exhausted, when the telephone rang again.

“Laetitia?”

“It’s Beth here actually, sir.”

“Beth?”

“We spoke a moment ago, sir. I’m calling from the switchboard.”

“Beth! Of course.”

“I’ve located the whereabouts of Mr. Silverman, sir.”

The prince brightened. “Splendid. Where is he?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “He’s in the Princess of Wales’s quarters, sir. He’s with your wife.”

Arthur crept along the corridor which led to the large suite of rooms occupied by his wife, unsure of what he would say to her, struggling, like some Canute of infidelity, to hold back the tides of suspicion. The prince was not a man who sought or thrived on confrontation. If things had turned out differently, we suspect that he would have said nothing at all and done his best to ignore the telltale signs, perhaps returning to his apartment to wallow in melancholia. But, as you shall see, that is not how events unfurled.

When the door to his wife’s suite was unlocked from the inside, Arthur scurried back along the corridor, pressed himself flat against the wall and peered around the corner.

The door opened and Silverman strolled out, chased by the laughter of the prince’s wife. He tried to remember the last time he had made Laetitia laugh like that and came to the knife-twist conclusion that he never had. Not once.

Silverman was saying something impossible. It was hard to tell at such a distance and the prince was no lip-reader, but it looked like an invitation. An invitation and a promise. The equerry winked in a manner which we can only think of as salacious.

“It’s got to be our secret.” This was Laetitia, calling from inside.

The equerry snorted, winked again, closed the door and swaggered away down the corridor, upon which the prince had no choice but to emerge from his hiding place.

The man did not even have the decency to seem embarrassed. “Good morning, sir.”

“What were you doing in my wife’s quarters, Silverman?”

“She required my advice, sir.”

“Your advice?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

The prince looked at his old friend and now saw no treachery in his face, no skullduggery or lecherous deceit. “I needed someone to dress me and you weren’t there.”

“I’m so sorry, sir. I was on my way. You are not usually awake so early.”

“What time is it, Silverman?”

“Barely seven, sir.”

“Barely seven? Good God.”

“Is everything all right, sir? Is there anything I can attend to?”

“Of course not,” Arthur snapped. “How can everything be all right? I needed you to dress me and, as you can see, I’ve had to do that myself.” Without giving the equerry a chance to reply, the prince turned on his heel and stalked back to his rooms.

Inside, for a heartbeat, the mask slipped. He collapsed on his bed and let out a moan, the doomed cry of an animal dying in a trap. Then he collected himself, took a deep breath, reached for the phone and waited for his last true friend to speak.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Streater. So glad you’re awake.”

“Just got up. What can I do you for?”

“Please. Come to my rooms. I need you.”

“Sure. I’ll get dressed. Be right over.”

“And Mr. Streater?”

“Yep?”

“Bring me some ampersand.”

Down the telephone line, the prince could almost hear Mr. Streater’s smile.