Weaveworld

VII

TALES OF SPOOK CITY

1

ive weeks after Brendan’s remains had been scattered on the Lawn of Remembrance, Cal opened the door to a man with a wry, ruddy face, sparse hair brushed ear to ear to shelter his pate, and the stub of a hefty cigar between his fingers.

‘Mr Mooney?’ he said, and without waiting for confirmation, went on: ‘You don’t know me. My name’s Gluck.’ Transferring his cigar from right to left he gripped Cal’s hand and shook it vigorously. ‘Anthony Gluck,’ he said. The man’s face was vaguely familiar; from where, Cal wracked his brain to remember. ‘I wonder,’ Gluck said, ‘if I may have a word with you?’

‘I vote Labour,’ said Cal.

‘I’m not canvassing. I’m interested in the house.’

‘Oh,’ said Cal, beaming. Then come on in,’ and he led Gluck through into the dining-room. The man was at the window in an instant, peering into the garden.

‘Ah!’ he said. ‘So this is it.’

‘It’s chaos at the moment,’ said Cal with faint apology.

‘You left it untouched?’ said Gluck.

‘Untouched?’

‘Since the events in Chariot Street.’

‘Do you really want to buy the house?’ said Cal.

‘Buy?’ said Gluck. ‘Oh no, I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize it was for sale.’

‘You said you were interested –’

‘So I am. But not to buy. No, I’m interested in the place because it was the centre of the disturbances last August. Am I right?’

Cal had only a patchwork memory of the events of that day. Certainly he remembered the freak whirlwind that had done so much damage in Chariot Street. He remembered the interview with Hobart quite clearly too; and how it had prevented his meeting with Suzanna. But there was much else – the Rake, the death of Lilia, indeed everything that sprang from the matter of the Fugue – that his mind had eclipsed.

Gluck’s enthusiasm intrigued him however.

‘That was no natural event,’ he said. ‘Not by a long chalk. It was a perfect example of what we in the business call anomalous phenomena.’

‘Business?’

‘You know what some people are calling Liverpool these days?’

‘No.’

‘Spook City.’

‘Spook City?’

‘And with good reason, believe me.’

‘What did you mean when you said business?’

‘In essence it’s very simple. I document events that defy explanation; events that fall outside the comprehension of the scientific community, which people therefore choose not to see. Anomalous phenomena.’

‘This has always been a windy city,’ Cal pointed out.

‘Believe me,’ said Gluck, ‘there was more to what happened here last summer than a high wind. There was a house on the other side of the river simply reduced to rubble overnight. There were mass hallucinations that took place in broad daylight. There were lights in the sky – brilliant lights – witnessed by hundreds of people. All that and more happened in the vicinity of this city, over a two or three day time period. Does that sound like coincidence to you?’

‘No. If you’re sure it all –’

‘All happened? Oh, it happened Mr Mooney. I’ve been collecting this kind of material for twenty years and more, collecting and collating it, and there are patterns in these phenomena.’

‘They don’t just happen here, then?’

‘Good God, no. I get reports sent to me from all over Europe. After a while, you begin to see some kind of picture emerge.’

As Gluck spoke Cal remembered where he’d seen the man before. On a television programme, talking – if he remembered rightly – about governmental silence on visits from alien ambassadors.

‘What happened in Chariot Street,’ he was saying, ‘and all over this city, is part of a pattern which is perfectly apparent to those of us who study these things.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means we’re watched, Mr Mooney. We’re scrutinized the live-long day.’

‘Who by?’

‘Creatures from another world, with a technology which beggars our own. I’ve only seen fragments of their artifacts, left behind by careless voyagers. But they’re enough to prove we’re less to them than household pets.’

‘Really?’

‘I recognize that look, Mr Mooney,’ said Gluck, without irritation. ‘You’re humouring me. But I’ve seen the evidence with my own eyes. Especially in this past year. Either they’re getting more careless, or they simply don’t mind if we’re wise to them any longer.’

‘Which means what?’

‘That their plans for us are entering some final phase. That their installations on our planet are in place, and we’ll be defeated before we begin.’

‘They mean to invade us?’

‘You may scoff – ’

‘I’m not scoffing. Really I’m not. I can’t say it’s easy to believe, but …’ He thought, for the first time in many months, of Mad Mooney. ‘… I’m interested to hear what you have to say.’

‘Well,’ said Gluck, his fierce expression mellowing. That makes a refreshing change. I’m usually thought of as comic relief. But let me tell you: I’m scrupulous in my researches.’

‘I believe it.’

‘I’ve no need to massage the truth,’ he said proudly, ‘It’s quite convincing enough as it is.’

He talked on, of his recent investigations, and what they’d turned up. Britain, it seemed, was alive from end to end with events prodigious and bizarre. Had Cal heard, he enquired, of the rain of deep-sea fish that had fallen on Halifax?; or the village in Wiltshire that boasted its own Borealis?; or of the three-year-old in Blackpool whose grasp of hieroglyphics had been picture-perfect since birth? All true stories, he claimed; all verifiable. And they were the least of it. The island seemed to be ankle-deep in miracles to which most of its inhabitants turned a blind eye.

‘The truth’s in front of our noses,’ said Gluck. ‘If we could only see it. The visitors are here. In England.’

It was an attractive notion – an apocalypse of fishes and wise children, to turn England inside out; and nonsensical as the facts appeared, Gluck’s conviction was powerfully persuasive. But there was something wrong with his thesis. Cal couldn’t work out what – and he certainly wasn’t in any position to argue the point – but his gut told him that somewhere along the road Gluck had taken a wrong turning. What was so unsettling was the process this fabulous litany had begun in his head; a scrabbling for some fact he’d once possessed and now forgotten. Just beyond his fingertips.

‘Of course, there’s been an official cover-up,’ Gluck was saying, ‘here in Spook City.’

‘Cover-up?’

‘Certainly. It wasn’t just houses that disappeared. People went too. Lured here, at least that’s what my information suggests. Moneyed people; people with important friends, who came here and never left. Or at least not of their own accord.’

‘Extraordinary.’

‘Oh, I could tell you tales that would make the disappearance of a plutocrat seem small beer.’ Gluck re-kindled his cigar, which had died each time he’d taken off on some fresh tack. He puffed on it until he was veiled in smoke. ‘But we know so little,’ he said. ‘That’s why I keep searching, keep asking. I would have been on your doorstep a lot earlier, but that things have been so hectic’

‘I don’t think there’s much I can tell you,’ said Cal. ‘That whole period’s sort of vague –’

‘Yes,’ said Gluck. ‘It would be. I’ve had this happen repeatedly. Witnesses simply forgetting. I believe it’s something our friends –’ he pointed the wet end of his cigar skyward, ‘– are able to induce: this forgetfulness. Was there anybody else in the house that day?’

‘My father. I think.’

He couldn’t even be perfectly certain of that.

‘Might I have a word with him?’

‘He’s dead. He died last month.’

‘Oh. My condolences. Was it sudden?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re selling the house then. Leaving Liverpool to its own devices?’

Cal shrugged. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. Gluck peered at him out of the smoke. ‘I just can’t seem to make up my mind about much these days,’ Cal confessed. ‘It’s like I’m living in a dream.’

You never spoke a truer word, said a voice at the back of his head.

‘I understand,’ said Gluck. ‘Truly I do.’

He unbuttoned his jacket, and opened it. Cal’s heartbeat unaccountably quickened, but all the man was doing was fishing in his inside pocket for his visiting card.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Please. Take it.’

A. V. Gluck, the card announced, and below the Birmingham address a phrase, in red ink:

What is now proved was once only imagined.

‘Who’s the quote from?’

‘William Blake,’ said Gluck. “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Would you keep the card? If anything should occur to you; anything … anomalous … I’d like to hear from you.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ Cal said. He looked at the card again. ‘What does V. stand for?’ he asked.

‘Virgil,’ Gluck confided. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘everybody should have some little secret, don’t you think?’