The Forever Man Read online

  Riley’s own face must have shone with hope, for Nancy pinched the boy’s arm, her eyes blazing a warning.

  ‘Hold your nerve, boy,’ she whispered. ‘Or we lose this battle before a shot is fired.’

  Maccabee was the final person in the room.

  Sir James Maccabee.

  London’s most feared attorney. The attorney who had made his name leading the crusade against the scourge of highwaymen almost half a century since. They said that Sir James had stretched more necks than a turkey farmer. And, speaking of turkeys, here was the man himself, all buttoned up to his turkey neck and sweating like that selfsame fowl in the yuletide season.

  Terrified, Chevie realized. This Maccabee guy is quaking in his boots.

  This was the exact same observation that had vexed Tartan Nancy, though she phrased it rather differently in her head: What kind of evil cove is Lurky Boots if he can put the wind up a top gent like Maccabee?

  Riley cared not a jot for the beak or the Lurker. His eyes were on Tom, up and down his body and face, searching for clues. ‘Speak to me, Tommy,’ he pleaded. ‘Give me something to jog me memory. It’s been so long and I was so very little.’

  Maccabee laced his fingers, resting them on the prow of his belly, and in that stance it was easy to imagine him in chambers sporting the powdered wig.

  ‘No, sir,’ he said, his voice deep and rich but nervy like an actor’s on opening night. ‘He may not speak until our business is concluded. This man is condemned as a debtor, and as such he has no right to life nor any part of it until my client is satisfied. And I must say that bringing this young lady in here is hardly the perfect start to our business.’

  Nancy glared at Riley, a warning to hold his tongue, then she stepped forward, took a few puffs to demonstrate her calm and launched into the wheedle.

  ‘Come now, sir. We ain’t heathens. We ain’t in Scotland or the like. We is civilized Englishmen, God bless the queen and so forth. We is in a negotiation here, ain’t we? I brung the boy as you requested, and brought the lady as he requested. Now we must confirm whether or not the product is the genuine article, as it were, and not some fakery.’

  Maccabee glanced into the shadows before replying to this salvo. The man in shadow did not react visibly to the glance, not with so much as the twitch of a toe, but still Maccabee nodded rapidly as if he had received some orders.

  ‘I am afraid, madam, that this negotiation will not be like the others you have previously, eh, wheedled. My master … that is to say, my employer is not interested in your offer. He has terms, and they are absolute.’

  Nancy puffed up a storm, which hung in the eaves like a thundercloud. ‘Terms, is it? Terms now? We ain’t in the Bailey, Sir James. This here is a wheedle cell, and why for are we gathered here in the sight of God if not to wheedle?’

  Maccabee licked his fleshy lips. ‘Please, Nancy, please. For all our sakes …’

  The Lurker stamped the heel of one boot and the darkness seemed to ripple. The meaning was clear: Maccabee had said too much.

  Riley had only one ear on the conversation and the rest of his senses were focused on the man in the cage. Tom had been a boy when they had last met, barely older than he himself was now. Over a decade it had been since they shared a room when Riley was but a tot.

  Could this be Tom?

  Was it him?

  Riley’s heartstrings were being tugged right enough. Perhaps his instincts knew what his brain could not fathom.

  The Lurker’s boot stamp brought him fully back to the wheedle.

  ‘Your Honour,’ Riley said to Maccabee. ‘Tell your employer to name his terms, for there must be more to it than seeing me stew in this foul place.’

  Maccabee sat on a battered stool opposite the Lurker. The stool wobbled and clunked on the uneven floor.

  ‘There are terms,’ he said. ‘That is to say, a term. One term, which is not open for haggle. You take it or you leave it at your pleasure.’

  Nancy spat on the floor. ‘Do my ears confound me? One term? No haggling? What class of a wheedle is this? Come you out of the shadows, Lurker, or must I drag you?’

  Maccabee was upright so quickly that the stool toppled and the attorney himself staggered forward, off-balance.

  ‘Quiet, woman,’ he hissed, righting himself. ‘No talk of dragging. Do you want to see us all put under?’

  There was a noise from the Lurker’s corner then – a dry rasp, like the sound a rusty blade might produce when dragged along a stone. The disconcerting noise may have been a cough or a chuckle from the throat of a disturbed man. Whatever its origin, the sound did nothing to calm Maccabee’s nerves.

  ‘We must finish this business and be away from here,’ he shouted. ‘We must conclude, I tell you.’

  Nancy was vexed and confused. The advantage here should clearly be in her favour, as her opponent was wound tighter than a clock spring, and yet she felt outmanoeuvred. ‘Sir James Maccabee? That be you, am I right? The man that cleared the Great North Road?’

  Maccabee had apparently suffered enough of Nancy’s impudence.

  ‘I said, Quiet, woman! Blast you!’ he shouted, and for a moment the Old Bailey lion of legend asserted itself. ‘The single act that will secure the release of Thomas Riley from Newgate is as follows: one Riley for another. A simple trade.’

  Nancy gawped, for this was a condition unlike anything she had heard in her three decades in the wheedle business.

  Chevie filled the silence with outrage and blurted her first words since entering the chamber. ‘ OK. Enough with the garbage. We are so outta here.’

  A simple trio of sentences, but their effect was electric. Riley reacted instantly, backing away from Chevie as though she were the enemy.

  ‘No, Chevie,’ he said. ‘No. This is a decision for me to make. Mine alone.’

  Nancy wasn’t far behind. ‘No one leaves the chamber. Not till a deal is hammered. I ain’t having no amateur-like walkouts on Nancy’s watch.’

  But the most surprising reaction was from the Lurker. Surprising in that he reacted at all. Not that he was flinging himself about or bonking his head on the stonework, but, given that his sole contribution to the negotiations so far had been a tap of his boot and possibly a wry chuckle, it was surprising to see the boots withdraw entirely into the coal-black shadows with harsh scrapes at the sound of Chevie’s anachronistic expressions. And even more startling was the sight of the Lurker’s dark figure stretching to its full height and a single hand emerging from the corner into the candlelight.

  The slow-moving hand hypnotized the room’s occupants and they watched it as they might the head of some poisonous snake. The pale hand was cuffed by velvet and fringed with long fingers, which quested through the dark as though seeking to pinch the echoes of Chevie’s words. But then they stopped, reconsidered, curled themselves under the shell of fist and withdrew, leaving everyone spooked and none the wiser.

  ‘Well,’ said Nancy. ‘Well. That was a fine howjadoo, weren’t it?’

  The man who might be Tom defied the order imposed upon him to remain mute. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘In the name of mercy, please. I didn’t do nothing.’

  ‘I’ll do it!’ blurted Riley. ‘I accept. Him for me. A soul for a soul.’

  Maccabee bolted across the room, almost stumbling in his haste, and grabbed Riley’s hand. ‘Agreed,’ he said, and spat on the clasped hands to seal the deal, as he had heard once that this was how the lower classes conducted their business.

  ‘A pox on you, Maccabee,’ swore Nancy. ‘You shift yerself plenty quick when the mood takes you.’

  Maccabee sighed mightily, flapping his fleshy lips. ‘The deed is done, madam. The shake is shook.’

  Normally Chevie prided herself on her quick reactions, but for a person raised in twenty-first-century America’s litigious society this deal had been concluded in lightning fashion. There had been no haggling. No mock disbelief. No throwing of hands in the air. Just bang, boom, done. Shake, spit and that’
s all. Her friend had condemned himself to death.

  ‘Oh no no no,’ she said, as though admonishing a naughty group of children who had agreed to run off to Narnia together. ‘This isn’t happening on my watch. This deal smells so bad I hardly know where to start.’

  Riley was ready for the objections. ‘I know what you plan to say, Chevie. It ain’t really Tom, perhaps. Or we don’t even know what he is accused of.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Chevie. ‘And no offence to this so-called Tom guy but I don’t know him from Lady freaking Gaga. Not to mention the fact that we’re all having our chains yanked by some creep in the corner. No, thank you. This stinks. We are vacating the premises. Elvis and his entourage are leaving the building.’

  Riley closed his eyes tight, as if he could shut out Chevie entirely. ‘I have no choice, my dear friend. None. There ain’t no horns and no dilemma. If there is a single chance in a dozen that this is my kin, then I must take the chance. I must.’ Riley thought of a devastating argument and opened his eyes to present it. ‘Were this your father, Chevron, would you not do anything to save him?’

  Chevie stepped back. That was a cruel argument to throw in her face, but Riley was right – she would do whatever it took to save her dad from pinwheeling his flaming Harley on the Pacific Coast Highway, including switching places with him. She would do it in a heartbeat and without guarantee.

  Maccabee threw his eyes to heaven and his hands in the air. ‘It matters not. None of this. The deal is struck. Our hands shook and that is both legal and final. Consult your wheedler if you doubt it.’

  Chevie turned to Nancy, who was fumbling with the makings of a smoke. ‘Is he right? Does the handshake do it?’

  Nance spat on the floor, and not just a symbolic blobette of spittle: a weighty globule that would have drowned a cockroach.

  ‘Yes, blast the pair of you. Yes, it seals it. And my reputation too. Not one matchstick did I wheedle out of this do. Not a sausage.’

  Maccabee seemed to be regaining his poise now that the deal was done. ‘You have gained more than you know, madam, believe me. For more was at stake than you could realize.’

  Another noise from the shadows. Perhaps a grunt, perhaps a convulsive retch, then the ghostly hand reappeared, index finger ticking like a pendulum. The message was clear. To business.

  ‘I agree with the Lurker’s finger,’ said Nancy. ‘I am for finishing this bowl of tripe.’ She banged on the door with the side of her fist. ‘Broadband, get yer carcass in here and open the box.’

  There followed a full minute of clatter and rattle before Broadband stumbled inside, a weighty ring of keys dangling from his hands.

  ‘Apologies for the delay,’ he said, shamefaced. ‘Only sometimes I forgets which door is locked. Cos there are two doors and I know one is locked, only sometimes I forget which one, so I was endeavourin’ to unlock a door what was unlocked already, which is what delayed my arrival.’

  The Lurker clapped from the shadows. It seemed he was now in fine form, but he was still not choosing to reveal himself or even speak.

  Maccabee’s spirits were on the rise too. ‘What a capital fellow. Destined for the House of Commons, he is.’

  Broadband was smart enough to know he was being mocked but also smart enough not to make a big deal of it, or he might end up on the wrong side of a locked door himself.

  ‘We is finished here, I takes it,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nancy. ‘A pox on this day and the memory of it, which I shall carry to my grave.’

  Riley pulled Chevie into a corner diagonally opposite to the Lurker.

  ‘I’m going into the box,’ he whispered with some urgency. ‘Ain’t no avoiding that now.’

  ‘You crazy kid,’ hissed Chevie. ‘What’s going on in that thick head?’

  ‘We ain’t got time now,’ said Riley, his mouth close to her ear. ‘Seconds we got, is all. So listen careful. I got the tools for this door and the one outside, but then I’m stumped. Go to Otto Malarkey and ask him to clear a path for me to the wall. After that it’s cake, believe me. All I need is the moonlight and a smidge of luck and I will float right out of this hellhole. Coves manage it every day, and none too smart ones neither.’

  Chevie nodded. ‘ OK. I got it, Riley. You mad fool. I’ll talk to Otto. I’ll drag him here if I have to – but, once you’re out, what then? We don’t even know what’s going on here.’

  Riley’s eyes flitted towards the darkness of the opposite corner. ‘One problem at a time. Dodge the rope, that’s my goal for the time being. Once that’s taken care of and Tom is safely stashed, then we can investigate this shady character and why my person is so important to him.’

  Chevie felt as though events were leaving her behind. She had missed the bus by a fingertip and was now rushing to catch up. Her instincts screamed at her to take control of this room. She was pretty sure she could subdue everyone in here, including the Lurker himself. But what then? Could she break them all out of Newgate? And, once on the outside, where could they go? Unless there was a time portal handy, they were stuck in Victorian London with the entire constabulary on their tails.

  The damage was done and she would have to make the best of it.

  ‘Some bodyguard I turned out to be,’ she said to Riley.

  ‘I scuppered you myself,’ the boy said. ‘I put me own head in the noose.’

  Broadband had by this time got his keys in order and set about unlocking the cage, to the visible relief of the ginger prisoner, who was rattling the door, eager to be away.

  ‘Hold yer powder there, convict,’ grumbled the guard. ‘This lock is sensitive. It don’t open unless you approach it just right, and you is throwing me off me diddle.’

  In spite of the guard’s moaning, the cage door sprang easily enough and swung open on its oiled hinges without creak or whine.

  Tom smiled at last and then took to weeping, the sheer relief being too much for him.

  Riley took his hand and led him out. ‘There now, brother. The ordeal is past. Miss Chevron here has a nice cot waiting for you and a flask of cider to see you off to nod.’

  Tom snuffled and said, ‘My thanks, mister. Thank you kindly. Bless you, mister.’

  Mister? thought Chevie. A strange thing to call a brother.

  Riley must have thought it too, for he said something, which may have been ‘Wait …’

  But then it seemed as though time somehow expanded to allow for a greater concentration of events than it could usually accommodate. The Lurker was out of his corner with the speed of a flickering shadow and up behind the man called Tom before his image could settle upon the eyes. Then he had Tom by the throat and dragged him to the main door, barricading it with his own body. The shadows seemed to follow him, for he was still not entirely visible – there were just details that seemed not to stand still long enough for classification. Such as the four fingers now clamped round Tom’s neck. Thin, white fingers that shone like glow-worms. Fingers that were clearer now than they had been. The long white fingers of a pianist.

  Or an assassin.

  In that instant Riley knew the truth and all hope left his body with the huff of his breath.

  The assassin has returned. Albert Garrick has cheated time and death.

  Though he could see but fingers, there was not a doubt in Riley’s mind. He knew each nail and knuckle intimately from the many beatings he had endured over the years. How often had Albert Garrick lashed out in a rage? A thousand times over, surely. Most memorably on the occasions when Riley had attempted to flee from his cruel master. Many times those selfsame fingers had been the last things Riley had seen before sinking into the fog of concussion. He had nightmares about those fingers to this very day.

  The digits had changed, it was true. They had turned pale and bore some new scar tissue, but Riley felt sure they belonged to the demon Albert Garrick. So certain was he that he blurted it out – ‘Garrick! Albert Garrick!’ – and in that instant he felt no fear for himself, only a cra
mping terror that Garrick would kill his brother for the sport of it.

  Chevie, who had been moving obliquely to a flanking position, stopped in her tracks, as though petrified by the Medusa of legend.

  ‘No,’ she whispered, and then with more force: ‘No!’ She would not have it. ‘Garrick is dead.’

  Riley responded with even more force. ‘No, that devil is alive!’

  And what happened next set Maccabee’s heart, already labouring to pump his life’s blood through arteries clogged by decades of rich living, into a fatal convulsion. Because Albert Garrick’s head appeared, like a macabre balloon, in the space above Ginger Tom’s shoulder.

  ‘Garrick is dead!’ his head crowed, his face as pale as his hands. Like alabaster it was, except for the deep wrinkles round the eyes that might have been scrawled by slate pencil. Then he added: ‘Or perhaps he yet lives.’

  It seemed at first glance as though Garrick had been driven stark raving mad, with his face of stone and bloodcurdling shriek, but then Chevie saw that he was not mad but exultant. A man whose dreams have finally come true.

  Broadband was a bit confused with all the happenings, and stared at his fingers as though the events could be counted off. Eventually he said, ‘Eh?’ But this was his final word for some time, as Garrick treated the single confused syllable as a threat and magicked a weighted cosh from some poke or flap and hurled it at the prison guard, felling him where he stood.

  For her part, Nancy, who talked for a living and had been in tight spots as a matter of course, straightened her pristine bonnet, cleared her throat and chose her words with considerable caution. ‘Now then, Your Honour. Surely you ain’t got no need for a wheedler no more …’

  Garrick did not speak to Tartan Nancy, simply treated her to a devil’s glare, which was sufficient to send her stumbling backwards as though pushed.

  You stay right here, Nancy girl, she told herself. Keep yer back to the cell wall and p’raps you shall live to wheedle another day.

  But she didn’t believe this. She believed that the madman would slaughter them all with no more thought than a child squashing ants.