Dream London (26 page)

I turned away from the mirror and something lying on my bed caught my eye. A scroll. The fortune that Christine had bought for me. How on Earth had that got here? I was sure it had been left behind with my old clothes in the zoo. My new clothes, the ones that Honey Pepper had given me, had been taken outside by Mr Monagan to be burned. Who knew what power the Daddio might have over them?

That fortune. They wrote them on the Writing Floor of Angel Tower.

I had a sudden inkling that my future was held in that scroll, not because the scroll saw the future, but rather because the future was being written by the same people who had written on its yellow parchment: a group of well-mannered men and women who sat on the 839
^th
floor of a building that had grown up in the middle of the Square Mile and was casting its shadow over this world. A group of people who thought they knew the way the world should be run.

I carefully unrolled the scroll across the bed, and for the first time I read its full length.

You will meet a Stranger

You will be offered a job

You will be offered a second job

Go to the inn to meet a friend, one who will betray you

Go to the docks and meet your greatest friend, the one you will betray

Count the colours in the numbers, count the numbers in the words

Avoid the Monkeys in the cage

Attend the meeting at the tipping point of the world

You’re everywhere and nowhere, baby.

Be reminded of the fact that the answer is always love...

Love. The answer is always love. I let go of the scroll in disgust and watched as it rolled back up.

The answer is always love. That’s what you get when you write a fortune. If you don’t look beyond your own experience then all you ever get is what you are and this is what you end up with. Clichés and homilies.

I sat down on the bed feeling something close to despair. The room around me was taller and thinner than ever, stretching its way up to some future where people screwed and drank and recited poetry and sang songs in crowds, and then returned to sit alone in places like this.

A future where people just looked on the surface and disregarded the fact that underneath it all we were just stinking, damaged people who traded each others’ lives whilst reeking of monkey semen.

I hated myself.

There was a knock on the door. I didn’t answer.

Anna pushed it open.

“They’re all downstairs,” she said.

“Who are?” I asked.

She gave me a cool stare.

“Go and see. It’s beginning to move at last. We’re approaching the tipping point.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

“I think you do,” said Anna. “The meeting starts in five minutes in the dining room.”

She walked off, leaving the door open.

The scroll creaked a little on the bed as it rolled itself a little tighter. A line of text sat in plain view.

Attend the meeting at the tipping point of the world

PURPLE

THE MEETING AT THE TIPPING POINT OF THE WORLD

I
T WAS AFTER
midnight in the dining room of the Poison Yews.

The spies and plotters and criminals and outcasts of Dream London were seated around the Sinfields’ dining table.

Alan sat at the head of the table, a dazed expression on his face. Margaret sat by him, holding his hand. Bill was at the opposite end of the table, Amit Singh by her side, incongruous in a bright green turban. Two of Amit’s men sat on the other side of Bill.

Mister Monagan sat in the middle of the table, a bowl of freshly peeled eggs before him. As I watched he placed two eggs in his mouth at once and chewed them with a rapturous look on his face. Anna stood by the door, as inscrutable as ever.

“Captain Wedderburn,” she announced, as I entered the room.

I took a seat by Mister Monagan.

“Captain,” said Bill. “Mister Monagan has told us where you’ve been.”

I couldn’t meet Bill’s gaze. “It wasn’t how it looked,” I muttered. “She was putting on a show.” I shuddered. “She still forced me to eat an apple though.”

Amit Singh rose from his chair and came to my side.

“Let me see your mouth.”

I look at the ceiling, closed my eyes and opened my mouth. I felt warm fingers touch my jaw.

“Hmmm.”

“Well?” asked Bill.

“It’s taken,” said Amit.

“What’s taken?” I asked.

“The worm,” said Amit. “One bite was all it took.”

“Oh.” I didn’t feel as concerned as I thought I might have done.

“How do you feel?” asked Amit.

I smacked my lips. “Can I have some water? I’m thirsty.”

“Sorry,” said Amit. “No food or drink for you. It will only feed the thing that’s taking the place of your tongue.”

“How long has he got?” asked Bill from the far end of the table. She sounded as if she were asking about the warranty on her car.

“About six hours if he eats or drinks. Until he dies of thirst, otherwise. I can’t remove it,” Amit said to me, apologetically. “I have no power over it.”

“I feel the same as I did yesterday,” I said.

“Perhaps Honey Peppers and the rest do as well,” said Bill. “Maybe you can’t tell the difference in yourself. Remember that.”

She paused to allow that to sink in. The bitch.

“For what it’s worth, you seem the same to me at the moment.”

I was gripped by a raging thirst.

“I need to drink,” I said. “I have to eat and drink sometime.”

“Try and hold out for as long as you can,” said Amit. “I’ve got some people scouring the new libraries. They might come up with something.”

“But they probably won’t,” I said. I rubbed my chin and looked down at Bill.

“I might as well go out in a blaze of glory then. Get me a gun. I’m going after the Daddio.”

“A gun!” said Alan suddenly. “Where will we get the money to buy a gun from? I’m ruined. Shaqeel betrayed me!”

Margaret stared at him dispassionately

There was no sympathy to be found there.

“Sit down,” Bill snapped at me. “You’re not going after the Daddio. And Alan, we’ll sort something out about money.”

“Oh no,” said Alan, shaking his head. “You don’t know what it’s like here. I used to work on repossessions. They don’t
want
you to have money, you know. They want you in the workhouse...”

“You selfish bastard,” said Margaret. “You never gave a toss about signing off someone else’s bankruptcy, but now it’s going to happen to you, it’s all different.”

“Why did I trust Shaqeel?” asked Alan of the room in general.

“Be quiet!” said Bill.

Silence descended. Bill turned to me.

“Never mind the Daddio,” she said. “We’ve got a better use for you.”

“Uh huh,” I said. “Captain Wedderburn has had enough of acting for other people. Captain Wedderburn is back to looking after number one.”

“Oh, stop being so pompous,” said Bill.

“Pompous?” I said. “Do you have any better suggestions as to what I do?”

“Do the job you were supposed to do. Get up to the Contract Floor.”

“And what good would that do?” I waved a hand at Alan, tearful at the other end of the room. “This plan was doomed from the outset. The Cartel is a joke. We’re never going to achieve anything.”

“Of course the Cartel was never going to achieve anything,” said Amit, smoothly. “They were simply playing another role in Dream London. But they were our route into Angel Tower.”

“How?”

Amit smiled.

“Angel Tower has been summoning the rogues and gangsters to itself since the very beginning.” He laughed. “The biggest crooks were the first to be assimilated! All those money men in the City! See how quickly they worked for their new bosses, acquiring land and property throughout London!”

“But...” I paused. It made sense.

“All those lawyers and accountants, selling their services to the highest bidder. But Dream London didn’t stop there. After it had them it went after the estate agents, the landlords, all those people who earn a living off the sweat of someone else’s brow. Dream London bought and sold them all.”

“The bastards,” I said.

Amit smiled at that.

“Ah, but we are all bastards to varying degrees, aren’t we? Because what about the black economy? Dream London hadn’t forgotten that. All those business leaders who would turn a blind eye to a shady deal, and then those who turn both eyes full upon it. The out-and-out criminals. One by one we were summoned to Angel Tower and offered a new deal. And so the corruption reached lower and lower through the strata of Dream London society.” He laughed. “The trickle down effect, I believe it’s called.”

And at that point Bill interrupted.

“All the high ranking criminals,” she said with a nasty smile. “Then those in the middle. And then the little Napoleons. All those nasty little people who feed on the misery of others, who bring others down to make themselves seem better in their own eyes.”

She was talking about me. She leant across the table, eyes blazing.

“One by one they were summoned to the tower. That was our opening, we realised. We just had to stake out some of the bottom feeders. We had someone working in Angel Tower to tell us who was next to be summoned.”

She looked at Alan, slumped at the other end of the table. He turned away from me, he couldn’t meet my eye.

“Standard procedure. Move in on some poor unsuspecting schmuck who’s about to be offered work there anyway, and convince him that he was working for the good guys. Get him to go into the tower to collect information for us. Clever, eh?”

I’d heard all this before. But I wasn’t going to let them tar me with the same brush.

“Very neat,” I said. “Apart from one thing. I’m not some low level criminal. I just do what I do to get by.”

“You pimp a stable of whores, Captain Wedderburn. You’re scum.”

“Hey! I will not sit here whilst you insult Mister James like that!”

Mr Monagan had been sitting listening to the conversation in silence. Now he leapt to his feet, the carved chair clattering to the floor behind him.

“Mister James has been the soul of consideration to me from the moment that I arrived here! He has given me a job and somewhere to live!”

“I bet you’re paying a pretty penny for it,” said Amit.

“Why shouldn’t I pay?” said Mr Monagan. “I’m sorry, but I have seen Belltower End. The girls there were happy and looked after! It’s not his fault that the Daddio attacked.”

Those seated around the table stared at the orange man. Slowly, he sat down again.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” I said. “You’re a good friend, Mister Monagan.”

Bill laughed at that.

“Could you say the same, Captain Wedderburn?”

I scowled at her.

“Can you give one reason why I should stay in here?” I asked.

“The Daddio,” said Bill. “He’ll be looking for you.”

“Don’t you threaten Mister James!”

“Thank you, Mister Monagan.” I placed my hand on the orange man’s arm, then turned back to Bill.

“Who is the Daddio, anyway?” I asked. “What’s he got to do with Angel Tower?”

Amit spoke up.

“As far as we know, Captain, nothing. But once you open up a road, all sorts of things come walking down it. Dream London is open for business, and many creatures are making steps to exploit it.”

I thought about the Spiral, and the city at the bottom of the hole that was growing towards us. I thought about the parks, growing in the centre of Dream London.

“Oh hell,” I said. “What have we done to ourselves?”

“Never mind that,” said Bill. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Me?” I said. “I’m not going to do anything. I’m just a small time crook who likes to use people, remember? What can I possibly do?”

“You can stop acting like a child,” said Bill. “Listen to me. You want to do something worthwhile? You get yourself up to the Contract Floor, and then come back here and tell us what you’ve seen.”

“What use would that be?”

“We would know if the Contract Floor was worth anything, for starters. Where should we be concentrating our attention: the park or the towers?”

“How would I decide that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been up into the tower. But just imagine what might be there. The original contracts that signed the city over to Angel Tower. What if we could get our hands on them? And even if we couldn’t, at least we’d know if they are worth destroying...”

I stared at her, remembering our conversation of the previous evening.

“You’d bomb it,” I said. “You’d drop a nuclear bomb on it!”

“If we had to,” said Bill.

“What do you think about that?” I said, turning to Amit. He shrugged.

“The Indian government would do the same,” he said. “If they thought it would stop Dream London from spreading.”

“Why not drop the bomb anyway, by that logic?”

“What if it doesn’t work?” said Bill. “Worse, what if it only works once, what if Dream London only needs to see it at work once to find a way to neutralise subsequent bombs?”