The Affinity Bridge (7 page)

It gave, bursting open and slamming back against an iron girder that blocked the way on the other side. She wondered, for a moment, if Newbury would come running at the noise, but after a short while had passed and she could hear no sound of him, she decided to press on. Pushing back against the door, she decided she’d try to squeeze her way through the gap she had created between the doorway and the girder. She tucked her hat underneath her arm, her dark hair spilling out of its carefully prepared coiffure.

She manoeuvred her way into the opening. Inside, she could still feel the residual warmth from the burnt-out interior. The floor was covered in a sticky, mud-like residue, which she supposed had been created when the water from the hose carts had mixed with the soot and ash, forming a film of black grime upon the ground.

She looked around, and then dropped the handkerchief to the floor with a gasp. She stared in horror at the sight before her. Row-upon-row of passenger seats were filled with the remains of the dead. Horrific, skeletal cadavers sat fixed in their final death throes, gripping the seats in front of them, screaming at their neighbours, or else spilled out on to the floor where they had tried to find somewhere to run. It was as if someone had set out a grisly diorama, a charnel house audience locked away in this horrible room, awaiting an appointment with God. She approached, slowly, forcing back the rising bile in her throat. Her eyes filled with tears. It was the most appalling sight she had ever seen. She wondered why the people were nearly all still seated, why they hadn’t tried to bail out of the ship as it crashed, or at least taken cover in the hope that they may survive the impending impact. The corpses were all blackened and burnt, cooked flesh still clinging to the bones, terrified screams still fixed on their faces. She had no way of telling which of them had even been male or female, save for the occasional piece of jewellery still hanging around a woman’s throat.

Leaning close to one of the bodies, she noted the answer to her earlier question: the person had been tied into their seat, fixed by a hoop around their left foot to the base of the seat in front. She checked another, and another, and found that they were all the same. No wonder the people hadn’t tried to run. They couldn’t.

Veronica noticed a gentle patter of raindrops on her face. She looked up. High above, she could see the sky through the torn belly of the airship, the broken spokes of its internal structure poking up into the waning afternoon light. She realised almost immediately that the water droplets she had felt were not rain, but water from the hose carts, sprayed into the blazing inferno earlier that day and still dripping from the girders up above. She glanced around, looking for anything else that may be of use. She could see a hole in the left side of the room where the firemen had obviously dug their way through from the outside in an attempt to find survivors. She wondered how those men had reacted to the scene that had faced them. Had they too been as appalled as she was? She finally gave in to her horror and vomited on the ground, her eyes stinging as she retched, violently, over and over again, until there was nothing left for her body to expel. She stood, gasping, wondering if she’d ever be able to cleanse the smell of the burnt flesh from her hair and skin, or worse, from her nightmares. Perhaps she should have stayed outside after all.

She turned at the sound of the door banging against the girder. Newbury stepped into the room. He coughed, hacking on the smell of the still-warm bodies.

“My God.” He rushed to Veronica’s side. “Are you alright?”

Veronica coughed. “I’m not sure I shall ever be alright again. I just can’t believe the devastation. So many people dead, burned alive in the fires. What a horrible way to die.”

Newbury looked saddened. “It won’t have been a lingering death. The collapse of the gasbags will have caused a series of massive fireballs to blow through the ship. That probably explains why they’re all still in their seats.”

Veronica crouched down beside a row of seats. “That, and the fact that they were all tied into position like common criminals.” She showed him the loop of charred rope around the ankle of the nearest passenger.

“Stokes made no mention of the vessel being chartered as penal transport. Do you suspect he was trying to hide something?”

“I believe he was trying to cover his own back.” She stood again, blinking. “What did you find in the control room?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh.” She moved to turn away, anxious to put space between herself and the grisly scene, and then paused when he continued talking.

“That’s just it. Nothing. No pilot or co-pilot to be found. No bodies, no evidence to suggest they were ever there at all. It’s as if the pilot simply abandoned the controls.”

Veronica frowned. “Do you think that’s why the ship went down? Because the pilot wasn’t at the controls? Could he have bailed out before impact? Or could he be back here, unidentifiable now from the other passengers?”

“I suppose anything is possible.” Newbury looked up, noticing that the light was starting to go. “Come on. I think we’ve seen enough, and this is far from my ideal of one’s first time aboard an airship.” He looked circumspect. “Besides, I do believe we have some more questions for Mr. Stokes.”

Mr. Stokes was still standing around the police cordon when Newbury and Veronica edged up beside him. They were both filthy from clambering around in the wreckage, and Newbury was looking forward to retiring for the day, intent on a long soak in a hot bath. Stokes turned to regard them as they approached.

“Well, I do believe it’s true what they’ve been saying. The Crown
is
prepared to get its hands dirty from time to time.” He guffawed at his own joke.

Newbury was unmoved. “Foulkes?”

Stokes was obviously taken aback by Newbury’s directness. “Urn, no. He’s had to go off somewhere. Something about a fireman getting injured in the wreckage.”

“Well, Mr. Stokes, perhaps
you
could make yourself useful for a moment? I have another question and it’s very much in need of an answer.”

The other man nodded, apprehensive now.

“What became of the ship’s pilot? I’ve been down to the control room and there’s no evidence of a body. Indeed, there’s precious little evidence that a pilot was even onboard.”

Stokes’s complexion turned a ghostly shade of white. “The, um, the pilot is missing.”

“Missing? How does a pilot go
missing}
Did he bail out before the crash?”

“Not exactly, Sir Maurice… If I can just…”

“Look, man, I’m in no mood for your ridiculous evasions now! Can you answer the question or not?”

Veronica put a hand on Newbury’s arm in an effort to quell his rising temper. Stokes gave an audible sigh. “There is no way the pilot of that vessel could have bailed out before the crash.”

“And why is that, Mr. Stokes?” This from Veronica, who had evidently decided to step in and calm the situation before things got out of hand.

“Because it wasn’t a ‘he’. It was an ‘it.’” He rubbed his hands over his face in exasperation. “The pilot of
The Lady Armitage
was a clockwork automaton, designed by Mr. Villiers himself. They’re remarkable units, capable of many basic and, indeed, higher functions. But they are
not
programmed to abandon their stations in an emergency. They’re simply not capable of it.”

Newbury looked incredulous. “An automaton piloting an airship! Why didn’t you think to disclose this information before now? There’s the probable cause for your disaster, Mr. Stokes! The unit clearly malfunctioned.”

Stokes shook his head defensively. “Oh no, Sir Maurice. That’s simply not possible. The automatons have been piloting airships for nearly six months now, and safety records have improved dramatically during that period. Up to eighty percent! The programme is fully approved. We have all the necessary paperwork back at the office. I assure you, sir, that it’s a simple impossibility that the unit malfunctioned. It’s physically not possible.”

“So where is the unit now, Mr. Stokes?” Veronica smiled in a placatory fashion.

Stokes cleared his throat. He was clearly uncomfortable with the course of the entire conversation. “I’m afraid I have no idea. My report will state that the device was destroyed in the explosion. Now look,” He waved a manifest in front of them. “I really have to be getting on. I’m expected to provide a full passenger register for the police before the day is out.”

“Of course. We’re sorry to have kept you.” Veronica took Newbury’s proffered arm and began to edge away. Then, as if just remembering something, she stopped and looked back. “Oh, and Mr. Stokes? Just one more thing before you go?”

“Yes?”

“Could you tell me why all of the passengers were confined to their seats, with loops of rope around their ankles?”

Stokes looked as if he were about to choke. “A simple safety precaution, Miss Hobbes. In case of emergency all passengers are required to insert their left foot into the safety brace underneath the seat in front. It stops people tumbling all over the craft if the pilot encounters dangerous turbulence whilst airborne.”

Veronica nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Stokes, you’ve been most helpful.”

She watched with Newbury as the little man scuttled away, keen to put distance between him and the ire of the moonlighting academics. The light was fading now, the sun low in the sky over the city. The crowds of people around the edges of the park had begun to thin and disperse.

“You understand, of course, that there’s no feasible way in which the skeleton of a brass automaton could have been incinerated in that blaze? Especially when one considers that the majority of the human cadavers are still relatively intact.” Newbury sounded contemplative now, rather than angry.

Veronica nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

“I’m beginning to think that Her Majesty’s suspicions were correct. Something is definitely wrong here, and I’ll wager it has its roots in the offices of Chapman and Villiers Air Transportation Services.” He sighed, blinking to keep himself alert. “For now, though, I think it’s time I retired to my lodgings. Can I drop you at home on my way, Miss Hobbes?”

She nodded, clearly exhausted. “Please do, Sir Maurice.”

He held the cordon for her as they took their leave of the crash site and made their way to the nearest carriage.

The evening was still and cold as Newbury, attired only in a simple dressing gown, settled in his study before a roaring open fire. A book was open on his lap—
Trelawny’s History of Esoteric Societies of the Seventeenth Century
—one of the many aged, leather-bound volumes that lined the walls around the room. Other shelves held more bizarre specimens; vials of chemical compounds; jars filled with preserved biological samples; a pentagram cast out of twenty-four carat gold; the bleached skull of a chimpanzee and much more besides. Paper files were stacked neatly in rows along one wall, containing reams of case notes, old academic papers, clippings and other assorted reference materials, collected during many long hours of research. The study was his private haven, the room he filled with all of the ephemera of his life. It was the one place where he could relax, where he felt free to become himself and where much of his actual deduction was carried out; over time, the study had become a place of revelation. He eased back in his armchair and turned the pages in his book.