The Doorkeepers (28 page)

He waited for almost half a minute for Josh to answer. Then he beckoned to the police officer again.

It was then that Josh knew that he wasn't going to be able to take any more hymns on the Holy Harp. His training in the Marines had given him a high degree of tolerance to physical pain; and his studies of Zen and hypnosis had made him mentally able to detach himself from his immediate surroundings. But the agony of the Holy Harp had penetrated right through to the very root of his soul. It had taken away everything: his pride, his dignity, his endurance – and most of all, it had taken away his humanity. He had been reduced to the level of an insect, writhing in agony on the end of a pointed stick.

He scrabbled for the pen, picked it up, dropped it, and then made another desperate grab for it. As he tried to lean forward, the wires in his mouth tugged at the nerves in his teeth and his eyes filled with tears. Edridge watched him in amusement.

“You want to write something else, perhaps? Don't tell me that you wish to confess.”

Wincing, Josh managed to scrawl,
Yes dont hurt Cutter.

“You're sure of this? You're going to tell us everything you know? You won't change your mind once we release you from the Holy Harp?”

No.
Josh didn't have any idea what he was going to tell them, but he knew that he would rather invent names and addresses and subversive secrets than face any more pain. At
least it would give him time; and he knew that Nancy wouldn't abandon him here.

Edridge nodded to the police officer and the police officer picked up the phone. A few minutes later a thin young man in a white lab coat and wire-rimmed glasses came in, carrying a small leather wallet. He drew up a chair, sat down beside Josh, and opened the wallet to reveal a neat set of shiny little tools.

“Still as you can, please,” he said. His breath smelled of spring onions. With the smallest of wrenches, he unfastened the tiny bolts that had been screwed into Josh's teeth. Josh breathed in through his mouth, and the cold air was sucked directly on to his nerves.

One by one, the dental wires were released and drawn out of his mouth. Then the thin young man unfastened the wires that went right through his body and were screwed to the back of the chair. He had to slide them right through Josh's muscles, and through the soft tissue of his abdomen. When he drew the wire out of his penis Josh had to bite his own hand.

He might have fainted. He remembered being helped out of the seat. He remembered somebody wrapping a coarse woolen bathrobe around him. But the next thing he knew, he was crouched up in the fetal position on a thin ticking mattress, on an iron bedstead, in a pale green cell. It must have been morning, because there was wishy-washy light coming in through the high barred window.

He eased himself gradually into a sitting position. His mouth was enormously swollen, and when he opened his bathrobe he saw that his whole body was peppered with tiny scarlet wounds, as well as dozens of purple and yellow bruises. The last time he had felt as bad as this was when he had driven his Firebird into a sofa-bed that somebody had dropped in the middle of the San Diego freeway, and rolled over three times.

Outside his door he heard whistling and laughter and the scratching of dogs' claws on linoleum flooring. His teeth ached so badly that he was almost tempted to bang his face against the bedrail and knock them all out. He tried
to stand up, but the pain between his legs was unbearable.

He lay down again, and in spite of his pain, he managed to doze for a while. An image of Julia and her daisy kept spinning slowly through his mind, around and around. He hoped to God that she hadn't suffered as much as this.

He didn't hear Edridge and the Hooded Man come into his cell. He opened his eyes and there they were, standing over him.

Edridge said, “Feeling fit, Mr Winward? We're going for a little ride.”

A black Ford V8 was waiting for them in the courtyard. The rain was lighter now, whirling down in a fine, prickling spray, but still enough to give them a soaking. One of the Hooded Men was already waiting in the front passenger seat, next to a uniformed driver with a haircut so short that the back of his neck bristled. But neither of them turned around as Josh was pushed into the back seat, sitting between a plain-clothes police officer in a brown double-breasted mackintosh and Master Thomas Edridge, in his hood.

“Let's get cracking,” said Edridge. They drove out of Great Scotland Yard and headed east, along the Embankment. Josh was still feeling swimmy with shock, and every jolt was agony, but he kept thinking to himself that he still had a chance. What had they told him during his Marine training? “Every minute you're alive, that's an extra minute to take the advantage.” And what had he read from the Chinese scholar Lao-TzÅ«? “The Way is an empty vessel that may yet be drawn from.”

“Where are you taking me?” he asked Edridge, in a puffy voice.

“The Tower, you'll be privileged to hear. We have some people there who are very good with blasphemers and subversives.”

“The Tower? Isn't that where they used to lock up traitors?”

“What do you think
you
are, Mr Winward?”

The Ford's transmission whined; the windshield wipers
flapped feebly against the rain. The plain-clothes policeman began an elaborate exploration of his right nostril with the tip of his index finger. In another time, in another place, in another world, Josh would have said something sarcastic.

They had almost reached Blackfriars Bridge. On their left, an exit ramp led up to New Bridge Street. As they approached it, Josh was sure that he could see headlights coming
down
it, in the wrong direction, and coming down it fast. Other vehicles were swerving to the side of the exit ramp to get out of the way. As they came closer, Josh could see that they belonged to a huge dray lorry, loaded with wooden kegs of beer.

“Bloody hell!” said the police driver. “What the bloody hell does he think he's—”

Edridge gripped the seat in front of him. Even the Hooded Man raised his arm to protect himself. But the dray came roaring straight down the ramp without slowing down at all, and collided directly with the front of their car. With an ear-splitting smash, they were spun around on their axis, and collided backward with the median strip. Josh was thrown forward, hitting his chin on the seat in front. The Hooded Man knocked his head so hard against the passenger window that it cracked.

“Get out of here!”
Edridge screamed at the driver.
“Put your foot down! It's an ambush!”

The driver must have broken his ribs on the steering wheel, because his face was gray and he was whining for breath. Next to Josh, the plain-clothes policeman reached into his coat and produced a large Webley revolver. He wound down the window and jabbed it wildly at everybody that he could see, shouting, “Keep your distance! Keep your distance! Police! That's an order!”

With a miserable slithering of tires, the driver managed to get the Ford moving. “Go!” screamed Edridge. But before they could cover more than fifteen feet, another car came hurtling toward them – a big black car like a Pierce-Arrow, its headlights blazing – and it crashed into them at nearly twenty miles an hour. They were hurtled backward, and the Ford hit the side of the Blackfriars underpass so hard that its trunk was flattened.

Josh, stunned, was aware of men in long flappy raincoats running across the road. The front passenger door was wrenched open and the Hooded Man fell sideways on to the tarmac. The plain-clothes policeman seemed to have lost his gun, because he was fumbling around on the floor, but then his door was pulled open, too. Josh saw an iron bar swing, and the policeman was cracked so hard on the side of the head that he dropped into the gutter, quaking.

Edridge was struggling to open his door, but it had been jammed by their last collision. He turned to Josh and both of his eyes were bloodshot, like a vampire's. “You will pay for this, you and your friends! You will burn in hell, for ever and ever, as Latimer and Ridley had to burn!”

He was still struggling when his window was smashed open with a hammer, and he was showered with glass.

“I am Master Thomas Edridge!”
he screamed.
“You dare to touch me, on pain of execution!”

Two hands in grubby gray mittens reached in through the window. One hand snatched at Edrige's little ponytail, and forced his head back, exposing his protuberant Adam's apple. The other hand held an upholsterer's knife, short-bladed and sharp. Edridge didn't even have time to protest before it sliced across his throat. It happened so quickly that Josh didn't understand what was going on; but the next thing he knew there was warm blood spattering his hands. The car door was heaved open, and Edridge tumbled out sideways, with a gargling noise.

The mittened hands took hold of Josh's arm and pulled him across the back seat. For a terrible moment he thought that he was going to be killed, too. But then an urgent voice said, “Come on, Mr Winward. We have to skip out of here quick!”

Josh managed to climb out of the car. He supported himself on the roof for a moment, his eyes half-closed against the drizzle. Then he staggered: he could hardly walk. A tall young curly-headed man in a gray raincoat helped him across the street, his feet tripping and stumbling. Four or five young men and women were keeping watch all around them, in
poses that were almost heroic. They lifted him into the back of the Pierce-Arrow, and climbed in beside him. He heard doors slamming, and then they were roaring away down Upper Thames Street.

They swerved left, and then right, and then up through all the steep side-turnings between St Paul's and the river. The Pierce-Arrow was a huge car, with very soft suspension, and it collided several times with roadside bollards and parked cars and boxes of rubbish. But at last they skirted their way around St Paul's Cathedral, and the first police car they saw with its blue light flashing and its bell ringing was speeding off in the opposite direction, back to Blackfriars.

A black face appeared over the top of the front seat, and gave Josh a wide and toothy smile. Ella – with her hair knotted up in a scarf, so that she looked like a 1930s scrubwoman.

“How are you doing, Josh? You look like something the cat sicked up.”

“Ella?”
he said. He could hardly believe it.

“It's a long story, Josh. But don't worry. Everything's going to be fine.”

Another face turned around from the front seat. It was John Farbelow, his thistledown hair concealed beneath an old black beret, his chin prickly with white stubble. “Welcome back, Josh,” he told him. “That little exercise tested our resources, I'll have to admit. But we couldn't let the Hoodies have you, could we?”

“You've been here before?” Josh asked Ella. “You
know
these people?”

“I was born here, Josh. Brought up here.”

“I don't get it. The séance … the letter … why did you bother with any of that?”

“I'm sorry,” said Ella. “I have to confess that I put you both at risk. But like I told Nancy, I didn't really know how genuine you were. The Hoodies have agents and informers absolutely everywhere.”

“Well … our informers aren't bad, either,” said John Farbelow, with a satisfied smile. “We knew which car Josh was going to be traveling in; we knew approximately when;
and the rest was just a case of being totally violent.” He paused, and lit a cigarette. “The dray was good, though, wasn't it? I mean, what's anybody going to do when they see eight tons of best bitter hurtling toward them?”

Ella playfully tugged his beret down at the back. “You know as well as I do that it was a fantastic piece of planning. You did well, John. And so did all the rest of you. Thanks.”

They kept speeding north-westward – jolting down sidestreets, bouncing through mews and garage blocks and private driveways and parks. The rain was lashing down harder still, and it was so dark inside the Pierce-Arrow that they could hardly distinguish each other's faces.

“How's Nancy?” asked Josh. “She didn't come back with you, did she?”

“Nancy's great. She's back at your hotel, resting.”

“How are we going to get back?”

“The Farringdon door,” said John Farbelow. “It isn't used very often, because it's difficult to find. The Hoodies will probably think that you've gone back to Star Yard.”

“I didn't tell them anything,” said Josh. “They knew your name already; and they knew that Simon Cutter had taken us to see you.”

“You can't keep any secrets in the resistance,” John Farbelow replied. “There's too much bribery, too little faith. Anyhow, I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd blabbed. Nobody can take more than two or three hymns on the Holy Harp. My friend Michael died when they did it to him. Heart attack. And of course the Masters of Religious Observance never take the blame. ‘Death by natural causes in the course of routine judicial questioning.'”

They reached the corner of Farringdon Street and Bowling Green Lane. It had suddenly stopped raining, even though the gutters were flooded and cars were still swishing past them in clouds of spray. Josh was helped out of the car and across the street, with John Farbelow and Ella following close behind. They passed a sandwich shop on the corner, with steamed-up windows and a sign advertising Craven A cigarettes – “the only cigarettes that don't hurt my throat”. Just past the sandwich
shop was a narrow alleyway which Josh would never have noticed if it hadn't been pointed out to him. It was less than three feet wide and looked like nothing but a crevice in between the sooty black buildings.

“Right to the end,” said John Farbelow. They walked about thirty or forty feet, where the crevice came to an end. Bricked up. Blank. Josh leaned against the wall, his mouth throbbing and his whole body tingling with pain.