The Madness Underneath: Book 2 (THE SHADES OF LONDON)

THE
MADNESS
UNDERNEATH

DON’T MISS THE FIRST BOOK IN THE
SHADES OF LONDON SERIES:

The Name of the Star

THE
MADNESS
UNDERNEATH

THE SHADES OF LONDON,
BOOK TWO

maureen johnson

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS · A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

Published by The Penguin Group.

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Copyright © 2013 by Maureen Johnson.

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Design by Annie Ericsson. Text set in ITC New Baskerville Std.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Johnson, Maureen, 1973–

The madness underneath / Maureen Johnson.

p. cm.—(Shades of London ; bk. 2)

Summary: “After her near-fatal run-in with the Jack the Ripper copycat, Rory Deveaux is back in London to help solve a new string of inexplicable deaths plaguing the city”—Provided by publisher. [1. Boarding schools—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Murder—Fiction. 4. Ghosts—Fiction. 5. London (England)—Fiction. 6. England—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.J634145Mad 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012026755

ISBN: 978-1-101-60783-1

For my friend, the real Alexander Newman,
who would never let a tiny thing like having twelve strokes
get the better of him. When I grow up, I want to be you.
(Maybe without the twelve strokes? You know what I mean.)

Table of Contents

The Royal Gunpowder Pub

The Crack in the Floor

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

New Dawn Psychic Parlor

The Falling Woman

20

21

22

23

24

25

THE ROYAL GUNPOWDER PUB,
ARTILLERY LANE, EAST LONDON
NOVEMBER 11
10:15 A.M.

C
HARLIE STRONG LIKED HIS CUSTOMERS—YOU DON’T RUN a pub for twenty-one years if you don’t like your customers—but there was something about the quiet in the morning that pleased him to no end. In the morning, Charlie had the one cigarette he allowed himself daily. He drew on the Silk Cut slowly, listening to the satisfying sizzle of burning paper and tobacco. He could smoke inside when no one else was here. Good mug of tea. Good smoke. Good bacon on his sandwich.

Charlie switched on the television. The television in the Royal Gunpowder went on for only two things: when Liverpool played and
Morning with Michael and Alice,
the relentlessly cheerful talk show. Charlie liked to watch this as he prepared for the day, particularly the cooking part. They always made something good, and for some reason, this made him enjoy his bacon sandwich even more. Today, they were making a roast chicken. His barman, Sam, came up from the basement with a box of tonic water. He set it on the bar and quietly got on with
his work, taking the chairs from their upside-down positions on the tables and setting them upright on the floor. Sam was good to have around in the mornings. He didn’t say much, but he was still good company. He was happy to be employed, and it always showed.

“Good-looking chicken, that,” he said to Sam, pointing to the television.

Sam paused his work to look.

“I like mine fried,” Sam said.

“It’ll kill you, all that fried food.”

“Says the man eating the bacon sarnie.”

“Nothing wrong with bacon,” Charlie said, smiling.

Sam shook his head good-naturedly and continued moving chairs. “Think we’ll get more of them Ripper freaks today?” he asked.

“Let’s hope so. God bless the Ripper. We did almost three thousand pounds last night. Speaking of, they do eat a lot of crisps. Get us another box of the plain and”—he sorted through the selection under the bar—“cheese and onion. And some more nuts while you’re there. They like nuts as well. Nuts for the nutters, eh?”

Without a word, Sam stopped what he was doing and returned to the basement. Charlie’s gaze was fixed on the television and the final, critical stages of the cooking segment. The cooked chicken was produced from the oven, golden brown and lovely. The show moved on to the next segment, talking about some music festival that was going on in London over the weekend. This interested Charlie less than the chicken, but he watched it anyway since he had a cigarette to finish. When he was down to the filter, he stubbed it out and got to work.

He had just started wiping down the blackboard to write the day’s specials when he heard the sound of breaking glass from below. He opened the basement door.

“Sam! What in God’s name—”

“Charlie! Get down here!”

“What’s the matter?” Charlie yelled back.

Sam did not reply.

Charlie swore under his breath, allowed himself one heavy post-smoke cough, and headed down the stairs. The basement stairs were narrow and steep, and the basement itself was full of things Charlie largely didn’t want to deal with—broken chairs and tables, heavy crates of supplies, racks of glasses ready to replace the ones that were chipped, cracked, or stolen every day.

“Sam?” he called.

“In here!”

Sam’s voice was coming from a small room off the main one. Charlie ducked down. The ceiling was lower in this room; it just skimmed his head. Many times he had almost knocked himself senseless on it.

Sam was near the wall, cowering between two shelving units. There were two shattered pint glasses, as well as a roughly drawn
X
in chalk on the stone floor.

“What are you playing at, Sam?”

“I didn’t do that,” Sam replied. “Those weren’t there a few minutes ago.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m telling you, those weren’t there.”

This was not good, not good at all. The glasses clearly hadn’t fallen off a shelf—they were in the middle of the room. The
X
was shaky, like the hand that had drawn it could barely hold
the chalk. No one looked healthy in the basement’s faintly greenish fluorescent light, but Sam looked particularly bad. The color had drained from his face, and he was quivering and glistening with sweat.

Maybe this had been bound to happen. Charlie had always known the risks, but the risks were part of the agreement. He had gotten sober, and he trusted that others could as well. And you needed to show that trust.

Charlie said quietly, “If you’ve been taking something—”

“I haven’t!”

“But if you have, you just need to tell me.”

“I swear to you,” Sam said, “I haven’t.”

“Sam, there’s no shame in it. Sobriety is a process.”

“I didn’t take anything, and I didn’t do
that
!”

There was an urgency in Sam’s voice that frightened Charlie, and he was not a man who frightened easily. He’d been through fights, withdrawal, divorce. He faced alcohol, his personal demon, every day. Yet, something in this room, something in the sight of Sam huddled against the wall and this crude
X
and broken glass on the floor…something in this unnerved him.

There was no point in checking to see if anyone else was down here. Every business in the area had fortified itself when the Ripper was around. The Royal Gunpowder was secure.

Charlie bent down and ran his hand over the cool stone floor.

“How about we just get rid of this,” he said, wiping away the chalked
X
with his hand. In cases like this, it was best to calmly get things back to normal and sit down and talk the
issue through. “Come on, now. We’ll go upstairs and have a cup of tea, and we’ll talk this out.”

Sam took a few tentative steps from the wall.

“Good, that’s right. Now let’s just get rid of this and we’ll have a nice cuppa, you and me…”

Charlie continued wiping away the last of the
X.
He didn’t see the hammer.

The hammer was used to pry open crates, to knock sticky valves into action, and to do quick repairs on the often unstable shelving units. Now it rose, lingering just long enough over Charlie’s head to find its mark.

“No!” Sam screamed.

Charlie turned his head in time to see the hammer come down. The first time it did so, Charlie remained upright. He made a noise—not quite a word, more of a broken, gurgling sound. There was a second blow, and a third. Charlie was still upright, but twitching, struggling against the onslaught. The fourth blow seemed to do the most damage. An audible cracking sound could be heard. On that fourth blow, Charlie fell forward and did not move again.