Doctor Who_ The Death of Art Part 6

He had to get down from the seat of the trap. He had to get his bearings. More than either he had to make the body act; to make it recognize him as master.

The street swayed before eyes whose retinas refused to obey him and, with a reflex that was for this first time wholly willed, his new large white hand seized the sweaty reins.

Unlike the hand itself, the reins felt completely real. It was enough. His eyes focused.

Luckily the rue de Poissy was empty. Luckily! They could hardly have tried to kill him in the first place if it had been crowded. His head ached. He guessed that the pounding in his skull was the last vestige of the killer's mind. Did that make him a murderer? Or could it be self-defence to swamp another person's brain so strongly with your personality that you, more truly than him, lived within his head thereafter? It was hard to think clearly. The science, even the morality of it could wait.

It was hard getting down. Emil sc.r.a.ped the driver's knee against the ornate bra.s.s handles of the pa.s.senger door. For an a.s.sa.s.sin, the body felt pain strongly. Emil guessed h e ' d ache for days, a.s.suming the body didn't reject him. He wished he 72 knew more about this power. This use of it had not even been hinted at in his father's talks about the Family. They had been full of his duty to his cousins and the others, but always secretive about what mattered; how the power could be lived with, how it could be reined down to a normal life. He imagined that this leap was rare - or he would have heard of it - and perhaps a function of the same adaptability that made, had made, him an albino at night and a Negro at noon.

He hoped he was well rid of that. One or other would have been tolerable but the see-sawing between them and the other physical changes the power had granted him the ability to make were, he hoped, well lost.

He picked up his corpse with surprisingly little effort, almost toppling over backwards. Ashamed, he realized that his new body - the a.s.sa.s.sin's body - was strong and well made, and his old body had been light and raw-boned.

He put his body in the empty trap. An oddly gruesome reverence flooded through him, like nothing else in his experience except the memories that had come back to him in the house on the rue Morgue. He could not face returning there.

He forced himself to keep moving. It wouldn't do to be found dead if he was going to turn up later intact, for if his power still existed he suspected that this possessed body would gradually grow to resemble his own. Whether or not that was true, he could not just dump the body without risking being hunted for killing himself. H e ' d have to hide both the body and himself.

Then there was Madelaine. She wasn't Family yet; he had hoped she would never be in the sense he had always used the phrase. He could hardly tell her the truth. He remembered her kiss as he left the house in the quai St-Bernard. The kiss that had landed on the cheek whose colour was fading in the back of the trap.

It took ten minutes to persuade the horses to move at a level trot. He'd never learnt how to manipulate such beasts. A vague echo in the back of the mind told Emil that the a.s.sa.s.sin knew horses, but the knowledge was outside Emil's grasp.

73.He drove back along the boulevard St-Germain in the dark and the fog, trusting to the body's instincts, watching the large strong white hands in front twitch the reins and urge on the horses with the long black whip. With his own mind, he wondered where he was going. His new body knew.

The carriage travelled parallel to ile de la Citee before turning south towards the thirteenth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, and arriving at the decaying residential quarter to the south of the surviving buildings of the Benedictine monastery.

The house which the carriage finally approached was surrounded by an overgrown hedge, and instinct got Emil there without a second death.

He dragged himself up the drive, b.u.mp, b.u.mp, b.u.mp.

Surely someone was watching, but the house was overgrown with ivy and no lights leered around its blinds. Somehow he got inside, and put his corpse in the great carved bath for safekeeping.

This was going to be messy. He would have to ensure that the body, if found, could not possibly be identified. He took his pocketbook from his frock-coat, from 'its' frock-coat.

H e ' d have to think of his own body as an 'it' from now on, to make what he would have to do easier. Searching the house, he found a sharp knife and a hammer. The Brotherhood were always on the look-out for reports of fatalities so he should keep his face from the broadsheets; and while fingerprints were still a curiosity in France he could not take any risks that they might have records of him from the time of his birth.

The every-day noises of the house oppressed him. They were too soft and furtive to mask his activities. He could not help adding to them; a certain amount of noise was unavoidable: ounce for ounce bone is harder to break than oak. He could only hope that the people in the houses on either side were deep in slumber. He managed not to be sick for quite some time, until he began to wonder what hobbies this body had to be so unaffected by blood and bone.

He had to leave 'it' in the bath, under water, in pieces, while he was in the kitchen retching. He couldn't face the 74 bath, not straight away, so he sat in the front room for a while and sorted through his new clothes. In his pockets he found a flintlock lighter, a crushed packet of cigarettes, a chewed pencil stub and two hundred francs. He bit the pencil. He had strong teeth and they fitted the marks. There were no other identifying marks in his clothes; they were cast-offs in all probability. The front room was spa.r.s.e. Emil guessed that this was a flash-house; an establishment maintained by a criminal or a gang of criminals as a refuge rather than a place to live. Oddly a room had been set up as an artist's studio but it was clearly unused.

His hands were shaking. He thought it was fear for a time until he realized that this body was craving a smoke. That made him cough violently when he tried it. Too much conflict between the body's habits and his own. His body would have to forgo the pleasures of the sot-weed. He cleaned up as best he could and changed clothes again, taking an artist's smock and thick trews from a pile in one of the side rooms. They were probably infested with lice but he could not afford to be squeamish, with his own blood encrusting the a.s.sa.s.sin's coachman's uniform.

The presence of a telephone in the house was slightly surprising, but perhaps an a.s.sa.s.sin found it of use. He considered telephoning Madelaine. She was enamoured by any new fad, be it telephones or the campaign to free Captain Dreyfus. With a cold shock that brought home his imprisonment in this other flesh, he realized that he had no idea what he sounded like. A few choice swear words uttered with his new vocal cords convinced him that he wasn't sounding himself.

Perhaps he could contact a member of the Family, even his father? That would be a last resort, he decided. He could still remember the despair with which they had greeted his desire to live outside Family circles. He could only imagine their faces when they had found him gone. Doubtless they had still hoped he would agree to marry at their dictates simply to try to produce children that were more human. That were more use to his father.

75.The prospect revolted him. What right had he to sire horrors, to force his condition upon an unsuspecting posterity? Besides, even if the Brotherhood remained the danger he had always been told, was the Family's vision any better?

He remembered a phrase from one of his father's lectures: 'Stern soldiers raised against the unholy'. He had seen similar headlines in the papers. It was politics. Merely politics.

He had wanted to live as a normal man, not as one of a line of heroes or, as his suspicions led him to believe, one of a Family who were being used. It had, apparently, been too much to ask of fate.

76.

Chapter 6.

When Armand had left for the night, Jarre sat alone in his office turning over the pages of notes the gendarme had made about the votes in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

The man was competent. Too competent, and too strong, and too good a shot. He was probably a spy. Except that a spy would have known to seem less efficient.

The notes confirmed Jarre's own researches. Since Mayeur's death politicians had been shifting alliances, but Armand had managed to dig out details that he had overlooked. One crucial vote buried among the army appropriations was of particular interest to him, and although there had been no reason for Armand to have paid it special attention, the thoroughness of his research had laid bare the changes. Since the Dreyfus business, the Government's funding for shadow projects had been redirected from the Directory accounts to the resources of the Ministry of War. Several politicians had opposed that; not out of any love for Dreyfus but out of respect for what the Directory had accomplished, and perhaps out of loathing for Major Henri, the new chief of the Ministry of War.

Since Mayeur's death, the few remaining supporters of the Directory had turned away, one after another.

What the h.e.l.l was the connection?

Even with night falling outside, Brother Tomas's work-room was warm and cosy. It held a workbench with tools and a medical examination table, as well as propagation racks for his plants. It had comfortable furniture and mellow gaslights 77 that cast a pearly gleam across its mahogany panelling.

August Mirakle hated it even more than the one underground.

He picked up the object from the bench which Tomas had pointed out to him. It looked like a hand-gun but it was a dull gold colour and engraved with complicated scrollwork. Its handle was carved with figures of men with b.u.t.terfly wings.

It was too heavy to be a toy. 'What is it?' Mirakle asked.

Tomas smiled. 'Well, my dear doctor, if something fits the hand like a gun and has a trigger like a gun, I'd guess that it was a gun. Wouldn't you?'

'But it's all of a piece. Where do the cartridges go?'

'I can beat that question, August. Where do the bullets come out? Do you notice that the barrel is solid?'

'I make it a general rule not to look down the barrel of a gun unless absolutely necessary.'

'I think it is necessary, unless we give it to one of Montague's fingermen and let them read its history. But then he will know that we have this, and I don't want him to know.

Not just yet, anyway.'

August nodded. The gun felt slick in his hands and he realized he was sweating. It was the thought of the fingermen, of course. Gruesome wizened creatures, they could break into the past of an object like an ordinary man sh.e.l.ling a nut. Their hands were long slabs of hypersensitive tissue that they held, normally, curled up against their chests in white cotton mittens. The mittens had to be laundered often.

They always smelt of limes and sour milk. It was, he supposed, something in their perspiration. The bad feeling was purely subjective, of course. They probably saw nothing wrong in their appearance, and they served Montague's needs admirably. The thoughts, running into panic, left him babbling.

'Surely she's one of Montague's anyway? I told you she must have learnt of your location after eavesdropping on my therapy session. She fits my ex-receptionist's description of her attacker.'

'Possibly, though I ' m surprised Montague has not always 78 78 known where Brother Tomas lives. I've tried to be visible enough, heaven knows. The plan won't work if Montague fails to underestimate me.' Tomas moved lithely over to the nude body on the examination table. 'She's certainly not one of his concubines, unless his tastes are changing. Possibly she's a dupe with an altered body. Can you divine anything?'

August winced inwardly at the thought of attempting a divination. They just did not work the way his books said they should. At best he would be screaming at shadows for days. He had to get Tomas off the subject.

'She must be one of his agents. I mean, who else could have sent her? The Family? A third force?' He rubbed at his collar nervously. He could feel the dirt on the back of his neck. He realized he was still holding the gun and put it down hurriedly.

Was he making Tomas angry? It was impossible to tell. Tomas's face was the same mild mask and his eyes the same bland blue that they always were. August realized it was not the thought of the fingermen that was disturbing. It was the Grandmaster. It was always the Grandmaster.

'I think I know enough about the Family to discount them,' Tomas said calmly. 'She doesn't seem like one of Montague's failures. He tended to breed from Caucasian stock. Typically short-sighted. In an ideal world, in the world I shall make, nothing will be wasted. I want you to remember that, August.'

That was a threat. Wasn't it? He was saying that h e ' d make me into something, into one of his doomed a.s.sa.s.sins. People to be flung to Montague like Christians to distract a mad lion.

August felt himself floundering. 'She could be a shape-shifter,' he said, and wished immediately that he had bitten the end of his tongue off instead.

'My agents, who of course also report to Montague, have kept a careful watch on the Family. There are no known shape-shifters in their ranks except the boy Emil, and if he could do that that with his body, he could have become functionally invisible with less effort. They are politically naive, we can discount them almost entirely from the practical problem of taking control of France, but they are not stupid. If they with his body, he could have become functionally invisible with less effort. They are politically naive, we can discount them almost entirely from the practical problem of taking control of France, but they are not stupid. If they 79 79 had sent a shape-shifter to spy on me, they would have picked a less detectable shape.'

Tomas was angry, but August could not stop himself. Just for a second, curiosity won out over fear. 'And a third force?'

he asked.

'Arriving in Paris n o w ? ' Surprisingly, Tomas laughed.

'August, this is simply overcautiousness on your part. Since we arranged for the imprisonment of Dreyfus, the Ministry of War has been very cooperative. There is no further enemy for us to fear. Believe me, I would know. I honestly refuse to believe in the chain of coincidence that would be needed to draw another power-bloc into the equation now. There just isn't room for another conspiracy in Paris. You're right. She must be one of Montague's.'

'If she is, and she doesn't go back, he'll know we have this weapon anyway.'

'Oh, but she will go back, suitably mesmerized by your good self. But first I want to know what this is. Could it, for example, kill me, do you think?'

August felt naked under Tomas's apparently kindly gaze.

Was he supposed to respond to that? To somehow give away that he wanted Tomas dead? Did he want the Grandmaster dead? He realized he really did not know. He was tired, and sick of being afraid, that was all. It all came down to what was the most frightening. Once it had been dying in poverty like his father. Now it was either Montague or Tomas.

With only the briefest pause, Tomas continued: 'More importantly, could it kill Montague? You know there's little chance of the last two deep-cover a.s.sa.s.sins I sent succeeding.

Disguised as one of his altered guards and one of his concubines, they may just get close enough to attack him physically, but experience has taught how futile that is. It's like a little game we p l a y '

'Except that we only have to play until our mad opponent loses interest,' Mirakle said ingratiatingly.

'Indeed, or until his own following, composed of the less gifted candidates you find for him, becomes a sufficient drain upon his fading strength.'

80.Feeling that he had perhaps overstepped the bounds of propriety by his daring to speak of the Grandmaster, and himself as ' w e ' , August upended the hand-gun in a vice on the workbench and stared at the end of the barrel. At first sight it was flat and solid but on closer inspection the metal of the barrel end was slightly concave, with a barely discernible translucence. 'Have you tried firing it?'

'A very faint light about the barrel, and a noticeable smell of ozone. Not having any disciplinary offences to judge at present among the Brotherhood, I've had no pretext for selecting a human target, but it has no obvious effect on flowerpots or elderly rhododendrons. There's a possibility it may stun greenfly, if that helps.'

August hesitated. His status with the Brotherhood was shaky at best. His magick - hypnotism and the old ways; the rituals handed down from the Stone Age - could not duplicate the casual displays of power of which Montague and his followers were capable. Once, if August's books were accurate, it had been different; but now the best his magick could manage was a brief touching of minds. It was ironic that power had become available to the Brotherhood, power sufficient to make everyone touched by it a new creature under Heaven, but that, despite his desires, despite his bl.u.s.ter and his greed, the order's 'tame magician' was afraid of it.

Sometimes he thought Tomas understood that fear. The Grandmaster had after all refused to let Montague's power fully enter his body. Unfortunately it hardly mattered whether the Grandmaster understood or not. Montague's influence was on the rise in the Brotherhood. August's continued presence, his continued normality, was becoming an embarra.s.sment for the Grandmaster's faction. If he failed in any task, it could bring the matter to a head. 'I'll investigate it thoroughly,' he stammered.

"Thank you, August, that's all I ask. Tell me, have you seen the new rose-delphinium hybrids?' August felt a moment of relief, followed by a fresh wave of panic. Oh G.o.d, just get me through tomorrow, he thought. Let me find out something he can use, please.

81.Paris: 28 N o v e m b e r 1897: 9.30 a.m.

Inspector Jarre leant out of the window of the jolting carriage. 'Are you enjoying yourself?' he shouted, snarling.

Armand, seated by the driver, his face lashed by the driving wind and fine rain, missed Jarre's sarcasm completely. He nodded like a maniac and, Jarre thought, urged the driver to go faster. 'It's a murder, not a fire,' Jarre yelled as the pa.s.sage of the carriage over the white cobblestones in front of the church of St-Severin threatened to bring his liver up into his throat. 'The corpse isn't going to burn to ashes before we get there.' He sank back into the black seats of the police barouche. The gendarme sitting opposite him, a dark thin man called Gerard, smirked, and the need for good discipline overcame Jarre's irritation. He had to establish his authority, but he also had to be trusted not to favour one officer over another, nor could he afford irrational dislikes.

'He's a good officer,' he snapped. 'I wanted the best and I trust you both to be the best. There is a great tradition for us to uphold. When the Surete Generale was founded in 1812 it consisted only of Vidocq and his four a.s.sistants, but after five years it was making over seven hundred arrests a year. I have two a.s.sistants and I am, I must admit, no Vidocq, but I expect the same unswerving devotion to justice from you as that which broke the hold of the Apaches on Paris.'

The speech caught in his throat. Whatever the truth was about Mayeur's death, he was not going to be allowed the freedom to investigate it. This morning he had discovered that Perraudin had arranged for the case to be stamped closed. He and Armand had been given strict orders to stand down from any political cases. Jarre didn't have the authority to arrest a drunk for p.i.s.sing against a wall, if it was the wall of the Palais Bourbon.

Now they were on their way to what sounded like a typically squalid little murder.

In the alley-way behind the dilapidated hotels it was cold and wet, and the cats were fighting. The pot-boys and serving-82 girls of the hotels, being naturally of a sporting temperament, craned their heads around the wooden shutters of their kitchen and scullery below-stairs windows to cheer on their respective champions.

The orange cat (renowned in the mythology of the boot-blacking-faced boys for its tangling up of lines of washing, the cooks' ap.r.o.n strings and even, when ratting, the moor-ings of boats at the nearby wharf) had already gained itself a mighty reputation. The black cat, which was a newcomer to the district, had not yet won itself such fame. But its spitting, its jumping, the sprightly elevation of its tail made it the choice of the staff of the lower hotels.

Clawed by its rival, the orange cat darted down a narrow alley. The black cat followed it, but in a moment both were fleeing the noise growing up behind their hissing.

As they raced out of the dark, eyes wide, the Doctor was waiting for them, crouched down like a backstop: his linen jacket turned translucent as skin in the rain. He calmed them, stroking their ears and trailing the string from an old yo-yo he had found in his pocket in front of them. They hunted it.

He watched their movements. Mostly the string escaped.

Their reflexes were well below par.

'You feel it, don't you?' he whispered. 'Animals and madmen, and absinthe drinkers first.'

Leaving the cats, he pressed an ear to the blue wooden facade of the TARDIS in the dark of the alley. Under the grey EuroGas tarpaulin the TARDIS still whistled to itself on a rising harmonic. Nearby some of the empty washing lines vibrated in sympathy. The Doctor attempted a brief counter-point but found the melody sliding off into 'I've got you under my skin'.

Finally he just patted the Police box softly, like someone quieting a nervous horse. 'After this we'll go somewhere peaceful. Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea, 1863, with acrobats, or somewhere else, somewhere n.o.body dies.' He kept his fingers crossed behind his back as he stepped inside the TARDIS.

83.Chris got down from the barouche thoughtfully. His keen ears had picked up Jarre's lecture. He knew of Eugene Francois Vidocq, of course, from his research, but the reference to Apaches puzzled him. As soon as the Inspector was out of earshot, Chris nudged his fellow gendarme. 'What was the Inspector saying, mon ami?' He had not been able to speak to Gerard when the Inspector had briefly introduced them, but he was sure that they would work well together.

Gerard shrugged. 'Only that we should imitate the great Vidocq in wiping out the street gangs.' He spat into the gutter. 'He forgets that Vidocq ended his life in disgrace and the street gangs were back before Vidocq's successor was warming his a.r.s.e in the office of the Prefecture.'

Chris nodded. So the Apaches were street gangs, and still in existence. Good, he was getting a firm grip on the period.

He was about to ask Gerard if they still wore war-paint when the gendarme entered the foyer of the house. Chris straightened his uniform and followed.

In a moment he forgot his question. This was the real past. It was old. This house had been lived in continuously and it had mellowed with the process. The foyer was panelled in dark wood, and smelt as if the brown-black colour had been smoked into the beams. The chintz wallpaper, patterned with a.s.sorted sea-sh.e.l.ls and marine icons, had the consistency of flypaper from the deposits of tar left by the exhalation of tobacco fumes.

The iron-grey eyes of the concierge, an old woman of more than sixty years, stared grumpily at the wallpaper.

Inspector Jarre stood by the desk and cleared his throat.

The concierge continued to stare at the wall as if fascinated by the spiral contours of the sh.e.l.ls.

'Bonjour, Madame,' said Jarre. 'I am Inspector Jarre of the Surete Generale and these are my a.s.sistants, Jean-Paul and Gerard. I understand you reported a death.'

'Next door, Monsieur. My husband will show you.'