'They have now,' Vince offered.
'This is just one of our offices. You won't have found much here. What worries me more is your lack of repentance, and the need to teach you a resounding lesson.'
'You've already taught me a lot. Which cutlery to use with asparagus, how to ask for a toothpick in French. Surely you must have expected me to betray your trust?' To think I picked his name out of a magazine, thought Vince. Jesus.
'I can't believe you're the same boy who wanted so desperately to know how I lived. What a dreadful disappointment you are. Right now I feel like smacking that smug little smile from your face.'
'Lay a finger on me and I'll get you locked up somehow. I don't give a fuck who your friends are.' It was brave talk, but his heart was knocking against his ribs. What could they do? he asked himself. What could they really do? Sebastian beckoned to a couple of his pals and they moved off to a corner of the room. Everyone else stood around looking embarrassed, waiting for their leader to return. After speaking for little more than a minute, he dispersed the meeting. Several members started bundling files of paperwork into briefcases. Sebastian walked up to Vince and stood watching his face, his hands clasped behind his back.
'Listen to me carefully, Vincent. It would be easy for me to simply punish you, but you're clearly unrepentant about this, so go back to your grim little flat and continue writing, fuelled by the thought that you've uncovered something. You don't understand what any of this means. You think your actions will have no consequences. You have issued me with a challenge, and I – we – accept that challenge.' He looked to the others for approval.
'I pick up your gauntlet.' He waved a hand, gesturing Vince up from his seat. 'We'll behave like civilised men. Go on, return to your home. At some point in the weeks to come you will receive a summons, and then we shall see who is on the side of the angels. But before that, Prometheus will bring you a sign. It will be the sign of fire, Vincent, and I hope it will make you realise the gravity of the challenge. Go, go, go.'
The men at the entrance doors stepped aside to allow him through. The room was pin-drop silent as he took his leave. He felt sure they would set upon him and at least give him a good kicking, but no, moments later he was walking briskly along the fourth-floor corridor, then down the thickly-carpeted stairs and back out onto the streets of Holborn, half-wondering if he had imagined the entire episode.
He returned to his apartment more determined than ever to write about Prometheus. So far he had a plastic ring-binder full of notes, some pages of observations and research references, his Internet material, a stack of source books and seven and a half chapters of the first draft, all of which had somehow been pawed over by Sebastian's burglarising playmates. That night he searched the flat for signs of a break-in. Nothing was missing. Nothing appeared to have been moved. He asked the couple who lived in the flat across the landing if they had seen anyone calling, but they were unable to help.
The phone rang, but he did not answer it. Probably Louie, wanting to know what had happened.
That night he fitted a deadbolt on the front door. Drove screws into the window frames to keep them closed. Put Louie's old cricket bat under his bed. Made a copy of his notes, and sent them to his brother at his army base in Southampton. Then he began looking for evidence that would really take the wind out of Sebastian's sails.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SEBASTIAN CALLED a special meeting of the Inner Council at his flat in Regent's Park and presented his idea for the challenge. Only Caton-James and St John Warner complained, considering the exercise to be a waste of time and money, but their objections were quickly overruled. In particular, Caton-James felt that Sebastian was using the situation to indulge his love of games, but he remained silent while the chairman outlined his proposal.
'From time to time throughout the century, the members of the League have been required to make a stand for the things in which they believe,' Sebastian pointed out. The eleven men gathered before him sat patiently listening. 'That occasion has arrived again, just as it did in my father's time. I think, gentlemen, that it will prove the solution to our internecine problems.' There were murmurs of agreement as he laid down the ground rules.
'The challenge must provide a genuine test of knowledge that teaches our young man a lesson. It must provide a fair opportunity to reach a solution. That means you cannot require him to visit, say, a club that refuses entrance to non-members, or a guildhall that bans public entry. Besides, I have a feeling Mr Reynolds would be able to handle problems like that. He got into the Holborn Chambers without too much trouble. Exercise more subtlety. Mess with his mind. He thinks he's closer to the street than you or I, and he's right, if the street includes the gutter. I want you to take the strut from his stride. Make him realise that he owns nothing of this city, and that his kind never will.'
'Fine,' said Caton-James, 'so long as you don't mind us adding a few rules of our own. After all, this isn't just about you and the boy, is it? There's the matter between ourselves to settle.'
'I understand, of course.' Sebastian was chastened. 'Tell me what you want.'
Caton-James proceeded to outline a handwritten page of additional points. It took another two hours for everyone to fully agree an order of events, but by the end of the meeting full approval from the other League members had been granted.
After the rest had taken their leave, Sebastian sat by the window thinking. It really could work. He could kill two birds with one stone, and enjoy the game along the way. There were hazards involved, of course, but where was the challenge without them? Best of all, there was something about Vincent Reynolds that he genuinely admired. His unrepentant questioning, his enthusiasm for tasks that offered little or no reward. Sebastian thought of him as a reconstructed cockney, a kind of junior Sid James, muddling through the post-war debris, making the best of things. He had earned his right to be an opponent. It helped to balance the odds, and made the risk all the more worth taking.
First of all, though, a gesture was required. Something that would prepare Reynolds for the seriousness of his situation, and goad him on. He set to work immediately.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
'IF YOU are prepared to accept Jesus into your heart, the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven shall be yours. HALLELUJAH!'
Carol Mendacre grimaced and dug about on the passenger seat until she found an unboxed cassette. She inserted the tape and adjusted the volume, then returned her concentration to the lane ahead. The rain had renewed its strength half an hour ago, and she had lowered her speed accordingly. At this time of night the wet roads were easier to negotiate, save for the spray from articulated trucks heading South West. Carol hated driving, and only undertook journeys of any length when she knew the traffic volume would be lighter. Why did they always have to hold publishers' conferences at hotels in the heart of the countryside?
'There is something indefinably keen and wan about her anatomy; and she has a watchful way of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning her head, which could be pleasantly dispensed with – especially when she is in an ill humour and near knives.'
Carol recognised Dickens's description of the maid from Chapter 12 of Bleak House, and recalled that she was a considerable way past that point in the novel. She glanced over at the seat; the 'Talking Book' tapes had slipped from their case and become muddled.