‘What?’ Lily asked.
‘You know that I always loved you, don’t you? Since that first time I saw you in The Royal Oak.’
Lily laughed.
‘Don’t be silly, you soppy sod, you just heard my voice and knew I could be your ticket to better things.’
The fake smile fell away and Warner’s face took on a wan look.
‘I wish I could’ve got up the guts to tell you, make you know. So much wasted time. I won’t do it, Lily. I will not do it.’
‘Do what, Connie?’
‘What they want me to do.’
‘What is it that they want you to do?’
Warner shrugged, extinguished his cigarette on the table and picked up a paring knife from the table. Lily stared at the blade. She had once had to cut a Maltese pimp across the face, after he had grabbed her up near Covent Garden, with a blade of a similar size. She straightened her arm and let her own knife drop into her hand from where she had hidden it in her sleeve. The handle felt angular and awkward in her grip. She looked at the knife in Warner’s hand.
‘What are you going to do with that, Connie?’
‘I won’t do it, Lily. I won’t let them get you. Not through me.’
‘Why don’t you put that down.’
He offered out his arm to her and then slid the tip of the blade into his wrist with a gasp of pain. It was like nothing, just like a blade kissing the fat of a piece of pork right before you rub in the salt to make sure in crisps up right. He tightened his grip and then yanked the blade back towards himself lengthways down his arm and didn’t stop until he reached his elbow. No smile now just a grimace. As his right arm blossomed crimson, Warner swapped the knife into his other hand.
‘Connie! No, please!’
Lily scrambled across the table top. Warner shook his head and repeated the action on his left arm even as the colour began to leech out of him. Lily dropped the blade she was holding as she reached Warner. He sagged almost immediately.
‘No, Connie, no. What have you done.’
She gripped the terrible tears in his arms in an attempt to hold the torn flesh together and blood ran between her fingers, wet and warm. So much blood. Warner slid towards the deck and Lily went with him. His white shirt was red now, Lily’s hands too. His eyes flickered and his lips twisted into a familiar smile.
‘Love you, my little cockney sparrow. Give me a kiss to remember you by?’
Lily leaned in and kissed him hard, tried to kiss the life back into lips that were already growing cold. Her tongue searched for his but Warner did not respond. She leant back and looked at his face; eyes closed, skin pale, but he looked more peaceful than Lily had seen him in the past few hours. The tears began to come hot and fast but Lily sniffed them back. She stood and looked down once at Warner’s body in disbelief before stumbling away to find one of the remaining bottles of sake.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The corridors within the Shinjuku Maru proved to be like a maze and within half a minute of Busby taking off after the shade that they had seen, Earl Hamilton had lost him. Doors opened into cabins that opened into others. The corridors seemed strange, different from before. Hamilton stopped at a junction, four ways that Busby could have gone; straight on, right along another narrow corridor, down a ladder to the belly of the ship, or up another to the deck above.
‘Shit,’ muttered Hamilton as he stood and listened. The storm outside lashing the vessel made it hard to hear anything else.
In the end, he opted to head down the ladder. A quick check and then he would head back to find the others. Where the hell was Busby? Where was Putner? It was all going to hell and Hamilton didn’t like it one bit. Below decks was even darker than above, there were no portholes here to provide natural light and the dingy glow of the lantern didn’t seem like enough to hold the shadows back. Hamilton took another step and then a sound caught his ear. It sounded like a heavy footfall on the metal deck behind the closest bulkhead door. Hamilton paused, frozen to the spot, and listened for further sounds. None came and Hamilton gave a sigh of relief. Suddenly the pipes behind him began to clank rhythmically. Hamilton leapt against the bulkhead with his heart beating a swift tattoo. And then, despite the noise of the pipes, he could swear that he could hear voices on the other side of the door. Hamilton reached around and grasped the lever to open the door.
Lily bit back a sob and forced another bite of sake down. She fumbled on the table top and found a cigarette. Despite the shake in her hand she managed to get the smoke lit and took great long tugs on it.
‘Why, Connie, why did you have to do that…’
She looked at her hands clutching the cigarette and the tin cup filled with Sake, stared at the drying blood that covered them. The tears threatened to come again but she would not allow herself. Instead she finished the smoke and threw back the last of the sake and felt it burn its way to her gut as she refilled her cup.
Behind her, Warner stirred.
Beyond the door, Hamilton realised he was in what had once been part of the hold, a large room that at some point had been used for refrigeration – to transport meat or fruit – but since then its usage must have changed. The room stank of piss, shit, stale sweat, and human fear. Hamilton gagged at the scent and covered his mouth with the hand that wasn’t holding the lantern. From deep in the shadows of the chamber a laugh came. Hamilton turned towards the sound and, slipping his hand away from his mouth, he pulled the carving knife that he had tucked in his belt.
‘Who’s there?’ he called, holding the lantern ahead of him.
Gradually a figure became visible; dark robes, large conical hat, hunched over and leaning on a long thin staff. The hat covered the figure’s face.
‘Who the hell are you?’
The figure looked up and Hamilton found himself staring into a pair of bloody, ruined, eye sockets. The orbs looked like they had been torn from out the sockets by talons or perhaps desperate, grasping fingernails. The rest of the face was pale and drawn, lined with age, and it ended in a slit of a mouth that split into a cruel grin. Hamilton felt the icy grip of terror close, like a hand, around his testicles.
‘Anata ga mietemasu,’ muttered the figure. I can see you.
Hamilton turned and headed back for the door at a stumbling run. As he got close to it, the door swung shut to reveal another figure who had been stood, hidden, behind it. The man was around the same height as Hamilton, he was naked and it looked like the skin had been peeled away from his body leaving him red and raw, dripping blood here and there. Hamilton stared closely at the flayed man and his ruined body and face, feeling the flare of recognition.
‘Collins? Collins is that you?’
Collins opened his mouth to speak but he had no tongue anymore. Instead he opened his mouth wider than seemed possible and silently screamed at Earl Hamilton, the hacked stump of his tongue waggling, and then took a step towards him.
‘Collins, you keep back you hear?’ fear made Earl’s voice crack.
Collins took another step and the man in the conical hat began to laugh again.
‘I swear to God, Collins – you take one more step, man and I’ll put this in you!’
Another step was taken and then another. Hamilton held up the lantern in a shaky hand to try and ward Collins off but the ruined man kept on coming.
‘Don’t make me, please don’t make me – just step back.’
As Collins’ foot hit the ground taking another step, Hamilton stepped forward and with a grunt pushed the carving knife in just below the ribs. It wasn’t the first time that Hamilton had had to stab a man and he knew where to stick the blade so it didn’t catch on the ribs. The carving knife slipped in easy, up to the hilt, ten inches of steel into the soft parts. Not a sign of it showed in Collins’ face. He simply leaned to the side and then struck Hamilton across the cheek with a meaty backhand that sent the chef spinning away. The knife stayed stuck in Collins’ side. Hamilton hit the deck hard and he could feel his cheek swelling up from the blow he had received. He turned and almost hurled the lantern but then fear of being caught in the dark with these two maniacs struck him. Instead he scrambled back and spidered across the floor looking for a weapon, looking for anything. Collins turned and with slow deliberate steps followed him. The priest continued to laugh.