“I’ve made some mistakes, I know-” Arthur began.
Silverman cut him off with a gesture. “No time for that, sir. The city’s being eaten alive.”
“What?”
“It’s the snow, sir. It’s driven everybody mad.”
“And Streater? What happened to him?”
“He’s gone, sir. Took one of the Jaguars. He said that he had to look up an old friend. Although he was good enough to stop by the cellar for a few words. He seems to believe that he’ll actually be rewarded for what he’s done.”
The prince straightened up, mopped his forehead, pushed back his shoulders, cleared his throat, and despite his evident exhaustion, the unkempt brush of his hair and the wildness which capered in his eyes, he looked, just for an instant, unmistakably a king. Then his shoulders slumped, his posture sagged and he was only Arthur again. “I want you both to listen to me. This is what is going to happen. Silverman. I need you to stay here to look after Laetitia. His wife began to object but Arthur waved away her protestations. “I’m going outside,” he said. “There is somebody I need to find.”
Silverman sank gratefully onto the bed and nodded in grave approval.
“Good luck, sir.”
But if you’re going outside, the snow-”
Arthur shook his head. “Something tells me I’ve built up a resistance.” He bent down and kissed his wife on her forehead.
“Be careful,” she said.
The prince reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun that Mr. Streater had given him what felt like a small eternity ago. “I have this,” he said.
He nodded once, then, without saying goodbye, opened the door and stepped outside.
The house had been comprehensively ravaged and despoiled, as though an all-night party exclusively attended by vandals, incontinents and graffiti specialists had only recently moved on. Steeling himself against the sight of it, Arthur stepped through rubble and rubbish, over broken glass and furniture reduced to matchsticks, skirted around slicks of blood and trails of indescribable fluids before, at last, he emerged into the open air.
If anything, the devastation was even more advanced out here. Several vehicles were gutted and aflame and there were at least two bodies, which he tried not to examine too closely. As memories of what the cat had told him moved to the forefront of his brain and a more exact notion of what it was that he had to do began to form, he searched around for some means of transport.
When he saw it, he laughed out loud (a bitter, caustic sound). The only remaining car which seemed remotely roadworthy was an old Vauxhall Nova, effluent brown, the stink of Mr. Streater’s treachery still boiling off it. Swallowing his laughter, Arthur Windsor strode across to the car of his enemy, wondering if the man had actually been arrogant enough to leave his keys in the ignition.
And there, for the present, we shall leave him. For all that he believed himself capable of some species of Dunkirk’s courage, the Prince of Wales was undeniably a coward, a milksop and a fool, stepping dumbly into the role suggested by a small gray cat, whose owner, we are very glad to be able to report, was at that time either dying (slowly, with great and exacting pain) or else already dead.
The tragedy of it all — the sheer, mindless folly of these people’s actions — is brought home by the knowledge that we were only ever trying to help. However unfairly we may have been represented in these pages, you may be absolutely certain of the fact that Leviathan is here for one purpose only — we are here to tell you the good news.
Chapter 26
“Joe!” Abbey stood behind me in the corridor. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The blond man flashed a Hollywood grin. “Come to rescue you.”
My landlady blushed. “You’d better get inside. Shut the door. There’s things out there that-”
Like some laconic traffic cop, Joe Streater held up his hand to halt her. “They won’t bother me.”
“Why not?”
Streater shrugged. “Kind of a long story.”
Still flushing crimson, Abbey stumbled over her words. “Henry, this is Joe. Joe — meet Henry.”
The two of us glared at one another, both measuring and sizing up, the veil of civility already close to rending.
His examination complete, Joe gave me a dismissive smirk, and for this alone I could cheerfully have punched him on the nose.
Abbey touched me lightly on the arm, pivoting me away from the interloper. “This is awkward. I know that. Really, really awkward. But could you just give us a minute on our own? We’ll go in the sitting room. There’s some stuff we need to get straight.”
“Fine,” I said. “Dandy.”
Frothing with rage and envy, I stalked off into the bedroom, sat on my bed and took deep, calming breaths. What seemed like a thousand different scenarios suggested themselves to me, none of them remotely optimistic.
A few minutes later and feeling no better, I succumbed to the inevitable, got to my feet, tiptoed outside the sitting room door and tried my best to eavesdrop.
Streater sounded calm and laid-back, his voice wheedling and full of flattery. Abbey was less controlled, quickly sliding into tearful hysteria. I realized that I’d never heard her like that before. She’d always struck me as essentially unflappable.
Should we pity Henry Lamb? There’s something so pathetic about the man we can never quite bring ourselves to do it. The idea that someone like his landlady would ever look twice at him were she not recovering from the abrupt cessation of an earlier entanglement is palpably absurd. The idiot Lamb was never much more to her than a man-sized comfort blanket.
Even now, I’m not sure what passed between the two of them, but the first time I was able to catch exactly what they were saying, it was his voice that I heard.
These are the words of Joe Streater: “A new world is on its way. And if you wanna survive then you’ve gotta come with me. Stay here, and everything you know and love is gonna burn.”
I leaned closer, trying to hear more, but just as Streater finished his speech, the door was flung open and I scurried goonishly backward, almost tripping up.
Abbey hovered, tear stained, in the doorway. “Were you listening?”
I stuttered out a denial.
Behind her — friend Joe, grinning snarkily.
My landlady stepped out into the corridor and pulled the door shut on Streater.
“I can’t believe you were listening,” she said.
“Well, wouldn’t you?”
“Just give us a couple of minutes, OK? There’s lots of stuff we need to talk through.”
I spoke as evenly as I could. “I can imagine.”
“This is difficult for me. I’m confused.”
“Well, how do you think I feel?”
“Sweetheart, please.”
I managed a bitter sort of smile. “Do you know, he’s not at all how I expected?”
Abbey conjured up a little smile — tentative, hopeful. “Oh? Why’s that?”
“I didn’t think he’d be so fucking ugly.”
A long, brittle silence. “That’s disappointing.” There was a flinty pragmatism in her eyes which I’d never seen there before. “That’s unworthy of you.”
She opened the door to the sitting room and for an instant I caught an almost subliminal glimpse of Streater. I can’t be sure that this is what I saw or whether it’s something I’ve imagined since, filling in the gaps with all that I’ve learnt, but I’m almost positive that I saw him brandishing a syringe, filled with pale pink, effervescent liquid.