All I know is that Moon escaped just before the last explosion. Behind him I saw the headquarters of Love, all that I had worked for, buried forever by rubble. I was glad not to be there to see that.
For the second time that day I emerged panting back onto the street. The fighting was over; police, medics and other professional busybodies were arguing over what to do with all the mess and corpses. Even the press had started to sniff about.
On seeing all of this commotion, I felt a sudden surge of hope. I thought I might still escape and slip away in the midst of the confusion. No such luck. I felt a revolver pressed hard against the back of my head.
“The Somnambulist is dead.”
“Edward?” I asked feebly.
He spun me around, placed the gun at my forehead. “The Somnambulist is dead,” he repeated in a flat, toneless voice.
I wondered how I could possibly apologize without sounding insincere. “Sorry,” I said eventually, and shrugged. “Thought he was indestructible.”
I doubt you’d have done any better under the circumstances.
Moon placed the gun harder against my head and seemed on the cusp of pulling the trigger when he was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“You must be Edward Moon.”
“What do you want?” Moon hissed.
“My name is Thomas Cribb.” I realized that the ugly man was standing behind me, facing the detective. “I would offer to shake hands but I can see you’re a little tied up.”
“What?”
“You’re about to make a considerable mistake.”
“I thought you’d joined Love.”
“Me? Well, I suppose I may do. But that will happen tomorrow.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot him.”
“Only this.” Cribb smiled. “You don’t. I’ve seen the future and the Reverend Doctor here is languishing in a prison cell.”
Out of the corner of my eyes I could see the approach of several policemen and the inspector. They hung back, waiting to see how the situation would play itself out. I suppose I’ve no right to be angry but I rather think it was their duty to save me, not stand by and watch my murder.
“Does he die?” Moon asked, sounding — I have to say — unnecessarily bloodthirsty. “Is he executed?”
Cribb pulled a face. “They won’t hang him.”
“No justice, then?”
“I can promise you this: He gets punishment enough. He suffers. Please. Put down the gun.”
For a moment, Moon looked as though he still might go through with it.
“Please,” the ugly man said again. Moon seemed to relent and started to return the gun to his pocket. But at the last second he brought the gun back up toward my face.
“No!” shouted Cribb.
Moon, distracted by the sound, pulled the trigger too soon. The bullet went wild, missed me (though I fancy I felt it brush my cheek) and hit the ugly man instead. The damage can’t have been all that serious but he fell to the ground nonetheless, whimpering like a soccer player hoping for sympathy, clutching at his left hand and muttering to himself.
The police finally appeared (not before time) and I was wrenched roughly to my feet. Handcuffs were slapped on me with little or no consideration as to how they might chafe. I was led away and Moon said nothing.
As I walked, however, I heard him call out to someone. Cribb? Perhaps, but I have always felt a strange certainty that he was addressing someone else entirely. “The Somnambulist is dead,” he cried, then more quietly: “The Somnambulist is dead.”
Chapter 20
It happens every morning underground. Chances are you’ve noticed it yourself.
In the rush hour, as all those beleaguered commuters fight their way off the trains at Monument Station, pinstriped and bowler-hatted to a man, ready to submit themselves to the merciless grind of another day’s work, they bear witness to an extraordinary phenomenon.
Shit. The choking stench of it becomes on some mornings almost overpowering. I am reliably informed that there is many a nose wrinkled in distaste, many a copy of the Times folded into an impromptu fan, many a handkerchief pressed discreetly against the face. But so used are these passengers to the city’s creaking, dilapidated railways that they make no comment at this indignity but, teeth clenched and pride swallowed, travel stoically onwards. I’ve no idea why such an effect should occur, though I imagine it has at least something to do with the tunnels’ unfortunate proximity to the sewer system.
I think this is significant. It seems to me that London reveals something of its real self at such moments, shows the skull beneath its skin, its true cloacal nature. It is meant as a warning, I think, and as a rebuke.
How different things might have been had we succeeded! Poppies and daisies would grow now where the banks and counting-houses stand. London in its corrupt state would have passed away and in its place the state of Pantisocracy would flourish and bloom. A dream, you say? A childish fantasy? Perhaps.
Two and a half hours after Mr. Hawker’s searing handshake had rendered him unconscious, Mr. Dedlock opened his eyes and hoisted himself groggily to his feet. Happily, he had awoken from his stupor without any obvious ill effects, save for a faint, throbbing ache in his head, no worse than he had endured on countess occasions after a night’s overindulgence.
Around him, the fires had been extinguished, the dead were being cleared away and the walking bandaged up — everything polished and cleaned and made tidy. Within a day the battlefield would be restored to its usual condition and the citizens would try to pretend that nothing had really happened there at all. It was as though after Hastings the survivors had simply swept up the debris, stowed away the casualties and hoped everything would be back to normal again tomorrow. Such small-minded behavior — London had come within a hairs-breadth of being saved, and her people had responded like children afraid of the dark, by squeezing shut their eyes and begging it to go away. The Church of the Summer Kingdom had offered them salvation but they were content to live on just as they always had, in iniquity, in ignorance and sin.
Not, of course, that Dedlock thought about any of this when he looked approvingly around him. No, he was merely relieved that the incident was over and that he had survived unscathed. Just a little self-consciously, he cleared his throat, walked across to the nearest group of policemen and began barking orders.
But Dedlock had changed. It wasn’t until hours later, when he was back home and undressing for bed, that he happened to glance into a mirror and see for the first time exactly what the Prefects had done to him, the subtlety of their promised gift.
The scars on his torso had gone and with them the marks upon his face — those milk-white indentations which had once so strikingly criss-crossed his body — all had been wiped away, erased as easily as the Somnambulist might remove chalk marks from his slate. Dedlock looked down at his chest, unlined and newly smooth, and was disgusted by what he saw, now so commonplace, so unbearably everyday and unremarkable.
Suddenly short of breath, he shrugged off the last of his clothes, slumped down upon his bed and did something he’d not done for almost twenty years.
In the morning, when he called the Survivors’ Club to tender his resignation, his eyes were still puffy and red from weeping.
The Prefects knew exactly what they were doing. But compared to the albino, Dedlock got off lightly.
I’m not sure how much I can bring myself to tell you about what happened to Mr. Skimpole. Where should I begin? At which point in that protracted and humiliating death? The long and agonizing journey back to Wimbledon? The moment when he was ejected from his hansom cab after spewing a glutinous red substance over the seats? When he looked down at the mess and wondered, almost idly, whether some of that putrescent slime might not be the last remnants of his stomach lining?