No. I’ll spare you that — we’ll begin, I think, as the man arrived back at his house, wrestled with key and lock for the final time, the roar of pain in his head blocking out even the sounds of his neighbors’ revelry. To steady himself, he leant against the front door for a moment, then half-walked, half-stumbled inside, rasping out his son’s name.
Of course, there was no reply and Skimpole tottered further inside, determined to be with his only child as death collected her due. Reeking of vomit and bleeding from at least a dozen separate places, he stumbled into the kitchen, wailing for his son.
It was then that he saw him. Or rather what was left of him.
Even I (scarcely a squeamish man) can hardly bear to describe the thing. No doubt you have a good idea yourself — you will have guessed by now the nature of the Prefects’ ‘fee.’
The Skimpole boy lay supine on the floor, pale and clammy, a pitiable look of terror on his face. His skin and clothes were spattered with crimson and every bone in his body was broken. He had been expertly battered to death with his own two crutches.
Numbly, Skimpole wondered if they had taken turns.
Too weak to scream out his rage and grief, too tired to cry, the albino fell to his knees and collapsed on his son’s ruined form. With his last remaining strength, he clasped the corpse’s hand (still wet with blood), squeezed it tight and waited patiently for the end.
As for the murderers themselves — no policeman will ever track them down nor any court try them for their innumerable crimes.
After they disappeared, a half-hearted manhunt was arranged but nothing came of it and the matter was swiftly dropped. To be frank, I doubt if anyone wanted to find them.
To the best of my knowledge, the Prefects have appeared twice more since then, though I’ve no doubt that they figure in many other stories yet unknown to me — lurking at the corners of other narratives, some very old, some still to be told, some more strange perhaps even than this.
Twelve years ago, witnesses of an atrocity carried out under the auspices of the new Russian government claimed to have seen two men bizarrely dressed as English schoolboys take a leading role in the massacre. No one believed them, naturally, but those of us who were there beneath the Monument that day recognized at once the handiwork of Masters Hawker and Boon.
They have surfaced again more recently — some appalling bloodbath in New Zealand. I saw a newspaper story about the incident, illustrated by a blurred photograph taken at the aftermath of the scene. Most likely it was my imagination but I could have sworn that Hawker stood at the periphery of the frame. He was fuzzy and indistinct but it seemed to me as though he was grinning delightedly at his handiwork, at the destruction unraveling about him. Sadly, I am unable to verify this, as the paper was taken away from me before an hour had passed. They seem oddly strict here about reading matter.
It should go without saying that, despite all the years that had passed since the Battle of King William Street Station, the Hawker in the photograph looked not a day older. It was as though he had been frozen in time, unaging, like a fly trapped in amber.
Should you ever have the profound misfortune to encounter these creatures, I need hardly caution you to run (not walk) away from them, to block your ears so as not to hear their lies, to flee in giddy desperation for your life.
Not for me the picturesque death of Mr. Skimpole. I have been subjected to a far longer and, in a sense, more gruesome execution. There was talk at one time of my being hanged for treason (I believe Detective Inspector Merryweather was especially vociferous on the subject) but I was able to outwit my captors without a great deal of effort. After some faintly degrading play-acting on my part, they put me here, in a sanctuary where the supposed mental condition of its inhabitants places me beyond the reach of the state’s bloodier excesses.
Time is notoriously difficult to judge in a place like this, the passing of night and day almost impossible to mark save by the irregular rationing of food and drink. When I first arrived, they locked me up on my own for… how long? Days? Weeks? Even now I can’t be entirely certain.
It’s a testament to my tremendous resilience that I was able to endure such solitary incarceration without my mind cracking under the strain. As it was, I emerged from my confinement all the stronger, if, admittedly, rather lonely. I am a sociable creature and I found that I had missed the warmth of companionship and camaraderie, the sound of voices other than my own. Consequently, I was permitted — under strict conditions — to receive guests.
I confess I was surprised that he came to see me at all.
“Thomas Cribb,” he said and reached his left hand (unbandaged, five-fingered) across the table. One of the guards, his beefy arms folded, observed us truculently from the other side of the room.
“We’ve met before,” I said.
Something like a smile flickered across his face. “So I gather.”
“I had never previously enjoyed an opportunity to study the man at close quarters, and I cannot stress quite enough how remarkably striking was his ugliness, how compellingly repulsive.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I want to make you a promise.”
I noticed that he had brought a newspaper with him and I caught a glimpse of its headline — a report, it seemed, of recent events beneath the Monument. I saw my own name and below it an insulting likeness of my face.
Cribb leant forward across the desk toward me. At the gesture, the guard unfolded his arms and reached instinctively for the truncheon which hung from the belt at his waist. The ugly man fixed me with his most piercing gaze.
“I do not care to see my city threatened,” Cribb said.
“Your city?”
“I promise to do everything in my power to stop you. I’ll help this…” He glanced down at the paper as if to check some minor detaiclass="underline" “This Edward Moon. I’ll teach him how to thwart you.”
I yawned. “Sorry. Don’t follow.”
“I’ll guide him. Use him to ensure you don’t succeed.”
I grinned at the guard. “Maybe he ought to be in here with us,” I quipped, and gratifyingly, the man smirked in response.
“I’ve built up a good rapport with my gaolers. I think they’ve taken to me and I suspect that many of them (though it would be more than their jobs are worth to admit it) know that I really shouldn’t be in here at all.
My visitor rose to his feet. “By the way,” he said, “history will not remember you.”
I chose not to reply to this last, childish barb and Thomas Cribb walked silently away.
Perhaps, in retrospect, I should have said more, kept him talking, found out more about his claims. As it was, I never saw him again.
Frankly, I don’t consider it a great loss. There was always something so bloody smug about the man.
A week passed before I received my second visitor (I say a week; of course, it might just as easily have been a fortnight or a month). You’ll think it strange, and at the time it certainly surprised me, but even after everything he’d done, some part of me was actually pleased to see him.
“Edward,” I said, and smiled.
For a man who had suffered so much, he looked well. A little older, perhaps, grayer, with some of the swagger out of him, and some of his vanity, his preening self-confidence, satisfyingly punctured. All in all, I thought it an improvement.
We sat in silence for a while.
“Why have you come?” I said at last.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Anything,” I said, perhaps a trifle overeager.
“I need to know why.”
To my — and I suspect to our — surprise, his visits became a regular fixture.