Cannonbridge (30 page)

“And the brick in the wall... the false brick... it was paper. Dirty, sodden paper thrust into the gap.”

“Toby? What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“I see it all,” Toby mutters. “At last. I can see what they’ve done. And—my God—I know what they’ve unleashed.”

1902

GLEBE HOUSE

BLACKHEATH

S
KIN ON SKIN
and tongue on tongue, one soft hand moving at the back of his head, another caressing his shoulder, Sir Arthur sits in the drawing room of a house that he does not own with a lady who is not his wife sitting astride him. The lady’s mother is at present elsewhere in the building, having been distracted by some spurious errand, and the lovers have seized this opportunity, all too rare, for intimacy.

“Not now,” Arthur whispers as the lady adjusts her petticoats, moves so that she might be set more snugly again him. “Not yet.”

He lets her continue all the same and makes no move to make her desist ruffling his hair or tickling his moustache or to push away the tantalising proximity of her honeyed breath. She sighs and shudders beneath her bulky dress and as he sits, unmoving, in this illicit paradise all manner of possibilities flit, in sensuous parade, across his imagination.

Their snatched idyll is interrupted by the soft, decorous peal of a bell.

Arthur starts, like a man being woken from a dream.

The lady places a finger against his lips. “Only someone at their door. No need to fret.”

“Nonetheless,” says the moustachioed man, “we should probably endeavour to restore some semblance of decorum.”

“Shh.” Finger placed on lips once more, her closeness intoxicating. Then, in realisation: “Bother.”

“My dear?”

“The servants have the afternoon off.”

“Ah.”

“And I should so hate to trouble mother.” She moves with practised grace back to the ground and to her feet again.

When she has completed this smooth, supple motion, the bell is heard again.

Briskly, Sir Arthur rises, adjusts his clothes, smoothing down his jacket and trousers in the manner of a battle-weary commander stepping reluctantly onto the parade ground. “I shall answer it myself, my dear.”

“Arthur, honestly, there really is no need.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he says, and with a stern nod which contains also a note of cheeky erotic promise, he steps proudly from the room.

T
HERE IS AN
elderly man waiting upon the threshold, dressed, slightly absurdly, in what looks like the uniform of His Majesty’s Post Office.

“Good afternoon,” says Sir Arthur. “How might I be of assistance?”

When the caller speaks it is with a pronounced American twang. “I have a letter, sir.”

Sir Arthur wrinkles his nose. “A Bostonian by birth, I would surmise. Once considered something of an Adonis in your prime, now fallen on hard times and running to seed.”

The old man on the threshold looks unsurprised by the performance. “That’s mighty impressive, Sir Arthur,” he says as he draws from his pocket a slim white envelope. “Now this is for you, sir.”

“For me? But who would know... I mean, this is not, you understand, strictly my address. Not at all. No. I am visiting... a family friend. This must be a mistake.”

“No mistake, Sir Arthur.”

The old man holds the letter outstretched, takes a faltering step closer and Arthur sees that it is indeed his name that is inscribed upon the paper in a black, calligraphic, rather old-fashioned hand. “How...” he begins. The sentence goes no further.

A look of near-infinite sadness washes over the face of the postman. “Wherever you were, sir,” he murmurs, “this would have found you.”

Sir Arthur opens his mouth to reply but—

“I’d just take the letter, sir.”

Another gape of protest.

“Take the damn letter.”

So Arthur Conan Doyle does what has been requested and takes the letter and thanks the stranger and closes the door upon him, his final impression of the old man’s face being that of long and painful service coming, at last, to its conclusion.

“W
HO WAS THAT
?” says the lady when Sir Arthur returns with letter in hand.

She is standing in the centre of the room, looking pleasant and unruffled and altogether ready to play the hostess.

“Postman,” says Sir Arthur simply. “Letter.” He brandishes the relevant item.

“For me?” asks the lady, with a faux-coquettishness that the writer, for all that it usually charms him, currently finds somewhat vexing.

“No, my dear,” he says, more sharply than had been his intention. “For me.”

“For you?” she asks, both fear and triumph visible in her expression. “How is that..?”

“I know, my dear. I know.”

“Who is it from?”

“Let us see,” says Sir Arthur, and noting, although he does not say so, the quality of the paper and the evidently expensive brand of ink, tears open the envelope and draws out the letter within.

Impatiently, he scans the contents.

“Good Lord,” he says at last. “He must have been mad.”

“But who is it from?” asks the lady, who is not entirely successful in keeping a note of petulance from her voice.

“Matthew Cannonbridge,” Sir Arthur says.

“How is that possible?”

“It seems that he wrote it before his death and left instructions for it to be sent to me today.”

“But why? What did he want?”

“These are... instructions. For a ceremony meant to commemorate his life. There is to be a gathering down by the river. Some toast to be made in his name.”

“What a melancholy message to have received. Yet I imagine that his wishes can be granted readily enough? As the country’s foremost man of letters now, you will naturally play a key role.”

“No, my dear. I’m afraid you misunderstand. He has specified a date on which all of this is to come to pass.”

“Surely, he suggests that this should be soon?”

“On the contrary. All these things are to take place on the bicentenary of his first recorded appearance.”

“But that would mean...” The lady thinks for a moment. Frowns incredulously. “2016.”

“Quite so,” says Sir Arthur and for a long time after that nothing at all is said in that room and a terrible silence lies between them as though some truth had been uttered which might make untenable their slightest hope of future happiness.

NOW

T
HE WEATHER TONIGHT
was always supposed to be good, fine and mild, without precipitation and with only the mildest of breezes. The good folks at the bank and at the events organiser that they hired for an eye-watering fee would scarcely have pressed ahead with the riverside marquees had the reports contained but a single element of ambiguity. Not on so important an occasion as this. Not with so many dignitaries present, with the movie stars, with the ambassadors, with the Prime Minister himself, for God’s sake. And not, above all, when it was going to cost so much money.

So they are alarmed, then, when the first signs of a storm begin to make themselves apparent. A wind—exceptionally cold for the season—whips up, rustling the canvas, causing the banners, the famous face upon them to shimmer and distort. In the distance, dark clouds in the evening sky, pregnant with rain. In the air, the promise of a tempest, the ominous tang of electricity.

These things have yet to come to the attention, however, of the great majority of those inside the VIP tent, riveted as they are by Dr Salazar’s slick and well-prepared speech.

J J himself is oblivious to the imminent downpour as is Swaine-Taylor, as are all the famous people, standing around, champagne flutes in hand, like so many tailors’ dummies, as is the PM himself, a little bored by proceedings, never having been much of a one for literature himself, feigning earnest interest with that air of sober conviction which had done so much to get him elected.

Only Toby Judd, although he is not aware of the meteorological specifics, senses this shift in the atmosphere, this new urgency. At this very moment, he is moving at speed away from his wife (“Toby”, she hisses, although he ignores her, “get back here”), jostling his way through the ranks of celebrity and power, causing a little mayhem as he goes, jogging elbows, spilling a drink, treading on other men’s toes and tripping over ladies’ ball gowns. A muted chorus of tuts and shushes accompanies his progress. Caroline blushes crimson at the sight of him. And all the while, her lover talks on, speaking not now of Geneva, but of Boston and Haworth and Baltimore, of Karl and Wilkie and Oscar, of
Plenitude
, of
The English Golem
, of
The Lamentation of Eliphar, Mununzar’s Son
.

At last, Toby reaches the object of his quest. Outside, the wind moves more powerfully, the storm clouds darken and approach.

“I’ve worked it out,” Toby gasps.

Swaine-Taylor turns to face him. “Whatever’s the matter? You seem most agitated.”

“I’ve seen it all. Deduced the truth at last. And I know what you idiots have done.”

The CEO sighs, glances meaningfully towards the stage and the popinjay who struts upon it. “Can’t this wait, Dr Judd?”

“No. No, it can’t. It’s waited too long. Don’t you see? That’s the danger. Listen. I think you need to evacuate this whole area.”

“Ridiculous. Why on earth would I want to do that?”

“Because he’s coming back. Don’t you see? He’s coming back.”

“You’re raving. Can’t say I blame you. It has been rather a stressful time for you. Whatever it is we can talk about it later.” He smiles lazily. “Perhaps when we discuss your remuneration package?”

On stage, Salazar is reaching the end of his address. “And let us remember now,” he says. “Cannonbridge’s last instructions sent in that remarkable letter to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. So let us now, on this glorious bicentenary, turn to face the river in which our author lost his life and, with glasses upraised and with gratitude in our hearts, offer a toast to the extraordinary life of Matthew Cannonbridge.”

Whilst he has been delivering these words, the imminent storm has come to the attention of his audience—the canvas first rustling then moving with increasing violence in the sudden wind, the sound of rain upon the marquee, sounding more as if fistfuls of gravel are being thrown rather than water.

Salazar tries not to look too thrown by this and, in spite of a few nervous glances exchanged between guests, the crowd largely do the same and revolve, with expressions of exaggerated good nature for the watching cameras, towards where they know the river to be. Swaine-Taylor does the same and Toby sees his opportunity, moving away from the CEO and towards the stage, muscling his way through the throng.

A few feet away, he sees Mr Keen moving towards him with an expression of profound annoyance.

“To Matthew Cannonbridge!” declares Dr Salazar and the assembly echo the cry.

“Matthew Cannonbridge!”

But by now, Toby has clambered onto the stage and is striding towards the microphone.

Just as he reaches it, there is a further gust of wind and the whole structure shakes. The sound of rain swells and grows still more persistent. Salazar is looking at him in disbelief.

“J J,” says Toby and, shoving him out of the way, steps up to the microphone. In the crowd, Mr Keen is moving towards him as, he sees now, are several of the Prime Minister’s security detail.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Toby says. “Your attention please!”

The crowd, confused, look around.

“My name is Toby and you probably don’t know me. If you do, it’ll be from that damn video on YouTube or, even worse, from the TV news. But you probably won’t recognise me because I used to have more hair back then. But I’m getting off the point. I’m rambling. Listen. If you really knew me—if you knew me properly—you’d understand that whilst I’m not very accomplished at most things in life I am good at making connections. I saw that Cannonbridge wasn’t real, you see.”

Expressions of bemusement on some of the crowd, pity and disgust on the others.

Keen and the guards are nearer now. Outside—a crack of thunder, the storm almost upon them.

“This might not mean a great deal to you now but I want you all to remember. I’m asking you—all of you who are here today—I’m exhorting you to remember these words. Because I’ve got a horrible feeling that everything is about to change. And to survive what’s coming, to fight the darkness, you’re going to have to remember this. When Matthew Cannonbridge was first sighted, in Geneva and in London and in America, he was bewildered. He was benign then but he wasn’t quite fully formed, always afraid that some evil transformation lay ahead of him. And then, at the parsonage on Christmas Day in 1842, some implacable malevolence took hold of him and altered him forever. Blessborough and the island—they’d created a blank space, you see. A kind of empty thought-form. And nature, as we know, abhors a vacuum.”

Another crack of thunder, more rain, the audience still more mystified and ill at ease.

Keen and the others are almost at the stage.

“So what was it that changed him in Yorkshire? Think of the date! The year that this bank was founded! An intelligence, remember, beyond that of man! A bank’s not a person. That’s what I was told by its CEO. But what if it was? Don’t you see? What if it was?”

Keen is on stage now. “Step away from the microphone,” he says. Behind him, the guards are climbing up.

Toby is gabbling now. “It needs belief, Blessborough said. For the... warping to work. And he’s had almost a century of belief now. And he’s been down there waiting. Growing strong. Strong enough to have reached out to me, to have made contact through shards of his work. So what might he have become by now? Dear God, what might he have become?”

Keen has him now by the arm, forced up behind his back, and is bundling him at speed off the stage.

“I’d run!” Toby shouts. “All of you! Run!”

Another surge of wind, the rain relentless, another crack of thunder, followed almost at once by lightning. Such a storm is upon them. Concerned conversation amongst the crowd, an anxious motion towards the door, the PM in worried conversation with an aide, J J looking furious, Swaine-Taylor disappointed and stern.