Live and Let Drood: A Secret Histories Novel (26 page)

“Because if Crow Lee has become powerful enough to remove the entire Drood family from the playing field, how long before he comes after you and your organisation?” I said.

Latimer nodded slowly and blew a perfect smoke ring. “Good point. All right, Edwin. A temporary alliance. But you’re going to owe me a really big favour for this.”

“Agreed,” I said. “A favour for a favour.” And then I stopped and looked at her thoughtfully. “I have to ask: Did you by any chance
know
that something really bad was going to happen to my family? Did you have any information or warnings in advance and not tell us?”

“No,” said the boss.

“Would you tell us if you did?” said Molly, slipping into place beside me.

“Probably not,” said the boss. “I tend my own garden.”

“So, why are you so ready to help me now?” I said.

“Because I’ve wanted a chance to bring Crow Lee down for ages,” said Latimer. “I really hoped your family would kill him long ago, just on general principle, but somehow you were always too busy with other things. I half expected to see him go down with the Great Satanic Conspiracy, but of course he was smart enough not to get involved. Personally, I think they weren’t extreme enough for him. And, of course, he never was interested in joining any group that wouldn’t immediately accept him as their leader.…If they had, they might have beaten you. But he’s always been too powerful and too well-connected for me to touch. So, you kick the little turd into the long grass with my blessing, Edwin. If you can.” She looked at me for a long moment. “Is it just you, Edwin? Did any of the other Droods survive?”

“No one else from my family made it out of the Hall alive,” I said carefully. “There’s always the rogues, of course.”

“Of course. I am sorry for your loss, Edwin. Some of them were my friends. And I do know what it’s like to lose family. Now, what can I do for you?”

“I need information,” I said. “Where, exactly, can I find the Department of the Uncanny and the Regent of Shadows?”

Catherine Latimer looked genuinely surprised. “Why on earth would you want him, of all people?”

“Because my family never wanted to talk about him,” I said.

I
t doesn’t matter how much experience you have of the world or how much you think you understand how things work; every now and again the way things really are will just rise up and slap you round the head.

Molly and I stood together looking up at Big Ben, with Molly not saying
I told you so
so loudly it was almost deafening. As Catherine Latimer had taken a certain delight in telling me, the Department of the Uncanny was indeed currently based at Big Ben. Just as Madame O had said back on Brighton Pier.

“Smugness really is very unattractive in a woman,” I said, looking straight ahead. “Bloody Big Ben…I’ve heard of hiding in plain sight, but this is ridiculous. Hiding one of this country’s most secret organisations behind a major tourist attraction? That’s thinking so lateral, it’s positively perverse.”

“Big Ben is actually the name of the bell,” Molly said solemnly. “Not the tower, or the clock at the top. I know many other useful facts about Big Ben, if you’re interested.”

“I mean, we’re talking about a bloody big tower right next to the House of Commons!” I said bitterly. “And no one in that place could keep a secret even if you put a gun to their ’nads.…”

Molly looked at me sharply. “We’re not going to have to go down
into Under Parliament again, are we? That whole layout gave me the creeps big-time.…”

“No,” I said. “There’s a hidden door right at the base of the tower. Raise your Sight and look straight ahead.”

I was already looking at it. A simple everyday door, standing upright on its own some two to three feet in front of the tower. Invisible and intangible to the rest of the world, it was a dimensional door, kept subtly out of phase with reality to provide a gateway to another place. Which meant the Department of the Uncanny wasn’t actually in Big Ben, but somewhere else. Which meant that technically speaking, I’d been right all along. I had enough sense not to say that, of course. There was even a very neat and polite sign on the door saying,
DEPARTMENT OF THE UNCANNY; ENQUIRE WITHIN
, for those with the eyes to see it. What next—a welcome mat? Guided tours? A souvenir shop?

“Stop frowning,” said Molly. “It’ll give you wrinkles. Tell me things about the Department of the Uncanny. Lecture me. You know that always puts you in a better mood.”

It would have made a much better peace offering if she could have said it without the smirk, but of such compromises are successful relationships made. Or so I’m told.

“Catherine Latimer had quite a lot to say about the Department of the Uncanny,” I said. “While you were prowling round her office, looking for more things to steal. Most of these remarks were of a somewhat jealous and judgemental nature, but that’s competing secret organisations for you. It’s what she didn’t say that intrigues me the most. She seemed to know things only about the Department’s previous incarnation, when it was run by the Shadowy Cabinet. Political appointees, the lot of them, and living proof that it’s who, rather than what, you know that gets you ahead in government circles. They’re all gone now, of course; the entire Shadowy Cabinet was killed off during the Great Satanic Conspiracy.”

“Whose side were they on?” said Molly.

“No one knows,” I said. “The Satanists wiped them all out, apparently for not making up their minds quickly enough. To my mind, the very fact they were considering the question was good enough reason
to stamp them all into the ground with extreme prejudice. The Regent of Shadows was invited to come in and do the whole new-broom thing shortly afterwards, and that was when Catherine Latimer’s information stopped. Which suggests, if nothing else, that the Regent runs a tight ship and holds his secrets close to his chest.”

“Good for him,” said Molly. “He’ll talk to us, though. Won’t he?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “He’ll talk to us.”

“If he knows what’s good for him.”

“Exactly! Can I lecture you some more?”

“Oh, go on, then. You know that professorial voice gets me all hot. And it’ll help cheer you up for being so totally and utterly wrong about Big Ben. If you start to get boring, I can always heckle and throw things.”

“The Department exists to keep an eye on the hidden world,” I said. “To find out and know everything that matters about those aspects of the supernatural world that might pose a threat. Or at the very least, to know as much as possible. Because everything is always changing in the hidden world. Which is why the Department’s agents are always so busy, overworked and just a bit twitchy. The Department then passes the relevant data on to those best able to make use of it, or at least to those the government of the day approves of. The Ghost Finders, the SAS combat sorcerers, the London Knights…even the Droods; after they’ve tried everything else, including prayer, and closing their eyes and just hoping it all goes away. Governments have always hated going cap in hand to my family.”

“Gosh,” said Molly, “I can’t think why. Could it be because you always want something really hefty in return?”

“Who’s telling this?” I said. “The Department of the Uncanny is part of the Establishment, though they like to say they’re separate from it. But then, everyone in the Establishment likes to think that. Helps them sleep better at night. Catherine Latimer told me that Big Ben is the real London Eye, the Eye on the outer worlds. That the clock faces are just a disguise, a distraction. Because apparently someone or something lives at the top of the tower and Sees all and knows all.”

“Like Madame O?” said Molly.

“Rather more clearly, one hopes,” I said. “The Department gathers most of its information through field agents. They work in the shadows, as shadows, entirely undetected. No one knows who they are.”

“Not even each other?”

“Must make for some stilted conversations in the staff canteen. And then there are the special agents, not unlike Drood field agents, for when something must be done. Usually in a hurry.”

“I suppose no one knows who they are, either,” said Molly.

“Got it in one! In fact, there are those who have been known to suggest that these Special Agents may not exist at all. Just smoke and mirrors to fool all the other secret organisations into taking the Department of the Uncanny more seriously.”

“Don’t the Droods know?”

“Oh, I’m sure someone in the family did,” I said, and then stopped to correct myself. “I’m sure someone does. We always make it a point to know the things that no one else knows. Knowledge is ammunition in the hidden world of secret organisations.”

I glanced casually about me. Night was falling, the lights were coming on and tourists strolled up and down the pavements, stopping now and then to take photos of one another before places of interest. And to peer uncertainly across the River Thames at the Houses of Parliament and wonder if anything important might be going on. And all the time they had no idea a door stood before Big Ben, unseen and unknown, that could have delivered them right into the heart of the secret world. But then, that’s always the way. Wherever you are and wherever you go, you’re never far from someone or something you’re better off not knowing about.

Once again, I’d left the Phantom V parked so illegally it was practically committing treason just sitting there. I’d told Catherine Latimer I’d be parking the Rolls right next to the Houses of Parliament, so she could warn off the security people. In the full knowledge that the boss might or might not pass the information along. Depending on whether she thought it might be funnier not to. Like most people in positions of
power, Latimer was famous for her perverse, not to say downright peculiar, sense of humour.

“Poor car,” said Molly, running her hand affectionately over the gleaming bonnet. “It must get really bored, left on its own so often. Maybe we could leave the radio on.…”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Poor car…Who’s a
good
car, then?”

“Don’t encourage it,” I said sternly. “The Armourer’s personalised cars have more than enough personality as it is.”

We left the Phantom V behind, and strode determinedly towards the door only we could See. None of the tourists noticed a thing, of course. The door saw to that. It waited till the very last moment, and then swung smoothly and invitingly open before us.

“You know,” I said, just a bit wistfully, “I can remember when I was a proper spy, and no one had a clue who or what I was.”

“We’re clearly expected,” said Molly.

“No one expects the Drood Inquisition!”

And we both walked laughing through the Uncanny door, something that probably didn’t happen all that often. There was a brief and unsettling feeling of transition, and just like that we were somewhere else. And very clearly not anywhere inside the tower of Big Ben. Molly slipped an arm possessively through mine and leaned in close so she could murmur in my ear.

“Very powerful teleport,” she said quietly. “Very sleek, very professional and, I might add, very much above the pay scale of a department like this. Which means either there’s more to this particular mob than meets the eye or they stole it. Can I just enquire? Can you get us out of here in a hurry, should it prove necessary for us to get the hell out of Dodge with bullets flying around our nether regions?”

“I have the Merlin Glass,” I said just as quietly.

“That’s not what I asked,” said Molly.

“Oh, ye of little faith. I thought the blatantly purloined Twilight Teardrop currently hanging round your splendid neck had restored all your abilities.”

“Oh, hell, yes. I’m just bursting with all kinds of magics! All kinds! I’m not worried at all. I just thought you might be.”

“It’s good of you to be so concerned,” I said. “Makes me feel so much more secure.”

“I can never tell when you’re being serious,” Molly said severely.

“Neither can I…Just settle for the fact that we are where we wanted to be, and try not to dwell too much on the fact that the door we came through has already disappeared.”

“Imagine my surprise,” said Molly.

We were standing in a warm and cosy waiting room, with great bunches of flowers in oriental vases, pleasant paintings on brightly painted walls and a deep, deep shag-pile carpet. The whole setting had a familiar feel, and it took me a moment to realise it was because my new surroundings reminded me of home. Of Drood Hall. I suppressed a sudden stab of sorrow as I wondered if I’d ever see the Hall, my Hall, again. I’d purposefully kept myself busy all day just so I wouldn’t have to think or feel things like that. I’d always defined myself as the Drood who ran away from home, but if there wasn’t a home or a family to run away from…then who was I, really? What was I? I’d always fought for the right to live away from my family, but I’d always wanted them to still be there.…

I remembered a moment from my childhood. Sitting alone in the silent empty dormitory while all the other children were off studying, while my uncle James sat beside me on the bed and told me that my mother and father wouldn’t be coming home again. Ever. Because they’d been killed out in the field on a mission that went wrong.
These things happen,
he said as kindly as he could.
You have to be strong now, Eddie. Be a Drood. For your mother and father, and for the family. Can you do that?
And I wanted to please him, because even then I greatly admired my uncle James, so I said,
Yes, I can be strong. Anything for the family.
Because I knew that was what I was supposed to say. And he smiled and slapped me on the shoulder, and got up and went away. Leaving me sitting there alone in that eerily silent and deserted dormitory. And all I could think was,
I want my mum. I want my dad.