The Man From the Diogenes Club Read online

  ‘I won’t carry a watch,’ said Annette, ‘but I’ve an excellent sense of time. And I’ve lost it. How long was I unconscious?’

  ‘Ages,’ said Vanessa. ‘We thought you’d died.’

  ‘A few seconds,’ said Richard.

  ‘See,’ said Annette. ‘No sense of time at all.’

  Richard looked at the nearest window. It was black glass, like the clock – a mirror in which he looked shockingly worn-out. Even when the overhead lights flickered, which they did more and more, he couldn’t see out. He didn’t know if they were rushing through England, Scotland or some other dark country. He felt the rattle-rhythm of the train – that, he knew, came from rolling over slight joins between lengths of rail, every ten or twenty feet. The Scotch Streak was still on tracks.

  ‘Have we passed Edinburgh?’ said Annette.

  Edinburgh! That was a way out, a way off the Ghost Train!

  From the station, he could phone Edwin, have the Club use its pull to cancel the rest of the journey, get everyone else out safely. Danny’s death was justification for calling off the whole jaunt, shutting down the line. The couriers could be sent across Scotland in a taxi. It would take longer, but they’d be surer to arrive intact. If anyone wanted to start World War Three, they’d have to wait until after lunch.

  Then, he could think of something else to do with his life.

  What life?

  ‘I have a picture of the station in my mind,’ said Annette, concentrating. ‘Passengers get off, coal is taken on. They try to do it quietly, so as not to wake the sleepers, but you can’t pour tons of anything quietly. I can’t tell if I’m seeing ahead or remembering. My Talent seems to be on the blink at the moment. “Normal transmission will be resumed as soon as possible.” There’s a black wall…’

  ‘We’ve already stopped once,’ said Vanessa, in a small, scared voice. ‘In Scotland.’

  This was news. Richard couldn’t imagine not noticing.

  ‘Quite right, miss,’ said Arnold the conductor, coming back from where the first-class carriages should be. ‘I’ve clipped the ticket of the Edinburgh-to-Portnacreirann passenger. Just the one. Not what it used to be. Ah, someone’s made a bit of a mess here. Don’t worry. We’ll get it cleaned up in a jiffy. Madame, might I bring you more water? This jug seems to be empty.’

  Richard, suddenly cool inside, saw Arnold was either mad or with the other side. Not the other side as in the Soviets (though that was possible) but the other side as in beyond the veil, the Great Old Whatevers. Maybe he’d been normal when he first boarded the Scotch Streak, who knows how many nights ago – now he was one of Them, aligned with Annette’s It. The conductor wore an old-fashioned uniform, a crimson cutaway jacket and high-waisted flyless matador trousers. His tiepin was the crest of the long-gone London, Scotland and Isles Railway Company. His cap was oversize, a child’s idea of railwayman’s headgear.

  He resisted an impulse to take Arnold by his antique lapels, smash him through a partition, throw a proper Teddy boy scare into him, get the razor against his jugular, demand straight answers.

  ‘Thank you,’ he told the conductor. ‘A refill would be appreciated.’

  Arnold took the jug and walked off. Annette, greatly upset, was about to speak, but Richard made a gesture and she bit her lip instead. She was up to speed. It wasn’t just the train and the spooks. It was the people aboard, some of them at least.

  ‘What is it?’ said Vanessa, picking up on the wordless communication between grown-ups. ‘A secret? Tell me at once. You’re not to have secrets. I say so.’

  Annette laughed indulgently, at the girl’s directness. The corners of her eyes crinkled in a way she hated and tried to avoid, but which Richard saw was utterly adorable. She was far more beautiful as herself than the made-up mask she showed the world.

  ‘No secrets from you, little thing,’ she said, pinching Vanessa’s nose.

  The little girl looked affronted by the impudence and stuck her fork into Annette’s throat.

  ‘Don’t call me “little thing”,’ she said, in a grown man’s voice. ‘You French cow!’

  II.

  Richard scythed a white china dinner-plate edge-first into the little girl’s face. The plate broke, gashing Vanessa’s eyebrow – it would leave a scar. Blood fountained out of the child-shaped thing.

  She gave out a deep, roaring howl and held her face, kicking the underside of the table, twisting and writhing as if on fire.

  Richard looked across the table at Annette.

  She held her hand to her throat, fork stuck out between her fingers, blood dribbling down her arm. Her eyes were wide.

  ‘Didn’t see… that coming,’ she said, and slumped.

  The light went out in her eyes.

  Vanessa’s hooked little fingers scrabbled at Richard’s face, and he fell out of his seat. The child hopped onto his chest, pummelling, scratching and kicking. He slithered backwards, working his shoulders and feet, trying to throw the miniature dervish off him. Her blood poured into his face.

  He caught hold of one of her braids and pulled.

  A little-girl yell came out of her, a Mummy-he’s-hurtingmeee scream. Was that the real Vanessa? Something else was in there with her, whoever she was, whatever it was.

  The girl was possessed.

  It had been hiding, deep in the blanks of her mind, but had peeped out once or twice. Richard hadn’t paid enough attention.

  And now another of the group was gone.

  Annette Amboise. He’d only known her a few days, but they’d become close. It was as if they knew they would be close, had seen a future now cruelly revoked, had been rushing past this long night, speeding to get to a next leg of their journey, which they would take together.

  All that was left of that was this monster.

  As Vanessa shrieked, Richard hurled her off. He got to his feet, unsteady. He looked to Annette, hoping she was unconscious but knowing better. Slack-mouthed, like a fish, she toppled sideways, towards the window, slapping cheek-to-cheek with her equally dead reflection.

  Arnold was back – not from the direction he had left. He carried a full jug.

  ‘The lady won’t be needing this now,’ he said.

  The conductor ignored the frothing child-thing, who was crawling down the aisle, back seemingly triple-jointed, tongue extending six pink-and-blue inches, braids stood on end as if pulled by wires. It was like a giant gecko wearing a little girl suit, loose in some places and too tight in others. As its limbs moved, the suit almost tore.

  One eye was blotted shut with blood. The other fixed on Richard.

  The girl hissed.

  Then the Gecko became bipedal. The spine curved upwards, straining like a drawn bow. Forelegs lifted and became floppy arms, hands limp like paddles. The belly came unstuck from the aisle carpet. Snake-hips kinking, it hopped upright. It stood with feet apart and shoulders down, as if balancing an invisible tail.

  ‘Vanessa,’ said Richard, ‘can you hear me? It’s Richard.’

  Hot, obscene anger burst from whatever it was. He flinched. Annette might have been able to reach the girl inside, help her. That was her Talent. His left him open to emotional attack.

  He stood his ground.

  The label around the Gecko’s neck was soggy with blood, words washed away, black shapes emerging.

  He reached out and tore the label away. It left an angry weal around Vanessa’s neck.

  ‘Mine,’ she said, in her own voice. ‘Give it me back, you bastarrrd,’ in the thing’s masculine, somehow Scots voice. ‘Mine,’ both voices together, blasting from her chest and mouth.

  He rubbed his thumb over the bloody card. Scrapes came away. The label was actually an envelope, with a celluloid inner sleeve sealing strips of paper. He clawed with a nail, and saw number strings.

  The couriers were decoys, after all.

  ‘Give me those,’ said the Gecko.

  Richard knew what he held. Not numbers, but a numerical key. Put in a slot, they c
ould bring about Armageddon.

  ‘Is that what you want?’ he asked, talking to the thing.

  The smile became cunning, wide. The unblotted eye winked.

  ‘Give me back my numbers,’ it said, mimicking the girl’s voice.

  He could tell now when it was trying to fool him. Could tell how much she was Vanessa and how much the Gecko.

  ‘Conductor,’ she said. ‘That man’s got my ticket. Make him give it back to me.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Arnold. ‘This is a serious matter. May I see that ticket?’

  Richard clutched the celluloid in his fist. He wouldn’t let Arnold take the Go-Codes. He was with the Gecko.

  Vanessa’s eye closed and she crumpled. He had a stab of concern for the girl. If she fell badly, hit her head…

  Arnold’s gaze had a new firmness.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, holding up his ticket-clippers. ‘The ticket.’

  By jumping from the girl to the conductor, the Gecko had got closer to him. But it wore a shape he was less concerned about damaging.

  He stuck the Go-Codes into his top pocket, and launched a right cross at Arnold, connecting solidly with his chin, staggering him back a few steps. He’d perfectly hit the knock-out button, but the thing in Arnold didn’t pay attention. It lashed out, clipper-jaws open, aiming for an ear or a lip, intent on squeezing out a chunk of face.

  Richard ducked and the clippers closed on his sleeve, slicing through scarlet velvet, meeting in the fold. He hit Arnold a few more times, hearing school boxing instructors tell him he shouldn’t get angry. In his bouts, he always lost on points or was disqualified, even if he pummelled his opponent insensible. What he did in a fight wasn’t elegant or sporting, or remotely allowable under the Queensberry rules. He had learned something in the blanked portion of his childhood.

  From a crouch, he launched an uppercut, smashing Arnold’s face, feeling cartilage go in the conductor’s nose. The clippers hung from Richard’s underarm. They opened and fell to the juddering floor, leaving neat holes in his sleeve.

  Not above booting a man while he was down, he put all his frustration into a hefty kick, reinforced toe sinking into Arnold’s side, forcing out a Gecko-groan. The conductor emptied.

  Then an arm was around Richard’s neck. He was dragged to the floor.

  Annette’s elbow nut-crackered around his throat and her dead face flopped next to his, one eye rolling.

  He felt a wave of disgust, not at physical contact with a corpse, but at the abuse of Annette’s body. He couldn’t fight her as he had Arnold, or even as he had Vanessa (he’d broken a plate on a child’s face!) because of what had hung between them until moments ago.

  The thing working Annette took the fork out of her throat and held it to Richard’s eye.

  ‘The codes,’ it said, voice rattling through her ruptured windpipe. ‘Now.’

  He pressed his hand over his top pocket. He blinked furiously as the fork got close. One jab, and there would be metal in his brain.

  This trip was nearly over.

  III.

  The Gecko inside Annette held Richard in a death-grip, fork-tines hugely out of focus against his eye. Beyond the blur, he saw Arnold watching with his habitual air of quizzical deference. Anything between the passengers was their own business.

  Someone shouldered Arnold aside and levelled two double-barrelled shotguns at Richard and Annette.

  It was Harry Cutley. Hard-Luck Harry to the Rescue!

  ‘Ah-hah,’ declared Harry, a melodrama husband finding his wife in a clinch with her lover, ‘ah-bleedin’-hah! I knew Dickie-Boy was a wrong ‘un from the first. Hold him steady, Annie and I’ll save you!’

  It wasn’t easy to aim two shotguns at the same time, what with the swaying of the train. Harry couldn’t keep them level.

  ‘Annette’s not home,’ Richard said. ‘Look at her eyes.’

  Harry ignored him.

  He must have broken into the baggage car and requisitioned Mrs Sweet’s guns. His pockets were lumpy with cartridges. He had a lifetime of resentments to work off, in addition to being under the influence of the Scotch Streak. Harry still couldn’t hold the guns properly, but was close enough to Richard that aiming wouldn’t make much difference.

  At least the fork had gone away.

  The Gecko relaxed a little, holding Richard up as a shield and a target.

  Harry saw Vanessa, half her face bruised and bloody.

  ‘I see you can’t be trusted on your own,’ he said. ‘There’s a reason I’m Most Valued Member, Clever Dick. I observe at a glance, take in all the clues, puzzle out what has happened, make a snap decision, and act on it, promptly and severely.’

  He managed with an effort to get one gun half-cocked, but his left-hand gun twisted up and thumped his face. He flinched as if someone else had attacked him, and pointed the gun he had a better grip on.

  Richard shrugged off Annette’s dead fingers and stood.

  The gun-barrel raised with him.

  ‘Look at Annette, Harry,’ he said. ‘It got her. It got Danny. It had Vanessa. It’s tried to have me. It is trying to get you. You can hear it, can’t you? It’s talking to you now.’

  Richard stood aside, to let Harry see Annette.

  The Gecko couldn’t get the corpse to stand properly. Her bloodied neck was a congealed ruin. Her bloodless face was slack, empty – only her eye mobile, twitching with alien intellect.

  ‘Annie,’ said Harry, shocked, grieving.

  ‘You see,’ said Richard, stepping forward. ‘We’ve got to fight it.’

  Both guns swung. The barrels jabbed against Richard’s chest.

  ‘Stay where you are, young feller-me-lad,’ said Harry, fury sparking again. ‘I know you’re behind this. You may have Ed Winthrop fooled, but not Harry Cutley, oh no. Too clever by half, that’s your bloody trouble. Went to a public school, didn’t you?’

  ‘Several,’ Richard admitted.

  ‘Yes, I can tell. They’re all like you, bright boys with no depth, no backbone. Had it too easy, all your lives. Silver spoons up your bums from day one. Never had to work, never had to think. Reckon you can put one over on us all. Smarm out the posh accent and walk away from it.’

  Harry was off on his own. With the guns steady, he got all the cocks back.

  Annette had pulled herself upright, assisted by Arnold. She puppet-walked towards them.

  ‘Look behind you,’ whispered Richard, like a kid at a pantomime.

  Harry showed a toothy grin. ‘Won’t fool me with that one, boy.’

  Annette’s hands were out, thumbs barbed, nearing Harry’s neck. When she gripped, his hands would clench – and four barrels-worth of whatever Mrs Sweet liked to load would discharge through Richard’s torso.

  ‘Just this once, do me a favour, Harry, and listen,’ said Richard.

  The barrels jammed deeper. Richard shut up – he couldn’t do anything about his educated accent, which set off Harry’s class hatred.

  Annette’s hands landed, not around Harry’s neck, but on his shoulders. He shivered, in instinctive pleasure. He was enjoying himself. He had everyone where he wanted them. He angled his head and rubbed his cheek, like a cat’s, on Annette’s dead hand.

  The Gecko used Annette’s face to make a smile and kissed Harry’s ear.

  It was a miracle the guns didn’t go off.

  ‘See, just this once, bright boy, you lose.’

  The light in Annette’s eyes went out and she was a corpseweight against Harry’s back. Harry was bothered, his eyes flickering.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he said.

  While Harry was distracted, Richard took hold of the barrels and tried to shift them. No dice. Harry shook his head as if trying to see off a buzzing wasp.

  Annette fell away, collapsing on the floor.

  Harry stepped backwards, his upper body jerking as if the wasps were now pestering in force. The guns slipped away from Richard’s chest. He took the opportunity to get out of the way. Harry tripped over Ann
ette’s legs and went arse over teakettle.

  One of the guns finally went off, blasting a plate-sized hole in the ceiling.

  Night air rushed through. Up there somewhere were stars.

  Harry, without even knowing what he was doing, resisted the Gecko. So it couldn’t take anyone – only unformed minds, long-time Streak freaks, or the newly dead. It could whisper, influence, mislead, work on weaknesses, but couldn’t just move in and take over.

  Richard sensed the thing’s formless anger.

  Then Vanessa, standing quietly a dozen feet away, was tagged and was ‘it’ again. She ran, hopping past Annette, leap-frogging Harry, and soared at Richard, in defiance of gravity, a living missile.

  Vanessa’s head collided with Richard’s stomach, and he was knocked over.

  She snatched the celluloid from his pocket, and – with a girlish whoop of nasty triumph – was out of the carriage.

  He heard her laugh dwindle as she got further away.

  Harry stood, brushing a blood-smear on his jacket. He’d dropped one of the guns, but had the other under his arm. He flapped his wrung-out hand, still jarred from the discharge. The thumb, broken or dislocated, kinked stiffly.

  Another person lumbered into the dining carriage, bulky in shawls, thick-ankled. Richard thought for a moment it was Mrs Sweet come to complain about the ill-treatment of her precious guns, but it was the old dear last seen at Euston. ‘Elsa Nickles, Missus, Psychic Medium.’

  Mrs Nickles eased past Arnold, who didn’t tell her she was out of her class. She looked at the bloody ruins, the dead woman, the mad people.

  ‘I knew no good would come of this,’ she said. ‘Them spirits is angered, furious. You can’t be doin’ anythin’ wiv ’em when they’re stirred up. Might just as well poke an umbrella into a nest of snakes. Or stick your dickybird in a mincer.’

  Mentally, Richard told Harry not to shoot the woman.

  He could tell the Most Valued Member was thinking of it. Firing guns was addictive. The first time, you were afraid, worried about the noise, the danger, the mess. Then, you wanted to do it again. You wanted to do it better.