VALUES

Part Three

06.00

Jean Irons swam out of a grey haze, her eyes sore and used up. A small headache, like a hammer, was pounding around her temples. Morning sickness, she thought bitterly. Thought I lost that after Ted.

She sat up in bed, and all at once a hundred images flooded into her head, and none of them seemed to make sense.

The bed was empty. Somewhere over the course of the night she'd realised this, and she'd wrapped most of the blanket around her slumbering body. As a chill slithered from her brain and down into her gut, her eyes crossed the dim grey light of the room, to the hulking shadow standing by the window.

Richard was staring through the net curtains, out on to the street. A single lamp-post, one bleary orange eye, glowed weakly in the watery grey light of dawn. It cast his limp form in silhouette. But she could see that he was clearly clutching a handgun, and he was surrounded by cigarette butts, and the air was greasy with the stench of stale tobacco.

"Jesus, Richard," she muttered. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

For a moment he didn't hear or acknowledge her. Instead he carried on staring into the faint grey light, and she began to wonder if he'd gone mad. She went to say something else, her throat as dry as sandpaper, when Richard raised one finger to his mouth and whispered, "Shh…"

"Richard, what…" she began, and Richard spun round to her.

"SHUT UP!" he balked. "Please, God, Jean, be quiet! He can hear you!"

Jean wrapped the blanket tighter round her. She was scared, really scared. He'd never acted like this before. He got angry sometimes, lashed out at her, but he was always in control. But now… and with a gun…

"Who?" she croaked.

"Him!" he hissed. "Him! The man from the fire!"

She shook her head, almost beginning to wonder if she wasn't still in her dream. "What man? What are you saying?"

Suddenly Richard's arm had swung up to his side, and for a brief second the light flashed along the silver barrel of the gun. Jean cried out as he pointed the firearm at her. "BE QUIET!" he yelled.

"Please, no!" Jean screamed. "Please, Ritchie, think of Ted! Oh, God, no…"

Tears were streaming down her face now, unavoidably. Her body was a quivering mess, and she wanted to crawl into the bed, and down, and be away from Richard and his crazy grin, more than anything.

Slowly, he lowered the gun. "Yes," he said, as if in a trance. "Yes, Ted. Must think of Ted." He stood up and crossed the room, where he fumbled through a small pile of clothes on the floor and uncovered yesterday's shirt. "Must think of Ted."

He slipped out of the door, yanking on the shirt, shoving the gun down his trousers, and mumbling quietly to himself.

It was a long time before Jean could start breathing again, and as soon as she could, every breath a sharp, cold hitch, she tiptoed across the room and locked the bedroom door.

06.30

When all the roses died, the gardens at Abney Park no longer had a purpose. The new government had cemented over the centuries old benches and graves and wandering paths, and instead had erected a dull three-storey car park. It was only now, with oil so scarce and expensive that only the rich and powerful even bothered to drive, that they had begun to realise their mistake. As a result the car park at Abney Park now sat behind the old park railings, dark, crumbling and forgotten.

Pitt's Ford Escort, an ugly, rusted, blood-red heap of junk, but his most loyal friend, pulled up alongside the cemetery. He killed the engine with a grunt and looked at the ancient grey block, looking in the hazy grey light of dawn like a lost Egyptian tomb, all shadowy awnings and forgotten passages.

No roses here. He doubted there'd been roses here for a long time.

Another dud link.

"Damn!" he cried, slamming a hand on the dashboard.

He'd left Bond back at the station. The boy should have come off shift a long time ago, but this Irons business had held him back a few hours. He had been looking tired and ill. Pitt had seen him off, sat round the department for a while, made a few cups of coffee and had left for Abney Park.

He almost wished the boy had been here, just in case there was something he was missing. He wondered if he even cared any more.

Too damn tired, he thought as he left the car. Too damn tired.

The gates, all chipped black paint and rusted iron, were open. He pushed them aside with a loud squeak and stepped into the shadows of the car park. The opening, a small ramp leading into the darkness of the ground storey, looked as inviting as a cave. A yellow '12'' sign swung forlornly in the breeze from the roof.

He stepped up the ramp, into the yawning concrete chasm. Occasionally a car, rusted and forgotten, sat mouldering in tarry pools of oil. Other than that, it was just yards of dusty darkness and chipped concrete.

"Oh, this is bloody useless," he mumbled to himself, and turned to leave.

And stopped.

There was a small door near the entrance, an old white emergency exit. To where, Pitt wondered, was a real mystery. But the real enigma here was why the door was slightly ajar.

Terry Pitt crept up to the door, barely breathing, one hand gently rested against his gun. He peered at the crack.

Nothing beyond but darkness, as inviting as a cancer.

He rested one hand against the door and gently pushed it open.

The door swung open, far too loudly, creaking along its hinges, every inch of ancient rust screaming in agony with its movement, and opened up on a dark concrete staircase. Six short steps, leading to a turning, and beyond that?

With one arm steadying himself against the wall, Pitt began to descend the staircase, deep into the bowels of the car park and Abney Park cemetery.

06.45

The Finger Guard had arrived early.

Two young men, both looking tired and weary, stood at the doorstep of the Iron's comfortable semi. Probably just came on shift, totally unaware of the tedious job their superior had seen fit to charge them with.

Jean got the door. She looked shaken and almost physically sick, her hair tousled, still wearing a pink flannel dressing gown. Both Fingermen fought the urge to ask if she needed assistance.

"He's in the kitchen," she had said, and had left to retreat into the house.

They found Richard in the kitchen, as Jean had said. He was dirty, unshaven, dressed in a half open shirt. Half a cup of tepid coffee was cooling rapidly on the wooden table.

He was staring intently at the first weak rays of sunlight coming through the window. And he was holding a gun.

One of them stood in the doorway, coughed and said, "Excuse me, Mr Irons?"

Irons barely glanced up. "Yes?" he snapped.

The two men glanced at each other, and the former said, "We're from the Finger. You asked for protection?"

Irons turned to face them, scrutinised them for a second, and said, "Did he send you?"

Both men glanced at each other in utter desperation, wondering if this was all some sick joke. The second said, as politely as he could manage, "Who, Mr Almond?"

"No," Irons said, shaking his head. "Him."

"I can assure you that the only person who dispatched us, sir, was Mr Derek Almond of the Finger, and…"

"Show me your passes. Both of you."

The two men sighed, both wondering what insane task they'd been set with, and began to fumble through their pockets for identification. One after another they handed over two small laminated cards. Party IDs.

Irons scrutinised both of them for a while then, content that all was satisfactory, allowed the men to sit next to him round the kitchen table.

"See?" he chuckled after the two men had sat down. "They said I was losing it, back at HQ. Said I couldn't handle it in the field. Wouldn't let you two fool me though, eh?"

After a short confused silence, the first man, a man whose ID identified him as Julian Brown, said, "Excuse me, sir?"

"Always check their papers, Mr Brown!" Irons winked. "Always! Never know if they're an unbeliever. Or even one of his lot! Ha!"

"Sir?" the younger man, Bill Visconti, asked. "Might I enquire as to who this man is that you speak of?"

Iron's eyes suddenly narrowed, and all of his good cheer vanished in a flashed. "No," he frowned. "No, you bloody well can't. For your own sake."

With that he turned and put on the kettle, leaving his two guards in their own pits of confusion and despair.

07.00

The staircase had been short and narrow, turning every five steps, descending deep beneath the city. Along the way Pitt had rested against the wall to let his breath catch up, and had realised that the concrete walls had ended – the wall was now tiled, and the tiles were chipped and ancient.

The corridor opened up on an old elevator, a steel staircase that hadn't moved for maybe a decade.

An abandoned tube station.

His legs quaking, one sweaty hand still resting on the gun, Pitt began to descend the staircase, into the darkness. From somewhere up above water dripped steadily, running in streamlets over the disused machinery. Insects and small animals scuttled through the shadows and up the old tiled walls. Through small holes in the roof shafts of dim grey light shone through, picking out jagged edges and thousands of dancing dust particles.

Pitt began to walk down the forgotten staircase, past peeling posters, and down into the station.

Maybe this wasn't such a dud lead after all, he began to think, and then froze at the foot of the stairs.

There were roses here. Thousands of them, growing in small patches of sunlight, deep underground.

As he staggered backwards, something hard came down on his head, and he felt his legs collapse under him and his world spin out into darkness.

08.30

He sits on a rooftop in a quiet Camberwell suburb, watching through haunted eyes.

Down in the kitchen Irons continues to glance out the window. He's taken a shower, put on some clean clothes, and managed to compose himself a little, with the help of his Finger guard.

Maybe he's even starting to wonder if all this was some sort of joke. A coincidence.

He reaches for his blades.

He will assure him that it isn't.

To be continued…