The Smog (The Sentinels Series Book 3) Read online

  “Oh, I quite agree,” says Kneale. “And that brings us to my next subject, as it happens. Do you listen to 'The Ghost Man,' by Herbert James?”

  “Of course!” she replies. “I love his stories; they're so old-fashioned and, well, so very British. Though I have to make sure my little daughter isn't listening at the door. She tends to sneak downstairs. I think she'd have nightmares if she heard any of his tales.”

  “Oh, I agree, his work is definitely not for younger listeners! Well, Herbert James wants to meet you,” says Kneale. “He's read your book and finds it fascinating. In fact, he said it was the most authentic work on the supernatural that he's read in years. Quite a compliment from a chap who was one of Aleister Crowley's gang, back in the old days.”

  “Crowley,” asks Rachel. “Wasn't he some kind of maniac? He led a Devil worship cult, didn't he?”

  “Oh, I think Crowley was more of a showman,” replies Kneale. “And Herbert's a pussycat, wouldn't hurt a fly! He's dipped into all kinds of mystical knowledge over his eighty-odd years, and he’s bound to have encountered a few peculiar characters along the way. Anyway, back to your book. I did point out to Herbert that it's a novel, but he just smiled in that way of his and said all the best fiction is founded on a higher truth. Enigmatic sort of chap. So, if you'd like to pop along to the Broadcasting House when he's recording his next story, I'd be happy to introduce you!”

  “That would be wonderful,” replies Rachel. “Do you think he'd agree to an interview for my press agency?”

  “Oh, he's a very old-fashioned gentleman,” says Kneale. “I can't see him turning down a request from a lady, especially an American one. He spent some time in the States, back in the 1890’s, seems to have enjoyed it. Quite the globe-trotter, our Mister James, and a real Victorian eccentric.”

  “And what about Tom Kneale?” she asks. “Are you well-travelled? Did you serve overseas in the war?”

  For a moment, the young writer's smile falters and Rachel realizes she's blundered. Damn, maybe he was a conscientious objector and spent the war in jail sewing mailbags!

  “Medically unfit, I'm afraid,” he says. “Childhood illness left me with photophobia, that's a terrible allergy to sunlight. Bit of a problem in the military! They deemed me unfit even for a desk job, so I found myself working in BBC radio along with a lot of old men and ladies of various ages, and even soldiers who'd been invalided out.”

  “I'm sorry,” says Rachel, “I shouldn't have been so nosy.”

  “Not at all,” he insists, “A reporter should never apologize for curiosity, should they?”

  The waitress returns with the tea tray and a plate of scones, plus small bowls of butter and strawberry jam. The girl puts them down with a quick curtsy and scurries off to serve another table.

  “Shall I be mother?” asks Rachel, lifting the lid of the teapot to see the inevitable tea bag. That's one American invention they could do without over here, she thinks. But I guess the Brits are stuck with them.

  “Please,” says Kneale, putting Rachel's book back into his briefcase. “And let's go over a few ideas I have for the television play. As usual, music will be provided by a live orchestra in the studio, and I thought a touch of Vaughan Williams might set the scene nicely.”

  As Rachel prepares to pour the tea, she hears a deep rumbling noise and the crockery starts to rattle.

  “You know, I can never quite decide which Tube line that is,” observes Kneale, putting a generous dollop of jam onto a scone. “But it's certainly been quite busy lately, I can tell you that.”

  Clever guy, she thinks. He steered me away from a possible dispute about the adaptation of my book by simultaneously flattering me and inviting me to meet a celebrity. Tom Kneale will go far.

  ***

  Fifty feet below the Lyons’ Corner House a Tube train round a corner in a shower of violet electric sparks. Its design is unusual, the windows blanked out by blinds, its indicator offers no destination, the cars devoid of insignia. It pulls up to a platform where its sliding doors open allowing three men to exit. This station of the Underground network is nameless, like the train. But it has two armed guards on the platform, and the only exit is through a steel door marked,

  'AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.'

  The three men, all in civilian clothes, present their IDs to a guard. He nods to his partner, who speaks a password into a metal grille by the door. A noise rattles, then the door opens. The three men enter and walk along a dim-lit corridor, pause to have their IDs checked again by another pair of guards, and are then admitted to a concrete-walled room.

  Maps and aerial photos of London and Great Britain cover the walls. A large table occupies the center of the room. It is covered by a highly detailed map of the capital. Six wooden markers form a pattern in the heart of the city.

  A fourth man looks impatiently at his watch. Sir Henry Garmouth is very much in charge and not pleased to be kept waiting.

  “Gentlemen,” he begins, “I would offer you a drink but we are behind schedule. We all have things we must do today, up there.”

  Garmouth jerks his head towards the gray ceiling.

  “We were delayed, sir. A holdup on the Northern Line,” says one of the newcomers.

  “We can't afford holdups, accidents, or any uncertainties, Wetherbell! Come!” Garmouth gestures at the table, all four gather round.

  “Burnside,” snaps Garmouth, “can we rely on the army not to intervene in the proceedings too soon?” asks the leader.

  Lord Burnside, the tallest of the three newcomers, says, “My contacts assured me that a number of incidents will hamper attempts to mobilize forces based in and around the capital. The usual things, garbled orders, lack of supplies, unclear chain of command. Likewise, calling out reservists can be delayed almost indefinitely by the usual endemic inefficiency at the Defense Ministry without arousing undue suspicion.”

  “Excellent,” says the leader. “Wetherbell, I assume the same is true of the Health Ministry? We don't want too many of these medical experts holding forth. Keep them quiet for the first couple of days, at least.”

  Wetherbell, a short fat man, nods.

  “I can assure you, sir,” he says, “that our people are in place at all the relevant emergency hospitals, government laboratories, and of course the Royal College of Surgeons. No one will be too quick off the mark.”

  “Excellent!” says Garmouth. “Now you, Skelton. Can we be sure of the scientists and other academics?”

  Skelton, a morose-looking man with a pinched face, can't meet his superior's eye.

  “It won't be easy, sir,” he admits. “These eggheads tend to think for themselves. And nowadays, with science very much to the fore, they are used to being consulted by the press on all sorts of matters. Some are even radio celebrities, in fact.”

  “Then you must apply more pressure!” insists Garmouth, bringing his fist down onto the table. Small wooden markers bounce. “Threaten to withhold grants, other funding, drop strong hints about imminent knighthoods or even peerages if they fall into line. They're famous men, after all. They are vain. And find out how best to blackmail any real troublemakers. Heaven knows these intellectuals are always up to something! Target the homosexuals, for a start! If all else fails, follow the lead of our American brethren and smear them as communists!”

  “Yes, sir, it will be done,” mumbles Skelton.

  “If I may ask, sir, how are preparations going for the event itself?” asks Lord Burnside.

  “Everything has been finalized,” replies the leader. “But by its very nature, some actions must be left until the last minute. One thing we can be sure of is that the experiments worked. Sightings are up across the city. This, in itself, works to our advantage. When the first phase begins, the public imagination will have been primed, and skepticism will be much less likely to prevail. Certain operations will be carried out over the coming days.”

  The leader reaches across the huge map of London and restores the colored wooden
markers to their original configuration.

  “When we are ready, London will fall,” he declares, staring at the pattern. “This diseased heart of a collapsing empire will be wrecked and the survivors will long for order, regardless of who provides it. And after London, gentlemen, comes the rest of the world!”

  ***

  “Well, I think that's settled, more or less,” says Kneale. “Shall I get the bill?”

  “Oh, let me chip in.”

  Rachel starts to open her purse, but Kneale shakes his head while trying to catch the eye of the waitress.

  “No, no, this is on the BBC!” he insists. “After all, it's tax-payers’ money.” He gestures to a waitress. “Why is it that they always go selectively blind when you want them, but when you don't, they hover incessantly? Ah, that's more like it. Think she got the message.”

  Twisting around to look behind her, Rachel sees a figure in a black and white uniform appear at the entrance to the kitchen. Kneale is talking again. She turns back to him.

  “Before I forget, Rachel, would you be able to make the Herbert James broadcast this week or would you need a bit more time to plan? Find a babysitter and all that?”

  “Oh no,” she says, “Tony, my husband, is wonderful with Emily, and anyway my best friend lives nearby, so we're very lucky ...”

  She trails off, as Kneale's pallid face has become even paler. He drops his teacup and it ricochets off the saucer, rolls off the table and falls to the carpet.

  “Tom! Are you all right? What is it?”

  Now people at other tables are looking, but not at Kneale, she realizes. Their gazes are fixed on something behind Rachel. She turns to see the apron of the waitress, but instead of clean cotton, it's filthy with black soot. Rachel looks up into a face that's half burnt flesh, half scorched bone. Clumps of hair clinging to the skull.

  The jaw drops open and a blackened tongue moves. “Anything else for sir, or madam?”

  A woman screams. Another piece of crockery falls, this time with a shattering sound. Rachel shoves her chair back, stands, and puts her arms around the dead waitress. Closing her eyes, she holds the ghost close, feels a skeleton through the scorched uniform. Startled, she opens her eyes.

  They've never felt solid like this before, she thinks. And other people can't see them. What the hell's going on? No, I've gotta focus!

  “It's the end of your shift,” she says firmly, looking into the empty sockets. “You can go home and rest your feet. And there will be no more air raids. No more Nazi firebombs. It's all clear. All clear.”

  Rachel looks into the empty sockets and waits until the blackness disperses and she is once again just a young American woman in a London tea room holding nothing in her outstretched arms. No more than five seconds have passed since the woman screamed. Rachel sits down again.

  “Did that just happen?” asks Kneale.

  “Yes,” she replies, “and you shouldn't have seen it.”

  “So, this book of yours,” he says in a high-pitched voice. “It's not entirely fiction, I assume?”

  ***

  “You, Robson, stand up straight and pay attention!”

  Graeme Robson does as he's told. Arthur Grimsdale, Chief Area Signals Manager for East London, is not a man to trifle with. Graeme's superior walks up the line of five youths, all in the slightly ill-fitting blue uniforms of British Railways. They are apprentices aged fifteen to seventeen, all seeking jobs for life, on the railroad. All have been sponsored by a father, an uncle, or a friend of the family already in the rail industry. Each is being allocated his first 'proper job.'

  “Right, you lot,” says Grimsdale, opening a large cloth satchel slung round his neck. “I have here a dozen dummy detonators. We are going to practice Fog Safety. We are going to practice efficiently, safely, and without any stupid mucking about. We want to run a railroad, not blow our bloody hands off. Is that understood?”

  There's a chorus of mumbles, some shuffling and giggling.

  “I said ‘IS THAT UNDERSTOOD?’ ” bellows Grimsdale, prompting a juvenile chorus of “Yes, Mister Grimsdale.”

  “Good,” continues the manager. “Right, listen carefully because otherwise you might kill yourself and a lot of other people. Each detonator is designed to explode when a locomotive passes over it, thus providing an audible signal that the train is approaching. Without these signals, it would be impossible to run railways in dense London fogs, which occur every year without fail. Are you with me so far?”

  Another chorus of assent.

  “Good! Today I will simply allocate each of you a dummy detonator and you will place it in accordance with my instructions. First, I will demonstrate correct placement procedure for you, in accordance with Subsection Three, Paragraph Five of the Rail Operating Regulations ...”

  The lecture continues for another ten tedious minutes. Graeme finds his attention wandering. He keeps glancing at the gaping black semicircle that is the mouth of the Hammersmith Tunnel. Graeme reads imported American horror comics, the kind some British clergy and politicians want to ban. As a result, he has had plenty of nightmares about dark tunnels, among many other things.

  It looks as if it's waiting for someone to venture inside, Graeme thinks, into its gaping maw. There could be anything lurking in there, like in 'The Thing with Glowing Eyes'. Or the tunnel itself could be the monster, like that house that absorbed the unsuspecting guests in 'Mansion of Absolute Evil'!

  “Robson! I hope I'm not boring you?”

  Grimsdale's bellow jolts Graeme back to reality. He jerks upright again, eyes front, and tries to look grown-up.

  “No, sir, Mister Grimsdale, sir!” he jabbers.

  “Since you've been paying attention, let's see you follow correct placement procedure,” says the manager, rummaging in his bag.

  Graeme takes the small metal square marked 'Dummy' and stands waiting for instructions.

  “Right, get to the mouth of the tunnel, plant your detonator, and then retreat to a reasonable listening distance.”

  Graeme starts to walk alongside the tracks, hefting the fake explosive.

  “If you don't move a bit faster than that, we'll be here all flipping day, lad!” bellows Grimsdale.

  Graeme, a squarely-built lad, breaks into a lumbering trot and quickly reaches the tunnel mouth. He looks back, sees Grimsdale and the rest of the teenagers looking on, trips, and nearly falls. He feels a hot blush of embarrassment. Arriving at his objective, Graeme reaches down and puts the dummy detonator onto the nearest rail. He steps back, gives what he hopes is a professional wave to his boss, then begins to jog back towards the group. As he does so, he hears the sound of a train in the tunnel. The familiar rhythmic noise of a steam engine grows louder, echoing on the brick walls. He pauses, steps away from the tracks, to avoid being covered in coal dust and sprayed with steam when the train emerges.

  The train whistle screeches, deafening him as the green bulk of the huge locomotive rushes into the weak daylight.

  Then the train is gone.

  Graeme gawps at the empty tracks, stares into the dark tunnel mouth. The sound of the steam locomotive's piercing whistle is still ringing in his ears.

  “What's wrong with you, Robson? Get a move on!” shouts Grimsdale.

  “He's waiting for a train, sir!” shouts one of the other trainees, to general laughter.

  “Quiet, you lot!” growls Grimsdale. “Come back here Robson, and close your mouth. You look like the village idiot, gawping away. Do you want to be a signalman or a fly-catcher?”

  For a moment, Graeme considers telling Mister Grimsdale what he had just seen and heard. But then decides against it.

  I can't afford to let Dad down by acting daft, he thinks. Just forget about it.

  Chapter 2: Forebodings

  “There was a ghost right there, in Lyons’ Corner House?” asks Tony.

  “Yes, and like I said, everyone else seemed to see it,” replies Rachel. “Just for a few seconds, before I helped the poor girl move
on. But still, it's weird.”

  “And nobody said anything? Surely someone demanded a refund, at least?”

  “God no!” she says. “I guess they couldn't really process what happened. That, and they were all so damn British about it! There were a few moments of silence, then everyone gradually went back to chatting and eating their scones or crumpets. All except Tom Kneale. He looked really shaken, then made an excuse and just left me to pick up the tab. We didn't really settle anything about the script so I'll have to call him tomorrow.”

  Tony sits musing at the kitchen table while Rachel prepares dinner as best as she can with meager rationed groceries.

  “Has anything strange been happening in your world, honey?” she asks.

  “I've heard a few things at the Ministry,” he says. “Nothing detailed, just a lot of chatter. Things overheard. Conversations in corridors that end when you go by, that sort of thing.”

  “And this all adds up to what?” she asks, lighting the stove.

  “Something's definitely going on. There are reports of unusual movement orders for troops, warships, and the air force. Maybe it's all down to the Russians, another confrontation about to kick off in Berlin, perhaps. They say Joe Stalin's dying at long last, and that might destabilize the whole of Europe with generals jockeying for power in Moscow.”

  “Could be, but why would any of that make a ghost more substantial in London?”

  “I've no idea,” he concedes. “It's a bit worrying, given what we've been through. More ghosts generally means more trouble. More substantial ghosts, well, who knows? Anyway, have you heard anything at work?”

  “No, that's the weird thing,” she replies. “You'd think the newspapers would have picked up on sightings of ghosts, but so far there's zilch. Just a few of the usual things, pub landlords reporting furniture moving around in the small hours, screaming nuns supposedly haunting medieval abbeys. Nothing out of the ordinary, just typical tourist brochure stuff.”