The Forgotten Son Page 2

  He still found it hard to entirely accept what he’d witnessed. But he was a practical man, of course, and a pragmatic one at that. He had been there right to the end in Piccadilly Circus Station, had seen with his own eyes his men butchered by the indefatigable onslaught of Yeti, the foot-soldiers of an alien intelligence. There was no getting around it. Just as, now the Intelligence had been defeated, there was no getting round the unenviable task of restoring London to its usual glory.

  First there were all the dead bodies to account for, hospital mortuaries all through the city filling up with hundreds of dead soldiers, and then they had to surreptitiously remove all evidence of the alien presence – the Yeti, the control spheres, the pyramid device that had exploded and killed the last receptacle of the Great Intelligence. So much work, more than anybody would ever know about, all to ensure that normality returned. Where all the Yeti and control spheres went was anybody’s guess – once they left London they seemed to disappear, no doubt taken to some top-secret vault, the location of which a normal army officer like Lethbridge-Stewart would never learn. This suited him just fine. He was quite happy to forget all that had happened, but he knew that he never would. Pragmatic to the last. He had seen too much, and as the commander in charge of restoring London he was being kept in a position of easy surveillance. His superiors were watching closely, determining what they needed to do next.

  It seemed nobody had anticipated this attack. Not even Professor Travers, who had encountered the Great Intelligence and its Yeti way back in 1935. But nobody was talking about that – both Travers and he had been debriefed on that score, and Doctor Anne Travers, the professor’s daughter, had been sent off wherever the Yeti had been taken. A brilliant scientist, it seemed the powers that be still needed to pick her brain. As far as his superiors were concerned the two events formed one long-term attack, which had now been dealt with. Lethbridge-Stewart wasn’t convinced. He had it on good authority that the Intelligence was still out there, whatever that meant. But such a warning was too ambiguous for the brass, and it was decided that they would cross that bridge should they ever come to it. For his part, Lethbridge-Stewart wasn’t convinced that dealing with such potential attacks on an ad-hoc basis was a practical or wise strategy, if he could even call it such.

  It was out of his hands, of course. He was merely a colonel in the Scots Guards, and he had his orders. Get London back up and running. Though if it was up to him he’d have made damn sure London would never end up like this again.

  To that end, it was time to be on his way. He climbed back into his car and turned on the radio. The sound that greeted him made him smile. Not to be defeated, Radio Caroline was back on the air, and with it the music that helped make London the city it was, even if there was hardly anybody around to listen. Small Faces were a far cry from the music he enjoyed – he’d have preferred to listen to Scaffold’s Lily the Pink – but as his car continued on its way to Battersea he found himself developing a fondness for Tin Soldier. It gave him hope. It was his job to make London vibrant once again, and he was going to do just that.

  ‘Now that’s a sight I never thought I’d see,’ said Corporal Sally Wright as soon as Lethbridge-Stewart entered his office. She was standing behind his desk, looking out of the window at the street below.

  ‘What is?’ he asked, not bothering to question her unauthorised presence in his office. He really should have a word with his assistant and remind her that no one but he was allowed access to this office without his express permission. There were top secret documents contained in the filing cabinets, not to mention the reports still open on his desk from a late-night session. Not that Corporal Wright would ever look at such reports without permission, but that was hardly the point.

  ‘Buses on the streets of London.’ She glanced back at him as he put his briefcase on his desk. ‘We may yet get to have our party,’ she said, offering him the kind of smile she knew he could not resist.

  But resist he did. Lethbridge-Stewart turned away and walked back to the open door, poking his head into the ante-office where Lance Corporal Bell sat at her own desk. ‘Lay on some tea for me,’ he said. ‘Make that two cups.’

  Bell smiled pleasantly. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  Lethbridge-Stewart narrowed his eyes and let out an hmm. Discipline was a bit too lax. He supposed he could put that down to two things: an exhaustive week and the early hour of this particular Friday. Not to mention how much work was bound to come their way over the next couple of days. They anticipated at least half a million flooding into the city over the weekend, and with them at least twice that amount of problems and complaints. ‘Are the telephone staff in yet?’ he asked, just as Bell picked up her own phone.

  ‘Yes, sir. They started to arrive an hour ago. The switchboards are being set up all over London as we speak.’

  ‘Good. We don’t want two million phone calls coming to this office, especially not if one of them is the BBC.’

  ‘Still complaining about not being able to film on the Underground, sir?’

  ‘One of many complaints, Corporal. Evacuating London wasn’t good for television programming, apparently.’ That all said, Lethbridge-Stewart returned to his office and closed the door.

  ‘What brings you here, Corporal?’ he asked once he had shooed Sally from behind his desk.

  ‘Orders from Major General Hamilton.’ She reached into her jacket and pulled out the orders. Lethbridge-Stewart took them, but he needn’t have bothered opening them, since Corporal Wright proceeded to tell him what they said. ‘He’s reviewed your request, and has granted you full authority to initiate martial law until you see fit to rescind it.’

  Lethbridge-Stewart raised an eyebrow and sat down. ‘Anything Hamilton doesn’t tell you?’

  Wright smiled, her eyes twinkling. ‘Everything, I imagine. And he didn’t tell me – I sneaked a look.’

  Upon checking the orders Lethbridge-Stewart noticed that they had already been unsealed. He glanced at the open reports on his desk. ‘Anything else you have “sneaked a look” at?’

  ‘Don’t be such a prig, Alistair. You know you’d tell me anyway.’

  That was debatable. ‘Corporal Wright, I expect better from Major General Hamilton’s adjutant, and when you’re in this building I would remind you that you are on duty, and as such I am your superior officer. And,’ he added, lowering his voice, ‘the walls of this building are awfully thin.’

  She looked around, and nodded. ‘Sorry,’ she said, her voice also low. She cleared her throat and was about to speak again when there came a knock at the door. Bell entered, bringing their tea. Once she had returned to the ante-office, Wright reached out for her mug. ‘So, martial law? Is that not a bit extreme? Sir,’ she added, with a cheeky smile.

  Lethbridge-Stewart rolled his eyes. What was he to do with her? Marry her probably. ‘I would normally have thought so, but we’ve had workers striking already. Too much work, not enough pay, and right now we don’t have time to negotiate with trade unions. Over eight million people need to be returned to this city in the shortest time possible – the longer it takes, the more it will cost everybody, including the tax payers who are now striking. Once the city is up and running again, then they can do as they like. It will no longer be my problem. I am not a politician, and neither do I intend to play the part of one now.’

  ‘Thus martial law.’

  Lethbridge-Stewart nodded. ‘Easiest way. Work to your strengths, that’s what my father always told me.’

  ‘There could be riots at this rate.’

  ‘Not if I have any say. This is not Paris, Corporal, and right now we have control of the streets, and we will continue to until it’s no longer our problem.’

  The conversation was over and for a few moments they sat in companionable silence. Then the intercom buzzed.

  ‘Sir, Major Douglas is on line one.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Lethbridge-Stewart picked up the phone, but before he could press the line-one button,
Corporal Wright spoke.

  ‘Dougie? Why is he calling you?’

  ‘Because I need a man out there I can trust, someone with enough clout to see that martial law is maintained with a firm and fair hand.’

  Wright looked confused for a moment, then she grinned. ‘You knew Hamilton was going to approve your request.’

  ‘Well, of course.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘And you knew he’d send me.’

  Lethbridge-Stewart pressed the button on his phone, enjoying the look of surprise on Wright’s face. Of course he knew; indeed, he had asked if Hamilton would send the orders via Corporal Wright. If she was going to be his fiancée, then he had to find any way he could to spend time with her. Major General Hamilton knew this, and happily agreed. ‘Major Douglas,’ he said, once the call connected. ‘Yes, yes, Sally is here. Yes, you would think I planned this. Orders for you, and a question. Would you care to be my best man?’

  It had been over thirty years and once again he found himself returning to the area in which the ‘accident’ occurred. He wasn’t sure why; he liked to fool himself that Jack, his beagle, simply enjoyed the expansive area of Draynes Wood, but sometimes Ray Phillips wondered if there was some other reason he made the half hour walk from Bledoe every weekend. Wondered if there was something calling him back, never letting him get far enough away to forget.

  He knew the risk of allowing Jack the freedom afforded him by Draynes Wood, but in all the time he’d brought the dog there, not once had they been near the area where Golitha Falls met the River Fowey.

  There was a chill in the air. He wanted to say it was the weather, but he knew it was something more. He stopped at the edge of the woods, looking down at the gorge itself, the cascading water dropping some ninety feet to join the rest of the Fowey. The waters raged, and he remembered. The spring of 1938 and the day that changed his life. He shivered.

  He looked around for Jack, and not finding him, for a moment worried that the small dog had jumped into the river. The current was especially strong at Golitha Falls, and Jack was old. He’d get swept away before Ray could even move. Fortunately, though, he spotted Jack a little way into the oak woodland, foraging through the bluebells and anemones that carpeted the ground either side of the gorge.

  As he watched the dog snuffling away, a flash of light caught his eye. Ray placed his glasses on the edge of his nose and peered closer. He stepped back, overtaken by a sudden dread. In the far distance, just visible through the oak trees, was the old Remington Manor house. It had been deserted for thirty years, but now there was a light, a glimmer through one of the upper windows.

  Ray shuddered. He was too old for this kind of nonsense, he knew, but deep down something in his gut turned.

  He couldn’t remain here any longer. He called Jack to him and walked back into the woods, in the direction of home. He’d get in his car, put on an 8-track, and take his dog as far from Golitha Falls as possible. There was loads of open land in Cornwall where Jack could roam free. He didn’t need to walk through this woodland. He didn’t need to be anywhere near the Manor. No, he would walk away from it all. He had dealt with his ghosts a long time ago.

  But something made him stop. The same something that made him return here every weekend. He looked back up at the Manor.

  The three boys who stalked Remington Manor were taking a risk.

  Not that they would call themselves boys; they were young men, fast approaching eighteen years and, for Lewis at least, freedom from the suffocation that was Bledoe. Owain, twin of Lewis but often the polar opposite, blamed the third person in their little group, the intruder that was Charles Watts. He had returned to Bledoe (not that Owain remembered him ever being there before, but it seemed he used to often visit there when he was a kid) a few weeks previously, after being evacuated from London. He, along with the rest of his family, was staying with his nana. You couldn’t have found a man less suited to country life than Charles – a city man if ever there was one. Like Lewis, Charles considered himself one of those ‘lemons’, as Owain had heard them called – a group of men who found their solidarity in like-minded, working class men, with their tight jeans and Ben Sherman shirts and braces, their hair cut unfashionably short. Not that Owain much cared for fashion, but allowing your hair to grow was in some ways quite freeing. Something women had known since the dawn of time.

  Lewis had taken to this new image quickly, to the point of permanently borrowing a pair of their father’s braces and getting the local barber, Mr Bryant, to cut his previously long hair so it matched Charles’. He’d even removed his precious moustache – much to Owain’s delight, since bum-fluff never looked good on anyone. Their parents had not been happy, of course, although their father had also found it oddly amusing, no different than when the twins had a cheeky pint in The Rose & Crown. Their mother was less amused and had attempted to ground Lewis, but with Charles in town that simply was not going to happen. They were seventeen and no woman was going to tell Lewis what to do. That was the biggest change in Lewis. They had been brought up to mind their mother; her word was final. But in the past week Lewis had started questioning everything – almost every word she said. In his mind their mother was out of touch with the real world beyond Bledoe, and he had begun to talk more and more about London, about joining in the movement against the government there. ‘We’ll make it like Paris,’ he said, although what he meant by that was beyond Owain. Bledoe was their home, and as far as Owain was concerned what went on beyond was of little interest to him, unless it was football, of course. French, Londoners… what did any of them matter?

  It had been Lewis’ idea to explore the house, driven as he was by boredom, and Owain resented that he had to come along. He wasn’t sure he trusted Charles to be alone with his brother, besides it was almost expected for Lewis and Owain to do everything together simply because they were twins. Like that secured some mystic connection. Certainly Charles seemed to think so. ‘I would love to have been a twin,’ he had told them the first day they met. Since then he hadn’t stopped going on about it. ‘If I hit Lewis, would you feel it?’ As if Owain and Lewis was the same person!

  Owain looked around. Both his brother and Charles had gone on ahead; they were already some way down the long landing, while he was only just mounting the final step of the large, although dusty, staircase. He paused, bored, and pulled out his pocket transistor radio. He was missing the league cup final for this. He looked up briefly, to make sure neither Lewis nor Charles were paying him any attention, and twisted the small dial that turned the radio on. He kept the volume low and tuned into the match. It was bound to be an uneven game, what with most of the Arsenal players still recovering from a bout of flu, and, not surprisingly, as the radio tuned in Owain learned that the Gunners were being trampled all over by Swindon Town.

  Owain must have got caught up in the game, because the next moment Charles was before him, snatching the tranny off him. ‘What are you playing at?’

  Owain sighed, bored again. He looked over at Lewis, who stood watching, his arms folded, carrying about him a look of disappointment. ‘Can we go now? There’s no one here besides us.’

  ‘That’s the whole point, innit?’ Charles said. ‘The Whisperer isn’t here, you can just hear him. Creepy, huh?’ He grinned and pocketed the transistor radio. ‘I’ll keep that, see if we can pick up some reggae on it later.’

  Owain was about to complain. He didn’t listen to music on his radio, that’s not why he had it. It was for listening to football matches when his mum wouldn’t tune the TV in to the BBC, preferring to watch situation comedies like Her Majesty’s Pleasure and, even worse, super-spy programmes like The Saint. Complaining would do no good; Charles wasn’t the type to listen. Not unless Lewis had something to say.

  ‘Do you both share the same bird when you have one?’ Charles asked, breaking the silence.

  Owain gritted his teeth.

  Lewis laughed at this. ‘Not at the same time.’

  ‘
Anyway, we’re not exactly identical,’ Owain mumbled behind them. Which was true, but they were obviously twins. Even a blind man could see that.

  ‘That must be so much fun, man, imagine if—’ Charles stopped abruptly. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, looking back the way they had come.

  The three young men peered around. The long corridor was, of course, empty, the wallpaper bleached by the sun that came in from tall windows bereft of any netting. Cobwebs lined the coving along the top of the walls, dust covering the table and candlestick holders a few feet away.

  Lewis glanced back, smiling. ‘The Whisperer?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not, moron,’ Owain responded, giving his brother a dirty look. Of course it wasn’t the Whisperer, no such thing existed. Just stories told by parents to keep the kids away from a house that was slowly falling apart. Not that it worked obviously. They had both heard plenty of stories about it over the years, about the household driven mad by the whispering of the walls, and how one day a visitor came by to find the house empty, devoid of all life, everything in place as if the household had simply gone for a walk and forgot to come back.

  That was back in ‘39, and since then nobody had claimed the Manor. It remained as it had been left, albeit with the gates and doors padlocked shut. Padlocks that had been broken many times by brave and bored teens – much like his brother and Charles.

  ‘Then what?’ Charles was now having fun. ‘Should we go and look?’

  Owain knew he couldn’t say no; if he did he’d never hear the end of it. ‘Come on then,’ he said and stepped forward, the forced smile leaving his face as soon as his back was to Charles and Lewis.