Blood Royal Read online

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Doctor Death

  ULYSSES RACED THROUGH the shuttered rooms of the house, following the spluttered directions of both Matron Handy and Dr Quercus as they panted after him and his manservant, struggling to keep up.

  They passed from one hospital ward – the air thick with the smell of death, held at bay by disinfectant – to the next, and in each one, its occupants seemed more decrepit, more skeletal, and somehow less and less human. They passed more of the startled nursing staff, the incessant tannoy alarms setting their nerves on edge, and the statuesque Nightingale units that were making calmly for the epicentre of the emergency.

  “And the first time you ever saw this Dr Pavlov was this morning?” Ulysses panted.

  “Yes,” Quercus gasped, barely able to catch his breath.

  “Something tells me he wasn’t intending to make a return visit.”

  Staggering up another twisting staircase, Ulysses flung himself at a pair of swing doors awaiting him there and crashed through into the near-darkness of the uppermost Pavilion ward.

  Lying corpse-like within their tubular steel cots, oxygen tents and iron lungs, these residents were among the oldest of Victoria’s surviving heirs. Like the Empress herself, they were not permitted to die but kept in a state of living death, just in case they, or their blood-matched organs, should be needed to perpetuate the royal gene-line.

  At the end of the ward a number of beds had their curtains pulled shut around them, and, visible on the wall above each one, amber warning lights flashed as alarms rang, the rest of the room’s occupants wailing in sympathy. From the curtained cubicles no-one voiced any cries of distress; they were too far gone.

  He half-expected to see the spider-like automaton assassin perched on the curtain rails above a bed, but there was nothing like that waiting for him here.

  As Matron Handy sent the nursing staff scurrying to tend to the ailing ancients – the Nightingale units laying their electro-conductive hands on the fluttering chests of the dying royals, the sound of charging defibrillators filling the ward with a rising hum – Ulysses, with Nimrod following close behind, kept on for the curtained cubicles.

  Reaching the furthest screened beds he yanked the curtains aside and suddenly he found himself confronted by a lean and wiry-looking individual, who was administering something to the emaciated body lying in the bed beside him.

  The man turned. He was dressed in a white doctor’s coat and had a pinched, tight-lipped expression of ruthless determination on his face. He wore a pair of round, wire-framed spectacles and his porcelain pale skin, along with his centre-parted lacquered hair, gave his face the appearance of a billiard ball. In one hand he was holding a scalpel, in the other a hypodermic needle.

  “Doctor Pavlov, I presume,” Ulysses said.

  The man simply snarled before making a dancing lunge towards him, with the surprising balletic grace of a fencing master. Ulysses himself only just jerked his body back and out of reach of the scalpel. Its razor-sharp edge caught him on the sleeve, sending several buttons spinning to the polished hardwood floor.

  “Not again!” Ulysses wailed in frustration at the destruction of his suit, and then took another dancing step backwards through the clinging curtains as the man came at him once more. This time the scalpel removed a button from Ulysses’ silk waistcoat.

  “Dr Pavlov!” Quercus spluttered.

  The moon-faced man swore sharply in Russian.

  And then Nimrod was there beside Ulysses, making a grab for the man, trying to wrap him up in the folds of the flapping curtain. But the mysterious Dr Pavlov was too quick for him. Dancing backwards, shifting his weight on to his back foot, he dodged out of reach of Nimrod’s floundering lunge.

  But it gave Ulysses all the time he needed. Making his own riposte, he thrust with his unsheathed rapier blade. Bravely, or perhaps foolishly, Dr Pavlov tried to parry the lunge with his scalpel but, in the end, such a gesture was futile. The blade went spinning from his bleeding hand and clattered onto the floor.

  Now that he had the upper hand, Ulysses moved forwards again.

  Ulysses led with his sword. But then Pavlov was spinning past him, avoiding his blade and coming at Ulysses with the hypodermic needle he was still holding in his other hand.

  Ulysses tried to bat the hypodermic from Pavlov’s hand before he could sink it into him. God alone knew what it contained. He fell against the foot of a steel-framed cot, desperately pulling his blade back once more, hoping against hope to deflect the hypodermic.

  And then the butt of a pistol swept down through the swaying curtains, and struck the hand holding the needle hard. With a cry Pavlov drew back his hand as the needle went clattering to the floor.

  In the next instant he turned and vanished between the swinging drapes. Scrambling to his feet, Ulysses set off after him.

  Fighting his way clear of the persistent curtain, Ulysses was just in time to see Pavlov hurl a steel chair through a window. Ulysses heard the chair rattle and clang as it bounced off the side of the building. Pavlov was already following it, kicking some of the larger shards of glass still caught in the frame clear as he clambered through.

  Ulysses threw himself after the assailant

  He was just in time to see Pavlov launch himself from a precarious ledge and land heavily, with an audible, winded gasp, on the flat roof of another wing of the complex.

  Ulysses hurled himself across the gap between the two buildings. He landed not far from where Pavlov had landed, his dive turning into a roll as he turned the momentum of his fall to his advantage. He came up out of his roll and onto his feet and immediately set off after the fleeing doctor.

  Ahead of him the second belvedere tower rose four storeys above the roof. The daring doctor was already elbowing his way through a window and into the tower.

  Ulysses pushed through after him only seconds later, missing the doctor’s coat-tails by a whisper.

  And then he was standing on the stone stair inside the tower, listening to the sounds of the fleeing doctor’s footsteps receding above him, the agitated shouts of security guards rising from below.

  Ulysses had no idea where Pavlov thought he could escape to by ascending the tower. Perhaps he hoped to hide from his pursuers and double-back after they had passed his hiding place, but with Ulysses so close on his tail, such an approach seemed doomed to failure.

  At the top of the tower he saw Pavlov edging out onto the balcony beyond one of the tall arched windows.

  Over the pounding of his heart, Ulysses fancied he could heard the purr of an engine somewhere above in the cloud dotted Solent sky.

  “Give it up, Pavlov!” Ulysses shouted. “The game’s up. There’s nowhere left to run!” The bespectacled interloper shot him an angry glance and then turned his attention to the jutting parapet of the belvedere above him. Ulysses’ heart skipped a beat as he realised what the man was intending to do.

  Releasing his hold on the stones facing the tower wall, Pavlov reached for the parapet above – and jumped.

  Fingers scrabbled at the cast mouldings and found a hand-hold, and then Dr Pavlov was hanging there, arms at full stretch, his feet kicking over the precipitous six storey drop below.

  What was the man doing?

  The sound of aero-engines was getting louder.

  Swinging his body to increase his momentum, Pavlov suddenly jerked his arms upwards again, trying to grasp the ledge of the tower roof.

  Fingers found hand-holds again and Ulysses watched, incredulously, as Dr Pavlov pulled himself up onto the top of the tower and out of sight.

  Ulysses lent out of the window. The engine roar was deafening now and the downwash whipped through his hair, forcing him to half close his eyes.

  And there, above him, its bloated whale-like silhouette blotting out the sun, was a dirigible. Ulysses watched as it cleared the top of the Belvedere and began to rise. Struggling to climb the rope ladder dangling beneath it was Dr Pavlov.

  Unholste
ring his pistol, Ulysses took aim. But the wash of the dirigible’s engines and the reappearance of the glaring sun from behind the airship conspired to spoil his aim. The crack of the pistol firing was followed by the pang of the bullet ricocheting harmlessly from an engine housing. And then Pavlov was disappearing inside the gondola, suspended beneath the sky leviathan as it climbed ever higher and further out of range.

  “Security!” Ulysses bellowed back down the tower. What was needed here was a rifle and fast. “Get up here now!” But by the time the first puffing guard reached the top the dirigible was already a shrinking silhouette on the eastern horizon.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  An Ending

  ULYSSES WALLOWED IN the smoky fug of the Inferno Club, considering all that had befallen him and the wretched Victor Gallowglass of late, over a glass of cognac.

  After his encounter with the mysterious Dr Pavlov on the Isle of Wight, and the Russian’s dramatic aerial escape, he now had more questions than ever before and a significant lack of answers. He needed time to think, to plan his way forward. Whatever the real reason for Gallowglass’s murder, it was only the tip of the iceberg.

  Ulysses was roused from his reverie by a polite cough and he turned to see a liveried footman standing beside his armchair. In one hand he held a silver platter bearing a simple, gold-embossed card. Ulysses picked it up and examined it.

  The crisp white card bore a curious symbol; it was a circle, surmounted by a crescent and with a cross descending beneath it. On the reverse there was nothing.

  “Who gave you this?” Ulysses asked.

  “If you’d like to come with me, sir,” the footman said.

  The dandy looked at him, eyebrows knitting quizzically. “Very well.”

  Ulysses rose from his place by the fire and followed as the footman led him out of the Quartermain Room, along a corridor, up a staircase, and finally stopped before a velvet-upholstered door. Opening it, he ushered Ulysses inside.

  The room beyond was small, opulently decorated, but bore only two things of particular interest. Most of one wall was covered by a large, gilt mirror. In the middle of the room, facing the mirror was a padded leather armchair. Ulysses took a seat as the footman pulled the door closed behind him.

  “Well, well, well. What have we here?” he wondered aloud.

  “Good afternoon, Mr Quicksilver.”

  The voice had come from a speaker trumpet set into the wall beneath the mirror.

  “It would appear that you have me at a disadvantage,” Ulysses said, addressing the mirror, peering at it closely, but seeing nothing beyond the reflection of the room and his own curious expression.

  “Names are not important,” the tinny voice came again. Ulysses didn’t believe that the distortion he heard was simply down to the quality of the audio-relay.

  “Au contraire,” he countered.

  It was a moment or two before the voice spoke again. “You can call me Hermes.”

  “The winged messenger.”

  “You understand the reference.”

  “I do, and I’m intrigued. What message is it that you wish to deliver?”

  “Dr Pavlov was not working alone.”

  “I guessed as much myself when he was rescued in the nick of time by a ruddy great zeppelin. But what was he doing offing ancient royals at Osborne House in the first place?”

  “He was trying to recreate Dr Gallowglass’s work.”

  “What work?”

  “I think you know that already.”

  Ulysses mind raced. Gallowglass had destroyed his notes before he ever set them all on the path to chaos and death. And then he remembered the cigar box he had received through the post.

  “Caliban.”

  “Precisely.”

  “But why would Pavlov take such risks?”

  “Because he needed a sample.”

  “A blood sample?”

  “Precisely.”

  Ulysses steepled his fingers before his face. “Where is he now? Do you know?”

  “Make your way to Moscow. Once you are there, find the Firebird. She will help you on the next leg of your journey.”

  “And what about Gallowglass’s killer?”

  “Do not worry about the Ripper. It will not trouble you again.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Trust me.”

  Ulysses continued to stare intently at the unyielding mirror.

  “Why should I? I mean, why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because it is in our mutual interest that you get to the bottom of this mystery.”

  “But what do you want from me? After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

  This time there was no reply.

  “Hello? I said, what do you want from me?”

  Still nothing.

  “Very well. Have it your own way.” And with that Ulysses left the room.

  IN CONTRADICTION TO the rules of pathetic fallacy, it didn’t rain the day Victor Gallowglass was buried.

  Not many came to the funeral. Other than himself, Miss Wishart, Miranda and the vicar, Ulysses counted only seven others. Most were strangers to him, but Matron Handy was there, along with Dr Quercus. He had half-expected an impromptu school reunion at the grave side, but it seemed that Victor Gallowglass had been just as bad as Ulysses in keeping in touch with his old classmates.

  One person Ulysses hadn’t expected to see there was the head of Department Q, and leader of the government during the current state of emergency, the imposing Lord Octavius De Wynter.

  He stood a little way from the rest of the funeral party in mourning black, a black-suited aide at his side.

  As the Reverend Smedley droned on – like so many men of the cloth, finding himself having to speak with heartfelt conviction about a man he had never known – Ulysses glanced from the grimacing De Wynter, down the sloping sward of the cemetery to where Nimrod awaited him in the Rolls.

  The droning of bees, the smell of the fresh cut grass and the distant call of a spring cuckoo carried Ulysses back to another time and another place; where another Ulysses had stood at another graveside, holding his sobbing younger brother’s hand for comfort, Nimrod’s hands on his own shoulders giving him the strength to be brave for the both of them.

  And then Ulysses was roused from his reverie, aware that an uneasy silence had descended over the funeral party. Miss Wishart nudged him in the ribs and Ulysses saw that the vicar was beckoning them forwards, so that they might say their own farewells.

  Miranda – wearing a black coat, tights, gloves and beret – knelt down at the graveside and, taking a handful of loose soil, cast it into the hole with the words, “Bye-bye, Daddy.”

  Miss Wishart was next. She said nothing but only sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with a balled up handkerchief.

  Then it was Ulysses’ turn.

  Taking a handful of earth, he stood there at the graveside for a moment, not knowing what to say.

  “Don’t worry, Victor old boy,” he muttered. “I’ll look after her.”

  He scattered the crumbled earth into the hole, the soil rattling dryly on the lid of the coffin and the polished brass plaque bearing Victor’s name.

  Ulysses strode away from the hole in the ground as a shovelling sexton-droid, painted a matt funereal black, set about filling the grave.

  The party broke up, people moving off in groups of two or three at a respectfully slow pace. As Ulysses gazed out across the sunlit cemetery to Nimrod, waiting as rigid and as still as a royal guardsman on duty at the Palace, his wandering eye caught De Wynter’s own imperious gaze.

  “If you’ll just excuse me, ladies,” Ulysses said and strode purposefully over to his superior.

  “I understand you paid a visit to the Isle of Wight,” De Wynter said as Ulysses reached him, his tone sharp.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Can I ask what you were doing there?”

  “You can.”

  “Then what were you doing there?
”

  “I was following up a lead regarding a case I am working on.”

  “Would that be the Gallowglass murder, by any chance?”

  “It would.”

  “And has the good doctor’s killer been apprehended?”

  “Not yet, but I’m sure it will only be a matter of time. The Metropolitan Police are on the case.”

  “Then it sounds as if your part in this case is over,” De Wynter said. “Doesn’t it?”

  “There is one last lead I would like to follow up.” Ulysses said.

  “I would advise you not to bother,” De Wynter said.

  “Not bother?”

  “You said it yourself; the police have the matter in hand and I am sure that whatever help you were able to offer them was gratefully received, but now it need tax your tenacious, enquiring mind no longer.” De Wynter fixed Ulysses with a penetrating stare. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “As crystal.”

  “I also understand you have new responsibilities now,” De Wynter went on. “London’s hardly the place to bring up a child at present, wouldn’t you say? And you deserve a rest yourself, after all you’ve been through in the last – what is it now – six months?”

  “Seven,” Ulysses corrected, “but who’s counting?”

  “Seven months,” De Wynter said. “Why don’t you enjoy some time away from the capital? At that country pad of yours, perhaps, or maybe go further afield. I hear that there is nothing quite like Paris in the springtime.”

  “Yes, why not? Like you say, I have been... over-doing it a bit, lately.”

  De Wynter’s slate grey eyes softened and his grim-set expression relaxed a little.

  “Very good. I’m glad we understand one another.”

  “Perfectly,” said Ulysses, a smile flashing onto his face, although his eyes remained hard and cold.

  “Then I bid good day to you, Quicksilver.”

  “Good day to you, sir,” Ulysses said, with a curt nod of his head.