The Man from the Diogenes Club - [Diogenes Club 01] Read online

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  [Diogenes Club 01]

  Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

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  CONTENTS

  End of the Pier Show

  You Don’t Have to Be Mad...

  Tomorrow Town

  Egyptian Avenue

  Soho Golem

  The Serial Murders

  The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train

  Swellhead

  Notes

  Afterword

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  THE END OF THE PIER SHOW

  Icy winds barrelled in off the sea, lashing the front like an invisible tidal wave. Fred Regent shoved his fists deeper into the pockets of his yellow silk bomber jacket.

  Apart from keeping his hands out of the cold blast, Fred was trying to prevent himself from constantly fingering the bee-fuzz on his scalp where he used to have hair like Peter Noone’s. If his bonce went blue, it’d look like a copper’s helmet and that’d be the end of this lark. Going undercover with the Boys now seemed a lot less like a comfortable way out of uniform than a protracted invitation to a busted mug and a cryo-dunking in the channel.

  “It’s April,” said Jaffa, the Führer Boy. “Whatever happened to spring?”

  “New ice age, mate,” said Oscar, the “intellectual” of the Boys. “Hitler’s astrologers said it’d happen.”

  The Boys clumped along the front, strutting in their steel-toed, cleat-soled Docs. They shivered as a razor-lash of wind cut through turn-up jeans, Fred Perry shirts and thin jackets. Only Oscar could get away with a duffel coat, and Jaffa sometimes sneered “mod” at him. The Boys were skins and hated mods; not to mention hippies, grebos, Pakkis, queers, students, coons, yids, chinks, car-park attendants, and—especially—coppers.

  Fred wondered if the others felt the cold on their near-exposed skulls the way he did. If so, they were too pretend-hard to mention it. Skinhead haircuts were one of the worst ideas ever. Just as the Boys were some of the worst people ever. It’d be a pleasure putting this bunch of yobs inside. If he lived that long.

  The point of this seaside excursion was for Fred to get in with Jaffa. A bag of pills, supposedly nicked with aggro from a Pakistani chemist’s, had bought him into the Boys. But Kevin Jaffa, so-called King Skin, didn’t trust anyone until they’d helped him put the boot into a third party. It was sort of an initiation, but also made all his mates accomplices in the event of legal complications.

  It had seemed a lot simpler back in London, following DI Price’s briefing on King Skin and the Boys, getting into the part, learning the lingo (“Say ‘coon,’ not ‘nigger’“) from a wheelchair-bound expert nark, picking out the wardrobe, even getting the haircut. Steel clippers snicking over his head like an insectile lawnmower. Now, barely two months out of Hendon, he was on his own, miles away from an incident room, with no one to shout for if he got on the receiving end of an unfriendly boot.

  What was he supposed to do? How far was he supposed to go?

  For the Boys, this was a pleasure trip, not business. And Fred was supposed to be stopping Jaffa’s business.

  On the train down, Jaffa had taken over a compartment, put his Docs up on the seat to defy British Rail, and encouraged everyone to pitch in ideas for entertainment. Nicking things, smashing things, getting plastered and snatching a shag were the most popular suggestions. Petty stuff, day-outing dirty deeds. Fred was supposed to let minor offences slide until he had the goods on one of Jaffa’s Big Ideas, but he supposed he’d have to draw a line if it looked like some innocent was going to get hurt.

  “Everything’s bloody shut,” Doggo whined. “I could do with six penn’orth of chips.”

  Jaffa cuffed the smaller skin, who couldn’t be older than fourteen.

  “All you bloody think of is chips, Doggo. Set your sights higher.”

  The shops along the front were mostly boarded over, battered by windblown sand and salt. Stacks of deckchairs down on the beach were chained down under tarpaulins. A few hardy dog-walkers were out and about. But no one else. The whole town was shut up and stored away.

  They came to the pier.

  “Let’s take a look-see,” Jaffa suggested, climbing over a turnstile. There was a booth nearby, but it wasn’t manned. The Boys trooped after their leader, clumping onto shaky boards. They fought the wind, walking towards the pagodalike green structure at the end of the pier.

  On a board in the shape of an arrow was written This way to “The Emporium,” Palace of Wonders, Arcade of Education, Variety Nitely. Admission: 6d. There was no admission price in new money.

  As he clambered over the turnstile, Fred noticed a poster on the side of the booth. A comical drunk in a long army greatcoat sat in a pub with a slinky blonde draped round him. Half the woman’s face was covered by a wave of hair; she was smoking a cigarette in a holder, the smoke forming a skull with swastika eye-sockets. The slogan wasCareless Talk Costs Lives. The poster might have been up since the war.

  No, the colours were too bright, as if just from the printer’s. It must be part of an exhibition.

  “Come on, Fred,” said Oscar. “Last one in’s a sissy.”

  Seamouth wasn’t big enough to support the pier these days, but it had been a fashionable resort around the turn of the century. Seventy-odd years of decline hadn’t yet dragged the attraction into the sea. The structure projected out from the beach, struts and pillars temporarily resisting the eternal push and pull of the waves. It couldn’t stand up on its own much longer. Everything creaked, like a ship at sea.

  Looking down, Fred saw churning foam through ill-fitting, water-warped boards. He thought he saw crabs tossed around in the water.

  They reached the Emporium. It was turquoise over gun-metal, the paint coming off in swathes. Ingraham put a dent in a panel with his armoured toe. Freckles flew off.

  “This shed looks about ready to collapse,” Oscar said, shaking a loose railing. “Maybe we should give it a shove.”

  Oscar hopped from one foot to another, looking like a clog-dancer, shoulders heaving.

  “Everything’s shut,” Doggo whined.

  Jaffa sneered with pity at the kid. A three-inch orange line on the King Skin’s scalp looked like a knife scar but was a birth malformation, skull-plates not knit properly. It was probably why he was a psycho nutter. With an elbow, Jaffa smashed a pane of glass and reached inside. He undid a clasp and pulled a door open, then stood aside like a doorman, indicating the way in.

  Doggo straightened himself, took hold of his lapels, and strutted past. Jaffa tripped him and put a boot on his backside, shoving the kid into the dark.

  Doggo whined as he hit the floor.

  Jaffa went inside and the Boys followed.

  Fred got out his lighter and flicked on a flame. The Emporium seemed bigger inside than it had on the outside, like Doctor Who’s police box. There were posters up on free-standing boards, announcing shows and exhibitions that must have closed years ago, or attractions that were only open in the two weeks that passed for summer on the South Coast. Mysteries of the Empire, Chu Chin Chow, Annual Talent Contest.

  “Don’t think anyone’s home,” Oscar said.

  Fred noticed Jaffa was interested in the pier, but couldn’t understand why. There was nothing here to nick, no one to put the boot into, nothing much worth smashing, certainly no bints to shag. But Jaffa had been drawn here. The King Skin was on some private excursion in his own head.

  Was there something going on?

  Stepping into the Emporium, Fred felt a sense of being on edge, of something just out of sight watching. The atmosphere was heavy, between the smell of the sea and the mustiness of
damp and forgotten exhibits. There was a greenish submarine glow, the last of cloudy daylight filtered through painted-over glass.

  “I don’t like it,” whined Doggo.

  Jaffa launched a half-strength kick into the kid’s gut, curling him into a fetal horseshoe around his boot. Doggo’s lungs emptied and his face shut. He was determined not to cry, poor bastard.

  If there wasn’t a Pakki or a hippie or a queer about, Jaffa was just as happy to do over one of his mates. DI Price thought there might be something political or big-time criminal about the Boys, but it was just brutishness, a small-minded need to hurt someone else.

  Fred’s fists knotted in his pockets. He wanted this over, and Jaffa put away.

  It was getting dark outside, and it couldn’t be later than seven. This was a weird stretch of the coast.

  Oscar was looking at the posters.

  “This sounds great,” he said.

  Hitler’s Horrors: The Beasts of War.

  The illustration was crude, circuslike. A caricature storm-trooper with fangs, machine-gun held up like an erection, crushing a map of Europe under jackboots.

  He remembered the Careless Talk Costs Lives poster. This looked like a propaganda show left over from the war. Twenty-five years too late to scare the kiddies, but too bloody nasty to get nostalgic about. Fred’s parents and their friends were always on about how it had been in the war, when everyone was pulling together. But Fred couldn’t see it. He came along too late, and only just remembered when chocolate was rationed and half the street was bomb sites.

  Ingraham clicked his heels and gave a Nazi salute. He was the pretend fascist, always reading paperbacks about the German side of WWII, ranting against Jews, wearing swastika medallions. He talked about “actions” rather than “aggro,” and fancied himself as the Boys’ Master Planner, the Goebbels of the Gormless. Not dangerous, just stupid.

  Fred’s lighter was getting hot. He let the flame shrink. The storm-trooper’s eyes seemed to look down as the light went away.

  There was a gushing trickle and a sharp smell. One of the skins was relieving himself against a wall.

  “Dirty beast,” Oscar sneered.

  “Don’t like it here,” whined Doggo.

  Fred knew what the kid meant.

  “Doggo’s right,” Jaffa said. “Let’s torch this shithole. Fred, you still got fluid in that lighter?”

  If he helped, he’d be committing a crime, compromising any testimony he gave.

  “It’s out, chum,” he said.

  “I got matches,” said Ingraham.

  “Give the boy a prize,” said Jaffa.

  Ingraham passed over the Swan Vestas. Jaffa had the others scout for newspapers or anything small that would burn. After hesitating a moment, Fred started ferreting around too. Arson, he could just about live with. At least it wasn’t duffing up some corner shop keeper or holding a bint down while the others shagged her. And there was something about the pier. He wouldn’t mind if it burned. By sticking out from the shore, it was inviting destruction. Fire or water, it didn’t make much difference.

  They split up. Though the Emporium was partitioned into various spaces, the walls only reached just above head height. Above everything was a tentlike roof of glass panels like Crystal Palace, painted over with wavy green.

  He found a row of penny-in-the-slot machines, lit up by tiny interior bulbs. He had three big dull old pennies mixed in with the shiny toy money that now passed for small change, and felt compelled to play the machines.

  In smeary glass cases were little puppet scenes that played out tiny dramas. The theme of the collection was execution. A French Revolution guillotining: head falling into a basket as the blade fell on the neck of a tin aristocrat. A British public hanging: felon plunging on string through a scaffold trap-door, neck kinking with the drop. An Indian Mutiny reprisal: rebel strapped over the end of a cannon that discharged with a puff to blow away his midriff.

  When he ran out of proper pennies—d. not p.—he wasn’t sorry that he couldn’t play the Mexican firing squad, the Spanish garrotting or the American electrocution. The little death scenes struck him as a funny sort of entertainment for kiddies. When the new money had completely taken over, penny-in-the-slot machines would all get chucked out and that would be the end of that.

  Round the corner from the machines was a dark passage. He tripped over something. Someone. Scrambling up, he felt the bundle. He flicked on his lighter again. The flamelight was reflected in a bloody smear that had been a face. From the anorak, Fred recognised Oscar. He was still barely alive, cheeks seeping in time with his neck-pulse. Something had torn the hood of flesh from his skull, leaving a ragged line along his chin. He wasn’t a skinhead any more; he was a skinned head.

  Fred stood. He hadn’t heard anything. Had Jaffa done this, somehow? Or was there someone else in here?

  “Over here,” he called. “It’s Oscar.”

  Doggo was the first there. He took one look and screamed, sounding very young. Ingraham slapped him.

  Jaffa had a flick-knife out. Its blade was clean, but he could have wiped it.

  “Did you do this?” Jaffa asked Fred.

  Fred heard himself whimpering.

  “Fuck me,” someone said. Everyone shouted, talked and moaned. Someone was sick.

  “Shut up,” said Jaffa.

  In the quiet, something was moving. Fred turned up the flame. The Boys huddled in the circle of light, scared cavemen imagining spirits in the dark beyond the fire. Something heavy was dragging itself, knocking things aside. And something smaller, lighter, pattered along on its own. They were circling the skinheads, getting closer.

  The lighter was a hot coal in Fred’s fingers. They all turned round, peering into the dark. There were partitions, covered with more posters, and glass cases full of battlefield dioramas. Nearest was a wall-sized cartoon of a bug-eyed demon Hitler scarfing down corpses, spearing a woman on his red, forked tail.

  The heavy thing held back, and the light thing was getting closer. Were there only two? Fred was sure he heard other movements, other footfalls. The steps didn’t sound like shod feet. But there was more than an animal purpose in the movement.

  Doggo was whimpering.

  Even Jaffa was scared. The King Skin had imagined he was the devil in the darkness; now that was a shredded illusion. There were worse things out there than in here.

  Fred’s fingers were in agony but he didn’t dare let the flame fall.

  The Hitler poster tipped forwards, cracking down the middle. Hitler’s face broke in half. And another Hitler face—angry eyes, fleck of moustache, oiled hairlick—thrust forwards into the light, teeth bared. A child-sized figure in a puffy grey Hitler mask reached out with gorilla-length arms.

  Fred dropped the lighter.

  Something heavy fell on them, a living net of slithering strands.

  There was screaming all around.

  He was hit in the face by a dead hand.

  The net cut against his palm like piano-wire. Seaweed wound between the strings stung, like nettles. A welt rose across his face.

  The net was pulled away.

  Warm wetness splashed on his chest, soaking in. Something flailed in the dark, meatily tearing.

  Someone was being killed.

  He blundered backwards, slamming into a partition that hadn’t been there, a leathery elephant’s hide that resisted a little, and shifted out of the way. His palm was sandpapered by the moving, living wall.

  There was a gunshot, a fireflash and a loud report. Fred’s eyes burned for a moment, but he wasn’t hit. Someone else had taken a bullet.

  In the momentary light, he’d seen things he didn’t believe. Uniformed creatures falling upon the Boys with human intellect and demon savagery. Doggo’s head a yard from his body, stringy bone and muscle unravelling between his neck and shoulders. On his chest squatted something with green wolf-eyes and a foot of lolling tongue.

  Fred bolted and collided with someone.


  “Fucking hell,” said Jaffa, gripping Fred’s arm.

  They ran together, skinhead and copper, fleeing the other things. They made for a cold indraught of outside air.

  Something came after them.

  Jaffa pushed ahead and was first through the door.

  None of the others was with them.

  Fred stumbled out of the Emporium. They couldn’t have been inside more than fifteen minutes, but night had fallen. There was no light from the town, no yellow street lamps, no electric glow from homes up on the hill. The shapes of buildings were just discernible, but it was as if no one was home.