Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [130]
‘I know you are falsely accused. Your enemies have brought you to this filth.’ He gestured around the low-ceilinged, windowless cell. It might as well be a tomb.
‘I passed six decades in the Château d’If,’ Kostaki announced. His voice was still strong, surprisingly loud in the confined space. ‘These are by comparison quite comfortable quarters.’
‘You’ll talk to me?’
‘I have done so.’
‘Who was he? The policeman?’
Kostaki fell silent.
‘You must understand, I can help you. I have the ear of the Prime Minister.’
‘I am beyond help.’
Water seeped up between the cracks of the flagstones. Patches of green-white moss grew on the floor. There were spots of similar mould on Kostaki’s bandages.
‘No,’ Godalming told the elder, ‘the situation is very grave, but it can be reversed. If those who scheme against us can be thwarted, then there are many advantages to be won.’
‘Advantages? With you English, there are always advantages.’
Godalming was stronger than this foreign brute, sharper in his head. He could turn the situation so he emerged as sole victor. ‘If I find the policeman, I can uncover a conspiracy against the Prince Consort.’
‘The Scotsman said the same thing.’
‘Is the Diogenes Club mixed up in this?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Mackenzie mentioned them. Just before he was killed.’
‘The Scotsman kept much to himself.’
Kostaki would tell what he knew. Godalming was certain of it. He could see the gears turning in the elder’s head. He knew which levers to depress.
‘Mackenzie would wish this cleared up.’
Kostaki’s great head nodded. ‘The Scotsman led me to a house in Whitechapel. His quarry was a new-born, known as “the Sergeant” or “Danny”. At the last, his fox turned on him.’
‘This was the man who killed Mackenzie?’
Kostaki nodded, indicating his wound. ‘Aye, and the man who did this to me.’
‘Where in Whitechapel?’
‘They call the place the Old Jago.’
He had heard of it. This business kept running back to Whitechapel: where Jack the Ripper murdered, where John Jago preached, where agents of the Diogenes Club were often seen. Tomorrow night, Godalming would venture out into Darkest London. He was confident this Sergeant was no match for the vampire Arthur Holmwood had become.
‘Keep up your pluck, old man,’ Godalming told the elder. ‘We’ll have you out of here directly.’
He withdrew from the cell and summoned the Yeoman Warder, who refastened the thick door. Through the bars, Kostaki’s red eyes winked out as he lay back on his cot.
At the end of the corridor, framed by an arch, stood a tall, hunched nosferatu in a long, shabby frock coat. His head was swollen and rodentlike with huge pointed ears and prominent front fangs. His eyes, set in black caverns that obscured his cheeks, were constantly liquid, darting here and there. Even his fellow elders found Graf Orlok, a distant family connection of the Prince Consort’s, a disquieting presence. He was a crawling reminder of how remote they all were from the warm.
Orlok scuttled down the passageway. Only his feet seemed to move. The rest of him was stiff as a waxwork. When he was close, his flamboyant eyebrows bristled like rat’s whiskers. His smell was not as strong as that in Kostaki’s cell, but it was fouler.
Godalming greeted the Governor but did not shake Orlok’s withered claw. Orlok peered into Kostaki’s cell, pressing his face close to the grille, hands against the cold stone either side of the door. The Yeoman Warder tried to edge away from his commanding officer. Orlok rarely asked questions but had a reputation for gaining answers. He turned away from the cell and looked at Godalming with active eyes.
‘He still won’t talk,’ Godalming told the nosferatu. ‘Stubborn fellow. He’ll rot here, I suppose.’
Orlok’s rat-shark-rabbit teeth scraped his lower lip, the nearest he could manage to a smile. Godalming did not envy any prisoner entrusted to the care of this creature.
The Yeoman Warder escorted him up to the main gate. The skies above the Tower were lightening. Godalming still trembled with the sustenance he had taken