Camera Obscura Read online

  Eyes to adjust to the dim light, time to put together the pieces on the table, the ruined face, one eye staring into nothing, a loose arm with an old ring on a finger that would never move again, time to comprehend their meaning, time to–

  She caught the girl as she fell. Gave her a moment, stood her up. Forcing her to look. A small voice, choked, broken, polluted water running over pebbles – "Mother…"

  A shake of the head. Inaudibly – "No. No!"

  Milady, holding her, a silent command – look.

  The girl looked. A head, an arm – was sick all over the floor. Milady held her all the while.

  "And now we talk."

  EIGHTEEN

  The Clockwork Room

  And now she hated her. Hated her, yes, but feared her more. The woman behind the table was afraid, terribly afraid – of her? Only a part. And the rest?

  "Tell me about the man in your apartment."

  She talked.

  The safe house – Tom Thumb – the arrangement – "We slept in the same room, my mother and I, and the guest –" she referred to them as guests – "in my room, unless, you know."

  A pause, waiting. The girl smoking a cigarette as if it were a life line of oxygen and she was drowning. "Unless I liked him."

  Always men. Not many – perhaps ten, twelve in the past three years. All via Tom, "That horny little midget, I wouldn't give him the time of day –" some staying a day or two, some weeks. "All Asian?"

  No. One African, a couple of Europeans from the East, one Vespuccian man who said he was a Sioux, whatever that was. Never any visitors. Stayed inside, until other arrangements had been made, and then they left.

  "And Yong Li?"

  He was a nice guy. On that she seemed in agreement with Tom Thumb. He liked to drink but was a polite drunk. He had a good singing voice. He never made advances, even though–

  "I wouldn't have minded, you know. Even with that stomach of his…"

  "Tell me about his stomach."

  If she thought it was odd she gave no sign. "He looked pregnant," she said. It was odd. She saw him naked, a couple of times – "Coming out of the shower. He had a scar running down it. His belly protruded so… he used to touch it, stroke it as if there was something living inside. He walked funny. Carrying around that weight – we used to make jokes about it. Mother–"

  A wait as she cried. Lit another cigarette from the one glowing in the ashtray. The smell of it mingling with puke, the girl's body odour. The Gascon silent beside her, as if he had fallen asleep. But she knew he was listening.

  "Did you kill him?"

  "No!" Looking at her, the hatred returning. Then, eyes softening – "Is he really dead?"

  "When did you leave the apartment?"

  They left as usual, with night falling. Heading off to Pigalle, to work – "Girl's got to work, right?" staring at her, defying her, but no longer having the heart for it. "We left together, Mother and me. Last I saw of him he was asleep on the couch. That's all I know, honest."

  Only she was lying.

  "Where was he meant to go once he left you?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did he go out? Did he meet anyone?"

  "I told you, none of them ever–"

  Faltering. Milady's eyes never leaving the girl's face. Daring her back – dare to lie to me again.

  "You went out with him?"

  Only once! It wasn't meant to happen, the rules were very clear. She woke up – it was about a week before – and saw him pacing the floor, looking nervous and excited. The window was open. There was something in his hand, a note perhaps, but when she looked again it had disappeared. He said, "There is a place I want to visit."

  "So he spoke French?"

  Yes, very well, though with an accent.

  "Where did he want to go?"

  A blush, startling on her face. An angry expression. "The Clockwork Room."

  Recollection – a building on the other side from the Moulin Rouge, down a side street, no sign outside, windows blackened – known by reputation.

  "Tell me about the Clockwork Room."

  Mademoiselle L'Espanaye did.

  Picture a place of gleaming chrome and burnished leather. A place of polished brass, muted carpets, the smell of pipe tobacco and expensive cologne, the tinkling of a piano player. Picture men in smart evening wear, congregating in their masks. Imagine champagne flutes, the bubbles twinkling in the glass, the hum of machinery, cries – of pleasure, or pain, it's hard to say – echoing, sometimes, from the upstairs rooms. Hosts and hostesses move throughout the room mechanically, touching a hand here, a shoulder there, refilling glasses – sexless creatures, as beautiful and perfect as a blueprint made flesh.

  There are not only men amongst the clientele. Women, too, of high society and money to spare, seeking excitement, wanting the new, come here, their faces as masked as those of the men. And there, in a corner, dressed in full regalia – a rare lizardine diplomat, exchanging hushed conversation with a government minister, the lizard's tongue hissing out, tasting the air, savouring – one likes to think – the atmosphere of this place.

  The Clockwork Room.

  A long curved bar, and behind it a man-shaped automaton effortlessly mixing drinks. On the walls, anatomical drawings – pipes and organs, wheels and breasts, tubes and male appendages. There in the corner, a habitué of this place – a short-legged artist drinking absinthe and drawing, in love with these marching gliding perfections, these machines built for love.

  There are many designs, and the artist wants to capture them all. There are many designs, for women and men, even for lizards – and who wants to enquire too closely as to the sexual reproduction habits of those majestic, alien beings? But someone must have. Or perhaps it is true what they say, and machines now design themselves… Every now and then one masked member of a party might break from it, ascend upstairs, up the wide curving staircase, and disappear into one of the private rooms, where love is enacted, perfected, a clean and sterile thing, a union, however temporary, between human and machine.

  To this place, then, came the curious man from Asia, this Yong Li, and his escort both reluctant and excited. For to enter the Clockwork Room one must have money and influence both: and yet this little unknown man with his distended swollen belly is welcomed without question by the two liveried guards and allowed entry along with the girl. Inside, and to the bar – pressing a gleaming brass button on the menu, and the girl watches, fascinated, as the bartending machine mixes cocktails, pipes running in and out of its body. Like a great spider it seems to her at that moment, and she turns away from it and watches the hosts and hostesses, their naked metal flesh and skin like wax and eyes of glass, and she feels repulsed by them, and resents them for stealing away an otherwise honest trade – and yet excited too, and the man beside her touches her lightly on the arm, brushing her suddenly raised fine hairs and says, "Perhaps you could go upstairs, for just a while. I have conversation to make."

  "Is that what he said?" Lady de Winter asked. "He had conversation to make?"

  "That's what he said."

  "It's an odd choice of words."

  Mademoiselle L'Espanaye shrugged. She looked around the interrogation room, perhaps comparing it, in her mind's eye, with that other place. Finding the room lacking. Perhaps.

  "So then what happened?"

  Not so quickly. She had looked around the room, recognising – or thinking she did – many prominent people. She drank a glass of champagne. Yong Li lit a cigar, for once, rather than his cheap loose tobacco from the pouch. He, too, scanned the room.

  "As if searching for someone?"

  Yes, that was the impression that she'd had. But she saw no one approaching him, no one signalling to him, no one even noticing this man and this woman standing at the bar. Not an entirely uncommon sight, couples coming to the Clockwork Room, add a little spice to a jaded palate–

  "Let's get back to Yong Li."

  Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, staring at Milady.
Expressions fleeting on her face, hard to read – the eyes, so hard one moment, softening with tears the next. "You'll find him, won't you?" she said.

  Lady de Winter, nodding. Their eyes locked together, something passing between. A promise. "The one who killed my mother?"

  "I will."

  NINETEEN

  Projections

  "Tell me about the room. Did you notice anyone out of the ordinary?"

  Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, laughing suddenly. "At the Clockwork Room?"

  Lady de Winter, conceding. "Anyone who caught your attention, then? In particular? Who may be relevant?"

  No. Or rather… of course, she had been watching the royal lizard, it was hard not to, everyone did, even the sophisticates pretending not to care. A rare appearance in the Republic–

  Lady de Winter: "Do you think he was there for Yong Li?"

  Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, surprised. "He never indicated… it would have been too public – a meeting like that–"

  "And yet discreet," the Gascon murmured, besides Milady. Both women turning to look at him, a little surprised to find him still there, perhaps. He gave a smile through hooded eyes and said, "Not much comes out of the Clockwork Room. A very quiet place."

  Milady de Winter, beside him, tensing. Was that a veiled message to her? The Council…

  "After all, such a place needs powerful patrons to survive," the Gascon said, turning his eyes on her. "To stay in business…"

  And now she thought – machines. Listening, perhaps, these unobtrusive subservient automatons, perhaps ignored – at peril?

  She filed it away, for now. And yet…

  Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, biting her lower lip. "There was a fat man. With the lizard."

  Milady and the Gascon exchanged glances. "What did he do?"

  "Nothing. But…"

  The Gascon sighed.

  Milady: "What did you do then?"

  And now the girl blushed. Her bluster gone, she said, "I went upstairs. There was a room… Yong Li had settled the bill in advance."

  Pipes and moving parts, water and soft brushes, warmth and cold, moving about her, settling her down, touching her–

  "And there was something else," she said. "I noticed it, later. When I was… when I was done. Coming out of the room, at the end of the corridor, a room unlike the others, the door black and half-open, for just a moment. I saw shadows flickering on a wall, light and shades, moving shapes. I couldn't make them out, and then the door closed. It was only for a moment."

  Shadows flickering, light and shades – the girl: "Like a camera obscura."

  A projection. Milady de Winter, adding it to her list. "And Yong Li?"

  "I waited at the bar. A man spoke to me. He said some of them still preferred human to machine. I said, after the last hour, I wasn't so sure I did – we laughed, he bought me a drink. Yong Li came down half an hour later. He was holding his stomach again, in pain. We left."

  Lady de Winter, reaching across the interrogation table. Her hand on the girl's, black on pale white – "I'll find him. I promise you I'll–"

  The girl, softly: "I know." A change between them.

  "So what do you want to do?" the Gascon said.

  Leads, possibilities, branching off into unknown paths – but which to follow? She said, "She mentioned an artist."

  "Henri," the Gascon said thoughtfully. "Yes."

  "You know him?"

  "Who doesn't? If a house has ill repute Henri will be there, drawing. For a while you could find him nearly every night at the Moulin Rouge but I did hear he was rarely to be found there now. Henri…" Looking up at her, suddenly troubled. "He was at the bar earlier. Where we found the body."

  A short man – an adult body with stunted child's legs. She'd noticed him, yes – "We should talk to him."

  If the Gascon noticed the we he gave no sign. But between them, too, something had changed – a mutual acceptance, as momentary as it may be – two professionals agreeing to work together, to put aside, if only for a while, their differences. Nothing to be stated in words, but there nevertheless–

  "He isn't hard to find."

  "And the Clockwork Room–" She yawned, and suddenly couldn't stop. Outside the window, the first rays of sunlight could be seen. All the coffee in the world, she suddenly thought, won't be enough. The Gascon said, "You can't do everything."

  "I have to," she said, knowing there was a curiously plaintive tone in her voice. "There is no one else."

  "Get some rest," he said. "You can sleep here, if you like. I'll clear a room. There is nothing to be done now that the night is ending. Even murderers have to sleep."

  "I'm not so sure…" she said, puzzled, and yawned again. And, giving in – "I'll take the coach."

  • • • •

  Morning was rising around her as the silent coachman drove her home. The morning's sounds, the morning's smells – fresh bread and greengrocers opening their shutters, the cockerels crowing, the traffic picking up – coaches and baruch-landaus, newfangled bicycles, above the last of the night's airships going back to depot, having delivered the night mail.

  Back at her apartments, no servants, no living thing – in the drawing room she paused. Grimm, curled up in the unlit fireplace, munching slowly on a lump of coal. She smiled and stroked him, briefly, and tiredness overwhelmed her. To her bath, drawing it herself, adding salts and scents and lying in the water, almost falling asleep… Washing away, gradually, the night's sights and smells and sounds, the night's death, its cargo of misery. Rising, naked, from the bath, not bothering with a towel, she went through the door into her room and fell to bed, and closed her eyes amidst the silken sheets. No dreams, she thought. Please, no dreams. Holding on to a pillow she fell asleep.

  INTERLUDE: Jungle Fever Boy

  Kai ran through the thick forest, heading deeper and deeper into the trees. Exhausted, fear kept him going – fear, and the voices that shouldn't have been there.

  The voices guided him. Here and there he could see signs of people – a hidden bird-trap up in the canopy, a long-necked bamboo basket with bait inside – the bird would crawl into it and be caged. There, a hint of cultivation through the trees – avoid.

  Would they be chasing him? He knew they would. They were. He had to disappear, to get away as completely as possible and never return. His life, the voices murmured helpfully, was over. His life as he knew it.

  Which meant what, exactly?

  Think of yourself as a wuxia hero, the voices suggested, though perhaps that was not so accurate to say. They didn't speak so much as hint, conjuring images, scents, markers to their meanings which Kai's mind translated into speech. A young wushu warrior. The evil faction had just killed your master. You are escaping, vowing revenge. Into the forest, where all things are possible, where young boys since time immemorial went to become men.

  Or, a part of his mind whispered, you're going crazy.

  Jungle fever.

  He saw mosquitoes hover but somehow they never bit him. He stopped by a brook and drank and lay, exhausted, against the thick, mottled trunk of a tree. In his mind he kept seeing the silent assassins with their loud guns, the black-clad monks fighting them – and losing.

  So much for the powers of wushu.

  Machines, the voices murmured. In his mind – guns. The voices: yes… machines have power.

  Then I will use that power, Kai said, and found that he couldn't rise, could not bring himself to run again. He lay by the brook and listened to the frogs. I will become a gun, if that's what I must do.

  For now, the voices said, you need to rest.

  When he closed his eyes the darkness wasn't absolute. He lay there, holding the grotesque statue still in his arms, this green jade lizard with its emerald eyes: it felt warm in his hands, against his body. Behind his eyes the darkness swirled in lazy eddies, lines and circles flashing and disappearing, forming into a vague grey vista of a world. He fell asleep holding the statue, and his dreams were filled with menacing hulking sh
apes and he cried out, and then the voices were there, soothing him, and he was walking through a grey landscape, as if through a thick mist beyond which everything was ill-defined. Somehow, it was peaceful.

  It was only when he woke up that he cried, and then he did it soundlessly, still afraid, though the voices murmured incomprehensible things about perimeter scans and body heat signatures and checksum routines returning satisfactory values.