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The Kingdom of Grey
by Davin Ireland
I
“That will be far
enough, driver.”
The gleaming Bentley
pulled off the road and rolled to a stop beneath a leisurely sweep of
trees near the summit of a low hill. Gravel crunched loudly in the
quiet country air. The Permanent Secretary, who had not spoken a word
since leaving the capital at six o’clock sharp that morning, turned to
face his guest with an obvious degree of reluctance.
“Surprise me and
tell me you know exactly where we are,” he invited.
Julia Digby, the
newly elected member for Putnum East, cleared her throat and shifted
uneasily in her seat. According to the road signs, the Permanent
Secretary’s private vehicle had just pulled up on the outskirts of the
Purbeck Hills, South Dorset. Something told Julia this was not the
response Sir Michael Weldon was looking for.
“Judging by the
anonymity of the surroundings,” she ventured, “I’d suggest this is
somewhere pretty important.”
After a suitable
pause, the Permanent Secretary tilted his head slightly to the left --
a sign of admiration, some claimed. The rumour was, the greater the
degree of tilt, the greater the impression made.
“Not a bad answer,
all things considered,” he allowed, waiting another moment before
opening the Bentley’s door and stepping out onto the gravel shoulder.
“Care to find out more?”
Julia opened her
mouth to reply, but the door slammed shut with an air of finality that
demonstrated, quite succinctly, just what her opinion was worth.
II
“The land was
compulsory purchased by the Ministry of Defence back in forty-three,”
Sir Michael was telling her, “around the time a German invasion seemed
inevitable.”
They were clambering
down a wooded slope that ended in a dry river-bed strewn with greenish
stones and boulders the size of armchairs. The incline was so steep
that Julia had to grab hold of birch trunks and low-hanging ash
branches to keep from falling over. The Permanent Secretary, on the
other hand, encountered no such difficulties, negotiating the bumps and
hollows of the hillside with an ease that indicated a marked level of
familiarity.
“It’s off-limits to
the public now, of course,” he added, jogging to a halt at the
river-bed’s edge. Julia lurched the last few feet of the way, grabbed
Sir Michael’s hand when it was offered. They broke when she had
steadied herself, took a brief moment to get their bearings.
“Quite a trip,
wouldn’t you say?”
Julia nodded, still
a little out of breath, and did her best to conceal her unease at the
secluded location. She had met the Permanent Secretary only twice since
her election to Parliament -- once in the lobby outside an important
committee meeting, the other time at a cocktail party for freshman MPs
-- and on both occasions had been struck by the intense loyalty and
respect he instilled in those around him. But since being offered the
Subrural Affairs portfolio, a junior ministerial post she had never
even heard of, Sir Michael’s name had been cropping up more and more
often. Then came the phone call in the early hours of this morning, a
direct line from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office.
Dress warmly and
wear flat shoes, the voice had told her. Confirmation arrived in
the
form of an official memo, hand-delivered by motorcycle courier, twenty
minutes later. But this was getting ridiculous.
“Now, if you’ll just
follow me for the next few hundred yards,” the Permanent Secretary
requested, and turned to lead the way. It was only then that the
combination of muddy hiking boots and hand-stitched Saville Row suit
caught her eye. It was enough to draw the weakest of smiles from Julia,
though when she caught a glimpse of Sir Michael’s own expression --
strained, expectant, daunted, even -- all of the humour went out of the
situation. That was when she started getting scared.
III
MINISTRY OF
DEFENCE
AIR
THIS IS A PROHIBITED
PLACE WITHIN THE MEANING OF
THE OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT. UNAUTHORISED
PERSONS
ENTERING THE AREA MAY BE ARRESTED AND
PROSECUTED.
The
free-standing sign was located at the dead-centre of the meandering
river bed, and the Permanent Secretary passed it without so much as a
sideways glance. The pace he set had been brisk, and he showed little
appetite for letting it slip, even when they passed a second sign, this
one hammered to a dead oak that squatted decrepitly on the river bank.
MILITARY FIRING
RANGE
KEEP OUT.
Julia knew
what this was all about. They were going to teach her a lesson. On
accepting the Subrural Affairs brief, she had decided that becoming an
outstanding future minister entailed being an exemplary junior minister
first. And that meant a lot of hard work. Conscientiousness was nearly
enough, as was a healthy dose of charisma. But above all else, the
thing that distinguished a damn good politician from a truly great one,
was knowledge.
And to that end,
Julia Digby, the Honourable Member for Putnum East, had set to work.
Case files, policy documents, internal memos, cabinet minutes, white
papers, green papers, manifestos, she scrutinised them all
relentlessly, studying, cross-referencing, tirelessly combing for
detail. And when she had exhausted the most readily available source
documents, Julia had moved on to the archives. The stacks and
basements. The trunks. Material of a sensitive nature, stuff that had
been buried so deep it would not see the light of day again in this
century or any other. And what she found had outraged -- and in some
cases, horrified -- her.
A thirty-year
longitudinal study by a team of Norwegian scientists that offered
conclusive proof of the link between electricity pylons and child
leukaemia clusters. The case of the Norfolk farmer who had, with tacit
government approval, secretly raised genetically modified crops and
livestock for two whole decades before official permission was granted.
There were human genes in his trout, scorpion genes in his wheat, and
some of the farm’s prize-winning cattle were treated to regular doses
of a gene found exclusively in the venom of the Sumatran spitting
cobra. A quarter-century on and the family’s three youngest children
were becoming a problem. Two exhibited a double row of perfectly-formed
nipples down their abdomens, and at the age of twelve the oldest seemed
to prefer walking on all fours to standing upright.
It was more than
Julia could take. She had been unable to confide in her husband because
she couldn’t afford to have him implicated in any future scandal. But
at the same time, she needed to unburden herself to someone she
trusted. And so in the end she had taken tea with her sister at a
café in their home town. Dulcie Digby was every bit as clever as
her sibling, but retained none of the ambition. She did, however,
possess a withering set of principles, and her position had remained
constant since learning of the grotesqueries concealed within the guts
of Subrural Affairs.
“Sit on it for now,”
she had advised, delicately sipping on her Lemon Lift. “Blowing the
whistle any time soon will only end your career. Wait till you have
real power, then expose the bastards for what they are.”
Dulcie’s argument
had made perfect sense, of course, but Julia had needed to hear it from
someone else before making a decision. Unfortunately, the Permanent
Secretary seemed to have heard it from someone else too. At least, that
was her suspicion.
IV
The landscape
was changing, and not for the better. The trees grew thicker and closer
together, like armies amassing on the river banks. In places, the woods
were so dense they shut out the light altogether, creating impenetrable
walls of darkness on either side of the two lonely hikers tracking
through their midst. As a consequence, the hazy blue of the sky fast
narrowed to an overcast squiggle that mirrored the coils of the
river-bed unfolding beneath it.
For the first time
that day, Julia felt a distinct nip in the air. Up ahead, Sir Michael
had stopped moving. He stood astride a large rock, gazing upstream at a
point beyond the final bend in the river. “Here we are,” he said, when
Julia caught up, “Felton Terrace.” He stepped down from the rock, led
her the final hundred feet in pointed silence. He only released her arm
when they were standing directly before their destination.
“Well, now, what do
you make of this?”
Julia honestly
didn’t know what to say. The river-bed was wider here, the shores
broader and rockier than before -- so broad, in fact, that the eastern
shoreline encroached upon a quartet of narrow Victorian gardens that
showed signs of repeated flood damage. Each was overgrown and in an
advanced state of disrepair. Broken fences swooned drunkenly between
the properties, blurring demarcation lines already confused by rampant
weeds. Islands of rust emerged from the undergrowth at various points,
islands that might once have been the wrecks of cars or discarded
washing machines. Insects jumped and chittered among the long grasses,
and there were wooden cages on stilts that looked as if whatever had
occupied them had probably died in them too.
But the land was as
nothing compared to the houses rising from it. If the gardens were in
an advanced state of disrepair, the homes beyond teetered on the brink
of total collapse. The four scrofulous heaps of brick and slate known
collectively as Felton Terrace shared not a single unbroken window
between them. Roofs sagged, doors hung, blackish mould festered on the
interior walls. The place exuded a vile stink, even from distance.
“I don’t know what
to say,” Julia admitted. “Come to think of it, I don’t even know what
buildings like this are doing out in the countryside. These are urban
dwellings, not cottages.”
Sir Michael nodded
sagely, but showed little sign of helping her out. “Carry on.”
“Let’s see,” she
said, suddenly relieved at the chance to demonstrate her grasp of an
unexpected situation, however absurd. “The other aspect that springs to
mind is the precise location. Irrespective of era, no builder worth his
salt would erect a home this close to the water, it’s plain
foolishness. And as for the immediate surroundings, I see no access
roads, no amenities of any kind bar the river. A complete folly, in my
view. I take it they’re unoccupied?”
Sir Michael chose to
ignore the question. “Would you care to comment on the house numbers?”
The question caught
Julia off-guard. She took a moment to walk the length of the stubby
terrace, squinting as her eyes sought the required information.
“That is odd,” she
said, presently returning to Sir Michael’s side. “Numbers three, five,
three and seventeen. Two number threes.”
That strained
expression was back on the Permanent Secretary’s face. “You recall my
comments on the area’s history?”
Julia said that she
did. “Compulsory purchase,” she recalled, “nineteen forty-three. The
land was--”
“The land was
surveyed, appropriated and forgotten, to put it bluntly. None of the
houses you see before you appeared on that survey, neither do they
exist on any government record. As far as we can tell, they seem to
have materialised, quite spontaneously one day in the summer of
nineteen seventy-four, more or less in their current state. But here’s
something else for you to think about,” Sir Michael added, colouring
slightly as he spoke, “a Felton Terrace in similar condition to this
one was demolished in Plumstead that very year. Some claim they are one
and the same.”
Julia let out a
breath. “You’re asking me to believe the impossible, Sir Michael.”
The Permanent
Secretary was unfazed. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and
wandered a few feet along the river-bed, kicking pebbles onto the shore
as he went. He returned, a thoughtful look on his face. “Julia Beatrice
Digby,” he declared, “thirty-four years of age, mother of two, judo
black belt, second dan, I believe. The government’s youngest debutante
MP and one of its brighter prospects for the future.” He paused, kicked
another stone for good measure. “Junior Ministers are often earmarked
for success at an early stage of their careers, Julia,” he said, “but
they are also headstrong, ardent, and all too willing to take risks
when prudence might be better advised. One calls it unbridled
ambition.”
Sensing that the
denouement was near, Julia was unable to keep her own counsel any
longer. “If this is your way of warning me off something, Permanent
Secretary, I’d prefer it if you came right out and said it.”
But Sir Michael
would not be drawn. “The trouble is, they all too often see things in
black and white, in terms of right and wrong, of justice and injustice,
with nothing in between. This little trip constitutes your introduction
to the kingdom of grey, Ms. Digby, and I suggest you take it in the
spirit it is given. Should you wish to continue, I would further
suggest you enter the end house marked number three at your
convenience.” He offered her a wan smile. “Take a look around inside
and tell me what you find.”
Now that the purpose
of their trip had been revealed to be a rather pathetic test, one
designed to spook some loyalty into her, Julia’s residual fear was soon
overwhelmed by a burning resentment. How dare the old coot try to scare
her into doing as she was told. By God, this whole thing was tantamount
to intimidation. She was being menaced by the very person tasked with
guarding her interests.
Unwilling to dignify
the request with words, she banged through the gate of the first house
marked number three, quite unaware that she had used enough force to
knock its hinges out of alignment, and marched up the garden path,
careful to give a lopsided ferret cage a wide berth. Instantly the sour
stench of mould entered her nostrils. Beneath it hung the rank odour of
wet rot and decaying vegetable matter. But worst of all, the slippery
darkness gathered within seemed to intensify as she approached. No
matter. This little game had imbued her with enough anger to ride out
any challenge.
She crossed the
threshold, easing past the half-open door without touching it. The
interior bore little resemblance to a modern house. It’s tight little
spaces and cold stone floor spoke of hardship and poverty as eloquently
as any book or newspaper article of the time. The few remaining items
of furniture had been smashed to smithereens and burnt in the grate. In
the places where the collapsed ceiling didn’t obscure the view of the
walls, great fleshy colonies of toadstools sprouted from wallpaper long
turned to mush. Black, orange and blue mould covered everything in a
scabrous swathe.
Julia was fascinated
and disgusted all at once. She was also leaving right now. She turned
on her heel and marched for the door.
V
The lopsided cage
was standing in a different place. That was the first thing Julia
noticed on exiting the house. The cage had moved from one side of the
garden to the other, and had multiplied. There were now three lopsided
cages on display, all standing in a row. Each was tacked to a
fencepost, and each leaned further askew the more the fence itself
sagged towards the ground.
Gripped by an
awesomely unpleasant sense of dislocation, Julia took another few steps
before encountering the rusted heap of an old Norton motorcycle
straddling the pathway. Her heart began to thump in her chest. Whereas
the cage had moved and somehow grown a pair of identical siblings, the
motorcycle had appeared out of nowhere. Julia suppressed the urge to
run. Sir Michael was now standing on the opposite bank of the river,
leisurely smoking a cigarette. There was no way he could have put that
motorcycle there, especially not in the time available to him.
It hit her as she
stepped over the busted remains of the old garden gate, a gate
different in all its particulars to the one she had used scarcely a
minute before. The house she was now leaving was not the one she had
entered. This time it took a supreme effort on Julia Digby’s part not
to succumb to the worst kind of panic. She stopped in mid-stride,
turned to face the house. Number three, all right, but a different
number three, the other number three, the one in the middle. Reality
yawned in front of her, the world seeming to open up beneath her feet.
Only the faces of her children, surfacing briefly in her mind, helped
steady Julia’s feet.
Behind her, Sir
Michael Weldon continued to smoke his cigarette.
Okay, so this really
was a test, just not the one she’d envisioned. Bracing herself for an
experience she’d rather forego entirely, Julia navigated her way back
around the oxidised wreck of the motorcycle, and approached this number
three Felton Terrace for the first time. Crossing the threshold was a
tad less comfortable than before, but nothing she couldn’t handle. As
was to be expected, the inside was pretty much a repeat in
generalities, if not detail, of the first house -- although the ceiling
only drooped this time, sagging in the middle like a rain-filled
awning. Julia about-faced, made for the door, emerged for the second
time. The motorcycle was gone. The single lopsided cage was restored to
its former position. The middle house had once again become the end
house.
Julia emitted a
sound that comprised equal parts chuckle, moan and sob -- then she was
dashing for the river, the sound of a woman’s petrified screams
reaching her from distance.
VI
“No, one
more,” commanded the Permanent Secretary, pushing the silver hip flask
back at her with gentle insistence. “A single tot is never enough in a
situation like this.”
Julia was inclined
to disagree with him on that. As a life-long tea-totaller, vintage
brandy was hardly her refreshment of choice. Still, it steadied the
nerves. And right now that was what she needed more than anything. The
screams had been her own, of course -- the sensation of distance only
being created by the speed with which she left them behind. And almost
fainting hadn’t helped matters, either. Now, after teetering on the
verge of unconsciousness for the last fifteen minutes or so, the world
was finally starting to settle down.
“Can you stand?”
Julia handed back
the flask and took the Permanent Secretary’s arm. Once on her feet, she
started to feel in control again.
“The Ministry
launched an investigation into the matter during the autumn of
seventy-four,” Sir Michael told her, “after a series of apparently
random disappearances. Soldiers, civilians, members of the local
council. Even a young boy out walking his dog one morning. The Felton
Terrace anomaly seemed to be at the heart of the mystery, and so those
in charge were forced to consider its presence as something more than a
beguiling conundrum.
“They lost eleven
men that first year, two dozen primates, a whole slew of cats and dogs.
Nobody who entered numbers five or seventeen were ever seen or heard of
again. It didn’t matter what precautions were taken -- oxygen masks and
full body armour, mobile Racal outfits festooned with transmission
devices, even an inflatable astronaut’s suit similar to the ones used
on the Apollo 11 mission -- the result was the same. Once the premises
were entered, all communication ceased. Then somebody had a bright
idea.”
Sir Michael screwed
the cap onto his flask with thoughtful slowness, and returned it to its
hiding place beneath his jacket. All of a sudden he looked old, as if
the very memory of the incident had aged him somehow.
“The Ministry
inventoried the former residents of the original Felton Terrace, the
one in Plumstead that had made way for a new industrial estate. They
weren’t quite sure what they were looking for until a young lad of
twenty-seven, the owner of the old Norton motorcycle you see standing
over there, volunteered his help. Obviously, he didn’t know what was
going on at the time, but he was bright enough and willing to learn,
and when offered the chance to revisit his former home, albeit in a
manifestly different setting, curiosity got the better of him. The
Ministry was clever this time. It dispensed with all of the hi-tech
stuff, and simply tied a rope around the poor lad’s waist.”
The Permanent
Secretary frowned, face still etched with the weight of unpleasant
recollection. “They nearly didn’t get him out. The rope was frayed to
the point of disintegration by the time he reappeared, and his clothes
were matted with slime. He was unconscious, naturally. When he finally
emerged from coma six weeks later, he remembered nothing. Fortunately,
the operation wasn’t a complete loss. The young man in question entered
the civil service shortly afterwards, and has been closely associated
with the project ever since. Needless to say, his efforts have been
handsomely rewarded by Her Majesty’s government. They even gave him a
knighthood.”
Julia was struggling
to take all of this in.
“Are you telling me
that the two number threes displace those who enter, whereas the
remaining houses eat visitors up?”
The Permanent
Secretary shrugged. “There are as many names for this place as there
are theories to explain it,” he sighed, “all of them needlessly
melodramatic. Wormhole, mousetrap, inter-dimensional gateway. Me, I
tend to think of it as a loophole in a complex piece of legislation --
something we can’t quite close without drawing attention to ourselves
... and I don’t mean from this side.”
Julia shuddered at
this last confession. “I think I’d like to go now,” she said.
“By all means,
you’ve seen quite enough for one day. But before we leave, Julia, I’d
like to impress upon you the following point. This world of ours is a
far less predictable and organised place than many of us might care to
admit. When and if you attain high office -- and there are those in
government already keeping a close eye on your progress -- try to keep
in mind that few issues are wholly cut-and-dried. We tend to find that
this place illustrates the point quite neatly. Few ever forget it, to
be sure.”
Julia tried to force
a smile, then gave up. “I believe you,” she said, and prepared to
leave. “Just one more thing,” she added, realising that this might be
her first and last shot at asking the question that had been plaguing
her for months. “I know this might sound presumptuous, but what is it
you are actually Permanent Secretary of,”
she asked. “I’ve never been
able to work it out.”
The Permanent
Secretary smiled evasively. “That I am not at liberty to divulge,” he
confided, “but I will tell you this. My career in the civil service has
lasted well over thirty years now, and in all of that time my efforts
have been handsomely rewarded by Her Majesty’s government.” He allowed
the smile to widen briefly into the ghost of a grin. “Shall we
go?”
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