little red splot of paint he marks on the wall each autumn, but aside from that he lets the place keep its secrets.
And secrets, undoubtedly, it has. One of the other doors, he happens to know, is not for storage at all, but dips down into an old ammunition dump, itself connected by a bit of Victorian sewer tunnel to a medieval crypt, which in turn gives on to a brewery. A man with an accurate map might walk from here to Blackheath, and never see the sun.
And somewhere down there, though he has never seen it, is the hallowed den where Mathew Spork prepared his first assaults on London’s banking community. In a vaulted room of red brick and York stone, Mathew first fired his Tommy gun and learned to ride its kick. The young Joe, raised on a steady diet of comic books and tall tales, imagined that his father held off a Russian army in the sewers, killed aliens and monsters, and kept London safe for small boys. Every day was the day Dutch Schultz and Murder Inc. fought it out at the PalaceChophouse, and every day Joe’s father came away unscathed. Through blazing, worshipful dreams, Mathew walked like a titan, wreathed in cordite smoke and glory.
Joe wonders, from time to time, where the gun is now. It sat for years in its case in Mathew’s study, and the son of the House of Spork was not permitted to touch it. He would stare, wide-eyed, as Mathew cleaned it, and sometimes made bullets for it. But the gun was not a thing to be played with, not ever, not even on high days or birthdays.
One day, son, I’ll teach you the proper way. But not today
.
And never, as it turned out. Perhaps the gun is waiting down there, somewhere.
London is old, and each generation has added to its mysteries.
The door sticks, and he has to kick at it. Muck and more barnacles, and a splash as something alive makes itself scarce. A sign the river is getting cleaner. Mind you, that also means the door will rust faster. Oxygen, a bit of salt, and plenty of bacteria. He’ll have to come down here and replace it. Or he could let the Thames have its way, and see Daniel’s last bits and bobs go sailing away to Holland, and maybe walk a little lighter. Emptier, but lighter.
There’s a wind-up torch hanging from a peg at shoulder height. It amuses him that crank-handle torches are all the rage now. He made this one under Daniel’s supervision when he was nine. They even blew a bulb together, a glass balloon with a filament, pumped full of inert gas. This almost immediately exploded and had to be replaced with a commercial one.
The white lamplight picks out a mess of odds and ends: a china cow; a red and black molasses tin which Joe knows is full of decaying rubber bands; a terrifying marionette with all the strings cut. And there, on the far shelf, a stern, upright leather case in a clear plastic sack to protect it from the damp: Daniel’s record collection.
He takes it down and then, for reasons he does not fully understand, draws out one record at random and puts the rest of the collection back on the shelf. After a moment he extracts from his pockets two further items—recent acquisitions, both—and rests them next to the record bag.
This is absolute paranoia. Like checking under your car for bombs because there’s a bit of wiring on the tarmac.
He carries the record back to the warehouse under his coat.
The gramophone is a classic: horn in rich brown mahogany and body in inlaid oak, turntable covered in felt and chased in silver. Even the crank is beautiful. It took him months to repair it. The previous owner had had it stored in a loft full of bats.
He winds it slowly, because even in extremis and excitement you don’t hurry a lady. The needle is old, so he puts in a new one. Then he makes a cup of tea, and reads the sleeve notes. Slim Gaillard. Joe has heard of Slim Gaillard. Tall, arachnodactyl Slim, who drank a bottle of whisky with every show and smoked all night, and could play the piano with his hands upside down. Not,
And secrets, undoubtedly, it has. One of the other doors, he happens to know, is not for storage at all, but dips down into an old ammunition dump, itself connected by a bit of Victorian sewer tunnel to a medieval crypt, which in turn gives on to a brewery. A man with an accurate map might walk from here to Blackheath, and never see the sun.
And somewhere down there, though he has never seen it, is the hallowed den where Mathew Spork prepared his first assaults on London’s banking community. In a vaulted room of red brick and York stone, Mathew first fired his Tommy gun and learned to ride its kick. The young Joe, raised on a steady diet of comic books and tall tales, imagined that his father held off a Russian army in the sewers, killed aliens and monsters, and kept London safe for small boys. Every day was the day Dutch Schultz and Murder Inc. fought it out at the PalaceChophouse, and every day Joe’s father came away unscathed. Through blazing, worshipful dreams, Mathew walked like a titan, wreathed in cordite smoke and glory.
Joe wonders, from time to time, where the gun is now. It sat for years in its case in Mathew’s study, and the son of the House of Spork was not permitted to touch it. He would stare, wide-eyed, as Mathew cleaned it, and sometimes made bullets for it. But the gun was not a thing to be played with, not ever, not even on high days or birthdays.
One day, son, I’ll teach you the proper way. But not today
.
And never, as it turned out. Perhaps the gun is waiting down there, somewhere.
London is old, and each generation has added to its mysteries.
The door sticks, and he has to kick at it. Muck and more barnacles, and a splash as something alive makes itself scarce. A sign the river is getting cleaner. Mind you, that also means the door will rust faster. Oxygen, a bit of salt, and plenty of bacteria. He’ll have to come down here and replace it. Or he could let the Thames have its way, and see Daniel’s last bits and bobs go sailing away to Holland, and maybe walk a little lighter. Emptier, but lighter.
There’s a wind-up torch hanging from a peg at shoulder height. It amuses him that crank-handle torches are all the rage now. He made this one under Daniel’s supervision when he was nine. They even blew a bulb together, a glass balloon with a filament, pumped full of inert gas. This almost immediately exploded and had to be replaced with a commercial one.
The white lamplight picks out a mess of odds and ends: a china cow; a red and black molasses tin which Joe knows is full of decaying rubber bands; a terrifying marionette with all the strings cut. And there, on the far shelf, a stern, upright leather case in a clear plastic sack to protect it from the damp: Daniel’s record collection.
He takes it down and then, for reasons he does not fully understand, draws out one record at random and puts the rest of the collection back on the shelf. After a moment he extracts from his pockets two further items—recent acquisitions, both—and rests them next to the record bag.
This is absolute paranoia. Like checking under your car for bombs because there’s a bit of wiring on the tarmac.
He carries the record back to the warehouse under his coat.
The gramophone is a classic: horn in rich brown mahogany and body in inlaid oak, turntable covered in felt and chased in silver. Even the crank is beautiful. It took him months to repair it. The previous owner had had it stored in a loft full of bats.
He winds it slowly, because even in extremis and excitement you don’t hurry a lady. The needle is old, so he puts in a new one. Then he makes a cup of tea, and reads the sleeve notes. Slim Gaillard. Joe has heard of Slim Gaillard. Tall, arachnodactyl Slim, who drank a bottle of whisky with every show and smoked all night, and could play the piano with his hands upside down. Not,
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