was empty.
The front door was shut.
Johnny let out a high, childlike sob and slammed his door shut, locking it and sliding the chain into place. He ran back up the stairs, scrabbled at the shelf of tapes beside the window and clutched the copy of the Harker interview in his shaking hands. Gripping it tightly, he slid to the floor, turning his back against the wall. He drew his knees up to his chin and began to weep.
A mile away, Albert Harker walked up on to London Bridge wondering why he had lied to the journalist.
No, that wasn’t right.
He hadn’t lied; everything he had told Supernova was the truth. But he had omitted something from his account of his refusal to join Department 19.
*
On New Year’s Day 1980, Albert’s twin brother Robert had taken him aside, sworn him to secrecy, and told him about Blacklight.
He was as animated as Albert had ever seen him, bursting with excitement at what the New Year had in store for them both. Albert listened, then asked him how he had come to know about the organisation he was describing. Robert frowned; it was the look of someone who has got carried away with something and hasn’t thought the potential consequences through.
“Dad told me,” he said, eventually. “On our birthday, when he was drunk. He said it was only one more year until we could start our real lives. I asked him what he meant and he told me.”
“Where was I?” asked Albert. A familiar sensation had begun to creep into his chest, as though his heart was being packed in ice.
“It was late,” said Robert. “You were asleep.”
“So how come you’re only telling me now?”
Robert’s gaze flicked momentarily to the floor and Albert knew the answer before his brother spoke it aloud.
“He told me not to tell you,” said Robert, with the decency to at least look apologetic. “The next morning. He said he shouldn’t have told me and that I wasn’t to tell you. So I told him I wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Bert.”
Albert pushed the hurt aside, something he was vastly experienced at doing, and tried instead to focus on what his brother had said; there was a future in which they would be together, would do something incredible, and exciting, and dangerous. The New Year, which usually brought him nothing but gloom, suddenly seemed bright and full of possibility.
“Don’t worry about it,” he replied, and smiled. “Although it sounds like you’re going to have to get a lot better at keeping secrets.”
Robert grinned. “So should Dad. You know who he told me works for Blacklight?”
“Who?”
“Frankenstein.”
“Piss off. Doctor Frankenstein is real?”
Robert shook his head. “Not the doctor, the monster. Apparently, he took his creator’s name. Some sort of honour thing.”
“Frankenstein’s monster is real and works with our dad? That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Yep,” replied Robert. “And in a year’s time, so will we. Try and get your head round that.”
“I need a drink,” said Albert, then grinned at his brother. “A big one.”
Robert laughed, a noise that was high and loud and full of happiness. The two brothers threw their arms round each other’s shoulders and rejoined the party as the crowd began their joyous countdown to midnight.
For eight long months, Albert looked forward to his birthday with an excitement he hadn’t felt since he was a little boy. Spring and summer passed with agonising slowness, until finally, at long last, the day arrived. He journeyed from his halls in Cambridge to his parents’ home the afternoon before, enjoyed the atmosphere of palpable anticipation that surrounded the table as they ate dinner, then bade his family goodnight.
It took him a long time to get to sleep.
When he awoke the next morning, he made his way excitedly down the stairs, and found his parents and brother in the midst of breakfast; he joined them, in what he would come to remember as the last moment of genuine happiness they experienced together. After the plates were cleared and the champagne was drunk and the presents were opened, Albert’s father asked Robert if he could see him in his study. Robert agreed, tipping his brother a wink as he followed their father out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
The two men returned fifteen minutes later. Robert wore a remarkably smug expression, while their father looked as though he might burst with pride. Both men appeared to have been crying, and Albert felt a surge of love rush into his chest as they retook their seats at the kitchen table.
My turn, Albert thought, excitedly. Any second. My turn next.
But nothing happened.
The usual chatter resumed and Albert realised, with slowly dawning horror, that his turn wasn’t coming. He tried desperately to catch his brother’s eye, but Robert studiously avoided his gaze, looking in every other possible direction. When breakfast was over, the family went their separate ways, heading into the living room or out into the garden.
Albert remained where he was, unable to believe that this was really happening to him, to believe that anyone, even David Harker, could be quite so cruel. Eventually, he heard his father call for Robert. A moment later he heard the jeep’s engine roar into life, heard the rattle of tyres across gravel, and knew it was real. He got up from the table, packed his bags, and left the house without saying a word to anyone.
Back in Cambridge, he got drunk for three days, and on the fourth he called his brother. Robert told him he didn’t know what was happening, and that he couldn’t talk about it even if he did. He was playing under a new set of rules, he said, and Albert wasn’t to ask him about the organisation they had discussed on New Year’s Eve. It would be for the best, Robert said, if he forgot about what he had been told.
Albert fought back the urge to shriek down the phone.
This isn’t fair! This isn’t fair! You get everything and now you get this too and I get nothing! IT’S NOT FAIR!
Instead, he told Robert he never wanted to see him again and hung up on the first syllables of his brother’s protest. Then he opened a bottle of vodka and waited to see whether or not his father would put him out of his misery.
Weeks passed without word from home until, one baking hot afternoon in late August, Albert returned from a drunken stroll in the park to find his father standing outside the door to his room. His face curdled with obvious distaste as he took in his son’s dishevelled, unshaven appearance, but he said nothing. He merely waited for his son to open the door and followed him through it.
Albert sat in the chair beneath the window, while his father remained standing. He didn’t offer to make tea, or coffee, or anything else; he was only interested in what they both knew his father was there to say, which he proceeded to deliver in a flat, emotionless tone of voice that made Albert want to cry. David Harker explained quickly that there was an organisation called Blacklight, which every male member of the Harker family had been a member of, all the way back to his great-grandfather, who had helped found it. He, Albert, was entitled to join, if he wanted to.
And that was it.
Albert stared up at him for a long moment, realising with sudden certainty what had happened: