"Rainmaker" Chapter 1
Today was the twelfth day of rain. It trickled down across the vast slates of the roofs, rushed down the pipes and attempted to gurgle into the drains and sewage systems that kept this city connected. As each drop fell you could see the glistening of light inside each of them, illuminated by the old bakelite gas lamps that littered the street corners. Here, in Old London, the rain was always that yellowy colour of the lamps, the same shade of the filament bulb each glass cubicle held. The lights weren’t always like this though. In Victorian times, back when Old London was known as just Westminster, the lamps were supposedly made of cast iron and burnt oil, and sometimes gas, apposed to the faux imitation that was left in its place - It’s more efficient, the LARC had claimed when they had them installed. Still, this enamel-coloured rain was still better than that found in New London. All the lighting had been replaced there, stripped of their nostalgic presence and turned into bars of neon, tainted to fit every colour of the spectrum. Most of the younger generations enjoyed New London, mesmerised by the sickening colours and what they did to the rain passing through them. It was unnatural methought, for such colour to be applied to rain.
The rain kept coming. Dominic Ode was in two minds about this weather phenomena. On one hand the rain cleared his senses and eased the stress that his job imposed on him, but on the other hand, it meant that a body must have been floating somewhere on the Thames. He prayed for the rain to stop, but it continued. For the last twelve consecutive nights it had rained and every morning a body was found, bobbing lifelessly in the murky waters. Every drop of moisture on his skin felt like the tears of another parent, another brother, another friend… another person who’d awoken to the knowledge that someone they knew had been offed the previous night. If this rain didn’t let up there’d surely be another body found washed up in the docks tomorrow morning. There was a bitter wind in the air, almost sour. It was bracing; he could feel his cheeks redden against the corse breeze.
His hair was now a damp matt of strands, the raindrops rolling down the single fibre before dropping onto his face. This was the irritating kind of rain, the kind that stopped golf days and warranted the use of dank macintoshes. This, coupled with the cold breeze, created a whipping sensation on his face. It stung, which only lowered his enthusiasm for being here. He glanced to his watch, pulling up his sleeve and immediately exposing the face to the raindrops. They were running late. He tutted and pulled his sleeve down as cover once more.
‘Where the hell are they?’
Dom blew into his hands to warm them up. He was wearing fingerless gloves but the cold still bit like a rabid dog. He needed to warm up his spirits if he were to be waiting here any longer, and that meant quenching the doubt in the back of his mind. He reached into the pocket of his brown trenchcoat and fumbled for his fags. Among the lint, the pills, the chewing tobacco, the packet of hemp for the troubling days, he eventually found the box. Frederick’s Cigarettes - the best money could buy! the packaging boasted in that optimistic font so disassociated with British-life. It must have been a societal hangover from when the Americans were over here in the forties. So common his smoking habits were that Dom that actually stopped stuffing his lighter in his pockets - it was now tucked in the small gap between his wrist and his watch-strap. He ignited the cigarette, not before a third of the tobacco tipped out one end as topsoil. He sighed and placed the fag to his lips, resting it in a ridge of his mouth. He cupped his hands around the flame at first to maintain it, savouring the last ebbing flicker whilst the rain poured unrelentingly around him. The numbing aroma of the cigaret was euphoric, stimulating almost all his senses at once. At one point in every Londoner’s life they needed to have at least one of these stimulants - it helped them cope with the world around them.
A flash of lighting in front of him gained his attention. Slowly lifting his head to focus on the factory gates he was met with a pair of emerald eyes on the opposite side of the road; he couldn’t see any other features. He exhaled, producing a plume of mind-numbing smoke.
‘You RC120664?’
It was always proper to address them by their identification tag before using their name. The eyes nodded.
‘I’ve been told you know about the murder of Quentin Andorra, Identag: QA031037. I suggest we have a word.’ Copyright © Tomas Heasman 2016
