The Concrete Jungle | Page 6

"Be at peace, aunt. An end to pain is in sight." He held the
mirror at arms length in front of his face, above the fire before her:
"Open your eyes when you are ready for it."
She sobbed once, then opened her eyes.
I didn't know what to expect, dear Nellie, but it was not this:
somebody's aged mother, crawling away from her home to die with a

stabbing pain in her head, surrounded by misery and loneliness. As it is,
her monarch spared her the final pain, for as soon as she looked into the
mirror she changed. The story that the gorgon kills those who see her
by virtue of her ugliness is untrue; she was merely an old woman -- the
evil was something in her gaze, something to do with the act of
perception.
As soon as her eyes opened -- they were bright blue, for a moment --
she changed. Her skin puffed up and her hair went to dust, as if in a
terrible heat. My skin prickled; it was as if I had placed my face in the
open door of a furnace. Can you imagine what it would be like if a
body were to be heated in an instant to the temperature of a blast
furnace? For that is what it was like. I will not describe this horror in
any detail, for it is not fit material for discussion. When the wave of
heat cleared, her body toppled forward atop the fire -- and rolled apart,
yet more calcined logs amidst the embers.
The Mehtar stood, and mopped his brow. "Summon your men,
Francis," he said, "they must build a cairn here."
"A cairn?" I echoed blankly.
"For my brother." He gestured impatiently at the fire into which the
unfortunate woman had tumbled. "Who else do you think this could
have been?"
A cairn was built, and we camped overnight in the village. I must
confess that both the Mehtar and I have been awfully sick since then,
with an abnormal rapidity that came on since the confrontation. Our
men carried us back home, and that is where you find me now, lying
abed as I write this account of one of the most horrible incidents I have
ever witnessed on the frontier.
I remain your obedient and loving servant,
Capt. Francis Younghusband
As I finish reading the typescript of Captain Younghusband's report,

my headset buzzes nastily and crackles. "Coming up on Milton Keynes
in a couple minutes, Mr Howard. Any idea where you want to be put
down? If you don't have anywhere specific in mind we'll ask for a slot
at the police pad."
Somewhere specific . . . ? I shove the unaccountably top-secret papers
down into one side of my bag and rummage around for one of the
gadgets I took from the armoury. "The concrete cows," I say. "I need to
take a look at them as soon as possible. They're in Bancroft Park,
according to this map. Just off Monk's Way, follow the A422 in until it
turns into the H3 near the city centre. Any chance we can fly over
them?"
"Hold on a moment."
The helicopter banks alarmingly and the landscape tilts around us.
We're shooting over a dark landscape, trees and neat, orderly fields, and
the occasional clump of suburban paradise whisking past beneath us --
then we're over a dual carriageway, almost empty at this time of night,
and we bank again and turn to follow it. From an altitude of about a
thousand feet it looks like an incredibly detailed toy, right down to the
finger-sized trucks crawling along it.
"Right, that's it," says the copilot. "Anything else we can do for you?"
"Yeah," I say. "You've got infrared gear, haven't you? I'm looking for
an extra cow. A hot one. I mean, hot like it's been cooked, not hot as in
body temperature."
"Gotcha, we're looking for a barbecue." He leans sideways and fiddles
with the controls below a fun-looking monitor. "Here. Ever used one of
these before?"
"What is it, FLIR?"
"Got it in one. That joystick's the pan, this knob is zoom, you use this
one to control the gain, it's on a stabilized platform; give us a yell if you
see anything. Clear?"

"I think so." The joystick works as promised and I zoom in on a trail of
ghostly hot spots, pan behind them to pick up the brilliant glare of a
predawn jogger, lit up