‘Now it is your turn, Barnaby Grimes.’ The pungent stench of sea-coal smoke and scorched chemicals made my eyes water and caught in my throat. There were splashes of a thick, viscous liquid on the floor at my feet, and the ornate brass gas lamp which jutted from the wall was ablaze. A length of crimson silk had been wrapped round the lamp’s mantle and glass cowl. It dulled the glare of the gaslight, its muted light casting the whole room in a hellish red glow. It shone on the low, flaking ceiling, on the planks of wood nailed across the single window and on rows of portraits pinned to the walls and hanging from the clothes line above my head. There were men and women. Old and young. A scrivener with a long quill and inky fingers. A butcher in a spattered apron with a dead rabbit raised in one hand. A milkmaid, a river-tough, a chimney-sweep’s young lad … They all gazed down at me in that crimson light, like the lost souls of the damned. To my left, a splintered bench ran the length of the room, a sink at its centre and three large zinc trays beside it.
What do You think about Phantom Of Blood Alley (2009)?
