The Pearl King

by Sarah Painter

  ‘What do you think?’ Fleet asked, watching Lydia carefully.

  ‘That it’s all a bit weird.’

  Fleet nodded.

  ‘I believe the kid, though,’ Lydia said, indicating the iPad. ‘What’s your gut say?’

  ‘I’m trying not to go with that so much these days.’

  Lydia felt like she had been slapped, although she wasn’t sure exactly why. She was probably being sensitive. Fleet was talking about work, that was all. He ruined that theory by softening his gaze and leaning a little closer.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  Lydia picked up her wine and drained half the glass before answering. ‘This isn’t a social visit.’

  ‘I’m doing badly.’ Fleet picked up his pint and then put it down without drinking. ‘Very badly.’

  Lydia avoided his eye and pretended that her heart wasn’t trying to leap out of her chest. ‘Any other lines of enquiry? Will you let me know if there are any developments?’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ Fleet said. ‘But I will. Because I choose you. I choose you every time.’

  ‘Not every time,’ Lydia said, feeling suddenly heavy. She stood up to leave.

  Fleet leaned back in his chair, looking up at Lydia with his steady brown eyes. ‘You want me to show you where the jacket was found?’

  Lydia had picked up her own jacket but she hesitated. Feathers. ‘Yes. Let’s go.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lydia agreed to go in Fleet’s car for simplicity. Plus, he had immunity to parking fines. They were cutting it close time-wise as the park shut at sunset and at this time of year that would be half four. The sky was a flat grey, cloud covering the low sun. ‘We can always jump the gate if we get locked in,’ Fleet said.

  Lydia kept her window open a crack, letting in a steady stream of cold air. She scrolled through her phone and tried to pretend that the silence between them wasn’t awkward. Fleet got the last space in the small car park behind Highgate Underground. There was a disused train station above the tube line and two exits. They took the most direct route to Muswell Hill Road, assuming that the kids would have done the same. They passed The Woodman pub on the corner and up the road running between Highgate Woods and Queen’s Woods. It was unsettling to see this many trees in London, it was even worse than the suburbs where she had grown up.

  Fleet voiced the same thought. ‘Feels different around here, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not Camberwell,’ Lydia agreed. And it was about to get worse. They took the Gypsy Gate into the woodland, with its information maps and green metal sign, Fleet leading the way. They hadn’t walked for very long when the trees became more dense and the sounds of the traffic faded away. There were bare branches, mixed in with the shiny dark green of the holly and some of the big trees still had brown-ish looking leaves clinging on. ‘Is that climate change?’ Lydia said, pointing at them.

  ‘Hornbeams,’ Fleets said. ‘Tend to keep their leaves in winter, apparently.’

  ‘Mr Nature,’ Lydia said. ‘I had no idea.’

  Fleet gave her a brief smile. ‘I read up on the woods. You never know what will turn out to be significant.’

  Lydia was about to launch into some weapons-grade teasing about the likelihood of tree knowledge pertaining to a crime investigation, but then she stopped herself. She had to remember that this wasn’t social and that laughing together was no longer on the cards. One day, maybe, but not yet. It was too soon. Would they ever be actual, real ‘just friends’? She had no idea. Taking covert glances at him was like sips of water after a week crossing a desert. Both unbelievably sweet and nowhere close to quenching her thirst.

  The trees were getting closer and a few minutes later, the sky disappeared behind a ceiling of branches. ‘I think it’s this way,’ Fleet said.

  ‘You think?’ Lydia replied, stepping over a tree root. They had left the wide main path almost immediately, and the well-trodden informal trail they had taken seemed to have disappeared, too. Now, they were walking over the dry mulch of fallen wood and bark and leaves. Drifts of brown leaves which remained from autumn, rotting down and hiding who-knew-what. Lydia shivered. Feathers. It was cold.

  They kept moving, not speaking. Lydia no longer felt the silence between them was awkward, it felt like a held breath. Like they were both listening to the creak of the trees, the rustle of dry leaves. Then Lydia realised what she wasn’t hearing. Birds. She stopped moving and thought. She had heard calls when they had started out. Blackbirds definitely, and something trilling and small, maybe a chaffinch. Now there was nothing.

  Fleet was a few feet away, looking down at the ground. Lydia wanted to say something, get him to walk back to her, but she didn’t know what and, suddenly, she felt her throat close up. It was fear. Primeval fear. She was on the balls of her feet, ready to lift, and could feel the muscles of her back and shoulders flex, as if they could sprout wings. There was a rushing in her ears and Lydia felt time slow as she scanned the trees, trying to find the danger.

  There was a movement in the distance, hard to say how far as the closely packed trunks and undergrowth formed an optical illusion. Lydia tracked it, keeping perfectly still and waiting for the figure to reveal itself. A flash of red-brown caught the breath in Lydia’s throat. For a moment she thought it was a fox, but it was too high up. Something much larger. A deer? It didn’t seem likely.

  Fleet wasn’t looking at the ground, now, he was staring in the same direction. ‘You see that?’

  The sound of his voice released Lydia’s feet and she moved toward him, not taking her gaze away from the animal, whatever it was. When she was in touching distance of Fleet she said ‘what is it?’ very quietly.

  ‘Something doesn’t feel…’ Fleet began, but stopped. His words were falling on dead air, like it was muffled. It was more than just the effect of the woods; it was aggressively deadened. A creepy, unnatural effect that made Lydia feel as if they had walked into a trap box with invisible walls. And now something was happening to the trees. They were growing. Quickly and smoothly, branches extended, twigs appeared, and leaves uncurled. Green leaves in every shade from pale grey to deep emerald, red, white and shining black berries, sprays of white blossom, every possible state of every tree and bush burst into life. Lydia would have doubted her eyes, but the silence was broken by the sounds of cracking wood and the rustling friction of leaves, the damp sound of berries ripening all at once.

  ‘What the -?’ Fleet had grabbed her hand, pulled her against his side.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lydia’s throat was dry. She squeezed his hand. ‘We should move.’

  The ground was shifting, the drifts of brown leaves whipped by a wind Lydia couldn’t feel. She could taste green in her mouth, pollen and leaves, and her nose and eyes were itching. Children holding hands in the dark wood. That wasn’t a helpful thought and she pushed it away. She had to think. She had to work out how to get them out.

  She couldn’t see which way to go, but instinctively turned around, pulling Fleet by the hand. They could go back the way they had come. Toward the main path and sanity. Fleet swore as a branch crashed to the ground, just to their left. The wind was stronger, now, and the air was filled with small twigs, leaves, and bark. Something heavy landed on Lydia’s lip and she brushed it away with instinctive revulsion. It was a large beetle, which had presumably been minding its own business underneath the leaf mould until a few seconds ago.

  And then, as quickly as it had begun, the wind died. The vegetation which had been whipping around their faces, poking their eyes and invading their mouths, dropped back to the forest floor. A shaft of sunlight pierced the tree canopy and illuminated the scene. Lydia was shaking, adrenaline coursing through her system. The greenery had gone and the trees were back to their winter state. Bark on the hornbeams glinted silver in the sunlight and the oak trees stood solid and still, as if they would never dream of shaking their branches.

  ‘Did that just happen?’ Fleet was looking around, dazed.


  ‘Has it stopped?’ Lydia said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Fleet pulled Lydia into a quick hug which she didn’t resist. He dipped his head. ‘You okay?’

  His face was too close, the movements felt too natural. Lydia stepped away, swallowing hard. ‘Fine. That was weird, though.’

  ‘Understatement,’ Fleet said, straightening up.

  His expression was hard to read and Lydia wondered why he wasn’t more freaked out. The truth of this hit her like a blow. He had always been exceedingly calm with weirdness. Too calm. Was it linked to the strange gleam he carried? And if so, what did he know about that? What hadn’t he told her?

  ‘Look,’ Fleet was moving away, his attention focused back on the ground.

  The eerie, muffled silence had dissipated and Fleet’s steps sounded normal. Small twigs were snapping under his feet and, somewhere up above, there was the sound of birds calling. ‘Someone was here.’

  Next to the thick trunk of an oak tree there was an area of compressed undergrowth. It was flattened in a shape that would suggests a body had sat there. Plus, there was a pile of cigarette butts. At least ten, maybe more. In addition to those physical signs, Lydia’s senses were giving her further information. She closed her eyes to better identify the signature. Pearl. Very faint, just the residue, but unmistakable.

  Fleet was snapping on gloves and Lydia did the same. He took photographs of the area, the remains of the cigarettes and the flattened patch of ground before picking up two of the cigarette ends and sealing them in a plastic evidence bag.

  Lydia crouched down next to the tree, scanning the ground carefully. She worked methodically, breaking up the ground into quadrants and studying each section left to right, like reading lines on a page. Once she had done the first area, she moved out a little way and repeated the exercise, ignoring the crick in her neck.

  ‘I’ll call it into the team, they will get SOC out here and go over the area. We should leave.’

  ‘In a minute,’ Lydia said. The greys and browns and greens of the ground had revealed themselves in all their variation. The decaying leaves, fraying pieces of bark, tiny white fungi peeking from between patches of rich green moss. Even in December, there was life, if you were prepared to look hard enough. The smudge was tiny. A little iridescent turquoise glitter on a well-preserved oak leaf. She bagged it.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Lydia straightened up and gave him the bag. ‘Could be make up, or a fleck from clothing. What was Lucy wearing?’

  ‘Nothing sparkly, but I don’t know about accessories, make up. Can we get out of here, now? This place gives me the creeps.’

  ‘Too many trees,’ Lydia agreed. ‘It’s not natural.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Back in the car with Fleet, Lydia was thinking hard. Fleet stayed quiet, driving back to Camberwell. ‘That wasn’t normal,’ Lydia said, breaking the silence. ‘You saw it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Just one word, but a huge admission. ‘Does that happen often to you? Seeing things which aren’t normal?’

  Fleet kept his eyes on the road and Lydia did, too. It was easier to talk about something like this side-by-side. ‘Not often. Something out of the corner of my eye, sometimes. A gut feeling which feels stronger than normal.’ After a pause he said, ‘I saw a man at your flat once. Just standing there.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  Fleet glanced at her, then, a frown creasing his forehead. ‘A weird loose suit with the sleeves rolled up.’

  Lydia realised something about being finished with Fleet. Her worst fear had come true, already, so it didn’t matter if she was open with him. She couldn’t break the relationship because that had already happened. What difference could it possibly make if he decided she was a lunatic or a freak? ‘That’s Jason,’ she said. ‘He’s a ghost. He died in the eighties, that’s why he’s dressed like that.’

  A beat. ‘If ghosts exist, why is this my first?’

  ‘Good question. I think I power people up. Any latent ability gets stronger when you are in contact with me. Which explains why your most intense experiences of seeing unusual things have been when we’re together.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘Does it? That’s good.’

  ‘And when you say ability…’

  ‘Magic.’ Lydia said the word flatly. ‘Or Crow power. I don’t know what to call it. An extra sense?’

  ‘Could be a brain wiring thing. Like people who smell colours or have ADHD. Neurodiversity.’

  ‘Or you could be having a psychotic break and I’m enabling you.’

  ‘No,’ Fleet said. ‘I don’t think that. I have never thought that. And if I accept that you have different abilities, I must also accept that they are a possibility in other people. Even me.’

  The seriousness of his tone made tears spring to Lydia’s eyes. Hell Hawk. She was a mess and she needed to get her mind back on the case. ‘Which hospital is Joshua Williams in?’

  ‘He’s at home, now,’ Fleet said. ‘Why? You planning to visit?’

  ‘I want to see if he has remembered anything else from that night.’

  ‘He hasn’t said so far. We’ve got a FLO staying with the family and he says Joshua hasn’t been chatty on the subject.’

  ‘Can I have his address?’

  ‘His mother won’t let you in to question her traumatised son,’ Fleet said. ‘Even if I were to give you the address which I absolutely should not.’

  ‘Let’s go together, then,’ Lydia said. ‘You want to speak to him again, anyway, don’t you? Just let me tag along. I won’t say a word.’

  Fleet let out a short laugh. It seemed to surprise him. He glanced at her and sighed. ‘I can’t say no to you, Lydia Crow.’

  ‘Good to know,’ Lydia said. She ignored the traitorous flutter in her heart and looked out of the window.

  Joshua Williams lived with his parents in the 1930s modernist Ruskin Park House, which had well-tended gardens, and three five-storey blocks with an art deco feel to its curved lines. They made their way up a remarkably clean stairwell with pale yellow tiles on the walls to a second-floor apartment. The FLO opened the door and, after checking Fleet’s ID card carefully, invited them in for tea.

  Joshua was sitting on the sofa in the small, neat living room, eyes fixed on the television screen where a first-person shooter PlayStation game was displayed. He was gripping the controller so hard that his knuckles were white, but Lydia didn’t know if that was his usual intensity when shooting digital zombies in the head. It was warm in the flat and he was wearing a grey T-shirt, the bandages on his arms reaching from his wrist and disappearing up inside the sleeves. Lydia had seen it on the video but Fleet was absolutely right – there was no way Joshua had inflicted those wounds by himself.

  Fleet introduced himself and Lydia.

  ‘Hi.’ Joshua didn’t look away from the screen or pause in his movements.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Have you found Lucy yet?’

  ‘No,’ Fleet said. ‘We will tell you as soon as we have any news.’

  ‘Right,’ his eyes flicked at them, just once. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’m not police,’ Lydia said, deliberately not looking at Fleet. ‘When DCI Fleet introduced me just now, he didn’t mention my rank and that’s because I don’t have one. I’m a private investigator and I’m going to do everything I can to find Lucy.’

  Joshua looked at her for a longer moment. ‘Why? Did my dad hire you?’

  Before Lydia could ask him why he thought his father might be so keen to find Lucy Bunyan, he elaborated. ‘He’s worried I’m going to be taken in again for questioning, that you will keep me as a suspect unless Lucy comes home and explains to everybody that I didn’t do anything to her, that I could never hurt her.’

  ‘Yeah, they kind of jumped on you, didn’t they? Don’t take it personally. You were the last person to see her and you’re romantically-involved. It’s just statistics.’

 
Joshua widened his eyes, then looked at Fleet.

  ‘I’ll go help with the tea,’ Fleet said, and headed out of the room

  ‘Can I sit?’ Lydia moved toward the sofa. It was a four-seater and Joshua was at one end, leaving plenty of space.

  ‘Okay,’ Joshua stabbed a button and froze the action on screen.

  ‘No,’ Lydia said, glancing at the door, ‘leave it playing.’

  Joshua frowned.

  ‘Privacy,’ Lydia said quietly, cutting her eyes at the living room door, which Fleet had left ajar.

  Joshua nodded and turned his body toward her.

  ‘I’ve just been at the woods.’

  Joshua visibly flinched.

  ‘And I know you have nothing to do with Lucy’s disappearance. You are as much a victim as she is and I’m really sorry this has happened to you.’

  He blinked. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘This is going to sound weird, but I don’t have much time,’ Lydia glanced, again, at the door, estimating how fast she would have to cut to the chase. ‘There is something not right in those woods. I could feel it. And then the trees changed. They sprouted leaves and berries all at once, but it wasn’t pretty, it was really sinister.’ Lydia fixed him with a long look. ‘Believe me, I don’t scare easily and I couldn’t wait to get away.’

  ‘That’s… I don’t know why you’re saying that.’

  ‘Yes you do,’ Lydia leaned forward a little. ‘Because you and Lucy saw the same thing.’ That was a guess, of course. She produced her coin and gripped it in her right hand, for luck.

  Joshua was shaking his head but his eyes were wide. ‘It wasn’t like that. It was really dark. I didn’t realise it would be that dark and we were using our phones to see so we didn’t trip over.’

  ‘You were pointing it at the ground? Looking down?’

  ‘There were leaves and roots and little mounds of, like, moss. We were well off the path and Lucy was going really fast. She had my hand and was pulling on it, trying to make me go faster, but it didn’t feel right. It was like there was someone watching us and that was freaking me out. I thought maybe there was a pervert around or that we were about to disturb a drug deal or something.’