The Pearl King

by Sarah Painter

  ‘I agree,’ Lydia said, ‘but historically that hasn’t been our official position…’

  ‘And look where it’s got you all.’

  ‘I said I agree,’ Lydia snapped, irritated. She was allowed to criticise her family, but nobody else could. That was the rule.

  Jason moved the trackpad to wake up the laptop screen. He had a notes app open with a bullet-point list, which he read from. ‘Founder and director is John Roland Bunyan, and it looks like the company passed from son to son for generations until it was wound up in 2001 which was when the new, off-shore company, JRB Inc, no full-stops, was formed.’

  ‘Bunyan?’ Lydia stared at Jason open-mouthed. ‘And you’re sure they’re same company?’

  ‘Not completely sure, I suppose.’ Jason had a funny look on his face. ‘Just internal memos confirming the fact. Accounting notes which reference trading done at J.R.B and Sons in the opening accounts of JRB Inc.’

  ‘How on earth did you get those?’

  ‘Any piece of information that is kept on a server is accessible if you know how to look for it.’

  ‘Aren’t things locked up?’

  ‘Yeah, you have to know how to open certain digital doors.’

  ‘And you know that stuff now?’

  Jason grinned. ‘It’s amazing what you can learn when you don’t need to sleep and you have no social life.’

  ‘This is brilliant. Really well done.’

  ‘It’s helpful?’ Jason said, looking hopeful.

  ‘Definitely.’ Lydia leaned close to read his list of notes, ignoring the chill of his skin. ‘I take it, this information gathering wasn’t strictly legal?’

  ‘Not remotely,’ Jason said cheerfully.

  ‘We’ll make a Crow of you, yet,’ Lydia said, putting her head on his shoulder.

  After a pause, in which Lydia felt the cold seep from Jason’s shoulder into the bones of her cheek, Jason said. ‘If JRB are linked to the Pearls, what does that mean?’

  Lydia lifted her head to look at him. ‘I think it means I need to pay another visit.’

  ‘With a gift?’ Jason’s expression was terrified and Lydia felt like hell.

  ‘If you can face it, yes.’

  After speaking to Jason, she burrowed back under the warm covers and dozed for a couple of hours. It was still early when she gave up on sleep. Light was coming through the thin curtain which covered the door to the roof terrace, cut off by the chest of drawers. She felt the sick fear in her stomach and wondered, for the millionth time, what Charlie was going to do. He had attacked her but she had won. He might decide she was more valuable than ever, a weapon to hone and control. Or he might have decided that she was a threat. Which would be very bad news. Lydia reached automatically for a fresh bottle of whisky, but realised as she began to twist the cap that she didn’t actually want a drink. She got dressed and cleared the laundry off her floor, then moved into the bathroom, spraying cleaner around the sink and bath and scrubbing while she thought. There was so much going on, and she had to make a decision about what to deal with first. The Pearls were linked to JRB and JRB had been founded by someone with the Bunyan name. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Lydia knew that she ought to focus on making nice with Charlie or on solving the murders of her Family members, but a fifteen-year-old girl was missing. As she used the shower attachment to hose down the bath, Lydia realised that it wasn’t a difficult decision at all.

  She found Jason in the kitchen. ‘The Pearls might know something about Lucy Bunyan.’

  ‘I don’t want to do it,’ Jason said immediately.

  ‘I know, I’m sorry to ask. But she’s only fifteen and the police haven’t got anything.’

  ‘You don’t want me to do it, either. Hitch a ride, I mean.’ Jason was making his fourth bowl of cereal. He had moved on from pouring cereal as a comfort activity, by and large, but things were clearly stressful enough to send him backward. ‘You hated it.’

  ‘I didn’t hate it,’ Lydia said, feeling the lie burn her tongue. ‘Not all of it,’ she amended. Mostly she had just been scared. Carrying the ghost inside was like swallowing death.

  He folded the cardboard flaps of the cereal box back down and put the box into the cabinet. ‘You want milk on this one?’

  Lydia didn’t want any of the cereal, full stop, but she nodded. If Jason found making the breakfast of his childhood calming, she wasn’t going to spoil his fun. After he had taken the seal from a new two-pint bottle and splashed milk onto the cornflakes, sprinkled sugar over the top and added a spoon, he wasn’t vibrating anymore. He didn’t take deep breaths, as he didn’t need to breathe, but sometimes his shoulders raised and lowered, like he was emulating one, and Lydia knew he had come to a decision.

  ‘I know it’s important to get closer to the Pearls and if you think this is the best way, then I’ll do it.’

  Lydia started to say ‘thank you’, but Jason hadn’t finished.

  ‘You can’t leave me there forever,’ he said tightly.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Lydia said, shocked. ‘It will be ten minutes, maybe twenty.’

  ‘Wait. What? I thought I was a gift,’ Jason said. ‘You usually give those. As in, for keeps.’

  ‘Feathers, no,’ Lydia couldn’t believe how stupid she had been. She hadn’t explained this right at all. ‘I would never give you away. I couldn’t, I don’t own you in the first place. The gift is getting to meet you. That’s the gift I’m bringing.’

  Jason’s face cleared instantly and he smiled with pure relief. ‘That’s fine, then. No problem. I mean,’ he said. ‘Some problem. I’m still scared and I won’t like it, but that’s okay.’

  ‘You thought I was asking you to leave your home and go and be the plaything or companion or whatever of some complete stranger for the rest of your... For eternity? And you were thinking about it?’ Lydia was flabbergasted.

  Jason gave a tiny shrug. ‘You wouldn’t ask unless it was really important.’

  Lydia put her arms around Jason and hugged him tightly, ignoring the cold which flowed into her.

  ‘Gerroff,’ Jason said, after hugging her back for a moment. ‘You need to eat your breakfast.’ He looked at the line of cereal bowls. ‘It’s going to take a while.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Standing outside The Fork with a shimmering, fading, panicking Jason felt like deja vu. ‘Quick,’ Lydia said. ‘Hop on.’

  Having done it before, Lydia thought this time would be easier. She was wrong. It was just as unpleasant and alarming. The cold flowed through her body, highlighting every vein and capillary with traces of icy fire.

  Lydia wasn’t sure whether she would be able to drive while carrying a ghost, so she took a practice spin in the Audi. If she ordered an Uber, she would probably be safer during the journey, but might be left without a quick getaway at the other end. Time had behaved oddly on her last visit and Lydia wasn’t confident that an Uber driver could be paid to wait for an undefined period. The journey to the north end of Hampstead Heath took forty long minutes. She could feel Jason’s presence inside her mind, keeping politely and quietly to the edge, but undeniably there. And he was there in every movement, her body feeling both heavier than usual and also strangely untethered with a sense of fluttery panic. Every particle of her being wanted to push the interloper from the nest and fly high, high into the air. She controlled her instincts but it was exhausting and by the time they arrived at the gatehouse, Lydia felt as if she had run a marathon.

  She wound down her window as the guard approached and arranged her face into what she hoped was a winning smile. ‘I’m here to visit a friend.’

  ‘No cars allowed through today, miss,’ the guard hoisted his belt higher on his hips. He had a walkie talkie in a holster on the belt as well as a bulky flashlight and what could have been a multi-tool or an illegal taser, Lydia couldn’t tell. ‘Private event.’

  ‘That seems extreme’ Lydia said.

  The guard shrugged. ‘Private road. Their rules.
’

  ‘I can walk along to see my friend, though?’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Lucinda Pearl,’ Lydia said, plucking the name from the air, and adding the address of the Pearl house. ‘I’m Lydia Crow. I’ve got a gift.’

  ‘Wait a moment, please’. The guard stepped away, reaching for the walkie talkie.

  Lydia tried to look unconcerned as he carried out a conversation. She kept the engine of the car running, the stick in reverse and her foot poised over the accelerator. Just in case.

  The guard was frowning when he walked back and Lydia almost slammed out of there, but it was regret. ‘You’ll have to leave your car here and walk, I’m afraid.’

  Lydia forced a sigh.

  The guard indicated a parking space marked out on the street. There was a sign which said ‘No Parking – Drop Off Zone’. Lydia could feel the drag of carrying Jason as she exited the vehicle and made her way past the guard’s cabin and on the pavement of the private road. Seen on foot, the houses were no less grand, but there was even less to see. High hedges and walls, gated driveways, and security cameras, the street was a testament to the privacy that wealth could afford.

  As Lydia approached the Pearl residence, she saw a couple of kids standing outside the closed gates, looking pinched and pale in the cold. They were dressed in grubby, oddly-matched clothes, and had thin faces and sharp eyes, and looked more feral than residents of billionaires’ row. Lydia gripped her coin for strength and straightened her spine. She had to hide any trace of tiredness and was glad she had thought to apply some red lipstick on the journey, rubbing a little into her cheeks to give the illusion of vitality. As she got closer, Lydia recognised the girl who had led the way last time, she was talking to her companion, a boy, in a low tone. The boy gave Lydia a blank look and then ran off in the opposite direction, his enormous hoodie flapping. ‘I’ve got a gift for the king,’ Lydia said.

  The girl looked through her as if they had never met before. Lydia had hoped not to go through the whole production, again. She could feel Jason inside her body, the cold and brain fog and fear, and it wasn’t improving her mood. ‘I might have got you something, too,’ she said. ‘But only if you get me inside quick. It’s cold out here and I’m a busy woman.’

  The girl tilted her head, appraising Lydia with those unnaturally pale eyes. They were rimmed with red and Lydia felt a tug of concern and the urge to comfort the child, to hug her. A second later she recognised the impulse. Pearl magic.

  ‘Is it sparkly?’ The girl asked.

  Lydia stared her down for a moment. Sympathy aside, you never showed your hand too early in a negotiation. She might not have been at Uncle Charlie’s level, but she was a Crow through to her core.

  After a few moments of staring right back – Lydia admired the girl’s spirit – she turned and the gates opened. She walked up the driveway to the house and Lydia followed. She checked behind her, just once, and the gates were swinging smoothly shut.

  Inside the house, Lydia recognised the giant tree growing through the centre of the entrance hall, but she could have sworn they were going a different route to the basement. Either the house was even bigger than Lydia had appreciated, or its interior had been changed since her last visit. Or it was all an illusion and they were in an entirely different construction. Anything seemed possible in that place. The air was thick with Pearl magic and Lydia could feel it reflecting and refracting off every shining surface. The walls of this stairwell were lined with black mirrors, pieces of shell, plates of metal. A hodgepodge collage of reflective surfaces which deceived the eye and clouded Lydia’s senses until she felt like she was walking through treacle with every step. At a wall that didn’t look like it contained a door, the girl stopped and held out her hand. After thinking for a split second that the girl intended Lydia to hold it, she realised that the girl was demanding payment.

  ‘It’s through there?’ Lydia indicated the wall. It was shining black ebony or painted wood, hard to tell in the dim light, and inlaid with thousands of tiny pieces of mother of pearl. It was as if the jewellery-box door she had gone through last time had morphed and grown, the pearl-encrusted-surface spreading through the house like a living thing.

  The girl nodded.

  ‘How do I open the door? There’s no handle.’

  The girl looked pointedly down at her outstretched hand, her lips compressed into a thin line so that they almost disappeared.

  ‘Feathers,’ Lydia said. ‘You have trust issues, did you know that?’ She reached into the inside pocket of her leather jacket and produced the heart-shaped locket she had bought in Ari’s shop. It had an iridescent rainbow chain and a sparkly hologram picture on the front of the locket which changed from a cartoon kitten to a smiling rainbow when you tilted it. It was cheap, plasticky, kitsch and very, very glittery. Lydia had looked for something she and Emma would have gone nuts for aged eight and crossed her fingers that this girl wasn’t so different.

  The girl’s eyes lit up and her hand darted out as if to grab the necklace. She stopped short, though, her fingers close to the jewellery without touching. Lydia pressed it into her hand. ‘A gift from me to you, freely given.’

  The girl put the necklace on immediately, tucking it safely inside her thin sweatshirt. ‘This way,’ she said, turning back to the black wall and putting both hands onto it, palms flat. She pushed and Lydia thought she heard a click. Or maybe she imagined it as a door appeared, swinging outward on well-oiled hinges. The girl caught the edge and opened it wide enough for them to pass through.

  It might have been a different entrance, but the room Lydia arrived in was the same. This time, however, it was quiet. There was no music or dancing, just strobing lights reflected on the mirrored walls. And a crowd of good-looking people, wearing what Lydia assumed was high fashion as it was expensive-looking and a bit weird. A young woman to her left was wearing a white body con dress with a deep V-neck, exposing a bony sternum and shoulder pads which extended far past her own body, like fins. She hissed as Lydia walked past and it should have been comical, but it wasn’t.

  Walking through the crowd of almost-silent, eerily still bodies, was more menacing than Lydia would have imagined. She could feel Jason inside her, too, stirring uneasily through his own misgivings or because he was picking up on hers. She forced herself to breathe evenly and slipped a hand into her pocket to hold her coin. She could do this.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Lydia said, bowing her head. She thought that she was prepared for the king’s beauty this time, thought that she had remembered it from the last time and that it would make less of a toe-curling, mind-warping, sweat-inducing impact. That was not the case. The androgynous figure lounging on the throne-like chair was, if anything, more beautiful and perfect than last time. More disturbing still, they were looking straight at Lydia this time, not merely giving her side-eye. The almond shaped eyes, edged in black with silver-painted lids and glowing skin and cheekbones; each feature was attractive and perfect. All together it was like looking at the sun.

  ‘You again.’ The king’s voice was soft and mid-range. It was as gender-neutral as the rest of them. Not gender neutral, Lydia corrected herself. Gender-insignificant. Gender new. From where she was standing, gender perfect. Why be one or the other? Why not be this perfect blend of two, making so much more than the sum of two halves? Her mind was cloudy, she knew. Her hands were out of her pockets and her coin was nowhere. She could feel Jason, and thought that he might be trying to tell her something, to speak, but she couldn’t hear his words. She just wanted to look upon the magnificence of the majesty.

  Lydia.

  Someone was saying her name. With a force of will, Lydia dragged her attention from the king’s ethereal face. ‘What?’ She spoke out loud and the moment she did, the spell was broken. Her coin was in her hand, Jason was on board, she was standing in a night club in the middle of the day and the head of the Pearl Family was sitting six feet away, smiling at her like she was a performing monkey w
ho was about to juggle.

  ‘I have brought you a gift,’ Lydia said. She flipped her coin over her knuckles, using it to keep her anchored in the moment. The Pearl magic had always pulled people in, made them want, made them need until they would be willing to part with any amount of cash in order to satiate that vast emptiness. This, however, was different. The rumours were true. Mr Smith hadn’t been lying when he said the Pearls had evolved.

  The king straightened a little, eyes lighting with interest. ‘A gift from a Crow. What an unexpected pleasure.’

  Ninety percent of Lydia wanted to throw herself down at the king’s feet and beg to be permitted to stay within their perfect presence for all eternity, but the rest, helped by Jason, was keeping a watchful eye on the crowd, seeing who was circling behind her to block the exit. ‘My gift is a show. A temporary performance, made all the more special by its fleeting nature.’

  An incremental shift of a perfect eyebrow.

  ‘If your friends are allowed to enjoy the gift, they need to be here,’ Lydia indicated the space in front of her, ‘in order to appreciate it.’

  The king inclined their head and the crowd which had formed behind her, moved back to nearby, in front of Lydia. She took a step backward, toward the exit, trying to appear casual. ‘Right, then.’ She licked her lips and wished she had something to moisten her dry throat. ‘I am pleased to introduce Jason Montefort. A man who died in 1985.’

  There was a little ripple throughout the room, as people craned their necks and whispered to their neighbour.

  ‘Okay,’ she said quietly. ‘You can come out, now.’

  Feeling Jason leave her body wasn’t quite as weird as feeling it enter, but it came close. She took several long slow breaths to get oxygen to her brain and make sure she didn’t pass out or throw up. The latter would probably be tantamount to treason in the king’s presence.

  His form was thin and Lydia could see the king through his torso. She smiled at him reassuringly and took his hand. ‘Ready?’