Stefan got up from the table but the lift’s door closed before he reached it. It took an eternity to return. When it did, Stefan felt the buttons. The one marked ‘B’ was so cold his finger stuck to it. He pressed it repeatedly and rode the lift down. When the door opened, he ran out into a small storage area with rough brick walls. He saw light coming from a door ahead and ran toward it.
The door opened into a small courtyard with a brick wall around it. Scattered around the space were remnants of the vanishing city—post-boxes, telephone booths, hand-painted storefront signs, and an old police box. Morton dragged Mairi to the police box, opened its door, and threw her in.
The fire door slammed shut behind Stefan. Morton turned and saw him. Stefan fumbled with the handle, but it was locked.
Morton pushed the door of the police box closed and leaned against the box with both hands. While Mairi screamed and yelled inside, he calmly closed his eyes and breathed deeply, then opened them again and walked away from the box.
Frost appeared on the panels of the police box, a wooden cabinet the size of two telephone booths painted countless times with shiny blue paint. The frost spread, hiding the box’s original colour behind a veneer of white. The frost grew denser, turning to thick ice. The ice then smoothed itself along geometric planes, hardening into mirrored glass. The entire booth was reformed, modernised.
“You want to stay in the golden past?” Morton asked him. “Are you one of those ones who wants to live in a museum, an antique shop? You’re forgetting something: what about slavery? What about plagues?” Morton smiled at him. “Your father had the same ideas as you. He wrote foolish songs and ran off to be a minstrel. But I won, didn’t I? He loved this place, but he couldn’t stand what it was becoming, so he ran away. I, on the other hand, I hated it, growing up here in this broken-backed culture, with all its twee little habits and customs. But I stayed. Your father was a singer, playing his instruments, making up songs, dabbling in the past. But what could I do? Well, I discovered what I could do: I could change things. People don’t want all this old stuff. Not really. They feel like they should keep it, but they don’t know what it’s for. I found out that if I could offer people the things they really wanted, things they could buy and have right now, then they’d let me change anything else I wanted.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” said Stefan. He took a step forward, trying to figure out how to free Mairi from the glass-petrified box.
“Don’t I?” asked Morton. “I hate this place. And I want it gone.” He extended a finger and touched the police box. The glass wavered like the water of a mirage, then vanished.
“No!” shouted Stefan, lunging forward. But Morton pointed a finger at him, and Stefan stopped. He moved slowly forward. As he walked past the post-boxes, telephone booths, and old signs, they lost their substance like a fog, then curled back into place once he’d passed.
“Why don’t you just leave?” asked Stefan. “Leave it all alone?”
“When I’m finished here, I daresay I will,” said Morton. “I’m thinking Paris next. I’m progress, Stefan, and you can’t fight progress.”
At the far side of the courtyard, Stefan saw something move in the dead grass. It twitched and jumped. A jackrabbit. It scurried up a pile of detritus and hopped through the only window in the wall that wasn’t bricked up. Stefan darted around Morton and chased after the rabbit, scrambling over a pile of doors and bricks, then dropping into the garden of a tenement. The rabbit was gone, but the close ahead was open. He saw his escape, and took it.
Twenty-Four
Peter’s Trials
Stefan walked in the cold rain. Mister Hailes offered to drive him to the prison when he went with Fiona that afternoon, but Stefan said he’d meet them there. It wasn’t a day for walking, but he needed to clear his head, which still echoed with Mairi’s screams and Morton’s words. On foot as opposed to riding in a bus, there was more detail and a lot more distance in-between landmarks. Stefan grew hungry, and stopped at the only place to eat along the way, a fast-food restaurant.
The air was hot and moist with grease. Behind the counter was a tiled white kitchen full of machine noises, beeps, and the voices of teenagers yelling instructions back and forth. Stefan stepped up to the counter and looked at the plastic menu-board. In the past, he would have delighted at slighting his mother by eating in such a place. Today, it gave him no pleasure.
Unable to think clearly enough to put together the pieces of a fast-food lunch, Stefan ordered a children’s meal.
“Is this for a child?” asked the young cashier behind the counter. “They’re for under-twelves.”
Stefan looked around. “It’s for her,” he said to the cashier, pointing at a child who bounced up and down at a plastic table next to her mother. The cashier nodded and put his order through. Before Stefan finished paying, another teenager delivered his lunch to the counter in a colourful cardboard box with a handle. Stefan took it and walked past the girl and her mother, then sat on his own.
He unfolded the top of the box, letting out the heat trapped inside. His hamburger was wrapped in paper. He lifted it out of the box and found a toy underneath it, a little doll with a dress of rough blue material and floppy arms and legs sewn from something slick and pink. Its little face looked up at him from under yellow yarn hair, stupidly joyful.
Two words popped into Stefan’s head: Fai Lok.
~
Ji’s shift at the factory was almost finished. Sometime before dawn, she’d walked here from her home, where she lived alone. “Home” was an exaggeration. It was a small shack at the edge of a wood in a remote part of China. When work was finished, she’d walk back through a path in the woods. It would be dark, but then, it had been dark in the morning, too. Supper would be modest, as her pay from the factory was a fraction of what it cost to live, even out here. She had no other choice: everyone worked at the factory now, except for a few shopkeepers. The town no longer bore any resemblance to the place where she’d grown up.
She turned the tiny doll in her hands, tucking in the folds of its foot and holding it under the sewing machine. She knew there was something bad in its skin. The pink. Something about that pink. Others complained of headaches, and some fainted. She pressed on, though, ignoring her body’s complaints. She was number eight of the factory’s top ten employees, and made marginally more because of it. They’d only switched to producing these dolls recently, and already she’d made thousands of them.
Who do they go to? she wondered. She wasn’t sure whether to wish them well or to curse them. She imagined a little girl getting the toy, and chided herself for thinking something so harsh.
The thread in her sewing machine caught, then jammed, stopping completely. She looked around and saw that everyone had stopped working. Heads in kerchiefs turned all around her. Faces examined each other for clues.
Ji looked up at the roof, which was like the upturned bottom of a container ship hung with rows of fluorescent lights. The lights flickered. One of the bulbs sparked, and the room went dark. Someone shouted with surprise, then voices muttered. Ji held her breath. Everything went quiet.
A blackness swept through the forest as the sun went down. Where the factory had been, there was now nothing but a clearing in the woods. The factory and the people ceased to be. The town ceased being some time before.
~
“’Scuse me, sir,” said a voice, “yeh cannae kip here. Yeh’ll hafta sleep somewheres else.”
Stefan looked up at the spotty-faced teenager. The expression on the young man’s face changed as he saw that Stefan wasn’t a vagrant, and he hadn’t been asleep. He’d simply been thinking about something, and was crying about it.
Stefan nodded, had a final sip of the fizzy black sugar-water in his waxed cup, and stood. He picked up the doll from his lunch, held it close to his chest, then put it in his pocket and walked out into the rain.
Whatever was happening to Edinburgh, Stefan thought, was happening e
lsewhere, too. Perhaps every place in the world had a potential Morton in it. He shook the thought from his head: he couldn’t think about that right now. He was going to see Peter, and that’s what mattered.
~
“Where is he?” said Mister Hailes. He held Peter’s hand unashamedly, which Stefan liked. Peter bumped the baby on his knee, holding it with his other hand. Fiona drummed her fingernails on the window.
“Could you stop that, Fi?” asked Peter.
“Sorry,” she said, putting a nail in her mouth.
“I went to traffic court once,” said Stefan, wanting to break the tension. The others looked at him in a way that suggested he hadn’t been successful.
“Here he is,” said Fiona.
The lawyer patted down his hair as he walked to their table. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, “but there’s a good reason. There’s been…” He trailed off, not sure how to proceed.
“This doesn’t sound good,” said Peter. “Spit it out.”
The lawyer drew his breath. “The trial’s been delayed because there’s new evidence. It’s to do with a mobile phone.”
Peter stopped jostling the baby. Fiona reached across the table and took it back.
“Apparently a mobile was recovered at the train station, a phone that belonged to a developer in town who died at a construction site under circumstances that haven’t yet been ruled out for foul play. A few months’ worth of records for that number are mysteriously missing from the service provider’s records, but they still had the last few calls on file. Here they are,” he said, dropping a printout on the table.
“That’s my number,” said Fiona, examining it, “and this one’s Dad’s.”
Peter grimaced. “You’ll find Rab on there as well,” he said.
“So you’re aware of this?” asked the lawyer.
“I had the phone. I found it.”
“Peter,” said Stefan, “Rab gave you that phone. Don’t take this on yourself.”
“But Rab found it,” said Peter. “He found it at a construction site where he wasn’t supposed to be, and he gave it to me because I didn’t have one. He thought he was being generous.”
The lawyer folded up the printout and put it back into his jacket. “You’re due at the Sheriff Court on Friday. They want to take a statement about this new evidence. It does look pretty suspicious, first you being implicated up in that sabotaged building, then this link to the death of a developer. Obviously, they want to hear your explanation. I won’t be surprised if there are new charges added to your case, which just makes the trial more complicated.” The lawyer stood up. “I’ll be back tomorrow to talk to you about your statement, then I’ll be with you in court in three days.”
“Thanks,” said Peter. He shook the lawyer’s hand, and then the man left.
“Bugger,” said Mister Hailes.
“So I’ve got the mobile of a dead man and it looks like I blew up a building—how hard can they be on me?”
“Peter—” started Fiona. “Oh,” she said, “you were joking.”
“Yes, Fiona. I can see full well how screwed I am.”
“Hey,” said Peter, “do you think Stefan and I could have some time to ourselves? There’s not much time left.”
“Sure,” said Mister Hailes. He put an arm around Fiona. “Meet you outside, Ste.”
When they’d left, Peter grabbed Stefan’s forearm. “I’m done for,” he said.
“What?”
“Ste, I really don’t think anyone’s going to believe me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Stefan.
“Why?”
“Rab offered to turn himself in if I wasn’t convinced by the proof he offered me. But I’ve seen it. I’ve met Morton, and I’ve seen what he can do. And I think this is happening all over.” He took Peter’s hand in his. “I’m really worried for you. Your trial won’t be for months, and this is all going to come together sooner than that. I can feel it. Things are speeding up. I went to see the chocolate witches today, but they were gone. It doesn’t matter if the warders pass my name on to the police—I don’t care about that now—but I was thinking that maybe if I brought more of those candies you and I could just walk out of here.”
Peter squeezed his hand. “That would be nice.”
“I don’t know what to do, Peter. I can’t find my father anywhere, and I really need some help with all this. It sounds crazy, since I came this far just to get away from her, but—”
“You want to talk to your mother.”
“Yeah, I do. But she won’t talk to me.”
“You should get that box back, the one you pawned.”
“Maybe.”
“You should. She said you should open it when you’d had a change of heart. Sounds like you have.”
“Okay,” said Stefan. He looked at Peter’s face and smiled. “I wish we had a handful of those chocolates. We could go out for a walk.”
“Have sex somewhere.”
Stefan laughed. “Yeah, I was thinking something like that. I want you back. I don’t want to wait for the trial. It’s too far away, and I don’t think we’ve got that long. I also don’t trust that the judges will see past how all this looks. We’ve got to do something to get you out.”
“It’s got to be Friday when I go to the court. After that, I’m back here for months, and there’ll be no way for me to get free.”
“Friday, then. I’ll think of something, and I’ll meet you at the courthouse.”
“Yeah. In the meantime, go back and see Kreel at the pawn shop and get your box back. It’s probably still there. Nobody ever buys anything from him.”
“Okay,” said Stefan, still smiling at him.
“Okay,” said Peter, doing the same in return.
Their hands locked across the table.
“I’m going now,” said Stefan.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Alright, maybe I’m not.”
The warder loomed above them. “Time’s up,” he said.
Peter stood up and rounded the table to hug Stefan tight. The warder pulled them apart. “Ach, you’re just jealous,” said Peter to the warder with a laugh. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty to go around. I still love you.” He pointed a gun-finger at Stefan and shot it. “See ya, lover.” The warder led him out a door through which Stefan was not allowed to follow.
Twenty-Five
Spirit-levelled
Stefan let go of the shop door and it swung shut with a clatter. Mister Kreel spun around behind his counter, looking at Stefan with one eye then twisting his head around to regard him with the other.
“Uh, good morning,” said Stefan.
“What d’yeh want?” asked the man.
Stefan produced a slip of paper from his pocket, his half of the pawn ticket. He held it out. “I gave you something a few weeks back. I’d like to claim it.”
Kreel held the paper out to the left side of his head and looked at it. His other eye was still trained on Stefan. “Hmph,” he grumbled, and handed the ticket back. “Yeh cannae have it.”
Stefan was prepared for a struggle. “You paid me a hundred and fifty pounds for it. I’m willing to give you two hundred to get it back.”
Kreel shook his head.
“Three hundred.”
Kreel shook his head again.
“Five hundred pounds.”
The man laughed, showing teeth like chipped ivory piano keys. “No. Yeh cannae have it because it’s no here anymore.”
Stefan paled. “Where is it?”
“I sold it.”
“To whom?”
“Ach, ah cannae tell yeh that. Ah could get in trouble if I telt yeh that.”
Stefan looked around the shop at the tarnished musical instruments, the old televisions, and the sound systems. The counter he leaned on, he noticed, was full of old watches and jewellery. On the counter was a record-book. Kreel saw him looking at it, and caught his eye, as much as he was able to. “What if,” said Stefan to the ma
n, “I gave you the money anyway, and you went into the back just for a moment?”
“Ah could use some tea,” said Kreel.
Stefan pulled a roll of notes from his pocket and counted out a hundred pounds. Weeks ago, it would have flattened him, but now he had access to the play’s royalties, he didn’t care about the money. He just wanted the box back, and with it, his mother.
Kreel left the counter, and Stefan leafed through the book. It took him several minutes to decipher Kreel’s handwriting, then to sort through the entries. Finally, he found one marked “Peruvian box” with the name “MacMillan” beside it. His heart sank: a surname wasn’t enough to go on. He’d just been had.
Kreel returned from the back of the store with a cup of tea. “Whups,” he said, reaching across to close the book, “ah shouldnae be leaving that open for all the world to see. People come in here and snoop around—yeh’d think this was the bloody Royal Museum of Scotland.”
There was something in the way Kreel stressed the words. Stefan looked up at Kreel, who nodded at him. Stefan smiled and nodded back.
“Thank you, Mister Kreel.”
“Nae bother,” said Kreel.
~
Stefan stopped at the museum’s information desk and asked for an employee named MacMillan. “He works in education services,” said the guide. Stefan asked where that was and got directions. He walked to the older of the two conjoined museums, looking up at the ornate white birdcage ceiling of the main lobby, then passed through a display of modern inventions to a split staircase with deep red carpet. One floor up, he found the department he was looking for, which had an imposing set of wild-looking wooden doors bracketed on either side with what looked like narrow, unfinished wooden bookshelves piled with found objects like a bleached animal skull and a small antler.
Stefan pressed the buzzer and someone came to the door. “Mister MacMillan?” he asked the man.
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