City of Halves

by Lucy Inglis

  The bar was all smoky mirrors, laden with bottles. A tall, pale-skinned woman in her twenties with pillar-box-red matte lipstick, her long hair elaborately braided around her head, was standing over the till writing on a pad. She wore tight leather leggings and a bright white vest. The smell of jasmine filled the air.

  ‘Regan!’ she said, her voice filling the room. ‘What a wonderful surprise.’

  ‘Lilith, I need your help.’

  ‘How may I be of service?’ Lilith asked, her voice full of amusement.

  ‘Girls are going missing.’

  ‘Then you’ve come with a warning? How kind, my love. But as you know, the club staff can all take care of themselves.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. I just wondered if you’d heard anything. Anything at all. Any trouble with the Agency?’

  Lilith pulled a bottle of champagne from beneath the bar and poured three glasses. ‘Please.’ She gestured for them each to take one, and took the last one herself.

  She gestured to a large sofa covered in black cushions in the VIP area. Being in a club during the day is totally weird, Lily reflected as she perched on the edge of the sofa, glass held in both hands. Regan collapsed next to her. Lilith watched them, a smile playing on her face.

  ‘Nothing obvious. But there has been an – increase in interest, shall we say. From the authorities.’

  ‘How so?’ Regan asked.

  She shrugged and pouted. ‘Tax inspection, drinks licensing people. They found nothing out of place, of course. Then we were raided twice in one week a month ago. All the usual checks with permits and so on. And since then there have been a couple of . . . unwanted visitors.’

  ‘Meaning what? Spies?’

  She laughed, a golden flurry. ‘How very melodramatic, darling. But yes.’

  ‘So you kicked them out?’

  ‘Dear Mohammed dealt with them. Permanently.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Then this appeared.’ A pretty girl in jeans and a T-shirt appeared with a letter and handed it to Regan.

  His eyes flicked over the paper. ‘They want papers for everyone working here.’

  Lilith sighed heavily.

  ‘Of which, of course, there are none,’ Regan explained to Lily, handing the letter back.

  ‘They’re not . . . human?’ Lily ventured.

  ‘Don’t be absurd. I wouldn’t have humans working for me. Not reliable enough. And one must take such good care of them, like houseplants.’ Lilith sighed and sipped her champagne. ‘Anyway, this is all so tedious. Threatening to close me down. Again. This nonsense demand for papers is going to cost me a fortune. Is that passport faker in Hackney still on the go?’

  Regan shrugged awkwardly. ‘I think he’s moved. I’ll find out.’

  ‘What was his name? Stedman?’

  Lily looked over at Regan. Hackney.

  He avoided her gaze. ‘Like I said, I’ll find him.’

  She smiled warmly. ‘Thank you, darling.’

  They got up to leave. Lily put her untouched glass on the table.

  ‘Is my hospitality not to your liking?’ Lilith asked, one perfect eyebrow arched.

  ‘Thank you, it’s just that . . .’ Lily stalled as Regan touched her arm.

  ‘Lilith’s teasing, aren’t you, Lilith?’

  The woman smiled. ‘Of course. So, I hear this is your little kismet.’ She examined Lily from the tips of her hair to her toes, then back up again. ‘Absolutely adorable,’ she said finally. ‘She would fetch a fortune in one of Abdul’s souk auctions amongst those slobbering camel traders.’ She looked wistful, then cleared her throat delicately. ‘Or would have done, back in the day. But now everyone is so . . . enlightened.’ She sighed.

  ‘Lilith,’ Regan warned. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘All clear,’ said Mohammed in his deep, booming voice as he held the door upstairs.

  ‘Thanks, Mohammed.’

  Outside Lily took a deep breath. Regan shoved his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Why did we have to see her? I thought we were after that medic.’

  ‘Lilith has a lot of ears to the ground. And it got us off the street for just long enough for everyone to go back about their business.’

  ‘She called me your kismet, what does that mean?’

  ‘Nothing. This community are the worst gossips. Ignore it.’

  ‘You and her seem to know each other well.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well enough.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  They came to a halt, staring at each other. ‘Nothing, only that—’

  Lily walked off through the churchyard towards Liverpool Street.

  He followed, looking at her curiously. ‘Are you angry?’

  ‘I just don’t like being talked about as if I’m a piece of merchandise.’ She made a frustrated noise and turned away.

  He caught her up, catching her arm. ‘Wait. Are you . . . you can’t be jealous?’

  She shook her head furiously, curls bouncing. ‘You’re so full of it!’ She stalked off through the empty churchyard avenue towards Bishopsgate.

  She hadn’t made it five yards when, from her left, a woman lurched out from behind a large tomb, reaching for her. Lily leapt back, seeing the dirty, crawling clothes.

  ‘Don’t let her touch you!’ Regan yelled.

  Lily stepped back, afraid to take the time even to turn and run. The woman grinned, her teeth loose and blackened where they met her gums. A bright red centipede ran out of her mouth over her chin. Lice scurried openly over her clothes. Lily flinched. The smell of rot was choking.

  Regan grabbed her, hauling her backwards and throwing her halfway across the churchyard. She hit the ground and a tombstone, bruising her elbow, stones digging into her hand.

  The woman stepped forward. The old man in the cap appeared, stepping out from the hawthorn hedge, scythe raised. In a neat motion he severed the woman’s head. She collapsed on the grass in a heap, instantly dissolving into a crawling mess. The old man half knelt gracefully, as if about to throw a boule in a distant French square on a sunny afternoon, and tossed his lantern on to the heap. It smashed, setting light to the heaving insects. There was a terrible hissing, screeching sound. Lily got to her feet and backed away, into Regan, who caught her arms. He nodded to the old man, who nodded seriously in return.

  ‘First dragons, now this. Come on,’ said Regan, drawing Lily away. She looked back over her shoulder. The Breton spirit was watching the flames. Just an old man having a winter bonfire in a churchyard.

  ‘Things are getting out of hand. Plague demons are serious shit. They can take out whole cities if enough of them get in. I hoped I had more time.’

  Lily looked down at the ground in alarm, scanning for any rogue insect. ‘I’m going to get the plague?!’

  ‘Not if she didn’t touch you. ‘They were already in sight of the paramedic’s traffic island. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Lily rubbed the gravel marks from her palms and touched her elbow. ‘I’d rather you didn’t throw me around quite that hard. But thanks.’

  He stopped and turned to her. ‘I meant did I hurt your feelings?’

  ‘You need to get over yourself,’ she sniffed, brushing her jeans down.

  He said nothing.

  She put her hands on her hips, looking at her trainers. ‘So what do we do now? About Mona.’

  He bit the inside of his cheek, then checked his watch. ‘It’s almost the same time exactly as she had her accident. Hopefully, the same medic will be on the same shift.’

  ‘Fine.’ Seems logical.

  ‘Right, so you need to pretend to be ill, or injured or something. So you can get a look at him.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Well it’s no good me doing it, is it?’

  Lily frowned. ‘I suppose. What do you want me to do, then?’

  ‘Pretend to faint, maybe? Can you do that?’

  ‘I suppose I could.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘What if—’

  ‘D
on’t worry. He won’t take you anywhere. No one will.’

  ‘But what if they call an ambulance or something?’

  ‘I just told you, I won’t let them take you away.’

  ‘Then what do we do?’

  ‘No idea. But at least we’ll know we have the right guy.’

  She hesitated, then nodded, handing over her bag before turning away and walking towards the station. The motorcycled paramedic was still sitting on the other side of the road, his helmeted gaze focussed on the traffic. When she was sure she was in his sight, Lily put her hand to her head and staggered. A young woman moved away, giving her a wide berth. She made it to the wall and slumped to her knees, before collapsing sideways on to the pavement.

  For a long moment, no one came. She heard clacking high heels and smart shoes moving past her head, ignoring her. Then someone knelt down, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Hey there, are you all right?’ A woman’s voice.

  Lily stirred, her eyelids flickering.

  ‘Can you sit up?’ the woman asked. ‘She’s confused,’ she said to someone as a pair of heavy boots thudded up nearby. The pavement was freezing and Lily could smell the dust on the stones, and the acrid dirt of the city.

  There came another hand on her shoulder. ‘Thanks, I’ll take it from here,’ a man said. Voice isn’t muffled: no helmet.

  ‘Hello there. Can you tell me your name?’

  Lily pretended to come round a little. What do I say? ‘Caitlin,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Right, Caitlin. I’m Jack. Can you sit up?’

  Lily let him help her sit up against the wall.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘No problem. Just doing my job. Are you on your own?’

  She looked up. He was crouched in front of her in his leathers with the high-visibility jacket over the top. He had short dark hair. Definitely him. Lily could not have known from the CCTV printout how kind his smile would be.

  She nodded.

  ‘Where do you live? Can you tell me?’

  ‘Chiswick. I came to go to the market.’

  ‘Maybe another day.’ He patted her shoulder and asked her a few questions. Finally he said, ‘Is there someone at home?’

  Lily nodded.

  ‘Can you call them and tell them you’re on your way?’

  Wait, what if . . .? ‘I don’t have my phone.’ Please, please let this work.

  He knelt down and tugged his phone from his pocket. ‘Look, I shouldn’t do this, but use mine. I’ll go and get you a drink. Something with lots of sugar in it. Have you had enough fluid today?’

  She nodded. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Fine. Any preference?’

  ‘No – thank you, though.’

  He grinned. ‘No problem. I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t run off.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  As he went to the booth Regan had bought their teas from earlier, Lily opened his phone and quickly searched for a specific app. She set it to install and it did so without an icon, leaving no visible trace of its presence in the phone. Then she sent herself a text to say she was on her way home because she didn’t feel well. Her phone buzzed once in response inside her jacket, just as the paramedic walked back, a can of lemonade in his hand. He opened it for her and handed it over.

  ‘There. I shouldn’t do this, but I think you’re just dehydrated and I suspect you haven’t eaten anything. You really need to, you know. You look a bit tired. Are you studying too hard?’

  Lily shrugged. The radio on his shoulder crackled into life and a woman’s voice rattled out an enquiry. Jack answered, pressing down a button on the handset’s side. He listened to the response and let it go.

  ‘Well, Caitlin, I’ve got to run. Car accident on Shoreditch High Street. Do you think you can get home from here okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Thanks. Thanks a lot.’

  He winked. ‘No problem. Just doing my job.’

  Lily watched him go, standing up slowly. She looked at the can in her hand with suspicion. He jumped on to his motorbike, started it and roared off up towards Shoreditch, blue lights flashing. As he approached the lights they turned red. The bike’s siren came on and he shot through the traffic, disappearing under the old railway bridge.

  Lily walked back towards Bishopsgate, dumping the can in a litter bin. Regan appeared from the churchyard and fell in step with her.

  ‘Was it him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lily dusted her hands off on the backside of her jeans. She explained about putting the app on to the phone. ‘So –’ she pulled out her own phone – ‘in theory, all I have to do is install it on my phone, and we can see exactly where his phone is.’

  Regan watched her download the app and key in a PIN. ‘How did you learn all this? Do they teach you in school?’

  Lily concentrated on the phone. ‘No. And it’s a long story. But it really started when Ellie Watts wanted to know where her boyfriend went when he said he was going to extra tuition.’

  ‘Was he going to extra tuition?’

  ‘No.’ Lily turned the phone to him. On the screen was a map with a red flashing dot. ‘He’s exactly where he said he would be. On Shoreditch High Street.’

  ‘You sound as if you like him.’

  She shrugged. ‘He seemed nice. And we don’t know he’s done anything wrong. Yet.’

  He looked at her. ‘No. Come on. Let’s get something to eat.’

  They ate noodles and hot soup in a Japanese cafe near the station that was full of Shoreditch hipsters. Lily glanced around at the cool crowd, with their unusual clothes and extensive tattoos. ‘You know, you fit right in here.’

  Regan said nothing, just pretended to stab her through the back of the hand with a chopstick. She grabbed it and they had a half-hearted tug of war before Lily laughed and let it go.

  ‘And you know you need to get a phone.’

  He shook his head and pushed her bowl towards her before picking up his own. ‘I manage fine without.’

  ‘I bet the Agency uses them. And all the technology they can get their hands on. Why give them the advantage? And it would make it a lot easier to keep in touch with Lucas.’

  ‘Only if he had one too, which is about as likely to happen as I am to be struck by lightning.’

  Lily sat back, studying him. He continued eating, ignoring her scrutiny. ‘Deliberately staying in the nineteenth century won’t help you.’

  ‘Eighteenth,’ he said without looking up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Eighteenth century. It’s when Lucas and Elijah were alive. They’re pretty much stuck there.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean you have to be. Is that the real reason you don’t have electricity?’

  He changed the subject. ‘This is really good.’

  ‘You like Japanese food?’

  He shrugged. ‘I like anything I don’t have to cook myself. And hot. In that order.’

  Lily picked up her bowl, warming her hands on it, washing down the noodles with the savoury soup. On the wall was a large, peeling poster of Hello Kitty. ‘I come here with Dad sometimes. He knows all the best places to eat. Particularly the ones that serve you quickly. And lots of it.’

  Regan finished the last of his food and started on Lily’s leftover noodles, which she’d pushed away.

  She watched him. ‘Are you usually this hungry?’

  He stopped eating, looking guilty. ‘You didn’t want it, did you?’

  Shaking her head, she laughed.

  ‘I just eat whatever’s in front of me. Old habit.’

  She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Living with Lucas and Elijah. They don’t need food.’

  ‘So what did you eat?’

  ‘I did fine. The amount of food thrown away around here every day is incredible.’

  ‘You ate . . . food that other people had thrown away?’ she asked hesitantly.

  ‘I ate what I could get. We aren’t all the children of rich lawyers.’

  ‘My
father isn’t rich. We’re not rich. We don’t own our flat, and he does legal aid a lot of the time. We don’t even have a car. I told you, my parents grew up in care. They came from nothing. The only thing Dad spends money on is me and food, and that’s only because he’s always trying to get me to eat more. Everyone in Temple treats us like a charity case, because of what happened to my mum, and because my dad is amazing at what he does, even though it doesn’t make money like criminal law. He’s never taken a holiday since I was born. The Rookery is worth a fortune. Millions. You’re far richer than we are,’ Lily said in a rush, the guilt she felt over her father’s lifestyle making her snap.

  He looked at her for a long time, then shrugged. ‘Irrelevant. It’s not for sale. Ever.’

  Silence.

  ‘You really are close to your father, aren’t you, defending him like that?’

  ‘Yes. He’s the world’s most decent man. He spends his life fighting for people who have no one else to help them. That’s why I need to find Harris Stedman. And at least I know he was in Hackney now, no thanks to you.’

  Regan raised an eyebrow.

  A thought struck her. ‘Is he Eldritche?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. He’s a weaselly, dishonest excuse for a human being.’

  Lily bit her lip, her palms on the formica-topped table. He sat back, finished.

  ‘You don’t like us humans very much, do you?’

  He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. ‘I like you, don’t I?’

  ‘Most of the time I really can’t tell.’ Her phone buzzed on the table between them. She looked at it. ‘He’s on the move. Back in this direction. No, slightly east. He’s stopped again. Near the fire station. It’s probably the depot, or wherever they’re based, don’t you think?’

  Regan looked at his watch. It was old, a vintage thing with a canvas strap. Lily looked closer. It was like a pocket watch with the case pierced out so that the hands were visible beneath. She wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before.

  He saw her looking. ‘Elijah collects old watches. He’s obsessed with the passing of time. He gave it to me when I left the bookshop. Almost three. Clocking off?’