A Man of Shadows

by Jeff Noon

  “Let me in.”

  Silence. He knocked again, harder this time.

  “Come on. Open up.”

  There was a scuffling sound and then the noise of breaking glass. Somebody screamed, a girl. Nyquist had to think. He had no way of knowing how many people were in the room, nor whether they would be friendly or otherwise. There were so many religious sects springing up, especially on the edges of the city, and tales were told of kids being held here against their will. He slipped off his sunglasses. Then he took a step back, coming forward again to kick hard at the door. A second time. The door started to give, and then it crashed open on the third attempt and he moved quickly into the room. It was like stepping into fire. His vision flared in a dazzle of gold and silver, with splashes of red. His eyes burned and closed involuntarily, the fiery shapes still throbbing inside his head. Again he heard the sound of glass breaking and he forced his eyes open to see a group of white figures standing amid all the colour and heat, their forms melting into view. Somebody pushed past him violently. It was a teenage boy, his shape vaguely human amid the pulsating light patterns. Nyquist could do nothing to stop him escaping. Instead, he had to turn his head away for a moment and back again, to find purchase on the room’s confusion.

  Well, he’d seen it bad before, but not this bad.

  Violet fluorescent tubes closely lined the ceiling, with a tangle of bulbs hanging down between each tube, a countless number of them, all shining in different hues, all on different lengths of flex, naked, disturbed, swaying back and forth in curves of streaming light. The floor was covered in brightly-lit bedside lamps, their shades torn away. Many of these lamps had fallen over. Glass crunched underfoot as Nyquist took a step forward, his every move setting the hanging bulbs in motion. A globe of mirrored glass revolved at the ceiling’s centre, stirring the lighted fragments into further confusion. Colours merged together and then broke apart. Strings of tiny bulbs flashed on and off in random sequences, flames danced from gas burners fixed to the walls.

  Nyquist’s vision settled. He stood tall and firm, blocking the doorway. Then he took in the room more clearly. The only window had been boarded up long ago, so the place was stifling; it stank of urine, body odour and fused wiring. The air crackled with noise. A threadbare mattress rested on the floor in one corner. A teenage girl was kneeling there, while another girl and a boy stood watching Nyquist. These last two looked scared, but the girl on the mattress seemed to be in some kind of stupor or daydream. Her eyes were closed and her upper body lolled against the wall. Dazzle junkies, they were called, hooked on soaking up whatever photons they could find, overdosing on the light. Nyquist glanced from face to face. The young man’s mouth was stained orange, the colour extending beyond the lips in a clownlike grin. His eyes had no proper focus. He was jittery, unnerved. His hand came up to wipe at the substance, whatever it was. Some new drug, Nyquist surmised. The latest thrill powder.

  “I’m looking for Eleanor Bale.”

  Nobody answered directly, but the pair standing looked at the third where she rested on the mattress. Nyquist nodded. “Now you two, get out of here.” They followed his orders meekly, leaving the dazed-looking girl to whatever care she may find. Nyquist took out the photograph he had been given. It was all he had on her, apart from what little her father had managed to relate.

  Eleanor Bale. Eighteen years old. Of a well-to-do family, and no doubt beautiful in that highly groomed way the rich seem to demand from their sons and daughters. Blonde hair, azure-blue eyes, well-shaped lips. It was all there in the photograph. But just now, in reality, there was little of this beauty on display. The girl was sprawled on the bed, wearing a vest, shorts and sandals. She was a mess: unwashed, dreadfully thin, hair dirty and bedraggled, her arms covered in scratches and her skin as pale and translucent as a moth’s wing.

  “Eleanor?”

  The girl turned her face away, pressing herself against the wall.

  “Come on. Stand up. Let’s get your things together.” Nyquist picked up a bag from the floor. “Is this yours?”

  “Leave me alone!”

  She had turned with a shocking violence, her whole body twisted up with hatred and fear. Fragments of light played over her skin, over the gaunt face and the sticklike arms. She looked ghastly. Nyquist stepped closer.

  “Eleanor. Let’s talk.”

  Without any warning the girl grabbed a light bulb from the mattress, flinging it wildly. Nyquist heard it smash into the wall behind him. He let the noise die away, and then held his hands open and wide apart. He stepped forward.

  “Your family’s concerned about you. They’ve employed me to bring you back home.”

  “What are you? Police?”

  Nyquist shook his head. “Private investigator.”

  “Did he send you?”

  “Your father? Yes.”

  The girl laughed bitterly. “I’m not going home.”

  Nyquist put on his sunglasses. “Some place you have here,” he said. “I know what it’s like. You get scared of the dark. And what the darkness might hold. All of that. I know.”

  “I’m not scared of the dark. That’s a lie.”

  “We’re all scared of something.”

  Eleanor looked at him properly for the first time. “Is this the best he could do?” she asked.

  Nyquist shrugged. “This is it.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “I was beaten up.”

  “Oh. Because… because of me?”

  He grinned. “No. Another job. It turned nasty.”

  The girl shook her head in distaste.

  “It was nothing glamorous, believe me. A mislaid import consignment. I was supposed to track it down, which I did well enough but it seems the whole thing was a scam, a dodgy insurance deal. I found out too much, and this is what I got for my trouble.” He touched at the bruise below his eye. “Plus some wounds that don’t show.”

  She seemed to take this in; evidently, there was still some kind of intelligence beneath the wreckage, however dimly lit. Then she turned it all round and swore and spat at him.

  Nyquist sighed. “I know why you’re here.”

  “Oh. Is that right?”

  “Sure. It’s all the rage. You’re trying to burn away the pain.”

  The girl laughed at this. “Well, it’s not working.”

  Nyquist could see that he’d struck a nerve. He took another step closer. “You can get help, you do know that? Proper help. Doctors, professionals–”

  “No!” Eleanor grabbed a second light bulb, which she rammed against the wall next to her face, holding the splintered remains out in front of her. “Stay away from me.”

  Nyquist was calm now. He smiled. “That last job caused me problems. No result, no fee. So I really do need the money, girl. Times are hard.”

  Eleanor shook her head. Then she turned her hand around, pointing the broken part of the light bulb towards her own chest, repeating the same few phrases over and over: “I’m not going home. I’m not going home. He hates me. My father hates me!” She moved the jagged object closer, pressing it against the material of her vest, and closer still until a stain of blood appeared on the cloth. Her face was cold. She was holding herself tight against the pain, or what the pain might become.

  “Don’t do it, Eleanor.”

  Nyquist kept his voice steady. The girl looked at him. Blood ran down her hand, her body trembled. For one terrible moment Nyquist thought he had lost her, but then her eyes flickered with a different light and her fingers slowly opened, letting the broken bulb fall to the mattress. Nyquist knelt down next to her. He meant to pull her to her feet, but instead the young woman let herself be held; there was no fight left in her. He wasn’t expecting the contact, and it felt strange. The girl was mumbling the whole time, words that he couldn’t properly make out, a whispered prayer of some kind or other, to some god or other. And then she fell silent, but for the sobs and the harshly drawn breaths. Nyquist stayed where he was,
half bent down, holding onto her hand. It was awkward, but there was nothing else he could do. And they stayed together like that for a time, these two lonely people, as the slowly turning lights of the room cast a spell of colours upon them.

  Heatstroke

  Nyquist led Eleanor from the room. She looked an even worse sight under the normal lighting of the corridor: stark white face smeared with blood, hair matted and falling long and ragged over her brow and eyes. She was clutching her only possession, a green tartan duffle bag. Nyquist wondered again how this well brought-up girl had fallen into such a state, but of course there were no rules or limits on pain.

  “Keep moving,” he said. “We’ll get you sorted out.”

  A man was waiting for them just along from the doorway, a middle-aged man, thickset, dressed in a tailored, cream-coloured linen suit. He looked at Nyquist and the girl, the same time wiping his face with a red silk handkerchief.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m taking her home,” Nyquist said.

  “She owes me.”

  “For what?”

  “Use of the premises. Rent thereof.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m the manager. This is my place.” He looked ill at ease, nervous even. His eyes closed momentarily, came open again. “Look at my door,” he said. “Will you pay for this?”

  “The kid’s in trouble.”

  He smiled. “That’s why they come to me.”

  “She needs help.”

  “Well yes, they have their needs.”

  Nyquist could see one of the security guards approaching along the corridor. “What’s the problem?” this new arrival asked.

  “No problem,” the manager replied. “Not yet.” He looked at Nyquist, then at the girl. “Let me talk to her. I know how to handle these young ones.”

  Nyquist felt Eleanor slip away from his hold. She backed up against the wall, inching along, with her mouth open and her eyes darting this way and that, and her hands bunched into fists, one of them still clenched tightly around the drawstring of her bag. And then her gaze fixed on the manager alone, her lips forming a single defiant word.

  “No.”

  The manager pushed Nyquist aside, making to grab at Eleanor’s arm. The barest touch shocked the girl, causing her to leap away and to cry out with such passion that Nyquist too was now trying to catch hold of her. His fingers closed around her wrist, just briefly, before she tore herself free, turning and falling back against the wall in panic and then taking off at speed down the corridor. The manager looked angry. Cursing, he gestured towards the guard, who came in heavy on Nyquist, swinging for a punch. But the guy had too few years in the game and Nyquist was on his mettle after last night’s failure; he met the blow easily with his forearm, pushed it aside, and then brought his right hand in low, hard, fast, to the stomach. The guard was already moving into the punch, and this was too much for him. He doubled up against the wall, the wind knocked out of his chest. The manager started to say something nasty but Nyquist had already turned away, looking for Eleanor.

  The corridor was empty.

  He set off running. A turning led to a second corridor, the end of which was blocked by a metal fire door. Without missing a step, Nyquist hit the pushbar with both hands, forcing it open. He stepped through, and the sudden glare of the sky dazzled his eyes.

  He was standing on the platform of a fire escape.

  The shanty town of Burn Out was half visible below, clouded by haze. The buildings petered out as the tents and caravans took over, a great mass of them, a new conglomeration occupying the city’s limits. Just visible beyond this sprawling encampment were the lands outside Dayzone: waste dumps, scrublands, barren pastures, villages, meadows, towns, and then other cities where time worked naturally, to one clock alone, and day followed night followed day followed night followed day followed night…

  Nyquist clung to the rail for support. He felt dizzy. The ground below wavered in his sight and he felt that he might tumble and fall.

  He concentrated, holding his gaze on one spot until the vertigo had passed. Eleanor could be seen through the gridwork below, more than halfway down already, a bright figure jumping from ledge to ledge with such desperate energy that the whole flimsy structure shook with her movement. What the hell was she running from? Nyquist took the stairs as fast as he could, but his extra weight and the dreadful humidity were holding his progress. His feet banged down on each step, and sweat dripped into his eyes. If he wasn’t quick enough, the girl would easily become lost to him.

  Nyquist reached the ground. The backyard of the hotel was littered with rubbish, but the wire fence surrounding it seemed to be intact, the only gate padlocked shut. He moved along the fence, finding a gap where the wires had been cut and folded back. Nyquist pushed through. A row of single-storey buildings faced him, the nearest two separated by a narrow alleyway. He hurried down it, coming out into a large courtyard area, from which another three exits gave way. A group of Burn Out residents were gathered here, below a low-hanging canopy of lanterns. The fierce light burned on every surface. Music could be heard, a high keening sound like an animal crying. Nyquist walked over to a ring of oil drums where most of the people were assembled. There was a smell of burning pitch, and flames were rising from each metal canister. The air trembled above the flames, the figures beyond seen as ghosts in the light, and the music flickered with the same heat, the same spirit.

  There was no sign of Eleanor Bale.

  Nyquist spoke to the nearest person. “Did anybody come through here, just now? A young woman? A teenager?” The man looked at him as though he were a visitor from another planet. Nyquist turned to the crowd at large. “Where is she? Which way did she go?” Nobody answered. Nyquist shook his head to clear it. He looked around at the three exits. The music was maddening, and he turned to see where it was coming from.

  An old man was standing on the other side of the flames, balanced on a wooden crate. Nyquist walked over. The musician was dressed in a jacket far too small for him, with a lopsided hat perched on his head. The curved body of a fiddle was pressed against his chin. The bow moved across the neck at speed, back and forth, and the fingers of the man’s right hand sometimes came in to pluck a few notes of their own, all these movements conjuring up the wild, exuberant music. A bowl was resting on the ground in front of the crate, hopefully to catch a few more coins than the two or three it already contained. Close by, a little girl was dancing to the beat. Likewise, Nyquist was fascinated by the music; the tune nagged at him, surely he had heard it before somewhere? If only the violinist would stop improvising, adding so many notes around the original melody. And then the old musician stopped playing and looked down, showing his eyes to be entirely black in their sockets. Black, staring, blind – his sightless gaze fixed upon Nyquist, who could give only one response: he threw a couple of coins in the tin bowl.

  At that moment a small boy approached. He was carrying a green duffle bag, which he held out in front of him. Eleanor’s bag.

  “She dropped this.”

  Nyquist took it gratefully.

  He made his way through the streets, back to the front of the hotel, to where his car was parked. His head throbbed with the glare, sweat clogged at his eyes. He was feeling faint. Clouds of dust were drifting along the road. A voice whispered inside his head, as though the dust were speaking to him: Everything that does not move, we shall cover you, we shall bury you. Nyquist spat to clear his mouth of it. He looked up at the sky, which hung suspended only a few yards above his head and was made up of thousands upon thousands of closely packed lamps. The light was everywhere flat and undiminished, without any direction, and no shadows were cast. The vehicle glowed with heat. He climbed inside, placing the girl’s bag on the seat beside him and then waited for a while as the dashboard fan made its feeble effort. He had lost his hat at some point, he could not remember when or where. Out of habit he glanced at his wristwatch: he could make no sense at all of the
time. And then he noticed the spots of blood on his palm. It made him think of the broken light bulb and the way in which the teenage girl had stabbed herself with it. The painful image fixed itself inside Nyquist’s mind.

  It would stay with him all the way back towards Precinct Two.

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