I persisted. “I need to know. You said his name twice this morning. Say I misheard. Say it’s the name of your cat. Just tell me something.”
Abbey pushed away her salad. “Joe was someone I used to go out with. Just an ex.”
“I see.”
There was a man on the other side of the canteen, dark suited and crop haired, a copy of Martin Chuzzlewit held conspicuously out in front of him, the outline of a weapon clearly visible in his jacket pocket. He looked over at me and nodded. One of Dedlock’s jackboots, of course. He didn’t look like the sharpest tool in the box. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he was holding that book upside down.
Abbey hadn’t noticed him. “I was with Joe for a while,” she said. “Quite a while.” She seemed to be choosing her words very carefully, deliberating over each one. “But not anymore. We haven’t spoken in months.”
“You still have feelings for him?”
“God, no.”
“But you whispered his name this morning in your sleep.”
“Habit, Henry. Don’t read anything into it.”
“How did you meet him?” I asked. “How did you meet Joe?” I couldn’t help but inflect that word with a bitter spasm of contempt and immediately I disliked myself intensely for it.
Abbey didn’t meet my eye or challenge my tone, but just gazed ahead of her at the salt and pepper on the table. “He lived in the flat,” she said.
Something wobbled in my stomach. “In the flat? In my room?”
Abbey nodded. “It had to finish.” My beautiful girlfriend chewed her lower lip at the memory of a time about which I knew nothing, and I felt the steel-capped kick of jealousy. “He’d lost his way. He was getting into something dangerous.”
“Tell me more.” I knew that I was interrogating her now but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Some grubby curiosity in me wanted to know it all.
“He was unpredictable,” she said. “Crazy, sometimes. Dangerous. Not like you. Not like you at all. You’re not dangerous. You’re…” She searched for an adjective. “You’re sweet.” At last she looked up at me, tried a smile, thrust her hands across the table to clasp mine.
“Sweet,” I said softly, and never had the word sounded so damningly joyless. I swallowed hard and asked the biggest question of all. “Do you miss him?”
With the screech of metal on linoleum, Abbey pushed back her chair, suddenly bustling and irritable. “I have to get back to the office. Don’t bother to see me out. I’ll get a cab.”
After that, all that was left for us to do was to swap frosty goodbyes and vague promises to meet up in the flat.
I trudged back to sit with my grandfather. I sighed. “You’ve got all the answers, don’t you?” I said, but all I got was the usual dead-eyed stare at the ceiling, the irritating bleeps of life support. I lost my temper. “You old bastard!”
By the time Barbara returned to the office, she was feeling queasy. By 2:30 P.M., she was feeling physically ill. Down in the basement, when it got really bad, she had to steady herself against the fat woman’s chair until the nausea subsided.
By three P.M., the poor girl thought she might throw up at any moment. Peter Hickey-Brown had slunk in whilst she was at lunch, muttering some sheepish excuse about a dentist’s appointment. She had no choice but to knock on his door and ask him to let her go early. Too distracted by something on his computer to offer much resistance, he just nodded, not even looking up from his spreadsheet, meaning that Barbara was free of the office and heading toward the station not more than ten minutes later.
The tube journey must have been difficult. In addition to the violent ructions of her stomach, she would have had a piercing headache, her vision would have been blurred and uncertain, and she would have found herself perilously unsteady on her feet. Once she had got off the tube, it was only a short walk home. She lived with her father and two cats.
Or, at least, that’s who I’ve always imagined it.
The old man — and he would have been old, I think, an elderly father some years into a mostly miserable retirement — would have emerged from his study to find out what his daughter was doing back from work so early. Not wanting to bother him, she would have said that she was feeling a little poorly but that it was nothing to worry about, nothing for him to fuss over. Always uneasy around female illness (all that oozing, all that bleeding and perspiration), her dad would have ducked gratefully back into his den. Perhaps I’m being unjust to the man but I’ve always imagined him turning his music up loud to cover the sounds from upstairs as his daughter cowered in the bathroom, first the sounds of vomiting, the tears, the stifled moans, the swallowed cries — then much, much worse. I imagine him with a large collection of LPs, and for some reason, when I torture myself by picturing what happened, it’s always an old Elton John song I hear: “The Bitch Is Back.”
Poor Barbara, trying to be quiet in the bathroom. Poor Barbara, who’d do anything not to be a burden to her dad. Poor Barbara, trying to be quiet as she threw up what felt like half her stomach lining, as something impossible took hold of her body and poked and pulled and twisted. Poor Barbara, who didn’t even scream when her bones started to stretch and elongate of their own accord, as her flesh alternately boiled away and swelled up, as her eyebrows shortened, her lips grew bulbous and her cheeks shrank away to almost nothing. Fully expecting to discover now that this was death, she somehow managed to crawl into her room and lie down, whimpering, on the bed. Eventually, when the pain had just begun to recede, she got up the courage to look in the mirror. Only then, only when she saw what they’d done to her, did she finally scream.
And then, at 5:30 P.M., Mr. Jasper came to call.
Silverman came running as soon as he heard, dashing along the corridor, skittering down hallways, practically bouncing off the walls, panting, perspiring, raggedly breathing. He knocked on the door to the prince’s private suite and walked in without waiting for an invitation. They had been friends for too long to worry about protocol, been through too much together to let etiquette stand in their way.
Even so, the prince looked annoyed at the interruption. He sat on the edge of his bed, breathing deeply, his face the color of semolina and wearing the look of a bunny on the motorway who knows that he will never make it to the verge in time.
The ghoul Streater stood over him, one hand placed, with casual proprietarialism, upon the royal shoulder. Silverman thought he even noticed a gentle squeeze.
“What is it, Silverman?” It was barely lunchtime, yet the prince sounded exhausted.
“We were all so worried about you, sir. You were out on your own without any kind of security detail-”
“Why does anyone give a fig how I choose to spend my time?”
“The tree-planting ceremony at the school, sir? The children were most disappointed.” At this, Silverman gave the prince a mildly reproving look — an expression which had often done the trick in the past, tweaking the royal conscience when they were both serving in the regiment and Private Wales had contemplated feigning sickness to wriggle out of training. Today, however, the prince scarcely seemed to notice that Silverman was in the room at all.
Mr. Streater looked the equerry up and down. “We went out, OK? I wanted Arthur to meet a couple of mates of mine.”
“Mates?” In other circumstances, Silverman might have found a certain humor in this, but today, one look at the pained and perplexed face of the prince was enough to quell the slightest hint of humor. “Why on earth would he be interested in your mates?”
Streater strutted over to the equerry and glared unflinchingly into his face. “What’s wrong with my mates? You think they’re not good enough for him?”
Silverman did what the middle classes usually do when confronted by blatant aggression. He backed down and started to apologize. “I didn’t mean any offense. I’m sure we’re both of us just as concerned about the prince’s welfare-”
Streater cut him dead. “Piss off.”
“Pardon
?”
“You heard me. Sling your hook.”
Arthur pulled at the man’s sleeve, more like a little boy than ever. “That’s enough, Silverman. I think it’s probably best you leave. I’m in excellent hands here.”
Silverman knew that something was disastrously wrong but decades of deference and duty ordered him to simply bow his head and shuffle toward the door. “If you’re sure, sir.”
“Quite sure,” said the prince. “In fact, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Silverman left the room feeling a horrible certainty that the situation had just passed the point when it could be safely contained. Unsure to whom he should turn but desperate to do something to help, he walked swiftly to his study, where he poured himself a generous gin and tonic and began to set arrangements in motion for an emergency meeting with the Princess of Wales.
As soon as the equerry had gone, the prince gave a dolorous sigh.
Streater patted him on the back. “Nice one, chief. You didn’t lose your rag. Thousands would’ve. Personally, I’d have lamped him. Wiped that greasy little smirk off his face. He’s laughing at you, chief. All the time. That man and your missus, they’re pissing themselves behind your back.”
“I can’t take it…,” Arthur murmured. “Silverman and Laetitia…”
Streater shrugged. “You saw the bloke. All panting and out of breath. Looked like he’d dressed in a hurry. Reckon he was still balls-deep in her when we got back.”
Arthur stared bleakly down at the elaborate weft of his carpet, a gift from some sheikh or other who multi-syllabic name temporarily eluded him. “I can’t get the image of that poor woman out of my head.”
“What woman?”
The prince made a pathetic little moaning sound. “At the station.”
“Oh, her. Well, that’s life, isn’t it? Her choice.”
“Surely she didn’t choose to die like that.”
“Them’s the breaks, Arthur. Them’s the breaks.”
“Can ampersand do that to anyone?”
“Only if you take way too much. Listen, mate, ampersand’s special stuff. It’s priming the population. It’s making them ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“For Leviathan. Keep up, chief. It’s more than a drug. First time I bought it off Peter at a gig, it changed my bloody life. I’d tried all kinds of shit before but this was something new. Lights. Colors. All kinds of trippy shit. I heard a voice.”
“I’ve heard no voice.”
“Give it time. With me — you couldn’t shut it up. Told me I’d been chosen…”
“I can’t stand this,” said the prince. “I believe I have begun to see what it is we are traveling toward and I cannot endure the thought of it.”
“I know what’ll cheer you up,” Mr. Streater said. “This’ll put a bit of lead in your pencil.” His hands retreated into his jacket pockets to re-emerge, predictably, with the sickening accoutrements of addiction — the tourniquet, the vial, the syringe.
“No,” Arthur muttered. “Put that stuff away. There’s been too much today.”
Streater’s voice took on a wheedling tone. “Come on, Arthur. Just a little hit. You must’ve missed it.”
The prince managed a final, token piece of objection: “Under the circumstances, I’m not sure it’s appropriate-”
“Shh.” Streater put his finger to his lips. “Not another word, chief. Not another peep. Just gimme your arm.”
Arthur began to fiddle with the cuffs on his left sleeve.
“The other one. Wanna fresh vein.”
He did as he was told.
“There you go! Now, lie back…”
The prince stretched out on the bed and let Streater do it to him again, savoring the tingly sense of anticipation, the needle’s teasing bite, the soothing warmth as the ampersand flowed into his system. He closed his eyes and slipped away — and as he slept he had the dream again, about the little boy and the small gray cat.
He woke to find sweat cooling unpleasantly on his body, Streater gone and the telephone by his bed ringing loudly.
The prince rubbed his eyes and struggled toward the receiver.
“Who the bloody hell is this?”
The voice was deep, gruff and filled with oddly mirthless laughter. “Hello, guv.”
“To whom am I speaking?”
“The name’s Detective Chief Inspector Virtue, guv. You’re on speakerphone with DS Mercy. We met earlier today.”
Arthur wondered how on earth they had got hold of his private number.
“You all right?” one of them asked.
“Thank you, Detective. I am perfectly well.”
“It’s just that I’ve been thinking. Well, we’ve been thinking. About your missus. Course we seen her on the telly. Succulent piece. Nice tush.”
Another voice chipped in now and Arthur could picture all too easily his bloated jowls and sunken chin, his fat lips smeared with animal grease.
“We’ve been thinking about all the things she lets him do to her. About his hairy arse in her face.”
The other one again: “We’ve been picturing their screws, guv. Their quickies. Their tumbles. Their knee tremblers.”
“We’ve been imagining the mucky bits on your behalf, guv. Been wondering who likes it dirty. Who likes it rough. Who puts what in where.”
“I hope you appreciate this, guv. We’re looking out for you here. We’re watching yer back.”
The conversation which followed was a long one, endlessly, inventively upsetting, and by the time detectives Virtue and Mercy had finished speaking, the prince’s eyes were red and raw from weeping.
Chapter 21
We were waiting at the Directorate in expectation of a miracle. That was what the odious Mr. Jasper had called her — “a genuine, irrefutable, copper-bottomed miracle.”
Dedlock’s squad of killers had found nothing. Hawker and Boon were still at large and the air seemed to crackle with a perplexing combination of urgency and exhaustion.
I stood apart from the others, staring out of the pod, past the illusory tourists and toward the real world, where, beyond the mirage of camera wielders and guidebook flourishers, I could see the snake of real punters waiting patiently in line. Past them — the lights of the South Bank, the neon and halogen of real life.
A hand on my shoulder. “You look tired, Henry.”
It was Miss Morning, more battle weary than ever.
“I am,” I said. “And I’m starting to wonder whether this miracle of Jasper’s is ever going to show up.”
Mr. Jasper strolled over to us, a look of smug self-satisfaction uncurling itself across his face. “Trust me,” he said, “she’ll be worth the wait.”
In this, if in nothing else, Jasper was right. As we watched, the queue of tourists began to part in wonder and envy as a woman, a stranger, strode through the crowd and stepped smartly into the pod like she belonged there. The door hissed shut and we began to move, but with a judder, as though even the Eye itself had been thrown off kilter by the newcomer.
Straightaway we knew that she was what we’d been waiting for, that she was Jasper’s miracle.
She was tapered, statuesque, with a mane of jet-black hair, and the curves of her exquisite figure were encased in a tightly belted trench coat which flapped about her like a cape. She was flawlessly complexioned and what light make-up she had applied served only to accentuate the splendor of her cheekbones, the imperious curve of her nose, the glacial sensuality of her lips. Most striking of all were her eyes. Once they had been turned upon you, it was impossible to imagine denying her anything she might desire.
There was something terrible about this woman. Hers was the bleak beauty of nature, the desolate grandeur of an ice field, the awful grace of a tiger stalking its prey.
But the most surprising thing of all was that I thought I recognized her from somewhere.
“Barbara?” I asked.
I looked closer and I was certain. It
was her. A stretched, plucked, distended parody of her, perhaps, but unquestionably the girl from the office all the same. She favored me briefly with a condescending glance but did not offer a reply.
“Gentlemen.” Jasper was wearing the look of the cardsharp who knows he can never lose a game. “This is our hunter.”
The woman did not smile or bow or in any way acknowledge the introduction but gazed at us in much the same way that the first Cro-Magnon may have surveyed a gathering of Neanderthals.
“Remarkable,” Miss Morning murmured. “Repugnantly immoral, of course, but still — remarkable.”
“Barbara?” I asked again. “It is you, isn’t it?”
She turned her head in my direction with a motion that was strangely mechanical. I noticed that she already wore the same earpiece as the rest of us and I wondered if I might not be able to hear the whir of motors, the clank of gears.
“Hello, Henry,” she said, and I could tell from her voice that it was still her. Changed, alchemized, transformed, but somehow still Barbara. Her perfect lips formed words as though they were still learning how. “Barbara’s in her somewhere. Buried very deep. She says hello.” The word ‘hello’ was spoken as though it was barely familiar to her, alien and slightly dirty, like a judge struggling with the patois of some young offender brought before him in the dock.
I turned to Jasper. “What the hell have you done to her?”
He giggled. “I’ve made her better. This is Estella come back to us. This is victory.”
“Enough,” Dedlock snapped. “I want proof.”
Barbara sashayed past and walked as close to the tank as she could. “The first Estella is inside me. And she knows you, Mr. Dedlock.” Why, at this, I was put in mind of Marilyn singing “Happy Birthday” to the president, I really couldn’t fathom.
“Estella…,” the old man stuttered. “You’ve come back to me.”
“It’s good to be back, sir,” she said, although her voice was wholly without conviction.
The man in the tank squirmed. If it had been possible for us to see, I have no doubt that Dedlock’s upper lip would have been coated in sweat, in the shifty rime of mendacity and betrayal. “How much do you remember?”
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