‘Wankers.’
His venom spent, Matt returned to his story of the enlarged body parts he had discovered in the derelict hospital. Fergus drew deeply of his pint, pleased that this excused him from talking. Instead he listened as Matt moved into the operating theatre, where gowns still hung like ghosts in an ante room. His excitement in the retelling was childlike, an endearing naivety quite beyond a concern with consequences.
The story had only reached the roof by the time Steve arrived and Fergus felt cheated that he would not hear how they had escaped, untroubled, from the building. The three conspirators settled on another drink before they headed off into the darkening lanes that clustered around Cloth Fair. Beyond the ripples of light and sound that marked the way back to The Hand and Shears, the narrow streets were silent but for the echoes of their steps; the houses blind with darkened windows.
The solitude did not last. Emerging onto Aldersgate Street through a narrow passage, the brightness and din of London re-established itself, became a wall. Across the street, the tower rose above them, blacker than the darkening sky. Where before the walls had seemed simply impassable, they now took on a more menacing and forbidding aspect. There seemed no way in, and Fergus hoped vainly that they would have to abandon their attempt. But Steve led them across the road and down a ramp that curved below street level.
In the shadows below, Matt pulled up the hood of his jersey, as did Steve – from a small back pack he pulled a peaked cap, which he handed to Fergus. Once all were obscured, Steve pressed a finger to his lips and indicated that they should wait beside a large metal gate. The minutes crawled, but then there were lights dancing in the darkness and the gate swung inwards. With a purr, a car pulled past them and swung slowly up the ramp. The driver did not see the three figures slip between the closing gates, illuminated by the fading red glow.
The harsh white light of the lift was brutal, and Fergus instinctively pulled the peak of his cap lower over his face. Numbers illuminated and climbed on the panel beside the door, until it they reached 41; the door slid open and revealed the subdued lighting of the triangular lobby. The sound of the closing lift doors sank into the thick carpet underfoot. Three doors led on from the lobby, including one marked with the number 411. But Steve passed by without a glance and led them onto the landing of the fire escape. At the very top of the staircase, he eased open a door to reveal a ladder. With a smile and a cock of his head, he began to scale the last few metres of the tower.
38
There was only the single red eye, flicking left and right. Fergus could feel it hunting him, searching him out in the darkness of Maltravers’ living room. Nothing else was visible, only patches of blurred blackness on a field of blackness. And the light. He should look away, he knew, let his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom, but he was transfixed by it and so remained locked in the darkness of the apartment.
On the roof top, the lights of the city had provided sufficient illumination. They had been able to pick their way without difficulty through the blocks of metal and concrete that littered the platform atop the tower. The footholds and grips that had made finding the way down onto the terrace possible had been clearly visible. And in the night’s glow, Steve had eased open the unlocked glass door that led into the flat with a single touch.
But here, inside, the dancing lights of the external city only deepened the blackness. Fergus could not make out the shapes that threatened to appear from the gloom as his eyes gradually grew accustomed, and so he stood transfixed by the light of the burglar alarm, too afraid to move, to breathe. He felt the swirl of displaced air as one of his companions strode out into the darkness, smoothly, unimpeded; heard the feet slap gently on the wooden floor, heard clicks and snaps, then saw Steve’s smile through the stew of grey. The red light had disappeared.
‘I thought you’d never done a break in before?’
Fergus had had his suspicions about Steve, even when he had indignantly denied any criminality.
‘No, I said I’d never burgled a place before – not ‘til now. I’ve been in flats and houses though, just never taken anything. Never left a trace. I’ll reset the alarm when we leave.’
Matt’s flashlight flicked on and its beam jittered about the room, casting fleeting shadows. Fergus followed its path to the kitchen, where he lit his own torch. In the corner was a bowl of cat food, half eaten; a small white cup sat lonely on the counter, the only testament to the apartment’s human occupation. He understood now the urge to explore, to open every cupboard and draw, and felt queasy at its seduction. He dragged himself back to the task at hand, and into the living room.
‘What does this thing look like anyways?’
Matt was by some shelves arranged along one wall, his lamp light licking the artefacts they housed. Frozen faces glared back in their brief illumination, some painted, others in naked stone or polished wood. The shadows contorted his face and form too, as he moved along the cabinet, studying each object in turn. Across the room, Steve was on his haunches staring into the lamp-lit face of a cow.
‘It’s just a big stone. Like a granite doughnut. But it’s got a cross scratched into the top of it, like a hot-cross bun. I don’t know how big it is to be honest. I’ve only seen a photo...’
Fergus was interrupted by a hiss from the darkness, then a yowl; there was a clatter and a stumbling and an abrupt yelp from Steve.
‘Fucking hell! What the fuck was that? Fuck!’
Almost instantly the room lights were ablaze and Steve was sitting on the sofa, clutching his cheek with his left hand. Matt remained with the light switches and swept the room intently, his eyes narrowed, his skin taut. But while a hundred eyes stared back at him, none of them belonged to a living creature.
Steve peeled his hand from his face and winced at the red stickiness that had collected there. His cheek was tracked with four risen scores, each running maybe two inches in parallel. Bulbs of blood swelled under each before beginning a slow descent towards his jaw. Fergus offered his handkerchief mutely; Steve accepted it and pressed it firmly to his face.
‘I was just looking at this bull when, wham, something hits me, slices me. It was like a knife cutting me, and then there’s all this hissing and squalling. What the fuck man?’
He stared intently at the bull, then looked to the demon with six arms standing behind the sofa with suspicion; in one of the hands was a trident.
‘Don’t be fucking stupid. It was a cat, mate. A fucking cat.’
Matt was pointing at a large grey cat, back arched, standing in the shadows by the bottom of the stairs. Its tail flicked like a serpent’s tongue and, while it did not advance, it showed no signs of retreating either.
‘I think you woke it up. You probably sat on its tail or something.’
Matt laughed at the absurdity.
‘I suppose it’s too late to be much use turning these lights off? Can you see it, Fergus? Any hot cross buns among the demons?’
It took fifteen minutes to be sure that the cursing stone was not there. Steve and the cat kept a close watch on each other throughout the search: the cat glared from the bottom step of the stairs, its tail counting out the seconds as they passed. By the end, Steve had to pull Fergus by the shoulder from the study that led off from the living room. They sat disconsolate for a few moments at the dining table, Fergus thinking only of his failure. He shaped his mouth, and then again, but could find nothing to say.
‘Hey Fergus! Up here! I think I’ve found it. Fetch that knapsack up, will you?’
Matt’s voice, a little too loud, drifted down the stair way. They had not noticed his absence, lost as they were in their own disappointments, and only slowly realised that he had slipped upstairs to the very top of the tower. Had it not been for the cat, Fergus doubted that he would have noticed the staircase at all. Caution abandoned, he scraped his chair over the floor and, with building speed, ascended. By the top he was taking two steps at a time and was breathless when he reached Matt in the bedroom. He was by the window
, gazing out onto another terrace. Fergus scanned the room. Seeing nothing that resembled the stone, he followed Matt’s eyes to the circular table outside. At its centre was a stone.
‘A big fucking doughnut, right?’
He reached out his hand toward it, but the window held him back. Fergus could only rest his palm on the glass, while a thin tear escaped over his eyelid and glanced off the smooth cheek below. Embarrassed, he gripped his bottom lip between his teeth and tried to contain the relief that the stone released and the unexpected sadness that he now knew would follow.
Steve stood behind them for a moment, then turned his attention to the door. The lock this time thwarted him. He swore, his frustration now as acute as that of the others. Carelessly he took the picture frame from the window sill and threw it onto the bed. The latch squealed and the window complained as he slid it open. His foot on the sill, he was out onto the terrace and to the table in an instant. There he paused, his back to the others; the hum of the city rose on the night air. A sigh, and Steve lifted the stone to his chest and turned back to the window.
‘Fuck, that’s heavy. Shit. We’re never going get this up over the roof. And that little rucksack is going to be next to useless.’
Fergus heard the crush of the wooden window frame as Steve rested the stone there. So close now. Behind him, Matt was rooting through the wardrobe, scattering bags and boxes across the floor.
So close. To have come so close.
From the other side of the open window, Steve’s eyes looked straight into his, a mirror of his own anger and frustration. Their hands also, planted gently on the dome of the cursing stone, formed a symmetry, one resting in each of the stone’s four quarters. Steve began to say something, but his eyes slipped from Fergus, over his shoulder and into the room beyond. A small smile, the hint of a nod.
‘I think we’ve blown any chance of leaving without a trace, but this should be strong enough to carry it.’
Surrounded by the contents of Maltravers’ wardrobe, Matt held a large leather holdall, the kind with handles that wrap all the way around the bottom of the bag. It would take the weight of the stone and could be easily carried by two people, one holding each handle. Fergus laughed.
‘Aye, I think he’ll know we’ve been. So much for getting away scot-free. Anyhow, shall we go? I mean, let’s just walk out the front door. Nothing to lose now.’
‘Except it’s double locked. And unless you’ve seen a spare key lying around, we’re going to need a hammer and chisel. And for the neighbours to be deaf. We’re better having a go at the roof.’
Matt was already at the window, lifting the stone into the mouth of the leather bag. As he did so, his bottom lip protruded in appraisal of the weight, his head bobbling and his eyes raised to the night sky.
‘Yeah, I reckon it’s ten, maybe twelve kilos. There’s three of us, so should be alright. Shall we? I fancy a pint.’
39
With every jolt, the bus reopened pain in his abdomen and the ache bloomed. The exertions of hoisting the stone up and over the roof of Lauderdale Tower had ignited the welt bulging beneath his ribs. In the night air, his grimaces had remained unseen, but once on the stairway back to the lift lobby, Matt had raised an eyebrow before taking the leather straps from his hand, carrying the holdall in tandem with Steve, until they had reached the bus stop by the cathedral.
On Hinba, or in any other place Fergus could imagine, they could only have looked suspicious, or at least odd, even in the electric darkness of Friday evening. But none of the people scuttling over the pavement, towards home or towards a bar, gave them a second look, simply rolling their eyes at the obstruction they caused. They had passed the ruins of a church where men with beards and shabby clothes gathered around a bench to share cigarettes and to drink from cans. Emerging into the bright light of a too-pristine square, men in suits stood in little corrals outside a bar, smoking and drinking lager, noisy and provocative. They had skirted the steps of the great temple, still spotted with seated tourists, wondering where next they should head; above them rose two stocky towers and a dome of preposterous proportions, topped with a golden cross that glinted in the lights from below. And then they had waited for the bus to labour up the slight hill and to open its doors to them.
As the bus meandered eastwards, the conspirators said little, content to breathe in the relief of their liberty. Fergus kept the holdall tight between his feet, one leg looped through a handle, and watched his face shimmer in the window. Behind him, he heard Matt on the phone, calling the house, calling Ruby, to give their news, so that preparations could be made, so that Ruby could stop her worrying, could relax, rejoice.
Fergus wanted to ask her if she was glad that it was over, that her unexpected houseguest would be leaving shortly, if she knew either way, happy or sad. He knew of course that, even if it were he talking with her on the phone or even beside her in the privacy of the house, after the others had turned in for the night, he would not be able to do so. He tried nonetheless to picture her face at the moment of hearing, but his imagination gave him no clues as to whether this moment was a moment for rejoicing, or one for regret.
As the bus moved off from its stop, it swayed violently and Fergus put his hand to his stomach to contain the ache. A young woman swung onto the top deck from the stairs, laughing with whoever was on the other end of the phone line; she sat in the seat immediately in front of him and continued to talk excitedly about her evening. Her head bobbed and her hair danced across her shoulders. Among the tresses, something flashed white, a playing card in a magic trick. Only in a stationary moment, while she paused to allow the other to speak, did Fergus realise that it was the shop tag still attached to the back of her dress. He did not recognise the retailer’s marquee and could not make out the price, but he wondered if he should tap her on the shoulder, if mentioning the offending square of cardboard to her would make her happier or sadder.
Most of the food was eaten, but gobs of sauce lurked in the corners of the tin boxes scattered across the table top; some pieces of brown-blistered bread remained and rice grains clung in clumps to the plates. There were empty cans too – the ones still containing beer had moved with the people to the sofas of the other room. The cat considered for some moments the piece of chicken, painted brilliant red, that had been placed in his dish. He bent forward to smell it, withdrew, then returned, this time extending a pink flash of tongue in exploration. He recoiled, coughed, then slunk into the living room in search of other distractions.
‘But the views! Fucking hell, all of London, just stretched out like that. Beautiful.’
Matt’s exuberant retelling of their adventure stilled a little at the thought of the lights and absences that had etched the shape of his city from the vantage of Lauderdale Tower. Steve rose to leave, handing the sleeping Lou to his mother; it was very nearly midnight and the story of their visit to Maltravers’ flat had been told twenty times. It was time to head home. Fergus received Steve’s last embrace before he departed; he thanked him fulsomely for his help and promised to say nothing, should the question be asked. As Steve left the room, his shadow peeling slowly from the door frame, Fergus slumped gracelessly onto the sofa once more. A moment later, Bridget wished him good night from the hall, taking Lou with her, to settle him for the night.
‘Well, big man, I’m off to bed too. I’ll see you in the morning, before you head off, right?’
Matt bumped his fist gently against Fergus’s wavering outstretched hand. He flashed a demonic grin at Ruby, then dragged the dozing Jacob from his armchair.
‘I’ll throw this one onto his bed. Leave the stuff in the kitchen Ruby – we’ll sort it out in the morning, OK?’
Ruby nodded. Unlike other evenings, she was happy to leave the detritus for another time. She slumped onto the sofa next to Fergus, only to rise immediately to claim to cans of beer from the low table.
‘Cheers, Fergus. I still think it was madness, but I am pleased that you’ve got your butterlump
back. I hope it helps. With your granddad. With everything.’
Now he could ask her. Now, here, he could ask if his leaving made her happy or sad. He could find the words, rolling loose in his mouth, that might end the ambiguity. Only the cat was a witness to whatever his drunkenness might say to her drunkenness. And his leaving tomorrow meant that anything remembered could be forgotten soon enough, would not matter, unless it mattered. He could ask, could find out how she felt. How he felt.
But he did not ask. Words seemed suddenly superfluous; instead he turned to her curious, smiling face and he kissed her. Or tried to kiss her. It was not clear to him whether what passed between them counted as a kiss; their mouths had met and he had felt the coolness of her tongue against his, but he could not tell how much time passed before he felt her tensing, felt her hands hard against his shoulders, pushing. It might have been moments, or not time at all, but it was over quickly. Ruined. He pulled away in horror of himself.
‘Hey, it’s OK Fergus. I’m not angry. Just, I’ve got a boyfriend. And you’re engaged. Got to sort that stuff out, before, you know. Up to you, really. But I’m not two-timing anyone, and I’m nobody’s holiday shag.’
She stroked his arm while she spoke, and his cheeks reddened all the more at her touch.
When he had left the house, finally, she had embraced him, kissed him bloodlessly on the cheek, told him it was all good, that they were good, that he should stay in touch. And she had waved and smiled as he had trudged down the steps, the leather bag that contained his notebooks and his few clothes, wrapped around the cursing stone, gently swinging at his side. Matt and Bridget and Lou had also embraced him, told him the same things, but he had not heard them. Only the pressure of Ruby’s arms had reached his skin through the back of his jacket, his shirt. As he’d dropped the bag onto the back seat of Jacob’s car, had slid into the passenger seat, lowered the window, he had only heard her farewell wishes. He had watched her vanish from the rear-view mirror, as Jacob turned the car past St Dunstan’s and past the wary goats.
The Cursing Stone: a gripping mystery and family saga Page 21
