by Tim Lebbon
“You’re a prick with a ‘P’.”
“Do you really need to be so foul?” Kris-with-a-K seemed genuinely offended, and Angela burst out laughing. It sounded manic, and quickly headed toward tears, so she turned away from him and looked through the window. She could see her own reflection, and the grief and terror in her eyes.
Vince was gone. He had come to find her, hidden away when she saw him, and then died out there in the street, in front of the place where they had grown to love each other. No one had come to help.
Reflected in the glass was herself without him. It was jarring and awful.
“What would Mary Rock want with me?” she asked.
“None of us presume to know what Mary wants,” Kris said. At that, Claudette turned on the car stereo and started playing Metallica. Pounding drums and bass, thrashing guitar, and growled lyrics formed a theme to Angela’s grief as they headed into wider streets with larger houses on both sides.
Her breath misted the window, faded, misted again. Her forehead bounced against the glass as it vibrated. Lucy wouldn’t miss her until morning, her neighbours wouldn’t notice her absence for days. For the rest of the night she might as well have never existed.
She was shaking with sick loss, and a desperate sense of unfairness at a world that could give her Vince, and then take him away again. She inhaled and smelled his breath. She blinked and saw his smile. Shock still numbed her, and she guessed that was good. To lose herself now would be to submit any control she had left.
Vince would want me to survive!
Examining her surroundings through the unmisted window, trying to keep track of where they were going, she slipped her left hand toward her jeans pocket. But her phone was gone. Of course it was. These people were professionals. When she’d mentioned Claudette and Harry to Fat Frederick, she’d seen a glimmer of something in his eyes that she realised now might have been fear. If a man like that feared Mary Rock…
Right then she couldn’t find it in herself to be scared. She existed at a strange distance from the world, a chasm ringing with echoes of a cracking skull and a terrified scream, and memories of a dream that never was.
“So you’re her goons,” she said, not even bothering to raise her voice above the music. “That’s what they call people like you, isn’t it? Goons. You do her evil bidding. Execute competitors. Run the drug supply networks. Collect protection money.” She glanced at the others in the car, and Kris was staring at her, frowning. Almost as if he’d heard. “Goon,” Angela said, louder.
Kris looked away.
Angela searched her memory, tried to recall what she’d heard about Mary Rock, and it didn’t take long. Where Fat Frederick Meloy perpetuated the myths surrounding him, Mary Rock was altogether a more obscure figure. More Keyser Soze than Al Capone, hers was a name uttered with a smile or a raised eyebrow, as if the speaker was never quite sure if they were subject of a joke. Rumour had it that she was an enabler for the obscenely rich, the wealthy criminals, and often a combination of the two. She made things possible. Illegal things, wrong things, yet she always remained several steps removed.
Angela found that she didn’t give a shit whether Mary Rock was real or not.
The car turned left into another wide street, this one lined with mature trees and with very few cars parked on the roadway. The houses here were hidden behind tall walls or banks of shrubs and trees, the driveway entrances mostly guarded by stone pillars and metal or timber gates. A few of them stood open, most were closed. They drove toward an open driveway, Claudette taking them through without pause.
Darkness intensified as they left the streetlights behind. The gardens were heavily planted, mature growth sheltering deep shadows and huddles of shrubs that writhed and flexed as the car’s lights washed over them. Wheels whispered over gravel, a smooth ride, and they soon slowed to a halt in front of a large house. Claudette had swung the car around so that the house was on Angela’s side.
It was big, but not imposing. A two-story facade of London brick, door in the center, two windows to either side on both levels. Curved steps led up to the front door, and an attractive flower border separated the building from the stark driveway. Trellises adorned with climbing roses clung between windows, and low-level lighting illuminated the house, both from eaves-level and from down within the planting beds. Several security cameras were visible, small and subtle.
Angela made out a couple of outbuildings which might have been garages or workshops, but other than those the property seemed unremarkable. Somewhere she’d never hope to live, sure, but nothing that wasn’t repeated across London five thousand times over. The place projected a restrained opulence, a shy, almost apologetic luxury.
“Come on,” Claudette said. “Time to see the lady.”
“Fuck you.”
Claudette sighed. The atmosphere in the car changed. The three people looked at each other, each of them waiting for another to talk.
“Look, we’re not going to hurt you,” Kris said.
“After what you did to Vince?” She could barely talk. Once again, voicing what she had seen felt like acknowledging it, externalizing it, and making it real. She didn’t feel ready for that. Not in front of these bastards.
“That wasn’t us,” Claudette said. She turned away from them all, stared out of her window into the dark gardens.
“Bullshit!” Angela shouted.
“It wasn’t!” Harry said, like a kid accused of stealing a bike.
“You were quick enough to… to scoop him up.”
Harry smiled. “Would’ve been a waste otherwise.”
She wanted to say more, scream some more, reach out and hurt every one of them, but her voice had stopped working, stolen by tears, and she could only use her arms to hug herself.
Kris got out and came around to her side, opened the door, and gently cupped her elbow.
“Come on, now,” he said. She let him guide her from the car, and when her legs weakened he held her up. “We’re really not going to hurt you.”
Maybe it was his age lending gravitas, but she found herself believing him.
They waited at the bottom of the steps while Claudette opened the front door. She and Harry disappeared through it, and moments later Harry emerged and waved them forward. Kris guided her up the several stone steps and inside.
They stepped into a large hallway, with a wide staircase heading up on the right and doors leading off on either side. Most of them were open. Paintings hung on the walls. They looked original, and expensive. A corridor led past the staircase, and at its end another door opened onto a brightly lit kitchen. A shape passed the kitchen door and glanced out at them, uninterested. The man was wearing a chef’s outfit, and the smells of cooking wafted out to them.
Angela hadn’t eaten for a while, but she didn’t feel even slightly hungry.
“Dining room?” Kris asked.
Claudette and Harry stood close to the staircase.
“Not today,” Claudette said. “Take her through to the library.” She nodded toward a door to the right, and Kris guided her that way—his hand on her arm gentle but insistent. As he did Angela looked left. The dining room door was open a crack, and she only caught a glimpse, but it looked like it was being prepared for a large formal feast.
They entered a living room that betrayed signs of a family in residence—spilled DVD cases next to the massive TV, dolls lined on the leather sofa as if to watch, several board games stacked on one of the wide alcove shelves. There were paintings and other works of art. The carpet was deep and lush. Angela thought they probably shouldn’t be in here with their shoes on.
She barked a laugh, then looked down at Kris’s feet.
“Mess up the carpet,” she said.
He didn’t respond.
Kris opened a door at the rear of the living room and they passed through into a library. It smelled shockingly familiar, with the must of books, dust, and the faint, warm scent of old leather-bound volumes. She’d been in m
any libraries before, public and private, and they always made her feel at home. Being surrounded by so many stories made her feel a part of things.
Here, now, she only felt alone.
She looked around for a phone, but there was nothing. Just several comfortable chairs, a couple of beanbags, and a large, low coffee table scattered with books and a few used mugs. In one corner was a child’s section, a splash of garish colour amongst the browns and reds.
Another door on the other side of the library opened, and Claudette stuck her head in.
“She’ll be here soon.”
“Will she want me here?” Kris asked.
“Dunno.” Claudette disappeared.
“Take a seat,” Kris said to Angela.
“My boyfriend’s dead.”
“Just take a seat.”
She didn’t know how she was staying so composed. The distance that had fallen around her remained. She thought perhaps this strangeness, and everything that had happened since Vince failed to come home, was enforcing a calm. She should have been raging in grief, inconsolable, unable to think or walk straight, yet she felt remarkably composed. Guilt dug deep at that, but she was also eager to accept such composure. She’d need it.
Something more was happening here, and she wanted to know what. She had seen a murder—
Vince. I saw Vince kicked to death in the street.
—and when the time came, she wanted as much detail as possible to tell the police.
The door opened again and a small, gray-haired woman entered the room. She was black, wrinkled, old, yet she carried herself with such poise it was very hard to pin down her age. She walked directly toward Angela, looking her straight in the eye. As she did so, she smiled.
“Please, take a seat,” she said. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
The woman nodded at Kris, who walked past her and out through the open door.
“You’re Mary Rock?” Angela asked.
The woman’s smile remained as she nodded her head from side to side.
“From time to time,” she said. “It’s a name that has its uses.”
“So what do I call you?”
“Mary is fine. Please… sit.” She spoke quietly, but with a command in her voice that Angela felt compelled to obey. She reminded her of an old school principal. Although Mrs. King had been white, much younger, and large, her voice had held the same tone. Confidence, conviction, control.
Angela sat in one of the armchairs, and Mary Rock lowered herself into another.
“You’ve had a trying couple of days,” Mary said.
Angela said nothing. She still didn’t know why she was here. Somehow insulated from the shock of what she had seen, and the grief—like an observer viewing a recording of events rather than living them herself—she vowed to take advantage of that condition. She would gather all the information she could about these people, and end them. They had a part in what had happened, and blame must come home to roost.
Yet Mary’s relaxed and confident demeanour wasn’t the manner of a murderer.
“We have a lot to discuss,” the old woman said. “Some of it might be a surprise to you, and most of it, I’m afraid, you’re not going to like. Before we start the conversation, however, I want you to see something.”
“And what’s that?” Angela asked.
“My fairy.” The woman’s gaze did not falter. She did not betray Fat Frederick’s childlike glee, but neither did she appear to be waiting for a reaction.
“Boring,” Angela said. “Already saw an angel today.”
“You saw a dead one,” Mary Rock said. “Follow me. While we walk, I need to lay out some ground rules.” She stood and turned her back on Angela, just as Kris opened the door and entered with a tray containing coffee cups and a cafetiere.
“Dead?” Angela asked as she stood.
“We’ll have it when we return,” Mary said to Kris.
“You’re showing her?” he asked, looking aghast.
“Why not?” Mary said, glancing back at Angela. “We need her on our side, and she looks like a woman who cares.”
“Dead?” Angela asked again. “As opposed to what?” But Mary was very much in charge of this conversation.
“Oh, and by the way,” Mary Rock said, “that bastard Vince is still very much alive.”
* * *
Angela expected to be taken down to a lower level, but Mary Rock led her through the busy kitchen into an annex, and then up a narrow staircase at the rear of the house. There was a small landing, then another twisting staircase that curved up into an attic area.
“Don’t try to touch it,” Mary said, and she wasn’t even slightly out of breath. “It’s protected by an electronic field, so you’ll get electrocuted.”
“What do you mean, Vince isn’t dead?” Angela’s thoughts were in turmoil. Her skin tingled, her insides buzzed as if from electricity. Can I really afford to believe? She wanted to sit down and gather herself, center her emotions, and try to pin down exactly what was happening here, but Mary would not stop. So Angela had no choice but to follow.
“Just what I said,” she said, “but we’ll talk more about him later.” She said “him” as if spitting a vile taste from her mouth.
“If Vince isn’t dead, then who—?”
“If you discuss with anyone what you’re about to see, they’ll never believe you. You’ll be regarded as a fool. Mad. And you’ll put yourself in terrible danger.”
“From you?”
The attic was lit by a couple of bare bulbs, and there were no nods to aesthetics. Not even carpet. Mary crossed the open space and paused by an innocuous wooden door. It looked old, warped in its frame, but Mary lifted a small timber hatch to reveal an electronic lock pad.
“Make no sudden movements,” she said, fixing Angela with her gaze.
Angela smiled uncertainly, holding back a laugh. The smile slipped when Mary’s stare did not alter.
“What have you got in there?” she asked softly.
“I told you.” Mary tapped in a code. Angela tried to watch, but the woman shielded the pad with her body. The door hissed open. The timber was merely the facing to a modern metal door, with multiple locks and several small, purple lights that ran down its leading edge and must have been some form of alarm. She stepped through.
Angela followed her inside, and the door whispered shut behind them.
The room was lit by a subdued, bluish light, smoothing the bare walls and ceiling and washing across the lowered area that took up more than half the space. The two of them stood on a narrow walkway, and in a sunken pit below them—beyond a fence of narrow electrical wires on porcelain stems—was the fairy.
It was old, dusty and dead, just like the angel she had seen at Fat Frederick’s place. Coming in here, Angela had held only a shred of doubt, and as she stood there and stared, everything she had so recently experienced winnowed that doubt down to nothing.
The fairy was the size of a toddler, probably no more than three feet tall. It was displayed curled in on itself as if asleep, its graceful hands folded beneath its head, athletic legs drawn up so that its knees almost touched its chest. Even in death it retained an ethereal beauty, but there was also something troubling about the remains.
Lacerations, grazes, and impact wounds scarred its body.
Angela moved slightly to the side and crouched a little, looking closer at its face. The creature wore a frown, fossilised there forever and giving it an eternally sad visage. She wondered how it had died. She wondered who or what had killed it.
“It looks so sad,” she said.
“It is,” Mary Rock whispered.
Angela frowned, went to ask something more…
…when the fairy opened its eyes.
13
The safe place was close. It wasn’t the only one in London, but this was the main one. Over the years the number of safe places had diminished. Some were discovered by those who searched for Lilou and her like, as mom
ents of violence and upheaval were quickly followed by long periods of silence and stillness when they went to ground.
They were good at doing that. Hiding had become second nature to them. But more and more recently, they’d had to expose themselves and put themselves at risk.
As she moved, Lilou turned heads. She could not help it. Moving past a pub on the opposite side of the road, she saw several faces turning her way. Some were drinking on the street outside, but a couple of them watched her through the windows, glasses half raised and their thoughts no doubt tumbling, stuttering, losing themselves as they watched her enter and leave their lives again so quickly.
Deeper urges stirred, but she had learned long ago to master them.
She maintained caution, because the sticky blood was still on her fingers.
Avoiding illuminated areas as much as possible, wearing the darkness like clothing, Lilou made her way through the streets and back home. It took her longer than it had on the way out, because of what had happened. She was not really scared, but she was aware that danger might even now be stalking her. Senses alert for the stench of him, the sound of his heavy footsteps pounding in pursuit, the sight of his form breaking cover and coming at her, she counted as a blessing every second that passed.
She reached her destination at last, and it was then that she turned and ran back the way she had come. There were still no signs of pursuit. She circled the area, ducked into an alley and waited for half an hour, then moved again. At last, certain she was alone, she climbed a drainpipe, scampered across a roof, and dropped down on the other side.
Muscles singing from exertion, breathing labored but silent, she entered the building through a maintenance door and hid in a cleaner’s cupboard to gather herself.
The sense of anger and grief was rich, but she would not let it possess her until she was completely safe.
At that thought she gave a silent, bitter laugh.
Safe? Where, when, and what is that?
Calmed down, listening intently, opening the door carefully, she left the cupboard. It was almost midnight, and the offices were empty. They took up all but three floors of the old tower block. A few low-level security lights remained on, and here and there dormant computer monitors cast a sterile blue glow over workstations scattered with family photos, files, and empty food wrappers. Spaces more used to bustle remained silent, and the whole atmosphere was one of a held breath.
