by Megan Tayte
Waves buffeted me and I let them, rocking on my feet, as I waited for the crunch:
Luke ran fingers through his hair, hit a tangle, tugged hard. ‘The thing is, Scarlett, he’s adamant that now, more than ever, you need to come to him, to his home.’ When he saw my expression he added quickly, ‘He promises you’ll be safe there. And I thought… well, it’s a place away from people where you can get a break, avoid overload.’
‘That’s your big plan?’ I said. ‘You want me to go and stay with the Fallen?’
‘No. Yes. It’s just, if Gabe knows –’
He broke off to yank me out of Speedo Man’s suddenly veering path. ‘Oi!’ he shouted as the guy splashed past.
‘Don’t,’ I said as Luke took a step towards the man, who was executing a tumble turn with all the grace of an inebriated manatee.
‘He nearly mowed you down,’ Luke growled.
I turned away and waded for the steps; I really wasn’t in the mood to watch Luke defend my honour. Out of the water I felt heavy and tired – and shivery. I headed straight towards the bench on which we’d left our stuff. I was reaching for my bathrobe when I heard Luke say my name, and the shock in his voice made me snap my head around.
‘What is it? Oh.’
Luke was standing dripping on the poolside and staring at my back, on display in the bikini I’d borrowed from Cara. More specifically, he was staring at the thick, long, ugly scar running from just below the nape of my neck to the base of my spine. The scar I’d got trying to heal my mother. The scar I’d kept well hidden ever since.
I twisted away and grabbed the bathrobe and pulled it on. I was struggling to tie the belt when Luke stepped in front of me and put his hands over mine, stilling them.
‘Look at me,’ he said.
I couldn’t.
‘Please,’ he said.
I didn’t move.
Behind us, right behind us, the swimming man finished a length and stopped to hack up some phlegm.
‘That’s it!’ Luke snapped. He reached out and flung open a glass door and hustled me into a small room overlooking the pool, then closed the door behind us. ‘Now we can talk. Alone.’
Looking around, he said, ‘Hey, this is mellow. The lighting. The music. The little benches. The… wow it’s hot.’ He peered at a sign by the door. ‘Sanarium. What’s that? Hang on – safety instructions: exit immediately if dizzy or drowsy. Right, out we go…’
But I was still locked into ‘You want me to go and stay with the Fallen?’ and I’d already sunk onto a bench, deep in thought.
I knew Gabe wanted me to visit him; when we’d met on the beach at Twycombe he’d said that was his reason for seeking me out in the first place. I remembered Gabe’s response when I’d demanded to know why:
‘So we can get to know each other. So we can talk, at length. So I can help you understand how we come to be in the positions we are today – me, your mother, your sister, you. And so that we can work together to help your sister.’
I also remembered Luke’s reaction to Gabe’s invite: ‘Definitely not.’
‘You were so against me going with Gabe,’ I said now to Luke. ‘You were horrified.’
He quit fiddling with the door and I saw his shoulders rise and fall with the breath he took. Then he came to sit beside me.
‘I was,’ he admitted. ‘I still am. But I saw how he was with you that day, at your mum’s. And you need answers. All of them. About your past, and about your mum. Gabe’s lot is looking for her attacker – perhaps knowing what they know will help you feel less powerless.’
‘But aren’t you frightened I’ll be swept away in all their vengeance and become one of them?’
‘Of course not,’ he said quickly. ‘I know you. That’s not you.’
Still, I saw it in his eyes: the fear.
All at once, I realised what it must have taken for him to come here and support me in going to my father’s side, my sister’s side. He didn’t want it, I knew he didn’t want it, but he thought it was what I needed now.
Was he right? Was it the thought of Luke and Jude and Cara and Si’s disapproval that had held me back this week from answering the phone when Gabe called, from going to him? I thought not. I wasn’t frightened of choosing my own path, of doing what I knew to be right despite others disagreeing. It was a question of timing. I hadn’t been ready – my head consumed with keeping my mother safe. Now, though, Sienna’s promise had released me.
‘I think you need to do this, Scarlett,’ said Luke.
‘I think I need to do it too,’ I told him.
He searched my eyes. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes. But… will you come with me? To see my father, and Sienna, and –’
‘Of course I’m coming with you! And I’ll stay with you as long as you need.’
‘The cafe?’
‘Taken care of.’
‘Chester?’
‘On doggie vacation with Surfer Geoff.’
‘Jude?’
‘Meeting us there.’
My eyes widened. ‘Jude is coming? To the heart of the enemy camp?’
‘He insisted.’
‘My sister’ll freak.’
‘Let her.’
‘We’re really doing this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Together?’
‘Together.’
I kissed him then. I kissed him. Like I hadn’t kissed him in more than a week – since before London, since before Hollythwaite, since Barcelona: when we’d been just a regular couple on a city break, wrapped up in each other. Through the kiss I heard his sigh, the release of emotion. And then he pulled me to him, onto his lap, and I kissed his lips, his jaw, his collarbone, his shoulder, and he kissed my lips, my earlobe, my neck, my –
‘No!’
My robe had slipped, exposing my back, and I struggled off him and wrestled with the fabric entangled at my waist.
He stood up. Put his hands on my shoulders. Said my name with so much tenderness that I had to stop. Had to look at him. The room was steamy, the glass doors occluded. No one could see. Only him.
‘Trust me,’ he said.
Slowly, I nodded.
He turned me so that he could see. I steeled myself as he took it in, the brand I now wore. Non Serviam. I will not serve. Emblazoned on my back in the form of angry, jagged scar tissue.
When I felt his lips on the nape of my neck, I jerked in shock. But his hands held me still as he traced the path of the scar, one kiss at a time, from its very top to its termination just above my bikini bottoms.
‘Beautiful,’ he said.
I turned to him. He smiled up at me.
Sinking down so that we were both kneeling, I said, ‘How could you…?’
‘How could I not?’ was his answer. ‘I was there, Scarlett. I saw what you did for your mother. That scar: it’s beautiful.’
‘But it’s a punishment, Luke. Because I sinned. That’s not beautiful. It’s dark. Wrong.’
‘No! Don’t you say that. Trying to save your mother – that could never be wrong. If I’d had the chance, I’d have done it. My mum, my dad, Cara… I’d have saved them all. And you. I would always save you.’
His eyes were glistening, and I lunged for him and hugged him hard.
‘So stop hiding it from me,’ he finished, his voice muffled in my hair. ‘Please. Because I love that scar on you so goddam much.’
I nodded into his shoulder and he squeezed me.
It was calm in our little haven. Still. Warm. Nothing existed but Luke and me. We held each other for a long time, drifting in the haze.
And then Luke sat back and said, ‘So, you and me. We’re good?’
‘We’re good,’ I told him. Then I frowned and added: ‘For now. You know, Gabe, the Fallen: I have no idea what we’re getting into.’
‘Me either.’ He reached out a finger and drew, in the condensation on the glass door, a little lightbulb. ‘But whatever lies ahead,’ he said, ‘it has to be better t
han living in the dark.’
Luke and I didn’t go directly to my father’s. Luke called Gabe and Jude to arrange a meeting for early evening, while Cara and I planned some time off for us all – no hospital, no talk of Mum or Ceruleans, just four young people making the most of a sunny afternoon in the capital. It was Sienna who’d put the idea in my head, but my outburst this morning had cemented the need to lighten the mood – to give those who cared about me a break from wondering whether I was cracking up.
I took an hour’s nap in the hotel suite – alone – and then we headed to nearby Regent’s Park. We hired four deckchairs beside the boating lake and worked our way through a picnic Cara had put together – not quite up to Luke’s culinary standards, but even he had to admit his gourmet-deli sandwich was pretty decent. Afterwards, we peeked over the railings into the zoo to glimpse a distant giraffe, then we wandered through Queen Mary’s rose gardens in the Inner Circle.
Beyond the Jubilee Gates, we came across a family playing beneath the broad, shady boughs of a horse chestnut tree. The father and his toddler son were playing Frisbee – the dad throwing it gently but expertly to the little boy, who hurled the orange disk back with great energy and no control. Behind them, on a nearby blanket, the mother looked on and cheered her boys. On her lap, a plump baby girl with black curls alternated between drooling, cooing and gumming down on a squeaky plastic elephant.
I don’t know why the scene affected me so much; I don’t know why my feet implanted in the grass and my breath came in little gasps and my tear ducts stung. After all, this park was full of similarly happy people. But the simplicity of this moment, the innocence of the children, the love of their parents – it hurt me. I’d never had this. And perhaps I never would.
‘Hey,’ said Luke. ‘What is it?’
I looked at him and I wanted to say: That family, over there. I wish that could be us someday.
But I couldn’t say that. Couldn’t dream that. Because any children we had most likely wouldn’t be like these kids. Normal. Free.
Guilt stabbed at me. Who was I to chastise Luke for deceit? I hadn’t lied to him, but I hadn’t had the courage to tell him the truth either. I’d just pushed him away every time he got too close. And diverted his attention.
‘Scarlett?’
‘Madame Tussauds!’ I declared.
On strict instructions to help us forget for a while, Cara was in uber-tourist mood, and since we’d left the hotel she’d been rattling off titbits from a London guidebook. That bizarrest of London attractions, Madame Tussaud’s, was situated nearby and was surely the perfect distraction. Amid lifesize-but-lifeless Elvis and Madonna and One Direction figures, my mind would be far away from anything contentious.
Cara was, as expected, delirious at the idea.
Si was, as expected, happy to go with the flow.
Luke was, as expected, worried about me – wasn’t I overdoing it, being around all these people?
But I brushed off his concern and reminded him that we were talking waxworks here, not actual people.
Inside the museum, Luke grumbled a bit about all the tourists. But he soon saw the effort I was making to be ‘just Scarlett’ and joined the rest of us in ooing and ahing at Daniel Craig and Usain Bolt and the Duke of Cambridge and Albert Einstein and Lady Gaga and Wolverine – and freaking out when one of the actors hired to pose as a waxwork moved suddenly.
Two hours later, we spilled back out onto Marylebone Road, Cara enthusing over a very realistic Robert Pattinson figure, Si and me listening indulgently, Luke looking at his watch.
‘We’ve got half an hour,’ he said, ‘before we meet Jude.’
‘Time enough to walk along Baker Street,’ I suggested.
‘Oo!’ said Cara as we headed off. ‘Isn’t that where Danger Mouse lived?’
‘Who?’ said Si.
‘You know, retro kids’ cartoon? Spoof of James Bond?’
‘I think Baker Street’s a little better known for number 221B, Cara,’ said Luke.
‘Why?’
‘Address of Sherlock Holmes?’
‘Oh, that detective chap.’
‘Not just a “detective chap”, Cara – one of the first detective characters, and one of the most famous…’
And with that Luke launched into a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes factoids lecture for the benefit of his sister, who broke in with ever-more (and, I was quite sure, deliberately) daft comments and questions.
‘Obsessed much?’ said Si, falling into step with me.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I never realised he was quite such a fan.’
Though come to think of it, at some point Luke had indicated a knowledge of Conan Doyle’s works. When was that? I tried to remember, but it was a little hard to think over Luke and Cara bantering and Si humming Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’ and the roar of the London traffic.
We stopped outside the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker Street. Luke attempted to explain to us that actually this was 237–241 Baker Street, but I wasn’t really listening. I was staring at the quaint little window at the front of the museum.
‘Jeez,’ I heard Cara say tersely, ‘when did you become such a geek, brov?’
I missed Luke’s reply. A flash of red in the window’s reflection – a London bus trundling past – had set synapses firing.
‘Oh,’ I said suddenly, turning to Luke. ‘That’s it. In Plymouth there are Holmes’ quotes set into a pavement someplace. We saw them.’
Luke beamed. ‘That’s right! It was on our first date. Durnford Street, near Royal William Yard. Conan Doyle once had a practice there.’
‘Something you said there – in that street. The first Sherlock Holmes story.’
‘“A Study in Scarlet.”’
‘You quoted from it…’
The smile dropped from Luke’s face as realisation dawned. ‘Oh. Yes.’
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘But…’
‘Say it now – say the quote.’
He did so with evident reluctance: ‘“There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”’
There was a moment’s silence. Then:
‘Crikey,’ said Cara, ‘talk about a downer.’
I laughed – we all laughed – but she was right. I’d remembered the gist of the quote, if not the words, and I’d demanded it be said now. The time for forgetting was over.
‘You’re ready?’ asked Luke.
‘I’m ready,’ I replied grimly.
*
I was bemused, totally bemused.
When Luke and I had met Jude at Baker Street Tube station, I’d thought we would find a quiet spot and then Travel to Gabe’s place. He had a nightclub in Newquay, Cornwall, I knew, and I’d crossed paths with both Daniel and Sienna there, so I’d assumed we’d be heading that way.
I didn’t expect to follow Jude down into the hot, stifling air of the London Underground. I didn’t expect us to disembark at Fulham Broadway, a Tube station barely outside the inner Zone 1, and go on foot from there. And I certainly didn’t expect Jude to lead us into the salubrious Chelsea Harbour, march us alongside a marina chock-full of millionaire’s yachts, point to the gargantuan apartment tower at the far end and announce, ‘Here we are.’
I stopped in my tracks. ‘Huh?’ I said eloquently.
Jude checked the scrap of paper in his hand. ‘The Belvedere, Chelsea Harbour,’ he read. He looked up. ‘Gabe was quite clear on the phone.’
‘But it’s in London!’
‘Er, yes,’ said Luke. ‘I thought you knew that? That’s what I meant about you having a place to stay. Here, you’re close to your mum. Travelling will be much less exhausting.’
‘But London!’
‘I know,’ said Jude. ‘Clearly Gabe was peeved enough with Evangeline’s lie about Ceruleans not crossing the Devonshire border to flaunt it.’
‘But
London. All the people. The Fallen can’t possibly be based here.’
‘Eighteenth floor, Gabe said. That’s a good distance up.’
We craned our necks and traced the sharp, crisp lines of the building up, up to the pointed pinnacle that tickled the sky.
‘It could work, you know,’ said Luke. ‘Up there, you’re pretty far from others. There’s the river behind, no buildings. And this area is quiet – not like the city at all really. Jude, how far exactly do you have to be from others to recuperate?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I’d say Gabe would need to own a good few floors as a buffer.’
‘What d’you think an apartment up there costs?’ said Luke.
‘Millions,’ I murmured. ‘Millions.’
We looked at each other. None of us said it, but we all thought it: Gabe, apparently, was a very, very wealthy man.
‘Well,’ said Jude at last. ‘Not much point standing out here gawking all day. Shall we?’
I nodded silently. Luke laced his fingers with mine, and we walked the last hundred feet to the lion’s den.
Inside the bright lobby, we were met by a concierge, who asked whom we were here to visit and then ushered us over to wait on an elegant sofa while he called up and announced our arrival.
‘Cara would be in seventh heaven here,’ murmured Luke, looking around at the high-spec decor.
For a moment, I felt guilty that we’d left Si and Cara behind at Baker Street – I knew Cara was champing at the bit to meet my father and see where he lived. But as Luke had pointed out, we had no idea what risk we faced here, and the fewer non-Ceruleans in tow, the better.
‘She was muttering about West End theatre tickets for tonight when we left,’ said Luke, ‘so I think she’ll get over missing out pretty quickly.’
I smiled. I knew he was trying to distract me from my nerves, but it wasn’t working. What were we doing here? What was I thinking, trusting Gabe?
As if reading my mind, Jude leaned in and whispered, ‘Remember what I said on the Tube. We stick together – close together – and if there’s any sign of trouble, we Travel to the cottage.’
‘Got it,’ said Luke.
‘And the code word for getting the hell out is…?’
