by Tim Weaver
‘I’ve got to pick the girls up from school.’
‘I’ll trade your day for mine.’
He smiled. ‘Yeah. They’re not exactly a bind.’
As the passengers started to file off, Tom held out his hand. ‘It was good to see you again,’ he said. ‘If you ever need anything … you know … just call me, okay?’
They shook.
‘Anything at all,’ Tom added.
‘Okay.’
‘I hope the, uh …’ Tom paused, eyes narrowing a little, as if he were trying to avoid causing offence. ‘I hope the delivery business keeps on going well for you.’
He watched Tom go, suddenly disquieted for reasons he couldn’t quite place – and then he got up from his seat and grabbed his bag from the overhead lockers.
Kids spilled out of the main doors of the school, satchels hanging off them, across their chests, on their shoulders, some dragging theirs behind them like a cart.
He stood on a grass bank to the left of the doors, waiting for April and Abigail. He’d brought them back a treat from his weekend away, picking up two giant bottles of bubbles at the airport. The girls loved bubbles, seeing how big they could get them, seeing how far the bubbles would float before they finally popped. A couple of times he’d taken them up to the top floor of Searle House and watched as they’d sent bubbles out over the balcony, twenty storeys up.
A wind briefly stirred, moving the branches of the trees at the front of the school. He watched the way warm summer light winked through the foliage and cast an orange glow across the faces of the kids close by – and then his eye was drawn to the entrance of the school again. It was darker now. Children had suddenly stopped flowing out and a gloom had taken hold beyond the main doors.
He looked around him.
Most of the rest of the parents were leaving, their kids next to them, big arms around small shoulders. Others were standing at the main gates, or out at the edges of the school boundaries, children playing while the adults chatted together.
But he was still waiting.
When he turned back to the main entrance, he saw a flash of movement inside. A blur of colour against the darkness. He took a step forward, the first tremor of concern taking hold. Where were the girls? A second step, a third, and then he felt a weird kind of resistance, and it took everything he had to move again, to take another step closer to the doors. Finally, as he did, he saw someone shift against the dark of the corridor.
His heart dropped.
He tried to say something, but no words came out. When he tried again, he felt his voice catch, like there was dust in his throat, and he began coughing. He turned to the other parents, calling for their help, but there was no one left at the school. Not a single person. No kids. No parents. All the cars were gone from the car park, all the windows were shut, all the doors locked.
He was alone.
He turned back to the main entrance. The doors were closed now, chained and padlocked from the inside. He began to panic, began to scream the girls’ names, looking out at the main road, trying to get the attention of passing cars, pedestrians, cyclists, anyone. But as he finally found his voice, the wind whipped in and took his words away, and he felt himself slowly, magnetically, pulled back in the direction of the school. On the other side of the glass, obscured by shadow, a man was standing still, looking downwards.
A dark blue raincoat on.
A baseball cap covering his face.
‘No!’ Mal screamed. ‘No! No, don’t hurt th–’
Instantly, he woke, dizzy and confused, his clothes soaked through with sweat. It took a second for him to establish where he was: in the living room of the flat, the TV playing on silent, the dog curled up at his feet.
He let out a breath.
It had been another dream.
He got up and hurried through to the girls’ bedroom. They were both asleep, their night light on, its pale glow revealing the gentle rise and fall of their chests. April lay in the foetal position, her comforter – a tatty cotton blanket – close to her face; Abigail was on her front, one hand clutching her brown-and-white puppy, the rest of her cocooned in a pink-and-white duvet. He felt the tension ebb away as he watched them, the colours from the mural above their bed – the sun-kissed beach, the outline of houses, the random aliens – adding a red tinge to their skin.
Pulling their door to, he made his way through to the kitchen. The digital display on the oven said it was 3.40 a.m. He set the kettle going and sat at the table, and after a while clocked movement out in the hallway. He watched as Gail passed from their bedroom into the toilet, bleary-eyed and exhausted. She’d been up late, studying for her second exam paper.
It’s okay, he said to himself.
Everything is fine.
Everything is normal.
There’s no need to worry.
28
Temporarily the sky cleared, late autumn sun weakly punching past the frayed edges of the clouds. It wasn’t warm, but it was better than being pelted by rain.
The old paper mill which housed Wapping Wonderland and Museum was on the high street, directly adjacent to Waterside Gardens, a small park on the fringes of the Thames. It was a brown-brick, three-storey building, its huge second- and third-floor windows perched on iron platforms, alongside a wooden treadmill crane attached to the wall, all of which spoke of the building’s previous life. Before Wapping had been redeveloped, before the luxury flats had moved in, the windows had been doors, used for unloading goods that had been shipped in on the river.
I’d called ahead, trying to get Gary Cabot on the phone, and had eventually been redirected to his PA, who told me he was in Dubai for a few days, at an auction. In his absence, and after some persuasion, she’d given me the name Calvin East, the museum’s curator.
The museum closed at six, and I wanted to wait until last entry at five for a reason. Cabot’s PA had said Calvin East would be tied up with tours of the penny arcade and the museum until five-thirty, and I needed to make sure I got a run at him without hordes of tourists vying for his attention at the same time.
As it was only half-four, I headed along a thin, cobbled street at the side of the museum, wedged between the mill and Waterside Gardens. Part of the way down, out in the grey of the Thames, the pier began to drift into view.
I saw its blackened legs first, and then the remnants of the bandstand, clinging to the limits of the pier like a limpet. The further I went, the more of the pier slid into sight: first, furthest out, the pavilion, old, discoloured, huge broken letters spelling out GRAND PIER above its doors; then the wooden, three-hundred-foot promenade, echoes of Arnold Goldman’s theme park still evident in the blistered, boarded-up Victorian shopfronts that dotted its edges; and then, at last, the entrance, a huge white arch built on a slab of paved land at the back of the mill, with a turret on either side in which flags had once flown. Inside the arch were fifteen-foot metal gates topped with electric fencing, preventing anyone from getting on to the promenade.
Despite its location on the Thames, despite the boats drifting along the water barely feet from where it concluded, there was a strange sense of isolation here; a loneliness to the pier that was difficult to explain. I’d been to many places like this, inside structures that were nothing but skeletons, along corridors that were vessels for memories, for the nightmares that had taken place in them. I’d even started to believe, somehow, that I might be drawn to them, that my years of trying to track the missing had awoken something in me; a sort of magnetic pull. Maybe my own heartache had marked me. Maybe these places sought me out now.
A noise snapped me out of my thoughts, and I turned to see the rear doors of the mill opening up, a group of middle-aged American tourists filing out on to the paved area and gathering at a rusty ticket booth, waiting further instruction. At the back of the group was a tour guide. He was in his early forties, studious, serious, wearing a pair of red-rimmed glasses that were too bright for his face and too big for his eyes. He adju
sted them and came forward again, the costume he was wearing – a tailed coat, a waistcoat, a white shirt with a winged collar, a top hat – ill-fitting and unsuited to his flabby frame. He had the wispy hint of a beard, and bristles of black hair escaped from under his hat.
On his lapel was a name badge.
Calvin East.
‘Okay, ladies and gents,’ he said in a soft London accent he’d worked hard to iron out, and began on the history of the pier. I stuck around for a while and then left, heading back around to the front and paying the admission fee.
Immediately inside the museum was a section marked Journey through Time, which turned out to be the room full of pictures I’d seen on the web. I passed through it, casting my eye across a photographic history of the pier and the mill, and then lingered on a last shot of Cabot, taken under the pier’s arched entrance in 2001, after he’d purchased the site. It was clearly a shot that had run in local newspapers, Cabot with his arms above him, like he’d just won the lottery.
At the edge of the shot was Calvin East.
Thinner. Younger. Skittish.
I exited, and headed up the stairs.
On the first floor was the start of the penny arcade. It was fenced in by a pavilion-style façade, funnelling people through to the room beyond, which had been done out like the inside of a pier: slatted floors, wooden walls, windows with amateur-looking paintings in them, replicating the view out to sea.
Clearly the machines were the museum’s highlight.
They swept across the space in five perfect rows, like gravestones in a field. They were mostly pinball precursors, though there were a couple of early ‘pushers’ too, machines with sliding trays moving back and forth, coins tumbling from one tray to another, and – with any luck – into the slot that paid out at the bottom. At the other end of the room was a spiral staircase, directing people to the next floor, with the promise of more machines, the mirror maze and a shop.
I headed up.
The place was virtually empty. At the top of the stairs was a fortune teller called the Oracle, a dial on its front handing you your fate. But with no plug to power it, it sat dormant and mute, just like the strength testers, kinetoscopes and early fruit machines that surrounded it. A little while later, off to my left, I heard a laughing sailor, his voice ringing out, and then the jangle of Amberolas – coin-operated phonographs. Mostly, though, the room was as silent as a mausoleum.
I imagined Healy walking this floor, these rows – a ghost among the gravestones – carrying his copy of the Stourcroft book. Had he found anything?
Each of the machines had a brassplate screwed to its side, with the date it was built, and – in some cases – where it originated from. While all seventy-two of Wapping Grand Pier’s machines were here, even without counting them it was clear there were way more than that, Cabot continuing his rescue work by salvaging old machines from lost piers all across the UK: St Leonard’s, Plymouth Hoe, Morecambe Central, Shanklin. The piers were demolished, their wooden frames scattered like bones in the sea – but while they were gone, the machines survived.
The thought put an unexpected pause in my stride – and then I suddenly realized I was alone, the other visitors having drifted quietly out of the room without me even noticing. As I stood there, archaic machinery for as far as the eye could see, I felt a bristle of unease. I couldn’t place the feeling to start with, couldn’t understand where it had come from. But then, as I continued on, passing through the middle of the room, surrounded by dark walnut cases, by the slowly rusting metal grooves of century-old pinball machines, I paused.
I felt like I was being watched.
‘Mr Raker?’
A voice startled me and, when I turned, Calvin East was standing right at my shoulder, dressed in the same costume I’d seen him in earlier. I looked past him, expecting to find a tour group, but he was on his own. Behind me, next to the shop – manned by a disinterested girl in her late teens – was the entrance to the mirror maze. As if on cue, a burst of maniacal laughter came from a tannoy above it, and then a voice straight out of a 1950s B-movie said, ‘You’ll lose your mind in our mirror maze!’
‘I didn’t mean to surprise you,’ he said. ‘Kathy, Mr Cabot’s PA, mentioned that you would be dropping by at some point, so I’ve been keeping an eye out all day for anyone that didn’t look like they belonged to a tour group.’ He stopped, rocking his head gently from side to side, a guilty expression on his face. ‘Although I admit I may have given myself a slight head start by googling you.’
Which meant he knew all about me.
‘You’re an investigator,’ he said. ‘You find missing people.’
I nodded, dug around in my pocket and removed a business card. He took it from me, studied it.
‘Are you free now, Mr East?’
‘Calvin. Yes, I am. Actually, now is a very good time because no one turned up for the 5 p.m. tour, and I was due to speak to Mr Cabot on Skype at half past.’
‘Would he be available to speak to me?’
‘Yes, I’m sure he would.’
‘So is there somewhere we can chat?’
‘You mean you don’t want to have to listen to an animatronic sailor laugh loudly every one hundred and ten seconds?’ He smiled, loosening his collar, and pushed his red-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘Please, follow me.’
29
He led me back down to the first floor, through the canyons of machines, to a door on the far side marked STAFF. Next to it was a number pad. As he input his code, the door buzzed away from the frame and opened into a short corridor with three doors on the left, what looked like a staffroom at the end, and two huge sash windows on the right. The view, partly obscured by the brickwork of the building next door, was of the Thames, all the way down to Tower Bridge.
‘This way,’ East said.
All three rooms on the left were offices, the first two small and cluttered. In the third, a big glass panel looked through to what I assumed was Gary Cabot’s working space when he was in the country. His office was bigger, the furniture nicer, more modern, the mill’s brickwork complementing the design. There was more light too. A window opened up on to a perfect view of the pier, perched on the river like an insect. Behind the desk, in a studded, antique leather chair, was a man in his late eighties, grey, stooped, eyes staring off into space. As we got closer, I realized he was talking to himself.
‘You work them hard here,’ I said.
East looked from me to the old man and smiled. ‘Oh no, that’s just Mr Cabot’s father, Joseph. Joe. He likes to come in a couple of times a week and soak in the atmosphere out there. Joe’s the reason Mr Cabot fell in love with the pier. Without him taking Mr Cabot to the pier, we’d all have very different lives.’
Beyond the door, I could hear the tinny sound of what must have been Gary Cabot, his voice coming through the computer speakers as he described the hotel he was staying in. He had a strong local accent, and he sounded upbeat and excited about being in Dubai. His father – clearly, I now realized, talking via Skype rather than to himself – seemed to be enjoying hearing about it too. His reaction reminded me of my grandparents, who always found the idea of foreign travel incredibly exotic, even when everyone in the world was doing it.
‘When Mr Cabot’s away, he likes me to look after Joe,’ East said, pausing outside the office door. ‘I’ve got to drop him back at the nursing home after this.’
As the door squeaked open wider, the old man looked up, but not directly at us. His gaze was askew, somewhere off to my left, milky eyes like a couple of pearls.
He was blind.
‘Joe, it’s Calvin.’
‘Calvin, my boy,’ the old man said, his accent similar to his son’s. One of his hands was gripping the head of a walking stick, the other was reaching out into space, fingers grasping at air as he searched for East’s hand. ‘Come and say hello to Gary. He says he’s staying on an island that’s the shape of a palm.’
East moved
around to face the computer, taking Joseph Cabot’s hand, pale and liver-spotted, in his. ‘Hello, Gary,’ he said to the screen. ‘How was the auction?’
‘All right, Calvin?’ the reply came. ‘Yeah, good. Some interesting pieces, but nothing that floated my boat. I’ve got a last-minute appointment, so instead of talking after this, we’ll just catch up when I’m back. That okay?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘That’s fine. I’ve got someone here, though. His name is David Raker. He’s an investigator. He wanted to ask you some questions.’
‘An investigator?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What have you been doing, Calvin?’
Both Cabots laughed.
East only smiled. I couldn’t decide if it was because he didn’t like being the butt of the joke – or whether it was because Cabot had hit on something a little too close to home. I filed it away for later.
East waved me towards him. ‘Mr Raker?’
Next to him, Joseph Cabot searched the room for me, presumably trying to listen for a voice, for a sound I might make that would help him better pinpoint my position. He was thin, his skin like a yellowing bed-sheet, and he kept one hand on his knee, rubbing at it as if it were sore. But, beyond the evidence of his age – the jowls, the intricate network of wrinkles, the hairless dome of his head, the creaky knees – it was possible to see the man he may once have been: tall, probably quite handsome, with the kind of physique a runner would have had.
I reached out and took his hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you, Mr Cabot.’
‘Oh, please. Joe.’ He shook my hand, his grip a little soft, then smiled. ‘A pleasure to meet you too, Mr Raker. I hope Gary hasn’t been up to no good.’
‘No, nothing like that, sir.’ I came into view of the computer’s camera and saw Gary Cabot on-screen, the picture a little pixelated, but clean enough. ‘Hello, Mr Cabot,’ I said to him.
Physically, he looked exactly the same as he had done in the photograph of him I’d seen online, except he was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, the latter a little snug for him. Behind him was an opulent-looking hotel room, with a sliver of window off to his left, Dubai at night reduced to a series of shimmering lights.
