by S Williams
57
Caleb flicks his cigarette butt out above the edge of the wooden balustrade and watches it spin down, over and over, until it hits the dusty cobbles below, skittering sparks as it impacts. He gazes at the people drinking below him for a moment, then sits back down. He is seated in one of the enclosed wooden galleries above St George’s public house near London Bridge. His recent meeting with Slater squats unpleasantly at the front of his thoughts, focusing him on the task he has been ordered to undertake.
Across from him sits a mid-level drug dealer in a dark suit that appears to be Paul Smith, but in fact is a stitch-perfect copy made by Chinese sweatshoppers in a windowless basement in Hackney. Of course it is, thinks Caleb. Everything about the drug dealer is fake: from his automatic smile that switches on and off like a mousetrap, to the human disguise he is wearing; from his capped teeth to the slight mockney twang in his vowels.
Caleb has a second-class degree from a minor university, and a past littered with personal violence and first-class professional criminality. He looks thoughtfully at the drug-dealer. He is not a street dealer, but a middleman between the import gangs and the chain-cutters; the crews that chop and crop the product before it gets distributed to the gangs controlling the London boroughs. Working for Slater for five years as a liaison officer, his orders are to put out a bounty on Tuesday, and to offer a reward to anyone who can supply information leading to her whereabouts, or demise.
Drugs. Flesh. Power within the organisation. Whatever lever needs to be pushed.
Or pulled.
Right now, Caleb is sitting in the private gallery of the Old George coaching house, overlooking the courtyard where Chaucer used to drink, pulling the lever of a drug dealer, making Caleb, who has done his fair share of fucking people up, feel like an angel. Below them Londoners sit drinking at the wooden tables, trying to cool themselves in the muggy city heat. Caleb lifts his iced Becherovka, takes a small sip, then he lights another cigarette.
‘Did you know this is the only galleried pub left in London?’ He is looking past the drug dealer to the domed roof of a mosque poking out from behind a housing estate. The man in front of him says nothing, sips his water. ‘In fact’, he continues, using a fingernail to pick at the peeling white paint on the rail in front of him, ‘it’s even believed that Shakespeare used to drink here.’ Caleb idly wonders if the paint under his nails contains lead.
‘Who the fuck’s Shakespeare?’ the drug dealer asks. Caleb sighs while the man arranges his artificial face into an aspect of enquiry. He can’t quite tell if the dealer, whose name is Lilt, is taking the piss or not. He suspects not. ‘Nobody you need to worry about, mate.’
Caleb takes out the Galaxy Note from his inside jacket pocket and places it on the table in front of him. He does this quite slowly; he has been around criminals far too long to make any quick movements: removing things quickly from inside pockets can get you dead, fast. He taps a few buttons and brings up a picture of Tuesday. It is the still from the tube.
‘Ever seen her?’
The dealer shakes his head.
‘The man I work for wants to find her.’
‘I bet he does. The way I hear it she’s turned his boys into wall-whores.’ Caleb looks confused and the drug-dealer’s smile broadens. ‘She fucks them just where they stand.’ Caleb makes a note inside his head. The damage Tuesday has wreaked on the traditional power structures is beginning to break down the natural order of things. People are losing respect; are not as afraid as they should be. And people who are not afraid of one thing are soon not afraid of lots of things; soon become hard to control. Caleb dips a finger in his drink, and then draws an elaborate ‘T’ on the table, the moisture vaporising almost before he’s finished.
‘In many ways, of course, Sunshine, my boss Mr Slater, is your boss.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re not the fucking Russians, are we? We don’t want to family-up and control every farthing. My boss likes to run his business in a few choice areas, and allow the economy, the sort of economy we’re part of, to do the rest. Mr Slater doesn’t want to spend his time importing product, parcelling product, then selling product. Product doesn’t stoke his boat, except in the sense that it’s criminal confetti. It gets fucking everywhere.’ Caleb leans forward, channelling the dealer’s attention towards him, to what he is saying. ‘He’s happy to leave the supply of all the pram toys to you, mate. It’s about your fucking level.’ The drug-dealer is barely controlling his anger. He is being disrespected. He is being reduced. Good, thinks Caleb. Prick the skin and punch the piper.
He goes on, holding up his right hand and ticking off his points. ‘But this girl, Tuesday, she’s fucking up the drug train. She’s fucking up the skin train. She’s messing with the whole station and she needs to be stopped. I don’t need to tell you what will happen to you if Mr Slater decides to let someone else move into the nursery, do I? Let one of your competitors have top spot? No, I thought not. Mr Slater, he wants this girl found. He wants anyone who has knowledge of this girl found. And you, my slimy fucking friend, are too far up the drug leash to slip back down to the collar and survive, you get me?’ Caleb’s eyes have gone from urbane businessman to lock-down psycho ward.
The dealer has dealt with some unhinged people in his days, but Caleb’s doors seem to have come completely off the frame. He picks up the Galaxy and studies the picture. ‘Look, man, she’s a fucking ghost, ok? Half the crews I deal to are jumping at shadows, and the other half are quietly thanking fuck that they’re not connected to Slater, you know? This girl is like a fucking Goth terminator, yeah? I mean she’s a fucking storm.’
Caleb notices that the drug-dealer’s hard-man, comedic, probably has a Canary Wharf glass fuckpad, mockney accent has slipped.
‘I don’t care what she is,’ says Caleb, taking back the mini tablet and Bluetoothing the Tuesday data over to the drug-dealer’s phone. ‘She could be Satan’s little lap girl as far as my boss is concerned. He just wants her found, and shut down. He wants anyone who has had contact with her deleted. You, my friend, are hard-wired into all the gangs in the city. You have access straight up their noses to their black little souls. We want you to spread the word.’ Caleb leans forward and looks into his eyes. He holds nothing back.
Lilt sees the madness, the violence, the eager chaos that has allowed Caleb to survive in his position for the last five years. He sees it and is frightened. ‘Yeah, man. All right. I’ll put the word out, OK?’
Caleb tilts back and throws the remainder of his cigarette over the railings. ‘Fabulous.’ He pauses, looks down at the Londoners below, and then looks back at the drug-dealer …
‘Well what the fuck are you still doing here then?’
58
Lily-Rose is packing her life away. Her mother, in between bouts of uncontrollable shaking, is packing right next to her.
The night before, Lily-Rose had received an invitation to a chat room on a site that didn’t even have a name. She could tell it was from Tuesday by the way the invitation was framed. There she found details of a bitcoin wallet through Armory; internet currency with no borders or traceability. It contained enough money to make her feel physically sick. All it required for the funds to be transferred to a bank account of her choice was for her to tap in a password. Enough money for them to leave everything behind and run. There was also a note, and a list of instructions. Lily-Rose read it through once, printed out the instructions, details of the bitcoin account, and then pressed the button that would erase all trace of the meeting. She then removed the hard-drive from her computer and put it in the oven, and switched it on. Then she went and woke her mother.
‘They’re coming for us, Mum. The people who raped me. The people who paid the people who raped me. They’re going to shut Tuesday down, and they’re going to try to use us to get to her.’
Her mother contemplates her from the bed: her daughter who has been so abused and whom she has been unable to protect, the
daughter who seems to live in a world accelerating beyond her understanding. All she says is ‘When?’
‘Now. We need to pack now. I’ve phoned for a minicab.’
59
I used to think about killing myself.
Different times. Different ways.
When I was really young I thought I could just hide in the closet and be safe. Like Narnia.
When I was a little older I tried really hard to stop breathing. Just go to sleep forever.
Then, after the baby started growing inside of me, and I knew I had to leave, I stopped thinking about dying. Stopping. I just started to think about keeping her safe.
Away.
Hidden.
And then when it all went to the fucking wall I started thinking about killing myself again.
That’s the difference. That’s the difference between the robots and the humans. The robots would never think of killing themselves. Wouldn’t even cross their minds.
Nothing’s their fault. They can never blame themselves or take responsibility for anything. And anybody else’s suffering is a meter against which to measure their power.
Sex. Drugs. Guns. Cars. Souls. It’s all just product. Like the perfect capitalist robots they are, all they can do is consume.
Destroy.
Use up and then throw away.
Slash and burn.
Well that’s all right.
I don’t care if I live or die anymore. All I’m here for now is the movement.
The dance.
The choice.
And they chose me.
60
DI Loss is losing track of which reality he’s living through.
After leaving the cinema, DS Stone went back to Savile Row to file a report on their meeting with Five. To attempt to make sense of her motives, and slot what they’ve learned about her into what they know about Tuesday. They definitely had a connection. In fact, Loss had the feeling that she was almost laughing at them.
But of course, at present he’s not in control of the case, only an adviser. Or worse, someone not to be trusted.
There was a time, before Suzanne’s murder, when he was fairly certain he had some sort of grasp on the world he occupied, however tenuous. Ever since her death, however, his disconnection has been permanent. It has defined him. Given him structure. Only as an observer, even of himself, was he able to function on a day-to-day basis without breaking down. He was able to give the impression that he was alive, and stagger through without screaming.
But now someone has re-animated the corpse of his daughter, and is making her walk round the basement of London. Tuesday, for reasons unknown, is taking a giant pin and ramming it into his heart and soul again and again.
This morning he was informed that, because of as yet unknown connections he might have to the case, he was being side-lined even further. Benched. Taken off the investigation; given open-ended leave. Yes, he was being retained as an advisor, but effectively in a civilian capacity.
And then he received a phone call from the Commander, who explained that, in the present climate, it would be prudent for DI Loss not to come in at all, that, as he seemed to have a direct link to the girl, Tuesday, it would not be appropriate for him to have access to information pertaining to the case
That was that. Tuesday had somehow, impossibly, stolen his daughter’s identity, despoiled her memory, and now lost him the only thing that was keeping him sane.
And he doesn’t know why.
Loss sleepwalks round the streets of central London, trying to make sense of the lights, and the smells, and the noise. Trying to.convert the puppet show around him into something with meaning. But he just drifts through the crowds, and the fug, and the mortar of living, and sees nothing.
Nothing but ghosts.
He is pulled back to himself by his phone ringing. It’s DS Stone.
‘I’m off the case,’ he informs her. ‘Too much of a security risk.’
‘Too much of a self-indulgent old bastard, more like. I don’t give a damn if you’re off the case or not. Lily-Rose has gone missing.’
Loss stops; becomes a rock in the river of the street.
‘What? When?’
‘I’ve just left there. I called round with some follow-ups; see if there’d been any movement. The flat looks as if it’s been taken apart with a hatchet. There’s no sign of Lily-Rose or her mum, but there’s no blood, so I’m hopeful they left before whoever did it arrived. Are you still there?’
Loss tries to get his mind to catch up. He has so many things going on in his head that his thought processes are weeds.
‘Yeah, I’m still here. So are you saying someone came for her, but she was already warned?’
‘Looks that way, Sherlock. Anyway, their flat is a deadzone, and no one knows anything. What are you doing now?’
‘Nothing. as I said, I’m …’ Stone didn’t give him time to finish.
‘Good, because I’m on my way to meet the only expert I could find on the lost city of underground London, and I want your help.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, for one thing, because you’re not technically on the case I can be really, really rude to you; calling you “Sherlock”.’
Loss sighs deeply.
‘And?’
‘And? You need an and? And this expert I’ve dug up. The one who knows all about the secret underground network?’
‘Yes?’
‘When I spoke to him, and mentioned to him the name of my boss, i.e., you, he asked if you were related to Suzanne Loss.’ The detective closes his eyes. Behind his lids are tiny pinpricks of burning thought, waiting to be connected up. ‘When I confirmed that you were, he wanted to convey to you his belated condolences. It appears that he knew your daughter.’
61
Constantine does not have a last name. If he ever did he has kept it to himself. He is what is known in the underworld as a wet-smith: a man for hire when it comes to the cessation and disposal of human beings.
He is currently sitting in a shitty flat in King’s Cross, recently vacated by a prostitute. He has a laptop open in front of him, and for the last few hours has been absorbing all the information that he can find on the girl known as Tuesday. This includes a large selection of media reports, both legitimate and underground, along with stuff from all the social network sites. He also has the footage from the train, and the link sent to DI Loss’s computer. He has the audio from the phone conversation outside the kebab shop between his client and the girl, and he has set up a program mapping all references to Tuesday, or the weapons she used, or any internet footprint she might have made. He also has a constant feed of all the information gathered by the street crews that Caleb set in motion. He is very good at what he does. He has already given Lily-Rose’s address to Slater’s men.
Constantine sits in his chair, in the crappy flat that smells of broken dreams and twisted love, electronically thumbing through the city, until eventually he turns his computer off, packs it away in its Pelican hard case, and leaves, heading across the road, and into King’s Cross tube station.
On the tube he is amused to see a ‘Tuesday’ graffiti tag. He has spotted them all over the city since he arrived. He gets off at Knightsbridge, and enters Number One, Hyde Park. The cold-eyed security guard in a suit and bowler hat takes his card and makes a phone call. He is searched, his weapons expertly found and removed, and then he is escorted to the lift and accompanied up to the top floor. He is walked to the door of his client, who opens it and nods at the security guard. The guard inclines his head and withdraws politely, never taking his hand out of his jacket pocket, or off the gun therein.
Constantine grins at his employer and says,
“‘Dear oh dear, what did you do three years ago to piss this girl off so royally?’
Slater glares at him, saying nothing. ‘Because up until three years ago, Tuesday didn’t exist.’
62
I’m getting ready now.
I
’ve restocked all my supplies out of the Oxford Street shops, and gone round all my cribs making sure everything’s ready. I’ve checked out the feed from the door at the British Museum and seen all the action going on there. Well done, boys and girls.
It shouldn’t be too long until everything moves underground. I just need to give them one more little push. I lie down on my bunk and listen to the World Service.
Not really listen to it, but let it carry my weight for a while.
Lily-Rose should be on her way to her new home by now. I hope she doesn’t hate me. I didn’t use her like the gang boys used her, but I still used her.
Still used her to stir things up.
Used her to break things down.
I wonder who’ll reach me first: Detective Inspector Loss with his guilt and his questions; the police with their standard issues and their righteousness; or the bad guys, with their lust for revenge and their dreams of girl torture?
Me, I don’t fucking care.
63
‘Aldwych Tube Station, originally called Strand Tube Station, was opened in 1907, and closed in 1993. In all that time the original lifts were still in use. It was built on the site of the Royal Strand Theatre, which was demolished in 1905. The platform we are standing on is ninety-two feet and six inches below street level. It is interesting to note that the station itself is built on one of the biggest plague pits in London. Indeed, when it was being constructed the workmen commonly saw the ghosts of rotting victims shuffling around the site. So if any of you ladies see something awful shambling around, feel free to hang onto my arm.’
‘What bloody century are you living in?’ DS Stone mutters under her breath. She and DI Loss are standing with a group of tourists being shown round one of London’s ‘hidden’ tube stations. To get here, they have had to walk down a high, spiral staircase containing more metal steps than DS Stone would have thought possible. While the guide entertains the group, the two detectives look around. With the tiny ceramic tiles and oak panelling; the whole place has a feel of quietly-collapsing gentility. The door to the station office opens and a smartly dressed man in his early thirties comes out.
