The Shadow Cabinet

by Maureen Johnson

  I considered this, then typed another reply and showed it to Thorpe for approval as we stopped at a red light. Approval was given with a terse nod.

  I’m fine dumbass

  For much of our ill-fated romance, Jerome and I had traded insults with our affections.

  That’s more like it was the reply.

  “That’s enough,” Thorpe said, taking the phone back.

  A little under an hour later, we arrived in a residential area, somewhere I’d never been before in London. There was a British Gas van sitting in front of the house and a few people in uniforms going in and out. One of them came over to the car and rapped on the window, and Thorpe lowered it.

  “It’s clean,” he said to Thorpe in a low voice. “No one in there. Recently vacated, though. Food out in the kitchen. Fresh rubbish. Shall we process it?”

  Thorpe looked at the house for a moment.

  “Move your team out for an hour or so. I want a look first. Maintain a perimeter. If you see any of them in the area, you move in.”

  “Right.”

  The man looked at me and Freddie but said nothing. He returned to the group and made a quick hand signal, and everyone returned to the van. We waited for a while, until they pulled away, and until Callum and Boo came running up to the car.

  “Tube bollocksed up today,” Callum said. “Took forever.”

  Thorpe reached across me, opened the glove compartment, and removed some latex gloves.

  “Everybody puts these on,” he said.

  “Are we going inside?” Freddie said.

  “We are. We need to be the first in there before the scene is processed. Don’t touch or move anything unnecessarily.”

  I had to admit I felt very CSI snapping on the gloves.

  From the outside, this was about as ordinary a house as you could imagine. I had come to be suspicious of ordinary-looking houses. Inside, the first thing we were hit with was a faceful of incense—not quite as strong as the bookshop, but similar in scent. It definitely looked like people had recently been there—gross people. There were food wrappers and trash all around. Candles had been burning all over the place, stuck into wine bottles and beer bottles, cemented to whatever surfaces they sat on in their own wax drippings. There was a fine grit over the floor, and the remnants of a rubbed-out chalk circle.

  “They doing some kind of rituals in here?” Callum said. “Like witchcraft?”

  “They could be doing anything,” Freddie said. “From the sound of it, they’re into all sorts.”

  “What they’re into is Monster Munch,” Boo said, flicking a pink snack bag with the end of her nail. There really were a lot of bags around.

  “I think they use a lot of pot,” I said. “Maybe they have the munchies?”

  “That does make sense,” Freddie said. “Many of the ancient Greek rituals were dependent on the ingestion of psychotropic substances, most likely ergot. It’s basically nature’s version of LSD.”

  “So they get stoned and eat snacks,” Callum said. “That describes half the people I went to school with.”

  Thorpe was looking up. I looked up too. There was a little device in the ceiling.

  “There’s a sprinkler system,” I said, pointing. “At least they’re careful stoners.”

  “That’s a bit odd,” Freddie said, “a sprinkler system in a house like this.”

  We moved on to the kitchen, where Boo felt the side of the kettle.

  “Still warm,” she said. “Someone was here not that long ago. Must have just cleared out.”

  “Funny, that,” Callum said. “Them clearing out right before we got here. It was almost like they knew we were coming.”

  They both looked to Freddie, who was backing ever so slowly up against the table.

  “She didn’t,” Thorpe said.

  “How do you know?” Boo asked. “Didn’t she know all those freaks? Didn’t she just take you right to some people who knew Jane? She comes in, and all of a sudden we find this place? Even if Stephen did vet her . . .”

  “I didn’t!” Freddie said. “I promise you.”

  “But you did meet Jane, didn’t you?” Thorpe said. “You said she was well known, but that wasn’t it, was it?”

  Freddie’s skin turned faintly purple.

  “When I first got the sight, I tried to find other people who had it as well. I met someone at the bookshop who introduced me to Jane. He took me over to her house for dinner once. Just once. They were very nice to me, and it was the first and only place I could really talk about what had happened to me. It was just so good to have someone to talk to. They made me feel normal.”

  I knew that feeling.

  “They talked to me about having the sight, but they didn’t tell me any of the things they told Rory. After that night, I never saw them again.”

  “Why not?” Boo said. “If you liked them so much.”

  “I didn’t like them,” Freddie said sharply. “I liked how they made me feel like there was nothing wrong with me, but there was something else in their manner that I didn’t like at all. Something I couldn’t place. They were too welcoming, too interested in me. I excused myself at one point and had a quick sneak around the upstairs and looked at some of the books. Once I saw some of the titles on the spines, I had some idea that I was dealing with very strange people indeed. I went down and finished my dinner and thanked them, and I never went back. They never did anything to me, but I always felt very uncomfortable about them. When I saw Jane at your school, Rory, I asked around a bit more, and Clover finally told me a few things. That’s the truth.”

  Boo and Callum exchanged a look. I kept my eye on Freddie, who was grasping fearfully at the edge of the table.

  “I think she’s telling the truth,” I said.

  “As do I,” Thorpe added. “In fact, I know she didn’t contact anyone. I put a trace on her mobile and her computer, and I had someone go to her room at her house at the college and go through her things. That same person kept an eye on her as she was packing.”

  “The cleaner?” she said, her eyes widening. “The one who told me to keep my door open because they’d sprayed for insects?”

  “So you were never alone,” Thorpe said. “I had Rory sit with you in the house. She was never going to allow you to be alone with Stephen’s papers.”

  “You let her look at Stephen’s things if you thought she was a risk?” Boo said.

  “I didn’t believe she was,” Thorpe said. “I believe she is an asset.”

  “So who told them someone was coming?”

  “Perhaps no one,” Thorpe said. “It could be a coincidence. But I don’t really put much stock in those. I imagine it was someone who saw us go into the bookshop.”

  “Not Clover,” Freddie said. She was slowly releasing her grip on the table. “He hates Jane.”

  “Anyone around that bookshop could have alerted them,” Thorpe said. “I imagine we made an impression going in. Whoever it was, I know it wasn’t you. So let’s keep going. Upstairs.”

  Boo and Callum still regarded Freddie with some uncertainty. She put her head down. We headed upstairs, which was only slightly less gross than downstairs. There were three bedrooms. Two of them had no beds, just some mattresses and blankets on the floor. The one bathroom was dirty, with a pile of wet towels in the corner and an unpleasant, scrummy ring around the inside of the tub. There were a few toothbrushes lying bristles down in a small pool of something thick and filmy—most likely congealed toothbrush drippings. This bothered me most of all.

  “Looks like about five or six people have been staying here,” Thorpe said.

  “Six disgusting people,” Boo said.

  The main bedroom did have a bed in it, as well as a white area rug. It had an en suite bathroom, which was cleaner than the other one. In this bathroom, the towels were hung and the tooth
brush stored upright.

  “Jane probably stayed in here,” I said. I went to the wardrobe and opened it, revealing a few outfits. They were more conservative than Jane’s usual getups, but they looked about her size.

  “Take the toothbrushes,” Thorpe said to Callum and Boo, passing them some plastic bags he had in his pockets. “Take hairbrushes. Look for anything with any identification.”

  “This floor is very poorly laid,” Freddie said, looking down. I guess she was right—there were gaps between the boards, like someone hadn’t bothered to make sure they all lined up correctly.

  “Who cares?” Callum replied.

  “It’s not that I care, but . . . don’t those windows look lower than the windows downstairs?”

  She went over and pulled back the long drapes. She was right—these windows were definitely lower to the floor.

  “Again,” Callum said, “who . . .”

  In answer to that half-asked question, Thorpe got down on one knee and felt the floor. He poked his nail into the spaces between the boards. Then he looked at the windows again.

  “This floor is raised. Something’s under here, and this is ventilation. Lift up that bed. Lean it against the wall. Get the rug up.”

  Callum and Boo lifted the bed and tipped it against the wall, and Thorpe and I dragged back the rug. Freddie was now flat on the floor, her face against it, looking into one of the cracks.

  “I think it’s open space below here,” she said.

  As soon as we pulled back the rug, there was a clear outline of a hatch. Thorpe got down and worked on prying it open, and when he did, a crawl space about two feet deep was revealed.

  Charlotte was resting on her back, her red hair spread out, her hands peacefully folded on her chest. Thorpe stepped down into the space and felt Charlotte’s neck and cheek.

  “She’s breathing,” he said. “Charlotte, can you hear me?”

  No response. Callum knelt and helped Thorpe lift Charlotte out of the crawl space. They set her gently on the floor, where Thorpe continued to check her over, lifting her eyelids, listening to her chest. There were no cuts or bruises, no signs of injury. She was simply asleep, lying in a hatch in a floor under a rug and a bed in some random house in London.

  “I’ll call 999,” Boo said.

  “No,” Thorpe replied. “Bring the car around. Now.”

  “She’s okay?” I asked, getting down on the floor next to her.

  “We need to get her to a doctor,” Thorpe said, sitting back on his knees. “I know someone. Wrap her in a blanket and get her to the car. Put her in the back. Be as low-key as you can about it.”

  He pulled out his phone and sent a text as Callum lifted Charlotte up. Her head rolled back.

  “Freddie, Rory, you’re in the car with me,” Thorpe said. “Rory, you stay in the back with Charlotte. Callum, Boo, you keep eyes on this place.”

  I got into the back, and Charlotte was carefully shifted in, her head resting on my lap. This was perhaps the strangest moment of all, looking down and seeing Charlotte’s face, her red hair against my legs. A few minutes into the drive, I felt her head turn.

  “I think she’s waking up!” I said. “Charlotte?”

  Her eyelashes moved. Her eyelids wrinkled, and she opened and closed her mouth silently. Then both eyes fluttered open, ever so slowly, and Charlotte was looking up at me.

  “Rory?”

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re okay.”

  “Where am I?”

  “We’re going to get you help. We’re on our way to a doctor now. You’re going to be fine.”

  “I feel fine,” she said dreamily.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Keep her talking,” Thorpe said. “We’ll be there soon.”

  I’ve had some awkward conversations in my life, but this was a new one for me. I had my hand in Charlotte’s hair and her head in my lap, and she was gazing up at me with the gentle trust of a puppy. It was deeply unnerving.

  “So,” I said, “you feel okay? You’re okay?”

  “I’m very tired. I feel like I’ve . . . I’ve been sleeping for ages.”

  Charlotte’s focus turned to a point above my eyes.

  “Your hair,” she said, “did you cut it?”

  By the way she asked, it was clear that she was wondering why I’d committed such an act on my own scalp. Charlotte was still in the building.

  “Am I late?” she asked.

  “You’re not late for anything.”

  “I must be late. I must be . . .” She twisted her head around, looking left to right. “Are we going somewhere?”

  “To a doctor,” I said again.

  “Oh, that seems silly. I’m just sleepy. Who are you?”

  This was to Freddie, who was leaning back between the front seats.

  “Freddie Sellars.”

  “You don’t go to Wexford,” Charlotte said, squinting in concentration.

  “No, I’m—”

  “Freddie,” Thorpe said, in a warning tone.

  “A . . . friend of Rory’s?”

  Charlotte stirred, and I helped her sit up. She was heavy and uncoordinated, like she was drunk. She lolled back against the seat.

  “Where are we going?” she asked again. “Whose car is this?”

  “It’s mine,” Thorpe said. “I’m with the security services, and you’re being taken to a doctor.”

  “The security services?”

  She looked out the car window, as if the explanation she was seeking was in the view.

  “You were abducted several days ago,” Thorpe said. “I believe you’ve been drugged.”

  Charlotte considered this information for a moment.

  “I’ve been with Jane,” she said. “I was in the house—I was at Jane’s. And then I was in a different house. But I can’t remember why.”

  “I’m going to ask you some questions,” Thorpe said. “Is that all right?”

  “Oh, it’s fine.”

  “Were you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m just quite tired.”

  “Can you tell me about the people who were at that house? Can you tell me who they were? How many of them there were?”

  Charlotte considered this for a moment.

  “Jane was there. And Devina. And a blond boy. I don’t know . . .”

  “That’s good,” Thorpe said. “That’s fine. What else can you tell me?”

  “They were always nice to me,” she said. “No one hurt me. We ate a lot of soup and bread. And sometimes I watched television. I saw myself on television, on the news.”

  Which was creepy. But not nearly as creepy as the next thing she said.

  “They gave me a bath. Everything after the bath . . .”

  “What do you mean, they gave you a bath?” Thorpe asked.

  “They put me in the bath—with my clothes on, not naked—and something happened, I can’t remember, and I woke up and I was soaked all over, my head and all. I must have been under the water. Then they gave me lots of towels and a dry robe, and we had tea. And they . . . oh, yes, they let me come into the garden for a moment. It was night. There were a lot of stars out. Now I remember. They said, ‘Now you can see.’ And then, the next day, I met a man who wasn’t there . . . Is that a poem? I met a man who wasn’t there . . .”

  Freddie looked at me.

  “Charlotte,” I said, “you had this bath, and then you saw someone who wasn’t there?”

  “In the garden. I know how it sounds. I can’t explain it. It was mad. But it was wonderful. It was like he was made of air, but he was real. Jane and the others talked a lot, but I never understood what they were talking about. They said that it was time.”

  “Time for what?” Thorpe asked.

  “Let me think.” Even half dru
gged, Prefect Charlotte was in there, ready to give her answers carefully. “One morning they were very excited because they were close to finding out where it was.”

  “Where what was?” Thorpe prompted.

  “The stone.” There was a touch of impatience, as if Thorpe hadn’t quite been following along. “They needed the stone to start. I don’t know exactly what was happening, but they seemed to have figured something out, and they said they were close to getting it. That’s the last I remember hearing. Are we going to the British Museum?”

  We were passing a large building, and I supposed that she was correct and that was what it was.

  “We’re going to a house,” Thorpe said. “A doctor I know lives there. She knows you’re coming.”

  When we pulled up, the door to a nearby house opened, and a woman came out to meet us. She was tall and sharply featured, with dark black skin and bright lipstick. She was dressed as conservatively as Thorpe, but with a bit more style—her blouse was creamy white and silky and tied near the neck, and her pencil skirt had a leather stripe up the side. Conservative, but probably designer. It had the look of quality and expense. She came right to the back door and opened it and took Charlotte’s wrist.

  “Charlotte?” she asked.

  “Hello,” Charlotte said. She had gone childlike again.

  “I’m Dr. Marigold. You’ll be going inside now. Do you think you can walk, or do you need to be carried?”

  “I think I can walk.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  The doctor gave Thorpe a deadly look as she assisted Charlotte from the back of the car. She also had a look at me in a way that suggested she knew who I was. Then she escorted Charlotte to the door.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “Someone I work with. Say as little as possible in the house. Repeat nothing you’ve heard in the car, do you understand? If she asks you anything, keep your answers short.”

  I guessed they weren’t really good friends, the doctor and Thorpe.

  Where Thorpe’s flat had been stark and Jane’s had been some kind of retro fever dream, this woman’s house spoke of refinement and tradition. There was no television, but plenty of bookshelves carefully filled with medical and science textbooks and novels. There was an assortment of medical supplies and equipment on the table—a stethoscope, a few vials of things, a needle, rubbing alcohol, and bandages. Charlotte was placed on the sofa, and the doctor listened to Charlotte’s chest with the stethoscope, took her pulse, and looked into her eyes with a flashlight. She examined her legs and arms, turning her wrists around several times.