by J. F. Penn
Jamie gave a sharp laugh. "Guess that concussion isn't too bad then."
After a short taxi ride, Jamie pushed open the door to Blake's flat in the historic Bloomsbury area. The early-morning commuters were walking through the streets, but it was still quiet in the square. Many of the tall terraced houses were affixed with blue plaques commemorating the famous names who once lived here: Darwin, Dickens and even JM Barrie, who created Peter Pan. As Jamie helped Blake inside and up the staircase, she considered that he was a kind of Lost Boy, his beautiful face wracked by pain from past lives that were not even his own. He mounted the stairs slowly, gripping the bannister with his gloved hand.
Blake's rooms were at the very top of the building, a small studio flat nestled in the eaves with a view over the rooftops of London. It was sparsely furnished with a few pieces of wooden furniture. Jamie had been here once before, when she had been crazy with grief and Blake had been out of his mind on tequila. He had looked after her then, and she would help him now.
"Shall I make tea?" Jamie asked, as Blake sat heavily on the bed.
"You don't have to stay, you know," he said. "I'm only going to sleep."
Jamie smiled. "You have concussion, you idiot. I'm staying while you sleep so you don't suddenly die. After all that trouble finding you after the explosion, do you think I'm going to let you out of my sight now?"
Blake managed to return a smile that turned into a grimace as pain crossed his face. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, exhaling slowly.
Jamie crossed to the little kitchen, searching in the cupboards for teabags. She found a mostly empty bottle of tequila next to the Tetley. As she made the tea, she noticed another empty bottle of spirits in the recycling. She knew Blake drank, but she hadn't really realized how much until now. He was damaged, but then so was she. They just coped with their grief in different ways.
She carried the sweet milky tea back to Blake, putting it on a side table within his reach. Jamie sat down on the edge of the bed for a moment, looking down at him. The soft morning light from the window touched his face, his caramel skin smooth and unblemished, his stubble almost a beard now. His chest rose and fell rhythmically but every breath was controlled, forced through the pain of bruising to his chest.
If he had been in a different place when the blast went off … Jamie couldn't think of losing Blake that way. After all, he'd only been there because she'd asked him to be and she had put him in danger before. Images of broken bodies came to her mind, the Turbine Hall full of smoke and the bloody corpses of those who had been celebrating only moments before. The full force of the tragedy began to settle upon her now. It seemed surreal, the sensation similar to how she had felt after Polly's death. The realization of obliteration, how fragile we really are on the face of the earth, how easily ended.
Blake opened his eyes and the deep blue was intense as he gazed up at Jamie. He raised one gloved hand to her cheek, touching her face softly.
"Will you lie down next to me?" His voice was soft with a note of vulnerability. "You must be exhausted too."
At his words, Jamie felt a wave of tiredness wash over her. The last few days had been crazy and the events of last night had almost broken her. This was not how she had imagined them being together, but right now, they both needed a human touch.
"As long as you don't think this is a date," Jamie whispered with a half smile, but she felt the prick of tears in her eyes. She lay down next to him, putting her head on the crook of his shoulder, her hand on his broad chest. Blake smelled of smoke and antiseptic and underneath, his own musky scent. Jamie nuzzled closer, he put his arm around her and they slept.
Chapter 21
Dale Cameron breathed a sigh of relief as he walked through his front door and shut it firmly behind him. He was alone at last after the hours of media frenzy that followed the explosion at the Tate. He was still very much awake though – the exhilaration of running rings around the whole lot of them made sure of that.
He stood on the brown welcome mat and took off his brogues, adding them to the shoe rack against the left wall, making sure that they were aligned correctly. He put on his inside shoes, a soft pair of leather moccasins that molded to his feet and allowed him to walk silently on the wooden floors further inside. He hung up his overcoat, adjusting the sleeves so they draped nicely on the peg. He put his keys in the red bowl on the dresser, enjoying the jingling sound as they fell.
Entering his domain was a ritual he relished, especially after a day in the grime of London. When he had cleaned up the city to the point where it was as perfect as his house, his job would be done. And he had made a good start to that in the last twenty-four hours.
He paused by the two portraits that hung side by side in his hallway. His mother's beauty had been captured in a candid shot when he was a child, his own smiling face next to hers as she hugged him close. He had been eleven when she had died of internal injuries sustained after falling down the stairs. He knew what she had been running from, but the police looked after their own and back then, fewer questions were asked about injuries in the home. Dale lifted a finger to her face, as he did every time he came home.
Next to it was a picture of his father, taken in uniform at the height of his career, his face confident. "I have already surpassed you," Dale whispered. Once he was Mayor he would go to that stinking old people's home and spit the words in his father's dying face. That day would come soon now.
Dale smiled at the thought and padded into his study at the back of the house. It was the very model of what a Detective's room should look like, with leather wing chairs, a large oak table and bookshelves with all the latest forensic tomes as well as older first editions behind glass panels. A cigar box sat on the desk and Dale adjusted it so the edges lined up perfectly with the tabletop edge.
He walked to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a generous measure of 62 Gun Salute, one of the best of the Royal Salute whiskeys. Tonight he deserved to celebrate. The list of the dead included noted homosexuals, social justice campaigners, tattoo artists and liberals of every kind. If only that bitch Amanda Masters had died in the blast, but then, perhaps that would have made her some kind of martyr.
He padded behind the desk to one of the bookshelves. He pulled out an Arthur Conan Doyle volume and typed a code onto a hidden keypad. There was an audible click and Dale tugged on the bookcase, revealing a door behind. He pulled a key from around his neck, one he kept hidden under his clothes and on his person at all times. His heart beat faster as he inserted the key in the lock and twisted it slowly, prolonging the pleasure of the moment.
Keeping this place was risky, but a man had to have a way to commemorate his successes and relive his pleasures. Dale needed a sanctuary away from the world, when he could be his real self. It was a tremendous effort balancing the demands of the police with his real agenda. There were those he worked with on other plans, but the group had been damaged in the wake of the Hellfire Caves scandal and the investigation into RAIN had further weakened the inner circle. But now he was close to power and soon they would rally again.
He pushed open the door and entered the small room, flicking a switch to turn on the lights that illuminated certain parts of his collection. One wall was dedicated to masks and Dale reached out to touch the plague doctor's hooked beak. He had replaced it after his success at the masquerade ball. The city was infected with a plague and it was time to weed out the weak and the needy, those who were a burden on society. Nature knew how to cull the herd, he only helped the process with his bombs.
Next to the mask were his knives, some ceremonial and precious for their monetary value. But others … Dale walked to the display and caressed the gleaming edge of the skinning knife. This one held greater pleasure than much of his collection, but now he would have to rest it for a while. He would soon give up control of crime scenes as Mayor and no longer have the ability to disappear evidence. The knife would have to remain on the wall, at least for now.
He ran his fingers over the books of human skin that were placed on their own bookshelf, flesh against flesh as their covers touched. Each was a slightly different size, all the better to allow the tattoos to be fully displayed on the covers and spine. There was space missing for the book he would have had made from the skin that had been found at the old abattoir. It was in the evidence room now, but perhaps there would be a way to get it back once the noise had died down.
Owning a Cabinet of Obscene Objects had once been fashionable amongst aristocratic families. So many of the treasures of antiquity portrayed sex and debauchery that special rooms were created to protect the eyes of the more sensitive members of society. Dale thought of this place as his own cabinet, where only the strong could stomach what was within. Not that he ever allowed anyone inside. The bachelor life suited him just fine.
He turned and bent to his prize possession, his pulse racing as he placed his hands upon the box. It was carved with images of carnal depravity, one of those objects that the public would complain of while secretly craving a look. As part of the police task force on pornography, he had overseen the seizure of millions of photos and videos over the years. He had kept a selection of it to add to his own collection, not for his own pleasure of course, but to galvanize his desire to stamp out the perverts who made them. Only by understanding their mindset could he seek them out and destroy them.
He had also kept copies of crime scene photos, finding a beauty in the colors and poses of corpses. He opened the box, his hand hovering over his pictures. He wanted to allow himself the time to sit and gaze at them, to find his own pleasure in the descent into depravity. But he had more work to do today. He pulled out four new photos from his jacket pocket. Each one was a close-up of a corpse from the Turbine Hall, three women and a man, each body ripped apart but their faces intact. Dale liked beauty with an edge of darkness and these epitomized his particular fascination.
He sat down on the single chair in the room, an antique he had purchased from the estate of Sir Francis Galton, the esteemed eugenicist, a man who had known about culling the weak. Dale liked to think he could channel the great man here somehow. He breathed deeply and took another sip of his whiskey. Now that he had the mandate of the city to pursue those responsible for the Masquerade Massacre, it was time to send a stronger signal. He had been preparing for this day for a long time and finally he could act with public support behind him. In the next week, he would rid London of its dregs and take the Mayoralty on a surge of public support for strong-armed action.
He thought back to the Turbine Hall in the moments before the explosion. He had turned to fix the masquerade in his mind, seeing the hall through the slits in his mask, framed as a tableau of revelry. The proud before the fall. But someone had seen him. There was no way Jamie Brooke could have recognized him in the mask, but he had felt a moment of connection between them.
She had been a thorn in his side for too long now. Her interference had brought down the Lyceum that night in the Hellfire Caves and she had stumbled into the plans RAIN had for the mentally ill. Dale remembered their confrontation after that case. He had wanted her reassigned somewhere she would be kept busy and out of the way, but she had resigned and started her own investigation service. She couldn't be allowed to threaten his plans, but there were ways she could be dealt with this time and it might help rid him of the others too.
Dale pulled out his wallet and riffled through it, finding the business card with a blue boxing glove on it. He picked up the phone and dialed. He would start with Southwark, his own rotten borough. If he picked off the leaders, the rest would fall.
Chapter 22
The smashing of glass woke Magda from a deep sleep. Her heart beat fast at the unusual sound, panic rising in her chest. She untangled herself from O's sleeping form and pulled a robe around herself. She walked quickly into the studio area to find flames spreading from a broken bottle of accelerant, glass all over the floor from the broken window.
The fire caught on some of the flammable paint and flames spread quickly towards the stack of canvases in the corner.
"Olivia," Magda shouted. "Get up, quickly. We have to get out." She grabbed at some of the canvases nearest to her, dragging them out of the way of the flames, but she knew it was too late. The fire was spreading too fast.
The high-pitched squeal of the smoke alarm pierced the air, a note of danger and desperation. Magda beat at the flames with a fire blanket, sobbing as she watched her canvases catch and burn.
O emerged from the bedroom and rushed into the kitchenette to grab the fire extinguisher. But Magda knew that it was only meant for a small fire and sure enough, it was soon empty, the flames still spreading. She called the emergency services, giving the address in a calm voice and explaining the situation, even as her mind struggled to fathom the destruction around her. The soothing voice of the operator assured her that the fire brigade was on its way, but Magda knew it would be too late.
"We have to get out." O tugged at her lover's arm, covering her mouth to block some of the smoke.
"I can't leave it all," Magda whispered in desperation. "This is everything. I'll be ruined."
O put her hand on Magda's cheek, turning her face and looking into her eyes.
"You are everything, my love. This stuff can be replaced, but you can't. Haven't we learned that over the last days?"
Magda looked around at the flaming studio, her canvases, her equipment on the way to ruin. This was her life's work, her sanctuary. The flames roared as they accelerated through a pile of packaging material.
"We have to get out now." O pulled on her arm and Magda's resolve crumbled. With tears in her eyes, she stumbled out of the studio and into the courtyard outside. Groups of people stood looking on, tenants from the flats above weeping as the flames climbed higher and they were pushed back towards the road beyond.
The sound of cracking and buckling beams could be heard from within as an upper level collapsed down through the ceilings to the ground floor. The creaking protests of the building were like the groans of the dying.
Magda stood as close she could, the heat from the fire almost burning her skin. In other circumstances she would have reveled in these flames, an element of destruction that allowed rebirth. She had thrown her own past on flames like these, destroying what was spent and rotten to enable the new to arise. But now … everything she had built here would be destroyed. She swallowed, fighting to hold back the tears.
The sound of sirens filled the air and fire engines arrived along with police to control the scene. Tenants and onlookers were pushed further back, urged to move away but Magda couldn't leave. She watched as fire hoses began to soak the flames, their powerful jets raining down on her studio. Whatever hadn't been lost in the fire would be destroyed by its opposite element. Perhaps there was a lesson in that.
O slipped an arm round Magda's waist, leaning her head on her lover's shoulder.
"There's nothing we can do here," she said. "Why don't you come back to my place? Have a drink. We'll come back when it's all under control."
But Magda couldn't tear her eyes from the flames.
"I need to stay," she said, her voice quiet. She turned and looked into O's eyes. She was so lucky to have this woman in her life, but there were times when she needed to be alone. "But maybe you can go get some supplies. Hot chocolate would be good. Maybe something stronger to go with it."
O leaned up and kissed her full on the mouth.
"Of course, I won't be long."
O turned and navigated through the crowd away from the scene. Magda walked to the edge of the perimeter and sat down on a step, exhaling deeply as she looked into the flames again, holding out her hands to the fire so she could see the full length of her own tattoos, silhouetted against the orange-red of the flames. The marks on her skin were both the end and the beginning, she thought, remembering the past. Had it all been worth it?
She had left Ireland twenty-two years ago now – strange that it had bee
n so long. It seemed like a different life.
Back then, her name had been Ciara, for her dark hair and for the saint who saved a village from fire back in the seventh century. Raised in a strict Catholic home and sent to a convent school, her world had been shuttered and controlled by rules. Any question deemed wrong for a girl to ask had resulted in punishment, and she had spent a lot of time recovering from the birch in the struggle to be silent.
Boys were forbidden and exciting, although she had sensed more of an attraction to girls even back then. The nights she had escaped the convent and spent drinking with the local boys had turned into something more, and when she discovered she was pregnant, her world turned. She was called deviant and possessed by the Devil for following the path of sin. Magda remembered how confused she had been back then, how angry that fumbling and pain had resulted in something that turned her into a pariah. Even now, she could still recall the hate in the Reverend Mother's eyes as she had been cast out.
They had sent her to a house for unwed mothers to await the arrival of the child, but Magda knew she couldn't stay. She had felt an overwhelming sense that she would die there if she remained. The eyes of the other girls were hollow and haunted, rumors of a pit out the back where hundreds of babies and young mothers were buried, taken back to God.
That night she had run from the place, escaping over the fields and heading cross country, eventually reaching the coast. There she had used her body to bargain for a ferry crossing, the pregnancy not yet far gone enough to put the man off. She didn't care for the sexual act, but she certainly understood what it was worth.
Once on English soil, she had found an abortion clinic. When they asked for her name, she found herself saying Magda. The harsh syllables were more European than Irish and yet Mary Magdalene had always been the saint she had loved the most. The sinner who Jesus had loved, the woman whom he chose to reveal himself to first in the garden after his resurrection.
