A Madness of Angels ms-1

by Kate Griffin

  —

  On the third day, I got a phone call from Oda.

  It went, “Where are you hiding?”

  “If I told you that, it wouldn’t be hiding.”

  “Never mind, I’ll trace the call.”

  “You called me.”

  “Doesn’t mean these things can’t be traced.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “That wasn’t really my problem.”

  “No. I suppose that about sums it up.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “To find Bakker.”

  “You just think sitting around on your arse is going to help you find Bakker?”

  “Simmons will tell me where Bakker is.”

  “So you’re waiting to find Simmons?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if he doesn’t? Or won’t that matter?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “You are a one-note-answer kinda guy, aren’t you?”

  “At the moment.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Is that it? Fair enough?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Oh, please. I’m going to find you, remember?”

  “You’ve made the point explicitly clear. Although, to tell the truth, it may not be such a bad thing.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m sure you’ll work it out,” I said. “When things get sticky, talk to Vera.”

  “You trust her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s not actually sworn an oath to the deity to decapitate me at the earliest available opportunity,” I replied, “which is a good thing.” And hung up, before she could say something offensive.

  About an hour later, Charlie rang.

  “Found Simmons yet?” I asked.

  “Yes – you were right, about the thing following him. It’s not pretty.”

  “Where?”

  “You’ll need a lift. Looks like this thing is going down in the middle of bloody nowhere.”

  “Let me worry about transport.”

  “I knew you would,” he said, and gave me the address.

  Just one more thing that needed to be done, before it finished. Just one.

  I found a copy of the Yellow Pages on top of a bus shelter, and leafed through it until I found the number under C for Catering. I wandered back to my hotel, picked up the phone and dialled.

  The voice that answered said, “Palmero Paradise, yeah?”

  “I’m looking for Mrs Mikeda.”

  “Who’s calling, like?”

  “Matthew Swift.”

  “Right, give’s a mo.”

  I waited. The owner of the sawing voice and grating accent could be heard in the distance beyond the receiver saying, “Hey, where’s the bag gone?”

  We had a feeling…

  … voices in the receiver…

  … we knew we could know this voice, if we wanted to. Everyone leaves something behind, in the phones.

  “Hey, Swift, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s just coming.”

  “Thank you.”

  … so easily…

  I pinched the palm of my hand until the skin was red and lumpy. A voice came onto the phone, with a different accent that drooled across every syllable like a pot of honey. “Yes? Who’s this?”

  “Mrs Mikeda? It’s Matthew Swift here.”

  “If you want money I’m not your woman, you know?”

  “Money? No.”

  “Then piss off.”

  She slammed the phone down on the hook. I was surprised; but, thinking about it, I wondered how I had ever expected a better reception.

  I packed up my belongings and decided to do things the old-fashioned way.

  Palmero Paradise was a small, greasy sandwich shop off Smithfield meat market, where the butchers went in their lunch hour for salami sandwiches and a slosh of tea in a cardboard cup. When I arrived, it was early evening: too soon for the area’s fashionable wine bars and soon-to-be-heaving clubs to have opened their doors, but late enough for the market’s gates to be shuttered over the racks of mechanised hooks and the floors smelling of diluted blood and sawdust. The streets had a quiet, Sunday-afternoon feel, drained of excitement in a thin drizzle.

  The lights were still on in Palmero Paradise, but they were clearly shutting up shop, moving the few wobbly metal tables back into the small shop and pulling down the covers on the fridges. I picked up the last sandwich on the shelves – Cheddar cheese and suspicious-looking pickles wrapped in cling film – and ordered a cup of coffee.

  Behind the counter, the young man in the big red apron had the same nasal accent that I’d heard on the phone. He said, “We’re closing, like.”

  “I just want a coffee.”

  “Sure, right, yeah, but…”

  “We think you call telephone pornography lines,” we said suddenly, feeling inspired both by his apron and the familiar drone of his voice, and irritated by his reluctance to give us something to drink. And then, because I was surprised to find both that we believed this and that his face showed it was true, I added, “You need to get yourself a girl.”

  He said, “Are you…”

  “Is Mrs Mikeda around?”

  “You’re not the nut who phoned, are you?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Look, uh, I don’t want…”

  “Maybe you should see if she’s still here.”

  “Right. Yeah. Whatever.”

  With that, he disappeared through the jangling plastic bead netting at the back of the café.

  I waited. A moment later, to the sound of much stomping, Mrs Mikeda appeared. She had a mobile phone in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other and the words “Leave now, police soon or scissors immediately, which would you…” on her lips before she looked at me, I looked at her, and the words died.

  “Mrs Mikeda,” I said politely, because Mum had always taught me to be courteous to older women.

  “Mr Swift!” The words were as much twisted sounds on an uncontrolled rush of air, as showing any intent to speak. “You’re … not… I mean… you’re…”

  “How are you, Mrs Mikeda?” I asked, in an attempt to break the ice.

  “I’m well, yes, fine, fine. What are you doing here?”

  “Is this ‘Surely you aren’t after a coffee’ what are you doing here or ‘Why aren’t you six feet under and decomposing?’ what are you doing here?”

  “I don’t want to… but you were…”

  “I wanted to talk to you about Dana.”

  Her face tightened. She lowered the scissors and the phone with a conscious effort that shook her little frame. “Maybe somewhere more private.”

  Mrs Mikeda was the daughter of a Russian émigré who, she’d always claimed, had fled the Russian Revolution in 1917 with the secrets of the Tsar’s court in his head, a loyal, steadfast and cultured aristocrat who’d died of a broken heart. However, that story had always seemed a bit remote from any likelihood, and since her father had only recently died, in a council flat in Bermondsey, the chronology didn’t quite make sense either.

  She was of average height, and unusual width – being not so much fat as all-present, so that even in the largest of rooms there was never quite enough space for the crowd and Mrs Mikeda to coexist peacefully. Her skin had been dropped onto her frame like a curtain over a piece of treasured furniture; it was full of endless folds and hidden depths, suggested even beneath her voluminous puffed flowery shirt, and a giant navy-blue skirt from beneath which poked a pair of legs that were all kneecap. Sitting in her kitchen, she poured vodka into two plastic cups and said, “I know it’s a cliché, but the English don’t know how to drink.”

  I steeled myself and as she did, so I too downed mine in one. We were horrified by the initial shock of it, then strangely fascinated as it burnt its way int
o the stomach and sent a punch up through our arteries straight to the brain, as if the whole thing had instantly combusted on touching our flesh and filled our veins with vapour. We didn’t know whether it would be safe to try any more; but to our relief, Mrs Mikeda didn’t make the offer. Instead, the vodka out of the way, she poured coffee and said, “So… I suppose you must get asked this all the time?”

  “Asked…”

  “About how you were dead.”

  She passed a mug over to me and stood up to rummage in the back of a cupboard above a shining stainless steel sink with industrial shower attachments for cleaning purposes, until she found a packet of digestive biscuits.

  “Oh. Yes. Dead,” I repeated vaguely, watching as she slit the plastic open with a single titanium-razored red nail. “It’s complicated.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Always complicated. Knew it would be when I first met you.”

  I took the coffee and felt grateful for the distraction of it: the nice social ceremony and the hot mug into which I could peer as if it held all my troubles. She sat down again with the groan of an ageing lady who spent too much time on her feet. “So? You want to talk about my daughter.”

  “How is she?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I… haven’t seen her recently.”

  “Why not?… Oh… yes. Dead.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “She’s all right.”

  “Is that it?”

  “What, you were hoping for bad news?”

  “No, no, not at all… I just… didn’t expect it to be so brief.”

  “I don’t see much of her these days.”

  “Why not?”

  “Shouldn’t you be asking her? Or is there something you want to tell me?”

  She looked at me with her head on one side and, even though she wore an innocent, almost childish expression behind her ruddy cheeks and big, curly, metallic-red hair, her eyes still had that gleam of sharp intelligence from when I’d first met her.

  I found that I couldn’t answer.

  “Biscuit?”

  “What?… No, thanks.”

  She took a biscuit from the package, bit off a corner, dipped the rest in the coffee, waited a few seconds, then ate it in a single bite. I watched her chew and she watched the floor. When she’d finished she let out a long sigh and said, “All right, let’s get through the list first. Is my daughter dead, possessed, demonically influenced or cursed in any way?”

  “What? No! At least, not as far as I’m aware.”

  “You don’t seem very far aware,” she pointed out reasonably.

  “I don’t think she’s any of the above.”

  “Well, that’s the essentials covered. Is there anything else you need to talk to me about?” She saw my expression. “I’m a good Christian mother, you know. I like to make sure that my daughter, while clearly a vessel for some mystical forces, isn’t breaking too many articles of the faith?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, she’s not.”

  “Good. Then what do you want?”

  “Have you ever met Robert James Bakker?”

  “Yes,” she said, in the weary voice of someone who knows where this conversation is going and can’t believe she has to wait at the traffic lights to get there.

  “What do you think of him?”

  “Nice man. Held her hand at your funeral; very nice man.”

  “Yes,” I murmured. “I think he is.”

  “But you have the look of a man with something to say on that count,” she added. “Come on, out with it. That’s what I liked about you, Mr Swift – always very straightforward.”

  “Really?”

  She grinned, and took another biscuit. “First thing you ever said to me: ‘Excuse me, ma’am, may I have a black coffee, strong, no sugar, and is a member of your family or your household acting peculiar bordering on mystical by any chance?’”

  “I said that?” I asked, surprised at myself.

  “Yes.”

  “Just out of the blue?”

  “Yes. You looked like you’d had a long day.”

  “It was a while back,” I admitted.

  “And you’ve probably been busy since then…”

  “Yes…”

  “Funerals, decomposition and so on.”

  I smiled patiently. “As a good Christian mother…” I began.

  “You sure you don’t want a biscuit?”

  “Maybe one,” we said quickly, taking it from the package offered. “Thank you. As a good Christian mother,” I continued, “are you wondering about what the Bible has to say on the sanctity of resurrection when it’s not our lord and saviour?”

  “You know, the Old Testament…” she began.

  “I’m really, really not dead,” I said. “In fact, it’s starting to get a bit of a pain having to explain it all.”

  “Dana thinks you’re dead. Explain it to her – leave me out of it. As far as I’m concerned what happens in your world stays in your world.”

  “I’m sorry to come here like this…”

  “Get on with it, Mr Swift. Bad news should at least be honest about what it wants.”

  “Where’s Dana?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know or won’t tell?”

  “She went with Mr Bakker.”

  “Why?”

  “I said. He was kind. You… shall we skip ‘died’ and go to ‘disappeared’?”

  “Where’s Dana?”

  “He’s like you. He said he was your teacher.”

  “He was.”

  “Well, is it bad?” she asked sharply. “He taught you, you taught Dana, she didn’t seem to become anything that I feared, any sort of…” She caught herself, then smiled, a pained twitch of the mouth. “She’s fine.”

  “But you don’t know where?”

  “He gives her money for travel, her own things. She moves around a lot. You never provided money, Mr Swift. I know that’s not what it’s about but you have to understand… why’s he successful?”

  “What?”

  “Mr Bakker? He came up to me at the funeral and offered me a lift, said he knew that my daughter was… well… gave me a lift home to talk about what happened next. Said she was half-trained, still needed help, but spoke highly of you. Big black car, seats made of leather.”

  “He’s a good businessman.”

  “Good sorcerer?” she asked, so sharp it was almost angry.

  “Yes,” I said, taken aback. “Very… capable.”

  She snorted. “Good man?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Why’d you want to see Dana?”

  “She was my apprentice!”

  “So?”

  “It’s important.”

  “But you’re not saying why.”

  “It’s just… it is important.”

  “Come on, come on,” she said, waving a hand impatiently in a circle through the air. “Get on with it!”

  I took a deep breath. “She might be in danger.”

  “Good!”

  “Good?”

  “Good that you’ve told me; not good that it is. Why is she in danger?”

  “I said might be.”

  “You said might be because you think I am a stupid old woman who can’t cope or understand. Come on! Why is she in danger?”

  “It’s… to do with Mr Bakker.”

  “Ah. I thought it might be.”

  “Why?”

  “She doesn’t come home any more. She calls sometimes, but then won’t talk; she says that the phones listen. She’s lost a lot of weight – how can a girl who eats that much lose so much weight? Is he a good man, your Mr Bakker?”

  “He was.”

  “But isn’t any more?”

  “It’s…”

  “… complicated? Always was, Mr Swift. What do you want?”

  “I… think I wanted to apologise.”

  “OK. You’ve apologised. Anything else?”

  I
shook my head, then hesitated. Mrs Mikeda waited. I said, “If you can contact her, if you can find her, tell her I’m sorry. And tell her to get out while she can.”

  “Why?”

  “Shit and fans.”

  “Have you put her in danger?”

  “No!”

  “Will you?”

  I said nothing. She smiled and asked, politely, “Vodka?”

  “No thanks. Not really our thing.”

  “Trust me, Mr Swift?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me everything.”

  To my surprise, I did.

  Second Interlude: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

  In which the cost of sorcery is remembered over takeaway fish and chips.

  This is how I met Dana Mikeda.

  Late spring in central London; it is almost impossible to feel depressed. The trees are sprouting green leaves on every street, the sky is blue, dotted with thin white clouds, the sunlight reflects watery colours off the windows of offices and divides the street between cold shadows and burning bright rooftops. The air smells clean in the morning after it rains, and the people, who make a city what it is, start sporting bare shoulders and sunglasses almost as soon as the temperature hits double figures. It is pleasantly warm in the sun, with a breeze that isn’t quite cool enough for goose bumps.

  On the morning I met Dana, I was walking along the Holborn Viaduct above the busy Farringdon Road, not paying much attention to where I was going, enjoying the stroll. It was that time of the mid-afternoon when the streets in the centre of town weren’t too busy, and the usual buzz of magic and urgency on the air that to a large degree dictated my daily routine was at a gentle, soft ebb.

  In Smithfield I bought a sausage roll from a shop by the meat market, and sat on a bench outside the faded classical façade of Barts hospital, eating and watching people go by: young businessmen in smart suits, butchers in huge aprons and fat rubber gloves, builders in hard hats, and trendy people looking like they were designers, in fashionably torn jeans.

  It was while sitting there that I became aware of being watched. I looked round; and eventually I saw the source of my unease. The rat stood on its hind legs, in a patch of shadow obscuring a narrow street that led towards the church of St Bartholomew the Great. He was quite unconcerned at the passers-by, and just staring. I was used to unusual behaviour, but even the unusual things in my life tended to have an explanation, and I couldn’t muster a valid one for this, so I finished my sausage roll, brushed the crumbs off my jeans, stood up, and wandered towards the rat.