by Mike Shevdon
"Why?"
"We need to get you downstairs and find you someone who will take care of you."
"What about Mum?"
"We need to get you downstairs. We can't go down your stairs because of the policeman, but I could carry you across the roof if you were very brave."
"I'm not supposed to go on the roof. Mum says it's dangerous."
"It is, but I'll be with you."
She glanced towards the door. "Won't the policemen see us on the roof?"
"Not if we don't want them to," I told her.
She wriggled forward on her tummy and then slid sideways out from under the bed. Standing up, she brushed dust from the front of her clothes. "Mum says I'm not to get under the bed, but I've done it before." Now she was in full view I could see that she had mousey brown hair and wore a long sky blue tee-shirt over dark blue trousers. I judged her about eight years old.
"I expect it's OK," I said. I loosed the catch on the window again and slid up the sash. The warm breeze tugged at the curtains at either side.
"Shall I carry you?"
"It's OK," she said. "I've been on the roof before."
"Gone across the rooftops?"
"No, but I climbed out on the roof to look at the stars one night. They said on TV that you would be able to see Saturn, but I couldn't find it."
"There's probably too much light pollution in the city."
"Too many stars," she said. "They all have names, you know." She said it in a matter of fact way and I didn't contradict her. Maybe they did.
I slipped over the windowsill, deepening the misdirection of my glamour, and then helped her join me. The ease with which she slid over the sill made me think she'd done it more than once. Out on the roof it was breezy and warm, more exposed, but it didn't smell of death like the house. Looking down at her I wondered whether she already knew what had happened in the bedroom below. She must have heard.
"I'll carry you across the gaps and then you can walk the rest of the way," I volunteered.
She put her arms up and I lifted her. She was more substantial than I'd suspected, but she wrapped her legs around above my hips and her arms around my neck, resting her head against my shoulder. The urge to hug her was strong, given all that'd happened, but I simply said, "Ready?"
She nodded against my shoulder. Delaying any further would just make it more difficult, so I took a step back and then ran forward, leaping the gaps between the rooftops. It was more difficult with her weight, but I allowed for her and we made it safely across. I walked to the window I had left ajar and she slid down to the flat roof while I opened the window.
"Do you know whose house this is?" I asked her, wondering if she had a friend here.
"No," she said.
"In that case, be careful not to disturb anything," I told her. "We're only visiting."
I slipped over the sill and she followed me. Inside, she held up her hands again. I hesitated for a moment and then lifted her up. She rested back against my shoulder and we moved quickly down through the house. As we reached the ground floor, the noise from outside increased.
"This is the front door," I told her. "There are a lot of people out there, but we'll find someone to look after you, OK?"
She nodded again against my chest.
We went into the front room looking out onto the street through lace curtains. I scanned the crowds. There were police running back and forth up and down the row, and vehicles being backed out through the crowds, but no one paid us any attention.
"Lucy, Something bad has happened. Your mum's not going to be able to look after you. Do you have any relatives – an aunty you could go to?
She spoke into my shoulder, refusing to look up. "No."
"What about grandparents?"
"No."
"Who looks after you when your mum's busy?" I asked her.
"I go to Christa's after school sometimes," she said.
"Who's Christa?"
"She's a childminder. She looks after me until Mum comes and gets me. She looks after other children as well – Sam and Donna. I play with Sam, but Donna doesn't like me."
"I see."
I shifted the weight of her where it rested against me, wondering what I could do. I had rescued her from the house, but she wasn't my child, or my responsibility. I couldn't just kidnap her because her parents were dead. Just because she said she didn't have anyone didn't mean that there wasn't any family willing to take her in. Besides, what would I do with her? I was lodging at the courts until Blackbird and I could find somewhere more permanent, it wasn't our home exactly. It was a mess, but not every mess was my problem.
"Do you think you can be brave one more time?"
She nodded against me.
"You see that ambulance with the blue flashing lights on the top?"
She lifted her head and turned to see.
"Do you see the lady sat on the back step, the one with the blonde hair?"
She nodded.
"I think if you went to talk to her she might let you ride in the ambulance." It was a poor reward for such a brave girl, but I was running out of time and short of options. "Would you like that?"
"Will you come with me?"
It was the question I did not want to answer. I shook my head. "I'm not even supposed to be here, Lucy. I can't come with you. That's why you need to be brave."
She tucked her head back against my shoulder, and despite myself I hugged her close, thinking all the time that this wasn't helping. We stayed there while I watched people outside, the machinery of a crime scene kicking into motion.
"Will the beast come back?" she asked in a small voice.
"No," I said.
"It knows how to find us. It can follow you anywhere."
"Not any more. That much I promise."
She hugged me a bit more and then allowed herself to be lowered to the ground. I went with her to the front door. "Will I get in trouble for being in the wrong house?" She asked.
"They won't see you until you're ready," I told her.
"Will I see you again?"
"Maybe, who knows?" I was reminded of my daughter saying to me, You always say that when you don't want to say no, but you're not going to say yes.
She reached up to the door catch and opened it enough to slip through, tugging it closed until the lock clicked again. I watched her from the window, using my glamour to keep her unnoticed. As she got further away from me it got harder, but I maintained as much of it as I could until she was near the ambulance.
When the blonde lady sat on the steps of the ambulance looked up and saw Lucy, I released it. I saw her ask Lucy where she had come from. Lucy pointed to her house, and the expression on the lady's face changed. She knelt down beside Lucy and had her point again, following the line of Lucy's fingers to the one doorway that was wide open on that side of the street. She beckoned over a colleague and sent him to go and get a policeman, and then talked to Lucy for a moment. I couldn't see what Lucy said, but she looked back at where I was standing behind the lace curtain and then shook her head.
It was time to leave.
I let myself out the back and found Tate waiting.
"Well?" he said.
"Case closed," I said, though part of me wished otherwise.
SIX
"It's case closed," I said to Garvin. I was back in Mullbrook's office, trying to explain what had happened.
"If only it were that simple," said Garvin walking up and down, picking points off his fingers. "One – it was your responsibility to clean up the mess after these people were released. Two – of all the people on the list you chose to pursue Angela, who presents little or no threat to anyone, and then you bring her here. Three…"
"You told me to bring them in. Besides, you're always telling me not to go in unprepared – to scout out the situation before engaging."
"Three – you wait until there's a major police incident, hundreds of people involved, media interest, streets full of onlookers…"
"No one s
aw me."
"Four – you nearly get yourself killed in the process. Five – you then leave a witness who can identify you…"
"She's a child. She won't say anything, and even if she does they're going to think she's making it up."
"Six – you leave a body with its throat ripped out for the police to examine to their hearts content, no doubt with bloody paw-prints all over the bed linen?"
"It was too late to do anything else."
"And seven – you leave evidence of an escape through an open window so that the police hunt will continue, leaving an open case and an unsolved murder with," he counted his last finger, "…eight – yourself as a potential murder suspect."
Garvin stopped and stared at me.
"Which part of this am I supposed to be happy with, Niall?"
"It was the best I could do in the circumstances."
"The best? I have Secretary Carler demanding an explanation as to why this man Difford wasn't dealt with earlier. He'd already threatened his former partner, he had an injunction out to prevent him from seeing her. It was all in the file. You read the file, did you?"
"Of course, some of it."
"Some of it?"
"I looked through it. I thought it would be best to take them one step at a time – to work my way steadily through them."
Garvin shook his head. "You're not taking this seriously."
"I am…"
"Not seriously enough. These people are dangerous, Niall. They're killers. They've killed before and they'll kill again. Our job," he pointed his finger at me, "is to stop them before they kill anyone else."
"I thought our job was to help them? Bring them in, you said."
"Only where that's an option, Niall. They're damaged goods. Not everyone is going to be able to make the leap – very few of them, probably…"
"So what you really want me to do is to murder them?"
"I gave you Warder's Discretion so that you could make that decision at the time, when it's needed, not so you stand there and admire the scenery. You need to get on top of this, Niall, and fast. Otherwise I'll have to ask one of the others to step in."
"It's still murder, it doesn't matter if someone else's hand is on the sword."
"Tell that to Lucy's mother."
"That's not fair."
"No. It's not nice and it's not fair, but it's what happened. You need to get your head straight before you get you or someone else killed. Think on that while you're reading the files."
He dismissed me with a wave of his hand, turning his back to stare out of Mullbrook's window.
When Blackbird found me I was in one of the abandoned rooms on a dust-sheet covered sofa, a pile of files on the seats to either side of me.
"I can't make any more sense of these than you did," I told her, transferring another file to the pile of files I'd already been through.
She moved the pile of files I'd already been through onto the floor and sat on the covered sofa beside me, her hands clasped in her lap.
"Tate says you're a fully fledged killer now," she said.
"What?"
"He says you killed someone this morning – one of the escapees from Porton Down."
"It wasn't like that."
"What? You gave him a fair fight? Did you challenge him first?"
"He attacked me. I was defending myself, and bloody lucky not to get my throat ripped out."
…the smell of death. Flat dead eyes staring at a wall, blood soaking into the sheets, the torn skin of her throat, gaping red…
"Niall?"
"Yes? Sorry."
"He attacked you?"
"I broke into a house, he – it – was in the bedroom, standing over a dead woman."
"Does it make it easier to use 'it' for a name?"
"Difford. He was called Difford."
"So you killed him."
"He nearly killed me. I managed to throw myself out of the way. A funny thing. He had me cold, I was sprawled on the stairs, I'd lost my footing in the panic to get away. He was at the bottom of the stairs. He could have had me any time he wanted."
"So why didn't he?"
"He waited – it took me a second to reach a position where I could hold my sword straight. Garvin's right, I made a mess of it."
"What was he waiting for?"
"Me, I guess. I'd like to think I know what went through his head in that moment – the woman he'd supposedly come back for was dead, bleeding out into the mattress. He sniffed the air – you could smell blood and shit all the way to the top floor, but he savoured it. Then he threw himself at me, claws and teeth. I didn't stand a chance."
"And yet here you are. Why are you still alive?"
"That's a question I keep asking myself, but I don't feel like a killer – fully fledged or otherwise."
She stood and leaned over, kissing me on the forehead. "That's not a bad thing, Niall. Not a bad thing at all. I'll leave you to your files."
I watched her leave and shook my head. What was all that about? Would I ever understand her?
Opening another file on my lap, I tried to interpret the stream of technical jargon and half-truths written there. After a second I stopped and closed my eyes. Garvin was right about one thing – I needed to get my head straightened out or I really was going to get myself killed. That was easier said than done, though when there were things that I ought to do that I really didn't want to face up to.
I had been doing the things I wanted to do, or the things I thought I could do, leaving a growing pile of things which for one reason or another I didn't want to do. That pile was getting bigger and it wasn't getting any easier.
Perhaps it was time to grasp the nettle.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
Tate must have asked me that ten times while I made the arrangements to see Katherine. I'd asked Big Dave, one of the stewards who was also a driver for one of the court's black Limousines, to drive down and collect her. I asked Tate to say nothing to Garvin about the meeting.
"I don't keep secrets from Garvin," said Tate.
"I'm not asking you to keep it a secret, just don't mention it, that's all."
"He's not going to like it."
"Look, Tate. It's just something I have to do. If you have to tell Garvin then just don't do it until after I've gone. OK?"
Reluctantly, he had agreed.
I had phoned Katherine from one of the increasingly rare payphones and told her I needed to meet, that I had something important to tell her, and that for various reasons I wanted the meeting kept secret.
"Is this one of your games, Niall Petersen?" She had demanded down the crackly phone line.
"No. This is for real. I'll send a car to collect you. The driver's name is Dave and he'll look after you."
"What is it with you and all this cloak and dagger stuff? Why can't you just come to the house like any normal person?"
"You'll understand. I have a lot to explain."
"What does that mean?"
"I'll tell you when I see you."
"You haven't changed one bit, have you?"
"I've changed a lot more than you know. Ten o'clock. Walk down to the end of the road – there'll be a big black car that will flash its lights once. Ask the driver his name. If he says it's Dave then get into the back. He'll do the rest."
"You really love this, don't you?"
"Katherine, just do it, OK?"
"What do I tell Barry?"
"Nothing. He'll be at work and you'll be back in time to cook him supper, though you'll have more to think about than food by then."
"What do I wear?"
"I don't care. Wear something comfortable."
"Typical man, won't tell you whether you're going to be hill-climbing or attending a reception. I don't even know what shoes to wear, will anyone else be there?"
"Just me. That's it. There's no one to impress. Jeans and trainers will be fine."
"Are we going to be inside or out?"
"Outside. But it's wa
rm, the forecast is dry. Just come as you are."
"I'll bring a sweater, just in case. And an umbrella."
"Whatever. Just come."
I would have done this without involving the stewards, but I needed to get Katherine away from anyone else before I told her. That meant I couldn't do it at her house, or anywhere near Barry, her new man. However well-intentioned he might be, this was something between Katherine and me.