I glance periodically over at my hotel room, sure that whoever’s set me up will break in at any moment. At least then I’ll know who I’m really up against. I’ll be pissed if it’s Julian. He’s provided the only income I’ve ever had. If he’s using me as a scapegoat, I can kiss goodbye to the flat. The mattress on the floor. The odds and ends I put in there to make it into a home.
I have no idea what the time is. The traffic becomes a rushing torrent of fumes and angry engines, then finally subsides. I watch the commuter army cram into the nearest Tube station, then the street quietens.
It has to be around 8pm.
Huddling against the chimney, my mind wanders back to Bolt’s place. He said I’d changed, but he was different, too. Calmer, when he wasn’t trying to crush my throat. Maybe he’s grown up. Unless he’s in on this, too. He’d nearly choked me when I turned up, which I’d half expected. Was it just an act? Had he been calm after that because he’d been waiting for me to turn up?
I tear my nails with my teeth. I’m so paranoid I almost don’t even trust myself.
Would you trust somebody who could kill you just by sitting next to you?
I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. A shadow passes through my hotel room. I tense against the roof ledge, craning as far forward as I dare, squinting at the hotel.
Somebody’s broken into my room. Somebody’s been following me.
Instead of feeling relief that I’m not completely paranoid, I chew the inside of my cheek. The shape in the hotel room moves stealthily behind the net curtain and I can’t tell who it is. Rose? Julian?
The shadow goes into the bathroom, then comes out again and approaches the bed. Something goes flying. Must be the duvet. The figure’s at the window. It looks out, searching. Then it stops moving. I crouch lower, but it’s too late. It’s seen me.
The figure draws the netting aside and I glimpse long, ghostly white hair. It frames a narrow, bony face. Dark eyes blaze across the space between us.
And I’ve gone mad.
I cease to exist. I’m blank and inside out and dead and alive all at once.
Because I know that face.
It belongs to my mother.
Article from The Sunday Times
Police hunt businessman’s killer
By JAMES WALLACE
Reporter
Police are hunting a 30-year-old woman in connection with the murder of a prominent businessman.
The woman, believed to be Celene Cross, was captured on CCTV footage near Waterloo Bridge the night Takehiko Kobayashi, 45, was killed almost two weeks ago.
Mr Kobayashi was an influential tradesman who came to London in the ’70s and quickly established a profitable empire. He was shot dead in his offices at Silver Tower on 20 May and found by his son, Chouko Kobayashi.
Ms Cross, who is reported to be pregnant, is also wanted for multiple murder charges and bank raids, including the raid on an HSBC branch in South Kensington, in which 13 hostages were killed.
Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Wilson said: ‘I would urge anyone who thinks they have seen Ms Cross to contact the police as soon as possible. Anyone who sees her should not approach her.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I’m frozen. I’ve seen her face a hundred times staring hollowly out from the front pages of newspapers. The face of a killer. A sharp nose like a blade, bloodless lips, hair the colour of crows. The same as mine.
But she’s dead. That’s what they say. What everybody says. So why is she staring at me now from across the street? She looks like a dead version of the woman who murdered all those people in the ’90s. A parody of Celene Cross. Everything that was sleek and vital about her has become ashen. Her hair’s so white, like it’s been drained of life, and her skin is a hard marble so pale it’s almost blue.
Maybe she looks dead because she is. She’s clawed her way out of the earth. Come for me. I’ve killed so many people, she’s going to even the score. Make me feel the pain of every death, including hers.
She lingers in the window and I can’t read her expression. Her white lips don’t move. Her dark eyes are riddles, seeing me. Seeing me. My mother’s looking at me for the first time and I’m looking back and neither of us can move.
A spark flashes on the roof next to me.
I jump, unsure what caused it.
Another spark and I lurch backwards, away from the ledge. My gaze roves up to the hotel roof and I see a shape crouched there. Hunched over a gun that’s pointed right at me.
She’s not alone.
She’s gone from the window. The hotel room’s empty.
She’s coming for me.
It’s raining bullets. Another spray narrowly misses me and I stumble back towards the fire escape. A lasso of pain lashes my calf. I hurl myself at the steps, surrounded by the tinny pop of bullets striking the metal above my head as I descend.
Urged on by some primitive instinct, I clatter down the fire escape. I push all thoughts of my mother from my mind, hurtling away from the roof. As I reach the bottom, dark shapes spill into the cement space at the back of the chicken shop.
Reverend Mara’s dogs.
‘You lie with your mother’s tongue.’
It all becomes clear. She’s working with Mara. She worked for his father and now she’s moving down the family tree. That’s how he knew who I was. Are we similar? Does she lie the way I do?
Something whooshes through the air and a knife strikes the bricks, missing my ear by centimetres.
I take the only route open to me, bowling into the chicken shop’s kitchen. A couple of shocked workers stare as I crash through, knocking over pans and blundering on into the shop. I squeeze under the counter, ignoring the yells of the shop workers, and hurtle out onto the street.
The window shatters behind me. The sniper on the roof? Or Mara’s ninjas?
Not wasting another breath, I turn and pound the pavement, shouts erupting behind me as the Reverend’s men shove people out of the way to give chase.
This is bad. This is it. No way I can outrun all of them.
I see a corner up ahead. If I can just get around it, I’ll at least be out of range. Maybe find a car. Maybe not get killed.
Even as I will myself to speed up, a figure in a baseball cap turns the corner and strolls towards me. He sneers and his teeth are stained, his nose fixed with a white plaster. Nicotine Man.
‘Still running!’ he crows, raising a gun at me.
I skid to a halt.
Time slows down.
The barrel of the gun is a black hole, a sucking vacuum.
The sound of screeching tyres fills my ears and I hear a voice shouting.
‘Rumer! Rumer, get in!’
A vehicle mounts the pavement between me and Nicotine Man. A beaten-up van. The passenger door swings open and Bolt’s at the wheel, calling, his hand outstretched.
In a daze, I clamber into the van. I hear Nicotine Man shrieking but then we’re reversing and we’re back on the road and traffic’s whizzing by, but all I can think is she’s alive. My mother’s alive and she wants me dead.
Part Three
THE GHOST
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Everything I know about Bolt:
1. He was a police officer.
2. His mother died when he was a baby so his dad raised him.
3. Coffee makes him paranoid.
4. He’s the only person who could see the shadow.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ONE DAY BEFORE THE HAMMER
Bolt’s talking, but I’m not listening. My hands are numb, my ears ringing. The windscreen wipers flip back and forth but all I see is the rain. It lashes the road and I want to get out and soak in it. Feel anything other than the sensation that my mind’s splitting apart.
Her hair was so white. Her eyes so dark. It’s like I’ve fallen into those black pits. Now I’m stuck in the filth at the bottom and, no matter how much I struggle, I’ll never be free. She’ll never let me be free, b
ecause I’m part of her, and she’s part of me. Always.
‘Rumer!’
I blink, look at Bolt.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No,’ I murmur. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re bleeding.’
He’s looking down at my leg. My jeans are torn at the back, blood leaking from my calf onto the car floor.
‘It’s nothing.’
‘You’ve been shot. We need to get that seen to.’
‘It’s nothing. What were you doing there?’
‘Doing where?’
‘Following me! Are you with her?’
Bolt shoots me a glance and the spider in my mind practically goes belly up.
‘Who’s her?’ he asks.
I can’t say it. Even thinking it makes me feel like I’ve lost it. My mind’s attached itself to a balloon and floated into the sky.
‘I was worried about you,’ Bolt grunts. ‘Reverend Mara is nasty business.’
We screech around a corner. I have no idea where we’re going. If he drove into the Thames, I wouldn’t stop him. His gaze skips between the rear-view mirror and the road. Back and forth, like the wipers. Are we being followed? Is my mother still chasing me?
‘Faster.’ I can’t breathe. ‘Faster. You have to go faster!’
‘Stop it!’ Bolt pries my hands away from the wheel. ‘Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you?’
I collapse against the seat, trembling.
We don’t talk for a while.
Bolt drives into an underground car park and stops the van. I get out and limp back to the street. It’s still raining heavily. I stand on the pavement, staring up at the sky, soaking it up. I can breathe again. I’m Rumer Cross and the rain’s washing everything away. All the dirty laundry. I can start afresh. Forget it all.
Bolt steers me down the street. I’m aware I’m limping, but I can’t feel the pain.
‘Where we going?’
‘A friend’s.’
Red and yellow lanterns bob above our heads, strung up between shop fronts and colourful signs and I know we’re in Chinatown, though I can’t think why. The smell of fried food squeezes my stomach tight.
Bolt leads me to a door beside a restaurant and we go up a narrow flight of stairs, away from the smell of food. At the top, somebody opens another door. A small Chinese man with a few wisps of grey hair on his head and a pale blue shirt. He’s barefoot.
‘Welcome.’ The man bows. ‘In. Come in.’
I’m in a daze as I go into a neat flat. Snaking dragons snarl in frames on the wall and rugs cover the bare floorboards. Colourful masks scream from their perches on a bookcase. More dragons and demons and things with snakes for hair. A low table in the centre of the room is surrounded by silk cushions.
‘Peng, this is Rumer,’ Bolt says. ‘Rumer, Peng.’
‘You are most welcome,’ Peng says, clasping his small hands together in front of him. His eyes twinkle warmly in his lined face.
I nod and try to smile, but the signal gets lost on the way to my mouth.
How can she be alive? What’s she been doing all these years? Whoever washed up on the banks of the Thames that day wasn’t my mother. Was it all a set-up? Play dead and the cops’ll dig a grave?
We all believed the lie. Everybody.
‘Do you have dressing?’ Bolt asks. ‘Rumer’s hurt.’
Peng nods. ‘Dressing, yes.’ He beckons us into the kitchen, the cupboards a green that makes me think of the ocean, plants spilling over the top.
‘Sit, sit,’ Peng insists. I do as he asks and he pads about, taking things from drawers and placing them on the table. Bandages and cotton wool and ointments. I examine my calf. It’s bloody but I can’t find the wound.
‘I’ll do it,’ Bolt says.
‘I’m fine.’
Anything to take my mind off the woman I just saw in my hotel room. I hitch up my trouser leg, sucking air through my teeth as the fabric grazes my calf. I swab the blood with the cotton wool, exposing a gleaming wound where the bullet sank its teeth in. Not too deep. I clean it with the ointment and wrap a bandage around it.
‘You’ve done that before,’ Bolt says.
Peng’s joined us at the table. He pours sweet-smelling tea into handleless cups.
‘Drink,’ he insists, pushing a cup closer. ‘Good for you.’
‘Thanks.’ I take a sip. It tingles all the way down, soothing my insides.
‘Peng has a cure for everything,’ Bolt says, slurping his tea. ‘He owns the medicine place downstairs. They call him a miracle man.’
‘How do you know each other?’ I ask.
‘Let’s just say Peng’s helped me out of a spot or two.’
Peng winks at me. ‘Busy boy. Always in trouble.’
‘He definitely knows you,’ I say.
‘You in trouble, too,’ Peng says, his gaze fixed on me. ‘Shen no good.’
‘Shen?’
‘Energy.’ Peng taps his heart. ‘Here.’
‘How do you–’ I begin.
‘Miracle man,’ Bolt interrupts. ‘Shen is a person’s spiritual energy. Been sleeping well lately?’
The black bags under my eyes answer for me.
‘I treat,’ Peng insists. ‘Fix you up good.’
Laughter erupts from my mouth and I slap a hand over it. I hadn’t meant to laugh, but the thought of somebody fixing me seems ridiculous after all this time. After all the people on my list.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘That’s… I don’t need fixing.’
I can’t be fixed.
‘I try.’ Peng nods energetically. ‘I try. Come.’
He gets up from the table and holds out a wrinkled hand. Rising slowly, I take it and he leads me to a small room just off the lounge. It’s bare apart from a bed with white sheets and a cart in the corner that’s crammed with oils and a little machine puffing smoke.
‘Lie down,’ Peng instructs.
Bolt’s at the door, but Peng shoos him away, shutting us in.
‘You’re in quite a predicament,’ he says as he turns from the door. ‘Quite a predicament indeed.’
I can’t help staring at him. Peng’s accent has vanished, replaced with a soft London lilt. He doesn’t seem to notice my surprise, checking the ointments on the cart in the corner.
‘Your friend’s a good boy, but he has a tendency to land himself in trouble. Your shen is in far worse shape than his, though.’
‘I’m sorry–’ I begin, still staring in disbelief.
‘Oh, the accent. Habit, I’m afraid. Some people expect the Chinese medicine man routine. I don’t mind it, to be honest, but it can be quite tiring. I’ve a feeling you’re not that way inclined.’
For what feels like the first time in ages, I smile.
‘Please, lie down.’ Peng gestures to the bed.
I can’t refuse. I climb onto the firm mattress and stare at the ceiling, my hands resting on my stomach. Peng pads around me.
‘Relax, take a deep breath,’ he tells me. ‘Close your eyes.’
I breathe deeply but my body’s tense. I don’t like it. I don’t want Peng to get hurt.
‘Close your eyes.’
For once, I do as I’m told and Peng’s hands are warm on my forehead. Firm but soothing. Then they’re gone and I hear Peng shuffling to the cart in the corner.
‘Stone,’ he says, and I feel a sudden weight against my throat, another on my chest. Finally, he balances a stone on my forehead.
‘Still. Calm.’ Peng begins humming.
I feel part-way between stupid and desperate. I can’t be fixed. I’ve inherited every bad thing my mother ever did and it’s been stewing inside me since birth, marinating as it condenses into poison.
As Peng hums, I realise my muscles aren’t rigid any more. The tension’s left them and it’s as if my body’s levitating. I’m floating up into the white ceiling.
White.
Like her hair.
The ceiling becomes a writhing mass of white strands. T
hey snake around me, binding my limbs and I can’t move.
Peng’s stopped humming. I hear a gurgling sound and a drop of something warm lands on my cheek. My eyes snap open just as Peng collapses to the floor. In seconds, I’m on my feet and standing over him, though I’m too afraid to touch him.
Peng pulls himself up. Blood dribbles from one of his nostrils and he’s muttering something in Mandarin. He won’t look at me. Instead, he goes to the door and disappears into the kitchen.
I was expecting something like this. It’s happened before. Gia, the girl who said she was raised by a circus elephant, tried to read my palm once. At first it was fun, but then she started saying some really messed-up stuff, and then she stopped talking altogether. She went and sat by herself in a corner and didn’t speak to me for days. I never found out why.
Wiping the drop of blood from my cheek, I go into the lounge.
Bolt’s by the window, peering down at the street. Peng’s muttering in the kitchen and it sounds like he’s throwing things around. Bolt casts me a worried glance.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Ask him.’
We go to the kitchen. Peng’s plucking strange substances from little jars and tossing them into a pestle and mortar on the counter, always muttering in Mandarin, like he’s praying. He grinds the ingredients into a paste.
‘Peng?’ Bolt ventures.
The miracle man ignores him, shuffling across the kitchen and snatching a large leaf from a plant. He uses it to scoop the paste from the bowl and hurries to me, gesturing for me to take it from him.
‘Eat, now.’
He’s back playing the Chinese old man card, but I think I catch a glint in his eye that wasn’t there before.
‘What is it?’ I ask, staring down at the leaf in my hand. The paste is thick and grainy, a mustard yellow.
‘You in more trouble than Bolt ever was,’ Peng says. His gaze has hardened and I can’t tell if he’s afraid or angry. Did he see what I saw? My mother lying on the ceiling, her white hair snaking towards me?
‘What kind of trouble?’ Bolt asks.
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