by Tim Lebbon
She pulled away, her smile suddenly cast in stone.
“I’m sorry,” she said. The cell turned hard and grimy once more. Vince blinked and thought of Angela.
“What is it?” he asked, panting.
“I can’t trust normal people anymore. We can’t. It’s not good. But you’ve done so much to help us and… we have no choice.”
“We?”
She looked at him again.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. Lilou sighed and turned away.
“There’s someone you should meet. His name’s Mallian. I could take you to him, but you have to promise me something, and it’s very important.”
Vince looked around his cell, because that’s what it was—there was no denying. His bucket still sat in the corner, still stinking. The dirty blanket he’d slept on was screwed up in another corner. There was no reason he could possibly want to stay here.
Yet the idea of leaving scared him.
“I can’t promise something before you tell me what it is.”
“Yes you can,” Lilou said. “It’s important. For you and for Angela.”
“Is she…?”
“She’s still safe, although she’s persistent.”
“She is that,” Vince said, but Lilou’s dourness persisted.
“Promise that you won’t try to see who you’re talking to.”
Vince frowned, not understanding.
“You want me to keep my eyes closed?” he asked. “Why? What, is he disfigured, or something?”
“Just promise.”
After a pause Vince said, “I promise.”
Lilou reached out and in a rapid, fleeting movement nicked the back of his hand with her thumbnail. It didn’t hurt. A tear of blood formed and ran across his hand, dripping onto his thigh.
“By blood you’ve promised,” she said.
Vince dabbed at the small cut and wiped the blood away. Another bubble formed. Lilou watched, then sighed.
“But you’re not ready yet,” she said, standing and walking toward the door.
“Wait!” Vince tried to push himself upright but the pain pulsed in again, and he swayed against the wall. “Come on, you can’t keep me locked in here. It’s not fair!”
“Fair?” Lilou asked. She stood with her hand on the door handle, one eyebrow cocked.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “None of this. What just happened between us, or this Mallian person, why I’m not ready to see him… I just…”
“That’s why you need to stay here. Until you do understand.” She nodded at the drink he’d left on the floor. “Drink that, sleep, and I’ll come back soon.”
He wanted to say more. Plead, beg, demand that he be let out, because Angela was out there somewhere, and he was certain that she was in danger.
Lilou left and the door clicked shut behind her.
Vince looked down at the little cut she’d given him, and only then did it begin to hurt.
6
By the time she left Vince’s second home the couple in the street had gone. Yet all the way back to South Kensington station Angela felt watched. It might have been guilt, or the way the couple had turned away when they’d seen her looking from the window. Or perhaps it was that single closed eye, watching her.
She hadn’t been able to touch the relic, and neither had she opened the other two parcels sitting wrapped in the dry bath. That had surprised her. Curiosity had always been her driving force, and ever since she could remember she had always asked why?
The fear of what she might find had overridden who she was.
That, and the need to escape.
The second home that Vince had kept from her had become suddenly dangerous.
Back on the streets she felt a little safer, but busy though the roads and pavements were, the sense of being watched made her feel vulnerable and alone. She walked quickly along Old Brompton Road, then a couple of hundred yards from the station she started shaking. It came over her quickly, a violent shiver that surprised her so much that she stopped dead on the pavement, terrified that she was going to puke.
Someone nudged past her with a bad-tempered mutter, and two young Japanese men paused to watch before quickly moving on. Staring at the ground ten feet ahead of her, she watched from the corner of her eye as one of them snapped her on his phone.
Those pictures on my phone, she thought, and the shivers came again.
“You okay?” a voice asked. Angela squeezed her eyes closed, established that she wasn’t going to vomit, then looked up. The shakes settled. A middle-aged man stood before her, carrying a knapsack. Graying goatee, glasses, bald head, he looked in good shape, and smile lines wrinkled his face. He moved uncertainly from foot to foot, one hand held out but not touching her. Maybe he was offering her something to grab if she fell.
“Haven’t had my morning coffee,” she said, trying on a smile.
The man grinned and nodded sideways. They were standing directly outside a small Costa coffee shop, and suddenly that seemed like the best idea in the world.
“There are worse vices,” he said, shrugging his bag higher onto his shoulders. “Take it easy.” The man walked past her and she turned to watch him go, suddenly wishing that he’d stay to have coffee with her. He seemed carefree and nice.
She wasn’t carefree. Not anymore. Maybe yesterday morning she had been, but everything had changed so quickly, so drastically that she could barely remember. She’d worried about this and that—her thesis, Vince’s attitude toward kids—but they were negligible compared to what troubled her now.
First world problems, Lucy would have said, and although dismissive, it was often how she’d begin to talk Angela down from whatever might be troubling her.
“Coffee,” Angela said, and she could already feel the caffeine rush.
She entered Costa and ordered a large cappuccino with an extra shot, then added a flapjack for good measure. She waited at the counter, but the Spanish barista waved cheerily and said that she’d bring the order over.
Angela nodded her thanks, walked toward the back of the café, and sat on a tall chair beside a high circular table. She eased back and stared past the line of customers, through the window. It was warm and bustling outside, and there was something calming about watching the world go by, instead of being a part of it.
The safe, ignorant world.
She took out her phone and placed it on the table. She’d taken three pictures before the sight of the thing, and the suspicion of being watched, had driven her from the apartment. Being alone in there with it had made her feel…
“Stupid,” she said. Not the feeling, but the fear.
The barista appeared beside her and placed a giant mug and plated flapjack on the table. Angela thanked her.
Glancing to her side, she saw the couple from outside the apartment, sitting in low leather chairs to her right, just an arm’s length away.
Her heart jumped and she knocked the table, spilling a splash of coffee into the mug’s big saucer.
They seemed oblivious to her. The woman was black, smartly dressed, her long hair plaited and hanging over her shoulder. She rested both hands on either side of her expresso. She was beautiful in a fierce way, no frown lines but with a severe expression that made her eyes sharp as stakes. Even though she was looking at the man, Angela could feel the weight of her stare.
The man was of average height and build, wiry, and she identified him as a runner. She could always tell—the way he sat, the potential energy in his frame. She noticed the oversized GPS watch on his wrist. It was a similar model to the one she used, and she could see numbers ticking over on the stopwatch function. She wondered what he was timing, or perhaps it was counting down.
She was certain it was them. She’d only glimpsed them briefly before ducking behind the curtains. After waiting for a few seconds she’d looked again and they were walking back toward the main street, casual and chatting and perhaps never having stared up at Vince’s apartment at all.
Even now she wasn’t sure they were anything to do with her. Perhaps they were property hunting, or killing time.
The woman said something. The man laughed. The woman’s stony expression cracked a little, life touched her eyes, and then she stood and took the three steps to Angela’s table.
“What—?” Angela said, wincing back on her chair.
“Quiet,” the woman said. Without looking at her, she casually moved Angela’s plate aside, picked up the phone, stroked the screen, and tapped several times.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Angela asked. She kept her voice low, not wanting to cause a scene. But maybe I should, she thought. The café was noisy, busy, and one shout would undoubtedly draw attention.
“Just a sec,” the woman said. She glanced at Angela for the first time, as if finally noticing her, and instantly it was clear how serious she was.
Angela looked at the seated man. He was no longer smiling. He stared right at her, unblinking, coffee mug half-raised in one hand. He seemed ready to move at the slightest provocation. Coiled. Tense.
“No cloud,” the woman said, dropping Angela’s phone on the table.
It took a few seconds, then she realised what the woman meant. She’d been looking at her phone’s setting to make sure she didn’t save photos to the cloud.
Angela touched the phone screen, but already knew that the photographs of the relic would be gone.
She met the woman’s gaze, this time vowing to not look away.
They stared. The café’s beat went on around them. A child laughed, a man coughed, someone behind the counter dropped a cup and clapped when it bounced. Then the woman’s expression cracked into a carved smile that was even more threatening, and she sat in the other tall chair tucked under Angela’s table.
“I didn’t tell you to join me,” Angela said.
“I didn’t ask.” The woman turned back to the man and held out her hand. He put his own mug down, picked up her espresso cup, and handed it across. He stretched, pulled a phone from his pocket, and stared at the screen.
Maybe they’d decided that she didn’t pose a threat.
“Where’s Vince?” Angela asked, trying to take control.
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on,” the woman said, scoffing. She lifted the espresso cup, already drained, and licked around its inside.
“Why are you looking for him?” Angela asked.
“Why are you?”
“He’s my boyfriend,” she replied. “He didn’t come home yesterday.”
“Tell us where he’s gone.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Angela asked, louder than she’d intended. From the corner of her eye she saw the man looking their way.
“Keep your voice down,” the woman said.
“Why? Don’t want to attract attention? You’re rimming your cup, for fuck’s sake.” But she spoke quietly, just loud enough for the woman to hear, because she thought she could find out more here. She had to.
About Vince, his apartment, and that thing she’d seen inside.
“My name’s Claudette,” the woman said, offering her hand. Angela did not shake it. She looked at the man instead, and caught him watching her. He looked away. “That’s Harry.”
“Harry and Claudette,” Angela said. “Sounds like a cop show.”
“Claudette and Harry,” Claudette said, “and we’re not police.”
“Oh, I think I know that.”
“You don’t know what you know, and that’s part of the problem.” Claudette picked up the flapjack and took a delicate bite from one corner. She raised her eyebrows, nodded, then offered it across to Harry. He shook his head.
“I’m leaving,” Angela said. As she made to slip from the high chair, Claudette stopped chewing, and Harry tensed in his seat.
Angela smiled. “What?”
“We need to know where Vince is. He’s a friend. Well, an acquaintance, I’ll be honest, but we have the same boss. And that boss is very concerned about your boyfriend’s disappearance.”
“He’s not the only one,” Angela said.
“So if you know where he is, you need to tell us so that—”
“So that Fat Frederick can… what, punish him?”
“Fat Freddie’s not my concern.”
“You know what he does to people who call him Fat Freddie, right?”
Claudette shrugged. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about, though.”
“No,” Angela said. “Not at all. Not really. Just… stuff, and none of it to do with where Vince might be.”
“Take this.” Claudette put a business card on the table. A phone number, and nothing else. “Keep it.”
“Oh, very swish,” Angela said. “So what the fuck was that thing in the apartment? The cyclops thing with one eye.”
Claudette blinked rapidly several times, as if wiping her memory and resetting the conversation. Angela looked across at Harry. He was leaning toward them, blocking the way for a couple of women and their baby strollers. He didn’t seem to care. She wasn’t even certain he’d noticed.
“Just some old thing,” Claudette said. “Fools pay money for old things.”
“This is all about money?”
“Isn’t everything?”
No, Angela thought. Not at all. But she said no more. These people were giving nothing away, yet beneath the melodrama their threat was obvious. They weren’t putting it on.
“Call us when he gets in touch with you,” Claudette said. She slipped from the tall stool. Harry stood and walked toward the front door, the two women with their strollers following him. He didn’t even look back.
Claudette touched the business card with her fingertip, turned, and left the café. Outside, she and Harry swapped a few words in front of the large window before going their separate ways.
Angela let out the breath she hadn’t been aware of holding.
“What the fuck was that?” she whispered, but she knew what the fuck it was. A further glimpse into a world that she hadn’t known Vince inhabited, but which she knew more than most. A dark, dangerous world.
* * *
Frederick Meloy, also known as Fat Frederick, was the last person Angela wanted to see, and The Slaughterhouse was the first place she had to go. Claudette had said that she and Vince had the same boss, and Angela could only assume that it was him. His welcome card had been tucked into the package in Vince’s secret apartment. That weird, haunting package…
She checked her phone again, and the pictures were definitely gone. By deleting them, Claudette only confirmed that they meant something important, yet in the blazing July sunshine, in the frantic bustle of the city, Angela couldn’t help but doubt what she had seen. That wasn’t like her. She was confident in her intellect, comfortable with translating what her senses told her. Perhaps it was the logic of everything she knew, doing its best to shed any memory of what had been in that apartment.
She’d decided to walk back into central London. The Tube was quicker, but she needed time to think, and being confined down there in the sweat and heat didn’t appeal to her right then. Sometimes riding on the Underground felt like being buried.
Passing the Natural History Museum and the bustling crowds of visitors, she thought of all the amazing exhibits in there, pulled from the ground, separated by tens of millions of years of evolution, and tens of thousands of miles. She’d visited several times—on her own, with friends, and once with Vince on a long, touristy day spent seeing the sights of London because, he’d insisted, they just should. They’d taken pictures of each other outside famous buildings and sat on a river cruise, being told things they already knew about places they rarely saw, but which people flew thousands of miles to see.
After the museum they’d done the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, and Hyde Park, ending the day in a good boozer and getting a taxi home, drunk and happy. She’d lived in the city for almost ten years, three in her own apartment, but
that was the first time she’d purposely seen it as a tourist. The glamour, glitz, and surface sheen of that day had done little to change her view of what London was, the type of place it could be, or some of the people who made it their home. She regarded it as one of the world’s great cities and her home, but it had its dark underside.
Fat Frederick was one of the most dangerous people in the city. She’d come across his name a few times while researching earlier, disparate aspects of her thesis, and a Google search had brought up surprisingly few hits. Mention on an American message board, the content deleted. A couple of YouTube posts, videos also removed “due to copyright infringement.” A few references on other obscure sites that seemed to have no real link with the man, his reputation, or even the city over which he cast his shadow.
She’d skimmed over these searches the first time, then returned to them a day later and started probing deeper.
One was the caption to a photograph on a dying man’s charity website. He was raising money for cancer research, and there were all manner of features, interviews, and events. On the gallery page, one photo showed a group of people standing outside a posh-looking hotel—its name had been out of shot—chatting and laughing as they waited for a car. They had been to a charity ball, and the caption confirmed that more than one thousand pounds had been raised. Angela hadn’t recognised any of them, and the “Frederick Meloy” listed in the caption had given her no clues. None of the people looked particularly fat. Maybe it was simply a coincidence.
Another hit appeared on a website listing live sex shows in London. A link took her through to The Slaughterhouse, a club in one of the more upmarket streets at the northern edge of Soho.
That was when SOCA had paid her a visit, and warned her off.
She’d been insistent, of course. The idea had already been planted that Fat Frederick might provide an ideal chapter of her thesis. With the man and woman from SOCA sitting on the sofa telling her why she shouldn’t be doing this, the motivation had taken root and started to grow. They’d known that, too. As the man gave his reasons—being very level-headed and honest with her, insisting that she was putting herself and her loved ones at risk—Angela had seen the dawning realisation in the woman’s eyes.