The boy had watched silently as the scene had played out before him, quiet bemusement on his face. ‘Because she is,’ he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘The midwife didn’t get rid of both babies. Only one.’
‘What?’ Tess croaked.
The boy offered his gap-toothed smile again. ‘You were expecting twins.’
Tess’s voice was hollow. ‘I’m still expecting?’
‘Yes,’ the boy nodded cheerfully. ‘You’re expecting me.’
‘How can I be expecting you? You’re not a baby.’
‘I was,’ the boy answered. ‘Or I will be. Or maybe I won’t.’
‘You’re lying,’ Tess hissed. ‘I got rid of it. You’re lying.’
The boy shook his head defiantly. ‘It’s the truth. I am what your son will be.’
‘I don’t have a son!’ Tess yelled. ‘I don’t want no baby.’
The boy began to cry. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and his shoulders jumped in time to his sobs.
Joan rounded sharply on Tess, her anger spilling over again. ‘Tess, how can you be so cruel to …’
‘To a child, Joan?’ Emily interrupted. ‘Remember, he’s not a child,’ she said evenly. ‘Just something that’s taken the appearance of what Tess’s son would look like.’
Tess sniffed back a tear, and looked to Emily and then to Lechasseur. ‘Is it true? Am I still expecting?’
Lechasseur glanced quickly at Emily. She nodded briefly, and he turned back to Tess. ‘I don’t think he’d lie – he needs you to be pregnant. The only way out for him is to kill … to unexist … your baby.’
‘But I can’t be pregnant.’ Tess’ voice was tired and she sounded lost. ‘I can’t.’
Emily placed a comforting hand on the girl’s arm. ‘You are – and I think that’s what your son would look like.’
‘God almighty.’ Tess stared at the boy with a mixture of horror and wonder. ‘I’ve been pregnant all this time. With him?’
‘Yes,’ Emily confirmed.
‘That’s my baby?’ Tess continued, as though unable to quite grasp the idea.
‘Well, that’s what he’d look like,’ Lechasseur said.
Tess said nothing, but couldn’t take her eyes from the small, black-haired boy looking up at her. A dozen emotions pulled at the girl. She looked as if she might hug the boy or strangle him or run screaming as far as she could. Emily wouldn’t have been surprised if Tess had done all those things and more. Instead, she simply stared at the boy.
‘Does raise a question,’ Lechasseur said to Emily, ‘how Mary will react when she realises she’s not pregnant. Poor kid.’
‘So, will you do it?’ the boy demanded impatiently.
‘What?’ Tess had stopped paying attention to the room and was still staring at the boy.
‘He wants to know if you’ll give up your baby,’ Emily said quietly.
‘Tess, you can’t …’ Joan began, but the boy interrupted her quickly.
‘Of course she can,’ he sniped. ‘She’s already done it once.’ He turned to Tess. ‘And look at her. She’s right. She can’t look after a baby.’
‘She’d find a way,’ Joan responded.
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ the boy said quickly. ‘She’s too much like her father for that.’ His voice became softer, more persuasive. ‘Her father was a drunk who couldn’t handle having children. She’s sixteen, and she’s already half way to being a drunk. She’ll be completely addicted to opium by her next birthday. Do you really think that’s someone who’s fit to be a mother?’ The boy had been speaking to Joan, but everyone in the room knew that the question was aimed squarely at Tess.
‘I think she has a right to find out,’ Joan said firmly. ‘She has the right to know what it’s like to …’
The boy cut across Joan. ‘Be quiet,’ he said sourly. ‘In fact, we don’t need you here at all.’
Joan got as far as saying ‘I …’ before she faded from sight.
Emily turned sharply to the boy. ‘What have you done with her?’
‘Is she safe?’ Lechasseur demanded.
The boy smirked at them cheekily. ‘If you’re so clever, what do you think?’
Chapter Ten
• Joan? That is you, isn’t it?
• Yes, it’s me.
• I’m glad you’re back. Sorry if that sounds selfish.
• I think I’m becoming used to people being selfish.
• What do you mean?
• It doesn’t matter. What’s happened here?
• Mary the mouse just gave Patience an earful.
• About what?
• She wants out of here. She wants to take her chances on getting out and escaping, whatever we have to do. Says it’s for her baby.
• That poor girl.
• Yeah. Must be tough having a kid but knowing she won’t see it.
• No. It’s not like that. She doesn’t know … Dear God, how can I tell her that her baby’s dead? I can’t do that to her. I can’t take that away from her.
• How did the baby die?
• Patience?
• Forgive me if I startled you, Joan. How did Mary’s baby die?
• When your husband beat her, apparently.
• He was a foul man with an evil temper. He took a whip to me for not falling pregnant, but beat Mary because she did. In truth, he never really needed an excuse to beat people. He hurt them because he enjoyed doing so. He would relish the misery he has caused – and the pain Mary will feel when she hears of her child. I should take the duty of telling her this news.
• But you can’t.
• I think she would take the news easier from another, if such news can ever be easy to take.
• I’ll do it.
• Thank you, Joan. I am grateful for the kindness.
• It’s not much of a kindness, is it? But if we’re going to be leaving here, she has to know. She can’t go on thinking she’s pregnant.
• We’re leaving?
• You’re not pulling our chains, Joanie? We are getting out?
• It depends on Tess, but I think she will agree to what has been asked of her.
• That’s great.
• Is it, Sandi? I think she’ll regret it for the rest of her life.
‘You’ll do it, won’t you?’ the boy looked expectantly at Tess. ‘It won’t hurt, I promise.’
Tess kept staring at the boy. ‘I never wanted a kiddie,’ she said softly, more to herself than to anyone else. ‘I couldn’t hardly look after myself, let alone a little baby.’
The boy nodded keenly. ‘That’s why you went to that midwife. This will be much easier. You only have to say yes, and it’ll all be over and everyone can go home.’ There was a pleading in the boy’s voice, giving it a thin and reedy tone. ‘Please.’
‘He’s a beautiful little thing, inne?’
Lechasseur gripped Tess’ bony shoulder firmly. ‘This is not your son.’
‘Honoré’s right,’ Emily agreed. ‘Always remember that this is not really your baby.’
‘I know that. It’s just how my baby would look. No,’ she corrected herself. ‘It’s how he’s gonna look. It’s weird. I never really thought of it as a person before. Not a real one. Well, it wasn’t, was it? Just a thing. An idea in my head, but not a real person. That’s how come I could let it go so easy. But I can’t let him go. Not now as I’ve seen him.’
‘You have to help me,’ the boy protested.
‘She said no,’ Emily replied firmly.
‘But she has to,’ the boy shouted.
‘No!’ Emily raised her own voice in reply.
‘I’ll kill them,’ the child threatened. ‘I’ll kill them – and you too. If she doesn’t help me, I’ll kill them, one by one, until she
does agree.’
‘Why would you do that?’ Emily asked.
‘Because she won’t do what I want, stupid,’ the boy snarled.
‘You brought these women here, and you’ve kept them safe for all this time,’ Emily mused quietly.
‘Time doesn’t matter to me,’ the boy answered.
‘We both know better than that,’ Emily countered quickly. ‘And these women matter to you as well. You’ve cared for them, protected them. Why? Because you were made to suffer?’
‘I wanted to help them.’ The boy sounded pleading. ‘Why won’t they help me? It’s only fair.’
‘Fair doesn’t come into it when you’re talking about lives,’ Lechasseur interjected. ‘Sometimes life isn’t fair and you just have to accept it.’
‘But she already tried to get rid of her baby once,’ the boy whined.
‘A long time ago,’ Lechasseur said.
Emily said firmly, ‘You’re not taking her baby’s time snake.’
‘That’s not for you to be saying, is it?’ Tess spoke up. ‘He’s right. I did try to do away with him. My baby. It’s why I started going to the poppy-house. First it stopped the pain of what she done to me, and then it stopped me remembering what I done.’ She reached out a hand to touch the boy’s hair but stopped, as though afraid she might damage something precious. ‘But it’s my decision, isn’t it? I have to decide if this thing can have my baby. It can’t. My life’s been a mess. Sometimes, I made mistakes; other times, I paid for other people’s mistakes. But I never had a chance to fix a mistake before. I do now. Look at him. That’s what my boy’s going to look like. Maybe I can’t give him the best life in the world, but I can give him the chance to have a life.’
‘You can’t do that,’ the boy squealed. ‘You have to give it up. You have to.’
Despite the trouble he knew it was going to cause, Lechasseur felt a wave of relief at Tess’s decision. The idea of handing over a baby’s life as a barter make his skin crawl. ‘It’s her choice.’
The boy’s face reddened with anger, and he looked as if he might stamp his feet with child-like fury. ‘I’ll kill them all.’
‘Will you?’ Emily asked mildly. ‘I don’t think so. You don’t want to kill anyone.’
‘I don’t want to stay trapped, either,’ the boy shot back. ‘They’ll come for me. They’ll find me and trap me worse than this. I won’t be trapped any more. You were supposed to help.’
‘We can’t help you commit murder,’ Emily stated flatly.
‘Maybe I’ll just take the baby’s time snake,’ the boy challenged. ‘Maybe I’ll eat all their time snakes.’
Emily stood unmoved. She wouldn’t back down or give in to childish threats. ‘If that’s what it takes,’ she answered calmly. ‘But you don’t want to do it, do you? You don’t want to, or can’t, take the life of someone who won’t willingly give it.’
‘I’ve been responsible for too many people dying,’ the boy answered quietly.
‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re trying to make amends for the deaths of all those others, the deaths you caused under instruction from the Cabal.’
‘I didn’t want to have anything to do with that. You have to believe me.’
‘I do.’ Emily gave a sad, humourless smile. ‘But it still doesn’t make this right.’
‘I won’t stay trapped.’ Desperation had returned to the child’s voice.
‘And we won’t let you kill an innocent baby,’ Emily responded firmly.
‘What will you do to stop me?’
‘We’ll find a way.’ Emily hoped she sounded more confident than she actually felt.
‘Don’t make me hurt you.’ There was a desperation among the threats.
‘You can’t have Tess’s baby,’ Lechasseur said.
‘I’ll take it if I have to.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Emily said calmly. ‘You’d have done that by now if you were going to. That’s why you brought us here, isn’t it? So that we could persuade Tess to give up the baby and you could go free with a clear conscience.’
‘I need to be free!’ the boy screamed at her. ‘You have to agree!’
‘We won’t give up a baby’s life,’ Emily reiterated. She looked at the boy and thought for a moment. ‘What about the life of someone who threw their life away?’
Emily’s question took the boy off guard. ‘What?’
‘Someone who committed suicide,’ Emily answered.
‘Who?’
Honoré looked at Emily curiously, wondering what she was going to say.
‘The man who built the tower.’
The boy looked thoughtful.
‘Well?’ Emily pressed. ‘Will you take his life in exchange for the infant’s?’
‘Emily.’ Lechasseur grabbed Emily’s arm. ‘You can’t do this,’ he hissed. ‘You can’t just give away someone else’s life.’
‘I didn’t.’ Emily pulled her arm free. ‘He gave his life away when he committed suicide.’
‘But he had a life before that,’ Lechasseur argued angrily.
‘And Tess’s baby has a life in front of him,’ Emily snapped back. ‘And he deserves his chance to that life.’
They stood, staring at each other, neither willing to back down. ‘Taking one life to save another isn’t justified, Emily,’ Lechasseur said grimly.
‘I know,’ Emily agreed, and the expression on her face left Lechasseur in no doubt that she understood – and was agonised by – the implications of what she was suggesting. ‘I don’t really see an alternative, do you?’
Lechasseur felt his shoulders slump. He suddenly felt tired and old and truly impotent. ‘No,’ he agreed sadly. ‘But that doesn’t mean I like it.’
‘Neither do I,’ Emily whispered. She took a deep, brisk breath, then turned to the small boy. ‘If you take the man who committed suicide by leaping from the top of this building in 1995 …’ She waited for a reaction from the child. When none came, she carried on quickly, ‘… you can have his time-snake, and you’ll be set free.’ The boy’s eyes gleamed brightly. ‘And you have to release all these women,’ Emily continued. ‘You understand that?’
The boy nodded eagerly. ‘I will,’ he promised. ‘I’ll let everybody go. Them, you …’ He bit his lip sheepishly. ‘I was only trying to help them,’ he said earnestly. ‘I only wanted to make sure they weren’t hurt.’
‘I understand,’ Emily nodded. ‘But if you’re going to do this, you had better do it now.’ Her voice sounded brittle and bitter, despite her best efforts at keeping it firm. The idea of condemning someone to die – to have never lived – didn’t come easily to her.
‘All right,’ the boy agreed. ‘I’ll do it now.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Tess objected. ‘Are you leaving?’ she asked the boy.
He nodded. ‘I have to.’
‘I will see you again?’ Tess asked uncertainly. ‘Well, not you exactly …’
‘Your baby will be fine,’ Emily said sharply. ‘Now just let him go.’
‘All right.’ Tess reached a hand towards the boy, as if afraid she might break him – or that his touch might burn her. With a force of will, she touched her hand to his head, and was rewarded with a cheeky smirk. Encouraged, she ruffled his untidy hair. She was trying to put some kind of order into the unruly, jet-black mop when the lad faded away from under her hand. Tess turned to Emily and Lechasseur for an explanation, but kept quiet as she saw the angry looks passing between them.
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ Lechasseur said coldly.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ Emily replied, and just for a brief second, her face showed Lechasseur that she had a plan. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ she repeated. ‘I just don’t know if it’ll work or not.’
Chapter Eleven
Year: 1995
With
a single, deliberate pace, John Raymond stepped off the roof of his tower block and began to plunge to his certain death. He had regrets that it had come to this, but there really was no other way. Oddly, he felt slightly disappointed that he wasn’t terrified by the sight of the ground hurtling towards him or by the knowledge that he was about to die. He didn’t know quite what he had expected, but he had anticipated more than this feeling of the wind grabbing at him. It was quite calming, really. He closed his eyes and prepared for his end.
Had anyone been standing at the foot of the building, they would first have seen the dreadful sight of a man plunging towards a sickening death on the pavement, but then something even more remarkable. As the man passed the windows of the second floor, which contained the offices of a graphic design company, his body faded out of existence. He simply vanished into nothingness, leaving no hint that he had ever thrown himself from the roof.
Year: 1980
Bartelli’s Restaurant was as busy as its exclusive clientele ever allowed it to be. There were few tables in the restaurant, and those were well spaced apart. Gianni Bartelli knew that his customers usually relished their privacy, and he made sure they got it. He also made them pay through the nose for it, but both he and his customers knew the arrangement, and it suited them all very well.
Bartelli moved through the restaurant, circulating as he did every half hour or so. He started no conversations but nodded to his customers and let them get on with their meals.
This evening, the restaurant was almost full. In the centre of the room, a knighted actor was at a large table with a big party of friends. Nearer the window – at a table they had chosen,, Bartelli assumed, in case a press photographer should happen to look in – were a young footballer and his Page 3-girl fiancée. Seated towards the back, in a corner near the kitchens, Bartelli spotted John Raymond having a quiet dinner with an attractive, red-haired woman in her mid thirties. The rose on the table by her hand and the intimate glances indicated that this was not a business meeting, so Bartelli gave the table a wide berth. He returned to his office and resolved to work out the stock orders for the next week. Moments after his door closed behind him, John Raymond, his lady guest and the table they had been seated at all faded out of existence. Half an hour later, when Gianni Bartelli did his next flesh-pressing circuit of the restaurant, he had no memory of a table being in the corner that night, and he certainly had no memory of a man named John Raymond.
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