‘You think he doesn’t blame himself?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, and I honestly didn’t.
‘It’s always nice to have a break-through in group,’ he said, and I punched his shoulder. We grinned like idiots.
‘If I yell, then you come running, okay? Otherwise, finish your leftovers – it was expensive and I might not be able to get more for some time.’
I struggled out of the cab before he could ask me what I’d done and took the cracked concrete path along the side of the building, moving surprisingly quietly, all things considered. The scent of richly decaying compost from the garden beds perfumed the air. The noises of the city were muffled this far up Boundary Street. I was so tired and steeped in self-pity that I could have cried, and my leg throbbed as though the wounds had reopened, even though they’d been pinkly scarred over for ages. I paused at the threshold of the paved area out back. Overgrown plants climbed the high chain-link fence, pushing bits of it out at odd angles. There were a couple of old metal skips and some broken chairs, and curled on a sofa in the far corner was Sally Crown, all tucked up like a dirty angel, eyes closed, a grubby navy blanket pulled up to her chin in spite of the heat. Mozzies buzzed enthusiastically by my ears, but wisely left me alone.
I was almost across the yard when my phone, which I’d forgotten to set to silent, rang. The sharp squeal woke Sally and she sat up with a start, slashing about with a flick-knife while she tried to scramble to her feet. Fortunately, my own reflexes are excellent. I avoided the blade, grasped her wrist and managed to pull her off the sofa and up towards me, but she was wriggling and slippery in the evening heat and I couldn’t get a good enough grip to throw her down, which meant we both stumbled and fell. Luckily, I ended up sitting on top of her; not so great, my bad leg was twisted uncomfortably. The mobile cut off abruptly, as if whoever was calling had thought better of it.
‘I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself last night, Sally,’ I said, snatching away the knife and tossing it over the fence.
‘I know who you are, bitch.’
I winced. ‘Language.’
She let loose with a few more choice profanities and I lost what little patience I had left and grabbed her face. As I held her jaw and squeezed, she whimpered.
‘Now, you will notice that I am freakishly strong. I can and will pop your head if you don’t tell me what I want to know.’ I gave her an encouraging shake. ‘You went by my house – how did you know where I lived?’
She tried to say something, but it sounded impolite, so I squeezed a bit harder. Tears trickled down her cheeks and I felt like a bully, but Lizzie was missing and I wasn’t stupid. I let Sally’s face go, but stayed on top of her.
‘Aspasia. I said I wanted to talk to you.’ She spat, red-tinged spittle. I’d squeezed too tight. Aspasia – really? It was hard to know if she thought she was doing me a good turn or just trying to fuck up my day. My money was on the latter. At any rate, we’d be having words later.
‘Sally, if you know who I am, then you know what I can do – and have done. This could end several ways, but I’d really prefer it if you’d just tell me what I need to know, then I’ll let you get on with your life.’
Her eyes glittered, but she nodded slowly.
‘Good. So I have questions. Firstly, who’s got you pimping that wine? And secondly, what do you know about the disappearance of a young girl this afternoon?’ Her expression clearly said she was considering lying, which ramped up my tightly controlled rage, so I added, ‘Think very carefully before you answer. If anything happens to her, I swear I’ll be back for you, and you will not enjoy our reunion.’
I gave her time to digest this. ‘I’ll start, okay? I suspect you’re collaborating with someone. I suspect that you’ve been leading children astray – no, don’t say anything yet; if I only suspect things, you’re safe.’ I waved a finger at her; it would have looked flippant but for the fact it was shaking. ‘For now. If I know for certain, then I will not be able to turn a blind eye. But I am willing to ignore all the other things you’ve done if you answer my questions.’
‘She’ll kill me,’ the child whined, and my conscience pricked at me. Beneath the rat-like demeanour I could see a little girl who’d been ill-used, who was only doing what she could to survive; a child whose humanity had been stripped away until she thought of no one but herself. I felt sorry for her – but that didn’t stop me from saying, ‘And if you don’t tell me, I have another friend called Zvezdomir Tepes and if you don’t know who he is now, you will soon.’
She moaned.
Okay, she knows about Bela; someone’s warned her good and proper.
‘Sally, tell me, and I will stop her so she won’t hurt anyone again – she won’t be a danger to you any more. I promise.’
She seemed to weigh the odds, and I saw as the scales dropped in my favour, though I didn’t kid myself; it was due purely to my proximity, nothing to do with the strength or righteousness of my argument.
‘House at Ascot,’ she snarled.
‘Has this woman got a name?’ I asked. She shook her head, but reeled off the address and I decided I believed her. If she was desperate enough to help someone who saw children as an ingredient there was no reason to think anyone would trust Sally with more information than they absolutely had to.
I rose stiffly and offered a hand, which she took reluctantly. She stood, poised, as if she couldn’t decide whether to try and hit me again or just flee. I pulled out my wallet and handed over the few notes I had in the hope it might keep her from doing anything awful for a night or two. I gave her a business card too, though I was pretty sure it was pointless, but I couldn’t help thinking that this might be Lizzie one day, if her life went badly wrong. This girl wouldn’t ask for help; she was too far gone, but her face still took on a strange look of wonderment as the tens and fifties crackled into her palm. She stared at me as if I was crazy. She mightn’t have been too far off the mark.
‘If you’ve lied to me . . .’ I started. I didn’t ask how she’d taken Lizzie, how she’d lured her, or why, because I didn’t trust myself not to lose my temper if I heard any more. This child had already borne too much of other people’s anger.
Her expression said, I know, I know. ‘It wasn’t me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t take her.’ But she had, though she was lying determinedly, as if saying the words out loud might make them true. Even if I hadn’t seen the sequins on the footpath, the way she spoke and the expression on her face told me Sally was lying. I’d known Lizzie wouldn’t have gone to a stranger – or an adult, but another child? Of course she’d have gone with another child – she was lonely and wanted someone to play with.
‘You should change your shirt,’ was all I said. I felt sick with anger – anger at Sally, anger at a world where kids had to live like her – but I walked away before it got the better of me.
Chapter Six
‘Ah, Ziggi. How did we not know about this?’ I stared at the huge, venerable white architectural mess: two storeys and an attic, a widow’s walk between more chimney stacks than looked entirely necessary, a lot of decorative lattice-work and a kind of strange Gothic thing happening with the windows. I didn’t remember ever seeing it before. I looked askance at my sidekick: I knew Brisneyland, I knew all the big Weyrd residences, the places where the moneyed, powerful families resided – or at least, I thought I did. But this . . .
He was still peering at the place. ‘Glamoured – a very powerful spell, even I’m struggling. We’re only seeing it now because we had the address and came looking for it specifically.’
He wasn’t wrong, it was kind of laborious to behold. My eyes kept sliding to the side and I had to concentrate hard for the first few minutes we sat and watched. It got a bit easier, but the building was still, well, slippery. I climbed from the cab and leaned against the door while Ziggi hung out the window.
The plot was enormous, even for this area. The house was set far back from the road, in the middle of a
n overgrown garden with camphor laurels lining the driveway, so tall and close that they formed a loose canopy above the gravel path where we’d parked. Flying foxes squeaked overhead, darker patches against the moonlit sky, like shadow puppets flitting between branches, on course for an evening of stripping people’s fruit trees and crapping on their laundry.
‘Aw, Ziggi,’ I repeated. ‘Shit.’
‘What? You don’t think it looks right?’
‘I think it looks too damned right.’ I pushed myself away from the body of the cab. ‘You’re not going anywhere?’
‘I ain’t going nowhere,’ he said. ‘You sure you wanna go on your own?’
I was pretty sure I didn’t want to, but if I started making a habit of taking my chaperone everywhere I was doomed; I might as well stop leaving the house and start collecting cats and pizza boxes. ‘I’m sure.’
He said hopefully, ‘If anyone comes, you gotta secret signal you want me to give?’
‘Fuck no! I want you to make a really big noise so I can hear you. Who knows, maybe you’ll scare them away. Just listen out in case I start yelling for help. Help would be good. You know, cavalry, et cetera.’ I carefully switched my mobile to vibrate.
‘Got it. Big fucking noise.’
I gave him a thumbs-up and set off down the drive. I could feel the weight of his gaze. The pills were wearing off and the pain in my leg sharpened; I was okay with that right now, though. It kept me alert.
This house, the whole massive enchantment thing? It would have made sense in West End, but this . . . this was Ascot, home to the important people, with property prices so high they could give you a nosebleed. If the car in the garage wasn’t a Jag or a Merc or some high-end 4x4 with bull-bars and spray-on dirt, then you knew it belonged to the cleaning lady. And yet here was this camouflaged mansion . . .
Then again, maybe it did make sense. Only idiots hunt where they live, and no one with half a brain was going to snatch a kid from around here, were they? So maybe someone had learned from Grigor’s mistakes.
The five steps up to the verandah creaked under my feet. The red cedar double doors had frosted panels. A white-painted swing-chair sat to one side, a snowy metal table next to it, with three small ceramic pots clustered in the centre, each sprouting some kind of succulent. I pushed the doorbell, listening for reverberations inside, but there was no response. Maybe the battery was dead; it wasn’t likely to get much use. Of course, if anyone had answered, some tap-dancing would have been required, but I had standard routines: I’d ask if they were interested in a pyramid investment scheme or if they’d like to be introduced to Jesus. People tended to back away from that sort of approach, though I’d be in trouble if they said yes.
I thought, What if Sally had lied? Then, What if Sally’d told the truth?
I tried the swirly brass handle but, getting no joy, moved away and peered in the windows. They were clean, as was the swing-chair. So not entirely deserted; someone was concerned enough to keep the place spick and span. I pressed my nose to the pane and squinted: dark rooms, what looked like expensive pieces of furniture, a chandelier catching any stray streaks of moonlight, floor-length curtains tied back with sash ropes. Again I listened hard for the sound of someone moving about, and again, nothing.
I tapped my foot. Maybe Sally had lied and this was just a normal house, so I was wasting my time – but why the glamour? I might have given up except for that – that, and the unease in my gut. Where do you hide a whole bunch of kids? How do you make them disappear without a trace? You take them somewhere no one would think to look. Somewhere no one sees properly.
I picked up one of the small ceramic pots, hefted it and broke the frosted glass panel in the left-hand door. Reaching very carefully through the gap I found the latch and let myself in. Ziggi was probably shaking his head at my ham-fisted efforts, but I’d never been able to get the hang of lock picks despite the hours he’d put in trying to train me. There was, I noted with relief, no alarm box on the wall, no little set of lights blinking in a startled fashion as I failed to enter a pin code. There wasn’t even the lowest rank of wards – but then, who needs a security system when you’ve got a honking great glamour around your lair?
The narrow Persian rug running the length of the hallway muffled my footsteps. Halfway along was a staircase covered in thick creamy carpet. To the sides: a lounge and a library, then a dining room and a family room, and on towards the back, where an expansive kitchen waited, all gleaming stainless steel, glittering granite worktops and tiles of Carrera marble. I retreated and took the wide staircase.
On the next level were four tastefully decorated bedrooms, each with a queen bed and chests of drawers, but no cupboards, and no obvious sign of use. Same deal with the cleanest bathroom I’d ever seen; it gleamed. A jungle of very realistic artificial plants gave it a tropical air. A large office lined with filing cabinets had a ridiculously broad desk beneath the window, staring out into the thickness of the trees. I made a mental note to return later and toss the room to my heart’s content, but it was apparent there was no laptop, no desktop, no fax, no phone, no nothing. As I was about to head downstairs again, I noticed a hatch in the ceiling above the landing with a thin silver chain hanging to person height. A single tug brought a neat aluminium ladder unfolding easily towards me. I climbed cautiously, but there was nothing in the attic but dust and a few stacked plastic tubs, empty as could be. My leg almost gave way as I descended and I stumbled for a moment until I caught my balance. The limb wasn’t thanking me for all this activity.
I returned to the kitchen, the suspicion that I was in the wrong place growing steadily, making it hard to breathe.
It would sound better if I could say I made the discovery because I’m a genius, but mostly I found it because I have this thing for investigating other people’s pantries. The slatted wooden door opened onto an area roughly the size of a walk-in wardrobe. Right next to a shelf stacked with salt, sugar, tins of salmon, jars of caviar, bottles of truffle oil and boxes of water crackers was a second door, which was not only unlocked but actually a little ajar. I guess the owner probably thought their larder was safe from hostile incursions.
The steps leading down were brightly lit. At the bottom was yet another door, this one of reinforced steel, also unlocked, which opened into a large white room with a dark grey polished concrete floor that ran the length of the house. This wasn’t some dingy cellar with cobwebs and discarded crap as far as the eye could see; this was pristine, industrial: a serious workroom. There were banks of timber wine racks on either side with a passage between them. I stopped to examine some of the bottles as I passed: a coat of arms with a big-arsed bird and shield was impressed into the red wax that sealed the mouth of each. When I stepped into the other half of the room I saw it was open, but filled with a row of steel tables. A large furnace sat in the left-hand corner at the back, and to the right was a round vat with a screw-down lid and pipes running into and out of it – it looked a lot like an upmarket moonshine still. The walls were obscured by wine barrels and benches lined with all manner of bottling paraphernalia. And stark against the floor next to the furnace was a tumbled stack of small shoes, all scuffed and dirty and worn, and the air still held a faint hint of cooked flesh.
In the middle stood a woman.
She looked like any Ascot matron, and then I realised she really was familiar: I had seen her face smiling out from the community noticeboard at West End Library just a matter of hours ago. She wasn’t much different, except for the lack of a graffiti moustache. She appeared to be in her sixties, but I was fairly certain that her true age was being artfully concealed by a combination of expensive cosmetics, a cunning glamour and a lot of Botox. Even so, the skin on her face and neck was a little too tight, too smooth, as if it had been burned once and a lot of effort had been made to reverse the effects; not even magic and surgery can completely conceal something like that. She wasn’t overly tall, but she had a good figure, just a little thick around the w
aist. Her pale champagne dress fitted impeccably; her hair, an elegant mix of grey and blonde, was immaculate and her eyes a twinkling blue. The get-up was completed by a diamond-encrusted watch, a pendant shaped like the bird-and-shield design on the wine bottle seals, baroque pearl earrings and a selection of knuckleduster rings probably worth more than my house. She looked like the kind of grandmother who wouldn’t want to be hugged too tightly lest it wrinkle her ensemble.
‘Yes?’ she said. She didn’t say, I’m calling the police, which was telling. She held a pair of thick black silicon gloves somewhat at odds with her outfit.
All I could think to say was, ‘You’re not eating them?’
The glance she gave me suggested I was as stupid as I felt. ‘Oh, no, lovie. If you take their tears,’ she answered quite tenderly, ‘you can’t use the meat afterwards. It’s too dry and tough. Really, it’s either wine or veal.’ She smiled. ‘Look at you, Grigor’s daughter, so terribly Normal but still causing trouble. Who’d have thought?’
I swallowed, a hundred questions rearing up, not the least of which was, How did you know my father? But I didn’t need to ask that one at least; it was easy enough to guess. I peered at the child lying on the table in front of her and Lizzie’s terrible stillness knocked the curiosity from me. The moments before I detected the faint rise and fall of her chest seemed endless. All I wanted to do was get her out of there.
‘Isn’t she lovely? I was ecstatic when Sally brought this one! It’s much nicer when they’re clean and content, but oh, they’re so hard to get hold of. I will have to punish her, though, for sending you. I assume it was Sally; she’d sell her mother to save her own skin.’ The woman didn’t wait for an answer, just beamed at me. ‘The little one smells a bit like you, you know. I thought she might be yours. That amused me no end, the idea of harvesting Grigor’s grandchild! But when I looked closer, I couldn’t see him anywhere in her. Still, a happy mistake; now I can take care of you, too – you’ve made some trouble for us! Oh, maybe I won’t punish Sally after all.’
Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 Page 5