The Grasshopper's Child

by Gwyneth Jones

  ‘You made tea,’ said Clancy. ‘That’s great, Irene. I take milk but no sugar.’

  This is not good, he was thinking. On his first visit he’d had a bad feeling. Now he had no doubt. There are torturers who leave no marks, as Clancy well knew. There are ways of making sure the victim will never tell. He had no evidence and Irene held all the cards. But somehow, some way, Clancy was going to have to do some whistle-blowing.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, beaming at the demon. ‘Lovely. Any chance of a biscuit?’

  9: Follow The Money

  The travel warrant was delivered to Heidi’s phone early on Monday morning. The text from the hospital, confirming she was allowed to visit her mother, arrived after breakfast. She took both messages to the Book Room. Tallis was there, in the draggled dressing gown, same pose as before, reading Black Beauty. But her lamp was a wind-up.

  Heidi explained that she had no choice. The police wanted her to talk to her mum.

  ‘Official business again,’ sneered the Old Wreck, tossing the phone down with a horrible scowl. ‘It seems you have connections. I hope this isn’t going to become a habit.’

  ‘I’ll try and make it for next Monday. That way I can catch the parcel van, get the Vital Commuter Bus from Mayle, and be back in time to cook dinner. I’ll set breakfast before I go, and leave a cold lunch under covers on the sideboard.’

  ‘You have it all worked out, I see. Why bother asking me? Do what you like, just GET OUT OF HERE. DO NOT EVER DISTURB ME IN HERE AGAIN!’

  But no shower of books chased Heidi to the door. On the whole, there was progress.

  When she’d cleared lunch and washed up she went to the small greenhouse, to sort out some gardening tools. The Azalea Slope was beyond her powers, the Blue Walk would have to wait until she knew more about autumn gentians. The Rose Arbour was small, walled, and, because of the hard winter, it wasn’t too late to start work.

  She had a pair of secateurs she’d cleaned and oiled; a pair of cracked old heavy gloves that weren’t hugely too big, and a musty wrap-around canvas apron to protect her clothes. She could start with the obvious. Dead stuff and choking tangles that should all come out. Heidi took a deep breath that was close to a happy sigh. ‘Right. Brace yourselves, Sleeping Beauties. You’re about to get a proper good old tidy-up.’

  The parcel van passed through Mehilhoc once a week, very early on a Monday morning. It carried a few passengers, along with the parcels it picked up and delivered. You had to book, but Heidi’s booking had been made for her. The van took her to Mayle, the town where she’d arrived with Verruca by rail. Her warrant didn’t cover trains, but she was in good time for the Vital Commuter bus. It was barely light when they left. The bus was half-empty and she had a seat up front.

  The driver’s radio poured out the Chinese Empire’s Encouraging Anthems, interspersed with local music hits, news snippets and neighbourhood announcements, as the bus slipped from one WiMax cell to another around the grey lanes; the pastures, sheep-walks and woodland all blanketed in snow; the mycel-tunnels for Local Food Production huddled outside every village. Heidi wondered about the people who stood waiting, bundled up against the cold. Were they all Vital, or were some of them on emergency travel warrants, like Heidi? You couldn’t tell from their faces. Everybody looked the same. Cold, tired, and could do with another breakfast—

  Go Without!

  Go Hungry!

  Go Nowhere!

  —sang Fiorinda, once a leader of the English “Rock and Roll Revolution”; nowadays better known as probably the most famous female singer in the world. And the massed Chinese School Choirs came in, with the unbelievably stupid chorus of The Three Gos.

  We are weeeeeening

  We are weeeeening

  We are weeening!

  Some people said Fiorinda was a sell-out. She’d been such a national legend, such a total heroine, and now all she did was make propaganda music for the Chinese. Singing about ‘going nowhere’ and ‘going hungry’, while swanning around in futuristic luxury, best buddies with Emperor Li Xifeng. Shame on her. Heidi didn’t see it that way. Wasn’t everyone working for the Chinese these days? Why shouldn’t Fiorinda do what she did best?

  And you might not like the Empire much, the rationing and the restrictions and the stupid encouraging anthems. But as Clancy said, it was a whole lot better than the alternative.

  Heidi had lied to Clancy. She’d been too young to know what was happening in the Occupation, but not too young to have felt Mum and Dad’s fear. Not too young to remember what it was like to be walking down your own street, knowing some of your neighbours really thought you should be dead, and you didn’t know which ones.

  It was all the grasshoppers’ fault. The human grasshoppers, who had swarmed like greedy locusts, gobbling, grabbing and laying waste. Taking no notice of the disasters all around them: until they brought on the terrible years of the Crisis. And at first it had been okay. It had been scary but fun, so Mum and Dad said, because of Ax and Sage, and Fiorinda and their crew. Everybody pulling together: the free concerts and wonderful music.

  But nothing good ever lasts, and there was something rotten at the heart of England that even the music couldn’t cure. When the Sacrificers got going, nobody could stop them. Unemployed, Immigrant; On Benefits. Homeless; Travellers, Disabled; Mental Health Issues, Learning Difficulties, Rights Activist. If you ticked any of those boxes, you were unfit and you had to be sacrificed. The weaklings had to go, the way the Ancient Britons used to do it, when times were hard—

  Nobody had talked about it, it was never on the news, but everyone had known street kids were disappearing; and the homeless: anyone vulnerable, and anyone who tried to defend them. Mum and Dad had never let Heidi know, but later on she’d found out about the fake Pagan sacrifices: cruel and bloody, but just a training ground for the real plan, which was to fix the Crisis by getting rid of billions of people, all over the world. In England that time was still called The Occupation. People were ashamed to admit that the Sacrificers had been English: and practically no one stood up to them. Only the Chinese Invasion had stopped the horror. The Chinese called them the enemy without a face. That was their trademark, you never knew. And they were still around, some places—

  My enemy hasn’t got a body Heidi thought, swaying in the aisle, and thinking of the face at her door. The bus had filled up and reached the high speed part of its route, but she didn’t mind standing, although the speed was making her feel a bit sick. She liked being in a crowd again. It felt safer than being alone in the depths of the country.

  But the long journey passed too quickly. All too soon she had to start thinking about what would happen at the hospital. I need to talk to Mum, to find out what really happened. She’d been so pleased with herself for thinking up that line, so over-joyed to get the travel warrant, she hadn’t given a thought to what Mum might say.

  What happened Mum? You were there, nobody else. Who did it?

  By the time they reached the Outer London Terminus her heart was like a cannonball, churning inside her. She saw her dad’s name on the front page of a free-sheet and grabbed a copy, terrified that Mum had been arrested. But it was okay. Her so-called Uncle Jerez, Dad’s step-brother, had tried to ‘sell his story’, and been caught out, that was all. What a jerk. Heidi had never liked him. She dumped the paper in a recycling bin.

  At the Hospital Shuttles stand the sign was blank except for the message limited service. She asked the lone fat man in the shelter how long he’d been waiting.

  ‘’Bout an hour.’ His flab drooped over the sides of the narrow bench, as if he was melting. ‘There was one up there for a while. It got to be four minutes away and it vanished. I’ve been on a bus that’s vanished, before now. They get behind schedule, an’ blow out the bus station.’

  ‘Are they allowed to do that?

  ‘No, but they do. There’s no excuse. There’s no traffic jams, is there?’

  The shuttle turned up in the end. The Mental Health U
nit where Mum had been taken was not her usual hospital. This had made Heidi afraid it would be horrible, bars on the windows and big nasty wardens with Tasers and jangling chains of keys, but it looked all right. The buildings were fairly new. There were trees, and big clean windows.

  Her palms were sweating, her cannonball heart chewed at her insides. She tried to calm herself, walking round the car park: tried to picture Mum in a white bed, in a small clean room by herself, her beautiful wild hair exploded over the pillow. Mum softly opening her eyes, and Heidi saying

  Mum, I’m here and nobody else, please Mum, tell me what happened.

  Heaps of grey snow towered around the few parked cars. It wouldn’t be like that. She wouldn’t be allowed to go to Mum’s room, or be alone with her. It would be some drab dayroom, and Mum with mad eyes, crying like a sick baby, not fit to talk to anyone.

  Mum wasn’t under guard now, she was only a suspect: but she’d been in the hospital for nearly six weeks, sicker than ever before, and that was very frightening. My dad’s been dead for six weeks, thought Heidi. The lost dimension, the Garden House and Mehilhoc vanished from under her feet. She was back in the terrible world.

  She gave her name at Reception, and showed the text permitting her to visit. She was told to wait. Mental Health outpatients and visitors sat on plastic chairs; you couldn’t tell the difference. Heidi stared at the snacks in the vending machine. She’d forgotten to pack herself a lunch, but she didn’t feel hungry.

  Heidi Ryan? Please return to Reception.

  A doctor in a white coat and green trousers was waiting. She took Heidi aside. ‘I’m sorry Heidi. You can’t see your mum right now.’

  ‘How long do I have to wait? I’m expected back at work.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t see her today.’

  The cannonball exploded. This was the one fate Heidi hadn’t tried to prepare for. ‘ But you knew I was coming! Why didn’t you CALL me? Why can’t I see her?’

  ‘I’m very sorry. Your mum isn’t stable yet, and it turns out this is a bad day. We’ll tell her you were here, soon as she’s able to take it in. You can call the ward any time, Heidi, and drop in whenever you like, there’s no problem about that—’

  ‘I CAN’T! I haven’t any money for fares. I’m INDENTURED! I can’t DROP IN ANY TIME! I can’t keep taking time off!’

  ‘Come with me, Heidi,’ said the woman, ‘somewhere we can talk.’

  She went with the doctor to an office. A beefy nurse brought a tray with thin sandwiches and pale coffee. He winked at Heidi, kindly. She ate, grimly: for the strength to fight.

  ‘Can I just see her? What if I just look through the door and wave, and say hi?’

  ‘I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing,’ said the doctor. ‘But we have your phone number. We’ll let you know when things change. We’ll keep in touch.’

  There was nothing Heidi could do. If there was a magic word, she didn’t know it. Totally defeated she walked out through the hospital gates, reeling in shock and disgusted with herself. Why hadn’t she dug her heels in, why hadn’t she asked more questions? She saw herself running down corridors, charging past Mental Health staff, knowing where to go because Mum’s bedside drew her like a magnet—

  Instead she’d been dealt with. Fed like a stray animal and dismissed.

  She didn’t know she’d walked straight past the Hospitals Shuttles bay at the gates until a normal bus stop materialised in front of her. It didn’t matter, she had a warrant.

  The strange hospital was closer to home than the place where Mum usually went. The numbers on the board were familiar. Heidi didn’t know what she was going to do, until a bus drew up. She asked the driver was her warrant only good for a trip back to the terminus.

  He took it from her and inspected it.

  ‘Nope, you’re fine. Have warrant will travel, all day, anywhere in this zone you like. The only thing you have to watch for is if you have further to travel, after you get back to Mayle. There won’t be any forward transport from there after about four o’clock.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She got off at her usual stop, and walked home. There were no curtains at the windows of the house where she used to live. A sign planted in their tiny front garden said TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION. Nothing else had changed. The police had bashed their door open but it looked okay now. It didn’t look as if anyone had even changed the locks. She opened the cover in the pavement, where the stop-tap was, and groped inside the hole. The spare key was there, where it had always been kept.

  She tried it, and it turned. She let herself in.

  Nothing seemed real. There was a ringing in her ears, and everything was gone. The fitted carpet was as shabby, and as clean, as when Heidi had last vacuumed it. The slate-coloured vinyl in the kitchen shone. There was no tv screen, no furniture, no ornaments. Upstairs, her bedroom was bare. She wondered what had happened to the Purple Suitcase. Did it get lost, or had the loan company sold her things for scrap: the way they’d sold Heidi?

  What am I doing here? she wondered, feeling helpless as a ghost.

  Mum and Dad’s room was as clean and neat as Heidi had left it, except there was no carpet; and a dim, irregular stain marked the boards, beside the pale patch where their bed had been. She stared at the fitted wardrobe where Mum had crouched, crying and all over blood. That’s not why I’m here, thought Heidi. I don’t need to be reminded.

  What is it, what do I want?

  The reason came popping back into her mind. It was the hidey hole.

  Standing at that bus stop by the hospital, she’d thought of the hidey-hole. Dad kept a locked cashbox, under a loose board at the bottom of the wardrobe. Heidi wasn’t supposed to touch it, and she never did. But in the same hidey hole, in a tatty, beloved envelope, Mum put the cash she saved for emergencies. Heidi could see it now, Mum’s lovely swooping handwriting on the outside, saying: Hey Baby! This Is The Money! Love you, sweetheart! Heidi’s sums, going back for years: what she’d taken out, and what was left. There’d been quite a bit of money in the envelope when Dad was killed. If it was still there, Heidi wouldn’t need another travel warrant, she’d only need to get Tallis to give her time off. She could go and see Mum any time—

  The hope was real, for a moment.

  The hidey-hole was empty. Of course it was. The police had been through here. Heidi put the loose board back, not even disappointed. And stayed where she was, kneeling, staring at nothing: asking herself a question she’d never thought of asking before.

  If Mum didn’t kill him, who did?

  She closed her eyes, trying to catch the tail of something that nagged at her. I came in here. Dad was all over blood, Mum had the knife, but what else? Did I notice something wrong? I know there was something, some little thing wrong—

  At last she stood up. She’d remembered. It wasn’t much, but she had something to take back from this long cold journey and offer to the Inspector.

  Something she was pretty sure he didn’t know.

  The bus driver had been right; there was no bus to Mehilhoc from Mayle by the time Heidi got there. Somebody showed her the start of the footpath, but it was a five mile walk in the freezing cold, and not much chance of dinner on the table by seven. Luckily Melinda the Community Nurse spotted her, and gave her a lift to the Learning Centre. As she hurried over the harbour bridge she almost ran into the Hooded Boy, who was pushing his Elder along in a wheelchair. The old lady was wrapped up tight, only her eyes, and the tip of her nose, pink from the cold, showing between warm scarves and warm hat.

  ‘Hi,’ said Clancy. ‘You got there all right?’

  ‘Yeah, but I couldn’t see her. I’ll tell you later. Hello Mrs Scott-Amberley.’

  ‘Hello dear. Roddy’s been taking me for a walk. We went to St Mary’s.’

  The old lady’s voice was tiny and clear; like a doll talking.

  ‘I’m Roddy,’ said Clancy, shrugging. ‘Whoever “Roddy” is.’

  ‘Congratulations, Roddy. How d�
�you swing the outing?’ Heidi knew about the demon Crace. She’d been visiting the Chinese Temple on her afternoon runs.

  ‘No idea. Irene suddenly crumbled this afternoon, broke down and admitted there was a wheelchair. She practically made us a picnic.’

  ‘The tympanum carvings are unusually interesting,’ piped the old lady.

  ‘I must have a look, but now I have to go,’ said Heidi, ‘I’m late. Bye, Mrs Scott-Amberley, nice to meet you. See you, Clancy.’

  The Running Girl sped away. Clancy, pushing steadily, noticed a dark car parked opposite Mrs Scott-Amberley’s house. That was strange. Who had a private car around here? The only motor traffic he’d seen in Mehilhoc, aside from Melinda the Lone Ranger’s little red electric, was the veg van, driven by Brooklyn’s mum. Then somebody came out of the house, a man in a bulky winter coat: walking down the path fast, with no goodbyes.

  ‘Mrs Scott-Amberley, were you expecting a visitor this afternoon—?’

  ‘Nobody ever comes,’ whispered the old lady. ‘Irene would know.’

  Clancy put on speed, suddenly very curious. Mrs Scott-Amberley’s woolly-hatted head bobbed to and fro: but it was too late. The strange car had started up and disappeared around the bend in the lane, before Clancy had even caught the licence plate.

  ‘Sorry for the rush,’ he said. ‘I thought you might want to know who that was.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Just take me to the door. No need to come in.’

  He pushed her up the garden path, frowning. Irene Crace must have been watching for them. She opened the front door and stood there, waiting. She said nothing to Clancy, or to Mrs Scott-Amberley, as she took possession of the wheelchair. But she smiled.

  Maybe there was some perfectly okay explanation. But that evil smile said otherwise. Clancy had a dirty feeling he’d been used. Played for a fool.