by Andy Conway
She quailed and scuttled away, crossing to the wooden planks of the other side of the street, skirting a pile of horse dung. She was striding down the road when she saw a gang of men marching up towards the Trafalgar Inn.
Two men in overcoats and derby hats at the head. One short, one huge. A gang of policemen behind them.
They were looking for her.
She nipped into a dark ginnel with a brass nameplate above its arch. Caroline Place. From the shadows, she held her breath, watching them stride on up the road, their boots tramping the wooden boardwalk. They gathered on the corner at the entrance to the Trafalgar and took out their truncheons.
They were looking for her.
She’d been right. That sixth sense she had that had kept her safe through so many perils. There it was again.
She crept out of the dark alley and walked on, the main road ahead of her. Twenty yards to safety.
Footsteps running towards her. They stopped. Light steps, like a child’s. She glanced back.
No one following.
She listened. No one moving.
The gang of policemen entered the Trafalgar.
She scurried on, turned into the main road, and tried to place where she was.
The road that dipped to the village. She could see the church tower standing over the place. But all the buildings were different from those in her dreams.
She crossed to the other side where a long fence cordoned off a row of trees. It looked like another park. It was darker and quieter on that side. There was no pavement, just dirt road and boughs hanging over the fence. She could walk along the fence and keep to the shadows.
None of it seemed right. She only recognized half of it. But the sense of Tiyata was strong now, almost singing through her blood.
This fence and line of trees didn’t belong here, she remembered. In her dreams it was a row of buildings, shops.
She was walking along this same stretch of road, but there was a pavement here, and shops. It was a different time. She had a basket on her arm with food and beers and she was catching her reflection in a shop window, seeing herself smile and realizing she was in love.
With someone. A man whose face had disappeared.
Then, at that moment, she’d heard a camera shutter fizz and turned to see a man taking her picture. His camera was small, so tiny, and he was dressed strangely in a blue jacket with a kind of homburg hat that looked too small.
But she knew his face. It was the same face, even though it was from a different time.
Peter Wethers.
He photographed her and chased her down the street. She ran for a tram, but a different one, with no horses, just wheels, and he blocked her way. She swiped at his camera, knocking it out of his hands, pushed him away, he stumbled back, the camera clattered, opened, she jumped on board.
“Oy! Bloody hell!”
She gripped the rail as the tram on wheels sailed away and saw him piecing his camera back together, climbing to his feet and kicking his hat.
When had that happened?
Peter Wethers had known her in another time. He wasn’t the man he said he was.
She heard a scuffle in the darkness behind her and glanced back. Nothing moved in the shadows.
Across the street, in the light from the gas lamps, a gang of ruffians stood outside the Fighting Cocks pub. She knew that name, but the building was different from the one in her dreams, smaller, as if someone had placed a familiar name on the wrong building.
She crept along the fence, making no sound, further down the hill. Here. Just here. This was where Peter Wethers had tried to photograph her.
Who was he?
33
PETER WETHERS PRESSED the brass button at the door of number 12, Alcester Road, and waited, breathing clouds about his face.
The door creaked open and a woman peered out. A teenager, he thought, but her blonde hair pinned back fiercely, and her dress of black crepe aged her.
“Yes?” she said.
“Madame La Fey?” he asked.
“Miss Parker.”
“I understand Madame La Fey has a séance tonight? I’m Mister Wethers.”
“I don’t have you down for tonight.”
“Is there a space at the table? It’s rather important.”
She looked him up and down, as if running a secret algorithm through her mind; one that might invite him in or slam the door in his face.
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his leather wallet. “I can pay handsomely for the inconvenience.”
At the sight of the banknote, her eyes widened and she ushered him in, snatching the crispy note from him and leading him down the hall. It was always the same: these slips of flimsy paper that meant nothing in the present, they were a magical passport in the past.
At the end of the dim hall, a boy stood guard. Fair-haired and scrubbed clean.
“Out of the way, Richard. You’ve been told.”
Miss Parker shoved the boy into the drawing room straight ahead and shut the door on him. Peter caught the boy glance back. Something in the look that passed between them sent an electrical charge along his spine. This was familiar. This was something he should remember.
Miss Parker ushered him into the parlour to her left. It was an excessively furnished place, even by Victorian standards,
At the edges of the room, half in shadow, arm-chairs decorated with antimacassars and a small velvet sofa; at one wall, an upright piano, its lid closed, a dark, brooding presence. A rocking-chair and a tiled stove. Engravings on the walls, a cabinet with china, and a small bookcase displaying leather-bound volumes. In the centre of the room, a large, round table with green leather inlay.
A few faces gathered. It took him a moment to work out which was Madame La Fey. She was not dressed up to look exotic, like many clairvoyants he’d seen, and it made him wonder if she might actually have some talent, rather than be a fake raking in money from the bereaved.
He mistook her simple black dress for that of a woman in mourning, a few beads and a whisper of lace about her neck, and her eyes were bright as if remembering a private joke. She wore the confident smile of a cynic, so he was surprised when Miss Parker announced him as an unexpected arrival and whispered in her ear.
Peter saw Madame La Fey’s eyes bug out a little and knew she’d told her how much money he’d donated. The same eyes as the girl, and the boy in the drawing room. A family business.
“Mr. Wethers,” she said, welcoming him to the table’s empty place with a flourish of her elegant fingers. Only one ring, he noticed. A simple gold band.
He took his place and looked around the table at the others, who all nodded and shuffled with a hint of embarrassment. Three women, one of them a blonde beauty in her twenties, and a man with the glazed eyes, puffy cheeks and scarlet nose of an alcoholic.
Peter felt a pang of guilt for what was about to happen. They had come here out of desperation. All of them had lost someone. All of them needed the comfort of contact with the other side. And all they would experience was pain, confusion, terror. He was using them. But no more than Madame La Fey was using them, he told himself. Their encounter would be with something real, at least.
“Welcome, all,” said Madame La Fey. “In a moment, Miss Parker will dim the lamps, and our séance shall begin. I would like you to open your minds and your hearts to the possibility of contact with your loved ones.”
Miss Parker skirted the room, dimming each gas lamp, till all they could see was each other’s faces lit by the candle in the middle of the table. It was the perfect lighting for Madame La Fey’s missing husband to walk around the shadows in a black body stocking, tickling them with a feather or prodding them with a stick to convince them there were spirits present.
But it would not come to that, he knew. They were all about to have an encounter with the infinite that they would never forget.
“Please, take the hand of the person next to you so that we may form a chain of psychic en
ergy with which to welcome the spirits.”
They dutifully held hands on the baize inlaid table and he felt a thrill at the warmth of the young beauty’s hand in his. He pushed the thought of her away, and the scent of her perfume, forcing himself to concentrate on the task ahead. A distraction like her and he wouldn’t reach his destination.
Madame La Fey’s voice deepened and thickened and her head lolled and rolled as she faked her trance. “We mortals welcome all to this place. All spirits who wish to communicate with their loved ones, please step forth. We welcome you.”
Peter felt the residual energy pulsing between them. It wasn’t much, but it was enough tension in the catapult to send him to where he needed to go. He’d always found that a séance was the easiest way to leech the energy needed, otherwise you had to do it yourself and it was exhausting.
“Is there anyone there?” she called.
He heard one of the women across the table gasp.
“Who’s there?” said Madame La Fey.
Miss Parker with a feather, he thought, and tried not to laugh.
Madame La Fey tensed and shuddered as if an electric shock were passing through her. The beauty’s fingers tightened in his hand and he forced her out of his mind. Now was the time. Or he might miss it.
“I feel a presence,” Madame La Fey cackled.
Peter felt the energy surge through them and allowed his mind to blank out. It was like trying to ride a bike. That first wobble as you sought equilibrium, then the smooth glide of balance.
He had only a moment to notice Madame La Fey had started bucking and writhing, as if she were having a seizure, before it took him and he surfed outwards on her psychic energy.
To find himself standing on a station platform.
Sunshine and birdsong. A beautiful warm day. The pleasant hum of the rail tracks. The sweet fragrance of honeysuckle.
The sign said Kings Heath. He knew it so well.
It was the station at the end of time.
34
THE SALOON DOOR FLEW open with a bang and everyone turned.
A short man in a grey overcoat and derby hat, with a lean face. Behind him was a giant with a beard. Squashed into a brown check suit.
Welly Davies didn’t need to see the gang of black suited, brass-buttoned peelers behind them to know that these two men were coppers. It was written all over their smug faces.
He turned back to the bar, winked at Herbert Powell, and swallowed the knot of anger in his throat.
The two men strolled in and his men parted for them. The uniformed coppers stayed outside, but held the door open, ready to pile in if anything happened. They all had their truncheons drawn.
“Get that bloody kid out of here,” said the small one.
He hadn’t really said it to the barman, or to little Herbert Powell, or even to Welly Davies. He’d announced it to the entire room, as if everyone in the place was a single being he could order around.
Little Herbert Powell sat on the bar, grinning. The copper yanked him clean off with a single fist gripping his waistcoat, and in one movement kicked him up the backside so he almost flew out of the open door with a yelp.
All the Peakies stiffened, ready to kick off, but the big copper drew a truncheon and snarled, and the rest of them now crowding into the doorway backed him up.
“Mr Llewellyn Davies, I presume?”
Welly Davies put on a smile and turned to face the shorter one, holding out his hand. “Not sure I’ve had the pleasure.”
The copper looked down at it like it was covered in blood. “Inspector Beadle. Kings Norton constabulary.”
“Can I get you a drink, Inspector?”
The big one took a step closer, growling, his knuckles white.
“Why are you here?” said Beadle.
“Thought we’d come out to Moseley. See the sights. Sample the ambience.”
“What do you want?”
“Thanks, I’ll have another pint of porter.”
The Peakies around the room chuckled and he saw the flash of irritation in Beadle’s face. He might be only Kings Norton police, where nothing much happened in the way of crime, but he was tough, that much was clear.
Beadle stepped into his face, the brim of his derby almost kissing the peak of Welly’s cloth cap.
“Get out of Moseley. Back to Birmingham with the rest of the scum.”
“I thought it was a free country.”
“Not for vermin like you, it isn’t.”
“Think I’ll stay and have another pint.”
“I think you’ll get going.”
“Who’s gonna make me? You?”
The big man barged forward, his great hulk towering over Welly Davies. “He won’t need to, pal. Now make a choice. It’s either through that door or through that window.”
There was something in the steely glint of the big man’s glare that everyone could read, even the slowest, most illiterate Peakies in the room. It spoke of Edinburgh dives and punch ups with the most feral scum in Scotland. It was the kind of look that could make most men’s legs turn to jelly before a punch was even thrown.
“Choose your mode of egress.”
Welly Davies turned to the bar, downed his pint, smacked his lips, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and turned back, grinning.
“You know what? I was just saying to the lads here that this place is a right load of tack. Come on, lads. Let’s go back to Brum.”
He stroked the peak of his cap, let the move linger in the mind of everyone in the room, felt the grins of every Peaky. But Beadle and his Scottish bruiser showed no fear, so he stuck his chin out and headed for the door, strutting like a peacock.
The girl wasn’t coming in this place anyway. He’d find her out there on the streets.
35
ACROSS THE ROAD SHE could see the village green — a triangle of grass cordoned off with iron railings — and on the corner looking down on it, a building that looked like a little castle, with stucco designs and leaded windows. Something about that place spooked her. The girl. The girl who had banished her. That was where she had lived.
But that building was not the one calling to her. It was the church tower that loomed over the village. It was singing to her, beckoning her. There she would find her answers.
Another group of men in peaked caps, waiting on the green. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew they were waiting for her. And she would have to pass them to get to the church.
It was hopeless.
A tram came down the hill, its team of horses glancing to her in the shadows, neighing in recognition. She found herself saying Shhhhhhhh to them. The tram pulled up at the green and unloaded a group of passengers, respectable looking types, who alighted and splayed out to different parts of Moseley. But all of them gave the little gang of men in peaked caps a second look, as if they didn’t belong there, as if they were unusual, as if they feared them.
Now was the time.
She swallowed and walked across the wide dirt road, stepping into the glow of light from the street lamps.
Head down, walking with purpose across the street. Others walked by her, criss-crossing, normal people about their business, just like her. She could feel the Peakies stop and turn and look her up and down. The men on the green to her right, and the men standing outside the Fighting Cocks to her left.
They murmured among themselves. She walked on, reaching the far pavement and stepping onto the wooden boardwalk, intending to walk on up, following the row of shops and the Bulls Head pub, up the street to the church, knowing they would cut her off.
One of the Peakies peeled off from the others, walking across the triangle of the green, heading for her. She quickened her step.
He was peering at her as if trying to work something out. Her hair. He was looking for a redhead. He couldn’t see in the light.
She stopped short at an alleyway to her left. A gate up there. The churchyard. So familiar.
She had been here before.
> A shortcut to the church. Without thinking, she plunged into the dark alley and rushed for the gate.
A shout behind her.
She glanced back and saw a boy in a peaked cap. The boy from the train. The boy who’d followed her to the park. The older man joined him. And the others.
They came running.
She fled, her eyes on that gate ahead. A terrible power emanating from beyond it. The church, visible through the bars.
She felt it like she’d felt the coming of Custer and his long knives. She felt it like she’d felt the death of the old way of life on the Plains. It throbbed in every part of her with certainty, calling out to her, calling her name, demanding to be recognized.
Yes, here. Tiyata. Home.
She reached the gate. A chain like a necklace. A giant padlock.
Her hands pulled at the gate but it did not budge.
She turned, crying out in panic.
The gang of men crowded down the alley towards her, leering, grinning, the dead-eyed boy at their head.
They relaxed and stood facing her, knowing they had her. She looked in every direction, the bars of the gate pressing into her back.
Trapped.
36
PETE WETHERS STROLLED into the station tearoom to find it pleasantly cool and shaded. Renee was there at the counter, the dotty old lady who was always here, always serving tea and buns for all who passed through. Brandy when it was cold.
“Good day, Mr Wethers,” she said. “And may I say how dapper you’re looking today?”
He looked down at his clothes. He was still in his Victorian suit. “Why, thank you, Renee,” he said, pronouncing it reeny. “It’s not really my thing, as you know.”
“Oh I do like a man in a good Victorian suit,” she said. “Reminds me of my dear, departed father, God bless him. Would you like a brandy, bab?”
“I’m actually gasping for a nice cup of tea,” he said.