by S Williams
‘Good.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t mean good as in it was good what happened to those boys. I just mean good as in I’m glad the Lily-Rose images aren’t there anymore. Just because no one was identifiable, well, it’s still going to be understood by all those kids on the estate, isn’t it? And now they’re seeing those boys who did it.’
‘Allegedly.’
‘Whatever. Now they’re going to see them get fucked over. So “good”.’
Loss replaces his phone, feeling as if control is not so much slipping away from him, as running full-pelt. The air of the capital is hot and humid, and the bombardment of smells coming from all the street vendors makes him both nauseous and light-headed. The noise is incredible: tourists armed to the teeth with electronic gadgetry, clicking, and whirring, and flashing, all shouting at each other. The locals no better; many speaking a language he can’t understand, either because he’s too old and can’t decode the intonation, or they aren’t speaking in English. Almost half have strange contraptions in their ears and are shouting at the air in front of them. Amazingly, his DS seems to be enjoying herself. She even stopped and bought them each an ice-cream from a vendor working out of a rickshaw with a cooler-box attached to the back.
As they stroll down the lane towards the Coliseum Theatre, a deep throb of thunder pulses across the sky, as if it’s being fracked. Loss is having difficulty walking. He isn’t sure whether it’s because he is so tired, or because the pavement has begun to melt in the heat. The entire city is becoming surreal to him as though he’s a few seconds out of sync. A permanent shudder in reality. Stone stops suddenly, and grabs his arm.
‘What?’ he asks. Stone smiles at him and points. Loss looks at what she’s pointing at.
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
Between the theatre and a music shop is an alley, no more than fifty centimetres wide. Spanning the gap, attached to both sides of the narrow street, is a lamp, making an arched entrance-way.
‘Brydges Place, sir. I believe this is us.’
The day is now so dark that the lamp marking the entrance sputters into life. As they walk single-file under it and into the alley, Loss briefly wonders if he has gone back in time. Steam seeps out of the walls in front of him through cracks in the mortar, and he feels as if the walls are barely staying upright that, at any moment, they might close up and crush him. He is dizzy with hunger, sleep deprivation, and claustrophobia. If it weren’t for the narrowness of the lane he might very well fall down.
After ten metres the alley opens up into a tiny courtyard, and Loss feels the constriction in his chest ease slightly, although his sense of displacement increases. The courtyard has a scattering of tables and chairs; an outside extension of the Marquis of Granby pub. In one corner sits a ragged dust-coated scarecrow of a figure, playing a violin, with an upturned bowler hat at his feet. Loss doesn’t recognize the tune, but it sounds vaguely eastern European. The only other occupant is a pavement artist, chalking a winged figure falling from the skies. From his perspective Loss can’t make out much of the picture, but he suspects that it’s Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. From where he is standing Loss can only see the back of the artist and he can’t tell if they are male or female.
‘Over here, sir.’ Stone nods her head at a dark blue door to their left. Above it is a painting of two antique duelling pistols, and a brass plaque next to it:
K Brooks
Military Antiques and Ephemera
By appointment only
Next to the plaque is a brass bell-pull. The DS gives it a firm tug. After a moment a cultured voice enquires after their business. Once the DS has given the required information there is a click as the door is remotely unlocked, and then they walk inside.
‘Hello? I’m up here!’ The same cultured voice rings out from above them, and urges them up a steep staircase. The stairs are old and the bare wooden treads are not flat, making them difficult to climb. The narrowness of the staircase, coupled with its seemingly random twists and turns increases Loss’s claustrophobia. By the time they reach the glass-walled garret at the top of the building Loss is so out of breath he thinks his heart is going to explode. His vision is just colours with no pattern or meaning to them. He feels himself falling.
‘Oh my poor chap!’ A tall scruffy man, his appearance at total odds with his voice, is quickly at his side, a firm hand on his elbow. He studies the DI, concern printed on his tight-skinned face. ‘Do sit down.’ He ushers Loss into an over-stuffed armchair.
After a few moments his vision settles and he is able to take in his surroundings. He blinks several times and wonders if perhaps he is drunk. Pointing directly at him is a cannon. Next to the cannon is a pirate brandishing a flint pistol at his DS. It’s only after some moments that DI Loss realizes it is a waxwork model.
Following his gaze, the scruffy man beams brightly. ‘I got him from Madame Tussaud’s. I think he’s supposed to be Calico Jack.’ The gaunt man is standing by the armchair holding a glass of iced water. He hands it to Loss, who drinks it down gratefully, and gazes around the room.
The walls are covered with weaponry of all kinds; from pistols to blow-pipes. There are esoteric potted plants everywhere, and the dry smell of them, mixed with the shadows they create from the enormous amount of light streaming into the room through the glass roof and walls, gives the feeling of a tropical forest. Loss wouldn’t be surprised if a Pigmy reached up and grabbed the blowpipe off the wall. The room is divided by glass exhibit tables. Loss stands up and peers into the one nearest him. The proprietor comes to stand beside him and looks into the case. Resting on red felt, and neatly labelled, are two wicked looking axes, about thirty centimetres long.
‘Those are Egyptian quarter axes, popular around 1500 BC,’ the man beside him says. ‘The first ones were made out of bronze, of course, but they were so useful in combat that they lasted right up to the Iron Age. I’m Kavenagh Brooks, by the way,’ he grabs Loss’s hand and gives it a single, dry pump. ‘I understand you’ve been looking for information concerning these.’
From out of another case the antiquarian produces a slim box and places it on the display glass in front of the detectives. When he opens it Loss feels a slick of saliva flood his mouth. Inside are two scythes, identical to the ones he’d last seen separating flesh from bone on a tube train, not very far from here. Beside him his DS gives a sharp intake of breath. Loss sways slightly.
‘Steady on, old chap.’ Mr Brooks places a concerned hand on the DI’s arm.
‘Where did you get them?’
‘These are one of two sets I brought back with me from Burma. Actually, it’s quite remarkable to find one pair in such good condition, let alone two.’
Loss can’t take his eyes off the knives, at the wicked curve of them, and the way they seem to sliver the light into flat silver snakes.
‘And who did you sell the other set to?’
Mr Brooks strokes the knives gently, as if he is putting them to sleep.
‘Why, the British Museum.’
25
Lily-Rose is getting dressed. Her clothes are too big for her now, and when she wears them, the impact of her recent experiences comes into sharp relief. She is a ghost inside her own skin. She puts on a pair of scuzzy old jeans, and uses a dressing gown cord threaded through the belt loops to keep them up. She doesn’t need a bra beneath her ripped black Joy Division tee shirt – since she stopped eating her breasts have almost completely disappeared. This is one of the reasons she still eats so little. She does not want her breasts to return. She does not want to be a sexual being. Over the tee shirt she wears a Russian army jacket with the collar cut off, and on her feet, a pair of Doc Martins. She does not look at herself in the mirror. She has broken all the mirrors.
When the police returned Lily-Rose’s computer she did not touch it. She was not sure if, when she started it up, knowing that everything on it had been examined, she would feel violated again. She wasn’t
worried about them finding anything incriminating; the girl she met in the Pollyanna chat room was obviously very good at covering her tracks. But just the fact that strangers had electronically thumbed through her hard-drive. Her photos. Her texts. Her life.
Herself.
She wasn’t sure she could cope with it all.
In the end, she decided she couldn’t and, instead, used her iPad to re-connect to the Interzone. She created a new email address, which she gave to no one. Of course she didn’t. There was no one to give it to. Since her assault she has systematically shut down all her contacts with the school and the estate. It wasn’t hard. Most of her friends have abandoned her, seeing her as broken: damaged goods. Or worse, blaming her for bringing down trouble onto the estate. Her rape was in some way a difficulty that reflected badly on them. An inconvenience; rocking the boat, and allowing the corpse of fear to surface.
She collected all the information on the web concerning the girl the media were now calling Tuesday. She re-entered the anorexia/self-harm forums, the scar-bars she haunted after she was raped, searching for her.
This morning she received an email. It had no IP address and seemed to originate from nowhere. She opens it up and reads it.
The words make her break out in a shivering sweat but she reads it to the end.
Once Lily-Rose has finished dressing, covering her hands with a pair of fingerless grey mittens and wrapping a black keffiyeh round her throat, she leaves the house for the first time since her attack, and heads into town.
26
When Loss and Stone leave Mr Brooks’ premises, the sky is a ribbon of boiling black above them, and the busker and street painter have disappeared. Seeing the scythes at close quarters has brought home to the detectives just how much pain and fear must have been in the carriage on the night they were used.
‘I need to sit down.’ Loss lowers himself into a chair at one of the tables opposite the door from which he has just emerged. Stone walks through into the Marquis of Granby, and returns a few minutes later with two Cokes. Loss can feel the moisture in the air, as though the rain has already arrived and is just waiting for somebody to notice. There are glass beads of condensation on the outside of the glass. He takes a sip of the Coke. It is not real Coke, but some glucose-rich variant from a soda-stream.
‘So whoever she is, she probably nicked them from the British Museum – unless she had access to similar weapons elsewhere.’ Stone sits down next to him and sips her drink. Flashes of lightning cross the narrow strip of sky above them. ‘But what I don’t get is why? Why use such a bizarre weapon, one that’s going to be quickly identified? And why leave a calling card, look at the camera, and then go to such extremes as to disappear by walking through walls. It just doesn’t make sense.’
Loss can’t disagree. The whole case is making him feel stupid. He can’t seem to be able to grasp a bigger picture. He knows there must be one. He feels it deep inside him. He just doesn’t know what it could be. He drinks his Coke, examining the pavement in front of him. It takes him a few minutes to register what he is staring at.
‘Fuck!’
The rain starts to fall in large drops on the chalk picture the street artist has left. Although the picture is much the same as when they went into the antique shop, it differs in two main respects. The first is that the central character, the one Loss had assumed was Icarus, is now a tumbling, black-trousered Gothette in an army shirt. She is quite clearly the girl from the CCTV and the video sent to his computer. The second is that the drawing now has a title written beneath it, beginning to blur and run in the rain:
TUESDAY FALLING
‘Take a picture of that before it washes away, for God’s sake!’
Stone gets out her phone, but, before she can utilize the camera facility, it rings.
‘It’s the lab, sir,’ she clocks the ID window, and pushes the button to accept the call, and puts the phone to her ear.
While his DS deals with the call, Loss pulls out his own phone and takes a snap of the chalk drawing on the pavement. All the colours have merged into each other and the image is distorted and surreal; a pictorial representation of how he feels. His phone rings.
And that’s when DI Loss’s world blows apart.
27
Now they know that I’m not just some random fruit shoot, I have to be a bit more inventive. Not too inventive, cos I’m still dealing with empty-headed morons, but a little bit.
I’m not talking about the police here; I’m still playing Children’s’ Hour with them. It’s still Follow the Leader in that camp, and they haven’t got a clue what’s going on.
Of course, when I say the police, I mean DI Loss. I couldn’t give a fuck about the rest of them.
Poor DI Loss, all at sea and not a boat in sight.
No, I’m talking about the Sparrow Estate boys and girls. The rape merchants and the pain posses.
Really, they think they’re living in some film. They think they’re gangstas, or hooked-up players. They think they’re part of some crew and the world they live in is run by them, for them.
It’s almost unbelievable how people can be so stupid.
They all have smartphones they don’t understand, which is a joke in itself. Smartphones for stupid people. They all think it’s like chatting in their own cribs. All I had to do was send them a phishing email with a hack attachment piggy-backed onto a free game app, and I have a real-time screen on my tablet of all their texts, all their phone calls, emails, everything. They’re children, really. They don’t trust each other, but they trust a machine.
Heartless, raping robot children, obviously, but children.
Although technically, of course, I’m the child.
Anyhow, since my little run-ins with them, their phones have been on fire, trying to find out who I am. What I want. To begin with, once they knew it wasn’t just some psycho gig, they thought I must be some bit of fluff they’d fucked up in the past. Thought I was out for revenge.
They think that way. Like it’s all about them. Well, I’ll give them something, I suppose. In a way they’re right. Just not the way they think they are.
So they started to talk to each other on their little future-machines about all their victims, all the people they’d jumped in the past.
So many it makes you cry. All so casual. All so part of their everyday DNA.
And the way they think. Once they’ve fucked someone, they think that person has lost the right to refuse to have sex. Not that it is sex. Rape becomes just an assertion of property. Of power.
I’ve set up a program on my tablet that logs and stores all their messages, and relays them out to the people they’ve destroyed. It took me about zero seconds to write it. About the same to find the electronic addresses of the people they’d fucked over. Most of them were already on their hand-helds: trophies. Now all the victims know who it was stamped on their lives, and what they think about it. They knew some of it before of course, but now I’ve connected up all the dots. Opened the curtains and smashed out the window. I’d send it to the police but it wouldn’t be as much fun. It wouldn’t create the panic and movement that this is going to create.
And I need movement.
I need all the little worker ants to have boiling water spilt on them so I can watch them run.
I need to know where they’re running to.
That’s why I’ve decided to give them another little push.
The kebab house looks the same as any other kebab house; all faulty neon and unbelievably bad food pictures. You can tell by its popularity that it is a front for drugs. There are five under-age groom-girls outside, wearing belts that are pretending to be skirts, and a boy, maybe nineteen, standing a few feet away from them, with cold bullet eyes, like he’s a gunslinger, or a spook, or a hard-nosed mutha.
What he is, is he’s just a prick that someone else pulls, and he’s probably got about half an hour left to enjoy his life.
I’ve been watching them from a doorway next
to the tube station. I’ve got a litre bottle of cider next to me filled with hydrochloric acid, and I’ve covered myself with a sleeping bag I pulled out of a skip. I’m wearing a Korean army greatcoat cos they’re the only ones that will fit me, and I’ve got on a fake-fur trapper’s hat.
Frankly, I look how I used to look three years ago, when I’d only just AWOL’d out of the hospital and was back living on the street. When it all got going and everything broke in my head.
But I smell a lot better.
So here I am, in my brilliant tramp disguise, which only works because no one likes to look too closely at a tramp in case they do something tramp-y to you, watching the boy outside of the kebab/drug shop who is looking at the street like it belongs to him.
He doesn’t look at me, though. Me, he looks right through as if I’m litter.
Every few minutes Bullet Eyes takes, then makes, a phone call, and a teenager on a pedal bike comes up and goes in the meat shop. After a little time they come out, get on their bike and ride off. They never have a kebab with them, though. I don’t blame them.
I’ve got my tablet resting on my lap, hidden by the sleeping bag, and I’ve got it connected to the Interzone with a cascade IP router so I can’t be traced. I used to use TOR before it got rebooted. TOR stands for The Onion Router, a way of transferring data that has so many layers of relays as to make it untraceable. Really, I don’t know why they bother. If someone doesn’t want anyone to know where they’ve been on the interlanes there are a million programs out there that will help them. Shutting one down is like trying to jail a planet.
Or just buy a pre-jacked SIM. They cost about the same as a packet of crisps.
As Bullet Eyes makes his phone calls and takes his IMS’s, I get an instant copy of it on my screen. I’ve also got a program running that converts speech to text, so I don’t have to worry about any audio leakage or spook-y ear-pieces. The conversations are so boring it’s unreal. Two grams of this. One wrap of that. Twenty pills of zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Crack, Special K, Bubble, cheese and crackers, blah blah blah. Drugs are so dull.