by Paul Cornell
The riots were actually ramping up now, drawing in other police forces like a fire draws in oxygen. Those forces and the protestors were waiting for the day of the strike, when the Met and all the other police forces would retreat and, presumably, strike the spark of the inferno. The owners of small businesses had now taken on a sort of costume of their own, a towel wrapped round their faces, a cudgel of some kind over their shoulders, and were filmed in lines and marches. Drain the colour from the picture and you could be in the thirties, Sefton thought, looking out of the car window at distant smoke. The banks had now shut their branches in almost half the boroughs. People were talking about not being able to pay in their wages, economists about the possibility of a never-ending recession.
It felt as if now Jimmy had ended, the world was ending with him. Sefton had to do something. But what?
* * *
When they got to the Portakabin, they saw the mirror they’d brought back from Vincent’s standing there, and as one went to grab it. They heaved it through the door and finally left it standing outside on the grass. Whatever Sefton had said about it seemingly being bereft of power, they all still felt better without it in the room.
They looked at each other, standing outside in the sunlight, and Ross felt the weight of how long she’d been awake, the need for more meth to keep her going. They’d kept working through the night to try and find Jimmy, then to go and see his body. On the way here, the Data Protection Act results had come back, forwarded from the main inquiry, concerning the tweets that led to the mob outside the bar and the later ones that had sparked off the crowds of Toffs near Quill. All of the Twitter accounts, and there were several involved, had been set up by anonymous webmail users whose chosen names looked to be deliberately random strings of letters and numbers. The contact details given were plausible-sounding street names, but uniformly fictional; the phone numbers all led to the monotone of unreal connections. Ross had Googled the words but could find no connection between them, except that some of them were actual streets in a random scatter of different towns.
Without saying anything, she marched back into the Portakabin; the other two followed. She went to the Ops Board. ‘Adding the two big questions,’ she said, picking up a marker, feeling numb and roaring at the same time. ‘One: why did the Ripper kill Quill?’ She wrote ‘motive?’ beside a victim line connecting Quill to the Ripper.
‘It must be something we learned recently,’ said Costain, ‘between the last murder and now.’ He paced back and forth. ‘It must be. It must be.’
‘Mary Arthur,’ said Sefton, pointing to the CCTV camera still of her. ‘Jimmy was sure we were onto something with her. She has a possible link to Spatley. Somehow she’s the only survivor of an attack by the Ripper—’
‘Ironic,’ said Ross, ‘her being a prostitute.’ Then she chided herself. The choice that was looming over her was putting her off her game. She was letting Jimmy down. ‘No, fuck “ironic”, significant. Potentially.’
‘She’s the lead we’ve recently been pursuing. Fruitlessly, so far, because that bar is the only place she’s been seen since she vanished.’
‘She might have needed funds, decided to turn a trick again,’ said Sefton.
‘Hoxton nick hasn’t laid eyes on her, despite the description doing the rounds,’ said Costain.
‘It’s the same pattern,’ said Ross, ‘as with Tunstall’s death: we discover something new, someone who can follow up on that is murdered. Now, question two: how did the Ripper locate Quill?’ Ross wrote ‘how?’ beside the same line, and underlined it many times.
‘I want a watch on Twitter,’ said Costain. ‘If anyone tries to start a flash mob of those Toff fuckers anywhere near us, I want some warning. I want to know, okay?’
‘Already on it,’ said Sefton.
There was silence. Quill would normally have said something to further shape the questions they should be asking. Ross listened to the silence, feeling the limits of where the board could take them. She felt the speed of her pulse making the emptiness stretch. It was as if the death of Quill had been just the first enormous blow, and they knew more were coming. The business of the Ops Board, of trying to turn such huge impossible things into simple data, of trying to control the world that way, felt ridiculous now. That they had won against Losley seemed like sheer chance.
On the way to Quill’s autopsy she had looked again at her research on the object that could bring her father back from the dead. She had checked every detail. The Bridge of Spikes, her reading said, was one of a kind. She hadn’t found anything else that claimed to be able to do the same thing.
She put the marker down. ‘Fuck this,’ she said, ‘fuck this.’ She ran for the door.
She managed to get into her car and start the engine as Costain ran down the steps of the Portakabin. She accelerated out of the gate and onto the road and just glimpsed Sefton in the rear-view mirror, stumbling out after Costain, starting to shout.
* * *
Leyton Gardens in Kentish Town looked just as grim in the early afternoon. There were a few kids playing in the street. Still a smell of smoke; it was everywhere in certain suburbs now. Music from open windows on higher floors. Ross walked around the block, checking for exits. The curtains were open now; she’d been home since last time, this Anna Lassiter.
Ross turned the corner to head back round to the door of number 16 and found Costain standing there. He raised his hands in surrender. ‘If you really want to do this on your own,’ he said, ‘I’ll go straight back to the nick.’
‘You left Sefton on his own?’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter. The Ripper could take all three of us as easily as one. He could. Just like that.’ His teeth were starting to chatter. She’d let her meth intake drop, but he hadn’t.
‘Was he okay with that?’
‘He just stared at me. Then he started to ask me what I was doing, but … I got out of there.’
‘He deserves better.’
‘Yeah. So. Yeah.’ Costain stepped towards her. ‘Do you want me along or not?’
‘You’d really go back?’
‘Yeah. Yeah.’
She studied his face. It was the most obvious move, pretending to do her bidding. She could imagine him grabbing the object out of her hands and sprinting to his car, just as they’d both run away from Sefton.
She knew the meth was compromising the choices she made. Doing this felt like standing on the edge of a precipice; so did everything right now. Their only hope was to stay together, but she’d run off. ‘Stay,’ she said. ‘Let’s get this done.’
They went to the door of number 16. Ross knocked. No reply. The original plan when they’d first checked this place out had been that they would swap shifts, do some kind of stakeout, wait until they saw Lassiter leave, then go in.
‘Did you decide?’ asked Costain. ‘Who you would use it on?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Okay. Sure. Right.’ Costain took a tyre iron from his jacket.
‘We don’t have a warrant,’ she said. ‘This is illegal.’
‘I don’t care. Okay? I don’t care.’ He checked out the area near the lock and looked around to see if anyone was in sight. Just at that moment there was no one, but that wouldn’t be the case a moment later, and there were plenty of windows. He shoved the tyre iron into the gap between the door and the frame, took a step back and kicked it. He kicked it and kicked it, bam, bam, bam, the drug not letting him pause.
The door burst open, the lock splintering the wood. The lack of bolts on the inside might mean there was nobody at home. With luck, they could search the place. Ross stepped straight in and Costain followed her, pulling the door to behind them as far as it could go.
Ross had been in some dilapidated homes in her time, but this one was towards the worse end. There were full ashtrays spilling onto the floor, cans of food with forks in them. The place smelt stale – old beer and cigarettes. The windows were stained, the
light inside was low.
Ross took a step towards what must be the bedroom, and froze. She put a hand out to stop Costain moving. She felt … what was that just ahead? It reminded her of the fortune-teller at the New Age fair.
‘I see it, I see it, okay,’ said Costain. He made his way forward and indicated, an inch above the carpet, a line of … of nothing … just a slight reaction of the eye to the grain of the worn-down fibres. A tripwire. The fortune-teller had set one for certain words, and this Lassiter woman had set it for people to walk across. Costain stepped over it, and then across another similar one a moment later. ‘Damn it,’ he whispered, ‘they’ll be between us and the door.’
They made their way towards the back of the flat, with him leading now. Ross marvelled at the idea that he was better at seeing these traps than she was, but she supposed that was his nature, to look out for what could bring him down.
They went into a bedroom with no decoration. Single bed. One table. Old magazines on it. As welcoming as a dentist’s waiting room. But lived in: clothes on the floor, hanging out of drawers. They quickly searched, under the bed, in the wardrobe.
Ross realized that she could only feel slight traces of the gravity of the Sight about this place. That feeling put in her something close to panic until she reminded herself that that gravity could also be concealed, which was what you’d do if you were hiding an immensely powerful object in a place like this. The traps didn’t show up much either – or what use would they be?
She half expected to find an addict’s supply and paraphernalia, but didn’t. In the wardrobes there was a row of ancient dresses, the uniform of the ‘Londoner’ when out and about. She whizzed through them, patting them down when there might be a pocket. Nothing.
They finished with the bedroom, tried the tiny kitchen. They went through all the obvious hiding places: the grill; packets and cans in the cupboard; the freezer drawer of the fridge. How awful must it be, thought Ross, to have such an immense power in a place with so little ability to keep it safe. If you were keeping it for yourself, if you were hoping for it to save you when you died, you’d spend that life always on guard, always terrified.
Costain found a few traps as they explored and stopped Ross from walking right into one, in the breadbin. They didn’t seem to be protecting anything specific. This woman would have to live with these traps, having to remember all the time where they were.
Costain suddenly froze. Ross heard it too: the sound of someone outside the door. He motioned for her to be quiet. The best they could do would be to wait until the arrival had entered, then rush past her for the door. The best they could hope for was that she was unarmed. They would have to leap those tripwires.
‘Come on out, you cunts.’ The voice was familiar.
Costain looked at Ross, telling her to stay here. He stepped out of the kitchen. She let him. But the voice had used the plural. Maybe this was for the best. They hadn’t found anything. They’d have to try to make this woman an offer.
She followed Costain. Standing there was the young woman from the Goat and Compasses whom Sefton had spent so much time with, the one he’d said had sworn at him all the time. She was dressed more normally now, in a black T-shirt and jeans. She was looking at them with an expression of supreme disdain but she also looked hopeless, as lost as they were. ‘You’re too late,’ she said.
‘What do you—?’ began Costain.
‘Don’t fucking pretend, nigger. You were after the Bridge of Spikes. The object that lets you come back from the dead. But you’re going to go away empty fucking handed. ’Cos some other fucker broke in here yesterday and took it.’
Ross found that she could barely breathe. She felt as if rocks had fallen into her stomach. Costain spun and kicked the sofa. ‘Who?’ he said.
‘Like I know!’ The woman sat down and made a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. ‘You can tell everyone else it’s gone and all.’
‘Everyone else?’ asked Costain.
‘Two blokes came after it the night before. Most of my defences got used up on them. They finally got out, on fire, with me screaming at them. I should have legged it then; I should have taken it with me. I made all these fucking sacrifices, just so some—’ She had to stop, looking away. She wasn’t trying to fool them, Ross was sure. Someone had indeed looked inside their heads and seen what they were after, and they had come and taken it. Two lots of people, somehow, had known and had had a go. What did that mean?
Feeling almost a need to get close to someone with whom she shared such pain, she went to sit next to her. The woman looked puzzled at her, sure there was nothing more Ross could want from her.
‘You’re Anna Lassiter?’
‘How do you know my name? How did you know it was here?’
Ross reasoned that the next time this woman was among her subculture she’d hear about the auction anyway, so she told her about the price she’d paid.
‘Good,’ said Lassiter. ‘Your sacrifice was in vain too.’
Ross ignored that. ‘Tell us about the two blokes and the burglary the day after,’ she said. ‘All the details, from the top.’
‘Why should I? You only want to find it so you can have it for yourselves!’
Ross looked to Costain. He reached into his pocket and produced his police warrant card.
‘Oh, what?’ Anna Lassiter looked between them as if her week had, if that was possible, actually got worse. ‘You have got to be fucking kidding.’
* * *
Ross listened to the woman’s account of the unsuccessful break-in and the successful burglary, asking all the things Lassiter would expect a police interviewer to ask. She let Lassiter believe that the Met in general knew a bit about the hidden world that she was part of, that they wanted to find the Bridge of Spikes as part of an investigation, not for themselves. Thankfully, Lassiter didn’t seem to pay enough attention to the modern media to have heard much about the death of Quill or to connect him to the man she’d seen at the Goat the same night they were there, otherwise she might have realized their real motive. Or what might have been their real motive; Ross still didn’t know who she would have chosen to save. Costain paced as they talked, barking the occasional question. Lassiter started looking perplexed at that, worried that she was looking at a cop and a user, but it didn’t stop her from telling her story.
Lassiter had come home yesterday, having gone out to get some items to replenish her flat’s defences following the break-in attempt, to find the Bridge of Spikes missing, with only small signs of a burglary having taken place. This must have been done, she thought, by someone with the Sight. Ross was surprised to hear that these were the first such attempts. It had been secrecy, rather than anything particularly useful in terms of defences, that had stopped Lassiter being raided before now.
‘It would make sense,’ said Costain, when she had taken him aside, ‘that it’s the same person who made both attempts.’
Lassiter had bought the Bridge at one of the underworld auctions over the phone, through a proxy. She’d used what she called ‘craft’ to conceal her identity on the other end of the phone from what she called ‘checking’, or as Sefton had it, ‘reading your bar code’. She’d trusted the auctioneers with her address, she said bitterly, because nobody had ever successfully paid to see the register before, but she didn’t want anyone else to know she’d got the Bridge. Ross had started to ask if the individual who’d been her proxy was trustworthy, but the woman had laughed bitterly at that, saying he was long dead. Yes, she had been planning to use the Bridge to save herself from death. Why else would she have held onto it?
They took all the details. It wasn’t much to go on. The burglar had left no trace of his or her passing. The raiders hardly much more. Costain and Ross took prints from likely surfaces, and Lassiter angrily let them have hers for comparison.
Before they left, Costain did something Ross admired him for. He called up a locksmith, talked and talked at him about what a good thi
ng locksmiths were, and paid over the phone for him to come and repair the door.
They left Anna Lassiter glaring at them furiously, like the jackals they were.
* * *
Costain and Ross went back to their cars in the bright afternoon sunlight, and Ross felt as if she wanted to die. ‘We’re not going to be able to find whoever stole it,’ she said, aware of how tiny her voice sounded now. ‘We don’t have enough evidence. We don’t have enough contacts in that world.’
‘There are the fingerprints. You never know.’
She had to lean on her car. She didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything. She was starting to see the edges of grief, doubled for her, unfolding infinitely around her. ‘Why are you so hopeful?’
‘I’m … not. I suppose…’ He rested on the car beside her. ‘I suppose I just have to keep going. For Jimmy.’
‘Right. Keep going.’ She made herself say it, but she didn’t feel it.
They went back to Costain’s place, took some more meth, fucked. Ross took what pleasure she could from it. She found no happiness. She was thinking about her father and Jimmy in Hell.
Then the phone rang.
TWENTY-TWO
Kev Sefton had stood at the door of the Portakabin watching Costain’s car roar off down the road. He felt, in that moment, too angry to breathe.
What was he supposed to do? Carry on on his own? What could he do?
Nothing. He was meaningless and had now been utterly deserted. Was all this happening to him because he’d taken a life? He’d felt wrong ever since. Was that why Brutus was still rejecting him, why his source and … patron, he supposed, wasn’t allowing him access? He had no idea how Brutus felt about death. Or about anything, really.