Coldfall Wood

by Steven Savile

  “Get onto the hospitals,” Tenaka agreed. “I want security on each ward. We’re not losing any more kids to this pair.” He looked back at the first face on the incident board.

  “We’ve had a lot trouble on the Rothery this morning,” Ellie noted. “Sykes and Banks were caught up in it. There have been a number of reports of assault by gangs of schoolkids all along the south of the city and into the East End, too, all almost certainly originating from anger toward the murder of Ollie Underwood.”

  “We need to put a lid on this.”

  Julie didn’t need to be a mind reader to know his boss was thinking about the bad press that came with fighting on the streets. When you rose to the level George Tenaka had, you couldn’t help but become a political animal. It wasn’t about the police work. “Have we got any further chasing down Kirmani?”

  “I’ve contacted his family in Watford and Bedford, but none of them have heard from the boy. We drew a blank with his friend up in Newcastle, too. If he ran in that way, he never made it.” Ellie said.

  “So, what’s the thinking here? Blackmoore and Brooke caught up with him?” Tenaka asked, looking for the nice neat answer he could tie a bow around and present to the press conference in a couple of hours, telling the world not to worry: Yes things had got nasty there for a while, but we’re on top of it; no need to panic. Those were the key words: no need to panic.

  “Right now I’m not thinking anything, sir,” Julie said. “Just going through what we know.”

  “But you think it’s all linked?”

  “I wouldn’t go so far.”

  “Gut instinct, Gennaro?”

  He looked down at his boss, “I’m worried they might be,” he said, which was absolutely true.

  Tenaka nodded.

  He didn’t say anything else for the longest time, looking straight out of the window across the rooftops of the city, lost in thought. When he finally came back, he nodded again. “Okay. Right. Yes. Taylor, I want you to head up the team here. Bring in whoever you think you need to get things done.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying, sir,” Ellie said, “it might be a good idea to make ourselves seen out there. People tend to feel safer when they see a police presence. Double foot patrols in the Rothery, for one thing, making sure uniforms are a visible presence.”

  Tenaka nodded, essentially ending the meeting.

  He left.

  Julie was halfway out of the door when a young PC, Nathan Mullins, called, “You should see this.”

  “I’ll catch you up,” he told Ellie, and crossed the room.

  Mullins was looking at a suicide sheet.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “A body fished out of the river this morning.” Four hundred people a year chose to end their lives in the Thames. Whatever their own personal tragedies, fishing a body out of the river was quite literally an everyday occurrence for the River Police. “I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but it came up during a connected search between the missing kids.”

  That had his attention. “Explain?”

  The officer brought up a police profile, meaning the deceased had a record—or had at least been the subject of an investigation. “The body’s been identified as James Bracken.”

  Julie didn’t recognize the name.

  “His day job was as warden of a children’s home, Herla House.”

  “Tying him to the Grainger girl and Charlie Mann, right now, and historically to all of the kids up on the board apart from Kirmani and Kahn.” Given what had happened with Blackmoore and Brooke hunting down the locked-in kids, the obvious assumption was that one or more of those kids up there were part of Arawn’s army and that somehow Bracken’s death was tied into it. “And he’s in the PNC because?”

  “Complaints of impropriety to Social Services. Five instances of historical abuse were investigated, two including allegations of sexual abuse against a minor in his care. Stephen Blackmoore. The complaints were dropped. Blackmoore was judged to be an unreliable witness even though there was plenty of circumstantial evidence, including witness testimony, but Bracken made a deal to give evidence against two of his coworkers that saw them put away for a long time, exposing the systematic abuse of kids in the care system.”

  “And he was allowed to stay in the job?”

  The officer nodded. “I guess everything was swept under the rug. The file was sealed. I can’t get at anything beyond that without a court order.” Which of course meant it wasn’t the end of it at all. “There’s nothing else on him in the system.” No way it could have played out like that, not after Yewtree, the Jimmy Savile scandal, and the horror stories of the Elm Guest House over by Barnes Common. Those records were sealed for a reason. Julie was well aware of the near constant rumors of a VIP pedophile ring at work in the city going all the way to the top. They all were, but there was never any evidence. It was just whispers. Shadows. High-level corruption in the corridors of power. The only reason a piece of shit like Bracken would be allowed to walk would be in the hopes of landing a bigger fish. Spyware in his computers, surveillance on the place, looking for the links between him and others of his predilection. And that being the case, there would be some very worried perverts in the city tonight as the news broke.

  “Suicide seems like a confession to me,” Julie said, but men like James Bracken didn’t suddenly develop consciences or become wracked with guilt. Bracken had lived with his crimes for years. More importantly, in his mind he’d gotten away with them. That Bracken had taken it upon himself to end it all today of all days smacked of something else entirely. Penny and Charlie’s disappearances coupled with Bracken’s suicide felt like a settling of old scores, and wasn’t that exactly what Arawn’s return was all about? “Are we absolutely sure it’s suicide?”

  “We’ll need it confirmed by the coroner’s report, but yes.”

  “Okay, mark up the links on the incident board. I want you to get that file unlocked. I want to know exactly what’s in there. Oh, what a tangled fucking web…”

  35

  It was Robin’s favorite time of day: the time to make mischief.

  He left the forest with no little trepidation, looking back over his shoulder at the abandoned safety of the trees every twenty or thirty steps. He imagined faces in the leaves, watching him go, willing him to be brave. Breathing deeply of the polluted air, Robin Goodfellow struck out, his eyes fixed on the tower blocks and office blocks in the distance. He heard the forlorn cry of a train’s horn as it bellowed around a curve, warning the world it was coming. It sounded so similar to the cry of the Bain Shee, the ancient enemy, in the other place that he stopped for a moment, sure that the veil must have been pierced and the ancient enemy escaped. He looked every which way, high and low, for a glimpse of the fey creatures, but saw nothing but the endless sprawl of life where mankind had multiplied like rats. Satisfied he was alone, Robin skipped around the cold lifeless concrete of the paving stones that led away from the wood as far as he could, not willing to risk setting foot on them for fear of what might happen if he did. Without following the lines of the cracks and a balancing act of walking only on the cracks, that first step on the dead stones was inevitable, and it wasn’t as painful as he had feared.

  It was worse in so many other ways, though, not least the fact that it cut him off from Mother. Within a dozen faltering steps Robin was isolated from nature. He felt the thrill of earth magic, already so faint, falter and fizzle out between footfalls. It took all of his mental strength not to cry out in panic; he’d known it would be like this, but knowing and experiencing that moment where the cord was cut and he was cast off, utterly bereft, was harrowing. He fell to his knees and clawed at the ground, trying to worry his fingernails between the curbstone and the paving slabs where weeds grew. Tears glittered in his eyes. To anyone who might have been watching, he must have looked like a pathetic drunk on his hands and knees, searching desperately for his lost dignity.

  It took every ounce of will th
at he had to force himself to stand on unsteady legs and walk on, but he did it, because they were counting on him. Without him, the Hunt would fail, and if those few seconds of true loneliness could teach him anything, it was that he could not afford to fail them. Mother needed him.

  One step.

  That was all it took.

  One step.

  And then another.

  Nothing more difficult than that. Just one step. He concentrated on his feet. Closed his eyes. Took the step. And then another. And another. A slow smile reached his lips. He could do this. He wouldn’t let them down.

  When he opened his eyes again he saw a young girl, no older than five or six, looking at him from across the street. Robin waved at her, offering a broad smile. “What’s your name?” He called.

  “Rosie,” the little girl called back.

  “What a wonderful name,” Robin told her. “I’m Robin. I used to live here, a long, long time ago, but I’m a bit lost at the moment. So much has changed.”

  “Mum says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

  “Your mum is very smart, Rosie. You should listen to her.”

  “Are you frightened?” the little girl asked.

  “Is it that obvious?” Robin said, surprised that Rosie crossed the street to hold his hand.

  “It always makes me feel better,” she said, squeezing his fingers.

  “And it’s making me feel better,” Robin agreed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know. I’m looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll know when I find them,” Robin assured her.

  “Can I help you look?”

  “Won’t your mum worry about you?”

  “As long as we don’t go far it’ll be okay. I can only go three streets from here. I’m not allowed to go farther than that.”

  “Well let’s start by looking around here then, shall we?”

  They walked the few streets Rosie was allowed to, together. The little girl was an incessant chatterer. She had something to say about everything. This street, that street, what had happened here, who lived there; it all came out in one big bubble of enthusiasm. It didn’t take long for them to reach the edge of her territory. Rosie stopped at the curb but made no effort to cross even though Robin was already one step into the road. The sudden stop pulled Robin up short. He looked across quizzically. “I’m not allowed to cross this road,” Rosie explained. “Three streets.”

  “Ah, right, and this is the fourth. Do you want to come with me?”

  “Yes,” Rosie told him, wrestling with the internal conflict that crossing the road entailed. “But I can’t.”

  “What if I talked to your mum?”

  “She wouldn’t like it,” Rosie said.

  “We wouldn’t want to upset her, but she’s not going to know, is she? Not if you just take a few steps, then a few more? Maybe come with me for another street or two, then you can come back here?”

  The girl looked down at the road like it was a raging river, too dangerous to cross.

  A black cab slowed down as it passed them, checking if they wanted a ride. When they didn’t stick out a thumb it accelerated away, its yellow light calling out for business.

  Rosie shook her head.

  “You’re a good kid, Rosie,” Robin told her, kneeling down in front of the little girl half-in half-out of the road. He brushed her blond bangs aside and planted a kiss on the girl’s forehead. “That’ll protect you from anything bad happening to you tonight. It’s a magic kiss,” he explained. “It tells the Hunters you’re one of us.” He smiled reassuringly.

  Rosie looked at Robin; her young face serious for a moment. “Can I give the kiss to my mum?”

  Robin shook his head. “It’s only for the young. If you’re too old, it won’t work on you.”

  “So, what about Mum? Is she going to be safe?”

  “You’ll have to look after her the way you looked after me,” Robin said, sadly. He knew there was no way a little girl could stand up to the creatures of the Wild Hunt if they decided they had a taste for her family, but he wasn’t about to tell the child that. “Can you do that?”

  Rosie nodded earnestly.

  “Then it’ll be fine.”

  “I hope you find them,” Rosie said, letting go of his hand.

  “So do I,” Robin said, seeing a group of teenagers on the street corner. “In fact, I think I have.”

  That was as close as they came to saying good-bye. Rosie skipped away, back toward the safety of the three streets she was allowed to roam, and Robin crossed the road, plastering on his most charming smile as he did. He adjusted his host’s torn shirt and brushed back his hair.

  He held up a hand in greeting as he neared them, but was greeted by an aggressive, “Who do you think you’re waving at?” from one of the girls in the group.

  Robin Goodfellow chose to walk right into whatever was coming and blew the speaker a kiss.

  His kisses were contagious. They worked magic. Their power was weaker than it might have been in the wide-open green spaces of nature, but they still had their charms.

  The girl looked at him differently.

  Children were cruel and only grew crueler as they grew up. His kiss, diluted by the city, diluted still by the polluted air between them as it flew to its mark promised a different kind of belonging. It promised her that there was a place for her in the Wild Hunt and the ride to come. It promised her that she’d never be on the outside of things again. There was a moment, the silence between heartbeats, when he thought she might try and shake it off, but her need to belong was stronger than that. She came running toward him and swept Robin up in a huge embrace, holding him tight and spinning him around where they stood. He laughed and laughed, completely carried away by the moment.

  Her friends looked on, bewildered by the sudden change of events.

  Robin giggled as she set him down.

  “This is Robin,” she said breathlessly. “Robin, this is everyone! Everyone, Robin’s brilliant. He’s just … brilliant. You’ll love him.”

  “I hope so,” Robin said. “Because I’ve been looking for you.”

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you, Zoe?”

  Robin turned his attention on the boy and blew him a kiss, too.

  “Fuck you,” the kid said.

  “You should be so lucky, sweetie,” Robin said sweetly, and the others laughed as his kiss changed the atmosphere around them. “It’d be the ride of your life.”

  He knew them all. He looked at them one at a time, his scrutiny moving from wispy bum fluff to pitted acne craters to flawless porcelain skin, pathetic in their uniforms, a rage of hormones and hatreds clothed in the respectable face of youth. They were exactly the kind of small-minded foot soldiers Arawn needed to serve as sacrifices, feeding their blood back to Mother to nourish her dying soil. It was only fitting that they should become his warriors, spreading his message across the city that everyone who heard his words should listen and rise up.

  He let them think that they were special.

  He offered them sweet words and promises.

  His promises were mostly lies. The only truth he offered them was that together they would change the world. They were young enough and prideful enough to believe that he was offering them their destiny, when really all he had to give them was a bloody violent death.

  “If you wanted to make people take you seriously, what would you burn?” he asked, inviting their answers.

  “The Pakis,” the first suggested. “Bastard reported me to the cops for nicking a packet of fags.”

  “Think bigger,” he told them.

  “The new shopping mall they’re finishing by the wharf. Topple the cranes. That’d make some fucking mess.”

  “Better,” he said.

  “The new bank tower they just opened by the river,” another offered. “Dad says those fucking parasites put my nan on the street. It’d be sweet to sort them out.”


  “Good. Yes. I like that.”

  “What about the Tower?”

  “How about Parliament,” another suggested, grinning. “Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot.”

  “Good,” he said. “Think big. Think of places people will see, that mean something, that send a message. Landmarks.”

  “The Olympic Stadium.”

  “The O2.”

  “The sign at Piccadilly Circus. Everyone knows that.”

  He nodded at each suggestion. It wasn’t about his choosing one; none of the names meant anything to him. It was about firing up their blood, getting them thinking about destroying things. Making them malleable. Making violence seem natural.

  “Do you want to have some fun?” he asked, knowing the answer would be yes. It always was. They nodded eagerly, lapping it up. His smile was the most sincere thing about Robin Goodfellow as he sent them on their way, each with a target in mind, streets to burn, buildings to bring down, pain to inflict, windows to shatter, and they were desperate to please him. “Then I want you to do exactly what I tell you. Can you do that?” More eager nods. “Spread the word. It’s happening tonight. We’re going to tear up the streets. We’re going to burn the hellholes down. We’re going to make a statement. This is our land. We’re going to take it back.”

  “Yes!”

  “Then go. Do what you must. Our time is now.”

  He watched them run, then went in search of his next audience. He had an idea: Why scour the streets looking for one or two sacrifices when he could go to their schools and address them as congregations? Robin had learned a lot from his host. He recognized the way they branded themselves according to color and dressed alike to show their belonging to their unique tribes. Time might have marched on, but the human need to belong hadn’t changed in the slightest.

  He heard voices—loud, laughing, riotous. The sheer joy of being young filled the air. It wouldn’t last; it never did. He followed them, coming a few minutes later to a huge school playground with painted courts for basketball, five-a-side football, and hockey, along with other random-colored lines painted on the asphalt. Thirty kids were spread out in a line across the middle of the courts, their uniforms all somehow subtly different whilst being mostly the same, with rolled-up sleeves and backward ties, shiny leather shoes, and scuffed trainers. The same number again, both boys and girls and all in their teens, ran across the yard from end to end, heads down, heads back, arms and legs pumping furiously, spinning on their heels, twisting and turning while the ones in the middle tried to stop them from getting to the other side. The game expertly mimicked the failures of life as the slowest and weakest were picked off one after another.