Roofworld

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘You put something in the drink, didn’t you. You opened…the beer and…passed it to me, you fucker.’ He broke off, racked with a spasm of coughing which filled his mouth once more with the hot, metallic taste of his own blood. He spat the liquid in Chymes’ direction, but it fell far short.

  ‘It occurred to me,’ said Chymes, airily now, as if Samuel was sitting before him in the peak of health, ‘that returning you to the Insects would gain us nothing. And after all I’ve done to improve your lot in life, it hardly seemed fair that you should leave us without performing some useful act in return.’

  Samuel was barely listening. He began to cry when he looked down and saw the blood pooling heavily in the base of his trousers, only to release itself in a widening puddle around his useless legs. It was as if his body had suddenly become porous, springing leaks from every orifice. He wiped his eyes and was shocked to see when he lowered his hands that they were now streaked crimson.

  ‘I then realized that your life could be made useful through the release of your blood, for just as the pelican allowed her offspring to gorge on the blood from her own breast, so your most precious body fluid could continue to nourish and increase our strength. I’m sure even you will appreciate that we are going to need all the strength we can possibly get.’

  The swan waddled over and lowered itself into the considerable pool of gore which now surrounded Samuel. Unconcerned, it turned its head away from the dying giant and buried a long yellow beak in its feathers. As it settled into the pool, the underside of its body slowly stained a bloody vermilion.

  ‘What…have you done to me?’ was all that Samuel managed to gasp before toppling onto his side. His legs began to thrash as his nervous system ceased to follow rational instruction.

  ‘It’s nothing compared to what we’re going to do, sunshine….’

  The two skinheads who invariably accompanied Chymes appeared on either side of him. They were armed with thin-bladed steel knives. Chymes leaned over Samuel’s shaking body, his eyes glittering blackly as they reflected in the crimson pool below. ‘I saw betrayal in your eyes long ago, Brother Samuel. But now I am sure that you will pledge me your unending loyalty one final time, even as you die.’

  Samuel was helpless. His limbs refused to obey all but the violent flinching of his nerves. As the turmoil inside his arteries increased he knew that he would remain alive through whatever torture they had planned for him. In desperation he forced his mouth wide and spoke in a hissing exhalation. ‘You…are…mad….’ were his final words.

  ‘And you are dead,’ said Chymes, as the skinheads closed in around Samuel’s heaving body. Raising its noble head, the swan watched impassively on.

  Chapter 12

  Contact

  Although the rainclouds had now fled the city, there were no stars to be seen above Leicester Square. But then there never were. The spotlit streets and flickering neon signs of record stores, nightclubs, cinemas and burger bars cast a sickly luminosity into the sky which forced such natural phenomena to take second place to earthly pleasures. The litter-strewn pedestrianized roadways were filled with noisy crowds. Even this far into the winter, coaches were depositing crocodiles of bemused theatre-bound tourists at one end of the square. Over by the Empire Ballroom buskers entertained, urging their audiences to press forward and so form a human wall against the suspicious eyes of passing police. The raucous combination of amplified music, drunken shouts and snatches of song drove the few remaining birds further into the tops of the trees, to add their shrill voices to the cacophony below.

  Robert and Rose guided themselves through the crowds moving across the top of the square. On the corner up ahead stood a large brightly lit amusement arcade filled with bleating video machines.

  ‘I think we have to see someone here,’ said Robert, looking somewhat uncertain. ‘One of Sarah’s friends. He gets a mention on several of the pages in the notebook.’

  ‘I’d feel a lot happier if you’d let me read that thing through with you,’ called Rose, pushing through the oncoming tourists like a breaker splitting pack ice. ‘What if this “friend” isn’t here?’

  ‘I don’t know. It says he can always be found at the arcade. We should really find a Xerox machine and take a copy of this.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s our bargaining power.’

  They passed through tall glass doors into a building hung with dirty purple drapes and costume-jewellery chandeliers, a travesty of a casino. The few people who weren’t hammering the sides of one-armed bandits and space war machines were standing around carefully watching events in a manner which suggested that they were either beyond the law or employed by it. Empty milk-shake cups and beer cans littered the floor. There was a stale, unwashed smell in the air.

  ‘You don’t even know what this guy looks like.’

  ‘You start reading, I’m going to do a three-sixty.’ Robert shoved the notebook into Rose’s hands. She backed against a dust-draped wall to read, while Robert walked casually around the games room. The large sweating man in the Perspex change booth in the corner looked like everyone’s idea of a child molester. He paused in his money counting, slowly sliding the match in his mouth from one side to the other as Robert passed.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Robert knocked warily on the window of the booth. ‘I’m looking for a guy who hangs around here every night. Short and fat, name of Mickey, or Michael. Would you know him, or know where I could find him?’

  The child molester peered out at Robert from hooded eyes. This close up, he appeared to have engine grease in the lines of his jowled face. ‘I don’ know nobody aroun’ here.’

  ‘Is there anyone who does?’

  ‘Ask ’im. The skinny guy.’ The molester stubbed his finger against the booth wall.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Across the room, a beanpole-thin punk with waxy olive skin was concentrating on trying to steer a starbike between two planets. His black corduroy trousers were so tight that his kneecaps were discernible through them. Tied around his left thigh was a red bandana, which presumably signified something to his friends—or his enemies. He looked like the sort of kid who carried a knife and wore a long-sleeved T-shirt to cover the track marks. Robert decided not to disturb him until his game was over. He was not very adept at making conversation with dangerous strangers, particularly in a place like this, where it could look as if he was someone who solicited waifs in arcades and put them into social work in the hotels surrounding Piccadilly. The machine next to him emitted a series of deafening electronic explosions. Finally the boy’s game ended in a shower of threats as he rained several blows upon the machine and shouted at it in what sounded like Turkish. As he became aware that someone was watching him, he slowly turned and raked his eyes over Robert.

  ‘You want somethin’, mate?’ His words had the clipped roundness of a cockney Cypriot. Robert stepped nervously forward and tried to look as nonchalant as possible.

  ‘I’m looking for a guy who hangs out around here in the evenings. His name’s Mickey. Short, fat…’ Already, the skinny boy was shaking his head. ‘Nah, don’t know anyone called Mickey.’

  ‘His friends used to call him the Toad,’ said Rose, appearing by the side of Robert. ‘That’s what it says in here.’ She turned to him and touched the notebook. The skinny punk’s face suddenly lit up. ‘Oh, the Toad,’ he said, grinning. ‘He’s the only one who can beat me on this machine, the bastard. Yeah, everybody knows him.’ He slapped the top of the machine hard with his open palm. ‘He ain’t been around for a couple of days.’

  ‘That’s too bad. We really needed to speak to him. It’s very important.’

  ‘Lissen, you see that guy over there?’ Robert and Rose looked back across the seething arcade and nodded.

  ‘That’s Nick from the 7N Krewe, y’know? Nick’s ’is mate. Go and talk to ’im.’

  Robert thanked the Turkish boy, who had already turned back to his machine, and headed across the arcade with Rose.
<
br />   ‘I don’t know about you,’ she said, ‘but I’m starting to feel an age gap between me and the kind of guys who hang about on the streets these days.’

  ‘How do you think I feel?’ said Robert. ‘I came from the kind of suburb where the only time you ever saw ethnic kids was when you visited a fun fair. Then I came to London and moved into a flatshare with a deranged West Indian cab driver, a Chinese student who never said a word to anyone in two years and a white Rastafarian with dreadlocks and a major identity problem.’

  ‘So you shouldn’t have too much to worry about now.’

  ‘Come on, these guys know I’m an outsider. It’s in everything I do. I wear my lack of street credibility like a badge.’

  Standing peering out of the glass corner wall onto the street was the boy who had been identified as Nick from the 7N Krewe. Robert assumed, quite rightly, that the affiliation had something to do with spray-painting slogans on buildings.

  ‘Hi, Nick, have you seen the Toad?’ called Robert, realizing instantly that the familiarity was a mistake.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ Nick turned to face Robert. He sported a leather jacket covered in swirling painted designs from the sixties, a spiderweb tattoo over one eye and some do-it-yourself hair colouring which badly needed a touch-up.

  ‘I’m just a friend. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘You’re not a friend. The Toad doesn’t know anyone who’s going bald. Did ’e tell you to come over ’ere?’ He pointed in the direction of the Turkish punk.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You got any money on you?’

  ‘Er, a bit.’ Robert rummaged about in his back pockets.

  ‘Give us some then.’

  Reluctantly, Robert looked in his hand and emptied some coins into Nick’s outstretched palm.

  ‘I haven’t seen him for two days,’ said Nick, suddenly friendlier. ‘I’m a bit pissed off, ’cause ’e owes me money.’

  ‘Do you think he’s gone up tonight?’

  It was a phrase which seemed to recur in Charlotte’s notes. Robert figured he had nothing to lose by throwing it into the conversation. Nick stared hard at him for several long seconds. At his side, Rose tensed. Finally Nick relaxed his gaze.

  ‘I was wonderin’ about that, but ’e told me ’e was havin’ nothin’ more to do with them. I said to ’im, you’re not like them lot. They don’ like anyone except each other. All fuckin’ stuck up. Think nobody else is as good as them.’

  ‘Nick, I know you don’t know me. I’m not a cop…’

  ‘That’s fuckin’ obvious. Yer too short for a start.’

  ‘…But it’s really important that I get to talk to him or another of the roof people tonight.’ At this mention, Nick’s already cool gaze suddenly iced over.

  ‘Hey, you don’t say that around ’ere. Not with what’s going on. An’ the Toad’s not with ’em any more, ’e’s got nothin’ to do with it, you got that straight?’

  ‘Yes, I understand. But the Toad is a friend of someone we urgently need to get in touch with. A girl called Sarah. Have you got the photograph, Rose?’

  ‘Here.’ Rose passed over the snapshot she had taken on the roof. Nick looked at it for just a moment before nodding and handing it back.

  ‘Yeah, I seen ’er around, before she went up. Real trouble, that one.’ Nick spoke with nervous speed, his eyes flitting past them to the tall doors beyond, as if he was expecting someone to come bursting in at any moment. Beneath the red and blue striplights of the arcade his skin shone with sweat.

  ‘Is there some way we can get in touch with her? Is there some kind of headquarters for this…’ Robert was cut short as Nick shoved him hard in the chest.

  ‘Shut up, man, shut up! You wanna get me excoriated?’ Nick made as if to push his way out through the glass doors, but Robert held him back. Behind the Perspex of his change booth, the child molester stopped counting out coins and looked over.

  ‘No one’s going to hurt you and I don’t care who Sarah’s hanging out with. I just need to see her, or anyone else who can tell me where she is, OK?’ Robert pulled two ten-pound notes from his wallet and showed them to Nick. The fear which had earlier flickered in Nick’s eyes was replaced by greed.

  ‘OK, man, this is what you do. Go down to the park by the embankment, the one at the bottom of Villiers Street, where the Players’ Theatre used to be. You know that?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You be there by the bandstand tomorrow night an’ there should be someone who can help you.’

  ‘Who, Nick?’ Robert held the notes against Nick’s jacket. He could feel the boy’s heart pounding through it.

  ‘His name’s Simon. He dresses really weird, you can’t miss ’im.’

  ‘And when’s the best time to catch this Simon?’

  ‘Between eight and nine. ’E’s always there by then.’

  ‘You’ve got a deal.’

  ‘But listen, lately people ’ave bin gettin’ cut out. I can’t vouch for whatever ’appens to you. It’s nothin’ to do with me if you don’t come back in a single piece.’ Nick held out his hand to take the money.

  ‘Have it your way.’ Robert tore the bills down the middle and handed him half. Nick’s face fell.

  ‘You get the rest later—when I return in one piece.’

  Before he could reply, Robert had grabbed Rose’s hand and ushered her through the arcade doorway back into the churning sea of pedestrians. He looked back to see Nick watching them leave with a look of puzzlement on his face.

  ‘See?’ said Robert, high on the success of his first positive action. ‘It’s just a matter of asking the right questions.’

  ‘Yes, all right, you’re a big macho stud,’ grumbled Rose. ‘It seemed too easy to me. You think he knows what he’s talking about, or was he just saying anything to get money out of you? I mean, he’s probably an expert at spotting a complete mug.’

  Robert gave her a careful look. They left Leicester Square and darted between the stalled traffic in Charing Cross Road, Robert steering Rose between the hooting cars, pleased with himself. He had set up a deal with a punk in an arcade. This was street credibility in the making.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ he called to Rose. ‘He knew what he was talking about, all right. “Excoriated”? How does a sixteen-year-old badly spoken street kid come up with an obscure Latin word meaning “to flay”?’

  ‘Maybe he’s going to night school. I wonder what sort of crew he belongs to. Wrecking crew? Rowing crew? Or a krewe with a “k”?’

  ‘What’s a krewe with a “k”?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ Rose waved her hands airily. ‘Mardi Gras.’

  ‘No, I don’t know.’ Robert was irritated. Rose always seemed to assume that you understood what she was talking about.

  ‘Krewes are the orders who organize Mardi Gras for Comus, the Roman god of festivities. They’re very old and very secret. And they’ve all got different names, like Iris and Osiris and the Caliphs of Cairo. It’s to celebrate the day before the start of Lent. The day the devil walks the earth.’

  Robert stopped dead and stared back at Rose. ‘Where on earth do you get your information, for Chrissakes?’

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it some time.’

  ‘Why not now? I don’t know what more we can do tonight. You wanna go for a drink?’

  ‘Sure. I can look over the notes.’

  ‘I was going to tell you my life story, too.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said Rose, pushing open the door of the Three Tuns Inn. ‘I think I can guess your life story.’

  ‘In that case, can you tell me how it ends?’

  ‘If you want to know that, I think you’d better ask me again in a couple of days.’

  Chuckling uneasily, Robert let the door close behind him. He couldn’t help feeling that Rose liked him better when he wasn’t trying so hard to impress. He made his way through the crowded saloon towards the bar. Behind his back, peering steadily through the mock leadlight windows, sick
ly pale eyes watched his every move.

  Chapter 13

  St Katharine Docks

  On the horizon of the rooftop she stood alone like a dark goddess, her shining legs spread wide apart, her jaw jutting defiantly at him across the intervening water. Her blackish-purple hair lifted and fell like burnt grass in the wind. She wore a tight-fitting suit made of black leather. Strips were cut away below her breasts and at either side of her crotch, either to ease her movement, or for some more erotic purpose. Tall patent-leather heels raised her to a statuesque pose, at once both defiant and inviting. Slowly she raised a gloved hand and beckoned to him.

  ‘Sarah!’

  Nathaniel Zalian took a step forward towards the edge of the roof. There was no mistaking that it was her—and yet how could it be? Had she managed to make good her escape from Chymes? He pulled the walkie-talkie out of his jacket and snapped it on. ‘Zalian to Lombardo, come in.’

  On the opposite building, Sarah Endsleigh continued to stand and wait, her eyes fixed on him, her pelvis thrust forward in unmistakable invitation. Zalian could just make out a smile on her broad, pale face.

  ‘Nathaniel, where the hell are you? You’ve had your receiver turned off. We’ve been trying to find you ever since it got dark.’

  ‘I’m in St Katharine Docks.’

  ‘That’s no man’s land. What are you doing there? Who else is in your group?’

  ‘No one. I’m by myself.’

  ‘Christ, Nat, you know that you’re not supposed to travel alone any more.’ Many of his men felt that Zalian was clearly starting to lose his grip as a leader. On a number of occasions in the past few days, his indecisiveness had nearly caused several of his own men to be killed. ‘You’re in no condition to look after yourself right now. What would happen if you ran into Chymes, or some of his men?’

  ‘I got a call from Sarah. I can see her right now. She’s standing in front of me.’

  ‘Sarah? That’s not possible. You know as well as I do…’

  ‘She’s here. It’s her.’