“How much have you got?” said Frankie, sipping her tea.
“Two hundred and ten pounds.”
Frankie sighed. “And you will need something to live on until payday. Give me ninety quid and we’ll call it quits.”
Rhian handed over a ten and four twenties, and helped herself to milk. “Have you had many other tenants?” she asked, politely.
“One or two,” said Frankie, evasively. “Sugar? No? Is that how you keep so slim, dear?”
Frankie shoveled two spoonfuls into her own mug. “I’ve been a bit unlucky with lodgers,” Frankie admitted. “They tend to move on quickly.”
“Have you lived here long?” Rhian asked, to fill a gap in the conversation.
“My partner and I lived here for some years,” Frankie said.
“Ah,” Rhian said, neutrally.
“Don’t worry, dear. It’s all ancient history now. He announced that he needed to find himself, so he went on a solo bus tour across North America.”
“Did he find himself?” asked Rhian.
“I don’t know because I haven’t seen him since. According to a postcard from Nevada, he did find a nineteen-year-old blonde lap dancer called Suze ‘with an e.’ She thought that his English accent was cute.”
Frankie said the last few words through gritted teeth. She looked at Rhian and blushed.
“Well, maybe it is not quite yet ancient history.” She grinned at Rhian. “Unfortunately I had resigned from my job at about the same time to go freelance, so this household went from two reliable salaries to one slightly dodgy income. So now, Miss Jones, I have need of a tenant.”
Frankie grimaced. “Sorry, what am I doing pouring out my woes to a stranger? Do you have any personal disasters that you might want to relate in retaliation?”
Rhian had a flashback. The doctors had warned her about them. She wasn’t in Frankie’s kitchen any more but on a building site. James lay still on the ground, head turned showing a terrible gash. His blood was black in the moonlight.
She snapped out of it. Frankie gazed at her waiting for an answer.
“No,” Rhian replied quickly. She took another sip from her mug. “Would your employer not have taken you back, under the circumstances?”
“Probably, but I had already started up and I thought that I would like to give running my own business a fair try. I was not entirely happy with my late employer.”
Rhian waited, but Frankie did not elaborate.
“What do you freelance in?” asked Rhian, to keep the conversation going.
“I’m a consultant,” Frankie said.
Rhian entered the Black Swan at around seven that night. Three or four men leaned on the bar, and a mixed group of young people sat around a table. Gary was the only person serving. She watched him deal with the customers with polished skill, friendly with each one but moving on to the next with minimal waste of time. When he was free she walked up to the bar.
“What’ll it be, love?” he said, automatically, without really looking at her.
“I’ve come about the job,” she said.
He looked up.
“It’s you, the Welsh girl who was in earlier. I wasn’t sure you’d come back. You seemed a bit shook up.” He looked at her, head cocked on one side. “I suppose I ought to interview you.” He got out an official form and a pen. “What’s your name?”
“Rhian Jones.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Address? Oh, you can fill all this in later.” He put the form under the bar.
“Have you had any experience serving in pubs?”
“No, but I’ve worked in shops.”
“Good enough, you’re hired. Welcome aboard.”
He shook her hand.
“We don’t send temporary staff on training courses but use the mentor system. That means that you shadow another member of the staff until you get the hang of it. As I’m the only person in the place tonight, you shadow me. Take your coat off and come behind the bar.”
She did as she was bid, smoothed down her blouse sleeves so they covered her arms. Gary had her watch him while he took orders and served customers.
“I only carry a limited stock, and each item has its own key on the till. Actually, it couldn’t be simpler.”
Rhian privately agreed. Some of the corner shops she had worked in had old-fashioned tills where you had to put in the prices yourself. She had a bit more trouble mastering the beer pumps than the till, but she persevered.
“What happens if someone wants something complicated, like a cocktail?” Rhian asked.
“A cocktail! Our customers?” said Gary, incredulously. “The people we get in here think a light and bitter is the height of sophistication. Allow me a word of advice, Rhian. If someone asks you for a Long Slow Screw Against a Wall, tell him that you’re not that sort of girl. They won’t be asking for a drink.”
Rhian blushed, to Gary’s obvious delight. She busied herself in the work. Pretty soon, he let her serve the customers while he got on with the paperwork.
One of the boys from the group around the table approached the bar. “A bitter, please.”
She took a pint glass off the rack above the bar and held it under the tap. When she flipped the lever, the beer spat into the glass with a cough. She tried again with much the same result.
Gary appeared at her elbow. “The keg needs changing. I’ll just pop down to the cellar.”
He pulled up a wooden trapdoor in the floor that she hadn’t noticed and disappeared down some steps, flipping on a light at the bottom.
“I’m a student,” said the boy, engaging her in conversation.
“I guessed,” said Rhian. “You’re wearing a scarf.”
“I could have gone to York, you know,” said the boy, aggressively. “I had the grades, but I wanted to be among real working people, so I chose Whitechapel University here in the East End.”
The boy’s accent placed his origins from somewhere in London’s rich outer suburbs in the western Home Counties—Surrey or maybe Buckinghamshire. A series of loud clangs from the cellar indicated that Gary was coming to grips with the aluminium barrels.
“You’re Welsh,” said the boy.
“Yes,” said Rhian. “What gave me away?”
“I expect that your father is a coal miner, sheep farmer, or something real. Mine’s a merchant banker,” said the boy, gloomily, as if admitting to some terrible family secret.
Offhand Rhian couldn’t remember her father doing a day’s work in his life, not that she had seen much of him lately, so she did not have a ready answer to that. Fortunately, Gary chose that moment to reappear.
“The new barrel’s connected, but we have to draw off a few glasses to clear the pipes,” Gary said.
He threw away the first two pints before trying the third. “Okay, carry on.”
Rhian poured the pint and gave it to the boy in the scarf.
“One pound ninety,” she said.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” asked the boy a little desperately, while handing over the exact money in silver.
“I do,” said Rhian, putting a smile on her face. “He’s a professional boxer at the local gym.”
“Ah,” said the boy, picking up his beer and going back to his friends.
A snort from the small office behind the bar indicated that Gary had overheard the conversation.
Bar work turned out to be surprisingly easy. She sold drinks and salted snacks, whose primary purpose was to make the customers thirsty. Not that East Londoners needed much encouragement to tip alcoholic drinks down their collective throat. She cleared away empty glasses and washed them up when there was no one waiting at the bar. The most difficult bit was talking to the customers. In a shop you processed people through as fast as possible, but apparently entertaining the patrons was part of a barmaid’s work. Rhian normally found it difficult to talk to strangers, but it appeared that her main function was to listen. It was astonishing how many men had
wives or girlfriends that did not understand them.
The evening passed quickly. Gary was soon ushering the last few diehards out at eleven fifteen. He cashed up while Rhian made them both a coffee. The pub boasted a coffee machine that made a variety of types, but the customers were not keen. She had not sold a cup all night.
“You obviously found a place to stay,” Gary said.
“I’ve taken a room just a few hundred meters north of the station,” Rhian said.
“Can I order you a taxi?” he said, as she put on her coat.
“I like to walk. It clears my head,” she said, coming up with the first thing she thought of. Truth was, she could not possibly afford taxis.
“You live above the bar, then?” she asked, as he showed no sign of leaving.
“The bits that are still habitable,” he said.
“Goodnight,” Rhian said and turned.
“Rhian!” he called her back. “I don’t want to frighten you, but there have been some killings lately. Keep to the well-lit areas.”
“I will.”
Morgana’s brooch hung around her neck, mocking her reassurance to Gary that she would be careful. It was far too late for Rhian to be careful. She remembered finding the brooch in the mud on the building site. Something made her palm it. She should have handed it in to the archaeological dig coordinator. James had seen her and looked puzzled. Rhian was not the type to steal, or do anything daring.
You never saw the stars in London, not even on a cloudless night, what with both the murky air and light pollution. But Morgana’s moon looked down on the city as it had for the last two thousand years.
The light was still on in the front room when she got home, so she knocked on the door.
“Come in, Rhian,” Frankie said.
Frankie was sprawled out on the sofa watching TV with a generous glass of wine in her hand. She waved the drink vaguely at Rhian. “Help yourself, there are some glasses on the side, or have you already had enough lubricant from drinking the tips?”
“I don’t think you get tips at the Black Swan, so a glass of wine would be great.”
“Oh, you’re working at the Dirty Duck.”
Rhian poured herself some wine. She plonked herself down in the swivel chair and took her shoes off to massage her feet. A theatrical scream sounded from the TV.
“What are you watching?” Rhian asked.
“It’s a late-night Hammer Horror called Night of the Wolf. Don’t you just love those ridiculous old movies? Oh look, the witches are going to raise the devil. If only it were that easy—bloody difficult job—raising a demon—bloody dangerous as well.”
Frankie raised her glass to her lips and imbibed a generous sample. The girl got the distinct impression that Frankie had already had more than a few sips of the “oh be joyful.” The woman poured herself another glass and settled down in front of the idiot box.
Rhian bounded along, covering the hard-frozen ground fast. The prey’s smell was overwhelming. She could scent panic and exhaustion. She rounded an ice block and had her first sight of her victim. It ran ungainly, as if its legs were too long and bent in the wrong places. It stumbled in a pool of snow and went down on one knee.
Rhian accelerated to a flat-out sprint. There was no need to conserve her wind now. This was end-game. She covered the ground fast, easily overtaking the animal. It changed direction, but all that did was enable her to cut across the corner. She timed her spring to catch its rear leg in her teeth, attempting to hamstring the beast. Unfortunately, the icy ground betrayed her and she lost traction on one rear paw. It was enough to spoil her aim, and she crashed into the flank of her victim.
Momentum rolled her over twice before her scrabbling feet got a purchase. She righted herself and took stock of the situation. The impact had knocked the prey onto its rear hindquarters. She surged forward again as her victim stood up. At the last minute the prey tried to escape by twisting away. She jumped onto its back, her heavy body pushing it to the ground. She could smell the fear oozing from its every pore. She bit deep into the back of its neck, teeth crunching through bone. She exulted at the tang of salt-flavored blood in her mouth.
She shook the beast from side-to-side ripping its body open, almost disappointed when it went limp. She dropped the corpse and stood triumphantly over it, laughing out loud. She raised her voice in a victory paean over the moonlit arctic landscape. Her howl echoed off the ice cliffs, an open challenge to anyone who might dispute ownership of her territory. At some point the wolf’s howl became a very human scream.
Rhian came awake with a rush. She sat bolt upright, disorientated in the strange room. Light filtered in around the yellow curtains, lending a warm, friendly tint to everything. She sagged back on the pillow, willing her muscles to relax. She was covered in sweat, and the state of the bed suggested that she had been thrashing around in her sleep. Oh God, suppose she had really screamed, waking Frankie. She liked it here and it would be upsetting to have to move. She lay quietly listening. All she could hear was the water heater clicking on and off and the roar of the gas boiler. Maybe she hadn’t yelled. Or maybe Frankie was a heavy sleeper?
She got up and crept quietly to the bathroom, closing the door carefully with a slight click. When she had finished washing, she removed the blade from her safety razor. Tongue resting on her lip in concentration, she ran the sharp edge transversely across her arm. It drew a red line across her skin. Blood welled from the wound.
James used to check her arms to make sure she had stopped self-harming. To please him, she had. But James was gone.
As usual, there was little immediate sensation, the stinging pain coming afterwards. She relished it, accepting it, welcoming the punishment. She was a bad person. She deserved to pay. Blood ran down her arm, dripping into the sink. She watched it spatter on the white porcelain. She washed the cut, wiping it dry with a length of toilet roll.
Rhian had finished breakfast when Frankie stumbled into the room in her dressing gown. Last night’s wine had clearly taken its toll.
“Hello, honey,” the woman said, peering at her shortsightedly through bleary eyes.
Rhian had just made herself a second mug of tea, but she handed it straight to Frankie, thinking that the woman’s need was greater.
“Yuk,” Frankie, said, taking a sip. “You forgot the sugar.”
Rhian hastened to correct the omission.
“Have you anything planned today?” asked Frankie. “Because I thought you might like to help me. I have a commission to carry out an office job. I could do with a hand pushing the furniture around. I could knock something off the rent in payment.”
Rhian’s first reaction was to refuse, but she forced herself to be sociable. She was very unlikely to find a comfortable home elsewhere and she wanted to keep her landlady sweet. The rent reduction was also an attraction.
Frankie had been very vague about what she actually did, and Rhian had assumed that she was some sort of management consultant. Every second person in London seemed to work as a management consultant these days, the rest being mostly in public relations or banking.
“Yes, of course. You take commissions on Sunday?”
“Best day of the week for stinking out an office with burnt herbs,” Frankie said, chewing on the piece of cold toast that was left over from Rhian’s meal.
Rhian put another couple of pieces of bread onto the grill pan and triggered the gas lighter on the oven. She had heard of management consultants who ran canoeing holidays, acupuncture classes, scissor and paper games, paintball combat, yoga training, and psychometric testing. Burning herbs was a new one. Anything was possible; it was rumored that some management consultants even offered advice on management, but that was probably an urban myth.
“I am out of mint,” said Frankie, waving the cold toast about for emphasis. “You should come with me to get some. You might find it interesting.”
“I do need to go to the shops,” said Rhian. “I could do with getting some more too
thpaste.”
“Shops?” Frankie laughed. “I need fresh mint, Rhian, not mint jelly for lunch. We’re not going to the shops but to the cemetery. Is there any more tea?”
CHAPTER 4
WICCA WORK
“Tower Hamlets Cemetery,” said Frankie, expansively, spreading her arms wide like a Lord of the Manor embracing his estate. “One of the Magnificent Seven.”
All Rhian could see was a very high brick wall.
“Even the wall is a listed monument,” said Frankie, meaning that it was on the list of buildings protected by preservation orders.
She waved her arm to encompass the wall, as if she was personally responsible for its all-round awesomeness and preservation.
“The Magnificent Seven?” asked Rhian.
“London’s population exploded in the nineteenth century. The little village parish churchyards absorbed by the spreading city couldn’t cope with the massive increase in demand. They ended up recycling the graves every couple of years.”
“How do you recycle a grave?” asked Rhian, unsure whether to be intrigued or horrified.
“You dig down and smash the coffin underneath. You hammer it and any human remains flat, then you bury the new coffin on top. As well as disrespect to the dead, it was a golden recipe for spreading disease through drinking water contamination.”
“That’s disgusting,” said Rhian.
“Yah, well, a special act of Parliament was passed to build seven giant municipal graveyards on what was the edge of London. One of them was Highgate, where all the famous people like Karl Marx are buried. Tower Hamlets was another. It was the wonder of East London; the Lord Mayor himself was on the Board of Directors. It all went wrong quite early on, of course. The East End has always been poor, and most of the burials were mass graves of up to thirty people a time, paid for using public funds. The middle classes soon shunned the cemetery because it was unfashionable. It fell into disrepair and disuse after only a few decades.”
They walked through a gate into what looked like lightly wooded parkland.
Wolf in Shadow-eARC Page 3