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by Claire North

  “Could be one of the filth”

  “Men!”

  “Fucking coming here and giving it”

  Theo blurted, “I’m Lucy’s father.”

  The women hesitated, the child’s face flushing brilliant red with the effort of rage she was putting into this moment. Then her mother put a hand on her shoulder, and all at once the infant relaxed, beaming proudly into her parent’s eyes, asking with her suddenly lightened smile, delightful eyes—Did I do well? Did I hate well enough?

  “Come with me,” said a woman and stood up, nodding at her sisters of the guard, and Theo followed.

  They walked through the estate. No lights shone in the windows, no creatures stirred. Far off, the sound of the motorway; across the stubby grass, a torn plastic bag, a tumbled can oozing fizzy drink. A banner was slung across three different windows, huge and torn by the wind, the letters sometimes visible, sometimes twisted into obscure tangles as the stitched-together sheets on which they were written caught together.

  jobs justice and

  He couldn’t make out the last word.

  “Dani was one of us,” the woman grunted as they walked together towards the door. “She was a patty from the women’s line. We tried being with the men, but when you spend your days in the women’s prison, in the men’s prison, these things—you spend so much time thinking about what it’ll be like that when you actually try to be together it’s hard, sometimes, to see what’s real and what’s not. So here we are. Sometimes the queen of the patties sends us a few things. She’s got a court in the north. We have to stick together, us sisters, that’s what the queen says. What’s your name?”

  “Theo.”

  “Theo what?”

  “Theo Miller.”

  “She never mentioned you.”

  “Did she mention someone from home? Someone she grew up with?”

  “No.”

  A little laugh that vanished instantly. “That’s me too.”

  She shrugged. None of her affair.

  From an open window a sudden rising of a voice, female, coming high and shrill, reaching a crescendo of fury

  gurgling away

  dying.

  The woman walked, and seemed undisturbed.

  The rage rites of the patties were something Theo did not enquire into.

  Coming to Dani’s door

  shut

  lights out

  no sign the police had been

  or gone

  or cared.

  She said, to no one in particular, “I stalked a woman called Naomi. I stalked her for five years. I told her I’d rape her, with a bottle, with a stick, I described it all so she’d understand. I sent postcards to her sister the day her kids were born, congratulating them on the birth and telling them to enjoy their kids while it lasted. I thought it was funny. It was funny. It was very, very funny.”

  Sighed, waving at the door.

  “The police said they’d send someone to clean the blood, but no one came. We’re saving up for some bleach.”

  Theo walked inside. The woman followed.

  Up the stairs, pushed open the door

  the stench of brain, rotting flesh it was still on the floor bits of her brain on the floor it hadn’t been real until this moment Theo

  guessed at a bathroom and managed to vomit into the sink before it was too late, acid in his nose, up his nostrils he was …

  The woman stood behind him, waiting, arms folded, leaning against the wall, lost in her own thoughts. There was no water in the taps to wash his puke away, but she didn’t seem to care, and he felt ashamed.

  Theo returned to the bedroom, tried again.

  The room had been searched. Drawers opened, mattress turned over, cupboard torn apart, clothes ripped out. Had that been the way it was when he stood in this door, looking on the feet of Dani’s corpse?

  He thought that yes, it had been Seph Atkins who searched the room and had she found …

  “Has anyone touched the window?” he asked.

  His guide shrugged.

  The window still half-open, letting in cold air, taking some of the stench off.

  There was no way to avoid Dani’s blood, the sprays of the policemen as they’d squirted something orange around the body. He looked out of the window, down to the hedge below. If you’d been fast, you could have thrown a mobile phone out of the window at the right angle to land in the privet hedge, a desperate act at the sound of footsteps, an act that acknowledged in an instant that it was too late, you were done, nowhere to hide.

  “Papers,” he blurted, turning away. “Did she have any papers?”

  The woman nodded, once, and led him down to the concrete back patio behind the house. Between the overgrown brambles and stinging nettles, someone had cleared the space for a crooked child’s swing, the parts salvaged from a skip and strapped back together with tape and long, string-wrapped branches. Someone else had drawn the outline of a rat’s corpse in pink chalk.

  A metal bucket, knee-high, stood in a corner. The ashes were cold. Discarded half-matches formed a halo around the edge.

  He sifted through the blackened crumbs of paper, found a white corner.

  OF THE LATEST VALUE ON PRODUCTIVITY TOWARDS MAKING SAVINGS IN THE

  The words vanished into char.

  “She was down here a lot. Burning things. People joined her. They liked the fire. Sometimes the biters would come, the zeroes, and they’d sit and rock and scream and that. Neighbours hated it, but we respect those things round here. You gotta get it out of your system. You gotta let it out. You gotta let it go so you can keep going.”

  “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “One of ours let the killer in, of course. One of ours did it for the cash. I get that, we could all do with the dough, but when we find her … are you really the kid’s dad? For real?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “You should do better. You should.”

  Theo cycled home, and the route seemed shorter tonight than it had last time he made the journey.

  Chapter 32

  Neila drew cards the moment they moored on the outskirts of Northampton, where the canal divided towards the River Nene.

  Knight of cups, ten of cups, the Fool (inverted), nine of swords, the High Priestess, three of cups, seven of wands, the Tower, the Hanged Man (inverted).

  She stared at them long and hard, realised she didn’t know what they meant, couldn’t find any comfort or meaning in them. Usually, no matter what she drew, there was something that gave purpose, direction to her life. Today her mind seemed frozen, trapped, looking at images without meaning. For the first time in her life she drew nine more.

  Four of cups, Temperance, the Chariot, the World, six of staves, the Stars (inverted), four of swords, six of swords, the Hanged Man (inverted).

  A guard from the university was at the side of the boat within ten minutes. Who are you? What are you doing here? I’m from the business school. There’s a business school next to the station, we have to keep an eye out because this is a protected space for our students; we promised our students that they’d be safe here …

  No.

  Our students do not cross the canal.

  They don’t go to—are you joking with me, lady, are you—no, of course they don’t go to … we abandoned the northern campus two years ago because we couldn’t guarantee the safety of

  87 per cent satisfaction rate, as you’re asking, 94 per cent in the arts. We lost a lot of lecturers, though, when the new system came in. They said that the criteria meant they had to be nice to their students, instead of making them learn. They said that the less homework they gave, the better their overall assessments. The better their overall assessments the more money they could make. Everyone’s gotta eat.

  Ginger biscuits? Really? Well as you’re offering I mean don’t tell anyone it’s just

  oh thank you these are the best they just really

  look, I don’t mind you staying but the evening shift guy he
’s going to be because this is a protected space it’s a place of safety so

  just to let you know.

  And don’t cross to the other side.

  They moved the boat away from the bright glass walls of the business school, the men in black who prowled its edges. At the mooring point they found the narrowboat they’d seen a few nights before, an old woman stood with a blowtorch pressed against the air intake, cursing under her breath.

  Neila went to help, smiling, hello again, and revved the engine as the woman pushed fire into the intake, and after a little while the engine reluctantly spat into full, chugging life, and the woman said thank you kindly but it’s getting dark now

  can I offer you tea

  and Neila said thank you but no, no, I’ll be all right, I’ve got …

  And stopped herself before admitting to the existence of Theo, making a brew in the Hector.

  In the evening, barely an hour after sunset, there was a sound like the howling of wolves.

  It came from the darkness to the left of the canal and filled the sky above the streets where the lights had been cut off.

  Blood between their teeth, chins craning to the hidden moon the children raised their heads and howled

  howled

  howled!

  And in the darkness the others answered and shrieked their darknesses to the sky, the sound echoing off the water, the cry of the hunter, the predator that drinks the hot fresh juices from a still-beating heart

  hoooowwwwwwlllllll!!!

  Around the business school, the security men shut their students in and told them to wait until the buses came, secured with metal plates against reflective glass, a driver who kept a stun gun lodged between handbrake and gear stick

  hoooooowwwwlllll!!!

  Neila did not sleep, and neither did Theo.

  At 1 a.m. they met each other, both going to the kitchen sink for a little more water.

  Theo said, “There’s a queen of the patties. They say she was one of the first, the oldest—the first woman they ever condemned to make burgers on the patty line. Half the meat they use is wasted anyway, but it doesn’t matter. The government subsidises the companies that run the prison, to make sure they make a profit so they can carry on being efficient rehabilitators, says it’s better that way, cheaper in the long run, so the companies don’t worry if they waste stuff. There’s mountains of minced meat at the back of the yard, the flies are so thick it looks like a living thing. My dad died on the patty line, but the contracts say that the government can’t sue for negligence and why would they? Only a patty. Only another patty.”

  Little bodies darted by the window, little figures ran along the canal.

  They sat together, close to the half-orange embers of the stove, as the voices were raised around the town, screaming at the dark.

  “The queen says it’s good to scream. Good to rage. If you don’t get it out of your system then you’re not being honest to yourself. You’re just pretending that everything is okay. That this … this shit, this nothing-nowhere you’ve got, this dream that you swallowed whole when you were a kid because dreams weren’t for the likes of you … you pretend that’s okay. You live your life as a grey one, one of the zeroes who’ll die alone begging for Company scraps, because you didn’t have the guts to look at yourself and say yes. Yes. This is fucked-up. And no. No. This isn’t my fault. This was done to me. The world … did this to me. Accept that, she says, and you have seen the truth of the patty line, and the only thing that is right is the screaming, the raging, the burning and the truth of the flame. And when you’ve done that, then you can find yourself again, and the quiet place inside that will let you take control. That’s the creed of the patty queen. That’s what she told them, that’s why they have these prayers …”

  Blessed are her hands blessed is the water beneath her fingers blessed are the ones who blaze blessed are those who wait in shadows …

  Neila warmed her hands by the stove and murmured, “All it is is screaming. That’s all they do. It doesn’t change anything.”

  They sat in silence a little while.

  Theo said, “You sleep, and I’ll wake, and in an hour I’ll sleep, and you wake,” and Neila nodded and lay down on the couch without another word, and pulled the blankets that covered Theo over her head, and didn’t notice his smell on them, and slept for an hour, and woke feeling refreshed, and they swapped and just after 4 a.m …

  … little hands thump thump thumping against the side of her boat thump thump thump not hard just a patter of flesh thump thump thump palm against steel, a dozen, two dozen, three, the children went running

  the youngest barely three years old, carried by her elder sister they ran along the pavement in their torn shoes and flapping rags, not howling now, but tip-toe tapping in the darkness

  The slapping of their hands against the boat woke Theo, a jump-start, and he pulled the blanket tight and looked like a man in search of a weapon, but Neila shook her head and whispered:

  “It’s just the children. Just the children. They’ll pass. They’ll pass.”

  And the children did, but before they went

  A smash in the night!

  Something metal!

  Someone fell

  a squeak of voices and

  another crash, hollow across the water, and more disturbing perhaps a ripple against the boat, a gentle rocking, what has disturbed the surface of the canal so much

  but then that too passed.

  And Theo slept, and Neila waited, watching, until it was her turn to sleep again.

  They rose at sunrise and found a child, dead, face down in the water. Where she’d fallen the thin ice had cracked, then begun to seal back around her, keeping her in place where she’d landed. She wore blue rubber boots and a huge red puffer coat. Her hair was black, in two bunches held up with plastic dragonfly-adorned clips. The blood from the wound in her scalp had been trapped in the ice, retaining its crimson brilliance. Neila stared at the corpse and thought she was going to cry. Theo stared at the body and thought: probably about £120,000, £130,000 at a pinch, depending on her manner of death, add an investigation cost of course these things can spiral out of control unless you’re thoughtful about the fiscal consequences of …

  And stopped.

  And for a moment thought he saw Lucy there.

  Thought he was going to be sick, and despised himself and everything he had become.

  The locks on the doors into the narrowboat moored beyond theirs were broken. Potted plants on the roof had been smashed, spilling black, rich soil down the sides and onto the towpath. Someone had cut the rope to one bollard, but missed the second or not been bothered by it, so the boat drifted, bum out, away from the child in the water.

  Neila went round to the prow, knocked tentatively on the half-open metal door, called out the old woman’s name, pushed the door back, peeked inside.

  The woman sat in the half-gloom, her face illuminated by the rising daylight through the portholes.

  There was remarkably little blood on her face or on her hands. Remarkably little on the kitchen knife she still held clutched in front of her. Neila looked, and wondered if maybe the blood wasn’t real, and decided it was.

  She called the woman’s name again—Marta, Marta, can you …?

  The woman didn’t stir.

  “Marta, it’s Neila. Marta are you … are you hurt? Did they …”

  The woman didn’t raise her head, and held the knife close.

  Theo peeked in behind Neila.

  Saw the old woman.

  Saw the blood.

  Looked away.

  At the sky and the water, at the city and the business school behind them, gearing up again into full swing, at the girl floating face down in the water.

  He stepped inside the cabin.

  Crossed slowly to the woman.

  Squatted down in front of her.

  Put his hand over hers, cradling the fingers that held the knife.

  Her eye
s drifted to his face, and her fingers tightened on the handle.

  “Blessed are the mothers,” he whispered. “Blessed are the children. Blessed is the dawn on the day of release. Blessed is the mist that rises by the river.”

  Her eyes dropped down again, her lips hung loose on a crackle-boned jaw.

  Theo took the knife without a word, laid it on the counter to one side.

  Burned-down incense sticks sat in a blue ceramic holder on the fold-down dining table. A half-finished copy of a romantic novel about a family in the south of France lay on the couch. The kettle on the stove had boiled itself dry, leaving a steaming scar on the ceiling above.

  The woman stared at nothing as Theo held her hands.

  He waited

  waited

  waited

  as all things waited

  for the woman at last to blink, look him in the eye, feel his skin on hers and say, “They came onto my boat.”

  Theo nodded once, squeezed her hands, let go, walked away.

  Neila called the police.

  Theo said, “I can’t be here … if the police come …”

  She replied, “There’s water at Nether Heyford. I’ll find you, I promise I’ll find you …”

  To Neila’s surprise, the police came.

  Marta had comprehensive security coverage. She turned out to be rich, had chosen to live on the canal with savings from managing space on cargo vessels. She’d sold her house, her second home in the Cotswolds Community, most of her ninety-plus pairs of shoes, her ex-husband’s wine collection, and now she sailed the waterways for reasons that no one knew. Because she loved it, perhaps?

  And in the night the children had come and they had broken into her boat and she had panicked she’d simply panicked and …

  They used long hooks to fish the girl out. It took two strong men to haul her onto land, ice water streaming from the tops of her boots.

  “It’s all right, love,” said one of the coppers as they handcuffed the old woman and led her away. “Kid you popped was one of the children. Everyone knows you get a discount for that sort of thing.”

  Marta cried silently when the man said that, though she hadn’t wept until that moment.

  When the police were gone