Ten Second Staircase

by Christopher Fowler

  47

  THE MOON CURSER

  April looked at the rainswept green quadrangle with the darkened street running around its edge and felt uncomfortable. The old panicky fear of open spaces settled over her. 'Where are we going?' she asked Luke, but he had already moved on ahead.

  'You want to find out the truth, don't you?' he called back. He seemed so thin and vulnerable that she found it hard to imagine his involvement with anything sinister. If he had lied because he was being threatened, why had he not confided in someone who could help him?

  They entered the dim corridor of concrete and made their way to its rear staircase. 'The lift's not working,' Luke explained, climbing the steps. April felt safer away from the bare breadth of the estate, but when Luke continued ascending, she realised with horror that they were heading for the great flat roof of the building's central block.

  'Luke, I can't go any further,' she warned, stopping outside the fire exit as he pushed it open.

  'You don't have to,' the boy promised, coming to a halt.

  Ahead, a terrible wide sky beckoned, drawing her forward into the effulgent mist and rain.

  She did not see the gloved hands dropping on either side of her. They held a roll of nylon rope that pinned her arms to her sides before she could make a move. The Highwayman stepped forward, dragging her out onto the gravelled roof. She tried to twist around and study him, but he kept her facing forward.

  April felt the scudding grey sky bellowing down above her head in a funnel of wind, until it seemed as though it would pull her out into the moisture-laden air.

  As the Highwayman began dragging her towards the far side of the roof, she dug the heels of her boots into the gravel. His grip on her arms tightened. She screamed just once before realising that it would make no difference up here. Gradually, her fear of the vast open rooftop was replaced by the sinking knowledge that no-one from the unit knew where she was.

  April was in greater danger than she realised, for in her headstrong haste she had duplicated the fate of her mother, unwittingly running into the arms of a killer.

  Arthur Bryant dragged on Victor's handbrake, but the rusting Mini Cooper was difficult to bring to a halt, and the engine continued to chumble on after he had removed the keys. The engine had never run smoothly since Maggie Armitage had poured her own blend of sealant into the radiator in an effort to consecrate the vehicle against accidents. Miraculously, his mobile was finally working once more, and he called his partner as he walked towards the estate's central block.

  'John, is that you? Have you finished with Kingsmere?'

  'I'm just about to take his statement,' came the reply. 'Congratulations, you're using a mobile.'

  'Yes, but you won't like what I have to say on it. I need you to leave him and get over here. I know who the Highwayman is; I just don't have a reason why.'

  'Where are you?'

  'I'm at the estate, heading for the roof where you saw the graffiti. I'm going to need your help. Banbury was right; the Highwayman isn't a man at all. He was hidden in plain sight right from the start. You encouraged me to be sensible and practical, but I should have followed my instincts.'

  'I don't understand what you mean, Arthur. Don't do anything until I get there, all right? Promise me?'

  But Bryant had already closed the mobile and set off into the estate. His legs were failing, but his long-distance eyesight was excellent. And he had just spotted the windswept black figure striding across the roof of the central block.

  The Highwayman threw April to the ground, where she lay gratefully hugging the gravelled roof. When she finally summoned the nerve to look up, she saw that he was disrobing, splitting the tricorn hat into two black baseball caps and casting them aside before shucking his gloves. The tall boots, she noticed, had heavily built-up heels and soles, and appeared to be stuffed with old newspapers. She could hear the murmur of other voices beneath the rising wind. As the Highwayman turned to face the boy who had led her here, she recognised her captor.

  'You brought the wrong one, Luke,' he said tonelessly.

  'I thought you said the old man would come to you.' Luke dropped to the floor cross-legged and dug a pack of Marlboros from his blazer, oblivious to the falling rain.

  'I guess he's not so smart after all. We can still do seven in seven days and set a new house record. You don't need to know about the backup plan.' He crouched down beside April and smiled. 'You do see now, don't you? I mean, why there's no such person as the Highwayman. You can't catch a murderer who doesn't exist.'

  Arthur Bryant stopped to catch his breath on the staircase. Trust the lift to be out of action on the one day I need to reach the roof, he thought. Leaning on his stick, he studied the sprayed graffiti. He should have read it as a series of arrows leading him towards the truth; that was what had been expected of him. What he still didn't understand was why this had happened. If not for revenge, then what? When he looked down, the stairs retreated in a spiral, like an unwinding clock spring.

  In the poem by Alfred Noyes, he thought, the highwayman was saved by his lover's sacrifice, only to die on the road and be resurrected as a ghostly apparition. In this way, he achieved a form of immortality. Bryant held out his right hand and studied its liverspotted back. He was shaking, either through anticipation or sheer exertion. He pushed on to the roof, frightened of what he might find but unable to stop himself. Understanding the truth had become more important than anything, even survival into an uncertain future. He and John had enjoyed a good run. Perhaps this had always been destined as their endgame.

  He stood on the dark concrete landing behind the roof exit, gathering himself, waiting for the pounding of his heart to subside.

  Then he turned the handle and pushed the door wide, flooding light into his vision.

  The Highwayman swivelled to face this new arrival. 'You got here after all,' he said, smiling pleasantly as the others surrounded him. 'We're glad you managed to make it—even though you're earlier than expected. Tell me, do you know what a Moon Curser is?'

  'No, I don't—' Bryant was momentarily confused by his appearance before a group of six people.

  'It's a term taken from the Thieves' Key. A Moon Curser is a link boy.'

  Bryant fought to think clearly, exhausted by the stairs and the mistimed medication. 'You mean a boy who used to run ahead of his client, leading the way through the night with a torch, in return for a few coppers.'

  'That's right. A Moon Curser is a specific kind of link boy. He's the one who lights the darkness, only to lead his employer into a gang of thieves and murderers.' He pointed down at the boy seated on the roof. 'Appropriate, eh? We read about that in some boring old book we thought you would find interesting. Luke is our Moon Curser. He brought you here to us. To your death.'

  48

  SACRED VILLAINY

  On the roof of the Roland Plumbe Community Estate, Arthur Bryant faced his imminent demise.

  He knew that his career was over but was not sad at its loss. He could do nothing more now, solve no more crimes, save no more lives, because those who committed cruelties were finally beyond his understanding. He had warned John May that he would retire when logic ceased to be of use in criminal investigations. Nothing could ever fully explain what he faced here. The world had moved on into darkness and left him in its wake.

  He was afraid only for April's sake, because she was just learning how to live. She was shivering with cold, kneeling on the gravelled roof before him in torn wet jeans, her arms tied at her sides. She looked at him with pleading eyes.

  And he looked back at the Highwayman, not a man, not even a single entity, but a group of boys.

  Gosling, pale and blond, dressed in a padded black leather tunic and boots.

  Parfitt, spotty, sour-faced, still wearing his soaked school blazer.

  Jezzard, bat-eared, red-faced, and overweight, disconsolately picking his nails.

  Billings, small and feral, dangerous-eyed, waiting for instructions.
/>   The four teenagers who had disrupted his lecture, who had

  shouted him down and led the rebellion against him. Four ingenious, privileged, bored, and heartless children who saw themselves above the law because they were more intelligent, more cruel, more willing to risk everything. Because the time was right, and there was nothing at all they cared about.

  'What do you think of our invention now?' asked Gosling. 'Do you get it? Do you see what we did? It was you who gave us the idea, the day of your stupid lecture. You'll be the sixth victim of the Highwayman, and there will be one more tonight. Seven carefully staged deaths in seven days, high-profile murders to create a supercelebrity who can never be brought to justice, because he doesn't exist. The press and the public are willing him into existence. They want to believe in him, and they'll make him live forever. No-one has ever managed such a stunt in this city's two-thousand-year history. Fame doesn't get much bigger than this.'

  'What about April?' he asked.

  Gosling shrugged. 'She can have an accident. Her death won't count because it's not part of the plan.'

  'You don't have to kill her. She's done nothing wrong.'

  'It's not open to negotiation,' said Jezzard, hauling April to her feet. 'Don't you want to know how we did it? We want to tell you 'cause it's so cool.'

  'I think I already have an idea. Luke lied for you at the gallery, while you—all of you—told the truth. You said no-one else had come into the room, and you were right. Saralla White was already there, checking on her installation, and you simply surprised her, throwing her into the tank. With four of you to hold and lift her, it must have been easy.'

  'I wouldn't say easy,' said Parfitt. 'We chloroformed her, but she still kicked me and bit Billings. But she gasped as she went under, and sank quickly.'

  'I found this great Web site that tells you how to make fast-acting narcotics,' said Billings. 'It's dead simple. Kingsmere lets us have the run of the school in the evenings—he trusts us to use the labs by ourselves.'

  'So—how do you make a man immortal?' asked Gosling. 'You give him superhuman abilities. You make him tall, like me, and agile, like Billings here, and strong, like all four of us combined. We take turns being the Highwayman.'

  'The different-sized boots, you stored them at the school—that's where you got wood glue on them,' Bryant comprehended. 'A padded jacket, masks, and wigs—all it required was the ingenuity of malicious children.'

  Gosling ignored the slight. 'I'm taller than everyone else, so I do the big stuff. Parfitt's a good runner. Billings does the climbing and Jezzard did the camera shots for you, which he paid the estate girls to contact you about. We left you plenty of hints, just to make sure you got the picture.'

  'The Thieves' Key,' said Bryant, recalling Banbury's discovery in the gallery. 'Why did you only leave it the first time?'

  'We couldn't get back into the metalwork shop to make another one,' Gosling explained, amused. 'We borrowed the logo from the estate symbol, which was in turn based on the area's most famous inhabitant. We wanted to watch you at work, but May showed up instead, so we had to keep leaving you more clues. What else do you know?'

  'You came up with the Highwayman as a character because you knew about Kingsmere's father and how the Robin Hood legend had been subverted. Plus, there was the Dick Turpin connection with your school, in the prospectus.'

  'He's on the school weather vane, too,' said Jezzard. 'Seems the governors find notoriety more appealing than good scholarship.' He was standing near the edge of the roof with April.

  Bryant tried to buy more time. 'You got Kingsmere out of the way, didn't you? You couldn't afford to have him overseeing your class at the gallery on Monday.'

  'Stomach bug. That part was easy. Something we whipped up for him in the chem lab. Keep going, Mr Detective.'

  Bryant watched April, trying to keep eye contact with her. 'Martell's electrocution and Sarne's incineration, that was a bit overelaborate. The sort of thing schoolkids would come up with.'

  'We had to keep your interest piqued. That's why we did two at the same time. And we thought you might enjoy the local history of the area we chose. You're a sucker for all the old London mythology; we saw you talking about it in your BBC Two documentary. We planned the week like any good media campaign. Seven deaths in seven days, in time for the national press to run the entire story today which, in case you hadn't noticed, is Hallowe'en.'

  'You're running behind schedule. And you've slipped up; Janet Ramsey isn't dead.'

  'We'll make up for that,' Gosling warned. 'I'm interested to know something. We were careful to blame the kids on the estate, but you didn't go after them. Why not?'

  'Your little graffiti message, based on the one left at the site of the Ripper murders. It was a bit too clever. And the K for Kingsmere, rather overemphatic. He thinks you hero-worship him, but you must really hate his guts.'

  'Not at all,' said Gosling. 'We don't hate anyone.'

  'You should be pleased,' said Jezzard. 'You inspired us to create a living legend. Your history will be forever linked with ours.'

  'I don't want the kind of fame you think you've bought. You've got it without earning it.'

  'How can you say that?' asked Gosling. 'Do you know how much time and effort we put into this? Those poor morons we killed spent years creating their own images, only to lose virtually everything they'd gained. We've bypassed that problem. It takes ten seconds for someone to die. That's a fast track to immortality. Nobody screws with you if they're scared of you.'

  Bryant thought of the community officer's comment about building a staircase to adulthood. It was inevitable that someone would try to build a faster one. 'Nobody will remember you in a month's time,' he warned hoarsely.

  'They will, though, because the Highwayman is never going to go away. If we don't choose to keep him alive, someone else will. HydeBrown, Pond, Whitchurch, Ramsden, Armstrong, Ibbertson, Metcalf, Unsworth—any of our friends could take over from us. They all feel the same way.'

  'And how is that?'

  Gosling looked blankly at him, as if surprised by the question. 'We feel dead.'

  'It was you who gave us the inspiration to do something about it,' said Billings. 'If you hadn't come to the school, we might never have got our act together.'

  'I don't understand how you choose who should die,' said Bryant, rubbing his temple. Everything seemed overlit and spatially twisted. Jezzard was moving too close to the edge of the roof. April was silent, too immobile. Time itself seemed to have slowed down. Even the rain was falling more slowly, glistening and drifting between them.

  'You don't remember what it's like to be young, otherwise you'd know who has to go. The liars, the fakes, the hypocrites, the spreaders of poison, the ones with the lifestyles.' Jezzard peered over the low wall, then forced April up onto it.

  'I remember what it's like to have someone claim to represent my generation,' Bryant called in urgency. 'The politicians of the past sent us to war. Young men had a reason to fight back. They had a political purpose. You're just a group of bored children who are upset that their rich parents ignore them.'

  'Think what you like, old man.' Jezzard seized April's arms, untied them, and twisted her to face out over the quadrangle.

  'You've touched her,' Bryant pointed out. 'No matter what happens, you'll be traced this time.'

  They all started to laugh. 'Who the hell cares?' said Gosling, the spokesman. 'You still don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter who we kill, it's how we live. Martyrdom is a requirement of immortality.'

  Jezzard smiled slowly in agreement and gave April a hard push from the ledge.

  49

  IMMORTAL

  He had not been expecting her to twist around so quickly and kick out at him. April's boot caught Jezzard squarely in the face, snapping the septum in his nose in a gout of blood, sending him sprawling across the gravel. She fell hard onto the wall but was quickly on top of him, punching and tearing at his face as he screamed for her to
stop.

  The others moved to separate them, and were still attempting to do so as John May arrived on the roof with a team of armed officers.

  April sat in the passenger seat of May's BMW with a blanket wrapped around her wet shoulders. She stared through the smeared windscreen as he started the engine and gently pulled away from the kerb.

  'Are you all right?'

  She nodded but remained silently watching, lost in thought.

  She did not speak to her grandfather until they were nearing the unit at Mornington Crescent. 'You don't have to explain,' she told him finally. 'About my mother, I mean. I've always known what happened to her.'

  'Wait—you knew?' May was astounded.

  'Your pal Sergeant Renfield told me about Elizabeth when I was