by Mike Carey
“I’m just curious. Would there be a key to that cupboard on Rich’s ring?”
Cheryl flashed me a wicked grin. “Hey, smutty innuendo aside, if it’s got a hole, Rich has got a key.”
She went down on one knee and squinted at the lock on the cupboard door. Then she nodded, satisfied, and started to sort through the heavy ring of keys. “Silverline 276,” she said. “It’s the same as the ones downstairs. Here you go.”
She slid a key into the lock, turned it, and pulled the door open with a flourish.
The cupboard was empty.
“Maybe it’s got a false bottom,” said Cheryl without much conviction. She bent over to examine it, and I found myself staring at hers—which was indisputably real. My body reacted of its own accord; blood rushed to my face and to other outlying parts. Arousal exploded in me like a signal flare.
When Cheryl straightened, she could see the sudden change in my mood at once. It must have been written all over my face.
“You didn’t bring me up here to open cupboard doors at all, did you?” she demanded, reprovingly but with no real heat. “You dirty bugger.”
It was the succubus, Juliet. She’d reached inside me, which was her mystery and her power, and turned the dial on the outer casing of my libido from “normal” to “seismic.” Evidently, that wasn’t something that just went away—and being in such close proximity to Cheryl had triggered an aftershock. I braced myself for a smack in the face, but Cheryl was looking at me with a quizzical and contemplative expression on her face. I opened my mouth to explain, but she shook her head briskly to stop me from saying anything.
“I’ve never had sex at work before,” she murmured at last. “And you are pretty attractive—in a sleazy, government-health-warning-on-the-packet sort of way. You know what I always say, yeah?”
I’d forgotten, but I remembered now. “If you’ve never tried something, you’ve got no right saying you don’t like it.”
“Exactly. But are you sure you’re not letting your eyes make promises your trousers can’t keep, Castor?”
“That’s a valid question,” I said, trying to reengage the parts of my brain that weren’t connected with panting and sweating. “Cheryl, this isn’t me. This is just a sort of hangover from—”
She stopped my mouth with a kiss, which tasted very faintly of coffee and cinnamon. I had ample opportunity to taste.
When we broke off, she smiled at me again—a smile with a world of promise in it.
“Someone could just walk in,” I reminded her, making one last doomed effort to be the voice of reason.
“That’s where the keys come in handy,” Cheryl said. She crossed to the door, closed it, and locked it. Then she came back over and began to unbutton my shirt.
“I’ve got cuts and lacerations,” I warned her. “In some of the parts you may be planning to use.”
“Poor boy. Let Auntie Cheryl have a look.”
She had very gentle hands—which she used to do a number of things that were highly prejudicial to the exorcist/client relationship. I responded in kind, and things went from bad to wonderfully bad.
But even as Cheryl drew me into her with a wordless murmur of approbation, I was thinking of the parcel tape and the plastic bags. Where did they go?
Fourteen
WE SAT UP IN THE ATTIC IN A COMPANIONABLE POSTcoital languor, leaning against the bare wall. We’d already made ourselves decent again, and anyone clattering up the bare stone stairs would announce themselves from a good way off, so we didn’t have to worry about being caught in a compromising position.
“You never suggested using a condom,” I commented.
“Have you got a condom?”
“No.”
“There you go, then.”
“Are you always this happy-go-lucky?”
“I got carried away. So did you. But I’m on the pill. Are you saying I should still be worried?”
I shook my head. I steer clear of relationships. I’ve always been afraid of someone I love turning up dead, and then—having to live with that or having to deal with it. Having to face the choice. So although I’m not entirely celibate, I think I count as chaste.
“And no more should you. Word. Let’s change the subject.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “Can we talk shop?”
“Sure. Go on.”
“Have you ever heard of a strip club called Kissing the Pink?”
Cheryl laughed; she had a dirty laugh that I liked very much. “I’m glad we’re talking shop now,” she said. “I’d hate to think you were gonna ask me out on a date. No, I don’t know it. I’ve never been in a strip club in my life. I saw the Chippendales once, if that’s any good.”
“Have you ever met a man named Lucasz Damjohn?”
“Nope.”
“Or Gabriel McClennan?”
“Nope again. Felix, what’s any of this got to do with my Sylvie? You’re sounding like a private detective.”
“It’s all tied together somewhere,” I said, aware of how lame that sounded. “Cheryl, what about these rooms? Do they ever get used for anything?”
“Not yet. We’re gonna expand into them eventually. Some bits of stuff get stored up here, but not much. Why?”
Instead of answering, I got up, breaking what was left of the drowsy, intimate mood. I crossed to the window and looked out. Then down. Three floors below was the flat roof of the first-floor extension. A plastic bag lay on the gray roofing felt, the wind making it jerk and flurry, but not shifting it.
“What’s underneath us on this side of the building?” I called over my shoulder.
“Strong rooms,” said Cheryl.
“Just strong rooms?”
“Yeah, just strong rooms.”
“With no windows?”
“Right. Why d’you want to know? What’s going on?”
“I thought I heard someone up here,” I told her, going for a half truth. “When there shouldn’t have been anyone.”
“That’d be Frank, then,” said Cheryl.
“Sorry?” I said, turning back to face her. “Why would it?”
“He does his meditating up here. Jeffrey said he could.”
“Frank meditates?”
She grinned. “How’d you think he got that laid-back? We’ve got the only Zen security guard in London. Only he’s really a butterfly dreaming he’s a security guard.”
“This was at night. When the archive was closed.”
“Yeah?” She blinked. “Okay, I take it back, then. Frank only comes up in his lunch hours. But—what were you doing up here after the place was shut?”
“Long story,” I said. “Would you mind keeping it a secret for now?”
“You’ll have to buy my silence.”
“With what, exactly?”
She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“I’m just a plaything to you, aren’t I?” I complained with mock bitterness.
“Too right, boy. Let’s say six o’clock tonight—give me time to get out of here. I’ll meet you at Costella’s. You’re gonna have to work hard to keep me happy.”
“Will I get time off for bad behavior?”
“We’ll see. Depends how bad you can be, I suppose.”
“Cheryl, is there an alley off to the side of the new annex?”
“Yeah, that’s where the wheely bins are. Why?”
“I’m going to go down there and shinny up on that flat roof.”
“As an aftermath to sex? A lot of people would just smoke a cigarette or something.”
I kissed her on the lips. “Smoking’s bad for you,” I pointed out.
“So am I, boy. I’ll do your back in.”
“I’m looking forward to it. Wait for me—I’ll only be a minute.”
I left her there and descended the stairs. Frank gave me an amiable nod as I went by. For the first time, there was a second guard on duty with him—a younger man with a military crew cut who gave me a fish-eyed stare. I smiled a smile of good-nature
d idiocy and kept on going.
The alley was a cul-de-sac, lined on both sides as Cheryl had said with the wheely bins of the adjacent buildings—each standing black plastic coffin bearing a number in white paint that had dripped while it was drying.
Everything looked different from ground level. Judging the spot as best I could, I climbed on top of a Dumpster and then used the horizontal bar of a closed steel gate. It was an easy climb, which didn’t surprise me in the least. Someone at the archive was doing it on a regular basis, after all. But I was too far over, and I was looking into a builder’s yard. The flat roof of the Bonnington annex ended ten feet to my left. I tightrope-walked along the wall until I got to the roof. I could see the plastic bag lying close to the sheer wall of the main building—which, apart from the attic skylights at the very top, was an eyeless cliff face.
I went over to the bag and picked it up. Good Food Tastes Better at Sainsbury’s, it said. But whatever was inside it, it wasn’t food. It was heavy and rectangular. I tore open one corner and looked inside.
The words looked back at me, but that was a coincidence. More than half the letters and documents in the bag were in English.
A whistle made me look up. Cheryl was leaning out of the attic window. She waved at me, and I waved back. I mimed “stay there,” palm out like a policeman’s stop sign. She nodded.
I went back inside and headed for the attic, but she met me halfway.
“What was in the bag?” she asked.
“A selection of good wholesome produce at reasonable prices,” I said. “Cheryl, will you let me into the Russian room again?”
“I thought you said it was a dead end. What was in the bag?”
“Stuff. I did say that, and I might even be right. But there’s something I want to take a look at.”
Everything in the strong room was just as I’d left it the other night. The boxes were still stacked up on the floor, Rich’s laptop was still on the table, and the place still had the same sour, dispiriting smell as it’d had the first time I’d walked in, four days ago now.
“Six o’clock,” Cheryl reminded me.
“I’ll be there,” I promised.
We kissed and parted.
As soon as she’d left, I turned the computer on. Then, while it warmed up, I went looking for the other thing I needed. It should have been on the table, but since it wasn’t, I must have shoved it into one of the boxes along with an armload of papers.
It took me about ten minutes to find it, but at least it was still there: the ring-bound reporter’s notebook with Rich’s handwritten notes in it. Armed with that, I opened the database program on the computer and tried to figure out which end of it was up. There was a file named RUSSIAN1, which seemed to be a reasonable place to start. The program said it contained about 4,800 records.
I opened a few at random. Like the boxes, there wasn’t a lot to choose between them.
LETTER. 12/12/1903. SENDER MIKHAIL S. RECIPIENT IRINA ALEXOVNA. PERSONAL. RUSSIAN.
LETTER. 14/12/1903. SENDER MIKHAIL S. RECIPIENT PETER MOLINUE. PERSONAL. ENGLISH.
LETTER. 14/12/1903. SENDER MIKHAIL S. RECIPIENT RUSSIAN EMBASSY “TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.” BUSINESS/FORMAL. RUSSIAN.
I flipped through the pages of the notebook, looking for something that would be a bit more distinctive. In the end I settled for a Valentine’s Day card and typed in some of the search fields that Rich had jotted down. RECIPIENT CARLA. DESIGN HEART WITH WINGS.
Yeah, there it was: item number 2838. The next document I tried, a birth certificate, was number 1211. The third was a book of wedding photos, and it showed up as number 832.
It was no use. Even if I was right, it could take me days to find what I was looking for. There had to be another way of doing this. I thought about it for a long while. Then I picked up the phone and placed a call to Nicky.
He answered in his usual guarded way—making sure he knew who I was before he owned up to being who he was. Normally I take that in my stride, but not today. “Nicky, enough of the bullshit,” I said testily, cutting him off. “I need another favor. If it comes to anything, I’ll buy you a whole crate of that overpriced French mouthwash. Meet me at Euston Station. At the Burger King on the main concourse, okay? That way, you’ll be able to see me from a hundred yards away, and you’ll know it’s me, rather than some weird branch of the government pulling a sting. It’s goddamn urgent, okay? Someone’s trying to kill me, and I’d like to know why.”
Taking that kind of tone with Nicky was a high-risk strategy. I waited to see if he’d cave in or tell me to go fuck myself. He did neither. “Trying to kill you with what?” he demanded tersely.
“A stairwell. And then a succubus.”
That got a response, at any rate. “Holy shit. A fuck-demon? What did it look like? Did you get pictures?”
“Did I get pictures? Nicky, I was lucky to get out with my wedding tackle still attached. No, I didn’t get pictures.”
“Then what was its name? Was it one of the steganographics?”
“I’m not an expert. She said her name was Juliet. She had black hair and black eyes.”
“Anything else? Markings? Nonhuman features? What were her sexual organs like? Any teeth down there?”
“Nicky, for the love of Christ—they were like a woman’s—she was normal. Stupendously high-end normal.” Something popped up in my mind, like conceptual toast. “Except for her breasts.”
“Which were?”
“She didn’t have any areolae around her nipples. All of her skin was pure white.”
“Got you. Okay, I’ll do some looking around.”
“That’s not what I want you to do.”
“I’ll do it anyway. The hell-kin fascinate me.”
“Just meet me, okay?”
“Euston Station. I’ll be there—but twenty minutes is all you’re getting, and you can pay for the taxi.”
I went looking for Rich. I found him in the public reading area, watching over a florid, preoccupied woman who was leafing through what looked like the catalog from some ancient exhibition of chamber pots and toilet furniture. He looked up when I came in and gave me a nod.
“Alice is looking for you,” he said. “She didn’t look happy.”
“I’d probably be more worried if she did. Listen, Rich, there was something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Go on.”
“The first week in September. Maybe the last week in August. Do you remember anything out of the ordinary happening around then?”
He looked blank.
“Can you give me a hint?” he asked. “What kind of anything?”
“The kind of anything that would end up being written into the incident book.”
“So . . . an accident? Or a breakage? Someone going home sick?”
“Sounds like the right sort of territory, yeah.”
Rich frowned thoughtfully, but I suspected that was just to show willing. “Nothing that springs to mind,” he admitted. “The trouble is, those things happen all the time. Unless you’ve got something to pin it to—something that definitely happened at the same time—you don’t remember it well enough to say when it was.”
“The first appearance of the ghost,” I said. “It was almost exactly at that time. Does that help?”
He shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, mate.”
“Never mind. It was a long shot. If you do come up with anything, though, let me know. Ask Cheryl, too. And any of the part-timers you see.”
“And Jon?”
I had to mull that one over for a moment. “Yeah, and Jon,” I said at last. “Anyone you bump into. It doesn’t do any harm to ask.”
“Doesn’t do any good either, most of the time,” he observed cynically.
“I’m noticing that, brother,” I admitted. “But hope springs eternal, eh?”
I slipped out of the archive at lunchtime and crossed the road to Euston Station. I’ve never liked the place; it looks like a scaled-up model of something run up by
a Blue Peter presenter out of the slatted interiors of fruit boxes. But it teems with people around the clock, which made it an ideal place for a private meeting. Feeling guilty and hunted because of what I was carrying under my shirt, I glanced around behind me. The crowds parted for a moment, and a female figure ten paces or so behind me turned and took a sudden interest in a newspaper display. I wasn’t sure, but again I thought I recognized her as Damjohn’s girl. Rosa. I hesitated. I had to meet Nicky, and I knew he wouldn’t wait, but I was in a maze, and any Ariadne would do. I took a few steps toward her, but then a few more clusters of people eddied past, and when I got to the newsstand, there was no sign of her.
With a grimace of annoyance, I moved on to the Burger King. It doesn’t have any doors; it just opens out directly onto the concourse, which was why I’d chosen it. Nicky likes to have a clear field of vision in all directions.
As soon as I sat down in the coffee shop, he was pulling out a chair and slipping in next to me. He must have been circling around for a while, waiting for me to show, but it would go against the grain for him to sit down first. I felt the chill coming off him; he’d be wearing freezer packs under his bulky fleece, and probably a thermos of dry ice somewhere to freshen them up. Unlike most of the risen dead, Nicky was always pragmatic and prepared.
From his pocket he produced a thin sheaf of A4 pages, folded in half and then in quarters. He handed them to me, and I looked a question.
“Dead girls,” he said. “The stuff you were asking about.”
“Quick work,” I said, impressed.
“Easy work. But like I said, you gave me a sloppy brief; there’s a lot of stuff there. You’ve still got your work cut out. Now, what’s today’s crisis?”
I took the small but heavy bundle out of my shirt and slid it across the table to him: hard, rectangular, wrapped in newsprint from that morning’s Guardian. He unwrapped it and stared at it as though he’d never seen one before.
It had taken a lot of nerve to walk past Frank with that stuffed up my shirt. I’d thought of asking him for my coat, but I didn’t want to risk drawing any more attention to myself. “I need it looked at,” I told Nicky. “Looked at properly. Dissected, autopsied, and written up in excessive detail. The file you’re particularly looking at is called RUSSIAN1. It’s a database file. I want to know if it’s been tampered with—if anything unusual has been done to it anywhere along the line.”