by Paul Cornell
‘They shouldn’t have fucking—!’
‘It’s okay. I know you’re—’
‘You know I’m both. Which is why I’m not going to be remembered, since nothing complicated gets remembered, not as it really is.’ He looked back at the protest and saw the batons rising and falling, and felt the blows echoing off the sky above him, echoing all the way from the suburbs. ‘That’s why I’m going to have to make a sacrifice.’
Quill had heard from Sarah that she was spending Saturday working at the office, and he very much didn’t want to be at home alone with his brain in its current state. So he’d gone out into the pubs of London. Out of a feeling of duty, he’d texted Harry to come and join him, half hoping he wouldn’t be up for it, but he was.
Quill knew his London pubs, enough to diagnose one from a glance at the exterior. There were pubs that defined neighbourhoods, in that strange way that London had neighbourhoods just because of imaginary lines on the ground. There were pubs that were about the British going out into the world, changing and being changed, and coming back to find the old inn still standing, the old crowd around the fire – apart from those that had died of plague while you were away: the Road to Jerusalem; the Balaclava; the Pillars of Hercules. There were pubs about the trade guilds of the city: the Carpenters’ Arms; the Coopers; the Square and Compass. There were pubs for the heads of all the kings and queens, and for the heads of enemies brought back to Blighty.
He wandered down to the pleasant neighbourhood around the British Museum, and found a battered leather armchair in a pub which was all enormous windows, like being inside a jewel box, and which, after a quick inspection, had nothing terrifying about it. He opted for a pint of one of their pleasingly filthy real ales, leaned back and tried to relax, tried not to drink quickly enough to distract himself.
Until Harry and his dad arrived . . .
‘Now you’ve got all of the Met working for you at every football match, brilliant!’ Harry was sounding his usual self, but these days Quill didn’t need his dad beside him to hear the subtext, to explain the strain in his face.
‘One of these days,’ said his dad, ‘he might even get around to including you.’
‘I miss having you about,’ said Quill, and he meant it.
Harry actually had to pause a second to reply, as his dad laughed mirthlessly. ‘Well, it must get pretty stuffy in that Portakabin, with the four of you filling the place up.’
Quill managed to laugh along. ‘How’s Goodfellow?’
‘Oh, limping to the finish line, Jimmy. But there must be an Aladdin’s cave of evidence somewhere, and we ain’t got it. We don’t have Toshack’s accounts. They’re probably somewhere on the Continent now. We don’t have his supply. And we’ve heard whispers of the top brass saying that, since Toto gets along so well with only the four of you—’
‘Oh, don’t give me that!’
‘No, no, it’s all right. You haven’t caught her yet, have you? God help us if you do!’
How had Quill ever enjoyed this? Harry had been the furthest thing from his thoughts during most of this investigation, but he’d always thought that somehow they’d get close again. But how was that ever going to work, unless they managed to force Losley to take the Sight away from them?
‘So, how’s . . .?’
Quill missed what his friend said, because he was thinking of something else. And now he couldn’t even remember what that was. ‘Sorry, Harry?’
‘I said . . .’
His own dad would have loved sitting here among the shininess of these horse brasses. They always had shiny stuff in pubs, like in churches. To take your mind off to relaxing places. And, no, he was missing something, again – he was bloody missing something! He made himself turn back and look Harry in the eye. He now realized he was breathing hard. It was as if his brain was using up his body’s energy as it tried to do something. Harry’s dad was looking at him as if he was a prize chump. ‘Harry, you’ll have to forgive me . . .’
‘What’s up, old son? Are you falling asleep on me?’
Quill held himself in place, his arms locked on the chair. ‘Could you say that again, slowly?’
‘Oh, the great detective’s had a revelation. It’s one of those moments, like on the telly, where it all falls into place. From the top, then . . .’
This time it was like something huge screeching against something else, two massive surfaces in contact, and it made his head hurt so hard. He knew that if he let his attention slip aside from what Harry was saying, it would stop hurting. Such a weight was trying to stop him from hearing Harry, from understanding him—
Quill felt himself on the edge of blacking out. He let his attention slide off into something pleasant: a vision of his dad walking a few paces in front of him, tall in the sunshine. He came back to reality a moment later to see Harry standing over him, looking shocked, Harry’s own dad, smiling all over his face, by his shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’ Harry was shaking him. ‘Jimmy, can you talk? Can you move your face?’
He feared Quill had had a stroke, and Quill wondered for a moment if that was true. He moved the muscles on both sides, put a hand to his brow. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right. Harry, there’s . . .’ There was nothing at all going on here. ‘I’m just tired.’ He wondered what all the fuss was about. Harry was overreacting a bit, wasn’t he? Quill managed a broad smile. ‘Look, you get them in, while I go and have a slash.’
The toilets were as baroque as the bar itself, all imposing imperial Victoriana and boasting the names of every man who ever invented a sanitation device. Quill splashed some water on his face. He’d . . . what, had he just fallen asleep? What had he missed? What was he missing? It was as if it was just there, just behind his reflection, just inside his idea of who he was, just beyond what his mind could touch.
Through the door, he heard the sound of Harry gasping.
Quill burst out of the Gents to see Harry floating over his chair, his skin red with heat, shaking and sweating, his eyes desperately fixed on a flickering light that was bursting impossibly up through the floor. The smell of it rolled over the thick carpet towards Quill. He didn’t look down, though. He was looking to where Harry’s dad stood beside their chairs. He was holding on to his son by one hand, almost affectionately, like a balloon. He kept glancing up at him.
Losley had been here. In just those few seconds, Losley had been here, but had left Quill, and taken Harry instead. Had what happened to him earlier been some sort of diversion? Hardly, she wouldn’t know he’d react like that. But it wasn’t too late, and Quill took a step forward.
‘Stop,’ said Harry’s dad, ‘or I let go of him.’
Quill stopped. ‘You’ve changed your tune.’
‘She made me a bit more than I was, didn’t she? Now, my boy Harry here’s got a message for you. Haven’t you, boy? What did the nice lady tell you to say?’
Quill looked round, maybe hoping for some sort of help, but he just saw the looks on the faces of patrons who had probably watched him stagger back into the bar and start talking to some bloke who looked too out of it to reply. He saw them try and glance over, but the looks they gave instantly slid off something that felt too hard on their eyes.
Harry’s gaze located Quill, and he seemed to wake from the trance his terror had put him in. ‘Jimmy! Help me!’
‘I will, mate!’
‘My dad . . . My dad’s holding me . . . right on the edge of it. I can feel it, Jimmy. I can see what’s in there. Why is it my dad?! Why’s it him doing this?!’
‘It’s not your dad. It’s just . . . just what you think of as your dad. You’ve always been thinking of him, haven’t you?’
‘I . . . I ’spose! I never thought . . . I never saw him like this. I always just thought he was looking down at me!’
Harry’s dad made a tutting sound. He tugged suddenly at Harry’s wrist, like he was warning a dog. ‘Go on, son!’
‘If I tell him the message, you’ll let go of me and I�
��ll be off down there anyway!’
‘Yeah, but if you don’t, I’ll do it anyway, and then she’ll have to find some other poor sod to do this to.’
Harry was sobbing, shaking his head, staring at his dad; he couldn’t believe it.
‘You keep him there,’ Quill reached for his mobile. He couldn’t hope to get his team here in time, and he had no idea what they could do to help, but he had to try.
‘No,’ said Harry’s dad again, letting go of Harry for a moment and then catching him once more.
Harry yelled in terror. ‘I don’t deserve this,’ he panted. ‘I haven’t deserved any of this. And this now, this now . . .!’
‘Of course you don’t deserve it!’ shouted Quill. ‘This is something she’s doing to you, not something you’re doing to yourself! None of us is!’ The other punters were openly staring at them now, the two yelling drunks in the corner.
‘Come on,’ urged Harry’s dad. ‘We’ve got to be off soon, son.’
Harry took some deep breaths, and seemed to steady himself. ‘You’ll get her, won’t you, Jimmy? You’ll nick her?’
‘Mate, don’t tell me it—’
‘You heard him. I don’t have a choice.’ He looked at his dad again, and then looked guilty. ‘I’ve failed so much . . . all my life, Jimmy. Now I’ll never get to be as good as you.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Shut up and listen. I don’t have much of a sitrep for you. The woman I take to be your prime suspect was in here . . . looked like an old woman, late seventies . . .’
‘She can look like anything, Harry. I should have explained.’
‘. . . and then she looked like . . . something terrible. And I could see nobody else was looking at her, and I got up, I tried to go for . . . No, I tried to run. And she pointed a finger and twisted something in the air, and . . . all of this happened. And then he seemed to come out of my head and right into the middle of what I was seeing . . . and she . . . she put my hand in his . . . and it feels just like his real hand, Jimmy. It feels like when . . .’
‘Compose yourself, Harry. Take your time.’ Quill looked dangerously at Harry’s dad, wondering if there was any gesture he could make, just a random pass of his hands, that might harm the thing, or might save Harry.
Harry looked around the room, as if savouring the real world for the last time. All he’s got, thought Quill, was that bloody awful distance shown by the British when they don’t want to relate to something. Maybe, being a copper, the familiarity gave him comfort. Then Harry started speaking again, quickly, as if afraid his courage would fail him. ‘She said that she’s got power to spare now, so she’s going to kill anyone who scores even one goal against West Ham. She’s going to keep taking the children. Jimmy, you’ve got to tell my Sal—!’
‘And that’s your lot,’ said his dad, and let go of Harry’s hand.
Quill shouted something and flung up his arms, expecting an explosion of blood. But Harry was floating on the edge of the cosmic weirdness, light blazing around him, his suit starting to flare at the cuffs and elbows, his arms cartwheeling helplessly, his gaze still finding Quill as if he could hold on through that connection.
‘Don’t worry, son,’ said his dad. ‘I’m coming with you. I’ll always be with you now, always there to egg you on.’ And he vanished.
Harry’s face erupted with blood.
Quill stumbled over to the body and sat there, dazed, for quite a while. There were screams and shouts all around him. A barman arrived and was staring at Harry, not knowing what to do. But Harry was dead . . . and the punters were leaning over to look or stumbling back.
Quill made himself stand up, and found that he also was covered in blood. Again. He noticed his friend’s blood on his lapel, and looked at it, curiously unaffected by it, everything too big for it to sink in now. Quill saw that, coming round the bar, a couple of paramedics had run in and were moving towards them. He stood up, swaying.
He got home hours later, again having tossed all his clothes into a forensics bag, the last traces of his closest friend with them.
Lofthouse had arrived at the pub and had tried to offer words of support.
‘Every goal scorer.’ He said to her, repeating the words to her, until she realized what he was talking about. ‘She’s escalated her threat. Now she’s going to kill every player that scores even once against West Ham.’ Lofthouse promised to get on to it immediately. Quill got his phone out, and tried to text the news to his unit, but his fingers couldn’t find the keys, and he asked Lofthouse to get that done instead, and if he could leave the scene now, please. People began talking about Losley’s poisons again, and he didn’t want to hear it.
A marked car took him home. Slumped in the back seat, he managed to get minutes of something which felt a bit like sleep, but never quite left him unaware. He just about fell up against the door of his house, and paused there.
He so wanted to tell Sarah. He wanted to tell her everything. But she wouldn’t believe him. That had to be an excuse; surely he could make her believe him? But there was still something other than that, shouting at him – an emptiness, something he was missing. He kept using those words to himself, but what did they mean?
He fumbled for his key.
He could hear Sarah was in now, typing away upstairs. ‘I’m home,’ he called, and there came a muted call back. She obviously hadn’t heard about what had happened to him. Right, because he’d asked not to be named. She just thought something big had happened in his case, so would be surprised he was home. He himself was surprised he was here.
He wandered into the kitchen, intending to make tea and then sit down somewhere, try to sleep. Harry . . . bloody Harry . . . after all these years.
Oh!
We smell death near you soon.
That was what whichever small fish had left that note had meant: Harry. They’d felt it coming. Quill felt a stab of guilt over his relief at the thought. It was Harry when it could have been Sarah, could have been . . . who else? No answer to that.
God, the kitchen was a mess. What were all these junk-shop novelties lying everywhere? Was this really what the two of them were making of their lives?
Maybe he should quit. Nobody would blame him. Not now. He could just not go in any more. She could quit too. No future in her job. No future in his. They could get out of London, make a new life, and he wouldn’t have to deal with seeing . . .
And let someone else, less able, entirely vulnerable, deal with Losley. Like the way Harry had. Quill leaned against a kitchen unit.
Sarah entered. ‘Are you making tea?’ she was already asking. And then she saw him and stopped. ‘What’s happened?’
He shook his head. He didn’t want to come out with the lie version now.
‘Oh God, when Losley killed that copper tonight, were you . . .?’ He went over and held her tight. They held on to each other together, and she let him stay silent.
But there was something else in him. Something that needed to be asked. ‘Why is the house in such a mess?’
‘Quill, don’t start a row just to—’
‘No, I mean . . .’ He was aware that the copper part of his head was working at this, working and working, gears still missing each other – not something he was used to when at home. ‘The two of us, okay, we seem to be living these . . . distanced lives. Around something . . . that was there but now isn’t. Was that always how it was? All of those things that might have been you and me together, that might have been . . . exciting or interesting, they seem to have been channelled into . . . something else.’
‘Our careers, you mean. What are you, a teenager?’
‘No, something else. It’s like a . . . black hole, like something that’s taken loads of our lives, and now we can’t see where it’s all gone. And it seems to have happened so suddenly, so . . . recently.’
‘It happens to everybody.’
‘No, this isn’t . . . This isn’t something you can talk about with reference to
. . . something that always happens. This is . . .’ He didn’t have a word for it. He gently let go of her, then he led her by the hand – as if they were two stumbling children – back into the lounge. He pointed at the piles of DVDs with colourful cases, the bizarre nick-knacks and odd books that were everywhere. ‘Why do we have all that stuff?’ She frowned at him, her own brain working. And all he could think of were the gaps in what Harry had said. The things he hadn’t been allowed to hear. There were the same sort of gaps here too.
He led her to the rear of the house, towards the door leading to their little back garden, but beside which was another door. He couldn’t even remember what was in there, he realized, but it seemed to be the centre of what he didn’t feel like he should be looking at. That’s why he’d brought her here, so he could see it again, so he could . . . He didn’t know why he was doing this, just letting the deductive part of his brain make it happen. Feeling its way. And it was like bloody crawling uphill.
He pushed the door and, as it swung open, he suddenly understood, without knowing why, in some feral, desperately caring part of his mind, that what he was about to do would hurt not just him but Sarah, terribly.
Inside the room, there was more weird and colourful stuff. Piles of it. He didn’t know why this was here, but he realized that he knew the word for this sort of room. The feeling of that moment was like something hard falling into his stomach.
‘Why,’ he said, ‘do we have a nursery?’
TWENTY-FOUR
Ross had been woken in the early hours by a text message from Quill that called for her and the others to assemble at the Portakabin right now. She’d hardly got off to sleep. Until then she’d been following the news coverage of the attack on the pub, with her special notebook out on her lap, wondering why the team hadn’t been called to the site.
She entered the Portakabin to find every light switched on and Quill, Sefton and Costain standing in front of the Ops Board. Quill turned to glance at her, and the look on his face scared her. On the corkboard behind him, a thread connected the photo of Mora to a small picture of a tiny baby. ‘She took my daughter,’ he said.