The Last Day

by Andrew Hunter Murray

  She wondered whether David was managing to trace Gethin upstairs. If not—if he really was dead—there was nowhere else to go. From there, inexplicably, she found her thoughts sliding to the question of why David and his second wife, Pamela, had split up. She had attended their wedding, just a year after the divorce and shortly before she had walled herself up in the rig. She had gone almost as a protest against the expectations of her few remaining friends that she should mind attending. It had been an attempt to show that the human emotions provoked by a divorce should not bother anyone living through this time in history.

  It had been a mistake; she had been surprised by the depth of her feelings, had hardly made it through the ceremony without crying. Even if she hadn’t had her experience with Thorne, she suspected now that the day had prompted her to resolve, at some level, not to engage too closely with anyone again. That was probably the source of her affair with Harv too, although even there she had started to feel her heart contracting a little at the thought of him lately.

  The door buzzer went off behind her, making her jump. After a brief pause she heard a squawk from upstairs, and an answering comment from outside. The door clicked; an elderly man pushed his way through, let it clang shut behind him, grinned at her, then shuffled down the long warehouse. He looked as if he was from South America. Not many had arrived from there in the initial wave—too far for most. A few had come; others, chasing the European dream, had gone to the south of the Continent, and had been driven from there as rapidly as everyone else.

  More people arrived, the doorbell buzzing each time, and made their way through. Hopper followed them, drifting toward the back of the warehouse, where a door opened onto another courtyard. This one was larger, roofed with corrugated iron, with patches of sun leaking through. It held a hundred or so seats, arranged in concentric rings describing an approximate semicircle, and in the middle was a rough pit lined with blocky stones, with ashes at its center.

  She hovered just inside the warehouse, watching the figures move into the courtyard, not wanting to interrupt their preparations. Some were conversing quietly, others moved back and forward, unloading bags, changing their clothes, lighting incense, placing a book by each seat. Three started building a fire in the pit.

  The garments they were putting on were wraps of cloth, brightly colored, the rings of dye interspersed with odd, boxy figures of animals real and imaginary. In the center of London these people would be servants, perhaps commuting in each day from outside the barriers, working and cleaning, receiving small rations: Britain’s new slave caste. Here, they were different. The air started to take on the scent of metal, and of earthenware warmed by the sun.

  The courtyard was full now; the chairs were all occupied, and more visitors stood around the edges behind them. The front row had produced drums from the rough cloth sacks and old sports bags shoved under their seats.

  The group seemed to have assessed its own size, decided it had reached quorum, and the space fell silent. One figure rose, from the front row, skirted the fire so it was between him and the audience, and began to speak in a language Hopper did not know. His voice was matched by a gentle drumming that echoed around the courtyard.

  She recognized the rhythm of the words from somewhere, though the exact meaning escaped her. Beyond the drums and the speech there was only the crackling of the central fire. The speaker’s voice varied—for a few seconds loud as a blare of trumpets, then sinking to a murmur. And as he spoke, the drum matched him, rising and falling with his words.

  She could not tell who was leading, the speaker or the drummer. Maybe they were following each other. Tendrils of incense smoke curled around the courtyard. Every so often the speaker made an expectant call, and the whole group sighed a response, breathed and ecstatic, astonishing in its intimacy. She knew this ceremony, had been taken to it by her aunt in childhood. What was it?

  “Hello.” David had arrived at her side, so close to her she jumped.

  “Did you get it? Gethin? Did you find him?”

  He smiled, the movement of his mouth pushing up the tired, tanned creases around his eyes. The drum and speaker were urgent, their muffled beat garbling David’s words. “Want me to tell you now or later?”

  The vision of Thorne filled her head, dead before he could tell anyone what he had known; Fisher, killed because of his connection to Thorne; Chandler, sweating in fear, reporting visitors to the police before anyone could report him. “Now.”

  The drum had kept going, tap-tap-tap, steadily louder, and still the space swayed and echoed with the voices of the congregation. They were all speaking now, all together, and Hopper felt a sense of belonging just by watching them.

  David spoke again. “You were right. Gethin’s still alive. He’s still working.”

  She grabbed his arm. “You really mean it? Still working?”

  “He’s there, Ellie. He’s real. And he’s got a government pass.”

  She breathed out. There was a link, a living link to Thorne. Someone who might know why that picture she had found was so important.

  And in the center of the yard, the first of the congregation knelt before the speaker to receive a circle of wafer on his tongue.

  TWENTY-SIX

  They were alone; Hopper, Hetty, and David. They were sitting in the courtyard, three of the chairs pulled close to each other. The air still smelled of incense, sweat, and dust.

  The group had dispersed soon after the end of the ceremony, the alchemy of the congregation suddenly reversed: their chatter had died into individual comments, the bonds between them kicked over until the next time. As they had left, Hetty had said nothing. She had just raked the sand, scattered water on the fire, and stacked the chairs laboriously back against the wall.

  Hopper spoke first. “How did you find him?”

  “We looked through the new employee records,” David said. “That’s what Hetty has up there. It’s not, ah, widely known that she has them. We have everyone up to a few months ago.”

  “How did you get hold of them?”

  Hetty said, slowly, “Through someone putting himself at risk.” She glared enough with her single eye to discourage further questions. Hopper reached to David for the sheet, and he spoke as he handed it to her.

  “A month after Gethin’s death—supposed death—another new employee joined, a Stephen Mulvaney. But the identity’s fake. Almost insultingly so. The record of previous jobs was slim, and very familiar. Basically their boilerplate stuff for when they want to reassign someone: two years in Transport, three years in Home. I’m surprised they even bothered changing the dates. And the photo of him is basically unchanged from Gethin’s old one. Guess they thought nobody would be looking.”

  “So how do we speak to him?”

  “We’ll come to that.”

  “David, you got payment?” Hetty said suddenly.

  David reached into his pocket, pulled out an envelope, and passed it over. Hetty opened it and rifled through, counting the crumpled notes.

  “Where these from?”

  “All over. Like usual. Not traceable.”

  “Promise?”

  “Hetty, when have I ever given you bad notes?” She grunted, kept counting. “There’s extra in there, in case you’re wondering. We know it’s difficult.” She reached some number in her head, fanned out the remaining notes, and murmured to herself before folding them into one of her sleeves.

  “Who were those people?” Hopper asked.

  “They’re Shuar. From South America, if you never heard of them.” There was a little challenge in Hetty’s words, an assumption that Hopper, with her British accent, would be ignorant of other cultures. Hopper wished the older woman was wrong.

  “What is this place?”

  Hetty shrugged. “Just a museum.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that ceremony in a museum before.”
r />   “Maybe you should go to more museums.” Hetty’s eye was staring at her with dislike.

  David interrupted quickly. “The whole museum is for anyone to keep whatever traditions they had—have—alive. Some groups don’t want to attract any more attention than necessary. Hetty, can I use your phone? I need to check in with the office.”

  “Use the wall one in there. Halfway along.”

  He got up and left the two of them sitting there. Hetty was still holding the rake she’d used to level the sand. She moved it idly back and forth, making little rings in the ground around her metal foot, crooning a song. She stopped as soon as Hopper spoke.

  “How many people know about this place?”

  “Enough.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  Hetty took a deep breath and let it out slowly, considering her answer. “Everyone lost something, even here. But these people, they lost everything. Seems like they should have someplace they can go, at least. Not much to ask.”

  “What about you? Where are you from?”

  “Belgium. Breadbasket, now. But it used to be Belgium.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “When your country arrived.”

  Hopper ignored the slight. “How did you live after you got here?”

  “Got lucky. Got a job as a servant. Working in a rich man’s house, looking after him. He had no family. When he died, he left me the house. That was before Law 12.” That was the law that allowed the government to requisition property and banned the foreign-born from inheriting it. “That was twenty years ago. Then I sold the house and came here.” Hetty paused, then rubbed her eye.

  “Your home. What was it like before?”

  “Like everywhere. It was just like here was before the Stop. Not now, though. Now it’s . . .” She shrugged. “Like hell.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My husband, Tomas. When you came . . . when your people came, he was still in our town. Ghent, it was called. We arranged I’d come here, and he got me on one of the last boats. Told me I had to find a home, wait for him. A couple of years later he got a letter over to me. Told me what it was like.

  “Everyone said I was crazy, trying to get back into that place. And I was. I got in, though. I got to see him again. They told me he was dying, and he was. And then, when he was dead, I got back out. Lost this doing it, though.” She tapped her false leg. The ring on her finger gave a sharp clink against the metal under the cloth. “That was a few years ago now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Hetty shrugged. “Not your fault. But makes me want to make some kind of space for everyone here. Everyone who’s not you.”

  “I can understand that.”

  Hetty shifted her weight and changed the subject. “So, what’s this man you’re trying to find? What’s special about him?”

  “I can’t tell you, really. We haven’t found out yet. But we think it’s important.”

  “Something to damage these people we got running the place now?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Then you got my support.” She crooned a little more, then broke off. “Yes, anything you do to damage these people wins my unambiguous support.”

  They lapsed into silence. Eventually Hetty spoke again, looking up at the iron ceiling of the little yard.

  “You and David together then?”

  “No. Not anymore.”

  “Shame. I think he likes you.” Hetty smiled at her, and Hopper was irritated to find herself blushing.

  The buzzer sounded, harsh and surprising in the courtyard. Hopper looked up and saw where the noise was coming from, a squat gray box bolted to the ceiling. A few seconds later, it buzzed again, twice this time, and as it did, they heard running footsteps. David arrived back in the courtyard. He was breathless.

  “Hetty, I can’t tell for sure, but outside . . . I think it’s police. Plainclothes. Three at least. I saw them on the monitor by the phone.”

  Distantly, from the other end of the warehouse, they heard someone beating on the metal door, clanging and resonant. The hammering ended, and after a few seconds of silence, a dull thud sounded—a rich, heavy noise, like a gong being luxuriously struck. After five seconds of echo, the reverberations were cut off by another blow, ringing the length of the warehouse.

  “They’re knocking the door in.”

  Hetty stood. One of the slats of light streaming from the roof caught her leg, making it gleam. “There’s a door in that wall. Leads to the street. Quiet that way. Your best chance. Go.”

  “But—”

  “Go.”

  David grabbed Hopper’s arm and pulled her to one side. As she moved, she saw a flicker of daylight from the other end of the warehouse as the far door crumpled under the force of the battering ram. Hetty was moving smoothly along the warehouse wall, inconspicuous in her dark jerkin.

  The door at the side of the courtyard was old and rusted over, almost completely invisible in the darkness of the wall. It opened out, hatefully noisily, at David’s leaning, into a filthy, abandoned alley, lined with weeds and stinking of decay.

  He pushed the door closed behind him, and found a thick iron grille lying on the ground in the alley, covered in the soft remains of dead invertebrates and rotting fungus. He wedged it in front of the door to stop it being opened.

  Hopper pushed ahead of him, only to hear him say, “Not that way. They’ll be in the street.” She moved back in the other direction. As they moved, the sharp pang of a gunshot came from the warehouse, followed by the tinkle of shattered glass.

  David jumped. “Jesus.”

  Two more shots followed, and then the boom of a larger gun, a shotgun. A volley of shots answered it.

  A few meters along was another doorway, barely visible in the gloom, and just as old as the one they had come through. There were others all along the alley but David placed his hands to this one, hammered and hauled, to no avail. Behind them Hopper could hear voices growing louder from inside the warehouse, approaching the courtyard. One of them was high and imperious. A woman’s voice. Warwick.

  They were in the courtyard now, and Hopper could hear them shoving at the alley door. She looked to the next door along, beyond the one they stood at now. But she could see it was padlocked shut from the outside, and the next one was too far away, and at the other end, a matchstick of sunlight marked the street, where there were doubtless more officers waiting.

  She looked around for a weapon. Nothing. And then two low flat blows sounded on the other side of the door David had been struggling to open. He stepped back. It opened outward, and they tumbled inside.

  The space beyond was pitch-black. They were shoved to one side by unknown hands—one person, two?—as the door was pulled shut. She heard the clatter from the alley as the police finally blundered through the door from the warehouse: heard their steps suddenly irresolute, faced with choice. Two sets moved away; two others approached, and hammered on the door they had come through.

  They stood in the dark, close enough to feel each other, side by side. David found her hand and squeezed it, briefly and urgently. And then a third figure, the one who had pulled them inside, moved sideways and opened a tiny grille in the door to the alleyway at eye height. Hopper shrank away as a beam shone in, illuminating a slice of their rescuer’s face. All she saw was a high cheekbone, and one unblinking eye.

  “Has anyone been here? Anyone approached this building?” It was a man’s voice. She thought it sounded like Blake.

  “Nobody. This is a plague house. Quarantine.” She heard the man on the other side step back a pace.

  “Hear anybody come by?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If you hear anything, contact the police immediately. Failing to comply is an offense.”

  “Thank you, Officer. I understand.” And then the grille clos
ed abruptly, leaving them in the dark, silent and trembling.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  In the close darkness of the plague house, they heard footsteps moving away smartly up the alley, hammering on the next door, then the next, into nothing. Perhaps two minutes passed. Hopper could hear David’s breathing, her own pulse thudding. From the stranger there was no noise, apart from a tiny rustle of fabric. Eventually, after an unknown spell floating in the blackness, they heard the voice again. “All right. Let’s see you.” There was a click, and the space they were in was suffused with a sickly gray light.

  They were in another courtyard, shaped like the one they had left, but arranged differently. The roof was bricked over, allowing no light in. The only furniture consisted of twin iron benches, chained down, flanking the entrance to the building.

  The man before them was slim, well over six foot tall, his head shaved and polished, his nose aquiline. His bare head gleamed, reflecting the weak strip light overhead, and he wore a gray, formless robe, folded and refolded around his limbs.

  “Where are we?” Hopper asked.

  “This is a hospital for incurables.” His voice was deep—speaking what used to be called the King’s English—and as smooth as the rest of him. His hands were almost all bone: long, slim fingers unencumbered by flesh. His eyes were low-lidded and gray.

  David spoke next. “The police . . . they want us. Not for a good reason. We’re innocent.”

  “You don’t need to tell me any more.”

  “Can we stay a few hours?”

  “Yes. We’ll find you a space.”

  “Is it safe to be here? With the . . . incurables?”

  “Not very. But there’s no danger from us. We’re the doctors.” The man moved to the other side of the courtyard, opened a door, and gestured for them to follow him.

  Inside, they climbed a gantry to a long, tall gallery. Below them, beneath clear plastic sheeting stretched taut over metal frames, they saw the main hall of the hospital.