She texted Jack to meet her outside the police station after her shift the next morning. She would tell him about Amanda and then take him for coffee. That was supporting her staff. Not that Jack was like staff.
Stella nearly said that she had the name of another street and was making friends with the administrator, as he’d suggested, but Jack might ask why she had changed her mind about talking about the case and she didn’t know.
Jack had not replied by the time she was back in her flat, had cleaned her teeth and was in bed. Stella stared at the phone, willing it to spring to life. She had no idea where he was. She diverted herself by trying once more to recall the dead driver’s name and, unsuccessful, she fell asleep.
Stella awoke some time later and lay trying to make sense of a blue glow on the ceiling. She had received a text.
Will do. Stuff to tell you. Jx.
Jack never put kisses. Stella jolted awake. It was not true that she had no idea where he was. She clicked the location symbol beside the speech bubble and brought up a map in the centre of which a bright blue dot was winking.
Five minutes later, keeping to the speed limit, Stella crossed the borough boundary into Hammersmith.
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
‘Jack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack jump over
The candle stick.’
In the cold sepulchral hall Jack remained by Reception until he was sure his Host was not in earshot. Stella had assumed the person following him last night was male. He had not corrected her, because the truth had dawned and it was all he could do to hide his agitation. His Host was following him. Stella would not understand; nor did he want her to.
‘You’re late,’ the old man growled.
‘Sorry.’
‘I like punctuality.’ He was querulous.
Jack scooted along the crawl space and popped up beside him in the river.
‘That space is cleared for the new build, but I don’t have the information. That dealership at the junction is coming down soon.’ He stabbed a finger at a low white building on the corner of King Street and St Peter’s Square. ‘The demolition site will need fencing off when the time comes.’
‘Are you sure? That square is listed.’
The man glared at him. Jack snatched up a Stanley knife and poked it into mud at the river’s edge.
‘The river’s crumbling by the Harrods Depository. I could do that.’ Jack indicated a threadbare patch near Hammersmith Bridge. On the south bank the towpath went as far as the borough boundary. He knew it well: a night-time route for more than one Host. The willingness of anyone to choose it in the dark told Jack that person had the mind of a murderer.
Jack was pleased the old man had not bowed to convention and painted the river blue. The Thames was never blue. He had coloured it according to differing weather and the currents. At the Bell Steps it was the sheet-metal grey of the thick cloud, with a scrawl of scum drifting downstream. On the north bank, stained cotton signified slime strung from iron mooring hoops – tiny washers daubed burnt umber for rust – exposed at low tide.
‘I can start now.’
‘Too late.’
Jack heard the key turn. His Host was back.
‘You’re late.’
‘Sorry, I was delayed. It’s time for bed.’
The old man dipped beneath the streets and on all fours pushed past Jack along the tunnel. He called out, ‘Did you get the new book?’
‘No. I had to see someone. I’ll get you a nice hot drink.’
From the wheezing and grunting Jack guessed she was helping her father out of the other end. The reek of solvent did not offset the stink of urine. He heard the two move like a slow sack race across the floorboards. Once again the old man had hidden him. The street-mending was their secret. He felt absurdly joyful, it was a long time since he and his dad had built model bridges and tunnels – being engineers together.
‘Who were you talking to?’ Her tone was bright and by the way.
Jack broke into a sweat. She had been trailing him. She knew he was there.
‘Who do you talk to when you’re alone?’ the man wheezed.
The light in the tunnel was extinguished. Jack heard the door close.
He flashed his torch over deserted streets: a searchlight panning the city. The roads were lit in high relief and he soon found Marquis Way and Britton Drive. The dilapidation was precise: the laundry, the bricks streaked with a mix of putty and typing fluid. Fine wire was sprayed green for weeds; peeling emulsion dried and flaked represented nettles.
The wasteland was lumpy with grit and more green wire for the sycamore saplings. Discarded doll’s furniture and scraps of paper lying amid actual soil created seamless reality. Jack was used to passing sprawling acres with ripped sofas, their guts spilling, upturned fridges, splintered planks of wood and rusting oil drums metres from manicured gated communities like Stella’s. In these pockets of nondescript land, bounded by razor wire, awaiting regeneration, his Hosts walked unafraid.
One road ran for over a quarter of a metre without interruption and came up hard against the railway tracks at the Chiswick border. Jack moved the torchlight along the long straight tarmac in search of a name.
Spelling Way. Two more streets ran off the edge of the model, one overshadowed by a gasometer and a straggle of rundown warehouses. Taking care not to snap chimneys and aerials he narrowed the beam and found an enamelled square on a wall. From the river hatch he couldn’t read it, so he risked discovery and crawled out. If his Host walked in now he would have to introduce himself. Jack was appalled to discover the idea frightened him.
He circled the model and noted another long road. He memorized the name. It had a high wall along much of the length and a disused factory building on the other that looked as if redevelopment had begun and been abandoned. He recognized Mafeking Avenue. It wasn’t in any of Terry’s photographs. Tolworth Street, not far from where Stella’s mother lived, was shorter than the others. Jack had abandoned Stella tonight. He would make up for it with this new information.
He paused outside the kitchen where he could hear the kettle filling. She could come out any moment. He was a high-wire walker without a net, tempting fate. Outside the flat, he made himself take the key down from the lintel, fit it into the lock and silently close the door. He replaced it.
Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock…
Singing under his breath, Jack climbed over the wall and affected a stroll up to King Street to stop himself running like a mad thing. The ornate gates to Ravenscourt Park tempted him in, but that was unfair, his Host would never scale them. He must give her a fighting chance. He circled the area, dipping down one street and up another, sauntering like a true flâneur, leading her a merry dance. Jack borrowed the phrase from another Host. Round and round we go.
He was on the Great West Road. The rain was fine, insidious; he hugged into his coat. But, like a veil, the rain soaked the wool and plastered his hair to his head.
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby, cradle and all.
Jack strolled down the ramp to the subway beneath the carriageway. He disguised his gait – a precaution against new technical means of recognition – with a slight limp. Without checking the mirror that reflected the passage, he went inside.
A person, hooded and shapeless in the poor light, was waiting halfway along.
Sunday, 4 September 1966
Her mum had stuck up Michael’s map of the world on his bedroom wall, just as in their old house, so he wouldn’t miss his old room. But it made Michael think of it and so he missed it more. He could look out of the window and see his new swing; the present for no reason since he’d had his birthday and it was too early for Christmas. Michael was scared of swinging. He didn’t like it being outside his window.
There was no map on the wall now. Mary looked for the marks from the tape that had held it up, but couldn’t find it amongst all the scuffs and bumps on the wallpaper. Perhaps the map and Michael were made up and had never been there at all.
Her dad was cutting the grass. He had slung the swing over the top bar, making it too high for Michael. Even when it was in its proper place it was too high for him. Her dad was mowing stripes on the lawn. When he faced the house Mary waved, but he did not see her.
Michael’s fluffy sheepskin rug had gone. So had his toys and clothes. Mary stood where his bed had been in what was now thin air. The map was a waste because Michael couldn’t read.
She was not going to have to change her name when she went to secondary school. She had made her dad cross when she asked. He said to say she was an only child. ‘An only child.’ She practised the phrase to herself.
She would be going on the bus on her own. Michael didn’t know she would do this. He would have been frightened to be on a bus all by himself. She leant on his bedroom windowsill and looked out beyond the swing to her secret mosaic by the bushes. Her dad was pushing the mower too close to it. She prayed he wouldn’t find it. She prayed to Michael’s Angel.
An only child. There was only her. She did not have to share with Michael or anyone. No one at the new school would know she had once had a brother. No one would like him better than her.
Mary went out of Michael’s room and shut the door. In her own bedroom she dragged out the duffel bag from its new hiding place in the bottom of the wardrobe.
The Angel’s hands got larger every time she saw them. She laid them out on the carpet, the curving fingers pointing downwards. Slowly she scraped them along the floor. The fingers made a track on the carpet. When she did it the marks were the same. She could have angel hands. Like Michael. She waved one of the hands in the air.
‘Whoooh!’ She floated it in front of Michael’s face, making him fall backwards. ‘Scaredy cat!’ She laid the hand down on the floor palms up. Her voice caught her by surprise. She tried again.
‘Give me your marbles.’
No
.
‘Now.’
I’ll swap some with you.
‘You don’t have anything to swap.’
You can have my nature collection instead… I have the marbles to swap. What have you got?
Mary scrabbled under her bed and found the sweet jar. She slithered backwards and banged her head on the iron bedstead; it really hurt. ‘I have these.’
That’s not fair.
Now that he was dead Michael heard everything she said and everything she thought. That was one of the bad things. Mary unscrewed the lid and sniffed inside. The marbles didn’t smell of Michael. The glass was hard and cold like the Angel’s hands. ‘One, two, three, four, five.’ That was enough. She grabbed two more and grouped them together. She became a snake to scare Michael. ‘Sssssssss!’ She returned the jar to its secret place.
The hands were praying. She had not left them like that. She opened them out again and looked about her. Her satchel was on her table from when she got home. She unbuckled it and tipped out the contents: her pencil case and the book she had borrowed from the school library –
Charlotte’s Web
, a story about spiders. Michael didn’t like spiders. At last her Trees of Britain collection. She put it in front of the hands.
‘I’ll swap you these. I collected all of them, which is fifty. You can swap for your marbles.’ She gathered up the marbles and tipped them into the hollow of the Angel’s right hand, keeping the album in her own hand.
There’s only seven marbles.
‘You can’t count.’
I can, up to twenty. That’s seven for fifty cards. Is that fair?
‘It’s fair,’ Mary whispered. Voices in the hall. Her dad must have finished doing the grass. ‘Michael, do as you’re told,’ she added in her mum’s voice. It wasn’t how her mum talked any more.
The little girl dropped the Brooke Bond tea album and the marbles into the duffel bag and lifted up the cold hands. She dipped her arm into the bag and placed them on top of the album. She tied the drawstring tight and secreted the bag in the wardrobe.
‘Come and get your tea,’ her dad shouted up the stairs.
Mary, I’m glad you didn’t run away after all.
Mary was on the landing. There was no one there. There was only her. Only.
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
‘Where are you going?’ The question resounded in the tiled tunnel.
Above on the Great West Road, traffic rumbled despite it being the first hours of the morning. If Jack shouted for help, no one would hear. There was no one to hear. His tongue like leather, he managed, ‘Where are you going?’ Stupid to be smart with strangers, he really was losing his touch.
The figure moved into one of the watery pools of light and yanked back the hood.
‘I saw you coming out of the school on King Street, near that fountain where I picked you up on Monday night. You promised to stop this, whatever it is.’
Stella. Jack slumped against tiles. Water ran down his face; he rubbed it with a palm. ‘It’s not what you think,’ he protested weakly.
‘It’s exactly what I think. More to the point it’s against the law!’ Stella, bulky in her anorak, glared at him. The words tumbled out.
‘That person following me is a True Host. I—’
‘What exactly is a “True Host”?’
‘A murderer. There’s another sort: I call them Hosts. They might kill but haven’t yet. I have to stop them. You’d do the same.’
This was true. Stella always tried to do what she called the right thing.
‘I don’t break into houses. That’s illegal!’
Water splattered from an overflow pipe. Then came the rumble of a stream of traffic that had cleared the lights at the Hogarth roundabout. The familiar sounds calmed him. Perhaps Stella too, for in a softer tone she said, ‘I’ll take you back to my flat to dry off. Hot milk and honey?’