Slade House (4 page)

The flame comes to life, and the symbols on the candlestick change, and keep changing as if it's thinking fast and the symbols are its thoughts. Jonah Grayer's head shifts. His clothes rustle. “Your mother sends her apologies,” he says, touching his face as if he's testing whether it still fits. “She had to leave.” I try to ask “Why? Where?” but nothing I need to speak—jaw, tongue, lips—works. Why would Mum leave without me? The me in the mirror gazes back. Neither of us can move. Norah Grayer's flexing her fingers like she's just waking up. Did they inject me with something? “Every time I come back to my body,” she says, “it feels less of a homecoming, and more like entering an alien shell. A more enfeebled one. Do you know, I want to be free of it?”

“Be careful what you wish for,” says Jonah. “If anything happened to your birth-body, your soul would dissolve like a sugar cube and—”

“I know perfectly well what would happen.” Norah Grayer's voice is chillier and throatier now. “The hairdresser paid an uninvited visit, I saw.”

Jonah asks, “What hairdresser are you talking about?”

“Our previous guest. Your ‘Honey Pie.' She appeared in a window. Then on the stairs, by her portrait, she tried to give some sort of a warning to the boy.”

“Her afterimage showed up in a window, you mean. It happens. The girl is gone, as gone as a smoke ring puffed out years ago in a gale off Rockall. It's harmless.”

A brownish moth fusses around the candle flame.

“They're getting bolder,” says Norah Grayer. “The time will come when a ‘harmless afterimage' will sabotage an Open Day.”

“If—
if—
our Theater of the Mind were ever ‘sabotaged' and a guest escaped, we'd simply call our friends the Blackwatermen to bring them back again. That's why we pay them. Handsomely.”

“You underestimate ordinary people, Jonah. You always did.”

“Would it kill you, sister, to once, just
once,
say, ‘Top job, a superb orison, you've landed us a juicy, tenderized soul to pay the power bills for the next nine years—
bon appetit!
'?”

“Your African lodge could not have been a cornier ersatz mishmash, brother, if Tarzan had swung in on a vine.”

“It wasn't sup
posed
to be real; it only had to match the Bushveld the guest i
mag
ined. Anyway, the boy's mentally abnormal. He hasn't even noticed his lungs have stopped working.” Jonah now looks at me like Gaz Ingram does.

It's true. I'm not breathing. My switched-off body hasn't raised the alarm. I don't want to die.
I don't want to die
.

“Oh, stop sniveling, for Christ's sake,” groans Jonah. “I cannot abide snivelers. Your father would be ashamed of you. Why,
I
never sniveled when I was your age.”

“ ‘Never sniveled'?” snorts Norah. “When Mother died—”

“Let's reminisce later, sister. Dinner is served. It's warm, confused, afraid, it's imbibed banjax, and it's ready for filleting.”

The Grayer twins make letters in the air with their hands. There's a slow thickening in the dark, above the candle, at a little above head height. The thickening becomes a something. Something fleshy, lumpish, fist-size, pulsing blood red, wine red, blood red, wine red, faster and brighter, the size of a human head, but more like a heart as big as a football, just suspended there. Veins grow out of it, like jellyfish tentacles, and twist like ivy through the air. They're coming for me. I can't turn my head or even shut my eyes. Some of the vein-things finger their way into my mouth, others into my ears, two up my nostrils. When I see my reflection, I'd scream if I could, or pass out, but I can't. Then a dot of pain opens up on my forehead.

In the mirror, there's a black spot there. Something…

…oozes out, and hovers there inches from my eyes, look: a clear cloud of stars, small enough to fit in your cupped palms. My soul.

Look.

Look
.

Beautiful as, as…

Beautiful
.

The Grayer twins lean in, their faces shining like Christmas, and I know what they're hungry for. They pucker up their lips and suck. The round cloud stretches doughily into two smaller round clouds…and splits. One half of my soul goes into Jonah's mouth, and the other into Norah's. They shut their eyes like Mum did the time we saw Vladimir Ashkenazy at the Royal Albert Hall. Bliss.
Bliss
. Inside my skull, I howl and my howl echoes on and on and on and on but nothing lasts forever…The big beating heart-thing's gone, and the Grayer twins are back kneeling where they were before. Time's slowed down to nothing. The flame's stopped flickering. The brownish moth is frozen an inch away from it. Cold bright star white. The Nathan in the mirror's gone, and if he's gone, I'm—

“Good evening, here are today's headlines at six o'clock on Saturday, October the twenty-second. Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street today, the home secretary, Douglas Hurd, rejected criticism of the government's ban on broadcast interviews with members of the Irish Republican party, Sinn Féin. Mr. Hurd said—”
I switched off the radio, got out of my car and looked up at the pub. The Fox and Hounds. A memory came back to me, of me and Julie popping in for a drink here one time. We were house-hunting, and we'd viewed a place on Cranbury Avenue, one street up. It'd sounded all right in the estate agent's but a right bloody shithole it turned out to be—damp, gloomy, with a garden too small to bury a corpse in, it was so depressing we needed a liquid pick-me-up just to face the drive home. Five years ago, that was. Five years, one wedding, one dismal honeymoon in Venice, four Christmases with Julie's god-awful pinko tree-hugging relatives, fifteen hundred bowls of Shredded Wheat, two hundred and fifty bottles of wine, thirty haircuts, three toasters, three cats, two promotions, one Vauxhall Astra, a few boxes of Durex, two emergency visits to the dentist, dozens of arguments of assorted sizes and one beefed-up assault charge later, Julie's still living in our cottage with a view of woods and horses, and I'm in a flat behind the multistory car park. Mr. Justice Jones said I was lucky I wasn't booted out of the force. Thank God me and Julie'd never had kids, otherwise she'd be shafting me for child support as well as compensation for her “disfigurement.” Grasping bitch. Five years gone. Blink of a bloody eye.

I set off down Westwood Road, eyes peeled. I asked a woman in a miniskirt and ratty fake fur coat—on the game, I'd bet a tenner—if she'd heard of Slade Alley, but she shook her head and strode by without stopping. A jogger ran past in a blur of orange and black but joggers are tossers. Three Asian kids went trundling past on skateboards, but I'd had enough of our curry-munching cousins for one day so I didn't ask them. The multi-culty brigade bleat on about racism in the force, but I'd like to see them keep order in a town full of Everywherestanis whose only two words of English are “police” and “harassment,” and whose alleged women walk about in tall black tents. There's more to public order than holding hands and singing “Ebony and Ivory.”

The streetlights came on and it was looking like it might rain: the sort of weather that used to give Julie her mysterious headaches. I was tired after a long and stressful day and at the “sod this for a game of soldiers” stage, and if our chief super was anyone but Trevor Doolan I'd have buggered off home to the remains of last night's tandoori takeaway, had a laugh at the Sharons and Waynes on
Blind Date
, then seen if Gonzo and a few of the lads were up for a pint. Unfortunately Trevor Doolan
is
our chief super and a walking bloody lie detector to boot, and come Monday he'd be asking me some rectal probe of a question that I'd only be able to answer if I'd really followed up Famous Fred Pink's “lead.” It'd be “Describe this alley to me, then, Edmonds…” or some such. With my appraisal in November and the Malik Inquiry due to report in two weeks, my tongue has to stay firmly up Doolan's arse. So down Westwood Road I trogged, looking left, looking right, searching high and low for Slade Alley. Could it have been blocked off since Fred Pink's day, I wondered, and the land given to the house-owners? The Council sometimes do that, with our blessing; alleyways are trouble spots. I got to the end of the road where the A2 skims past a park and dropped my fag down a gutter. A guy with a busted nose was sat behind the wheel of a St. John ambulance and I nearly asked him if he knew Slade Alley, but then I thought,
Bugger it,
and headed back towards my car. Maybe a swift beer at The Fox and Hounds, I thought. Exorcise Julie's ghost.

About halfway back down Westwood Road I happened upon an altercation between a five-foot-nothing traffic warden and two brick shithouses at least eighteen inches taller, wearing fluorescent yellow jackets and with their backs to me. Builders, I could just bloody tell. None of the trio noticed me strolling up behind them. “Then your little notebook's
wrong
.” Builder One was prodding the traffic warden on the knot of his tie. “We weren't here until
after
four, gettit?”

“I was 'ere,” wheezed the traffic warden, who was the spit of that Lech Wa
łę
sa, that Polish leader, but with an even droopier mustache. “My watch—”

“Your little watch is telling you porkies,” said Builder Two.

The traffic warden was turning pink. “My watch is accurate.”

“I hope you're a good performer in court,” said Builder One, “ 'cause if there's one thing juries hate more than traffic wardens, it's
short,
little Napoleon, privatized traffic wardens.”

“My height's nothing to do with illegal flamin' parking!”

“Ooh, the F-word!” said Builder Two. “Verbal abuse, that is. And he didn't call me ‘sir' once. You're a disgrace to your clip-on tie.”

The traffic warden scribbled on his ticket book, tore off the page and clipped it under the wiper of a dirty white van they were standing next to. “You've got fourteen days to pay or face prosecution.”

Builder One snatched the parking ticket off the windscreen, wiped it on his arse and scrumpled it up.

“Very tough,” said Lech Wa
łę
sa, “but you'll still have to pay.”

“Will we? 'Cause we both heard you ask for a bribe. Didn't we?”

Builder Two folded his arms. “He asked for fifty quid. I could hardly believe my ears. Could you believe your ears?”

The traffic warden's jaw worked up and down: “I did not!”

“Two against one. Mud sticks, my faggoty friend. Think about your little pension. Do the clever thing, turn round, and go—”

“What
I
just heard was conspiracy to bear false witness,” I said, and both builders swiveled round, “and to pervert the course of justice.” The older of the two had a broken nose and a shaved head. The younger one was a freckled carrottop with raisin eyes too close together. He spat out some chewing gum onto the pavement between us. “Plus litter offenses,” I added.

The Broken Nose stepped up and peered down. “And you are?”

Now I'm not one to boast, but I cut my teeth in the Brixton riots and earned a commendation for bravery at the Battle of Orgreave. It takes more than a hairy plasterer to put the shits up me. “Detective Inspector Gordon Edmonds, CID, Thames Valley Police.” I flashed my ID. “Here's a suggestion. Pick up that ticket
and
that gum; climb into your pile-of-shit van; go; and pay that fine on Monday. That way I might not bring a tax audit down on you on Tuesday. What's that face for? Don't you like my fucking language?
Sir?
”

Me and the traffic warden watched them drive off. I lit up a smoke and offered one to Lech Wa
łę
sa, but he shook his head. “No, thanks all the same. My wife would murder me. I've given up. Apparently.”

Pussy-whipped: no surprise. “Bit of a thankless job, huh?”

He put away his pad. “Yours, mine or being married?”

“Ours.” I'd meant his. “Serving the Great British Public.”

He shrugged. “At least you get to put the boot in sometimes.”

“
Moi?
Poster boy for community policing, me.”

A Bob Marley look-alike walked straight at us. The traffic warden stood to one side, but I didn't. The Dreadlocked Wonder missed me by a provocative centimeter. The traffic warden glanced at his watch. “Just happened to be passing, Detective Inspector?”

“Yes and no,” I told him. “I'm looking for an alleyway called Slade Alley, but I'm not sure it even exists. Do you know it?”

Lech Wa
łę
sa gave me a look that started off puzzled; then he smiled, stepped aside and did a flourish like a crap magician to reveal a narrow alleyway cutting between two houses. It turned left at a corner twenty yards away, under a feeble lamp mounted high up.

“This is it?” I asked.

“Yep. Look, there's the sign.” He pointed at the side of the right-hand house where, sure enough, a smeary old street sign read
SLADE ALLEY
.

“Shag me,” I said. “Must've walked straight past it.”

“Well, y'know. One good turn deserves another. Better be off now—no rest for the wicked, and all that. See you around, Officer.”

Inside the alley, the air was colder than out on the street. I walked down to the first corner, where the alley turned left and ran for maybe fifty paces before turning right. From up above, Slade Alley'd look like half a swastika. High walls ran along the entire length, with no overlooking windows. Talk about a mugger's paradise. I walked down the middle section, just so I'd be able to look Chief Super Doolan in his beady eye and tell him I inspected every foot of Slade Alley, sir, and found doodly bloody squat, sir. Which is why I came across the small black iron door, about halfway down the middle section on the right. It was invisible till you were on top of it. It only came up to my throat and was about two feet wide. Now, like most people, I'm many things—a West Ham supporter, a Swampy from the Isle of Sheppey, a freshly divorced single man, a credit-card debtor owing my Flexible Friend over £2,000 and counting—but I'm also a copper, and as a copper I can't see a door opening onto a public thoroughfare without checking if it's locked. Specially when it's getting dark. The door had no handle but when my palm pressed the metal, lo and behold the bloody thing just swung open easy as you please. So I stooped down a bit to peer through…

…and where I'd expected a shitty little yard, I found this long garden with terraces and steps and trees, all the way up to a big house. Sure, the garden'd gone to seed a bit, with weeds and brambles and stuff, and the pond and shrubbery'd seen better days, but it was pretty breathtaking even so. There were roses still blooming, and the big high wall around the garden must've sheltered the fruit trees because they still had most of their leaves. And Jesus Christ, the house…A real mansion, it was. Grander than all the other houses around, half covered with red ivy. Big tall windows, steps going up to the front door, the lot. The curtains were drawn, but the house sort of glowed like vanilla fudge in the last of the evening light. Just beautiful. Must be worth a bloody mint, specially with the housing market going through the roof right now. So why oh why oh why had the owners left the garden door open for any Tom Dick or Harry to amble in and do the place over? They must be bloody mental. No burglar alarm either, so far as I could see. That really got my goat—'cause guess who gets the job of picking up the pieces when the houses of the rich get broken into? The boys in blue. So I found myself walking up the stony path to give the owner a talking-to about domestic security.

My hand was on the knocker when a soft quiet voice said, “Can I help you?” and I turned round to find this woman at the foot of the steps. She was about my age, blond, with bumps in all the right places under a man's baggy granddad shirt and gardening trousers. Quite a looker, even in her Wellies.

“Detective Inspector Edmonds, Thames Valley Police.” I walked down the steps. “Good evening. Are you the owner of this property, madam?”

“Yes, I—I'm Chloe Chetwynd.” She held out her hand the way some women do, fingers together and knuckles upwards, so it's hard to shake properly. I noticed her wedding ring. “How can I help you, Detective…uh, oh God, forgive me, your name—it came and went.”

“Edmonds, Mrs. Chetwynd. Detective Inspector.”

“Of course, I…” Chloe Chetwynd's hand fluttered near her head. Then she asked the standard question: “Has anything happened?”

“Not yet, Mrs. Chetwynd, no; but unless you get a lock on that garden gate, something will happen. I could have been anyone. Think about it.”

“Oh gosh, the gate!” Chloe Chetwynd pushed a strand of waxy gold hair off her face. “It had a, a sort of…wire clasp thing, but it rusted away, and I meant to do something about it, but my husband died in June, and everything's been a bit…messy.”

That explains a lot. “Right, well, I'm sorry to hear about your loss, but a burglar'd leave your life one
hell
of a lot messier. Who else lives here with you, Mrs. Chetwynd?”

“Just me, Detective. My sister stayed on for a fortnight after Stuart died, but she has family in King's Lynn. And my cleaner comes in twice a week, but that's all. Me, the mice and the things that go bump in the night.” She did a nervous little smile that wasn't really a smile.

Tall purple flowers swayed. “Do you have a dog?”

“No. I find dogs rather…slavish?”

“Slavish or not, they're better security than a ‘wire clasp thing.' I'd get a triple mortice lock fitted top, middle and bottom, with a steel frame. People forget a door's only as tough as its frame. It'll cost you a bit, but a burglary'll cost you more.”

“A ‘triple mortar lock'?” Chloe Chetwynd chewed her lip.

Jesus Christ the rich are bloody hopeless. “Look, down at the station we use a contractor. He's from Newcastle upon Tyne so you'll only catch one word in five, but he owes me a favor. Chances are he'll drop by in the morning if I give him a bell tonight. Would you like me to call him?”

Chloe Chetwynd did a big dramatic sigh. “Gosh, would you? I'd be so grateful. DIY was never my forte, alas.”

Before I could reply, footsteps came pounding down the side of the house. Two kids were about to appear, running at full pelt, and I even stepped onto the lowest step to give them a clear run…

…but the footsteps just faded away. Must've been kids next door and some acoustic trick. Chloe Chetwynd was giving me an odd look, however. “Did you hear them?”