The Shadow Cabinet (15 page)

Her eyelashes moved. Her eyelids wrinkled, and she opened and closed her mouth silently. Then both eyes fluttered open, ever so slowly, and Charlotte was looking up at me.

“Rory?”

“Hey,” I said. “You're okay.”

“Where am I?”

“We're going to get you help. We're on our way to a doctor now. You're going to be fine.”

“I feel fine,” she said dreamily.

“Good,” I said.

“Keep her talking,” Thorpe said. “We'll be there soon.”

I've had some awkward conversations in my life, but this was a new one for me. I had my hand in Charlotte's hair and her head in my lap, and she was gazing up at me with the gentle trust of a puppy. It was deeply unnerving.

“So,” I said, “you feel okay? You're okay?”

“I'm very tired. I feel like I've . . . I've been sleeping for ages.”

Charlotte's focus turned to a point above my eyes.

“Your hair,” she said, “did you cut it?”

By the way she asked, it was clear that she was wondering why I'd committed such an act on my own scalp. Charlotte was still in the building.

“Am I late?” she asked.

“You're not late for anything.”

“I must be late. I must be . . .” She twisted her head around, looking left to right. “Are we going somewhere?”

“To a doctor,” I said again.

“Oh, that seems silly. I'm just sleepy. Who are you?”

This was to Freddie, who was leaning back between the front seats.

“Freddie Sellars.”

“You don't go to Wexford,” Charlotte said, squinting in concentration.

“No, I'm—”

“Freddie,” Thorpe said, in a warning tone.

“A . . . friend of Rory's?”

Charlotte stirred, and I helped her sit up. She was heavy and uncoordinated, like she was drunk. She lolled back against the seat.

“Where are we going?” she asked again. “Whose car is this?”

“It's mine,” Thorpe said. “I'm with the security services, and you're being taken to a doctor.”

“The security services?”

She looked out the car window, as if the explanation she was seeking was in the view.

“You were abducted several days ago,” Thorpe said. “I believe you've been drugged.”

Charlotte considered this information for a moment.

“I've been with Jane,” she said. “I was in the house—I was at Jane's. And then I was in a different house. But I can't remember why.”

“I'm going to ask you some questions,” Thorpe said. “Is that all right?”

“Oh, it's fine.”

“Were you hurt?”

“I don't think so,” she said. “I'm just quite tired.”

“Can you tell me about the people who were at that house? Can you tell me who they were? How many of them there were?”

Charlotte considered this for a moment.

“Jane was there. And Devina. And a blond boy. I don't know . . .”

“That's good,” Thorpe said. “That's fine. What else can you tell me?”

“They were always nice to me,” she said. “No one hurt me. We ate a lot of soup and bread. And sometimes I watched television. I saw myself on television, on the news.”

Which was creepy. But not nearly as creepy as the next thing she said.

“They gave me a bath. Everything after the bath . . .”

“What do you mean, they gave you a bath?” Thorpe asked.

“They put me in the bath—with my clothes on, not naked—and something happened, I can't remember, and I woke up and I was soaked all over, my head and all. I must have been under the water. Then they gave me lots of towels and a dry robe, and we had tea. And they . . . oh, yes, they let me come into the garden for a moment. It was night. There were a lot of stars out. Now I remember. They said, ‘Now you can see.' And then, the next day, I met a man who wasn't there . . . Is that a poem? I met a man who wasn't there . . .”

Freddie looked at me.

“Charlotte,” I said, “you had this bath, and then you saw someone who wasn't there?”

“In the garden. I know how it sounds. I can't explain it. It was mad. But it was wonderful. It was like he was made of air, but he was real. Jane and the others talked a lot, but I never understood what they were talking about. They said that it was time.”

“Time for what?” Thorpe asked.

“Let me think.” Even half drugged, Prefect Charlotte was in there, ready to give her answers carefully. “One morning they were very excited because they were close to finding out where it was.”

“Where what was?” Thorpe prompted.

“The stone.” There was a touch of impatience, as if Thorpe hadn't quite been following along. “They needed the stone to start. I don't know exactly what was happening, but they seemed to have figured something out, and they said they were close to getting it. That's the last I remember hearing. Are we going to the British Museum?”

We were passing a large building, and I supposed that she was correct and that was what it was.

“We're going to a house,” Thorpe said. “A doctor I know lives there. She knows you're coming.”

When we pulled up, the door to a nearby house opened, and a woman came out to meet us. She was tall and sharply featured, with dark black skin and bright lipstick. She was dressed as conservatively as Thorpe, but with a bit more style—her blouse was creamy white and silky and tied near the neck, and her pencil skirt had a leather stripe up the side. Conservative, but probably designer. It had the look of quality and expense. She came right to the back door and opened it and took Charlotte's wrist.

“Charlotte?” she asked.

“Hello,” Charlotte said. She had gone childlike again.

“I'm Dr. Marigold. You'll be going inside now. Do you think you can walk, or do you need to be carried?”

“I think I can walk.”

“I'll help you.”

The doctor gave Thorpe a deadly look as she assisted Charlotte from the back of the car. She also had a look at me in a way that suggested she knew who I was. Then she escorted Charlotte to the door.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Someone I work with. Say as little as possible in the house. Repeat nothing you've heard in the car, do you understand? If she asks you anything, keep your answers short.”

I guessed they weren't really good friends, the doctor and Thorpe.

Where Thorpe's flat had been stark and Jane's had been some kind of retro fever dream, this woman's house spoke of refinement and tradition. There was no television, but plenty of bookshelves carefully filled with medical and science textbooks and novels. There was an assortment of medical supplies and equipment on the table—a stethoscope, a few vials of things, a needle, rubbing alcohol, and bandages. Charlotte was placed on the sofa, and the doctor listened to Charlotte's chest with the stethoscope, took her pulse, and looked into her eyes with a flashlight. She examined her legs and arms, turning her wrists around several times.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“A bit tired, but all right.”

The woman checked Charlotte's pupils again.

“It looks to me like she's been given a light sedative,” the woman said to Thorpe. “I should examine her for injuries. Everyone step out of the room, please. Into the kitchen. Straight back.”

I don't think Thorpe wanted to leave the room, but he nodded at us. Whatever silent drama was going on between him and the doctor, we weren't to know. After a few minutes, the woman joined us in the kitchen.

“No evidence of any physical trauma,” she said, washing her hands at the sink. “No bruising. No lacerations. She's been fed and hydrated. Her demeanor suggests minor sedation. She's staying here with me. You're leaving.”

“We need to discuss the other matter.”

“Not now we aren't. Take them and go.”

“I don't feel comfortable—”

“Then I'll call for an ambulance and have her transferred to hospital. Would that make you more comfortable? Or you could always . . .”

She looked at me for a moment, and I felt a chill.

Thorpe folded his arms over his chest. There was a silent confrontation. Thorpe pushed off the counter he'd been leaning against.

“Time to leave,” he said to us. “We'll be in touch.”

Back in the car, I felt safe to speak again.

“We're leaving her there?” I said.

“She's safe. She'll be cared for.”

“But who is that?”

Thorpe didn't answer.

“Look,” I said, “what about her family? Or the police? I mean, now that we found her—”

“That won't be reported yet,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because we need to find out what happened to her. I think you heard exactly what I did.”

“They gave her the sight,” Freddie said.

“Precisely. And she's describing something I don't like the sound of. Until we know what's going on, until we have someone in custody, Charlotte stays undiscovered. That means you tell no one.”

15

I
T
WAS
LATE
,
AND
WE
WERE
GATHERED
IN
THE
KITCHEN
OF
the Highgate house. Callum and Boo had waited at the house in East Acton for a while, but there was no sign of Jane or the others, so Thorpe recalled them. There weren't enough chairs for all of us, so we stood around the table eating some fish and chips. It was the first hot food I'd had in some time.

“So they took her,” Boo said. “And they didn't hurt her. But they gave her the sight?”

“If we're understanding her correctly,” Thorpe said.

“That's certainly how it sounded to me,” Freddie said. “They appear to have put her in a bath and held her underwater.”

Callum and Boo didn't look any happier that Freddie was there, but she had proved to be useful, so there was a grudging acceptance.

“But not everyone gets the sight, even if something happens to them,” I said. “Right?”

“That's the understanding,” Thorpe said. “Otherwise every hospital in the country would be full of people seeing the dead, and that's not happening. It seems to be a fairly rare trait, hence the exclusivity of your team.”

“But why,” Callum said. “Why would they want to do that?”

“Perhaps just as an experiment,” Freddie said. “But who knows if it's even possible to
confer
the sight to someone?”

“If the power of a terminus can be conferred to Rory,” Thorpe replied, “presumably other things are possible.”

“A terminus?” Freddie asked.

“What we use to take out the ghosts,” Callum said.

“I still don't understand. You're saying you have devices that can destroy ghosts?”

I was right. She had no idea.

“They were diamonds,” Boo said. “They're gone now.”

“You have
diamonds
that can do this?” Freddie said. “Diamonds?”

“We used to,” Callum said. “We lost ours. Now we just have . . .”

“You have what?” Freddie said, turning to me for an explanation.

“Me,” I said. “Something happened when I was stabbed. Whatever was in the terminus is in me now. So if I touch a ghost . . .”

“The ghost goes boom,” Callum said.

Freddie was struck into a gaping-mouth silence.

“It's a lot to get your head round,” Boo said, casually picking up a fry.

“It's more than that,” Freddie said. “If those exist, then . . . it could all be true. Amongst people who are interested in the paranormal, there's a story that in some prehistoric time, England was a gateway for the dead—London was the place of the many rivers the dead had to cross. There were pathways—ley lines. There were points of entry, like Stonehenge. All the anoraky sort of things people speculate on. I was telling Rory a little bit about this before. Stephen had some bits and pieces on the subject, but I thought it was just general interest. This theory holds that London became one of the world's major cities because it's on a point of massive power, but the power needs to be carefully controlled and maintained. At some point in the distant past, a series of powerful stones was placed around the city at certain key locations. The stones are said to possess powers to control the openings between the world of the living and the world of the dead. They're keys, I suppose. But Charlotte mentioned a stone, and if you're saying you had diamonds . . .”

She set her packet of fish down excitedly.

“Freddie,” Thorpe said, “breathe. Explain.”

In response, Freddie hurried out of the room and returned a moment later with a fistful of the photocopies from Stephen's flat.

“Stephen had this. It's a bit of academic text concerning the stealing of the crown jewels in 1671 by Thomas Blood.” She read them the passage she'd read to me earlier. “He was pardoned. That's actually true.”

“A diamond,” Boo said. “In pieces.”

“A dozen pieces,” Callum added.

“There's something else on the Eye of Isis here.” She flipped through until she found the document she wanted. “This is from a book from 1867, called
Magic of London.
Generic enough title and written by Anonymous—
A stone quite ancient, and beloved of pharaohs. It was placed in the eye of a great statue of the goddess at Heliopolis. It was said to be a brilliant blue and seemed to burn from within. Its size was said to be quite like that of a man's fist. When removed from the statue, it lost its blue color. A great battle was fought for the stone, but it was lost to time, until it reappeared in England in the time of John Dee. By then, it had decreased in size, but he regarded it as most precious and kept it secure in his rooms, saying that it was most vital to the well-being of Her Majesty. After his death, it was moved to the Tower, from whence it was stolen by Thomas Blood, most fiendish and most vile of men. The Eye of Isis was but one of eight stones. We know of one other, called the Oswulf, which is now safe from man's interference. It is to these stones that we owe our happiness. May we never know more of them, for the future of London rests with them, and they must rest forevermore, safe within the bounds of the Shadow Cabinet.
”

“The Shadow Cabinet?” Thorpe said.

“Not the government body,” Freddie said. “Same name, very different group. The Shadow Cabinet is the group that's supposed to look after these stones. They call them the Shadow Cabinet because it's a group in the shadows. It's who's really in control. That sort of thing. They're supposed to make sure they never get taken or moved. They failed once, when the Eye of Isis was taken, and that's why London is supposed to be so haunted. It was like part of the wall that protects the city came down. I always thought it was some nonsense made up by some Victorian revivalist Druids, based on nothing—a conspiracy theory amongst occultists. These are the same people who believe in the Illuminati and mind control and auras. I thought it was a story based on fact, not reflecting fact. For instance, the Oswulf Stone is a real thing. Charlotte said they needed a stone . . .”

Thorpe had set his fish down and was listening intently.

“What about this Oswulf Stone? What is it?”

“Well, I can look up the details . . .” She pulled out her phone and typed for a moment. “According to the Internet, it was a pre-Roman monolith, and it used to be by Marble Arch. It was speculated that it was a boundary marker of some kind, but no one really knows why it was there. It was just your standard mysterious bit of rock. For hundreds of years, the stone stood there, even lending its name to the area. Then the story does get a bit odd. In 1819, the stone was simply covered over in earth. Then, three years later, in 1822, they dug it back up again. It remained there for forty-seven years, leaning against Marble Arch, until 1869, at which point, it vanished. Presumably the Shadow Cabinet put it somewhere where no one could get at it.”

“So you're saying that Jane and them know where this is?” Boo said.

“It sounded like they were close to finding it,” Freddie said. “And if it's all true, this stone can open some sort of channel between the living and the dead.”

“It sounds like bollocks,” Callum said.

“I agree,” Freddie said, nodding. “Or I would have agreed just five minutes ago. But if you're telling me even
one
of these stones is real, that you have this power . . . then it could all be real. And clearly Stephen was looking into it.”

“They said they were going to destroy death,” I chimed in. “It sounded nuts before, but if there's something out there that somehow divides life and death . . .”

“Not just divides,” Freddie said. “Protects. Guards. The story goes that if the eight stones were removed, well, a gap would appear. London would become a void, the dead coming back, the living sucked in . . . who even knows? It would be very bad. The stories claim that the fact that just
one
stone was broken has resulted in London being unstable, full of the dead. And it is a quite haunted place, isn't it?”

The truth of this wasn't lost on any of us.

“If Stephen thought it was serious . . .” Boo said. “We should look into this.”

Even Callum was looking a bit more concerned.

“It does seem to be worth looking into,” Thorpe said. “Especially since Charlotte has been located. Whatever this thing is, we want to get there first.”

This ended up taking the next hour. Thorpe had his people on it, and he also looked on his own. Freddie and Boo were on computers. Callum was in charge of watching footage from a CCTV camera pointed at the house in Acton and reviewing anything that was coming in from the people who had gone through the site. None of this, however, proved to be very useful. There was very little about the Oswulf Stone, aside from what Freddie had already said—at least, nothing useful. It was just another rock in a city full of rocks. It was old, maybe about a meter high, probably used as a boundary marker. Nothing much else came up. By one in the morning, we were all so broken that Thorpe called it a night and ordered that we needed to get some sleep. Boo went home to do this and to change her clothes. Callum crashed on the living room floor on some cushions. Thorpe settled in a chair. I was sent up to the bedroom, which was arguably the most comfortable and the loneliest place in the house. I had nothing to change into for bed, so I kicked off the sneakers and climbed in in my clothes. A minute after I crawled under the stiff sheets, there was a knock on the door and Freddie poked her head inside. She was carrying the small black notebook.

“I was told we're supposed to share, but I've had plenty of sleep,” she said. “I'll crack on with this. I'll sit up here, if it's all right. I feel a bit . . .”

“It's fine,” I said.

Freddie sat against the bed with the book and her pad of paper.

“This cipher,” she said. “It likely has a key somewhere. It could be a key he's written out, but many times people use books. Did he have any favorite books?”

I thought about the hundreds of books that were piled up along the walls of Stephen's bedroom back in the flat, and then I thought of the few books in the box. I got up without a word and returned downstairs. Callum was out like a light and didn't move. Thorpe lifted his head and watched me retrieve the box. I went back up to the room and opened it up, pulling out the books inside.

“This was a box of personal stuff I found in his closet,” I said. “They must have been important.”

“Right,” she said, looking through the pile of books and examining them. “He clearly likes space opera. There could be something in here. Is there anything else that Stephen would have considered really important?”

“His sister,” I said. “She died a few years ago. I think he cared about her more than anything.”

“Right,” she said.

I rested back once again and stared up at the ceiling light.

“In the car,” I said, “you said Stephen and I seemed close. What made you say that?”

“Oh . . . I . . .”

“Seriously.”

“Well . . . when I saw you together, the way you interacted gave me that impression. Whenever you walked away, he always watched to make sure you were inside. He seemed to care. But I know you were with Jerome. He told me.”

“Jerome and I broke up,” I said.

“He told me that too. I know these things can be . . . well. Difficult. I mean, my last girlfriend and I—she thought I was a bit intense. A bit obsessive. I suppose she had a point. I didn't even notice that she'd met a girl with a lot of anchor and mermaid tattoos who wore her hair in a beehive on weekends. Then she went off to university in Scotland with that girl, and I haven't heard from her since.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“No, I mean . . . I only mean to say that it seems like I'm coming in at the middle of everything, and I know things can get so complicated. I couldn't tell her what I was obsessing about. I couldn't tell her what I saw. I imagine you and Jerome had sort of the same problem, perhaps.”

“Something like that,” I said.

“And you and Stephen didn't.”

She was right, but it was more than that. I liked Jerome. I felt nice things about Jerome. But Stephen was something very different, something on another level.

“You seem very sure he's . . . I don't want to imply otherwise, but you seem sure that Stephen has returned? How do you know?”

“It was because of something I did in the hospital,” I said. I was too tired to explain it all. Freddie was clearly disappointed, but I was already falling asleep. I felt like Charlotte, her head lolling back. We'd found Charlotte. I'd seen Jerome. Had all of this happened today?

There was rain pattering against the window. I let my eyes close and sank into the sound of that and Freddie turning pages.