Hard Light (16 page)

The crowds that had jammed Camden Town earlier were gone. Maybe there'd been a viral signal of more excitement elsewhere. Or maybe they'd just gotten cold and gone home. The cops were still around, though, and I could hear a helicopter droning overhead.

I fought growing panic. I was being tracked by people I didn't know, for reasons I couldn't get a handle on. What I knew of archaeology came from watching Indiana Jones movies while stoned. I kept flashing on Poppy's beautiful, ravaged face as she gazed at a bone disc beneath a halogen bulb, and the flickering image of an eye that stared at me from some unfathomable distance.

I felt beneath my jacket for the loops of rawhide around my neck. I couldn't bring myself to ditch the remaining two thaumatropes, but I wasn't going to give them to the British Museum, either. Quinn might know of someone who'd buy them.

I reached the Super Drug, stopped short. It was still open. Inside I found black hair dye (semi-permanent, the kind that washes out after a few weeks), hair scissors, a pair of overpriced sunglasses, mascara, and kohl. I paid for these, stuffed them into my satchel, and hurried on to the Banshee.

The pub wasn't crowded. A dozen or so customers, Amy Winehouse on the jukebox, Derek behind the bar. I would have preferred a crowd to get lost in. I ordered another double and dropped a twenty on the counter. Derek picked it up without a word. He looked bad: red-eyed, and there was a blue smudge on his jaw, like someone had taken a swing at him. As he handed me a glass, he inclined his head toward the jukebox. I nodded and stepped away.

A rangy figure leaned over the Seeburg. He wore a motorcycle jacket even more weathered than my own, heavy work boots, and black jeans. His head was shaven, and as he leaned into the jukebox its eerie blue light picked out the cross that had been branded into his scalp.

My heart tightened. I knew better than to creep up on him, so I let my boots fall heavily on the wooden floor as I approached. He didn't turn, but I could see his body tense, then relax when I drew alongside him.

“Cassie.” He pulled me to him, holding me so tightly my chest ached.

“Quinn,” I whispered.

The Seeburg's icy glow made a gaunt mask of his face, the Inuit tattoos he'd gotten in Barrow Prison stark against his skin: three vertical red lines between his eyes and a set of black horizontal lines on each side of his mouth. A fresh scar slashed through one of these, giving him a grotesque half-smile. His bruised eyes were so deep-set their color was lost in the carnival light, but I knew they were the color of a frozen lake, the pupils black cracks in the ice. Morning sun might reveal a few green flecks, all that remained of the boy I'd photographed in 1975.

He cupped my chin in his hand, ran his thumb along the starburst scar beside my eye, the gash in my cheek.

“Christ, we're a pair,” he murmured. “The gruesome twosome. Come on.”

He grabbed a backpack from the floor and steered me past the bar, nabbing a brimming pint glass on the way. Derek gave Quinn a brisk nod as we entered the back hall. We passed the toilets, stepping over empty liquor cartons, and Quinn halted in front of a door with a sign that read FUNCTION ROOM.

“In here,” he said.

Inside were more tables and chairs, a dusty billiards table, and an empty microphone stand. A limp green banner drooped from an overhead light: GOOD LUCK SEAMUS.

“That'd be a good name for a band,” said Quinn, and locked the door behind us. He set his drink and backpack on a table, walked to a narrow casement window and cranked it open, then lit a cigarette and blew a thin stream of smoke outside.

I put down my camera bag and sat. I'd thought I'd feel relieved when I found Quinn. Instead, I felt the way I always did around him, off-balance from a toxic cocktail of impossible yearning, lust, and apprehension. I watched him, nursing my Jack Daniels; finally I stood and walked over. His arm snaked out to grab my wrist and he tossed the cigarette out the window, pushing me against the wall as we kissed. I tasted blood—his, mine—smelled the bitter tang of his sweat and that faint, sweet green-apple scent I recognized from when we were young, a million years ago in a different world.

At last Quinn drew away from me. Gingerly he touched the gash on his cheek and withdrew a red-tipped finger. He turned and touched my forehead, leaned down to kiss the bloody fingerprint.

“Did you find a place to stay?” he asked.

“Not really.”

We sat, and I told him everything that had happened since I arrived in London. When I got to the part about Morven's party, Quinn looked taken aback.

“Morven? You mean Morven Dunfries?” he asked. “Was her husband there?”

I nodded. Quinn downed the rest of his beer. “Son of a bitch. Fucking Adrian, what the hell's he thinking?”

“Adrian? What does Adrian have to do with anything?”

Quinn shook his head. “Go on, what happened?”

I told him about Mallo discovering me in the bathroom. Quinn stared at me, any flicker of green burned from his ash-colored eyes. “That was fucking stupid, Cass.”

“You know Mallo?”

“Yeah, I know him.” He lit another cigarette and took a quick nervous drag. “Knew him, anyway. He's a small-time drug dealer who got in the way of people who actually know what they're doing. So he changed his business model. His wife's a crazy bitch.”

I waited for him to say more, but he only began to pace, smoking as he stared at the floor. After a minute I continued with my account. I steeled myself for his reaction to the news that Dagney's passport was gone, but he remained silent until I recounted Poppy's death.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” He covered his eyes with one hand. “Dagney is gonna kill me.”

I glowered. “Why should you care if Dagney kills you?”

“Because she's a psycho. And you're Hurricane fucking Cass.”

“I didn't kill Poppy.”

“Do you think that matters?” He slammed his fist on the table, then snatched my wrist. “I'm trying to get us out of here, Cassie—trying to get us someplace where you're not going to be a person of interest to the police. Which right now is nowhere on this fucking planet.”

He let go of my hand and stared at the wall. “You know there's CCTV cameras all over this city, right?” he said after a minute. “She could have one in her place.”

“I didn't see one.”

“The whole goddamned point is you don't see it. What were you wearing?”

“This.” I pointed at my leather jacket. “When I left, I put on a raincoat of hers and left by the back door.”

“Great. So if they did get you on CCTV, they'd see you went in but didn't come out.” He mused on this. “You're tall enough; maybe they'd think you were a guy. Ditch the hat and scarf. The jacket, too.”

“Jesus Christ, Quinn, I'm not a goddamn terrorist. There's not going to be an APB out for someone connected with a dead groupie. They're gonna think she OD'd, and that's all she wrote.”

“Maybe. You better pray it's a slow news day whenever this story breaks. You still have your own passport, right?” I nodded. “Well, that's one disaster averted. What about the money I gave you?”

I tapped my boot on the floor. “Good place for it,” said Quinn. “Keep it there. What else?”

I told him about Ellen Connors. He glanced at the card she'd given me, handed it back. “That's a fake. ICOTIA—bad acronym. Sounds like coitus interruptus. Did you take anything from Poppy's flat?”

I nodded. Quinn grimaced and held up a hand. “I don't want to know. I shouldn't even have asked. Whatever it is, dump it before we get to Greece.”

“Greece? Are we going to Greece?”

He snorted. “Not if you have anything to do with it.”

For a few minutes neither of us spoke. I drank my whiskey. Quinn paced to the window and lit another cigarette. Faint sounds came from the pub—a bassline from the jukebox, droning voices. Once someone tried the doorknob before continuing on down the hall.

“Poppy what's-her-name—she had that one great album,” Quinn said. “I didn't hear it till I got out of Barrow. I remember when she was with that guy in Lavender Rage. She was hot. Great tits. Who do you think killed her?”

“I don't know. Ellen Connors? Morven? Or maybe Adrian.”

“Adrian?” He shook his head. “Never.”

I looked at him, puzzled. “You know Adrian?”

Quinn said nothing. At last he shook his head. “Mainlining after you've been straight for thirty years … that's a quick way to check out.”

“I told you, I don't think it was her idea.”

“Maybe.” He tossed his cigarette outside, then closed the window. “But it can happen to anyone, falling off the wagon. Ten, twenty, thirty years—” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”

From my bag came a muffled chime. Quinn shot me a quizzical look as I took out Poppy's mobile and set it on the table between us.

“You have a mobile phone?”

“It's Poppy's.”

“You took her
mobile
?” Quinn closed his eyes in dismay. “God, I don't fucking believe it. You haven't used it to call anyone, right? 'Cause they can track these things if they're stolen.”

“I didn't steal it. She was dead.”

“Good point.” Quinn picked up the mobile. “I got a guy can wipe that. Worth a few hundred quid. I'll get it cleaned up and sell it. Probably live for a month on Anafi for what we get.”

“Anafi?”

“It's an island, good place to disappear. Greece is like flu right now; no one wants to get near it. I just have to figure out a few things. Once we're there, we ain't going anywhere for a while. You okay with that? Anyone gonna wonder what happened to Cassandra Neary?”

“They did that a long time ago.”

“What about your old man?”

“I'll tell him I'm on vacation.”

Quinn laughed. “Endless vacation, wasn't that a Ramones song?”

I pointed at the mobile. “Can I use the camera without someone tracking me?”

“Yeah, sure. Just don't open the other apps or make a call.” He cocked his head. “You want to use it for a camera?”

“I thought I might try it out.”

“Isn't that against your code of honor?”

I felt myself flush. “I'm just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the Cass.”

“Listen, I'm not going to use the goddamned phone, okay? Who would I even call?”

“I dunno. Your defense attorney.” Quinn looked at me. “God, Cassie, you and those big gray eyes. Okay, whatever—you just have to be
sure
not to touch anything else. You'll have to upload your photos into a computer—you don't have a laptop, right? So when we get somewhere safe, you can use mine. It's the icon that looks like a camera.”

“Just point and shoot?”

“Yeah, point and shoot.” He shook his head. “You always used to hate that shit.”

“I just want to see what it's like.”

“If you lose it and it makes its way to the cops, they'll find your prints on it. Any photos you take, they could trace to you.”

“I'm not going to fucking lose it!”

“This is a bad idea, Cass.” Quinn sighed. “Go for it.”

I dropped the mobile into my bag. Quinn chewed his thumb, an anxious gesture I recognized from when he was seventeen. When he saw me looking at him he stood, throwing his backpack over one shoulder. “All right. Time to blow this pop stand.”

We left the pub through the back door without saying goodbye to Derek.

“What he doesn't know can't hurt us,” Quinn said, and steered me toward the tube station.

“Where are we going?”

“Isle of Dogs. Canary Wharf. I need to think.”

I zoned out in the Underground. Being in London was like falling into some vast interactive computer game where I didn't know the rules, didn't know the landscape, didn't know which characters could kill me.

I barely even knew the language—most of the people on the train seemed to be from somewhere else. If I heard an English accent, half the time it belonged to a tourist. Most of the conversations I overheard were about the weather: more eruptions, floods along Britain's southwest coast, near-blizzard conditions in the Scottish Highlands, wildfires in California.

Here, the freezing rain had turned to snow again. When our train rose out of the tunnel onto the overground tracks, the panorama outside grew dreamlike, slashes of white against sleek dark towers, an immense high-rise silver-blue against a graphite sky dappled crimson with aircraft landing lights. No trees or green space. I couldn't even see any roads.

When we reached Canary Wharf, Quinn took my hand, and we disembarked in silence.

We were on an opened-ended train platform not far from the base of the towering high-rise. The platform's curved roof acted as a wind tunnel; within seconds I was numb from the cold. Quinn zipped his leather jacket and pulled on a black Mao cap. Shivering, I hugged my satchel to my chest.

Quinn didn't speak until we were outside the station. He leaned against a wall to get out of the blowing snow, lit a cigarette, then motioned me to follow him down the sidewalk, past a trio of beautiful young blond women in short skirts and heels, smoking and texting beneath a metal awning.

“Essex girls,” said Quinn. “They come in to hang out at the clubs and restaurants after work, hoping to meet a rich young banker.”

“Doesn't seem like your normal stomping ground.”

“That's why we're here.”

He ran to catch a light and I hurried to keep up with him, dodging patches of snow and a Humvee limo. On the other side of the street he halted.

“See that?” Quinn pointed up at a towering obelisk. “Prince Charles said he'd go insane if he had to work in there.”

I grimaced. “I would, too.”

“This place is nothing but banks. Terrorists ever take it out, the world economy melts down like Greenland.”