Hard Light (37 page)

I stared at her, incredulous. “Tell me that's not another damned gun.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Krishna pushed away the folds of her hoodie. As she did, something fell from her pocket, striking the floor with a soft
clink.
Sam ran to grab it, and she stared at it wonderingly before I took it from her hand: a tiny bronze figurine of a mouse blowing a horn. I turned from Krishna to Adrian.

“Fucking A,” I said. “It wasn't you. It was her. And you knew—you were protecting her.”

I might have been talking to the stones: Adrian's gaze never wavered from his daughter.

“Krish. Put it down. Everything will be all right. We'll work it out—”

“Nothing will be all right, ever!” She looked at me, the pistol trembling in her hand. “Don't make me. Cass, please don't make me.”

Adrian pushed me aside. “Krish, no one's making you do anything, all right? Just set that down.”

She whirled to face him, her face a mask of loathing. “You fucking bastard. She was your mother. How could you?
How could you?
”

She leveled the gun at Adrian's face. Sam screamed. Krishna's attention broke for a fraction of a second, long enough for me to lunge at her, lock my hand around her wrist, and twist the gun from her hand.

Krishna started sobbing as I backed toward the doorway. I trained the pistol on Adrian.

“You knew it was Krishna,” I said. “Back in Mallo's flat when I said the mouse was missing—that's why you wanted to get her out of London. That's why the Midazolam was in your bag. You knew she killed them.” I looked at Krishna. “Why?”

“Because you all lied to me!” Her voice rose to a shriek and Sam cringed, frightened. “Morven was so fucking wasted after her birthday, she told me then. I'd asked her for years, who was my real mum, and she finally told me. But she wouldn't say about my dad. Just Poppy. I didn't believe her—she gave me Poppy's address and said, ‘See for yourself.'”

“But why the hell would you kill Poppy?” I asked, bewildered.

“She asked me to.” Krishna's voice grew pleading. “She told me who my real father was—that's why she couldn't bear to keep the baby. She said she was so sorry and sang me that song about the golden city and asked, would I take her there? She said she'd been waiting for me, she knew I'd come and now it was time. It was her kit, her spike and all the rest.”

“She wouldn't!” cried Adrian. “She'd
never
do that…”

“But she did.” Krishna's tone held a twisted pride. “She said it was a sign that I knocked on her door. She said there are no coincidences. She'd saved a hit she'd gotten from the NHS in her freezer. I made a mess of it.” Her voice broke. “I've never done it before to someone else.”

I whistled softly. “Mallo and Morven?”

“Because I fucking hated them. She was the one who got me fixed up with smack 'cause she didn't want to do it alone. She said she'd help me with my singing, help me get gigs. She never did shite. I hate her. If I could kill her again, I would.”

“But why me?”

“Because you were with him.” She pointed at her father. “And you're a liar, just like all of them.”

I cocked a thumb at Adrian. “Did he ever mess with you?”

“If he had, he'd be fucking dead, too.” Krishna gave a low wail and sank to the floor. “I wish I was.”

I watched her impassively. I didn't feel revulsion or anger: only an echo of the grief and despair that had swept me when I took my leave of Poppy back in Stepney.

“Get up,” I said at last. I prodded Adrian with the pistol. “Help her. She's your daughter.”

Throughout all this, Sam had stared at her father in shock that now gave way to fury. She took a swing at him, and I grabbed her arm.

“Sam, you're coming with me,” I said.

Adrian looked up, horrified, from beside Krishna. “No! Sam's not done anything—”

“I'm not going to hurt her. But I need your Land Rover, and I need you to not call the cops. Once I'm out of here, she's yours.”

Sam shook her head. “I don't want to be theirs! I want to go with you!”

Ignoring her, I gestured at Adrian and Krishna. “Go. We'll be right behind you. Sam, get my flashlight.”

She did, returning to my side as Krishna and Adrian ducked through the narrow opening and into the outer passage. Sam went next, and me last of all.

Halfway through the tunnel I paused and gazed back.

The entrance to Leith Carlisle's resting place had been swallowed by the darkness, and with it the hidden chamber that Sam had stumbled upon, millennia after some unknown artist had left her—or his—mark upon it.

None of us wants to be forgotten. I've always known that, better than most people.

But maybe even more than that, none of us wants to forget. For an instant I shut my eyes, saw again those fragile images glowing in a shaft of late-winter light. I saw Quinn walking down a long corridor, his black-clad form gradually diminishing until he was lost in shadow. Finally I turned and followed the others out of the passage.

 

42

We picked our way down the ragged slope of Carn Scrija. Above us, the wind shrieked as it tore up from the moor and over the black crags and desiccated vegetation, nearly drowning out the voices of Adrian and Krishna.

“Don't you fucking talk to me! You're a fucking pervo liar!”

Sam and I kept a safe distance behind them. She pulled my leather jacket tightly around her against the cold. I grasped the sleeve loosely in one hand and the pistol tightly in the other. I had no intention of using it. But, until I was miles from here, I wasn't taking any chances.

On the western edge of the world, a ridge of cloud glowed as though a monstrous bonfire burned just below the horizon. Frigid wind wailed down from the tor, sending up vortices of dead bracken and grit. I glanced up, shivering, at Carn Scrija black against the indigo sky, and wondered how long it would keep its secrets.

By the time we reached Kethelwite Farm, dusk had given way to dark. The house was lost in shadow, but I glimpsed a light in the back corner of the barn, where the makeshift editing room was, and I thought I could hear the steady whir of the Steenbeck's motor.

“She'll be in there all night,” said Sam. “I told her, we should get a proper mobile or laptop.”

“Maybe she'll change her mind now,” I said.

I marched the others to the Land Rover. When we reached it, I turned to Adrian. “Give your keys to Sam.”

He hesitated, dug a hand into his pocket, and tossed them to her. I turned to Krishna huddled beside her father in her hoodie, face raw from tears and the relentless wind. She stared at me balefully, and I shook my head.

“Don't be a victim,” I said. “It's fucked up, but you'll get over it. Keep singing—you got a voice in a million.”

I took her by the shoulder. She flinched, and I kissed her cheek.

“That's for nothing,” I said. “Now go do something.”

I turned to Adrian. “You lied to me about everything else. What about Quinn?”

For a long moment he was silent. Then he pulled out his mobile, tapped the screen, and held it out to me. “He texted me this a few hours before you came to the squat.”

There were two words on the glowing screen:
rotherhithe darwin
.

My mouth went dry. “‘Rotherhithe darwin'—what does that mean?”

“I don't know. The three hundred quid was for keeping an eye out for you till he got back. He said he'd let me know if he needed to get a message to you.”

Adrian cocked his head, his deep-set eyes fixed on mine. “Something was up. I think he knew that. There someone in Rotherhithe with a grudge against him?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Probably.”

But all I felt was elated. I looked down at Sam and pointed at the Rover. “Get in.”

She scrambled into the passenger seat as Adrian watched grimly. I closed the door after her and slid into the driver's seat, rolling down the window so I could at least fire a warning shot into the air if anyone made a move to stop me. No one did.

“What about Sam?” called Adrian.

“Sam will be fine,” I said.

I put the key into the starter and pressed the ignition, praying the starter would turn over. When the engine gave a low rumble I quickly put it into gear, backed up, then shifted into second. The Rover lurched over the ground in a spume of gravel and mud.

Sam rolled down her window and leaned out to stare back at the others. As we jounced down the rutted drive, a clear high voice rang out behind us, no longer plaintive or yearning but defiant: the last verse of Poppy's song, the verse that played over
Thanatrope
's end credits.

“The wind, the wind, the wind blows low

It calls your name, but now you know

There's no safe house, nowhere to go

There was never a Golden City.”

I looked into the rearview mirror and saw Krishna standing in the middle of the muddy yard, fists raised in anger, or maybe triumph.

“Where we going?” Sam asked as the farmstead disappeared from sight. Her lightning-bolt backpack was in her lap, and I saw how tightly she held it. She looked excited and wistful, and slightly scared.

“I'm going to Penzance.”

“I thought it was London.”

“Gotta get a train first. Or a bus, if the rail lines are still down.”

We drove in silence for several minutes. I continued to glance behind us, but saw no sign of pursuit. When we reached the open moor I hit the gas, and we arrowed toward the main road. As we approached the rickety wooden bridge, I yanked the wheel and followed the stream for a hundred yards, before stopping to let the engine idle.

I removed Mallo's mobile phone from my camera bag, stomped on it with my boot heel, and threw the remnants into the stream. Then I slipped the pistol into the bag, took out the Swedish passport, and stared at the photo of Dagney Ahlstrand.

With my hair cut short and dyed black, whatever resemblance there had been between us was gone. I dropped the passport back into the overstuffed bag, and for a moment I gazed at my camera, nestled alongside Poppy's Mortensen book. I set the bag aside, tapped the accelerator, and steered the Rover into a U-turn.

Before us, the moor fell away into yet another ancient field system, stone walls and hedgerows black against the gray sweep of pastures and, beyond, a ribbon of tarmac that gleamed faintly beneath the stars. I downshifted, and the Rover abruptly jolted to a halt. I looked at Sam.

“That the road to Penzance?” She nodded. “Which way?”

She pointed, and I sighed. “This is where we part company, kid.”

Sam stared at me, uncomprehending. “You said—”

“I didn't say anything. Now listen.”

I reached for my bag, opened it once more, and pulled out my Konica. For a whole minute I held it, turning it over to feel its familiar weight, the chrome hardware cool beneath my fingertips. I drew it to my face, pressed it against my forehead. Then I turned and handed it to Sam.

“I want you to keep this for me. It's heavy, and I need to travel light.”

She looked at the camera, her eyes like saucers, then at me. “But it's yours! I don't even know how to use it.”

“Do you
want
to know how to use it?”

“Yes!” She clutched the camera to her bony chest, a wing of black hair slashing across her cheek. I smiled.

“Okay. You're real smart, right? Well, there're books and all kinds of stuff online that'll teach you how that Konica works. Your grandfather, he was a great cameraman. Probably he should've stuck with that. But there's plenty of space in Tamsin's barn for a darkroom. Here's a roll of film—Tri-X. That's black-and-white film. Very forgiving—you can trust me on that.”

I took a deep breath. I didn't trust myself to look at the camera again, so I gazed into Sam's uptilted black eyes. “You want to be a shaman? Work magic and shit like that?” I tapped the Konica's lens cap. “All in here. And wait—”

I pulled out the copy of Mortensen's
Monsters and Madonnas.
“This belonged to the person who gave me that thaumatrope. You've still got that, right?”

Sam nodded eagerly, stuck her hand down her shirt, and pulled out the bone disc on its rawhide cord. “Yeah, it's right here.”

“Good. Hang onto that. It'll bring you luck.” I pulled out my own thaumatrope, holding it up so that the eye was fixed on Sam. “Me, too, maybe. And one last thing.”

I pointed at my leather jacket. “I need that back.”

Reluctantly, Sam pulled it off and handed it to me. I gave her Bruno's overcoat, which swallowed her in its folds.

“Wait,” I said. “This, too—”

I reached into the pocket of my jeans, and handed her two business cards: Ellen Connor's, and the one for the curator at the British Museum. “Someday, you might want to get in touch with somebody about what you showed me back there in the fogou. The one for the British Museum's legit. The other one, not so much. But there might be money in it for you, so keep them to yourself. Now…”

I leaned over to open her door. “This is your stop. I assume you know your way home?”

“Yeah, what d'you think?” I saw a glimmer of annoyance in her dark gaze, but it melted away immediately as she looked at the Konica. “What will you do without your camera?”

“A guy named Weegee used to say that a camera's like a gun. Well, now I have a gun. This, too.” I pulled out Poppy's mobile. “Every idiot on the planet uses one of these. I'm gonna give it a try—how hard could it be?”

I waited as she stuffed the camera and the Mortensen book into her pack, then pointed at the open door of the Land Rover. “Okay, kid—gotta fade to black. Tell your dad I'll leave his car in the parking lot by the train station.”