Silent Voices (22 page)

“Fair enough.” He took another mouthful of coffee.

“There’s something I’ve always wanted to know... I never dared ask either of the other two whenever I saw them around. They’re too scary.”

“And I’m not? Scary, I mean?”

She grinned. “Leave it out. You’re about as threatening as a plastic doll, mate.”

“Okay. I’ll try not to be offended by that. What is it you always wanted to ask?”

She licked her lips and flicked hair away from her face with her hand. She was pretty, in a weary kind of way, like a lot of the girls around here. Her features were arranged nicely, but she lacked the spark that transformed mere pleasantness into beauty. She’d missed being conventionally attractive by a hair’s breadth that seemed more like a mile.

“Well? Now’s your chance. Ask me. I might even answer.” He smiled.

The girl chewed on her bottom lip, and then finally said the words. “What happened to the three of you, in there?”

Simon leaned back in his chair and rubbed his cheek with the fingers of one hand. “That’s exactly what I’ve always wanted to know, too.”

“Suit yourself, mate,” she said, walking away.

“Wait a minute,” he said, as an afterthought. “Have you seen Marty Rivers lately? I’ve been looking for him.”

The girl shook her head. “Nah. Not for ages.”

Simon watched her as she went to the counter. His food was waiting when she arrived, but she walked past it and into the room behind the counter. Shortly, a large man wearing a white chef’s apron, the sleeves rolled up to show his badly tattooed forearms, emerged from the doorway and picked up the plate. He carried it over and put it down in front of Simon without saying a word.

Simon smiled. Then he ate his breakfast.

After he’d paid the bill he left the café, feeling obscurely and belatedly offended by the girl’s behaviour. On the one hand, he was amazed that she even knew who he was, but on the other he felt as if she’d dealt him some kind of blow. He was unable to pinpoint his exact feelings on the matter, but he did know that he felt disturbed.

Perhaps that’s what led him to alter his course and head for the Needle, or perhaps he had always intended to go there again that day, ever since waking up in a strange bed. Whatever the reason, he picked up his pace and walked towards the daunting shape of the tower, trying to stare it down.

When he reached the security compound, he took out his keys and opened the gate, walked in, and locked up again. He didn’t want anyone coming in after him, and his strange confrontation with the waitress had made it clear that some people still remembered and drew dark associations with the place.

There was no watchman on patrol during daylight hours, so he walked past the security cabin and right up to the main entrance. He let himself in with his set of keys without even pausing at the threshold, thinking that momentum might give him strength. He didn’t want to think about why he might need to be strong, or what kind of courage he was looking for within himself. An echo of the waitress’s words mocked him:
You’re about as threatening as a plastic doll, mate
.

Did he really come across as so weak? In business terms, he knew that he was a man to be reckoned with, but here, on the tough streets of his youth, he was just another skinny twat in a nice suit. The girl had suggested that Brendan scared her as much as a real hard man like Marty, and the fact that Simon barely even registered on her threat-radar bothered him for reasons that he could not explain. He kicked a cardboard box, sending it skidding across the reception area and into a pile of old blankets.

“Wow,” he muttered. “That’s really tough.” He smiled, his anger dissipating as he relaxed. What the hell was wrong with him lately? Had this entire trip been nothing more than a big mistake, a journey into a past darkness the nature of which he would never understand? He wondered if he should have brought Natasha with him after all, if only to keep him sane. Then he remembered all over again that she was the one who unbalanced him, and that her constant demands on his affections were probably sending him slowly mad.

The faint odours of stale urine and old smoke drifted into his nostrils. He walked a few paces across the reception, dodging piles of rubbish, and stopped at the foot of the stairs. The doors had been removed; shattered glass covered a small area below the bottom step, rough diamonds on the concrete floor.

“What’s hiding in here?” His voice sounded small and weak, as if he’d regressed by coming in here again. Sometimes, when the nightmares dogged his sleep, he would imagine that his younger self was still trapped here, running between the rooms and wailing in the hallways and corridors, begging to be let out. Then, when the black dog of depression really bit deep and sleep eluded him completely, he would wonder if it was actually his
future self
that had been lost here, in this place. Was an older version of Simon Ridley, crippled and beaten by the flow of time, even now roaming the spaces above him, trying to reconnect with all the versions of his self that he had never been allowed to experience?

“What are you?” His voice was his own again, the adult he pretended to be. “Show yourself, you bastard.” Such tough words; empty bravado. There was nothing here, not really. Just dust and shadows and whatever remained of the memories that he could never quite grab hold of.

He placed his foot on the first step and peered up the staircase, watching the dust motes as they danced in the air, trying to make sense of the dimness that hung there like a light mist. The walls of the stairwell seemed to change colour as he watched, running from white to grey and then to brown. They changed shape, too, rippling softly, as if something moved beneath the plaster. Simon knew that he should turn away, leave the building, but curiosity held him there. Curiosity and something else: perhaps the promise of revelation. Because wasn’t that why he was here, to have something revealed to him? Was not that the whole point of his idiotic journey north? He had come here to discover what was missing from his life, to find out what had been removed to create the hole at his core.

The plaster began to crack, pieces of it falling away to drop silently onto the stairs. He knew there should be sounds accompanying the destruction, but was not surprised when there were none. The whole scene was being played out in silence, like an old film, and all he could do was stand and stare.

Simon watched, fascinated, as the small branches squirmed out from beneath the plaster, popping through the degraded joints in the brickwork. They moved as if they were alive, like snakes, lazy creatures waking from sleep to stick their heads out of the nest. The thin branches – like a sapling’s – writhed and stretched and wavered in the stairwell, daring him to pass. He grabbed hold of the handrail and prepared to take another step, to start climbing the stairs, but something held him back. He had a strong feeling of dread; the certainty that if he went up there, he would not come back down. Perhaps he would even meet that mythical version of himself, and they would embrace like brothers before dying. Was that it? Had he always been meant to die here, but had somehow escaped? Was it his own demise that waited for him here, within these cold concrete walls?

The branches danced before his eyes, reaching for him, grasping in the air. They slipped gently around his wrists, binding him in a way that he remembered from before. Pulling away, he managed to break their grip, snapping them. And then, as he moved backwards, shifting just out of their reach, the thin branches began to wither. They turned grey, black, as if singed by unseen flames, and exploded into little clouds of ash. The plaster repaired itself, like a film reel running backwards, and before long the walls were exactly as they had been. There was no evidence of the strange growths, the struggling saplings. There was nothing there.

He felt rejected. Whatever power resided here had turned its back on him, folding its arms and tapping its foot until he left the premises.

“Soon,” he said, moving back through the reception area. “I’ll come back soon... and I’ll have them with me. My friends. The Three Amigos.”

Upstairs, from several floors above him, he heard the sound of laughter. It sounded like a girl, and it was familiar. He strained to remember where and when he had heard the childish sound before, but nothing came to mind.

The laughter had died, replaced by a sharp clicking sound, like cards being slowly shuffled. This, too, sounded familiar, and it filled Simon with such a sense of dread that he felt like crying. He was a child again; he was terrified. The bad man was coming, Captain Clickety was on the loose... and he was coming for Simon.

A familiar emptiness yawned within him, threatening to consume him, so he left the Needle and headed back towards the sounds of the present.

“Soon,” he said again, but this time it was a promise he made only to himself.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

B
ANJO CROUCHED AT
the top of the stairs, trying to peer all the way down to the bottom floor. He saw a pale shape flicker through the murk, and then he heard the main doors slam shut. He stood up straight, turned around, and looked at the girl who called herself Hailey.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s gone. He wasn’t here to hurt you... none of them are. They’re here for something else. It has nothing to do with you. You’re safe now, as long as you stay close to me. The Underthing can’t touch you. He’s afraid of me, you see.” She smiled and to Banjo it was like the sun coming up in that other place, the one he had only ever glimpsed. Behind her, he could see the outlines of trees; they shimmered like a mirage, but he knew that they were real. They had always been real. Soon he would be able to touch them. Before long, he would enter that old grove of oak trees and sit at the heart of the magic that nested here, within this tower. He would find himself in a place that was both ancient and ageless, a land where the dreams of men became living things, and where myth was reality.

“It won’t be long, now.” Hailey smiled; her face shone golden, like the wavering shapes of the trees over her shoulder. “He’s coming out. We’re luring him, like a fish with a baited line. Not long now until the Underthing shows himself and we can be rid of his pollution. He’s already making mistakes, showing his cards.”

Banjo stood and approached her, drawn by the sight of her unfolding wings. He reached out, but he did not touch them, not yet. He wasn’t allowed. All he could do was watch, and yearn, and wait.

Hailey rose a few inches off the floor and hovered there, her beautiful, multi-hued hummingbird wings glowing in the dusty air.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
HEY WERE WAITING
for Simon when he went outside.

He locked the gates, checked that they were secure, and turned around. The three boys were standing there, at the edge of the Roundpath, watching him in silence. He recognised one of them from earlier at the Arcade – the big lad with the trippy Scooby Doo baseball cap.

“Can I help you?” The words made him sound more confident than he felt. He clenched his fists, holding on to the bulky set of keys – a good weapon in a pinch, he recalled from somewhere – and waited for a response.

“Who the fuck are you, like?” The biggest of the three – Scooby – stepped forward, spat on the ground after he spoke. Like the others, he was wearing jeans, trainers, and a hooded top. The sweatshirts were all the same style; the one the leader wore – if that’s what he was – was red, and the other two were blue and green.

“Well?” repeated Scooby, his arms loose, ready for combat.

Shit
, thought Simon.
I’m out of my depth.

“I own this place. Why, what business is it of yours?”

“Ooooh!” Green Hoody began to laugh. “What a fucking prick.”

Scooby smiled, rolled his shoulders like a boxer. “I’ll ask you one more time, and then I’ll fuck you over. Who are you? I saw you talking to my lass in the café.” He pronounced the word ‘cafee’.

“Listen son,” said Simon, stepping away from the fence. “I’m nobody you want to be messing with – okay? I was just talking to the girl, that’s all. I didn’t know she was your girlfriend. In fact, she was the one who spoke to me.” He stood his ground, shaking. He hoped that the boys couldn’t tell, but he felt his entire body flooding with adrenalin.

“Funny cunt, in’t he?” Blue Hoody had found his voice. It wasn’t worth the effort: weak, high-pitched, as if his balls were yet to drop. Green Hoody just stood there, his face a blank mask, not even capable of a proper expression.

“You trying to say that my lass was chatting you up?” Scooby turned to his cohorts, opening his hands in a questioning gesture. “Is that what he’s saying, lads? Eh? That my lass wanted his cock?”

Simon said nothing.

“Aye,” said Blue Hoody, nodding. “Aye, that’s what he said. I heard him.”

“For fuck’s sake...” Simon had run out of things to say. Debate was not an option. These kids wanted blood, and nothing else would satisfy them. Years ago, when he was a teenager, he would have been able to handle this situation – in fact, it probably wouldn’t have happened. Back then, he was an insider, this was his patch. But now he was a stranger, an outsider, and considered fair game by the local beasts.