The Faceless (41 page)

Vera’s lips brushed hers. A small, agile tongue, warm and moist, darted into her mouth. Anna responded. Fingers slid under her sweater, stroked her breasts through her shirt and bra. Her nipples hardened; warmth gathered in her belly. She reached down and caught Vera’s wrists.

“I need to see Mary–”

“Anna...”

“I want it too, but–”

“OK.” Vera withdrew from her, faced away.

How long are you going to put it off for, Anna? How many more chances do you think you’ll get?

“Vera?”

“What?”

“Come here.”

They kissed again. Vera’s hands back under her sweater, Anna’s fingers unbuttoning Vera’s blouse–

Someone banged on the door.

“Shit.”

“I’ll go.” Anna disengaged herself, stumbled to the door. “Who’s there?”

“Army.”

She opened the door. “Sergeant... Itejere?”

“Yes, that’s right.” The big man studied her. Further down, other soldiers stood at other doorways. “You were with DCI Renwick, weren’t you? ’Fraid I never got your names.”

“Anna Mason. Vera Latimer.”

“Nice to meet you both. Just letting you know, ma’am – transport should be arriving in the next couple of hours. Get you offshore ASAP.”

Two hours. Would that be soon enough? “Thank you. Is there any news?”

Itejere hesitated. “Nothing good. London’s gone.”

“Oh god.”

“They flew the government and the Chiefs of the Defence Staff out to a secure location, or tried to, but that’s gone too. Deputy Chiefs got flown out to Belize for safety, but we can’t reach them. Or they can’t reach us. Either way, we’re on our own. And, apparently, the mists are expanding outwards in all directions now.”

How did you get your head around something on that scale? London was
gone
. She shook her head. All she could think of was Stakowski, bits of ill-fitting army kit pulled on over his civilian garb, rifle in his hands, tufts of disarrayed hair poking out.

How far out would it go? When would it stop? Where? Britain? Europe? The world? And she could have stopped it, could have saved Stakowski, London, how many millions from this–

“So basically, get your stuff together and be ready to go at a second’s notice.”

“What about my niece, she’s sick. Caught a dose of the gas...”

“Best see the medics about that. But get some rest first. You look all in. They’ll be doing everything they can.”

“Thanks.” She could tell him now, about the White Song. If they didn’t believe her, her conscience was clear; she’d tried, she’d failed. But what if they did? And so she said nothing, and Itejere moved on.

“You heard the man.” Vera hugged her from behind. “Beddy-byes for you?”

Oh, just for a moment – just for a moment – could she think of herself? “But not straight to sleep?”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

Anna smiled. “Upstairs, then.”

Up the stairs. The bedroom. Photos on the dressing table. A smiling couple. Children. Where were they now?
Mary
.

Vera pushed her down onto the bed, slipped off her shoes. Oh, to forget everything for a moment – Mary, the race against the mist. Just for a moment.

“There,” Vera said, leant down and kissed Anna on the lips.

A
FTERWARDS SHE CRIED
again; Vera held her until it stopped. Then:

“Mary.”

Anna half-stood, swayed; Vera caught her arm. “No, you don’t. You need to rest, girl. You’re all in.”

“Mary.”

“I’ll go see her. You get some sleep. Come find us when you’re awake.”

“But – the ships...”

“I’ll come get you. Rest.”

Anna tried to argue – she had to see Mary – but she was too exhausted. She couldn’t fight anymore; she closed her eyes.

T
HE SIREN WOKE
her; a low dull wail, rising and falling. Air raid. No, that was World War Two; it was World War One coming back to bite them. Or were they all coming back now, all the dead?

She woke. A strange bed in a stranger’s house. The first thing she remembered: Kempforth was gone.

The next: Mary.

The siren, wailing.

Outside, she heard screams, the clatter of feet, soldiers shouting orders.

Mary.

She sat up, shivering. Cold. Her glasses were on the bedside table. On a chair by the bed, her jacket and backpack. Her other clothes were scattered on the floor; she pulled them on.

The hospital–

Blundering down the stairs. Vera, you lied. You said you’d come–

Enough of that. She ran through the streets of Scarborough, dodging the crowds, the soldiers. Someone shouted after her but she went on and nobody chased her. Homing in on the cafÉ, praying she remembered the way correctly.

There it was. She ran towards it. People were already spilling out. And there was one she knew

“Vera!”

“Anna.” Vera was crying; her head was bowed, as if in prayer.

“Where is Mary?”

“Anna–”

“Where is she?” She screamed it.

“Anna, I’m sorry.”

Anna blinked. “What? What for?” But the dread was gathering, hard and stony in her gut.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

“What?”

“They tried everything.”

“Wh...” But she could only mean one thing. “No.”

“I tried closing her eyes,” said Vera, “but they wouldn’t stay shut.”

The keening noise she heard, could that really be her? Were those her hands, flailing at Vera’s face? “You were supposed to look after her. You were supposed to look after her. You were supposed to watch her and keep her safe you bitch you fucking bitch you killed her you killed her!”

Vera warding her off. Hands grabbing her, lifting her away. Blood on Vera’s face, streaming from a cut cheek. Had she done that? But she had to keep screaming, raging; the minute she stopped it would be real, it’d crash in on her that Mary was dead and–

Too late. Against death or its knowledge, the fiercest rage was a straw defence. She howled, collapsed in the arms holding her. No fight left in her. She was a wound that could only bleed.

Howling, weeping, she sank down. Vera stood over her, speaking to someone. “It’s alright, you can leave her alone, we’ll be OK.” Vera tried to hold her; Anna fought, then let her. Vera was talking, but she couldn’t make out the words.

The siren. Screaming, shouts. Gunfire. An officer’s voice, shouting above the rest. Running footsteps. Hands pulling at her, trying to make her rise. An acrid, swimming-pool smell in the air.

People running past. Vera shouting, screaming at her now, trying to pull her to her feet. Anna looked up, past Vera, and saw the mist, dirty and yellowish-green, swirling on the hills above the town. Oliver’s Mount and the Castle were already fading to shadows in it, disappearing altogether as the mist rolled forward.

With London gone, the war was effectively won. All that remained was the mopping-up, and they could do that at leisure now. The war for Britain, anyway.
The Great War’s dead are coming back, to dispossess the living
, Sir Charles had written, but how much did they actually want? Just Britain, or would the mist roll out further to cover all Europe? Or the world?

“Anna, come on!” She snapped back suddenly into the here and now – the screaming was sharp and jagged all about her, the gunfire’s chatter and the bullets’ wasp-buzz alive, close and dangerous. Vera pulled at her arm. “Come on, get up!”

She shook her head.

“Anna, for fuck sake, I’m not arguing with you. Come
on
! We’ve got to go!”

“Leave me–”

“Anna–”

Anna threw Vera off. “Leave me!” Vera stumbled back, blinking. Anna went towards the cafÉ. “Just leave me,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Vera backed away, hesitated. A stream of bodies rushed past, and she’d gone – run away perhaps, the old self-preserving instincts resurrecting themselves, or swept along by the fleeing crowd.

She went in through the cafÉ door, calling Mary’s name. No answer, of course; what had she expected? Fake snow sprayed on the windows. A plastic Santa on the wall. The place was empty, but for a dozen or so shapes stretched out, silent, on the tables or benches serving as beds. That one was too big. That was too fat. And that one... was Mary.

She took the last few steps towards Mary’s b– No, she wouldn’t think it, even to herself; that way it might not come true. But she pulled back the sheet and Mary’s eyes were open and sightless, staring upwards, a dull glaze already on them. She felt for a pulse.
Please, please, please
. This couldn’t be real. “Mary. Mary.” Her voice was rising. Holding the thin shoulders, shaking her.
Wake up. Wake
. “Mary–”

Mist outside the cafÉ window. The smell of chlorine. Didn’t matter. Nothing did now.

She gathered Mary up. Still warm. Like an ember. You could nurse an ember back into a fire. Couldn’t she do the same with Mary? Couldn’t she?

The mist thickened. Things moved in it, came close to the glass. A face whose mouth was a gaping, toothless hole stared in at her.

“Bastards!” The face recoiled into the mist. She loved the rage for the second it lived in her; anything other than this dull, smothering pain. But then it died. Didn’t matter, though. Nothing did.

But her traitor hands fumbled in her bag; inside was the survival suit she’d stripped from the dead soldier. Her traitor lungs held her breath until she’d pulled it on. The mist poured into the cafÉ, but it didn’t kill her. And so she sat, Mary cradled in her arms, stroking the child’s hair.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

S
HADOWS MOVED ABOUT
her. She didn’t look up; they didn’t come near.

The shadows left her, and she was alone.

Time was trickling away, like a fistful of sand. The dead wouldn’t harm her, but they wouldn’t stop either, and when they reached the harbour there’d be no more boats, no exit; she’d be trapped forever in the mist, on a cold island peopled by the dead. Death would be better than that. She could take off the mask and inhale, but death by chlorine was neither quick nor peaceful. Perhaps she could find a gun.

But even that wouldn’t be the end. No heaven, only a bleak and lonely desolation. Was that where Mary was now? And Martyn, Eva, Renwick, Stakowski, Allen, Nan, Dad? The promise of oblivion would be a blessing.

The mark on her breast burned cold. She looked down at Mary; the blue eyes stared up at her; the mouth hung slackly open, rimmed with bloody drying froth. This wasn’t the bright and laughing child she’d loved. For better or worse, for whatever foreign field departed, that child was gone.

There was one last thing she could do; Vera had tried, but failed. She closed Mary’s eyelids with her thumbs. This time they stayed shut.

She laid Mary down on the table, wiped her mouth clean and closed it, tucked the blankets tight around her. She looked peaceful, quiet; she looked at rest. Anna drew the blanket up over Mary’s face.

And then she thought:
The White Song
.

She could never have made that sacrifice herself. Abraham and Isaac? If a voice from the skies bade her sacrifice Mary, she’d have told it to fuck off. But Sir Charles Dace hadn’t made a sacrifice; he’d made use of one.

Yes, and look how that had ended.

But it had worked.

The idea felt foul.

Outside, bodies lay in the street. Men and women. She couldn’t see any children, but they’d be there, of course.

And there was the rage again; it flared weakly through the fog of her grief like a distant lighthouse. But stronger now, brighter.
Alright, then, you bastards
.

She would not, could not call it a blessing in disguise. Her reason for living was gone. But she’d have no more deaths on her conscience. She’d say, at least she’d tried.

She fumbled in her bag. Quickly, now. Even her great-grandfather’s mark mightn’t save her if they realised what she was doing.

She opened Sir Charles’ book, found the right page. ‘I reproduce the text of the White Song phonetically overleaf.’ The words were barely pronounceable, but she forced her mouth to shape them. Her other hand gripped Mary’s thin wrist through the blankets.
Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Forgive me. Please.

How would it work, if it worked at all? Would it stop here or roll back? If so, how far? Would it be as if none of this had happened? Martyn, Eva, Renwick, Stakowski, Nan – would they be alive again? Or would nothing happen at all?

At last she came to the end of it. She stopped. Silence. Slowly she looked up. In the mist outside, shapes pressed their faces to the windows, but they didn’t move. Nor did the shape under the blanket. There was only stillness and silence, stretching on and on. Then one by one the figures stepped away from the window and shuffled off through the mist.

So; she’d done what she could, whether or not it had achieved anything. Now the big question; when you’d lost the one thing you’d die for, walk through fire for –without it, could you walk at all? Could you even stand?

For the briefest second she saw Nan, tutting and rolling her eyes at such self-indulgence. A world war, a husband dead, and
she’d
had to keep going; this was no different. Was it really Nan, or just the memory of her? It didn’t matter; what mattered was that somehow she was able to stand, then walk, and then run. She put her hand in her pocket, grasped Nan’s crucifix. It wasn’t about faith, or the god she still denied. It was about Nan. Anna had believed in her.

T
HE SIREN STILL
wailed. Shots rang out in the distance as she ran. Had this part of the town changed greatly, since the Great War? Here was a row of terraces that looked as if they pre-dated the conflict, although the Spar store at the end didn’t. A lone figure stood outside it, head cocked. At first she thought it was studying its reflection in the window, but as she came closer – unafraid, as none of this felt real – it reached out, fingers brushing the glass. Its hand grasped empty air and twisted to the right, as if trying to turn a handle.

Anna ran on, feet sliding on the cold, wet pavements. A cat lay twitching in the gutter; a dog lay dead in the middle of the road. Movement inside one of the terraces – a figure that had cast its mask aside to show the wreckage of its face stood inside. It rocked back and forth as if laughing, wagging a finger at an empty chair. Then it reached out, encircled an imaginary waist, drew an imaginary partner close to kiss them with what remained of its mouth.