The Minority Council (55 page)

“The sun was coming up by the time I got to the central station. Croydon comes in three parts. There’s the scummy shitty suburban part, full of people too skint to find anywhere closer to better things, who live in council houses that were designed to be ideal homes and haven’t stopped leaking since. Then there’s the posh leafy part, where the trees are tall and the cars are smooth, where in the spring there’s blossom in the gardens and on the streets and where your kid can learn horse riding without having to drive for an hour and a half to do it. Finally there’s the shopping bit, where every shop has a sale, and you just walk round and round and round trying to find your way out even though you aren’t really inside anything, and where all the signs pointing towards the bus stops lie, and you’re never more than fifty yards from a hamburger and a Diet Coke.

“I kinda walked round and round for a while there.

“Sure, even kick-ass awesome sorceresses get lost in shopping centres sometimes.

“And, sure, I didn’t know where to go.

“Templeman had taken my mobile phone, my wallet.

“I remember thinking that Femi’s number was in my phone, I didn’t have it written down anywhere else; that’s one hot date I’m not gonna make any time soon. Then I felt ashamed for thinking about that, when I should have been thinking about nothing except grief. Didn’t seem right to do nothing but cry. Didn’t seem respectful to do more than stand still in one place, until I was like stone too.

“But the sun was coming and the brain-that-has-no-words kept me moving.

“There was a public toilet in the train station. It stank and everything was lit blue to stop the junkies shooting up, but I didn’t care. I washed at my face and my hands and the back of my neck, scrubbed with soap and then a bit more until my skin felt like barbecued bacon. Then I went to the first newsagent I could find and stole a bottle of water and a packet of crisps. I’d never stolen in my life before, but I did it now and didn’t feel anything while I did it. I got pissed off after, because there wasn’t any recycling bin on the station and that’s just shit, because it’s a railway station and there should be like some government directive saying there should be a recycling bin there or something because it’s public property and we all use it and everyone drinks water on the train anyway.

“Then I got onto the platform by tricking the ticket machine; kicked it until it thought I had a ticket and beeped me through. Then I took the first train I could find. It was going to London Bridge and it was crowded, even at this time. I got a seat by using my elbows, and the woman opposite me didn’t meet my eye all the way; she was afraid. There were those free newspapers. I tried to read one but kept going back over and over the same line,
not taking it in. All I can remember is that Wayne has been seen on the piss with Rochelle, and I don’t even know what that fucking means.

“London Bridge was too busy, too crowded, and I realised even the second I got off the platform my mistake.

“Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake, I don’t know; maybe there is like some higher power or something.

“Whatever, once I was there, I couldn’t exactly not do it, so I walked out of the concourse and up onto the bridge proper. It’s a crap bridge, you know. Nice at night when they light it up pink and stuff, but you’ve got Tower Bridge over there, which is all famous, and you’ve got Southwark Bridge over there, which at least has that kinda green nobbly thing going for it, and then London Bridge in the middle, which is just shit.

“But whatever. Let’s pretend like we’re not architects for a minute and go, okay, I walked out onto London Bridge. And even though it’s just a flat bit of concrete, I could feel everything it had been, all the bridges that had gone before, right back to the days when it was sticks and stones and falling down for some fair lady. And I walked to the middle of it, to the place where the wind was strongest and icy cold and turns your ears first to pain, then numb, and I looked towards the east and breathed out, and remembered the sound of paper and the pain in my belly, and wished that it could just wash away with the tide.

“I dunno how long I stood there.

“Something about time.

“So much time beneath me, around me, in the water under my feet and in the place where this bridge ran, that minutes and hours kinda lose their meaning.

“I stood and I looked at nothing and everything, and the wind numbed my face and my hands, my body and my back, and I felt almost clean.

“I guess the rest isn’t that great.

“I tried to find you.

“I thought about calling you, dialling your number, but then I thought if Templeman was fucking with you, he’d probably have your phone.

“Then I thought about the Aldermen—I mean, not all of them can be psycho-bastards, right?

“But just because one or two might be okay, didn’t mean I knew which ones they were.

“Then I thought about trying the beggars, but I didn’t know the rituals, the right way to start.

“I considered maybe a summoning. An electric elemental might know, or maybe the Old Bag Lady; see if she had any tips; but then I decided I couldn’t take the abuse.

“Finally I went for the safest sorta option.

“I went to the Tower of London.

“Do you know how fucking expensive the tickets are to the Tower? And it’s hard to just bluff your way in; there’s magic in those old stones that doesn’t like being tampered with, rock-deep magic that makes it really hard to trick the eye of the security guys on the door. I ended up having to go several streets away, pinch some cash from a banker whose wallet was, like, hanging out his back pocket anyway, and
pay
for an actual ticket at the Tower gate. And the sandwiches are stupid; I mean, they’re not very good for starters, and then it’s like five pound something for a bit of scrambled egg between two slices of rubbery bread.

“Then it was really hard finding what I needed to
without getting shouted at, because I was still wearing these bloody handcuffs and I had to pull my sleeves right down and act all natural and people kept looking at me funny, but okay, whatever. I set off an alarm in the gallery where they keep the crown jewels and, when everyone went running there, I went down onto the grass beneath the keep and found a raven.

“It was bigger than I’d expected, and wore this tag round its left leg, but I figured if anything could bloody find the Midnight bloody Mayor in this fucking city, it would be a raven of the Tower. So while no one was looking, I tore my stupidly bloody expensive sandwich in half, and fed the raven one half, and it looked okay with it, and didn’t puke or go for the eyes or nothing, and then I left all nonchalant like while the coppers tried to work out what the hell was wrong with the alarms, and went out along the river.

“And you know how in the centre of the city there’s all those little churchyards left over, I mean, tiny places with stone graves where the names have been rubbed off and where a bomb must have dropped or something because there’s maybe one spire left standing and no church, and it’s all shadowed over by these great fat buildings? Well, I went to one of them and sat down and got out the other half of my sandwich and waited for the raven to come, and finally it did.

“I think all the ravens are supposed to be called after Norse gods or something, but this one looked like a Dave to me, and I fed it the sandwich and talked nice to it, and finally drew the symbol of the Midnight Mayor on the ground with a stick, and it seemed to get it, because it hopped up and started flying west immediately.

“And there was a bike hire place really close by, and I
know how you’re not really supposed to take the bikes out of the congestion-charge zone, but it wasn’t like I knew where the raven was going to go so I sorta… borrowed… one of these bikes and started following the raven. It would fly a bit and then land and wait, and then fly a bit more, and land and wait, and keep on flying and, you know what, but this city is fucking big. I mean, I know it’s not exactly Mexico City or got twenty million people in it or something, but as someone who has now, personally, cycled across most of it following this one stupid bloody bird, I can tell you that it’s sodding huge and it’s a fucking miracle I’m still walking.

“I followed that raven, then, from the Tower of fucking London, west. Embankment, Westminster, Victoria, Earls Court—some wanker in a van nearly mowed me down at bloody Hammersmith and a copper shouted at me for being on a blue Boris bike that shouldn’t be outside the congestion-charge zone, but he was on foot and I just pedalled away. Chiswick, which was posh, Gunnersbury, which wasn’t, and then all these samey streets with samey little houses and still this raven kept on flying on and by now I was shattered, I was ready for bed, but it seemed to know what it was doing until finally, about an hour ago, it stops above this bloody house in this place called Osterley, wherever the hell here is, and caws a bit and preens and looks pretty pleased with itself, and I go up and knock on the front door and Kelly answers it and she says, ‘Oh my God! Ms Ngwenya!’

“And I can’t remember what I fucking said, but she seemed to understand.

“So yeah. That’s what I gotta say.

“The sandwiches out there, by the way, they aren’t for
you. I mean, I figured having flown from Tower Bridge to Osterley, I should probably give Dave the raven more than a shit egg sandwich, so all the shopping I’ve just got, that’s mostly for him. And the coffee is for me, but if you’re lucky you can have some, if Dr Seah says it’s okay. And I guess I stole a bicycle. And a wallet. And jumped some train fares. Sorry. And Nabeela is dead. She’s dead and Templeman killed her. And I tried to kill Templeman but he ran away. And he’s on something, Matthew. I don’t know what it is but he’s on something big and bad and nasty and, if I were you, I’d be seriously scared. And I’m tired. I’m really, really tired. I think that’s it. I think that’s all I got left to say.”

Penny sat, a rag-woman in muddy clothes, on the side of the bed, shoulders bending with each breath, and said nothing more.

I put my bandaged hand on hers.

She was still wearing the remnants of the handcuffs around her wrists. Blood had dried in little spots on the metal.

Night had settled on the street outside.

In the kitchen, the Vintage Classics of the 1980s were playing at a lower level.

The radiator ticked.

The radio went onto a different song.

Penny said, “I hate this tune.”

“Why?”

“Everyone talks pretentious crap about it. Like how it’s all about female enfranchisement and race and stuff, when in fact it’s just another smoochy love song.”

I listened a while longer. “Oh yeah,” I said at last. “I get it.”

“And people say like ‘The music of the 1980s, it’s so great’ and I’m going ‘Why’s it great?’ and they go ‘Because it’s so crap’ and I don’t get that. I mean, I know I wasn’t around for much of the 1980s, but I really hate it when older people are all ‘Things were so much better in my day’ and you go, ‘Yes, the world before the collapse of communism—wow what a place.’ ”

So saying, she fell silent again.

I cleared my throat, and regretted it, as pain referred its way down to my elbows. She must have seen me flinch, because she turned on the edge of the bed and said, “Hey, what is up with you and the, like, mega-medical action anyway? Only you don’t exactly look like the living Apollo to begin with, but did you have to go get all Dr Frankenstein on me?”

“Frankenstein’s monster,” I corrected. “I mean, if we’re talking looking like crap.”

“What?”

“The monster wasn’t called Frankenstein.”

“What was the monster called?”

“I don’t know. ‘Monster,’ I guess.”

“I can see how that might’ve sucked—like kinda not leaving you many career options, is it? Besides, you got what I mean, so don’t talk like you’ve got an English Lit degree shoved up your arse.”

“I’m just saying…”

“You’re doing the avoiding thing,” she corrected sharply. “So here’s the real question, then. How bad was it, and do I want to know?”

I thought a while. Then, “It was bad. And no, you don’t want to know.”

“There’ll be a day when you want to tell me about it.”

“I know. But can we just put it off a little while longer?”

Silence again, but it was shorter, playing its not-noises to a different non-tune. At length Penny stood up quickly, looking anywhere that wasn’t directly in my eye, and blurted, “So what the hell happens now?”

Kelly made dinner.

She said, “I’m really sorry, Mr Mayor, I didn’t have time to stock up on the proper ingredients and the local shop was completely out of fresh coriander so that was that plan out of the window…”

Penny was already halfway through her third forkful and accelerating. I took an experimental mouthful. Then another.

“… honestly, I would have thought the kitchen would be better stocked but, essentially…”

“What is this stuff?” asked Penny.

“It’s seared tuna with a glass noodle in sweet curry sauce, and fragrant sansho pepper, mango and shiso salad on the side with just a pinch…”

“It’s totally bloody awesome!”

“And you found this… round the corner?” I queried.

“The trick is to be imaginative with your flavour combinations,” Kelly explained, doing her best not to flap as she stood in the door. “It’s not about many strong flavours all at once, but about several clean flavours which you can take one at a time, to complement each other during the meal as a whole experience. I also found some clothes which might fit you, Ms Ngwenya, if you want to change, and there’s a hot bath running in the next room and I’ve turned on the radiator in the living room and I think that at nine there’s a detective drama on the telly which might be worth watching…”