The White Fox (5 page)

Jack and Lucy spent the day in London. They took the train from Birchford to King’s Cross and then the Underground on to Oxford Circus. On the pocket money the orphanage gave him it would have taken an age to save up for a phone, and as they were both too young to work, Lucy had bought him one. This was a fair trade-off, however, as Jack had to accompany her whenever she wanted to go shopping. He had asked her that morning and had instantly regretted it. He had been carted around Topshop, H&M, Primark, Debenhams, John Lewis, and Selfridges. They had caught the train at quarter past eleven. By six, Jack was completely exhausted and quite short fused.

“Anywhere else?” he asked, pausing to pick up a Primark bag he had just dropped for the third time.

“Nothing in particular today.” Lucy shrugged. “But Claire’s is having a sale.”

“I am
not
going in there again,” he replied, scowling. The memories of their last excursion still burned painfully. A very camp male shop assistant, thinking Jack was on his own, had tried to press-gang him into getting a flesh tunnel to “impress the ladies.” As soon as he had explained that Lucy was with him, he was taken aside and given a tutorial about how to buy jewelry for his girlfriend.

“Fair enough.” Lucy laughed. “Should we head back, then?”

They caught the 6:06 train to Birchford. Lucy eventually located the week’s
Grazia
in one of the many shopping bags and began leafing through it feverishly.

Jack lay back in the seat and watched out the window. The scenery became steadily less industrial and more leafy as they made their way out into the countryside. Reddish-orange leaves and bare branches flashed by in some places and seemed to slow in others. At one point they crossed a viaduct. Both sides of the track gave way to rolling green fields and woods in the distance. A few horses, no bigger than matchsticks, grazed around and about, oblivious to the lanky shadows they were shedding. An old wooden stable rested in the corner of the field.

The train ground to a halt at the junction. Jack didn’t mind; he took a moment to survey the landscape again. Then he did a double take. Something darted across the grass, its shadow a flickering, thin form on the blades of amber green. He tried to focus on it, but it was moving too quickly. It looked like a small cat or dog, with four limbs and a tail. Then it shifted direction slightly and caught the light, the diamond-white spark flashing brighter than the early stars. Jack straightened up in shock, craning his neck. He searched for it frantically, but by the time he caught sight of it, it was vanishing around the end of a hedgerow.

“What?” Lucy asked, finally looking up from her article on the Beckhams’ new fragrance.

“Nothing, nothing …”

They arrived in town at quarter to seven. It was still quite light, and so the two of them made their way down past the orchard. They crossed the small humpbacked bridge and slid down into the valley, settling under an outlying oak tree at the bottom of the hill. Farther up, under cover of the first line of birches, orange tape fluttered lightly in the breeze, with a sign displaying the yellow letters
Excavation in Progress
in front of it. The small valley was a patchwork of light and shadow, the twilight-hued grass sending elaborate cross-hatching patterns across the hillside. The lampposts marking the edge of the road were lit.

Lucy dumped her shopping bags and lay down on the dry grass, her hair spreading out like a halo around her head. Jack did the same, but one of the bags toppled over, and he had to recover it. Lying down next to her, he placed his hands on his stomach and tried to ease the aching in his feet. They lay silent for a few moments, taking in the soft owl cry and scuffling of small animals in the trees behind them.

“What’s on your mind?”

Jack pondered all possible interpretations of the question before he answered. “What do you mean?”

“Anything. You seem distracted.”

Jack thought for a moment. “Do you ever feel,” he began, trying to make sense of his thoughts, “we could just be done with all of this? Like we could just move on?”

“Where? To university? Work?”

“No, I mean … something big. Like there’s more than what’s here now. Like you’re meant for something more.”

Lucy turned her head slightly, her gaze fixed just above him on the warm light that still highlighted the line of trees. “I think sometimes that we should be doing something
useful
… It sounds stupid, but you’re right—there’s got to be more than life right now. More than just a day-to-day routine that goes on forever … Why do you ask?”

Jack smirked. “Don’t worry.” He was pleased with the response, though. “So what’s on
your
mind?”

“Well, Amelia said that George …”

Jack arrived back at the orphanage half an hour later, by which time it was completely dark. As if they had overheard that morning’s conversation, the black-cloaked figures had made no more appearances since the one at the train station. Lucy had dismissed it, but Jack, whose every waking and sleeping thought was not occupied by George, Matthew, and whoever the other one was, was less inclined to let the matter lie.

Slipping through the back door, he took off his trainers and entered the hallway. It was deserted and completely silent, all the other children being put to bed at least an hour ago. Jack had never really enjoyed their company. They were much younger than him and into completely different things like football and the latest brand craze. Plus, they seemed to not think much of him, either, being the only one at a secondary school. Having already spent several years here, Jack had largely given up trying to socialize with them and spent as much time as possible out or with Lucy. Preferably both.

He walked up to his room quietly and opened the door with the least amount of noise possible. Depositing his small bag of the day’s purchases on the bed (his new hoodie and shoes, though quite adventurous for his normal spending, had been as always dwarfed by Lucy’s near worship of Philip Green), he slumped into the aging plastic chair. In a pseudomystical way, the soft drift of light from the moonlit window fell upon his schoolbag and the unfinished English homework inside.

Sighing the sigh of someone who knows they can’t get away with avoiding something for much longer, he pulled out his English books and cleared the desk. “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats was printed in cold black ink in the middle of the page.

How does Yeats create the sense of impending darkness in this poem?

Jack opened the desk drawer, feeling for his Biro. His hand fell on something else, a small card. He pulled it out and held it up to the lamp. It was a business card, printed in a generic Microsoft design layout. It read
Apollo Hill Mental Institute
, with a single telephone number underneath.

Jack breathed out heavily. He knew it must be a coincidence or a cruel joke. How much gratification could he really expect from this? But he thought there was always a chance, no matter how miniscule it might be. He paused for a moment longer. Then he got out his mobile and keyed in the number.

The ringing stopped, and there was a crackling noise.

“Hello, Apollo Hill Mental Institute,” said a female voice.

Jack’s mouth seemed to crack with dryness. He managed to force the words out after a few seconds. “Hi, can I see if I can visit a patient, please?”

“I’ll need your name and the patient’s.”

“Jack Lawson, and the patient is Alex Steele.”

There was a tapping sound of a keyboard and a mouse clicking.

He suddenly felt very aware of himself—the feel of the chair, the brushing of his clothes, the silence of all else but the background noise from the phone, and the vibrations of his quickening heartbeat. He didn’t dare move in case he lost the signal.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t have anyone by that name on file. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, don’t worry … Thanks.” Jack hung up and let out the breath he’d been holding. He felt very hot. He ducked over to the window, creaking it open. The cold air was like icy water on his skin, and he gulped it down. He had
known
it couldn’t have been real. And yet, through his insistence on trying, he seemed to have lost his friend all over again.

In another Victorian building many miles away, a phone clicked onto its hook. Gaby glanced up at the others.

“Jack?” Vince asked.

Gaby nodded. Her face was flushed, and she looked a little scared.

Charles looked up from his game of chess, his finger poised on a white pawn.

They were in the mansion’s expansive and extremely run-down kitchen. Brass pots and pans were hung above the rusty black stove, and cupboards, most with missing handles, lined the walls. The Regency wallpaper, categorized as classical rococo or baroque by the battalion of property developers expelled from the site upon their arrival, was peeling and completely gone in some places. The ceiling was only partially plastered. The wooden floorboards were loose and uneven, giving the room the bizarre atmosphere of a Lewis Carroll novel. A silver minibar looked extremely out of place next to the flaking water pump.

“Well, if I’m honest, I’m surprised it took him this long,” said Charles, leaving the chessboard and rolling over in his wheelchair. “Those business cards weren’t one of your cleverest ideas, Vincent.” He winced as a loose floorboard creaked and a wheel slipped into the groove, jolting him.

Vince grunted something that sounded like “Don’t call me Vincent.”

“I’ve been researching this,” Gaby said, “and we don’t seem to be putting on a very realistic image anyway. We’re listed as ‘abandoned mansion,’ ‘site of historical interest,’ and ‘asylum’ by the three companies that have kept our details, and none of our supposed patients are available to visit. No one’s ever heard of our establishment. We have no address, e-mail, fax, or website. And it doesn’t help that the locals are convinced this place is haunted. We slipped up badly with those business cards—
that
cipher was only meant to be used as a last resort. I’m just not sure how much longer we can keep this up.”

There was a loud creak and a bang.

They all turned towards the door.

There was another creak and bang. There was a pause and the sounds of retreating footsteps. Then running.

The swollen door crashed open against the wall, and Linda staggered in. “Can we please keep that door open? I’m bloody
sick
of this place. I’ve stayed in mansions, and that hovel in the mountains was better than this place.”

Everyone looked away.

Charles replied, “It’s only until the Cult are rooted out. That shouldn’t be long now.”

“That’s bad, not good,” said Linda. “I still think we need a plan B. We have no idea what they’re up to, and it doesn’t hurt to be over prepared.”

“We
do
have a plan B. Alex is on standby to pull him out if the going gets tough.” Gaby glanced from Charles to Linda. The latter looked disdainful.

Linda muttered something under her breath.

Vince glowered at her from his corner, apparently judging whether it was worth pursuing the argument. “I’m going for a smoke.” He left the room.