Perfectly Reflected (29 page)

I didn’t rush all the way to the top. Wearing myself out wasn’t a smart thing to do, so I took it steadily, jumping the barrier at the Stone Gallery to get to the last set of stairs. As usual, no one seemed to notice.

On the way up I tried not to think of my last visit, when I had been helped back down by the staff. I never wanted to feel that crashing misery again, and although I knew Callum was up there ahead of me, I realised that I would never be able to walk up those stairs again without worrying that he would be gone. As I reached the little round room with the viewing panel to the floor I called his name softly. For the first time I saw him appear, gliding through the door at the top of the final steps, a concerned look on his face. The novelty of seeing him really walk towards me made me smile. This close to the top he was very nearly solid-looking; there was just a hint around the edges that gave away the fact that he wasn’t quite like me.

“Alex? Are you OK?”

“I’m fine, I just wanted to walk up the last bit with you. Is that OK?”

He smiled and put out his hand. “It would be my pleasure. Shall we?”

As we walked up the last few steps, him leading, his hand got more and more solid, until as we reached the door it was no different to my own.

This time the embrace we shared wasn’t one of passion but one of relief, relief that we were both safe, and both back in each other’s arms. He felt so strong and capable, and as his arms finally locked around me I felt an overwhelming sense of completeness. I buried my face in his chest, holding him tight. Callum held me close too, understanding that nothing needed to be said, just stroking the length of my hair with a firm hand and resting his chin on the top of my head. I could feel his heart beating under my bruised cheek.

Finally I felt able to speak. “I’m sorry, Callum,” I sniffed. “It’s been so long – it’s just so good, so perfect, to hold you again.”

“I know,” he agreed, still holding me close to his chest. “That last visit was unbelievably painful.”

I pulled back a little in surprise and looked at him. “You were here?”

“For every minute of it. I knew you would be suffering, but to see it, to see such pain…” His voice caught on the last word, and I could see the tears welling in his eyes. He held me even closer.

“I hoped you were here. I tried to talk to you, but without the amulet it was a waste of time. And all the people … I don’t even really want to think about it.”

“I know. It doesn’t matter now. Catherine’s gone, and Rob, well, how is he now?”

“He’s forgotten everything from almost exactly the time I found the amulet. He even still thinks he fancies me, which is rather creepy. I’ve had to be pretty direct with him to get him to go away.”

“Do let me know if you need any help on that score. I’d be more than happy to give him a hard time.” I glanced at Callum’s
face, and the emotion in his eyes had been replaced by anger. His lips were pressed together in a thin line.

“Thanks for the offer, but I can handle Rob. What’s the news on Lucas, though?” I had deliberately not asked earlier as I wanted to be in his arms when I heard.

“We’ve had no sign of him. We really can’t ignore the compulsion to come here every night and he wasn’t here yesterday, so he must have gone.”

“I guess the question is where…” I tried to sound as nonchalant as possible.

“Actually, I don’t care. He’s gone, I’ve got you back, Catherine has run away and we have the whole summer holidays ahead of us.” The thought of Catherine still made me shiver, but I pushed it to one side as Callum kissed the top of my head and tenderly stroked down my arms, careful to avoid my bruises. “I think it’s time for us to concentrate on us for a while, don’t you?” He slowly ran his hands back up again and cupped my face gently. His lips found mine, and I was suddenly dizzy with desire, catching my hands in his hair to pull him even closer to me.

As we sat together ignoring the view, concentrating only on each other, I realised that the interwoven problems in my head had straightened themselves out. I hugged my secret tightly to me. It would be wrong to give Callum hope until I had checked everything, but all I had to do was to find out what had happened to Lucas, to make sure that he had made it into the Thames alive. Because if he had, if my intervention had caused that, then I didn’t need to find Catherine. I didn’t need the secret of how to let the Dirges escape or what she had done to Olivia. I had the power to save them myself. I glanced down at the amulet, quiet and peaceful with no sign of the strange fire that had appeared at my command
the day before. It was mine to control now. I nestled into Callum’s firm embrace and sighed contentedly.

Hearing my sigh, he lifted my chin and gave me a look of such love and tenderness that I thought my heart would burst. As I gazed into his mesmerising eyes I knew I had to try, and I couldn’t help smiling at the thought. One day soon I would bring him over to me, and we would be together forever.

Epilogue

The three men and one woman were hunched over the table, deep in concentration. The noise of the traffic on Waterloo Bridge didn’t disturb them, even though the water was rising and the floating building was over halfway up its stanchions. They all watched as the oldest, the guy with the most pips on his shoulder, slowly picked up a small cup and threw its contents across the table.

“And that’s a six!” he exclaimed with glee as the small dice rolled to a stop.

“You’re so jammy, Pete,” sighed John as Pete picked up the little silver dog and tapped it across the board, deftly missing John’s hotel-laden Mayfair and Park Lane and stopping on the big square marked Go.

“That’s two hundred pounds to me, I believe, banker.” Yvonne shot him an exasperated look as she handed over the well-worn paper note. He slid the end of it under the Monopoly board in front him, where it joined a couple of ones and a five.

“You are the luckiest player I know, Pete. You should have been out hours ago.” She turned to the others. “You guys want to carry on? See if we can bankrupt him eventually?”

Dave pushed back his chair and got up, stretching his arms above his head where they brushed the ceiling of the little recreation room. “I could do with a bit of air. I’m just going to check the boats.” As he walked towards the open doorway a low
wailing noise filled the room. As if pulled by strings the other three leapt to their feet, all thoughts of the game forgotten. John ran to the computer as the others ran to the nearest boat, collecting their bright-orange life jackets from the rack by the door as they went.

The boat was fully prepped and ready to go. Pete leapt on board and fired up the powerful engines. It was a small, agile inflatable boat that used water jets instead of propellers and was perfect for negotiating the Thames. Yvonne and Dave held it tight against the jetty while they waited for John to give them the details of the shout.

“It’s a close one,” he called as he came out of the communications room. “Man in the water just under Blackfriars Bridge, north side. Still moving. I’ll get the ambulance boys over.”

“OK, we’re on our way.” Pete turned to the crew. “Let’s go.” Dave and Yvonne dropped the thick ropes as the boat leapt underneath them, arcing away from the jetty and out into the main channel of the Thames. Blackfriars Bridge was the next one along, just a few minutes away, so they were confident that they would get to the casualty in time. It was easy to see where they had to go; there were people leaning over the edge of the Embankment and shouting, pointing at the water. A lifebelt was bobbing around nearby.

They swiftly pulled up alongside the lifebelt, scanning around in the water for the man in trouble. “He’s here,” called Yvonne, pointing towards what looked like a pile of rags being tossed around in the water by the wake. Pete deftly manoeuvred the boat alongside. Yvonne was leaning out, ready to grab the man, prepared to jump in the water herself if necessary. His head was just above the surface but he wasn’t making any noise.

“Another metre, that’s it!” she called to Pete as he negotiated
the draw of the tide. Luckily they weren’t fighting a huge undertow, but he didn’t want to get too close to the huge pillars rising out of the water that supported the train tracks overhead.

Dave and Yvonne got the man around to the back of the boat and hauled him aboard. The action of pulling him up and over the edge pumped a huge spume of water from his mouth. “OK!” shouted Dave. “We’ve got him aboard, let’s get him back to the station as quickly as possible. He’s going to need the ambulance.”

Pete swung the boat in a wide arc, blue lights flashing to warn the other river traffic that he was coming through. He shot past the Thames Clipper, which was coming in to dock at the Blackfriars Millennium Pier, and within minutes was back at the station. On the front deck Dave and Yvonne were working on the guy, trying to save another life. They got a lot of practice: from their little floating building by the bridge they ran the busiest lifeboat station in the whole country, attending more shouts than any other. The Thames was a dangerous place. As Pete pulled the boat up alongside the landing platform John was there, ready to tie it up.

“Ambulance is on its way, but there’s heavy traffic. They reckon their ETA is about seven minutes. Can you keep him going that long?”

Yvonne didn’t even look up; as a trained paramedic she was used to this. Their boat was so fast that they often got called out to accidents near the river, not just ones on the water; last year she even got to deliver a baby. She and Dave were confident that this shout would be another success as the guy couldn’t have been in the water for more than a few minutes before he was spotted, and he looked young and fit. She was pumping his chest, hoping to get as much of the deadly water in his lungs out as quickly as possible.
Dave was preparing the airway, ready to start the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. They worked well as a team and were proud of their record in saving lives.

But this victim wasn’t doing so well. Despite their efforts there was no responding gasp of breath, no racking cough as he tried to dislodge the murky water in his chest. No words were exchanged; they kept on going, knowing that people could recover even if they looked long past hope. After another minute Yvonne looked up.

“I’ve lost the pulse – we’re going to have to shock him. Are you ready?”

“Here,” said Dave, lifting up the hand-held pads that were connected to the portable defibrillator. Yvonne took hold of the man’s shirt and ripped hard. She was strong, and the buttons didn’t resist for long.

“Whoa!” she exclaimed, looking at his chest. “Have you ever seen that before?” Across his body were deep black lines, radiating outwards from his left shoulder and tracing a strange irregular spider’s-web pattern across his chest.

“That’s weird. Clear!” called Dave as he pressed the pads on either side of the man’s heart. He pushed the button by his thumb and the man’s back arched slightly before slapping back on the damp deck with a hollow thump. Yvonne picked up his hand to check his pulse and his sleeve fell back, revealing a blackened circle around his wrist. Abandoning that as a possible pulse point she leaned back over, pressing her fingers into the corner of his jaw again, and was delighted to see that his eyes were open.

“Hey, good to see you. Stay with us, OK? The ambulance will be here any minute.”

The man’s dark eyes swivelled towards her voice. He blinked
once but then his gaze turned glassy. “Dave, we’re losing him,” she shouted. “Shock him again.”

They continued to work on the man until the ambulance arrived, but it was clear that it was no use: he was gone. Yvonne sat back on her heels, wondering what she could have done differently, what else might have helped. The ambulance team also did their best, removing his shirt completely to set up a drip, but it was too late. She looked at the tattoo on his weirdly marked arm. Poor Emily was going to get some very bad news later.

The ambulance team called a time of death and Yvonne started to clear up all the debris from around the body. Finally the driver brought down the trolley from the back of the ambulance and Dave and John hefted the man up on to it. “Sorry, Tommo,” she said to the driver. “Couldn’t save this one. Don’t know why though. I don’t think he was in the water that long.”

Tommo started to unfold a thick red blanket but hesitated as he looked at the body laid out on the trolley, the dark lines even more obvious against the greying skin. “You wouldn’t have been able to save this guy, I guarantee it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You might have fished him out of the water but I don’t think he drowned.” He pointed to the strange markings all over the body. “He’s got massive electrical burns, the kind you usually only get from lightning. You had any storms here today?” Yvonne shook her head. “I didn’t think so. There is one way to get burns like this, but it’s not common. Someone has been torturing him. Somebody wanted this guy dead, and they succeeded.”

Yvonne shuddered. “Poor guy. What a horrible way to go.” She gently lifted up the blackened arm that was hanging off the side of the trolley and laid it across his chest before Tommo drew
the blanket up over his face. She realised as she stood back that his arm had felt unusually warm.

In the dark under the blanket, the strange burn around the dead man’s wrist suddenly reignited, the fire flashing around the black marks that criss-crossed his body. Within moments, while the lifeboat and ambulance crews watched in horror, Lucas’s body was reduced to a smoking pile of ash.