What She Saw (26 page)

‘Look!' Macy pointed. ‘DCI Rosen, they're the ones who hurt me.'

On the stretcher, Thomas Glass smoked and a smell of burning flesh pervaded the air. In the black and bloodied ruin of his face, his teeth shone, unnaturally white, and he sang in a nursery-rhyme voice:

‘I don't know why, I don't know when,

‘But those bad men, they'll do it again!'

Metal ground into metal.

Thomas screamed, ‘Mummy!'

Silence.

And a key turning in a lock woke Macy up. She opened her eyes and reassured herself. She was in Chelsea's living room, asleep on the sofa under a duvet. Terror gripped her. What if it wasn't Chelsea coming
into the flat? What if it was the two men, and they'd watched Chelsea coming home in the early hours of morning? What if they'd taken the key? What if they were coming to douse her with petrol and finish her off? She drew an unsteady breath. She wanted to scream but was well practised in hiding her emotions, and simply silently gripped the edges of the duvet.

The light went on in the hall and she recognized the
click-clack
of Chelsea's elegant high-heeled shoes, caught the edge of her expensive perfume.

Chelsea peered into the darkness of the living room.

‘I'm awake, Chelsea,' said Macy, desperate to hear her voice.

‘Hi, Macy. Everything OK?'

Macy could tell from her voice that Chelsea had been drinking wine, just a couple, like she usually did when the pub closed its doors.

‘Fine and dandy, Chelsea.'

Macy got up from the sofa and crossed the room to be with her. As she came to Chelsea's side, Chelsea turned away and headed for Luke's bedroom.

‘Did your little friend arrive?' asked Chelsea.

‘Shortly after you left. Ate a cheese sandwich and had to go home.'

Chelsea opened Luke's bedroom door, wobbled a little. ‘These heels're too high.'

Macy placed a steadying hand on her back and said, ‘He's fast asleep, it's best not disturb him.'

In the corner of Luke's room, the night-light picked out the raised Fireman Sam duvet cover, the contours and shape of Luke's sleeping form.

Chelsea stepped inside, two paces.

‘You look dead tired, Chelsea. Luke's going to be awake in a few hours, pulling you out of bed.' Chelsea stepped forward, but Macy continued: ‘Go to bed and get what rest you can before little Luke wakes you up. He's a ball of energy.'

Chelsea's shoulders sank.

‘You're an old woman, Macy. You're darn right. I'm going to bed.'

Chelsea turned and headed for her own room. She took her top off. Her bra black, intricate and lacy, a decoration that celebrated her body.

My mother
, thought Macy,
could never carry that off
.

‘Want to come in the bed with me, Macy?'

‘He's asleep now,' said Macy.

Chelsea giggled, looked over her shoulder, turned. ‘Eh? Who's asleep now?'

‘Luke, he's asleep now, and you need your sleep. I guess I'll go home, look in on Grandma. School in the morning.'

‘It's Saturday, isn't it?' questioned Chelsea.

‘Oh, yeah,' said Macy. ‘Silly me.'

Chelsea leaned forward and kissed Macy's forehead. ‘You're a good kid. Thanks.'

‘Gotta go,' said Macy, hurrying to the door.

‘Thanks, babe.'

Macy turned off the light in the hall, closed the door of Chelsea's flat and walked towards the cold concrete stairway towards home.

61

5.30 A.M.

D
awn broke over east London and two red fingers of light crossed the sky over Bannerman Square.

When Macy entered her grandma's room, she felt sorrow as a physical pain that filled her and hollowed her out in one assault. She wanted to faint and scream in the same instant but, gazing at the old lady, in the semi-light of the candle that burned in the corner, she couldn't do either. She moved to the bed and felt as if she was floating.

The abysmal silence was only broken by the faintest sound of Grandma, barely breathing.

The sweet cinnamon aroma of the scented candle seemed to be overwhelmed by an invisible blanket, by something that had no name but was awful from beginning to end, down to its very core.

Slowly, she peeped at the old woman and realized that the awful thing did have a name: Death.

‘Come here, Macy, and look at me properly.'

Macy drifted towards the bed, above the loose boards that usually creaked beneath the threadbare carpet.

Grandma
looked
at Macy from the pillow but didn't seem to
see
. Her eyelids flickered, her eyes rolled up behind the lids and all Macy could see were the bloodshot whites.

Macy's brow creased deeply with two thick lines: pain and anxiety. ‘Grandma, can you hear me?' She knelt at her bedside and her hand travelled across the top blanket until her fingers found their goal, Grandma's hand. The old woman clasped her fingers tightly around Macy's but as soon as she gripped, the power in her fingers leaked away.

‘I'm scared, Grandma.'

‘Of?'

‘Everything.'

‘Don't be scared.'

‘Grandma, is this it? Are you dying?'

‘I've been waiting for you to come back, to be with me, so I died with my beautiful girl beside me. Now, I can die in peace.'

‘If you can put off dying for a few hours so you can be with me, surely you can put off dying for another day, or a week, or a month?'

Her eyes shut. ‘Macy, Death has already been patient with me and it's a sin to test the patience of anything for too long, especially Death. Death has waited for you to return because I asked. Death has listened to our prayers long enough. And Death has said,
Now
. And I have said,
Yes
.'

Grandma's head shifted slightly on the pillow and it was as if half her face disappeared into the fabric of the pillow slip. In dying, she was becoming invisible to Macy's tear-filled eyes, dissolving.

‘Don't make a sound, Macy. You know what your mother will do if she hears you crying. She'll make you cry some more with the back of her hand and the flat of her foot.'

Finally, Grandma's fingers fell away from Macy's hand. The absence felt like a colossal loss, a loss that drew the breath out of Macy and made her wonder if she too was dying in the same dim light.

‘Grandma, please ask Death to take me with you.'

‘It's not your time, Macy. Death chooses the final time to take you, just as Life chooses to put the breath into all living things.' The effort of speech made her face crease. She moved her lips but made no sound.
Macy watched, and the silent words ran through her mind like a warm breeze through a verdant bush.

This is how it has been ordained. Now is the time for your life and when it's time for you to die, then you will die and it'll be time for me to come back and the whole circle will turn again, only next time, we'll leave your mother out of it, for her sins are heinous; she will stay in eternal darkness and we will come into the light of a new life and I will be your mother and you will be my daughter and I will love and cherish you as you have not been loved and cherished as you deserve. I will protect and love you, and your new life will not be blemished by beatings and privation and cruel tricks of the mind. And the beasts that haunt your head and heart will be destroyed. We will live with nature, with the animals and the trees and the spirits that dwell inside all that is natural and beautiful. But when I am gone, you will take my place as the High Priestess, and the rituals you perform will bring us back together in a brand-new life far away from here.'

The wind shook the bush and, inside Macy's head, it ignited with a small flame at the heart of its branches.

Grandma sighed and her eyes opened. Her face was whole again. Macy pressed her face close to Grandma's and touched her mouth to the old woman's lips, breathing a stream of air from deep inside herself into Grandma's mouth.

‘I love you so much, Grandma, I don't think I can bear to. . . lose you.'

The light, the life, dissolved from Grandma's eyes. As Macy drew back, Grandma breathed out and the room was plunged into silence.

With the tips of her index fingers she closed Grandma's eyes.

The candle in the corner went out and the room darkened.

She smelt the wisp of smoke but soon even that disappeared.

Macy buried her face in the blanket, held on to Grandma's fragile body and, in profound silence, howled from the core of her being.

And, inside her head, the small flame inside the wind-soaked bush exploded into an inferno, a fire-storm: the final fire.

62

5.30 A.M.

A
fter two hours of sleep, Rosen hurtled back into consciousness from a terrifying dream. In the dream, he'd opened the door of Joe's room and the walls were covered in Ogham symbols. Behind him Sarah whispered, ‘See we is many. See I are one.'

Awake, panic-stricken, Rosen was out of bed and moving fast.

‘Oh, God,' Sarah groaned. From the troubled margins of her own exhaustion, she'd watched him squirm and heard him mutter as he slept, and now he was on his feet lumbering through the darkness of their bedroom towards the door.

She followed.

‘David, what's wrong?'

‘Joe.'

Rosen pushed his son's door open and turned on the main light. He rushed to the Moses basket, fully expecting to see an empty space.

Joe, asleep, content, turned a little to the left.

Relief flooded Rosen, washed through every piece of him and assumed a physical sensation that was beyond pleasure. But his heart was banging against his ribs, his breath was shallow and short, and his pyjamas clung to him with perspiration.

‘David.' Sarah spoke softly from the doorway. ‘I'm turning the light off.'

After a short interval, he responded, ‘Oh, OK.'

The room fell back into the blue semi-light of Joe's bedside lamp.

‘I want you to come back to bed,' said Sarah.

‘Yes, back to bed.' He reached out his hand to double-check his senses, to touch his son to make sure he was really there, completely safe, and that his presence was not a trick of the eye. But then he didn't want to wake him; in his mind, he was back outside the resuscitation room in Lewisham Hospital watching Emily Glass reach out to Thomas, her gesture withering away before contact. He withdrew his hand.

I'm terrified of anything hurting you, son
, thought Rosen.

‘He's fine, he's OK, he's sound asleep,' said Sarah, telepathically reading his thoughts.

He took a final lingering look at his son and wanted to go downstairs to double-check that all the doors and windows were locked, but his attention was seized by a sound in their bedroom, of his mobile phone vibrating twice against the surface of his bedside cabinet.

When Rosen picked it up, he became very cold and his scalp prickled.

1 new message

Stevie

He opened the message, his palm feeling clammy against the phone in his hand.

Where on earth is Macy Conner?

Rosen connected to Bellwood on speed dial on his mobile and she picked up on the second ring.

‘Call Corrigan, Gold and Feldman. They're to call everyone to Bannerman Square now. Call the on-duty uniforms. I want the front entrance and back exit to Claude House covered. No one goes in, no one goes out. Meet me there as soon as you can.'

In under a minute, Rosen was dressed. At the front door, he heard the sound of Joe crying from his bedroom. He looked at Sarah and said, ‘In the end, they couldn't get to Thomas so they went for the next best thing. Stevie.'

If they can't get to me for whatever reason
, he thought,
they'll get to you and Joe
.

At the car, he looked back. Sarah in the doorway. Joe upstairs.

‘Sarah, pack an overnight bag for you and Joe.'

‘What?'

‘Special Branch will be here soon. Please. Get inside. Lock the door.'

Rosen dialled Baxter and, as he sped away, he heard Baxter's voice, sleepy and irritable.

‘What is it, David?'

‘The safe house in Orpington. I want Sarah and Joe taken there immediately.'

Baxter sounded wide awake. ‘OK. I'm on it.'

63

6.01 A.M.

W
hen Rosen arrived at Bannerman Square, Bellwood and Henshaw were waiting at the main door of Claude House, watching morning unfold in the sky, where one plane ascended and another was on its way down to Heathrow.

Rosen addressed the constable at the front entrance.

‘Is the back covered?'

‘I checked. It is,' replied Bellwood. ‘I called Social Services. Just in case. A social worker's on her way here now.'

He turned to Henshaw. ‘Wait here for her, James!'

As Rosen and Bellwood hurried into the building, she asked, ‘What is it, David?'

He showed her the text as they made their way up the concrete stairs.

‘Shit,' said Bellwood, steaming ahead of Rosen.

When Rosen opened the door onto Macy's landing, Bellwood was hammering on the door of her flat. When he got there, she stopped and they could hear movement inside.

‘Awright, awright, who is it?' Behind the front door of her flat, Macy's mother's voice was steeped in sleep and a smoker's husky rattle.

‘Police. DCI Rosen. We met when you brought Macy to the mobile—'

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.'

She unbolted the door and, opening the door to the width of the chain's length, blinked herself into wakefulness.

‘We've come to speak to Macy,' said Rosen.

‘What?' She looked at him as if he was speaking an alien language. ‘She's. . . what time is it? She'll be asleep in bed.'

‘I won't wake her up, but I want to see her. Open the door, Ms Conner.'