Hard Light (9 page)

“That's you.” He gestured at a dank stairwell. “Five-one-seven's up there somewhere.”

I shivered and jammed my hands into my pockets. “What about you?”

“I'll be waiting. Just drop it and run.
Go.
”

He pushed me, and I ran up the narrow stairwell, its landings strewn with flattened cardboard and empty bottles. Someone slept here. There were no windows, no doors; only water-stained walls, a flickering bulb at each landing above signs warning THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY. SECURITY WILL ESCORT ALL OTHERS TO THE STREET.

After six flights, the stairs ended. Another broken gate opened onto a slab of cracked concrete, where a metal fence surrounded a dollhouse garden of begonias. Their blossoms looked like chunks of uncooked liver. Behind the fence, almost close enough for me to touch, a curved glass wall enclosed a yurt-shaped room.

Whoever lived here got few visitors—the windows had no curtains. I could see a couch covered with kilim pillows, and the cozy yellow glow of table lamps. On the far side of the room, someone moved back and forth.

I took the wrapped package from my bag, pressed a buzzer on the fence. The shadowy figure stopped and looked around, then walked to the door and cracked it to peer out. A fortyish man with rumpled dark hair and bifocals jammed onto a beaky nose.

“Yes?”

I cleared my throat. “I have a birthday present for you.”

I held up the beribboned box, and the man's eyes widened. A voice called from another room. “Who is it, Dad?”

“No one! I'll be right there.”

“It's from your friend,” I said. I doubt my smile was reassuring. “In Crouch End.”

“Crouch End.” The man opened the door, stuck his head out, and peered around. “Oh. Right…”

He thrust his hand at me, and I gave him the package. He turned it over, nodded. “Well, that was fast. Tell him thanks.”

He ducked back inside, and I heard the snick of dead bolts being turned.

I raced down the six flights of steps, my satchel bouncing against my side. I listened for sirens, footsteps in the passage behind me. There was only silence. When I reached the bottom of the stairwell, Adrian flung open the security gate and held up his mobile so I could see the time: 11:38.

I paid for the cab back to Crouch End without argument. We stumbled out into the street and raced down the alley behind the old theater. Adrian identified himself at the intercom, and we were buzzed into the interior courtyard and then the building. Once inside the creaking elevator I turned to Adrian.

“What time is it?”

He flashed his mobile: 12:03.

 

12

Mallo opened the apartment door. I didn't dare look at Adrian. Mallo laughed.

“You made record time. I got a text saying the package was delivered half an hour ago.”

He stepped out into the hall with us. A moment later Morven appeared behind him. She cocked her head at me. “Is this her?”

Her husband nodded. Without warning, Morven grabbed my hair and yanked me toward her. I kicked out, but before my boot could connect Mallo had me against the wall, his breath hot against my face.

“Don't you—”

“Let her go,” Morven commanded. “I have a job for her. Get that package.”

Glowering, Mallo released me and went back into the apartment. I met Morven's stare, her aquamarine eyes shining and cheeks flushed, snaky hair framing that sharp little face. She'd won a few catfights in her time. At the sound of footsteps, she glanced aside as her husband returned. “Thanks, love.”

She reached to take a small package from Mallo. I tried to calculate whether there was any chance of making a run for it.

“Here,” she said.

She waited for me to extend my hand, then set the package in my palm and folded my fingers over it. Her fingernails dug into my flesh. “Adrian, make sure she doesn't get lost.”

Adrian gave a little hiss of displeasure but said nothing.

Mallo stepped alongside his wife. “Tomorrow's soon enough, right, love?” He winked at Adrian, then me. “He'll put you up.”

I glanced down at the packet. Another gift box, this one wrapped in marbleized paper, gold thread twined around it instead of ribbon. Scarcely big enough to hold a ring, or earrings.

“Pretty,” I said.

Mallo nodded. “I like wrapping them.”

“And this.” Morven handed me a Post-it note with an address scrawled on it. “That's where it goes.”

I read the note. “Stepney?”

Adrian started. Mallo made a gun of his fingers and aimed it at him. “Once it's taken care of, let Adrian know. Don't come here again, and don't you ever fucking call me.”

“I told you, I don't have a phone.”

“You belong in a museum.” Mallo looked at me with mingled disgust and admiration. “Only reason you're walking God's green earth is because of what you told me about your friend Mortensen's photo.”

“What about the photo you took of me?”

“Hostage to misfortune. Or life insurance. Keep her in your sights,” he warned Adrian, and stepped back into the flat.

Morven remained, eyes narrowing as she drew her face close to mine. I flinched as she touched the scar beside my eye. “What happened to you?”

I said nothing, and she pushed me away.

“Where's Krish?” asked Adrian.

“I've taken care of her,” said Morven. She went back inside, closing the door in my face.

I wrapped the gift box in one of my extra sweaters and stuffed it into my satchel. I did the same with the Konica, and started to run down the hall.

Adrian caught up with me by the elevator. He grabbed my satchel and yanked it so that I spun around.

“You worthless cunt! For five quid I'd drop you down there—”

He pinned me against the elevator door, pushing aside the folding metal gate so that my foot dangled in the gap. I could see the metal roof of the elevator car, one floor below us.

“Mallo has a cleaning crew on call, twenty-four seven,” Adrian whispered. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”

His arm snaked past me to punch a button on the wall. I heard the elevator car begin to inch upward. My hair tangled in the latticed gate as cold air streamed from the shaft, sharp with the chemical scent of disinfectant.

“Do you understand?” Adrian's eyes were aflame. “Say it.”

“I understand,” I gasped.

He moved away and I fell forward, catching myself before I hit the floor. Behind me the elevator jolted to a stop. Adrian pulled me with him into the car and pressed the down button.

“I hate this lift,” he said.

Once outside, we trudged down the street in silence. The freezing rain had started up again. Adrian took out his hat, snapped it open, and shoved it onto his head. I shivered miserably. My leather jacket and cowboy boots were soaked through, my feet wet and numb with cold. I wondered despairingly if my U.S. passport had been damaged.

I asked, “How far is it?”

“Bit of a ways, there's no direct route.” He sounded resigned and as tired as I felt. “We could get a cab, but it's quicker to walk through Queen's Wood. What was all that Mallo was saying about some bloke's photo?”

“I'm a photographer.” I opened my satchel just enough that he could glimpse the Konica and quickly shut it against the rain. “He yanked one of my last rolls of film. Fucking asshole.”

“That looks like an antique.”

“Almost.”

“Do you actually use it?”

I flushed. Adrian laughed. “You've got to be joking. There's not a place left in London where you could get a roll of film processed. You ought to thank Mallo—he did you a favor.”

I spat on the sidewalk and said nothing.

After about fifteen minutes, we turned from the High Street onto a road lined with semi-detached houses, and eventually reached a small park. We skirted this, stopping at an enclosed walkway that looked like part of an abandoned construction site. Beers cans and trash floated in filthy puddles beside a plywood wall. The other wall was a chain-link fence festooned with plastic bags. Beyond the fence stretched a forest of black trees.

“That's Queen's Wood.” Adrian motioned for me to hurry. “Two people were killed here last year. They caught the guy who did it, but…”

I stooped to grab an empty wine bottle, smashed the bottom against the concrete, and straightened. Adrian raised an eyebrow. “You're not planning to use that on me, are you?”

“Not unless I need to.”

I walked directly behind Adrian, pacing him until we reached the end of the walkway. I could see his shoulders relax as we stepped out onto an expanse of half-frozen mud, gouged with countless foot- and pawprints. Using his mobile as a flashlight, he swept it through the darkness so I could see.

“Some of these trees are a thousand years old,” he said. “Queen's Wood, Hampstead Heath—this all used to be the Forest of Middlesex. Watch your step, it's rough going.”

The trees were immense, far taller and older than any tree I'd ever seen. Their leafless, interlocking branches provided some protection from the rain, though the muddy trail was treacherously slick, its skim of ice giving way beneath each step I took. Tree trunks and blowdowns, rocks and half-rotted benches were all webbed with ivy that rippled as though unseen creatures moved beneath the green-black leaves.

I stopped and held my breath, listening to the steady drip of rain, branches creaking in the wind, a distant siren. I tossed the broken wine bottle and moved on.

Adrian walked unhesitatingly through the darkness, following the firefly glow of his mobile. He'd been this way before. We clambered up and down steep inclines, through mud that was ankle deep. I tried to keep my satchel dry. I didn't want to think about what Mallo would do if his precious packet got damaged. Once I tripped, and Adrian grabbed my arm before I impaled myself on a dead branch.

“This is insane,” I gasped. “It's like fucking Mirkwood.”

“Supposedly a coven met here at the full moon, but that was before my time. Morven told me they were friends of hers. I think she actually joined in.”

“Christ,” I said. “Why doesn't that surprise me? Are you sure you know where you're going?”

“I live here. Be very careful—keep your foot on that log. And watch the steps, they're very slippery.”

In front of us rose a set of mossy stone stairs. Adrian mounted them expertly, grabbing onto branches to keep his balance. I followed, gritting my teeth as the branches bit into my palms and stray vines whipped my cheeks.

When I reached the top, I found Adrian standing in front of a chain-link fence that was nearly invisible beneath a blanket of ivy, leaves black as though tarred. Motioning for me to keep quiet, he walked alongside the fence for perhaps twenty yards. I followed as silently as I could, until he stopped.

“I'll go first,” he said in a low voice. “Hang on.”

With great care, he pulled back a matted curtain of vegetation and slipped beneath it. I heard a scraping sound, then Adrian's muffled voice.

“All right, come through. Watch your step.”

I pushed aside the ivy, revealing a hole in the chain-link fence large enough to step through. On the other side, Adrian held a plywood panel, painted black and covered with dead ivy. After I ducked through the gap, he slowly lowered the panel back into place. Once it was flush against the fence again, it was impossible to distinguish it from the overgrown wall.

Adrian turned and trudged across a rank lawn, almost as overgrown as the woods we'd just left. Cracked terra-cotta pots held thorny nests of dead roses. Something scrabbled in the ruins of a pergola. Broken glass surrounded the skeleton of a small greenhouse.

At the edge of the lawn stood a four-story Victorian brick home with boarded-up windows, slate roof shingles, and brick-and-clay chimney pots. Light leaked from the perimeter of several upstairs windows that appeared to be heavily curtained.

“
Dulce domum,
” said Adrian, and headed for a back door.

 

13

At the door, I waited as Adrian pulled out an impressive bunch of keys. I counted four padlocks, all nearly new, in addition to the original copper doorplate, now green with verdigris.

“You're squatting here,” I said.

“Me and a few others.”

He opened the fourth and final lock, pushed the door, and stepped inside. I followed, peeling off my leather jacket to shake off the rain and knocking as much mud from my boots as I could. I checked my bag to determine that both Mallo's package and my camera were safe, and turned to Adrian.

“How long you been here?”

“Not that long.” He removed his hat and ran a hand through his wet hair. “I came in July. It was more pleasant than it is now.”

We were in what must have been a sun room or conservatory, dark save where Adrian's mobile cast its wan glow across a tile floor strewn with dead leaves. The window beside the door had been broken and repaired with a lattice of plywood and two-by-fours.

“It's owned by the Saudi royal family,” Adrian went on. “Been vacant for years. There's places like this all over. The Arabs buy them up as tax dodges and never visit them. Or Russians. Billionaires Row in Hampstead. Highgate, Brixton. Used to be you could squat with impunity for months or even years. Pay for the electric and slide rent to the landlord if you felt noble. Then they passed laws to keep people out. Now it's a crime.”

He pointed at the broken window. “That's where we got in. We put in all new locks. From outside you can't tell we're here, and so far no one's checked on us—this is probably the last house in North London with no CCTV. The water and electricity's turned off at the mains, but I was able to do something with the water. Just upstairs, and there's no hot. But it's better than nothing.”

He bent to pick up a large flashlight, one of several beside the back door, switched it on, and swept its beam across the room. Bicycles leaned against the wall, along with stray tables and chairs, a collapsible baby stroller, and a carton of empty wine bottles. “Let's go.”