No Hero (7 page)

“Did you say,” I thumb through the mental mélange Clyde has summoned, “that the Dreamers exist on the less probable realities?”

“Did I?” Clyde hunches one shoulder; seems to cogitate on it. “Probably did, yes. You see, the problem with having more than one reality is that sometimes, well maybe often, I don’t know, but sometimes they disagree. Opposite things happening in the same place. So the Dreamers pick which reality is more probable and we see that. That’s how the composite can act like one reality, you see. Something happens on one reality, it happens on pretty much all the realities. Except in a few improbable background layers we don’t see.”

I take a moment. The Dreamers: holding reality together, hiding in the creases. It all sounds a little fragile.

Actually, sod fragile. Dreamers? Progeny? Feeders? It sounds bloody Lovecraftian. Any minute now my sanity is going to give way and I’m going to wake up in some New England mental asylum gibbering about unspeakable horrors and complaining about rats in the walls.

“What if they die?” I ask. “What if someone kills them?”

“Well, killing them isn’t exactly the easiest thing for someone to do,” says Clyde. He has a slightly professorial tone. He seems to relax in a way he hasn’t done so before. The doling out of information seems to suit him. I wonder how much action there is in this job. Maybe not as much as Shaw made it sound. Maybe Kayla does all the action stuff.

Part of me is relieved at the thought. Part of me is rather sad.

“If anyone tries to get close to the Dreamers,” Clyde is saying, “the realities they’re on are just removed from the compound.”

“Oh,” I say “OK.” I wonder when I’ll find out something that is more exciting than it is intimidating.

We drive on and it turns out the Sheilas live in Summertown, one of the less picturesque parts of Oxford. After the dreaming spires, it seems a rather drab setting for intergalactic revelations but beggars can’t be choosers on this sort of stuff, I imagine. Still, it’s a little tricky to sustain my sense of wonder as we mount the stairs to an apartment perched above a chain grocery store.

At the top of the stairs is a door painted a rather alarming shade of deep pink. Clyde knocks on it.

“It’s open,” calls a chorus of voices.

I let Clyde lead. I know Shaw said I’m meant to be in charge on this one, but letting the established contact take point here is a good dodge until I get my feet under me a bit more.

The door opens onto a tiny hallway—really just a four-by-four, square space separated from the rest of the apartment by a dividing wall. The pink theme continues beyond the hallway, with a Day-Glo pink print of the Mona Lisa on the living-room wall, and a shocking pink bookshelf squeezed underneath it. The TV is on and a man with hair so perfect it looks almost laminated is discussing crumb cake. On a pink couch perch the Sheilas.

There are, as Clyde mentioned, three of them. Except... well... I’m pretty sure there’s a politically correct term for it but at this exact moment it escapes me. Probably because I’m too busy counting. And yes, yes there are definitely three heads. Identical heads, actually. Same one three times. Triplets. That term I have. And yes, there are six legs. And six arms. Six hands. Six feet. But, and this stays a sticking point no matter how many times I go back to it, there is just the one body.

Siamese triplets? Is that the term? It doesn’t sound like it should be in this day and age.

They’re all wearing the same T-shirt of a multi-headed Indian god, Brahma I think... Well, I mean, of course they’re wearing the same T-shirt, they have one torso... but it’s really the same T-shirt three times, sewn together somehow. The same deity staring out at me again, again, again. Three pairs of jeans handled in the same manner— one seat with six legs. From their faces—smooth-skinned and fresh—I’d put them in their twenties. They all have the same asymmetrical haircut, bangs slanting down across their foreheads. The one on the left is placing a bookmark in a copy of
Macbeth.
The middle one slurps ramen noodles from a plastic pot. The rightmost Sheila is the one watching TV. She uses the remote to mute it, but doesn’t turn it off.

“Hello, girls,” says Clyde.

“Hello, pet,” says the leftmost Sheila, the one farthest from us.

“Morning, love,” says the closest one.

“All right,” says the one in the middle.

And thereby we arrive at the appropriate point for me to say that it’s very nice to meet them all and that I have a couple of questions if they don’t mind too much, and generally do all the things that ten plus years on the force has prepared me to do. What I actually do, of course, is my goldfish impression. Open mouth. Close mouth. Open again. No sound.

“This is Arthur,” says Clyde. Then, after I open my mouth a few more times, “He’s new.”

“Barely shows,” one of them says.

“Wallace,” I manage. “Arthur Wallace.”

“All right, Arthur,” says one, then another, then another.

The middle Sheila extends a hand. I shake it. It grounds me. This is a real person. This is a real thing happening. I am being a real arse.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “It’s been a rough couple of days.” I shrug apologetically. “Not my best excuse, I realize. But, well, my mum taught me honesty is the best—”

“Shaw make you read the book?” asks the rightmost Sheila, cutting off my babbling. It’s a mercy killing.

“Yeah.” I nod. “Still a bit shaken up over the whole aliens going to devour me sort of thing.”

“Clyde pissed himself after he read that,” says the middle one.

“Sheila...” Clyde’s protest either lacks conviction or backbone. Or both.

“You bloody did.”

“True. Yes. But it wasn’t really the validity of the fact that I was objecting to.”

He’s comfortable here, I realize. He’s not exactly confident but he is comfortable. Maybe there’s a way for us to work that. If I can fake confidence we might not totally half-arse this.

I pull out my notepad from my pocket, check the line Shaw gave us. I go over it a couple of times. I want to get this right. It’s been a long time since I was the new guy. I need to use my police officer props until I hit my stride.

“Director Shaw gave us a line,” I say. “Something Ophelia said.”

“Business already?” says a Sheila.

“Enough of this social foreplay already?”

“Get stuck in, is it?”

They wink as one. I attempt a grin but I’m still on my back foot and my blush reflex decides to kick at the least opportune moment, so I just stare down at my notepad and read the nonsense statement a few extra times until my brain kicks in again.

One of the Sheilas laughs. “He’s cute, this one,” she says.

“You can bring him again,” says another.

More notepad reading. And they’re nice girls, they really are, and I think I’d probably love to come round here and share a pint and have a laugh, but today is totally not the day for it.

“Beware the painted man’s false promises until he shows his second face,” I manage to elbow into a moment when they all seem to be taking a breath at the same time.

“Come again?” says a Sheila.

“Beware the painted man’s false promises until he shows his second face,” I repeat.

“Well, that’s marvelous to know, pet,” says one Sheila, pushing her bangs back out of her eyes. “Never know when that’ll come in handy.”

“What if he’s just been gone at with a crayon? Does that still count?”

The middle Sheila brays at this. The noodles hanging from her lips fly wildly and I am uncomfortably reminded of the Progeny in the dead man’s brains.

“Come on, girls,” Clyde says softly. “It’s his first day.”

And I could almost hug Clyde, except now I feel even more awkward. Some leader I am.

“Look.” I push my hair back and use the hand to force my head back so I actually make eye contact. “I’m really sorry. I just... I’m kind of feeling the pressure on this one. What, you know, with things not looking so awesome for Ophelia. Not really used to being the frontline on that sort of thing. I’m just trying to get off on the right foot is all.”

There is silence for a moment.

Finally the Sheila in the middle swallows her noodles and speaks. “Bloody buzz kill, you are,” she says.

“Sorry.”

“Nah,” says the one nearest me. “It’s fair play to you. Down to business.”

“Well, painted man,” says the one furthest away, “could be literal. Someone in a painting.”

“They’re not usually literal,” says another.

“Poetic licence is what they have,” says the third.

“Could be tats. Painted skin.”

“That could be it.”

“I like that,” says the Sheila with the TV remote.

They all look at me, as if seeking some sort of approval.

I don’t have a bloody clue. I sort of imagined something involving the word “scrying” and possibly rabbit guts, or at least a tarot card or two. I mean, I don’t want to doubt Shaw or Clyde, but just making random guesses seems a little... prosaic.

I glance at Clyde, and apparently I’m not doing such a fabulous job of keeping that thought off my face because he chips in with, “The Sheilas have an excellent record for accurate interpretation. Far above chance. In excess of ninety percent, actually.”

“You’re going to bring up the chicken thing, aren’t you?” says the rightmost Sheila.

“I wasn’t,” Clyde protests.

“Welsh loonies,” says the middle Sheila.

“I mean,” says the leftmost Sheila, “if you come to us with the phrase ‘bird of terror,’ then, I’m sorry, but we’re just not going to go to chicken.”

“Welsh loonies,” says the middle one again.

“Seriously,” continues the leftmost Sheila, “how are we meant to know about some cabal of chicken-phobic apocalypse cultists operating out of Cardiff? We’re conjoined, not bloody psychic.”

“Welsh loonies.”

Conjoined. Not Siamese. That’s the PC term. Conjoined triplets.

Which is a thought as off-topic as we are. Again, lovely girls, but it’s a bit like trying to herd conjoined cats.

“So, painted man is probably a tattooed chap,” I say, trying to bring things back on course.

“Most def,” says the middle Sheila.

“Maybe it means you, Clyde,” says the leftmost one.

The middle Sheila brays again while I raise an eyebrow. Tabitha, the Pakistani goth back at the briefing—she I can picture with tattoos. Probably because she has them. But Clyde? Really?

“Technically speaking,” Clyde says, pulling his head down between his shoulders like a retreating tortoise, “they’re not exactly tattoos.”

“What’s your girlfriend think of them, Clyde?” asks one of the Sheilas. “How’d you explain that one?”

I don’t know if I’m more surprised that Clyde has tattoos or that he has a girlfriend.

“You seen his tattoos?” asks the leftmost Sheila.

“The painted man has false promises?” I ask, completely ignoring her questions, which is basically an arsehole move that I hate pulling, but, well, Ophelia, universe-destroying aliens, etc.

“All business with you, isn’t it?” The rightmost Sheila doesn’t sound offended exactly, but she’s disappointed. I don’t have to be a detective to work that out.

“False promises,” repeats the middle Sheila.

“Pretty bloody obvious,” says the leftmost one.

“A tattooed bloke is going to lie to you,” says the middle Sheila.

Again my mind flicks back to the goth, Tabitha. But she is, most definitely, not a bloke.

“Until he shows his second face,” adds the leftmost Sheila.

“Which is?” I ask.

“Erm...”

The three Sheilas look at each other.

“A mask?” says one.

“He takes off the tattoos?” says another.

Everyone else in the room creases their brow.

“Guess not then.” She shrugs, and the motion ripples down the conjoined torso.

“Not sure,” says the leftmost Sheila.

There’s a moment’s pause while I wait to see if there will be more, but the Sheilas seem to be done. I glance over at Clyde, trying to gauge what exactly we’ve gained here, how exactly we wrap this up, if we should push for more. He sees my glance.

“That sounds like that’s all then,” he says, clapping his hands. “You’ve all been marvelous, of course. As ever.” He leans forward, starts shaking hands. “Definitely going to be on the look out for tattooed men with an above average number of faces.”

The Sheilas all smile. Broad smiles. They like Clyde. This is his world. As for me... I’m still perched out on the periphery. Just like I am with this farewell. Nodding and hand waving around Clyde’s goodbyes. An observer looking in. And I worry again about Shaw’s decisionmaking abilities.

We’re at the door when the leftmost Sheila says, “Of course, if it’s tattoos you’re after, you know who you should be talking to.” She gives Clyde a significant look. I follow it up with a questioning one for good measure.

Clyde slaps his head. “Oh bollocks.”

The Sheilas all nod together.

“What?” I say.

“You’re too easy on him,” says the rightmost Sheila.

“Who?” I say.

“Should’ve flushed the bloody key,” says the middle one.

“Who?” I ask again.

“Bollocks,” Clyde says again.

“Maximilian Lewis,” Clyde says as a momentary lull in the Oxford traffic allows him to stomp on the accelerator for about half a nanosecond before a cyclist makes a kamikaze run at us.

“Who?” I say, my head bouncing against the Mini’s headrest.

“Owns a tattoo parlor on Cowley,” Clyde says.

Cowley Road—the start of Oxford’s student slums. Cheap housing, cheap restaurants, cheap bars. And a cheap tattoo parlor strategically placed to catch them as they stumble back to the aforementioned cheap housing from the aforementioned cheap bars.

“A chap called Maximilian owns a tattoo parlor?” For some reason I sort of assumed all the owners were called Terry or Steve. Silly idea really.

“I think he goes by Max,” Clyde says. Which makes more sense, I suppose. Good to know some things still do.

“And he... is involved with the Progeny?”

“No.” Clyde shakes his head. “Well... no. Probably not. Not knowingly. Don’t think so. Unless he’s infected. But he wasn’t infected last time...” He shakes his head. “Can’t think why they’d do it. He’s just a nuisance really. Likely still is. We’ve had to take him off the streets more than once. He’s more than willing to give tattoos with metallic ink, you see?”