The Door That Led to Where (3 page)

It must be a mistake. The writing looked genuine enough: firm, slanted, in sepia ink. Maybe whoever had written the label had been in a hurry and got the date round the wrong way. He went to find the file he had come across the day before, the one marked Jobey. Perhaps he'd missed something. But it was not where he'd put it. Neither was it under the table, nor had it slipped down the back of the bookcase. The more he looked the more certain he became that something was wrong.

He had worked hard that week and the table was cleared of all its bizarre items, each marked and filed to the relevant case. Only the key was left. It was dark outside now, the year closing down in the November night. AJ put the key in his pocket. Come Monday he would ask Morton if he knew why his name should be on the label and if he knew who had taken the file.

Everyone had gone home and the place was in darkness. AJ stood in the corridor, running his hand along the wall, unable to find the light switch. Each of the rooms was closed, as was the clerks' room, and he could barely see the reception desk. It must have been much later than he'd thought, for the only light there was came from the glow of the street lamps. The building smelled of old documents, musty papers – not unpleasant but a smell AJ hadn't noticed before, as if it was the same place but wasn't. Fear crept up on him. The chambers are haunted, that's it, he thought. They're ancient enough to be jam-packed full of ghosts, all of them miserable, all of them feeling the law had wronged them. The sooner he was out of there the better.

He made his way along the softly carpeted corridor, his outstretched hands guiding him. At Mr Baldwin's door he realised he was not alone. He could hear voices coming from inside.

‘What do you want from me?' Mr Baldwin was saying, his usual rich, booming voice stuttering. ‘I'm a sick man – I need to go home.'

Another voice hissed and spat the fat of unheard words.

AJ found no comfort in the familiar voice of Mr Baldwin. Something was not right and instinctively AJ knew he shouldn't be there.

He had started to creep back to the Museum when Mr Baldwin said, ‘Are you threatening me, Ingleby? For God's sake, why would I? The boy doesn't even know about the door. Now let me go home.'

AJ paused. He couldn't make out the words of Mr Baldwin's companion for they were as soft as shoe shine.

Then Mr Baldwin said quite clearly, ‘Without the key, Jobey's Door can never be locked. You know that, I know that.'

AJ slipped into the Museum, closed the door and held his breath. He waited until he heard the door to the chambers close. It was a heavy Georgian thing that had more noise to it than a door should. He gave it a moment or two. No one was there. This, then, was his chance to escape. On the landing he looked cautiously over the stair rail then ran down the two flights of stairs and through the swing doors onto the pavement. To his surprise he found that he was in a fog unlike any he had ever encountered. It was so dense that his hand vanished when he held it before him. The fog whirled in the basements and through the railings; it gathered in pockets, and in it AJ saw ghosts from another time.

Elsie had often talked about the ‘pea soupers' as she called the notorious London fogs of her youth.

‘So blooming thick that as a kiddiewink I thought they were made of all the buried people of the city come back to stretch their bones.'

AJ could well see what Elsie meant. Thinking of her calmed him until he felt someone near him and an irrational terror overwhelmed him. He ran along beside the railings, using them to guide him to the gates of Gray's Inn.

He tugged at the gates desperately and only then remembered they were locked every night.

A voice, close by, hissed, ‘Mr Jobey – is that you?'

‘Let me out,' AJ shouted. ‘Let me out.'

Through the fog he felt a hand grab at his arm.

‘I'll see you at Jobey's Door,' said the voice.

‘Get off me, you fucker,' said AJ and it was then that the gate suddenly opened and an old gentleman carrying a walking stick and a carrier bag full of books crashed into him. The bag broke and everything went flying.

‘I'm sorry, I'm really sorry,' said AJ. ‘I was  … '

He bent down to pick up the walking stick and help gather the books. A white pigeon's feather fluttered from one of them. A good sign, thought AJ. He expected the man who had clutched at his sleeve to appear at any moment but when AJ stood up he found the thick fog had disappeared, replaced by a mellow mist more suited to a London autumn, and there was not another soul to be seen, beyond the gentleman with the books.

‘Are you all right?' said the old gentleman.

He owned a head of wild, white hair and a face dominated by a nose of magnificent proportions. AJ handed him back the walking stick but without the carrier bag it was impossible for the gentleman to carry the books.

‘Where do you live?' asked AJ.

‘4 Raymond Buildings,' said the gentleman. ‘Top floor.'

AJ's heart sank. He didn't want to go back to the building he had just left, but the gentleman had what Elsie would call a gammy leg. There was nothing for it.

‘My name is Edinger, Professor Edinger.'

‘Mine's AJ.'

The professor lived under the sloping roof of the top-floor flat, in what had once been a children's nursery. Below the windows ran a faded frieze depicting bunny rabbits. AJ had never before seen such a room; not because of the rabbits but because of the huge collection of books. There were books everywhere. Books propping up tables, books supporting shelves, books piled precariously on top of one another. On an old table sat a lopsided candelabra with half-melted candles, and on one wall hung a panorama of London dated 1642. Time here had not stood still; rather it had fallen backwards. He put the books on the table, causing a cloud of dust to rise.

‘Sherry?' said the professor, reaching for a decanter.

AJ had never tried sherry.

‘Why not?' he said.

The glasses were none too clean.

‘They belonged to Napoleon,' said the gentleman. The biscuits he offered looked as if they might have belonged to Napoleon too. They had a greenish tinge to them.

‘No thanks,' said AJ.

The sherry had at least stopped AJ's heart beating bass and drum.

‘How is AJ spelled? Two As and a Y?'

‘No, just the initials. Short for Aiden Jobey. Or so I'm told.'

‘Very interesting,' said the professor. ‘Very interesting.'

AJ was mesmerised by the clutter in the room. On a small table propped up by books stood a rigged wooden galleon. It looked older than anything AJ had ever seen, as if it belonged in a museum.

‘What's that?' he asked.

‘Oh, it's a model of one of the ships of the Armada.'

‘Is that for real?' asked AJ. ‘Bloody hell, this place is like an antique shop.'

‘I suppose it is.'

‘And all these books – do you read them?'

‘Yes. Do you read?' asked the professor.

‘I love reading,' said AJ, bending his head to have a better look at the spine of a book whose cover was so old it resembled wood. The professor passed it to him.

AJ opened it. ‘“
The Trial of Charles I
”,' he read. ‘This was published in 1648.'

It smelled of another time.

‘You work for Mr Groat, don't you?' said the professor, helping himself and AJ to another glass. Slightly light-headed, AJ saw that the professor's jacket was patched in places, the cardigan he wore under it was buttoned up wrong and his trousers concertinaed at the ankles.

‘What happened out there?' asked the professor as if he was certain something had happened to AJ.

AJ told him about the fog and the voice, keeping his eye on the professor all the while, looking for traces of disbelief. There were none. AJ didn't mention the key nor the conversation he'd overheard, although he had a sickening feeling that it was about him.

As he was leaving the professor said, ‘I look forward to seeing you again, young man.' He opened the door. ‘Just pop up, any time.'

Only as the door was closing did AJ catch his last words.

‘Best you keep that key to yourself.'

The second AJ stepped into the stairwell at Bodman House that night, he knew there was trouble. He could hear plates smashing and his mum shouting. When he reached the second floor, Vera from the flat opposite Elsie's was on the landing.

‘If she doesn't put a sock in it I'll do it for her.'

AJ climbed the flights of concrete stairs dreading what would greet him.

‘Oh, look what the cat's brought in,' shouted his mum.

She was surrounded by broken crockery. The muffled sound of sobbing came from Roxy's room.

‘What's going on?' asked AJ.

‘What does it look like?' she said and pushed past him. ‘Frank!' she screeched.

Frank came out of the bedroom carrying an Arsenal holdall. He looked done in, his usually greyish complexion had taken on an unhealthy, reddish glow.

‘I'm not staying here. I've had enough,' he said.

There was more action in Frank than AJ had seen since the day he and the marshmallow three-piece suite had moved in. There was not much room in the hall and Frank took up most of it. The red reptile grabbed the handle of the Arsenal bag.

‘Don't think you can run out on me without paying the rent,' she said, trying to pull the bag off Frank.

A tug of war ensued, which didn't last long as the bag's handle snapped, along with Frank's patience.

‘Get off me, you old cow,' he said and slapped Jan hard.

She went at Frank, fists flying.

‘Just quit it, Mum,' said AJ.

Frank turned on AJ and the first blow caught his left eye. AJ ducked the rest as best as he could until Frank had him pinned flat on the marshmallow sofa in the lounge. It took AJ a moment to work out what Frank was shouting.

‘It's kids that are the bleeding trouble. Never wanted them – not hers, not mine  … '

‘I never bleeding well wanted
him
– that's for sure,' screamed Jan.

AJ thought about the straw that broke the camel's back: how much straw that camel had to carry before it realised it was too much. Too long he had put up with the crazy-paving pattern of violence. Seventeen years. Too long, far too long. He freed himself and landed such a punch on Frank's face that he fell, sprawled flat on his back, a beer-filled belch spilling from him.

‘What have you done to him?' Jan shouted, leaning over Frank's prostrate body.

There was a moment of silence, that moment before the next record plays on the turntable.

‘Frank, baby, are you all right?' sobbed the red reptile. ‘I'm sorry, cherry pie.'

‘Where're you going?' said Roxy, coming out of her bedroom. AJ was opening the front door.

‘Don't worry,' he said. ‘I won't be coming back.'

He ran down the stairs, only vaguely noticing Elsie and Vera. Elsie called after him and Mrs Perkins from the bottom flat said she'd rung the police.

‘Someone could be murdered up there.'

‘Yeah, me,' said AJ and slammed the outside door.

He was so angry there was no way he could stop moving. It felt as if sparks of fire were flying off him, such was his frustration with his family, with all the shit that was his life. Fireworks exploded in the sky, sparks of gunpowder as red as his rage.

He squeezed through the gap in the fence next to the locked park gates and was drawn to the clatter of wheels and the sound of a skateboard as it hit the ground. AJ sat on a bench, not saying a word, watching Leon flip and olly down the bank.

‘Safe, man,' said Leon after a while and handed AJ his skateboard.

AJ was nowhere near as good a skateboarder as Leon and Slim but it was a release just to be on the board, to feel his body twist and turn, his breath coming deep and fiery.

The police were at Bodman House when they passed it. Leon lived two blocks away.

‘What happened, bro?' he asked as he put the key in his door.

‘Mum and Frank,' said AJ.

‘Shit,' said Leon.

The flat Leon lived in with his mum could at best be described as raw. The place stank of mould, weed and cat's piss. The carpets almost moved without you walking on them. For all that, it was a darn sight more cosy that night than AJ's flat. They watched
Night of the Living Dead,
smoking weed, neither of them saying much. AJ fell asleep on the sofa.

At lunchtime the next day Slim turned up with pizza and Cokes.

‘What went down at your manor last night, dude?' he asked AJ, who was in the kitchen trying to find a clean mug.

‘Nothing much,' he said, turning round.

‘Wowzer,' said Slim. ‘That is one impressive bruise.'

AJ glanced at his black eye in the mirror. It wasn't good.

‘I can't go to work like this.'

Leon and Slim studied him.

‘I don't know. The girls will love it,' said Slim.

‘Shut it,' said AJ.

By Sunday evening it had been decided that AJ would stay at Leon's, at least until his mum came home. He'd pay Leon some rent – a bit more dosh would come in handy. AJ popped round to Elsie's to ask if he could use her washing machine.

‘That looks bad, love,' she said. ‘Hold on a mo.' She went to her bathroom and came back with a tube of arnica. ‘When Debbie visited me from Australia, she brought this. Said it was good for everything.'

AJ didn't like to say that it was so long since her daughter had visited that it might not work any more. Nevertheless, he allowed Elsie to put the cream on his face and the touch of her paper-soft skin made him feel better.

‘What happened with the police?' he asked.

‘I think they cautioned Frank. Jan said it was a “misunderstanding”. There you go love, nothing changes.'

Monday came too soon, too bright. On his way to work, AJ felt the key in his pocket. The sharp, cold iron brought back the overheard conversation and the stranger's words.
I will see you at Jobey's Door.

He shuddered at the thought. He knew what he was going to do. Give the key to Morton. And he wasn't going to ask about the Jobey file. Life was already complicated enough.