The Shadow of the Soul (38 page)
‘Jesus.’ Cass recoiled as if punched in the face.
Blood from both her ears was dying her lank hair, but it was her eyes that stopped him in his tracks. There were no whites, no iris nor pupils, only pools of colour and black, marbling together. It was like looking deep into space. He could see everything and nothing.
‘I fooled him,’ she whispered. ‘I left the reflection behind.’ Silver tears rolled from her broken eyes. More voices drifted up at them, declaring the downstairs area clear.
‘Give me the gun,’ she barked, ‘please. I’m torn in two, and in the spaces … oh God, in the spaces …’
‘What are you going to do?’ Cass asked. He thought he knew the answer. Abigail Porter was dying – whatever else was going on inside her body, she’d pushed it too far to survive. Watery crimson ran in the sweat from her scalp. Was her whole being starting to haemorrhage?
Footsteps clattered on the far stairs and he glanced towards them. There was no time for softness now. Abigail Porter had her fate, and he had his. He was damned if it was all going to end here. He released the safety and pressed the gun into her clammy hand and turned and ran for the second set of stairs. He didn’t look back. He didn’t want to look into those eyes again. If he did, he might find himself dragged to whatever hell her mind was in.
He was halfway down to the next level when the first gunshot cracked through the damp air.
‘
Shit!
’
‘
Put the gun down!’
Cass pushed forward. More shots rang out, followed by more shouting, and then just as he reached the ground there was one final retort before the awful silence fell. His
breathing was hard in his ears, and despite the chilly air he was sweating. Abigail had bought him some time, but how was he going to be able to use it? His car was round at the other side of the building, where Fletcher and Ramsey’s cars must be – there was no way he could get to it. His best chance was to head to Oxford Street, and try and get lost in the crowds. It was thin, but it was all he had. He pushed his legs onwards into a sprint instead of a jog, ignoring the strain on unused muscles and relying on his adrenalin to keep him going. He would not get caught. He would not get caught.
‘Cass, stop!’ It was Fletcher’s voice, its disembodied form chasing him up the gritty track, and without slowing, he glanced over one shoulder. The head of the ATD was coming up behind him, his gun raised.
‘I mean it, Cass. Stop or I’ll shoot!’
Despite the burn in his legs, Cass fought the urge to laugh: a hysterical laugh, but one all the same.
Stop or I’ll shoot
. In all his years on the force he never thought he’d hear that cliché aloud. He weaved slightly.
‘Fuck.’ Fletcher’s curse carried towards him. He’d stopped running. That meant only one thing. His heart thumping, Cass swerved from side to side, his eyes almost closed as he waited for the bullet.
He wasn’t going to make it. He should just give up. He wasn’t going to make it
. Still his legs powered forward.
Two things happened at once. The first was that a car screeched to a halt in the street in front of him and the back door flew open. The second was that Cass felt as if he’d been thumped hard in the back of his right shoulder.
‘Get in!’ a woman’s voice screamed from the driver’s seat of the car. She had a voice like honey, Cass thought, as his body spun slightly and stumbled. His ears echoed with the
rumble of thunder. Not thunder. Gunshot. As he clumsily righted himself, one side of his body listing madly, he caught a glimpse of Fletcher, raising his gun again. Beyond him, a fair distance behind, were Ramsey and Armstrong. They were shouting something that Cass couldn’t make out. He hoped to fuck it was ‘Don’t shoot!’
‘Quickly!’ the woman shouted again, and if Cass could have got his breath he would have screamed back, ‘What the fuck do you think I’m trying to do?’ but instead he just ploughed his feet through the mud and flung himself into the back of the car. She was driving away before his last leg was in, and that was fine with him.
The tramp leaned across him and pulled the door shut. Cass looked down at the bloody mess of his body. His shoulder felt like it was freezing and his eyes burned like ice. His breathing was rapid. So this was what it felt like to be shot. The world was getting dark at the edges and a wave of nausea made a lazy attempt to flood his system. The girl weaved the car expertly through the traffic. He wondered about asking where the fuck they were going, but couldn’t get the words out. Still, anywhere was better than Paddington Green nick.
‘They weren’t lying about you, son.’ The tramp beside him let out a hearty laugh. ‘You really do have
the glow.’
‘
Fuck the glow
, ’ Cass was pleased to hear himself say. It seemed like a good alternative to
there is no glow
. The sense of self-satisfaction didn’t last long. Barely a moment later the darkness claimed him and he passed out. It came as something of a relief.
Mr Bright liked the corridors at night, when it was quiet. He’d smoked a cigarette on the roof – it wasn’t a cigar kind
of evening – and then sat with the First for a while. Presently he’d go back to The Bank and carry on his paper trail from Mr Bellew’s accounts. Most of his followers had been the sick, and were no immediate threat now that their leader was, to all intents and purposes, gone. He’d decide what to do with them later.
It had been two days since they’d brought Mr Bellew in, and things were slowly calming down. They always did. He’d read about Jones’ escape in the papers and on the news, and then got the first-hand events from his various connections. He hadn’t had any doubt that Cass would get himself out of the situation, but he was curious about that car and who was driving it. It was no matter – he’d find out in due time. Jones was injured and would need to recover before he came after Mr Bright, which he surely would. In fact, he was banking on it.
He stopped outside one heavy door and slid open the panel on it. Mr Bellew sat curled up against the wall, strapped into a straitjacket. The restraint was unfortunate, but it stopped him scratching at his eyes. The big man’s mouth hung open slightly and a long strand of drool hung from it. At least he wasn’t screaming.
A brief wave of sadness washed over Mr Bright. Mr Bellew had been one of the finest: arrogant to the last, even as they strapped him down and told him to try for the walkways, he had smiled and laughed and told them he’d make it. As always, however, Mr Bellew had overstated his own abilities, and now here he was, with empty eyes and no
Glow
. He’d had a small last laugh, though. His facility in the old Underground tunnels had been found, but abandoned. According to the papers, Abigail Porter had died in the shootout – it amused him that she’d managed to fool Mr Bellew – but there were still two more out there, programmed to do
whatever it was Mr Bellew had wanted of them. Still, they couldn’t stay hidden for ever.
He slid the hatch shut, leaving Mr Bellew to his madness, and headed for the lift. Thus far, he concluded, most things were going according to plan. Yes, there had been the odd, unexpected mishap, but all things considered, there had been no harm done.
Elroy Peterson couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep and he couldn’t eat and he couldn’t do anything except see the colours behind his eyes. Terrible colours. He’d left the house earlier, and found himself standing by the tube station, totally confused and looking down at his Oyster card as if it could somehow tell him where he should be going. He should be going somewhere, he was sure of that. But where? It hurt to think
.
He cried a lot when the house was empty. He hadn’t been to Uni for two days. What was the point? What could possibly be the point of all of this? He was crying now, standing in the bathroom at two in the morning, just staring at his reflection as if it could somehow tell him who he was. As if it could somehow fill the empty space inside him. Something had broken him; a part of him was missing. Sometimes he could hear himself screaming and the only way to stop it was to scream himself
.
He lifted the knife and, looking down, slowly carved the only words that made sense into his naked chest. It didn’t hurt. Nothing could hurt compared with what was going on behind his eyes. He wondered about going back to his bedroom, but instead he lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down. He didn’t want to get blood on the carpet. He didn’t want to make a mess. He cut his wrists with no thought whatsoever, an absent gesture of an absent mind, and then leaned his head back
against the cistern. It was cold as space. He didn’t cry any more after that
.
When they broke the door down in the morning, despite his wishes not to, Elroy Peterson’s death had made quite a mess. The words clumsily carved into his chest were still legible though. They, not the blood that covered the pale and cracked tiles around his drained body, were what made his housemate scream
.
Chaos in the darkness
.
THE END
As always, a huge thank you to my editor Jo Fletcher and my agent Veronique Baxter for their continued support. You both rock. I also owe thanks this year to Ray and Matt Marshall at Festival Film for loving the first book enough to want to make television out of it. Best of luck with that, chaps! The longer that I write full-time the more I realise the importance of my writery friends – they’re a network of support I just couldn’t be without. As for all the real-life friends, thanks for making me take time out from the work to have some fun. You’re all the best. And a final thanks very much to whoever invented the Internet for making research so much easier. We writers all salute you.
SP
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Sarah Pinborough 2011
All rights reserved.
The right of Sarah Pinborough to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This ebook first published in 2011 by Gollancz
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 08952 5
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