Thicker Than Water Page 36

  21

  It was more than an hour and a half later when we got back to the Salisbury. It had taken a long time to play Asmodeus back down into Rafi’s hindbrain: he was disposed to be frisky, and I wasn’t exactly on top of the situation. My head was throbbing from having the demon’s ectoplasmic fingers poked into it, and I was shaking with anger that I couldn’t use and couldn’t swallow.

  ‘You should probably take a little holiday when all this is over, Castor,’ Asmodeus leered as I played. ‘Maybe shoot off to the Caribbean or somewhere. Get yourself drunk, get yourself laid, see if it improves your mood.’

  I ignored the cheap jibes and kept banking up the music in front of him in a hot, futile rage, while Imelda sat cross-legged across from me, her head bowed, doing an interpretive dance of a refrigerator. Between the ice and the fire, the demon laughed and took his ease, whistling out of key with my lead-sap lullaby.

  This wasn’t an exorcism, it was just a soporific: the same tune I’d been playing for Rafi ever since he’d caught his spiritually transmitted disease three years before. It wasn’t the tune I wanted to be playing - but then, that tune had been stolen from me.

  I’d have to be content with cleaning out the Augean shithole over at the Salisbury. That at least I could do now. And Bic was stirring in his sleep towards normal wakefulness, his face calm, his chest rising and falling evenly. Everything had worked out fine, really - except that Asmodeus had found a way to stick a poker up my arse even when I was facing him full-on.

  Gradually, step by step, we heaped up chains around him and sent him back down into the oubliette of Rafi’s soul. He went smiling, enjoying his joke, but he went. I took the whistle from my lips, flexed my stiff fingers, and listened to the silence that was descending on the room.

  ‘Where am I?’ Bic demanded groggily, sitting up. ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘You’re with friends,’ I assured him, surprised by my own cracked voice. ‘Imelda, thanks for everything. I owe you, and I’ll find a way to pay you back.’

  She didn’t move, but her head came up slowly and she stared at me.

  ‘You let yourselves out,’ she said stonily, not acknowledging the thanks. ‘I’m staying here until I’m sure.’

  ‘He’s asleep,’ Rafi said, sounding even more wrecked than I felt. ‘I’d feel him if he was still awake.’

  ‘He fooled us once,’ Imelda reminded him. ‘When he kept a little piece of himself inside your hand. There’s nothing to stop him doing the same thing again, so I’m not taking anything on trust here.’

  She walked with us to the door. Trudie made to take Bic’s hand but I got there first and handed her the helmet instead. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Rules are rules.’

  She took it, giving me a slightly hurt frown, and slid it over her head again without a word.

  Imelda confronted me squarely. ‘When you’re done tonight,’ she said, ‘you come back and take your friend out of here. I’ve got nothing against Rafael, and Pamela is as sweet a child as ever I saw, but I got my own child to think about, too. Enough is enough, Castor. This is your notice to quit.’

  ‘Could you give me a week?’ I asked her. I just didn’t feel like I could deal with this right now, on top of everything else. ‘A week or a fortnight, to scout out another place? Seriously, Imelda, I don’t know if I can find anywhere at this kind of notice. And you know what will happen if—’

  She cut me off coldly and bluntly, swiping her hand horizontally between us in a no pasaran gesture. ‘It’s your problem,’ she said. ‘It’s not mine. Not after tonight.’

  I nodded, giving up the point. She went down to tell Cheadle we were through while I trussed Trudie up like a BDSM turkey again and Bic watched me with big, bemused eyes.

  ‘It’ll all make sense when we get you home,’ I promised him. And then, as he opened his mouth to ask a question, I silenced him with a cowardly ‘Your mum will explain.’

  Cheadle appeared at my elbow. ‘All done?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘Right, let’s get off, then. I’ve got another job on.’

  I almost asked him what it was, and whether he took everything as completely in his stride as he had this scary, weird circus; but I knew I wouldn’t get any kind of an answer I could actually use.

  We led Trudie down the stairs between us, Imelda following with Bic. He got to sit up front this time, a blanket of Imelda’s draped over his shoulders, but Trudie was once again locked in the back of the van after Cheadle had checked the adequacy of her restraints.

  ‘Soon be done,’ he said, slamming the doors on her. This seemed to be addressed to Bic, who nodded silently. He’d barely spoken a dozen words since he’d woken up, but it wasn’t because he was groggy or disoriented. On the contrary, he seemed entirely alert and even thoughtful: but whatever was in his thoughts he didn’t seem to want to share.

  When we got to Walworth Road and saw the orange glow colouring the night sky ahead of us, I realised that the night was far from over. It was many hours past sunset, and many months before Bonfire Night, so there was no good explanation for that redecoration of the heavens.

  ‘Someone’s having a fry-up,’ Cheadle remarked dryly.

  Someone was. A few blocks further on we came to a gap between buildings where some old shops had been levelled, and we could see the Salisbury a scant mile away. One of the towers was burning, flame pouring out of the windows on the top three storeys.

  ‘It’s not Weston,’ I said to Bic. ‘It’s too far over.’

  ‘And anyway, it’s not . . .’ The boy faltered, but he ran out of words. He showed me his hand instead, and I nodded. No wounds involved. The demon loved wounds: it had no interest in fire. So the fire was just a by-product of something else.

  At the Salisbury there were police cars and fire engines parked three-deep on the road and a crowd of uniformed constables hid the front steps like a flock of crows that had all descended at once on some particularly tasty bit of roadkill. Cheadle swore when he saw them. Carefully and slowly, giving a copper in the road a smile and a respectful nod, he wove his way through the thicket of paddy wagons and kept on going.

  ‘Let us out here,’ I said.

  Cheadle scowled and shook his head. ‘We’re parking around the corner,’ he muttered. ‘In Balfour Street. Use your loaf, eh? If they see what we’ve got in the back of the van, we’re none of us going anywhere besides a holding cell tonight.’

  He was right, of course: the combination of Trudie in her bondage rig and Bic in his pyjamas would be enough to make even the most laissez-faire of plods reach for his handcuffs.

  We took the next left and pulled in to the kerb. Then I followed Cheadle around to the back of the van and - as soon as he’d unlocked the doors - untied Trudie for the last time that night.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to go through this,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t have to go through it,’ she said, rubbing her wrists. ‘Not if you’d taken my word in the first place.’ Our eyes met for a moment, and there was something in hers that looked like reproach. ‘What is it you’ve got against us, Castor? Our intel on you says you were raised Catholic yourself. ’

  ‘It’s not Catholics I’ve got a problem with,’ I said. ‘It’s paramilitaries.’

  ‘You can drop the para. This is a real war. And you know what’s at stake better than anyone.’

  ‘Nothing is at stake.’ My voice sounded harsh even to me, but then it had been a long night. ‘Not in the way you mean it. Loup-garous, ghosts, zombies . . . Most of what I deal with as an exorcist is just human souls in different flavours. The demons are different, but they’re not an army. So you’re not at war. Unless every farmer who picks up a shotgun and stomps off towards the henhouse because he’s heard squawks and flutters in the middle of the night is at war.’

  Trudie looked past me, out through the open doors of the van towards the burning tower. The taste of smoke was in the air and it hurt a little to breathe. She didn’t need to speak to make her point. Somehow, I felt like I did.
>
  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you the demons. Like I said, they’re different. But that’s the point, isn’t it? You people treat the dead - all the dead - as the enemy. I may be an exorcist but at least I’ve got a bit more discrimination than a hand grenade lobbed into a crowded room.’

  Trudie seemed disposed to carry on the argument, and maybe ramp it up a few notches, but Cheadle was tapping his feet and the night was on fire.

  ‘Skip it,’ I suggested. ‘We can have the big political debate some time when London isn’t burning.’

  ‘Castor—’

  But I was already stepping down out of the van. ‘Come on,’ I said to Bic, ‘let’s get you home. Mister Cheadle, it’s been a pleasure to watch you work.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Cheadle gave me a nod that conveyed the thinnest possible sliver of civility as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. ‘You know where to find me if you need me. Prices as per scale. Unsociable hours a bloody speciality.’

  Trudie barely had time to jump clear: Cheadle drove away with a squeal of tyres, braking sharply after ten yards so that momentum would slam the tailgate closed for him. Then he put the van into gear again and disappeared into the night at a speed you seldom see clocked in the centre of London.

  I led Bic around to the main road and the steps up to the estate’s front entrance. Trudie fell in beside us, but she didn’t try to open up the conversation again.

  Before we got to the steps, a constable stopped us with an upraised hand. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s a fire in progress and we’ve had to close the street at this point.’

  ‘He lives in there,’ I said, putting my hand on Bic’s shoulder.

  The cop looked away, squinting. ‘There’s some community support people,’ he said, ‘with yellow tabards. They’ve got a van set up. You find them, they can look after him.’

  ‘I need to get inside,’ I said.

  He gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘We’ve got the bloody Third World War going on in here,’ he said. ‘Just move along, okay?’

  But even while he was saying it, I caught sight of a familiar figure as she tacked between the parked police cars behind him. ‘Basquiat!’ I yelled. ‘Over here!’

  She turned and saw me, and a whole range of emotions crossed her face one after another. For a moment I thought she was going to turn again, like Dick Whittington, and keep right on going. But she said something brief and to the point to a uniformed officer hovering at her elbow, and then as he ran off to do her bidding she crossed over to join us. She didn’t look very happy, though: and bearing in mind the outcome of our previous conversation, neither was I.

  ‘It’s a demon,’ I said, getting my version in first before she could open her mouth.

  Basquiat scowled, looking from me down to Bic and then back up at Trudie. ‘We’re thinking it’s a gang war,’ she said, ‘on account of the gangs. And the warfare. Castor, I thought I told you to stay where I could find you.’

  ‘You did,’ I agreed.

  ‘And yet you went away. I sent someone to collect you from the address you gave, and I get told you’re up north finding your fucking roots.’

  ‘I found something else too, Ruth. I found out what you’re dealing with here. I think it was responsible for Kenny Seddon’s death. I think it’s killed a lot of people since. And I think it’s going to keep right on trucking if you don’t let me go in there and stitch it. Now would be good.’

  Basquiat’s eyes narrowed. ‘Your brother killed Kenny Seddon,’ she said. ‘And if you call me Ruth again, I’ll break all your fingers. I bet that’ll limit your musical repertoire for a while.’

  ‘What’s going on in there?’ I demanded, pointing at the nearest towers. ‘Just teenagers rumbling on the walkways? You’ve got twenty cars on the street and a fire you can’t get in close enough to put out. It’s getting out of hand - sergeant.’

  ‘It’s already out of hand,’ Basquiat growled. ‘The gangs have barricaded the walkways two-thirds of the way along. The only towers we can get into are Barratt, Marston and Longley. The fire’s in Carlisle, way over at the south end of the estate.’

  ‘What about getting in at ground level?’

  She shot me an exasperated glare. ‘You think I’m an idiot, Castor? The fire’s on the fourteenth floor, and they’ve dragged all the furniture out and dumped it in the stairwells. I’m not having my officers climbing over that mess with bricks and bottles raining down on their heads - let alone the poor bloody fire crews.’

  ‘Then what are you doing?’ I demanded.

  ‘We’ve got two anti-riot units coming down from Colindale,’ she said. ‘When they get here, we go in. And in the meantime, you keep out of my way.’

  ‘No. Castor is with us.’ The dissenting voice was Gwillam’s, although I didn’t see him for a moment or two after he spoke. I could only see Feld, clearing a path for his boss through the cops and firefighters just by strolling unstoppably through their midst.

  Basquiat turned as Gwillam hove into view, Feld clearing the last obstacles by courteously stepping aside and sweeping a couple of unwary firemen off the pavement into the street.

  ‘You remember me, Sergeant,’ Gwillam said - a statement rather than a question. ‘We met yesterday, and again earlier this evening. And I believe you saw the letter of introduction that the chief commissioner was kind enough to send.’

  He was taking a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and offering it to Basquiat as he spoke, but she made no move to take it. ‘I saw it,’ she agreed. ‘But I don’t remember it giving you any right to walk around inside our perimeters or make up tour parties of uninvolved civilians.’

  Gwillam was still holding out the paper. ‘That would be paragraph three,’ he said coldly. Basquiat snatched it out of his hand, read it and tossed it back against his chest. It fell to the ground, from where Feld retrieved it, grunting as he bent from the waist.

  ‘There are people dying in there,’ Basquiat said, her voice tight.

  Gwillam nodded. ‘We’re working on it,’ he said. ‘And consulting -’ he nodded towards me ‘- widely.’

  Basquiat shook her head in sombre wonder. ‘Just don’t get in my way,’ she snarled. ‘Just do not get in my fucking way.’ She stalked off, her shoulder whacking hard against Feld’s as she passed him. The big man didn’t react: he probably didn’t even feel it.

  ‘So how did your expedition fare?’ Gwillam asked. He was speaking to Trudie, and she nodded in confirmation. ‘I’ve got the goods,’ I said. ‘Glad you were holding up your end.’

  Ignoring the cheap shot, Gwillam became all clipped efficiency. ‘Trudie,’ he said, ‘report in to Sallis. We’re still working to stop the demon’s influence from spreading any further. If it manages to infect the minds of the police or fire crews, the situation could escalate very quickly. Feld, take the boy back to his family.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ I pointed out. ‘He lives in Weston, which is one of the blocks that’s on the far side of the barricades. And Gwillam - that’s where I have to go.’

  ‘One of the policemen said that there’s a relief van somewhere nearby,’ Trudie said, putting a hand on Bic’s shoulder. ‘I’ll take Bic there and then rejoin you.’

  Bic looked at me, and I nodded. ‘Go with her,’ I said. ‘I’ll make sure your folks are okay, and I’ll bring them to you as soon as this is over.’

  Reluctantly the boy allowed himself to be led away. I turned to Gwillam, who was looking at me with something like mistrust. ‘Why is the location important?’ he demanded. ‘Why can’t you do the exorcism from here?’

  ‘Because I fucking can’t, okay?’ I snapped. ‘If you think you can, go ahead. You’ll be trying to reel in a whale from a rowboat. It’s too big, Gwillam. It’s not like a ghost you can just summon to wherever you happen to be. When I tried something like that at the Royal London, I ended up in a place that looked like Hell’s sub-basement. And you saw what happened to your own people when they took the thing on. It’s c
amping out in a thousand different places - every piece of wounded or broken flesh on the entire estate. But it has a focus - the place where it first broke through onto this plane - and I’m going to take a wild guess and try Kenny’s flat.’

  ‘Why there?’ Gwillam demanded.

  A wave of weariness swept over me. I felt like I’d explained this a hundred times already. ‘Because Mark Seddon was a self-harmer, and this demon has a hard-on for incised wounds. You figure it out.’

  ‘The boy’s activities summoned something. An unintentional invocation.’

  ‘Exactly. If I’m wrong, we shift ground and we try again. But either way, this thing isn’t coming to us. We’ve got to go doorstepping if we want to have a chance.’

  Gwillam looked at Feld, who - impossible though it seemed - stood an inch or so taller as he prepared to take his orders. ‘Get the others,’ he said. ‘All of them. Meet us on the eighth floor of Marston Block.’

  Feld nodded once and strode away, the crowd parting for him like the Red Sea parted for Moses, only with a lot more swearing.

  ‘What do you need from me?’ Gwillam asked.

  ‘As much back-up as I can get,’ I admitted. ‘The demon is going to fight back - hard - and it’s outside my weight class. Your people will have to anchor me and - if they can - run interference while I play so I can stay focused on the tune and not have to worry about getting my frontal lobe fried.’

  Gwillam nodded. ‘All right.’

  ‘I’ll probably need some physical protection as well. Best-case scenario - the guys on the walkways are just running wild. Worst case, the demon’s got some measure of control over them. Either way, I could get sliced and diced before I get a single note out.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to ensure that doesn’t happen,’ Gwillam said. ‘And Castor . . .’

  I paused as I was about to walk up the steps. ‘What?’

  He seemed to be choosing his words with some care. ‘In the organisation I have the privilege of serving,’ he said, ‘someone with your background and your very considerable skills could rise further and faster than you’d imagine.’