Part 9 (1/2)
He snorted and swung his eyes to the window. The sun was high, catching motes of dust across the panes, and Pete knew she was already late for work.
”Like you don't know,” Jack said finally with a shrug so disaffected Iggy and all of the Stooges would have burst into tears of envy.
”That's just it,” said Pete. ”I don't don't know, Jack.” She stood up and he met her, looked down with that bitter quirk to his mouth that warned of rage just beneath. She shouldn't press, but Pete did, because she was d.a.m.ned if she let Jack linger on with his contempt and his silence. ”What happened that day, in the tomb?” she asked softly. ”I've thought and dreamed about it so much, Jack, but I never really remember. What happened that made you hate me this much?” know, Jack.” She stood up and he met her, looked down with that bitter quirk to his mouth that warned of rage just beneath. She shouldn't press, but Pete did, because she was d.a.m.ned if she let Jack linger on with his contempt and his silence. ”What happened that day, in the tomb?” she asked softly. ”I've thought and dreamed about it so much, Jack, but I never really remember. What happened that made you hate me this much?”
Jack's lip curled and his eyes blackened again, and Pete steeled herself for something, she didn't know exactly what, but the air between them had charged.
”You really don't remember?” Jack said, that predatory cold flickering in the depths. Pete shook her head, throat dry.
”How about that,” Jack murmured. ”If you're telling the truth.”
”What reason would I have to lie?” Pete said.
”You know more than you're admitting to yourself,” Jack said. ”You saw him, same as me. You were there there, until you let go.” The last two words could have cut flesh.
”I have no idea what you're talking about,” Pete said automatically, although images of the smoke man flamed behind her eyes.
Jack considered her for a moment, as if he weren't sure what to do with an inconveniently dead body, and then his anger slipped back over his face and he threw up his hands. ”Then b.l.o.o.d.y well figure it out, Pete,” he snarled. He went into the toilet and slammed the door.
”b.o.l.l.o.c.ks,” Pete swore, slumping back on the sofa and pressing her pillow over her face.
Chapter Nineteen
Pete waded through the day of papers and questions and frowning stares from Chief Inspector Newell and took the tube home next to a beautiful Indian couple who smelled of sweat and spices.
”Home, Jack,” Pete called reflexively as she entered her front hall. The flat was dark and she saw the glow of a cigarette tip coming from the sofa. Jack exhaled a cloud of smoke and it shone blue-white in the reflection from the streetlamp.
”About time,” he said, swinging himself upright. ”We've got places to go.”
”Where?” said Pete. She didn't flick on the light. Talking to Jack, seeing only the ember of his f.a.g and the flash of his eyes was oddly appropriate, a mirror of hundreds of dreams where he appeared as nothing more than shadow with bits of substance.
Jack grinned and she saw the ivory gleam of his teeth. ”You'll see.”
They took the tube at Jack's insistence. He jumped the gates and then threw up his hands when Pete glared at him and swiped her Oyster card twice. ”Come on, Caldecott, don't give me that look.”
”Where are we going?” Pete asked again as the train roared through the tunnel, slicking back Jack's hair. They were the only people in the Mornington Crescent station, alone under the flickering fluorescent tubes with smoke and graffiti on the tiles.
”You'll know when we get there,” said Jack, holding the door for her. The tube rattled past Euston, on into stations that were barely lit, the humps of dozing b.u.ms flas.h.i.+ng past, leather-clad youths staring out into the tunnel with s.h.i.+ning animal eyes, transit police wrapped in blue nylon armor like weary sentinels. Pete wrapped her coat around her, crossing her arms across her stomach.
”Don't worry about them, luv,” Jack whispered. ”I'm here.”
Pete turned to look at him in the intermittent flashes from the tunnel lights, each exposure imprinting Jack in stark relief. ”That's why I'm worried, Jack.”
He sighed and threw his head back, worrying an unlit cigarette between his lips. ”We're meeting a friend of mine.”
”Are you and this friend on good terms?” Pete wondered. Jack lifted one shoulder.
”Last time I saw him, probably a decade ago, he and I had a slight difference of opinion.”
”About what?” said Pete, feeling the cold breath from the train window on the back of her neck.
”Long story,” said Jack with a lazy grin. ”But it involved two nights in Liverpool and a dancer named Ca.s.sidy. She did this bit where she put her leg up over her head&”
Pete held up a hand. ”Is he going to try and bash our skulls in?”
”No,” said Jack. ”Not his style.”
”Thank G.o.d for small favors,” said Pete.
They got off the tube at Charing Cross and walked up the center of a nearby mews, the slick cobbles ringing under Pete's boot heels. Big Ben chimed eleven o'clock in the distance, amplified in the mist so that it echoed from every direction. Pete could smell the Thames, the wet rotting atmosphere that soaked into brick and clothing and hair.
”This way,” said Jack, his Parliament springing to life without the aid of a light. Pete blinked. Jack exhaled and held out the f.a.g. ”Care for a taste?”
”I'm quitting,” Pete said perversely. Jack laughed, and it turned into a cough.
”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. I hate this f.u.c.king wet weather.”
”Move to Arizona, then,” Pete snapped. The row houses got older, arched and leaded windows staring out black and blank into the night. Pete caught movement in the corner of her vision and whipped her head to the left. A woman in black latex that gleamed like b.l.o.o.d.y skin and a man in an a.r.s.enal jersey disappeared into an alley.
Jack snorted. ”Didn't peg you for an easy shock, Calde-cott.”
Pete stopped in the street and crossed her arms. ”I'm not, Jack. I came after you, didn't I? And on that matter, I am not going another step until you tell me what the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l is going on.”
Jack rolled his eyes at her, taking a long drag on his cigarette. ”Anyone ever told you you're too d.a.m.ned stubborn for your own good?”
”Constantly,” said Pete. ”What is this?”
Jack sighed. ”Pete, I told you the night you found me that I only had one condition for doing this, yeah?”
”You did,” Pete agreed cautiously.
”I asked you to believe me,” said Jack. ”So believe me now when I say I can't tell you where we're going and who we're meeting. You're just going to have to hold your knickers on and see.” He turned with a ripple of fog and tobacco smoke and kept walking. Pete swore under her breath and followed, trying to ignore the roiling in her stomach that told her dark things were on their heels, just outside the pools of streetlamp light.
Once or twice she heard a snuffling and squealing, nails clacking on paving stones. She kept her eyes on the uneven blond spikes of Jack's hair and didn't look back.
Then Big Ben chimed midnight.
Pete stopped and c.o.c.ked her head, listening to the bell ring through to twelve and telling herself she was crazy, or the clock was faulty, or that something something logical and sane was going on here. logical and sane was going on here.
”You heard it,” Jack stated. Pete sighed and stopped trying to pretend. Clocks that chimed midnight at half-eleven and shadow creatures were what Jack asked of her. So be it.
”I did.” She nodded. ”What does that mean?”