Part 14 (2/2)
”It's a good guess,” said Jack. He rubbed a hand over his face. ”b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. I should have guessed, with your nightmares& should have b.l.o.o.d.y known.”
”Don't blame yourself,” said Pete. ”/ didn't know they were anything but bad dreams.” And she didn't volunteer the other part of the dreamthe shrouded man, and the beating heart, and the advent of the black bird. That was hers, and not Jack's, to know. ”Nothing good ever comes from the Black,” she murmured.
”This one, this isn't from the Black,” Jack said. He patted down his pockets and then conjured a f.a.g. ”Coming to you in your dreams, sinking claws into your soul, it's living in the in-between.”
Pete rubbed her palms over her arms and felt the heat of friction. ”Wherever it's b.l.o.o.d.y from, I wish it hadn't picked me.”
”The in-between, the thin s.p.a.ce. The realm between life and death.” Jack exhaled a halo. ”There's not many living that touch the cold s.p.a.ce, Pete. Be glad it didn't try to pull you in.”
”I'm still alive,” Pete said. She felt the small sharp-toothed gnawing of the craving for a smoke of her own. ”Can't s.n.a.t.c.h my soul out from under me.”
”Soul's a tricky thing.” Jack grabbed his jacket and shrugged into it. ”And you can hurt, bleed, and die in the thin s.p.a.ces, Pete, be you flesh, phantom, or something other.”
”Just make the dream stop,” Pete sighed. ”I haven't slept in weeks and I'm becoming distinctly peevish from it.”
”FU get something for it,” Jack promised. ”You'll be all right by yourself for a few hours?”
Pete stood when he did, although the walls of the room pulsed ominously and she was dizzy. ”Will you you, Jack? You're not exactly equipped to be running around the city.”
He drew back, closing off as if she'd hit him in the mouth. ”After everything that's happened in the past days and you still think I'm running off to b.l.o.o.d.y score.”
”Jack, it's what you've been doing for a dozen years,” said Pete. ”I need you to be clean and sharp when we find Margaret, and whatever has her.”
”You're a cynical and mistrustful b.i.t.c.h,” Jack said, crossing his arms.
”Yeah, and people like you made me that way,” Pete snapped. She rubbed her forehead. Staying upright was a task.
”Now I remember why I walked away from you, Calde-cott,” Jack said. ”This kind of treatment would convince a bloke to stay dead.”
”Well, I b.l.o.o.d.y danced a jig on your grave!” Pete shouted, but Jack slamming the door drowned her out.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The flat was silent after Jack left, suffocatingly so. Pete poked in the wardrobe in the bedroom, the kitchen cabinets, and found nothing except dust and damp. ”Sod you, Jack,” she muttered. He was running off, wasting time, and she was supposed to sit home. Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely.
Leaving the flat unlocked, Pete left via the front door and found herself in a narrow hallway that could have easily hosted gaslight trysts a hundred years ago. A rickety lift with a folding gate lowered her to the street and she walked until she found a bus shelter where she could talk un.o.btrusively. One lesson from Jack's reappearance that tickled her spine: Things didn't need to be near you to be watching you.
Pete dialed her mobile, waded through the voice directory for New Scotland Yard, and waited with her stomach flipping while the extension rang.
”Ollie Heath.” Ollie sounded as though he had a mouthful of shepherd's pie.
”Ollie, it's Pete.”
”Pete!” he shouted. ”Where the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l have you been? Newell is s.h.i.+tting chestnuts!”
”That sounds uncomfortable.” Pete punched on speaker-phone and pulled up her mobile mail client. ”Look, I'm sending you a name and I want you to e-mail everything you find to my mobile.”
”You got a lead?” Ollie said.
”I will,” said Pete. ”Once I talk to him.” She tapped Ol-lie's e-mail into the address bar and sent the message.
”Got it,” said Ollie a moment later. ”Though Newell'll have my hide for helping you out.” He whistled. ”Caldecott, what the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l are you doing messing about with Travis Grinchley?”
Pete drew in a breath. A pointed question and a good one. ”He has something I need to move the kidnapping cases. And to find Margaret Smythe,” she said.
”Be careful,” said Ollie. ”People that cross Grinchley end up in baggies. Little ones. For sandwiches.”
”Just send me the information when you have it,” Pete snapped, ”and don't editorialize.”
”All right, all right,” said Ollie. ”What should I tell Newell when he asks me yet again yet again where you've gotten off to?” where you've gotten off to?”
Pete stepped out of the shelter and headed for the Stepney Green tube, weaving between taxis stopped at a red light. ”Tell him I went to the graveyard.”
In Hatton Cemetery, the headstones sat in neat lines, sentinels against the living. The gra.s.s stayed mowed and solitary figures and families moved among the rows, placing flowers or standing with their heads bowed.
Pete pulled a few weeds from the base of Connor's headstone. A vase of pink carnations with rotted edges sat in front, tipped over.
”MG, you sodding witch,” Pete muttered, picking up the carnations and dumping them into the nearest trash can. Her sister came up from High Wycombe, always managing to miss Pete's own infrequent visits, left cheap flowers purchased outside the cemetery, but never cleaned the grave.
Connor had encased MG's feet in stone when she wanted to fly, with peyote or boys or music. Pete's adventure in Highgate hadn't helped matters. MG never forgave either of them for clipping the wings of her wild, carefree, imaginary life.
”I know you wouldn't approve, Da,” Pete murmured, smoothing the turned earth over the grave. ”But I know you wouldn't have me leave a little girl to get murdered, either.” She sighed and stood, brus.h.i.+ng the graveyard dirt from her knees. ”What I'm saying is, if I don't come around for a while& Jack will take care of your spot. I think I can at least count on him for that.”
Her mobile burbled, and Travis Grinchley's address and relevant personal details appeared onscreen. Pete stood for a moment longer, reading Connor's epitaph. May angels usher you on to paradise May angels usher you on to paradise.
”I'm sorry, Da,” she said, and left between the rows of headstones before she lost her nerve.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Travis Grinchley's narrow Camden house was three stories of red brick veined with climbing ivy and granite-block bones. Someone had spray-painted no future across the bricks at eye level.
”b.l.o.o.d.y hooligans,” said a reedy voice from Pete's left. A wizened man in a frock coat and spats clutched a cl.u.s.ter of plastic shopping bags filled with takeaway cartons.
”You live here?” Pete said, finding both the fact that Grinchley had a butler and that he dressed the poor man like this this vaguely unbelievable. vaguely unbelievable.
”I'm Mr. Grinchley's manservant, among other functions,” said the gnome, pulling himself upright with a creak of spine. Pete stepped in and took the bags from him, flas.h.i.+ng her warrant card with her free hand.
”It's imperative I speak with Mr. Grinchley. Is he in?”
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