Angels of Mourning
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I was still smiling as I left the children’s unit: off the ward, past reception and out through the double doors. They swung closed again behind me – and I heard the automatic locks click into place. There was a keypad next to them for staff, but otherwise it was admission via intercom only. You can’t be too careful these days.
Well, that’s your good deed done for the day, Rachel Young. And now there was the shopping to be thinking of – and getting home before the rush-hour started. I paused in the corridor to plot my course: idly scuffing at the lino with the toe of my boot while I thought the options through. After the brightness of the ward, it seemed very dim out here: no natural light for a dozen yards. The corridor’s whole length would be well enough lit come nightfall, of course; but it was daytime now, and electricity could still be saved. Energy policy and all that. I’d seen a memo somewhere …
So: Safeway or Sainsbury’s? I turned pensively towards the distant lifts. There was a cleaner mopping the floor half-way along the corridor, working in a pool of wintry sunlight from the nearest window. I’d taken the first step in her direction when I realized someone was behind me.
There’d been no sound; not even a shifting of air. Just that sixth-sense tingle you sometimes get, when some prankster tries tip-toeing up.
I turned round quickly.
The corridor was empty.
I stood quite still for a moment: puzzled. I’d been mistaken … and yet the nape of my neck was still cool and itchy.
The gloom was deeper in this direction: the corridor leading to an unlit stairwell. The paint on the walls – already cheerless – had been sullied by shadow, like a coating of dirt. Even the air seemed grainy and begrimed.
But no one was there. I could see that much, at least.
Even as I stared, I felt unease creep up, and slip its arms around me. Despite myself, I almost squirmed – then turned sharply on my heel, as if to shake it off completely. But it clung on by its fingernails, and dogged me all the way back down to the lifts. The cleaner smiled a greeting as I passed her, and I managed one back – but it was just my face going through the motions. Something – out of nowhere – had spoiled my mood: some hidden concern, intruding to cast its shadow. Now, of all times. I could almost taste my disappointment.
That, and something else: something much more bitter on the back of my tongue.
Just before I got to the lifts I glanced over my shoulder one more time: I couldn’t help it. Beyond the cleaner in her splash of sunshine, and the signs announcing Paediatric Wards, the corridor lay in dingy silence. A hospital thoroughfare like any other.
Of course. But it still took an effort to turn my back on it again; and a still greater one to stop thinking of all that darkness between myself and Sandra’s cheery smile.
Through the rest of the afternoon it kept on coming back: that queasy, churned-up feeling in my stomach. Sometimes so acute that I even began to wonder – hopefully – if it wasn’t just something I’d eaten. Or some other easy explanation I could cope with.
But as I trailed round Sainsbury’s, trying to focus my mind on budget and bargains, I couldn’t out-think the other possibility. I prevaricated for ages over which washing powder to go for; read and re-read each label in turn; but it didn’t help. Words just failed to sink in: my head was far too full of grimmer matters.
I knew I was … sensitive to certain things around me: I’d found that out before. A common gift, apparently – but in my case strong enough to give me revelations: dreams and nightmares; and the awareness – sometimes – of presences not seen.
It wasn’t a gift I’d ever wanted. After … the last time … I’d studiously ignored it: tried to school it out of my head. And as time had passed, I’d even started to forget it – and put my occasional flashes of insight down to female intuition. Or whatever.
But what I’d felt this afternoon had been something more than that.
So the hospital’s got ghosts. So what? It’s an old enough building … I made for a mental shrug, and – as usual – plumped for the Persil.
By the time I got off the bus at the bottom of my road, I was feeling better. Still a bit delicate – the prospect of cooking tea aroused no enthusiasm at all – but my leaden mood had lifted somewhat. Maybe it was just tiredness, after all: things had been pretty hectic of late. I reckoned I could do with an early night.
I let myself in, and lugged the two full carriers through to the kitchen; not bothering with lights, although the place was awash with winter dusk. I was back on home ground now: familiar territory, made more intimate by shadow. Here even the dimness had its comforts. But I liked the way the glow from the fridge spilled out around me as I loaded the shelves.
I checked the kettle and clicked it on, then wandered back into the hall. The house was quiet: Nick wouldn’t be back until late. I was just shrugging out of my coat when I noticed the footprints.
Smeared grey footprints, on my freshly-hoovered carpet: leading upstairs, and out of sight.
For what seemed like a minute I studied them in silence – but that silence was full of all the sounds I’d just been making, coming back to me in waves: the rattle of the lock, the opening door; my tired little sigh, and footsteps through to the kitchen. Each mundane noise magnified a hundredfold by the knowledge that someone else had heard them too: that someone was in here with me.
Nick, I thought, and opened my mouth to say it. But the dusky air flowed in and dried it up. My throat as well. Suddenly I couldn’t even croak.
Because I knew it wasn’t Nick, of course; knew before the thought had barely formed. A stranger’s boots had made those marks. And even as I stared upstairs – and strained my singing ears against the hush – a fist of foreboding closed inside me.
A burglar. Still here. I’ve surprised him. Upstairs.
My eyes flicked to the phone on the wall. The overfull pinboard beside it seemed almost insultingly cheerful.
So how fast could I grab it and dial 999? Faster than a shadow could come racing down the stairs towards me? And how long after that would a police car turn up? How many minutes?
A minute’s a long time in rape. A very long time.
I took a quiet, cautious step back towards the door – the one I’d closed so noisily behind me. All my attention was on the motionless murk at the top of the stairs; but as I passed the doorway to the front room, something just grazed the corner of my eye – and clicked in my mind a moment later. My head snapped round.
A woman was sitting on the sofa, hunched uncomfortably forward: watching me from the dimness with cold, dark eyes.
I rode the bitter wave of adrenaline, and just stood there staring back. She looked about my age: her face pale and taut. The eyes stayed steady; but they couldn’t belie the wariness – and hostility – in her expression.
After an awful pause – a dozen painful heartbeats – she opened her mouth and said: ‘Rachel.’
I swallowed. ‘… What?’
‘You’ve no need to worry. Listen …’ Her voice was low, and carefully emphatic. There was an accent there, but my mind was still too slippery with shock to grasp it.
I wavered; her obvious edginess was hardly reassuring. Whoever she was. I made to ask the obvious. She cut me off.
‘Just sit down a minute, why don’t you?’ She was rising even as she said it. Shabby donkey-jacket, I noted; worn black jeans. And for all her attempts at a conciliatory tone, she was still watching with eyes as intent and unforgiving as a beggar’s.
‘All right …’ I’ murmured meekly, glancing down – then made a lunge for the front door. The lock, which Nick was always promising to oil, seemed to stiffen under my frantic fingers – stiffen and jam. I was still fumbling with the sodding thing when she grasped my collar, hauled me back hard, and sent me lurching off into the breakfast room. I turned around, teetering – and found she was pointing a gun at me. A pistol, held out at arm’s length. The face behind was livid.
‘Sit down,’ she hissed; and now I caught it right enough. Her accent – thick enough to slice.
Sit doyne.
Oh … shit shit shit.
I took a helpless step backward – and once more had that spine-tingling feeling of somebody behind me: close enough to kiss my neck. I spun around. And this time there really was.
She was watching from the kitchen doorway; I’d been in and out and missed her in the dusk. All the time I’d been filling the fridge, she’d been one of the shadows behind me, muffled in her long black greatcoat – her face masked with gloom beneath the brim of her hat. But the hat was in her hands now, her close-cropped head uncovered, and her face stood out as bleakly as a newly-risen moon.
‘Hello, Rachel,’ said Razoxane softly. ‘Welcome home.’
Chapter 4
I might have fainted then – but my body refused to opt for such a cop-out.
Razoxane straightened up from her slouch against the door-jamb: smiling thinly. I flinched, and swallowed a moan, but couldn’t step back: not with that gun behind me. All I could do was gawp.
She hadn’t changed a bit. From the state of her clothes she hadn’t changed those, either. Maybe she looked a little paler; and thinner, to judge by the hang of her scarecrow coat; but still not a day over twenty-five or so. And the smile was all Razoxane: all razor. It cut me to the quick.
My hand crept up to cover my mouth. I made a small, scared sound behind it. No point protesting I was seeing things, hallucinating horrors; still less in wondering how she’d got here – because here she was before me.
Flesh and cold blood.
The day outside was almost dead – but she still wore those shades of hers, the lenses cupped like goggles to the sockets of her eyes to exclude all trace of sunlight: the light she couldn’t stand. I tried to return her blindwoman’s gaze, but it was hopeless: like trying to out-stare a skull. Dusty-mouthed, I glanced aside; and realised I’d begun to shake.
‘Jackie’s right,’ came Razoxane’s voice. ‘You look like you could do with a good sit down.’
It was the edge of dry amusement in her tone that brought my head back round – and pushed fear past the flashpoint into anger.
‘For Christ’s sake leave me alone!’
The words came out like a stream of spittle. I’ve even heard that spit can drive back demons – but perhaps it’s the vehemence behind it that counts; the hate that really matters. And hate was what I tasted now: it filled my mouth like bitter medicine. Hate for the past I thought I’d left behind me. And hate for Razoxane – who’d brought it with her.
Not being a demon, Razoxane stood her ground – and clicked her tongue in mild admonishment.
‘Rachel. Is that any way to greet your long-lost sister?’
‘You’re no bloody sister of mine …’ I managed grimly.
‘Not in this life, maybe.’ Her thin smile hadn’t faltered; it was still so horribly knowing. ‘But we still belong together, Rachel. Believe it. We’ve walked apart too long.’
I almost choked. ‘Listen, I’m not following you anywhere … ever … again. All right?’
Behind me, the Irish girl shifted impatiently. Unsettled. ‘McCain. You said we could trust her …’
That lifted the hairs on the back of my neck: made me think of twitchy trigger-fingers, and bullets in the spine. I swallowed so hard it hurt my throat.
Razoxane looked past me. ‘She’s had a shock; it’s only to be expected. Thought I was dead, didn’t you Rachel?’ (Hoped, I thought back viciously, still glowering.) ‘Listen, give us a few minutes alone: I’ll talk her round.’
I risked a glance behind me; the girl met my eyes suspiciously, before lowering her pistol with exaggerated slowness. There was a message in the gesture as much as in the gaze: a barely-veiled threat.
Jackie. That’s what Razoxane had called her. I found a moment to wonder if that everyday name – this young, unsmiling face – was one of those behind the atrocities of recent weeks. The thought was dizzying. I really hoped she wasn’t.
And was really afraid she was.
Then Razoxane was beside me, her hand on my shoulder: her bloody hand – however many times she’d washed it.
I didn’t even try to shrug it off. Suddenly I didn’t have the strength.
So we went upstairs to our bedroom – Nick’s and mine: retracing Razoxane’s dirty bootprints to the place I’d once felt safest. Once inside, I went straight to the window and just stared out – at the cherry-red streetlamps coming on, and the ashen sky beyond them; stared, while our bed creaked behind me. There were kids still playing, down there in the park: scampering and shouting through the gathering grey.
I left it as long as I could; then let go of the outside world, and turned reluctantly around.
She was reclining comfortably against the pillows, her booted feet crossed on our nice clean duvet. The black leather was withered and grey with grime; her jeans were tucked into the tops. The grubby combination of her greatcoat and her grin made me think of some Victorian ragamuffin in a long-faded photo.
‘I was quite looking forward to that cup of soup, you know …’ she said, reproachfully.
‘Why’d you come back?’ I hissed. It sounded almost petulant: the last stab of someone who’s lost the argument already. Which of course I had.
Razoxane shrugged. ‘It’s a round world, Rachel. Even if we walk away, we always end up back in the same place.’
I mulled that over dully for a moment, then ventured: ‘You … cheated the Void, then?’
She nodded. ‘In the end. It almost had me …’ Her gaze slid away as she said it, her voice growing raw. She paused, and her silence spoke the rest – or some of it.
I waited nervously.
‘Melphalan got out,’ she continued after a moment, her unseen eyes now roving the room. ‘Bastard. I couldn’t hold him …’ The shades fixed me once more. ‘But you stopped him, Rachel. You really did. I was impressed.’
An image of cremation lit my mind – and filled my nostrils with its stench. I grimaced, instinctively rubbing my fingers over my pinched-shut lips. Then something else occurred to me, and almost froze them into place there.
‘But … If you got out …’
Her smile was back again, still faint; she shook her head. ‘The other two didn’t. They hadn’t the strength: they hadn’t the will. They’ll still be sinking now, Rachel. The Void goes on forever.’
And you almost dumped me there, didn’t you?
Another pause. She’d returned her attention to her hat: was turning it idly between her fingers. I noted the circlet of old, discoloured iron pushed down around the crown.
‘So what do you want now?’ I asked.
‘Your help,’ she answered simply.
‘What?’
‘It’s true,’ she insisted. ‘Believe me, Rachel, if I didn’t, I’d have left you in peace. You’ve already been through enough.’
I could agree with her on that, at least. More than enough. Again I waited.
‘I’ve things to do in this city,’ Razoxane said slowly. ‘Things you don’t want to know about …’
‘Oh, God,’ I blurted. ‘Not more Clinicians?’
She shook her head. ‘Not this time. My business with them is finished.’ She settled herself back. ‘I’ll say no more about the wherefores: it’s best you don’t know. But it’s work I’ve recruited some help for.’
I thought of the restless woman downstairs; could almost picture her pacing up and down in the hall. ‘That girl – Jackie or whoever. She’s …’ I hesitated, half-aware I was stating the obvious. And half afraid to. ‘She’s a terrorist, isn’t she?’
‘That’s an emotive word,’ said Razoxane mildly.
‘Razoxane. Jesus!’ I could feel my frightened outrage beginning to seethe. ‘What the hell are you doing, bringing her to my house?’
‘I thought it would cut out some of the small talk,’ was her unperturbed response. ‘Explanations and such. Much easier to let you see for yourself.’
‘I’m living with a policeman, for God’s sake.’
‘Well, she doesn’t know that, does she?’
I found I was hugging myself. Gripping my shoulders tight. ‘All those bombings … Liverpool Street and places. You did those?’ My voice had sunk to a disbelieving whisper.
‘Not personally, no. But I’m involved. There are reasons, Rachel.’
I stared back at those uncompromising shades. The face below had hardened; like the voice.
Open-mouthed, I just shook my head. Fractured images of mutilation seemed to rattle round inside it. And then all the rest came crowding in; the other injuries and deaths. The tearful faces. The creeping fear we’d all begun to feel – and our revulsion for the people who made us feel it.
One of whom was staring at me now.
‘No reasons, Razoxane,’ I said, still whispering. ‘Not for that …’
‘You’ll understand them someday,’ she told me evenly. ‘Some fine day …’ She paused then, and glanced back down at her hat; picking her next words carefully. ‘But in the meantime, one of my … co-workers has managed to get himself injured. He’s in your hospital, under guard. We need your help to get him out.’
Just run that by me again is one of those Americanisms I pick up from time to time. I almost used it then.
Instead I just said, incredulously, ‘Fuck off.’
‘Language, Rachel,’ she chided amiably.
‘Just go away,’ I snapped, not looking; my fingers sliding up into my hair to grip my skull and squeeze it. As if that would somehow stop the pounding in my head. ‘Please, Razoxane … whatever you’re up to … for Christ’s sake leave me out of it.’
‘I’m sorry: it has to be done. This isn’t something primitive like politics, Rachel; it’s much more serious than that.’
‘Razoxane. I don’t want to be involved.’ I stressed it like a string of full stops.
‘But you’re already involved,’ she pointed out softly. ‘You’ve seen her face, now: one of my terrorists – as you call them. An excitable young woman, as you’ll have noticed. If she finds you won’t co-operate … Well.’
I felt my stomach lurch, and looked up quickly. She was fingering the occult-looking amulet she wore at her throat; her pale smile had grown sly.
‘What if she was to find out you sleep with a policeman?’ She glanced over at the dressing table. ‘That him, is it?’
There was a photo of the two of us in a frame there. Nothing fancy; just a snapshot by a friend. Nick in a chair and me sitting in front; his hands resting gently on my shoulders.
I nodded wordlessly.
Razoxane’s smile grew chilling. ‘What a very nice couple you make.’
My eyes were suddenly stinging wet: tears of sheer frustration as much as anything. She’d do it, all right – and nothing I could say would stop her. I was past feeling scared for myself now; but fear for Nick yawned inside me like a bottomless pit.
‘Please …’ It came out sounding like a sob.
‘No need to get upset,’ she murmured. ‘It’s all so straightforward, Rachel. No risks. I just need you to find out the layout of the ward he’s on; where the guards are. That sort of thing. All right?’
I sniffed, and managed a reluctant little nod.
‘Excellent. I knew we could count on you.’ And with that she clicked on the bedside lamp, and turned her attention to the bookshelf beneath: the things I sometimes browse through on the downslope to sleep.
I rubbed my sleeve across my cheek, and watched her study the selection. I tried to focus my frustration into rage again, but it wouldn’t gel. I was too demoralised for that. All I could think of was house and home and happiness now balanced on a knife-edge: the steel of her razor smile …
‘Glad to see you’ve still got both feet on the ground,’ she remarked drily, pulling out a book to read the back. The Radical Tradition; I recognised it from here. Saints standing up for the poor. Most of my religious books were the same sort of thing. Social awareness; justice and peace. None of that trite evangelical stuff.
‘Still believing in saints then, Rachel?’
I nodded again, feeling the smallest spark of defiance inside me. But it wasn’t kindled. Her smile was thin, but not mocking.
‘And guardian angels too?’
‘Maybe, Razoxane,’ I said dully. ‘Maybe. But you’re not one of them.’
She shrugged, and picked another book.
‘Ah, yes …’ There was satisfaction in the word. ‘Mother Julian of Norwich. The visionary. The Anchoress.’ She looked at me again. ‘You know her story, then?’
Once more I nodded; warily now. ‘She walled herself up inside a church – to meditate on God. A lot of people did things like that in the Middle Ages. Hermits and such …’
‘So they did. Withdrawn from the sight of the living … that’s what the name meant. Anchoress. Anker. Ankerite …’ There was an edge to the way she pronounced that last word, but I couldn’t grasp why; and Razoxane just went on thumbing through the book.
‘Cheer up,’ she said a moment later: her smile sardonic. ‘See what she says here, Rachel. All manner of thing shall be well.’
She had, too. All manner of thing. But right now I couldn’t believe it.
After a pause I said: ‘Your … terrorists. They don’t know what you’re doing either – do they?’
She put back the book, still smiling. ‘Not entirely.’
‘So what … ?’
‘They’ve got fire-power in all its forms: I need it to finish this work. I need their bullets and their bombs. But most of all I need their blindness. Once someone’s started killing for a cause, they’re so easy to use. So easy to snare and to seduce. I promised them power, in the context of their sordid little war; they came scuttling to me for what they thought they could get. And now they’re mine.’ She flicked dust – or ash – from the brim of her hat, and watched it filter downward through the lamplight; then raised her sombre gaze to me. ‘We’re going to put the terror back into terrorism. Believe me, you’re well out of it.’
‘Will I be, though?’
‘Yes, you will. One small favour, and then you can forget you ever met us.’
‘Witch’s promise?’ I asked bitterly.
Razoxane grinned.
I swallowed. ‘And what if they realize … ?’
‘They won’t: at least, not in time. And a little more time is all I need.’
My mouth was still dry, but I found the saliva somewhere. ‘I might tell them.’
Razoxane’s smile grew almost fond. ‘Yes, Rachel, you might. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Not unless you want your vocal cords cut.’
I didn’t. So I shut up.
When we came back downstairs, the girl – Jackie – was waiting in the hall, her pistol out of sight again and both hands in her jacket pockets. She hadn’t turned on any lights, and her face was smudged with dimness, but I could read the impatience written there – and the unease.
‘All right?’
‘Sure,’ said Razoxane calmly. ‘No problem.’ She turned to me. ‘I’ll be in touch, Rachel. Soon.’ Her smile showed up palely in the shadows. ‘Keep the faith till then.’
I almost hit her.
Jackie opened the door – so easily, after all my struggling – and peered out into the street. The air that wafted in smelt of frost. After a moment she glanced back at Razoxane.
‘Okay.’
Her gaze switched to me – a mistrustful parting shot – and she slipped out. Razoxane followed. I shut the door behind them.
Silence fell.
I listened to it for what seemed like ages: the stillness of a truly empty house. Then I went slowly into the unlit front room, sat gingerly down, and just waited for the rising night to swallow me whole.
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