'Who lived here before?' she asked, unaware I was watching her. 'Were there bodies... ?'
I shook my head. 'No, the place was empty when I moved in. But my guess is that a woman lived here with three young sons.'
'No husband?'
'Mothballed suits in the wardrobe downstairs. And no shaving brush and mug by the sink.'
'Praps he had a beard.'
'No men's underwear or socks either. The husband was either serving in the Forces, or the woman was a widow. I think when the final rockets fell she took her kids to the Underground station in the high street. That's probably where they died.'
Cissie gave a little shiver. Even after all this time and so much tragedy, the deaths of one poor woman and her deprived kids still caused her grief. How much more difficult then, when the victim was someone you knew and loved. Oh yeah, that could lead to your own disintegration.
'Look,' I said, sitting up on the bed, 'I'm gonna make coffee, tea if you'd prefer. You rest up and I'll bring it to you. Then well think about...' I shot a glance out the window, judging the sun's position'... well think about some lunch.'
She rose too. 'No, let me do it. You must still be all in.'
I pushed her down again. 'I know where everything is. And I'd rather be moving around than letting my muscles stiffen up. So what's it to be - tea or coffee?'
Tea.'
I swung my legs off the bed, but she caught my hand before I could move off.
'Hoke, those people outside the hotel last night... Who were they, where did they come from? Were they part of Hubble's organization?'
'You saw the surprise on their faces, and you saw how the Blackshirts reacted when they ran into 'em.'
'Then who... ?'
'Refugees, like us. Refugees from the Blood Death. At least nearly all of them were - they seemed to be taking care of the odd one or two who didn't look so good. I think they were a little whacky after so many years of hiding away and the Savoy being lit up like that, like some Christmas tree in a black limbo, well, I guess it drew them out, lured them away from their hiding places all over the city. The lights probably gave 'em some hope, made 'em think a part of the old life was returning, and they had to see it for themselves. They made a bad mistake.'
'What will Hubble do with them?'
'You already know.'
She lowered her head and as I watched, a single tear dropped into her lap.
I touched her shoulder. 'It takes some of the heat off us, Cissie.'
I left her there on the bed, staring after me, my meaning slowly dawning on her. Maybe it was a selfish remark, but there was truth in it. Hubble had all the decent blood he needed for now, so he didn't have to come looking for us. Okay, I was thinking only of our own skin, but selfish as the notion might have been, it gave me some passing comfort. Unfortunately I'd underestimated Hubble's hatred of me -or was it his obsession with me - after all this time. Yeah, I'd underestimated it badly.
21
ON THE TINY LANDING outside the top bedroom, I took time to stretch a leg across the winding staircase and rest my foot against the edge of the deep window sill opposite. It was an easy manoeuvre -
the gap was less than four feet -and by leaning forward I was able to pull open the curtainless window. It swung inwards towards the adjacent wall, displaying a fine view over east London's rooftops, the white spire of Spitalfields church rising into the bright sky in the distance, its clockface forever frozen to one moment in time. It said ten-to-four, and I wondered what day, what month, what year it had stopped and how meaningless that very second must have been with no one around to notice. I don't know why, but it felt to me that this day was a Sunday -maybe it was because Sally had always brought me to the market here on Sunday mornings - and, judging by the sun's position, it was around noon. The month was July or August, I wasn't sure which, and the year was '48. Yeah, so call it a Summer's Sunday, 1948. It had no significance, and I had no idea why the muse had come upon me; unless some kind of order was slowly filtering back into my life. Was Cissie's presence doing that, this awareness that she'd be depending on me? Was having another life to consider going to bring about some kind of pattern to my own? I snapped out of it and scrutinized the yards directly below, making sure no one was creeping up on us down there.
A drop of maybe thirty feet below was No 26's back yard, half of it roofed over by several sheets of corrugated iron that was meant to keep the rain off the coal heap and rinsing mangle underneath; in the open section I could see a tap fixed to the wall and the door to the outside lavatory. All was quiet down there, as I'd expected, and I pushed myself straight, using the banister post on the landing to haul myself back.
The wooden stairs creaked as usual as I descended to the next landing, and I paused outside the door of the bedroom where Wilhelm Stern's cold body lay. I decided not to look in - what was there to see? The shrouded shell of what was once a very brave man? No thanks, not today - and went down to the ground floor, my left hand sliding round the thick central beam that rose from the corridor below to the landing at the top of the house. When I filled the kettle I noticed the water was running brown, something I hadn't been able to discern the night before. I shrugged and put the kettle on the gas cooker - boiling heat would kill any germs and we'd just have to put up with the taste. It was as I was reaching for the matches to light the canned gas that I heard the noise.
A scratching sound, coming from the corridor outside.
Mice? Rats? Tiny animals who were survivors like me? Creatures lurking behind the walls or under the floorboards? As I struck the match, the noise came again. And this time I realized it was coming from the front door.
Blowing out the flame, I made my way round the Morrison shelter to the window. I leaned between the withered flowers and wireless set on the sideboard and peered through the parted curtains. The street outside was empty.
The quiet yelp I heard next had me scooting into the corridor and drawing the bolts of the front door I'd locked in the early hours of that morning. Turning the key and without thinking, I pulled the door open and there was Cagney sitting in front of the doorstep, his paw raised to scrape the painted wood again.
He howled when he saw me, but it was a small, exhausted sound, and he tried to stand on all fours, his tail twitching in a feeble attempt at a wag. He almost toppled over with the effort and I saw that his haunches and back legs were covered in blood, the pavement underneath him sticky with the stuff. There were bloody stripes across his back and flanks, as if someone had taken a whip or thin stick to him.
'Oh Jesus, boy...' I dropped to one knee and Cagney tried to lick my face. 'What have they done to you?'
Opening up my arms to him, I leaned forward and he shuffled towards me, desperate for my comfort, the drool that sank to the ground from his jaw flecked with red. Bad thoughts surged through my mind just then, a deepening rage welling inside me that was only contained by my pity for the half-dead mutt that was my friend and companion.
'Cagney -' I began to say, when the doorframe beside me erupted into a powdery flurry of splinters.
I fell back into the corridor, the machine gun's roar and wood shrapnel shocking me off balance. The second burst of gunfire caught Cagney full-on and small explosions ripped open his back, lifted him, his agonized shriek piercing the air over the sound of the bullets.
This time I screamed his name, knowing when the last bullet tore open his head he was already dead.
His quivering body slumped across the threshold and I had no choice, no matter how much I loved that dog, self-preservation taking over and instinctively making me kick him out again. With nothing to jam the door now, I kicked it shut.