‘I really don’t see how. I can only ever agree with her, and thus I believe she should remain at liberty. Though I would. .’ It hesitated. ‘Well, let’s just say you’re much kinder than she is.’
Costain reached out and stroked it under the chin. ‘I think it’s time I gave you a name, mate. Do you want to choose?’
The cat mewed in delight. Ross was sure it preferred to wait to hear what he’d decided to call it. There was something pathetic about its eagerness.
‘I think,’ said Costain, ‘I’m going to call you Tiger Feet.’
He seemed oddly distant from what he was saying. But perhaps that was just what this man was like, how she didn’t feel warmth from him even when he was being kind — or forcing himself to be. She could feel sleep tugging at her again in the afternoon sunlight. They had to find another avenue of inquiry soon, or they’d all break. Well, not her, because she’d do something else instead of break. Or just her body would. Into her mind came the images that kept her going, and the anger about it that she kept trying and failing to project onto Losley, away from its real cause, which was the now unreachable Toshack. There he was again, her dad, hanging from the ceiling. The person that made her, the person she thought of every waking moment, the ghost that-
She actually fell. She fell off her chair. Her chair skidded across the floor. All the others stared at her. She stood up. ‘I. . I think I’ve got a lead, only. .’ She couldn’t say it aloud. ‘Give me a couple of hours.’ She grabbed her coat and put one foot in front of the other, and then she started to run — before Quill could demand good practice from her — out of the Portakabin, out into the meaningless sunlight, sprinting for her car.
Sefton found that he wanted that to be an excuse. There was something to be done here, so he didn’t have to carry out what he’d now come to the conclusion only he could do. No, not good enough. He got to his feet. ‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He found that he wanted to say something to Costain too. But he couldn’t find the words. He also got to the door before Quill could start to say anything.
Quill didn’t know how to feel. He knew that if anything drastic happened to those two, then any knowledge they found would be gone with them. And many other copper rules applied, besides. But he’d been staring at the Ops Board for hours, dealing with calls and emails from other operations that offered up useless lead after useless lead. What his team were doing now, he felt, was away from the board. And that honoured him.
He looked to Costain. ‘What about you?’
‘Actually,’ Costain glanced back towards the cat, ‘yeah.’
‘Want to tell me about it?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, then.’ Quill flapped his arms uselessly. ‘Don’t get yourself killed.’
Costain picked up the cat’s cage, the cat inside it already looking startled, and came over. ‘Listen,’ he said to Quill, ‘you and me, I know-’
‘Nah, come on. Is this just you doing the right thing again?’
‘Well, yeah. But-’
‘But we don’t ever know why anyone does what they do, do we? You might have stayed even if you hadn’t felt forced into it. You came back that first time, didn’t you?’
‘And now I need you to trust me.’
‘I’m watching you heading for the door with something that’s halfway between evidence and a witness, so I think I’m there. Is that it, or are we going in for any more of the touchy-feelies?’
Costain nodded to him.
Quill nodded back.
Costain headed out to his car, taking the cat with him.
TWENTY-FIVE
Ross stood in front of what had once been her family home, on that corner of a tree-lined street in Bermondsey. It was raining again on this Sunday afternoon. Only a couple of details of the house had altered: whoever owned it now had changed the garden, and put up different curtains. There was, thank God, nothing that looked special to the Sight.
The door was opened by a middle-aged Asian woman, who eyed her suspiciously. Ross presented her documents, and told the woman she could call the station if she wanted to confirm her identity. The woman kept the door on the chain while she did so, but finally let her in. Ross knew she must look suspicious, her professional politeness hardly concealing the personal urgency of what she was doing here. ‘It’s a routine inquiry, ma’am, to do with an ongoing investigation. Nobody here is in any trouble.’
‘I should hope not!’
Ross didn’t react to that. ‘I’d like a look around upstairs, please. Alone.’
The smell was so nearly the same. New people, new fragrances, same polish. She stepped onto the landing and walked straight past the door leading to what had been her bedroom. She moved on, instead to where Dad’s office had been.
The door was, once again, open just a bit. She resisted the awful urge to first peer through the gap, and instead just pushed the door open and went in.
What Quill had said about where he’d see the ghost of his daughter — that had been the first seed of it for her. She recognized that in retrospect. He’d been right: like with the ships and the bus, this was about places too. People didn’t always carry their ghosts around with them. In her case, she’d suddenly realized, she had very much associated her father with this room. She knew he was now in Hell. She knew that more definitely than any other fact in her head, but without having a solid sense of what that meant, even considering her own experience. But Harry’s dad hadn’t been just a bundle of Harry’s own insecurities. According to Quill, he’d acted with his own volition, right at the end. She hoped that hadn’t all been down to Losley. Ross didn’t know how it worked, so this was going to be an experiment. A terrible experiment. But she owed it to Quill to find the courage to do this.
She stepped into the room, closed the door behind her, looked around at the unfamiliar furniture of a spare bedroom. She looked up and saw that the ceiling rose was still there. No huge reaction to seeing the ceiling. It was just plaster. She made herself remember again, and now she could see it clearly again: that moment that was stamped into her, that had made her. She focused on every detail of what, if she could see a ghost specific to her, she might expect to see here.
‘Dad?’ she said.
No answer. But she suddenly noticed something: she could smell something new. Him, his aftershave, the smell of his jacket, the cigars and beer. And something under that, which spoke of vastness and closeness, of Halloween, of things let in on special nights. ‘Dad, if you can hear me, I need to see you. It’s. . it’s not just for me. It’s something important. I know you’d always try to look after me. . no matter where you are. It doesn’t matter what you look like now, or what’s going on, you can. . come back. It’s okay.’
She waited, feeling afraid and vulnerable but waiting. She smelled it before she saw or heard anything, and then a rose of thorns burst from the ceiling above her. And that distant smell burst in along with it. And the room was full of uneasy light. She staggered back but she stayed on her feet, looking up, looking and looking. . A feeling of potential harm had flooded in all around her. Something formed out of those shapes above.
And there — there he was again. Hanging there, making choking noises, the noose once again around his neck. It was as if the memory she’d fixated on for all these years had been preserved here. There was his wonderful face, alive again, an expression living on it again. She stared and stared as the blood hammered through her body and head. It was him. It was him! He spun and rocked in the awful light, looking at her desperately, one hand outstretched. She could see clearly the signs on his body of what the woman with the Tarot cards had called the threefold death.