Contents
Title Page
Also by Gavin Extence
Copyright
Dedication
1. Through the Looking Glass
2. The Tempest
3. Something Different
4. Gonzo
5. Dr Barbara
6. Daddy
7. Laundry
8. Skype
9. Slough
10. Professor Caborn
11. Death in the Afternoon
12. Betrayal
13. The Kindness of Strangers
14. Hurt
15. Sharps
16. A Letter, Undelivered
17. Faking it
18. A Second Letter: The Most Astonishing Thing in the Tate Modern
19. The Mirror People
20. Revelations
21. A Huge Fucked-up Coincidence
22. Out
23. Miranda Frost’s Cats
24. Writing
25. Refuge
26. Another Dead Body
27. Two Girls in the Park
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements (And Further Reading)
More info about Hodder & Stoughton
THE MIRROR WORLD OF MELODY BLACK
Gavin Extence
Also by Gavin Extence
The Universe Versus Alex Woods
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Gavin Extence 2015
The right of Gavin Extence to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781444765922
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
For ACE and TOE, when you’re old enough.
1
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Simon’s flat was a mirror of ours. One bedroom, a shower room rather than a bathroom, and a kitchen-lounge-diner that a letting agent – in a couple of weeks’ time – would generously describe as open-plan. The central hallway was narrow and windowless, lit by a solitary uplighter which cast concentric pools of light and shadow over unadorned paint.
The lack of decoration was something I noticed straight away, in the several seconds in which I paused on the threshold. Beck and I had gone the other way in our flat. On our main lights we had those tiny imitation-glass chandeliers that you can pick up for ten pounds in any homeware store; and we had prints or photos on every available surface – landscapes and holiday shots – along with half a dozen mirrors of various shapes and sizes, to give the illusion of space. I’ve always believed that the way a person chooses to embellish his or her surroundings speaks volumes. My décor, for example, would tell you that I have a weakness for kitsch, tend to accumulate clutter, and dream of bigger things.
But what did Simon’s flat say about him? On the face of it, nothing at all. It just added to the mystery. Peering into that hallway, there was not a single totem of personality to be seen. Nothing to fill in the poorly drawn impression I had of the man. In all honesty, I’m not even sure you could call what I had an impression. It was probably more fantasy than reality, the sort of half-baked fiction we tell ourselves to flesh out the bit-players in our daily soap opera. As far as facts went, I could have written everything I knew about Simon on a Post-it note. He was forty-something, lived alone, was well groomed, impeccably polite (in an arm’s-length sort of way), didn’t pronounce his aitches, and had a job that required him to wear a shirt, and sometimes a suit jacket, but not a tie. I’d never been interested enough to find out what that job might be.
I don’t know how long I hesitated in the doorway. In my memory, the moment seems to go on and on – an insect caught in amber – but I’m sure that’s just an effect of hindsight, of knowing what was to follow. The door to the kitchen-living-dining room was ajar and the television was turned up loud. This, I reasoned, was why he hadn’t responded to my knocks. I knocked louder, on the inside of the door, then called his name, but there was still no response. Just the ongoing babble of the television.
Go on or turn back? Curiosity and caution fought a short, bloody battle (more of a bludgeoning, truth be told) and then four and a half steps took me to the half-open interior door, where I stopped mid-stride, left arm aloft and knuckles poised.
Simon was dead. I didn’t need to get any closer to satisfy myself of this fact. He was sitting in an armchair on the far side of the room (about eight feet away), his eyes wide and his back preternaturally straight. But really, it was nothing to do with his posture; it wasn’t even the glazed, vacant stare as the television continued to flicker in his irises. More than this, it was just a feeling of absence, the certainty that I was the only person in that flat. I was a person, and Simon was a body.
My immediate thought was that I needed a smoke, which seemed to arrive simultaneously with the realizations that I’d left my cigarettes in my shoulder bag and there was a pack of twenty Marlboro on the coffee table. And, after all, why not? Beck hated me smoking in our flat, no matter how far I poked my head out of the window. But it wasn’t as if Simon could have any such qualms. This was a completely reasonable response to the situation in which I found myself. I stepped into the room, removed a Marlboro from the pack – there were seven left – and looked around for a lighter. Since there wasn’t one by the ashtray, the next logical place to check would be Simon’s front trouser pockets. That, however, seemed a step too far. Instead, I lit the cigarette from the gas hob in the kitchen area, taking care to keep my hair away from the naked flame, and then leaned against the counter and started to think.
I’d been in the presence of a body once before, at my grandmother’s funeral, but that had been very different in terms of atmosphere. There was a sense of public display, of everyone – me, my mother, the vicar, the organist – playing a part, bound to follow the stage directions of an inflexible script. Here, I was alone with my thoughts, and my predominant feeling was of calm recognition. At the same time, there was something almost exhilarating about the circumstance I found myself in. Of course, smoking always makes me feel more alive – that’s the wonderful paradox of smoking – but this was something beyond that. The sensations were clear and vivid, like drinking cold water on a hot day, and I could feel my pulse throbbing in my fingertips. I made a mental note to tell Dr Barbara about these feelings the next time we met. But she was the only person I’d tell. I didn’t think my feelings were suitable for anyone else.
Cigarette smoked down to the filter, I extinguished the remnant under the cold tap, rinsed the sink, and then walked resolutely over to Simon’s chair. My finger hovered for just a moment before I took the plunge and prodded him in the cheek. His flesh felt inorganic, like rubber or latex, but it wasn’t as cold as I’d been expecting. Not that my expectations had been at all realistic. You assume death must feel like ice; what you get, instead, is cooled bathwater. Or that’s what you get on a London evening in late spring.
There wasn’t a phone book anywhere near the landline, and inevitably I’d left my mobile in my bag, in the same pocket as my cigarettes, but I had a vague recollection that there was a non-emergency police number for situations such as this. Something beginning with a one. Beck would have known in a second – numbers were more his thing than mine – but I still didn’t feel like going back to our flat to explain. I thought it was important that I deal with things myself, as though it were a test of my competence as a responsible human being. There’d be time enough for explanations later.