They all nodded, numb. Sefton wondered exactly how they were supposed to do that.
‘What could you see that Dr Singh couldn’t?’
‘The body is, Jimmy is … covered in silver,’ began Sefton, haltingly, ‘head to toe. More than any of the others were.’ He’d felt the cold shining off Quill’s body.
‘Do we have a crime scene?’
‘We’ve checked all the major bridges for silver,’ said Costain, ‘and haven’t found anything. If we can find this car, the interior should be covered in it.’
‘We went straight to where the body was found,’ said Sefton. ‘Everything Jimmy had on him — phone, wallet, notebook and so on — was missing from the body, which might be designed to make this look like a robbery-’
‘But of course it isn’t,’ finished Costain.
‘You will have everything you need,’ said Lofthouse. ‘Even when the strike starts at noon tomorrow there are plenty in the Met that’ll still turn out for Jimmy Quill.’ Quill’s death was all over the media. The Ripper had struck at the heart of the establishment again. As if Jimmy was just that, a shape for a story. Lofthouse had provided what she’d called the usual quotes. ‘Jason Forrest sends his deepest condolences. He says he knew something was wrong when James was late for a pint. The main investigation team are now busy looking into connections between him and the other victims.’
‘Good luck with that,’ said Sefton. He wanted the Ops Board in front of him right now, wanted Quill to be standing beside it too, but he couldn’t see what good it or anything else could do. ‘I followed the pattern of those flash mobs on Twitter. The original tweets about them are from a variety of accounts, but they all use similar language. The first one of them always said something’s about to happen in a particular place — where Jimmy was — and then, minutes later, Toffs from nearby started arriving, ready for action. Nothing impossible about the distances travelled, and it might have been harder to do if it had been a weekday lunchtime, but it’s definitely a phenomenon. And I think whoever was sending the tweets must have known where Jimmy was, must have been trying to provide cover for the attack, at least at the start, and on the occasions when the Ripper found him again.’ He remembered the sound of Quill’s voice on the other end of the phone, the desperation.
‘I’ve put in a new Data Protection Act request asking for account information about the tweets,’ said Sefton, ‘but with the DPA backlog and the strike, I don’t know how long that’ll take.’
‘All right.’ Lofthouse closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again, as if willing herself to keep going. ‘You’re our only hope of catching this thing that killed James. I doubt I have to give you a motivational speech about doing that.’
‘No, ma’am,’ whispered Costain.
‘And if you do catch the Ripper, things might get better, am I correct?’
‘That’s the hope we’ve been given,’ said Sefton.
‘DS Costain — ’ she put a hand on his arm — ‘I’d normally appoint a new commanding officer from outside your team, but I’m going to tell anyone who’s interested that getting up to speed with your unit would waste valuable time. So you are now in charge of Operation Fog. Are you okay with that?’
‘Ma’am,’ Costain nodded. Sefton was pleased to see no triumph or annoyance in him. There was only the anguish they all shared.
* * *
Sarah Quill had woken a neighbour, asked her to stay in the house in case Jessica woke up, and then driven through the scarily empty streets of London into a building that was far too busy, where she had seen her dead husband’s body on a tray.
She had expected him to wake up. That would have been terrifying, but then, a second after, it would have been wonderful.
It had occurred to her, in that moment, that perhaps he actually might wake up, because now she knew impossible things could happen. But he didn’t.
She hadn’t wanted to touch him, but she had: she had pushed her head down and made herself kiss him, fighting awful horrors in the depths of her about this being the last time she would see … the body. Him. Calm voices told her that wasn’t the case.
There would be a funeral.
She was given a hot drink and asked if she was okay to drive. He was still in there, still just over there, in the other room. Still, incredibly, not breathing.
They hadn’t wanted to say how he’d died, but she’d understood what was under the sheet. That hadn’t hurt her at all. That was just a detail that her brain had gently put in a place where it couldn’t yet hurt her.
But it would. That detail had joined a list. They were all coming to get her.
She drove herself home. She thanked the neighbour and shook her head when the neighbour asked what had happened. The neighbour said Sarah was as white as a sheet.
So Sarah had been there when Jessica had woken up, like on any morning.
Jessica had come downstairs shouting, which turned into singing something off the telly. Then she had immediately said, out of nowhere, as if it was a certainty, that Daddy had already gone to work.
Somehow, Sarah was still sure it was all a mistake, but that was just trying to keep at bay this awful thing … which was true.
She was tempted, just for a moment, as she got Jessica ready to go to nursery — while Jessica talked and talked about Disney princesses and how she wanted all of them and that they could afford it, a word she’d only learned this week — to tell her that, yes, Daddy had gone to work.
But no. No.
The weight finally reached her, for the sake of their child. A child in whom she was seeing Quill’s face. She had to make herself not cry. She stopped dressing her, she had to tell her first. There would be no nursery today. There would just be the two of them.
She didn’t want to scare her. She took Jessica’s hands and looked into her face, forcing herself to smile. ‘No,’ she said, and found that she was going to tell the same lie that so many children had been told. Because she was such a coward. Because she didn’t want to hurt her with something she would herself have to take on first. ‘Daddy’s gone … on a long journey.’
THE PREVIOUS NIGHT
Gaiman heaved Quill’s corpse up against the parapet on the side of Westminster Bridge. Around him, the night-time traffic was absolutely still, as if in freeze frame. There was no sound except his own breathing and the scraping of the dead body being moved across the stones. Had whatever was doing this brought time around him to a halt, or was he moving very fast? He looked down the river; without movement it looked as unreal as a movie backdrop, the lights somehow no longer alive.
He looked back to Quill, and put out of his head, as he had so many times, the knowledge that this man had a family. They would suffer for a while, but everything would end the same way for everyone. That was the excuse he allowed himself. That justification had let him do all this. He had found Quill, he had anonymously texted the person who controlled the Ripper, telling them where his victim was going to be. He was doing this for the greater good. But that was what everyone who did terrible things told themselves. To take comfort in that would be wrong. Instead, he accepted his guilt. He was an accessory to murder.
He took everything out of Quill’s pockets and found the detective’s notebook. He had to follow specific instructions in disposing of that.
He took a last look into the man’s empty face, to make sure he wasn’t sparing himself anything. He grabbed Quill by the legs, heaved him up the parapet like a sack and used his shoulders to push him over. The body fell into the river. He watched it hit the water and could still see it for a moment as the current carried it away. Then it went under and was gone.
There was silver on him, and in the car. He would have to clean it all. He had been forbidden to give himself up. The deal outlined by the ghost that had been sent to meet him was very detailed, but it hadn’t, curiously, made any mention of how Quill was going to die, only that Gaiman would lure him into it. Gaiman got the feeling that the details had been improvised, a reaction to events.