It was nine o'clock on the Sunday night, and the trees were fading into silver.
"I like this van," the Twinkle said. "It's the best van yet. I always wanted to ride in an ice-cream van."
"I saw you with that Lucinda woman, Scribble," Mandy said.
"Do you have to bring this up?"
"Why not? You're quite the lover, aren't you?"
"What's happening?" asked Twinkle.
"Scribble got himself a -"
"Mandy!"
"What is it? What is it?" Twinkle shouting.
"Nothing!"
"Scribble got himself a woman."
"Scribble!"
"It's not…"
"Scribble, how could you?" Twinkle's eyes were staring. "What will Desdemona say?"
That left me empty.
"Good question," said Mandy, with a smile.
I looked from the young woman, to the young girl, and then out through the ice-cream van's hatch window, watching the fields go by.
Desdemona. Forgive me.
Beetle rode the van along the same tire tracks of the morning's ride, coming to a perfect stop some ten feet away from the grave.
I stepped out alone, telling the crew to keep the engine turning.
The mound of soil.
My hands digging into the soil, bringing up clumps of mud; scraping the mud onto the earth, moving on, sod by sod, until my fingernails were black and fragile and the world was opening up beneath me.
Found her body there. Suze's.
Strands of hair mixed in with the soil. Her sweet face rising out of the dirt as I brushed the traces of earth away from her, my hand hitting against hard wood. The little wooden box.
Waiting…
It was lodged against Suze's neck, hidden amongst Tristan's hair. And Suze's hair had fallen over his, so that the box was entangled within.
Waiting…
I pushed my hands into the thick mat of hair.
Suze's eyes were closed and her body warm from the earth. She's just sleeping. That's all. I'm just making a steal from a sleeping woman's body. That's all…
Christ! This was getting to me.
The complex folds of the hair, the sweat felling from my brow to my hands, the feet that I could hear the van door opening, Twinkle calling to me, the look on the dead woman's face; all these things conspiring against me, until I was tearing at the hair, cursing. Twinkle's voice from behind me, asking me what I was doing? But I had to get this box loose, you see, I just had to do it!
"What's going on, Mister Scribble?"
Then I had it.
Waiting… Desdesmona…
The last few strands of hair fell away and the box was in my hands. It was hand-carved from mahogany, the top etched into the shape of a howling dog. No lock, just a small brass clasp. I clicked aside the clasp, and then lifted the lid…
Yellow!
A glint of yellow amidst the darkness.
Yellow! The Yellow feather! It was small and neat, just like I remembered, its golden flights enwrapping me, burnishing the air with colours and dreams.
Twinkle came round to see, and I guess her eyes must have seen the look in mine as I gazed at the feather, because all I heard was her sharp breath.
Curious Yellow.
I have you!
Waiting for me…
We were. We were that. Coming in colours. Beetle up front, just like the old days, but this was something new, something else altogether. Felt like I was riding home, riding home in the back of a clapped-out Mr Whipping van, with a golden feather in one hand, Beetle's gun in the other, two bullets left.
Beetle was working the wheel with a hot touch. His spectrum was widening, his skin crumbling at the edges. I'd persuaded him to wear his black frock-coat, and to pull his hat down real tight. Mandy had wrapped a large scarf around his face. Cinders had given us the scarf and hat, along with a pair of neat sunglasses. The Beetle had these on as well. And his leather gloves. "He looks like the Invisible Man!" Twinkle had cried. The Beetle just shrugged. Flashes of colour were seeping through the gaps in his clothing, but it would do.
We were speeding the Wilmslow Road at a Jammer pace, back towards Manchester and the address in my pocket. Except the Beetle wasn't on Jammers any more; he didn't need that shit, not with the bullet in him.
"We going after Brid and the Thing now, Scribble?" asked Twinkle.
"That's the score, kidder," I answered.
"Oh good."
That kid should be having a good life, not being thrown about in the back of a stolen ice-cream van. And it was me leading her there, into a dark place, just because I needed her help. What kind of behaviour is that?
Yeah, I know. Like shit.
We came onto the Fallowfield crossroads. The Slithy Tove restaurant went by on the left and got me to thinking about Barnie, and his wife. Cinders. Her green hair wet with sweat.
Lose that picture. Lose it!
We were driving up the Fallowfield hill now and I saw a phone booth coming up close on the right, outside the student residences.
"Beetle!" I shouted. "Stop right here. I need to make a call." He pressed down on the brakes like a Sumovurt, throwing us all over the Mr Whipping equipment.
Like I really need this battering, my man. Know what I'm saying?
The phone booth had been vandalised recently, but a drop of Vaz in the slot sorted that out. I had a blue Mercury Vurt, almost gone to cream, but the phone's mouth took the feather gratefully. Then I pulled the feather out, and placed it between my own lips. Ten units of value glowed in the phone's eyes.
Jesus. That was low.
POLICE. YOU NEED HELP? the floating head asked.
Yes. Yes I did.
POLICE. CAN WE HELP? repeated the voice, growing impatient. I was finding it hard to speak, and I knew just why. This was the first time, in all my life, that I'd actually called the cops.
"I was just wondering…," I managed.
YOU HAVE AN ENQUIRY, SIR? LET ME PUT YOU THROUGH.
Noises in the wave wires like the kissing of the sea. The eyes telling me I had only seven units of call left.
DATA. CAN I HELP? A man's head replacing the woman's.
"Yes, please," I said. "I would like to know the situation regarding a Mr Tristan Catterick. He was arrested yesterday. Could you tell me please?"
"I've only got four units left," I said, but the line was playing the national anthem, whilst the head smiled benignly.
So I waited.
The voice cut in again. WE ARE RETRIEVING THE FILES, SIR. WE'LL GET RIGHT BACK TO YOU.
"I've got two units left!"
No response.
One unit.
The music playing, and then the eyes glowing from cream to blue again as the units came back on. Two units. Flicker. Four units. Flicker. And then upwards until I had ten units left. Somebody was feeding units in, and it wasn't me. Must be coming from the other side, from the cops, trying not to get me cut off.
They had a tracer on!
A glimpse of Takshaka's tongue flickering over the wires.
I pulled the feather out, doing a bad jerkout job. Shit! Time to move.
We rode down Fallowfield hill like demons, down into Rusholme, past the Platt Fields, towards the curry chute. Every car that we passed had flags waving from the windows. Pakistani flags. Inside each car, families of Asians were laughing and shouting, and the cars were sounding their horns.
What the fuck was going on?
Now the traffic was slowing down, and we came up close to the old flat, the Rusholme Gardens. It gave me a bad feeling, seeing where we had come from, and how far, and I thought the Beetle was feeling the same because I could hear him cursing. Except it wasn't from nostalgia. It was from the cops. I'd clambered up to sit next to him, and I could see them there; working the road, diverting the cars down Platt Lane.
A real heavy cop presence.
"Stay tucked up, Bee."
"I'm boiling, Scribb."
"You're a shining example to us all, Beetle, but right now I reckon you should keep it tight." I slipped the gun and the feather into my pockets. A shadowcop flickered onto our number-plate, but that's okay; that old ice-cream van was innocent. The Beetle kept himself well back in the shadows of the cab. A traffic cop waved us through, left onto Platt, taking it slower now, jammed between the Asian cars. Mandy came forward, poking her head between us.