Jerichau made no reply.
There was a chill wind from the corridor.
‘Ah, the ladies,' said Shadwell; and Death flew in at the door.
V
THE HOURS PASS
1
And still he didn't return.
It was three-thirty in the morning. She had stood by the window as the hour grew late; watched drunkards brawl, and two unlikely whores ply their desperate trade, until a police vehicle cruised by and they were either arrested or hired. Now the street was deserted, and all she had to watch were the lights changing at the crossroads - green, red, amber, green - without a vehicle passing in either direction. And still he didn't return.
She turned over a variety of explanations. That the meeting was still going on, and he couldn't slip away without arousing suspicion; that he'd found friends amongst the audience, and was talking over old times with them. That this; that that. But none of her excuses quite convinced her. Something was wrong. She and the menstruum both knew it.
They had made no contingency plans, which was stupid. How could they have been so stupid, she asked herself over and over. Now she was left pacing the narrow room not knowing what to do for the best; not wanting to leave in case he returned the minute after and discovered her gone, yet fearful of staying in case he'd been captured and was even now being beaten into telling them where she could be found. Time was she would have believed the best. Contented herself that he would come back in a while, and waited patiently for him. But experience had changed her view of things. Life was not that kind.
At four-fifteen she started to pack. The very fact that she'd accepted that something was amiss, that she and the Weave were in jeopardy, made the adrenalin flow. At four-thirty she began to take the carpet downstairs. It was a lengthy and cumbersome business, but in recent months she'd shed every ounce of fat, and in the process discovered muscles she'd never known she had. And again the menstruum was with her, a body of will and light that made possible in minutes what should have taken hours.
Even so there was a hint of dawn in the sky by the time she threw their bags (she had packed for him too) into the back of the car. He would not come back now, she told herself. Something had detained him, and if she wasn't quick it would detain her too.
Fighting tears, she drove away, leaving another unpaid bill behind her.
2
It might have given Suzanna some small satisfaction if she could have seen the look on Hobart's face when, less than twenty minutes after her departure, he arrived at the hotel the prisoner had named.
He'd spilled a good deal while the beasts had their way with him: blood and words in equal measure. But the words were incoherent; a babble from which Hobart wrestled to extract any sense. There was talk of the Fugue, of course, amongst the sobs and the bleatings; and of Suzanna too. Oh my lady, he kept saying, oh my lady; then fresh sobbing. Hobart let him weep, and bleed, and weep some more, until the man was near to death. Then he asked the simple question: where is your lady? And the fool answered, his mind past knowing who asked the question, or indeed if he'd answered it.
And here, in the place the man had spoken of, Hobart now stood. But where was the woman of his dreams? Where was Suzanna7 Gone again: flitted away, leaving the door-handle warm and the threshold still mourning her shadow.
It had been very close this time, though. He'd almost taken her. How long before he had her mystery netted, once and for all, her silver light between his fingers? Hours. Days at the most.
‘Nearly mine,' he said to himself. He clutched the book of faery-tales close to his chest, so that none of its words could slip away, then left his lady's chamber to go whip up the hunt.
VI
HELLO, STRANGER
1
She hated leaving the city, knowing she was also leaving Jerichau behind somewhere, but whatever she felt for him - and that was a difficulty in itself - she knew better than to linger. She had to go, and go quickly.
But alone? How long would she, could she, survive like this? A car, a carpet and woman who sometimes was not even certain she was human ...
She had friends around the country, and relatives too, but none she knew well enough to really trust. Besides, they'd ask questions, inevitably, and there was no part of this story she'd dare begin to explain. She thought about going back to London; to the flat in Battersea, where her old life - Finnegan and his out of season Valentines, the pots, the damp in the bathroom - would be waiting for her. But again there would be questions, and more questions. She needed the company of someone who would simply accept her, silence and all. It had to be Cal.
Thinking of him, her spirits lightened. His eager grin came to mind, his soft eyes, his softer words. There was probably more danger in seeking him out than in returning to London, but she was tired of calculating risks.
She would do what her instincts told her to do; and her instincts said:
2
‘Cal?'
There was a long silence at the other end of the telephone line, when she thought contact had been broken.
‘Cal, are you there?'
Then he said: ‘Suzanna?'
‘Yes. It's me.'
‘Suzanna.'
She felt tears close, hearing him speak her name.
‘I have to see you, Cal.'
‘Where are you?'
‘In the middle of the city. Near some monument of Queen Victoria.'
‘The end of Castle Street.'
‘If you say so. Can I see you? It's very urgent.'
‘Yes, of course. I'm not far from there. I'll slip away now. Meet you on the steps in ten minutes.'
He was there in seven, dressed in a charcoal-grey work suit, collar turned up against the drizzle, one of a hundred similar young men - accountant's clerks and junior managers -she'd seen pass by as she waited under Victoria's imperious gaze.
He did not embrace her, nor even touch her. He simply came to a halt two yards from where she stood, and looked at her with a mixture of pleasure and puzzlement, and said:
‘Hello.'
‘Hello.'
The rain was coming on more heavily by the moment.
‘Shall we talk in the car?' she said. ‘I don't like to leave the carpet on its own.'
At the mention of the carpet, the puzzled look on his face intensified, but he said nothing.
In his head Cal had a vague image of himself rummaging through a dirty warehouse for a carpet, this carpet presumably - but his grasp on the whole story was slippery.
The car was parked in Water Street, a stone's throw from the monument. The rain beat a tattoo on the roof of the vehicle as they sat side by side.
Her precious cargo, which she'd been so loath to leave, was stored in the back of the car, doubled up and roughly covered with a sheet. Try as he might, he still couldn't get a fix on why the carpet was so important to her; or indeed why this woman - with whom he could only remember spending a few hours - was so important to him. Why had the sound of her voice on the telephone brought him running? Why had his stomach begun churning at the sight of her? It was absurd and frustrating, to feel so much and know so little.
Things would become clear, he reassured himself, once they began to talk.
But he was wrong in that assumption. The more they talked, the more bewildered he became.
‘I need your help,' she said to him. ‘I can't explain everything - we haven't got time now - but apparently there's some kind of Prophet appeared, promising a returning to the Fugue. Jerichau went to one of the meetings, and he didn't come back -'
‘Wait,' said Cal, hands up to stem the rush of information. ‘Hold on a moment. I'm not following this. Jerichau?'
‘You remember Jerichau,' she said.
It was an unusual name, not easily forgotten. But he could put no face to it.
‘Should I know him?' he said.
‘Good God, Cal -'