Hallowe’en.”
“You’re running behind schedule. And you’ve slipped up; Janet Ramsey isn’t dead.”
“We’ll make up for that,” Gosling warned. “I’m interested to know something. We were careful to blame the kids on the estate, but you didn’t go after them. Why not?”
“Your little graffiti message, based on the one left at the site of the Ripper murders. It was a bit too clever. And the
“Not at all,” said Gosling. “We don’t hate anyone.”
“You should be pleased,” said Jezzard. “You inspired us to create a living legend. Your history will be forever linked with ours.”
“I don’t want the kind of fame you think you’ve bought. You’ve got it without earning it.”
“How can you say that?” asked Gosling. “Do you know how much time and effort we put into this? Those poor morons we killed spent years creating their own images, only to lose virtually everything they’d gained. We’ve bypassed that problem. It takes ten seconds for someone to die. That’s a fast track to immortality. Nobody screws with you if they’re scared of you.”
Bryant thought of the community officer’s comment about building a staircase to adulthood. It was inevitable that someone would try to build a faster one. “Nobody will remember you in a month’s time,” he warned hoarsely.
“They will, though, because the Highwayman is never going to go away. If we don’t choose to keep him alive, someone else will. HydeBrown, Pond, Whitchurch, Ramsden, Armstrong, Ibbertson, Metcalf, Unsworth – any of our friends could take over from us. They all feel the same way.”
“And how is that?”
Gosling looked blankly at him, as if surprised by the question. “We feel dead.”
“It was you who gave us the inspiration to do something about it,” said Billings. “If you hadn’t come to the school, we might never have got our act together.”
“I don’t understand how you choose who should die,” said Bryant, rubbing his temple. Everything seemed overlit and spatially twisted. Jezzard was moving too close to the edge of the roof. April was silent, too immobile. Time itself seemed to have slowed down. Even the rain was falling more slowly, glistening and drifting between them.
“You don’t remember what it’s like to be young, otherwise you’d know who has to go. The liars, the fakes, the hypocrites, the spreaders of poison, the ones with the
“I remember what it’s like to have someone claim to represent my generation,” Bryant called in urgency. “The politicians of the past sent us to war. Young men had a reason to fight back. They had a political purpose. You’re just a group of bored children who are upset that their rich parents ignore them.”
“Think what you like, old man.” Jezzard seized April’s arms, untied them, and twisted her to face out over the quadrangle.
“You’ve touched her,” Bryant pointed out. “No matter what happens, you’ll be traced this time.”
They all started to laugh. “Who the hell cares?” said Gosling, the spokesman. “You still don’t get it, do you? It doesn’t matter who we kill, it’s how we live. Martyrdom is a requirement of immortality.”
Jezzard smiled slowly in agreement and gave April a hard push from the ledge.
? Ten Second Staircase ?
49
Immortal
He had not been expecting her to twist around so quickly and kick out at him. April’s boot caught Jezzard squarely in the face, snapping the septum in his nose in a gout of blood, sending him sprawling across the gravel. She fell hard onto the wall but was quickly on top of him, punching and tearing at his face as he screamed for her to stop.
The others moved to separate them, and were still attempting to do so as John May arrived on the roof with a team of armed officers.
¦
April sat in the passenger seat of May’s BMW with a blanket wrapped around her wet shoulders. She stared through the smeared windscreen as he started the engine and gently pulled away from the kerb.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded but remained silently watching, lost in thought. She did not speak to her grandfather until they were nearing the unit at Mornington Crescent. “You don’t have to explain,” she told him finally. “About my mother, I mean. I’ve always known what happened to her.”
“Wait – you knew?” May was astounded.
“Your pal Sergeant Renfield told me about Elizabeth when I was sixteen,” she said casually. “Remember how I used to hang around Bow Street station waiting for you? He didn’t mean to hurt me. The investigation was the talk of the Met. Officers used to go quiet when they walked past me. I never blamed you, John. But I never understood why she did it, until now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I did the same thing. I got myself more involved than I intended. There were warning signs and I ignored them. I’m my mother’s daughter.” She smiled weakly. “Bad behaviour must run in the family.”
“So this hasn’t put you off working at the unit.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s Arthur you should worry about. He doesn’t understand why a bunch of teenagers would need to create a figure like the Highwayman. He has to be made to realise why this happened.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible to explain,” said May. “Our lives are changing so quickly. Arthur grew up in a time when every crime had an underlying cause. It was a simpler world. Those boys had everything but still craved something different.” He shook his head in amazement. “God, when teenagers get together to plan something they’re really interested in, they’re smarter and more dedicated to their cause than any adult.”
“You sound like you admire them.”
“No, but I think I understand how such a thing could happen. They created a moral code appropriate to the times in which we live.”
“You’ve still got to find out who they planned to make their seventh victim. Seven in seven days, they said.”
“Surely the question is academic now,” said May.
“Gosling mentioned that others would take their place. It took four boys to be the Highwayman, but how many more are waiting for their shot at immortality? How much of an open secret was it amongst their friends? And how can you ever hope to stop it? They all want to become part of the legend.”
The rain had blackened the buildings of Camden Town. Mornington Crescent tube station, with its smartly polished crimson tiles, stood out like a beacon. The lights were on in the crescent windows of the PCU. Renfield was presumably still waiting for files that would never be printed. April opened the car door. “Are you going to come up?” she asked.
“In a minute.” May laid his head back against the seat, exhausted. He had asked Bimsley to take his partner home. Bryant had seemed confused and dislocated by his experience on the roof of the estate. He’d been happier last month, wading through sewers in the search for a murderer. The knowledge that he had inspired schoolboys to commit murder had to be weighing heavily on him.
Perhaps it really was time for both of them to retire. He only partly believed the boys’ story about seeking fast immortality. It seemed to May that they did it for fun, because the challenge had presented itself, and because they had no moral qualms about following it through.
It seemed that they did it because logic – the kind of practical sense the detectives needed so badly to survive at the unit – was finally dead.
But then May looked up at the windows of the PCU and saw his granddaughter outlined against the desk lamps. So long as there were people who still carried dreams of something better in their heads, he and Arthur had
