“You might. But then you’ll definitely see some if you go home too.”
“Are the others in on this?”
Tim blinked at him. “The others?”
“Yeah. Lutz, Robbie. That lot.”
“Foot soldiers. Cannon fodder. They’re helping us out. They don’t know a thing.”
“Helping you try to find the Negstream at the de Fleche building.”
“Why did you leave the flatfoot club if you’re so clever?”
“That’s nothing to do with you.”
Tim leaned across the desk, his hands splaying on the wood. “And, my friend, this place has nothing to do with you. Stay clear, or you will be harmed. I promise you that.”
“I won’t stop until I find out who killed Naomi.”
“I can’t protect you, Sean. I won’t protect you.”
“I don’t need protection from you, muppet-boy. Who’s going to look after you, at the end of the day?”
Tim smiled. “I am a king here, Sean. I’m better off here than I am back home. I don’t need protection. I’m well looked after. I’m untouchable.”
“I suppose it was you who burned the buildings down, once you were sure of where the Negstreams were.”
“Of course. Just following orders.”
“There are others. You haven’t got a stranglehold on this place, you know.”
“That’s not our concern.”
“Then what is?”
“Work it out yourself, you so-called Peeler.”
Sean stood up. “I’ll see you again, Mr. Edge.” He walked over to the door. “Thanks for the rum.”
EMMA WAS SITTING by the bridge when he returned. She was kicking out at a flock of shabby sea-birds that were circling her, shrieking for food.
“Have fun in the market?” she asked, but the cockiness in her voice cracked as soon as she spoke. She went to him and hugged him tightly.
“I was worried,” she said.
“It’s nice to know that.”
“Don’t leave me alone here ever again.”
He buried his face into her neck and breathed her smell deep into him. “I won’t. I promise. I’m sorry.”
“Where to now?”
Sean lifted his head to look at the river. “I suppose we should try to find the hill. I expect we’ll find answers there.”
Emma scanned the horizon, a daunting panorama filled with black glass and towers made from steel and neon signs that burned like little suns. Packed into the interstices were suffocating markets like the one Sean had explored, great scaffolds in which tents and bivouacs fluttered, hundreds of metres off the ground. The roads were jammed with dead cars that were either improvised homes for some or materials to be cannibalised for skeletal scooters that putt-putted along pavements thronged with tramps or thieves, and dead bodies that could not be buried for lack of space. They were salted, these corpses, and left to desiccate. Emma saw some of their mummified flesh used for storm shutters on crude windows. She saw others floating on the surface of the river.
“Do you think this is the kind of place where you might find a hill? A pond? A wood?”
“No,” Sean said. “But it must be here. It must.”
“De Fleche came here to stay. There must be more to it than this. Why would he want to stay here?”
“You’re right. We’ll find it. But let’s go back first. I want to talk to somebody.”
Emma held his hand. “What if we can’t get back the way we got in?”
He smiled. “Well, at least it will be fun trying, won’t it?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: THRESHOLD
WHEN HE WENT back to confront George about the marks on his arm, and to ask if he knew of anybody who might help treat his complaint, he saw that George had skin problems of his own. The yards of skin that contained the man had been stuffed into the toilet, as if it was a peel-off costume made of paper that could be flushed away. No other trace of him remained.
He found a cab with a horse attached, but nobody to drive him. As he had no map to show him the way to Sud or Howling Mile or the other place, Mash This, it seemed he was stymied. He needed to find a train station if he was to make any exploration of the countryside count. To understand this landscape might help him go some distance to understanding how he might find Cat. Nothing else mattered to him any more. Sean and Emma were too wrapped up in their own needs to consider the simple urge that now governed his life.
He got into the driver’s seat of the cab and took up the reins. He tried a few encouraging noises, and with a jolt that threw him back in his seat the horse began to trot along the lane. A couple of minutes and the village was behind him. One road lay ahead, bisecting the scorched fields and the crippled, denuded woods. The black sun burnt without heat, and after an hour of their journey it began to snow. Black flakes landed on Will’s skin and burnt into it. He had to draw the sleeves of his jumper over his fingers and hunch his head into his neck to shield himself from the acid flurry. The horse didn’t seem to mind, jogging along gamely, its white mane seething in the wind. No houses were visible on the roadside; no traffic passed him on its way to Gloat Market. He was alone. The fear of that speared him and he wept into his jumper for a while, but knowing that he was in the same place as Cat revived him. He would find her. Imagining how she would look, how she sounded, filled his heart to a point where he thought it must burst. The baby too, might be here, with its mother. All he had wanted was a quiet life. The three of them together, happy.
The horse drew to a standstill. Will shook the reins and made more chivvying noises but to no avail.
“Are you hungry, nag? Is that it?” He felt in his pockets for food but found nothing edible. Under the cushions on his seat was a carrot but when he offered it to the horse, it wasn’t interested.
“What’s wrong? Do you smell something?”
The road stretched ahead of them, seemingly no different from the road they had traversed so far. The same razed fields and stunted trees. The stench of dead things. The bones sticking out of the earth.
He tried tugging on the reins to lead the horse forwards but it strained against him. Will gave up and left the horse where it stood. The road led on for another half-mile or so before it petered out.
“Super,” Will sighed. The terrain grew rockier and the trees disappeared altogether, replaced by spiny bushes. It continued to snow, the large black flakes like wafers of ash from a burning house. Their burn was bearable, once you got used to it. Will clambered over the rocks and saw the house immediately. It was still a way off, but smoke was whipping from its chimney and a single window was a square of pale orange. The sea was here once more, fizzing against the shore, its skin vibrating with reflected crescents of black. Spume made quivering sculptures that the wind tossed into the air. Will reckoned it would take him twenty minutes or so to reach the house, but before he had crossed half the distance, he came across the woman.
She was lying on a ledge on one of the bigger rocks. She looked to be asleep; her limbs were not twisted to indicate a bad fall. Will got down beside her and patted her gently on the shoulder.
“Hello? Are you okay?” His voice, after a long silence, sounded alien to him. It buzzed in his ears, atonal and waspish. But it did the trick. The woman woke, frowning, her mouth moving as she tried to make words come.
“It’s okay. Here, let me help you stand.” Will gently pulled her upright. The woman was flapping her hands around as though batting away flies. Her eyes twitched and then flew open. She regarded Will with shock, as
