Strangeness and Charm: The Courts of the Feyre (11 page)

  She spoke into my shoulder, refusing to look up. "No."

  "What about grandparents?"

  "No."

  "Who looks after you when your mum's busy?" I asked her.

  "I go to Christa's after school sometimes," she said.

  "Who's Christa?"

  "She's a childminder. She looks after me until Mum comes and gets me. She looks after other children as well – Sam and Donna. I play with Sam, but Donna doesn't like me."

  "I see."

  I shifted the weight of her where it rested against me, wondering what I could do. I had rescued her from the house, but she wasn't my child, or my responsibility. I couldn't just kidnap her because her parents were dead. Just because she said she didn't have anyone didn't mean that there wasn't any family willing to take her in. Besides, what would I do with her? I was lodging at the courts until Blackbird and I could find somewhere more permanent, it wasn't our home exactly. It was a mess, but not every mess was my problem.

  "Do you think you can be brave one more time?"

  She nodded against me.

  "You see that ambulance with the blue flashing lights on the top?"

  She lifted her head and turned to see.

  "Do you see the lady sat on the back step, the one with the blonde hair?"

  She nodded.

  "I think if you went to talk to her she might let you ride in the ambulance." It was a poor reward for such a brave girl, but I was running out of time and short of options. "Would you like that?"

  "Will you come with me?"

  It was the question I did not want to answer. I shook my head. "I'm not even supposed to be here, Lucy. I can't come with you. That's why you need to be brave."

  She tucked her head back against my shoulder, and despite myself I hugged her close, thinking all the time that this wasn't helping. We stayed there while I watched people outside, the machinery of a crime scene kicking into motion.

  "Will the beast come back?" she asked in a small voice.

  "No," I said.

  "It knows how to find us. It can follow you anywhere."

  "Not any more. That much I promise."

  She hugged me a bit more and then allowed herself to be lowered to the ground. I went with her to the front door. "Will I get in trouble for being in the wrong house?" She asked.

  "They won't see you until you're ready," I told her.

  "Will I see you again?"

  "Maybe, who knows?" I was reminded of my daughter saying to me,
You always say that when you don't want to say no, but you're not going to say yes.

  She reached up to the door catch and opened it enough to slip through, tugging it closed until the lock clicked again. I watched her from the window, using my glamour to keep her unnoticed. As she got further away from me it got harder, but I maintained as much of it as I could until she was near the ambulance.

  When the blonde lady sat on the steps of the ambulance looked up and saw Lucy, I released it. I saw her ask Lucy where she had come from. Lucy pointed to her house, and the expression on the lady's face changed. She knelt down beside Lucy and had her point again, following the line of Lucy's fingers to the one doorway that was wide open on that side of the street. She beckoned over a colleague and sent him to go and get a policeman, and then talked to Lucy for a moment. I couldn't see what Lucy said, but she looked back at where I was standing behind the lace curtain and then shook her head.

  It was time to leave.

  I let myself out the back and found Tate waiting.

  "Well?" he said.

  "Case closed," I said, though part of me wished otherwise.

 
 

"It's case closed," I said to Garvin. I was back in Mullbrook's office, trying to explain what had happened.

  "If only it were that simple," said Garvin walking up and down, picking points off his fingers. "One – it was your responsibility to clean up the mess after these people were released. Two – of all the people on the list you chose to pursue Angela, who presents little or no threat to anyone, and then you bring her here. Three…"

  "You told me to bring them in. Besides, you're always telling me not to go in unprepared – to scout out the situation before engaging."

  "Three – you wait until there's a major police incident, hundreds of people involved, media interest, streets full of onlookers…"

  "No one saw me."

  "Four – you nearly get yourself killed in the process. Five – you then leave a witness who can identify you…"

  "She's a child. She won't say anything, and even if she does they're going to think she's making it up."

  "Six – you leave a body with its throat ripped out for the police to examine to their hearts content, no doubt with bloody paw-prints all over the bed linen?"

  "It was too late to do anything else."

  "And seven – you leave evidence of an escape through an open window so that the police hunt will continue, leaving an open case and an unsolved murder with," he counted his last finger, "…eight – yourself as a potential murder suspect."

  Garvin stopped and stared at me.

  "Which part of this am I supposed to be happy with, Niall?"

  "It was the best I could do in the circumstances."

  "The best? I have Secretary Carler demanding an explanation as to why this man Difford wasn't dealt with earlier. He'd already threatened his former partner, he had an injunction out to prevent him from seeing her. It was all in the file. You read the file, did you?"

  "Of course, some of it."

  "Some of it?"

  "I looked through it. I thought it would be best to take them one step at a time – to work my way steadily through them."

  Garvin shook his head. "You're not taking this seriously."

  "I am…"

  "Not seriously enough. These people are dangerous, Niall. They're killers. They've killed before and they'll kill again. Our job," he pointed his finger at me, "is to stop them before they kill anyone else."

  "I thought our job was to help them? Bring them in, you said."

  "Only where that's an option, Niall. They're damaged goods. Not everyone is going to be able to make the leap – very few of them, probably…"

  "So what you really want me to do is to murder them?"

  "I gave you Warder's Discretion so that you could make that decision at the time, when it's needed, not so you stand there and admire the scenery. You need to get on top of this, Niall, and fast. Otherwise I'll have to ask one of the others to step in."

  "It's still murder, it doesn't matter if someone else's hand is on the sword."

  "Tell that to Lucy's mother."

  "That's not fair."

  "No. It's not nice and it's not fair, but it's what happened. You need to get your head straight before you get you or someone else killed. Think on that while you're reading the files."

  He dismissed me with a wave of his hand, turning his back to stare out of Mullbrook's window.

 

When Blackbird found me I was in one of the abandoned rooms on a dust-sheet covered sofa, a pile of files on the seats to either side of me.

  "I can't make any more sense of these than you did," I told her, transferring another file to the pile of files I'd already been through.

  She moved the pile of files I'd already been through onto the floor and sat on the covered sofa beside me, her hands clasped in her lap.

  "Tate says you're a fully fledged killer now," she said.

  "What?"

  "He says you killed someone this morning – one of the escapees from Porton Down."

  "It wasn't like that."

  "What? You gave him a fair fight? Did you challenge him first?"

  "He attacked me. I was defending myself, and bloody lucky not to get my throat ripped out."

  "Niall?"

  "Yes? Sorry."

  "He attacked you?"

  "I broke into a house, he – it – was in the bedroom, standing over a dead woman."

  "Does it make it easier to use 'it' for a name?"

  "Difford. He was called Difford."

  "So you killed him."

  "He nearly killed me. I managed to throw myself out of the way. A funny thing. He had me cold, I was sprawled on the stairs, I'd lost my footing in the panic to get away. He was at the bottom of the stairs. He could have had me any time he wanted."

  "So why didn't he?"

  "He waited – it took me a second to reach a position where I could hold my sword straight. Garvin's right, I made a mess of it."

  "What was he waiting for?"

  "Me, I guess. I'd like to think I know what went through his head in that moment – the woman he'd supposedly come back for was dead, bleeding out into the mattress. He sniffed the air – you could smell blood and shit all the way to the top floor, but he savoured it. Then he threw himself at me, claws and teeth. I didn't stand a chance."

  "And yet here you are. Why are you still alive?"

  "That's a question I keep asking myself, but I don't feel like a killer – fully fledged or otherwise."

  She stood and leaned over, kissing me on the forehead. "That's not a bad thing, Niall. Not a bad thing at all. I'll leave you to your files."

  I watched her leave and shook my head. What was all that about? Would I ever understand her?

  Opening another file on my lap, I tried to interpret the stream of technical jargon and half-truths written there. After a second I stopped and closed my eyes. Garvin was right about one thing – I needed to get my head straightened out or I really was going to get myself killed. That was easier said than done, though when there were things that I ought to do that I really didn't want to face up to.

  I had been doing the things I wanted to do, or the things I thought I could do, leaving a growing pile of things which for one reason or another I didn't want to do. That pile was getting bigger and it wasn't getting any easier.

  Perhaps it was time to grasp the nettle.

 

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

  Tate must have asked me that ten times while I made the arrangements to see Katherine. I'd asked Big Dave, one of the stewards who was also a driver for one of the court's black Limousines, to drive down and collect her. I asked Tate to say nothing to Garvin about the meeting.

  "I don't keep secrets from Garvin," said Tate.

  "I'm not asking you to keep it a secret, just don't mention it, that's all."

  "He's not going to like it."

  "Look, Tate. It's just something I have to do. If you have to tell Garvin then just don't do it until after I've gone. OK?"

  Reluctantly, he had agreed.

  I had phoned Katherine from one of the increasingly rare payphones and told her I needed to meet, that I had something important to tell her, and that for various reasons I wanted the meeting kept secret.

  "Is this one of your games, Niall Petersen?" She had demanded down the crackly phone line.

  "No. This is for real. I'll send a car to collect you. The driver's name is Dave and he'll look after you."

  "What is it with you and all this cloak and dagger stuff? Why can't you just come to the house like any normal person?"

  "You'll understand. I have a lot to explain."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I'll tell you when I see you."

  "You haven't changed one bit, have you?"

  "I've changed a lot more than you know. Ten o'clock. Walk down to the end of the road – there'll be a big black car that will flash its lights once. Ask the driver his name. If he says it's Dave then get into the back. He'll do the rest."

  "You really love this, don't you?"

  "Katherine, just do it, OK?"

  "What do I tell Barry?"

  "Nothing. He'll be at work and you'll be back in time to cook him supper, though you'll have more to think about than food by then."

  "What do I wear?"

  "I don't care. Wear something comfortable."

  "Typical man, won't tell you whether you're going to be hill-climbing or attending a reception. I don't even know what shoes to wear, will anyone else be there?"

  "Just me. That's it. There's no one to impress. Jeans and trainers will be fine."

  "Are we going to be inside or out?"

  "Outside. But it's warm, the forecast is dry. Just come as you are."

  "I'll bring a sweater, just in case. And an umbrella."

  "Whatever. Just come."

  I would have done this without involving the stewards, but I needed to get Katherine away from anyone else before I told her. That meant I couldn't do it at her house, or anywhere near Barry, her new man. However well-intentioned he might be, this was something between Katherine and me.

  I had arranged to meet in a country park, near Northampton. It was mostly deserted during the week and there was a bench overlooking a gravel pit, within sight of the car-park, where we could sit and talk. If she shouted, cried, screamed at me, no one else would be the wiser. It also had the advantage of being a hundred yards or so from a Way-point, so I could get there easily and quickly, and leave the same way.

  She would want to see Alex as soon as possible, I knew that, but I wanted her to have chance to get over the shock first, and prepare herself. It had been hard dealing with Alex's loss and I didn't know how she would take the news that she was alive, especially given the circumstances. Alex couldn't go back to living with her mother, and I had to convince Katherine that this was the right decision for all concerned.