Tried the handle, slowly.
The door was locked.
Turned the heavy iron key, felt an oiled latch slip back.
Tried the handle again.
Pushed the door open.
The stink hit first the stink it was like…
He gagged, turned away, closed the door, caught fresher air.
Put his sleeve over his mouth, opened the door again, looked.
The sound of the radio, high and proud, a chorus of children’s voices raised in triumphant song. A double bed, carved wooden post in each corner, no curtains hanging from the frame. At the end of the bed was a low, long bench for sitting on and taking shoes off, or leaving books on or for a sitting cat, he wasn’t quite sure. On one wall was a picture of a man, one hand on a turning globe, a spaniel leaping in perpetual surprise at his feet, its eyes wild as if to wonder what cruel fate it was that it would be caught for ever leaping, never catching its prize. A single lamp was on by the bed. In the shadows to its left was an armchair, upholstered in thick, itchy thread woven with pale roses. A woman was in the armchair, eyes closed, head on one side, yellow-flecked spit on her chin where it had rolled from the corner of her mouth, fluffy slippers on her feet and a thick dark blue dressing gown around her frame. A blue cap had been pulled over her head, capturing the white fluff of her hair; her nails were cut to translucent stubs, and where her legs emerged beneath gown and nightie, brilliant blue-black veins throbbed and spidered over her chalky flesh.
The smell seeped through arm and cloth pressed over his mouth, there was no denying it, no pretending that there wasn’t vomit in a bowl just visible under the bed. No one had bothered to remove it or change it, it was just vomit, a bowl full of vomit.
he closed the door again, thought he might puke, didn’t, took another deep breath, opened the door, tried again
a yellow stain in the centre of the bed, old urine, new urine, brownish smear of faeces too but the woman sitting by the radio didn’t seem to mind she was just
sitting.
Asleep perhaps or maybe
He looked again, and her eyes were open, drifting up to the ceiling, her head rolled back. She made a little noise.
Uh uh uh.
Perhaps language, of a sort.
Theo closed the door, didn’t lock it.
Stood for a while with his back pressed to the wood, the key pushing into the base of his spine, and it seemed to him that there was a story to be told here. There was evidence which would be very easy to deny there was…
Theo opened the door, one more time, to the room where the old woman sat.
Crossed the floor.
Squatted down in front of her, trying to ignore the fact that if he rocked back too suddenly he’d sit in puke, trying to exhale into the stench.
Took her hands in his, held them softly, waited for her drifting eyes to drift down to him, pupils far too wide, tongue loose in her mouth, the flicker of her gaze somewhere in the vicinity of his but unable to stay still.
“Lady Mantell?” he whispered. “Ma’am? My name is Theo.”
“Who the hell are you?”
A sudden leap of noise from the room next door, a man in the open door pursued by a blast of TV, a cheerful chorus of, “So with her customised bunting in place it’s now time for the final touches as…”
The man standing in the door to the stinking bedroom wore black T-shirt, blue jeans, carried a tray of baked beans on toast and a flask of sugary orange gloop.
For a moment the two men stared at each other, wondering which way the next twenty seconds of their lives would go. An instant, perhaps, in which there could have been some bluff, some bluster, but no sooner had Theo begun to formulate the lie than it was too late, the opportunity to deceive had passed them by.
The man dropped the tray and lunged for a grey button on a thin cord by the door.
Theo threw himself across the room, caught the man’s wrist before he could press it, kneed him hard in the stomach, not really knowing why or if it would work, he’d never kneed anyone anywhere before, but he had a knee and the man was in his way and so he
kneed him and it didn’t really go as well as he’d hoped because the man gave a little grunt and then caught Theo by his left ear and tugged. He’d probably been aiming for hair, but in the scramble ear would do, and it hurt less than Theo thought it would do so he resisted and tried instead with his free hand to dig his thumb into the man’s eyeball, he had no idea where that idea had come from it just seemed
the man let go of Theo’s ear, caught his wrist as he went for the face, and for a moment there was an awkward push-pull of strength as neither knew quite where they were supposed to go from here, teetering with arms locked and fingers scrambling, bodies swaying until their balance broke and the pair tumbled down, Theo pinned beneath the larger man. The fall smacked the breath out of his body, smashed a bowl of baked beans beneath his left ribs, orange gloop and white ceramic shards smattering across the room. He lost his grip on the man’s right hand, and now the man had found a brilliant thing to do with elbows, tucking his left elbow under his body and letting his whole weight drive it down, point first, into Theo’s belly.
Theo tasted half-digested sandwich in his mouth, gagged, curled and writhed and couldn’t get any breath inside, and the man sensing this snarled in expectant triumph and punched Theo across the face. He couldn’t punch very well; there wasn’t any room to draw the fist back and release, but it seemed to make him feel good so he did it again, a ring on his third finger slicing through Theo’s cheek, warmth spreading inside his mouth as the pain knocked through to the back of his head, and again, and again and
then the woman in the dressing gown hit the man over the head with the remnants of the dinner tray, and his eyes went wide and his weight buckled to one side, and she hit him again, then dropped the tray, followed immediately by dropping herself, sitting with her legs curled up under her like a child picking daisies, and her eyes rolled up again and her mouth drooped open, but Theo
pushed the man off him, caught the fallen tray and hit him again and again and again and
at some point realised that the man wasn’t moving, and there was blood on the floor, and it wasn’t Theo’s and
and wondered if he’d killed a man and
and if that man had a daughter and
Theo dropped the tray, crawled across the floor, felt through the blood on the man’s face, found a pulse.
Felt around his skull, couldn’t feel anything that had buckled or caved.
Looked into his eyes, saw that they were open and looking back, but the man didn’t move, didn’t speak, little gasping breaths, wondered if there was something he’d broken if there was
wanted to apologise, thought it was stupid
stood up
fell down
something inside him was, if not broken, then certainly turned around and he’d not really had time to heal from Shawford, he’d not really known what he did he’d not really stopped to think about
Crawled to the woman sitting on the floor.
Held out one hand.
“Lady Mantell?” he breathed.
Her eyes drifted again to his face, danced this way and that, fell away, rose, fell away again.
“Helen,” he murmured softly. “My name is Theo. May I take you away from all this?”
Chapter 52
They stole a car.
For a moment Theo wondered if he’d have to hot-wire the thing. He’d read plenty of reports of people doing it, a minimum of £550 if you were caught hot-wiring any vehicle over an estimated road value of £3275, it was also likely that you’d be charged for…
But the man he’d beaten had some car keys in his pocket, so that made things easier.