‘Have you really brought your rape alarm?’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, now turning into Junction Road, ‘because I’m not some flaky—’
‘I never thought you were… All right, I’ll stay in the car. But call me once you’re in there. If I haven’t heard from you after five minutes, I’m coming up.’
‘Fine,’ said Robin.
They were driving past the toy shop, and now Zoe’s wedge-shaped corner building lay straight ahead. Robin turned the BMW into Brookside Lane and parked.
‘You could look over the Lepine’s Disciple stuff, while I’m in there,’ she said, taking the plastic folder of printed material off the back seat and handing it to him. ‘I spent a long time on that last night. I’d like to think somebody read it.’
As she unclipped her seatbelt, Strike said,
‘Just be careful, all right?’
‘I will,’ said Robin firmly, as she left the car.
101
My men and women of disordered lives…
Broke up those waxen masks I made them wear,
With fierce contortions of the natural face—
And cursed me for my tyrannous constraint…
The stairwell of Zoe’s building, with its smell of grime and stale urine, felt no less depressing the second time Robin entered it. As she climbed the concrete stairs, she slipped the rape alarm she carried with her constantly out of her bag and held it primed in her hand.
On the top floor, she tapped softly on Zoe’s door.
It opened at once. The emaciated girl facing Robin looked as though she was greeting Death in person, but Robin had been right, and Strike wrong: there was nobody else in the room, only Zoe, gaunt and terrified, her black-ringed eyes searching Robin’s face now that she saw it without disguise.
‘Can I come in?’ asked Robin.
‘Yeah,’ said Zoe, backing away.
Her room contained a single bed, which she’d covered with a thin black cotton throw patterned with white stars, on which was an old laptop. The unlined pink curtain hung limply at the window and a two-ring electric hob sat on top of a fridge that looked as though it dated from the eighties, beside a small sink that appeared to be coming away from the wall. There were no cupboards; only shelves. A single saucepan and a couple of tins of low-calorie soup stood on the shelf over the fridge, while on the shelf over the bed were a few items of cheap make-up, a deodorant, some pencils and pens and a pad. Zoe’s meagre stock of all-black clothes was folded and piled up in a corner. This left a square yard of floorspace covered in stained light green carpet.
However, Robin barely noticed any of this on entering the room, because all her attention was given to the walls and ceiling, every single inch of which had been covered in tacked-up drawings done in pencil and black ink. They were immensely detailed and ornate: the extraordinary, unstoppable effusions of an incurable creative. The talent displayed on these dilapidated walls was almost shocking to Robin.
‘Wow,’ she said quietly, her eyes roving over the walls. ‘Zoe… these are amazing…’
A small tremor of pleasure passed across the girl’s frightened face.
‘I’ve got to make a quick call,’ Robin said. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ she added, seeing Zoe’s increased anxiety. ‘Then we can talk.’
She pressed Strike’s number.
‘Zoe’s here,’ she told him.
‘Alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right, good luck,’ said Strike, and Robin hung up, then switched her phone to record without telling Zoe what she was doing and slipped it back into her bag.
‘D’you wanna sit down?’ whispered Zoe.
‘Great, thanks,’ said Robin, and both of them sat on the bed.
‘Why did you want to see me, Zoe?’
‘Because,’ Zoe took a deep breath, ‘Anomie – the guy who created Drek’s Game? He says he’s going to kill you and your partner. He said he’s going to Ledwell and Blay you. He showed me pictures of you out of the paper the other day, that’s how I realised you were Jessica. I know I annoyed that man who kept answering your phone at the office – I were hanging up because I were so scared, and – and my boyfriend said I shouldn’t contact you, that I’d be in trouble, but I had to, because I think he killed Edie.’
‘You think your boyfriend—?’
‘No!’ squealed Zoe. ‘No – Anomie! I ’ve just been talking to this girl who calls herself Paperwhite online, and—’
‘Is she in Drek’s Game right now?’
Zoe looked shocked that Robin knew exactly where Paperwhite was.
‘Zoe, would you let me speak to her, please? Don’t worry. She doesn’t have to know it isn’t you.’
‘But you don’t know how to—’
‘I know all about the game,’ said Robin. ‘I’m Buffypaws. Or, at least, I have been for the last couple of months.’
‘You’re Buffypaws?’ said Zoe in a wondering voice. ‘You’re the one I’ve been—?’
‘That’s right.’
Gaping, Zoe turned the laptop round so that Robin could see the moderator channel, and a private channel in which Worm28 and Paperwhite had been talking. Robin scrolled quickly back, to see what had already been said.
<Moderator Channel>
<15 June 2015 17:47>1
<Present: BorkledDrek, Worm28, Anomie>
BorkledDrek: but why though?
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Anomie: because I want all conversations to stay on the moderator channel from now on
BorkledDrek: Didn’t Morehouse leave an instruction manual or anything?
BorkledDrek: I don’t know how to get rid of them.
Anomie: you told me you can fucking code
BorkledDrek: I can
BorkledDrek: but this is a different level
BorkledDrek: anyway, people like the private channels
Anomie: people have been abusing private channels, so do as you’re told
<Private Channel>
<15 June 2015 17:47>
<Present: Paperwhite, Worm28>
Worm28: but what if he did ?
Worm28: what if he ‘s not joking ?
Paperwhite: don’t be stupid
Paperwhite: of course he didn’t
Worm28: how do you nkow that ?
Paperwhite: because I know who Anomie is and I know there’s no way he could have done it
Worm28: you know who Anomie is ?
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Paperwhite: yes
Paperwhite: you haven’t been telling people Anomie killed Ledwell, have you?
Worm28: no
Worm28: of course not
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‘Were you telling Paperwhite you think Anomie killed Edie?’ Robin asked Zoe, who nodded.
Robin now put her fingers on the keyboard, reminding herself to duplicate Zoe’s idiosyncratic punctuation, as Paperwhite spoke again.
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