Cher’s black cat shoots out from under the stained and sagging sofa, trots towards her then moves to a gallop as he gets near. ‘Hey, Psycho,’ she says, and stretches out a hand. He ducks, slips past her legs and hurtles off into the house. She shakes her head. He’s never been a friendly cat, though he’s devoted to Cher and follows her wherever she goes.
And now she can hear the sobbing again. It’s muffled, as if the voice’s owner is shut behind a door. She calls out, once more, more loudly this time. Wherever Thomas is, he’s not here in among his stinking artefacts. ‘Hello?’
The sobbing stops. A shout in response. ‘Hello? Hello? Oh my God! Is someone there?’
It’s Cher. Somewhere in this flat, sounding weak and scared and desperate. ‘Cher?’ she calls.
A noise on the sloped ceiling; someone shifting, up on the roof, the sound of a tile loosening itself, sliding over her head and smashing on the flags below. ‘Oh, God! Collette! Oh, God, I’m here!’
‘Where?’
‘On the roof!’
She almost asks what she’s doing there, but thinks better of it. ‘Where?’
‘On the roof! I can’t get down. Please. Help!’
She’s beginning to realise that she’s awake; fully awake and in a place that makes her very uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to wait for Thomas to come back – he’s not the sort who would take kindly to uninvited guests.
‘How did you get up there?’
‘Bedroom window. Oh, no, Collette, don’t…’
‘Hold on,’ she calls, and goes to the bedroom.
No, I am dreaming. I must be. That looks like…
She stops in the doorway and gapes. Her scalp crawls. Oh, my God, those are women. One on a chair, an Egyptian queen made of leather, one on the floor behind the door, one arm contorted beneath her and the other thrown full-length over her head, flaking into the carpet like a resident of Pompeii. Bags of salts, bottles of oil, a rail of dresses. What is this? What is this?
Cher’s voice brings her back to herself. ‘Collette? Collette!’
She does as she always does, as she’d trained herself. Thinks: I won’t think about this now, I’ll think about it later. Action always trumps thinking in an emergency. She steps gingerly over the wizened brown legs of the woman on the floor and climbs on to the bed. Leans her arms along the windowsill and puts her face out into the rain.
Cher is above her, huddled against the chimney, her clothes clinging to her body and her hair poodled around her face. She’s shivering, barefoot, only wearing a light top over her jeans and it’s soaked through. She’s holding her right arm with her left, her hand dangling between her legs, and black circles ring her eyes. Collette looks closer, and sees that her jeans are stained with blood. It drips from the tips of her useless fingers, mingles with the water and trickles away across the roof.
‘Are you okay?’ she asks, redundantly.
‘Peachy,’ says Cher, and grinds her teeth.
Her head is fogged with confusion. ‘What the hell’s going on? What are those…?’ She points back into the room.
‘Do you mind if we talk about that later?’ says Cher, in a small voice, her tone surprisingly humble. Her body is rattling with cold and shock and she is beginning to sway on her perch. ‘I could do with some help. I’ve done something to my shoulder.’
‘How did you – where’s Thomas?’
‘He…’ Cher shakes her head. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone? Gone where?’
‘He…’ She seems confused, dazed, rests her head against the brickwork. ‘I think I killed the fucker. He was coming after me, so I pushed him.’ She jerks her head behind her, then hisses and clutches her shoulder. ‘Collette,’ she says, ‘it’s nice to chat and all, but…’
Collette slaps herself internally to wake herself up. ‘Okay. Yes. Hold on.’
She hoists herself on to the window frame, lurches forward, saves herself by grabbing the open pane. Sees the trees on the other side of the road seesaw towards and away from her. ‘Careful,’ calls Cher.
‘Yes, thanks, I’ll try.’
There are dead bodies in the bedroom, she thinks. All this time, we’ve been living downstairs from a bunch of dead bodies. It looks like he’s been mummifying them. They can’t have got that way naturally, can they? And, oh, God, I hope Vesta doesn’t wake up. One more cracked skull outside her bedroom window and I think she’ll tip over the edge.
‘Oh, Collette?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry. About your mum.’
She looks up in surprise. It seems like such a startlingly normal thing for someone to say under the circumstances. She’s such an odd kid. ‘That’s okay,’ she says, because she can’t really work out what the appropriate response would be.
She hooks a leg over the windowsill and lowers herself slowly down. Heights have never been her thing. Looking over edges has always made the inside of her head ring hollow, like a bell, the muscles behind her ears contract. Well, don’t look down, she tells herself. Just look at where you’re treading, and look at Cher. Once you’re up there, you’ll have no choice but to keep your cool. Just don’t think about what you’re doing now, or you might not be able to do it at all.
No wonder he was so calm about the Landlord. No wonder he knew so much about what we were doing. He’s been doing it for God knows how long. Up here in the roof, all snuggled up with his corpses. Oh, Jesus, this is so high. How come it doesn’t look this high from the street? Lying on her stomach, she edges along the window frame until there is no more window frame to be had.
She looks up at Cher. The girl’s face has a peculiar tinge of green to it and the shaking has stopped. She’s going into shock, she thinks. I need to get her inside, get her warmed up. I wonder if that break’s cutting off her circulation? I swear I see a lump on her collarbone. It’s snapped clean in two. She must be in agony.
‘Hold on,’ she says. ‘Just… hang on in there, Cher.’
She puts the ball of a foot down on the tiles to slide herself, and it slips out from under her like it’s skating on ice. Collette grabs at the window again, pants as panic overtakes her. I’ll just… I’ll go back in. I’ll go and find someone. Someone else will know what to do. Someone else will know what to do. Hossein. Christ, bloody Gerard Bright, if it comes to it. Anyone. I’m not brave enough. I can’t. She hangs her head in through the window, sees the thighs of the girl in the chair, so still, so thin. Oh, that poor child, she thinks. He would have done it to her, too, and we’d never have known. All the people in this house, moving on, the waters closing over their heads, we’d have been sad for a couple of days, we’d’ve asked each other where she was, and then… we would have forgotten her. The way everyone who lives here is forgotten, one by one, by the people they’ve shared their space with. The same all over London, the anonymity we all cherish: it’s a sure road to oblivion.
She pulls herself together. No one has ever missed Cher, or mourned her. She won’t be one of the people who’ve let her down. She puts her foot on the windowsill, uses the slip of the tiles to slide herself upwards. Gets a foot in the hinge and kicks again. Now her head is five feet from the roof’s ridge, her foot a knee-bend from the top of the window frame. She feels her hip shriek with the strain of the angle, flat on her face, all her weight on her torso, and then her foot is there. She steadies, brings her other foot up beside it and bunny-hops to where she can grab the flashing.