Marcus sprinted up the road, thinking that Mouse might have disappeared down one of the side streets leading northwards. But they were empty, and there was nowhere obvious to hide. Marcus turned wildly around, looking for a flash of motion. He heard the sound of falling rubble. He looked up. Mouse was climbing over the crumbling wall of the cemetery. He had shinned up as soon as he turned the corner, and was there, ten feet above Marcus, looking down on him. Marcus stared into his friend’s wild, bulging eyes.
‘Why are you running? Did you kill her?’
‘Of course I didn’t. Of course I didn’t kill her.’
Marcus could see that Mouse was crying. His lip trembled as he looked down at Marcus, then he let himself drop down onto the grass the other side and ran off into the grey maze of tombstones.
Marcus began to climb the wall. He tried to keep his eyes on Mouse as he clambered up the brickwork, using the scaffolding that held the tumbledown wall together for handholds, but he lost the small figure as it moved into the shadow of a line of cypress trees. Marcus reached the top of the wall, swung his legs over, and let himself drop onto the soft earth the other side. He ran in the direction of the trees.
The noise from the roads around disappeared very quickly as Marcus made his way down a gentle slope into the heart of the cemetery. An avenue ran between high family mausoleums, obelisks and statues. At the end of the road a chapel stood on a grassy hill, stone steps leading up to a dramatic columned portico. It looked more like a stock exchange than a church. Marcus walked along the path, kicking at piles of damp leaves, scanning the ground that fell away to his left for any sign of Mouse. When he came to the chapel, he climbed the steps and looked down over the graves. Nothing moved. A blackbird, startled by his approach, made a break for cover, spiralling across the lawn in front of the chapel and into a patch of brambles. Below the chapel, the graves clustered thickly together. Some were very old, and the shifting of the ground over time had broken the ancient stones, so that they slumped forward or leaned perilously against each other. Marcus walked through the chapel’s empty courtyard, where his footsteps echoed in the silence, and down the steps the other side.
It grew wilder as he descended further into the cemetery. He could see the line of poplars that grew along the canal in the distance, and knew that this was the boundary of the graveyard, but there was no other indication that he was anywhere but deep in the country, in an endless labyrinth of tombs. The sky grew darker still. Marcus found himself at a dead end as the path he was following became overgrown with brambles. He tried to force his way through, scratching his fingers, leaving red lines on the back of his hands that swelled white around the edges. He turned around and headed back up the hill. Mouse couldn’t hide forever. Marcus wondered if he should go to the police. He felt for the earrings in his pocket and rolled them between finger and thumb.
He was walking between rows of highly ornate vaults when he heard a noise. The tomb next to him had huge carved sphinxes at each corner. Marcus stepped up onto the head of one of the sphinxes to get a better view. The only movement was the swirling of the rain and the leaves which continued their endless fall. Marcus climbed down and continued along the dark avenue. He heard the sound of a twig breaking.
‘Mouse,’ Marcus called out. ‘Is that you? Come and talk to me. I’ll help you.’
There was no response. Marcus thought he saw something move between two gravestones ahead of him, a flash of dark material and skin. He ran. His tired mind began to panic; the presence of so much death brought images of his father to his mind. The coffins seemed to rear up above him, closing in under the night-black sky. He slipped and landed heavily on a pile of dead leaves, which were slimy to the touch. He lay for a moment, his chest pounding, his breaths coming fast and jagged like the firing and reloading of a gun. He struggled to get to his feet, reached out and pulled himself up on a gravestone, felt the cold dead certainty of the marble beneath his fingers. He began to run again.
The rain started to fall more heavily. The drops felt like hailstones against Marcus’s skin. He ran between lines of ancient graves until he came to a fork in the path. He took the right-hand branch. The pounding rain reduced his visibility to a few yards, but still he turned to look over his shoulder, searching for a dark shape against the misty grey air. He ploughed onwards. Finally, indistinctly, he thought he saw the block of the youth hostel rising above the wall. He increased his speed, tripped over a gravestone and sprawled once again on the damp ground. His clothes were soaked through, his knees and elbows muddy and torn. Picking himself up, he jogged the final few steps into the shadow of the hostel. He stood, resting against the cold stone of the cemetery wall.
Marcus followed the wall along until he came to the main gates. He was breathing heavily, his heart thumping horribly loudly in his chest. He crossed the road and sat steaming in a cafe, drinking scalding coffee until he felt warm enough to face the prospect of the bus home.
Four
Marcus could hear Darwin as he stood in the lift. The plangent yelping grew louder as he opened the front door. He stepped into the flat and the dog launched himself at him, licking his hands and turning delighted circles around his feet. Marcus leaned down to pat him, then went through to the kitchen to refill the water bowl. He poured out some bone-shaped biscuits, which the dog devoured, snuffling and whimpering as he ate. Marcus saw that there was a stringy turd in the middle of the drawing-room carpet, and dark patches of piss dotted around the rest of the flat. He put on rubber gloves, reached under the sink for a sponge and bucket, and set to work cleaning up after the dog.
It felt strange to be doing something so mundane as housework after the morning’s events, but Marcus wanted to put off the decisions that he knew he would have to make, needed to fend off the thought that Mouse might be responsible for Lee’s disappearance. When he had finished scrubbing, Marcus took Darwin downstairs and let him run around the small patch of grass at the back of the block of flats. He threw a stick for the dog, which he pounced upon and then tried to bury, unsure of what was expected of him. He stared up resentfully at Marcus when he picked up the stick, until he threw it again and the sequence was repeated. Marcus found himself smiling at the dog’s mindless enthusiasm. It was still drizzling, but the ferocious wind had passed, and a number of times the sun broke through the low clouds, sparkling on the wet grass.
Back in the flat, Marcus ran himself a bath and stripped off his damp, dirty clothes. It would be the first time he had missed a Sunday morning service in several months. A dull ache nagged at the back of his throat. When he had soaked some warmth into his chilled body, Marcus hunted in the medicine cabinet until he found a packet of Abby’s sleeping tablets and some painkillers. He gulped down a handful of pills, closed his bedroom curtains, and passed out on the bed. He woke a couple of times during the day, and managed to stagger to the kitchen and feed Darwin on one occasion, but didn’t rise properly until it was dark outside.
Marcus made himself bacon and eggs and sat down at the dining table with his computer in front of him. He hadn’t checked his emails since Friday, and it was another thing to occupy his time before he had to think about Mouse. He turned on the machine and ate while it warmed up. When he logged into his account, he saw with a mixture of pleasure and trepidation that there was an email from Abby titled ‘NYC’. He opened it and began to read.