Thankfully, their destination was down in the Tanks, originally underground oil reservoirs, some of which were now used for exhibitions themselves, but not all. They saw more of the Sighted sort of people as they made their way through an installation where projectors would suddenly display random film clips of people talking about dead relatives. The Sighted they saw, in their ragged period costume, were sighing or walking quickly through or even sniggering at the exhibit. ‘It’s sort of like a half-hearted version of our lives now,’ said Costain, standing in the light of a woman sobbing uncontrollably, holding up a picture of what must have been her dead teenage son. ‘No wonder they don’t like it.’
‘I think maybe,’ said Ross, ‘they just don’t like modern art.’
She found the side door she had located a few days before, which had now been left unlocked, and followed a furtive-looking group of the Sighted through it.
There was nobody checking invites at the door. To know where the auction was seemed to be enough. The room they entered didn’t look as if it was part of the Tate — more as if it might still be a working part of a power station. Perhaps the pipes overhead did gleam a little too brightly, and the wall that seemed to be taken up with one big engine did so a touch artfully, but it was considerably more authentic than its surroundings. Right beside it, yes, Ross could feel it through the wall, they were up against the river here. It roiled and fretted just feet away.
She recognized several faces from the crowd that had been at the Goat and Compasses. Judging by the startled looks among those people, they were recognized in return. They had something to do with the death of Barry Keel. There were none of the wannabes here from the top floors of the pub; they were amid the serious people now. Among the crowd, though, were a scattered handful who looked a bit different: smart people in business suits finding quieter corners to talk on their phones. Ross glanced to Costain, who shook his head, neither of them had any idea what that different demographic was about. Ross felt a few attempts to ‘read her bar code’ and used Sefton’s blanket technique to foil them. They died down after a few moments. If only Ross could read bar codes herself.
Ross saw that people were starting to look at the fob watches they’d pulled from their ancient pockets, and that a crowd was forming in front of a low wooden stage. In its normal life, this place must be some sort of lecture space used by school groups and the like. There was no sign of any chairs, so the crowd stood, or in some cases just sat on the ground, presumably ready to haul themselves up when an auction item they were interested in was announced. Ross and Costain got as far forward as they could, to a place where they could see the stage.
A door at the back of the stage opened, and without any ceremony, into the room walked an elegant elderly woman with long silver hair, dressed in a grey ball gown that was actually covered in cobwebs. Ross could see a couple of spiders on it; one of them was moving.
‘Madams and Messiers!’ the lady called. Her accent was pretend posh, not even an attempt at French, a music hall barker, playacting ‘above her station’. The crowd applauded. ‘Welcome once again to this high point of the Seen season, the place to be Seen, our quarterly quantifying of quality, your refreshment on the way to your revels, a palimpsest of prognostication, prestidigitation and parsimony!’ The crowd went ‘ooh’ at every long word. The host leaned closer to someone in the front row, and put her hand to her mouth in a stage whisper. ‘It’s the stuff of London, on the cheap, dear!’ Then she straightened up again. ‘The truce is in place, so mind your fucking manners. I am your ’ost, Miss Haversham with an “er” as well as an aitch, not Havisham like that berk Dickens ’ad it.’
Ross heard the crowd chanting along with that bit, a mantra they’d obviously heard many times before.
‘I can tell you good people are itching to begin. Bit hot out there, innit? Bernie the Bitch, distribute the catalogues!’
A very thin middle-aged man dressed as a waiter, with bicycle clips on the bottoms of his trousers and a hangdog expression, entered at that same instant through the door behind the stage. In his arms he carried a pile of papers, which were eagerly snatched up by the audience. When Ross got hold of one, she saw that this list of auction items had been printed very roughly, as if from some form of mechanical copier, the faded ink pink and purple. The pages smelt of chemicals. There were over fifty items listed. There were no descriptions and no pictures, just the name of the object beside each item number. She found herself desperately looking down the list. She looked once, she looked twice. Then she threw the piece of paper at Costain. ‘It’s not there! That barmaid said it would be. She said she had “a strong feeling”. She said it like she knew!’ Costain grabbed the paper, looked quickly down it himself, as if he might see something she hadn’t. On the stage, Bernie had joined Haversham, carrying an enormous ledger and a quill pen in an inkpot, which he set up on a small lectern.
Ross looked at the crowd and the hosts as they prepared to begin. She couldn’t just walk away. She marched up to the stage. Costain quickly followed. ‘The item I’m after,’ she called, ‘it’s not here.’
Miss Haversham looked at her, and Ross had, in that moment, to use the blanket harder and faster than at any time previously. ‘We’ve had no withdrawals, have we, Bernie? Are you sure it was meant to be on sale tonight?’
Truly, she wasn’t. She’d been caught out, she realized, by assumption. It made her want to laugh and not stop laughing. But still she answered yes.
Haversham sighed. ‘You aren’t, you know. We get quite a few like you here, following one of the ways that happenstance and aim interact in the metropolis. They all find their just deserts.’ She added a big stage wink, then turned away.
Ross wanted to yell at her. She could feel the crowd looking at her with pity, shame and — given what had happened the last time she and her mate were about — worry. Costain now had a grim look about him. Was he distraught for her, or for himself? She put that thought aside, because a new idea had come to her. It had brought the sudden pain of new hope with it. They stepped aside from the crowd to talk in private. ‘That book…’ she said, ‘that’ll be, what, a record of sales?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And it’s bloody huge.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So maybe what I’m after has already been sold at one of these auctions, and the details of whoever bought it are written down in there. Maybe that’s what the barmaid meant. Maybe she’d seen my future.’
‘That warning we got during the Losley inquiry about someone close to us dying, that was as if someone had seen the future, so I suppose it’s … possible.’ With a lurch of her stomach, Ross knew from his tone exactly what that grim expression of his meant. He was thinking that she might have deluded herself, that she’d aroused false hope in him, put him through the emotional wringer for nothing. Was he about to walk away, to reveal that his attempts to be close to her were all a lie? No, even if that were true, he didn’t quite have reason enough to do that, not yet.
‘Look, even if the Bridge isn’t there, that list would be a treasure trove of background sources for our team. If it turns out that I can’t do anything for myself here-’
‘Then we should do something to help our guys. Yeah, I agree.’
That would mean she could tell Quill where they’d been, make this secret excursion something the two of them had pursued of their own volition, like when Sefton had gone off after Brutus.
The crowd quietened. The auction was beginning. Ross fought down her fury and disappointment and tried to keep her hope in sight. The rushing of the water nearby spoke of power that was nearly hers, but might never be.