Juliet’s eyes narrowed slightly, which I could understand. Showing the whistle was a little bit like offering Superman a kryptonite sandwich. But her tone stayed cool, even slightly bored. ‘You know where I’ll be,’ she said. ‘And when. If you want to come along and watch, be my guest. Don’t bring the whistle, though. Or if you bring it, keep it in your pocket. Your aim isn’t as good as you think it is.’
It was hard for me to argue with that, with Rafi chafing at the edges of my thoughts the way he was right then. That was certainly a demonstration of how dangerous friendly fire could be. I knew I was better now than I had been then, but I could see why Juliet wasn’t keen on the idea.
I stood up, leaving the cash on the table.
‘My treat,’ I said. ‘I came into some money.’
‘Mackie,’ Juliet quoted, ‘how much did you charge?’
‘Funny. I always knew they’d play Bobby Darin in Hell.’
‘Kurt Weill,’ Juliet corrected.
‘Bless you,’ I deadpanned.
The waiter looked stricken to see us go. If Juliet ever came off that diet, she’d be sure of a good meal here.
We said goodbye on the street, without much in the way of small talk, and Juliet walked away with her usual ground-eating stride, not looking back. Showing her the whistle seemed to have spoiled the mood somehow: probably because it reminded her that I was the closest thing the human race had to an antibody against her kind. I’d have to remember that another time, and be more tactful.
I was bone-weary, but Nicky had said he had important news for me, and I’d agreed to meet him at the Ice-Maker’s place, south of the river. That was a fair old haul, but at least the roads would be clear now. I considered leaving Matty’s car where it was and taking the Tube – since I didn’t have the ‘it’s an emergency’ excuse to call on any more – but that would mean getting back here somehow, probably after midnight, and then driving all the way back East again. I couldn’t quite face that.
I drove south down Wood Lane, vaguely intending to cut down through Hammersmith and Fulham and cross the river at Battersea. But in the mood I was in, brooding about the various things I’d left undone or half-done, it wasn’t long before my thoughts came back around in a big, ragged circle to the Torringtons and Dennis Peace. I’d almost had him at the Collective, I thought with grim irritation – but that was a polite gloss on what had really happened. It would be fairer to say that he’d almost had me: certainly I’d been lucky to avoid his kamikaze airborne assault. And then Itchy and Scratchy had turned up and it had become a whole different ball game – with Peace’s balls being the ones on the table, or so it seemed. Why? What did he have that these breakaway provisional-wing religious zealots wanted so badly that they’d hire werewolves to find it? The only thing I knew he had was Abbie Torrington’s ghost: that didn’t seem to fit the bill.
No, I was still seven miles from nowhere here, much as it hurt me to admit it. Okay, I had Rosie Crucis as an ace in the hole, but given her legendary flakiness, and the unappetising prospect of having to go through Jenna-Jane Mulbridge to get to her, maybe now was a good time to go back to Plan A – making contact with Abbie’s spirit directly. I still had the doll’s head with me, and a vivid memory of the tune that it had inspired.
What the hell, it was worth a try. I pulled the car over onto a broad ribbon of freshly laid asphalt on the steeply canted foothills of the Hammersmith flyover, and got out. It wasn’t that the reception would be any better outside the car: I just felt that I needed the touch of the cool night air.
I strolled across to a crash barrier that offered a scenic view of the westbound carriageway, and leaned against it, just taking in the sights for a moment while I got myself into the mood. It had turned into a crazy day, and an even crazier evening. I ought to have been curled up around a half-empty bottle of whisky right about now, but here I was with miles to go and promises to keep. The dull ache in my head and neck had come back, too, and there was a hot, itchy feeling behind my eyes. I was definitely coming down with something, and I wished I knew what the hell it was.
There was a faint smell of woodsmoke on the wind, as though someone was burning a bonfire in one of the gardens nearby – kind of an odd thing to do in May, though, and just for a moment it gave me an odd, dizzying sense of rushing forwards through time. Like I’d only been here five minutes and already it was autumn.
I fished the doll’s head out of my pocket. Tentatively, I traced the line of the cheek with the tip of my little finger, feeling the tiny roughnesses where the glaze was starting to crack. It was a miracle it was still in one piece, given the kind of day I’d had. As soon as I touched it, Abbie’s unhappiness welled up and overflowed, travelling up my hand and arm by some sort of psychic capillary action until it filled my head. That was all I needed, really: just a top-up, so I knew exactly what I was aiming for.
I stowed the doll’s head again and took out my whistle. The contrapuntal lines of white headlights and red tail lights were a little distracting, so I closed my eyes, found the stops by feel and let the first note unfold itself into the night.
For a long time, nothing: just the slow, sad sequence of sounds endlessly descending, like a staircase in an M. C. Escher drawing that never really gets to where it’s going.
Then Abbie answered me. Just like the two previous times, I felt her distant presence stir at the limits of my perceptions – a tropism, a blind turning to the music that was herself. Maybe because my eyes were closed I felt it more strongly this time; or maybe ghosts have tidal rhythms that move them like the moon moves the sea. She was there: a long way away, in the dark, but separated from me by nothing except that distance. It was as though I could reach out, pull the city aside to left and right like curtains and bring her through.
The cut-off, when it came, was instantaneous. But I was ready for it this time, and going by some instinct I couldn’t have explained I banked the music up into a crescendo the instant the contact failed. I can’t say whether or not that made a difference, but it felt like throwing a spear after the fish has broken your line. The sense of direction I’d already got crystallised into something almost painfully precise. Abbie and me, hunter and hunted, caught on opposite ends of the same rigid splinter of sound.
For a long time after I stopped playing, I kept my eyes tight shut and listened to the echoes in my mind. They were still strong. I’d come very close this time, and I had no doubt at all that Abbie had not only heard me but had seen me too. Across the night, across the city, we’d stared into each other’s eyes.
‘I’m coming for you,’ I murmured. ‘Don’t be afraid. Whatever you’ve been through, little girl, it’s almost over now. I’m coming to find you.’
‘Lovely,’ said a man’s voice right beside me. ‘Can I quote you on that?’ My head jerked around so fast it almost came off my shoulders – or at least, that was how it felt: the ache seemed to have become both sharper and deeper.
The man leaning on the crash barrier next to me had a slender, hawk-beaked face, black hair as slick as an otter’s arse, and the sour, what’s-this-stink-under-my-nose expression of a hanging judge faced with a drunken football hooligan at a Saturday-night remand hearing. He had the kind of build that people call wiry – skinny, but the overall impression was of a stick that had been sharpened for a purpose, not something that was just wilting for lack of sustenance. His white raincoat was pristine, and it contrasted so boldly with the black suit underneath it that I found myself thinking of a priest’s robes. Yeah, that was it: not a judge – a priest refusing absolution after a dodgy confession. Your sins will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.