Street Magic bl-1 Page 3

  "No… no, I'm out of that ever since the bloody Chinese moved in… they carve your organs out if you cross them."

  "Bad luck that you got picked up with three grams last week then, isn't it?" Pete said. "You tell me what I want to know, I'll take you in and let you cool off in a cell until the Chinese are more amenable. You fuck me about, and I'll leave your arse sprawled on the corner."

  Weevil Bill dropped his forehead to the pavement and moaned. In this bleak corner of the city, none of the passing cars slowed down to see what the fuss was, and the scant pedestrian traffic gave Pete a wide berth. She lifted Weevil Bill's chin with the toe of her shoe. "I'm looking for a bloke named Jack Winter—about three and a half meters tall, platinum hair, fucking junkie. Anyone of that description score with you lately?"

  "Mebbe they did," Weevil Bill muttered. "But you put the bracelets on before I tell you."

  "Some other morning I'd be cooperative," said Pete, feeling the crawl of exhaustion along her spine. "I'm not an unreasonable woman, after all."

  She hadn't slept when she'd been in bed, and when her eyes finally drifted closed the images of smoke on dark stone and Jack's eyes, his old smile and his new needle marks, made her prefer a pot of strong tea and late-night telly. "But that morning—it's not this morning," Pete told Bill. "Let's have it."

  "Winter don't score from me much, but he runs with the blokes who use the galleries in Southwark, 'round where it ain't been torn down and built up so's only God himself could afford it," Weevil Bill said. "And that's all I know, as my witness."

  Pete hauled Weevil Bill to his feet, handcuffing him with suitable ceremony and attaching the free end to a lamppost. "Oi!" Weevil Bill shouted. "What about my arrest?"

  "Don't fret," said Pete, flipping open her mobile. "Mark. Yeah. Pete Caldecott here. Listen, I got a bust for you… he's handcuffed to a post up near the Camden Lock. You can't miss him."

  The DS sputtered a laugh. "I'll hurry then."

  "Oh, don't bother," Pete said, smiling at Weevil Bill.

  "He's got nothing but time." She rung off with Mark and asked Weevil Bill, "Satisfied?"

  Weevil Bill let out a miserable little sound, which Pete took as acquiescence. She got back into the Mini and gunned the engine.

  The corner, the post, and Weevil Bill rapidly became a speck in her rearview mirror as she drove through the City and pointed the Mini across Blackfriars Bridge, toward the docks of Southwark.

  Chapter Six

  The smell of the Thames, rotted and salty, permeated everything in the street when Pete exited the Mini, and something darker than the damp chill in the air slithered against the underside of her mind.

  She pushed it away. Nothing here except a disintegrating row of flats that exuded silent hopelessness.

  A boy in a cheap leather jacket dozed on the stoop at the far end of the block, spotting for police and rival dealers and giving the place away as a shooting gallery. Pete kicked his foot once, twice. He snorted and shifted in his sleep, but nothing more. She was insubstantial as a fever dream.

  A token agent's notice on the front of the building was covered with spray-painted obscenities, and faded enough that Pete thought even Susan, Terry's hopelessly cheery estate agent, would throw her hands up in despair. The door, half off its hinges from some long-ago bust, grinned at Pete with a gargoyle knocker as she pushed it open, feeling sticky dampness from the decayed wood and stippled paint. "Hello."

  Shredded shades were pulled over the windows, and in the blue-gray ghost light Pete barely avoided overturned furniture, Margaret Thatcher vintage, and a surfeit of filthy mattresses and crumpled blankets, like bodies under turned earth.

  Pete took her penlight from her pocket and flashed it into the corners of the room, illuminating a gaunt sleeping face. Not Jack's.

  A kitchen filled with more dripping rust and cockroaches than any one room had a right to contain sped Pete up a set of rickety stairs and into a narrow hallway with bedrooms to each side. The first still held vestiges of wallpaper and an iron bed, like something one would find in an orphanage of Dickensian origin. A mother, who couldn't have been more than the age Pete was when she first met with Jack, looked up with wide black eyes. Her skinny baby let out a wail.

  "Sorry," Pete muttered. "Just looking for… I'm looking for a friend."

  The mother watched her silently, not breathing. "Jack Winter," Pete said desperately. "He's not here, is he?" He hadn't been at the last half-dozen squats she'd visited. No reason to think he'd turn up here. He'd vanish as surely as he had after… well. Pete didn't think about that.

  "He's next door," the mother whispered. The baby grasped at the air around her face, cries weakening, and she dropped her head to soothe it without taking her eyes off Pete.

  "Ah," said Pete. "Thank you." She stepped backward into the hall and went into the next room with a low thrumming in her blood, excitement and fear she had no right to feel because you didn't trust the ramblings of addicts and crazy people, Connor Caldecott's first rule in his long list.

  The front bedroom looked out onto the street and the Thames, a view that would have been worth something once, just like the house and the men sleeping or murmuring on the floor.

  Pete shone her light on each face in turn. They were mostly white, all thin and bones, stubble and dirt, and sometimes blood or vomit caking. Eyes glared at her dully in the thin beam of light.

  Until she hit on the platinum shock topping Jack's drawn face. He threw an arm over his eyes and swore. "Who's that?"

  Pete swallowed. She couldn't speak. It was the hotel room all over again, and she was dumb from the sight of him. Jack groaned and sat up. "You've got a hell of a lot of nerve, whoever you are. Got a mind to put my fist in your teeth, cunt."

  "It's me," Pete managed finally.

  Jack squinted for a moment, and then flopped back on his mattress with a sigh. "And just what do you want?"

  The wavering blade of the penlight illuminated the dull flash of a disposable needle at his hand. "We found Bridget Killigan."

  "Of course you did," said Jack. "I said it, didn't I?"

  Pete crouched and touched his shoulder. Jack jerked away from her and then hissed, rubbing his arms as a shiver racked him. "Get out of here," he said.

  "How did you do it?" Pete said. "How did you know where to find her? Jack, I'm not leaving without an answer."

  Jack sat up and rooted through a plastic Sainsbury's tote. Disposable sharps, a battered shaving case containing a shooting kit, and empty bags coated with crystalline dust slid through his fingers as he shook.

  Pete clamped her hands around his wrists. "Jack. Answer me."

  His face was wreathed in droplets of sweat and she fought the urge to brush them away.

  "Leave me alone, Pete," he rasped. "I don't want to see you again. Not ever." He pulled loose, picked up an empty twist of plastic and held it to the light. "Shit." His slow-burn gaze shot back to Pete. "You're still here? I said get the bloody hell out!"

  There was a time, Pete knew, that those words from him would have devastated her. Words from Jack were like the tears of angels. Wounding words stabbed directly to the heart of her.

  But this was the real and painful present, not a memory of the fragile girl who'd loved Jack the moment she saw him sing. "No," Pete said, jerking the bag out of Jack's hands. "No, Jack, we're going to have a word."

  He snatched for it. "Give that back," he warned.

  "You want this?" Pete told him, holding his sharps and drugs just out of reach. "Then you talk with me."

  Jack swiped at her once more and then sat down hard, glaring. "Fuckin' hell. When did you become a raging bitch?"

  Pete straightened and crumpled the bag between her fists. "I don't know, Jack, but I think it was right around the time I watched you die."

  Jack threw an arm back across his face. "Did you come here merely to grasp at my balls, or was there something you wanted?"

  "Tell me how you knew about Bridget Killigan," said P
ete. "Right now, I'm trying to believe you had nothing to do with snatching and blinding the poor girl, but it's becoming very hard, Jack."

  Jack grunted and Pete thumped him on the arm with her closed fist. "Tell me."

  He opened his eyes and met hers, and Pete was swept away again as quickly as she'd been at sixteen. Damn you, Jack Winter. She bit her lower lip to keep her face expressionless.

  "It's a simple thing, luv," said Jack. "Magic."

  And God, she wanted to believe him. Would have, before. Even pale and scraped as his face was now, he was still Jack. And he was still feeding her lies because he thought her stupid.

  "You're a bastard," she whispered, jerking her hand away. Didn't matter that she wanted him not to be taking the piss, to be telling what he at least thought was the truth.

  "Takes one to know one," said Jack shortly, rolling over on his side and facing away. Pete cocked her arm and flung the plastic bag. It burst, scattering the contents across the filmy floor.

  "Oi!" Jack shouted, scrambling after the needles as they clattered away.

  "The person who blinded that little girl is going to get away with it because you're a git. Go to hell," Pete hissed.

  Jack stood, crossing the space between them, his expression going hard quickly as a flick-knife appears. "Look around you, Pete," he grated, gripping her arm. "We're in hell."

  A human-sized lump on the mattress next to Jack's stirred. "Shaddup. 'M trying to sleep."

  Pete bored into Jack, hoping her gaze scorched him. "Let go of me."

  His mouth twisted. "Did that a dozen years ago." He left her and went back to his mattress.

  Pete backed out of the room and half fell down the shadowed stairs to the front door, sucking in cold, clean outside air as she leaned against the Mini. She didn't know why Jack was angry, but it didn't matter, did it? He was still the same charlatan, still using smoke and tricks up his sleeves to avoid the realities of the world. Pete dug her knuckles into her eyes until her tears retreated.

  I will not think of him. I will not gift him my tears. I will not let Jack Winter touch me.

  Chapter Seven

  Scotland Yard flowed around Pete, shuffling papers and ringing phones, inspectors each wrapped in a cocoon of worry and mystery, weighted by their unsolved cases.

  Pete sat at the double desk she shared with Ollie, hands pressed over her eyes. They felt of sandpaper, as if tiny grains made up the inside of her eyeballs.

  Fuck, she wanted a cigarette.

  "DCI Newell wants to see you." Ollie touched her shoulder, and Pete jerked. Every time she got close to Jack she came away jumpy and displaced.

  She wanted to believe him, that was the problem. He'd let the word roll so indolently out. Magic.

  The hiss of knowing pressed on Pete's mind, begging her to admit that it was as likely an explanation as any, but she wouldn't allow herself to think of it. Connor's voice, his strong hands gripping her shoulders. You listen and you listen good, girl. There ain't no such thing as what you say Winter did.

  There ain't no such thing as magic.

  "Thanks, Ollie." Pete sighed.

  "You look like shite, still," said Ollie bluntly, settling his comfortable bulk into his chair and rattling a used copy of the Times.

  "Love you, too, Ollie." Pete shoved her chair back. Chief Inspector Newell would have all manner of questions about the Killigan case, and Pete deflected them the only way she knew how—she came into Newell's office on the offensive.

  "No, I don't know how she got there or who took her. She hasn't spoken. For God's sake, Nigel, she's been blinded."

  Nigel Newell blinked twice at Pete. "Thank you for that succinct update, DI Caldecott. However, I called you in on another matter."

  Pete drew in a breath, wishing desperately it was the end of a Parliament. Sod it, before this morning she'd been meaning to quit. Jack had raked all her old vices to front and center.

  "Sorry, sir. What is it you wanted to see me on?"

  "The Superintendent has deemed it appropriate to dedicate a small auxiliary parking structure to Inspector Caldecott, senior. Your father," said Newell as if she might have forgotten. He gave the impression of examining Pete over his glasses, even though his nose was bare. "They would like you to write a brief statement to be engraved on the plaque that will bear his name, if that isn't too taxing."

  Bloody foolishness. Connor coughed at her from that hospital bed, so diminished but still full of fight. Tell him to sod his parking structure—did my job and never asked for anything more.

  "Of course, sir," she said aloud, willing Newell, Don't ask about Bridget Killigan.

  "Very well," said Newell. "You're dismissed."

  Relief, and a fag waiting outside.

  "And Inspector?" said Newell. Pete's feet ground to a halt against her will.

  "Sir?"

  "Don't think that I won't be asking for a full accounting of the Killigan matter when the girl is released from the hospital."

  Damn you, Jack. "Of course, sir." Pete tipped her head in deference and escaped into the wider office.

  "Someone sent you papers by courier," said Ollie, with a nod toward the flat tan package on Pete's desk. The return label was the crest of Terry's architectural firm. Pete ripped the package with a letter opener, being more vicious than she strictly had to be.

  Tight orderly lines of black type marched across the columns and Pete swore in a whisper before she punched up an outside line and called Terry at work.

  "Mr. Hanover."

  "This is not the price we agreed on, you wanker," Pete gritted into the mouthpiece. Ollie raised his eyebrows at that, and strategically went to refill his tea mug with hot water.

  On the other end of the line, Terry sighed. "The estate agent priced it for a quick sale, Pete, just like you wanted. You told me yourself you didn't want to waste any time haggling over the flat—just get it sold."

  "Yes." Pete turned her back on the MIT room at large and stared at the National Health advisories pinned to the wall behind her desk. "Yes, I do want it sold, sold at the price we gave the estate agent."

  "The market's gone downhill since then. Martha said—"

  "Who the bloody hell is Martha?"

  She could picture Terry's sour pout when he answered. "My new estate agent. Miss Tabram."

  "She's Susan's assistant, the one who had her knees stuck in your ears when I came over to sign the credit check forms last week?"

  "We're seeing each other." Terry sounded far too relaxed for Pete to do anything except get into her car, drive to his firm, and shove his drafting pencil into his ear canal. She couldn't, so she snapped, "Raise the price up, Terry. I'm not going to waste my time with your fucking about," and slammed the receiver down with a crack like bones snapping.

  "Now I really do need that fag," she said to Ollie when he sat down again. "He ordered my food on our first date and he hasn't stopped shoving his bloody opinions down my throat since."

  A clerk came through the maze of desks and touched Pete on the shoulder. "Sorry to bother you, Inspector… four persons to see you waiting in the visitor's room."

  Pete wrapped her fist longingly around the crumpled pack of Parliaments in her pocket.

  "Not the ruddy press, is it?" said Ollie suspiciously. "PR office has been ringing off the hook with tosspots wanting an interview with you, Pete."

  "It's not the press," said the clerk. "It's… well…" Her tan brow crinkled nervously. "They wouldn't exactly say, Inspector… only that it was very urgent."

  "All right, all right." Pete sighed. "I'll be out in a moment. Tell them to keep their knickers on that long."

  Ollie found Pete half an hour later, in her customary spot near the parking shed for the armed response vehicles.

  "What happened, Caldecott?"

  Rain peppered the puddle at Pete's feet, and she threw her cigarette into it, where it floated on the oil-stained water like a tiny corpse. "Two more."

  Ollie sagged a bit, and rubbed his
forehead. "Bugger it. When?"

  "This afternoon," said Pete. "After school. Two children, friends, live near each other. They didn't come home, and the parents thought they'd run away."

  "I'll tell Newell," said Ollie, making a move for the door.

  "I did it," said Pete. "Patrols are searching the neighborhood. I'm following momentarily." Even to her ears, she sounded flat and uninterested, as if a boring program were on BBC 4 but she couldn't be bothered to change the channel.

  She could lie and say it was Jack's fault, for jerking her about rather than telling the truth, but it was hers. Two more children. An agonizing five days, if she was lucky, before they showed up in the same fashion as Bridget Killigan. Pete didn't even bother to tell herself that these were just suspicions, not fact. She was too tired to deny that she was certain.

  "I'll fetch my car, head over there as well," said Ollie.

  "Heath, wait," said Pete. Ollie paused. "Would you… would you mind going on ahead and taking point on the case, just for today?"

  Ollie's lips pursed. "You've been eerie ever since we found the Killigan child, Caldecott. You need a bit of rest. If that's what you're asking for, take it. With my blessing."

  "Not a rest," said Pete. She felt mad, as if she were standing on a cliff with paper wings strapped to her back. But the simple fact, the only fact in this at all, was that Jack had been right. Never mind how, he'd found Bridget. He would find the two new missing.

  Pete didn't allow herself the glaring thought that her faith in Jack was as misplaced as it had ever been. Or the new wrinkle, that he hated her for something she couldn't fathom.

  "Not a rest," Pete repeated to Ollie. "There's something that I have to do. It may take me thirty-six hours or so, Ollie… cover my arse with Newell until then?"

  Ollie Heath, God bless him, just nodded. "Of course, Pete."

  He went to look for the missing children, and Pete went hunting for Jack, not knowing if she was going to hit him or embrace him when they met, just that she needed to find him, and so she would.