Kitabı oku: «Weaveworld», sayfa 9
VIII
FOLLOWING THE THREAD
1
imi was dead.
Her killers had come and gone in the night, leaving an elaborate smoke-screen to conceal their crime.
‘There’s nothing mysterious about your grandmother’s death.’ Doctor Chai insisted. ‘She was failing fast.’
‘There was somebody here last night.’
‘That’s right. Her daughter.’
‘She only had one daughter; my mother. And she’s been dead for two and a half years.’
‘Whoever it was, she did Mrs Laschenski no harm. Your grandmother died of natural causes.’
There was little use in arguing, Suzanna realized. Any further attempt to explain her suspicions would end in confusion. Besides, Mimi’s death had begun a new spiral of puzzles. Chief amongst them: what had the old woman known, or been, that she had to be dispatched?; and how much of her part in this puzzle would Suzanna now be obliged to assume? One question begged the other, and both, with Mimi silenced, would have to go unanswered. The only other source of information was the creature who’d stooped to kill the old woman on her death-bed: Immacolata. And that was a confrontation Suzanna felt far from ready for.
They left the hospital, and walked. She was badly shaken.
‘Shall we eat?’ Cal suggested.
It was still only seven in the morning, but they found a cafe that served breakfast and ordered glutton’s portions. The eggs and bacon, toast and coffee restored them both somewhat, though the price of a sleepless night still had to be paid.
‘I’ll have to ’phone my uncle in Canada,’ said Suzanna. Tell him what happened.’
‘All of it?’ said Cal.
‘Of course not,’ she said. That’s between the two of us.’
He was glad of that. Not just because he didn’t like the thought of the story spreading, but because he wanted the intimacy of a secret shared. This Suzanna was like no woman he had ever met before. There was no facade, no games-playing. They were, in one night of confessionals – and this sad morning – suddenly companions in a mystery which, though it had brought him closer to death than he’d ever been, he’d happily endure if it meant he kept her company.
‘There won’t be many tears shed over Mimi,’ Suzanna was saying. ‘She was never loved.’
‘Not even by you?’
‘I never knew her,’ she said, and gave Cal a brief synopsis of Mimi’s life and times. ‘She was an outsider,’ Suzanna concluded. ‘And now we know why.’
‘Which brings us back to the carpet. We have to trace the house cleaners.’
‘You need some sleep first.’
‘No. I’ve got my second wind. But I do want to go home. Just to feed the pigeons.’
‘Can’t they survive without you for a few hours?’
Cal frowned. ‘If it weren’t for them,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Sorry. Do you mind if I come with you?’
‘I’d like that. Maybe you can give Dad something to smile about.’
2
As it was, Brendan had smiles aplenty today; Cal had not seen his father so happy since before Eileen’s illness. The change was uncanny. He welcomed them both into the house with a stream of banter.
‘Coffee, anybody?’ he offered, and went off into the kitchen. ‘By the way Cal, Geraldine was here.’
‘What did she want?’
‘She brought some books you’d given her; said she didn’t want them any longer.’ He turned from the coffee-brewing and stared at Cal. ‘She said you’ve been behaving oddly.’
‘Must be in the blood,’ said Cal, and his father grinned. ‘I’m going to look at the birds.’
‘I’ve already fed them today. And cleaned them out.’
‘You’re really feeling better.’
‘Why not?’ said Brendan. ‘I’ve got people watching over me.’
Cal nodded, not quite comprehending. Then he turned to Suzanna.
‘Want to see the champions?’ he said, and they stepped outside. The day was already balmy.
‘There’s something off about Dad,’ said Cal, as he led the way down the clogged path to the loft. ‘Two days ago he was practically suicidal.’
‘Maybe the bad times have just run their course,’ she said.
‘Maybe,’ he replied, as he opened the loft door. As he did so, a train roared by, making the earth tremble.
‘Nine-twenty-five to Penzance,’ Cal said, as he led her inside.
‘Doesn’t it disturb the birds?’ she asked. ‘Being so close to the tracks?’
‘They got used to it when they were still in their shells,’ he replied, and went to greet the pigeons.
She watched him talking to them, paddling his fingers against the wire mesh. He was a strange one, no doubt of that; but no stranger than she, probably. What surprised her was the casual way they dealt with the imponderables which had suddenly entered their lives. They stood, she sensed, on a threshold; in the realm beyond a little strangeness might be a necessity.
Cal suddenly turned from the cage.
‘Gilchrist.’ he said, with a fierce grin. ‘I just remembered. They talked about a guy called Gilchrist.’
‘Who did?’
‘When I was on the wall. The removal men. God, yes! I looked at the birds and it all came back. I was on the wall and they were talking about selling the carpet to someone called Gilchrist.’
‘That’s our man then.’
Cal was back in the house in moments.
‘I don’t have any cake –’ Brendan said as his son made for the telephone in the hallway. ‘What’s the panic?’
‘It’s nothing much,’ said Suzanna.
Brendan poured her a cup of coffee, while Cal rifled through the directory. ‘You’re not a local lass, are you?’ Brendan said.
‘I live in London.’
‘Never liked London,’ he commented. ‘Soulless place.’
‘I’ve got a studio in Muswell Hill. You’d like it.’ When Brendan looked puzzled at this, she added: ‘I make pottery.’
‘I’ve found it,’ said Cal, directory in hand. ‘K. W. Gilchrist,’ he read,‘Second-Hand Retailer.’
‘What’s all this about?’ said Brendan.
‘I’ll give them a call,’ Cal said.
‘It’s Sunday,’ said Suzanna.
‘Lot of these places are open Sunday morning,’ he replied, and returned to the hallway.
‘Are you buying something?’ Brendan said.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Suzanna replied.
Cal dialled the number. The receiver at the other end was picked up promptly. A woman said:
‘Gilchrist’s?’
‘Hello,’ said Cal. ‘I’d like to speak to Mr Gilchrist please.’
There was a beat’s silence, then the woman said:
‘Mr Gilchrist’s dead.’
Jesus, Shadwell was fast. Cal thought.
But the telephonist hadn’t finished:
‘He’s been dead eight years,’ she said. Her voice had less colour than the speaking clock. ‘What’s your enquiry concerning?’
‘A carpet,’ said Cal.
‘You want to buy a carpet?’
‘No. Not exactly. I think a carpet was brought to your saleroom by mistake –’
‘By mistake?’
‘That’s right. And I have to have it back. Urgently.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to speak to Mr Wilde about that.’
‘Could you put me through to Mr Wilde then, please?’
‘He’s in the Isle of Wight.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘Thursday morning. You’ll have to ring back then.’
‘Surely that must be –’
He stopped, realizing the line was dead.
‘Damn,’ he said. He looked up to see Suzanna standing at the kitchen door. ‘Nobody there to talk to.’ He sighed. ‘Where does that leave us?’
‘Like thieves in the night,’ she replied softly.
3
When Cal and the woman had gone, Brendan sat awhile watching the garden. He’d have to get to work on it soon: Eileen’s letter had chastized him for being so lax in its upkeep.
Musing on the letter inevitably led him back to its carrier, the celestial Mr Shadwell.
Without analysing why, he got up and went to the ’phone, consulting the card the angel had given him, then dialled. His memory of the encounter with Shadwell had almost been burned away by the brightness of the gift the Salesman had brought, but there’d been a bargain made, that he did remember, and it somehow concerned Cal.
‘Is that Mr Shadwell?’
‘Who is this please?’
‘It’s Brendan Mooney.’
‘Oh Brendan. How good to hear your voice. Do you have something to tell me? About Cal?’
‘He went to a warehouse, for furniture and such …’
‘Did he indeed. Then we shall find him, and make him a happy man. Was he alone?’
‘No. There was a woman with him. A lovely woman.’
‘Her name?’
‘Suzanna Parrish.’
‘And the warehouse?’
A vague twinge of doubt touched Brendan. ‘Why is it you need Cal?’
‘I told you. A prize.’
‘Oh yes. A prize.’
‘Something to take his breath away. The warehouse, Brendan. We have a deal, after all. Fair’s fair.’
Brendan put his hand into his pocket. The letter was still warm. There was no harm in making bargains with angels, was there? What could be safer?
He named the warehouse.
‘They only went for a carpet –’ Brendan said.
The receiver clicked.
‘Are you still there?’ he said.
But the divine messenger was probably already winging his way.
IX
FINDERS KEEPERS
1
ilchrist’s Second-Hand Furniture Warehouse had once been a cinema, in the years when cinemas were still palatial follies. A folly it remained, with its mock-rococo facade, and the unlikely dome perched on its roof; but there was nothing remotely palatial about it now. It stood within a stone’s throw of the Dock Road, the only property left in its block that remained in use. The rest were either boarded up or burned out.
Standing at the corner of Jamaica Street, staring across at the dereliction, Cal wondered if the late Mr Gilchrist would have been proud to have his name emblazoned across such a decayed establishment. Business could not flourish here, unless they were the kind of dealings best done out of the public eye.
The opening times of the warehouse were displayed on a weather-beaten board, where the cinema had once announced its current fare. Sundays, it was open between nine-thirty and twelve. It was now one-fifteen. The double-doors were closed and bolted, and a pair of huge ironwork gates, a grotesque addition to the facade, padlocked in front of the doors.
‘What are your house-breaking skills like?’ Cal asked Suzanna.
‘Under-developed,’ she replied. ‘But I’m a fast learner.’
They crossed Jamaica Street for a closer inspection. There was little need to pretend innocence; there had been no pedestrians on the street since they’d arrived, and traffic was minimal.
‘There must be some way in,’ said Suzanna. ‘You head round the far side. I’ll go this way.’
‘Right. Meet you at the back.’
They parted. Whereas Cal’s route had taken him into shadow, Suzanna’s left her in bright sunlight. Oddly, she found herself longing for some clouds. The heat was making her blood sing, as though she was tuned in to some alien radio-station, and its melodies were whining around her skull.
As she listened to them Cal stepped around the corner, startling her.
‘I’ve found a way,’ he said, and led her round to what had once been the cinema’s emergency exit. It too was padlocked, but both chain and lock were well rusted. He had already found himself half a brick, with which he now berated the lock. Brick-shards flew off in all directions, but after a dozen blows the chain surrendered, Cal put his shoulder to the door, and pushed. There was a commotion from inside, as a mirror and several other items piled against the door toppled over; but he was able to force a gap large enough for them to squeeze through.
2
The interior was a kind of Purgatory, in which thousands of household items – armchairs, wardrobes, lamps large and small, curtains, rugs – awaited Judgment, piled up in dusty wretchedness. The place stank of its occupants; of things claimed by woodworm and rot and sheer usage; of once fine pieces now so age-worn even their makers would not have given them house room.
And beneath the smell of decrepitude, something more bitter and more human. The scent of sweat perhaps, soaked up by the boards of a sick bed, or in the fabric of a lamp that had burned through a night whose endurer had known no morning. Not a place to linger too long.
They separated once more, for speed’s sake.
‘Anything that looks promising,’ Cal said, ‘holler.’
He was now eclipsed by piles of furniture.
The whine in Suzanna’s skull did not die down once she was out of the sun; it worsened. Maybe it was the enormity of the task before them that made her head spin, like an impossible quest from some faery-tale, seeking a particle of magic in the wilderness of decay.
The same thought, though formulated differently, was passing through Cal’s mind. The more he searched, the more he doubted his memory. Maybe it hadn’t been Gilchrist they’d named; or perhaps the removal men had decided the profit made bringing the carpet here would not repay their effort.
As he turned a corner, he heard a scraping sound from behind a stack of furniture.
‘Suzanna?’ he said. The word went out and returned unanswered. The noise had already faded behind him, but it had sent adrenalin rushing through his system, and it was with speedier step that he made his way to the next mountain of goods and chattels. Even before he came within five yards of it his eyes had alighted upon the rolled carpet that was all but concealed beneath half a dozen dining chairs and a chest of drawers. All of these items lacked price-tags, which suggested they were recent, unsorted acquisitions.
He went down on his knees and pulled at the edge of the carpet, in an attempt to see the design. The border was damaged, the weave weak. When he pulled he felt strands snap. But he could see enough to confirm what his gut already knew: that this was the carpet from Rue Street, the carpet which Mimi Laschenski had lived and died protecting; the carpet of the Fugue.
He stood up and started to unpile the chairs, deaf to the sound of approaching footsteps at his back.
3
The first thing Suzanna saw was a shadow on the ground. She looked up.
A face appeared between two wardrobes, only to move off again before she could call it by its name.
Mimi! It was Mimi.
She walked over to the wardrobes. There was no sign of anyone. Was she losing her sanity? First the din in her head, now hallucinations?
And yet, why were they here if they didn’t believe in miracles? Doubt was drowned in a sudden rush of hope – that the dead might somehow break the seal on the invisible world and come amongst the living.
She called her grandmother’s name, softly. And she was granted an answer. Not in words, but in the scent of lavender water. Off to her left, down a corridor of piled tea-chests, a ball of dust rolled and came to rest. She went towards it, or rather towards the source of the breeze that had carried it, the scent getting stronger with every step she took.
4
‘That’s my property, I believe,’ said the voice at Cal’s back. He turned. Shadwell was standing a few feet from him. His jacket was unbuttoned.
‘Perhaps you’d stand aside, Mooney, and let me claim what’s mine.’
Cal wished he’d had the presence of mind to come here armed. At that moment he’d have had no hesitation in stabbing Shadwell through his gleaming eye and calling himself a hero for it. As it was, all he had were his bare hands. They’d have to suffice.
He took a step towards Shadwell, but as he did so the man stood aside. There was somebody standing behind him. One of the sisters, no doubt; or their bastards.
Cal didn’t wait to see, but turned and picked up one of the chairs from those dumped on the carpet. His action brought a small avalanche; chairs spilling between him and the enemy. He threw the one he held towards the shadowy form that had taken Shadwell’s place. He picked up a second, and threw it the way of the first, but now the target had disappeared into the labyrinth of furniture. So had the Salesman.
Cal turned, his muscles fired, and put his back into shifting the chest of drawers. He succeeded; the chest toppled backwards, knocking over several other pieces as it fell. He was glad of the commotion; perhaps it would draw Suzanna’s attention. Now he reached to take possession of the carpet, but as he did so something seized him from behind. He was dragged bodily from his prize, a small section of the carpet coming away in his hand, then he was flung across the floor.
He came to a halt against a pile of ornately framed paintings and photographs, several of which toppled and smashed. He lay amid the litter of glass for a moment to catch his breath, but the next sight snatched it from him again.
The by-blow was coming at him out of the gloom.
‘Get up!’ it told him.
He was dead to its instruction, his attention claimed by the face before him. It wasn’t Elroy’s off-spring, though this monstrosity also had its father’s features. No; this child was his.
The horror he’d glimpsed, stirring from the lullaby he’d heard lying in the dirt of the rubbish tip, had been all too real. The sisters had squeezed his seed from him, and this beast with his face was the consequence.
It was not a fine likeness. Its naked body was entirely hairless, and there were several horrid distortions – the fingers of one hand were twice their natural length, and those of the other half-inch stumps, while from the shoulder blades eruptions of matter sprang like malformed wings – parodies, perhaps, of the creatures his dreams envied.
It was made in more of its father’s image than the other beasts had been, however, and faced with himself, he hesitated.
It was enough, that hesitation, to give the beast the edge. It leapt at him, seizing his throat with its long-fingered hand, its touch without a trace of warmth, its mouth sucking at his as if to steal the breath from his lips.
It intended patricide, no doubt of that; its grip was unconditional. He felt his legs weaken, and the child allowed him to collapse to his knees, following him down. The knuckles of his fingers brushed against the glass shards, and he made a fumbling attempt to pick one up, but between mind and hand the instruction lost urgency. The weapon dropped from his hand.
Somewhere, in that place of breath and light from which he was outcast, he heard Shadwell laughing. Then the sound stopped, and he was staring at his own face, which looked back at him as if from a corrupted mirror. His eyes, which he’d always liked for the paleness of their colour; the mouth, which though it had been an embarrassment to him as a child because he’d thought it too girlish, he’d now trained into a modicum of severity when the occasion demanded, and which was, he was told, capable of a winning smile. The ears, large and protuberant: a comedian’s ears on a face that warranted something sleeker …
Probably most people slip out of the world with such trivialities in their heads. Certainly it was that way for Cal.
Thinking of his ears, the undertow took hold of him and dragged him down.
X
THE MENSTRUUM
uzanna knew the instant before she stepped into what had once been the cinema foyer that this was an error. Even then, she might have retreated, but that she heard Mimi’s voice speak her name and before any argument could stay her step her feet had carried her through the door.
The foyer was darker than the main warehouse, but she could see the vague figure of her grandmother standing beside the boarded-up box-office.
‘Mimi?’ she said, her mind a blur of contrary impressions.
‘Here I am,’ said the old lady, and opened her arms to Suzanna.
The proffered embrace was also an error of judgment, but on the part of the enemy. Gestures of physical affection had not been Mimi’s forte in life, and Suzanna saw no reason to suppose her grandmother would have changed her habits upon expiring.
‘You’re not Mimi,’ she said.
‘I know it’s a surprise, seeing me,’ the would-be ghost replied. The voice was soft as a feather-fall. ‘But there’s nothing to be afraid of.’
‘Who are you?’
‘You know who I am,’ came the response.
Suzanna didn’t linger for any further words of seduction, but turned to retrace her path. There were perhaps three yards between her and the exit, but now they seemed as many miles. She tried to take a step on that long road, but the commotion in her head suddenly rose to deafening proportions.
The presence behind her had no intention of letting her escape. It sought a confrontation, and it was a waste of effort to defy it. So she turned and looked.
The mask was melting, though there was ice in the eyes that emerged from behind it, not fire. She knew the face, and though she’d not thought herself ready to brave its fury yet, she was strangely elated by the sight. The last shreds of Mimi evaporated, and Immacolata stood revealed.
‘My sister …’ she said, the air around her dancing to her words. ‘… my sister the Hag had me play that part. She thought she saw Mimi in your face. She was right, wasn’t she? You’re her child.’
‘Grandchild,’ Suzanna murmured.
‘Child,’ came the certain reply.
Suzanna stared at the woman before her, fascinated by the masterwork of grief half-concealed in those features. Immacolata flinched at her scrutiny.
‘How dare you pity me?’ she said, as if she’d read Suzanna’s thought, and on the words something leapt from her face.
It came too fast for Suzanna to see what it was; she had time only to throw herself out of its whining path. The wall behind her shook as it was struck. The next instant the face was spilling more brightness towards her.
Suzanna was not afraid. The display only elated her further. This time, as the brightness came her way, her instinct overruled all constraints of sanity, and she put her hand out as if to catch the light.
It was like plunging her arm into a torrent of ice-water. A torrent in which innumerable fish were swimming, fast, fast, against the flood; swimming to spawn. She closed her fist, snatching at this brimming tide, and pulled.
The action had three consequences. One, a cry from Immacolata. Two, the sudden cessation of the din in Suzanna’s head. Three, all that her hand had felt – the chill, the torment and the shoal it contained – all of that was suddenly within her. Her body was the flood. Not the body of flesh and bone, but some other anatomy, made more of thought than of substance, and more ancient than either. Somehow it had recognized itself in Immacolata’s assault, and thrown off its sleep.
Never in her life had she felt so complete. In the face of this feeling all other ambition – for happiness, for pleasure, for power – all others faded.
She looked back at Immacolata, and her new eyes saw not an enemy but a woman possessed of the same torrent that ran in her own veins. A woman twisted and full of anguish but for all that more like her than not.
‘That was stupid,’ said the Incantatrix.
‘Was it?’ said Suzanna. She didn’t think so.
‘Better you remained unfound. Better you never tasted the menstruum.’
‘The menstruum?’
‘Now you’ll know more than you wish to know, feel more than you ever wanted to feel.’ There seemed to be something approximating pity in Immacolata’s voice. ‘So the grief begins,’ she said. ‘And it will never end. Believe me. You should have lived and died a Cuckoo.’
‘Is that how Mimi died?’ said Suzanna.
The ice eyes flickered. ‘She knew what risks she took. She had Seerkind blood, and that’s always run freely. You’re of their blood too, through that bitch grand-dam of yours.’
‘Seerkind?’ So many new words. ‘Are they the Fugue people?’
‘They’re dead people,’ came the reply. ‘Don’t look to them for answers. They’re dust soon enough. Gone the way everything in this stinking Kingdom goes. To dirt and mediocrity. We’ll see to that. You’re alone. Like she was.’
That ‘we’ reminded her of the Salesman, and the potency of the coat he wore.
‘Is Shadwell a Seerkind?’ she asked.
‘Him?’ The thought was apparently preposterous. ‘No. Any power he’s got’s my gift.’
‘Why?’ said Suzanna. She understood little of Immacolata, but enough to know that she and Shadwell were not a perfect match.
‘He taught me …’ the Incantatrix began, her hand moving up to her face, ‘… he taught me, the show.’ The hand passed across her features, and upon reappearing she was smiling, almost warmly. ‘You’ll need that now.’
‘And for that you’re his mistress?’
The sound that came from the woman might have been a laugh; but only might. ‘I leave love to the Magdalene, sister. She’s an appetite for it. Ask Mooney –’
Cal. She’d forgotten Cal.
‘– if he has the breath to answer.’
Suzanna glanced back towards the door.
‘Go on …’ said Immacolata, ‘… go find him. I won’t stop you.’
The brightness in her, the menstruum, knew the Incantatrix was telling the truth. That flood was part of them both now. It bonded them in ways Suzanna could not yet guess at.
‘The battle’s already lost, sister.’ Immacolata murmured as Suzanna reached the threshold. ‘While you indulged your curiosity, the Fugue’s fallen into our hands.’
Suzanna stepped back into the warehouse, fear beginning for the first time. Not for herself, but for Cal. She yelled his name into the murk.
‘Too late …’ said the woman behind her.
‘Cal!’
There was no reply. She started to search for him, calling his name at intervals, her anxiety growing with each unanswered shout. The place was a maze; twice she found herself in a location she’d already searched.
It was the glitter of broken glass that drew her attention; and then, lying face down a little way from it, Cal. Before she got close enough to touch him she sensed the profundity of his stillness.
He was too brittle, the menstruum in her said. You know how these Cuckoos are.
She rejected the thought. It wasn’t hers.
‘Don’t be dead.’
That was hers. It slipped from her as she knelt down beside him, a plea to his silence.
‘Please God, don’t be dead.’
She was frightened to touch him, for fear of discovering the worst, all the while knowing that she was the only help he had. His head was turned towards her, his eyes closed, his mouth open, trailing blood-tinged spittle. Instinctively, her hand went to his hair, as if she might stroke him awake, but pragmatism had not entirely deserted her, and instead her fingers sought the pulse in his neck. It was weak.
So the grief begins, Immacolata had said, mere minutes before. Had she known, even as she offered that prophecy, that Cal was half way to dying already?
Of course she’d known. Known, and welcomed the grief this would bring, because she wanted Suzanna’s pleasure in the menstruum soured from its discovery; wanted them sisters in sorrow.
Distracted by the realization she focused again on Cal to find that her hand had left his neck and was once again stroking his hair. Why was she doing this? He wasn’t a sleeping child. He was hurt; he needed more concrete help. But even as she rebuked herself she felt the menstruum start to rise from her lower abdomen, washing her entrails, and lungs and heart, and moving – without any conscious instruction – down her arm towards Cal. Before, it had been indifferent to his wounding; you know how these Cuckoos are, it had said to her. But her rage, or perhaps her sadness, had chastened it. Now she felt its energies carry her need to wake him, to heal him, through the palm of her hand and into his sealed head.
It was both an extraordinary sensation, and one she felt perfectly at ease with. When, at the last moment, it seemed not to want to go, she pressed it forward and it obeyed her, its stream flowing into him. It was hers to control, she realized, with a rush of exhilaration, which was followed immediately by an ache of loss as the body below her drank the torment down.
He was greedy for healing. Her joints began to jitter as the menstruum ran from her, and in her skull that alien song rose like a dozen sirens. She tried to take her hand from his head, but her muscles wouldn’t obey the imperative. The menstruum had taken charge of her body, it seemed. She’d been too hasty, assuming control would be easy. It was deliberately depleting itself, to teach her not to press it.
An instant before she passed out, it decided enough was enough, and removed her hand. The flow was abruptly stemmed. She put her shaking hands up to her face, Cal’s scent on her fingertips. By degrees the whine in her skull wound down. The faintness began to pass.
‘Are you all right?’ Cal asked her.
She dropped her hands and looked across at him. He’d raised himself from the ground, and was now gingerly investigating his bloodied mouth.
‘I think so,’ she said. ‘You?’
‘I’ll do,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know what happened …’ The words trailed away as the memory came back, and a look of alarm crossed his face.
‘The carpet –’
He hauled himself to his feet, looking all around.
‘– I had it in my hand,’ he said. ‘Jesus, I had it in my hand!’
‘They’ve taken it!’ she said.
She thought he was going to cry, the way his features crumpled up, but it was rage that emerged.
‘Fucking Shadwell!’ he shouted, sweeping a copse of table-lamps off the top of a chest-of-drawers. ‘I’ll kill him! I swear–’
