The Shut Eye (13 page)

‘Yes.’

‘There’s something in this photo. There’s something in this photo that’s getting inside my head and telling me things. Showing me things.’

Crazy! I knew she was crazy!

‘I know it sounds crazy,’ said the woman, making Emily blink with exposure. ‘I know that. But I lost my son and this woman lost her dog and all I want to do is to help her find it again, do you understand? Because of my son. He went missing in November and if I can help
her
, then maybe somebody somewhere will help
me
. Find Daniel. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Emily nodded. She couldn’t help herself, because the tears starting to gather on the woman’s lower lids and lashes spoke the truth about her son.

‘So please can you tell him that? Please can you let him know that I’m only here to try to help? I’m not asking for money or anything. I only want to help her get her dog back, because of Daniel.’

Emily hesitated. ‘I’m just not sure you have the right officer—’

‘I do!’ said Mrs Buck. ‘He left a message on my phone. About the dog. Her name is Mitzi. You ask him. Please just ask
him
!’

Emily hesitated. The woman seemed crazy, but there was something about her story that wasn’t. She wondered what it was and realized it was the name of the dog.

Mitzi
.

Who the hell had a delusion so intricate and so ridiculous that they named a dog Mitzi? That just didn’t seem likely to Emily Aguda, and if it didn’t seem likely to her, then it was probably not true.

She stared up one last time at the photograph of the woman and the dog, and then decided. ‘Hold on just a moment, Mrs Buck.’

She picked up the phone and dialled G Team again. She flirted with Colin Brady again; she got Marvel on the line again.

‘Sir, I’m sorry to trouble you again, but Mrs Buck seems very insistent that she can help you find …’ here Emily lowered her voice so as not to embarrass DCI Marvel, ‘… a lost dog?’

In the face of Marvel’s silence, Emily lowered her voice even further. ‘Called Mitzi?’

‘Oh, for
Christ’s sake
!’ Marvel shouted in her ear.

Emily tightened her lips and her backbone. ‘Sir, the lady’s becoming quite—’ She had been going to say ‘agitated’. But as she spoke, Emily glanced through the window at Mrs Buck and her eyes widened in alarm. ‘Sir,’ she said firmly, ‘I think you should come down here
right now
.’

Then
she
hung up on
him
.

It’s all circles.

The voice spoke quite clearly and Anna flinched and turned to see who was behind her at the window.

There was nobody. She looked back at the desk officer on the phone and could no longer hear her speaking, although she could see her mouth moving, very, very slowly.

She looked at the photo in her hand. Sandra’s dark roots, the contented little dog, the big rosette.

It’s all circles.

The voice was in her head. It wasn’t her voice, or even her thought. For some reason, that didn’t bother her.

She tried to tap the window to ask the WPC whether she could hear it too. But she never raised her arm, never made a fist, never knocked on the glass, never opened her mouth – because it was full of circles, and so was her head.

Circles and circles and circles.

The young woman behind the counter was staring at her now, and hanging up the phone, and Anna tried to reassure her that it was all circles and everything was OK, because everything was endless and it would all begin again.

The officer’s eyes widened as, very slowly and deliberately, Anna backed a couple of steps away from the window and drew a big, slow loop in the air, using her whole arm to do it. A little part of her felt foolish, but she
had
to do it, because everything was circles and that was
important
.

She turned slightly and drew another full round and felt better again.

So she turned and drew another one, this time facing the benches and the buggy and the baby.

Circles and circles and wonderful circles.

With each circle she drew in the air, Anna felt better.

Everything
was
better because of circles. How had she not seen this before? How had she missed it? It was right there in front of her eyes! The very act of making the circles was liberating; she wished everybody could share it, and she smiled to encourage the other people on the benches, but she couldn’t speak to them because she was in a joyous bubble of turning and circles and turning and circles.

She finally stopped, facing the little window again – breathless and euphoric. And for a moment she and the young woman stared at each other in perfect understanding of the universe and their place within it, which was
everywhere
—

Then Anna doubled over in sudden agony and dropped to her knees.

‘Water,’ she croaked. ‘Water!’

Emily Aguda leaped up from her chair and shouted for help and barrelled through the security door as fast as she could to help the crazy woman.

But by the time she reached her side, Anna Buck was dying.

ANNA BUCK WAS
dying.

She was curled on her side like an old corpse in a lifeboat, eyes sinking, lips cracking, a yellow pallor spreading across her skin.

‘Water,’ she whispered.

‘Get her some water!’ Emily yelled it straight at the liar with the cut on his head. The man looked blank, so she pointed at the door marked
Gentlemen
. ‘In there! Quick!’

He bounced off his bench in startled obedience and hurried through the door.

‘All of you!’ she shouted at the rest. ‘Help him!’ and the whole lot of them – guilty and innocent alike – leaped to their feet like soldiers and trooped into the loo after the first man.

Two more officers banged through the security doors and knelt beside Anna with a defibrillator and a first-aid kit.

‘What happened?’ said one.

‘I don’t know. She was in a kind of trance, and then she fell over and started asking for water. She looks terrible. She didn’t look this terrible before. Thirty seconds ago she looked OK! This is mad!’

Anna Buck stared past her at the ceiling, but her lips were moving and Emily bent close so she could hear her.

‘Eighty-eight,’ she whispered.

Emily looked up but there was nothing there. ‘Eighty-eight what?’ she said.

‘Water,’ the woman croaked, and closed her eyes.

‘What the bloody hell is going on here?’

Marvel was already in a bad mood because of Mitzi Clyde, and had come all the way downstairs to give a public bollocking to that bitch on the front desk.

Aguda.

How dare she hang up on him? How
dare
she? And who else had she told about Mitzi? Was she down there now, laughing about it? Sharing it with the bloody peanut gallery? The cheeky little cow. Well, now she was going to get what was coming to her; he’d report her to the super for insubordination and put a nice dent in her future.

He’d run down the stairs, too angry to stand still in the lift, and by the time he’d hit the ground floor he had worked up a real head of steam. It was ages since he’d been this angry with anyone, and he was looking forward to venting his rage on a target that couldn’t hit back.

But all hell had broken loose in the foyer.

Two officers were kneeling next to a thin woman who was sitting awkwardly on the linoleum floor in a widening pool of water. There was a defibrillator unit off to one side, not being used, and a steady line of people hurrying to and from the toilets with little paper cups. Not police officers, but civilians – four men in jeans and hoodies, a woman with tattoo sleeves and a ring in her nose, an elderly man in a homburg hat, even a local burglar called Dickie Dixon, who had a cut on his head.

Aguda was directing operations – whipping the line into speedier action like the drummer on a slave ship. As each person handed their cup to her, she passed it to the woman on the floor, who gulped it so fast it splashed over her shoulders and down her T-shirt, then held out her hand for the next, while the first cup was returned to the water porter, who hurried back to the toilets for a refill, slipping and sliding on the spillage, but never daring to stop while the drummer urged them on.

Marvel was stunned. It was like a bizarre game-show that everyone knew how to play but him.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded of Aguda.

‘This is the lady who wanted to see you, sir. She had a funny turn. She needed some water.’

Marvel looked around the foyer.
Some water?
This wasn’t
some water
. This was madness!

But he said nothing. He just stood back and watched in amazement as the thin woman continued to suck down water, soaking herself and those near her in her desperation.

Slowly the gulping got more measured, the spillage reduced, the line slowed and finally stopped. The line of random helpers backed up. They maintained formation though, hovering anxiously in case their services were needed again, each carefully holding a paper cup, like choirboys with candles, while WPC Aguda controlled them with a hand, a look, a presence.

The woman on the floor handed the last half-full cup to one of the officers and said, ‘Thank you,’ and then burst into tears.

It was only then that DCI Marvel recognized her.

The girl on the bridge, looking down between her shoes at the glistening rails. Crying.

Small world
, he thought irritably.

The water line broke up slowly, and its constituent parts went back to the benches, talking quietly among themselves. A couple remained standing, watching Anna Buck with concern. All had oddly bonded. ‘Well done, everyone,’ said WPC Aguda quietly. ‘Thank you all for your help.’

She had done a good job, Marvel noted grudgingly. He’d save the bollocking for another time.

The two officers helped Anna Buck to her unsteady feet, holding her elbows. She stared around her with dazed eyes, not recognizing him even though he’d once saved her life.

Marvel bent and picked up a photograph a few feet away. It was swimming in water, and he shook it at arm’s length so that droplets flicked off the corners.

‘
Don’t touch him!
’

Marvel froze, but the girl wasn’t talking to him. She was shouting at the big woman with the tattoos and the nose ring, who was reaching into the buggy.

‘
Don’t touch my baby!
’ she yelled. She tried to shrug off the two police officers holding her arms, but their instinct was to tighten their grip, and they held her fast.

Aguda spoke soothingly. ‘It’s OK. She’s not going to hurt him, Mrs Buck, calm down.’

Mrs Buck didn’t calm down. She started to thrash against the two men holding her, shouting and trying to break free. The woman with the tattoos looked frightened; the child was in her arms, but she didn’t know what to do next.

‘It’s OK! Look, it’s OK!’ Aguda quickly crossed to the big woman and carefully took the baby from her so that the mother could see him. ‘Look! Mrs Buck, look! He’s fine. I’ll bring him to—’

She stopped halfway between the buggy and the hysterical mother, staring down at the baby in her arms.

‘
Don’t hurt him! Give him to me! I have to keep him safe!
’ The woman lunged and writhed, but Emily Aguda didn’t move. Instead she looked straight across the room at Marvel.

‘Sir?’ she said, and the hackles on the back of his neck went up like a dog’s.

Then she dropped the baby.

Anna Buck shrieked and Marvel moved so fast to catch the falling child that he skidded across the wet floor and fell to one knee with a furious crunch.

‘Shit!’ he yelled at Aguda. ‘What are you
doing
?’

The blue blanket slid to the wet floor but the baby was suspended in mid air, dangling by one arm from Aguda’s hand. Anna Buck thrashed and shouted and Marvel thought,
This’ll cost us a fortune in damages
.

Aguda looked down at Marvel, wide-eyed. Then she made a fist.

Marvel held up his hands to stop her. ‘No! No!’

But too late.

She rapped her knuckles on the baby’s head and Anna Buck screamed.

The baby didn’t flinch.

The baby didn’t cry.

The baby didn’t even wake up.

‘It’s not real,’ said Aguda.

‘
What?
’

‘It’s not real, sir.’

Marvel realized he was down on one knee in front of Aguda as if he was going to propose, and got wincingly to his feet. He hadn’t moved that fast since he was sixteen. He’d pulled a groin muscle and his knee was a ball of pain.

‘What the hell?’ he said.

Aguda held the baby out to him and he took it from her gingerly.

It was remarkable.

Even through his anger and pain, and Anna Buck’s hysteria, Marvel was amazed. Every eyelash, every vein, every fingernail. The weight of it; the way the head lolled. It was all absolutely perfect. There was even a little bubble of saliva on the wet lips. He touched it with a finger, and it was solid, like glass.

‘But … but the heart’s beating,’ he said; he could feel it under the heel of his hand.

Aguda leaned in curiously and opened the top buttons of the little blue romper suit.

‘Don’t hurt him!’ cried Anna Buck. ‘Don’t hurt him!’

They both ignored her.

Stitched to the cotton body of the baby there was a soft, heart-shaped pad, with two wires running from it, that beat a baby rhythm.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Marvel in awe. ‘That’s the creepiest thing I’ve seen in my whole fucking life.’

All around him, the thieves and the victims and the liars got slowly off their benches and moved closer to wonder at the fake baby, like fake wise men and shepherds.

Marvel let them. They’d earned the right and it could do no harm.

Mrs Buck had screamed herself out and was sobbing quietly between the two officers now.

‘Let her go,’ he told them. ‘She’s nuts.’

They did, and she rushed across the room and reclaimed the wondrous, hideous doll, picking up the wet blanket and wrapping it up, then placing it carefully back in the buggy, weeping all the time.