And then it moved.
It was too far away to be anything more than a shape, a slight figure in a tattered brown raincoat. Still, Fat Charlie knew it. He knew that if he had been close enough, he would have seen a face chipped from obsidian, and raven-black hair, and eyes that held madness.
Then the train jerked and began to move, and in moments the woman in the brown raincoat was out of sight.
Fat Charlie felt uncomfortable. He had practically convinced himself by now that what had happened, what he thought had happened, in Mrs. Dunwiddy’s front room had been some form of hallucination, a high-octane dream, true on some level but not a real thing. Not something that had happened; rather, it was symbolic of a greater truth. He could not have gone to a real place, nor struck a real bargain, could he?
It was only a metaphor, after all.
He did not ask himself why he was now so certain that everything would soon begin to improve. There was reality, and there was reality, and some things were more real than others.
Faster and faster, the train rattled him further into London.
SPIDER WAS ALMOST HOME FROM THE GREEK RESTAURANT, napkin pushed against his cheek, when someone touched him on the shoulder.
“Charles?” said Rosie.
Spider jumped, or at least, he jerked and made a startled noise.
“Charles? Are you all right? What happened to your cheek?”
He stared at her. “Are you you?” he asked.
“What?”
“Are you Rosie?”
“What kind of a question is that? Of course I’m Rosie. What did you do to your cheek?”
He pressed the napkin against his cheek. “I cut it,” he said.
“Let me see?” She took his hand away from his cheek. The center of the white napkin was stained crimson, as if he had bled into it, but his cheek was whole and untouched. “There’s nothing there.”
“Oh.”
“Charles? Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said. “I am. Unless I’m not. I think we should go back to my place. I think I’ll be safer there.”
“We were going to have lunch,” said Rosie, in the tone of voice of one who worries that she’ll only understand what’s actually going on when a TV presenter leaps out and reveals the hidden cameras.
“Yes,” said Spider. “I know. I think someone just tried to kill me, though. And she pretended she was you.”
“Nobody’s trying to kill you,” said Rosie, failing to sound like she wasn’t humoring him.
“Even if nobody’s trying to kill me, can we skip lunch and go back to my place? I’ve got food there.”
“Of course.”
Rosie followed him down the road, wondering when Fat Charlie had lost all that weight. He looked good, she thought. He looked really good. They walked into Maxwell Gardens in silence.
He said, “Look at that.”
“What?”
He showed her. The fresh bloodstain had vanished from the napkin. It was now perfectly white.
“Is it a magic trick?”
“If it is, I didn’t do it,” he said. “For once.” He dropped the napkin into a bin. As he did so, a taxi pulled up in front of Fat Charlie’s house, and Fat Charlie got out, rumpled and blinking and carrying a white plastic bag.
Rosie looked at Fat Charlie. She looked at Spider. She looked back at Fat Charlie, who had opened the bag and pulled out an enormous box of chocolates.
“They’re for you,” he said.
Rosie took the chocolates and said, “Thank you.” There were two men and they looked and sounded completely different, and she still could not work out which one of them was her fiancé. “I’m going mad, aren’t I?” she said, her voice taut. It was easier, now she knew what was wrong.
The thinner of the two Fat Charlies, the one with the earring, put his hand on her shoulder. “You need to go home,” he said. “Then you need a nap. When you wake up, you’ll have forgotten all about this.”
Well, she thought, that makes life easier. It’s better with a plan. She walked back to her flat with a spring in her step, carrying her box of chocolates.
“What did you do?” asked Fat Charlie. “She just seemed to turn off.”
Spider shrugged. “I didn’t want to upset her,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”
“It didn’t seem appropriate.”
“Like you’d know what was appropriate?”
Spider touched the front door and it opened.
“I have keys, you know,” said Fat Charlie. “It’s my front door.”
They walked into the hallway, walked up the stairs.
“Where have you been?” asked Spider.
“Nowhere. Out,” said Fat Charlie, as if he were a teenager.
“I was attacked by birds in the restaurant this morning. Do you know anything about that? You do, don’t you.”
“Not really. Maybe. It’s just time for you to leave, that’s all.”
“Don’t start anything,” said Spider.