Calum cowers, his arms wrapped over his head. ‘I didn’t mean to! Allie, just listen!’
Tears are pouring down her cheeks. Seeing her so upset stills my own anger, at least for a moment. I catch her wrists and gently lead her behind the statue, away from the onlookers staring at us. Calum follows, his hands held palms up.
‘I swear it was a mistake.’ His voice breaks. ‘I never meant for them to take her . . . I just showed him the photos . . .’
‘You showed someone photos of her? How bloody stupid are you?’
‘Who?’ I ask. ‘Who did you show?’
He looks up at the roof of the Balmoral. My insides lurch. The inkling I had back on Cockburn Street becomes a full image. I was right. The Standing Fallen have Teacake. The Standing Fallen: the people who think the Falls are a sign of their god’s wrath, who probably think Teacake is some demon, something tainted and unworthy of heaven. Only it wasn’t their horde of volunteers who handed her over – it was Calum.
His voice is trembling. ‘It was after Jaya mentioned someone had found Teacake’s feathers. I looked it up online and saw they were offering a reward for more information. I emailed the guy asking how much he’d pay for some photos.’ He looks at his feet, wincing. ‘He said he’d give me ten grand for them. I didn’t realize it was them, I swear – I thought it was just some random rich Wingding.’
A blast of a horn makes us all jump. Two fire engines are trying to edge towards the building, but the crowd is moving too slowly for them to get through. I try to focus on Calum’s voice, but my attention keeps being drawn to the people standing on the roof.
‘The guy didn’t believe they were real. So yesterday I sent them a video.’ He wrings his hands together, as if he could squeeze the guilt out of his skin. ‘I was so stupid I didn’t think how easy it would be to find her. But they came this morning, and there were three of them . . . There was nothing I could do.’
On top of the hotel, the leader continues her rant. Leah stares straight ahead, over the rooftops and towards the horizon. On one side of her, her mother is chanting along with the leader’s speech; on the other, the tall man bows his bald head in prayer.
‘So that’s it,’ Allie spits. ‘You sold her for ten grand.’
‘Not even that.’ Calum’s voice breaks. ‘They never gave me any money. They just took her and left.’
The black-haired woman is reaching the part in the speech about redemption and responsibility, usually the point where the speaker’s voice swells, rising in a thundering crescendo, though this time the words are stilted and unsure. Allie starts to pace, her hands balled into fists.
‘I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.’ She spins back to face Calum. ‘What the hell do you need that much money for, anyway?’
Calum’s eyes flit to me then drop to the ground. ‘For you,’ he says. ‘For stem-cell treatment.’
All the anger drains out of Allie’s face. She puts her face in her hands and groans. ‘Oh, Calum. You idiot.’
His lower lip is wobbling. He opens his mouth to say something, but a squeal from the loudspeaker cuts him off. The firefighters’ ladders have finally reached the roof of the building. Some of the members scurry away, slipping into open windows or lowering each other towards the balconies.
But not Leah.
Leah is still standing beside the bald man, at the very edge of the roof. Her mother has climbed up to the gable; she’s screaming at her to hurry, but Leah doesn’t listen.
Leah takes another step forward.
Screams explode into my head, but when I open my mouth, no sound comes out.
I can’t see this again . . . This can’t be happening again –
I close my eyes. A split second later, a body hits the pavement.
TWENTY-FIVE
The screams come like a tidal wave, roaring over the crowd before sweeping back into a horrified quiet. Police officers push through the scrum, yelling at everyone to get out of the way. The crowd staggers backwards, sending me stumbling into Calum. My eyes are shut tight, but there’s an image behind the lids: small body, arms at odd angles, the ground spattered red.
But when I finally look up Leah is still standing on the roof of the hotel. She, her mother and several other members are staring down at the pavement, some crouching to clutch at the tiles. The black-haired woman drops the loudspeaker as she scrambles past the chimneys; it slides down the roof and catches in the rain gutter.
‘What happened?’ I ask. ‘Who jumped?’
‘You didn’t see?’ Allie’s voice is shaking. ‘That man, the one standing right beside Leah. He – he just stepped off the edge.’
The ground dips and the sky spins towards me, but I push past the people telling me to take it easy, and I run towards the hotel. The cult members are pouring out of the hotel doors now, wading through the crowd towards the vans parked illegally outside the train station. Some of them make it; others are caught by police officers, like reeds snagged on river rocks, and dragged away.
As I rush forward, I catch a flash of grey slipping past an elderly couple by the pedestrian crossing. The two kids make it to the van, followed by the black-haired woman. She stands by the door, screaming at the others to hurry up. As she passes, I lunge forward and catch Leah’s arm. Her mouth falls open when she sees me.
‘The Being,’ I say. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘What? What do you mean?’
Frustration rushes over me, but I can tell from her expression that she’s not lying. ‘I’ll explain later,’ I say. ‘I need you to take us to the Standing Fallen base. Now.’
‘What? I can’t, Jaya. I told you . . .’ She looks over her shoulder. One of the vans revs and jerks backwards into the road, sending tourists scattering. ‘I have to go. I have to go back with them—’
‘No!’ She tries to pull away, but I tighten my grip on her arm. ‘You have to get away from them! I saw you up there! You were going to . . .’
I stop myself from saying it, but Leah fills in the blanks. Her face crumples. She looks so weak, so devastated. And the worst part is that I don’t know if it’s because she was pushed to the edge, or because she didn’t step off it. I don’t understand – she won’t walk away from the Standing Fallen without her mother, but she was ready to throw herself off a building to escape? It doesn’t make sense.
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ she whispers, as if she’s read my thoughts. ‘You don’t understand the kind of power they have.’
I try another tactic: guilt.
‘Please, Leah. You owe me this.’ I grab her hands, tug on them until she looks up at me. ‘My mum’s gone, you disappeared . . . This Being, she’s my friend. I don’t want to lose her too. Not like this.’
Slowly something in Leah’s expression changes. It hardens. She sniffs and rubs her sleeve across her nose.
‘What do you need me to do?’
As I start to tell her, I see the black-haired woman look towards us. She takes a step towards Leah, but she’s blocked by a policeman saying something about ‘trespassing’ and ‘breach of the peace’. Before Leah has a chance to change her mind, I grab her hand and drag her across the road, back towards Allie and Calum.
‘Quickly! Let’s go – now!’
‘This way,’ Allie shouts. ‘I can drive us there.’
We follow her down the road, weaving in and out of the buses lined up on Princes Street. Allie is wheezing heavily now, her pace dropping, but she keeps going. She leads us through Waverley Station, up the escalators and on to Market Street. It’s only when we reach the car that I realize Calum’s followed us all the way here. He pushes past a group of tourists and sprints towards the car, beating Allie to the driver’s seat.
‘I’m coming with you,’ he says. ‘Please. I want to put things right.’