‘Ssh,’ he said. ‘Ssh, ssh.’ And then he left.
Every time he went, Edie shuddered with relief – and then fretted in case he didn’t come back. But he always did, with more water and a bruised apple or a box of Ritz crackers. They were soft, but she didn’t care. She liked to imagine that she was in a space station where you couldn’t go out, and supplies had to come from Earth once a year. Right now they were having to eat up all the stuff from the back of the cupboards, but soon the supply ship would dock and then they’d have Brazil nuts and shampoo, and Marmite sandwiches.
Edie wondered whether the other astronauts—
prisoners
—were humans too. Maybe if they were beings from all over the galaxy, like on Star Trek, then the cupboards were full of all kinds of foods from all kinds of planets. She wondered if there was an alien whose job it was to feed the right thing to the right species – just like she gave Peter mouse food, not dog food – or if they all had to eat Ritz crackers. When she wasn’t drawing on the walls, she liked to wear her space helmet and imagine that she was piloting the ship and that the other astronauts were right next door and she only had to call out or knock on the wall and they would call or knock back. She didn’t do it, of course, in case they were busy with scientific experiments, or in hypersleep. And because that first shouted Hello! had scared her so badly that she didn’t want to put another to the test.
Getting nothing back would be confirmation that she was really alone.
Once, the alien reached out slowly and touched her hair. Edie pressed herself into the corner at the far end of the bed.
She started to cry; she couldn’t help it.
‘Please don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Please don’t touch me.’
The alien withdrew.
For now.
23
‘TAKE A TRAY,’ said DS Brady, handing him one.
‘What for?’
‘Cover.’
Marvel dropped the tray back on to the pile with a clatter.
Brady held on to his, and put an iced bun on it defiantly.
They were a dozen people behind Richard Latham in the queue at the Marks & Spencer café. They’d gone to his little terraced house and knocked on his front door until his neighbour had come out and told them where he’d probably gone.
‘He goes there all the time,’ she’d added.
‘Yeah?’ Brady had said. ‘Why?’
‘The company, I think.’
Now Marvel looked around at the coldly corporate café and wondered how that could be true. The low ceiling, pale floor and dark chairs made the place feel cold and unwelcoming. There was a long line of mostly elderly people shuffling slowly towards the till, sliding their trays along a system of rails so they didn’t have to carry them and walk at the same time. Inappropriate pop muzak encouraged them to pick up the pace a bit, but they weren’t having any of it.
The King’s Arms it wasn’t.
‘Anything to eat, my love?’
A middle-aged woman smiled cheerfully at Marvel. She wore the round-collared tunic of a performing monkey, complete with a matching hat that was not unlike a fez. Before Marvel could even hesitate, she took the glass covers off two huge cakes and held them up like cymbals. ‘Lovely bit of carrot cake?’ she said. ‘Ever so moist.’
‘OK then,’ he heard himself saying without thinking, and she laughed as if he’d made her the happiest woman in Bromley, and chose the biggest slice there was for him.
‘Put it on your tray,’ Marvel ordered Brady.
Latham was already at the till. His tray had a teacake on it.
Marvel watched the be-fezzed woman behind the till beam at him. Over the music, he heard her say, ‘Morning, Richard!’
Marvel couldn’t hear the response, but there was a friendly exchange. The woman giggled and chatted while Latham handed over his money and got his loyalty card stamped. Marvel watched him shuffle along a bit and pick up a cup and a pot of tea, then stand there for a moment, looking around – apparently for his company.
Was it friends?
A woman?
The accomplice who knocked on the church ceiling?
Latham walked across the café and Marvel saw for the first time that there was something wrong with his feet, or legs. He had a strange, lilting walk, a slow bounce to his gait. He kept his elbows high to avoid spillage, and people turned their heads absently to watch him pass, even as they talked and ate.
He put his tray down on a table for two, alone.
The queue edged forward.
‘Lucas! Hold on to the handle or you won’t get any cake!’
Marvel turned to see a woman behind him with a pushchair. A boy of about three was beside her. Lucas.
The boy sidled back over and fixed his chubby fist around the metal bar of the pushchair, and when his mother set off to catch up with the queue, his arm jerked and he had to jog a few paces to keep from falling.
Marvel stared at the child. When he was that age, his mother had kept him on reins. Like a pet pony. Years after they had grown out of them, Marvel and his brother had taken turns using them around the house – riding each other from room to room, flapping the reins to go faster and pulling them back and going whoa! to stop, then pawing the air with their hands to show they were rearing up. Reins were much safer – much more fun – than having to hold on to the handle.
‘Can I help you?’ Lucas’s mother was looking at him in a challenging way.
‘No,’ said Marvel. ‘I was just wondering, whatever happened to reins for children?’