The helicopter circled away behind me, scanning the streets and gardens. As I approached the row of shops near the tube station, the buildings got taller, keeping me from tracking the helicopter and, hopefully, preventing it from tracking me.
They would be using thermal imaging cameras and I was sweating from the long run. The cool night breeze against my wet clothes would chill me quickly once I stopped running but for now I would shine like a beacon for the camera.
I stepped into the alley alongside a shop, letting the darkness and the narrow gap conceal me while I caught my breath. I could still hear the angry buzz of the chopper echoing around the empty streets but I figured that turning up at the minicab office out of breath, looking like a man on the run while a helicopter searched the streets would be a dead giveaway. I straightened my coat and used a tissue from my coat pocket to wipe the sweat from my face. Leaning against the wall, I re-tied the laces of my boots in a respectable fashion and then stood, adjusting my trousers so they covered my bare ankles and straightening my coat.
It wouldn't take the police long to work out that I had evaded them. They would watch the tube stations and alert the taxi firms. They had taken a good look at me and would issue a description from that. If I was going to be able to get a cab without being recognised I needed to do it soon.
Then it occurred to me, I could change my appearance. I could walk right past them and they would never know it was me. All I needed was the will to do it. The glamour Blackbird had shown me in Trafalgar Square the previous morning might be the key to evading my pursuers.
I closed my eyes for a moment, imagining myself wearing my suit and tie, ready for a day's work, fixing the memory of it, convincing myself I was wearing my business attire. I felt a shift inside as darkness stirred within me. There was an answering tingle on my skin. Looking down, I found my clothes shifting and blending, the cloth of my coat rippling like water as my attention wavered. I struggled to fix the image, my boots switching to shoes and back to boots as I watched. It was no good, I simply didn't have enough control to maintain it. I let the glamour slip and reverted back to my true appearance. I would have to take the chance they hadn't alerted everyone yet.
I stepped out of the alley, trying to look inconspicuous, walking steadily towards the road where the taxi company had their all-night offices. Taking a cab directly into central London would lead the police to look for me there. What I needed was somewhere where there were enough people to make it hard to find me amongst the crowds even at this time of day. I needed somewhere that I might reasonably want to hire a cab to get to early in the morning. Paradoxically it would be somewhere where the security was much tighter. I needed Heathrow Airport.
Buttoning my coat, I walked out of the alley, trying not to look hunted.
I kept close to the buildings as I turned in to the sidestreet where the minicab firm was based. As I turned the corner, I saw the tell-tale flash of blue lights. From the shadow of a doorway I saw a fire engine roar past the end of the road, lights blazing, siren silent until it reached a junction further on where its brief wail echoed back down the wet streets.
The Fire Service, aside from putting out fires, also dealt with biological contamination. They were treating the flat as a contaminated area. If they thought the mould was some kind of manufactured biological weapon then their efforts to find me would be on a different scale. It took all my reserves of will-power to walk into the radio-taxi office and appear calm.
I opened the door to the smell of hastily smothered cigarette. The bloke manning the radio was wearing thick glasses and peering at a newspaper crossword, apparently oblivious to the smoke still rising from the waste bin. He looked up. "Yes, mate?"
"Good morning. Could I get a car to Heathrow, please?"
He considered this for a moment and I hesitated, wondering if a description had already been circulated. I was about to tell him not to bother and start running again when he spoke.
"It'll cost you fifteen quid at this time of day, mate. "
"That'll be fine, but I need to get there quickly. "
"Got an early flight, have you?"
"Well, you know how long it takes to get through all the security these days. Better to be early than to risk missing a flight, eh?" It wasn't a lie, but he would assume I was flying out. Maybe the police would make the same assumption when they questioned him, later. "It'll be two minutes, guv. The cars are just coming on shift. Shouldn't take long. Have a seat."
He spoke in staccato sentences and indicated the vinyl covered chairs by the door. I sat down, while he spoke into the radio, summoning a car for me. I was painfully aware that if the police walked in now I would have no escape. I fidgeted in the seat then forced myself to stillness. The minutes passed with agonising slowness. When the man looked up from his crossword and spoke, I almost jumped in my seat. "Car's just outside, guv," he said.
"Thanks," I said, trying to conceal my nervousness with enthusiasm.
I got up and went outside. There was a Ford Mondeo estate parked outside. The diesel engine sounded rough and harsh. As I approached, the passenger window slid down. I leaned down to speak with the driver.
"Where to?" he asked me.
"Heathrow, please?"
"Right you are."
I opened the door and slid into the back, pulling it shut behind me. He set off without waiting for me to buckle my seat belt.
"Which terminal?"
"Sorry?"
"Which terminal at the airport? Should be written on your ticket."
"Oh, terminal one, please. That'll be fine. "
"Europe, is it?"
"I have some family business to clear up," I told him, avoiding the direct question. "Personal matters. "
"Well, I hope you have better weather than we're having here."
I let the comment hang, not wanting to get into a detailed conversation when I would find it difficult to lie to him. Our route took us past the tube station and, as we drove by, I could see a police car had pulled up on the pavement near the entrance. The officers were talking to someone in a London Transport uniform. One of the officers watched our car go past. I turned away, hoping he hadn't spotted me.
"Boys in blue having a busy night," the driver commented as we passed.
"Really?" I responded.
"Yeah. Didn't you hear that helicopter earlier? I reckon someone's done over the pharmacy again. They never learn, do they?"
I wondered for a moment who they were, who never learned, but offered no encouragement for him to continue.
Fed up with holding a one-sided conversation, the driver turned sport radio on instead. The endless speculation as to the outcomes of the weekend's fixtures was a dull monologue in the back of the car. I did my best to ignore it.
I kept an eye out for blue lights approaching fast from behind us, but there was no sign. I figured the policeman at the tube station must not have seen me, the wet and dark working in my favour for once. I used the respite in the back of the car to think.
There was no doubt in my mind that the Untainted were hunting me. I was sure one of them had been in the flat and in the back garden. It sounded like it had gone for one of the police officers, the one called Jim, the rugby player. I wondered briefly whether he had family, someone waiting for him to come home. Suddenly filled with guilt, I veered away from the pain of others, distancing myself from responsibility and concentrating on my own problems.
It had only taken the Untainted a short while to find me. What had she said? I had to keep running? Where to? Besides, I'd only have to bump into someone like Fenlock and I would be just as dead. I really needed Blackbird's knowledge and advice. She was the only one I knew who didn't want to kill me, rob me or arrest me. The problem was finding her. I felt I had offended her by probing too far into her secrets. It wasn't that I wanted to know everything about her, but part of me needed to know who I was dealing with. I didn't think it would make much difference to me if she turned out to be like Kareesh and have pale skin and rows of pointed teeth, she had shown me nothing but kindness. She was quick and canny and in charge of her own destiny which was more than I could claim.
Kareesh had said she was hiding without being specific about what she was hiding from, but my guess was that it was related to her true form. Why was that such a sensitive issue? I had seen Kareesh and, while she was a little unorthodox, I thought I could accept her for who she was.
With Blackbird I felt our friendship was tenuous at best, though I wanted it to be stronger. The trouble was that I needed her a lot more than she needed me. What could I offer her? I knew she felt responsible for me, but that was hardly the basis for an enduring friendship, was it? Still, if I was going to make it through the next few days I needed her help.
That sent me back to the problem of finding her. In the real world I knew how to find people. I could use the internet or phone directory enquiries and ask for a name, a number, or some other reference.
Blackbird was different, though. She didn't inhabit the world of computers and databases. I didn't know her name, only what she called herself, and I was pretty sure that if I phoned directory enquiries their first question would be "Is that a first name or a last name?" I had no idea where she lived. She'd told me she had a flat, and a flatmate, but she had not told me where it was. I pondered for a moment what the flatmate might think of her. Was the flatmate Fey too? Did they live together? And how did Blackbird pay rent for a flat? I knew so little about her that finding her by conventional means was impossible.
She'd said she would find me, though she had refused to be drawn on when or where. Perhaps the first thing to do was to go somewhere I knew she could find me. Maybe that would be enough. If I could get back to Trafalgar Square avoiding police attention, I should be fairly safe there.
What had she said? "Yo u'll never be safe again, get used to it."
I spent the rest of the journey in silence, half listening to the inanity of the radio and considering Blackbird's advice.
When we reached Heathrow I had the driver drop me at Departures for Terminal One. I was sure the police would find the taxi firm and the guy in the office would remember me. If I gave the impression I was getting a flight somewhere then that would be something else they would have to check before they found my trail again. At this stage, the more hares I could set running for them to chase, the better.
I paid the driver and walked into Departures, I was going to take the escalator straight down to Arrivals, but I spotted a small shop selling socks and ties. I stopped and bought a two-pack of grey socks. They were overpriced and not really suitable for my boots, but they were better than nothing. I strode through the people waiting to check their luggage and into the public toilets. There was a long line of stalls and I went right to the end. I locked the door, hung my coat on the hook and sat on the seat, removing my boots. My feet were red where the boots had rubbed, but there was little I could do about it. I unwrapped the socks and put them on, relishing the feeling of clean cotton after the harsh abrasion of the boots.
I could hear other people flushing toilets and washing hands as they moved around outside while I slipped my feet back into my boots and laced them carefully. There was a bang as the door to the toilets was pushed open hard.
"Police! Clear these toilets! Everyone outside, right now! Come on! Everyone out!"
There was muttering among the people outside. I froze. I was trapped and there was no way out. They were going to arrest me.
"Yes, you too, sir. Outside. Right now! Everyone out!" I could hear people being ushered out. There was a bang from the end of the row of stall, then another. They were checking every stall. There was no way out of the toilets except past them and they knew what I looked like.
Or did they? I had tried using glamour to get past them before in the alley and failed. Now it was my only hope. It was a risk I would have to take. They were looking for a man in his mid-forties in chinos and a Tshirt. I would try to show them someone else. Steeling myself to ignore the thumps of successive doors being kicked open, I stood up and focused on my image. I imagined a younger me, thinner, none of the wrinkles that had come with age and experience, my hair dark and thick, longer than I had worn it lately. I focused on the sharp black suit, white shirt, black shoes and blue tie I had worn to a friend's wedding long ago. I held the picture of it in my mind, making the image real, making it solid. Knowing it was me and that was how I would look. The feeling inside me grew, sending tendrils of power into my veins. My skin itched and tingled. I repeated the thought to myself. I was sure it was me. I made it real. I thought about how it would feel to wear the suit, how the shirt collar would rub and how the lined suit would sit on my shoulders. I opened my eyes. They had reached my stall. Before they could kick the door in, I unlocked and opened it. Now was the proof. He was waiting for me, the sound of the door unlocking alerting him to my presence. I stepped out.
He took one look at me. "Didn't you hear me? I said everyone out!" He shouted.
"Sorry," I told him. "Flying always makes me nervous." I edged past him towards the other two officers. They all had batons held ready.
Then I remembered that my coat was still hanging on the back of the open door. He looked inside.
"Just a minute," he said.
I halted, turning slowly, my inner mantra affirming my appearance, believing I was that younger man. "Yes, officer. Is something wrong?"
"A man wearing a long coat, T-shirt and khaki slacks. Did you see him?"
"I was in the toilet," I told him, "with the door shut." He paused and then said, "You'd better leave." He turned to his colleagues. "You two, check the Ladies on the other side. He's here somewhere. Move!" The officers ran past me into the connecting passage, heading further down the short access corridor for the Ladies. I walked out, concentrating for all I was worth on being the young man in the suit.
As I walked across the concourse to the escalator down to the arrivals hall, I saw other police, both armed and regular officers. They were walking slowly through the people waiting to check in, searching the faces. My attempt to mislead them by mixing with the crowds at Heathrow had nearly been my undoing but now it worked to my advantage. The face they were looking for wasn't the one I was wearing.
I couldn't see how they had found me so quickly though. It was almost as if they knew where I was going to be. If they had found the taxi then they could have stopped me earlier, but they hadn't. They hadn't found me until I arrived at Heathrow. Something had given me away.
Two people who looked like flight crew walked past me, a woman and a man in airline uniform. As they approached me, a mobile phone rang and I patted my pockets for it before realising it was the woman's phone that was ringing, but with the same ringtone as mine. She smiled at me as she answered, understanding my mistake. I returned the smile as she walked past. It left me with my phone in my hand and then I realised what must have happened. They knew where I was because of my phone. The police had traced my phone and got the network provider to watch for my signal. In the car it had been moving too quickly but as soon as I reached Heathrow they had known where I was.
I thumbed the button to switch it off and then hesitated. The network provider would know as soon as I turned it off and would realise I had discovered how they were tracking me. I wanted them to continue searching Heathrow and not to start wondering where I had gone next. I left it on, wondering how long I had before they could locate it again.
As I weaved my way through the people meandering around the check-in area, I noticed a large family, probably Spanish or Italian. They were spread out and I had little difficulty arranging to accidentally collide with the youngest, who was towing along a smaller toy version of the wheeled cases various other family members had. Amid the confusion and apologies I slipped the phone into the front pocket of the bag. I felt a momentary pang of guilt at the chaos that would ensue when the police found them.
Having ditched the phone, I took the escalator down to the arrivals hall. It was much less populated at this hour. It was too early for the flights coming into Heathrow, though even here there were police officers, watching the exits.
Enough people wandered around for me not to look conspicuous and I strolled through, trying to look nonchalant. I took the lift down to the Heathrow Express, the rapid transit train into central London. As I turned onto the access corridor, there were three more police officers checking everyone that went past them to the platforms. I walked past them with certainty that I was a young man in a sharp suit and not the man they were looking for. I waited for the train in the full view of the security cameras spaced along the platform. I kept focusing on my appearance, reinforcing my self-image of the man I had once been.
As the train pulled in, I watched for the carriage with the toilets and walked along the platform as the train slowed. The train halted, the doors opened and I moved to a seat at the back of the carriage, rehearsing my appearance like a mantra in my head. A businessman in a suit followed me inside and sat at the far end of the carriage. Apart from him I was alone. The train remained stationary on the platform. Periodically, an automated voice forecasted journey times or announced that, for security reasons, passengers were not to leave bags unattended.
I looked at my hands. They shivered momentarily. The texture of my skin aged twenty years in a second and then reverted back. It was getting harder to control now the immediate threat had gone. What had Blackbird said? " Magic responds to need. " The glamour had worked while I had needed it, but now it was failing. I shuffled sideways out of the seat and went down the narrow corridor to the toilets. Stepping inside, I locked the door behind me, finally releasing the image I had been holding. Looking up into the small mirror my face was my own, wrinkles and all. Now I just had to hope there were no police on the train.
My eyes were gritty from insufficient sleep and the rough stubble over my chin was like sandpaper. Running cold water over my hands in the sink, I scrubbed my face and then dried it with a hand towel as best I could. I felt the train lurch and breathed a sigh of relief. We were moving.
I left the toilet and went through the connecting door into the next carriage, taking an aisle seat and scanning constantly down the corridors for signs of a search taking place. No searchers appeared, though a train attendant came and relieved me of more of my cash. It was a small price to pay to get away from the search at Heathrow.
The train was clean and brightly lit and the day outside had yet to dawn. I sat nervously in the corner of the carriage with half an eye on the corridor and wondered what would become of me. I was sure Jim, the police officer in my back garden, had been killed. The memory of him screaming, "Get it off me! Get it off me!" would haunt me for the rest of my life. My warning had come too late. I should have tried earlier, even though it would have labelled me as a lunatic. Briefly I wondered what had happened to the Untainted in my garden. Would it attack the other officers? Blackbird said that sometimes they just relish the mayhem they could cause.
One thing was certain now, though. With the strange mould in the flat and at least one officer dead, the police would turn the city upside down looking for me. My only advantage was that they still thought I was somewhere out near Heathrow.
Would the police go to Katherine? If they did, she couldn't tell them very much. Only that her perfectly ordinary ex-husband was having a paranoid episode and thought someone was trying to kill him. I only hoped she had taken my advice and booked a trip away somewhere for her and Alex.
Where else would they look for me? If the police went to my office and started interviewing my work colleagues then Blackbird's concerns about my going back to work would be unfounded. I wouldn't have a job to go back to. My company would call it redundancy and I was sure I would receive a generous settlement in return for my silence, but the organisation traded on its reputation for honesty and integrity. With my sudden failure to turn up for work, one whiff of a police investigation and my career would flat-line.
I stared out of the window as the lights of West London whipped past and contemplated a life in tatters. The train slowed as we reached Paddington and drew to a halt in a stately fashion. I waited until the doors had opened and took a long look down the platform. There were no policemen checking people coming off the train. They had placed their cordon at Heathrow and so did not expect me to arrive here.
I considered trying to use glamour to disguise my exit from the station. Even before the last terrorist attacks, London was one of the most monitored cities in the world and I was sure there would be closed-circuit television cameras. The trouble was that without some immediate threat to focus the magic I wasn't sure I could control my glamour. Having it fall apart on me in the middle of a public place would attract attention I badly wanted to avoid. I would just have to hope they weren't looking for me here.
I walked as calmly as I could down the platform and out onto the concourse. It was still too early for the mass of commuters and the people around me were either the last dregs of last night or the real diehard earlymorning lot.
Getting a taxi was easy as there was a big queue of them waiting for the early rush-hour. I settled into the back of a black cab and asked him to take me to Waterloo Station. If the police ever traced the cab then they might believe I was getting a train south from there. The Eurostar service to Paris from Waterloo was one of the ways of getting out of the country without flying. I had no doubt if I were to present my passport to United Kingdom customs then my name would flash up in large red letters on the customs officer's screen. That meant the police would know I hadn't left that way, but Waterloo also had trains to Kent and I had grown up in Kent, so there was yet another trail to follow if they got that far – when they got that far.
We breezed through the streets unhampered, taking routes that would be choked with traffic in a few hours time. As we crossed the river at Westminster Bridge, I asked the driver to pull over and drop me off at the far side. I told him I needed the fresh air. I paid him, giving him an unremarkable tip, and he drove off. I walked away from the bridge until the taxi was well out of sight, then turned back and returned to the steps that led down to the Thames embankment. I walked along the river bank past the giant wheel of the London Eye where it stood, silent and empty, waiting for the long queues of tourists who would ride its capsules around the wheel for a panoramic view of the city later in the day. From there I passed under the iron-braced railway bridge and climbed back up the steps and onto the footbridge back over the river to Embankment Station and Charing Cross.
As I crossed the dark flow of the Thames, I paused above the murky water as it swirled out towards the sea beneath me while the orange glow from the underside of the dense cloud layer faded to a sullen grey. There was no flaming dawn, but the sky in the east lightened. The broken sunshine of yesterday had been replaced by the half-light that represented the majority of autumn days. As I crossed to the centre of the bridge I realised the clocks would soon be changing over to winter time, and the days would get shorter and shorter until we were all like Kareesh, living underground. I had all this to look forward to, assuming I lived that long.
And yet the threat over me lent the day a new flavour. I found myself standing over the river in the misty dawn tasting the drizzle that drifted on the breeze, feeling truly alive for the first time in months. It smelled of salt and ozone and I understood that this was an easterly wind, rather than the prevailing westerly, and that it brought a little of the sea with it.
Taking my time, I meandered to the far side and took the steps down to the roadway where I could make my way through the open ticket hall of Embankment Station and up the hill to the Strand, turning left past the front of Charing Cross station and along the pavement to Trafalgar Square. I walked up the hill, past the pale portico of St Martin-in-the-Fields to the tables where I had sat with Blackbird the previous day.
The coffee shop showed no sign of life and, after the brief elation at having made it this far, I found myself empty and hollow. I had reached my destination and there was no one there. The pavements were empty and the coffee shop was dark. I walked across towards the National Gallery and down into Trafalgar Square, taking the steps down into the open square. I found a dry spot on the wall of the fountain upwind of the spray carried by the fickle breeze and sat, lulled by the sound of the water and the peace there. A couple of speculative early pigeons came and pecked at the debris around me and I wondered whether Gramawl was foraging nearby, finding titbits for his mistress. Probably it was too light for him now.
As I sat there, the traffic built slowly and steadily to the everyday muted roar. The cars, buses and taxis intermingled until they became mere background noise, indistinguishable from the whole. That brief period in Trafalgar Square gave me the strength to continue. It wasn't that the stone lions inspired me, though they were very grand, or that I borrowed strength from Nelson, the tragic hero dying in the arms of his friend. I had no intention of dying, honourably or otherwise. What leant me strength was the peace I found there, amid the maelstrom. The traffic revolved around me but didn't stir me, the buses roared and the motorcycles barked, but to no effect. The pigeons came and went and the drizzle faded. I felt like I was standing in the eye of a storm. If only I could stay there.