It was the kind of early summer day that made sweat run down Gid’s neck. They’d been walking through the no man’s land west of the river for almost an hour, but Tom forged on through the crumbling streets. Every collapsed wall cast a deep pool of shadow where the geists lurked—grinding their broken teeth, waiting for nightfall. Gideon wasn’t sure if Tom noticed the geists, or if he even cared.
“It’s here,” Tom called from somewhere up ahead. “Hurry up!”
Gideon turned the corner, cutting across a space that was turning slowly to scrub and sapling trees. From where Tom stood, you could see all the way down to the mass of rusting, rain-broken concrete at the bottom of the hill. A building of some sort, whatever it once was smudged out by age and decay.
“Are you going to tell me what I’m looking at?” Gid asked.
Tom shot a glance behind his tinted spectacles and held out an old photograph. It was the postcard they’d found on Cassian Marquez’s body, a single word written on the back in large and ominous letters: “FRIDAY”.
The front showed a tennis club on match day—hordes of people streaming down towards the gates. Gideon hadn’t paid the picture much mind, but it could very well have been taken from where they were standing—the crowd in their old-fashioned summer whites on manicured grass, pouring downhill towards a building that was now little more than rubble and weeds.
Gid looked between the postcard and the ruins. The long, graceful curve of the outer wall was still there, obscured by thick brambles. He offered the postcard back.
“Is this really the same place?”
Tom had that hunting dog look about him, vital and alert.
“It was,” he said. “Once.”
Then he was off again, moving swift and smooth through the long grass. Gid had no choice but to follow. He must have caught his trousers on every bush west of the river before he reached the arena, winded and sweating in his heavy Warden’s coat.
Tom had already found a way inside, and Gid followed the trail he’d left in the grass, through the cracked wall and into the building beyond. Sunlight filtered through the broken roof, but it was cooler in here—like plunging into a pool of dark water. Gid took off his coat and followed the sound of Tom’s footsteps.
Was it dark enough for geists to shelter in here? Gid didn’t wait to find out. He had no desire to end up like Cassian Marquez—dead and grey as old newspaper, sprawled out for all the world to see. No, not sprawled. There was nothing random about the way Cassian’s body had been arranged in the middle of his practice court, far off on the other side of the river. At least Cassian had made for a beautiful corpse. What a waste.
“Over here!” Tom called.
His voice was taut and urgent, bouncing off the broken concrete until it was difficult to tell where it was coming from. The darkness was thick and stifling in the depths of the building. Still, hot, and full of whispers that sucked all the air from Gid’s lungs. Panic thumped in his throat, but the building soon opened out into a large, subterranean space. At the far end, there was a flat wall of light where the sun poured back in.
Tom’s silhouette hung motionless against that light, like a mirage. Gid approached him carefully and peered out into the space beyond. Somehow, they’d reach the heart of the arena, stands opening up above in dizzying tiers of rotting seats and the sun driving down like a pneumatic press. Everything facing inwards, towards the wilds of the court.
The net was still up even now—a tangled mat of bindweed cutting the space in half, delicate white flowers blazing and glorious. The air was thick with unfamiliar sweetness, the grass almost hip height, dotted with campion and cow parsley. It took a moment for Gid to notice the fat bumblebees stumbling between the flowers. There must be a hive somewhere up in the rafters. The last one for hundreds of miles.
Back when this was a living place, someone had trained wisteria about the terraces, and now it had grown wild. Showers of purple blossom spilling down like smoke. Young birch trees and sprawling dog rose blurred the line between the court and the stands.
Gid felt like he was floating. A bubble drifting slowly through golden, liquid light. Somewhere high above them, the syrupy voice of a blackbird poured down through the wisteria’s thick purple smoke.
It was paradise. It should have been paradise. But all Gid’s vision twisted and blurred, until all he could see was the faceless people in that photograph—shining in their summer whites. As spectral as geists, and just as surely dead. Something throbbed behind his ribs like a wound. He turned away from the ruined court and forced himself to smile.
“Shall I serve?”
Tom rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”
But Gideon saw the smile tugging at his mouth.
“Why are you so certain that Marquez was here?” Gid asked. “That postcard could have meant anything.”
“Only it didn’t mean just anything,” said Tom. “It meant something very specific. And whatever it was, it got Cassian Marquez killed.”
“Because they found his body on a Saturday? Come on, Tom. There isn’t even a time written on the back of that postcard. An old photograph and a day of the week don’t make for some clandestine meeting.”
“There doesn’t have to be a time, Shaw,” Tom said, taking off his tinted spectacles and cleaning the lenses. “Remember what Marquez’s manager said? Cassian followed the same routine every Friday: he went for a run in the morning, then trained at Worple Road until just before dark. There’s only one time he could have done anything.”
Gideon shook his head. “It’s crazy. Anyone coming out here after dark is out of their mind. The geists would have torn him apart and, unless I’m mistaken, whoever killed Cassian was very much alive. Not to mention that they were back on the other side of the river.”
“Hmm,” Tom said.
He was unconvinced, although about which part, Gid wasn’t sure.
The sun was bruising hot, but Tom looked cool and sweatless. He was still wearing his coat, even. His gaze was restless and unsettled, snagging every now and then on something in the stands.
“There,” he said. “What is that?”
Gideon followed his gaze up into the wisteria, but there was nothing there.
“Tom, we should get going. It won’t be long before the sun goes down.”
But Tom wasn’t listening. He set off as nimble as a greyhound, climbing through the tiers of rotting seats. Gid followed as best he could, feeling heavy and ill-formed. He stumbled on the broken concrete. Sweat tickled down his spine.
He didn’t like the way the whole structure seemed to sway under his feet, as if one strong storm could topple it. As they climbed, the shadow beneath the roof grew longer—the sun sliding slowly towards the horizon.
By the time Gid caught up, Tom was quietly assessing the nest someone had built for themselves up here. The space was screened off with blankets and shawls, all knotted carefully onto the supports above. That must be what Tom spotted from the court. The fabrics were threadbare, faded by the sun and the rain, but they had been beautiful once. The cushions and clothes on the floor had held their colours better. Handmade and expensive. The empty wine bottles had the label of a vineyard two hundred miles south. Whoever had holed up here had money to burn. Or rather, to leave out to rot in the rain.
“This was where Marquez was coming,” Tom said. “His bolthole. And for quite some time, by the look of it. Sleeping here, even.”
Gideon’s coat was like lead, draped over his arm. His shirt stuck to his back.
“It could have been anyone,” Gid protested. “What makes you so sure it wasn’t the killer?”
Tom bent down to pick something up off the floor and threw it at him. Gideon fumbled more than he caught it. It was a tennis shoe, hand-stitched in white. Supple leather with a gripped rubber sole.
“Do you remember the pair we found in Marquez’s locker?” Tom asked.
Gid peeled the tongue of the shoe back. Infuriatingly, Tom was right. It wasn’t even that they were the same size, although they almost certainly were. They even came from the same shoemaker.
“All right, all right,” Gideon said, holding up the shoe in surrender. “No need to take my head off with it.”
“Not my fault that you never learned to catch,” Tom said, pretending not to smile.
He was enjoying this.
Gid turned the shoe over to inspect the sole. There were still blades of grass stuck in the tread—dried out and papery. Not the wild rugged stuff that grew here, but neat short blades, clipped to a fine lawn. Gideon frowned.
“Cassian’s manager said that he hadn’t been himself for the last couple of months. That he’d seemed distracted.” They’d dismissed it after Cassian’s wife told them she hadn’t noticed the change. “But if he was coming out here regularly, I’d say that Mrs Marquez has a few more questions to answer.”
“Yes,” said Tom. “I would say so.”
But he was only half-listening. His attention drawn to the line of seats below.
“What is it?” Gideon asked.
They picked their way closer, careful to avoid the clutter. If Cassian really had been here, all of this was evidence.
“Is that blood?” Gideon asked, leaning closer.
A stain on the concrete under the metal rail. Dark brown. Almost black.
“There’s more of it,” Tom said, ducking past a blanket.
Dread gathered like a knot in Gid’s belly.
There was another spot on the railing, and a long streak of it across the back of one of the chairs. Tom followed the trail like a bloodhound, steps so light that he barely made a sound.
“Shaw! Over here!”
He’d stopped in the space at the top of the stairs, just where they plummeted down into the darkness of the building.
It was a bloodbath. Or at least, it had been. Several days ago, judging by the way the stains had darkened. But Gid could still see the splatters on the riser, the shaking handprints, and the large gruesome stain soaked into the grey.
Gid took an involuntary step back and checked his gloves. He hadn’t touched the blood, he made certain that he hadn’t, but that didn’t matter. Cassian’s death was in the air here. The panic. The pain. For a moment, the world whited out. There was only the dull gleam of metal, streaking towards him like a meteor. And then the blood. So much. Spurting out as though he was a downpipe in a storm.
Gid was screaming, no, he couldn’t even do that. He was trapped in his body with the hideous wall of his fear. Watching in mute horror as life fountained out and the darkness clenched like a muscle.
The firm grip of Tom’s hand brought Gideon back into himself. He was squeezing Gid’s forearm so hard that it ached. Gid was drenched in sweat, heaving for breath. Nausea lodged like a fist in his throat.
He reached out to steady himself on the rail. Above them, the wind whined through the broken roof like a kicked dog.
“We should head back to the Terminus,” Tom said grimly, still staring at the blood. “Luminous will want to know that we’ve found the place where Cassian Marquez was murdered.”