"Certainly was. Two policemen on the beat surprised a gang outside my house and there was one heck of a fight. Both officers got a bad hiding, and one of them even had a dog set on him." She coughed, then tugged a grimy handkerchief from where it was tucked inside her sleeve. "I suppose it was those horrid squatters. They're worse than animals!" Mrs. Burrows pronounced.
If only she knew, Sarah thought. She nodded her head to show she was in total agreement with Mrs. Burrows, the image of the policeman lying senseless on the patio after she'd knocked him out cold flashing through her mind.
Mrs. Burrows blew her nose at great volume and tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve. "I really don't know what this country's coming to. Anyway, they picked the wrong place this time. Nothing left there to steal… it's all in storage while the property's being sold."
Sarah nodded her head again as Mrs. Burrows went on.
"But the police aren't much better. They just won't leave me be. My counselor tries to stop them from coming, but they insist on interviewing me, time and time again. They act as if I'm to blame for everything… my family's disappearances… even the attack on the policemen… I ask you, as if I could've had anything to do with that — I'm here under twenty-four hour watch, for heaven's sake!" She uncrossed her legs and shifted in her chair before crossing them again. "Talk about getting some rest! This is all very unsettling for me, you know."
"Yes, yes, I can quite understand that," Sarah agreed quickly. "You've been through enough already."
Mrs. Burrows gave a small nod and lifted her head to gaze through the windows.
"But the police haven't given up looking for your husband and son?" Sarah inquired softly. "Hasn't there been any news about them at all?"
"No, nobody seems to have the faintest idea where they've gone. I'm sure you're aware my husband walked out, then my son vanished from the face of the earth," she said desolately. "There've been various sightings of him — a couple right back in Highfield. There was even some security-camera footage from the tube station of someone who looked vaguely like Will, with another boy… and a large dog."
"A large dog?" Sarah put in.
"Yes, an Alsatian or something like that," Mrs. Burrows shook her head. "But the police say they can't verify any of it." She sighed self-indulgently. "And my daughter, Rebecca, is at my sister's, but I haven't had a squeak from her for months." Mrs. Burrows's voice fell to a whisper, her face blank and unreadable. "Everyone I know goes away… Maybe they all found better places to be."
"I can only say how truly sorry I am," Sarah responded in a gentle, consolatory voice. "Your son — do you think he went off to search for your husband? I read that the investigating officer considered it a possibility?"
"I wouldn't put it past Will," Mrs. Burrows said, still gazing outside, where someone had made a halfhearted effort to tie some unhealthy-looking climbing roses to the cheap plastic pergola not far from the window. "I wouldn't be surprised at all."
"So you haven't seen anything of your son since… when was it… November?"
"No, it was before then, and no, I haven't," Mrs. Burrows exhaled.
"What was he… what state of mind was he in, before he left?"
"I really can't tell you — I wasn't too good myself at the time, and I didn’t …" Mrs. Burrows stopped herself in mid-sentence and switched her gaze from the rose garden to Sarah. "Look, you must have read my case file, why are you asking me all this?" All of a sudden her whole manner transformed, as if a spark had been ignited. Her voice reverted to its usual rather impatient and snappy tone. She pulled herself up in her chair, squaring her shoulders as she regarded Sarah with a fierce intensity.
The change wasn't lost on Sarah, who immediately broke off eye contact, pretending instead to consult the meaningless notes she'd made on the pad of paper. Sarah waited a few seconds before she resumed, her voice as level and calm as she could make it.
"It's quite simple, really, I'm new to your case and it's very helpful to have some background information. I'm sorry if this is painful for you."
Sarah could feel Mrs. Burrows's eyes boring into her as they analyzed her like twin X-ray beams. Sarah slowly sat back. Her outward appearance was relaxed, but inwardly she braced herself, ready for an onslaught.
"O'Leary… Irish, hmmm? You don't have much of an accent."
"No, my family moved to London in the sixties. But I go back for the odd holiday to—"
Mrs. Burrows, her face animated and her eyes sparkling, didn't let her finish.
"That's not your natural hair color; your roots are showing," she observed. "They look white. You dye your hair, don't you?"
"Uh… I do, yes. Why?"
"And is there something wrong with your eye — is that a bruise? Also your lip — it looks a bit puffy. Someone take a pop at you?"
"No, I tripped down some stairs," Sarah replied tersely, injecting equal measures of indignation and exasperation to make her reaction sound credible.
"That old chestnut! If I'm not mistaken, you're wearing heavy makeup over what I would say is a very pale complexion?"
"Um… I suppose," Sarah flustered. She was staggered by Mrs. Burrows's powers of observation. Sarah's disguise was being slowly but surely dismantled, like petals being torn from a flower one by one to reveal what lay within.
She was just wondering how she could deflect Mrs. Burrows's interrogation, which showed no sign of abating, when she caught sight of a clump of balloons painted on the wall just above thee other woman's left shoulder. A swipe of blue sky was washed over the balloons, almost completely obscuring and swallowing them up, turning their vibrant colors into dullness. Sarah took a shallow breath and cleared her throat, then said, "I need to ask you just a few more questions, Celia." She coughed to mask her unease. "I don think you are getting a little… um… personal…"
"A little personal?" Mrs. Burrows laughed dryly. "Don't you think all your idiot questions are a little personal ?"
"I need…"
"You have a very distinctive face, Kate, however hard you try to disguise it. Come to think of it, you have a very familiar face. Where might I have seen you before?" Mrs. Burrows frowned and inclined her head, as if trying to remember. There was more than a little of the theatrical about her — she was enjoying herself.
"This doesn't have anything to do with—"
"Who are you, Kate?" Mrs. Burrows cut her off sharply. "No way are you from social services. I know the type, and you're not it. So who exactly are you?"
"I think perhaps that's enough for now. I should go." Sarah had made up her mind to call a halt to the meeting and was gathering her papers and replacing them in the folder. She'd hastily gotten to her feet and was retrieving her coat from the back of the chair when Mrs. Burrows sprang up with surprising speed and stood before the door, barring Sarah's way.
"Not so fast!" Mrs. Burrows exclaimed. "I have some questions for you first."
"I can see I've made a mistake coming here, Mrs. Burrows," Sarah said decisively as she put her coat over her arm. She took a step toward Mrs. Burrows, who didn't budge an inch, and so they stood, face-to-face, like two prizefighters sizing each other up. Sarah was beginning to tire of the pretense — and Mrs. Burrows clearly didn't now anything more than she did about Will's whereabouts. Or if she did, she wasn't telling.
"We can finish this another time," Sarah told her, flashing a sour smile and turning sideways as if she meant to squeeze between Mrs. Burrows and the wall.
"Stop right where you are," Mrs. Burrows ordered. "You must think I'm gaga. You come here with your shabby clothes and your second-rate performance and expect me to swallow it?" Her eyes, narrowing to two vicious slits, flashed with the satisfaction of knowing.
"Did you really think I wouldn't figure out who you are? You have Will's face, and no amount of hair dye or stupid playacting" — she swatted the folder in Sarah's arms with the back of her hand — "is going to hide that." She nodded slyly. "You're his mother, aren't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sarah answered as coolly as she could.
"Will's biological mother."
"That's absurd. I…"
"What hole did you crawl out of?" Mrs. Burrows sneered sarcastically.
Sarah shook her head.
"Why did it take so long for you to come back? And why now?" Mrs. Burrows continued.
Sarah didn't say anything, staring daggers at the red-faced woman.
"You abandoned your child… You gave him up for adoption… What gives you the right to come sniffing around here?" Mrs. Burrows demanded.
Sarah let out a sharp breath. She could knock this rather flabby, lazy woman out of her way with so little effort, but chose to do nothing. They stood there, under a pounding silence, one Will's adoptive mother and the other his birth mother, inexorably liked and both instinctively knowing who the other was.
Mrs. Burrows broke the silence. "I take it that you're looking for him, or you wouldn't have shown up here," she simmered. She raised her eyebrows like a TV detective making a vital deduction in a case. "Or maybe you were responsible for his disappearance?"
"I had nothing whatsoever to do with his disappearance. You're insane."
Mrs. Burrows snorted. "Oh… insane, you say… Is that why I'm in this awful place?" she said in a hammy, melodramatic way, rolling her eyes like a terrified heroine in a silent film. "Dear me!"
"Let me through, please," Sarah asked with resolute politeness, taking a small step forward.
"Not just yet," Mrs. Burrows said. "Perhaps you decided you wanted Will back?"
"No—"
"Well, I bet you're involved in some way. You bloody keep your bloody nose out of my affairs. It's my family!" Mrs. Burrows scowled. "Look at the state of you. You're not fit to be anyone's mother!"
Sarah had had enough.
"Oh, yes?" she retorted through tightly clenched lips. "And what did you ever do for him?"
A wave of triumph swept across Mrs. Burrows's face. She'd flushed Sarah out into the open. "What did I do for him? I did my best. You were the one who dumped him," she answered angrily, unaware that Sarah was struggling with an almost irrepressible urge to kill her. "Why didn't you come to see him before? Where've you been hiding all these years?"
"You bitter, vindictive hag!" exploded Sarah, revealing the scorn and resentment she felt for the other woman, her face erupting with all the violence of which she was capable.
But Mrs. Burrows wasn't put off by this, not in the least. She stepped back from the door, not in retreat, but to place her hand over the large red panic button on the wall. Sarah now had a clear passage out of the room and went to the door, twisting the handle to open it a fraction. As she did so, the sound of a commotion echoed down the corridor — a tremendous clattering and hysterical shouts. Mrs. Burrows knew immediately that one of the Screamers' body clocks must have gone awry. That was odd — they usually saved their histrionics for the small hours.
For the briefest moment, Sarah was distracted by the noise, then she focused her full attention back on Mrs. Burrows, who remained with her hand poised over the button.
Sarah looked fiercely at her, shaking her head. "You don't want to do that," she threatened.
Mrs. Burrows laughed unpleasantly. "Oh, don't I? What I really want is for you to get out—" she said.
"Oh, I'm going all right," Sarah snarled, cutting her short.
"—and never set foot in here again. Ever!"
"Don't worry… I've seen all I need to," Sarah replied caustically, wrenching the door fully open so that it crashed back against the wall with the bizarre murals and rattled the window casements. She took a step, but hesitated in the doorway, realizing she hadn't said all she wanted to, now that the gloves were off. And, in the heat of the moment, she was finally able to admit to herself what she had been trying so hard to suppress — that Joe Waites's message could be true.
"Tell me what you did to Seth—"
"Seth?" Mrs. Burrows interrupted sharply.
"Call him what you want, Seth or Will — it doesn't matter. You made him into something twisted, something evil!" she screamed in Mrs. Burrows's face. "Into a filthy murderer!"
"A murderer?" Mrs. Burrows asked, looking a great deal less certain of herself. "What on earth are you saying?"
"My brother's dead! Will killed him!" Sarah howled, tears filling her eyes. It was as if this meeting with Mrs. Burrows ha provided her with a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, which, once completed, would show the vilest scene imaginable. And Sarah's outburst carried with it such complete conviction, such rawness of emotion…
Mrs. Burrows began to shake — for the first time she was completely thrown off her stride. Why was this woman accusing Will of murder? And what was this about him being called Seth? It didn't make sense. Her face was a picture of confusion as she took her hand away from the panic button and held it supplicatingly toward Sarah.
"Will… murdered… your brother? What…?" Mrs. Burrows spluttered.
But Sarah merely gave the woman a final withering glance and flew from the room. She was bolting down the corridor as two heavyset orderlies thundered past her in the opposite direction.
They were heading toward the source of the high-pitched wailing, but skidded to a halt when they saw Sarah in flight, uncertain whether they should intercept her instead.
Sarah didn't give them a chance to make up their minds. She hared around a corner in the corridor, her shoes slipping and squealing as they fought for purchase on the overwaxed linoleum. She wasn't going to stop for anyone or anything. The orderlies shrugged at each other and continued toward their original destination.
Sarah pulled open the glass door to the foyer. As she entered, she spotted a security camera on the wall — trained directly on her. Curses! She tucked her head down, knowing it was too late. There was nothing she could do about it now.
The receptionist behind the desk was the same one who had signed Sarah in. She was on the telephone but immediately dropped it as she called out.
"Are you all right? Miss O'Leary, what's wrong?"
With the receptionist still shouting after her to stop, Sarah sprinted across the parking lot and then down the driveway to the road. She didn't let up until she was on the main street. A bus drew up and she quickly boarded it. She had to get clear of the area in case the police had been called.
Sitting well away from the other passengers in the rear of the vehicle, Sarah was finding it difficult to get her breathing under control. She was in a seethe of thoughts and emotions. Never, in all her years of being Topsoil, had she revealed so much of herself to anyone, let alone to Mrs. Burrows, of all people! She should have kept her cool. It had gone so horribly wrong. What had she been thinking?
The whole incident made her heart thump in her ears as she replayed it in her mind. She was at once infuriated with herself for her lack of self-control and deeply upset at the exchange with the ridiculous, ineffectual woman who had been such a large part of her son's life… who had had the privilege of watching him grow up… and who had to take responsibility for turning him into what he'd become. She'd said things to Mrs. Burrows that before she hadn't allowed herself to believe that Will could indeed be a traitor, a turncoat, and a killer.
* * * * *
Once back in Highfield, she couldn't stop herself from breaking into a trot for the last stretch to the waste ground. She'd regained a measure of composure by the time she pulled aside the plywood trapdoor and jumped down into the entrance pit, with the usual comforting crunch of little bones to greet her.
She fished in her pocket for her flashlight but, having found it, didn't turn it on, choosing instead to feel her way through the enveloping darkness of the tunnel until she came to the main chamber.
"Cat, are you there?" she said, finally flicking on the light.
"Sarah Jerome, I presume," came a voice as the chamber burst into a dazzling brilliance, much more than was merited by Sarah's small beam. She shielded her eyes, half blind
ed and reeling at what she thought she'd glimpsed.
She desperately tried to focus on the source of the voice.
"Who…?" she said, beginning to draw back.
What was this?
A girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen reclined in one of the armchairs, her legs primly crossed and a coquettish smile on her pretty face.
The girl was dressed as a Styx.
A large white collar over a black dress.
A Styx child?
And standing beside the girl was a Colonist, a big, surly brute. He had a strangle leash around the cat's neck and was holding the straining animal back.
Instinct replaced thought as Sarah wrenched open her bag, and in an instant her knife was out and flashing in the bright light. She dropped the bag, brandishing the knife, crouching and edging farther back. Looking frantically around her, she saw where all the light was coming from. Many light orbs — how many, she didn't know — were held aloft around the chamber walls, held by other Colonists. These squat, heavily muscled men lined the space like unmoving statues, like guardians.
Hearing the scratchy and indecipherable language of the Styx, she shot a glance at the tunnel she'd come down. A rank of Styx, in their uniform of black coats and white shirts, had moved across it behind her, sealing off her only means of escape. Talk about a full house — the White Necks were here in force, too.
She was completely surrounded. She wasn't going to be able to fight her way out of this one. It was an impossible situation. She'd been in too much of a hurry — her mind had been elsewhere as she'd carelessly entered the excavation without taking the usual precautions.
You stupid, stupid fool.
And now she was going to pay for her mistake. Dearly.
Dropping her flashlight, she raised the knife and held the blade hard against her own neck. There was time. They couldn't stop her.
Then the girl spoke again in her gentle voice.
"You don't want to do that."
Sarah croaked something unintelligible, her throat constricting with fear.
"You know who I am. I'm Rebecca."
Sarah shook her head, her eyes stricken. A remote corner of her brain wondered why the Styx girl was using a Topsoiler name. Nobody ever knew their real names.