What Abigail Did That Summer Read online

  ‘That’s not important right now,’ she says.

  In the background I can hear elders chatting quietly. Their voices sound flat, as if Simon’s mum is inside a recording studio and there’s sound baffling.

  ‘What makes you think he’s with me?’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was definitely in his room this morning,’ says Simon’s mum. ‘And Angelica heard someone calling his name.’

  ‘So,’ I say, ‘what about his other friends?’

  ‘He doesn’t . . .’ she starts to say. Then, ‘His other friends are all away on holiday. Are you sure it wasn’t you?’

  No, I went round, called him out to play and totally forgot I did it, which I do not say, because now I’m getting suspicious. What if Jessica or someone like her has been out to recruit Simon again?

  ‘Did Angelica say where the voice was coming from? The front or the back?’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘Front or back?’

  There is a pause as Simon’s mum thinks about it. I like that she takes me seriously, but it’s not always a good thing. If the olds are paying attention, you’ve got to be careful about what you say in front of them.

  ‘From the back garden,’ she says and then, while I’m still thinking it out, ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say, but really I know for certain. ‘If I see him I’ll send him home.’

  ‘I’d much rather . . .’ says Simon’s mum, and pauses for a moment. ‘If you happen to run into him, could you perhaps bring him home?’

  ‘No worries,’ I say.

  ‘Good,’ she says and hangs up.

  I add the number to my contact list as SIMON’S MUM.

  ‘All right then,’ I say loudly. ‘You two can show yourselves.’

  7 Ugly, unpleasant.

  8 Unless I’m mistaken the best translation for this instance would be ‘wan’, although Abigail herself insists on ‘dodgy’.

  12

  Surveillance Op #01

  I turn to see Simon come out from where he was hiding behind a blue Renault. He has a lead in his right hand and at the other end is Indigo – wearing a collar. They both trot over and give me identical innocent looks.

  ‘Why are you following me?’

  ‘We wanted to know where you were going,’ says Indigo, and Simon is nodding agreement.

  I point at the lead.

  ‘Are you wearing a collar?’

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ says Indigo. ‘I’m undercover as a dog. Lets me move about in the Brick in daylight.’

  What she looks like is a big fox wearing a collar. If she isn’t on Facebook in the next hour I’ll be really surprised.

  ‘Was this part of your training?’ I ask.

  ‘Nah,’ says Indigo. ‘Simon thought of it.’

  Simon gives me that grin – you could use it to guide jets in at Heathrow.

  ‘Okay, Indigo,’ I say, and start walking back towards the footbridge. ‘Let’s get you under proper cover.’

  ‘For operational reasons,’ says Indigo, ‘you should call me Gaspode.’

  ‘Gaspode?’

  ‘That’s my cover name,’ says Indigo. ‘Part of my legend.’

  ‘Def going to be legendary if you don’t get off the street,’ I say.

  We walk quickly to the footbridge across the railway line. There’s a dog waste bin here, and in the heat the slope up to the stairs stinks of shit and wee. Indigo lists the dogs whose markers she can smell. Not what their owners call them, unless there are really three dogs called George H-19, George H-15, George H-26.

  ‘All gun dogs are designated George,’ says Indigo. ‘The H stands for Heath and the numbers are allocated sequentially.’

  We walk across the bridge and Indigo explains that collies are Sugar Dogs, dachshunds, terriers and other dogs bred to catch rats are Rogers, while German shepherds were designated Ables, although Indigo didn’t know why.

  ‘Why aren’t the gun dogs called Golf,’ I ask, because that’s the phonetic alphabet for G, but Indigo says that G is for George. I recite the standard alphabet to Indigo and Simon as we head up the hill towards the Parliament Hill entrance, where we all met.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asks Simon.

  ‘I’m going to the Vale of Health,’ I say. ‘But you might want to go home.’

  Simon pulls a sour face.

  ‘It’s going to be boring,’ I say.

  His face scrunches up.

  ‘Why?’ he asks.

  *

  ‘This is so boring,’ says Indigo.

  ‘Why are you bored?’ I ask. ‘Aren’t you trained for surveillance?’

  We’re sitting on a bench opposite the Showmen’s9 winter quarters. From here we can watch the entrance to the Vale of Health. Indigo says this is where Goth Girl and Nerd Boy left the Heath. Because it’s summer, the winter quarters are mostly empty and I can easily watch both routes off the Heath, as well as along the path that runs past the Vale of Health Pond.

  ‘Still boring,’ she says.

  But it turns out Simon isn’t bored. Because Simon loves to people-watch – as long as I make up stories about them. Or, if necessary, I get him distracted by letting him play Angry Birds on my phone. He’s not allowed a phone.

  ‘You should call Childline,’ I said when he told me.

  ‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t have a phone.’

  His face was so serious it took me at least fifteen seconds to work out he was making a joke.

  A fat white girl jogs past in yellow leggings, expensive white trainers and purple Lycra crop top – a phone strapped to her upper arm, the headphone cable flexing with every step. Her hair is dripping with sweat and she’s breathing hard, but her expression is far away and I wonder what she’s listening to and feel a bit jealous.

  Simon nudges me – he wants a story.

  ‘Alien,’ I say. ‘Trapped on Earth when her starship crash-landed in the Model Boating Pond. She’s not running for her health but ’cause she’s got to find a missing bit of her ship that fell off during the crash.’

  Indigo makes a noise halfway between a sneeze and a laugh.

  ‘Are there aliens?’ Simon asks Indigo.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ she says. ‘Unless you count cats.’

  ‘Cats are aliens?’ asks Simon, but I’m not listening because I’ve got a shiver and a sensation like someone’s waving an open tin of Whiskas under my nose.

  Then somebody starts screaming.

  9 Showmen is the collective noun for those who live an itinerant life taking attractions from fair to fair. The equivalent term in the US is ‘carny’.

  13

  Rushing In

  I am running towards the screams.

  I’ve been warned about this, by Nightingale. Just after he had a sit-down with my parents regarding my extracurricular ghost-hunting activities. Not a coincidence.

  ‘Bravery and a desire to help are all very commendable,’ he said. ‘But, when rushing towards the action, one should be cognisant that there might come a point where one should stop rushing and take cover.’

  ‘Take cover from what?’ I’d asked, and made a mental note to look up ‘cognisant’ later.

  ‘Ah,’ said Nightingale. ‘Perhaps “take cover” was not quite the right term. It’s important to have some understanding of what precisely it is one is dealing with before you take action. You don’t want to inadvertently put yourself or anyone else at risk.’

  What I’m looking at right now is a fight between the Cat Lady, who is the one doing the screaming, and Nerd Boy, who is shouting. The Cat Lady’s all-terrain shopping trolley has fallen over to scatter plastic food containers and cardboard boxes across the path.

 
The Cat Lady has both hands locked around Nerd Boy’s upper arm while he desperately tries to pull free. He is shouting, ‘Get the fuck off me!’ and pushing at the Cat Lady with his free hand.

  I am less than two metres away when he balls his fist and punches the Cat Lady square in the face.

  ‘Hey!’ I shout.

  Nerd Boy whips his head around to look at me.

  ‘Help me!’ he yells, and punches the Cat Lady in the face again. The Cat Lady lets go of his arm, staggers backwards and sits down hard on the path. Her hands are pressed to her nose.

  I skitter to a halt in front of Nerd Boy and realise that I have no idea what to do next.

  ‘She attacked me,’ he says, and flinches as Simon arrives at my side.

  ‘Stay there,’ I say, and crouch down by the Cat Lady to see if she’s all right.

  ‘She’s mental,’ says Nerd Boy.

  ‘That’s not a nice thing to say,’ says Simon.

  I ask the Cat Lady if she’s okay and quick as a flash she grabs my wrist – she’s incredibly strong. Close up she smells of cat food, old clothes and something else – an electric ozone smell.

  ‘Beware the Pied Piper,’ she hisses. ‘If you follow him he’ll take you to the cave of happiness.’

  ‘Told you,’ says Indigo, who is hiding amongst the long grass by the path. ‘Her mind has been softened by exposure to alien cats.’

  ‘You’re not helping,’ I say.

  ‘Sirens,’ says Indigo, and a moment later I can hear sirens in the distance.

  Nerd Boy looks around, panics and runs away.

  ‘Do you want me to catch him?’ asks Simon.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘You and Indigo run and hide – stay away from the Feds.’

  Both boy and fox ask me who the Feds are at the same time.

  ‘Police,’ I say, and add that his mum isn’t going to like it if they start asking her questions. That’s enough to scare him off, and Indigo darts after him.

  ‘Who’s the Pied Piper?’ I ask the Cat Lady, who has let go of my wrist and is prodding at her nose – which is not bleeding. She looks surprised now, rather than angry. But it doesn’t seem she wants to get up. I repeat my question, louder, and she turns to look at me.

  ‘Man with a flute,’ she says. ‘Lures away rats and children.’

  The siren is getting louder.

  ‘What’s he look like?’

  ‘Man in red and yellow, red and yellow with a flute and dancing feet.’

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said the Cat Lady. ‘Nobody sees him. But they hear him, yes they do. They hear him and they follow him to the cave of happiness.’

  The siren stops and I look up to see a white Ford Fiesta pull up. It has a light bar on its roof, yellow and blue police livery and the word CONSTABULARY written across the bonnet.

  ‘Do you know where the cave is?’ I ask.

  ‘On the other side,’ says the Cat Lady.

  Two Feds get out of the car, both white men. The Heath has its own small police force, the Hampstead Heath Constabulary – they work for the City of London Corporation and have all the normal Fed powers of arrest.

  ‘Could you stand up, miss?’ says the lead Fed.

  And they have the normal Fed attitude.

  ‘A big boy attacked her,’ I say. ‘And ran away.’

  *

  ‘You were a long time,’ says Simon. ‘We thought they’d arrested you.’

  Long enough for the world to turn away from the sun and evening to start. We are walking along the causeway between Number 1 and Number 2 Hampstead Ponds – a short cut to South Hill Park Road, where Simon lives. Indigo insists on wearing her lead again – we get some strange looks but nobody has tried to chat or taken pictures yet.

  ‘Nah,’ I say. ‘Feds always make you wait around while they’re calling people on the radio and stuff.’

  Peter says it’s a feature, not a bug. No matter how rowdy someone is, if you make them stand around or sit still for half an hour they calm down. Except for the ones that don’t – they get cuffed and thrown in the back of a van.

  What he doesn’t say is that it’s a power move – the Feds’ way of making sure you know they’re in charge. No matter who you are, they could make you stand still, sit down and behave.

  The world is rotating us away from the sun and the light is turning golden. Indigo and Simon are laughing at a black Labrador, George H-98, futilely chasing a duck on the other side of Number 1 Pond.

  I manage to persuade Indigo out of her dog disguise before we leave the Heath, but when we get to Simon’s house I know I’m not coming in by the way his mum blocks the front door.

  ‘You,’ she says to Simon. ‘Go upstairs to your room.’

  Simon slinks past her but gives me a cheeky wave from behind her back.

  ‘Where was he?’ she asks me.

  I give her some flannel about finding him in Kenwood, which I don’t think she believes.

  ‘Well, he’s grounded now,’ she says. But then she hesitates before saying that if I want to visit tomorrow, I can. ‘As long as you don’t go out.’

  I say I might and she closes the door.

  ‘Badger!’ says Indigo, which I can tell is totally a fox insult.

  14

  Because Power

  Demi-monde – which is French for ‘half-world’ and an old euphemism, according to Miss Redmayne who teaches humanities, for any sexually active woman who failed to conform to the strict patriarchal gender norms that permeated French society in the dark days before Tinder. Meanwhile, back in the today, the demi-monde is the posh term used to talk about the society of the magical adjacent. This includes people who are naturally magical, what Peter and Nightingale call the fae, people who can do magic, like wizards and ting, and people that hang out with them because . . . reasons. At the top of the pile are the genii locorum, the tutelary spirits of place. Or what my dad might call river spirits.

  Not that I’ve told my dad about them because . . . culture.

  In London these are the daughters of Mama Thames and they look like your aunty, or your cousins or a social worker, but they’re not because . . . power.

  Hampstead Heath lies in the arms of two branches of the River Fleet. She feeds the ponds and occasionally floods the basements of buildings from Kentish Town to Blackfriars. Peter took me to stand on the Holborn Viaduct once and pointed up Farringdon Road.

  ‘Look at the way it curves,’ he said. ‘Look at the way the land slopes down to meet it. They buried it two hundred years ago and it still shapes the city.’

  So if anyone was going to know what was going on on Hampstead Heath, it was going to be the River Fleet. The trick is getting her to talk to you.

  *

  I’m standing on the opposite side of the Heath to Simon’s house, by the Highgate Number 1 Pond, which is the last in a string of ponds and the one that drains directly into the Fleet. It’s noon on another hot day and the paths are full of sweaty dogs and panting joggers. Although the dogs, at least, get to jump in the pond to cool down. I meant to be up here first thing, but my dad had one of his turns and decided that, since Mum was with Paul at the hospital, he was going to cook us dinner. My dad can cook exactly one thing, corned beef hash, which consists of corned beef, rice, spare vegetables and enough pepper to ensure spontaneous combustion if you’re foolish enough to eat too much. He’s really proud of it so I don’t like to disappoint him. So I had to wait for this morning to hit the Folly library, where I checked Meric Casaubon and Charles Kingsley on how to get the attention of a genius loci. I also learnt a new word. Propitiation.

  Propitiation is when you sacrifice something valuable to your friendly neighbourhood deity – which is a fancy word for god – in order for them to either A: do you a favour or B: stop doing something peak10 like floo
ding your basement or spoiling milk. People have been flinging jewellery, swords and the occasional severed head into the rivers of London for thousands of years. The Romans liked to sacrifice animals and pour away wine, but I don’t like wine and I don’t think Indigo would regard it as much of an honour. And anyway, she can swim. Peter says you can’t go wrong with alcohol, either lager or spirits, providing it’s in quantity. I considered raiding my dad’s stash of Special Brew or the bottle of Gordon’s gin my mum keeps on the top shelf in the kitchen.

  But Kingsley makes it clear – it has to be something valuable to you personally. Properly valuable, too, and I’ve only got two things that aren’t people that count. And I need my laptop for school.

  So I pull my Samsung out of my pocket.

  It was a hand-me-down from an aunty when she upgraded to a smartphone and an embarrassment at school, but it’s been pretty reliable and the battery life wasn’t bad.

  There’s a film of green pond scum stretching out three metres from the shore, so I give it a good hard throw so that it lands in clear water. I’m tempted to shout something cheeky like ‘Oi, Fleet – how about a word?’, but that was my phone I just sacrificed and the chances that I’ll get it replaced are bare slim. In the end I don’t say nothing.

  Quarter of an hour later and I’m wondering how long you’re supposed to wait – Kingsley and the rest never said – and maybe my phone wasn’t enough. I go and sit down with my back to the fence which divides off the flats. I’ve got a book, a tangerine, a KitKat, a bottle of Dr Pepper and, as soon as I unwrap the KitKat, a large talking fox.

  ‘I thought chocolate was poisonous to foxes,’ I say, holding the KitKat out of reach.

  ‘Is it?’ asks Indigo, who has climbed into my lap trying to reach it.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I looked it up – you can have some tangerine.’

  ‘It smells so good,’ whines Indigo, but settles down with her head on my chest. ‘Scratchy,’ she pleads.

  I scratch the soft fur of her neck and chest with my right hand while eating the KitKat with the left.

  A swan is passing close to the shore and Indigo’s head turns to track it.