Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(85)

I stayed on my back because I couldn’t think of a good reason to get up. Although it wasn’t totally dark, I noticed the entrance hole was a disc of slightly lighter tone among the blackness.

When I was in primary school I had a general education teacher called Miss Bosworth, who thought I was slow. She was very nice about it, was Miss Bosworth – she just made sure she explained everything to me very clearly and made a point of not asking me to do anything particularly difficult. I thought she was great, and she was probably my first love if you don’t count my Lego Space Station Zenon kit.

I remember overhearing her telling my mum that while I was a lovely boy, if a bit boisterous, she probably shouldn’t hold out much hope for an academic career. I don’t remember what my mum said. But looking back I can’t help notice that was the last parent-teacher conference they ever had.

I don’t actually remember what Miss Bosworth looked like any more. I think she must have been white and had brown hair, but that’s it. The Space Station Zenon kit, on the other hand, came with three minifigs, several 1 × 8 plates and the forty-five degree sloping pieces and canopy that allowed you to make really cool hypersonic jet planes. I like to think it’s still out there in Sierra Leone somewhere, being used to make dreams and inconvenience parents in the middle of the night.

If she stays away long enough, I thought, the bubble will collapse again.

I pulled myself to my feet and cautiously felt my way over to the landing mat. But before I could recover my makeshift rope and copy of The Silmarillion, Foxglove jumped down, grabbed me around the waist and jumped out again.





29

One Does Not Simply Walk Into The Folly

We were in the big workshop space with the glazed ceiling I’d had a glimpse of before being pushed into the hole. The last of the daylight had seeped out of the sky and there was only reflected light pollution to illuminate walls and shadows. Foxglove’s face was almost luminous and random fairy sparkles clung to her sleeves and hair.

I was about to ask her which way was out when she jumped back down into the oubliette.

‘What are you doing?’ I hissed after her – keeping it low in case random minions were still on site.

I could hear Foxglove moving about and I was that close to dangling over the edge to look for her when she jumped back up, clutching her art case and giving me a defiant look.

‘Fine,’ I whispered. ‘Which way out?’

Foxglove pointed, a pale shape in the darkness, down the length of the workshop. Then, realising that, unlike her, I couldn’t see anything, she took my hand and led me off. Once I got close to the far end I could see a door. It was locked, so I popped out the lock with the imaginatively titled clausurafrange spell. Beyond was a small courtyard surrounded by high brick walls with broken glass embedded at the top.

There was another exterior-style door at the other end, but when I headed towards it Foxglove wouldn’t follow. She hovered in the doorway with her eyes fixed firmly on the ground.

‘Just a little bit further,’ I said. ‘And we’re away for ever.’

She gave me a lopsided smile, hoisted her art case over her head as if to keep off the rain, and let me take her hand and lead her to the door. Which was also locked, but not for long.

There was an access road on the other side. Lined by high garden walls on the left and the dark square bulks of early 1980s light engineering units on the right. Ahead there was a traffic barrier and a main road. I trotted towards it, pulling Foxglove behind me. She was making little distressed hissing sounds and still holding the art case above her head, but she easily kept up with me.

A wise man once said that when fleeing it was always important to focus on ‘away’ rather than worrying about what was behind you. It’s sage advice, as demonstrated by the way I nearly got myself creamed by a number 45 bus while checking over my shoulder for pursuit.

I stopped to orientate myself and spotted a street sign – Coldharbour Lane. I’d been in bloody Brixton the whole time. Effra was going to be pissed off when she found out, but at least I now knew where I was.

Foxglove had a painful grip on my arm and her face buried in my shoulder, as if she couldn’t bear to look. My warrant card was long gone and I couldn’t be sure that Lesley or Chorley or minions weren’t right behind us. I wanted off the street, but didn’t want to put a random homeowner in danger. Instead we ran left towards the train station.

After less than a hundred metres Foxglove was showing signs of serious distress and I felt her stumble a couple of times, but we’d reached the shopping parade by then and fortunately the Nisa Local was still open. A nervous black girl of about fifteen who was manning the tills gave us a weary look of disgust as we rushed in. Then got all confused when I told her I was a police officer and that I needed to use a phone.

‘You have to ask the manager,’ she said.

‘I know you’re carrying one,’ I said. ‘Hand it over.’

She mumbled something about not being supposed to carry them on the shop floor but handed over her HTC OnePlus 2. I retreated with Foxglove into the corner where we’d be hidden by the shelves and called Guleed. I probably should have called CCC first, but I didn’t want to take the chance that Chorley still had access to a leak.

Foxglove, who seemed much less panicky now she had a roof over her head, was staring with fascination at the dental health section we were hiding behind. She took down a packet of mint floss and sniffed it.