Black London 05 - Soul Trade

her to this old tip of a warehouse where me and my mates hung about, and just sat and talked with her all night, about shite I’ve never told anyone before or since. Just making sure she didn’t go to sleep. Walked her home at dawnbecause she ordered me to, even though I would’ve rather eaten nails then take her back there.”
    Pete put her head on Jack’s shoulder, much as she imagined Wendy would have. She felt the spark of his talent against hers. There was a time when they had to be careful not even to touch skin to skin, because her talent would drink his down. At least they’d solved that problem.
    Jack stroked her haironce, absently. His eyes were miles and decades away. “I wanted to kick the shit out of her da, but he was friends with my mum’s Kevin, and it would’ve gone bad for her mum besides if I’d interfered.”
    “You did the best you could,” Pete said quietly. “You were just a kid, Jack.”
    “I always told myself I’d be better,” he said, vicious against her ear. “That I wouldn’t fuck about with a bunch ofwhores or drink or beat my kids. That I’d be a rock, not a voice you hear on the wind or a tosser who comes around on your birthday, throws money at you and then fucks off again so some other bastard can beat seven shades of Hell out of you and keep your mum so stoned she doesn’t even know it’s happening. I told myself I’d be better.” He gave a shuddery breath, and Pete knew if she looked up she’dsee his wet eyes, so she didn’t. Jack would never open up again if she witnessed that. “But I’m not,” he whispered, voice thick. “I’m shit.”
    Pete slipped an arm across his chest, so close and warm they might have been at home in bed. “You’re a good man,” she said. “You’re a good man who makes shit choices. That’s different than being shit.” She slotted her fingers into the shallow spaces in betweenJack’s ribs, spaces she’d memorized night after night and longed for when she’d been away. “Lily is going to remember you as that man. None of what came before matters to her, so that’s all that should matter to you.”
    Jack said nothing, just breathed in time with the clack of the rails, and Pete started to wonder if she’d enraged him or saddened him beyond speaking. She let out a silent sighof relief when her mobile buzzed with Ollie’s number.
    “You never can stay away from trouble, can you?” Ollie said when she picked up.
    “I bloody well can, thank you,” Pete said. “All I did was ask you to find one man who’s not even crooked as far as I know. What’s troubling about that?”
    “I mean the Smythe bit,” Ollie said. “I got your address, and HOLMES kicked back five or six calls to thelocals for fights between the Mr. and Mrs.” He didn’t need to elaborate. They both knew what that meant. “What’s happened, Pete?” Ollie said at last. “You’re the last person I’d peg to go nostalgic over an old case.”
    The last case. The last one she’d ever worked for the Met. The one that showed her, irrevocably, that she couldn’t hide from the Black inside the mundane. Eventually it would alwaysfind her.
    “Just give me the address,” she snapped. “I know what I’m doing, Ollie.”
    “Never said you didn’t,” he said, mild as ever. Pete felt like shit for snarling at him.
    “Sorry,” she mumbled.
    “Here’s the rundown,” Ollie said. He wasn’t one to hold grudges, which Pete figured was why they’d stayed friends for so long. She could be hard to live with on the best of days.
    “Looks like the Smythespicked up and moved soon after the Treadwell business. Dear old dad came home from Pentonville and the whole lot buggered off to a little map speck called Overton, in Herefordshire. Sheep and quaint cottages and all that.”
    “Yeah, heard they moved away from London,” Pete said. “I wouldn’t blame them, honestly.”
    “There’s something else about Overton you should know,” he said. “The families ofthe three other kids are all living within five miles of each other.” He took in Pete’s silence and then heaved a deep sigh. “But you already knew that.”
    “I’d heard the news,” Pete said. The thought of coming face to face with the other families—the Killigans, the Leroys, and the Dumbershalls, the children she hadn’t been able to save—made her want to stick her head between her knees. “Tell mewhat you found, though,” she said. “I appreciate it, Ollie.”
    “Property