The Shadow Cabinet Read online

  “Yes.”

  “The next morning, there was a death near Wexford. A woman named Dawn Somner who worked as a psychic fell out of a window. The squad reported because of the proximity and because of the nature of her job. You attended this scene as well, which is when Stephen discovered you had run off. Stephen instructed you to return to Wexford, but you didn’t do so.”

  It was like something squeezed my heart. If I’d gone back like he asked . . .

  “Rory, answer.” Thorpe had no patience for my silences. “Where did you go then?”

  “Back to Jane’s.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “She told me she could help me,” I said. “She’s one of us. She has the sight.”

  “Help you how?”

  “She’s in some kind of cult or something. A whole bunch of kids with the sight live with her, and they said they could help me. It seemed good when she first explained it. She said they were the only people who really understood and that I needed to be around people who were like me. I didn’t know what else to do, so . . . I was going to go with them.”

  “Go where?”

  “All they said was that it was a house in the country.”

  It sounded ridiculous now. At the time, Jane had been so amazing. I’d been able to talk to her, to really explain everything. I couldn’t tell my other therapist that I’d been stabbed by a ghost. Jane, though. She understood. She helped. She was so nice. She fed me and let me stay. And then—

  “Charlotte,” he said. “At some point that same morning, your classmate Charlotte was seen leaving Wexford before her scheduled Latin exam. We know she went to Jane’s house on her own. How were Charlotte and Jane connected?”

  “Jane was Charlotte’s therapist too. That’s how I met Jane. Charlotte kept telling me I had to go and see her, how amazing she was. But on that last day I realized Jane was just getting us stoned.”

  “How?”

  “She put something in the food. She’d always make us eat something—brownies, cookies, things like that. Then I’d get really relaxed and talk a lot.”

  “So she was drugging you.”

  “I’m pretty sure,” I said. “I put it all together too late.”

  “Did you see Charlotte at Jane’s that day?”

  “No,” I said. “Just her blazer. I was in the kitchen with Jane and these people Devina and Jack.”

  “Devina and Jack?”

  “Devina lived there. I don’t know about Jack. He showed up that morning, and he was kind of freaky. I got up to go to the bathroom and went through the front hall. I saw Charlotte’s blazer on a hook. It was damp. I asked them about her, and they said she was gone. I knew . . . like, that second, that something was wrong. I ran, but Jack jumped on me in the hall. They said they had her and that I had to come with them. If I didn’t do what they wanted, Charlotte would get hurt, and they’d get my parents too. They said they’d hurt people. They were threatening everyone. So I got in the car with them.”

  Thorpe eased his expression a bit.

  “They coerced you into the car,” he said. “Did they give any indication where they were taking you?”

  “All they would say was the country. They were talking about Greek myths and how they were going to defeat death, and I was going to help. Something about mysteries—Greek mysteries. Rituals. These people—they’re nuts. And they have Charlotte.”

  “How did the accident happen?”

  “It just did,” I said. In my mind, this event was all in gray scale. “We were driving and a car pulled in front of us and we hit it. It wasn’t that big of a crash. And then Stephen got out of the car with Boo and Callum behind him. Stephen threatened them and told them to let me out. Boo and Callum—one of them—smashed the window with a tire iron or something. I got out, and we left the three of them there. I think someone took their keys. Stephen had a cut on his head,” I said. I pointed to the spot on the temple where I’d seen blood.

  “How did Stephen find you?”

  “He put his phone in my pocket that morning,” I said. “He guessed I wouldn’t go back to Wexford, so he used it to track me. And I guess he thought the only way to stop them was to crash? Why didn’t he—”

  “He was trying to get you out of there as quickly as possible,” Thorpe said. “And I assume he was trying to prevent a full police response. It was, for the most part, a controlled crash. We recovered the cars.”

  “A controlled crash?” I asked.

  I think he realized how this sounded.

  “You went to his parents’ flat in Maida Vale,” he went on.

  “He was fine last night,” I said.

  Stephen had been fine the night before. More than fine.

  There was a lot I could have said here, like that he’d been changing his shirt because there was blood on the one he was wearing. He had his shirt off, and then we were sitting next to each other on the edge of the bed, and then we were suddenly very close to each other, and then we were really close to each other.

  Thorpe didn’t need to know about the kissing. He didn’t need to know that everything changed last night. Last night, I think I knew what love was—love and a few other things. And this morning, it was all gone.

  I saw Boo in the side-view mirror, jogging up to us. She got into the backseat, bringing with her a cloud of fresh air and cold.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I looked everywhere I could get into. Obviously not the whole hospital, but the rooms along the corridor. I think the power cut was just the one floor. I think? If he was there? I think he would have . . . yeah, I don’t know, I don’t think he’s there.”

  “Neither do I,” I said.

  “Why not?” Thorpe asked.

  Because my imaginary uncle told me a story about birds in my head, Thorpe. That’s why.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I could feel frustration coming off him like a smell, and I saw Boo slump in the back and put her hands over her eyes.

  “I have to phone Callum,” she said. “I’ll get him to come back. I can look again.”

  Thorpe turned on the engine.

  “We’re leaving?” she asked.

  “Rory’s been missing for over twenty-four hours,” he said, craning his head to back the car up. He did this with surprising speed, hooking the tail of the car around like a whip. “Combined with the fact that Charlotte also went missing, and the fact that you are both known Ripper victims—this is already getting attention.”

  “If you send me to my parents,” I said, “we will be on a plane to Louisiana in an hour, and I will never get back here again. Stephen is here now. Charlotte is missing now, and I’m the only person who really knows anything about the people who took her. I need to be here. I’m not just some runaway.”

  “She’s right,” Boo said, leaning between the two front seats.

  “I’m aware of this,” he said. “Now, get down in the seat where you can’t be seen. We’re going to my flat.”

  2

  THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE YOU MEET WHOM YOU CAN’T picture having a normal life. In your mind, they don’t have a house or a bed or eat food. They don’t watch television or use a pen to get a weird itch in the middle of their back. They seem to exist in some permanent state of other. Thorpe was one of these people.

  I mean, first of all, he was called Thorpe. That was his last name. I didn’t know his first name. He worked for some secret service, probably MI5. He was young but had white hair. If he did shower or sleep, I could only assume he did so in a suit. So the fact that I was going to where Thorpe lived was strange enough. But then I turned to see that his eyes were red.

  Thorpe had feelings. Feelings about Stephen. I think this alone was enough to keep me in my suspended state of nonreality. Stephen couldn’t be dead, because Thorpe didn’t cry and he didn’t live anywhere. Wrong again.r />
  Thorpe lived in some very modern apartment building on the Thames, as it happened, in the City of London area—not all that far from Wexford, and very close to Tower Bridge. The building seemed to be all windows and glass balconies, endless glass through which to see the gray sky and the river. He told me to scootch down in the seat as we pulled into the underground parking lot and to keep my face tipped down as we entered the lobby and rode up on the elevator.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Thorpe cut me off.

  “We talk inside the flat,” he said.

  I watched the red LED lights flick along until they hit twelve and we were ushered out by a creepily smooth automated female voice that said this was the top floor. The halls of this place had a sterile feel and smelled strongly of new carpeting. There was black-and-white framed photography on the walls, and you could tell it was the expensive kind, and not the kind they sold in places like Which Craft? where all of Bénouville bought its scrapbooking supplies and requisite framed pictures of kittens and watermelons and flowers.

  Thorpe’s inner sanctum was chilly and perfectly neat. He was the first person I’d ever met who really seemed to live in one of those rooms you see in fancy furniture catalogs. Everything was leather or stainless steel or emotionless but dignified gray. The living room and kitchen were all one big space, separated by a kitchen bar. He motioned me to sit there, on a high chair.

  “When was the last time you ate?” he asked.

  “I don’t know . . . yesterday? I’m not hungry.”

  He opened the refrigerator and produced a prepackaged sandwich and a bottle of water, which he set in front of me.

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re hungry. You’ve been in an accident, and you’ve had a number of shocks. It’s a matter of keeping your blood sugar level. Eat this.”

  I dutifully opened the sandwich and put it in my mouth. He made me a cup of very sugary and milky instant coffee.

  “Now what?” Boo asked.

  “Triage,” he said. “We have three missing people, but not in the traditional sense. Rory is missing, but obviously we know where she is. Stephen is missing, but his case is . . . complicated. Charlotte, however, is missing in the most immediate and obvious sense. Charlotte is actively in danger and needs to be found. The Met is in charge of that, but there are problems. As far as the police know, Charlotte left Wexford of her own accord, which is true. The next piece of evidence is that you, Rory, found her school blazer, damp, in the hall of Jane’s house that same morning. And then Jane told you that she had taken Charlotte away to the country. None of your statements can go into the report. Many aspects of this entire affair connect directly to the existence of the squad, which is covered by the Official Secrets Act. So that lead cannot be reported—at least, not as it really happened. I’ve already put in a call to one of my contacts and had him pose as a witness and say he saw Charlotte going into the house. It’s the best I could do, and at least it points the investigation in the right direction. Right now, Rory’s disappearance and Charlotte’s are being conflated into one event, which will disrupt and confuse the search. So, the first thing we are going to do is remove you from that search.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “You are going to call your parents. You’ll tell them that you are fine, that you left school of your own accord. At the very least, the search will then focus on one missing girl, not two. If they ask about Charlotte, be truthful and say you don’t know where she is. The conversation will be short.”

  I wasn’t ready for this particular instruction.

  “I can’t.”

  “Then I turn you in, right now. You’ll be with your parents within the hour.”

  Thorpe walked around the bar and into the living room space, to a desk by a window. He opened a box on one of the top shelves and produced a cell phone, which he placed in my hand.

  “This will trace back to a public telephone,” he said. “When they ask where you are, and they will, you say you’re somewhere safe. Then you tell them you’ll be in touch, that they shouldn’t worry, whatever you like, and then you hang up. Keep it brief.”

  I turned to Boo, as if she could help me with this, but she looked down and traced one of her long green nails along the granite.

  “The number . . . I can’t remember.”

  “I have the number.” He took out his own phone and flicked through a few screens, then dialed the phone for me, handing it back. All I had to do was hit Call.

  “I realize this has not been a good day,” he said. “This isn’t easy. You still need to do it if you intend to remain and find Stephen, and if you want to help Charlotte get to safety. This is not about your feelings. This is about what needs to happen.”

  I guess I pressed Call? It was like I twitched and the phone was ringing, and my father answered just as the first ring had gone. So fast. Everything happened so fast.

  “Hello? Who is this?”

  His accent, like mine, was thick and warm and Southern.

  “Hello?” he said again.

  “It’s me, Dad,” I said. My voice was nothing—a broken little noise, born of nowhere.

  A pause.

  “Rory? Rory? Is that you? Rory?”

  I didn’t want to hear him say my name so many times.

  I thought about Stephen on the bed, eyes closed. The lights bursting and windows breaking.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Where are you? Are you okay?” I heard his voice wavering and my mom in the background saying, “Is it her? Is it her?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. Now there was some strength in my voice, but I was openly crying and turned to the wall, away from Boo and Thorpe. My dad was crying, and my mom had the phone, and I kept saying I was fine. They asked again where I was, and I said something about being safe. They just wanted to know where—where? Where? They would be wherever it was now. They’d come. Where where where . . .

  I said I was safe. I said I didn’t know where Charlotte was. I said I wasn’t with her. I said to tell the police that. I said I needed time. I tried to tell them I loved them, but that was too hard. I hung up in the middle of them saying where, where, where . . .

  I set the phone back on the granite bar and grabbed a paper towel to dry my face. I took a long sip of the water bottle and crinkled it in my grip. The silence that settled on all of us after that noise was one of the most deeply unsettling that I’d ever felt.

  “There are some things we need to do,” Thorpe said. “An attempt was made to kidnap you, and you generally need to stay under the radar for a bit. Your parents won’t immediately stop looking. Basic precautions need to be taken.”

  He went over to his bookcase and pulled down a heavy German-to-English dictionary. Under the cover was a stack of twenty- and fifty-pound notes. He counted off a few of these and handed them to Boo.

  “There’s a Boots two streets north of here. We need hair dye. Not green.”

  Boo always had a different color in her hair. Red or pink streaks, purple edges. At the moment, the bottom third of her bobbed hair was green.

  “Something more natural,” he said. “A contrast. Rory has dark hair. We’ll need to change it. There’s a Marks and Spencer across the road from the Boots. Get Rory a full set of clothes—trousers, a jumper, some shoes and socks. Don’t go for fashionable. As basic as possible. Whatever’s in the front window. Make the shoes practical—a pair of trainers is best. She’ll need a coat as well, and hat, gloves, and scarf. Black, if possible, or any solid color. Nothing with a distinctive pattern or decoration.”

  As Boo left, Thorpe went to the kitchen and got out some scissors and a trash bag.

  “Your hair,” he said. “You need to cut it. Take everything you wore when you arrived here and put it in this bag. All the clothes. Shoes. The lot. There’s a dressing gown on the back of the toilet door you can put on until Boo brings
your new clothes. The toilet is the first door on the left.”

  It was unsentimental and sudden, but it was action. I needed something to do. I walked in and shut the door and took in my first fully private moment in some time. My parents’ voices were still ringing in my ears. I grabbed a handful of hair on one side and cut. I’d grabbed too much, because the scissors couldn’t get through it, and I had to hack at it a few times, dropping clumps into the sink with every labored snip. Suddenly, my neck and jawline were exposed, curtained by an uneven jag of what remained of that side of my hair. I stood there and looked at myself, mid transition, this lopsided freak and partial stranger.

  My face was very round.

  The girl in the mirror had started to cry. No time for that. I wiped my face on one of Thorpe’s steel-gray hand towels and started in on the other side, going much more slowly. This was a better effort than the first, but it still leaned in the wrong direction, and I had to work at it again to try to make the two sides match. Within twenty minutes, I had what appeared from the front to be a reasonably passable haircut. Or at least I told myself I did. It was not, I told myself firmly, reminiscent of an upside-down pear. I tried to reach around to the back, but I knew I’d mess that up immediately and decided to leave it for Boo.

  I stripped down, taking off the clothes from Jane’s house and putting them in the trash bag. It felt a bit weird changing into what had to be Thorpe’s robe, which was a heavy blue terry-cloth thing, much too large for me. Still, it was pleasantly soft and very warm. It even had a hood. I tied the belt as tight as I could and came out into the hall with my bag of clothes and my strange new hair.

  “That looks . . . very different,” Thorpe said. “I think you should let Boo work on it a bit.”

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now you focus on what you remember. If you want to help Charlotte, that’s the most important thing to do. Write down anything at all that comes to you. Anything. You can start now while I make some calls.”

  There were paper and pen waiting for me on the coffee table. Thorpe went into the bedroom and shut the door. He spoke so low, or the doors were so thick, that I could hear nothing. I took the cap off the pen and let the tip hover over the page. What else had happened, aside from everything? I started to write.