It’s the deepest part of the night when we finally have our plan formulated. The river Thames glistens below us, reflecting the man-made stars: the sprawling city that lines its banks.
Elle crouches beside me tapping a beat on her knee. I spend a good long while trying to work out what it is.
‘Thank you for understanding him,’ I say. ‘So many people wouldn’t.’
Elle shrugs. ‘Sometimes people say things without meaning to, I know he just wants to share his life with someone, that’s what we all want on some level. God knows I saw enough people with depression in cancer wards and therapists. So many of them just get the way they are because they’re ignored by the people who matter: friends, family, boyfriends, girlfriends, the works. You know there was one woman who’d been with her husband for fifty years. She gets cancer and her husband leaves her. How sucky’s that? I went to see her every day after college after I found out, just to sit with her. She used to love backgammon. She went before I did though.’
She looks at her shoes. I haven’t seen Elle cry yet. Funny Elle, chirpy Elle, sarky Elle. It didn’t occur to me that this was part of her make up. Everyone cries.
‘I’ve tried to find her so many times,’ she says. ‘Same as you and Penny. How do you track someone down when you have infinity to search in? Knowing them doesn’t matter anymore. You just have to leave it to chance.’
‘What was her name?’ I ask. ‘Your friend.’
‘Persephone,’ she says, smiling. ‘I know, a name from another age isn’t it. I think it sounds romantic. I used to think that if I ever had a daughter, I’d name her Persephone. Don’t suppose there’s much chance of that now though.’
‘You never know,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t put it past the universe to throw ghost-babies at us.’
‘Are you propositioning me, you cheeky devil?’ She looks sideways at me, her eyebrows bobbing. This time it only takes me a second to realise she’s joking.
‘Finally,’ she says. ‘I knew you could be moulded. You have no idea how many guys read into harmless flirting. Flirting’s fun. When you have a tumour creeping its way through your chest you have to take all the fun you can get. Course, now it’s just habit.’ She laughs. ‘You know there was this one guy in Rio last month…’
‘Wait,’ I say, holding up my hand. ‘There’s Graham’s signal.’
The light flashes from across the river and I know Graham’s ready. We had to take another trip back to his basement, cleaning up first so that his parents would be none the wiser. A large rug now sits over Teague’s ominous scorch mark.
Soundless, as though he’s been next to us all along, Yates appears. He walks without a hunch for the first time since I’ve known him.
‘How are you feeling?’ I ask.
‘Alive for once,’ he replies, rubbing his hands together. ‘He’s home. He has a new girlfriend, she’s asking him for money right now.’
‘Well, Mr Yates just keeps getting better,’ Elle says. ‘You ready?’
Yates nods. ‘Take my hands,’ he says.
We do so. I was never one for pranks. At school I hated them, as I was the butt of jokes so often I had no option but to develop a hatred for practical jokery. This is somehow above practical jokes. A practical joke at school includes selecting an easy target and embarrassing them in front of all their peers. This is a gift that only death allows. This is ghostly retribution so deserved it feels divine.
We disappear in an instant. And for a second I see inside Yates’s Edge. A world built of paper. The very air, if you can call it that, feels rough like the page of a book, and his memories are quotes flying past us as we make our short trip up the building.
We step back into the world and my stomach turns. Never, in all my seventeen years of living, have I wanted to see a seventy year old man receiving a lap dance.
‘Holy Mary, Buddha and the many arms of Vishnu,’ exclaims Elle. ‘That’s my life ruined.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s his life that’ll be ruined,’ says Yates, with a Machiavellian glint in his eye.
‘We’ve created a monster,’ says Elle. ‘I told you we shouldn’t take the kids on revenge missions.’
‘We need to work on his one-liners,’ I whisper. ‘That one hurt.’
‘Shall I get started?’ Yates says.
The woman, who I can only assume is some form of lady of the early hours begins gyrating in a very unnatural fashion.
‘Yes please.’ Elle gags on her words. ‘I think I’m going to be sick. Hasn’t this woman heard of bra fitting?’
We scatter ourselves around the room. Across the river, I know that Graham is watching with binoculars, waiting for our signal for the fun to begin.
I watch Mr Yates for a second. This man deserves everything that’s coming to him and more. Yates says he doesn’t know what happened to his mother. She might even still be with her disgusting, cheating husband. He’s bloated and red in the face, like even being turned on is an enormous effort for him. I see a sick look on the woman’s face as she turns away from him. I realise I shouldn’t judge so quickly. I don’t know what turned her to this life. She’s as much a victim in this like Yates. That’s what people like his step father do, they take the weak and use them, leaving them with scars that can never be healed. Scars that don’t show up on the skin.
‘Okay,’ I say, relishing the secrecy of our mission. ‘Elle, now!’
Elle reaches to her right and flicks on the enormous TV beside her. She presses another button and the volume rockets all the way up. Then she starts flicking between channels. The result is deafening, the various presenters and actors on screen merging together like they’re telling us a new, hidden message.
Mr Yates and the woman jump and he falls backwards off his seat. She screams, shrill with the sort of pitch that would crack a window.
With beautiful poetic timing, that’s exactly what happens. The huge floor to ceiling windows overlooking the river crack as one. There is a squeal almost too high for the human ear to register, and the windows shatter, becoming opaque with an infinity of white spider’s web cracks and then the panes fall to the ground like a curtain dropping from a stage.
The woman is screaming, stamping her stilettoed feet on the ground until one of them breaks and she falls over. Mr Yates has crawled into a corner, pulling books from a shelf and a chair towards him. He must think his world is ending.
I nod to Elle and Yates, grinning from ear to ear and we seize various bits of furniture.
Elle knocks a series of picture frames with no pictures in to the ground, moving to a shelf of first edition books that have never been read. She seizes one particularly expensive looking volume and begins tearing pages with relish.
Mr Yates sees this and actually lets out a dramatic shout of: ‘No!’
I grab two uncomfortable looking leather chairs and begin to shake them, dragging them across the floor towards the old man.
Now he starts to scream. And we’re only just getting started.
When he’s getting to his highest level of freaked out, I fish Graham’s remote control from my pocket.
I see Yates is already looking at me. I know he’s ready for this moment, I don’t need to ask. These will be words he’s said to mirrors and to the night-time when he wished he could say them to the face of his step father. He nods with his jaw set.
The most unbelievable thing happens. Before my eyes, I see Yates change. Slowly, the lines around his eyes disappear, the wobbly bits under his chin become taut. The five o’clock shadow on his face recedes once more to a teenage fuzz. He is a teenager in middle aged clothing again.
Without waiting a second longer, I flick the switch on the top of the remote. I know we’ll all appear in the room, but Mr Yates only has eyes for one of us.
‘You!’ he screams. ‘Why have you come back?’
‘You drove me to this!’ Yates yells.
He takes a step forward. Mr Yates flinches.
‘Don’t hurt me!’ he shouts. The TV’s volume still fills the room. There’s a surprising amount of wind at this height, and it whips through the now open windows.
‘You hurt me,’ Yates says. ‘Every day of my life. You made me feel pathetic.’
Mr Yates is actually crying. Snivelling in the corner.
‘What do you want from me?’ he asks. ‘You don’t think I feel guilt?’
‘And that excuses you?’
I wonder is this a regular occurrence for Mr Yates. I see the puffed edges of his eyes. Hear a slurring in his speech. He’s drunk, dosed, or a combination of the two. Maybe he does feel guilty for what he drove his son to. Maybe it makes him see prostitutes every night and drink himself into a stupor. But he’s a villain none the less.
‘I’ll do anything,’ he says. ‘Anything for you to stop coming in my dreams. Just leave me alone now.’
‘I want you to leave here,’ Yates says. ‘Sell this place for a pittance and leave all your things behind. Get on a plane and never look back. I don’t care where you go. If you don’t do this, I’ll come back for you. I’ll chase you across the world until you listen to me. I’ll punish you like you punished me. Understand.’
Mr Yates nod through the tears.
‘I’ll be watching,’ Yates says, and we disappear at the flick of my finger.
As we reenter the spirit world, Yates expels a breath like he’s just come off stage after the biggest performance of his career.
I notice he’s shaking and cross to him, putting my arm around his shoulders. He’s remained a teenager, but while before he’d looked greasy, hunched, folding into himself. Now he stood an inch taller. Though he was still pallid and sick looking. I have a feeling that’ll fade.
‘You did great, Yates,’ I say. ‘Come on, lets get out of here.’
I take his hand and Elle’s as she reaches for mine.
In a second we stand on the other bank, without sparing Mr Yates another glance. I wonder did his son?
Graham stands on the bank. I flick the switch on the remote. He jumps and then starts to applaud.
He waves the binoculars.
‘That, was spectacular,’ he says. He goes to clap Yates on the shoulder. His arm passes through him and he out a terrific shudder.
He straightens up, embarrassed.
‘How do you feel?’ Elle asks. Touching Yates lightly on the shoulder. This time he doesn’t flinch away from her contact.
‘It was something I’ve needed to do,’ he says. ‘I’ve always needed to confront him.’ He smiles. ‘I’m glad I could do it with style.’
‘See, good one-liners, he’s learning,’ Elle says, like a proud mother.
‘I wish I could have seen his face. He crawled to the corner before I could get a good look.’ Graham looks genuinely disappointed.
‘Where to next?’ Yates asks.
‘Well we follow Thacker’s clues,’ I reply as if it was obvious.
‘But, really?’ Yates’s eyebrows raise. ‘I didn’t think…’
‘Why wouldn’t we? It’s important.’
Graham’s looking at Yates in a whole new light. I noticed it as soon as we returned. Yates keeps looking at him to, stealing a glance here and there like he can feel his stare. I don’t want him to get uncomfortable.
‘If we make a stop back at my house, we can get started,’ Yates says. ‘I know where we can go first.’
‘Excellent,’ says Elle. ‘The band's all together.’
