A low sky hung over the grey block of flats; the streetlamps hadn’t yet gone out and were struggling against the dawn. The damp tarmac gleamed after the night’s rain, reflecting pale lights.
Vincent’s car was parked by the entrance, wedged between a battered old Ford and a tatty Honda. Inside it was half-dark, only the dashboard glowed softly, sketching tired shadows across his face. He held the wheel with one hand. The other tapped the door. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. A habitual, automatic motion. His whole body hummed with sleeplessness.
“Well then, here we are.”
No answer. Of course.
He glanced at the passenger seat and saw Anna, sleeping the way children do after too long a day. She was covered with his jacket. Her lips were slightly parted, her breathing even, but her face said this couldn’t be called rest. It was more that her body had simply switched off. He leaned closer, peering. Street light fell across her cheek, picking out the bruise and the strip of plaster on her brow.
Vincent sat there looking at her, allowing himself a rare indulgence — a small, warm smile at the corner of his mouth. He let out a breath, opened the door and climbed out. The morning cold crept under his jacket at once. The door shut with a soft thud. Vincent walked round the car, opened the passenger-side door and bent to Anna again.
“Anna… wake up.”
No response. Not even her lashes flickered. He sighed, ran a hand over the back of his head, held a brief council with himself, then, slipping an arm under her back and another beneath her knees, lifted her. She stirred, muttered something faint, but didn’t wake. Her head nestled into his shoulder.
***
The stairwell met him with the smell of damp and cleaning fluid. The lights on the landings were dim, bulbs burnt out by time, the walls streaked and blotched. He took the stairs slowly, careful not to knock Anna against the rail.
On the second floor a door opened a crack and a neighbour peered out: a woman done up in would-be hippy gear, as if she’d got stuck in another era and decided it suited her. Hair loose, keys in hand, a face set in permanent wary curiosity. She froze at the sight of a detective climbing the stairs with a pale, plainly underage girl in his arms. Her gaze flicked from his face to Anna and back. In her eyes everything flashed at once: judgement, fear, curiosity, the urge to ask and, at the same moment, to keep out of it entirely.
Vincent met that look steadily. Coldly. No explanations. The neighbour’s mouth opened ‘are you all right?’ hovering on her lips but his face stopped her. She closed it again.
He reached his door, made short work of the lock and, without disturbing Anna with an extra movement, went in. Inside it was quiet and dark. He shouldered the door shut and walked down a narrow hall into a room with pink curtains and a soft rug. A girl’s room. Too much so. Plush toys. Posters. Books mixed in with make-up. Everything tidy, but plain to see the owner hadn’t been back in a while. Order without a person always looks a little eerie, like a set.
Vincent laid Anna carefully on the bed, set her arms straight, plumped the pillow and drew the cover over her. And then Cyrus. No sound. A soft thump. Onto the mattress. Right onto Anna. A heavy, plush bundle. He froze there. Ears pricked. Eyes round. Looked at Vincent. Then at her.
Anna’s foster parents were, at bottom, narrow and stingy of spirit, for all their faith. They wouldn’t have bothered with someone else’s pet. Their care had a limit, and that line fell exactly where responsibility began. Dump it, hand it to the first passer-by, leave it in a cage until it went quiet — all of that fit their idea of the proper order of things.
Vincent took Cyrus without discussion. Without even thinking. Reflex. Because the alternative was vile. Not tragic. Not dramatic. Just humanly vile.
He looked at Cyrus, perched on her like a little “do not touch” sign, and smiled. Drew the curtains. Left.
In the sitting room he dropped onto the sofa and closed his eyes. The last twenty-four hours had compacted into a single dense mass. No chronology. No logic. He took out his phone.
The message thread “Daughter” stared back at him in a stubborn column. No replies. He let out a short, dull, soundless breath and tightened his grip on the handset.
***
Dusk was sliding down outside the windows, and the flat was sinking into a soft, uneasy half-light. Anna woke with a jolt, as if someone else’s will had yanked her out of sleep. For a while she lay still, trying to work out where she’d ended up.
The room kept traces of another life: neat things, school rucksacks, a Hello Kitty lamp, a cracked disc, stickers. Everything spoke of a girl who had lived here before, or was meant to. But Anna knew: that girl wasn’t her.
She felt it clearly. Everything in this room was not hers.
Not just unfamiliar, but not hers in the bone-deep way of a life lived by someone else and handed to her by mistake.
Turning her head, she noticed a rabbit on the edge of the bed. White, clean, sleeping with paws tucked in, whiskers barely stirring. Anna frowned, studying him with a gaze stripped of sentiment.
“Who are you, then?” she said aloud.
On the edge of her awareness scraps flickered: faces, blurred, unmakeable. A voice, as if from underwater: “Anna…” Another flash: fire, a shadow, a hand reaching towards her. A pinprick of pain touched her temples. She winced, rubbed her brow and, drawing a heavy breath, sat up.
The blanket slid down. Cyrus cracked one eye, looked at her, snorted and tucked his nose back into his paws. The floor was cool under her feet. Anna swung her legs off, stood. A book caught her eye: “Mechanisms of Quantum Immortality”. She picked it up, examined it, then set it back carefully, finding nothing in it that rang a bell. She padded quietly to the door. Her hand found the handle but paused. From beyond came muffled sounds: a television muttering at the far end of the flat.
The light was on in the sitting room. On the sofa, half-reclining, Vincent dozed. His right hand dangled off the edge, fingers relaxed and almost touching the floor. His left lay on his chest, covering a gold ring with a red ruby on a chain. He held onto it even in sleep, as if it were the only thing keeping him from coming apart.
A news report was on the television. The camera drifted over Hyde Park, the yellow cordon tape, the flashing lights of police cars. The newsreader’s voice was even, professional:
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“New details in the high-profile case of the so-called ‘Faceless’, the serial killer who has terrorised London for years. Police have officially confirmed they’ve detained a suspect: a thirty-two-year-old man named Carmer Fleming. He has already been charged with the murder of a young woman whose body was discovered yesterday in one of the city’s parks…”
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A report was on the television. The camera slid over Hyde Park, yellow police tape, the flashing lights of patrol cars. The newsreader’s voice was even, professional:
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“New details in the high-profile case of the so-called ‘Faceless’ — the serial killer who has terrorised London for years. Police have officially confirmed the detention of a suspect: a thirty-two-year-old man named Carmer Fleming. He has already been charged with the murder of a young woman whose body was discovered yesterday in one of the city’s parks…”
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Images from the crime scene filled the screen: patches of ground caught on CCTV, and a name scrolling along the lower third — Carmer Fleming.
Anna stopped by the doorway and watched the screen.
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“Investigators are not yet giving a clear answer as to whether Fleming is in fact the ‘Faceless’…” the newsreader went on, as if discussing the weather.
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Vincent stirred on the sofa. He grimaced. Opened his eyes. For a few seconds he didn’t know who he was or where he was. Then he saw her.
He sat up and rubbed his face.
“Oh…” His voice was hoarse, crumpled by sleep. “You’re up.”
Anna said nothing. The screen had already cut to other footage.
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“Shocking development: Anna Lord, officially declared deceased, may be alive…”
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Vincent turned his head. His expression changed, going hard and focused.
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“According to unconfirmed reports,” the voice continued, “several witnesses claim to have seen a girl suspiciously similar to Anna Lord in one of London’s districts. One source said he noticed a young woman with features matching Anna’s appearance, but it is impossible to state anything for certain at this stage…”
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Anna clenched her fists. She demanded to know why she was here, not at home. Her voice was full of anger.
Vincent answered calmly. He said she’d be staying with him for now. No extras, no pleading. Just a fact — a decision already made and not in need of approval. Anna’s reaction was instant: a flicker of contempt across her face, one eyebrow lifting as if this were some idiot joke someone insisted on dragging out.
“It’ll be safer,” Vincent said.
She snorted and looked away. Safer. A funny word for someone who woke up in a mortuary.
The doorbell slashed through the tension with a sharp ring. Anna flinched. Vincent stood, switched off the television and went to the door.
Lesley stood on the threshold. Red hair rumpled, dark crescents under sleepless eyes, a folder in one hand and a vending-machine coffee in the other. Weariness on her face, but in her eyes that professional spark: not joy, no. More the readiness to dig out the next clod of dirt from someone else’s life.
Lesley came in and set the folder on the table at once. Papers rustled softly inside. She began without preamble, laying things out calmly and in order.
“The victim’s name was Rose Harper. Nineteen. Brought up in care. From 2004 to 2005 she was at Blackthorn.”
Vincent raised an eyebrow.
“Blackthorn?” he repeated.
“Yep,” Lesley’s mouth twisted. “Attacked a staff member. Broke his arm.”
Only then did her gaze catch on the figure by the wall. Anna stood with her arms folded, trying to wall herself off from everything happening here.
The redhead narrowed her eyes.
“That Anna…?” she asked Vincent. “Hi, I’m Lesley. I work with your uncle.”
She said it flatly, with no theatre. None of that ‘oh my God’ that usually bursts out of people when the dead abruptly stop being dead. She did care. It was just that Vincent had already scorched the news into Tate’s head, and Tate had told her.
Her gaze slid over Anna’s face and snagged on the fresh bruise.
“What happened to your face?” she added, frowning.
Vincent had just opened his mouth to explain when Anna cut across him.
“It’s nothing. Lividity. Or whatever. I’m decomposing by degrees.”
Lesley stalled, blinked, unsure if Anna was joking. She threw a quick look at Vincent. He pretended to be very busy with the folder. The redhead chose not to dig.
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