All was dark and quiet on Shudehill that early Monday morning, past one o’clock, but only just. Shudehill was the street behind the slumbering behemoth; no sign here, no special announcements, no blurbs to proclaim the future delights. A car pulls up outside the building. Benny’s at the wheel, Joe’s in the passenger seat. Behind them Daisy and the beggar woman, whose name we now learn is Mama Mole. On the journey here she had told the three Dark Fractals that Little Celia had been found wandering the streets looking for Eddie Irwell. Saturday evening, this would have been. She had told of her fears for Eddie’s safety. The beggars had immediately offered their help to find him, coming together in the face of bad bones. Finding nothing, no traces, no winnings…
Leaving Benny with the engine running, Joe and Daisy followed the Mole woman through a loose ventilation grid. This was once the arse of the place, pumping out a constant stream of bad air, where a tramp could sleep snug and warm in the old days. Now only the faint, lingering smells of methane hung in the dark tunnel.
Mama Mole, as befits the name, fairly ran along the cramped passage, leaving Daisy and Joe to suffer knocks and bruises from protrusive pipes and jagged panels. One of these was pushed aside, the Mole stepped through, beckoning the pair to keep up. The next tunnel was even tighter, but a faint light could be seen at the end of it, and the noise of distant voices heard.
The tunnel opened out, at last, to a final vent grid. This was hinged and greased for access, and Daisy and Joe fell 4 feet to the hard floor, moaning for air.
Spot-lamps spluttering for a stolen light, music, a breath of fire from a furnace, the purring hum of a generator, and a wailing, human sound. Daisy and Joe helped each other to their feet.
Eyes burning purple and yellow from the sudden lights, weird shapes surrounded them, moving slowly through the chambers of the heart of the dying beast. A bus station, underground, closed down for twelve months. Two buses still stood alongside ruined shelters, wheels on jacks, windows caked with dust, or else cracked into spidery webs, destination nowhere. Graffiti fingered in the thick dust of a forever-cooling engine casing. DREAM TO WIN. A crowd of people approached from their various fires and encampments. A guitar played a slow, plaintive tune from behind a shelter. Clusters of beggars looked at the new arrivals for a few seconds and then returned to their slow, broken lives.
‘What’s wrong with them?’ Daisy asked Joe. ‘Where’s Celia?’
Joe shook his head, unable to take it all in. ‘Keep close to me.’
They moved through the tribe of beggars. Above their heads lay the vast overarching roof of the former station. Blurb cries could be heard from the gulf space, as though even the adverts were in pain. Something black and fat-spitting turned over a fire. A low moaning was heard from all around, amplified into a ghost of wanting desire by the far-off walls. The crowd parted to let Mama Mole through. Occasionally she would stop to talk to one of the brethren. A hard knot of people was circling one of the broken-down buses, keeping the moaning going, higher and lower with each line of dull melody.
Mama Mole eventually reached the bus. She went through the doors and returned a few minutes later, her face lined with pain.
‘What’s wrong, Mama?’ asked Joe.
‘Is it Celia?’ asked Daisy
She would give no answer, she just beckoned them aboard.
The bus was a double-decker, the bottom deck filled with a few desultory passengers, forever waiting for a trip that would never take place. A whining sound could be heard from above. A painful, drawn-out cry of pain that could never be calmed. ‘They found him an hour ago,’ said Mama Mole. She shook her head in anger. ‘While I was filling my…’ Nobody said a word as Joe and Daisy followed the old woman up the stairs.
Eddie Irwell was laid out on the back seat, his once-impressive bulk now easily contained by the cramped quarters. Little Celia Hobart was resting her head on his chest, clinging to him, stroking his tangled dreads with one weak, unsteady hand. In the other, a trembling bird’s feather.
‘Celia…’ said Daisy.
The cry came louder still from the young girl’s lips.
‘Come away, now…’
‘Go on, Celia,’ whispered Mama Mole. ‘You’re with friends. We’ll look after Eddie. I promise…’
The drive back to Hackle’s house was a long, silent, rain- slashed, empty voyage. Joe had put a call through on his mobile, telling Hackle to get ready for visitors. Celia was squeezed between Daisy and Joe on the back seat. She couldn’t stop shivering.
Daisy, Joe, Benny; none of them had anything positive to say, to the girl or to themselves. They each looked out at the rain, the city they had once loved, moving slowly away into the darkness. A few lonely cars passed by, a delivery van, a street-cleaning vehicle, the occasional taxi.