Long have two springs in dull stagnation slept,
But taught at length by subtle art to flow,
They rise; forth from oblivion’s bed they rise;
And manifest their vengeance to mankind.
What was it advertising, a Goth pub? There was nothing printed on the back. The stag-man was still there when they left the Keys several hours later, and this time his appearance was more memorable, perhaps because he stood out in stark silhouette against the electric darkness. From the way he was weaving about beside the bridge, he appeared to have been drinking.
She recalled thinking that the sky was strange, a sickly ochre reflection of the radiant city beneath. The air was cold and gritty, and left a cuprous tang in the mouth, like being near a steelworks or in the proximity of blood. The night was not right. They had argued over something ridiculous—a spilled drink—and left. A lone girl was tottering ahead of them, fawn-thin legs in a too-short dress. She looked awkward, frozen and friendless, as if, leached of life and colour, she might fall over and expire at any moment.
Izabella was still sniping at Piotr on their way to the night bus stop, a hectoring banter they had evolved when they were feeling frazzled and fractious. She saw the thin girl approaching the bridge from the corner of her eye, saw her long black hair whip up around her dark eyes, and then the stag-man was there as well, towering over her. Backlit by the canal lamps behind the bridge, Izabella saw his antlers glitter and fracture the light. She heard the girl scream or laugh hysterically, but the sound was snatched away by the wind. She watched in shock as he lifted her up, placing her under one arm, and seemed to drop beneath the bridge.
By the time Izabella reached the spot with Piotr, there was no sign of either of them. No ripple on the petrol-iridescent surface of the canal, only the cold breeze from the tunnel and a fading sigh in the trees, as if the pair had evaporated into the thickening mist like a pair of exorcised ghosts.
16
FIRST DAY
I spent two hours at something called the King’s Cross Police Shop in the early hours of this morning, waiting to be seen, and after I got to make a report they made a phone call and finally sent me to you, only you weren’t open, ‘Izabella told DS Janice Longbright. All I wanted to do was explain what I saw, okay?’ She took a look around the room and wrinkled her nose, trying to make sense of it. ‘This isn’t a police station. What is this place?’
‘We’re in the process of moving in,’ said Longbright. ‘We’re a specialist unit.’
‘What do you specialise in, pest control? I just saw something in the hall that looked like a rat.’
Smart mouth, thought Longbright. She’ll make a good witness. ‘Yeah, we have a few of those. Look, I’ve read your statement and I know you’re telling the truth about the man you saw, but are you sure he actually abducted someone?’
‘I was with my—’ She stopped herself. ‘A friend. He saw it, too. The dressed-up guy, he was pretty big—’
‘How big?’
‘I don’t know—he had to reach down to her, he put her under his arm, actually under his arm, she was a skinny little thing, then when I looked back they were gone.’
‘You think they went down onto the canal?’
‘No idea. The path to the waterside is further back along the road. I’d have seen them if they’d used it, but I suppose they might have ducked into the tunnel. They disappeared so quickly I thought I must have imagined it.’
‘Did you?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘This girl, she didn’t fight back?’
‘I don’t know. I guess so—I mean I saw her hands go up in the air and I think I heard her scream.’
‘What do you mean, you think?’
‘At first I thought it was a laugh, like maybe she thought he was joking, but it turned into something that sounded like a scream.’
‘What did she look like? If I was trying to recognise her in the street, how would you describe her to me?’
‘Skinny, very pale, wearing a short pink skirt with little black ruffles, black high heels, dark hair. Maybe there was more colour—you can’t really tell under those yellow streetlights. She was kind of invisible, like everyone else who comes out of a club. I didn’t see her face.’
Not much to put out a MisPer for, thought Longbright. ‘And no-one apart from you saw what happened?’
‘No, it gets really quiet around there before the Keys shuts down. I couldn’t do anything because they were too far away and it happened so fast, but you hear about bad things happening to girls by themselves, and I hate the idea that she might have been abducted without anyone coming forward.’