The White City

8

He left the comforting to Mama. He didn’t know what he could say that would alleviate Elena’s grief, so he said nothing. That felt wrong, too, and he knew that he couldn’t hide from that for ever. In fact, the longer he left it, the worse it would be. But he couldn’t do it now. He took himself aside and stared at Mary’s tail feathers until they merged with the clouded sky.

He would need to dig a grave. Two graves. Not next to each other. He had nothing to dig with but his hands, so he thought somewhere in the dunes would be best. Make them too deep, and the sides would collapse, burying him as well. What he’d end up with would be two shallow scrapes which, in time, would do nothing to deter scavengers. Perhaps the animals wouldn’t put in an appearance until after another boat had grown and the four of them were off the beach for good.

Four left. Grace gone God only knew where, Stanislav obliterated by lightning, Luiza pointlessly killed by the Wolfman. Who he, in turn, had killed.

Stanislav◦– his death had been an act of mercy, and even though Dalip had baited the trap, Down itself had pulled the trigger. The Wolfman◦– Daniel, he had a name after all◦– was a different matter. When they’d fought, it had seemed so straightforward. It was only after he’d won that Dalip started to gather his doubts about him. Had killing him been necessary?

His grandfather would have said yes. But this was the man who’d lied about his age and run away to war. He’d been fierce and proud and fearless, even in old age when Dalip had known him best. In the end, he’d been barely able to stand, but he’d still shake his fist at the television and shout obscure Punjabi curses at besuited politicians. He’d do the same to Dalip’s mother, but only after she’d left the room.

Protecting others was one of the reasons Sikhs carried a kirpan. And he’d failed to save the person he needed to. But there were all the unknown others the Wolfman would have gone on to kill, but now wouldn’t. Perhaps that was a good enough reason. There were no authorities for either of them to answer to. Yes, he was judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one, but the Wolfman was guilty, condemned by his own hand and words.

The gurus said it was right to draw the sword when all other means had failed. This is what they’d meant, even if he’d never quite understood that before.

He deliberately looked back at the scene off to his left. Elena keening over her cousin, head buried in Mama’s substantial chest and her frame rising and falling with her sobs, Luiza’s body now discarded on the sand like the driftwood they collected, and the Wolfman lying a little way off, spread-eagled and still.

This was all Crows’ doing. His fault◦– he’d planned it, set it in motion, and had simply shrugged his bony shoulders at the havoc he’d left in his long-vanished wake. For certain, he was more charming, more superficially decent, than the Wolfman. But underneath, he was far more dangerous, more lethal than even Bell, and she’d been cold, callous and cruel, entirely devoid of empathy and utterly self-centred.

Crows was, without doubt, the worst person he’d ever come across. He’d destroyed everything they’d salvaged from the wreckage of Bell’s castle. And for that, he would face the only kind of justice that could be delivered on Down. Dalip doubted whether Mary would do what was necessary: she liked Crows, and she was conflicted. So for the sake of everyone here, and yet to come, it would be Dalip Singh who rid this world of him.

Trying to untangle his decision from his own burning sense of betrayal and his terrible need for revenge was futile. If that was all there was, then he might have given himself a stern talking-to. But no, his cause was right, and the crime enormous. There was the evidence: two dead bodies, one of a friend, the other an enemy, and Crows’ baleful influence shrouded both.

There was nothing left to see on the horizon. Mary would come back when she’d said what she needed to say, done what she needed to do. Part of him wanted her to sink Crows’ boat and destroy the maps. But if they were the key to unlock Down, then keeping the collection intact was more important than Crows’ temporary wealth. It would also make it sweeter to take them back, afterwards.

He got up, machete in hand, and slogged up the dune to take the view from the top. There was no one in sight, even though he knew there were at least three men relatively close by. Down had a habit of just swallowing people up in its landscape: they could be miles away, or just over the next ridge.

‘I’ll be just over here,’ he called to Mama. ‘Shout if… you know. If.’

Mama nodded. She turned herself to try and shield Elena from the bodies, to lead her away, but it didn’t work. She patted Elena on the back and let her cry.

It left Dalip wishing for all the alternatives. If Down was a time machine, then maybe, just maybe, there was a way around this.

He slid down the face of the dune, then walked along the slack to where the boat had been birthed. There was a hollow in the sand, and a track, broken by wide, collapsing footprints, where the keel had been dragged out towards the sea.

There would be fewer of them on the beach, waiting for the next boat to fruit. It might be smaller, and it might take more time to grow. Assuming it did. If nothing happened, they’d have to leave.

He climbed the next dune inland and took stock again. Below him was a long marshy area, green with thin weeds and scummy algae. He was half-minded to toss the Wolfman’s remains in there, despite his faith tradition of cremation. The Wolfman didn’t deserve the correct observances. All the same, Dalip knew he was going to do his best anyway. No one was going to applaud him for the choices he made. They might even criticise him for them. It didn’t matter. He was the one who was responsible for what he did, and he wanted to be able to live with his decisions.

He descended to almost the bottom, and turned to face the slope. He cut through the tough grasses and their long, fibrous roots, sawing with the machete blade until he could pull back a mat of vegetation. Underneath was grey-brown sandy soil, some of which spilled out of the hole, but as he dug further, it kept its shape and the sides didn’t slump into the void. He cut and pulled and dug and scooped, until he had a trench six foot long and a couple of feet wide, big enough to shove a body into, without much ceremony, and cover over again. If he went much further into the dune face, the ground would slip, and as well as working hard for no result, he’d be in danger of getting caught in a major slide.

So he stopped, thought it good enough, and went to collect the Wolfman.

He walked back to the beach, wondering how to do it. If someone died in Southall, the family gathered and the undertakers were called. Prayers were recited, the Guru Granth Sahib read, the body burned in the local crematorium and the ashes scattered into the Thames.

Death was, in reality, messy. There was the head wound, the hand wound, and the post-mortem bowel movement, none of which he wanted to get close to. He circled the Wolfman, lips pursed, and made an abortive grab for the wolfskin cloak. He pulled, realised it would simply come off in his hands, and let go again.

Mama frowned at him, and dipped her head towards the Wolfman’s feet.

‘Come with me, sweetheart,’ she said to Elena. ‘Dalip’s going to see to things here.’

Dalip waited for them to reach a respectable distance before reaching down and grasping the Wolfman’s ankles.

How much did a soul weigh? In the Wolfman’s case, it must have been a lot, because his mortal remains seemed incongruously light. Dalip dragged him away, face down, arms trailing, then at the top of the first dune sent him rolling down the landward slope to the bottom. The body tumbled and flopped, coming to an awkward rest on its back.

He stood over the Wolfman, staring at the way the sand clung to his grey skin and infested his glazed open eyes. Where had the animating spirit gone? Had it merged with the Godhead, as he hoped he would one day? Had it already been recycled as some base creature with no thought or consciousness? The tattered remains of the Wolfman were just that: discarded clothes, an empty husk, worn and used. There was nothing there to be mourned. He took hold of the ankles again and dragged the corpse up the next rise, before easing it down next to the freshly prepared grave.

It turned out that the Wolfman had been shorter than Dalip, which surprised him as he’d loomed very much larger. His feet, however, looked roughly the same size. He remembered a conversation with Mary, weeks ago, just after they’d arrived in Down. His own boots had been ruined by the fire, and she’d suggested taking someone else’s◦– after they’d died, of course.

And here they were, a dead man’s boots. Dalip stared at them for a while, before unlacing them and slipping them off. They were worn, and their construction was workmanlike. The laces were thongs, the sole thick tanned leather, the uppers soft and supple. He knocked them out, and tried them on. His own feet were hard with calluses, but it felt good to wear them.

It got Dalip to wondering if the boots were the only thing the Wolfman could offer him. He’d already started down that road. It would seem foolish not to take it to its logical end, even if it meant rummaging through a dead man’s pockets◦– distasteful, perhaps, but in a world where manufactured goods were at a premium, necessary.

He put his doubts aside, and started to peel back the layers of clothing.

There were a lot of them, accreted like paint on an old door. Some of them were almost dust, a few spidered threads suggesting the outline of a garment. Some were more substantial, and a few had items of note in them: coins of various ages, dull brown wheels of copper and blackened silver, impressed with the unreadable faces of kings and sometimes queens; jewellery◦– a chain, a bracelet, again tarnished to inglorious trinkets, a gold ring worn so thin its edges were sharp; a tooth, an actual tooth, roots and everything, with half its mass made of yellow metal.

Dalip guessed they were trophies of a sort, things taken from the Wolfman’s unwilling, unwitting victims as tokens of his prowess at lying, cheating and killing.

Then there was a white oval that sat in the hollow of his hand like a small egg. He frowned at its incongruous natural shape and its obviously artificial origin. Its surface was rough with a thousand tiny scratches, and there was an obvious finger-shaped dimple on the fat end so that it would sit up when placed on a table.

It wasn’t made of stone, more a hard plastic that was warm to the touch. He tapped it with a fingernail, and it sounded hollow. There was no obvious way in, no continuous line describing its circumference, no screw holes or cover to open.

There was no way of asking after previous owners, either, which gave Dalip a moment of wry, black humour.

‘Take your secrets with you, Wolfman,’ he said to the corpse. ‘We’ll work it out without you.’

He pocketed the items and arranged the body the best he could on its ledge. He took a double handful of dirt and cast it up. It settled in clumps, and he went back for another and another, scooping and flinging, until the human shape became softened and obscured. He hesitated for a moment when the last of the Wolfman’s face was about to be swallowed by the rising soil, then came to some sort of accommodation with what he was doing◦– burying a man that he’d killed◦– before finishing the job by relaying the square mats of scrubby plants he’d cut out.

He pressed them down, wiped his hands on his thighs, and acknowledged that he hadn’t done a bad job, considering that it was his first attempt.

But if burying someone who hated him and wanted to kill him had been hard, how much more difficult would it be for a friend, who he’d shared meals and journeys and captivity and escape with?

As he tramped back to the beach, his new-old boots unfamiliar on his feet, he thought again about cremation. The sheer amount of wood they’d need pretty much ruled it out for Luiza: the one he’d witnessed in India had had a bier of densely stacked cut logs almost as tall as he was, that extended out both lengthways and widthways beyond the body laid neatly on top. Anything less wouldn’t be sufficient to make ashes◦– and the memory of the thick black smoke spiralling away into the sky had stayed with him for weeks. He didn’t think that Elena was ready for that.

Then there was also the matter of a ceremony. Luiza was a Christian of some sort, while he most certainly wasn’t. Mama was, but he didn’t know what type. And he didn’t know how seriously Luiza had taken her religion. Not that she was necessarily going to care, because her soul had returned to the cycle of rebirth that included all of humanity. Or there was Heaven and Hell, neither of which he believed in.

He’d leave it to Mama. That seemed safest.

Dalip climbed back up the shoreward-most dune and stared out to sea. There was no sign of either Mary or Crows’ boat. He checked the sun, and was surprised to see it had slid around to the south-west. Hours had passed. He scanned the horizon again, from side to side, but there was nothing.

He ignored the ice-water feeling in his stomach, and slipped down the face of the dune to where Luiza was lying. Mama was with Elena down on the strand line, Mama’s arm over Elena’s shoulder, and looking determinedly away from the land.

He really didn’t want to have to do this, and yet there was no one else.

Was this what defined adulthood, then? Doing what was necessary? His own father was so mild and inoffensive, intent on passing through life with barely making a ripple, he couldn’t imagine the man doing what he was doing now. His grandfather◦– yes, he knew that he had, in those numerous jungle engagements conducted at almost point-blank range, where the enemy dead were hurriedly hidden in shallow scrapes in the ground.

He slid his hands under Luiza’s armpits and straightened his back. She was stiffening, and her head wasn’t sure whether to fall forward, or roll back. Her skin was cold and inelastic, but her hair still fluttered with the breeze. He could see where the blond strands faded into dark roots.

She wore no jewellery but a little gold stud in each earlobe. No rings, no necklace, nothing to pass to Elena with his condolences. He still didn’t know how he was going to offer those.

He dragged her to the top of the dune, down the other side, and stopped where the boat had been born. Here? Further along? Would burying her near where the boat had grown cause problems with the fruiting of another one?

What would Down think of the intrusion? Would it notice? Would it mind one way or the other? And if he was already having thoughts about Down being alive, and having a personality, why not go all the way and behave like it was true? Because it made as much sense as anything else◦– more sense than treating this world the same as he had his old one.

If he was sad, how could he communicate that to Down? By burying someone he had cared about on one of its lines of power.

He excavated the hollow made by the boat, enlarging it downwards and into the dune. The sand was slippery and soft, the grains trickling down to fill the hole almost as quickly as he dug. But slowly, the sides began to keep their shape, and it was more or less noon by the time he’d done what he thought others would consider enough.

He lifted Luiza into the hole, arranged her with her arms folded across her stomach, closed her eyes with tentative brushes of his fingers. She looked, if not at peace, at least at a slightly perturbed rest. Her hands partially covered the rent in her overalls and the ugly dark stain. Flowers and reeds from the waterlogged slack over the next dune would hide the rest.

He went to collect a posy, checking over his shoulder as he climbed, expecting to see Mary swoop in at every moment. She’d been gone now for hours: five, maybe six. He didn’t know if Crows could hide the boat like he could hide himself. Maybe he could, and that was what was delaying her. Instead of searching for the single boat in an open sea, she’d be searching for an ephemeral wake amongst the wind-blown waves.

How long could she stay aloft, looking? Even when they’d been searching for him before, she’d taken rests. At sea, there were no convenient perches, so where was she? Either she’d found him, or she hadn’t. Either way, she should be back with them by now.

He stood on top of the dune and looked for her. What if she’d lost her bearings, ended up on a different part of the coast and was struggling to find them? They’d relied on Crows and Mary for both fire and food. They’d burned driftwood and eaten fish while waiting for the boat to grow. He was already tired, hungry and thirsty, and tonight, he’d be cold.

What if she didn’t come back? She’d gone alone, impulsive and angry, to challenge Crows. He could have killed her. Incapacitated her enough to bring her down. She’d be left miles from dry land. She couldn’t swim well. She’d drown.

He swallowed hard. Such thoughts were unworthy of both him and her. She knew how much was at stake. She wouldn’t take stupid risks.

He started to pray for her return in order to stave off his growing despair.