The Search

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

He left the hotel early and, with the aid of the map, began to duplicate Malory’s route through the city, trying to pass through each place at the same time that Malory had done. As he did so he was conscious as never before of the number of people with cameras. In the course of the day he would be caught dozens of times in a tourist’s photo.

He saw the things Malory had seen: a cloud idling through the sky, ice-cream sellers, children, couples in T-shirts and slacks, people reading. He saw a pair of sunglasses lying crushed in the road, the darting shadows of birds, cigarette butts in the grass around the ancient walls. He noticed everything and everything he saw was like a memory. Nothing surprised him. What he saw dissolved instantly into memory as if some intermediate stage in the process of cognition had been skipped. He kept thinking of ways to articulate and understand what was happening but knew from experience that it was better just to let it happen, to let everything fall into place as it had to, without his understanding.

The day moved on, morning led to afternoon. He saw the sun congregate in piazzas, grit lying between cobbles; he saw the cool darkness of rooms where lives were going on. He drank a coffee in a bar whose walls were lined with photos of local football heroes. He stared at the brown flecks of foam in his cup. Crystals of spilt sugar. A rind of lemon in a glass. The twisted butts of cigarettes in an ashtray. A crumpled serviette. On the table next to him was an empty cup with a print of lipstick on the rim. Was it possible, he wondered, to reconstruct the identity of the woman who had been drinking from just that smudge of pink? Her life, the way she spent her days, the things she had seen, the men she had loved?

When he came out of the bar the light was turning lemon, preparing to fade. He continued following Malory’s route around the city, passing through a maze of narrow streets until he found himself in front of the cathedral. Clustered round the square, squat homes jostled for space, their needs dwarfed by the vastness of the cathedral’s spatial claim. Walker looked up at the twin towers rearing above him, his eyes dragged skyward. The cathedral leapt upwards, every part of it straining to be higher than every other part. Graceful, full of grace.

The sun slipped behind the other buildings of the town, leaving only the twin towers of the cathedral in sunlight. Walker pushed open the wooden door and walked in. The cathedral was empty, no people and no pews. Walker made his way up the nave, his footsteps disturbing a silence distilled over five hundred years, accentuated by the clamour of vaulting overhead. The air smelt stagnant and fresh, reminding him of the chapel in the country. Flowers blowing by the old walls, brown earth. Purple and yellow petals, moving in the wind.

He looked up at the stained-glass windows where imploring figures blazed with colour: a knight in blue-white armour, a woman clutching a golden cup in both hands as if simultaneously praying and offering it to him. He walked past waving candle flames, the tombs of dead knights.

In front of the altar was a lectern and a heavy Bible. He opened the Bible at the page indicated by a dark ribbon and found an envelope there, crushed flat by the weight of pages, his name written in ink. The sound of ripping paper reverberated around the cathedral as he tugged open the envelope. Inside, folded in three, were the documents Rachel had given to him, signed and fingerprinted. He flicked through the papers and looked inside the packet again, searching for a note of explanation. Nothing.

The whine of hinges made him turn around. Three figures, Carver in the middle, were silhouetted as sunlight squeaked in through the open door. Walker moved into the shadows of the choir. The door swung shut. The three figures made their way towards him.

Walker knew nothing about the layout of a cathedral: if there were other doors he had no idea where they might be. Instead of a door he found himself by the steps leading up to one of the cathedral’s twin towers. Glancing back at the figures moving methodically through the nave, he began climbing up the cold wide steps. The spiral of the stairs gradually tightened. He heard footsteps coming up behind him; he was being forced upwards, his options narrowing the higher he got.

As the footsteps drew closer he waited at a sharp twist in the stairs, his hand grasping the spine from which the stairs spiralled out. A man’s head — Walker recognized him from the roof at Ascension — bobbed into sight. A second later his peering eyes looked up as Walker’s foot smashed into his throat. He tumbled down the steps and Walker charged after him, catching him again full in the face as he scrambled to his knees. He grabbed Walker’s ankle and they both crashed down more steps. He had ended up on top of Walker. His knees were pressing down on his chest, fingers digging into his throat. Shifting his weight, Walker succeeded in toppling him over and down the steps. Walker scrambled to his feet, clutched the rope hand-rail and kicked at him again. The man covered his head and rolled further down the stairs so that it seemed they would go on and on like this with Walker dribbling him back to the floor of the cathedral. He lashed out at him again and this time he became wedged in the curve of the stairs and lay still.

He could hear more footsteps below. He stood for a moment, breathing heavily, unsure what to do, and then moved on up again. Blurs of purple and orange flashed before his eyes. He came to a small recess and a door which was locked shut by age. He kicked at it and the door tore loose from one of its hinges, the late sun blazing red through the gap. He kicked at the door again and it came completely free, a bird’s nest smashing apart as it crashed open, two eggs dropping through the air and smashing on the narrow ledge. He stooped through the door, surrounded by red-tinged sky, his feet slithering in shattered egg. He was on a narrow ledge that ran around the tower. A bird squawked and lunged at his head: the flap of filthy wings, the eye-jabbing beak. He swiped the bird away, thought of trying to move out around the ledge but realized it was pointless — they would guess exactly where he was. He moved back in and ran up a few more steps before crouching silently in the twist of the stairs.

Seconds later he heard someone go into the recess from which he had just emerged. He tried to imagine the man’s movements, pictured him looking at the sun-filled doorway, guessing that Walker had moved out on to the ledge but hesitating for one, two, three seconds before stepping out after him.

Walker, too, hesitated for crucial seconds and then stepped quietly down and back into the recess. There was no one there: he had moved out on to the ledge. Immediately, the figure appeared back in the doorway, black against the red sun. They saw each other at the same moment. Walker ran towards him. Crouching awkwardly, the silhouette braced himself and kicked out. A foot caught Walker on the side of the head but he shoved through the flailing arms and feet until they were both on the far side of the shattered door. He continued shoving at the figure who was pounding at him with one hand and grabbing on to the rusted hinge, trying to anchor himself, with the other. Walker wrenched a hand free and shoved him back towards the edge. He had lost his balance but was grabbing at Walker’s lapels, dragging him as he stumbled out on to the ledge. They were both about to go over. Walker pushed once more, shrugged his shoulders and pulled back so that his jacket came over his shoulders and off. His assailant stumbled back, one step, two, clutching the jacket as if a flapping bird were attacking him. The next second there was nothing there except the sun’s vacant redness.

Walker moved up again. His legs burned with the strain of running, air scorched his throat. The steps led eventually to a locked door that he couldn’t budge. He moved back down until he came to a narrow paneless window. Leaning out he saw a ledge, just wide enough to enable him to move along to a decorative stone tendril running up to the roof of the tower.

Hearing footsteps below he squeezed through the vaulted window and on to the ledge. From here the whole city appeared to have congregated around the cathedral. In the distance the foil flatness of the river glinted orange-pink. Gazing down, the sky seemed to have been stitched into the fabric of the building, into the narrow windows and flying buttresses. Everything was vertical except the distant curve of the horizon. It was not just the fact of his being pursued: something inherent in the cathedral itself drove him upwards.

The ledge was barely wide enough for his feet but there were sufficient handholds above his head to enable him to steady himself and move along slowly. He felt the wind plucking his clothes. A storm was blowing in over the city. He shuffled further and felt the ledge crumbling beneath his foot. Taking as much of his weight as possible on his hands he tentatively moved his foot, but the ledge was too worn to support him. It was impossible to go any further. He began to move back the way he had come.

Still three feet from the window, he saw Carver. He had climbed halfway through the window. One arm was curled round the central pillar of the window, in the other he held a rusted crowbar. There was nothing Walker could do: in one direction Carver was barring his retreat, in the other the ledge was unable to support his weight.

Carver was speaking but the wind snatched away his words. Then Walker heard him say, ‘So this is it. The choice is yours. Either you hand over the envelope — or I pick it out of whatever’s left of you when you hit the floor.’

The sky was growing dark. Oil-spill clouds rolled over the city.

‘So which is it to be?’

Every moment was like every other. Walker said nothing.

‘I almost forgot,’ Carver said. ‘I’ve got something for you. You left it in the hotel.’ He put down the crowbar and reached into his pocket. Tossed a silver chain towards Walker. It landed on the ledge, close to his feet, slithered out of sight.

When he looked up again Carver had picked up the crowbar. He leaned out further from the window and swiped at Walker, catching him on the elbow. Sparks of pain shot up his arm. He inched his way along the ledge, digging his fingers into the old stones. He stretched his right foot a few inches further and felt the ledge start to flake away. This was it: he could not go even an inch further. Carver swiped at him again, smashing the knuckles of his left hand. His fingers slid from the wall, numbed by the blow. Still anchored by his right hand, he swung out in a short arc, left foot slipping clear of the ledge. Now he was facing out from the wall, scrabbling to find a purchase for his left heel, waiting for the life to return to his hand. He glimpsed the remains of the egg, smeared over the toe of his shoe like a smashed body seen from high above.

Thunder rumbled over the houses beyond the river. An army of clouds moved across the sky.

Walker glanced across at the cathedral’s twin tower, gargoyles jutting out from it. In the distance, a thin jerk of lightning. Carver swung at him again, missed. The swish of air had been almost enough to swat him from the wall. He saw Carver lean out still further, so far that he had to clutch the edge of the window with his hand to support himself, preparing to strike. The seconds grew enormous, vast as lifetimes. Carver was drawing back his arm. Walker looked out across to the other tower.

He bent his knees and sprang out, diving for the opposite tower. The sky gasped. Air rushed around him. He fell through the net of sky.

His hands clamped around a gargoyle, ripping muscles in both shoulders. The impact was so sudden his right hand slipped clear. Before he had time to reach up again and steady himself his left hand, swollen, unable to take the weight, slipped free and he was falling again — until the fingers of his right hand hooked around the teeth of the gargoyle: hanging by one arm from the mouth of a monster, stone teeth biting into his hand.

The first sigh of rain. He threw his other arm up over the ridged back of the gargoyle. As he did so the whole of its lower jaw gave way in his hand, embedding in his fingers for a second and then disappearing before that arm curled around the gargoyle’s neck too. His shoulders were on fire but he was able to swing his legs up, locking them around the gargoyle’s back so that he was embracing it, his face inches from the leer of its shattered mouth.

Thunder boomed. The sky was full of rain, the gargoyle was spitting water in his face. He hung there, regaining his strength. Then began pulling and twisting himself around and on top of the gargoyle, one knee crooked over its spine, the other swinging clear. Grabbing its ear and using it as a belay point he hauled himself up and around until he was straddling the gargoyle like a wounded man, slumped over a stone pony in the drenching rain.

He vomited into the darkness. Lightning lashed the city. He looked across at the other tower but could see no sign of Carver.

Using the wall for balance, he shifted his position and began to move his feet on to the back of the gargoyle. The effort made him giddy but once he had steadied himself he began pushing upwards, his back and arms flattened against the wall until he was standing upright. His feet wobbled and shook on the narrow spine as he turned half around, looking for handholds, for a way of pulling himself on to the roof of the tower. At full stretch he hooked his fingers around a ridge of stone, greasy with rain. He paused, waiting for the giddiness to fade. Blood rushed to his head, nausea was welling up in him again. When it had passed he hauled himself up, scrabbling with his feet until he found a foothold. Knowing he would never make it if he waited, he pushed with his legs and pulled with one arm, the fingers of the other groping blindly and then curling over the edge of the roof. Taking his weight on that hand he reached up with the other. Then, knowing that only one final exertion was needed, he hauled himself up until his shoulders were level with the roof. He locked one arm over the low parapet and dragged himself up. Collapsed on to the roof.

Blood thundered in his head. Dark lightning. Rain jabbing him awake. His head was in a puddle of black water. He raised himself on one elbow, pain wincing through his shoulder. Dragged himself to a sitting position.

The puddles all around were silvered by lightning. When he looked up he saw Carver shivering towards him through the rain.

He watched Carver draw closer, so exhausted that even the reflex of fear barely worked, too weak and full of pain to move. He started to speak but his voice was drenched by thunder exploding all around. By the time the noise echoed away, even the impulse to speak had left him. He squinted up through the rain stinging his face. Carver loomed over him, raising the crowbar like an axe.

Walker stared up. Waiting for everything to be over with as the sky split in two around Carver. Lightning leapt down the crowbar, igniting the figure holding it. Flames licked his head and body. The moment held like a vast camera flash. Then he toppled forward in the darkness. The smell of burning, the blackened shape steaming in the rain.

Walker lay where he was, rain lashing his face, his eyes scarred with the image of Carver blasted by lightning, arm and crowbar raised triumphantly as if he had summoned the power that consumed him. Walker looked across at the cathedral’s twin tower, ghastly through the rain.

Lightning shuddered over the city.

Thunder like a huge groan.