Twenty-Four Hours Read online

  “Alleluia!” said a new voice. “Things must have gone well this weekend for drunk drivers.”

  Ellis, puzzled once more by senseless comment, turned to see Monty, standing in the doorway and looking towards David with that expression of gentle malice that seemed most natural to him.

  “Well, it’s true that people in my line of business reflect cosmic Kismet,” David replied so smoothly that Ellis felt sure he had said this many times before.

  “Monty, Shelley’s gone missing,” said Ursa. “It looks as if it’s some kind of kidnapping. Jackie and I are going to try to find Jason just in case he saw someone nosing around our place this morning.”

  “Ask Mystique first,” suggested Monty. “She was here last night, wasn’t she?” He did not sound particularly interested, however.

  “But Shelley was here first thing this morning!” cried Leona.

  “Mystique was just cadging a free meal because Winston was working late or something,” Jackie declared. “No way would she have taken Shelley back. She’s crazy about Winston at present and, if she turned up with a little kid, she wouldn’t see Winston for broken glass and dust.”

  “And black eyes,” added Fox.

  “We’ll try the cemetery,” Ursa declared. “Jason hangs out there with Jane Bell and that other kid … someone or other Lockie.”

  “Catherine Lockie,” Fox said.

  “Well, I’ll come, too. And so will Ellis, won’t you, old buddy?” said Jackie, directing a beguiling glance in Ellis’s direction.

  “Why drag poor Ellis into our mess?” asked Ursa.

  “Because if they make a run for it we’ll need a back-up team of four,” said Jackie. “North, East, South and – what’s that other one.”

  “Don’t joke!” begged Leona.

  “I don’t mind helping,” said Ellis, “but I haven’t any idea what we’re looking for – besides Shelley, that is – or where we’re going.”

  “I’m coming, too,” cried Fox, leaping eagerly to her feet.

  “No way! One of us has to answer the phone,” said Ursa. “There might be another message.” A look of doubt crossed her face as she spoke. She glanced at Leona. “Leo, you’d better come with us. Jason likes you, and he might remember something for you that he wouldn’t remember for Jackie or me.”

  “Of course, I’ll be here to hold the fort,” said Monty in his strange, self-pitying voice. “I’m not totally incompetent. I could even write down a message if I put my mind to it.”

  “I’d come, as well …” began David, talking to Ursa rather than to Leona. “The only thing is …”

  “David, one glimpse of you stalking in between the gravestones and those kids would run for miles,” said Ursa. “They’d probably take you for a vampire, whereas Leona and I are just bits of local scenery. And you’re not coming either, Foxy! OK – so Monty can answer the phone, but we need you to hand him the pen in case he has to write down any messages.”

  “I thank you for your confidence,” said Monty, rolling his eyes heavenwards. But David, Ellis thought indignantly, was looking distinctly relieved.

  “Well,” he began, “I do have work waiting for me …” but he did not complete his sentence.

  “Let’s go now!” said Leona, not listening to him.

  David turned towards her.

  “It’ll be all right, Leo,” he said with such authoritative kindness that Ellis felt sure he must have been practising that reassuring voice for years.

  Jackie sidled up to Ellis.

  “Don’t worry!” he said. “You won’t have to think at all.”

  “Don’t think I could,” sighed Ellis.

  “All we want from you is blind obedience,” said Jackie. “Just do what I tell you to do. Can you bring off a running tackle if you have to? Were you in the first fifteen at your school?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was,” Ellis replied, glad of the chance to show off a little in front of Leona.

  “Games are just practice for real life,” Jackie declared in a school-teacherish voice. “Remember that. Now, follow me.”

  10.00 am – Saturday

  Ellis followed Ursa and Fox out to where his mother’s car was parked. All around him lay a country of rust and graffitied fences.

  At the sight of the car, he began searching his pockets desperately, filled with fear.

  “By the way,” said Jackie, half-turning his head to talk over his shoulder. “I’ve got your car keys. I took them last night. You were set on driving home.”

  Ellis nodded with relief and tried to look humble. Then he saw that the back-door handle had disappeared. There was nothing but a round hole where it had been, a hole which stared back at him like a sad little black eye. Ursa had also noticed it.

  “Did you have money in the car?” she asked.

  “No,” said Ellis wearily, feeling the back pocket of his jeans. His money was safely there. “My mother might have. She had tapes and things in the glovebox. Hell!”

  He ran ahead and tried the back door of the car which opened all too easily. He could see that someone had gone through the glove-box, as well as the pockets inside the doors. The floor under the steering wheel was covered with maps, pens and the car’s handbook. On the passenger seat lay one of his mother’s scarves, along with a mileage recorder issued by an accounting firm.

  The car smelt like the inside of a seaside lavatory.

  “Someone’s peed in here,” he said incredulously.

  “Sorry!” said Ursa, catching up with him. She looked over his shoulder, sniffing and pulling a face. “Not that I did it, mind you. But, sorry, all the same, because I didn’t think about putting your car in a garage. Everyone round here knows Monty’s car and they know it won’t ever have any money in it. It’s away right now, having rust cut out of it, so it’s like my computer, if ever I get it back – more trouble than it’s worth. Of course, though, it does confer status.”

  “There’s no status about being carless,” said Jackie.

  “Never mind!” said Ellis, standing back and slamming the door shut. “Let’s find out about Shelley.” But he could not entirely hide the fact that he was furious … furious with the Land-of-Smiles, as well as with Leona and Jackie who had walked on by as if the car didn’t matter. He was furious, too, with Ursa’s fatalistic, almost careless attitude. But most of all he was furious with himself for letting this happen to his mother’s cherished car.

  “None of it makes any sense, you know,” Ursa remarked to him as they hurried to overtake Leona and Jackie, stalking ahead of them. “Someone’s having us on. I mean, the man who rang … he didn’t ask for money, did he?” Ellis shook his head. “That’s the only thing people round here want. And, like I said, everyone knows we haven’t got any.”

  “Someone stole your computer, though,” Ellis reminded her sourly.

  “Whoever stole it is in for a big disappointment,” said Ursa, as they overtook the other two. “Well, at least your car’s still there,” she said, sounding a little subdued. “Nobody’s hotwired it or anything.”

  “Lucky me!” said Ellis sourly. Ursa looked sideways at him. Then she patted his shoulder.

  “Keep on snarling!” she said. “It’s the only way.”

  10.20 am – Saturday

  “We’ll go in by the Rutherford Rise entrance,” Leona was saying, as Ursa and Jackie caught up with them.

  “Are you sure?” said Jackie, unexpectedly doubtful. “I mean, past events and all that …”

  “We’re not wimps,” Ursa declared. “We’re more than a match for the past.”

  Ellis had no idea what they were talking about.

  “For God’s sake,” he said. “Forget the past. Let’s just find this Jason and see if he’s got any idea where Shelley could be.”

  Leona smiled at him, pleased to hear someone pushing things along. Ellis’s heart gave a small jump of pleasure.

  Start small, he found himself thinking, without quite knowing what he meant by this. The phrase
just skipped through his mind.

  “Money?” cried Ursa.

  “We won’t need money,” exclaimed Leona impatiently. “We’re going to a cemetery not a supermarket.”

  “I’ve got money,” said Ellis, putting his hand in the back pocket of his jeans and taking out various notes roughly rolled together.

  In spite of the family crisis Leona, Jackie and Ursa all came to a standstill and stared at the money in his hand. Then, for the first time, it seemed to Ellis that they all looked at him with respect.

  “Well, it’s there if we need it,” he said lightly, and quickly slid it into his pocket again.

  “Just hurry!” said Leona sharply.

  Jackie and Ursa quickened their pace, and Ellis was left walking behind them once more. His head pounded – once … twice … then settled down to a sullen ache. His stomach gave a small nudging heave, but Ellis found he was able to ignore it. He felt himself straightening and becoming more his usual self. It was amazing how much difference even a little money could make.

  10.30 am – Saturday

  Coming out of Garden Lane and into Moncrieff Street, they walked in the opposite direction to the flow of cars advancing implacably towards them. Ellis took a deep breath, aware of the smell of rubber, diesel, and exhaust fumes as they approached the line of old shops.

  Kurl-up & Dye, said a flamboyant print on a shop window, and as Ellis was wondering why that particular name seemed vaguely familiar, someone inside scuttled to the door.

  “Looking great!” called Pandora, waving as he passed by. “Am I an artist, or am I an artist?”

  Ellis smiled weakly. “Great! Thanks!” he called back, waving as he walked on rapidly, lost memories of the night before slowly reasserting themselves. And now they were passing a narrow section filled with weeds, rubbish and parked cars.

  Yet this waste space was no longer a simple sign of inner-city decay. It had been turned into a strange statement of some kind, dominated by three vast, bright ghosts, towering above Ellis and smiling out into Moncrieff Street. The blank wall of the building ahead had been whitewashed, and on the white background someone had painted three huge portraits with photographic accuracy – three people Ellis found he knew. One was of Pandora herself, her right hand tucked coquettishly behind her head. Beside her loomed a vast painted version of Phipps, flourishing what looked like needles between his illustrated fingers, while his grey ponytail blew out horizontally in a wind that nobody else could feel. Back to back with Phipps was a portrait of Monty, smiling, and at the same time wincing at the continual flow of traffic. Speech balloons hovered above the three disconcertingly recognisable heads.

  “Let me put my mark on you?” Phipps was suggesting to Pandora. “Hair! Hair!” she was replying, while Monty admonished passers-by in Moncrieff Street, “Never forget the Orono Indians!”

  Jackie must have sensed Ellis’s astonishment for he looked back at him, then glanced up at the wall.

  “You were going the wrong way to see it last night,” he remarked. “Great, isn’t it?”

  “Who on earth did it?” asked Ellis, for those pictures must have taken time and talent.

  “Bloke called Weasely Morton,” said Jackie. “Wesley, really. Art student. He was shacked up in the Land-of-Smiles for a while, which he loved – also for a while. Anyhow, he thought art should be out and about – everyone living with it whenever they walked to the shop to buy bread – and he did several of these paintings round about here. But then he gave in to a job-offer and moved north. If he paints anything nowadays it probably winds up in a gallery where only qualified art-lovers can see it. But our Phippo loves that mural, and every now and then he climbs up a ladder and alters the words in the speech balloons.”

  Across the road Ellis saw the sign declaring that it was never too late for breakfast. And it seemed to be true, for there were tables on the pavement, and the smell of bacon and sausage drifting across the road.

  The line of shops ended in that curious triangular building thrusting out towards the endlessly advancing traffic, rather like the prow of a ship confronting oncoming waves. Overhead, the electric blonde of the Legges NiteClub grinned up Moncrieff Street. In daylight, with no bright current coursing through her, he could see she had three curving calves, three ankles and three high-heeled shoes hanging at different angles below her right knee, which was crossed over her left one. From its elbow, her right arm sprouted three forearms.

  And there was Phipps himself, leaning in a doorway to the left of the closed nightclub door, sleeves rolled up to show his illustrated arms.

  Sepulchre Tattoos, said a sign, and an arrow pointed up a narrow stair. A brightly-painted poster suggested the various designs with which any passer-by could be decorated if he chose – roses, Maori designs, skulls, tigers and anchors.

  “Hi, Phippo!” said Ursa, waving. She did this in a way that reminded Ellis of someone touching wood for luck – just to be on the safe side. The lights changed and she charged forward again, following Leona and Jackie.

  “What’s the rush?” called Phipps after them. “Lost something?”

  Ellis half-heard these words as he too began to cross the road. There was a mocking note in Phipps’s voice that teased his ear, and even made him look back over his shoulder.

  Phipps was watching them with something approaching derision. His mouth opened as if to say something else, but the others were already halfway across the road. Anxious not to find himself adrift in this short stretch of city which had suddenly become a world within a world, Ellis set off after them at a steady jog.

  10.40 am – Saturday

  Turning in at elaborate iron gates, wide open and bolted back, they entered the Moncrieff Street cemetery. Flat slabs lay unevenly tilted in the grass like pages of a demolished book, the names and dates made illegible by weather and moss. More elaborate tombstones rose above them – scrolls, columns and angels’ heads bent as if they were trying to read the blurred inscriptions below them. Yet there was something dignified about these gentle obliterations. Some graves were fenced by wooden palings, or by small stone posts linked by chains, and all were set in a lawn, recently – but roughly – mown. There, in the middle of the city, Ellis found himself unexpectedly breathing in the scent of new hay.

  “Norah Prendergast?” suggested Ursa. She was asking a question, but though Ellis remembered her mentioning that name earlier in the morning, neither knew the answer nor, indeed, understood the question.

  “Norah!” said Jackie. “Right! You two try Norah, and I’ll check out Eudora Anne.” Ellis looked around him, the stranger among these disintegrating markers and memorials. Then he set off after the sisters.

  Leona and Ursa were making for a grave that must have once been particularly magnificent. Many years ago someone had planted a graceful tree on it, and now that tree, grown huge, had overwhelmed it, stretching far over the pointed uprights of its fence, some of which were sunk deeply into the living wood. One shaggy branch bent east, a second, west.

  As Ursa, Leona and Ellis advanced, the solitude and silence in which they were moving was suddenly shattered. Like hunted prey breaking cover, two girls and a boy suddenly sprang from the long grass growing under the tree, stared towards them, then jumped into the tree itself, scuttling like spindly monkeys along its huge primary branches until they had disappeared into the thick mosaic of leaves. Ellis leaped forward, keeping pace with Ursa, while Leona turned to shout for Jackie. “Over here! Over here!” she called. “Here! Here!” replied multiple voices, echoing back at them in an angel chorus. Ellis, meanwhile, scrambled gingerly over the iron spears of the surrounding fence, still aware, even as he scrambled, of the scent of newly-cut grass. He swarmed up the eastward-leaning branch and, as he did so, saw Jackie charging down on them, leap-frogging confidently over the tilted bookmark of a stone.

  As Ellis pulled himself towards the boundary of leaves, a foot in a black sneaker kicked fiercely down at him. Flinging up an arm to protect his head, he grip
ped the sneaker and felt the foot inside it struggling wildly. Ellis clung on grimly, though he believed he was about to fall out of the tree and impale himself on the spikes below. The sneaker, however, came off in his hands and the foot hastily withdrew beyond the leaves once more. Ellis pushed himself up along the branch, through the leaves, and found himself staring into the startled face of a boy. He was unexpectedly frail and thin, aged about twelve, dark-skinned and with short, black hair striped down the centre with chemical gold … more of Pandora’s artistry, perhaps.

  “It’s only us. It’s only us!” Ursa was shouting somewhere from the other branch.

  “Don’t be scared!” Ellis said awkwardly. “We only want to ask you something.”

  “Don’t you be scared, man!” cried the boy, in a voice that both threatened and trembled.

  “We’re not out to get you,” said Ellis doing his best to sound like a Moncrieff Street inhabitant.

  “No one going to get me, man,” shouted the boy, edging further back along the branch.

  “Move on up!” yelled a voice from below him. Ellis obligingly climbed one branch higher, making room for Jackie to burst through the leaves at his heels.

  “Jason! What a surprise,” said Jackie cheerfully. “Why aren’t you at school?”

  “Why aren’t you?” the boy shouted.

  “Wake up!” said Jackie. “It’s Saturday. Got you there.”

  Ellis and Jackie, together with Jason, were held by a cage of branches overlapped by a second leafy cage containing Ursa and the two girls, who now shrieked together in an abusive duet.

  “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” said Ursa impatiently. “Do we look like truant officers, or cops, or anything? We just need to know where Mystique’s living at present. Her baby’s gone missing. Jason, you get about early, even on a Saturday morning … Have you seen anyone hanging around our place? Or anyone with the baby?”

  “Shelley!” cried Leona from further down the tree, trying to coax Jason into remembering. “You know Shelley. Dark eyes, and really fair hair.”