Chapter One: Unmendable


There was nothing as sobering as broken glass in the early hours of the morning. It stood for all the unmendable consequences of your exuberance the night before.

The glass coffin had stood upright in Christchurch Meadow for three hundred years. It was such an immovable fixture of the city that you could be forgiven for thinking it was made of something more than glass. But now, here it was, broken open and bereft of its occupant.

It was not the most horrible thing Sam had seen that night – not even close – but it was the one that sent a chill of foreboding to his bones, and would have done so even if Constable Gleeson hadn't been on hand to labour the point.

"The new-breeds will think it's some kind of vandalism," he was saying. "Sacrilegious vandalism. They'll be up in arms."

Sam squinted down at him. The sun hadn't risen yet, so the full, pious pinkness of his face wasn't too visible. He supposed you had to be thankful for small mercies.

"Thank you, Constable," he said, trying to keep his voice light. "Believe it or not, the thought had already occurred to me."

"Are there any anti-new-breed groups who would do this?" Gleeson wondered. "I mean, I know there are people who want the new-breeds out of the city, but who would take it this far?"

"There are people mad enough for anything in this wonderful world," said Sam grimly.

He looked up. Oxford skies were usually white and opaque – like a landscape painting where the artist had forgotten to fill in the sky – but today the clouds were as jagged as the glass in Eve's empty coffin. Bluish dawn light was peeping through the gaps, as though a wider world was attempting to break in on them.

And, all around him, being held back by a line of Constables, were the city's new-breeds: hundreds of them, just staring at the empty glass case where their little mother had stood for the past three hundred years. It was too early for them to be on their way to work, but word had got around, somehow. Many of them had turned up with nightshirts tucked into their trousers, or coats over their nightgowns.

They weren't angry, not yet. The shock was keeping them in check. Generations of them had come to this field every Sunday, to kiss the glass, or write a prayer on one of the leaf-shaped pieces of card laid out on the table beside her coffin. Prayer-leaves were still fluttering from the dead trees that flanked the coffin on either side. 

And, while they stared, and his Constables shifted from foot to foot, trying to look authoritative, Sam couldn't stop thinking: Just leave. Why do you stay here? You can't stop the chaos – why do you even try? No-one in the city believed you when you told them they were in danger. Why not let these smug idiots do for themselves?

But what would he do if he left? Find a job, earn a salary, get married, grow old, as if this town had never happened to him? He had suffered here. Lily had written her last letters here. Manda lived here – although where she was going to live now that the University Church had burnt down, Sam had no idea.

It had been a punishing night to begin with, and it had gone on lashing him. After the commotion at the River Club, there had been Miss Syal's body on the steps of the Turl Street Music Rooms.

He had never really been expecting her to die, that was the odd thing. Manda had dreamed about it, a medieval manuscript had predicted it, Miss Syal herself had been cheerfully looking forward to it, but he'd never thought it was going to happen.

She had always been a clever puzzle that he had to solve – playing a game of her own and putting his city in danger. 

Only now did it dawn on him that she'd been hounded and tormented and left to die on her own. The body was almost cold by the time he reached it. She had never given him the chance to pity her, but now – now that she'd gotten everything she wanted – he did.

But, most of all, he pitied himself, because he had been responsible for her, and this sudden realization of her helplessness was going to stick with him for a long time.

In a way, all the chaotic things that had happened after that – the looting in the abandoned wreckage of the River Club, the discovery of a dead gargoyle and a headless old man in the still-smoking remains of the University Church – had barely made an impression on him. They seemed like matters of course, in a world where Ellini Syal could die.

He walked up to the coffin, tired to his very bones, and attempted to make some sense of it. There was blood all over everything. What kind of vandals punched into a glass case with their fists? Obviously the impulsive kind, if they hadn't brought any tools apart from their own arms. Or had there been a fight? Had one of them turned on the other and thrown his former comrade through one of the panes?

The broken shards of glass crunched under his feet like frost, and he stepped back, looking down at them. His eyes were still dim from a night of no sleep, three murders and eight arrests, but something about the glass was bothering him. He was standing at least a foot away from the coffin, and there was glass here? He supposed some of it could have been knocked out of its pane and dragged along with Eve's body when the thieves removed her, but there was hardly any glass on the floor of the coffin, and surely that was where most of it would be, if the pane had been broken from the outside?

Something shifted in his peripheral vision, and he looked up to see Dr Petrescu standing over him, his hands clasped patiently behind his back. Sam wasn't sure how he'd got past the Constables that were supposed to be holding back the crowds. But then, he supposed Dr Petrescu looked very unthreatening, with his sprightly tread and his broad, reassuring moustache.

"Could I take this opportunity to remind you, Inspector, that there is still a demon tied to the balustrade at Folly Bridge?"

Sam raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Well? I like it there. It's a message. Every time a barge passes under the bridge, within inches of its clawed feet, they'll be reminded that no-one can escape justice in my city, no matter how big and winged and terrifying they are."

"Yes, doubtless it's very educational," said Dr Petrescu, "but the sun is about to rise and burn him alive. It was my impression that, in the English legal system, the slow, lingering death is supposed to occur after the trial?"

Sam cursed under his breath. Why hadn't he thought of that? But only metal could contain them, and they were strong enough to uproot trees – he'd had no choice but to chain them to the sturdiest objects he could find. Unfortunately, all the most solid objects in the city were outside, under the glare of the sun.

He turned to another of the young Constables. "Harris, ride down to South Park and speak to the man in charge of the circus there. Tell him you need to requisition one of the cages they use for large animals. It's got to have metal bars, and at least some metal in the floor and ceiling. Put it on a cart and have it driven back as soon as you can. Oh, and tell them to have another cage standing by."

"Another cage?" said Dr Petrescu, as Constable Harris hurried away.

"There were three gargoyles at the River Club last night. I've got one, and one of them was killed in the University Church. That means there's one more on the loose."

Dr Petrescu raised his eyebrows. "I really wouldn't want to be you today, Inspector." He sighed heavily, and added, "Mind you, I don't much want to be me either."

It suddenly dawned on Sam that Dr Petrescu looked as though he'd had an even worse night than he had. It was difficult to discern any expression behind the moustache, but he looked pale and strained. Even the moustache itself was a little droopy.

It was probably Miss Syal. Once she was dead, did that release all the men who'd ever suffered under her influence? From the look of the doctor, he would guess not.

"I'm sorry about Miss-" he started, but Dr Petrescu waved a hand, as if to ward him away.

"Not yet, please. We'll all have a very long time to be sorry, I expect."

"I'll need someone to formally identify the body-" said Sam. But this time, the doctor gave him a look that was so murderously bitter he decided to relent. "Um, where's Jack?"

"I don't know." The doctor looked as though he was trying to open his mouth as little as possible, in case he was sick. "He's been out all night. Sarah says his bed hasn't been slept in."

"Is that unusual?"

"Not at all unusual, if he's found himself a woman."

Sam gave this due consideration, trying to squash down the sense of foreboding that had been squirming in his stomach all night.

This wasn't like Jack. To be away from the excitement like this? To be absent – even with a woman – while the city was rife with looting and fire and rampaging demons? Was he upset about Miss Syal? But how could Jack be upset about anything?

"I don't like it," he said at last.

The doctor seemed to teeter on the precipice of anger for a moment. "You don't-" But then he passed a hand over his forehead, and said, "I'm sorry. It's been a long night. It has for you too, I expect."

Sam waved this away. "Is there any way he could have – remembered her?" he asked. "Mrs Darwin didn't tell me much about the compound you used to suppress his memories, but I understood it was supposed to be semi-permanent. Could it have worn off?"

Dr Petrescu frowned. "If it had worn off, why would he have killed her?"

"Well, we don't have any evidence that he-"

"He killed her," said the doctor emphatically. "It was slow and cruel, and she suffered. Those are his trademarks."

Sam stared at him. All the doctor's whimsy had turned to bitterness. He wasn't used to being around people who were even angrier than he was.

"But he's – he's Jack. We know him. How would he even care enough-?" He broke off, because the doctor was shaking his head.

"No."

"No what?" said Sam, starting to get angry. "We don't know him? He's not Jack?"

"Neither. Or both." Dr Petrescu scratched his moustache. "I'm a little confused by all the negatives. In any case, he's not the same person without his memories. You know, now that I come to say it out loud, it seems laughably obvious. Who would be the same person, if you took away their memories? But he is especially not himself. She was associated in his mind with something that restrained him. Mind you, I don't mean to insinuate that he was ever very restrained. I just didn't realize how much worse it could get, until last night."

The foreboding in Sam's stomach started thrashing around again, like a creature in its death throes. "I think I'd like you and Mrs Darwin to stay at the station until further notice. For your own protection."

"Impossible," said the doctor. "And, if it weren't impossible, it would be pointless. He's Jack Cade, Inspector; he can break into a police station."

"Not my police station," said Sam, grabbing him by the arm and steering him firmly in the direction of Constable Gleeson. "Gleeson will escort you there and make sure you're comfortable. And then I'll send him to fetch Mrs Darwin."

He stopped, seeing the look of terror in Gleeson's eyes, and realizing the futility of such an errand. He sighed. "I'm going to have to get her myself, aren't I?"

Dr Petrescu smiled. It was difficult to tell with the moustache, but Sam thought it was the first non-bitter smile he had seen on the man's face all morning.

"She's not going to budge at all," said Dr Petrescu. "But, if she were, she certainly wouldn't budge for anyone less than a Detective Inspector."



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