Mike Shevdon - The Road to Bedlam

"I'm not sure," I said. "I'll have to let you know."

I took my coffee outside to the seats overlooking the square, choosing the same seat I had taken when Blackbird was there. Things had seemed simpler then. It had been run or die, fight or flee. Blackbird had been open and inviting. The memory of her suggesting an afternoon of sex and seduction made me smile, until I remembered that she also thought I wouldn't last the night. Now I knew her better, I realised that she had her own reasons for everything, even that.

The coffee was very hot, so I ate the sandwich, realising only as I licked mayonnaise and crumbs from my fingers how hungry I had been. Then I had to wait until the coffee cooled to drink it.

Last year when I was in the same spot I had been hunted. Blackbird told me that I would have to fight to survive the dawn. Well, I had fought and mostly I'd won. The victory, though, had its bitterness, and its losses. I wondered where Blackbird was. I was aware that she was smart and quick and knew things that I had yet to learn, but I also knew she was alone, pregnant and had no magic to protect her. I wondered where my daughter was and what had been done to her to make her turn on the three girls in the changing room. I wondered how that had changed her. It made me consider again whether this life was truly worth the price.

I blew on my coffee to cool it, having dawdled long enough, and drank as much as I could before dropping my cup and sandwich wrapper into the bin. Then I walked across the road, down across Trafalgar Square, past the bronze lions and over into Whitehall.

The walk took me down past Downing Street, where I wondered if the iron gates at either end of the Prime Minister's and the Chancellor's residence were entirely coincidental. I walked on past Big Ben and the grand East window of Westminster Abbey. The pedestrians thinned and changed from tourists to civil servants as I passed beyond the Palace of Westminster and into Pimlico.

The grand facade of the Tate Gallery was in front of me. I had fifteen minutes to spare. I diverted for a few moments into Victoria Gardens and used the shelter there to re-establish the concealment I would need and adjust my glamour so that no one would recognise me, even if they saw me. Then I crossed the road and climbed the steps to the entrance, slipping inside to the cool interior, passing the helpful gentleman directing visitors and avoiding the gaze of the security guards. I worked my way around the gallery, moving from room to room, checking the location of cameras, watching for additional security guards, looking for people who had ear-pieces or seemed out of place. If there were people there watching, they were doing it remotely. My glamour would deal with that.

When I saw Sam had arrived early too, I should not have been surprised. He was walking around the gallery much as I was, watching the people, not the pictures. He passed within a couple of feet of me and even glanced at me as he passed. He did not recognise me, though he did look twice. Something about my demeanour made him do so. I let him take a good look, and then move on.

Moving slowly after him, I made my way around until I was sitting on the benches behind him where he waited. I watched him as the meeting time came and went, looking for any sign that he was communicating with anyone. He looked impatient and edgy, but he made no sign and gave no signal that I could discern.

Slowly I increased the concealment around me, allowing it to seep into the room. Gradually people turned away, glanced into the room and decided to turn back. They wandered slowly into other rooms. Eventually we were alone. The camera in the corner was still active, but it would record nothing useful. The warder standing at the doorway watched with decreasing interest until her head nodded and she fell asleep. I watched Sam become aware that almost everyone had gone.

"You wanted to meet me, Sam Veldon. Did you tell anyone else we were meeting?"

He glanced at the warder and then at me. "Do you always creep around like this?"

"I am not creeping. I am sitting. Did you tell anyone, Sam? Is there anyone listening to our conversation?"

He came across and sat on the bench beside me. "I could lose more than my job for this."

"You didn't answer my question."

"No." He shook his head and smiled, wryly. "Who am I gonna tell? Oh. I'm just going out to meet a guy from my dreams." He looked at me, carefully. "It is you, isn't it?"

"Have you managed to get the taste of grass out of your mouth?"

He looked away. Then he wiped the back of his hand across his lips. "Not really. Kinda sticks with you, doesn't it?"

"You would do well to remember that."

"If I'm being followed, I don't know about it, but it's a risk in my business. We all know that we could be subject to surveillance at any time."

"What did you bring me here for, Sam? What did you want to tell me that couldn't be said over the phone?"

"Yeah, you need to watch that. They're coming in tomorrow to check the electromagnetic shielding. You're not supposed to be able to phone in or out of that building. Only the desk phones, that's how it is."

"You will have to make an excuse."

"Just don't call me there again. It's not supposed to work, right?"

"Don't tell me what to do, Sam. You owe me."

"I don't owe you anything!" His voice was raised and the warder at the door startled slightly, but then nodded again. "This is crazy, I shouldn't even be here."

"Just tell me what I need to know and I'll go. You can get back to whatever it is that you do."

He stood up and for a second I though he was leaving, but then he walked over to the wall opposite, where two small paintings hung.

"Take a look at this. What do you think."

I followed him over. "I'm not here for art appreciation, Sam. I want to know where my daughter is."

He continued as if I hadn't spoken. "The picture is called The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke. Ring any bells?"

The mention of "fairy" made me look afresh at the painting. It was a small dark square painted in exquisite detail. It depicted a small man in a long coat, not unlike Raffmir's. His back was turned and he held a hatchet high, ready to strike down at a cob nut. The scale was all wrong, with tiny figures peering between the strands of grass, watching. When you looked closer you could see that some of the figures had wings, but they weren't butterfly wings. They were somewhere between a leaf and a bat. Each time you looked closer it showed even more detail. In places the faces looked distorted, as if seen through a crooked glass or under water.

I looked up at Sam. "No bells with me, Sam. Should it?"

"It was painted by Richard Dadd. Name mean anything?"

"Not really. I didn't do art school."

"How about this one?"

The painting next to it was of two faces, but they weren't human faces. Something about them reminded me of people I had met in the High Court of the Feyre. The eyes were intense and watchful and they had an aura about them that somehow reminded me of fey glamour.

"This isn't familiar either, though it is striking. What's the relevance of this?"

"When you were at the hospital last year, there was a grey woman in the room. I thought it was an illusion, but she was there, wasn't she?"

"She was."

"And then she'd gone. She just faded away. And last night, I woke up covered in scratches. I had red marks all over me where the grass bit into my skin."

"Dreams can sometimes spill over into your life, Sam. It depends whose dreams they are."

He looked at me and then back at the painting. "One of the files is on him, the guy who painted these."

"One of what files?"

"The B files. He's one of them."

"An artist? Why would an artist have a government file on him?"