Sixty-One Nails Part 23

"Are you OK, mate?" The Australian tw.a.n.g in the question meant that although I couldn't see the questioner I knew we had attracted attention from the building.

"I'm not sure," Blackbird responded. "My friend got a shock off those gates just now."

There was a slight pause. "That's impossible. They're not electric or anything. He couldn't have done." A man in uniform, possibly a security guard, walked into my field of view. "Are you OK, sir?"

"I think I'll be OK in a minute. Can you help me sit up?"

"Do you think that's wise? I could get an ambulance for you, if you like?" The long "A" of ambulance was almost comical and I found myself smiling at his Australian accent, despite my aching head.

"Well, you've still got a sense of humour about you." He stepped back and let Blackbird help me to a sitting position. I sat on the cold paving with my head against my knees while the spinning sensation slowly subsided. "I've never seen anything like it. You went up in the air like you were doing a backwards somersault. I saw it on the monitors." Clearly this was the most exciting thing that had happened all day and now he had established I wasn't dead he was determined to make the most of it.

"Well you should definitely have those gates checked," a.s.serted Blackbird with all her authority. "They caused a nasty accident. Next time someone could be killed."

"I still don't see how," he commented, taking his peaked hat off and scratching his head. "Maybe some sort of static build-up?" He glanced back at the gates, inert inside the doorway. "What were you doing, anyway?"

"We were trying to work out how old the building is."

"1917," he said. "Well, what I mean is, they were able to move in by then. I don't think the building was fully finished until after the First World War."

The way the intonation in his accent lifted at the end made every sentence made it sound like a question, as if everything were uncertain and he was looking for constant confirmation of reality. Having banged my head on the paving, I knew how he felt.

"The decorations must have taken a while to complete," he continued. "It's very grand inside. We used to have open days so you could look around, though that had to stop after the 7/7 bombs. How's your friend?"

Blackbird stood up. "I think he'll recover but that could have been serious."

"We've never had any trouble before. I can't think why he would get a shock from there."

"Do you want to go and touch the gates, after that?" she asked him.

"No, I think we'll have the electricians in to check them out, first, eh?" he grinned.

"It might be wise. We were just trying to find out about the building. Do you know what was here before all this?" She gestured at the grand facade.

I was a little miffed that Blackbird was more intent on the security man than on my injuries, but it did present an opportunity to find out more. I sat on the ground and listened while she gently pressed him for more information.

"I've worked here for thirty years and I don't remember anyone mentioning anything before this. You'd be amazed at some of the enquiries we get, though, people wanting to emigrate and everything. We don't get many historical queries, though. Mind you, one of my colleagues trained as one of those guides, you know, an official London guide? He's got a certificate and everything. I could ask him if he knows anything. "

"That would be very kind."

He turned and went back into the building, taking a careful look at the gates as he pa.s.sed them. Blackbird turned back to me.

"What on earth did you think you were doing?" She kept her voice down, though her anger was evident. "I thought the gates might be the reason we were here," I said defensively. "They're made of iron! "

"What's so special about iron?" I asked.

"Iron is the ant.i.thesis of magic. All the Feyre react to iron. It's one of the things that marks us out. "

"I didn't know."

"Couldn't you feel it? What on earth possessed you to touch them?"

"I told you, I thought they might be what we came for."

She probed the back of my head with her fingers. "Nine times idiot!" she hissed. "It's a good thing you weren't right inside the doorway or you'd have been flung back into the other gate. If your head had hit iron instead of concrete, you wouldn't be sitting here nursing a headache. Look up at me."

I lifted my head off my knees and looked up into her grey eyes, surprised by the concern that showed there. "At least your pupils are the same size. How do you feel?"

"A bit nauseous, but the world has stopped spinning. "

"I still can't believe you touched them. Didn't it feel wrong?"

"Yes, kind of, but at the same time it was compelling, almost alive."

"Let me see your hand."

I could feel the pulse throbbing in my palm and when I opened my hand I found my fingers had red wheals where the bars had touched. I looked up at Blackbird and she shook her head.

"You won't do that again in a hurry. Is it sore? "

"It's still numb."

"Is anywhere else numb?"

"My arm was completely numb, but it's just my forearm now."

"If the feeling doesn't come back in a little while, let me know."

She offered her hand and supported my uninjured arm as I got to my feet. I was a little unsteady, but once I was vertical I felt better.

"Are you up to coming and finding out what our antipodean friend has come up with?"

I nodded and then wished I'd spoken instead. My head pounded. I swallowed and steadied myself. Blackbird tucked herself under my arm and helped me towards the doorway. At that moment, the stone Megan had given me flared to warmth against my chest. It was odd that it had chosen this moment to become active again. Maybe it was reacting to my injury. Megan had said it had something to do with physical awareness. Blackbird helped me through the entrance, carefully avoiding the black iron of the heavy gates. It was incongruous that the older of us was helping the younger, though she appeared unconscious of the irony. Inside there was a security desk with gla.s.s screens between us and our security man. He was holding the phone tucked onto his shoulder, meanwhile waving his other hand and making an expression that must have been intended as "Hang on a minute, I'm on the phone". I leant with my back against the counter, observing that the inside of the doors was separated from the rest of the building by more security screening. One of those walk-through metal detectors you see at airports had been installed. Clearly they took the security seriously, as he'd said. What little I could see of the inside of the building indicated that it was decorated in the style of the kind of country house that had grand ballrooms.

We waited while the m.u.f.fled sound of the guard's voice came through the gla.s.s.

"Wrong building?" He conversed with his hidden colleague. "You're sure about that?"

Blackbird tried to interrupt him to explain that it was this building we were interested in, but he held his hand up to pause her and asked his colleague to repeat his last sentence again. Finally, he thanked them and hung up, turning back to us and speaking through the screen. "You've come to the wrong place."

"It was this building in particular we were interested in," Blackbird explained patiently.

"Yes, but you see, the history isn't here. It's at the Royal Courts of Justice across the way there." He pointed out of the gla.s.s doors at the street.

"But it was this building..." Blackbird repeated.

"Yes, I got you, ma'am, but the history of this building is over at the Royal Courts. My colleague trained as a guide, like I told you, and he says that this ground was paid for by something called a quick rent."

Blackbird, who had been looking at me with an expression of exasperation, suddenly focused back on the man.

"A quick rent? Do you mean a quit rent?"

"It could have been. Yes, that was it. I thought it sounded funny."

"Why would there be a quit rent?" she said to herself. "He said the Ceremony of the Quit Rents is held every year at the Royal Courts across the road and if you wanted to know more about this building, you should be asking there. Apparently the ground for this building is owned by the British Crown and the Corporation of London pay a quit rent for it. They have information over at the Royal Courts and you should enquire there." He showed us a victorious smile, revealing uneven teeth stained by heavy smoking.

Blackbird thanked him for his help, while my attention was drawn to a bank of monitors set up on a side-bench. They were obviously used to monitor the security cameras and they depicted various views of the exterior of the building. One of them, though, had been adapted back to its original purpose and was showing a twenty-four hour news programme.

It had suddenly flashed up with a photo-fit picture of a middle-aged man with a scrolling caption underneath. The caption said this was a picture of a man police urgently wanted to interview in connection with the death of an officer in West London that morning.

It wasn't a good likeness. The hair was too dark and the forehead too high, but there was no mistaking the image.

It was me.

Eleven.

The photo-fit picture on the television was unmistakably of me. I grabbed Blackbird's wrist.

"We need to go," I told her

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Now." I let a note of urgency register in my voice. She glanced at me and then thanked the security man again for his help.

"Will your friend be all right?" he called through the gla.s.s at our retreating backs.

"He'll be fine. Thanks for the information," Blackbird called back as we pushed outside.

Once out on the wide paving, she steered me away from the entrance and under the nearby trees, away from the security cameras.