Page 27 of The Dead Come to Stay

He didn’t let her drive.

of town over the river, and consisted of a mostly finished exterior that looked, to Jo, like an excessively tall supermarket.

Three floors were more or less complete; a fourth one was in process. Heavy equipment haunted the grounds; in the dark they

reminded her of articulated museum dinosaurs. MacAdams switched off the beams and coasted quietly under streetlights. The

building site butted up against the road and had been cordoned off with fencing. A sign on the side said Hammersmith, and

someone had tagged it with spray paint: “u wankers.”

“Where’s the entrance?” Jo asked—because they weren’t driving machinery over the curbs. MacAdams looked at the map on his

phone.

“There’s a road that runs along the rear of the property; it’s also the delivery road for a warehouse.” He pulled off to the side and parked the car. “I’m going to take a look through the fence. Supposedly there has been some movement over here. Could be nothing.”

“Flashlights,” Jo said.

“I have a torch in the glove compartment—”

“No, I mean there are flashlights,” Jo said, leaning across him and pointing. On the third floor of the building, a rapid flicker bounced across

the windows. Almost as if they imagined it... but then there was another. It helped that her distance vision was quite

good, but whoever it was wasn’t being terribly careful.

“Shite.” MacAdams rolled down his window for a better view, then took out his phone. He pulled up a number, but didn’t call,

his index finger hovering over the screen.

“Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“You’re thinking of sneaking up on them by yourself.”

“I’m not.” MacAdams wet his lips. “I am , but only for a look. I don’t want uniform—or a squad car—spooking them.”

“Is that a good idea?” Jo asked. Because it didn’t sound like one. MacAdams handed her his phone, then reached over her knees

to the glove box.

“Copy the number. It will call the squad car directly; they are in the neighborhood. Be here in minutes.” He pulled out the

torch—actually a penlight—and checked battery power. “If anything goes wrong, or I take too long, you have my permission to

call.”

She didn’t need to ask this time. This was a terrible idea.

“How am I supposed to know? And how long is too long?” she asked, but MacAdams was already half out of the car.

“Give me a half hour.” He took off his suit jacket and left the coat in the back—then shut the door (quietly). She wasn’t

entirely sure why until he got to the chain link fence and proceeded to climb it. Granted, it wasn’t very tall. But MacAdams was a lot nimbler than he looked.

Jo was pretty nimble, too. And lighter than him, if also a lot shorter. She knocked her boot heels together and flexed her fin gers. How hard could it be? She waited until he was well over, then another few minutes to give him a start.

***

MacAdams crossed in the shadow of the yard. The building’s entrance faced west, and he could see a vehicle parked at the north

end. Too dark to see make and model, but just the sort of grand SUV he hated, the kind that took up two spaces and too much

room on the road. It’s presence, however, made the situation suddenly more ominous. The kind of people who drove hundred-thousand-dollar

automobiles shouldn’t be breaking into a building site with flashlights. It wasn’t teens or vagrants, at the least. He crept

more carefully to the front doors.

An apparent Hammersmith standard, they were double glass panes, steel handles. If locked, he wouldn’t be getting them open,

but they weren’t locked. They weren’t even closed . One door had been propped open with a stray brick. What did that suggest?

MacAdams craned his neck but had lost sight of the torches at this angle. Someone was on the third floor; he could tell this,

at least.

Were they stealing something? What could you steal from an empty building? If he waited till morning and a search-and-seizure

warrant—he’d never find out.

MacAdams turned on the penlight and let it play over the first floor. Not just complete, finished . Shiny, complete with an open lobby and what looked like glassed-in shop spaces beyond. And yet, the top floor was a skeleton

of spikes and concrete and cables. It made him think, suddenly, of Nagamaki Plaza, though he wished his mind had not chosen that particular American classic as a reference point. For one thing, MacAdams was about a stone too heavy to be climbing

in the ventilation.

He found the stairwell on the east wall; no lights and no windows.

MacAdams followed the penlight’s tiny circle up the first flight; by the time he reached the landing, he could hear noises above: a grating noise, like a trolley, heavily loaded.

Then sounds of muffled effort, occasional indistinct voices.

MacAdams passed by the second floor, heart hammering, and waited on the landing before the third. Two voices, male, one Cockney.

“Be careful with that—fuck’s sake!”

“Wot? You fink I wan’ be here all nigh’? C’mon. These boxes are bloody ’eavy.”

“Fair. All right. Let’s get these down.”

MacAdams ducked back down the stairs to the second-floor door, begging it not to be locked. The handle turned, and he darted

into the black space; he’d gone somewhere windowless and shut off his light.

“Mate, shoulda figured no lift—we’re daft getting these down apples and pears.”

“You’ve a trolley, for Christ’s sake, lean it on your hip as you go.”

MacAdams watched light flicker through the door crack and heard them wrestle their burdens down the flight. Neither voice

was familiar, certainly not the kid who sold him crisps from the butty van—nor was either a Geordie, nor Yorkshire bred.

These voices were from out-of-towners. Property workers? Hired hands? If so, hired by whom?

The light vanished and the thuds grew distant. The silence of the building now felt pregnant; he could hear something. Or

imagine that he did. Breathing.

A flutter of second thoughts assaulted MacAdams, but he pushed them away. Get it together ; he needed to see the third floor before they came back. And they were coming back.

The third floor offered a large open space. Faint light came through the window wall onto a long central table. It was presently

clear, just a metal surface from which a lot of things had no doubt been swept away.

MacAdams dared turn on the minitorch and played the beam along the walls. There were boxes stacked along a makeshift shelving system, all of them taped shut. He stuck the penlight in his mouth to free his hands, then used his serrated door key as a knife and worked through the heavy layers.

A moment later, McAdams was sweating. Beads ran down his forehead as he pried the box apart. He gripped a heavy plastic bag

and lifted, shining the penlight on its contents with his other hand, bracing himself to find stacks of cash or drugs or—

Pottery?

Broken pottery, at that. MacAdams lifted a shard; in the dim light he could see complex designs painted on the glazed side.

He tore open the next box. Tile, this time, pictographic. Even in pieces, it was possible to make out the semblance of broad-leaf

plants.

Footsteps. They’re coming back . But he hadn’t made sense of anything yet; he couldn’t back away now. He wrestled with a third box; this one made a whisper

of displaced contents as it moved. He set the light down this time, hurrying to pull away the tape. When he shone it back

inside again, the beam reflected golden. MacAdams couldn’t help but stare: before him was a box of earrings, pendants, bracelets,

rings—all of it delicate, intricate and almost exactly like the photo he’d just sent to Jo. Open work , Struthers said. Arabesque designs .

MacAdams shone the light once more on the tile, only now he understood what he was looking at: a mosaic, probably ancient,

absolutely black market. He’d just stumbled into a trade, not of illicit drugs or the usual suspects, but—stolen artifacts.

This realization was followed by a whisper of displaced air. The sounds of atoms scattering out of the way as an object went

slicing through empty space. MacAdams didn’t have time to guess its heft or its shape. It connected solidly with the back

of his head and the stars exploded.

He crashed to both knees as his vision turned to gray mist. Through it, he could just make out a shape—a man above him—swinging something heavy.

“Stop! Police!” A light suddenly shone in the dark. The figure froze, the arm didn’t swing.

“Drop your weapon!”

He didn’t drop the weapon. He threw it at the source of light—then bolted. There was noise, commotion, except MacAdams wasn’t

sure if it was coming from inside or outside his brain. He groped his hands toward the ground, hoping to find it solid.

“Omigod, omigod—are you all right?”

MacAdams raised his throbbing head. But there were no police. There was just Jo Jones.

“James, that was the guy!”

“The—who?” he begged, dabbing at his head and coming away bloody.

Jo got one arm under him and hobbled him to standing.

“The driver of the butty van!”

***

When Jo was twelve, she took on a bully, Chad.

He was in eighth grade and big for his age.

He used to pick on a boy down the street from her aunt’s house.

One day, Chad took the kid’s bike and then refused to give it back.

Jo didn’t remember deciding to act; she just remembered taking Chad at a run and shoving him sideways.

He lost his balance and fell off. Jo stood over him feeling like some sort of Athenian warrior, despite probably looking more like an angry Chihuahua.

Perhaps it was just the shock of it that disarmed Chad.

She didn’t even get much credit, anyway.

The kid claimed she only stood up to Chad because she was a girl and knew he wouldn’t hit her.

It wasn’t true. Jo hadn’t thought of that.

She hadn’t thought of anything. It wasn’t bravery so much as override, self-preservation momentarily shut off.