Page 58 of The Dead Come to Stay
“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.
“That was a very dangerous thing you did,” MacAdams said. He was sitting in the back of a police SUV with a cold compress on his head.
“At least I ducked,” Jo said, which was true. The assailant narrowly missed clocking her with the pipe he’d thrown—a pipe presently being dusted for fingerprints. MacAdams winced a bit.
“Yes, and good. But I meant pretending you were the police.” His words were coming through gritted teeth, and one eye kept blinking on its own. “What if he hadn’t been fooled?”
“I had at least alreadycalledthe police,” Jo reminded him.
It took Jo rather longer than anticipated to climb the fence; the toe of her Doc Martens didn’t fit right into the links, so there had been a lot of scrambling. By the time she made it over, MacAdams had goneintothe building, and two other people had comeout. She’d waited in the dark until the ones unloading began making noises of return—then she ran in ahead of them to warn MacAdams to hide. At least, that had been the plan.
“Ms. Jones?” an officer asked. “Can you please give your statement?”
“Now?” Jo looked back at MacAdams, who nodded she should, then looked sorry he’d moved his head that way.
“I had just got into the stairwell. It was pitch-black, so I was crawling up and there were twelve steps instead of eleven per flight. It should end on an odd number because most people step off with their right foot.” Jo pinched her own thigh.Stop doing that.“Sorry, um.”Architectural Elements and Design, 2014.“The door on the second floor opened and I saw someone climb to the third.”
“Where Detective MacAdams had gone,” the officer clarified.
MacAdams made noises of agreement. Jo took a moment tolook back at the building. They had floodlights on it, and the actual electrics inside were on, too. A crew from Newcastle were sweeping through each floor.
“Right. I followed, and I saw him get hit.” Jo winced in spite of herself, not least because Ronan Foley had been murdered that way. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I shouted ‘Stop! Police!’”
“And you say you recognized the man? How?”
“I turned my phone light on when I yelled,” Jo said. The hope was to blind him and keephimfrom seeingher. There he was, the same sallow, heavy jowls, eyes squinting over grimace. A big brick of a human. “He owns a butty van I’ve seen in Newcastle and Abington.”
“About that.” MacAdams pulled out his phone and stared at it blearily. “Green has the license for theotherbutty van. We need to fast track.”
MacAdams was now on the phone, and it seemed he’d not been the first to call Green.
“Yes, I’m fine. Mostly fine... Yes—all right, yes, I’ll have myself checked over at A&E,” he was saying.Accident and Emergency, Jo translated. She’d make sure he actually did it. “Listen, Green, we have a building full of what Ithinkare artifacts of some kind—and a getaway SUV we’re still trying to track down.”
He looked up to the officer for an update.
“Nothing yet, sir,” she said.
“And so far nothing—but the assailant was the driver Jo saw in Newcastle.” MacAdams stopped talking for a moment to close his eyes tight. The on-scene medic declared it “not dangerous,” but even a minor head injury could cause concussion, nausea, plus a star-spangled headache. “Green—Hammersmith is high profile, so word is going to get out about this. I don’t know how fast, but you need to try and capture the other van. Tomorrow morning, ASAP. I’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon... Yes—”
Jo had been watching MacAdams talk. She wasn’t sure howlong she’d been staring at him like that, but now he was looking back. He blinked a few times before going on.
“I’m in good hands,” he said.
***
It turns out he was right. Jo knew how to drive a standard, and despite her supposed trouble getting around York, she managed to find the emergency center with no trouble at all.
“I’m not sure it’s really necessary,” MacAdams said.
“You can’t lie to Green,” Jo told him, and she was right of course. His shirt had blood on it from the collar and down his left arm, so he put the jacket on despite the fissure of light that kept opening up in his head when he moved his neck.
