Page 49 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
“You know, I never forget this smell,” James said, pulling Magda’s attention back to him. He was staring straight ahead at the wall of posters.
“What smell?”
“The smell of hospitals,” he replied. He seemed suddenly pensive, his voice flat. “My whole childhood I was in and out of hospitals. The smell of antiseptic and institutional buildings. It’s the same all around the world. It was the same when my father was ill too. And even when he wasn’t, when he was still working, I could smell it on him when he came home from his work at the hospital. The smell of sickness and misery.”
Magda nodded slowly but didn’t know what to do with James’s reflections. Then he looked at her and brightened immediately, a happy smile chasing off his brief melancholy.
“Sorry,” he said. “Lost in thought for a minute. Anyway, tell me, back in Hong Kong, how did you manage to get away from the manwith the gun?” In his eagerness for her story he leaned towards her, close enough that she could smell the warm spice of his cologne, the same smell she remembered from when they had been eating noodles together in Hong Kong. That scent memory warmed her briefly, reminding her of the excitement she had felt before all the horror.
“I flew off the balcony,” she admitted. She pulled the pendant out from beneath her sweater. “I have my own unknowable object. It lets me fly.”
“Ha!” James exclaimed. “You can fly. I can withstand bullets and your friend over there can walk through walls. It’s like we’re a superhero team.”
Magda smiled a tired smile, enjoying James’s good humour, but her worries about Frank were like a drop of ink in clear water, colouring all her thoughts.
Henrietta finished her call and sauntered over to join them, seemingly as at ease as ever, as if entirely unbothered by the ordeal Magda had just endured. She sidestepped out of the way as a hospital bed was pushed past by an orderly, an old woman peering out from a cocoon of blankets, and then joined them on the hard seats, sitting next to Magda. “I might have a name,” she said. “I had to ask around, people who know people in this sort of world.”
Magda wondered what sort of contacts Henry had who would know such a dangerous man.
But she’s a burglar now, isn’t she? You don’t know anything about her world.
“And?” she asked.
“I described him to a few people,” Henry explained. “What you said about him maybe being Welsh. There was only one name that came up, from two different people. He’s a contract killer. Very expensive. Very good at what he does. If he were a car, he would be an Italian sports car. That sort of league of contract killer.”
Magda glanced at James and saw him listening carefully, his expression serious.
“He used to work for the government,” Henry continued. “But that’s not exactly unusual for contract killers. It’s the standard apprenticeship.Nobody has heard much about him for years now. Anyway, his name is Maddox. Owen Maddox.”
“Owen Maddox,” James repeated quietly.
“I’ll spare you the grisly details,” Henry continued. “But he’s a dangerous man.”
“And he has the Impossible Box,” Magda said.
Henrietta frowned at her. “The Impossible Box? Like in the Society origin story?”
Magda realised that Henry wouldn’t understand the significance. She recounted what Frank had revealed to her earlier that evening, before they had been interrupted. “It held all the items,” she explained. “The entire Society collection.” She turned her attention to James, on the other side of her. “You’re not supposed to know any of this, by the way. Secret stuff.”
James nodded and immediately drew a cross over his heart, a vow of silence. Magda looked back to Henry, who was absorbing what she had been told, tapping her chin with her phone.
“Now I feel bad that I was late,” she admitted. “If I’d been there earlier...”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Magda said, waving her words away.
“I was of two minds about whether to attend at all,” Henry said. “I wasn’t going to, and then I wanted to see what Frank would do with an actual real-world artefact. If I’d been there sooner...”
“You couldn’t have known,” Magda said, but despite her words she found herself wondering how things could have turned out differently if Henryhadarrived on time. Maybe Frank wouldn’t have been injured. Maybe the man wouldn’t have got away.
Stop it. It’s a waste of time to obsess about what might have been.
“But if that man has the complete Society collection...” Henry continued.
“Yeah,” Magda sighed unhappily, nodding as Henry’s words trailed off.
“Shit,” Henry muttered, slumping back in her seat. A moment passed, and then Henry grabbed for Magda. “What about Will?”
“He didn’t come to the meeting,” Magda said. “He messaged Frank saying he didn’t want to be a member anymore. He was never there.”
