They were building down by the banks of the Thames, and the air shook with the rumble of diggers and the insistent drumbeat of drills. Men in hard hats and fluorescent jackets tramped around on the sand, shouting at each other through cupped hands. Spindly cranes poked up on the horizon like drinking straws. At the moment the site looked like a battlefield, scarred with holes and rubble, but in a few months, a year maybe, there would be another huge building reaching proudly up towards the heavens. It was as if the city had decided that there was no room for it to spread on the ground, and was now trying to construct a new civilization way up in the sky.
Jonathan Starling leant on the rails and watched the men as they worked, his jacket shivering in the breeze. He was a gangly fourteen-year-old with unruly brown hair that shot off in unexpected directions. His grey eyes had a haunted tint to them, and every movement he made said leave me alone. Concealed beneath his jacket, his school uniform was a size too small for him, and clung awkwardly to his body.
That was how a stranger might have described him, but if you had asked the people who knew Jonathan what he looked like, they would have struggled for a reply. They might have instinctively frowned or shrugged, but he just wasn’t the sort of person other people took much notice of. (Then again, if you had asked Jonathan what he looked like, he wouldn’t have been able to answer either. He hadn’t looked in a mirror for years.)
This ability to escape attention – to disappear from sight – had come in handy down the years. It had allowed him to slip out of school without the hassle of parental notes and the suspicious inquisitions of his teachers. Instead he slipped through the front gates like a ghost, and was gone. When he should have been dozing through a chemistry lesson, or half-heartedly dragging his mud-splattered legs round the sports field, he wandered the streets of London, in search of something different. He explored the winding alleyways of Soho, picked his way through the tangled mossy graves at Highgate Cemetery, while up by Alexandra Palace he looked down on the sprawling ants’ nest that was his city.
Jonathan didn’t always get away with it. There were truant officers and policemen combing the streets, and particularly observant teachers who noticed his empty chair in class. From time to time he would find himself in the headmistress’s office, sitting quietly as she shook her head sadly and gave him encouraging speeches. He had been suspended several times, and was now on his last warning. At least he never got into any trouble at home for it. The school had tried to bring his dad in on several occasions, and Jonathan was always careful that they received a convincing – but negative – reply. He sometimes told them that his dad was too ill to attend; and sometimes, at least, that was true.
That day the prospect of double maths had seemed too much to cope with, and Jonathan had slipped out of the school’s back gate during lunch. As he was crossing London Bridge, the gleaming superstructures of Canary Wharf had caught his eye. He caught a tube train on the Jubilee Line and headed down there, making sure not to catch anyone’s eye as they rattled along the Underground. By the time he had arrived it was mid-afternoon, and there were dark smudges at the edge of the cold, bright autumn sky. The broad streets and squares were still busy with people hurrying from one place to another. They kept their heads down, as if cowed by the monstrous glass buildings that reared up on all sides.
In the distance, Jonathan made out the familiar silhouette of a policeman walking down the access road towards him. It was time to move. If they started asking questions, you were done for. Trying to look as casual as possible, he walked away from the rail and headed back between two buildings towards the centre of the Wharf. The policeman shouted something at him but he pretended not to hear. As soon as he was round the corner, he broke out into a run.
Jonathan might not have been broken any records on the athletic track, but in a chase through London streets he was untouchable. He zigzagged past office workers and shoppers, cutting through a small green park where people were ice-skating across a makeshift rink. They twirled and flowed in graceful arcs as Jonathan hared past them. He heard the policeman shout again, but it was a long way back and he was losing ground all the time. Jonathan ignored the entrance to a vast shopping centre, preferring to stick to the open spaces. Shopping centres had CCTV cameras and store detectives, and were always on the lookout for kids nicking stuff. He was safer out here.
He crossed a couple of streets and found himself in a small square. A fountain tossed soothing splashes of water into the air. In the corner a small kiosk was selling coffee and snacks. The roads around the square were quiet, and there was a sense of stillness about the place that reassured Jonathan. Glancing around, he could see that he had lost the policeman. He was safe for now. He settled down on a marbled wall and caught his breath.
On one side of the square three massive buildings soared high above him, standing shoulder to shoulder beneath the clouds. The largest one was in the middle, and at its summit a light flashed on and off to warn low-flying planes of its presence. Just craning his neck up to see it made Jonathan feel small and insignificant. He wondered what it most be like to work on the top floor, to spend every day looking down on the rest of the world.
It was then that the woman caught his eye. She was jauntily crossing the square, clad in a pinstripe suit and tapping an umbrella on the ground as she went. A bowler hat was perched elegantly on one side of her head, allowing a cascade of fluorescent pink hair to fall away. Although no one else seemed to have noticed her, there was something about the woman that mesmerized Jonathan, and made it very difficult to take his eyes off her. She saw him watching her, and gave him a broad grin. Changing direction mid-stride, she began to head towards him, sending a ripple of sensation down Jonathan’s skin that was as unsettling as it was unexplainable.
At the same time, the policeman entered the square from the other side, huffing and puffing and red-faced from his exertions. Jonathan got up slowly and began to edge away towards the exit. Seeing his pursuer, the woman winked at Jonathan and put a finger over her lips. She then approached the policeman, and began to ask him a long-winded question. Jonathan didn’t need a second invitation – he turned and ran. Whoever that woman was, she had done him a big favour.
He was nearing the tube station when his phone began ringing in his pocket, making him jump. He fumbled around for it and checked the caller display. It was Mrs Elwood – their next-door neighbour, and his dad’s only friend. That could only mean one thing. Bad news.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Jonathan. It’s me. Look . . . your dad’s fallen ill again. They’ve taken him to the hospital. I’m going to drive there now. Are you still at school? I’ll pick you up on the way.”
Jonathan looked around. Rows and rows of windows stared blankly back at him. “No, it’s all right. I’m on my way home,” he said.