The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight Read online

  “Who are you?” she said.

  “Why did you help me, Edie?” I asked.

  She looked at the black sky and at Floyd. She wouldn’t look at me.

  “Why were you there?” I said.

  “I thought he was going to kill you,” she said.

  “Who? Frank?”

  She nodded.

  “So did I,” I said. It might have been better if he did.

  “Why did you think that?” I asked. “What happened?”

  She still wouldn’t look at me. She said, “The night you hid in the bathroom and wouldn’t come out. The night he went off and came back in the middle of the night.”

  “What about it?”

  “He was raging,” she said. “He was mad with it, like he used to be. I hadn’t seen him like that in ages. You were scared. I knew you were. I knew something was wrong.”

  I breathed out.

  “So you went to Floyd?”

  Edie nodded. “Only this morning. I just wanted to ask him something.”

  She looked at me then for the first time. Looked at me, not at Cassiel. I could feel the difference, like a gap in the air.

  “You’re not him,” Edie said quietly, and every single fear in me reared up and howled when she said it.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re not Cassiel,” she said.

  It was so simple, so clear and definite.

  “No,” I said, “I’m not him.”

  “Cassiel’s dead,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m his brother. And I’m yours. I didn’t know it until yesterday.”

  “Who told you?” she said. “Who told you that?”

  “Helen,” I said. “She told me. She told Cassiel.”

  We didn’t stop looking at each other. Neither of us looked away. Edie’s eyes went hollow. I watched it happen. I watched her remove herself from me, retreat behind a tunnel of locked doors. She wasn’t looking at her brother any more.

  She opened her mouth to scream, to curse me, to remind me of my place in the world.

  I didn’t wait to hear it. You don’t stand there and take it when someone damns you for all eternity, even if you deserve it. You try and dodge their words, though you know they’re coming straight for you, like a bullet, like a smart missile.

  You run.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was Floyd that came and found me. I hoped he would. I didn’t have the strength to run any more. I went back to the warren, picked through the dying crowd and the sea of litter, to the little wood, and I curled up in the mud bowl he’d taken me to. I curled up in the cold and at some point I slept.

  He woke me up gently, with a hand on my shoulder. His face and his clothes were clean, but he still looked like he’d just come from the circus. He still looked like a clown.

  “Chap,” he said. “Damiel. Wake up. Time to go home.”

  He took me up to the house. He took me up on the back of his bike. It was hard going, up the hills. I got off and walked most of the way.

  “She wanted to help,” he said. “When I told her, Edie wanted to help. Remember that.”

  On the way up I thought about Grandad. I thought about what I would say if he was still alive. I thought about saying sorry. I wanted to tell him I still loved him, even if he couldn’t hear. I wished I could make my peace with him, just like I wanted Edie and Helen to make theirs with me, their impostor, their fake, their thief and liar, their brother and son.

  We all take things that don’t belong to us, I thought, I told Grandad wherever he was, even though I knew he couldn’t hear. We all want what we haven’t got.

  Frank’s car was in the yard. It was the first thing I saw. The sight of it stopped me dead.

  Floyd put his hand on my arm, just like he did that first day on the hill, to see if I was living or a ghost, when I was both.

  “It’s OK,” he said. “He isn’t here.”

  There was a police car too. There were police in the kitchen when Floyd and I walked in. Edie was still in her costume. She’d been crying and her eyes were as red as the faded fake blood on her dress. She looked at me and she didn’t look away.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Helen was sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette. A policewoman was holding her hand.

  She stood up, Helen stood up. Her nails were bitten to the quick and her bangles rang just like the first time I saw her, just like when Cassiel came home. She was shaking but she stood up and she walked towards me.

  “Damiel?” she said, in the smallest, softest voice, a smile almost on her lips, her eyes sadder and angrier than I could bear, the tears in her eyes pulling at the tears in mine. My mother.

  “Damiel?” she said, and Edie was crying again too. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, Mum,” I said. “Yes. I think it’s me.”

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  With admiration for, and apologies to Josephine Tey. If I hadn't read her book, Brat Farrar, this one would never have been written.

  Thankyous to Veronique, Stella (x), Rachel and Molly Roadnight, who told me off for being late and let me take her name.

  PRAISE

  The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight

  Praise for Broken Soup:

  “Rich in sympathetic, unconventional characters and precise observation, the book has a lightness of touch that belies its skill… it is most enjoyable: a life-affirming, witty, romantic read.” Sunday Times

  “Valentine has the essential storyteller’s gift of making you want to read on – and to know more even after the book is finished. The writing moves with an athletic spring… For all the tears you may shed on the way, Broken Soup is a joy to read.” Guardian

  Praise for Finding Violet Park:

  “What marks this book is not just its charm, warmth and wit, but also the skill with which Valentine braids together the threads.” Guardian

  “Ultra-original and brilliantly written, this will have you laughing – and crying too.” Mizz

  Praise for The Ant Colony:

  “[Valentine] has a magical narrative voice that instantly engages, and her tale… is riveting. Valentine writes so beautifully and so convincingly that you’re instantly swept up in the mystery of these people’s lives.” Amanda Craig, The Times

  “[Bohemia] is a wonderful, three-dimensional character who woos and captivates the reader. Valentine… has produced a story that is both witty and entertaining… it is charmingly written.” Daily Telegraph

  ALSO BY AUTHOR

  Finding Violet Park

  Broken Soup

  The Ant Colony

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperCollins Children’s Books

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers

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  Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2010

  Text copyright © Jenny Valentine 2010

  Jenny Valentine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints i
n operation at the time of publication.

  Source ISBN: 9780007283613

  Ebook Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 780007489305

  Version: 2013–08–20

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