The Cutting Crew
by 
Steve Mosby

The small team of policemen never even identified the dead girl, and for the officers involved her murder came to symbolise everything that was wrong with
the city: a haphazard sprawl of commerce and indifference. Four months on, that group is in disarray. Sean has disappeared into the city's black heart
and not returned, and Martin is separated from his job, his wife and his friends. But then a simple note from his ex-partner forces him to re-enter an
investigation he'd rather forget. 'I found her', it says. His search leads him from one side of the city to the other, in a downward spiral of violence
and pain, and drags him into the orbit of the things that are really wrong with the city: the eight brothers rumoured by legend to have control over everything. 

Also by Steve Mosby

The Third Person
THE CUTTING CREW

ORION
Copyright © Steve Mosby 2005
The right of Steve Mosby to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the copyright owner.

First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Orion Books
an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group
Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA

All characters in this publication are fictitious and
any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

ISBN (hardback) o 75286 116 6
ISBN (trade paperback) o 75286 789 X

Typeset by Deltatype Limited, Birkenhead, Merseyside
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
For Angela Mark

www.orionbooks.co.uk
Thanks, in no particular order, are due to: Jon Wood, Genevieve
Pegg, Gaby Young, Nicola Jeanes, and everyone else at Orion who
helped with this book and the first; my agent, Carolyn Whitaker;
an anonymous graffiti artist whose work in Leeds helped to inspire
a part of what follows; the writers John Connor and Simon Logan;
Marie, Debbie, Carolyn, Nicola, Sarah, Emma, Jodie, Nic and
everyone here in Sociology; Keleigh, Rich, Neil, Helen, Jonny,
Cassie, Yoav and Ben; Becki and Rainy; Katrina; Emma Lindley;
and Lynn, for putting up with me in the torturous final stages and
being wonderful. As always, thanks to Mum, Dad, John and Roy.

Most of all, thanks to Angela, without whom I couldn't have done
any of it. And so this book is dedicated to you, with gratitude and
love.


Prologue

I undid the clasps on the box - one click, two - and flipped open
the lid. Then, I sat back on my haunches, rubbing the skin around
my mouth and inspecting the contents. The rifle was in three pieces.
It looked like a musical instrument that somebody had really loved:
as expensive and well-kept as a flute.
Beautiful too, in its own way. It had been oiled recently, and I
was willing to bet it was calibrated and fine. As accurate as when
Sean and I had last gone shooting together, which meant he'd taken
care of it and probably intended to use it. It was only right in an
odd way, because a gun as well-designed as this probably deserved
to be fired.
If you were going to be killed by something - if you absolutely
had no choice - then you might as well be killed by a weapon like
this.
I took the barrel out of the velvet case - and then turned
suddenly, distracted by a cheer from the crowd outside.
There was an arched window at the far end of the room.
Outside, the sky was so bright that the edges of the windowframe
seemed to be dissolving into the light. The sun was visible in
wedges, illuminating motes of dust hanging in the air. They were
undisturbed for the moment but - a full storey above amongst the
open beams - there were birds nesting, and every so often one
would flutter down and out, and it would set this still world in
motion.
Another huge cheer - a rumbling, contagious thing boiling
steadily up from far below. I checked my watch and figured that
the first of the boxers must have been coming out. It was about the
right time, which meant it was time for me to start doing what I did
best. Although given what I generally fucked up, that wasn't saying
much.
I put the gun together methodically and carefully, but it didn't
take long - one piece slotted naturally and inevitably into the next.
There was no mystery or difficulty to it. Sean had kept bullets in
the case. I loaded it without thinking too much about what I was
going to do - with premeditated murder, I've found that you need
to think very clearly about nothing at all. When you're killing bad
men, there's always emotion that will carry you through if you let
it. But if you think too much then your reason gets hold of that
emotion and keeps your hand in check. So you learn not to think.
You let the anger fill you up, and then it's done before you know it:
an immense act that's actually surprisingly ordinary.
Most of the time anyway.
I headed over to the window. The spread of the city appeared,
stretching away into the distance. It was a sandy, fractured tapestry
of jagged roofs. As I walked closer, the buildings opposite came
into view, and, as I stopped, the main square itself, eight storeys
below. Not so much a square as an octagon, really. It was about
five hundred metres across, bordered on all sides by three- and
four-storey buildings that gave it a sense of dusty enclosure. I
peered down carefully.
There were thousands of people here. They were crammed onto
the balconies, waving scarves and flags and arms. Hanging out of
the windows. All of the buildings looked papered with them. The
main square was tight with thousands more: packed all the way
from the streets that led off into the city's districts to the very
centre of the square, with people crowding as close to the boxing
ring as the barriers and stewards would let them. There were
occasional breaks in the crowd for official tents and food vans,
steam spiralling up from them, but other than that the square was
simply full of people. Some had even climbed up the streetlights
and were now balancing precariously down their length. A
patchwork of men and women. It was only really possible to
separate them into individuals when they moved, but, even then, so
many of them moved at once that it was pointless trying.
And here I was: far above it all. This clocktAwer was visible from
the furthest districts of the city, sticking up on the edge of the
square. Not so much like a needle as a stack of odd, dirty blocks
piled roughly in line. The top held a bell tower, but that hadn't
worked for longer than I'd been alive. The enormous iron bells
above me appeared to be rusted in place by damp and cobwebs,
and on the outside, the white, circular clockface was stuck at a
perpetual three-thirty.
Nobody came here - certainly not this high up - but there were
ways in. Admittedly, you had to trust your luck a bit in climbing
the maze of broken staircases to reach the top, but I'd stopped
feeling as though luck had any part to play in what had been
happening to me, and so I'd been quietly confident on my way up
here. Now, here I was, with a clear view of the city's annual inter
district spectacle. The best seat in the house.
If you were going to shoot someone, you might as well choose a
vantage point like this.

Historically, our city is divided into sixteen different districts, all of
them named after animals. Every year in late Spring, we hold a
competition. Eight districts compete one year, with the remaining
eight competing the next. It involves weeks of build-up, training
and publicity. Fighters are chosen via a series of internal bouts,
amidst a great deal of fervour and marching and shit-talking, and
then the final eight boxers come together for an overall tournament.
Hundreds of thousands of people from across the city cram
themselves into the main square, or as close as they can get, to
watch and cheer; and more people travel from all corners of the
country. We're a tourist attraction. For this single day each year, if
you want a hotel anywhere in the city you'd better book early.

I checked out the ring. There were three fighters around the edge
already. I stepped back from the window and, keeping both eyes
open, took aim through the scope. As I centred on the topless,
blocky men at the weigh-in, my vision doubled; I closed my left eye
and one of the fighters came into focus. Whirls of hair on his chest,
all the way down to the red and blue sash of Snail tied around his
thick waist. Solid and old. He looked confident but more than a
little stupid, and I didn't think he was going to win much here
today beyond a trip to St Harven's.
Another rumbling cheer. I swung the aim of the rifle around
across the craning necks and arms of the crowd and caught sight of
the fourth fighter making his way along a path that had been
cleared by the stewards. People from his district - he was wearing
the purple and white sash of Horse - were slapping hands with him
as he went. Through the rifle scope, I could see them shouting
advice and encouragement, but the man was ignoring them and
looked full of concentration. I'd have bet more money on him than
the Snail fighter. He looked like a man who had something difficult
to do, and I felt a certain kinship with him on that one. Plus,
although I was brought up in Turtle, I lived in Horse now, so there
was that allegiance to think about too.
I put the rifle down and moved away from the window.
Nearly time.

Nothing as complicated and intricate as our city ever comes about
by chance, but there are lots of different stories and histories about
the how and the why of it.
In many ways, it's just like a person. People you meet have their
reasons for being the way they are: the down and dirty reasons they
won't acknowledge even to themselves; the boring 'this happened'
stuff that everybody already knows; and the legends - the stories,
half-truths and wish-fulfilments in their heads about triumphs and
failures, loves and fears. Generally, most of the real stuff falls into
the middle category, but people can be difficult to disentangle and
the truth is sometimes a complicated amalgam of all three. Our city
is no different. Here is one story of how we got where we are.
A long time ago, there were eight brothers who owned all of this.
Back then, it was just farmland and woods, but the brothers lived
here with their servants and they cultivated the ground and made a
living for themselves. There was a stream where they could get
water, and there were animals to hunt or farm; there were plentiful
natural resources - although that didn't mean much to the brothers
as they had no real contact with the outside world.
Everything was fine for a while, but one year all eight of them
left the estate and travelled in different directions to seek out a
wife. Two years later, they all returned and brought their new
families with them, and a small community began to take shape.
But as well as coming back with wives and children, each brother
returned with skills and experience from the different areas they'd
visited. One came back and took over the estate's finances, for
example; another returned with knowledge of science and power.
A third brought back music and literature, while a fourth had
received medical training and could tend to everybody's health.
One had become a teacher; another took responsibility for law and
order. And so on. Each brother represented a specific element of
society, and together they complemented each other and thrived.
Often in opposition but, deep down, working as a team.
When our teacher had told us this story, she'd told us to picture
all eight brothers in a circle, holding hands and leaning as far
backwards as they could. They were all pulling in their own
directions: all straining against one another. And, bizarrely, that
was what kept each of them from falling over.
But the thing was, legend had it that one of the brothers had
visited darker areas while he'd been away, and he'd returned to the
estate representing crime. What happened was, he ended up pulling
too hard - or too cleverly. He betrayed them all. His hands slipped
and the circle collapsed and fell. The estate was over-run by his
associates and burned to the ground; all eight brothers and their
families were killed (Ms Roberts had embellished this part with a
few gory details to keep us hooked); and our fair city grew up and
out of the ashes.
It's not a bad story. I remember hearing it as a child and being
captivated for about a day. It was the idea that everything was
working and fine: not perfect, but as good as it was going to get.
Then one of the brothers had to try to make it that little bit better
for himself, and in the process he ruined it for everyone. How
fucked up is that? Although obviously my child's mind didn't frame
it in quite those words.
But you grow older and you forget. It's just a story after all - a
fable intended to illustrate a point. It falls into the third category I
mentioned, when everyone knows that the real, grown-up history
of the city can be found in the second one: the dull tale of bricks
and dust and sweat that occupies the history books. But I believe
now that the legend really is the city's idea of where it came from:
something it has repeated in its sleep, until the idea of it has
become written into the stones and the glass and the streetlights.
And, just like a person, I believe our city is difficult to disentangle.
The truth - if there is such a thing - can be found in those hard
facts accepted by historians, but it's also present in dreams that are
so dark and old and inescapable that they make the buildings
shudder each night to bear them.

Another roar from the crowd as the next fighter arrived. I snapped
my eyes open, not realising where I was for a moment. Then, I
remembered: sitting on my heels with my back against the dusty
wall, waiting. When the first bout started - that was when I would
do it. In the meantime, I thought about all of the reasons why this
man deserved what was coming to him. He'd been responsible for
murder and rape and torture, and he would be again. They were
the usual reasons to take justice into your own hands, but on this
occasion things were different. This time, the people who'd been
hurt included people I cared very deeply about. They had included
me.
If you were going to kill someone, and you were me, then it
would very definitely be this man.
This time, the anger was easy to find. I felt it churning inside me:
an intense hatred for him and what he'd done. I didn't need to
think about pictures or witness statements. I just concentrated on
thinking of nothing, allowing the rage to seep in and fill my head. Over the noise of the crowd, I could hear that ringing in the air the
ominous sound of loneliness and space that I now knew was
also something else. It was the sensation of my heartbeat coming
into time with the city's own. I just sat there, watching the opposite
wall, with my vision slowly starring over. When all the fighters had
arrived the first match would begin, and then I could let this feeling
out of me. For now, it was folding back on itself, growing larger
and larger.
Another roar. I didn't even blink.

Let's start with my flat.
The rent cost me a little under half my monthly payslip, which
would certainly have been too much for me to afford if I hadn't had
alternative sources of funding. By the time that Sean got in touch
with me, the police had stopped paying me anyway - but the
money for the flat had always come out of my savings. It was four
months after I left Rachel and moved in that I finally heard from
Sean, and I hadn't been to work for at least three of those.
Everything seemed to go downhill when I moved here. But we'll get
to that.
The flat itself was small, but not as bad as I'd expected. I'd
looked around three different places - all of them pokey little holes
where you needed to turn sideways just to get from one end to the
other. I was beginning to despair, and then I found this. It had
three rooms - a living area with a double bed, a kitchen, a
bathroom - all connected by a single corridor. Space-wise, you
could swing a dead cat if you aimed right, but you didn't feel as
though the previous tenant might have left one somewhere so you
could try. On the downside, the ceiling was riddled with damp,
there was no shower and I would discover that the boiler didn't
work. But I could live with these things.
'Recently painted,' the estate agent pointed out, ignoring the
deformities in the brickwork as he tapped the wall with his pen.
'Nice and clean. Close to all the local amenities and handy for the
centre. All in all, it's a good property.'
All in all, it was a shit property and we both knew it, but the rent
was fair and I was desperate. The day before, Rachel had said that
she wanted me out. In truth, I'd probably been waiting for her to
say it to save me the extra guilt of leaving of my own accord, but it
meant that I needed somewhere to go and that I didn't have the
luxury to pick and choose. This place, I decided, would do.

'I'll take it,' I said.

The contract would be six months to begin with, and then a
month at a time, depending on how much the estate agent and I
pissed each other off. I signed for it, and then went home and told
Rachel that night. She just nodded. We'd agreed that our
separation was temporary, but the decision to separate in the first
place had been mine, and it had whacked a lot out of her. For me,
it was over between us, but it had felt okay to soften the blow a
little by agreeing to that word: temporary. A six-month contract
was a big thing, but you could pretend that it wasn't permanent if
you squinted at it and looked away quickly.

Anyway, there wasn't much to say after that. She nodded,
looking pale and hollow, as though I'd killed her. When I began
packing some basic stuff, I think she started crying and went out. I
don't know where she went.

I didn't take much, due to the lack of space - just my favourite
books, some music, most of my clothes. I took my laptop, knowing
that I'd need the internet to maintain some perfunctory contact
with the outside world. My guitar was broken, so I figured I'd just
buy a new one. I used a wedge of the money I'd stored away to kit
the flat out a little better: new covers and cloths, plates and cups
and cutlery. If I was going to be living there, then I needed it to feel
like some kind of home. Of course, it wasn't really living as such; it
was more like existing, hand to mouth. In my head, searching for
some way to occupy myself from hour to hour was like leaping
between stepping stones, and I would find myself hoping that the
far bank came into view before those stones ran out.

'Any problems, just give us a ring,' the estate agent said. He had
a false smile, and his tone of voice suggested that he didn't expect
to hear from me.

'I'm sure I'll be very happy here,' I said.

But I wouldn't and I knew it. At that point, it was like one of my
engines had been shot out and I was spiralling down to earth. The
flat was just more of the same. Full of my things, it still seemed
empty; when I put music on, it still felt quiet. Perhaps it was just
me.

Four months later, Sean got in touch. That night, I'd been out.

Most of the time in the flat I just spent watching television,
reading, surfing the internet: just generally passing the time. But
after a while - like anyone - I'd get bored and lonely, and so
sometimes I'd go out on an evening and get drunk in company that,
if not exactly better than my own, was at least plural and so better
in theory.

The estate agent had told me that the flat was convenient for the
centre, but what he'd meant was that I was close to the western
wing of Wasp. I lived on the edge of Horse, which houses the city's
university and much of its student population. On the eastern side
of Horse, you have Wasp, which is where most of the city's redlight
activities took place. Five minutes and I'm there.

That night, I started in Whitelocks, which is about as close to
Wasp as you could get while still keeping in Horse.

Whitelocks is the oldest pub in the city. You walk in and straight
away you can imagine it years back - full of navvies and engineers,
all sooty and smelling of earth and smoke and steam. Most of the
fittings haven't changed in the meantime. The windows are stainedglass,
ancient and misty, and the building itself is painted black to
about chest-height, and then white from there on up. There are
benches outside, and brass rails running along the walls. Inside,
more brass separates you from a raised bar, and everything else is
divided into dark alcoves and occasional mirrors.

I was planning to go to a club afterwards and, since I was on my
own, I wanted to be reasonably drunk when I arrived. I bought two
pints of strong beer, downed one at the bar and then went and sat
outside on a bench to drink the other.

It was nice - a cool night, but pleasant and fresh. The sky was
clear; the stars, bright and defined. On the bench next to me, an
older woman was sitting drinking wine. She was dressed in a blue
suit and was smoking a cigarette - although it seemed more like the
cigarette was smoking her: wrinkling up her skin; sucking something
out of her and turning it into greasy air. She was staring
straight in front, almost motionless, except that her hands had a
bar-fly shudder. A swift sex change, I thought, and here was my
future.

I checked my mobile. No messages.

I finished the beer and headed out, but stopped at the bottom of
the red-brick alleyway that led on to the main street, where

someone had taped an A4 sheet of paper to the wall. There was a
photograph of an eye in the centre of it, and it had obviously been
digitally altered because the retina was violet. It seemed to watch
me as I moved past, and I wondered why it was there. Local bands
often put up flyers, but it seemed too unusual for that. There was
no writing on it for one thing.
I forgot it quickly.

The club I was going to was called Spooks, but I hit three other
bars on the way there. By the time I walked into the club, a good
kilometre into Wasp, I was light on my feet and feeling relaxed and
natural.
Let me tell you about Spooks. Every city has one: clubs that
aren't exactly rough so much as cheap and nasty. They have a
reputation for being full of older, slightly desperate women:
housewives out for a fling; hard divorcees that have been
aerobicised and tanned until they resemble fruit. The men all sport
barrel chests that have spilled out at the bottom, and shirts a
decade too young for them. Basically, it's a meat market - except
that everything is offal. You would very possibly kill a minor
relative before admitting to going there.
Why was I here? Like I said, I spent a lot of the time in the flat
feeling lonely, and sometimes I just wanted some company. Not
necessarily anything serious, but if that happened then I could live
with it. And it did happen every now and then. I was younger than
most of the men in here by quite some distance, and although I
wasn't particularly good-looking I didn't break the mirrors either.
But it didn't happen often: I never actually made a move on
anyone, because sly lounge lizard wasn't really my style, and so I
tended to just stand there, watching the dancefloor, drinking beer
after beer and killing time.
Once I'd relaxed about it, there was something quite therapeutic
about pretending to be above it all. I'd always been a people
watcher for one thing. Even though at some vague point in the last
four months I'd stopped being a cop, it was partly a leftover from
that, and partly just the way I was. And in Spooks you had people
in all their dull glory to watch to your heart's content.
That was what I was doing, perfectly happily, until about half
eleven when the trouble flared up.
There were some guys over on the far side of the dancefloor that
were a hell of a lot younger even than me, and probably too young
to be in here. Some part of me - and this was mostly cop leftovers had
clocked them the first time I saw them, and I'd subconsciously
kept tabs on them ever since. There were five of them - three
skinny guys, one wiry athlete and a chunky amateur weight-trainer
- but basic shape aside, they all looked the same: neat shirts and
smart-casual trousers, short hair, sweaty faces. Each was holding a
bottle of designer lager against his solar-plexus.
I knew their sort, and it was trouble. It wasn't because they were
evil or anything; they were just too young to have figured out the
way to behave. If you caught my eye by accident, for example, I
might smile at you; if you caught theirs, there might be a fight. You
just needed to avoid them until they grew up enough to be at ease
with themselves. At that age, it's all image. Too many films; too
many magazines. Being anywhere near them was like being in a
Mexican stand-off where nerves might cause someone to open fire
at any moment.
They were standing in a rough circle. Occasionally one of them
would turn to look at somebody - checking out a girl - head
twisting around. Nodding and laughing.
I saw the poor guy bump into them before he got anywhere near;
it was a Titanic-iceberg situation. I tracked him across the floor as
he headed back from the toilets towards the bar: early thirties, neat
haircut, glasses. He was wearing a jumper and smart trousers. One
look and you knew that there was nothing physical about him: you
could beat three of him up on half a cup of coffee. In a place like
this, he might as well have had 'victim' tattooed on his forehead.
One of the skinny kids laughed at something and stepped back,
but the neat guy was heading to the bar and wasn't watching; two
seconds later, he smacked into the kid. Just a slight jostle; nothing
much. But beer slopped out of the kid's bottle, and immediately all
of them turned. Faces hard as stone. They knew how they had to
act.
I moved a little closer, leaning against a pillar.
The neat guy held his hands up to say sorry, and paused there,
looking at them and waiting for his apology to be accepted. But the
skinny kid was pissed off; he shook his head and gestured at his
shirt, which seemed to have caught some of his beer.
I couldn't hear what he was saying, and I didn't need to. My
shirts ruined; look what you've fucking done.
The neat guy just seemed helpless and unsure. It was there on his
face: what was he going to do - reverse the flow of time? As
nervous as he was, he certainly wasn't going to buy the kid another
beer to replace the mouthful he'd just lost. So there was an
awkward couple of seconds, and then the guy said sorry again and
walked away.
The kids conferred amongst themselves. Their heads kept
craning just like before - except that now they were all hunting out
this disrespectful bastard. Where had he gone? Who was he with?
How many of them were there?
I saw what they did: the guy arrived at the bar and met who I
imagined must be his girlfriend. She looked a little alarmed as he
leaned in and spoke to her; and then she glanced up, saw the boys
watching and looked away quickly. She said something to the guy
and he nodded, and instead of buying a drink they headed off
around the other side of the club. The exit was round that way.
I checked my mobile.
Still no messages.
When I looked back up, the boys had started moving: swigging
their beers back and walking in the same direction as the couple.
Three of them were just following - ambling along - but the two in
front were actively stalking, watching the undergrowth for signs of
attack as they went. I noted those two for future reference. The
three behind were buoyed by them: consequently, they would be
deflated along with them.
I let them get past me, downed the last of my beer and headed
off. I was pretty drunk at that point and didn't know what exactly I
was going to do. A small, sober part of me was telling me to leave it
alone and not bother. After all, my brain knew full well that I
invariably let myself down in any situation that demanded heroism,
moral gravity or much in the way of considered, rational thought.
This, it told me now, would turn out badly.
You're not a cop anymore*, it said. And that was true, but I kept
walking anyway.
The crowds were sparse near the double doors at the exit. The
bouncers there were bulked up in long, punch-proof black coats,
watching what was unfolding outside with professional interest,
the way a security expert might examine a lock-pick he'd found on
the street. It was obvious, even before I walked out into the sharp
night air, that they were going to do precisely fuck all about what
was happening. Why would they? Outside is outside. There were a
fair few other people, as well - couples and groups - all standing
and watching. I saw a girl wince, just as I started to hear the sounds
of the fight: grunts and blows, and someone calling for help,
sounding frightened and angry and upset. Other people were
walking past, looking back, pausing to see. Some of the guys were
smiling. Others looked nervous, disgusted. A whole range of
human response, but no real action.
I got out, turned right and there it was.
The man was on the floor, rolling, trying to cover his head but
not really succeeding. The last thirty seconds had taken any fight
out of him. The skinny guy with the ruined shirt was viciously
kicking out and stamping at him, catching him wherever he could,
while the wiry kid was leaning down, hooking punches in at his
face. The other three were just watching. Two were forming a
barrier to keep the girlfriend back. The third - the weight-trainer was
holding his drink and watching the beating carefully, as
though he might step in if he found it lacking.
The skinny kid kicked the man in the head and he went limp.
Perhaps they didn't realise, or maybe they did, but whatever - the
pair of them got him onto his back and the wiry kid held his hair
and started punching him in the face. The other boy was putting his
foot into the guy's ribs, over and over.
'Stop it,' I said loudly.
Amazingly, they did. I walked over, staggering slightly, unsteady
on my feet. I hadn't realised how drunk I was, but it wasn't going
to be a problem. In fact, it would probably make everything a
whole lot easier.
I said, 'You're going to kill him.'
They were, as well. People watch too many movies, and too many movies have no real conception of the effects of proper
violence. In a film, someone'll get punched and just look pissed off;
you punch people like you're saying hello. In real life, the guy on
the pavement was already in hospital for a long time. You don't get
kicked in the head and then go get a burger. We're all pretty flimsy.
It can take a lot to beat someone to death, or it can take a little.
You just never know.
The weight-trainer gestured with his bottle and said, 'What the
fuck is it to you?'
He probably thought he was quite tough. Certainly, he didn't
look unduly bothered by the idea of fighting me. He was probably
more concerned with the fact that I was spoiling their evening.
'You've done enough to him,' I said.
The wiry kid stood up.
'Mind your own fucking business.'
He had blood on his knuckles. I remember that. And the skinny
kid, glaring at me, had blood all over his shirt.
I looked around. Nobody was going to back me up at all. A few
people even looked pissed with me for stopping the show. I looked
back at the guy, who was bleeding on the tarmac and something
clicked inside me. Some stupid kids were going to kill a guy
because of a slop of spilled beer, and nobody here actually gave a
shit. Crowds of people standing around thinking: he's going to get
what he gets and there's nothing I can do.
And suddenly, I was very annoyed about all of that.
'Right, you motherfuckers,' I said.
I pulled out my gun and started firing.

All this came back to me later, piecemeal.
I woke up, dimly aware that something wasn't right but
physically unwilling to do much investigation into what it might
be. Opening half an eye was enough to confirm that I'd fallen
asleep with the light on; and, as I became more conscious of my
body, I realised I was also fully dressed, curled in a vaguely foetal
position on the floor by my bed. Not grand. I'd had enough self
awareness to stick a cushion beneath my head before passing out,
but that had surely taken more effort than simply clambering
upright and just falling onto the bed. Drunken logic is a curious
thing.
I sat up slowly, beginning to shiver.
What had happened? Fragments came back to me slowly and
disjointedly: the old woman in Whitelocks; the dancefloor at
Spooks. I remembered the text from Rachel, which had arrived as I
unlocked the front door on my way back in.

miss u so much :-( please ring me. need to talk, xx

Drunk last night, my first reaction had been disappointment that
the message had been from her and not Lucy. Now, I felt upset and
sad, but the underlying sentiment remained.
I remembered the fight about the same time I realised that my
shoulder was aching. I rubbed it absently, wondering why.
Then went cold.
Oh shit.
Had I shot somebody last night? Surely I hadn't, but I knew that
I'd fired the gun - I could dimly remember the shots, and then
screams and people running. Sirens in the distance. A hazy memory
of the world wobbling around me as I ran, drunk and desperate.
Fuck.
I scrambled to my feet too quickly and had to fight back the urge
to be sick. Then I scrabbled around and found the gun. The clip
was empty.
Fuck.
Carefully, I tried to put the events of the evening together. It was
like threading beads onto a thin wire - but I only had about four
beads to work with and I kept dropping those, so any necklace was
going to be patchy at best.
I was trying to decide whether I'd shot at someone, or just up in
the air to frighten everybody away, when I noticed the envelope on
the table.
It wasn't mine, and it hadn't been there the last time I'd looked
at the table and paid it any attention. Where had it come from? I
thought about it, and finally remembered that it had been lying on
the doormat waiting for me when I'd got back inside. I'd received
the text at the same time and I'd only had enough mental cohesion
to handle one at once. The text had won out; the envelope - I'd just
carried it upstairs, put it down and forgotten about it. Now, I
picked it up.



Just my first name and no address, so it must have been delivered
by hand. But I recognised Sean's writing from the stacks of police
paperwork we'd shared and sent between us. My ex-partner.
How did you find me? I wondered, ripping the envelope open
and emptying the contents on the bed, sitting down beside them.
There wasn't much inside - just two sheets of paper - but the first
thing I saw brought back a hundred unwelcome memories. It was a
photograph of a dead girl. The dead girl, in fact - despite our best
efforts she'd never had a name or an identity beyond that sad title.
We'd never discovered who she was.
I'd seen the picture itself many times, and I didn't need to study it
again now. I knew it off by heart. That was where it hit you, and
that was where it stayed.
The second sheet was a photocopy of a driver's licence. The ink
was faint, but I could make out a name - Alison Sheldon - and an
address out of town. The photograph in the top corner showed a
pretty girl, smiling sweetly for the camera.
And Sean's handwriting again, underneath it.
It said:

"I Found Her"



Chapter 2

I had been a cop in the city for nearly six years, and I left because it
felt like it was slowly killing me. Maybe it sounds stupid, but I got
into law enforcement because I wanted to enforce laws; more than
that - I wanted to save people, help them, serve them. As I was
growing up, police officers were pointed out as men and women to
look up to. The ones I saw always wore smart blue suits that gave
them an air of authority, wisdom and judgement - they were good
characters who were on my side and would help me when I needed
them, and as I got older that was who I wanted myself to be. It was
a job that seemed good, in the way that shuffling paper or firing
people for a living didn't. More useful, more rewarding. That's
why I joined and that's why I left.
Here is the reality of how crime works in the city, and where we
as police fit into that.
Let's start with the big stuff.
First of all, you have gangland crimes, pretty much all of which
occur or at least originate in the east wing of Wasp. Most of these,
you let go. You have to. The vast majority are committed by
hardened criminals against other equally hardened criminals, and
so you're faced with the triple difficulty of establishing any
evidence, risking your life to bring the bad guy to book and
actually giving much of a shit one way or the other. Add in the fact
that half the force are taking kickbacks to look the other way
(which means that if you get involved you might end up shot in the
back by one of your own) and what you have is a genuine loser of a
situation. Fuck them, you tend to think. Let them sort their own
out. Which they do, of course. This is the way in which the dark
merry-go-round of criminal society keeps itself turning.
Sean cared about people and it haunted him, but it seemed like a worthy
quest that you admired him for and instinctively wanted to help
with. My career - if you can call it that - wouldn't have lasted half
as long without Sean. Leaving aside the fact that I would have been
dead five times over, I would have lost the enthusiasm and the
desire. Without him to show me how ideals and reality could be
reconciled, it would all have finished a lot sooner.
And I have something else to thank or blame him for. He showed
me that you could play the game the way they wanted and still make some kind of difference, by presenting me with an alternative
to more official methods of justice. Because when he trusted me
enough, he introduced me to Rosh and Lucy.

The first time I went along with them, it was to see a mechanic
named Timothy Hartley. At the time, he was running a chop shop
out of western Wasp. A young girl had disappeared, and we had
good reason to believe that Hartley was involved. He had form, but
we also had a witness that placed him near the scene and less
reliable sources that pinned him as the guy, and so we brought him
in and leaned on him. The whole time, he laughed and joked and
basically told us to go fuck ourselves.
Twenty-four hours into the questioning, I went to a firing range
with Sean. We did that a lot: we were both good long-range shots,
and we'd often compete a little, but it was mainly so that we could
let off steam and talk the shit over the details of whatever case we
were working on - see if there was anything we'd missed. In
Hartley's case, there was nothing. We both knew that the case was
going to fall.
'We know he did it,' I said.
Sean was loading his rifle. 'That's not enough, though, is it?'
'Yeah, well. It fucking should be.'
I was pissed off at myself, and doing a bad job of keeping it in
check. It felt like there was something I should have been able to do
to stop Hartley from walking. Of course, it was a familiar feeling
and I was used to it by now - but it smarted all the same. I knew
from Sean's hooded expression that he felt the same.
He held the button down, moving his target right the way to the
back of the range. It quivered slightly as it went, then jerked to a
stop. He raised his rifle, aimed and let loose a single shot. Then, he
adjusted his grip slightly and fired two more.
When he lowered the weapon, he looked at me thoughtfully.
'What time are you off duty tonight?'
I shrugged. We both knew it didn't work like that.
'I don't know,' I said. 'Why?'
'Come out to Carpe Diem,' he said. 'I've got a couple of friends
who want to meet you.'
Carpe Diem is a cop bar in Owl, close to the department. We
often went for a drink there after work, and that's what we did that
night as well. And that's where I met Lucy and Rosh properly for
the first time.
Technically, I'd met Lucy before, but only in a professional
capacity: she was in forensics and she handled major crime scenes.
Even more so than me, her work was steeped in death - but you'd
never know it, not to look at her anyway. She had long blond hair,
a pretty face; she was small and slim and curvy. Physically,
everything was right, but with that extra twist you can't describe
and just know when you see it - that slight side-step that takes
pretty and makes it sexy. The first time I'd seen her, I was almost
intimidated by how attractive and alive she was. She'd induced a
kind of awe in me.
But looks are only half the story. One of the other cops had told
me to watch her. He said she was cold and distant, and - I thought
he was joking - borderline psychopathic. Certainly, she was very
professional, aloof even, but I'd caught a flash of humour in
something she'd said to me, and I'd figured that a lot of the gossip
and comments came down to resentment or jealousy: shit like that.
She played her cards close to her chest. I thought that was fine.
That night at Carpe Diem, I discovered it was Lucy who'd
introduced Sean to what we were about to do. Before that, she'd
been recruited into it by Rosh.
Rosh had ten, maybe fifteen years on all of us, and he carried a
lot of respect in the department. Partly it was because, on the
surface, he was astute and good at playing the game and being
accepted by the rest of the force. The other part was that he was
frightening and dangerous, and so people didn't mess with him.
Not only was he two metres tall and extremely well-built, he was
also bald and probably one of the ugliest men you're ever likely to
see. It was like his face had been mangled by something, then
stretched back out in all the wrong directions. He never threw his
weight around because he never seemed like he needed to. Despite
his appearance, Rosh was one of the gentlest, most polite and
demure men you would ever meet, and that made people even more
careful. When you find that dichotomy in a person, you always get
the feeling that it's better not to push and overbalance it. When it
topples, you know instinctively that it'll take half the room with it.
Lucy and Rosh arrived and we chatted; they both liked me and I
liked them. We had a few drinks, sounded each other out, felt
around each other a bit. I knew what they were suggesting without
them saying it, and at that point I was fine with it.
So that was it. That was our crew.
As expected, Timothy Hartley was released. He clearly knew
some people, and the legitimate witness withdrew his statement.
The next evening we paid Hartley a visit at his garage.
Like I said, Lucy was only small, but she had what my
grandmother would call the life force in her, and when she wanted
to she could let it go. Hartley was a sizeable guy, but he never knew
what hit him. She tore him apart in about ten seconds, and then did
some stuff to him that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Pretty quickly,
he told us where the girl was.
Sean went off to check while we held Hartley there at gunpoint.
After a few minutes he started to get his balls back. He told us that
we'd never get away with this, that he'd see us all in prison, fucked
and dead for what we'd done. None of it made any difference to
Rosh or Lucy, but it was my first time out and I was beginning to
get frightened. Eventually, Sean phoned to say he'd found the girl
and that she was still alive. Ten seconds later, Lucy shot Hartley in
the head, and then there wasn't enough time for me to be
frightened about anything.
We planted enough false evidence in the garage to point any
investigating officers to a rival gang, and nobody was ever any
the wiser. The girl? We left her near the hospital and made an
anonymous call.
That was the first time, and it fucked me up as much as you'd
imagine. I thought my life was over - that I'd damned myself and
I'd go to a hell I didn't believe in but was still afraid of. Or I'd be
caught. All the thoughts you'd imagine. But I wasn't caught - we
were too careful for that - and the more I thought about it, the less
I felt, and then finally I started to feel okay. Hartley was a crock of
shit, and we'd saved someone's life. I tried to rationalise it, playing
devil's advocate with my conscience. What exactly, I asked myself,
was wrong with what I'd done? I really wasn't sure. You couldn't
argue with the results. In every way possible, we'd made the
situation better.
I didn't go with the crew the next time they went out, but I did
the time after that, and it went on from there.
All in all, I was involved in killing seven men in cold blood. With
each one the feelings lessened; I'd make myself feel angry and then
I'd make myself feel nothing at all. As we went on, it got to seem
like the only way of getting any real justice in our city at all. By the
time we killed Carl Halloran - the last person we ever visited as a
team - I was almost fine about it. That was a couple of weeks
before we found Alison, though, and I had no idea how everything
was about to fall apart.

One thing about being a cop: it's surprising how abstracted it
makes you feel. You start off with a desire to help people and serve
their interests, but that soon fades into the background. What you
do marks you out as different - there's a real sense of community
among police officers, and at its most intense it creates an 'us
against them' mentality. You realise quickly that a lot of the people
you're protecting don't care about you. In fact, a good proportion
of them fucking hate you. Sometimes we earn that, sometimes we
don't.
As a result, you begin to see people differently. It happened to
me, and after a while I began looking sideways at the city itself.
Sean felt the same, and that's partly what brought us together and
cemented our friendship.
There were nights when he'd drive me out of the city and up into
the hills nearby. We'd park and both look out over the buildings
and the lights and the people below us, and it would seem to me
that in some awful way the city was alive: that there was a dark
heart flexing and thumping underneath the skin of concrete and
soil. Everybody thinks that way sometimes, I guess, but Sean
thought it most of the time, and his belief was infectious. He'd tell
me his theories, and the feeling would bloom inside me. The more
we talked and worked, the more I could sense the city's heartbeat.
It made me feel powerless and awful and weak.
I was supposed to be in control of this city - this enormous
creature that was bad from top to bottom - and it wanted none of
it. Maybe it would let us get away with the little stuff, but the evil
was too ingrained: any concerted attempt to dig it out would bring
the buildings crashing down. That's what Sean said: it was like the
human body if you removed all the water - all you'd be left with is
a pile of sand.
That was how he saw the city, and after a while that's how I
began to see it too. Partly it was because of the way things worked:
everything was so orchestrated and coordinated that it was often
difficult not to see a design under it all. But sometimes you only
had to walk down the streets to start imagining them as veins and
arteries, and on those occasions I often wondered if I could kneel
down, press my hand to the pavement and feel the slow thud of the
city's pulse.
Stupid, maybe, but that was how I started to see things.
Alison Sheldon's murder offered a kind of proof of it.

We didn't know her name then, of course. We didn't know who
she was, only what she was.
Some kids found her, deep inside an old, abandoned building in
Bull. Bull is a strange, eerie district in the top eastern corner of the
city, expanding out far beyond the walls. To the far north-east,
towards the hills, you have the power stations and towers, with
smoke gusting out day and night. At the tops, you can see it
unfolding ever so slowly, churning up and merging into the still
grey of the sky. Closer to the city, the district is quiet, but there are
always echoes and clangs in the distance. It's the industrial heart of
the city, and probably one of the oldest parts, historically. Inside
the city walls, the houses are all old mill-workers' back-to-backs.
They're where the navvies lived; where wool was spun; where the
air was filled with smoke and soot and cholera. These buildings are
mostly abandoned, dirty and dangerous, and because the district
borders Wasp to the south, a lot of things go missing in them,
including people.
Like I said, some kids found her. Bodies generally rest unattended
in Bull for quite some time before they're stumbled on.
These kids were exploring and got unlucky. It was pretty dark
inside, and she was just a shape to them: a shape and a smell. They
spilled out of the building and called us - probably the first time in
their lives, and probably the last. Sean and I took the call.
It was an old house. With a lot of the back-to-backs round there,
it wasn't always clear where one place stopped and another one
started. The walls were often thin; some of them would be missing
entirely. Boards were nailed across properties, dividing homes into
smaller sections, many of which had been knocked through into
their neighbours. The front doors were only ever a guide to the
internal spread of properties. Where there were back doors, you
couldn't get to them because the alleys were all filled with squat
bin-bags and splintered timber.
The kids, and a few adults, waited outside while we went in with
torches, wary of our footing.
I could sense death the second we entered the house. There was a presence to the place. It was very quiet, but it felt like someone was
in there with us and keeping still so as to not make any noise. Like
even though the girl we would find upstairs was dead, she was still
aware and watching us: flickering in the corner behind a soundproof
screen that prevented her from screaming to us. Perhaps it
was just the house itself: its mouldy walls broken down, paper
peeling, everything reeking of damp and decay. The floor was
covered with dust, old bricks, wood. Our flashlights carved across
it, and wherever they weren't shining immediately seemed blacker
as a result. We both had our guns drawn. Even though there was
nothing alive in here to shoot, it felt like you might need to defend
your soul against something.
We found her upstairs, exactly where the kids told us. Sean
holstered his gun and got out a handkerchief to cover his face,
while I toughed it out, shining the torch around the room to check
what else was here. The walls were covered in shreds of paper,
with strips of it hanging off, and the plaster beneath was mottled
with damp and rot. A lot of old, stained graffiti. There didn't seem
to be any furniture. The only real thing to note was a window
opposite us, which was slatted, coated over with grey paper and
thick with flies.
She was in the centre of the room, staining broken floorboards
we could hardly see. Forensics would later determine that her body
had been left balanced in a kneeling position. Her hands and feet
had been bound behind her, and the cord around her neck had
been tied tightly back to join the one at her ankles. When we
arrived, however, decomposition had toppled her. She had lost
most semblance of form, swollen from the slim girl she had once
been into something awful and tight and black: something you'd
have nightmares about. Her head looked like an odd pile of
pebbles; you couldn't even tell where her eyes had been. A thin line
of fungus trailed away across the floor, reaching for the window.
'Do you think she's dead?' Sean asked.
I gave him a look. Then we quickly checked around and went
outside to call it in. Confirmed dead body; forensics required.
They'd go in first and do whatever they needed to do before the
scene became even more contaminated, and then we'd get a chance
to examine the area and get a feel for what might have happened
there. We took details from the children who'd found her, and I
tipped one of the other kids some money to get us both a coffee,
and then we waited out in the open air for people with scientific
qualifications to arrive and start measuring shit.
'This is going to be a bad one,' Sean said.
I nodded. But really - back then - I had no idea.
We worked that investigation hard: all of us. Each person that
touched the file on the dead girl in Bull felt it burn their fingertips a
little and not want to leave them.
This wasn't a business hit; it had none of that cool efficiency. As
a cop, you have a certain understanding of professional hits: you
might not like them, but you know why it's been done and a lot of
the time it ends up making your life a bit easier. It's about greed,
and everybody feels greedy once in a while. You can relate. But this
kind of crime stemmed from something darker and more unpleasant.
And the worst part is that you can still relate. It's all the same
building, but some crimes happen in the nice, clean offices upstairs,
whereas others take place in the basement, beneath the rust and
cobwebs, in rooms that you're scared to go into. You recognise the
roots of everything you investigate, but you learn quickly that some
are more uncomfortably damp than others.
The other reason we worked so tirelessly was Sean. As the case
progressed - or didn't - he grew ever more distant and haunted. I
saw less and less of him, and I started to realise that he wasn't
sleeping much. There were days when he didn't turn up at all - he'd
just be out on his own, running his own lines and walking grids
that might not even have existed outside his own head. Everybody
could see that he was unravelling. Bits of him were fading and
becoming as indistinct as the girl - we didn't know her name,
where she was from, who killed her and why. For some reason, it
seemed like traces of Sean's mind were blowing away on these
breezes of dead air, and, even if we didn't discuss the subject
openly, I think we all figured that solving the case might save him.
Maybe it would have done, but we'll never know. However hard
we looked and however many people we asked, we learned
nothing. She had no name or identity, no family, no past, no future.
And in the end, Sean literally went to pieces.
When I thought about the dead girl, I thought of it like this.
People die in swamps or quicksand and they get sucked under for a
long time - maybe even for ever. But sometimes the ground shifts
and the body is brought to the surface. It's not evil and there's no
thought behind it; it's just what happens. The girl's corpse felt like
that. It was as though our city had shifted awkwardly in a
nightmare and one of its dead had rolled up into the light.
Nameless and forgotten, she might have never been anyone at all.
This was just what our city did. What went on underneath.
Eventually, as stupid as it might seem, you start thinking.
Perhaps nobody killed her at all. Perhaps she was just dead there in
the same way that the paint was peeling and the walls were
crumbling. It sounds ridiculous, but on the nights when you can
almost hear the city breathing it doesn't always feel it. Sean and I
talked about it once, drunk as fuckers, and, although it was left
unspoken, we both knew that it scared us how similarly we were
starting to see the world. So I understood a little how and why it
was haunting him so much, but I didn't appreciate it properly back
then. Now I realise the feeling took him over and he simply
couldn't cope anymore. People die in our city every day, and you
learn to deal with it, but Alison's death was always different. We
didn't know it then, of course, but it was tied into our city and its
history, vibrating on a wavelength that Sean had begun to hear
increasingly clearly. I could only vaguely sense the echoes, but even
that was enough to frighten me.
And what happened was, Sean left.
One day he did his usual not-turning-in routine, but this time his
absence stretched to two days, and then to three, and then he just
never came back. I didn't hear from him, and after a week of no
word it seemed pretty clear that he was gone, one way or another.
The exact circumstances were unclear, but we learned a little, here
and there. Sean had rented his flat and lived alone, and it turned
out that he'd left instructions with his estate agents to say that he
wouldn't be renewing his tenancy. On the last day, the landlord
turned up, expecting an empty house and instead finding that all of
Sean's things were still there. This was a few days before we went
looking, and when we did we found the landlord, slightly
aggravated, in the process of bagging and binning most of Sean's
possessions. There was no forwarding address, no contact details.
It was as though Sean had simply not come home one night.
We looked for him, of course. We tried all the obvious places
and people, and then we moved on to the less obvious. Some of
them, we leaned on pretty hard - but there was no trace of him.
And in the months that had passed since - on those dark nights - I
didn't find it impossible to believe that it had been a trade-off: that
the city had accidentally let go of the girl's body in its sleep,
realised its mistake and then lazily reached out and taken Sean
instead.
The rest of us packed up and moved on. Photographs tacked to
walls were taken down; papers were filed; people moved to
different desks and started giving a shit about other things. But
none of us - especially me - forgot about that girl properly. Like I
said, she was different. A little more awful, a little more
inexplicable. Without understanding why, she haunted us all in our
own ways, whoever she was.
That was about five months ago, and those five months had been a
blur: an emotional downhill roll in which I'd gathered speed until I
couldn't even make out the scenery. Looking back now, it was
tempting to see everything as starting with that dead girl. She got
Sean first. It just took a bit more time for her to get me too.
A month after Sean vanished, the affair I'd had with Lucy was
over and I'd split with Rachel and moved into my new flat. A
month after that and I wasn't going into work. I didn't officially
quit, in that I never handed in my badge or gun, but Rosh and Lucy
were aware I wasn't coming back and informed the necessary
people. Nobody knew exactly where I was, but I don't think
anyone looked that hard. I could live with it.

I lied when I said I left because the job wasn't good enough. That was certainly a factor - and after Sean disappeared there were no
more night-time excursions to take the edge off the monotony. But
it's not the whole story. The real truth is that I left because I
couldn't work with Lucy anymore. We were good friends, and I
hoped we always would be, but she didn't want our relationship to
go on any longer and I'd realised too late that, despite everything,
she was all I wanted. I was hurt and upset and sad, and it was
breaking her heart to see me every day and know that it was her
fault. So I left. I emailed her and said goodbye and that I'd always
be her friend but I needed some time alone to get over these dumb
feelings I had. I didn't know how long it would take, but I never
guessed that four months on they'd be as strong as ever, with a bad
case of cabin fever on top of it all.
Money? I had savings, and it's probably best not to enquire too
much about that. Let's just say that you don't whack that many
criminals without picking up some financial compensation along
the way, and that last guy, Halloran, set the four of us up quite
nicely. Most of my share was squirrelled away in bank accounts
held in fake names. For example, the rent on my flat was paid by
someone else on behalf of someone else. I paid for my shopping
with a third person's credit card.
In the circumstances, how Sean had found me was something of
a mystery: a neat trick I wished I could manage myself.
When I saw him again, I'd have to ask him the secret.

Chapter Three

By the middle of the morning, I was fairly sure that I hadn't shot
anyone the previous night - or not deliberately anyway. Technically,
if you fire a bullet straight up in the air it will reach its zenith,
fall down and, wind resistance aside, by the time it hits the earth
again it'll be travelling as fast as when it left the barrel. So I might
have killed someone by accident or possibly clipped an innocent
bird, but these were outside chances and I figured I shouldn't
worry. Instead, I drank consecutive cups of coffee, felt sorry for
myself and tried to put it out of my head. We all do stupid things
when we're drunk and the important thing is to learn.
I opened the blinds in the kitchen and watched the outside
world. It was approaching Summer but today was a miserable day:
shitty, rainy and overcast. My concentration drifted for a while,
unfocused, but after I'd had enough caffeine to feel properly alive I
went back through to the bedroom and turned my attention to the
papers that Sean had sent to me.
First, the envelope. The only mark on it was my name, scrawled
on the front in blue biro. No return address on the back, and no
indication of where it had come from. The envelope itself was
generic. Next, I looked at the papers that had been inside. The alltoo-familiar
picture of the girl's corpse had been printed on the
station's colour laserjet, and since it was old and battered I
presumed that it had once been part of Sean's original case file. Its
horrors were old: the photocopy of the driver's licence was actually
more shocking, because here was the girl - alive and smiling. She
still didn't have a future, but the licence gave her a past of sorts and
the contrast was telling.
I put the papers to one side.
Five months without a fucking word, Sean. And this is what you
do?
There were a number of questions I wanted answered, many of
them connected with who this girl was and why she'd been killed,
but the ones that preyed on my mind most were to do with Sean.
How he was and what he'd been doing. And why he hadn't
delivered this envelope in person. The truth was, I really missed
him.
My first instinct was to contact him, but there was no obvious
way to do that. Someone else lived in his flat now, and after two
months his mobile number had started coming up dead. Now, a
quick and casual phone call to the police confirmed that he wasn't
working in the department anymore - did I want to leave a
message? I said no, and hung up. I'd thought that maybe he'd
returned to work and nobody had been able to find me to tell me,
but apparently not.
I went into the kitchen to make another coffee - the final straw,
surely: the one that would send me into the street tap-dancing like a
fool - and wondered what to do about Sean's delivery while the
kettle slowly boiled. It was doubtful that he had sent me the
information out of courtesy - he clearly expected me to act on it in
some way. I thought it over. There was no point in me taking it to
the police, as he could have done that himself, so more off-the
record enquiries seemed to be in order. As to why he hadn't
established contact properly, I'd just have to trust that he had a
good reason. I was his friend, after all, and I owed him that much.
Perhaps it would become obvious.
I poured the coffee and took it through to the front room.
A couple of simple calls, then. And to be fair, it wasn't like I had
anything else to do with my day.

Like most of the students in our city, Alison had travelled a long
way to be with us. The address on her driver's licence was her
parents' house, and they lived on the other side of the country in
Bracken, where I guessed that she'd grown up. It took a little
searching on the internet to get a phone number for them, and then
ten minutes of planning before I decided what I was going to say.
Then, I made the call.
A man answered after five rings:
'Hello?'
'Mr Sheldon?' I said.
'Uh-huh.' The line crackled a little. 'Who am I speaking to?'
'My name is Martin Weaver,' I told him. 'I'm a detective. I'd like
to talk to you about your daughter.'
'Right. Go on then.'
His lack of concern took me aback a little, but I tried not to let it
register. Instead, I took my first risk, figuring that Sean must have
been in touch with this man at some point.
'I believe you spoke to one of my colleagues recently?'
'No, not me.'
'Oh,' I said. First risk taken and fucked up. 'In that case I must
have been misinformed.'
'It was my wife who spoke to him.'
'Ah, right.'
Her parents were a logical place to start, I supposed. Of course,
living so far away, it was unlikely that they'd have much insight
into Alison's life in the city; they probably wouldn't know that
much about what she did and who she did it with, or even - given
the realities of teenage alienation - much about who she was. But
Sean had given me their address for a reason, and so there must be
something here.
Sheldon said, 'He rang up about a month ago. Sean something, I
think. I don't know - my wife wrote it down. Said he was a
policeman.'
'That's right,' I said, and it occurred to me how strange it was.
Their daughter had been murdered and the only people who had
contacted them about it were men claiming to be policemen who
actually weren't.
I said, 'Could you tell me what he discussed with your wife?'
It was an awkward question anyway - as by all rights I should
already know - but I knew that Sheldon's irritation and indifference
could make it even worse. Fortunately, he wasn't paying
attention.
'Yeah,' he told me. 'Said there had been a possible sighting that
he was looking into. But since then we haven't heard anything. He
asked us to get in touch if we heard from her.'
Okay, I thought. They don't know she's dead.
'Did he ask about anything else?'
'He asked about Alison,' Sheldon said. 'Wanted to know about
her friends. Her work. Stuff like that.'

'And what did your wife tell him?'
'She told him she didn't know much about it. To be honest,
Alison hardly ever contacts us. Wasn't much my wife could say.
Anything he wanted to know would have been in the Missing
Persons Report anyway.'
Missing Persons Report?
I almost said it out loud, but managed to stop myself just in time.
We'd gone through every one of those reports for the months
before and after we found the body, and Alison's name had never
turned up. Right age, right physical characteristics - if she'd been
there we would have seized on her file and run with it. When had it
been made?
I spoke to Alison's father for a few more minutes, trying to find
out if he knew anything else, but there was nothing. He was
obviously uninterested by my enquiries, and it became apparent
that Alison had been distanced from her parents for quite a while
before her disappearance. Her father's attitude was that this was
the kind of thing she did - no doubt she'd turn up eventually, and
she shouldn't expect much of a welcoming committee when she
did. It was very sad, but he didn't know what had happened and I
tried hard - but unsuccessfully - not to hold it against him.
'Thanks for your time,' I said at the end of the conversation.
'We'll be in touch if we hear anything.'

The nearest Missing Persons Bureau is based a little out of town:
around three hundred kilometres north, and then west a bit. It is
notoriously efficient, mostly because it was founded twenty years
ago by an everyday couple who had started off searching for their
own missing son. It had expanded since then, of course, but it's still
run on a voluntary basis by dedicated staff. The police force had
trouble keeping track of things that happened ten minutes ago, but
Missing Persons maintains files on every runaway and absentee
reported to them since the operation began. Even better - the files are hard-copy and the staff know where to find them.
Missing Persons isn't a public operation, in that if you rang up
anonymously and asked for information you wouldn't get it, but
they work closely with the police. They keep the files but they
certainly don't want them, and if the police find someone then they
can throw a case away. We all cooperate and maintain a useful
two-way exchange.
Of course, I was a normal member of the public now - I still had
a badge, but the number was probably void. Fortunately, I'd
worked with Missing Persons enough times to know a couple of
the staff by name, and so I could call and ask for one of them
personally. The sad fact is that missing people ended up in our city
all the time, in various states of mental and physical cohesion, and I
was one of the few cops who had conspicuously cared about
putting names to some of them and maybe sending them home. As
currency went in Missing Persons, I was a rich man until proven
otherwise.

An hour after speaking to Mr Sheldon, I was sitting in an internet
cafe, drinking yet another coffee and running through the details
that had been faxed through to me on the colour machine at the
other side of the room.
I'd lied on the phone, but only by omission. Yes, I might have
some news for them soon - that was true. No, I wasn't in the
office; I was out, so could they fax the details to this number,
please? Also true. But they hadn't asked if I was still a cop and so I
hadn't mentioned that I wasn't.
I had six pages. The first had a picture of Alison Sheldon in the
top right-hand corner. It was a relaxed shot: someone had snapped
her from one side, just as she turned, and she was squinting against
a sun that lit up her face. In this photograph she looked much
prettier than she did on the driver's licence, and it was sad.
Sean always said that when people died all the photographs of
them shifted into an emotional minor key. If you put ten prints in
front of him, he could pick out the victims. In a way, people in
pictures are always dead - because time passes and that particular
person gets left behind - but there are still tendrils that attach
images of the you in the past to the you in the present, and when
people die the tendrils stop humming. Sean really thought he could
sense that, and who was I to tell him he was wrong? Looking at the
picture of Alison that had been faxed to me, I didn't understand
how someone wouldn't know that she was dead.
The rest of that page was a brief bio, typed in Courier with
headings underlined. I scanned it quickly, taking in the pertinent
details. Alison was twenty when she disappeared, studying for a
degree in Fine Art. There were details of her previous schools, and
it said that she'd been arrested for a minor drugs offence in her
mid-teens and cautioned, but apart from that her record was clean.
Just bad luck getting caught, that one. When she disappeared, she
didn't even have points on her driver's licence.
The other pages gave information about the circumstances of her
disappearance, but not as much as I'd hoped. From the scant
details, I got the impression that Alison had lived a very
independent life. She had an address in Turtle, but it seemed that
she often stayed over with friends, sleeping on floors and in spare
rooms. Her boyfriend situation was generally fluid, but there was
some indication - from comments made by friends - that it had
settled somewhat in the weeks prior to her disappearance. Some
people thought she was seeing another student; some, a lecturer.
Others said they couldn't be sure that she was seeing anyone, only
that she wasn't seeing them as much as she used to. In my
experience of murder investigations, girls rarely benefit from
having mysterious boyfriends. Despite the confusion, there was
enough mention of a boyfriend for it to seem worth pursuing.
On to her actual disappearance, then. She hadn't been seen for a
week and a half by the time she was reported missing. The last
person to see her alive was her friend, Keleigh Groves. Alison had
left for the library that morning, presumably after an evening of
some kind of social debauchery, and she hadn't returned.
That wasn't unusual, Keleigh was quoted as saying. She'd do
that all the time. She had loads of friends she used to stay with. If
she turned up, I let her stay and maybe other people would be there
and we'd have a party. But I didn't worry if I didn't see her.
Other people must have felt the same, because nobody had been
particularly worried not to hear from Alison for that length of
time, and the boyfriend - if there was one - seemed to have
disappeared along with her. Nobody heard from her again. Not
until some kids were fucking around in Bull and ended up running
screaming out of that old, abandoned house. Then, she started
speaking to Sean and me in our nightmares with a voice that - until
yesterday - had no name. The Missing Persons Report was filed, a
few relevant people were interviewed and that was that. People
vanish all the time. Many of them because they want to.
And yet she hadn't vanished. We'd found her.
I checked through the dates on the sheet and put the chronology
together in my head. We found her body around two weeks after
she disappeared, and that was a good half week after this report
had been filed. We would have picked it up. So why didn't we?
Certainly not incompetence - a large number of us worked this
case very hard, and checking Missing Persons would have been one
of the obvious avenues to pursue. The only real answer I could
come up with was that someone had picked up the report: picked it
up and buried it. Not me. Not Sean. Someone else in the
department.
I rubbed my face a little and started to feel bad.
It occurred to me that Sean had sent a very small amount of
information about Alison, which meant that he must have had a
reason not to tell me a lot more. Maybe he didn't want to get me
properly involved unless it was necessary. Which would mean that
he'd sent me what he had as some kind of insurance.
I put it together in my head.
Sean investigates. Sean finds out something bad and realises that
his life might be in danger. Sean sends me enough to get going so
that if something bad does happen to him I can follow it up. Then I
can get killed too. Thanks a fucking bunch, Sean, I would say to
him, in whatever twisted version of heaven we ended up in.
It made a certain amount of sense.
He'd delivered it last night, so he'd been alive and fine yesterday.
Perhaps something had been about to change. A deal or a meeting.
Some kind of showdown.
I finished off my coffee and wondered where I was going next.
There was no question of putting this to one side. Sean was my
friend and I needed to know that he was okay. That was the deal;
since he'd always looked out for me, it was time to repay the
favour. But even without that there was no question. I turned to the
front of the file and looked again at the picture of Alison. It was
strange, but I still dreamed about her sometimes; and when that
happened, I always woke up feeling that her murder had injected
poison into my life. Everything after finding her had gone rotten.
Discovering her killer wouldn't fix any of that, of course, but I felt
compelled to try anyway, regardless of any danger that Sean might
be in.
So: the first priority was probably a visit to the university. I'd see
what her department could tell me. Maybe have a look at her
emails too. Then, there was the boyfriend to check out - whether
he had been a student, a lecturer or someone else altogether. I
could look up a few of her friends; there were contact details for
most of the ones who had given statements. And at some point I'd
have to speak to Rosh or Lucy about who in the department might
have hidden the report and why. But that was uncomfortable and it
could wait.
Okay then, I thought, gathering up my papers.
As I paid up, I realised I was experiencing something I hadn't felt
since I'd left the police: a kind of vague thrill. It was a buzzing
feeling that wasn't quite excitement. You never enjoy the job, but
sometimes you get the sensation of rightness - of things falling
naturally into place. You shake the facts and drop them, and they
begin to form a line that leads to the truth; and when that happens
it can feel like you're coming into alignment with the world and
doing exactly what you should.
I went outside, and was heading towards the university campus which
was a long walk away - when my mobile rang. The
investigation vanished from my mind, and I thought Lucy as I took
the phone out of my pocket. But then the display said rachel home
calling and I looked at it for a good five seconds, debating whether
to answer it or not, before finally pressing green.
'Hi,' I said.
'Didn't you get my text?'
'No.' But that was too much of a lie for it to live. 'Well, yes. But
not until a few minutes ago. I've been busy.'
'Well, it's nice to know you're keeping yourself busy.'
'Right.'
Since I'd moved out, Rachel had two ways of dealing with me.
The first was the tone of the text message last night: vulnerable and
hurt, and not afraid to show it. The other way was the flipside of
that: cold, detached, professionally annoyed - mainly at me, but
also at herself for the times when she was more open. I wasn't sure
which was the hardest to deal with, but it was clear I had the
pared-down half-hatred to deal with today.
She said, 'I need to see you.'
'What do you need to see me about?'
'I need to talk. I know you're busy - apparently - but I need to.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'I am busy.'

'Well, I need to. I think you owe me that much at least.'
I checked my watch; the afternoon was passing quickly, and I
wasn't going to have time to meet Rachel and then check out the
university. It was one or the other. I closed my eyes.
Half of me thought that she was being unfair - that I didn't owe
her anything, because life doesn't work like that. Relationships die,
and usually one of you hurts a lot more than the other. I'd felt
enough guilt to sink my entire life, and so I'd tried to convince
myself over time that you can hurt someone very badly without it
necessarily being wrong. But it never quite worked. For a start,
there was my affair with Lucy; in reality, I had such a lot to be
guilty about. If Rachel thought that meeting up and talking to me
might numb the pain a little, then I could do that. Whatever she
asked, in fact, I could probably do. It didn't balance against the one
huge thing I couldn't do for her, but at least it was something.
I opened my eyes and said:
'Okay. Where do you want to meet?'

Chapter Four

At the western edge of Horse, where it borders Elephant, there is a
place called the Clock Cafe. It's on the cusp of both studentland
and the bohemian market end of the business district, and therefore
it's needlessly trendy: nestled in between a fake authentic pizzeria
and a shop filled with old clothes that had come back into fashion
by virtue of simply being so revolting. The cafe itself is a mixture of
glass-fronted utility and old-world decor that doesn't really work.
On the front, above the window, somebody had painted an
enormous white clockface - Roman numerals, and all - onto the
brick, and obviously that doesn't work. And yet it's always full,
presumably because students don't work either.
The drizzly rain had stopped now, and a fair few people were
sitting outside at tables on the cramped pavement. There were too
many couples and they seemed too happy. Whenever I saw people
who were blatantly in love with each other, I was always torn
between thinking that either they were very stupid or I was. Today,
it was edging towards the latter.
I crossed the street heading for the cafe, but I stopped a little way
down from the entrance as something caught my eye. A friend of
society had spray-painted graffiti onto the flagstones in the middle
of the pavement. It said:

LIFE SPEAKS
LOUDER
AT DEATH

I stared at it for a few seconds, feeling confused and intrigued by it,
and then I shook my head. It was just graffiti.
I headed inside the cafe and ordered a cappuccino. The waiter
slick, tanned and ponytailed - was drying the inside of a cup with a
tassel-edged tea towel, using an action that suggested a previous
customer must have been drinking some kind of glue. He took my
order imperiously and then set about taking as long as physically
possible to make it. I sat down at a table not far from the counter,
and decided that if he didn't bring my drink over within five
minutes then I was very probably going to shoot him. It seemed
reasonable.
He just made it and I almost scowled. Instead, I sipped the froth
off the coffee, waited and remembered.

There's this strange thing. Whenever I travelled by train, I couldn't
help looking for bodies out of the window. Macabre perhaps, but
the side of railway tracks always seemed such a likely disposal site
for corpses: all those wastelands and embankments and litter
strewn sidings. Looking out of the window, all you ever saw were
fields and gravel, desiccated buildings and rubbish.
There were no bodies that day, as far as I could tell.
We were on a train, side by side, with me beside the aisle and
Rachel by the window. She had been sleeping for most of the
journey. I would have quite liked her to rest her head on my
shoulder but instead she was facing forwards, her head tilted back
slightly, with the four-four rattle of the tracks moving her gently.
Sitting opposite, there were two indifferent strangers, arms
folded, bored and lolling. We were all doing our best not to touch
knees or look at each other.
The tannoy system kept performing strange grammatical loops:
'The next station is Lindley. Lindley is the next station.'
I alternated between looking at the dirty, rubbery floor of the
aisle and the landscape outside. In the distance, the bare trees
turned slowly on the spot as we passed. Closer, the world
accelerated: the yellow fields trotted backwards, the hedge was
running, and then the gravel of the track was a blur of speeding
complexity. In the carriage itself, there was peace: only the shudder
of the tracks; the occasional shuffle.
I was thinking about how to break up with Rachel. A couple of
weeks in and I was unhappy with the way things were going - or
weren't going - and splitting up with her seemed like the best
solution out of a bad bunch.
The main problem, as I saw it, was that we seemed to have
nothing to say to each other. In my limited experience, the
beginning of a new relationship should be full of passion and talk.
There's too much to discover about the other person - in bed and
in conversation - but you're compelled to try anyway and it feels
great. You want to know what they think about everything, and
then you're amazed by what they say. You want to take them to
places that mean a lot to you, both to share them and also so that
you can see those places in new ways.
With Rachel, there was none of that. Obviously, we had
conversations, but there was an awkwardness to them, as though
at any moment one of us might give a one-word answer and mess
everything up and neither of us was willing to take the risk. And we
did have sex, but most of the time it was this perfunctory,
passionless fucking. The one-word-answer nerves haunted that too;
we just weren't relaxed. Even kissing felt difficult: every kiss felt
like the first, like we still weren't sure that the other one actually
wanted to.
Next to me, Rachel stirred slightly. I looked at her and she gave
me a sleepy smile, then closed her eyes again and shuffled slightly.
But she still didn't lean against me.
'The next station is Saltaire. Saltaire is the next station.'
Only two more stops to go but the journey felt interminable. The
train shushed slowly to a halt against the platform, and the doors
juddered open. A few people moved on and off, but Saltaire was a
dead village and hardly anyone travelled to or from here. Soon, the
doors closed, and then the train jerked once and whispered off
towards the city. The whisper built up to a rush; the loud clatter of
the tracks returned.
So: why hadn't I broken up with her already? I really wasn't
sure. Perhaps the niggling doubt I was entertaining was born out of
fear. I'd never broken up with anyone in my life; it had always been
the other way around. There were all kinds of things to consider.
What would she say if I told her? What would her family think? I'd
met them the previous night and they seemed nice; I didn't want
her or them to hate me. What could I even say? There was nothing
I could pin down exactly, beyond 'we don't get on', and that wasn't
true because a lot of the time we did. It would be a mystery to
Rachel. Give it time, she would say; we do get on; we do have
things in common.
And a lot of me wasn't sure it would be right: why would I want
to give up on this - someone who was prepared to take that chance
on me? Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but what did I want from a
relationship? Nothing was ever perfect, and it was stupid to expect
that or even look for it. I should just be grateful I had someone who
wanted me. That was a huge bonus. The rest, I could work on.
'The next station is Shipley. Shipley is the next station.'
Deep down I knew that I would stay with her, and my thoughts
were circling that uncomfortable truth like an animal caught in a
trap. Was it sensible? Was I selling myself short? I wanted to get up
and run.
It's not right. It's not--
But what wasn't it, exactly? What I'd been promised in
fairytales?
The train rattled out of Shipley and bore down on the edge of the
city and I knew, as we approached the final station, that I was
going to continue to see Rachel even though I didn't want to. And
then, as we slowed, I decided the opposite. We were going to break
up. And that was how it went: a circling of decision, with my mind
changing and shifting with each clack of the tracks. As we came to
a halt it ticked back and forth increasingly slowly. Split up. Stay
together.
Split up.
Stay together.
'The train terminates at this stop.'
Everybody started to get up, to get their things together. The
carriage was full of the sound of bags scraping off the luggage
racks; the aisle, with bodies stretching and shifting. The politely
tense commotion of a journey coming to its end. It was almost a
competition, and I always avoided it.
Split up.
I stayed sitting down while everyone around me rummaged and
shuffled, side-stepped and squeezed out in between people who
would quite clearly love to kill everyone in their way.
But not Rachel. She was just sitting there. She'd woken up, but
she still looked sleepy as she gave me a bleary-eyed smile. I got the
impression that right now the borderline between the train and her
bed was a little blurry, and suddenly there was something quite
sweet about that. I smiled back.
'Hey,' she said.
'Hey.'
And then - without warning - she did what I'd wanted her to do
all along: she rested her head on my shoulder and her loosely
curled hand on my thigh. All around us, people were fighting to get
off, and it was at this point that she'd finally decided to touch me,
lean on me. She wasn't getting up and pressing me to move into the
throng, but doing the exact opposite and keeping me seated.
Maybe another day she would have got up. But that day it hadn't
even entered her head; she'd just leaned against me because she
wanted to.
Stay together.
So we sat like that for a bit. I put my hand on hers and gave it a
squeeze. When the aisle was half-empty, Rachel turned her hand
round and squeezed mine in return, and then she started to gather
herself upright.
'Come on, then.'
'Yeah,' I said.

That was how it all started with Rachel. Not when I met her (that
had been in a bar, where she'd been both startlingly and
refreshingly indifferent to everyone, including me when I started
speaking to her) but when I made the decision that the relationship
was worth sticking with. Not because she lit up my life or because I
was inspired by her, and not because it was perfect. But simply
because . . . she wanted me. And she clearly had something about
her that was worth a lot. It felt like it should be enough to work
with.
And as the months passed, I realised with some relief that it had
been the right choice. Everything relaxed. We both let down those
everyday guards that we hadn't been aware we'd had, and we
accepted our mutual baggage: kicked it around a bit, got an idea of
the shape and heft. Within a year, I couldn't imagine a life without
her, and I know that she felt the same because even now, four
months after we'd split up, she was finding it difficult.
The problem was the different feelings inside me at the time that
led me to make that choice. I was telling myself that I needed to
accept what I had, when I should have been appreciating the plain
truth that there was nothing better. There are always problems.
Nothing is perfect; every relationship requires effort and compromise.
By not understanding that, I was setting myself up for a fall
when someone came along who seemed to fulfil an ideal that only
existed in my own head.
It's the same as a wound. Unless you get the bullet out, the skin
might heal over the metal but the bullet's always there. You get
these people sometimes: they live with shrapnel close to their spine
or in their head, and there's always the danger that something
might shift slightly and then suddenly everything's in jeopardy. My
self-doubt was a little like that. I should have got rid of it
somehow, and then perhaps everything would have been fine. I
would have known that what I had with Rachel was as good as it
gets, rather than having the dumb idea that it was just as good as it
gets for me. But I didn't. And so when Lucy came along she shifted
me, moved me, and everything that was sealed away inside began
to rip.

About twenty minutes later, I was considering ordering another
drink - weighing the caffeine jolt against the time and irritation
necessary to obtain it - when Rachel walked in through the door
and made the decision for me.
I gave her an awkward smile, looked away quickly, and then
stood up and made my way over to the counter simply to give my
body something to do.
'Another cappuccino.'
She joined me.
'Make it two,' she said. 'Hi.'
'Hi.'
In preparation for the meeting, she was wearing war clothes:
things I hadn't seen before, very obviously bought in the time since
I'd left. A smart black coat, down to her thighs. A dark blue crop
top. Short black skirt. Boots. I'd never seen her wearing anything
like it. Change and experimentation are good, of course - but there
are subtle gestures that reveal quiet confidence, and then there are
gestures so dripping with overt meaning that they flip over and
become the opposite. This seemed in danger of being one of those.
'You look nice,' I said.
'Thanks.'
I didn't know exactly what she meant by her response, but that
was nothing new: everything we'd said to each other since the split
had been subject to intense coding, both real and imagined.
Conversations could suddenly veer off on dangerous tangents that
neither of us had seen coming. Thanks, I know. Thanks for
noticing. Thanks a lot.
I took my seat and she sat down opposite me.
'I didn't know you liked cappuccino,' I said, when the waiter
finally brought our coffees.
She shook a packet of sugar, tore it and poured a hiss of it into
her drink. It rested on the surface, and then began to sink into the
foam.
'There's a lot about me you don't know.'
'Probably.'
She stirred the coffee and then took a sip.
'Thanks for taking time out from your busy schedule,' she said. 'I
appreciate it.'
'No problem.'
'I want to talk about things.'
'What things?'
'The house, I suppose. Us.'
And then her resolve went - just like that. That one word kicked
the legs out from under her, and her face crumpled like tissue.
Without thinking, I reached out to touch her arm.
'Don't.' She almost flinched away. 'Don't fucking touch me,
please.'
'Okay.' I drew back. 'I'm sorry.'
'You should be.'
She took a handkerchief from her bag and blew her nose. Then
she swallowed back all the questions and accusations that were
swarming to come out and returned to the script.
'I want the rest of your things out.'
'Okay.'
'I need you to get rid of them. Everywhere I look I see you. It's
driving me insane.'
'Okay. I understand.'
'No you don't. You have no idea.'
The rest of the coffee shop receded from my consciousness faded
out to white as I concentrated on her. My skin was crawling
at being the focus of so much awful emotion.
I'd been back to the house once since I'd left, when I was sure
that she wouldn't be there. I'd needed a couple of disks that I'd
forgotten the first time. Walking into the kitchen, I'd been shocked
- I literally stopped in my tracks. Nothing was clean. There were
empty packets everywhere. Empty bottles. The front room was a
real mess: papers all over the floor, plates and old cups resting in
piles and short towers, more bottles and glasses. The air had been
grey and the house had seemed unwell, as though it was dying of
some wasting disease. I'd wanted to do something to clean it up,
but knew that there was nowhere to start and no point anyway. I
got the disks and left, and I went home and cried for hours.
The hatred in her voice disappeared slightly.
'I love you so much.'
I just sat there and looked at the table. That was the way it had
to be: just put my head down and get through it. One word in front
of another.
'I just want you to love me,' she said quietly, 'and I don't
understand why you don't.'
I touched the lip of my mug.
'That's all.' Her voice had reduced itself to a pained, embarrassed
whisper. 'I'm sorry. I didn't want to be like this. I just love
you.'
I closed my eyes.
'Rachel - '
'I know. I know.'
'I wish there was something I could say.'
'There is. You're just not going to.'
So I let her compose herself instead. After a moment, she said, 'I
just don't understand.'
'I know.'
'But anyway. That's life, isn't it.' She shook herself a little,
suddenly under control again. She'd always been good at that. 'I've
said that I want your stuff out.'
'Yes.'
'But that doesn't mean I don't still want you.'
I looked at her. The hard ferocity in her face was totally at odds
with what she'd just said. And she didn't still want me - how could
she? If anything, she wanted things as they used to be - she wanted
to be able to unwind the last four months, take them back and play
everything differently. She wanted the me that had existed in the
years up until that moment I'd told her I wasn't in love with her
anymore. This me, she hated.
There are some things you do that you can't take back - like
killing a man, or telling someone you don't love them anymore. A
relationship is like a branch that's grown thick and strong over
time. You can't have your partner snap that in half, and then just
lay the two pieces next to each other and expect them to be whole
again. However much glue you use, the original thing is always
gone for ever.
She said, 'Will you do me a favour?'
'If I can.'
'It's not difficult.'
I didn't say anything.
'If you change your mind, you've got to let me know.'
I didn't say anything.
'Even if I'm married with kids. Well, no, maybe not if I have
kids. But if I'm married, or with someone else, then you have to let
me know.'
'Okay.'
'Because you're the love of my life. I want to make you happy.'
I closed my eyes again.
The worst thing was that I could imagine her planning this.
That's what you do when you're hurt and want to change
something. I would have bet money that she'd lain awake and run
this scenario through her head, thinking very carefully about what
she needed to say to convince me. And in her mind it would have
worked. She would have settled on a script of exactly the right
words.
I could imagine this, because I'd done it myself for Lucy.
Rachel said, 'And I always want to be with you. And I always
will want to.'
With Lucy, when the hurt got too much, I'd write her an email.
And I'd work on this fucking thing for hours. When I'd finished, it
would say everything I wanted to say. It would, in fact, be as
eloquent and convincing a piece of personal propaganda as had
ever been committed to paper. But even as I was writing, I'd know
that it wasn't really about persuading her to be with me. It was
more about the fantasy of it: putting reality out of my head for an
evening and imagining that things might be different. I'd let myself
believe that she would read it, realise how deeply I loved her and
want to be with me. Stupid, because if that was ever going to
happen then it wouldn't matter what I wrote, but stupidity wasn't
the point - it was always the solitary writing that was important:
the act of imagination that twisted a few painful hours and made
me feel less lonely. Then I'd press send mail and wish that I hadn't.
The letter was gone then, and I'd realise how imperfect it had been.
Days without a reply would follow, and I'd feel ashamed of myself
and vow never to do it again.
'Okay,' I said to Rachel. 'I promise.'
I imagined her going home from the coffee shop and wondering
which words she should have used instead - what the real magic
ones had been. And then she'd come up with new ones, definitely
magic this time, and want to see me again. She'd done this before.
And I still wrote emails to Lucy.
'I'm sorry.' Rachel's chair scraped, and I opened my eyes. 'I've
got to go.'
'Rachel--'
'No. I don't want to see you again.'
And she was gone, starting to hide her face and then deciding
why the fuck should she bother. I watched her go, forcing myself to
feel blank. When the door to the cafe closed, I turned back to the
table and slowly drank my coffee: it had been expensive, after all.
Not to mention so bastard time-consuming to come by.
I finished and left. The grey sky was beginning to darken:
shadows deepening within shadows in clouds of damp pollution
that you could taste at ground level. It was going to rain again
soon. Maybe I had time to get to the university and start digging,
but I thought: fuck it, I'd done enough for today, and it wasn't as if
anybody gave a shit anyway.
I bought a bottle of vodka from an unfamiliar liquor store, and
then stood in line for a late tram, getting slowly soaked by the first
few stinging sheets of rain, but not really noticing or caring.

I left the brief file I was building on Alison on the table, and spent
most of the evening on the computer, getting steadily drunk while I
checked out a few removal agencies and storage companies.
Apparently, my stuff was driving Rachel insane, and so it would
have to be put somewhere. But I couldn't actually think what else I
owned back at the house - never mind whether I wanted it badly
enough to care about what happened to it. The somewhere it was
going to be put could be the rubbish tip for all I cared right now.
To be honest, the search was more just to give myself something
to do while I was drinking. Just an excuse. An empty, pointless
thing that would make the hours go by until I could go to sleep.
But when I'd searched as much as I could, I did something even
more stupid than drinking - I got out the letters that Rachel had
written me. I'd sent Lucy text messages and emails, but Rachel had
never done that with me. It had always been face-to-face meetings
and eloquent, handwritten letters that she'd give to me as she was
leaving. I read through one of them now, finding the passage that
my drunken mind had convinced me I wanted to read.

I don't think I know much, but I know that you always told me
how much you loved me, and I always believed you. It made me
feel happy and secure. I'm sorry if I did something wrong. If I did,
I don't know what it was but I'd do anything to change it. I just
can't believe that the love you had for me has gone. I think love
changes because it has to. I don't feel the same about you as I did
when we met, but my love for you has grown deeper as it's
altered, and it's become something more wonderful. I think that if
you look in your heart you'll realise that though a lot of that
initial burst has disappeared you do still love me and you've given
up everything in search of something else that's not really
important. I understand and it's okay. But please come home.

Most of the vodka went, which is bad. But I didn't leave the flat
and spend a vast amount of money in an overpriced club, and I
didn't shoot at anyone, so I don't think it's fair to see the evening as
a complete failure of character.

Chapter Five

The next day, a vague sense of impending and possibly even
present hangover kept me in bed until nearly midday. I hadn't been
sure whether the storm was approaching or retreating; hopefully
I'd been asleep for the worst of it and could have safely come out
from beneath the covers, but I erred on the side of caution. By one
o'clock I was fed, washed and watered. Two coffees down and I
was ready to face the world. Whether I was ready to face the
university was more open to question.
Horse is the university district. The main campus takes up most
of the centre: a sprawl of departmental buildings and walkways
mixed in with subsidised shops and cheap accommodation. It is
constantly evolving as new structures are added, and so the
architecture is diverse and odd, with glistening new blocks nestling
in between archaic stone buildings, next to abandoned churches
that had been converted into cafes and bars. Directly surrounding
the campus, there is a pedestrian precinct of charity shops, cafes,
takeaways, chemists and bars; and then this deteriorates slowly as
you reach the outskirts of the district - except to the west, where
you find the markets and ethnic stores that segue slowly into the
classier commerce of Elephant. At the other three edges of Horse,
the shops give way to small estates: thin streets filled with back-to
backs and terraces; occasional patches of more middle-class semis.
That was where I lived: close to the district's eastern border with
Wasp.
There is a real cultural mix in these streets, which I liked, but
because the student-to-local ratio is split roughly fifty-fifty there
can often be trouble. The locals tend to be quite poor - and of
course the students are too, but they're also generally young, loud
and prone to partying like fuckers. The adult delights of Wasp are,
after all, only a brief tram ride away. So people who have lived in
the area all their lives have seen house prices driven up and their
streets scattered with litter and vomit, and have been woken up in
the early hours of the morning by people pissing against their
hedges. Factor in a few posh accents and a general lack of self
awareness, and you can understand why the uneasy truce between
the two populations was sometimes broken.
I took a deep breath and set off.
Ten minutes later, I could see Parkinson Tower and I knew I was
getting close to the main campus. I was already beginning to feel
the frustration build. At other times of year, students moved very
slowly, but at least you knew where you were: you could trundle
along on the same treadmill of lethargy, or else you could plot a
course and dodge and weave along at the approximate pace of a
normal human being. But this was exam time and so all bets were
off. Some clusters of people were walking quickly, determined to
arrive at their departments on time, while others were meandering,
staring at bits of paper in last-ditch attempts to learn things; and
yet more sections of the stream had clotted into groups that were
smiling and hugging each other and generally unaware of anyone
they might be in the way of. A few people were sitting on the edges
of pavements, crying. Bars were full, and I found that I wanted to
be in one.
Instead - as I reached the campus - I consulted a series of
enormous but largely uninformative wall-mounted maps, relied a
little on blind chance and eventually located the Fine Art department.
It was based in one of the newest buildings on campus: a
bright, shining block of glass and brick that was almost intimidating
in its cleanliness. The automatic doors seemed to pause for a
second before deciding to let me in; and while that might have been
my imagination, the frostiness at reception certainly wasn't.
'No,' she said.
'No?'
The three secretaries working behind a glass screen in the main
office were bathed in poor light from a slatted window somewhere
behind them. It was a strange atmosphere: everything looked
slightly off-colour and the only real sound was that of fingers
tapping on keyboards. Two of the secretaries were studiously
ignoring me, working away. They were deferring to the third, who
was young and pretty in an icy sort of way - or might have been, if
her smile had gone anywhere near her eyes. When I'd rung the bell,
her name had been Marie and how could she help? Presumably her
name hadn't changed, but her attitude had certainly shifted a few
miles.
'We can't give out information about students,' she told me.
I gave her my most charming smile. As my badge had already
been produced and had failed to impress, the smile was all I had
left, although I supposed there was still the gun.
'Could you at least tell me who her personal tutor was?'
'Not even that.'
'Not even that,' I said, leaning away from the counter and
tapping it gently. 'Thank you. You've been very helpful.'
'And you're very welcome.'
To be fair, I hadn't expected any different, what with data
protection laws being what they were. I could be a mad parent or a
vengeful ex-lover or even - god forbid - not a cop at all. And there
would be legal hell to pay if the secretary had said, 'Yes, she's in
room six,' and then I went off and killed her. No - I'd expected
that I would need a warrant to get information out of them, and I
wasn't likely to get one. Fortunately, I knew from previous
investigations that there were easier - if slightly less ethical options
available to me.

A little over twenty minutes later, I was sitting in one of the
university's computer rooms. Despite the fact that exams were
underway, it was relatively busy, with rows of students typing, the
noise undercut by the low, constant hum of the network. A few
people were talking quietly, and there was an occasional sniff from
someone waiting by the printer, but that was about it. I didn't like
it in here: it was lit to clinical levels by artificial strip-bulbs in the
mirrored ceiling, as though an operation was about to be
performed. The air smelled of electricity, plastic and body odour.
I tapped a few keys quickly and logged in to the system.
The way computer accounts work at university is this: everybody
gets one - staff and students - and because every single computer
on campus is connected to a central server, you can log in on any of
them and still have access to your own files - essays, spreadsheets,
databases, internet bookmarks, emails - the works. Anything that
Alison Sheldon had been working on - and anyone she had been

writing to or receiving email from - should still be available. Ten
minutes logged into her account would tell me more than Mariehow-can-I-help-you
could in two hours.
Breaking into a student's account is pretty simple. People forget
their passwords all the time and so there needs to be some system
in place for confirming your identity and then giving out the
information you need to get into your mail. Fortunately, it's
automated. All you need is your student identification number and
your date of birth - you have those, and any computer you sit
down at will happily remind you of your password. I had this
information for Alison from her Missing Persons Report. Her
password, if you're interested, was gtwxkt.
Once logged in, I began my search in her essay folder, but then
realised quickly that there was no hope of reviewing all the
material now: there was simply too much, and most of it looked
irrelevant. But I'd brought a few blank disks with me, and so I
copied everything just to be on the safe side. If there was nothing
on television one night, at least I'd never be lost for something to
read.
Next, I opened up her email account. Hopefully it would give me
some kind of contact details for any friends not mentioned in the
report, and also - if I was very lucky - there might be messages
from the man she'd been seeing in the weeks leading up to her
murder. But when the mail program loaded, I was met by an empty
inbox: No new messages it told me, in a panel down the left-hand
side, and underneath that: No read messages. Which was unusual,
to say the least, because free email was one of the perks of
university life, and usually the easiest way to keep in touch with
absent friends. It wasn't just that she'd kept her inbox tidy, either there
weren't even any old-message folders. It was as though she'd
never used it.
I frowned mentally. Okay - so perhaps she'd used an internet
based account for some reason. I had one myself; they were handy
because it meant you could access your mail from anywhere in the
world. But it was still odd that she hadn't used the university one at
all. It was so nice and easy - right there on the desktop.
I double-clicked the internet browser icon to see if I could check
what sites she'd been logging into. But, just like the email, it was
empty.
No bookmarks; no drop-down URLs; no history.





5*
53
My mental frown deepened. A student who hadn't surfed the
internet? I looked around the room. At least half of the people in
here were casual surfers, with a steady queue waiting to replace
them. But apparently Alison never had. It felt like bullshit.
I thought it through, tapping my finger absently on the mouse.
Perhaps Alison had cleared it all out before she was killed, because
she was frightened of something or somebody. But that didn't sit
well or make much sense - why would she bother? If you're in
danger, you don't waste time clearing your email: you just get the
fuck away from wherever you are. The net would probably be the
last thing on your mind. But it was still possible.
If not Alison, Sean might have erased the data. It was a
reasonably safe assumption that he'd been here before me and so I
couldn't rule it out, but I also couldn't think why he would. Like
the other explanations, it didn't seem right.
The third possibility was that someone else had logged in as
Alison and methodically removed any evidence that had been there.
I had no way of knowing, but that idea felt more right than the
others.
So, how thorough would they have been? It was a long-shot, but
I found the email folder on the computer's hard drive and copied
every non-program file I found there onto a second disk. Sometimes
deleted mail could still be read, assuming you had a little technical
knowledge. I didn't have that knowledge personally, but life can
throw all sorts of odd people into your path.
I shut down the internet and was about to log out and leave
when a pop-up window appeared and caught my eye for a
moment. Pop-ups aren't unusual: there are loads of web pages
where, when you close them down, they automatically open a new
page. When I'd shut down the window, a page advertising a tiny
camera had appeared, proclaiming that you could take pictures
without anybody realising. The page was mostly taken up by a
picture of a half-naked woman, posing seductively. I shook my
head and closed it down, half-expecting another, but that was it.
An empty desktop.
I paused.
Junk web pages.
So where was the junk email?
I opened up the mail program again, irritating the nearby queue
of students, who had obviously pegged me as being about to leave

and got their hopes up. Bags shifted and I heard a few sighs of
annoyance.
Alison Sheldon had no junk email.

Everybody with an email account gets junk mail: it's called spam.
Like cheap gold envelopes through your front door, it arrives in
your inbox on a daily basis. I got maybe twenty spam mails a day,
and yet Alison didn't seem to have received a single one since she'd
died. Even if someone had cleared out her account very recently,
there would still have been some.
I looked to see whether the account kept a record of earlier logins
but there was nothing obvious, and so I stared at the screen for
half a minute. Then, I felt a thrill of recognition, quickly opened up
the options menu and saw it. All of Alison's mail was being
forwarded to a different account. Anything that arrived in her
inbox was sent to that and then immediately deleted from her
university account. I'd known I was right even before I'd opened
the menu. Once upon a time, I thought, I must have been a really
fucking good detective.
The name of the destination account was histmjh, which meant
it was someone in the History department with the initials mjh.
Possibly another student, but I opened up the internet again
anyway, heading to the History department's website. I clicked on
the Staff tab and scrolled down the list to see if anyone there
matched the initials.
Nearly halfway down: Dr Mark Harris.
There was a photograph of him too. He looked maybe thirty
years old, with a smart, slightly smug face, jet black hair that had
been gelled into wet tumbles hanging down as far as his eyebrows,
and a smile that curled slightly - half arrogance, half seduction. I
imagined his smile could shift very quickly, and that it would
generally mean something very different to the girls than it did to
the boys.
There was no middle initial in his profile, but his email address
was m.j.harris and so I knew that I'd found my man. The profile
was the usual mix of boring research and publication lists, but I
read it through anyway. Harris had links with the Geography and
Sociology departments, and his main research seemed to be based
around city histories and legends. I made a few brief notes and then
logged out and stood up. The students nearby breathed a sigh of
relief, and my seat was taken almost instantly. Vultures. But I was
too busy thinking to care.
Alison had been Fine Art - it wasn't a million miles away from
History, and I figured there might even be some crossover, but it
was hard to imagine a professional connection between Alison and
Harris, and much easier to think about that boyfriend from the
report. Harris was young and smarmily good-looking enough to
have been on the radar for a girl her age, and so he seemed like a
good candidate for her mystery man. Best to keep an open mind, I
thought, as I walked out into the corridor, but the fact was that
Alison's mail was all currently being forwarded to Dr Mark Harris.
It was time to find out why.

I should have known better. It was the middle of a normal working
day and so any self-respecting academic would be at home doing
nothing. It took a little bit of time to discover this. First, I tried his
office. It was just one green door on a corridor lined with them,
although he had stuck a photocopy of an unfunny newspaper
cartoon beneath his nameplate, and his open-door times were listed
on the wall beside the door. I checked my watch. This wasn't one
of them. But I knocked anyway. There was no answer, and his
office sounded very quiet. So, the man was elsewhere.
The next step was to consult the timetables on the common
room noticeboard, but there was no joy to be had there either. It
was exam time, so none of his lectures were running. Finally, I built
myself up and went to the History department main office, and
asked a rather more helpful woman than Marie where I might find
Dr Mark Harris.
'Mark's working from home today,' she said. 'Can I take a
message for him?'
'No, it's okay,' I said. 'Thanks.'
'Are you sure? It's no problem.'
'No - but thanks anyway.'
'Well, you might try getting in touch with him by email? That's
probably best.'
'I might well do that,' I said, backing away from the counter.
'Thank you for your time.'
'You're welcome.'
She gave me a big smile, and I thought that Marie in Fine Art
could take some lessons from her. But despite her friendliness,
there was no way she'd have given me Harris's home address and
so I hadn't risked killing the mood by asking. I'd have to find that
one out on my own.
It was slightly galling to have to queue up in the computer room
again but I did it anyway - and then got bored and pushed in when
a terminal near me became free and allowed me to get there first. It
was frowned upon, and there were a few tuts, but everybody was
too polite to actually say anything. I logged in as Alison and
opened up the internet.
There were a few sites I could try, and I worked my way through
them - phone listings, address listings, a few of the more
clandestine webpages - but Harris was ex-directory or unavailable
on all of them. The police department's intranet would list him, but
unfortunately my username and password had been revoked.
If I couldn't do it any other way, I thought, perhaps I could go to
Rosh or Lucy.
In the thick of things, I hadn't really thought about Lucy all day,
and so I got my phone out now to check for messages. I would have
felt the vibration if I'd been sent anything, but I was still hoping for
a 1 message received notice and still disappointed to see just the
time and date. No new messages. I put the phone back in my
pocket, felt suddenly melancholy and turned back to the computer.
There was a website address I knew off by heart, and I typed it
now and hit go. The screen was blank and thoughtful for a moment
as the page loaded slowly. About a minute later there he was,
staring out at me.
His name was Rich. He was a little older than I was. Not
particularly good-looking. Average build. This was his company's
website, and Rich's professional appearance gave away none of the
wonderful sense of humour he undoubtedly possessed. I visited this
page quite often, always as a form of mild self-torture. Four
months ago, I'd left Rachel because I felt I wanted to be with Lucy
instead. But Lucy ended our affair and picked this man, Rich, over
me.
I would have hated him but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it.
Despite the things I'd done to people in my life, hate had always
been a difficult emotion for me; I could generate it, but it dissipated
quickly. For a lot of people, hate is a flowchart emotion: somebody
hurts them - fuck the reason - and they hate them for it; but I could
never work like that. Some of the time I hated Rich, but then my
mind kept taking steps back and forcing me to see the whole
situation: to turn it around and feel the different angles. Most of
them glinted with tragedy, but not all of that was mine.
Hatred is something very personal that you only ever feel in
close-up, when you don't take other people's feelings into account.
Whenever you see things from a distance, it's not possible to
sustain it. Not for me, anyway. For example, the kids who beat
that guy up the night before last - at the time, I hated them for
what they'd done. But if you move back a bit and watch them
growing up, and listen to their hopes and dreams, try to understand
everything that blocks and hurts them, then it all changes. The sad
contradiction behind every single crime is that hardly anybody
thinks they're a bad person. We're all products of this fucking city,
acting as best we can with what we've been given; and whatever we
do, there's everything we've done and everything we've had done
to us pushing it along from behind.
Rich and Lucy were just trying to make themselves happy,
stumbling along like the rest of us.
Fuck it.
I logged out and left.
The walk back through Horse was easier: it was later on in the
afternoon now and there were fewer students, less overall hassle.
The pubs and bars were getting fuller and noisier, but that was
okay and I didn't resent it so much now. And it was colder too, so
people weren't just hanging around. I phased it all out and tried to
think about what, if anything, I'd learned. I still knew very little,
although I now had some ideas to kick around and see if they
squealed. There was Harris to follow up, and there were Alison's
friends to visit. But first, I would go home, get washed and
changed, and top up my lagging caffeine reserves.
By the time I reached the edge of Horse, the melancholy seemed
to have lifted slightly. There were things to do, and after months of
inactivity it felt good to have some kind of purpose again.
But when I got home, there was another package waiting for me.

Chapter Six

It was a different type of envelope, and it had my name written in
neat letters across the front in handwriting I didn't recognise. I
opened it downstairs and found a video inside, with no label and
no letter of explanation. Perhaps what was on it would be
explanation enough. I took it upstairs, slotted it into my old deck
and pressed play.
There were a few seconds of blank screen, and then the clip
started running. My first impression was that the picture was fuzzy
and unprofessional, but the quality was good enough for me to see
what was happening. My second thought was that I didn't like it.
It was a static shot of a room, although as the seconds crept by
the camera wobbled a little, as though it was on a cheap tripod
resting on uneven floorboards and people were moving about
nearby. But there was nobody in shot. The room itself was bare,
derelict and full of sick-looking air. Most of the paper had been
stripped from the mouldy walls, and the plaster beneath was pitted
and stained and scratched and scarred - covered in more graffiti
than the room knew what to do with. The walls were shouting a
thousand scrawled arguments to each other, whispering and
muttering a thousand more.
The quality of the picture dipped. A saturation of colour
occurred, disrupted by flickering lines of blurry black and white.
Then it returned to normal.
Maybe it was the quality, or perhaps it was that I'd only ever
seen the place spot-lit before now, but it took me a few moments to
recognise where it was. When I did, I hit pause and sat back on the
bed, feeling the air hum a little. It was the room where Sean and I
had found Alison's body.
The pause was unsteady. A wave of incoherence rolled steadily
up the screen.
Fuck. Even though it was just an empty room - lit by a bulb hanging
down from above - it was a haunted place for me. Anyone looking at
it would have known that it was a killing room: a place full of dead
moths and flies and lice; a place where everything was rotting.
I looked at the envelope again but I didn't touch it. There were
prints to be considered, although whoever had sent this had no
doubt been very careful. There were no visible marks apart from
the name. No address. Like the letter from Sean, it had been hand
delivered. I looked up again. The video was fluttering, making a
noise like a dog shaking water from itself.
I pressed play. The screen fuzzed up for a second as the video
pulled itself together, and then it cleared. The empty room. I knew
that I was going to see something awful. Alison's murder, perhaps.
Or something else altogether.
There was no sound - the tape had been made without a
microphone. Also, I thought, the light. My mind was picking the
scene apart, turning it around. There was a bulb hanging from the
ceiling. But when we'd found Alison, there had been an empty socket.
Three figures moved into view, startling me. There were two big
men, both dressed in black, on either side of another man, who was
naked and who seemed barely able to stand by himself. Quickly,
they shoved him towards the opposite corner and moved back out
of view.
Not Alison, then.
The naked man stumbled a little but kept his footing. He was
shivering; hugging himself. He was well-muscled, but the light from
above made him look pale as milk: weak and vulnerable. After a
moment, he turned around to face the camera, almost directly in
the centre of the frame. It was Sean. Staring at me and looking as
terrified as I'd ever seen a person look.
I made some kind of noise, sat forward on the bed. Reached out
towards the screen to take something that wasn't there, and then
withdrew my hand. It was shaking as I brought it to my mouth.
Before Sean had time to react, the two other men moved back
into view. They were wearing balaclavas and carrying what looked
like baseball bats. The man on the left side of the screen took a
good, two-handed grip and swung as hard as he could. Sean saw it
coming of course - he held his arms up in front of his face, and they
took the full force. I saw him scream, even though I couldn't hear
it. The other man came in quickly, swinging the bat into Sean's
side. His defensive huddle collapsed, and then the first man hit
again, catching him on the top of the shoulder and taking him
down to the floor.
My whole body was shaking. I had the controller in my hand,
my thumb hovering over pause, and I wanted so badly to press it.
But that would only stop the video.
The men took it in turns: bang, bang, bang. I felt each one. They
had to keep stepping back and taking better grips on the bats. Sean
maintained a feeble defence for as long as he could, with his body
stubbornly refusing to stop fighting for life, but then a blow to the
head put him flat on his back, semi-conscious. With his arms down
by his side, fingers broken, there was nothing to stop them. They
took massive, overhead swings that made the camera shake, and
me along with it.
The video went on for another minute. By the end of it, his head
was ruined, his eyes were gone, his jaw was half off. But even then,
he was still moving slightly: his fingers tapping on the floorboards.
Watching him, I couldn't imagine what was going on in his mind.
Perhaps nothing; perhaps just electrical impulses still running halfheartedly
through ruined circuitry. One of the men aimed more
carefully and really hit him hard: a killing shot. Sean's body went
slack and lifeless. The clawing stopped.
The two men stood in shot for a second, breathing heavily, and
then exchanged a few words. After a moment, one of them moved
out of view. The camera shook a little more aggressively and then
the scene cut to white noise. I knew that something inside me was
going to snap, but I also knew I had to keep it together for a little
longer. There might be more. So I visual-searched the remaining
hour of videotape, but it was all blank. That was the end.
Then, I lost it entirely.

Frustration. The feeling of needing to run as fast as you can but
being forced to walk very slowly; when there's simply too much
space and not enough time between you and where you urgently
need to be. I had frustration now in spades.
The tram was so slow that I had to resist the urge to stick the
barrel of my gun in the driver's ear and tell him to fucking step on
it. But running was out of the question, even if the mindless
exercise of it would have helped, so I was stuck on public
transport: bottled up in an oppressive, bright cannister that was
trundling painfully slowly through the city.
Early evening had thickened into night. The sky was blue-black,
and the windows of the tram gave back pale reflections of the
interior: people nodding asleep; people hanging on to overhead
bars. And me - staring blankly out at dark buildings I could hardly
see, feeling frustration and hiding it behind a face full of hate.
There was no difficulty generating it now. It must have been
coming off me in waves.
We skirted the main square at one point, and everyone craned
their necks a little to check out the boxing ring. It was only a few
days away, I supposed. The square would be crammed with people,
all watching fighters representing the city's districts hammering the
crap out of each other all day. The ring had actually been there for
over a week now, but they were still working on the scaffolding for
the speaker system and the big screen. The ring itself was spot-lit at
night and everybody on the tram seemed fascinated by it. I looked
away. Gritted my teeth. Thought: come on.
I got out on the edge of Bull, into air that was cold and vivid: a
slap in the face. The doors shushed closed behind me and the tram
chugged away into the night. After a moment, I was left with the
distant clanking of machinery. It was the sound of enormous steam
hammers pounding the ground, but the faraway noise of it was
strangely muffled by the blocky spread of abandoned factories,
foundries and mills. The district bulges off the edge of the city like
a tumour. The businesses build up the ground, burn it down again
and move ever outwards.
Now I could run.
I had the gun out of my pocket, and the safety off, and when I
started running it was like a switch had been thrown inside me. It was
lucky that there was nobody around. Sections of the video clip kept
looping and repeating in my head, with fragments of scenes flashing
up. Now that I was running, frustration had turned to panic.
It took five minutes to get to the house, and I didn't see a single
person the whole time. By the time I arrived, the night sky had
blackened, spread and opened; rain had started to fall. Not a heavy
shower, but persistent, and it smelled slightly of chemicals: bleach
and ethanol. The street looked like dark rubber. At the house itself,
the wood of the boards and timber was soaked. I flicked on the
torch I'd brought with me and clambered carefully through the
ruins of the front door.
The walls on the ground floor were shiny with rain, rolling down
from the levels above, and in the few places where the paper
remained it was raised up in boils of damp. I padded along the
corridor, and the floorboards felt soft beneath my feet. The
building was in an advanced state of decay - far more deteriorated
than my first visit. And again, I had the impression that somebody
was here with me, except this time it was more likely. The person
who sent me the clip would have expected me to come. So I made
my way up the weak stairs slowly, ready and eager to unload a full
clip into anything stupid enough to move.
I stopped on the landing. The door at the far end of the corridor
was closed, but outlined with soft yellow light. Somebody had left
the bulb switched on for me. Either that, or someone was in there
right now.
Someone other than Sean anyway.
Three other doors on the corridor. One was boarded up tight,
but the other two were slightly ajar and the insides of the rooms
were dark. Real problems. I hesitated for about a second, and then
decided to head straight on: deep down, it didn't really feel like
there was anybody waiting for me in here. It was just the house,
with its heavy memories. You walk into a place like that, you can't
help but feel them.
A deep breath, and then I moved.
Straight for the end room, kicking the door open - but not so
hard that it bounced off the wall and shut again - my gun up in
front, trigger already half pulled. But the room was empty. No
body on the floor. I swept it and then moved in, turning on my
heels to cover the area behind the door. Still nothing. Nobody
waiting here. Nothing.
I closed the door behind me, shutting myself off from the other
rooms in the house.
No body. But there was a lot of dried blood on the floorboards,
and spatters all over the walls, too. Remnants of mould, as well.
After all, this was an abandoned house; Alison's body had been
taken away for burial but nobody had come in to clean up
afterwards. And now Sean. This room was death upon death, like
some kind of trap people wandered into. Unlike Alison, however,
the people who had beaten Sean to death had taken his body away
with them. He might never be found or receive a proper burial.
Insult to injury.
The reality of what I'd seen hit me again, and I felt like sliding
down the wall and collapsing. Suddenly, it felt as though there was
nobody within a hundred miles of me: nothing but a spread of
empty houses and rusting factories; pistons moving through
pointless, automated arcs and machines turning this way and that
in the distance. I imagined that the noise of it was echoing away,
diminishing from the hard, anvil sound of metal upon metal until it
became as quiet as falling snow by the time it reached the city or
the night sky or the hills in the distance. I could have walked
outside the house and screamed, and no one would have heard.
But instead of sitting down, I forced myself to take in the room:
to see all the details and try to make sense of it all. There wasn't
much, and I knew my mind was a little too strained for anything
like a careful analysis: that would come later. But at least one thing
caught my eye. I walked over to the far corner of the room,
stepping over the section where Sean had been killed, and crouched
down carefully to examine the wall, tilting my head a little to
match the slight incline of the writing there. There was some newer
graffiti, written in what looked like blood.
Eli is rising.
I didn't know what it meant, but there was something familiar
about it.
I stood up, just as I felt the vibration in my pocket. A text
message, now of all times. I took out the phone, expecting to see
my wife's name there, but instead it was Lucy. I frowned and
pressed the read message option.

/ hope ur ok. pis stp hurting, im sorry about rich, hope u
undrstnd. didn't mean to hurt u. :(

She certainly picked her moments. I didn't know how long it had been
since she'd last been in touch, or how many plaintive messages I'd sent
to her in the meantime, and this was when she'd finally replied. If she
hadn't, then things might have panned out differently.
I typed a reply: no am not ok. need u n rosh. its sean.
I gave her the address and a few more details. Then - finally - I
found a clean patch of floor and sat down to wait.

Chapter Seven

The relationship I had with Lucy was founded on sex and murder.
Put like that, I know it sounds bad. And it was bad, too, not least
because I was married to Rachel the whole time.
The most that can be said in my defence is that at least Rachel
never knew, as it would have hurt her even more. As 'most's go, I
appreciate that's really not much, but she didn't deserve to feel any
pain at all, let alone the extra dose that knowing would have given
her. My wife never did anything wrong. When I told her it was
over between us it came as a complete shock; it literally knocked
the air out of her the way a punch would. It's awful to fall out of
love with someone; it's the kind of thing you don't want to talk
about when it's happening, and then one day you realise that it's
simply too late. It's hard for the other person to understand, as
well. But as hard and confusing as it must have been for Rachel,
knowing the real reason would have been far worse.
It was after work. We were on a night out, a group of us,
drinking in cop places where we could cut loose a little. One of us
was escaping - retiring - and we were seeing him off in fine style:
drinking, singing and dancing, laughing like lunatics. The air was
thick with smoke and the music was loud enough to set it moving.
We were all drunk, and - thinking back - it was the last time Sean
ever came out with us before he disappeared. Late on, someone
decided we should all head out to a nearby restaurant for a curry
and so we did, but for some reason Lucy and I walked a little more
slowly than everyone else and ended up lagging behind. We were
chatting and didn't really notice. That was when she told me she
liked me, and later on that night I kissed her. A couple of weeks
later, it happened again. It built up from there. Pretty soon we were
sleeping together.
The guilt I felt about sex with Lucy was exactly the same as the
guilt I felt about the murders we'd committed together. I was sure
deep down that it was wrong, because it felt wrong. My gut told me
that there was no grey area here; no doubt. But I managed to
overcome that feeling with cool logic. I was like someone trying to
give up smoking and telling himself that just one won't hurt. I found
excuses because I wanted to. If nobody knew about it, I figured, then
nobody could get hurt. That kind of shit. I'd try to imagine the sum
of happiness in the world and I'd argue that - as things stood - my
actions had actually increased that sum. It made a kind of sense. But
of course, in the long term, I was ruining everybody's happiness, and
pretty soon things wouldn't be standing at all.
Why did I do it? Because I was stupid.
Here's one thing, though. During the day, Lucy was as hard as
they come: cool, detached, confident, cynical. Loads of cops
wanted her, but each of them knew in their gut that they didn't
stand a chance of getting anywhere near her. So it made me feel
strange inside that she chose me - out of everyone that she could
have. It made me feel special, happy. And even more so, because
when we were together she let her guard down. Being with her was
like watching something thaw. You could see the tentative steps
she took towards affection, towards openness. When you see
someone cut most people dead - and if we're honest, scare the
living shit out of them - it's quite amazing when they behave so
differently with you: opening up, giving you access, handing you
these sharp emotional weapons that you could use to hurt them
and trusting that you won't.
So to begin with, perhaps because she made me feel special, I was
too weak and stupid to say no. And then, as time went on, that
weakness began to be coupled with a desire not to hurt her. And all
of it was tinged through with fear: I felt out of control and started
to quietly panic about everything, as though my life was a
balancing act that was going to topple. One time, I told Lucy that I
would never leave Rachel and she got mad with me - not because
of what I'd said, but because I'd felt the need to say it at all. Over
and over again, she told me: "I'm not an idiot and I know its not
going anywhere. I just like you and want you.
And so it carried on for a while. I was worried that I was taking
advantage of her. When she thawed enough, it was clear that she
was unhappy and sad. But it was stupid of me to imagine she didn't
know exactly what she was doing. Even more dumb was this: I was
scared that she'd fall in love with me and get hurt. I was assuming
that would be the way it worked: her falling for me; me remaining
ambivalent; me wondering why these pesky women couldn't
separate sex from love, as I so obviously could. And of course, my
assumption turned out to be more than a little back-to-front.
To explain what happened, I need to break a promise.

'Have you ever loved anyone?' I asked Lucy one day.
It was two weeks after Sean had vanished and the investigation
into Alison's murder had stalled, and Lucy and I were in a cheap
hotel room at the edge of the city, lying in a bed that was
approaching double in size without quite getting there. We were
naked, with sweat drying on us, and Lucy was smoking a cigarette.
It was dark outside, but still early enough for me to be out for a
drink after work with colleagues, or working late ... or whatever,
really. If I needed an excuse, I'd think of one later. Right then, I
wasn't thinking of much.
Cars were rushing past the window: their tyres crackled on the
wet tarmac outside; their headlights came through the cheap, pale
curtains and went quickly around the room in a sinister circle.
'Yes,' she said.

I knew it wasn't me, but I was stupid enough to think it might be.
I said, 'Who?'
'No, it's weird. You'll think I'm strange.'
'I already think you're strange,' I said. 'That's why we get on so
well.'
'Well, you might be right there.'
'Go on.'
'No. I don't know if I should tell you.'
'Don't if you don't want to.'
She smoked the cigarette until it was nearly down to the filter,
and there were a few seconds of silence while she did. Two cars
went past, and then she said:
'It's someone I've never slept with.'
'Okay.'
'I've never even kissed him.'
'Wow.'
'Someone I don't even see anymore.'
She stubbed the cigarette out then. Twisted it methodically into
the glass base of the ashtray by the bed.
'Who?' I said.
'Can you keep a secret?'
'Sure.'
'Seriously, I mean. None of my family even know.'
'I am serious,' I said. 'I didn't even know you had any family. But
I can keep a secret, I promise.'
'Okay.' But then she thought about it and shook her head. 'It's
something you need to see. I can't explain it very well. I'll let you
know later.'
'Wow,' I said again.
It had seemed like a simple enough question, and now I was
really curious - something I would actually need to see. I wondered
what it could be, and also whether I'd regret finding out. When
you're getting to know someone, questions can open trapdoors.
You fall into them - unsuspecting - and suddenly you're in a world
you never knew existed. Often without a ladder.
The next day, a mid-shift break found me in an internet cafe,
sitting in front of an old, battered monitor. I was just one person in a
sea of plastic that was dotted with the tops of heads. There was no
way I was risking logging in to this at home, because Rachel used the
internet and she wasn't stupid. I straightened out a piece of paper in
front of my mouse. There were two lines of text written on it in
shitty biro, which was all she'd had in her handbag last night.
The first line was an email address: richjohnson@theleftroom.com.
The second was the password: truelove.
I logged on to the account and then clicked on the inbox.

24 new messages

There were actually more like forty, but Lucy had logged in and
read a few over the years - reminding herself of what she'd written.
The night before, she'd said: 'You pour your heart out to someone,
taking the time to make every word right, and then ten minutes
later you start doubting yourself and you need to go back to check.'
I'd said I understood, but back then I didn't really. Sitting in the
cafe, I scrolled down the list of emails and read the headers. The
messages had all been sent from Lucy's own email account. She
told me it would be okay for me to read any of the ones that had
already been opened. The rest were just for him.
I clicked on one.
My dearest Rich, it began. I was thinking about you today. I
know I promised not to last time, but I couldn't stop myself. I
think about you every day, every second. Even if you're not there,
you're still there.
So - she thought about him every second. I didn't recognise it
then, but I think those first few sentences broke my heart - like one
of those mythical kung fu strikes that you don't actually feel until a
little time after the blow lands. 'He's the only person I've ever
loved,' she'd told me the night before. 'There was never anything
physical between us, but I know that what I felt for him was real,
true love. And I've never felt anything like it since.'
This was their history: they'd been childhood friends - members
of a mixed group that had played together as little kids and hung
out together as bigger kids. They'd been held in place by the tight
geography of Goat's terraced streets and the glue of parental
friendships. Thick as thieves but much more loyal, Rich and Lucy
were always close, and there was something between them that
they both knew was special. Despite that, they never got together
as a couple.
'I don't know why we didn't,' she told me, in that hotel
bedroom. She was smoking again. 'I wish we had; everything
would have been different then. God knows how it didn't happen.
Maybe it was just bad timing - just that one of us would always be
with someone else when the other was free.'
So they drifted around - never having an actual relationship,
never quite landing - but they got on so well that their friendship
survived intact.
'Nobody has ever made me laugh like he did. Nobody has ever
made me feel so totally at ease about just being myself,' she told
me. 'It's like we were designed for each other or something.'
'Nobody's designed for anybody.'
I was watching her smoke, and I was bothered despite myself.
Suddenly I didn't feel so special anymore. I was just ordinary.
Second place. She was making do with me when there was
someone else out there she wanted more. I was married, of course,
so I couldn't really complain. But even so - I realised that the
flippancy of our relationship hurt a lot more now that I was on the
receiving end. As she told me the story, the both of us lying there, I
felt something twisting inside me. Something that was not good.
When they were seventeen, Rich's girlfriend had fallen pregnant.
He was devastated; but he was a responsible kid and he listened
carefully to other people, and since her parents were adamant that
the couple get married he decided that they would. It was all
planned quickly; the pregnancy was an undertone that was rarely
mentioned. The night before the ceremony, Lucy met with Rich in
their local and they sank a few beers together. Lucy hardly ever
drank when she was younger, but that night she'd wanted to. She'd
never felt so miserable, and had only recently begun to understand
why. Over the course of the conversation, it became clear that Rich
was as miserable as she was, and that they were both feeling that
way for the same reason.
'If you want to run away,' he told her towards the end of the
night, 'then I'll come with you.'
She didn't tell him not to be so stupid, because she wanted to say
yes.
'But I couldn't,' she told me. 'His girlfriend was five months
pregnant, and I just couldn't do that to her. I wish I had done now,
as bad as that is, but I told him no. And I genuinely watched his
heart fucking break.'
Rich married his girlfriend the next day, and he was still married
to her now. They had two sons; the oldest was fifteen years old and
the spitting image of his father. Lucy had been haunted by her non
relationship with Rich ever since. She had never struck me as being
the kind of person who believed in souls, but she said more than
once that he had been her soul-mate. Had been, she said; always
will be, she meant. So I had nothing to worry about. She was never
going to fall in love with me.
Because of the situation we were in and because of everything I'd
said, as we were lying in the hotel room she had no idea how much
this was hurting me.
'I set up that email account in his name,' she said. 'And every
now and then I write to him. I know that he'll never see them, and
it's stupid. But sometimes I think about sending him the address
and password and letting him read what I've put there. I wonder if
he's been thinking about me the whole time like I have about him.'
'Maybe he has,' I said, although I doubted it.
The last thing she said about it was, 'I know that I'll never have
him, but I also know I'll never get over him.'
So, the next day I read a few of the messages, and then I logged
out and went back to work. Lucy and I spoke that evening, and
then after that we didn't talk about it much. On the surface, we
were as close as ever, but below the surface there was something
wrong, and it was all with me. I knew I should be grateful she
thought enough of me to tell me what she had, but for some reason
it didn't offer much consolation. From that point, the rot set in.
Over the next two weeks, I did bad things. Because she had given
me the log-in details, I convinced myself that it was okay to use
them. I opened the account every now and then, and each time she
sent him a new message it hurt me more and more. I had nobody to
blame apart from myself, of course, but the relationship started to
be all I could think about. I wanted her to want me. Rachel was
there the whole time, never suspecting, but she wasn't in my
thoughts at all. Like I said, it was a shock to her when it finally
happened. She never expected I'd be so stupid.
I hadn't seen Lucy for a couple of days, and I was feeling shit
about the whole thing - more out of control than ever. It was
obviously falling apart, and part of me knew that I should allow it
to, return to Rachel in my head and count my blessings that she
hadn't found out. But I was on a break, and I found myself sitting
in a net cafe once again, logging in to Rich's account.
This time, it was different:

No new messages

I looked at the screen for a while, feeling the kind of sheer, sudden
panic you'd get if you were sitting there happily and a tiger walked
into the room. I was very still, not wanting to move in case I made
anything worse.
She's read them all, I thought after a moment, attempting to
convince myself. And failing.
I clicked Inbox to make sure the mailbox homepage wasn't lying
to me out of spite, but it wasn't. All the messages were in plain text,
while unread messages were always highlighted in bold.
So either she'd read them all, or else she'd finally done what
she'd always wanted and sent Rich the account details.
I clicked the Sent Items icon and saw that somebody had sent
Lucy an email the night before. I clicked on it, read it. And of
course, it was from Rich. They had arranged to meet each other on
a respective break. I checked my watch and realised that they
would be with each other now. Talking things over.
'I hope you'll be very happy,' I said. I logged out and left.
That night, I told Rachel that I didn't love her anymore. It was a
combination of everything. I'd thought about it all day, and the
conclusion I'd come to - the realisation, I suppose - was that I was in
love with Lucy and I needed to tell her. I hadn't thought about
Rachel all day, beyond how hard it was going to be to do this and
how much I was risking. But I wanted Lucy now. If I didn't move
quickly then I'd lose her for ever, and that meant I had to convince
her that I was serious. I really don't know what the fuck I was
thinking.
I went home and saw Rachel, and she was smiling and happy;
she said hi, and came over and tried to kiss me. I hated myself at
that moment more than ever, and it made me realise that regardless
of what happened with Lucy - Rachel deserved better
than me and always had. And in some ways, because I kept that
thought in mind, it was easier to do than I'd expected.

So Lucy and I both had news for each other the next time we met.
Except that I didn't tell her, because she was so clearly happy and I
didn't have the heart to do it - to her or to myself. Even though
Rich was married, she found that everything she'd felt about him
was still there, and she thought that he felt the same. As bad as it
was, she was going to see him again that week. They would just be
friends, she said. But I didn't believe her.
I'd had grand ideas about telling her I'd left Rachel, but it felt
empty and pointless in light of the glow she had. It would achieve
nothing. I'd known all along that she didn't love me - not like that
- but I'd done it anyway. Now, all I had to cling to was that it was
the right thing. If Rachel had known then she would have wanted it
like this; and because she didn't it was harder for her - but that
didn't change the fact that it was right. Rachel was better off
without me. And when I saw that glow of happiness in Lucy, I
realised that she was better off without me too.
And it's only a matter of time before you start generalising out
from ideas like that and figure that everyone is. I moved out into
my flat, and it took a month before I'd moved out of everything else
as well.

Chapter Eight

Half an hour passed before I heard the car pull up. The noise made
the walls hum slightly, and then the humming died, and then I
heard two voices: a man and a woman making their way into the
house. My first thought was that she'd brought Rich along with
her. It was stupid, but he'd been on my mind and - despite the fact
that he was still with his wife - it was possible that the two of them
had been together when Lucy had got my message. But as the
voices got closer, I recognised Rosh's voice, and shook my head. I'd
asked her to phone him. This was all of our business, after all.
'In here,' I shouted.
'Martin?'
'In here.'
They walked in. As always, Lucy led the way - just that little bit
more impatient and impetuous - with Rosh following behind: a
little calmer, a little more careful. She looked exactly the same as I
remembered, and there was something quite startling about that.
Because her image had occupied my thoughts so totally, it was a
surprise to find she actually looked like that; like if you saw a
celebrity on the street. Behind her, Rosh was still Rosh. He looked
like a monster out of a horror film: something that had calmed
down, given up on attacking unsuspecting campers and undergone
a little grooming.
They were both visibly tense as they entered, but they relaxed a
little when they saw it was only me in the room, sitting against the
wall. Rosh holstered his gun. Lucy squatted down beside me,
placed her stripped-down forensics kit on the floor, and touched
my shoulder - gave it a squeeze.
'Martin. Are you okay?'
'Yes.'
'You don't look okay.'
I looked at her. 'Did you call this in?'
'No.' She stood up. 'We didn't know exactly what there was to
call.'
'Good.'
Leaving aside the problem of who'd buried the Missing Persons
Report, I still didn't want the department involved. Sean had
passed this to me, and now I was sharing it with Rosh and Lucy. It
wasn't police business: we'd taken care of things by ourselves in the
past, and there was no reason why it should be any different now.
Especially when it was one of our own.
'Good,' I said again, getting to my feet. 'We need to keep this
away from the department at the moment. It's a big thing to ask,
but I think it's necessary.'
If it really was a big thing to ask, neither of them seemed
particularly perturbed. For a second, I experienced that flush of
rightness again - the same as when the investigation had felt like it
was coming together - and it seemed like no time had passed and
nothing had changed. But that flush vanished quickly as Lucy
opened up the kit and reminded me why we were here.
Rosh said:
'Start from the beginning then.'

Start from the beginning.
Later, as everything went to hell, I would begin to understand
how difficult it was to start from the beginning. But right then, it
was easy. Even if everything was mysterious and confusing, at least
it all still seemed linear.
So I began with the delivery of Sean's note and the identification
of Alison Sheldon; then I ran through my brief investigations with
her parents and the Missing Persons Bureau. I mentioned the
boyfriend, and then explained about the email forwarding to Dr
Mark Harris I'd discovered when I visited the university. Finally,
the delivery of the video, which led here: to me, slumped against
the wall in a killing room.
As I told my story, Lucy processed the scene around us as best
she could. Lucy handled evidence on a day-to-day basis. She was
good: there were maybe two or three people in the department who
could work a scene as well as she could. On the few occasions
when our unofficial investigations had demanded it, she had used a
stripped-down version of proper procedure, and that's what she
did now: beginning by walking around carefully, getting a feel in
her head for what had gone on here, and then taking photographs
with a small digital camera. Click after click. Images of everything:
the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Rosh and I moved out of the way so
that she could get a picture of the wall where I'd been sitting.
'Where was the video camera?' she asked.
'Over here.' I pointed behind me and then gestured across the
room. 'Filming in that direction.'
Lucy aimed the camera.
'About here?'
'Yeah.'
She took the picture. Later, we would be able to compare it to a
still from the video and see what, if anything, had taken place in
the room since the film was shot.
'Make sure you get that graffiti,' I said. 'Over there in the
corner.'
Click.
' "Eli is rising",' she read out. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
'It might not mean anything,' I said. 'The name sounds familiar,
but I don't know why.'
'Let's get it anyway.'
She took another picture and then put the camera away in the
box. Now, she would work the room for prints. In a perfect world,
the graffiti might be good for it, because it had been written by
fingertip. The men in the video had been wearing gloves and so I
wasn't holding out much hope, but you never knew. Maybe they
had made a mistake somewhere, or else perhaps the graffiti was
nothing to do with them. In either event, we'd see. After the prints,
Lucy would take samples of blood, in the hope of identifying Sean
and anyone else who might have been injured in here.
'We'll need to see the video,' Rosh told me. 'Where is it?'
'It's at home.'
'At home?'
The realisation hit me as he said it, and I closed my eyes.
'I was so upset that I didn't even think.'
The video was the best evidence we had. I'd watched it once and
tried to look closely, but with the shock I was likely to have missed
important details. However unpleasant, repeat viewings would be
necessary. And what had I done? I'd left the tape at my house.
Whoever had delivered it knew where I lived, and so if it was still
there then we would all be very lucky. If not, we would have a
break-in scene to process, and I would punch myself repeatedly in
the face. Rosh was more charitable.
'If it's not there, I'm going to slap you,' he said. 'And you're
getting out of shape so it won't be hard. We'll worry about it later.'
Lucy was dusting the wall around the graffiti with black powder.
'You said the men were wearing gloves?'
'Yes,' I told her. 'Gloves and masks. All black.'
'Well, there are some prints here. Did Sean touch the wall?'
I tried to think, but I couldn't be sure. I was still privately kicking
myself about the video.
'I can't remember,' I said. 'Maybe.'
'Okay.'
One by one, she lifted prints from the wall onto tape and from
there onto evidence cards. She labelled each one but moved
quickly, giving an appearance of carelessness.
Rosh said, 'Did you see anyone on the way over here?'
'Nobody.'
'You took the tram?'
'Yes.'
'Did anyone get on at your stop?'
'No. Nobody got off at the same time, either.'
'And the video was delivered . . . when? What was the window?'
I'd already thought this through while I was waiting for them to
arrive.
'I left the house about one. It was about six by the time I got
home. Maybe a little after, but I didn't check my watch.'
'Where do you live?'
I gave him the address. 'You know it?'
Rosh nodded. 'Vaguely, yeah. I'm not sure about coverage, but
we do have cameras in that area. If we're lucky, we might have the
delivery boy on film. That's something we'll need to check.'
Across the room, Lucy was now collecting samples of blood. She
was scraping the wall very gently with the edge of a scalpel and
catching the crumbling blood on a sheet of white paper. She
transferred it to a small envelope, labelled it, and then started to
take samples from the floorboards.
'Yeah,' I said. 'We'll need to check that.'
My mind had started whirling and I couldn't think properly.
Rosh rested his hand on my shoulder.
'It's going to be okay,' he said. 'We'll find the bastards that did
this.'
But I recognised the tone of voice: it was the one you used when
you were talking to a witness or a victim or a relative - not a fellow
officer. He was talking to one of them, not one of us. It was an
awful sensation, and I felt myself unravelling even further inside.
Had I become so incapable after just a few months? Had things
disintegrated for me that much?
Rosh repeated it gently: 'We'll find them.'
Pull yourself together.
'Yes,' I said. 'We will.'

I don't remember much about leaving or about the drive back. We
checked around outside carefully but there was nobody to see and
so we headed off. Lucy had her car and Rosh had brought the van;
without thinking too deeply about it, I went with him. We drove in
relative silence, and a thought occurred to me: if I had brought the
video with me, I could have been taken down and we would have
lost it that way too. Even though I should have called Lucy the
moment I'd seen it, leaving it at my flat hadn't been the worst error
in the world. Perhaps I was being sensitive. I watched takeaways
flash past, and flood-lit shopfronts, and bright amber porches; and
it was hypnotic. Rosh kept the speed even and the ride fluid and
smooth. By the time we pulled up outside my flat, Lucy's car idling
by the kerb in front of us, I had been lulled into a dozy, nodding
half-trance.
'Looks secure,' Rosh said as we got out.
'Looks it,' I agreed, getting my gun out but keeping it beneath
my jacket. 'But there are back ways in.'
I unlocked the front door and we went inside. Off the shared
entrance hall was a door into the hairdressing salon that I lived two
storeys above. One floor up was my neighbour - a surly Spanish
guy who played loud, thudding music day and night - and then the
top floor was mine.
The corridor on the ground floor was dark but it looked safe
enough. The door at the back, at least, was still shut tight and
bolted from the inside.
'Looks okay.'
The three of us made our way upstairs.
My door was still locked, and so unless someone had scaled the
outside of the house and broken in through a window, the flat was
secure. I unlocked the door and led the way up the short series of
steps to my hallway. Even after four months, the smell of must and
paint from the redecoration was still present in the air - along with
a slightly more underhand odour that I was immediately embarrassed
by. My flat wasn't exactly a mansion at the best of times,
and I hadn't been expecting company today. A couple of one-night
stands aside, Lucy and Rosh were my first real guests.
'Sorry about the mess,' I said, switching on the front room light.
It wasn't as bad as I'd thought but, seeing it through their eyes, I
cringed on my own behalf. The bed was half-made. The television
was still on, flashing over at the far corner of the room, resting on a
table covered with discarded bus tickets, receipts and creased flyers
for clubs I'd never been to. Across from that was my computer,
with a few empty, misty glasses beside it. There were also two
empty bottles of vodka on the floor next to the chair, which I
realised didn't look good. I saw Lucy eyeing them with a blank
expression on her face and I wanted to tell her that it was okay - I
hadn't drunk them both in one go, or anything. But then I realised
that didn't really sound much better.
'Is the video still there?' Rosh said.
I checked.
'Yes.'
'We need to watch it.'
'Do you want a drink?' I said. 'A coffee, I mean.'
'Please.'
"Me too,' Lucy said.
'Okay.'
I went off to put the kettle on, and consoled myself with the fact
that at least they hadn't seen the kitchen. While the water boiled, I
washed out three mugs and thought to myself that decadence and
living in hedonistic squalor were only romantic when there was
nobody around to disapprove. I made the coffee with a clean spoon
and took it back through.
'Thanks.'
Then we watched the video. This time I knew what to expect,
and so I made a point of abstracting myself as much as possible
from what I was seeing. Lucy and Rosh weren't so lucky; my
description of it certainly hadn't prepared them, but then I
imagined that nothing could. As police officers, we had often seen
the after-effects of violence, but we'd never seen anything as
extreme and upsetting as what was playing out on my television
screen. At the end, Lucy was crying. Rosh was pale and his hands
were trembling.
He said it again: 'We're going to find these bastards.'
Lucy nodded. 'And we're going to fucking kill them.'
That didn't leave me much room to make a suggestion and, once
again, I felt a little removed from their world. Instead, I repeated
what I'd discovered that day, finishing with the forwarding that
had been set up on Alison's email account.
Rosh looked thoughtful.
'Do you really think Sean was killed because he was looking into
that girl's murder?'
'Yes,' I said immediately. 'And I think he sent me the information
because he was scared of something. He knew that he was in
danger. There's the Missing Persons Report, for one thing. I think
that someone in the department maybe knew something about
Alison's death and kept her ID hidden from the investigation
deliberately.'
Lucy was glaring at the television. 'We need to know who.'
'We can find out who,' Rosh told her. 'And when we find out
who, we can find out why.'
'Right now,' Lucy said, 'I'd settle for the who.'
Neither of us disagreed with her.
'We have Harris to work with,' I said. 'I've seen his picture, and
he looks like a sleazeball but not a killer. It feels to me as though
maybe he's covering something up. But he'll be able to tell us that.'
'He's the first stop,' Rosh said, standing up. 'Can I use your
computer?'
'Knock yourself out.' I gestured over towards my desk. 'Just
don't look at the bookmarks.'
He gave me a wry, if somewhat reluctant, grin and then went
over and booted up the laptop. While he had his back to us, I
caught Lucy's eye and smiled. She smiled back, but her expression
was complicated. Yes, I'm pleased to see you, it said; yes, I'm
pleased you're okay; but no, I'm not convinced that you're really okay.
Across the room, Rosh accessed the net and logged on to the
police system. In less than a minute, he had Mark Harris's address
on screen, and - moving towards the computer with Lucy and
standing a little apart from her - I was reminded of the ease with
which they could get information I had to scrabble for, and aware
again of the gulf that had grown between us. It didn't matter, I told
myself. Because this wasn't police business: this was our business,
and what was important was that we had the address. Harris had a
flat in Turtle, of all places. In fact, I knew the street.
That was what mattered.

Chapter Nine

In terms of the city's annual competition, my allegiance on paper
was to the green and red flag of Turtle. I grew up there, soaking up
its atmosphere and imbibing a sense of its civic pride. But I was
never sporty and never particularly interested when, every year, the
flags and tapestries were hung out, and the lanterns lit, and the
older boys began their marches through the streets, decked out in
the district's colours. Perhaps it was just because I knew most of
them, and had been beaten up or robbed by a few, and so I figured
that the apparent pride and discipline on display were somewhat at
odds with the fact that a good percentage of them were bastards
who I knew would end up in prison. Of course, at the time, I didn't
realise that it would be me that put some of them there.
But Turtle is that kind of place. In many ways, it's a good, solid
district to grow up in. You might end up getting a few knocks, but
that's not necessarily the worst thing in the world - depending, of
course. I met people there now, and I'd notice that a lot of the
parents had the same look on their face: one that says they're
always watching who their kids are hanging around with and
always aware that things can go either way for them, and
sometimes very quickly. Characterising the district as a cop, it's the
sort of place that needs a clip round the ear every so often. It's not
serious or nasty, and it's mostly good humoured. But nevertheless,
it's still in occasional need of a firm hand and a watchful eye.
I'd always liked it, and I'd never wished I'd been born anywhere
else. You could live in Rabbit and be rich, but that was more of a
nice place to aspire to: maybe you missed out on something if you
grew up there and got it for free. Or there was Snail or Mouse maybe
even Bull - with their shabby back-to-backs, but unless you
were very lucky then you were starting off too low. Once you get to
a certain depth, fighting your way to the surface can be difficult, no
matter what the movies might tell you. Where else? You can have a
condo in Elephant, but that kind of shit is transitory at best. Those
places are filing cabinets for very important bits of paper that won't
matter much inside two years. Horse? It's all students - nobody
lives there for long. In every sense, it's almost all takeaways.
But Turtle? Like Goat and Bear, it's not too rich, not too poor.
You can generalise a little by playing district zodiac: if you're born
in Turtle then you have little truck with airs and graces. You work
hard. You swear too much - you may even burp while you're
swearing - and you never take anything good you get for granted.
Turtle is where I grew up, and it's also where I lived with Rachel;
and where she still lived, in fact - only two streets away from
Harris. As Lucy headed off to the department to work the evidence
she'd taken from Bull, Rosh and I drove away from my flat and
went to pay him a visit. I felt slightly awkward. I hadn't been that
close since I'd moved out, and in some ways it felt like my old
district wasn't mine anymore. But I wasn't thinking specifically
about Harris's flat being close to Rachel's, because that was just a
coincidence. And of course, that's all it was. Later, I would begin to
understand exactly what that meant.

Ten o'clock at night found the streets of Turtle quiet, the houses
curtained and secure, and the late-night shops amber-bright and
busy. Rosh drove us slowly and evenly: only ever turning the wheel
enough to take the gentle corners. Although I'd worked with him
and knew him quite well, I'd never partnered him officially, but on
the times we'd been out on private business he'd always been like
this: never wasting movement, as though he knew instinctively
what was needed and what wasn't. He was all minimum effort,
whether he was walking around, beating on someone or driving
somewhere - just plain efficient, cutting directly to whatever chase
he was on and taking it slow. His conversation was the same. No
unnecessary introductions.
'There was a shooting in Wasp the other night,' he said.
'Oh?'
'Yeah. Nobody got hurt - just some guy firing shots up in the air
to break up a fight.'
I shook my head. 'These have-a-go heroes.'
'Yeah,' Rosh said. 'You know anything about it? It's just that if
you don't then somebody's stolen your gun. We matched the
bullets to it.'
I'd considered that the morning after without really thinking
about it. The department kept a record of all our firearms.
Whenever we'd gone out as a group, we'd used unlicensed,
unmarked weapons and disposed of them afterwards. Sensible and
careful. And then outside Spooks I'd just happily discharged my
own gun. I didn't say anything, figuring that Rosh wasn't about to
drag me in over it.
Instead, he said: 'So do you miss being a cop?'
'No.'
The streetlights in Turtle were like whalebones: thin, looping up
from the pavements on either side, almost meeting above the centre
of the street. There was little other traffic tonight, and most of the
houses were keeping to themselves. This part of Turtle was filled
with people you couldn't see; it was as though they knew
something you didn't, like villagers locking themselves away on the
night of the full moon, pretending they couldn't hear the stranger in
town knocking on the doors in panic.
Rosh corrected himself.
'Well - maybe "miss" is the wrong word.'
I watched the houses go past: short, black blocks, randomly
illuminated from within. Being with Rosh could sometimes feel like
being with my parents - I knew he meant well, so I couldn't quite
bring myself to tell him to fuck off and mind his own business.
Rosh had started all of this for Sean, Lucy and me, but his
approach had always been a little different, and I didn't think he
understood exactly what was going on in our heads. Lucy could be
borderline psychotic; Sean had been delusional; and I was just a
mess. I had no doubt that Rosh, who had always been so exact and
grounded, felt responsible, concerned, worried. It was only natural
that he would intrude a little, and I tried not to take it too badly.
'It's not a case of missing anything,' I said. 'It just wasn't
working for me anymore.'
'Holy shit. Did it ever work for you?'
'Once upon a time.' I shrugged. 'I guess it wasn't just that. There
were lots of things.'
I thought about Lucy. Nothing in particular about her - a jumble
of images and memories that were more like the mental scent of her
than an actual thought.
He turned the wheel slightly.
'You mean your wife?'
This time I didn't even shrug. Rosh had a cop's instinct for
hunting out thoughts through conversation. That's what you get
like: you use words to rustle people's undergrowth and then watch
what bolts out. At the moment, I didn't particularly feel like being
prey.
'Lots of things,' I said. 'You want to go left here.'
He followed my direction and was quiet for a moment.
'I grew up round here,' I said.
'I know. Harris's address is just up ahead, isn't it?'
I looked up the road, saw the block of shops. 'Yes.'
Rosh pulled the car over to the kerb and put on the handbrake.
He left the engine running and tapped the wheel a couple of times,
staring out front and thinking.
'That's the post office, isn't it?' he said.
I looked out. The furthest building to the left had red shutters all
the way to the ground and a postbox flush with the brick wall
beside it. I used to go in there all the time with my mother; I had
memories of her unclasping her handbag and searching for change,
while I looked at the cards and the rack of small, cheap toys, and
the tray of assorted sweets that the owners kept near the window.
The last man we'd killed together as a group - Carl Halloran - had
robbed this post office, tying up and eventually shooting the people
who owned it. For no real reason; just because he could. That was
why we found him and killed him.
I stared at the shutters out of the van window, remembering him
a little. Another insignificant man. To see him die, you'd never have
thought he could have had such a terrible impact on the world, but
I guess it doesn't take much.
'That's the one,' I said.
'Hmm.'
After a moment, Rosh clicked off the engine and opened the
door.
'Well, there's no time like the present.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'Come on.'
We approached the line of shops. After the post office, there was
an estate agent's with an illuminated display in the window of
properties that surely nobody around here could afford. Next door,
there was a fat, low liquor store: bright and open and full of
treasure, although the counter guy was reading a paper and didn't
seem to be doing much business. Then, a small driveway leading
down. Then, a shuttered-up cafe and a blacked-out newsagent's.
And last of all, more rusty, grey shutters, this time down over a
pharmacy. After that, there were houses. Harris was renting the flat
above the cafe. I looked up and saw that the lights were on. I
looked back down. There were no residential doors on the main
street.
'Round back, I guess.'
We headed down the driveway onto a spread of wasteland that
was probably supposed to be a car park. The security light here
was already on so there wasn't much we could do to avoid being
seen. Two cars were parked - quiet, still and full of shadow. We
both noted the licence plate on the nearest.
'The good doctor is home,' Rosh said.
'Seems that way.'
The buildings were humming slightly in the way that backs of
shops always do. There was a set of wooden steps leading up to a
slight extension on the rear of the cafe, and I figured that it must be
the entrance to Harris's flat. We headed up and found a half-glass
back door that a strong wind would have blown down.
And then, we both took out our guns.
'Do you want to knock?' Rosh asked. 'Or shall I?'
'The pleasure's all yours,' I said. 'Especially since you're the
investigating officer here.'
He gave me a smile and then kicked the door off its hinges. Only
one smash, but a loud one - Harris was going to know he had
visitors. We moved quickly into a dark kitchen. Rosh shouted out:
'Police!'
No answer.
We moved through the kitchen and up a flight of stairs that led
onto a narrow hallway. Two doors - one left, one right - and one
at the far end. We each took one of the side doors. I kicked my way
into what turned out to be a small, empty bathroom. Rosh emerged
from across the corridor at the same time as I did, and we took the
far door together, into the lounge above the cafe, where the light
was on.
The front room was empty. Maybe Harris had left the light on to
deter burglars. I began to say something to that effect, but Rosh
interrupted me.
'You hear what I hear?'
I listened. The sound of an engine. Tyres on gravel.
'Fuck.'
I started to run back down the corridor.
'You'll never make it,' Rosh said, and he was right. So I turned
halfway and joined him again at the front room window. He pulled
the curtains aside and we watched Harris's car disappear down the
main street. I couldn't make out who was inside, beyond the fact
that it was just one man, hunched over the wheel.
'Sneaky fucker,' Rosh said, glaring at the vehicle as it rounded a
corner and went out of sight.
I was annoyed as well. Maybe my time out from the job was
catching: the security light out back should have told us that
someone had been moving around there very recently, and we
hadn't even bothered to check if there had been anyone crouching
down out of sight.
Rosh stopped glaring and sighed. 'I'll call it in.'
'Do we want this official?'
He shook his head. 'We'll do a cut-up.'
'Fine.'
We did that every now and then, like everyone else in the
department. Off duty and out on the road, if a guy pissed us off say
by cutting us up and flipping us off - we'd report the car in
question and teach him a lesson. Perk of the job. Another cop
would pull him over and give us a call, and any resulting carnage
would be off the record. Carnage sounds bad, I know, but it was
only ever a case of scaring people a little bit.
I said, 'Let's clear this place first.'
We looked around the living room, but there actually wasn't
much to see: for a man who lived alone, Harris seemed to be
remarkably house-proud, although perhaps that was only in
comparison to me. Where I'd done nothing to my flat since I'd
moved in beyond sit in it and rot, Harris had made his own place
feel like home. The carpet was new; he had a matching suite in
good condition, with the settee and chairs clustered like friends
around a coffee table; there was a natural fire. The man had even
indulged in three modern art prints that formed a neatly arranged
triptych on the wall behind the settee. I made do with patches of
damp.
I walked across and looked at the artwork. It was two eyes,
spread over the three canvases, and they were spaced out correctly
to give the illusion of a face. I frowned. The irises were purple. I'd
seen this somewhere before, and after a second or two I placed it. It
reminded me of the picture taped to the wall in the alley by
Whitelocks. But I couldn't remember that well enough to say
whether it was the same artist.
'Computer,' Rosh said, and I turned around.
There were alcoves to either side of the fireplace, filled from
about halfway up with crammed bookshelves. Underneath the
bottom shelf in the left-hand alcove, there was a television and
video set-up; in the right - sure enough - a computer desk. The
monitor was on stand-by and the hard drive, pushed back
underneath the table, was humming gently to itself. We'd obviously
interrupted him. Although I did wonder how he had known that
we were on our way.
I walked over and gave the mouse a nudge.
'You got something?' Rosh said.
'Hopefully. Let's see.'
Rosh might have had a few advantages over me - still officially
being a cop; still sharp from the life - but he was nowhere near as
good with computers as I was. He watched as I clicked carefully
around Harris's desktop, locating his email account and opening it
up.
'Here we go.'
Harris was using a personal email address, but he had it set up to
download messages from his university account - presumably so
that he could spend as little time at work as physically possible.
There were about three hundred messages in his inbox and no
other folders. I hit the tab at the top of the window that sorted the
mail by subject matter and then scrolled down until I found the
messages beginning fwd. These were the ones that had been
automatically forwarded from Alison Sheldon's account to Harris,
and then downloaded from work to his computer here. There were
about twenty of them in all. On first glance, they mostly looked like
circulars, but after all this effort I hoped that there'd be something
here worth looking at.
'This is what we want,' I said.

'Let's just take the hard drive,' he said. 'Be easier.'
'I hope that you have an authority for seizure?'
'I'm sure I can rustle something up.'
'I trust you. Hang on for a second.'
I sorted the emails by date, so that the program showed me the
most recent ones first. The last one he'd received had been about an
hour ago, and there was a little tick next to it, which indicated that
it had been read. The address caught my attention. It wasn't a fwd. It was more interesting than that.
'Look at this.'
Rosh peered over my shoulder and frowned, probably mostly
because he didn't understand what he was looking at.
'Did that come from Alison's email account?' he asked.
I shook my head.
'No, there's a couple from her further down. But this one's
different.'
The address was just a load of random numbers, followed by an
inoffensive-looking server address. I might have even mistaken it
for spam if not for the unusual size of the message - over two
megabytes - and the subject line, which read urgent, doctor. So the
message had a large attachment, and it had been sent for Harris's
specific attention.
I double-clicked the envelope icon to open it up.

Doctor,

You have been shirking your duties and they grow pressing.
We will not tolerate further delays. There is growing interest in
our activities and you have been less than careful. The other
girl knows too much. You will bring her to us as you brought
the detective.

If at this late stage your conscience is bothering you may we
direct your attention to the video attached? Copies can easily
be sent to the authorities in addition to members of your
family. And perhaps even to members of the family of the
young man in question. That is how we will begin with you.

Delete this email immediately. Arrange to meet the girl as
soon as possible and we will be in touch.

'This is from the people who killed Sean,' Rosh said.
'Yes,' I told him quietly.
I was thinking. I'd been wondering why Sean had sent me the
information when he did - what had been about to go down that
made him feel he needed insurance. Now, we knew. Some kind of
meeting with Harris.
'Harris helped them get him,' Rosh said.
'It looks like that.'
'Why?'
I said, 'We'll find that out when we get our fucking hands on
him.'
'Too right. Who sent it?' Rosh nodded at the screen. 'The
address is . . . what the fuck is that?'
'An anonymity server,' I said. 'There are these sites on the
internet. You set up an account and they let you send messages
through that, and all of the detail gets wiped clean off. Gives you a
false address, basically. It's a way of sending faceless mail.'
I double-clicked on the attachment. The computer whirred a
little, thinking carefully about whether it could handle a file this
large. Then it grumbled to itself and got on with it.
Rosh said, 'A site like that must keep records.'
'Probably not,' I said. 'And if it did, we'd never get our hands on
them. It's probably not based in this country, and even if it was the
people who run these things don't tend to cooperate with the
authorities.'
In fact, they were generally the equivalent of those separatists
that live in the woods, shooting at trees and wearing camouflage
combat pants twenty-four-seven. Just a bit nerdier.
'They'd cooperate with us,' he said, but I was hardly listening.
Harris.
I repeated the name in my head and made it sound hard and
angry and full of hate, so that my memory of Sean's murder could
finally have a soundtrack. From the email message, it looked as
though Harris had been blackmailed and forced to lure Sean into
some kind of trap; and we were about to find out what these
bastards had on him.
Harris.
For a few seconds the computer had been carefully circling the
attachment. Now, a video package opened up, filling the screen,
and a grainy movie clip started playing. Like the film of Sean, it
was amateur in quality - dark, probably filmed on a hidden camera
- but good enough to make out what was happening. It was a
stationary shot of a bedroom, with the camera elevated and placed
far enough away to fit the whole bed into the shot. Harris was on
it, naked, moving on top of a very young boy. You could tell it was
Harris because he was looking into the camera; the boy could have
been anyone. The clip lasted maybe twenty seconds. Rosh and I
watched it without talking. When it had finished, he said:
'We need to find the girl they're talking about in the message.
Before Harris does.'
I agreed completely. 'Let's take the hard drive and get out of
here.'
As I started to turn things off and remove wires, Rosh prompted:
'With one problem being that we don't know who the girl is?'
'Not for sure, no,' I said, unclipping the screwdriver on my
penknife. 'But I have an idea where we can start.'

Chapter Ten

Remember I told you that Rabbit was a nice district? Well, that's
not strictly true; it's more of a handy generalisation. The districts in
our city are a lot like the people that live in them: parts of them are
good and parts of them are bad. Rabbit is just rich, and that's not
the same thing as nice.
Properties in the areas in west Rabbit are expensive and sought
after. That's because Rabbit sits directly north of Elephant, which
is the district of commerce. If you walk around the west of
Elephant without a suit on then you feel seriously under-dressed.
It's where you find the big businesses. The buildings are all sleek
steel and shining windows, and they house insurance companies,
brokers, traders, wheelers and fucking dealers. The geographical
divides between districts are rigid - set to the street - but socially
it's a different story. So, in the west of Rabbit, the big-business side
of Elephant gives way to yuppie condos, spreading away north,
shrinking a little in height and melting into the plushest suburbs the
city has to offer: fine houses, occasional gated communities, the
sound of water sprinklers in well-tended gardens.
But as you move east through Elephant, you find yourself moving
into the city's main shopping centres and the markets. And the
further east you go, the closer you get to Horse, the student district.
To the north, Rabbit follows the same pattern: the further east you
go, the more the accommodation goes downhill. Slightly less plush;
slightly more affordable. Price-wise, the area degenerates. On the
far eastern edge of Rabbit, just before it becomes Bull, it's just like
anywhere else. There's a strip of estate where the houses are tightly
packed: thin and tall, as though a barely comfortable number had
shuffled together to let a few more in: the red-brick buildings had
all sucked in their guts and then not been able to breathe out again.
There was litter in the street, gangs of kids playing football against
the walls. The usual estate stuff.
Because it was reasonably cheap and relatively close to Horse, it
had a large student population. The majority were third years or
postgrads, and so it was quieter than Horse and there wasn't much
trouble. This is where we were driving to. According to the Missing
Persons Report, Alison's friend Keleigh lived here.
'What makes you sure the email was meaning her?' Rosh asked.
'I'm not sure,' I told him. 'But she was the last person we know
of to see Alison alive. Maybe she knows more than she said at the
time.'
As we were approaching the estate, I glanced out of the van's
window. The night was properly black now. It was the kind of
serious dark that really means business, coming before midnight
and not really drifting away until the mist arrives at dawn.
Witching hours. The city slept through them, but always with an
eye half-open. A lot of the time, you could feel the city breathing
slowly: waiting for you to put a foot down wrong and irritate it too
much.
Rosh took the van over a slight rise and the land dipped in front.
In the distance ahead, Bull spread away downhill. At first, it was a
random mess of amber streetlights - some in clusters, some more
regular - and a sprinkle of pale house windows with blue and
yellow lantern lights glinting amongst them. And then, further
away, it was just factories and workshops. Most of that area was in darkness until the horizon, where you could see that something
was burning. We slowed a little as we neared the border.
'Here,' I said.
Rosh turned left off the main road onto a smaller street that
snaked into the estate. There were speed bumps every twenty
metres. The road signs - all proclaiming a slow limit - were
decorated with crayon drawings by children from the local school,
reprinted endlessly by a council that could afford to spend money
on the little things. There were a lot of streetlights, staining the old,
red brick of the buildings closer to orange, and the green and blue
lanterns and banners were all pretty much intact. The general
impression was of an area that didn't welcome crime, wouldn't
tolerate it and held regular civic meetings to discuss what to do
about it. Official statistics told a different story.
'Quiet tonight,' I said.
'Too quiet,' Rosh deadpanned.
'Don't knock it. Keleigh's street is coming up soon. It's one of
these on the right.'
The back streets betrayed the area's true nature. They were tight
and narrow: the kind where on maps they give up putting the
names and just pencil in a few abbreviations. Autumn Lane,
Autumn Street, Autumn Mount, apparently leading to Autumn
Court and Autumn Corner. There were endless versions of the
same street, all of them identical: houses with windows like big
black eyes, security grilles and gardens filled with old appliances
and bagged rubbish that had been torn open during the night by
foxes and dogs. Keleigh lived at the far end, on Autumn Grove.
'Here.'
Rosh pulled up by a house with no lights on and we got out and
approached the gate. It was a dead-looking building if ever I'd seen
one. The outside was chipped and pitted and damp; the guttering
was cracked; the pipes were flaky with rust. It was badly in need of
repair and unlikely ever to receive it. Someone had made an effort
with the front garden, at least. The grass was overgrown but there
were a few potted plants here and there, and a series of trays that
appeared to contain budding vegetables of some kind. And, at first
glance, there were no rusting white-goods or scorch marks on the
lawn from bonfires.
'Let's knock nicely,' I said as we walked up the path. 'You got
your ID handy?'
'I certainly have.'
Rosh pulled out his wallet and I leaned on the doorbell. Like I
said, there wasn't much trouble around here, but as it got late it
wasn't necessarily advisable to open your door to just anyone. A
quick buzz on the bell was probably easier to ignore and pretend to
sleep through - especially as the likelihood was that it was just
some drunk hitting on the wrong address. Like anywhere else in the
world, if there's a genuine emergency that's any of your business
then people tend to phone you. So, to make sure we got an answer,
I left my finger on the buzzer for a while - listening to the sound
vibrate loudly behind the front door - before finally letting go.

A minute later, when there had been no response of any kind, I
did it again - only this time I just left it there. I'd give it a bit longer,

I thought, and then Rosh could kick the door in. It would be our
duty as concerned citizens.
It wasn't necessary. Thirty seconds later, I heard the telltale
screech of a window being pulled open on the floor above, and we
looked up to see a guy peering out at us. His hair was hanging
down a good half-metre below him, and he managed to sound
thoroughly pissed off when he said simply:
'What?'
'Police,' Rosh said, holding up his wallet. The guy couldn't
possibly see it from that height, but it wouldn't matter. 'Open the
door, please.'
'Fucking hell. Just a second.'
The head withdrew and the window closed.
'I guess I must look like a cop,' Rosh said.
'If he opens the door to us based on that display, part of me
thinks we should burgle his house on principle.'
'Don't be nasty. And you're meant to say, "You are a cop." '
'Of course, you're a cop,' I said. 'You just don't look like one.'
A minute later, the door opened - but only a few centimetres. The guy had kept the chain on.
'Can I see that badge, please?' he asked.
Rosh handed his wallet through, and after a second or two the
kid handed it back, undid the chain and opened the door. It
amazed me how trusting people were sometimes. We could have
passed him a sheriff's star out of a cereal packet and he probably
wouldn't have known the difference. There's not much point
asking to see a badge if you don't know what you're looking for. A
truth of life: you show somebody an ID with a watermark on it and
they automatically assume you're on the level.
'What can I do for you?' He had both the smell and the slightly
worried expression of a guy who'd been smoking weed all evening.
Perhaps he imagined we might care.
'Keleigh Groves,' I said. 'We need to speak to her.'
'Oh. Right. Well, she's not here.'
'She lives here?'
'Yeah,' he said. 'She lives here. But she's not here, if you see what
I mean.'
'Well, you got any idea where we can find her?'
'No, I don't know.' The kid wasn't meeting our eyes. He rubbed

his face a little, and then seemed to remember something. 'Wait.
She said she was going to her boyfriend's.'
'When was this?' Rosh said.
'Hours ago. I don't know when. Maybe about nine?'
'You asking us or telling us?' I said.
'It was nine. Maybe even before nine, but I wasn't paying much
attention to be honest. Think he came in, picked her up. So is this
about Jamie?'
'Jamie's her boyfriend, right?'
'Yeah.'
'Well, it might be about Jamie,' I said. 'What's Jamie look like?'
'He's got purple hair. I don't know what else apart from that. He
turns up and that's all I see.'
The kid was annoying me. For one thing, he wouldn't look at us.
Sometimes that can be a dead giveaway - it's a popular myth that
people won't meet your eye when they're feeding you shit - but in
reality that's not always the case. Some of the guilty ones look you
in the eye all the time, and there are a good number who could tell
you that two plus two was two and have you reaching for a
calculator. It wasn't that this guy was lying to us; it was just that he
was intimidated, which was making him nervous and making him
struggle with what he was saying.
I tried to break it down a little for him.
'How old is he? Is he your age?'
'I guess so. He looks it. He's at uni.'
'He's a student?'
'Yeah, yeah. He's on her course.'
'Okay,' I said, trying to think back through the Missing Persons
Report for a Jamie. I couldn't remember one. But at least Keleigh
hadn't gone off with Harris. 'Do you know where he lives? Or
where they went?'
'She'll have gone to his, but I don't know where he lives. Horse
somewhere, but I don't know what street.'
'You got his phone number?'
The kid shook his head.
'Keleigh's just a flatmate, you know. I don't even know her that
well.'
I started to ask him something else, but we were interrupted by
Rosh's phone ringing. He picked it out of his pocket and answered
it, moving a little way down the path. It was probably Lucy; I
hoped that she'd managed to find something at the lab. Regardless,
it was time to pack things up here and leave.
'What's your name, kid?' I asked.
'Simon.'
'Okay, Simon. Listen to me. You're not in trouble, and neither is
Keleigh or Jamie. We just need to talk to them real bad and make
sure that they're okay.'
'Right.'
I pulled an old card out of my wallet that had my mobile number
written on it and handed it to him.
'Soon as you hear from either of them, tell them to ring that
number there. Okay? Tell them it's all right, but it's really
important they get in touch. We just want to talk to them about
Alison.'
'Okay.'
'You sure you got that, yeah?'
'Yeah, yeah. I'm sure.'
Rosh called out: 'Martin, we need to hustle.'
'I'm coming.'
'No - we really need to hustle.'
'Thanks for your help,' I told Simon, giving him what I hoped
was a friendly smile, and then ran back down the path. Rosh was
already clambering into the driver's seat. As he started the van's
engine, I climbed in beside him.
'What news?' I said.
'It's Lucy.' I jerked back in my seat as he set off too quickly and
then started to get faster. We left smoke, rubber and a screech
behind us.
He said, 'She's in trouble.'

Chapter Eleven

Not everybody within our city walls was born here, and not
everyone who was born here stays. Our population is as transitory
as in any other big city. But we have the illusion of confinement,
because most of the outer districts are walled up at their furthest
borders, so that in many ways our city is more like an enormous,
sprawling castle than a normal city or town. Obviously, though,
there are hundreds of gateways in and out, and they're never
manned: this isn't a prison. And there are places where the walls
have been broken down. Bull expands out to the north-east, for
example, like a spill of acid, burning at the cusp; and Fish in the
north-west is largely flooded, so you can get out of there easily
enough if you're a good swimmer with a bad nose. But heavy
traffic like trucks and cars and coaches have only four main roads
by which to enter or leave the city. Basically, we have a criss-cross
of motorways at the heart of the city, slightly east of the central
square, and if you want to drive in then you have to enter by one of
these, and then peel off onto smaller roads. Leaving is the same in
reverse. From the back streets, you push your way onto the main
arteries and then get pumped out with everything else.
Rosh and I were heading north. It was after midnight now, but
the motorway was still busy: mainly with articulated lorries
that had brought in produce for the shops and markets. Rosh was
weaving between them dangerously, slowing down for no-one.
'We'll get there,' I said.
He didn't answer - just gunned the accelerator a little and shot
past a bleached-yellow van. The driver blared his horn, but the
sound faded away quickly as we left him behind.
'We'll get there.'
Lucy was heading north as well, some way ahead of us. She was
in her unmarked car, pushing the speed limit without quite
breaking it. Behind her, there was a black van. It had tried to run
her off the road as she left the police station, failed, and then been
behind her ever since. She could see at least three men in the front,
and I expected that there would be more in the back. Even if there
weren't, three were too many for her to deal with. So she was
leading them out of the city as slowly as she could risk, and Rosh
and I were racing to catch up.
He said, 'Phone her.'
I did. It took a couple of seconds for her to answer.
She said, 'Hey, Martin. How are you?'
'Hey,' I replied. 'I'm fine. But I hope for the sake of other drivers
that you're on the hands-free.'
'Very funny.'
'Where are you?'
'Just out of the gates,' she said. 'Passed them about a minute ago.
You guys?'
I looked out of the window. Yellow streetlights curled up from
either side of the road. Beyond them, there wasn't much to
differentiate the landscape: just a lot of wasteground and trees as
the city thinned out.
'Close,' I said.
'Two minutes from the gate,' Rosh told me.
'Two minutes and closing,' I relayed.
'Okay,' she said. 'I'm taking them down the woods.'
'Our woods?'
'Yeah. A bit of quiet to deal with them in. Plenty of cover.'
Typical Lucy. I had no idea whether she was even remotely
scared; she often reacted strangely and it was a bit difficult to
predict. Generally, the more intense a situation got, the calmer she
appeared. I'd only ever seen her vulnerable in the kind of intimate
moments that other people weren't around to see. But whatever she
was feeling, I was frightened for her even if she wasn't. As fast as
Rosh was driving, I wanted him to accelerate.
'We'll be there by then,' I told her.
'Plenty of cover for all of us, then. These guys mean business.'
'We'll take them.'
She paused, and then said:
'Okay. I'm sorry about everything, Martin.'
'Don't talk like that. There's never been anything to be sorry
about.'
'I just wanted you to know. It was bad, the way things turned
out.'
'It's okay. We'll see you soon.'
'City gates,' Rosh called out. He accelerated under them and,
finding his way blocked by a taxi, blared his horn a couple of times.
The taxi driver swerved out of the way and gave us the finger as we
passed him.
'Hear that?' I said. 'City gates.'
'Good.' Another pause, then: 'I'm at the turn-off now. Got to
go.'
'Good luck,' I said. 'And don't get killed. Okay?'
'Remember who you're talking to here and don't be so fucking
stupid.'
I hung up, feeling that it was the last time I'd ever speak to her.
But I didn't believe in fate - never had - and I reminded myself of
that now. Whatever was going to happen would be decided when it
did. I turned to Rosh.
'She's at the turn-off.'
'Two minutes away,' he said. 'But we'll make it in one.'
I nodded. Of course we would.
When the police arrested people, those people went to jail and
then court and then - if we were lucky - jail again. But when the
four of us arrested people out of hours - if we couldn't fake the
scene well enough - those people disappeared. These weren't
pleasant people we were dealing with after all; they had connections,
and they would be missed. A corpse in a room is a question
that needs an answer. But a missing person is more of a vague
puzzle, and the even more unpleasant people who would want to
know what had happened are left with nothing to go on. They
would assume that a rival was responsible, but they'd have little to
work with beyond their own back catalogues. And who knew maybe
the guy in question had just run.
Rosh had some land outside the city that he'd inherited from his
parents when they died. It had once been used for farming, but now
it wasn't used for much of anything: the main house was still
standing, but Rosh had emptied it of any valuables, and the
wooded acres of land around it were untended and overgrown. Old
farm equipment rested wherever it had stopped, rusted now,
wrapped in grass. The land itself was fenced off at the extremities
and only really accessible by a series of half-roads that nobody
would ever take by accident. So it was private and perfect for what
we needed. Deep in the woods, there was an old skip and that was
where we disposed of any evidence. Afterwards, we'd drive away
from the house - down its dusty driveway and then onto the tangle
of awkward trails - and we'd see the pinprick of fire behind us,
burning in the woods. But nothing would ever be visible from the
motorway, or anywhere else where unsuspecting drivers might see
it and grow suspicious.
'Here we go,' Rosh said, peeling the van off to the left.
All that sounds bad, and it was. But we're talking about
murderers, here. We're talking about serial rapists and abusers and
major-league players whose absence in the world inarguably made
it a better place. Who were we to make that decision, you might
ask. We were just us.
Regardless, this was where Lucy was now leading the men who
wanted to kill her. A bit of cover. A bit of privacy.
We bumped along. Within a minute, the road was barely wide
enough for the van and the ground was churned up: all tractored
muck and soil, frozen into a fractured wave. There was a little open
space over a fence to the right - a field that might once have housed
cattle or crops, or who knew what. Thick woods to the left.
'Get ready,' Rosh said.
He switched off the lights, slowing down only slightly, and drove
blind. The van rolled up and down, from side to side, tracking the
rough ground. I already had my gun in my hand. I checked it once
and then forgot about it. It was fine.
And then, up ahead, I heard the noise of gunshots. They were
hard sounds that hammered the air. Lots of them - more than one
gun, maybe three or four. I was shaking - frightened of reaching
them, frustrated that we weren't there already.
Lucy.
I said, 'Go faster.'
Rosh accelerated slightly around a corner we both knew was
coming up - and then suddenly the world shattered, jerked, blew
apart. My eyes were shut and all I could feel was pain from my
shoulder to my hip, an enormous strain in my neck.
'Fuck.'
The van careered and stopped. There was another van ten metres
away from us, half off the road now, its doors hanging open. We'd
slammed it off the road, coming to rest a little way behind and to
one side. The beam from its headlights illuminated the undergrowth. Silhouettes flashed across. I undid my seatbelt, beginning
to feel panic rising and fighting it down.
There was a sudden spray of gunfire and our windscreen
exploded.
'Out.'
We kicked open the doors and dived out to either side of the van.
I crouched down, using the door as cover. More bullets thudded
into it, coining the metal. One, two, three.
'Two of them by the van,' Rosh shouted.
The side window above shattered, covering me in glass.
'Shit!'
'One out in the fields this way.'
I caught the flash of a muzzle in the woods beside me, but the
shots came nowhere near. Two of them by the van, and they must
have sent a man out to either side to flank Lucy.
More flashes amongst the trees, and the air reverberated around
me. As if things weren't bad enough, the guy in the woods had a
fully automatic rifle.
I said, 'I've got one this side too. I'm on it.'
Optimism. Obviously I'd killed people before, but I'd never been
involved in any kind of shootout or gun battle. Trained for it a
little. Never in woodland.
"I'm on it.
I took three deep breaths then stood and ran out from behind the
door, hammering shots in the direction of the van we'd hit. A few
came back, missing me. Just single shots, fired on instinct rather
than aimed. Half of the first tree I passed blew apart in a hard, wet
spray. Then more, tearing apart the undergrowth. I stopped firing
and concentrated on running. The trees were dense here and I had
to dodge between them, but the dark was on my side: the shots
coming after me were wide of the mark and the shooters gave up
quickly, deciding to concentrate on Rosh and Lucy. She must have
been holed up by her car somewhere ahead. Not wanting to think
about that, I slowed down and watched for the muzzle flashes
amongst the trees. There - not far now. I crept carefully towards
them. With a bit of luck, I'd get him before he knew I was here.
Then, a voice I didn't know shouted out: 'One in the woods, one
on the field.'
The shooter in the woods went quiet. No more muzzle flashes.
Shit.
I stopped moving and crouched down. My hands were shaking.
There was another spatter of gunfire from the road. Then quiet
held for a second. Then three solid shots, and someone started
screaming. My heart flipped for a moment, but I didn't recognise
the voice. Lucy or Rosh had clipped one of the men by the van.
Probably Lucy - Rosh would be after the man in the field.
Immediately, more shots rang out at the road: flat and hard and
sustained. A few people, exchanging fire. I heard glass shatter,
angry shouting.
Keep moving.
But the woods in front of me were pitch black and dangerous,
and without the muzzle flashes amongst the trees I was blind. I had
an idea of where he'd been - not far ahead - but surely he would
have moved by now. I kept low and worked my way quietly
between the trees. The fucker knew I was here somewhere.
Automatic gunfire - like a hammer smacking an iron girder
twenty times a second. I made it to the ground just as the noise and
light exploded beside me, then above me, then past and over to one
side. Pain jarred my arm and face, and the undergrowth was
tangled and sharp, but I ignored it and concentrated on the man.
Where was he? Then I caught a glimpse of him - slightly ahead of
me, raking shots out through the woods, aiming a little high. The
trees were flashing into life, and smoke was billowing between
them. I edged to my left and fired once, twice, hitting nothing. My
third shot caught him somewhere. The gunfire swirled upwards as
he went back and down, bullets fluttering up like startled birds,
shredding leaves, and I could hear him screaming over the sounds
of the shots before they cut out. And then just screaming.
I got to my feet and moved quickly, circling him as quietly as I
could. My heart was racing but my mind was strangely calm; it had
slowed down completely and was talking to me in a small,
confident voice.
You've got him, it's okay, just take it easy.
The man kept screaming, and then called out:
'Man down! Man down! Fuck!'
I was moving round to the left - come on, it's okay, just relax when
he started firing again, like an animal caught in a trap and
lashing out. The shock made me dive down, but he was firing away
from me, tearing apart the woodland where I'd been when I'd
clipped him the first time. The shots laced back and forth, the flash
from the muzzle illuminating the wood in staccato bursts of fire.
And there he was at the centre, a shadow twisting on the ground,
not much more than a series of lit contortions. I took aim and fired
into the heart of them three times. Immediately, the shots stopped.
This time, there was no screaming.
I paused, gathering myself together. My arm hurt where I'd hit
the ground, and my cheek was stinging. I touched it carefully, and
my hand came away wet. Had I been caught? I decided I wasn't in
nearly enough pain; I'd probably just been cut by a thorn or nicked
by a splinter of bark. The woods stank of smoke and sap.
The fight was continuing at the road, and the sound of shots
turned me around and drew me back towards it, moving through
the undergrowth as quickly as I dared, heading straight for the
beacon of light spilling from the men's van. It was criss-crossed
with the black lines of the trees. I heard more shots, interspersed
with screams of pain. The sound of bullets pranging metal.
I kept to the treeline, heading alongside the road until I got near
enough to work out what was going on. There was a dead man by
the van, but the second was still alive, using the door to shield him
from shots coming from up ahead. Lucy was still alive; still
returning fire. Something inside me lurched with relief, and I felt a
savage twist of desire to kill this man as quickly as possible and
make sure she was safe. I couldn't see Rosh, but there was gunfire
slamming the far side of the van from the dark field, and so he must
have been out there somewhere. But the man was still firing off
shots. He emptied his clip out front of the van and then fumbled in
his belt for another, backing off slightly along the vehicle. I wanted
to kill him. Instead, I stepped out and drew down on him and said:
'Drop it.'
He looked up at me - startled, terrified - and my aim faltered
slightly as I caught sight of his face. It was Michael Kemp, an
officer in our department. Sean and I had worked with him a
couple of times, and although I didn't know him well I'd always
liked him. I liked him a lot fucking less now, but at least I had him
caught square with nowhere to go.
Regardless - panicking - he was still working at the gun. He got
the clip in just as I said:
'Mike, for fuck's sake, drop the gun.'
But then he was aiming for me and I had no choice. His gun came
up quick and I fired twice, catching him in the chest and throat. He
went back into the van so hard that he left a dent in the side, but
still managed to get a wild shot off. And then he was down, sprawled
out and motionless. His gun clattered away from him.
I kept my aim on him as I moved over, shouting out to Lucy and
Rosh:
'Hold your fire!'
I kicked the gun, sending it skidding off towards the field, and
kept aiming, but Kemp wasn't moving and he never would. There
was blood pooling out all around him and my second shot had
removed most of his neck. Officer Michael Kemp was very fucking
dead.
Rosh and Lucy held their fire as ordered, and the sudden hush
was shocking after minutes of constant gunfire. My ears were
ringing gently. It felt like an intrusion to shout in this new, bruised
silence, but I did it anyway.
'We're clear.'
Then I put my back to the van and slid slowly down, finishing up
crouched on my haunches. The adrenaline was running all the way
through me, finding nowhere to go, and as I watched Lucy
approaching cautiously from up ahead I realised that I was
shivering badly.
'Martin?'
'Here.'
'You in one piece?'
'I'm fine,' I said. 'They're all dead.'
The shivering would become uncontrollable soon; it would be as
though my thermostat had broken. Adrenaline would turn into
what it always did - a cold, crawling poison that only time could
take away.
Lucy collapsed next to me. She looked ragged and wild, but
basically unscathed. I leaned against her, and she did me, and
together - slumped there in support - we waited for Rosh.
'You get your man?' he asked when he arrived.
I nodded.
'I clipped mine,' he said, shaking his head and frowning. 'I know
I did, because the fucker screamed and stopped shooting at me. I
caught him dead centre, ten metres away - three, four hits - and I
saw him go down. He wasn't getting back up.'
I said, 'And? You don't sound so sure.'
'I got closer, and he wasn't there. No body. Nothing.'
'You think he crawled off?'
Rosh just shook his head again.
'No. Even with body armour on, he wasn't going anywhere. I
was on him in two, maybe three seconds. No way he moved. It's
like he fell down and turned to mist. His fucking gun was just
sitting there.'
I looked around at the dark fields and woods. The breeze was
rustling them slightly, and it was very cold. I started shivering even
more. If Rosh said that he'd tagged his man, then I was sure he had.
Perhaps he'd just misjudged where he'd fallen down. It was the middle of the night, after all. But whatever had happened, we
needed to get out of here quickly.
'Let's just move,' I said.

This road was private, but not as private as the farm itself. Nobody
from any main road would have seen or heard anything and it was
unlikely that anyone would ever come this way by accident.
Nevertheless, we still needed to clean the scene up a little.
It took all three of us to get the damaged van further off the
road, a task made all the more unpleasant by the fact that when we
first rammed it we'd pushed it over another one of the men - so
that was five in total. He was dead by now, but still trapped under
the back wheel. We placed what was left of him beside Kemp at the
back of the van and then dragged the third man off the road by his
heels. Lucy had caught him in the stomach, and then twice in the
chest. Man down, indeed.
All three of them were dressed exactly the same. Black clothes.
Gloves. Boots. Flak jacket. These guys had come meaning business.
'Serious,' I said.
Rosh nodded. 'You recognise any of the others?'
'No.'
Lucy shook her head as well.
"Me neither,' Rosh said. 'I've worked with Kemp a few times. I
always thought he was a decent guy.'
"Me too.'
Lucy said, 'He tried to hit on me once, but he took it well when I
told him to fuck himself. He seemed stand-up the other times I met
him.'
'Obviously, that wasn't true.'
'He was on the take?' she said.
'Maybe.' I shrugged.
I was reluctant to go any further down that line of thinking for
the moment, if only because what had happened here was so
extreme that I couldn't understand why. What was so important
about Alison Sheldon that a police officer would cover up her
identity, blackmail a lecturer, kill Sean and then try to kill Lucy
too? She was just a student. I shook my head.
'Let's finish up,' I said.
It was starting to rain. We loaded all three bodies into the back
of the van and then closed the doors. We would leave Rosh's van at
the farmhouse, where nobody else would go. If anybody drove past
here they would imagine that Kemp's van had run off the road presumably
taking the corner too quickly - and then been
abandoned. That was all. The two bodies we'd left off-road could
stay there for now. Nobody was likely to stumble on them at the
moment, and if they did then good luck to them. We could clean up
properly when we had more time.
When we were done, Rosh and I brushed the glass away as best
we could and got back in the van. Lucy took her car, and we drove
the rest of the way down the road, taking the overgrown turning
that led to Rosh's farmhouse. We wouldn't stay long, but we could
clean up our minor wounds, regroup and work out what our next
move should be. Rosh and I drove in silence, the rain pattering in
on us. There was lots to talk about, but we needed the quiet time to
digest what had happened. The keenest question was how many
others there were out there. I had no doubt at all that we'd just
killed at least some of the people who murdered Sean - but I didn't
know why we'd been forced into that position or if what we'd done
here tonight had ended all this for good. We needed to find Harris.
We needed to find Keleigh.
I checked my phone to see if she had called or texted.
No Messages
It was raining properly when we arrived at the farm: great slices
of water coming down at an incline, saturating us. You could see it
flashing in the headlights and hear it on the roof of the van. It was
quietly hypnotic. And I put it down to the rain that, as Rosh pulled
the van to a halt at the front of the house, I didn't notice straight
away that there was something terribly wrong.
Lucy backed her car up and swerved round slightly, drawing
level beside us.
Rosh rested his forearms on the steering wheel, his chin on them,
and stared out thoughtfully.
I said: 'It's all gone, isn't it?'
He nodded but didn't say anything. I supposed that it wasn't
exactly true: the farmhouse wasn't gone. I could still see it straight
ahead, illuminated at its base by our headlights. But the windows
were empty and the familiar wooden door was missing. The white
walls, where they hadn't tumbled down, were now stained black
with soot. Through the gaps, you could see that the roof had fallen
in, and the rain was streaking down into the shell of the building,
soaking all of the ash and timber and ruin. I half expected to see
smoke rising from the debris, but there was nothing. The building
had been burned and the fire had gone out, leaving parts of the
walls standing but nothing left of the inside. It was a husk. So in
every real sense, it was all gone.
We got out of the van, guns in hand, and Lucy joined us. The
only sound was the static hush of the rain, which made it seem as
though something peaceful and secret was being told to us. I
scanned the land around carefully. The fire had been set some time
ago, but that didn't mean whoever had set it wasn't still around.
Rosh walked towards the remains of his home.
'Could be an accident,' Lucy said bitterly.
I shook my head, even though she hadn't meant it.
'I don't think so.'
Rosh stopped before we reached the door, stood still and looked
at something on the ground by his feet. Burned rubbish, strewn
around. It was as though the house had exploded as it died,
scattering unwanted belongings around the yard. Lucy and I moved
towards him.
'No,' Rosh said as we reached him. 'I don't think so either.'
And I realised that it wasn't rubbish by his feet. Burned, yes, and
almost beyond recognition, but still very obviously a body.
Something that had once been human and was now just black and
hard and lifeless, like old wood. You could make out the broken
head; the curled, melted shape of the rest of it. The rain was
tapping on a single exposed tooth.
Lucy knelt down in the mud beside it, tilting her head slightly as
she put together what was what. And then, gently, she rested her
hand on it and closed her eyes. After a second, I placed my own
hand on her shoulder. It was the first time I'd touched her in
months, and I felt a slight jolt: a shiver of an earthquake deep
inside me. Rosh stood still, but after a second he moved closer,
bending over to pick up the object that had been left on top of the
body. But we all knew what it was.
Officially, it would take forensics a long time to identify these
remains. That wasn't going to happen; he would stay here. But
there was no need anyway. Whoever had done this to Rosh's
property - our property in important ways - had saved us the
trouble. Out in the middle of nowhere, they'd burned the
farmhouse almost to its foundations, and they'd burned this body
beyond even that. But when it was done they'd returned and left us
another message. On top of his body, they'd carefully placed Sean's
wallet and badge.

Chapter Twelve

Like I said before, I grew up in Turtle. My parents were good
people by any standard you care to name. My father was hardworking
and capable. He never found himself fitting into any
traditional niche of employment, but he eventually founded his
own business and did well. One of my clearest memories from
when I was young is of my father, glasses on, peering over a sheet
of finances that he didn't entirely understand but was determined
to master regardless: sheer tenacity, and it paid off. It never seemed
to bother him too much that my mother earned more than him she
had worked in the same store since she was a kid, and ended up
being the manager - and it didn't seem to bother her either. My
parents' marriage was a partnership in the truest sense, and I
always got the impression that the work stuff and the money it
brought in was just a means to an end. That end was being happy
together, living a good life, and raising me well. They were the best.
And they still are. They don't live in the city anymore. There was
a place two hours' drive away on the east coast that we used to go
to every summer on holiday, and when my mother and father hit
retirement age they studied their accounts and figured out they had
enough to afford a down payment on a cottage there. That's where
they live now. Despite the care and love with which they'd raised
me, it was one of those strange, inexplicable tricks of life that I
hadn't grown up all that close to them. In return, they know
enough about my life to be proud of me, which obviously couldn't
be much.
I remember those holidays, though. And the thing is, I was never
that keen on where we ended up. I guess it was always fun - my
parents made sure of that - but in lots of ways I was just kicking
my heels: killing time until we were heading home again. It was the
journeys I enjoyed the most: the trips in the car, listening to music
and staring out of the windows; counting down the miles;
wondering if when we passed over the next brow we'd be able to
see the sea. And the service stations that we occasionally stopped at
- I liked them more than anything else, and was always on at my
father to take the turnings and let us call into one for a while. There
was something magical about them: a sense of shifting home or of
refuge. Of course, they were always disappointing, in that nobody
really did anything there beyond buying a few snacks and scanning
the magazine rack, but, even so, the second we were back on the
road again I wanted to stop at the next one.
There was one time we stopped at a service station when I was
quite young: maybe thirteen, surely not much older. I remember
that we were on the way back from our holiday rather than on the
way out, and that the holiday had been a good one. We were nearly
back at the city by that point, but it was a hot day and my father
had been driving for a long time, so he took the turning without
any prompting from his son.
We pulled in; we all got out. The car park was enormous - space
for a few hundred cars - with the main services at one end and a
crappy little motel on one side. Trees everywhere else. That day,
there was a gentle breeze but no cloud cover, and the summer sun
was really punishing the tarmac. There was a surprisingly large
number of holiday-makers: all glistening skin, bad outfits and red
tan lines. We walked through them: up the slight ramp and into the
main building, past the ice-cream van by the entrance. My mother
and I waited by the phones while my father went to the toilet.
After a minute, my mother asked if I wanted anything from the
shop, and I said no. She wanted a paper - my father had insisted
that she didn't buy one all week, or else it wouldn't have been a
proper holiday, and she was desperate to catch up with the news. I
asked if I could wait for them both outside in the sun, and she
thought about it and then said yes. After all, I was a sensible kid:
she knew I wasn't going to head off anywhere I shouldn't, and that
it would take handcuffs and chloroform for a stranger to take me
away. So I went back down the walkway, squinting against the
sun, and I'd swear to God that I knew something was wrong even
before I heard it - before I turned my head to the right and saw it.
But of course, I don't believe in God. Perhaps I should just swear.
When you see something out of the ordinary, you don't take
everything in at once. Because most things that happen to you,
you're used to them - they're everyday sorts of things that don't
take much in the way of processing, and that means that you're
very rarely startled or surprised by what occurs in front of you. It
all just washes over, and it's only once in a while that you're forced
to take a second look and think before you can understand exactly
what's going on. Your brain, fooled into laziness by how normal
things usually are, rubs its eyes, realises it might actually have to work for a living for once, and then immediately scrabbles
desperately for reference points - something that it can at least start
from in order to make sense of what you're seeing. That day, my
first thought was: fight. A playground fight, where two kids go at it
and everyone else rushes around, circling them, crowding in until
they couldn't stop fighting if they wanted to.
The commotion to my right was a little like that, but different
enough to chill me at a subconscious level. Looking back now, I
can break it down. We weren't in a playground; this was an adult
place where things like fights didn't happen, because adults were
the ones who stopped them - that was their job. But the people
moving over were grown-ups, and although there was nothing
voyeuristic or eager about the way they approached there was also
a sense of powerlessness to it. The steps they took were faltering.
Latent civic duty was moving them over while their better
judgement was telling them to stay still; and many were doing just
that, perhaps pretending there was nothing to move over for. The
ones who were paying attention clearly wanted to do something,
but they knew that they couldn't: they were all twitching fingers,
unsure expressions. A few people - afraid - were simply walking
away as quickly as they could, looking as though they wanted to
hide. I would understand later that what I was seeing here was
group denial. The inability of any single person to take action
resulting in nobody doing anything at all.
I walked over mindlessly, on auto-pilot and in slow motion,
edging past the people who were moving away. When I got close
enough, I stood and watched what was happening.
There were about ten rough-looking men in a circle, all facing
outwards. Perhaps they were some kind of biker outfit, because
they were all dressed in the same old black leather and a few of
them were wearing matching bandannas. The majority of them





no
in
were keeping the crowd at bay, utterly implacable, palms out and
pushing, warning away anyone who came too close. It was the flip
side of group denial: nobody was going to fuck with these guys and
they knew it. There were simply too many of them, and this was
business as usual.
Inside the circle, a man on the ground was being beaten by
another two. He was around my father's age and he was wearing
dark-blue jeans and a pale-brown shirt. He had his eyes shut:
screwed up against the pain from the kicks and punches he was
receiving. There was something terribly foetal about him, curled up
like that for protection, and I shivered as I realised that he was
preparing himself for the end of his life. After that, I felt every blow
he took, and experienced the same innate feeling of powerlessness
that kept everyone else from doing anything either.
'Keep back.'
A member of the audience had gotten too close and had been
pushed backwards. He staggered a little, and the biker who'd
shoved him raised a finger to warn him off.
'Keep the fuck back,' he said, over the sound of blows landing
thick and hard and constant behind him. 'He's going to die
anyway. Just let him die.'
Suddenly, something happened and people began to move away.
'Shit! Get out of the way.'
They scattered: first a few, panicked into motion, and then
everyone - everyone apart from me. A woman grabbed my arm
and tried to pull me back, but I shook her off. Something was
telling me that I needed to see what was going to happen. That it
was important.
With the crowd thinning, I saw that the beating had stopped.
Now, the man was resting on his forearms and knees, and he was
looking up. His face was a bloody mess and his long hair was
hanging down almost to the tarmac, matted and red. As I stared at
him, a bead of blood fell from his ruined eyebrow and made a
small, spidery circle on the ground underneath his chin.
I glanced at that, and then at his face, and I took a step back.
Because the man was staring straight at me. His eyes were bright
white and clear, in stark contrast to his red cheeks and forehead,
and the black, glistening clot of his nose. He kept staring at me and
I couldn't look away. I didn't see what happened - not properly but
one second he was looking at me and then suddenly his face
had smashed forward into the ground, and a puff of red mist hung
in the air. He didn't move, but after the briefest of pauses a solid
rope of blood flung itself out from the top of his head, nearly
reaching my shoes. And then another rope, slightly shorter.
Painting the ground. Another, shorter still.
I looked up and saw that one of the men was holding a gun with
a silencer on it. And he was staring at me.
I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder.
'Martin.'
I turned to see my father standing behind me. My mother was
beside him. They both looked frightened but determined.
'Dad--'
I was big for my age, but he picked me up almost effortlessly,
turned me around and headed quickly away from the men. He held
me firmly, confidently, but I could feel a strange electricity in his
hands and I knew that he was terrified. My mother was walking
beside us, watching the tarmac as though every step was a test she
needed her full concentration to complete. There was a crackle in
the air. Later - again - I would understand that they were
expecting a bullet in their backs at any moment, and also that we
were all genuinely lucky not to receive one. At the time, I wasn't
scared. That would come later.
As we got closer to the car, my father put me down, but he left a
strong, guiding hand on my shoulder. I remember that suddenly
everything looked surprisingly normal. There were people walking
between the cars, smiling at each other. There were the sounds of
lorries, cars, trucks in the distance. Trees leaning slightly in the
breeze with their leaves fluttering, seeming to catch the light in that
fractured way that the sea does.
Here was the process in reverse, then. Walking back to the car,
everything looked normal and everyday, but a part of my mind was
now screaming that it wasn't, and I simply couldn't square the two.
What was wrong? Why wasn't the sky blackening? Why weren't
people's faces melting away? It was wrong - a trick was being
played on me here. I was suspicious of this pretend calm and felt
like narrowing my eyes and glaring. This was how nightmares
were: everything right apart from one sinister thing you just
couldn't put your finger on.
As we reached the car, my father rounded on my mother.
'For God's sake, Ann. What the hell were you thinking?'
'I just ... I didn't. . .'
I stared at them both, because I'd never seen either of them like
this. Never seen my mother this flustered: this stuck for something
to say. And my father's big hands were flexing slightly, as though
he was in danger of losing it completely and hurting someone. But
the expression on his face held more fear than genuine rage, with
flickers of relief around the edges. Seeing your father scared is a
bad thing. I don't think you're a child again after you do.
'I just thought he'd be fine.'
My father shook his head and unlocked the car. We were back
through the city gates before anybody spoke again. There was
never a question of reporting it to the police; someone else could do
that. Even though the car was silent, I understood that a kind of
peace was settling between my parents. My father's hands were
shaking slightly and he took the remains of the journey slowly. My
mother just stared out of the window, resting an elbow on the rim
and hooding her face; she was crying but trying to hide it. Even so,
ebbs of relief were thickening in the air, and I allowed myself to feel
them. This was something that wouldn't be spoken of properly
again. There would just be a sweet and desperate undercurrent in
our lives, which would tell us quietly but clearly how precious and
wonderful life really was.

'Martin?'
'Huh?'
I looked up to see that Lucy was watching me. She was leaning
against the side of her car, smoking. Rosh was still inside the motel,
booking us a room. In the rainbow light cast by the humming neon
sign above us it was difficult to read Lucy's expression. I would
have taken it for her standard issue nonchalance except that she
sounded genuinely concerned when she asked:
'Are you okay?'
I looked back down at the stretch of ground in front of me. This
was the exact spot where it had happened - as a child, I'd watched
a man die here. It used to be services, but now it was just a car
park, a motel and not much of anything else: dull floodlights at the
end of a spread of darkening tarmac; cars rushing past on the road
beyond. Exactly the kind of place that three people like us should
end up for the night. I hadn't realised - even as Lucy had taken the
turning - but now the memory couldn't have been clearer.
'I'm fine,' I said.

'You don't look fine. You're worried about--'
I shook my head, perhaps too quickly.
'No.'
"I'm not worried about Rachel.
I wanted to shout that at her until it echoed - until it pranged
back and forth between the handful of parked cars.
You see, there had been a time when Lucy would never have
spoken Rachel's name out loud. It's no surprise, I guess - when
you're fucking a guy you don't want to talk too much about his
wife, even if you're pretending that it's all very casual and easy. But
after she started seeing Rich again - when it was officially over
between us - Rachel's name began to crop up more frequently, as
though she was now suddenly welcome as a guest in our
conversations.
'I'm not worried about Rachel,' I said.
'Yes, you are.'
I kicked the ground a little, not wanting to talk about this now
and already slightly irritated by it. This was something else that
Lucy did. She always seemed to think she had some kind of direct
line into my head - that she could see straight through what I was
thinking on the surface, all the way down to what was being
whispered underneath - and she was always correcting me about
stuff she couldn't possibly know. Despite the fact that I'd left my
wife for her, she just knew that I didn't love her: that I was being
silly, and that I'd go back to Rachel in the end. The force of her
appraisals always made me go to extremes. Yes, I do. I love you. I'd insist it and feel even more stupid.
'If you must know,' I said, 'I was just thinking. I've been here
before.'
She looked at the motel. 'Stayed here?'
'No. When I was young. It used to be services.'
'Right.'
I said, 'I was just thinking it was weird, that was all.'
It felt more than weird, though, and I kept staring at the ground
and feeling shivers of recognition. It was like bumping into an old
friend at a random party: just coincidence, but you're compelled to
try and work out how the fuck you both ended up there. It's
random but meaningful and, for no real reason I could identify, it
seemed slightly ominous. Every time I moved my head, I could hear
a whining in the air. We were miles out of the city - couldn't even
see the swell of it, the pinprick spread of its lights - and yet I felt
trapped by the crawling familiarity of being here. It seemed to soak everything that had happened in the last few days with a black
inevitability.
Lucy ground out the cigarette under her heel. Obviously, she
wasn't feeling anything like that.
'If you're worried, you should ring her,' she said.
I walked away from where I'd been standing and leaned against
the car beside her.
'Bad idea,' I said. 'Anyway, she'll be fine.'
'You don't want to keep trying? She's your wife.'
'No,' I said. 'She's not. And she'll be fine. What the fuck would I
tell her anyway?'
She inclined her head slightly, conceding the point.
I said, 'Well, maybe you should ring Rich.'
The air between us stiffened, tensed, and suddenly I wished I
wasn't standing quite so close to her anymore. That had been
unfair and unnecessary, and we both knew it.
'He's at home,' she told me quietly.
She'd told me the same thing earlier on, as well, when the three
of us had been debating what to do. The most worrying thing
about the damage to Rosh's farmhouse wasn't the loss of the
building: it was that someone had known enough about us to find
it in the first place. If they knew that then what else did they know,
and what else might they be prepared to do? Perhaps we'd killed all
of them tonight, but until we spoke to Keleigh or found Harris we
couldn't assume anything, and so going home was out of the
question. Hence the motel. We'd also discussed whether anyone we
cared about might be in danger, and after some deliberation I'd
tried to phone Rachel. She hadn't answered. But it was late, and
phonecalls from me weren't exactly welcome at the best of times.
'Okay,' Rosh said, the front doors of the motel closing behind
him. He was swinging a key. 'We've got one family room between
us.'
A family room? I could only imagine what the guy on the desk
must have thought, what with Rosh coming in at this hour. On first
glance, it was difficult to imagine Rosh having a family at all, or, if
he did, what it might look like. And I guess Lucy and I must have
looked pretty shit even to Rosh, because he frowned and said:
'You two okay?'
'Fine,' I said. Lucy didn't say anything.
He kept looking at me, concerned, for a couple of seconds, and
then he seemed to shrug to himself. I wasn't sure how much Rosh
knew about what had happened between me and Lucy, but
whatever that might be he obviously figured that now wasn't the
best time to bring it up or offer advice. Far smarter than either of us
had been.
'Whatever,' he said. 'Come on - it's over this way.'
We followed him, Lucy heading off first and leaving me trailing
behind. I glanced back as I went, taking one last look at the patch
of tarmac where, as a child, I'd seen a man murdered. I hadn't been
back here since and it still seemed odd that I'd ended up here now.
If there really was one single event that had made me want to be a
cop then I thought that one was as good a candidate as any.
Strange. I turned around and hurried to catch up.
The motel was constructed around a rectangle, with all the
rooms facing inwards on what had once - and presumably quite
some time ago - been a swimming pool. Now it was just a dirty
hole that would never be used again. I casually watched the closed,
white doors as we passed, but there was nobody to see and not
much to hear. Just the night-time rush of air, like a faraway river,
and the muffled sound of someone's television. Apart from that,
the motel felt silent and abandoned. Above us, the rain clouds had
relaxed and untensed, and the sky was mostly clear now. Looking
up, it was like I was wandering into a child's model - as though
someone had taken the roof off a doll's house and was peering
down at me.
Our room was on the second floor. We climbed slatted, wooden
steps up onto the walkway there and then found our door, which
was about halfway along one of the longer sides. Rosh opened up
and we went in.
'This is a family room?' Lucy said.
'Apparently so.'
Rosh locked the door behind us.
About the only time you'd bring a family here, I thought, was if
you'd kidnapped them. The wallpaper was piss-yellow, peeling in a
few choice spots and speckled with damp in others. You could
smell it in the air, like someone had left a rack of wet clothes to
dry. There was one double bed and two singles, all of them
sporting white bedsheets that looked more like cheap paper than
anything else. There were no pillow-cases: just pillows the colour
of old teabags. In an otherwise unprecedented nod towards
convenience and comfort, there was a sink unit in the far corner,
but the silver of it was tarnished by those brown stains that metal
acquires steadily over time, and it looked as unhygienic as the rest
of the room.
There was a single door leading off, which opened into a small
bathroom. Lucy flicked the light switch, slapping everything with
stunningly harsh white: the kind of light that would probably
appear behind God if you received a visitation. There wasn't much
to light up, though - surprisingly clean tiles and toilet, another sink
and a thin metal radiator mounted high up by the tiny window.
The radiator was humming to itself, sounding potentially dangerous.
'Not
great,' Rosh said. 'But it'll do. I suggest we all get some
sleep and talk in the morning.'
Part of me wanted to talk about everything now, but I was so
tired that my mind probably wouldn't have been able to hold it all
together anyway. Better perhaps to rest and then come at it vaguely
refreshed in a few hours. We'd had a long night.
'Fine by me,' Lucy said.
Rosh and I took the single beds, allowing Lucy to spread out a
little. They settled down first, and I went through to the bathroom
to clean my face. The cut wasn't deep and it had already stopped
bleeding, so there wasn't much to do but wash away the blood and
clean whatever parts of the wound were still open to water.
Despite myself, I found I was thinking. We'd been forced to kill
five men and at least one of them had been a cop. All because of
Alison Sheldon. But who had she been? Just a student. Except that
a number of men with automatic weaponry had a lot invested in
making sure her murder went unsolved.
I ticked off the light and went back through into the pitch-black
bedroom.
Lucy was already snoring gently. I recognised the sound. It
stirred an uncertain pain inside me and I forced myself to ignore it.
It was easier than it should have been, perhaps because I was still
hurt and angry from the conversation we'd had outside. Rosh was
making no noise at all, and I considered trying to talk to him but
then discounted the idea. I just took off a few of my clothes and
slipped into bed, leaving my gun within easy reach at the side. I was
asleep before I could feel angry or sad or frightened, and I dreamed
of nothing.

Later on, I remember sitting up in my bed. The room was growing
lighter as dawn broke outside, but Lucy and Rosh were still asleep,
both facing away from me. The covers over them were calmly
rising and falling, and I felt very much alone, as though despite the
slight movement I was trapped in a pocket of paused time. I picked
up my mobile, knowing even as I did so that it was a bad idea.
Rachel's number was programmed into the "I' key; I pressed it
now, holding the phone up to my ear.
Straight to voicemail. She hadn't answered my last call, and
sometime since she had switched off her phone.



Chapter Thirteen

Eight-thirty the next morning and the main crossroads at the centre
of Elephant was saturated with commerce. You could breathe it in
- a kind of sparkly damp in the air - and the black tiles on the
walkways were soaked with the dew of it. Everyone walking
around seemed full of purpose and direction, whereas I felt as
though I'd got up very early after not enough sleep and was simply
too slow to exist here for very long. Which was true.
There was all manner of shops here, lining the four pedestrian
walkways that met in the centre. The traditional colours of
Elephant were gold and white, but you couldn't see many lanterns
or banners among the shopfronts, which all had awnings and
blocky signs stretching out above multicoloured windows and
doors. Cameras were recording everything from inside glass bulbs
on top of tall, black poles. The crossroads itself was cornered by a
chemist, a mobile phone shop, a coffee bar and a clothes store, and
variations on these themes extended away as far as the eye could
see. They were interspersed with expensive sandwich shops that
had the pre-work masses queueing out of the doors, and there was
a baked-potato shack outside the chemist, complete with rising
steam and the sound of ovens being scraped and trays rattled into
place. Everybody apart from Rosh, Lucy and me appeared to be
wearing suits and marching in neat lines, with the occasional
businessman weaving through at high speed. A fair few men and
women were having intense conversations on very small phones. It
was actually quite astonishing to see the dexterity with which the
city handled its people: even in this place - this hub of activity there
were no collisions, no jostling, no shouting. It appeared to be
a well-rehearsed performance where everybody knew their spots.
'How many people live in this city?' Rosh asked.
'Close to ten million,' I told him. 'Last time I counted.'
Lucy nodded. 'And they're all here.'
She ground out her cigarette on the pavement. Her mood didn't
seem to have improved much since last night, which was strange.
She usually didn't stay pissed off with me for this long, but she'd
hardly said a word to me all morning, despite my casual attempts
at bridging the gap.
'You want to watch that,' I said, trying again. 'Littering.'
'There'll be a dirt trolley along any second.' She sniffed and
looked bored. 'I'm sure all these pricks will survive in the
meantime. God, I hate this fucking district.'
We were standing on the corner outside the clothes store. In the
window behind us beige dummies modelling expensive garments
were staring out into the distance, imperious and stern. From here,
if we headed west we'd end up among the shining, glass-fronted
office blocks, while east would take us towards the markets and the
university. That was where we'd parked this morning. North took
us upmarket to the edge of Rabbit, while down the hill behind us
the shops got gradually cheaper and more beaten down. That way
led to Owl, where you'd find the police department and law courts.
At the moment, we weren't going anywhere. We were waiting.
'What did he say he looked like?' Rosh asked me.
'He didn't.'
'He didn't say what he looked like?'
I shook my head.
The call had come through on my mobile a little after seven,
waking us all up. My first thought, culled from the half-memory of
trying to phone her, was that it would be Rachel. When I picked it
up and looked at the display with bleary eyes I saw that the number
wasn't recognised, and so instead I thought: Keleigh. But then,
when I pressed green and said hello, it was a man's voice that
answered me. And he hadn't told me what he looked like.
'He just said to meet him here.'
'Well, that's handy,' Lucy said quietly.
'Absolutely. I asked him, but he just said that we were cops. Said
he was sure we'd spot him.'
Lucy didn't say anything at all to that - she just frowned and
looked away down the street. Rosh was more thoughtful. I felt
somewhere between the two of them: tired and irritable; expectant;
cautiously interested. The adrenaline from yesterday was resting in
me like vinegar, and perhaps this would be something to sweeten it
with. I was nervous, though. There are good breaks and bad
breaks, and after last night none of us was taking any chances. I
had my gun within easy reach, and I was sure that Rosh and Lucy
did too.
Lucy finished looking around and said, 'He's late.'
It was twenty to nine. He was only ten minutes late, but it still
made me nervous. Nobody seemed to be paying us much attention,
and yet I felt watched. In fact, I'd been feeling watched in some
way or other for the last few days. Although the sheer impersonal business of the crossroads was the opposite of the solitude of the
motel last night, the effect was very much the same: we were
painfully visible; glaringly obvious. We stood out in the rush of
people like rocks in a stream.
I looked to my left and started to say something, but I found that
a man was standing there, directly next to me, and I immediately
stopped talking and stepped quickly away. He seemed to have
come from nowhere. My hand was inside my jacket and on my gun
even as I realised that he wasn't paying us any attention. And on
face value he wouldn't have been much of a threat if he was. Rosh
and Lucy moved around next to me. The man was ignoring us and
just staring down at the ground - although it was difficult to tell
because he was wearing big, black goggles that wrapped around his
face all the way from his nose to his ears.
He was about twenty years old, tall and almost painfully thin,
dressed in an old white T-shirt and grey-green combats. His arms
didn't seem to taper whatsoever between his wrist and his elbow
and, as he crouched down beside me, I noticed that there was no
contour to his thighs: no real muscle there beneath the paint
stained material. The kid - not a man at all - was like a set of
straws placed at hard angles to each other. Now he was squatting
the goggles enhanced the naturally insectile appearance of his
skinny body and made him look almost alien. It probably didn't
help much that he had long, bright purple hair, tied back in a ponytail.

Purple hair, I thought. So this must be Keleigh's boyfriend.
A few people were looking at him as they walked past, their eyes
glancing from him to us and then away again: back to business.
The boy didn't seem interested, either in the three of us or the

throng passing behind him. Instead, he was studying the black-tiled
pavement, where he had rested a sheet of card that had once been
white and was now stained with a trampled rainbow. Before any of
us could say anything, I heard a solid metallic rattle and then a hiss
as he sprayed paint onto the card. His knuckles jutted out white,
full of careful intent, moving the can he was holding steadily and
efficiently back and forth across the card, covering it in yellow
mist.
'Hey, Picasso,' Lucy said. 'What the fuck do you think you're
doing?'
The boy ignored her. He sprayed the paint for another couple of
seconds, and then Lucy started to move around me. At the same
time, the hissing stopped and the can disappeared into the boy's
knapsack. He moved the card away to reveal a stark yellow tattoo
on the black tiles:

FONDLY
I THINK
OF YOU

I was so startled that I took a step back. Where had I seen this
before? I thought back. It had been on the university campus,
perhaps. Not the same words, but the style had been the same and I
was in no doubt that the author was too.
'An old one,' the thin boy said. 'But it's my favourite.'
'Did you know graffiti is a crime?' Rosh asked.
The kid stood up and turned to face us, holding the card down
by his side. Now, I could vaguely see the empty letters he'd carved
out of it. With the goggles hiding the kid's eyes it was impossible to
tell whether he was actually looking at us or just had his head
pointing our way.
'It's art,' he said.
'It doesn't look like art to me,' Lucy said.
'And obviously she's a connoisseur,' I added.
'Well,' the kid said, breathing out and sounding entirely
unbothered by the criticism. 'Maybe not. But you don't look like
cops. It's a weird fucking world.'
'You're the guy that rang me this morning, then.'
His head didn't move, but his perception seemed to shift slightly
towards me.
'Yeah, I rang you. You left your card with my friend.'
'That would make you Jamie, right?' I said.
'Yeah.'
'And you're Keleigh Groves's boyfriend.'
He shook his head, although not in denial, and said:
'I don't want to talk about it here.'
'Where, then?'
'Whitelocks,' he said. 'It's at the edge of Horse, over by--'
'I know where it is.'
As soon as he'd said it, I'd felt another jolt of recognition. First it
had been the graffiti and now this. I'd started off in Whitelocks the
night that Sean had sent me the letter. I remembered it well: the
older woman smoking the cigarette; the picture of the eye taped to
the wall at the bottom of the alleyway. And--
-	and then suddenly, without warning, the people moving
through the crossroads resolved themselves into a pattern I could
see clearly. It was mathematical, predictable and obvious. I saw it
for a full second, had chance to question what I was seeing and
confirm it, and--
-	and then it was gone again. And they were just people going
about their random business.
I shook my head.
The boy had tilted his head and seemed to be staring at me from
behind the goggles.
'That okay?'
'That's fine,' I said. 'When?'
'Half hour,' he said. 'I'll meet you there.'
Before any of us could do anything to stop him he was gone:
moving off up the street, his head looking this way and that,
goggles still in place. He swung the knapsack up onto a shoulder
that looked too thin to support it, and then he disappeared among
the people.
'What do you think?' I said.
Lucy stepped past me, stuffed her hands in her pockets and then
turned back around.
'This is the guy that Keleigh was off with last night, when you
went round?'
I nodded.
'Well then, I think we go to Whitelocks.'
'Good,' I said. 'It's not even nine yet, but I could do with a
drink.'
We started walking and Lucy lit a cigarette.
Rosh said, 'God bless the twenty-four-hour city.'

Whitelocks: this time early morning and therefore a very different
proposition. It was pretty much dead inside - just a handful of old
guys, all sitting or leaning by themselves. The jangle of fruit
machines had been replaced by the sizzle of breakfasts cooking and
the clank of washed glasses being lined up overhead. People's
attentions were all held by the television in the corner, which was
showing news: the build-up to the annual boxing, mostly. What
little conversation there was appeared to be coming entirely from
behind the bar. In the broad alleyway outside, hanging baskets of
flowers were leaking water and the slabs underneath were soaked.
Further down, there was a scraping swish, as someone moved an
old broom across the wet ground with a steady, authoritative
rhythm.
The picture of the eye had been taken down, I noticed. Even so, I felt that odd sensation of being watched and yet not watched. I had
a strange feeling that whatever the boy was going to tell us would
be something so obvious that we'd known it already without
realising.
He had bought himself a Coke and was waiting for us at one of
the old brown benches outside. The goggles rested on the table in
front of him, but you could still see the imprint of where they'd
been on his forehead.
'Two minutes,' Rosh told us, heading inside to fetch some
drinks.
Lucy and I sat down across from Jamie and waited for Rosh to
come back. The kid didn't acknowledge us in any way, but when
Rosh brought out three beers, he looked up and the sun caught his
eyes. He was wearing purple contact lenses.
'So what can I do for you?' he said when we'd settled.
I took a sip of my beer and told him:
'We're here because of Alison.'
Jamie didn't seem unduly fazed by this.
'Yeah, we figured you would be.'
' "We" being you and Keleigh?' Rosh said.
' "We" being me and Keleigh. That's right.'
I asked, 'Where's Keleigh now?'
'She's safe.'
'Yeah,' I pressed. 'But where is she safe?'
'Safe somewhere.' He shook his head. 'Look, she doesn't want to
be involved in this at the moment. Even if she did, I want to keep
her out.'
'You're her boyfriend?' Lucy prompted.
He nodded.
That would have to do for now, I thought. We could give him a
little rope, trust him slightly, hear him out. For one thing, he might
be able to tell us just as much as Keleigh could, but it would also
give us the chance to form an opinion. If he was on the level then
we could tell him a little more, and maybe we could persuade him
to take us to her then.
'Okay,' I said. 'And both of you knew Alison. How was that? It
was through uni, right?'
'Yeah.'
He took another sip of Coke. Ice was clinking in the glass.
Rosh said, 'Can you tell us anything about her disappearance?'
Jamie considered this quietly, and I watched him while he did. I
got the impression that there was probably a great deal he could
tell us, but that he didn't know where to begin. Or maybe just how.
After a few moments, he settled on it.
'I can tell you I know she's dead.'
'How do you know that?' Lucy asked.
Jamie just looked at her. Even for Lucy, who could eyeball with
the best of them, purple contacts were clearly a new experience.
She actually looked away.
He said, 'Because I'm not an idiot?'
I decided to change tack a little.
'Right. Do you know a lecturer named Dr Mark Harris?'
Jamie frowned at that, putting the glass back down on the table.
Then, he slid it around slightly, blurring the circular water stain it
had left on the wood.
'Harris worked with us a while on our art project,' he said,
studying the glass. Then, he tilted it a little. 'He was sort of an
advisor, I'd guess you'd say. Like a consultant.'
'He was in the History department, though?'
'Yeah,' Jamie said. 'Our project was based on the history of the
city.'
Rosh said, 'And have you heard from him recently?'
'Why?'
The kid was frowning again - and because it was the second time
it really caught my attention. The mention of Harris's name seemed
to have genuinely confused him, as though he hadn't been
expecting it to come up. I hoped that Keleigh really was safe, and
not just safe somewhere with Harris.
Rosh said, 'Well, we have reason to believe he was involved in
Alison's disappearance.'
Jamie shook his head immediately.
'No. He didn't have anything to do with that.'
'What makes you so sure?' I said.
'Trust me.' This time those purple eyes looked at me. He shook
his head again. 'Harris really had nothing to do with it.'
I thought back to the email and the video attachment. We knew
that Harris had been involved in luring Sean to his death and we
strongly suspected he was after Keleigh now, so it wasn't a wild
leap to imagine that he'd helped abduct Alison too. The question
was why. He'd obviously done a good job of convincing Jamie he
was on the level, and so I changed tack a little to work on the
motive.
'Okay,' I said. 'Was Harris ever involved with Alison?'
Jamie moved the glass again.
'No. He was just an advisor.'
Rosh said, 'Has he been in touch with you recently?'
'No. I've not heard from him in a while. What's the big thing
with Harris?'
'Has he been in touch with Keleigh?'
'I don't know.' Jamie put his glass down and leaned forwards.
'Why are you asking?'
I wasn't sure how much to reveal at this stage, but Rosh took
charge.
'We have reason to believe he may be involved with some people
who want to hurt Keleigh.'
'Oh.' Jamie leaned back. He didn't look surprised by the idea
that someone might want to hurt his girlfriend so much as the idea
that it might be Harris.
'So, that's why we're asking,' I added.
'Well, she's safe,' Jamie said. 'We've not heard from Harris in a
while.'
'Okay,' Rosh said. 'If you do hear from him, whatever you might
think of him right now, you should be careful.'
'All right.'
'So he was an advisor,' I said. 'And you mentioned something
about an art project. Was Alison involved in that?'
Jamie nodded.
'It was four of us. Me and Kel. Alison. This guy Damian. We just
met with Harris a few times for some background.'
'Background on what?'
'Our art was to do with the city,' he said. 'It was to do with
personifying the city, yeah? Making the city seem human. That's
what my graffiti is all about. It's giving a voice to the actual
architecture of the city, so that you're looking around and it's like
the buildings or the pavements are talking to you. Like they have
something to say.'
'Doesn't sound like my kind of thing,' Rosh said, giving him a
smile. 'I always preferred plain old paintings. Kind of boring, I
guess.'
It was an attempt to relax him, but Jamie wasn't biting.
'Very boring.'
'So your more interesting version is these street logos?' I said.
'Well, it's not just the graffiti.' He gestured with his hands a
little. 'The writing's only an initial object. The actual artwork is
people's experiences as they walk past and see it. Everybody
participates and makes it what it is. In theory, anyway. Like, if
somebody wrote a letter to the paper complaining about it, then
that would have been part of the final piece.'
Lucy was clearly unimpressed by this. Since I wasn't working
anymore, my taxes weren't directly supporting it and so I could
afford to be a little more open-minded.
'And this is what Alison did, too? And Keleigh?'
'No.' Jamie shook his head. 'We all did different things. Keleigh
did this thing with photographs. She had photos of eyes that she'd
stick up on walls, giving the city a kind of sight. She took pictures,
too, and left them places. Pictures of people taped to walls. Pictures
of dogs and homeless people and things--'
I was fazing out, I realised: hardly taking in the rest of it. Pictures
of eyes. Despite the noises around us, and the sound of Jamie
talking, the main sound I could hear was ringing silence: this
ominous, curling buzz in the air. I shuddered slightly.
Keep it together, I thought. But I wasn't sure why.
Jamie was still talking.
'- and it's all to do with that, really. That was what Harris was
advising us on - the city's history, the myth of the brothers - and
we were working around that, some of us closer than others.'
Rosh said, 'Okay. So what happened?'
I noticed the expression on Jamie's face, and it reminded me of
nothing so much as the hooded, thoughtful looks that Sean had
given me from time to time.
'We were trying to present the city as a living thing,' he said.
'You see? We were looking at the city so closely. And so we really
shouldn't have been surprised when it started looking back.'

Lucy had lit another cigarette and was now smoking quietly,
studying the grain of the wooden table. I didn't know what she was
thinking, but she still looked deeply unimpressed. She'd always
been immune to the kind of thoughts that Sean often voiced, and I
thought she was probably figuring that this whole conversation
was a waste of time. Someone had killed Alison, but it wasn't
anything to do with some stupid, pissy art project - these people
had automatic weapons and corrupt policemen on their team, for
fuck's sake. Rosh was hiding his feelings better, but I was guessing
he was probably on the same side of the fence.
I didn't know what to think. While we'd been speaking, the guy
cleaning the flagstones had worked his way up to the top end of the
alley, but I could still hear the steady swish. The rhythm had
remained steady and every time he moved the brush it felt like it
was wiping thoughts from my head. Slow hypnosis. I couldn't get a
handle on what I felt, beyond a general sense of foreboding and the
memory of everything that Sean and I had talked about as we
watched the city tense and untense, like something awful was
breathing beneath the pavements. With that as a backdrop, Jamie's
story didn't seem quite so strange. There was a dark thread running
through the coincidences of the past few days, finishing up here in a
knot my mind couldn't see well enough to untie.
Once again, I told myself: keep it together.
'So,' Rosh said. 'You did graffiti. Keleigh did these photographs.
What did Alison do?'
'Murder,' Jamie said, and then gestured at Lucy's pack of
cigarettes. 'Can I have one of those?'
She shrugged. 'Knock yourself out.'
He took one and lit it without saying thank you. After breathing
out the first mouthful of smoke, he said:
'Her art was based around murder. When she first started, it was
violent crime in general. But I guess there are only so many hours in
the day.'
Rosh looked to me for support, but I was having trouble
thinking straight. Lucy clearly wasn't going to help, so he went on
by himself.
'So what about murder? What does that mean - what did she
do?'
'She went to murder sites.' Jamie took another drag on the
cigarette and then gestured with it. 'A bit morbid, I guess, but that
was her thing. She was edgy like that. Or she liked people to think
that she was, anyway. She'd light candles and take photographs,
make sketches. Things like that. She was sort of seeing this guy
who was working on computer stuff with her. He was helping her
create something she could display.'
I realised that I needed to get back into this conversation, and it
seemed a nice, easy question to begin with:
'What was his name?'
'Rob Hedge,' Jamie said. 'Something stupid like that, anyway.'
'He's at the university?'
'Yeah. He's doing a PhD. Computer Studies, or maybe IT. I
don't know. Something computery.'
'Okay,' I said. So here was yet another candidate for the
mysterious boyfriend. 'So what happened? Alison went to these
sites. Did something happen to her at one?'
'No. She was usually really careful. She took her boyfriend
everywhere when she was working.'
'And this was Hedge?' Lucy said, stubbing out her cigarette. 'Or
perhaps Harris? You? Was it me?'
Jamie glared at her.
'Ignore her,' I said quickly, and then did so myself as I saw her
glare at me in return. 'So what about this boyfriend?'
'This was a more regular guy,' he said. 'The thing you have to
understand about Alison is that she saw a lot of people and didn't
really have any hang-ups about sex. She just did what she wanted.
She liked it but didn't think that much of it, you know. She was like
that with Hedge, definitely. But this guy was more of a boyfriend.'
'A nice guy?' I said.
Jamie shook his head.
'He was a dirty, fucking criminal.'
'Right.'
'Pretty much, anyway. She just picked him up one night at some
club in Wasp. I guess he was edgy too--'
But I interrupted him:
'Spooks?'
Rosh and Lucy looked at me a little strangely, and I didn't blame
them. Here was a solid lead - a boyfriend with criminal
connections - and I was chasing up meaningless coincidences. But
nevertheless, I needed to know.
'Was it Spooks?' I said.
'I've no idea.' Jamie was frowning too. 'I wasn't out that night.'
'You say he was a criminal?' Rosh took back control before I
could open my mouth again. 'What was he into?'
'Nothing too heavy, I don't think,' Jamie said. 'He wasn't like
the Godfather, or anything. And he didn't seem particularly
dangerous. I don't know. You got the impression that he knew
people. And he'd leave packages at our house every now and then.
You know - just for a few days. That kind of shit.'
'And what did you think of this guy? Did you get on with him?
'No,' Jamie said. 'He was a prick. But what does it matter?
Alison liked him. And he was useful to her, so she didn't think
about it too much and neither did we. She certainly never felt
nervous about anything. She was like that, though. I don't think
she ever believed anyone would actually hurt her.'
Lucy said, 'But someone did.'
'Yeah.' That glare again. 'Someone did.'
There was a war about to break, so I interrupted quickly.
'What was his name?'
Jamie looked at me for a moment, and then he said it:
'His name was Carl Halloran.'
He spoke it slowly, and my mind said the surname along with
him. I knew that name. We all did. All the coincidences clicked into
place in my head, and although I was still too close to see the full
picture I knew that everything fit and made sense.
Lucy, suddenly not so indifferent, said, 'Oh fuck.'
Jamie nodded, and then reached out and, without asking, took
another cigarette from Lucy's packet.
It's difficult to put faces to names, though. I knew that Halloran
had been the last one we'd killed and that it had been a couple of
weeks before we'd found Alison's body, but I couldn't picture what
he looked like. Not his face, anyway. I did know that it had been
Lucy who killed him. Two shots in the back of the head. He hadn't
been one of mine.
So that was the first thing Jamie said that knocked my legs out
from under me, and a moment later he lit the cigarette and told us
the second.
'That was pretty much your friend Sean's reaction, too.'

Chapter Fourteen



Six months earlier, late afternoon.
In a cramped university bedroom, surrounded by computer
equipment, Alison Sheldon was half-lying, half-sitting in Rob
Hedge's bed, building a joint.
In life, Alison was beautiful. She had smooth, clean skin; grey
eyes that changed colour in different lights - sometimes blue,
sometimes green; and honey-coloured, tumble-down hair that was
currently in a state of disarray from the sex she'd been enjoying
that afternoon. Naked, cross-legged, with the covers resting loosely
around her waist, she was quite a sight, and she knew it. Rob,
sitting at the end of the bed, didn't know where to look - at her
breasts, her face, or whether to watch those nimble fingers. She had
a book resting on her lap where the main construction was taking
place.
The window was slightly open, and there was a cold breeze
drifting lazily in, like steam rising slowly from dry ice. Alison liked
it; it had been snowing earlier on and the air smelled crisp. Outside,
she could hear the sound of people, and she imagined them
huddled and bundled in thick, woolly clothes, breathing out cool
smoke that would flicker and swirl in front of their red faces.
Winter was good. She associated it with snow sparkling in bright
light, with hard blue skies, with the rough texture of scarves and
gloves. It was almost a shame to be inside, but at least she'd get out
later. It was too bad that Carl was busy tonight. She'd have to
remember to call Jamie; she figured he'd come with her if she asked
nicely enough.
Now, she lifted the paper carefully to her lips, licked the edge
and began rolling something that was close to being the perfect
joint.
Rob's flat was cheerfully untidy. Most of the computer crap was
on and under the desk opposite the bed, but there were also piles of
clothes on the floor, and leftover plates from the pizza he'd cooked
them for lunch. The carpet was dark green, but everything above
floor level was pale. The walls were beige; the curtains, cream; his
bedspread, yellow. She kept telling him that yellow was the most
depressing colour to decorate with, but he didn't take much notice.
Since he seemed to be quite a miserable guy she'd thought he might
be interested, but apparently not.
She finished rolling. It was one of the benefits of seeing Rob that
she got to smoke some of the dope she brought for him. The
arrangement was a relatively complicated one. They didn't know
each other well enough to be friends, exactly. On the surface that's
what they were, but it was a pretence: she wouldn't have been here
if he didn't help with her artwork. He was a nice enough guy and
she liked him, but the world was full of nice guys and he wasn't that nice. And without the dope and the sex, he probably wouldn't
have been helping her either. And yet they were both fond enough
of each other to skirt around these issues.
'Ta da!' She held up the finished joint, turning it around for him
to admire.
He smiled at her, kind of sweetly.
'You're so good at that. I wish I could roll as well as you.'
'I'll teach you.'
'You will?'
Alison shrugged. 'Yeah. If you like.'
She thumbed the wheel of her lighter, scraping the flame into life,
and then singed the end of the joint, turning it slowly so as to burn
it on all sides. The end settled into a dark, smoking bunch, and
then she drew on it. It glowed red; crackled a little.
'Where are you going tonight?' he said, watching her.
She took another hit.
'Snail,' she told him. 'I can't remember the address. There's a
clipping and some stuff in the envelope.'
'A newspaper clipping?'
'Yeah.' She touched away some ash, rolling the tip of the joint
against an old cigarette butt in the dish Rob kept by the bed in lieu
of an ashtray. 'It's in the envelope.'
He opened it up to look while she kept smoking. Rob actually
didn't smoke that much, so she'd bring him an eighth and they'd
smoke a few joints, but she always ended up getting the lion's share
of whatever she rolled. God only knew what he did with the rest
after she'd gone, but she figured that he sold a little to his friends,
smoked a little himself. It didn't really matter.
' "Snail",' he read. 'What a lovely area.'
'Yeah.'
'You going on your own?'
She shook her head. 'Don't worry - I'll ring Jamie. Get him to
escort me.'
'Okay.' He read a little more. 'Sharon Cooper?'
'Yeah.'
Alison remembered the article. The girl had got into a row with
her boyfriend, which was common enough in that area. Snail was
more of a separate shanty town than an actual part of the city and
most of the buildings were makeshift - or had started off that way
when they were built. The usual rules of planning didn't necessarily
apply to parts of Snail: it was all shacks and huts and corrugated
roofs, and great iron bins that were set burning in place of proper
street-lighting. Half the residents were gypsies; the other half, you
couldn't tell. While Bull spread out from the north-east, Snail
curled at the south-west corner of the city like a dusty afterthought.
It was all poverty. There was a lot to argue about there.
Rob read the article and said: 'Her boyfriend killed her.'
'He was drunk. He punched her and she fell. She hit her head.'
'It was an accident.'
'It's certainly a moral grey area,' she agreed. 'Here.'
She passed him the joint, and he took it a little awkwardly, as
though it might break. The first few drags were always painful for
him because he wasn't really used to it. Alison watched him, half
amused. What the fuck had Rob done with his teens? He'd been
such a good boy, she thought, and deep down he still was. That
was why this whole arrangement worked.
He only took a couple more drags, and then he passed it back to
her. It was two-thirds down; she'd smoke a bit more and then offer
him the end, which he'd turn down because it was too much effort
and too hot for him. Now, he lay down on his back with his arm
behind his head and his eyes closed, and he said:
'Fucking hell.'

She looked at his naked body. He had a pretty good body.
She said, 'You're stoned?'
'Oh yeah.' He nodded to himself.
She raised an eyebrow and kept smoking the joint, feeling her
body melting away a little. But she didn't stop watching him. His
cock looked warm from the sex they'd already had, like he'd
scrubbed it for too long in a hot bath.
'You're too easy,' she said.
'Hmmm.' He had his eyes closed. 'That's me.'
Alison finished the joint herself and creased the roach out in the
dish.
'Come here, then, easy man.'
She moved down the bed, lifted one leg over him and sat down
on his lap, feeling him against her. That got his attention. He
opened his eyes and smiled up at her, giving her the same look he
always did: a combination of excitement, pleasure and slight fear,
this time blurred a little by the fuzzy red warmth of the gear. She
liked that look. His cock uncurled slowly underneath her, nudging
her, and so she rested her palms on his chest, lifted up a little to
allow it space. When it was hard enough, she reached under her
and took hold, and then eased back down onto him.
'Oh god,' he said.
He closed his eyes. She smiled, feeling genuine affection for him,
and she began to rock back and forth. With one hand, he reached
out and touched her hip. The other tentatively cupped her breast.
She leaned down harder against him. He needed encouragement.
The first time Rob had ever kissed her, he had actually asked her
permission. She upped the tempo, rolling her hips against him.
'Come whenever you want to,' she told him, and then closed her
eyes as he tensed underneath her.

Twenty minutes later, Alison made the call.
Jamie was having his photograph taken. The curved lens,
reflecting tens of circles of light, was close to his right eye; the
camera beyond it was black and mottled and still. Keleigh's visible
eye was scrunched shut as she centred the lens and prepared to take
the photograph. Jamie was anticipating the flash: steeling himself
for the burn in his iris. That was when his mobile rang on the other
side of the room.
'Fuck.'
Keleigh moved away. Jamie blinked a few times.
'Go on,' she said.
'I'm sorry.'
He stood up, moved over to the table and picked up the phone.
The display was flashing, telling him that it was alison.
Jamie looked up. Keleigh was pacing on the spot - she'd
probably guessed who it was going to be. He looked back at the
display and just held the phone, willing this problem to vanish.
Alison had mentioned that Halloran couldn't go with her tonight
and had told him that she'd phone him later. Not asked him, of
course; just said she'd call.
Keleigh stopped pacing and stared at him.
'So, are you going to answer that?'
'Hmm,' he said. 'Not sure.'
Did he really want to speak to Alison right now? If he did then
she'd ask him to go with her tonight and he wouldn't be able to say
no. She knew that, too. Not so long ago, he wouldn't have
hesitated and, even now, his instinct was to press green, say yes, of
course. But he'd also slowly figured out that doing nice things for
someone wasn't necessarily going to make them like you, especially
if they were only asking because they thought you would. So for a
few weeks now he'd been torn. Would Alison like him more if he
was less available or willing? Very probably not. And did he really
care deep down anyway?
He hadn't even answered the phone, and his mind was occupied
with her. Filled with the little thrills of anticipation that wafted
along like perfume with thoughts of her.
Some time soon, this was going to have to stop.
He pressed red.
'No,' he said. 'Going to leave that one.'
'Was it Alison?'
'Yeah.'
'I wonder what she wanted.'
He nodded, even though Keleigh had managed to sound so
utterly couldn't-give-a-fuck that the meaning had doubled back on
itself. And she'd been there when Alison and Damian had come
round that morning for the art meeting, and so she knew exactly
what Alison wanted: an escort. But Keleigh could be strange like
that. She was very different to Alison - quieter, more considered, a
little more serious and intense - even though the two of them
generally got on well. It was the same with all four of them: they
were all different, but that helped shape the dynamic and give the
group and the project more force. The only area where Keleigh
showed any real animosity to Alison was when it came to her
treatment of Jamie.
He liked to think he was pretty self-aware, and he knew that he
was drawn to Alison for the obvious reasons - her looks and her
manner - but also for not-so-obvious reasons that were more about
him than her. And it was the latter that found him increasingly
interested in Keleigh as well. When she was dismissive of Alison
and protective of him, he felt warm inside.
'You gonna ring her back?' she said.
'Not at the moment.'
'Good,' she said. 'You're learning. Assume the pose.'
'Okay. I'll just turn my phone off.'
'Even better.'
Alison would leave a voicemail message, which meant his phone
would ring again in a couple of minutes. Jamie held down red,
feeling both stupid and vaguely empowered, and after a second his
display went blank.
'Right.'
He sat back down on the chair, blinked a couple of times and
then stared straight ahead. Keleigh knelt down in front of him. The
camera filled his right-hand vision again.
'What colour are you going to do me?' he said.
'Don't know yet. Hold still.'
The camera was digital, and she would manipulate the image
afterwards. The resulting printouts, stuck onto walls and walkways,
showed irises in shades of yellow as strong as the sun, and
greens as vibrant as the grass beneath it.
'Because I'm thinking purple might suit me,' he said.
'I think it would.'
- flash
Half
an hour later, we were making our final preparations.
The reason that Carl Halloran couldn't accompany Alison that
evening was that he was booked into a hotel in Mouse, which is as
small and incongruous an area as its name would suggest. In the
south-west of the city, it's a neither-here-nor-there sort of district:
terraces and back-to-backs; a few shops and bars; low-budget
hotels. It's a cheap place for tourists, who flock to the city every
summer for the annual boxing event and at other times for reasons
of their own. On that day, Halloran was holed up in a two-star
shit-hole in the north of the district. It had a blue neon sign hanging
down outside, running from the third floor to the first, and the rest
of it stretched up in a dilapidated six-storey tower drenched in
melted snow. We'd been inside already to scope it out. The rooms
were nice enough. Thin corridors and lots of stairwells. Easily
accessible fire escape. We had our evening pretty much planned
out.
Three nights earlier, the post office in Turtle had been robbed:
the one that Harris lived almost next door to. It had been owned
by a middle-aged couple and they lived above it. Someone had
broken in after dark, held them at gunpoint and made off with an
unspecified amount of money. Before leaving, he had tied the
couple up and shot them. Growing up in the area, I had known
them well enough to speak to, and I'd been shocked by the casual
and unnecessary brutality of their murder. Nobody had seen
anything, but we put out the usual feelers and eventually we got a
name back. Carl Halloran. He was a small-time criminal, moving
stuff around for people, and the rumour - from a good source was
that he'd run up debts and incurred some penalties. He'd paid
those back in the last twenty-four hours, mouthed off a little too
much, and now he was lying low.
Not fucking low enough. At eight o'clock that evening, the four
of us went in and took him down hard. There was nothing we
needed to know and nothing we needed to discuss. The rooms on
either side of Halloran had been booked out in false names so as to
secure a little privacy, but it really didn't take much time or effort.
Lucy put two bullets in the back of his head as he lay whimpering
on the floor of the main room. Silenced, of course: two soft
whumps, and he was gone. He'd known it had been coming.
Sometimes, I think that it's only the tension before death that
makes a body look so relaxed and calm afterwards. It's contrast.
We checked out the suite, and we found the black briefcase on
Halloran's bed. It was me that carefully lifted the lid and so I saw it
first. Inside - piled and tiled neatly - was the money.
My hands hovered there, not quite daring to touch. What we
needed to do was this: take the back way out of the hotel, the fire
escape, the alleyway behind. A good, sensible plan. So I didn't
touch the money - not at first. But I didn't need to count it to know
that there was a lot. Far more than Halloran should have had in his
possession if any of us had been thinking straight.
There were issues, of course we didn't discuss them. Perhaps we
should have left it, but what was the harm? If anybody had known
we'd been there, we would have been fucked regardless, so what
did the money matter? And, strange as it sounds, we never thought
about the possibility that someone might catch us. I closed the
briefcase, and Lucy carried it out. We totalled it up later. That
night, it transpired, we'd earned just less than fifty grand apiece.
On the surface I was thinking this: if I'm cautious - if I don't
attract too much attention - then that's enough money to keep me
and Rachel safe and secure for a long time. Halloran didn't deserve
it, and if someone else had taken it then they probably wouldn't
have done much good with it either. There were worse people than
me who could end up with fifty grand.
If I needed justification then it was there, and if you asked me at
the time that's what I would have told you.
So that's what we did. Halloran was dead. What did the money
matter, wherever it had come from? I could tell myself that, but even
then things felt different and I knew that something had gone wrong.
I'd lost my way. Halloran wasn't the last man I'd be involved in
killing, but he was the last man we'd take out as a group, and by that
point it wasn't easy but it wasn't exactly hard either. But because of
the money, I went home that night and I felt like a stranger to myself,
and I had bad dreams that I couldn't remember.
Sitting with Jamie, that feeling returned to me, and I realised that
it hadn't been just a bad dream. Because when you do something
wrong - no matter how bad - you can forgive yourself. Even if it's
only on the surface. When nobody comes knocking demanding
penance from you or pointing fingers, the days pass and you allow
yourself to forget. You're only human. You might be afraid that you're tainted, but you don't feel that way all the time, and
gradually you get on with your life. I'd woken up from the bad
dream and done just that, only now I had the feeling that I'd been
kidding myself ever since. The bad dream had still been going on,
gathering force, and now Jamie's story was sending me back to
sleep and I could feel that dream again, coalescing around me, so
much stronger than before. I was afraid. And I was right to be.
'Alison went on her own that night?' I said.
He shook his head. 'No. Damian went with her.'
'The other guy in the art group.'
'Right.'
'And where's Damian now?'
'Dead,' Jamie said, not looking up from the table.
He didn't seem immediately inclined to say anything more, but
now Lucy was more interested in having this conversation. After
all, she'd been the one to pull the trigger on Halloran. She leaned
forward.
'What happened to them?'
'The next day. They didn't show up.'
'Show up for what?'
'A meeting. The four of us had already met that day, but we were
going to meet again the next evening. Harris was going to be there.'
Rosh and I glanced at each other, but Harris's name had lost a
little of its power. Nothing would change the fact that he'd turned
Sean in and that he was very probably going to die for that, but
everything seemed different now. I couldn't stop thinking about the
briefcase and the money. The rest of Jamie's story had a terrible
inevitability to it.
Lucy said, 'And so they didn't show for the meeting?'
'No. It was me and Kel and Harris, round at mine. We waited
for the others but they never came. Someone else did instead.'
'Someone else who?'
He shook his head.
'I don't know who they were, or where they came from. They
came out of the walls.'
'What the fuck is that supposed to mean?' Lucy asked.
Jamie looked up at her and he spoke slowly.
'It means that the flat was locked and bolted,' he said, 'and there
was nobody in there but us. But then suddenly, these guys were all
around us. There was no way they could have got in.'
'Right,' Lucy said. 'And what did they look like?'
'I can't remember.' He looked back down at the table and
shrugged to himself. 'There were five of them. Big guys. Black suits.
Guns. That's all.'
'That's all"
'I was scared,' he said. 'Is that all right?'
'That's fine,' I told him. 'Lucy--'
But it clearly wasn't fine with her. She stood up in disgust and
walked off down the alleyway, rubbing her face. Jamie glared after
her, and I didn't blame him. She was tired, fucked off and probably
very scared - but we all were, and what we needed to do right now
was keep calm and take things slowly. That was what I kept telling
myself anyway, as I remembered walking out of a hotel six months
ago with a briefcase full of someone else's money.
Rosh said, 'Ignore her. She didn't get much sleep.'
'Yeah,' Jamie said. 'Right.'
'Seriously, forget about her. What did these guys say they
wanted?'
'They searched the flat. Pulled out all the drawers - went through
everything. They said they were looking for something that had
been left with us, but they didn't say what.'
I glanced at Rosh again, but this time he didn't acknowledge it.
He was playing it cooler than me and - even though we knew the
answer - he asked Jamie the obvious question anyway.
'They find it, whatever it was?'
Jamie shook his head.
'And what do you think they were looking for?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'Something to do with Carl, I guess. But
we didn't have it.'
'Okay. So then what happened?'
But my mind wasn't on what happened after the men finished
searching; I was putting together what had already taken place.
We'd killed Halloran and taken his money, and if we'd wondered
at the time why he'd had so much in his possession then we knew
now. The men had come to pick it up, found him dead and the
money gone, and so worked their way through his acquaintances.
First, his girlfriend. And when she'd been unable to help, they'd
moved on to her friends instead. I figured that by then they weren't
holding out much hope: just dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's.
Jamie was lucky to be alive.
'They told us to keep our mouths shut,' he said. 'They said we
wouldn't be seeing our friends again, but that we shouldn't report
it to anyone. And they warned us that they'd be watching. If
anyone got in contact with us, they said they'd know about it and
they'd kill us.'
'And then they left?'
'They didn't really leave.' Jamie shook his head. 'It was like
when they arrived. There was just a point when they weren't there
anymore.'
I looked at Rosh and this time he looked back. Invisible
henchmen, apparently, on top of everything else. But it was far
more likely that Jamie had simply blanked out a lot of what had
happened to him. Unlike Lucy, I thought that was fine.
'Would you look at some pictures?' I suggested. I was willing to
bet that if we could find a picture of the police officer we'd just
killed, Michael Kemp, then Jamie would mark him out as being
one of the disappearing men.
But he shook his head.
'I'm kind of planning for this to be our last conversation.'
'Well, I'm curious,' Rosh said. 'If all this is true, why are you
even talking to us now? And why the Missing Persons Report in
the first place? That must have been kind of dangerous.'
'That wasn't us,' Jamie said. 'That was the computer guy. Rob
Hedge. When people started asking questions, we just covered it up
as best we could.'
'You lied?'
From the tone of his voice, I got the impression that Rosh was
about to go and join Lucy. In a way, I couldn't blame him: the
opportunity had been there for Jamie or Keleigh to tell this story
almost six months ago, and if they had then maybe Sean would still
be alive. But at the same time, they were just kids.
'I was scared,' Jamie repeated. 'Not just for me, but for Keleigh.
So, yeah. I lied. I'm telling the truth now, though.'
'And our friend, Sean?' I said.
'I didn't lie to him either. Can I have another cigarette?'
'You'll have to go ask her.' I nodded down the alleyway to where
Lucy was leaning against the wall. She was busy smoking and
pretending that the three of us didn't exist. Jamie looked back at
me, deciding to pass.
'He turned up a week ago. I don't know how he found us, but he
wasn't like the others. He wouldn't take no for an answer, and he
knew a lot of it anyway. So we ended up telling him everything.'
'Where did you meet him?'
'Public places, but always secret. If you see what I mean. He
wouldn't give us any contact for him. Said it wasn't safe.'
'Okay,' I said. 'When was the last time you saw him?'
'A few nights ago,' Jamie told us. 'He left me an envelope. Said
he was going to meet someone, and that if we didn't hear back
from him the next day I should deliver it to an address in Horse.'
'Did he say who he was going to meet?' I said, although the
email in Harris's flat had told us everything we needed to know
about that.
'No,' Jamie said. 'But the next day he didn't get in touch, so I
delivered the letter.'
'Have you seen the men who broke into your flat at all?' Rosh
said.
Jamie shook his head.
'And I don't want to. Ever since your friend turned up, Keleigh
and I have been moving around, staying away from our usual
places.'
'That's probably a good idea,' I said.
For the moment, I didn't know what other advice to give him. In
effect, we'd found Keleigh, and now we needed to get our hands on
Harris. He'd be able to tell us whether we'd killed all the men and,
if not, who the remaining ones were and where we could find them.
That was how it would end.
Jamie had been quiet for a second, but now he said:
'I guess I see why you were asking about Harris. You think he
told these people about your friend, right?'
I wasn't quite sure how much to tell him, and I was glad when
Rosh took over. He'd clearly made a silent decision to be as honest
as possible.
'Yes,' he said. 'We think that Harris got scared and turned our
friend in to save himself. And it's likely he's after Keleigh now, too.
Whoever these guys are, they're using him to cover their tracks and
clean up.'
'Fuck.'
Jamie shook his head. He looked sad and disappointed as much
as anything else.
Rosh seemed to be about to say something else, but then his
mobile started ringing.
'Shit,' he said, standing up. 'One minute.'
He wandered off down the alleyway, over to where Lucy was
waiting.
'We're going to protect you,' I told Jamie. Bullshit, of course, but
I was responsible for what had happened to them and I wanted to
say something. 'Nothing's going to happen to you or Keleigh.'
Jamie smiled at that, and there was something in his expression
that I couldn't quite read. It wasn't as simple as disbelief or
thinking I was naive, but there were elements of those things in
there. Perhaps something a little like pity, as well.
'I'm going to get some cigarettes,' he said. 'There's a machine
inside.'
'Okay.'
He stood up and went back in the pub. I sat for a moment, trying
to absorb everything I'd been told. Understanding the situation - as
uncertain as it remained - should have brought some degree of
comfort along with it. At least now we knew why. But there was no
comfort; I might as well have been a kid alone in bed at midnight.
Something was turning on itself within my mind, whining and
growling, hidden only slightly behind a thin screen of skin. For no
obvious reason, I was scared. I looked down at my hands and they
were trembling.
'We've got Harris,' Rosh said, slipping his phone back into his
pocket and snapping up my attention. He'd brought Lucy back
over with him.
'Where?' I said.
'Officers found his car earlier on this morning, with him in it.
Their initial professional opinion is that he's not alive anymore.'

'Shit.'
Rosh nodded. 'Shit indeed.'
Then, he frowned. 'Where's the kid gone?'
I gestured at the pub. 'Cigarettes.'
There was a brief pause.
'Shit,' I said again.
Whatever I was feeling, I needed to listen to what my head was
telling me and get a fucking grip on it. Guilt, fear - these things
could be dealt with later, when thinking about them too much
wasn't going to fuck things up. We went back inside Whitelocks to
check, but there was no point. While I'd been sitting there feeling
frightened, Jamie had disappeared.


Chapter Fifteen

Unlike me, Lucy and Rosh still had jobs to go to. Following a little
manipulation within the department, it turned out that Rosh's
assignment would involve checking out Harris and his car, while
Lucy would head off to the lab to work the evidence, and - if she
had chance - do some research on Damian, the fourth member of
the art group. I was at more of a loose end. Since I had no gainful
employment of any kind, we decided that I should go to visit Rob
Hedge and see how much of Jamie's story he was able to confirm.
I'd hoped that some time apart from Rosh and Lucy would clear
my head a little, but within a few minutes of being dropped off at
the edge of the campus I was even worse. More than ever before,
the ground felt as though a heart was beating underneath it. The
great, slow thuds of it sounded like a clock ticking. The buildings,
tall and hard, were like the petals of some dark, malevolent flower:
closing slowly around me and beginning to block out the sky. As I
walked along I realised that, for no reason I could pin down, the
fear I'd experienced at Whitelocks was beginning to turn into
panic.
It was only mid-morning, but already hot and bright. The
campus was heavy with people. That, the temperature and my
mood was making everything hard to take, so I found a seat on a
bench next to a girl eating pastry out of a paper bag, and for a
second I just sat there, breathing slowly and watching everyone.
Sometimes it seems like there are too many people in the world.
Certainly in our city anyway. For all I knew or - if I was honest cared,
the people around me could have been a record that was
being played over and over again. It was difficult to imagine so
many lives having substance. People like to think they're all
connected and part of society, but they're not. In reality, you have a
small group of friends and acquaintances, and that's all the city will
ever be for you. Everybody else is a mystery - just window-dressing
and background colour. As I sat there, people were smiling,
laughing, touching each other on the arm. Walking. Hitching up
bags. Pointing at things in shop windows. There was just so much life going on and it seemed impossible that everybody moving
around me had any back story: that they weren't just extras in a
crowd scene or swirls painted on the scenery to stop me feeling
lonely.
The girl beside me stood and screwed up her paper bag. She was
pretty, I thought. She had a nice, neat hairstyle. Her clothes were
intricate and detailed. She must be real. But then she was gone
before I knew it: disappearing off into the faded smear of this busy
world, dropping the bag into a bin. At that moment, I had never
felt more abstracted from everything. The people around me were
just dabs on a painting that I was sitting too far away from to
touch.
After a few minutes, Lucy phoned me.
'Okay,' she said. 'I've got Hedge's address. You got a pen?'
'No, of course I haven't. Just tell me and I'll remember it.'
'Thirty-three, Oxley,' she said. 'That's student flats, right?'
'Right. Look.' I took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry about last night.'
'Forget about it,' she said.
'No, seriously.'
'Seriously forget about it if you like.' She sighed. 'I've got to go.
Take care and keep in touch.'
'Right,' I said. 'Okay. Good luck.'
'You too.'
So that was what we were reduced to for the moment. It wasn't
just me, of course. She had a lot to think about, and one of the
things she would be doing back at the department was investigating
Carl Halloran - who he was, and where we'd received the tip-off
that had marked him for the post-office murders. The money we'd
taken clearly hadn't come from there, and whatever Halloran had
been doing in that hotel room, it wasn't lying low. A lot of people
had died because of what the four of us did that night. We all had a
lot to think about.
Later.
I got up, slipped my phone into my pocket and headed off
towards the district's centre.

It turned out that Oxley was quite a nice block: newly built, with
flats stacked on top of one another and linked by plush, fresh
corridors that were all window down one side. It had the
community feel of a tower block without any of the usual graffiti,
odour or threats of violence. The front door was made of glass and
almost impenetrably solid, but somebody had thoughtfully lodged
it open with a lump of rock culled from the kerb outside, and so I
was free to make my way up to the third floor, squinting against
the amplified heat as I went. Then I found Hedge's door and
knocked. After a minute or two, I knocked again a little harder.
Did none of these bastard students have any manners?
When Hedge eventually opened the door, leaning against the
frame, it was clear from both his manner and attire that I'd got him
out of bed. He was wearing an old blue dressing-gown, tied loosely
at the middle and gaping slightly to reveal a white T-shirt and
pyjama bottoms. His hair was short, black and messy, and he was
rubbing his pillowy face in an attempt to massage some life into it.
He didn't look pleased.
'What?'
'Robert Hedge?'
I showed my badge, and he smartened up instantly. Just like last
night - you wave a badge around and it separates the tough guys
from the fakers like a fucking knife.
I put it away and said:
'Detective Weaver. I'd like to talk to you about your relationship
with Alison Sheldon.'
'Yeah,' he said, and then glanced behind him. 'Urn, yeah.'
'Can I come in?' I asked, wondering if he was concerned about
any company he might have, or whether it was just drugs.
'Yeah,' he said.
Again, that glance over his shoulder. This was the second time in
as many days. Did people think we had nothing better to do with
our time?
'It's okay,' I said. 'Unless you've got a dead guy stashed in there,
I'm not going to be bothered.'
'Right, okay.' Even now, he sounded doubtful, and I hoped he


didn't actually have a dead guy stashed in his room. After a second,
he held the door open wide. 'Urn, come in.'
'Thanks,' I said. Then: 'Wow.'
Aside from the debris, it was just a standard student flat: one
room, with a single bed on the right-hand side and a wardrobe and
desk on the left. There was a window in between with a small set of
drawers underneath, all of it made out of the same pale-brown
wood. Behind me - next to the entrance - a door doubled back
slightly into an ensuite shower room comprised entirely of white
tiles and bright light, scored by the insular hum of air-conditioning.
None of this was the reason for my wow.
'This place must be fun to insure,' I said.
Underneath and on top of the long built-in desk, Hedge had as
much computer equipment as I'd ever seen inside a single room in
my life. There were at least three separate hard-drive stacks, and all
of them looked as though he'd constructed them himself. They
were bustling with wires at the back and sides, linking them to
different monitors that were in various stages of disarray and
destruction. There were keyboards and mice, and the desk surface
was a spaghetti mess of cables. Below it, there were more
amplifiers, speakers, media players and adaptors than you could
shake a health and safety certificate at. Little red power lights were
dotted throughout the shadows behind it all, staring out like rats'
eyes.
It was the kind of thoroughly undisciplined mess that only a real
expert could have switched on and made work. As an amateur, I
was quietly impressed.
Hedge said, 'Fortunately, my department pays the electricity
bills.'
'Oh yeah? No wonder taxes are up.'
Amongst the mess of components on the desk was a small
ashtray filled with the ends of roll-ups. Cannabis debris was resting
on an A4 sheet on the bedside table. Hedge noticed me looking and
was about to come up with some excuse that would just have
annoyed me.
'I don't care about any of that,' I said. 'You're a student. It's
practically compulsory.'
I didn't care, of course, but it was useful. If Hedge wasn't as
forthcoming as I wanted him to be then it was a subject we might
well return to.
'Can I get you a drink?'
'No, I'm okay,' I said. 'I'm here because I think that one of my
colleagues came to see you some time last week? A detective named
Sean Barnes?'
It was a guess, but it turned out to be a good one.
'Oh - yeah.'
Encouraged, I tried another. 'He wanted to speak to you about
Alison Sheldon.'
'Sure.'
'Well, basically I want to go over the same ground,' I said,
making it sound casual - just a formality, really. 'You know? Just
cover all the bases.'
He nodded quickly. 'Okay.'
'Can we sit down?'
'Yeah. Um, sorry.' He cleared an old pile of computer magazines
off the chair by the desk. 'Here.'
I took the chair and he sat down on the bed opposite me.
'So,' I said, preparing to watch his reaction. 'Alison. Have you
seen or heard from her recently?'
He shook his head.
'No. Not in months.'
Just an honest answer, I thought. He seemed eager to help; not at
all surprised by the question. If Hedge knew for sure that Alison
was dead, he was hiding it well.
'So - not since before you reported her missing?'
'No. It was ... let me think. I don't know. Maybe a week before
that?'
I said, 'Okay. It's just that I want to get a general idea of what
you and Alison were about. You were helping her with a computer
project - is that right?'
'Right. Yeah.' Hedge scratched through his sleepy hair and
frowned. He looked a little confused, but that was okay.
'What were you working on?' I asked.
'Well, it was something to do with her art,' he said. 'She
explained it once, but I didn't really take it in. I just did the
programming, you know?'
He gave me a nervous smile, and I returned it.
'Were you . . . you know. Going out with her?'
'Oh no,' he said, a little too quickly. 'I mean, we were sort of
seeing each other, but it was never anything as official as that. She
was just a nice girl, you know. It was just a bit of fun. No big
thing.'
'Okay,' I said. 'What did the computer project involve?'
'Oh, that was kind of strange. She had this map of the city, right?
And I was helping her animate it.'
'Animate it?'
'Yeah. I just put together this program that did it. I'll show you if
you want.'
'You still have it?'
'Yeah.' Hedge frowned again. 'I mean, I showed Detective
Barnes when he talked to me.'
'Okay,' I said. 'That would be good.'
Hedge stood up and sort of waved at the equipment behind me,
and I cleared out of his way. One of the computers was already
turned on, and he sat down in front of it, shifted the mouse to clear
the screensaver and then started to scan through a couple of
directories.
'Just easier to show you,' he said. 'You know.'
'That's fine.'
'Here.'
I leaned on the desk so as to see the screen more clearly. For a
second it was totally black, and then a series of bright white lines
blinked into view. There was an outline that I realised corresponded
with the city's outside walls, and then more lines dividing
the interior into rough districts. I wasn't a cartographer, but it
looked to be a pretty good likeness. At the bottom of the screen
was a series of makeshift buttons that I figured Hedge had designed
himself.
'This is obviously quite basic' He sounded apologetic. 'You can
see the city, but there's no detail. We were going to work on it
more - map some texture and colour to it. But the measurements
are all right. I took it off maps, and everything.'
'It looks good,' I said.
'Thanks.'
On the way here, the nervous sensation had faded into the
background a little. I hadn't noticed it happening, but it must have
done because I noticed it again now: rolling back into me like a
wave of nausea.
'And what Alison was doing was getting me to plot points on it,'
Hedge said. 'They represent places where people have died. Bit
morbid.'
'Okay.' I was half-listening, but also trying to force the sick
feeling to the back of my head.
'And the program does a few things,' Hedge said.
He clicked one of the buttons. A small red circle appeared
towards the top right-hand side of the city. I stared at it.
Somewhere in Bull.
'You can cycle through them one by one.' He clicked the same
button again and the first red circle disappeared, replaced immediately
by a new one further south, somewhere on the edge of Snail.
Another click and the process repeated itself, only the third circle
was in the top coil of the Snake district. I wanted to look away but
I couldn't.
'And so on.'
Hedge clicked more rapidly and the circles disappeared, reappeared,
tracing a path around the city, doubling back and then
jerking across to some new place. Each one seemed to set the air
ringing a little more intensely. I swallowed and found my mouth
was dry.
'She was going to have a few computers going at once as part of
her display,' he was saying. 'Don't ask me why. There was going to
be one - like this - that people could cycle through themselves. I
guess she'd have set up a controller or something. Another like this
where it was all cumulative--'
He pressed the button on the bottom right of the screen and all
the red circles disappeared. Stop, I thought. Stop it now. But
another click and the first marker appeared again in Bull. Then, as
Hedge kept pressing the button, more and more dots appeared.
Three, four, five. As though drops of blood were falling onto the
city. I closed my eyes for a moment, but that was even worse: it felt
like something was watching me.
Hedge cleared all the circles away again to leave a blank map.
The mouse pointer moved, hovering over a third set of buttons.
'This was the animation sequence,' he said. 'This was what the
other officer was most interested in.'
Hedge started it by clicking on a single button and then leaned
back in the chair as we both watched the screen. The first circle
appeared, as before, blinking out two seconds later to be replaced
by the second, further south. The third circle arrived five seconds
later. I didn't know why it was terrible, but it was. I leaned away to
rub my face, and saw that my palm had left a misty print on the
desk.
Hedge seemed oblivious.
'The time intervals are correct,' he said. 'Two seconds on the
screen represents twenty-four hours of city time. So the ratio's
right. But she hadn't decided how quick she wanted it to go.'
Fourth circle.
Fifth.
Get it together.
I was scared of a computer now, and that was just stupid. So I
forced myself to stare at the screen for a full minute, counting the
circles. There were thirty murders in that time. An average of one a
day. More circles appeared. And with each one, whether I thought
about it or not, the fear was slowly intensifying. The only sound in
the room was the hum of Hedge's computer equipment, but it was
menacing and dangerous.
What was so wrong with it?
I couldn't imagine - but it was as though I was staring into a face
I'd had nightmares about. We were looking at the city so closely, Jamie had told us, and so we really shouldn't have been surprised
when it started looking back. That was what this felt like.
Which was fucking ridiculous.
I blinked and said, 'Make it go faster.'
'Give me a second.'
He tapped a few keys and the map disappeared, replaced by lines
of spare, elegant code. Black on white: a story written in strange
words that only really meant something to the computer. But even
in this - its genetic form - there was something unnerving about the
program. It looked wrong. Hedge scrolled down and typed over a
few numbers, replacing them with smaller ones.
'Okay. This should be pretty fast,' he said.
And it was. When the map started up again, the points of red
were sly: blinking away almost as soon as they became visible. You
flicked your gaze to look at them, and they were gone almost as
you saw them. It was like trying to concentrate on single spots of
light as your vision starred over. I leaned in even closer. My heart
felt as though it was throbbing: not beating faster exactly, just
trembling under a singing tension that was growing in pitch.
Blink, blink, blink.
So quick that they were barely there at all.
'Too quick,' Hedge said, and I jumped slightly.
Get yourself together, for fuck's sake.
I moved back across the room and looked away - out of the
window. It was slightly open. Cool air was drifting lazily in, like
steam rising from dry ice, and for a second I thought I could smell
fresh cannabis and hear the crunch of boots compacting snow.
Then, there was just the midday sun again, and a warm breeze
through the slightly open window. No smell apart from old linen. I
shook my head.
'That's very interesting,' I said, turning back as Hedge shut down
the program.
'Thanks. The other officer thought so too.'
Whatever it was about the map that had affected me and Sean,
Hedge seemed immune. He was looking at me curiously.
'Are you okay, Detective?'
'I'm fine.'
I wasn't, but with the program shut down I felt slightly better.
The tension seemed to have relaxed a little anyway.
Hedge returned to the bed, and I took back the seat by the
desk.
'So the last time you spoke to Alison,' I said, 'what did you talk
about?'
We went over a few of the facts. He told me that Alison had been
going to Snail that evening; that she'd called both her boyfriend
and Jamie but they hadn't been able to go with her. He'd been busy
too, he said, or else he would have gone; and he said it in such a
way that it was obvious how guilty he felt. I understood. It was the
last conversation he'd had with a girl he'd never see again: the kind
of conversation you rewrite over and over in your head. Death is
such a momentous severance that it makes us relive those last few
moments of contact and search for meaning or blame where there
is none. Hedge didn't know that Alison was dead; but at the same
time, he must have known. I wanted to explain and tell him that he
wasn't responsible - that if anyone was, it was me - but I couldn't.
And it wouldn't have done any good if I had.
We talked more, but there wasn't a lot else to learn. Reading
between the lines, it seemed that Alison had used sex as a means to
get Hedge to help her with the project, but I suppose things are
never as simple as that, and he certainly had the impression there

was more to it. They'd smoke dope and have a laugh, but she'd
never struck him as being particularly happy; and he'd felt, at some
level, that they were a lot alike. I felt sad for him.
'Thank you for your help,' I told him as I was leaving.
He said, 'I don't think I've helped much. But no problem.'
Downstairs in the entrance hall, I checked my phone, but there
were no messages and nobody had tried to call. I wondered how
the others were getting on and considered ringing them, but
discounted the idea - they'd be in touch as soon as they knew
anything.
I walked outside, heading down the path, and I started to think
about Hedge and his feelings of guilt. He didn't even know the
truth and he felt responsible, when all he'd done was not be there
for her. So what did that make me? This was my fault: because I'd
wanted to make some sort of difference; and because I'd wanted
that money for me and Rachel.
I paused at that thought. It felt dishonest. At the same time as I
didn't want to think about it, I was dimly aware that the reality of
what I'd done was far worse. And as I stopped for a second, the
feeling became thicker and blacker, and everything around me
threatened to cloud over.
So I shook my head and carried on walking.
My guilt wasn't in doubt, I thought, but all I could do now was
keep moving and try to make it as right as possible. Responsibility
doesn't stop with guilt, after all. Even when you've fucked
everything up, you can always make it worse for yourself by
turning away.


Chapter Sixteen

It was dead on twelve when I finally left the main campus, and so
the Clock Cafe was busy: crammed from one bohemian wall to the
other with students and smoke. I don't know why I went there. I
was just walking along, my mind elsewhere, and suddenly there it
was. Does it count as a coincidence if you bring it about yourself?
Sean told me once that life is full of coincidences, and that when
you start looking for them you find more and more, as though the
world is racing to show you something. Perhaps right now the
world just wanted me to have coffee. I went inside.
It was the same waiter as when I'd met Rachel there two days
ago, and he was similarly tardy in preparing my drink. My
attention was drifting, though, and I didn't mind so much. I was
happy for him to take his time. When it arrived, delivered with a
sprinkling of disdain and a sachet of utter indifference, I paid the
man and took the cup carefully over to the only free table, at the
back of the cafe.
I sipped it slowly, staring out past all the people at the bright
light of the front windows. The crawling feeling that the computer
program had given me was slowly returning. I decided that
constant sips of coffee and not thinking too much would help keep
me occupied. But my mind kept returning to it anyway. What had I
seen on that screen that had unnerved me so much? It was just a
map of the city, but it had felt like I was staring at something awful
and alive. Even thinking about it now was uncomfortable.
I glanced around the cafe. There were a lot of people here, with a
great deal of conversation going on between them. The intimacy
and involvement of it gave an impression of bustle and, even
though nobody seemed to be paying me any attention, for some
reason I felt like the centre of it. Outside the window, bunches of
students were walking past. Groups of people pulsing along. None
of them even looked inside.
The coffee was already half finished. I stopped sipping and
started nursing it instead, warming my hands around the cup and
staring at the cracked formica of the table.

After a moment or two, something caught my attention and I
looked up. At the next table, a woman was talking to the man
opposite her, and she was crying desperately.
'I just want you to love me,' she said. 'And I don't understand
why you don't.'
I glanced away quickly and picked up my coffee again. My hands
were shaking a little. When I looked back at the couple, they were
both smiling and she was holding his hands in hers. I shook my
head.
It seemed that Rachel had been lurking at the back of my mind
ever since we'd met here two days ago, because now shy
impressions of her came out of the shadows, stepping tentatively
into my open thoughts. What on earth had happened to me? All
around me, there were couples smiling. I'd had that with Rachel had
it in spades - and I'd given up on the relationship because I'd
had ideas of something better. Those ideas seemed mysterious now.
I tried to resurrect whatever it was I'd felt.
Over the past few months, whenever I'd thought of Lucy I'd
pictured her with Rich, and it had been the worst image in the
world. I'd curled up; cried. It had hollowed me out. But I dug
around in those thoughts now, trying to make them hurt, and they
were only tender, not painful. It seemed impossible to remember a
time when they'd been anything more. Surely, it had only been days
ago? And yet I pressed hard, and the feelings weren't there. The
nerves had gone dead.
I could remember sitting in my flat and crying when she decided
to be with Rich, but the memory was featureless and arid: black
and white and lacking sound. All those text messages I'd sent,
followed by the stretches of time when she'd never reply - I had
those in my head now, and they felt empty. Just husks of
recollection with nothing inside them. No panic, no pain. Nothing.
What had I done?
That question crept quietly into my head and everything went
still for a second.
And then thoughts of Rachel returned, and these were entirely
different. When I dug into these, my fingers went all the way. I
sipped my coffee and her life came to me - not in a flash or a series
of images, but as impressions that I couldn't put into words. I
thought of her loving me so much and being so happy; of her being
prepared to do anything for me. Leaving herself totally open and
not even being afraid that I'd hurt her. And then the bewilderment
- the deep, stupid wound I'd made in her. The gathering of herself
afterwards. Trying to hold herself together and find some sensation
inside her other than pain.
Those emotions - all at once; a rich, awful palette - beating out
of my memory of her in a rainbow of fever. In that moment, I
realised how much I loved her and how much I'd hurt her; and I
closed my eyes.
My mobile started ringing.
I picked it up, thinking it would be either Rosh or Lucy, but
when I looked at the display it showed rachel.
I held the phone in my hand for a second, just staring at it. The
coffee shop around me receded slightly. Although I could tell that
people were stopping their conversations and beginning to look at
me, they had all faded into the background, out of importance.
The mobile kept ringing.
rachel
Finally, I pressed green and held the phone to my ear.
'Hello.'
'Martin?'
'Yeah.' The guy on the next table was still looking at me. I glared
at him and he looked away very quickly. I said, 'I'm here.'
'You were trying to get hold of me? I had missed calls.'
I tried to place the expression in her voice, but I couldn't pin it
down. It was too . . . normal, I realised. Since the split, I'd become
used to deciphering a whole range of her emotions - from anger,
hatred and pain to resilience and pride - but right now she sounded
like she had before I'd left. Except not quite.
'Yeah,' I said. 'I was worried about you. I wanted to talk to you
and make sure you were all right.'
There was silence for a second, and then when she spoke she
sounded indignant and annoyed.
'Of course I'm all right.'
'I didn't mean it like that,' I said quickly. 'I was just worried
about you.'
'Why - because I wasn't answering my phone?' She laughed. 'I
don't have to answer my phone when you ring if I don't want to.'
'I know you don't.'
'I think you gave up that right, didn't you?'
'What right?'
'Fucking hell, never mind.' She seemed to gather herself a little:
to pull the persona back together. 'So is that all you wanted?'
So, I thought, was that all I wanted - to check that she was
okay? No, I decided, not really. But I needed to think more
carefully about it. She'd had enough of my bullshit and whatever I
said at this point was only going to be more of the same.
Fondly, I thought out of nowhere, "I think of you.
'There's more I want to say,' I said. 'But not right now.'
She gave me a small, sarcastic laugh. 'Very cryptic'
'Yeah,' I said, frowning. 'Yeah. Look - this is going to sound
shit, but it might be an idea to get out of the house for a few days.'
She paused, and then sounded indignant again.
'Well - what's that supposed to mean? Why should I get out of
the house?'
'There's been some trouble,' I said, knowing how bad this was
sounding. 'And it might be safer for you not to be at home right
now. That's all I'm saying. This isn't about us.'
'Well, I'm not at home right now,' she said, matter of factly.

'Right. Where are you?'
'With a friend,' she said. And then: 'A guy.'
A guy.
Not the first, I reminded myself quickly. Over the last couple of months there'd been a few times when Rachel had gone on dates
with men, and generally she'd told me in advance, hoping for some
kind of reaction. In that, she'd always been let down; I'd felt very
little. In fact, I'd told her that it was good, and that I hoped she
found someone who could make her happy. It had always seemed
to me as though I meant it - and it had probably pissed her off no
end.
Now, I did my best to remember how that ambivalence had felt,
but I couldn't replicate it. Inside, I was panicked, churning.
'Oh,' I said. 'Right. Okay.'
'Just some guy,' she said. 'I met him last night.'
'Right.'
'Yeah. I went out to a club.'
'Right,' I said again. 'What's his name?'
It seemed like a natural question.
'His name's Sean,' Rachel said.
I picked up my coffee and drained the rest of it in one. I was
shaking. He was called Sean, this guy. Of course he was called
Sean. That just seemed right.
She said, 'Not your Sean, obviously.'
'No,' I said. 'I'd imagine not.'
'So I've not been home,' she concluded, and I could hear it in her
voice that she was hammering the truth home in the hope I might
feel it. For the first time, I did. But I surprised myself when
something entirely unconnected burst from the back of my mind,
and I blurted out:
'What was it called?'
Another brief pause, and then she sounded confused.
'What was what called?'
'The club,' I said, feeling impatient. 'Where you met this guy.'
'Oh. It was Spooks, or something. On the edge of Wasp. You
know it?'
'Yeah, I know it.'
Another coincidence. It felt ridiculous, but I'd known what she
was going to tell me before she'd said it - Spooks, that shitty club
I'd been drinking in the other night, while Jamie had been
delivering Sean's envelope to me. Full of rough men and women on
the pull. Rachel had gone there too. Coincidence. And now she was
telling me while I was sitting in the cafe we'd been in two days
earlier. I'd just been walking past and wandered in. Does it count
as a coincidence if you bring it about yourself?
Rachel said, 'Why do you want to know?'
'I was just curious. It's nothing.'
'Oh right. Well--'
'Where are you now?'
'I'm not sure,' she said. 'Somewhere in Turtle, I think.'
'You think}?"
Jesus. This was Rachel I was speaking to. Before I'd messed up,
she'd been my Rachel, and now here she was, going back to a guy's
house when she didn't know who he was. She didn't even know
where she was, for fuck's sake.
'It's none of your business anymore,' she said.
'You should just ... I don't know. You should be more careful.'
She repeated herself in a slow, cold voice:
'It's none of your business anymore, Martin.'
'Look,' I said. 'Just ... be careful. Okay?'
'I'm always careful. Really careful.'
'No, seriously. There are things--'
'So anyway - have you arranged to move the rest of your
things?'
I paused.
'No. Not yet.'
Burn it all, I'd thought, but I didn't think anything now. At the
moment, all my stuff occupied a place in my head that didn't have any windows.
'Why not?' she said.
'I looked into it,' I said. 'It's just - it's been at the back of my
mind.'
'Move it to the front. And then move the rest of your shit out of
my house.'
'Rachel--'
'Goodbye, Martin.'
The phone buzzed in my ear. I pulled it away and looked at it for
a moment, as though staring stupidly might magically re-establish a
connection.

call complete: 02:41.

I panicked and thought: fuck self-respect. Speed-dial button 1 - I
pressed it and put the phone back to my ear. Maybe it would make
it worse, but there were things I could say regardless, and they'd
start with sorry. But the phone rang a few times and then buzzed
again. I listened as the pre-recorded message kicked in. Sorry, but
the phone you are trying to contact appears to be off-line.

Shit.
Without warning, all of that coffee tried to force its way up my
throat, and I had to swallow to fight it down. I put the phone on
the table and rested my head on my hand. Closed my eyes. Ran my
fingers back and forth through my hair a little, massaging my scalp.
The air was ringing with the same tension as before.
I'm going insane.
And then I thought: send her a text message.
'Sir?'
I stopped, and looked up. It was the guy from behind the
counter.
'We're very full. Are you going to order another drink?'
I glanced around and saw that a few of the people nearby were
watching me cautiously. When I looked up, they looked away. Had
I been talking to myself? Maybe so - the waiter's body language
told me that he was ready to deal with me if I caused any trouble.
For a second, I hated him so badly that I could barely contain it,
and it half occurred to me to pull out my gun and show the other
customers what causing a fucking scene would really be like.
'If you're not going to order--'
'Save it.' I stood up. 'I was just leaving.'
He took my empty cup and shadowed me to the door, increasing
my desire to shoot him somewhere immensely painful, but my legs
were shaky and when I got outside I was grateful for the fresh air.
Clear your head, I thought, but I couldn't. A hurricane might,
but not today's slight, warm breeze, not when my head was so
brimful of buzzing rubbish. With Rachel. Sean. What we'd done to
Halloran. All the coincidences that were maybe just that but
seemed like they weren't. I started walking, and with every step it
felt more and more as though everything in the world was going to
reach out and strike me.
I walked for a while, heading in the vague direction of my flat. It
might not be safe and so I had no real inclination to go there, but
walking had always had a calming effect on me. As I approached
the border, a little south of my makeshift home, I was beginning to
feel better. Then, my phone rang again, and I stopped by some
railings to answer it.
rosh
'Yeah?' I said.
'Martin?' Rosh sounded concerned. 'Where are you?'
'I'm not sure.' Turtle somewhere. 'I'm in Horse. Edge of Horse, I
think. Why?'
'Is everything okay there?'
'Yeah. Yeah, it's fine.'
'How did it go?'
'What?'
'Hedge,' he said. 'How did it go with Hedge?'
'Oh - right.'
So I told him about my visit to Oxley, although in hindsight
there wasn't much to say. Out in the fresh air, the computer
program seemed irrelevant. I mentioned it briefly and Rosh didn't
seem overly interested.
'Well, he confirmed parts of Jamie's story, anyway,' I said.
'Okay.'
'How was Harris?'
'Not okay.'
Rosh went through the details. A couple of kids had found
Harris's car earlier that morning, idling at the edge of some
wasteland in Snail. There was a tube leading from the exhaust pipe
to the front window. The kids - being kids - had peered in and had
run and told their parents, and officers arrived at the scene a few
minutes later. Harris himself was already very dead - slumped in
the driver's seat, supported by a now quite redundant seatbelt and
apparently had been for some time. It was estimated that he'd
died in the early hours of the morning. The obvious assumption
was suicide, but Rosh wasn't convinced and neither was I.
'He had some abrasions to the head,' Rosh said. 'We won't
know more until the forensics come back, but I have a weird
feeling they won't tell us much.'
'Who's working them?' I asked. Lucy worked most of the
murder scenes, but obviously she'd been otherwise engaged this
morning.
'Jackman did the scene,' Rosh said. 'But she's okay. It's not that I
think anyone'll tamper with the evidence. It's that these people are
too good.'
'And what do we think more generally?' I said. 'They knock
Harris out, stand around the car and wait for him to die?'
'It's possible, but who knows? Maybe he really did kill himself.'
I knew which scenario my money was on - and if someone had
topped Harris then it meant that Kemp and his men weren't the
end of it. There were still others out there for us to worry about.
Not only that - we'd just lost someone who could have provided us
with a lot of very helpful information. Now, we had nothing.
Reading my silence, Rosh said, 'It's depressing, isn't it?'
'For him, too, I guess.'
'I find myself slightly unable to care about that.'
'Yeah - me too.'
Murder is murder, but Harris had given up any right to our
concern when he'd turned Sean in. The most that could be said
now was this - if we were lucky then the forensics would tell us
something and we might be able to take care of the people who'd
killed him. Beyond that, his luck was out. We had enough people to
worry about.
'What about Lucy?' I said. 'Where's she at?'
'Working in the lab. She's not had chance to do all that much,
but she did have time to pull Halloran's file.'
'And?'
'And nothing. Same as we knew. Minor stuff for major people.'
There was a real question hanging over Halloran.
'What about the source?'
'Sean took the tip-off,' Rosh said. 'It was one of his regular guys.
You remember Toby Yeung?'
'Yeah, yeah.'
Toby was a street kid who did a little small-time drugs-running
here and there. He was just a gopher, basically: he had a bit of a
mouth on him but no real malice, and that meant he got to know
people and what they were up to. His information had always been
reliable in the past. If he said that Halloran had done the post
office then I'd have trusted him to be on the level. It just depended
on how he'd found out in the first place and why he'd passed it on.
Rosh said, 'You probably don't know this, but Toby's no longer
with us.'
'Shit.'
'He got pulled out of the canal in Fish three months ago. Beaten
to death.'
'Well, this fucking stinks, Rosh.'
'You should have been there.'
'Very funny,' I said. 'You know what I mean.'
'I do know what you mean,' he said. 'But Toby was in that kind
of business. It doesn't necessarily prove anything.'
He was being optimistic and we both knew it.
'Rosh,' I said. 'We've been set up here. Think about it.'
There was a brief, not-very-Rosh-like pause, and then he said:
'I see where you're coming from - Toby passes it on and then he
gets rubbed to keep him quiet. But I can't imagine who or why, or
how it fits with what's happened since.'
'I don't know who or why,' I admitted. 'But I can see how it fits.
Someone got us to kill Halloran and take the money, and then
someone else came looking for it. Kemp and his guys.'
'Somebody who was concerned about our bank balances?' Rosh
said. 'Why would anyone want us to take the money? Why not just
kill Halloran and take it themselves?'
'Okay,' I said. 'That part doesn't fit.'
Rosh sounded tired. 'I need to think about it some more.'
'But if that's true then we might have killed an innocent man,
Rosh.'
'He wasn't innocent, Martin. Halloran did those murders. But
even if he didn't, he wasn't innocent.'
'No,' I said. 'Right.'
I thought Rosh sounded even less sure than me - but then he'd
been doing this longer than I had. He had a bigger list to reassess
and to worry about, and a lot more invested in what we'd done
being the right thing.
He took advantage of my pause and said:
'Lucy also looked at the other kid Jamie mentioned. Damian.'
'And?'
'Again - nothing we wouldn't expect. Record of birth, a few
employment hits in the usual sorts of places. No sheet for anything
and no Missing Persons Report. He definitely exists, but the only
way we'll find out if he's still walking around is by talking to the
university. Or every single one of his friends.'
'Fantastic. No matching bodies?'
'Not so far, no.'
But then, the city had lots of dark corners where people could
disappear.
I said, 'So what's next?'
'Well, I'm going to be stuck here for a while,' Rosh said. 'And
then back at the department writing up and making calls. Lucy's
busy as well, so you're on your own for a few hours. We'll regroup
after work.'
'I don't know where to go,' I said.
'Well, I don't know what else you can look into out there,' Rosh
said. 'There are things to follow up here, but not really anything
you can do. Just think about what we know. And be careful. You
don't sound right, Martin.'
'I'm just tired.'
'You get hold of Rachel?'
I paused. Once again, I was surprised by how easily Rosh could
nail a problem on the head and hammer it through to the feet.
'Yeah,' I said. 'I've just spoken to her.'
'Good. That means she's okay. Where's she at?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'With friends. Not sure who. She didn't
say.'
'Okay.' He thought about it and then said, 'Well, we can talk
about that later maybe. I'll be in touch as soon as I can, but keep
me tabbed on what you're doing.'
'I will.'
I hung up, and then just leaned against the railing. After a
moment, I slipped my phone back into my jacket pocket and stared
ahead. The road in front of me was full of cars. On the other side,
there were a few shops: a video store, a couple of takeaways.
Behind them, the spiked, black tip of a church, and then the
looming half-threat of a council block. I looked up at the sky
instead.
There are things to follow up here, but not really anything you
can do.
All these people driving past, a fair few others walking - all of
them full of purpose. I was struck by the same feeling I'd had
earlier, except that now they didn't seem like background people men
and women with no real lives. Instead, I experienced
something like envy. Once, I'd been a lot of things, and because
they'd not seemed right I'd removed myself from all of them in
search of something better. Now, it didn't feel like I was anything,
and it had taken a letter from a dead man to bring that into focus.
I frowned.
Sean.
My first instinct when I'd received the letter had been to try to
find him, but I couldn't because I didn't know where to look. His
phone records were dead and his house had been taken over by a
new tenant; I didn't even know where to begin. But the fact
remained that he'd been doing something in the time since he
vanished. It was obvious, but I hadn't thought about it in precisely
those terms until now. People take up space. He had been somewhere.
Not wanting to scare the thought away, I just carried on looking
at the sky, watching a single cloud that was drifting lazily
overhead. There was something in my mind that I needed to see. It
was like when your fingers are reaching for something under a
settee and they brush it: you pause, and then begin to move more
delicately so as not to lose it.
Sean had arranged for Jamie to deliver the envelope, but what
had the contents amounted to? A photocopy and a printout. It had
been enough to set me on the way, but that was all; I was certain
that after five months of investigation, however fragmented and
disillusioned, he'd uncovered more than that. Originally, I'd
assumed that he'd sent so little as insurance - as a way for me to
follow his trail only if necessary. But now a more likely possibility
occurred to me. Perhaps he hadn't known who to trust or to what
extent people were being watched. He hadn't given too much to
Jamie in case Jamie got picked up and whatever he'd discovered
ended up destroyed. In fact, the students didn't even have a contact
address for Sean. But the fact returned to me again: he had stayed
somewhere. If I could find out where, I was certain there would be
more information for me. Information that he'd kept safe, but
would surely have given me the means to find.
I watched the cloud, stark white against the pale blue of the sky,
and thought about everything that had happened.
It all came down to this: we had to work on the assumption that
Kemp and his team were looking out for the money. But their
resources were limited. They couldn't have been watching everyone for six whole months. Alison's parents, with their apparent
indifference, seemed to be the least likely people she would have
confided in, and so I figured that Kemp or someone might have
spoken to them and discounted them. Would the men have wasted
any more time on Alison's parents, when they clearly had no
relationship with their daughter at all? I didn't think so.
But they were the link that Sean had started me with.
I thought back through the conversation I'd had with Mr
Sheldon and after a moment it came to me.
He asked us to get in touch if we heard from her.
How?
My phone had never felt so loved. I scanned through my old
dialled numbers, one by one, until I found it: the area code for
Bracken. That was the number. I pressed green, held the phone to
my ear and waited for the tone to kick in.
After a moment: 'Hello?'
'Hello, Mr Sheldon,' I said. 'It's Detective Weaver here. We
spoke the other day about your daughter. You remember?'
'I remember.' If anything, he sounded even more uninterested
than before. 'So, what else can I do for you?'
'My colleague,' I said. 'You mentioned he asked you to get in
touch if you heard anything from Alison.'
'That's right.'
come to the same
Nobody would be
I was thinking that Sean had perhaps
conclusion as I had about Alison's parents
paying them any attention. Apart from me.
I said, 'Can I ask what details he gave you, please?'
'Oh, I think I threw those away.'
I closed my eyes and did a quick calculation. How long would it
take to drive to the other side of the country, shoot somebody, and
then drive back? Too long.
'It's important, Mr Sheldon.'
'I think they were on a post-it by the phone. Hang on.'
I heard Sheldon put the phone down on the table, and then the
sound of him shuffling through papers, punctuated by occasional
sighs and heavy breathing. He picked up the phone.
'I have them here.'
The concern you have for your daughter is an example to us all, I
thought.
'Thanks for looking them out,' I said. 'Did he leave an address or
anything?'

Chapter Seventeen

I knew the guy on the steps was going to talk to me. Even though
the streets were crowded, I was still far enough between groups of
people to be singled out for attention. Of course, he called out to
the two groups as well - it was the nature of the competition round
here. These guys called out to anyone and everyone. It was good
business sense. Call out to a hundred; lure in maybe ten.
'Hey there, young sir,' he said. 'Looking for company?'
There was always a strange formality to these exchanges. Most
of the canvas-men for the brothels and strip clubs in western Wasp
were foreigners: immigrants of uncertain origin who spoke perfect
and well-mannered English but didn't waste words or strive for
friendly conversation. They came over as eager, but polite and
respectful.
I stopped. He was a standard example of the kind: blue jeans;
white T-shirt; thin, black leather jacket; hair, dark and cropped
short. He was sucking on a weedy roll-up and not paying too much
attention to the people he was talking to. But when he noticed that
I'd actually stopped, he went into the next stage of his banter.
'Hey, young sir, we've got everything inside here. We got the
best girls, girls that will love you. We got shows. We got private.'
I looked up and saw the girls that would - I was sure - love me.
They were hanging out on the balconies overhead, dressed only in
underwear, smoking, waving down at passers-by. Ostensibly, the
building was a theatre. It would have the standard three live shows
a day, with more personal attention given to patrons upstairs if the
money was right; and the price would be cheap enough to be
tempting. There was a blacked-out box office at the top of the
steps, and this man out front was acting like some kind of spider:
reeling in the men and women who passed.
'I'm okay, thanks,' I said.
He nodded deferentially and I started walking again. There were
literally hundreds of these theatres intermingled with the bars and
nightclubs, and yet the competition was placid and easy-going perhaps
because the same few people owned most of them, and so
it didn't really matter who went where as long as everyone went
somewhere. And everyone did - why else would they be here?
This was the western wing of Wasp. Further east, moving out
towards the edge of the city, the establishments, architecture and
people are far less accommodating. The whole district is basically
two rough circles, joined at the centre by a thin channel.
The western wing is a sleazy but accepted public attraction.
People come to party, buoyed by its twenty-four-hour bars and
clubs and constant access to everything you could ever want. There
is more neon lighting here than free wall space, and more music
than conversation, with a different disco tune thudding out of each
bar you walk past. Even in the daytime, the streets and paths are
teeming. There are platoons of young men, knocking back shots
and staggering from one bar to the next. Couples strolling,
sometimes nervously approaching vendors, psyching each other up
to go inside. Suits out for quick sandwich lunches, leaning against
the yellow and black railings and soaking up the sexual bohemia.
Despite this, the area is surprisingly safe, with relatively little real
trouble - beyond the occasional idiot shooting into the sky to break
up a fight, anyway. As police, we'd get a few drunk and
disorderlies, sometimes a fight or two, but this isn't Horse or Lion
and everyone knows it. Wasp is pure hedonism cast in architecture,
yet people know they have to behave themselves round here. You
get the impression that you are walking around in a theme park
designed to look dangerous while being safe underneath, but you're
always aware that the reverse is true. So you come to have a great
time - to go wild - but you do so within limits that go beyond any
hold the law might have. If you set up metal detectors to check for
guns on the main roads in then the clientele would probably halve.
This all stems from the eastern wing, where you find the people
who own and run Wasp. In fact, these people run a great deal of
the city.
The tram had dropped me off on the edge of the western wing
and I had to walk to get to eastern Wasp. There are no trams to
that part of the district because there is a tacit understanding that
nobody who needs to use public transport would ever want to go
there.
It took me half an hour, during which time you could visibly
track the degeneration of the neighbourhood. Despite being off
centre, Wasp is one of the oldest districts, always in existence on
the periphery as the city grew stronger to the west, slowly
expanding to encompass it. The district had been ramshackle more
wood than stone, and more cobbled paths and dirt trails than
actual roads - and many parts of the eastern side hadn't changed
that much in the intervening years. Some of it had been modernised,
but certainly not in what you'd think of as modern times. I
guessed that the people who operated there preferred it that way.
Thirty minutes later, I was there - Parker Street. It was slightly
wider than the average road in Wasp, but far more dilapidated and
abandoned. The left-hand side was mainly boarded-up shops.
There was a liquor store of some kind that looked open behind the
yellow and black swirls on the windows, but everything else was
shuttered and dead-looking. There were old tenements along the
right, but sections of the brickwork had been smashed out of them
at random, as though two people had dared each other to knock
more and more out without the entire building falling down. The
only glass remaining in most of the windows was so grimy that it
obscured even the dark inside, and all of the doorways I could see
were boarded over with timber.
It wasn't much further north of here before you edged into the
industrial alleys of southern Bull, and it showed. The low and
broken buildings were nearly identical, and there was the same
sense of structural loss - of architecture that had actually died
rather than been abandoned. Except it was worse here. Where the
streets of Bull had died of old age and heartbreak, here you wanted
to open an inquest and have somebody arrested.
I walked down the street. Number twenty-seven was on the
corner of an alleyway about halfway along on the right, and it
didn't look promising. Once upon a time it had been some kind of
bed and breakfast, but now it was just four old stone walls, with
nothing but silence and rot emanating from inside. The front door
and downstairs windows had been filled in entirely with breeze
blocks and concrete; and all but one of the second-floor windows
were barricaded with wood. I wasn't about to start scaling the
front in broad daylight, though. My first impression was that there
was no way in.
I looked across the road. The hotel was opposite an establishment
called the CandiBar, and I gave it a quick glance to see
whether it was still open or not. There were grey-green shutters
down across the main window, with another set over what was
presumably the door. The windows above ground level were dirty
and impenetrable but seemed intact. Security cameras watched the
pavement from two storeys up, where the building finished and the
dismal, smoke-filled sky began.
I dawdled for a moment, figuring I'd wasted my time. But I was
here now, and so I decided I'd wander down the alleyway and see if
there was a side entrance, or maybe some back way in.
Two steps into the alley, I drew my gun and stood very still.
The feeling had intensified: the singing sensation in my chest.
Too high-pitched to be anything with a name, but if you lowered
the frequency I thought it might be fear. Lower still, terror. Right
now, it was just an awful unease caused by something I was feeling
rather than seeing or hearing.
I scanned the alleyway. It was only narrow, and there didn't
seem to be anything in it except old bins and old bags. No
movement. No sound. I glanced behind me at the street, but it was
still deserted. Even so, the unease remained, and I was far enough
off the map not just to tell myself to hold it together. After a
moment, I started walking again, cautiously keeping my gun in my
hand.
It was ridiculous - but because of that feeling I now had no
doubt at all that this was the right building.
The side of number twenty-seven continued, unbroken, for about
fifteen, twenty metres, and then the building stopped and a wooden
fence took its place. It seemed that the hotel had a back garden. I
pulled the uprights one by one and was unsurprised when four in
the middle swung in slightly. I knelt down, my jeans creasing
tightly. The nails had been removed from the bottom. Four of them
lay, bent and rusted, at the base of the fence.
So this was it: Sean's front door.
I pushed the planks. They pivoted slightly, creating just enough
space for me to squeeze through. Okay. The wood pressed at me,
hard and sharp, and I had to put my palm down into the wet grass
on the other side to help pull myself through. It came away dirty as
I stood up. The fence cracked back into place behind.
I wiped my hand on my jeans and looked around.
At one point this had clearly been the hotel's back garden. There
were old patio stones beneath the overgrown grass, but they were
cracked and buckled out of place now. The sodden remains of a
few benches and seats rested closer to the building. Litter had
drifted in and stayed, fading over time. The air was moist and
damp, as though it was a misty morning and the ground had
recently been dug over. There were fences on all sides and they
gave the garden a feeling of seclusion - no windows overlooked it,
beyond the shattered, hooded holes in the back wall of the hotel
itself. I turned my attention to that.
Round here, I noticed, the wall wasn't completely sealed up. At
ground level, the windows had been boarded over, but someone
had recently pulled away the planks across one. I walked over. The
unease hadn't left me, and my free hand was shaking a little as I
rested it on the dirt-streaked windowsill and peered inside. All I
could tell was that it was very dark.
I listened for movement but the building was silent, and so I
stood there for a moment, allowing my eyes to become accustomed
to the interior. Gradually, I began to pick out the shadowy details
of the room. There was no carpet, just stone and broken glass, and
the walls were bare. Still some furniture, but right now they were
just odd shapes in the dark.
No guts no glory.
I put away the gun and clambered inside, which was far more
difficult than it looked. A few awkward contortions later, my feet
crunched down on the floor and I felt the itch of dust in my
nostrils. Immediately, I drew the gun again.
Okay, Sean, I thought. Let's see what you've made of the place.
There was glass everywhere underfoot, and most of the remaining
furniture was skeletal, with scraps of fabric hanging off the
frames like old skin. Cabinets and cupboards had been reduced to
broken boxes. I worked around it all carefully. This first room had
obviously been a dining area, and there was an adjoining kitchen
that was similarly stripped and bare. The cooker and fridge and
most of the units had been pulled out like teeth. A hallway beyond
was empty, ending in a small reception area by the front door.
There was a desk running down one wall, with a few faded leaflets
still resting on it, covered in dust. Untouched for a long time.
Stairs doubled back on the main hallway and led to the second
floor. I stood at the bottom for a moment, staring up. It looked
slightly lighter up there - probably because the windows weren't so
secure, but it made me nervous all the same. The building could
almost be tenanted.
Well, it actually could be, I thought.
Obviously, Sean wasn't here anymore, but someone else might
have got in. A homeless guy, maybe; or kids with nowhere fun to
go.
I took the stairs quickly but carefully - with visions of broken
legs replacing those of masked men and baseball bats. But the steps
were sturdier than the damp had led me to expect, and I made it onto the tattered landing without injuring myself. Again, there
were no carpets, just dusty old floorboards. And little wallpaper up
here either, just pale plaster, chalky-green and wet. A quick glance
showed what seemed to be six bedrooms. Only two of them were
still in possession of their doors, while the others were wide open
and strewn with rubble. A single small bathroom at the far end of
the corridor spoke tellingly of how cheap this place must have been
in life.
I worked through the bedrooms quickly, starting at the back.
They were all empty - even the furnishings were gone - but it was
obvious from patterns in the dust on the floor that somebody had
been here recently. Each vacant room made me more nervous. But
then, as I approached the fourth one, I felt sure I had found Sean's
makeshift home.
It was one of the closed bedrooms towards the front of the hotel,
but unlike the other this had received special attention. There was a
steel strip running halfway across the door at waist height, joining
another curl of metal on the frame, and the two were secured by a
padlock. It looked like a recent addition, and would probably have
been enough to deter a casual intruder from investigating any
further. But not me. I took a deep breath and kicked the door hard:
stamping at the side near the handle. The door was flung inwards,
swinging wildly on old hinges. The padlock and pieces of metal
remained intact, but a good section of the doorframe they'd been
attached to was torn out with the force.
Straight away, I knew this was the place.
There was a mattress in one corner that looked as though it had
been slept on recently, with books and papers strewn around it. It
was like he'd been prepping for an exam and then fallen asleep,
woken up late and had to run. A torch was resting in the centre,
bulky as a brick. When I saw it, I realised why he'd picked this
room as his home: no window. From the outside, nobody would
have been able to see the torchlight shining through gaps in the
stones or beams.
The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I walked over and
picked up the torch: a big, rubber block with padded circular
buttons on the neck. I pressed one and a beam of light cut across
the room onto the bed. The knotted sheets glowed white.
I swept the beam around. The rest of the room - that corner
aside - seemed bare and unused, but then the light flashed across a
suitcase by the remains of a fire, and I moved it back and held it
there for a moment.
Not a suitcase, I realised, but a rifle case. It was red, about a
metre long, and I recognised it: Sean had brought it to the range a
couple of times and even let me fire it. As things designed for killing
people go, it was a beautiful piece of machinery: a present from his
father that he'd cared for over the years. The fact that it had been
abandoned in this dirty old building brought it home to me again
that he was gone.
I walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed, and then
picked up a few sheets of paper at random and started to look
through them.
There were a lot of photographs. Some of them had been clipped
out of magazines, newspapers and journals, and then stuck to
sheets of paper; others were original and loose. As I flipped through
it all, there didn't seem to be any obvious connections, but
gradually a pattern of some kind began to emerge. Most of the
pictures were crowd scenes, often with some insignificant object or
person at the front, but I began to realise that what was interesting
Sean was the background. Away from the focus, the shots became
hazy and often indistinct, but the black circles he'd made in biro
made it easy enough to spot recurring figures. He'd highlighted the
same blurry faces, and they were usually lingering at the backs of
crowds as someone more important smiled for the camera in the
foreground.
So who were they? The pictures were too out of focus to see
much detail, apart from the fact that all of the men looked old. One
of them, he'd marked with a red cross beside a letter 'E'; another,
with a 'K'. I stared at each photograph in turn and then placed
them back on the floor.
One particular photograph caught my eye. Sean had clearly
found this one in a book and then enlarged it on a computer,
printing out progressive zooms. The initial black and white
photograph showed an old boxing match from the city's annual
competition: two fighters in the ring at the centre, thousands of
people crowding the main square. The lack of colour robbed the
scene of its heat and noise, and the stillness - as with all such
photographs - froze the banners and the waves, the streamers
thrown into the air. The fighters looked poised, a little apart from
each other, both caught in the act of throwing a punch. But Sean
hadn't been interested in them. Instead, he'd enlarged a portion of
one building on the opposite side of the square: zooming in past the
lower balconies and windows that were crammed with people, and
focusing on a single balcony three floors up. It, too, was full, but
here the people seemed to be sitting quietly and neatly, and they
were dressed to the nines, as though they were watching an opera
in the rich box at the theatre.
The angle was slightly awkward, and this close up most of the
detail was lost, but it seemed both possible and likely that the five
men I could see, before a pillar obscured the rest of the group, were
the same men who appeared, individually, in the other photographs.
Who
had Sean been researching? I wondered.
The photographs he had taken himself raised further questions.
A number of them had been shot from a window in one of the front
bedrooms of this hotel: they showed the bar opposite. Five of them
depicted groups of people either arriving or leaving. The times of
day varied, as did the people, but a few of the faces persisted. One
of them was an old man wrapped in the cocoon of a black coat,
and he always came flanked by three men who were large and ugly
enough to scare away bullets. In fact, their blank faces looked kind
of resigned to that task. A couple of other men cropped up in more
than one photo, as well, and I got the impression they were
business people of some kind. But the old man himself was
obviously the focus of it all. I compared the clearest photograph I
had of him with the enhanced shot of the balcony, and there he
was. It wouldn't hold up in a court of law, but the similarity would
do for me. I checked through the other pictures and found the one
marked with an 'E'. That one was even less distinct, but again, I
would have put money on it being the same man.
I left these photographs to one side.
A lot of the rest of the papers were photocopies and printouts,
and there was also a book filled with idle scribblings. Sean had
written pages and pages of mad, scrawling notes, most of which
were hard to make out. Some words were circled and linked - he
had tied 'arterial' to 'streets' more than once - and although much
of the text was difficult to read, the little I did manage to scan
through was reminiscent of the conversations we'd often had, only
far more extreme. I could only make out odd words and phrases.
The city was alive, he was saying. The city was a living, breathing
creature. On one page, he was rambling about cancers and
tumours, and it took a minute for me to realise that he was writing
about Rosh and Lucy and us. In some places, paragraphs had been
scribbled out in fury; in others, Sean had torn out whole sections. It
didn't make it any easier to follow.
There were occasional illustrations, as well. He'd drawn maps
that didn't make any sense to me: a diagram of a circle with
parallel lines inside it that looked like it should mean something
and didn't. I put it to one side. There was too much to take in mad,
drifting thoughts that had clearly occurred to him a little too
quickly for him to write down clearly. The writing and drawings
showed fragments of ideas, but each one seemed to shift to
something new before it was finished, and the links in between
were all missing. It was delirious.
I started leafing through a few of the books that were piled up at
the head of the bed.
The subject matter was varied, and not all of it seemed to have
much to do with anything. It was possible that he'd been reading
up on the philosophy of language for personal amusement, but
scanning a few pages convinced me that he must have been
exceedingly bored if he had been. There were a few religious
books. A handful of old novels. But what caught my eye most was
a thick volume entitled City Legends: East and West. Sean had
clearly consulted this a great deal, as there were bits of sticky paper
emerging at various points throughout. I flicked through.
The book listed local and regional myths about cities around the
world, some traditional and familiar - Sean had left a marker on
the chapter devoted to Rome and its wolf children - whereas others
were strange and new. Some of them were exotic places I'd never
even heard of. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the
handful that Sean had chosen to label.
Except for one. Close to the middle, I found an entry for our city.
Beneath the title, it listed the author as Dr Mark Harris.

I stared at that for a moment, wondering what to think about it.
Jamie said that Harris had been helping them with their project,
and it was, after all, his area of expertise. And yet there was
something about seeing his name in print that made me want to
throw the book to one side and get out of there as fast as I could.
But I didn't. The article was only a page and a half long. I
noticed that Sean had torn away the bottom of the first side for
some reason - perhaps he'd taken it with him for reference.
I leaned forward on the mattress, shining the torch carefully onto
the open book. Suddenly, I experienced another lurch of nausea,
and I looked around quickly for my gun. There - it was on the bed
beside me. Within easy reach.
But that didn't make me feel any better. It was as though a ghost
had just walked into the room and was now standing there, staring
at me with wide eyes. The ringing of silence in my ears was
bouncing off the walls, intensifying and becoming louder: building
to a pitch that would cause my nerves to snap.
Calm down.
And after a moment of breathing slowly, I turned my attention
to the book and began to read of our history.

It is not my purpose in this article to draw out the similarities
between the myth of the eight brothers and comparable stories in
other civilisations and cultures. Suffice to say that there are
several key elements that recur; and it may be argued (see
Williams, 96; Deacon, 98) that these, along with the timeless and
obvious symbolic nature of the story (see Duncan, 91), are enough
to qualify the tale purely as a 'myth'. However, it has a number of
qualities that support its classification as a 'legend', most notably
the general presentation of the story as historical (albeit timeless)
fact and the lack of a purely religious element. See the section
marked 'further reading' for links to relevant articles.
The basic tenets of the myth are as follows.
At an unspecified time, there were eight brothers living on a
very large estate. Their names were Eli, Kama, Gideon, Napier,
Voldun, Sanzer, Harven and Rho. In general readings of the tale,
they are presented as self-sufficient, beyond the small number of
servants that each brother employed; and the estate is reckoned to
have contained everything needed for the family to survive:
running water; woodland teeming with animals and plants; fields
that could be farmed; vast natural resources; etc. They lived in
happiness for some time, and certain specific comparisons may be
made to Eden and other allegorical paradises. Additionally, the
introduction of an 'outside' element that unbalances the harmony
and leads ultimately to destruction is a common theme in this
literature (Smart, 82). In this case, it occurred when the eight
brothers decided it was time to venture into the outside world and
find a wife, each riding in a different direction of the compass. It
may be argued (see Roseneil, 71) that linking the arrival of
women onto the estate with its downfall adds a historically
revealing subtext to the myth; but this is refuted by a careful
reading of certain sources. When all of the brothers returned with
their new wives and families two years later, they each also
brought specialist knowledge and experience back with them.
From this point, each brother took on a symbolic role, and it is
their subsequent interaction that caused the estate to dissolve.
In most versions of the myth, Gideon is seen as having spent
time with traders in the west, returning with elaborate plans to
export the brothers' bountiful natural resources and produce in
exchange for worldly wealth. Napier learned from the scientists of
the day, and began automating the farms: constructing a
waterwheel and experimenting with steam machinery. Voldun
brought back musical instruments from the south. Sanzer had
acquired a thirst for knowledge and debate, and took on the role
of teacher to the estate's growing number of children. Eli, who
had spent time in the rigid cities of the north, took control of
security for the community; while Harven, who had studied
medicine and chemistry, looked after their health.

Thus we can see that each of these six brothers embodies an
important element of a successful society. (Respectively: finance;
power and technology; the arts; education; law and order; and
medicine). For some time, the estate continued to thrive, with its
population growing around this central disciplined core.
Of the other two brothers, Rho brought back no particular
skills or trade, and is seen as representing (variously) life, death,
religion, fate and chance. However, all sources agree that the
blame for the eventual dissolution of the estate lay with Kama,
who had spent time in the ports and harbours of the west,
'consorting with thieves, pirates and blackhearts' (see Williams,
96); and over time, it became apparent that he had returned to his
family bearing many undesirable traits. Kama would come to
symbolise crime and anarchy. Over a long period, he worked
secretly in opposition to his brothers, undermining Gideon's
dealings with outside traders while making his own business
arrangements with less savoury clients. Eventually, his actions
would destroy the founding family.

Then there was a break in the text where Sean had ripped away the
bottom of the page. It continued at the top of the other side:

In modern times, the brothers are seen as patron figureheads
controlling the various aspects of life in the city as listed above.
An alleged representation of Eli can be seen on the crest of the
Gaunes Knight at the law courts in the district of Owl; and the
city's main hospital is colloquially referred to by locals as
'Harven's'. (A likeness of him is also rumoured to be included in
the building's famous hanging tapestry.) Other examples abound
(see further reading) but the most obvious is the partitioned
nature of the city, which is divided into sixteen districts. Once a
year, a competition is held wherein eight districts compete in a
city-sponsored event, and this author would suggest that the sport
and the legend share similar origins.

By the time I finished reading, my hands were literally shaking. I
had no idea why - I actually looked down and stared at them,
willing them to stop. What was wrong with me? It was just a book,
and yet I felt like I was going to be sick. The feeling was far worse
now than it had been all day - even in Hedge's flat when I'd been
looking at the computer program.
The image of the city map flashed into my mind; the room
started whirling around me. I closed my eyes, resting my head on
my knees.
Stop, I thought. Please stop.
'Feeling ill?'
I opened my eyes and jumped up off the mattress, picking up the
gun and bringing it to bear on an empty room. Flicked it this way
and that. The torch fell on its side, spilling light across the floor.
Somebody laughed. My aim shifted round to a blank wall.
'Who's that?' I said, stepping back onto the mattress and leaning
against the corner of the room. Even though it was dark, I could
see everywhere. There was nobody here.
Out in the corridor? I moved my aim to the doorway.
The voice had sounded closer than that, though - it had been
right in my ear. Deep, male and amused.
Whoever it was laughed again and repeated my words back to
me:
'Who's that?'
My aim flicked to the opposite side of the room. Nobody there.
They came out of the walls.
At the time, I'd laughed off what Jamie had said. Now, my skin
started crawling. I took a better grip of the gun.
'Who's that?'
Closer now, as though the person was sidling across the room
towards me. Winding like a snake.
'Who's that?'
And then I saw him, out of the corner of my eye, creeping slowly
along the wall to the right of me. I turned quickly, almost fired but
there was nobody there. Then I saw him again, on the other
side of me. Impossible. And as I flipped my aim round that way he
was gone again.
'Who is that?'
This time, the voice came from right in front of me.
And there he was. I had time for my eyes to blink a photograph
of him, for my free hand to move up in self-defence, and then
everything went black.


Chapter Eighteen

I dreamed about Sean. To begin with, my mind was simply filling in
the gaps of the past few months, and I saw images of him
contacting Jamie and Keleigh; of him sitting in his room, reading
by torchlight. Taking photographs. Shadowing people on the
streets.
Each image flashed up, leaving a mark on my thoughts that
slowly faded back to nothing.
Here he was, answering the phone.
Flash; fade; gone.
And then, he was dying. Illuminated cuts of the beating, strobe
lit into slow, staccato motion as blows landed. The memories
flashed into still life, and then sank back into black mist. Sean on
the floor, the bats raining down on him. His body losing cohesion
as bones shattered, flesh bruised, joints dislocated. The twitches as,
despite everything, the ebbing currents of life continued to spark in
him, growing fainter. His lights going out.
'Wake him up.'
His past: about to become my present and future. Inside, I was
panicking. There was something pitch black and furious in my
mind, pounding the inside of a dark box that was hidden too well
to see. As I surfaced and heard the words again, I knew that I was
going to lose it badly if I wasn't careful. Now, I really did need to
keep it together.
'Wake him up.'
I said, 'I am awake.'
'Open your eyes, then.'
I did as I was told, blinking against the sudden light and then
looking around cautiously. I was sitting in a comfortable chair,
made of black leather that looked and felt as tight as swollen skin.
It was a little too close to the floor: my feet stretched out over pale,
clean floorboards that had been polished to minimalist perfection.
Where was I?
Probably the bar across the street - maybe a back room.
Take in as much as you can.
For what it would be worth, I did. The room was very spare most
of the furnishings were black or white, complementing the
light-brown flooring, and it all looked expensive and well-coordinated.
A very old and thin man was sitting opposite me, in the
centre of a leather sofa that matched my own chair. Between us,
there was a coffee table made of glass. I recognised the man: he was
one of the men from Sean's photographs, the one marked by a 'K',
only he was dressed more casually now, wearing old, black suit
trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It was like
he'd been designed to match the decor.
He was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees,
smoking a cigarette and staring at me a little curiously, as though
he'd caught something by accident and wasn't quite sure what it
was. Two of his bodyguards were loitering in the background, and
they both seemed entirely indifferent and non-threatened by me. It
was almost insulting, although I supposed in the circumstances
they were probably right.
'Nice to meet you,' I said.
He didn't say anything, but kept staring at me and smoking his
cigarette thoughtfully. I couldn't keep his gaze, so I looked over to
my right at a fish tank on the other side of the room. It was large
and seemed to be filled mainly with pale green, glowing bubbles.
No windows in here, I noticed.
Was it still daylight? I had no idea what time it was, and very
little sense of how long I'd been unconscious. It didn't feel long. I
wondered whether I still had my phone. I was willing to bet they
had taken my gun. But I wasn't about to check my clothes for
either of them.
After a moment, I looked back at the man and he spoke in an
old, weary voice.
'You're feeling better now, I take it?'
The question caught me off guard. My head hurt, my pride hurt,
and I was pretty sure that I was going to die. But since this man
was either past, present or likely future cause of all of those things,
I couldn't imagine why he might care.
'Not great, no,' I said. 'Thanks for the concern though.'
'Oh - top marks.' He leaned over and tapped his cigarette into
an ashtray on the coffee table. 'I'm always pleased when people in real trouble can still manage sarcasm and humour. It has a certain
existential honesty to it. I'm not likely to ever be in such trouble as
you are, Detective Weaver, but I can only dream of handling it so
well if I were.'
'I'm not a detective anymore,' I said.
'Well, no.' He conceded it with a slight incline of his head.
'That's certainly true. The reason I asked is because people
generally do feel better when they find us. We're a relief. Do you
still feel nauseous, for example?'
I felt it stir as he said that - that lurching, panicked feeling I'd
had nearly all day - and found myself swallowing it down.
You're not going to be sick.
And as I fought it back, I saw that he was smiling at me. Like he
could tell.
'I don't know what you mean,' I said, but my mouth was too dry
and it was obvious I was lying.
He tapped the cigarette again. When he raised it back to his lips
and inhaled, there was something slow and dainty about the
manoeuvre.
'You were looking for us,' he said.
There didn't seem to be any point in denying it.
I said, 'I'm looking for the people who killed my friend.'
'No - not just that. You've been searching for longer than that.
All of you, but you and your friend especially.'
'You've been following us?' I said, not understanding what he
meant.
'No. I don't need to follow people.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
He smiled a little absently. 'I've not followed you because I
haven't needed to. But I've seen you watching the city lights. I've
sat behind you in bars and listened to you talking. You and that
other policeman were always looking for us. It's just that neither of
you realised it. And why would you?'
'I've not been looking for you,' I said. 'I don't even know who
you are.'
He smiled again, and then took a long drag on the cigarette and
held it in for a while, thinking things through. One of his
bodyguards started slowly circling the room, moving out of sight
behind me. I heard his feet tapping on the wood, and then nothing.
He had stopped behind me. My neck started tingling and I wanted
to lean forwards. Instead, I did my best to keep still.
'I don't even know who you are,' I said again.
The old man breathed out, and the smoke filled the air between
us.
'Do you remember a man named Timothy Hartley?' he asked.
Hartley. Yes, I remembered. He'd been the first man I'd gone
along with Rosh, Lucy and Sean to kill - the man who'd taken that
little girl and who had then, in his turn, been taken by us. I
remembered him and what had happened to him. When Sean had
found her safe, Lucy had shot Timothy Hartley in the head. At the
time, I'd been shocked, but then my feelings had lessened. He'd
been a small, insignificant man who'd hurt a lot of people and with
hindsight it didn't seem like his death had reduced anything in the
slightest. In fact, the world felt fuller without him.
'Name doesn't ring a bell,' I said.
'You don't remember killing him?' The old man looked mildly
surprised. 'I would have thought it would stick in the mind,
something like that. It certainly stuck in mine, as he was working
for me at the time.'
'Oh right?' I said, glancing at the bodyguard behind him. 'Do
you employ a lot of paedophiles and rapists?'
The old man laughed, dismissing it with a wave of his hand.

'Well, they're everywhere these days. Don't you read the
papers?'
'I just think you can generally tell a lot about a man by the
company he keeps.'
'Perhaps,' the old man said, considering the point for as long as it
took to breathe out a mouthful of smoke. 'But Hartley was a hard
worker, no matter what else he was.'
'And what sort of work did he do for you?'
'He moved money, people. Other things on occasion. Hartley
had a small workshop, you might remember, and we used his
accounts a few times. Nothing too important, but serious enough
for me to take an interest when he died. You weren't as hard to
pick out as you might imagine, and it didn't take long to work out
what you were doing. You and your little vigilante friends.'
'Oh yeah?' I was angry despite myself. The girl we rescued the
night Hartley died had been okay, but only because of us. 'And
what were we doing?'
'Well - killing people.' He looked a little confused that he had to
explain it to me at all. 'Killing people you didn't like.'
'Bad people,' I said. 'Who deserved it.'
'No. People you didn't like.' He carried on without giving me
time to reply. 'And that's fine. We all do it. I was mostly just
relieved to find out that my brother wasn't involved. We have an
agreement to leave each other alone, and I thought he might have
been going against it. But it only took a few phonecalls to discover
that you were doing this entirely on your own. He never had a
clue.'
'Your brother?'
'Eli.' He inhaled and then breathed out slowly, allowing the
name to hang in the air for a moment. Then, he said: 'Eli powers
law and order in the city.'
'Eli,' I repeated. 'Right.'
'You've never met him, don't worry. Not yet.'
'Okay.'
The legend of the brothers who'd founded the city came back to
me. I remembered the photographs that Sean had marked: one with
an 'E'; another - this man - with a 'K'.
I said, 'So that would make you . . . Kama?'
'That's right.' He stubbed out the cigarette. 'Top marks.'
And despite everything, I laughed.
Kama - or whoever the fuck he really was - kept smiling to
himself as he reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table and
shook one free.
I could feel his bodyguard standing close behind me but I nodded
at the pack anyway.
'I guess that ghosts don't have to worry about their health?'
'Good guess.' The old man lit the cigarette with a match and
then waved the match out with a hand that was almost too quick
to see. 'Now, let me guess something. You've been feeling sick
recently. Very sick. And now, as I said before, you feel much
better.'
He was right - I didn't feel great, but I certainly did feel better.
When I'd been in Hedge's flat, watching the computer program, I
hadn't been entirely confident of keeping myself upright. Now,
although I still felt strange, I figured that standing up would have
been fine, assuming anyone here would have let me.
'That happens.' Kama pointed the glowing end of the cigarette at
me. 'When you begin, you're not equipped to deal with us, and that
sickness is what you feel as you grow closer. You start seeing
coincidences for what they are. It's us. We bring about those
coincidences.'
'Is that right?'
But I'd stopped smiling now, and I felt uncomfortable again; my
bravado seemed false even to me. Coincidences. Sickness. I
wondered if someone might have slipped me something to create
those kinds of feelings and thoughts. It seemed unlikely, but I
couldn't be sure. Perhaps.
'We're at the heart of this city,' Kama said, 'and when people are
drawn to us they spiral down into that heart. Like dirty water
sucked down a sink.'
He made a circling motion with his cigarette hand.
'When you spiral, things start repeating. You see? Maybe you
don't recognise it at the time, but that's all it is.'
'Maybe I just had a dodgy burger,' I said.
Without warning, I felt a pressure on the back of my neck that
made me wince. Kama shot a glance over my head. A second later,
the pain vanished.
'Your friend believed in us,' he said. 'You've seen his library.'
I rubbed the back of my neck.
'And you killed him because of it.'
Kama shook his head. 'I didn't kill your friend. Not directly
anyway.'
'Bullshit.'
He leaned back and the leather creaked behind him.
'Your friend lived across the road for a while. He was watching
us, I think, but I never had the pleasure of meeting him directly. It
was amusing to see him hiding away, coming to the same
conclusions as you have. He acknowledged it more quickly than
you, but I suppose he was a little more unhinged and didn't have
quite so many barriers remaining. On the surface, he was obsessed
by that irrelevant dead girl. But really, deep down, he was just
drawn to us. He could smell my brother all over her.'
'You killed him,' I said again.
He shook his head more slowly than before.
'No. I understand why you might think that, but in fact I haven't
killed anyone recently.'
'Are you going to kill me?' I said.
He paused, considering this. I couldn't see or hear his bodyguard
behind me, but I felt slight pressure again. I got the impression the
man knew that if there was going to be killing done then he'd be
the one for the job, and that he was running the various
possibilities through his head right now.
'I haven't decided yet,' Kama said finally.
Perhaps I should have been relieved, but I wasn't.
'Why am I here then?'
He ignored the question. 'I've actually been following your
careers with interest. Tell me, Mister Weaver - why did you go
around killing people?'
He looked at me with genuine curiosity. Despite myself, I felt
small and stupid.
'They were men who were above the law,' I said.
He frowned. 'Above the law?'
Even to me, it seemed inadequate. I didn't know why I felt the
need to justify myself to this man, who I had no doubt was a
criminal and a killer of a much higher magnitude than me. But I
did.
'They were men we couldn't put away,' I told him. 'They could
either buy their way out, or have it bought for them.'
'That's very interesting,' Kama said. He sounded like he meant
it. 'So, it implies there's something other than the law that you
presume you know best?'
He appeared to think about this for a second, while I said
nothing, and then he waved his hand and dismissed his own
thoughts.
'You're right on a practical level, though - they could buy
themselves out. And sometimes it was me that did the buying. After
all, I power crime here in the city.'
'Right.'
'And as I bought these men out, I watched with a certain amount
of amusement as you then took them away from me. To begin
with, anyway. After a while, it became annoying. But I tolerated
you, because I knew that you would be useful to me at some point.'
'Useful,' I said.
'Not a word that you associate with yourself very often.'
'What did you want us to do?' I said, although I was
remembering what Rosh had told me about Toby Yeung's body
being dragged out of the canal, and I thought I knew what Kama
was going to tell me.
He leaned forwards again to tap away more ash.
'You see, just like I can buy people out I can also buy them in.
Carl Halloran, for example.' He made it sound like he was
plucking a name from thin air. 'Very minor league. Hardly ever
hurt a fly. But to a small extent he was in my way, and so I bought
him in. A few words in the right ears, and then he was in your way
too. And then he was dead.'
'Yeah.' I felt that lurch of inevitability. Whatever else might be
bullshit here, I knew that this much was true. 'We killed Carl
Halloran. Because you wanted us to, right?'
He nodded.
'I set him up, yes. Well, one of my employees, but it amounts to
the same thing. Terrible thing, that post-office murder, and I can
assure you that it was nothing to do with me. Opportune, though. I
sent the fake information to your friend through one of your usual
channels. And you went and killed Halloran for me. It was all very
successful.'
He wasn't an innocent man^ I reminded myself. Except that I had
no idea now what he was. All of the emotions inside me had been
so stamped down and muddled up that the only thing I could think
of was one single question:
'Why?'
And Kama just shrugged.
'Perhaps boredom?' he said. 'But also, Halloran worked for my
brother, Eli.'
'Eli. Who powers law and order, right?'
'That's right, yes. But underneath it all we're quite similar. He
understands about balance, and he's a practical man. He doesn't
always run things the way someone as idealistic as you might want,
but we exist in a kind of uneasy harmony, and our methods aren't
all that different. Halloran was doing some work for him - moving
money, basically. This and that, here and there. He didn't know it,
but that's what he did. And I suppose I had him killed just to annoy
my brother.'
'Right.'
'And perhaps to take care of you, as well, but that wasn't so
important. You were running around, messing things up for me in
minor ways. Eli wasn't letting you get away with it, exactly, but I
was still annoyed at him for not running a tighter ship.'
'Right,' I said again. 'So this is some kind of family feud, or
something?'
Kama shook his head and smiled.
'Nothing as grand as that. My brother and I need each other;
and we both know it. But we don't invent our natures and we can't
help what we're driven to do. So we dig at each other a bit, here
and there, and we always have. We can't hurt each other directly,
but little punches behind the ears that don't leave any bruises they're
fine. You know what brothers are like. Cat and dog
sometimes.'
'Okay.'
I didn't know what else to say. He was telling me that he was
basically some kind of ghost, and that he'd made us kill someone
just to piss off his brother. What was I supposed to do with that?
Laugh at it under more normal circumstances, but it didn't feel at
all funny right now. And it was bullshit, of course, but I couldn't
work out why he was feeding it to me. What was the point? And
yet it couldn't be true.
In the absence of reasonable alternatives, I resolved to nod
politely until I found out whether I was going to die or not, and
then worry about things afterwards.
Kama leaned back and smiled to himself.
'So that was that,' he said. 'A minor annoyance for him in
exchange for what I'd felt, and that's where it would have ended. I
just didn't plan on you taking his money.'

All that money.
At the time, I'd taken it to secure Rachel and me a safer future.
But when I'd walked out of Hedge's flat earlier that day, I knew
there was more to it than that. And now it's time to be honest.
I had always liked to think I was a nice guy, but I knew deep
down that I wasn't. I can just do a good impression, that's all. On
the surface, I care about other people and try to think about what's
best for them. I'm kind and generous. I'm even gentle, on the
numerous occasions when I'm not shooting at people. But if you
step beyond all that - pull it to one side and look behind it - then
you can see it for what it is. Everyone's driven to do what's best for
them, and it's just a happy coincidence that a lot of what I do
comes from wanting people to like me. The moment my interests
change, I drop the nice-guy act and behave as rat-like and shitty as
everyone else.
That night, as we took the money and left Halloran dead in his
hotel room, I really was thinking to myself: // I'm cautious - if I
don't attract too much attention - then that's enough money to
keep me and Rachel safe and secure for a long time.
That was the justification I genuinely used. But people invent all
kinds of good reasons for the bad things they do. They lie to
themselves about their motivations because they have to, and
sometimes they don't even know they're doing it. Nobody's a bad
guy. There are stupid things we're driven to do simply because it's
in our nature, and when those things threaten the image we have of
ourselves we just switch bulbs and shine a different coloured light
on events. Keep switching. Eventually, you'll find a shade you can
live with.
I'd been sleeping with Lucy for a while by then, and regardless of
how we really felt about each other I'd found myself falling out of
love with Rachel as a result. Seeing Lucy had opened a valve in my
ankle, and all of the love and happiness I'd felt for Rachel was
slowly leaking out. By the time the four of us were leaving the hotel
with that money, I was empty.
Below the surface, that was on my mind. I didn't want to be with
Rachel anymore, but I knew that I couldn't just leave. I had no
money: nowhere to go; no real savings. There was more to it than
that, of course - there was the hurt and upset I was going to cause.
The emotional trauma for both of us. But the money was a real,
practical barrier, and that night I knew that the barrier was gone. I
didn't let myself think about it in any great detail: I recognised it
and immediately put it out of my thoughts and concentrated on
nicer ones. But it's not like you can properly take back a
realisation. It sat at the back of my mind and I worked on it
subconsciously. On the surface, I could convince myself that I was
still a good man, but deep down I was building my exit strategy
from that moment on. Like everybody else, I'm good at turning a
blind eye to myself.
Now, looking back, I could see that there was a terrible sense of
justice to everything that had happened. If you take someone's
money then there's always a chance you can pay it back and make
amends, but because I'd left Rachel that wasn't even an option. I
didn't have the money; I'd invested it in the end of my relationship.
It was threaded into the rented walls and floor of my flat, and
running through the plugs and cables. Some of it I'd drunk; some I'd eaten. It had been spent on countless things that in my own
stupid way I'd thought might make me happy. Things that - right
now - I'd have given up in a second.

I'm stupid, but even I'm not that stupid.
'What money?' I said.
Kama smiled, as though he'd expected this and would have been
disappointed with anything else. But I figured he couldn't know for
sure that we'd taken the money - and it was very possible that it
had been his all along, and this elaborate load of shit he'd been
feeding me was just a way to get me to admit I'd stolen it. If that
was true, I was going to end up like Sean whatever I said, but there
was no point in worrying. All I could do was deny it, wait and see.
Kama took a drag on his cigarette and said:

'The money that the four of you took, obviously. And it's okay
that you took it. I hadn't known it would still be there, but actually
it couldn't have worked out better. You didn't just inconvenience
my brother. You really, really annoyed him.'
I shook my head.
'I don't know anything about any money.'
But I wasn't even convincing myself, let alone Kama.
'Well - someone took it.' He tapped away some ash and looked
decidedly unconcerned by it all. 'Halloran had it, and then he
didn't. Some of my brother's people turned up to collect it, and
apparently it wasn't there. So someone took it. They started
looking for it that night. With Halloran's girlfriend.'
I closed my eyes, seeing the coincidences. Alison's death had
been a bad one, but the city was full of those, and only now did I
realise how fitting and logical it was that it had been this investigation that had consumed Sean: the murder that everything
else revolved around. We'd been drawn in, not realising that our
own actions had created the drag. There were coincidences here,
but they felt more like patterns. There was a mad kind of sense to it
all.
With my eyes still closed, I said:
'So you're telling me that the police killed her?'
'No,' Kama said. 'My brother powers law and order, and that's
not the same thing. But most of the police come under him.'
I opened my eyes and watched Kama stubbing out his cigarette.
He said, 'It has a terrible inevitability to it, doesn't it?'
'Your brother killed her?'
'Yes. He killed your friend too. And he tried to kill the three of
you last night, but he obviously underestimated you. He won't
make the same mistake again.'
'Right.'
I rubbed my eyebrow. What was Kama's motivation for telling
me all of this? If it was his money we'd taken, then he knew enough
just to kill me and have done with it. He could find Rosh and Lucy.
What was the point in having a fucking conversation with me at
all?
'Why are you telling me all this?' I said.
'Why? Like I said - boredom. Amusement.'
'Boredom and amusement?'
He shrugged to himself.
'I can't act directly to harm my brother. But it pleases me to stir
things up and make it difficult for him. And this really couldn't
have ended up any better, could it?'
'Right,' I said. 'Of course.'
Kama smiled.
'I know you don't believe me,' he said, 'but that doesn't really
matter. It's going to be interesting to see what you do next. You
and your friends.'
'And what will your brother do next?' I said.
'He's tried to take you once and he failed.' Kama was lighting
another cigarette. 'But he'll try again very soon, and the next time
he'll succeed.'
'Can I kill him?' I said.
'Could you kill me?' he replied, waving out the match.
'Yes.'
'If you got the chance, you could kill either of us.' He nodded.
'But you'll never get near enough. And Eli will be quick and
ruthless now that he knows who you are. He will do everything he
can to undermine the three of you, to break you apart. He'll go
after those you love, as well - assuming you have any. Eventually,
he'll have wiped away all traces of you entirely. He will clean away
everyone who's out of place. You, your friends and family, those
students - he'll remove all of you.'
For the first time in a few minutes, I was aware again of the
bodyguard standing directly behind me. Something in the atmosphere
had changed.
'That's reassuring,' I said, wanting to turn around, but finding
that something was stopping me. I tried, but I couldn't even move.
After a moment, I realised that Kama was staring straight at me,
slightly differently from before. This time, he wasn't blinking.
'That's what you're up against,' he said. 'And now, it's time for
you to leave and take your chances.'
I tried to move again, beginning to panic. I was stuck. How was
it fucking possible that he was doing this?
'Oh,' he said, noticing my predicament. 'Don't get up.'
And with that, Kama nodded at the bodyguard behind me.
Before I could react in any way, everything went black for the
second time that afternoon.

'Young sir?'
It was very dark. A man had his hand on my right shoulder,
shaking me, and his fingers were pressing into me too hard for
comfort. I jerked angrily awake, grabbed his wrist with my left
hand and twisted it, standing, coming around with my right to lock
his elbow and put him down. Ready to scream at him. He cried out
in alarm and tried to cower away, but he wasn't going anywhere.
Hang on, I told myself. Not letting go, but looking around.
I was in a room filled with four or five rows of wooden pews, all
facing the far end of the room, where there was a small stage, spotlit
from above. Two naked people were having sex on it. The man
was middle-aged and fat; she was middle-aged and plump; and they
were both paused in mid-coitus and staring in my direction with
annoyed expressions. They obviously felt that they'd suffered
enough indignity today without having to put up with my shit too.
All the other patrons - and the theatre was nearly full - were
watching me cautiously.
The man I was holding was the canvas-man who'd spoken to me
earlier that afternoon in western Wasp, and he was struggling
against me now without making much ground.
'Young sir, please,' he said, finally giving up. 'You were asleep.
Your phone was ringing. You were disturbing the performers.'
I shook my head, aware for the first time that my phone actually
was ringing. It was audible even over the hymn music that was
accompanying the sex show. How embarrassing.
'I'm sorry.' I let go of the man and headed quickly to the back of
the room, fighting my mobile out of my pocket the whole way.
They didn't take my phone, then.
I didn't recognise the number that was flashing up, but pressed
green anyway, moving down the dingy stairs at the back of the
theatre and out into the light.
'Hello?'
'Martin?'
It was Rachel, but at the same time it wasn't. Her voice sounded
strange and dulled.
'Yes,' I said. 'What's wrong?'
'Martin, I really need you to help me.' She swallowed, and I
leaned against a black and yellow railing, my heart sinking. Her
voice was flat, but there were little oscillations in it that I thought I
recognised - peaks of fear. She said, 'I think I've just been raped.
I'm not sure, but ... I think that's what's happened.'
'Okay, Rachel,' I said, trying to sound calm, reassuring. My free
hand was clenched so tight that the knuckles looked ready to burst.
'Where are you now?'
'This house,' she said.
'Our old house?'
'No. Some other house. This . . . this . . . guy's house.'
He'll go after those you love, as well - assuming you have any.
'Is he still there?' And when she didn't answer I said it again
more urgently. 'Rachel - is he still there with you?'
'Yes,' she said. 'He's right here. He's watching me.'
The hairs on my neck stood on end. She started crying.
'Rachel,' I said. The district around me had faded away to white.
'Please try to keep calm. You're going to be okay.'
But the sobbing had moved away now and I knew she couldn't
hear me. There was empty silence for a second, and then a sense of
purpose gathered at the other end of the phone. The buzz on the
line was quiet and forceful.
'Hello?' I said.
Nothing. But someone was there.
I waited, moving away from the railing and reaching inside my
jacket. The gun was still there. I took it out and checked the clip. A
few people who had been walking near me veered suddenly away.
Fine; the clip was full. I clicked it back and replaced the gun in its
holster.
'I know you're -' I started to say.
'Seventy-eight,' a voice interrupted. It was a male voice. Gritty
but young. And angry, too, as though whoever it belonged to was
reading information off a sheet for the fifth time and losing his
patience. 'Fisher Lane. Turtle.'
In the background, for just a second, I could still hear Rachel
crying.
And then the line went dead.

Chapter Nineteen

The address was too far away to make on foot, and public
transport was out of the question, so I stole a car. I found a
relatively old one parked out of the way and on its own, smashed
the passenger window with a brick, cracked the steering column,
and in less than a minute I was on my way. A few people saw, and
then wisely elected to ignore me. I felt bad, even if I didn't have a
choice. Here I was again, though: breaking the law to serve a
higher moral cause. But stealing a car felt quite minor in
comparison to most of the shit I'd done.
The car hurtled out of Wasp. Two minutes later I was on the
motorway, with a breeze whipping in through the broken window.
A couple of crunching gear shifts, and I was heading south. Turtle
was directly below Wasp, but it was a large district and the Fishers
were right at the bottom. I put my foot down.
I had the wheel in one hand; phone flipping open in the other.
I hit Rosh's speed dial number, held the mobile to my ear and
waited. But not for long - it was engaged, and the nasal beeps
sounded even more smug and annoying than usual. I swore,
cancelled and tried Lucy instead.
It rang out; not even an answerphone. Where the fuck were they
both?
I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat, swearing loudly. Call
the normal police? Not a good idea. If Kama had been telling the
truth then Eli ran law and order and calling the police wasn't going
to help; and if he was lying then what was I going to tell them? Just
how much of this could I actually explain, and how seriously were
they going to take me?
I'd be close soon, anyway, and I'd certainly arrive before anyone
else showed up, especially from a random, unsubstantiated call.
Even if I did phone it in, I'd be lucky to see the police before
nightfall.
Two minutes later and the last exit for Turtle was coming up on
the left. I drew my gun, rested it on the seat beside me, and then
took the exit a little too fast. The car tyres screeched as I rounded
the fat, curling roads leading off into the district's centre.
Rachel
A flood of images and emotions rushed me, and I did my best to
blot them out. Anger was one thing, but I needed to think clearly if
I was going to make a difference here.
I thought about the gun instead. I hadn't had the chance to use it
when Kama's man had taken me down in the old hotel, and I
considered that now. What the fuck had happened? Whenever I'd
seen him, it had been out of the corner of my eye; the rest of the
time it had been as though he was invisible. Had he moved that
quickly, or was there some other explanation? Kama's story aside,
I believed my own memory. It had happened, and if I was going to
meet more people like his bodyguard then I needed to figure out
how to deal with them.
Fisher Lane ...
Here were the Fishers - coming up on the right. Mostly red-brick
back-to-backs.
Fisher Road. Fisher Avenue.
Fisher Lane was the last one, separated from its kin by a small,
neat stretch of wasteground. I stopped at the end of the street,
picked up the phone and the gun, and then got out and took the
corner on foot. There was nobody around, but I kept the gun
concealed, holding my hand inside my jacket.
The guy in the hotel. When I was younger, I'd heard these
martial arts stories about people who trained so as to move within
their opponent's blind spots. A portion of the eye doesn't receive
light properly, and if you could throw a punch partially within this
then you'd have an advantage. I didn't think Kama's bodyguard
had been doing anything remotely like that, but I had no other
explanation. It was as though he'd come out of the walls, just as
Jamie had said.
I checked the house numbers - early thirties - and I started to
run, abandoning any pretence of hiding the gun. My shoes
pounded the pavement: past the forties; into the fifties. There was
an old couple on the opposite side of the street. I saw them stop
and look at me, and then say something to each other.
One thing about Kama's bodyguard was that he had to actually
physically hit me. Not a normal punch, I was sure, but he'd had to
get close enough to touch me. These people were flesh and blood even
if it was hard to see - and if they could hurt me then I could
hurt them right back.
Number sixty-eight. Number seventy.
I scanned the parked cars up ahead. There weren't that many
and they all looked empty, but that didn't mean they were
necessarily. I slowed down and started walking, gun held out in
front slightly. Good two-handed grip.
Seventy-two. Seventy-four.
The way I saw it, the only person in that house who I cared
about right now was Rachel. Anybody who moved who wasn't
her, I was probably going to shoot. Given what had happened
already that afternoon, it seemed a pretty reasonable and sensible
course of action.
Seventy-six.
I checked each car as I approached: aiming in, peering from
behind the gun. Each one was empty.
And then here was number seventy-eight: semi-detached, on the
right-hand side of its pair. Two storeys. All the curtains drawn in
the three windows I could see. There was a small, well-tended
garden at the front of the house and a driveway to the right, and I
moved cautiously but quickly down that, heading for a door
halfway along the house. I guessed it would lead into the kitchen.
At the far end of the drive there was a red garage, its wide double
door topped by small, black windows, and a path led round the
back of the house. I dodged under the kitchen window and quickly
checked out the back garden. It turned out to be bigger than the
front, but equally well-tended. There were flowerbeds around the
edges, and it was divided in two by a small strip of soil where
someone had been growing vegetables.
In the centre of the nearest section, there was a bright blue
paddling pool and a small multicoloured slide. My aim wavered
slightly and I thought:
Children.
There were children here. I scrabbled back through my memory
of the conversation, trying to recall the address I'd been given. Was
I even at the right house? But I remembered it clearly: seventy
eight. This was the right address. So what the fuck was with the
slide and the pool? I couldn't go in and just start shooting. My
reasonable and sensible course of action suddenly looked a little
shaky.
I moved back up the driveway, and stopped by the kitchen door.
Fall back, I told myself. Call Rosh, Lucy. Call anyone. It's a
possible hostage situation and you're on a roll of fucking things up
at the moment.
I picked out my phone and dialled Rosh again, and - this time it
rang out. No answerphone. I pressed myself against the wall and
called Lucy. Once again, it rang out.
Fuck.
Call the normal police then, I thought - that was the sensible
thing to do now. But at the same time, this was Rachel. And yes, I'd
fucked up more than my share recently, but my mistakes had
already affected her life. I owed her more - I couldn't just leave her
inside and walk away, and let someone else sort out my mess.
Especially when everything that had happened to her was solely for
my benefit.
I moved to the other side of the kitchen door, turned the handle
and pushed it open quietly. Kept out of the way, waited for a
second.
Nothing.
I shifted slightly. The door had come to rest against a tall fridge
freezer. That was white and new, and it had lots of children's
drawings stuck to it with plastic letter-magnets. The rest of the
kitchen looked empty. I listened. No noise at all from inside nothing
to hear.
I edged around, keeping the gun trained on the doorway. The
kitchen was lit by a window facing out onto the garden at the back,
and I could see most of it. There was nobody in there. Not even
any cupboards or spaces large enough to hide someone, unless they
were midgets as well as ghosts. Now or never, then. I stepped
inside, turning quickly and training my gun on the doorway that
led out of the kitchen. There was a hallway beyond - empty; full of
misty, still air. But once again, I felt the subtle difference between
an empty house and one where somebody was just hiding and
holding their breath.
Keep calm. The emotions were rolling inside me - fear, anger and
that was no good. I brought them out now, so that I could see
them, handle them and then put them to one side where they
couldn't do as much harm, and then I took a better grip on the gun
and moved into the hallway.
My aim flicked round, quickly and carefully. There were stairs
leading up from the hall, to the left. A half-open door to the right.
The stairs looked clear. The door led into a cluttered dining room. I
edged in. There was a huge table in the centre, loads of books, glass
sliding doors at the far end that led out into the garden. It smelled
of paper and clothes. I worked quickly: round the table halfway,
aiming the gun at empty spaces; then round the other side. Clear.
Nobody hiding.
Okay. Two rooms clear.
Back out into the corridor. There was another door further along
to the right, and then the hallway ended at the front door, where
angles of afternoon sunlight were streaking in through a semi-circle
of coloured glass at the top. I could see motes of dust floating in the
air, swimming slowly in invisible currents.
The next room - but as I started to move, the motes swirled
suddenly, like a draught of air had blown through the hallway. I
glanced to the right, almost without thinking, and out of the corner
of my eye I saw a man moving quickly and impossibly down the
hall towards me. My glance flicked back and he was gone, but I
was already firing: three solid shots at thin air, the bullets
swallowed up before they cracked into the front door. The noise
was enormous, and the walls vibrated with each quick explosion. I
closed my eyes against the muzzle flashes, and opened them to see a
man rolling backwards over his shoulder as he was knocked down,
finishing hard against the front door.
My ears were ringing and the hallway was thick with the smoke
of violence. I kept my aim on the man, moving closer, ready to
shoot him if he tried to get up. But I'd caught him in the chest with
all three shots, and he wasn't going anywhere. I took him in
quickly - a big guy, dressed in a neat, dark suit. Short, black hair.
Something prickled on the back of my neck.
I was turning before I knew it - firing off another shot that blew
shards of wood across the hallway. Half the kitchen doorframe
disintegrated into misty splinters. Had I seen someone as I whirled
around? I glanced to one side, then the other, whipping my head
round. Caught sight of him - coming low out of the dining room.

Another big guy, heading at me fast in a crouch. But I'd made him
- I fired once, twice, the shots going into the floor like hammered
nails, spitting up puffs of carpet fabric, and then I fired again and
he suddenly appeared, barrelling at me but stumbling, the top of
his head gone. He dropped just in front of my feet, and I shot him
in the back.
In the silence that followed, I could hear my own breathing. Fast
and thin.
And then, upstairs, a woman started crying.
Rachel.
I stepped over the first man I'd killed, uncurling my fingers from
around the gun and taking a better grip. I fired off a shot up the
stairs; shot once more down the hall behind me. Hit nothing, but at
least both ways were clear. I started up the stairs, moving quickly
and carefully, ready to fire again at the slightest movement. But
then I heard Rachel start screaming - properly screaming, as
though she was being hurt more than she could bear - and I lost all
sense of caution. I charged up the stairs and onto the landing.
The screaming was coming from the nearest door on the left, and
I went for it, but something grabbed my wrist and wrenched my
arm around.
Fuck.
Suddenly there he was, right beside me. I caught a brief glimpse
of him - it was like wrestling with a ghost - and then he was there
just like anyone would be. Perhaps he needed to concentrate: he
was gritting his teeth and pulling my arm down, then pulling it
more, until the gun was pointing harmlessly at the carpet. I fired off
a shot anyway, panicking, and managed to jerk my arm a little so
that the bullet caught him in the foot, punching a hole through it.
He cried out and let go and - suddenly released - my hand sprang
back up and I pulled the trigger again; but he was already reacting,
quick enough to bat my aim to one side so that the shot just took a
chunk of powdered brick out of the wall. And he had hold of me
again, the sheer weight of him knocking me over onto my back,
knocking the gun out of my hand, and knocking half the air out of
me. I was frantic - crying out - trying to do him some damage,
trying to get a grip on his ear to rip it off, or his eyes, or his throat.
Anything. But he was holding me too well. I managed a weak
punch to the side of his head - nowhere near hard enough - and
then had time to see him raise his head a little before everything in
my vision exploded. My arms went limp and weak and the world
filled itself with sickening, hollow stars.
Fuck.
My eyes streamed with tears and closed against my will. All my
strength had gone. Someone grabbed my hands and held them
down to either side of me, and the rest of the weight lifted off me a
little. I knew it was coming even though I couldn't see: two hard
blows to the side of the face. Bang, bang. My head went white and
fuzzy and loud. I rolled over on to my side, the rest of the fight
gone out of me.
Someone kicked me very hard in the stomach, just to be sure.
Everything receded as I tried to breathe, but I was aware of two
of them jostling me: pulling me upright and maneuvering me
awkwardly through the nearest door. It seemed such a waste, I
thought - I'd been heading there anyway. I really couldn't breathe
and was going to die, and then I could - just about - and the world
came slightly back to life around me. I'd failed again. Rachel was
still screaming, screaming badly, and at that moment I would have
joined her if I could have drawn enough air into me to let anything
loose.
Where's the gun? I thought.
Somewhere out in the hall still. Too far away.
The men let go of me and I dropped to the floor, eyes closed,
grateful for the comfort of the carpet. Left alone for a moment,
down on all fours, I worked very hard on breathing, trying to blot
out the noises that Rachel was making. I wanted to cry. They didn't
have to hurt her anymore. They'd got me now; they could stop. But
they carried on anyway. Apart from her, the room was strangely
silent. I concentrated on my lungs, counted quietly to myself, and
after thirty seconds my breath had come back to me again. My
nose felt enormous and swollen. I didn't want to open my eyes, but
I did. The carpet was beige. Rachel had stopped screaming. Now,
she was just crying quietly.
'Get him up.'
The two men from the hall - visible now - pulled me roughly to
my feet and then moved away. I was surprised I could stand up
alone. Rachel was on a bed, naked, curled into a foetal position,
facing away from me and shaking slightly. There was a third man
standing close to her, dressed in the neat black suit that seemed to
be standard uniform for all of these people. Standard haircut too:
dark, short, tidy. His face looked a little more worn than the
others, though, and his body seemed a little roomier. Like an older
man who might have bounced in his prime but now mainly just
told other bouncers what to do. I thought back to the photographs
Sean had taken, but didn't recognise him from any of them.
He had a long, thin knife, and he was wiping the blade on the
pillow, leaving small red streaks on the fabric.
'Martin Weaver,' he said.
It was the man who'd given me the address over the phone.
I tried to speak and was quite surprised when I managed it.
'I'm going to fucking kill all of you.'
If I'd known my voice was going to work then I might have
picked something a little more convincing.
He smiled blankly, and then inspected the knife. I guessed it must
have been clean enough, because he folded it up and placed it inside
his jacket. My eyes flicked from him to Rachel, who was still crying
quietly, and then I glanced back to him.
'That's what your friend said when we took him.' The man
wasn't smiling anymore. 'And after a while, he stopped saying that.
He didn't say much of anything.'
The images of Sean's murder hit me again, but it felt different
from when I'd woken up at Kama's. I'd been scared then, but I'd
realised after the first few minutes that I wasn't going to be killed.
But these men were going to take me away and hurt me and there
was nothing I could do to stop them. Worse, they were going to do
the same to Rachel.
'What do you want?' I said. 'You want your boss's fucking
money back? Because I can get you the fucking money back.'
The blank smile returned.
'Right,' he said. 'You see, you're scared now, aren't you?'
'You want the money back?'
'It's not as easy as that.'
'No,' I said. 'Well, you've got me anyway. Why don't you let my
wife go?'
He shook his head.
'That's not going to happen. But you're right - we don't really
need her anymore.' He took the knife back out. 'Would you like me
to kill her?'
'No,' I said. But then I looked at her, curled up on the bed with

streaks of blood on the pillow behind her head, and wondered if
that was the right answer.
The man walked over and stopped in front of me.
'She was easy to pick up,' he said. 'And to begin with, she was
happy to be with me.'
'What do you want?' I said. 'Because I'm not interested in this
shit. If you want to kill me, then just fucking kill me. There's
nothing I can tell you. And if you don't want your money, then
what's the point in this?'
'Like I said,' he told me, 'it's not going to be that easy.'
And then he reached out slowly, the way you might reach out to
touch a lover's face.
Fuck that.
I hit him so quickly that it surprised even me: knocking his hand
away with my left, while throwing good and hard with my right.
The impact was solid but indistinct - I just felt an explosion in my
fist, and then saw him falling backwards onto the bed. The other
men were already moving towards me, one to each side, and so I
just launched myself, swinging hard and fast at the nearest. This
time, I hit nothing. But I felt their strong grip on me, and the room
spun around. I saw the man get up from the bed, seriously pissed
off now, unfolding the knife, and I struggled as best I could but I
was off-balance. The floor suddenly hit me in the shoulder, and a
second later everything went black.

When I woke up I thought I could hear sirens. My head was
pounding, but I lifted it off the plush bedroom carpet and listened. I could hear sirens. Some distance from here, but the sound wasn't
fading. In fact, it was growing louder. I looked around, realising
that I was lying at the foot of the bed, and that my gun was resting
not too far away from my right hand. I seemed to be alone.
Rachel.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbing the gun in the process - an
awkward stumble - and then I stepped back in shock as I caught
sight of the thing on the bed and everything else - the room, the
sirens, the feel of the gun in my hand - went away totally. It was
Rachel. She was naked, and so completely still that it was obvious
she was dead. Cut so much that I could smell the blood. I put my
hand up to my mouth, ready to scream and just collapse, but then
reality slapped my reeling brain and it steadied itself as I began
picking out details. No, it wasn't Rachel. I took a step closer. It
wasn't even female.
I listened. The sirens were very near, and I knew that I had to
leave. Instead, I took another step forwards. My shins touched the
duvet at the base of the bed.
The body had been left curled up on its side, just as I
remembered Rachel lying. A lot of the head was gone. It had been
blown off over the pillows and headboard, but there was enough
left to see that in life this person had worn their hair short. The
colour was pale brown. I walked around the bed and touched the
shoulder with the back of my hand. It was still warm. The man had
been killed recently.
I knelt down and looked at what remained of his face.
Fuck.
I recoiled back, scrambling to my feet and away from the bed.
It was Rich. The house, the kids - they'd brought Rachel to
Rich's house, and then they'd killed him. I looked down at the gun
in my hand and realised what else had been done here. I was now
holding a murder weapon. The police would dig the bullet out of
him and it would match my gun. Worse than that. Lucy worked the
crime scenes.
The sirens. I realised that the noise wasn't growing anymore - it
was right outside the front of the house, not going anywhere. Go. I
ran out of the bedroom and down the stairs as quickly as possible.
Someone banged on the front door just as I reached it.
'Hello?'
I moved down the hallway towards the kitchen. There might be
two patrol cars, I thought, which meant maybe four officers, but
probably not more. At least one of those would be on the driveway
heading for the kitchen door. Presumably, it was still open. I had
seconds.
Into the dining room. I pushed the door closed gently behind me.
'Police. Hello?'
A voice in the kitchen. It was inquisitive and cautious, just like
you'd expect, but there was also an edge to it that I didn't like.
I moved quietly along the side of the room, between the dining
table and the nearest wall. There was nowhere to hide, and it
would have been stupid to try. There was a dead body upstairs.
The police would tear this place apart, top to bottom.
I tried the patio door. It moved a little but then hit the lock,
hitched, angled slightly in its groove.
I glanced back at the closed door. The police would be in the
hallway now, which meant they would have seen the first bullet
hole: the one that had taken a large chunk of the doorframe away.
I turned around, stepped away from the patio doors and without
thinking - fired once into the centre of the glass. There was
a huge explosion, mixed with the sound of the glass shattering
outwards: blistering the air across the garden; taking shreds and
nicks out of the slide.
'Round back,' I heard somebody say. 'Quick.'
I was already clambering through the remains of the patio door,
my mind running away from itself in an effort to keep calm and think at any cost. Panicking would undo me. Was I prepared, I
wondered, to shoot a police officer? Crunches of glass under my
feet, a slight stumble, and then I was sprinting down the garden.
Would I shoot at a cop in self-defence? I didn't know.
'Stop!'
I heard you, I thought, hitting the shaking fence at the bottom of
the garden, scrambling up and over it. But you won't shoot me in
the back when I'm running away.
I landed on the pavement behind the fence - another of the
Fishers, I didn't know which - and immediately ran to my left.
Behind me, I heard a series of steady cracks as police bullets tore
the fence apart where I'd been standing.
'Fuck.'
I ran.
Now, I thought, "I might be able to shoot one of these guys in
self-defence. They were firing at a man's back as he ran away,
through a fence when anyone could have been on the other side.
And they had turned up on the scene pretty fucking quickly, as
well. But then Eli had done this, after all, and Eli powered law and
order. He owned the police.
'Get after him!'
Just keep running, I told myself. Just stay calm.

There was a side road off to the right, and I took it, my feet
hitting the pavement as hard as they could. But my legs felt weak,
both from being unconscious and probably from the adrenaline
too. Had the cops made the road in time to see me take the
turning? I glanced back and saw that they had: there were two of
them, sprinting after me. Much faster than me. As I saw them, one
stopped and took aim. He looked cool and together, aiming
carefully. Fuck. I dodged and ducked, hearing the shot and the
noise as it pranged a car to my right, denting it like a sledgehammer
would. I crouched down behind the back of the vehicle. The cops
were coming closer. Their shoes tapping on the tarmac.
Keep it together.
I got quickly on the ground, as flat to the road as I could, and
watched from under the car. There they were: I could see their legs
as they approached. I took careful aim at the nearest.
'Come out from there,' one of them called out.
Not throw out your weapon, though. I guessed that an unarmed
man might make an awkward victim.
I made sure of the aim. Okay.
The first shot took the cop in the ankle. Two shots, three, and
then he was firing his own gun into the sky as he went down. I'd
already adjusted my aim and squeezed another shot at the second
guy's foot, and then another shot, and a third. He went down off to
one side and started screaming. I heard and felt a bullet smacking
into the car above me, and then a second shattered the windscreen.
I aimed back on the first cop, who was on his side now, trying to
draw on me. I could see his face: grim and in pain and determined;
full of hate. I fired just as his next bullet scraped sparks and dust
from the road beside the car. I caught him somewhere in the body,
and he doubled up like he'd been punched, rolled this way and
that. Let out an agonised screech. But he stopped firing.
Calm for a second, but only in terms of guns and bullets. The
other cop was still screaming, calling out for help. In the distance,
there were more sirens. Closer to, a car alarm was going off, and I
heard a front door slamming shut.
Getting to my feet, it felt like the world was lurching around like
my vision was zooming in even as I staggered backwards. The
cop on the road was barely moving now, and there was blood all
around him. His hands had printed mad, red birds on the tarmac.
The second cop had fallen sideways through a hedge, demolishing
half of it, stippling the pavement and grass with blood from the
stump at the end of his leg. He was still moving - trying to crawl
out of sight.
Everything was in tatters here. Even if I'd had no choice - even if
they worked for Eli and had been trying to kill me - what I'd done
was shoot policemen in broad daylight, and that meant I was
fucked. I couldn't explain this to anyone. Eli had been true to his
brother's promise - his crew had made a good start at excising his
city's little cancers. Whatever had happened here this afternoon, he
couldn't really have lost.
The cop in the garden was crying. With that sound in my ears, I
turned around and I ran away from there as fast as I could.


Chapter Twenty

An hour later, I was sitting in a cemetery in Snake, watching the
early evening sky beginning to bruise. Night would be here soon.
The sky was growing dark, although - as usual - the city gave off a
slight yellow sheen at the horizon that made the air everywhere
seem jaundiced and unwell. Pretty soon, the night would arrive
properly and everything would be black. In the meantime, I sat on
a cold bench in a graveyard and watched patches of stars prickle
into life overhead.
I was shivering badly. Round here - perhaps more than
anywhere - you could sit and catch your death. Right now, it felt
like an option.
The breeze rustled the unkempt grass between the headstones,
which in this light had become a mouldering shade of grey. When
night fell completely it would lose even that. The colours would be
washed away from the world; from the grass, the trees, from
everything.
Jesus. Snake is depressing at the best of times - even in daylight.
Two immense coils of thin streets where nobody wants to live
circling graveyards where nobody does. The district is shaped like
an 'S', with the city's two main cemeteries resting within the curls.
Each of them is a ramshackle place: an unhappy end if ever there
was one. But this one is the worst of the two. The plots come cheap
here and you get exact value for your money: stones that sit at
angles like broken teeth; grounds that are overgrown and barely
tended. You can tell that there used to be religion here at one point,
but now it feels cursed and abandoned, as though not enough
people have bothered believing and something dark and lazy has
seeped in instead. You could splash holy water around and the soil
would sizzle.
There is an old church at the centre of the cemetery, slightly
above everything else, and it still retains a certain black majesty. It
looks as though it might be concentrating hard on something
unpleasant. The bricks are thick with soot and the glass in the
windows is so stained that you can barely differentiate the colours
from the rusted old ribs. Every conceivable entrance was boarded
shut years ago. Nobody ever comes here. You die and end up here,
and nobody comes.
As it grew dark, it was like sitting inside a tomb with a stone
door rolling slowly shut. Night would fall, and it felt like if I didn't
get out soon then I'd be trapped here.

But where could I go?
Out of the city? Ultimately, yes - and I supposed the quicker the
better. That was what my nerves were telling me, anyway. The
police would have my description by now - and they almost
certainly had my fingerprints and the bullets from my gun, even if
they wouldn't have matched them yet. Eli had clearly thought all
this through. Lucy would be in pieces, and pretty soon she would
find out that I was responsible. Fifteen years would lose all
meaning in one crushing instant; and all those emails would
disappear into noughts and ones, fading into black. Perhaps given
time she might believe the truth about what had happened, but for
now - if she found me - God help me.
On top of that, the regular police tended to take the killing of
one of their own quite seriously, and so there would be helicopters,
television coverage, roadblocks: everything. They would do their
best to make sure I didn't leave the city - certainly not alive - and
so in a perfect world I should have been a hundred miles away by
now and still accelerating.
Instead, I was sitting here on this fucking bench. Snake borders
the western edge of Turtle, but it had been a complicated journey
involving lots of back alleys and more than a little awkward
climbing. I'd done it quickly - not stopping running until I'd
reached here and physically needed to - but now that my breath
was back it was surely time to steal another car and get the fuck
out of the city while I still could.
On the other side of the cemetery, a couple of birds were
gathering together for warmth, huddled in the thin, black skeleton
of a tree. It was wavering in the breeze, silhouetted against the
darkening blue sky. Night time is inexorable: shy at first, but then
the world beckons it on and it loses its reticence and charges in. It
would be pitch black here soon. Time to leave.
But thoughts of Rachel kept boiling up from inside me, and my
mind couldn't keep its feet. The thoughts left patterns in my head:
surges of fear and guilt and hate; bubbles of anger and panic. I
couldn't just abandon her. But I didn't even know if she was still
alive. The men had taken her with them, but only because the
set-up demanded it. One body worked better than two to condemn
me.
Despite everything, I'd tried to phone Rosh three times. Each
time, the phone was dead. I was on my own.
I realised that I had started shivering badly, and I rubbed my
hands together slowly, trying not to cry. I felt scared and
powerless, but angry too - I wanted to find these men and kill
them. That wouldn't be so hard. If I hadn't been able to hone a
certain kind of personal rage then I'd never have been able to shoot
a man in the head, or even knock him around his apartment a bit.
So I cultivated that rage now, folding and tightening it until the
thought of Eli and his men made the air in my head ring like a
struck tuning fork. Killing him would be a very easy thing to do.
But then frustration set in, and I stopped rubbing my hands. I'd
seen the photographs that Sean had marked, so I knew what Eli
looked like. But I didn't know where to find him. And so what was
the point in feeling much of anything right now, when there was
nobody here to knock around, nobody to shoot in the head? There
was just me and those fucking birds.
I looked up and saw that the branches of the tree were bare even
the birds had gone. I didn't blame them. The spreading pools
of shadow between the gravestones had met, merged, and now
everything looked black and dead. The breeze remained, though,
feeling more threatening than before.
This was no place to spend the night doing nothing. Whatever
happened next, it was time to go.
I left the cemetery and found the most deserted street I could,
and then I stole another car. I was getting good at that - and even
better at not caring. Any vestiges of civic morality were rapidly
disappearing in the face of an enormous private need. I knocked
the car into gear and set off, glancing at my watch. I was surprised
- it was only eight o'clock, yet it felt like midnight.
As I turned the corner and headed for the northern edge of
Snake, I felt the pull of death from the district behind me, like a
black cloud you couldn't see for the night. And when I crossed the
border into the edge of Lion, it seemed that the cloud was
following me.

Whatever happened next, I needed some money.
There was a cashpoint in Lion that I knew would be safe - or as
safe as these things get. The machine would take a photograph of
me withdrawing funds, but that was okay: nobody knew about my
secret accounts and there would be no alert tags on the numbers. It
was fine. I could smile for the camera, happy in the knowledge that
nobody would ever scan these particular files for someone of my
description.
The streets were busy, which was pretty standard for Lion. It is
the city's smallest district - smaller even than Mouse - and it was
originally named in honour of the abandoned zoo at its heart.
There had been a siege at some ancient point in the city's history,
and after too much time had passed the residents had resorted to
killing and eating the animals in order to stay alive. For whatever
reason - legend says respect, but I imagine that a certain healthy
fear came into it as well - the lions were the only creatures not to
end up on the menu. Nowadays, it is like a mini-Elephant. The zoo
is a concrete park - all fountains and benches - and at lunchtime
you would find executives there, reading in quiet repose or talking
on their phones. The small number of streets around it are full of
expensive, exclusive bars and restaurants packed with people who
could afford to eat exotic animals for pleasure rather than out of
desperation.
Eight-twenty, and the streets were thriving and lively. I pulled up
by the cashpoint and left the engine running.
I had three fake accounts in all. Each of the individuals in
question had been born somewhere different - a long way away
from this city - and they had deposited the money in cash at over
nine different banks, spreading the payments out over a few weeks.
The first man was called Michael Hutchinson. I slipped his card
into the machine and tapped in the PIN I'd given him. And then I
waited.
The blue screen pulsed slightly.
we are dealing with your request. . .
I glanced around at the well-dressed people passing me, feeling
uneasy. There was music from bars; conversations from groups of
drinkers. Laughter. It was subdued, civilised debauchery. There
was nobody anywhere near me. In fact, nobody was paying me
even the slightest attention, beyond the cautious curiosity that a
man with an obviously broken nose has to expect.
But something was wrong.
we are dealing with your request. . .
I pressed cancel.
The screen stayed the same.
'Shit.'
I pressed the button again and again, tapping it furiously.
Nothing happened for a moment, and then the words disappeared.
The blue stayed for a moment - blank and featureless, and it
seemed as though someone was staring right out through it. Then
the bank logo flashed up, followed by a message inviting me to
insert my card.
Get out of here.
I moved straight back to the car, glancing left and right. There
was a steady stream of traffic, but all of it was ignoring me. A
group of people were approaching from further up the street:
young, clubby, rich.
Get the fuck out of here.
I got in and drove away, tyres screeching slightly. This was shit. I
had two more cards, but I didn't fancy my chances with either of
them. It could have been coincidence, but I knew deep down that it
wasn't. How had they found me so quickly? How had they found
me at all?
Gideon, I thought. Gideon runs finance and business, and
traditionally, there was an alignment between Gideon and Eli. As
brothers they had been close, and when Kama had made his move
in the past it had been against both of them. It made sense that the
alignment would stand now, and that if I was up against Eli then I
was up against Gideon as well.
It was bullshit, of course - a part of me had been telling myself
that ever since I'd found Sean's notes and met Kama. People might
be explaining things they had no obvious reason to, and other
people might be appearing out of thin air to back them up, but
there was a sensible, logical explanation for all of it. Whatever was
really going on, there were no brothers and nothing supernatural
was happening. It was just a bunch of criminals at war with a
bunch of cops, with me and my friends stuck in the middle for
being a little bit of both. That was all.
The result was the same, though. I had the small amount of
money in my pocket to live on. Eli - or whoever he was - had
already taken back the money we'd stolen from him. It brought it
home that this was simply about revenge now. Revenge, and
surgery.
So where does a cancer like me go, I wondered, when the doctors
have seen me and are working to remove me? They wanted me to
run, but what if I didn't? Obviously, Eli wasn't intending to kill me
just yet: he was going to leave that to my friends and colleagues - a
far more elegant way of dealing with us. If I ran, I had nothing. If I
didn't, I had a little time to ask some questions. And who knew maybe
get close enough to Eli to make all that rage I'd felt
worthwhile and useful. It wasn't exactly a fantastic set of choices.
Lion rests between Snake and Horse. At the last major turning
before the northern border with Horse, I headed east instead,
cutting back into Turtle, undecided where I wanted to end up. But I
didn't get far. After a minute, the music on the radio faded out,
segueing into the station's news update. I listened carefully,
expecting the main item to be about me and the shootout earlier in
the day. But it wasn't - the newsreader went straight into the buildup
to the annual competition the next day. I listened for a while,
incredulous. Two cops were injured or dead, another man had
been killed, and a neighbourhood was shot to pieces. If anything in
the world constituted main - item material, this afternoon must
surely be it. If it had been covered up, I didn't know whether to be
relieved or even more concerned. How much power did it take to
keep something like that off the news?
Perhaps it would be the second item. I listened carefully as the
newsreader moved on.
A few seconds later, as the car began to swerve, I gathered myself
as best I could, indicated and pulled over onto the hard shoulder.
Then, I sat there and listened, feeling an emotion that was too
intense and complicated to name, and I started to shake.
Earlier in the evening, on the outskirts of Fish, police had found
the mutilated body of a woman in her twenties. It had been
dumped on the canal side in plain view, where it was bound to be
discovered. She hadn't been identified yet, but I knew that it was
Rachel.
I sat there and cried. I wasn't thinking about anything - I just let
my body respond however it wanted, and it turned out to be that.
So I cried, and only my seatbelt kept me from falling sideways and
curling up across the seats. I let this first, uncoordinated burst of
anger and grief run its course, and then after a while I pulled myself
into enough of a state to start driving again. My hands were
trembling as I rejoined the stream of traffic, but I could hold the
wheel steady if I concentrated and I thought it would be okay.
There wasn't that far to go. And so, a little more slowly than
before, but decided now, I took another turning and made my way
north.

Wasp at night time was the same as during the day, except busier
and - strangely - more beautiful. It was the lights, I thought, as I
made my way through the crowds. There were hundreds of lights
in hundreds of colours, all reflecting off puddles and windows, off
the sheen of rain that had soaked into the yellow flagstones and
made them look like bars of gold. The pubs were dark caves that
had fires burning at the mouths. In the buildings between them,
women were dancing slowly in illuminated shopfronts, lit up in
gorgeous red monochrome like pieces of art. Even the porn shops
were bright and pink and inviting. The chill air was warmed by the
shouts and the music.
'Young lovers. Come inside, young lovers. We have the best
shows, we have the best everything. We--'

The barker cut off his speech mid-sentence as he saw me coming,
and he looked like he was about to run. But I didn't give him the
chance - stepping into his way as the young lovers in question
moved on, oblivious.
'Hi there,' I said. 'Remember me?'
The controlled panic on his face suggested that he did. He started
rubbing his wrist slightly as he cast his gaze around for help.
'Young sir.'
I put my hand in my pocket and glared at him. Hopefully the
message was clear. I was just as crazy and dangerous as I'd been
this afternoon, and now I had a gun as well.
'You do remember me,' I said. 'I can see you're really busy, so
this won't take long.'
He gave up looking for assistance. Instead, resigned to the
situation, he took a drag on his thin roll-up and said:
'What do you want?'
'You saw me this afternoon.'
'Yes, I remember.'
'You remember me being brought back here.'
He blew out some smoke and looked unhappy. It was clearly an
area he didn't much want to comment on. That was too bad.
Kama's men had delivered me here, and if he knew them then
maybe he knew about Eli too.
'I don't--'
'I'm not asking you.' I gave him a patient smile that wouldn't
last. 'I'm telling you. You remember me being brought back. Now,
I want to know about the guys who did the bringing. Who they
were, and what you know about them - what?'
He was quickly shaking his head.
'I don't know about any guys. You come to the club and you
cause trouble. That's all I know.'
'I got brought back here by people. You do know.'
'Please move on, young sir.' He sounded frightened, and he was
looking around again for assistance. Or maybe to see who might be
listening. 'We don't want any more trouble here.'
I thought: Eli killed Rachel.
And then in one fluid movement I had him by the throat,
slamming him back into the wall with one hand and holding him
there.
'Young sir, please!'
The anger was uncontrollable and it was good. Multi-textured,
colourful anger: rage and resentment and self-hatred and guilt all
thrown in for good measure.
Keeping the gun inside my coat pocket, I pushed the barrel into
his gut.
'No "young sir",' I said quietly. 'No fucking "please". You just
tell me, or I'll kill you right here.'
I felt the people walking past on the pavement behind us, their
steps faltering a little as they debated whether to stop and watch,
or maybe even intervene. And I felt them wisely decide to keep
moving. Of course they did. Nobody ever intervenes in this city.
'Please.'
'I'll kill you right here, you piece of shit.'
'I can't say about that!'
I jammed the gun into him even harder, and he started to cry.
'That won't work,' I said, and then again: 'I'll kill you right
here.'
'You come here on your own.' He was sobbing pitifully, working
through his script. 'You come here, you pay, you go in.'
'Don't fucking lie to me.' I wanted to pull the trigger a hundred
times, until he was in pieces. 'You tell me what I want to know.
Tell me about Kama and Eli.'
He shook his head vigorously, waving away the names like they
were curses. He was gabbling as he spoke:
'You come here on your own. You pay, you go in, you here all
afternoon.'
'Fuck you.'
'You here all afternoon.'
I pushed myself away from him and let him fall down onto the
step.
'Fuck you.'
He just crumpled up, ignoring me and sobbing to himself. It was
grimly satisfying, but it didn't help me much. The barker was
scared of someone - of Kama and Eli, their whole bastard family and
because of them he'd rather die than talk to me. I wanted to
start kicking him but if I did then I knew I wouldn't stop. And I
needed to save my anger for the right people.
'Just fuck you,' I said.
And then I turned and headed off - deeper into the red light
district, in the direction of Parker Street. Someone round here
would give me some answers.

The CandiBar.
The shutters were still down and the place looked dead. It was
nine o'clock, so I'd thought it might have opened up by now, but
apparently not. Perhaps it was never open, or maybe you just had
to catch it right. Not out of the corner of your eye, exactly, but if
the path of your life had a comparable angle then perhaps that.
When I was a child, I used to imagine that if I wandered the streets
of the city at night I might find a new path that wasn't there during
the day. With everything that had happened today, that didn't seem
so impossible. And if a path, then why not a fucking nightclub?
You get older and things change.
I rattled the metal over the front door, hearing the sound
reverberate around the empty street. The security cameras were
pointing straight at me, but I couldn't tell if they were working or
not. Behind me, the window where Sean had taken his photographs
was black and hollow: a socket that was missing an eye.
I started banging my fist against the shutter, over and over.
'Come out!'
I kept punching. Somewhere in the distance, a dog started
barking in angry reply. Half the district must be hearing me, but I
carried on anyway.
'Fucking come out!"
Nothing. I looked up at the cameras and they hadn't moved, but
there was something different about them. I wanted to throw a
brick and smash them both off the wall.
The alleyway by the side of the old hotel opposite also continued
on this side of the street: it ran down the side of the CandiBar. I
moved down it quickly, running my hand along the wall. Here was
an old window, blocked by vertical bars; here was another
shuttered door. And here, finally, was a two-metre wall at the back.
There was broken glass embedded in the mortar at the top, but I
climbed it anyway, positioning my fingers carefully and trusting to
luck a little as I hoisted myself up, positioned my right foot and
then heaved myself over, clearing it without cutting myself or
tearing anything. I landed hard in the nightclub's back yard.
It was a neat, paved area: mostly empty - just some old bins, two
broken-open bags of sand and a bit of rubble. The back of the club
had a solid door and a window at ground level. I grabbed a bin lid
and threw it. It bounced off the glass.
'Come out.'
There were a couple of half-bricks on the ground. I picked one
up and threw that instead. This time, the window shattered loudly,
and I felt a surge inside me that was like the feeling I had when the
barker had been on the ground crying.
I knocked the remaining glass teeth from the frame and then
clambered inside. I didn't even bother drawing my gun. There was
no point: if Kama's men wanted to take me then they probably
would. The end result would be the same. At least I would get to
talk to him, and maybe he would tell me what I needed to know.
The window led into an old kitchen, where it was clear from the
emptiness and dust that the place hadn't been used in a long time.
As I looked around, I experienced a crushing sensation - that of
falling away inside myself - and I moved into the dark bar area
beyond somehow knowing exactly what I was going to find there.
Nothing.
I flicked a light switch. Not really expecting it to work, but then
it did. Suddenly there was bright yellow light everywhere, and I
stood in the doorway, surveying the scene. It was a large room with
a bar at the far end, backed by a broken mirror and two long
empty bottle racks. All the taps had been removed. Between me
and the bar was what had once been the dancefloor; now, it looked
like a large, dusty rubber mat. There were booths of tables edging
the walls, and the decor was dark red leather - all the stools and
curved settees were the same, and all the wall hangings too. And all
of it was covered in dust and cobwebs.
It had been a long time since anyone had served or bought a
drink in the CandiBar; and I couldn't imagine that anyone had ever danced. This was the only place I could think of where I might find
some answers, and it was dead. If Kama didn't want me to find
him then I wasn't going to.
My instinct was to collapse in one of the booths, close my eyes
and sleep, but I didn't. There was something else I needed to see,
just to be sure. I found the stairs between the main bar area and the
kitchen and made my way up to the first floor, which consisted of a
shabby main corridor running down the centre of the building and
a number of rooms branching off. As I moved from one into the
other, there appeared to be no real design to any of it - it was as
though someone had built the top floor one room at a time, adding
each on as an increasingly awkward afterthought. Most were
empty, although I found a cupboard containing some old cleaning
equipment, and another room had a locked filing cabinet and a
desk in it.
I explored them all, but long before I finished it was obvious that
this wasn't where I'd been taken this afternoon; Kama had moved
me somewhere else. Sean had taken pictures of him coming here,
but there must have been some other explanation. Perhaps he was
looking at it as a business opportunity. But as things stood, this
place hadn't been open for years.
My anger was unfolding, dissipating, and I began to realise just
how tired and fucking weary I was. I just wanted to rest.
I walked slowly back downstairs, and then into the main bar
area. The sound of my feet echoed slightly on the dirty wooden
floor, and it occurred to me without warning that there was
something familiar about the place. I couldn't work out what: I'd
certainly never been here before. I figured that it must have just
reminded me of somewhere else, and shrugged the feeling off. But
as I turned out the lights and headed towards the back yard again,
it hit me - stopping me in my tracks for a couple of seconds. Not
for long, because I wasn't all that surprised; it made the same kind
of sense as everything else that had happened. The CandiBar was
laid out in exactly the same way as Spooks is.

Back out on the street, a dog was still barking and somewhere - a
street or two away - I could hear a car idling along. But as I stood
in the centre of the road, wondering what to do, neither of them
bothered to make an appearance.
There were things I could follow up, I supposed. There were
Jamie and Keleigh, for one thing. Or else I could make another
effort to contact Rosh or Lucy and at least say something - and I
knew that I probably should. Unfortunately, I didn't have the
slightest inclination to do any of it. Apart from anything else, I'd
barely slept the night before and I was feeling it badly now. But I
also felt beyond all that - segregated from everything and everyone,
and utterly on my own. Perhaps the lack of sleep was colouring my
thoughts or making them misty, because I didn't seem to be able to
think of much. What I wanted to do - all things considered - was
collapse and maybe die.
And so I decided to do the next best thing: go across the road
and break into Sean's hideout again. It would be damp and cold,
granted, but at least I would have a roof over my head and a
mattress to sleep on. And maybe there was some detail in Sean's
research that I'd overlooked: something that might point me
towards Eli. I could read through it again, and fall asleep as and
when necessary.
There didn't seem to be any better options, so I crossed the street
and made my way down to the back yard, and then in through the
window. It was so dark that it worried me for a second, but I had a
vague memory of the layout and managed to make my way into the
hall and up the stairs without tripping and impaling myself on
anything. Made it to Sean's room. I found the torch and turned it
on, resting it on its side near the wall, so that light splayed
upwards, creating the effect of a fireplace, or perhaps an altar; and
then I sat down on the mattress and stared into space.
Not into space, actually. After a few moments, I realised I was
staring at the rifle case that Sean had left here. After a few moments
more, I stood up and went over and opened it. It was all there.
And as I looked down at it, something strange happened: I felt a
huge roar inside my head, as though I was remembering the noise
of many people shouting at the same time. I shook my head to clear
the sound away, and then I closed the case and went back over to
sit on the mattress again. I stared across at it for a little while
longer. Thoughts I couldn't focus on properly were fluttering in my
head, like birds disturbed among the rafters. I shook my head one
last time, unsure exactly what I was thinking, and then I looked at
the papers on the floor.
On top, nearest to me, was the photograph that Sean had cut out
of an old book and had enlarged. I picked it up and ran my fingers
over the closest shot. There were the brothers, up on their balcony,
watching the boxing that was happening below them.
Of course they were there. They would always be there.
Another flash of a memory I'd never had: an arched window at
the far end of a dusty room. Outside, the sky was so bright that the
edges of the windowframe seemed to be dissolving into the light.
Beyond it was the sandy, fractured tapestry of our city.
I put the photograph down, understanding now where I would
be able to find Eli and what it was I was going to do. The ringing in
my ears had returned, but I did my best to fight it down and keep it
out of my mind. Instead, I picked up one of Sean's notebooks and
began to read what he'd written. And this time, I understood.

Imagine you're walking on a long road. You can't see where it
leads but you know it must lead somewhere, and to find out where
you just have to carry on walking. While you're on this road,
you're only ever experiencing a small portion of it at any one time,
but you know that it's just a question of dimensions: that every
metre of it exists already, and that if you took yourself up into the
sky you'd be able to look down and see the whole thing, laid out
from one end to the other. You just need to go up a dimension
roughly,
from two to three. Well, that's what time is like too.
Because you're stuck in it you can only experience it one footstep at
a time. But if you could move up another dimension, just as with
the road, you'd be able to see every moment laid out in turn.
You can't visualise it properly, but if you could see time from a
distance in this way then you'd notice tendrils of life running
through it: little glowing ribbons of existence, like swirls in a
marble. Every moment of your life would be there for you to see,
all lying next to one another. To you right now, everything feels
momentary and transient, as though you're travelling through life
from one end to the other, but from the outside you'd be able to see
that everything was laid out from the beginning. All the points on
the road are there already. From a perspective like that, there's no
such thing as death. There's only the fact of your life, hanging there
- pulsing with everything you've ever done and ever will do.
From within, life can feel arbitrary and pointless: a series of
random events that send us into collisions with others. There's no
real meaning or explanation to it beyond the fluttering dust of
physical laws that waft around us. But who knows? Perhaps from
the outside it looks different. You might notice that all these bright
strands of life form a pattern - that sections repeat and spiral
around their neighbours with more regularity than we can see from
within. It's possible that from the outside, despite how it feels to us
now, everything is very ordered and beautiful.


Chapter Twenty One

I woke up with the memory of crunching glass. My eyes flicked
open.
It was still night time and it took me a second to remember
where I was. There was something surreal about the room: it was
all floorboards and paper and dust, lit from an ungainly angle.
Sean's hideout. I'd fallen asleep with the torch still on. It was
pointing at the wall beside me, and the light was stretching up the
plaster like a candle-flame. It was also doubling back on itself,
pooling around the torch and then cascading across the floor and
out into the hallway. How fucking stupid was this?
I propped myself up on one arm and listened carefully. No more
crunching glass.
Ten seconds passed with no sound whatsoever - just that awful,
premonitory ringing - but my heart was beating like I'd woken up
drunk, and I kept staring at the doorway.
Another ten, fifteen seconds of nothing. Then, I saw the light
start shifting in the hallway. It didn't make sense and then it did.
Someone was in here - at the bottom of the stairs - with a torch of
their own.
I got to my feet quickly. Where was my gun? I fluffed my hand
over the dark mattress a couple of times and found it, just as
something creaked downstairs. Shit. I picked up the rifle case and with
a rueful glance back at all Sean's papers and books - I made
my way out into the hallway as quietly as I could.
Torchlight flickered across the top of the stairs. Then, it
disappeared back down and I heard another creak. Someone was
making their way slowly up the stairs. More creaks. I backed down
the hallway, but I knew that there wasn't going to be time to get
into one of the other rooms. I caught quick, bulky movement at the
top of the stairs; a silhouette; flashing shadows. I raised my gun just
as light dazzled my eyes, but before I pulled the trigger the light
passed over me, zig-zagging back and forth over the doorway to
Sean's room. I just stood there frozen as the big figure paused at the
entrance. He had a torch in one hand and a gun in the other.
Rosh.
I stared at his illuminated profile for a second, but then he
stepped forward and moved into the room. Somehow, he hadn't
seen me; he'd moved his torch straight over me and not noticed I
was there. I was still aiming my gun at the empty hallway. How the
hell had he found me here?
Part of me wanted to call out to him, but I didn't. He had his gun
drawn and he seemed . . . what? Full of purpose, I realised. The
truth was that Rosh didn't draw his gun unless he thought he was
going to use it. I'd have drawn mine too, coming into a place like
this at night, but as far as Rosh knew I'd shot two cops that
afternoon, and probably killed Rich too. I didn't know how much
of that Rosh either knew about or believed, but he would certainly
be wanting answers from me. And he'd probably be quite careful
about his safety while getting them.
I took a tentative step forwards. Despite the earlier fluke, I
figured it was going to be impossible to get past the open doorway
and down those stairs without him seeing or hearing me. I could
hide in one of the other rooms but he was bound to look in them all
eventually.
I heard the sound of papers moving, and guessed that he was
looking through Sean's collection. The moment he rested his hand
on the bed he'd feel that it was warm and he'd know someone was
still here.
Sooner or later, this was going to have to be done.
I walked to the doorway and turned to face into the room. Rosh
looked up immediately. He was sitting on the edge of the mattress
holding the book of myths in his hands, his gun close beside him.
The light was turning his oddly-shaped face into something far
more monstrous. I raised my own gun slightly. Not pointing at him
exactly - just letting him know it was there.
'Martin.'
'Easy,' I said. 'I hate to do this to you, Rosh. I really do. But I
need you to move that gun over my way. Pick it up by the barrel.'
He looked at me for a second. Perhaps he was weighing up the
likelihood of me shooting him. I really didn't know what would
happen if he made a move instead of doing as he was told - maybe
I would actually have done it. And that seemed to be the conclusion
he came to as well, because a moment later he picked the gun up
slowly and then slid it over the floor towards me. It finished at my
feet.
That's cool,' I said. Thank you.'
'No, it's not cool,' he said, nodding at my hand. 'It's greedy.'
'Okay.'
I slipped the gun into my pocket. I could still get to mine before
he did his, but a token gesture was better than none.
'Happy?'
'A little closer to being cool,' he said. 'Yeah.'
His expression was utterly blank, like someone who was just
soaking up his situation and leaving the thinking for later. I looked
at him, searching for some sign that he was on my side. It wasn't
there, of course, but at least he didn't seem angry. In fact, he
looked slightly sad, and that deflated me. It was like my fucking
dad was here, disappointed with my behaviour.
He said, 'So. Let's talk.'
'Okay. What I'd really like to know right now is what you're
thinking, Rosh. I've had a weird afternoon.'
'I'll bet. What I'm thinking about what?'
'About me, I guess.'
'About you? Okay. I don't know what to think at the moment. I
want you to tell me everything, and then maybe I'll make my mind
up.'
'Everything?'
'Yeah.' He sat forwards a little; but not quite enough to make me
nervous. 'I'll start you off. Tell me why I got a call from Rob
Hedge's flat earlier on this evening and found his body there
waiting for me.'
It took me an entire blank second to realise what he'd just told
me.
'They killed Hedge?'
'Someone killed Hedge,' he said. 'Yeah. And a number of
independent witnesses gave a pretty good description of you.'
'I was there,' I said. 'But I didn't kill anyone.'
Except that probably wasn't true - I'd killed him just by turning
up there. By taking the money in the first place. By carrying on
Sean's investigation. All of it. Pick a fucking reason.
'We've got the bullets,' Rosh said. 'They took three of them out
of his head. Are they going to match your gun?'
I shook my head. They won't match my gun.'
'Well, I guess we'll find that out. What about the two cops this
afternoon, then? We have CCTV footage of you running, and the
next bit is out of frame but both of them ended up getting shot.
What about those bullets?'
Those ones will match,' I said. 'But they were trying to kill me,
Rosh. It was self-defence. Just like last night.'

'It's different to last night.' Rosh shook his head. There's any
number of fucking reasons why it's different. Try a practical one:
nobody knows about last night. I'm sure you don't need me to tell
you this, but there's a lot of people out there just itching to kill you
right now.'
'Oh, I can imagine,' I said. 'Are you one of them?'
He gave me that sad look again.
'I'm surprised you even have to ask.'
'It seems a pretty pertinent question,' I said, nudging his gun
with my foot.
'Well, you've got one of those too, Martin.'
That's true. So what do you think? You honestly think I killed
Hedge and the others? Rich? You think I killed Sean}'
He stared at me. The sadness seemed stronger than before.
'I don't know what to think,' he said.
'You even have to think} Jesus Christ, Rosh. Think of what
we've done together. You know me.'
'Yeah, I know you. And I want to help you. That's why I want to
hear your side of things. But if you want to know what I'm half
thinking, it's this. You're scared of something. I think what that kid
Jamie told us is probably mostly true, but I'm also thinking that
maybe these people got to you after they got to Sean, and that
you're running scared, maybe covering something up, getting
yourself into a bigger fucking mess with every step. Working for
them the way Harris did.'
That's what they want you to think,' I said. They're dividing us
up, Rosh. Can't you see that?'
'Martin, I don't know what I'm fucking seeing.'
'Nobody got to me,' I said. 'I'm not covering anything up. The
big fucking mess point, though - I'll give you that one.'
'I tried to call you all afternoon,' Rosh said, leaning back a little.
'I got no answer. Tried your flat. You weren't there.'
'I know I wasn't.'
Then things clicked into place a little. What Jamie had said;
what you said. I ended up calling Alison's parents, and that
brought me here.' He looked around thoughtfully. 'So - is all this
stuff yours or Sean's?'
'It's Sean's,' I said. 'But I've looked through it.'
'It seems pretty crazy, what I've read of it so far.'
I didn't say anything. Pretty crazy was exactly what it was - but
then Rosh hadn't been through what I had that afternoon. And
what could I tell him to convince him? About Eli and Kama? A day
of being knocked unconscious and having henchmen materialise
out of thin air can do a lot to alter a guy's outlook, but I doubted
that Rosh was going to believe a word of it right now. It was
almost as an afterthought that I accepted that I did. It had been
dogging me all afternoon, and it had obviously attacked properly
when I was asleep and couldn't fight it off. Conviction.
Strangely, I felt a hell of a lot better and calmer for it.
Rosh gestured at Sean's notes. 'So what's all of this about?'
'It's about the people who've done this,' I said. 'I don't know
how to explain it or how much of it's true. But we've taken
someone's money and really pissed them off, Rosh. And as strange
as it seems it's all to do with that shit there.'
'Halloran's money? So tell me about the someone it belonged to.'
'I don't know how to start,' I said. 'But I can tell you that he
killed Rachel.'
Rosh looked surprised for a second, and then I saw him begin to
understand something. 'Is that why you did it?'
'I'm not doing anything the way you mean it,' I said. 'They took
her this afternoon. That's why I went to Rich's house. They made
her phone me, and she told me that they'd hurt her. That's why I
went there. So that I could ... I was trying to get her back.'
'And what happened?'
There were too many of them.' I shook my head, feeling utterly
crushed. I wanted to say, they weren't normal, but I couldn't. 'Just
too many. They had Rachel there, and I tried to save her but I got
knocked out. When I woke up, they'd taken her and left Rich's
body. I didn't kill him; I was just set up. And then they found
Rachel dead in Fish this evening.'
Rosh chewed this over for a moment. I just stood there, waiting
for him to reply.
'So let's get back to this someone,' he said. 'Who's doing this to
us?' Us.
A small word but a good one, and for a second I found myself
taking comfort from it.
'Someone in the police,' I said - and then started to babble as I
tried to explain it all at once. 'We got tricked into taking his money
when we killed Halloran, and he's been looking for it ever since.
Started with Alison and her friends. He blackmailed Harris, and so
Harris turned Sean in when he caught up with the kids, and that's
when this guy killed Sean and found us.'
'Someone in the police?'
'Sort of,' I said. 'His name's Eli.'
And I'm going to kill him.

Rosh picked up the book again and started leafing through it.
Found the page.
'Eli - as in this Eli in here?' he said.
Fuck it.
'Yes.'
'So - some kind of demon, then?' Rosh raised an eyebrow at me.
'Some kind of fucking ghost is doing all this to us? A man who
comes out of the walls, right?'
'I've seen men come out of the walls this afternoon.'
'Really? Well I've yet to have that fucking privilege, Martin.'

'I hope you don't have to.' Something else occurred to me, then,
and I said, 'How's Lucy doing?'
He closed the book and looked at me with the contempt I no
doubt deserved. 'How do you think she's doing? She doesn't know
anything anymore, Martin - worse than me. At the moment, I
suggest you stay well away from her, because if she sees you right
now she's not going to be doing any fucking talking.'
I nodded. 'Where is she?'
'I don't know right now.'
He wasn't even going to trust me with that.
They're fucking with us, Rosh,' I said. 'Please don't buy into it. I
know what you're thinking, but I'm being set up. You must realise
that.'
'Okay,' he said. 'You want to convince me? Come in with me.'
I actually laughed.
'No.'
He was staring at me. 'I'm fucking serious, Martin. You trust me
and maybe I'll trust you.'
For about a second, I considered it. But the man who was behind
all this owned the police, and Rosh didn't understand that right
now. He might try to keep me safe, but half the police would
cheerfully kill me as soon as look at me - even the ones who
weren't in Eli's pocket. And there was something else, too. My
mind kept returning to what I'd seen in the hallway - Rosh turning
up with the gun. There was something I didn't like about the
image. And what had he said a moment ago? I tried to call you all
afternoon. Got no answer. But I'd been the one ringing him. I
didn't have any missed calls.
'I don't think I can do that,' I said, wanting to take a step back
and only just stopping myself.
'Why not?' Rosh stood up. 'So, you don't trust me?'
I reached down and picked up his gun - one smooth motion and
if he'd been thinking about crossing the distance between us he
certainly didn't do it now. That same disappointed look was on his
face, but as I watched it hardened into something more serious.
'What's in the case?' he said.
I looked down at the case to the side of me. Looked back up.
Said nothing.
He'd tried to phone me all afternoon, but I'd had no missed calls.
Talk to me, Martin,' he said. 'Please. Tell me what's really going
on.'
'No,' I said. 'Stay where you are. I don't know what to think
anymore.'
'Martin--'
'No.' I shook my head, finally taking a step back. I picked up the
rifle case and said, 'I'm gonna leave you your gun. I'm gonna leave
it outside in the yard. You wait up here in the meantime and you
don't come after me.'
'Don't do this.'
'It's done, Rosh. I'm telling you. Just wait up here.'

He stared at me, and there was something about the look on his
face that made me want to die inside.
'I won't come after you,' he said.
'Okay.' I nodded. 'For what it's worth, best of luck.'

'For what it's worth, the same.'
And then I made my way quickly downstairs and out into the
night. Rosh was true to his word: he didn't follow me. In fact, as
I'd moved away, I saw that he'd stopped watching me altogether.
Instead, he was reading.


Chapter Twenty Two

I spent the night moving from coffee shop to bar to coffee shop,
working my way back across the district but not wanting to linger
in any one place for too long. The first bar I went, I headed straight
to the bathroom and cleaned up a little: washed the blood off my
face and gave myself an honest appraisal. My considered opinion
was that the swelling had gone down but I was still ugly, which I
could live with. From there, I just kept moving. After a while, my
small amount of funds was very much depleted, but that wasn't
going to make much difference. More importantly, so much coffee
on an empty stomach is never a good thing, and - even with my
training - by three in the morning I knew I'd be sick if I drank
anymore. I wasn't hungry, but I bought a burger wrapped in greasy
paper from an all-night van - a little oasis of bright light and steam
and sizzle - and then ate it slowly, sat on a bench. The rifle case
was resting at my feet. I didn't look at it once, but its presence was
heavy. It seemed to have more weight than I did right now.
Wasp was thick with people. The boxing would be starting in
about six hours, and a lot of people went out the night before and
drank until dawn, moving towards the main square with their
heavy eyes and slightly spinning heads. The bars I went in were
standing-room only. Groups of men and women were watching the
pre-match build-ups - interviews with the fighters and their camps,
footage of the various districts' preparations and celebrations, and
re-runs of memorable contests from the past. There was an air of
expectation out in the streets: more food stands than usual; more
noise. It was like being at an open-air festival. Everyone was
loosening up a bit.
Eating my burger, I watched the people and envied the sense of
freedom and ease on display. A year ago, I arrested a construction
worker who'd got into a fight outside his local bar. He'd beaten the
other man so badly that he'd died right there on the pavement.
Sean and I went to his house, expecting him either to have run or
else for us to have real trouble bringing him in, but when we
arrived he was sitting on his doorstep waiting for us. He was very
sad, but also calm and resigned. In the interview room, we let him
light up a cigarette and he told us that he'd spent the night sitting
on the bed beside his wife, watching her sleep, and then gone
outside to watch the sun rise. He'd never done either of those
things before, he said, and he would probably never do them again;
for the life of him, he couldn't imagine how he'd been so careless as
to let these things go. You never knew what you had until it was
gone, and all that. Life speaks louder at death.
At the time, Sean and I had nodded - but basically had our usual
lack of sympathy for the killer. We'd seen the victim after all, and
we'd seen his family too. But right now, watching a careless world
go by, I understood everything much better, and I felt a certain
empathy with him. My life was over. Even if I succeeded in killing
Eli and survived the next day, it all just boiled down to running
now. It was over for me. Like that construction worker, I simply
couldn't imagine how it had happened. It really shouldn't have
ended up like this.
Right now, I would have given anything to be sitting on the edge
of my bed seven months ago, watching my wife sleep and thanking
God I hadn't lost it all.
I finished my burger and stood up, screwing the paper into a
damp ball. Time to go. At the edges, the sky was beginning to
lighten from black to blue, and it would be best to get to the main
square before dawn broke. There were routes I could take that
more or less avoided the cameras, but even so.
A group of people walked past me, arms around each other.
They all seemed to be as drunk as physically possible, and their
loud conversation was distracting. My gaze followed them as they
headed off. To the main square, no doubt - and by more
straightforward roads than me. It was still early, but people often
set up vague drunken camps to make sure they had a good view. A
balance was required: I needed enough people to be able to move
around unnoticed, but before long it would be too busy to move
much at all. So I followed the group of people up the street for as
long as I could, and then I turned off down the quieter roads where
I wouldn't be seen.

The sky was dark blue above me when I arrived, but already the
colour of daylight above the roofs of the nearest buildings. I stood
on the edge of the main square, looking up at the balconies that
stretched around above me. Across the elevated boxing ring and on
the other side, they were far enough away to look painted and
frozen and still. Crowds of people were milling around. The ones
who were here already - a few thousand, at least - sat in dark
huddles, dotted across the square. There was still plenty of room to
move between them, and so I did - making my way over in the
general direction of the old clocktower, which towered a full four
storeys above even the tallest of the other buildings. As I went, I
took in the murmurs of conversation, and the smell of frying food
and steam and alcohol. A few people, in contempt of the event's
official regulations, were feeding torn-off strips of card and paper
into small bonfires. Most were just sipping from cans. The morning
air was cold, but the sheer number of people and sensations gave
the square a feeling of warmth.
I walked through this, carrying the rifle in its case at my side, and
nobody paid me the slightest attention. There were yellow-vested
stewards around, mostly wandering along in pairs, but they didn't
seem interested in anyone. A few of them were putting out fires
with great bursts of foam from handheld canisters; others were
engaging in jovial small-talk with settled groups of revellers. They
were no threat. There were police here, as well, but they were few
and far between - easily avoided for now. I was nearly at the base
of the clocktower before I encountered the first problem.
Four policemen. Three of them were in ordinary uniform, but
there was something about them that screamed 'specialist'. They
were too straight and serious, for one thing, but they held
themselves well - poised and confident. The fourth man was
different. He was plain-clothes, overweight and slightly ramshackle,
eating a sandwich as he gave them their instructions. I
recognised him immediately: Carlton. I'd worked with him a few
times, and he was sure to recognise me if he saw me.
About fifty metres away from them, I stopped and sat down
between two groups of drinkers. Occasionally, I looked up to
check what was happening. From that distance, the conversation
was silent, but it was clear that the three men were here to stay.
Carlton wasn't. I kept glancing over, seeing his orders delivered in
mime. The fourth time I looked up, he wasn't there.
I looked around quickly, trying to locate him, and then saw him:
moving through the square, heading almost directly for me. He had
his sandwich clenched between his hands and seemed to be
concentrating on eating it. I lowered my head, studied the tarmac
in front. If he saw me, that was it. I reached inside my jacket, took
hold of my gun and counted to ten.
People were wandering past. Someone next to me stood up and
staggered behind me, nudging me with his thigh. Neither of us
acknowledged the contact, and I just kept staring at the ground.
Why hadn't I bought a hat, or something? The rifle case was just
there beside me: plain as anything. I might as well have been spotlit,
or marked with a great big fucking neon sign.
I reached ten, and then forced myself to start again. After that, I
looked up - just in time to catch a glimpse of Carlton's trench coat
as it swished past behind me. For a second, I could hear his slightly
laboured breathing. And then he was gone.
I turned my head slowly to follow him away through the crowds.
His thick back disappeared off, heading away in the direction I'd
originally come in. He hadn't given me so much as a second glance.
I looked down and then - after a moment - back towards the
clocktower. The three policemen had moved away a little, but they
were still near enough to be a real problem. Each of them was
scanning the crowds with a look of politeness. Just appraising - no
harm meant - but it was scanning nevertheless. I thought that they
were probably just checking out the people in general, and not
specifically looking for me, but they'd surely notice me eventually.
Would they have seen pictures? Even if they hadn't, it felt as
though guilt was coming off me like heat, making the air above me
waver and shiver.
I watched them for a while, and they stayed exactly where they
were. More people were arriving the whole time, drifting in all over
the square. The policemen remained at their post, steadily
observing them all in a thoroughly professional manner. At least
they were ignoring me right now. It was a small consolation.
Somehow, I had to get past them and into the clocktower. I knew how to get in. When I'd been a patrolman, one of my regular duties
had been to call round and flush out the drunks and the homeless
from the ground-floor level. Generally, that meant shining a light
around at a lot of squinting faces, agreeing with my partner that it
was empty, and then going away again. The front was locked and
boarded, but at the rear of the tower there was a smaller building
tacked on. You could get into that through a patch of wasteground
in a nearby yard, and from there into the abandoned foyer of the
tower itself.
The side-road leading to the wasteground was right there - I
could see it, almost to the exclusion of everything else. It ran down
by the side of the main entrance. Zoom back a little and there were
the policemen, standing just to the right of it by the front steps of
the clocktower. Not blocking it but, nevertheless, bang in the
fucking way.
I looked over at the policemen. They still weren't looking at me,
but they must have at least seen me by now. If they were
specifically after me was there any real percentage gain in hanging
around and doing nothing? Specialist guys, all three of them. All
armed.
I stood up. Time to get a hot dog.

Confidence is everything in life. You can try it on your friends.
Think of the wildest story you can. Go through it a hundred times
in your head until you know it off by heart and you're convinced
it's real, and then go and tell it to one of your friends - just drop it
into conversation, as casually as you can. You can make anyone
believe anything, for the simple reason that people usually want to
believe you. All you need is someone with no reason not to trust
you and a good story that you believe in enough to tell straight.
Mix them together, and you have truth. For a lot of people, that's
all truth really is.
It doesn't have to be your friends; it can be your enemies too.
Find a bad neighbourhood and walk through it. If you walk around
like you're at home there then you're a lot less likely to be bothered
than someone trudging along with their head hung low, waiting to
get attacked. Sit on a train through the area. If you look like you're
not nervously waiting for the journey to end, you'll see how much
easier it is to get where you're going. Subtle lies, told with
confidence. It's genetic - predators pick off the weak members of
the herd and don't waste their time with the ones that might fight
back enough to hurt. Like blind faith, if you project strength then it
comes.
So that's what I did. Once I'd decided what I was going to do, I
tried not to think too much about it. There was nothing to stop me
going down the road the policemen were waiting by - and a few
groups of people had done so while I'd been sitting there. There
was no reason why I shouldn't be one of them. I kept telling myself
that.
I bought a hot dog from the nearest shack. The guy behind the
counter was fat, and his bottom lip curled out and wobbled slightly
as he stabbed a bread bun onto what looked like a thin, metal
dildo. Then, he plucked out a pale, quivering sausage from a heat
tank at the front, shook off the water and squashed it into the hole
in the bread. A blast of ketchup. He didn't look at me the whole
time.
Thanks,' I said, accepting the food and handing over my money.
Two-ninety-nine. I took the change, realising that I now had a
single penny to my name. That was okay.
Once I had the hot dog, there were about twenty seconds when I
needed not to think. I just started walking: straight across the
corner of the square, heading almost directly towards the policemen.
The rifle case was in my left hand, furthest away from them,
and the hot dog was in a wrapper in my right. One of them glanced
up as I got close, but I didn't pay him any attention. I just
concentrated on my meal: scrunching up the greasy paper so as to
take a bite. It was genuinely foul, and the disgusted expression on
my face wasn't hard to fake. I walked into the side road, not even
glancing back.
Nothing happened, but I knew it was fine before that. They
hadn't been looking out for me at all. Either they were just regular
crowd control, or else they were watching out for someone else
entirely.
I kept walking for a minute before turning right into a thin
alleyway, and then I doubled back on myself to reach the
wasteground. It was bordered by a wall, but I was getting used to
scaling these - I rested the rifle case on top and then hoisted myself
up and over. The wasteground was probably about the size of a
small football field, and it was mostly overgrown with dark grass
from unpleasant soil. Apart from a haphazard row of large bins
abandoned distantly down one side, it was entirely empty. And
relatively quiet, too: the clocktower rising up at the far end
drowned out a lot of the noise from the square. I walked along by
the wall, watching out for movement, but there was nobody to see
- just wavering grass. When I reached the far end, I pushed the
rusted, old door on one of the buildings. It shrieked slightly,
bending rather than opening, but it was enough for me to clamber
awkwardly inside.
The building was dead and silent; I moved through the corridors
that would take me to the foyer of the clocktower without hearing
or seeing a soul. Perhaps they'd swept the place and cleaned
everyone out already, because even the entrance hall turned out to
be quiet and still. It was about thirty metres from one side to the
other, and at one time it had probably been quite something. Now,
it was just empty space and piles of shattered timber layered with
dust and muck. In one place there were the remains of a fire; a few
discarded needles and bottles; spatters of bird shit; old paper. The
air was slightly misty and smelled strange, like a dirty bedroom
that had been closed up for too long.
Okay.
A half-broken staircase curled upwards in one corner, leading
into a ceiling that was mostly gone. The elaborate structures of
floors and steps that had once filled the tower and made it famous
were mostly either scattered around me or had been removed and
taken elsewhere. I could hear birds fluttering overhead.
Even if the foyer had been cleared out - and even if the police
came in again every once in a while - I doubted anyone would be
checking above the first floor, and certainly not above the second.
To go up there, you'd have to be either suicidal or insane.
And with that thought in mind, I walked over and started to
climb.

Chapter Twenty Three

Another roar.
I stood up and went across to the window, stopping slightly back
from it so that the barrel of the rifle wouldn't stick out. If anybody
in the crowd - police or civilian - was distracted enough to look
upwards then it was possible that they might notice; unlikely, but I
didn't want to be caught.
That was almost surprising to realise. On my way here, I'd
imagined that I wouldn't care too much: that to all intents and
purposes this would be it for me - the end - and it wouldn't really
matter what happened afterwards. I might get shot or jump; or I
might escape. I hadn't really been thinking about anything beyond
putting a bullet into Eli. But even if I didn't care on the surface,
deep down I still very much wanted to get out of here alive, and my
subconscious had been working on the problem.
If my aim was what it used to be then it would be one shot,
maybe two. The noise from the crowd would cover that. It was
possible that I could be out of here and away before anyone on the
ground even realised anything was going on. Certainly the crowd
wouldn't know, and it would probably take the police at least a
couple of minutes to coordinate themselves. So, if I took the shot
and left immediately then maybe I'd be all right. I could dream.
All but one of the eight fighters had arrived now, and each of the
seven already there was with his respective camp. These were
situated a short distance away from the ring itself, with one
roughly at each corner and the others positioned halfway along the
sides. The boxers were warming up: rolling their shoulders into
punches; pacing; having their necks massaged by their trainers.
They looked focused and thoughtful. There was a great deal of
tradition weighing down on them here, and a lot of expectations. I
was almost sorry I was going to tarnish their big day.
A final roar.
I lifted the rifle, peered through the scope and tracked the final
boxer as he made his way through the crowd. Eight fighters, now.
The draw had been done weeks ago, live on television. There
would be four bouts; then two; then the final. By the end, it would
only be training, fitness and heart that decided the winner. That
was in theory, anyway. The event itself might not go the distance,
depending on how much disruption I caused.
I moved my aim back across the ring and up slightly, turning my
attention across hordes of people and then towards the balcony on
the opposite side of the square. It was a few storeys below me and
so the angle was oblique, but I could see enough to work with. The
ringing in my ears intensified as I saw them. All eight of them.
More than eight, in fact. There were several old men, with police
officers standing behind them and a few other people sitting
amongst them or standing to one side. Some of them were clearly
additional bodyguards beyond the police presence, but others
weren't. Perhaps they were officials or business people, or
important council men. Who could tell? I moved the scope over
their faces. Most of them weren't paying attention to the square
below them; they were talking to one another or staring into space.
Drinking champagne, I noticed. It all seemed very fucking genial.
Three in, I found Kama and paused on him. He wasn't talking to
anyone; he was one of the few men actually looking down at the
boxing ring, and at the moment his expression was blank. As I
watched him, he coughed into his fist, and then looked up as a
hand reached in from the right, passing him a glass of champagne.
He took it and appeared to say thank you, but then his attention
returned to the main square.
The roar of the crowd again. This time, it didn't stop. Down
below, the first match was about to begin.
I adjusted my aim. The scope moved to the left, scanning over
the faces, one by one. Most of them were just fat old men in suits,
grown glossy and tight from feeding on the city's rotten scraps, but
you could tell the brothers from the rest. They were just as old, but
they still looked lean and hungry, as though everyone around them
had forgotten how tenuous things could be but they still remembered.
I passed over each in turn, moving up to the seats behind
and then back to the right. There - Eli. I paused, his head resting
between the crosshairs. Wind resistance aside, I could pull the
trigger now and put a bullet into his left eye. It would exit
somewhere around the back of his neck and remind him that life
could be tenuous in exactly the same way power was.
He was on the second row, fourth from the left.
Back to the ring. The first two fighters - representing Snake and
Turtle - were at opposite corners, dancing from one heel to the
other to keep warm, occasionally swerving a little, lightly punching
the air. I could see the slight give in the canvas at their feet and the
sheen of the morning sunlight on their gloves. The referee was
standing in the centre, hands held neatly behind his back, staring
into space and smiling slightly: dealing with the thrill of the
occasion by being very calm. Beside him, the ME was speaking into
a black microphone, giving the details of the bout and geeing up
the crowd. His voice was blaring out of down-turned speakers on
two-storey poles. From up here, it was a nasal, unintelligible dirge,
but I got the general idea of it from the crowd's reaction. This was
going to be the best thing in the world and everybody had better
get ready.
I moved the aim of the scope back up to the balcony, searching
out Eli again. Adjusted slightly. I wouldn't risk an actual headshot
with other people so close to him, but I could see enough of his
body to aim for that and feel confident about landing the hit.
There.
And then I did nothing. I just held my aim and stared at Eli.
From this far away, my impression was that he didn't look like
much - just one old man on a balcony of many - but as I watched I
realised it was possible to make out the sort of person that he was.
Like his brothers, he radiated a certain kind of power, as though he
was a creature of sinew and muscle sitting amongst men made of
fat. A predator that was choosing not to kill. And there was a
hardness about him too - even more so than his brothers. He was
law and order, but not the friendly kind who might have walked in
amiable pairs through your neighbourhood when you were a child.
Instead, Eli looked like a drill sergeant. He wasn't morality; he was
authority. He was the older brother who bullied you into doing
what was best without explaining why or even caring what you
thought. If I'd ever wondered how a man who controlled law and
order could do the things I knew he'd done, the question
disappeared completely as I looked at him.
He had simply done what he needed to do in order to keep the
city's clockwork ticking. Perhaps it should have been surprising
that someone might torture and kill in supposed pursuit of
improving the world, but if so then who was I to be surprised?
I allowed that surge of hate and anger to well up inside me. It
was almost overwhelming. I let it build until it filled everything,
and I saw very clearly that I hated myself as much as him. My
mistakes and motives were laid out clearly in front for me to see.
This wasn't even a matter of revenge. Rachel and Sean wouldn't
have wanted me to take that for them: it wasn't my place anymore.
And taking it for myself felt empty and wrong. The guilt was falling
correctly now, like coins in a counting machine, and I knew that I
wanted this man dead for everything we'd both done.
Down below, I was dimly aware of the boxers approaching the
centre of the ring. The referee began his standard speech; the drone
through the speakers was indistinct, but I knew what he was
saying. Nice clean fight, break when I tell you. I centred in the
middle of Eli's chest. It wasn't overly windy and it wasn't that far
in the grand scheme of things.
Back to your corners and come out fighting.
The noise from the crowd became almost unbearably loud: a
terrifying rumble of cheers and shouts, rising up at me like wind. It
felt as though the stone floor and walls of the tower were shaking
with anger; as though the air was trembling and pounding itself.
The bell rang and the fighters came together, both throwing the
first punch. I closed my left eye and adjusted ever so slightly to the
right. Licked my lips. And then I pulled the trigger.
My aim was slightly off, but it was okay: the bullet hit Eli in the
top of his head, knocking it to one side and leaving a puff of blood
in the air. He slumped in his seat, all the tension in him suddenly
gone, and then his head began to spurt arcs of blood over his
neighbour. For a second, he seemed to be the only one who
noticed, and for a second he was too shocked to react. The others
caught on a moment later. Through the scope, I saw a woman
begin silently screaming. The man next to Eli jumped up and
pushed himself away, his hands fluttering at the blood. Panic blew
itself into life on the balcony.
I put the rifle on the ground and walked quickly but calmly back
to the stairwell. Time to get out of here. As I moved into the
doorway, something half deafened me and I was knocked backwards
and to one side, onto my back, splinters of wood flying
around me. Shit. I looked up. Most of the doorframe was gone.
Still on my back, I reached into my jacket and struggled to free my
gun.
Shit.
Fucking idiot.'
'I got him. I got him in the head.'
The right-hand side of my face was on fire. I touched it with my
free hand as I pulled the gun out.
'Wait:
'I got him.' A figure came through the doorway, moving quickly
but suddenly stopping as he saw me on the ground. One of the cops
who'd been waiting by the entrance. As he realised that he hadn't
got me at all, he raised his gun - but I was quicker. One shot,
smacking him in the mouth like a punch, and he spun back and to
one side, hitting the wall and collapsing by the side of it.
I struggled to my feet and half-fell against the wall, taking
desperate aim at the doorway.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
They couldn't have got up here so quickly, even if they'd known
what had happened. And they couldn't have known that yet. Even
Eli barely knew.
'You coming out to watch the boxing, Martin?'
I didn't recognise the voice. The temptation to shout back was
strong, but I kept quiet. Glanced around the room. The window
was the only other way out, and it was a hell of a fucking jump. I
looked up into the rafters. Too high to climb, nowhere to go if I
did. Back to the door.
One of them laughed and fired through the doorway: a nothing
shot that hit the wall opposite me, knocking out a cloud of old
stone. That meant that we were next to each other. If the wall
hadn't been between us, he would have been close enough to touch.
I knelt down, still drawing on the door and scanned the wall for
cracks. The stones were ancient. In some places, the mortar was
missing.
'Why don't you come out?' he called.
Here was one: about waist height. I quickly pushed my finger in
and the hole felt large. It probably didn't go all the way through,
but what was in the way and how strong was it going to be? I
looked at the wall across from me. That last bullet had turned a
baseball-sized chunk of rock into powder. In the doorway itself, the
first bullet had demolished an even larger wedge.
Another call: 'Why are you making our lives so--'
Before I could think about it, I jammed the tip of the barrel into
the hole, closed my eyes and fired off three fast shots, twisting my
aim slightly. The noise was terrible, but his words cut off and
turned into a scream, and so I fired again. The scream stopped. I
pulled the gun away from the wall. The air was filled with dust. I
coughed and then aimed back at the doorway.
'Just you and me now,' I said.
No reply, but I knew someone was out there. Three in front of
the tower; two of them dead. Unless the third guy was waiting
downstairs or outside for me, he was there too. And he'd probably
be a lot more careful than his friends had been.
'You don't want to talk to me?'
Nothing. He wasn't going to bite.
I moved away from the wall, edging closer to the doorway,
keeping a good grip on the gun. The dead man was at my feet now;
I couldn't move any closer without edging around him, and that
would make me more visible. I could see some of the walkway
outside, stretching away to the left, and there was nobody there. If
he was to the right - where his friend had been - then it was
possible I'd tagged him as well. But I wasn't usually that lucky.
So - nobody in sight on the left-hand side, and I could see a fair
way around. If he was that way, he'd have to risk a long shot.
More and more, I was thinking he was back to the right, if he was
up here at all. If he was sensible, he'd have moved back a little and
be crouching down with his gun trained on the doorway. If I came
out straight, he'd nail me. And if I didn't, there'd be more people
along soon enough.
Okay.
I reached down and got hold of the dead cop underneath the
arms. He was face down and not as heavy as I'd expected, but it
was still difficult because I had to keep some kind of grip on my
gun as well. I pulled back as hard as I could and got him to his
knees, and then managed to lift him a little more. His ruined head
lolled against me. I braced myself, straining my arms and leaning
back slightly, pulling him to his feet. His head slid up my chest to
my shoulder.
This was going to be fucking impossible. Just keep hold, I
thought, edging to the doorway. It was all or nothing, and I was
sure I was going to drop him any second. Finding strength from
somewhere, I managed to half push and half throw him out onto
the walkway, where he fell down instantly, his upper body
smashing through the old wooden railings.
At the same time, gunfire erupted from the right as the cop shot
at his dead friend. That was all I needed: I reached around the
doorframe and fired off one shot, missing, fired another as he
brought his aim back around, and this one caught him in the
middle of the chest. As he went down, he fired again but it went
wild - up into the rafters - and I stepped out and shot him three
more times, knocking him back along the ground. He wasn't
moving after that. His gun clattered off down into space. A second
later, a shot rang out downstairs. Anyone close enough to the front
of the clocktower would certainly have heard that.
I looked around, but I couldn't see anyone else, so I took the
stairs quickly and carelessly. If they broke or if I fell, then so be it;
if I didn't get out of here now, I never would.

It felt strange to be outside again now that it was properly daytime.
When I'd gone into the tower, everything had been bathed in dark
blue, as though the world was feeling lazy and sleepy and still
yawning in its dressing-gown. But now it was awake. The sun was
halfway up the sky, there was no cloud cover and - at least down
here at ground level - very little breeze.
I squinted slightly as I walked down the side of the wasteground. It was going to be hot today, I thought. The sun would bake the
buildings like clay and everybody would look damp and dry at the
same time. A good day to get out into the country.
But halfway along the wasteground, I stopped, realising that it
wasn't just the light or the heat that I was noticing. The noise from
the crowd remained the same - loud, but muffled by the buildings and
yet it seemed more threatening now. In fact, everything I could
hear was the same: low and ominous and sad. The air had dropped
into a minor key. The ground felt like it was vibrating slightly everything
from the dirt and grass upwards seemed somehow charged, and there was current and voltage running through my
body. Half my imagination, maybe; but half not as well. The city
was like a child, excited on Christmas morning, only the occasion
was darker and the emotion far less positive. Something was very
wrong.
I started moving again.
In the alleyway, I could see back towards the main square. The
ring was elevated slightly above the crowds, but the figures were
too far away to make out. The main video screen, which I could see
half of from where I was standing, showed that the fight was still
going on. The nasal buzz of the bell announced the end of round
two, and the boxers separated, breathing heavily, heads bowed. It
had been seven minutes since I'd shot Eli, which was too long.
Police on the ground would know by now.
'Don't move, Martin.'
I stayed very still and closed my eyes. The voice had come from
the other side of the road, and I recognised it.
'Lucy--'
'Shut up.'
I did as I was told.
'Turn around and look at me.'
I did. She was standing in the doorway across the street, pointing
a gun at me. I knew her, but at the same time she was like a
stranger: same clothes, but they looked caught on her at uncomfortable
angles; same face, but harder than I'd ever seen it. I'd never
been on the receiving end of this, and now I realised how scared
those men we killed must have been when they'd found themselves
facing this. A couple of wisps of her blond hair were trembling in
the slight breeze.
'Your gun,' she said. 'Put it down.'
But this time, I didn't do as I was told. I just left it hanging down
by my side.
'How did you find me?'
'Rosh told me where you'd be,' she said. 'He said you were going
to try something like this.'
'So this is official, then?'
'No,' she said. 'And it's not going to be. Put down your gun,
Martin.'
I felt a kind of pressure coming from the main square and turned
to look that way. The next round had started, but it wasn't just the
crowd's reaction I was sensing - it was that feeling of something
being wrong, rolling out in a slow wave that would gradually
engulf the city. I wondered if Lucy could feel it too. I looked back
at her, and I answered her without thought.
'I can't do that,' I said. 'I need it.'
'If you don't put it down, I'll shoot you.'
'Do what you have to do. If I put it down, I'm dead anyway. I'm
dead anyway, regardless.'
She stared at me; I stared back. For some reason, I wasn't scared
anymore. A few blank seconds passed, and at the end of them I
thought she might be going to cry, but she didn't. That generally
wasn't the kind of thing that Lucy did. Maybe once I would have
got to see that level of vulnerability, but not anymore.
'Why have you done this?' she said.
I nodded towards the clocktower.
'I just killed the man who's been doing this to us,' I said. 'His
name was Eli. We took his money and he punished us for it.'
'I don't believe you. Put your gun down.'
'I already said no,' I told her. 'If you want to shoot me, shoot
me.'
'I want to know why you've done this.'
'My life is over, Lucy. This man killed people we all loved and he
wanted us to kill each other. He killed Rachel. He killed Rich.'
'Don't talk about Rich.'
'I have to go.'
'No,' she said, showing more resolve. 'You're not going
anywhere.'
But it was weird, because I knew I was. It was almost as though
this had all already happened and I knew that Lucy hadn't ended
up killing me. I could still see the hate and anger on her face, but it
looked different to before. I was starting to see shades of emotions
there, and I wasn't sure how. Something occurred to me, and I felt
very calm.
'Before I go,' I said, 'I want you to know that you were right.'
'What?'
'You were right,' I said. 'About me and Rachel. I made a
mistake, and I realise that now. You were right. I was never in love
with you. I was just getting confused and messing things up. It was
my fault. It was nothing to do with you.'
Lucy shook her head.
'You know I didn't kill Rich,' I said. Her face hardened but I
carried on as though I hadn't noticed. 'The truth is that all the way
along, I was happy for you. Unhappy for me, but that was my
problem. I tried to work out my own solution, and I fucked it up,
and hurt people I shouldn't have. I was being stupid. But deep
down I knew that you wanted to be with him, and I would never
have done anything to harm that, and I would certainly never have
hurt him. I cared about you too much.'
She was staring at me, confused but disarmed, not knowing what
to say. Despite the situation, I wanted to smile at her. It felt like I'd
gone up a level, and it was the weirdest sensation I'd ever
experienced: impossible to describe, but I was bypassing her words
and appearance and simply understanding what was going on in
her head - seeing the emotions there as a rich fabric of colours in
my own. I saw the genuine affection she'd had for me. She still had
it, but because of how I'd been she'd known that she had to hide it;
and it made her very sad to have lost me as a friend. I understood
the indecision and guilt she'd suffered; the way she'd nearly chosen
me but had decided to do what she thought was right for us both.
The hurt and the self-recrimination. I saw the vulnerability she'd
offered up, and how rare and special it was for her to do that. And
from there, I could read between the lines of every text message
she'd sent me since we split up, and I understood that what she'd
really been writing all along were messages to convince herself. You didn't love me, so it's not my fault. I care about you so much,
and I can't let myself believe that I've ruined your life.
The electricity that was buzzing in the city seemed to surge
through me for a moment, and I experienced it as a burst of real
love for her. It was so different. Unlike the feelings I'd had for her
before, it didn't make me sad.
'I'm going now,' I said. 'For what it's worth, I've taken care of
the man who did this to us, and now I'm leaving. Goodbye, Lucy.
Take care.'
'No, Martin,' she said. 'Don't move.'
But I did anyway: I just turned and walked off down the road. I
wasn't sure what had just happened, but I knew that she wouldn't
shoot me, and she didn't. Within a few metres, I felt that force of
wrongness coming from the main square again, and I started to
run.

Chapter Twenty Four

The immorality of stealing cars had disappeared entirely by now. It
didn't feel that wrong, and I found myself wondering why more
people didn't do it - it was handy and convenient, and you didn't
need to remember where you'd parked. Car crime in the city was
actually quite low: the council had invested heavily in the transport
infrastructure, and you could get pretty much anywhere you
wanted to go by tram or bus. It was just unfortunate that public
transport wasn't an option for me right now. So I stole a sports car
about half a mile from the main square. If you're going to sin, you
might as well sin in style.
From there, it was two minutes onto the motorway, and then I
would be driving north. The city gates were less than twenty
minutes away, and after that I would be heading to wherever. I
didn't know where - I hadn't thought that far ahead yet. I flicked on the radio and found a local station that was playing something
rocky but subdued, and concentrated on the road ahead. There was
nothing I needed to think about.
Except of course there was. The question of what had just
happened with Lucy. That had been strange but at least not
inexplicable. Far more concerning was the question of why the
cops hadn't taken me down until after I'd killed Eli. That seemed
pretty important, but the implications were worrying and I didn't
want to think about them right then. I figured that was reasonable
enough. I was on a break; I'd think about the whole thing when I
got back to my desk.
I turned the radio up just as the song finished and the local news
came on. It was the same newsreader who'd reported Rachel's
body being found yesterday evening, and I felt a little sorry for him:
didn't he ever get to go home and sleep? The main item was that
the city's annual competition was underway, and that the first fight
had been won by a knockout in the third round. Turtle were
through. The second fight had begun, and so far the fighters looked
to be even on points. There would be regular updates, on the hour,
every hour.
Once again, there was no mention of any shooting incident.
Either it was too early for it to have reached the news, or else it was
being suppressed like the gunfight yesterday. But whatever - at
least I hadn't spoiled everyone's day.
I moved into the fast lane, overtaking a campervan who was
going too slowly and being annoying. Speeding to add to my list of
crimes, but what did it matter? I put my foot down a little harder.
'In other news,' the man on the radio told me, 'police have
confirmed that the body of a young woman found yesterday
evening is that of twenty-two-year-old student Keleigh Groves.'

I swerved back in - straight across the front of the campervan
and then into the slow lane. A chorus of blaring horns followed me
across. There was a lay-by coming up: a patch of dusty land in
front of an enormous white billboard. I indicated as I turned onto
it, the gravel crunching heavily beneath the tyres.
The newsreader had already moved on to the next item.
Not Rachel, I thought. Rachel might still be alive.
And now I'd killed Eli.
I sat very still, holding on to the steering wheel and wanting to
react in some way: shaking, screaming, anything. But my body
wasn't responding. I tried to think, but that wouldn't work either.
Every single thought slipped away when my mind tried to focus on
it. They came and went quickly: a flash of the conversation I'd had
with Kama; the men who'd taken Rachel and killed Rich; the puff
of blood above Eli's head; Rosh, who'd tried to phone me all
afternoon and yet I'd had no missed calls.
It's not going to be that easy, the man in Rich's bedroom had
told me.
One of Eli's men, I'd assumed, but only because I'd been led to
believe that.
Another flash of Kama. He was smiling, and I heard his voice in
my head.
I can't act directly to harm my brother. And then he was gone.

The policemen in the tower - it didn't make any sense that they'd
been working for Eli. But it fitted perfectly if they'd been working
for Kama instead.
I turned off the radio. The quiet was immediately filled with the
noise of cars whining past: an everyday sound that now seemed full
of menace. There was an undercurrent too: the same electric throb
that I'd felt as I'd left the clocktower. The same ringing, in fact,
that I'd been hearing for days. Since I'd killed Eli, it seemed to have
buried itself into the world around me and started to make it
vibrate.
I was gripping the steering wheel, feeling sick; when the nausea
lurched inside me again I jerked my head to the left. I was directly
next to the billboard, which was advertising some hair-care
product by showing a woman's head against a stark white
background. Right in the bottom corner, somebody had graffitied
the words FONDLY, I THINK OF YOU in edged, purple letters.
The ringing inside me intensified as I stared.
And then it became real: a tense, physical buzz against my heart.
It didn't surprise me and I just accepted it, but it still took me five
seconds, maybe more, before I realised what it was. And then I
slowly released the steering wheel and took my phone out of my
pocket.
Caller unknown.
Well, my phone might not have known but I did.
I pressed green and said:
'Hello, Jamie.'
There was nothing for a second, and then I realised that he was
sobbing - trying to talk, but incoherent.
I said, 'Slow down.'
Patience seemed to be one of my few remaining virtues. In fact, I
realised that I might well have fucked up so incredibly badly that
there wasn't any point in being anything other than calm. I waited
while he got himself together.
'Detective Weaver?'
'Yes,' I said.
'They killed her.'
'Yes, I know.'
I wished there was something else I could say to him, but nothing
was going to make it any different. When I'd heard the newsreader
yesterday, all I'd thought about was Rachel - I hadn't considered
that someone else might be dead. Keleigh. I'd never met her or seen
a photograph. She'd been so central to this and yet she hadn't even
entered my mind. What the fuck had happened to me?
'He killed her.'
'Yes,' I said, searching for something more profound, something
that might be comforting. 'I know.'
'I'm so sorry,' Jamie said. 'I'm so sorry.'
'I'm sorry, too.'
'You don't understand.'
He started sobbing again.
'Jamie.' I said it quietly, just staring straight ahead. 'Come on, Jamie.'
"I just love her so much.'
'Jamie. You need to listen to me. She's dead, and I'm sorry about
that. You need to - ' I frowned. 'Where are you?'
Immediately: 'I'm not telling you.'
'That's okay.' I shook my head. 'I don't want to know. But
wherever you are, what you need to do is get the fuck out of there.'
He sniffed but didn't say anything.
'Okay?' I said. 'You need to get in a car and drive. If you can't
do that, then you fucking run. You need to put real distance
between you and this city. You need to get out and not come back.'
'He killed her, Detective Weaver.'
'Yes, I know.'
'Your friend - he killed her.'
'Yes,' I said. 'What?'
'Your friend.' I could hear him gulping in air at the other end of
the line. 'He told me - he told me if I didn't meet you all and tell
you what I said then he was going to kill her. He told me. And I
love her. I never told her, but I do.'
'My friend,' I said. 'Jamie. Calm down and tell me.'
'But fuck him! I did what he wanted and he killed her anyway.'
'Jamie!'
My last virtue had gone.
'Jamie,' I said again, more softly. 'Who told you to do this? Who
killed her?'
'Your friend,' he said. 'Mister Rho.'


I was driving again, heading somewhere I was starting to know far
too well, and all the while I was thinking. I swung out into the fast
lane, cutting someone up, and my thoughts swerved along with the
car. The guy behind beeped and I thought: I have a fucking gun
and you shouldn't do that.
I was remembering the firing range where I'd go with Sean,
competing against him on neighbouring lanes while people slowly
gathered around, eventually egging us on. We graduated from there
to killing people together, but - although that was where it had
begun for me - it hadn't really been Sean that started it off. Rosh
was the one who'd got all of us into this in the first place. I'd joined
late of course, because Rosh had recruited Lucy first and then she'd
recruited Sean. But the extra-curricular killings had all begun with
Rosh.
He'd been doing it long before I'd ever met him. Working
beyond the straight confines of the law. Fate and death; the
wildcard.
The guy behind blared his horn again. I glared into the mirror
and saw him mouthing profanities at me.
I looked back at the road.
I was also thinking back to the fire-fight with Kemp and his men.
The guy that Rosh had taken down had vanished into thin air. For
a while, that had meant nothing. Then, a lot of people started
vanishing into thin air. But now it meant something else altogether.
The fact was that either Lucy or I had put bullets in every dead
body that ended up there that night. As far as I knew for sure, Rosh
hadn't killed anyone.
Rosh had tried to phone me all afternoon, but my phone had
never rung. And yet, whenever I'd tried to ring him, his phone was
off.
The exit was coming up. I moved into the middle lane and then
the slow lane, ready to turn. The guy behind me should have been
pleased, but instead he followed me across, beeping his horn again.
I checked him out in the mirror and didn't see much. He wasn't a
cop. He wasn't a criminal. He was just a dick.
I picked my gun off the passenger seat and held it up so he could
see it. The horn cut off and his car swerved into the middle lane,
dropping back a little. Good for him.
I thought: Rosh had owned a farmhouse slightly outside the
city's walls. Nobody knew how old it was, only that he'd inherited
it from his parents - and them from theirs - and that it was
probably very old indeed.
I thought: Rosh had told Lucy where to find me, because he
wanted to force me into killing her. I didn't understand quite how
we'd avoided that, but that had been his intention. Tying up loose
ends by wrapping them together.
And I thought: I should have been heading out of the city, just
like Yd planned. But part of me had known I wouldn't get far. Like
I said before, some people are born in the city, live their lives here
and never leave - and I knew now that I was going to be one of
them. In the sphere that Sean had talked about, my life was already
set. It was hanging there, complete, and it wouldn't have mattered
whether I sat down in the main square and waited for them to
come and get me, or if I put my foot down and drove for the
outskirts as fast as I could. It had already either happened or not,
and I knew which. I wasn't leaving the city right now.
But within the parameters of its walls, perhaps I had some
leeway.
I put the gun down again, indicated left and took the exit to
Wasp.

What Jamie had told me, when he finally stopped crying, was this.
There were four of them in the art collective: Keleigh, Alison,
Jamie and Damian. Jamie had been born here, brought up by
parents who had died a few years before he started his degree, but
the other three were foreigners to the city. They had been friends
from the start, meeting on day one and hitting it off, and realising
very quickly that they had a lot more in common with each other
than with the rest of the students on the course. It's so rare to click
like that with people that when it does happen you feel lucky and
blessed.
The group didn't socialise much. Instead, they began working on
projects that excited all of them. They each brought different ideas
and approaches - from photography and straight painting to the
more conceptual projects that Alison began working on - but an
over-arching theme was always in the background, becoming
slowly more focused as the months passed. That theme turned out
to be the city they'd moved to. In some ways, like Sean and me,
they all felt its strangeness, and they'd been fascinated and inspired
by it. But unlike us, they hadn't been afraid. I could understand
that: when you're young and enthusiastic you often feel that the

world is yours - and that it has an in-built safety net to catch you if
you fall.
Jamie had spelled out the truth to me in Whitelocks: if you look
at our city too long then it turns around and looks back. The four
of them did their graffiti and stuck up their photographs of eyes;
they made their maps and painted the skylines; and by a series of
coincidences that I could understand without seeing, their work all
started to coalesce into a single project. It was shaped by a strange
serendipity. First, they found Harris, and he taught them the
legends behind the city. And then Alison started seeing Halloran,
who knew enough from his own background to hint that the
legends might have substance. He should have known better, of
course, but Alison was the kind of girl you wanted to impress.
Jamie said that if you'd killed somebody then you'd tell her, just to
make her think you were special. The project evolved, gaining
shape and forming a knot in the city's consciousness that would
become an irritant. And eventually the city didn't like it anymore
and decided to cut that knot out.
Not the city, to be precise - more a couple of its founding
members, acting on its behalf. And at this stage it wasn't a matter
of cutting. It was a case of manipulating and moving: creating
small shifts that would lead the situation to resolve itself. Creating
cancers within the cancers, if you like. That was the way the
brothers had always worked; if someone wandered off the path
then they preferred just to give them a subtle spin on their heels and
send them back again; they could never simply kill someone or
make them disappear. But in the situation with the students, Kama
and Rho - between them representing crime, life, death and fate had
seen the opportunity to do something else beyond merely
righting what had gone wrong. They had seen a way to manipulate
me to get rid of their brother for them.
Jamie couldn't know this but I saw it all clearly, and I
understood it in the same way I'd understood Lucy outside the
clocktower.
It started the night that we killed Halloran. The lead for the post
office murders had come from one of Sean's regular informants,
but in reality Halloran had nothing to do with that; he was just a
minor player who'd happened to be bottom of the list at the wrong
time, dating the wrong girl and shooting off his wrong mouth.
Rosh set him up with the briefcase of money, and then we turned
up, killed him and took that money away. One down; no real effort
expended. The money never meant anything one way or another.
How could it? A few thousand - the city turned over more than
that in a heartbeat. The money was only ever there as a ghost that,
months later, they could fool me into thinking their brother was
chasing.
But what would happen if Eli really was following that
briefcase? He'd move onto the first people who might know where
it was: Halloran's girlfriend and the people Halloran had occasionally
left packages with. And so the next one they picked off the list
was Alison.
Jamie had told me that everybody was drawn to her. She was
one of those girls - the kind that radiates power and seems to have
been born with the confidence to use it. Alison was a young woman
who knew exactly the hold she could have on people: that she
could tense and release her grip on you at will. She had an
unconscious feeling that the world belonged to her: that she could
move through the stalls in its dark markets, picking and choosing
from everything there and whirling away into the crowds without
being challenged.
She was always the focus of the group, and for a long time Jamie
was infatuated with her. He'd never even had a girlfriend, and so
he didn't stand a chance. There was no way that anything so
obvious and easy would be interesting to her for long. He chased
her, and she laughed and ran away - but she never ran far enough
in front to leave him behind. That kind of girl, she can do that with
everyone. She'll have ten guys after her, and she'll be dodging in
between them like a ninja, laughing as they collide. It's not
malicious; it's playful and fair and it's the way the world works.
Damian was another. He was interested in her too, but he played
it by her rules: basically ambivalent, generally available - but not
always. He'd been with a few girls before and so he worked the
odds and won a few dividends. He and Alison were together for a
while, on and off, but it backfired on him eventually. To the extent
that Alison ever had a concrete boyfriend, it ended up being
Halloran. Jamie said he thought that Damian was a hell of a lot
more bothered by that than he ever let on.
Jamie was bothered too, but he was easily distracted. If Alison was the focus of the group, Keleigh had always stood close by,
slightly off centre. She was just as sure of herself, but confidence
can manifest itself in different ways: it can turn both inwards and
out. When they went clubbing, Alison would be dancing on the
podium, lost in herself and utterly uncaring, and Keleigh would be
standing at the edge of the floor, sipping a drink and watching,
patient and at ease. It's the difference between being comfortable in
a crowd and being comfortable in your own skin, and ultimately it
was the latter that began to attract Jamie more. It didn't surprise
me much that he ended up falling in love with Keleigh instead.
What he'd told us about the night it began - about when he,
Keleigh and Harris had been visited by the men who came out of
the walls - was basically true, with one important difference. Jamie
hadn't explained that Rosh had been one of them.
It had been Rosh who'd done the talking, but he certainly hadn't
asked them anything about any money. Instead, he'd told them that
Halloran and Alison and Damian were all dead, and that if they
didn't do what he wanted then they would be too. What he wanted
wasn't going to be difficult; it involved nothing more troubling
than keeping their heads down, remaining in the city and perhaps
doing him a small favour at some point in the future.
So they stayed in the city out of basic fear. After all, these men
had come from thin air and had apparently murdered their friends.
Those alone were good tricks; who knew what else they might be
able to do? They didn't dare go to the police, and wouldn't have
known what to say if they had.
A couple of times, Jamie told me, they decided to run. Each time,
they got as far as the city gates, and then something stopped them.
They'd hear a ringing in the air, or feel it in their gut, and they'd look around and not see anyone exactly - it was more like catching
something out of the corner of their eye - but it would be enough
to make them turn around and go home again. After a while, they
put the memory of what happened away out back, and they got on
with their lives as best they could. Not forgetting, exactly, but
nobody was coming out of the walls or threatening to kill them and
so to some extent they could kid themselves it had been a bad
dream that was over now. Gradually, life returned to something
approaching normal.
That was until a week ago, when they'd received another visit and
despite what Jamie had told us in Whitelocks, it hadn't been
from Sean. All of that had been a lie; they'd never even met him or
spoken to him. Instead, it was Rosh and his men who came calling:
pulling them back into that bad dream they thought they'd
escaped. It was time for that small favour.
Five months ago, I believed that Sean had become fascinated by
the city's black heart and been drawn into searching it out. Now, I
understood that simple truth: if you look hard enough, it looks
back. I remembered that, after he disappeared, Sean's flat had
seemed as though he'd gone out for the night and simply not
returned - and that was exactly what had happened. Rosh and
Kama had taken him and kept him for all of that time. The padlock
on the hotel room hadn't been placed there by Sean to keep his
research secure; it had been put there to keep him a prisoner.
They'd cuffed him and left him. Some of the papers and writing
there had been taken from his flat. Others, he'd scrawled during his
imprisonment, as best he could. They'd crossed out what they
didn't like and forced him to write certain things they needed including
the note to me - at gunpoint. Finally, after he was dead,
they'd added their own information. Photographs and reference
books to help me on my way.
It was all about timing. They'd kept Alison's identity a secret just
as they'd kept Sean a prisoner, and when the moment was right,
they manipulated me with both: revealing enough so that I could
follow the trail and, in time, arrive at the conclusion they wanted.
After all, there was only one occasion every year when I'd have the
chance to do what I'd just done.
So: while I was drinking on my own in Whitelocks and looking
at a photograph of an eye that Keleigh had stuck on the wall, Rosh
was paying Jamie another visit. This time he took Keleigh away
with him. If Jamie didn't do exactly as he was told, she'd be killed.
It wouldn't be too difficult.
As ordered, Jamie delivered the envelope, and then later he met
the three of us to tell us what had happened, based on the intricate
script that had been prepared for him. All the while, Rosh was
there, directing the action from both within our group and without.
It was just a matter of watching my life unravel and giving it a little
nudge here and there when it didn't go quite right.
There were things that Jamie didn't tell me because he couldn't
have known, but in my head they came together.
Jamie wasn't aware of the video we had of Harris, but I realised
now that it certainly hadn't been used to blackmail him. They
didn't need him for anything. Combined with the forwarding of
Alison's email to his account and the fake blackmail message, it
was simply another set-up to keep me moving - along with a little
background detail to sit the rest of their story on. And it neatly tied
up another loose end. After all, Harris now appeared to have killed
himself. I had no doubt that at some point the video would surface,
giving him a credible motive for doing so. There would be no other
real questions to answer, and the case would be closed.
Rosh had rung Alison's parents and visited Hedge, posing as
Sean. He'd set up the attempt on Lucy's life, but in reality it
wouldn't have mattered if she'd lived or died. All that mattered was
that Kemp was there and that I saw him. Later, as Kama fed me his
bullshit lies, I would remember that Kemp was a cop and it would
push me even more towards Eli.
Rosh had helped to set up the flat opposite the CandiBar,
priming me with all the background information I needed. Kama
had put Eli in the frame. And then And
then to give me a real incentive, they'd taken my wife away.
They'd killed innocent people and sacrificed men who were close
to them, and it meant nothing. I realised now that there wasn't
even a real reason for it either - it was all just because Rho, or
Rosh, was fate and death, Kama was crime and Eli was law, and
that was the way it worked. Kama had told me: we don't invent
our natures. So it didn't matter that up until now everything had
worked, and that Eli's death would break the balance and destroy
the city. It was simply in Kama's nature to do this, and in Rho's
nature to help him. They were doing what they were born and
fated to do.
But they weren't allowed to kill him themselves, and so they'd
needed an idiot to do it for them. Everything that had happened
had been carefully stage-managed: an elaborate load of bullshit and
pain designed for one single purpose - to get me into that
clocktower today, putting a bullet in their brother.
And it had worked too - you couldn't accuse them of
overestimating my stupidity. Whether or not I survived the men
they'd sent to kill me, or what happened in my encounter with
Lucy, the end result was more or less the same: my life was ruined
and Eli was dead. Whatever loose ends remained would be
methodically destroyed. And now, just as in the legend, the city
belonged to Kama and Rho.
But of course, Rosh hadn't lied just to me; he'd lied to Jamie as
well. Keleigh was dead and probably had been for some time. It
wouldn't have mattered what Jamie had done - he could have
thrown his drink in Rosh's face in Whitelocks and spat after it and
the result would have been the same.
That was the way these matters worked. It was only ever a case
of deciding how much you gave up before you died, and because he
cared about Keleigh, Jamie had given up pretty much everything.
He was due to meet Rosh at eleven o'clock this morning, when
he'd been told he could walk away with Keleigh: free to leave the
city; their duty done. But someone in Rosh's entourage must have
fucked up, because Keleigh was dead and her body had gone
public. And so, finally, Jamie had rung me and told me everything.
I gave him a piece of advice in return.
Get out of the city.
I didn't think that anybody would stop him. He was one of those
loose ends, but perhaps not untidy enough to chase when everyone
was so busy. I told him to get in a car - any fucking car - and put
his foot down until he was a hundred miles away.
My original plan, in fact.
Now, I had another.

Chapter Twenty Five

Wasp in the daytime again. I'd been here far too much recently, but
- one way or another - this was going to be my last visit. Perhaps I
would never leave. The district didn't seem overly impressed by
this, though, and there weren't many people out on the streets to
cheer me off. A few couples and singles were walking along
casually, but most of the people who were here were ensconced in
the dark bars, watching the boxing on television; I'd hear periodic
bursts of shouting as I passed them. Most of the sex shops were
closed for the day, and there weren't even that many girls dancing
in the windows. The competition would go on until nightfall, and
then the district would come alive again: rubbing its hands in glee
as people arrived either to celebrate or drown their sorrows.
Despite the relative quiet, Wasp was alive: it was ticking and
fizzing in small ways, none of which felt good. The air was
sparkling, and the menacing pylon hum in the ground was growing
stronger. Nobody here seemed aware of it, but I could tell that the
city had cracked at the centre; and now those cracks were slowly
spreading. Invisible fault lines in the ground were trembling, alive
with potential energy that set my lower legs tingling. And my head
had started hurting too. The pain was a slowly flashing siren,
throbbing away between my eyes.
Because of the pain - but in spite of the fact that hardly anyone
was around - I didn't see Rosh until it was almost too late. He was
standing less than ten metres in front of me, staring into a glass
window. I stopped, frozen in place, and it took a couple of shocked
seconds before I began reaching into my coat for my gun. Then I
stopped. It wasn't exactly busy here, but it wasn't exactly deserted
either. If I could avoid it, this wasn't the place to do it. I moved
quickly to my right, down a set of steps and out of sight inside a
heaving bar.
It was as dark and compact as a cave. There was a bright video
screen hanging down at the far end showing a close-up of one of
the fights, with a smaller screen in the corner displaying a slow
motion repeat. The sound was being blasted out and was coming
through as fuzzy and distorted as in the main square. There were
too many people crammed in, and I couldn't make it properly
inside - couldn't have cleared a way to the bar if I'd been on fire but
that was okay. I waited by the entrance, ignoring the people on
either side of me, and after a minute had passed I went back out
again, and up onto the street.
Rosh had gone. No doubt he was already heading to the
CandiBar in time for his meeting with Jamie. I'd been planning - if
you could call it that - to confront him there, but now I decided to
catch up and shadow him, and perhaps see if I could take him
down somewhere quieter before we got there.
I started off quickly, but as I got to the corner I paused, and then
turned to look into the window where he'd been standing. A
woman was in there, naked apart from white underwear, and she
was writhing slowly in front of billowing red curtains. It was
dancing, but it was more like a slow unwinding, up and down, than
anything else. I caught her eye, and she smiled coyly, beckoning me
in with a hand I hadn't even seen move.
I didn't shake my head; I just stared as Rosh had been doing,
wondering what it was about this woman, other than beauty, that
had caught his eye. And after a moment I saw it - or thought I did,
anyway. It wasn't the woman at all. To her left there was a pale
reflection of my face, illuminated by an angle of sunlight. The light
was cut off by the edge of the building, so that only half of my face
was clearly visible, and my skin looked slack and doughy and
lifeless. The eye I could see there was somehow both black and
absent at the same time.
I stared at myself for a moment. The reflection was superimposed
both in front of and behind the dancing woman, flicking
from one to the other, but I was entirely still. And because of that,
there was something about me that was utterly hideous.
I wondered what Rosh, with his strange face, would have looked
like.
When I pictured him, I felt anger building up in me. That was
good and right, but I swallowed it down for now. If I even thought
about it too much, I knew that it would release itself and be gone.
It felt like a rage that could level half the city. All I would have to
do was let it into my head, open my mouth wide and scream, and
buildings would fall.
Rosh was getting away from me.
I looked up and managed to give the woman a smile that was
even more artificial than the one she'd given me. She was still
dancing, but she wasn't beckoning anymore. In fact, she looked a
little unsure - and maybe even afraid. That was fair enough.
I headed off, rounding the corner and walking quickly. Within a
minute I'd spotted Rosh's large frame wandering along up ahead,
and I dropped back a little, allowing him to remain six or seven
buildings in front of me. There were still too many people around
to confront him. I could wait.
As always when you head east, the people quickly thinned out,
and because they had been sparse to begin with, it wasn't long
before Rosh and I were pretty much the only people around. That
meant I had to drop back a little further and be even more careful.
The few people who were here were junkies and wasters, and since
I didn't think any of them were likely to call the police I drew my
gun and walked along with it held casually down by my side. I
could shoot him right here, but I decided to hold on for now. I
wanted time with him, so that he could tell me everything in his
own words.
As we walked, I realised that he was taking exactly the same
route to the CandiBar as I had done. That didn't necessarily mean
anything, but for some reason it felt like it should. Coincidence
again - or perhaps now I just knew where to look for the patterns.
Like Sean said, once you could recognise the shape of them, maybe
you saw them everywhere.
Rosh turned right into Parker Street, and I hung back a little and
waited, giving him chance to make it far enough along for me to
shadow him without being too obvious. I allowed him about thirty
seconds. As I stood there, waiting by the stone wall of a boarded
up deli, I listened. I could hear that same dog barking in the
distance, and nothing else. It didn't surprise me.
I peered around the corner, and then started walking.
Rosh was right up by the CandiBar, but he was still on my side
of the road. I found an old doorway and pressed myself into it,
leaning out enough to be able to see him, but not so far that I
couldn't hide if he happened to look back.
But he didn't. Instead, he turned right and headed down the
alleyway at the side of the old hotel.
I made my way up the street, conscious of the weight of the gun
in my hand and aware that I was out in the open now. I drew down
on the alley, ready to fire. If Rosh stepped back out there would be
nowhere to hide; he would see me and I would have to shoot him. I
got closer to the hotel, and with every step I expected him to reappear,
but he didn't. And then I moved quickly around the
entrance of the alleyway, ready to fire. It was empty.
There was the fence, a little way down. There was something
about it that seemed electric and dangerous, as though it had been
connected to a powerline some time since my last visit. The hum
was everywhere.
I started down the alley, keeping my gun aimed at the fence.
The boards felt warm as I touched them, but it must have been
my imagination - from the angle of the buildings, the sun hadn't
made it down here for a good few hours. I crouched down and
pushed them in very slightly, glancing into the back garden of the
hotel. Nobody there, as far as I could see. I pushed them further
and then clambered inside, leading with my left arm and aiming
almost casually with my right. Still nothing. Then, I was in. I stood
up and moved quickly to the back of the building.
The window that led inside seemed especially dirty and black
today. Once again, though - no guts no glory. I climbed in as
quickly and quietly as I could, but my feet went down on broken
glass and I winced at the noise, immediately heard movement. Rosh
was coming through the doorway from the kitchen. He saw me and
reacted, but I was quicker. I pointed the gun at him: a good two
handed grip.
'Don't,' I said.
He stopped moving, holding his own gun slightly out and away
from him, considering his options. He stared at me blankly. I stared
back, trying to make it clear how much I hated him.
'Martin--'
'Don't.'
I circled around a little - more glass crunching - keeping my aim
on him. Not at his head: at the centre of his body where there was
more room for error. I kept moving until I was well out of his

reach. Rosh could tell me whether Rachel was still alive, and so I
didn't want to encourage him to try anything that would make me
shoot him. Not yet. But at the same time, I knew how dangerous he
was and I wasn't going to take any chances. If he moved and I
didn't like it, I was going to empty the whole fucking clip into him.
If he vanished, I'd shoot all the thin air I could until something
started bleeding.
Throw your gun away,' I said.
He shook his head.
'I don't think I can do that.'
'Well, I think you'll manage.'
He looked me over. If last night he'd had any doubt that I'd kill
him, I was sure that it was gone now. But if he threw away his gun,
he was fucked. For a moment, I saw the struggle playing out on his
face, and then his expression went blank.
'Where?'
'To one side. Over in that corner will do.'
He threw the gun to one side.
'Well done.' I circled around slightly, getting a better view of the
entire room. There was the kitchen doorway slightly behind Rosh
and a doorway over to the left, leading into the rest of the hotel.
Apart from the window, those were the only exits, and if I stared at
Rosh then I could see both of them out of the corner of my eye.
'Put your hands on top of your head.'
He moved them there slowly and clasped his fingers together
without me asking.
'So,' he said. 'What are you going to do now?'
'I want to know where Rachel is.'
'Right. And how are you going to find that out?'
'Maybe I'll just start blowing bits off you until you tell me.'
'You really think I took her?'
'You can cut that shit out,' I said. 'Jamie told me everything.'
Rosh paused for a second, thinking. Then, he nodded to himself.
'What did he tell you?'
'He told me about you.' As the words came out, I felt the anger
surfacing. I saw each word as a gunshot to his head. 'That you
killed Sean. That you took Alison and Keleigh. That you were
blackmailing him into lying about it.'
'That's strange,' Rosh said. 'That's what he told me about you
too.'
'You're not going to bullshit me.'
'I'm not trying to. Can't you see what's happening here? You
said you were being framed, but it's all of us. We're all being
framed.'
'You're not going to bullshit me.'
I thought about Rachel. Concentrated on her face and let the
emotions flood into me.
'We've all been turned against each other,' he said.
'By you.'
'No.'
'It all makes sense from where I'm standing,' I said. 'All a trick to
get me to kill Eli, just because you couldn't.'
Rosh thought about this. For a second, he didn't look like a man
scrabbling for a response so much as one who was putting things
together in his head.
'The legend,' he said.
'Yes.'
'And you think that's something to do with me?'
'You know exactly what I think,' I said, 'because you know
exactly what you fucking are.'
Rosh was quiet again for a second. Then, he said:
'I've been reading up on it. I don't know whether I believe it or
not, but let's just go with it. Let's imagine that these people exist.'
'They exist.'
'Well, in that case, I have a question. Why couldn't Kama kill Eli
himself?'
'He told me,' I said. 'None of the brothers can act against each
other directly. You can plot and scheme, but you had to trick me
into doing the actual dirty work for you.'
'I didn't do anything, Martin.'
'You're not going to bullshit me.'
'I'm not trying to.' He unclasped his fingers, but didn't move his
hands. 'If these people exist then I have a theory. I think that the
reason Kama couldn't kill Eli himself was that it didn't happen that
way in the legend.'
I stared at him. 'What the fuck is that supposed to mean?'
'I have something you need to see.'
He started to move his hands away from his head.
'Don't,' I said sharply.
But he didn't stop.

'You know I'm your friend,' he said. 'Trust me. You need to see
this.'
He was wrong about that. He was really misjudging me.
'Don't, Rosh.'
And the part of me that wasn't picturing Rachel's face thought:
Please don't.
But he was still moving slowly, reaching into his jacket.
'I need to show you this. Stay calm.'
'Don't.'
'Martin--'
And right then, I had another burst of understanding. I knew for
certain that he had a gun in a shoulder-holster beneath his coat.
That this was it - the moment when either he died or I did. I had
about half a second to make a decision, and without thinking I just
opened myself up totally; I let all the hate and anger and fear
explode in my head, and I let that make the decision for me. As he
started to bring his hand back out of his jacket, I shot him,
knocking him backwards. And then - as the hum in the air
intensified, and a flood of real understanding washed through me I
closed my eyes and started to cry.


Chapter Twenty Six


From within, life can feel arbitrary and pointless: just a series of
random events that send us into collisions with others, where
there's no real meaning or explanation. But from the outside it does
look different. You notice that all these bright strands of life form a
pattern - that sections repeat and spiral within and around their
neighbours with more regularity than you've ever seen before. You
look, and you see how the same things have happened throughout
time for the same reasons, and that the weave of this forms a
meaningful picture. From the outside, despite how it's always felt,
everything really is very ordered and beautiful.

I had the oddest sensation, pushing my way out through the fence
and walking back towards the main road. I was experiencing
something that I hadn't felt properly for the last couple of days: I
was completely calm. Almost serene, in fact. I looked up, and the
slip of sky above me was pale blue. There was a very slight breeze
in the air - cool but not cold - and I realised that it was actually a
lovely day. The world might be ending, but that was okay; at this
moment, it even felt right. I don't know why, but I had a different
perspective on everything now. When you come to believe that
you're just a needle in a groove it can be frightening at first; but
perhaps once you accept it you can allow yourself to move where
you're put and appreciate the music you're making, if only for the
fact that you're making music at all.
Perhaps, anyway.
I walked out onto the street, and there they were - three of
Kama's men. Each of them was about ten metres away: one was in
front of me; one to either side. They all had guns and they were all
pointing them at me.
I was still holding mine. Casual as anything, I reached inside my
jacket and pulled out a new clip.
'Put your gun down,' the one in front said.
He gestured to the ground with his own.
'I recognise you,' I said, not looking up. I didn't need to; he was
the man who'd been standing behind me in Kama's office
yesterday.
'Put your fucking gun down,' he said.
Instead, I slotted the clip into the handle. Racked it.
'Last time I'm going to tell you.'
'That's right,' I said.
All of this was inevitable. I understood it without properly
understanding, but that was okay. That would come.
He decided enough was enough and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
At that moment, I saw in the man's eyes that he knew it too. His
boss had sent him out here to die, and - just like me - he
understood that without knowing how.
They all started to move towards me just as I raised my gun and
opened fire. They never stood a chance. Two shots forward,
knocking the first man back towards the CandiBar. And then I was
following those bullets, turning around on my heels and shooting
to the right and behind, catching the second man in the leg, hitting
the wall behind him, then sending him in a spin as the third shot
took him in the shoulder. I was already moving back down the
street putting space between myself and the last man. He was
coming for me - running to cover the distance between us - but I
had time to see the look of grim determination on his face before I
shot him right there, knocking him to one side. His gun - unused went
spilling across the street.
The reverberation of the gunfire echoed around. A few seconds
later, there were only the screams.
I used to think I was a good man, but that was all gone now. I
was only just finding out what I was and what I was capable of. I
put an extra bullet into each of Kama's men. As I walked across
the street towards the entrance to the CandiBar, the world was
silent again. Except for the sound of a dog, barking in the distance.
Before I'd left the hotel, I'd knelt down beside Rosh and picked up
the piece of paper that he'd been reaching into his jacket for. It had
fallen from his hand.
I'd brushed the dust off and seen enough to know what it was.
And then I'd taken it over to the window, where the light was good
enough for me to read what it said.
Rosh had obviously found time to visit the library that morning.
The piece of paper was Harris's article from the book of city
legends - only this one didn't have the section missing. When I'd
first seen all those books and papers, I'd thought that Sean had
ripped that bit out and taken it with him for some reason. But he'd
never gone anywhere by choice, and I should have realised that
Kama had removed it, in the same way he'd censored what Sean
had written in his notebook. As I read what was there I understood
why. Kama had torn that section out so that I wouldn't appreciate
what was really going on.
The missing paragraph said this:

No source indicates the exact nature of Kama's betrayal, but
several imply that it involved his impressionable brother Rho,
who was tricked into killing Eli so that Kama could take control
of the estate. The plan backfired when Rho discovered the
subterfuge and in turn murdered Kama for his crimes. When
Kama's associates arrived, the remaining members of the family including
Rho - were also killed, and the invaders occupied the
land, beginning again.

I folded the page neatly, placing it in my pocket. The discomfort
and unease had gone entirely, leaving only a sense that everything as
terrible as it was - was merely appropriate and as it should be.
Rosh had been right. I had been tricked into killing Eli because that
was the way things had happened before. Kama couldn't kill him,
and he couldn't kill me either. He was bound by the ribbons of the
legend, and he could only move within patterns that matched those
certain, limited swirls he'd etched on the world all those years ago.
The same as me.

Rho discovered the subterfuge and in turn murdered Kama for his
crimes.

I went upstairs and stood at the front window and watched the
three men emerge from the entrance to the CandiBar. They stood
outside and waited patiently for me. I wasn't surprised or afraid. I
wasn't anything. All the anger seemed to have left me now, and in
its place was a sense of purpose. I knew exactly what I needed to
do. It was just a case of letting the needle run along the groove and
play the music: a tune that felt right simply because it had been
played and listened to a hundred times before. Everything I'd done
and would do was just a repeating motif: a curl of behaviour that
matched and complemented the others.
Those men out there weren't going to kill me. It hadn't happened
like that before, and it wouldn't happen now.
I made my way back down.

One of the front doors of the CandiBar was open. I squeezed through, walked down a short corridor and then entered the main
room at the side of the dark, derelict bar. I stopped. There was a
real hum in the air, but as my feet started throbbing against the
floorboards I realised that it wasn't in the air at all - it was in me.
And when I concentrated on it, I felt it surge up inside my head as a
kind of intense, mental orgasm. It was a feeling of coming home
and slotting into place, and it was so wonderfully peaceful that I
closed my eyes and was rocked back on my heels by the sheer force
of it. It was like my mind had wandered into a wind tunnel filled
with warm, golden light, and for a moment I could do nothing
except bathe in it.
When I opened my eyes again, the world was coming alive. It
had started at my feet. The dust on the floor was blowing away,
seeming to disappear as it drifted into the air over the dancefloor.
The old grey floorboards were cleaning themselves; they were
growing varnish in two huge pools spreading out from me,
crackling slightly as it went. The red paint on the walls was
flickering and becoming more intense. Lights clicked on overhead,
one by one by one. The mirror behind the bar began to shine with
their reflections as they grew stronger.
The last bulb came on in time for me to see the final whirl of dust
vanish into thin air, and then my bar was complete.
'Welcome home,' Kama said.
I looked over to the right. He was sitting in a booth on the far
side of the dancefloor, just out of reach of one of the lights. Two of
his men had been in seats nearer to me on the left, and now they
stood up. They looked slightly nervous, but I wasn't interested in
hurting them. I fixed myself on Kama instead. He was sitting next
to Rachel, who was staring at, or perhaps through, the table in
front of her, and he was holding a gun pointed loosely at her head.
'It's good to be back,' I said.
'And you know everything this time.'
'Yes.'
It was true. In the same way that the bar had come alive around
me, knowledge had bloomed inside my head. I wasn't aware of
knowing anything, but recent events had become like mathematics
to me. I couldn't have told you the answers to certain sums, but I
knew the principles necessary to work them out, and this was the
same. I didn't automatically understand everything that had
happened, but when I thought about it the answers were obvious.
When I looked at an instant or a fragment in isolation, I found that
I could see the entire strand.
The whole time, images were arriving in my head like camera
flashes: snapshots of events I shouldn't know about but did.
Rho. I knew that the picture of him in the hotel across the street
had been a fake - just a random old man. I saw Kama and his men
moving around the room, planting photographs and papers; I saw
him tear out the section from the book. He'd given me enough to
work with, but not enough to see things as they really were. The
photograph of Rho wasn't real, because if it was going to be
accurate then it would have to be a picture of me.
And I knew what face would have been there if mine hadn't. The
face was young but weathered, and framed by shoulder-length,
black hair that hung almost to the tarmac. The eyes were blue. I
remembered his eyes, looking at me, giving me that stare that I
hadn't understood, in the second or two before he'd been shot in
the head by a man wearing sunglasses and a bandanna. Right
before my parents had pulled me away and we'd left the service
station.
That was the way it worked. None of us was hundreds of years
old, and we lived and died more or less like everyone else. It wasn't
about people; it was about roles and identities and functions. It was
about patterns.
My phone. I knew that if I picked it out of my pocket and
opened it up, the SIM card would be different. While I'd been
unconscious the first time, Kama had simply taken my mobile,
copied the contents of the SIM over to a new card and then
changed a few of the numbers. The speed-dials I had for Rosh and
Lucy were a digit out and went nowhere. And whenever they'd
tried to phone me, they hadn't got through because my number
was wrong.
Another flash. Jamie.
I saw him sitting there, holding his face in his hands and crying.
He'd wrenched his purple hair back and forth; it was in messy tufts
and his scalp was red raw. Pretty much everything he'd told me had
been a lie. He'd done it out of fear for Keleigh and a desire to
protect her, and then - when Kama had killed her anyway - out of
something more selfish. He'd made his last phonecalls to me and
Rosh at gunpoint. In the same way, I knew that Harris had been
taken from his flat days before Rosh and I had arrived; the man
who'd driven away that evening was another of Kama's employees.
Harris had been forced to do what he'd done on video, both to lead
me on and to implicate and ruin him. The kid had been a runaway
that nobody would miss.
As I said, it's only ever a matter of deciding how much you give
up before you die; if you hold a gun on a man then he'll cut his own
throat just to stop you shooting him. And my brother liked nothing
better than letting his problems sort themselves out. That was why
he'd turned Rosh and me against each other - it fit better to have
me kill him than just to do it himself. Another one down.
What Kama had done was almost unimaginable, but I accepted
it. And I didn't feel angry or blame Jamie for lying to me. He had
Keleigh to protect, even if he must have known it would be in vain.
When he knew that Kama had lied and murdered Keleigh, he still
wanted to live, and so he had continued to do as he was told. I
knew that Jamie had been killed after making the phonecalls. He
was dead, Harris was dead. The kid in the video was dead.
Everyone was dead.
Everyone except Rachel, and now I knew why.
I looked at her. She was still staring at the table, leaning
forwards slightly. She was dressed and, as far as I could tell, she
wasn't tied or bound, but she wasn't making any attempt to fight
or escape. In fact, she wasn't attempting to do anything. The look
on her face was blank and empty. I thought that she was very
probably in shock, if not something far worse.
'If you make any move at all,' Kama said, 'I'll kill her.'
'I know.'
That was the only reason she was still alive: Kama couldn't kill
me but he could hurt Rachel. I guessed he was happy for me to
fulfil the legend as far as it suited him, but he certainly wasn't going
to let me kill him if he could help it.
Now, he leaned forward a little, moving into the light so that it
hollowed out his eyes.
'Put your gun down,' he said.
I looked at the gun in my hand - almost surprised to see I was
even still holding it. It felt glued there. Something buzzed
threateningly in the air and, before I could stop myself, I threw the gun away to one side.
And it jarred inside me as I did it - the exact opposite of the
sense of rightness I'd been feeling. The new menace in the air left
me in no doubt that I hadn't been meant to do that. The world
didn't like it.
Kama noticed it too. He looked around the bar a little, as though
there had been a tremor and he was wondering if the walls might
crumble. After a moment, he nodded to himself and looked back at
me.
'Now put your hands behind you,' he said. 'My employee is
going to make you safe.'
One of the men approached me - the man who'd been cutting
Rachel when I tried to rescue her yesterday. I looked back at
Kama, trying to fight the panic that was rising inside me. Not only
did this feel so nauseatingly wrong, but it was incredibly stupid as
well. Kama was only keeping Rachel alive to make me cooperate.
They would cuff me, leave me powerless, and then they would kill
her. What I should do was pick up the gun and start shooting. He
would still kill her - I was sure about that - but it would be right
and it would fit, and at least he'd be dead too.
But I gritted my teeth and ignored the feeling. If I could, I owed
her something better than that.
It took all my resolve to put my arms behind my back, and I'd
never felt the world protest so greatly; I had to close my eyes
against the sensation. The cool metal was clasped onto my first
wrist. And then, a moment later, onto the other. And then it was
done.
When the man stepped away from me, I was shivering with the
difficulty of holding still. Breathing hard. But within the deep
revulsion, something small and bright felt like it was curling and
unfolding. Strange - with my hands locked behind me, I realised
that it felt like liberation. I concentrated on it and opened my eyes.
'Why have you done this?' I said.
Kama blinked.
'Why have I done what?'
'All of this.' I nodded with my head. 'You had everything, and
you got me to kill your brother anyway. Even when you knew it
would all just ... be ruined.'
He kept looking at me, and it occurred to me that he had
absolutely nothing to say in reply. It was a non-question. Why had
he done it? Because he was crime and that was what he did. I was
sure that he also thought he was clever enough to get away with it.
And with Rachel here, he was probably right.
Except I was fate and death. I was the wildcard.
It was something to cling to, anyway.
'I'm not going to end,' Kama said.
The man who'd cuffed me picked up my gun and put it into his
jacket. He took another step back. There were probably about
three metres between us. The second guy was still over to the left,
sitting in the booth. Well out of reach.
I looked back at Kama.
'Are you going to let her go now?'
He smiled.
'It was pretty stupid of you to throw away your gun.'
'Well, I never said I wasn't stupid.'
'That's true.'
I moved my hands a little, testing the limits of the cuffs. There
was a maximum of ten centimetres between my wrists. Not ideal.
I said, 'Can you feel the city breaking apart?'
'No.' He shook his head. 'I can feel it straining, but that's not the
same thing. The police are on their way. When they arrive, they'll
either arrest you or kill you. I won't be here. And - to be frank - I
believe I'll be fine.'
I didn't say anything.
'So we have to leave,' he said.
'I understand.'
His gun was still pointing at Rachel's head, and I watched his
expression change. It emptied of emotion, and I understood how
this old man had been so successful in his role for so long.
It would actually make a great deal of sense for him to take
Rachel away with him. They were going to leave me here, and I
was very probably going to die. Then, it would all start over again,
because that was how this thing went - round and round in circles,
with nobody ever really learning from their mistakes. But even so the
clever thing to do would be to hold on to Rachel to make sure I
never came after him. He'd taken women as false insurance before,
but it might well have worked. And yet he wasn't going to do that.
Kama nodded at the man who'd put the cuffs on. He moved
behind me, out of sight.
'Going to knock me out again?' I said.
'In a moment. I just thought you might want to say goodbye
first.'
Kama pressed the gun firmly against the side of my wife's head
and placed his finger on the trigger. She didn't respond in any way.
'Goodbye,' I said quietly.
Just before Kama pulled the trigger, his arm whipped around.
He struggled against thin air for a moment, making a confused
noise, and then there was a flash of light and an explosion that
shook the air, clouding it with smoke. The bullet tore into a seat
near the man on my left, who clenched up and dived for cover. I
turned and stamped out at the man behind me. If he hadn't been
gaping, not understanding, I might have missed. Instead, I caught
him in the hip and sent him sprawling backwards. He hit his head
on the bar and rolled onto his side.
Looking around, I saw the other man coming out of the booth,
holding his gun. No threat to me. He stopped, unsure of what the
fuck was happening or what to do about it. I looked across and
saw Kama, arm stretched out over the table, wrist twisted around
so that his gun pointed up towards the ceiling. There was a look of
extreme panic and pain on his face. Beside him, Rachel wasn't
reacting at all - not even a second later when Kama was pulled
bodily out of his seat, clean over the table and slammed hard face
down on the dancefloor. His arm was straight out to one side, the
gun aimed harmlessly in the direction of the kitchen. As I walked
towards him, his arm shuddered for a moment, and then for a
second more, and then it shattered backwards at a right angle. He
screamed.
And let go of the gun, but somehow it didn't fall. Instead, it
hovered in the air for a second and then raised itself to shoulder
height.

'This is my friend Rosh,' I announced, stepping over Kama and
out of the way. 'He works for me now.'
They knew to look for him, but it was too late. The gun swung
around in mid air and shots began pounding out. The man from
the booth was knocked backwards, tumbling over. I moved to one
side as Rosh, becoming visible, aimed at the man I'd kicked. He
was back on his feet, holding his head as he ran across the room
towards us. He didn't make it. Rosh shot him in the face. He fell
down and didn't move again, beyond bleeding copiously onto my
dancefloor.
I looked at Rachel. She was still staring at the table, oblivious to
everything. Rosh glanced at her, and then back at me.
'You cut that pretty fucking fine,' I said.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'That whole thing takes a bit of getting used to.'
'Well, you seem to have picked it up okay.'
'Thanks.'
I looked down at Kama. He'd stopped screaming now, but his
face was contorted in pain. He seemed to be making an effort to
crawl away from us. I don't know where he thought he was going;
he looked like an injured bird. I left him to it for the moment.
Rosh rubbed his shoulder with a curious expression on his face
and said, 'My arm's stopped hurting.'
Back at the hotel, when he'd pulled his hand out of his coat, I'd
shot him in the upper arm. That had knocked him backwards and
sent the page from the book fluttering down to the floor, and at
that point I'd decided I'd made enough mistakes that day.
Now, I said, 'I'm sorry about that.'
'It's okay.' He looked a bit confused. 'Like I said, the pain's
mostly gone.'
'Perk of the new job, I guess.'
We'd briefly negotiated the contract, as much as we had one. I
was a strict boss and didn't pay well, but I supposed what we'd
sorted out could be viewed as probation. One penny for the first
hour, and then we'd see how we were getting on. There'd certainly
be a raise, assuming I could find a cash machine that would pay
out.
Kama was halfway across the dancefloor now, moving steadily
towards the man in the booth who had dropped his gun on the
floor by the seat. It wouldn't do him any good against me, of
course, but there was Rachel to consider.
I turned back to Rosh and clanked my hands together behind
me. 'Could you get the keys for me?'
'Sure.'
He went over and started searching through the dead man's
pockets. I walked across to Kama and kicked the gun out of his
reach. He collapsed in defeat and rolled onto his back.
'Don't think that would help you too much anyway.'
He didn't say anything - just turned onto his side and ignored
me. I figured that was fair enough. He knew this was it.
Rosh brought the keys over and unlocked the cuffs.
'Thanks.'
'No problem.' He held out the gun. 'Here - you'll be wanting
this too.'
'Yeah.'
I rubbed my wrists and took the gun from him. Checked the clip.
There was one bullet left, just as I'd known there would be. I
listened to the feel of the room - the hum of it - and I realised that
the nausea was gone. Everything was right and back on track
again. For a while there, the world had been worried that I was
fucking things up for all of us, but now it seemed to appreciate that
it should have had a bit more faith in me. The pattern had been
there all along. I was just getting there in my own way.
'This isn't going to be pretty,' I told Rosh. 'I don't want Rachel
to see it.'
'I'll take her outside.'
'Okay.'
I knelt down beside Kama and waited while Rosh eased Rachel
carefully out of the booth. To begin with, she moved without
resisting or helping him in any way at all, but as they went past me
I heard him whispering words of gentle encouragement to her. As
they reached the front door, she lifted up her arm and put a
faltering hand on his shoulder for support. Then, they were gone.
I looked back down at Kama. He'd closed his eyes and was
waiting. Again and again, we fuck up. We always think it will
work better next time, but it's so difficult not to be bound by the
mistakes you've made in the past.
'You know,' I said, looking at the gun, 'I've done this a fair few
times now. The first time was Timothy Hartley. It was pretty
difficult, but it seemed to get a bit easier after that. I just had to
keep reminding myself how bad the people were. And you're the
fucking worst of all, aren't you?'
Clockwork ticking around; cogs sliding into place.
'Just do it,' he said.
'I've done this a few times,' I said again, 'but the thing is, it
doesn't seem to make anything any better.'
I took a deep breath and snapped one of the handcuffs onto his
good wrist. The buzzing in the air circled a little, unsure of itself,
and then it rose up both inside and out, swiftly becoming
devastating. I clenched my face against it and rolled Kama over.
Got hold of his broken arm; wrenched it around. He started
screaming like I'd never heard anyone scream before. But the
buzzing was louder - a furious whine that made my hair stand on
end, and my arms begin to shake. The walls were trembling. I
managed to clip the second cuff onto his wrist, and then clamber to
my feet. Everything was shuddering and vibrating, but I think it
was mostly just me. My legs would barely carry me as I staggered
back across the dancefloor. Kama was still screaming.
'I guess you're under arrest,' I said.
And while I could still walk at all, I turned quickly and ran to the
front door, out into the sunlight, and fell.


Epilogue

It used to be services here.
We pulled in; Rosh and I got out, leaving Rachel sitting quietly in
the back seat. Even now, the car park was large - space for twenty
or thirty cars. But the main services at the far end were gone; they
were just a part of my memory - replaced some time since by a
petrol station, a small series of low office blocks and what looked
like a printing company. The crappy little motel was on one side of
the road. Everywhere else, there were trees, rustling together
gently.
My legs were shaky but I realised with some relief that they were
getting better. For a while as Rosh drove, I'd genuinely felt that I
wasn't going to make it, even though I didn't really understand
what that meant or what would happen to me if I didn't. But as we
passed through the city gates, the feeling had started to reverse
itself slowly. Now, I was beginning to feel normal again.
I looked around, closed my eyes and breathed in deeply.
There was a gentle breeze but no cloud cover, and I saw that the
sun was really punishing the tarmac. That felt right, but a certain
level of understanding was leaving me now and I didn't really
know what there was to feel right or wrong about. It was a sunny
day. Maybe there was no more to it than that.
'You feeling more human?' Rosh said.
'I think so, yeah.'
'Well if you've got any idea who's gonna win the boxing, maybe
you could let me know. It's not too late to put a bet on.'
I smiled and opened my eyes.
'Get out of here,' I said.
'You're sure you'll be all right?'
'I'll be fine. Just get her to a hospital.'
He nodded.
'Where will you go?'
'I'll sit for a while,' I said. 'On the kerb, or something. Then, I
don't know. Maybe I'll steal a car.'
'Yeah. But where will you go?'
'Away. At least for now.'
I glanced over at Rachel, sitting in the back of the car. She wasn't
looking at me, and that was fine; that part of my life was over now.
I'd made mistakes and I wished that I hadn't, but it was done.
Whatever either of us thought, what we had now wasn't love
anymore. She deserved better, but at least now she was safe. That
was less than I owed her, but all I had to give.
'Take care, man.'
I looked at Rosh.
'You take care too,' I said.
We hugged, and then he got in the car and drove away: taking
the exit that would lead them back to the city. I watched them go. I
could see Rachel sitting behind him, indifferent to everything, and I
hoped that she was going to be okay. And I thought to myself that
maybe one day, if I ever returned to the city, I might find myself
walking into the Clock Cafe and ordering a coffee. It would take
too long to arrive, of course, and then I'd go and sit down and
drink it quietly. At some point I'd look up and see that she was
there as well: sitting at the table next to me, holding another man's
hands and looking happy. Or perhaps I'd be on a train: sitting
opposite her and watching her sleep, resting her head on someone
else's shoulder.
Rachel, I thought. Whatever happens. Fondly, I think of you.
When the car had disappeared, I turned around and walked
away from the motel, kicking pebbles, until I found the patch of
tarmac. Then, I stood and looked at it for a second. And then I
looked away. It was just fucking tarmac; nothing special. The
breeze picked up a little, but I didn't hear any ringing and didn't
feel any special sense of threat. I looked around and there was
nobody nearby: just a couple of guys in blue overalls standing far
off in the printing yard, smoking and shooting the shit. I don't
know what I'd expected. I looked down at the ground for a few
seconds more, and then I turned around and walked away.
The nearest major city was twenty kilometres north. I thought
that would be a good place to start. There would be cashpoints
there, for one thing. Maybe my cards still wouldn't work, but at
least I could try, and for some reason I thought that they would. If
not then I'd figure something out. I'm a pretty resourceful guy
sometimes.
Space for around thirty cars in front of the motel, and all but
four were taken: a nice selection to choose from. Did I mention
how good I was getting at stealing cars? I chose a convertible so I
could put the top down. Less than a minute later, I was on the motorway heading north at a speed that was illegal, exhilarating
and entirely right. There was no black cloud behind me. In fact, I
couldn't even see the city. It was a beautiful day.


The End.