by Kevin Brooks
“I’d like a room, please.”
It was easier than I thought—the procedure.
She asked me questions, I answered them.
“How many nights?”
“One.”
“Single or double?”
“Single.”
“Smoking or nonsmoking?”
“Non.”
“Newspaper in the morning?”
“Yes, please.”
“Which one?”
“Any one.”
The only tricky part was when she asked me for a credit card. I had credit cards. I had Ryan’s and Kamal’s credit cards. But I didn’t want to use them. Credit cards are traceable. I didn’t want to be traced.
“There’s a problem with my card,” I told the receptionist, giving her what I hoped was a weary smile. “It’s been playing up all day. I think there’s a faulty computer or something. Is it OK if I pay in cash?”
She hesitated for a moment, then smiled and nodded. “Cash? Of course, cash is fine. We’ll need some identification, though—credit card, driver’s license, passport…something like that. And full payment in advance, of course.”
“Of course.”
I was thinking hard now, thinking fast, trying to work out what to do. What could I use for ID? And what would the receptionist do with it? If I gave her a credit card, would she swipe it? And if she did, would Ryan find out? What if I used Ryan’s ID card? No, that was no good, it had his photograph on it. Kamal’s driver’s license? No, that had a photo on it, too. And, besides, who in their right mind would believe that I was called Kamal Ramachandran? What else could I use? My insurance card, Ryan’s business card…?
“It doesn’t matter if your credit card’s faulty,” the receptionist said. “We’re only going to make a photocopy.”
I smiled at her. I still wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew she’d start getting suspicious if I didn’t do something soon. So, still smiling, I took Ryan’s wallet out of my pocket, selected his Amex card, glanced briefly at the signature on the back, then passed it over.
The receptionist barely looked at the card. She just smiled at me, made a quick photocopy, then gave it back.
The rest was easy. She pressed buttons on her keyboard, gave me a form to fill out and sign—Ryan’s signature was just a s crawl—then she took my cash, and that was it.
Room 624. Sixth floor.
Through the doors, down the corridor, the elevator’s on your left.
Thank you, Mr. Ryan.
Thank you.
It was a small room—single bed, cupboards, TV and VCR, bathroom. I locked the door behind me and dropped my bags on the bed. I went over to the window, pulled back the edge of the curtain, and looked outside. I was at the back of the hotel. All I could see was a plain brick wall and the rear of the kitchens down below. I turned on the TV, clicked through the channels, then turned it off. I went into the bathroom, looked around, took a glass tumbler from a shelf over the sink, then came back out again. I sat down on the bed and put the tumbler on the bedside cabinet. There was a telephone on the cabinet. I stared at it for a while, imagining how simple it would be to just pick up the phone and press a few buttons…
Hello?
Bridget? It’s me, Robert-
Robert! Where are you? What’s going on…?
No. It wouldn’t be simple at all.
I leaned across the bed and opened the cabinet drawer. Inside was a pad of writing paper, a hotel pen, and a bible. I took out the bible and flipped through the pages, then put it back in the drawer.
I knew I was just playing for time, putting off what had to be done. And I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer.
It was time to think about it now.
Right now.
I ernptied my pockets and tipped the contents of the backpack and the briefcase onto the bed. Then I just sat there and stared at them, making myself see the bare truth of those things: X-rays, photographs, a videotape, scalpels, needles, syringes, papers, medical records, an automatic pistol, wallets, cash, clothes, vodka, chocolate bars, chicken, painkillers…
It was an unthinkable collage.
And I knew what I had to do.
I picked up the glass tumbler and half-filled it with vodka. The smell of it made me gag. I hate vodka. I hate alcohol. I hate the taste of it, the smell of it, how it makes you feel. I hate it.
But it was necessary.
I topped up the glass with Coke.
Took two aspirin.
I drank, shuddered, and drank again.
It was necessary.
I started examining the items on the bed.
The X-rays. Blurred images of bones and organs on a plastic film. X-rays. Normal, Casing had said. Normal. I held the X-rays up to the light and studied thern, but they didn’t tell me anything. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I didn’t know what I was looking for. What does normal look like? I put the X-rays to one side and turned to the pile of papers.
The papers. Photocopies of my appointment card and admittance record, my name and address, a few personal details on a handwritten sheet. Blank pages. Papers. Nothing about Ryan, nothing by Ryan. Nothing to tell me what had happened. I collected all the papers together and placed them on top of the X-rays.
The medical records. Cramped handwriting on small white cards. I glanced through them, looking for anything unusual, but there was hardly anything there. In fact, apart from the details of my stomach problem, there was nothing there at all. No broken bones, no diseases, no ailments.
Was that normal?
I tried to remember if I’d ever been ill. I knew I’d had colds. Snuffles, sneezes, a cough. Colds and chills. But, no, I couldn’t remember anything serious. Nothing that needed medical attention.
Nothing?
Ever?
Chicken pox, measles, mumps…?
No.
Nothing. Not as far as I could recall.
Only bad dreams.
I didn’t know what to think about that.
I took another drink.
Refilled the glass. Three parts vodka, one part Coke.
The photographs. Black-and-white stills taken from the endoscopy video. Unclear images of unclear things. Strange things. Strange shapes. Cones, flecks, weird black chambers. Wiggles of white, curves, ridges, trails. Patterns. I didn’t know what I was looking at. There was no sense of dimension or direction. No reference points.
Not yet.
I stacked the photographs and placed them beside the videotape.
Another drink.
The pistol. It was matte black, slightly oily, with a molded grip, chunky little sights, and seven vertical grooves gouged into the rear of the barrel. On the side, it said MADE IN AUSTRIA, and below that, GLOCK. It was a gun. A 9mm automatic pistol. I thumbed a little catch and the magazine slid out. I counted sixteen bullets. I replaced the magazine—snick—and hefted the gun in the palm of my hand.
It felt solid and primed. Powerful.
It felt like death.
I placed the pistol on the left-hand side of the bed.
Putting things in order. That’s what I was doing. I was picking things up, one by one, examining them, studying them, seeing what they told me. Then I was arranging them in separate piles on the bed. On the right, the stuff that told me nothing, the stuff I could get rid off. On the left, the stuff I needed to keep. And in the middle, right in front of me, the stuff I needed to look at.
Order. Keep things in order.
I liked to keep things in order.
Chocolate bars, water, aspirin—left. Map—left. Ryan’s wallet and penknife—left. Old clothes—right. Kamal’s wallet—left. Car keys—right. Cash—left.
Photographs—middle. Video—middle…
Left and right.
Right and left.
Middle, middle, middle.
There was a shopping bag in the trash can. I gathered all the stuff from the right-hand pile and packed it into the shopping bag, then I placed the sh
opping bag in the corner of the room. The pistol, the map, everything else from the left-hand pile, I put into the backpack. Then I changed my mind about the pistol, removed it from the backpack, and placed it on the bedside cabinet.
What was left? Videotape, photographs, syringes, needles, scalpels.
It was almost time.
I put the endoscopy video in the VCR and sat on the bed with the remote in my hand. I drank more vodka and Coke. The alcohol was getting to me now, making me sick and numb and stupid. It was doing what it had to do.
I stared at the blank television screen. Gray-green. My thurnb hovered over the PLAY button.
Whatever you see, I said to myself, whatever’s there…there’s a thousand ways it won’t be you.
I thought…don’t think.
I drank some more…and pressed PLAY.
It was just supposed to be
a routine examination.
But what the doctors discover inside Robert Smith doesn’t make medical sense. Naked and numb on the operating table, Robert can hear the surgeons’ shocked comments:
“What the hell is that?”
It’s me, Robert thinks, and I’ve got to get out of here.
Armed with a stolen automatic, Robert manages to escape. Off the radar, on the run, and with a beautiful thief as his hostage, he embarks on a violent odyssey to find out exactly who—exactly what—he is.
Did I hate him? Of course I hated him.
But I never meant to kill him.
Martyn’s father is dead. Now he has to make a choice. Tell the police what happened—and be suspected of murder. Or get rid of the body and go on with the rest of his life.
Simple, right? Not quite. One lie leads to another. Secrets become darker and darker. And Martyn is faced with twists and turns that will leave him stunned and spinning. Life is never easy. But death is even harder.
I would have done anything to freeze
the moment forever.
One unforgettable summer afternoon, Caitlin meets a boy named Lucas, and her world turns upside down. Lucas is everything Caitlin longs to be. Brave, Honest. Free, And he is also everything the people around her fear the most.
As Caitlin grapples to find her true self amidst the unforgiving ways of her small town, she is mysteriously drawn to Lucas. For this, there are consequences. When the town suddenly turns on Lucas, Caitlin must make the most difficult choice of her life…
The TRUTH?
I’ll tell you about the truth.
Everyone thinks of Moo Nelson as a nobody. They tease him. Shove him. Call him names. There’s only one place he can escape: the bridge. High above the traffic, Moo can watch the world go by and not worry about anything else.
Until he witnesses a car chase. And a murder.
Suddenly everyone—gangsters and police officers, friends and foes—wants the truth from Moo. Or some version of the truth. But Moo isn’t sure what’s true anymore. He must decide between fact and fiction, loyalty and loneliness, justice and retribution. And he must do it soon…
Revenge
When Ruben’s sister Rachel is murdered, he can sense it. Even though he’s miles away. Even though he can’t explain it. He feels her fear. He feels pain. And then—her death.
Ruben’s older brother, Cole, is different from him: darker, harsher, more direct. A fighter, As soon as he finds out about Rachel’s death, he has a plan. Three days later, the two brothers set out to reclaim their sister’s body and uncover the cold truth behind her killing. It’s a long road, a hard and violent journey with a brutal mystery at its end.
Copyright
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 written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Copyright © 2005 by Kevin Brooks.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
E-ISBN: 978-0-545-22999-9
First published in the United Kingdom in 2005 by Chicken House, 2 Palmer Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1DS.
