by Andrea Hicks
I frown and lean my arms on the table, about to say something about that, but a waiter annoyingly interrupts me. ‘Coffee, please. Yes, that’s all.’ He turns to go back to the kitchen, and I mumble under my breath. ‘I’d need to take out a mortgage to eat in here.’
I lean forward again. Cain is uncommonly quiet, so I direct my comments towards Luna. ‘Did I say I wasn’t grateful? No, I didn’t, but I’ll tell you what I am. Shit scared just about sums it up. I don’t know who the hell is out to get me, and I don’t know who to trust. And while we’re on the subject.’ I look pointedly at Cain. ‘We haven’t been introduced, and until we are, I’d like you to keep your comments to yourself. And no, I’m not grateful, and I won’t be until I know I can trust you...or him.’ I look at Cain again, but he doesn’t return it.
Luna smirks and glances at Cain. ‘The girl has spirit, no?’
Cain cracks his face and leans back in his chair. A reaction at last. ‘I don’t think that was in any doubt.’ He turns his eyes on me and nods. ‘You’ll do.’
I pull a face and shake my head. I’ve never wanted to punch someone so much in all my life. Actually, strike that. It’s not true, but I do want to punch him. ‘I’ll do for what, exactly?’
He summons the waiter. ‘Eat first, then we talk.’
I make to leave the table. ‘I don’t think so. I can’t aff...’
‘I’m paying. Order what you want and eat it all. It might be a while before you eat again.’
Because I can’t be bothered to argue I do as he says. I order bread with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and olives to start, then crab linguine. It’s all delicious and all expensive, and I don’t care. He’s paying, and in truth I’m trying to delay what’s coming after. The talk thing. As we eat, there is no conversation. The café is filling up fast and I notice some questioning glances towards our table. The three of us eat as though we’re a family that’s just had a massive argument, y’know, stabbing at the food and not looking at each other. I can only thank the Lord I have a strong constitution because this is a sure route to a volcanic bout of indigestion.
After we’ve eaten we have more coffee, and I hear Cain inhale a deep breath. Here it comes. Whatever “it” is.
‘Well? What is it you want to talk about?’
‘There’s someone you must kill.’ I pretend I haven’t heard and take a gulp of my cappuccino with my eyes on him, then avert them to Luna. ‘You’re the one who must do it.’
I place my cup carefully on the saucer, and although I’m full to purging, unwrap the biscotti biscuit that has been laid so carefully on it, and cram it in my mouth. They watch me without saying anything, but eventually I have to meet their eyes because there’s nowhere else to look. ‘What?’
‘I know you heard me, Nina.’
I frown at him and shake my head. ‘Yeah, I heard you, and I’m beginning to think I’ve sink-holed into a surreal fantasy land. Are you crazy?’ I take another gulp of coffee. ‘I’m not killing anyone. You’re being ridiculous. As if.’ I roll my eyes, pretending to be unmoved by the suggestion I should kill someone, although in reality I’m stunned.
‘It must be you. You’re already wanted, your face is already known. Nothing can get worse for you, even if you kill. If one of us does it and we’re caught it will open a Pandora’s Box, a can of worms impossible to close.’
‘You said you were going to tell me things. I think you’d better start explaining because I’m doing nothing until I know what this is about. You’ve got five seconds, then I’m out of here.’
He throws Luna a look and she shrugs and turns away. She lights up a cigarette and I wait for the maître d'hôtel to pounce on her for smoking in public. He doesn’t. He goes behind the bar and pours brandies, then crosses the room with a benign smile on his face, leaving the glasses on the table. It’s then I realise the place is empty. All the other diners have left, and the door bolted against the outside world. ‘You’re not the only one.’
‘I’m not the only one, who?’
‘You’re not the only one with blood that contains multiple anti-bodies.’
‘But you said...’
‘I know what I said, but it’s become complicated and we think it’s in your interests and everyone else’s that you know.’
‘When you say everyone else’s, who are you talking about?’
He leans back in his chair again, crossing an ankle on to his knee and pivoting the chair on its back legs. ‘There are ten of you now. Ten people who possess blood, that if synthesised could wipe out every disease we have on the planet. And I know you know why that’s a bad thing.’
‘And why are you involved? Who are you, Cain?’ I hold up my hand. ‘And please, don’t give me a load of bullshit about being a scientist...’
‘He is a scientist,’ says Luna, her voice, low and...Italian. She puts a hand over his, almost protectively. ‘And a very good one.’
‘Not a wicked one?’
She looks cross. ‘For fuck’s sake, Nina, grow up. He saved your life and he saved mine. Just listen and do what you must do.’
A hot sensation runs up my arms and into my chest. This jumped up bimbo thinks she can speak to me however she wants. ‘You’d do it, would you, kill someone on his say so?’
She pulls her hand away from Cain’s and lowers her head. ‘I have already done it.’ She takes a long drag from her cigarette and crushes it out in a saucer. ‘I’ve already killed.’
I stare at her, hopefully with a poker face. Are they for real? ‘So, you do it if you’ve done it before. Why the hell should it be me?’
‘Because you’re here in London, and because nothing you do now will make your situation worse. You’re wanted by MI5, MI6 and the pharma companies. They all want a piece of you, but there is one person running the show and we must get rid of her. Luna is here because she killed in Milan. It’s why she came back to London, to get away from the heat while they look for her in Milan.’
‘Well, she’s hard to miss.’
Luna puts her hand up to her forehead, makes a pincer with her fingers and thumb and begins to remove her hair. The beautiful blonde flowing locks are a wig, and underneath, cut close to the head, spikey blue hair. ‘Not everything is as it seems, Nina. You should learn to look further, beyond the end of your nose, and even around corners if necessary.’ She detaches two sets of false eyelashes, and pops out two coloured contacts from her eyes, revealing irises as brown as mine. She looks entirely different, but yes, more like her Italian roots, less New York super-model. I have to admit, the lady has chutzpah. I’m impressed.
‘Why are you killing these...people?’
‘They don’t qualify as people,’ Luna answers. ‘They’re inhuman. They want to get rid of our blood, to remove every last bit of it, so we’re put to death and it can’t be used. Except, we know that’s not what will happen. The blood will be stored until it can be used against the population. It’s criminal that something that could save so many people will be used to wipe them out.’
My eyes widen again. Luna is full of surprises. ‘Our?’
Cain nods. ‘Luna is like you. She has blood like you.’
I need time to think, time to assess what they’re telling me. ‘Where are the others? I ask, my voice almost a whisper.
‘Dispersed,’ Cain answers.
‘Dispersed?’
‘The others...they’re not in the UK...at the moment. They all have different identities, different appearances, different lives.’ He looks at me, his eyes soft now, like he’s talking to a friend. ‘It’s what you found at my house when you were...’
‘Snooping,’ interrupts Luna.
‘Looking for a way out,’ continues Cain. ‘And I understand why you did what you did. You didn’t know who to trust, and after what you’d been through who could blame you?’
‘But who is it we have to kill? Who has the power to do us that kind of harm?’
‘Cecily Cunningham and her girlfriend Simone Deveraux.’
<
br /> My mouth drops open and I’m so shocked I can barely speak. ‘But...I’ve...I’ve spoken to Cecily. She knows me, knows who I am.’
Cain nods. ‘Yes, and you didn’t threaten her or make her think you were a danger to her. As far as she’s concerned, you’re a girl on the run, and that’s all you are.’
‘And not a killer,’ I say softly.
‘And not a killer.’
A quiet descends on us and I zone out. There’s something someone said, some snippet I wanted to follow up at the time but lost the opportunity. I go over the conversation again and suddenly the thought comes hurtling back.
‘You said something about our blood, Luna. That they would need to remove all of it to put us to death. What did you mean?’
Luna pulls her chair closer to mine and reaches for my hand. She looks at me in a big-sisterly kind of way. It’s comforting until she says what she says. ‘We can’t be killed, Nina, not like other people. If we’re shot, we’ll feel the pain, oh, fuck yes, we will, but it won’t kill you.’ She pulls up her tee, revealing a round indentation on her abdomen. ‘Your arm could be ripped from your body, but you won’t die. Your body will fight everything it sees as an enemy, even if it causes you terrible pain, pain that no one else could withstand, pain you couldn’t even imagine. Even with massive blood loss your body would rebuild, and your blood cells would multiply. Yes, we could be so injured we could not fight back, be so weak we could be captured, and it could happen of course, but there’s only one way to kill us.’ I stare at her, oddly feeling nothing because I don’t know what to feel. ‘Our blood would have to be totally removed from our body, our veins and capillaries bleached, acid-washed, flooded with chemicals to disperse it so that nothing remains before we could be deemed no longer living.’
‘And Cecily Cunningham wants to do that?’
‘She, and MI5, and the pharma companies want our blood. Cecily Cunningham wants us dead. And she’s being encouraged by her girlfriend, Commander Deveraux. Simone Deveraux. The woman’s a monster, and for all Cecily Cunningham’s front, she’s like putty in Simone’s hands. Simone’s the boss. It’s crazy that the leader of the UK’s national security is being gaslighted by her lover. The pharma companies are ambivalent. They’re not so keen for it to happen because they would want to guarantee a supply...just in case.’
A thought occurs to me and I realised what I forgot to do. ‘I have to go to Oxford Circus. The guy on the underground, it’s what he told me. Go to Oxford Circus, use the key, and something to do with my mum’s year of birth. Give up the gun and the key and my father’s address which is a complete joke, and there will be money for me, enough for me to get away. Isn’t that what you want me to do, get out of your hair, disappear? Forever? It suits me, suits me fine.’
Cain chuckles. ‘Oh, he’s Mr Benevolent, suddenly. Don’t, whatever else you do, go to Oxford Circus. He’s trying to stitch you up. There’s no way there’s money there to help you get away. What there will be is someone to take you away. Don’t go anywhere near fucking Oxford Circus.’
‘You know him?’ Cain nods and Luna makes a kind of kissing teeth noise which tells me she ain’t happy. ‘He’s...who? One of yours?’
‘Was.’
‘He spoke to me like he knew me, knew who I was. Gave me the creeps that’s for sure.’
‘He knows who you are, but he doesn’t have your best interests at heart.’
I shake my head. ‘I need more than that, Cain. If you want me to be part of this, I need more.’
Cain goes quiet. I can tell his mind is working, the wheels and cogs turning, considering the wisdom of telling me. ‘His name is Hikaru. He used to be one of us, on the same side; part of the team, however you want to call it. He knew I would spring you from Plan Bee. But he turned, double crossed us, big bucks involved. He lost us one of our people, not a Bee Blood, just...a guy, someone who wanted to help. He was intercepted. Got him killed.’
‘What the hell’s a Bee Blood?’
‘It’s you and me, darling,’ answers Luna through a cloud of Gitane smoke. ‘It’s what they call us, Bee Bloods.’
‘Why?’
She looks and Cain and they laugh. ‘Because you and I are as important to the longevity of the earth as our bee population...only in a different way.’
Something occurs to me and I have to ask it because it’s something I don’t understand. ‘Doesn’t Cecily know what you’re doing, Cain? You work for her.’
He shakes his head, almost proudly. ‘Nope.’
‘You’re sure?’ He nods. ‘So, you think I should be the one to kill her because they already know about me.’
He laughs again, ironic, hard as cold steel. ‘Yeah, well, your mugs been all over the papers, thanks to your boyfriend. They’d have to be living under a rock, wouldn’t they?’
‘Why?’
Cain frowns. ‘Why what?’
‘Why have I got this blood? Why have the others got it?’ I can’t bring myself to say Bee Bloods. It’s a bit too James Bond for me and I feel a bit embarrassed to say it.
‘Same Queen.’
I frown. ‘You mean, like in a beehive?’
‘Yeah, except the Queen in all your cases was designed in a laboratory, a serum, which was introduced into your bodies to test it. Originally, the experiment was to find a vaccine for CF, cystic fibrosis, but it developed into something different when it hit the blood stream.’ I shake my head and laugh because what he is saying is so ridiculous. I’ve never been part of any experiment that’s for sure. Cain looks incredulous. ‘You think all this is funny?’
‘Cain, I’ve never been part of an experiment.’ I lean towards him to underline what I’m saying. ‘How the others were “infected” may be something different, but that’s not what happened to me. I have never been part of any experiment.’
‘I was,’ says Luna, her eyes clouding over. ‘My parents are CF carriers and I was approached to take part in a trial for a new serum to prevent the gene from being passed from parent to child.’
‘You’ve never put it to the test?’
‘No, and I don’t plan to. My brother has CF and it has been a huge life-changer for him, although he is married now and found some happiness. How long he’ll be around to enjoy it is anyone’s guess.’
‘And all the people with blood like ours were part of the trial?’
‘Yes,’ Luna says, nodding, looking morose. ‘Not one of them was unaffected. When they were tested, they were all found to have multiple antibodies. It was horrendous. We were tested over and over and over again. My body is like a pincushion, and the others are the same.’
‘That’s what happened to me. At Plan Bee. I thought it would never end. I had no control over anything. I couldn’t say no to anything because I wasn’t given the choice. It was so bad.’
‘The difference being that you were picked up by accident, a complete fluke. If you hadn’t been taken to hospital you’d still be walking around unaware of the ticking bomb running through your veins.’
I stare at Cain, hoping he’s thinking the same thing as me. ‘Where did I get it from? The blood? The same as Luna’s? She knows what happened, the others do too.’ I swallow hard, hoping he might have an answer for me. ‘But I don’t. I’ve never been in hospital apart from when I had the bad fix, never had a vaccination because mum didn’t believe in fighting illnesses with chemicals. She said the body would always heal itself if it was meant to.’
‘And if it wasn’t?’ I shrug and Cain raises his eyebrows. ‘She was prepared to take a risk with you, then?’
‘She didn’t consider it a risk. She said the body had everything it needed to heal naturally.’ Cain glances at Luna but neither of them say anything.
Luna gets up and gathers her things together.
‘We should go.’
This was the moment I was dreading. I feel totally disenfranchised, cut off, without an anchor to keep me anywhere. Some might call it freedom, but it feels more like prison. ‘I don
’t have anywhere.’
She smiles at me. ‘Yes. You do.’ She lifts her chin to the maître d’hôtel and he joins us. She slips an arm through one of his. ‘This is my uncle, Emilio. The café belongs to him. There is a small apartment upstairs where you can stay.’ She leans in and kisses his cheek. ‘What would I do without you?’
Emilio shrugs and he gestures with his hands. ‘You would be fine, Tesoro. You’re like your mother, strong, independent. But...I am here, and I will always be here for you.’
I smile shyly at Emilio. ‘Thank you for letting me stay. I don’t want to be any trouble.’
‘No trouble. There’s a small kitchen, stocked with everything you’ll need for a short stay, but please, no loud music. My customers...’
I grin. ‘I understand. No loud music.’
The tiny apartment is clean and decorated plainly but with good taste. The rooms are compact, but perfect for one. There is a small kitchenette, modern, with built-in appliances. The living room is lovely; two long windows, dressed with slatted blinds, look out onto the street. The bedroom is quite girly; a small double bed with sparkly bedding, a white feather lampshade and a kidney-shaped dressing table against the wall. I’m guessing this is where Luna stays when visiting her uncle. I envy her. She has family here who care about her, something I’m not sure I have any more. My thoughts fly to Rochelle. She would have found Paul by now if his body hasn’t been moved. Didn’t Cain say he would deal with it? I go to the chair where I’ve thrown my coat and put my hand in the inside pocket. My phone. He didn’t ask for it back. Dare I contact him? I must know about Paul, need to know that Rochelle is alright and that she doesn’t assume whatever has happened to him is down to me. I’m praying his body wasn’t still lying in the kitchen when she got home. He answers after the first ring.
‘What?’
‘Paul.’
‘What about him?’
‘Please tell me his body isn’t still at Rochelle’s.’
