by Tim Weaver
I pushed down on the handle and inched the door open. Halfway along the corridor, outside the door to the security suite, was Alexander Marek.
He was dressed in black trousers and a dark grey shirt and had his head tilted slightly, clearly listening for something: a rogue noise, a sound that didn’t fit this place. At first, it was hard to tell if he’d just entered the school or if he’d been here the whole time, but then I thought of the laptop, just sitting on the desk, and realized he must already have been in the building when I arrived. There was no way he would have left the MacBook unattended otherwise.
I watched him for a second. There was something different about him now, something more intense, as if he’d expanded, grown taller. It made me realize the person he’d been the day before, the person who’d shown me to Roland Dell’s office, was a lie, a fabrication. This was the real him. This felt like the man Jacob Howson had described, the one everyone was scared of.
As gently as I could, I pushed the door closed.
I moved quickly across the room to the window and checked the latches. They weren’t locked, and the window was big enough to climb through, but I had no real idea where the garden led – out into the street, or back into the building.
A crackle of static from the other side of the door – a radio – and then the muted sound of footsteps. They were softer now, as if he knew where I was.
He was coming.
Shit. Shit.
On instinct, I reached up to the window and opened it, pushing it as far out into the darkness of the garden as it would go. Sound flowed in from the city: it was starting to wake up – traffic, voices, activity.
I glanced back over my shoulder and my gaze switched from the door to the desk.
The laptop.
A moment of hesitation halted me, gluing me to the carpet. Grab it, and he’d know for sure that someone had broken in. Don’t, and I might never find out the truth.
In a split second, I thought about the consequences of taking it – stealing it – and the fact that the school might involve the police. I thought about what sort of person it would make me if I made off with it. It made me no better than the people who came after me, who hunted me, the men who’d broken into my home on cases I’d worked and who’d tried to tear my life apart in the process. But then I wondered if the police would ever get called here, if what was being hidden inside the security suite, and maybe even on the hard drive of the laptop, would raise too many questions about Marek – and reveal too many secrets.
Richard Kite, and the truth about who he was.
Penny Beck, and why she’d been killed.
Maybe things that were even worse than that.
I swept the MacBook off the desk, clutched it between my arm and chest, and climbed on to a case that boxed in a radiator. A couple of seconds later, I was in the garden, surrounded by high walls and trellising, vines snaking up them, out of ceramic pots. I saw benches at intervals, a fountain, and a patio leading back to the building. Next to the patio was an arched door marked FIRE EXIT.
I pushed the window shut, and headed towards the door. It was still cold, the air chill against my skin. Windows looked out on to the garden all the way along, but they were dark and impossible to see into, and I tried to keep my face turned away from them, in case I was being watched.
On the exit door, there was a fire bar.
I pushed it, it clicked and swung open – but the second it shifted, an alarm sounded. I looked behind me, back across the garden, to the window of the office. A silhouette formed at the glass, staring out, trying to locate me against the shadows. Pulling my beanie down as far as it would go, I headed through the exit and found myself in a narrow alleyway.
Gripping the laptop as tightly as I could, I broke into a run and headed left, away from the entrance on River Hill. Eventually, I reached the next street along, cobbled and running at a slant. It was empty except for a couple, hand in hand, going south towards the Thames.
I headed in the other direction.
By the time I got home, it was almost seven.
I opened up the house and checked it over. The alarm was still set, the windows were all shut. I didn’t expect to get back and find I’d been broken into, but I made sure all the same. I’d done my best to disguise myself from cameras at the front and rear of the school, but Marek would be poring over footage now, looking for the person who’d accessed the building illegally and made off with his laptop. He probably already knew it was me – even if he couldn’t prove it – and then it became a question of what happened next. I still didn’t think he’d call the police, because I had a hard time believing he’d want the attention. So he’d take care of everything himself.
In most ways I could think of, that was even worse.
I turned the Wi-Fi off, so the MacBook wasn’t transmitting a location, and then packed a bag, filling it with my spare laptop, a spare mobile phone, power leads, enough clothes for a few days, fresh notebooks, and everything I’d compiled so far on Richard Kite. After that, I jumped in the shower, feeling fatigue kick in.
I hadn’t slept all night; I was operating on coffee and adrenalin, and now it was starting to wear off. I rubbed hard at my eyes and put my face directly beneath the shower head, trying to force some energy back into my muscles. By the time I was dressed, I felt better.
Twenty minutes later, I was gone.
Breath
The skies were steel grey as the Land Rover bumped down the old track. Miles out to sea, it was still possible to see evidence of the sun, a brush of red paint at the horizon, but then – the next time Penny looked up – the sun was gone, the skies had darkened even more, and night was clawing its way in.
Next to her, in the bed of the vehicle, Beth glanced at her, tear trails still visible on her cheeks. Penny looked away, not wanting to see her sister’s face, to see the pain and the fear in it. But then she felt herself slowly drawn back to Beth, and – as they hit a pothole in the track, and the Land Rover rolled left to right – she let the momentum of the vehicle slide her all the way over. As they bumped against each other, Penny reached for Beth’s hand and gripped it as tightly as she could.
She listened to the low rumble of the vehicle, to the sound of loose stones spitting up and pinging against the underside of the Land Rover. It almost drowned out Beth’s sobs – almost, but not quite. If, two nights ago, Penny had struggled with the idea of Beth only being twelve years old – the way she talked, the way she acted – there was no struggle now. Under the rain-soaked coat that was stuck to her skin, Penny could see the small swell of Beth’s breasts. She remembered the conversation they’d had only four months ago about Beth starting her period. They’d felt like adults then, women, but here, now, they were girls, not grown-ups, not explorers, or adventurers, or pioneers. More memories returned to Penny: the two of them racing down to the harbour every day, trying to see who was fastest; kicking a ball around in the park; walking to and from school, their endless, innocent conversations long forgotten, like smoke drifting away from the ashes of a gutted building. Penny had sat across from Beth in that pillbox two days ago, both of them ready to head out into the Brink.
I was born ready, Beth had said.
But not for this.
Not for what was coming.
The Land Rover came to an abrupt halt, rocking on its suspension briefly. Penny got on to her haunches and swivelled, looking across the vehicle’s flat roof.
The Brink.
It lay in front of them, half obscured by the approaching darkness, a sea of pale grass bleached by a covering of snow. Off to her left, a little way down the slope, was the pillbox she and Beth had been to, over and over, for more than five years.
As the wind picked up, snowflakes scattered around them, and at the front of the vehicle the doors opened and two men got out. One was a guy called Anthony Jessop. Penny didn’t know much about him. She’d seen him in town, smoking in the shadows of the pub. She’d seen how big Jessop was, like a wr
estler, and he looked even bigger now, wrapped in a thick winter coat, his face and head partly obscured beneath a green woollen hat. The other man Penny knew. She knew him as well as almost anyone.
The other man was her stepdad, Jack.
He was tall and wiry with an uneven beard. Penny remembered asking him once, when she was still young – after her own father had disappeared and her mum had moved in with Jack – why Jack’s beard didn’t grow very well on one side of his face, and Jack had laughed for ages and told Penny he loved her questions.
‘It’s an old war injury,’ he’d said to her after he’d stopped laughing, except it was a joke – even at that age, Penny knew it was a joke – because Jack was a farmer and had never been to war. ‘No, seriously, I got it fighting the Morlocks.’
Jack loved The Time Machine. He used to read it to her and Beth before bed, before they started creeping out of the house without him and her mum knowing.
Those days seemed like another life now.
‘It’s time.’
Penny glanced at Jack. He had an expression on his face that was difficult to read: he was upset, but he was rigid and uncompromising too.
‘Both of you, out.’
‘Jack, why are you doing –’
‘Out.’
Penny turned and looked across at Beth again, cowering in the back of the Land Rover, surrounded by old cans, cloths and tools.
‘It’s okay,’ Penny said to her.
But her words didn’t match the panic in her eyes and, as Beth saw that, she started sobbing even louder and Penny felt a spike of anger, as thick as a fist in her throat. ‘No,’ she said, turning to Jack. ‘No, we won’t come out.’
‘Get out, Pen.’
‘No, I won’t do it.’
Jack glanced at Jessop, clearly embarrassed.
‘Out of the bloody back, Penny,’ he said between his teeth. Penny hadn’t seen Jack angry much, but he was angry now. His eyes narrowed and his chest seemed to swell as he took a step towards the Land Rover. ‘Get out!’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Because you broke the rules. Now get out!’
Penny looked around her – over to the pillbox, just visible at the edge of the gathering dark; across the ocean of grass on both sides of the fence; to the marshland, its bogs winking in the light from the men’s torches; and then back to her sister. More snowflakes swirled around their faces, blown across the headland, up the hills from the water somewhere in the distance.
Penny said to Beth, ‘It’s okay.’
Beth’s eyes filled with fresh tears. She started shaking her head.
‘Beth, listen.’
Beth didn’t respond.
‘Beth, listen to me.’
She still didn’t respond, the tears streaming down her face.
‘Beth, listen to me – now.’
Beth finally looked up.
‘I’ll protect you,’ Penny said. ‘I promise.’
But while she might have convinced Beth, she couldn’t convince herself, and as the wind and the snow carried her words off into the night, Penny felt tears blur in her own eyes this time.
She turned to Jack. ‘You’ll pay for this.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Both of you,’ she said, jabbing a finger at Jack and then at Jessop. Jessop hardly even moved, didn’t react, just stared at Penny blankly. ‘You want us?’ she said. ‘You’ll have to come through me first.’
Penny looked back at her sister and swallowed. She sounded brave, her voice tight – but she was frightened of the men, of this place, of what was coming. Even so, when she turned back to Jack, she placed her hands at her side, bunched into fists, ready to put up whatever fight she could muster.
But something had changed.
Jessop was gone.
A sharp scream ripped through the night. Penny turned around and saw Jessop behind her, standing on the other side of the Land Rover, his arms reaching over and into the back of the vehicle. He already had hold of Beth, her legs kicking out violently.
‘Get off her!’ Penny yelled.
But as she moved, a hand grabbed at her ankle and she lost her balance, one foot knocking against the other. She lurched to the side and hit the hard metal of the Land Rover. In a flash, Jack had dragged her towards him, clamped her against him, and lifted her out. Penny thrashed around like an eel, unable to see her sister now, desperately trying to fight back. Beth was gone, carried off into the darkness, in the direction of the pillbox. She heard a scream, a second one – and then there was nothing.
‘I fucking hate you!’ Penny screamed at her stepdad.
Jack held her in a bear hug. She couldn’t move and now, as they headed to the boundary, she caught a glimpse of Beth again. She’d been tied to the fence further down, her back against the wire.
‘No,’ Penny said, struggling again. ‘No!’
Jack gripped her more tightly, positioning her under his arm like a rolled-up carpet. Rope was looped around his other shoulder. They got to the fence, about fifteen feet up from where Beth had been secured, and he dumped her on the ground. She hit the earth hard, stunned for a second, and he used the hesitation against her: he grabbed Penny’s arm, forced it back against the fence and began tying it to the wire. She fought back, could even feel Jack struggling to keep control of her, but then Jessop joined them, and the two men were too strong for her.
She felt the fight go out of her, felt the emotion swell in her gut, her chest, her throat, and then she was crying properly, shivering against the fence, freezing cold, frightened. ‘Beth?’ she said into the wind, but couldn’t hear if her sister had replied or not, could hardly even see her any more. The snow swirled across the spaces between them, out of the shadows, as Jessop headed back to the Land Rover.
Jack remained where he was.
‘I told you never to come up here,’ he said, his voice breaking up. ‘I told you two it wasn’t landmines you had to worry about out there. How could you be so stupid?’ He looked at Penny and then wiped at his eyes. His skin was flushed. ‘How could you bring your sister up here? She’s twelve years old, Pen.’
Frost cracked like glass beneath his feet as he shifted his weight and then, with the night settled like a shroud on the headland, he got down on to his haunches – tears smeared across his cheeks – and said, ‘I don’t want to do this but I have to. You’ve got to be made an example of. Everyone needs to know about the real reason you don’t come up here. You need to tell your friends at school, you hear? You need to make them understand that the landmines were just a story. There’s something worse out here. Much worse. It’s time everyone realized that all we’ve been doing is trying to protect the town.’
Penny looked behind her, through the mesh of the fence, and then Jessop returned from the Land Rover with two sleeping bags and two foil blankets. He started wrapping one blanket and one bag around Penny – tucking it in around her, under her, cocooning her in – and then trekked down the hill again and did the same to Beth. Neither of the girls fought back this time: they knew they’d need the protection from the cold.
‘I’ll return for you before the sun’s up tomorrow,’ Jack said.
Penny glanced over her shoulder again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.
Something moved out in the Brink; the hint of a shape in the long grass. She started trying to pull her hands free, frenzied, terrified. She tried to loosen the rope with her thumbs, to wriggle her wrists out of the binds and away from the fence. But there was no escape.
‘No,’ she sobbed, ‘no, Jack, you can’t –’
But he wasn’t there any more. He was already at the Land Rover, sliding in at the wheel.
‘Jack?’ she said. ‘Jack!’
He pulled the door shut and started up the engine, cranking the gears violently. The Land Rover jolted forward, hitting a dip in the track, and then the vehicle was accelerating forward, snow spitting up from under the wheels.
‘Jack!’ Penny s
creamed.
The car disappeared back along the track, melting into the darkness. And as the sound of it dropped away, the wind came in its place, and then a new noise followed from the other side of the fence.
It was the sound of something moving out in the Brink.
And it was getting closer.
32
Driving west out of London, I picked up the motorway and then exited north of Heathrow. I needed a place where no one would think to look for me, and one of the faceless airport hotels that circled the runways seemed like a good bet.
I found a dimly lit corner in a faux marble foyer and removed the MacBook I’d lifted from the Red Tree. When I opened it up, it sprang into life, the password prompt showing again, the picture of Marek too, just as in the office.
Shutting the laptop down completely, I then started it up while holding Command-R. I was hoping to bypass the security by using the MacBook’s Recovery Mode. Once it was loaded, I went to Terminal and began the process of resetting the password. I then rebooted it. As the loading bar filled up, I found myself nervously tapping out a rhythm on the table beside me, then looking up to watch the faces filing through the hotel: families with brightly coloured luggage, businessmen in suits, retired couples waiting in line for a bus to the airport.
Finally, the password prompt appeared.
I put in my new password, hit Return, and hoped. It worked: the MacBook continued to load. A couple of seconds later, I was looking at desktop wallpaper of a mountain in Yosemite. There were no folders on the desktop, no documents either.
Keeping the Wi-Fi switched off for now, I clicked on Finder, brought up an ‘All My Files’ window, and started to scroll down the list. It was a mix of Word and Excel documents, of JPEGs and PNGs, and then a number of applications downloaded from the web as zip files.
I soon realized that there was no offline information about anyone who worked at the school; no employment – or employee – documents of any kind on the hard drive. I’d been hoping for personal information that I could then dig into and find links to Richard Kite through, to the death of Penny Beck as well, but most of the documents that Marek held on the laptop were incredibly tedious – the kind of everyday correspondence a school might have with government departments, and with outside companies delivering things they needed. Learning tools. Updated sports equipment for the gym. Meat and fruit for the canteen. The images didn’t offer anything more interesting either: they seemed predominantly to be shots of exterior work that had been done at the front of the building, or test shots from a new security system. The zip files just contained standard applications: the Office suite, Chrome, Skype.
