by Kevin Brooks
‘A microprocessor?’
‘I don’t know… I mean, I don’t know anything about computers and stuff, but it was that kind of thing. You know… kind of thin and plasticky and black. Shiny and hard… a bit greenish too.’ I closed my eyes, imagining this imaginary object. ‘It looked like it had loads of stuff inside it, complicated stuff…’
‘What kind of complicated stuff?’
‘Connections… little blocks, dots, lines…’
‘Like a circuit board?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Shit,’ Eddi said, shaking her head. ‘And this was inside you?’
I nodded.
‘Fixed inside you?’
I nodded again. ‘It had some kind of miniature connection sockets all around the edge, little gold things… and there were wires, tiny silver filaments…’ I closed my eyes again, remembering the things I’d seen. Black things, grey things, blurred and formless. Filaments, dulled silver-white, shining dark in the light of the eye. Intricate patterns of dots and lines, circles and waves. Fine hairs, like slender worms, moving to the flow of something invisible…
‘Where is it?’ Eddi said.
‘Sorry?’
‘This thing… where is it? I want to see it.’
I looked at her. ‘I left it behind.’
‘You what?’
‘I left it at the hotel.’
She stared at me. ‘Why, for Christ’s sake?’
I told her about the newspaper then. ‘I panicked,’ I told her. ‘As soon as I saw the story about me, I realized I had to get out of the hotel before Ryan showed up. I didn’t have time to think. I was desperate. I just grabbed a few clothes and ran. By the time I realized I’d left this thing behind, it was too late. The police were all over the hotel by then - the police, Ryan’s people… they were everywhere. I saw one of them going into my room just after I’d left.’
‘So whatever this thing is – and whoever these people are – they’ll have it back now.’
I nodded.
Eddi glanced at me, then turned back to the road. We were moving again now. We’d got through the roadworks and the traffic was beginning to get back to normal - speeding cars, lorries, vans… everyone in a hurry to get where they were going.
I stared through the windscreen.
I was tired of talking. Tired of lying. Tired of everything. I hadn’t slept for a long time. I didn’t know where we were going. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know why I was lying. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what I was.
I didn’t know anything.
I was just a thing – tired and unknowing.
The heater was on, filling the car with a dusty heat, and as the silence hummed and the world passed by, I closed my eyes, emptied my head, and started to drift off to sleep.
I didn’t get very far, though.
Just as I was falling into that twilight state between consciousness and unconsciousness, Eddi began asking me questions.
‘These people,’ she said, ‘the ones at the hospital, the ones with the guns… you’ve no idea who they were?’
‘No.’
‘How did they address each other?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘First names, last names… what did they call each other?’
I thought about it, trying to remember. ‘Hayes called Ryan Sir a few times. But apart from that I think it was mostly just last names – Ryan, Hayes, Morris…’
‘And they were all in plain clothes? No uniforms?’
‘I didn’t see any uniforms.’
‘And Ryan was in charge?’
‘Yeah, definitely.’ I suddenly remembered the stuff I’d got from his wallet – his ID card, the business cards. I took out the wallet, removed the ID card and one of the business cards and passed them over to Eddi. ‘They’re Ryan’s,’ I told her. She looked at them, resting the two cards against the steering wheel so she could see them without taking her eyes off the road for too long. She studied them in detail, staring hard, examining every word and every number. ‘What do you think?’ I asked her.
She tapped the business card with her finger. ‘That’s not a regular London phone number. The first three digits are wrong. They should refer to a specific area, but they don’t.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’m not sure…’
‘What about his ID card?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not police-issue. It could be from one of the Security Services, but I know most of them, and I’ve never seen one like this before. It’s not MI5 or MI6. It’s not Special Branch.’ She shook her head again and passed the cards back to me. ‘Was there anything else in his wallet?’
‘Some cash, a couple of credit cards ’’
‘What kind of cards?’
I looked in his wallet. ‘American Express and Visa.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll check them out when we get back.’
‘Back where?’ I said.
‘To my place.’
‘We’re going back to your place?’
After a moment’s pause, she said, ‘Look, Robert, I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know what it means… to you, to me, to either of us. I just don’t get it. Right now, all I know is that we’re both in a lot of trouble.’ She looked across at me. ‘I don’t know who these people are, or what they want with you, but I’ve just killed one of them. And they’re not going to like that.’
‘They’ll probably think it was me that killed him.’
‘Maybe… but they’re still going to be looking for me. My car’s at the hospital, my prints are all over the Corsa… I probably left a ton of DNA at the barn. They’ll find out who I am. It might take them a while, but they’ll get there eventually – and I want to be long gone by then.’
‘So why are we going back to your flat?’
‘I need to pick up some stuff.’
‘Right…’
She looked at me. ‘What?’
‘Nothing…’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘I’m not going to abandon you.’
‘I’m not worried…’
‘No?’
‘Why should I be worried?’
‘No reason.’ She grinned. ‘No reason at all. I just wanted to let you know, that’s all. Wherever I go, you’re coming with me.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but you don’t have to look after me.’
‘I’m not looking after you, I’m looking after me.’ Her smile had gone now. ‘You know too much about me,’ she said, ‘and I know too much about you. The only way we’re going to get through this is by trusting each other, and the only way we can trust each other is by staying together.’ She shrugged. ‘So, that’s how it’s going to be for a while – whether we like it or not. All right?’
‘Yeah, I suppose…’
‘You suppose?’
I looked at her, trying to hide my feelings. I didn’t really know what those feelings were – although I knew they had something to do with not wanting to be on my own any more – and I wasn’t sure why I was feeling them, or even if they were genuine or not. But, whatever they were, I didn’t want Eddi to see them. She glanced back at me for a moment, a slightly puzzled look in her eyes, then she looked away again and started asking me more questions. She had a lot of questions…
Was the newspaper story completely false?
Was Casing still alive when you last saw him?
Do you think Casing knew Ryan?
What do you think they were doing?
Do you think they were taking this thing out of you, or do you think they were putting it in?
How big was it again?
How heavy?
What did it feel like?
Did it make any noise?
Did you see anything else inside you?
Has anything like this ever happened before?
&n
bsp; How did you feel?
How do you feel now?
… and by the time we got back to Finsbury Park, I felt totally shattered.
16
Just before we got to Gillespie Heights, Eddi turned right into a grim little back street and pulled up at the side of the road. The street was grey and empty – parked cars, low-rise flats, cracked pavements, black railings. A dead-looking place.
Eddi picked up her mobile phone, hit a speed-dial button and put the phone to her ear. ‘Bean?’ she said. ‘It’s me. Is everything OK?’ She paused, listening. ‘All right, listen. Get round to the garages and wait for me. I’ll be there in a minute. I’m in a grey Civic. Got that?’ She listened again, then closed the connection and put the phone in her pocket.
‘Who was that?’ I asked her.
‘Bean.’
‘Who’s Bean?’
‘Who’s been what?’
She smiled at me, then put the car into gear and got going.
Bean, it turned out, was a skinny little twelve-year-old black kid. Dressed in a zipped-up hoodie, an over-sized basketball shirt and the baggiest pants I’d ever seen, he was waiting for us at a row of lock-up garages at the back of Eddi’s tower block. When Eddi drove up and stopped the car, he looked round, jerked his neck, then ambled over towards us.
Eddi grinned at me as I watched him.
‘It’s all right,’ she told me, ‘he knows what he’s doing.’
‘What is he doing?’
She smiled at me again, then opened the car door and got out, leaving the engine running. Bean walked up to her and they started talking. I watched them for a moment, then I reached over to the back seat, picked up my bag and stepped out of the car to join them.
‘This is John,’ Eddi told Bean as I walked up beside them. ‘You haven’t seen him – OK?’
Bean nodded, barely even looking at me. ‘You got keys for that?’ he asked Eddi, nodding at the Civic.
She shook her head. ‘It’s wired. I want you to get rid of it, but not round here – all right?’
‘How much you want for it?’
‘Nothing, just make sure it doesn’t come back to me. And don’t do anything till I’ve gone. I’ve got another job for you.’ Eddi glanced over at the Civic, then turned back to Bean. ‘I’ll be about an hour or two. Put the Civic somewhere safe till then. I’ll call you when I’m ready.’
Bean nodded.
‘I’ll be in my flat,’ Eddi told him. ‘Keep your eyes open. If you see anyone you don’t know, call me.’
‘The police looking for you?’ Bean said.
‘Something like that.’
They smiled at each other for a moment, then Bean nodded his head again and started loping off towards the Civic.
Eddi looked at me. ‘All right?’
I shrugged, watching Bean. ‘Do you trust him?’
‘I pay him.’
I looked at her.
She smiled at me. ‘I don’t trust anyone.’
‘Not even me?’
‘Especially not you.’
As soon as we were back in her flat, Eddi asked me for Ryan’s wallet.
‘I used one of his credit cards,’ I told her, handing over the wallet.
‘When?’
‘I don’t know… what day is it now?’
‘Wednesday.’
‘And when did I get here?’
‘Yesterday,’ she sighed. ‘Tuesday.’
‘Right… it was Tuesday then. I bought a train ticket to Edinburgh with Ryan’s Visa card.’
‘Where did you buy it from?’
‘King’s Cross.’
She looked at me. ‘Why the hell did you buy a train ticket to Edinburgh? And why did you use Ryan’s Visa?’
‘I thought they’d be tracking it. I thought they’d think I was going to Edinburgh.’
‘But you weren’t.’
‘No, I was coming here.’
Eddi grinned. ‘You’re not as dumb as you look.’
‘Thank you.’
She took Ryan’s wallet over to a desk, booted up one of her computers and started tapping away at the keyboard. I sat down in the armchair and watched her. She took the credit cards out of the wallet, studied them for a moment, then slotted one into a little gadget beside the computer. The gadget beeped. She tapped the keyboard again and stared at the screen…
I looked up at a clock on the wall. It was one thirty.
One thirty, Wednesday afternoon.
Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday.
Monday morning, eight o’clock… I’d said goodbye to Bridget, left the house and walked down the street to the bus stop. The sky was grey, the wind was cold… everything was perfectly normal.
It seemed like a lifetime ago.
I looked over at Eddi again. She was still tapping away, still staring hard at the computer screen.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ I asked her.
‘What?’
‘Being here… I mean, what if they’ve already found your car at the hospital –’
‘It’s registered in a false name. False address.’
‘What about the rest of it?’
‘The rest of what?’
‘The Corsa, the barn… you said yourself there’d be fingerprints and DNA all over the place. They could be checking it all right now…’
Eddi stopped tapping and looked at me. ‘I’m good at what I do, Robert. I make my living out of false ID. Do you think I’m going to use my real name for anything?’ She shook her head. ‘This flat’s in a false name. The phone’s in a false name. Everything I own is in a false name.’
‘Yeah, but your DNA and fingerprints –’
‘A DNA check takes weeks, and all they’ll get from their fingerprint database is a 22-year-old woman called Sheila Davies who was arrested two years ago on suspicion of fraud. Arrested but not charged, by the way. And Miss Davies’s last known address is a non-existent flat above a chip shop in Ilford.’ Eddi smiled at me. ‘So don’t worry, we’re all right here for a while – OK?’
I nodded wearily.
Eddi started tapping again. ‘Why don’t you get some sleep?’ she suggested. ‘You look exhausted. I’ll wake you up when I’m ready to go.’
‘Go where?’ I muttered. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere safe.’ She glanced over at me. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you wake up. I’m not going to do anything.’
‘That’s what you said last night,’ I muttered, ‘just before you drugged me. You told me you weren’t going to do anything, and then…’
And then you kissed me, I wanted to say. You kissed me and took me into your bedroom. And I thought everything was going to be OK. But it wasn’t.
I looked at her.
She’d lowered her eyes and was staring at the desk. ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she said sadly. ‘I’m just… I don’t know. I can’t help it. It’s what I do. It’s just…’ She sighed heavily and looked up at me. ‘I’m sorry, Robert.’
‘Yeah, well,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry I dragged you into all this.’
She nodded. ‘It’s not your fault.’
I had to look away from her then. Her eyes were too much for me. Everything was too much.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked her.
‘Doing what?’
‘Helping me… staying with me…’
‘I told you before,’ she said. ‘The only way I’m going to get through this is by sticking with you –’
‘You don’t need me,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You could just say goodbye and leave me to it. It’s me they’re after, not you. Once they’ve got me, they’re not going to bother looking for you. And even if they are looking for you, there’s nothing I can tell them that they’re not going to find out anyway.’ I looked at her. ‘You’d be a lot better off on your own.’
‘You think so?’
I shrugged.
She stared at me. ‘What if it’s the other way round?’
>
‘What do you mean?’
‘What if we split up and they find me first? What am I going to tell them about you?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, slightly puzzled. ‘You won’t know anything –’
‘Exactly. I won’t know where you are, I won’t know where you’re going, I won’t know anything about you.’
I frowned at her. ‘So?’
‘So I won’t have anything they want, will I? And if I don’t have anything they want, I won’t have anything to bargain with.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Robert, but you’re all I’ve got at the moment. I need you as much as you need me.’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t know if it made any sense or not, and even if it did, I didn’t know if I believed it… or if I wanted to believe it. I didn’t know what I wanted. I just didn’t know…
‘Get some sleep,’ Eddi said quietly. ‘I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours.’
I didn’t want to go to sleep.
But I was too tired to care any more.
Too tired to think.
Too tired to talk.
Too tired to play games.
Too tired…
17
For the first time in days, I woke up without any fog in my head. There were no voices, no surgeons, no people with guns. There was no whiteness, no strangeness, no nakedness. There was just me – sitting in an armchair, fully clothed. Just me and an empty room.
I rubbed my eyes and looked around. The curtains were closed and the computers and TV screens were all switched off. The room was dim and silent. I could just make out the shapes of some bags on the floor – a holdall, a rucksack, a handful of bulging carrier bags. I squinted through the dimness for a while, trying to work out what was in the bags, then a muffled sound suddenly cut through the silence, and I turned and stared at the hallway door. The sound had come from somewhere behind it. A faint spluttering noise. I listened hard. After a few moments, I heard it again. It was louder this time. Loud enough to recognize. It was the sound of someone sobbing.
I got up out of the armchair, crossed the room and went down the hallway to the bathroom. The door was open. I stood in the doorway and looked down at Eddi. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding her head in her hands, rocking to and fro, crying herself to death. Her hair was damp. She was wearing a dressing gown. Her body was shaking and heaving, and I could see the tears streaming down her face.
