Being

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘if we had a prepaid mobile that wasn’t registered, and I used it to call Bridget and Pete, what’s the worst that could happen?’

  ‘Ryan would eventually find out that you made the call from somewhere between Nottingham and Leeds.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She glanced across at me. ‘Go on, then. Make your call. There’s a couple of phones in the side pocket of my rucksack. Use the Nokia.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I said, smiling at her.

  She shook her head. ‘Just do it… before I change my mind.’

  I reached over to the back seat and started going through the pockets of her rucksack. It had lots of pockets, but I couldn’t find any phones. I looked round at Eddi to ask her which pocket they were in, but she was having a bit of trouble with a lorry we were overtaking – it kept speeding up and swaying into our lane – so, rather than disturb her, I just turned back to the rucksack, opened it up and started digging around inside. There was a full carrier bag packed at the top of the rucksack and it was hard to find anything without moving it. I pulled it out and put it down on the seat, and then the car lurched slightly and the bag flopped over to one side… and a pile of £50 notes slid out.

  I stared at them. I’d never seen so much money in all my life. And there was more inside the bag too – lots more. The whole bag was packed full of notes – fifties, twenties, euros… all banded up in grubby little stacks.

  ‘Shit,’ I whispered.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I heard Eddi say.

  I glanced up and saw her watching me in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were cold and steely.

  ‘Sorry,’ I spluttered, ‘I couldn’t find the phones… I was just looking… I didn’t mean to –’

  ‘The phones are in the side pocket with the little red zip,’ she said calmly. ‘Make sure you put all the money back.’

  I scooped all the spilled cash back into the bag, stuffed the bag into the rucksack, then found the side pocket with the little red zip and pulled out a polythene bag full of phones. There were three of them: two Motorolas and a Nokia. I picked out the Nokia and settled myself down in the seat again.

  Eddi glanced at me for a second, then looked away.

  ‘Is that all your money?’ I asked her.

  ‘What do you mean? Does it all belong to me, or is that all I’ve got?’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

  ‘It’s all the cash I’ve got, yeah.’

  ‘How much is it?’

  ‘Just over ten grand, including the euros.’ She nodded at the phone in my hand. ‘Make your call. And keep it short.’

  I couldn’t remember the number for a moment. I sat there staring at the phone in my hand, trying to think, trying to picture the number – my own telephone number – then I gave up thinking and let my thumb do it for me. Thumb-memory. It worked. My thumb punched in the number and I put the phone to my ear.

  For a couple of seconds, I felt really weird – anxious, excited, afraid, uncertain. I didn’t know who was going to answer the phone or what I was going to say to them. I was hoping it’d be Bridget, but even if it was… I still didn’t know what I was going to say to her or what she was going to say to me. I didn’t even know if she’d want to talk to me.

  But I needn’t have worried.

  The phone didn’t ring.

  It didn’t do anything, just hissed emptily. A ghostly electric sound.

  ‘No answer?’ asked Eddi.

  ‘No nothing,’ I said, holding the phone to her ear to let her listen.

  ‘Maybe you got the wrong number,’ she suggested. ‘Try it again.’

  I tried again, keying in the number slowly and carefully, but when I put the phone to my ear, the emptiness was still there.

  ‘Here, let me try it,’ said Eddi. ‘What’s the number?’

  I passed her the phone and told her the number. As she punched it in and held the phone to her ear, I quickly reached into my pocket, pulled out one of Ryan’s business cards and placed it on the seat beside my left leg, out of Eddi’s sight. I glanced across at her. She was listening hard to the phone.

  ‘Anything?’ I asked her.

  She shook her head. ‘Are you sure it’s the right number?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It hasn’t been disconnected or anything?’

  ‘It was fine when I left home on Monday. What do you think it means?’

  She shook her head again and passed me back the phone. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what it means, but I don’t like the sound of it.’

  I looked down at Ryan’s business card and started to punch in the number.

  Eddi glared at me. ‘What are you doing?’

  Ignoring her, I quickly keyed in the last two digits and put the phone to my ear.

  ‘Give me that!’ she said, grabbing for the phone.

  I leaned away from her and switched the phone to my left ear, keeping it out of her reach.

  ‘Robert!’ she hissed.

  But it was too late. The number was ringing. I put my finger to my lips and held up my hand to Eddi – keep quiet. She thumped the steering wheel with her fist and stared angrily at me.

  The phone answered on the second ring.

  ‘Hello, Robert.’

  At the sound of his voice, a wave of nausea welled up inside me. I breathed in slowly and swallowed it down.

  ‘Ryan?’ I said.

  ‘How are you, Robert?’

  His voice was calm and confident.

  ‘I’m all right,’ I told him.

  ‘That’s good.’

  I could hear the clean smile in his voice. I could see his silver eyes. I could picture him – dark suit, white shirt, coal-black hair… sitting at a desk in a basement office. The office was white. White walls, banks of computers and phone equipment, wires, cables, flashing lights. Maps on the wall. Pins in the maps.

  ‘Where are you?’ Ryan said.

  ‘Where are you?’

  He laughed quietly. ‘I’ll tell you if you tell me.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Rapid metallic clicks sounded on the line, like a cogwheel. In the background, I could hear a thin and distant whine.

  ‘Where’s Morris?’ Ryan asked me.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘What have you done with him?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  Ryan sighed. ‘You’re in a lot of trouble, Robert.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Tell me where you are. We can talk about it.’

  ‘We can talk about it now.’

  ‘OK, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Are you tracing this call?’

  ‘You’re on a mobile. You’re safe enough for now.’

  ‘How do I know you’re not lying?’

  ‘You don’t.’

  I thought about that for a few moments, trying to work out if he was lying or not, but there was no way of telling from his voice. It was nerveless, expressionless, empty.

  ‘Where are you?’ I asked him again.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Tell me where you are or I’ll hang up right now.’

  He didn’t say anything for a while. I waited, staring straight ahead. I could feel Eddi watching me, silently urging me to end the call, and I didn’t want to look at her. I wanted to concentrate on Ryan. I didn’t think he’d tell me where he was, and even if he did, I knew he’d probably be lying. But I didn’t really care. I just wanted to see what he said.

  ‘I’m in London,’ he said eventually.

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘Why should I lie?’

  ‘Whereabouts in London? What’s your address?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He sighed. ‘We’re in Queen Anne’s Gate, SWI.

  ‘What number?’

  ‘We don’t have a number. It’s just a building, an office block –’

&nb
sp; ‘What do you do there?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘What kind of work? What do you do?’

  ‘We find things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Things like you.’

  ‘Who’s we? Who do you work for?’

  ‘Robert, listen –’

  ‘What do you think I am?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What do you think I am?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Robert. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  He paused for a moment, then said, ‘Are you with someone?’

  ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘I don’t know anything about any of this. Do you understand? You think I do, but I don’t. I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about what?’

  ‘Everything, anything…’ I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to think. I wanted to ask Ryan what he knew about me – what I was, what I was made of, where I came from – but I couldn’t just come out and say it, not with Eddi listening.

  ‘Robert?’ Ryan said into the phone. ‘Robert… are you still there?’

  ‘What was that thing inside me?’ I asked him.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Inside me… what is it?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  He sighed again, this time with something that sounded like honesty. ‘You’re not making sense, Robert. I think you’re a bit confused –’

  ‘Where’s Bridget?’ I asked him.

  ‘Bridget’s fine –’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know… I expect she’s at home. Where else would she be?’

  I felt Eddi’s hand on my arm then and without thinking I glanced across at her. No more, she mouthed at me. End the call now…

  I shrugged her hand off my arm and turned my attention back to Ryan.

  ‘Why did you kill him, Robert?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why did you kill him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dr Casing.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ I said, ‘I read about that in the papers. Very good. By the way, he’s a professor, not a doctor.’

  ‘He was a doctor.’

  ‘He’s a professor. Kamal told me. A consultant surgeon. Gastroenterologist.’

  ‘Who’s Kamal?’

  ‘I know what you’re trying to do.’

  ‘I’m not trying to do anything. I just want to help you. Look, if you give yourself up now, a good solicitor will get you off on a manslaughter charge. You’ll get ten, fifteen years at the most. You’ll probably be out in half that. But if you keep on running, you’re only going to make things worse for yourself. You can’t run forever, Robert. We’ll never stop looking for you. And wherever you go, we’ll find you.’

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s the matter with you? This is me you’re talking to. Robert Smith. I was there, in the hospital. You don’t have to make up stories for me. I was there. I know what happened. And I know what’ll happen if I give myself up. I know what you’ll do to me.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘You’ll cut me open. You’ll lock me up.’

  ‘Why would I want –’

  ‘Tell me what you look like.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me what you look like. Describe yourself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re not Ryan.’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘What do you look like?’

  ‘Robert –’

  ‘What do you look like?’ I was shouting now.

  ‘I’m tall,’ Ryan said calmly. ‘Six feet and a bit. Black hair. Grey eyes.’

  ‘Grey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s your ID number?’

  ‘One one nine, one two, one two.’

  ‘Are you a policeman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Describe what happened.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘At the hospital.’

  ‘You know what happened.’

  ‘I know. I want you to tell me.’

  ‘You attacked Dr Casing with a scalpel –’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘It was –’

  ‘You’re not Ryan. Let me speak to Ryan.’

  ‘Look, Robert, I’m sure you didn’t mean to do it. It was a mistake. You’re under a lot of stress. I understand that –’

  ‘You don’t understand anything.’

  ‘Robert –’

  ‘You weren’t there. You don’t know anything about it. You don’t know why Ryan wants me. You don’t know what he knows, what I know. You don’t know –’

  ‘You’re not human.’

  His words froze me.

  You’re not human.

  I stared through the windscreen, not knowing where I was for a moment. All I could see were lights – orange lights, white lights, red lights… streaming through the darkness, like liquid, like metal… like tiny stars. I kept looking. Mesmerized.

  You’re not human.

  Did he really say that?

  I tried to think, to put things in order. One… two… three… four… five… put them in a line, one thing after another. Things that happened. Things that happened. Sounds, movement, words, feelings, intent.

  I couldn’t think.

  ‘We’ll find you, Robert,’ Ryan said distantly. ‘Wherever you go, whatever you are, we’ll find you.’

  I shut off the phone.

  My stomach hurt.

  I stared at the lights in the darkness.

  ∗

  Have you ever seen inside yourself? Do you know what’s in there? Think about it. Imagine it. You don’t know what’s under your skin, do you? You think you do. You think you’ve got all the usual stuff – heart, lungs, stomach, liver – but how do you know?

  You don’t.

  You see pictures in books, pictures on TV. You read about stuff. And you just assume that’s it. Guts, blood, bones, organs – that’s what you are. But you don’t know anything about it. You don’t know if it’s really there. And even if it is, you don’t know how it works.

  You don’t control it.

  It controls you.

  18

  I couldn’t do anything for a while. Couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. All I could do was sit there in silence, staring blindly through the windscreen at the never-ending streams of light – orange, white, red, silver – pulsing like stars in the darkness. Like liquid, like metal, like countless glimmering particles…

  ‘Robert?’

  … like strings of stars, like crystalline compounds with radiating shards.

  ‘Robert?’

  I blinked my eyes and looked at Eddi.

  ‘Give me the phone,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘The phone.’ She held out her hand. ‘Give it to me.’

  I passed it over. She checked the connection was cut off, then pressed a few buttons and glanced at the display. As I watched her, I could feel things coming back into focus again. Eddi, the car, the motorway, the lights… the lights were just lights. Headlights. Tail-lights. Motorway lights. I breathed in and rubbed my eyes.

  My belly still hurt – a deep, distant ache.

  I breathed out, wincing slightly.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Eddi.

  ‘Yeah… yeah, I’m all right.’ I looked at her. ‘Look, I’m sorry –’

  ‘You should be,’ she said. ‘That was just stupid… ringing Ryan.’ She shook her head. ‘Stupid beyond belief. What did you think you were doing?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I had to speak to him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To find out…
I had to find out…’

  She sighed and shook her head again. ‘And what did you find out? What did he tell you?’

  ‘Not much…’

  ‘Well, there’s a surprise.’

  ‘He was trying to confuse me. He was trying to make me believe his lies…’

  ‘Of course he was. What did you expect him to do? He’s not going to tell you the truth, is he? He wants to unbalance you, get you confused. He wants you to make a mistake.’ She looked at me again. ‘This is big stuff, Robert. Whoever these people are, and whatever it is they want from you, they won’t stop at anything to get it.’ She glanced at the phone in her hand, turned it off, wound down her window, then looked back at me. ‘So, no more stupid phone calls – OK?’

  I nodded.

  She looked in the rear-view mirror, waited for a car to pass by in the outside lane, then looked in the mirror again. Another brief pause, then she switched the phone to her right hand and quickly dropped it out of the open window. I heard a faint clatter of shattering plastic, and when I looked over my shoulder I saw the remains of the phone disappearing under the front bumper of an articulated lorry.

  Eddi wound the window back up and carried on driving.

  For the rest of the journey, Eddi asked me questions and I tried to answer them. She asked me what happened at the hospital again; I told her. She asked me to describe the thing I’d found inside me; I described it. She asked me about Ryan, Casing, Morris, Kamal; about Bridget and Pete, and my other carers; about my schools and the Homes I’d stayed in. She asked me about my childhood, my memories, my life.

  I did my best. I tried to think about it. I tried to remember the first few years of my life, but I didn’t know if the things I remembered were part of my life or just part of a story.

  ‘All I really know about anything is what I’ve been told,’ I explained to Eddi. ‘I was told I was abandoned at birth. I was told I was looked after by the nurses at the maternity hospital. I was told they named me Robert. And I was told that when I left the hospital I went to live with a couple called Smith, but I don’t remember anything about them.’