‘Frieda’s got to be interested in this, even if she pretends she’s not,’ Fyffe said. ‘She’ll be Ms Popularity if she finds Nomu and brings her back. We should pre-empt that if we can. Nomu’s own people should be the ones to find her.’
I said, ‘Feel free to be the bearer of good news. It’s not as though we can use her to bargain with anymore.’
She turned to me, ‘I think you should tell them.’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I need to go away and think about what to do next.’
Suddenly, all along the riverbank speakers wailed the first curfew siren: it began as a moan and climbed quickly into a shriek specifically designed to freeze your blood and send you scurrying inside.
Fyffe was watching me doubtfully. ‘But you can’t go now, can you.’
I watched the people next door pick up their glasses and wander off their balcony, still chatting and laughing.
Fyffe said, ‘What are you thinking? That you’re going to stay, yes?’
The front door buzzed.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘That’s them.’ She stood straighter and took a deep breath. ‘Listen to me. If you go out into the curfew and get picked up you could lose a whole day in the cells and that’s a day you could spend getting Lanya back. I’m going to take the guests upstairs. I’ll tell everyone that you’re here and that you’ve got important news.’ She nodded and tried to look encouraging. ‘It’ll be okay.’
She hurried away.
Terrific, I thought. An ambush. That’s what it would feel like to Thomas and Sarah Hendry. Plus, I was still wearing the dust and grime of the Marsh’s basement floor, and I could feel my eye quietly swelling shut. Perfect for a reconciliation with the people who thought I had betrayed their friendship and was at least partly responsible for the death of their youngest son.
I watched the shadows creep across Southside and thought about Lanya. I had no good plan for getting her out. I knew that she wouldn’t sink peacefully into drug-induced oblivion. Part of her training as a Pathmaker was meditation and exercises for mental discipline. She was tough. Maybe that would help her resist the effect of the drugs. And maybe peace would come and everyone would live happily ever after. The adrenaline rush from the fight with Jono had long worn off. I felt like I’d run into a wall at speed.
I decided to leave, hole up in a corner somewhere and think things through. I didn’t want to meet the Hendrys, and I was certain they wouldn’t want to meet me.
Fyffe reappeared beside me. ‘It’s all settled. They’re waiting for you. Come on.’
I shook my head. ‘You tell them. I’m gonna go.’
She hooked her arm through mine. ‘I’m not arguing. They know you’re here, and they want to see you. I promise.’
She marched me towards the stairs.
CHAPTER 23
I stood in the doorway to the dining room and looked at a memory: the long table set for dinner, candles in tall shining holders, crystal glasses and the family silver, the starched white tablecloth, bowls and platters of roasted meats and vegetables. But in the shadows beyond the candlelight the packing cases were piled high, the kitchen was dark and there were no waiting staff. Fyffe’s mother, Sarah, had cooked this meal and now she sat at the table with her guests and the remains of her family in a tiny oasis of candlelight, like an echo of family dinners that used to be.
Sarah Hendry had lines on her face that never used to be there, and her shoulders were rounded as though she spent her days curled into herself. The candlelight made shadows of her eyes. She looked at me, and I knew she was looking for Lou to be standing in the doorway instead. Fyffe jumped into the pause.
‘Nik, come in. Sit down.’
Once, months ago, I’d had this fanciful idea that one day I’d visit the Hendrys and tell them how brave Fyffe had been in trying to rescue Sol. And they’d listen and nod, and then I could say thank you for the way they’d been kind to me over the last however-many years and things would be right again between us.
I said to Fyffe, ‘No. I’ll just…I’ll just tell you what there is to tell and then…and then I’ll go.’
‘Where?’ said Fyffe. ‘You’ll break curfew.’
Fyffe’s mother stopped staring at me, sat up straighter and brushed some imaginary crumbs from the tablecloth. When she looked up again it was like she had pulled on a mask and become, for the evening, unbreakable. Everybody looked at her and waited.
She said, ‘Fyffe, take Nik to get cleaned up, and find him some clothes that are presentable for the dinner table.’ She looked at me and I couldn’t tell if it was her or the mask that said, ‘Go on. Dinner’s getting cold.’
When I came back, showered and acutely aware that everything I was wearing had once been Lou’s, Sarah Hendry said, ‘Now, Nik, eat something and then tell us whatever it is you have to say.’
I looked at the heaped dishes on the table and my brain said, You haven’t eaten in twelve hours, but my stomach said, No way. I put some roast potatoes and slices of meat onto my plate and hoped she wouldn’t notice that I couldn’t eat any of it.
The four guests from the Dry looked just like they had in the screen footage: an older guy, lean, weathered and brown, with short grey hair and beard; a younger man and woman, both with black curling hair and sharp, wary eyes; and a boy about my age with copper-coloured hair and a thin, brown face. Fyffe introduced them, but their names went right over my head, until she said, ‘And this is Nomu’s brother, Raffael.’
‘Oh!’ I said and looked at Fyffe. ‘Raffael?’ And my brain, playing stupid tricks on me, thought, I have to tell Lanya, she’ll laugh.
‘Yes,’ said Fyffe. ‘Why?’
‘Because,’ I said, ‘That’s the first word I heard Nomu say. Almost the only word.’
The boy just about jumped over the table at me. ‘She’s alive? You’ve seen her?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She’s alive and I’ve seen her.’
But that explosion of relief was followed by a tight, careful conversation where the things that weren’t said were much more interesting than the things that were. At first, I thought the delicate tiptoeing around Nomu was all about the problem of being over-the-moon happy at finding someone who’s been lost when you’re with people whose grief for their own loss is as real as the empty chairs at the table. But then something happened that made me think there was more going on than that.
I told them that as well as calling for Raffael, she had said something to me about Pitkerrin Marsh. ‘I don’t know what she meant,’ I said, ‘but I wonder if she’s been in the Marsh?’
They all nodded, totally unsurprised.
Raffael said, ‘Yes, we have been working in a laboratory there.’
That earned him a sharp whisper in desert language that sounded like a telling off and he scowled and shut up.
When it came to the question about what to do next the older guy was all action. ‘We will go across the river. We will find her and bring her back.’ He even stood up, gripping the back of the chair, and looked like he was about to head out the door straight away.
‘Wait.’ Thomas Hendry held up both hands. ‘Please. You must tell the security services. They’ll help you
. You can’t go off into hostile terr—into Southside without help.’
The guy rubbed his forehead like he had a headache and sat down again. ‘Yes, I see, yes. Forgive me. We are not courteous. We have been preparing ourselves for the worst news. But now—’ he opened his arms towards me and smiled, ‘—now we have hope. Of course we should ask the Security.’
Glances were exchanged among the Dry-dwellers, which, if you had a suspicious mind, you could interpret as unhappy.
‘But—’ Fyffe began.
‘Fyffe,’ said her mother.
The man smiled at her. ‘Then, when Nomu is found and safe, we will go to the Dry, all of us together.’
A wave of his hand encompassed the whole table. Mr Hendry poured more wine to cover the awkward pause that followed.
It didn’t worry me not to be included in their adventure south, but I did think that the Dry-dwellers were not looking entirely thrilled at the prospect of taking the city’s elite home with them.
When the visitors left, Fyffe and I did the dishes. In the kitchen, away from scrutiny, I put a big slab of roast beef between two even bigger slabs of bread and ate at last. Fyffe clattered the dishes to cover our conversation.
‘That was news to me,’ she said. ‘That they’ve been working in the Marsh. I don’t know if that makes them friends or enemies.’
‘What are they doing there?’ I said. ‘What are they doing in the city at all?’
‘People are allowed to visit.’
‘The Marsh? This isn’t a business delegation or a fact-finding mission. They’ve come here to work in the Marsh and to escort a lot of—’
I stopped in time, but Fyffe said, ‘Go on, say it. A lot of rich people.’
‘A lot of rich people out of here just when the security services and the army are planning some kind of surge to put down the uprising. They don’t sound like friends to me.’
‘Shh,’ said Fyffe. ‘Not so loud.’
I peered out the door. Fyffe’s mother was standing in the dining room staring down into one of the open packing cases. I turned back to Fyffe and said quietly, ‘I have an idea about what to do next.’
‘About Lanya?’ she whispered.
I nodded, but then her mother appeared in the doorway saying, ‘Just stack them on the table out here when you’re done. There’s no point putting them back in cupboards. Shall I help?’
She looked so forlorn standing there that I said, ‘Sure,’ and handed her the plate I’d just dried. We finished the dishes over small talk about the sight-seeing opportunities in the Dry.
Sarah Hendry sent her daughter to bed with a kiss on the forehead as though she was six years old. Then she looked at the bruises on my face and asked me if I was able to help her move some boxes downstairs. I said, ‘Sure.’ The bodyguard helped too, and we worked for a hour or so; we hardly spoke, but that was okay. At midnight she thanked the bodyguard and he went off to his own quarters. I started to climb the stairs, but she said, ‘Nik. Stay a minute.’
Almost. I’d almost got away without this talk. I came back down and perched on the edge of a box. She sat on another nearby and looked at me levelly. She said, ‘I want you to tell me about what happened to Sol in Southside, and on the bridge.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I hesitated, thinking, you really don’t want to hear this. I know I didn’t want to tell it. But she was sitting there waiting, and she of all people deserved to know.
I couldn’t look at her. I stared down at my hands clasped in front of me and I told her everything straight, with all the detail I could remember. I had to tell her that we’d almost made it. That he’d been okay—a bit thin, a bit scared—but mostly okay once one of Commander Vega’s squads had rescued him from the traffickers.
‘A Breken squad?’ she said.
‘That’s right. There are factions over there. One faction rescued him, the other—’
‘Shot him. On the bridge.’
I nodded. ‘He was so happy to be going home. To be seeing you. He didn’t know anything when it happened. It killed him outright.’
I glanced at her; she was sitting tall with her hands in her lap and tears streaming down her face.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered. I stared at my hands and couldn’t say another thing.
Her own voice was low and unbearably sad. ‘Thank you. That was a hard thing to tell. I’m grateful.’ She stood up and walked over to me, but I still couldn’t look at her. She put her hand lightly on the top of my head, said, ‘Good night, Nik,’ and left.
Sometime later, I climbed the stairs. They’d given me my old room to sleep in, where Sandor had been just the day before—that felt like weeks ago. On the bedside table Fyffe had left me her silver talisman of the Southside charter.
I lay awake a long time thinking about the idea I’d had that I hadn’t had a chance to tell Fyffe. I was going to find the one Southsider I knew who’d been at home in the city long enough to have connections with Southside allies and who would trust me enough to help me find them. I was going to find Mace.
George Macey was a Southsider and had been a security guard at my old school. Mace was the reason I still spoke Breken—in his godawful Gilgate accent. He’d spoken it to me from the moment I’d arrived at school, though never in anyone else’s hearing. He knew who I was and who my parents were, but he never said so, and I didn’t twig that he knew any of that until the night the school was bombed when he’d told me to get out before anyone official found me.
I had one or two clues about where Mace might be found—more than I had about any of the One City people—and he knew me, so I wasn’t going to have to prove who I was to get what I wanted.
What I wanted. Names. Hiding places. For Frieda. For Lanya. I couldn’t even think in sentences about what I wanted.
I dozed until around dawn then got up and dressed in the semi-dark, wanting to leave before Fyffe or anyone else was up. I put the talisman round my neck—which felt like signing up again to being Breken—and sent a mental thank you to Fyffe. Then I went out into the games room, boots in hand, hoping I wouldn’t meet the bodyguard on my way downstairs.
Thomas Hendry was sitting in one of the big leather chairs. I stopped, decided he was asleep and tiptoed past him.
‘Nik.’
Damn. ‘Sir? Sorry. Thought you were asleep.’
‘You’re leaving?’
‘Yes.’
He saw me glance towards Fyffe’s room and nodded. ‘I was going to ask you—’
‘To leave Fyffe out of it?’ I said. ‘Yeah, I think so too.’
He nodded again then sat up straighter and rubbed his hands over his face. I thought how old he looked now. Too old to be spending the night in an armchair but, I guess, never too old to be trying to protect his daughter.
I said, ‘Sir? I wanted to thank you, and Mrs Hendry, for the bed and…everything.’ That sounded pathetic. ‘I mean—’
He smiled. ‘I know what you mean. You’re welcome, Nik. You were good for Lou, and Sol.’
But I’m not good for Fy, I thought.
He pulled his wallet from a pocket. �
�Here.’ He held out a wad of cash. ‘Take it.’
I hesitated, and he said, ‘I can’t help you, except like this. I’m taking my family away. I don’t know what you’re doing back in the city. You must have reasons and they may be good reasons, but I don’t want to know what they are. How you go now is up to you, but money can’t hurt.’
‘Thank you.’ I took it. It was a lot of money. ‘I’ll go. Goodbye.’
‘Good luck, Nik.’
CHAPTER 24
I closed the door gently and looked up and down Clouden Street. It was early-morning empty. Out towards Port the sun was barely up and the sky was hazy overhead. Already the air was warm and still; it was going to be another one of those hot, close days when all you want to do is chase the breeze—maybe climb on the heath and arrive up there soaked with sweat feeling like you’ve earned the wind cooling your skin.
But that’s not what I was going to do today.
Today I’d said the last of my goodbyes to the Hendrys: Fyffe and her mother, then her father. Like a player in the game I’d imagined yesterday, I had tokens from them: the talisman from Fyffe, the cash from Thomas Hendry, and from Sarah Hendry, I didn’t really know what—it had felt like a blessing, so I decided that’s what I’d take it for. Also there were Fyffe’s words: ‘Watch for people, watch for chances’. Maybe all of this would help. But it was Freida’s game, and she had stacked the rules in her favour. She had only to sit and wait. I had to run, and Lanya had to fight.
I wondered if Lanya was awake yet. She would be calm. She wouldn’t be letting thoughts run riot in her head in useless, panicky circles: she would be finding a still, quiet place and staying there.
But the drugs would beat her down, hammering her defences and invading that space. I sent determined thoughts in her direction.
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