A Cursed Place

by Peter Hanington

  ‘I would like to give you something in return.’

  ‘Yeah? What’s that?’

  Carver found it hard to imagine that Eric would have anything that he could possibly want.He hoped it wasn’t one of those bloody inspirational Post-it notes from the Lennon Wall. He watched as Eric reached into his pocket for his phone.

  ‘We have these …’

  The photos that the kids involved with Scholastic had taken of the man they believed to have stolen their friend’s phone were surprisingly good – both head on and in profile. Eric swished through the pictures on his phone, one by one. ‘… we have his face.’

  Two weeks later

  102 Visiting Hours

  GUYS & ST THOMAS’ HOSPITAL, LONDON

  McCluskey was sitting up in her hospital bed. It was the best William had seen her, although she still looked a fright. Half her head had been shaved and this made the white, wiry hair on the other side appear all the wilder. Carver remembered what he’d thought the first time they’d been introduced. Jemima’s hair resembled a sort of personal antenna – as though she was receiving messages from far-flung places even when the earphones were off.

  ‘Stop staring at me with that pitying look on your face you rude bastard. You’re no oil painting yourself, I can tell you that.’

  Carver brought a bunch of flowers out from inside his plastic bag and held them up for McCluskey to see. She smiled.

  ‘Freesias. That’ll be the bunch of flowers you nearly brought me that time will it?’

  Carver shrugged.

  ‘I remembered you said you liked freesias or lilies. I was going to buy the lilies but the bloke at the flower shop said those are mainly for dead people.’

  ‘Right … don’t want to jump the gun …’ She paused. ‘… are you going to unwrap them and put them in some water or just stand there waving them around?’

  Carver removed the paper and rubber bands from the bunch of bright yellow freesias and stuck them in McCluskey’s spare drinking glass. He filled it to the brim with water from the sink then looked around.

  ‘Where do you want them?’

  ‘Put them on my wheely table.’ McCluskey’s table was already overcrowded with get well cards, newspapers, a jug of juice and an untouched fruit basket. ‘You can get shot of that presentation basket. I’ve got fruit coming out my flaming ears.’ Carver removed the fruit basket – plastic wrapped and tied with a ribbon. It looked pretty fancy. He put it down next to the door. Jemima pushed herself up in the bed. ‘The flowers look smashing William, thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Enough of the small talk now though. Tell me where we’re at with this story of ours.’

  Carver pulled a chair closer to the bed and gave McCluskey chapter and verse. She listened intently, nodding her approval often.

  ‘Well, I reckon you’ve done a lot with much less than that William. What are we waiting for?’

  ‘There are big gaps in what we know.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Losing almost everything you had on the repairmen back inside your house didn’t help.’

  ‘You’re going to blame me for that are you?’

  ‘I don’t mean that, I just mean …’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll be out of here soon and I can start putting things back together.’

  ‘Your consultant said …’

  ‘My consultant doesn’t know what he’s talking about … I’m fine. I’m beginning to suspect he might be keeping me in here longer than necessary ’cos he fancies me.’

  Carver smiled.

  ‘That’s probably it.’

  ‘The point is that you’ve got enough already to start causing some trouble, maybe smoke them out. I know you’ve given those pictures of Dan Staples to the police but you should spread them around on social media too … make life difficult for him and embarrassing for whichever so-and-sos it was he was working for.’ She paused, scratching at the shaved side of her head. ‘You can get your woman Naz to help with that, she’s smart …’ Carver nodded. ‘… then soon as I’m out – day after tomorrow or the weekend at the latest – we’ll go to work on Staples’ phone. I’ve got a mate at Caversham who can scrape all the data off of that for us. We’ll play them at their own bloody game.’ She stifled a yawn. ‘I’m a touch tired now Billy. You’ve made me think and talk more than I’ve been used to.’ She glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘Plus visiting hours are almost up … you should go.’ Carver nodded and stood up from the chair and picked up his bag.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t come back unless you’ve made some progress with this story of ours.’ She waved her hand. ‘Go on, bugger off.’

  He walked down the corridor and caught the lift up to the top floor. The woman on duty at the nurses’ station saw him at the door and buzzed him in.

  ‘There’s only a few minutes visiting time left Mr Carver.’

  ‘I’ll be quick.’ He strode to the last cubicle and pulled back the curtain quietly. Patrick was asleep, still hooked up to a drip of some sort, but no longer attached to any other sort of machine. This was a good sign, surely? Carver took the spare fruit basket and put it down on the table next to Patrick’s head. He took his reporter’s notebook out and scribbled a message:

  ‘I’ve got a little story. McCluskey and I are cooking up a plan and I know you won’t want to miss out. Call me as soon as you can. Say hello to Rebecca …’ He stopped, then added a PS. ‘Rebecca – if you read this first then obviously there’s no rush, only when he’s ready. Say hello to him from me. William.’

  Halfway across Westminster Bridge, Carver stopped and watched the snow fall. His gloveless hands were red with cold and he bunched them tight and pushed them down into the pockets of his coat. He stared down at the snowflakes falling softly into the dark river. Some of the larger flakes would hold their shape and brightness for a few moments, briefly held up and carried along by the fast-flowing water. But none lasted long. Swallowed by the river and carried away. He picked up his plastic bag and walked on, north towards the Strand. There was a pub he knew. It had an open fire in the winter and a decent selection of whiskies. He’d have one pint of beer and a whisky to keep the cold out. Then he’d get to work.

  Epilogue

  PUBLIC SQUARE HQ, CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA

  Dan moved, putting a couple more metres between him and the huge wooden hive. The chauffeur guy had told him to wait here on the lawn, but the noise of the bees – the sound of their humming – was messing with his head. He was already nervous enough. He ran a hand through his blond beard, a temporary measure until the fuss died down. One of several orders Fred had given him.

  ‘Grow a beard, buy some coloured contacts and keep your head down. This’ll blow over and when it does we’ll have you in. Fix you up with a new story and send you back out.’

  That was what the message had said.

  It hadn’t blown over yet – not quite. But they’d called him in anyway. He glanced up the path, towards the glassy egg-shaped HQ. A small knot of people – Public Square execs by the looks of them – were coming his way. At the centre of the group, wearing a knee-length, blue dress and a pair of bright white Converse trainers, was Elizabeth Curepipe. As the group drew level with Dan, she stopped and they all stopped; she issued a brief instruction and the group moved off in different directions, leaving her alone. She strode across the grass to where Dan was standing, staring.

  ‘You like the bees?’

  ‘Er, I guess. They make a good lot of noise.’

  ‘That’s true. It’s the sign of a healthy hive I’m told.’

  Dan shuffled his feet.

  ‘Er … I’m Dan Staples. I’m here because your husband asked me in. I don’t know if you remember, we met once, just briefly …’

  ‘I remember. I like the beard by the way Dan, it suits you …’ She paused ‘… is Dan okay, for now anyway?’

  ‘Sure. Dan’s fine.’

/>   ‘Excellent. So the only thing you’re mistaken about is that it was me who called you in, Dan – not Fred.’

  ‘Oh, right. I’m sorry, I …’

  ‘Don’t apologise. There’s no reason you should know. Fred and I are dividing the work up a little differently these days.’

  ‘I see … but this is still just a debrief is it?’

  ‘That’s right …’ She pointed at the line of silver birch trees and the black metal box of a building beyond. ‘… we’ll head over to the research centre right now if that’s okay with you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Fred’s man cave I used to call it.’

  ‘Right.’

  Elizabeth put her hand gently in the small of Dan’s back and led the way.

  ‘There’s no need to look so nervous …’ She turned and smiled at him. It was quite a smile. ‘… we’ll make it fun.’

  Follow Peter Hanington here

  Acknowledgements

  The following books were particularly helpful while researching A Cursed Place: Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All, Fred Turner’s From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Yasha Levine’s Surveillance Valley, Jamie Bartlett’s The People vs Tech, Dan Lyons’ Disrupted, Ander Izagirre’s The Mountain the Eats Men, June Nash’s I Spent My Life in the Mines, Voices of Latin America edited by Tom Gatehouse, Isabel Allende’s My Invented Country, Jan Morris’ Hong Kong and Antony Dapiran’s City of Protest.

  I am grateful once more to Matilda Harrison for the early reading and good advice throughout. Thanks to Jack Hanington and Leila Eddakille for help with the Spanish translations, and to Martha Hanington for reading the book line by line during lockdown. Thank you to John Saddler and to Lisa Highton, Charlotte Hutchinson, Jess Kim, Cari Rosen, Charlotte Robathan, and the entire Two Roads/ John Murray Press team who have been the most patient and perceptive of publishing guides.

  Finally, to Vic –

  A haiku of deep regard

  Seems appropriate

  But as you pointed out during the writing of this book I’m not very good at limiting the number of syllables in the final line.

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