by Claire North
A shove in the small of the spine propelled him forward, catching on the half-open door for balance, pulling himself up in a sudden stiff uncoiling. The man at his back unwound fast, pressing the gun into Theo’s spine, pulling him back and close with his other arm across his throat and bottom of his face, arching his back. It occurred to Theo that if he pulled the trigger, the bullet would probably pass straight through the back of his throat and out the other side, shooting the man who held him in the arm. The thought was almost funny.
“I’ll kill him!” the man gabbled, trying to achieve something like a defiant roar and failing at the last. “It’s him you want!”
This idea struck Theo as absurd; even more stupid to be shot by a man who thought he mattered. And yet the gunfire had stopped, and now there was just silence and blood on the tarmac.
Men in balaclavas hovered around the sides of the lorry in front. More figures moved around the floral van behind. Of those who’d been in the cars, the survivors hid behind doors and peered out from bullet-pocked chassis, not sure where to point their guns or who was in charge. A single car alarm wailed behind the lorry, set off by the rattle and roar. Somewhere far away, a helicopter chuggered, and a curtain twitched in a window, a light turned on and then quickly turned off again.
They were on a bridge. It hadn’t struck Theo until that moment. The lorry sealed off one end, the floral van the other. The bridge was short, with a red-brick wall on either side, and not wide enough for two-lane traffic. Below was a canal, black water turned stiff and matt with a thin sheet of ice. Low houses all around, yellow brick and dark windows, the street lights sparse off-pink lining the cracked towpath. He tried to work out where he was, and guessed somewhere in north-west London. He felt the gun against his skull and wondered if Dani had died with Lucy’s name on her lips and if he should try to go for the same effect, and what good that would do.
And on the bridge no one moved, waiting for time to resume its stately course.
Then a man stepped forward from behind the lorry, face hidden behind a dust mask and a baseball cap, and said, “Just give us Miller. No one else has to die.”
His face was hidden, but his voice was familiar, and now Theo laughed.
He laughed, a choking halfway sound that couldn’t work out what it wanted to be, and his head rolled back and his shoulders bunched up, and he gasped and chuckled with a gun at his head, and only Markse seemed to be undisturbed by this behaviour.
For a moment all things hung in balance at the centre of the universe.
And at the centre of the universe Corn walks towards Nottingham, the shame burning in his heart. He ran from Newton Bridge when the bulldozers came and called out for Bea, Bea, Bea my love my life I love you I never told you I love you I love you you know it I know you know it I’ll revenge you I’ll find you Bea I’ll find you alive not dead and
And at the centre of the universe
the ones who picked up a gun because it was a job to do to keep their family happy and safe
the ones who pulled the trigger because there was no way out except this
the ones sleeping, now roused, who in the light of day will say “this thing I saw” and
at the centre of the universe Neila turns over uneasily in her bunk, the Hector moored a half-mile or so from a bridge where now blood runs into the water and
at the centre of the universe Heidi takes Lucy’s hand and whispers, “I’ll make sure you’re all right,” but Lucy pulls away because she doesn’t understand and anyway, all people are good for are lies and
at the centre of the universe a man who’s only been in the job for a few days, who was told to ride with a convoy and didn’t ask any questions, and who now realises that he’s going to die on a bridge above a canal, reaches slowly under the seat of the car he’s been riding in, and finds the half-open box where they keep extra ammo and a few other things besides, and his fingers, in fumbling, close around the shape of a grenade.
He isn’t sure what he’s going to do with it.
He doesn’t know why he’s here.
He didn’t realise his job would wind up like this. It wasn’t something he ever really planned on.
He pulls the pin, and as he adjusts his position to throw, someone sees the motion and shouts, “Grenade!” and all hell lets loose.
The first shot kills the man with the grenade, knocking his body backwards, forehead first.
Theo loses counts of who fires what immediately after as the bridge bursts to life again with running, firing, falling, screaming. A thin sense of self-preservation makes him duck, turning as he drops, which is why the bullet that would have taken out his head rushes by his ear, a deafening rupture, a physical force he feels slamming into his eardrum which makes it sing a nightingale shriek. As the gun moved round to fire again, he drove his full body weight into the man behind him, and another shot smacked wide past his shoulder. Then they were on the ground, and Theo caught the man by the wrist, astonished at how much he wanted to live, how much he wanted to hurt the man who would have hurt him. He held on with both hands, and the man seeing this pulled one hand free and clawed at Theo’s face. His fingers missed Theo’s eyes as he jerked away, but tugged and hooked into the soft flesh below, pulling at his cheeks, sliding towards his throat, driving his chin up and away. Theo felt his arms stretch and buckle, felt the gun turn towards his chest.
On the other side of the car, the grenade, fallen from a dead man’s grasp, exploded.
The blast punched Theo in the face, in the ears, lashed his head back and sent him sideways, slamming into the wall of the bridge. The car jumped a foot in the air, smashed back down with a shattering of pipe and suspension and rupture of tyre.
For a moment the gunfire paused, smoke and dust filling the air, soft falling patter of melted tar and shattered safety glass. Then it resumed, a few snapping shots from those furthest from the blast, then a few more as others joined in the fun, heard in Theo’s mind through an ocean, the sea sloshing in his ears, a faded-down, tuned-out whomph-whomph of bullets flying, of men screaming, of bones breaking of fire crackling
he rolled onto his front
knows that in some way he’s injured, but isn’t sure where, or by what
crawled onto his hands and knees
falls
up again, crawled, knew he would die in this place, knew he wouldn’t, that it was unacceptable, staggered a few paces forward, fell, cursed his body, the universe, Dani and Lucy and the world, crawled once more, blinking through the smoke and blood, sees a man running towards him, before a stray bullet, maybe from the front, maybe from behind, knocked into the man’s chest and he falls, surprised, one hand pressing against the wound and coming away red, who’d have thought it? Who’d have thought that today he died, in this place, who’d have imagined that?
Theo tried to call out, someone’s name, wasn’t sure whose, maybe Lucy’s, couldn’t see through the smoke and the blood running down his face, can’t make a sound, tried again, noise catching at the back of his mouth
tries to run and can’t
falls
feels the ground pop next to his ear as a bullet slams down beside him
sees a dead man staring at him from a few feet away, tongue lodged oddly between his lips like he was about to blow a raspberry, or as if his face had grown a third lip
Heard a helicopter high ahead, and more alarms, sirens now, sirens coming closer, a roar of emergency in the night
Then a hand grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, pulled him to one side, dragged him still clawing at the air, backwards, off the bridge.
Down they roll, messy and down, Theo kicking out, snarling, biting, writhing against the hands that hold him, he manages to strike something squishy and hears a man grunt, they roll down a sloping pavement, bump against a bin, the gunfire is growing less now but the smoke the fire everything moving in shadows against the light, the shadows now long, now short the helicopter’s searchlight splashing white across the world
and then vanishing Theo kicks again
they roll
a tumbling mess of limbs
tumble off a raised ramp onto the towpath below, slamming down hard enough onto flagstone to knock the breath from both bodies, and for a while they lie there, limp and bleeding by the waters of the canal, while overhead battle rages.
The other man stirred first.
Crawled to hands and knees.
And time is
Neila turns and turns and turns again, spinning at the end of the canal, and
the cards fall on the table the Fool the Magician the High Priestess the Empress the Emperor the Hierophant the Lovers the Chariot Justice the Hermit the Wheel of Fortune Strength the
“Theo!”
Theo grappled, clawed at the face of the man who held him, everything in pain, fumbling without direction. His hands were swatted down, fingers curled around his wrists. “Theo!”
He blinked blood from his eyes, shook his head at something familiar, then flinched to the side as overhead the helicopter swept in low and bright, white light and sudden gunfire, louder, clearer, cleaner than anything that had been on the bridge, smacking into metal and flesh.
“Theo!” A man in a balaclava, a man with a familiar voice. He pulled his mask away, dragged Theo a little higher, shaking him, pressing him back against the wall that ran beneath the bridge. “Theo! Lucy is alive!”
Theo looked up into Markse’s face and didn’t understand anything much any more, except the words that had his daughter’s name in them.
“Are you with me? Are you here?” Markse shook him again, hissed, dragging off his coat, pressing it into the blood at Theo’s side it’s a dark wool thing far too big for Theo he wonders what it’s doing in his hands. “They’ll kill you they’ll kill her they’ll burn it all run!”
He pushed Theo for good measure. He staggered, caught himself against the wall, did not fall, did not raise his head, put one foot in front of the other, tested his weight, stepped, stepped again, did not fall
did not fall
and time is
“You should do it,” said Dani. “I think it sounds great.”
“Don’t be boring,” chided Queen Bess, lady of the patties
blessed is her name blessed are her hands upon the water she washes away the blood of our sins she washes away the shadows her fingers are balm of the eucalyptus tree her eyes are the
And in Leicester two men met, did meet, will meet are meeting and Markse said, “There you are. Shall we?”
And together they walked along the canal, Theo and the spy, and the latter mused as the sun dragged high and the day grew a little less sharp, “The problem is you want everything now. You want change now. But not just change. You want a change that is … compassionate. You want the world to see that it is cruel, and bleak, and that the powerful have mastery and the weak have nothing. You want the masses to rise, to build a world where the children are safe, the elderly are protected and all men treat each other as equals, and brothers, yes? A new, beautiful world where somehow it all works out for the best. But Mr. Miller, all you do, all this that you have done—it just makes the fear worse. The screamers, the faders, the ragers, the silent ones who watch from windows; did you really think that when the world shook on its axis, they would run to their neighbour’s aid? Did you really think that this was the way? Did you think that kindness is born of terror?”
And they walked.
And after a while Theo said, “She’s alive. The rest is detail.”
And Markse sighed, and handed over a piece of paper with an address written on it, and said, “You’d better hurry. They’re going to Monaco as soon as the sale goes through. They’ll take Lucy and that will be …” And stopped himself at the look on Theo’s face. “These things should never be personal,” he muttered, to himself more than the company. “But once they are, you may as well make some sort of choice with your life. They haven’t found out it was me, but they’re going to work it out tomorrow. That’s when they’ll catch my driver, and after that all the pieces will fall into place, so I’m heading for the border now. I’ve got some papers saved up, money, there’s a little place I’ve had my eye on for a while. That’s all, I think, that’s all that is …”
Through the smoke and the flame and the blood dripping now into the water, Markse watched from the cover of the path beneath the bridge as
one step at a time
Theo ran.
Chapter 81
Time is
“Oh my oh yes now of course yes bleeding by the canal do you have an address for that … I’m not seeing you on my map do you have premium or standard service support for an extra £4.99 a month you can upgrade …”
And time is
“Mike’s boy, right?”
“No.”
“I’ve got no time for your boy-shit, boy.”
And time, which also seems to spin around the centre of the universe, another product of mass and motion
time is
“Is that … cornflower blue?”
“Well, you know it’s just what you have to hand …”
Theo walks along the canal and sometimes he is in a boat and sometimes there is candlelight and ice and macaroni cheese and
Cormorants can count to seven, very clever birds really, and herons stand fishing on one leg even though the fish are probably dead below the water and
In Nottingham, Theo and Corn walk together along the canal.
“Fucking should have killed you,” muttered Corn. “Should have killed you for what you did. Said we should run, she should run, but Bess said no. Said they’d never come for us, not now. We’d won, the Company was broken, there weren’t no point coming for Newton Bridge now. I said that isn’t it. You don’t come cos you’ve won. You come cos you lost, and you wanna hurt. All we’d built, you couldn’t just let something like that die. It was the principle of the thing the fucking principle Bea is …”
For a while they stand and watch the water.
Then: “Why’d you tell them? Why’d you let them kill us?”
“Because they had my daughter. They didn’t hurt her in front of me. They didn’t need to. It was very clear that if I didn’t tell them what they wanted to know, they’d hurt her. That was all. That was the only thing that mattered. Everything else seemed very small.”
In Leicester Markse says, “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but you have to trust Heidi Fardell. She knows you’re coming. Simon’s never had much respect for his wife. She’s turned off the burglar alarms, cut the connection to the security hut. You can get in and they won’t come running, she promises that …
it’s nearly over now.
It’s nearly over.
I thought I served a thing which was
You arrogant son of a bitch you ignorant stupid fucked-up
I suppose that’s …”
The water flows towards the sea, and they stand in silence a while.
Corn with hands buried in his pockets, watching his own reflection.
“We defended it all right, for about five minutes. That’s how long it took them to kill us. They sold the land to some sort of sheikh or something. They’re going to redevelop Newton Bridge for a yoga retreat. Or like a place to write poetry, we’re eyesores we are the
are you going to kill them?
Are you going to kill them?
I’ll give you a gun. Just promise me you’ll kill them all.”
Theo stands on the top of the hill and looks down towards the house.
The low morning mist rising from frost-cracked grass the sun above burning it clear the moisture in the air blurs the light makes it a swimming-pool sky of reflected gold makes the light across his fingers pale silver makes
There is a gun in his pocket, and he knows who’s home.
He looks up at the sky and down at the earth, tastes rain on his lips and feels the heat of blood inside his bones.
He begins to walk, towards the end.
&nb
sp; Chapter 82
In the north there was a house where coal and wood burns in the fires.
It was a homey house, the kind of place where there was always a spare soft blanket, and no mould in the bathroom.
It sat behind red-brick walls topped with white stone.
There is fresh gravel on the drive, two cars parked out front. At Christmas they put a wreath on the door, red berries gleaming fat, a silver card reading HOME suspended from silver thread woven into the bows. The windows have eight panes of glass between lines of stiff white wood, and slide up and down to let in the summer breeze. Repointing the chimney cost a small fortune, but not as much as trying to central-heat the place. There’s a pantry at the back where they keep eggs collected fresh from the hutches at the end of the garden. When Simon and his siblings were young, they loved to gather eggs, it was the best thing ever, sometimes they’d go out two or three times a day just to see if another hen had laid, but when they got older they lost interest in such things, and Heidi never had children.
A cook and a cleaner sleep upstairs, in the slant-roof rooms at the top of the house, beneath electric blankets. They aren’t called a cook and a cleaner; she is executive caterer, he is house manager, and as they sleep, they dream, and the world across the darkness of their minds is full of stars, spinning around a core of darkness.
Theo climbs over the wall by a twisted oak tree.
Walks through mushy leaves.
Stops outside the house, in the dark, waits a while for the lights inside to go out.
Just one lantern burns above the front door.
He goes around the back.
The kitchen door is locked.
The window isn’t.
Climbs in, head first, crawling over a table where fresh-cut blue flowers shine in a white porcelain vase. The burglar alarm does not go off. The lines to the security guards, slumbering in the old stables outside, were cut days ago, and no one bothered to check because Heidi says it’s fine.
