by Molly Flatt
‘She’s already proposed it to the Board.’
‘And how would you know that?
‘Taran. He made me swear not to tell anyone, but he couldn’t help but tell me when he came back from the Council meeting. He says she panicked when she didn’t hear from you. He says she’s out of her depth.’
‘Okay. Fine. Let’s say you’re right. Why would you come here and warn me?’ She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘I killed your father, for God’s sake. I’d have thought you’d be the first person to dance on my grave.’
Finn licked his lips. ‘I – I got you wrong. You aren’t what I thought you were.’
‘What, you mean a monster?’
‘It was a possibility.’
‘Before you met me, maybe! But you came to my office, you drank my coffee, you listened to me talk.’ Alex paused. ‘You looked into my eyes. Did you see a monster?’
‘No! No. Not exactly. But I did see . . . I saw . . .’ He was doing it again, then; looking at her the way he had before. She made herself stay open to him, offer herself up. The cafe’s industrial pendants danced in his Atlantic irises. Micro-expressions swept his craggy face like island clouds. ‘I didn’t understand what I saw,’ he said eventually. ‘That was the problem. You’re like a storm without an eye. You don’t make sense.’
‘And that, Finn MacEgan,’ Alex said, looking away, ‘is the most sensible thing you’ve said so far.’
They sat in silence while, one by one, spots of Finn’s sweat rained onto the concrete floor. Eventually Alex unscrewed the bottle and handed it to him. He drained the remaining water in a single draught of great animal gulps. ‘You have no reason to trust me,’ he said when he had finished. ‘But I wasn’t the one who attacked you outside your home, or the man who was taken away by the police. And I don’t know what I thought I was going to do by coming to your office, but I definitely didn’t have a gun. Although—’
‘Although what?’
‘I don’t know what I might have done, when I found you spying in the index. If you hadn’t—’ He reached into the neck of his orange jumper and pulled out the same blue leather necklace he had been wearing when he had visited her office. Hanging from it, beside the carved pebble and a plastic-topped car key, was the yellow Lego USB stick she had rammed into his throat. ‘I could have hurt you then. After you’d seemed to mock me in your office, talking about death and readers and stories, after you’d managed to convince Taran and MacBrian that you were innocent. That’s why I kept this. To remind myself how easy it is. To become like her. To give into what’s wrong because it feels right.’
Alex knuckled her eyelids. ‘So what, you’re saying that MacBrian tried to kill me even before I came to Iskeull?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know that Dughlas is lying. Was lying. My father would never have acted like that, compromising the records, sneaking around behind Sorcha MacBrian’s back. If he’d wanted to work extra shifts, he’d just have argued it out with her. He wasn’t afraid of her. He wasn’t afraid of the Council. He wasn’t afraid of anyone.’ He let off a salvo of full-body hacks that made his stool shake. ‘He’d have been horrified,’ he gasped, ‘if he knew what they were planning to do. The precedent it would set. He made me learn the Covenant by heart when I was five years old. It’s another reason why I had to come. He’d have wanted me to stop it. To help you.’
Alex looked round the cafe. There were so many people; so many of them pale and dark-haired. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So let’s say I trust you. Let’s even say I agree with you. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that I’m fed up of doing the wrong thing. Of being the wrong thing. That for once in my life I want to face up to who I really am, or die trying. If the Board has given the go-ahead for this bloody fatwa, how exactly am I supposed to get back onto Iskeull, and into that tomb place in the middle of the Stacks, without getting shot in the head?’
Silence. She looked back. Finn’s stool was empty.
‘Hey!’
She looked down. The man with the iPad was kneeling on the floor.
‘Hey,’ he said again. ‘I think your friend needs an ambulance.’
18
They made her wait in a crowded oasis of plastic chairs while they ‘performed tests’. The paramedics had assumed that Alex was his girlfriend, and it was easier just to go with it. To jump into the back of the ambulance. To field their questions with vague lies while they strapped an oxygen mask to his dark-lashed, bloodless face. To follow them into the Homerton and watch them wheel his twitching body on a trolley down a strip-lit corridor.
She knew without a doubt that it was bad for him to be there, for tests to be performed. But she hadn’t known what else to do. As the minutes and then the hours trickled past, she watched those around her come and go in a swatch-book of skin colours and a babble of languages. Some looked scared and others looked sad, but most simply looked bored. Her phone remained in her bag, and she let others pick through the dog-eared magazines. She sat in silence and let the tide of humanity roll around her – fragile, damaged, bored humanity – and waited to find out what she was going to decide to do.
‘Jesus, Alex! Thank God. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. No-one had any record of you being admitted.’ She blinked up. Harry was staring down at her, chestnut hair ruffled, stubbled cheeks flushed. ‘What the hell happened? Are you alright?’ He crouched down in front of her. ‘Alex? What’s the matter?’
‘Harry,’ she said dazedly. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Why am I here? I spent all morning trying to get hold of you, to make a decision about the cake. I phoned your mother, but she said you’d got the train back last night, so I tried your office and they told me you’d had to go to hospital. Why didn’t you call me?’ He grasped her knees. ‘Alex? What on earth’s wrong?’
Alex desperately tried to engage her brain. ‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Well, not with me. It’s a . . . a colleague. They fell ill. When they were with me. I thought I should come.’
Harry rocked back on his heels and blew out a heavy whooo of air. ‘Thank God. Jesus, Alex, I’ve been frantic. I thought you’d been in an accident.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think—’
‘No.’ Harry rose to his full height. ‘No, obviously not.’ He straightened his T-shirt, ran a hand through his hair. ‘Are they alright?’
‘Who?’
‘Your colleague, Alex. Are they okay?’
‘Oh, they’re . . . I don’t know.’
‘What happened?’
‘They . . . um, they fainted.’
‘And what? Hit their head?’
‘Alex Moore?’ A short, plump Indian doctor walked up beside Harry, holding a clipboard.
‘Yes?’ Harry said, turning round.
The doctor looked from Alex to Harry and back again. ‘Are you—’
‘Yes,’ Alex said wearily. ‘I’m Alex Moore.’
‘Okay.’ The doctor rubbed her forehead. ‘Well, we’ve done the tests on your boyfriend, and although he’s currently in a stable—’
‘Boyfriend?’ Harry said.
The doctor looked from Alex to Harry and back again. ‘I was under the impression—’
‘No,’ Alex said quickly, not looking at Harry. ‘He’s not. We’re not. We’re . . . um, colleagues. Is he alright?’
The doctor rubbed her forehead again. ‘Well, as I said, he’s now stable, but he’s still very weak, and at this point we’re still not sure what’s causing his symptoms. We’d like to run further tests, but he’s proving very resistant. He’s rather upset.’ She glanced at Harry. ‘He’s been asking to see you ever since he came round. He should be strong enough to see you now, but it would be very helpful if you could try and persuade him to cooperate.’
Alex stood up. ‘Right.’ She turned to Harry. ‘I should – do that.’
The Air Force blues were trained on her face. ‘Who is he?’ he said.
‘He’s, um . . . well. He’s one of the students I�
�m working with on this research project.’
‘From Orkney?’
‘Yes, he – uh, he came to catch up with my progress.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘It was a – a very last-minute thing.’
‘And he fainted? I thought they were all macho outdoor types.’
‘Yes, well, he’s . . . um, he’s not used to the city. The pollution and everything.’
‘Okay,’ Harry said, after a beat. He gave a strained smile. ‘No problem. If it’s important for you. For Eudo.’ He sat down in the chair Alex had just vacated. ‘I’ll wait here.’
‘Oh, no, really, you don’t have to—’
‘No problem,’ Harry replied calmly. He held up his BlackBerry. ‘I’ll keep working on the P&L I’ve been drawing up for Eudo. Take your time.’
Alex stared down at him.
‘Miss Moore?’ the doctor prompted, gesturing with her clipboard.
‘Um,’ Alex said. ‘I – um – okay.’
She followed the doctor down the corridor, trainers squeaking on the linoleum. She glanced back at Harry, who looked up from his BlackBerry and gave her another tight smile.
‘We thought it was drugs, initially,’ the doctor said, ‘but all the tests have come back clear. It’s a strange collection of symptoms, and quite debilitating, but since he woke up he’s refused to let us take any more blood. Is there a relative we can call?’
‘No,’ Alex said quickly. ‘No, they’re . . . um, estranged.’
‘Ah.’ The doctor stopped in front of a curtain. ‘Are you quite alright yourself? You look quite – run-down.’
‘I’m fine.’
The doctor shrugged. ‘Okay. Well. If you could do what you can. I’ll be back in ten minutes.’ She moved the curtain back an inch, and headed back along the corridor.
Finn was hunched over at the end of the bed, stark naked but for the full-torso tattoo and the farmer’s trousers he was pulling on. He looked up. Their eyes locked. ‘Thank the Library,’ he said, straightening up, the trousers suspended halfway up his thighs. ‘I thought you’d gone.’
Alex dragged the curtain closed.
‘We have to get out of here now,’ his voice said from behind the curtain, the shiny fabric imprinted with a vista of indigo-inked muscle that she was never going to shake. ‘They can’t get any DNA.’
Deciding this wasn’t the time to tell him that the police were already puzzling over his – no, someone else’s – Iskeullian DNA in one of their labs, Alex edged the curtain back. By now, thank God, his trousers were buttoned, and he was pulling on his shirt. On the hospital bed behind him lay a crumpled gown and the abandoned snake of a saline drip.
‘The ferry will take too long,’ he croaked, reaching for his boots. ‘Have you got enough money for an aeroplane?’
‘Yes,’ Alex said, surprising herself. She wasn’t aware that she’d made a decision, sitting back there in the waiting room, but apparently she had. ‘I’ll put it on the Eudo credit card. But are you sure you’re alright to fly? Can you even walk?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said, fumbling with the laces. He was so pale as to be virtually opalescent, his forehead glistening, the sooty hair matted in clumps. He grabbed his holdall from beside the bed. ‘Just get us out of here.’
Alex tweaked the curtain aside. Amongst the bustling nurses and slow-moving patients, their doctor was nowhere to be seen. ‘It’s just down there,’ she said, ‘but there’s a complication. I need to find a way to—’ But he had already pushed past her and was striding unsteadily along the corridor.
‘Wait!’ Alex hissed, rushing after him, but it was too late. He had almost reached the waiting room, and now Harry, who had been gazing in their direction, had seen them and was rising to his feet.
‘Hey,’ Harry said, spreading his arms like a bullfighter. ‘Hey, mate, steady on.’
‘Finn!’ Alex yelled, noticing the predatory tension that had stiffened his back. ‘It’s okay! He’s a – he’s a friend.’
Finn stopped and turned on his heels, wobbling.
‘I tried to explain,’ Alex panted, rushing into the space between them. ‘Harry – Harry came to see if I was okay. He didn’t know you were here. He doesn’t know – about—’ she petered off, seeing Harry’s face.
‘Friend?’ Harry said.
‘Fiancé,’ Alex said. ‘Finn, this is Harry, my fiancé. Harry, this is Finn MacEgan. He’s a—’ She swallowed. ‘He’s . . . um, well, he’s part of the . . . the GCAS.’
Harry and Finn were eyeing each other like a lion and a hyena might, across the body of an injured gazelle. Harry had never looked so vital, so broad, so clean. Finn, a blue vein juddering across his temple, looked like a complete wreck.
‘What don’t I know about?’ Harry asked, without moving his gaze from Finn.
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Finn said, without moving his gaze from Harry.
‘The trip.’ Alex touched Harry’s wrist. His eyes flickered down to her face. ‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you. Finn has come to ask me to go back with him. To the island. There are some . . . uh, more interviews they need to do.’
Harry thrust his arm across Alex’s back. He swept her away to a wall covered in posters displaying grisly images of organs in various states of decay. ‘Alex,’ he said. ‘We are getting married in five days.’
‘I know.’ Alex glanced back at Finn, who was riveted by the tech-wielding human circus sprawled across the waiting-room chairs. ‘It’ll only be the weekend, I promise. There are just a few last things I need to help them with, then it’ll be over for good.’ One way or another, she thought hopelessly, staring at a photographic cross-section of a nicotine-ravaged lung.
‘You need,’ Harry said slowly, ‘to step away from this research project, Alex. I know you’ve only been trying to do what I asked – to do some thinking about yourself – but it’s clearly gone too far. It’s obviously upsetting you. Look at all those questions you asked me on Wednesday night. A well-meaning idea has turned into unproductive naval-gazing, and now you need to let this introspection go and focus on the future. Our future – together in every way. I feel responsible for pushing you away, and I want to help you, but you have to let me in.’ His arm was still across her back, and he gave her a little shake.
‘I can’t, though,’ Alex whispered, looking up at him. ‘Not with this. If you’re truly willing to support me now, you have to trust me. You’re right, I never should have got mixed up in this thing, and I wish I could just let it go. My God how I wish. But now I have to finish what I started. It’s out of my control.’
‘What about your destiny is your responsibility? I’ve memorized Eudo’s core values, you know.’
‘I’m sorry, Harry. I have to go.’
He clenched his jaw, but he didn’t drop his arm. ‘Have you told Lenni that I’m coming on board?’
‘Oh. Um. Not yet. He’s still a bit sensitive after the virals. I need to pick the right time.’
‘You will, though? Before you go?’
‘Um, yes, I – yes. Okay.’
‘And you’ll need to let me know about the cake. Almond polenta or stack of Hertfordshire cheese.’
‘Okay, I – um, polenta sounds good.’
‘And the flowers. Lily-of-the-valley or amnesia roses.’
‘Right. Yes. The second one.’
‘And the music. I’ve found a Guildhall student who could do a classical medley on the violin.’
‘Sure.’
‘Alright. I’ll action those. Wednesday, then.’
‘Yes. Wednesday.’
Harry curled his arm round and swept her into his chest. Tilting back her chin with his spare hand, he cupped her jaw and kissed her, passionately and for a very long time. As Alex staggered back, Harry nodded at Finn, who had, like the rest of A&E, turned to watch.
‘Have a good trip, mate,’ he called, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘And take care. You look pretty weak to me.
’
Curled on a leather sofa in a quiet corner of the airport lounge, Alex tried to focus on composing her Eudo out-of-office autoreply. But every few seconds she found herself looking up, searching for Finn. There – he was there, rounding the central buffet station, heading back her way. He did not, she thought, look well. At all. When he reached the sofa he swung his holdall off his shoulder and onto the cushions beside Alex. It landed with an odd crackling noise. Then, before she could say anything, he turned and wobbled back across the lounge. As soon as he had disappeared around the complimentary newspaper stand, Alex leaned over and peered into the holdall.
A base layer of balled-up cape was just about visible beneath a vast mound of foil-covered chocolates, bags of pretzels and crisps, individually wrapped cantuccini and can upon mini-can of Coke, Red Bull and Sprite. No shotgun. She sprang back as Finn returned, his arms laden with copies of Grazia, Intelligent Life, Wallpaper and Men’s Health.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Big market for Outside gear,’ he said, piling the magazines into the bag.
‘Taran told me you flew in supplies.’
‘Essentials. A few luxuries, allocated per family on a rotating basis. We exchange some local specialities with the other Chapters. Only Council members have credit cards.’
She thought, giddily, of Tim at Eudo, who regularly discoursed upon his village in Clash of Clans as if it were real. ‘But . . . where do they even get money?’
‘We export produce we don’t need. It goes for a lot, especially the fish and the beef. Each island pays a tithe into a shared account in Luxembourg that the Board reallocates in emergencies. Any extra funds we need, Iain MacHoras’s team gets online at Ronaldsay.’
‘What do you mean, online?’
‘Library people are good with networks. Better than Outside banks.’
‘Wait . . . you mean you’re hackers?’
‘Library Tax, MacHoras calls it.’
‘It sounds like stealing to me!’
He gave her a level look. ‘It seems like a fair exchange for what we do,’ he said and walked off unsteadily.
