Dylan now took over, telling me when and where to turn until after about fifteen minutes, we turned into the car park of a hypermarket. The car park was about half full. Most of the cars were parked as close to the hypermarket entrance as they could get. I cruised to the emptiest part of the car park, which was the area furthest away from the shop entrance. The odd trolley sat conspicuously in various bays where no one could be bothered to put them back where they belonged.
'This is where we part company,' said Dylan once I'd stopped the car.
'Thanks, Dylan,' Morgan said gratefully. 'I owe you one.'
'You owe me several,' Dylan told him. He turned to look at me. I kept my mouth tight shut.
'You can take the suitcase with your stuff in it out of the boot,' said Dylan. 'Could I have the wigs and glasses, though. I might need them again.'
'Are you telling me what to do?' I asked.
'No. Merely suggesting,' said Dylan.
We pulled off the disguises, then all got out of the car. The early evening sun shone warm and welcoming but I felt uncomfortably hot. I dismissed it as nerves. Being outside the L.M. fold had made me jumpy. Nervous. I looked around. I didn't fancy hidden police springing out from behind a load of cars and ambushing me. Morgan and Dylan shook hands.
'Till next time,' said Morgan.
'Till next time,' Dylan said seriously. He nodded in my direction. I ignored him. No way was I going to get chatty with a dagger. Dylan got back into the car, this time in the driver's seat, as I took out the suitcase which contained our luggage. I'd barely slammed the boot shut before he was off, the wheels slipping slightly on the gravel beneath them. I turned to Morgan.
'Since when have you been so matey with a Cross?' I said.
'Are you accusing me of something, Jude?' Morgan asked mildly.
'No. Should I be?'
Morgan shook his head. 'Dylan is a contact I made a few years ago, before you'd even joined the L.M. You left me in charge of contingency planning and that's what I did. I installed him or other Crosses who're on our side at all the dubious hotels we've stayed in over the last few months – just in case.'
'I see,' I replied.
And I did see. I'd left all our backup plans to Morgan, relying on him to make sure that we always had a way out in case the cops came knocking. And I'd never questioned him about his plans or procedures before now. What he did and how he did it was his business. And deep down, I had to admit that without the dagger, it would've been much harder to get away from the hotel. But that thought burned through my gut like excess acid.
'I don't like relying on daggers,' I admitted. 'There's not one of them that can be trusted.'
'Jude, sometimes we have to work with sympathetic Crosses,' said Morgan.
'"Sympathetic" and "Crosses" are two words that're mutually exclusive. They've been in power for centuries. They're not going to give it up now. Not to us – our skin is too light.'
'The Liberation Militia aren't asking Crosses to give up power. I don't know what you're fighting for, but I'm in the L.M. to fight for equality. All we want is a level playing field.'
'You need to wake up and smell the coffee,' I scoffed. 'Level playing field, my left ass cheek. I've got news for you. We're not on the playing field. We're not even in the game.'
'Yes, we are. Thanks to people like Dylan, we are,' Morgan told me. 'And your kind of negative thinking holds us back.'
At my snort of derision, Morgan continued, 'I've worked with Dylan and other Crosses before.'
'And you're OK with that?' I asked.
'I'm OK with whatever will further our cause.'
'And you don't care who we have to crawl into bed with to do that?'
'I'm not . . . blinkered enough to think that every Cross on the planet is against us – no,' said Morgan.
'Then more fool you,' I said with scorn.
Morgan regarded me steadily. 'You'd better be careful, Jude.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'I joined the L.M. to fight for equal rights for noughts,' said Morgan. 'What's your reason?'
'The same,' I shrugged.
'You sure? Or is the L.M. just a way for you to carry out your vendetta against every Cross who crosses your path. 'Cause that's how it looks from where I'm standing.'
'You need to look again then, or stand somewhere else,' I told him.
'Which is it, Jude? What d'you care about most? The cause or vengeance?' said Morgan.
How dare he ask me that? 'I'm not even going to bother answering that,' I said with all the disdain I could dredge up. 'We have more pressing matters to discuss – like who tipped off the cops that we'd be at the hotel.'
Pause. Then Morgan nodded, prepared to go along with my blatant change of subject.
'Yes, I've been thinking about that too. It has to be Andrew's handiwork. He must be getting desperate.'
'Which makes him even more dangerous,' I pointed out.
'Yes, I know.'
'The police know we're together, so we need to split up,' I said reluctantly. 'We'll use our mobile phones to stay in touch and meet at least once a month. That way we can co-ordinate our efforts to bring down Andrew Dorn.'
'I'm not going to rest until he's paid for what he did to us,' Morgan said stonily. 'What he did to all of us. Pete's dead, Leila's rotting in prison and your brother was hanged because of him . . .'
'Callum's death wasn't down to Dorn – or at least only in part. My brother died because of Persephone Hadley,' I said harshly.
'I'm not even going to go there,' said Morgan, refusing to discuss it. 'We both lost a lot – let's leave it at that.'
We stood in silence as we both thought about just that – what each of us had had taken away from us. Morgan had lost the stability and sense of belonging that came from being at the heart of the L.M. I'd lost all that and a lot more. Morgan didn't understand, but then how could he? No one could begin to guess at the depth of the hatred I held for Sephy Hadley and all daggers. But mainly Sephy Hadley. Everything began with her and my brother. And that's how it would end. Callum was gone. Sephy would pay. Destroying her would be my life's mission. My over-riding, overwhelming ambition.
'We're agreed then? We'll lay low until we can bring down Andrew Dorn?' said Morgan. I nodded. 'And we'll keep in contact?'
'Yes,' I said, my tone clipped. 'You'll be OK?'
Morgan nodded. 'So where should we meet?'
'The second of next month at Jo-Jo's in the Dundale Shopping Centre,' I decided. 'And we mustn't phone each other unless it's an emergency. If the police get hold of our phone IDs, they can trace and even listen in on every call we make.'
'Should we still change our phones regularly?'
'We'll play it by ear – OK? But whatever else happens, we mustn't lose touch.'
'OK,' Morgan agreed. 'Well, until we meet again, keep your head down.'
'You too.' And with that I turned and walked away, my footsteps crunching on the gravel beneath my feet.
And even though I wanted to, I didn't look back. I could sense that Morgan was still watching me but I didn't turn round. Jude's rule number five: Never get so close to anyone or anything that you can't walk away at a moment's notice if you have to.
When you have to.
six. Sephy
Darling Callie,
There's so much I want to say to you. So much I need to explain. So much I want to share. It frightens me how much I'm beginning to care about you. You're just two days old and I feel like . . . like your heart and mine are somehow knitting together. Does that make sense? Probably not. When you read this you'll probably think your mum is talking fanciful nonsense. Words about personal things, words that tell the truth, they're so hard to say. If I used words that meant nothing to me at all, then they wouldn't tear off pieces of me as I wrote them. I read once that when a bee stings, it tears its body apart trying to get away from its victim. That's what the truth has done to my life.
And here's some more truth.
Callie, I want to be honest with you – always – but this isn't easy to say. When I was pregnant with you inside me, I hated you. You were alive and Callum, your dad, wasn't. I hated you and me and the whole world for that. But now that I have you here, against my heart, I feel the beginning of peace. Like this was meant to be. Strange that I should feel such strange calm. Maybe it's just an 'eye of the storm' calm. After all, I'm about to be chucked out of my flat, my money is almost gone and I don't have a pot to pee in. I should be panicking. But I'm not. We're going to be all right, I think. I hope. I pray.
I sit on my hospital bed with you in my arms and I watch you. Just watch you, absorbing every line, every curve of your face. You have your dad's eyes, the same shape, the same quizzical expression, but your eyes are dark, dark blue, whilst his were stormy grey. You have my nose, strong and proud. You have your dad's forehead, broad and intelligent, and you have my ears – and yet you don't look like either of us. You're new and unique and original. You're a lighter brown than me. Much lighter. But you're not a Nought, not white like your dad. You're a trailblazer. Setting your own colour, your own look. Maybe you're the hope for the future. Something new and different and special. Something to live on whilst the rest of us die out, obsolete in our ignorance and hatred. We'll be like the dinosaurs, dying out – and not before time either. And yet I can't help worrying. You have to live in a world divided into Noughts and Crosses. A world where you will be biologically both and socially neither. Mixed race. Dual heritage. Labels to be attached. Tags to be discarded. Don't let the world stick markers and brands and other nonsense on you. Find your own identity. I hope and pray you find your own place and space and time.
But I can't help worrying.
I watch you and I can't stop tears rolling down my face. But I don't want you to see me cry. I don't want anything bad or negative in your life. I want to surround you with love and warmth and understanding. I want to make up for the fact that you'll never know your dad. His name was Callum Ryan McGregor. He had straight brown hair and solemn grey eyes and a dry sense of humour and a mountainous sense of justice. He was very special. I'm going to tell you about him every day. Every single day. I'll sit you on my lap and tell you how the corners of his eyes crinkled up when he laughed. How a muscle in his jaw twitched when he was angry. How he made me laugh like no one else. How he made me cry like no one else. I loved him so much. I still do. I always will. He's not here any more. But you are. I want to hold you tight and never let you go. I'll never let anything or anyone hurt you. Ever. I promise.
How strange, but before I had you, I always thought of myself as a pacifist, as someone who'd never be able to deliberately physically hurt anyone. But I look at you and my feelings have already changed so much, it frightens me. For you I would die. But more scary than that, for you I would kill. In a second. I know it as surely as I know my own name. I won't let anyone hurt you.
Not anyone.
My feelings terrify me. Loving you so much terrifies me. I've only ever loved one other person the way I love you and that was your dad, Callum. And my love for him brought him nothing but misery. Love is bad luck. At least, mine is. And now I'm lying here feeling so sorry for myself because Callum's not with me. And I know that you're here with me, Callie Rose, but I miss your father.
I miss him.
With every breath and every heartbeat, I miss him.
seven. Jude
I sat opposite her house in my newly acquired car for I don't know how long, just watching and 'waiting. Though if you'd asked me what I was watching and waiting for, I wouldn't've been able to tell you. A glimpse of her. Just a sight to see she if was all right. This, my most recent car, was around five years old – a black, four-door saloon. I'd gone into a car park across town, barrelled the lock and hot-wired it. I never stole new cars, they were too conspicuous. A five-year-old car wouldn't get too much attention. I needed to blend into the scenery, especially sitting outside her house. Did she know how much I missed her? Could she sense me watching her front door?
I tilted back my head, still watching Mum's house, willing her to look through a window or open the door and see me. This whole situation was bizarre. I'd thought that more and more often over the last few months. I was a boat with no oars and no sails, drifting where the currents swept me. I even missed Morgan's regular company. But we were both better off this way. I had no friends, I had no home, I didn't even feel safe belonging to the Liberation Militia any more – not whilst Andrew Dorn was the General's right-hand man. My life had moved past unreal into surreal. At least that's how it felt a lot of the time. Most of the time. But then I'd remember the sight of my brother swinging on the gallows, and painful reality whipped back at me with enough force to knock me off my feet.
Callum McGregor, my brother. Callum, who was like my good reflection. He was the one in the family who was meant to make it. Get out. Get on. Get ahead. But he hadn't. And if he couldn't make it, what hope did the rest of us have? If it's possible to truly loathe and love someone at the same time, then that's how I felt about my brother. He had it all.
And it killed him.
Mum, I'm still here. I haven't abandoned you. I hope there's some way you can feel my thoughts and know that I'm thinking of you. Does she get my money? I don't send it every week and the amount varies according to how much I can afford but at least I try. Mum, I wish I could step out of the shadows and knock on your door like any other person would, but I can't. I'm wanted – by all the wrong people. The government, the police – and some within the Liberation Militia. But I'm still here, Mum. I still think about you – in spite of Jude's fourth law: Caring equals vulnerability. Never show either. But you're all I have left in the world, Mum. And that means something to me. I wish it didn't, but it does. So here I am, sitting in a stolen car outside your house, watching and waiting and wishing all our lives had turned out differently.
I'd better go before someone spots me. It wouldn't surprise me if they're still watching your house, hoping I'll turn up. Hang in there, Mum. And don't worry. I only have one desire, one ambition left. I'm going to make them all suffer.
I'm going to make them all pay.
Wait. Her door's opening. She's bringing out a rubbish bag.
Oh my God! She looks so old. When did she get so old? Head bent, shoulders drooping, shuffling like an old woman. But it's only been a few months. A few years. A lifetime. Look what they've done to you, Mum. Look at the state of you. She's looking up – straight at me. Can she see me? Of course she can. What am I thinking? I have to get out of here. I must've been mad to come here in the first place.
She's calling my name. For God's sake, Mum, don't do that. You don't know who's watching or listening. What was I thinking? She's dropped her bag and is running towards me now.
Move the car, Jude. NOW!
Get going.
Go.
Mum, don't cry. Please don't cry.
Sorry.
It was a mistake.
I'm so sorry.
I'd broken Jude's first cardinal rule.
Never, ever allow yourself to feel. Feelings kill.
eight. Sephy
Darling Callie,
Whilst you were sleeping:
I thought of Callum.
I phoned three quality newspapers and used my credit card to put a birth announcement in each of them. If Dad thinks I'm going to disappear into the woodwork now that I've had you, he's got another think coming. I hate his guts.
But I thought of Callum.
And I kissed your forehead. And breathed you in.
I thought of Callum.
I chatted to Meena in the bed next to mine. She's had a girl too and she's going to call her Jorja. That's a pretty name, isn't it? Jorja.
I thought of Callum.
I had a quick shower because I didn't want to be away from you too long. Not that I could linger, even if I wanted to. The queue to use the showers is always horrendous, so you have to be fast on your feet and slip i
n and out before some irate woman bangs on the shower cubicle door, hurling abuse because the hot water is in danger of running out.
And I thought of Callum.
In that order.
nine. Jude
I sat in the Golden Eye bar, tucked away off the High Street, sipping at my lager. This wasn't the kind of place I usually frequented – a bit too consciously cool-chic for my taste – but it was off the beaten track and I needed a drink and an hour or two to myself. The Golden Eye was almost three quarters full of revellers enjoying a drink after work. Mostly noughts but quite a few daggers. It was one of those places where daggers could come for an hour or so once a week and try to fool themselves into thinking they were liberal and not prejudiced because they actually drank in a place where noughts were drinking next to them and not just serving. I took another sip of my drink and looked around. The bar sure was busy. But then they did serve the best beer I'd had in months.
The place should've been called the Wooden Eye. People stood on the beer-stained wooden floor, propped up the wine-stained wooden bar, sat on barely-upholstered wooden benches, stools and chairs. And I was one of them. I sat at a table, opposite a canoodling nought couple who had eyes for no one but each other. I could've sprouted another head and I'd've still been invisible to them. So I sat and sipped, and sipped and sat. But I was tired of my inactivity. I was tired of running and hiding and living from day to day. Slamming my bottle of lager down on the table before me, I decided I'd sat on my backside for long enough. It was time to get some purpose back into my life. I couldn't rely on the L.M. for support – not when someone, probably Andrew Dorn, was out to get me. And my mum could do nothing for me. The only person I could rely on was myself.
The first thing I had to do was get money. Lots of it and quickly. And if I could stick it to the Crosses at the same time, then so much the better. There were plenty of banks and building societies and jewellery shops that needed someone like me to help keep their profits on a more manageable level. So really, I'd be providing a public service. I smiled, imagining that defence in court. Who knows! If they ever caught me, I just might try it.
Knife Edge Page 3
