by S Williams
Joseph felt sick. ‘They were children, Slane.’
‘They were fish, waiting to be set free.’
The full weight of her words buried him. ‘Oh my God,’ he said into the silence. ‘You were there, weren’t you? You were one of them?’
Slane smiled. ‘I was a young officer, eager to please. I got placed in a university and attended the right sort of demonstration. Then I went to the right meetings. Eventually, I slept with the right people.’
‘Deep cover.’ Disgust and revulsion twisted Joseph’s mouth.
‘The deepest.’
Joseph took a slow breath. When he spoke, his voice was strong. ‘But the trouble with deep cover is you never realise it’s too deep until it’s gone too far, yes?’
‘Except it wasn’t too deep, Joseph!’ Slane’s eyes gleamed. ‘It was…’ she paused, as if trying to find the right word, ‘…more than anyone could know. The purity of control…’
Slane’s fervour was hypnotic. It was like watching an explosion; bright and deadly and with no hope of survival.
Joseph kept his voice level. ‘But the authorities found out you had become corroded somehow. They decided to shut the operation down,’ he guessed.
Slane shook her head at the memory. ‘They never understood. How could they? They only saw things from the outside. Never saw the bigger picture. They were already tainted by the society that made them.’
She looked at him as if he would comprehend what she was talking about, as if he’d understand. Joseph realised that she was probably insane; pushed over the edge by the trauma she had witnessed and participated in when she was young. In an attempt to escape any culpability, her mind had created a whole new narrative for herself that made her actions acceptable.
‘The fabric of society is rotten. Everything is being corrupted. Pornography watched on their phones. The never-ending supply of drugs and lust for money. The children have no hope.’
Slane looked genuinely upset.
‘And you think this is an answer?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘To abuse–’
‘No! To remodel. To take the fish and teach it that it doesn’t need to rely on the river. That it can leave and become something else.’
‘Become what?’ he said, then, aghast, realised what she was hinting at. ‘The mermaid. You mean become the mermaid.’
Slane nodded. ‘Once the head of the operation decided to shut it down we knew what they had to do. What they were going to get us to do. There was no way the public could cope with their government participating in such an organisation in their name.’
‘So they decided to kill everyone.’
‘Including the children. Wipe everything away as if it was just a stain on a table.’
The hatred in Slane’s voice was visceral. Joseph wanted to point out the double standards of her anger but knew it was useless. The woman was too deep down the rabbit hole of her own psychosis.
‘It was our idea to get them out first. Many of them, like Daisy, were so close to fulfilling our dream. They had already begun to change. To transform. We thought if we could get them to a safe place we’d be able to start again. After the fuss had died down.’
‘Fuss,’ he repeated.
Slane nodded happily. She was so far in her narrative she didn’t even hear his revulsion. Joseph glanced at Collins. He had abandoned his phone and had moved onto his tablet. When Slane continued talking, he turned back to her.
‘Except it all went wrong. Most of us died in the explosion. The bastards only wanted a few of us to survive. So that we could debrief and explain the full set-up.’
‘And you were one?’
‘Me and Collins and a couple of others. We were young, with the right profile.’
‘They never knew you’d been flipped.’
‘Awakened,’ she corrected. ‘No, they thought we were still like them. We never appeared in any of the transformation tapes. The only images of us were vanilla. Just in the background. Never participating.’
‘That must have been hard for you.’
Slane shrugged, treating him to a brilliant smile. ‘Not really; I was the one operating the camera.’
Joseph thought of the images he had seen earlier. Remembered how shocked he’d been at the steadiness of the camera; how he supposed whoever had filmed it must have done it before, to not be affected by what they were documenting.
‘I understand,’ was all he managed to say.
‘Afterwards, the children were taken by the state; sent to institutions around the country. Hidden under identity blackouts. It was impossible to get to them all.’
‘Most of them committed suicide from their trauma, Slane.’
She shook her head. ‘No, it was because the process was interrupted. If we could have finished…’
Joseph didn’t know what to say. The woman was so delusional that his blood was freezing just looking at her. ‘But then Daisy happened.’
‘Yes. Walter was one of the survivors. Like me, he had been given a new identity but had suffered from PTSD and gone off the rails. Lost his grip on reality. We had no idea he had ended up on the street.’
‘I’m sure.’
Poor Walter, thought Joseph. Being badly affected by performing horrors. If this woman had known you’d fallen so far she’d have killed you. Who knows what you might have said?
‘When Daisy spotted him it must have triggered hidden memories. She started looking up our names on the internet.’
‘How do you know Daisy spotted him?’
‘When the warning flags went up we traced some to an internet café in the centre of town. We scraped the CCTV from around the site and…’ She smiled, spreading her hands.
Joseph thought of Jay, how she said that Daisy had no internet skills, but said nothing. Instead he asked another question. ‘So she remembered you?’
Slane nodded happily. ‘Not at first, but later. Once we had her secure. It was fantastic. And a complete surprise. We’d managed to track some of the children, but not Daisy. The fall out had been so huge that special measures were taken. New names and identities. Mirror paperwork. Blind filing. But when Daisy reached out we knew it was a sign. That we could start again. We needed to be able to keep tabs on Daisy. See if she could push her into transformation.’
‘So you had recruited Jay.’
‘Obviously none of us could do it. We couldn’t risk her seeing us straight away. Lawrence belonged to a different house, so we could use him, but not for close-up friendship. She would have been too wary.’
Slane had mentioned Lawrence before. He wished he could warn Jay, but all he could hope to do was keep this madwoman talking.
‘But not of Jay.’
‘She was a godsend. She could join the groups Daisy was attending with no suspicion. Jay was already halfway to being sacked. You only had to look at her to know she was a car crash waiting to happen. Getting a colleague to furlough her was easy.’
‘I can’t reach Lawrence or the others. I’ve sent a message to Grant to shut everything down but don’t know if it was sent. There doesn’t seem to be any signal.’
Slane looked at Collins. ‘Try outside. We need to move.’
Collins nodded and headed for the door.
Once he had left, Slane turned back to Joseph. ‘When Jay informed us that not only was she quitting, but that Daisy was becoming corrupted by her false memories, we had to act fast.’
Joseph thought he heard a noise beyond the door. The device he’d been given by Jay’s friend would have stopped Collins contacting the other Fishermen, but it wouldn’t have sped up the police’s arrival. He concentrated on the woman in front of him.
‘Her memories weren’t corrupted, Slane! The inside of her head would be a scrapyard of recollection. Nothing would be able to fit together. It’s amazing she’d manage to survive for so long.’
Slane shrugged a solitary shoulder. ‘We primed the therapist to see if we could bump-start her, but it pushed her the wrong way. When sh
e quoted the song, Daisy… merged with her mermaid.’
The look in Slane’s eyes was one of fondness; as if Daisy had accidentally spilt milk whilst making tea.
‘But then we decided we could put it to our advantage. We could place all the guilt on Daisy. Make her believe she’d killed her new friend as well as Walter and Beata.’
‘Beata?’
‘The witness to Walter’s murder,’ said Slane impatiently. ‘We thought that if we could rescue Daisy from all that, she would realise that we were the only ones she could trust.’
Joseph stared at her, unbelieving. ‘You did all this? Just to make a damaged mind think you were her… what, saviour?’
‘To help her become,’ insisted Slane. ‘Because then she could take her proper place.’
Before Joseph could answer there was a shout, followed by the sharp crack of a gun. Slane’s head whipped round.
Collins came crashing through the door. ‘We’ve been tagged. The whole place is surrounded.’
He looked at Joseph, then at the fake charger in the corner, its charge light flashing.
Slane followed his gaze. ‘Oh dear,’ she said mildly. ‘Any chance of escape?’
‘None, ma’am. No chance at all.’
‘Understood.’ Slane nodded sharply and raised the gun, levelling it at Joseph’s head. He felt his heart freeze as he stared into the black hole of the muzzle and opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out.
Slane swung the gun around and shot Collins between the eyes. The force from the bullet blew the back of his head off, haloing him for an awful instant in his own blood and brains.
Slane swung the gun back to Joseph before Collins had even crumpled to the floor.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Joseph whispered. ‘It won’t solve anything.’
‘I’m not going to shoot you. I’ve already told you that. I had to shoot Collins to stop him telling them anything. He knew that. We all do. Protecting the group is all that’s important.’
Slane put the gun on the floor and knelt down, placing her hands behind her head.
‘What about Daisy? Is she safe?’
‘You’ve no idea what this is about, professor,’ she said, smiling.
‘Police! Put down your weapons! Armed response unit! We are entering the premises. Anybody offering themselves as a threat will be a legitimate target. I repeat. Put down your weapons and show your hands!’
Slane carried on talking as if they were in a park. Her cadence was conversational, almost intimate. ‘It doesn’t end here. Really, it’s only just beginning. Now we know about Daisy we will regroup.’
Joseph couldn’t stop staring. The police were still shouting, but all he heard was the horror coming from Slane’s lips as she smiled at him, eyes madness-bright.
‘And we’re everywhere, Joseph. There were more survivors than the authorities knew. Far more than we ever reported back to them.’
The police came storming through the door, taking up positions, making a rapid assessment of the room.
‘And the country’s ready for us now. Everything is falling apart and they’re ready for us.’
Joseph was worried the police might shoot him by mistake. He raised his hands but stayed focused on Slane.
‘Daisy! Where is she? You said she was near. Is she being watched? Is she safe? Have you hurt her?’
‘Relax, Joseph, she’s fine! She can look after herself.’
‘Don’t shoot her!’ Joseph shouted to the officers, hands held high in the air. ‘She’s the only one who knows!’
‘Knows what?’ said the commander-in-chief, his eyes constantly moving, looking for threats. He walked forward and stood on Slane’s gun, reducing the chance of it being picked up. ‘What does she know?’
Joseph looked at the woman smiling up at him. ‘She knows where Daisy is.’
The officer had no idea what he was talking about, but with the gun threat removed it didn’t matter. He pulled her hands down behind her back and secured them with his THC plastic restraint cable – harder to break out of than any handcuff.
‘You know I don’t even think Daisy knows where Daisy is.’ Slane smiled. ‘You only have to think about the phone to understand that.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
If Slane had any more to say she never got a chance. A muzzle bag was placed over her head and she was wrenched to her feet.
‘Right. Into the van. The orders are complete media blackout. The suspect is not to be photographed under any circumstances.’
Joseph watched as the hooded figure was dragged out of the room and the remaining officers started dismantling the electrical equipment.
‘Hey!’ he said to the commanding officer. The man looked inquiringly at him.
‘What about Ms Starling? Do you know if she’s okay?’
51
‘This is a bit of a bummer.’ Jay was surveying the empty space where Lawrence should have been unconscious on the living room floor.
She looked at the trail of blood that led out of the room and down the corridor.
‘Lawrence!’ she shouted, limping forward. ‘Coming, ready or not!’
The tablets she’d taken had swathed her head in bubble wrap. She felt almost completely detached from her body.
Or maybe she was going into shock. She had an almost uncontrollable desire to shout ‘Here’s Johnny!’
‘I saw you in the house, Lawrence! The house with the children. Grant was there too! You looked like you were having a lovely time!’
She wiped away the tears from her eyes and staggered forward, the baseball bat trailing by her side. She hadn’t even been aware she was crying. She followed the drops of red on the carpet.
‘But I have to say, Lawrence, that the children did not look happy at all. Not even one fucking bit.’
She leant against the wall. The floor seemed to be breathing. She brought her hand up to her mouth and pinched the bridge of her nose. Hard. The pain sharpened her senses, allowing her to concentrate. The trail of blood led into the bedroom.
‘And we’re going to have to do something about that, Lawrence,’ she said, but it only came out as a whisper.
She took a breath and walked forward, using the wall as a guide. The edges of her vision were shutting down, cobwebbing her sight. She guessed that she was close to passing out. Her right leg wouldn’t bend at all, the knee looking like someone had stuffed a football up her trouser. She was fairly sure her ribs were fully busted too. She was having difficulty taking breaths.
‘Just going to hold on long enough to rip your face off. For Daisy.’
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all she had.
Dragging up the last ball of anger from deep within, Jay staggered forward and pushed open the bedroom door.
Lawrence was collapsed at the foot of the bed, half-on and half-off the mattress.
He was, without doubt, dead. The back of his head was the wrong shape, flattened by something heavy that lay black and sticky next to him. His broken body was still and lifeless.
Jay took in the scene. ‘I’m pretty sure I would remember doing that.’
She shuffled forward and stood over the corpse. The murder weapon was some form of tool. It had a wide metal base with a handle and several switches. Jay squinted to see what was written on its side.
Electromagnet power lifter. Warning. Strong magnetic field.
She stared at it for several seconds, letting the implications sink in. Thinking of what Joseph had said on the train.
I think I’ve got an idea of how the bolts were locked.
‘Oh, you’ve got to be fucking joking me,’ she said mildly.
‘’Fraid not, Jay,’ said a voice like wet gravel behind her.
She turned slowly around, trying not to fall over. A man was grinning at her.
‘Boo,’ said Grant, waving at her. In his hand was a small stubby knife.
Jay realised he must have been standing behind the door when she’d staggered in. She l
ooked over his shoulder but no one was there to rescue her. Because no one knew where she was. There was no way past him.
She silently said goodbye to Joseph, Daisy and her mother.
‘Twice in one sodding day. I must be really shit at my job.’
Grant smiled, nodded, stepped forward and slashed at her face. Jay staggered back, ducking down, and felt the point of the knife ram into her forehead. She gasped in pain but before she could scream Grant pulled up her head by her hair and punched her in the temple, knocking her unconscious.
52
‘Jay! Jay, can you hear me?’
The voice was familiar but Jay didn’t want to listen. She was too tired and something was terribly wrong with her knee. There was also a pain in her chest. If she listened to the voice she might have to pay attention to it.
She decided to go back to sleep instead.
‘Come on, Constable! Stay with us! I think we’re losing her. Shit, are we losing her?’
‘Move back.’
She felt her mouth being opened followed by a pressure on her breast, rhythmic and insistent. The pain increased and she groaned. Why the fuck couldn’t they just let her sleep?
‘Jay?’
A new voice. Authoritative. Clear and loud. She didn’t like it. It was the sort of voice that wanted you to do things.
‘Jay, can you hear me? I’m performing CPR. You’ve stopped breathing and your heart has gone into spasm. When I get to thirty I’m going to help get air into your lungs. To do this I’ll need to cover your nose and blow into your mouth.’
She heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. She just wanted to sleep. If she slept she could wake up somewhere else and all this would be over. She felt her mouth being covered and her chest expanding with air. It was horrible.
‘She’s not responding. We’re going to have to shock her.’
She felt her shirt being ripped open.
‘Anybody touches my tits and I’m going to fucking slap them into next year,’ she said.
There was a shocked silence.