by Helen Harper
I sigh. ‘You have to stay here.’
For Maria, the answer is simple. ‘No.’
‘Why?’
She shrugs. ‘I want see Alistair home.’
I glare at Rogu3. He smiles innocently as if it’s nothing to do with him. Bloody teenagers. ‘You are not coming,’ I tell her.
She releases Rogu3 and steps up to me, her long hair swinging. She flips it behind her back in a practised move and meets my eyes. There’s something vaguely degrading about having to crane my neck to look up at a teenager. Damn my height. ‘You no want me come because of danger.’ She cocks her head. ‘Who you think I am? Years I spend in danger. Years I spend as plaything of … men.’ Her voice lowers and she speaks without any inflection. ‘They hit me. They refuse me food. I am…’ she struggles for the right word ‘…slave. You think I afraid of daemons? Of witches? Of you?’
The amusement has vanished from both my grandfather’s and O’Shea’s eyes. Floored, I swallow hard. ‘Okay,’ I say eventually. What else am I supposed to do? ‘You can come. But you do everything I tell you to do.’
‘Yes, Bo,’ Maria replies serenely.
‘Like that’s going to happen,’ O’Shea mutters. ‘And if she’s going, why do I have to stay behind? You might need back up.’
‘You need to stay with Michael.’ My grandfather is strong mentally but he’s going to be no good in a fight. MI7 safe house or not, I need to know that someone is protecting the man I love. I harden my voice in case my own vulnerability is showing. ‘Don’t leave his side.’
I’m not fooling O’Shea. He reaches out and pulls me into a massive bear hug, squeezing me tightly against his chest. Tears prick my eyes. I’m not going to cry though, I won’t let myself. ‘I won’t, Bo. Besides,’ he whispers, ‘I’ve always wanted to have that hunk of gorgeousness in bed beside me.’
I manage a smile. ‘I can always count on you.’
He grins back. He knows what I mean. Sometimes I forget that I’m not the only one who’s suffering. Maria has known more pain than I could possibly imagine. O’Shea lost the love of his life only a few months ago. We all have our demons.
‘There’s an MI7 car out back,’ my grandfather says. ‘You won’t find it on any database. It’s completely secure and untrackable.’
We all turn and stare at him. ‘Does it have an ejector seat?’ O’Shea enquires. ‘Because if it does, Michael Montserrat can drown in his own blood for all I care. I’m coming.’
‘Rocket launcher?’ Rogu3 says. ‘Go on, tell me it has a rocket launcher.’
My grandfather folds his arms. ‘It has outstanding manoeuvrability.’
‘It turns into a boat when it hits water?’
He exhales in disgust. ‘I don’t know why I bother. Take the car and get out of here. You’ve only got a couple of hours before dawn.’
I glance at the others. ‘Let’s do this.’
***
As it turns out, the MI7 car is an unremarkable sedan of indeterminate age. Everything about it screams bland; I guess when discreet is your byword, it pays to have a vehicle that wouldn’t draw the attention of a gnat. I note the tinted windows approvingly then hastily get into the driver’s seat before Rogu3 can volunteer to drive. He’s still under age but that hasn’t stopped him so far.
There’s something oddly comforting about driving through the quiet streets of London at this hour. I suppose I’ve been conditioned to enjoy darkness. I was sure that as soon as I was strong enough to withstand the UV rays during daylight I’d never return to stalking the streets at night but it actually feels good. Perhaps, once all is said and done, I really am a creature of the night.
We whip through the city centre. Even those areas with nightclubs and twenty-four-hour drinking establishments are almost completely dead. I spot a few homeless people shuffling along, the orange hue from the street lights lighting them up in such a way that anyone who didn’t know better would view them as almost romantic figures. Some prostitutes are out and about but their bored expressions tell of a night with little passing trade. I’m tempted to stop the car and pay one for a drink to make sure I keep my strength up but, with the kids in tow, I feel uneasy about being so transparent. Although, as Maria has already pointed out, to view either her or Rogu3 as children is to ignore what they really are and what they’ve already experienced.
The things we do to innocents.
The car pulls almost silently into Rogu3’s leafy street. It might look like your typical family cruiser but a lot of money has gone into making it as stealthy as possible. I kill the lights to aid our approach. Apart from a cat sauntering along a wall, everything is still. We roll to a stop and wait.
The house looks the same as ever. So does the street. ‘It’s fine, Bo,’ Rogu3 insists quietly.
‘It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you,’ I tell him in return.
He leans forward. ‘That car belongs to the Goodsons at number twenty-three. That ancient Rover is the old bloke’s who shouts at passers-by. The one next to it is the Lairds’ pride and joy.’ I flick him a look. He shrugs expansively. ‘What? I engaged in criminal activity too. You don’t think I didn’t know how to cover my tracks and pay attention?’
I don’t answer. Instead I step out and activate the child-lock, securing both Rogu3 and Maria inside. Ignoring his yelp of protest, I stroll across the road. I’m not letting either of them out until I’m sure we’re safe.
I circle, keeping every sense alert. He’s right about the cars: no one is hunkered down in any of them. None of the houses display flickering shadows or twitchy curtains. So far so good. Next, I move up to his parents’ house.
The garage door is firmly closed. I wonder idly whether they’ve turned it into a typical suburban depository for lawnmowers and wheelie bins now that Rogu3’s equipment has been turfed out. I inch towards it and listen. Nothing. Satisfied that it’s empty – of people at least – I walk over to the house. The curtains are closed but there’s a gap at the side of the living-room window which I peer through. The room looks the same as ever.
I skirt round the back way and check the garden. There’s a scrap of lawn edged with newly turned earth and a spinning clothes dryer. I crouch down and count to a hundred in my head. Nothing changes. Nothing moves. There is, however, a single footprint in the earth to my right.
I stare at it. The toe is pointing away from the house towards the fence that divides this house from its neighbour. Someone was here very recently and, judging by the imprint, it was a woman. A stiletto-heeled woman. Hope flares briefly inside me but I quash it. There’s no time for this right now. I gnaw my bottom lip. Whoever she was, she’s not here now. It’s time to get on with the matter in hand.
I release Maria and Rogu3 from the confines of the car. Both of them scowl at me. Maria opens her mouth but I gesture at her to keep quiet. ‘Do you have a key?’ I whisper.
Rogu3 nods. We steal back to the front door and, with the merest clank as it turns in the lock, he opens up. Before he can step into the porch, I bar his way with my arm. ‘Bo,’ he hisses. ‘It’s fine. No one’s here. No one’s after me.’
I don’t remind him that the last time I was here it was because X himself was hanging around in the street outside. Or that there might be any number of surviving Tov V’ra members who realise Rogu3 double-crossed them and have come looking for vengeance. I just wait, cocking my ear and listening. There’s the faint rumble of a snore from upstairs. I exhale silently and pad forward, gesturing to Maria and Rogu3 to follow.
The interior of the house is as I remember it. I’ve never been up to Rogu3’s room before but I have a good idea where it is. I place a foot on the first step, then the second. A heartbeat later, Rogu3 grabs my arm and squeezes it hard. I glance back at him in alarm. He points down at the third step and I understand: squeaky floorboards. I nod and skip up to the fourth step. The snoring continues.
At the top of the staircase, it’s obvious which way to turn. To the right, there’
s a closed door emblazoned with a huge sign written in binary. Underneath are the words: ‘This means keep out!!!’ I throw Rogu3 a look and he shrugs, the tips of his ears turning pink.
Maria is enchanted. She beams at him. ‘Very cute,’ she mouths.
His eyebrows snap together in a glower. He sniffs and pushes past, opening the door and beckoning us inside.
If I expect the room to smell like teenage boy, I’m sorely mistaken. Rogu3’s mum obviously takes cleaning seriously. There’s been a considerable amount of air freshener dispensed within these four walls. There’s a bunk bed, with neatly laundered sheets, a desk stacked high with computer manuals, school books and a few photos, and a large wardrobe. There’s also a life-size poster of some Z-list celebrity wearing very little clothing. Rogu3’s ears go from pink to flaming red.
‘She very cold,’ Maria remarks, with a raised eyebrow. ‘Her … nipples? They…’
Rogu3 coughs. I press my lips together hard.
‘Let’s just get what we came here for,’ he says furiously.
He opens the wardrobe, heaving out a pile of clothing to reveal an expensive-looking safe. Even Dire Straits didn’t boast a model as up-to-date as this one. I knew that Rogu3 made a lot of money out of his hacking ventures, but enough to need this security? Maria and I watch as he bends down and presses the pad of his thumb to open it. It’s not quite as secure as the MI7 warehouse but it’s not far off; no wonder MI7 offered him a damn job. He reaches inside, pulls out some manila envelopes and stuffs them into an empty bag. Then he carefully closes the safe and stands up.
‘Done?’ I ask. He nods. ‘Do you want to see your parents?’ It’s a serious question. Now that he’s with me and my world has exploded into the mess it’s in, there’s no telling when he’ll get a chance to see them again. We could wake them up. Quietly.
‘My mum will only freak and try to get me to stay. And my dad…’ His voice trails off. Yeah, his dad will probably try to punch my nose for landing his son in such shit yet again. ‘I’ll leave them a note.’
He opens a drawer and scrabbles for a pen and a scrap of paper. As he starts to scribble a few words, Maria gasps. I turn to her. Her face is almost pure white and her eyes are fixed on one of Rogu3’s photos.
‘Maria?’ I ask.
She doesn’t answer. I follow her frozen gaze to an old photo in a small wooden frame. I scoop it up, my blood chilling as I examine it. ‘This?’ I ask.
Maria doesn’t move. Her eyes dart to Rogu3 who, sensing that something is amiss, slowly turns. He looks from her to the photo and back again. I can hear my heart thudding against my ribcage. Rogu3’s a lot younger in this photo. I know for a fact that it was taken long before I met him because his arm is hanging loosely round a young girl’s shoulders and they’re grinning at each other. I’ve never met the girl before but I know who she is. The entire country knows who she is. She’s also the reason Rogu3 and I met in the first place.
‘Alice,’ Maria whispers. ‘That is Alice.’ She stares at Rogu3, the teen infatuation fading from her eyes to be replaced by an unmistakable look of fear.
***
Maria doesn’t say a word on the journey back. She curls up in the back seat and, when Rogu3 attempts to sit next to her, she shrinks away and points at the front. He throws me a quick, confused look, as if he’s looking for guidance. I shake my head in warning. We need to get back to the relative safety of the warehouse first.
Alice Goldman was exactly seven years and five months old when she was abducted from the street in broad daylight. She was cycling home from a friend’s house after an afternoon of playing hide and seek, a journey that should have taken less than ten minutes. Alice was a sensible girl and it was supposed to be a safe neighbourhood. Tell that to her grieving parents – or to the many others who were affected by her disappearance. Her pink bike, with streamers tied on the handlebars, was left discarded and dented by the side of the road. You don’t need much of an imagination to shudder with horror at what must have happened to her.
A missing child, especially one with cute, curly blonde hair and huge blue eyes, galvanises even the most apathetic into joining search parties. People searched in their thousands, tracking through nearby woodland, stopping cars, putting up posters. None of it did any good. Her parents were questioned time and time again. Police patrolled the streets, knocked on doors and glared at anyone who looked even remotely suspicious. There was appeal after appeal. Her innocent face was plastered across every newspaper in the country and repeatedly emblazoned on the rolling news channels. But we all know how these stories usually end and Alice had, to all intents and purposes, vanished into thin air. After two weeks of fruitless searching, her bloodstained clothes were found dumped in a bin. And there was a lot of blood. There may not have been a body but it was clear that little Alice would not be returning home.
She’d been a neighbour of Rogu3’s. He’d even babysat for her sometimes. And, when I’d been working for a shady insurance company that was searching for ways to avoid paying out on the policy for her, I’d bumped into him. There was no doubt that her disappearance hit him hard but he helped me find a way to force the insurance company to pay up. They tried to suggest that she’d been recruited by one of the Families and, taciturn to the last, the vampires didn’t respond when questioned. Rogu3 hacked into their systems and proved they had nothing to do with her disappearance. Bruckheimer and Berryhill had to give the Goldmans what they were owed. I doubt it really changed anything for the family; only the safe return of their daughter could have achieved that.
Rogu3 and I stayed in touch afterwards, initially because his hacking skills were particularly useful to me and then because we became friends. If Alice hadn’t gone missing, we’d never have met. I reflect on how much better that would have been for everyone.
Part of me expects Maria to bolt as soon as we get back but I’m not about to let that happen. I keep a close eye on her but she doesn’t do anything other than hold herself away from us and shuffle inside.
‘I don’t understand,’ Rogu3 says, as she disappears into one of the small bedrooms and shuts the door. His expression is desperate. ‘What’s this all about?’
‘She knows Alice.’
His brow furrows. ‘Everyone knows Alice. Unless you were hiding under a fucking rock when she went missing, you know who she was.’ He stops. ‘Oh. You don’t think…’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Oh God.’ He looks like he’s been punched.
‘Let’s not jump to conclusions. It’s four years since Alice was abducted.’
‘Five years.’
Time flies. ‘Okay, five years. I don’t know how long Maria was at that club but it can’t have been that long.’
‘Why not?’
Because if that’s the case, it’s just too bloody awful to contemplate. Apart from her outburst this evening, Maria has refused to speak about what happened to her. Maybe if things hadn’t spiralled out of control with Tov V’ra and Medici and Hale, I might have pressed her. I don’t know if I should have. I don’t know if that would have made things better or worse.
I take a deep breath. ‘Look, Maria puts on a strong front but she needs our help more than she lets on. We have to be there for her. Don’t push her on this. She’ll tell us what this is about when she’s ready to.’
‘But she might know something about Alice!’
I curl up my fists and try not to let him see how desperate I am to rush into Maria’s room and demand that she tells us everything. It could be her undoing; Alice was a child but so is Maria. ‘You said it yourself. Alice has been gone for five years.’ I try to be gentle. It’s not bloody easy. ‘Alice is dead. If Maria knows anything about who took her then I promise I will go after them and make them rue the day they touched her. But Maria is still living, Alistair. She’s suffering more than either of us can imagine. Give her a day or two. Then let’s see.’
He wants to argue. I can see his inner turmoil all over his face. It might be only a few short week
s but Rogu3 cares desperately for Maria. He cared for Alice too. ‘Alright,’ he says finally. ‘Alright.’ For a brief moment he looks so very, very young. He squeezes his eyes shut. ‘When is it going to end, Bo? It’s just one shitty thing after another. You think things are getting better and then they fuck up again. Is this really what life is about?’
I grab him and give him a gentle shake. I can’t think of what to say. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him yes, this is what life is about. Instead I go for the inane. ‘Don’t swear.’
He laughs harshly, opens his eyes and looks at me through a veil of tears. ‘Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck life. Fuck all this. Word of the week, Bo. Fuck.’
I reach down for his hands and hold them tightly. ‘Don’t. You’re better than this. Look at what Maria’s been through. She’s not giving up on life. She knows that around the corner anything could be waiting. It might be good and it might be bad but the last thing she’s going to do is give up. Life is a struggle. Life’s not fair. A three year old could tell you that. But it’s not fairness that counts.’
He sniffs. ‘Then what does?’
I think of Michael, lying half dead on a bed nearby. I think of how close I’ve come to losing my sanity and every shred of my own morality. ‘Hope,’ I say. ‘Hope is the most precious thing in the world.’
He heaves in a ragged breath. We stand still for one long moment as I squeeze his fingers and he squeezes back. Then a shadow moves behind him and my grandfather steps forward. ‘Devlin has made some disgusting chocolate concoction in the kitchen. Please go and tell him to stay away from all things culinary, would you, Alistair?’
Rogu3 wipes his eyes. ‘Sure.’ He pulls back his shoulders, looking more like a man than he ever has before, and walks away.
‘He’s grown up a lot lately,’ I comment.
‘He’s not the only one.’ My grandfather gazes at me steadily. ‘That was a nice speech.’