by Lou Morgan
As the lift whirred, taking him down to the lobby and away, Izzy rested her head against the wood of the doorframe. It had been a hard choice in the end – harder than she’d expected. When she had seen his things on the landing, seen the door open and heard his shoes, all she’d wanted to do was tell him. Tell him about the pills, about Tigs, about Noah. About the figure in the gardens, about Dom. About the scene in the Tube station, about the footsteps, about the video.
But when it came down to it, she couldn’t. As she’d opened her mouth – even as she’d started to speak – she had heard Noah’s voice in her head again. She couldn’t afford to blow this, either. She’d seen Mrs Alderman sitting at the desk at the front of the classroom; she’d seen her dad sitting beside her in the head’s office of her old school, heard him defending her. He’d even made a donation to the school’s new science lab fund – and a sizeable one at that – just so that everyone could “move on with no hard feelings”.
All she wanted was to show him it had all been worth it; to show him she’d been worth it. To make him proud. It had taken a year for her to convince him she was fine, that everything was going to be OK. He trusted her. She’d promised him he could trust her. She couldn’t exactly turn around and tell him that she’d let him down again, could she?
It was no good. The FokusPro (and everything that came with it) was her secret. And that was how it was going to have to stay.
Chapter Eight
Izzy lay on her bed. She’d counted sheep. She’d counted dust motes wheeling in the sunshine as she stared up at the ceiling. She’d picked at a loose thread on the edge of her pillow, only to realize that if she pulled it, the whole end of her pillowcase would start to unravel. She’d stopped picking at it. Somehow, the apartment felt emptier than usual, as though just knowing her dad wouldn’t be back for a couple of days made him less present than he had been for the last week. It wasn’t like she’d seen much of him lately, but there was something more definite about his absence now. Maybe because he was on a plane rather than a few minutes’ walk away. But he was right – it was only for a few days and she was used to it, after all.
Hours passed. She’d tried to read. She’d tried to listen to music, the radio, podcasts.
She’d even just tried closing her eyes and hoping it would get her to sleep, but every time she did, she saw a crazed man clawing at a terrified woman and heard footsteps creeping closer to her bed. Once or twice, she was on the edge of dozing off, but as she sank deeper into almost-sleep she started awake again, convinced she had heard something – a thud, like a door being slammed shut. The first time, she actually got up from her bed and went to check that it wasn’t the kitchen window banging against its latch. Thirteen floors up, the last thing anyone wants is a broken window showering glass everywhere. Everything seemed to be normal, and the noise was probably just builders somewhere in the tower. With as many flats stacked on top of each other as there were, someone else’s building work was almost always reverberating through the reinforced concrete.
Only slightly reassured, Izzy went back to staring at the ceiling as the light faded to dusk. She watched as the orange city night-time sky changed to the salmon-pink of early morning. The building work, wherever it was, stopped and started again. The lift pinged as one of the neighbours on their landing came home from work – and, after what felt like an eternity, pinged again as they went out again in the morning. On the road below, right at the edge of the Barbican, taxis hooted.
And still Izzy didn’t sleep.
By the time the sun was bright in the sky it was obvious that she wasn’t going to, so she dragged herself out of bed and did the things she always did in the morning. Shower, coffee, all the same as usual. But the smell of the toast she made for breakfast turned her stomach and she dropped it into the waste disposal unit without taking a single bite. She stared out of the windows. She tried to watch television, but found her eyes refused to focus on the screen; instead, they drifted to a blank spot on the wall. It took so much effort to look away that she gave up, and stared at the wall.
The video kept replaying itself in her head. The stark room with its bolted-down bed. The patient … prisoner. The woman. Over and over again. What had happened? Where were they? Who were they? Noah had said he found it online – perhaps there were more answers.
Izzy stumbled back to her room and opened her laptop, collapsing on to the bed with it. She blinked at the screen. Where should she start? It wasn’t like the video would be on YouTube, was it? What would she search for? ‘Crazy man pills murder’? Idly, she started looking for FokusPro – not really expecting to find it. She didn’t. She found lots of videos of cats falling off furniture, a celebrity feud splashed across a dozen websites and a pair of shoes on sale that Juliet had been eyeing up for weeks. But no pills.
By lunchtime, she was practically climbing the walls. Even stepping out on to the balcony she didn’t feel like she was getting any air – just lungs full of warm exhaust fumes from the traffic below. Picking up a book, she decided to go and sit in the garden by the lake for a while. Being out in the sunshine was exactly what she needed, Izzy thought as she pressed the button for the lift.
Inside, the steel walls of the lift were polished to a shine and Izzy could see her reflection, twisted and distorted, looking back at her as she stepped inside. The lift had barely started to move before it juddered to a stop with a screech.
The lights flickered. Then went out.
She was plunged into almost total blackness – the only light was the soft red glow from behind the lift buttons, illuminating the floor numbers.
“It’s fine. It’s just a power glitch. That’s all,” she said to herself. Her voice bounced off the metal walls.
There was an ominous creak above and, even in the darkness, Izzy found herself looking up. Her heart was pounding in her throat and it was all she could do not to whimper.
Lifts had alarm buttons, didn’t they? That’s what you were supposed to do if the lift stopped. You pressed the alarm. She looked at the buttons arranged in two neat columns, glowing gently. Right at the bottom, all by itself, was the one she wanted – smaller, and marked with a stylized bell. She reached for it, but her fingertip had barely brushed the surface when she yanked her hand away and dropped her book.
The button was wet.
It was sticky. Warm.
Rubbing her fingers and thumb together, she could feel it on her skin. Was it oil? Was something leaking from the mechanism above her?
Slowly, carefully, she raised her hand towards her face. The smell hit her almost immediately – it was coppery, and somehow meaty. It reminded her of…
No. It didn’t just remind her. It was.
Blood.
She looked again at the lift buttons. The red backlighting was still there, still glowing, but the edges of the numbers had blurred. Even as she watched, they smudged together, smearing into a single shining red panel. She could see it seeping down the wall, hear it dripping on to the floor.
She stepped back, trying to put as much distance between her and the blood-soaked wall as possible. Her feet stuck to the floor as the blood began to pool around her toes, seeping into the carpet, into her shoes. She could feel a scream beginning to climb up into her throat…
The lift was moving again. The lights were back on.
The lights were back on and she was wedged into the corner of the lift, her back to the walls.
She sucked down the air, gulping it into her lungs, trying to swallow the light and drive out the darkness as though it would wash away the image of the blood…
Looking down, the floor was clean. The walls of the lift were clean. There was no blood, no nothing. Only her book, lying innocently in the middle of the carpet tiles.
The lift slowed and there was a ping as the doors slid open.
Suddenly, Izzy didn’t want to go and sit in the garden. She wanted to be in her room, with several locked doors between her and the outside world. The probl
em was that to get there, she had to get back in the lift. And she couldn’t make herself do it.
She tried. She really tried. But every time she pressed the button to call the lift and the doors opened, goosebumps rose all over her skin and her feet simply refused to move.
After a while, the porter stuck his head around the door from the main lobby.
“You OK?” he asked, seeing her leaning against the wall, clutching her book.
“Fine,” she squeaked. “Had a bit of a dizzy thing.”
“You want me to come up to thirteen with you – make sure you get in all right?”
“Oh, God. Yes. Yes, please,” said Izzy, hoping she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.
The porter gave her a slightly odd look, but got into the lift anyway and pressed the button for her floor. Taking a deep breath, she followed him and they stood awkwardly alongside each other. When the doors opened on to her landing, she let out a long sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath all the way up.
Izzy waved at the porter, who peered out of the lift at her as she unlocked the door to the apartment and let herself in. She locked the door behind her. Then, without even taking off her shoes, she walked through the hallway and straight into her room, closing the door on the world. And that was where she stayed for the rest of the day – until someone hammered on the front door to the apartment so hard that they almost shook the door off its hinges.
“Izzy! Izzy!”
Even from her bedroom at the far end of the hallway, she could hear Grey shouting her name. Rolling off her bed, feeling more tired than she had ever done before, she ran a hand through her hair to tame it.
“Yeah, yeah,” she called as she headed for the door, trying her best to smooth the creases out of her T-shirt. Her phone was lying on the sideboard in the living room. It beeped feebly as she picked it up, carrying it away from the solid walls and into a spot with better signal reception. It beeped again as she opened the door to find Grey staring at her.
“And hello to you, too.” She stepped aside as he edged into the hallway.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been going crazy calling you.”
“No, you haven’t…” Izzy held up the phone in her hand. It beeped one more time and buzzed. A message popped up on the screen, telling her she had seven new voice messages and nine missed calls, all of which came from Grey. “Oops. Left it too close to the wall, I guess. What’s up?”
“You mean apart from the fact I’ve spent most of the day calling you and you don’t answer? Apart from that, what’s up?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Izzy stared at him. “So I didn’t pick up my phone. Big deal.”
“Jesus, Izzy.” Grey rubbed his hands over his face and leaned against the wall. The back of his head bumped into the edge of a picture frame, knocking it off-centre. And then – “Dom’s disappeared. I thought… I thought … something might have happened to you, too.”
“What?” Something in Izzy’s throat knotted into a cold ball that quickly sank all the way down to her toes, chilling her as it went. “What about Dom?”
“He’s gone walkabout. No one can find him and he’s not answering his phone. Which makes two of you,” he added pointedly.
Izzy flapped a hand at him.“He’s probably just gone down to the Centre or something…”
“Yeah, I don’t think so. Mia’s out of her mind – she’s been looking everywhere. Have you heard from him? Have you seen him?”
“Last time I saw either of them, it was at Tigs’s. What happened?”
“I don’t know. Mia said they were both home this afternoon, and someone knocked on the door with a package for their neighbour. Mia sorted it – and Dom was gone, with the balcony door wide open and all the fire escapes along the balcony open, too. We’ve been looking for him ever since.”
“Why didn’t you come find me?”
“I tried calling. A lot.”
Izzy pictured the route Dom must have taken. The twins lived in a duplex apartment in Gilbert House, built across the lake with a walkway below it acting as a bridge over the water. Like all the flats in the Barbican, the balcony served as the fire escape route. In Gilbert House, it ran the entire length of the building, divided up by thick glass and metal screens and connecting to the fire stairs at each end. For someone desperate to run away, it was an easy and obvious escape route. But who had Dom been running from – and where was he going?
“And she’s got no idea where he could be?”
“None. You know what those two are like – normally, they’re in each other’s heads. Not this time. We’re going to look for him. Are you coming?”
“Who’s we?” She ignored the look Grey gave her. “I just don’t know if I can handle any more weird stuff…” She tried to make it sound light, unimportant, but the truth was, she meant it. The last few days had been quite enough to freak her out as it was.
“You mean Noah? He’s at home, doing more—”
“Research?” She interrupted him. “Because I love what he’s found so far.”
“Hey!” Grey poked her in the shoulder. “Lay off him. What if he’s on to something?”
“And what if he’s not? I mean, do I need to remind you that the only reason he found out about any of this is because he was looking for more pills?”
“I don’t care, OK? What I care about right this minute – now that I know I don’t need to be worrying about you – is finding Dom. So are you in or not?”
“Give me a sec. I’ll grab my coat.”
As she yanked her jacket off the hook in the hall cupboard, she tried her best to ignore the thought that popped into her head while he was speaking.
Should you be worrying about me? Because I am…
“We’ve already checked the Centre, as well as the library and the cinema. He’s not there.” Juliet sounded even more miserable than she looked, hunched sadly against one of the giant concrete pillars that supported the structural weight of Gilbert House.
They had met on the bridge over the lake, although there was still no sign of Mia or Tigs, and Noah was apparently doing his hacker thing and chasing down the story of FokusPro. Below them, the surface of the lake was smooth and peaceful, only disturbed by a couple of the resident ducks paddling towards the islands sunk into the water. “You saw the state of him yesterday – he shouldn’t be out, never mind wandering round on his own.”
“What do you mean?” Izzy swallowed a yawn. It didn’t matter how tired she was, she didn’t think yawning right now would make her very popular.
“I mean, he can barely walk in a straight line. What happens if he steps out in front of a … a…” Juliet dissolved into tears.
Izzy gave Grey a concerned look – one she could see mirrored on his face. That Juliet was worried was understandable. But even as she spoke, she sounded like she was getting hysterical. It was a bit much, even for her.
“Hey!” The voice came from somewhere beneath them, from the walkway that ran round the edge of the lake. Izzy leaned over one side of the thick wall, Grey over the other. He waved down to someone below, then leaned back again.
“It’s Mia. She’s going to check the gardens. We should go down and catch up with her.”
“I don’t want to,” said Juliet, sounding small.
“You’re still bothered about the gardens?” Grey stared at her. “Isn’t that kind of a problem seeing as you basically live there?”
“Thanks for that, Grey. Yes, it’s a problem, OK? How do you think I’m sleeping, knowing that there might have been someone watching us? Someone in the house?”
“Probably about as well as the rest of us…” Grey muttered, turning his head away as he spoke.
Juliet half heard him and was about to reply when Izzy cut her off. She could see how this would go.
“Come on,” she said, rummaging in her pocket for her key to the gates.
While the lakeside terrace directly outside the Barbi
can Centre was open to the public, the walkways surrounding the other three sides of the rectangular central lake were only accessible through tall, barred metal gates to which residents alone had the keys, just like the garden. All of the shared stairwells of the blocks around the lake opened out on to the walkways. It was simply a case of finding the right staircase and figuring out which level you needed. Izzy had never been very good at it, and always ended up in either the underground car park or outside someone’s front door.
But once Grey had steered Juliet through the door Izzy was holding open, she walked down the stairs on autopilot and they emerged directly across from the Centre, in front of the neat little church that sat beside the lake. The water lapped gently at the edges of the paving, and a duck slid into the lake ahead of them. There was the unmistakable clang of one of the gates closing as Mia headed into the garden. Grey was already hurrying towards the next gate, alongside the girls’ school that backed on to the walkway.
The classrooms were deserted, the windows all dark. This section of the walkway was short, with a gate at each end and waist-high railings running alongside the water. Beyond the second gate, the walkway opened on to a fenced-in platform the width of the lake, with yet another gate at each end opening on to either the gardens behind or the lakeside.
As Izzy watched Grey unlock the next gate and heave it open, she realized how like walking through a prison it was navigating the Barbican this way – all locked gates and keys and endless bars. She looked up at the block opposite, hunched at the side of the garden. Behind the bushes, the green-painted metal ventilation grilles from the car park looked like barred windows. From this angle, even the balconies of the upper levels looked like they belonged to some kind of futuristic prison. Despite her jacket and the warmth of the evening, Izzy shivered. And then her eye was caught by a flicker of movement on the raised walkway that overlooked the gardens. For a second, it had almost looked like someone had been watching her. Someone who had ducked out of sight just as she glanced up. She strained her eyes, trying to make them out. It was pointless, but just for a moment…