I don’t know.
“So who can tell?” she says. “Who can fathom what’s going on in the lives of folk you barely know?”
I manage to say, “Wow.”
Etty shoves some blue hair back from her face. “Too much?”
I wiggle my hand. “A bit serious and heavy for this time of the morning, is all,” I tell her. “What kind of place is this? One minute I’m fighting kill-crazy-spiders and the next I’m contemplating the mysteries of other people’s lives.”
“It’s an adventure,” Etty says.
Can’t argue with that, can I?
I worked in an office once, summer job, nothing to it really: filing, data-entry, shifting boxes of who-knew-what from this store-room to that; the usual, in other words. Some of the other staff were a bit out of the ordinary, though.
A coterie, or maybe a coven, of silver-haired seen-it-all ladies ruled the roost. Told the bosses what to do. Sat at a semi-circle of desks near reception; covered the doors, the switchboard, monitored the coffee and tea rota.
I’m in the place five minutes and they’ve got my number, haven’t they?
—What’s your name?
—Where you from?
—Got a girlfriend yet? Not married at your age surely...
They could have been spies in a previous life. Perhaps they still were.
Every new job is different, but there’s always something.
Brackett’s is a whole other experience.
Like last week, couple of mid-to-late-teen guys waltz in, early part of the day—all student scruffy and looking like they’ve not slept. They wanted to chat about tomatoes.
“Growing big red toms indoors,” they’d said. Living in a flat, weren’t they, not too much room or light, right?
They’d listened to me reeling off a whole spiel about hydroponics and lamps and what-not—you could see their minds struggling to take notes—before Chas had wandered over and put them off the whole idea. Muttered a few harsh words I couldn’t hear. They’d left soon after.
“Odd sort of thing to want to—”
“Nowt to do with tomatoes,” Chas said. “You gimp.”
Obvious in retrospect. The basics are the same for most plants, after all. Light, food, water; in various ratios. It doesn’t get much more complicated than that.
“We can’t take the moral high ground,” I’d pointed out. “What with Clone’s growth industry in the—”
Chas gave me a look that wasn’t hard to read, and I took the hint.
Don’t get a reputation, don’t draw attention. Brackett’s takes a dim view of amateur herbalists. Company policy.
“Know nothing, see nothing, say nothing,” Chas had said.
Words to live by.
“ANYWAY,” ETTY IS saying. “Let’s get back to looking industrious, eh?”
She’s an assistant manager and gets to order me around. Half-heartedly, for the most part.
“It’s why we get the big money,” I reply.
Etty steps back from the counter.
“What happened with the spiders?” I ask her.
“Chas can drop them off on the way home,” she replies. “They’ll bide for now.”
What else can you do?
“When you’re making coffee I’ll have a couple,” Etty says—benefits of command—and goes back to pretending till rolls are interesting.
I stand at station two and don’t think about Jennifer.
In the days and weeks after the Incident, it formed a constant pressure in my head; something that bubbled up to fill every empty moment.
I’m getting a job to better myself for her, I’m finding a flat to live better for her, and I’m figuring ways to make it up to her. Like she’s the reason for moving forward, yeah?
As time goes on I’m finding that the notion fades.
6
COUPLE OF HOURS later I’m falling asleep into what’s left of a mug of tea.
A sensation that could be stomach rumbling builds and builds and—
“Look at that.”
Kelvin’s standing over by the windows, pointing at something outside.
I sit up—spilling my cold tea in the process—and scramble for some napkins whilst the rest of the gang gathers.
The sound makes your head shake. Like a ton of aircraft taking off.
Maybe that Battle of Britain stuff I’d heard from call-me-Danny was true?
Jost is hanging back.
“Ghost echoes of the past,” I say. “Some Spitfire-Hurricane action, yeah?”
Jost’s face is pale and damp, some sort of panicked, seen-a-ghost response.
“Shit, dude,” I tell him. “It’s nothing.”
Out past the carpark eighteen-wheeler trucks are pulling up at the vacant store opposite. Beaming lights, figures moving against the brightness, serious noise and bustle.
I look back to Jost and risk placing a gentle hand on his upper arm. Hope he doesn’t break me in half.
“You’re at your crappy job in the garden centre,” I’m saying. “Everything is cool. Someone’s moved in over the way. That’s all that’s happening here. Nothing to get—”
Jost blinks. “This you being helpful and supportive?”
I think about it for a moment. Move my hand off Jost’s arm. Nod an affirmative.
“I thought some reassuring words might—”
Jost steps past me, heading for the windows. He stops and half-turns back to look at me.
“Kind of you to make the effort,” he says, and then off he goes.
I ARRIVE AT the front after everyone else, but the main window is wide enough for all of us to stand and gawk, if you’re tall enough to look over the litter of special offer stickers and fading declarations of new-stock-just-in.
It’s serious stuff out there.
“I counted five heavies,” Kelvin is explaining, pointing to the long high-sided trucks. “Three or four panel vans already parked out around the back. A couple of minibuses full of guys in overalls and hats.”
I think back to this morning—no, wait—yesterday.
“Must be those guys that Chas and I saw earlier.”
I share a look with Chas.
“Wait a minute,” Etty says. “You knew about all this?”
I GIVE THEM the story. What there is of it:
Couple of blokes in slim suits and yellow hard-hats showed up on Friday morning, didn’t they? Joined by a gaffer-looking woman in welly boots and high viz. Spent a rain-swept half-an-hour wandering forwards and back out front of the disused retail warehousing across the road. Pointing at things. Nodding. Tapping this or that into hand-helds. Looking very busy.
I’d been refilling the impulse-buy stock bins and got to watch the whole performance.
Chas had rolled up beside me at the window round about then. “Nothing to worry about, that,” he had explained. “Bastards like this are ten-a-penny, aren’t they?”
I’m not so sure, I told him. I thought they’d seemed quite keen.
“Always someone looking to make a go of that old heap,” Chas said. “Never happen,” he added. “Never fucking happen.”
I mustn’t have looked convinced, because next thing Chas said, “I’d put money on it.”
“How much money, exactly?” I asked him, still staring out the window. Watched another vanload of workies spilling out across the way.
“Wanker,” Chas said to that, and then he wandered off.
“AND THAT WAS that,” I’m telling Etty. “They left not long after. Or at least the vans did.”
“Didn’t think to mention it?” she says.
“It didn’t seem—”
“Oh, yeah,” Chas says. “Mister friggin’ observant here gets an instant handle of the situation, willing to bet money and all that, but not a fuckin’ peep out of him, is there?”
“Didn’t hear anything from you neither,” Jost points out.
“I’m not the one thought it’s something to worry about, am I? Usual bullshit.�
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“Doesn’t look usual,” Kelvin says. She’s got a notebook out and is taking down details as another big truck shudders to a halt in a rattle of metal and hiss of air.
“I wonder if the boss knows,” Etty asks.
There’s a crash of doors banging open at the rear of the shop, an incoherent ranting in the distance, beyond the shelves and display stands.
This is a big place; a sprawling open area crammed with all manner of garden related this and that. The doors to the offices and such are a fair punt away. Still, there’s no mistaking the mood.
“I pay you so I don’t have to care about this shit,” Brackett is saying. Loud. Insistent. “I pay you to let me know about things in advance, not when they show up on my doorstep and shit over my business.” Very much warming to the theme.
Brackett strides into view, still barking into a portable phone; not a mobile, this one. It’s some green plastic late-’nineties museum piece that links to what they call a base station that sits under his desk. Gives him the range he needs to rant at people whilst walking around the shop. He’s making full use of that feature now.
“A small furniture store and some specialist crafts, that’s what you told me, don’t deny it. Something to revitalise the area, my arse, that’s not what I’m seeing here. So you better have an explanation. It better be good.”
No-one says a word or moves as Brackett passes by; like he’s walking through a freeze-frame.
“It’s I-don’t-know-what-time right now,” Brackett’s saying, heading for the doors. “But I’ll see you at your office at seven.”
He stops at the exit.
“Yes-in-the-fucking-ay-em.”
Brackett tosses the phone and clatters out of the front door. He’s in his car a moment later and grinding it to a start.
“I think he’s aware,” Kelvin says.
We all watch as Brackett pulls away in a spray of gravel. Driving angry.
“Excuse me?”
Everyone turns around. Brackett’s lady friend is standing in the centre of the nearest aisle. “I seem to have lost Michael. Do you know where he might have gone?”
Bit tipsy, trace of an accent, very well spoken.
We all stare for a moment too long.
“Here,” Chas says, at last. “Come with me and I’ll get you a taxi.”
7
“SHOULD HAVE SEEN it, on the horizon.”
Jost, not looking at anyone, still taking in the view out the window; five long trucks nosed up like suckling pigs against the wide pale bulk of the retail warehouse opposite.
I can hear Kelvin muttering something, scribble-scratch of pen on paper.
“Lacking tactical awareness, aren’t we? Losing the edge. Leaving ourselves open to assault.”
Jost takes security a little too seriously, I think. Cameras and alarms set everywhere around the place. He’d shown me the ‘control room’ first week here—an otherwise abandoned office back in the maze of corridors behind the shop floor, bundles of cables running all directions and a brace of boxy looking televisions that flickered through black and white images of the aisles, the store rooms, every exterior approach.
I’d tried not to notice the sleeping bag bundle and the folded army cot in one corner. Not sure if Jost was a live-in caretaker or a homeless ex-soldier needing somewhere to crash; jury still out on that one.
“Nerve centre,” Jost had said then. Home-built plastic box with labelled lights for every single door and window, and each one burning steady and bright, to show us all secure. Keeping out what, I do not know.
Bad memories, maybe. Plenty of that to go round.
Standing beside Jost at the window, I run through excuses in my head, get ready to explain again I’m not to blame.
“Fortnight ago,” Etty says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
The extent of my memories of two weeks back: spending an afternoon racing sit-down lawnmowers and weeding the median strip of the road outside. It’s an unadopted stretch, privately owned by who-knows-who and left to ruin by the powers that be, and had gone a little wild in places through neglect.
“That’s the one,” Jost says to Etty.
Is this a code, I have to wonder.
“Landscaping job,” Etty goes on. “Bit of a help-out for the council, Brackett said.”
Pretty the place up, he’d said. Maybe get our cards marked for some future work. Always good to keep them on the good side, he told me. Sensible business, that is.
Know much about landscaping work, I asked him?
Bugger all, he told me. That’s what the internet is for, isn’t it?
That’s all the guidance we’d been offered; and a half-hour struggle with the beige monster Brackett called a ‘computer’ didn’t help much either. Nothing for it but back to basics and doing the obvious.
Get out the mid-range mowers—no point risking the expensive stuff—and sort out the median strip and the hedgerows round and about. Not like we were knee-deep in customers at the time.
Day out in the sunshine, digging, planting ornamentals and such, and a bit of racing up and down.
“I don’t see what that has to do with this,” I say to Etty, pointing in the direction of whatever’s going on outside.
“We were getting it dolled up for them,” Jost says. “Whoever they may be.”
I try not to laugh. “That just sounds needlessly ominous.”
Etty’s not laughing.
“Look,” I keep talking. “It could be anything, couldn’t it?”
This is a tough crowd.
“Furniture store. Computers. A laser-tag arena? They’re quite popular, aren’t they? Or is it all paint or whatever now. I don’t know. Roller-skating?”
“Balls,” says Jost. “Airsoft balls. That’s a thing. Tossers wearing Gucci gear and pretending they’re the big dogs.”
“My point is”—I turn and stare out into the night—“This could be good for us, couldn’t it?”
Nobody is nodding.
“Passing trade,” I tell them, warming to my theme. “Staff nipping out at lunch to buy a potted plant, yeah? Maybe they want to discuss their plans for a new patio. Organise a replacement greenhouse. Pick a bigger shed. Help me out here, anyone...”
It’s not all doom and gloom. Not everything is terrible.
I’m not quite sure what it is in my recent past that led me to that conclusion.
Not convinced that ending up at Brackett’s is an indicator of positive fortunes, but there it is. Here I am.
Thinking positive, not worrying so much.
It will all be—
The night is erased in a blinding fall of light, like a tiny sun has lowered itself to hover just above the shop over the road.
When my vision clears, once I’ve blinked away the afterimage, what I see is this:
A sign.
Dark figures moving against the glare; adjusting, shifting, fixing.
Bright letters coalesce, bold and fresh in greens and blues, friendly and welcoming.
The sign reads:
GARDEN WORLD
A NEW EDEN FOR EVERYONE
Someone says, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
It might be me.
8
CHAS COMES BACK, taxi on its way for Ms Whatever-her-name-is.
“Janice,” Chas tells us. “Seems sweet. No idea how she hooked up with Brackett but hey, it takes all sorts, whatever floats your boat and that, right?”
“We shouldn’t panic unduly,” I hear myself saying. Because it appears that I’ve not been paying attention to the situation.
“Lots of people have affairs,” Chas says, shrugs. “Not like it’s any of our business, is it? You plan to drop a dime to Mrs B or something?”
“He means that,” Kelvin says, points.
The sign is still there, big and bright and bold.
“Oh, right, yeah,” Chas nods. “You’re right. We should definitely send someone.”
“Send what?” I reply.
“I don’t. I mean. What?”
“Recon,” Jost explains. “Check out the lie of the land. See what we’re up against.”
I turn to Chas. “And by send someone, you mean?”
“Well not me,” Chas says. “I’m too well known in the district. Ice hockey pro for a local team.”
“You are?”
Chas deflates a little. “We’ve had a bad season.”
“Kelvin and I will monitor from here,” Jost adds.
Shit.
I DON’T REMEMBER sleeping, but there’s a solid tap on the shoulder and I open my eyes to bright sunshine streaming through grimy glass.
I’m stretched across a makeshift bed I’ve built from old bags of organic compost, half-covered with a picnic blanket. It’s more comfortable than my current flat, although the smell of warm earth gives it a dirt-nap ambiance I could do without.
Etty’s standing over me. “Looks like we’re up.”
Can’t argue with that.
“You’ll need a disguise,” Kelvin says. “I know just the thing.”
She scampers off to somewhere out back.
“A disguise,” I repeat. “We’re going to a shop, not infiltrating HYDRA.”
“Either way, we can’t go dressed like this, can we?” She waves at her compulsory Brackett’s Nursery & Gardens T-shirt; a biting shade of green, polo-style collar, letters and logo in yellow thread, not a style leader.
A reasonable argument.
Etty takes off the T-shirt. Underneath she’s wearing a long-sleeved fading-to-grey top with a white-printed outline of a guitarist striking a pose next to the words NEAR BETH EXPERIENCE.
“Oh, hey,” I say, “I know them. Saw them at the student union last year.”
Shoe-gazy goth stuff, with a side of trippy chanting in places to lighten the sombre mood. Trio of guitars, some electronic keyboard percussion stuff.
“Kind of a weirdling New Order versus All About Eve mash-up vibe, I thought.”
Lead guitar was this tall girl with bright blue—
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