She looked me in the eye and said, ‘You haven’t got the balls for it, freak!’
For a moment my craving almost proved her wrong, but then I dropped my hand and left her. She started picking up stones and bits of rubbish from the street and throwing them at me. She screamed, ‘Freak! Yellow Eyes! Spider face!’
I ran as fast as my crutches would take me, her abuse ringing in my ears.
Chapter 45
Fox walked into the main study of Galmpton Court followed by the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle was the name given to the four men at the heart of New Fabian. It included the Commander-in-Chief, Martin Harrison, a man with sharp, button, brown eyes, a long narrow face and high cheekbones; Henry Fuller, a thickset man with small eyes; Fuller’s father-in-law, Charles Garfield, a tall man who carried his sixty-five years with ease and dignity; and Matt Cooper, a small, bald man with large glasses and a pale complexion. Fox looked around him. He was trained to observe; he had spent all his working life watching, noting and assimilating. It was part of the reason he was such a good police officer; he knew how to look and deduce.
He wandered across to the four freelancers sitting on the desk. Fuller walked over to the bar to pour drinks and Harrison stayed with Fox, watching him with amusement. ‘What do you think, Officer?’ he asked.
‘They’re in dialogue?’
Harrison nodded. ‘Some of the things we do, some of the things we know cannot be trusted to the clouds. We prefer the intimacy and immediacy of the freelancers. Whenever the Inner Circle meets, we bring our freelancers together for dialogue. It saves a lot of time and keeps us completely up-to-date and clear about what we’re all doing.’
‘Risky – freelancers are not known for their security.’
‘Oh, we have these fully secured. I hired a man who placed some codes into the system that would fool most hackers.’ He smiled. ‘He used a programme known as the Marionettes. I’m told it’s one of the best.’
It was – Fox knew that. Most hackers would certainly struggle to get through Marionettes, but he had no intention of giving Harrison any reassurance; instead, he simply looked shrewd. ‘Only most?’ he said, hoping to worry him.
Harrison continued smoothly. ‘As well as that, they’re secure here in this house – all our houses, in fact. We all employ security guards and our homes are locked down with fully controlled auto windows and doors. No one, unless authorised by us, can just walk in.’
‘Even so ...’ murmured Fox.
‘You doubt me?’
Fox held out his hands. ‘I’m a professional. This is what I do and I know that any scrambler programme, however clever, can’t fool all hackers – and one clever hacker may just be one too many.’
Harrison shrugged his shoulders. ‘You may be right, but we don’t have a lot of choice. As I say the kind of stuff we have on these systems could never be placed in the clouds; we would lose control over the information.’
‘And money!’ laughed Cooper approaching them with glasses.
Fox took his and sipped the malt. It was good, very good. He stared at the glass. ‘I could make it better,’ he said.
Harrison raised an eyebrow. ‘Better?’
‘I could use a police scramble on it – now that would be secure.’
‘And illegal,’ said Garfield, with a knowing smile. He was a magistrate and he prided himself on his knowledge of the law.
‘Oh, yes, illegal,’ said Fox. ‘That’s what would make it so secure. Once corrupted, a police scramble can only be decoded by the man who placed the scramble there. And it’s time loaded, so if anyone stole any data, once they tried to decode the system, it would start to corrode – within twenty four hours they would have nothing but ...’
‘... scrambled eggs,’ said Cooper.
‘Exactly!’
Harrison looked thoughtful. ‘You would be risking your position doing such a thing for us,’ he said. ‘If they ever found out, it would mean you losing your job.’
‘Not to mention a prison term,’ said Garfield.
‘Except, we’re talking hypothetically,’ said Fox, with an easy laugh.
‘Yes, of course, we are,’ said Harrison. He held up his glass. ‘Here’s to scrambled eggs,’ he said with a smile.
Fox lifted his glass and smiled as well.
Chapter 46
We were driving to our new safe house in Cumbria.
One of our Blood Brothers, Caliph, was in charge and he had chosen Sweeney, who was still technically in detox, to help him. Caliph had adopted him – or was it perhaps the other way around? It was a positive pairing, beneficial for both of them. Caliph was a man of compassion and Sweeney had had little love or affection in his short life. He was teaching Sweeney how to survive without the dark thoughts that chased us all.
Caliph was one of the first discards Raqeeb and I had released. He was tall and black, with attitude. Well, they said he had attitude. He was bright and he questioned. It always got him into trouble. He’d missed some school, mixed with a group of boys with nothing to do and nothing to work for and then one night he got very drunk – incapable in fact. When he woke up from his drunken night, he found himself in prison. The police had picked him up out of the gutter. He was referred to social care who slapped a Twenty-six on him. He was taken and, well, you can guess the rest.
We released him from one of the work pods, where he’d been carrying out work too dangerous or disgusting for anyone else. These discards were known as workhorses or mules. It didn’t mean he was treated any better, though; when we found him he was emaciated, bruised and cut beyond belief. His back had been used as target practice for some darts players and they had been slicing off his fingers – one at a time. He had once been a good-looking man, but they had taken the knife to his face, as well as burning in the Fabian mark. Strangely, the scars on his face rested easily with his looks. He called them his tribal marks, testimony to a war waged and won. He had fought his personal demons; he still did, but he had a will to survive – more than survive, in fact; he had a will to triumph.
He had learned to cook – and was brilliant at it. He had become a close friend and, perhaps more important, a Blood Brother; he bore his tattoo proudly. He was the perfect man to set up the new safe house and he chose Sweeney to help him do so.
The house was long overdue and we already had half a dozen people there. The old house had been grossly overcrowded. It was a great relief to have a second base and we were now planning a third. We had some money, but we still needed more. We needed to work faster. I was getting frustrated with the slow pace of the operation. Everything was too slow.
Stewart was driving. Angus sat with Euan in the back. They were both dozing. Stewart was talking. He was the talker out of the three. In my mind I had given them each a name. I had called Stewart the talker. The other two were the thinker and the believer. The names seemed to define them. I hardly listened to Stewart as he talked. I drifted in and out of my dual reality. In my mind, once again, I was standing in the rain, outside a shop.
**********************
It was one of those small shops that still exist in the heart of the city; the kind of shop that sells everything, that opens all hours, even Christmas day; small discreet and, at the moment, empty. I had been watching it for some time; no one was in there – no customers at least.
I walked across, leaning heavily on my crutch. l looked around me and entered. As I passed through the door I pressed the button on the side. It clicked the sign outside which now stated that the shop was closed.
The man standing behind the counter turned around at the sound of the click. It had been a soft sound but one he was obviously used to. He had been stacking the shelves behind him. He had been whistling softly to himself; a smile from his previous thoughts still hovered on his lips, frozen – frozen at the sight of me, of a dirty man in rags on crutches, a desperate man with wild, yellow eyes and a black tattoo.
He stared with his round black eyes. He was holding a ti
n in one hand and had no idea he was still clutching it. He was short, plump with a full head of black hair and was dressed in plain overalls. He gazed at me, his mouth opening slightly. I must have looked like a figure from his deepest nightmares. ‘What do you want?’ he whispered. Although his voice betrayed his Indian heritage, it was also tinged with a Yorkshire accent.
There was a movement from the door behind him; it was being pushed open. ‘Go back, Aisha!’ he cried. Whoever it was recognised the panic and fear in his voice, and the door was quickly closed. I had to be quick; whoever that was may raise the alarm. I pointed to the till.
‘I have nothing!’ he cried, holding up his hands. ‘There is very little! Just look!’ He opened the till and I looked. There was hardly anything – only small change. Most people, even here, paid with their ID cards. I tore at the till in my frustration and it fell crashing to the ground.
I jumped toward the little Indian man. He fell to his knees. ‘Please, sir, no!’ he cried, holding the palms of his hands together. ‘I have three children! Please don’t do that to them!’
I glanced at him briefly and reached out. He crouched further down on the ground, begging me to spare him. But I wasn’t interested in him; I was looking at the bottles of drink lined up behind him. I leaned over and grabbed a couple of bottles, took some handfuls of cigarettes and leaned down and took what little money there was in the till – and all the time he remained crouched, begging me to spare him and his family. There was a pool of urine around his knees. I left him there in his own urine, still begging.
The whole thing was captured on his security cameras.
**********************
‘We need more fuel,’ said Stewart suddenly. I sat up straighter, as if waking up. ‘There’s a station just down here,’ he said. ‘I’ve used it before.’
Ten minutes later we had pulled in. It was one of those deserted, isolated stations that look as if the pumps had been in use since the last century. It was all rotten wood and peeling paint. You knew that if you bought anything from the store, it too would date from the last century. The bitter wind blew across the forecourt carrying more smells and litter with it. A man peered out at us from a cracked window, thick with grime. The place felt old, neglected, sad. It felt like it might once have been successful but now it smelt of failure.
Stewart got out, pulled out the nozzle and began to fill the van with fuel. Angus and Euan stepped out to stretch their long legs. They moved slowly; they stretched; they yawned and they began to amble around the van, feeling their muscles. They didn’t speak to each other. The thinker was not a great talker. Instead, Euan wandered across to Stewart and they began a whispered conversation.
I hung my arm lazily out of the open window and shifted my leg, trying to make it more comfortable. I stared out of the window at the man staring back at us. I looked idly down at my hand hanging down. I still wore the leather armbands and fingerless gloves that Judith had bought for me. I still wore my sunglasses. I felt vulnerable, though. The glasses couldn’t hide my spider tattoo completely and my Fabian mark was impossible to hide. I was anxious that I could still be recognised. I was always very careful, always wary. I didn’t get out of the van.
The man inside still watched us – fierce blue eyes in a dark grimy face. Everything about the place smelt. It smelt familiar.
Stewart had finished filling the tank. He strolled across to pay. I watched him as he moved easily across the forecourt. He had changed since the Brotherhood. They all had. They had an easy confidence that they had previously lacked. They looked different, moved differently. Euan had lost his sullen appearance and slouch and gained an open, intense expression. They were still difficult, angry, young men but now they were men with a purpose. They had a place and it showed. Angus stretched, cracked his knuckles and glanced across at me. Always aware of me, always watching me, even now, even here at a fuel station.
Stewart was paying. The thin, brown man with the blue eyes was talking to him. His voice carried across. His voice was thin like the man, brown like the man and filthy, like the man.
My world stopped and I held my breath. I reached down into our glove compartment. The man was trying to persuade Stewart to buy some of his out-of-date stock. There was a movement in the window to his left. A curtain moved and a glint of metal. Stewart’s easy voice drifted over then he turned and began to walk back to the car. Angus was still next to the van, stretching lazily, waiting to move, impatient to be gone. Euan had wandered across to him.
I opened the van door. It took forever. I crouched behind the open door, screaming as I did so, ‘Everybody to the ground!’
The Brotherhood was well trained. We had learned quickly. They were flat on the ground as gunshots fired through the air and ricocheted off the bonnet of the van. I lifted my gun and, in rapid succession, fired two shots, one to each of the front windows. The firing from the building stopped.
Silence. No one moved; they lay still, waiting for the order. I fired again and there was a cry of pain. I pulled myself to my feet with the door and dragged my crutches out of the van. Silence.
‘You can get up now,’ I whispered into the silence. They each stood up and dusted themselves off. They looked confused and dishevelled but alive.
‘What the fuck?’ said Stewart.
‘Search the place,’ I said. ‘Go armed, red caution.’
‘What are we looking for?’
‘Fabians and discards.’
They took guns and knives and moved cautiously into the garage. I followed behind. I didn’t expect to meet any more Fabians – I knew I had killed them – but I did expect to meet some discards.
We entered the dim interior. Angus whistled softly to himself. Two men down; shot through the head. ‘Not bad for a blind man,’ he said.
‘And I bet he had his eyes closed, as well,’ said Stewart.
Everybody laughed, except me. I recognised the signs. ‘Down below,’ I said, ‘children.’ They stopped laughing and looked for the trap door. They found it. They found two children, a boy and a girl around ten years old – barely alive.
I took the locks out. It had not been done well before. Neither child had any teeth left. I knew they were children, even though they looked like two little old people, hardly alive.
We drove off, leaving an inferno behind us. The sky was alight with the fire; explosions shook the ground as we drove away. We took the children to the safe house. On the way there, Angus held the boy as he died. The girl died two days later in the safe house. The Mackay brothers were angry before; now they had gone beyond that. They had joined me in my nightmare.
Chapter 47
One cold winter’s night, when there was freezing rain and an icy wind, the Salvation Army came and rounded up all the dossers and pen pushers. They gave us soup, tea and a bed for the night. They cared enough to worry that we might all die from hyperthermia.
When I entered the Salvation Army hall there was nearly a riot.
The other pen pushers, retards and drunks took exception to me. They saw the Fabian mark on my neck and the swastika on my hand and threatened a mass walk out.
Luckily, we had all been stripped of our bags and weapons before we were allowed to enter the building, so I was saved from a furtive knife attack. Despite that, they still had to feed me separately and they arranged a broom cupboard as a bedroom for me.
One of their officers was called Conor. He was a tall, rangy man with a wolfish smile and sly eyes. He sat me down and watched me eat. He asked me lots of questions. I only stared sullenly at him.
I must have looked brutal with my Fabian mark, scarred neck, yellow eyes and black webbed scar down my right cheek. I could tell he was puzzled by my silence. It didn’t stop him trying to help me, though. I was an ugly customer who, as far as he was concerned, stood for everything he despised, yet he did everything he could to help me.
When he walked out of one door to fetch my tea, I walked out of the other door. I remembered to pick up my
bag and knife as I left. I made sure I slept as far away as I could from their premises and I left the city before morning. I was terrified they would send me to detox and, by default, back to Spider and Amos.
**********************
I stood in the shadows waiting for him. At last he came out and began his walk down the dark alleyway. It showed tremendous faith in his God to be alone, at night, in such a place, but then our cities had become safer places to be in, hadn’t they?
I stepped out of the doorway where I’d been lurking. He jumped back, startled. It was Conor and he was just as I remembered him. He peered into the gloom and saw me. Immediately, he looked at my hand to see if I was carrying a knife. I felt the relief sweep over him, as he realised that, for the moment at least, I was unarmed.
‘Hello again,’ he said. I had forgotten his voice. It was deep and resonant.
‘Do you recognise me?’ I asked.
‘I recognise all of God’s lost,’ he said, with an easy smile, ‘and you’ve found your voice, I hear.’
So he did remember me. I was impressed. ‘I’ve found many things,’ I said. ‘Although I’m afraid your God still eludes me.’ He was gazing at me, puzzled, trying to work out what I wanted. ‘I need your help,’ I said.
He smiled again. It was a smile that came easily to him. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘We have soup, and I can offer you a bed. We’re quiet tonight so ...’ he hesitated and pointed at my neck, ‘that shouldn’t cause us too many problems. If it does, we’ll deal with it, although ...’ he gave a small laugh, ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t disappear again before we’ve had a chance to finish our little chat.’
‘He talks too much,’ said Angus, standing at his elbow.
Conor jumped noticeably. He hadn’t heard Angus creep up behind him. He turned around startled and looked into Angus’s cold blue eyes. He didn’t flinch. ‘All are welcome to our house, friend,’ he said, still smiling.
The Dream Catcher Diaries Page 31