Plastic

by Christopher Fowler

  There was no other way down. Suddenly I was reliving a childhood nightmare, chased by some malevolent assailant from the top of a house toward the safety of daylight and the front door, knowing that even as I descended, the closing gap between us meant that safety was exponentially retreating.

  ‘Wait!’ I heard Stefan calling as he ran after me, ‘don’t go down there!’ I was between the third and second floors, passing through a concrete box of angled shadow when the burger-shoveller made his grab for me, seizing a thick handful of hair. My banshee scream into his face must have shocked him because he looked like he had just sucked a live three-pin plug.

  I lashed up at him, connecting at least three nails (plastic, pearlised, chip-resistant) with his face. One (index, right hand) broke off in his neck with a satisfying snap. He released my hair to pull it out, but I was wearing a lot of lacquer and it wasn’t as easy to get his fingers loose as he’d expected. For a minute we grappled with my head attached to his hand like Perseus trying to rid himself of the Medusa or Magic Johnson taking control of the ball.

  I lost some split ends and my glitter-spackled faux-tortoiseshell slide, but I made it around the next corner to the stairs below as he grabbed at me again.

  This time, his reach was better. A fat hand clamped my upper arm and hauled me back. He slipped both arms under mine and lifted me from the ground as though I weighed nothing. I kicked back instinctively – sadly not in my lethal heels – but failed to connect with his legs. As he held me tighter, I couldn’t help noticing that he smelled of vinegar. Still, he couldn’t carry me downstairs like this because suddenly Stefan was hanging on to the back of his jacket, pulling him over. After a few moments, the burger-shoveller was forced to drop me onto the landing, and then I kicked back hard.

  This was the first time I had ever hit a man in the testicles, and I was thrilled by its effectiveness. Burger-Boy seemed clouded by confusion rather than agony, as though recalling an unpleasant childhood memory of being sick on a long car journey. In the brief moment that he lost his orientation, Stefan showed surprising agility by dropping onto him from a great height and fixing his wrists into a pair of handcuffs. I was off down the stairs, taking them in threes, widening the gap between us.

  When I reached the lobby I didn’t mean to fall down, but my legs simply stopped supporting me, and I did a kind of slapstick drop to the floor. I remember laughing weirdly and asking Stefan where he had got the handcuffs from. He said something about keeping them under his bed, and only using them when someone had been very naughty.

  ‘Well, I’ve been a very naughty housewife,’ I heard myself saying as I passed out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Untraceable

  I WAS ONLY unconscious for a few seconds, but it was enough to punch me back into reality. Stefan was shining a torch in my face and staring at me in great concern. Part of me knew we should get out of the building while we still had a chance, but for some reason we stayed in the darkened lobby, whispering.

  ‘None of this would have happened if I had explained properly,’ Stefan admitted, holding my hand and pulling me to my feet. ‘But you were off on your crusade, running about – I did not mean things to go so far.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said, leaning on him.

  ‘You said you want people to know that this girl Petra existed, but you see... she did not exist. There was no Petra. I wanted to tell you, but the next time we met you’d taken her cause to heart, imagining some poor refugee girl.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘This can wait until later.’

  ‘No, I want to hear,’ I insisted.

  ‘Okay, they told you how Petra survived, travelling from a war zone halfway around the world. How do you think a penniless young kid could have managed, a beautiful teenager smuggling drugs through borders by herself, making her way here? Elliot lied to you. So did Rennie. Perhaps they all forgot how it was.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I repeated stupidly.

  ‘Look, it’s true I used to meet immigrants in the coastal towns. I thought I was helping them make connections to better lives. There was a young Kyrgystani man, sixteen years old, he was wanted by the police in his own country and had come across China, selling himself to anyone who could help him reach these shores. His body, you know? Very dangerous there, not legal. As soon as I saw the boy, I knew that Rennie would want to groom him for work. He was very pretty, small and slim. He had a special quality. His name was Piotr. Dr. Azymuth thought he was beautiful, but too – effemine, you know? This is why he had been arrested in Kyrgystan, for going with men and taking money. Elliot was brought in to make an assessment of his mental state, and he reported that Piotr was psychologically more girl than boy, so...’

  ‘Oh God, they didn’t.’

  ‘When Azymuth made his standard cosmetic changes, he was instructed to make some extra ones. Nobody told Piotr what they were going to do. I had no idea what they had planned. All I know is that Piotr went to sleep as a boy, and woke up a girl. They tried to make his hands more feminine, but it didn’t work and left scars. Rennie said he would make it up to him, give him a starring role in his very first film. Or rather I should say ‘her’, because Piotr was gone. It was foolproof – no-one could ever trace Petra because ‘she’ had no past. It left her free to become famous, to make a fortune for the company, and to be Rennie’s special private girl. But then he fell in love with her, this beautiful, strange being the three of them had created, and that was when everything started going wrong.’

  ‘Piotr didn’t want to be female.’ I now knew the picture of Piotr in Azymuth’s file had shown him as a boy. It had been cropped tightly around his face, which had barely changed in his transition to a female. It’s amazing how asexual teenagers can appear.

  ‘She threatened to go to the newspapers. She did the work because she loved the money and the attention, but she got drunk and wasted, and could no longer be trusted to keep her mouth shut in public. The book was just her emergency fund, in case she needed to get out of the city. On Friday evening she came to get it. I think also she came to take revenge on Azymuth, but it was too late. Rennie found out and ordered her to be punished, but you accidentally saw them. Rennie’s man slipped back when you left and removed the body.’

  I had interfered from the moment I stepped into the building. They had lied to me, and lied again. Rennie, Elliot, Azymuth the middle-man –

  – Azymuth, a private joke about the morality of his profession. I should have known just by thinking about that name, an azimuth, an arc from North to South, a meridian passing through any given point, a neutral zone.

  We were still talking in the centre of the darkened lobby, but now it was time to get out. At the entrance, I looked back and saw Stefan stall like a child caught stealing. We hadn’t seen the other Foshes gathering ahead of us in the shadows, but now I could make out at least six of them. As they closed in, I realised that the biggest mistake I’d made was thinking they might be remotely scared of anything, anywhere, ever.

  My previous night on the town had brought me to a new level of self-assertion, but even that was of limited use now; if we had made a run for it, we would probably have managed four steps across the quadrangle before they landed on top of us like the Leicester Tigers piling onto the ball.

  ‘Can’t we find that policeman and get him to call for back-up?’ I whispered.

  ‘This is London, not Los Angeles,’ said Stefan, grabbing my arm. ‘What are you expecting, a fleet of helicopters?’

  The Foshes slowly turned like crocodiles twisting to face their keeper at feeding time, and I thought we’re going to die, which is why I seized my chance, running away from the building as fast as I could.

  I put this move down to lack of experience in such situations. When you’ve spent half your lifetime making sure that the armchair legs go back into the same carpet indentations after you’ve vacuumed, tackling a scrum of thugs with shoulders like bookcases doesn’t s
eem a viable option.

  I ran, or at least I would have run, if two things hadn’t happened in quick succession. First, the car park lit up like a night baseball court as yes, thank you, there is a God, a police helicopter actually shone its billion candle-power beams down on us. Well actually it was a traffic helicopter, but it was blasting leaves and rain in every direction with an eardrum-pummeling roar. Then I fell over the bonnet of a car as someone ran me over for the second time in one weekend.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Time Limit

  ‘YOU REALLY ARE an absolute fucking cow,’ shouted Lou as she leaned across the seat. ‘I just needed to tell you that and then we’re straight, all right? I had a horrible row with Hadrian and needed to get out before I drank bleach and set fire to the house. Then I discovered you’d stolen my purse and my mobile. You stranded me. You’re not the only one who’s going through a crisis, you know.’

  ‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.’ I glanced nervously back as all hell broke loose on the steps of the Ziggurat. It looked as though Stefan was being thrown into the air while the other Foshes ambled toward us. I think they were laughing.

  ‘Get in, hurry up. You’ve got terrible bruises on your neck, are you all right?’

  ‘It’s an allergic reaction,’ I told her, forgetting that I could stop lying now. ‘I think I’m coming down with flu. Whose car is this?’

  ‘I borrowed it from Hadrian’s last girlfriend.’ She reached across and yanked the door of the miniature emerald-green Smart car shut behind me. ‘She left him but didn’t bother taking the car with her because she didn’t like the colour, can you believe that? Middle-class children have far too much money nowadays. I haven’t quite got the hang of the gearshift yet.’

  Rennie’s glittering Mercedes skewed to a stop in front of the building, and the Foshes piled in. They were laughing at our little car, like it was all a game. I realised they were probably enjoying themselves. In their world this was comic relief. A moment later, they were pulling out of the car park ahead of us, steamrollering through the floodlit puddles. A very young bat-eared constable was standing alone on the steps gesturing to the men in the overhead chopper. I couldn’t see where Stefan had gone.

  ‘Can we go now?’ I begged as Lou tried to get the key into the ignition. The boxy vehicle reversed sharply, kangarooed to a halt and took off just as the Foshes roared away. A second Mercedes pulled up behind us, and more men were attempting to cram themselves inside as we overtook them. I suddenly realised how many of them must have been in the building.

  ‘It’s roomier than it looks, isn’t it?’ Lou spun the wheel and grinned at me as we swung onto the Embankment. I couldn’t see that the interior capacity was important because there seemed every likelihood of us flying off the road and being flung into the filthy freezing waters of the Thames. Every time we went around a corner, a hail of cigarette butts and empty doughnut boxes flew past us as though we were in zero gravity.

  ‘Put your seat belt on,’ Lou warned. ‘I have to tell you that I am not entirely sober, but I’m going on the wagon after tonight. Is there any reason why a helicopter would be following us?’

  ‘Yes, I rather think there is.’ I searched for the seat-belt buckle. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve forgotten. You’ve got to get the key back to Malcolm’s safety deposit box, remember? The time-lock shuts at midnight. If you don’t return the keys on time he won’t be able to collect them on his way to work, and Julie will have broken her promise, and he’ll have issues with that, and the finely-wrought web of trust she has built between them in New York will be broken, and she’ll go on another high-fibre diet which will probably kill her, and everyone will blame me. You do have the front door key, don’t you?’

  I checked the back pocket of my jeans and was faintly amazed to find it still there. ‘Yes. Where do we have to take it?’

  ‘To the night deposit box at Malcolm’s bank. Didn’t you read the letter Julie wrote you?’

  ‘What letter?’

  ‘It was in the envelope with her note to the concierge. She should have headed it ‘Sale Preview’, then you might have bothered to read it. She wrote out all sorts of anal middle-class stuff out for you, like where to buy those organic loaves that weigh the same as paving stones.’

  ‘She did tell me, I just forgot. I’ve had a lot of my mind. I have to get the key back to his bank?’

  ‘And it seals off at midnight. I’m glad one of us has been paying attention. It’s all right, it’s only Holborn. Just the other side of Waterloo Bridge. If we don’t return it, darling, you don’t get paid.’

  I looked at my watch, but realised I must have smashed the face when I lost consciousness. ‘What do you make the time?’

  ‘Ten to midnight. We’re cutting it a little fine. The traffic’s awful.’ We swung out of the junction and onto the busy Embankment road, a fiery fairground of cones, tape, red and white plastic barriers, ditches, plastic drainpipes and mounds of paving stones. ‘Actually, don’t take this personally, but the traffic’s not the only thing that looks rough. You could use some foundation and lip-liner.’

  ‘You haven’t been through what I’ve been through tonight.’

  ‘No, it’s just a bit severe, this new look of yours. Where are those nice sunflower earrings, they’d go nicely with that top.’ Accessorizing was the last thing on my mind right now. ‘I think your new friends are following behind us,’ Lou warned, checking the mirror.

  The second Mercedes was closing fast, trying to cut into the inside lane, spinning cones from beneath its wheels as it did so. ‘They’re not my friends, they’re Foshes,’ I pointed out, although it was hardly time for semantics, especially as we seemed about to rear-end the Mercedes in front. I could feel the vibration of the helicopter above us.

  ‘Do you know the people in the Mercedes?’

  ‘Which one? Behind or in front?’

  ‘Either. Both.’

  ‘They’d all like to kill me, but right now I think they just want to get away from the helicopter.’

  ‘So they’re friends of yours as well? Is there anyone in London you don’t know?’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder.’

  ‘I want you to understand that I’m only driving this fast because I’m plastered,’ said Lou reassuringly. ‘Shit, we just went past one of those camera-on-a-stick things. I saw the flash go off. That’s three points on Hadrian’s ex-girlfriend’s licence and a hundred quid fine winging her way. It’ll teach her to dump my son because she wanted to take a gap year. We know what that means – two months in Thailand and a summer spent pouring tequila shots in Ibiza.’

  Suddenly we hit heavy traffic and were forced to slow. Ahead, the traffic lights started to change to red. The cross-lane was gridlocking.

  ‘Hold on,’ warned Lou. There was a lurch like a ship hitting an iceberg as she geared up and the car shot through a gap so narrow that we would have lost the wing-mirrors on a conventional vehicle. The Mercedes behind slammed on its brakes and fell back.

  ‘It’s got some acceleration,’ I managed to shout above the engine noise.

  ‘Hadrian put a different engine in. He wanted to surprise her. He warned me that if you accelerate too hard, it’s actually possible to do a somersault. Where are the wipers?’ It had started to rain again.

  We heard a scream of tyres from behind, but no crash. Seconds later, the Smart car was forced to stop in a chaotic funnel of traffic as the coned-off lanes narrowed. ‘Look at these roads. Cairo has a better traffic system than this, and they have donkeys carrying hay on their motorways for God’s sake. At least your friends are blocked in behind.’

  ‘I do wish you’d stop calling them that.’

  Lou looked back at the Mercedes as its rear doors opened and two Foshes climbed out with their right fists clenched. They were carrying skateboards. ‘I simply don’t believe it,’ she said, ‘they’ve waving guns about in the street. Where do they
think they are, Nottingham?’

  If the Foshes were chunky and ungainly standing on firm ground, they developed grace and poise once they jumped on the boards, swiping themselves through the traffic with extraordinary dexterity. They cut on either side of the stalled vehicles, snubby dark weapons ill-concealed in their fists.

  Lou spun the wheel, bumped over the kerb and scraped the Smart car through a slim space between an Audi and another Mercedes that had appeared behind the second one, taking the paintwork off all three vehicles. A pair of Sikhs leapt from this third Merc and started shouting, but I realised they had nothing to do with what was going on, they were just a couple of shouty motorists. We were approaching the Waterloo Bridge roundabout. Ahead, the traffic was picking up pace.

  I think one of the Foshes fired at us, because there was a sound of puckering metal, and steam started pouring out of the Audi. The driver was surprised; Audis look unstoppable. He went to get out, but another bullet cleaving the air between us changed his mind. An amber traffic light exploded, and something pinged off a right-lane filter sign.

  ‘Marvellous, there’s never a cop around when someone’s firing a gun,’ Lou complained, ‘but they’ll appear out of nowhere when you’re trying to take a pee behind a hedge.’

  ‘You were in your next-door neighbour’s front garden, Lou,’ I pointed out, recalling her last drunken misdemeanour. ‘There was a children’s Harry Potter party going on.’

  On the left, Waterloo Bridge appeared to be clear of Northbound traffic. The Foshes had nimbly come racing up around us on their boards like sea-lions cutting through water.