She slid her key into the lock while Fletcher stood awkwardly on the doorstep. She liked seeing him slightly uncomfortable. It made him more attractive.
‘If there’s anything you want to talk about, then you know how to get hold of me.’ His voice was sympathetic, but his eyes didn’t lie. He wanted to know what the fat man had said before he jumped. He didn’t trust her. He’d probably already organised a car, or maybe a surveillance team to watch her flat. She needed them to relax. She also wanted some warmth. Her own blood was cooling and she had a feeling this might be the last time for a while; maybe for ever.
‘I don’t want to talk.’ She held his gaze as she pushed the door open. ‘I want you to fuck me. Make me feel alive.’
They looked at each other with mistrust for a long time before he stepped inside and slowly closed the door behind them.
‘We only need you here from eight until ten on Tuesday evenings. It’s a six-week trial.’ Dr Shearman smiled at the girl who peered wide-eyed through the small window of one of the cubicles. ‘You have nothing to worry about. The hypnosis is perfectly safe.’
‘I can’t believe you want to pay me so much money to cure me of my sleepwalking.’ Jenna Smart grinned back under her blonde bob that turned shocking pink at the bottom inch. ‘What’s in it for you?’
‘I can’t guarantee we’ll cure you, but we’ll do our best.’ Most of Dr Shearman’s face was covered by a curly, greying beard. He was just past forty – by the time he reached sixty he’d be doing a fair impersonation of Father Christmas unless he took up shaving. ‘Our interest is in the changes in brain patterns during the hypnotic state and why they vary between people. Very dull, I’m afraid.’ His smile widened. He had a friendly face and she smiled back.
‘So just a couple of hours once a week?’
Dr Shearman nodded.
‘I’m so up for that.’
The doctor let out a laugh at her gleeful enthusiasm. ‘Then if you’ll step this way, one of my colleagues can take all your details and I’ll see you on Tuesday.’
After depositing the student at the reception desk, Dr Shearman headed back to his office where the results of the previous session were waiting for him to analyse. He grabbed a coffee from the machine and then wandered back to the end of the corridor. He was tired. He hadn’t been sleeping so well himself, but unlike Jenna Smart, his body no longer had the bounce-back capabilities of youth. He opened his door, looking forward to a break from the harsh fluorescent lighting, and froze.
‘Close the door, Dr Shearman. Please.’
‘What are you doing here?’ The doctor did as he was told, leaving them with only the glow from the desk lamp in the windowless room. He kept his distance. Even after all these years the other man still made him nervous.
‘Just taking a look at these results. There are some very interesting patterns here, wouldn’t you say?’ Under his silver hair, the older man’s eyes twinkled.
‘They might not seem like much for all of this space but I—’
‘Stop panicking. We’re not about to cease your funding.’ He looked down at the various scans in front of him. A well-manicured hand pulled three from the stack. ‘These in particular have caught my attention. Who are they?’
‘I can get their details for you. I’m not overly sure from the top of my head. I think one is a boy called Elroy Peterson.’
‘Thank you. How far through the course are they?’
‘They finished two weeks ago. I was just sorting through my files.’
‘Perfect.’ The man smiled cheerfully before turning his sharp eyes to the doctor. ‘You look tired, Dr Shearman. Is something the matter?’
‘No,’ Dr Shearman started, ‘no, obviously, I’m very grateful for your continued and generous support …’
‘Just get to the point, if you will.’
‘I was just wondering,’ Dr Shearman’s voice dropped, ‘why do your people have to hypnotise them to not talk about this experiment? I don’t understand that stipulation.’
‘We’re just very private about where we choose to invest our money, Dr Shearman. You can understand that.’ He picked up his wool overcoat from where it was folded neatly over the back of Dr Shearman’s desk chair. ‘If these students started telling their friends and parents about a well-equipped research centre that can pay them two hundred pounds per session, it wouldn’t be long before someone came sneaking around to see who was backing it.’ He paused. ‘The Bank has always looked out for you, Dr Shearman. Things could have gone badly for you. But they didn’t.’
‘I know and I’m grateful, of course I am, and I suppose that makes perfect sense.’ His shoulders slumped slightly. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go and get those details you wanted.’
The other man’s eyes twinkled as he smiled.
Dr Shearman was happy to get back out into the corridor, despite the ache behind his eyes. Mr Bright was a man who looked as if he’d never lost a night’s sleep in his life – and although Dr Shearman refused to admit it to himself, that scared him.
Cass took a long swallow from the bottle of beer down by his feet. It was cool against the cocaine burn at the back of his throat. The ashtray was filling unnoticed, each cigarette smoked out of habit rather than choice, and he frowned as he looked down once again at the spread of papers that Perry Jordan had posted through his door at some point during the day. There was a report on Luke’s birth weight and measurements, and Jessica’s admission and release forms. Translating the medical jargon wasn’t too hard; from what he could understand, there was nothing at all out of the ordinary about the birth, for either the baby or the mother.
He looked again at the baby’s information. Had it been gathered before or after his nephew was taken? THEY took Luke. There is no glow. He pushed the phrase away. As the thought of the Network pushed the coke faster round his system, his foot tapped. Maybe it was just the frustration: the constant presence of They in his life, however much he fought to keep them out, and despite his own hungry curiosity to know more. Maybe he should just go to The Bank and demand that smarmy Asher Red get hold of Mr Bright because Cass Jones wanted a word. Perhaps he should pin that ageless man up against a wall and get his answers the old-fashioned way. He took a deep breath. There was no point in that – all it would do would be to alert them that he was looking.
A series of names and job titles filled most of the sheets. None stood out. Which one of these mundane people had played a part? He was tired, and his head was too full to concentrate. The baggie was still on the table and he chopped another line of the white powder and snorted it quickly. One thing he didn’t want to think about was how much he enjoyed the tingle and steady buzz – six months had been too long. He leaned back in his chair, allowing the powder to trickle down the back of his throat, bringing a familiar numbness with it. His jaw tightened over his tongue, clenching the edges of it between his teeth.
Chaos in the darkness. The names on the sheets might have just been words, but that phrase brought with it a host of ghosts. There was only a side-lamp on, and in the gloomy corners of the room’s ceilings and floors, he was sure he could almost make out the faces of the dead students, pale and drained of blood, glaring at him with their dulled eyes. What about us? they asked jealously. Don’t you care about us?
‘Day job,’ he muttered under his breath, as if that would somehow make them disappear. They never went away. Every night as he slept, his dreams were still overshadowed by wide accusing eyes in a brown face, and a single gunshot. The dead never left you alone. Not if you owed them.
Shivers ran through his limbs with renewed confidence as he forced his attention back to the paperwork. The dead could go and fuck themselves. For now, he wanted to concentrate on the living: the stranger of his blood that he sought while still grieving for the loss of a nephew that was someone else’s blood. Wheels within wheels.
She sits with her knees drawn up under her chin. Her eyes are shut, but she’s not sleeping. Her hair shines Titian red unde
r the single bulb hanging naked above her in the centre of the ceiling. The room is empty of furniture apart from this one wooden chair and the state-of-the-art stereo on the floor against the wall.
Paris is warm, despite the lateness of the hour and the dying of the year. The window is open. She’s tired. She’s been tired ever since she got here, and that has come as a surprise. She thought she was stronger than that. Still, she has a job to do, and she has enough energy to do it. Sounds drift up from the streets outside. She likes the voices best. The speed of the words and the smoothness of the language intrigue her. London can wait. She has to go there eventually, but for now she’s happy to be in ‘gay Paree’. She can still do what she has to from here, and it isn’t as if she came alone. Without opening her eyes, one slim arm drops to her side and touches the tiny remote control balanced beside her. ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ bursts perfectly from the stereo. She smiles. She likes this one.
Cass was definitely high. His upwards progress might have been satisfactory but he wasn’t getting very far with the papers spread out in front of him. He jotted down the midwife’s name alongside the obstetrician and paediatrician who had been on the ward that night. They’d be a good place to start. He also needed to know how the whole birth process went in a hospital. He and Kate had never gone down the children route in their ill-fated marriage. So how hard was it to swap a baby ten years ago? What he really needed was CCTV footage. The Portman had been a relatively new hospital then; they must have installed cameras. The likelihood of any of the tapes from so long ago still being stored anywhere was, however, more than remote.
It was a moment before he noticed the music coming from the street outside. He lit a cigarette and frowned. Was that a violin? He knew who he was going to see before he’d even got the window open. As he leaned out, he wasn’t disappointed. The tramp stood under the street lamp as if serenading him, his bow making smooth movements across the tight strings of his instrument. He was playing in a different style to last time; Cass knew this tune. ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.
The old man looked up and smiled, the gap in his front teeth matching the night. He was wearing the same too short trousers and dirty clothes that he had been in the graveyard. He nodded. ‘Evenin’, officer,’ he said, without a break in the music.
‘What are you doing here?’ There were no coincidences. How the fuck did the tramp know where he lived? Had he followed him at some point? It was unlikely. Cass would have noticed – in the past six months he’d learned to keep looking over his shoulder. He was bringing a lot of shit down on the force, and he was wary of revenge.
‘Just keeping an eye out for you, mate – nothing more, nothing less.’ He grinned, and his eyes twinkled. Cass didn’t like that something in that expression reminded him of Mr Bright. The same eyes sunk into a much older face.
‘Who are you?’
‘Just a friend, my friend.’
Cass was sure he winked. He bit down on his tongue, the coke and his own irritation joining forces. This weird shit was something he didn’t need. And how the fuck had he not noticed this man following him?
‘I don’t trust that word,’ Cass growled. ‘But you can trust me that I don’t need you keeping an eye out for me.’
‘But I will anyway. You can trust me on that.’ Still smiling, he turned his back and started to stroll up the street as he played.
‘If I see you around here again, I’ll fucking arrest you.’ Something about the old man made his blood boil and he wasn’t sure why.
‘Get some sleep, Cassius Jones.’ The man’s voice was full of light-hearted humour. He didn’t look back as he spoke, just called the words up into the air. ‘You’ve got some long days ahead.’
Cass watched until the old man and his music turned the corner at the bottom of the street. There was no surprise disappearance this time, and Cass flicked his cigarette butt down to the pavement and shut the window hard. He was just a crazy old man who’d fixated on him. There didn’t have to be anything sinister about it at all – his name had been in the papers plenty of times in recent months – it was unlikely he’d get away with no weirdos coming after him. It didn’t stop one word filling his head as he sat back down in front of his work. They. It always came back to They.
Chapter Thirteen
Abigail wrapped the sheet round her like a towel to let Fletcher out. They kissed upstairs at her door, rather than at street level, and she watched him all the way down. At the bottom he opened the front door and then turned and half-smiled back up at her. She didn’t expect anything less. It had been good sex. She’d done everything he hadn’t expected from her and it had an effect. He’d been expecting animalistic, but she’d given him gentle.
There was still an awkwardness between them when they’d finished, but she’d seen that ‘thing’ in his eyes. Even a man as tough as he was couldn’t quite shift all the conditioning that made men think women were helpless and vulnerable underneath the surface. Men could never believe that women could be soft and warm in bed and yet still have a hard soul. It didn’t compute. They never learned. Ever since Eve, women have always been tougher. There was a woman who took what she wanted, and then dragged her man down with her to share the blame.
She smiled back, leaning in against the door frame in the knowledge that she made a sensuous picture. Fletcher probably thought she was keeping some secrets and that she knew something about the fat man that she was refusing to share, but from his hesitant look she could tell that he was perhaps already making excuses for her in his head. It was what straightforward men did. She didn’t really care. She’d enjoyed the warmth of him, but it was done now. She waited until he’d closed the door behind him, before letting the smile slip and locking herself into her flat.
It could wait ten minutes. It would have to. She needed to be careful, and she needed to be sure that Fletcher really had gone back to work. She showered and wrapped herself in a robe and then filled the coffee machine, counting each minute off as it bubbled and steamed and filled the jug. There could be no room for error or haste. If she did this wrong, then she was quite sure that she would die. Her soul at least would crumble like a tin can in a vacuum. There wouldn’t be any second chances, she was certain of that.
Second chance at what, Abigail? At first she didn’t recognise the inner voice, and then she realised it was her own, from a long time ago. You don’t even know. Something’s changing in you and you’re not even afraid. What’s happened to you?
She shut herself up and poured the coffee. Her fingers drummed on the work surface until the black liquid was cool enough to drink, and then she finally went over to the computer in the corner of the clinical lounge. If Fletcher was coming back to catch her out at something, he’d have done it by now. She brought up the Hotmail screen that flashed for her login details. Maybe she should be in an Internet café doing this, but if ATD was watching her, then that would draw too much attention. Her younger sister had died; she should be at home crying. Her younger sister had died. It felt alien, as if that information belonged elsewhere. She wouldn’t dwell on it. She wouldn’t give that inner voice anything to shout about. She stared at the flashing screen and took a deep breath. The note had told her she’d know when, and whoever had written it was right. She logged in.
Username: [email protected]
Password: Salvation
For a moment there was nothing but overwhelming disappointment as she stared at the No new messages displayed on the home screen. What was left of her heart almost broke and then something different on the screen caught her eye. The small (1) next to the Drafts folder. Her breath held. With a trembling hand she sipped from her mug. As she swallowed the bitter liquid she clicked on the highlighted icon.
This was the point of no return. Every cell in her body knew that. Or perhaps there had never been any choice in it. Maybe this was just her destiny, and had been ever since she’d felt herself separating from the world. The message opened up.
Call this n
umber tonight from a payphone.
She jotted the mobile number down on the inside of her arm before continuing with the short message:
When you leave your flat, you will not be returning. Take only what is essential.
You will learn all you need to know when we meet.
Delete this message now.
She stared at the screen for a few more seconds before hitting the delete key. The message disappeared as if it had never existed. She turned the computer off without bothering to wipe her Internet history. That would only slow Special Branch and Fletcher’s lot down by an hour or two, and there wasn’t anything on her hard drive that could link her with anyone.
Over by the window she peered out between the wooden slats. A car was parked on the opposite side of the road, on a double yellow line. The two men inside weren’t even trying not to be noticed. Perhaps Fletcher did understand her better than she thought. Maybe he had a hard soul himself.
Ten minutes later and she was dressed in black leggings and a black sweater, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She took some change from her wallet and tucked it into her bra before looking around the apartment that had been her home for some years now. There was nothing in its bland interior that she wanted to take; no personal items or photographs. Those were stored in her parents’ attic in the Highgate house. The flat was simply somewhere she slept and bathed and ate, and now that she knew she was leaving it behind, it felt alien already. Had she been subconsciously preparing for this day since she moved here? Or before then, even?
She left the lights on and walked towards the front door. Thinking about it was irrelevant. She was here now, and ultimately how you got to a place rarely mattered once you’d arrived. Instead of heading down to the main entrance, she went up a floor and stopped in the landing by the small sash window. She pushed it up and peered out. The air had lost the deceptive heat of the day, and now an October chill owned the night. She shivered involuntarily as it wrapped itself round her.
The Shadow of the Soul: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Two Page 12