by Graham Marks
* * *
For all Sky’s attempts to raise the spirits in the house, nothing seemed to work. Orlando was in a foul mood because he’d lost a file on his computer and was going to have to write the new Manifesto from scratch again, and Izzy somehow felt that it was her duty to be monosyllabic and grumpy in sympathy. For whatever reason, Rob and Terri weren’t talking either, and by the time he’d finished helping Tommy with clearing up the debris, Paul wanted out. It was too much like being back home, with him and Mike Bloody Tennant creating what his mother called ‘an atmosphere’ whenever they were in the same room. Same hemisphere, more like. And not something he wanted to be reminded of.
‘Fancy a walk, Tommy?’
‘Wouldn’t mind, but Orlando wants me to see if I can find that file on his laptop. If I bugger off instead he’ll blow a sodding fuse. Maybe later.’
‘OK…’ Paul shrugged and watched Tommy leave the kitchen.
‘I gotta go pick up some stuff, if you wanna get out.’
Paul frowned, looking to see where Sky’s voice was coming from. ‘Where are you?’
‘Here.’ A hand came up from behind one of the skip-rescue armchairs in the front room. The one with its back to him. ‘Wanna go?’
‘Yeah.’
Sky stood up and turned to look at Paul. ‘Let’s git, then.’
When Paul had asked where they were going, all Sky would say was ‘the long way round’, and they did just appear to be taking a leisurely afternoon walk to nowhere in particular. Which was, Paul decided, OK with him. He needed space to think. Everything seemed to be in limbo at the moment, nothing certain. He felt a bit like his life was spinning out of an orbit it had only just arrived in, that, as he was beginning to get used to living with these guys, actually being in Omega Place, Omega Place was starting to look very flaky.
‘Why’s it all gone so, I dunno, so moody back at the house, Sky?’
‘You mean Terri and Rob, or you mean Orlando?’
‘You can ignore Terri and Rob.’
Sky grinned. ‘With practice.’
He carried on walking, and Paul waited to see if he would say any more, but he didn’t. Thinking about it, all he really knew about Sky was that you never knew with him, could never work him out. He was a geezer, but he didn’t behave that way; he was sort of irresponsible in a mature kind of way. And it was so odd being on friendly terms with a bloke older than his dad, being able to have a proper conversation without it ending up as an argument. Cos although his dad was all right, compared to the replacement model, he could still be a pain in the arse if he put his mind to it.
‘What it is, is there’s a bigger picture, man.’
‘Sorry?’ Paul wondered if he’d missed something Sky had said.
‘There’s a bigger picture than the one you guys see, and Lando’s the only one can deal with it.’
‘He’s got you.’
‘I don’t do strategy.’ Sky rolled himself a cigarette as he walked. ‘Never did… I’m good on the ground. I put this thing together, been doing stuff like this a long time, but Lando’s the one knows what to do with it.’
‘What was it like?’
‘What was what like?’
‘My dad’s always going on about when he was my age and how it was better and that.’
‘And?’
‘Well was it?’
Sky went into silent mode again, relighting his roll-up. ‘It was different. And I think it often looks better from here, to those of us who were there at the time, because none of us likes change. But some of it really was better.’
‘So how was it better, then?’
‘The important thing, back then, was what you had to say. Everyone worth listening to had something to say… what does anyone today have to say? Really? It’s all spin and bullshit… and everyone’s so damn passive, like they don’t care to believe in anything, anything at all. Not enough to get involved and do anything about it.’
‘You mean like Omega Place?’
Sky nodded. ‘Exactly like.’ Then he shook his head. ‘Back in the day everyone was doing stuff like this… questioning what was going on, not lying back and accepting it. Everyone knew what was worth getting out on the street for.’
‘It’s more complicated now, I reckon.’
‘You know, it’s not…’ Sky stopped walking. ‘Life is black and white, and like the man says, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. There is right and there is wrong, Paul, and it only gets complicated because mine can be different to yours.’
30
Saturday 19th August, Kingsland Road
Things hadn’t got much better by the time they got back to the house; from the moment Paul walked in he could tell nothing had really changed. There was still a tangible atmosphere, an undercurrent of resentment that hung around like a bad smell. He sighed, his shoulders slumping.
Sky patted him on the back. ‘The joys of comradeship… you get good days and you get bad ones.’
‘Go with the flow?’
‘No point doing anything else, man.’ Sky waved as he went upstairs. ‘Some things you can’t fight.’
Paul watched him go, presumably in search of Orlando, and stood for a moment, no idea what to do with himself; finally wandering off to see who else was around, he found Tommy in the kitchen, searching for a beer.
‘You get the file back?’
‘I wish.’ Tommy closed the door to the cupboard he’d been rooting around in. ‘Orlando’s fit to be tied. Where’d you go?’
‘Out… nowhere special. Just not here, you know?’
‘Yeah, I do. I’ve got three sisters who all get their periods at the same time, and I don’t know which is worse.’
‘Are Terri and Rob still not talking?’
Tommy shook his head. ‘Back on speaking terms.’
‘What was that all about?’
‘Rob tried to hit on her. Again.’
‘He did?’ Paul hoped he didn’t sound too surprised, not wanting to let on he had no idea Rob had tried it on with Terri before. Not that he could honestly say he was surprised.
Tommy grinned. ‘You can say one thing for that boy, he does not give up easily. I told him he’d got no chance, but he’s convinced he can wear her down – and now that Izzy spends most of her time with Orlando, and Terri has a room to herself…’ Tommy mimed sprucing himself up, ‘… off he went for another go, like.’
‘When did he do that, then?’
‘Last night, you were spark out.’
‘What happened?’
‘Not a lot. Crept out like a fox after chickens, came back with his tail between his legs and wouldn’t tell me nothing. Terri did though, said she told him to stop listening to his dick, and piss off, and that he called her a lesbian.’
Paul grinned. ‘Has that chat-up line ever worked for him before, then?’
‘Doubt it, but one day, one of his attempts is gonna work and he’s not going to have a clue what to do. He’s always trying to punch well over his weight, that boy!’
‘How old is he?’
‘What would you say?’
‘He said twenty, but I didn’t believe him. Is he my age?’
‘Rob’s not even seventeen yet, man!’ Tommy shook his head, laughing. ‘He’s a bloody child prodigy, and one of his many talents is lying through his teeth.’
‘He’s younger than me?’
‘Yeah, but don’t let on you know else he’ll go mad with me…’
Paul had commandeered the bathroom after the evening meal – spaghetti and meat sauce cooked by Terri, with him given all the skivvy work, like chopping up onions and garlic and washing pots. He felt he needed space, even just an hour, on his own. He wasn’t used to being around people all the time, and since arriving in London there really hadn’t been a moment in the day, unless he was on the bog, when he wasn’t with at least one other person.
There was enough hot water in the tank for a reasonable bath and, behind the locke
d door, he soaked until the water went tepid and his fingers turned into albino prunes. Staring at the cracked tiles on the walls, the peeling paint-work and the condensation beading on the ceiling he thought about Rob. About what it would be like to be him… because who were you if nothing in your life was real, if everything was a lie? And as Rob was always rewriting his own history, never admitting to a past, who was he? Paul stood up, shivering in the cooler air.
He wrapped his towel round him. The thing with Rob, he realised, was that, even though he might not know who he was, he sure as hell knew what he was. And to him that was all that mattered. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was all that mattered. What did he know? He had no real idea who or what Paul Hendry was. Even though he liked to think he’d cut himself loose and got away from where he came from, whatever happened, whatever he did, he’d always have somewhere to go back to. A starting point from which he could begin again.
Lucky bastard, he thought, drying himself off. And never forget it.
There was no one in the bedroom when he went to get dressed. More quality time on his own. He was towelling his hair to get it a bit drier when the door flew open and Rob came bursting in.
‘If I don’t get out of here, man, I am gonna strangle someone! Honest, I am.’
Paul checked his watch as he put it on. Ten thirty-ish. ‘Where you want to go?’
‘Dunno. Anywhere. Somewhere.’ Rob grinned manically at Paul. ‘Coming then? Terri and me’s going for a drink. Now. Here’s doing my head in…’ He grabbed his face with both hands to make his point clearer. ‘Are you up for it?’
‘What about Tommy and Sky, are they coming?’
‘Nope, their answer is to stone themselves off the planet.’ Rob turned and went out of the door, then came back. ‘Was that a yes, cos we’re off?’
‘Give me a sec to put my shoes on…’
‘Gone!’
Paul heard Rob thunder down the stairs as he shoved his trainers on, heard him yelling for Terri that they were off as he roughly tied the laces and grabbed his phone. And then, as he was about to leave the room, he spotted his Celtic ring and the chain with his shark’s tooth, where he’d left them on the rickety bamboo table between his bed and Tommy’s.
‘Paul-eeeeee!’
Dithering, he turned to go back, then had second thoughts and left them where they were.
‘Paul-eeeeeeeeee!’
Now that he knew how old Rob was his childishness seemed so much more blatant than before. Flicking the light switch off, Paul closed the door and ran for the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. The hall was in darkness – the bulb had gone a couple of days previously and no one had bothered to change it because they were supposed to be moving – and through the open front door he could see Rob and Terri waiting outside on the pavement. Paul grabbed his jacket from the pile hanging on the newel post at the end of the banister and joined them.
Rob dug around in his pocket and pulled out a bunch of flyers. ‘We’re going up West!’
‘We want to go clubbing.’ Terri took a couple of the flyers out of Rob’s hand and waved them at Paul. ‘Dance these shitty vibes out of our heads.’
‘And we’re not coming back till they’re gone, right? You’re up for that, aren’t you, Pauly?’
‘Too right I am… shame Tommy’s not coming with us, though.’
‘You can dance with us, Pauly!’ Rob made a grab for Terri, who dropped the flyers and fended him off with an almost friendly punch.
As they walked off down the street, past some poor sod who had the bonnet up and was trying to fix the engine of his ratty old Escort van, Paul smiled to himself; Tommy was right, that boy did not give up easily.
Wiping his hands on a grease-stained oily rag, Dean Mayhew watched three of the four people in the photographs he’d been shown in the minimarket the night before as they turned the corner at the bottom of the road and disappeared. He bent back over the engine compartment of the van and carried on ‘mending’ it. He’d bought it for cash off some dodgy second-hand car dealer, right after he’d given the keys back to the estate agent.
He’d been in the street since just after 11.00 a.m., keeping the house under observation as best as one man on his own could without becoming totally obvious about it. He’d moved the van a couple of times, ‘slept’ a lot in the front passenger seat. In the afternoon he’d followed the older guy and his young mate for a bit, using a small high-gain mic that looked like a Bluetooth earpiece, in an unsuccessful attempt to see if he could glean anything interesting from their conversation.
From all his observations Dean was pretty sure there were now four people left in the squat: his target, Orlando, whom he’d yet to actually see, the dark-haired girl, the other crop-cut boy and the older man. And from what he’d overheard, the three who’d left weren’t planning on coming back any time soon.
There’d been no sign at all of anyone else paying any attention to the house, so he was pretty sure that the opposition had yet to nail where Omega Place were operating from. In an area like this, people weren’t that keen on talking to the law, didn’t want to be seen snitching or turning anyone in. It could get you in trouble. If things continued to go his way, he’d be in, out and long gone before they ever found out where they should have been looking.
Dean picked up one of the flyers the girl had dropped. It was advertising something called Dé-jà-vü at a club in the West End and was just a list of names he didn’t recognise and misspelt words; the chucking-out time, he noticed, was 2.00 a.m. What he had to do was only going to take minutes and he would leave it till about two o’clock as well. With any luck the clubbers would still be out and those in the house in a period of DOS. Deep Orthodox Sleep, when people were at their most unaware, when the body was at its most relaxed, when the heartbeat was at its slowest. That was the time to go to work.
31
Saturday 19th August, Tunbridge Wells
Henry Garden had spent a miserable day alone in his flat, smoking, drinking and fighting with his conscience. He was not a terrible person, not really. He would admit to being a man with a bad habit, maybe even bad habits, but that didn’t make him bad. Unlucky, possibly; weak-willed, definitely.
But not evil.
Since he’d discovered the truth about Dean Mayhew, Garden had been on an emotional rollercoaster ride, swinging from abject shame at what his gambling had made him do, right over to the other extreme of incandescent rage at what Nick Harvey had made him do. Somewhere in the middle, a small part of him owned up to the fact that it was neither the gambling nor that bastard Harvey who was ultimately responsible. It was him.
If he kept his mouth shut and let matters take their course, whatever bad things happened would be his fault. And there was no denying, no way of glossing over the fact that something bad was definitely going to go down. Nick Harvey wanted the man he’d got running Omega Place dead, and if he did nothing that was what would happen.
Garden stared at the cordless handset lying on the table.
He checked the time: elevenish. He knew he should pick the phone up and call someone. Tell them what he knew so that there was a chance that Mayhew could be stopped. But, if he made that call, then his career was over. Everything he’d worked for, everything he was, would go up in smoke and he would be left exposed as the spineless coward behind the façade he’d spent years constructing and maintaining.
A lot of wine, and very little to eat, had, on the one hand, dulled Garden’s reactions, slowing his world down. But, on the other hand, they’d dug down deep and exposed the raw nerves of his principles, his morality and his beliefs. Ethics that he’d been indoctrinated with, that had been driven into him at home and at school, but that years of public service had blunted and smothered. Political ethics… two mutually incompatible words, if there ever were ones.
His hand moved towards the phone…
32
Saturday 19th August, Thames House
They’d got their extra resources.
More people, but more jobs to do. End result – just as overworked as before. A total SNAFU, as her father would say, although he’d cleaned it up by telling her it meant Situation Normal, All Fouled Up. Yeah, right… Mercer looked at her reflection in the window as she waited for a lift. A monochrome version of herself, drained of colour and running on empty, looked back; she stood up straighter and rotated her head, listening to the muscles in her neck creak, feeling the sharp pain as they twisted and remained as tense as ever. She tried to imagine a resolution, an end to this job – good or bad, right now she didn’t care which – so it would all come to a stop and she could relax.
It was like walking a tightrope, waiting for the inevitable moment when you lost your balance and fell off, not knowing if there was a safety net below to catch you. Her brief had been to find these Omega Place people before anyone started taking too much notice of what they were doing – and, more to the point, what they were saying in their communications.
She knew she had a B-list soap star’s colourful indiscretions – and a violent and very bloody civil disturbance in some godforsaken former Soviet republic – to thank for the fact that the press were otherwise engaged at the moment. But she was also very aware that her luck was not going to hold for ever. They’d had people all over the Kingsland Road area with photos since yesterday and, so far, a big fat nothing.
The lift arrived and she stepped in. As she pressed a button and watched the doors close she looked at her watch: eleven thirty on another Saturday night at the office. Her social life didn’t deserve the description.
Mercer could hear a phone ringing in the office as she came down the corridor and she picked up her pace, running for the door. The ringing stopped just as her hand grabbed the handle and she swore, wondering whose call she’d missed and what it was about. Pushing the door open she went in to find Ray Salter sitting behind his desk, the phone jammed against his right ear by his shoulder. He’d obviously picked up her call and was nodding as he scribbled on the pad in front of him. She could see that whoever he was talking to, this wasn’t a social call. Salter’s face broke into a smile as he put the phone down.