by Stephen Cole
‘Look, you don’t believe me about seeing – hearing – that woman in the house,’ said Jonah hotly. ‘And yet you told Coldhardt that she was the one who hit the alarms.’
‘So sue me.’ Motti shrugged. ‘I was just trying to save your sorry ass from a roasting. Anyways, it’s done now, so forget it. Coldhardt don’t care – we got what he wanted and got out ourselves. Next time it’ll come easier, and you won’t louse up.’
‘There won’t be a next time,’ said Jonah quietly.
It was as if his words crushed every sound in the place. There was just silence and staring.
Motti glared at him. ‘Say what?’
Jonah shrugged. ‘I can’t live my life like this. You’re all brilliant at what you do, but …’
‘C’mon, Jonah …’ Patch looked at him uncertainly. ‘You’re still new to it. Mot’ll tell you, I screwed up enough when I –’
‘I don’t want this,’ said Jonah. He looked at Tye but she was staring at the floor. ‘I should just go before I let you down again. I could have got all of us caught last night. It could have been one of you who got hurt, not me.’
‘Let us worry about ourselves, Jonah, yes?’ said Con.
‘Yeah, come on, mate,’ said Patch, smiling hopefully. ‘You’re just tired and upset. We had a rough old night – it happens. But we still got what we –’
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ Jonah rounded on them, felt his cheeks flushing. ‘I can’t hack it the way you all can. I’m no good to you.’
Motti’s face soured further. ‘Aw, save us the bullshit self-pity!’
‘It’s not just that. I really like you guys, but …’ He looked away from them. ‘I never wanted to be a thief.’
‘This is not about being a thief,’ said Con. ‘There are no thieves like us.’
‘This is your only shot at being somebody, Jonah,’ said Motti quietly. ‘You wanna go back to how you had it in jail?’
‘Your life isn’t for me. I wish it was, but –’ He shook his head, miserably. He knew he sounded like some whining little kid but he just couldn’t help it. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. OK?’
Tye was looking at him. She looked like she was about to say something.
But then a vintage black phone rang close by, with a big old-fashioned ring.
‘It’s the Bat-phone,’ said Patch, nervously. ‘D’you think he –’
‘This place is clean, man,’ Motti told him. ‘Coldhardt don’t listen in on us.’
Con answered the phone. ‘Yes, Coldhardt?’ She listened for a few seconds, then put the phone down and looked over at Jonah. ‘He wants to see you.’
Jonah raised his eyebrows. ‘Well. I s’pose I want to see him too.’
‘Don’t tell him you’re leaving us, Jonah,’ said Patch. He rubbed furiously at the leather patch over his eye. ‘We ain’t never had no one leave us. It’s – it’s bad luck!’
‘Aw, save your breath, man.’ Motti gave Jonah a look that was part scorn, part pity. ‘He ain’t worth it. Let Coldhardt handle him.’
Jonah turned away. Told himself he didn’t care what they thought. He was used to being on the outside. Used to not belonging.
Besides, this wasn’t who he wanted to be, he reminded himself. This was a million miles away.
Just one more situation that hadn’t worked out.
It seemed to take him an hour to reach the door. He felt the eyes of the others on his back, but nobody said a word.
Perhaps the ones Motti had uttered were enough.
‘Let Coldhardt handle him.’
Jonah spent the whole way to the junior hub rehearsing his reasons for quitting. He was dreading what Coldhardt would say.
The old man was hunched over his computer when Jonah arrived. ‘I think you’ve done it,’ he announced. ‘The cipher has been cracked. Look here.’
Jonah hurried over to the screen, a little excitement and the old attitude sweeping him along. Please Coldhardt and he’ll like you better. Make this work out for him and he’ll let you go. ‘God, look at that! The message put up a hell of a fight – multiple encryption to disguise character frequency …’
‘You mean the way that Es and As occur more than Zs and Xs.’
‘Yeah. But this level of encryption, without a computer it would take you, well …’ He shrugged. ‘I s’pose they didn’t have TV in those days – whenever those days were, precisely.’
‘Maybe they attempted to be too clever,’ said Coldhardt gravely.
Jonah studied the legible words in between the garbled random characters a bug in the program still threw up. ‘Head of snake, dog of the shepherd… hand before… the preceding …’ He frowned. ‘It’s gibberish. Like that Spartan scytale you got me to decrypt – what was that again?’
‘Catacombs … north … stars buried in patterns.’
‘Doesn’t give you much to go on, does it? What does any of this have to do with the Amrita prescription?’
Coldhardt looked at him, impassive. ‘There couldn’t be a glitch in the translation software?’
Jonah shook his head. ‘Sometimes the order of the words gets a bit messed up – like, “hand before” could be “beforehand”, I s’pose. But for this job I programmed the decryption engine to hack into ancient language translation databases when sorting out the characters.’ He smiled – Like me! Like me! ‘I targeted the best, put together by professors at Oxford and Yale, for academic use only.’
‘Most impressive,’ Coldhardt murmured.
Jonah peered at the results more closely. ‘It came up with numbers too?’
‘Indeed. My first thought was that they were coordinates. But with no reference point from which to start …’
‘We could translate the words back into Ancient Greek, see if they correspond to any place names?’
‘I have done so,’ Coldhardt looked at him, his blue eyes pale and chill. ‘No match – not to any known geographical site on any map, from classical Greco-Roman well into medieval times.’
‘These place names could be coded in some other way. Or based on local nicknames, not official ones.’
‘And without that knowledge, we can’t construct a key.’
Jonah nodded slowly. He felt a crushing sense of anticlimax. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why encode information so carefully if the plaintext is meaningless to all but a few locals anyway?’
‘The parts of the lekythos that Samraj now holds must contain further information,’ Coldhardt surmised. ‘We need to reclaim them from that address in Rome. That must be our next mission.’
‘I …I need to talk to you about that.’
‘Oh?’ Coldhardt looked at him expectantly.
He couldn’t meet the force in those icy eyes, looked down at the floor. ‘I don’t want to stay with you. I want to go back.’
‘To what?’ said Coldhardt, quite unruffled, like he’d been expecting as much. ‘The Young Offenders’ Institution?’
‘If I have to.’ Jonah paused, chanced his arm. ‘Though if you don’t want your rivals to know I’m back on the market, maybe you could place me somewhere a little less obvious.’
A soft, cold chuckle. ‘Clever, logical and self-serving. I like that, Jonah.’
‘I’m grateful for the opportunity you’ve given me,’ he said carefully. ‘But this life isn’t for me. I don’t belong here.’
‘Are you so sure? I pride myself on my instincts in these matters.’ Coldhardt paused. ‘Perhaps I’m getting old.’
‘I’d like to get old myself,’ said Jonah. ‘I can’t see that happening if I live at your speed.’
‘It’s not only old that you’ll grow, Jonah. You’ll grow bitter, dissatisfied. You’ll look back on this moment as the biggest mistake of your long, pointless life.’
‘I’ve made up my mind.’
‘You think you’ll be safe back in your own world? You’re a wanted man. You’ll always be looking back over your shoulder.’
‘It was a year-long
sentence for theft,’ Jonah reminded him. ‘I hardly think I’m on the Most Wanted list –’
Coldhardt’s eyes looked haunted. ‘I’m not talking about the police wanting you, Jonah.’ He turned to the marble statuette on his desk, the man and the demon locked in combat. ‘And away from my fold, I can’t protect you.’
Jonah swallowed. ‘You’re just trying to scare me.’
‘We each of us have to face our own fears on our own terms.’ His old, pale fingers caressed the unblemished marble. ‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you, the Bible teaches. But that’s simply not true, Jonah. He will return again and again. And each time, with a deal a little less fair than the one you refused the last time. Yet as the life you pursue gets harder, as second and third chances slip through your fingers … there will come a time when you grasp that clawed, hot little hand in partnership. And you will have lost so much.’
‘I’m not sure what you’re saying,’ Jonah admitted, ‘but it sounds like you’re speaking from experience.’
‘When I was a young man, Jonah, a proposition was made to me as you would not …’ Coldhardt tailed off, staring into space. ‘But enough of this. If you feel you must leave us, so be it.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Please go to your apartment now. Don’t tell the others what we’ve talked about here.’ Still Coldhardt wouldn’t look at him. ‘I told you what would happen if you refused me. You’ll be removed from here tonight and taken somewhere.’
‘Where?’ Jonah said uneasily.
‘I doubt it will be anywhere you’ve heard of.’
‘So don’t I – can’t I say goodbye to the others?’
‘What do you care, Jonah?’ The voice was a cold caress. ‘You’re not like us. You don’t belong here, remember. Not in our world.’
‘Have I earned anything for what I’ve done for you so far?’
‘You’ve earned the right to walk away with your life,’ Coldhardt whispered. ‘No payment. This job is far from over, and your part in it unfinished. You’ll leave here with the clothes you stand in, nothing more. Now, there are arrangements I must make. Leave me now.’
Jonah opened his mouth, to argue or to apologise again he wasn’t quite sure. But there was nothing more to say.
He left the man, still tracing the outline of the cold stone with his fingertips.
Come two in the morning, Jonah lay fully dressed on his bed, alert to every sound outside.
Misshapen shadows danced about the room in the smoky light of the oil lamp beside him. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t rest.
Where’s the smokestone?
He’d searched the cold grate and fireplace for it. He’d decided that if Coldhardt would give him nothing for the risks he’d taken – well, then. He would take it and sell it.
Or rather, he would if it hadn’t disappeared. It was either a fake and had shattered in the grate or, somehow, Coldhardt must have got it back. This was his workplace, after all.
The rules, and the terms, were his.
And that had set Jonah thinking. What if Coldhardt wasn’t going to set him free? Wouldn’t it be so much quicker and easier to have him killed?
No one will know I’m dead, he realised. And no one will mourn.
However he left here tonight, it would be alone.
He started as the twiggy tips of the mulberry tree scraped against the panes of his bedroom window, his thoughts chasing their tails. What could he do? Strike out now, make a run for it? How far would he get? No, he was panicking needlessly. Coldhardt would release him as arranged. He had to …
Then he heard a quieter scrape. A flurry of light footsteps in the bathroom.
Jonah sat up on the bed. ‘Who’s there?’ he challenged, his voice cracking.
‘It’s just me.’ Con came out of the bathroom. She was wearing a plain dress with a scoop neck, as white as her skin. The oily light made her look almost jaundiced, and her shadow danced ten times as large behind her. ‘Hello, Jonah.’
‘What’s the matter?’ said Jonah. ‘Flush broken in yours?’
‘I did not want to be seen coming here.’ She looked at him, much as she had the first time she had come to him in his cell, half-knowing, half-curious. ‘Is it true you’re really going?’
He nodded, watching her warily as she walked towards him.
But she only smiled as she sat on the end of the bed. ‘I couldn’t let you go without saying goodbye, now, could I?’
‘Coldhardt said I wasn’t allowed to –’
‘We don’t have long.’ Con started crawling along the bed towards him, the open neck of her dress gaping, leaving little to the imagination. Jonah looked up and into her eyes, which were fixed on his own. ‘I had hoped we would grow to like each other properly over time. But life is too short to pass up opportunities, yes?’ A look of sadness played around her face. ‘Or so I believe.’
Then she was leaning in to him, her glossy lips parting as they pressed against his in a thick, smearing kiss. Their tongues touched, mouths opened wider. The fingers of her right hand coiled around the back of his neck, scrunched up his hair.
Then gently she pulled away. Her eyes were shining. ‘You will forget me, Jonah.’
‘I won’t,’ he whispered, the taste of her lipstick on his tongue.
‘Yes, you will,’ she insisted. ‘You will forget me. All of us.’
He shook his head, gave her a puzzled smile.
‘It will be as if we did not meet.’
He leaned in to kiss her again but she shook her head softly, pressed her cold palm to his lips. Her eyes held his own, her voice calm and steady, soothing. ‘For you, it will be like none of this has ever happened. You will forget everything. Everything that has happened since the date of –’
Jonah realised what she was doing, dragged himself free from her spell. He grabbed her hand and twisted it and she gasped. ‘Bitch!’ he hissed. ‘Coldhardt sent you here, didn’t he?’
‘You know so much about us, Jonah,’ she whispered, pulling her hand away. ‘Enough to make you dangerous to us. And to make yourself a target.’
‘So you mess with my mind? Take away my memories?’
‘Isn’t it better this way?’ Her eyes were hard. ‘You want to leave us, Jonah, remember? To turn your back on all we have offered you.’
‘Like that kiss, like your friendship. It’s all fake.’
‘You want fake?’ Her expression grew colder. ‘You are right, I was sent here to reprogram you. But I didn’t. If I’d really meant to, Jonah, you’d be out like a light by now. You’d be waking up somewhere foreign and strange with no clue how you got there, no money, no protection.’ She looked away, eased herself off the bed. ‘I can’t do that to you, Jonah. So we fake it, yes?’
‘You’d do that?’
‘Go to the main gates and wait for the car. Take nothing. Say nothing.’ The lamplight sputtered violently as she crossed back towards the bathroom. ‘Act spaced when they come for you. Convince the driver, for both our sakes.’
‘Con, wait –’
‘Take care of yourself, Jonah Wish.’ She disappeared inside the door.
He got up from the bed to follow her, but the rattle of the window told him she’d gone before he’d taken more than a couple of steps.
Jonah listened for any sound of her outside, but there was only the scrape of the branches in the warm breeze, tapping at the glass like they wanted to come in.
He waited five minutes, then he left the apartment. A fine rain was falling. Moisture ghosted on his face and he wiped it crossly away from his eyes. The grass dampened his trainers as he walked.
The moon was close to full, and Jonah glimpsed movement at the gates. Tye, maybe? He felt like such an idiot after what had happened with Con …It would be good to see Tye again, to say goodbye. Acting spaced, as ordered, at first he pretended not to notice. But then, with a twist of disappointment, he saw it was Patch.
‘We had a bit of a collection for you, Jonah.’ Patc
h glanced about quickly, clearly afraid he would be seen. ‘Me, Tye, Motti. We didn’t want you going with nothing.’
He held out a thick wad of euros.
Jonah hesitated a few moments before taking it gratefully. ‘Thanks, Patch.’
‘Con didn’t chip in. She don’t hand over money to no one if she can help it. But you still know who we are, don’t you? That’s what she’s given you.’
Jonah nodded. ‘I won’t forget a thing. Not a minute of it.’
‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out, mate.’ Patch heaved a sad sigh. ‘Anyway, here’s some extra. From me.’ He held out a slimmer wad of notes.
‘You don’t need to.’
‘Nah, go on, take it. I can afford it.’ He closed Jonah’s fingers round the money and gave him a conspiratorial smile. ‘I been saving, see.’
‘Yeah?’
‘One day, when I’ve saved up enough, maybe I can get myself a real eye. A proper one, that I can see through and everything.’ He smiled. ‘And I’ll find my mum and say, “It don’t matter what you did to me, Mum – look. Look, you can forgive yourself now, I got my eye back again.”’
Jonah just stared at him, pity and admiration all mixed up and choking his throat. The rain was falling harder, a summer storm. He pulled up the collar on his thin jacket. ‘You know, I never thought to ask your real name.’
‘Patch is my real name. Long time ago I used to be Patrick Kendall, no fixed abode. Used, abused, no offer refused.’ He shrugged, pinged the black elastic on his face. ‘That’s why I’m happy to wear this thing, even when I got a false eye in. Reckon being Patch saved my life.’
A pair of powerful headlights swung into view, strobing past the railings of the main gate, illuminating the rain like a billion fireflies.
‘Be careful, Jonah.’ The boy gave him an awkward hug, and stole away into the darkness.
Jonah stood alone in the bright rain, slipped his money into his pocket out of sight. Here he was, ready to go off and face the unknown. Turning his back on people who could have been real friends. On maybe the biggest opportunity of his life.
The gates hummed open. The giant palms shook in the wind.
Jonah took a few stumbling steps towards the large, dark car. He paused and looked back through the rain, though there was nothing and no one to see in the bright-daggered dark.