Alias

by Tracy Alexander

  Freddie’s head appeared in the mirror.

  ‘What’s up?’

  I made a rough choking noise. Held the side of the sink, worried I might faint. All I could do was concentrate on what little air I could force in.

  Freddie disappeared.

  The urge to swallow was overwhelming, but I couldn’t make the spit come. I sank to the floor, vaguely aware of the fact that I hadn’t cleaned it for a while. Concentrated on taking shallow little pants.

  Two women in green came.

  I tried to croak, pointed at my throat. They crouched down by my side in the tiny room, talking all the time but using words I couldn’t decipher. One of them put a mask on me, and a bit later they managed to tie me into a stretcher chair. They carried me down the stairs and into the back of an ambulance. On what little oxygen was feeding my brain, I tried to work out what having no NHS number would mean to the staff. A glitch in the system? Or would it flag some kind of warning?

  ‘They’re taking you to Leeds General,’ said Freddie’s voice, loud and in my face. And then the doors were pushed shut, changing the light. I heard the engine start up and off we went.

  I felt oddly detached, like I was watching myself in an episode of Casualty. The panic gave way to acceptance. I was ill. I didn’t want to go to hospital, but I didn’t want to die either. Not yet.

  ‘Possibly strep,’ someone said.

  And then, ‘Five minutes.’

  The doors opened again and I was whisked into the hospital where a team was waiting to save my life. Noise and lights and voices, people moving around me. I let go of the worry. And let them get on with mending Saffron Anderson. I wouldn’t die, because I still had a job to do.

  Inshallah, as Dad would say.

  Everything went black.

  34

  Several times I thought I was going to die. I didn’t, clearly, but I lost a chunk of my life to intravenous antibiotics and a blood transfusion. Then, one afternoon, I woke up feeling better, clearer, more myself … but with no idea what day it was.

  ‘She lives!’ said a voice. It was Freddie, of course.

  By the time I’d made my horribly dry mouth say ‘Hi’, he’d run off to get a nurse.

  I think she was the boss – she talked like it anyway. I’d had an invasive strep A infection, it was Wednesday, I was lucky to have pulled through … blah-blah. I was nice and grateful, nodded a lot and then said I wanted to go home. The relief had given way to fear. I didn’t want Saffron Anderson to have any more footprints than was necessary. Every new connection had the potential to trip me up.

  ‘The doctor will do his rounds about five. He’ll be able to give you an idea of when you might be discharged.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I rasped.

  Freddie could see I wasn’t up to our usual sarcastic exchange.

  ‘I’ll be back tonight,’ he said.

  I shook my head and made a don’t-bother gesture.

  I dozed while I waited for the doc. Mack’s grubby little face kept appearing. What if he had an invasive strep A infection? Would his mum have called an ambulance? What if she’d gone AWOL again?

  Liam!

  I was seriously not on the ball. Hadn’t given a thought to the fact that I’d missed three days of work.

  I sat up with a weird dragging feeling, dizzy as hell. I took a few breaths and then tried to swing my legs over the side of the bed, but they got tangled in the sheets. I had a little wrestle with them, which exhausted me.

  Damn!

  I gathered enough strength to lever myself off the bed and then stood, wobbly like a two-legged foal. I still seemed to be attached to something …

  ‘Get back in the bed, you,’ said a blue-uniformed bloke.

  ‘I need to make a call,’ I said, already defeated by the idea. Whatever strep A was, it was still winning.

  He lifted my legs back into the bed, like I was a granny. Took the details of my workplace and said he’d ring for me.

  ‘Don’t try to get up again,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a catheter.’

  That made sense. Dan Langley’s friend had a catheter after his run-in with a white van. We’d chatted about it online – he’d had to learn to pee again.

  I dozed.

  It was all very strange. In between the cotton-wool moments, I was sharp – worried about losing my job, worried about what I might have been saying – but I couldn’t hold on to any of the thoughts long enough to make any contingency plans …

  ‘Right, then.’ The voice snapped me to attention. White coat. Brown skin, but not like mine. At a guess, some combination of African and north European.

  The doctor repeated most of what the nurse had said. I had to stay on the antibiotics for a month. Might be discharged on Friday. I thought he was wrapping up, ready to charm the old dear in the next bed, but I was wrong. His team moved on, but he stayed.

  ‘So, Saffron, you’re a bit of a mystery. No next of kin. No visitors, I’m told, except a housemate who doesn’t seem to know much about you. And no medical records, despite being …’ He checked the clipboard ‘… twenty-one.’

  I kept eye contact – looking away is a cue you’re uncomfortable – but didn’t reply.

  ‘Can we contact a family member?’ His eyebrows were raised, anticipating my negative answer.

  ‘Estranged,’ I said.

  ‘Is there really no one? Not an aunt? A —’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  He nodded, adopted a kindly voice.

  ‘There are organisations that can help …’

  Befriend a criminal mastermind today, said the sarcastic side of me. The other side was rattled.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. I didn’t sound fine. ‘I’ve got good friends.’

  He didn’t buy that – after all, where were they all? I willed my sluggish brain to come up with some reassurances to get rid of him. I didn’t need a do-gooder interfering.

  ‘Everything between us is confidential,’ he said. ‘No one will contact anyone without your say so.’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Saffron!’

  Perfect timing – it was Liam. I gave him a huge smile – genuine, for once. He introduced himself as a friend from work. I could have hugged him. His arrival did two things – got the doc off my back and made me seem less solitary. Good job.

  ‘I feel really bad,’ said Liam, perching on the bed – a bit too close to the tube carrying my wee. ‘I thought perhaps you’d changed your mind about the job. People do that kind of thing. It never occurred to me you might be sick. Elisa was worried – I should have listened to her.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘I was out of it.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he reached out and touched my hand. His skin felt nice.

  ‘How are you? They said it could have been … much worse.’

  ‘Shaky,’ I said. I let the tears that were queuing up have their way. It wouldn’t hurt to show some vulnerability, and anyway I couldn’t stop them.

  ‘You poor thing.’

  He leant forward and put his arms round me, somehow avoiding the hospital paraphernalia. My body protested, but I made myself relax. It wasn’t part of the plan, but it might be useful for us to be close. The more he liked me, the more he’d trust me.

  I went one step further and, tentatively, hugged him back.

  35

  It was a week since I’d discharged myself from the hospital, clutching two boxes of pills and a copy of the note confirming that if I died it was my own fault. I’d been signed off work, which was a good job because although my throat felt fine, I was exhausted. In bed by nine and sometimes only waking a full twelve hours later. Apart from two short walks in Hyde Park – hoping to see Mack – I hadn’t left the house. Freddie had been surprisingly kind, bringing me tomato soup and Ben & Jerry’s. I tried not to remember being ill when I was little, with Mum making me hot-water bottles and stroking my hair.

  There’d been no emotional
appeals in the newspapers from my parents, asking me to give myself up, which was good and bad. Good, because seeing a tearful Mum and Dad whose lives I’d ruined would be pretty unbearable. Bad, because it meant we all knew there was no way back. The only home waiting for me was one with a lock on the outside.

  The spell in Leeds General had made me feel vulnerable, physically and mentally. The longer I stuck around the more times my fake life would be tested. My answer was to sketch out the bones of a plan. Letting the side of me that had to stay hidden take control brought focus, and with it calm.

  I didn’t need to keep a tally to know that the numbers of civilians killed by drones had reached the thousands and didn’t look like slowing down any time soon. Every time I read a report, my sense of responsibility grew. The anti-drone movement was increasingly vocal, but words weren’t enough. Frederick Douglass tried words, so did the African National Congress. Sinn Féin did the talking, but it was the IRA’s bombs that brought all sides to the table. Change had to be forced.

  I worked all morning on my plans.

  The first thing was to send a warning. I didn’t want to use email … just in case some whizz somewhere could trace its source. I thought maybe half a dozen journalists could receive a letter by courier, explaining that an attack on US soil was imminent, signed Dronejacker. Just the mention of my nickname would guarantee a media frenzy. I wanted loads and loads of Americans to be frightened of what the skies might bring, just like the people in Yemen and Pakistan, just like the Londoners back in April.

  I wanted the security services to be double-checking the whereabouts of all their drones, wondering whether I’d pulled off another hijack. There’d be no hint that the attack wasn’t coming from the sky this time.

  The bomb would be scheduled to arrive the day after the letters – everyday stuff for a courier company.

  To get the names and addresses of the journalists I was going to have to go online again. When I had the worldwide web to help, I’d make the final decision about where to send the bomb. I had a few ideas …

  I moved on to the composition of the bomb itself.

  With a nice sharp pencil I drew lines and boxes, using the project management method I’d learnt when I was plotting with Sayge. The university open day at the end of June was a fixed point, and a lot depended on whether I found what I needed in their labs, but I made rough (by my standards) estimates and my best guess showed the critical path ending at the beginning of August. It was good to have a deadline to work to. I took the paper and burnt it.

  Bored with being inside, and feeling a bit more energetic than I had for a while, I took Polly’s student ID card (that she thought she’d lost) and decided to get acquainted with the university library.

  I walked through Hyde Park, going via the play area, but Mack was nowhere to be seen. I considered wandering up to the flats where he lived, but my instinct told me to stay away. He wasn’t my responsibility … although the guilt of deserting him the day we met Liam in the café lingered.

  Polly’s card still worked, as expected. I knew she wouldn’t have bothered reporting it yet – too lazy, too disorganised.

  It was nice being in the library, pretending to be a student. I spent the first hour checking my understanding of both the chemistry of explosions and the physics and electronics of detonation, and then had a rifle through historical articles from the major news agencies.

  Pressure-cooker bombs were reported to have been used in India, Algeria, Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan and, of course, Boston. I had no problem with copying, but I didn’t want to copy the ones that had failed to explode or detonated too early. Mine had to be perfect, from the detonator – a mobile phone – to the explosive mix of chemicals and the packaging. There were published guidelines on what officials should look for in sorting offices, which included spelling mistakes on the label and wires poking out of the parcel – laughable. If that was the general level of expertise, I’d have no problems.

  At about five I gave up on research and went home, pleased with the day’s progress.

  Freddie was listening to some unrecognisable music, playing something on his iPad and cooking. I missed the buzz of gaming, but Saffron pretended not to like that sort of thing.

  ‘You look better,’ he said.

  ‘I think I am,’ I said.

  He flipped over his bacon.

  ‘A few of us are going out – Brudenell Social Club. Want to come?’

  I trotted out my normal excuse.

  ‘Actually, I’m going to the —’

  ‘Cinema,’ he said.

  I nodded and carried on past him, hoping to avoid any more questions because I hadn’t bothered to see what was showing. Luckily his phone beeped, which distracted him. He started fumbling in his pockets in a bewildered fashion, and I went upstairs.

  In my room, I heard the same message alert.

  Bizarre. It wasn’t Freddie’s – it was mine.

  I got my phone out of my bag and put in the four-digit passcode for the lock, mentally trawling through the few people that had my number – Freddie, Polly, work.

  There was a voice message.

  ‘I know you’re off till Monday, but if you’re feeling better I wondered if you wanted to go and see …’

  It was Liam. Bosses really shouldn’t hit on their employees. I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to take the risk. In hospital, getting close to him had seemed a good idea, but was it?

  ‘Saff!’ Freddie shouted up the stairs. ‘What about meeting us at The Warehouse after for a boogie?’

  That decided me. I needed Freddie off my case, and a film was a nice idea.

  ‘I’ve got a kind of date,’ I shouted back.

  He whistled.

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Not if I can help it. Now leave me alone. I need to get ready.’

  He went back to singing.

  I arranged to meet Liam outside Sainsbury’s, opposite the Hyde Park Picture House. He looked good, if you like blow-dries on boys.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  He straight away kissed me on the cheek.

  ‘You look much better.’

  ‘I am,’ I said. ‘Thankfully.’

  I bought chocolate from the supermarket while he queued to buy the tickets from the old-fashioned booth outside – it was more like a museum than a cinema.

  Despite my reservations, we had a really nice evening. The film was Ripley’s Game – he’d read the book.

  ‘Didn’t have you down as a literary type,’ I said.

  ‘Why’s that? Because I look like a footballer?’

  ‘Now you mention it.’

  Afterwards we went to the Hyde Park pub and sat in the garden, where I bombarded him with questions so that he couldn’t ask me any. Every answer made it harder for me not to like him.

  ‘I feel like I’ve been interviewed,’ he said as we walked out.

  ‘That’s only fair. You interviewed me first.’

  It was the only time either of us had referred to work, which was good, because it seemed a bit creepy dating your boss.

  I was thinking about how to stop him walking me all the way home when he said, ‘As I’ve already broken the golden rule, might as well …’

  Holy crap!

  In an impossibly smooth move, he put his hand behind my head and pulled my face gently towards his. I could have avoided his lips in any number of ways, but I didn’t have the willpower. Anarchists fancy people too.

  36

  I was at work bright and early on Monday morning, tiredness behind me, quite looking forward to seeing Liam. He hadn’t been in contact since Friday – obviously playing it cool.

  It took a while to get to my desk, as everyone wanted to know about my dramatic strep infection. When I made it, there was a bunch of pink daisy-looking things next to my computer. Didn’t have Liam down as a flowers man.

  ‘They’re from me,’ said Elisa.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I said, genuinely touched.

&n
bsp; ‘Lunch?’ she said.

  ‘OK.’

  We left bang on twelve for an hour’s shopping. I ate a sandwich while she tried on tiny dresses. Everything looked good thanks to her long legs.

  I had to hand it to Liam – there was no hint that anything had gone on between us until five-thirty when …

  ‘Fancy a drink after work?’

  No, said my head.

  ‘OK,’ said my mouth.

  ‘Twenty minutes, all right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He suggested we go to the Belgrave Music Hall.

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been.’ Although I knew where it was.

  My first few days in Leeds I’d tramped the streets, getting my bearings, just in case I needed to make a quick getaway. The memory of being totally in control one minute, and running away from armed police the next, was still fresh. Maybe always would be … I shuddered.

  It was strange. I was totally committed to unveiling the horrors of the drone wars, and yet there was a rebel bit of me that wanted, just for a while, to be Saffron Anderson for real. To have a boyfriend, and buy shoes I couldn’t walk in. It was absurd. All my life – well, the last chunk of it anyway – had been about revenge. What was I thinking?

  Shut up, Samiya, Saffron’s having a fling, the answer came back.

  ‘Ready?’ said Liam, eighteen minutes later.

  I nodded, pushing my fringe out of the way to give him the benefit of the mascara I’d applied in the loos.

  We walked in step. It’s funny how that happens without trying, even when you’re different heights.

  ‘I wanted to apologise,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to … well, I did actually, but I don’t want you to think that because you work for me —’

  ‘I wanted you to kiss me,’ I said, surprising myself. And him.

  ‘You’re extraordinary, you know. Unexpected. Bit scary, even.’

  ‘You’re right to be scared,’ I said. ‘I’ve got witch blood.’