by Rebecca Ward
Bodi and Evan look at each other, a little startled but what choice do they have, they just have to go with it. They are in Hardeep’s hands.
‘Keep your coats on because the heating doesn’t kick in until 8.30.’ he raises his eyebrows. ‘Plus, big pockets.’ He does a double thumbs up. They both do it back, awkwardly.
‘Where did Dad get this guy?!’ Evan mouths at Bodi behind Hardeep’s back, and they follow him out to pick up a vacuum and a box of cleaning supplies. Hardeep takes them to the service lift that has a heady smell of body odour and cheap bleach.
‘The night guard’s hygiene is a little suspect.’ Hardeep offers by way of explanation. Other cleaners get into the lift with them, leaving in groups as they ascend the building. Bodi notes that they stick to their countries. Croats with Croats, Algerians together and so on. A small piece of home clung to in an otherwise unforgiving city.
She counts down the lights on the lift up to the seventh floor. They are the last in the lift. Hardeep points down the corridor. ‘Room 709. Hope you find what you’re looking for,’ he says and the lift doors close. They are on their own.
Evan opens the door and turns the lights on, there are two desks facing each other in the middle of the room surrounded by floor to ceiling shelves crammed with files. Plus both desks have about four huge piles on them as well. Library ladders hang from rails in the ceiling. Bodi checks her watch, it is 6.25am. They have ten minutes to recce the room before the security cameras fail. While Evan plugs in the vacuum cleaner, Bodi sets about dusting. All the while they both have their eyes scanning the room. They note where the cameras are and move around the room slowly trying to work out if there is some kind of system in place. ‘B4579D, B4579D.’ Bodi repeats the number over and over in her head as the seconds tick down. Evan is speeding round with the vacuum and it drowns out any chance for talking about what they will do.
Despite being neat and uniform, the spines of the files don’t have anything written on them. Bodi can’t risk pulling them out while the cameras are still on so she looks for another clue. She bends down and looks at the shelves themselves. ‘Are they marked with anything? Yes! Letters. The shelves are alphabetised.’ Evan is trying to work out what files are on the desks, without actually moving or touching anything. It is hugely frustrating. Like crouching, waiting for a starting pistol that may never fire. Evan looks at his watch and at the cameras, there are red lights that will go off once the line is cut. Evan holds up two fingers. Two minutes. Bodi starts looking for the B shelf. She moves her duster along the edge of the shelves as she goes trying to look as bored as possible while the camera is still recording. She accounts for S, then R, then P. The system sweeps up round the room in a huge spiral. Bodi’s eyes follow the spiral right up to the ceiling. If she is right then the B section will be at the top on the far wall. Balt told her that all she has to do is get the name of the facility and the arresting officer from the file. He said it should be on the first page. Should be… But she has to get that file first.
Bodi looks back to the camera and at that moment the red light goes out. She races across the room to grab the nearest ladder and move it round to where she thinks the file will be. Other files and books get in the way, it isn’t the easiest of processes. “More haste less speed”. The old saying jumps into her mind from nowhere.
‘Breathe Boo. You need to breathe.’ Evan tells her, helping to move boxes out of the way of the ladder and then put them back where they were. The office will have to look exactly how they found it.
Bodi stops and scampers up the ladder like a monkey while Evan is still moving it. ‘It should be here.’ She says, running her finger along the label on the shelf, the sticky tape has come unstuck and it is barely legible. ‘That’s C, back a bit.’
Evan pushes her round, moving and replacing files. This is not quick.
‘Time check, five minutes down. Hey, cut it out Boo. You’ll fall.’
Bodi is leaning off the ladder hanging by two fingers, trying to read the labels. The ladder catches up with her and she starts to pull out more files.
‘You look on the desks Ev, she might not have been filed yet.’ Adrenaline is pumping through them, her breathing quickening and getting louder. The door handle rattles and Evan grabs the vacuum and sticks it in the way of the opening door. A security guard tries to barge his way in. ‘What are you doing? Let me in,’ the guard shouts.
Bodi slides down the ladder and makes a grab for a cloth. ‘Just cleaning mate, give me a minute,’ Evan instinctively drops his Ghanaian accent for his London drawl. Bodi slides down the ladder, burning her hands, and grabs a cloth. Checking she is okay, Evan moves to let the guard in. ‘What is happening here?’ the guard asks. ‘You’re not meant to be in there.’
‘It’s fine mate. That bloke told us to clean in here,’ Evan’s accent is all over the place.
Bodi tries some Polish and a smile: ‘Nie mówię po polsku.’
The guard looks at them suspiciously and reaches for his radio. Evan picks up the vacuum and with all his might hits him over the head with it.
‘Ev! What the hell?! Are you crazy?’ Bodi hisses at him. The guard is out for the count and his head is bleeding. Evan uses the vacuum’s electric cable to tie him up. He grabs the cloth from Bodi’s hands and shoves it in the guy’s mouth.
‘What the hell, Ev?! Now we’re totally busted,’ she panics.
‘What did you say to him anyway?’
‘Err…I told him I don’t speak Polish. In Polish. Argh!’
‘He was going to rat us out.’ He reaches to the guard’s neck to check his pulse. ‘It’s fine. What are you doing? Get on with it! We’ve got like two minutes left.’ Evan shifts the guard out of the way of the cameras then leans his weight against the door.
‘Okay, okay,’ Bodi says, pulling out more files. ‘No. No. Not that one. Come on.’ Her agitation is tangible. She has file B4506A in her hand. ‘That’s more like it.’ B4553C. She is nearly there. She nudges the ladder along the rail using her body weight; it creaks loudly and the guard groans. B4579B, two more, B4579C, B4579E. ‘No D? What?’ she checks again.
‘It’s not here. Ev, it’s not here!’ She checks either side, dismayed. She reaches over and behind the files to see if it has shifted back. Everything is in immaculate order. These clerks obviously do not misplace anything. ‘Evan check the desks, they must be looking at it.’ Evan looks at her and shakes his head. He is scanning the last pile and hasn’t found it. ‘Try again,’ she begs.
‘One minute Boo. One minute and the cameras are back on us. We’ve got to go! NOW!’ Evan insists.
Like a petulant toddler being told to get down from a climbing frame, she climbs down the ladder begrudgingly. Evan hurries her along to the lift, hand in the small of her back.
Bodi repeatedly pushes the lift button sensing it won’t be long until the guard wakes up. Evan is jigging from one foot to another like an agitated kid awaiting a treat. All the way down in the lift Bodi is waiting for an alarm to sound and she counts down the floors as they descend. The guard on the door lets them out after Evan mimes smoking a cigarette. Once the door is shut behind them they walk as quickly as they can to the nearest corner and once out of sight they run.
‘I feel like it’s the middle of the afternoon already. These early starts are a killer.’ Evan says, trying to lighten the mood, but Bodi isn’t listening. She feels worn out, physically and mentally. She really thought they would leave the offices with the information they needed to get on her mum. Time is flying by and she can’t get the thought of her mum being tortured out of her mind.
The TrueSec alarm is wailing and despite being a few blocks away now they could still be caught. He touches her arm and she shrugs him off. Evan is riding high on adrenaline. Bodi isn’t sure his motives for hitting the guard were entirely justifiable. ‘I’m sorry Boo. But these things can take time. And we’ve got Flip and Reed going in soon. Maybe they’ll have better luck. If they can get in the building… M
ight have messed that one up a bit.’
Reed. She has forgotten all about him. ‘I’ve got to go.’ And she races off leaving Evan standing.
The bell tinkles over the door as she enters the café. She returns the greeting of the woman behind the counter and spots him at the far end of the room. His head down reading, he has drained his mug and is avoiding being moved on. She looks at him for a while, sat alone in the dark corner of this greasy spoon. She feels connected to him instinctively but on paper he is still a stranger to her.
‘Hey,’ she says. He scowls when he looks up, then beams when he realises it is her, not a black-haired stranger.
‘Hey. How did it go?’ he asks.
She slumps into the chair opposite him. ‘Big fat zero. It wasn’t there. Every other file was there but hers was missing. I don’t know why. Oh and Evan punched out a guard, so…’
‘Evan what?! Idiot. I bet we can’t even get in now.’
She takes in Reed’s new look. She is almost used to his short haircut, his white patch has almost disappeared, but he is wearing a Harrington jacket over a shirt and tie, suit trousers and black shiny shoes. And not one ring clutters his fingers. They are all actors in today’s drama.
Aware she must be coming across like a sullen teen, she forces a smile and changes the subject: ‘Ooh look at you. Well smart.’
Reed isn’t buying it. ‘B, I’ve got like two minutes so I’m just going to say this then I’m off.’ He looks her in the eye and reaches his fingers across the table to touch the tops of hers. The knots in her stomach slacken a little. ‘We are doing all we can to find your mum, in our peculiar, drawn out way. I know that Balt is like, highly suspect, but he has mobilized the troops on this one. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. You are going to have to keep believing that we can make this work otherwise it’s going to be a struggle, for all of us. We want to help but you have to keep moving forward with us.’
‘I am, I just…’ Bodi feels bound by frustration.
Reed walks round to the back of her chair and puts his hands on her shoulders.
‘I know.’ He whispers in her ear and leaves. She feels both comforted and abandoned at the same time.
Back at the house she whistles at the birds who give her a welcome trill in return. She calls out for Sam from the kitchen but the house is empty. She wanders round different rooms: the kitchen, the library, her bedroom and finally Reed’s room. She isn’t sure what she is looking for specifically but she wants more answers. Her anger and fear have given way to a kind of numbness on the way back to the house. She cannot reconcile not having got any closer to finding Ruby.
She is drawn back to the photograph of her mum by Reed’s window. ‘Where are you?’ she asks, looking in minute detail at the grainy image. Scanning the faces around the foot of the statue where she herself had sat just days ago. She recognizes Sam or is it Calder? Everyone else is pretty much a blur. A young man is on Sam’s shoulders reaching out to Ruby. It might be Balt. Bodi isn’t sure. Something else catches her eye, her mum is wearing the locket round her neck. Bodi instinctively reaches for it and it comes undone. Since she had prised it open it doesn’t stay shut and the small piece of paper falls out into her lap. Bodi opens it, scouring the list for any further clues. There is one final address on there that she hadn’t visited. Mainly because Sam has been so welcoming she hasn’t felt the need to move on. Maybe this person knows more and could help. She checks her watch. She has three hours until she is meeting at the church for a ‘debrief’. Bodi is amazed at how quickly she has taken to the military jargon of the group.
She changes out of her uniform, laying it neatly on the bed for the next day, then realises she won’t be going back after today’s fiasco. She touches the Map of Inspiration for good luck, hoping with all her heart that Reed and Flip are finding out things that she couldn’t, and sets out to find out who this final friend of her mum’s might be.
Forty minutes later she is standing in a very well to do area replete with immaculate stucco fronted houses in different pastel shades. Signs announcing “Guarded by TrueSec” sit proudly on each manicured lawn. Black armoured town cars sit outside the houses, shining with wax polish. Roses climb perfectly along trellises and bay trees in earthenware pots stand sentry duty either side of candy coloured front doors. Bodi sticks out like a sore thumb, even in her plain clothes. Bodi double checks the address. ‘This is the right road,’ she thinks, ‘but why would mum know anyone who lives here?’ This is as far from their lives as she can imagine. Perhaps the woman works at the house as a housekeeper? Bodi sits opposite the house for a while observing, working out her next step. If she speaks to the wrong person then she could mess things up even more.
The quiet is broken by the sound of a strained revving. Turning the corner is an electric golf cart carrying two paunchy TrueSec security guards. ‘Clearly they aren’t expecting any high-speed chases around here,’ Bodi thinks, ducking behind the garden wall she is sitting on. They trundle past oblivious. Bodi waits a few minutes until they have turned into the next block and crosses the road towards the house, fixing her clothes as she goes to look as presentable as possible. She currently looks like a teenage cat burglar, a look that isn’t going to instil confidence in anyone, be they the housekeeper or the lady of the house. She searches down the side of the house for a staff entrance but it is blocked by a heavy-duty gate topped with broken glass stuck in cement. So she goes to the front door praying that one of the staff answers.
She rings the bell, a giant lion’s head with a bell button for a nose. She peers through the glass-panelled door but the frosting means she can’t see much. When she hears the clip of expensive high-heeled footsteps, not the padded shoes of domestic help, she turns to leave. When the door opens and she can’t help but look back. Her jaw drops. There, at the doorway, is a woman identical to her mother except she is wearing a pale pink silk blouse with a neat, wool pencil skirt. Pearls sit at her neck and on her ears. Her make-up is flawless down to the pale gloss on her lips and blush on her cheeks. Her auburn hair is pinned up in an immaculate chignon. It is like her mum but shinier. The woman looks straight at her with fear in her eyes, she hastily checks up and down the street.
‘Inside! Get inside,’ she commands in a loud whisper. Bodi keeps staring as she walks towards her.
‘Mum..?’ she asks, totally thrown.
‘Shhh,’ the doppelganger hurries her inside.
The room is sumptuously decorated with pale oyster silk on the walls, gilt-framed oil paintings sit under brass picture lights and huge swag curtains in cream linen shut out the outside. Crystal decanters and glasses sit on silver trays. The table is set for twelve, with fresh flowers bringing a small splash of colour into an otherwise sombre room. The room is filled with the opulent smell of freesias, brandy and furniture polish.
‘You’re not my mum right, cos that would be too weird…’ Bodi stands behind a dining chair, gripping the back for support, she feels a little woozy. The woman stands stiffly opposite her; all the while her eyes darting towards the shut door anticipating unwanted company.
‘You really can’t be here Boudicca.’ She stutters Bodi’s name like it is the most complicated word she has ever had to utter. ‘It is you? It’s just with the hair and the make-up...’
‘It’s a long story. Normally I look more like you. Whoever you are…’ Bodi keeps staring at this woman.
‘Why on earth did your mum send you?’ the woman asks aggressively.
‘Who are you? Like her double or something?’ Bodi is struggling to put two and two together.
‘I suppose so. I’m Rose, your mother’s twin sister.’
‘You’re my aunt?’
Rose lets slip a smile. ‘Yes, I’m your Aunt Rose.’ She walks over to Bodi and offers her hand to shake. Bodi just looks at it. Her mother’s hand. But not.
‘I have an aunt?’ It isn’t really sinking in. Rose nods.
‘Where is Ruby, Boudicca? Is she in trouble?’
Rose utters this as if she has said it many times in her life about her troublesome twin.
‘The Sick Boys took her on Sunday. I’m trying to find her but it’s impossible. I don’t know what to do and Balthazar has all these plans and I don’t know if they’ll work. And it’s been days and I couldn’t find the file. Can you help me?’ The words pour out of her like wine from an uncorked vat.
‘Balthazar! You’re involved in Populus? I thought Ruby was well away from those lunatics. You really need to leave the house Boudicca. If you get found here we’ll all be in a world of trouble. I can’t believe that she is back with them. Didn’t she learn the first time?’
Bodi shackles rise, and she resists Rose pushing her out of the room.
‘She wasn’t. We weren’t. It’s just that when she was taken I had no one else to turn to. She left me a list of people to contact and well, you’re the last name on the list.’
Rose’s face flushes with anger.
‘Well, that’s just typical. She’d happily send you off to join that insidious cult and leave her own flesh and blood till last.’
‘Looks like she got it right because you’re hardly welcoming me with open arms.’ Bodi looks at Rose’s hand wrapped around her arm and Rose lets go. She softens.
‘I am sorry Boudicca. I am, truly. It’s just this is not a safe place for you to be. My husband is due home quite soon and, let’s just say, he’s quite big in security. If it got out that a member of Populus was here, and not only that one that I’m related to, then it could jeopardise everything.’
‘So it’s not that it’s unsafe for me, rather it might upset your fancy life?’ Bodi is fast getting the measure of her aunt.