by C F Dunn
Matthew was reluctant as ever to discuss moving on when he returned home later that evening.
“But Matias has noticed you haven’t aged. How long can we keep this up?”
He shuffled through the pile of post on his desk, not looking at me. “As long as we have to.”
“He keeps mentioning it, Matthew. He makes it into a joke, but even so, it’s as if he’s probing.”
“Matias is no threat to us, Emma. I’ll ease off the workload.”
I felt like slamming my hand on his desk. Instead, I bit my tongue and counted to three. “It isn’t the work, Matthew, you’re not listening to me. He’s tired, yes, but it’s more than that: he’s curious – about you, your work…”
He faced me, his eyes reflecting the deepening blue of the evening sky. “Emma, I hear you.” His gaze dropped to the package on his desk. “What’s this?”
Annoyed by the diversion, I growled, “Special delivery. For you,” I added, although his name was clearly written on the plain wrapping.
He frowned. “I haven’t ordered anything.”
Still put out, I gave an impatient shrug. “Perhaps it’s from Dan. Or Henry.”
He picked it up, fingering the tape sealing the edges. He put it back down without opening it. “Who delivered it?”
“What? Oh, I don’t know – a bloke in a brown uniform.”
“UPS?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. What does it matter?”
“Did he have a badge, any form of ID? Think, Emma. Did he?”
“No. He didn’t. Why?”
“Did he come into the house?”
“For goodness sake, Matthew, he was just a delivery man! He rang the bell, I signed for the parcel, and then he left. That’s all – nothing else – nada.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” he muttered to himself, staring at the package.
“About which bit?”
“Perhaps it is time to move on.” He picked up the parcel.“I’ll open this later,” he said and walked out of the room with it tucked under his arm.
CHAPTER
15
Portland
“Mummy, why is that lady not wearing any clothes?” It was the sort of thing I didn’t particularly want to hear sailing on the ocean of hush in the muted gallerias of the museum. Amused visitors turned to watch as I hurried back, Theo struggling in my arms, to find Rosie staring at a splendidly robust young woman. “Is she hot?”
“I expect the artist thought so.” I put Theo down and he contented himself playing with my bootlaces while his sister and I contemplated the painting together.
“She’s fat,” Rosie stated, twirling in the pink tutu, fairy wings, and stripy purple tights she insisted she wore on our educational day out in Portland, despite my reservations and the freezing weather.
“It’s the artist’s expression of beauty – it was fashionable during the eighteenth century to be well covered.”
“I like the clouds,” she said, thoughtful, inspecting the dove-grey, Rubenesque cumulonimbus in the background. “She should put some clothes on or she’ll get a-ll chilly when it rains.” She did a theatrical shiver. “When is the eighteen cen’try?”
I held up my hand, spreading my fingers and counting. “We live in the twenty-first century, so we count back: twentieth century, nineteenth century, eighteenth century. How many is that?”
“Three-tieth century,” she replied promptly, proving she had inherited Matthew’s mathematical nous, even if she had a way to go with the nomenclature. “Did Daddy meet her?”
“Shh!” I warned, laughing nonetheless, and reduced my voice to a whisper. “I doubt it very much. Come on, I need a cup of tea. There’s a good display of historical glass in the café downstairs. We can sit by that.” She seemed distracted by something and I followed her stare, but saw only a few people milling in the way people do when in such places – abstractedly and in their own worlds. “What is it, Rosie?”
She did a pirouette. “Nothing,” and danced off towards the stairs, with Ottery tucked under her arm. I started to follow, but Theo had found my mobile in my bag. “Not that, young man,” I said, trying to retrieve it from him. “Yuk, Mr Sticky Paws.” I made a grab for the phone but Theo lobbed it before I could get a grip. It clattered to the hard floor, and slid out of sight behind a screen. “Little monster. Hang on, Rosie,” I called. “Theo, no!” To my horror, he had located my purse, and proceeded to tip the contents on the floor. He watched, mesmerized, as shiny coins spun and rolled. I groaned. “You just had to do that, didn’t you?”
Rosie trotted over and stood with her hands on her hips, wings quivering. “Theo, that wasn’t helpful for Mummy,” she scolded, and he grinned. By now we’d gathered a bit of an audience, and my face flushed with embarrassment and the effort of bending over with a baby without my jacket riding up my back and displaying too much. Rosie scrabbled around gathering coins with the help of a middle-aged woman and her son, while I thanked them, and went to find my mobile.
“Ma’am, are you looking for this?” A man with oddly long legs and a navy-blue jacket appeared from behind the screen, and held out my phone face down. He had hard eyes, like grit. I hesitated, scanned his colours, but they were indistinct. He smiled – the sort you do when you want to reassure someone.
“Ma’am?”
I took it from his outstretched hand. “Yes, thank you.” I turned it the right way up; the face glowed, bright and alive. My surprise must have shown because he added, “Just checked to see if your name was on it so I could contact you – say I’d found your cell.” His expression remained inscrutable.
Or he could have left it at Reception.
“Right, yes, well, thank you again,” I said. He jerked his head in acknowledgment and made for the stairs, looking neither right nor left, and descended them with rapid steps. I watched until he disappeared, oddly rattled, then pulled myself together. “Come on, Theo, let’s get that tea and feed the monster.”
I popped him into a high chair near a display cabinet of mouthwatering glass in tints of the sea. “Stay with Theo and I’ll go and queue. Would you like anything to eat or drink – other than sweets, that is?”
Shaking her head, Rosie wriggled onto a chair, swinging her stripy, sparkly legs, and I went to the long counter, holding my breath past the coffee machine as it coughed fumes in my direction. “Tea, please, and could you possibly warm my son’s baby food? Thanks.” I perused the display of cakes. The chocolate muffin looked tempting; it would complement the tea and I might persuade Rosie to try a little.
“You’re English, aren’t you?” a voice said.
I turned to find a woman of about my age with an oddly blank expression in the short queue behind me. “I’m sorry?”
“I just love the English accent. It’s so quaint.” If she did, neither her face nor her voice betrayed it. “I bet you get that a lot.”
“Oh. Right. Thanks. Yes, I do.” I took my cup of tea and wished the baby food would hurry up and heat. At the table, Rosie was playing pat-a-cake with Theo to the amusement of couples nearby.
“Whereabouts in England do you come from?” the nondescript woman asked.
“The East Midlands,” I said, not really wanting to be drawn into a conversation, nor wishing to appear rude. I found my purse and made ready to pay.
“I went to London once. To the theatre,” she persisted. “I saw The Mousetrap, you know? Agatha Christie wrote it.”
I handed the notes to the man at the till. “Oh. Yes,” I replied over my shoulder, tucking the change away in my purse. I felt a tap on my arm. The woman held out a photo of herself squinting in bright sun, taken outside St Martin’s Theatre in the West End. I smiled vaguely.
“Lovely. I must get back to my children. It’s nice to meet you.” I thanked the helpful chap behind the counter and, picking up my cup and Theo’s jar of food, extracted myself. But a gloved hand gripped my arm and the scalding tea slopped.
“I am so sorry!” she exclaime
d, grabbing a handful of paper napkins and beginning to mop my wrist and the sleeve of my jacket.
“It really doesn’t matter,” I said. “Please, just leave it!”
She took a step back, her eyes shifting beyond me and towards the range of display cabinets. I spun around. A glossy-haired woman, her dark hair drawn into a tight ponytail, stood in front of the table where Rosie and Theo sat, blocking them from view. She bent towards them.
“Hey!” I called in alarm, the tea forgotten. Whether she heard me or not, I didn’t know, but the woman moved away, disappearing between stands of tourists. Rosie was unwrapping something gaudy. She lifted it to her mouth. “Rosie! Don’t touch that!” I rushed towards them. Too late, her cheek bulged, the white stick protruding from between sticky lips. “Take that out. Now!” Plucking the sweet from her surprised mouth, I dropped it on the table and began wiping residue from her lips with a tissue. “What do you think you’re doing! You know you never take anything from strangers. Ever.”
Her mouth quivered. “But she wasn’t a stranger, Mummy.”
I stopped. “What do you mean?”
“She was that lady we saw at preschool, the one that bumped you and didn’t say sorry. She was nice today. And she made Theo laugh.”
Heat drained from my face. “How, Rosie? How did she make him laugh? Did she touch him? Rosie, did she touch Theo?”
“She tickled him, like this,” and she leaned over and scrabbled her fingers under his soggy chin. He chuckled and blew some bubbles. “Ewe, Theo, you’re all dribbly,” she giggled.
Alarm bells jangled and my stomach crunched. I hoiked Theo from his high chair. “Get your wings, Rosie, we’re going home.”
“But Mummy, I need to…”
“Now. Quickly.” I couldn’t say why, but urgency pressed in from all corners, and every face seemed turned towards us. The Mousetrap woman had vanished and there was no sign of the other.
By the time we reached the car, I was running and breathless, Rosie catching her toes on the pavement as I hauled her along beside me, the wings flapping from one hand.
“Mummy, please, I need…”
“In the car.” The locks clicked shut and she climbed into her seat.
“Why do we have to go?”
I checked the mirrors and pulled away from the pavement. “We just do. I have things to do at home.”
She fell into mute contemplation of the sleet-grey sky and I concentrated on negotiating the road system. Only once we had left the confines of the town and the perspiration had cooled on my skin did I look around and see the downward turn of her mouth.
“Rosie, I know you were looking forward to seeing the rest of the paintings…”
She traced a drop of rain on her window, her eyes glistening. “I wet myself.” From his baby seat, Theo gnawed his fist and was beginning to whimper from hunger. Feeling stupid and a failure, I stopped at the first convenient spot, and helped Rosie out of the car in the privacy of the open door.
“Here, darling,” I said, peeling off her wet things and wrapping her in a blanket. “It doesn’t matter; it’s my fault. You tried to tell me but I didn’t listen to you. I’m sorry, baby.” I folded her to me, feeling her arms wind around my back, her cheek wet against mine. A car passed, and then another, chipping loose stones from under their wheels as they sped by. “I think we’d better get home; it’s starting to sleet.”
She nodded and climbed back in the car while I collected her damp clothes and found a corner in the back to put them. I heard another car approaching and scooted into my seat as it neared, and quickly shut the door so it didn’t have to swerve further into the road to avoid me. As it passed, I caught a glimpse of a high black ponytail and stony face, but not enough to be sure. I swivelled and followed the tail lights until they vanished around the bend. It had neither slowed nor stopped and the driver gave no indication that she was in any way interested in the car pulled over by the side of the road. But then why did I consciously have to slow my breathing and release my grip on the steering wheel? I realized Rosie was watching me with a worried frown, so I made an effort to smile.
“Right, the road’s clear; let’s go home,” I said brightly. “Perhaps it’s snowing there.”
“And you’re certain it was the same woman you saw by the car at preschool in September?”
“I didn’t get a good look at her, Matthew, but Rosie’s sure it was her.”
Matthew’s eyes flicked towards Joel, and the young man picked up my car keys. “I’ll go check the car out.” He left, securing the kitchen door behind him. Joel had arrived shortly after I told Matthew what had happened in Portland, but we had wasted little time on pleasantries.
“And this other woman – the one who distracted you in the queue?” Matthew asked.
“Distracted me? What, on purpose? So you think they are linked?” My skin ran cold and I shivered.
“Quite possibly.” He lifted Theo into his arms. “You’re freezing. Let’s go through to the study; the fire’s lit there.”
By the time Matthew had checked on Rosie playing in her bedroom, Joel had returned. He held up a small, rectangular, matt black object, splattered in mud. “Behind the wheel arch,” he said, his face grim.
Matthew turned it over in his hands. “One of yours?”
“It’s a common enough model, but not one of ours. I checked your car as well, but it’s clean.”
“Why would anyone want to track me?” I asked, feeling a bit sick. “Isn’t it illegal, or something?”
“Without a warrant, yes, and even that’s issued only for a short period. But this must have been on your car for the last month, so…”
“It’s below the radar,” Matthew muttered. “As for why, it can only be to know where you are because they wanted to intercept you, which they did this morning. What did the woman in the queue look like – any distinguishing features?”
“Not really. She didn’t smile and she looked sort of… plain. The other woman had mid-length dark hair – very glossy – and a sharp jaw.”
“Unnaturally shiny? As if it’s been dyed, or a wig?”
“Um, well, it might have been. I don’t know.”
“And the car that passed you on the road. What did it look like – the make, colour – anything?”
I swallowed. “I didn’t notice anything unusual about it; it looked kind of… ordinary.” I felt about as useful as fish bones on a Friday. After a bath and a cuddle, and with Matthew’s gentle questioning, Rosie had provided far more detail with all the perspicuity of a child. He had also checked both children and, apart from Theo’s copious amounts of drool, found nothing suspicious. Our son was now happily exploring the study floor at speed.
“And this is the first time you’ve thought you were being followed?” Joel asked.
“It’s the first time I’ve noticed,” I said, “but then, I wasn’t looking before. Anyway, we left immediately. I don’t think we were followed and I might have been mistaken about the car.”
Matthew ran a hand down his face. “I doubt it.” Neither he nor Joel spoke, but a brooding presence filled the space between words. I looked from one to the other.
“What is it?” I asked. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You weren’t to know…” Joel began.
“Don’t soft-soap me, Joel. If I’ve done something that’s endangered the family in any way, I need to know.”
He raised his brow, briefly pursing his lips. “Emma, they spooked you. They wanted you to think you were being followed, and the moment you took the children and left, you confirmed their suspicion.”
“Suspicion of what?” I said, aghast.
“That you have something to hide.”
“Well, I… I couldn’t just… stay there!”
“Sure, why not? What reason has an ordinary, law-abiding citizen on a day out with her kids to suspect she is under surveillance? People with nothing to hide don’t run, Emma. You ran.”
I flapped my hands in g
uilty frustration. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think. But why were they watching us in the first place if they didn’t suspect something?”
“That,” Matthew said, “is a very good question. As is why they wanted samples of our children’s DNA from the saliva on the lollipop and Theo’s dribble.”
“Is that what they were after?” Joel asked. “It figures, I guess.”
Alarm combined with exasperation made for a potent mix. “No, it doesn’t!” I exploded. “None of it makes sense. Why did they want their DNA? What are they looking for? What does this mean, Matthew, and who, for goodness sake, are ‘they’?” Both men stopped and looked at me as if considering me properly for the first time since Joel had arrived. Matthew spoke first.
“They are likely to be anyone who might take an interest in what we have to offer, or see what we are as a threat.”
“A threat to what?”
“National security.”
“You’re joking! What possible sort of threat are we, let alone a four-year-old and a baby?”
“It’s not a question of any discernible threat posed by the individual, Emma, but whether our particular strengths could be used against the State by an organization ruthless enough to develop and exploit them. That’s what will concern them, and if the State can use our anomalies to develop their own arsenal in the fight against terrorism or rogue regimes, then all the better.”
“But if they’re on to you, Matthew, we’ve got to go – leave now – tonight.”
Matthew shook his head. “No, that’s the worst thing we can do right now.”
“Because only someone with something to hide runs?”
His mouth twitched. “Quite. In the meantime, we’d better take precautions. I’ll up the security at this place and advise the rest of the family to do the same. As for our cell phones, we’ll keep what we have because they are registered with a network, but we’ll have a back-up just in case.”
“In case of what?” I asked.
“In case they are using our cell phones to keep tabs on us.”