by Nick Moseley
The bodies were identified, bagged and laid out in rows in front of the main doors. A steady rotation of unmarked ambulances worked throughout the day to remove them. Trev went back down to the remains of the Engine and wrapped Oscar’s body in a blanket. He was determined that the cat should be given a burial, and a brief but difficult phone conversation confirmed that his Granddad felt the same.
A Custodian technician got the two prison trucks up and running. One of them was perilously close to the huge hole in the lawn and was moved before the ground collapsed beneath it. Once both trucks were clear of the danger area, Richie, Bookbinder, Jones and Keane were bundled into them and driven away. Trev considered going out onto the remains of the lawn to wave Richie off, but decided he was too tired even for gloating.
Instead he made his way to the ruined chapel and stretched himself out on a pew in an attempt to rest. Given the trauma of the previous night he wasn’t expecting to be able to doze off, even despite his physical exhaustion, but it wasn’t long before he slipped into a troubled sleep. In his dreams he saw a succession of faces, the people who’d died around him as time and again he’d survived, people who hadn’t deserved their fates, people who ought to still be alive.
Why us and not you? they wanted to know. And Trev had no answer. He wanted to speak, to say something in his defence, and couldn’t form the words. All he could do was turn away from the accusing stares but he couldn’t shut out the sound of their voices, which followed him as he stumbled away into the darkness.
In the fading light of the chapel, tears slid down his face and soaked into the rolled-up jacket he was using as a pillow.
It was almost dark by the time Desai found him and gently shook him awake.
‘Been looking for you,’ she said. Her face was etched with fatigue. ‘They’ve given us permission to leave. If you’re ready to go, I’ll drive us back.’
‘You OK to drive?’ Trev said, wiping at his eyes. ‘You look like I feel.’
‘I’ll manage,’ she replied, holding up a can of energy drink and sloshing its remaining contents. ‘If you’re coming, get your stuff.’
‘I’m on it,’ Trev said, and made a quick trip to his room in the staff quarters to collect his things before meeting Desai in the car park. She noticed the folded blanket Trev was carrying and her face showed that she knew what was inside. Trev sat with it on his lap as Desai drove the van across the front of the prison and down the driveway. A guard stopped them at the gate before waving them through.
Trev leaned across and looked at the lights of the prison receding in the van’s wing-mirror.
The time to feel safe is when Spectre’s Rest is disappearing in your rear-view mirror, Oscar had said, but Trev didn’t feel safe.
He didn’t feel safe at all.
Forty-Six
Trev gave serious consideration to phoning in sick on Monday morning. He’d managed a good few hours of (fortunately dreamless) sleep and felt, if not entirely human again, at least far enough along the evolutionary scale for basic tool use and rudimentary grunting communication. He put both skills to use and made a clumsy breakfast while muttering to himself.
He didn’t feel at all ready to go back to work, but he also felt that sitting around his flat, alone with his thoughts, was a bad idea. He needed to get back to some vague semblance of normality. To remind himself what leading a normal life was like. He needed to get stuck into some mundane busywork and forget all about psychic energy, and shadows, and vampires.
And the screams. He could definitely do with forgetting about those.
So against his better judgement, he put on a suit and tie and set off for work. If nothing else, it would be an opportunity to talk to Sarah and find out why she’d decided to dump him. He’d been able to push that question to the back of his mind while he’d been fighting for his life, but now there weren’t any killer shadows breathing down his neck the hurt curiosity had returned.
It was a bright, cold morning. Trev’s creaky legs loosened up after a while and he was able to enjoy the freedom of the open air. Being confined to one building, even for just a few days, wasn’t an experience he was keen to repeat. “Wandering about a bit” was a right that he had taken entirely for granted.
He arrived at the SmoothMove office on Chilgate Street and let himself in. The reaction to his return was underwhelming. Barry Clark, sales negotiator and probably Trev’s least-favourite person in the world, looked up from his computer screen and gave the faintest of nods. Trev responded with similar enthusiasm and walked to his desk.
‘Morning, Phil,’ he said to Phil Grant, the Valuations Manager.
‘Trev,’ said Phil. He smoothed down his goatee beard and raised an eyebrow. ‘Good week off?’
‘Not bad,’ Trev replied. ‘Anything exciting happen while I was away?’
‘Well,’ said Phil. His eyes flicked to Sarah’s desk, which was unoccupied. ‘Depends on your definition of “exciting”, I suppose.’
Trev was puzzling over what that meant when Helen Frost appeared in the doorway that led through to the staff-room. She spotted Trev and her expression hardened.
‘Morning, Trev,’ she said. ‘Could I have a word?’
‘Er, yeah,’ said Trev. He got up and followed her to the staff-room. As the branch Sales Manager, Helen was Trev’s boss. In the past they’d always had a decent working relationship, mostly due to Trev’s excellent sales figures, but over the last couple of months she’d become impatient with Trev’s sudden lack of motivation and productivity.
She gave him a questioning look. ‘Are you all right? You look like you haven’t slept for a week.’
‘I’m fine,’ Trev replied. ‘Busy weekend. What’s up?’
‘I wanted to talk to you about Sarah.’
‘Oh right.’ Trev kept his face neutral. He’d agreed with Sarah to keep their relationship quiet, to save any awkwardness in the office. ‘What about her?’
‘Well, we all knew that the two of you were, you know, seeing each other.’
Trev’s face lost its neutrality faster than the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor. ‘Ah.’
Helen ploughed on. ‘It’s not that it’s against company policy, or anything, but we try and discourage it because, well, Sarah was barely settled in and now I’ve got to replace her, so–’
‘Replace her?’ said Trev
‘She handed in her notice last week,’ said Helen. ‘Didn’t you know?’
‘No,’ said Trev, surprised. ‘I mean, I spoke to her last week and she said that she didn’t think she could carry on the whole office romance thing, and we agreed to break it off. But it was all pretty amicable. She didn’t say anything about leaving SmoothMove.’
‘Maybe she decided it would be too awkward to carry on working here,’ said Helen. ‘I can understand that.’
‘It wouldn’t have bothered me,’ Trev lied.
‘Sarah obviously didn’t feel the same,’ said Helen. She sighed. ‘Trev, has seeing Sarah been the reason for your recent… distraction?’
‘My what?’
‘Oh come on, we spoke about this last month, remember? You’re spending more time staring into space than selling houses. Your timekeeping’s been really poor lately, and you keep coming down with mystery “illnesses”.’
‘It’s,’ Trev began, trawling his brain for a plausible reason, ‘complicated.’
Helen shook her head. ‘Complicated? Right.’
‘Look, don’t worry,’ Trev said. ‘I’ll sort it out. It’s not a problem.’
‘Fine,’ Helen replied. ‘But things are tough at the moment and we need everyone working at a hundred percent. Even more so, now we’re a team member short. We can’t afford to be carrying anyone, no matter how good their past record.’
She walked out, leaving Trev wondering if she’d intended that to sound like a threat, or if he was just paranoid. Either way, it was one more thing to worry about.
The day passed without further incident. Trev
did his best to lose himself in his work and although he wasn’t entirely successful, he was able to go for as much as three or four minutes at a time without thinking about the horrors of the past week. He counted that as a victory, of sorts. When closing time came, he said goodbye to his colleagues and stepped out into the night.
In contrast to his morning journey, the walk home in the dark and cold quickly showed him the downside of being in the open air in winter. It was freezing, and the parked cars were accumulating a thick layer of frost. As Trev approached his flat, he noticed one car that didn’t have any frost on it. It was sitting there with the engine running, a cloud of exhaust swirling behind it.
Trev recognised the car. It was Sarah’s.
She got out as he approached, and they regarded each other across the vehicle’s roof.
‘Hi,’ said Sarah. She hooked a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear in a habitual gesture.
‘Evening,’ Trev replied.
‘Are you OK?’ Sarah asked. ‘I heard about what happened at the prison. It must’ve been horrible.’
‘It was–’ Trev paused as what Sarah had said sunk in. ‘Wait. What do you mean, you “heard about” it? Heard about it from who?’
She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What’s going on? Helen told me you quit last week. Why? Because of me?’
‘In a way,’ Sarah said. ‘Sorry to be all vague and mysterious but there’s a lot of stuff I can’t tell you. I just wanted to speak to you face-to-face and say sorry.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Trev. ‘What stuff can’t you tell me? Is this about your family? What happened while you were off work the other week?’
‘Too many questions,’ Sarah said. ‘Bloody hell, this is difficult.’
‘Start from the beginning,’ Trev suggested.
‘I can’t.’ Sarah’s face was pained and she put her hand on the door handle as if she wanted to just jump in the car and drive off. ‘It’s just… I couldn’t do it anymore, that’s all. They told me I had to, well, they wanted me to, you know, find out about you. Get close to you. But after a while I… look, you’re a decent bloke, Trev. Underneath all that smart-arsed cynicism there’s a good guy there. I mean, you keep him pretty well shackled most of the time, but I know he’s in there somewhere. You risked yourself to save me when we barely knew each other, and you saved those people at Boughbrook Hospital.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ Trev asked. He’d passed through puzzled, through perplexed, and was closing in on baffled. ‘Are you telling me that you only got the job at SmoothMove to keep an eye on me?’
‘Did you really think that it was coincidence that someone new started at your branch the same week your Sight developed, and took such an interest in you?’
‘Um… yes?’
Sarah shook her head. ‘How can someone so cynical be that naïve? I was worried I was over-doing it.’
‘So you were never really interested in me? It was all an act?’ Just when you think life’s got bored with kicking you in the teeth, he thought, it comes back with steel toe-capped boots on.
‘No, no, it wasn’t like that,’ said Sarah. ‘Well, maybe to start with, but when we got to know each other a bit, it was different. That’s why I had to tell them I couldn’t do this anymore. It wasn’t fair on either of us.’
‘Had to tell who?’ Trev said. ‘Who are these people?’
‘I can’t tell you that. I shouldn’t have said as much as I have.’
‘None of this makes any sense.’ Trev shuffled his feet to prevent them freezing to the pavement. ‘Before I was just hurt. Now I’m hurt and confused.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ Sarah said again. ‘This hasn’t gone how I wanted it to.’
‘Are you in trouble?’ Trev asked. ‘Let me help.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ Sarah said. She pulled open the car door. ‘I should go.’
‘Hey, hang on,’ said Trev, but she was already inside. The car lurched away from the kerb and disappeared around the corner, leaving him in a cloud of fumes.
‘Mondays,’ Trev said.
Trev struggled through the week and was glad to reach Friday evening with his sanity intact. He went to his Granddad’s straight from work. The old man had suggested that they get together for a drink and a “catch up”, which Trev knew was a euphemism for talking about the events at Spectre’s Rest. Trev hadn’t been all that keen, but the promise of an Indian takeaway meal had been enough to sway him.
They sat in Granddad’s kitchen. Trev finished his last morsel of naan bread and leaned back in his chair. The table was scattered with plates and empty foil trays.
‘Blimey,’ said Trev, reaching for his beer. ‘That’s how to do a Friday night blowout.’
Granddad, who’d eaten rather less than Trev, poured himself a generous measure of whisky. The light shone off his bald pate and glasses. ‘I hear the takeaway has to bring in extra staff to cope with your orders.’
Trev nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m creating jobs in the community. I should get a government grant.’
‘Not likely, with all the money you’re going to cost the National Health Service in later life.’ Granddad scratched his chin, finding a spot of curry sauce lurking in his white Van Dyke beard.
Trev smiled and they both sipped their drinks in a comfortable silence. Trev had been through the story of the previous week during the meal, and was now waiting for Granddad to lift the lid on the rumours that were no doubt being bandied about by the Custodians. He might be semi-retired, but the old boy still had a sharp ear for gossip.
‘Seth Lysander’s disappeared,’ he said at last. ‘First time the Custodians have got anything on him – those two scientists have been pretty talkative, and there was some good stuff on their laptops – and he’s nowhere to be found.’
‘Probably out of the country by now,’ said Trev. ‘What’ll happen to Jerry Phelps and Suzanne Christie?’
‘Phelps has been through some close questioning, but they’ve both been offered probationary positions with the Custodians,’ Granddad said. ‘Veil Security is effectively defunct, and Feargal could always do with some extra pairs of hands.’
‘Cool,’ said Trev. ‘Phelps and Grace Montano, were they ever… you know.’ He waggled his eyebrows.
‘That’s the rumour,’ Granddad said. ‘Speaking of stern women, did you have a chat with Miss Pine?’
Trev nodded. ‘Yeah, I filled her in. She was glad to get closure on Vicki’s disappearance but she asked me to stay clear of her group from now on. I’m a “trouble magnet”, apparently.’
‘Not entirely fair,’ Granddad said.
‘I think “death magnet” is more like it,’ Trev said, staring into his beer. ‘People die around me. Lots of people.’
‘Don’t be morbid.’
‘It’s true. Every time I get involved with the Custodians I end up surrounded by bodies.’
He looked out of the kitchen window. It was dark outside and he couldn’t see the little piece of stone that marked Oscar’s grave. He knew it was there, though.
‘I’m missing him too,’ Granddad said softly.
Trev nodded. Oscar had been Granddad’s companion for many years. ‘It’s kind of weird to be missing someone who spent ninety percent of his time taking the piss out of me, but I am,’ he said.
‘I don’t think that’s fair,’ said Granddad. ‘It was more like ninety-five percent.’
Trev squeezed out a laugh. ‘You’re probably right. Is he going to come back? He’s died before, hasn’t he?’
Granddad swirled the whisky around his glass. ‘A few times, yes. Then just turned up the following day in a new body.’
‘So why hasn’t that happened this time?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe the manner of his demise – that surge of energy – has somehow prevented it. Or maybe he simply ran out of reincarnations. I just don’t know.’
‘Used up all nine lives?’
‘And then some, I�
�d think.’
I didn’t ask him to sacrifice himself, you know,’ said Trev.
‘It was his choice to do what he did,’ Granddad said. ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself for it.’
‘But it’s not the first time,’ said Trev. ‘I can’t help but think that we’d be better off if I was dead and people like Jack Rock and Isabella Mallory were still alive.’
‘Those people thought you were worth saving, Trevor,’ said Granddad. ‘Maybe you should respect their judgement?’
‘Well it’s bound to be better than mine,’ said Trev. ‘I should’ve let Corbyn go when I caught him at the building site. If I had, nobody would’ve died at Spectre’s Rest, would they? I wouldn’t even have been there.’
Granddad frowned. ‘Don’t be daft. It was the right decision to arrest Corbyn.’
‘No, it only seemed like it was,’ said Trev. ‘We know now it was a bad decision. Scary, isn’t it? One bad decision and all those people are dead.’
‘Hindsight is one of the nastiest torture implements ever devised,’ said Granddad, shaking his head. ‘All the more so because we use it to inflict pain on ourselves.’
‘You’re getting philosophical in your old age,’ said Trev. ‘Either that or the booze is kicking in.’
‘Probably a bit of both,’ Granddad admitted. ‘Another drink?’
They chatted for some time, wandering from topic to topic. Granddad tried to keep the conversation light-hearted, for which Trev was grateful. All week he’d felt as if he were skirting the edge of a very deep hole, into which he might stumble at any moment. And once he was in there, he didn’t rate his chances of dragging himself back out.
The clock ticked on and Granddad began to nod over his umpteenth glass of whisky. Trev stuck to beer, but even so he was feeling a little fuzzy himself. He rose from the table and fetched his coat.