Chasing the Dead

22

The sun had been up for two hours and I was still behind the door. On the ground, knees up to my chest. A thin shaft of light escaped between the curtains in the bedroom and shone across the bed, flashing in the dresser mirror. Outside, next door, I could hear Liz talking.

I looked at my watch. 9.44. I’d been in the same position for over six hours.

My eyes snapped open. I’d fallen asleep.

My mobile was ringing in the living room.

I got to my feet, bathed in sweat, and pushed at the bedroom door, edging around it to the hallway. Quietly, I moved through the house, checking every room. Every hiding place. The front door had been locked again. The only evidence the devil had ever existed was a tiny piece of dirt on the carpet immediately inside the door.

The phone was on the living-room table.

I looked at the display. ETHAN CARTER. Ethan had been in South Africa with me during the elections, and was now the political editor at The Times. I’d phoned him when I got in from the police station the night before, and left a message for him, giving him the name Jade O’Connell, the date of 1 March and the keyword ‘Mile End’. I asked him to look into the information, and to give me a call back.

The call ended. I waited for a couple of minutes, checking the house over a second time, and then went to my voicemail. He’d left a message.

‘Davey — I emailed you what I could find. Enjoy.’

The computer was in the spare bedroom. There was a message waiting from Ethan, with three attachments. The first was a copy of a Times front page. It was dated 2 March 2004. At the bottom was a story about a shooting at a bar in Mile End. Three dead, five injured. I read a little way, then opened up the other two attachments. One was a second-page story, dated 3 March, a column headed by a photograph of the bar with a caption beneath that read: The scene of the shooting. The third, dated 6 March, was smaller, a ‘News in Brief’ piece, with no picture. Each of the attachments had been blown up big.

I went back to the first attachment.

I closed the attachment and opened up the second one.

I looked at Ethan’s email. Don’t worry — she’s in the third story.

Jade was dead.

Looks like she’s a goner, Ethan had written. I remember that story. I was doing a piece on Cernoziom at the time. Vicious bastards. They never found out who killed her, but everyone knew it was Cernoziom. Had to be. She must have seen one of their faces. What a way to go.

I thought about Alex, about the parallels between him and Jade. They knew each other. Maybe not well, but she’d heard of him. And now there was a further link too: they were both supposed to be dead.

I let the water run down my body. I’d been in the shower for thirty minutes, hardly blinking. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was the devil coming down the hallway to kill me.

I knew I was standing on the edge of the darkness now. If I stepped back, I’d step away from the case and from what I’d found so far. Whatever was behind me would be left there. But I still wouldn’t step away from them. They’d offered me the chance to walk and I hadn’t taken it. Maybe I’d thought they were bluffing. Or maybe the reason I had carried on was because everything Mary had said to me that first time — and everything I’d felt since — was connected to how I felt about Derryn. Deep down, perhaps I’d hoped my own answers would be waiting for me when I found out what had happened to Alex.

The good things are worth fighting for.

She’d told me that once, when she’d first been diagnosed. And now I knew, like then, the only way forward was into the darkness in front of me.

Whatever happened, there was no going back.

23

I called Spike and got him to source an address for Gerald — Jade’s fake ID contact — based on the number I had for him. It took thirty seconds for him to find out that Gerald lived on the third floor of a dilapidated four-storey townhouse in Camberwell. The police still had my BMW, so I hired a rental car and headed south of the river.

It took an hour to travel eleven miles. When I got to Camberwell, I managed to find a space straight away, right opposite the building. I turned off the engine. The road was like one long concrete storm cloud: narrow, grey-bricked terrace housing; oily sediment cascading from collapsed guttering; dark, blistered paint on the doors and windowsills. There was a big pile of bin liners right outside Gerald’s building, torn apart by animals, the contents spilling on to the pavement and across the dirty, stained snow.

After a couple of minutes I spotted a woman walking towards the house, digging around in her handbag for keys. I got out and crossed the road, catching the door just as it was about to close behind her. I let the woman disappear into the belly of the building, and then stepped inside and pushed the door shut. It smelt old, musty, as if its hallways hadn’t ever been cleaned. To my left were the stairs. I headed up, and found Gerald’s flat halfway along the third floor.

I knocked a couple of times, and waited.

‘What?’

A voice from inside the flat.

‘Gerald?’

‘What?’

‘I need to speak to you.’

‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s David. I’m a friend of Jade’s.’

‘Who’s Jade?’

‘I think you know who Jade is.’

He didn’t reply immediately. ‘I’m havin’ breakfast here.’

I looked at my watch. It was two-thirty. ‘Well, you can eat while we talk.’

A thud. His feet hit the floor on the other side of the door. He was looking through the spyhole at me. I looked back, into the eye of it.

‘Come on, it’ll be fun,’ I said. ‘We can talk about the forgery business.’

He whipped the door open on the chain. ‘Keep your fuckin’ voice down.’

He was pale and fat, about forty, his brown hair disappearing fast. He looked like he hadn’t seen daylight since he was a teenager.

‘You going to open up?’

‘What d’you want?’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘About what?’

‘About some IDs.’

He looked me up and down. ‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’

I sighed. ‘Come on, Gerald. You can save the act.’

He eyed me again, then closed the door. I listened to the chain fall from its runner and swing against the door. When he opened up again he waved me in.

The flat was a mess. Clothes were strewn across the back of chairs and sofas; packets of crisps and burger cartons dumped on the floor. Curtains had been pulled most of the way across the only window I could see, leaving a sliver of a view across the street. On one wall was a painting. On the others were shelves full of books and equipment. Towards the back of the room was a guillotine, rolls of laminate and a pile of large silver tins containing different coloured inks.

‘Nice place,’ I said.

‘Yeah, a real penthouse.’

He picked up a couple of sweaters and a pair of trousers and tossed them through the door to the bedroom.

‘I need something.’ I reached into my pocket and took out a roll of banknotes. ‘There’s a hundred here. All I want from you is some help. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Help?’

‘A few names.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you, the Old Bill?’

‘No.’

‘My snitchin’ days are over, pal.’

‘I’m not a cop. I’m a friend of Jade’s.’

‘You’re a friend of Jade’s, huh?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Bollocks you are.’

‘Listen—’

‘No, you listen. This conversation is over.’

I nodded. ‘Okay. What would it take?’

‘Take?’

‘For you to lose your newly developed conscience.’

I looked at him. He was going to ask for more money. I couldn’t go back — not now — even though I only had a hundred on me. But this was the way to play him. At the end of the day, as Jade had told me, Gerald was just a crook.

He shrugged. ‘Gimme five hundred and we’ll talk.’

‘Five?’

‘You wanna talk, we talk big.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But you give me everything I ask for.’

He nodded. As I stepped towards him, for the first time I could feel the kitchen knife at the back of my trousers. There for emergencies.

‘So, you know Jade?’ I asked him.

‘I know a lotta people.’

‘We’re not dancing any more, Gerald.’

He looked at me. ‘Yeah, I know her.’

‘You provided her and her friends with IDs. I want to know who you spoke to, who came here. Specifically, if you’re sending IDs out, I need to know where they’re going. You tell me that and you get this.’

He looked at the hundred, then at my pockets, where I presumed he thought the rest of the money was.

‘Okay,’ he said eventually.

‘First: did you deal only with Jade?’

‘Mostly her.’

‘What does “mostly” mean?’

‘Her, yeah.’

‘She came to pick up IDs for herself?’

‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘Some others too.’

‘Speak up.’

‘Some others too.’

‘Who else’s?’

‘I don’t know. She never told me. I don’t work for her, or whatever the fuck she’s a part of. I work for myself. I’m independent. She just gave me the pictures and the names and addresses and I made them.’

‘Are they the same people every time?’

‘Yeah, mostly.’

‘The same people are getting different IDs every time?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘You keep a record of the names and addresses they give you?’

He laughed. ‘Oh, yeah. I keep a record of all of them, so when the pigs raid me I can make it easy for them. Of course I don’t keep a list of fuckin’ names.’

‘Did Jade ever tell you who she worked for?’

‘No.’

‘She ever mention a guy called Alex?’

‘How the fuck am I supposed to remember? I’ve met a lot of people doing this, and most of them don’t come in here trying to make nice.’

‘How many IDs did Jade pick up?’

‘In four years?’

‘You’ve been doing this for her for four years?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How many?’

‘Fifty. Maybe more.’

‘When does she come round?’

‘Whenever she needs something.’

‘She doesn’t have particular days?’

‘No.’

‘When was the last time she came around?’

‘I dunno. Week ago maybe.’

I paused, nodded. ‘Okay. You doing IDs for them at the moment?’

‘Yeah.’

‘For when?’

‘Friday.’

‘Day after tomorrow?’

‘That’s Friday, as far as I know,’ he said, smirking.

I could feel the knife against my back again.

‘Is Jade supposed to be picking them up?’

‘Not any more.’

‘You know why?’

He looked at me, shrugged. ‘No. Someone just called this morning.’

‘And said what?’

‘That I’d have a new contact. Some guy called Michael.’

I nodded. ‘They tell you why Jade wasn’t coming?’

‘No. Just that she wouldn’t be my contact any more.’

‘How many IDs are you doing for this new guy?’

‘Four or five.’

I fished around in my pocket for the photo of Alex and held it up. ‘You recognize him?’

‘I can’t see.’

‘So, take a closer look.’

He shuffled forward and squinted at the photograph. ‘No.’

‘His isn’t one of the IDs you’re doing?’

‘No.’

‘You ever done an ID for him?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Be more specific.’

‘I dunno. Don’t remember if I have or haven’t.’

‘You better not be lying to me, Gerald.’

‘I ain’t lyin’.’

He looked like he was telling the truth. He was staring straight at me, barely flinching as he spoke.

‘How long does it take you to make up these IDs?’

‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On what it is. If it’s a driver’s licence, I can do it in a coupla hours. A passport takes longer. You gotta get the marks right, everything in the right place.’

‘They ever ask for passports?’

‘No.’

‘Do you get anything else for them?’

He shrugged.

‘What?’

He flicked a look at me. ‘Guns.’

I paused. Studied him. ‘You ever post their stuff instead of them coming here?’

‘I can’t tell you where I send them — it changes every time.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I don’t give a shit what you believe.’

I took a step forward and pocketed the money. He looked me up and down, then held up both his hands, nodding towards the pocket with the money in it.

‘Okay, okay,’ he said. ‘This new guy wants to use a drop-off. A deposit box. He said he’d be leaving his place at 6 p.m., so he needs them to be there by then.’

‘Where’s the deposit box?’

He got up and walked through to the bedroom. While he was in there, I reached around to the back of my trousers and repositioned the knife so I could get at it more easily.

I waited.

He came back out, a piece of paper in his hands, and held it out to me. I took it without taking my eyes off him, and slid it into my back pocket.

‘You’d better not be messing me around, Gerald.’

‘It’s all there.’

‘It’d better be. If I find you’ve dicked me around, I’ll be back.’

‘Okay, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Gimme my money.’

I held up the banknotes for him to see, then tossed them at him. We both watched them scatter across the floor.

‘What the fuck is this?’

‘Your money.’

‘This ain’t five hundred notes.’

‘You said you’d help me. If I get anything from your information, I’ll send you the rest. If I don’t, you just made a hundred quid for doing nothing.’

‘You little prick.’

I yanked out the knife and held it up as he came at me. The tip of the blade stopped an inch from one of his eyes. Along the serrated edge, I could see a strip of his face, his eyes wide, bulging, surprised. My heart was racing, thrashing around inside my chest, but the knife was hardly moving.

‘You just made a hundred quid,’ I said.

Gerald held up both hands and backed away. He’d probably had knives at his throat before. Guns too. It was the kind of business he was in. He probably thought it was the kind of business I was in as well. I edged around to my left, towards the door, and wrapped my fingers around the handle.

‘Thanks for your help,’ I said, and slipped out.

I drove north-east across London, crossing the Thames, and parked half a mile from the church in Redbridge. Then I waited. Evening started to move across the sky at about four-thirty. It worked its way in from the horizon, sucking up the light until all I could see were the stars. I put the heaters on full blast and felt the warm air against my body. Ever since I’d watched the man in the mask come into my home, I couldn’t warm up. Couldn’t shake the unease that came with staring into the darkness and not knowing what was staring back.

I knew I was doing the only thing I could now. There was no returning to the places I once felt safe. They knew where I lived. And they would know where I worked now too.

They knew everything about me.

This was all I had left.

24

At ten-thirty, I stepped out of the shadows and made my way around to the back of the church. The building was alarmed. I could see a box high up next to the statue of Christ, winking on and off — but there was no alarm on the annexe. They wouldn’t have had the chance to wire it up yet.

There were two locks requiring two different keys, but the wooden door meant that this was only token security. I slid my pocket knife in through the gap between door and frame and started prising at the opening. Some of the door split straight away. I could see the dial box for the keys. More of the door broke off, coming away in cable-thin strips. I kicked them out of the way, and took a quick look around, then started levering some more.

My hands got numb quickly. It was freezing cold; colder than at any point in the past few days. I jemmied the door some more, digging in deeper and deeper each time, fighting the cold as much as the wood. Then, finally, a whole panel came loose in my hands. I threw it to one side and it landed in the snow with a dull thud.

I waved a hand inside the annexe and waited. Ten seconds passed. No alarm. I reached in, flipped the lock on the handle and pulled what was left of the door open.

It was dark inside, but I’d brought a penlight. I went for the desk first. There were three drawers, all locked. I put the penlight between my teeth and dug the knife into the top drawer. It sprang open without too much effort. Inside were a couple of pens, some envelopes and a church newsletter. The second drawer was empty. In the third were four slide files, all empty.

Next to the door were the crates Michael hadn’t unpacked.

I stopped for a moment. Listened. I knew the weather would help me: snow would crunch under foot, so I’d be able to hear any approach. In fact, the night was so still now, the noise would probably carry all the way up from the main road.

Turning back to the first crate, I flipped the top on it. It was a mess, crammed with books, magazines, and folders full of notes and photos. I looked through the photos. Michael was in all of them: with his mum and dad; with what could have been a girlfriend or a sister; with some friends at a twenty-first birthday party. One was taken at a service, him high up in the pulpit, one hand on a Bible.

Below that, half sliding out of an envelope, was another picture.

A boy running around on a patch of grass, chasing a football. Jade had the same one. I flipped it over. Written on the back was exactly the same message: ‘this is the reason we do it.’

Chucking the photos back in on top of the books, I pulled the crate off the one below. It landed on the floor with a bang. Inside the second was more of the same. Then, at the edge, I noticed a small address book with Contact numbers written on it.

Inside, names were listed alphabetically, every page full of addresses. Most were local — Redbridge, Aldersbrook, Leytonstone, Woodford, Clayhall — but others were further afield, in Manchester and Birmingham. I flicked through the book, stopping briefly under each letter to see whether I recognized any names. I didn’t.

Until I got to Z.

Right at the back of the book I found a name I knew: Zack. I got out my notepad and flipped back through the pages to the names I’d collected from the flat in Brixton: Paul, Stephen, Zack.

The listing for him didn’t have a surname, but it did have an address in Bristol — and something else.

A line leading to a second name: Alex.

25

It took three hours to get to Bristol. By the time I came off the motorway, it was two o’clock in the morning. I needed rest desperately. I drove for a while, heading deeper and deeper into the deserted city, until I found a dark spot next to a railway yard. I backed in, under a bridge, and kept the heat on for an hour. Then, eventually, I turned off the engine, climbed on to the back seat and fell asleep.

I woke suddenly. It was light — almost midday. Fresh snow had fallen, settling beyond the bridge and all around the car. I was freezing cold, disorientated for a moment, as if I’d been pulled too quickly from my sleep. Maybe this was the way it was going to be now: every sleep bookended by the feeling I was being watched.

I got back into the front seat, fired up the engine and moved on.

The address was for a house in St Philips. It was an ugly area and an ugly street, bordered by a wasteland of broken concrete and an imposing Victorian factory building. I did a circuit in the car, up to the main road, back around and then down past the house. The curtains were drawn, and there was no sign of life.

I parked within view of the house and waited, low in my seat, looking out along the road. After a couple of minutes a bus wheezed to a stop at the end of the street. An old couple got off. Behind them a mother and her two children, huddled together, their jackets zipped up to their chins. They veered left, into the side road about halfway down, but the old couple continued along the street towards me. When they passed the car, they looked in, eyeing me suspiciously.

Ten minutes passed.

Another bus pulled up, and then a third. More people got off, all disappearing into houses on the street, or passing the car and moving on somewhere else. When it got quiet again, I fired up the engine and turned up the heaters.

About thirty minutes later, an Astra entered the street from behind me. I watched it approach in the rear-view mirror and then brake, reversing into the space in front of me. It bumped up on to the pavement and then off again, stopping about a foot from the front of my hire car. A woman moved around inside, the hood up on her jacket. She glanced in her rear-view mirror, picked something up, then got out.

Wind carved up the road. Some tendrils of hair that had escaped from her hood whipped around her face. She pushed the door shut with her backside, trying to juggle a shopping bag and her keys. On the keyring I could see a silver crucifix, dangling down, brushing against the side of the door as she turned the lock.

She headed up the street. Her hood ballooned out as the wind came again. It was stronger this time and she momentarily lost her balance. Her foot drifted from the pavement to the road and the shopping bag suddenly hit the floor, fruit scattering everywhere. She stopped, looked along the street, then bent down and started picking it up. When the wind came a third time, she put a hand flat to the floor to balance herself and her hood blew back. A tangled mop of black hair.

She glanced in my direction. Stopped. Looked away.

I watched her start to pick up the fruit again, quicker this time. Suddenly, she looked nervous, grabbing hold of an apple only to drop it, then doing the same thing a second time. Another apple rolled all the way across the street, then another.

Then, strangely, she straightened and started walking away, leaving the fruit rolling around in the gutter. She didn’t care about it any more, barely had hold of the shopping bag, and was trying to sort through her keys with her spare hand as she walked. More fruit escaped from the bag, tumbling into the road. She didn’t look back. She just carried on, finally stopping when she got to her house.

It was the house I’d been watching.

She put the bag down and started going through the keys properly, one after the other, flipping them until she found the right one. Then she looked in my direction once more. Her head didn’t move. Just her eyes.

She was looking right at me.

And then it hit me.

Her hair was a different colour, longer and more unruly. Her face was pale and serious. Older. Weathered. And her nose looked different: it was more tapered, thinned out. Before, when I’d seen her working in Angel’s, it had been wider, less shapely. But it was definitely her.

It was Evelyn.

I got out of the car, set the alarm and started towards her. As I got closer, her movements became frantic. She couldn’t unlock the door. From behind me I heard a voice, distant at first, then louder. I looked back and saw a black guy coming towards me, shouting, ‘Oi! You can’t park here!’ I ignored him. When I turned back, Evelyn had opened the door. She left the shopping bag where it was, on the step, and ran inside.

‘Evelyn!’ I called as I got to the door. It was on a slow spring, creaking as it swung back. I stepped inside the house. ‘Evelyn?’

It was warm. A floorboard creaked to my right. She was disappearing upstairs. I went after her, taking two steps at a time, and heard a series of creaks on the landing, then more movement. At the top, there were three doors. One of them was closed. I knocked on it.

‘Evelyn?’

No response.

‘Evelyn?’

I placed a hand on the door.

‘Evelyn — it’s me, David.’ No response. ‘David — from Angel’s.’

The sound of a window sliding along its runners.

I opened the door in time to see her leaning half out of the window, one foot on the bedroom floor. She looked at me once, then swung her leg over the windowsill and disappeared. I ran over to the window. A flat corrugated-iron roof stretched for ten feet below, a narrow alleyway below that running parallel to the street I’d parked on.

I watched her on the roof, taking small steps, careful not to lose her footing on the ice. When she got to the end, she looked back, hesitated, then jumped down. I could see the pain in her face as she landed, but she didn’t make any noise. Instead she got to her feet, kicking up gravel, and ran.

I headed downstairs. The front door was now closed. The house reminded me of the flat in Brixton: the walls were plain, probably painted once, and there was no carpet on the floor, only the original boards. Along the hall I could see a kitchen, some bay windows and another closed door. No furniture in any of them except for the kitchen units and a microwave. I stepped out on to the front porch.

Then from inside the house: ‘Uuhhh…’

A voice.

I stopped. Listened.

Nothing.

I went back down the hallway, into the kitchen. The house smelt of something. It became stronger the deeper into it I got.

There were two doors off the kitchen. The first led to a small patch of back garden, strewn with weeds and rubble. The other led into a living room. No furniture, no TV, just a few books scattered across the floor and a blanket in the corner. There was one window, the curtains pulled, and a small archway leading to an adjacent room. From where I was standing, I could see through the archway to the edge of a sofa. Small wooden arms, big leather cushions.

And, poking out, resting on one of the arms, a head.

I edged forward. The head. The chest. An arm locked in place, hanging off the side of the sofa, the knuckles brushing the floorboards. Inches from the fingers was a needle. It had rolled away, out of reach. Some of the liquid had escaped, pooling on the floorboards next to an ashtray over-run with cigarettes. It was a man. A boy, really. His trousers were wet, a dark patch crawling from his groin down the inside of one leg. And at the end of the sofa was a bucket.

It was full of vomit.

The stench was immense. Totally overpowering. I turned away, covering my face with my sleeve.

He couldn’t have been older than eighteen, but his arms were dotted with track marks. His veins were puffy and enlarged, clearly visible through the skin. He was as white as the snow outside, his eyes half-closed, dull yellow marks smeared below his eyelashes like badly applied make-up. I couldn’t get any closer. The smell was absolutely horrible.

Then a door opening and closing somewhere.

I looked up.

The door into the kitchen was still open. The one closer to me, leading back out to the hallway, was closed. On the other side of the hallway door, I heard footsteps. A shadow passed below the door, footsteps moving along the hall. I looked down at the kid sprawled on the sofa, and saw something else: a glass vial, empty, the film at its neck punctured by a needle. On the side it said KETAMINE.

A sound from the kitchen.

I went to the hallway door and slowly opened it. I waited. I could hear someone moving around in the kitchen. Drawers opening. To my right, the front door was still closed, but now there was snow on the mat in front of it. To my left I could see the black guy who had shouted after me in the street. He was probably in his early thirties, no taller than five-ten, but wide: muscles moved beneath the skin of his neck and shoulders, and a vein wormed its way out from the corner of one eye, up on to his shaved head. He was looking out through the kitchen door at the garden.

I looked back at the kid. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was open. His tongue came out, slapping against his lips like it was too big for his mouth. His gums were bleeding. Then, as his tongue moved again, I saw something else: he had no teeth.

They were all gone.

He coughed, a sound muffled by saliva and vomit, but loud enough to carry through the house. In the kitchen, the man turned around and looked along the hallway at me.

And he smiled.

I went for the front door, but as I got there it opened in at me. Evelyn stepped in, her cheeks flushed, anger streaked across her face. A split second later, she brought her hand up from her side. She was holding a gun. The barrel drifted across my face and I instinctively stumbled back, my hands coming up to protect me. The muzzle flashed, and plaster and dust spat out of the wall above me and to my left. Then another shot, louder this time.

I held up both hands.

‘Evelyn, wait a minute…’

She walked towards me, the gun out in front of her. It was new, in beautiful condition. A gun that had probably never been fired until today.

She stopped about two feet from me. She was going to shoot me in the head. The gun was level with one of my eyes, held incredibly still. Her fingers were pressed so tightly against the grip, perspiration was running out from under her hand.

‘What are you doing, David?’

I didn’t speak. I had a horrible feeling she would fire as soon as I did, even though she’d asked me in a gentle, almost admiring way. Even though I’d known her before Derryn died, talked with her and laughed with her.

‘What are you doing?’ she said again.

There was the smell of gunfire in the air now, burnt and nauseating. A smell that reminded me of driving through the townships before the sun was up. Behind me, I could hear the man coming along the hallway. I didn’t move. Any movement might be enough of an excuse for her to pull the trigger.

‘You should have left us alone,’ she said.

She moved towards me. My body tensed and I lowered my head, angling it away from the gun. She was behind me now, and the next thing I felt was the gun at the back of my neck.

‘Do you hear me, David? You should have left us alone.’

‘I don’t want you, Evelyn. I don’t want this.’

She didn’t say anything.

I turned slightly and could see her standing behind the black guy. He had the gun now, pointed right at me.

‘I don’t want either of you. I just want Alex.’

‘Alex doesn’t—’

‘That’s enough, Vee,’ the man said.

He stepped forward. Swapped the gun from one hand to another. Turned it. And — before I’d even had a chance to react — smashed it into my face.

I blacked out.

26

I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was a red brick building. It was the factory I had seen earlier. It stood empty and derelict: its windows smashed, its walls decorated in graffiti, its doors torn from their hinges. In front of me was a vast expanse of concrete, weeds crawling through the cracks, snow in patches.

They’d gagged me. When I moved, I could feel my hands had been bound, and I’d lost most of the sensation in my feet. I had my jeans, T-shirt and zip-up top on, but my coat had been removed, and they’d taken my shoes and socks. I was sitting barefoot, my soles flat to the ground. The cold was making my bones ache. There were just a few tinges of daylight still staining the sky. Night was creeping in.

I listened. I could make out cars passing on a distant road somewhere, but little else. There were two squares of old walls, half demolished, about forty feet to the side of me, the skeletons of outhouses that had once stood on the site but were now long forgotten.

That was the point. No one came here.

No one would find me.

I thought I heard movement, the sound of birds flapping their wings. I saw something arc up to my left and around. Then there were footsteps, the noise of rubble being kicked across concrete, and the crunch of snow. Someone was approaching out of sight. I tried to move, but my whole body throbbed. I could feel bruising around my jaw and at the back of my head. When I tried to turn, pain shot all the way up from my mouth to my eye. It felt like blood was running down my face.

A bitter wind came then, cutting in across the open ground, and suddenly, with it, the smell of something. Something warm and saccharine, like boiled sweets. When the wind died down again, I could feel someone’s breath, right at my ear. I tried not to move, tried to maintain my composure, but having someone so close sent a shiver through me. It seemed to amuse them: whoever it was backed away after that, as if they’d secured a little victory.

I thought about shouting for help, about making as much noise as I could. But I didn’t have any cards to play. Out here, away from the road, no one would hear me. And even if I did somehow shake off the binds and make a break for it, I wouldn’t know which direction to run in. I’d be running into the darkness as if I was blindfolded.

More wind. Louder and colder this time.

‘Evelyn?’

The gag muffled my voice. I cleared my throat and could feel my muscles tighten. More pain throbbed in my head, and when it passed I felt dizzy and nauseous. I tried to say her name for a second time, but the word got stuck. And as I searched for it, trying to pull it out through my teeth, I felt someone breathing against my ear again. Only this time I could also feel lips — skin brushing skin, only briefly, but long enough.

Footsteps in the snow, moving away.

I started to turn my head, despite the pain, needing to see who was behind me. But as I did, I felt a hand grab me under the chin and a thumb press in against my cheek.

‘Don’t do that again.’

A man.

He let go of my face and pushed my head forward so my chin touched my chest. He held it there. Between my legs I could see blood dripping down from my face, into the snow.

‘Stay like that,’ he said. ‘And close your eyes.’

I could taste blood on my tongue. He’d pressed so hard my teeth had cut the inside of my mouth. I spat it into the snow, and watched it spread out in tiny lines.

Behind me, the man cleared his throat. Then more footsteps in the snow, crunching, fading away and coming back again. He’d been to collect something. I moved my head, discomfort forcing me to raise it slightly. I felt his hand spread across the back of my skull and a gun slide past my ear and in under my chin.

‘What did I say to you?’

‘I can’t hold it there,’ I said through the gag.

‘Move again and I’ll put a bullet through your brain.’ He shoved the gun in harder against my throat. ‘Now stay like that and keep your eyes closed.’

I realized in the silence that followed that I vaguely recognized his voice. My first thought was the man with the tattoo. But it wasn’t him. I knew I’d remember his voice if I heard it again. Who then? My thoughts drifted quickly. I was struggling to concentrate. The cold and the fear were starting to catch up with me.

He pressed the gun in harder against the side of my face, then — just as suddenly — took it away again. I stayed still, looking down between my legs, thinking it might be a trap. Instead, he reached around and pulled the gag away from my mouth.

‘Make any noise louder than a whisper and my people will be picking bits of your face up off the floor for a week.’

My people. He was in charge.

He tossed the gag past me, and it landed in the snow. I could smell his breath again. ‘Now, I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to tell me the truth. Hold anything back, and I will rip out your throat.’

He was close to my ear again.

‘First, what the fuck are you doing here?’

‘Alex,’ I said quietly.

‘Oh, I see.’ A short, aggressive burst of laughter. ‘I’m sure during your cosy little chat with Jade, she must have warned you off this… I’m not sure what you would call it, really. A quest, perhaps.’

He’d spat out the word quest and I could feel his saliva on the side of my face, slowly running down my cheek.

I shrugged.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

I didn’t say anything. Didn’t reply.

‘Huh?’ he said. He was closer now.

I didn’t reply a second time, just looked down between my legs. To my blood in the snow. To my feet, gradually turning blue.

‘You going to answer me, David?’

I let the silence hang.

He didn’t wait long. As I was trying to formulate a plan, he hit me across the back of the head with the butt of the gun. And the white of the snow became the black of unconsciousness.

When I came to, I was somewhere else. It was dark. I could hear the wind but couldn’t feel it. I looked around me. High up, to my left, was a window. Moonlight shone through. I turned my head slightly to the right and, behind me, through the corner of my eye, I could see a doorway. I was inside the factory I had been facing earlier.

It took time for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. When they did, I could see someone sitting with their back to me, on a stairwell towards the end of the room. He was smoking a cigarette. It glowed orange rhythmically. I knew it was a man: broad shoulders, hair closely cropped, a big white hand resting on the step.

‘Are you hard of hearing, David?’ he said.

I remained still.

‘Answer me.’

‘No,’ I replied. I sounded groggy. My lower half was absolutely numb from the cold and the back of my head felt like it was on fire.

‘Good.’

He nodded to himself, took a last drag on the cigarette and flicked it out to the side. It died in the night. He came down the stairwell, his shoes clunking against the metal, and disappeared in the darkness. I could hear him moving, but couldn’t see him. His footsteps became muffled.

I tried to think again where I’d heard the voice before. He spoke differently to the others. More control. More authority.

‘Are you in charge?’ I said.

No reply.

Then, suddenly, he was behind me.

‘What did Jade say to you?’

‘Nothing.’

He sighed. ‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not.’

He stopped. All I could hear was my own breathing. Then, slowly, from my side, the gun snaked into view.

‘These hurt,’ he said, and shoved it hard up under my chin. My muscles twitched. ‘You’d better start dancing with me, David, or I guarantee I’ll be putting you in the ground next to your wife.’

They knew all about me. They knew my name. They knew about Derryn. There had been a hole in the case and now my life was pouring out of it into someone’s open arms.

‘Jade told me I was in danger.’

‘Well, she was right. Do you know why?’

‘I can guess.’

‘So take a guess.’

‘Alex.’

‘Please. You think this is all to do with him?’

I shrugged.

‘Don’t shrug at me.’

‘I don’t know.’

A pause. ‘I’m guessing that little mess at the church was yours.’

I didn’t answer; didn’t want to admit I’d been through Michael’s stuff.

‘Breaking and entering is a crime,’ he said.

‘What the fuck do you call this?’

The man laughed. ‘Difference is, you don’t know who I am. I know who you are. I know all about you.’

He pressed the gun in against my cheek, and I could feel the outline of the muzzle.

‘Was the address for the church in that box?’

I paused. The box. He knew about the box.

‘David.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘On the back of a birthday card.’

‘What else was in there?’

I thought of the picture I’d given to Cary. ‘Nothing. Just photos.’

‘Just photos?’

I nodded.

‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not.’

His hand dropped away, the gun with it.

‘Okay, let me tell you something. The reason you’re here and not sitting with your feet up by the fire at home is because you’re standing on the outside of a circle, and you’ve caught a glimpse of what’s on the inside.’ The smell of boiled sweets again. ‘Unfortunately for you, once you’ve caught a glimpse of the inside, you can’t just walk away again — which is why you’re freezing to death in the middle of this fucking hole.’

I was starting to drift in and out of consciousness.

‘I know about you, David,’ he continued. ‘I know about your background, where you come from, what you do. It’s my job to know all that, because it’s my job to ensure people like you don’t fuck up what I’ve built. And you know what? Reading about you made me wonder: this quest of yours, is it about the kid — or is it about your wife?’

I looked up, turned, and he held up a hand. Grabbed the side of my face. Forced it back down, further this time, until my head was almost between my knees.

I felt blood rise in my throat.

‘You’re a big man, David,’ he said, ‘but her death makes you easy to control. When people die, it hurts. It sucks you dry. You feel so hollow inside, you wonder if you’re ever going to be normal again. But when people die, you’ve got to let them go, because they’re not coming back. They’re gone. Your wife, the kid you’re trying to find, they’re gone.’

‘If he was gone, I wouldn’t be here,’ I said.

He yanked my head towards him and moved in next to my ear, his lips brushing against the side of my face. ‘You want to die, David — is that it?’

I felt his fingers wriggle at either side of my head, like he was trying to get a better grip before he reached round and put the gun in my mouth. Then — lightning fast — he punched me in the side of the face — so hard it was like being hit by a freight train. I tipped sideways, the chair going with me, hitting the ground head first.

Darkness.

I opened my eyes. My head was being pressed down between my legs. All I could see were my feet, flat against the floor, my toes in a puddle of melted snow. His hand was around the back of my neck, his fingers locked in place behind my ear. A trickle of blood broke free from my hairline. It ran down across my forehead and into my eye.

‘What else do you know?’ he said.

I twitched, tried to shake the blood away from my eye, but his hand pressed harder against my head. Forced me down even further between my knees.

‘What else?’ he said again.

‘You recruit people.’

‘Is that what Jade told you?’

I nodded.

‘What do you mean, “recruit”?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you lying to me again, David?’

‘No.’

‘Okay. What else?’

‘Some of you are supposed to be dead.’ I paused, tasting the blood in my mouth. He pushed down on my neck again — he wanted me to continue. ‘You’ve got a flat registered to a company that doesn’t exist, and a pub you’re using as a way to make money. A front. Full of your people, who rotate when questions start getting asked. When a hole starts to appear, you shift them somewhere else and the hole closes up.’

‘What else?’

‘That’s all I know.’

‘Bullshit. What else?’

I stopped, tried to think. That was pretty much it. When he’d told me I was on the outside of the circle looking in, he was right. I’d caught a glimpse of something on the inside; I knew something wasn’t right, that something was up — that Alex could actually be alive. But I didn’t know how and I didn’t know why.

‘What else?’ He forced my head down again, and something clicked. A bone in my neck. I felt a shooting pain arrow along my spine, up into my skull.

He thought I knew more, and — as I tried to form a plan — I realized I could play on that. Maybe it would be the only way out. Pretend I knew more than I did and he’d have to find out what. See how far I’d dug my way in.

‘You think whatever you’re doing is a mission from God.’

He released his grip ever so slightly, and leaned in closer to my ear.

‘What did you say?’

‘You think it’s a mission from God.’

‘I think?’

I felt him shift his weight. He was pinning me down with one hand and reaching for something else.

‘You know, David, I’m not a fan of politics. All it’s ended up teaching me is that power corrupts. You give weak men absolute power and you only breed more weakness.’

Prickles of fear rippled across my skin. My heart felt like it was swelling up. He’d given up asking me questions. We’d got to the end of the line.

‘Wait,’ I said.

‘But something sticks in my mind. Something Josef Stalin once said. I don’t admire the man — I just happen to agree with his sentiments.’

‘Wait a minute, I haven’t told you everything I—’

‘Do you know what he said, David? He said: “Death solves all problems — no man, no problem.”’

I heard a beep and then a ringing sound. He was using a phone.

‘Zack, it’s me. You can take him now.’ A pause. Silence. ‘And make sure you bury him where no one will find him.’

27

I came to as they pulled me out of a car. It was still dark and freezing cold — probably three or four in the morning. I was dressed only in my jeans and T-shirt. No top. No coat. No shoes.

Someone pushed me against the car and turned me around. It was the black guy from the house in Bristol. He had a knife in his hands. He stabbed it down through the duct tape they’d used to bind my wrists, and pulled my hands apart. I looked around me. We were on a country lane, muddy and black, trees looming overhead on both sides. It was quiet. We must have been miles from the nearest main road.

Behind me, the passenger door opened and closed, and from my left came a second man: Jason, the man I’d chased at the apartment in Eagle Heights. He moved around to the front of the car, a gun in one hand, a torch in the other, and zipped his coat up to his chin. He looked at me. A half-smile broke out on his face, as if he’d figured out what I was thinking: They’re going to kill me, and no one’s ever going to find my body.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ I said to them.

Jason pulled me away from the car and along the path. I shuffled forward, pain in my legs, staring ahead into the darkness. When I looked at the ground in front of the trees, full of dead leaves and disturbed earth, an image came back to me of Derryn standing next to her grave, looking down into the darkness herself.

I’d always wanted to be close to her when it happened; to be thinking of her at the end. I’d thought about my own mortality a lot since she’d died, and I wasn’t scared of facing it down. But here, a hundred miles from the pictures I had of her, the memories, the reminders of what she once was to me, I realized — as she must have done — that all I would feel at the end was pain.

Suddenly, we veered off the path, into the woodland on the right-hand side. Jason’s hand tightened around my arm as the ground gently started to rise, sloping upwards through snow-covered undergrowth. I looked back over my shoulder at him.

‘Why do you have to do this?’

‘Shut the fuck up.’

Behind him the guy from the house was scanning the woodland. His torch was sweeping from side to side, illuminating a dense clutch of trees to his right.

‘Jason,’ he said from behind me. ‘Wait a sec.’

Jason told me to stop, and then looked back at his partner. Further up the slope, deeper into the forest, moonlight carved down through irregular gaps in the canopy, forming pale tubes of light. Where it couldn’t penetrate the foliage, the woods were black as oil. Between my toes I could feel grass, and hard, uneven ground — the sort of ground you could break an ankle running across.

I looked back.

Jason was closer to the other guy now, whispering. It was incredibly still; so still their voices carried across the night: ‘You know what he told us. Take him to the usual spot. Come on, Zack, you know how it plays out.’

The black guy was Zack.

‘This is a better spot,’ Zack said.

‘It’s right on the fucking road.’

‘Look how dense it is there.’

‘Who gives a shit?’ Jason said, his voice rising. Then he quietened again as Zack stared at him in silence. Zack was the senior partner. Jason nodded his apology and leaned in closer. ‘All I’m saying is, I don’t really wanna piss him off. He told us to take him up to the top and do it there. That’s where we put the others.’

The others. There were more like me. More that had got too close. My heart tightened and a feeling of dread snaked along my back and down my legs: the anticipation of being put in the ground, of lying there in the freezing cold praying the end would come. I turned to face the darkness in front of me.

Run.

My face burnt, even in the cold.

You have to run.

I looked up the slope, then back to them.

They were still talking. Jason was gripping the gun tightly, his finger moving at the trigger. Zack glanced at me, his eyes narrowing, as if he sensed I might be on the cusp of doing something stupid.

Run.

I scanned the woodland in front of me again. They knew the terrain. They knew the path. They’d know where to force me to go, and where to head me off. But then I thought of the alternative: the two of them leading me through a maze of trees to a dumping ground full of skeletons. Making me beg for my life. Putting a bullet in my chest.

Watching me die in the snow.

Do it now.

I looked back once more — right into Zack’s eyes.

And then I made a break for it.

I almost fell before I’d started, my toes grazing a tree stump. But then I was away, pushing through the darkness, heading for a pool of light about twenty yards up the slope.

‘Hey!’ Zack’s voice. It echoed after me, suppressed by the canopy of the trees, bouncing off the bark. Then I heard him say, ‘I’ll take the road.’

Something punctured the underside of my foot — a stone, maybe even a sliver of glass — but I didn’t stop. I tried to make my strides as long as possible, tried to swallow up as much ground as I could. Huge trees lurched out of the night and knocked me off balance. I arced further right, deeper into the forest. Then I finally stole a look behind me: Jason was about forty feet further down — concentrating on where his feet were landing — but he looked up, once. Our eyes met. He lifted the gun and lost his footing, adjusting himself almost instantly. He was quick and fit. Used to running. I knew that from before. He was probably closing on me already.

I passed through one pool of light, and headed for the next. As I did, I tried to up the pace, every bone in my body aching, every nerve prickling, and saw that the foliage thickened about twenty feet ahead. It got dense quickly, most of it hidden from the moonlight. It would make for a difficult chase. I headed for it, ducking down. Thorny branches scratched my skin, and snow flecked against my face. Darkness set in around me. I moved through the foliage as fast as I could. Beyond the noise of the branches cracking and splintering against me, I expected to hear Jason follow me — but there was no other sound. He was no longer chasing me. He’d gone a different route.

I stopped and dropped to the floor.

All I could hear was blood being pumped around my body, a thumping baseline so loud it felt like it was echoing through the forest.

Something cracked to my right, as I faced up the hill. I turned, narrowed my eyes, willing myself to see into the darkness. They’d both had torches — but they’d both switched them off. There was no light close to me now, and I realized, in some ways, that was worse: they knew this area. They knew the hiding places, the holes. They could be right on top of me and I wouldn’t even see them.

I reached down, slowly, and felt around for something to use as a weapon. The ground was covered in a layer of snow, hard and crystallized, and all I could feel were thick tangles of thorn bushes. In the silence, I started to notice the pain in my feet: it felt like there were deep cuts on the balls and arches of my left foot, and I’d bruised the ankle on my right. I felt blood slowly trickle down from my hairline again, but I didn’t wipe it away this time. Because, over to my right, I saw a flash of colour: pale blue, the colour of Jason’s jacket, catching in the moonlight close to where he was standing.

My heart was punching against my skin so hard — so fast — it felt like it was about to explode. Another flash of pale blue. Moving up the slope, but maintaining the same distance from me. No sound came with it — not even the faintest crunch of snow. He was lithe and quick, every foot landing where it was supposed to. More blood broke free of my hairline; this time it ran down the centre of my forehead, over the bridge of my nose and down to the corner of my mouth.

Then I made him out against the night.

He was about ten feet to my right, up the slope from me, coming around the edges of the thorns. The jacket had been a bad idea. If he’d taken it off, he could have been standing next to me and I wouldn’t have even seen him. But, instead, the jacket was reflecting back what little light there was. He turned where he was, then swung back round in my direction, the gun out in front of him, and stared straight at me. I gazed back, looking at him, frozen to the spot. But then his head swivelled to face further up the slope, and he took a step up.

I could wait him out, wait for him to pass and move further up into the forest. Then I could make a break for it, back in the direction of the bottom road. But there was another problem: Zack. I had no idea where he was. He said he was going to take the road, so presumably it wrapped around the forest, and came back again at the top in a rough semi-circle. But I didn’t know how close the road was. It could be a way off. Perhaps if I waited for Jason to disappear up the slope, and then ran, Zack would be even further behind me. Or maybe the road was nearby above me and, when I got up to run, they’d both be standing side by side and put a bullet in my back.

Either way you don’t know where the fuck you are.

Whether Zack was close or not, I’d still be running blind. The best I could hope for would be to get back to the car and head down the road the way we’d come in. Eventually it would lead somewhere.

I turned as quietly and slowly as I could and saw Jason continuing to climb. He was about fifteen feet up, at a diagonal from me, but slowly coming back around in my direction. He stopped. Looked down the slope again. Then something flashed — a blue light — and I saw him take a mobile phone out. He had it on silent. He looked at the screen, then back towards my spot. They were communicating by text now. I glanced back in the other direction. Had Zack spotted me? Was he telling Jason where I was?

Jason’s eyes were fixed on my position now, the gun in one hand, the phone in the other. I held my breath as he took a step closer. Then another. Coming down the slope towards my position.

He can see me.

He stopped, dropped the phone back into his pocket, and put both hands on the gun.

He can really see me.

He edged even closer, padding across the forest floor, until he was about three feet from me, looking across the tangle of bushes I was hiding in. The gun drifted across my face.

He gazed across the top of my head, his eyes fixed on something beyond, and then raised a hand and pointed at himself. He was signalling.

Zack.

Jason was in front of me, up the slope.

Zack was behind, below.

Surrounded.

Jason scanned the forest, left, right, into the darkness of what was around him. He didn’t move, just stood there, listening to the sounds: the movement of the leaves, the creaking of the earth, the faint drip, drip, drip of water. A thought came back to me then of my dad, standing in the middle of the woods close to the farm, doing exactly the same thing. Dad had been an amateur tracker. He listened to the noises, took in the smells, knew what footprint belonged to what animal. But Jason was the real thing: confident enough to separate the sounds of nature from the sounds of what had encroached upon it. He knew I was close by. I couldn’t have got clear of him in the time available to me. He knew that. Now it was just a question of pinpointing my position.

A waiting game.

The smallest of noises. I turned an inch. From the darkness behind me, side-lit by a pale shaft of moonlight further down, came Zack. He looked up at Jason, Jason at him. Jason placed a finger against his lips. I watched them: they were communicating with only the barest minimum of movements. Zack nodded up the slope; Jason shook his head. They looked back down the slope, over my head. Jason made a circle motion with his hand: He’s in this area somewhere. He’d seen me go into the undergrowth and hadn’t seen me come back out. The undergrowth was thick and wild, but I hadn’t lost them. I wouldn’t lose them now. They were sure I was here — and they’d only leave again with my body.

Do something.

Slowly — so slowly it was hardly even a movement — I guided my hand to the ground and felt around again, my palm flat to the floor. Immediately around me there was nothing: just soft mud and hard snow. Zack took a step forward. I reached further out into the undergrowth, and my fingers brushed something. Rocks. There was a pile of them but only a couple felt big enough. One was larger than the other. I picked it up and brought it into me, then did the same with the second. My sleeve brushed against a branch, but the sound didn’t carry and neither of them registered it.

I wrapped my hand around the smaller one.

Steadied myself.

Waited.

Waited.

Then, slowly, I opened up my body and threw the stone as hard and as far as I could to my left. It hit the forest floor with a thud, snow spitting up, brambles crackling.

The two of them spun around. Zack was quicker off the mark, moving forward, and around the thorns, towards the noise, gun primed. Jason seemed more reticent — as if he knew it might be a trick — but followed at a distance, walking rather than running. I gripped the thicker stone, and moved on to my haunches. The hardest, sharpest end poked out the top of my hands. Jason was about six feet away from me now, the gun still at his side. In his face I could see he hadn’t been fooled by the diversion at all.

Do it now.

I squeezed the stone and sprang at him. He half-turned towards me, his eyes widening as I jabbed the stone’s point into the top of his head. It made a hollow, splitting sound, like a punctured watermelon. His blood speckled against my face, his eyes rolled up into his head, and then he fell forward, hitting the ground almost silently.

I dropped to my knees next to him. There was blood all over his jacket. When I leaned in a little closer, I realized he wasn’t breathing.

I’d killed him.

A shot rang out and a puff of bark flew from a tree about a foot to my left. I fell flat to the floor and tried to pick Zack out against the darkness. Next to me, Jason’s gun was lying on a patch of snow. I scooped it up and peered at it. I didn’t recognize the make. Didn’t have time to check it was loaded. I just gripped it and started to run.

I headed right, around the thorns, and down towards the road, parallel to the way we’d climbed. A second shot rang out, shattering the silence. I kept running. A tree loomed out of the dark and I grazed my arm against the bark, my body swerving too late to avoid it. An ache shot up through my muscles, into my shoulder. I pushed it down with the rest of the pain, and carried on running.

A third shot, then a fourth. A fifth narrowly missed me, hitting a tree as I passed it. My lungs felt like they were squeezing shut. I knew I was losing ground. I knew I was slowing down. I couldn’t keep this pace up — my feet were torn to shreds and there was still no sign of the road. I wasn’t even sure I was heading in the right direction.

Then I fell.

My left foot clipped the grasping arm of a tree root. I tumbled head first, hitting the ground hard. Collapsed on to my front and cried out in pain. It felt like I had broken my arm.

Looking up, I could see Zack, about twenty feet away to my left. He hadn’t spotted me yet, but he’d heard me and he was heading in my direction. I looked around. The gun was wedged against the bottom of an oak tree, its gnarled bark closed around the weapon. I scrambled to my feet and reached for the gun, pulling it out. When I turned, Zack was lurching towards me, his own gun out in front of him.

I fired twice.

He jolted sideways. The first bullet went through his shoulder, the second hit him in the chest — then he stumbled, his feet giving way, and hit the ground. His gun tumbled away from him, making a metallic clang as it bounced across the frozen mud.

When my eyes snapped back to him, Zack was looking at me, blood oozing out of his chest. In his eyes I could see an acceptance. That sooner or later, whatever he was involved in was going to catch up with him. He blinked once, twice, and then his eyes started to lose some of their shine. He didn’t blink again.

Zack had the car keys in his pocket. I took them out and headed back down to the road. The sky was starting to lighten a little, turning from black into grey, and grey into green. By the time I found my way back to their car, the green had finally become blue.

As I got in, I realized it was a week since Mary had first entered my office.

I was still barefoot. I looked in the mirror and saw I had a thin, deep gash right on the hairline where Zack had clocked me with the gun at the house. My face was bruised and battered, streaked purple and blue, and one of my eyes had started to close. My shoulder wasn’t broken, nor was my arm, but they both hurt right down to the bone. And I could see a knuckle imprint, close to one of my ears, where the man in charge — the man with the saccharine breath — had punched me in the side of the face.

I sat still for a moment and composed myself. Studied my reflection.

Who are you?

I wasn’t the same man who had worked that first missing persons case. I wasn’t even the same man who had woken up the day before. I’d killed twice. I knew that changed me; a part of me knew it changed everything. Suddenly, I was capable of ending a life; of looking into another man’s eyes and, for a split second, losing enough control to pull the trigger. Somewhere buried beneath the surface I’d discovered a man I knew nothing of.

A man who knew nothing of order.

I wondered, for a moment, what Derryn would have made of what I’d done. Would she still have trusted me? Would she still have wanted to lie next to me in our bed? Would she have been able to feel a change in me, a sudden barrier between us, as if there were two men now — the one she had always known, and the one she didn’t recognize.

I started up the car and turned on the heaters.

As air pumped into my face, I realized the thing she’d probably have been most scared of was that I felt so little for what I’d done. I’d killed, but I wasn’t a killer. I’d done what I’d needed to do in order to come out of those woods alive. I didn’t want to have to do it again, but I knew, in some part of me, if I had to, I would. They’d come for me, and when they did, I’d pull the trigger again. Maybe that made me less than the man Derryn would have wanted me to be. But this wasn’t about missing people any more.

This was about survival.

I looked at the clock. 7.49. They all thought I was dead now, so I had to use that. We must have been gone a couple of hours, and burying a body would take another couple on top of that. That gave me two, three hours tops before they realized Zack and Jason weren’t coming back.

28

The place where I was supposed to have died wasn’t on the map they had in the car. But when I finally pulled up at the main road, four miles down a winding gravel path, I saw we were about twenty miles from Bristol, in the middle of the Mendips.

In the glove compartment there was a phone, empty like the last one of theirs I’d found. No names in it. No recent calls. I sat there for a moment, deciding what to do next, then used the phone to dial into my answerphone at home. I had one message. It was John Cary. He’d rung the previous day, at five o’clock in the evening.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said. ‘Call me.’ He left a number. There was a pen in one of the side pockets on the door. I took it out and scrawled his number on the back of my hand, then called him. He answered after two rings.

‘John, it’s David Raker.’

‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you,’ he said. He sounded annoyed. ‘You ever answer your phone?’

‘I’ve been…’ I paused.

Should I tell him?

The truth was, I could use some help. I could use some protection too. But I’d just left two dead bodies lying in woodland four miles behind me. And if I told him that, I had to tell him everything else, and face whatever consequences came with it. And I wasn’t ready to give this case — or myself — up. Not yet.

‘I’ve been busy,’ I said finally.

‘Yeah, well, that makes two of us. Let me transfer you.’ I waited. Two clicks and he was back on, whispering this time. ‘I got your stuff back from the lab. If you get anything out of this, that’s great. You take it as far as you want. But whatever you choose to do with it, I don’t want to be kept informed. Understood?’

I paused. A bizarre start.

‘Understood?’ he said again.

‘Understood.’

‘Okay,’ he continued, ‘so the lab lightened the Polaroid. Alex is in the middle of the shot, in what looks like the front bedroom of a house. The whole background is a little out of focus, but there’s clearly a window behind him, and on the other side of that, some kind of veranda. To me, it looks like the type of thing you’d get on the front of a farmhouse.’

‘Anything else visible through the window?’

‘Just grass and sky.’

‘No recognizable landmarks?’

‘No. It’s taken from a weird angle. Kind of shot from below. Alex is looking down. The window, and the veranda, they’re both on a slant because of the angle. You on email there?’

‘Uh, I’m not at home.’

‘I can email you a copy.’

‘Okay. Email it to my Yahoo.’ I gave him my address.

‘You asked about prints before,’ he said.

‘Right.’

There was a hesitant pause. ‘There’s two sets of prints.’

‘Okay.’

‘You know a Stephen Myzwik?’

‘Is that a Stephen with a ph?’

‘Yeah.’

Something sparked. The name was on the pad I took from Eagle Heights.

Paul. Stephen. Zack.

‘Maybe.’

‘Stephen Myzwik, aka Stephen Milton. Thirty-two years of age, born in Poland, moved to London, served ten years for stabbing a sixty-year-old man with a piece of glass. After that, he violated the terms of his parole, and, under the alias of Stephen Michaels, used a fraudulent credit card to rent a vehicle in Liverpool.’

I could hear him turning pages. He’d obviously printed them out from HOLMES — the police database where all serious cases were logged — like he’d done for me a couple of days before.

‘Wait a minute…’

‘What?’

‘There’s stuff missing here.’

I thought of something.

‘There were pages missing in Alex’s file as well.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was going to ask you about them.’

‘What was missing?’

‘A couple of pages. Some of the forensic stuff. The pathologist’s report.’

More pages being turned.

‘Where the fuck have they gone?’

‘Has someone deleted them?’

‘Deleted information from the computer?’ A long silence came down the line. I could hear him flicking through the file, faster this time. Then he stopped. ‘This file’s fucked.’

Something had got to him. Something more than just pages missing from a file.

‘Do you want me to call you back?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got time for this shit. I’ll look into it later. Let’s just get it over and done with.’ He started on the file again. Pages turned. ‘He’s dead, anyway.’

‘Who, Myzwik?’

‘Yeah.’

Somehow another dead body wasn’t all that surprising. First Alex, then Jade, now Myzwik: all of them dead — or supposed to be.

‘How’d he die?’

‘Looks like his body was dumped in a reservoir near here.’

‘Near Bristol?’

‘Yeah. Divers dredged him up about two months later. He must have made some dangerous friends.’

‘How come?’

‘His head had been stoved in with a baseball bat, and both his hands were found on the other side of the reservoir.’

‘They’d been chopped off?’

‘With a bandsaw.’

Just like Jade.

I heard Cary flicking through more pages.

‘You said there were a second set of fingerprints?’

‘Yeah. They’re Alex’s.’

‘That’s not such a surprise, is it?’

‘Depends,’ he replied. ‘We took Alex’s prints off some of the stuff he left behind when he went missing. I did that — set up the missing persons file myself.’

‘Okay.’

‘Have you got any idea why Alex disappeared?’

‘I haven’t managed to find that out yet, no.’

A long drawn-out pause.

‘The prints we pulled off the photograph match some pulled off the wheel of a silver Mondeo used in a hit-and-run six years ago.’ More paper being leafed through. ‘Witnesses recall seeing a white male about Alex’s age having a big fucking barney in the parking lot of a strip joint called Sinderella’s in Harrow. I quote: “At eleven twenty-two p.m. on 9 November it is alleged the suspect drove the silver Mondeo—”’

‘Wait a minute. Ninth of November?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s the day before Alex disappeared.’

‘Correct. “Suspect struck the victim — Leyton Alan Green, 54, from Fulham — as he was coming out of the bar, causing critical internal injuries. The victim died a short time later. Witnesses recall seeing a silver Mondeo with a Hertz sticker on the bumper depart the scene shortly after.” The silver Mondeo was recovered in a long-term parking lot at Dover, five months later, on 12 April.’

We both stopped to take the information in.

‘Alex killed someone?’

‘Looks that way.’

‘This Green guy — has he got a record?’

‘No. He’s clean.’

‘And the car was a rental?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did Hertz say?’

‘Not a lot. Alex used fake ID. Registered under the name Leyton Alan Green.’

‘Cute.’

‘Yeah. You could say that.’

‘You believe it?’

‘What do you think?’

I paused and tried to take it in. Things were changing fast.

‘Can I get a copy of those files?’

He didn’t reply straight away.

Then, quietly, he said: ‘I sent them to you yesterday.’

29

It took me three hours to get home. I parked at the end of my street and sat and watched the house. A biting wind pressed at the windows. Snowflakes blew across the street. Without the engine on, and the heaters off, the car cooled down almost instantly, and slowly my body started to react: adrenalin passing out of my system, cold crawling back in. I still had no coat, no shoes, no socks. I reached down to the ignition, my hands shaking now, my teeth chattering. Every cut in my face and feet, every bruise on my body, ached. I turned the key. The heaters kicked back in, the noise of the engine with it. And, finally, as I slowly started to warm up, my body began to settle.

Leaning in against one of the heaters, I looked down the street again, towards my house. The road had always been quiet, so I was hoping anything out of place would stick out a mile. But I also knew from the night before that they weren’t just barmen and youth pastors — they were trackers and marksmen. And they were killers. They could fade in and out, and they could disappear. The advantage was still with them.

I looked at the clock. 11.27. They were probably starting to realize Zack and Jason weren’t coming back. The likelihood that they were already here, watching the house, waiting for me to arrive, was remote. However, I wasn’t about to take any chances. I needed basic provisions. I needed a shower. I needed to patch myself up. I needed shoes and extra clothes. But, most of all, I needed to be sure I was alone.

I got out of the car, locked it and crossed the road towards the house. I looked up and down the street. No one sitting in cars. No one watching the house. They’d removed everything from my pockets the previous day, including my keys, so I headed around the back of the house and took the spare key out of one of the dead hanging baskets next to the rear door.

Inside, the house was cold. I approached each room carefully, just in case, but there was no one inside and nothing had been touched. The files Cary had sent the day before were on the floor, under the letterbox, handwritten but otherwise anonymous.

I showered and briefly caught sight of myself in the mirror.

There were cuts all over my face, bruises creeping down my throat and across the muscles at the top of my chest. My body was toned, but now it was marked as well. A reminder of how badly they wanted me dead.

I dug out the warmest clothes I could lay my hands on: a pair of dark jeans; a long-sleeve thermal training top I used for jogging; a T-shirt; a black zip-up top; and a black overcoat Derryn had bought me one Christmas. I packed some extra clothes into a holdall, and grabbed an old laptop I never used from the cupboard in the second bedroom. It had been a work computer but no one had ever asked for it back. There was a spare mobile in the bedside table with some credit left on it, and my credit card. I took both, grabbed a knife from the kitchen, along with the files, a photograph of Derryn, and bandages and plasters to make running repairs to myself once I got somewhere safe. Then I locked up and left.

At the bottom of the garden, I looked back up the drive and glimpsed Liz moving around in her front room. In the windows of the house, I could see my reflection.

A man on the run.

A wound crawled out from my hairline. My face was bruised. I looked gaunt and tired. I wondered whether I’d allow myself to sleep again until this was over. It could be days, weeks, months. It could be never. Maybe the next time I closed my eyes would be with one of their bullets in my chest.

I turned and started towards Zack’s car again.

Then stopped.

There was someone leaning in against the passenger window, the hood up on his coat, cupping his hands against the glass. I backed up and crouched down behind one of the garden walls. He glanced along the street towards the house, didn’t see me, and moved around the front of the car to the driver’s side. He tried the door. When he stepped away from the car a second time, I caught a glimpse of his face and recognized him straight away: the man who had broken into my car at the cemetery; the man I’d followed outside Angel’s. He was scruffy and unkempt, and looked thinner in the daylight — and that immediately concerned me. This was the type of trap they liked to lay: making you believe they were one thing, weaker than you, and then turning everything on its head.

He looked back at the house and fixed his gaze on the front. I could see his eyes narrowing, as if he knew something was up. It was like he’d studied the street before my arrival — had seen which cars were where, and who they belonged to — and now saw a piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit.

He patted the front of his jacket. Has he got a gun? I unzipped the holdall and took out the knife. It wouldn’t be much of a fight, unless he got close without seeing me. But it was better than surrendering. If there was one thing I’d learned over the past couple of days, it was that there was no point in surrendering. They’d kill you anyway, whether you gave them what they wanted or not. Fighting back didn’t give me much of a chance — but it did at least give me something.

I gripped the knife as hard as I could, adrenalin pumping my heart faster. But then the man took another look at the car, spun on his heel and headed the other way. I watched him go, reaching the end of the road. He looked back once and disappeared around the corner.

I stayed put. It was a trap. Had to be. He knew the car belonged to them, and if it was parked in my street, he knew I was home. He could have gone to make a call. He might not want to come at me alone. He could have heard by now what I’d done to the others. Either way, I had to make my move.

I got to my feet and headed across the street, flipping the locks on the car with the remote and sliding in and starting it up in one swift motion. I looked in my rear-view mirror, put my foot to the floor and drove away. When I got to the bottom of the road, I checked my mirrors again. There was no sign of him — at least for the moment.

30

There was a Starbucks about three miles north. I left the car in a multi-storey a mile down the road. If I was driving one of their vehicles, it made it easier to find me. I’d noticed a satellite tracking sticker on the front windscreen. If they were smart — which they were — they’d call the tracking company and locate the car.

I chose a sofa at the rear of the coffeehouse with the least amount of lighting above it, and sat with my back to the wall. I used their wi-fi connection to log into my Yahoo. In my inbox there was an email from Cary. The subject line was Pic. Underneath, he had written: This doesn’t exist on the server any more — if you want another copy, tough. It’s gone.

I dragged the attachment to the desktop and opened it up. It had been blown up big. At its default size I could make out the side of Alex’s face and some window in the background. I took it down in size.

The photograph was much lighter. Alex’s face was more defined. I could make out the scar on his right cheek, the one he’d got playing football as a kid, and could see his hair properly now. It wasn’t shaved, as it had been when Mary saw him, but it was cut so close his scalp reflected light coming in through the window. Cary was right. It was taken at an odd angle. It looked like Alex might be on the bed while the photographer — maybe Myzwik — was on the floor.

I looked at the view through the window.

Beyond the veranda, beneath the endlessly blue sky, just a tiny speck in the corner of the photograph, was another patch of blue. A different shade. I moved closer to the screen and zoomed in.

Sea.

The room overlooked the sea.

Then I noticed something else. I resized the picture, and zoomed in on the window pane on the left-hand side. There was a reflection in the glass: veranda railings looking out over a hillside covered in heather; a sign nailed to a railing, reading backwards in the reflection. I flipped the photo to reverse the picture, and the writing read the right way.

A couple of days before I’d seen the same name on Michael’s mobile phone.

I got a second coffee and called Terry Dooley, one of my old contacts at the Met, to tell him the car I’d hired the day before — still in Bristol — had been stolen.

‘You don’t call me for months and then you call me up to tell me your hire car’s been stolen?’ Dooley said. It sounded like he was having lunch. ‘Fuck do I care?’

‘I can’t get down to your hole in the ground to report it. So, I need you to fill in the paperwork for me.’

He laughed. ‘Do I look like your secretary?’

‘Only when you’ve got your lipstick on.’

He said something through a mouthful of food. Then: ‘Davey boy, you and me used to have an understanding. You scratched my back by leaking a few case details as and when I needed you to, and I scratched yours and got you what you needed on whatever investigation tickled your fancy. Now?’ He paused. Continued eating. ‘Now you ain’t got anything I want.’

‘You still owe me.’

‘I don’t owe you shit.’

‘I’ll email you the details, you fill out the form for me and liaise with the rental company, and I’ll carry on pretending I don’t know where Carlton Lane is.’

He stopped eating.

Carlton Lane was where Terry Dooley and three of his detectives were one night about four years before I left the paper. There was a house at the end, hidden from the street by trees, that doubled up as a brothel. One of Dooley’s detectives ended up having too much to drink and punched a girl in the face when she told him he was getting a bit rough. She got revenge the next day by leaking enough details to the newspaper to protect her income and the brothel while landing Dooley and his friends in serious trouble. Luckily for Dooley — and his marriage — the call came through to my phone.

‘You gonna use that on me for the rest of my days?’ he said.

‘Only when I need something. So you’ll do it?’

He sighed. ‘Yeah, whatever.’

‘Good man, Dools.’

‘Just send over your fucking shit, Raker.’

And then he hung up.

I emailed him all the information he’d need to complete the paperwork, then called the car rental company to fill them in, and request a replacement car. They said I’d have to pay an excess on the stolen vehicle, but because I’d taken out premium insurance cover when I’d hired it, the amount would be minimal. Next, I called Vodafone. I told them my phone had been in the car when it was stolen and asked them to redirect all incoming calls to the new phone. They set it up there and then.

After that, I put the two files Cary had sent on the table in front of me.

The first was Myzwik’s. It detailed his record before and after prison, right up until his body was discovered in the reservoir. There was a black-and-white photograph of him from his last arrest. The file confirmed that Myzwik’s body was brought ashore by police divers after part of his coat had been spotted floating on the surface of the water. They’d found his credit cards in a wallet on the other side of the reservoir. Forensics had worked on the recovered hands, but a definitive fingerprint match couldn’t be made, owing to the amount of time the body had been underwater.

Then something hit me.

I reached down into the holdall, took out Alex’s file, and flicked to the odontologist’s findings. Teeth had been found in Alex’s stomach and windpipe. Although the intensity of the fire had shrunk some of them, a fairly precise approximation of his jaw had been reconstructed. This had allowed for eventual identification. At the bottom, before the two pages that were missing, I found what I was looking for: only two teeth had been left in his skull, both loose, both less damaged by the fire. Both had traces of bonding glue — used to secure braces — and an etching agent, which prepares the enamel for sealant. This was consistent with orthodontic work Alex had had as a child, which was why I’d skim-read it the first time round. But now I noticed a pattern: like Alex, Myzwik’s identity had been confirmed using dental records; and, like Alex, he had been found with bonding glue on one of his teeth.

But not just on the enamel.

In both files, in both pathology reports, traces of the same bonding glue had been found on the root of the tooth as well.

Oh, shit.

Parts of the odontologists’ findings were missing from both files; but wherever they’d gone, and whoever had deleted them, they hadn’t got rid of enough. Because I knew what I was looking at now.

Myzwik couldn’t be fingerprinted because the longer the body was in water, the less accurate the technique became; without a face, no one could ID him either. And as Alex’s body was more skeleton than flesh, burnt black from a two-thousand-degree fire, dental records were all anyone had to go on.

Except, like Myzwik, Alex’s teeth weren’t his.

And neither was his body.

The second file was much thinner than the first.

Leyton Green owned two electronics stores in Harrow, and a third in Wembley. The night he died, he’d been driving a dark blue Isuzu Trooper. It was new, bought the week before from a dealership in Hackney. The police had done some background checks on the vehicle, toying with the idea of the murder being related to the purchase of the jeep. But, like everything else in the case, it was a dead end.

The report detailed the night Green was hit by the silver Mondeo. Eyewitness accounts were thin on the ground. A couple of people identified the Mondeo. No one could identify who was driving it.

Towards the back were some photographs. The biggest was of the murder scene. Green’s body was under a white sheet, only the sole of his shoe poking out. Blood had stained the sheet. Little circles of chalk were dotted around the body, ringing pieces of the Mondeo. The next pictures confirmed this: shots of pieces of the bumper, and even a chunk of the bonnet. He must have been hit hard. Close-ups of his face followed, bloodied and battered. One of his left hip, black with blood and misshapen, where the Mondeo had struck him.

I was about to return the printouts to the holdall when right at the back, close to a description of the strip bar, I found another photo. Staring up at me, dressed in a black suit, his hair parted, a familiar smile creeping across his face, was Leyton Alan Green.

The same man I’d seen in a photograph in Mary’s basement.

Leyton Alan Green was Alex’s Uncle Al.

31

Gerald opened the door a fraction. Recognition sparked in his eyes and he pulled it all the way back. ‘What the fuck d’you want?’ he said, glancing over his shoulder to where the guillotine sat in the centre of the room, pieces of card and cellophane strewn on the floor around it. Half-finished IDs lay on top of empty cartons of food.

‘I need to speak to you.’

‘You did all your talkin’ last time.’

‘I want to buy something from you.’

He smirked. ‘You must be outta your fuckin’ mind.’

I reached into my pocket. He backed up half a step, as if I might be taking out a gun. Instead, it was my wallet. I opened it up. There was over £800 in it.

He glanced at the money, then back at me. ‘You shouldn’t be walkin’ around with that.’

‘I know.’

‘So, what do you want?’

I closed the wallet.

‘I want a gun.’

Michael left the church at six o’clock. The night was cold, steam hissing out of vents, warm air rising out of the ground as the Underground rumbled through the earth. I waited for him in a darkened doorway outside the Tube. As he approached I zipped up my top and followed him inside. He went through the turnstiles and down the steps to the platform. A train was already in the station when I got there.

I had a ski hat on. I pulled it down as far as it would go over my face then stepped on to the train a couple of doors down. He sat and removed a book from a thick slipcase that probably had his laptop in as well.

With a jolt, the train took off. Michael looked up, then around at the other passengers. I turned away, staring down into my lap, conscious of him seeing my reflection in the windows. After a while, I flicked a look at him and could see he was sitting with his legs crossed, the book held up in front of him.

After we changed at Liverpool Street, I glanced at the scrap of paper Gerald had given me the first time I’d been to see him — written at the top was the address where he’d been told to drop the IDs: Box #14, Store ’N’ Pay, Paddington. I’d found it in the Yellow Pages and called them from Starbucks. It was a storage facility; a thousand lockers. People paid a daily or monthly rate for a unit and got a swipe card that gained access to the building any time they wanted. The lockers weren’t huge, but big enough to store holdalls and briefcases, coats and suits. They’d certainly be big enough for what Michael was going to pick up.

When we got to Paddington, commuters filed out; a tidal wave heading for the exit. Michael went with them. I waited until the last minute then bundled out after him.

The escalators were rammed. I could see him halfway up, his face still buried in his book. I followed him, taking two steps at a time all the way to the top. On the other side of the turnstiles he headed for the mainline trains, then moved through the crowds and out into the night.

He headed south-east. We were moving in the direction of Hyde Park, slivers of residential streets running like capillaries either side of us. I maintained a distance from him, following from the other pavement where it was darker and safer. I could see the park up ahead as he veered right into a narrow road with cars parked on either side and a shop front at one end. A sign hanging above the door said STORE ’N’ PAY. I stopped as he climbed the steps up to the front. He slid a swipe card through an electronic lock and pushed the door open.

Store ’N’ Pay had a big window at the front, a blue neon SECURE LOCKERS sign buzzing at the top. There was an unmanned front desk and a series of red lockers behind it. Michael stepped past another man, who was standing in front of an open locker, and up to Box 14. It was on the left of the window. He put his laptop case down, punched in a combination number and pulled open the locker. Inside was a small brown envelope.

As Michael looked through the envelope, the other man finished up and started coming towards the main door. I quickly crossed the street and headed up the steps, catching the door as he left. He glanced at me, then did a double take when he laid eyes on what they’d done to my face, turning round and looking again as he moved off down the street. Five cars down, he passed my new rental vehicle. Before getting the Tube out to Redbridge, I’d parked it there.

I’d need the car close by — for when we left.

I stepped inside and pulled the door shut. Michael was standing with his back to me, the locker open, still checking the contents of the envelope. After a few seconds, he pushed the locker shut, picked up his laptop and turned around.

He locked eyes on me.

‘David,’ he said. He looked shocked, his mouth dropping a little, the colour draining from his face. But, quickly, he regained control of himself. ‘I’ve got to admit, I didn’t think we’d see you again.’

‘Well, even the Church doesn’t get it right all the time.’

‘No,’ he said, smiling. ‘We certainly don’t.’

‘Where’s Alex?’

He acknowledged the name, but only with a slight nod of the head.

‘Do you need me to speak up?’

‘No, I heard you. Why do you want to know?’

‘Where is he?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I’m not going to ask you again.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘why don’t we trade? You tell me why this is so important to you, and I’ll tell you where Alex is.’

I didn’t reply this time. He was trying to redirect the conversation.

Trying to force me into another trap.

‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to turn this into a confessional.’ He paused, smiled again. ‘Our Catholic friends seem to find forgiveness in the blink of an eye. A couple of Hail Marys and you’re away. I believe you should have to work a little harder at redemption.’

‘I don’t give a shit about anything you believe. Where is he?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re making big problems for yourself here, David.’

‘You tried to kill me.’

He shrugged.

‘You tried to kill me.’

‘That was nothing to do with me.’

‘Oh, of course,’ I said, nodding at the envelope in his hands. ‘You’ve got no idea what goes on outside the walls of your church.’

‘A name means nothing, David.’

‘You saying you came all this way for nothing?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand what drives you. I mean, why? Why come this far? This has nothing to do with you. You could have turned away at any time. But you didn’t and now… now you’re going to get torn apart. Why? Is it the money?’

I didn’t reply.

‘I don’t believe it’s the money. You’ve probably earned enough already. Are you a completist, David — is that it? You want to finish what you started. I respect that. I’m the same. I like to finish what I start. I don’t let anything get in the way of what I want.’

I could see where this was going: the same place it had gone before. This quest of yours, is it about the kid — or is it about your wife? They’d hit on something, and now they were going back to it again. Derryn mattered to me. She was the chink in my armour.

‘Did you think there was any hope for your wife, even at the end?’

‘Shut the fuck up.’

‘There’s always hope, right? If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘Are you deaf?’

‘Death’s not something you can fight. It’s not a tangible thing. It’s an undefeatable enemy, an unfair battle, an adversary you can’t see coming.’ The corners of his mouth turned down: a sad expression, but only skin deep. ‘I know how you feel. I know about the fear of death, David — and the fear of what comes after. I know that you were scared for her.’

I looked at him.

‘Weren’t you scared for her, David? A man of no religion, of no beliefs, weren’t you scared about what came next for the person you loved?’

He could see he had got to me.

‘Wouldn’t you like to find out?’

He took a step closer.

‘That’s why you’re still interested in this, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here.’

Another step.

‘You want to find out where she went. Why she had to go.’

Another step, bigger this time.

‘As hard as it is to hear, only God knows when and why our time comes to an end, David. And when He sees some of the people we have in our world, some of these young people getting out of their depth, walking a tightrope between life and death, deciding for themselves how close they want to brush with the afterlife, He is disappointed. I’m sure of that. Because you and I, we don’t decide when our time is up. That’s not our job.’

He paused, and started to reach out for me.

‘That’s the job of God. And the job of the people he choos—’

I slapped the envelope away, out of his hands. As he watched it go, the IDs spilling across the floor, I reached around to the back of my trousers and brought out the gun. He rocked on his feet, staggering a little, holding up both hands.

‘David, wait a min—’

I grabbed his shirt, pushed him around the front desk, and down on to the floor behind. We were shielded from the street. Hidden from passers-by.

‘I like what you’re saying,’ I said, shoving the gun under his chin. ‘And I want to believe you. I want to believe my wife is somewhere better than here. But all I see when I look at you is a fucking snake. You say one thing while you think another. And whatever good you think you’re doing, the truth is you’re wrapped up in this as much as the rest of them. You’re the same as them. And nothing you’ve said to me tonight can wipe that away.’

I cocked the gun. Pressed it in harder.

‘So, now you’re coming with me.’

32

There were a series of empty warehouses about seven miles east where I used to meet sources during my paper days. I parked outside one, marched around the front of the car and pulled Michael out of the passenger seat and in through a broken, rusting door.

Inside there was no lighting. It had all been smashed, the glass from the bulbs and strip lights lying on the floor. I tied Michael’s hands behind his back with some duct tape I’d brought with me, and then kicked his legs out from under him. He hit the ground with a thud, crying out in pain. I rolled him over until he was positioned in a block of moonlight shining in from a window high up on the wall.

Then I put the gun to his head.

He looked at me. There was something in his face. He looked like a man standing on the edge. A man terrified of going over. But not of me, and not of the gun.

‘What are you scared of?’ I said.

‘I’m not scared of anything, David.’

‘What are you scared of?’

He blinked.

‘Are you scared of dying?’

‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not scared of dying.’

‘So, what are you scared of?’

He blinked again. ‘What difference does it make?’

‘I want to know what you’re scared of. I want to know why everyone’s too frightened to tell me where you’ve put Alex. So… what are you scared of?’

His mouth flattened. A kind of half-smile.

‘You want to know what I’m scared of? I’m scared of my time running out before I’ve done all I need to do. I want to help people. But we’ve done things, and I’ve had knowledge of things, that I fear I might not be forgiven for. And the project… I still believe in its aims, because I still believe it’s a mission from God. A gift. But we’ve done things we shouldn’t have done. And we have people who have drifted from the course we set. So, the thought of my time ending now is what scares me. Because when I die I want to deserve to be where I am. And if you kill me now, I won’t deserve anything.’

‘You’re full of shit, you know that?’

He didn’t reply. Just looked at me.

‘You know that?’

‘I don’t care whether you believe me or not,’ he said, looking up at me. ‘It’s the truth. But it’s probably too late for me already — and it’s certainly too late for you.’

‘It’s not too late.’

‘It’s too late, David. You’ve messed everything up. If you’d walked away when we’d asked you to, the storm would have passed by now. I could get back to the reason I signed up in the first place, and you could be looking at a life that extended further than a couple of days. Instead, you’ve turned this into a war. A war you can’t win. And I can’t do anything for the people we’re helping until the war is over, and you’ve been stopped. And if I can’t do anything for them, I can’t do anything for myself.’

I pushed the gun in harder against his face.

‘Listen to me: you want your shot at redemption, is that it?’

He just stared at me, silent.

‘You tell me what I need to know and maybe I’ll do it for you. Maybe I’ll turn this thing around and this whole… whatever the fuck it is you’re protecting, maybe it’ll start again. Better than it was before. But I can’t do that until one of you gives me what I need. I see the same look in you as I saw in Jade: you’re scared about what will happen when you open the door, but you won’t do anything about it. Well, this time I’m going to do something about it.’

I forced the gun in hard a second time.

‘And you’re going to tell me who’s waiting.’

33

It was almost eleven by the time we got to Michael’s apartment. It was on the corner of a new development that overlooked the Thames in Greenwich. We stopped at the entrance, a tall, narrow foyer with a glass-domed roof, which was connected to the main building by a corridor on the other side.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.

‘What do you think?’

He dug around in his pockets and took out his keys. I looked both ways, just to make sure we were alone. The apartment building was eight storeys high, and stretched for about fifty metres in both directions. Thin, conical lights ran the length of a path that snaked in from the main road. Tiny rock gardens had been constructed either side of the foyer doors, wren green spelt out in red flowers. The building looked less than a year old.

Michael pulled open the entrance doors. On the wall, immediately inside, was a floorplan and a picture of the top-floor roof garden. The garden was smart: stone flagging, interspersed with squares of pebbles, and a covered area where cream awnings stretched across sets of wooden benches.

‘Who pays your rent?’ I asked him.

‘I do.’

‘Bullshit. You work in Redbridge, not Canary Wharf.’

He didn’t reply.

He unlocked the doors into the corridor, and I followed him along to a set of lifts. Doors to our right and left led through to the ground-floor apartments. He called one of the elevators, then turned to me. I was carrying his slipcase over my shoulder and his mobile phone in my hand. The phone had been empty, just like the others, and the laptop, during my brief look at it, needed a six-digit password to get beyond the loading screen.

We rode the elevator up.

When we got to the apartment door, he took out his keys again.

‘This is ridiculous, Da—’

‘Just open the door.’

He unlocked it and we stepped inside.

The apartment was warm. He’d left the heating on. A decent-sized living area bled into an open-plan kitchen, a door leading from it into a bathroom and another into his bedroom. I locked the door and told him to sit in the corner of the room with the lights off. There was enough street light coming in from outside. He did as I asked, his hands no longer tied.

I set the slipcase down and unzipped it. I took out his book and dropped it on the floor, then removed his laptop.

‘Where’s the lead for this?’ I said.

‘At work.’

‘I don’t believe you. Where is it?’

‘At work.’

I took out the gun, moved across the living room and thumped the butt into the side of his head. He jerked sideways, falling off his seat, and rolled on to his back, looking up at me.

‘Shit,’ he said, clutching his face.

‘I’m not playing,’ I said. ‘Where’s the lead?’

He glanced at me, shocked, blood pushing through the skin at the side of his head — then nodded at the TV. There was a power lead snaking out from behind a flatscreen. I took the laptop over to it and plugged it in. It loaded for thirty seconds before stopping at a password screen.

‘What’s your password?’ I asked him.

‘Eleven, forty-one, forty-four.’

I put in the code and the password prompt disappeared.

‘What’s the significance?’ I said.

‘Of what?’

‘The numbers.’

He didn’t reply. I turned and looked at him. He was still nursing the side of his head. He looked woozy. I placed the gun down on the glass table next to me with a clunk. Through the corner of my eye, I saw him looking between me and the gun.

The desktop appeared, loaded with folders. There were four on the right of the screen — Monthly Budgets, Twenties Group, December Sermons and December Scripture — and a further two on the left, Pictures and Contacts. I clicked on Contacts. A second password prompt came up. I tapped in the same code. This time the prompt box juddered and told me I’d put in the wrong password.

‘What’s the password for the folders?’ I asked him, trying Monthly Budgets. It opened immediately, and was full of Excel spreadsheets. The others all opened too. I looked across at Michael. ‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

He just stared at me.

‘You want me to hurt you again?’

He stared at me. Unmoved.

‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

‘Go to the folder marked Pictures.’

‘Give me the password for the Contacts folder.’

‘Humour me.’

‘Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?’

‘Please,’ he said quietly.

My eyes lingered on him, then I double-clicked on the Pictures folder. There were a series of files, about thirty, with filenames like ‘thelastsupper.jpg’ and ‘jesusandpeter_water.jpg’. I opened a couple up. They were paintings of biblical scenes: the virgin birth; Jesus being tempted by the devil; the parable of the two sons; Jesus on the cross.

‘Open “widow-underscore-nain”,’ he said.

‘I haven’t got time for a sermon.’

‘It might answer a few questions for you.’

I looked for the file and found the name halfway down the list. It was a painting of Jesus standing over an open coffin, a widow beside him. A man was sitting up in the coffin.

‘Do you know what the significance of the numbers eleven, forty-one, forty-four are?’

I glanced at him. The expression in his face worried me. He looked like he’d worked out a plan in his head. A way to get back at me. A way to force my hand.

‘Come on, David. We both know why you’re here, why you didn’t turn around and walk the other way the moment you started to feel like you’d waded too deep into the swamp.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘You know what that painting is of? It’s the raising of a man in Nain. Jesus and his disciples visited there after leaving Capernaum, and came across a funeral procession. When Jesus saw the widow weeping for her dead son, he felt compassion for her. He understood her torment, experienced it, almost as if he’d experienced the loss of the boy himself. And he felt so much compassion for the widow that he raised her son from the dead. He raised him from the dead.’

‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

‘There are three accounts of Jesus bringing someone back to life in the Gospels. The young man in Nain, which is in Luke; the daughter of Jairus, which is in all of them except John; and, of course —’

‘What’s the password for the Contac—’

‘— the raising of Lazarus.’

I looked at him and he smiled a little.

‘Some scholars argue that the story of the young man in Nain and the raising of Lazarus are, in fact, one and the same. If that were the case, that would reduce the number of resurrections down to two, Jesus’s own notwithstanding.’

I thought of the photograph of Alex. ‘What’s Lazarus?’

‘Two resurrections.’

‘What’s Lazarus?’

‘I guess, in a way, that’s what you’ve been looking for.’

I picked up the gun.

‘What’s Lazarus?’

‘Two resurrections, right? Alex — and your wife.’

I shot across the living room, rage boiling in me, and wrapped a hand around his throat. He looked up at me, his face reddening as I started to shut off the air to his brain. I pushed the gun into his mouth.

‘Mention her again.’

He blinked once. I stared into his eyes, knowing I was on the cusp of losing control, but knowing even more that what he had said was right. That I’d got this far, waded this deep into the swamp, because somewhere, deep down, I wanted to find Derryn like Mary had found Alex. This wasn’t just a disappearance to me. This was something more.

He blinked again.

This time his expression changed. He was backing down. I released the pressure on his throat, and he breathed; a long drawn-out grasp for air.

‘Don’t ever mention her again.’

He held up both hands.

‘Now tell me what Lazarus is.’

‘Eleven, forty-one, forty-four,’ he said, slightly hoarse.

‘No more riddles.’

‘John, chapter eleven, verse forty-one to forty-four. The raising of Lazarus. When we recruit people, when we help them, that’s what we promise them.’

‘To raise them from the dead?’

‘To give them a new life. A new start.’

‘Is that what you did to Alex?’

‘We helped him.’

‘Is that what you did to him?’

‘We helped him, David.’

‘You’ve got a fucked-up idea of help, you know that?’

He laughed. ‘The one thing we’ve been is consistent. We’ve never drifted from the course we set, whatever the challenges. You…’ He looked me up and down, as if I’d just crawled out of the sewer. ‘You’re running around pretending you’re some sort of — what? — vigilante.’

‘No, I’m not a vigilante.’ I paused, looked at him. ‘You think I wanted any of this? I didn’t want this. But the moment your friends walked me into the middle of nowhere to bury me, everything changed. So, I will hurt you, Michael. If it’s you or me, I will hurt you.’

He nodded. ‘But you’re not a cold-blooded killer, David.’

‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

‘You’re not a killer.’

‘What’s the password?’

He smiled. Said nothing.

I cocked the gun. ‘What’s the password?’

‘You’re not a killer, David.’

I placed the gun against the outside of his thigh.

And pulled the trigger.

The noise was immense: a huge, tearing sound that shattered the silence into millions of pieces. Michael cried out in agony — a tortured wail — and scrabbled around at his leg, clutching the wound as blood oozed out between his fingers.

‘Fuck!’ he shouted, both hands on his leg now, one pressed against the lip of the wound, the other trying to stem the flow of blood. He looked up at me.

Now he was scared.

I sat down at the laptop.

‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

He looked up, as if he couldn’t believe I was still asking.

‘I’ve seen a lot of gunshot wounds,’ I said to him. ‘During my time abroad, I saw a man get shot in the chest and still survive. The outside of the thigh is probably one of the best places to get shot — lots of fat, no major organs nearby. So, unless it’s gone all the way through to the femoral artery, you won’t die. But you’ll definitely die from the next one, because I’ll put it in the middle of your fucking head.’

Michael transferred hands. Both were covered in blood.

‘I’m sick of running from you people. Of being led around in circles while you tell me you’re doing good. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not a cold-blooded killer. But I’ve killed, and I’ll do it again, because I know I’m too far into the darkness not to. So, I’m going to ask you again and for the final time: what’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

He looked, gawping, hesitated. Then: ‘Two, five, one, five.’

I put the code into the password prompt and the Contacts folder opened up. Inside was a Word document. I double-clicked on it. At the top of the document was an address: Stevenshire Farm, Old Tay, nr Lochlanark, Scotland. Beneath that were two other names: Building 1 (Bethany) and Building 2 (Lazarus). And beneath that was a further line: the numbers 2-5-15, followed by a URL.

‘Go to the farm,’ Michael said, his voice starting to fade a little.

I clicked on the URL and the web browser booted up. Within seconds another painting started to load. A man was knelt in front of Jesus, his face lifted to the sky. He was tormented. Eyes like fires. A mouth like the opening of a tomb.

‘What’s two, five, one, five?’

‘The second Gospel, Mark; the fifth chapter; the fifteenth verse. “And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil…”’

And see him that was possessed.

Then it hit me like a sledgehammer.

The man in Cornwall. The same inscription had been tattooed on to his arm.

‘I tried to help you, David. I tried to tell you to turn around and walk away. But you didn’t want to listen. You wanted to wade across the swamp to the darkness beyond. You wanted to see what was on the other side. Well, now you get to find out.’

‘Who is he?’

Michael didn’t reply.

‘Is he in charge?’

‘No, not in charge.’ Michael looked at me. ‘We got him in at the start, just for one thing. His…experience helped us. But then we started needing him more and more, and slowly he became more powerful. Manoeuvred himself. And, after that, he started bringing his own… ideas.’ He stopped, shook his head. ‘So, no, he’s not in charge. But he might be out of control.’

‘So stop him.’

Michael said nothing.

‘Stop him.’

‘He can’t be stopped, David. The God that I know, the God that has your wife, isn’t the same as the God he works for.’

I frowned at him. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘“And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.”’

‘Speak in English.’

‘His name’s Legion…’ Michael said, and glanced towards the laptop, and the painting open on it. ‘“Because many devils were entered into him.”’

I wrapped duct tape around his wrists and ankles until the roll was finished and then bundled him into the corner of the room, tying him to one of the radiators.

‘I’ll phone for an ambulance,’ I said.

‘So you’re not a killer after all?’ Michael said. ‘No — don’t phone for an ambulance. We don’t like to involve the authorities unless necessary. I think you can probably understand why. If I don’t check in every six hours, someone will come for me. It’s a routine we have. A form of protection against people like you. Until then, I’m sure I’ll be fine.’

He studied me while I collected up my things.

‘You know, I never felt any animosity towards you, David. I was always fascinated by you. By the determination you have.’

I didn’t say anything.

He looked down at the wound in his leg. ‘But they will hurt you now.’

‘I’ve already been hurt.’

He shook his head. ‘Not by him.’

He watched me with a look I recognized. I’d seen it before in war zones; in the little pieces of hell I’d walked through and written about. It was the look people had when they were in the middle of a street reduced to rubble, cradling someone they loved in their arms.

It was the look people had when they were gazing into the face of a dead man.

Legion

Legion came out of the darkness and clamped a hand on to the man’s face. The man shifted in the chair, trying to wriggle free, but every effort to lean away from the hard plastic of the mask saw the devil move in closer, eyes darting, breath crackling through the tiny nose holes. The man’s wrists and ankles were bound to the chair; the chair was bolted to the floor. Legion’s fingers dug deeper into his skin. Then, slowly, he turned the man’s head, forcing him to look directly at the mask.

‘Do you know where you are?’

The man shook his head.

‘You’re at the gateway to your next life.’

Legion smiled inside the plastic mouth slit and then pushed his tongue out between his lips. The two ends emerged, wriggling like fat worms breaking the surface of the earth.

‘Oh, God.’

Legion stopped. Stared at him. ‘So, do you believe in God?’

‘Please…’

‘Do you?’

‘I don’t kn—’

‘Do you believe in God?’

He felt alarm move through his chest again. He closed his eyes, trying to prevent himself having to look at the mask. Then, something Rose had said came back to him: ‘Sometimes I think he might actually be the devil.’

He kept his eyes shut and tried to force his arms up, hoping the duct tape might tear. But the harder he tried, the harder Legion pressed his nails into his face. When he stopped trying to fight, the pressure released. He felt blood run down his cheeks, a residue on his skin where Legion’s hand had been. He wanted to touch his face, wanted to wipe himself clean, but he couldn’t move.

Finally, he opened his eyes.

In front of him, Legion placed a hand on the mask and lifted it, up past his chin, his nose, his eyes, until it was on top of his head. His real face was angular and taut, his skin pale, his eyes dark, blood vessels running like a road map across the top of his cheekbones where the skin, bizarrely, appeared almost translucent. He looked in his late forties, but he moved with the purpose and efficiency of someone much younger.

‘I never joined because I believed what they did,’ Legion said, his fingers touching a scar running along his hairline and down to the ridge of his chin. ‘The people here, they believe this is some higher purpose. A calling. A mission from an understanding God.’ Legion moved in closer, putting a finger playfully to his lips. But then he smiled again and there was nothing playful in it; only darkness and menace. ‘Sssshhhhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I just saw this as an opportunity. They needed me to do some dirty work for them. And after I left the army, I needed somewhere to stay.’

He pulled the sleeve up on his right arm.

‘That doesn’t mean I’m not a believer. I just don’t believe in the same God as them. Most of them here, they believe in a God that forgives; a God that will bend to whatever mistakes we make, and sanction a second chance. I don’t. I suppose you could say I’m more of an Old Testament kind of guy.’

He turned his arm so the tattoo was more visible. It was bluey-black, smudged by age, and ran along the centre in two lines, from his wrist to the bend in his arm.

And they were afraid.

He touched a finger to the last four words of the tattoo.

‘I’ve seen the wrath of God. I’ve watched people being blown to pieces. I’ve seen men bleeding out of their eyes. I’ve seen floods and earthquakes. I’ve seen destruction. And you know what? We should be afraid. You should be afraid.’ He paused, pulling the sleeve of his shirt back down. ‘Because God doesn’t forgive. He doesn’t believe in second chances. He punishes. He tears apart. He consumes. And the question I always ask myself when I see Andrew and Michael and all the others preaching about the power of redemption is: if God doesn’t care about me, why the fuck should I care about you?’

Legion stepped aside.

Beyond him, a double door opened up into the next room. It was semi-dark, but the dull glow from a strip light showed what awaited.

‘No,’ the man said. ‘No, please.’

‘This,’ Legion said, waving an arm towards the next room, ‘is my contribution to this place. This is the gateway to your new life.’

In his ears all he could hear was his heart crashing against his ribcage, battering against the walls of his chest. When he tried to swallow, he realized his throat was closing up. Sweat had soaked through to his clothes. Saliva was running down his face. He looked at Legion, then ahead again, into the room where they were going to take him. At the device standing in the middle.

And then he gagged.

His throat forced up whatever he had left, and he leaned forward and let it fall from his lips. It hit the ground and spread, filling the cracks in the concrete; spreading like a disease across the floor. He was breathing heavily now. Struggling to take in air. The panic, the crushing sense of what was in store, felt like it was closing down his body, one organ at a time. His veins were pumping out blood, but nothing was coming back in.

Finally, he summoned the strength to look up again.

Legion was gone.

He glanced left and right. Around him nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. There was no sign of the devil. He swallowed. Tears started filling his eyes.

‘Do you know who Lucifer was?’

A voice, right behind his ear, fierce and violent, like shattered glass.

He whimpered.

A pause. ‘Are you crying?’

He tried to hold the tears back. But then he looked at the device in the other room, a massive, harrowing shape in the darkness, and imagined himself being dragged across the floor towards it. Quietly, he tried to beg for his life again, but as he went to speak, his words got lost. And then he felt a wet patch move out from his groin, along the inside of his leg.

‘Oh dear,’ Legion mocked. ‘Someone’s made a mess.’

In the corner of his eye, he saw Legion loom out of the darkness, about six feet away. The mask was in place again, eyes blinking in the eye holes, tongue moving in the mouth slit.

‘In Ezekiel,’ Legion said, his voice crawling with power, ‘it says, “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so.” It’s talking about Lucifer here. It’s talking about the origins of Satan. “Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.”’ Legion paused. ‘Do you know what that means?’

He shook his head.

‘It means Lucifer had everything he could possibly want. He had God’s ear. But even that wasn’t enough for him. So, God cast him out of heaven.’

The devil glanced to his left, to the room with the device.

‘Do you think a God that cast out one of his own angels can hear you when you beg? Do you? He doesn’t hear anything you say. Nothing. God wants you to be scared of him, cockroach. And he wants you to be scared of me.’ Legion leaned into him. ‘Because I am the real Lucifer. I am God’s right-hand man. I am His messenger.’

‘Please,’ he sobbed.

Legion stepped away, his fingers like a nest of snakes, opening and closing. ‘And His wrath moves through me.’

His skin crawled — the feeling moving up his arms and across his chest — as he stared at the devil. Trying to make eye contact. Trying to look inside the mask, and seek out whatever goodness Legion had left. But as the man in the mask came at him, darkness swirling around him like a cloak, he realized something terrifying: there was no good in him.