Connected (18 page)

Of course, he had lied to Isabelle about the true
nature of the files. He had told her they were part of a proposal he had been
asked to update for a client. When it came to lying, Peter’s strategy was
always to stay as close to the truth as possible and provide more accurate
details than were strictly necessary to convey the essential information. It
was a technique he had developed to avoid unnecessary confrontations with
Abigail, and over the years he had become rather skilled at it. By staying
close to the truth, he could just about make himself believe that it actually
was the truth. This meant that any non-verbal communication cues which might
otherwise betray the discomfort of deceit, would be more consistent with
verisimilitude.
“Well, personally, of course, I’m very glad you did come,” she said.
“Me too,” said Peter, holding her gaze just a little too long.

By the time they had finished loading the
dishwasher and tidying up the kitchen, it was eleven thirty and sleep was dragging
heavily on Peter’s mind and body. He had wanted to retrieve the files from
Martin’s PC before going to bed, but he could no longer summon the motivation.
“Fancy a quick nightcap?” asked Isabelle, taking a bottle of Cognac from the
cupboard and waving it at him invitingly.
“Just a quick one perhaps.”
She produced a couple of snifters, and they retired to the living room.
“So what time do you need to leave in the morning?” she asked, sitting down
tiredly on the sofa and filling the glasses.
“Well, I reckon I can get away with showing up in Bracknell by 1pm. That would
mean leaving here about 8:30.”
He sat down beside her and sipped the brandy.
“What if you run into more traffic on the way down.”
“Shouldn’t be too bad on a Saturday morning, but if I do, then I suppose I’ll
just have to be late,” he said with a grin.
She grinned back. “Breakfast at eight then?
“That would be lovely. I’ll get up a bit earlier so I can pull those files
off.”
She looked down at the brandy glass, cradled in the palm of her hand, and
circling slowly. “Listen, about last week…” she started.
“It’s okay,” he interrupted softly. “There’s no need to say anything. You were
upset and feeling vulnerable, that’s all.”
She looked at him, her large brown eyes starting to mist. She opened her mouth
to speak, then closed it again, taking another sip of brandy instead. “You’re
right, I’m sorry I brought it up again.”
Peter placed his glass on the table and turned to her. “Come here and give me a
hug.”
“Oh Peter, I’m sorry,” she said again, starting to cry.
He held her for some minutes, while she sobbed into his shoulder, and then he
patted her gently on the back. “Come on, let’s finish this fine Cognac and call
it a night. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Within minutes of his head hitting the pillow,
Peter fell into a deep sleep. Through the early hours of the morning, a
succession of hazy thoughts, sensations and images tried to find narrative in
the form of a dream. Images of Isabelle, Abigail, endless miles of road, cars,
lorries, more road, Abigail, Isabelle again, assaulted his mind. Now a flashing
blue light in the rear mirror. Pulling over, light flashing, stopped on the
hard shoulder. It’s Abigail getting out of the patrol car. How to explain
Isabelle in the passenger seat? Why are we naked? Abigail has just smashed the
rear window with a tyre iron, and is moving round to Isabelle’s window, iron
swinging, another loud smashing sound.

Peter woke up with a start. Squinting at his watch
- three am – he lay staring at the ceiling reflecting on the dream. Suddenly he
heard a noise from downstairs. He held his breath, listening for another. A dog
barked in the distance, then it came again - a scraping sound as if something
heavy was being dragged across the floor. Why would Isabelle be moving
furniture around at this time? Unless of course…it wasn’t Isabelle. He got
quietly out of bed and grabbed the dressing gown hanging on the door. He made
his way slowly downstairs, hoping the floorboards wouldn’t creak. One did, and
he froze, straining to hear past the sound of blood whooshing through his ears.
The muffled whisper of a man’s voice seemed to be coming from the study. It
sounded east European. He listened for another, but it stopped, and then there
was silence. A solitary burglar surely wouldn’t whisper to himself - unless of
course, he happened to be psychotic – which meant he was either facing multiple
burglars or a psychotic individual. Feeling disinclined to find out which, he
returned as quietly as he could to the spare room, picked up the mobile and
dialled 999.

After giving the necessary details, and being
assured that the police would be there within fifteen to twenty minutes, he
decided to head into Isabelle’s room. He didn’t want to alarm her or, for that
matter, risk her alarming the intruders, but at the same time, he couldn’t
leave her alone, while strange men were roaming the house. He rocked her
shoulder and called her name softly, while holding one finger to his mouth in
the “Shush” position.
“Peter! What is it?” she said, a little too loudly.
“Shush! We have burglars downstairs. I’ve called the police and they’re on
their way. Panic filled her eyes, and she sat up quickly, causing the bed
springs to squeak. They listened as the sound of footsteps was followed by a
muffled thud, as two hard surfaces momentarily knocked together.
“I have to do something!” whispered Peter, feeling wimpy and pathetic.
“No, you mustn’t!” whispered Isabelle, more loudly. “You might get hurt.
There’s nothing down there that’s worth the risk. They can take whatever they
like. Besides, it’s all insured.”
Peter crept to the door he’d left slightly ajar and peered through the crack.
“If they come anywhere near the stairs, I’m going to have a go at them.”
He looked around the room and picked up a small brass statue of a horse,
testing its weight. It felt just about heavy enough to really piss someone off,
without actually stopping them. He put it down again and glanced at his watch.
Where were the police? Just then, they heard the crunch of footsteps on the
gravel outside followed by some angry whispering. Isabelle tiptoed over and
lifted the curtain, as Peter joined her. Three dark shapes were crossing the
lawn away from the house. At least two appeared to be carrying something.
“Where are those fucking police?” said Peter angrily.
“The nearest station is twenty minutes away,” said Isabelle, “unless there
happened to be a car in the neighbourhood, there’s no way they’ll make it in
less than that.”
Shortly, the ignition of a diesel engine rattled out of the darkness. They
listened, simultaneously relieved and frustrated, as it accelerated off, the
sound rising and falling with the shifting gears and then growing steadily
fainter until they could hear it no longer. “I suppose we had better go down
and see what they’ve taken,” said Peter eventually.

One of the panes of the sash window in the study
had been broken allowing the intruders to open it fully and climb in over the
desk. The desk, now bearing the wet muddy footprints, had then apparently been
dragged to one side, presumably to provide better access to the now absent
computer base unit. He scanned the room slowly and noticed a gap where the
midi-system had once sat. Everything else, including the printer and
synthesiser appeared to be untouched. So much for that Dream-Zone combo file he
thought. If only he had recovered it before going to bed. Isabelle was
clutching his upper arm and still looking fearful.
“It’s all right!” he said, placing his arm around her shoulders. “They’re gone.
And by the look of it, all you’ve lost is a few hundred pounds worth of PC and
Hi-Fi. And even that should be covered by your contents insurance.”
“But they were here - in my house.” Her expression was turning to anger and
revulsion. “How dare these people invade the privacy of my home like that.
Touching all my things with their dirty hands.” She leant over to rub at one of
the footprints on the desk, but Peter held her arm.
“No, we should leave that for the police.”
They completed a cursory tour of the ground floor, but all the other rooms
appeared undisturbed. Presently, a flash of blue light appeared at the window,
followed by the sound of tyres on gravel.

Peter recounted events to the two young constables,
while Isabelle made some tea.
“East European, you say?” said one.
“I don’t know, they were only whispering, so I’m not really sure.”
“Polish?” One of them asked, glancing at the other, as though this somehow
explained everything.
“Maybe – or Russian perhaps, I don’t know, something like that.”
The policemen drunk their tea gratefully, explaining how someone would be along
in the morning to check for prints, but not sounding too optimistic.

Peter and Isabelle showed the officers out, and
retired upstairs for the second time that night. It was now almost four in the
morning, but Peter no longer felt tired. Or rather his body was tired, while
his mind was not. After a few minutes, there was a quiet knock at his bedroom
door.
“Peter, are you awake?”
He sat up, as Isabelle entered the room, her diaphanous white nightdress fluttering
gently in an unfelt breeze.
She approached the bed, “Would you mind terribly if I lay here with you for the
rest of the night? It’s just that I keep imagining someone breaking in again.”
For a moment, he sat there agog, lost in fantasy. “Of course not”, he finally
murmured.
She climbed slowly under the covers and curled up with her back to him. He lay
down beside her, staring at the long dark hair on the pillow, taking in its
scent, and listening to the rhythm of her breath - fast and irregular - not the
rhythm of sleep - more like anticipation. He reached out and gently stroked her
hair. She rolled over to face him, her eyes glistening in the dim light of the
stars. “Hold me Peter!” she said, her voice not quite a whisper.

The exercise bike shifted its programme to “hill-climb”,
and Doug felt his thigh muscles start to burn. He pushed harder, trying to keep
the speed constant while turning up the volume on his iPod, in an attempt to
distract himself from the three inches of quivering buttock crack perched on
the machine in front. He didn’t know the girl’s name, just that she had started
showing up in computing lectures since the beginning of term. He and Kal had
rather ungraciously debated as to whether she was pregnant.
Doug had
first assumed she must be, but Kal had bet him a tenner it was just fat.
Observing now how the gelatinous mass overhanging her shorts rippled with each
rotation of the peddles, he realised the money would have been Kal’s. He had never
quite understood how any rational person could allow themselves to get into
such a state. While studying for A-levels, he had gained almost a stone, but
facing increasing derision from classmates, had immediately cut down on the
Snickers bars and started jogging. Over a few brief months, the fat had mostly
disappeared, and ever since then, regular jogging combined with rugby and
weight training had kept him reasonably trim. Recently, some lardy moron at the
cafeteria had told him how lucky he was to have the sort of metabolism which
prevented weight gain. He had replied that the real luck lay in his possession
of a mirror and enough self esteem to want to preserve a semblance of good
health. Luck had nothing to do with it. Everybody makes choices, he had argued,
and some, it would seem, willingly make the choice to continue stuffing their
fat faces with junk while doing nothing to burn off the resulting calories. At
least the girl in front appeared to be doing something about it. If she could
just lower the calorie intake by a couple of thousand a day, she might start to
get somewhere, he thought.

The bike shifted back to a simulation of flat road,
and he shut his eyes, imagining himself on some country path, with cooling
breeze and a vista of rolling green hills, rather than the current choice of
wobbling bottom or yellow brick wall. He much preferred running to this sort of
cardiovascular work-out at the gym, but for now, with his cheek aching on each
repeated impact of his running shoes, he was condemned to the sweaty
yellow-walled interior of the university fitness room, at least until the bones
of his face had knitted together a little more convincingly.

As one of his favourite Green Day songs came to an
end, it was replaced, unexpectedly, with the rapidly rising and falling tone
sequences of Dream-Zone. He stopped peddling for a moment to look at the iPod
display. It was one of the audio files downloaded the previous week while in
hospital. Although he hadn’t deliberately transferred them from his laptop to
the iPod, he realised the software must have done it automatically, while the
device was charging. He pressed the replay button, shut his eyes, and resumed
peddling. He was now flying effortlessly along the country path, moving faster
and faster. The fields on either side were becoming gradually obscured by a
rambling hedgerow that appeared to be growing in height as he went along. As
the speed increased, the hedges melded into two blurred walls of lime green
vegetation that began to arch together over his head, until the dark blue line
of sky disappeared into a shady verdant tunnel. Faster and faster he went, as
the mottled green walls rushed by. Dappled sunlight broke through, creating
intermittent shafts of intense brightness, which flashed as he passed, like
some crazy disco strobe. He felt as light as the air itself. Looking down, he
saw that the bicycle had vanished, and he was floating above the same
indeterminate green of the tunnel walls. Everything was now passing at
incredible speed, and yet he felt safe and secure. Then the tunnel was gone,
and he was shooting out into a black featureless void. Ahead, a small point of
light appeared. As he approached, he could make out the silhouette of Cindy
standing precariously on a narrow towering pedestal extending hundreds of feet
into black nothingness. She reached out to him, desperately, but as he neared,
the pedestal started to crumble beneath her. He leant forwards, trying to grasp
her hands, but remained frustratingly out of reach. Her pleading eyes
registered fear, disappointment, and finally sad acceptance as, with arms
outstretched, she fell backwards, swiftly receding into the darkness until she
was no more than a dot, and then she was gone.