Holy Island Trilogy 02 - Nowhere Man (23 page)

On the steps, he bumped into Billy Slone. Small, thick set and bald, Slone was American, the Family Slone having migrated there from Egypt two hundred years ago. His family specialised in pharmaceuticals.

As they shook hands, Slone said in a quiet voice, ‘We need to talk, somewhere private.’

Prince Carl turned to the porter who was standing behind him. ‘Put those in my room.’ Turning back to Slone, he said, ‘Fancy a stroll?’

‘Yeah. Why not?’ Slone smiled.

Together they went down the steps and, guessing rightly that Slone, a rose lover and grower, would head for the rose garden, Prince Carl fell into step beside him.

‘So, how’s things?’ Slone asked.

‘Please, you know I’m not here for your company.’

‘Well, if you put it bluntly, neither am I. You are a rather boring piece of work.’

‘Thank you.’

Slone burst out laughing. ‘Come on, Carl, you know I’m only joking.’

‘Are you, though?’

Slone heaved a sigh. ‘Look, I’ve told you I’m on your side. I don’t want the peasants culled any more than you do. If they go, who am I going to sell my pills to?’ He grinned.

‘Look, no more pissing about, Slone. We both know that there are wars going on around the world that have been deliberately started, just to cut the numbers down. Maniacs left in charge of countries because we want them there, no other reason than that, Because it’s good for us. But it’s time for change. Let them be. What the hell more do we need? Enough bloodshed, I say.’

‘Well, that’s been done before, remember? How many dead in the last world war? It worked, as well.’

‘What!’

‘All I’m saying is, Carl, that sometimes it’s necessary to cull them. They breed at such an alarming rate. Why can't they all do what China does? One child.’

‘Because the west wouldn’t go for it. There would be massive uprisings.’

‘Now, there’s a thought.’

‘Please, you’ve got to help me stop this-this plan.’

‘Lighten up, Carl. ‘I’ve already told you that I’m with you. Now chillax, as they say, and look at these gorgeous roses. And the scent.’ He stopped walking and sniffed the air. ‘And the colours! Have you ever seen anything more beautiful? I love coming here, the garden's a delight… Instead of stressing about the peasants, Carl, take pleasure in what’s around you.’

Prince Carl couldn’t believe what he was hearing. All those lives at stake, and all this prat was bothered about was a garden full of fucking roses. Am I the only sane one left?

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Mike spotted the guy who had been following him for the last hour. He was standing outside the Tesco Express, trying to see in through the window. Mike was watching him over the top of the tins of baked beans. The man turned to look in his direction, and Mike ducked.

Who the----? he wondered. A more scrawny, skinny wreck of a man would be hard to find. He looked like an alkie who had not seen the inside of a shower cubicle for months.

Circling the store, walking out behind the checkout tills while the man looked anywhere but at him, Mike was outside in moments and tapping the man on his shoulder. The man spun round and gaped at Mike, showing brown stumps of uneven teeth. ‘You!’

‘Yes, me.’

How did you----?’

‘It was easy.’

‘Oh.’

‘Why are you following me?’

‘Because I was told to.’

Mike sighed, wondering whether to play rough- 'cause it certainly wouldn’t take much to frighten this one-sentence guy-or just carry on being polite, for the sake of anonymity. Choosing the latter, he said, ‘So who told you?’

‘Rita.’

‘Rita!’

The man nodded. ’Yes, Rita.’

‘So how long are you supposed to follow me around, and why?’

‘Dunno.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know? You don’t know for how long, or you don’t know why?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

The man shrugged. Staring at Mike, he smiled. Mike was trying really hard not to clench his teeth and yell at him, even though he was driving Mike crazy, when the man said, ‘She’ll tell me when we get close.’

‘So you’re just going to follow me around until we get close to Rita?’

He nodded again.

‘Why, for fuck's sake?’

‘Rita’s busy with Smiler.’

‘What?’

‘Rita’s----’

Mike stopped him. ‘Yes, I heard.’ Mike’s emotions were mixed to find that Smiler had disobeyed him and come down to London. ‘The little sod,’ he muttered.

Honestly, don’t know why I’m surprised. Bet he’s got the mutt with him an’ all.

He looked at the man. ‘OK, where do we go from here?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Don’t you know where Rita lives?’

‘No, but she’ll find me.’ He pointed with a nicotine stained finger to his head. ‘In here.’

Not another one, Mike thought. Shaking his own head, he turned away and headed up the street. Pulling his cigarettes out, he lit one up and was about to put them away when the man who was dogging his steps said, ’Can I have one of those, please?’

Turning round, Mike handed him a cigarette. For a moment he smiled, knowing that it was usually he who was bumming cigarettes off people. ‘Plan on following me forever?’ he asked, the smile fading.

‘Thank you,’ the man said, taking the cigarette and putting it between his lips, before mumbling out the corner of his mouth, ‘Only until Rita says she’s ready for you.’

‘Anything I can do to discourage you?’

The man shook his head, then lit the cigarette up.

‘Are we near her?’

‘Don’t know.’ He took a draw off his cigarette.

‘So you’ve got no idea where she lives?’

‘No.’ He took another draw.

‘Fucking hell. You taking the piss or what?’

Again, he shook his head.

‘OK.’ Mike shrugged and, turning, continued on his way, his stalker still in tow.

They were near the Houses of Parliament when Mike heard a gurgling sound behind him. He turned to see his personal stalker land on his knees and clutch at his throat. Frowning, Mike bent down to help him, but before his outstretched hand could touch the man, he was surrounded on all sides, a black sack pulled quickly down over his head.

Mike tried gamely to fight, but there were too many of them. He felt himself lifted off his feet and carried to his right, where he knew he’d just passed a side street. He tried to yell, but was punched in the side of his head. The next moment he was bundled into a car.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Smiler was watching the TV, but not really taking in what was on the screen-some wildlife programme about a pride of lions, which actually looked quite tame. Probably out of some zoo, he was thinking, when Rita came into the room. She was wearing a short blue skirt, with a cream top and matching cardigan. Smiler guessed she didn’t realise just how much she blended in with the walls. Or, then again, he thought, what do I know?

‘I thought you would be more comfortable hearing what I have to say from me,’ Rita said.

His heart rate picking up, Smiler gave Rita a brief nod. He was actually dreading what was coming. He’d buried his mother and her evil ways a long time ago, and was not too keen on having her resurrected again.

‘OK.’ Rita sat down. ‘Your mother. I know you’ve picked up a lot from me, as well as the buzz on the streets. But there’s a lot you don’t know. You’ve met the young girl next door.’ He motioned with his head to the room.

Smiler nodded, staring at Rita, praying for her to hurry up and get on with it.

‘Well, once over, that was your mother.’

‘You mean----?’

‘Yes. She was once a prisoner of the Families. But not like Lynne, sold, used and abused. No, your mother was in the same place as my mother - an experimental lab.’

‘What, like them poor smoking dogs?’

‘Not quite, this was…
is
a laboratory that deals in all things of the mind. That’s how you and I, and quite a few others, are the way we are today.’

‘You mean, like we inherited it?’

‘Yes. Believe me, this was a side effect they never even dreamed of, and are now doing their very best to eradicate. They know that some of us are out here, but even their best can’t find us. They first started these experiments in the 30s, between wars, to breed an army that would do everything they were told to do -even turning on their own  if needed-and whose legions could be controlled by thought alone. They actually engineered both wars to whittle the population down, and in their paranoia decided they needed their own private army in case the population found out about the Families and turned on them.’

Smiler stared at the floor, his mind in a turmoil. On first thoughts, it seemed a bit far-fetched, but he’d read books about experiments done between and during the wars, even seen pictures that were so horrendous he’d cried in secret, hidden away down some dark alley or at the back of the library where no one ever went. So God only knew what had been hidden from the general public and never made it into print. 

‘OK, so what about----’

‘Your mother.’

Smiler took a deep breath, let it out, and said, ‘Yes.’

‘She escaped. I don’t know how, but she must have been very brave. From what I’ve been told, she was pregnant with you before they captured her, only no one knew. Least of all your mother.’

‘But why did they take her in the first place? Why her, out of all the other fucking girls she must have known? Any particular reason, or was she just randomly picked off the street?’

At that moment, things began to change for Smiler. His mother, who he had hated for as long as he could remember, had been as much a pawn in all of this as he was.

‘Because,’ Rita answered, 'she was one of the special ones. As a child, she must have shown very high cognitive powers without even knowing it. A conversation overheard, a form filled in. A teacher's report in her early years. Because once upon a time, our sixth sense was stronger than it is now, much stronger. The Families decided to weed it out centuries ago. And trust me, their spies are everywhere. Anyhow, she did manage to escape, and was found by one of the sisterhood. You were born in the room that Lynne is in now.’

Smiler gulped. He looked around with fresh eyes, before saying, ‘So, how did she end up on the streets?’

‘I was only about twelve at the time, my own mother had escaped years before, there were eleven escapees in that decade.’

‘Eleven in ten years!

‘And that was a good total. Anyhow from what I’m told, your mother just disappeared off the radar. They tried to find her, but she was clever, your mother. I’m told that the reason she took to drink and drugs was to mask it all out. She knew that the sisterhood were against such things, but she couldn’t stand it any more. The constant buzz in her head was driving her crazy.’

‘So she took me to hell instead.’

Rita sighed. ‘They tried to find her, Smiler.’

Smiler jumped up. Pushing his chair over, he shouted, ‘Look at me! Look at my face! They didn’t fucking try hard enough.’ He started walking back and forth, his body trembling. Suddenly he stopped, and faced Rita. ‘Look at this.’ He pulled his sleeve up, exposing slash mark after slash mark, a whole train track of scars. Unrolling that sleeve, he pulled up the other one, where the lines were repeated. ‘Look at me. Take a good look, you fucking bastard.’

Sensing his distress, Tiny whined and nudged him with his nose, but Smiler ignored him. Rita had been prepared for this outburst. Calmly, she stood and said, ‘They did try, Smiler, but drink and drugs mask any signals coming from the mind. Your mother knew this, and it's what she chose to do. Probably the only thing she could do.’

Smiler sat back down. Tiny, staring up at Smiler’s face, got as close as he could and rested his head on Smiler's knee.

‘So,’ Smiler said after a minute, staring at the top of the dog's head. ‘Where’s your mother? Bet she didn’t treat you the way mine treated me.’

Rita knew that the presence of the dog had a calming effect on Smiler. It had worked before with others. The safe houses scattered around the country had been home to many cats and dogs.

‘She’s with them,’ she said quietly.

‘What!’

Rita nodded. ‘She was recaptured when I was seven. The sisterhood brought me up----’

Suddenly Rita stopped talking. Smiler, who had been about to say something, stared at her. He knew why her face showed shock. He had felt the emptiness at the same moment.

‘Mike's gone. He…he’s nowhere.’

Rita muttered. ‘Nowhere Man.’

‘Is he dead?’

Rita shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

CHAPTER SIXTY

Aunt May put the phone down as Brother David came in from the garden. He was carrying a basket full of freshly picked carrots. ‘Good crop this year, Aunt May.’ He smiled. ‘So, now you’ve had your nap, are you going to tell me more?’

‘OK, bloody well sit down then, or I’ll have a stiff neck in the morning from staring up at you.’

Brother David took the basket into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. Placing it within reach on the coffee table, he sat down and looked expectantly at Aunt May.

‘You know quite a bit about the Families, but trust me-it’s not them you have to fear, so much as their agents.’

‘Agents?’

‘Yup. These are the ones who really hold the reins. The Families make the decisions, or think they do. But the basic day to day running is left to the agents, who sometimes just tell the Families what they want to hear.’

‘So it's wheels within wheels.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Right then, dear. I wish you would stop going round in circles and tell me exactly what it is we’re facing here.’

‘Death.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, which is why you have to lose the bloody sackcloth and get some ordinary clothes. As soon as you step off the island, maybe even while you’re on it, you’ll be recognised at once. There’s a bloody price on your head.’

Brother David’s face paled to an off-white colour. ‘When were you going to tell me?’

‘About two minutes ago, as soon as I got the bloody phone call, OK? So move it. We’ve got to get off the island tonight.’