November (10 page)

I called Nelson on my way to the local
news-agency
, and filled him in on the money situation. He sounded pretty impressed, and promised he’d give the go-ahead to his contact to begin my fake passport. I still needed to get a photo to him.

Even from a distance, I recognised the familiar face flapping on the front pages of the newspapers. I crept up to get a closer look and almost burst out laughing. Underneath the
headline
‘Bad Kitty’, in grainy black and white, was a huge picture of Oriana de la Force’s furious face. But that’s not what I was laughing at. Her nose had been coloured in black, with what looked like the same thick, indelible ink that had been used on my ankle, and drawn across her cheeks were long, black cat’s whiskers! She was caught snarling like a wildcat! It was clear the feline features were Kelvin’s handiwork.

‘In light of new evidence,’ I read, ‘Ms de la Force is again facing charges over the kidnapping of Gabbi Ormond, younger sister of the infamous teen fugitive Callum Ormond. Charges brought against de la Force last month were quickly dropped, and she believes the allegations will be dropped again. She has accused her ex-employee of fabricating evidence against her and also for assault after a struggle in which she alleges he
attacked her,’ I read, ‘and “violated her face”. She has vowed to fight the charges once more, insisting sixteen-year-old Callum Ormond was responsible for the kidnapping of his sister, and that she can prove it. De la Force has been released on bail pending further court
appearances
.’

I quickly headed away from the newsstand as a few people gathered around to see the headline.

Some crazy thoughts started rushing through my mind. If the cops had evidence proving Oriana was responsible for Gabbi’s kidnapping, maybe the bigger truth would come out and my name would be cleared. The authorities would realise I’m innocent. Surely my mum would see that too.

It felt like a lifetime had passed since I’d spoken to Dad’s old colleague Eric Blair, and I couldn’t believe it had taken a reminder from Winter to make me call him again. He’d been a tough guy to get in touch with. First he’d been on sick leave, and then he was travelling for business.

I had no guarantees that I could even trust the guy—for all he knew I was a violent psychopath—
but I had to take the risk. I grabbed my phone and dialled his office number.

‘You’re back,’ I said, automatically, when he answered. ‘It’s Callum Ormond here.’

‘Hello Callum,’ he replied, slowly.

‘I don’t know if I can trust you and you’re probably thinking the same thing about me, but I really need to talk to you. Sooner rather than later. I’m running out of time.’

He was quiet.

‘Do you trust me?’ I blurted out.

‘I don’t believe everything I’ve read,’ he answered calmly.

‘Well that’s a start.’

‘I just saw on the news that Oriana de la Force has been charged again for the kidnapping of your little sister. I don’t believe you were involved in that.’

‘Good, because I wasn’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve only ever wanted to protect her. Will you meet up with me? Somewhere secluded? Somewhere safe?’

Eric was silent for a moment.

‘Listen, I have a suggestion,’ he said. ‘I have a personal office space—just one small room, down near the waterside. I used to use it as a base for freelance work, but these days it’s more like a storage unit. No-one has access to it but me. I could meet you there?’

I hesitated, trying to picture the location he was talking about, and how safe it would be for me.

‘You’d be safe,’ he said, like a mind-reader, ‘as long as you’re only interested in talking.’

His voice was warm and friendly, even though he kept it very low.

‘I mean you no harm,’ I reassured him. ‘It’s just that there’s a lot of mystery surrounding Dad’s death and his final movements in Ireland. I’m desperate to find out anything you can
possibly
tell me about your trip with him. That’s all I’m after, I swear.’

‘Cal, your dad was one of my dearest friends. I always admired his work, his integrity and his love for his family. I’m happy to meet you, but to be honest, I don’t know that I have much insight to offer you, so please don’t get your hopes up.’

‘Give me a time and the address,’ I said, ‘and I’ll be there. No expectations.’

I sat back on the treehouse bench, eating
handfuls
of peanuts. I had plenty of time to think about how to approach Eric Blair before our
meeting
, but I was already getting anxious. I couldn’t imagine a friend of Dad’s being a bad guy. But these days, trust was hard to come by.

17 NOVEMBER

45 days to go …

I set off towards the address Eric Blair had given me, wearing a new light-grey hoodie pulled around my face. I’d told Eric I’d be coming with no expectations, but that wasn’t entirely true. I was totally counting on this guy giving me
valuable
information about my dad and maybe even the Ormond Singularity.

I was a few hours early—we’d arranged to meet at six—but I wanted to scope the place out thoroughly before approaching the office, making sure I wasn’t walking into a trap. At the
slightest
hint of danger, I wanted to be able to bolt.

Just as I was thinking this, I spotted Griff Kirby across the road, staring hard at me.

A jolt of fear tore through me. What was he up to this time?

Then I saw he wasn’t staring at me, but beyond me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I swung round.

Too late! Two burly men, one a huge Polynesian guy with long, shiny black hair, and the other an equally bulky guy who’s face was vaguely
familiar
, were about to pounce on me.

‘That’s Ormond! That’s him!’ yelled Griff, pointing me out.

I glared at him.
The rat!

I swore out loud, twisting away and trying to run, but I’d missed my chance! My shock at Griff’s betrayal robbed me of vital seconds. I should have known better! The two men quickly overpowered me. One of them had me in a headlock, while the other lifted my legs and dragged me towards a car—a black limousine that looked like a hearse.

‘Let go of me!’ I shouted, kicking and
struggling
as hard as I could. Then I thought of Eric Blair—had he tricked me and set this up?

But our meeting wasn’t for another few hours. It was early, way too early for it to be a set-up. Wasn’t it? Either way, Griff Kirby would pay for this.

‘It’s OK, boy. Stop struggling and you won’t get hurt,’ said a gruff voice in my ear.

‘It’s like trying to wrestle a giant electric eel!’ said the other guy. ‘Relax, kid!’

‘If you want me to relax, let me go!’ I shouted, trying to brace myself so that they’d have a hard time getting me into the car.

I stuck my legs out and gripped the roof of the car with my hands. But a sudden kick behind the knees, combined with a hard shove, collapsed me completely and I was bundled into the back of the limo.

‘Who are you? What do you want with me?’ I yelled, struggling uselessly as the burly
Polynesian
practically sat on me. The car took off with great speed.

‘If you just behave, calm down and be a good boy, we’ll tell you,’ said the other guy, now behind the wheel.

‘Fine, go on.’

‘Murray Durham wants a word with you.’

At the sound of that name, I went limp.
Murray
‘Toecutter’ Durham! Murray Durham was the biggest and most powerful criminal in the country. Sligo must have called in a favour, or paid Durham to take me down. Or, worse, what if Durham wanted me dead himself? That’s when I recognised the driver—he was one of Toecutter’s bodyguards! He was the one who was watching a war movie on the couch on the night Winter and I broke into her old house to retrieve her locket. He’d also been at Sligo’s interrupted banquet, alongside his boss.

I was in real trouble. And Griff Kirby had fingered me. Fear iced over every cell in my body
and I shivered. I was convinced I was
experiencing
my last moments alive. I’d never meet with Eric Blair, I’d never see Mum, Rafe and Gabbi again, or Boges and Winter.

These thoughts turned me ferocious. I went totally feral, punching, lashing out, kicking, trying to get into the front seat. If I could just wrench the wheel around and crash the car, I could make a break for it. But the big Polynesian hauled me back. As I looked at his face, he didn’t look that threatening. He actually looked a bit concerned.

‘It’s OK, kid,’ he said. ‘Nobody wants to hurt you. The boss just wants to have a little talk with you.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said, trying to keep my voice firm. ‘What does he want to talk to me about?’

‘It’s a personal matter,’ he muttered. ‘Private and personal. Just wait until you meet with him, OK?’

The limousine finally slowed, turning onto a driveway as tall, automatic gates opened to let us through. Panicked thoughts raced through my mind. Did Durham want to know something about the Ormond Singularity? Maybe he’d
torture
me to find out …

But Rathbone had crossed ‘Toecutter’
off
his list.

The car pulled up in a garage, and the door closed behind us. I was pulled out and escorted along an endless terrace. The lawns of this place were as big as the Botanical Gardens, planted with rows and rows of trees, and dotted with hedges carved into incredible shapes—camels, rearing horses, a T-rex, the Statue of Liberty and a racing car. ‘Topiary’ was the name of this manicured way of shaping trees, I recalled, wondering how I could remember something so useless at a time like this.

After a lengthy march along the terrace, we finally came to an elaborate marbled entrance. The house looked like a smaller version of
Buckingham
Palace.

My captors hauled me through the doors and into what looked like acres of marbled floors, decorated with lavish gold and velvet furniture. On the walls hung enormous old oil paintings and tapestries. In the middle of this acreage, a huge, white fountain splashed water into a circular pool filled with colourful koi fish.

‘This way,’ said the Polynesian, keeping a firm hold on my arm as we walked down an endless hallway. The driver of the car had disappeared.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘Like I said, the boss wants a private chat with you. I’m taking you to him.’

Finally we paused outside a closed door. The Polynesian knocked on it, surprisingly softly. ‘The boss is not a well man,’ he whispered to me. ‘I’m just warning you.’

Warning
me
?

From inside I heard a faint voice.

‘Who is it?’

‘Ezekiel, boss. Got the kid with me.’

With that, Ezekiel opened the door and pushed me inside.

I stumbled into the room. I had to blink because I couldn’t see properly. The room was dark—almost as dark as Dr Leporello’s creepy fungi-filled study. Once my eyes adjusted, I could just make out the figure of a man lying in a
king-size
timber bed, draped in red satin. He heaved himself up, leaning crookedly on his pillows.

‘Come over here, kid. Where I can see you.’

Ezekiel, the big Polynesian, nodded at me, telling me to do as Durham said.

I stepped up to the end of the bed and started taking in the features of the sick person in front of me. At one point, Murray Durham had been a big man, but I remembered that he’d looked pretty frail and sick at Sligo’s banquet. Now he looked ten times worse. My body was shaking, but I stood tall, hoping that the courage of Piers Ormond would get me through whatever might happen next.

I could tell from the skin hanging loose on his face that Toecutter had lost a lot of weight, and even in the shadows I could see bruising around his eyes. His skin was grey—like the
haggard
appearances of my dad and of Great-uncle Bartholomew, just before they died. Magnified in a glass of water by the bed were his false teeth.

‘Are you Callum Ormond, son?’ he asked. His voice, although gruff, was weak and almost kind.

‘I am,’ I said. There was no point in denying it.

For a long moment, he stared at me, silently. I shifted uncomfortably until finally he spoke again.

‘I’m dying, son.’

I didn’t know what to say. I just hoped that his last wish wasn’t to rid the world of Callum Ormond.

‘What do you have to say about that?’ he urged.

‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ I said, awkwardly.

‘You needn’t be sorry. It’s something we all have to go through. Death is cruel—so very cruel—but life cannot exist without it. I haven’t lived a good life, son. I’ve done a lot of bad things. Things that were against the law—unspeakable things. People have feared me all my life. Are you afraid of me?’

I didn’t want to admit that I was. ‘Why did you bring me here?’ I asked, avoiding the question.

‘You’re a brave lad, I can tell that. But you don’t have anything to fear from me.
Understood
?’

I didn’t say anything, but he continued
anyway
.

‘I’ve committed many crimes in my life. So many bad, bad things. And I know I’ll face the consequences when I go to meet my maker. But before that time comes, there’s something I need to get off my chest.’

He paused again, and my mind was
searching
for a reason why I was standing by his bed, listening to him reflect on his life.

‘Most of the bad things I did because I had to,’ he said. ‘This is a tough city and if you want to stay on top, you have to be tougher than
everybody
else. You can’t let things get to you. I don’t regret the things I did to keep my affairs in order, exactly. But there has always been one thing I’ve never quite been able to … to
live
with.’

A terrible coughing fit suddenly convulsed through Durham’s body, and his claw-like hands groped around for something. I looked to the door, about to call for help, when a male nurse, stethoscope bumping on his chest, ran into the
room and raced to the choking man’s side. The nurse picked up an inhaler from the floor and helped Durham insert it in his mouth. He took some desperate breaths, sucked in the vapour from the inhaler, and soon his wild eyes relaxed, and the coughing eased.

‘You mustn’t tire yourself, Mr Durham,’ the nurse scolded, looking across at me
disapprovingly
, as he plumped up the pillows behind the old man’s head.

‘I’m all right now,’ Durham replied, sipping from a glass of water. ‘I’ll call you if I need you again. Leave me now.’

With a frown, the nurse left the room.

I sat down on a chair that rested beside the bed. When Durham started speaking again, his voice was even weaker. I leaned in closer to him.

‘When you’re young, you don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You can’t see the future, so you don’t consider how one wrong choice can lead to a life like mine—the life of a career criminal.’

I thought of Repro and how he was now forced to live underground, on the run from the very man who lay dying in front of me. He’d made a bad decision to use his skills in the service of criminals.

‘When I did my first car-jacking, I was sixteen.
I had a good brain, the teachers used to tell me, but I didn’t listen to them. What would they know, I thought to myself. I’d never really done anything bad before that, but after the car-
jacking
I thought I was tough and cool and the king of the streets in my neighbourhood. See, I didn’t know then what it meant to get a bad name, or a police record. I didn’t realise that one event could change the path of my life forever.’

Durham looked at his glass of water. I leaned over and passed it to him.

‘Thanks,’ he said, awkwardly passing it back to me. ‘Some years later, I tried to turn my life around. I began studying and earned some
qualifications
at a technical college. But no-one wanted to employ me. My criminal convictions got in the way. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you? I couldn’t even travel. No country would let me enter because of my record.’ His piercing eyes bored into me from their hollow sockets. ‘I felt I had no choice but to return to crime, where I grew into a monster.’

‘My reputation is all bad too,’ I said, ‘and I didn’t even commit the crimes I’ve been accused of.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t say that for my crimes,’ admitted the old man. ‘You wanna know how I got my nickname?’

Not really, I thought in my head. But it didn’t matter—Durham wasn’t waiting for an answer.

‘I used to cut off people’s toes with bolt cutters. If they got in my way, owed me money, messed with someone in my crew.’ Durham shook his head, clearly disturbed by his violent past. ‘They were all crims, in one way or another, and some of them were just as vicious as me. But there’s this one thing I did that I can’t get out of my mind. This world is an unforgiving place. And I can’t forgive myself for it.’