The Burning (9 page)

Then the horror: the terrible lurch as the car pitches forward, is levered forward by the two, glass-faced frogmen who push it over the edge. Rachel holds on tight to the door handle as the car suddenly slips. She is pulled down with it, unable to do anything but watch as the woman’s face smashes into the glass. The woman’s eyes open wide in terror, then she falls back as though resigned to her watery death
.

And Rachel lets go; the sleek, silver flank of the car slipping past her. She floats up, watching the pale lights become paler still as they go down, down, down…

The bed was soaking wet.

Rachel kicked off the soggy blanket and felt her pyjama bottoms and T-shirt. They were soaked as well, as though she really had been swimming. She could not go back to
sleep like this, could not stay in bed at all. She would need to sleep somewhere else, get herself a hot bath and change her clothes.

Rachel climbed out of bed and immediately felt shivery. She was coming down with something, that was it. That was what the horrible dreams and the night sweats were about. That was why she could not gather her thoughts. She was feverish.

She tried to switch on a light, but nothing seemed to be working. Perhaps the electricity supply was switched off at a certain time. She wrapped a towelling bathrobe round her damp shoulders and sat in the armchair, wondering what to do with herself. She drew her knees up but was unable to get comfortable, so she got up again and began wandering aimlessly around the room, bumping into things.

Rachel stood in front of the window and drew back the curtain. She stared out at the night sky. Fresh air would help, she thought. Being a city kid she was no great fan of open windows. In her experience, the air they let in was dirtier than the air they let out but, staring at the starry blue-black sky, she craved a lungful of crisp night air, to clear her head of this fuzzy feeling. To clear it of the horrifying images from her dream. She fiddled with the catch and slid the window open, but found no change in air temperature at all, nor any hint of a breeze.

God, she was stupid!

She knew that it was all just an illusion. That the city,
the skyline, the night sky were nothing more than a projection on a continuous loop that changed according to the time of day. It might not even be night-time at all. Delirious, Rachel began to speculate. Maybe they were just being told that it was night-time, so that they would be more disorientated; so that they could be more easily controlled and observed, like specimens in a laboratory.

Rachel felt a sudden fury at the deception. She needed to get out. She would get past the screen and see exactly what was on the other side of the window and out in the world beyond.

She would breathe fresh air.

She stood on a chair and wrenched the blocked-up webcam out by its roots. Its red eye died instantly. Climbing down, Rachel grabbed a shoe and smashed the heel hard into the centre of the plasma screen, which flashed and went black. Her hands felt round the edge of the screen and she tried to wrench it from the wall. She found a wooden coat-hanger and wedged it into the top corner of the screen and levered the box forward. There was a sudden “
crunch”
as the screws gave and the screen was left dangling from the wall, wires curling from its back. Rachel pulled it to the floor, revealing a wall of solid breezeblocks.

She punched the wall, hurting her hand. She stamped on the already dead screen, cursing her own stupidity: why had she even thought there
might
be a window behind the screen? For all she knew, she might be fifty feet underground.

She was suffocating. She needed to get out. Now.

Rachel stumbled into the corridor, which was lit by dim night-lights that threw yellowish puddles of light every few metres. She paused outside her brother’s door. Their argument had been brewing for days. Ever since she’d mentioned Gabriel, every time she’d tried to connect with his mind, she’d felt him resist; mentally, he was turning his back on her, putting up a barrier.

She reached for the door handle and stopped. He would almost certainly be asleep. Even if she woke him up, he would try to talk her out of any action.

Rachel continued on alone, padding along the corridor, turning left then right, towards Laura Sullivan’s office. As she approached, she hugged the wall, seeing the glow of Laura’s laptop casting shadows on the open door. Laura must be working late. Rachel sidled along to the door as quietly as she could, not really sure whether she was trying to evade Laura, or if she needed to talk to her. She peered in and saw that Laura was not in her office anyway. The familiar image of Uluru on Laura’s screensaver glowed like a red beacon in the darkened room.

Rachel stepped in, instinctively closing the door behind her. She glanced up at the webcam monitor but saw only interference on the screen. It was not surprising, considering the damage she’d done to the camera. Perhaps Laura had gone to investigate, Rachel thought. She could be back at any moment…

Rachel walked over to the desk and touched the keypad. Uluru evaporated, revealing an open document. Rachel stared at the map, at the images of mummified bodies.

A heading: T
RISKELLION
S
ITES

This she had to read.

Take the key
, a voice said.
Take the key
.

Rachel started, turned round and saw nobody there, realizing simultaneously that the voice had come from inside her own head.

Take the key
, Gabriel said again. Rachel looked around the room, her eye finally settling on Laura’s white lab coat on the back of the door.

Hanging next to it was a plastic passkey.

Rachel ran down corridor after corridor, doors sliding open as she swiped the key in the slot at the side of each one. She knew that she would only have a short amount of time to find her way out before someone realized she was missing. She reached the end of another passage and turned left.

A man. With a torch.

Rachel stopped dead, silent in her bare feet, and turned back, moving quickly down another corridor, lit at the end by a single night-light. She ran towards the light and, as she approached, saw that she was coming to a dead end. She looked to her right and saw the steel doors of a lift.

The only way out.

She swiped the key through the electronic reader. A tiny
light turned from red to green and the doors slid open. Rachel jumped in and the doors closed behind her.

The lift juddered and began its descent. Rachel caught a glimpse of herself in the grubby mirror that made up the back wall of the lift. She looked like a bag lady: her towelling robe was patchy with brick dust and her damp hair was matted round her white, sickly face. Suddenly the lift lurched to a halt and the doors opened again.

This corridor was different. It was as if she had descended to the bowels of the building. While the upper storeys were shiny, and clad in glass and laminate, this level was concrete and industrial and wet underfoot. Huge pipes and ducts ran overhead and warning symbols on yellow triangles and red plaques were screwed to every surface.

Rachel walked slowly, the hiss of steam and the clanking of a distant pump echoing in her ears. Thick, plastic curtains barred her way, and Rachel pushed them apart. She found herself at the entrance to another room and
another
pair of plastic curtains, through which a milky light was visible.

She stepped through and the strong smell of disinfectant assaulted her nostrils. As Rachel looked around, she realized she was in some kind of laboratory. Surgical instruments were laid out along stainless-steel work surfaces and, in the centre of the lab, a heavy-duty hospital gurney dominated the room. Rachel’s mouth fell open, the scream frozen in her throat. Her knees began to shake uncontrollably as her guts turned to water.

On the gurney was the naked body of her grandmother.

Rachel took in the white, withered legs, the face still made-up but shrunken now and bony, like a mummified Egyptian queen. The once-perfect hair had been scraped back and flattened against the tiny head, and Rachel gasped at the jagged Y-shaped cut that ran from her grandmother’s throat to below her navel and at the ribs that lay splayed against the cold steel.

Rachel took a step forward. She pressed her hand against her mouth to stem the flow of bile that rose up in her throat. She saw that, like her Bronze Age ancestors three thousand years before, Celia Root had been disembowelled.

M
r Cheung had outdone himself. It was a five-course Chinese banquet with all the children’s favourites: hot and sour soup; crispy duck with pancakes and plum sauce; Singapore noodles; slow-cooked pork with water chestnuts.

“You must have been cooking for days,” Adam said.

Mr Cheung bowed, accepting the compliment, but then shrugged it off, reddening slightly and straightening his chef’s hat. “Just something I knocked up,” he said.

They were gathered round the large wooden table in Mr Cheung’s kitchen. Dr Van der Zee and Laura Sullivan sat, one at either end, with Adam and Rachel on one side, and Morag and Duncan on the other – the younger children boosted by small, tartan cushions.

“Delicious as always,” Van der Zee said, biting into an over-stuffed pancake. He held up a wine glass and swallowed quickly. “Can I propose a toast?” He waited while the others held up their own glasses, the children’s filled with
Mr Cheung’s special gingery punch. “To Mr Cheung obviously, and to the Hope Project. To us!”

“To us,” squeaked Morag.

Duncan nodded and took a mouthful.

Laura echoed the toast, but Rachel sensed that her enthusiasm was a little forced. Rachel herself clinked glasses with her brother, and they both beamed at Van der Zee, who returned their smiles with interest.

“To us!”

Rachel cleared her throat before anyone else could say anything, and raised her voice. “And I just wanted to say … thank you.”

“Please,” Laura said. “There’s no need.”

“Yes, there is,” Rachel said. “I’ve been a nightmare and I’ve made everyone’s lives hell.” She looked at Laura, then at Van der Zee. “And I’m sorry. No excuses, I’ve been a royal pain in the butt, so thanks for … sticking with me, OK?”

Next to her, Adam smiled and shook his head. “I think I deserve some kind of medal. I’ve had to put up with you for fourteen years!”

“Why were you a
royal
pain in the butt?” Morag asked innocently. “Are you some kind of princess or something?”

There was a good deal of laughter round the table and Rachel blushed. Laura leant across and squeezed her hand, and Adam pretended he was going to be sick when Rachel kissed him on the cheek. Once the laughter had died down, everyone went back to tucking in, while Mr Cheung brought
out extra plates of crispy seaweed and steaming tureens of soup. The room was filled with the sounds of spoons and chopsticks flying across the crockery – each plate and bowl decorated with a single word, glazed in blue:

HOPE

“I’m so pleased that you’ve turned the corner, Rachel,” Van der Zee said. “I always knew you would.”

“Even when I was behaving like a brat and smashing my room up?”

“Well, I
hoped
you would, anyway.” He grinned. “And obviously, I’ll be sending you a bill for the camera.”

Rachel laughed and turned to Laura. “I’m OK now, though,
really
. It’s taken a bit of getting used to, but I think I’m going to be happy here.”

“Course you will,” Morag said. “It’s brilliant here. It’s ft for a princess even.”

“Princess Pain-in-the-Butt,” Adam said.

Laura leant close to Rachel as the conversation grew more animated round the table. “I’m over the moon,” she said. “I couldn’t stand you being so miserable.”

Rachel apologized again. Laura certainly looked as though she meant it. She seemed genuinely pleased, but more than that, she seemed relieved, as though some disaster had been averted.

Mr Cheung brought out fresh lychees and banana fritters for dessert and the kids piled them on to their plates. Van der Zee leant back in his chair and watched them eat. When Rachel caught his eye he winked at her. He was like the head of a family, she thought, enjoying the contentment of a happy brood.

“I couldn’t eat another thing,” he announced. “What about you, Dr Sullivan?”

Laura shook her head. “Stuffed.”

“Not even one little fritter?” Mr Cheung asked. “Very good.”

“Sorry,” Laura said. “I don’t think I’ll be eating for the rest of the week.”

Van der Zee pushed back his chair. “Perhaps we should leave the children to it then,” he said. “It’s time you and I had a chat anyway.” He stood up and moved away from the table, leaning down as he passed to ruffle Duncan’s hair, to kiss the top of Morag’s head. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, everyone, and don’t make yourselves sick…”

Rachel caught the nervousness in Laura Sullivan’s eyes as she stood up to follow Van der Zee, who had left the room without looking back, as though knowing she would follow.

“I’ve
never
been sick,” Morag announced proudly. “She tossed a fritter across the table to get Adam’s attention. “Have
you
ever been sick?”